Work Text:
Another fine day in the chaos a Solo Showdown was. In a hot, dry, and unwelcoming desert, there were people strategizing and fighting to their very best in order to achieve their goal in that competition: victory.
Of course, said strategies weren’t always the very best ones, to say the least. Many found them just part of the game, others found them just straight-up unfair. The most common one is the hated “Teaming” strategy.
Not that everyone in the Brawl Lands hadn’t tried it at least once. Sometimes there was just no other way around it. But there most definitely were the ones that barely ever did it, and the ones who would exploit it a little too much. And this Showdown tournament was no different.
8 Brawlers left. Unfortunately for Nani, she ended up not having the best spawn, and she was quickly cornered and defeated by Max. Bea had been eliminated quite early on as well, getting caught off guard by a jump from Edgar. And who else, after all? Edgar would play Showdown, from time to time, and he was considered to be a very good fighter and strategist. He definitely made himself appear much less smart than he actually was.
Speaking of Edgar, he was hiding in a bush not too far from the center of the map, waiting for the smoke to close in. By then the majority of his enemies would have, hopefully, been already eliminated, making things easier. Beside him was his good friend Fang, occasionally looking in the distance so as to not get caught off guard by anyone sneaking on them.
Fang was the main reason he was there. That Showdown was crucial to him, because, in case of victory, he would have been promoted to the next rank in the trophy system. And since he didn’t want to risk losing progress, he went on to ask Edgar if he could participate and team with him. Which he did, in the end.
Edgar being Edgar wasn’t really thrilled by the idea, as he much preferred staying alone. But as long as he had an excuse to get away from his job and Colette, he wasn’t too much against it.
“Fang, can you stop exposing yourself so much? You’re going to get us caught.” Edgar scoffed, seeing how Fang was overdoing his whole “sentinel” plan.
“O-oh-“ Fang tripped on his own feet and fell backward on the ground. He quickly dusted himself off and got on his legs, hoping that Edgar would ignore how goofy he looked doing that.
“Ergh, yeah, you’re right…I just don’t want to…take risks.” He answered as he looked once again toward the direction he had been staring at for the past 5 minutes.
“Well, surely what you’re doing isn’t risky huh.” Edgar rolled his eyes, ever so slightly peeking up from their hiding spot so as to check the situation himself. “Didn’t you want to win?”
“Yes, but…I didn’t really expect her to be here.”
“Who now?”
Fang blushed ever so slightly, looking down and evading eye contact with Edgar, who watched him with an almost scolding look.
“Janet’s here.”
Edgar knew who Janet was. Well, kind of. He had never really bothered to try and talk to her; he usually didn’t bother with anyone at all, to begin with. However, he did know that she was Stu’s adoptive daughter. Which always seemed weird to him, Stu didn’t look like the kind of guy –or robot, for that matter- to be responsible enough to take care of someone.
She had occasionally performed at the Gift Shop. When the Bad Randoms held concerts there, she was always with them. Flying around, doing some…silly tricks, and stuff like that. Edgar had never been really impressed by them, but Fang ended up being completely lost in them. Or perhaps, he was lost in Janet, hard to say.
“Dude, come on. Is it really the time now?” Edgar shook his head, a little out of patience with his friend’s demeanor.
“I’m sorry, you’re right…I’ll try not to get distracted again, just don’t be a prick about it.”
Edgar didn’t answer, checking the surroundings. But Fang didn’t say anything else and let the expert do his work.
The teenager noticed Sam in the distance, having a field day in the arena. He probably was the big fish in there, and if there was something Edgar knew, was that Sam was no one to mess with. If Belle had taken him in her gang, there was more than an evident reason. She was the brain, but she needed the muscles. And Sam easily provided her with that.
The man was known for being a really good boxer. Unlike El Primo, whose strategy was to just release a bunch of fists in the face of his opponent, Sam’s blows were calculated, perfected and skilled. He knew where, how and when to hit. It was no doubt that he was an excellent fighter up close, and the fact he could attract his knuckle busters through the use of a magnet on his belt made him capable of being quite a threat even in the distance, being able to throw them. He was a formidable opponent, someone Edgar wasn’t fully sure of how to take on. His best shot was to just wait for the right opportunity and finish him; otherwise, he would have had to team up with Fang hoping for luck.
“Janet seems like an easy target, though. I can take her out.” Edgar stated, breaking the silence that had formed between them. Fang quickly turned towards him, his look baffled and surprised, but not in a positive way.
“WHAT- NO! That is completely out of discussion! We’re not doing it.”
