Of the arts, storytelling is one of the oldest: humanity weaves an endless

tapestry of heart, hope, and home that continues to shape us all to this
day. To tell a story is to bridge the gap between yesterday and tomorrow;
to tell a story is to inextricably connect us all.

As with all tales, the one played out in this fanthology is a labor of love. To
our wonderful contributors, we thank you. This never could have existed
without your time, effort, and commitment. From day one we have been
awed by the sheer level of collaboration you have displayed, and honored
at the passion that has brought this project to life.

To our invaluable Mod Eirian, thank you for the idea that started it all. You
have always been the spark driving us forward, and with this release, we
wish you only the happiest of birthdays.

And to GoodTimesWithScar, we sincerely thank you for the marvelous

invention of Hotguy, a character who has delighted and ignited the
imaginations of countless individuals across the world.

We dedicate this zine to you all, to the fandom at large, and we hope that
as they have for countless generations, this story inspires you into a great,
big, beautiful tomorrow.

Cover Eirian, Julia

Layout design Julia
Editing TJ (text), gingermaple (art)

Sensitivity reading Addy, Dew

Fonts used DM Sans, Sevastian Base, Komika Hand
August 2024
 Warnings
This zinethology is PG-13, contains some profanity, and also depicts potentially
triggering content. Below is a list of the major warnings appearing in this project.
Please look for these icons by each piece’s title, and read safely! A complete
summary of each piece can be found at https://hotguycomicszine.carrd.co/
if it needs to be skipped.

Character
Death Guns
Depictions of Depictions of gun
on-screen death. violence and
gun imagery.

Injury Fire
Depictions of Depictions of fire,
injuries, blood and arson and burns.
medical procedures.

Mental
Trauma Unreality
Depictions of mental Depictions of unreality
illness including panic and derealization.
attacks, ptsd, and anxiety.

Mind Non Con

Control Body Mod
Depictions of Depictions of
possession and non-consensual
mind control. body modification.

Being Systemic
Watched Violence
Depictions of stalking Depictions of
and scopophobia. classism and police.

Severity Rating
Arguments Marks increasing the severity
Depictions of arguing, of a content warning.
discourse and None is mild, 1 is moderate,
major conflict. 2 is severe.
 welcome to
Her m i to pi a
In the aftermath of an unknown biohazard leaking into their water supply,
the citizens of this sprawling metropolis found themselves beginning
to change, rapidly mutating in bizarre, unprecedented ways. In the wake
of this drastic social upheaval, a new type of crime began to rise from
Hermitopia’s crowded streets: villainy.

With local government unequipped to deal with super-powered crime,

many citizens began to look to themselves for their own protection,
forming a massive, underground network of mutual aid in order to fight
the rising tide of villains as vigilantes. In response, a new division of the
local government was formed: the T.C.G., better known as the Hermitopia
“Threat Control Group”. Their job? Hunt down and identify every “threat”
to the city, regardless of status, and bring them back within the bounds
of the law.

But split public opinion and the threat of arrest can’t stop washed-up,
B-list actor Scar Goodtimes from chasing his dreams of greater fame as
a vigilante. With his trusty bow in hand, Scar is (kind of) prepared to do
(some of) what it takes to make himself a prominent figure again under the
whimsical mantle of HOTGUY.
 The story told within these pages is a continuous, interwoven narrative
stretching seamlessly across nearly sixty contributors, and will not make
sense if any pieces are skipped! Please take care to read the entire story
from start to finish, sit back, scan our QR code for the official listening
playlist, and, most importantly: enjoy!

Welcome to the wonderful world of HOTGUY COMICS!

Destination: Hermitopia!
 1
cover:
Berry
 I would like to give thanks first and foremost to my writers,
Jonny and Zeph, who’ve been my biggest cheerleaders and
my first victims to my insane requests like “draw an armored
car” and “write one more line of dialogue”.

I thank my fellow contributors and Miners: Aneliz, Jas, Topsy,

Maple, Alice, Worm, for sacrificing an unrecoverable amount
of sleep for a “collection of disjointed snapshots” and
witnessing its mutation into a “zinethology”. Please enjoy
what nine months of insanity4insanity has wrought up.

- Choco

Choco
Jonn Choco (art) ing)
y Sixt (writ
Zera, eenthdays Grains
TJ (editin , Ze ph ani a h e)
istanc
g) gingermaple, Crow (ass
 Alias: Hotguy
Mutation: Enhanced Vision
Status: Vigilante
Abilities: Archery
Danger
Level:
Favourite Hot Peppers
Food: (its a lie)
Current Getting matching
Concern: hotguy outfit for
Jellie

Eirian

Scar  Goodtimes
A
A - Attention Span 1
L V V - Vanity 4
E - Eyesight 5
S - Spice Tolerance 0
L - Love for Jellie 6
S E
Doody (art) Maruu
(w
Maruu, TJ, Ei riting) Zera
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(assist
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 rs ocfs
Van
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Hot present

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Sisy

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hot !

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Zip

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Br
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Choco (the shadow organizer)

 Cornpapers (art)
rainy (writing)
Onawhimsicot (editing)
 Droid (writer)  Antimony_Medusa (editor)

sweetferaline reblogged leangreenmurdermachine

16 min ago

leangreenmurdermachine Follow
May 10

remember everyone, it’s only vigilantism if it’s from the Hermitopia region of France.
otherwise its just sparkling aggravated assault

#hermitopia

210 notes

grayglass reblogged sweetferaline

20 min ago

sweetferaline
1h ago

#discourse #politics #yeah #they took the egyptian cat statues #they took the books
in the gift shop #im about to cross this nonexistent picket line myself #the ability to
digest roadkill has to be good for something #not srs dont @ me #i can be unbased
on mumblr if i want its my life

25 notes

50
 grayglass reblogged heroicbrine
35 min ago

heroicbrine
3d ago

sometimes i like to play a little game with myself called what will delay me on my way
to work today. this game used to be called will i get delayed on my way to work today,
but in the past two weeks i have found the answer to this question to be an incredibly
consistent yes

yesterday i got to complete my bingo card by being delayed by the same problem as
the past two days, which was a crime scene blocking off a major street and forcing me
to take the scenic route (for context: my mutation does not let me responsibly ride the
subway). today i got to start a new bingo card by having some dude attempt to mug
me (jokes on him my bank account has tumbleweeds in it and if he touched me he
would’ve regretted it) and then

and then

having that dude get chased away by a husky that had about six times the amount
of teeth as usual (for those of you unfamiliar with Hermitopia: crime is not unusual.
Powered animals with noticeable abilities that have NOT been picked up by the TCG
are). this was a new one on me.

