#‘the peace he’d fought for was a worse enemy than the Japanese’

[daydreamerdrew]

The Incredible Hulk (1968) #291

[swanpyart]

The Short Lived Adventures of RAPH and Casey Jones

This is an old pic that was made for a zine that was never published. So I’ll leave it here. It might not ever be finished, but I think the story is decent enough on its own.

Part 1:

Casey was completely fine by herself.

Sure, her parents never really paid her any mind, but she never needed them to; Casey was a fast learner, and was able to cook, clean, and do pretty much anything the adults could do.

“Look!” Ten-year-old Casey held up an English vocabulary test, with an “100%” written in the corner in cursive. “I passed!”

“Honey,” her mother barely looked at her from her seat at her desk, “One hundred percent is the bare minimum. Anything less means you practically failed.”

There was always an empty space in the bleachers whenever Casey had a hockey game. She would cross her arms as she waited for her parents to pick her up and watched as the people in the audience rushed down and hugged their own children after a game, regardless of whether they won or lost. When her parents finally showed up, she sat in the car quietly as they drove.

Casey spent almost everyday after school at her Granny’s while her parents were at work. The old woman’s house was always warm, mostly because she was always baking; cakes, cookies, and especially her famous brownies - made with a special ingredient.

At twelve years old, Casey had failed a math test for the first time, and burst into tears as she walked through her Granny’s front door. “I’m a failure!”

“Sweetie, everyone fails every now and then,” her Granny wiped a tear from Casey’s cheek and got out an antique mixing bowl, “but I can tell you tried really hard. That’s what matters; that you don’t stop trying your best.”

Afterwards, Casey and her Granny spent the afternoon baking brownies, and that was when she was granted the knowledge of the secret ingredient. She swore her secrecy and never told anyone.

Of course, that was a while ago; her grandmother had passed away sometime afterwards. Her parents reacted with more emotion when Casey had shaved her head than when they attended the funeral.

They also seemed only mildly surprised when, at thirteen years old, Casey was accepted into the Foot Clan and never came back home.

There, Casey promised to herself to show the world just how much of a not-failure she really is! Even if she had to work with the most vile Clan in all the world to achieve it and release the Shredder, the ultimate evil, unto the world. She had worked above and beyond to get where she is, and no one could stop her!

At least, that’s what she thought before the Shredder disappeared, and with him, the Clan’s purpose. And way before those strange, overgrown turtles with no sense of honor or discipline showed up and destroyed their chances, time and time again.

Suddenly, the group she had worked with since she was a preteen, and the closest thing she had to any family, were dragged away by outside obligations she never understood.

Foot Brute and Lieutenant were better parents than her own, but, in the end, they were her bosses and coworkers, and no replacement for a family.

Sure, everyone else may have given up, but she would stay committed to the Clan’s ultimate vision, even if she had to use her dear Granny’s recipe for evil. Grandma CJ’s Brownies were an absolute bust, but she had to try something.

Then, she met this weird, giant, smelly rat with a Japanese accent dressed like a teenager who somehow turned out to be the father of those overgrown turtles.

And, as weird as it was, despite not even being human, he sat next to her and heard what she had to say; and, for those few minutes, it was almost like being next to her Granny again.

“Just because you failed doesn’t make you a failure.”

If she had been smarter, maybe she should have listened a bit harder to what he was saying. If she had been smarter, maybe she would have calmed down and talked to the girl that was beating up the Girl Scouts. There were so many opportunities to just talk.

But then the Shredder was restored, and she really thought it would be the return of her Clan’s glory. Even as she looked at the beaten down forms of her previous bosses. Even as she saw Splinter and his family struggling for their lives. Even as she realized winning would mean the end of everything, including her.

There was no more Clan. She was still alone. She was just alone with a giant evil suit of demon armor.

But, now, she wasn’t.

Even after everything, Splinter offered her an invitation into their...

Family.

------------------------------------------------------

He had invited her to the lair a few weeks after the fight with Shredder.

“I’m working at the Foot Shack. After my former clan disbanded, they got bought out by another company, Splinter, sir.” She squeezed the mug of tea in her hands.

“Just ‘Splinter’ is fine,” Splinter had opened a bag of chips, and was reclining in his seat. The turtles were out with April at the arcade, taking a break from repairing the lair. “Where are you staying? Do you have a place to live?”

“Yes, I actually have my own apartment.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. Splinter sighed. “Listen, Casey, I know that it’s probably hard having to... uh, sort things out by yourself-”

“What?! No, I’m fine!” She flapped her hand dismissively. “My life is fantastic! It’s definitely not in complete shambles after losing everything I know.” She blinked, realizing that she overshared, and collected herself. “I’m doing great.”

“I-I never said it was in shambles,” He massaged his temple with two clawed fingers, his beady eyes squinting in frustration. “Look, all I am saying is that, if you ever need help, or if you ever get lonely and just want to talk, I am here. And my sons would probably say the same thing. You’re a Hamato now, at least in spirit.”

Casey’s eyes widened, then she looked down. “Thank you, but I’m a very independent person. I’ll be sure to not bug you unless it’s an emergency.”

