Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

    When news first arrived of her existence, the men of Olathe were ecstatic. The glimmer of hope for reproduction brought optimism to the brow of even the most downtrodden men. Eager to reclaim the long-lost sensation of skin on skin, the wasteland population wasted no time in finding the coveted female and claiming her for their own.

    However, it quickly became apparent that the trumpet girl was someone to be feared. She and her beasts did not take kindly to the adoration of the opposite sex. Without lifting a finger, the girl was instantly surrounded with the entrails of those who tried to lay hands upon her sacred body.

    No, the trumpet girl was no messiah. She was an angry god who wrought fear upon the mortal man, ripping them limb from limb and reveling in the fear of those who remained.

    The sky was a sort of searing shade of blue, one which harbored a wrathful sun that beat down on your back and made your guts boil under your skin and made you wish you were never born in the slice of earthly hell known as Olathe, Colorado. The beasts slowly picked apart a maimed carcass like a macabre cattle farm while the trumpet girl roosted in the distinct coolness of their shadows, her fingers resting on the valves of her instrument. The sun on their warped, fleshy bodies made them feel like the hood of a hot car on a particularly miserable summer day, but none of them seemed bothered by the onslaught of rays that pummeled them hour after hour on the parched, cakey soil.

    An old man ambled over to her, the beasts looking up from their kill and making contented moans as he passed by, and stood expectantly over her. She patted the ground next to her, sending up a small cloud of dust into the already straining air, but kept gaze affixed on her grotesque menagerie of monsters.

    “Nancy, it reeks out here,” Yado sighed, “You really shouldn’t let them feed next to you. God knows where that’s been.”

    “I know exactly where it’s been. I was there when they killed him.”

    “Him? Who was he?”
    “I don’t know. Just the thousandth horndog who thought it might be a good idea to go after the world’s last girl.”

    “They never change, do they?”
    “What were you expecting? For them to just ignore me?”

    Yado shrugged and began watching them alongside her. The stifling, perpetual summer heat and the ever-present stench of death that followed Nancy’s herd of Joy Mutants were not a pleasant combination, but it did admittedly become more bearable when you focused your attention onto something else, especially something as fascinating as the eating habits of these magnificent anomalies. Disgusting as it was, it was impossible to look away as they grazed.

    “This one is new, isn’t it?” Yado inquired after a few minutes, his gaze shifting to a previously unfamiliar mutant, “Don’t think I’ve seen this one before, actually.”

    “You really wouldn’t believe the stuff Sweetheart and I find sometimes. This one was in a bathhouse of all places. I had to tie a piece of jerky to a stick to lure it out.”

    “Please tell me Sweetheart went with you in there.”

    “Do you think I’m stupid? Of course I did. You wouldn’t believe the faces of the guys in there when we came through.” Nancy stifled a laugh, and Sweetheart looked up from its portion of the half-eaten carcass. It almost seemed like it wanted to laugh along too, its unsettlingly jovial face dripping with freshly spilled blood.

    “I can only imagine,” smiled Yado, “Don’t worry your dear old father like that. You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”

    Nancy’s smile faded and she returned to her usual pensive expression. “Honestly, dad… I thought you had more faith in me than that. You know there’s no way I’d go into some pit of degenerates without an escort.”

    “Come on, can you blame me? My only daughter lives in a world of the nastiest men under the sun. It’s only natural for me to worry about you.”
    “Your only daughter lives in a world of your own creation. If you didn’t want to subject her to the most depraved men in human history, you wouldn’t have done the things you have,” Nancy said, “We made our beds, and now we must lie in them.”

    “You may be right,” he nodded, “If nothing else, we have our world and our beasts to look forward to. Had I not forged our Olathe, you’d be just another empty-headed girl from the sticks.”

    “What a fucking nightmare.”

    By this point, Sweetheart had lumbered over to the two among the group who still retained their humanity, and was laying across both of their laps, contented noises escaping from its parted lips as they idly stroked its scar-riddled back. The sun hung overhead like the pendulum of an experienced hypnotist, gleaming and wavering unabashedly in the crisp, cloudless sky. The beasts had mostly finished their meal to the point where what it had once been was completely unrecognizable, and they anxiously awaited something new to busy themselves with.

    After a few long minutes, Yado broke the placid silence. “Mind if I borrow that?” He asked, gesturing to the glistening trumpet that rested in Nancy’s thin hands.

    “Of course.”