anyway, shoutout to teeth dog, goodest of girls and apparently the most effective hero
in this city. ranking her above hotguy on every poll from now until the end of time.

professorbeak Follow
3d ago

picture?

heroicbrine
3d ago

do i look like some kind of snitch

#tales from hermitopia

506 notes

51
 leangreenmurdermachine reblogged grayglass
16 min ago

hotterguy Follow
5d ago

2365 notes

52
leangreenmurdermachine 5d ago
Love that you used specifically a medieval looking meme for this

radiantharmony 4d ago
this might be a hot take but the TCG needs to crack down on these freaks
way more than they have been. a guy declaring himself the ruler of a bunch
of powered gang members taking “justice” into their own hands and
answering to nothing but their own unexamined concepts of morality isn’t
a fun game for uneducated teenagers to laugh at, it’s a red flag. vigilantes
aren’t okay just because some of them have good PR and a pretty face,
and the TCG isn’t bad just because Hotguy’s people on M throw clever
comebacks at them, you hopelessly brain-poisoned morons.

sweetferaline 4d ago
@radiantharmony LMAO imagine thinking “TCG” and “justice” belong in the same
sentence. imagine actually referring to Chatter as M

heroicbrine 4d ago
@radiantharmony get out of here with your blatant TCG apologism. those
assholes do way more harm than good, and if you did any research at all
instead of falling for agency scare tactics, propaganda, and people who
think of Hermitopia as a lawless wasteland because the guy on the TV told
them so, you would realize that. DM me if you want sources but otherwise
you should reconsider offering opinions on Hermitopia politics if you don’t
actually live here, which from your blog i can tell you don’t. The TCG focusing
on vigilantes (people trying to HELP), powered animals, and anyone they can
easily overpower instead of the really dangerous villains causes way more
problems than the occasional good apple in the organization solves

radiantharmony 3d ago
@heroicbrine that is just the kind of response i would expect from someone
who’s spent the last five years drinking tapwater that mutates their body.
Hermitopia is objectively a lawless wasteland. The citizens of Hermitopia
treat villain-vigilante fights like a spectator sport then turn around and
wonder why their crime rates aren’t getting better. I sincerely hope they
make a cure someday for whatever else that shit apparently does to you,
because i can’t think of another reason someone who claims to make
a living legally would be so resistant to the concept of laws being enforced.

heroicbrine 3d ago
@radiantharmony the urge to disable your computer with my mind is so
powerful right now

leangreenmurdermachine 1h ago
@heroicbrine i thought your power was venom secretion???

heroicbrine 20m ago

@leangreenmurdermachine i would find a way

53
 hermitopia-explained
1h ago

anon asked:
What do you think of the rumors of a vigilante strike? I’m not from
Hermitopia but I have to go there for a conference and I’m worried it will
be dangerous if I leave the hotel.

First of all: Bold Of You To Think I Ever Go Outside

More seriously: You’ll be fine, anon. I run this blog to dispel misinformation about my
hometown and its unusual situation re: human and animal capabilities, and as a result, I
do a lot of research on the vigilantes, villains, and other high-profile powered individuals
in Hermitopia. Aside from the fact that the vigilante strike is mostly hearsay at this point
and doesn’t seem to have noticeably affected how often vigilantes are actually active so
far, the vast majority of the city and surrounding suburbs does not contain targets large
enough for major villains to bother with, and the kind of petty criminal who would rob a
bodega is usually low level enough for police or the TCG to handle.

Most altercations between villains and vigilantes happen in areas that see a lot of
commercial use or moving products, in out of the way areas like warehouses or the sewer
system that do not invite TCG attention, or in flashy areas like downtown Hermitopia;
statistically, at least 60% of these altercations (source) can be traced back to repeat
encounters and personal grudges between villains and vigilantes, and only 13% (source)
involve civilians directly as hostages or fatalities. While I can’t promise that you won’t be
harmed by a villain in some fashion, and I definitely can’t call a city that has standardized
phone alerts for villain activity safe, I can say that your odds of becoming a statistic are
low as long as you don’t go looking for trouble.

If you’re really worried, stick around where your conference is being held, be sure to mark
the exits and avoid any major presentations on new technologies or bioweapons*, and
run close to The Perimeter— you can ask anybody where it is and they’ll tell you— if you’re
being chased. It’s run by a supervillain, but Doctor Monster doesn’t tend to target civilians
directly, and he’s not happy with other villains messing with anyone close to his turf.

*I don’t know which conference you’re referring to, since from a cursory internet search
I’ve found six being held in Hermitopia in the next few months, but a large gathering of
world-class scientists, rich business people, or other juicy targets would be a draw for
major villains. Disregard all of my advice if you’re coming to this city with a degree in
biotechnology, a new prototype for something combat-related, or a gaggle of convenient
hostages who can be held for ransom— though I hope by now that nobody fitting those
labels would schedule a conference in Hermitopia in the first place!

#ask #anonymous #safety concerns #thank you everyone for coming to my Tek Talk

200 notes

54
 grayglass reblogged leangreenmurdermachine
1h ago

leangreenmurdermachine Follow
1h ago

How come every other vigilante has cool photos to make into profile pics and then
for maple prince you get like one bigfoot-quality image where the photographer
circled a white spot in the corner and claimed it was him but he was just moving
too fast. who is this man. why won’t he stay still. why won’t he let me get his
autograph

#hermitopia #maple prince #why is maple prince not a common tag i know people
don’t actually think he isn’t real #there’s been like four sightings #he’s real… at least in
my heart #<- prev

135 notes

mournfulmonarchist
1h ago

man i miss cuteguy. not even bc i think hes good at fighting crime. i just miss
seeing him around

#one time i saw him get startled off a rooftop and land in a full dumpster even
though he has wings #thats a top ten hero fail in my brain #next to that time hotguy
got attacked by a pigeon downtown #mournful rambles

2 notes

hermitopia-explained
1h ago

anon asked:
so if heroes are showing crafted personas to the public, don’t you think
hotguy and cuteguy having matching names and outfits at least verges
on queerbaiting?

I AM NOT HAVING THIS CONVERSATION AGAIN

#hermitopia #STOP GIVING ME FLASHBACKS AJ I KNOW ITS YOU #however the

matching outfits are cute #if they only teamed up recently im not sure WHY the
matching outfits #but i cheer for it

346 notes

55
 (writing)
Briefle
s (art)
roger
ing)
ws (edit
Traff TerraGlo germaple
)
(assistance
gin
dy yoMoss,
Bran
 (art) (writing)
TJ gingermaple, Sparks
(editing) (as
sistance)
[HOTGUY!] HAS
ONE NEW MAIL
(Writing)  Ant
im ony_Medusa (Editing)
Telk

Users with permissions to this shared mailbox:

Bdubs (role: Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes, Actor)

Last login: Today

Cub (role: Hotguy PR Agent)

Last login: Today

Scar (role: IT’S ME, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE ONE AND ONLY!)
Last login: 215 days ago

are you there?

