And with that, we are getting things started! As a brief reminder for those new to the event -- AU Roulette is a casual fic-writing challenge encouraging fanfic authors to play around with different types of alternate universe stories, which will be randomly assigned to each participant regardless of the fandom they sign up with.
Writers will be able to sign up from May 10th-31st with a fandom of their choice. At the start of June, each participant will be assigned three AUs from a masterlist using a random number generator. Each author will then have the choice of completing the challenge one, two, or all three of the AUs. Any fic exceeding a 500-word minimum will be considered a completion, so long as it employs the AU premise. Fics can then be posted at any point during the month of June.
As a reminder: The fandom you signed up with is used to filter AU assignments, in order to minimize re-rolls! (For example, someone signing up with "The Lord of the Rings" will not be assigned a High Fantasy AU). Please only sign-up with one fandom.
The sign-up link can be found here. Please feel free to spread it around and get the word out about this year's event!
Shared with me by @breezy-cheezy and will be taking this as my opportunity to consolidate a pretty list, I can't even tell you a number off the top of my head right now XD
RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your wip folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous, and tag as many people as you have wips. anyone can send an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and you post a snippet or tell them something about it!
(Note: Slightly contrary to the rules, I'm not going to be listing every WIP I have in my documents, as some of those are a tad bit dead, just the ones I consider to be "active"! Or at least dormant with the potential to become active again!)
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Published, Ongoing
Roaring Dragon, Soaring Sun: my TWSTxHSR crossover AU series (tossing HSR characters into the TWST universe post-TWST canon), a.k.a the "Leona Adopts Dan Heng AU"!
Soar Above Yesterday: Genshin Elemental Clan "Winged" AU, in which everyone is divided into seven clans according to their element and have elemental wings, and also, they're embroiled in an eternal war with the Abyss. Created for a Big Bang event!
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Unpublished (reverse order of date of creation)
HSR 4.0 Sunday Feels: a post-4.0 one-shot in which Sunday suffers from overstimulation and gets scooped up by Dan Heng. (might actually finish this one today!)
HSR Space Western AU except like Trigun we cannot yet go into space: heavy canon divergence in which everyone is on this one planet (former IPC colony) that is cut off from the rest of the universe because of a disaster 400 years ago (the IPC's fault, but also Dan Feng things were happening by coincidence), and Himeko finds the rest of the crew for the Express in semi-reverse order and needs them in order to make this train fly and break free
Secret Santa: TBA
TWST+TBHX Vil Story: one-shot in which I am mean to Vil by dropping him in TBHX world and giving him a poison Midas touch
TWST Voltron: basketball trio gets drafted in war against the Galra Empire, get captured, Jamil escapes and has to face his true worst nightmare: asking Azul for help (black lion: Jamil, red: Floyd, blue: Ace, yellow: Deuce, green: Azul)
TWST + Fairy Tail "Yes, Guildmaster": I toss the Heartslabyul boys in Phantom Lord during Phantom Lord arc and they are not happy about this (Deuce just got OUT of a dark guild what do you MEAN the legal guild is acting even worse than they did?? He's not opposed to a guild war on principle but if they are gonna fight why not just have a brawl to their faces instead of being sneaky about this, he doesn't want to wreck a whole town—)
If I Only Knew: TWST series in the POV of one of the parents or parental figures of each of the overblotters, and their reactions to finding out about the overblot and talks with kid afterward (Riddle's mom, Neji, Azul's mom, Jamil's dad, Eric, Idia's mom, Maleficia)
The Journey Begins | TWST "Mentors" AU: fantasy world more closely aligned to original Disney inspirations, each of the overblotters are in some way "mentored" by the Great Seven, Hearts boys go on a road trip to the Underworld in order to fix the world after it gets ink spilled on it, and then pick up everyone else along the way
TWST Wasteland AU: there's a massive continent of doom with Western vibes, ruled by factions, basketball trio are "detectives," Spelldrive trio are monster hunters, Pop Music club is a band and Jade becomes their manager, but also Jade is hiding from a faction he pissed off and Floyd is mad that he isn't telling him things and also Jamil and Kalim got separated 2-3 years because Kalim got kidnapped and the rescue attempt went horribly wrong and they each think the other is dead but then Things Happen and their worlds crash into each other again...
