Title (tentative): Lance
Genre: General/Humor
Rating: T
Warnings: Language, mild sexual themes
Matt and Natalie both looked up and around in surprise at the over-loud and haughty voice suddenly booming across the bar.
"I seek the ones named Matt and Natalie! I have been informed that they can be located in this establishment!"
The speaker was a fairly tall, well-dressed woman with long, deep red hair pulled back in a tight braid, amber eyes, and pale skin. She wore a long coat of black with red trim over a tight-fitted red shirt with a low cut, and a pair of long, leather pants. Her boots were of fine leather and stretched all the way to her knees. A pistol was slung at her waist beside a heavy fighting knife with her hand hovering near them as she scanned the murmuring crowd.
"Do we duck our heads and ignore the crazy lady?" Matt muttered sarcastically to Natalie.
"It's a nice thought, but it wouldn't work. People know us by face and name here," Natalie snorted in reply. She waved a hand and raised her voice as she called, "We're back here."
The woman's eyes shot to land on them, and she strode across the bar, parting the crowd in her wake, which had fallen silent in tense curiosity. Matt waved easily at the chair across from him, inviting the stranger to sit, though also casually placing his arm right next to where Heaven's Gate rested against his chair. The woman's lip curled ever so slightly at his offer, and she remained standing.
"What can we do for you, stranger?" Matt asked in a level voice.
"I have been told from reliable sources that you have had frequent and extended contact with Lancelot. You will tell me where to find him at once."
Matt's eyebrows flew up at the name, and he exchanged a baffled look with Natalie. "Er, I'm pretty sure we don't know anyone by the name of Lancelot."
"Do not attempt to play coy, peasant. My sources are of the highest caliber. I know you know him."
"Intel can always be wrong and at the least likely and most inconvenient of times," Natalie replied diplomatically, though her expression cooled at the calling of Matt a peasant. "Regardless, we don't know anyone named Lancelot. What's your name? We can do some asking around for the guy for you."
"My name is of no concern to a low-born milkmaid such as yourself," the woman sniffed.
"Then I guess you should quit wasting your time with us before we decide you and your rotten manners are worth our time to... correct," Matt coldly shot back, leaning forwards in a threatening manner and gripping the hilt of his sword. "We don't know any Lancelot, and we don't have any interest in being insulted. If you're intel is so good, then I'm sure you can guess why it would be very smart of you to start backtracking and apologizing for calling Natz a milkmaid right now."
"Easy, Matt, I don't want to cause any trouble for Robert's bar," Natalie soothed, though she shot an irritated look at the aggravating woman glowering at them. "Look, what does this Lancelot look like? Maybe we've seen him somewhere."
"He is tall, just shy of six feet in height, fair-skinned, auburn haired, with crimson eyes," the woman petulantly replied after several moments of silence where Natalie simply stared blandly at her and Matt scowled.
The pair's expression melted from non-recognition into confusion and then comprehension at the description.
"You mean Lance?" Matt asked in confusion. "What, did he take you out for a good time then ditch you?"
"Matt, just because Lance is a moral degenerate with women doesn't mean you should follow his example," Natalie hissed with a swift smack against his arm, reluctantly understanding the way the stranger's hand settled to grip her knife. She dipped her head apologetically to the woman. "Sorry about that. I've never heard him call himself or be called Lancelot, but we have a friend and fighting partner named Lance who matches your description. He's a bit reclusive, and can be hard to find. What did you need from him? We'll pass the message on next time we see him."
"So he is here after all," the woman murmured to herself, no longer really listening to Natalie. "At long last, I have found you, Lancelot."
"What are you looking for him for?" Matt asked in a level tone that belied his sudden, wary concern.
The woman ignored his question and demanded, "Where is he? I demand to speak with him at once!"
"We're not telling you anything about him or where he's at until you tell us what you want from him. If you can't, or won't, tell us that, then we have nothing more to say to you," Matt stated with finality. He slid his chair back and stood up. "C'mon, Natz, let's go."
Natalie silently stood and followed Matt as he wound past the tables and watching patrons, though she glanced back at the woman just before stepping outside. The sight of amber eyes directly behind her nearly caused her to jump, having never heard the woman move, even on the creaky wood floors in the silence of the bar.
"Matt," she warned softly.
"I know."
They tolerated their unwanted follower all the way to the edge of the town before Matt spun around with Heaven's Gate drawn.
"We gave you our answer, now leave us alone," he growled.
"Not until you tell me where Lancelot can be found."
