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catsafarithewriter · 5 years

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Prompt 13: "When I say ‘go’, run. Run and don’t look back. I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”

A/N: Heya so, reason number 3008 why I’ve been slow on this was distraction caused by the wonderful little series Emara, an animated series on YouTube about a cybernetic superheroine and, naturally, I decided to grab some of my favourite bits and apply it to a TCR setting.

Basic premise: Baron is a Creation, Haru is… part Creation, for reasons that haven’t been revealed, they’ve worked alongside each other as superheroes for a while now (Haru going by Demeter, for several reasons) but there’s definitely some ulterior motives going on.

I have a lot more ideas for this AU, so I’m hoping to carry it on/expand it.

This ended up being super long… sorry! (Like… 3.5K words long)

EDIT: If you enjoyed this, please check out the full fic it became: Do Creations Dream of Clockwork Sheep? FFNET link here and AO3 link here!

No one was quite sure where Creations came from.

Haru had spent the better part of a year gaining the trustof one, and she still couldn’t answer that. She hadn’t even been sure that theycould blend in with human society until she met Baron.

Humbert.

Baron.

Life had been so much simpler before discovering thatHumbert von Gikkingen, tea shop owner and local busybody, and Baron,self-proclaimed superhero Creation, were one and the same.

She looked to Baron now and tried to see somethingrecognisable. Beyond the feline features and wooden skin hidden behind the fur,there was little to be identified from the human she had thought she’d known.Only his eyes retained their original colour, and even they were changed;rounded and catlike and glimmering like gems. She wondered if, like his skin,his eyes were inorganic too. If, if she touched them, she would feel stone.

It had been easier when he had just been Baron.

What people didknow about Creations was limited, but there were some concrete facts. Creationswere magic. They had mostly inorganic forms – usually stone or wood, but notlimited to either – and were hardier and longer-lived than your average person.

And they certainly didn’t bleed.

Haru watched the red seeping through Baron’s jacket and triedvery hard to believe that. They didn’t bleed and they didn’t get hurt and theycertainly didn’t die on her watch. She helped Baron down to the floor behindthe desk, her hand brushing against the wound and, oh god, it certainly felt like blood. A faint tang of iron inthe air told her it smelt like blood too.

“I thought you were all wood except for the fur,” shewhispered coarsely, trying and only partly succeeding in hiding the horror.“How are you bleeding?”

Baron chuckled, and the chuckle turned into a wince. “Whatcan I say? I like finding new ways to surprise you, Miss Demeter.”

“What I’d like isfor you to shut up and try not to bleed out.”

“How about one out of two?”

“Apparently you can’t do either. How attached are you toyour jacket?”

“Is this a choice between dying and my jacket? Because myimpeccable fashion sense only goes so far.”

“I’ll take that as a negative,” Haru said, and she tore theblood-soaked jacket away to reveal the wound beneath. “Fuck.”

Baron, very carefully, didn’t look down. “That doesn’t soundencouraging.”

Haru folded up the ruined jacket and pressed it into hishand. “Keep that against the wound. Also, again: How are you bleeding?” Haru repeated. And why did there have to be so much? “Aren’t you meant to be madeof wood? Where is the blood even comingfrom?”

Baron was breathing shallowly now, his eyes diluting. “Theelectric shock – I believe it’s disrupted my magic. Can’t… can’t revert back toinorganic state.” His glassy eyes met hers with some difficulty, and heconjured up a watery smile. “But don’t tell anyone – can’t let people know I goall to pieces at a little electricity.”

Haru struggled to return the smile. If Macavity knew it wasthat easy to disrupt Creation magic… the amount that weakness alone would beworth… “How do we stop it?” she asked instead.

“It’ll wear off. In time.”

“We don’t have time. We have a mutant Creation trying to eatus.”

“When you put it like that,it sounds so unwinnable.”

“Well then, how do you suggest we stop it?” Haru snapped.“We have one crazed Creation… thingrampaging the building, you bleeding out, and I…” She finally registered thefaint but insistent beeping trying valiantly to be heard over the cacophony ofchaos on the floor below. “Oh no.” She twisted to one side and pulled up thehem of her trousers to see the light on her artificial legs fade. The strengthin her limbs gave way and she caught the edge of the desk to avoid collapsingentirely. “Oh shit.”

“Demeter?”

Haru lowered herself down. Gentle hysteria and of course this would happen nowskittered on the corner of her mind. She took a shaky breath. “And my legs havejust run out of juice. Fantastic.Perfect time to forget to bring a recharger. I don’t suppose you have one ofyour patented improvised plans in progress, do you?”

“I sling you over my shoulder and make a run for it?”

