The Border Patroller
Scar HotGuy, AKA HG, was currently soaring through the night, trailing pretty far behind Gemini due to the dragonfly Reborn having thin wings which carried her unfairly fast when she flew. Occasionally, the two would have to duck under a tree or into a dusty alleyway because of civilians walking along the streets... At two in the morning. It wasn't a huge deal though as the two would get to their destination, The Border, in only a few minutes.
His plan was simple, sneakily ambush the Corrupteds, hold one hostage, (maybe The Scorpion since he was the newest), and force them to spill info about their most likely sinister and immoral plans. Then, he and Gemini would fly back to their apartment and get Grian to reveal more about his supposed Rebound-ness. If Scar was honest, he was exceptionally excited to see what he would have to say about it.
After 4 minutes of flying, then ducking under something, and then flying again, Gemini signaled HotGuy to come over next to her. When he did, she opened her mouth to say something, before cutting herself off, gasping and plummeting down to the ground, dragging him down with her. She hit the brakes on her wings inches above the ground and wrestled him behind a bush.
"HG!" Gemini whispered, pausing and glancing behind him before continuing. "Sorry if that was kind of abrupt. I was going to tell you that the Border had gained new defenses but, Pearl- ... The Lone Wolf is roaming around outside. She almost spotted us."
HotGuy wanted to laugh at Gemini's slip but made a point of ignoring it for the time being, as being spotted by The Lone Wolf wouldn’t be worth a good laugh.
"Ah, that's alright. As long as she didn't actually see us, it's not a problem." HotGuy peeks over the bush, staying low enough so his wings don't get spotted if LW was really patrolling out there. Unfortunately, she was. There The Wolf stood, walking around the edge of The Border with her pet wolf, Tilly, not far behind. Today, she was wearing a crimson shoulder cape, the fabric torn up and bloodied from what seemed to be an explosion. Speaking of explosions, her whole frontside was absolutely demolished. A gaping hole was stretching from her chest to where her belly button would traditionally be, white bones sticking out of incinerated flesh and what seemed to be the Wolf's intestines partially spilling out. Her sclera were dark and her pupils dilated like she'd hit a good high; the whole nine yards. A perfect encapsulation of her death in Double Life, frozen forever. It never failed to make HotGuy gag in one way or another.
He knew for a fact that she was guarding the community building that was specifically made to hold the Corrupteds. In the distance, he could see it clear as day. A massive mansion lined the horizon, and each section and wing of the place split into four major parts. From the multiple years of hunting these monsters, he could recognize each part from memory. The largest part belonged to the Tiger Moth due to him being the first winner. The structure was light blue with dark, inky waters spilling into an equally disgusting pond. A rotting axolotl waded near the waters, its flesh practically melting off.
Second was The Reduviidae's or The Assassin's tower. Covered in glittering clocks and sharp edges. A banner hung from the front of the tower. Not anything majorly noteable, in HotGuy's opinion.
Third was The Lone Wolf's Tower, isolated away from all the others. Multiple dog collars with names engraved below decorated the walls, each representing a dog that was killed in her time as a winner.
Fourth, and the newest was The Scorpion's. It looked particularly normal compared to the others. It was simply a part of the mansion but extremely overgrown. A black Cadillac was bashed into the building, causing a fire that never seemed to spread or go out.
HotGuy looks at Gemini, whose eyes were locked on The Wolf. She was making her way over to their bush, looking around every few seconds. Gemini takes out one of her daggers, getting ready to incapacitate her in some way. However, the dagger makes a slight Shink! noise when it slides out of its sheath. HotGuy tenses, wings flaring up softly as he reaches for his bow and an arrow, just in case.
Unfortunately, The Wolf's sharp ears were not to be underestimated. She freezes in her tracks. The pairs of wolf ears atop her head perk up, slightly rotated toward Gemini's general direction. Gemini looks at him, covering her mouth as both of them held their breath.
All HotGuy can do is crouch and pray to the Watchers above that The Wolf didn't think too much of the noise.
"Tilly, darling," The Lone Wolf says, dragging her words out slowly. "Are there any intruders with us tonight?"
Tilly sniffs the air for a few seconds before turning its head in the pair's direction. The Wolf smiles, her canines glinting in the moonlight. Suddenly, her head snaps around, a soft Crack! heard as one of the bones in her neck undeniably break from turning her head too violently and far around her shoulder.
HotGuy cringes at the head turn, getting ready to launch himself into the air. However, The Wolf gets there first. She unsheathes her sword before launching herself at the bush.
