Chapter Text
The sunflower field seemed to stretch on eternally. Scar weaved his way through the stems, working his way toward Trader Scar’s before nightfall. He had it down to a science— based on the size of the wall relative to his current location, he could determine at exactly which point the sun would be in when he started heading back.
He shivered, and hugged his shawl closer to his shoulders. Winter was fast approaching, and he had to repair the Mounds to ensure the cold wouldn’t seep in so the Mounders would be comfortable upon their return.
They would return eventually. Scar saw them; in the distance, always turned slightly away from him. When he did get a glance of their faces, they were always in shadow or slightly blurred, making it impossible to determine their features. Scar suspected he was gradually forgetting what they looked like. He would yell and wave, but the figures would vanish with the blink of an eye and he would be alone again.
They would often visit Trader Scar’s, make meaningless small talk, and before the transaction was completed they would disappear, leaving Scar at the counter holding his goods.
There was one visitor that completed a trade. He was one of the shadow people, dressed in a dark purple cloak that covered his face. He had traded a “token from a friend” for one piece of amethyst, and when Scar had leaned down to take the pin in his hand, he had nearly jumped back in surprise when his fingers made contact with cold metal. He had looked back up at the shadow person, but he had vanished along with the amethyst.
The pin, which now sat on Scar’s shawl over his chest, was made of a dark iron and engraved with a small desert scene. A life tracker heart, which now glowed bright red, loomed over the horizon like a rising sun. The only thing that revealed anything about the pin’s origin was the small grains of sand that were snuggled into the nooks and crannies of the engraving.
Scar didn’t know which friend the shadow person said it belonged to, as he didn’t remember seeing one like it during the game, but he felt a strange connection to it regardless.
He turned and walked up to the statue of the Secret Keeper, reaching down and pressing the “task complete” button. He didn’t have a task— he hadn’t had one since he won, in fact— but it made him feel like he had actually accomplished something that day. This was a routine he’d had for a while. Still, he heard no whispers, and nothing poured out of the statue. He smiled sadly to himself and turned to leave.
The shadow person from before stood blocking his path.
“It’s you!” Scar said. He looked down to gesture at the pin. “I’ve still got the token you gave me. It’s nice. I like it.”
He heard shuffling of fabric, and when he looked up, he noticed that the shadow person had taken off his hood.
It was Grian.
His features were perfectly visible, unlike the warped apparitions Scar usually saw. He had a solemn expression, watching as Scar floundered for words. Gradually, Scar staggered forward, his hands outstretched to cup Grian’s face and run his thumbs along his cheeks, his nose, his eyelids— Scar started laughing giddily as his fingers traced warm skin, reveling in the tactile sensation of another person in his reach again.
Grian stood there, his brows slightly furrowed, letting Scar smush his face around like a toddler learning how to use his hands. Scar wanted to commit his face to memory, to never forget it again.
“Scar—” he interrupted. Scar jumped and put his hands on Grian’s shoulders, gripping the fabric of his cloak tightly.
“Sorry,”
Grian paused for a moment as he figured out how to word his thoughts. “How would you like to leave?”
Scar blinked at him.
“Leave? But the sunflowers, and Trader Scar’s, and—”
“Don’t you want to see everyone again?” Grian asked.
“Well, yeah, but they’ll come back. I know they will. You came back, didn’t you?”
“They’re not coming back, Scar,” Grian said solemnly. “But I can take you to see them.”
He extended a hand, holding it out in the space between him and Scar.
“They’re… not coming back? But you—”
“I’m saying they can’t come back. But you can leave. I need you to understand, Scar, that I can’t come back anymore, either,” Grian said. He sighed and dragged his other hand across his face. “It’s complicated, but I’m not really allowed. Technically, I’m not allowed to take you out either, but I don’t really care.”
Scar cast a hesitant glance at the fields of sunflowers, the dilapidated houses, and the crumbling walls surrounding Trader Scar’s, and took Grian’s hand.
“Good morning!” Scar yelled, slamming open the door to the shared bedroom with one hand. Only Scott jumped at the noise, who immediately groaned and rolled over in his bed away from Scar. “Up and at ‘em, Cabin Core! It’s cabin cleaning day!”