Splinter nodded, but he’d dealt with enough children to see that Casey was a bit lonely. Still, he said nothing.

For a good while, Casey stuck to what she said; she didn’t really come by the lair unless she really felt the need to or if they needed an extra set of hands with repairing.

But… occasionally, she found herself asking questions. She found out Michelangelo loved cooking, and somehow he got her to agree to bake her Granny’s brownies together. She realized that Leonardo wasn’t just annoying in battle, but all the time, and that she started getting more and more used to it, even occasionally laughing along. She found out while playing video games with them, that Donnatello was just as vicious as her, and that April was equally as competitive.

And Raph, well… they didn’t talk very much. But he seemed nice every time they spoke.

But she kept her distance. After all, it was better if she didn’t get too attached.

She occasionally goes down to the local hockey rink and plays a few rounds with total strangers, and usually gets kicked out due to a combo of delinquent children and complaining parents.

So, here she is, lying on her bed, staring blankly at her phone, with a half eaten sandwich laying on her chest, and old sweatpants that she’s been wearing for a week because her clothes are in the laundromat. For a ninja-slash-ex-cult-member, her life had fallen into a fairly mundane pattern.

Everything could always be worse. So why did she still feel like such a failure?

And for some reason, Casey found herself at the sewer grate. She didn’t even know why she came here, really.

She was about to turn back when a feminine voice spoke from behind her. “Hey, CJ, what’s up?”

She spun around. It was April.

“I was just coming to visit.” Casey tensed up. She hadn’t expected to run into someone else.

“Oh, me too!” She opened up the grate, and started climbing down the ladder. “You coming or what?”

Casey gulped. She couldn’t back out now.

------------------------------------------------------

Raph paced the lair, quietly groaning as he tapped his chin.

It had been about six months since the fight with Shredder, but another challenge had presented itself; cleaning up the lair after it had been almost completely demolished. Thankfully, with Draxum’s help and Donnie being able to scavenge some old tech that didn’t get destroyed and whip up some devices for reconstruction, the place was finally fixed up after about a month and a half.

Now what? Well, in Leo’s words, it was the time for “rest and relaxation.”

That was pretty easy for the rest of his family to do.

Leo’s entire existence hinged on “rest and relaxation”; Mikey has an assortment of hobbies to keep him busy; Donnie had a tight schedule trying to repair all of his broken inventions; April was trying to adjust to all of the changes at school due to all of New York recovering from the recent Battle Nexus catastrophe; and Splinter, of course, was parked in front of the TV, finally at peace after the Shredder was defeated, and helping himself to milk and cake.

Raph should be relaxing, or at least recovering from all that’s happened to them. The fight with the Shredder was the most stressful and terrifying time of their lives. They lost their Gram-Gram, and even if she was now able to rest with their ancestors and her father, it still stung.

But it’s been such a long time since he’s been in a real fight, and he can tell he’s going a little bit stir-crazy.

Of course, the turtles would spend a lot of time out of the lair; but whenever Raph gets a call on the phone, he finds himself hoping it’s some kind of an emergency, only to turn out to be Todd calling them about the puppy farm, or Leo pestering Senior Hueso with an order for pick-up. It seemed like even their strongest enemies have gone on hiatus as well; there was no word of Big Mama as of late, and every other major bad guy they fought recently seemed to have been exhausted by the Shredder ordeal as well.

Raph’s usual sparring partner, Frankenfoot, is absolutely wonderful, but fighting him wasn’t exactly what Raph had in mind; it was fun, but couldn’t really be compared to the thrill of a real fight.

“Come on, guys,” Raph stood in front of the screen, blocking Leo and Mikey’s view of a Jupiter Jim rerun while Pops was passed out on the couch, snoring, a bag of chips lying open on his stomach. “We’ve been cooped up in the lair for a million years. Who wants to go wreck some bad guys?” He pounded his fist in his opposite hand for emphasis.

“Raph, I can’t see!” Mikey waved his hand in a dismissive way as he said it, and leaned to peek around his older brother and continue watching the screen.

“Ugh, we’ve been over this,” Leo exasperated from his spot on the ground, on his stomach and his head resting on his propped arms. “No crime fighting while we’re on vacation! This is the time to chillax, my guy.”

“How long are we gonna be chillaxing, exactly?” Raph put his hands on his hips, an inquisitive look on his face, even if, deep down, he knew what response he’d get.

“I don’t know, until some other crazy evil mutant guy tries to take over the city? There’s bound to be another one of those eventually.”

“What, so we just wait until some evil mastermind has some evil plan and gets all of New York in their evil clutches? It’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Raph tried to summon the energy he usually exudes when he attempts to make a rousing speech, but the rolling eyes and groans from his youngest brothers quickly made its effect futile.

“You know,” Donnie said from the back of the room, the other three having not noticed him walk in, “We did, oh, I don’t know, save all of New York City, take down Big Mama’s Battle Nexus scheme, and, most importantly, defeat our bloodline’s greatest enemy?!”

Raph furrowed his brow, his sharp fang digging into his lower lip.

“We deserve an indefinite break, and I need it, because I actually refuse to do any fighting until I have all my stuff back online. I’d love to fight with only my impeccable mind, but let’s be realistic.” The sandwich in his hand was brought to his face and he swallowed it whole. Donnie knew he had made an excellent point.