"Hello. What a lovely surprise!" She growls before laughing almost manically. HotGuy shoots into action, flying into the sky and firing an arrow. She dodges and doesn't even flinch when the arrow combusts into flames behind her.
Just as he's about to try his aim with another arrow, he realizes that Gemini is still on the ground, staring at The Wolf silently.
"Gemini! Get up!" He shouts as she zips behind Gemini. Gemini snaps out of whatever trance she was in and starts flapping her wings to try to carry herself off the ground. She gets about a foot off the ground when The Wolf leaps towards her, a grin stretched too wide across her face as the glow of wolf jaws manifests itself around Gemini's arm and bites down.
She screams, clutching her arm in pain as she flies into the air, the other hand holding a sharp dagger in a death grip. Gemini zips a few more feet off the ground, attempting to fly out of sight to get a good hit in. However, when she commits to the action of fighting, The Wolf casually ducks out of the way, the blade of the small knife only grazing her face instead of the deep slash intended.
"What's wrong, Gemini? I thought we had something special going on. You wouldn't kill your girlfriend, would you?" The Wolf chuckles, swinging her blade around to point at her pet. "Tilly dear, drag her out of the sky for me. "
HotGuy glances at Gemini, who currently looked like she regretted not bringing an actual blade today. What was he supposed to do? Shoot at The Wolf and that'll only enrage her dog further; shoot at Tilly and The Wolf will have both of their heads... Wait. Maybe if he...
He flies down, swooping down and firing at something behind The Wolf. The brunette laughs as it whizzes past her face. "HotGuy! Almost forgot you were here. That was quite a bad shot for someone as famous as you. Someone's washed u- Wait, what?"
The Wolf turns around, just as the arrow lodges Tilly's skull and explodes, stopping the wolf mid-jump as it tries to grasp at Gemini's wings. She screams, a shrill but horrifying sound.
" Tilly! No, no, no!" The wolf shrieks, a hint of panic shooting through mismatched eyes. She looks up, growling like the last inch of humanity had been sucked out of her. "Oh... Oh, you've done it this time... First, you ruined my patrol, now you kill my precious Tilly. I can't believe you consider yourself a good person, you bastard! " The Wolf advances towards him, glare as cold as the netherite sword in her hands. HotGuy backs up, lifting his hands in false surrender before looking at Gemini, nodding in The Wolf's direction.
Gemini seems to get the cue because she soars high up into the air before plummeting down onto the crimson-hooded girl. "There's a reason why we had something special, Pearl!"
The dagger in Gemini's grip slices clean through The Wolf's arm, almost severing it from her shoulder completely. Blood pours from the barely attached arm like a twisted waterfall as The Wolf screams again. She breathes heavily before grabbing the loose limb and tearing it off, muscle and skin peeling away as she falls onto her knees. HotGuy gives Gemini a fist bump as she flies over, a strained smile on her face. Soon enough, The Wolf starts speaking again. "Argh! You- you- I can't believe you'd do this. I wasn't even- aiming for you, you psycho! I just wanted to have a friendly chat between us girls and I didn't want that bastard alive to see it!... I swear, once I catch you. I'll kill you."
The Wolf's voice lowers to a mumble as she psychotically repeats, " I'll kill you... I'll kill you... I'll kill you. I'llkillyouI'llkillyouI'llkillyouI'llkillyou.. "
Gemini stares at The Wolf for one last second before saying, "C'mon HG, I doubt she's in the mood to say anything other than 'I'll kill you ' right now."
"Agreed! She gives me the creeps." He responded, launching into the air once more.
As soon as the two make it to the front of the mansion, they hear the annoying blare of sirens, which unfortunately means-
"Hey! Stop where you are!" A painfully familiar voice shouted from the other side of the Border. Upon turning around, HotGuy realized it was Solidarity, or Jimmy, or Timmy, or whatever. He was flapping his flaming wings gallantly while pointing at Gemini and Hotguy accusingly.
"Awh.. we've been caught, again." HotGuy sighs before waving to The Wolf who was still sitting on the ground. "She's fine! A severed arm is nothing compared to whatever her organs endured from that explosion a while back."
"You're- Erm.. You're probably right but you're still breaking the law, HotGuy! You too, Gemini!" Solidarity tried, his tail flicking in annoyance.
"You probably don't even want to be here, Jimmy! Just go home or something. You don't need to listen to whatever the government tells you. Go back to babysitting Tango!" Gemini said, putting her hands on her hips as HotGuy nodded in agreement. Apparently, Solidarity didn't like that as he rolled his eyes and started dialing up the other heroes.
