OOC: This story was supposed to be worked on after a different collab that features both seon and I were finished. However, this collab was finished first, and we decided it was better to post it now anyways. Therefore, this refers to events that was in the other collab, since its kind of important for Heidi's arc. So don't be confused if you don't know what Heidi is referring to; that incident will be posted soon. Take it as a teaser
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“You are a madwoman,” Connie says as he trudges through the second floor hallways, shortly behind Cass. She’s humming as she peers out the windows. “You worry too much,” she says. “This story is golden!”
“Yellow. This story is yellow,” Connie says. “You have no proof that anything untoward is going on between the class president and-”
“Truth is not something we are being paid to write, Connie.”
“We aren’t being paid anything! We are an unofficial school newspaper! We get gifted free meal tickets at local businesses and used goods!”
“Yes, yes, as I was saying… truth is one of many things we aren’t being paid to wri--oh hang on…” she stops suddenly, letting Connie slam into her back and bounce off. “Ow.”
Cass quickly pokes her head out through an open window and focuses her eye down below. Yes! There below! That was Heidi! Just the person she was looking for. “Damnit, I gotta grab her attention somehow…”
She quickly rifles through her pockets. Penknives. Nope. Sharpies. She would rather die than be without her writing utensils. Notepad. Definitely not. A ruler. Why was she even carrying one of those? A cellphone in ballistic, supposedly mil-grade casing that made it rather heavy, but also balanced for throwing. Perfect.
She pulls out her cellphone, aims at Heidi’s head, and throws. Being thrown by Cass, it flies through the air exactly on target.
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Heidi didn’t know why a demon was trying to contact children and get them to do their questionable bidding, or why the school was even ok with a self-professed demon advertizing his blatantly absurd tasks on the campus grounds, but she was ok with just letting it go as this whole school was frankly just an exercise in creating the most absurd reality for metahumans. That is, until she saw the final task that the demon -- Jeff was the name he decided to dub himself -- offered.
Heidi’s stomach turned with an emotion she wasn’t used to feeling anymore when she read that job offer: utter disgust. Jeff wanted one of the students to find a homeless “bugger” who found Excalibur,
the Excalibur, and beat him up to steal the sword from him. As if that wasn’t horrific enough, then he wanted whatever idiot decided to take the job to hide the thing and prevent some ancient prophecy from bringing world peace and justice to the world.
The worst thing is, knowing the questionable ethics and stability of some of her classmates, Heidi could easily imagine that some of them wouldn’t flinch at actually doing it. Like Trudy, that crazy girl she met on the bus, the one that Cass implied was well-versed in doing these sort of hits in the past. She’d might even
enjoy it, for all Heidi even knew. Or what about that weird Australian weeb, Jeremey? He seems so unhinged in his belief that he is one of the main characters in that show he’s obsessed with, that he’d take the job and still think he’s a hero simply because he’s himself.
No, Heidi couldn’t let this happen. She knew she had to prevent what was invariably going to go down before it happened. Heidi doesn’t need to see some innocent person beat to possible death over some magical artifact they don’t even realize the true importance of. She didn’t need a prophecy to bring utopia subverted because a student in this school is too selfish over wanting a cool magic sword to hit people with. Heidi knew, deep down, she isn’t a hero. But this Once and Future King
is, and he (or she!) needs to get this sword as soon as possible. That’s why she decided she had to hunt for Excalibur, before someone worse than her got their hands on it first.
So why is she on the pavement?
Heidi could feel a sharp pain throbbing through her head, as her face was pointed straight towards the sky. The ravenette could feel her trademark beanie was knocked off her head as well, and even the rest of her body was stinging from the impact. Forcing her upper body up to take a look around her surroundings, Heidi could see her now discarded beanie and a phone which seems suspiciously like brand new despite a crash like that. Nor did it even look like Heidi’s own phone. She instinctively reached into her own pocket, and to her surprise, still felt it. It wasn’t her phone.
What the hell just happened?
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“Yes!” Cass said, ducking under the window. “A direct hit!” She momentarily seemed to have forgotten why she even threw the phone in the first place.
“Oh my god, are you insane?” Connie hissed, staring out the window in disbelief. “You hit that girl in the face! What if you fractured her skull! What if you go to detention or jail!”
Cass peeked slightly over the windowsill to observe Heidi struggling to get up from the pavement. “Nope, she’s perfectly fine. Quick, Connie, give me your phone!”
Connie looked at her in horror. “No!”
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The phone in black, suspiciously thick casing by Heidi’s feet began to ring. Heidi quickly glanced around, seeing if the phone’s owner might run by to pick it up. However, as the phone continued to ring, she realized no one was coming around to claim it. Heidi went to retrieve her beanie, before collecting the phone off the ground afterwards.
The phone, which seemed to just be a regular iPhone, still looked quite out of the ordinary to Heidi. With a thick, milspec casing, the thing looked nearly impervious. She could drive a truck over the phone and Heidi doubted it would have even cracked the screen.
“Hey,” Heidi cried out to no one in particular around her, waving the still-ringing phone around, “Did anyone drop this?”
No one responded back to Heidi.
