DISCLAIMER:

I don't own Sym-Bionic Titan. If I did, it would not have been cancelled due to lack of merchandise.

Warning: this one-shot contains mature themes and coarse language. Don't read this if you're not ready to touch upon your darker side. I know, however, that there are some people that thrive on knowing that there are people like them out there (you can't write something you haven't at least remotely experienced yourself). Read and review, please.

"Hey, Lance."

"Hi Lance."

"Lance-meister!"

"Lance, my bro!"

"Hey, Lance, how's it going?"

Ilana's blood came to a silent boil as everyone who passed the moody teenager in front of her got everyone's recognition, despite the fact that, as usual, his head was down, his hands shoved in his pockets, and his eyes open only enough to see where he was going. Even his headphones were plugged in, so it didn't even make any sense that everyone was saying hi to him. Whenever he listened to his music he cranked it up so high you could hear it from five feet away. Ilana didn't know how he didn't have hearing loss. And to top it all off, not a single person acknowledged her, though she greeted everyone she saw.

'Cool'. Pfft. By these kids' standards, she wasn't 'cool', or 'hot', (what was the obsession with temperature, anyway?) or even 'normal'.

And what was normal here, anyway? On this strange planet, where kids got piercings for fashion rather than tradition, where the only spirit the spirit leaders spread was inferiority, where kids either couldn't care less or cared so much that they weren't able to enjoy anything else? Where hatred was valued more than love?

Where a princess was rejected?

The ride home was a silent one… and, honestly, that worried Lance. He wasn't used to her being so silent- usually she was raving about planning for a new dance, or complaining about a B she got on a test, or freaking out about a long-term assignment she had due the next day, but today… nothing. He was concerned.

"Ilana, you – you okay?"

That was it for her. She didn't know why she was so agitated today – usually school wasn't that bad, but maybe she had just had enough.

"Oh, so now you care!" She fumed.

Lance looked at her, more confused and worried than ever. She was never like this, and she wasn't making any sense. "Wait – what?"

They were home now, and right before she slammed the door and stomped up to her room – an unusual practice for her, to say the least – Lance caught her say, "Nothing, absolutely nothing!"

Lance stared after the shaking door, and asked Octus without taking his eyes off it: "What…just happened?"

"Her heart beat elevated and her voice seemed to be raised- it would be my guess that she's angry."

Lance rolled his eyes at the robot's obvious monotone answer and headed inside.

-o-o-o-

Ilana threw herself on her bed and buried her face in her pillow. She didn't quite know what was wrong with her. Even she realized that she was being unnecessarily rude to her two best friends, but something inside her today just snapped. She was done. Just done. She was done with school. Done with trying. Done with Earth.

She was done with living like nothing was wrong. Like hell it wasn't.

Every day she went to school with a smile and a laugh, with a positive attitude and a new start at a new day. She tried her hardest…and nothing changed. No matter what she did, who she met, or how much she did or didn't try… it just didn't matter.

Everyone thought she was perfect- at least, that she considered herself to be. That her attitude was what she felt inside, that she was perpetually fine. She punched her pillow in frustration.

No one is like that!

She was on the verge of angry tears. No one bothered to look inside her façade. To see what how much she was suffering, what she was feeling. She was the princess, the leader of a damn planet- a planet at war- and these people were complaining about their homework?!

The tears spilled over.

-o-o-o-

Lance felt the sweat drip off his brow as his arms brought him closer and farther, closer and farther to the floor. He must be over 1,000 reps, because that was when he started to break a sweat. So he was really going far today.

He pushed his frustration out against the floor. He had upset her. Again.

What the hell was wrong with him?

It just seemed so easy to push her off the edge these days. She was unpredictable, snappy, and even almost sad- in other words, not the Ilana he knew. He was starting to seriously worry about her.

But what about him?

-o-o-o-

It was after dinner, and Lance was sitting in the living room trying to do his history homework. He would've rather been working out, but Octus had informed him that if he didn't start getting his grades up he'd be held back, and even the robot wouldn't have been able to raise his terrible grades to passing marks without making it blatantly obvious that they had been hacked into. As he reviewed the Civil War, he plugged in his headphones.

