False Quest
Idea generated by ravenqueendaughteroftheevilqueen, who requested DiExLP. Well, if you squint, I guess.... I have no idea how that ship would even work out.
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Esper was awoken rather rudely by a certain Lunatic. The interruption was not appreciated. He got little enough sleep as it stood.
“Get up! Now!” The other man was making random, small noises in the back of his throat as he looked nervously out the window. Esper blinked, more asleep than awake.
“Whazzamatter?”
“The Wardens, kek. They found us.” Lunatic's glare was full of dislike for Esper. “If it were up to me, I would leave yer sorry ass here for them to find, kek, but I need ya to complete Glave's damn quest chain.”
“Wardens, hmmmm?” Esper made a small humming noise as he woke up, his Dynamos coming to life as they heard the sound. “Aaaah, I've dealt with them before. You just need to jump into another dimension.”
“D'ya think I can do that?” Lunatic demanded angrily, bending down and grabbing Esper by his collar. With almost contemptuous ease, Esper was lifted off the bed and shaken back and forth. “Wake up and get us out of here.”
“Kekeke.” Esper chuckled softly, attempting to make it seem like the violent shaking didn't bother him. He really had to stop sleeping in his clothes, they gave Lunatic too much of a grip. “Let go of me, I can't rip a portal with you trying your hardest to shake me to death.”
Thank the El that he could land on his feet, as Lunatic dropped him like a hot coal. Esper's Dynamos flocked to help him stand straight in front of the furious brawler.
“Rip yer fuckin' portal,” Lunatic growled. One glance told Esper that the other man was nervous, especially when the air started to shimmer in warning of impending portals.
“Tch, such a pathetic annoyance,” Esper muttered. A wave of his hand commanded his Dynamos to begin running the diagnostic calculations for travel. A portal opened not three seconds later, and Esper decided to get a little revenge.
“Kahahahaha!” Esper shoved Lunatic through the rip in time and space, laughing aloud as the other screamed in shock. He was gone within a second.
Esper stepped through the portal himself as the Wardens' portals began to form, signaling the end of the rest period granted to them by Glave.
As Esper moved through the familiar vibrant shades of purple, he mused about Glave's mission for Lunatic. The masked magician had tasked Lunatic with finding one of his missing dice, not telling Lunatic that Esper had it. The point of the experiment was to see if Esper's other versions were as cunning as he was. Mastermind had been tested first – it had taken all of an hour before the researcher decided to scan Esper's person, finding the cube within a matter of seconds and taking it back to Glave. Lunatic, on the other hand, was a bit slower on the uptake. The two had been following Glave's cryptic clues for at least a day, and Lunatic showed no signs of cottoning on.
The Wardens were just an added challenge, to test Lunatic's ability to think under stress. Glave had rounded up demons that had standing grudges against Lunatic, disguised them in human forms, and sent them off to chase the brawler.
The familiar rushing sensation overtook Esper as the journey neared the end. Esper braced himself for impact, the two shields on either side of him coming in closer to his body. He closed his magenta eyes. The last leg of the journey always made him feel nauseous.
A couple seconds later, the violent swirling sensation ceased. Esper warily opened one eye, his Dynamos automatically scanning the surroundings for any type of threat to their master.
There was none. They seemed to be on a high, rocky outcropping, and a sheer drop surrounded them on all sides. The sound of breaking waves could be heard.
Lunatic was on his hands and knees, looking queasy. He apparently hadn't learned yet to close his eyes during the last part of travel. Esper laughed at the sight.
“Shuddup,” Lunatic growled, attempting to stand. “Where the hell are we? Ya put in the correct coordinates, didn't ya?”
“Of course I did.” Esper kept his voice and face controlled as Lunatic got to his feet, dusting rock powder off his knees. “Kek, this isn't exactly my first time traveling.” The smile that spread across his face was more than slightly insane. “Pun intended.”
“You're sickening.” Lunatic looked around. “Where the hell are we? Is one of Glave's clues even here? Kahaha, if it's not....”
“I suggest you look,” Esper yawned. He raised a hand in a signal to his Dynamos, sitting down on the comfortable seat that they configured themselves into. “I think I'll catch up on my sleep, kuk, since someone dragged me so rudely out of bed.”
Lunatic's suggestion of what Esper could do with said bed was quite graphic. Esper laughed as Lunatic began his search. He's got spirit. I'll give him that.
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Lunatic was going to kill something. Preferably soon.
He had searched the entirety of the rock outcropping twice, his Dynamos scanning every crack and crevice for anything that had a remote trace of Glave. There was nothing whatsoever. Is this where I tell Esper that the cube's in his pocket? Lunatic's gaze darted over to the other version of himself, who was currently humming a tune as he stared into space. He's insane. But then again, aren't we all?
Lunatic wondered again if Esper knew that Glave had slipped the die into his pocket, knew that the weapon had been with them all along. Maybe this was some weird experiment that Esper had decided to spearhead, somehow getting Glave to go along with it. I can't figure out why he would lend out one of his dice, though.
Lunatic had played nice. He pretended to take on the mission, pretended to work with Esper cluelessly. Esper hadn't shown any suspicion. Now, though, Lunatic was getting bored.