The crashing got closer. The monster Creation was workingits way up through the building and it sounded like their floor was next on theagenda.

“That would be tempting if you could even support yourself.So that’s Plan A. What’s Plan B? I sling you over my shoulder and haul us out?”

“Just one. Where do you get the magic to recharge yourlegs?”

“What?”

“Only,” and Baron sounded casual in the way that people dowhen they’ve caught someone out in a lie, “all naturally… occurring Creations,even part Creations, generate theirown magic.” Those infuriatingly contradicting gemstone eyes met Haru’s. “So whatare you?”

She held his gaze at the question she had been avoiding formonths now. Macavity supplied her the magic for her part-Creation legs, legssupplied by the same organisation that Macavity ran, but she had never receiveda straight answer for where either came from. She set her mouth in a thin line.“Right now, I’m stuck in the same situation as you. We need a plan.”

He didn’t look away. If he thought she would break down andadmit everything, then he hadn’t been paying attention these last elevenmonths. He gave a tiny nod. Not accepting her answer, but setting aside thedeceit for now. “Apart from the legs, how are you coping?” he asked. “Are youhurt?”

“I hurt like hell everywhere. But, no,” Haru added. “Nothingserious.”

Another nod. Another decision made. “Good. That’s… good.Then you should run for it before the monster Creation reaches us.”

“Weren’t you listening? My legs–” She inhaled sharply asBaron curled a hand around her ankle and a jolt of unfamiliar magic shotthrough her. Feeling flooded her limbs, her metal half-Creation legs sparkingwith white light before settling back to their usual gentle glow. “Baron? Whatdid you–”

“You needed magic. I gave you magic.” He leant back againstthe desk, his eyes dimmed in a way that was neither human nor gemstone. Helifted a hand from his side, despite the hiss of warning from Haru, and gavethat ever-familiar chuckle. “Well, would you look at that? It stopped thebleeding.”

“In the same way that removing all your blood would, yes,”Haru retorted. She shuffled closer and saw that the bloodied wound was scarredwood now. “Baron,” she said, “what does it mean when your fur is just paint?”

Baron’s breathing was definitely hollow now, like windrattling through dead branches. “It means I’m getting dangerously close tooverspending my magic budget.”

“How do we stop it?”

“You don’t. I usually sleep it off before…”

A spasm ricocheted through him and he gasped, a long andhollow gasp, and painted fur stole along his jawline. His fur – real fur, theonly luxury of the illusion of life he usually afforded – sank down, to bereplaced with paint strokes and grainlines.

“Baron?! Before? Before what?”

“Before I automatically revert,” he managed. His words cameout clumsy, like he was fighting around a numbed mouth. His hand found Haru’sand gripped it. She could feel his wooden skin beneath his glove. It felt soempty. “You need to go, before it reaches us.”

“No! I’m not leaving you.”

“The magic in your legs won’t last long before it runs out.You can’t get us both out of here.”

Haru thought back to the chalk pen and symbols she’d beentaught. To confess it now would reveal her work alongside the Cat Kingdom –official portal security identification only – but if it was between that and leaving Baron to die…

“Actually, I have a better idea.”

And that, naturally, was when the monster Creation burstthrough.

In her time working alongside Baron, Haru hadn’t really metmany Creations. Most, she assumed, kept to themselves and didn’t go out onvigilante runs, but even she could tell that there was something… off about this one. It wasn’t just thefact that it was giant, pulled out of proportion of anything approaching human,or the way it lumbered like a newborn calf, if newborn calves were in the habitof being eight feet tall bipedal monstrosities with teeth that clattered likethe unholy offspring between a chainsaw and a meat grinder. It probably wasn’teven only the way magic pulsed out from it, bleeding, tainted, like pus from aninfected wound. There was just something innately… wrong about it.

Even Haru’s first instinct to fight faltered as the creaturepulled itself up through the wreckage in the floor. “Baron. What kind ofCreation is that?”

“The monster type.”

“You don’t have a clue, do you?”

Baron coughed. “I told you; it’s a monster. Now hurry andrun before it eats you.”

“Like hell I’m doing that.” Haru brought herself to herfeet, gingerly testing her legs. Baron had been right; his magic refillwouldn’t last long. She could already feel the foreign energy depleting.

Guess she had to make it count then.

“Hey! Hey, yeah, you! Big and ugly!”

Those luminous eyes turned to her. No pupil. Why did it haveno pupil? Wasn’t it nightmare-inducing enough without? She heard Baron curse,but he wasn’t in any state to stop her exceptionally foolish plan.

“You hungry? Yeah! Then come and get me!” She threwsomething from the nearest desk for good measure – a stapler, it turned out tobe – and made a run for the window. For a moment, she heard no sound of pursuitand almost slowed to glance back to make sure she was being followed, when thefloor shook and something snagged the tails of her coat.

