#vcriths

“Keep your head down until Aerith comes in,” Simon muttered from behind the cloth that covered the lower part of his face. “And remember, we’re here to extract information. I won’t let him, or anyone for that matter, take you back to that place.”

           One last explosion. The building trembles and a piece of the roof falls down into the warehouse. There is smoke, coughing and there isn’t good visibility of the winner, but a black heavy boot steps out of the black cloud; the figure is dragging a leather jacket with little blood drops that are only noticeable when the light hits it. There is murmuring around the place as the dense air dissipates, showing the younger as the victorious one and the older one on the floor, NOT MOVING.

 The boy stepped forward to the group of people, throwing confident glares to everyone in a silent threat, daring them to show the slightest sign of nonconformity towards the results of the fight, but the silence remained and an arrogant smile showed up on his lips as he hung the jacket from his shoulder and squinted his eyes, studying the group.

    “ It came to my attention that we have some… guests here that know something about the new security system at Haggis Tech. Bring them ”.  Nobody moved and the whole building shook softly, causing some cracks up the pillars.  “ Did I stutter? ”

And soon, the prisoners were thrown to their knees in front of the new Alpha Latierre. He approached and crouched down, lifting the dehydrated face of one of them from the chin, recognizing one of the heroes that worked for his mother.

“ Well, well, well… isn’t this a nice surprise? How is my mother? I heard she… had an accident. Did she manage to wake up? ”, he asked with a little smirk that bordered on happiness, just as if he had told a joke and was waiting for the other to laugh.

“ Robin… how—- how could you…? ”, the hero spoke up with a dry voice and a weak rage in his eyes.

“ Me? Oh, please— don’t be ridiculous. I did nothing bad. I just… wanted to chat, but things don’t always go the nice way, do they? ”, he asked, the smile turning kinder, but his tone more menacing. “ Now, be a nice hero and tell me about the new security system, if both of you cooperate, I’ll set you free ”.

But at the request, instead of an answer or plain silence, the hero spat at the villain’s face.   THE TENSION ROSE.   Robin wiped it off with his gloved hand and stood up.

“ Lock him up ”, Robin ordered and as the prisoner was taken away, his eyes shot to a specific villain, to which he ordered to approach with movement of his fingers ”.

“ Uh… yes? ”, the subordinate spoke.

“ I heard you manipulate concrete; do me a favor and give the prisoner a bottle of water ”.

“ ——-sir? ”

“ then seal his cage all around ”.

“again.” the word was spoken plainly, as if she was telling a child to run through a piano piece once more. his eyes clenched shut. noah was well aware what disobedience brought but he was TIRED. tired of this test, tired of it all. 

“again, 9451.”

now the command had a bite to it. noah could feel his heart rate pick up, fight or flight response activating in anticipation for what was sure to come. the unspoken threat hung in the air and threatened to smother him, breath hitching. but he was done. eyes opening, he zeroed in on the test dummy across the room staring him down, lifeless and featureless. 

“no.”

the lab coat simply tilted her head, hand reaching for what he assumed to be a button. the button.

      With all the injured people due the explosion, Robin was quickly set on his feet as soon as he showed signs of a good recuperation, but his mother was also quick to send his son into the medic wing of the League’s headquarters to get sure that he was alright ( and to run some tests and find out why he wasn’t as hurt as the others ). Calm reached him upon receiving the first texts of his friends, informing him of their good status and in case of Madi, a picture of her at her hospital bed with the caption ‘ I lived, bitch ’, yes, everything was alright for a second, he was even going to allow himself some sleep when…

          [ text received ]: Does anybody know anything about Aerith?

His heart skips a beat at the sudden realization that NO ONE knew a thing about their alien friend and so, he pushes the blankets aside and begs his mother to let him go out, to which she agrees under certain conditions he doesn’t mean to keep.

Robin considers a reunification would take too long and maybe they don’t have that time. What if Aerith hasn’t woken up? What if the government decided to take her in for being an alien? What if the effects of the explosion caused a different consequence for her?    What if she is…?   NO. He refuses to think the worst and rushes to the hospital.

Once there, in front of her door, he knocks softly and peeks into the room carefully, immediately noticing her golden eyes sparkling like a cat’s. Robin makes his way in, closing the door behind him very quietly and then approaching just a little.

“ Uhm… hey… how are you feeling? ”, he asks, even though the burns over her skin and her weak appearance speaks for her. Idiot, how did you expect her to be if she is not even answering her phone? “ I’m sorry for coming without any announcement, I was—- WE WERE very worried about you, so… ”, and he gifts her a sad smile and a little shrug. Her condition makes him feel GUILTY. He doesn’t what he could have done to help her and the rest of the guests… but he still feels bad about it. The boy was going to apologize about his stupid question, inform that the others would be happy to know she is awake and that he would leave now…

                              THEN SHE HELD HER HAND OUT FOR HIM TO TAKE IT.

zelda, dressing up as the kool-aid man on halloween: hey

long, pale digits shook as they struggled to type out rapid messages to his quiet, reliable friend. the smooth expanse of his exposed flesh was slowly being overtaken by silver spreading across his limbs like a fresh coat of paint, the edges cutting through the flesh. there was already blood, thick and a deep, almost black, blue slipping over the curve of his lower lip and falling in droplets over his desk. ‘do es,’ read the first message, about as much as he could manage with each of his joints metalizing to the point it hurt to move them at all.

‘maxxie? are you okay?’ came the immediate response. 

‘sory jae  soves doves’

after continued struggling, the boy had finally managed to deliver the information he had extracted. it had not been easy to come by, involving a very personal sacrifice in the mode of allowing his body to connect onto his computer to create an immediate link between his brain and the computer. at this point, data processing had become easy, the entire affair taking less than fifteen minutes. it had not come without cost, however, the fifteen minutes having been more than long enough for the bots to seize the opportunity and begin their hostile takeover.

as his final act of clawing at sanity, he pressed down on the home button of his phone just long enough for the voice recognition software to start up before choking out, ‘call aerith.’

his world went black to the sound of the dial tone, even as his eyes remained wide open.

083 089 083 084 069 077 032 082 069 066 079 079 084

083 084 065 082 084 073 078 071 032 085 080 032 073 078 032 083 065 070 069 032 077 079 068 069 032 046 046 046

“...oh, you mean Aerith! Yeah, she’s from... afar. Russia. Yeah, she’s from Russia and was home schooled and she grew up in a very VERY restricting household so that’s why she doesn’t know a lot of stuff, but she’s really cool. I just happened to meet her when she just arrived to the city so we became very good friends immediately, we even have sleepovers on weekends; no, ACTUAL sleepovers, we watch movies and talk about how stuff works in Crystalline City. Her pink skin? She’s a super, obviously, but she’s also quite interested in space, you could almost say she’s from another galaxy; she’s amazing overall”.

   Aerith,

   Leaving you a note instead of a text in case the government is tracking mutant conversations. UPS would probably be risky as well so I’m going to hand you this in person like the awkward fucking douche I am. How’ve you been? I’ve been drowning in work, plus I made a new, really high-maintenance friend. But, it’s okay. He’s nice. He’s not as pink as you are, but very pink all the same.

  I get that you’re like not from these parts or whatever, but I just wanted to tell you to take the shit going on right now very seriously and to keep yourself safe. 

  When this is all over, I’ll teach you how to play an instrument.

  Peace.