Chapter Text
Chapter 10
The New Beginnings
Scar
It had been a week since everything transpired. After Grian’s request for the breakup he was met with no more words directed at Scar. Scar tried to text and call him the next day but he was blocked. Scar just wished he had a reason or at least Grian would be able to still be friends.
But there he sat at a college lunch table trying mediocre food alongside Jimmy and Lizzie. Gem and Joel had a different lunch period then them that day so it was just the bamboozler trio. Scar had been moping all week.
What surprised Scar is the lengths that Grian was going to to avoid him. Jimmy texted asking about it and Grian left him on read. Jimmy decided not to call out of fear that his brother would have blocked him as well. Lizzie and Joel tried calling him too. Scar wasn’t even mad that they broke up at this point, just the lack of reasoning made Scar feel super hurt.
The only thing that Scar had heard from him was that he was no longer staying with Mumbo and was fully moved in with Impulse and Skizz. Gem tried to question him on this all but she was met with no response and harsh words from her dads about “leaving him alone.”
As he ate through the very bad tasting pizza Lizzie glanced at his phone.
”Scar you gotta stop moping about and forget about this guy, he isn’t worth your time.” Lizzie exclaimed..
“Yeah Scar, you gotta get over him, Grian is just sort of heartless.” Jimmy said. “He always has been when he broke up with Taurtis he did the same thing.”
Scar grumbled.
“What I’m trying to say is it isn’t your fault, you did nothing wrong.” Jimmy put a hand on his friend's shoulder.
“Should we share our ideas now, Jimmy?” Lizzie asked
“What idea?”
“Lizzie, now's probably not the time.” Jimmy said.
“No it's okay, what's the idea and why didn’t you guys let me in on it?”
“Okay then lets do it now, what's something that you have always wanted to do but you couldn’t because you were a hero?”
“Be in a relationship where I don't have to constantly lie to my boyfriend.”
“No other than that.”
“I don’t know.”
“Travel!” Lizzie said with theatrical jazz hands.
“You guys really think we can afford that?” Scar asked he then pulled them into a whisper, “We just got let go of our main source of income.”
Referring to his superhero work obviously.
“Well in our ancient society class earlier, if you were paying attention you’d know that there's a big study abroad program offered to anyone taking the class and with the way that the courses work a lot of our tuition is already paying for the program.” Lizzie explained.
“So we were thinking, why not another adventure? Gem and Joel and some other people we know are also going.”
Traveling the world with his two best friends? How could he possibly say no to that? Plus it would be a good way to get away from it all.
“How do I sign up?”
“The teacher for the class just needs you to meet with him, we could probably try and see if he’s in his office right now.” Lizzie suggested.
“But Lizzie, Scar hasn’t finished his amazing cafeteria pizza.”
“Oh whatever will I do.” Scar said mockingly.
The three made their way over to the classroom and were able to sign up.
Scar was excited for this new adventure, he was excited to leave the city, he was excited to study all the different architecture but he was excited to be able to think of something other than him….
———————————————————————————
Grian
Grian did not like his new life at all. He would wake up, since he got fired and no longer had a job and couldn’t pay rent he’d been staying with Skizz Impulse and Gem. He would get changed and eat breakfast and then he would be driven to the “Watcher Lab Facility,” where they’d both try and heal and hospitalize him but also run tests on him. This would take most of the day then Skizz would usually pick him up and he’d get dinner.
He wondered when it would all end, when would be stop being seen as an experiment and instead a person again, a person with feelings.
After a long day of all of this, he waited at the watcher organization. When he got access to his phone he saw a text.
Skizz wrote:
“Sorry they need me to work overtime. Pearl is coming to pick you up.”
As much as Grian was excited to see his older sister he also knew it came with answering dozens of questions, something he was not excited for. He was already exhausted but he knew she’d want to take him somewhere to eat rather than just dropping him off directly at home.