The ringing stops. A moment later, a new text appears on the screen:
answer the phone, beanie-lover, it says.
“Gott im Himmel”, Heidi silently muttered to herself, “Das wird einer
dieser Tage sein”
A second later, the phone started to ring again. Heidi, this time, answered immediately.
“What the hell is going on?” Heidi said, with a strange mix of annoyance and resignation that this wasn’t going away anytime soon.
“Heeeeeey, girlfriend!” Cass’s chipper voice floods through the receiver. “What’s up!”
“Cass,” Heidi responded, completely ignoring the student reporter’s question, “Did you throw this phone at me?”
“You know, I really like you, Heidi,” Cass says, also ignoring the question. “You have a lot of energy and go-get-em attitude! Exactly the kind of attitude that our newspaper club could use on the field!” Cass said. “Also yes. Sorry about that. Chin up though. Really, seriously. Put your chin up and maybe put some ice on that.”
Heidi sighed in response to Cass’s pitch. Heidi didn’t have the time to put up with this kind of eccentricity right now. Time was ticking, and every second was precious. “Look, Cass, I’m really busy right now. Can we talk about this some other time?”
“Oh, but we should talk about this now!” Cass’s voice turns sibilant. “I’m sure it’ll be to your interest too… There’s two things I’m sure you’ve noticed around the school. First, being the Villains Club. We can talk about that later, admittedly. Second is, of course, our most popular school demon or extradimensional-whatever-the-hell-it-is: Jeff.”
Heidi was not sure what Cass was getting at with the first bit. Was she trying to blackmail her? It’s not something that Heidi particularly cared about if people found out she was a member of: if anything, Heidi would kind of like more people to show up so she could wax philosophical dialectics on morality with. But the second bit took the Liechtensteiner off guard.
“What about Jeff?” She hurriedly responded.
“Haha~ I knew that would get your attention!” Cass’s voice needles. “Well, Heidi, I have nothing but absolute admiration for people like you, yah know? The world’s full of horsecrap as it is. It needs folks like you out there fighting the good fight. Then comes some nasty psychopath from some alternate reality trying to make a mess of everything.”
“See, some things are tolerable even then. Bottle a siren song? Sure, why not. Cook a dragon? Okay, maybe that’s tolerable enough to put on my newspaper. Beat up a homeless guy? Yeah, you’ve got a problem there. I don’t even give two cents about the sword,” Cass rants. “I’m sure you agree with me that putting up contracts to beat up some random guy is unacceptable in the school. Given some of the characters in the school, I’m sure some of them are preparing the hit right now! So, uh, I need your help to send Jeff a ‘fudge you’ note, if you understand what I’m saying.”
Heidi couldn’t believe what Cass was saying. It was almost as if Cass was reading her mind as she was walking down the sidewalk. She didn’t even realize there was other students with a moral compass that wasn’t practically extraterrestrial in origin “Y-you’re serious, Cass? You mean that? ‘Cause that was, actually exactly what I was heading out to do...”
“Yeah well, I’ve spotted you looking at the fliers, love. It doesn’t take much guessing to figure out what would happen afterward,” Cass says. Back in the second floor, she’s struggling not to giggle as she bats off Connie’s attempts to retrieve his phone from her hand. “But that’s perfect. What are you planning to do? Mind if I tag along? I would love to uhh… cover it for the newspaper. Make a rather unflattering article about Jeff. Not much I can do to fudge him over beside that for me, but you! You are powerful enough to stop whatever heist plan he’s got.”
“I was just planning on talking to the guy and telling him what was going on,” the Liechtensteiner openly admitted, “Try to get the sword from him without any sort of physical alteration. Maybe give him some money in return for it, I don’t know. I just don’t want to see the guy get killed for something he had no real part of.”
“And I don’t want to have to use my powers,” Heidi firmly concluded.
A sigh, as if somewhat disappointed. “Really? That’s the plan? Well, I guess it’s workable,” Cass says. “I’ll help out whenever possible, but in exchange, you’ve got to promise me something--Hehehe. Nothing big or too important, I assure you.”
“Joining the newspaper club, I assume?”
“Well, okay, yes,” Cass said. “But really, I just wanted a source within the Villains Club. Members are notoriously tight-lipped!” you can almost hear the pout. “I want you to be my little mole in the club! I mean, I guess nothing really happens in any of the school clubs, but you never know!”
“We’re not villains,” Heidi protested, “We just like talking about them and what they believe in and what they do. It’s like, applied philosophy in the real world. It’s actually… fun.” A word Heidi knows she doesn’t use much anymore.
“Bleh, not really my thing,” Cass says. “People big on ethics and philosophy are really mean to Trudy and me and Connie. Connie, put that scissor down! Sorry, annoying classmate. But anyways, just keep me posted on them, okay? All these moral liqui...flexi...relativity? No, that’s about light and time, isn’t it? Moral liquidity business really just confuses the hell out of me,” Cass concludes. A background noise--a boy’s voice? “No, it can’t be relativity, Connie, that’s just stupid. Anyways, Heidi, I’m coming downstairs to meet you.”
