Jan 21, 2021
Forgot to mention it- everyone who was waiting on the Lina fic (also Evalta), it’s up.
seen from Chile
seen from Australia
seen from Spain
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Chile
seen from Malaysia
seen from France
seen from Chile
seen from Austria
seen from China
seen from Austria
seen from Belgium
seen from Russia
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
Forgot to mention it- everyone who was waiting on the Lina fic (also Evalta), it’s up.
"I'm sorry for bothering you.."
"Don't worry; you're not. What's up?"
"Oh. Uh... Master Dan brought up the fact that Ace won't trust you because you're human and... Ace, he's very likely to challenge you as a result."
"... Why is Dan warning me of this? Did something happen?"
"Ace and Master Dan battled to a draw, and they both fainted."
"Huh. Hey, Baron?"
"Yes?"
"Was that Dan's first battle on Vestroia?"
"Yes."
"So, let me get this straight; you're warning me about a guy who drew with another guy, who hadn't practiced in 3 years, and neither had his partner, and it's being framed as if I should be scared? When he's only as strong as an out of practice Dan?"
Baron recoiled, "... Yes, Sen- Master Shun." he hissed out with a pained tone.
"I'll keep it in mind. Thanks."
SpiAniAnon- Okay fanfic idea slightly related to the tags about MS failure to be even just decent and how Dan was the only one to break down in show and stuff: Post MS where Dan has a serious sit down with Shun and Marucho to tell them 'hey what you did to me, your friend of 7+ years? that was kind of fucked ya know' Just, let the boys talk things over and junk. Idk I just like my fluff having a spalsh of angst and five tablespoons of hurt/comfort.
“How much do you two care for me, on a scale of 0 to 10, right now? Like, guestimate it.” Dan ventured. This was dangerous territory to teeter into, and he could already feel Shun tense. He wasn’t even touching him physically, and he could still feel his mood shift.
“Uh... Right now? About 8 out of 10,” Marucho guessed, “Not the biggest priority right now, but if something went down, we’re helping. No questions asked.”
Shun didn’t respond, instead drinking his tea. Well timed, and convenient. Dan expected that reaction though.
“... So about 2 years ago when you two left me in the dust,” Dan bristled, “That was kinda fucked, you know? Ok, sure, you guys didn’t know if it was intentional; but considering that I don’t shut up about cool new stuff I’ve found out about, I think you would’ve clocked if it was something I already knew about!” he laughed, alleviating the half of the tension.
“I...” Marucho blinked, “Yeah, honestly that was dumb on my end... And we had no idea what you were going through,”
“Which I never mentioned, because I thought I could handle it, when I couldn’t. Shu--”
“Don’t.” Shun responded softly, and Marucho flinched out a quiet apology, on behalf of himself and Dan. The temporary death of his collective nest of parental figures had massively compromised his emotional state, even if it was only temporary. Monarus nuzzled into Shun’s hand, “I’m not--”
“You can’t deny that it was rude.” Dan replied, hand placed delicately on Shun’s shoulder. Shun tensed, and then slowly relaxed. He was uncertain, still, “But I can’t say at all that it wasn’t deserved. I was as much at fault then as you two were.”
Marucho got up, and wandered closer. Then, Shun was enveloped in a group hug, completely unaware as to what had just happened. In his surprise, he sniffled. Tears poked out from his tightly shut eyes as he returned the favour awkwardly, collapsing like a pillow with loose stuffing, made to sit upright.
“Heyy... Don’t cry- you didn’t know, and you were frustrated. I’ve forgiven you, I have for ages, don’t worry about it--” Dan smiled softly.
“But mentioning it makes me worry that it’ll happen again.” Shun cut off with a quiet murmur into Dan’s shoulder. Monarus, Limulus, and, perhaps the strangest bakugan there, Serpenoid, stared up at their human brawlers.
“Should we join in?” Limulus asked, nudging its body into Serpenoid’s side.
