Simon slowly walked the halls of Alpha's base. He felt the presence of someone beside him and turned.
"Oh. It's only you." He sighed.
Amber walked beside him.
"Yeah. I like to check in on Michael from time to time. He's probably having so much of a better time than me."
"Than US, with these new guests here being very annoying."
They held silent for a second.
"So…" Amber began, "I don't know whether or not we, us, are a thing… I mean, you never said anything about it and I just kinda rushed in to-"
"The team seems to have made it official. If we said anything else, they wouldn't have it."
"...okay. I still wonder how Michael feels about all this. He's probably chilling in his office, taking it easy…"
A medbay worker slowly approached the two of them.
"I suppose you're the chap Alpha said would come?"
"Yes… What's he got to tell me?"
The worker looked around, before saying in a hushed voice, "Your brother's not in his best frame of mind right now. We have considered getting him a psychiatrist. He's been rambling about ambushes for the past three hours."
Amber smiled. "Hah! That's VERY funny of him! You can stop acting now."
Nobody smiled. Or stirred.
"You're...not joking?"
Amber then forcefully shoved the worker out of her way and barged into Alpha's office.
He slowly pivoted in his chair. Amber's first thought was, "he still looks horrible."
"Leslie!" Alpha chimed, through his mechanical voice, "Glad to see you!"
"Leslie"(Amber) slowly stepped forward.
"I still can't take that seriously."
"My face has never been more exposed. Neither my teeth. My head still aches like heck. So that's the past month or so."
Amber found herself speechless. "That's the procedure they made you take?"
"Yeah, my teeth get cold from being this exposed all the time." Alpha groaned, "And my legs fall asleep sometimes."
Alpha slowly rolled the chair toward them.
"I can't walk, either. But I've had one thing I never get normally: TIME! I've had time to think, I've had time to do WHATEVER I WANT! And I used that time to decide something. Billy's plan is all in my hands by now. You guys will inevitably fight him HERE. That's what he wants. So you'll fight him here!"
Amber sighed.
"That masky must have beaten your brain up too. If he fights us here, you will be in danger. Impossible danger! Billy could kill you with a stray bullet!"
"I know. Which is why I will not be in the room. But, if events turn bad, I WILL intervene." Alpha turned away from them, "So I have to mentally prepare myself for that."
"For what?!" Amber snapped, incredulously, "Him to kill you?!"
"Precisely." He replied, calmly, "If I die, he wins and nobody else has to die. He'll walk away. He'd have won with one casualty. Simple as that."
"Are you insane?! What makes you think he'll stop there?!"
Alpha held silent.
"He knows his priorities, I know mine. Don't underestimate either."
Amber slammed her hands on Alpha's desk.
"You're not risking your life to win some war that's just gonna carry on after you're gone!"
"And I don't think you guys have it in you." Alpha remarked, bluntly, "Billy's got grit. He's got cunning. What do we have?"
Amber looked behind her, at Simon.
"You have us. And an army. If they defeated Gamma, they're more than enough! What does he have that we should be so scared of?!"
Alpha let out a forced laugh.
"I think the better question is, what if you weren't enough? What do we have that HE should be trembling in fear over?"
Amber's serious face slowly melted into what seemed to be a more angry look.
"How-...do..." She couldn't get the words out, struck voiceless.
"Exactly. You have ten thousand procedures after you win. But nothing in the case that you lose. Sometimes, you have to be prepared to lose to win. Not like you'll understand that. You can leave now, even though I doubt it's what you want."
Amber quickly stalked off. Alpha gave Simon a glance.
"Hold on." He demanded.
Simon stopped.
"Listen… I can't do much else to help. You guys have to win. As for Amber, I would say I could deal with it if I were able to. But, clearly, this situation's out of my hands. You, however…. She has a bunch of issues, you know that? I feel like she's had that for a long time. All she really needed was someone to talk it out with. Someone like, per se, YOU."