"Look, even if we knew where he's holing himself up right now, we wouldn't tell you. You won't tell us why you want Lance, you insult us unprovoked, and you stalk us out of town with a weapon ready to be drawn. All of that makes you suspicious at best, and a threat to us at worst. "
The woman's nostril flared ever so slightly—the only outward sign of her aggravation. Then, surprisingly, she turned to go.
"So you do not know where he can be found. As useless as I expected a pair of commoners to be."
And without a farewell, the woman left. Matt stood straight and sheathed his sword with a dark scowl after her.
"What the hell was all that about?"
Natalie shook her head. "I have no idea, but we should probably tell Lance that there's a cranky bitch looking for him."
One corner of Matt's mouth curled upwards in amusement. "Haven't heard you call anyone a bitch in a while."
"She called me a milkmaid and you a peasant! And never mind her holier than thou attitude," Natalie huffed with her arms crossed. "I hate people like her."
Matt chuckled and turned to head for Lance's place. They'd lied when they'd told the woman about not knowing where to find Lance. The gunner typically stayed in his weapon's facility when not traveling with the team. Granted that he was out and roaming about as often as he was in, he was still actually pretty easy to find, if one knew where to look. Getting face-to-face with him was slightly more challenging.
With nothing better to do with his time, and an anti-socialism that Natalie had fondly labeled as borderline-paranoid, Lance was constantly upgrading and manufacturing new automated weapons. The production was on a much smaller scale after he'd joined the team—only one or two new models a year—but he left them active and patrolling his home to ward away monsters, solicitors, and people wanting problems solved. His reasoning, when his friends complained about getting shot at every time they came to visit, was that anyone incapable of getting past the defenses wasn't likely anyone he cared to talk to; his only concession had been to adjust the weapons' AIs to disable, not kill. It would be a pain, he'd admitted, to have to find new teammates—to which Anna had promptly joked that they should all come in for a hug, as that admission was practically an 'I love you guys' when coming from Lance.
The pair took a roundabout route across a rocky plain to Lance's factory, just in case the woman was tailing them, which took nearly a week. Dismantling Lance's sentries was a simple affair, and they entered the factory to be greeted by the now-familiar sounds of active machinery and strange beeps and whirs from monitors. Absent, however, was the typical rock music Lance listened to when working on projects.
"Huh, must not be in," Matt commented as they poked their heads through various work, store, and bedrooms. "That complicates things a bit."
"He may have gone to see Anna," Natalie suggested as they headed back for the entrance, passing new robots being automatically built on the assembly line to replace the ones they'd destroyed. "He likes going to harass her whenever we split."
"Kinda wonder why she puts up with it," Matt agreed through a laugh.
"I kind of wonder why we put up with it."
"Because he's a funny, strong, intelligent, and loyal friend," Matt replied instantly. He grinned back at Natalie and added with laughter in his voice, "He probably wonders why he puts up with us, too, though."
Natalie grinned back and trotted to walk beside Matt. "True. I'm sure he still doesn't get why we don't just set random things on fire, or detonate them. And never mind why we keep stopping him from hounding every pretty girl we meet."
They both laughed as they set their sights on a distant hill where they would stop for the night one their way to Greenwood. Four days later saw them talking to Anna while she was stretching furs and leather for use before storage.
"Lance? You just missed him," Anna told them with an exasperated roll of her eyes. "He was here for a few days, making an ass of himself as usual, and left early this morning. Granted, he helped with the fields, too, but I swear it was just so he could stare at me."
"Wait, Lance actually helped with the planting?" Natalie asked in disbelief. "He hates digging in the dirt."
Anna's wry smile softened some as she shrugged. "He said it would be a waste if I melted under the sun, and that it would go faster with two people working." She snorted quietly before adding in a dry voice, "And then he spent almost the entire time commenting on my rear every time I bent down. Ah, well, at least he helped. What did you need him for, anyway?"
Matt and Natalie's amused smiles melted back into seriousness at that question.
"A woman came looking for us at a bar," Natalie explained and made a face. "She held herself and spoke like a stuck-up royalty, demanding to know if we knew, and where to find, a guy named 'Lancelot'. By her description, he sounded a lot like Lance."
Anna arched a thoughtful brow as she tied the last folded leather into a bundle with the rest with a length of twine. "Well, Lance would be a logical shortening of Lancelot. What did she want him for?"
"No idea. She wouldn't tell us, but she muttered something about finding him at long last, and she didn't sound all that friendly," Matt answered. "We wanted to give him the heads up and ask if he knew what it was all about. So, of course, we just missed him at his place and here."
Anna hummed as she straightened up with the leather slung over her shoulder. "Let me put this away and grab my gear, and I'll come with. We're just about done with planting, anyway."
