Mother, make me: Make me a big gray cloud so I can rain on you all the things I can't out loud.
. . .
Benched.
Fefnir was no sports enthusiast, but he knew full and damn well what it meant.
And it was exactly what that goody two-shoes Harpy was doing to him right now.
"It wouldn't be safe for you to embark on this mission." Harpuia told him.
"But I'm perfect for this mission!" Fefnir barked. "We get to shoot things down, blow stuff up! If we get lucky there might even be sparks when a fuse blows and electricity is just flying everywhere like fireworks on display!"
Harpuia blinked, his face doing all in its power to not show any emotion at all. "And that is exactly why you're not coming." his brother then said before turning away. "If you come along someone is just destined to get hurt, and we can't have that."
"You…. You just think that I'll show you up!" Fefnir then hollered as his fingers dug into the palm of his hands. "You don't want me to come because it might disrupt your needless attempts to seduce Mother! She doesn't love you- she barely shows love for the fake! Heh, I bet she's never felt any kind of emotion toward any Reploid. I think she messes with you, teasing you, giving you reasons to stay up at night to pleasure-"
"Out!" Harpuia screeched at Fefnir, his face red enough to stop traffic. "And I don't want to see you for the rest of the year! Do you fucking hear me?!"
"Did I step on the pretty boy's toe?" Fefnir sneered mischievously. "Funny enough, I knew you liked her, but I didn't think it was true!"
The green Guardian did not answer, doing all in his power to hold back from destroying the red Guardian to the wire.
In hindsight, Fefnir was lucky to have made it out of there alive.
But even with the minor victory, he was still angry that he wasn't allowed to go on the mission. He'd be lucky if Harpuia let him go on any missions after that talk. After a discussion like that, who else to go to whine to than the Mother Elf herself? Of course, that meant being berated by her too.
"He was really angry after you said those things to him." the Mother Elf said to Fefnir in a tone that was no less angry than interested.
"It was great." Fefnir grinned. "Did you see how red his face got? Mother, I thought he was going to explode!"
"Now he'll warrant unintended anger toward those he'd be working with today."
"Sucks for them. And if they start to ignore him which makes him even more upset, then he'd know that's what he gets for telling me that I couldn't come."
"I'm fairly confident that that isn't how such a situation works my little lycan..."
Fefnir huffed as he folded his arms in defiance- the Mother Elf could be a real buzz kill sometimes...
"Technically," she then started to say, "If the griffin should fall in battle, they would have no choice but to call you in to the front line..."
"You would do that?" the Guardian questioned, raising and eyebrow with interest and surprise.
"I didn't plan on immediately instigating it."
"'Immediately'." Fefnir repeated, a small teasing smile curling onto his lips. There were times he admittedly could not picture her as a dark minded program, but this certainly was an interesting development on his part.
"It was for the best, you understand." the Mother Elf then told him. "There were moments that your siblings feared that you could not be unbroken from a path of pure destruction."
Fefnir snorted. "Destruction? Fireworks are explosions disguised as works of art! Flare guns can singe the skin of an unfortunate human who's brain cells had taken holiday. Even you Mother, are pure form of destruction that takes on a smoking hot body that more folks than the ass kisser would jack off to if you showed them what you looked like."
"With you as the exception?"
The grin on Fefnir's face quickly shattered.
"From what I could see," the Mother Elf then said as her hologram lingered closer and closer to Fefnir's body, "The only Guardian that has never shown any kind of interest to… subjecting to my conscious would be the tulpa. I watch all four of you sleep at night, and I think you'd agree with me that who we are in the dark and in our own subconscious says a lot about us- don't you think?"
"I… I have to be somewhere else." Fefnir quickly told the Mother Elf as he started to head out the door with a face riddled with embarrassment.
"Stay away from fireworks." the Mother Elf reminded as her hologram let out a sneaky little grin.
"Yes Mother..."
. . .
There was nothing he could possibly do after seeing the Mother Elf. The other Guardians had understudies, of sorts- someone to take up their roles should they fall in battle and another Guardian could not be there to help. Fefnir didn't have a support system like that as seeing he never felt the need. If he did have such an understudy, today would have been a rather excellent time to train them.
But he didn't, so it didn't matter.
Trading his armor for some street clothes, Fefnir decided to take a walk through Neo Arcadia. Not much was going on in the city either, but at least the constant movement of the crowd as they went about their normal lives in peace kept the Guardian from getting too bored during his walk. Fefnir walked along the sidewalk of Neo Arcadia's bustling downtown until he got to a crosswalk. While waiting for the light to change (because he promised to be good, which meant no jaywalking) someone tackled him from behind.
"Give me your money or you won't get hurt!" the person said. Fefnir let out a smirk as he took no effort to flip the attacker in front of him. His attacker let out a groan as his body smacked the hard concrete with a crack- this was the hint Fefnir took to assume that his attacker was human. He had no remorse for them however; serves them right. The Guardian got down to the human's eye level and gave them a terrifying glare.
"Didn't your mother ever tell you to not sneak up on a Reploid who's physical capabilities far surpass your own?" Fefnir questioned with a Chesire grin. The human trembled as a response. Fefnir rolled his eyes before helping the human get up while his facial recognition programs searched the Neo Arcadian archives for who this person could be.
An idiot, obviously, but he needed more than that.
"Aksal Chiamanda." Fefnir mumbled. The human looked up at him.
"Yes?"
Now part of a conversation he didn't mean to start, Fefnir went with the information he knew. "Why are you not maintaining Neo Arcadia's power systems?" the Guardian inquired. "There's not a single reason why someone in your position should be on the street panhandling and mugging everyone."
"I'm not there 'cuz I got fired." Aksal told Fefnir as he stretched his back. "When there's a power shortage, employment gets a bit short too- don't you agree?"
When Fefnir didn't answer, Aksal continued. "But you're right. It isn't a reason for me to start mugging. And believe me, if more folks held up a fight like you do, man… I'd be in the hospital with bills I'll never be able to pay off!"
Fefnir was only half listening. Something wasn't right if Neo Arcadia was having problems with power- the fake never told them anything about that. If it was bad enough that they had to lay off workers, how come none of the Guardians knew about this? Without saying a thing to Aksal, Fefnir spun on his heel and started to run to Copy X for an explanation. This needed to be addressed, and it needed to be addressed now.
And if the fake choose to ignore him, Fefnir had ways of making Copy X scream- and not one of them were going to be pretty either.