Twisted Turnabout (TWST + Ace Attorney vibes): Five years later, Riddle gets prosecutorial license and then immediately plays defense lawyer to help Silver after he gets accused of murder. Jamil gets roped in this and becomes Riddle's "assistant," Deuce is the police detective working with them, Rollo is the prosecutor from the Shaftlands who comes all the way over here to have weird beef with the defense, do you see the vision—
TWST De-Aging Shenaniganry Oneshot: a former student's magic tech project gets discovered and turns half the cast into children ten years younger, and the rest of the cast have to take care of them because Crowley says so
I Would Give You Wings: TWST apocalypse AU inspired by AOT in that I snag the Titan Shifter mechanic and make a whole different story off of it, world got overrun by phantoms 400 years ago (same look but some of them turn other living things into a phantom via bite, zombie-style) because of the Kingdom of Light triggering the end of the world by accident during the Briarland war, but also the Great Seven all existed back then and now live on as phantoms, passed down generation to generation until our poor overblot boys inherit them in some way or another. Then apocalypse gets triggered a second time and all of them eventually find each other and must work together to save the world
Genshin Geo Family AU: Modern AU in which elemental power is a learned skill, Zhongli adopts the Geo users one by one as children (the first five, that is: I started this a long time ago): first Ningguang, then Itto, Albedo+Klee, Noelle, Gorou
happy valentine's day, it's time for a MOM ROADTRIP!
I didn't end up doing as much as I wanted to with it, because alas. time makes fools of us all. fortunately they remain fabulous even if they're just piling into Dylla's van to go down the road and get Starbucks and, let's be real, talk about how much they love dressing up their kids in silly little froofy outfits. the froofier the better. life goals right there.
(disclaimer that the open/close transition was traced off of a screencap, everything else is by me, j-just ignore how incredibly lazy I got in terms of actually drawing anything new. whoops.)
"hmm, Dylla's gonna be really easy to rig after the others, what if I just...massively overcomplicated things for myself for no reason...?"
nah but for real, it didn't feel right to not give her Deuce's real dad her big ol' van. the chibi mom roadtrip is gonna have to wait a bit, but I figured she deserved a post to herself anyway!
reminder: these are NOT edits and are not for free use; I drew and rigged her from scratch! please do not use these for your own edits or in your videos, thanks!!
(Don't let the sunshine fool you, she is actually most ready for carnage in this scenario.)
HSR got me so so bad. Anyway I love the Trailblazer Trio so much. Their so important to me, both individually and with their dynamic. I love how March holds all of the pep while Stelle and Dan Heng have chronic RBF, which undermines that Stelle is also a friend making gremlin and Dan Heng is the braincell holder and least likely to start conflict first. I love them.
Inspired by/redrawn from this screencap from Twisted Wonderland season 1 because it fit them too well:
this year's prompts were sourced through an open suggestion form, where over 6,000 prompts were submitted. after, the best 100 prompts were voted on in a poll which received 6,265 votes. the top 28 were rearranged into the 28 prompts of febuwhump - with the most voted prompt in the number 1 position ("I like you better broken", 1,959 votes) - while the alternate prompts were selected from the mod's personal favourites of the remaining options.
this is such a great list of prompts, and i'm so excited to see what creativity they spark with you!
if you're interested in taking part in all the facets of febuwhump, then check out the expected timeline for this year's event! pay special attention to march 6-8, after febuwhump, in which everyone is encouraged to comment on as many febuwhump works as possible to ensure that everyone leaves this event with encouraging feedback on their creations!
as always, please check the faq or scroll through the previously asked questions before asking questions. i know the faq is short, but it really does answer just about any questions you have. when in doubt, assume the answer is that you can do literally anything you want.
please note: notifying the blog of completionist status will happen through a google form released towards the end of febuwhump, and if you are interested in joining the febuwhmp discord server, the link will be available to do so for one week during january.
full write-up of prompts and rules under the cut:
FEBUWHUMP 2026 PROMPTS:
DAY 1: "I like you better broken"
DAY 2: old injury
DAY 3: ghost
DAY 4: blood stains
DAY 5: survivor
DAY 6: soul bond
DAY 7: forced to hurt another
DAY 8: hunger
DAY 9: false memory
DAY 10: god complex
DAY 11: broken fingers
DAY 12: bodyguard
DAY 13: "again"
DAY 14: hanahaki disease
DAY 15: test subject
DAY 16: touch aversion
DAY 17: fingers in the wound
DAY 18: time loop
DAY 19: "I didn't mean to"
DAY 20: hunted
DAY 21: flashbacks
DAY 22: worse than death
DAY 23: kintsugi
DAY 24: head injury
DAY 25: medical restraints
DAY 26: time travel
DAY 27: "can you stay?"
