Yo. Do you have any more info on your When Everything Goes Wrong, Make it Right Again AU???
Day One of the AU goes something like this:
It starts when the group first arrives on Earth; as in canon, Asch collapses due to being unable to breathe, and nobody else can move
The story starts to diverge when Ava doesn’t show up, deciding to take out her trash after the job interview. She needs that job and won’t risk being late (she ends up being late due to a noodle incident)
Once the group is able to move again, they move Asch out of the sunlight. Rhys confirms that Asch isn’t breathing. The news takes a moment to set in, but when it does everyone panics. Rhys is just sitting there besides the unconscious prince getting progressively more done with everything.
Leif is the first to leave, following the reasoning of “well, fuck” and he runs off because, in his eyes, he no longer has a reason to stay.
Rhys orders Noi to chase after Leif, as Noi is the only one with even a chance of catching up. So now it’s just Pierce cradling Asch’s unconscious body while Rhys tries to devise a solution.
Eventually, Rhys leaves to search for proper shelter, leaving Pierce and Asch behind for when Noi returns with Leif.
Problem is, Rhys doesn’t return. For two hours. Pierce continues to sit there, waiting, worrying, trying oh so desperately to convince himself that he hasn’t failed his duty.
At that point, Pierce hears a scream that he recognizes as Noi. Thinking that Noi caught up to Leif and that a fight has broken up, Pierce moves to go break it up. Only to be reminded of Asch, who’s still not moving in Pierce’s arms.
Caught between his duty to his charge and to his teammates, Pierce makes a decision. He hides Asch behind a dumpster, and goes off to find Noi and Leif, following the slowly fading sounds of screaming. He’s a bit disoriented by all the sounds in the city, but he eventually manages to find Noi.
Noi, as it turns out, was not able to catch up to Leif, on account of him tripping and falling off a building into an alleyway. The scene that Pierce finds is rather… grisley.
Noi had been struggling to walk off his broken leg, mild concussion, cracked ribs, and shattered arm when he’s found by a group of guys who are a) douchebags, b) drunk, and c) armed with baseball bats and other pieces of junk. The guys who find Noi comment on how Noi’s in bad shape, laughing about it in the way that only a drunkard would. The exchange continues on for a little bit, until one of the guys realizes that Noi has a tail. And actual horns.Things go downhill from there very rapidly.
When Pierce arrives, Noi is on the ground, his weapons still where he dropped them when he fell, lying in his own blood while a group of 3-5 guys are beating him to death.
Pierce doesn’t think. He doesn’t pause to sort out his million thoughts, he just sees his friend on the ground, badly hurt, and removes the aggressors. He doesn’t think when he plunges his sword deep into the back of one human, using a free hand to knock another to the ground. Doesn’t think when he uses the flat side of his sword to crack open one of the human’s skulls, doesn’t think when he grabs another by the neck and snaps the spine. He just fights, and fights, until he and Noi are the only ones still alive in that alleyway, and only then does he pause to realize what he’s done.
And then Noi whimpers, fading in and out of consciousness, and Pierce hears sirens—not that he knows what those are yet—and panics. So he grabs Noi, and Noi’s scattered equipment, and hauls tail. He’s running on autopilot, disoriented from the shock of what he’s just done and the city sounds at night, he’s panicking, ready to collapse into a ball of anxiety, when he remembers Asch.
Meanwhile, Rhys returns to where he left Pierce and Asch, having found several potential sites for a base camp. Except, nobody’s there. Asch is not where Pierce left him.
Why is Asch not where he was hidden? Because Ava.
To elaborate, Ava’s been having a shitty day. First, she’s late to her job interview. Then, she trips and crashes into someone, spilling their smoothie all over herself. She’s tired, and needs a shower, but when she arrives home she realizes she still has to take out the trash. So she does just that.
It’s while she’s taking out the trash that she notices what looks like a body behind a nearby dumpster. Her first reaction is to panic, but, out of a sense of morbid curiosity, she decides to take a closer look.
She realizes that this person is not breathing, even though by all accounts they look healthy. So Ava decides to put her knowledge of CPR to use, only to stop.
For all she knows, this could just be someone too wasted or drugged up to be messed with. Except the clothes are too nice. After a moment of deliberation, Ava does CPR, bringing Asch back to consciousness.
When Asch wakes up, and realizes he’s alone with an unknown human, his knights nowhere to be found, he panics and summons fire, with the intent to use it. At this, Ava panics and jumps back, screaming. So Asch decides to press his advantage before this human regains her wits and attacks. Ava faints, and Asch pauses, realizing now he’s really alone. It’s getting darker, he should find shelter, but he has no idea where anyone else is and he’s lost in an unfamiliar world.
Johnny paws at Ava, and Asch decides this spirit must be connected to Ava. So when Asch decides to take Ava prisoner, he follows Johnny to Ava’s apartment. He burns through the lock, lays Ava on the couch, and settles in to wait.
Because of all of this, when Rhys returns, nobody is there. After a brief moment of panic, Rhys decides to go through things logically, and sets out to search for the others.
Back to Pierce, who’s rushing to where he left Asch (as gently as possible, he doesn’t want to jostle Noi). When Pierce arrives, after getting lost briefly, Rhys has already left. So Pierce returns to find his prince—his charge, his sole duty—missing.
Today is just not a good day for anyone, really.
Pierce, panicking and wary of humans, is having a crisis because he failed to do his job and protect his prince. After a few moments of “oh-htrae-what-do-I-do-now”, Pierce realizes that there’s nothing he can do but keep moving forwards. Noi is injured and needs help. He needs a safe place to rest up and heal.
So Pierce goes out looking for that place.
Once he finds it, the first thing Pierce does is dig out a scrape to sleep in. Then he tends to Noi, using what limited healing magic he has (and the medical supplies he has) to help Noi as much as possible. He may have failed his prince, but he won’t fail his friend.
Once Pierce is sure that Noi won’t die in his sleep, he curls up in the scrape and holds Noi close to him, purring in order to help Noi heal.
He doesn’t get much sleep that night.
Meanwhile, Leif, after running and running and running until he can’t see the city anymore, decides that he, too, should settle down for the night. Rhys continues to search for the others throughout the night, though he does eventually stop for the night somewhere around 2:00 AM.
Back at Ava’s apartment, she has regained consciousness, lead Asch to city hall only to realize her mistake, and agreed to teach Asch about the human world. She gets the feeling there’s something missing, but all she wants to do is take a very long, relaxing bath, so after making sure that Asch will be okay for the night, she does just that.
And thus, day one ends and the story can begin.
