The four of them ended up sitting down together to update Kitsune on the events she missed and a slight dish of existential horror concerning the fact that their past was all fake (that she digested and clearly decided to ignore from then on).
Eventually, the question came.
“W-what about my parents?” Kitsune asks. She reads the answer immediately off their faces. “Oh.”
“I’m sorry.” Revenant replies. “The list of available resurrection targets involves people that were alive at the time when the comic events were happening. Your parents died a few years too early.”
“No, it’s… it’s alright.” Kitsune replies. There is a smile on her face, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I mourned them already and moved on. I decided to check out just in case and…”
Onslaught decides that this is enough. She was sitting right next to Kitsune, probably with an intent to try to get close and friendly with the new family member. This turned out to be useful right now, Onslaught interrupting Kitsune’s speech to give them a hug.
“It’s alright.” She says, Kitsune clearly surprised by the gesture. “Thermy would gladly dance on her parents' graves, but… I kind of lost the chance to meet my mother that way. It’s not the same thing, but… I kind of understand your pain. Not the whole of it, but…”
Kitsune blinks in surprise, before hugging Onslaught back. It seems that contrary to her earlier words, the disappointment of the realization was a much bigger deal than she let it known.
The fox woman didn’t cry, but it was rather clear that she wasn’t far from it. That was some tight hug. And a lengthy one. Revenant considered moving closer to her and giving her a hug too, but… it would feel like intruding.
“You’re as nice as Revenant made you out to be.” Kitsune says quietly. “Aren’t you?” Onslaught is still hugging her. Hypothermia appears to have her heart warmed by the sight.
Uh-oh. It feels as if Revenant was in trouble now. But he doesn’t think it's a good idea to intervene.
“Oh?” Onslaught asks, while pulling back a little and giving Kitsune an impish grin. “What exactly did Revy say about me?”
“That you were the nicest and kindest person ever.” Kitsune replies, with a grin to match Onslaught’s. “Basically an angel in a human body. A small one.” She doesn’t specify if she means a small angel or a small body.
“Oh, reaaally?” Onslaught replies, before giggling a little. “Did he mention how incredibly thirsty I was for him? And how hard it was to… sleep soundly ever since I met him, due to my racy imagination?”
“Nope, not a word about that.” Kitsune replies, clearly thinking it over for a moment. Then she makes the ‘eureka!’ face. “So… more of a fallen angel?”
“More like a succubus.” Onslaught replies. Revenant decides to be merciful and not mention how freaked out she was when he finally decided to make a move on her. “Really wrapped him around my finger, just expect him to act like he is the one wearing pants in this relationship, ha!”
“Oh, he tends to act like that.” Kitsune smiles mischievously. “And guess what? I might have lost my phone, but I still have my memory! And I remember all the embarrassing things that he did while you weren’t around!”
Revenant sighs, just as Onslaught’s face warps into a smile that actually gives him chills.
“She’s lying.” Revenant announces. “You truly expect me of all people to do something embarrassing? While destroying the country, no less?”
“What about…” Kitsune replies, her face warping into a shit-eating grin. “... Chronoshift’s eleventh birthday?”
Oh. Oh no.
“This didn’t happen and…” Revenant tries to say, before realizing that he was just digging his grave deeper. “Ugh.”
Onslaught has clearly come to a decision.
“I have a feeling…” She says, before hugging Kitsune again, the fox villain responding in kind and her tail starting to flap around happily. “... that this is the beginning of a great friendship, built on the solid foundation of teasing the fuck out of our boyfriend together!”
“How funny, I’m thinking the same!” Kitsune replies enthusiastically. Revenant realizes that yes, his life is over. Great. Hypothermia notices his pain and gives him a hug from the side. The only person in the room that’s clearly on his side. “Also, wait, I’m officially his girlfriend now?”
“If you want to.” Revenant decides to say, Kitsune glancing at him over Onslaught’s head. “Look, you’re not being forced here, alright? I just…”
“Revy!” Onslaught pulls out of the hug and points her finger accusatively in his general direction. “Stop being a tsundere and go all like ‘look no one’s forcing you to do anything’ while in fact it’s ‘please, I love you, stay with me forever’ just with an added load of emotional issues, or I swear to god I’m going to show you what happens when you have an argument with The Incredibly Cute Hulk!”
Urgh. Kitsune is looking at Revenant, clearly expecting something. Something romantic. With a combination of hope and worry on her face.