“Well if you WANT to win she has to go down anyway, so the choice is up to you.”
Fang glanced away, feeling somewhat offended by Edgar’s statement. He knew there was no reason for him to be upset, and still, he felt unhappy at the thought of taking out the girl.
“Can we at least wait until there are five people left? So she doesn’t lose trophies…”
Edgar sighed frustrated, but he knew Fang well enough to know that once he set his mind on something, there was no way to change his idea. So he went along with it, remaining silent.
Fang observed, this time trying to be a little more cautious, as Sam slowly made his way toward Janet, who appeared to be unaware of his presence. Sam knew that Janet had the ability to fly, so he planned out to wait for her to approach him so that he could ambush her and finish her off before she had time to escape. He waited patiently for the right moment, Janet walking right into his trap. All of a sudden, he sprinted out of his bush and began his attack. Fang could just watch with a heavy heart. He wished that he could help her, but he knew that Edgar would have killed him had he tried that as soon as the Showdown finished. However, things seemed to take a strange turn when Sam stopped his attack and remained still with confusion painted on his face.
Janet saw everything happen in front of her so fast. Before she could even realize it, she was on the ground with her microphone far from her. She had received a punch in the gut, nothing new. There was quite a handful of brawlers that fought using their bare hands, and yet that punch felt so much different. It was so weird, but it made her afraid, almost terrified, unable to move, and shaking on the sand.
There was something so eerily familiar in that punch, something she thought she had forgotten and moved on from.
Sam himself was quite concerned about the scene. Sure, he knew he hit hard, but it was nothing he hadn’t done before. As a brawler, that was just how things were, getting knocked out and getting up again. But at the sight of the young girl seemingly in pain in front of him, he just couldn’t bring himself to keep fighting.
“Jee, kid, augh…is this a new strategy I don’t know ‘bout, or…” He questioned, with his heavy British accent.
“STOP! I-It hurts…!” Janet yelled, backing off and looking around, but not really searching for anything. Slowly, all the brawlers left got out of their hiding spots and watched the scene, Edgar and Fang too. With all those eyes on her, Janet couldn’t do anything more than turn on her jetpack and fly away in the distance.
There were looks of concern and confusion. Colt, the host, ran in, having seen what had happened. After something like that he couldn’t afford to have the competition keep going, so he did the most logical thing that came to his mind and canceled everything for the time being.
“Oh, come on Sam! What the hell did you do this time!?” Belle asked, giving him a punch on the shoulder, clearly not happy about what had just happened.
“I-I DUNNO! She just received a punch and cried off like dat!” He answered in his defense, giving a little massage to where he was hit.
“Hey, no need to be rude. Why don’t you just scram? The Showdown is over.” Fang stepped into their conversation, not really glad to hear Sam talking about Janet that way. Both Belle and Sam groaned, and walked off, muttering something that wasn’t quite comprehensible to the boy.
Edgar approached him, his arms crossed as he watched everyone leave.
“Great. She just had to ruin everything.” He said, rather furious for all the time he had just lost.
“I-I think I will go talk to her.” Fang answered.
“Bruh, ugh…why do you have to be this way.”
“Because I consider her a friend, and I don’t like to see my friends in pain.” Fang took it quite personally, his finger now on Edgar’s chest as he gave him a rather cold stare. But Edgar remained unfazed.
“Good friend, I barely see you two talk to each other. Hm.”
Fang turned his back and started walking away. He didn’t really want to hear more from Edgar, despite knowing that he was right. They weren’t really close at all, it was just a relationship of knowing each other and getting along somewhat well.
“Maybe you’re right. Guess I’ll have to change that, then.”
It wasn’t long until Fang realized that finding Janet wouldn’t have been as easy as he initially had thought. In fact, he hadn’t planned out his research at all: he had nowhere to begin with, no clues, no evidence and especially no idea of what he was doing. So he just did the smartest thing he could think of, as he walked down the busy streets of Super City: begin asking random people for information of any kind. He began with a few strangers he had never seen before, but none of them had seen her before and some didn’t even bother to stop and answer him.
So he figured that if he wanted to have a better and luckier shot, he would have had to ask actual brawlers. He casually stumbled upon Lou, but the happy snowcone machine was as clueless as he was.
“Janet? Gosh Golly, I haven’t seen her in a while! I hope she’s doing alright!
…wait, if you asked me it means she’s not, right? OH NO-“
“That’s enough Lou.” Fang put his gloved hand on the robot’s mouth before he started talking too much for his own patience. “Thanks anyway.”
