Mylene is not a morning person.
Shadow knows this- it was the first revelation he'd had about Mylene, when she'd promptly thrown a book at his head for being too loud. The second revelation came immediately after, when he'd learned that Mylene was much, much stronger than she looked, and the third followed in a haze of confusion and pain was that she would feel no pity for anyone writhing on the ground, bleeding profusely from their nose. Especially, but not exclusively, if they continued to make levels of noise she deemed unacceptable.
He might have been a little bit in love with her from first sight.
Though as with most things Shadow knows to have potentially deadly consequences, he doesn't care enough not to try and do them anyway.
He shows up at her room at a truly inconsiderate hour- eight-thirty in the morning because he feels like causing My some genuine pain- and kicks at her door with a manic grin until it slides open (faster than usual, he notes dimly) and braces himself for the viciously thrown item or punch that is sure to follow.
Instead of the usual violence of their meetings there is only the dull thud of a body against the newly opened doorway and a snarled "What." in a rougher, gruffer timbre of voice than he has ever heard Mylene speak in. For a moment he is actually, genuinely confused- had Mylene moved rooms without him knowing? Did she have a friend (Did Mylene have friends outside of the Vexos? Did Mylene have friends at all?) over, even though they weren't allowed to have unauthorized personnel in the base?
Shadow cautiously drops the arms he had raised to protect his face against Mylene's usual morning wrath (noticeably different from her usual brand of wrath, all sluggish movements and rapidly blinks, squinted blue eyes that are less ice and more clear lake, fists still metal but something softer than the usual steel; something warmer and more friendly because Mylene's brand of love has always been of the tough variety and her slow rage could be easily abated with a cup of coffee) and he blinks down in utter confusion.
The person who answered the door is Mylene, he thinks. She looks like Mylene when she's still waking up, if slightly more ruffled and minus the ever-present makeup, bruising half-circles under her eyes and the minute nicks of small scars on full display. Maybe-Mylene's arms are crossed like Mylene does when she's facing a situation or a person she doesn't like to keep herself from strangling them. She even has the unimpressed, if-you-don't-explain-yourself-in-three-fucking-seconds-I'm-gonna-rip-you-to-shreds glare.
Possibly-Mylene starts tapping her foot impatiently, a tic of hers when her already sparse patience was running thin. Shadow knows that sound well.
"You have freckles," he says, instead of 'you look like hell warmed over but not like, well. You look like someone put you in the microwave for too little time, on not enough heat, and didn't care to try again', because he's a good friend.
Mylene's door slides shut with a quick, vicious hiss of air without another word, because Mylene is not a good friend.
Shadow hesitates. It's not the first time she's slammed a door in his face, probably wouldn't be the last. He usually throws himself at the door and bangs on it and whines until he gets annoying enough for her to let him in.
He doesn't think the usual would work, this time. He doesn't know what's happened, doesn't even know what could have happened.
Shadow retreats, for now, because he's a good friend, but the uncharacteristic worry still lingers.
Mylene's usually a great friend.
Shadow was going to leave her alone for once. Really, he was.
He makes a bee-line for his room, then to the small common room that was supposed to be another bedroom, but Spectra's never there so fuck him, basically, then back to his room, the nearest kitchen, and finally back to Mylene's room.
He kicks on the door.
No response.
He kicks on it harder.
Nothing again, so he presses his ear to the door. He can't even hear movement inside; neither the slow shuffle of asleep-on-her-feet Mylene or foreboding stomps of intent-to-kill-the-idiot-on-the-other-side-of-this-door Mylene.
Shadow winds back for another kick.
The door slides open.
Shadow jumps with enough force to threaten to topple the bundle of blankets and junk food and thermos of coffee in his arms; he staggers, but catches himself, and cranes his head up to peer at Mylene over it.
A surprising flurry of emotions and thoughts Shadow can't hope to read flash across her eyes, before she puts her usual lid on them and settles for one. For a moment, she seems confused, then falls back on her default what-the-fuck-do-you-think-you're-doing-but-I'm-mildly-interested-in-the-consequences-of-this-action-so-carry-on-regardless-because-I-want-to-see-this-explode-on-you, unimpressed look.
Shadow doesn't know anyone else who can put so much feeling into the slightest tilt of the eyebrow like Mylene can.
