#the cosmic skerdi hunt was something I actually did while writing this

[jangmo-othewarrior]

I'm sorry but one of the CoO headcannons I posted previously has taken over my brain (along with another idea that I am attempting to draw art for but shush)...... so I wrote a drabble. (SPOILER ALERT: IT IS NO LONGER A DRABBLE IT IS BASICALLY A SHORT STORY I'M SORRY YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED)

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Fenrir sighed. Being alive again was nice, but his redemption had already been realized. His purpose was fulfilled. He had no reason to continue being on this plane. His journey was over.

To put it simply, he was bored and he felt like shit.

He had promised the kid he wouldn't sent anything on fire if he couldn't find anything to do. And he would be hanging out with the kid right now, but they had ran off to go look for a 'Cosmic Skerdi', whatever that is. The cat, glasses girl, skull boy, anger issues 1.0 and 2.0, water himbo, and Riley went with them, so at the very least things might not get destroyed to much. He wasn't about to go hang out with any of the other guild members, and Celine was busy with Laterian shit or whatever. Which left Fenrir with his siblings.

Zetta and Merida were out of the question. He did not have the time nor the energy to deal with volleyball matches or Zetta's entire existence. Nadine was also out of the question, as she had explicitly told all of them to leave her alone for at least week after Xanders had tried to kill her. Again. And Deena was dealing with that whole situation.

Which left Grunda. Honestly, Grunda was probably his first pick anyways, other than his niece. He is easily the most mature out of all of the them, and he has calmed down significantly since his second death. The only problem with visiting Grunda is his current residence.

His brother lived in and ran a human orphanage. With human children. Everywhere. And Fenrir only liked 1 human child on this planet, at most 6. So on one hand, even entering a building filled to the brim with emotional, disgusting, and chaotic human children sounds like a nightmare.

But on the other hand, Fenrir had nothing else to do. And maybe if he was quiet he could just sneak up to Grunda's personal quarters. No unnecessary human interaction needed.

And so here he stood, in front of the two large Orphanage doors at 8 in the morning. The kids probably weren't awake at this time, so he was safe to run up and start pestering Grunda. The old wooden doors creaked as he slowly pushed them open. No one was in the barely lit hall, and the entire building felt as quiet as a torched landscape. The pillar within the center of the entryway was covered with pictures, some old, some new. Fenrir made his way towards the the pillar, footsteps echoing down the hall lit only by the sun beginning to shine through the windows. The pictures were similarly lit, with a multitude of faces unrecognizable to himself.

It was odd, how Fenrir felt looking at these photos. He had thought that humans only hung pictures of their triumphs to boast about them to other humans, like how Omnicron had shown him and his siblings off the the human populace so long ago. Most of the pictures on the pillar, if not all of them, were captured moments of triumph. But, they did not feel like they were bragging about anything.

There was a picture of a young woman wrapping a bandage around the end of a child's leg, where they were missing a foot. The child was laughing as the young woman appeared to be telling him a joke along with caring for his injury. Another photo featured a large group of young children sitting underneath a large structure made out of pillows. It wasn't well crafted, but they were all clearly proud of their work. However, the last photo that really caught Fenrir's eye was one of the most plain picture of the bunch.

It was a photo of four young children, no more than 8 years old. In center of photo sat his niece, smiling wide at the camera with her arms hooked around two humans on either side of her. The human child on the right had glasses on, with short pink hair and a large book held tightly against her chest. She seemed slightly suprised by his niece's actions, but gave a small smile towards the camera. The other human child had bright orange hair, with a pair of Google to large for him on his head. He was laughing, with one eye open and looking at the camera. The last child, a cat, sat just below his niece, his body slightly cut off by the frame. The cat had bright eyes and a small smile directed towards the camera, although the smile almost seemed like a smirk.

It was his niece, Nora, Ross and Coco. All of the photos were of children who were either at or were from the Orphanage. Their accomplishments, triumphs, and achievements. And their daily lives. It wasn't boasting. It was pride and praise. It was contentment, a feeling of causal happiness in a destruction filled world. It was something him and his siblings never got.

"Excuse me?" Fenrir jumped out of his thoughts and whirled towards the voice as the room got a few degrees hotter.