He then met Shelly, and he was pretty good friends with her. But it seemed like luck wasn’t by his side, as Shelly seemed to know nothing about Janet’s location, either.
“Sorry, Fang. I don’t know where Janet is. I’d help you look for her, but Colt invited me for dinner and I would rather not be late.”
“It’s alright. Oh, and don’t go overboard with him, alright? You know how easy he is to pressure…” he winked.
“Oh, you’re such a dumbass!” Shelly laughed, rolling her eyes amused. “But no promises…”
The majority of his afternoon came out to be all about that. Ask a brawler, they don’t know, leave and repeat. A cycle that was really making him feel down, with each negative answer he received. It was like Janet had just…completely disappeared.
Just as he was about to throw in the towel, though, he met Stu. He wasn’t very familiar with the stunt robot, but it was well known that he was the “father” of Janet and Bonnie, who was her little sister. Fang actually stared at the abyss for a moment, wanting to punch himself out. Why the hell didn’t he go to him first?
He approached him and tapped his shoulder so as to catch his attention. The robot turned and watched him, a little alert at first, but he was quick to cool down as soon as he realized he was no threat. He stared at him with his only eye.
“F-Fang? What is it?” He asked.
“Hi Stu, uhm…I was- I was wondering if you knew where Janet is, right now.” He asked, trying to sound as casual and as calm as possible. He didn’t want to alarm him. But Stu seemed pretty chill.
“She is a-a-at home. Why do you-you ask?”
Great. She was at home the whole time and he didn’t even know. Now he really felt like an actual idiot. Maybe Edgar was right the times he called him a dumbass. What a waste of time…
“Haven’t you heard of today’s showdown?”
Stu looked at him, confusion painted on his face. He might have had only one eye and no mouth, but he was more than able to make how he was feeling clear to anyone.
“She hasn’t to-to-told me anything as such. Did so-so-something happen?”
“Ah, nothing to worry about. I just wanted to see if she was alright.” Fang lied, trying not to make it seem like a big deal like it was. He didn’t want Stu to worry because he genuinely didn’t want to stress him, but he also selfishly wanted to spend some time alone with Janet, and Stu wouldn’t have allowed that if he knew about the real situation.
“Hm…A-Alright. Follow me, I was he-heading home a-a-anyway.”
The two did a little talking during their trip, nothing personal or special. They were just acquaintances, neither of them was really willing to go on the private or invade the other’s privacy. They still managed to sustain a fairly nice conversation. When they reached the entrance of the house, Stu looked in his jacket and pulled out a pair of keys, unlocking the door.
“Why did you lock the door? Janet is inside, isn’t she?” Fang asked, curious.
“O-Oh, it’s not Janet I am worried a-about!” And he laughed a bit, with his glitchy voice box. “Bonnie can be quite-quite hyper-active, how-however.”
Fang understood. Especially after seeing Bonnie running towards Stu and jumping in his arms. He preferred not to interrupt the moment, so he went upstairs and looked for Janet’s room. Three doors…one with Stu written on it…the other with a paper attached to it with tape, and a pretty bad calligraphy that he could hardly make out. Something along the lines of “Bonnie’s room: keep out if not invited!!”. And then, Janet’s room. Yes, that was it. An iron plaque on it, with her name written on it in cursive. Only she could make something so perfect- ugh, but it wasn’t time to think about that, was it?
Fang knocked on the door softly, so as to not startle her. A voice came from the other side, seemingly not too worried or scared. Not nearly as much as before.
“Dad? Is it you?”
“It’s…It’s Fang, Janet.”
There was a moment of silence. No answer came from the other side, and Fang started to worry a little bit. He didn’t want to come off as impulsive and invasive, but he didn’t really want to leave her like that after that event.
“…Can i…come in?” He tried again.
“The door is open.” He found it weird how her voice had immediately reverted to what it was during the showdown. It was almost like she was putting an act in front of her family, but why would she hide it from them? That just didn’t make sense. Stu was clueless, and now he could see why.
He slowly opened the door, which creaked, making an annoying sound. Probably needed to be oiled a bit. As he walked inside, he found Janet sitting on her bed, giving him a faint smile, but there was a hint of sadness in it. Fang was somewhat taken aback by her appearance: no helmet, no show clothes…just a normal girl with her hair in a ponytail and a hoodie, as well as some shorts and a pair of blue, fluffy slippers. He wasn’t used to seeing her like that.
She really was something.
He snapped out of it and approached her a little more.