Cuteguy <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

is this hotguy’s email? i thought you were coming on patrol?

Why do you NEVER ANSWER YOUR PHONE

-cg

The VALUES AND PRINCIPLES of

Scar Goodtimes Acting Enterprises
Bdubs
to Cub, Hotguy Agent

Dear Cub (if that’s your real name)

Now that you’ve been working for Scar for several weeks, I realized I never sent
you any AGENCY INTRODUCTION documents. That’s okay! None of us are perfect,
despite what you might feel when you look at me.

For your ENJOYMENT and EDUCATION, here are:

80
 The Founding Principles of Scar Goodtimes Acting Enterprises

1. Bdubs is Scar’s favorite employee.

1a. Bdubs is also Hotguy’s favorite employee DESPITE the fact he does
not technically work for Hotguy, and no upstart new PR agent is going to
change that.

2. Hotguy’s identity is a secret. You must never reveal that we both work for the
same person. Take it to your grave if you have to.

3. However, if you see someone talking shit online about Hotguy or Scar you
should immediately defend his honor. I often do this and you can see the results in
the shared folder admin\arguments_bdubs_has_won. You might not be as good
as me at winning debates on the internet—don’t worry!! I can give you tips.

4. Here at the agency, we have the HIGHEST STANDARDS in responding to emails

from the public. I noticed there are SEVERAL HUNDRED UNANSWERED EMAILS sent
to Hotguy’s addresses that redirect to our shared mailbox. Scar is a very busy man!
It is YOUR JOB to clear these out.

5. We are open and helpful with everyone. Except hostile journalists. And the
TCG. And the tax authorities. And anyone who might want Scar to do anything
unreasonable like ‘be on time for something’. Keep this in mind as you go through
the inbox.

All The Best!!!

Bdubs

P.S. I have noticed that admin\important_documents is now full of files called

‘virus1.exe’ ‘virus2 (gov encryption).exe’ ‘virus3 (might be sentient).exe’ etc.
Explain this!?

Re: The VALUES AND PRINCIPLES of

Scar Goodtimes Acting Enterprises
Cub
to Bdubs, Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes

Yeah man cool this all sounds great

Scar seems to have a few email addresses that feed into here. i’ve sent replies
according to which one the public emailed:

[email protected] — i replied to some of these but then i kinda got bored and
started sending links to cool space facts instead. People will appreciate these
i’m sure.

[email protected] — sent everyone a bulk reply of “Thank you for

EMAILING_HOTGUY!! Hotguy loves you!”

81
 [email protected] — sent everyone a photo of Scar in his
Hotguy costume

[email protected] — sent everyone a photo of Scar in his

Hotguy costume minus the shirt

[email protected] — sent everyone who gave their

address some trick arrows. Only some of them will explode.

[email protected] — redirected this one to spam

[email protected] — also redirected this one to spam. replying

to the IRS just encourages them.

inbox zero, my friend. we’re ready for the next concerned citizen to write to us.
Let’s go.

Cheers,
Cub

P.S. don’t worry about the viruses. Just a hobby. they’re in \important_documents
because I needed a folder that scar never clicks on.

Re: Re: The VALUES AND PRINCIPLES of

Scar Goodtimes Acting Enterprises
Bdubs
to Cub, Hotguy Agent

Dear Cub,

Interesting. INTERESTING.

Don’t think you’re going to work your way into Scar’s affections with CLEVER
VIRUSES and SHIRTLESS PICS OF HIMSELF. I see your game.

I’ve been Scar’s agent for years and I think when things heat up you might find this
job too hot to handle.

All the Best!!!!

Bdubs

OFFICIAL REVIEW NOTIFICATION

TCG Special Officer <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

Dear Hotguy (civilian identity unknown),

We are currently undertaking a review of your recent vigilante activities as ‘Hotguy’.

82
 Vigilantes (‘heroes’) are encouraged to protect citizens and cooperate with the
TCG. For this we require vigilantes to regularly communicate with their TCG liaisons,
attend emergencies on request, and support law enforcement operations.

None of our emails to <[email protected]> have been

answered—I was going to say ‘in some time’, but I checked our file on you, and it
turns out the right word is ‘ever’. You have never answered an email from the TCG.
I am sure you can see why this is an issue.

We do admittedly have some difficulty getting vigilantes to ever listen to us, but
this is a new low in obstructionism.

We have requested your assistance in investigating thefts from two biotech

laboratories, vandalism at a local redstone supplies shop, and multiple call-outs
to security incidents at Mumbocorp. You have completely ignored all of these
requests. We note you have instead caused widespread chaos, disrupted several
TCG operations, and at one point impersonated the Mayor in order to trick ‘Doctor
M’ into purchasing a non-existent bridge.

May I remind you that vigilante activity is only legal insofar as we decline to
prosecute heroes for property damage. Kindly reach out to our liaison department
immediately so we can work together on collaborative action under the direction of
the correct authorities.

On behalf of Head Agent V. Berger,

Special Officer #49

Re: are you there?

Cuteguy <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

who is answering hotguy’s emails and why have you sent me a list of top
supernovas! this is NOT HELPFUL

Re: OFFICIAL REVIEW NOTIFICATION

Cub
to TCG Special Officer <[email protected]>

Dear Concerned Citizen,

Thank you for reaching out about the availability of Hotguy. Hotguy is unable to
respond himself because he is rescuing kittens from tragically falling into rivers, an
activity that has fully occupied him for the past eighteen months.

This is quite the list of criminal events, my friend. I thought the TCG had this kind
of thing under control. It’s concerning that you don’t. Doesn’t make your TCG
department look super great, huh?

83
 Thinking about it, this really seems like something the Police Commissioner should
know about. If you’ve lost the Commissioner’s email address, don’t worry. I found it
on a forum.

Cheers,
Cub
Hotguy PR Agent

Re: Re: OFFICIAL REVIEW NOTIFICATION

TCG Special Officer <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

Dear Hotguy’s PR Agent,

I understand as a law-abiding Hermitopia resident, you may be alarmed at

descriptions of disorder intended for Hotguy’s eyes only. Please do not be
concerned. We also strongly recommend you do not forward this chain to the
Police Commissioner. As you will see from the news, the city is peaceful and
everything is completely under control.

Kind Regards,
Special Officer #49

IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cuteguy <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

THERE ARE THREE HUNDRED CHICKENS WITH LASERS ON FIFTH STREET

tell hotguy to call me he’s not picking up!!!

