Retaliation of the Reduviidae
The morning after, Scar wakes up and rubs his eyes before checking the time.
11:47.
He jumps and launches himself out of bed, throwing on some casual clothes and exiting his room to the living room. When Scar looks around, he sees Grian leaning on the countertop, on his tiptoes to reach a clay pot. He's watering all of Gem's plants, many of which Scar barely realized were there.
Grian turns around and meets Scar's gaze. His wings are awkwardly sticking out of the bottom of his red sweatshirt. "Hey Scar, glad you finally decided to wake up. Y'know that Timmy guy you said you could get money from? Well, I changed my mind. Please go ahead and ask him for money because you literally have no food around here... Except that." He puts his mini watering can down and gestures to the bottom cabinet where Scar kept his celebratory wine.
"You never know when you need to suddenly celebrate something, it's for convenience!" He exclaims before clearing his throat and unlocking his phone. "Anyways, I'll call him up real quick. You just stand there."
Grian nods before going back to watering little green sprouts. Scar quickly opens his contacts and taps on Jimmy's. The phone rings. Once... Twice... Three times before he finally picks up.
"Scar? What's up? You need anything?" A familiar voice chirps from the phone.
"Can I perhaps borrow like... 600 dollars?"
The answer is instant, almost like it took Jimmy practically zero thought at all. "Yep! No problem. Erm, may I ask why though?" He asks, the sound of rustling papers audible in the background.
"Oh, long story short, I got a new roommate and I'm short on cash right now. He wants food." Scar explains, shrugging slightly to no one in particular.
"Alright. That seems reasonable. Cash or Venmo?"
"I dunno, whatever you want."
The soft noise of tapping is heard before Jimmy finally speaks up again. "Right. Just sent the money. Bye, Scar!"
He hangs up before Scar can get another word in. Scar stifles a sigh and sits down on the singular chair in the kitchen, picking at stray feathers on his wings that were starting to loosen up. Grian puts his watering can down and looks around for a kettle before sighing and pouring himself a glass of water. He visibly cringes at himself as he puts the water into the microwave. "You got any tea around here?"
"Shelf to the very right. Middle section."
Scar watches as he brews himself a cup of tea, his eyes locked on the absolute grace the man in front of him radiated. How does one look so peaceful while brewing 2-year-old tea?! He taps his fingers on the countertop as Grian takes little sips from the steaming hot cup.
“So, can you order something online? I think I may starve to death.” He prompts, shattering the serene silence.
“Yeah. What do you wanna eat?”
˚⊹ ‧✩⋆⁺₊𓆩✦𓆪⋆⁺₊✩‧ ⊹˚
The two end up sharing a weirdly large portion of salad. Grian raises a brow as Scar picks off all the croutons and eats them all. The two sit in almost perfect silence as they finish the salad until there’s nothing left on the plate but a pair of abandoned plastic forks.
“I think that may have been the most disgusting salad I’ve had in my life., Grian says, still visibly disgruntled by the first bite.
Scar squints at him. “What kind of mystical salad are you eating? That was a pretty typical salad I’d say.”
“Oh. Well...” He says before leaning back in his chair, probably thinking of some punchline to finish up his sentence. Scar shrugs and tosses the paper bowl and forks into the trashcan, pretending that he isn’t half the reason why the government urged citizens to recycle so much.
“It was not that bad!” He grins playfully, standing up and starting to walk towards Grian before his phone suddenly blares. A loud, ear-piercing alarm which makes the two jump. Grian screams while Scar physically jumps, wings instinctively launching him up. He hits the ceiling and crashes to the ground with a loud Thump!
“Scar, Scar! What is that? I think I might go deaf. For the Watcher’s sake, turn it off!” Grian yelps, recoiling as the device lets out another blare.
“Sorry, sorry!” He gets up and scrambles over to the table where his phone is sitting before swiping up on the screen, speed-reading the notification before dismissing it.
The shorter male sighs in relief, gingerly walking to Scar’s side, peering at his phone. “You still haven’t answered my question. What in the universe was that?!”
“It’s a notification sent by the government. A Corrupted was causing havoc in the capital. Specifically the Assassin Bug. Maybe if the damn government actually cared about citizens and kept them under control, I wouldn’t have to deal with them. ” He informed, bitterly spitting out the last few phrases like they tasted foul.
