Chapter Text
The guardian’s floor was oddly quiet; Mane wasn’t speaking for once. He was seated on the couch, staring at the ceiling as if he were being possessed.
Rejoice, who was next to him with Tai’s head on his shoulder, was messing with Tai’s hair. Tai, in question, was glaring at Rejoice, even though he didn’t look like he was going to move away.
The others, who were spread around the room, with Sharpness upside down on the couch, while Judelow looked at him with a judgmental expression.
The silence was, thankfully, broken by the speakers in the walls, used by an AI that essentially acts like Siri, or Alexa, whichever one you prefer. It’s typically used by the guardians to get information about reports or, for Sharpness, Mane, and Rejoice, to find out how fast it would take them to get some McDonald's.
“Guardians, directed by LettuceK, one of you has been assigned to supervise Floor 49 for approximately one month.”
That got Sharpness to sit up straight. Itzrealme, Swight, and Cynikka already knew it wasn’t going to be them, after all, they were top 1, 3, and 5. Sharpness being 2, and Tai being 4th. Lettuce wasn’t stupid enough to remove the top 5 from work to supervise a group known for chaos. He also wasn’t dumb enough to send Mane on the job, because Mane would just pamper Immortalis.
“Heliarch, you have been assigned to the job. You will be supervising them during training, missions, and overall day-to-day life. You are required to start supervising at 8 AM on the dot.”
Mane seemed to be texting his brother, while Rejoice froze, before a smirk slowly spread across his face. “Fun!”
And that was why now, Rejoice was up at 7:30 AM in his hero suit, mask on the kitchen counter, and slowly taking sips of his coffee.
He was excited to say the least.
In his defence, he’d never supervised a team before, and Floor 49 seemed fun and eventful. As much as he loves being a guardian, he can’t disagree with Mane about how Lettuce and most heroes take the job a little too seriously.
They aren’t even allowed a small party unless given permission by Lettuce.
Rejoice and Mane don’t listen to that rule, though. And what’s Lettuce going to do about it?
The guy can’t do anything, considering Rejoice is the most favoured guardian by the public. For some reason, the hero committee realised this and decided to capitalise and make merch. Sunflower plushies, hats, shirts, bags? It was mostly aimed at children, but for whatever reason, adults also got this merch.
Which is fine!
But sometimes they get this parasocial relationship with him, and it kind of gets weird, like someone tried to propose to him in the middle of a mission.
Rejoice is married.
Either way, he knew himself that the rules were extremely outdated, but whatever, he’ll follow them.
Eventually, it was time for Rejoice to start supervising Floor 49. He bounced in place as he tied his mask around his face. Heliarch walked down the hallway, bouncing lightly as he walked to the elevator.
He pressed number 49 and bounced on the ball of his foot slightly as he waited for the elevator to stop moving.
The doors opened, and he took a step into the hallway.
Huh, cute pictures.
-Wemmbu-
He and Spoke were scrolling through Amazon looking for pink fairy lights to put in Flame’s room when they heard the elevator ding. They both looked up, meeting the mask of Heliarch, and the two instantly stood up.
Wemmbu glanced over to Jumper and Squiddo, who had also stood up and were, very badly, trying to hide the painting that they were working on, a painting of Zam as handsome Squidward, because they thought it’d be funny to paint it, frame it, and hang it on the wall.
Heliarch looked at all of them; it was clear he had seen the painting by now. Wemmbu saw Spoke, at the corner of his eye, brace himself for an insult.
Heliarch chuckled, “No need to be so tense, I’m sure by now you’ve heard that I’ll be your supervisor for the next month or so.” He looked around the room again, “Can one of you get the rest of your teammates?”
Jumper nodded, heading off to the training area on Floor 49. Heliarch thanked her and turned his attention to the three that remained. He didn’t say anything, just observed them before looking down at what they were doing.
“Is that handsome Squidward?”
Squiddo brightened up, “Yes! But it’s Zam instead.” She paused, “You aren’t against that, are you?”
Heliarch shook his head. “Of course not, just wanted to know why you were painting a yellow Squidward. Looks fun.”
Wemmbu couldn’t tell if that was sarcasm or actual interest. Heliarch was hard to read, even though he seems very open about things during interviews and well missions. Another reminder that this was a guardian, the bubbly, nice personality for the public was a mask. It was no doubt he was different in private and the hero tower, but for some reason, at times, he genuinely seems interested in dumb things.
