Chapter 29
I flapped my wings as I flew the way Lance had walked, my head reeling after getting a major info dump from the others revolving around the current situation.
Yes, we had a way to kind of fight the Watcher, but that little UAD fairy guy is very adamant that he can’t do it alone, that he can only provide support during the fight. So I’m not very hopeful about winning this fight. At least, not in our current state.
We’ll need to prepare a lot more before we’re ready.
It didn’t take long till I found Lance, leaning on a railing overlooking the crash site of my ship.
“Hey,” I said as I leaned up next to him, putting him on my right side so I could see him.
“Scamp, I’m so fucking sorry,” he said, tears resuming to fall from his eyes.
“Ain’t nothing to be sorry for,” I said in a playful tone as I punched his shoulder, trying to cheer him up.
“I abandoned you, I chose not to save you, and look at you; you’re disfigured and missing two legs! And half blind!” he choked out, snapping his head away from looking at me.
I raise my eyebrow, smirking, “Come on, I’m not that ugly, am I?”
He lets out a sobbing laugh as he turned back to me, “I’ve just been using you, Scamp. You want to help me for some reason, and I’ve just been taking advantage of that. When you were taken, I told Bronwyn you could handle yourself and that I didn’t need to go after you. But in reality, I didn’t want to give up on my goals just to save you.” His face was a mess as he spoke, “I like to pretend to be this great, caring guy, but I’m just a selfish prick who thinks of himself as the main character and all of you as supporting cast.”
Ouch, his honesty actually did hurt to hear. But regardless…
“Lance, you are the biggest asshole I’ve ever known,” I start, causing his shoulders to slump. “You do everything to serve your own needs, and don’t even get me started on that inflated ego of yours.” I then reach out with a wing and lay it on his shoulder. “But that’s not all you are. You are loyal, caring, loving, and very supportive. Sure, you got flaws. But guess what, so do I. We all do.”
He didn’t cheer up as he just frowned at me, “I don’t know what’s with you, Scamp. You’ve put yourself through hell for me, and all I’ve done in return is send you further into hell. That’s all I do to those around me, and yet you all just keep following me.”
“Just something about you,” I reply, smiling at him as I flick some tears from his face with my wing. “This self loathing you’re doing right now is ugly, and selfish. Buck up, be the stallion I know you are, and get back to leading us. We need you to be stable. You are what is holding everyone together, if you give up, then we all will.”
A smile finally tugged at his mouth as he looked at me, “Now you’re acting like the parent between the two of us.” He reached over and pulled me into a hug, my one back leg struggling to keep me up. “Thank you, Scamp. I don’t deserve any of this, but I promise I’m going to treat you better going forward.”
I pat his back awkwardly as I return the hug, “Honestly, it’s okay. I’ll be fine no matter what.”
“You deserve better,” he replies as he breaks the hug, helping to steady me back onto the railing for support. “We need to get you new legs, you look ridiculous trying to stand on one leg.”
“Tis the plan,” I joke back as I lean my weight on the railing. Then smile at him. “I’m still here for you going forward, Lance. I meant what I said earlier, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get you back to your family.”
He leans back on the railing again, “I just wish I could take back letting you get taken earlier. That arena must have been terrible. The scars speak to that.”
I smile as I look out at the many firefighters and vehicles trying to contain the spreading flames from the crash site. “It really wasn’t that bad, if I hadn't gone, I wouldn’t have met my new friends.”
“They are a bit weird looking, kind of a grab bag kind of group,” he joked. “Especially that lizard chicken lady. Weird creature.”
“Careful what you say there,” I jokingly warn, hitting him with my wing. “She’s not weird.”
He looked at me with a wide grin.
“What?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
Leaning towards me, his grin only widening.
“Lance?!” I yelped, eye wide at his strange actions.
“You like her,” he said simply, causing my eye to twitch and my face to turn red.
“N-No?” I stammer back.
“Oh shit! You do!” Lance laughed, slapping my back. “I was starting to wonder if you had it in you. I thought you were going to stick to the whole ‘no time for love, must fight!’ motto you seemed to be living by.”
I look away from him as I stare out over the fiery scenery. “I do not have time for things like that. Especially right now. We need to focus on the Watcher and how we’ll fight him.”
“Yes, but we can’t neglect ourselves here,” he said with a smirk. “Take it from me, don’t let happiness slip by.”
“Lance,” I reply with a sigh, “No. She’s not interested, we just met recently. Just because I have a little crush doesn’t mean I need to jeopardize everything just to satisfy a juvenile crush.”
“Twilight and I fell for each other right from the beginning. It happens,” he says, trying to convince me.
I just chuckle, “That’s actually not a good thing to do. You two got lucky, but going all in on someone you barely know like that is a terrible idea. So I think I’ll stick to doing things like this my way.”
“And what’s your way?”
“Avoid the topic and move on.”
He sighed at this, “Spoken like someone who’s never been in love.”
“I have been in love, once,” I said a little colder than I meant to, causing him to recoil slightly.
“Oh, I just kind of…”
“Assumed?” I finished, then smiled sadly at him. “It’s complicated. I know you know who the members of my team were. Parker and I had feelings for each other, but never acted on them. Not even one date. We didn’t want to stop working together, so we decided to act indifferent to each other so no one else would realize.”
“Scamp,” Lance said in a caring tone as he put a wing over me.
“Yeah, sucks, right? I met the one person out there that I just fell in love with, and I never did anything about it. We cared too much about our positions on that damn team.” Wiping a tear that suddenly appeared on my face, I looked at Lance, “So, let me do this my way. Let this little crush die so I can focus on killing the Watcher.”
“Sounds like you’re making the same mistake here that you made with Parker,” he suddenly said.
