#I was struck with the image of him just placidly falling like ''Huh''

[sysig]

Fall guy or smth idk I don’t go here (Patreon)

[iknikblackstonevarrick]

Red Lightning (Part 3)

(Part 1) (Part 2)

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Lucretia looked through the bars at her friend with grim contemplation.

She had disarmed Lup and moved her from the floor to the thin mattress provided inside her cell, and was now simply waiting for her to wake up, and considering what she would do when she did.

Giving her a similar position to Davenport was out of the question. Redacted or not, the boys would notice the woman’s striking similarity to Taako. She could find something for her in the bowels of the facility, out of sight of the Reclaimers, but even then, the risk-

“Hey?”

Lucretia jumped and struck her staff on the ground in surprise. Lup had risen to her elbows while still prone on the bed, and was looking at Lucretia with decreasing grogginess.

“Are you- in charge here?” she asked, swinging her legs over the side of the bed, “Cause whatever I did to get in here- okay, I was /definitely/ framed, first of all, and also like super drunk. Like I don’t even remember anything that happened…” she looked to the side, “Basically ever, right now? I must have partied /real/ hard last night but anyways, the point is I’m innocent and also I don’t think you can legally keep me here without telling me what I’m in for.”

Lup was about a foot in front of the bars now, holding her hands out in front of her where she’d been gesturing. Lucretia stared at her.

“You can talk,” she got out flatly.

Lup blinked at her, then snorted. “I- Yeah??” She looked around herself. “Why- Was I that out of it whenever- whatever happened?”

Lucretia stood there, marveling at how she could have taken so much from their Captain unintentionally whilst not inflicting the same on her friend when she intentionally tried to erase her existence. It was a relief, obviously- she hadn’t wanted to reduce Lup to the sound of her own name, but she had expected it, accepted it as a necessity, and planned around it. Now-

She checked the lock on her cell to make sure she hadn’t left it open in her indecision. There would be no moving her from this spot now that she still had her wits about her. As much as it pained Lucretia, she could not allow her friend to roam free if there was any possibility she might resume interfering with her mission.

“What’s happening?” she asked, looking worriedly at Lucretia’s hand as she secured the padlock and then tapped her staff to the ground, reinforcing the magical barriers around the cell as well. “You- you have to tell me what you think I did.”

Lucretia looked levelly into her eyes. “You have done something- horrible. Unspeakable. Even if you… didn’t mean for it to be. What’s done is still done. And you will remain here until- Until I decide those crimes have been repented for.”

Lup opened her mouth to argue. Then, before she could, Lucretia saw some unknown thought enter her eyes, and then some of the light dimmed from them.

She waited, watching the grim, zoned-out look on her friend’s face for only a moment longer before she turned on heel and exited into the elevator.

*

“Taako?”

Lup blinked, turning to the source of the voice- a halfling man, poking his small head through the bars of the cell next to hers to get a look.

“Nope,” she said flatly.

“Oh, sorry,” the halfling said. “I could have sworn he has that skirt.” He tilted his head. “And that face?”

She sighed. “It’s Lup,” she introduced herself curtly, hoping it would change the subject. She didn’t know who this ‘Taako’ person was, but getting mistaken for a man was one of the few things that could make today worse.

“Oooohh, sorry sorry sorry, cool cool cool,” the halfling man said, nodding. “My name’s Robbie, but my old roommates called me Pringles.”

“Why?” she asked.

Pringles tugged on his shirt collar. “I have a deficiency.”

Lup pursed her lips and let her head fall back onto the stiff pillow. She didn’t know how long she’d been in the pokey, but it couldn’t have been too long, because everything in the room seemed brand new and unused.

“So what’re you in for, Pringles?” she asked.

“Uuh,” he drawled, “Espionage, I guess? Except I didn’t do it, like, intentionally. Maybe an accessory to espionage? A vessel?”

“Huh,” she said. “So you like, accidentally let in a spy?”

“I… guess it was something like that,” he said. “I don’t actually remember most of it. What about you?”

Lup stared at the gray-blue ceiling of her cell.

“I think I killed someone,” she said, still not looking at her cellmate.

“Oh,” Pringles answered, sounding unimpressed. “Well, that’s kinda like, the adventuring MO. Not your fault you ran amok of someone with arrest powers.”

She didn’t even catch his comment about the moon. She continued staring hard at the silvery blue of her cell.

“I think I killed someone I loved.”

Pringles blinked a few times. Then most of his face was no longer visible, it seemed like he’d changed the stance he was standing at.