"They're gonna clean up your looks

With all the lies and the books

To make a citizen out of you.

Because they sleep with a gun

And keep an eye on you son,

So they can watch all the things you do."

A small smile flashed across Lance's face. 'Teenagers' was one of his favorite songs. It wasn't just about rebelling- it was about showing that you weren't going to conform. The lyrics continued.

"Because the drugs never work

They're gonna give you a smirk,

'cause they got methods of keepin' you clean.

They're gonna rip up your heads,

Your aspirations to shreds,

Another cog in the murder machine-

They said those teenagers scare

The living shit outta me.

They could care less

As long as someone'll bleed,

So darken your clothes

Or strike a violent pose

Maybe they'll leave you alone, but not me."

Lance developed a good rhythm for his homework until the next song came on and he became slightly more subdued: 'Mama'.

"Mama, we all go to hell."

Isn't that true. Where else for a person like him? A couple moments later:

"I could have been a better son."

His head bowed over his textbook.

"She said 'You ain't no son of mine."

Lower.

"But there's shit that I've done with this fuck of a gun

You would cry out your eyes all along

We're damned after all

Through fortune and flame we fall

And if you can stay then I'll show you the way

To return from the ashes you crawl."

He thought he could be saved by destruction. He thought becoming a soldier would redeem him. He thought he could be revived by the gun. He had just provided more shit. Slamming his book, he went to get something to eat in the kitchen and splash his face with some water.

Meanwhile…

"'Cause the hardest part of this

Is leaving you."

'Cancer'. Ilana blinked her eyes as the next song came on. This one would either break her or save her- she didn't know at this point.

'Helena'.

"What's the worst thing I could say?

Things are better if I stay.

So long and good night,

So long and good night."

No. No. Things are not better if she stayed. Here she was on Earth, attending high school, and her people were fighting and dying for her planet.

She was assigned body guards to protect her from danger. The mistake was they thought that danger was the Mutraddi… no. She was a danger to herself. She forced herself into the kitchen- the window had the prettiest view of the moon.

She walked in to see Lance splashing his face with water. He looked up at her, and she walked briskly to the fruit bowl to grab and apple. There weren't any.

"Shit", she muttered under her breath, and saw Lance turn in surprise to her profanity.

"And you're sure you're okay?"

"No, Lance", she said through gritted teeth. "I'm not okay- I promise."

She saw the concern flash through his eyes. This was too much. For him to pretend like he cared. For him to even think he knew what she was going through.

"And no, frankly, you can't help! I don't know why you would even think that you know anything about what I'm feeling right now! I'm not 'Ms. Happy Girl'! I'm not a perfect person who smiles every day and doesn't hate herself inside! I can' do this anymore! Do you even comprehend what I'm going through?! I should be fighting alongside my people for the future of my home!"

If you look in the mirror and don't like what you see,

You'll find out first-hand what it's like to be me.

Lance's face twisted quickly from concern to a mask of anger. Yes, she was the princess, but her accusations were based on nothing. "No, you know what?" he spat. "I don't know. I don't know what it's like to rule over a country and the lives of innocent people who are dying. But I know what it's like to want to protect them. Ilana, why the hell do you think I joined the Guard? Because they put me in military school? To get a higher social status? Please! I watched my father leave me in front of my eyes! He left me! And I don't even know what happened to my mother! Do you think I don't relive the moment of losing the only person I ever loved to some experimental technology every day? Because I do! And every day I wonder, 'Was it me? Did I do it? Did I make him cross through that gate?' And so every day in training to become a soldier, I had one resolve- to protect. To not lose anyone else- to save instead.