-cg

Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cub
to Cuteguy <[email protected]>

Dear Concerned Citizen,

Regrettably Hotguy is not available as he is escorting orphans to the North Pole to

tour Santa’s workshop.

Cheers,
Cub
Hotguy PR Agent

84
Re: Re: IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW
Cuteguy <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

it’s JULY

Re: (...) IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cub
to Cuteguy <[email protected]>

Hotguy believes in being prepared

is this really cuteguy? what’s going on?

-Cub

Re: (...) IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cuteguy <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

i was coming back from patrol and going to pick up my pizza. i always get pizza,
cub, you have to understand this is an important part of patrol.

when i turn the corner to my normal pizza place there are

AT LEAST FIVE HUNDRED CHICKENS WITH BEAK-MOUNTED LASERS

ALL OVER THE STREET

BETWEEN ME AND MY PIZZA

they’re milling around and scratching like someone just dumped them here.
whenever they squawk they burn a tiny hole in the nearest wall. i tried to get near
one to look at the device on their beaks and i nearly got my finger burned off.

now i’m on a roof. i want my PIZZA, cub. i’m a close-range fighter and i’m not getting
up close with a laser chicken. this seems like a hotguy problem!

Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)

Pearl Moon <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

Helloooo,

My name is Pearl Moon, and I’m a reporter with the Hermit Herald. I heard
Hotguy has a new PR agent at this address. I’m not going to lie, I’m delighted.

85
 Hotguy’s a great guy for a quote, obviously, but getting hold of him is kind of
a nightmare.

I’m at the scene of the Eighth Annual Fried Donut Festival. I’m contacting
you because a citizen running a stall has allegedly just seen a, I quote,
“weaponized chicken”.

According to them, it shot an “adorable laser” into their supplies, punctured a hole
in their fruit toppings cooler, and ran under the stalls. I’ve been on this beat for
a while and this sounds like a Doctor Monster or a Zedaph special to me. Personally,
my money’s on Doc.

I know your client and Doctor Monster go back a long way, so I was wondering if we
might see Hotguy himself swooping in?

Yours in pursuit of the truth,

Pearl Moon

Re: Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)

Cub
to Pearl Moon <[email protected]>

Dear Concerned Journalist,

Thank you for your email. As you know, Hotguy is currently in Canada fighting
smallpox by shooting individual bacteria with a special crossbow, for which he has
received a commendation from their Prime Minister.

I’ve just contacted him to get a quote about the chicken and he definitely said,
“Seems bad.”

Enjoy the festival! Feel free to send Hotguy a souvenir donut box to my address.

Cheers,
Cub
Hotguy PR Agent

Re: (...) IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cuteguy <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

there’s some kind of festival with crowds of civilians going on in the next street.
the chickens are wandering towards it. to make everything worse, i think i saw
a newsreader van.

this is funny but also very bad.

86
 i’m going to see if i can lead the chickens away from the festival with some bait,
since hotguy’s obviously too busy admiring his own biceps in the mirror to help. i’ve
got half a granola bar and an apple core. this is going to work really well for eight
hundred chickens. here goes nothing.

if hotguy wakes up from his afternoon nap, you can tell him we didn’t even
need him.

Re: Re: Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)

Pearl Moon <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

Dear Cub,

I’m pretty sure Canada doesn’t have smallpox anymore. I don’t think anywhere
has smallpox.

New update: Several hundred chickens have just erupted into the festival from
a side street. They all appear to have lasers. The sheer weight of poultry has
overturned two artisan donut stalls, which has caused what I’m going to describe
as “mass panic” as people try and avoid the laser beams. People screaming, people
running, everything coated in a fine layer of powdered sugar. No injuries yet, but it
looks like the Prize-Winning Triple Marshmallow Churro Donut display will never be
the same again.

Also, I swear I just saw Cuteguy.

Yours in pursuit of the truth,

Pearl Moon

Re: (...) IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cuteguy <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

i got ONE chicken with the granola bar and NOW IT’S DECIDED IT’S MY BEST FRIEND.
it keeps trying to fly into my arms! this is not helping!!

its friends are now all over the stalls. the laser chicken breed has discovered
a new staple food and it’s fried donuts. this is NOT my fault. clearly none of this is
my fault.

oh god now there’s two TCG agents coming over to see what all the shouting is
about. the chicken radius is growing. there’s a folk band on a bicycle and a chicken
just launched itself into their tuba.

i’m going to try and round the rest of them up. keep the TCG off my back and tell
hotguy to do ANYTHING HELPFUL AT ALL.

87
Re: (...) Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)
Pearl Moon <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

Situation update: Cuteguy is in the middle of a huge crowd of shouting people and
appears to be clutching a chicken. Also, Doctor Monster has turned up. He’s trying
to give a dramatic speech about his “evolved chickens” from a nearby rooftop
through a loudhailer, but I’ll be honest, everyone seems more interested in Cuteguy.

#laserchickendisaster and #whereishotguy are trending on Chatter, but no sign of

Hotguy yet! Sure he doesn’t want to give us a longer quote?

Yours in pursuit of the truth,

Pearl Moon

Re: (...) IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cub
to Cuteguy <[email protected]>

I have a cool contraption that you could probably use for catching chickens.
downside is you do need some plutonium. Not much but, like, not a legal amount.

Alternately i also have a great recipe for roast chicken

-Cub

Re: (...) IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cuteguy <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

we are not roasting these chickens, cub, the chickens have done nothing wrong!!
And WHY DO YOU HAVE PLUTONIUM, WE TOLD YOU TO STOP THE DARK SCIENCE.
DO SOMETHING USEFUL ABOUT THIS FESTIVAL SITUATION INSTEAD.

Re: (...) Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)

Pearl Moon <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

Situation update: Doctor Monster has now turned his loudhailer on Cuteguy and
accused him of stealing his evolved chickens. He seems very upset. The Doctor has
declined an interview, but I’ve got some incredible photos and the powdered sugar
really suits him.

88
 I’m trying to get a quote from Cuteguy but it’s quite difficult to even see him
through the crowd, and the chickens, and the German street band, and the
displaced donut vendors, and the TCG agents who are trying quite earnestly to get
to him, and—did I mention—the chickens.

My camera team is getting some great footage, but do you know what his plan
was here?

Yours in pursuit of the truth,

Pearl Moon

Re: (...) IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cuteguy <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

everyone in the crowd thinks i own these chickens!! one of the chickens has set fire
to a hot oil vat and a journalist is after me and an old lady keeps trying to hit me
with her handbag!!!

DOC IS NOW TAKING POT SHOTS AT ME FOR NO REASON AT ALL. I HATE THIS JOB.

i’m behind cover

it won’t last

if you don’t get hotguy here now i’m never speaking to him again

Re: (...) IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cub
to Cuteguy <[email protected]>

nooo you’re doing great man, knocking it out the park. Doesn’t sound like you
need Hotguy.

you’re a hero too, right?

