#uvtu the family jewels

[ezramatis]

1. Watch over my corpse as it feeds the weeds and the mushrooms

Us vs The Universe chp. 1

Length: 3,6k words

Category: The Family Jewels

Warnings: References of harsh childhood, violence, references of death

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Lady Death is one merciful entity amidst the cruel creatures of the universe. Her face is said to look as one's sense of security, would it be a mother's traits or a lover's smile. She is said to share one last dinner with the deceased before slowly drifting them away to the afterlife. By the end of the dinner, the soul becomes fully separated from their previous life.

- Journey to the Afterlife, a novel by Ramon Jefferson, 2034

Of course I know about Lady Death. The tall and mighty Death with her wide hat and her pathetic little mortal husband. Her tale is the first I was taught of. She doesn't scare me though. I met her, I think she's pretty nice.

- ...

The day before

Mika was watching from the bleachers, hands buried deep in his spring coat pockets and brown cheeks slowly turning soft pink. His eyes followed Lelia as she strayed from the metal structure to the start of the obstacle course, tying her dark braids up in a high ponytail. Even after two years of knowing her, Mika had yet to understand how she could be in shorts and a tank top in mid-November and still be able to beat everyone in the training grounds, be they watchers like him or actually here to train.

"I'm gonna rip you apart, MacNamara," the boy next to her said as they both fell into position. "We'll see," she simply replied with a shrug, her brown eyes still focused on the bell on the other side of the obstacle course.

The shot was fired and they're already running.

Over a beam, under another, up a rope grid and down on the semi-frozen soil, then over a pit and under a beam again. The boy is slightly further in front of Lelia, but unlike him, Mika knows not to underestimate Lelia. She may seem like she only got in here because her parents are high ranked in the army, but anyone who's looked at her go for more than two minutes would know she's here by sheer strength.

Mika finds it sad sometimes. She could've done so much better than the Sweeping Team, who only takes on low-class monsters and most importantly does not get credit, if it wasn't for a certain someone. Certain someone currently sitting in silence right besides Mika, music blasting from her headphones straight into his ears and guitar case he knew did not contain any instrument slung over her shoulder.

Lelia and the other boy are closer to the end than the start now, and he is still in front of her. But his steps become heavier and slower by the second as the frost starts clinging to his legs, and Mika practically knows for a fact that Lelia is smirking while she goes past the boy and rings the bell announcing the end and her victory. "He'll survive, he just won't be walking for a couple days. A week at most," Mika remembers hearing from his friend the first time she did that trick in front of him.

Lelia jogs from the end of the obstacle course to the bleachers where Mika and her girlfriend are sitting at, girlfriend who removed her headphones and is already heading down the stairs to meet her.

Mika didn't know much about Marianne Lefebvre - he still didn't know how he was supposed to pronounce her last name -, only that before ending up in St-Michels, she was a country girl in the outskirts of the Upper-East-N-A, and that she was the daughter of a weapon tycoon affiliated with the army. That, and her kill count was higher than anyone else in this hellscape of a military school. Of course, he knew her favorite dessert (dark chocolate chip cookies, surprisingly - he thought it would be chocolate pudding), her favorite color (dark red), that she very much did listen to Girl in Red and the name of her pets (two three years old enormous dogs named Laura and Salami she won't shut up about at any chance she gets), but not a whole lot about her life before St-Michels, so past the last three years. Still, he sort of understands her, as anything before military school he himself would've rather forget.

Because even then, in all its very conservative values, its stupidly strict rules and it's tendency to exploit teenagers under the excuse of military training, St-Michels was still leagues better than the monsters outside of it.

Mika doesn't exactly remember why exactly he was here. He vaguely recalls a beef some guy had with Lelia about a mission, but it stopped there. And since the girls were already leaving the training grounds and he had nothing to do here in the first place, he left the cold of November in Savilere for the warmth of his dorm room. The cookie dough he made earlier in lunch time must be ready to be put in the oven by now anyways, as it was was already late in the afternoon.

***

Even after all those years, after all this practice and experience, Mika was still very much not an expert. Well, maybe he was, but being one doesn't bring to zero the risk or burns if your oven mittens are too small and your cookie plaque is far in the oven. The risk is low, but never zero.

