WARRIORS HIGH
ISLAND OF THE LOST
CHAPTER TWENTY
FORGIVENESS
"How's it going?" asked Foxleap over Jaywhisker's shoulder for the nineteenth time.
"Nothing from the last time you've asked three minutes ago," snapped Jaywhisker, who was obviously at his wit's end. Foxleap didn't care. This was too important.
"Well, hurry up," he snarled, going back to pacing around the Foxcave.
It had been about an hour since the group had questioned Crow. He didn't have much help for him, but they had enough to begin tracking one of ARS' hotspots from near Riven. Even though Rock and Jack was their main priority, Foxleap needed to know where they were. He needed to get revenge for his sister.
It was the only way to compensate for the fact that he had failed her.
"What can we do to knock 'em down without giving them a chance to get back up?" muttered Foxleap aloud, "If we just assume that they have military-grade weapons, we'll have to use something that they're not prepared for."
Foxleap's eyes darted to Jaywhisker's suit, an idea forming in his head.
"What if we were to equip some more firepower to this bad boy?" he said out loud as he stood the suit of against the wall, "Like a proximity grenade launcher? A sub-machine gun? Laser eyes?"
Foxleap rubbed his hands together maliciously, a confident smirk on his face.
"Oh, they're a bunch of dead bitches now."
He turned to Jaywhisker. "Can you pull up the schematics for the suit? I wanna make some modifica-"
SLAM!
Foxleap froze as Jaywhisker slammed both his fists on the table in aggravation.
"ENOUGH. ABOUT. ARS." he snapped, turning to face him, "You will not lay a selfish, grubby finger on my suit."
"Or what?" growled Foxleap, getting in his face, "You better have had a good fucking reason for forcing us to spare that bitch who impersonated my sister. I should throw you out on the street right now just for that."
"It's my suit!" he retorted, refusing to back down, "You think that just because your tiny adolescent billionaire brain allowed me to do my work down here means that you can lay your hands on anything you want? I do what I want, you whiny prick. Get that through that concrete skull of yours."
Oh, he was going to get it now.
"LISTEN HERE, YOU LITTLE SHIT!" roared Foxleap, "YOU THINK YOU HAVE THE FUCKING AUDACITY TO STAND IN MY WAY AFTER MY SISTER WAS KIDNAPPED, TORTURED AND RAPED TO HELL AND BACK?! YOU WANT ME TO ACCEPT THAT AND MOVE ON WITH MY LIFE?! YOU SAID YOU WERE A SOLDIER, YOU FUCKING COWARD! BUT NO! YOU JUST SCAMPER ON DOWN HERE AND PULL ALL-NIGHTERS EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK AND NOTHING ELSE! AND YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN STAND IN MY WAY FROM GETTING THE REVENGE ICECLOUD NEEDS?!"
"How do you know that?"
Jaywhisker didn't even flinch.
"As far as I know, since Icecloud returned, all you've done is spend the last two hours waterboarding Fir with Coalstrike and trying to assimilate ARS. You haven't once talked to your sister proper, have you?"
Foxleap was stunned into silence.
"That's what I thought," growled the boy, "It truly is a miracle that you're even friends with anyone."
Jaywhisker stormed into his bedroom and slammed the door behind him, leaving Foxleap to stand by himself, alone in his workshop.
Emotion pulsed through his body, making his hands shake and his face tense. Slowly, he moved to where Jaywhisker was sitting earlier, picked up the chair and sat at the computer. He opened the security footage to the hours before the raid on the Court and watched for the fifteenth time, trying to find the location from where the ARS agents the cameras caught came from.
"I CAN DO THAT, FOXLEAP."
Foxleap glanced up at Midnight, standing next to him.
"IT SEEMS YOU NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE, AFTER ALL."
