#paper lizard

Here she is, here she is! My first design for a Flugmencia baby. I can’t really imagine Flug having a son, but I do imagine Demencia with a daughter. Flug would be so protective over her and Demencia would let her do whatever she wants. I wanted to do a sort of Harley Quinn design for her because I see people all the time comparing Dem to Harley. Plus the dyed hair fits her being Demencia’s daughter.

So here she is; pretty pretty little lizard princess Arriba. Arriba translates to “above” in Spanish, which fits Flug’s plane theme and Demencia’s craziness, since Arriba is what my gym calls “intense Zumba.”

The description I did was— “Arriba is far from the perfect child; She’s loud, hammy and unusually confident for someone her age. Her talents include camouflaging, beating her half-brother 505 at video games and giving dear old dad his weekly heart attack. While being hyperactive and doing whatever she pleases due to her mom’s prodding, Arriba secretly wants to be her father’s favourite, by any means necessary.”

Her black jacket, eyes and pointy odango pigtails are supposed to make her look like a tiny cat, but she has some chameleon aspects to her. She camouflages and her pigtails change colour depending on her mood.

“I didn’t steal your credit car— Ooh, I mean PAY ALL THIS GOOD MONEY for this BooTiFuL tattoo pen just so you wouldn’t let me give you a boyfriend tattoo!”

“GOD PLEASE HELP ME.”

For Demencia, this was the biggest night of the year. She had been preparing for this day faster than any villain would prepare themselves for it. She accessed, well stole, credit cards, she scrolled for hairstyles and made sure to “borrow” makeup for this very evening. An event that would last only a few hours, always ended with a giant mess, couldn’t have been fancier if it tried and was the height of the season for Black Hat Organization; Villain Prom.

The short of it was that Black Hat would invite villains from all over that had associations with the organization to what could only be referred to as a “black tie event gone wild.” The longer explanation was that it was a high-society, yet recklessly stupid event known as the annual Villain Promenade. It had begun as a simple, yet high quality feast before Black Hat Organization’s success, soon it became a regal ball, each era of time it changed dependant on what could be the equivalent to a big, fancy party and now it was essentially what Black Hat called a ‘business affair promenade.’ Demencia, fresh out of the teenage years, referred to this night affectionately as ‘Villain Prom.’

Every single year had been exactly the same; Black Hat was the life of the party as always, sometimes juggling miscellaneous items he would pickpocket from passing villains in the hall, sometimes drinking himself into a mess of angry rambling and swearing and most of the time, being the arrogant jackass he’d always been, flaunting the success of the organization and giving everyone their “mention” for contributing to his rise in the market. 505 was usually not allowed to attend because the party was definitely not for little bears. Black Hat always ordered the strongest and bloodiest wine and had no issue letting the drunkards stay for the fun, which always caused a storm of bar fights and colourful words.

Flug was not fond of partying and by that rule never fond of Villain Prom, but attended per Jefecito’s request. He was usually there to announce for Black Hat’s presence and to at least drink a quarter of a wine glass before dunking the rest of it onto the lawn. Flug enjoyed the quieter side of Villain Prom, the beginning when guests were only just showing up and shaking hands with the big man, while by the end he was ready to just head to bed and sleep off the stress of watching the room become a stampede. Demencia on the other hand treasured Villain Prom and saw it as another opportunity to get Black Hat’s attention. She never could, but every year she tried and tried to get him to take her as a date, but Black Hat, in a good mood, would always rationalize that dates weren’t relevant and that they’d only slow down the party and in a bad mood would simply tell Demencia he wouldn’t want to be seen with her. Nevertheless, in lacking a date, Demencia got more opportunity to party and was usually the catalyst to the big messes that left the hall in shambles.

This year was going to be very different for Flug and Demencia. After some time of being “together-together” as she said, Demencia begged, pleaded and forced Flug to take her as a date to Villain Prom. The first 14 times she had asked, Flug always responded with a flat “no.” After some time, Demencia managed to convince him to take her, mostly so that she’d never, ever beg him to do something like that again, in between insisting that he loves her more than he hates the prom and that it would mean an awful lot to their relationship if they could go together. Eventually, Flug buried his head in his hands and finally promised to take her, in condition that she doesn’t cause a single bar fight, a single outrage and that any messes would be Black Hat or somebody else’s fault. Demencia promised through a childish pout, but pulled him into the biggest hug when she finally heard Flug tell her to save the date.