“Can’t we do it later?” Etho asked, his voice floating wearily down from the second top bunk along the back wall.
“Nope! We’ve got an entire campground to de-web, dust, repair, make sure there’s no raccoons living in the walls, all that fun stuff,” Scar said. He walked across the room and hoisted himself up the ladder to the second top bunk, shaking Bdubs awake. Bdubs, startled, sat up suddenly and hit his head on the wood ceiling.
“Scar!” He gasped, clutching his chest. “You can’t just do that to a man!”
Scar shrugged with his free hand and hopped off the ladder. “Last one up has to de-web the main office,”
That got everyone up. Bdubs ended up being the last, only because Etho had vaulted over the bunk railing and made Scott catch him to ensure he didn’t break his neck. No one wanted to clean the main office. It was a large, impressive wood building that was built by the original owners of the camp and clearly intended to be a house, but all four of them had decided that it was too big for their needs, so they converted it into an office space that also doubled as counselor housing.
The cabin they lived in was built by all four of them, and even had a hot tub built into the deck that they met in every night to talk about the day. Everyone usually got into swimsuits, except Etho, who for some reason sat on the edge in full winter gear and only had the water up to his calves. At least he had the thought to take off his shoes and socks so they wouldn’t get soaked and left out on the front porch all the next day to dry.
The worst part about the main office was the large vaulted ceiling in the entryway, decorated with an impressive chandelier that was also a haven for spiders. And Scar didn’t have to clean it. That was a win in his book.
They all filed out of the cabin, Bdubs and Scott still wearing their pajamas, Etho having somehow found the time to change into his winter gear. Scott had one of Bdubs’ moss-esque jackets draped over his shoulders, the sleeves obviously slightly too short for his arms.
Etho had begun ranting about the plumbing in the hallway bathroom, as it had been faulty the past couple of days and Scar, Bdubs, and Scott were all builders and did not know the inner workings of redstone, leaving Etho the only one who could fix it.
“We could just hire a plumber,” Bdubs yawned. Etho shook his head.
“It’s an unnecessary expense. I know how to fix it,” Etho said. “Maybe I should teach you all how to do redstone.”
“Please don’t,” Scar said. “It just goes in one ear and out the other, you know that. It’d just be a waste of time.”
“C’mon, Scott,” Etho said, wrapping an arm around the other man’s shoulders. “You’re smart. Let me teach you how to fix the plumbing.”
“If you all don’t shove the scheduling on me when summer starts,” Scott said.
“But I don’t wanna schedule,” Bdubs groaned.
“You’re so good at it,” Scar said, putting on that voice of his that oozed with charm. “We all know if I did my own scheduling, it’d be an absolute mess, Scott.”
“What if Etho did it instead?” Bdubs asked.
“Nuh-uh. I’m the technician,” Etho said. He wrapped his other arm around Scott and nearly hung off his shoulders. “Scott. Darling. Love of my life. Please don’t make me do my own schedules.”
“Hey! You never call me that,” Bdubs protested, lightly elbowing Etho in the side. Etho pulled his mask down to stick his tongue out.
“I’ll start if you start learning redstone,” he said, still hanging off of Scott.
“Fine, you can teach me redstone,” Bdubs sighed. Etho hummed in acknowledgment and moved to wrap an arm around Bdubs’ shoulders.
“Thank you, darling,”
“Ah, home sweet home,” Scar said wistfully as he unlocked the door to the main office and pushed his way inside. Dust particles illuminated by rays of light seeping through the windows floated lazily across the large entryway.
“Breaker time,” Etho said, intertwining his fingers and out in front of him and stretching his shoulders. “Scott?”
Scott nodded and disappeared down the left hall to get to the basement stairs in the kitchen. Etho’s phone rang a few moments later, and they had done this routine enough for Scar to know it was Scott.
“Main hall’s on,” Scott said through Etho’s phone. Etho flipped the switch on the wall next to the door and the large chandelier turned on, flooding the large space with a warm-colored light.
“All good here,” Etho said as he moved into the left hall after Scott, stopping at the light switch.
