Chapter Text
The first mission is always the most important for any brand new Glitch Tech. It gives an insight on what kind of Tech you will be, a starting ground into unfamiliar territory that was being a Tech to begin with. It’s a formative moment, and despite prior warnings by the trio's new boss, Sasha is determined to do the very best and come out on top. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for his competitive streak to take charge, but it was burning especially hot today, and he was going to keep tending the delicate flame that was his ego even if it's the last thing he ends up doing.
“This one looks perfect.” Sasha said with a bright confident grin, highlighting a high level mission. “Whaddya think?”
Marcy and Anne eyed the listing with caution, both nervously fidgeting. Though, it wasn't either of them that spoke up. “I say we listen to Hop Pop.” A young boy piped up. Sprig Plantar, as the trio got to learn in their orientation, grandson of the Branch Manager. “As much as I want to be out on the field, he'll kill me if that glitch doesn't do so first.”
“Can it, I wasn't asking you…!” Sasha snapped back. “I couldn't care less about your opinion even if I tried…” He snarked, waving the kid off with a scoff. He noticed Anne and Marcy’s shared glance beside him, but was too annoyed with the kid to care. “Why are you even coming with us anyway? Can’t you go hang out with the other dumb nerds?” He gestured to the other employees, who both seemed to be a couple of years younger than them, like Sprig was.
One was Maddie, the girl(?) that was fighting the Goomba with HP earlier. She had a raspy voice and a generally emo vibe other than her light pink hair. Sasha hadn’t met the other one, so he wasn’t sure of their name or pronouns, but they had very fluffy orange hair and were very loudly talking with Maddie about their plans for the day.
Sprig shuffled uncomfortably, noticeably fidgeting with something in their pocket. “Hop Pop wouldn’t let me be a tech before because of…” they trailed off, then shook their head. “He didn’t think I would be ready until now, and, since you guys are just starting, too, he’s putting me with you.”
Sasha put his head in his hands and groaned in annoyance. “Great, of course we get stuck with the coward who’s too afraid to do anything fun.” He noticed the kid glare at him, and smirked through his fingers. “Aannyways…” He drew out, turning on his heel to look back at the hologram board. “I say we should just go for it. It's not like I haven't ever used any weapons before.”
“Just because you did fencing once, doesn't mean you know anything about fighting, Sash…! And school fights don't count either...” Marcy interjected nervously. “Besides, you didn't even pay attention to the tutorial. Do you even know how to summon anything?”
“It can't be that hard…” Sasha muttered, rolling his eyes. “I can work a phone, I can work this shit, yeah?”
“That's… Not how that works.” Marcy grumbled.
Sasha shrugged. “My dad worked with animatronics, I’m sure it’ll be fine. See, Anne agrees with me, right, Anne?” He put his arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer to himself, squishing Anne’s face in the process.
“Um-”
“-Now let’s go!” Sasha cheered, letting go of Anne and running off in the direction of the garage where the tech vans were kept. “I call shotgun!” He called back to Marcy and Anne.
“NONE OF US CAN EVEN DRIVE!” Marcy yelled, chasing after him.
Sasha stopped in his tracks. “Oh yeah. Huh.” He had completely forgotten about that. How were they supposed to get that far? He definitely wasn’t gonna put the effort into walking halfway across town.
“That’s what the portals are for,” Sprig piped up right next to Sasha, startling him. When did he even get there??? “Wally and Hop Pop are the only ones at this branch who can drive, but we can all open portals from our gauntlets.” He held his up, pointing at the portal icon in the corner of the screen.
Marcy and Anne finally caught up with him, Marcy catching their breath as they stopped next to him. “See,” Anne said, “it’s actually a good thing we have this guy with us!” She gave Sprig a fist bump.
Sprig smiled. Sasha glared. He wasn't jealous, that would be ridiculous, but being overshadowed by a literal child, despite being a kid himself, tended to hit one's ego a bit. Not that it was important to note! Sasha was completely capable, without needing some kid jutting in, and he didn't have a massive ego that was easily damaged. You got that? Okay. Just… Clearing the air.
“Psh… Anyone could've figured that one out.” Sasha said, rolling his eyes. “We saw a fraction of what this thing's capable of; the old guy said it himself. It won't take much to figure something else out.”
“Once again, not exactly how this works.” Marcy said. “This gauntlet is an intricate piece of machinery that-”
“Nobody has time to listen to all that.”
“That! If used incorrectly can cause detrimental effects on the world at worst, and we'd be lucky to deal with the small side effects at best.” Anger flared up in Marcy, but they took a deep breath to calm themself down. Any calm they had, however, was immediately dispersed when Sasha commented,
“You don't even have to deal with those effects; you can't be reset! I can take care of myself!” It was times like this that Sasha doubted how he actually felt towards Marcy. There are times when he thinks they’re really cute and fun to hang out with, and then they stop those feelings in their tracks when they argue with Sasha like this or act like their silly interests are more important than their friendship. Why can't they just be more like Anne?
“It still-!” Marcy cut themself off, and, as if they could read Sasha’s mind, took a deep breath and stepped back, avoiding meeting Sasha’s eyes. “...nevermind.”