And so, fifteen minutes later, Anna was calling goodbyes as she followed Natalie and Matt out of the village. While they walked, they talked about the strange woman, and what she could possibly want with Lance. By their description of her, Anna mused aloud that maybe she was a relative, what with having similar hair color and skin tone; Natalie snorted that they even acted and dressed sort of alike.
Shredding Lance's robots for the second time in two weeks was simple—especially with all three of them fighting—and they entered the factory to hear music echoing down the hall over the sounds of machinery. They followed the sound to a back hanger where Lance was using some kind of sparking device on a pile of wires and computer chips while wearing some sort of protective mask. He was dressed far more casually than normal, in just a white tank top and gray sweats, both stained with grease, as his hands and arms were.
"Do you guys always have to destroy my robots every time you visit?" he asked irritably when they approached and without looking up, though he did reach over to hit a button that silenced his music. "They don't just appear out of thin air, you know. The materials that go into making them are expensive."
"Well maybe you should program them not to attack us," Natalie shot back with a huff.
Lance actually paused at that and tilted his head thoughtfully as he set his tools aside and pushed his mask up. "You know, I've never thought of programming some kind of recognition technology into my robots. Not a bad plan." He smirked when both Anna and Natalie rolled their eyes with long sighs. "So, what brings all three of you all the way out here? We got a new monster or ruin to tackle?"
His eyes gleamed with eager hope only to dim with disappointment when Matt shook his head.
"Actually, we're here to talk to you."
"Look, if this is because of the fiasco with the plow, I swear that, for once, I didn't mean to break it."
"What? No. Why would we come out here to complain about a plow?" Matt said in confusion before abruptly shaking his head as he started getting distracted. "There's a woman looking for you. She's tall, has long red hair and pale brown eyes, almost golden. She called you Lancelot."
Lance's face went blank before he calmly turned around and headed for a computer set against the far wall where he began rapidly typing into it and plugging various cables in to connect it to some sort of small box on the desk. The other three watched in exasperated patience, used to him suddenly having a random idea that he needed to get down. What they weren't used to was when he finished and promptly melted the computer with a blast of fire.
"Er, something wrong?" Natalie tried as she watched Lance pace over to a supply closet to begin tossing things into his adventure pouch ranging from weapons and tools, to bottles and spare clothes.
"Plenty of things. You guys should leave." Lance calmly replied as he walked over to a red button labeled with a bright yellow-and-black striped WARNING sign.
He calmly flipped the glass covering of the button back, ignoring the alarm it sent off, and pressed it. Immediately, sirens began wailing and lights began flashing, and the other three jumped as they gaped at Lance, who began walking out the door with a harried gesture to move. A pleasant female voice came on over a loudspeaker.
"Warning, emergency self-destruct sequence engaged. This compound will explode in five minutes. Side effects of explosion may include, but are not limited to: pain, mutilation, first-degree burns, vaporization, and even death. Please be sure to vacate the facility in an orderly manner to a distance of at least five hundred yards to avoid such complications. Warning, this compound will explode in four minutes..."
"Lance, what the hell?!" Natalie yelped over the noise as she and the others darted after him down the halls. "Are you trying to kill us?!"
"Contrary to past and popular opinions, you guys dying would be rather inconvenient," Lance dryly replied as he picked up his pace at the three minute mark. "Not that I think a building falling on your heads in an awesome and fiery display would stop you."
They had made it outside and a fair distance away before a shockwave went through the air and Natalie flung up a barrier. The cement and metal building behind them detonated with an enormous, concussive blast that set their ears ringing. Matt squinted back at the display and let out an unheard, but impressed whistle. Red and yellow flames burst out of the high windows before blasting the walls outwards and changing colors as different materials inside caught fire. Plumes of black smoke were already billowing up into the air, and subsequent blasts from stored explosives rocked the ground. Bits of debris hurtled through the air and turned to ash as they struck Natalie's barrier.
Anna punched Lance on the arm. "Maybe give us a little warning next time you decide to kamikaze your house?" she snarled. Her ears were still ringing from the explosion, and her eyes watering from the bright flames licking at the sky.
"Kamikaze would imply that I died to do it," Lance shot back in an offended sniff as he rubbed the forming bruise on his arm.
"Was that really necessary?" Matt wondered aloud. "I mean don't get me wrong, it was an awesome blast, but it's going to take a long time to rebuild all that stuff."
"And you still haven't said why you decided to blow your factory to kingdom come... with us still inside," Natalie muttered reproachfully.