    She gingerly handed the instrument over, careful not to disturb Sweetheart. Yado took a deep breath and pressed the mouthpiece against his lips, and a haunting melody carried over Olathe’s canyons. The formerly stirring mutants quelled and they all sat up, perfectly attentive and listening contentedly to the scientist’s slow yet regal piece, Nancy herself included. After the song reached its conclusion, Yado looked up from his work and Nancy clapped quietly while the mutants howled in appreciation before falling completely still once more.

    “Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1,” he announced, “The first piece I ever taught you, with the remarkable quality to calm even the most untamable bestial souls when played correctly.”

    “How did you know that’s exactly what I wanted you to play?” Nancy asked.

    “We’ve known each other for twelve long years, child. I think I know your tastes well enough by now.”

    “No, I mean…” Nancy continued, “How’d you know I wanted them to stay put?”
    “I… Didn’t,” Yado admitted, “Why’s that?”

    “Look.” Nancy placed her finger vertically on the ground in a patch of sunlight that was left just barely untouched by the prodigious mass of the mutant she and her father were leaning on. With her other hand, she pointed to the long shadow her finger cast against the cracked, sun-bleached earth. “Judging by where the sun is now, it’s maybe six-thirty right now.”
    “Mm-hm,” Yado nodded once more, signalling her to go on.

    “The best mutants come out of their hidey-holes right before the sun sets,” she explained, “so I was thinking I’d take Sweetheart on a walk to try and find some. The herd is growing ever scarcer, and I wanna find some really strange ones to add to my… collection.”

    “Leaving so soon? I just sat down.”

    “...Have you ever heard of a place called Dismal Island?” Nancy asked, completely dodging his question. Yado wracked his brain for a minute, trying to recall a place by that name.

    “I haven’t,” he finally admitted, “That said, though, a lot of places have had their names changed since the Flash. Plus, I’m not an Olathian native. A lot of the geography I don’t know.”

    “Well,” she began, “It’s a really little island with a great big cliff on it. I’ve seen it from a distance, and it looks like a big column sticking out of the sea. People say there’s a really weird mutant on the tippy top.”

    “Can Sweetheart scale cliffs? I don’t think she can.”

    “We’ll find a way, I think. If I can’t… I’ll just call the thing down myself. Do you know what songs a humanoid mutant would respond to?”

    “A humanoid mutant? I’m intrigued,” Yado gasped, his eyes widened. “I’ve only seen one or two myself, so I can’t say I do. A rare find like that would make a great addition to our cast if you do manage to summon it, though.”

    “Can I go, then?”

    “Sure. Just… don’t get hurt, all right?” Yado handed the trumpet back to her, and Nancy took it with a tentative yet determined grip. She rose to her feet, Sweetheart following in tangent as she placed a reassuring hand on its tortuous neck.

    “I promise I’ll come back in one piece,” she smiled. She went in for a brief hug with her father before promptly hopping onto the back of their treasured beast and leaving Yado and the herd alone.

Chapter Text

Eastern and Western Olathe were staunchly divided by a shallow sea as well as the territory of the Rando Army. This stretch of land, affectionately dubbed ‘Rando Land’ by its inhabitants, was an uncrossable stronghold that kept the two Olathian factions at bay, for better or for worse. Men on either side of Olathe did not dare trespass in Rando Land for fear of invoking the wrath of the army that took up residence there. Even the Rando soldiers themselves were a little scared of their own base, as entering it meant risking meeting their leader; Rando was a silent monster of a man who some people were convinced was not even human, unmatched in combat by even the most ferocious wasteland warriors. No ordinary man could ever expect to simply pass through the base of the most fearsome union of manpower ever assembled in post-flash Olathe without getting beaten to a bloody pulp quivering on the ground.

    Luckily, Nancy was not an ordinary man.

    The Trumpet Girl regularly made pilgrimage across Rando Land. For the first few times, soldiers ran up to her armed to the teeth with exotic weapons forged across Olathe, but she and her cherished mutant made quick work of those that dared transgress against her. By now, she had been there dozens of times, and she garnered little more than hungry stares from the soldiers, which quickly looked down at the ground fearfully once met with her own gaze. Tangible silence hung in the air when Nancy visited the Rando Army, broken only by the occasional forlorn melodies of her trumpet.

