Soul Trade AU

Outnumbered Part 3: The Arguments

Cub and Scar moved quickly through the halls of the nHo's base, at a pace that probably wasn't healthy for Cub, what with his injuries. The two were bickering, although any entirely-hypothetical listener would need a moment to figure out exactly what.

"Cub! Come on! You need to rest!"

"I'm fine, Scar."

"You're bleeding."

"It doesn't hurt, I'm conscious, I can help!"

"Cub... I'm worried about you."

"You don't need to be worried about me. I'm fine."

"Cub, this isn't 'optimism' or anything, this is suicide!"

"Scar-"

"Cub, I can't let you hurt yourself like this. Just come back." With that word from Scar, Cub paused in his tracks, the desperation in Scar's voice driving him to wait, for a moment, just to hear Scar out, hear out the man that had the exact opposite experience to him. Of course, before he could, he had one question.

"...Then tell me what happened."

"I can't." Scar's reply was immediate, and harsh.

"If you won't tell me, then I need to find out for myself. It's hurting you. I don't need any powers to see that."

"Please, Cub. I... I..." Scar's voice trailed off into incoherent mumbling.

Well, it turned out that the potential hypothetical listeners were not, in fact, hypothetical. After a strange encounter with one Ethoslab, Azin, Team Pacifist, Grian and AC had made their way into the nHo base, in a possibly illicit manner, and now they were around the corner, sort of eavesdropping. Azin managed to catch what Scar said, with his slightly better hearing. He went pale. AC made a worried, inquisitive noise towards him, but Azin remained quiet.

Cub, on the other hand, made a quiet noise of confusion, not catching what Scar had said.

"I said, I don't need your blood on my hands, too." Scar repeated, ever so softly, his voice cracking. This prompted a response from the listening group. Stress wasn't angry; she was just disappointed. False's hand tightened into a fist, and Cleo was shocked. Joe went pale., Grian gasped softly, and Azin, well...

He broke. 

Scar's words, right there and then, had confirmed the fear that had sunk into the pit of his stomach and the back of his mind, that something terrible, something deadly, had happened to Garaa. So, even as AC comforted him, with a gentle hug, before standing up and going to speak with the two ConVex, he could feel his world shattering around him.

AC and Cub spoke for a while, then left in search of Scar, who had gone off. After that, Azin slowly brought himself to his feet, taking a moment to gather together the shards of himself. He turned to face the Hermits with him, and spoke.

"It's time to fix this, to end this once and for all." He declared, his voice heavy and flat. "You want a motivation for me, Grian? You have one. Garaa was one of my oldest friends. I won't let it happen to any of the others, ever again. Not one more drop of blood will be spilled, Hermit or Demon. This ends, and it ends as soon as it can. I swear by my axe."

With that, the group set off with a renewed kind of energy, Azin's cold determination fuelling their movement alongside that of Team Pacifist. The war would end, and it would end soon.

Meanwhile, with the other person who just found out what happened...

Cupra and Aqua were in the process of trying to smuggle Wels out the secret passage when Kelgi and Tango came back in. They gasped, and scrambled to drag Wels in before they were spotted. Tango caught the movement out the corner of his eye, but chose to say nothing- he was still marginally on their side.

"Hasn't enough blood been shed!?" Tango protested, trying to talk her down. He knew it was useless, knew how he and all the other demons got when in these kinds of rages, only the threat of hurting someone they care deeply about being able to snap them out of it.

"No. Not enough has." Kelgi pulled out her bow, testing out the string. "They need to pay for what they've done.

"We can bring her back!"

"But that won't fix things."

"Neither will getting yourself hurt! Neither will rushing in, expending resources and energy on a revenge mission!"

"ARE YOU WITH ME, OR AGAINST ME, TANGO!?" Kelgi snapped. "These people, these people who played at being your friends, killed Garaa. Will you let her memory die in vain?"

"She wouldn't want you burning yourself out like this."

"But she would want to be avenged."

"Ycnelis is here. You know what he means to me." Tango explained, desperation filling his tone.

"Well, sucks to be him, I guess." Kelgi replied, her tone dry. "He's one of them. It's us versus them now. Are you with me, or no?" Kelgi asked again. Tango sighed.

"I want to be with you, I really do, you know. I care about you. But I can't let you hurt yourself like this."

"So you're against me then."

"...No, Kel, just-"

"Run. Run, Tango. Run. I'm giving you one chance to get the hell out of my way, in the name of our six hundred years of friendship, and because you seem to be so genuinely convinced in your self-righteousness. But next time I see you, one of these arrows will go through your heart... and your sword will follow soon after."

And so Tango ran.

Oof I'm ten minutes late. Oh well. It's the 8th in some time zones, at least, and it's not like it's the end of the holidays yet, anyway.

After this, it gets a lot less structured-planned/half-written though...

Well. Next chapter is the beginning of the end anyway, so that's a plus.

I've been Entropy, peace out from the present!