Someone Will Arise- But It Won’t Be You
NOT A PR0MPT
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“It never gets easier,” Leader said, “seeing them go. You think about their bravery, their selflessness, and you think, ‘How unfair?’ It’s never easy to grieve them.”
Sidekick nodded along as they watched Hero’s casket lower into the ground. “How do you get through it?” Leader was old- a mentor to tens of heroes before Hero, and Sidekick could never imagine living through so much sorrow.
“You understand it, then you come to terms with it. None of them died in vain, but they would if we were to deny their deaths. You must face it,” Leader explained. “Only then can you honor them.”
“Do you think the villains ever regret killing our heroes?” After seeing so many people at the funeral, even Sidekick felt guilty. For what, they weren’t sure. It felt like they could have done something- could have asked what Hero was up to before they left base so suddenly.
Leader’s eyes never strayed from their neutral squint, but they found Sidekick’s eyes. “I think villains have a cause of their own, and though our heroes’ deaths are necessary to them, they grieve the messages they failed to send with their deaths.”
“Will we ever find them?” Sidekick asked. “The messages the villains can’t send?”
Looking back to the arch of the lid, Leader watched Hero disappear beneath the dirt. They let out a breath. “What do you define a villain as?”
It was a change of subject, but Sidekick thought about it. “Someone evil. Someone who kills. Someone hopeless. Someone who has stopped caring about happy endings.” They could ramble on and on.
With a hum, Leader said, “Maybe you’re right.” The funeral company was lessening, leaving Leader, Sidekick, the and gravediggers among polished headstones. “You can never be sure, can you? Some of them have everything they could ever want, and that is precisely why they turn to villainy. Imagine,” they said, “never having to fight for anything at all. How miserable.” As if they felt Sidekick’s curious stare, they defended, “I don’t condone villainy, of course.” They shrugged. “But I understand it.”
As the dirt was beat flat atop Hero’s casket, Sidekick asked, “What happens now, then?”
Hero was gone, and in their place, no one volunteered their bravery. Villain was loose with no one to stop them.
“Someone else will arise. They’ll listen to our villains, they’ll understand, and like every hero before them, they’ll die.”
Wise. That’s what Leader was supposed to be, but speaking to them now, Sidekick was only confused. Why did Leader expect every hero to die?
“What if I became the next hero of the city?”
“You wouldn’t deserve that,” they remarked. “But I know someone who does.”
******
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Hey guess who's been scribbling again
Been a while since I've done this and thought I'd share. We got Morgana and Koromaru from the Persona series, Hopeful from the @/ihopeso comic (which is amazing btw go look at that right now) and some random doggos and stuff for a fun project I might start soon.
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