    The Rando Army in itself posed no threat to Nancy, but she still had a lingering feeling of apprehension when passing through their territory. In truth, she was terrified of Rando himself; not because of his alleged strength, but simply because she had no idea what to expect of him. Every account she’d heard of the man was different, and no solid conclusion could be drawn as to what kind of person might be waiting to confront her. Some saw the Red Skull as a heartless juggernaut who ruled Olathe with an iron fist, and others described him as a gentle, reserved man who wanted nothing but peace in his homeland. The ambiguity of his persona struck uncertainty and terror within Nancy, and though she never showed it, she made haste to get out of Rando Land every time she entered it.

    Nancy apprehensively gripped a spear that was lodged in Sweetheart’s throat from an assailant years ago, one that she now used as a makeshift steering wheel for the mutant. It was oppressively quiet; she could hear the echoes from Sweetheart’s footsteps and even her own breath, and it made her hairs stand on edge. The stares of the soldiers drilling holes in her back didn’t make things any better, either. She knew she could protect herself, she knew there wasn’t any real danger, but being the world’s last girl in a world full of desperate men, especially in a place like this, was enough to send her into a panic. She tightened her grip ever further and tried to put the presence of Rando looming over her out of her mind. Her stomach was twisting into ropey knots, but she kept her expression calm and steely as she rode through the forlorn camps.

    She imagined one of the soldiers throwing one of their firebombs into Sweetheart’s mouth, and its muscle fibers exploding like confetti out of a party popper. Then out of the shadows a behemoth of a man draped in black robes and covered in skulls approaches her and lifts her out of the dripping mess of meat she used to call her friend. He hoists her by the collar and his fingers wrap around her thigh and burn into her skin. There’s hot tears rolling down her cheeks and she screams for Yado or someone to help her but he’s not there to listen, no one is and no one ever will be again. She’s swallowed by his black robes and the soldiers start pouring cheap whiskey down her trumpet and laughing ceremoniously as it blasts back out again and shimmers in the sun and they’re pissing on Sweetheart’s remains and their voices swam in her head and Rando—

    Nancy jolted awake. Her fingers dug into Sweetheart’s scarred, leathery back, but it simply stood there, patiently waiting for her to wake up and provide instruction. She looked around; there were the same smoky blue cliffs and bizarre, lonely scenery she expected to see, except now Sweetheart was ankle-deep in the sea and Rando Land was well behind her, giving way to an endless expanse of ocean before her. She was well out of the line of sight of any of the soldiers, and her solitude provided immense relief. She slowly climbed off Sweetheart’s back and dipped her toes into the shallow seawater, lapping at the shore and soaking into the fabric of her pants. It felt as though even the sea was reaching for her, desperately clinging to her feet and climbing up her leg.

She recoiled as if she had been bitten and stood silently at the water’s edge as if waiting for an apology. The apology did not come. Unlike the mutants she governed and the degenerate men of Olathe she avoided, the sea was completely indifferent to her presence. She could pass through it or remain at its shoreline forever, and nothing would change. It made her feel small, and it brought her fleeting solace in the fact that maybe the world didn’t revolve around her entirely. Her gut untensed, and she stared blankly out into the cold, indifferent Olathian sea.

Sweetheart was making a clicking sound with its mouth out of boredom and it shook Nancy back to reality. She took in a deep breath and mounted her beast once again. In a brief moment of clarity, Sweetheart turned around and gave its master a forlorn, occupied look as if to say, you will be alright. Nancy ran a tremulous finger through its hair as they trudged through the water, and she clung tightly to its back. The seawater just barely made contact with her, stinging her skin ever so slightly as if it was trying to eat through it. A seaward breeze ripped through her hair and obscured her vision, and the only thing she could do was trust her cherished mutant to get her where she needed to go. She shut her eyes tight and wrapped her arms tight around its neck as the water rose up to her shoulders and the waves started to slam against her body.

The sun kissed the horizon and the sky was flooded with orange and dotted with faintly glowing stars by the time Nancy arrived on the coast of Western Olathe. Sweetheart had a fish between its teeth as they trudged back onto dry land; it squirmed desperately in its mouth until Sweetheart crushed it in its gaping maws with a wet, audible chomp. It fell limp to the ground with a clean, crescent-shaped bite through its entire body, the missing piece already sliding down Sweetheart’s throat. Nancy quietly watched the blood seep out of its remains and back into the tide for a few moments before nudging her beast with her foot, signaling that it was okay to go forward.