DAY 28: breaking point
ALTERNATE PROMPTS:
ALT 1: environmental whump
ALT 2: pregnancy
ALT 3: alternate universe
ALT 4: lazarus
ALT 5: auction
ALT 6: live broadcast
ALT 7: the devil you know
ALT 8: child soldier
ALT 9: you would have loved this
ALT 10: flu
RULES
soft rules:
prompts should be answered in the form of whump
creators can produce any kind of media they want
you don't have to complete all the prompts to take part
you can use the prompts after the event ends
you can complete the prompts in tandem with any other event
you can post to any platform you want, however this blog will only be sharing links and prompt fills posted to tumblr
if you want to be featured on the hall of fame, you must inform this blog by the 3rd of march that you have completed all of the days using the provided form
if you have questions, consult the faq before asking
hard rules:
to be a completionist, you must complete all 28 prompts, in order, in whatever medium you want, before the end of the event
(specifically for being featured on the blog)
when uploading febuwhump content to tumblr, please use the tags:
febuwhump (or febuwhump2026)
the relevant day's tag e.g. febuwhumpday1, febuwhumpday2...
nsfw (if relevant)
any important trigger warnings
you can also tag the blog: @febuwhump
I cannot guarantee your work will be archived on the blog. a random selection of properly tagged works will be reblogged every day of february
Confirmed in game: magic users are rare in the Twisted Wonderland universe 📝
We have known this for a while from the novel (official translation below), but this might be the first time that it has been said in-game that magic users are actually the minority in Twst, with the majority of people being magicless, like the prefect 🦐
Okay so this may very well fit into the category of things only I will care about, but this post and a comment on it gave me the urge to do calculations, because visualizing population numbers is hard and also surreal, and so, I already made a comment but I'm going to ramble for longer (and make corrections): how many mages are there in Twisted Wonderland, then? Like, literal numbers?
The real world population as of right now is 8.265 billion, growing quickly as compared to 6.162 billion in 2000 and 3.022 billion in 1960. Presuming that TWST world is somewhat comparable to ours, let's aim low and say that their non-fae population is 5 billion people or so. We know that fae (who are naturally born with magic) are an extreme minority, so let's say they comparatively number in the one or two digit millions. Even that might be too generous, but let's say Briar Valley alone has the population of...Transylvania, because why not. That's 6.5 million.
That's also besides the point. So the novel isn't strictly canonical and also canonically the ghosts are guesstimating, but say we accept that about 10% of humans are mages. Is this the same percentage for beastfolk and merfolk, I wonder? Who knows, but I'll just say 10% for them too. That makes 500 million mages in the world. Going back to real-world data according to the UN, about 16% of the world population are ages 15-24. Including internships, the traditional age for students at NRC is 16-20; let's call that 8% of the population. Assuming all high schools operate about like this, that's 40 million high-school-age students who have magic. Out of those, as said in the novel, we're told that most don't have much magic to speak of...spitballing here, what if it's 20% who have enough magic to potentially be able to get into an elite magic school, if they have the skills and whatever other special sauce that goes into this selection, we're down to 8 million.
In the novel, NRC was said to have a total of 800 students, including those in internships. In the game, we're given a rough number back in the Spectral Soiree event, 1-9: after every student but 11 of them were pulled into the ghost realm via the Magic Mirror, and then, Floyd proposes just smashing the mirror to see what happens, and then everyone rejects that idea and Jamil say "you can't just roll the dice with 600 lives!" Confirming that the number of students on campus in roughly 600. Assuming 200 per grade, this also agrees with the 800 number. And so, to the point, this means that out of 40 million mage-wielding high schoolers, NRC is 0.002% of them, and out of this theoretical 8 million that have anything close to a shot at the elites, NRC is 0.01%.
So now, what number does that make for all the elites? If RSA also has 800 students, this makes 1600 for the top two boys' schools in the world (assuming RSA is also male, I don't think this has been confirmed technically). Now, canon gives us literally nothing for the girls except the assumption that there's something out there and this society isn't that sexist, but I like to headcanon that there are elite all-girls schools in the mix too (except they're not as old as the boys schools because hundreds of years ago there was a stigma and like much of the real world, most girls didn't go to school at all and also 'no daughter you can't learn magic, no one will marry you and you'll become an old witch in the woods!' because in this little fanfic of mine that's this world's equivalent to the 'old maid' thing. Anyways I'm getting off track).