“Lower left hall’s on,”
Etho flipped the switch and the hall light turned on.
“All good,”
They continued this, Etho moving through the rooms and occasionally calling out to Scar and Bdubs that a light wasn’t working. Scar, meanwhile, had made his way down the right hall to locate the supply closet and fished out a broom. Bdubs was close behind him to maneuver a ladder out of the small space.
“You need help with that, dude?” Scar asked, watching Bdubs wrestle with the ladder. “Don’t want it to squash you like a bug.”
Bdubs glared at him from under his bandana and continued wrestling with the ladder. Scar laughed and pushed past him to leave the storage room.
Spiderwebs were relatively easy to clear when you had both feet on the ground. As he walked through the various rooms on the first floor, he could hear Etho and Bdubs’ voices float in from the main hall as Etho held the ladder. Scott had gone upstairs with his own broom to clear the cobwebs, and once Bdubs was done with the main hall, Etho would vanish into the walls to fix the redstone that had probably been chewed on by bugs or something during the year.
They took a break for lunch a few hours later, gathering around the freshly dewebbed kitchen. Bdubs was slumped over the island, Etho sitting next to him with a hand on his back, and Scott and Scar digging through the pantry to find any of the nonperishable food they had left.
“Now redstone dust carries the signal, but that’s the basics of the basics,” Etho was saying to a very non-observant Bdubs. Scar cleared his throat.
“Cabin Core,” he announced, “We are completely and utterly out of food in the main office.”
“Not it,” Bdubs said immediately, voice muffled slightly by the table. Etho and Scott echoed shortly after.
“Oh, we were doing that?” Scar asked. “Okay then. I’m off.”
Scar parked a few blocks away from the grocery store. He would walk there, get food, go back to his car, then walk to the pet store to get more food for Jellie. The grocery trip was pretty easy— Bdubs and Etho took turns texting him and demanding increasingly difficult things, like raw eel and that honey the archaeologists dug up from an Egyptian tomb, but it was otherwise uneventful. He carried the groceries to the car, put them in the trunk, and started walking to the pet store.
He was half way back with Jellie’s preferred brand of cat food in his arms when he heard an explosion. It was a little ways away, but close enough to Scar’s general area to warrant his phone going off.
Villain group the Lighthouse Keepers spotted in the area. Remain inside and away from the Third Street Bank for your own safety.
Scar read it and put his phone back into his pocket. He was further away from the bank than he was his car, so he didn’t pay the alert much mind. He would just put the cat food into his truck and drive off in the opposite direction. If he knew anything about the Lighthouse Keepers, it’s that they liked spectacle and extravagance— they wouldn’t go after one guy.
“Hello there,” a flat voice said from behind him. Scar whirled around to face the man, who had been so quiet as he approached Scar didn’t realize anyone was there at all.
He was standing regally, looking over Scar with an air of dissatisfaction, his shoulders square and his hands tucked behind his back. Scar felt his blood run cold. The man had soulless black eyes peeking through a curtain of dirty blond, almost light brown hair partially covered by a dark blue military-esque hat adorned with a golden insignia.
His attire was similarly military, in the same dark blue and gold as the hat. He wore a shoulder cape with the same lighthouse insignia over his chest buttoned in the front with a double-breasted panel over a sleek coat with coattails that fell to his knees and straight black pants. A dark blue and red mechanical mask covered the lower half of his face.
This was Quadrat. One of the Lighthouse Keepers. Going after one guy.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Quadrat said, gesturing with his head at the ground beneath Scar’s feet. “But you’re in the way and we really don’t need you interfering with our plans.”
“Huh? What do you mean by—” Scar started, but before he could finish, Quadrat had pointed at the ground with a fingerless-gloved hand. A hole, starting as a small square, grew beneath Scar’s feet until he fell straight down. It was large enough to accommodate him, and deep enough to stop him from climbing out by himself. Quadrat peered down at Scar condescendingly over the edge of the hole.
“Well. Enjoy your time in there,” Quadrat said, and turned on his heel and left.
Scar sighed and set Jellie’s food down before fishing out his phone to call Scott.