Sasha, slightly suspicious at Marcy’s change in tone but satisfied with that answer, swerved around and pressed the portal icon in the corner of his gauntlet’s screen. He aimed it forward and tapped the icon, but the force of the blast caused him to lose his balance. He had almost hit the ground when he felt a pair of arms hooking under his own, catching him and slowly helping him back up. Unsurprisingly, it was Anne.
“Crap, are you okay, Sasha???” She finally let him go when he recovered, but not without Sasha noticing how her hands lingered for a moment longer. See, this is what Sasha means. Anne is willing to help him and is always on his side, but Marcy gets on his nerves and still wasn’t even looking at him!
“Yeah, thanks, Anne,” he growled, shooting a glare at Marcy.
Anne tilted her head in confusion, but before she could say anything, she was interrupted by Sasha’s immediate shift in demeanor as he turned back to the portal. “Alright, let’s go!” He didn’t wait for any response as he stepped into the portal.
And immediately regretted it.
So maybe he forgot about the nausea and bright lights and how harsh the contrast between Earth and the portal was, but that’s not his fault! That dumb hologram’s lecture was way too boring to actually pay attention to! Actually, no, it’s the portal’s fault, because why are they made like that anyway???
He landed face down with a splat!, his face landing in grass but his body laying on the pavement. A nearby squirrel, startled by his sudden appearance, dropped the acorn it was biting into and scurried up a tree. “Eugh…” Sasha grumbled, hauling himself up and brushing the bit of blood from the new cut off of his face with his arm. He stood up, brushing the leaves out of his hair and barely recovering before Anne, Marcy, and Sprig stepped calmly through the portal.
He noticed Anne frowning at the cut on his cheek, but didn’t have time for her to get antibiotics and a bandaid and whatever else she would get because she was “concerned” for him. He turned away and brought a hologram of a map up out of his gauntlet. Wait, why aren’t we near the glitch? The map indicated that it was about a mile away, thankfully near an open field and not inside of a building, but definitely not where they were.
Sasha’s eyelid twitched in annoyance, and he swerved around towards Sprig. “Why didn’t it put us near the glitch?” He demanded, stepping forwards and looming over him.
Sprig flinched, looking up at him nervously. “Um- did you put in the correct coordinates and aim it in the right direction? It’s actually really articulate if you do it right, and it’s interesting how-”
They were cut off by Sasha’s hand covering their mouth. “Yeah, yeah, shut up, stop yapping, nobody wants to hear that.” He reached for his gauntlet again, now realizing that there was more information to input after just clicking the portal icon. Whoops. He put the coordinates in and double checked the map for the direction, then shot the portal beam. He kept his ground this time but noticed a woman and her child walking hand-in-hand stop to stare at the four techs and their portal.
“I got it!” Anne said, tapping her gauntlet and aiming it at the two pedestrians. She shot the beam at them, earning her a glare from Sasha. The four techs carefully stepped into the portal as loading signs appeared over the pedestrians’ heads, followed by check marks. By the time the woman and her child recovered, the techs and the portal were already gone.
Sasha felt a wave of relief as he noticed that they were now in a field. Thank everything that he didn’t embarrass himself that time. Well, he kind of did with Anne wiping the peoples’ minds before he could, but he could worry about that later.
The four techs looked around the field, but none of them spotted the glitch. However, there was a song playing in the distance, giving away its location. It sounded like synths, and, if Sasha was remembering correctly from his guitar lessons, it was in D minor. It was pretty fast, too.
Sasha saw Marcy in his peripheral vision and noticed a pang of… recognition? Fear? He wasn’t sure, but Marcy suddenly changed their demeanor. “Um- guys-”
“-Alright, let’s get that glitch!” Sasha yelled over whatever Marcy was saying, still pissed at them for arguing with him earlier. He wasn’t going to listen to them, and he wasn’t going to let Anne, and definitely not Sprig, snipe another opportunity from him.
“-but that’s-!” Marcy fretted.
Sasha ran off before they could say anything. He heard footsteps behind him and looked back, still running, to see Anne and Sprig following him with excitement on both of their faces. He smirked and looked forward again. At least Sprig seemed to finally realize that Sasha was the one in charge.
He charged up his gauntlet, aiming it around the corner.
“Guys, no!” Marcy yelled, pissing Sasha off again, “That’s Sa-!”
Something hit Sasha’s back with excessive force, blocking from hearing the rest of what Marcy was saying and sending a shock of sharp pain throughout his body. He had not spawned his armor in yet. He hit the ground with a thud, yelling out at the agony in his back. What the fuck was that?
His question was answered as the music drew nearer and Sasha finally saw the culprit of his pain: a short skeleton with a dark blue hoodie and one cyan glowing eye. “Er er erer er er er er” he said, a text box appearing in front of him with the words “Do you wanna have a bad time?” Sasha vaguely knew who this was. Sans, the final boss of a game called Undertale.