Let's say there's two schools for the girls too that are the elite of the elite, and they total 3200! So now, altogether, that makes 0.008%, out of 40 million. Out of 8 million, that's 0.04%.
Suffice to say, if that's the case, these guys really are the elite of the elite, aren't they? (seriously though raven-at-the-writing-desk was right this really is a small school, like this is smaller than my public high school. They have entire pocket dimensions and for what?? Granted, it seems like Heartslabyul is the only dorm to not have empty rooms. Maybe they could be bigger. Maybe the other theoretical schools up top are bigger than NRC, too. Who knows. Fun to think about, though!)
Been thinking about Roaring Dragons, Soaring Suns by @therosefrontier and her TWST x HSR au series is once again living in the forefront my brain.
This being specifically from chapter 3 of until we find our place (on the path unwinding). Baby "I've never played a game in my life" Dan Heng getting friendship-adopted so immediately by the lion kiddos warms my heart.
(The girl on the right is Rosebud's OC Naia, who is twst!Nala)
continuing to catch up on things, including Skully officially joining the haunted shed in the back of campus that Crowley forgot about Ramshackle Gang!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
No. 2: “You’ve got a lot of nerve to dredge up all my fears.”
Prophecy | Sewer | Taking Accountability
[That scene in Arc 2, Chapter 4 with Erin and Tess in the cave]
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Erin could still hear Tess’s voice.
He had no control of his body, though, which was a feeling that he was already far too familiar with, right along with the infuriating sound of the Void Dragon’s voice being spoken through his mouth. Of course, he would take over again. Why wouldn’t he? Erin was weak—he couldn’t handle the fight with that Paladin who attacked them on the boat, and he couldn’t keep the storm at bay, either. He was injured, he lost all his energy, and so, the Void Dragon took him.
Erin felt a large and painful jolt of electricity shoot through his chest, and he felt like he could smile in satisfaction at the Dragon’s shocked and pained cries that came from it, if only he could. Yeah, don’t underestimate Tess. It was unfortunate that it was painful for him too, but, he was used to it. He was glad that Tess was keeping the Void Dragon trapped here, so he couldn’t take his body and fly off. Erin didn’t even want to think about what he’d do with it, after that… There was a reason why he used the lightning magic trick to stop him back then, too, although he was expecting a more…well, permanent result. Down there deep in the Caves, he didn’t expect Kendal and Alinua to find him, and frankly, he didn’t think that they’d try. He had only just met them, so he really had no idea yet just high their altruism and how terribly low their self-preservation truly was. It…worked for them, though. They found him, without getting terribly hurt or killed themselves, and so, Erin lived to see another day. In that moment, he was so sure that dying was his only option—the Void Dragon had fully taken over his body, and the primordial had already spilled his plans on what basically amounted to destroying the whole world, so honestly, he had nothing to lose. With what little control he could grasp of his limbs and his magic, he made a closed loop and poured the power of lightning into it, immobilizing him completely. It was a really ingenious plan, too, if he did say so himself. A testament to whatever strength of will he still had left.
Right now, however, he didn’t think he could rely on himself to do anything like that. He didn’t have the energy in him to reach out and grab one last iota of control from the Void Dragon’s grasp. He could barely even make out the conversation that he and Tess were having right now as they fought. He was only a useless husk pushed to the back of his own mind, a feeling that was already reminding him too much of those countless hours he wasted away in his bed as a child, sick and suffering from a magic that was too much for his body to hold. He remembered barely being able to move his limbs at all, much less without pain, forever aware of how pitiful he was compared to what his father wanted him to be.
He thought, finally, he was past that. With the help of the seals drawn all over his arms, he was finally as strong as he wanted to be, becoming the respected elemental magus that represented the very pinnacle of what humanity could do. Going into the Storm was his greatest chance to prove himself. He studied and prepared for many months, determined to finally do what everyone else had failed to do before, and he did it. He did the impossible. He went to the center of the Storm and removed the seal. He proved that his efforts were never for nothing, and that the power he was born with was a tool he could use, and not a burden to suffer through.
It was a shame that all of that was a lie.