He pushes forward, bullying his way into her room despite the primal fear response he still has left in him trumpeting that he's entering the dragon's lair and that he'd get eaten. He hadn't listened to it ever before, and he's not about to now.
The foot tapping starts as the door automatically slides shut. Her still-not-painted lips are pressed into a thin line, but she doesn't snap at him.
Shadow bounds into the heart of the den and dumps his stuff on her bed in a messy pile.
"Sleepover!" He declares, and the unimpressed look intensifies. The eyebrow raises ever-so-slightly further, but she stops tapping her foot.
He grins at Mylene with too many teeth, tongue lolling out of his mouth before he crosses the room in three leaping strides, getting behind her and puts his shoulder into physically shoving her towards the pile.
It's harder than it should be. Mylene digs her heels in and glares over her shoulder, making absolutely no effort to move toward Shadow's artfully dumped pile of things and really, he was trying to be a good friend here, couldn't she help him out for once?
She's also not, like, physically throwing him over her shoulder and out of her room (Shadow made the mistake of sparring with Mylene once. It's probably the only thing he won't do out of fear for his life. He knows she could if she wanted to.) so she's also probably not adverse to a sleepover.
Mylene's more stubborn than literally anyone, ever, including actual mules, but she's usually got an open mind. She'll listen if the argument isn't a waste of her time.
Her glare goes searching, calculating, just a little bit curious and a lot of bit guarded. Shadow continues to whine and shove and almost slip on the tile of her floor because jeez, Mylene's strong but he didn't realize she was this strong, c'mon My I wanna just wanna watch a movie, that's not gonna kill you now is it-
She rolls her eyes in a long-suffering, why-is-this-my-life gesture, and steps- literally steps- onto her bed and drops down in a surprisingly graceful maneuver onto the far side. Shadow, meanwhile, scrambles to recover from the sudden lack of resistance and narrowly avoids cracking his head open on the floor or the bedframe.
He cheers, physically jumping up in exaggerated excitement, untangling a tiny flashdrive from the chaos and vaults over to plug it into the holo-monitor on the opposite wall.
(Shadow doesn't like Mylene's room. It's plain and white, the bare minimum essentials of what came with it. There's nothing there that's hers, no books or games or anything, or proof that anyone lives in it. There's no personality. When they first met, Shadow'd have just said it fit, because Mylene didn't have much of one beyond mildly irritated, but he knows her better now. He wouldn't say well, because she still plays her cards close to her chest, but he knows better. He doesn't like the sharp separation between the Mylene he knows and the one she presents.)
He scrolls through until he finds a shitty, B-grade action movie because if there's one thing he and My have in common it's a love of heckling and there are few better targets than bad movies.
By the time he's gotten it to work and turned around to jump back onto the bed, Mylene's wrapped herself up in the thickest quilt he bought, even over her head like a hood.
She's yanked some of the pillows and thinner blankets up to make a line they can lean against, so he doesn't say anything about it, only starts counting how many seconds of opening logos they have to see before they even start the movie.
(He doesn't think Mylene likes that version of herself very much, either.)
It's awkward, in a way it really hasn't been between them since they started to be friends. The air between them stiff and heavy.
Shadow keeps up a running commentary as best he can, but it's stilted, awkward without Mylene's sharp, sarcastic wit to accompany it. She's the one who started it, and usually the one who keeps up the commentary, only really pausing to tell someone to shut up when they laugh at whatever joke she's made or snort too loudly. Once, even, when he choked on popcorn the first time they'd watched a movie together and he hadn't been expecting it.
Mylene's sarcasm makes up, like, a solid 73% of all the fun he has in the Vexos at all.
Halfway through the even worse sequel, she hasn't said a word.
She hasn't told him to shut up, so. He keeps going.
The movie's almost at its end when Lync strolls through Mylene's door like he owns the place, the game-device he'd picked up (read: stole) from Earth his last mission there under one arm and his usual sharp grin in place. Shadow doesn't know where or why or how he'd gotten it, but Shadow barely knows what Lync even does, so.
"Okay, why is it he can just walk in when I have to almost break my foot trying to get you to open the door?" Shadow whines, clapping his hand over his heart dramatically. He still can't see her face, but he's pretty sure she rolled her eyes. A good sign, probably.