“Oh,” was all he said. It was a long few moments before she heard him pad quietly over to the bed of his cell and hop on with a creak.

*

Lup had the same dream every night.

No matter what she did, how she ate, when she slept, however many of her limited options she explored, it was always the same. If she tried trancing, the memory would still play through her head relentlessly, almost more real than if she just went to sleep. If it weren’t for the companionship of her odd but chill jail-mate, she might think she was living the same day over again.

She knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was a memory. The only memory she had of anywhere outside this cell. Anywhere /outside/ at all. She wouldn’t know what the sky looked like, blinding blue with puffy white clouds and streaming golden light, without this memory.

She doesn't know why, but she’d expected it to look different.

*

You were in the sky. The clouds around you were close enough to touch, and the green below you was so, so distant. You could only see it over the silver rails of this- ship. You were on a ship, a boat, by the looks of it. Why was it in the sky?

Every time, before you had the chance to wonder this any further, you locked eyes with the figure sitting on the railing. No, you realized. He wasn’t sitting. He was bent over it at an odd angle, half of him dangling off the edge like he’d just been blown to that point by force.

He was wearing glasses. They were cracked.

You had no idea who this man was, but when you felt his gaze, saw his weathered human face, looked over his faded old blue jeans, you felt like you were home. You felt safe, and loved, and warm.

That warmth boiled over into the heat of panic when you noticed the blood pouring from this man’s stomach. Suddenly it felt like the world was burning around you, and you wanted to go to him, but you couldn’t. Your body felt frozen, your mind felt like it was full of cotton. No. Of static.

You met the man’s gaze again because that’s all you could do. You felt your knees going weak.

The man smiled at you with love and sorrow and-

He fell. He fell all the way over the railing, and you felt yourself moving, felt something warm and wet on your cheek-

And you wake up, gasping, and touch the tears streaming down your face. Every morning. You call it morning because you do not go back to sleep after this, but the fantasy fluorescent lights of your cell have not yet come up.

Every morning, without reprieve, as you lower your hand from your tear-streaked face, you see the smallest strokes of red lightning glowing between your fingers in the darkness.

***

“Where is she?”

Barry Bluejeans looked down at his three best friends in their red nullsuits. He had come here to warn them- to use the cosmoscope this kid had created, to try to explain with visuals instead of words and see if that could get through to them.

But there were only three of them. For whatever reason, Lup hadn’t come along on this mission. At first, he’d assumed she was a part of the party they said they’d been separated from, but now they were reunited, and still no Lup.

He probably should have waited to ask. There was probably a fine explanation- maybe Lucretia had wanted to keep a reclaimer in reserve for if this place went up in crystal? Sure, that made enough sense. He almost moved on to another question, but his nonexistent stomach dropped when he got his answer.

“Who?”

“Taako-” he’d be furrowing his brow if he could. It was immediately apparent to him that this wasn’t a goof. He knew Taako well enough for that.

“Taako, your-” dread was welling up in him. “Your sister. Your sister, Lup, Taako, where is she?”

“Oof,” Taako tilted his head. “Don’t got one of those, buddy. You must have the wrong T-a-a-ko.”

“No,” he said. He floated closer, and Taako raised-

The umbrella. He had Lup’s Umbrastaff with him.

“You have to know,” he said, and he could feel necrotic energy arcing off of him like electricity. “You have to know where- you have to know who she is. She only erases people when they’re-”

And suddenly, his energy calmed. He floated placidly in front of Taako, wide-eyed and weapon drawn.

He felt relieved. And then guilty for it. If Lucretia had erased her, that meant she was dead. But that also meant she was out here somewhere as a lich. Memories intact. Finally.

He melted away from the crystal laboratory and resumed time as he reappeared in his cave. He pulled out a drawer to his desk and filled up an old scrying bowl he used to use to keep tabs on everyone when he didn’t feel safe enough to go outside.

When the image in the bowl came into view, there was no phantasmal, resplendent figure of light and magic. Instead, there was a living mortal figure lying on a bed, sleeping restlessly, what he recognized as energy from her lich form arcing out through her hands in response to whatever Emotion was enveloping her dream.

“Oh,” he said aloud. Not disappointed. Determined.

Zooming out, he could see the bars of a cell, and even further, the outline of the floating headquarters of the Bureau of Balance. He shut the drawer and turned towards the map he had laid out on the desk itself.

The body cooking in his pod wasn't quite done yet. That was fine. He’d prefer not to burn it now, anyways. He’d find his own way up to the Bureau again, holy symbol be damned.