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Ever since Regulus was saved by Vertin from the “Storm”, she’s been noticing…so many weird things. None of them are due to the Storm Syndrome, but there’s been a tension in the air that she cannot describe. Every time she walks through the halls of the Foundation, she hears an interestingly human-like “growl”, then a crying employee or intern runs away immediately after. She has also noticed that X has secluded himself into his lab, not even bothering to ask Regulus if she would like to help him test out his new invention. Lilya has started abusing her Vodka more than usual, and the succubus has been showing her claws and shouting in anger more often.
Regulus adjusts her sunglasses and contemplates. The overall atmosphere is not as cozy and warm as when Vertin started taking in arcanist friends. It’s as if everyone is down in the dumps, and her rock-n-roll does not help lift anyone’s spirits in the slightest. It seems as though the only people unaffected by this are herself, Vertin, Sonetto, and Mesmer Jr, though, the latter hardly ever spends any time in the suitcase to begin with.
With this information in mind, the pirate sets off to find answers.
Vertin has been incredibly busy with her Timekeeper work, and as a result, so has Sonetto…or so she’s been told. Regulus walks through Laplace, her main plan being to annoy X until he finally lets her into his office. She has two bottles of Dr. Papper in one arm, and her vinyl record in the other, and is practically speedwalking to X’s office, ready to bang on his door and bribe him with drinks and music. As she’s walking down the hall, she notices an open door. Usually, she speeds past open doors, as it’s usually Medicine Pocket conducting yet another experiment that should be considered globally illegal, and she is very uninterested in becoming one of their lab rats! But this room is clean, and the fumes of chemicals are not hitting her nostrils in waves, so she takes a look in. She’s greeted with the sight of Mesmer Jr. with her face in her hands, quietly groaning out in frustration. Regulus vaguely remembers Sonetto talking about being classmates with her when they were children.
A lightbulb goes off in her head, and she barges into the room with a grin on her face.
“Hey there! Mesmer Jr., was it?”
The girl in question lifts her head from her hands, but doesn’t move after that, just staring into her palms as if they will tell her why a British pirate just came into her office uninvited. She finally turns her head to the intruder, blinking slowly. She groans internally, not wanting to deal with another insane arcanist during her break, but she responds anyway. “Yes, Regulus, that is my name. How can I help you?”
Regulus lights up and walks fully into the room, dragging a chair to sit next to the therapist. She sets a bottle of the pop in front of her new companion and cracks open her own, taking a large swig of it.
“So, I hear you, Vertin, and Sonetto were childhood buddies.”
“I prefer the term ‘classmates’.”
“Either way, have you noticed anything between Vertin and Sonetto? Anything…interesting?”
Mesmer Jr. stares at her before turning her head to the pop bottle and contemplating. When they were in school, she knew they were deskmates. Other than Vertin always bothering Sonetto with her frogs and rocks, and Sonetto always brushing her off, she never really thought there was anything special between them. She turns her head to say no, but she remembers how Sonetto acted after Vertin was hit in the head with the teargas bullet. How worried she seemed and how obsessed she became with Vertin. It got even worse when Vertin was promoted as Timekeeper, and it became downright disgusting when Sonetto was promoted to “Chief Assistant of the Timekeeper”. The immediate jumping to Vertin’s defense when anyone dared to disagree with her made Mesmer Jr. sick, and she snapped her head to Regulus.
“Now that I think about it, I have noticed something…a lot of things, actually.”
Regulus sets her bottle down and sits up from her slouching position and says, “Oh? Do tell!”