“No- this is a them thing.” Serpenoid hissed softly, nudging back. Monarus kept watch of the humans, delighting in watching them communicate. They were much better at it than most bakugan were, and so watching how they went about it was fascinating.
“It won’t happen again, at least not for quite awhile,” Dan reassured him.
“Mhm,” Marucho hummed, “And, hey, the powers that be, the ones that caused that mess? They won’t affect us now. We can relax,” Marucho cast a glance at Dan’s first new partner.
He was surprised to find Drago had been retired without Dan even complaining, although it was understandable; he felt a little weak from lugging around so much power in his avatar, so he’d returned to being the core of Vestroia.
The little Serpenoid was happy to take Drago’s place, and it seemed to be doing Dan some good, if partially because Serpenoid had been teaching him to relax outside of battling. The other half of it was because Drago’s powers weren’t rubbing off on Dan anymore.
They sat there for a few minutes, until Shun stopped crying. The trio laughed, one wiping his remaining tears away.
“That was a massive weight off our chests, huh?”
“Mhm.”
“Hey, I have an idea!” Dan cheered, getting Shun’s attention from behind a sip of tea.
“What is it?” Marucho laughed, anticipating something very stupid, but also undeniably very Dan.
“Let’s make a pillow fort!”
Yup. Undeniably Dan.
Gus knew he'd get arrested. Well, punished for treason somehow, more accurately. How he wasn't dead was beyond him.
So he sat, and sulked. His loyalty got ahead of him, he realised in a sigh. He looked out into the corridor his cell was connected to, spotting no guards (odd). He did, however, spot a cat.
Ah, the cat. Gus felt a smile creep up on him. The cat was allowed to go where ever it could squeeze into, other than the delicate machinery, if Gus remembered his time in the palace, before the resistance made a mess, completely correctly.
The king liked it, regardless of the royal requirement to appear as if you liked the animal on the royal coat of arms, so he guessed that's were the special privileges came from.
Either that, or they came from the fact that it was a cat, not a vestal... Even if the black furred thing kept on wrecking havoc where it could.
It especially liked wrecking havoc on the BT System; it had to be fixed too many times to count because of the cat deciding that it needed to be ruined to be to its liking. Either that, or it understood what the BT System was for, and if it did, then its intelligence had to be called into question.
It seemed so free. Free... Freedom. Gus needed to get free. He sat back onto the cusionless bed, and let his mind run wild with ideas.
If someone else with a bakugan started a battle with him, he could go free; they'd both break free.
His thoughts came to a crashing stop as a trill reached his ears. Gus looked over. The cat. The ever tired looking cat.
The cat pulled the door open, and trotted in. Gus froze in confusion, until the feel of claws on his leg caught his attention.
The cat trotted out, stood still, and turned to look. It turned around and trotted back over. Gus realised dimly, that the cat wanted him to follow them, as it pawed and trilled at him.
Gus, keeping a relaxed facade, followed. A few paces away, the cat unlocked Hydron's cell. Inwardly, Gus had no idea what was going on.
The cat trilled again, and led Gus outside, purring as it went.
"Why us?" Vulcan quietly asked, "was it bored or did it want us to be free?"
"I don't know," Gus sighed, leaning down to pat the cat, only to be met with the surface texture of a bakugan's ballform. A ventus bakugan, if he had to guess.
Gus retracted his hand, finding that he'd taken the bakugan with him. He was correct; it was ventus. The cat sat down and cleaned its paw, tails curling neatly around it like a nest. Gus nearly dropped the bakugan when it opened.
"Hello Vulcan, Gus."
"Ingram? The Resistance's Ingram?!" Vulcan yelled in a hushed tone, losing his mind.
"One in the same," Ingram laughed, "He thought it was weird that you weren't with Helios and, to a greater extent, Spectra."
Gus flushed embarrassedly, "I got reckless and got arrested for i-- Wait..." Gus blanked, "If you're here, then Shun--"
"Mrrp?"