It was a young child standing against the lefthand side of the pillar. Their hair appeared to a ginger color, and they had a red scarf around their neck. They hid slightly behind the pillar as he locked eyes with them. Fenrir let out an exhale, and the room returned to its regular tempature. He struck a hand against his forehead. So much for not running into any humans. "What do you want, kid?"

The human blinked a couple of times before emerging from behind the pillar. They were probably around ten years old. "Whose picture are you looking at?"

Fenrir huffed. He pointed to the photo of his niece and her friends. "The one in the middle is my niece." A pause. "Not the cat." He added.

Suddenly, a small gasp came from the child. Small footsteps echoed down the hallway as the child ran straight up to him and looked him in the eye. Fenrir nearly transformed right then and there, but there was something about the child's eyes that stopped him. They were bright, full, and nearly shining. They were looking at him like he was a god, despite having no way of knowing that he actually was one.

"You're one of Mr. Grunda's brothers!" The child started rocking back and forth on their heels. "Which one? What's your name?"

Fenrir stared at the child. One of Mr. Grunda's brothers? How on earth did this kid know that? He blinked down at the child, who was waiting with... baited breath? Fenrir silently prayed that Grunda used their human names instead of their true ones. "Ummm.. My name is Fenrir?"

The child immediately started bouncing up and down. "I knew it! You have the long coat, just like he said!" And with that, the child dashed into the down the hallway, into the last room on the right. Fenrir stood next to the pillar, trying to process whatever the child had shouted before running away. Suddenly, as if a tsunami had appeared on the horizon, a swarm of children erupted from the door the child had ran into. All of the other doors in the hall also swiftly opened up, and joined the swarm. And then, they were upon him.

Fona, the Primordial Tyrant of Fire, is known across time and space for scorching anyone and anything who stood in his way. The third child of King Omnicron, only able to be held back by Ulzar's chains. At times Fona was known to turn into Fenrir, champion of the flames and a ruthless member of the Nexolord's council. Fona was cursed, demonized, and above all feared by humanity. Fona...

...has been bested by a group of human children.

He was surrounded on all sides by hopping, screaming children. All of them were asking questions, but they were lost to the eternal screeches of the masses. The original child had been lost to the crowd, probably to save himself from the mountain of children he caused. Fenrir didn't know what to do. This was just so... overwhelming.

A sudden thunk hushed all of the children almost immediately. A cat stood there, at the base of the stairs with a book hooked under one arm. She was clearly older than Coco, with black fur and white and carmel markings with light green eyes. One tooth was sticking out slightly over her lip. She was wearing a red sweater with a pair of jeans. All of the children were looking at her guiltily.

"What in Ulzar's name is going on here?" She said as she made her way over to Fenrir and the mass of children. "Why are you all up so early?"

"Mr. Fenrir's here!" At least ten children all pointed at him.

"Mr. Fenrir?" She blinked. "Well, what are you doing here?" She gestured to him.

Fenrir's mind blanked. Yet, his mouth moved anyway. "I came to see Grunda."

The cat nodded. The children began to murmur to each other before her voice silenced them. "Well, I will take you to him. Fo?" The child who originally saw him shuffled up to her. The cat passed the book to him. "Can you please take this to the library for me?"

The child, Fo, nodded and clutched the book against his chest tightly. "Okay, Bee." The cat, Bee, gave him a small smile before addressing the group as a whole.

"All of you, go get ready for breakfast. I think it will be a bit special today." Bee grabbed his wrist and began to drag him towards the stairs. Fenrir wanted to say something, but his throat had throughly clamped shut. He glanced back at the mass of children.

All of the children lit up as he looked back at them. "Bye Mr. Fenrir!" They all shouted as they waved at him. Fenrir, throughly overwhelmed, simply waved back.

As the two of the them walked up the stairs, Fenrir finally felt like he could breathe. It didn't feel like he was suffocating under his father's the children's expectations. At the top of the stairs, Bee came to stop.

"Are you okay? They didn't mean to overwhelm you." She retracted her paw back to her chest. It struck Fenrir in this moment that this cat only had one functional arm. Her left arm was in a sling that matched the red sweater she was wearing, down to the green butterfly pattern. It was almost unnoticeable if it weren't for the carmel and white paw sticking out of the end of the sling.

Fenrir suddenly remembered that he was having a conversation, and quickly shoved his hands into his coat pockets. "I'm... I'm fine."

