#the only way to UNLOCK THE MYSTERIES!!! of the unknown... is with my skateboard :)

[marsobars]

Ribbons and Cobras

First fanfic/short story!! This was an assignment for a Creative Writing class. It was this or a poetry book, and I went with the option that had more freedom to do what I want.

...I think it's kind of cringey, not gonna lie.

Enjoy it regardless!

Beau was the newest member of the ARMS League, and everything was immensely different from her previous life. No longer would she stay with friends and family she knew. The League was not her first choice, but now she was here to stay. There were only about 10 people who were in the league, but all of them were incredibly unique. One man was attending college, but that came to a halt when he woke up with chainlinks for arms and had to join this league. Another woman had somehow gotten the mutation to her hair, leaving her with four arms instead of your typical two. Members even ranged from robotic beings to the undead. Nonetheless, everyone in this small group was family.

One person in the league, however, stood out from the rest of them.

    “You must be the new one.”

Beau looked up to see a figure above her head. She hadn’t noticed she was being watched.

    “As far as I know,” she replied. “It’s rude to watch someone without them knowing.”

    “I don’t follow the rules all the time,” he said, hopping down from where he stood. 

    This character was a unique breed of human she could not possibly describe. He had a humanoid build, but had snake-like features. His face was partially covered with a bandana, but she could tell that his forehead and part of his cheeks were covered in what appeared to be scales. His torso was longer than normal, and lacked normal length in his legs. Long, black, and silky hair just about matched the length of hers. It might have been a little longer.

    He held out his hand for her to shake. “I go by Kid Cobra.”

    “My name is Beau,” she said, returning his hand shake.

    “Beau?... is that, like, your real name?” Kid Cobra began to blush slightly, then looked towards the ground. “No one has ever told me their real name right off the bat like that.”

    She gave him a patient smile with a small blush as well. “You don’t seem so bad. At least you took the time to introduce yourself.”

    He placed a hand behind his head. “Well, uh, call me Akshay, then.”

    ��That’s a nice name, I like it.” Beau replied.

    From that point on, their bond began to flourish. They had the biggest connection out of everyone in the league. They would visit each other for hours just to talk and spend time together. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and their connection only grew more. There was never such a unique bond between two drastically different beings. 

They were always there for eachother, in their darkest times. Beau specifically had a harder time compared to him. Her career outside of the ARMS League allowed her to perform for thousands of people, but, there was always something missing. Something she couldn’t describe.

“I don’t know, Cobra…” she paused for a moment, considering what to say. “ No one really cares about what I do.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone is only there because it’s a part of their job. They don’t want to connect with me. I just come off as the spoiled rich person. I don’t want to be that way.”

“I know. What about all of your fans?”

“I mean, yeah, they are there, but… I can’t connect with them. I’m not talking to them and bonding with them like I want to. I don’t want that for them. I don’t want any of this.”

Akshay couldn’t see her, but her sniffles were enough to tell him she was crying.

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I just... feel so unloved…”

The conversation was cut off. Beau looked at the screen of the phone to discover that Akshay hung up. Upon the sight, she immediately broke down into tears. Everyone she knew had turned her down and ignored her. Now Akshay was one of them. All she could do was curl into the corner of her room and cry. 

Until, 30 minutes later, she heard a knock on the door.

She cracked the door open and peeked through. Standing in the doorway was Akshay, soaked from the rain with a skateboard in hand.

“Beau,” he began.

She stepped outside of the door with tears in her eyes. Akshay removed the handkerchief that was always around his face to reveal that he was crying just as much as her. 

“I love you. I love you so much.”

Cupping her face into his hands, he pulled her in and kissed her lips. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck. How long they stayed in each other’s embrace is unknown, but it was enough to melt their dread away.They remember spending time with each other in silence that night. They remember falling asleep with one another. They remember falling in love. Their relationship flourished, but other people who saw their connection thought otherwise. 

'A normal girl wasn't supposed to be with a beast like Akshay,' they thought. He couldn't take the neglect. All of the discrimination not only directed towards himself, but Beau as well would send him into a silent fury, sending him straight to her to let it out.

"The things they said about you behind your back," he would say, "they think I'm stupid and that I can't hear it."

Beau cupped her hands around his face. "Listen, sweetheart. They can call me whatever they want, but it won't stop me from loving you. They call you a beast, but just remember you are my beast. I know you are upset, but just keep me in mind when you are upset, okay?"

He nodded. 

Despite all of the hate and discrimination they received, the love they felt towards each other never died off. That didn’t stop people from trying to bring them apart, however, and there were times when that went too far.

Upon unlocking the door to their home, Akshay walked inside. He stood and stared around a completely ransacked room. Furniture was flipped, and all of the curtains and rugs were folded over. Glass was shattered, and spread across the floors. What stood out the most was the absence of the most important thing in his life. Beau was gone.

He frantically searched around the house for any sign of her, but to no avail. Grabbing his phone, he began to dial for the authorities before realizing that that would be a mistake. Akshay was a phenomenon on his own. Having the police walk in on a mysterious man of both human and snake surrounded by a completely trashed home is asking for his arrest. There was no getting arrested when the love of his life was in danger. He had someone he needed to save.

    Clues were what he needed to find, but everything that he could use to his advantage was either taken or broken onto the floor. Out of desperation, he picked up his phone and, instead of calling for help, he called for Beau. Perhaps there was a chance she could answer her phone. He called once, waited about 30 seconds, before it went to voicemail. He called again, with the same outcome. He got even more desperate, and called a third time. He waited for what seemed like another eternity, before he got an answer.