"He's here," Ingram giggled, "it's just he and his cat share me between them. He's using a mechanical made to look like me right now, commissioned from a vestal scientist."
He was lying by omission. The robot wasn't being used by Shun. Shun was, truthfully, in front of Gus, in plain sight.
He supposed humans looked too different from cats for current Shun to be seen as the same Shun that Gus was ripped to pieces by in their first battle.
"Th... The cat can brawl?"
"It brawled using Skyress three years ago." Ingram deadpanned, feeling that it'd be cruel to laugh at Gus' confusion any longer.
"Come on, we need to leave before they catch us. Spectra's on the Resistance's side; we're all fighting for our survival here, alien race notwithstanding." Ingram urged, as Gus' body locked up in a daze, like a computer bluescreening. Ingram disappeared into the cat's fluff.
He needed to ask Shun about it when he next came across him- he'd know what was wrong with the cat, surely, and why its intelligence rivalled his.
Perhaps strange, or obvious to the common folk, was that some of the crowd were not common folk; merely disguised.
The crowd was maybe up to half full of bunker bound families' children.
Some had developed their shapeshifting already, enough to change their colours: better than most gundalians could dream of. Some developed further still. Others had sewn together their own clothes, handmade by them and their tiny paws.
In return for not ratting them out, and letting them enjoy their childhood, the other children were offered candy and other sweets that were only for the bunker bound, not for the common.
If she remembers correctly, that's how she met him; dark tribe carers got even less than the common, even despite being classed as bunker bound. Bless him, he looked beyond happy when he was offered a little chocolate ball with filling tasting of sweet coffee.
It became, almost, a mini black market of sorts; the children dealt in trades of goods. A simple dress, black or white and easy to make, could sell for three candy pieces and a necklace.
And going to all that trouble was only to have the ability to make friends, and have an enjoyed childhood, for the bunker bound.
“Every time you see Hawktor, clone or not, you flinch. Is there a reason for that?”
“... Childhood memories.”
“... That makes it sound like you’re either a gundalian or neathian in disguise, honestly; Hawktor aren’t native to Vestroia.”
“Oh-- N-No-- Childhood memories of an actual hawk. Not of a hawktor!”
“You sound like you’re lying, in all honesty.”
“... Well, that’s not my problem...”
“You had a nightmare?”
“Yes,” Shun huffed, “Did you think I couldn’t get them? I’m human, not vestal...”
Ace grimaced, “Alright, alright, I should’ve seen it coming; you can dream, therefore you can get nightmares...”
Shun nodded, “Mhm.”
“Anyway, I’m curious; what was it.”
Shun sighed in relief, “I’ve never been more comforted by that sort of tone.” He leaned back, his hands splayed out behind him for support, “Well... It started off with us failing to save New Vestroia, and then it got worse.”
“How?” Ace asked, suddenly sounding much more concerned, if not enthusiastic, “How did it get worse?”
“We lost our ability to brawl,” Shun paused for effect, “One by one. And we lost our bakugan to the vexos by proxy.”
Ace’s face looked sickly pale, “That really is a nightmare!”
“It got better from there,” Shun reassured him, shutting his eyes to calm his nerves, “There was this character... I don’t remember what he got called, but... He came to our world through the interspace, and therefore couldn’t have his brawling taken away.”
“... Huh.” Ace drawled. Shun found his immediate dislike very reminiscent of his opinion of Dan.
“He helped us either way; so we could get back to saving New Vestroia, but with evolved bakugan instead.”
“Oh.” Ace chirped, looking interested at the idea of using Knight Percival to free New Vestroia, all those months ago.
“The... The part that woke me up though, and why I was crying... I... I got emotional about him going back to his own world.” Shun chuckled lightly, choking back tears, “He doesn’t even exist as an actual being, literally a figment of my imagination, and I started crying over him in my sleep...”
“Jeez...” Ace hummed, shuffling closer, and giving his favourite human a hug for comfort, “I mean... Not gonna lie, I’d probably cry about that too. Maybe.”
