(inspired by @sodasyrup's wonderful bug kai design)
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kai drifts and dreams. how could he ever want to leave this soft embrace? so he never makes it back to the monastery. lloyd spends more than a few weeks alone, but maybe nya finds him there. they build a new ship, holding wishes where the bounty holds memories in their hearts.
they meet the kids, and worry when they meet wyldfyre. they can only tell her stories of the man who might be her predecessor, or who could've become her teacher. she does better when they find zane. kai always did better with him too.
an egg shifts where it lies in the sand.
the merged lands are a terrible place and when the blood moon comes around and bonzle is seized, zane goes through with her. he comes out with her too, much to everyone's relief.
when they bring jay back to the monastery he spends time with a portrait of the red ninja. he's not the jay these freaks are looking for, but he wonders if this red guy wouldve been easier to deal with.
somewhere, an egg lays empty and dried. a young creature with a scrambled mind tries to remember what he was looking for. oh there, a trinket on the floor. he picks it up, and it lights up suddenly, startling him to dropping it again. he clicks nervously. it is... a compass? something in him thinks so anyway.
his parent is looking for him. he scuttles along, dropping the new toy in his sling.
the husk of a great knight lies waiting at the opening of a cave. sir, its only a little longer.
a great dragon, revived in heart, wonders if she'll spot that little stranger again. or if he's already succumbed to root or rot in this place.
a great centipede has lived in this place for such a long time. this is the first time one of its eggs had become a creature of its own, rather than simply another piece of itself. is this pride? it's certainly warmth, in such a way that sparks distant memories.
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dungeon meshi au where kai is a healer (also firecaster but shhh) who sent the rest of everyone back up while he was eaten by a dragon
nya is a fighter/watercaster who is delving back into the dungeon to save her brother before he gets digested
lloyd is a green magic specialist (who is actually a dark magic specialist) dipping on magic school who is deeply invested in saving his big bro figure and making sure his big sis figure doesn't die trying
(cw: cannibalism technically, creepy children sorta. also if you know who our ill-timed friend is... ::D )
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baba wears a hat on its head. it wears a lot of hats. they stick to its chitin like they are bits of shell too. there are fancy hats with pieces of cloth hanging down, and even more that look like grasses. sometimes, kai clings to baba's long back and curls around one of them, content to nap as it climbs the pillars and walls of their home.
kai wears a hat too. it looks like grasses and its not stuck to him. sometimes when he looks at it he thinks of a very large bonething, resting in the warm wind. sometimes he puts it upside down in the water pool and sits his toys in it. his grass doll... his bonepiece doll... and now his "compass" doll. it makes light sometimes, and noise. it changes when he brings it different ways around the caves.
he plays with it now, following beside the slow current. his arms are soft and dull, where baba's are hard and sharp. he thinks baba would have a hard time pressing the little buttons on his doll. he has a hard time catching food sometimes because of it.
the current changes, slightly. the bonepiece clinks against itself as his hat is lodged slightly on the sand.
kai listens. it is small, the change. maybe small enough for him. he pulls his hat onto the bank. treads soft sand, listening for the movement of water upstream.
there.
it is making a noise, airy and sharp like wind through cracks.
before kai thinks about it he is trying to make it too. it doesn't sound as good.
the thing stops. kai creeps overhead.
"h-hello?" the thing warbles.
oh! kai knows that noise, somehow. is the thing not a foodthing? its not wearing a hat though... he crawls gently down a leaning pillar.
"is that someone there?" the thing is crouching, breathing quickly, pointing a weird lamp all around.
kai hangs just out of reach. lamps hurt when they fall on his face. "hehh-loh," he says softly.
the thing screeches as it turns around, lamp swinging violently in its fleshy arm.
yikes. kai knew it was good to stay back. three pats for him. pat, pat. pat.
"y-you, wait, you..." the thing stares at his face for a moment, "are you... from here? this place?" the thing spits out the last word.
that's a lot of noises. kai thinks the right ones are... "from... heeee-yur."