How laughable, really. Truly laughable. All those centuries of the Academy studying the Storm and declaring that someone would one day find its center, and they had no idea that it was nothing but a trap set by the Void Dragon. Erin had no idea. Really, that made his efforts even less than nothing—his only accomplishment was to put the world in danger by breaking a seal that should never have been broken.
He…started to hope that at the very least, he could handle this. He just had to get to the monks, and they would help him. He could seal the Dragon again. He could be a guide for his new companions and help Kendal on his quest like he promised he would. He could…do something.
But who was he kidding? Even if he was awake right now, he’d be useless.
“You really have a lot of nerve, you know,” Erin spoke inside his mind, with the feeling of a bitter smile that he couldn’t express in his shapeless form. “I was always afraid of somehow becoming helpless again, and here you are, using me like your puppet. You really think that I’d just let that happen to me again?”
There was no answer from the Void Dragon this time, which was fine. It was a bit of a weak threat, and also, he really shouldn’t talk about his fears like that. It showed too much weakness, although he had a feeling that the dragon already knew all that from living inside his head, anyways, so what was the point?
Then, he felt the Void Dragon pull back. In a flash, his own consciousness was pushed forward into its usual spot in its place, which surprised him, as he really hadn’t been paying enough attention to what was going on with that fight and Tess’s stubborn arguing with the equally persistent dragon, but soon, he was waking up in his own body, with Tess hovering over him.
Waking up, he immediately decided that he really didn’t feel like talking right now, but of course, he did so anyways, because it wasn’t like there was anything else he could do. Deep down, he was glad Tess was here and that she was safe, but he didn’t have it in him to say that. He just couldn’t handle this at all. He was tired and frustrated, and learning that the ship was gone and Tess had no idea where the others were only made things worse. They were stranded on an island; the others were probably badly hurt and currently in some kind of trouble somewhere; and it was all Erin’s fault. Yes, he could admit it. It was his idea to travel by sea right away, even through the dangerous storm, because he assured himself that he could keep the storm at bay and that the ride would be restful enough for everyone else. And he could handle the storm, and he did, until that Paladin showed up and attacked him, which was, of course, also his fault! The Paladin was after the Void Dragon, and that meant everyone else also got in the line of fire, and to top it off, Erin couldn’t handle the storm at the same time. He was also sure that the Paladins only knew that he was the Void Dragon’s vessel because of what happened at Zuurith, which was, again, a place that they had only visited at all because of his idea, and him getting possessed again that wasn’t even the half of what made that whole trip so disastrous.
He told her that she should have left him behind. Holding back tears, his head throbbing as cold sweat slid down his face, while he lay there on his back uselessly on the floor of the cave, he admitted that this was all his fault, and he knew it. Why keep pretending? It was one thing when his impatience caused him to hurt himself; it was another thing when he dragged everyone else down with him. It made Tess angry, to hear him talking like that, but surely, she of all people should know how much he wasn’t worth the trouble.
“Come on, you have to eat something.”
“But I…I already ate a little. I’m not hungry. Really.”
Erin felt like he was going to throw up. The sleep he just had seemed to do nothing to stop his splitting headache or the fact that his hands and feet felt like they were on fire, and all he wanted was to go to sleep again and hope he would actually stay asleep this time. But…he couldn’t. He had to eat. He had to get out of bed, eventually.
“That was barely two bites,” Tess said with a sigh. “I guess I’ll just make something else…”
“N-No! It’s…it’s fine. I’ll eat it.”
He didn’t want her to have to do extra work. He also remembered that he had to get better quickly for her sake, too, or else, his dad would blame her again for him being sick, and say she wasn’t taking care of him well enough…
So, he forced himself to eat the soup, hoping it would stay down this time. He was happy, too, when she came back from putting the dishes away, to climb onto the foot of his bed and sit cross-legged on the edge, signaling that now they could just talk or play a game and not worry about anything else. He liked spending time with her, like that…his mom always treated them like siblings, and he liked calling Tess his sister, even if that wasn’t technically true…
Erin kept telling himself that he would ask, one day. Tess mentioned something about her home, once, and now he kept thinking about it. He…never really thought about it before, because lot of people bought metal-caste people as servants, so when he was little, he thought that was just what all of them were, but…Tess had a home, once. A different home. Her real home.
One day, Erin would ask Tess about her family. He just didn’t have the courage to do that today.