“... I’m glad I’m not the only one.” Shun sighed, wrapping his arms around Ace in return.
“Ok, well, now you’ve summarised it,” Ace started, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen, “Tell me about it in more detail; I wanna write this down for later!”
“Alright, alright.” Shun laughed, and started to tell the story he’d crafted in his dream.
Outer Demons, but utilised for the Legacy series
“You, uh... Look familiar.” Dan murmured awkwardly, looking at... That wasn’t Shun; Shun didn’t have white hair after all, but he certainly looked like him to an uncomfortable degree.
“I could say the same about you, but you look like you’re in emotional tatters...” he frowned, coming closer. Dan hadn’t noticed this, until a finger was on his fac-- Oh.
“I’m guessing whoever I remind you of had a fight with you.” He sighed, unfortunately completely correct, patting a tear off of Dan’s cheek.
“... Can I ask who you are?” Dan finally asked, feeling stupid for not asking earlier. Eventually he’ll remember to ask about how he got to Vestroia, too.
“Oh. I’m... Ah... Well.” He laughed. It was a cute sound. “My name is Shun, but I’ve been called Shin more often than not... And, if I had to guess, you’re called Dan.”
Dan took a double take, “I know I am-- or was-- ranked first place in the Interspace, so I guess I shouldn’t be surpr-”
“Oh, no, I’m not saying that from seeing rankings.” Shin cut Dan off, shrugging, “I’m saying that because of a friend I also had a fight with; he looks almost identical to you, save having tired bags under his eyes, and always wearing jackets where the collar covers his mouth from view.”
“Hah. Talk about a coinciden--”
“It wasn’t a coincidence.” Shin chirped with a smile, Dan swore it was ominous and really unnerving, with Shin’s eyes shut in confidence.
“It can’t have been, really.” Shin continued, and Dan’s sense of ease slowly diminished, “Mirror demons, although I’ve heard people call us Outer demons, are alternate versions of humans; but we’ll go through almost the exact same things! Even if our personalities, our appearance, our attribute is different! But we’re distinctly not opposites! Otherwise I’d be using Subterra instead of Haos.”
Dan paled considerably, “A... What now? An Outer Demon?” And Dan thought he’d met enough aliens in the last two years.
“We’re harmless unless provoked,” Shin sang reassuringly, “And besides, my Dan’s sulking in the backstage of a theatre right now... So, I wanted to see what the actual Dan was up to. You’re not sulking too, right?”
“No! I’m not sulking... I need time away from the others. And I need to train!” Dan claimed, huffing at the mere thought of sulking over a verbal fight that could’ve ended with a broken nose on Dan’s end, if Shun had reacted particularly badly.
Shin smiled sweetly at him, “Training for what? Is Drago somehow falling behind?”
“This thing appeared!” Dan cried, gesturing wildly to reference the size of the Thing, and his confusion at it “And I got accused of cheating because of it, but I had no idea it would happen!”
"Ah. That sounds rough.” Shin sighed, “Well... If you ever need someone to talk to while you're here on Vestroia...” Shin pointed towards a nearby cave, the inside glowing faintly, “Then go through there. The old trial grounds are through that, and that’s where us outer demons live!”
“Uh... Thanks?” Dan mumbled, watching Shin get up and walk away, assumedly home through the cave.
“Oh! By the way, I don’t mean to sound mean but...” Shin paused mid-step, and turned his head slightly, just enough for Dan to know he was talking to him, and clicked his tongue, “I’m happy to replace Shun if you’d rather that!” he chirped ever so sweetly, like he didn’t just offer to replace someone entirely.
Dan watched as Shin continued on his way, and into the cave that lead to his home.
“R... Replace?” Dan flummoxed. Maybe, just maybe, Dan thought, they were called Outer Demons, because they could speak happily about things that were horrifying to imagine.
Although he was morbidly curious as to what extent Shin would go in replacing Shun…