Heidi frowned at Cass’s first statement. OK, maybe Trudy kind of deserved to be called out for her warped sense of morality, but Cass, despite her… oddness, wasn’t really that bad of a person. Besides, the only person who really deserved to be put down was leeches like herself and-
No, Heidi knew she should try to focus for once on what is actually important.
“OK,” she responded, “See you in a minute”, before clicking the phone off.
Shaking of leaves above--Cass jumps down from the window above, slowing herself down through clutching at a tree branch. She uses the momentum to swing herself forward, landing in front of Heidi with a bright smile. “Hey, hey!” she beams, dusting herself off. Her clothes are slightly disheveled, as if she just fought off a dog and a particularly ferocious hawk. Her spectacles sit slightly crookedly on her nose. “So where to?”
Heidi didn’t even bother to comment on Cass deciding to rappel to the ground using the trees. If anything, the reporter actually using the stairs to go to somewhere would be the real shocking event. Instead, the ravenette just walked over to her… friendly acquaintance, handing the phone out to her for Cass to take.
“The job said we’d find the guy in the park in the center of the city,” Heidi briefed, “Didn’t actually give a name for it though. Hopefully there’s only one park there.”
“Eh, center of the city? It’s a small suburban town!” Cass says. “Probably was talking about the lakeside forest, which is kinda center of the city, but not really. I think I know the way. Didn’t notice anything untoward last time I visited though. Certainly not any weird homeless guy with a big magic sword. Think I know the way though, so I can help us get there,” she begins to walk, wrapping an arm around Heidi’s.
“O-ok”, Heidi affirmed, slightly blushing as she felt Cass wrapping her arm around her own, but also not resisting against it. She freely admitted she really didn’t know the local geography of this place well at all, given that she spent most of her time not in class holed up in her room. That incident on the bus was probably one of the few times she wandered off of campus, and after that trainwreck, Heidi wasn’t sure if she even trusted herself to find the way back alone. It was simply for the best to accept Cass’s guidance on this issue.
Cass giggles slightly, covering her mouth with her free hand. “So, Heidi,” she says, dragging her slightly along the road. “Whatcha gonna do with the sword? You know, once you have it.”
“Safeguard it,” Heidi admitted, “Keep it safe and ready for the Once and Future King. Maybe he… or she… can be the hero that I’m not. Save the world and vanquish evil, like the ancient prophecy says.”
Cass frowns. Her hand gripping around Heidi’s tightens slightly. “Oh, I hope you don’t actually believe in this prophecy bullhockey,” she mutters. “But well, I guess I have to admit that I wish it was true sometimes. I sometimes hope that something can undo all the Evil in this world myself,” she admits. There is conviction in her voice when she says the word: evil, as if it is an externality. An outside force.
“Not too often though! Hah! Imagine a world without scandal! I would lose my job!” her frown makes way for a sarcastic chuckle. “And well, this girl’s got an upkeep. Got any protection with you?” She suddenly changes topic, leading her out of the school gate and towards a lush looking forest, just off campus.
Heidi blankly stared into the horizon. “If you asked me yesterday, I wouldn’t have believed in any grand prophecy either, Cass. But a demon doesn’t come onto campus to tell people to go secure Excalibur to prevent the rise of a hero if
he doesn’t believe that it is real. Which is why I do believe it, that the Once and Future King will come. I mean, it's no more ridiculous than metahumans, and look at where both of us are.”
However, the ravenette frowned after Cass asked about protection. She, honestly, truly believed that she would be been able to talk the guy out of the sword. Afterall, it was just some “bugger” on the job description. It wasn’t some supernatural ancient guardian or anything like that. Plus, even without her powers, its not like Heidi wasn’t trained to fight in general during her time in government custody in Liechtenstein. If the guy ended up being violent or stubborn, she could just disarm him with technique that he would likely have no response to. Probably would just give up after she took the sword by that point.
“I didn’t bring any ‘protection’, Cass. I’m not planning on fighting.”
Cass gasps, still giggling with her mouth covered. “Whaaaat? You are taking a lady into a dark corner of a forest, and you haven’t got any protection on you?” She laughs. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding! As for my protection…” she leans against Heidi. “I choose you! You’ll keep me safe, right?”
Heidi’s face burned red when she finally realized what Cass really meant by protection, followed by incoherent stammering in her native German. Before her mind could wander into questions over how serious Cass was being, even after admitting that she was “kidding”, Heidi’s further dignity was saved by Cass’s next question.
Taking a deep breath to reorientate herself, Hedi responded, “I won’t let you get hurt, Cass. I promise.”
Cass blushes herself, unwinding her arm away from Heidi’s. “Umm, d-don’t worry about me too much,” she manages to stutter out. She walks slightly ahead of Heidi’s, avoiding eye contact. “I can actually take care of myself. I don’t actually expect you to do anything about that,” she concludes. “Err… Hey hey!” she says. Bit of her upbeat cheerfulness returns as quickly as it went. “The guy’s probably not camping out by the lakefront where everyone is hanging out. There’s supposedly a clearing at the end of this trail! Discontinued now for some reason. Maybe he’s camping out there?”
