Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

    It was all destroyed—their things, homes, hell- the entire town. The place was once a home for many. Now reduced to smouldering ruins. The buildings fell as winged deities walked through the rubble. Citizens were sprawled on the ground unconscious or dead, one could only hope for the former. Everyone else had left except for five people. An elf stood in the front with a canary hybrid and a man in a blue shirt beside him, holding swords and defending the ever-approaching deities from the people behind him. A moth hybrid stood, seemingly trying to convince another to leave while he still could. The other, a parrot hybrid, didn’t budge. He kneeled, holding another. A tan boy with red and blue headphones. Blood stained the parrot hybrid’s green hoodie as he held the headphone-wearing boy. The boy had multiple fatal injuries and it was clear he wouldn’t survive. The parrot hybrid continued to hold him even as he took his dying breath, and cried.”Hey, —-- we have to leave,” The moth hybrid spoke to the other, ”I know you don’t want to leave him, I don’t either but if we want to survive we have to go. Now come on!” The moth hybrid tried but to no avail. “Hey guys,” the elf shouted, “ They’re approaching and fast. If we are gonna leave we have to leave now!”
“Shit! Okay —-- let’s go!” The moth hybrid grabbed her friend's arm and to her surprise he complied. The two ran to where the others were waiting. “Okay, we ready?” Everyone nodded, “Okay —-- open the portal to the main city for us, please? And hurry!” the elf said to the canary. Only the moth hybrid and the man in the blue shirt made it through before a brilliant purple flash destroyed the portal. The parrot hybrid wasted no time in turning around and grabbing his sword determined to protect his friends.

      “⎓𝙹𝙹ꖎ╎ᓭ⍑ ᒲ𝙹∷ℸ ̣ ᔑꖎ ℸ ̣ ⍑╎リꖌᓭ ⍑ᒷ ᓵᔑリ ↸ᒷ⎓ᒷᔑℸ ̣  ⚍ᓭ” One deity spoke.
 “ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ|| ᔑꖎ∴ᔑ||ᓭ ℸ ̣ ⍑╎リꖌ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᔑℸ ̣  𝙹リᒷ, 𝙹⍑ ⍑𝙹∴ ╎ ꖎ𝙹⍊ᒷ ᓭᒷᒷ╎リ⊣ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ╎∷ ⎓ᔑᓵᒷᓭ ∴⍑ᒷリ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ|| ∷ᒷᔑꖎ╎⨅ᒷ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ||'∷ᒷ ∴∷𝙹リ⊣.” The other deity spoke.
 “⍑ᒲᒲ, ⍑ᒷ ∴𝙹⚍ꖎ↸ ʖᒷ !¡ᒷ∷⎓ᒷᓵℸ ̣ , !¡𝙹∴ᒷ∷⎓⚍ꖎ ᔑリ↸ ᔑꖎ∷ᒷᔑ↸|| ⍑ᔑᓭ ᔑ ℸ ̣ ⍑╎∷ᓭℸ ̣  ⎓𝙹∷ ᓵ⍑ᔑ𝙹ᓭ.” The first deity looked down at parrot hybrid sending chills up their spine.
 “∴ᒷꖎꖎ ⍑ᒷ ↸𝙹ᒷᓭ ⍑ᔑ⍊ᒷ ᔑ ʖ╎ℸ ̣  𝙹⎓ ᔑ ∷ᒷʖᒷꖎꖎ╎𝙹⚍ᓭ ᓭℸ ̣ ∷ᒷᔑꖌ ʖ⚍ℸ ̣  ℸ ̣ ⍑ᔑℸ ̣  ᓵᔑリ ʖᒷ ᓵ⍑ᔑリ⊣ᒷ↸, ||ᒷᓭ ⍑ᒷ ∴╎ꖎꖎ ʖᒷᓵ𝙹ᒲᒷ 𝙹リᒷ 𝙹⎓ ⚍ᓭ” The other also looking at the parrot hybrid now. 
“∴⍑ᔑℸ ̣  ᓭ⍑𝙹⚍ꖎ↸ ∴ᒷ ↸𝙹 ∴╎ℸ ̣ ⍑ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ 𝙹ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ∷ 𝙹リᒷᓭ? ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ|| ⍑ᔑ⍊ᒷ ʖᒷᒷリ ᒲᔑ∷ꖌᒷ↸ ʖ|| 𝙹⚍∷ ᓭ∴𝙹∷リ ᒷリᒷᒲ╎ᒷᓭ” The first spoke.
“ꖎᒷᔑ⍊ᒷ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷᒲ. I⎓ 𝙹⚍∷ ᒷリᒷᒲ╎ᒷᓭ ∴ᔑリℸ ̣  ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷᒲ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ|| ᓵᔑリ ⍑ᔑ⍊ᒷ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷᒲ. Aᓭ ꖎ𝙹リ⊣ ᔑᓭ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᒷ╎∷ !¡∷ᒷᓵ╎𝙹⚍ᓭ ⎓∷╎ᒷリ↸ ╎ᓭ 𝙹⚍∷ᓭ” The second one spoke waking their hand and creating a barrier between the parrot and his friends, ”Hey if I don’t make it out of this tell —-- and —- I’m sorry,” The parrot hybrid said to his friends. “Wait, —--!” The canary ran to the barrier trying to break it. Trying to prevent losing any more of his friends to these stupid deities and their stupid riddles.”I’m sorry —---, I’m sorry —--” The parrot hybrid responded