Simon gave Alpha a desolate glare.
"With all due respect," He began, calmly, "I don't think all of her problems came from loneliness. Maybe some of them developed from being condemned or deemed as untrustworthy."
Alpha didn't continue the conversation, perhaps out of a sudden lack of replies.
-·· ·- ·- ·- ·- ·- ·- ·- -·- ··- ··- ··- ··- ··- ··- ··- -
Marco slowly let go of Billy, after ensuring he actually fell asleep.
She grabbed her bags, giving the unconscious Billy a glance.
Sorry…
Marco walked down the halls, trying to ignore the cells filled with her old teammates.
A slow knock on the glass nearly caught Marco's eye. Only the stabbing remorse kept her gaze undeviating.
In the neighboring galaxy…
Jacks gave the passing folk an evil glare, with intent to scare them off.
"Ari, I told you this plan would take forever! We should have gone with the-"
"Shut up! Is that them?" Ari threw her steel hand over Jacks' mouth, causing him whacking pain.
A portal opened.
Both of them leaned forward. A queer figure slowly stepped out.
"No, that can't be them." Jacks declared, "That's the third hooded denizen to come through here. Suppose we could try somewhere else?"
"Remember, we don't have that kind of time. We're being-"
"We're being followed. Thanks for the stunning reminder."
The portal opened again.
"Can't we just jump this guy? I'm getting tired of waiting."
"If we do that, we're going to have to find the next portal ourselves." Ari gave Jacks a glance, "Would you really want to do that when we have an idiot-proof opportunity to get this?"
"You realize, we've had several idiot-proofed plans… all of them were ruined." Jacks chuckled, "That's an idiot's proof that our plans aren't idiot-proof."
Both of them gave the next person a stern look.
"Yeah," Jacks whispered, "that's the one."
Ari leaned in to look at the provided picture of the so-called "Marco." She began to compare the picture to the real person.
"I sure hope you're right about this…"
Jacks cut the person off and pointed his gun.
"Stop." He demanded.
Marco, clearly surprised, backed up slowly.
"L-listen," They resisted, "I don't want any trouble."
"Oh, okay. Because your track record says you're a paid bounty hunter who's broken the multiverse laws at least 25 or so times." Jacks read aloud, "That sounds like and probably is you, right?"
She slowly brought her hands up, giving up completely.
Jacks sighed.
"Dang it. I was really looking forward to a scuffle."
As Jacks went to handcuff their prisoner, she slammed her fist into his face, knocking him into the nearby wall.
Ari, clearly cross, grabbed said adversary and began to fist fight them. This did not last very long, as Ari's steel arms did a ton of damage and KO'd Marco relatively fast.
Jacks and Ari leaned over the knocked out body on the floor.
"She's cute." Jacks muttered, with a smirk, "I'd slobber for this… why are all of the people we fight against really bewitching?"
Ari gave a slightly envious death stare Jacks' way.
"I thought I was bewitching!"
Jacks chortled.
"Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder… especially in your case." He gagged.
Ari frowned but quickly oppressed it to carry Marco in.
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After Marco settled into her new cell, Alpha gave the agent blocking the doors a stare.
"I need to see them. I'll take it from here."
The agent shrugged and let Alpha into the room.
Alpha slowly wheeled into the room and locked the door.
"You're the Rejected's third member. Am I right?"
Marco refused to answer.
"Listen. If you were betrayed, I can help. But I need you to cooperate with me. Billy was gonna betray you anyway. The best thing you can do is help me help you. What was he building?"
"I don't know. Not like he told me." Marco grumbled, refusing to give Alpha any eye contact.
"If you're trying to protect him, there's no need. He's gonna kill everyone if we don't stop him first. He'll fight 'till the end. That means even YOU have to die for him to win."
"He can disintegrate me, for all I care, I'll just come back! Why should I be worried?!"
Alpha smiled.