It took about fifteen minutes before he got the text that she was there. He went outside to see a light blue car, the back of the car had various stickers, some rainbow, some flower related.
“Wait, this isn’t your car.” Grian said.
“No, it's Scott's, I don't have a car.” Pearl explained
”What about that black one?”
“That's Gem. She lets me borrow it whenever she's at school.” Pearl said she then giggled, “You think I can afford a car?”
Pearl worked at a pet shop as a dog trainer, she hadn’t gone to school for it but she had a natural talent. One of the pups grew so attached to her that she took it home, the pups name was Tilly and was super duper cute.
Grian got into the car, “You're not going to play emo music right?”
“Oh my gosh that was literally just a thing I did in high school.” Pearl exclaimed, “Jimmy decided to tell Joel and Martyn who now whenever I see them sing emo songs at me,”
“That is hilarious." Grian said
“No it's not Grian.”
“Its funnier considering I’m pretty sure Joel was in an emo band in high school.” Grian pointed out.
“Really? Thanks, I have to use that against him.” Pearl giggled.
The two of them laughed then Grian came to a sudden realization, a question that he’d forgotten to ask.
“Wait where are we going?” Grian asked.
“Its a suprise.” Pearl murmured.
The car ride was fairly smooth, a few bumps in the road but besides that Grian felt like he could finally relax.
The car finally stopped. Grian was somewhat relieved. He looked outside to see they were in the city. Just as he’d expected, but a blue building with a cookie decal on it was in front of them.
“Is this Bigb’s bakery?”
“Yep, Jimmy is about to finish his shift and I thought it would be smart to meet up with him.” Pearl explained.
Jimmy might have been one of the last people Grian wanted to see. They hadn’t talked since everything went down, was he going to ask Grian about Scar? Why did Pearl think this was a good idea?
Grian with no real options got out of the car. Pearl made sure to lock it before the duo headed inside. The door made a little jingle sound.
Joel and Jimmy were both working the counter where there were various pastries all of which were cookies, classic Bigb.
“Did I come in too soon?”
“Oh not at all Joel just came to take over for me, isn’t that right Joel?”
“Yep,” Joel rolled his eyes.
The three of them made their way to one of the booths, it had similar aesthetics to one of those old fashioned diners except everything was blue and cookie themed.
They all ordered cookies, Pearl got a weird red velvet flavored one, Jimmy got a white sugar cookie and Grian went with the classic chocolate chip.
“So how has it been going for you guys?” Jimmy asked.
“Same old same old for me.” Grian said, everyone knew it was a lie, his weeks didn’t usually account for getting fired and getting experimented on by a super villain organization.
“It’s been pretty good for me, I got a few new dogs to train that I’ve been working on.” Pearl explained, “Oh and also I got to hang out with Gem a few days back.”
“Did Gem mention the trip to you?” Jimmy asked
“Yeah she did some sort of studying abroad program.” Pearl said.
“Well, I’m going too, it's basically like covered by our tuition,” Jimmy explained.
“Whoa really?” Grian asked, trying to at least contribute a little to the conversation.
“Yeah, I mean I’ve always wanted to travel the world, and because of reasons that you two probably already know I haven’t been able to.” Jimmy explained.
“Why did you do it?” Grian questioned.
“I told you I wanted to explore the world.”
“No, why did you sign up for your job?”
“I uh, I mean Scar and Lizzie convinced me to do it.” Jimmy explained.
“Did someone mention Lizzie?” Joel asked from over the counter.
“Stop eavesdropping Joel!” Jimmy yelled. “Also helping people and general financial benefits they offered to pay off my student loans.” He explained.
“So you gave up your dignity for money?” Grian asked.
“Grian!” Pearl yelled, then elbowed her brother.
“I mean I can see why you think that but also I saw it as a way to make a change. Every meeting we went to either Scar Lizzie or I would try and bring up hybrid discrimination. Sure they would hardly listen but,” He took a deep breath. “It was also an opportunity to change people’s perception of hybrids and make them see that we aren’t all animals and instead people are willing to help them.”