After Mesmer Jr. tells Regulus what she just remembered, they sit in silence for a while. Regulus finally speaks up. “Do you think they’re lesbians?” Mesmer Jr. flinches at the blunt statement, frowning in offense as if she doesn’t have lesbian tendencies herself. “W-Why on Earth would they be lesbians?! That’s not…”
Regulus takes off her sunglasses and stares at the therapist with a blank face. “Mesmer, I know what you are.” They blink at each other, an awkward silence enveloping the room. Suddenly, an alarm goes off on Mesmer Jr.’s desk, and she internally sighs at the chance for escape. She presses the button and gets up, walking to the door. “My artificial somnambulism patient is calling for me, I’ll see you around.” She stands up and runs out of the room, almost running into a wall to get away from the pirate calling her gay ass out.
Regulus stares at the door in silence, before shrugging her shoulders and standing up, snatching the unopened bottle of Dr. Papper that she offered to Mesmer Jr. and returning to her original plan of bothering X.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
The next morning, Regulus is walking through the suitcase to get some breakfast. She adjusts her sunglasses and turns the corner, greeted by the sight of X bumping into Sonetto and spilling his hot coffee on her neat and clean Foundation uniform. Regulus slaps her hand over her mouth.
“Ouch!” Sonetto yelps, and X’s eyes widen as he starts to sputter out an apology. Before he can turn to grab tissues, Vertin quite literally materializes in front of Sonetto, silently looking down at the stain on Sonetto’s uniform, before looking back up at her. “Who did this to you?” she says coolly. Sonetto points a shaky finger up at the culprit, “H-He did it, he spilled his coffee on me…”
Vertin turns to X, and he makes a speed laughing face before the Timekeeper genuinely grabs his lab coat and rips it off of him. Vertin starts to use the piece of lab coat to pat down the stain on Sonetto, muttering, “Nobody touches my kitten.” Regulus’ lips curl up in horror and disgust all at once. “What has gotten into Vertin…”
“I agree, I’ll be filing a complaint for abuse of power,” says a tired voice from behind Regulus, and she whips her head around to see a tired Mesmer Jr. “Oh, Mesmer! Lively morning already, eh?” Mesmer Jr. rolls her eyes at Regulus before looking back up at the scene. Vertin is still patting down Sonetto’s uniform with the lab coat piece, mumbling something about “Touch her and you die”, and X has tears in his eyes, staring at the sight.
“They make me sick.”
“Me too.”
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Regulus has just come back into the suitcase from clearing out carbuncles with Sotheby and Medicine Pocket in the wilderness. Sotheby ran off, shouting something about a new potion she wanted to try, leaving Medicine Pocket’s crazy ass with Regulus. She tries to speed walk to get away from them, but Medicine Pocket’s freakishly long legs keep taking large steps to keep up with her.
“Just be my lab rat once, it’s for the future of science!” they shout, and grinning and showing off their shark teeth. Regulus’ face scrunches up in fear.
“Absolutely not! I have no interest in participating in your experiments!”
“Oh come on!”
“No means no!”
Regulus walks into the kitchen. where Argus has her gun pointed at Anjo Nala, and said succubus has her fangs and claws bared at the cowboy butch lesbian. “Argus, I am sick of you! Every time I try to do anything, you point that gun at me!” Argus narrows her eyes, before lowering her gun just a bit. “I just gotta keep my good eye on you, no pun intended.” Regulus and Medicine Pocket both snort at that comment, but neither of the women pay any mind. as Nala starts to screech again.
“Why won’t you just leave me alone!” As Anjo Nala shouts, her tail starts wagging violently, and hits Sonetto square in the face. Now that Regulus thinks about it, where the hell did she even come from?! “O-Ow!” Her hand hovers over the red mark on her face, and the succubus turns around.
“I-I am so sorry- I didn’t mean to-“
Vertin emerges from nothingness yet again, her cool palm on Sonetto’s cheek. “Who did this to you?” she says with a deep voice that has Regulus rearing her head back in surprise. Once again, Sonetto points her shaking finger at the woman with the tail, and stutters out, “I-It was her, she hit me with her tail…” Vertin snaps her head to Anjo Nala, and she attempts to defend herself. “Master, I didn’t do it on purpose!” She points to Argus, ready to tattle on the gunslinger like a kindergartener. “Argus was provoking me, and I just got so angry that I-“
“NALA, GO TO YOUR CUCK CHAMBER, NOW!!”