Ah, dammit.
“Alright.” Revenant takes a deep breath. “Alright. Kitsune. I’ll be fully honest with you. I’m a complete emotional mess, still patching myself together. I have… a lot of regrets. An uncountable army of those. One of them is the fact that I didn’t listen to your advice. For all my love towards Onslaught, I shouldn’t have burned the country to the ground. I should have grabbed Chronoshift, married either you or Hypothermia and started earning money by becoming an accountant. Or a mysterious internet investigator helping heroes and vigilantes for a modest payment. Or an information broker. This sort of thing.”
“No issues with me, Revy.” Onslaught replies, smiling in his direction comfortingly. “I agree with that. You know what I told Thermy to do if something happened to me. It’s great that you loved me, but…”
“I know.” Revenant sighs. “I know, Oni. As I said multiple times, I would be deemed mentally unwell by any respectable psychiatrist. Aside from the Legion of Purity’s shrink division, they were too used to dealing with the real psychos that made me appear stable in comparison.”
Why exactly did the anti-mutant racists have so many contacts in healthcare and charity organizations? It had something to do with their attempt to maintain something resembling a positive PR, at least of its shell organizations.
It was fairly useful in keeping certain cards he had in working condition until they were ready to be used… and spent meaningfully.
Time to get back to the subject. Kitsune clearly awaiting more words with an impatient look on her face.
“It took me a while to make that decision… Hypothermia ended up having to wait to get those words, and for that, I’m sorry, Mia.” Revenant says. “It’ll be much faster that time around, but it’s mostly because I did have some more time to make up my mind.”
“It’s okay.” Hypothermia nods, still hugging him, Revenant’s hands wrapped around her in response. “I understand.” She always does. He never really deserved her for that alone.
”But in short, yes.” Revenant continues speaking to Kitsune. “Now that my mind isn’t muddled by grief and Author’s angsty assholery, I believe that I can say with full confidence that I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And I can’t apologize enough for giving you just enough hopes for a positive resolution of your love to keep you loyal, all the way until your death.”
Kitsune looks at him for a few seconds, her face surprisingly unreadable. Then, she speaks.
“Onslaught, could you move back a little?” Onslaught does that, with a look of curiosity on her face. “Hypothermia, could you give him some space, too?”
Oh, no. Revenant realizes what it is about. He gets his suspicions confirmed when Kitsune leaps at him, smashing her head into his chest while trying to grab him into a hug, with enough strength to make the chair he was sitting on fall backwards.
“Blaaackieee!” She yells her old nickname of him, furiously rubbing the top of her head into his chin, Revenant getting a great look at her fox ears. “This was the most romantic thing that anyone ever said to me!”
“Wow, your bar is low.” Revenant says back, lying on the floor on his back and ignoring Onslaught cackling in the background. He takes the advantage of Kitsune lying on top of him to pet her head a little. He immediately realizes that Decay has a point. Girls with animal mutant individualities have benefits. “So, the answer is a yes?”
“Of course it’s yes, you dummy!” Kitsune shouts. “You have any idea how long I was waiting for it?! No, wait, of course you do, you were there the whole time. Do you want to pet my tail? I can let you pet my tail!”
That’s honestly tempting, but not now. Also, Decay is totally going to go bonkers when he hears that it was tempting to Revenant. ‘You’ve finally seen the truth’, and so on. Thus, he cannot know.
“I think that can wait.” Revenant replies. Maintaining a cool and calm facade is surprisingly hard when you have a fox girl lying on top of you, still rubbing the top of her head (with her wonderfully pettable ears) into your chin. But he has to try. “We’re thus officially dating. I say dating, but, to be honest, I was on exactly one date with Hypothermia before we ended up playing Twister under the quilt.”
“Who won?” Kitsune asks, suddenly curious, pulling her head back from him, looking down at his face. Revenant gives her an empty stare for a few seconds, which prompts her to finally realize what he meant. “Oh. Oh. Ohhhh.”
Looks like she’s still digesting the realization that sex was actually involved.
“One and a half.” Hypothermia mumbles from the back. “The freezer counts too.” Oh, fair. It was like going to an art exhibition together. That’s certainly a form of a date. Just an odd one. Then again, what in his life wasn’t odd?