Heliarch was unpredictable; he seemed like he knew things others didn’t, and he was way too bubbly and soft in public. And somehow the public eats that shit up.
Jumper came back, the others trailing behind her: Zam, Pangi, Flame, Mapicc, Parrot, Theo, and Planet. They crowded into the room. Zam, Pangi and Flame sat on a couch, while Mapicc, Planet and Spoke all sat on the other couch. Wemmbu sat with Squiddo and Jumper on the floor next to Spoke, while Parrot and Theo stayed standing.
Heliarch tilted his head, “So who is who?”
Theo’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you need to know?”
Parrot sighed, “Because he’s supervising us, Theo. He’ll find out our identities anyway because we have to go on missions together.” Theo grunted, looking away.
Parrot looked back at Heliarch. “I’m Prismwing, Parrot, and this is Bombardier, Theo. Apologies for his attitude.” He said, bowing his head slightly in respect.
Heliarch waved his hand, “It’s okay, really, I don’t mind.”
Pangi spoke up next, raising his hand. “I’m Silverclaw,” He said, before gesturing to his right, “This is Zam, Silvertongue.”
“Hi!” Zam happily said, waving slightly.
“And this-” Pangi gestured to his left, “Is Immortalis, Flame.” Pangi softly smiled, while Flame nodded. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“I’M SPOKE!!!! Glitch, the best one here.” Spoke yelled, flinging his arms up and smacking Mapicc in the face. He laughed, “My bad, bro.”
Mapicc groaned, “I’m Mapicc, Stormspark. And this idiot, Spoke, can’t control himself!” He slapped Spoke on top of his head.
“I said I was sorry!!!”
Planet chuckled, lifting a hand at Heliarch. “I’m Planet, Gatewatch. Sorry about Spoke, he’s always like this.”
Jumper spoke up next from where she was next to Squiddo, “I’m Jumper, Springstep. This is Squiddo, Inkweaver. And that is Wemmbu, Arsenal.” She politely said, pointing to the other two as she addressed them.
Squiddo waved enthusiastically at Heliarch. “Hellooooo!!!”
“Thank you, really, I appreciate it,” Heliarch said, “Unfortunately, I am not able to take off the mask, due to orders from Lettuce and me being a guardian. So you may proceed to call me Heliarch, or anything else, really, I don’t care all too much.”
Wemmbu nodded; at least Heliarch was a nicer guardian. Not as strict. And that much was clear when he pointed to the painting, looked at Zam, and said, “That is a very nice painting of you.”
“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!” Zam yelled, Squiddo, Spoke and Jumper laughed, Spoke somehow falling onto the floor. Zam got up and grabbed the painting.
“NO, DON’T RUIN IT!!!” Squiddo shouted, “WE PUT OUR BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS INTO THAT.” She said rather dramatically.
Jumper spoke in between giggles, “Yeah, Zam. We worked hard on that, and it’s a beautiful portrait.”
“It’s handsome Squidward.”
Pangi spoke up from the couch, “It’s such a compliment, Zam. Truly, one of a kind. Can solo the Mona Lisa.”
“Exactly.” Squiddo agreed.
“D’lright,” Wemmbu said, before they all broke out into laughter. After they had finished laughing, Heliarch told them just to go back to whatever they were doing before he came over. So, the rest of Floor 49 went to continue training, while Wemmbu, Spoke, Jumper and Squiddo went back to their activities.
Squiddo and Jumper were now putting the painting into a frame that Squiddo drew into existence. While Wemmbu and Spoke continued scrolling through Amazon for the perfect pink fairy lights.
Wemmbu could see that Heliarch had taken to wandering around the floor and checking every room so he knows what it is and such. Heliarch wandered over to the kitchen, looking through whatever food they had. He opened the fridge, looking into it, before shrugging and closing the fridge door. He leaned upright, looking around and deciding to head into the training room.
Wemmbu let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Spoke from where he sat next to him, glanced up slightly, “I know, right? That felt so stressful.” He nervously giggled as he said it, flopping down onto his back on the floor.