Reluctantly, the redhead nodded, giving up his seat and taking the elevator up to the main floor. It was just past midnight. Berrynose was playing Half-Life 2, Lionblaze was having a beer with Ivypool, bandages draped around the brute's back, and Poppyfrost was on the phone, in the middle of an urgent conversation with someone at the Court. Her eyes were wide and red, as if she had been or was about to cry.
Foxleap took the stairs to the third floor and knocked on Icecloud's door.
"Come in."
He opened the door. Icecloud was sitting in a ball on the head of her bed, wearing underwear and a shirt two sizes too big. Next to her was Jack, who was shirtless and wearing a pair of black sweats. They looked to have been talking.
"Am I...interrupting something?"
"No," said Icecloud quietly. She glanced briefly to Jack, who nodded and left the room.
Foxleap took a chair from the desk and pulled it to the side of the bed, taking a seat next to Icecloud.
The two sat in silence for a couple of moments before Icecloud looked over to her brother.
"You're tearing up," she observed.
Foxleap broke, pulling Icecloud into a tight hug and sobbing into her shoulder. Icecloud flinched, but accepted the hug after a fex moments.
"I-I'm s-s-sorry…" murmured Foxleap shakily, "I h-have all t-this money, but I-I couldn't s-save you…"
Icecloud said nothing, allowing for her brother to cry his heart out before pulling away, sitting back on the bed as Foxleap got a tissue and blew his nose.
"From what I hear," she said quietly, her face eerily emotionless, "This imposter...Fir, right?...looked just like me. She faked an illness and...somehow got by you for...I don't even know how long."
"I should have known…" muttered the redhead, "I should have noticed how different your voice was…"
"You all should have…" she said, "But from what I hear...despite everything that happened, you took care of the fake Icecloud like she was actually me."
Foxleap nodded.
"From what Ivypool told me," she said, a soft smirk on the edge of her lips, "You refused a blood sample because you knew that I was afraid of needles."
"Well," said the boy, returning the smirk, "I didn't want to end up like the dentist from ten years ago."
The two of them chuckled quietly at that before Icecloud turned to look her brother in the eye.
"Don't blame yourself," she said, "Based on everything that I heard, you're not to blame. Hell, I don't think it would be fair to blame anyone in this house."
Foxleap nodded.
"You feeling alright?" he said, standing up.
Icecloud's face soured.
"No."
"What's wrong?" he said, sitting back down.
Icecloud bit her lip in silence for a few seconds.
"I'm pregnant."
It shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone, but Foxleap's eyes widened in shock, a gasp getting through his lips.
"Uh…Jack is gonna take me to get tested for STDs," continued Icecloud, "And also try to get me a consultant. A therapist or something. That's what we were talking about before you came in."
"Are you gonna keep it?"
Icecloud flinched at the question. She had clearly been expecting it, but she obviously wasn't ready to give an answer.
"I don't know," she said after a few moments, "I know everyone will say that it's my decision, but I...both decisions are bad, whatever I choose. If I keep it, I'm worried that all I'll see is the horror that I went through unwillingly. The fact that it's a rape child might get in the way of me loving them. But if I don't…"
She rested her chin on her kneecaps, her eyes glittering with uncertainty. "I have to drag around the fact that I killed an innocent baby for the rest of my life."
Foxleap nodded, reaching forward and grabbing her hand, She squeezed it with an iron fist.
"What do you think I should do?" she said quietly.
"Don't ask me," he said immediately, "It's not my decision to make. It's yours and Jack's."
"But the baby isn't Jack's…"
"And I have the complete faith that he will support you no matter what you do. If you do choose to keep it, I personally think that he would father them like he would if the baby was his."
Icecloud nodded as Jack entered the room, holding two mugs of hot cocoa in both hands. Foxleap took that as his cue to leave, heading to the door before stopping midway through.
"Jack."
The CIA agent looked up after setting Icecloud's mug down on her nightstand.
Foxleap smiled.
"Thank you for taking care of her."
Crow wasn't sure how long he had been in the dark.