Cold water runs over his left hand, dragging a sigh of relief out of his mouth. As a small area became redder and redder with every moment, he noticed it ran almost exactly between one of the pale vitiligo spots under his knuckles and his natural brown skin, which if you ignore the pain was actually pretty funny. He shook his hand to get rid of the water and put three of the red velvet cookies on a small plate, and before leaving the kitchen, stopped in front of a small mirror on the wall. His eyes drifted to his cheeks, "big like a child's" they said. He bit his lip, moved his front reddish-brown curls in front of his face and promptly left.

And in front of him, sitting on the floor against Mika's bed, guitar in their hands and small flowers in their hair, there they were. His best friend, neighbor and crush of two years,

Asher Vaillancourt.

But behind the very aesthetic scenery of them toying with the strings of the sticker-covered guitar and the plants slowly dancing to the lazy notes with the last rays of sunlight peaking through the curtains, Mika was far from fooled. Asher's dirty blonde hair was slightly disheveled, their usually neatly ironed shirt was wrinkled from top to bottom and an empty box of takeout was lying on the floor beside them. Mika tried not to wince at it, and failed. They raised their head at the sound of Mika's footsteps and dark bags underlined their deep green eyes. Which usually meant that they spent all night writing.

Their eyes lit up at the sight of the cookies on the plate and immediately started using their favorite manipulation technique...

Flattering.

"Mikael Ray Garcia, my beloved best friend whom I cherish more than anything in this life, did you know I wrote you a poem yesterday night?"

Mika sighed, not without a smile. And a slight blush on his cheeks with his best friend's words. It was their gift after all, why wouldn't they use it?

When Mika first met Asher, he didn't get why they could get away with everything they did that definitely were against the school's code. Now he understands, oh lord he understands.

"Yeah yeah chill, i was going to give you some, no need to pull out your charms. You get two."

He sat on a pillow right under the window of his dorm room and slid the ceramic plate over to Asher. Mika made the cookies specifically for them, but he would never admit that out loud. Plus, he made desserts for everyone all the time, so it's just normal to give some to Asher too, right? Their shining eyes and praise have nothing to do with that, absolutely not. They don't, Mika tries to convince himself sometimes. It mostly doesn't work.

After plucking the plate clean of any cookie crumbs and washing their hands to not deal with the grease, Asher started picking at the strings of the guitar again, small sounds resonating against the walls. Mika closed his eyes, content to just listen to the bits of a melody he didn't recognize. "So, what did you write for me, mx. the poet?" he asks, eyelids still closed shut.

"Esti" they mumble. "So, uh, about that, eh, it's... not done. But I did find a good poem last night during my researchs!"

Mika contains a sigh.

"Go on, do that one then. I'm all ears."

Asher runs through the pages of their notebook and clears their throat.

"Self-loathing and Consciousness walk into a bar..."

It goes on for a couple minutes, where Mika tries to focus on the melody rather than the lyrics. He tries, he truly does. He holds the tears behind his eyelids when the verses become a little too familiar. Too relatable. He never talked about this to anyone, much less to his best friend, so how? They- they couldn't have known. The only option he sees is that it wasn't on purpose. He could still brush it off with 'it was sad' when Asher inevitably asks if he's okay.

Because 'it's sad' is leagues better than 'i relate to this more than anyone should'.

He remembers the relief of when his mother took him and left for Middle-N-A. It didn't feel real, like a dream that would disappear as soon as he tried to fully grasp it. "We don't have that much money." He knew that. "You're gonna have to go to a military school and enroll in a monster-extermination squad." He knew that too. But as much as he loved Lower-N-A - what used to be Mexico, he read that in a book - , the the North-American center was way safer for his mother.

From both the monsters and his father.

"... pretend you didn't. Take. A. Shot."

The melody stopped, dragging Mika out of his thoughts. Asher was looking at him rather than their scribble-filled notebook, and he had to say something.

"It was good, very sad but the music went well with it. I- I don't really know what to add to that, you're the poetry expert not me," he answered before taking a bite out of the cookie he kept for himself. It was supposed to be good, the white chocolate chips were meant to melt in his mouth and the softness of the dough should've comforted him, but it felt bitter and heavy and he wanted to spit it all out. He harshly swallowed the chunk of the red cookie and put the rest back down on the ceramic plate lying on the floor.