"That's why I'm so crazy in combat. If you go by the book, more people die than if you take chances. It may sound like it doesn't make any sense, but every situation is different, so you can't use the same book each time! You have to change! And I've made decisions that I thought would save people, but it killed them instead! Every day I look at myself and I have to restrain from punching the mirror. Ilana, you want to be good. You want to save the world, to save your people, to save a planet. I just want to leave this world without fucking it up any more than it was when I got here. And as of right now, I'm failing. How do you think it feels to know that you're a disappointment to every single person who's ever met you?!"

Ilana seemed taken aback. From him responding so fiercely or from the meaning of his words, he wasn't quite sure. Ilana felt tears at the edge of her eyes. He didn't know her fear about ruling a recovering planet if a single person on Earth wouldn't even pay her attention. She quickly recovered though, and shot back at him a cruelly ironic statement:

"Ha, failing, that's a good one. Everyone at school thinks you're the coolest person they know. They all want to be you, Lance. Even I don't want to be me."

Red flashed through his eyes. She had gone too far.

"And you think I want to be me?! Ilana! Those kids who look at me and think 'wow, I wish I could be like him!'? Who think I don't care because I do? Who think that my lack of interest is in my best interest? What the hell do they know?! Before I was even ten both my parents had died, I was orphaned, the only friend I ever gained left me in fear, and I lost what could have been the most redeeming day of my life thanks to the jealousy of my rival- who tried to kill me! Who would envy me?! Do you know what I go through each day, just to keep living?! Do you know why my room is so empty? It's not because I don't have any interest in anything- at one point I had a pair of scissors and a letter opener in my room. One day, I got too close- I picked it up and it was halfway to a very dangerous place before I realized what I was doing. The only reason I'm alive right now is because I chucked them out of the window when I realized the only chance I had at doing anything good in this world was keeping you alive so that a planet had a chance at life! Why do you think I don't carry around a knife for protection? Why I choose a machine gun rather than a sword even though I'm so skilled?"

He looked her dead in the eye, and a shiver ran down her spine at his answer.

"The trigger is longer than the length of my arm."

Here Ilana broke down and started crying into his chest. They were both so close to losing their fights. She looked up at him.

"So why are you still here? What keeps you?"

His eyes glazed over. "Nothing", he said with a detachment that scared her nearly (ironically) to death. "The music is just Novocain. It… the rhythm just puts one foot in front of the other until I can stand to put it on pause. I'm just looking desperately for an excuse to live."

She sobbed harder, and he put an arm hesitantly over her. As they shared the pain of a lost world, a lost cause, and a lost purpose, he recalled his first memory…

When I was a young boy

My father took me into the city

To see a marching band.

He said, 'Son when you grow up would you be

The savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned?'

He said, 'Will you defeat them, your demons,

Your demons and all the non-believers,

The plans that they have made?

Because one day, I'll leave you

A phantom to lead you in the summer

To join the Black Parade.'

Lance looked up in astonishment… His dad knew that he was going to leave. And… that Black Parade… had been the Royal Guard, dressed in black for the queen – Ilana's mom's – funeral. And his dad's phantom had led him to the Guard- to the Black Parade.

Ilana… given, it was temporary, but she was broken and beaten…but hell, if he could help it, she wouldn't be damned.

I'm just a man, I'm not a hero.

They'd carry on.

For those of you who are a little more broken than the rest of us- and some who aren't- chances are you know these songs, these lyrics, and this band. My Chemical Romance was an amazing musical legend that saved countless lives. I regret that I learned about them from the news of their breakup. It hurts to know that I missed out on their development and concerts- I would pay a lot of money for a ticket and time travel to see The Black Parade in concert. In reality, though, it's probably for the best- I'm not sure if I would have been able to live through their death… but they've kept me alive countless times, along with Green Day, Yellowcard, and Muse. Thanks to A Necessary Production to introducing me to the best band that has ever been, and thanks to MCR for changing my life. This one's to you. We'll carry on. We won't be afraid to keep on living, and as long as we have your music, we won't be walking this world alone. Things would've been better if you'd have stayed, but march on. And to all of you who have felt something similar, you're not alone. Use the music as Novocain until you find an excuse to live. Because there always is one. Review, please.