At this point, Demencia had been preparing herself in the bathroom for a good… while. This night was the first ever Villain Prom where she finally had a date, so obviously this was going to mean the world to her.

“Demencia, we’re going to be late. Do you mind speeding up whatever last minute thing you’re doing in there?”

Flug tried to dress at least better than he did every year for Villain Prom; he usually just wore a simple black tuxedo to match his boss, especially since he’s the Vice President of Black Hat Organization. In exchange for working more overtime than he already was and as a thank you for getting Demencia away from him, Black Hat reluctantly agreed to let Flug have ONE date with her, so he wanted to at least look better for her. He replaced the simple black-red suit and tie, he settled for a blue suit and a yellow tie. He tried not to wear anything with planes, because Demencia had threatened to cut all of his paper bags if he dared “dressed like a dad,” whatever THAT meant.

“Demencia, did you hear me?”

Demencia opened up the door and peeped her head through, her hair was messy and all over the place, as it typically were with half in it in what appeared to be a fruitless attempt at a pigtail.

“Do you need help in there?”

“You’re not supposed to see me yet! Bad luck, bad luck!”

Flug flared his nostrils, in a pissed off sigh.

“That’s a rule for a wedding, dear, not a party. Listen, I don’t care what you look like. Just come on out and let’s go.”

Demencia closed the door to the bathroom again and the sound of her attempting to wrestle her hair with a hairbrush continued. “Tonight’s special. I want to look nice.”

“You already look nice from… what I saw? We’re going to be late. We’ll miss the speeches.”

“Oh, Flug, we’re just going to be a little late, that’s all. You’re not supposed to rush a lady!”

“I’m not ‘rushing a lady,’ Dem.” Flug turns to sit on the office chair and put his feet up on his desk. “I’m insisting for you to hurry up in there because time is of the essence and Jefecito won’t be amused if he finds out we aren’t there to hear his speech.”

Silence, except for the spritzing sound of perfume behind the door.

“Demencia, I’m sure you look… beautiful.”

“How do you know? You’re not in here!”

“Do you want me to come in?”

“No, no! Just… stay out there. I’ll figure something out.”

Flug hears the melancholy in Demencia’s voice at this point. It no longer feels like playful banter. He knows that Demencia values the Villain Prom, every year the week before she always talks his ear off about it. He’s seen her attempts to get with Black Hat and her attempts to look dolled up in her own special way, but he can tell that she’s putting more effort than usual and that feels like a compliment to him, since Demencia and Flug often struggled to be affectionate.

“Don’t take too long.” Flug chuckles, in an attempt to sound comforting. “I won’t have a dance partner.”

“I thought you didn’t like to dance.”

“I don’t.” He shrugs, since technically Demencia isn’t wrong, but something about saying no to this date didn’t feel right. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to dance with you though.”

“I’m not pretty,” Demencia finally admits, the sound of her heels clinking to the floor and the dress rubbing up against the door. “Nobody ever wants to dance with me. I’ve been begging you to do this for months and now… I can tell you don’t really want to do this. It’s just…”

Flug puts his hand on the doorknob. “Let me in, Dem.”

“Why don’t you just go to the hall, Ken? Speeches and all.”

“Can I come in, Dem?”

“I bet those speeches are SUPER interesting.”

“Demencia…”

Demencia hears the knob turn and is forced to move back as the door begins to open. Flug finally makes his way in and manages to lean in around the door to finally get a full view of Demencia’s attire. A beautiful black dress, that shimmered with tiny emerald-coloured sparkles. A pair of shiny black high heels, a small multi-coloured corsage— one that matched the one Flug was wearing on his own wrist that Demencia had made from some dead flowers and paper with 505’s help— and her normally messy hair tied into fluffy space buns, which ended up drooping a bit past her butt since her hair was incredibly long. Flug wasn’t sure whether to continue gawking at her surprisingly fancy appearance or to immediately say something to break the silence between them. He felt pity, a mixture of someone trying their best to look good for him, Demencia’s effort to have a fun time and the fact that this was a first date for both of them and she was the one who felt like she was doing everything wrong. He felt guilty trying to rush her for speeches that weren’t as important.