“Don’t worry,” Mikey beamed, tucking his arms and legs into his shell, “We’ll get back into the groove of things before you know it!”

“Yeah,” Leo agreed, “Think of it as, like, you know, self-care. Sometimes, you need a break from what you’re used to. Now, can you move out of the way?”

Raph sulked out of his siblings’ view of the screen and sunk into a beanbag, next to the couch their father was snoring in.

------------------------------------------------------

“Hey, guys!” The turtles turn around to see April and... Foot Recruit walk in.

Raph didn’t really know what to think of Foot Recruit, or Casey, as she preferred to be called. Pops insisted that she wasn’t dangerous anymore, but it was hard for him not to be a little wary; I mean, come on, she used to work with the Shredder!

 She’d been over only a handful of times over the past few months, usually to speak with Splinter and Mikey.

“Casey! April!” Mikey stuck his hands out of his shell in joy. He ran over and hugged them both. “It’s been a while.”

“Hey, Apes. And, hi to you too, Casey.” Leo kicked his legs up behind him.

“Above ground has been pretty hectic,” April leaned on Donnie’s shoulder as she spoke, “Everyone has been freaking out about disappearing from New York for a few days. Relaxing on a yacht sure beats coming back to the city in shambles. And finding another job is so hard when everyone’s paranoid we’re gonna all disappear again. Ugh, I wish we did, then I’d get another break!”

“Well, if you want a job, you can help me repair what’s left of my s- I mean, S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. The Shredder tore him apart.” Donnie put his hands on his hips and relaxed his posture to cover his slip-up.

“Aw, your cute robot son isn’t repaired yet?” April teased.

As the two bickered while walking towards the lab, Raph looked back at Casey, who was standing by the entrance, visibly tense. 

“Hey, Casey. Um, why are you here?” Raph asked innocently, not realizing how rude he sounded.

“Smooth,” Leo chimed in unhelpfully.

Before he could take it back, Casey spoke, with a glare on her face. “I’m here for the orange one.”

Raph blinked. “Huh?”

“We’re gonna bake brownies!” Mikey clarified, his chest puffed out with pride. “Casey decided that I’m worthy of learning an old family recipe.”

“Yes!” Casey grinned, in a way that was far too menacing for someone talking about brownies. “I decided that, as a new member of your- um…” clan? Group? Committee?

“...Family?” Raph assisted.

“Uh, yes, that,” she turned shy for a few brief seconds, only to return to her previous bravado, pumping her fist in the air, “I will honor you with the knowledge of my grandmother’s most nefarious secret!”

------------------------------------------------------

Raph peeked into the kitchen as Mikey and Casey got to work. Of course, he trusted Mikey; but he had a hunch that Casey might be up to something.

Or maybe the boredom was just making him a bit more paranoid than usual.

Dirty dishes, half-full cups and brownie mix were strewn about the kitchen counter. Whatever this recipe pertained, it must be pretty intense.

“And, now, for the final ingredient. This one was given to me by my grandmother.” Casey pulled a canister of brown powder. She leaned over and whispered close to Mikey’s head. Whatever she was saying, Raph couldn’t hear.

Mikey gasped. “PUMPKIN SPICE?!”

Casey shushed him, then yelled herself. “It’s a secret, remember?!” She poured a generous amount into the mixing bowl full of batter.

The two of them looked so happy baking together, and Raph felt a pit of guilt in his stomach for assuming the worst. He really needed to chill out.

------------------------------------------------------

“Wait, so let me get this straight,” Leo sunk into the bean bag chair, “You’re a fan of Lou Jitsu, right?”

“That is correct.” Casey was sitting stiffly in her seat. Her expressions were intense, like she was about to strangle someone, but Raph had realized pretty quickly that this was just her default.

“You have all of the movies memorized?”

“Of course! I used his guidelines for self improvement in my schemes to take over the world! I mean, that’s not really relevant now, but-”

“And you said you spend almost all of your available money on Lou Jitsu merch?”

“I hide them all so my guests don’t see.”

“And, yet, you’ve never watched a Jupiter Jim film? The Jupiter Jim, his longtime franchise rival and co-star in Jupiter Jim Vs Lou Jitsu?” Leo clutched at his chest, as he held up the DVD case of the movie he was talking about for emphasis.

“Leo,” Raph warned, looking up from his phone, “don’t make her feel bad-”

Leo chuckled. “Oh ho ho, trust me I won’t. I’m definitely putting on a Jupiter Jim Vs. The Galaxy Riders Part 1 and Part 2, and you are going to love it!”

Casey cackled ominously. “You really think this ‘Jupiter Jim-’” She made quotation marks with her fingers for emphasis, “-can measure up to the greatness that is Lou Jitsu? Fine, I guess we’ll just have to see.”

Raph ended up dozing off after the fifth film, and woke up to see Casey and his brother still openly debating whether Lou Jitsu would beat Jupiter Jim if they were both in a desert completely unarmed and at full strength.