"Eh, I found it after what, a few hours?" they replied with a shrug. "Took me a little while. Wanna know where I found it?"

"Sure"

"If I tell you, you won't believe me."

Mika deadpanned.

"Just tell me already, idiot."

"Okay, okay, fine." Asher smiled and brought their right hand - to one that they couldn't play with as it was mostly made of metal - to cup their mouth, as if telling a secret and wispered: "It was in a fanfiction."

'Flabbergasted' was a weak attempt at describing how Mika felt. A complete file of most of his childhood trauma laid out in front of him, and it's from a fanfiction?

"Told you you wouldn't believe me! It came out like 25 years ago anyways, I didn't even have context for the characters interacting in the chapter I found it."

They kept talking about everything and nothing for a few hours, mostly Asher ranting about poetry and Mika just listening until they finally thought going to sleep was a good idea.

Or more accurately until the alarm in Mika's room started blaring, urging him to run straight into Lady Death's open arms.

***

A few hours before

He let himself crash in the subway car seat, his black motorcycle coat clashing against the bright orange color of the scratched cushions. He buried his right hand in the deep pocket and wiped his still half asleep eyes under his glasses with the other. It was in these moments he was reminded that he was not nearly paid enough to do this. The screen over the sliding doors of the cabin said 00:19, which was way too late to send a bunch of high schoolers on a mission on a school night.

Mika took out the gun out of its holster on the interior of his coat and looked at it longingly. It was modified by Mari's mother's company specifically for low-level monster-hunting, which was the Sweeping Team's main and only job. It had a viser and the interior of it constantly had a mix of Angelcap mushroom and Anglosorus saliva, two things easy to harvest and deadly to most Eldritchs coating the bullets inside. He wasn't that good with it at first, but he figured it out.

He had to.

His eyes strayed from the weapon to the four other people in the military cabin. Mari was sitting on his left, her guitar case over her knees, fast and clever hands assembling her rifle in record time. The team's distance shooter. Lelia was watching her, her head resting on Mari's left shoulder and braids falling over Mari's arm. It didn't seem to bother her. The team's gift user, able to manipulate ice and temperatures. She wasn't the only member of the team with a gift, of course, but offensively, it was the most effective of the bunch.

Asher was sitting across the way from him, their foot lightly tapping the floor to the rhythm of their earbuds. Their orange backpack he knew was full of medical supplies was sitting right beside them on the subway seat, so full it was barely staying completely closed. The team's medic.

And lastly, the last member of the Sweeping Team N°29, Felix.

Felix was surprisingly fairly normal, if you put aside his pyromaniac tendencies. He was the team's artificer, whose sole job was to throw bombs at the targets to either stun them and create an opening or just straight up blow their heads off. He was pretty much cut for the job, so Mika wasn't really surprised when he got the spot. He was the team's wild card, or as Mari usually said, loose canon. Noticeable with split platinum and brown hair and more piercings than Mika could count, Felix was the least predictable person he ever knew in his surprisingly short life.

Mika sort of liked the subway, and he never in a million year would've said that if he took the actual subway instead of the emergency military cabin that ran right beside it. Unlike the actual, dirty and loud subway filled with depressed people, this one was relatively clean, silent and filled with depressed teenagers.

The cabin suddenly stopped, meaning they arrived to the spot where the source of the chaos was. 'Two Third-Class phoenixes. Fire to kill.' the message board said. Those where relatively rare Eldritches, usually staying on their island somewhere in the Atlantic. The doors opened, and Mika exited the cabin. As the blinding lights of the city lit up the dark street and the two tall fiery birds danced above the ground, everything seemed to slow down. One of them shot something towards him, and Lelia was the first to react and shot fast instructions, as a good leader should.

"Avoid the tails, they can shoot deadly projectiles! Mika, main body! Felix, go for the wings and head! Mari, wings to incapacitate! Asher, stay alert! If possible, do not harm the egg!"