"Why are you having a movie marathon without me?" Lync whines right back, dropping down in front of the projection with a noticeable click of plastic on tile. Shadow sticks his tongue out at his back and Lync plugs the weird Earth-game-console thing into the wall without so much as asking .
No, Shadow does know what Lync does. He's annoying.
The movie switches over with a jarring click-static to the familiar, immediately infuriating upbeat music of the one game he owns for it.
"I was watching that," Shadow whines, crawling to the front of the bed to swipe halfheartedly at Lync's head with sharp nails. The younger stops him by shoving a controller into his hand, snickering as he ducks around Shadow to drop, cross-legged, on the floor at the foot of the bed.
"Beat me and you can finish!" He chirps, voice high and challenging. He sticks his tongue out at Shadow and cheers as Shadow retreats back to his space by Mylene's side, flopping down to purposefully jar her.
Lync starts up the race- the one with the Rainbow Road course, because he's an asshole, and Shadow sits up straighter.
"This means war, Volan," he swears in a low tone of voice, and Lync hums, sing-song.
"Promises, promises."
Somewhere next to him, Mylene shifts slightly, but he doesn't take his eyes off the screen.
His pride was at stake here.
Somewhere through the beginning of the third race, Volt finds his way through the door.
"Mylene invited me," he says, when no one asks him what he was doing there, and rolls his eyes when no one responds, Shadow and Lync too focused on knocking the other off the track to acknowledge.
He sits down heavily behind Shadow and shifts until his back is to the wall, eyes on the screen. Mylene and Shadow shift instinctively to make space for him.
Lync cheers as he crosses the finish line with Shadow only a couple seconds behind, laughing and turning around for, apparently, the express purpose of sticking his tongue out at Shadow.
Volt tries to muffle a laugh but it's kind of like trying to stop an earthquake. The vibrations from it reach him anyway so Shadow sticks his tongue out at Volt, who has the audacity to try and pull the innocent 'who, me?' routine Lync's perfected over the years. Lync cackles .
"My," Shadow whines, because if Lync and Volt were going to gang up on him he wanted someone on his side, at least.
Mylene's a terrible friend. She doesn't say a word.
"You're all a bunch of traitors," Shadow mutters murderously, turning back to the screen as the multi-colored hellscape of Rainbow Road looms around their racers. The stoplights begin their countdown.
Mylene shifts to lean heavily against Volt, ignoring his faux-huff of annoyance but to twist around to glare at him when he pokes her in the side.
Shadow gives an outraged screech as his character stalls out at the starting gate, aiming a kick at Lync's head at his cheerful "sucks to suck, Shadow!" even though he misses by a mile because Lync's like an annoying fly you keep trying to swat but he's so damn fast you never hit him.
Shadow can't fucking believe that these are the people he calls his friends.
(Mylene's room doesn't feel so impersonal anymore.)
They end the race with the final tally putting Lync in first and Shadow in seventh.
Lync whistles out a slow breath, wincing visibly when he looks at Shadow's score because he's an asshole .
A man can only be expected to take so much shit from an annoying bard until his patience snaps.
Shadow's three seconds away from physically tackling Lync, consequences be damned when someone kicks him lightly in the leg.
"That really was a disgrace," Mylene says, and if her voice is rougher than usual no one comments on it. Shadow throws himself dramatically down on the bed, hand over his heart and splaying his limbs into everyone's space to their immediate and verbal disapproval.
"No, my fragile self-worth!" He cries, ignoring Lync's swiftly stiffled snort of laughter, "I can never recover from this devastating blow you've dealt me- I'm ruined!"
The eyebrow raises into the Unimpressed Look.
"Lot of big words there, Shadow, you sure you know what they all mean?" Mylene drawls, and this time Lync doesn't even bother to hold his laughter, and Volt rolls his eyes from where he's sitting.
"This means war!" Shadow declares, again, way too loud and Mylene makes a 'gimmie' motion with her hand at Lync, who gleefully slaps a controller into her hand.
They drag Volt into it, too, because there's really only one rule of the Vexos and Volt needs to lighten up. (Mylene turns the Unimpressed Look on Lync as he snickers at his own pun, here, and Shadow's momentarily glad that it's aimed at someone who's not him for once but it's back just as soon as Shadow starts laughing, because it was a good pun.