“The similarities aren’t lost on me,” he said with the faintest hint of a rueful smile, after Tess, rightfully, angrily pointed out every reason he had to not force himself to crawl out of this cave to fix the mess he made with his own two hands. He couldn’t move, right now, much less cast a single spell. His seals were broken; his soul channels were blown. He couldn’t do a single thing, no matter how hard he wanted to. “You know, the overchannel actually feels very similar to the headaches I used to—”
“Nobody forces me to do anything, anymore,” Tess interrupted him, her pupil-less glare intense as she looked back at him. “Don’t force me to hold you back.”
It was enough to make Erin regret what he said, if only a little.
“I’m sorry I said that,” he said, genuinely. He just…he hated beinglike this, but that wasn’t Tess’s fault. It never was. “You were never what was holding me back.”
He was tired. He was so terribly, agonizingly tired. But that didn’t mean he had to stop. He…he could handle this. Even if he couldn’t move, even if he couldn’t use his magic. He could still think. He could make a plan…or, rather, he and Tess could make a plan, together.
No matter how hard it was to say it, or how much he really would rather she be free from him for good if it meant she wouldn’t have to deal with this mess he pulled himself into, he was glad, at the very least, that he had his sister here with him, now. It was leagues better than walking into a storm alone.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
No. 1: “Please don’t cry”
Lamb to Slaughter | Ceremony | Beg for Forgiveness
[Luo Li, Post-Ruins Incident]
[1682 words]
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It felt like Luo Li’s mom had fussed more over her in these past three days than she had over the past three years, and in these past few hours leading up to the memorial service, her not-so-subtle intensity only rose.
“Loli! Come over here, let me fix your collar. And…oh, your hair must have been messed up by the wind. Here, I’ll fix that for you!”
Luo Li stood still and expressionless, letting her mom ‘help’ her with her appearance for the hundredth time today, as if anyone here was going to judge them for how well they wore their funeral clothes, but she also knew deep down that that wasn’t what this was about. The reason her mom did this must have been the same reason why she kept asking if she was hungry or thirsty or hot or cold or why she kept talking about the weather and how the flowers looked and all the superficial and barely noticeable ways the cemetery looked different now compared to how it did when Grandma died ten years ago and how different it was to have so many people show up for the ceremony, over and over again, as if she needed some words to fill the silence but never could think of anything good to say. Maybe, it was also the reason why she kept staying close to Luo Li all the time and kept looking at her with that painfully shaky smile, as if she were afraid that, at any moment, Luo Li would disappear when she wasn’t looking. It was…a strange feeling, really. Luo Li didn’t have any problems with her mom, but they weren’t exactly all that close, either. She was used to her mom paying no attention at all to the projects Luo Li worked on every day, never remembering anything that Luo Li did tell her and sometimes over the dinner table laughing and saying how smart she was before asking her some question about if she decided on a career path yet and clearly not believing her when Luo Li gave the same answer that she always gave. Even after her big debut with her fight with DJ Shindig at the lab, her mom still didn’t believe it. She never said so outright, but Luo Li could see the doubt clearly in her eyes and her tone—she was still just that little kid with little kid dreams to her, and maybe she loved that kid, but that’s not what Luo Li was anymore.
She meant what she said, and nothing changed. Not then, not now. Especially not now. Luo Li was going to be a hero, and no number of monsters were ever going to persuade her otherwise.
Very few people saw the bodies before they were cremated, not even her mom. She didn’t take it well…although Luo Li imagined that if she saw Dad’s mutilated body, she would have taken it even worse. “What…what do you mean he’s already gone? Can’t I see him? It’s…it’s only been a day! You’re not supposed to do it that soon! His spirit…he…he wouldn’t be able to…”
Her mom was far from the type of person who cared about traditions or religion, but in that moment, it was like something snapped in her, and she cared a lot about the old ideas of giving the soul time with the body before ascending or having a traditional wake. Maybe it was because she didn’t know what else to say. When she had that frenzied conversation with the representative from the Commission, Luo Li watched from behind her and did nothing. She did nothing as that guy gave some half-baked explanation about ‘special circumstances’ and did nothing as he lied through his teeth about the researchers’ unfortunate death by ‘the alien monsters’ and said that the Hero Affairs Commission honored their sacrifice and was deeply sorry for the tragedy, but there was nothing to worry about now, because all the monsters had been vanquished.
Luo Li had to stay silent, when he said that, because otherwise, she would have been tempted to rip that liar’s throat out on the spot.