“A better guess than mine,” Heidi admitted. “We should check it out”.
With that, Heidi started to walk into the trail. The sun was setting by this point, but there was still more than enough visible light for the two girls to see where they were going. The discontinued path had a small barrier meant to deter passerbys from taking the trail, but it didn’t nearly block off the trail completely, and Heidi easily walked around it.
Beyond that point, the trail beyond the barrier was pristine compared to the general path. There was no trash littered on the ground, and while there was a clear and identifiable cleared pathway for Heidi and Cass to travel through, the plants surrounding it were noticeably more unkempt than the trimmed plants in the public section, as if there was nobody around to prune any of them. Overall, there was little evidence that there was
any human presence in the area.
“I… uhh… you should probably not take what I said before too seriously,” Cass says, still walking slightly ahead. “I mean, I get a lot of flak for teasing too much an--” she suddenly stops in the middle of the trail. She turns around quickly, a sudden grim and stoic expression on her face. She lunges towards Heidi, wrapping a hand around her mouth, before leaping together behind a bush.
“Shh shhh shhh!” Cass whispers. “Don’t make a sound!”
“Mpph!” Heidi instinctively protested as she was pulled into the bush, unsure of Cass’s intentions. She just said not to take what she said not seriously, but then she pulled them into a bush? The mixed messages was getting way too confusing for Heidi.
“Look!” Cass hisses, pointing ahead. Right there, in the distance, slightly obscured by a few low tree branches, were a tall figure holding a comically gigantic sword. “What the *fudge* is that?” She lets go of Heidi’s mouth. “Did we take a wrong turn or something? That doesn’t look like a bergie!”
Heidi peaked out of the bush herself to see the source of the reporter’s panic. Much like Cass, Heidi too saw a knight with a build that reminded Heidi of a heavy panzer. However, by far the most defining feature of the knight was his sword, which dwarves the knight, who was already on the tall end of the spectrum. That sword was
easily three meters long, and was as wide as the knight’s armored head. This was an absolute far cry from what Jeff was implying was their target in the job description!
“Maybe,” Heidi said, trying to rationalize what she was seeing in front of her, “Excalibur grants you a nice suit of armor as well?”
“...Or maybe we just found *yet another* mystery in this weird town,” Cass muttered. She instinctively reaches to her pockets, digging around for supplies. She was definitely underequipped for this. The sweat rolling down her head was making her scalp under the wig itch like hell. “Okay okay, maybe we should… uhhh… talk to him?”
“OK… OK. I’ll talk to him,” Heidi volunteered. It was what she was planning to do in the first place, after all.
Heidi slowly stepped out of the bush, and took a few steps towards the knight, raising her arms in the air and her palms opened to establish her non-hostility to this figure.
“Hey…. mister…. Have you heard anything about a magic sword named Excalibur around here?”
The knight doesn’t respond to her words. He merely lifts his giant blade over head towards Heidi. “Watch out!” Cass calls out from behind the bush. She ducks back beneath it, digging out her cellphone from her pockets. “Crap crap crap… what the hell do I do…?!”
Heidi’s eyes widen as she takes a step back in panic. Of all the possible outcomes she was expecting from this mess, dead silence plus a threat to violence was possibly the absolute worst result that was possible. Heidi could not get a read on the knight or its intentions to her at all.
“Sir, I don’t mean any harm,” the ravenette hurriedly pleaded to the mysterious figure. “Please put the sword down. I just want to talk.”
The knight swings the sword down onto Heidi, and she feels somebody tackling her to the ground from the side. The great sword carves a divot along the path at least a foot deep where Heidi once stood. “You have a plan B, right?” Cass hisses as she quickly begins to drag Heidi out of the knight’s striking distance. Luckily, he does not seem too fast to recover.
Cass though, seems almost like a totally different person entirely. The enthusiasm and flirtatious attitude on her face is entirely gone, replaced by stoic determination and cold fury. “Come on, Heidi, talk to me. You aren’t hurt, right?”
“I don’t have a Plan
A for this,” Heidi yelled backed, trying to get the hell away from the knight’s gigantic sword. “I was expecting some washed-up hobo with a sword, not a supernatural paladin!”
Heidi wondered if she could still try to use one of the martial techniques she learned in Liechtenstein to try to forcefully disarm the knight. Of course, it would be a lot different, and of course difficult, to actually try it against a trained fighter with panzer-thick gauntlets compared to just some random guy who doesn’t even know how to use a sword. Of course, anything would be possible if she powered up in a situation like this, but…
The ravenette looked back at Cass, and cursed very audibly at herself. She couldn’t do that to her, not to what might be her only friend on campus. She didn’t deserve it, to suffer the same kind of fate that she inflicted on herself. Not to mention, she felt so disgusted at herself for draining even Li of all people during that incident on the bus, in a situation that caused her to panic in a way that would make her now look calm and composed. This would be a conscious choice to, a conscious choice to drain Cass.
“Maybe we should just get out of here,” Heidi yelled at Cass, not having any sort of better idea than to simply run away at this point.