    “Akshay?”

    A weight lifted off of his shoulders to hear her voice again. “Beau, where are you? Are you okay?”

    He was cut off from her frantic breathing and fast-paced words on the other end of the phone. “Akshay, I don’t have a lot of time! Please, come get me! He’s gonna keep me here!”

    “I’m not letting anything happen to you. Where are you now? I’ll come get you.”

    There was a pause between their exchange where no one said a word.

    “Beau? Answer me!”

    “The warehouse! Hurry, he knows!”

    “Who knows?”

    Akshay looked at the screen to see the call had ended. There was no more time to wait; Beau’s life was in danger. Whoever this person was wanted her dead, but he wasn’t going to let that happen.

    The warehouse Beau had mentioned was on the very edge of town. It towered above all of the buildings in the neighborhood. It was ancient, old and rackety; a single breeze that was slightly stronger than the others could knock it down onto its side. The condition of the building was not enough to stop Akshay, however. Without a second thought, he stepped inside. 

    He glanced around the area that he could see. The inside was nearly pitch black. 

    “Beau? Beau, I’m here! Answer me!”

    Silence was the only thing to answer. The only thing he could do was fear the worst. That was before he saw a familiar face precariously step out from behind the abandoned wares in the shadows.

    “Akshay?”

    He gave her a smile of relief, and began to run towards her. “ Beau, I’m getting you out of here!”

    Before he could progress any further, a blast came from in front of him, and a wave of heat entered his chest, stopping him in his tracks. He looked down to find a bullet in his side, before collapsing onto the ground beneath him.

    “NO!” 

    Beau tried desperately to run to his side before a figure pulled her back. Akshay was in a pain so intense that his vision blurred, but it he could see and hear enough to tell him it was someone he knew. Someone who was familiar. Upon raising his head to get the best glance he could, he could identify another snake-human hybrid, only this hybrid was out to stop what Beau and Akshay had started between one another. 

    “We warned you, Akshay,” the figure replied. “Our kind is not to intertwine with a normal human. You broke the one rule of our clan. We can’t have this.”

    Akshay tried to reach his hand out, but flinched at the shot of pain rushing through his side. The heat was getting worse in his chest, yet the rest of his body was getting cold. Tears began to run down his face.

    He refused to give up. If he were to go down, especially without a fight, it meant that Beau would go down as well. With all of the strength he had left, he got onto one foot. A sharp pain shot through all of his body no matter what he did, but it would go ignored.

    “Beau,” Akshay grunted, “get over here, now!”

    The figure placed had wrapped his arms around her torso and throat. It wouldn’t be an easy escape, but she would fight with her life. Beau dug her elbow in the figure’s side, getting it to kneel over. She then stepped onto its feet before reeling back and knocking the figure in the jaw,making a break for her injured partner.

    “Akshay, Get up!”

He threw an arm in front of her, signaling her to get back before suddenly shooting up on two feet. Every step, another agonizing pain. Every pain he felt only increased his determination to take care of this threat. 

The figure had begun to recover when it began to panic. Akshay was strong, stronger than anyone it had ever known. It was going to take more than a single bullet. It reached for the gun lying on the ground and fired.

The first bullet hit Akshay in the shoulder, but he did not flinch. Bullet three hit his hip, but he kept making his way closer. With every bullet he fired, the panic augmented. The final attempt at firing the gun failed. It was out of bullets. 

“You’re insane! Akshay, don’t do this! The Naja Crew will hear of this! They will hunt you down and kill you if you kill me!”

Akshay grabbed the figure by the throat and lifted him into the air. His hands began to shake, and his body could not take it anymore. With a shaky breath and eyes glaring daggers, Akshay continued. 

“I’ll take my chances.”

With a single fell swoop of his arm, Akshay threw the figure into the ground, knocking them unconscious. Akshay knew that the job was done. With the strength he had left, he turned to face Beau. She was okay. Scratched and shaken up, but okay. 

    “Beau,” he muttered, “It’s going to be okay.” 

Akshay gave her his best smile, before blacking out and collapsing onto the ground.

    He remembered hearing the sirens. He remembered hearing the heart monitors constant beeping. He remembered his vision fading in and out. He saw the red and blue flashes, and the paramedics trying desperately to save his life. He saw Beau. He saw her crying harder than he had ever seen her cry. It broke his heart to see her worry. But despite it all, he knew that she wasn’t hurt. He would feel all of the pain in the world if it means that Beau didn’t have to feel it herself. That was all that mattered.

    Hours turned into days as they passed, yet Beau refused to leave the hospital. Akshay was in pain. He might not be able to see or hear her, but she was going to comfort him all that she could. 

    She lay in silence next to him in his hospital bed, stroking his chest. Tears seemed to be permanently stuck to her eyes through the days he stayed there.

    She felt a hand touching the top of her head. A large hand, that held the top of her head perfectly. Looking up, she saw Akshay, staring back at her and smiling. There were bags under his eyes; he looked as if he hadn’t slept in ages.

    Beau shot up in disbelief. “Akshay?”

    He let out his best attempt at a laugh. “I missed you.”

    She began to cry at the sight of him. The fact that he was smiling and talking to her again melted all of her worries away. Beau smiled, throwing herself into his chest for a hug.

“I missed you too, dumbass.”

    He wiped the tears off her cheeks. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

With the strength he had regained, Akshay held up her chin to get a good look at her before pulling her in for a kiss. 

“I told you everything was going to be okay.”