Probably a long time.
It had been at least a couple of hours since someone was last in here with them. After Ashtooth and Mallowleaf, the leaders of the resistance members, left, Foxleap and Coalstrike came back. After knocking him around a couple times for shits and giggles, they draped a washcloth over Fir's face and waterboarded her for almost a full hour, extorting as much information as they possibly could, even on topics beyond the point of Fir's knowledge.
Crow had been screaming, pleading till he was hoarse as he watched his lover get tortured before his very eyes. After they left, Crow was sobbing while Fir coughed up water for almost ten minutes.
But after then, they were in pitch black. Crow may have fallen asleep, he may have been awake, but being trapped in the dark was slowly becoming a surreal experience.
It was like it was fading out of existence itself. A being so insignificant and useless that in this ensconcing black, he could just disappear and no one would care.
His existential crisis came to an abrupt halt when he heard a small beeping from a watch.
"Happy anniversary," said Fir quietly.
"Anniversary?" rasped Crow.
"Today is the anniversary of when we met for the first time."
"Wow."
"Time flies, huh?"
"If only."
"..."
"..."
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"I tried to protect you. I tried everything I could, but I couldn't save the woman I love. I failed you."
"You're not alone."
"What does that mean?"
"I should have come to you. I should have helped. I should have reached out to you during the raid and give you information. I had the knowledge and I had the power to stop this from happening, but…"
If Crow wasn't strapped to a chair, he would have got up and kissed her.
"You didn't fail me."
"I can say the same thing. So...I guess we failed each other then."
"At least we're even."
She chuckled.
Silence.
Crow may have passed out, he may have fallen asleep, but the next thing he heard was the whir of an elevator.
The door opened, filling the room with bright, white light. Crow flinched and shut his eyes, slowly squinting to adjust to the light.
Standing in the elevator was a masked figure with strips of light blue lights covering his arms and an insignia of a bluejay on his chest.
Crow fully expected for him to get killed by that thing as he stepped forward and turned on the lights.
"Alright," started Jaywhisker, "Which one of you is more comfortable being stuffed into a trash bag for ninety seconds?"
Crow and Fir shared a strange glance as Jaywhisker disengaged and got out of the suit, pulled out a box cutter from his pocket and began to cut the zipties binding the agents to their chairs.
"Wait…" said Fir, staggering to her feet as the boy started to free Crow, "You're not going to torture us?"
"I'm getting you out of here," he said, cutting the last ziptie and helping Crow to his feet. Immediately he ran forward and hugged Fir, the two sharing a long kiss as Jaywhisker grabbed a trash bag from the corner.
"Alright. Fir, right?" said the boy, "I'm gonna help you get in the suit. It's not a perfect fit, but it'll do. All you need to do is just follow me."
"Okay…" said Fir, watching the intimidating suit with unease before approaching it.
"You alright holding your breath?" said Jaywhisker to Crow, who nodded without hesitation.
The two boys worked together to ease Fir into her suit, which took about three minutes.
"Alright," said Jaywhisker, "I'm closing the suit. You'll be in the dark for a few seconds, but the vision should calibrate soon after."
"Okay," said Fir.
Jaywhisker pressed his thumb against his opposite wrist and the suit slowly began to close, until Fir was completely covered in the power suit.
"You'll need this," said Jaywhisker immediately after, shuffling in his back pocket and pulling out a box.
It was the engagement ring.
Crow hesitated, looking to Jay, who just smirked.
"I thought you might want it back."
Crow smiled, excitement flushing his eyes before grabbing the box, stuffing it into his pocket and getting into the trash bag.
"You guys ready?" said Jaywhisker after Crow was set.
Fir gave a thumbs up and Crow shook the bag in response.
"Alright," said Jaywhisker, handing the garbage bag to Fir and leading them to the elevator.
The three of them rode to the main floor, where Jaywhisker led Fir towards the front door.