“ العمى,” Cass mutters. “We can’t just leave, what if a kid wanders into this part of the park?” She drags out Heidi to safety behind a tree, her heart pounding in her chest. The knight makes no attempt to pursue. “Listen,” she says. “I called for help. I’m going to go get them to here. Keep the knight… uhhh… busy while they come, okay? They’ll come here. I promise you,” she lets go of Heidi and starts to back off the way she came. “Okay? I’ll come back.” She runs off.
“WAIT,” Heidi called out in vain, but she frowned when she realized the reporter was already gone. Well, there went that option at all. Now Heidi really truly was out of luck at this point. Heavily cursing herself out more, Heidi slowly rose herself back up on her feet, turning around as if to face the knight again. She stared down against the man that attacked her, waiting in place to see if he was going to make another move against her, or if she could just let this tense standoff persist until Cass returns with her help.
The knight stares impassively, the sword half-raised towards Heidi. If he feels tired of holding such a monstrous weapon, he does not show it. He makes no move to close distance. If one is to break the standoff, it’s obviously not going to be him.
Nor was it going to be Heidi. Discretion was the better part of valor, in this case. Sure, she could try to fight in vain against this guy, but the cold hard truth was that she wasn’t going to do anything to him unless she bit the bullet and decided to power up, and at this point now she couldn’t even if she wanted to. Otherwise, all she is a combat trained but still lanky teenage girl with absolutely no special characteristics that would in any way allow her to stand up to a knight with the strength to wield a three meter sword. She wasn’t going to kill herself for nothing.
So Heidi instead just stared back, not going to move forward, but also not moving back. After all, while Heidi would very much like to retreat and pretend this entire day never happened, Cass was right. Some child could easily wander into the inner section of this park and find themselves face to face with whatever this knight is. If he was willing to attack her, he’d probably attack anyone that crossed paths with him. Heidi wouldn’t have their blood on her hands. She had to see this through somehow.
After what seems like a few hours, but in actuality a few minutes at most, a figure emerges from the path behind Heidi. A tall girl (compared to Heidi, anyways) with black hair, light-ish skin, and steel grey eyes on her freckled face. Trudine, from the bus ride before. She walks up next to Heidi, and if she registers any surprise at seeing a knight with three meter long sword in his hand in the middle of a forest, she does not show it. She’s hunched over slightly, looking ready to fight. “Is ‘zat it?” she says casually, lifting her chin slightly at the knight. There is no sign of Cass anywhere. Trudy looks slightly away from Heidi upon making eye contact.
“Should have guessed it was going to be you,” Heidi said with a neutral expression, keeping her eyes on the knight at all times. Cass did say she relied on Trudy as her muscle in situations that she needed one. And, well, they could definitely use someone who could actually fight against the knight without becoming a monster in turn. At least this was on Cass’s favor, and not Heidi’s own.
Trudine shoots Heidi a small glare, but quickly turns her head aside back towards the knight. “You don’t like me. I don’t blame you for that, but let’s keep things cordial. Neither of us really wants to be here,” she snaps. “Can you attempt to do… whatever it is you do to take your power on that knight?”
“No, Heidi flatly refused. “I can’t. What I did then was a mistake. I panicked, and I did something I was not proud of. It’s not my right to steal from others to make myself stronger. I couldn’t do it to Cass, and… not even to you.”
“How… charming,” Trudine says, biting her lips. Now that Heidi spent some time between both Trudy and Cass, the physical resemblance between them seem somewhat striking--perhaps they are relatives? “Do you think you could distract the knight? One swing away from me, and I’m confident that I can close the distance.” She lied. She was fairly certain she could close the distance with or without Heidi’s help.
“I… I can do that,” Heidi responded.
The Liechtensteiner took a few steps forward, which instantly brought the attention of the knight. He started to raise his sword again, and Heidi went back to thinking about the combat maneuvers that her handlers at home trained her to use in order to dodge attacks. Of course, it was expected that she would have heightened reflexes and superhuman speed to pull of stunts that would otherwise be physically impossible, but some of the basics should still be possible even without them. When the knight seemed to be at the zenith of raising his sword, the ravenette instantly broke into a dive to her right, and rolled across the ground before rising to her feet with the sort of military precision that would look severely out of place for the young girl. Heidi easily broke away from the swing, although another large divot was formed where she was once standing.
Trudine instantly breaks into action the moment she registers the swing towards Heidi, dashing across to reach the knight within a second. Recognizing the threat, the knight lifts a leg to deliver a kick--a mistake. An attack that slow might have well have been standing still for Trudine. She was born with a natural gift--time seemed to slow down for her whenever adversity loomed. This talent of seeing her enemies frozen in time for a single moment allowed her to grasp victory from the jaws of defeat many times over in her life. A slow moving and heavily armored target like this? Hah! She used to dodge rockets. This was almost laughable. She couldn’t believe she was so scared before.
She slid under the kick and behind the knight before instantly pulling herself up using the knight’s armored skirt and onto his back, knives flashing in her hands. The knight dropped his sword, attempting to reach behind his back for the climber. She jabs a knife into one of the joints of the armor. Crack. She seems almost bemused that her knives have proved ineffective--as if gladdened that this will be a tougher fight than she imagined.