------------------------------------------------------

“I’m not scared of much,” Donnie mentions offhandedly one day, while Raph was doing a bicep curl, “but she -”

He points to Casey eating a sandwich like a hyena, while April sat next to her, texting.

“She terrifies me to no end.”

Donnie’s strange relationship with their new friend took Raph a while to comprehend. Then it became clear as day. If anyone could match Casey in moral ambiguity, it was his immediate younger brother.

“I made you a little gift,” the softshell grinned smugly, as he handed Casey what looked like a metal hockey stick.

“Oh, um,” Casey's eyes were wide, and a little watery, and her lips were in a warbly smile. “Thank you… no one’s ever given me something so nice.”

Donnie grinned. “Press the button on the side.”

When she did, the widest end of the hockey stick flipped open like a lighter, and a stream of fire shot out of the tip. Casey’s tears of joy gave way to maniacal laughter. “Those kids at the hockey rink won’t know what hit ‘em!”

Donnie joined her in glee, his eyes and teeth shining menacingly in the light of the flames. Raph watched in mild horror (He was plenty used to Donnie’s antics), at least until the fire alarm sounded and they were all drenched from the sprinklers.

------------------------------------------------------

Another month had passed since Casey started coming around, and Raph seemed like the only one in the lair who hadn’t quite jived with her yet. Sure, his suspicion had pretty much subsided, and he liked her company plenty, but the two of them hadn’t really clicked.

However, he noticed some slight changes over time. Casey’s eyes had bags under them which were more obvious in brighter lights, and sometimes she fell asleep on April’s shoulder (and snored louder than his Pops, somehow). Sometimes, there were hints of sadness on her face, even when she was laughing along with everyone.

Raph didn’t mention it for fear of being rude, but he couldn’t help his concern. After all, if she was upset, she probably wouldn’t mention to him all of the people.

------------------------------------------------------

Hockey wasn’t a sport Raph and his brothers knew much about, but he couldn’t help but get excited as Casey gushed about it, holding tightly onto the treasured tech-hockey stick Donnie had gifted her, wearing a huge grin on her face.

The two humans and four turtles (disguised as humans, of course) were just entering the hockey rink. The hall to the auditorium was cold and echoey.

“I come here every other Friday. The regulars here know my face, and they fear it. It’s ‘cause they know I’ll decimate everyone in my path!” She pumped her fist as she spoke, a sinister grin on her face, before she caught herself and straightened out. “Well, I do until the rink’s supervisors kick me out for making a scene and being mean to children.”

“Don’t sweat it, Casey,” Donnie spoke up, “You’re not the only one whose been kicked out of establishments for scaring kids.”

“Uh huh, exactly!” April agreed a bit too eagerly, and Raph looked back to see the distant, traumatized look in her eyes, and he could tell she was remembering the screams of children and the  sinister laughter of animatronics at a certain pizza joint.

The six teens got to the rink’s auditorium, and put their bags down on the bleachers. There weren’t too many people around.

Mikey whistled. “This place is massive!”

As Raph put on a maroon hoodie and pulled on his skates, Casey rolled onto the rink, over to a huddle of teenagers wearing hockey gear. “Hey!”

One of the teenagers - a boy with messy brown hair covering his eyes - responded. “Oh, you again. Guys, look, it’s that crazy girl from last week.”

“The name is Cassandra Jones!” Casey pulled down the hockey mask she was wearing and held up her stick. “I’m challenging you to another round! Did you really think you’d escape my wrath?!”

The kids started laughing. “You challenge us every time we’re here, and you always lose. What makes today so different?”

Casey laughed. “Well, for one thing, I’ve got my own team now, so you better get ready to go crying to your mommy!”

The group hadn’t stopped laughing, even as Casey walked back to the bleachers. Raph raised a brow. “Uh, what was all of that?”

She looked down. “Those are my enemies,” She clenched her fists, “A group of jerks who manage to beat me every time I come here.”

Raph paused for a second. The look on her face was determined, but had a hint of sadness to it. Raph understood how she felt; wanting to fight, but getting beaten down time and time again. He’d realized a while ago that he didn’t have to do it alone; and neither did she.

Raph put an arm around Casey’s shoulders, and cupped a hand to his mouth, shouting to the teenagers from across the rink. “Hey, knuckleheads! You get ready for a match; you’re not just dealing with Cassandra Jones anymore! you’re dealing with the Mad Dogs, now!”

“Yeah, right!” One of the kids, a girl with a ponytail, shouts back.

He turned to face his brothers and April, who were sitting on the bleachers, their attention already on Raph from his shouting. “Hey, those guys over there are saying we’re gonna lose! What do we say to that?!”

“Oh ho ho, I like this energy!” Leo stood up on the bleachers, joining in the hype. April and Mikey stood up beside him.

“Yeah, you chumps aren’t even at our level!”

“Ya’ll ain’t seen nothing yet!”

Donnie stood up slowly, his arms crossed from the cold. “Yeah, we’ll definitely beat you! But-” He switched to his normal volume, “let’s not make promises we can’t keep.”

Raph dismissed him, and looked at Casey, who was smiling. Together, they were able to beat the Shredder. This would be a piece of cake.

------------------------------------------------------

“Are we done? My mom is here to pick me up,” One of the kids, a girl with pigtails, mentioned as she walked towards her belongings on the bleachers.