“Hm.. Well, this is a good chance for me to prove to you that I’m not completely helpless in battle, y’know?”
Scar blinks. By letting Grian do this, he may get him or himself injured. Maybe worse. Then again, he was painfully curious about how well his roommate would do in situations like this.
“Yeah. Get your stuff on and then we can go together!”
˚⊹ ‧✩⋆⁺₊𓆩✦𓆪⋆⁺₊✩‧ ⊹˚
A few minutes later, Grian hops through the doorway of the singular bathroom in the apartment. Watchers, he looked good (and cute) in that outfit. He was currently struggling to tie the blindfold around his eyes.
“Seriously,” Scar said, inspecting the blindfold while Grian was still trying to strangle it on, “how do you see in that thing?”
He stops mid-tie, looks at Scar for a moment, grins, and then winks before pulling the opaque fabric over his eyes, stifling a bark of laughter. “I don’t think you’re destined to know, Scar.”
Damn.
“Oh. Okay.” He replies, flustered. Scar turns to the window and briefly stares at the glaring sun to attempt to revive his crumbling composure. Get it together, Scar! He’s just a friend for Watcher's sake! Still, he was left feeling mildly insecure about his more basic bodysuit.
Scar clears his throat before stretching his raven wings out and reaching for the doorknob. “Anyways, let's go beat Reduviidae butt!”
The door is flung open as Scar throws himself down the stairwell. Grian audibly sighs before he follows in pursuit. Notably less theatrical than Scar’s exit. The two run out of the apartment complex and fly into the sky, Scar in the lead as Grian drags behind him, wings rapidly flapping as he visibly tries to not get lost through winding streets and tall trees. Sometimes, Scar swears he sees something glowing, purple and small. Tet when he looks, it’s never truly there.
“You good back there? You’re not gonna hit a tree and die on me, right?”
“Yes Scar, I’m fine. I’ve told you 100 times that I can see perfectly fine in my ways.” Grian replies. If eye-rolls were a tone of voice, then that singular sentence would definitely be it.
“Just makin’ sure! And-” Scar barely ducks out of the way as an arrow whizzes by his face. “That, my friend, is our destination.”
˚⊹ ‧✩⋆⁺₊𓆩✦𓆪⋆⁺₊✩‧ ⊹˚
Martyn stands in the capital, soaking in the chaos as two of his arms shoot an arrow into the back of a woman’s head. People scream as he stalks through the waves of running people, grinning ear to ear at the immense amount of adrenaline that is coursing through him at the moment. If he had one thing to like about the government, it would be that they let him do things like this without sentencing him to death- for the second time.
He was just about to bite someone when a flaming arrow nicks him in the neck. He whirls around and looks up to see, of course, HotGuy with his gallant bow and stupid wings. However, another person was with him this time, and it wasn’t Gemini. A particularly short man, with curly blonde hair and a blindfold around his eyes. Probably for the edgy factor, he thought. The man was staring at him, mouth agape as he stared at Martyn’s arms, all of them frozen mid-action.
“Watchers, you’re back again? Where’d your little sidekick go, did you have to replace her with this wasp boy?” He yells, top right arm flinging a potion of harming directly at HotGuy’s chest. He barely catches it and hisses in pain when the glass shatters on his palm, the crimson liquid seeping into his skin.
“Don’t call him that! And, Gemini’s perfectly fine, she’s just out!” He retorts, briefly shaking his hand and angling another arrow directly at him. At this point, Martyn wouldn’t be able to cause any more havoc if he wanted to make it out with an arm -- not like how Pearl did the other week.
“Whatever, you fuck. Can’t you leave a man to have some fun without stopping him for once, HotGuy?” Martyn snarls before glancing at the wasp. “And you! Never seen an insect before, huh? Stop gawking and do something. If you’re gonna stop me then at least make it an entertaining attempt, aye?”
The man squints at him, then his hands before whispering something in HotGuy’s ear. He gasps before whispering something back. The wasp nods and barrels himself into a police station window, visibly stealing a 9mm handgun and whizzing away into the cloudy sky.
“Awh.. Is your little friend too scared to fight? That’s a shame, I was quite excited to see what he could dish out.”