“Hey, Scott,” he said. “I ran into Quadrat and he kinda stuck me in a hole. You don’t think you could bring over a ladder, could you? I’m a few blocks from the Third Street Bank.”
“Oh, yeah, that shouldn’t be too big of a problem. Let me go get Bdubs and Etho,”
“I think Bdubs just used one,”
“How deep is the hole?”
“Couldn’t be more than ten feet max,”
“That one’s probably too tall,” Scott said. “We can look for another one?”
“If there’s not another in the main office, there might be one in the cabin attic,”
“We’ll see. Be there in a few, hopefully,”
“M’kay. Bye, Scott,”
“Bye,” Scott said, and hung up. Scar sighed and leaned against the wall of the hole.
Scar spent a few minutes watching a news broadcast outside the bank, where Canary and Obsidian were talking in front of the exploded door. They seemed to have reached an agreement, Obsidian lifted a piece of rubble, and the two heroes rushed into the building.
“Angelman and Oni are both pursuing Ganymede, but Whisper and Quadrat are still inside the bank,” the newscaster was saying. Scar got a notification from Etho in the Cabin Core group chat.
“Sorry Scar, we’ll be a minute. The ladder fell on Bdubs”
Scar sighed and shook his head in mock disappointment.
“I told him to be careful” he sent back.
A minute later he got a text from Scott.
“Bdubs is fine, but the ladder’s stuck in the door”
Scar groaned and leaned forward to rest his forehead on the opposite wall. It was going to be a long day.
Quadrat came back about two hours later. The rest of Cabin Core were not able to get the ladder out of the main office. The villain peered down the hole again.
“Oh. You’re still here,” Quadrat said, genuine surprise leaking into his voice through the voice modulator. Scar looked up at him.
“Why wouldn’t I be? You stuck me in a hole,” Scar said.
“Most people would have asked friends to get them out or something,” Quadrat shrugged.
“I tried, but they got the ladder stuck in the door,”
Quadrat made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a snort.
“Well come on then. I’ll let you out. I’m not a monster,” he said. Scar stood and the floor he stood on began to rise until he was level with the ground again. “Thank you for not interfering. It was very helpful.”
Scar opened his mouth to respond, but Quadrat looked up over Scar’s shoulder and waved. Scar turned to follow his gaze, where he spotted two more figures standing atop a building wearing similar attire to the man in front of him. Whisper and Ganymede, if he had to guess.
The red-haired one, Whisper, waved back. She had a duffel bag slung over her shoulder.
“That’s my cue. Thank you for not escaping,” Quadrat said before pulling out a grappling hook and flying off toward his teammates. Scar watched as he vaulted onto the building, Ganymede grabbing his shoulder to help stabilize his landing, and all three Lighthouse Keepers walked off.
The Lighthouse Keepers really liked extravagance. It wasn’t necessary to blow up most of the front wall of the bank, but it was flashy. And the Lighthouse Keepers were nothing short of flashy.
Jimmy and BigB were tasked with civilian extraction. Jimmy, because he was light and fast, and BigB because of his super strength. Jimmy tried not to roll his eyes when BigB lifted a large piece of rubble out of the way that both of them could have easily climbed over. He just liked to show off his muscles.
It wasn’t like Jimmy was complaining.
They both walked into the building, and Jimmy turned to BigB.
“You wanna take the front or the back?” Jimmy asked. BigB shrugged.
“I’m less likely to get stuck if the rest of the building comes down. You take the front,”
Jimmy nodded, and they split up, BigB heading for the stairs while Jimmy scanned the lobby. There was one civilian stuck under the rubble of the wall, but most of them were further in and just shocked. Jimmy helped the trapped man and walked the rest of them out.
“Hey, Obsidian, I’m done with the lobby. I’m gonna head up to help look for people,” Jimmy said into his earpiece.
“Cool. Try not to get trapped yourself,” BigB said. Jimmy scoffed.
“You think that little of me?”
“You don’t have my biceps,” BigB said, and signed off. Jimmy sighed, and headed for the stairs. He flew up the stairwell to the top floor, figuring he could just break a window and fly the civilians out if necessary, and meet BigB in the middle.