Raph was gasping for air from his spot on the cold ground. Hockey was hard. Like, really, really hard.

In hindsight, their loss made sense; this was the turtles and April’s first time playing hockey, and even Casey, who’d been playing since she was a kid, wasn’t able to beat these kids. They really were just that good.

“Is that all you’ve got?!” Leo had fallen in front of the goal, two huge purple bruises visible on his face; one on his forehead, and the other under his eye, popping out from his green skin and red birthmarks.  

Mikey was crying on his knees, while April patted his shell, cussing out one of the kids who she felt pushed him too hard. Even as the kid was walking away. “And another thing-”

Donnie lay flat nearby, looking like a purple stain on the white shiny floor. He was never good at sports, but he tried. Geez, it was almost more embarrassing, with just how hard he tried.

------------------------------------------------------

They found a vending machine, and after Raph gave Leo a cold soda can to hold over his bruises, he walked past Casey, sitting with her head in her hands.

“Hey,” He placed a hand on her shoulder, and looked around to see if the others were watching. April, Mikey and Donnie were going off about losing the match, while Leo sat dejectedly in the corner, nursing his injuries. “Are you alright?”

She looked up, tears in her eyes, and her lower lip wobbling. She hastily rubbed at her face with her sleeve, her eyeliner smearing. “I’m...I’m fine.”

“Is this about us losing?”

“No, no, it’s not that,” She sighed. “It’s a lot of different things- It’s just…”

She trailed off, and Raph sat down next to her on the bleacher. He realized this had definitely been bubbling up for a while. If only he’d talked to her sooner.

“Ugh, all I’ve ever wanted was to be a success. Taking over the world was everything for me- helping the Foot, working for the Shredder, making that whole brownie pyramid-scheme. But now? I don’t have anything. I’ve hit rock bottom. Now, I’m stuck in a stupid rivalry with a bunch of kids in a hockey rink.”

She began to cry again. “What am I going to do? Am I just doomed to be a failure?”

“Just ‘cause you’re not taking over the world doesn’t make you a failure. Most people just stick to regular, everyday stuff and they turn out fine.”

“It’s not just about taking over the world,” Casey sighed. “I don’t have a purpose. No Clan, no commitments, no future. It’s like everything I do is a failure. I’m a failure.”

Raph felt himself start to tear up, too. What she was saying felt way too familiar. “You’re not the only one whose failed.”

“Huh?”

“My Pops told us we were supposed to die in order to protect the Dark Armor. We failed to do that, but we realized how messed up that was, and we decided to do our own thing. And it totally worked out for us, ‘cause we ended up destroying Shred-face once and for all.”

He stood, wiping the small tears from the corners of his eyes. “Think about it. So what that you don’t got a purpose? I get it, but your ‘purpose’ was handed to you by those Foot-faces. What do you wanna do? What do you wanna succeed at?”

Casey sat quietly for a few moments, thinking, and Raph feared that he might have said something hurtful. He was never as savvy with people as Leo or Mikey.

Then she spoke. “I spent all of my life trying to be the best, even if it meant being the biggest bad guy in the world. Now, I want to be the best good guy!”

Her expression softened. “I guess what I really want - I want to stop people who were like me once. I want to stop evil people who want to control others. But...how?”

Raph thought. Then, an idea struck him. “You and me can team up!”

“For what?”

“I was a vigilante for a little while. I mean, I used to be, but I guess since I was already part of a team, and with the whole Shredder thing, I just sort of stopped. But, since my bros are on hiatus, you and me could fight crime undercover!”

Casey was looking at her lap, her head bowed. Raph cleared his throat. “I mean, only if you wanna, it’s just a suggestion-”

“That sounds amazing.” Casey looked up at him in awe, her dark eyes glossy with unshed tears. Suddenly, she stands up, and pumps a fist into the air. “Raph and Casey, the most feared vigilante duo in all of New York!”

“Yeah, Go big or go home!”  Raph pounded his fist into his other hand in excitement.

“Oh me gosh, stop yelling!” The two look behind them to Leo, still holding the can to his face. He turned in the direction of his twin. “Donnie, get me another can! This one’s warm!”

Casey was giving him a big smile, a far cry from her previous mood. Raph smiled back. Finally, he’d be able to go out and fight crime again; and this time, he wouldn’t be at it alone.

[langwrites]

Merc Work

I have no excuse for this other than needing a break from my NaNoWriMo break from Kei.

Be warned: It has no ending.

--------------------------------------

On a half-decent day, Kei would wake up with the dawn in a world without alarm clocks. If the day was especially good, she’d do so in her own fucking bed and not be on a ridiculous solo mission that’d gotten blown so thoroughly off track that she couldn’t see the proper path with the Hubble telescope. Waking up in an unfamiliar continent was already a sign of a bad time, and then the power of an unfeeling cosmic gearbox threw in the unasked-for bonus of pervasive xenophobia while surrounded by European fantasy analogues. Especially while being trailed by three Academy students on what should have been a harmless trip to visit the graves of their family. 