Wemmbu chuckled, “I was so nervous, oh my lord…”
Squiddo looked up, cutting into the conversation. “It felt way too nerve-racking. I thought he was gonna yell at us for spending our time making dumb shit instead of training.”
Jumper laughed, “I thought that too! Thank god he’s chill like that.”
Wemmbu scrolled through the options once again, while Spoke and Jumper talked about this other hero whose identity they knew, someone named “Leo” who was ranked around 18th place, so naturally, he was a part of the team before the guardians.
Apparently, according to Jumper, the two had gone to the same high school, and they were friends. Because the school had required students who wanted to be heroes to work in teams of four, Jumper had teamed with Leo, Nufuli, and Derapchu. Nufuli had died after a mission on this hacker that had also included Parrot, which was how Jumper met Parrot in the first place. Jumper was banned from the group and then joined Spoke, Mapicc and Planet in a team.
This had eventually led to her being a part of Floor 49. She says she doesn’t have regrets for the whole ordeal, but Wemmbu can tell that sometimes she wonders if she would be in the same team as Leo and Derapchu if she hadn’t helped Parrot.
Wemmbu didn’t hold it against her, though; anyone would wonder what would’ve happened if whatever they had done to get into Floor 49 never happened. Wemmbu wondered every day if he wasn’t so reckless, would his mentor, Aquaforce, still be his mentor?
If Aquaforce were still his mentor, would he also be doing work in the Great Sea? Bothered by Pirate King all the time?
Questions. Questions he’ll never know the answer to.
He was pretty sure he’d be dead if he had to run into Pirate King so frequently. But after meeting Pirate King on the docks, was he really that bad?
Wemmbu has had this conversation with himself a thousand times over. Hero work has to exist. He knows that. So why did he suddenly feel doubtful? Lettuce was a great leader; in fact, Wemmbu was pretty sure he had plans to be King, but it’s possible he had heard Deputy Ace wrong.
He knew he couldn’t tell people what he had overheard from Deputy Ace; it was a rule not to listen in on Lettuce’s most trusted officials. And well, Wemmbu had done just that.
‘BEEP’
His communicator went off, Wemmbu looked up, just as Squiddo had hit the receive button for everyone.
“Floor 49 and Heliarch are assigned to District 14. Stop a group of 17 pirates from stealing the items from a hero tower warehouse. At all costs, do not let them take anything; all items are highly valuable.”
The four stood up, pulling on their masks and heading into the training room to join the others. Heliarch had them around him, and the four joined seamlessly.
“Alright, so plan-” Heliarch started before getting cut off.
“Plans don’t really work for us,” Silvertongue said.
“Then try your best to stick to it; plans don’t have to go perfectly, just make sure you stay as close as possible to it.”
That certainly shut Silvertongue up.
They devised a plan; Arsenal, Silvertongue, Gatewatch, Inkweaver, and Prismwing would sneak into the warehouse, and they would knock out any stragglers and arrest them without anyone noticing. Immortalis, Bombaridier, Stormspark, and Glitch would cause a distraction. Heliarch will be joined with Silverclaw and Springstep to stop any of the packages from getting out of the warehouse.
Gatewatch made a portal, letting everyone go through. Once everyone was in the building near District 14’s warehouse, they split off into their teams, running off to start the plan.
Arsenal ran alongside Prismwing, who wasn’t flying solely because it was a stealth mission and they couldn’t make too much noise. It seemed Prismwing thought the plan was good enough not to change, which was one of the reasons his mentor had left him.
Prismwing was prideful. Even if he seemed like he wasn’t, it seems like he was the one member of Floor 49 keeping things afloat, which he mostly was. But Prismwing was prideful. It was how Nufuli had died when they were in high school. Prismwing had seen a plan and realised it wasn’t going to work. Still, instead of telling the whole crew, he had just told Springstep, and it eventually turned into the railgun they had made, accidentally killing Nufuli instead of the target.
Prismwing and Springstep said that they hadn’t built the railgun to be able to kill someone; he was just supposed to stun them long enough to get handcuffs around the villain’s wrists. But they had accidentally left the railgun charging for so long that the shock's voltage was so powerful it killed Nufuli.
So, Prismwing not changing the plan that Heliarch had given them was an awfully GREAT sign. This made Arsenal a bit suspicious of the situation at hand. As Silvertongue had said, Floor 49 didn’t do well with plans, and the fact that they were following one made Arsenal uneasy.