“I know that this might not be the most romantic option.” Revenant decides to add, while Kitsune is still processing it. “You probably expect a super-romantic date, with scented candles, roses and atmosphere-fitting music, but…”
“Onslaught, I have a question.” Kitsune interrupts him by speaking loudly, the woman’s face still floating above his head, taking most of his point of view. She has a pretty face. “Am I allowed to call him out on being a dummy? You’ve kind of gotten dibs on him, and… you know. I don’t want to feel like I’m overstepping my boundaries and so on. You sound like someone who gets to call him out often.”
“Sure, sure, go ahead.” Onslaught replies. She seems to be enjoying it greatly. “Give him hell. He deserves it.” What did he do now?! “You don’t have to ask about stuff like that, though we do have a timetable for spending days with him. We don’t want him to get too crowded and we don’t want to step on each other’s toes.”
“Oh, that’s a great idea!” Kitsune appears to be genuine about it. Then she looks down on Revenant again. “You big dummy! Romanticism is in your heart, not in the atmosphere! It’s about emotions, it’s about love! No amount of candles and slow atmospheric music matters if the people don’t actually love each other! That’s what matters!”
Okay, she has a point. He was a bit of a dummy about it. Also, it looks like the worst case scenario is avoided! Revenant won’t have to organize any more dates like that, because to be honest, the ones with Hypothermia were slightly… awkward.
He really has no experience with that. He prefers to avoid dating. It’s weird. His experience with human mating rituals is comparable to what Humility has. Just as its relationship (?) with Clockmaker just sort of happened, the same could be said about Revenant’s relationship with Onslaught. And Hypothermia. And Kitsune, it seems.
It’s probably the best idea.
“Alright.” Revenant replies. “I’m a dummy. So how do you plan to do it?”
Kitsune locks her lips with him. She’s still lying on him, although now she lifts her body up a little from her earlier position. That’s how she wants to do it. Alright. Kitsune was getting straight to work, and that’s perfectly fine with him.
Their tongues get to work for a moment. But eventually, Kitsune pulls her head back. There is a fierce blush on her face.
“Now that’s romantic.” The fox villain says while grinning wildly. It seems that someone really wasn’t going to waste any time getting things done. It was understandable. “So, uhm, what day is it right now?”
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Wow. Wow. She’s really interested in getting things done as fast as possible. Revenant finds himself kind of impressed with it.
“That’s fast.” Onslaught speaks his mind instead. Revenant has no idea what’s her opinion on it. “Really fast.”
“Hey, I waited my whole life for this!” Kitsune replies quickly. “Just like you all did! I’m fine with waiting if there are reasons for it, such as you wanting to maintain the schedule to not get used to bending it too much, or Revy not wanting it to happen today, but other than that I want to make that step asap! I mean, you’ve all done that already, and I’m the last one to get here to begin with.” She pouts a little. “Not summoning us three in a sequence was a mean thing to do, Blackie, but I assume that it was for the purpose of your grand master plan rather than anything else.”
“It was, yes.” Revenant replies. He does have other, much more serious plans concerning Kitsune and her unique skillset, indeed. “If it depended on me entirely, I’d summon people according to how much I wanted to apologize to them and make up for what I did to them or for how much I failed them. The three of you would be pretty damn near the top of the list. I’m sorry that it ended up different, and that you were resurrected so late, Kitsune.”
“Nah, it’s fine.” Kitsune says. Now she has moved down a little. Revenant is still lying on his now fallen chair, his back on the floor and his legs up in the air, still over the edge of the chair where they used to be despite losing contact with the floor. Kitsune moved down and slightly to the side, her chin resting on top of his chest, the foxgirl locking eyes with him, her ears perked up. “Hey! I’m a villain and a professional one at that! You being all focused on your work and me supporting you in that from all my heart and helping you achieve all your goals is super romantic!”
That sounds about right for Kitsune, Revenant decides. An inherent part of her design. He is fine with that.
“Actually, you know what?” Kitsune then says, her eyes now closed and a faint smile on her face. “Sorry for the outbreak, I was just kinda impatient. Throwing myself at you isn’t romantic at all. Take your time, make it count. And I don’t want to antagonize the others by acting too fast. But can I please get more headpats?”
He is used to (slightly) spoiled girlfriends. He can only wonder how much time it’ll take for Kitsune to revert to her original idea. But for now he obliges and headpats the fox woman, to the look of pure bliss on her face.