I spun on him and punched him in the face. The two of us fell to the ground, me because of balance issues, and him because of the sucker punch I’d just given him.
Neither one of us tried to get up as we laid there on the ground, eyes staring straight up into the sky.
Lance made a groaning sound as he rolled over and sat up, looking at me as he rubbed his cheek.
My lip trembled as I squeezed my eye shut. “Just…. Please, I don’t want to experience that pain again. Watching Parker die… it killed a part of me. And if I fell for someone else and that happened again, I don’t think I could go on.”
He didn’t reply right away as he sat there, staring at me. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that the way I did.”
I didn’t respond.
“I think you should think about it at least,” he says carefully. “Living with that pain is something I hope I never have to face, but you deserve to be happy.” He placed a hoof on mine. “You said you have my back, well, I have yours. You’re family to me at this point. I’ve been a terrible family member to you, but I will make up for that.”
“Trying to be my dad?” I ask, opening my teary eye as I looked back at him.
He just laughed in response, “No, there’s no way I could be a Darkest Bleak.”
“I don’t need a dad,” I say as I push myself up and wrap a leg around him. “I just need someone who’s on my side and won’t die on me.”
“Yeah, that I can do,” he said as he returned my hug tightly.
“I’m not sorry for punching you by the way,” I say as we broke the hug.
“Fair,” he replied with a smile. “So, what of your little crush?”
I sigh and roll my eyes, “I’ll think about it, okay? Happy?”
“Very,” he said as he stood and held his hoof out for me. I took it, being pulled up and leaning onto the railing again.
“You’re a persistent asshole, you know,” I say with a smirk.
“Damn straight,” he laughs as he starts walking back to the group. “Coming?”
“Nah,” I reply, staring out over the chaos of the amusement park trying and failing to stop the fires. “I think I’m going to watch the beautiful scenery for a little while.”
“Beautiful scenery?” he parroted back as he turned to leave, chuckling to himself.
ooo000<^>000ooo
Some time had passed since Lance went back to the group, and the sight before me had developed into a full blown firefighting operation. Ego and water flying everywhere as the massive wall of flames just kept burning on.
Sure, a lot of people are dying down there, but nothing I can do about it.
“There you are,” Moxxi said from behind me.
Turning, I saw my friends approaching.
“That Lance guy said you were over here,” Reinhardt said as her cloak flowed in the wind.
I smile at them, “I just needed some alone time to think.”
“Great place to do some thinking,” Mallogory said as she looked out over the chaos.
“Poor fucks,” Reinhardt chuckled, leaning next to me on the railing.
I look at each of them, sighing, “Well, you all accomplished your goal. I’m back with Lance’s group. You’re free to do whatever you want now.”
“You keep trying to run us off,” Moxxi laughed, sliding up beside Reinhardt. “It’s like you want us to leave or something.”
“Oh no,” I say, grinning at the little goblin, “I love having you guys around. But you see how dangerous it is around me, I don’t want you all to get hurt.” I frown, “Like Drake.”
Everyone lowered their heads at this.
“That damn idiot, he always wanted to be swept off his feet. Guess he got what he wanted, even if not exactly what he meant,” Moxxi said with a half hearted chuckle. “I miss him, is that weird?”
“No, he was a peculiar guy,” Beans said, clicking. “But he was a great person to have around. He acted like he didn’t care, but he did. He always made sure we had what we needed.”
“I should have forced him to follow you, Beans. Instead I let him linger by that window…” I said, slumping.
“Stop that, right now,” Doc said sternly. “Don’t blame yourself. He was his own man, and he made his choice. Playing the ‘what if’ game will only hurt you and not change a damn thing.”
The bluntness surprised me, but I nod to him. “Thank you, Doc. I needed that.”
“I don’t know about everyone else, but you’re stuck with me,” Mallogory said, making a finger gun at me and winking.
Trying not to blush, I turned to Reinhardt, who just flexed her arms and struck a pose.
“Oh, you already know I’m in for the long haul! Being friends with you brings all the fighting to me!” She held up her arm that was severed at the elbow. “Plus I get this cool battle damage to show off!”
I can’t help but laugh at her actions as Remi slithers up to me, holding up her board. ‘Best friends don’t leave each other’ and there was a little picture of the two of us cheering together.
Reaching out with my wing, I patted her shoulder, causing her to bristle happily.
“You all have grown on me, so you know, stuck with me and all that,” Moxxi said as she kicked a stone over the railing. “Just don’t think that means I’m going to be all mushy and shit.”
“I’m afraid if I leave you’ll all kill yourselves,” Doc said with a smile. “And I think of you all as my real family.”
Despite myself, I wiped a tear from my eye as their words were pulling at strings I didn’t know I still had.
“I love you guys,” Beans said in a crying voice as he reached out with his mandibles and hugged all of us together.
“Gah! No group hugs!” Moxxi yelped, but didn’t fight that hard to get out of the hug.
“Oh silence little greeny,” Reinhardt laughed as she threw her arms around all of us, helping Beans give us a massive hug. “Enjoy the family love!”
“Little greeny is racist!” she called out, but wrapped her arms around myself and Remi.
“I don’t do hugs,” Mallogory said, but Remi just pulled her into all of us even harder. “Geez! Fine!”
We all squeezed each other, the hug not actually feeling awkward.
Slowly, we all broke it and stepped back, looking at each other.
“Wow, so this is what it's like to have a family,” Reinhardt suddenly said in a serious tone.
Moxxi smiled slyly, “If this is a family, who’s the parents?”
“No one, but you’re definitely the baby sister,” Doc chuckled as he ruffled up her hair.
“Oh you bastard!” She snapped as she tried to fix her hair while the rest of us laughed at her.
My eyes lingered on Mallogory’s laughing face.
Damn it, Lance.