But he trusted Prismwing’s judgement, so if he thought it was good, then Arsenal had no reason to disagree. They walked over to the back door of the warehouse. If Immortalis’ team had done its job correctly, then the coast should be clear.
Inkweaver drew up a picklock, crouching in front of the door and picking the lock carefully. Gatewatch couldn’t portal through them through the door; it would make too much noise, and he doesn’t know what the inside of the warehouse looks like, so he couldn’t do it anyway.
The door opened, and the group stepped inside the warehouse. They were met with shelves that reached the ceilings, boxes that seemed to be filled with medical supplies, medicine, etc. Some of the medicines included cooling supplements, very expensive, and this was the reason why Immortalis had a Glitch exploit cooling supplements so that Immortalis could take them.
The pirates were probably taking things because of how expensive these were. Cooling supplements alone were like $150 for ONE BOTTLE of the pills! Alongside very expensive medical tests, so that they could tell which cooling supplement you need. It was no wonder that these pirates were taking some of these medical supplies.
Silvertongue was the first to move towards a shelf, looking through the gaps. “They’re in the middle.” He whispered. Gatewatch joined him at the shelf, looking at the pirates. Gatewatch hummed.
“Only seems to be around 5 of them. The rest must be dealing with Glitch’s group, and some may be dealing with Heliarch, Sliverclaw and Springstep.” Gatewatch said, turning back to the group. “How do we want to go about this?”
They all looked to Prismwing, who gladly spoke up. “We’re going to split, and each take a place surrounding the middle. Inkweaver will cause a distraction, and then we’ll sneak in and knock them out.” He said, glancing towards the pirates. “They seem to be distracted anyway, but it’d be better if they were all facing the same direction.”
Inkweaver nodded, “I’ll take the right.” She said, leaving no room for argument.
Silvertongue spoke, “You didn’t even let us talk-, eh, it’s fine, where do you guys want to go?”
Arsenal shrugged, “Wherever. Though there are like 4 of us still, so who's sitting this one out?”
Prismwing lifted a hand, “I’ll stay here, keep a watch out and tell you when to start the plan.”
Gatewatch nodded, “I can go to the opposite side. Silvertongue, I guess you'll stay here with Prismwing? At least until he says when to go knock them out.” Gatewatch calmly explained, “And Arsenal, that means you take the left.”
Arsenal nodded, “D’lright, bro.”
They all moved to follow the plan, each going in their directions. Gatewatch followed Inkweaver to make his way around to the opposite end of Prismwing and Silvertongue. Arsenal, meanwhile, was alone, walking to the left side.
Eventually, he had made it to the left side, hidden behind a pillar. He clicked his communicator, “Made it.”
Gatewatch’s voice came in afterwards, “Same, Ink, you ready?”
“Aye, aye, captain.”
Prismwing spoke next, “Inkweaver, distraction, a noise, anything works.” He calmly said, “The pirates are on their phones, but one is sharpening a dagger, so be careful.”
“Alright,” Inkweaver said in return. A loud bang rang throughout the warehouse, and Arsenal peeked around the corner. The pirates seemed to be freaking out, yelling in the direction from which Inkweaver made the noise.
Prismwing’s voice cut through the communicator, “Go.”
Arsenal crept forward, silently taking quick steps. He glanced to his right and left, noticing that both Gatewatch and Silvertongue were also creeping forward. Arsenal reached the middle, creating a pan in his hands, and the other two also held up their weapons. With a countdown from three on Silvertongue’s fingers, Arsenal slammed the pan down onto one of the bandits' heads; the other two did the same.
Arsenal didn’t need to think about his next move, quickly jumping over the unconscious man and slamming the pan on top of another pirate's head. The other pirate dug a dagger into Arsenal’s side.
He gasped at the cold feeling of the metal being twisted in his side. The dagger was ripped out quickly, and the pirate was kicked in the head. Silvertongue looked down at the guy, putting handcuffs around the man's wrist.
Pirsmwing grabbed his shoulders, helping Arsenal lie on the ground. He was saying something, but Arsenal couldn’t read his lips. His head felt fuzzy, and he looked around in a daze, noticing that Inkweaver was crouching down next to him, checking his pulse. Gatewatch seemed to be clicking handcuffs around some pirates' wrists.
