It was a normal day. A regular day. The type of day where you’d get up, and continue the normal routine like an endless carousel of decisions. Fishtail woke me up from my slumber, my eyes blinking in it’s normal tired mood. I then stood up, and woke up our lovely daughter, Sarada, and proceeded to getting her ready for Kindergarten. I always reminisced about how small she was a couple years ago, and how much she’s been growing up lately; She’s taken quite a fancy in letters, and always tried to draw them out as neatly as she can. She’s just like her mother (or… at least her human form) and has my eyes, deep and dark blue. She has her mother's attitude but (regretfully) my short height, and always stands as supposedly as Fishtail calls is “my posture”.
After exiting the house, I teleported her to the closest patch of trees before the bus stop, and watched her laugh and play with her friends from school. Then, from around the corner, the buses came, and her and her friends cheered for the incoming bus. Sarada was the first to go on the bus, and her friends followed her one after another. She’s very much like Fishtail in that way: she always tends to be a leader of some sort somewhere.
Then I teleported back to the house. Fishtail was waiting for me, and we teleported over to the capital. There, she commanded each of the people to do their duties and destroy the evil darkness anthros, ect. They then left quickly, and Fishtail waited for Undyne, Asriel, and my brother Christopher to teleport over. She always checked her watch continuously at the time, and sighed in annoyance when the two monsters were late. She then retorted to their puny excuses, and we went on our way to the first crime in the city.
In the city, there were two big streets filled with vendors and businesses of various sizes. The whole street was crowded, but there was still two noticeable black hooded anthros in the room. Fishtail ordered us to walk in the crowd, not showing our faces, and to arrest them. Undyne, Asriel and Chris had already left, when we got the call.
Fishtail’s watch blinked in protest. Fishtail sighed, and then opened the notification about the next crime.
The crime was near Sarada’s school. Actually, it was insanely close. Fishtail’s eyes narrowed in fear for her daughter's safety, and I looked at it in surprize.
“How? I thought we concealed her identity well enough…” Fishtail exclaimed.
“Well, you know their government…” I looked from the watch to her. “They’re very prone to losing information.”
“This was classified,” Fishtail stood up and walked away from the edge of the building. “We should go check this out, right now. Is there anyway to get those three back up here?” Fishtail sighed and looked at their figures in the streets.
“No,” I sighed. “I guess we’ll have to go ourselves.” Fishtail looked warily at me as a reply, and then took my hand as we teleported.
We were right. The school was in chaos. People were screaming inside, which instantly made Fishtail’s fur go on end. My breathing catches in my throat, as I noticed Fishtail bolt inside. I quickly followed her, and slide into the room. There was only one anthro standing there, and kids were fleeing throughout the building, the teachers stepping up to attack this monster. They failed however, and either they were punched, or shot in a non lethal spot. Fishtail quickly growled at the anthro to make sure he knew that she was there, and he smiled and grinned at her.
“Hello Fishtail. Long time no see, you know?” The anthro grinned.
“You’re gonna DIE,” Fishtail raged like I’ve never seen her rage before. I tensed in a slight fear at the fact that Fishtail recognized the anthro, but also in the fact that I’ve heard of him as well.
This anthro was named Black, and no, I’m not being racist, that’s his name. He has a large scrape across his eye, and he’s known as the “leader of the darkness anthros”, even though they don’t have one real leader. He’s known as a killer, and he’s killed 13 different children, one of them including Fishtail. No wonder Fishtail was so mad; it would make sense that she would be mad that her killer would threaten her daughter.
“Don’t you think that’s a little harsh? Think of all that I’ve gotten you. You probably wouldn’t have met that human if it wasn’t for me…” Black motioned to me. I narrowed my eyes at the anthro, and steadied my metal arm if I needed to attack.
“You threatened my daughter. That’s the LAST STRAW, Black. YOU CROSSED THE LINE!” Fishtail yelled at the anthro, and launched herself at him, swinging her long sword. Fishtail quickly sliced through the anthros skin, but it didn’t touch anything else. Fishtail then dodged some of the anthros’ knives, as I tried to keep the children back.
I felt a child hug my leg. I looked down in surprize, and it was Sarada, scared.
“You have to stay back, Sarada,” I said gently to my daughter. “That’s a bad anthro.”
“I will, Daddy,” Sarada squeaked in fear, and ran back into the crowed. I heard a cry of fear as the darkness anthro swung his sword very close to the crowd, and the people dodged the sword quickly but efficiently. I glanced back to the battle, and was going to shoot another chakra ball at Black, but then my orders glimpsed in my mind.