-Cub

Re: (...) IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cuteguy <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

okay cub listen.

i don’t WANT hotguy. if i could fix this chicken situation without the city’s most
annoying vigilante turning up to take the credit, believe me, i would have done
it already.

89
 but you know what hotguy can do? he can win the crowd. hotguy’s always on
the right side. nobody would ever accuse hotguy of owning fifteen hundred laser
chickens. he tells people about hope and teamwork stuff and they believe him.

oh god

the TCG are here and i’m apparently target number one.

they’ve just spotted me on this gazebo and i’ve got no good roof to jump to. i’ll
have to make a run for it. if you don’t hear from me again, i might have got arrested.

hotguy spouts all that rubbish about teamwork, but hey, it’s pretty obvious he
doesn’t believe in it himself!

what I’m about to suggest is legal

Cub
to Bdubs, Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes

we should help him huh

do you know where scar is? like which cell phone towers might be close. I’ve got
a map of the towers if you can give me a location.

-Cub

this sounds NOT legal

Bdubs
to Cub, Hotguy Agent

BDUBS TO THE RESCUE, AS ALWAYS. You’re welcome.

Scar is actually recording a snack commercial over on Twelfth Street. Details in

projects\casting_directors_bdubs_is_not_feuding_with\ dumb_projects_we
_ have_to_book_for_money\Sparkle!Cereal!

this is 100% legal white hat hacking definitely

Cub
to Bdubs, Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes

okay I’ve remotely accessed Scar’s phone and put a klaxon on it. Should be audible
two hundred yards away.

I’m gonna call him now.

-Cub

90
Re: (...) Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)
Pearl Moon <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

Situation update from your reporter on the ground (still no quote from the
guy himself?)

Cuteguy has been showing great stamina in the chase that’s been going on. The
camera crew is impressed!

He is currently being pursued by:

1. Doc

2. Doc’s cyborg guard robot

3. Two TCG agents

4. Three hundred and sixty chickens (approx.), one of which believes Cuteguy is
its best friend

5. Several animal activists attempting to recapture the chickens

6. A bar crawl that seems to think they’re doing a parade and wanted to join in

7. A German band on a long bicycle with two clarinets and a man trying to shake
a chicken out of his tuba

Cuteguy is…looking back over his shoulder?

Oh, wait! Situation update paused!

Re: (...) IS THIS HOTGUY’S EMAIL ANSWER RIGHT NOW

Cuteguy <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

HE’S HERE

HE’S ACTUALLY HERE

FINALLY

91
Re: (...) Hotguy appearance? (press enquiry)
Pearl Moon <[email protected]>
to Hotguy <[email protected]>

Hotguy has arrived!

He’s swooped in with three trick arrow shots that set off fireworks above the crowd,
rappelled straight up to Doc on the roof, and started a fist fight with him. It’s very
dramatic. I’m not sure he’s actually landing any of those blows.

Helpfully for Cuteguy, no one is looking at him anymore. He’s surreptitiously putting
distance between himself and the TCG agents.

Doc is now making another speech while fighting Hotguy. If I’m honest, he seems
pretty happy he’s finally getting the credit for his own evil plot. We’ve got a close-
up on him. Doc would like us all to know that this is the future of poultry, the future
of lasers, and possibly the future of donuts? Last part a bit unclear as at that point
Hotguy threw his loudhailer off the roof.

Meanwhile, Cuteguy is trying to lure the chickens away from the civilians with
pieces of donut. This would be working better if the crowd weren’t all shoving
forwards to try to get a better look at Doc.

Doc has taken off on a jetpack declaring he’ll “be back!”. Hotguy has given him
a thumbs up.

Oh, now Hotguy has finally caught on to what Cuteguy is trying to do and is
chivvying the crowd to help herd the chickens away with donuts for bait. Donuts
are flying. The crowd is now enthusiastically participating in this donut-tossing
activity. The chickens are delighted. Hotguy has spotted our camera team chasing
him and we’re getting a lot of that action-shot this-is-my-good-side pose.

Hotguy and Cuteguy work together pretty well when they get going, huh?

Now Hotguy has swung down to land in the middle of the crowd and put an
arm around each of the TCG agents, who are heavily dusted in sugar and look
somewhat sheepish. What a nicely framed shot! Almost as if Hotguy pushed them
into position for the cameras.

Well, I suppose I’m writing an article about how much Hotguy helps the TCG.

Your client owes me one.

Doc’s guard robot has rounded up the chickens that Hotguy and Cuteguy have
funneled back into a nearby alley. It seems to be putting them in large nets. The
local pizza place has a sign that says RIGATONI JONES PIZZA: CLOSED DUE TO
CHICKEN EMERGENCY, and for some reason Cuteguy seems upset about this.
Excitement over, I suppose?

I do hope you tell Hotguy how helpful the Herald was! Next time he’s got a tip-off to
share, just tell him to remember your friendly local journalist Pearl Moon.

92
 He knows where to find me ;)

Yours in pursuit of the truth,

Pearl Moon

hmm
Bdubs
to Cub, Hotguy Agent

You know, Cub, I’ve been thinking. That wasn’t bad, how you got hold of Scar.
NOT BAD AT ALL. I am starting to think you might be a useful type of person to
have around.

All The Best

Bdubs

Re: hmm
Cub
to Bdubs, Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes

cheers man

i’ve rigged the klaxon so it plays when either of us or cuteguy calls scar. if he waits
too long to answer it starts to play the whole Lilo and Stitch movie audio. if anyone
asks this is not technically a virus.

-Cub

Re: Re: hmm

Bdubs
to Cub, Hotguy Agent

I LOVE it. I love it.

You know, I have a whole list of casting directors I think you could test some virus
development on. It would do them good. Keep them on their toes!! (I believe this is
called…“white hat”).

I am HEREBY going to let you into my most SECRET FOLDER.

<[email protected]> has shared admin\nemesis_list

Maybe start with ‘casting_directors_who_do_not_recognise_bdubs_talent-

spotting_genius’ and ‘producers_who_were_rude_to_scar’

93
Re: (...) hmm
Cub
to Bdubs, Publicity & Comms for Scar Goodtimes

leave it to me, man

we’re gonna go far

652

Cuteguy (REPLY QUICK)

i’ve been picking chicken feathers out of my

laundry for days.

this is your fault.

A badge of Heroism!

today i found one in the MICROWAVE

Hey, do you think we can sell them as souvenirs

Hotguy and Cuteguy REAL BATTLE MERCH

I bet people would buy

94
this is a terrible idea

You wanna go get food tonight?

Pizza?