Shadow and Lync high-five, painfully, to make the loudest clapping noise they can possibly create. Mylene swears death on them both. Volt knocks Lync off the track.
Shadow laughs at Lync's betrayed, outraged look but then Mylene red-shells him, because she's just the worst friend ever.)
They're halfway through the fourth race of their third grand prix, with Mylene and Lync neck-in-neck for first and Volt just behind them, and Shadow in seventh, again, when their gauntlets start flashing in unison, some of them even ringing like phones. They snap their eyes from the screen to their gauntlets, which had somehow accumulated into a pile in the far end of the room, eyes wide and breath caught in their throats. The ringing and flashing doesn't stop.
They slowly look back at each other.
Surprisingly, Mylene speaks up first.
"I don't see them if you don't."
"Deal," Lync says, fucking immediately, and Volt looks somewhat stricken between his 'I must do my job' mentality and the fact that Zenoheld's just, like, a douchebag, and Shadow chokes on his own laughter but nods his approval of this plan.
"Three v. one, Volt, looks like you're stuck with us," Mylene says, ignoring Volt's glare, "that's the rule."
Volt mutters something vicious under his breath. Volt tried really, really hard to avoid falling into the 'bad habits' his friends have, mostly swearing, but judging by the sharp grin that broke out on her face for two seconds tops, maybe, they'd have to add a point to Mylene's side of the 'who can make Volt swear' scoreboard.
Mylene is the best friend, like, ever.
They can't avoid Hydron and Zenoheld forever, so eventually, they slowly unwind themselves from their comfortable positions and pack away their things.
"I'll go see what it is," Lync volunteers, because if it's Hydron then he can talk his way out any consequences, and if it's Zenoheld- well. They'd've all taken the same damage, probably will end up with the same punishment. Volt follows him out, anyway.
This is the point where Shadow, as a good friend, should ask if Mylene's alright, ask her what happened, offer some kind of support.
"What time is it?" Mylene asks, but doesn't wait for him to respond and instead squints at the holographic clock on the wall that appears at the prompt. "8:30 at night, what the hell would they want at fucking 8:30 at fucking night?"
Shadow's fourth revelation about Mylene was sheer volume of curse words she could and would use, how creatively, and that she would just go off on aggressive rants that more often than not left the other Vexos in stitches.He and Lync have an agreement to record every single one of them and send it to the other if they ever miss one, and Lync has them all- eighteen so far- saved to his gauntlet for easy access.
It doesn't take her very long to get back into uniform and put on the makeup, keeping up her rant the entire time. Shadow's almost forgotten that he's supposed to be a good friend over trying to keep up with Mylene's ire.
Mylene's very different, in the uniform. Less fluid, less lazy, less friendly. Less herself. She sighs as she pulls on her boots.
"Come on, we've gotta follow the rule," Mylene says, brushing the wrinkles out of the actually ridiculous cape she has to wear, straightening up and closing down something in her, locking something away that makes her face something statuesque and just as cold.
"Vexos stick together," she says, starts toward the door. She sounds like herself when she says it; it's not the only rule they have, but it's the one rule they'll follow. Spectra, Gus, Hydron, Zenoheld- none of them follow the rule, he doesn't think any of them even know the rule. They're not Vexos, never were, never will be.
She pauses just before the door and turns to look at Shadow, who's not immediately at her side, so who's acting uncharacteristically. Mylene waits for him to explain; she doesn't ask, because she's a good friend.
Shadow's a good friend. He hops into a jog, gets into Mylene's space and cheerfully says, "Seriously, I didn't know you have freckles!"
"Fuck off," Mylene hisses, the hint of laughter in her voice betraying her. She still socks him in the arm, hard, because she's a terrible friend.
Well. Shadow's not much better.
A/N:
when did this occur in time and space? god only knows what is continuity
but lmao yeah! I really loved Bakugan as a kid and honestly I still love it now and I was in a writing mood so BANG fanfiction
I've only started like 20 more bakugan fics it's fine I don't have a problem I totally plan on finishing them. Someday.
But please let me know what you thought! This is my first foray into this fandom so I'd really appreciate any reviews, comments, suggestions or questions. I'm always taking prompts, too, so if there's a fic you'd like to see then I'll give it a shot! This was actually a response to a prompt given to me on Tumblr, so. Didn't follow it too well, but here we are nevertheless.
Thank you for reading!