"You know, people who can't die have it worse than people who can. Because he'll just kill you over and over again. Do you want that?"
"..." Marco refused to answer again.
Alpha jumped out of his wheelchair.
"What good will it do?!" He snapped, ditching the fake voice for his real one, "He's evil! You have to accept that!"
Marco slammed her fist into the glass, actually creating a small crack.
"You're the real evil here! You capitalist scum! What do you think your phony corporation will do when they find out what you did?!" She paused, as if a horrible idea came into her head.
"They won't." He whispered, "Because a single word can end your torture free world right about now."
"Once I get out of here, you're gonna know real pain, you slimy prick." Marco countered, fuming.
Alpha sat back down and resumed talking in his fake voice.
"Bold words." He sighed, "But I'm the ringleader here. You think I can't stage an accident? I can make it seem like you never existed! But I can't do that. You should be glad."
"If I could get out of here…" Marco grumbled, "You'd understand why I surrender more often than fight."
The lights flickered off and a more menacing voice whispered, "You'd best be proud that you've earned my pity, you pathetic soul.
As the lights flickered on, Alpha instantly rolled out of the room, refusing to acknowledge the existence of what just happened.
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Marco watched another prisoner get thrown into her cell.
"Marco?!" gawked a familiar voice.
"...Cleats?"
Cleats sighed in relief.
"I'm glad we left that guy when we did! Where are the others?"
Marco sighed.
"I messed up."
"What happened to them? Did Mick die? It's probably not permanent. He's always gonna come back-"
"Did that insane masked man give you some sort of sob story too?"
Cleats frowned, "That's my nephew. Second of all, he told me Billy's just gonna kill us anyway."
"I won't team with him. But Billy needs to be stopped… so we might have to join the good side on this one."
Cleats sighed.
"What did you do?"
"I tore apart Mick's family. Then fatally wounded Arris. So I might dissipate soon." Marco confessed.
"Geez… that's not good…" Cleats mumbled, trying to make sense of it all.
"You think?"
Cleats looked to the door.
"One thing's for sure. Michael's not the same. He's gotten a bit mad. The power's gone to his head, it seems…"
"I know what he did." Marco said with a smirk.
"What he did?! What did he do?"
Marco didn't respond.
"Marco." Cleats snapped, "What did he do?!"
"Do you really want to know? I think you should ask yourself that before you respond "yes" and hear something you don't want."
Cleats frowned.
"It's my family. My new top concern. What. Happened."
Marco beamed, creepily.
"Bold, are we? Okay. You might be sorry, though…"
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Log Number 2. We're stuck. O-our ship crashed into debris and the engine went down. We've been like this for hours. I tried contacting help, nothing. Argh! It's because of that darned inkling we picked up along the way, he killed the pilot and jumped back into the void! We're in intense danger now. We have an indefinite amount of food. But I'm not so sure as to when our supply is gonna get cut off… What to do…
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Simon slowly strutted past Amber, who moped on the bench in the training room.
While he intended to ignore her and get to the fencing area, he couldn't help but give her a glance.
As Simon fluently swung around the sabre for a second, Amber felt herself get a bit jealous.
Simon smirked as Amber picked up her own sabre.
Neither spoke, just stood still.
Amber, deciding to make the first strike, got her sword caught by Simon, who then parried and knocked her sword away. He stuck the cold metal to Amber's neck.
"Hm. Too tense." He mumbled, "To properly do this, one has to be loose…"
Amber sighed and picked up her sword.
"I'm loose as can be."
This time, Simon struck first. Amber dodged, attempted to counter, but missed and felt the same metal on her neck.
"I meant that mentally and literally. If your focus isn't on the sword, I'm practically unstoppable." He chuckled, spinning around his sabre.
"My focus IS on the sword." Amber grunted.
Amber attempted to strike while Simon wasn't prepared. But he dodged her thrust and kicked her sword out of her grasp.