    “No!” A brilliant flash of purple light enveloped the area blinding the two friends. When it was gone so was their friend. The two of them barely had time to notice not only the parrot hybrid but also the headphone-wearing boy missing before they were blinded by a vibrant green, and taken far, far away from the town that was their home. The town once known as Evo.

Chapter Text

The “hero” should feel joy at defeating the villain but instead, a pool of guilt formed the longer he stared down at his fallen opponent. The “villain” lay sprawled on the ground, unmoving. He stared at her from the roof she had fallen from, praying that he hadn't killed her. 

He jumped from the roof and slowed his descent with the spread of his wings. 'We got lucky with that trash pile being there to break her fall. I don't want her to die.' He thought as he landed softly on the ground. He slowly made his way over to her unmoving figure so as not to startle her, even though he was pretty sure she was unconscious (dead?). Folding his wings neatly behind him, he bent down to check her pulse (please, please, please still be alive) He couldn't find one.

'Did I kill her,' he thought. He started panicking (A body in his arms, bleeding. His tears falling and mixing with the blood gushing from his lover's wound. His lover cradled against his chest, not breathing. Not breathing. NOT BREATHING). Then he felt it. A pulse, so faint he had missed it at first. He slumped against the alley wall and released the breath he didn't know he was holding. Although now would be the perfect time to kill or arrest this villain in front of him like he was supposed to, he couldn't bring himself to do it. It didn't feel right. He knew he would never get another chance like this. He would never catch her this vulnerable again. How many people in the association could say they had caught the Scarlet Moon? Not many. But she deserved to rest after having a brush with death. So instead the hero bandaged her head, created a splint for her leg since it looked broken and sat against the wall. Intent on keeping watch and protecting the villain from prying Eyes

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

When Pearl awoke with a throbbing head and a leg that was definitely broken her first thought was, 'Where am I?' followed closely by, 'What the fuck happened'. She knew that she was Scarlet Moon (thank god she didn't forget she was wearing the mask, unlike that one time...) the one the "heroes" called a "villain" (all she did was go against what they believed in and defy them ...and cause property damage but only because she was fighting Xequla). She wasn't Pearl, the friendly civilian news reporter. Despite her throbbing head, aching leg and desire to rest, she knew she needed to move or risk the cops or Xequla finding her. So she started to sit up, slowly, since her whole body ached from falling who knows how far. 

"Stop" A voice to her left commanded, "You shouldn't sit up all by yourself. At least ask for help." 

She turned sharply toward the sound, resulting in her headache getting worse. When she finally gathered herself enough to make out the face of the voice that sounded eerily familiar, she gasped. Xequla sat up against the wall looking about as tired as she felt. He looked like he had been crying before she had woken up (how long was she out for?). His eyes were a beautiful shade of blue even if the beauty came from tears. She took in the "hero's" appearance a second time. He looked off, something had changed. The villain racked her brain trying to figure out the difference. His mask was still in place, (why did he have a purple and black masquerade mask when the association-issued mask that all "watchers" wore was hanging from his belt? No one knew.) his clothes were still black, his eyes were blue...wait. She looked at his eyes again just to make sure. His eyes which were normally a toxic purple were now a beautiful pale blue much like her own (a bright-eyed admin dressed in green, a brother she had lost to that damned place)  

"Hey do you still wanna sit up?" Xequla asked. Realizing she had been staring and taking a while to answer (Ok just try and play cool Pearl, cool) she spoke,

 "Y-yeah can you help me?" She winced at her voice crack (damn it, Pearl-). 