He made another round of the rock, even going so far as to use his Dynamos to lower himself and search the sides. Nothing.
That's it. I'm blasting this rock apart, he thought as sea spray flicked against his ankles. His palms were flat against the stone, and he stood on the hovering platform made by his Dynamos as he prepared his Nasod Armor.
He would have done it, too, had Esper's scream not sounded from the top. Lunatic's head shot up, studying the lip of the rock as he debated whether to go up or not. Could be another trick. But there was no harm in checking, so Lunatic cautiously commanded his Dynamos to slowly lift him up.
Esper was struggling against the grip of a much taller, stronger man. His Dynamos were useless without commands, either from movement or sound. The man's hand was over Esper's mouth, and he held a white cloth over the time-traveler's face. After a few seconds, Esper's weak struggles stopped altogether, and he slumped in the other man's arms.
“Let's get him back for the payment.” The voice belonged to a woman, standing on the edge of the rock opposite from Lunatic. “You sure there's no sign of the other one?”
“Nope.” The man hefted Esper over his shoulder, looking in disgust at the Dynamos and shields that had fallen to the ground with Esper's departure from consciousness. “What do we do with these, may I ask?”
“Leave them. The client said nothing about weapons.” The woman turned sharply, and Lunatic edged farther down the rock face. He recognized her, but didn't know from where. “Pity we can't find the other one. Maybe if you weren't so useless at your job....”
“I'm sure it's all my fault,” the man said smoothly and sarcastically. With Esper over his shoulder, he turned and waved a hand in the air.
Oh, no you don't.
Lunatic activated his Nasod Armor as he jumped, landing momentarily on the rock before launching himself towards the woman. He barely saw the look of surprise on her face before he kicked her off the rock, spinning around to face the man.
“Put him down,” the berserker spat, fists clenching. The sight of Esper's limp body provoked a strange surge of protectiveness in Lunatic.
The man stopped dead as he assessed the new threat. Then a growl grew in his throat.
“You.... You wiped out my friends!”
Huh? Lunatic's confusion slowed his reactions as the man dropped Esper like a sack of flour, fumbling at his side and coming up with a knife.
“Bastard!”
Lunatic nearly didn't dodge in time. The thrown blade glanced off the metal plate on his left shoulder instead of lodging itself in his neck, as it clearly had been meant to do.
Pathetic, Lunatic chided himself, and he jumped forward, his Dynamos moving to the front of his body. He hit the man with a stunning frequency, then launched him up and sent him flying away.
He didn't fly for long. Lunatic was on him in a second, punching him down to the ground and beginning to hit him. It only took four armor-reinforced kicks before the man went limp.
Lunatic pulled his foot back for another blow, ready to send the man after his counterpart, when the body started shimmering. The man seemed to be melting into a shadow.
What the...?
Lunatic only saw a quick flash of a shadowy demon before it disappeared. The rock in front of him was bare, and the only sound was the distant crashing of waves.
“Kahaha?” That entire encounter hadn't made much sense to Lunatic, and he let out a confused laugh as he turned to Esper. The other Tracer was still on the ground, one arm flung out where it had landed when he was dropped. His Dynamos and two shields lay scattered around him, one shield half on top of him.
Lunatic walked over to the time-traveler, reaching into the pocket of Esper's armor and bringing out Glave's die. A quick examination proved that it was indeed the thing that Glave had sent him to find. Odd, though, that Esper had it. What the hell is going on here?
Esper's hand twitched. Lunatic poked him curiously, but the time-traveler didn't respond.
“So what the hell am I supposed to do now?” Lunatic wondered aloud as he sat back on his heels. “It's not like I have a way to give the die back.” He looked around, and as an afterthought, said, “Assuming I'm even in the correct dimension, kek.”
Annoyed, he shook Esper. “Get up, damn ya! I've got questions for ya, kah!” The time-traveler stayed limp, and Lunatic's annoyance grew. A quick command to his Dynamos had them zapping Esper with purple electricity. By the second shock, Lunatic was worried. What if Esper was dead? For some reason, that seemed like it would be terrible in more ways than one.
Whatever the case, Lunatic rolled Esper over to check his breathing. He was breathing in and out with steady, though shallow, breaths.
“So you're alive.” Lunatic thought for a moment, then commanded his Dynamos to apply a jolt to Esper's unprotected face.
Esper screamed as he bolted up, nearly smashing his forehead into Lunatic's nose. Somehow the collision was avoided.
“Kuhuhuhuhu, what the hell was that?” Esper looked around wildly, his Dynamos starting to float towards him. “What happened?”
“The Wardens found us,” Lunatic said through gritted teeth. “And I found something very interesting in your pocket, kek.”
Esper raised an eyebrow as Lunatic pulled out the die.
“Mind explaining what this is?”
Lunatic was expecting Esper to freeze and begin stammering. At the very least, he wanted an apology – he had played along for a day and a half, wasted 36 hours, for absolutely nothing.
He wasn't expecting Esper to chuckle and stand. “The experiment is complete.”
It only took Lunatic a couple seconds to piece it together. “.... Kuahahaha, ya BASTARD!”