Arsenal breathed heavily, trying to sit up. Prismwing didn’t let him, pushing him back down as he told Inkweaver something. Inkweaver ran off quickly, heading to one of the shelves. When she came back, Gatewatch and Silvertongue were helping Prismwing keep Arsenal sitting up, unzipping his hero suit to the waist so they could see the nasty wound.
Arsenal’s eyes felt heavy.
The world went black.
-Flame-
Immortalis had just split off from the rest of the team. He, along with Bombardier, Stromspark, and Glitch, walked to the warehouse entrance to begin the plan.
“It's probably a good idea if we try to make it seem like we’re stopping them, so we don’t look like we’re just a distraction,” Immortalis said, not even looking at the other three.
Stormspark spoke up next, “Good idea, but how do we even make it seem like that?” He asked, “Us coming from the entrance seems a bit unusual, no?”
“We should go through the roof.” Glitch said, pointing up, “What?” He asked when they all looked at him in silence.
“Bro, it would take way too much time to get Stormspark and Immortalis there. I can fly, but you guys would take too long.” Bombardier explained, “And Glitch, you are NOT wasting your energy on a little teleportation or flight.”
Immortalis hummed, “Yeah, bro. It’s not a good idea for all of us to go onto the roof. Though Bombardier can, and we could go through the main entrance? Make it look like an ambush.”
Stormspark nodded, “Yeah, good idea, we should probably start now, we don’t really know if Prismwing’s crew has started yet.”
Bombardier took to the skies without warning, landing on the warehouse roof with barely any care for noise. Glitch ran to the door, swung it open and yelled: “HI HI HI!!!”
Stormspark electrocuted two of the pirates who came rushing forward. Bombardier, meanwhile, knocked out a pirate with a kick from the sky. Glitch ran from two of the pirates, leading them outside the warehouse. Immortalis ran from a group of 5 pirates, bringing them outside, along with Glitch. 10. 7 pirates were still chasing them. 3 of them were unconscious. From what Immortalis could see from the corner of his eye, 5 pirates stayed behind to watch the items.
The other two that should’ve been there were nowhere in sight.
Immortalis internally shrugged. Heliarch, Silverclaw and Sprigstep will deal with it.
The cold air hit his skin when he stepped outdoors. Immortali sharply turned around, hands curling around a pirate’s wrist and flipping him over his shoulder and slamming him onto the ground.
Stormsparks' electricity shot past Immortalis, hitting a pirate and causing them to pass out while twitching on the floor. Bombardier came in from the skies, jumping onto one of the pirates and forcing them onto the ground.
Glitch shrieked from where he was, “YO, A LITTLE HELP, PLEASE.” He dodged a knife while Stormspark went running to help him with the two pirates.
That left Immortalis and Bombardier with the other two. To say the fight was easy was probably an overstatement.
Immortalis and Bombardier got the pirates unconscious rather quickly, slipping handcuffs onto their wrists. Looking over his shoulder to check on Glitch and Stormspark, it seemed that they were still dealing with the last one.
Bombardier looked at him, pointing at the other two. “Should we help them?” He asked.
“Nah. They can handle it, bro.”
“Okay.” Bombardier shrugged, accepting the decision and handcuffing the last few pirates on the ground.
Around the time they had finished, Glitch and Stormspark jogged over to join them.
“So like, what now?” Glitch asked, confusion lacing his words.
Bombardier shrugged again, “I think we just sit here and wait for the others to say they’re done?” He said, “We can’t exactly just walk back in, especially if Prismwing and that are still doing their job.”
Stormspark spoke up, “Okay. Wanna play Uno?”
“You brought Uno cards on a mission?” Immortalis deadpanned. “Are you dumb, bro?”
Stormspark scoffed, “I am not dumb, and hey, it’s useful now.” He pulled out the box from his pocket. “You gonna play or what?”
“Yeah, sure.”
-Rejoice-
‘BANG’
Another bullet grazed his mask as he tried to dodge the thing. Heliarch was currently chasing down two of the pirates, one of whom had a gun and was obviously targeting him, specifically.
Silverclaw, at least, seemed to be fine; he was chasing them on the ground, while Heliarch was jumping along roofs. He was doing a great job; Silverclaw’s scales adapted to the bullets quickly, which, in turn, made the pirate with the gun turn on Heliarch instead.
