Second Encounters || McD/Ms AU

You've Lost All Your Spark

Garroth Ro'Meave's doppelgänger drew his sword.

Alarm bells flared through the werewolf's head, and his first instinct was to drop into a defensive stance, hearing the low growl escape his chest like it wasn't his own. He didn't even realize that in the past, he would probably have found a version of himself with a whole sword to be pretty goddamn cool.

But he just stared as the other Garroth didn't move, all except his chest heaving with breaths, his nostrils flaring. The tip of the sword shivered, betraying his unease as his wild eyes scanned the werewolf all over. It was a standoff, for better lack of the word. After a tense heartbeat, Garroth took a chance and began to circle, causing the guard to falter and begin following his movement, refusing to let the werewolf get any closer. It was then that he realized he was distracted from even answering his doppelgänger's question. Maybe if he did so, the both of them could relax and have a civil conversation, and he wouldn't have to think about looking into a mirror of what his brother could only witness months back when he had a sharp object of his own in Starlight.

"Um... hey?" Garroth forced himself to lower his hackles, taking a deep breath without closing his eyes so he could keep his focus on the suspicious blonde face-offing with him, slowly feeling his ears and tail slip away. The sword lowered, a small amount of surprise coloring his face but making no way to remove his hostility. "My name is... this may sound weird. My name is Garroth?"

The guard's brow raised, then knitted, silence following.

"Garroth Ro'Meave," the werewolf tried one more time in a last effort to answer his question, watching as the sword pointed back up, rigid.

"Impossible," he grunted. "Unless you're some sort of impersonator... or changeling."

"None of those," Garroth laughed uncomfortably, taking another risky chance by taking a couple paces forward, hands up. "I promise. I just need to know what's going on and why there's an evil version of my brother holding one of my old classmates hostage."

Every other thing he said flew right over doppelgänger Garroth's head, because he tensed and peered at his mirror with mistrust glowing in his gaze.

"Brother?" He demanded, "Oh, he's dealt with. Something's happened to him, but trust me, he's not hurting us. The threat is contained."

Pop.

"Huh," Garroth breathed, the tail behind him stiff and twitching. What on earth did he mean by contained? He had just crossed paths with him minutes ago, there was no way he...

Oh. Ohhhhh no.

A stone dropped into his gut, making him feel sick. Zane was here! His mind was thrown back to seeing his brother looking so wrong, so aggressive and borderline insane. Those eyes were filled with so much more death and destruction than he had ever seen in his own brother's, even on his worst of worst days. Wrong Zane belonged to this guard, and his own kin was under his watch. With how aggressive he acted even around a copy of himself, Zane's situation couldn't be good. He had to check in on him, fast.

"You know what?" Garroth forced his voice to a cheery ramble, while trying to calm his now erratic heartbeat. "I think this is a big misunderstanding! I walked through a whole portal, a big one. It was crazy! Never seen anything like it before. Must have jumped realities or something."

The guard's face lit up in recognition at the word portal, scoring bonus points in Garroth's head. So he had to keep it going.

"I'm just gonna have to pick him up and... take care of him myself!" he added. And, well, that was true, just maybe not in the way his copy was thinking. After being transported to a different reality, he was probably shaken up. The brothers had their fair share of issues with the idea of jumping timelines.

He was relieved to see his copy start looking more relaxed the more he talked, maybe realizing that he really wasn't a threat. Garroth's ear twitched.

"I'll even let you pat me down. I promise I'm not gonna hurt anybody," he reassured to add topping to the cake. He realized the irony of his statement, since he didn't necessarily need a weapon to deal out devastating damage. But his alternate self didn't need to know that tiny detail.