The top floors were largely a series of office cubicles, the hallways occasionally broken up by a meeting room or private office with glass walls that opened up into the hallway.
He ran into quite a few people who didn’t think the explosion and alarms were cause to worry, so he sent them along their way down the stairwell. There hadn’t been any more explosions on the upper floors, thankfully, so he didn’t have to evacuate anyone himself.
Jimmy moved down another floor, and quickly spotted a man walking through the hallways who gasped when he saw him.
“Oh, hey, someone’s here!” the man said, his hair, which Jimmy now noticed was on fire, flaring for a moment as he ran up to Jimmy.
“Are you— is your hair—” Jimmy asked. The man paused.
“It’s genetic. Don’t worry, it won’t burn anything I don’t want it to,” the man said, shrugging. “Do you know the way to the exit?”
Jimmy blinked at him and cast a glance over his shoulder to the glowing green exit sign hanging from the ceiling overhead. The man followed his gaze, and clapped a hand to his face.
“Oh. There’s signs. Of course,” he groaned.
“Why are you still up here? Didn’t you hear the alarms?” Jimmy asked the man.
“Well, I would have, but then everyone started panicking and I was basically stampeded,” the man said.
“And you didn’t see the signs?”
“My friends tell me I have the observational skills of a rock,”
“Okay. Uh. Want me to walk you to the stairwell?”
“Oh, that’d be amazing. Thank you,” the man said.
And then Jimmy heard the beep. It came from somewhere in the ceiling, probably hidden somewhere in the tiles and vents above them. Jimmy realized what it meant just as the ceiling exploded.
He threw his arms around the man and spread his wings nearly to their full length, covering the man as best as he could from the blast. Jimmy yelled as a piece of the ceiling came crashing down on top of one of his wings, bending it at an angle Jimmy knew wasn’t natural. His knees buckled under the pain, but he kept his wings spread to protect the man from more debris. The man gasped and pulled himself away from Jimmy’s arms to look at the wing.
“Are you okay?” the man asked, wide eyes focused on Jimmy’s wince.
“I should be asking you,” Jimmy said through gritted teeth. He scanned the man, who appeared uninjured. He had solid red eyes, his irises a lighter shade than his sclera. His lips were parted, his brow creased with worry.
The building around them creaked scarily, and Jimmy pulled the man close again as the hall around them started to collapse. They were completely surrounded now, both men hacking and coughing the dust out of their lungs. Jimmy let go of the man with one arm and reached into his utility belt to pull out two N95 masks and handed one to the man, who gratefully pulled it over his head. As promised, his hair did not set it on fire.
Jimmy released the man to pull on his own. He noticed his wings starting to quiver with the weight of the rubble on them, and his muscles ached. He allowed himself to fall to his hands and knees, the man following him down to sit cross-legged next to him.
“I heard an explosion, Canary. You good in there?” BigB asked, his voice crackling through the radio in Jimmy’s ear.
“I’ve got a civilian with me and my wing’s broken. We’re buried in rubble,” Jimmy responded.
“Give me about an hour and I’ll be there,” BigB said. Jimmy sighed.
“Okay. I’ll just sit here then,”
BigB signed off.
“Was that your teammate?” the man next to him asked. Jimmy nodded.
“Obsidian. He said he’ll be here in about an hour to get us out,”
The man hummed in acknowledgment. They sat in silence for a few moments.
“I’m sorry I got us stuck,” the man said finally. Jimmy looked up at him.
“Yeah, okay. I forgive you. Just try to be more observant next time,” Jimmy said. The man nodded.
“My name’s Tango,” the man said.
“Tango?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah. Tango,” the man— Tango— answered. “Do you get in situations like this often?”
“Yeah. Kinda. I’m usually pretty unlucky. That’s why they call me Canary— I go down quickly,”
“Like in coal mines,”
“Exactly,”
They fell quiet again.
“Do you have a favorite band?” Tango asked, breaking the silence.
“Not really. I like rock in general,” Jimmy shrugged. “Do you?”