He didn't seem to hear it as he helped her up into a sitting position (Wait didn't he say not to get up just ten minutes ago...hypocrite). He helped her sit up, smiling softly (what the fuck) when she insisted she was fine and could sit up the rest of the way on her own. It was weird to see the stone-faced "hero" smile (a brother no longer here smiling and laughing at her jokes, his twin laughing along with him). They both slumped against the alley wall, taking a closer look she noticed that the “hero” looked exhausted. Which was very strange since he was known as an unbeatable tank. In fact, league members started a betting pool and were betting on what power the mysterious “hero” had. Majority of the bets were invincibility and/or immortality (some honorable mentions were wings(obviously), sight, visions of the future, and of course magic (His eyes are purple okay?!)). Invincibility and/or immortality being the majority of the bets because once Hotguy hit this man with five arrows, FIVE! And Xequla didn’t even falter, in fact he fought harder, so it was a bit weird to see this tank of a soldier exhausted.

 “Hey are you okay?” Pearl asked (Why would she ask that? She should be running not conversing)

“Hmm? Oh- uh- Yeah I’ll be ok” He responded, barely looking up, clearly in his own world.

Pearl sighed, “You better start taking care of yourself.” Why did she care?

“Says the one who almost died”

Oh he was not getting away with that, “Hey! You’re the hypocrite here. You tell me to ‘stop’ and tell me to ‘not get up, you could hurt yourself’. Then you ask if I want to get up less than a minute later. Also, you were the one to almost kill me, remember? You caused both of us to be in this mess in the first place.” She exclaimed.

He snorted, raising his hands in defeat, “Ok you got me there,” his face turned serious, “I- nevermind.” He looked like he wanted to say more but had thought better of it. He stiffly stood up, “We should get out of here. I can’t be seen tolerating or even helping you.”

Pearl looked at him completely dumbfounded, “So you're not going to arrest me?”

“No,” He responded, “You almost died tonight, you deserve a break.” Xequla turned and caught her gaze, “I’m not cruel.”

Pearl just stared at him, what did he mean, ‘he’s not cruel’. If Pearl’s leg wasn’t broken she’d say he was pulling it. This has to be a joke, either a joke or, “I think you hit your head or something.” Pearl stated, “I mean, c’mon a break? You’re letting me go scott free? I’m not buying it.” He looked confused, Pearl laughed, a laugh that sounded almost manic. “You’re like famous for arresting us, ‘villains’, dead or alive, injured or not. No mercy.” 

He stared at her for a second, before mumbling, “N- no that can’t be right” he stumbled back, cradling his head, “There's no way- but- I- I don’t- Ugh my memory”

What, “Wait pause, what are you talking about? What’s wrong with your memory?”

“That’s classified”

“Ok so if that's classified then I get to guess.” Pearl thought for a moment, “Ok so there is something obviously wrong with your memory based on the nonsense you were just sprouting. So, based on that logic and the context from that nonsense we can assume your memory is gone or at the very least scrambled, which I know for a fact is because of Them . Don’t give me that look you know I’m right.” Pearl stated, stopping Xequla from further pouting, “So I’m gonna take a guess here and say that you don’t remember anything except what They want you too, so that would be training and certain missions, but not your past or ‘villain’ arrests. How close was I?” 

“...My memory of the arrests are fuzzy, not gone.” Xequla started slowly.

“But everything else was spot-on, right?”

“...”

“So, I’m right. Anyways by ‘fuzzy’ what do you mean?” Pearl that was not smooth, that was not discrete, why don’t we just backtrack and-

“Well I remember some orders, fights, and some people I work with but other than that, nothing.” There was this far off look in Xequla’s eyes as he spoke, almost as if he was trying to remember something that just wasn’t there.

“You don’t remember your life before… Them ?” It can’t be true, but if he…no. She shouldn’t think those treacherous thoughts. She can’t give herself false hope. He’s dead.

“Except for-” Xequla’s words cut off her thoughts and pulled her back to the present. 

“Except for what?” She asked. His eyes flashed a deep shade of purple, the brilliant pale blue turning into indigo.

“You need to leave.” His voice changed with that sentence, Pearl sat there confused. 

“You quite literally said not to get up a couple minutes ago-”

“Shut up.” Any signs of a person, of emotion that Xequla showed her a few minutes ago was gone. The mask was back, along with the stone cold ‘hero’ persona Xequla wore like a cloak.

