Mandela Catalogue REQUESTS (OPEN) (PART TWO)

Mark X Alternate (PLATONIC) (Crack)

Requested by Hanie_Finally_Got_An_AO3_Account in AO3, my cracks aren't the best because I don't sniff Alt Gabriel's wine enough, but here it is :D

. . . . .

Once upon a time, in a galaxy-- 

Er, I meant, within this planet--no, within Mandela Village--argh--!

No, you know what? Fuck it. Let me restart... ahem.

Beyond the borders and the safety of Mandela Villages roamed evil beings that wanted to kill all the villagers. Beings with faces of anger and hate, seeking destruction and bloodshed. They hated humanity, and they wished to destroy all of us, enjoying in our pain. My parents have been slayed and their life taken by those horrendous things: they were a force unstoppable by human means. Humans called them alternates: alternates called humans mere mortals. We all have been at war for centuries by now, the result of an angry and vengeful god named Lucifer who cursed our village to our doom against the alternates... and yet the number of the alternates never wane and we only lose so much. Many things have happened since then, our numbers only dwindling from their bloodlust. 

However, beyond the barriers of the Mandela Village was the start of an extraordinary tale.

A story of a human and an alternate. 

The Mandela Village used to be surrounded by vast forests that made the home isolated from other worlds. Within the forests a young alternate wandered, lost from its parents and still not quite the humanoid figure. It was but a mere blob of black and white eyes as it did not maintained a specific form yet due to how premature it was. It wandered around looking for its parents and speaking in a language so strange it did not seem to exist. And it happened that the alternate reached the outer barriers of the Mandela Village. Small enough was the young alternate that it slipped through a small hole in the barrier with ease, unnoticed by no one.

It stumbled around, as it looked around at the Mandela Village curiously. The houses and the fences stood tall. To the alternate the world was such an unfamiliar place: it was clear it was not educated by its parents about the village before it got lost. The alternate felt overwhelmed: it was a pretty small dark creature in a big world after all.

Luckily for the alternate it stumbled upon an abandoned shack at the outer edge of the village, next to the barrier. There were local domesticated cats who visited the small wreck and played and rested: there the alternate had stumbled in, shape still misshapen. Many of the cats recoiled and raised their backs in caution, but some of the others were kinder. The alternate flinched and braced for a fight it would have to flee from, but some of the considerate and unafraid felines who approached the shadowy blob poked at the alternate with their paws. When the alternate blinked its wide eyes at the creatures some of them rubbed their heads and tails around the alternate as it was accepted within the families of the domesticated felines.

Thus the alternate became adopted and had been taken care of by the cats since then. Since the alternate only have been influenced by the language of the felines the alternate grew up to be one: a black silhouette of a cat with black eyes and glowing white sclera. The alternate has been with the cats for perhaps a couple of years or so: until one day, it found a little boy walking alongside of the abandoned shack full of the domesticated cats that raised the alternate. The 4 year old had brown hair and had a round face that contained paranoia and anxiety, as he kept looking around his surroundings with nervously flickering brown eyes. He was quite small and thin, wearing a dark grey tunic and brown pants. But his face seemed to relax when he saw the alternate cat, and despite it being an alternate, the little boy picked up the cat and gazed at it with adoring eyes.

"Hi.... can I take you with me? I'm lonely..." the brunette spoke in a voice of a child like he was as he smiled gently, and at this moment the alternate seemed to like the little boy as it licked his face with its soft and warm tongue. The boy laughed as he hugged the alternate closer to himself, cradling the shadow in his arms. "Thanks... Imma name you N!"

The boy took the cat N home, laughing joyously as he skipped with the small alternate in his arms. N looked around its surroundings: the household was poor, and it seemed that the little boy was alone most of the times. Despite the cat's appearance and prematurity it was still quite the bright one as its race was generally an intelligent species. So despite that there was a rocky start between the two with distrust from N, the little boy took care of the alternate with care and love. In return and gratitude the cat sometimes stole food for the little boy to feed him when his parents were unavailable to, and it made the little boy smile. And N came to like the brunette's happy laughs.

At age 15 the little boy grew taller and more refined, and he even got a baby sister whom he called Sarah. She was young, but N grew to like the infant too for she was gentle. The cat also had grown, but not too significantly as a normal alternate should: but the alternate was oblivious for its parents did not teach the basics of being an alternate and what the normality of the intelligent species were. Despite this everything was normal... until one day, the alternate vanished from the brunette's sight and house. Where would it have gone? The brunette was confused: the alternate cat N was last seen in his friend's house, Cesar Torres. He knew he shouldn't have taken his feline friend there! There the boy have seen a man in black robes with a white rectangular portal, the same entity that he saw when he was much younger, right before he found his cat. And then the cat disappeared from his life for what seemed like forever.

However one day, a miracle came for the boy.

The brunette was now seventeen years old, independent at an early age. He had missed his cat friend, but he had forced himself to move on. But he couldn't help but think about all the good times he had with N as he faced the alternate who have killed his friend Cesar and was now mocking his face. Even the clothes were the same, the same red strap of belt around the black and white tunic. The brunette felt tears run down his face as he raised his crossbow to his friend... no. His friend Cesar was no longer alive, and N nowhere to be seen ever since then. 

"YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!"

But before the boy could shoot the alternate Cesar it was suddenly attacked by a blur of black. The alternate screeched as it fought back with outstretched sharp talons, but in the end was driven away from the brunette. The boy's breath hitched as he lowered the crossbow in shock, as his savior turned around to face him. An alternate? But that was impossible... no alternate would save a human while betraying its own kin at the same time.

Unless....?!

The alternate shifted its form from the silhouette of a man with eyes only visible, to a familiar cat with only the eyes glowing. The brunette gasped happily as he got to his knees, dropping his crossbow with a clatter: "N?!"

The alternate now in its feline form hopped into the boy's arms as they both embraced each other in happiness: after 2 years, they met again. Truly inseparable despite the differences they had, the first human and alternate bond to ever happen in history.

. . . . .

"Whew! And there you have it, Cesar." The brunette, who was now older and more mature, sat in a comfortable rocking chair across from the older Cesar. Apparently his friend was alive and have evaded fatality from the alternate who stole his face: and the boy was glad he have survived the encounter, he never lost anyone in the end.

"Wow, that is... quite the story, Mark." Sarah, who have also aged to adulthood, chuckled as she pet the alternate cat on Mark's lap. Cesar only looked at Mark and N as if he was concerned but he said nothing. Sarah continued happily, "I didn't know N has been with you for quite the while. It even saw me as a baby: it's older than me!" 

The three laughed, all of them relaxing around a fireplace that warmed them from the cold winters raging outside their home. The war between the alternates and humans have not ceased, but for now they were content and safe in Mandela Village. 

Safe and happy.

. . . . .

Fun fact everyone probably figured out by now: This is like during the Medieval ages in Europe in a small isolated village named Mandela Village. BUT FUN FACT YOU GUYS DID NOT KNOW: the alternate impersonating Cesar is one of N's parent :D