The knight falls backwards, attempting to crush Trudine under its weight. She leaps off of its back and rolls away. “Found some weakpoints, I think,” Trudine says, walking up to Heidi while the knight attempted to right itself. “Large cracks on the back. Target doesn’t seem human.” She tosses her a spare penknife. “Think you can get it?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Heidi affirmed back to Trudine as she caught the knife in in the air. With a flick of her wrist, she opened the penknife open, extending forth the blade. Immediately afterwards, she charged at the knight’s backside as it was distracted with Trudy. The knight was completely unaware as the ravenette, with all of her might, jabbed the knife into a crack. As the knife dug into the armor, Heidi realized what Trudy said was absolutely right: this was no human. There was no scream in pain, no blood, nor did it really even feel like she hit flesh. But she hit
something within that armor, and it was working. The knight staggered as the blade went through the crack, interrupting the attack he was using against the South African.
Realizing the attack was effective, Heidi quickly pulled the blade out and stabbed again. And continued to pull it out and jam it back in elsewhere than where she stabbed before, over and over again as she yelled in sheer fury and panic.The knight by now was most fully aware of her position, and if she didn’t take it down within the next few seconds, she was probably going to get cut down by the sword, regardless of how slow he was, given how close she was.
Given Heid’s location, the knight elects to fall over backwards again, attempting to crush her with its own weight. Trudine rushes forward, attempting to take advantage of the moment where the knight is immobilized.
Seeing the knight trying to flop on her, Heidi quickly pulled the knife out of the most recent stab, and bolted to the right as fast as her feet would take her. She narrowly avoided the knight as it collapsed onto the ground.
“I felt something in the middle of the knight,” Heidi reported to Trudy, “You’re right, its not human.”
Trudine ignored Heidi as she dashed onto the knight, the world slowing down as she tried to assess the situation. There was something it clearly wanted to protect on its back--it wouldn’t willingly immobilize itself just to get rid of an attacker in that direction, but was there any other vulnerability? She then notices something on the sole of the knight’s armored foot. Some kind of symbol aglow with power. It… couldn’t be so simple, could it?
She decides to chance it, throwing a knife into the center of the symbol even as she leapt onto the knight, intending to slide a few more blades through the slits on its helmet. The thrown knife embeds itself into the plate at the bottom of the sole even as she crawls up on the knight’s torso.
The knight just stops. It’s as if someone took the battery out of a circuit for a giant robot and the machine powered down. The knight remains still in its position on the ground for one second, before falling apart at its joints. One ton of plate armor collapses into dozens of pieces. And in the rubble is a golden hilt without a sword. Excalibur, both girls know without needing to be told. There’s just such a strong feeling of acceptance coming from the sword, a feeling of having a place in the world. The feeling is so strong, it's inhuman, what one would imagine standing in the face of God’s love would feel like. Along with this inhuman compassion comes great grief too, for one cannot love without bleeding for both the monster who harms and their victims.
Trudine, having collapsed inward into the wreckage of the knight with its destruction, stands up unsteady, shaking dust from her sleeves. Noticing the hilt in the rubble with her, she recoils at first as if burned by live wire. The moment passes quickly, however, and she picks it up by her sleeve, as if it’s a piece of scrap metal that she would rather not be touching. “Target… neutralized… I guess?” she manages to mumble out. Strange feelings were swirling in her chest, and she did not like these feelings at all. She kept her expression stoic as possible as she showed the object to Heidi. She twitches, visibly struggling against an overwhelming headache and pain in her chest, every one of her instinct screaming at her to dash the artifact against a rock! A tree! Something that makes the pain stop.
As soon as the knight was defeated and the rubble made way to reveal the ancient artifact buried beneath the knight, Heidi dropped to her knees over the overwhelming emotions that were starting to fester in her. For a normal person, those emotions were already inhumanly strong. For someone who had burnt away their natural feelings of emotions, it made her experience a strong sense of… being, that she hasn’t felt in literal years. It was a sensation that she was unprepared to handle, and possibly could had never prepared to handle.
The power emanating from the sword, Heidi felt, was only growing in strength as the seconds passed. Opening her eyes, she immediately sees why. Trudy was holding the sacred blade right in front of her eyes, as if to show off the ultimate result of that terrifying encounter. In between the pain of the rushing emotions, Heidi let out a small smile.
“We did it, Trudy,” Heidi weakly celebrated. “Excalibur. We have to keep it safe for the Once and Future King.”
Trudine’s expression is inscrutable as she turns the hilt around in her hand. “It’s… it’s not going away,” she mutters. “God, it makes me so heartsick, I can’t even… I can’t even retch!” She screams in frustration, clutching the metal.
“This is what it's like to feel again,” Heidi said with a tint of wonder in her voice. Her eyes were starting to water up, and her stomach and chest bursting with excitement that she couldn’t even begin to control. “I don’t know if I can handle it!”
Trudine looks at Heidi, her expression still inscrutable. “Do you sincerely believe…” she whispers. There’s a sudden heat in the air, as if blasted out from a distant sandstorm. “That this… this
ubuntu junk can change the world?” she mutters out.
