"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, and it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident." -ST Augustine
From now on I'm going to put a quote at the start of my stories. Probably not this long though.
Pre-series Mandova. For VampireloverD. 'Cause she asked.
Mandarin looked into her eyes, he could do that forever and he knew she could as well. He grabbed her and held her close, and just as they were about to kiss, the alarm went off.
Mandarin sighed, he was sure that god did not want them together, or that some other force forbade them to love one another.
"Please mandarin, Th-the others could take care of it! Let's just do this, please, I want this!"
He wanted this to happen; god knows he wanted this to happen! But he was bound by duty to serve the community before his own needs and wants, no matter how much his emotions swelled.
"Nova, we can't avoid our duty, we have to do it"
She sighed even though she knew it was the unavoidable truth. She stood up and they made their way to the meeting room where the rest of the team had assembled, obviously pretending they had been there for a while just to enhance the fact that Mandarin and Nova had taken their time.
"So... what's the problem?" Mandarin asked.
"Skeleton King has sent a platoon of his soldiers, which would not have been this serious an alarm." Gibson paused for effect. "Except they have a large crate with them, which is emitting powerful energy signatures. I suspect it is an antimatter bomb which they plan to plant in the town centre."
"We had better head over there quickly. Lives are at stake."
Nova felt a pang of pain as he was reluctant to kiss her, but the promise of a good fight he would rush into. She wished she could find someone whose only goal in life wasn't destruction and chaos.
.
The team rushed to their battle stations and landed in the town centre. On instinct the monkeys ran toward the platoon, weapons brandished, and began the merciless slaughter that was the soldiers. Mandarin was slashing and parrying 5 enemies at once, his strikes majestically counter attacking and smoothly carrying into his next strike. She had seen him train a million times, but it still amazed her to see him apply his skills in battle. It was so mesmerising that she almost punched Otto in the face, but she regained her senses in time and forced herself to redirect her arms towards a minions face instead. She smiled slightly as Mandarin was smooth and practiced in his attacks, but when speaking to her, his voice was shaky and he slipped up with his words. She forced herself to forget about him until the battle was over, then they could go back to where they were...
She decided to kill faster.
After the soldiers had been defeated, Mandarin sent Gibson to open the crate and defuse the bomb. Although when he opened it, there was no bomb. Standing in the small cavity of the crate, was an identical monkey team. As soon as light touched the robots, they flickered to life and began to attack the team.
The team was completely frozen as they saw their robotic counterparts, well one of the team wasn't transfixed and that monkey lunged at the robots and began to attack them from all angles, as if he was everywhere at once. With unbelievable speed and agility Mandarin cut the robots into pieces and those into even smaller pieces –until the chunks were unnoticeable to the human eye. After the chaos of oil and shrapnel, Mandarin stood in the middle – he hadn't even broken a sweat.
"Let's just get back to base." Mandarin said as if he was reading their minds.
.
The team was sitting in the meeting room in a circle around Mandarin, Antauri holding a pile of metal.
"Y-you've been honing your skills again mechanical versions of... us?"
"I suspected skeleton would try something like this sooner or later so I decided to be prepared."
Nova thought that there was something unusual with his voice – and that's when it hit her, his voice was perfectly composed, not a hint of doubt or of any emotion. It sounded like he had been preparing for this meeting for a long time.
Antauri, being second in command, had the deciding vote in what to do with Mandarin.
"I understand why you practiced with them; I would have done the same thing had I been in your position."
With that Mandarin nodded and departed to his room. The rest of the team went their respective ways, apart from Nova, who followed Mandarin back to his room for a private talk.
.
Mandarin was sitting on his bed meditating as Nova walked in.
"You want to talk about something; I'll talk about anything as long as it's not about the robots."
"..."
Mandarin sighed "It's about the robots, isn't it? Look, I just did what was needed for the good of the innocent people"
At this Nova released he bottled rage "It's always about the people, never about you...or me"
Mandarin put his hands on her shoulders "you mean more to me than the all of them" and with that they hugged. But it was not an average hug, it was a truly caring one – Nova felt her heart pumping faster. She hoped he would never leave no matter what he done, she would always love him. They then had the moment they were both waiting for; they looked into each other's and found their inner wants. And so they kissed.
.
The next morning Nova awoke in Mandarin's bed to find he had already woke and was staring at his door, with a rucksack of all his personal belongings.
"Mandarin...where are you going?"
"I can't stay"
"Why not? There's nothing you need to run away from...is there?"
Mandarin sighed "Antauri's quite smart; he'll find out that I didn't make those robots, that...someone unmentionable did."
Nova gasped as the realisation struck her "He, gave you them?"
"On the condition that I join him, I wanted so much power at the time, I didn't foresee the consequences."
He held Nova's chin in-between his thumb and index finger "I'm sure you'll find someone else here who you like..."
"I only want you, no-one else will do"
"Well then" Mandarin smiled "I'll be sure to think of you every day, if you'll do the same for me"
And with that he walked away, and that would be the way she would remember him, no matter what happened.
Its weird, any time I use love as a basis for a story, the story itself is less funny.