Bee quirked her brow, but didn't press him. "Well, my name is Buttercup, but everyone just calls me Bee." She put her right paw on her hip. "And you are Fenrir, I presume."

Fenrir snorted. "How could you tell? The coat?"

"That and the eye scar. You are quite famous here, Mr. Fenrir."

Fenrir sighed. "Can I ask why?"

Bee laughed and pointed at the large doors Fenrir had neglected to notice down the hall. "You will find your answer through there, Mr. Fenrir."

Huffing, Fenrir opened the doors. To no one's surprise, Grunda was sitting there waiting for him, cane leaning against the edge of the table. The most surprising part was the smirk fitted on his face.

"You knew." Fenrir says into the morning air.

Grunda huffs. "I didn't know you were coming until shout of 'Mr. Fenrir!' hit my office. I did know they were excited about meeting you, however." The smirk didn't fade. In fact, it got wider.

"How do they know about me?" The air in room got hotter. "The stories about 'Fenrir, champion of flame' are long gone now."

"They don't know the champion of flame," Grunda got out of his seat, and stared into Fenrir's eyes. "They know the determined, passionate, and fierce person you are. And they only know that because I told them."

As two of the stared at each other, it struck Fenrir just how different Grunda was compared to their... their childhood. Grunda had always been Omnicron's favorite, with his sheer destructive power and ability to take damage with little effort. Fona had idolized him for that destructive power and tried to emulate it for their father's attention. Even after death, Grunda maintained the most power out of all of them, able to create a physical form easily. But now, Grunda seemed more... calm. Reserved. At peace. Which was ironic, considering their niece only resurrected him a few months ago.

"Am I interrupting something?" Both of them turned to Bee, who was leaning against the door at the entrance.

Grunda sighed. "No, Buttercup. What is it?" Bee staggered into the room like she owned the place.

"Breakfast is gonna start soon, but the kids are antsy for," She gestured towards Fenrir. "Obvious reasons. Can you get them to settle down?" Grunda nodded, patting her on the back in sympathy.

Yet another thing that has changed. The thought sat in the back of Fenrir's mind.

Bee turned to leave before waving him down. "I'm sorry about Fona summoning the horde, by the way. He can get caught up in his excitement easily." And with that, she strutted out the door, and closed it behind her with a gentle thud.

That was the only sound in the room for a long time. Or, at least what felt like a long time. Of course, that morning air silence would have to break eventually.

"Is he named after.. me?" Fenrir's voice felt quieter than it had been for a long time.

Grunda's sighed, but it felt more sad and burdened that anything relieving. "His father named him after you."

Fenrir stared wide-eyed at Grunda. "Why?" He found himself saying, unable to comprehend why a human would name their child after the ancient primordial tryant of fire, who was known for scorching entire landscapes to ashes.

Grunda looked at him sadly. "He wanted Fo to be like you, I suppose." But why? Fenrir asked himself. "Fo's father was not... not a nice man."

"What happened to him?"

"Prison happened. He was found guilty on multiple accounts of assault and one attempted homicide. Fo was seven, I believe. He's been here ever since."

"What.. who.. why...?" How ironic. The Primordial Tyrant of Fire feeling sympathy for a human. Their father would have lost his mind. The thought silenced Fenrir for a moment. "Can I talk to him?"

Grunda smiled at him sadly. "I was hoping you would say that."

------

"This is a horrible idea." The words reached no ears as Fenrir stood, murmuring to himself in front of the doors to the library. Breakfast had been chaotic, with questions being thrown at him from all directions. The only person not asking questions was Fo, who had eaten so quickly that Fenrir had barely noticed that he was even there. Luckily, Grunda and Buttercup had been able to distract the other children enough for him to slip away. And so, here he was, nervously (By their father's name, when was the last time he was nervous?) standing in front of two large doors, about to have a conversation with a child about their emotional relationship with their father. So nothing major.

Fenrir opened the door slightly to peak inside. The library was large, and primarily composed of books Grunda had collected throughout the centuries. There were no windows, with only a lamp sitting at the centermost desk lighting the entire room. At that desk sat Fo, leaning over a book, his eyes glued to the page. As Fenrir slowly opened the door, the child did not even acknowledge his presence. Unsure of what to do, Fenrir began to shuffle his way towards Fo.

Wow. He thought to himself. I used to enter rooms by causing explosions of flame and smoke to erupt out of my feet. Now I'm trying to quietly sneak into a library. Ivan would get a kick out of seeing me now.