“Stay back and don’t attack if not needed,” Fishtail told me when I entered the police force. “I’ll deal with the anthro at hand.”
I did what Fishtail said, and made sure the area around where the two were fighting was cleared. Fishtail, when she fought, fought like she was dancing, her movements moving fluidly while the other anthro was choppy but lethal. I snorted at the stupidity of the other anthro to fight Fishtail, because she was invincible and could not die. I, myself, have felt the wrath of the female anthro’s attacks, and I barely survived, not to mention that I, myself, am pretty darn powerful.
I was going to wait patiently for Fishtail to finish fighting, but I noticed something bizarre behind her. There was a dark shadow looming behind her, faint because my eye was covered, but still noticeable. I snarled in annoyance, and started to charge my arm-gun. I went to pull the trigger, but something happened.
The darkness anthro teleported right where the shadow was, poised to strike Fishtail from behind, right in her blind spot. I quickly pulled the trigger, but I wasn’t fast enough. Fishtail gasped as the sharp swords in the anthro’s hand plunged into her body, and hit all of her weak spots. Black withdrew his swords, as Fishtail fell to the ground, almost lifeless.
NO! I screamed in my head, even though I knew Fishtail would be fine. I walked forward into the circle that I created, and quickly removed the metal arm from my actual arm. My arm and my body quickly formed into my own darkness form, as I gritted my teeth with the annoyance of actually using this form when Fishtail was knocked out.
“HOW DARE YOU,” I yelled at Black. Black chuckled quietly under his breath, and grabbed the swords he stabbed Fishtail with and swung them around; I quickly dodged them, and grabbed his face with my ‘gun arm’ and shot him with a powerful ball of darkness magic. Black wasn’t fazed by it at all, and went to grab my head back but I quickly dodged his attack as if it was nothing. I saw Sarada at the corner of my eye, terrified, and I grumbled in annoyance and slammed Black with the blunt side of my knife. Black flew to the wall, almost going straight through it, as I felt a dark feeling go down my back. I noticed the same thing that injured Fishtail forming behind me, and I quickly pointed a gun at where its head would be and fired.
But the shot went right through it. Dammit, I thought as I realized that it was still in its shadow form, as it flew dangerously close to the children. I gasped as it drove one of the knives in my forehead, and the only thing stopping it was my hard metal endoskeleton. Luckily, the endoskeleton was hard enough to stop the knife from hurting any organs, but I still felt blood crawl down my face and well up near my mouth. I growled as I tried to shoot from under him with my gun arm, but it wouldn’t turn on.
DAMMIT, I thought as I realized that I was out of bullets entirely. I tried to duck away from the knife, continuing the wound trailing up my head, but that didn’t work.
Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and the rest of the team teleported over, with a few government officials. Favet quickly punched Black, making my immobile state leave, and I quickly stumbled backward. I felt slightly lightheaded, and quickly cursed my lack of blood in my body. I clasped a hand over the wound, and healed whatever I could with the chakra I had left, stumbled slightly, and noticed as a familiar anthro picked me up.
“We can’t have you stumbling around, right?” Chris wondered, slightly unnerved by the scene at hand. I glanced over at Favet, and it seemed that they were dealing with the situation much better than Fishtail and I were. My eyes glossed over, tired and scared at the same time, as I glanced over to where Fishtail laid. Anthros upon Anthros were piled around her, all talking in frantic voices. One of them picked Fishtail up, and teleported her back to Nowhere.
“You need to get Sarada, Chris…” I told to Chris, groggily.
“I have to get you to a hospital first,” Chris grimaced. “I’ll get Undyne to do that though, bro,” Chris said as he called Undyne over. The gay fish jumped up to Chris, who seemed like adrenaline was rushing through her body at full force with the need to fight.
“What!” Undyne smiled at Chris.
“Could you get Sarada?” Chris wondered. “I have to get my bro to a hospital.
“SURE!” Undyne said, smiling in a clear annoyance, not wanting to “babysit” any children. Undyne walked through the screaming children, and Chris teleported.
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It had been 2 weeks and Fishtail hadn’t woken up.
Sarada had been begging me to see her mother. I refused, however, because it would scar her even more. As if she wasn’t scarred during the attack, that is. She still had frequent nightmares, which was ironic because my family has a frequent history of bad things and nightmares. Kind of like a curse, but not noticeable.
I kept visiting the hospital everyday, and I finally resolved to let Sarada see her mother. I figured that Fishtail would be just fine, as usual, Sarada was oh so happy to go see her loving mother, in which she didn’t know was hurt. I tried to explain to her that ‘mom won’t be as energetic as usual’ and warned her about her semi-immobile state, but she still kept positive.