Area 3’s crossroads, as she had come to call this area, were even more desolate than Rando Land. She’d patrolled the area countless times, and she found nothing but howling chasms and lustful men, save for the occasional oddball mutant, which she promptly recruited. The one with the tortuous neck that reminded her of a lonesome flagpole—she particularly enjoyed sketching that one out in her little notebook—with a disingenuous smile that felt bizarrely human, the great big beast that lifted a motorcycle over its head as if it were the champion of all Olathe—a title that belonged to the Yados fair and square—that didn’t respond to her trumpet and would only kneel to her upon its death, and her new friend from the bathhouse which wouldn’t for the life of it take its beady little eyes off her.

Aside from these diamonds in the rough, there was little of worth here, so she wasted no time leaving for the next destination. She didn’t even bother to speak to the lone crow that called this miserable crossroad its home.

Chapter Text

The sun kissed the horizon and bathed the Olathian sky in a warm yellow hue. The oppressive heat slowly started to fade, and as the sun fell, the temperature did in tangent. The parched soil and yawning chasms gradually stopped resembling a microwave oven and relinquished into a more livable temperature.

    The Trumpet Girl and her steed slowly ambled to the next area, simply dubbed Area 2 Crossroads by those who called it home. It was near here where the fabled Dismal Island rested, only a fraction of a mile off its coast. If you squint, you could just barely see the comically tall cliff jutting out of the sea like a great skyscraper on the horizon. Nancy raised her hand to her brow and stared at it, watching it grow slightly larger as Sweetheart lurched closer to their destination.

    However, before they could reach Area 2, they had to cross one of Nancy’s least favorite areas in all of Olathe; the Eternal Wrestling Championship ring. Meatheaded men from all over the state gathered to watch competitors routinely beat the everloving shit out of each other. Shining sweat, muscular figures and the occasional bloodspill: the ingredients chosen to create the ultimate spectator sport. Fake or not, it was barbaric; human beings beating each other to a pulp for no reason other than to hear the cheers of a mindless crowd. It didn’t sit well with her. As far as she was concerned, these men were no different from the beasts she collected, and the only thing that set them apart was that the mutants actually kept her attention.

    She recalled the one time she actively participated in the sport. She simply couldn’t grasp why anyone would find it entertaining, so she and Sweetheart enlisted in the competition themselves. The reception was skeptical about letting them in, but the rules didn’t say anything that could keep them from joining, so they reluctantly complied.

When the tag-team stepped into the ring, the opponents were dressed to the nines in garish wrestling costumes and the fear behind their gaudy masks was tangible. One of the guys reluctantly lunged at Nancy, and Sweetheart caught him in its mouth and ripped his insides out, slurping down his intestines like a plate of spaghetti. The second guy forfeited, but Sweetheart ripped half his body off anyway. After the match was over, the reception handed them 50 mags and politely asked them to leave. They did.

Presently, Nancy had no intention of reentering the competition. She still failed to grasp the appeal of wrestling, and did not feel the need to end two additional lives for the sake of mindless entertainment. Besides, she had business to attend to, and wasn’t about to waste her last few hours of daylight in the ring. She did, however, find merit in seeing the fear in people’s eyes as she and Sweetheart passed by. As the pair lumbered past the EWC arena, the crowds heads achingly turned to follow their movements, and Nancy stifled a smile as she glanced from person to person and studied the particular breed of fear they wore on their faces.

    One man in particular caught her eye, though. Not because his expression was particularly funny or interesting. Quite the opposite, actually; he didn’t seem to notice her there at all despite the silent uproar she caused among the others. A bald, bearded man whose face was lined with scars and was so stoic he may as well have been a statue stared dejectedly at the ground, and it made Nancy’s blood boil. She was tempted to get Sweetheart to disembowel him right then and there, but had to remind herself that it probably wasn’t worth it to start unnecessary conflict, especially in a setting where she was so overwhelmingly outnumbered. She silently continued eastward, but kept her gaze focused on that disrespectful prick’s shiny bald head as she pressed onward.

    The EWC slowly began to fade out of sight and the crowd’s attention shifted away from the Trumpet Girl and back to the wrestling match. The Area 2 Crossroads were generally among the safer Olathian locales, as very few of its residents were actively hostile and many of them had completely given up on claiming the World’s Last Girl for their own. The only thing that could possibly be a threat here was the Rando Army, who had total control of this area but mostly left her alone, or the Joy Riders, who occasionally showed up here but oddly had very little interest in Nancy’s capture. Nancy surveyed the area from atop Sweetheart’s back to decide the best course of action from here, and—

    An arrow lodged itself in Nancy’s torso.