“Wait, why?” Pearl whispered, looking around the alley, still somewhat confused about the sudden mood change.

“I don’t know why I told you all of that. It was supposed to be classified information.”He muttered to himself, his eyes shifting back into that pale blue color. He looked, stared her dead in the eyes, and spoke, “Why do you feel safe?”

She sputtered, “What?” What did he mean by ‘safe’? Is this why he felt familiar? Could it be…no, no false hope Pearl. It didn’t matter that the mannerisms were the same or they looked similar. Her brother was dead. Taken from her when their home was destroyed. Even with all his intelligence and survival skills there’s no way They kept him alive. (She’d seen first hand how They played games with people, she’d been a part of it. It was better to pray he was dead than surviving those horrors) Xequla’s words were still ringing in her head. Their whole conversation was odd. But she had to think about that later. Right now she was more focused on Xequla’s change in attitude and him stating, ‘you need to leave’.

“ They’re coming aren’t They ?” Pearl asked, looking to where Xequla had moved toward the mouth of the alley.

“Yes,” he stated, moving toward her to help her cold demeanor back.

“I have so many-ow- so many questions,” she replied, finally standing up.

“I’m willing to bet there’s more than I can answer.”

“You probably have questions too.”

“More than you can answer”

“I want to thank you,” she said, turning to face him, using the wall for support, “for sparing me.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, moving with her, arms out ready to catch her at a moment's notice. She waved him off.

“I’m fine thank you” She started to hobble away, again using the wall (and splint) as support, (where did the splint come from?) who knew walking on a broken leg was so hard? “Bye,” then after a beat she added, “Long Live the Grian Empire!” and left the alley way and quickly moved through the shadows down the street (as quickly as she could on a broken leg). Continuing to move away from the alley and Xequla she pulled out her phone and started dialing a number. (why did she say that, it’s not him!...Well, maybe it can’t hurt to have a little hope, can it?). “Hello?” a voice from the other end picked up.

“Hey BigB, you wanna have coffee at my place tomorrow? We need to talk.”

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

Xequla ran from the alleyway, towards a different one, one that was closer to the bakery he had (accidently) been thrown into. Maybe if he got far enough away They wouldn’t know about his and Scarlet Moon’s conversation (Who is he kidding, of course They know something, they’re always watching him ). Xequla stopped in an alley two blocks away from the bakery, the last place the public saw him and Scarlet Moon. Her parting words still rung in his head. ‘Long live the empire’? What empire? Was it a reference? To what exactly? Did he know her? Did she know him? Is that why she felt familiar, why she felt safe? All these questions were giving him a headache.

“̇/ᒷᑑ⚍ꖎᔑ”The voice of 𝙹リᒷ filled his mind.

“𝙹リᒷ” he responded.

“∴⍑ᒷ∷ᒷ ╎ᓭ ᓭᓵᔑ∷ꖎᒷℸ ̣  ᒲ𝙹𝙹リ?” 𝙹リᒷ asked.

“ᓭ⍑ᒷ ⊣𝙹ℸ ̣  ᔑ∴ᔑ||” Xequla answered. (Was Xequla even his name or was it ...- .. .- .--- . , yeah that’s it. His sister would call him -... ..- ... -.-. .- .-. He had an empire, a town. They took him. They TOOK him. THEY TOOK HIM.)

“𝙹⍑ ↸ᒷᔑ∷” ℸ ̣ ∴𝙹 said’ “⍑ᒷ ╎ᓭ ᓭℸ ̣ ᔑ∷ℸ ̣ ╎リ⊣ ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ∷ᒷᒲᒷᒲʖᒷ∷ ”𝙹リᒷᓭ eyes glowed with power

“I ᓵᔑリ ᓭᒷᒷ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᔑℸ ̣” 𝙹リᒷ replied, “ꖎᒷℸ ̣ ᓭ ⎓╎ ̇/ ℸ ̣ ⍑ᔑℸ ̣” 𝙹リᒷᓭ eyes glowed with power.

No, not again. He didn’t want this! He wanted to remember! HE wanted to remember more than just his training and his mistakes. He didn’t want to forget again. His siblings, friends (What. Where did the sibling thought come from? When did he have a sister? Were there more of them and what about his friends? Did he even have any?) he didn’t want to forget what little he was recalling. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He wanted to leave, to escape!

“ᓭꖎᒷᒷ!¡” 𝙹リᒷ commanded.

And he did.