That was what Fishtail would do. She’s so darn like her mother.
We entered the hospital and was immediately directed to the room where Fishtail was located. We walked into the room, and we were both surprised to see her eyes open. I ran over to her side, and Sarada followed suit.
“Is that you… Afton?” She said softly. “I can’t really see.” When she said that, I froze in fear, but made sure to calm myself because Fishtail would sense my fear.
“You can’t… see?” I asked Fishtail. Fishtail smiled a response, not clearly answering the question but tapping it out on my arm.
“Y/E/S” Fishtail tapped out on my arm with morse code. She held my hand, and then glanced down at Sarada.
“Hey, pumpkin,” Fishtail said the common nickname that she called Sarada.
“MOMMY!” Sarada hugged Fishtail. Fishtail smiled in a response, and then yawned.
“Boy, I’m tired,” Fishtail’s blank eyes were droopy. I squeezed her hand, and looked down at Sarada, clearly wanting to talk to her alone.
“Oh! Hey Sarada, I’m pretty sure Chris came to see Mom too!” I said excitedly to Sarada.
“YAY!” Sarada exclaimed, and then jumped up and down, excited, and ran out the door.
“Really?” Fishtail asked.
“Nope. Just had to get her out of the room,” I sighed and looked over to the door where she left. Fishtail sighed in annoyance and then looked up at me again.
“Are you going to alright?” Fishtail asked me. I frowned and looked at her, confused.
“Without me?” Fishtail wondered, frowning. I widened my eyes at Fishtail, whose eyes were tearing up.
“WHAT WHOA WHOA SLOW DOWN GURL WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!” I said hurriedly. Fishtail sighed and looked at me.
“There’s no way that I can survive this, Afton,” Fishtail said, all out crying.
“NO NO WAY GURL YOU ARE NOT DYING ON ME,” I said, partially choked up, and in shock. Fishtail paused and gazed at me, distanted.
“Come here,” Fishtail told me. I did as she said, and was instantly surprised when Fishtail pressed her lips on my lips.
The kiss was long, but when I heard Sarada running down the hallway, we had to pull apart. I looked at her again, and noticed she was back asleep again, almost like she was never awake at all.
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It’s been around a month. I’ve been preparing myself to cope with Fishtail’s supposed death, but it wasn’t helping. Death was looming around every corner for me, and I felt scared and vandalized. I couldn’t take care of a child. I only had Chris left family-wise, and Fishtail was the one keeping our family together. If it wasn’t for Fishtail, Chris would have hated me.
I sat on our bed, or I guess now my bed because she’s in the hospital. I always got up every morning and went to the hospital, my throat in my chest because it could happen at any moment.
But today as I went up to the room, I quickly noticed she wasn’t in her bed. Infact, she was standing near the window. I gazed at her, stunned, and walked up to her.
“‘Today I realized that the stars that people crave to see for hundreds of years are nothing more than dead flames,’” Fishtail echoed, not even noticing me.
“What?” I asked, startled. Fishtail seemed to be entranced by the outside world, and I was even more concerned as I noticed some of her body fading.
“WHAT'S THAT?!” I gasped, and accidently fell over in the fright. I looked up at Fishtail, and she started disappearing into stars. I looked at her, wondrously, but terrified, as she slowly disappeared.
“FISHTAIL!” I yelled, and tried to catch the last star. But I failed.
Fishtail was gone. I looked down and around the landscape, but I couldn’t find the anthro anywhere.
Could she be dead? The thought hit me like a brick. I shuddered and gasped in realization, and slid down the wall until I was sitting on the ground. I stared at the surroundings in shock, as it blurred slightly. I could only feel myself and my heart beating, and only one thing else.
Right by my head was one of the few “Help” strings, that if you pull it it sounds an alarm. I sat there for a moment, letting it all sink it, and slowly reached towards the string.
I could hear the alarms blaring. I could hear people coming into the room. But it was all muffled, as if I was underwater. I sat there, blank as hell, and watched as people came in and asked me questions. I couldn’t hear them.
Suddenly one question came through the barrier.
“Are you okay?” It asked.
Memories of Fishtail came flooding through my mind like a storm. I could remember every time she asked me that question. She always remembered to hug me afterwards, and I thought I could feel her warmth. But instead, it was cold. It was always cold.
The memories shut everyone else out. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t think.
After a half hour of them pestering me, I could hear better. I croaked out two words:
And let the anthros carry me to one of the hospital beds.