"oh... so there's people here. kind of. is there, anyone with you? uhhh..." the thing squints at him behind big clear circles, "... kid?"
"baba," he says confidently. he's getting good at these noises. it feels like he made them before, kind of.
"nice, perfect," the thing sighs. "i need to talk to someone who can, well, talk."
kai tilts his head. he doesn't think he's ever heard baba make noises like this. but baba is coming this way! slowly, maybe it had to untangle from around some pillars again. he chitters softly at the thing, hoping he understands what he means as he crawls further down the pillar to rest at eye level.
he reaches a hand out to pat the lamp. it doesn't look like the one that fell on him before. this one is long and skinny, and all the light is coming from one end.
"oh! have you, seen a flashlight before?"
"flash... light?"
"yeah, it's um. like this." the thing squeezes on something with its kai-like hand and the light vanishes.
kai chirps, startled.
the light comes back almost immediately.
"sorry, sorry!" the thing laughs. "that's just the, eh, fastest way to explain it, you know? flash light."
ohhh. kai accepts the flash-light gently, looking for the thing it squeezed.
"so, do you have a name? or... one i can say at least?"
"name?" kai looks at the thing.
"yes, um. a word, that means just you? not your baba or... anyone else? like, i'm tang! hello, nice to meet you." the thing raises an arm up at kai, who only blinks at it, uttering another soft hello.
"word?"
"uh. yeah, the noises. that we're making right now. words?" it drops its soft arm.
ohhh. words. okay. then, a word that is not for baba... was it?
"kai," he tastes. it feels different outside of his head. he cant wait to show baba, steadily approaching, all these new noises (words!) he can make.
"okay, kai! and kai's baba. when they... get here?"
"baba," kai nods. it's close enough that he thinks the thing can hear it too.
"and that's soon?" the tang-thing is fiddling with the edges of its otherskin.
"baba, here." kai corrects softly. he thinks hes found the button. it feels different from the rest of the cold flashlight.
the tang-thing stills. it swallows.
baba clicks its mandibles, not so far above.
kai squeezes the button. the light disappears just as the tang-thing shrieks again and silences under baba's smooth strike. maybe it was a foodthing after all.
kai skitters to where baba inspects its kill, gurgling wetly in the dark.
i think it would be funny for aspheera and wu to have a sort of "elderly divorcees that keep trying to impress the grandkids more and sometimes hookup bc it's annoying to find someone else who can do that thing just right" vibe
the grandkids, of course, are the ninja. also really funny if aspheera's favorite is kai. will she manage to buy him over or will he remain skittish?
they approach the so-called land of monsters, their newest lead of where the horrors are coming from. kai's face is perfect, voice a dash cheery, carefully balancing between Not Enough and Too Much. he can't scare the others. he won't.
wyldfyre is watching him from where she perches nearer to the sky they soar through. she now knows him better than his martial brothers in some ways. all the ways that matter, sometimes. she knows they approach danger in a way kai refuses to speak. her face isn't like his, but she is perfecting it in her own way.
kai talks most of the way, the sort of low grade humdrum not unusual for the background of their teams. he misses bouncing off of jay. he's not practiced in it like he was, can't read the openings kai leaves for him to jab back. he's just like when they were young, but his responses are off. the game is crooked.
kai can't remember a single thing he's said the whole way.
it's too long and far too soon when he smells the change in the air. he despises that it tastes so much like home on his tongue. it could never be home for him.
lloyd directs them. kai bites his tongue. wyldfyre circles their family.
if he doesn't speak it, it wasn't real. there is no one here to say otherwise, now.
nya pulls him along, she thinks there's something by the shore. wreckage. not the wreckage. something else. someone else, kai doesn't scream. of course there is. kai's gut twists. his face is cracking.
he stops, facing the remains of a mechanical corpse. can you hear me? i didn't mean it. i needed you too, can you hear me?
the water rolls over his ankles.
can you hear me?
the water soaks his thighs.
there is a voice in his ear, twisting. pretending to be nya—
a clawed hand grasps like hot iron around his wrist, tugging him back to shore.
a voice the water never twisted calls him back to land.