“You look perfect.” he said, with a genuine smile. He tried his best to make it sound loving, he didn’t want Dem to feel like he was viewing her as an object or sounding like he didn’t mean what he was saying, but Flug meant it.

“You think so?” Demencia replied. “I wasn’t sure, since—“

When Demencia looked up at him, Flug immediately noticed her face. She was actually wearing really nice makeup and had done a surprisingly good job putting it on. Her lips were a shade of black and her makeup was a sparkly dark green. Her eyelashes were thick, but the mascara job was far from professional.

“I—“

“Flug?”

“You look incredible. God, now I feel underdressed.”

He notices that she isn’t happy.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ken, I don’t feel pretty, I know you don’t like the Villain Prom and… Isn’t there some stupid chore Black Hat can give you or something!?”

Flug pulls her in for a hug, hoping that he doesn’t end up messing up her hair.

“I put everything on hold for this event and I’m getting exactly what I wanted out of it. Yeah, I don’t like to dance, I don’t even like parties or the event. I go because Jefecito tells me to do it. He wants me to be there to be… something of a—“

“Babysitter, but for drunk people?”

“Yep. Sometimes, I have to help the drunks out, sometimes I have to break up the fights and sometimes Jefecito just wants me to have a drink when the party dies down. He probably thinks I’ll do something stupid and he’ll get a kick out of seeing me flip. Lucky for him, I pour out the wine. It’s too strong for me and alcohol tastes awful anyway.”

Demencia rested her head on Flug’s shoulder.

“But you want to go with me anyway? I get that I—“

“Of course I want to go with you. I’ve never partied, but I get to have a dance with my girlfriend. Anything with you is better than anything down there. Honestly, sometimes Jefecito’s speeches are slurred and he only makes me attend to get some free applause.”

The sound of crashing and screeching rang through the hall. Black Hat yelled some incoherent words, the walls banged about and the sound of glass shattering indicated that there was roughhousing already going on. It sounded like Black Hat was trying to stop it, but after a while he just threw himself into a laughing fit.

“Looks like the party’s being taken upstairs now…” Flug sighed. “You know, it means that the floor might be ours for a little bit.”

Demencia’s eyes lit up. “You don’t really want to. Not with me.”

“Why is that?”

“Black Hat didn’t want to dance with me, because I’m a pest. You work with him, why should going to the dance be any different? I’ll do something wrong, I’ll start something, and… then you won’t want to be with me anymore. I’m sorry, Ken, I thought that everything I was doing was just joking around.”

“I’m not Black Hat. I just do his work,” Flug placed his hand on Demencia’s shoulder and in return, she placed her hand onto his. “You and I have done a lot of things together and, though most of the time I prefer to play Devil’s Advocate for Jefecito, it doesn’t mean that I’d break up with you because you’re being yourself. Black Hat doesn’t love anybody but himself, but… I think I have something that might cheer you up.”

Flug lets his grip go on Demencia’s hand and quickly removes his bag.

“NO! NO WAY!”

“Just for tonight. Especially since Jefecito’s… stepped out. Come on, I know a quick way to the hall.”

“What about your bag?”

“How much you want to bet that Lord Black Hat is too drunk to tell the difference?”

With that, Flug helped his date to her feet and simply lead her down to the hall. Surprise, surprise, Villain Prom had moved the party to another room and of course the room looked like it had been nuked. Broken glass destroyed the floor, banners and tables had been flipped over and it reeked of alcohol and burnt tablecloth, but Demencia was surprised when she noticed Flug not even bothering to sweep it or even acknowledge it, as it reached out his hand as a means to offer a dance to her.

It was their night. It would stay their night.