As for Springstep, she was running across the opposite buildings from Heliarch, occasionally jumping down to attack the other pirate. The pirate had a sword, engaging in the fight. Springstep would’ve already had that pirate taken care of if it wasn’t for the gun pirate shooting at her, forcing her to back up.
They were pretty much in a stalemate. They couldn’t let the pirates get to the great sea, but the pirates wouldn’t let them get loose enough to get a hit on them. Of course, Heliarch could use his power, but he didn’t know which petal to take off the flower.
See, his power was very strong; he supposes that’s the effect of being a descendant of an original guardian. His family had stayed in the tradition of marrying someone with nature-related powers, which caused Helirch’s powers to stay pure; in a sense, his power was stronger than most.
Almost the same as his ancestor, though he still has backlash from overuse.
Heliarch’s power would make a sunflower, 34 to 89 petals; he couldn’t control how many petals, but it was around that many. Essentially, each petal is a different power; if Heliarch rips a petal off the sunflower, he gains that power for around 5 minutes.
Yes, it’s overpowered.
Heliarch knows.
But he has to be incredibly careful with his power. Heliarch would NEVER make more than one at a time. If someone else got their hands on a sunflower, they would essentially have access to 89 different powers.
Heliarch refused to let that very possible outcome come to life.
So he may have lied to Lettuce about his sunflower-making process. Saying that he threw up like 10 times after making one sunflower. Gravemind had, thankfully, backed him up on that point and helped convince Lettuce to let Heliarch make only one at a time.
Heliarch was also incredibly annoying about it.
To be fair, Lettuce probably would’ve used the sunflowers for something terrible. Power tended to do that to people. He was already half sure that Lettuce was going crazy with power, but Heliarch was probably wrong, and he was going to stay anyway because Overrule was staying.
Heliarch shook his head, turning his head in the direction of where the pirates were. Heliarch jumped over a gap between the buildings, and he almost missed the ledge. He’ll admit it. But he caught himself, so it was fine.
The pirates were still running, and Heliarch could spot the ocean blue in the distance. They had to do something, now.
Which petal.
C’mon, think, Heliarch.
Huh.
That works.
Heliarch ripped off a petal from the sunflower, feeling the power flow through his veins. He lifted an arm, aiming his hand at the pirate with the gun, and he twisted his wrist. The gun came flying out of the man’s hands.
“Springstep, now!”
Springstep jumped off the building she was on, tackling the other pirate to the ground. Silverclaw caught up to the now unarmed pirate, clipping handcuffs onto the man's wrists, who had seemingly given up on the attempt to run away.
Heliarch jumped down to join them, “Well, that was fun!” He said, waving his arms around. “Now let’s get you two going!”
“With what vehicle?” One of the pirates said.
Heliarch chuckled, “None.” He lifted a hand again, picking the two pirates off the ground with telekinesis.
Silverclaw’s eyebrows furrowed, “Why didn’t you do that earlier?”
Springstep nodded, “Yeah, that would’ve been much easier.”
“I wanted to see how you guys problem-solve. We’ll need to work on that.”
“That was a test?”
“Mhm!”
Silverclaw and Springstep looked at each other before turning to Heliarch, who was already halfway back to the warehouse. Springstep sighed, running after Heliarch with Silverclaw.
-Parrot-
To say he was incredibly worried when Arsenal passed out was an understatement.
Luckily, Inkweaver had just come back with the medical supplies they needed to briefly patch the wounds until they could head out. So, while Inkweaver, Gatewatch, and Silvertongue worked on patching Arsenal’s wounds, Prismwing clicked his communicator.
“We’re done, you guys good?” Prismwing said into the earpiece. It took a second, but then Stormspark’s voice cut in.
“Finally, we’ve just been playing Uno this whole time.”
“How- y’know what, I’m not even going to ask.” Prismwing deadpanned, “Arsenal passed out by the way, so can you guys hurry it up?”
“What happened?” Immortalis’ voice cut through the static.
Prismwing calmly answered to the demand, “He got stabbed in the chest.”
Immortalis didn’t reply; instead, the warehouse door opened with a loud bang, and Immortalis immediately ran over to them. He crouched beside Arsenal, checking the bandages before sitting down.