***
He ends up leaving the trio to bond up together properly. One of the final things he heard was Kitsune telling Onslaught that she is allowed to pet her ears too (but tail is off-limits for everyone but Blackie, sorry!), leading to the rather heartwarming sight of Kitsune’s head lying on Onslaught’s lap, with a blissful smile on her face, just as Onslaught was gently patting her head, clearly enjoying it too.
They also decided that while Kitsune doesn’t want to get adopted into the family (due to loving her dead/non-existent parents and being way too old to need to be adopted), they could as well treat each other as sisters. Besides, it’s a cool way to refer to each other as a part of the relationship.
They are indirectly connected romantically through him, but not with each other. So not girlfriends. But also, more than just friends, in a way. Hence, sisters. Revenant isn’t sure if this is a good idea, but… whatever floats their boats.
He can only wonder (and he’ll eventually ask) how is Onslaught really taking the fact that they both joined the relationship. Because she seems to have either accepted that deep down or turned out to be a surprisingly good actress.
He suspects that it’s the latter.
He ends up checking out what the modern VR games look like (much better than he remembered them as) with Decay, before he has gotten a message on the CommandNet chatroom.
FerrisPalmer: We have a situation.
PrideIncarnate: what happened?
IChoseViolence: ?
FerrisPalmer: Patrol just came back.
FerrisPalmer: We’ve located a new ship.
FerrisPalmer: In the direction where we have to head to get to the surface.
IChoseViolence: What’s the catch?
FerrisPalmer: It’s Aesculapius.
PrideIncarnate: oh
PrideIncarnate: that’s unexpected
IChoseViolence: 1. What is it, Humility?
IChoseViolence: 2. You’re a transhuman, a living personality imprint made into a cybernetic existence, and walking around in a highly advanced robot. Use. Punctuation. Marks.
PrideIncarnate: furk you revenant
PrideIncarnate: and stop calling me humility
IChoseViolence: no
Benefits of commplants? Conversations were fast. The whole exchange was done at speed of reading text, responses taking next to no time. It was way faster than any chatroom Revenant remembered from his time alive.
Also, Humility was really dedicated to acting like you wouldn’t expect an AI to act like.
FerrisPalmer: focus, please
FerrisPalmer: It’s Aesculapius. That’s serious.
PrideIncarnate: right
PrideIncarnate: didn’t take you for a person interested in this sort of things
[PrideIncarnate->IChoseViolence] it’s a fairly famous ghost ship, act accordingly
Ah, yes. Streamlined private message system. You don’t even need to open a separate tab, it just works like this. Incredibly useful.
IChoseViolence: Wow. A ghost ship. You guys are into it?
FerrisPalmer: people can have hobbies
IChoseViolence: Now you speak like the transhuman
IChoseViolence: ask it to show you their conspiracy board
FerrisPalmer: Ignoring this part of the talk is better than committing a bloody murder, so I’ll do just that.
FerrisPalmer: that ship’s disappearance is a capital M mystery
[PrideIncarnate->IChoseViolence] it is a medical ship from the SPQR
[ChoseViolence->PrideIncarnate] Senatus Populusque Romanus? Nani?
[PrideIncarnate->IChoseViolence] retrofuturism is a major trend, a lot of old countries got resurrected as ethnopolities
[repeated private message exchange detected, streamlining the process automatically]
[PC-01 created, participants: Pride Incarnate, IChoseViolence]
[do you want to add someone to the private conversation?]
[IChoseViolence wants to add BestDad]
[PrideIncarnate accepted]
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: that one started as pretty much a world-wide theme park
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: now has about a hundred worlds, a regional power, no longer pretends to be anything, it just is
FerrisPalmer: the odd thing is, there is no activity around it
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: aesculapius was a medical ship, larger than ball python
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: vanished without a trace together with its escorts during a routine mission
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: numerous sightings afterwards
FerrisPalmer: Opinions?
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: several cases of ships disappearing close to its sightings location
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: Okay. I’m fucking spooked.
IChoseViolence: I’m not entirely sure if I want to be anywhere near Aesculapius.
IChoseViolence: It sounds like a major FAFO moment.
FerrisPalmer: Fuck Around and Found Out?
IChoseViolence: Yes.
FerrisPalmer: I can’t say I disagree with that assessment.
FerrisPalmer: Where’s the Destro guy?
IChoseViolence: Busy with family life. It’s just the three of us for now. He’ll read the backlog once he’s done.
