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She could be perfect.
They were.
Cervus and Lupus.
The next burgeoning hero duo.
They’d risen so quickly.
Working in tandem without a step missed.
There’d been a period of time where Cervus had been seen with Lupus less and less. But then it’d stopped.
Cervus sticking with Lupus. Lupus always following her partner.
Truly the parallel to Hotguy and Cuteguy.
And the two teams even got along pretty well. Distance and close fighters teamed up occasionally enough to be noted. Working well together.
And they were Great.
Bright stars in the night. The city’s guiding lights. Heroes.
Cervus and Lupus. Pearl and Gem.
Partners no matter what.
Pearl still had suspicions about the Commission, the shadows it tries so hard to distract from.
But she has people behind her, with her. Cuteguy, and Hotguy following him, willing to use their status to shield her, her very careful investigations. Theorizing with her over dinners where she’s slowly been teaching them how to cook for themselves. BigB, now Iris, a friend from childhood she remet in the Commission and got to introduce Gem to.
Gem. Her partner.
The one who’d come back early that night she had been preparing for yet another solo patrol and asked to talk.
They’d been late heading out for patrol, but they did it together. In step once again.
And suddenly it was like the world bloomed open in front of them.
Gem pulled her along whenever she got a callout, stuck with Pearl through the late night patrols, linked arms and grinned at her wherever the press showed up, told the press off hotly whenever they tried slipping a snide comment past, showed up to all Pearl’s training sessions to watch from the sidelines and even when her coms went off, stuck around long enough to drag Pearl after her no matter the consequences.
Until The Commission gave up trying to split them apart.
Pearl had told Gem about everything she’d been learning that night she’d come back and had to keep her from resigning then and there. Taking up a different name.
They could still change it from the inside. Fix things. It would just be more difficult, longer, than they expected. But already they were seeing things change.
They have Hotguy and Cuteguy, Scar and Grian, on their side. They have BigB in the analytics department. They’re together. The news has stopped printing all the negative things about Lupus. People are just barely starting to question some of the things The Commission says and does. Pearl’s finding more information and Gem’s getting in contact with other heroes, and they’re changing things.
Pearl is able to find the name and then family of the thief from that incident. She’s able to give them answers, as much of the truth as she knows because even though it hurts it’s better to know.
She and Gem are able to investigate a string of bodies, sex workers, across the worse neighborhoods and end up making almost-friendly contact with Ethos when he ends up killing (assassinating) their strongest lead. Neither of them fully trust the villain of course, call in Scar and Grian as backup like they’re supposed to, but the information he’d passed their way had checked out.
And it’s her and Gem.
Gem’s with her. Believes her. Came out on patrol with her just when Pearl was starting to succumb to the despair and abyss their partnership, their relationship was becoming.
And Gem had been there, terrified and tear-stained, when Pearl died in a mission rescuing some teens from a warehouse fire. When Pearl came back with another wolf, Astera, and they both swore they could not tell The Commission about it. How Pearl’s power seems to work.
Gem’s there when Pearl realizes what that means for her childhood. Holds her through the shaking sobs and screaming and grief. Keeps her even with this new understanding, new knowledge. New Pearl.
Gem picks up the pieces of their life, side by side, hand in hand with her.
Helps start putting them back into something better.
Something greater.
Together.
Always.
Cervus and Lupus.
Lupus and Cervus.
Gem and Pearl.
Gemini Tamsyn Taylor and Pearl Luna Neve.
“—?” Gem almost sighs, a slight frown, imperceptible to anyone else, on her face perfectly lit by the studio lights as she stares at the talk show host behind a visor that’s the wrong shade of teal.
“Lupus stopped being a hero the moment she didn’t call the incident in.” She says, carefully composed but unrehearsed. “Everything that came after, the fight, the explosion that killed everyone in that warehouse and injured several bystanders, none of that were the actions of a hero. If she had survived I would have arrested her myself. There is no excuse for her actions.” Statement firm, utterly certain.
Gem’s face doesn’t change at all as the host starts talking again. Assured and absolute as always. Lupus wasn’t a hero.
“—!”
There’s a shout, and it feels like Pearl’s moving in slow motion.
What’d happened?
Gem said the warehouse exploded, said Lupus wasn’t a hero, her brain repeats over and over.
“I would have arrested her myself.”
Gunshots.
Gem believed she had been the threat in the warehouse.
Flour flares of pain.
Gem fully believed in The Commission.
Nothing.