Prismwing could've sworn he heard Glitch whispering to Gatewatch: “For rivals, he certainly cares for him.”
He decided not to dwell on that.
The door opened again. Springstep, Silverclaw, and Heliarch walked in. They joined the others around Arsenal. Prismwing wasn’t really listening to the conversation. In all honesty, he was much more worried about the fact that they hadn’t gotten Arsenal to the medical wing in the hero tower yet.
He could tell Immortalis thought the same, as the guy already had one arm hooked under Arsenal’s legs. So, when Gatewatch opened a portal into the hero tower, it was no surprise that Immortalis picked Arsenal up bridal style and carried him through the portal.
Prismwing glanced around the warehouse one last time, knowing that this would turn into a crime scene so the heroes could figure out what exactly the pirates wanted from here or if they had left anything behind.
“You coming?” Heliarch asked, gesturing to the portal. Prismwing nodded, walking through with Heliarch following.
The portal closed shut after them; everyone seemingly had gone to their rooms to clock out for the night. Prismwing was about to leave the floor to report to the agency the details of the mission when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
Heliarch was there, taking his hand off. “I can report to the agency, you can take a rest, Parrot. I’ll see you and the others in the morning.”
Prismwing nodded, “Thank you.” He said in a hushed tone.
Heliarch’s voice softened, “It’s no problem. You don’t have to do everything yourself.” He patted Prismwing on the head before heading into the elevator.
Taking off the mask, Parrot stepped into his room down the hallway. The room was tidy. Parrot hated messes; they overstimulated him, and although his teammates, specifically Spoke, were messy by nature, they all tried their best to keep the place tidy for Parrot.
Parrot sighed, peeling off his hero suit and changing into a hoodie and sweatpants. He walked out of his room, making his way over to where he heard the voices of his teammates.
Mapicc and Spoke were talking. Theo gestured for Parrot to settle down next to him. Parrot did, letting Theo preen his wings, while he listened to the conversation.
“Mojaja is being such assholes again!” Spoke said, hands clenching.
Mapicc sighed, “You know how the public is, Spoke. They hate us no matter what we do.”
Zam spoke up from the other couch. “Yeah, but this is worse. They’re just crediting Heliarch’s supervision for being the reason that this mission went well!”
Jumper nodded, “It’s frustrating! They don’t care that we can do good; they care that Heliarch was with us when we first did good!”
Parrot sighed deeply, “Then we’ll just have to keep doing good when Heliarch leaves.” He said, “If the public keeps saying it's because of Heliarch, then so what? Let them believe it.”
“But Parrot, I thought we wanted to have our own identity? Not be tied to someone else because they helped us once.” Jumper said, confusion mixing into her words.
“Because the public is hard to change once they’re set on an idea. Might as well not care anymore about what they think.” He paused, “As long as we’re saving lives, then it’ll be fine.”
No one spoke after that.
Eventually, one by one, people left to go to bed, leaving Parrot in the room alone. He heard the elevator ding at one point and looked up. He was met with Flame carrying Wemmbu again.
“Is he good?”
“Yeah, the knife didn’t hit anything important, so the healers decided to just put him in bandages and make it so he can’t work tomorrow.” Flame said in return. “I don’t get why they wouldn’t just heal him quick, there was like barely anyone in there, bro.”
Parrot shrugged, “Everyone hates us.”
“For no reason, bro. It doesn’t even make sense.”
“Goodnight, Flame,” Parrot replied, standing up to head to his room. “Thanks for taking care of Wemmbu.” He glanced over his shoulder.
Flame scoffed, “It was nothing.” Parrot knew he was lying. Flame walked into Wemmbu’s room to put him to bed.
Parrot wouldn’t tease Flame about it, though. He knew how hard love was.
He closed his door behind him, tugging himself into his bed. Parrot grabbed his phone, unlocking it to check his messages. He was met with Wifies’ texts, asking him how his day was, if he was okay.
Parrot replied with a tired ‘I’m okay, day went well.’ he hoped that wasn’t dry.
It was dry.
Wifies seemed to understand that he was tired, though, replying with a ‘Get some rest, darling, see u in the morning <3”
Oh, how Parrot loved this man.
He put his phone down after a quick goodnight. Parrot sighed, curling into his sheets as slumber took him away.