Fenrir stopped about a foot away from the child's shoulder, and he was now close enough to lean over and look at the book Fo was reading. It was... a picture book. A familiar looking tiger was laying on the ground in what appeared to be a cave, with two cubs spouting small puffs of flame from their mouths as they climbed on the older nexomon.

"That's an interesting book." Fenrir found himself saying. Fo jumped at the sound of his voice.

"Mr. Fenrir!" The kid's eyes were blown out wide. "What are you doing here?"

Fenrir smirked. "I saw you slip away and figured I would go have a chat with someone I've talked to before. Now," he pulled over the chair on the other side of the desk and sat down. "What are you reading?"

Fo closed the book and pointed at the cover. "It's an old picture book on fire type nexomon. Most of them are extinct now though." The kid's eyes dimmed.

Fenrir nodded. "Well.. which one is your favorite?" Fo's eyes lit up again as he excitedly began thumbing through the pages. As the pages flipped by the kid kept stopping and pondering the nexomon on the page, probly trying to figure out his favorite one. Eventually the kid stopped, but he thumbed the next page. The current page featured a skunk with a long flame shooting out of its tail standing the middle of a large plain. Fenrir vaguely remembered this nexomon. "Is this your favorite?"

"No, but it is pretty cool." The kids eyes were hesitant, and he gnawed on his lip before turning the page.

Unlike the previous pages, this image filled the entire space. The centerpiece was the nexomon standing on a large cliff, with a forest below and around it. The nexomon stood proudly, but also appeared almost at peace. It was Fona. It was him.

The room was quiet. Fenrir would of been able to hear the sounds of the other children if he wasn't staring at the page. Suddenly, Fo pointed at the him on the page.

"He's my favorite. There's no nexomon like him in the book." The kid paused. "I'm also named after him."

Fenrir felt dread creeping down his spine. "Why is he your favorite?" His somehow calm voice asked the child.

The kid blinked a couple of times before looking up at the ceiling. "He was one of Omnicron's kids, supposedly. " Supposedly is far from the truth, kid. Fenrir thought. "Apparently he burned down a ton of stuff too."

Lord, please don't let this kid idolize him for burning down entire continents.

"But.." The kid looked down at the page once more. "This drawing has none of that. Fona is just standing there, looking out onto the landscape. Nothing is burning down. Nobody is running away in fear. He just... exists." The kid gestured to all of the scenery on the page. "But if he can exist peacefully, why would he burn down other places? I think its because he never really wanted to burn those places to the ground."

Febrir nearly spit out a rebuttal right then and there, but his words dies in his throat as the kid continued.

"I think he only did bad things because his dad wanted him too. Because his dad made him." The unsaid words sat in the air. Fenrir's throat felt like it had snapped shut. "I don't think his dad was nice to him." Fo's words were simply a whisper, but they felt like a punch to the gut to Fenrir.

Because the kid was right, at least in some capacity. Omnicron was not kind to them, not fatherly to them. He only gave them the light of day when they did something he liked, so that's what they did. Destruction and death, all for Omnicron's attention. The things they had done were their own choices, but Omnicron was often a reason behind them. Omnicron did not tolerate anything he disliked either, Nara being the prime example. But Nara had not been thrown out, she had escaped. To put it simply, Fenrir felt like the past thousands of years have all come crashing down onto him. Fo continued, oblivious to Fenrir's internal breakdown.

"But here his is, peacefully standing in a forest. I think he got better." The kids voiced wavered slightly. "He got away because if he didn't that forest wouldn't be there. This picture wouldn't exist. And if he got better, then I can get better."

The picture was fake. Fona had never gotten better. Fona had continued to torch everything in sight even after Ulzar had killed Omnicron. Fona had worked to resurrect the father who would absorb him and his siblings simply to bring himself back. Fona had stayed by his father's side until the day he died.

But he was back. He had earned his redemption through his niece's ascension. He had continued to live, despite Omnicron's soul being forever gone from any and all planes. Just like this human child, he had gotten out, alongside the rest of his siblings.

Fenrir let out a large exhale as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the false image of him on that page. Despite the inaccuracies, he smirked at the picture. His journey wasn't over. It would be hard, grueling, and painful. But maybe...

Maybe Fona, Fenrir, or whoever he was could get better.