Oh, shi- The music got louder and more intense as he was thrown into the air by a bone sprouting up from the ground. Everything was too blurry and overwhelming for him to process much as he was caught mid air, seemingly by telekinesis, and slammed back into the ground below him. The unnatural strain on his muscles only released when he heard gauntlet blasts shoot past the skeleton. They didn’t hit him, but apparently Anne and Sprig actually doing something for once distracted the glitch enough to let Sasha go.
Groaning, Sasha weakly reached over to his gauntlet and summoned his armor. It didn’t relieve any of the current pain, but at least he shouldn’t get killed now. He tried to push himself back up, but cursed as he found out that his back was too damaged to move. He momentarily wondered if his dad had made animatronics that could prevent harm rather than causing it, wishing that it could be true and that they would magically spawn in the park. Unfortunately, the only thing that changed was Anne and Sprig being thrown onto the ground beside him.
Marcy was nowhere to be seen.
Anger flared up in Sasha. “Are you fucking kidding me? MARCY, YOU COWARD, GET BACK HERE!” He tried to yell loudly enough for them to hear from wherever they were, but his voice came out hoarse and broken, and it just made his back hurt more. His anger strengthened him, but only enough to lift his arm and shoot a hamster ball-ish cage around the glitch. His arm flopped back down on the grass. He wasn’t about to give up, but he couldn’t find a way to move much more.
Sprig was the first to get up, shooting a beam that seemingly strengthened the cage that Sasha set up. He turned around and helped Anne up, who thanked him, and looked directly at Sasha with a blank expression on his face. He looked back to Anne, and didn’t help Sasha up.
The skeleton was slamming against the cage around him, and it was obvious that it wouldn’t hold for long even with Sprig’s upgrade. Anne fiddled with the end of her sleeves nervously. “Uhhh, what do we do?” She asked no one in particular as she looked around for any help.
“Just stand back for now,” a high-pitched voice said from up in a tree. Sasha strained his neck up to see the other young tech who he didn’t know charging up their gauntlet and shooting it to de-rez the cage around Sans.
“Ivy!” Sprig’s eyes lit up as the tech jumped down from their dramatic entrance.
Suddenly, the rest of the Wartwood techs burst out of the bushes around them, taunting the glitch in an abundance of chaos. Marcy, however, ran to Sasha, Anne, and Sprig and put up a shield to protect them from the battle. They caught their breath after a few seconds before flopping down onto the grass beside them. “Okay, I got help!” They said breathily.
Sasha wondered if they had heard him call them a coward. He would’ve felt bad for that if he weren’t still pissed about their argument earlier in the day. He didn’t meet Marcy’s gaze as they opened a portal before they and Anne carried him through back into headquarters. Even as the two of them laid him down in the rest area, the pain in his back never faded away.
Anne kept fretting over him, but Sasha tuned her out when he saw Hop Pop doing the same to Sprig. He wasn’t a kid, for frog’s sake! It was a little satisfying to see the kid embarrassed over his grandfather’s overbearing protectiveness, though. He felt a flare of panic, though, when Hop Pop turned towards him and walked over to where Anne and Marcy were sitting beside him.
“Alright, kiddos, I’ll give it to you straight,” he sighed, “You went against my orders, tried to take on a very high-level glitch with a known difficult battle, put my grandson in danger, and got one of your teammates badly wounded in the process.” Sasha felt Anne shift beside him, seemingly scooting closer to Marcy. “This was a horribly carried out first mission, and normally this would result in an immediate mind wipe and you three being fired immediately, but,” he glanced towards Marcy, “you all know I can’t exactly do that.” Sasha couldn’t tell if his sad gaze was because of pity, regret, or annoyance.
“We’re sorry, sir,” Marcy said, “I tried to stop them, but-”
You tried to stop us without explaining! Sasha glared at them.
“I don’t need excuses right now, kid,” Hop Pop interrupted them, “but I am putting strict restrictions on your jobs for now.” He typed something on his gauntlet, and the three of them all felt theirs buzz with a notification. Sasha weakly raised his arm as Hop Pop explained. “Your gauntlets are to remain within the Hinobi shop for the foreseeable future, and none of you are allowed to take any Glitch Tech missions until you have all recovered.”
“Yeah, speaking of which,” Sasha piped up, “I think my back might be broken? And, like, my parents aren't around, but they’d definitely notice the medical bill, and my butler is present at home too, so- wait, we can’t take our gauntlets out? Doesn’t that make us more vulnerable????”
“It makes it so you know not to go near any dangerous glitches,” Hop Pop grumbled as Sasha put his arm back down. “And Hinobi can take care of the medical bill. Not the price, of course,” he specified, “but in making sure your parents aren’t alerted about it.”
Sasha wondered if the cost would go to Hinobi if it was someone else that had gotten hurt. I guess that’s fair; my parents can easily afford that. “For now, though,” Hop Pop stood up, “let’s get you to a hospital.” He activated a levitation beam from his gauntlet and carried Sasha over to the garage with it.
Sasha looked back as he was lowered onto the back seats of the van. The last things he saw were Anne’s worry in her eyes, Sprig’s embarrassment in the way he shifted, and Marcy’s spite as they watched him leave before the door slammed shut and the van drove off.