Lance ran a hand through his bangs with a long sigh, causing it to stand up in a strange way, and leaving a smudge of grease in his forehead. "Yeah, building a new factory is going to be a pain; an expensive one, too. But I've got the really important parts out of it already: my designs, plans, journals, irreplaceable tools, hard to come by chemicals, weapons, armor, my toothbrush..."
"Glad to know personal hygiene ranks up there with the boom bringers," Anna sarcastically interrupted. "Now about the whole blowing your house up..."
Lance's mouth pressed into a thin line. "Valerie found me, which means I need to move. Far away. Like, the moon would be good."
"Is Valarie the woman's name?" Matt asked with a tilted head, already turning to walk away from the raging inferno of Lance's factory. "How do you know her?"
"She's my fiancé," Lance replied blandly with a distasteful expression. "She's a little... clingy."
The other three froze at that, gaping at the gunner, who kept walking for a few paces before realizing they weren't keeping up and turning to look back at them impatiently.
"You have a fiancé?" Anna echoed in disbelief. "You're only, what, nineteen?"
"Twenty-one, actually," Lance corrected testily. "Now if we could please move? I don't want to see her, which means I need to get transport off this continent; preferably before she finds me and drags me back home where my parents can chew me out."
A/N: It's been awhile, huh? I've been busy with summer classes (not so recently), and a LOT of work (very recently). The work has been making me tired, so I haven't been writing as much as normal, and nothing on any of my chapter stories. :(
Still, I've been doing some writing, and this is my most recent thing. :P I just had the idea to write about Lance as a runaway noble at about three in the morning one day, when I really needed to be sleeping for work the next day, and I just had to write it down. XD It's a lot lighter and funnier than some of my other works, but probably mostly because of the focus on Lance, whom I love writing for. It is still very much a work in progress, barely started, but one I'm really enjoying writing, so far, and am eager to share with you guys. :3 I have a lot of ideas for this one, so it'll probably get updated at some point. (I haven't been this excited for something of mine in awhile!) Having said that, this was very much a rough writing, so there are almost certainly errors in both continuity and grammar, and parts may change in the future. Please let me know what you see wrong, and I'll try to address it quickly-ish.
Also, just to avoid comments on canonical references/changes, I know Lancelot and Lance are different characters who just happen to share similarities with each other while Lance was in the design process. But Lancelot makes such a good noble name that I just had to do it. :P
Now, as a last note, I'm really not sure how to handle additions to things I post here. I don't particularly want to add new chapters for new additions due to breaks in writing interests that will separate chapters/additions, but I don't think any of you will get updates on the writing if I just update the existing documents. Furthermore, I don't want to start ANOTHER serious chapter fic when my other ones are being so sorely neglected. What are you guys' thoughts in this? Would it be alright to simply update the documents and let you guys find it on your own, though with a heads-up on my author's page, or would you rather I add new additions to works in here as new chapters in the collection?
Anyway, leave me some reviews, and I'll be back later!
Replies to Guest reviewers:
Jason: Eh, heh, you've found me out. I adore making my characters suffer. (TwT") I don't actually like killing them off, though—and certainly not leaving them dead. The first chapter in this collection was very unusual for me in that sense. And I do really love writing dystopian futures. And fantasy. And magic. And suffering. I just like writing. XD
Anonymous: While I have read the first novel of The Hunger Games, and Underground does share a few similarities with the series, I wasn't actually drawing on them for inspiration—or at least, not consciously. I'll take that it reminded you of THe Hunger Games as a compliment. ^^ And, yes, I have read the Giver. It was my all-time favorite required reading, and one of the very few I actually look back on fondly. :3 Sadly, I can make no promises for the characters' innocences. I am a horrible person to them, after all. :D
Guest: Er, I guess anything with sex in it is a porn of some kind to me. And there was more than one explicit scene in it, so... I'm a little embarrassed you've been reading my horrible things over on Ao3, though. (*~*) ...I'm even more embarrassed to admit that those things are incredibly tame compared to some of the stuff I've written that will never see the dark light of the web. :S
I wouldn't say I hate my own writing, for the most part, but I certainly am still so embarrassed by it at times that it makes realizing it's actually pretty good hard to admit, and even harder to acknowledge—which would be my inferiority complex "helping" me. :/ I would continue that fic, but I frankly am not quite sure where it's heading. To the surface, certainly, but that seems like a kind of lame goal in the sense of a foe to overcome, or something. I didn't develop the plot in my head so nearly as completely as I did the world, which makes for a difficult story to write. Maybe someday, though, because it is interesting.
Many of these stories I have continued, or plan to, but not so much that they seemed worth updating—typically only a couple hundred words here and there as writing them struck my fancy. Plus, we're back to the issue of how to get updates up in an organized manner that you all will be aware of. :P