"Heh. If you have to rely on cheating, you must have SOME sort of problem!" Simon teased.
"I'm. Fine. Peachy." Amber declared and picked up her sabre, "Let's go again."
"Why?" Simon questioned, "What are you gonna get out of beating me?"
Amber missed a swing.
"It's just training." She grouched.
"Oh really? Because I'm sure you're supposed to improve in training. Where's the improvement? Like I said, you have to clear your mind and body of issues. Even a crick in the neck gives you a disadvantage!" Simon said, through dodging swings.
"My mind couldn't be clearer!" Amber growled as she missed five more times.
"Then we should at least see SOME improvement… right?" Simon thrust his sword into Amber's torso.
Amber, now steamed, swung wildly.
Simon dodged every thrust, every swing, everything she threw at him(literally.)
"See!?" Simon snapped as he kicked Amber's sword out of her grasp. "You aren't relaxed. You're tense, you're mad, you aren't going to win. You have to let go of your issues, let go of the past. Because it'll only weigh you down."
Simon tossed Amber another sword.
"What do you expect me to do with this?! Lose ten more times?!"
Simon dropped his sword.
"Come on. I'm giving you a chance to win."
Amber thrust as precisely as she could. She missed.
Amber tossed the sword aside and began to attack hand-to-hand.
Simon repeatedly countered her punches as well. Finally, after a long tussle, Amber hit the floor.
"You're stiff. You're tense. You're overrun with stress, right?" Simon fussed.
"AND?!" Amber retorted, "I think you've rubbed that in enough!"
"Enough to make you approach the issue." Simon said, slyly. "You like to oppress issues and they bottle up into larger-scaled issues. Right?"
"How would you know that, even if I did?" Amber argued.
"Because I did that. And look at me. Don't I look calm? Yeah. Because I'm not thinking about those long-term issues that were in the past. It's over, it's done, you can't change that!" Simon argued back.
Amber grabbed another sabre and began to attack.
"Listen, I've been through it all! I'm FINE! I can weather this storm if I make it through without breaking, and YOU cracking down like that ain't helping!"
"You can't bottle it forever." Simon disputed, "It's gonna burst eventually. Like it did with Michael. And me. Right? You cut him because you KNEW he was gonna leave. But he left anyway, right?"
"Stop." Amber chided.
"Why are you running from it? Accept it! You can't change the past, you have to let it go!" Simon badgered, dodging many more furious strikes.
"I'm NOT RUNNING!" Amber exploded.
"Yes, YOU ARE!" Simon retaliated.
The sword hit the ground. Amber fell to her knees shortly after.
"I quit." She muttered, tears landing on the floor.. "I try to forget what I do, but it always comes back!"
"Yes, but if your past defines you, the next thing in life to hit you like a truck will be failure. You can't hold on any longer to the past." Simon crooned, "Let it go. Maybe you'll feel a little more loose after?"
Simon scooped up the sabres and put them where they belonged.
"Maybe you should stop rethinking your life for once. It's not like doing that will help your mental health. Think, Amber, think. You witnessed the creation of the MVPs. If you don't get over the stupid past, we're gonna witness the downfall."
An applause began.
3, L and Alph were in tears at the corner.
"Good show! Brillante!" L cried.
"Ten outta ten!" 3 blubbered.
"I can't even see what's happening anymore…" Alph sobbed.
"Well, if you can't do it alone… you have us." Simon comforted, before leaving.
The team left to get tissues.
Amber sat alone, in the cold training room.
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Did that resolve any of Amber's trauma?
...Marco's been using 0.02% of her power this whole time. And she's just gotten serious. Shit's got REAL now.
There are 5 chapters left of season 2... let's make it last.
HAPPY PRIDE MONTH. I accidentally broke up the lesbian couple on the first day of pride month. Shoot.
yes i ship them intensely. Also... what DID Alpha do?! I guess I'll... seeyouwhenwefindoutinthenextchapterbyebye