    She screamed in agony and fell off Sweetheart’s back. She frantically looked around to see who fired it, and quickly spotted a Rando soldier with an empty bow in his hands, sprinting towards his target with a handful of other soldiers in tow. With trembling hands Nancy yanked the arrow out of her side and blood rapidly drained from her wound, her breathing becoming shallow and strenuous. Sweetheart, shaken and without direction, was too disorientated to act, and the Rando soldiers closed in on Nancy. Sweetheart grabbed one of them by the shoulder and flung his body a few meters away, but it was quickly outnumbered by the assailants and brought to its knees. Nancy’s vision was beginning to grow dark and her body weak, so there was nothing she could do except watch it all unfold.

    Then, out of nowhere, there was fire. A great, all-consuming flame enveloped the Rando soldiers and the bulk of them scattered like ants from a flooded anthill. Nancy could barely make out the silhouette of a man with fire on his palms before everything went dark. There was nothing but silence now.

    A few hours later Nancy woke up to a small room lit by a crackling fire. As soon as she regained consciousness, her body was flooded with pain and her hands instantly went to her injury, only to find it covered up in a diligently applied layer of bandages. Her own blood-stained poncho was on the floor, and a new one was strewn upon her body, though it was much too big for her and didn’t do a great job of covering her up. She struggled to sit up before taking in her surroundings; there was little in the room except for herself and the mysterious figure from before, hunched over a new poncho he was sewing. Bearded, raked with scars and bald as a newborn baby.
    “Wait,” Nancy croaked, “Wait a minute! You’re… the EWC guy!”

    The man spun around and stared at her bewilderedly as if he was staring into the eyes of a rabid animal. He was frozen with a mixture of fear and curiosity. “Yeah,” he finally said after a few silent moments.

    “Did you… do anything to me?” she asked nervously.

    “I patched up your wound.” His answers were dry and inconclusive, and she figured this was going to be a very difficult conversation. She straightened her back and tried to ignore the pain welling up in her side.

    “Your name. Do you have a name?”
    “It’s Brad,” the man answered. He stared vacantly into Nancy’s face for a few moments, and his brow furrowed as if he was deep in thought. “You remind me of someone.”

    “I think everyone around here has seen my face at least once. The Rando guys put signs of me everywhere.”
    “I don’t mean that.”
    The awkwardness in the room was tangible. Whoever this Brad guy was, he was an absolutely terrible conversationalist. She reached for her trumpet, as its touch would help her collect her thoughts, but she didn’t see it anywhere in the room. Her fingers twitched, desperate to feel the sensation of its cool, brassy surface.

    “Uh,” she started, “Where did you put my trumpet?”
    “I don’t have it.”
    “What? Where is it?”
    “I don’t know. I just kind of grabbed you and ran.”
    A lump started to form in Nancy’s throat. What was she going to do without her trumpet? What if something happened to Sweetheart, or worse, Yado, while she was gone? How was she going to defend herself now?
    “Is Sweetheart— is the mutant okay? Did she get hurt?”

“I don’t know.”

Nancy’s head started to throb.  Her head filled with the worst case scenarios; Sweetheart killed and dismembered by the army, her trumpet being used in the wrong hands to control forces beyond what anyone but the Yados could ever understand, this Brad guy being a secret murderer or rapist or something equally horrible. “We need to go back there right now.”

“You’re hurt.”

“It doesn’t matter! I’m helpless without the trumpet! Sweetheart could be dead for all I know!” She was practically shouting at this point. Her hands were balled into little fists and her knuckles were white with rage.
    “You aren’t helpless. I’m here to protect you.”

“I can’t trust you yet! I don’t even know who you are!”

“I’m Brad.”
    Nancy howled in rage and forced herself to her feet, but her knees quickly buckled from the pain and she collapsed to the ground once more, her hands clenched tightly around the wound. Brad tentatively knelt down and placed a hand on her back to comfort her, but she screamed at the contact and he quickly withdrew. Her eyes, filled with ire and desperation, bore holes into his head, to which he met with a look of stony indifference. Angry tears streamed down her face as she slowly realized there was absolutely nothing she could do.

“Buddy, it’s okay. I promise I won’t hurt you.”
    “Stay away from me! I hate you!”
    “Let’s go look for your friend tomorrow,” he said. His tone was cold, yet patient and safe at the same time. “For now, you have to rest.”

Nancy’s body untensed and she fitfully wiped away her tears. She had no reason to trust this man, but as it stood she really had no choice in the matter. At this point, the only thing she could do was hope that by some miracle, everything was going to turn out okay.