"Tango. Yeah, sorry, I know it's three in the morning. Those rascals are trying to make my job complicated again, can you blow 'em up for me real quick?" He said, talking to a hologram that popped out of his wrist. Solidarity raised his eyebrows at the pair as Tango said something along the lines of 'Yeah, sure I guess. Just give me a minute and I'll be there.'
Tango. The Bombardier beetle, who could undoubtedly kill everyone in this general area right now. He had a short fuse and an explosive power, being able to explode basically anything at his will just by... doing it somehow. He was one of if not the most powerful Reborn in the world, which led the government to prize him like a shiny trophy. From what he'd heard, he was also paid the most, which doesn’t exactly matter when you’re a hero and get everything for free at places anyways.
Apparently, one of Tango's biggest weaknesses is when he'd get really heated, (no pun intended) Tango would literally explode from anger, which usually led to HotGuy being extra gentle around him when they encountered each other. Solidarity was soon chosen as the one to ‘babysit’ him and keep him under control as the Phoenix couldn't exactly be burnt by any outrages. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure if the Phoenix could be killed at all.
"HG. he's calling that dumb explosive guy, we should probably dash," Gemini said, tapping him on the shoulder.
"Yep, you're right. Alright, Solidarity! You win, we're leaving. Bye!" HotGuy called out, swooping up away from the Border and the hysterical Corrupted on the ground. The last thing he caught from Solidarity before he flew away as well was Jimmy thanking Tango for his help and telling him to go back to sleep.
˚⊹ ‧✩⋆⁺₊𓆩✦𓆪⋆⁺₊✩‧ ⊹˚
When Scar and Gem finally made it back to the apartment, Grian was sitting on the couch, hastily brushing feathers off his pants. Scar didn't think much of it, he regularly left stray feathers here and there anyway.
"Hello there, Grian. Had a good sleep?" Scar asked, ruffling his hair.
"Don't touch me." He said, batting Scar's hand away. "Also, not really. You made me sleep on the couch, Scar."
"Hey... I didn't say you had to."
"So, you gonna explain where you went in superhero costumes at two in the gosh darn morning?" Grian asked, rolling his eyes and changing the subject.
"Rigghht . Well, we uhm-" Scar started, looking at Gem for approval before continuing. "Yeah, we're vigilantes. We're going against some evil stuff the government created."
"Oh. I see." Grian said, before turning around and inspecting the HotGuy calendar on the wall, then looking back at him. "Wait. Are you the mildly attractive guy on that calendar, Scar?"
Scar felt his face flush, he laughed in embarrassment and buried his head in his hands while Gem started wheezing next to him, patting Scar on his back.
"I'll take that as a yes. Anyways, erm-.. heh," Grian started laughing lightly too, which Scar found unreasonably cute, even after he called him out on the calendar business.
The room fell into a loop of gaining composure then bursting out in cacophonies of laughter again. After about 2 minutes, Scar had regained his dignity and finally broke the silence.
"Grian!" He prompted, "You said you were a Reborn, right? What kind are you? I'd totally see you as a parrot, to be honest."
"I dunno, Scar. He seems more like a parasite as he wormed his way into staying here for free." Gem said with a bite of sarcasm. Grian gasped with a faux offense, putting his hand over his heart.
"To answer your question, I'm a Jewel Wasp," Grian said nonchalantly, leaning back into the couch he was sitting on.
"Woah! That's awesome!" Scar said excitedly, briefly noticing that Gem seemed quite shocked. He then realized he had literally zero idea what a Jewel Wasp was. He turns to the dragonfly Reborn beside him, his voice lowering to a loud whisper. "Gem, what’s a Jewel Wasp?"
"They're basically wasps if they could mind control people," Gem said, a sparkle starting to light in her eyes. "Which is indeed, very cool."
Scar frowned before looking at Grian. He walked around him before going back to the spot where he was previously standing. "You seem to be lacking some insect features though. Like, don't Wasp have antennae and stingers and stuff like that? Those would probably be some of the most noticeable features about you, but I’m not seeing anything like that at all."
"Oh, it's no worries. I bought one of those feature hider potions from a merchant that passed by earlier. It works pretty well, actually. The one I drank wears off in a week." Grian said, responding without hesitation.
"They make ones that last that long? That's crazy."
Gem hummed "I'm excited to see what your wings look like when they come back. I finally won't be the only four-winger in this place!... I think."
Scar smiled, at least he knew what felt weirdly off about Grian when he met him. However, he still wanted to ask one last question. One which Gem may or may not be happy with.
"Grian," Scar asked, almost whispering directly in the shorter man’s ear, " Would you like to join our vigilante duo? "