...

yeah

all the toppings

you’re paying

That’s a………….

i’m not going to like this am i

……….EGGCELENT

idea

ok that was a little bit funny. dont let it go

to your head

See you at the pizza place, fellow chicken hero!

Delivered

95
 Droid (writer)  Antimony_Medusa (editor)

Doctor Monster @docmonster • 1 week ago

Finally… Scar Goodtimes is back in action!

Crow

3 15 273

Scar Goodtimes PR @goodtimespr • 1 week ago

FANTASTIC discussion of the Goodtimes MOVIE MAGIC GUARANTEE. Scar

Goodtimes approves this thread!

Doctor Monster @docmonster • 1 week ago

THREAD 1/30 Rewatching The Dark Crystals and asking myself again
how Scar can be sidelined to B movies.

The lava scene is some of the most inspired acting I have seen from
these studios. He is a jewel in a trash pit of overhyped morons. Why
does no one recognize this?

8 22 298

96
Scar Goodtimes PR @goodtimespr • 1 week ago

THIS IS JUST WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING.

Doctor Monster @docmonster • 1 week ago

THREAD 11/30 Exhibit 8 is this Sparkle cereal commercial. Who

authorized this? Why did they swap the other actor for an adult but
leave the lines written for a child? You can see the pain in Scar’s eyes.

4 36 445

Scar Goodtimes PR @goodtimespr • 1 week ago

Scar was on time for at least half of the shoots for this film and for WHAT. 40
minutes of screentime for A DIFFERENT DOG THAN THE FIRST MOVIE.

Doctor Monster @docmonster • 1 week ago

THREAD 18/30 Now we come to the bane of my existence…

Mayor Bud: Politic Boogaloo. I know the names and addresses of the
test audience that greenlit the ending.

I have been merciful so far, but my patience is running out. Some

people are too idiotic to tolerate.

5 56 300

Scar Goodtimes PR @goodtimespr • 1 week ago

YOU SAY THAT TO MY FACE YOU TAX-DODGING MISCREANT. Your laser

chickens aren’t even loyal to you!

And your jetpacks make you look like a TOTAL DORK with BAD TASTE. How’s
THAT for INCOMPETENT, HUH. HOW DOES THAT FEEL TO HEAR. COWARD

Doctor Monster @docmonster • 1 week ago

24/30 Honestly I put the blame on incompetent management…

7 55 891

97
Doctor Monster @docmonster • 1 week ago

If you worked for anyone else, you would be learning a lesson about
threatening someone who can obliterate you.

Let that sink in. Remember what will happen the next time you cross me.

It won’t be as easy as placating followers on my website was for you today.

Scar Goodtimes PR @goodtimespr • 1 week ago

Scar Goodtimes Acting Enterprises does not endorse villainous action

taken against test audiences, movie producers, catering companies,
freelance film companies, or camera operators, and we humbly
apologize for any insensitivity in recent social media activity.

14 73 1.2k

IUTSE @IUSolidarity • 1 week ago

Join everyone in the International Union of Theatrical Stage Employees to

kick off Hermitopia Safety Week with IUTSE Educational webinars! Schedule
is below:

Crow

8 23

98
 Kate Guerrera @kathikitkat • 1 day ago
what do yall mean youre confused how vigilantes have all this time on
their hands. Do you know how many unemployed actors there are in this
city #Hermitopia

6 20 333

berrybluejorts reblogged sweetferaline

43 min ago

mumblesplash Follow
7d ago

not to be the fun police but as someone with a lot of bank robbery adjacent work
experience i gotta say i’m pretty disappointed in the recent wave of ‘based on a true
story’ villain attack movies they keep churning out. scar goodtimes you were literally
injured in the 2030 lil atlantis charity gala shootout why are you participating in this
thinly-veiled tcg propaganda

EDIT: NO I DON’T ROB BANKS FOR A LIVING STOP THREATENING TO REPORT ME

heroicbrine
5d ago

well what else were we supposed to think you meant by ‘bank robbery adjacent work
experience’

mumblesplash Follow
5d ago

YOU’VE BEEN FOLLOWING ME FOR AT LEAST A YEAR YOU KNOW FULL WELL I’M A
PROFESSIONAL HOSTAGE

berrybluejorts Follow
43 min ago

hey. as a non-hermitopian: what the fuck

#WHAT IS GOING ON OVER THERE

1327 notes

99
 hermitopia-explained
3h ago

anon asked:
whats it like with the movie industry now that hermitopia got mutated?
i havent read a lot of articles so sorry again if im being like. SUPER dumb
rn im trying my best

Hello Anon! You’re not being dumb at all, this is a good question. I’ve answered a similar
ask about changes in Hermitopia’s economy here, but the gist of it is that while the
first year or two of mutations led to a drop in production, the entertainment industry
bounced back fairly fast. I don’t have enough in-depth knowledge to give you a too
detailed rundown, unfortunately, but I will say that the main impacts of powered crime
and the subsequent cultural shift to villains and vigilantes on the movies, TV shows, and
other media we know and love were issues with insurance and liability, the changes that
mutations brought to nearly everybody’s lives, and just how cool the practical effects*
could be.

When it comes to actors, a good deal of them developed mutations as the rest of us did,
some of which** were famously career ending, some of which*** made their careers, and
some of which**** changed how they were typecast in interesting ways.

As for studios, I have to recommend Hermitopia: Unleashed as a good documentary

to watch: it’s available free online, and has some fascinating insight on the culture
of paying off villains to stay away from movie sets. I expect it could answer a lot of
questions someone who does remote work in finance could not, and my beloved mutual
@sweetferaline was actually on the production team!

*Followers, I know you’re all traumatized by my last April Fools post, but I promise this
isn’t a rickroll. It’s a compilation of cool mutation moments in movies by my beloved
mutual @leangreenmurdermachine

**This also isn’t a rickroll, it’s a link to an article about the lead actor of Moonfall,

***This is a link to an article about the actress who played Carol in Carol The Zombie vs
Aliens.

****This is a rickroll. I’m not sorry.

#ask #hermitopia #movies

443 notes

100
 scargoodtimes • 2 days
Mending Beach, Hermitopia

Anneliis

150,050 likes
scargoodtimes What’s this? A wild Goodtimes appears on Mending Beach for a
summer fun extravaganza!

101
 queenjellie • 4 days
Hermitopia

Szad

230,400 likes
queenjellie Extra special birthday nap for an extra special kitty

102
Thello
 g)
itin
wr g)
rt, it in
(a (ed
ek t
C re e-Ca
lo -Fir
t
Vio Ca
le
 Scar hasn't been allowed to drive the
Scarmobile since his test drive.

During that ride, he tried to fire an arrow

while keeping the front wheel steady
by steering with his calves and the wheel
itself, instead of using the handlebars like
a normal person.