Grian was surprised, Jimmy did all that to make a difference, to make a change. Maybe the heroes weren’t so bad, maybe Grian misjudged them. He was even more surprised about Scar, and with that surprisedness came guilt, tremendous amounts of guilt. Had Grian done the wrong thing? Had he made a mistake?
“Jimmy, ever since I first met you I knew something very clear, you always put your heart first, you always try to do what you think is right and what you think will help people.” Pearl explained, Grian nodded along although he would’ve phrased it all differently. “You're one of the few family members I have and there's nothing you can do to change that, you’ll always be my little brother.”
Jimmy was now crying, and so was Pearl. God why were his siblings so emotional?
The two of them hugged and forced Grian to join in.
“From now on no more secrets,” Jimmy said confidently.
“Yeah, no more secrets, we will be open and honest with each other.” Pearl said smiling.
Joel finally brought out their cookies. “Oh my gosh cringe!” He joked.
“Shut up Joel!” Pearl responded.
”Grian, I have a question.” Jimmy said.
“Yeah?” Grian asked, he knew where this is going.
“Can you at least give Scar a reason for why-.” Jimmy started.
Pearl must have seen the visible discomfort on Grian’s face because she immediately butted in with. “He can text him when he’s ready, right Grian?”
“Yeah,” Grian said, he had no intention to text Scar. He really didn’t. But he knew that Pearl and Jimmy would be mad if he admitted that now.
The three finished their cookies. Eventually they gave Jimmy their parting hugs and Pearl drove Grian back to Skizz and Impulse’s house. It was about 10PM by the time Grian had gotten home.
Pearl walked him inside, “Do you need anything?” She asked.
“I think I’m fine,” Grian replied, “You can go, don’t you have work tomorrow?”
“I do, I do, but I’ll be fine,” Pearl explained.
“Pearl, you came here and you didn’t tell me?” Gem asked, she stood on the staircase. She ran into Pearl and the two shared a hug.
“I’m sorry I was dropping this one off, I can’t stay for long.”
“Oh hey Grian!” Gem said although there was a certain bitterness in her tone. Clearly Scar had talked to her. “Neither of my dads are home.”
“Oh okay,” Grian said he turned to Pearl, “Thank you so much, I’m going to head to bed now,”
“Okay! Goodnight Grian, if you need anything please call me, I will be here like as fast as I can.”
“I know you will.”
Grian made his way into his bedroom. The yellow and blue patched covers were done neatly up, oh someone must have made his bed for him. Judging by the messiness of the bed making job it was clearly Skizz, but Grian appreciated it none the less. On the center of the bed was a plushie, a soft cream colored llama. Oh right, that's Pizza.
He stared at the plushie blankly. The plushie that belonged to him and Scar. The same Scar that now hated him. Grian knew for a fact that whatever he did he could never speak to Scar again. It was too painful, all Grian ever did was ruin things and he didn’t want to ruin something as perfect and nice as Scar. So he needed to keep his distance. That was the only option.
After Grian got into his pajamas and brushed his teeth he got into bed and fastly fell asleep. He’d had a pretty long day, “soon it will all be over,” Scar told himself. Although in reality he had little belief of this.
His dream had the figures in it, the purple figures in the midnight sky on the yellow ground. With that weird symbol that looked like an unfinished rectangle with dots on two of the corners. The little girl was there.
“Great work Xelqua, if only you could have finished it.”
“Finished what?” He shifts his head up at the little girl.
“Don’t worry the Watchers still have a plan for you,”
“No please don’t,”
The watchers were the creators of the purple roots, the watchers caused all his pain
and suffering.
“Oh but this is spectacical, the watchers chose you Xelqua, they chose you as there vessel,”
“Please I just-,”
“You don’t exactly have an option, silly,” The little girl said, her teeth forming into a wicked smile, “It's your destiny.”