“They’re kind of a small local thing. I doubt you would have heard of them,”
“I know the area pretty well. Shoot,”
“Okay then,” Tango said. “The Half-American Rejects,”
Jimmy felt his heart skip a beat.
“Wait, really? I didn’t know very many people knew them either,” Jimmy said. Tango straightened and his hair flared again.
“Yeah! Oh, this is so cool,”
“Do you… have a favorite member?” Jimmy asked.
“I know people aren’t really supposed to have favorites, but between you and me,” Tango said, pausing for dramatic effect. “My favorite’s Jimmy.”
Jimmy was pretty sure his heart stopped for a second.
“Oh. C-cool. What do you like about him?”
“I really like his voice. It’s got a neat growl quality to it when he sings that’s kind of addictive,” Tango said. “It doesn’t help that he’s real pretty, too.”
If he wasn’t keeping both of them alive, Jimmy was pretty sure he would have died right there. Someone’s favorite band was the Half-American Rejects. That same person’s favorite member was Jimmy. And apparently thought he was pretty, for some strange reason. Jimmy shook himself internally.
Focus.
“Oh, wait, your wing!” Tango gasped.
“You just noticed?” Jimmy winced. “I literally told Obsidian over the comm.”
“Like I said, observational skills of a rock,” Tango laughed.
“I’m pretty sure it’s broken,” Jimmy said. “But if I put it down, we’re gonna get buried alive, so… I’d rather not.”
“Yeah, yeah, that makes sense,”
“My bones are hollow. It happens,”
“Do you have a favorite song?” Tango asked. “Sorry for all the questions, I mean you’re kind of a figurehead, and I feel like I want you to feel more human, in a sense—”
“It’s fine. I feel like it’d be better to be seen as a human, anyway,” Jimmy said. “I really like Curse,”
“Half-American Rejects?”
“Yeah,”
CURSE!! was Jimmy’s favorite song to perform. He got to do a lot of yelling when he sang, which was always fun, and the backing tracks were almost like a cacophony of sounds that shouldn’t have worked together, but did. It was one of BigB’s favorite songs to perform, too, because he got to bring out that stupid plastic egg shaker he was so fond of. Not to mention it was inspired by Jimmy’s horrible luck.
“Ooh, I like that one too. My favorite might be Worst to Ever Do It, though. Like the vibe,” Tango said.
“What do you think about Honey, Honey, Honey?” Jimmy asked, holding back a snicker.
“The terrible bonus track that sounds like it was recorded in the other room with a phone? I love it,” Tango said, his grin audible in his voice.
“Good. That is the correct answer,”
The rubble above them shifted, revealing a grinning BigB.
“Exactly,” he said. Jimmy scowled at him, but it was covered by the mask.
“You said you’d be an hour!” Jimmy said. BigB shrugged.
“I lied,” he said. “Didn’t take too long to find you, either. This was the only patch of rubble in the entire back half of the building.”
Jimmy sighed, and BigB reached down a hand to help Tango to his feet. Once Tango was safe in the hall, BigB walked around to move the rubble off of Jimmy’s wings. Jimmy stretched the broken one gingerly and winced when pain shot through it.
“Thanks, man,” Jimmy said. BigB shot him a thumbs up.
“I spotted Ganymede on my way over, but she ran before I could get to her. Still no sign of Quadrat,” BigB said as Jimmy stood.
“Wait, this was the Lighthouse Keepers? No wonder this was the only explosion up here,” Tango said. BigB turned to him.
“Can you get down the stairs yourself, or do I need to carry you like I do Canary here?” he asked.
“I can walk,” Tango said. He turned to Jimmy and scribbled something on a post-it note in his pocket before holding it out. “Oh, Canary. I don’t know if this is like, weird, but I liked talking to you, and if you’re down to chat again, here’s my number.”
Jimmy took it, and BigB cast a glance at him that said I’m going to tease you about this later.
“Thanks. I’ll think about it,” Jimmy said, hoping Tango could hear his smile. Tango just shuffled awkwardly.
“Well, we ready to go?” BigB asked, reaching around Jimmy to hoist him up in a bridal carry, careful to avoid the broken wing. Tango nodded, and the three of them descended the stairwell and out of the bank.