She spun, shaking the jacket off and kept moving. The windowneared and she leapt, twisting her legs up to shatter the glass, and twistingfurther to grab the ledge before she could fall.

A grotesque hand loomed through the window and snatched atempty air.

Haru pulled herself along, grabbing the sill of the window’sunshattered neighbour and digging her toes into the brickwork. “Come on, comeon, come on…” she murmured.

The hand retreated and silence settled. It hadn’t been enough.

Maybe she should have thrown two staplers.

Then the hand reappeared – two hands, a head, those eyes, shoulders, and the monsterCreation began to pull itself through the window.

Haru’s plan was working, but suddenly it didn’t seem so great.

It swung one giant hand her way. She leapt up out of reach,scrabbling for a handhold on the wall, and turned back to eye her pursuer.

It didn’t bat an eyelid – probably because it didn’t haveany – and sunk its claws into the wall beneath her. It released its steady holdon the window frame. It started to swing upwards, hand going for the ledgeabove, and Haru dropped.

She propelled herself down, feet first, burning through theborrowed magic as she shifted her feet into forms of spikes, and plummeted theminto the monster’s face.

There was no blood. She didn’t even feel the spikes sinkinto its sorry excuse for skin, but it howled, and those clattering, grindingteeth even gave pause, and its hold on the building slipped.

It slipped.

And it fell.

It fell and Haru was falling too. She grasped for theshattered windowsill – caught it, slipped, drew blood, and carried on falling –and then her whole body went taut as something grabbed her wrist.

Baron leant out of the window, his face more wood than furnow, but his hold sure. His mouth attempted a smile, but only one side moved.“And where do you think you’re going, Miss Demeter?”

“Up,” she gasped. “Pull me up!”

“As you wish.” Another hand joined the first, the fingerscurling uneasily around her arms – and if Haru listened, she was sure she couldhear the creak of wooden joints – but once it was secure, he hauled her inside.

She tumbled to the floor and immediately pulled herself backto the window. Baron joined her a moment later and they both admired her work.

“Do you think that worked?” Haru asked. “Is it dead?” Itwasn’t moving but, again, there was no blood.

“I think it’s stopped it for now,” Baron answered. Hestarted to move away from the window, but hesitated when Haru continued towatch. “Demeter?”

Among the crowds rapidly surrounding the fallen giant werepeople in dark grey suits. People who moved with a kind of uncanny grace amongthe frantic crowds. One man in particular moved towards the building, tall andgaunt, and turned his sunken eyes up to the destroyed floor.

Haru’s arms were shaking. She let them drop, and she droppedwith them, sinking down to the carpeted floor with no pretence of grace.“They’re coming.”

Baron continued to watch the crowds below. Haru wondered ifhe noticed the outliers amongst the onlookers, knew what they came for.Probably not. They were good at avoiding such attention. “Who?” he asked. “Thepolice? It’ll take them a little time to work their way up through the carnageour monster friend left, who knows, they might even want to congratulate us,for once–”

“No.” Haru exhaled slowly. Her legs were dead. Again.“They’re coming for you. They know you’ll be weak after that.”

“Who?” And this time there was a wariness in his question,like he knew he wouldn’t like the answer. “Who, Demeter?”

She met his gaze. Held it. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not–”

“Just like I can’t tell you that they’re coming for you. Orthat you should run.”

“Then we should both flee–”

Haru laughed. Short and harsh and more bitter than she hadmeant. “I’m not going anywhere, Baron. Not with these legs.” She grabbed hishand as he reached out. “And you’re not going to repeat your little trick fromearlier. I saw how much it took out of you. You can’t do it again.”

“Demeter, look at me,” Baron said. “I can barely stand – Icouldn’t help when the monster Creation came back for round two, and I couldbarely make it to the window in time to catch you. You’re not the only onewho’s in no fit state to run. But – if I do this – you’re the only one whostands a chance of getting out of here.”

“And that’s where you’d be wrong. Move.”

Baron hesitated, but complied, shuffling away from her. Shepulled out a chalk pen from her pocket, not missing Baron’s raised eyebrow atthe strange gem shimmering at the end. As best she could with her dormant legs,she drew a circle into the floor around her, filling the outer rim with symbolsthat had been carved well into her memory. Once done, she motioned to Baron.“Help me up.”

He did so, carefully avoiding the chalk lines. “What isthis?”

“Teleportation circle. To the Cat Kingdom.”

He inhaled sharply. “Only official portal codes can makethat jump.”

“I know.” She met his gaze, daring him to add anything else.He did not. “This one should go to the edge of the kingdom, to a safe housethat even- that nobody knows about. It only takes one at a time, so take aseat.”