“I-I don’t mean to annoy you, just so you know-“
“You’re not annoying me.” She reassured him, sighing ever so slightly. “But…you…were there, today. I saw you.”
The boy nodded, now moving to the bed and sitting by her side. Janet had both her hands clenched together on her lap, and Fang just watched her, waiting for anything by her side.
“…What happened? You seemed terrified.” He asked.
Janet stared at the floor for a few seconds, trying to find a way to…tell him. But it was hard to, she really didn’t want to either and she didn’t know why. She tried to brush it off with a lie, in hope that it would make the situation seem less bad.
“Just…ergh, I hit my gut on a table downstairs a few days ago and it still hurt a bit. I couldn’t contain the hurt, but I’ll be fine.”
Fang looked at her in a skeptical way. Seriously? Was that the only reason? It just didn’t explain the terror she had painted on her face at all. To him, it almost looked like she had seen a ghost, or perhaps even worse.
“…yeah, sorry. Uhm…I’m not buying that, Janet.”
Janet looked at him a little incredulously. She had genuinely expected her plan to work, but apparently, it hadn’t gone the way she wanted it to.
“Look, if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine. It’s just that…-“ He looked away, feeling that he was turning a little red. Not the time, he thought to himself.
“I kind of care about you, alright? Seeing you hurting like that wasn’t really pleasant. Just this.”
Janet looked at him with her head tilted. He was kind of cute, now that he looked at him with more attention. He always wanted to appear sure of himself, determined and a little arrogant, but it seemed like he had his moments of vulnerability like she did.
Perhaps they weren’t too different.
“…I-I was reminded of something I thought I had moved past from.” She said.
Fang was quick to turn towards her. Her voice seemed to be much more genuine this time, with seemingly no attempts of lying or hiding the truth.
“Really?”
“Yeah, uh…I don’t enjoy talking about this, but it has to do with my past…and my old family.”
Fang was quick to connect the dots and realize where Janet was pointing at. He almost felt his heart stopping and the blood in his veins freezing, sickened by the thoughts that overflowed his mind as he theorized of the worst. But there was no way, right? Such a charming and honest girl like Janet, talented and humble…could it be?
“…did…did they hurt you?” He asked, stammering.
Janet could only nod, feeling her eyes well up from tears. It was such a moment of weakness for her, but she was opening up with Fang, which felt kind of weird and not at the same time.
“A-A lot. Dad especially… liked the gut. The way Sam punched me…it just…felt so…familiar…”
Fang’s expression was a mix of horror and sorrow as he listened to those words. He felt butterflies in his stomach, but he was understanding of Janet’s pain and the reason why she behaved like that. He could only imagine how troubled her past life had been, how sick her parents were doing something like that. He could only be happy that she had gotten away and had found for herself and Bonnie someone that actually loved them genuinely.
“Familiar? How many times did those…bastards…”
“A lot. I’ve lost count. I just…I don’t want to think about it. I never want to go through that pain again.”
She sobbed a bit, sweeping some tears away from her cheeks using her arm. Fang was hesitant, but his will to make her feel better was way more powerful than his fear. He put an arm around Janet and pulled her closer to his side.
“You don’t have to. Not anymore. A lot of people care about you, you know? It’s…alright to feel like this. Some things are just part of us and…we need to move past them and forget them. They don’t have to shape the way we behave and who we are. Look at me, I’ve been trying for years to get a role in a decent film but it’s always just been a rejection from Lola and my superiors. And I cry too sometimes, damn! I feel pathetic. And what’s wrong with it? I just turn the page for another chapter of my life. Maybe it’s not the same kind of pain, but…we’re on the same boat, alright? You can talk to me if you don’t want to worry your family.”
Janet gave him the biggest and brightest smile ever, with her eyes shiny and filled with new hope. She embraced him in a hug, tightly, and didn’t let go of him.
“Thanks, Fang.”
Fang felt his face going all red, and he started sweating a bit. That definitely was unexpected, and now that he had gone out of his “therapist” moment he was back to his old self. The same old Fang that acted like a dumbass whenever he was in front of her.
“AH- WELL- NO BIG DEAL! Heh-“
They spent the evening together, and Fang even decided to remain for dinner. It was only after Buster called him on his phone and scolded him that it was the “bro we need to watch a movie night” that he decided to leave.
He was happy, having spent some quality time with Janet for the first time. He felt like they had gotten closer, and he hoped that they could do it again, sometime.
Janet also felt the same. She saw Fang under a completely new light, and she felt like that perhaps, that could be the beginning of a blooming and close friendship between them.
Perhaps even something more. Only time could tell.