The intense feeling in Trudy lessens to nothing but a faint echo, a firm but gentle hand reminding her that Excalibur is there, that it has not forgotten but that it will give her the space she desires.
“Yes,” Heidi said, starting to let loose a tear, “I think it will. One day.”
Trudine stares. The heat that seems to emanate out from her fades away. “Take it!” she hisses, throwing the hilt towards Heidi. “Take it! Take the bloody thing! Better you than me.” She staggers a bit, collapsing onto the ground on her knees.
Heidi rose to her feet. She hesitantly stared at the sword, the emotions still swirling in her head. She looked up, to look at Trudy herself for the first time in the whole exchange. She could see the pain in her face, a pain that Heidi couldn’t recognize, but nevertheless empathized with. Once Trudy threw the sword, Heidi grabbed the sword’s hilt in the air, before nodding in appreciation for everything Trudy just did up to that point.
“God, you *******,” Trudine whispers out to Heidi as she takes the sword. “I hope you are happy. I hope you are glad you are probably right. I believe in good people, you know, but look where that gets me. I care for you because I think you are a good person, and whenever I look at you, I can only see his face blooded and brained against the wall. I pulled people burning from craters. I saw their spinal fluids drain into the gutters, and look where all that gets me--” she rants. “Keep that thing somewhere safe. Away from me.”
“I’m… sorry.” Heidi didn’t know what the South African was referring to by “he”, but she knew far better than to ask her to open up about her past. All she could do is simply sympathize over whatever hardship that was buried in Trudy’s past.
Heidi was also sorry for misjudging Trudy, even if she didn’t even know the Liechtensteiner did so at all. Of all the people Heidi thought was going to do Jeff’s bidding, Trudy was number one. Yet, she ended up saving her, while not judging her for her refusal to use her powers, and then willingly gave up the sword to her. While claiming she thought positively of her at the end! Heidi didn’t know what to think about Trudy now, but it was certainly far more positive than it was a couple of hours ago.
“...and thank you,” Heidi continued, for once accepting the compliment on her good nature without feeling the dread of that spectre of nothingness haunting her. “I’ll keep it safe.”
“Next time I’ll see it, I’ll smash it,” Trudine promises. There’s a tone of determination in her voice. “I don’t… I don’t trust it, but I believe you. I can trust you, Heidi” she murmurs. She stands off, and staggers into the woods.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
As Heidi returns to the academy grounds, she notices a familiar figure with purple hair, smiling, and swinging her legs out atop a tree branch. Cass, and her eyes are trained on Heidi.
“Hey, hey!” she shouts down. “Care to join me up here?”
“Cass!” Heidi said with unusual excitement at seeing her reporter friend up in that tree. Excalibur’s presence was still being felt by Heidi, although she has been able to control herself better than when she first encountered it. Without pause, Heidi did exactly as what the reporter asked her to do; she climbed up the tree, and and went to sit on the same branch that she was sitting on.
“I’m so happy to see you, Cass”
If Cass seem somewhat alarmed by Heidi’s sudden change of personality, she doesn’t show it. “Oh wow, somebody’s being dari--okay, forget that,” she says, her tone suddenly becoming serious. “Are you alright? You didn’t get hurt, did you? That smug demon-salesman-thing, I swear I’ll end him when I get my hands on him,” she continues. Her resemblance to Trudine becomes more evident when she’s being serious. Her eyes are red--was she, crying?
Heidi put an arm on Cass’s shoulder. “I’m ok, Cass. We won. Trudy and I took the knight down”. On cue, Heidi took out the ornate hilt of Excalibur, the bladeless sword, and showed it to Cass. “It was some golem of some sort. Excalibur was inside him. Trudy… told me to take care of it. Until the Once and Future King comes. Wherever they are”
Cass recoils from the hilt, nearly falling off the tree along with Heidi. “Don’t! Are you crazy!” she hisses out, managing to balance herself at the last moment. “What if somebody else sees that!”
Heidi quickly put the blade away at Cass’s protest. “Sorry! I just wanted you to see that I- we, we managed to take it.” Whether that we was meant for Cass, Trudy, or both, Heidi didn’t clarify. “I’m going to have to find a place to keep it. Akane is going to feel it as strongly as I did if I bring it in my room. Not like she’d tell anyone, but… it was intense at first.”
Cass grumbles. “I don’t like it,” she says. “It promises too much. It’s inhuman. It promised me a place in its new world. Yeah, it and every single other Evil monsters I found in the world out there,” there is conviction in her word: evil, again. “I saw it and every cell in my body instantly began to scream to take it and dash it against stone. It was like seeing an abomination, Heidi, like carpet bombing in sundown, or an endless column of tanks driving through the Fulda gap. Everything that I can understand, yet not understand in some fancily shaped scrap metal.”
She sighs out, breathing heavily. “Don’t let it ever enter into Connie’s sight. He won’t hesitate like I or Trudine did.”
“How did you know Trudy wanted to destroy it?” Heidi asked, confused at how she would even know anything like that. Did Trudy seek her out as soon as everything was over?