The straw that broke the camel’s back was the comparatively minor setback of Kei being on third watch. Sleep was for people who didn’t have a demonic turtle sitting in their lap. And who weren’t “new meat” by local standards.

So, between having to join up with a mercenary band to avoid dealing with racist jackasses through the power of numbers and swords, the apparent tech levels not supporting indoor plumbing, the safety of her students, and sitting in the cold for two hours before sunrise… Well, Kei could be forgiven for feeling a bit crabby.

Ha.

You hush. 

Never.

Kei considered the complete inability to actually keep Isobu from intruding on any conversation he liked, then sighed. There was such a thing as a hopeless fight, even for her. 

Isobu folded his armored forelegs under his belly. Had you not been transported here alongside the children, would you have joined this mercenary band to begin with?

Kei made an “I dunno” noise without opening her mouth. I mean, the sheer isolation would be an absolute nightmare. I know my limits a bit better now. 

The spiritual wreckage of her left arm attested to that issue. 

Isobu looked down, over the edge of Kei’s lap and toward the forest around Remire Village. They were probably about ten meters into the crown of the oak tree Kei chose as her lookout post for the last week, with only minor modifications to the branches. The only real change between this night and others involved Isobu being a lookout alongside her, rather than haunting the nearby river and stealing fish for his own amusement. 

And for feeding the kids, but that hadn’t happened since they’d joined the Jeralt mercenaries last month. 

Even if Kei didn’t trust rowdy men and women to look after a bunch of kids with special powers, she did trust Isobu to keep track of them. If the mercenaries got into a skirmish with bandits or anyone else, Kei ordered Kaito, Aiko, and Roku to hide with their spiky guardian as their sole point of contact with the group. When the situation was safe, Kei would call for them. If it wasn’t… well, that wasn’t going to happen. Kei had seen the local idea of what “power” meant and was left unimpressed. 

Nothing could get past me if it tried.

There’s a sentiment I can get behind. She’d survived worse than angry knights chasing her with spears.

The only one Kei wasn’t entirely sure of was the mercenaries’ second fiddle. The Ashen Demon, sole child of the Blade Breaker, went by Byleth Eisner (or just Byleth) to everyone else. They were half their father’s bulk and didn’t resemble him much in either coloring or general features. The lack of visible emotion on their face left most people around here fairly unnerved, but Kei found it was actually something of an advantage upon joining the mercenaries. Because people like Jeralt were already used to Byleth’s culturally-remarkable flat affect, they had an easier time giving some slack to Kei’s preferred mask of complete professional stoicism. 

The kids didn’t bother hiding their feelings about the whole thing—they latched onto Byleth insofar as they did anyone, perhaps because they were the smallest adult available who wasn’t Kei. 

But Byleth also had a job, and that job included enough of Kei’s personal stabbing quota to disqualify them from combat babysitting duties. 

Though she’d asked once about it anyway.

Byleth’s microexpressions were difficult to read. She left the conversation with the impression they were more confused by Kei’s willingness to approach them than insulted by the presumption, and thus joined Kei and her ducklings at dinner on occasion like they had a standing invitation. 

They basically did. Kei wouldn’t shoo away people who liked her cooking, and Byleth didn’t get loudly drunk all damn night. 

Don’t worry, though. You’re still the indisputed babysitting champion of the battlefield.

Pah. Isobu swatted Kei’s hand with one of his tails. 

Rowdy for a clone, aren’t you?

Insulting for a host, are you not? Isobu reversed it, because of course he did. And it is not as though this clone could be destroyed by anything less than your brute strength.

Fair.

Normally, Kei could have continued this line of thought for some time. Bantering with Isobu was a peaceful way to pass a watch shift. He had good night vision. She had the ability to interact with the world as a human being. These things were very complimentary. 

And Isobu used his sensitive eye, adapted for exploring the sea, to spot the problem before Kei heard it. Smoke at night was difficult to see without decent moonlight, at least for humans. Isobu poked at her brain to draw her attention to it. Likewise, the orange flicker of distant flames was just barely visible in Kei’s periphery if Kei angled her vision, like she would if observing the stars. 

That is going to be our problem in short order.

Isn’t it always? Kei replied, leaning as far sideways as she can to see through the modified canopy. Any farther and gravity would be held at bay only by chakra usage. Time to get up.

Indeed. And that was when Isobu opened his mouth to roar.

It was a tiny noise, relative to his true form’s size, but the sleepy village below them started to stir. The mercenaries were used to the sound of Isobu’s dying rabbit screams by now. 

And down.

Kei shoved Isobu off her lap, sending his spiky ass tumbling out of the tree to land among the three kids piled up in their camping bags. Kaito stirred first, patting sleepily at Isobu’s ridged belly before sitting up. This dislodged Roku and Aiko in order, just in time for Kei to land about a meter away with her finger in front of her face in a clear shh gesture. 

None of her three charges moved a muscle. 

“All three of you need to hide,” Kei told them, in the language no one around here spoke. 

One by one, she hugged each of them tightly enough to convey the seriousness of her request. Three pairs of cautious eyes met hers, in turn, and then they scrambled to hide their possessions under thickets in the village’s outskirts. No bandits could know there might be someone here to chase. 