"Whatcha doing?" said Jayfeather from the kitchen counter.
"Well, since we're not fighting right now," he called, the lie obviously well-rehearsed, "Might as well make the suit useful."
Fir was worried that he may pursue further, but the telepathic just shrugged. "Alright, just make sure it doesn't violate the Laws of Robotics."
"Those are fictional rules that don't work!" called back the boy as he opened the door, leading Crow and Fir out.
Jaywhisker unlocked the back of the black van in the parking lot, got both escapees out of their hiding places and stuffed the suit in the back.
"Can you drive?" said Jaywhisker to Crow, holding out the keys.
Crow smirked.
"Aye aye."
And so the three of them took the van and drove away towards a cliff with a beautiful view.
"So basically he's just an idiot child who was ordered to try and track you down?" said Coalstrike, finishing the can of Miller Lite.
Dusty nodded. "Well, he's far from an idiot. He actually took many pains to show me that he's competent, but that's essentially what he was trying to do."
Ashtooth nodded. "Go get Fang. I think we can work with him on the information he wants."
Dusty got up and left his room, and hurried to the backyard, only stopping when he saw that Fing was still yelling at Sunfield, even though they had been arguing for almost an hour.
Sunfield clearly didn't care that he was getting screamed at, a witty smirk plastered onto his face.
"Admit it," he said with a smirk, "You were worried about me."
"YOU ARE A CHILD WHO RAN HEADFIRST INTO BATTLE WITHOUT A WEAPON TO DEFEND YOURSELF! WHO THE HELL WOULDN'T BE WORRIED ABOUT YOU?!"
"I'm just saying," said Sunfield, grinning as he threw his arms in the air, "You can go on about how much of an idiot I am, but deep down in your black, tiny little heart, I know that you care about me."
"Consider yourself lucky," he snarled, getting in his face, "After what happened to your father."
In a rare turn of events, Sunfield's characteristic smile dropped immediately, but Dusty coughed to announce his presence before any escalation could occur.
"Oh," growled Fang, facing the boy, "What do you want?"
"Ashtooth and Coalstrike would like to speak with you."
Fang straightened up, the red in his face dwindling as he walked back into the house.
"You good?" said Dusty, walking over to Sunfield.
The boy smiled at him, erasing all signs that he had broken character. "Yeah! Why wouldn't I be after we kicked all that ass back there?"
Dusty smirked. "Yeah, that was pretty awesome."
"So when are you gonna start teaching me?"
Dusty raised an eyebrow. "Teach you what?"
"How to be a soldier!" said Sunfield, now full of life and excitement. "You know, how to kick ass on the battlefield and all that smart tactics and stuff!"
Dusty clearly wasn't ready to do any teaching, but for some reason, looking at Sunfield's pure joy to even be in his presence denied him even the thought of turning him down.
"Alright," said Dusty.
"YES!" said Sunfield, "So what's step one?"
Dusty patted the boy's stomach. "Start going to the gym. You don't win battles with baby fat."
"HEY!" retorted Sunfield playfully as the two of them headed back into the house, "I'll have you know that I have a budding 8-pack of abs here!"
"Yeah, alright, Chris Pratt."
Man, this was fun to write. I rarely say that about my own chapters, but this chapter was just...a lot of fun for some reason.
Icecloud getting pregnant is...probably gonna be my toughest arc, mostly because I don't have a clear plan for it. Jay can do whatever he wants if he does. At least then I won't be left with a momentous morality-impacting decision.
I also apologize in advance if I started a pro-life/pro-choice firestorm in the review section. That is a byproduct I only thought of when I wrote the previous sentence.
Jaywhisker is a BLAST to write. That probably won't be the last time I say that, but he is very quickly becoming the character I'm most interested in.
And Dusty and Sunfield and buds now. How that develops, I'm not sure yet. I will get the phone call from last chapter covered next, though.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Because for once, I sure did.
Best,
~Res