... wyldfyre.
his breath slows, when did it start? he recognizes the tarp above as rusty's cape. this is... part of rusty's corpse he's huddled beside. that is wyldfyre sitting between him and the flickering firelight outside of their little cave.
she looks back as muddled voices waver in. leans in to sniff him, then pats him on his... blanketed? shoulder. she turns back to her post.
okay.
they're not letting him off the bounty for a while.
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enthusiastically voyeuristic pixal because she's literally in zane's head, so she has front row tickets to watch him fucking into kai over and over until he's a whiney overstimulated mess on their lap
and she can ride on zane's senses but what she really really Really wants is—
"You want a dick?"
Her Zane sounds confused for some reason. She replays her logs. Seems normal to her? Although...
"You're right, that's not enough. I'll need two dicks."
"Two? Dicks."
Yes, what is not clicking.
"Zane. Dear." If she had a body yet she would hold her other heart's face like Kai so frequently does. She settles for the digital equivalent of tapping nails on his awareness. "When I have a body again... we can fill him together."
"... Oh. Oh!"
Pixal is gleeful as she recognizes the growing arousal that spreads through his circuits.
She's already pinged Kai's phone, he should come looking soon.
Suggested listening: [A Quick One Before the Eternal Worm Devours Appalachia] by [Lizard in the Spring]
ohhhohohoho i feel alive again
:D jin... my new touy...
⁺‧₊⊹𓌹𓉸𓌺⊹₊‧⁺
The transmission fizzles and cuts, the words left blinking on the screen.
"D—dad. Dad!" Jin scrambles for the damaged communicator. "Dad!" he screams.
He stares at the display lights, chest heaving.
"Dad," he whispers running his hands through his hair, dropping the token to the console. You always comes back, you always comes back.
The comm crackles to life, "—in, do you hear me? Jin, are you there?"
He scrambles to pick it up, "I'm here, I'm here!"
"Oh, thank the master—" His aunt's relieved voice breaks through the static, "Is Mira with you?"
"No, I don't know where she is, she went to go help Dad…"
A pause.
"—You got the transmission too. Oh, I'm so sorry, Jin."
He sinks to the floor, comm cradled to his chest. It's too hot in here, the sweat stings his eyes.
"… I told him I hated him."
"What? Oh, honey, he knows you didn't—"
"But I did! I said I hated him, and I meant it, and now he's dead, and I'm never gonna…"
"He knew you loved him. He knew it."
"But—!"
"Jin! Listen to me, we can't stop to cry right now, okay?" Her voice is thick, and urgent. "You're out in the open still and you need to get to cover, fast."
The sound of metal crumpling on itself fills the cockpit and for a brief, terrifying moment he thinks, 'Oh, I'm gonna see Dad again'. Then, he realizes the noise came from the communicator.
"Uh, what was that?"
"Don't worry about it." A crackling sigh. "Okay, I see Mira a bit north of you. She's not responding; her comms must be down. She might not even know about—"
About Dad.
"Jin, listen to me: is the Saber responding?"
"I—yes, but I've never piloted it before—"
"It's just like the others you've flown, just more of it. You can do this."
He hesitates.
"Now listen, please. You and Mira need to regroup. The Bounty is getting a little overrun, but between the two of you you'll find somewhere else. We've told you a lot of stories over the years, yeah? Lots of places you can hole up."
"We can't just leave you—"
"You will. Jin, I love you. And you tell Mira that I love her okay?"
He can hear them now, the signs of battle disguised by the static. He feels very, very small.
"Okay."
"Good," she breathes, and the transmission cuts like a door slamming in his face.
been thinking of ninjago pop demon hunters rgb and.
while you might think them all being cursed/half demon would eliminate that plot point? it is so much funnier if they are all actively hiding it from each other and actively failing horribly at it, but it still works! because everyone is so occupied with their own shit they keep missing the increasingly obvious signs. so they all continue to think they are Doing Great at this repression thing :)
meanwhile their really confused manager is reading up on really old esoteric literature to figure out how to manage them better. also therapy books. so many therapy books.