Ever since then, Cuteguy makes sure to grab the

keys to the Scarmobile real quick.

Berry
Briefle (assistance)
 2
cover:
Wormtime
 Synergy
(Writing)  Res
(Editing)
Kaya

The air in the warehouse they’re crouching in is dusty, the windowpane in front of them caked
in layers of grime. Scar swipes the back of his gloved hand across the bottom of the window
and leans closer to peer out of it, stifling a cough as he accidentally inhales what he’d just
stirred up.

“See anything?” Cuteguy, Scar’s partner-in-crime-fighting, mutters to his right. The few floors
of the building they’d checked had looked clear, but the entire block is suspect; they can’t be
confident that the whole place isn’t bugged.

“Give a man a minute,” Scar whispers back, just as quietly.

Cuteguy scoffs. “For the guy with enhanced vision, you sure are taking your sweet time
with this.”

“Half of the windows are boarded over, and the others are just as dirty as this one! I’m trying—”
Scar cuts himself off as a flash of motion in a window across the street catches his eye.
Honing in on it, his lips curl as he glimpses the barest hint of green. Bingo.

“Found our guy?” Cuteguy asks, wings tightening against his back.

“Sure did. It’s go time.”

The old warehouse’s fire escape is wrought of flaking, green-painted iron, partially obscured
by the shadow of the building next to it. The ladder hangs in the alleyway between them,
folded up just barely out of Scar’s reach. With a jump, he grabs the lowest rung and pulls
down, and the stupid ladder protests with what Scar thinks is the loudest, most awful squeal
of rusted metal sliding against rusted metal he’s ever heard. Cuteguy flinches, then recovers
with a glare.

“You idiot!” he hisses. “Do you have any idea how noisy that was?”

“Oh, you know, all part of the plan,” Scar responds sarcastically, just to ruffle his feathers.
Ruffle they do, and Cuteguy’s scowl grows. “Figured I’d set off a big red flare after that, just
to really make sure Doc knows we’re here—”

“And what are you two doing here?” a voice, low and accented, says behind them. Scar and
Cuteguy freeze, and turn slowly to see Doc Monster, a green-skinned, goat-horned man in
a lab coat, standing behind them. His bionic eye glints blood red, and his organic, square-
pupilled one manages to match the other’s intimidation with the glower it’s drawn low into.

Scar clears his throat. “We were just walking around, you see! Lovely day for it, wouldn’t you
say?” He can’t see Cuteguy’s upper face behind his pink-and-orange visor, but Scar can

118
envision the eye roll all the same. “Got a bit lost and ended up here. Now, if you’ll just let us
be on our way—!”

He lunges, and Doc sidesteps with just enough luck to evade him. Doc’s a scientist, not
a fighter—he’d never be able to outmatch the mighty Hotguy—but just as Scar’s about to
grab for Doc again, a blur of green and blue darts between them. Cuteguy snatches Scar by
the hand and yanks him back, just in time for the thing to explode, leaving a car-sized crater
and fiery pain in its wake.

Doc raises his arms and cackles as Scar jolts hard enough to hurt. His right leg is burning,
nerves set alight; his heartbeat pounds in his ears and his breathing is ragged as it comes in
rapid bursts.

“Not a fan of my newest invention?” Doc mocks.

“What was that?” Cuteguy demands, his hand falling away from Scar’s wrist. Scar hadn’t even
noticed it was still there.

Doc shrugs. “Why don’t you find out for yourself?”

Another one of the things appears, and Scar scrambles back. It actually isn’t all that fast
moving, he realizes, its pace about the same as his fast walk. The last one must’ve been
waiting right around the corner.

“A creeper?” Cuteguy sounds incredulous, walking steadily backwards. His hands twitch
between the sticks on his back and knives at his sides.

A creeper! Green and spotted, with oddly-shaped, upright bodies atop four stubby legs and
a penchant for exploding if agitated, the things are brutal. The mobs are rare in the city, most
commonly found lurking in the sewers below it—Scar’s only dealt with one or two in his time
as a vigilante. He nocks an arrow and lets it fly, only for the arrow to bounce harmlessly off the
blue rings that hover close around the creeper. Now that—that’s not right.

“New plan!” Scar lurches forwards into a sprint and almost faceplants. His braces. They’re
hanging in there, but the explosion had gotten them just badly enough to rob him of the
support he’d need for anything more taxing than a jog. Paired with the pain running down his
side, every step burns.

Scar forces himself into the fastest run he can manage, heading for the open street, Cuteguy
right on his heels. Doc’s nowhere to be seen, but the weird creeper continues its dreadful
pursuit, strange, mechanical clicking following its every step.

“Wait—wait!” Cuteguy’s footsteps abruptly fall silent behind Scar, and he whirls around to
see a flash of pink and black punctuated by the dying hiss of the creeper Cuteguy had just
managed to stab. He turns back to Scar, dagger still in hand, and points out, “If we’d kept
going, it would’ve just followed us further into the city.”

Ah. Scar hadn’t considered that. Kicking at the crumpled creeper, he says, “Good to know it’s
killable. How’d you do that?”

“I just reached through the blue floaty bits. It’s like armor, but there’s little gaps in it—oh,
would you look at that.” Cuteguy’s tone turns sardonic as they both look up to see a dozen
more of the things pouring out from the warehouse. “We’ve got more company.”

119
“Fantastic. Here, take this.” Scar presses his emergency foldable bow and a few arrows into
Cuteguy’s uncertain hands. “To keep distance.”

Now that he knows what to look for, the gaps Cuteguy described are easy to spot; chinks
in the creeper’s armor. With a flex and shouted “Hotguy!” Scar shoots the creeper closest
to him.

His first shot misses—the gaps rush into each other like water, one opening crashing against
itself to create another. In his second attempt, Scar aims and fires preemptively, following the
flow of the armor and guessing how it’ll move, and his arrow finds whatever material makes
up the creeper’s flesh. The creeper collapses onto the cracked pavement.

He gives a triumphant laugh that’s cut short by the hiss of the next creeper. Scar leaps
out of the way and releases another arrow just before the thing can explode. He’s gotten
used to fast-paced fights, but this is different—he feels unsteady, like he’s trying to diffuse
a bomb blindfolded.

There’s movement in one of the second-story windows of the warehouse. Doc’s watching
them. Scar aims for the glass in front of his face. If he can just—

“Hotguy! Focus on the creepers!” Cuteguy shouts from further down the street. Scar whips
around, and in his distraction, a creeper goes off beside him, knocking him off his feet. He’s
just barely able to stop himself from landing on his bow as he hits the ground. Doc has
vanished. The creepers swarm.