That's when Mika noticed it. One of them was holding onto an egg, meaning it was a male, and the other didn't, which meant it was a female. He raised his gun, but didn't avoid the projectile shot towards him in time. It scraped his left hip, burning like hot metal. A tear was fuming from the burnt-brown edges in his black motorcycle coat. He hissed, shivered and raised his gun again. The fire and overwhelming heat made his vision waver, but the bullet found a home in the monster's lower belly, right beside the orange-spotted yellow egg. He took a deep breath which didn't make him feel better at all and raised his shaking right arm. It was something that, despite everything, he knew he would do for the rest of his life. Ignore the pain, aim, fire. Recharge, and repeat. It's the only way when you've sunk low enough with no rope to climb back up. He squinted at the visor, his non-valid right eye actually being helpful for once. Although the myopia in his left eye was still terrible from the beginning, the glasses were at least helping a little bit.

A bomb exploded on the bird's right wing, forcing it to reach for the ground. Felix's doing. Mika took the opportunity to fire another shot at its main body, and another at it's fire sack. He remembered that from one of Mari's many rants on Eldritch biology, one of her main classes beside math. 'Did you know that a phoenix's fire sack, located at the base of it's neck, is what makes them able to regenerate via their flames? It's also one of their weakest points.' He didn't always listen to her a hundred percent, he couldn't focus very long on something he didn't find that interesting, but he still tried to store at least some of that info for later.

And now they come in handy.

He aimed at the panicked bird's neck and fired.

It wasn't a clean shot, as the phoenix was desperately trying to get back in the air, but the bullet made a tear in the fire sack and exploded it with force. Mika fired one last time, right in the eye. The bird stopped wiggling, and fell dead on the asphalt. It was over.

Mika approached it and felt an even worse pain and heat in his chest than before. His whole body was like on fire, probably because flames were devouring his coat and his back.

Oh yeah.

The other one.

He wanted to lay down on the ground. The others were dealing with the phoenix that was left, so it was fine right? He felt his forces drain from his very being, and the darkness of unconsciousness veiled over his eyes and spirit. His body hit the hard road, but it felt more comfortable than anything he ever knew.

Last thing his brain registered was a stare of horror on Mari's slightly blurry face and a scream of his name that vaguely resembled Asher's voice.

***

Asher's blue tea set made of heavy metal, a strong smell of peppermint emanating from it. A plate full of chocolate chip cookies and a lava cake in a glass cup covered in raspberries and whipped cream. A three-level dessert trey filled to the brim with small round brownies and blue, purple and green macarons. Mika has been sitting here for about twenty minutes - or thirty? - , memories slowly flooding his mind. The ones from the last day he spent alive have just came back to him, and when he raised his head after all those visions of his previous life, the desserts replaced his finished plate and the spiced fish that remained untouched by his host in front of him. His favorite meal, followed by his favorite desserts. He finally decided to look up his host in the eyes rather than distantly staring at her joint hands half-covered in dark lace resting on her side of the table.

Under the big hat and through the black veil, she vaguely resembled Regina Garcia. Similar traits, and her dark eyes had hints of his mother's amber brown eyes. Light vitiligo spots ran in the visible part of the woman's chest, right over her dark dress' collar.

But it wasn't his mother.

His mother was thinner that the woman, first of all. The woman was very big, while the one who birthed him and took care of him was only chubby at best. The woman had long and wavy silver hair with hints of purple lighting, and his mother had short, curly brown hair. Also, his mother did not stay still, unmoving without showing a sign of life for twenty minutes.

Mika stared into her deep eyes for a few seconds before a slight frown replaced her calm air and she tilted her head. For the first time since he arrived, she spoke. It was nothing like his mother, which was rather uncanny as she had her traits.

"Why- What's happening?" she murmured confusedly. She seemed taken aback by something Mika did not see. He felt it though. Like a string pulling him backwards, away from the woman and the metallic outside table. Away from the desserts and the tea cups.

She reached a laced hand towards him, but she and the table were already pulled so far from him. Or maybe he was retracting from this space in between time and space, half-way between life and death.

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the cloud-filled grey sky was the one to greet him. That, and Mari's looming face a good three feet above him, long platinum hair reaching out towards him.

"Welcome back."