It was infuriating just how easy it was for the Commission to sell this story. Luo Li saw the news reports spread about the so-called ‘Ruins Incident’ and watched magazines and billboard’s everywhere show Nice’s asshole face with fake pictures of him fighting off the ‘monsters’ that they conveniently made up and being the hero who saved the day, and the worst part was that everyone believed it. Even her mom believed it! Or, if she didn’t, it wasn’t like she told Luo Li otherwise. She never talked about any of the important things. She barely talked about her dad, much less how he died. At first, after she raced to the hospital, after first learning about what happened by the news, of all places, she had a million frenzied questions about what happened, but after being denied seeing the body, she just…stopped.
“There’s so many people here…” Mom said breathlessly, for the hundredth time, looking around at the other attendees of the memorial ceremony, which they were doing not just for her dad, but for all the other researchers who died. Da Xiong, Guiying, Li Nuan… all of them had been slaughtered, too.
Luo Li subtly clenched her fist tightly, keeping herself calm. Keeping herself from screaming again. Nothing about this was right. They had all been murdered, and for what? To stop them from seeing the alien ship? To keep them from looking too closely into Fear? To tell the world that it was too dangerous to look any closer? This entire expedition happened because the Commission asked for it! Was it all a trap from the start!? Or was it all just…infighting? Luo Li still didn’t have all the answers—she didn’t even have a fraction of them. She didn’t understand why they did this, and she was torn between wanting to demand that they tell her why and knowing that she didn’t care about the answer. All that mattered was the thought of Nuonuo, fighting for her life in that hospital room, of Da Xiaong, reduced to a bloody, mangled corpse, and of her father, who was stabbed in the back right in front of her, doing what Luo Li should have been able to do…protecting Nuonuo. If she had been faster, she could have saved them. If Nice hadn’t been there, she could have dealt with that gang of men with black masks sooner, before anyone got killed. She was supposed to protect them. That was all she wanted to do. That was what she as a hero should have been able to do. And what did it all turn into? Her getting overwhelmed, fighting other so-called ‘heroes.’
Luo Li didn’t have the answers. All her life, ever since seeing Queen’s speech on TV, she wanted to be a hero. This was what fueled her to aim higher, become stronger, become braver, from the time she was a kid protecting Da Xiaong from the school bullies to the many days and weeks she spent perfecting her power armor to the day she used that armor for the first time to protect Nuonuo and fight off her ‘stalker.’ It gave her resolve, to push back against all her dad’s protests, because she knew, one day, she would prove to him and Mom both that she could do this.
Except now, she would never get the chance.
She never imagined, even in her worst nightmares, that it would end like this. She knew the world could be a dangerous place—that was why they needed heroes—but she never dreamed that they were ever in danger, and she never would have thought that the heroes would be her enemies. If they did this, then what else did they do? Is this the first time that people got killed like this, just because they were in the way? Luo Li hated not knowing what was going on with them and not really knowing who was an ally or an enemy, but she did know at least two things, from what happened in those ruins: Little Johnny, Ghostblade, Queen, and Lucky Cyan helped them, and Nice and E-Soul could rot in hell.
She still hadn’t forgiven Ghostblade for being a creep, obviously, but she’d be willing to work with even him, if it meant fighting back against the people who did this, assuming that he or anyone else even would. Whatever the rest of them did, it wouldn’t matter, though. Luo Li would fight the world alone if she had to.
“We are gathered here today to remember the people of the Ruins expedition team, whose lives were tragically lost in their mission to explore the unknown, which was not only for the Hero Affairs Commission or even for this country, but for the betterment of all humankind. Their courage and bravery will never be forgotten…”
Luo Li’s mom was trembling. Quietly, without looking at her, Luo Li took her hand and held it, just like her mom used to do for her, when she was little, because…that was all she could think of to do.
Nothing she could do would ever bring them back. Nothing she could say would ever make this better. But, that didn’t mean she was powerless. Luo Li wasn’t going to let those murderers get away with what they did. And she wasn’t going to sit back and watch them hurt anyone else. Even if her mom and Nuonuo were the only people she had left in her life to fight for, that was enough. She was going to bring those monsters down, or she would die trying.
She would never dare tell her mom her plans for the future, this time. She would never tell her what she wanted to do, to make this right. But it was a promise, all the same.
They were going to regret this, and Loli was going to be a hero that they would never forget.
dededos
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