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: Did he google the FAFO term or is it still around today?
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: no references in the ship’s computer, it might have been a local meme of some of the planets he visited to this day
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: I fear the day that Decay discovers the fact that he has tens of thousands of Earth-like planets’ worth of memes to look through
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: want to see a future meme
FerrisPalmer: Lucky guy.
FerrisPalmer: Am I the only person who doesn’t like the fact that nothing left that ship?
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: … you know what, shoot it
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: [IMAGE POSTED]
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: … it’s a drawing of a flock of flying… bears?
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: with a ‘I’m flying towards you to f__k you up’ subtitle
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: an early 23th century meme from the solarnet
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: dione was a moon where mankind moved some of the arctic/antarctic animals for long-term preservation during the process of restoring the ecosystem of those parts on earth
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate:it has such a low gravity that you could fly by flapping your hands around
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: hence the meme
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: lmao
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: I wanna see a flock of flying murder-bears, this sounds fucking hilarious
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: for now we should limit off-topic
IChoseViolence: No, you’re not the only one.
IChoseViolence: If the disappearing ships were the ones that attempted to board it, opening the ship sounds like a horrible idea.
PrideIncarnate: not necessarily
PrideIncarnate: i’ve long suspected the ship to become a victim of nightmare/colorless touchdown event
Well, if this doesn’t sound foreboding at all.
FerrisPalmer: ?
PrideIncarnate: i cannot tell
FerrisPalmer: Fine
FerrisPalmer: What does it tell us?
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: that everyone aboard suffered a horrid fate at the hands of extradimensional horrors to equal or surpass the visitor
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: Jesus this galaxy is a mess
PrideIncarnate: nightmare/colorless is rendered temporarily inert following touchdown events
PrideIncarnate: if the conduits are permanently disabled between touchdown events, the touchdown event will not repeat
PrideIncarnate: if we act on a reasonable timescale, we can secure aesculapius
FerrisPalmer: What if we do not do that?
PrideIncarnate: unknown
PrideIncarnate: depends on the number of conduits
PrideIncarnate: if most or all of the people aboard it were converted into conduits, the touchdown event might wipe out everything in dozens of miles radius around aesculapius
PrideIncarnate: i cannot say with full certainty due to never witnessing a touchdown event technically underground
IChoseViolence: any way to predict how much time is left until that event
PrideIncarnate: yesn’t
PrideIncarnate: touchdown events cooldown ranges from about ten weeks to several years
PrideIncarnate: the problem is that if the maze acts to propagate the effect we can as well get wiped out randomly in three or four months due to it happening again
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: aesculapius should have psychosculpting devices onboard, in the psych ward
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: oh
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: are you trying to bribe me with Onslaught’s eyesight in order to confirm the truth behind a major mysterious event
[PC-01] IChoseViolence: which sounds like modern Mary Celeste or North Storm
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: guilty as charged
[PC-01] PrideIncarnate: but I also do not want to have my cognition unmade by the touchdown event that took us completely off-guard
That sounds like a reasonable motivation, Revenant has to admit that much. The cognition thing, that is.
FerrisPalmer: So we need to deploy there to defuse the time bomb that Aesculapius is?
PrideIncarnate: its a very good idea
FerrisPalmer: How much resistance can we expect?
PrideIncarnate: zero if we’re lucky and nothing else creeped in
PrideIncarnate: but we’d still need to deploy people with high mental resistance
PrideIncarnate: conduits cannot be recovered
PrideIncarnate: conduits have to eliminated
PrideIncarnate: some conduits might be children
FerrisPalmer: … I’ll find a few people, and go there myself too.
FerrisPalmer: Mostly to provide more eyes and ears.
FerrisPalmer: Anyone on your side to do mass killing, mercs tend to be great about it.
IChoseViolence: I’m taking offense.
IChoseViolence: Demiurge, Amplitude and Songbird are perfect picks for this mission.
FerrisPalmer: You’re contradicting yourself
IChoseViolence: yesn’t
IChoseViolence: i just do not identify with those people
IChoseViolence: I’m an honest mercenary
IChoseViolence: no one ever has ever proved any war crime allegations against me
FerrisPalmer: ...
PrideIncarnate: i should join the expedition as technical help and to provide counsel, even if Demiurge hates me
IChoseViolence: you just want to be the first one to confirm Aesculapius fate for bragging rights
PrideIncarnate: yes