Fire, rot, and other fun meet-cute ideas (The long overdue blupjeans ficlet!)
2. "Hey I know you’re pretty busy but would you like to defeat the invading aliens with me please answer quickly things are kind of time-sensitive" (from prompts for fun and profit).
@tentatively-positive-3 sorry for the wait!
(CW for main character death. Like in the first sentence. It's not permanent though!)
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Taako went down, and man, Lup did not think she would ever get used to seeing her brother die before her eyes.
For a couple of cycles now, the crew had established a kind of rigid tier list of emergency security personnel to deal with any sort of threat ranging from wild animals getting into the ship (something mainly Magnus dealt with) to fighting off the Hunger. The twins were first on that list —Lup was first, really, something she would take any chance to lord over Taako—, and most times they were able to fend by themselves just fine.
This time around, when Magnus dropped, Taako had gotten Merle for backup— and now, Lup had seen a crossbow bolt go clean through them both. Merle seemed to get the brunt of it; he fell immediately to the ground, unmoving. The bolt had pierced his chest in a straight line with Taako's lower thorax.
"Fat load of help there, Highchurch," Taako muttered, pained, and coughed out a mouthful of blood as he forced one last magic missile out of his wand. Despite his state, all three bolts hit and each destroyed tarry black forms. Lup ran to his side and cast a glowing shield over the group just in time to block a streak of black fire hurtling toward all of them. She held it up with nothing but her brazen staff and kneeled down next to her skewered brother.
"Show-off" she chuckled quietly, but couldn't help some tears rolling down her face. She brushed some hair out of Taako's face.
"You know I gotta" he managed a quick smile. He looked so pale…"Hey, you gotta get someone else out here. Let Dav know to get the ship running and buy us some time".
"I know what to do, goofus." She held his hand and squeezed lightly. "Just… be okay?"
"See you on the other side," another weak cough and a chuckle, "that's a threat." His chest rose and fell and didn't rise again. Lup let go of his hand and dried her tears.
"You better."
She ran full speed ahead back to the Starblaster, dodging and blocking and flinching at attacks that came too close for comfort. When she made it, the engine was on and what was left of the crew was already packing up to leave. She intercepted Barry carrying a packed up case of field lab equipment into the ship.
"Hey, Barold" Lup's words came out half speech, half pant; she was out of breath. Her hair was flying all around her face, out of her ponytail, and it had somehow gotten even darker and windier in the span of two whole minutes.
"Hi, is everything okay back there? we'll just be maybe another 5 minutes before takeoff, securing cargo and whatn—".
"Cool, yeah, hey, I know you’re pretty busy but would you like to defeat the invading aliens with me- please answer quickly, things are kind of time-sensitive."
"Wh- me? No, hold on, I'm not qualified for security work! That's why—"
"Yeah, no, no, super cool that you're self-aware but Taako and Merle just fucking died, so that's kind of the sitch currently."
He seemed taken aback by that. "Oh, shit, I'm sorry."
"No time to be sorry, will you grab a wand or something and come help me fight these things? Again, kind of on a tight schedule here, bud."
Barry seemed on the verge of a panic attack: his face was bright red and he kept looking from the ship back to her and back to the ship again. She swore she could see steam rising up from his head. "Yeah okay, yeah I'll- I just don't- I should probably-".
At that moment, Lucretia ran out, clearly in a rush to get the last of the cargo on board. Lup hollered at her.
"Lucretia! Hi! Can you finish up here and be in the air in 10? We'll buy you some extra time to take off!"
Lucretia made a face that fell somewhere between shock, fear, confusion and relief. She looked at Lup, then at Barry, then back at Lup again. She blinked and shook her head as if to snap herself out of it.
“Y-yeah, sure, of course! The engine could use the additional time to rev up”.
“Great. Thanks, Creesh! Barry, let’s go. Pick us up at the arcane field when you’re up!”. She grabbed him by the hand and started running without stopping to let him pick up the pace. His hand was sweatier and warmer by the second, but in a couple of minutes they encountered the Hunger’s army, gaining ground at an off-putting pace.
Lup readied her staff once again. “You think you got what it takes, specs?”
Barry gulped and nodded helplessly, the look on his face screaming No. But he drew a wand from his robe pocket nonetheless.
“Great”. She shot three rapid fire bolts behind her and could tell by Barry’s wide-eyed gape she had hit bullseye. “Let’s buy the Starblaster those extra five minutes”.
They adapted to each other surprisingly quickly; Lup being used to being the offense to a more defensive partner, and Barry being more than comfortable dishing out shields and bolstering her attacks. A couple of minutes went by surprisingly quickly as she took out shadow after shadow, but the tarry forms were endless and seemed to be coming at her faster and faster. One or two came almost too close for comfort before being obliterated in blasts that Lup could barely keep from hitting herself.
When a figure came into her line of sight out of nowhere, straight up in her space, she barely had time to react and brace for the worst when she saw a brilliant surge of green arcane energy shoot out from behind her. When it hit the black mass, it festered and melted away from the strike wound outward until it had fully disintegrated before her eyes.
She almost froze in surprise, but instead kicked her foot into the ground and raised a wall of fire that expanded like a shock wave between them and their attackers
“Dude!” She turned back to face Barry; fire in her eyes, excitement and hope pumping through her bloodstream. “I didn’t know those things could rot!”
Barry met her gaze and smiled; his face was tinted a deep shade of red, but the intensity in his expression mirrored her own.
“I didn’t know they could burn!” He was staring at her like she had just single-handedly wiped out the Hunger. “You know, maybe you should have brought that one out earlier.” He chuckled at her. Chuckled.
Lup rolled her eyes, somehow both delighted and impressed by this absolute nerd.
When they locked eyes again, it felt like time had stopped and allowed them to become a single, refined unit. The Hunger approached them in what now felt like slow motion; fear was no longer anywhere to be found within either of them.
They both nodded in assured mutual understanding, resumed their fighting stances, and got back to work.
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