After about a minute, she picked up Isobu’s little clone and placed him in Kaito’s shaky arms.

The kids knew she’d come back. The mercenaries had fought in five skirmishes since they joined like glorified camp followers, and not one of those battles featured a single opponent Kei couldn’t destroy with her eyes closed. 

But this was their comfort zone. Each time Kei left them, like a mother wolf leaving her den, she stripped that security like a worn bandage. 

Even only after a month of immersion, the kids picked up the local tongue fairly fast. They were young and adaptable and Kei was the only human adult around who spoke Japanese to them. Until they heard it again, from either her or Isobu, they’d stay out of sight. The waiting, though, never really got any easier. 

“They’ll never find us,” Roku said, tugging gently at Aiko and Kaito’s wrists. The oldest, at barely eleven, and already forcing himself to be the most responsible. 

“Bye, Sensei,” Aiko said reluctantly, before Roku curled his arm entirely around her to keep her from running off. 

“Stay safe,” Kei told her. She looked directly to Kaito and added, “Be good for Isobu-chan.” 

Kaito didn’t say anything at all, instead just fixing Kei with a stare like he’d forget what she looked like if he didn’t. This lasted until Isobu ordered Roku to get all three kids away from there, and he did. 

All three of them disappeared into the forest. They knew how to climb trees like bear cubs—or shinobi—which would have to be enough. And if a single enemy got near them, Kei would probably need to cut a grown man in half. Perhaps several.

Byleth would help.

I’ll let you know when it’s safe to be out here again, Kei thought to Isobu. 

You should know that I was not designed for an arboreal existence. I have many prehensile tails, but I am not a squirrel.

But you’re so cute!

Flattery will get you nowhere. With that sassy rejoinder, Isobu did the equivalent of flicking Kei in the forehead.

Kei headed to the village’s front gate, cutting directly through the forest with the ease of someone who’d been in and around the wilderness her entire life. She could hear another group crashing through the woods at high speed, relative to normal human averages, and a larger group likely in pursuit. 

Well, that wouldn’t do. 

Hidden Mist. Though the hand seal for this technique was more of a stance, she could still put her detection trick in action. She just had to make sure it was concentrated on the pursuers, not the pursued. Deliberately leaving voids was useless for her strategies, but it probably kept people from breaking their necks unnecessarily.

And it let her know that the slower, louder group was thirty strong.

She kept going until she reached the village’s gates, spotting a mercenary named Arkady on duty. Backlit by torches, his five earrings caught the light and gave him away. 

“Back from the camping trip already?” Arkady asked, a note of alarm creeping into his voice. “Where are the kids?”

“Safe,” Kei told him. She slid into place on the opposite side of the gate, hand on the borrowed steel shortsword that’d carried her for the last month. Her katana was not to be wasted on bandits around here. Or in sparring. “But hidden. Someone is heading this way.” 

Arkady paused, eyed the forest, and then nodded. “I’ll wake the captain and his kid. Stay here.”

Kei let him go and drummed her fingers against her sword’s hilt, waiting. The crashing was getting closer, and her kids were fifty meters away in a tree. Even while dead certain Isobu was with them, her nerves refused to settle.

Strictly speaking, she didn’t need to keep herself and her team so far away from the mercenaries. They were a rowdy crew, but they were only of the rough-and-tumble sort. They expressed affection by going out drinking and slapping each other on the back and fighting shoulder-to-shoulder through wind and rain. Since Byleth had been with Jeralt since before he founded the company, presumably the various members would be at least peripherally trustworthy with children.

Kei, as a nineteen-year-old with dependents who had one half-cracked voice between them, only trusted the company on the battlefield. 

Arkady returned without Byleth or Jeralt, but he did have Marcel. The two of them were like a pair of piratical brunet bookends and cracked jokes anytime they weren’t on the job. It made her students edgy around them, but they were well-liked within the boisterous mercenary crew. Like many soldiers of fortune, they wore a fair amount of jewelry to emphasize their success, which was some of the best advertising around. So was the mess of scars, though only Marcel was missing a chunk of his nose. 

“What’s the matter?” Marcel asked, right before the group Kei’d been hearing for the last sixty-odd meters finally crashed out of the woods at nearly the same volume it started.

Three muddied, twig-strewn teenagers stumble up to the pool of torchlight, panting. 

Kei pointed at them, because it was faster than bothering to explain herself.

One white-haired girl and a dark-haired boy, at complete opposite ends of the “has this person seen the sun in the last decade” skin tone spectrum, while the tallest is the blond boy in the middle. If not for the torches, Kei wouldn’t even be able to call them “kids” in any meaningful sense, but she did know what school uniforms look like. Kei wandered out of her education as a baby adult, by one reckoning or another. Both of them. She hadn’t been able to look up information on the internet for unfortunately obvious reasons, but in a world where bespoke tailoring is a norm rather than a luxury and damn near nobody wore customized clothing unless they were rich, Kei’s intuition was subsumed by screeching alarm bells. 

Third watch on a morning  when they were supposed to be marching north into the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and now this. Kei’s private list of complaints kept getting longer.

“Scarface,” said Marcel, while the kids caught their breath, “why don’t you back up?”