Nala stands in silence for a few seconds, reeling from Vertin’s outburst, before bursting out in tears and running to a dark corner of the suitcase. Vertin looks over in Regulus’ direction, and her heartbeat kicks up. She didn’t even know there was such a thing in the suitcase, and she doesn’t want to be next.
Vertin points in her general direction, and Regulus goes pale. “Medicine Pocket, healing. Now.” The healer in question frowns at her, baring their own fangs.
“Who said you get to boss me around? I don’t feel like healing-“
“Thirty percent funding increase.”
Medicine Pocket quickly changes their mind, practically running over to her on all fours, leaving Argus and Regulus stunned. The pirate hears a sigh from where Medicine Pocket was standing, and looks over to see Mesmer Jr. “What a sight to behold.” says the therapist, as they all look at Medicine Pocket rubbing a damp cloth over Sonetto’s cheek, and Vertin growling about Sonetto being her kitten yet again.
Argus, Regulus, and Mesmer Jr. all sigh out in unison:
“What the hell.”
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
Regulus and Mesmer Jr. are walking down the hall in the Foundation, both carrying a stack of papers while Regulus yaps on and on about rock-n-roll and Mesmer Jr. mostly ignoring her. Instead, she thinks about getting a full night of sleep tonight with her new dose of melatonin. They both turn a corner, and they both collide with Sonetto who is also holding a stack of papers, sending papers flying all over the place. Mesmer groans, thinking about the amount of time it will take to organize the papers correctly again.
“O-Oof!”
While Regulus apologizes and Mesmer sighs out with her head in her hand, Vertin genuinely ascends from the ground and stands between them, turning to Sonetto.
“Who did this to you?” Mesmer Jr. and Regulus both snap their heads up and Mesmer mutters under her breath, “Dear God…”
Sonetto raises two shaky fingers, pointing them at the girls in the hallway
“T-They both ran into me…”
Vertin turns to them, and Regulus speaks up.
“Vertin! We’ve had it with your crap!”
“Don’t talk back to me, I could fire you at the snap of my finger!”
“Just because someone bumps into Sonetto, doesn’t mean we’re threatening your girlfriend! It may just be a simple mistake!”
Sonetto and Vertin’s faces both become red, flushed like a tomato.
Sonetto starts to stutter out, “H-How did you know we were in a relationship?! We made sure to keep it private and secret!”
Vertin glares. “They must have been snooping on us kitten, don’t worry, I’ll protect you…”
Mesmer Jr. has become fed up. “Good God! Nobody is snooping on you guys! You’re both super obvious! Every time Sonetto gets a minor injury, You randomly materialize out of thin air! You even came out of the floor this time!”
Vertin’s mouth opens and closes for a few seconds, before jumping to defend herself. “I need to protect my Chief Assistant by any means necessary!”
“NOT LIKE THIS!” Mesmer and Regulus shout at the same time.
“You’ve made the lives of everyone in the suitcase miserable, and everyone’s been walking on eggshells around you two,” Mesmer Jr. points out.
“Maybe you should go around and apologize,” Regulus crosses her arms and looks pointedly at Vertin.
They all stand in silence before Vertin sighs. “Fine, I’ll apologize, but I swear if anyone hurts my kitten-”
“WE GET IT!!!”
Vertin huffs out another sigh and jumps into her suitcase, Sonetto following after. Mesmer Jr. and Regulus look at each other and let out a breath of relief.
“Good teamwork, Mesmer! We finally got them to do the right thing!” Regulus holds up her hand for a high five, but Mesmer sighs out instead. “I would love to celebrate, but look at this mess.” Regulus looks down at the ground, papers scattered all over the hallway.
Now it’s Regulus’ turn to groan in annoyance.