“Shut it, Martyn.” HotGuy snaps, pulling back on his bow before firing what could only be called a warning shot. It explodes on the pavement behind him.
“Wow! Dropped the codename, aye? I’m proud! I was getting tired of it anyway.” Martyn grins, edging towards a pocketknife left abandoned on the ground by a fleeing citizen. If he could get a bit closer- then he could fling it at the rascal’s wings and he’d come crashing to the ground. A bird’s nothing when they can’t fly.
Fortunately, he makes it to the scrap of metal, ducking under another arrow and blocking when the raven lunges at him with an axe. “Geez, what did I do to you? You know you can’t kill me, right? That’s more of a treason than what you’re doing right now, y’know.”
“If I weren’t here, then you might as well kill everyone, Reduviidae,” HoyGuy said, feinting to the left as Martyn delivers a heavy blow to the ground. To be fair, the raven was right. The fact just annoyed Martyn more.
For a solid ten minutes, blades clashed, netherite to netherite. His blade caught on the other's large wings, feathers flying as blood dripped from the wound. HotGuy grits his teeth and slashes back. Each of them had only landed a few strikes on each other, drawing out this long-winded battle for much longer than it needed to last. Martyn was starting to wonder where the little wasp went. No time to think about it, though. One of his arms under the axe stretches out, pocketknife in hand as HotGuy crams in closer to him, axe over his head. He laughs as he feels it drive into the other's shoulder and shoves the taller man onto the ground. HotGuy clutches his shoulder as he watches his axe and glasses tumble to the ground far behind Martyn.
“This is a new scenario. You’ve always been soo cocky about beating me but here you are, lying on the ground and about to die. It’s ironic isn’t it?” Martyn turns around and grabs the axe. He examines it for a second, admiring the pretty carvings and swirls on the handle. Too bad he couldn’t keep it to himself. Actually, once HotGuy dies, he could keep it.
“Well raven, say goodni- Argh!” He jumps back as an arrow stabs into his foot and explodes. Luckily, it doesn’t do too much damage compared to Pearl’s situation but it’ll probably leave him limping for a while. Damn it, Scott was definitely going to make fun of him for this one.
“CG, now!” HotGuy yells, reaching behind him for his bow. He stops midway and grimaces at the wound in his shoulder.
Martyn’s about to say something but stops, mouth half open as a sharp pain flares through his spine. A bullet cuts clean through his chest. Ouch. Martyn falls to his knees, two of his hands still clutching the axe at his side while his others tried to stop the tar-coloured blood from spilling out of him. When he turns around, he sees the wasp, apparently dubbed ‘CG’ holding the dumbass handgun he’d stolen. CG runs over to HotGuy’s side, asking if he’s alright and turning him around for a second, reassuring him that he’d be fine. Once done, he walked over and dusted off his outfit, which was an obnoxious bright purple and pink.
CG crouches to his level on the ground and grins. “Hey there, Assassin Bug or whatever your name is. How’s that bullet treating ya? Hurts, right?”
“Ugh, fuck off already.” Martyn manages, one of his hands letting go of the axe and flipping CG off.
“Heh,” He laughs before gripping his shoulders and staring him in the eyes. All of a sudden, the blindfold melts off, skin dripping into a dark ink and three pairs of wings unfurl behind CG’s back. His grin sharpens and he leans closer, whispering into Martyn’s ear. “If you even threaten HotGuy again, you’ll never see the light of day again, got that?”
Oh. Oh…
Maybe he’d fucked up this time. Whoever CG was, he was clearly something above him- a... Watcher? Was that what it was? That’s definitely what he looked like at least.
He feels a sharp sting in his neck. Right, a wasp. Martyn reaches up to pull it out and make some sort of final statement but then, he starts to feel drowsy and wobbles as CG steps back and tells him to stand up. Despite the pain shooting through his chest and his mind screaming for him to stay down, he does.
“Go back to wherever you live. Whatever you saw 10 seconds ago, forget it. Remember what I said about me murdering you, though.”
Martyn wants to scream, fight, or even tell him to fuck himself one more time but his body complies and he robotically walks away, memories of the past events fading away. When he finally makes it back to the Border, the only thing he remembers is to never mess with the wasp or his little boyfriend again.