“Me? But you–”

She held up the pens bejewelled end. “Portal crystal codedspecifically to me. You can’t work it, and no other magic will trigger thisportal. Go and don’t look back. I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”

He met her gaze. His eyes were entirely dulled now and shewondered if he could even see. But he nodded and gently lowered her to thefloor. “Right behind me,” he echoed.

“Like always,” she lied, and the moment he took to thecentre, she stabbed the portal crystal into the circle and Baron disappeared ina sphere of white light.

The new silence around her felt somehow heavier than thesilence shared between her and Baron, but she tried not to dwell on that.Instead, she dragged herself into the circle’s centre and shakily redrew theblurred lines she left behind. She could hear footsteps ascending their waythrough the building – just one set, getting closer, with a steady and surebeat that she would recognise anywhere – and she struck the circle with thecrystal one last time.

The lines glowed. And then faded. The remnant light in theportal crystal died entirely and the fight melted from Haru’s bones. Bringingthe pen to the light, she could see that a hairline crack ran along the gem.Probably damaged during the fight, and its magic had leaked from it, leavingjust enough for a single journey. “Well,” she said to the empty room, “Itried.”

“Oh, you certain did, Miss Yoshioka.”

She turned her head to see Macavity walk into the room.

The first time Haru met Macavity in his human form, she hadbeen surprised at how real it had seemed. But the more she got to know him, themore she realised you could take the cat out of the Cat Kingdom, but you can’ttake the Cat Kingdom out of the cat. His (true) feline form was a thin gingertabby with sunken eyes and a swaying, snakelike walk that belied something ofthe predator in him. His human form was tall and gaunt, with those same sunkeneyes, human but no warmer for it, and a stride that never broke its internalrhythm.

“Now, we seem to be missing one Creation, don’t you think?”he asked.

“What? Was big and ugly down there not enough for you?” Harureturned, motioning weakly to the window. “What’s a lady gotta do around hereto get some recognition?”

“You were meant to bring Baron in.”

“And I would have done, but it’s a little difficult whenones legs run out of battery.” She patted her inactive calves for emphasis andtried not to let Macavity see the fear behind her eyes. She had gone againsteverything she’d been ordered, every priority and rule set out before her, andthe only thing she had going for her right now was that Macavity hadn’tactually seen her release Baron.

“So I see. Such a shame.” Macavity approached and squatteddown at the edge of her circle, those shadowed eyes falling level with Haru’s. “And,tell me, what kind of state was Baron in after your little spat with the rogueCreation? He didn’t look like he was doing too well when he hauled you backinside. How much magic did he have left?”

“More than I did,” Haru said, biting the inside of her mouthto keep herself from saying anything she would regret. “Look, if I could havestopped him, don’t you think I would have?”

Those sunken eyes didn’t blink. “Would you?”

“Isn’t that my mission?” Haru retorted. “What do you wanthim for, anyway? You never told me that.”

“That’s need to know information, Miss Yoshioka. Need toknow. And you don’t. However, what I needto know is where Baron went next and what, exactly, you are doing with thisfailed attempt at a teleportation circle.” Those eyes narrowed further. “I hopeyou weren’t thinking of running away.”

Failed. He thought she’d failed.Small mercies. She kept her gaze level and told the closest thing to truth shedared. “He’s going to the Cat Kingdom.”

Macavity’s gaze flickered, again, to the chalk circle. Somethingalmost approaching surprise flashed across his face. “The Cat Kingdom?” heechoed.

“Said he was looking for answers.” She watched thefaux-human’s face for any sign that she was hitting the right mark, but therewas nothing. “Since magic originated from the Cat Kingdom in the first place,and Creations are made of magic, or something. It must have made sense to him.I was going to the Cat Kingdom to warn them.”

A moment passed.

Two.

Macavity nodded, accepting her explanation – for now. He straightenedback up, stepping away from Haru. “Well, Miss Yoshioka, I think you’ve done allyou can for today. We’ll get you scooted back home and recharged and we’ll letyou know when you’ll be dropping by the Cat Kingdom to track down our mutualfriend. That sound good?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, good.”

He started for the door, where more people in dark suitsstood waiting. Haru hadn’t noticed them before now.

“Sir?” she asked. “You never told me where the magic for mylegs come from either.”

That gaunt face tilted back, eyes glimmering. “Need to know,Miss Yoshioka. Need to know.”

SHAMELESS EDIT: If you enjoyed this, please check out the full fic it became: Do Creations Dream of Clockwork Sheep? FFNET link here and AO3 link here!

#adalhied-prime #replies #the cat returns #cat writes #emara au

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