“Because I know her better than you do,” Cass snaps. Her expression turns apologetic soon afterwards.
She leans against Heidi. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have gone off like that… Still, seriously, don’t show it to Connie, please. In fact, don’t show it to anyone. Who knows what other freak will want to take it.”
“I won’t,” Heidi reassured Cass, smiling as she started to lean against her. “I won’t be an effective guardian if everyone knows where the secret is.” The ravenette sighed gently. “When I finally get this in a secured place, I’m going to lose the ability to feel again. That’s going to be the worst part of this. I can handle ‘those freaks’. But I’m going to miss the compassion the sword gives me.”
“Ohh?” a mischievous grin enters Cass’s face, wiping her serious look right off. “Feel again, eh? I guess what we had before were merely you pretending to feel with merely physical motiooooooons,” she drags out the last word as she caresses Heidi’s cheek. “It’s a shame, the way your face turned red looked so cute I could just devour you! Well, sad to hear that was all an act,” she wipes a mock tear off her eyes.
Almost as if on cue, Heidi’s cheeks started to glow the very same shade of red that the reporter was talking about. “Y-You get what I mean, Cass!” At least, Heidi
hoped that she got what she meant. Yeah, their first encounter proved she still had some capacity to feel left inside her, but it didn’t mean actually feeling any sort of emotion besides the empty husk her powers left behind wasn’t a rare feeling altogether. Well, any good emotions that actually were pleasant to feel, at the very least.
“Nope, I don’t understannnd a woooord of what you are saying,” Cass says, drawling. “Honestly my capacity to feel anything other than hate and paranoia were burned out a looooong time ago. It’s one of the journalist job hazards, yah know?” Cass has admittedly only been at this line of work for like, a week or three at best, but didn’t let that stop her. “So tell me, what are you going to do with all these ‘feelings,’ go help out at a local animal shelter?” she giggles out.
Heidi shook her head, her face clearly expressing indignation. “It’s not funny, Cass. You don’t know what it's like to realize you made a Faustian bargain after the devil already took his due. That torture of being the broken husk of the woman that I used to be. I don’t want to be that husk again. I know I have to, to keep the blade secure. But...”
She sighed heavily. “Everything would be so much easier if I didn’t have such terrible powers. No other metahuman has to slowly kill their will to live in order to use their powers. Or steal it from others.”
“Yeah okay, sorry,” Cass says, her mischievous smile slowly fading. “And yeah, I have to admit that life would probably have been easier for you if you didn’t have that power. But…” she leans on Heidi again. “Well, if you hadn’t had those powers, you wouldn’t have met me, right? Way to shoot down a girl’s self esteem, to wish you never met her,” she giggles. “No, but really, I get it. I get it more than you think I do, I think.”
“So, what are you going to do to make life as enjoyable as possible until you return to… whatever it is you call yourself? I realize I don’t actually know much about your private life. Please don’t tell me you are going to go off and discuss philosophy with someone.”
Heidi smirked. “But, Cass, what
is philosophy?”
“Oh, mother of god, please no,” Cass says, groaning.
Heidi chuckled at Cass’s frustration. “I’m just kidding. I don’t know what I’m going to do, to be honest. Definitely will have to go safe shopping eventually. Maybe go eat out a couple of times. You’d be surprised how it changes the way you even taste things.”
Cass’ smile falters for a single moment at Heidi’s last comment, but quickly regains composure. “Eat out, huh?” Cass says. “Yeah, totally. We could go find some hidden corner of the academy somewhere, lie down, and--no we can’t!” She playfully shoves Heidi away. “We can’t do that! I may not look it, but I take my chastity very seriously, Heidi!”
“Come on, that’s your cue to jump in with a deadpan comment.”
“That’s not what I meant!” She flusteredly backpedaled. “I just want to go get food I can’t find much back home. Like a burrito. The last time I tried it… well, let’s just say a certain someone had to sour the moment for me.”
Cass laughs. “I was just kidding! You know I’m just kidding,” she needles Heidi in the stomach. She’s trembling slightly. It appears as if she was just about as uncomfortable with her last joke as Heidi was. “I know a good place in the town. I’ll take you there!”
“What about tomorrow?” Heidi idly asked. Was way too late for tonight, nor did she want to head back into town after just coming back from fighting that golem knight. “Should do it soon so I can secure the hilt faster.”
Cass purses her lips. “Fine, fine,” she says. She suddenly pecks Heidi on the cheek. “That was in case you wake up dead inside tomorrow!” she says. She quickly turns her face away when Heidi turns to look, leaps off the tree. “I’ll see you around! Watch your head tomorrow, okay? I’ll contact you!”
She runs off.
As soon as Cass was out of sight, to be absolutely sure that its presence wouldn’t trigger that response from her again, Heidi pulled out the hilt of Excalibur once more. She stared at the bladeless sword, letting her eyes digest the intricate markings that covered the hilt. She could feel the weight of a promised future in her now trembling hands. Heidi closed her eyes, letting a hopeful sigh out of her mouth.
“Sei bald hier. Bitte.”