Kei did so, because these kids were likely to react to Kei’s not-Caucasian features with the traditional xenophobia displayed by basically every non-mercenary person from Fódlan so far. If she had to deal with weapons swinging at her face before the sun came up, they’d better be attacks from people she already wanted dead. She didn’t have the patience this early in the morning.

The motion caught the eye of the boy with the yellow shoulder-cape, but little else about Kei was too distinct once she was out of direct torchlight.

Well, mostly. 

Sort of.

She was wearing a haori, her armguards, and the local pants-and-boots combination because her sandals could be saved for special occasions. Instead of covering her face with a mask or even wearing her headband as intended, she tied it around her neck like an ascot. There was only so much point in pretending to be anything but foreign. Between her accent and facial features that she was not going to burn chakra trying to hide, it was something Kei kept in perspective. 

And the yellow-themed kid was still looking at her.

“Kid, eyes over here,” Arkady demanded.

Kei silently cheered at even a token attempt to direct attention away from her.

At this point, Jeralt and Byleth arrived. 

Jeralt was a huge, dull-orange mountain of a man with dirty blond hair and a braid and undercut combination Kei didn’t think would ever catch on. His scarred face told even more of a story than Kei’s did, and no one was quite sure how many battles he’d rushed into and out of alive.  Nor were they sure how old he was. More than anyone else in the company, Jeralt was a cavalry commander down to his metal greaves and could be trusted to lead the group to victory come hell or high water. 

Competing for second place was his shadow. Byleth, the quietest person in the company and therefore the one Kei’s students tolerated best besides the horses, was about Kei’s age. They were also one of the few adults shorter than Kei was. Their eyes were a distinct deep blue and their hair a dark teal, which almost blended in with the charcoal-gray clothes they preferred this late at night, punctuated by matte black armor along their arms and legs. The ghostly complexion stood out like the fucking moon by comparison. 

The two of them commanded all the attention better than a weird foreigner did. 

“Please forgive our intrusion,” said the blond one, bowing with his hand over his heart. Kei’s brain tried to calculate angles to assess formality before remembering that cultures were weird and American accents were weirder. He went on, “We wouldn’t bother you were the situation not dire.”

Jeralt visibly took note of the formality, then said, “What do a bunch of kids like you want at this hour?”

“We’re being pursued by a group of bandits.” Oh for fuck’s sake. While the blond noble kept talking—and he was a noble, because Kei had much more experience with the blunter speech patterns commoners used. Couldn’t be anything else. “I can only hope that you will be so kind as to lend your support.” 

“Bandits? Here?” Jeralt’s gaze flicked to Kei.

She nodded, because it was as good a designation for the enemy still shouting their way through the forest as any. Bandits had been trying to kill Kei since she was Aiko’s age. This wasn’t new.

Jeralt didn’t give the order to attack them just yet. Instead, he turned his attention back to the kids as they started talking. 

The white-haired girl said, “It's true. They attacked us while we were at rest in our camp.”

Not a great sign. Why had three noble children been exposed like that? In Kei’s experience, nobility tended to spend a lot more time cloistered inside protective structures, and even traveling daimyo tended to take a proper procession with them. Where were the guards? People died when they were caught alone. 

Maybe the fire she’d seen was a part of it?

As though to confirm her rising tide of suspicions, the noble boy in yellow said, “We’ve been separated from our companions and we’re outnumbered. They’re after our lives…not to mention our gold.”

Well, then. If they were anything like the bandits Kei ran into during the initial month she’d spent as her students’ sole reliable defense, this wouldn’t take long. 

“I’m impressed you’re staying so calm considering the situation. I… Wait.” Jeralt’s body language went rigid. Like he’d just found an armed opponent in a darkened hallway. “That uniform…”

One of the group’s archers—Rickard—ran up with his bow drawn. He shrugged off Marcel and Arkady’s questions, attention locked on Jeralt so thoroughly that he nearly tripped over Kei on his way to report in. If she’d stuck her foot out, he’d have slammed face-first into the village’s defensive wall. 

“Bandits spotted just outside the village.” Rickard gestured out at the forest. “There are a lot of them.”

Byleth turned their head toward Kei, making an inquisitive gesture with their hand. One of the many, many reasons Kei’s students liked them was because they were willing to pantomime nearly everything if necessary. And while body language didn’t often cross national boundaries, Byleth was willing to learn almost anything Kei put in front of them.

Kei held up three fingers on her right hand—counting her thumb—then brought all five of them together to a single point.

Byleth’s gaze sharpened. 

Jeralt considered Rickard first, then said to the kids, “I guess they followed you all the way here.” He’d caught the gesture conversation with Byleth, and said to his child, “We can’t abandon this village now. Come on, let’s move.” 

Byleth nodded. 

“Hope you’re ready,” Jeralt grunted. “Kid, you take these three into cover and pick off anybody you can reach. Rickard, you’re with Marcel and Arkady. Rally the rest.” Then Jeralt only had Kei left to address. “And you. Your job is skirmisher. Don’t let them get around the village’s defenses.” 

Kei bowed, arms held rigidly at her sides. “As you wish.”

Jeralt waved her off, so Kei decided this was an excellent time to make herself scarce.