“Cuteguy!” Scar calls out, choking on it. There’s six, seven of them, all too close to shoot—they
press closer and hiss.

Cuteguy’s blade comes into view before its owner does, slicing through the creeper closest
to him, but not before one of the others goes off, taking out two of the nearest creepers
with it. Scar’s arm is caught in the blast and he bites his tongue at the sudden force of the
burn. In Cuteguy’s other hand is the bow Scar had given him, an arrow hanging loose from
the string.

Scar shields his face against the chunks of asphalt that threaten to hit him and scrambles
away from the crater he’d miraculously not fallen into. Cuteguy grips Scar’s uninjured arm and
pulls him to his feet.

“You good?” he asks, glancing furiously around. There are a few more creepers milling about,
paying no mind to them—this Scar remembers about creepers, their low vision and lack of
hearing—but the immediate group around them is dead.

Scar grimaces. “Yeah, but—”

“Great!” Cuteguy interrupts. There’s blood right above the cuff of his glove. Scar doesn’t know
if it’s his or Cuteguy’s. “Get the stragglers. I’ll be back.”

It’s as if his mutation was invisibility, rather than the brightly colored wings on his back—
Cuteguy’s gone in a flash. Groaning, Scar raises his bow. Isn’t Cuteguy supposed to be
his sidekick?

The remaining creepers are dispatched easily enough, save for the one that got too close and
almost exploded behind Scar. He’d heard it before he’d seen it; it was lucky he’d already had
an arrow drawn back.

120
A minute later, Cuteguy appears again, grinning maniacally as he sprints towards Scar, urging
him into a run. Scar’s damaged braces force their pace slower and slower; when they’re
a safe distance away, Scar has to lean against Cuteguy for support, legs shaking beneath him.
Reluctantly, Cuteguy throws an arm over his shoulder and holds Scar upright as they stagger
back to the base.

“So you really just… led a creeper to the most important-looking thing you could find and let
it explode?” Scar asks, rubbing the soreness out of his knee. His broken braces lay at his feet
in a heap. He’ll have to ask Cub to fix them.

“Yeeee-ep,” Cuteguy says from where he sits on the couch beside Scar, struggling to bandage
his right hand, first-aid kit open between them. “Figured it’d be especially insulting if I used
his own weapon against him.”

Scar grins. “Awesome.”

Silence settles between them. Scar fiddles with a bandage he should be wrapping his forearm
with, but twisting it to reach with his other hand hurts.

“I can help you with that,” Scar offers after watching Cuteguy for a moment.

Cuteguy glances up with a scowl. “I’ve got it, thanks.”

“Really, it’s much easier with two hands, and unless your mutation came with a secret third
one, you should let me do it,” Scar says, undeterred.

“I said I’ve got it.” Annoyance creeps into Cuteguy’s tone. “Don’t you have your own injuries
to deal with?”

“Oh, yeah, lots,” Scar says. “Got some on my arms and side and legs, all of which would be
easier to fix up with a friend!”

Cuteguy takes a long breath through his nose and exhales around his teeth. His eyebrows are
hidden by his visor, but his forehead wrinkles above it. He thrusts his partially bandaged arm
towards Scar, turning his face away.

Scar smiles a little as he takes it. The action feels momentous, like Scar’s the girl in one of
those horse movies that’s just gained the trust of the wild stallion. The comparison puts
strange images of Cuteguy as a winged, costumed horse in his head, and Scar can’t help the
laugh that escapes him. Cuteguy turns to shoot him a glare, an expression that would look
silly on the horse version of him.

Tending to Cuteguy’s scrapes and bruises is a quiet affair, broken only by Cuteguy’s directions
and Scar’s muttered apologies when he must press where he knows it hurts. His hands and
arms had caught the worst of it, and Scar wonders if Cuteguy regrets the short sleeves of his
current suit. Even his old hoodies surely would’ve offered more protection.

When it’s Scar’s turn, they start by limping over to the sink. The old apartment that serves
as their base is lucky—it still has running water. They’ve never drank from it, because who
knows what might be in the uncleaned pipes, but it’ll do for a rinse. Scar sticks his burned arm

121
beneath the sputtering tap and hisses when the water hits it. Once the cool water starts to
soothe instead of irritate, Cuteguy helps Scar back over to the couch and slathers ointment
on the burn before wrapping it. His mouth is pulled into a tight frown, but his fingers are gentle.

Dealing with Scar’s injuries takes longer than Cuteguy’s. The last of them is a cut along his
cheekbone and a bruise that creeps out from beneath his visor. Scar will have to ice that
one later.

As Cuteguy’s finishing up addressing the cut, Scar says, “We really should talk about the fight.”

Pulling back, Cuteguy scoffs. “What’s there to talk about? We failed, Doc’s still playing with his
bombs on legs, and we’ll have to stop him later.”

“Yeah, but the reason we failed,” Scar presses. “Sure, it was mostly because we weren’t
prepared for the creepers, but I would’ve been able to recover from being mobbed if I could
handle a knife like you.”

“So you want me to teach you,” Cuteguy says flatly. His enthusiasm is lacking, in Scar’s
humble opinion.

“We could teach each other! You could show me how to do all the cool stabby stuff, and
I could give you some tips on archery,” Scar says, a charming smile lifting the edge of his
mouth. “Whaddya say?”

After a moment of deliberation, Cuteguy nods once. “I’m in.”

A few days later, Scar stands in a ring chalked onto concrete floor facing Cuteguy, holding
a knife that matches the one in Cuteguy’s hand. They’re fake, of course, plastic made to mimic
the real deal, but it’s still unnerving to be at the point of Cuteguy’s blade.

“Now, attack me,” Cuteguy says.

Scar grins. Thrusting forward, he swings at Cuteguy, but almost faster than he can keep up
with, Cuteguy slips between his extended arm and motions stabbing between his ribs, hard
plastic lightly meeting the soft flesh of his torso.

“And now you die of blood loss,” Cuteguy deadpans. “You move like you’re in a movie.”

Scar laughs, maybe a tick too loudly. His composure holds fast as he says, “That’s all the
reference I’ve got! Teach me your ways, oh wise one.”

Cuteguy tuts and points at Scar’s legs. “Let’s start there. Your footwork is sloppy and leaves
you unbalanced. If I were to attack you right now, I wouldn’t even have to get a weapon out—I
could just push you over.” He springs into position himself, legs further apart and bent slightly
at the knee, weight placed closer to the balls of his feet. “Like this.”

Scar resists the urge to defend himself and follows Cuteguy’s lead the best he can. The damage
from the explosions echoes fresh in his joints, and holding them in a bend aches. He explains
as much to Cuteguy, who sighs and says, “Don’t worry about it, then. We’ve got time to go over
it later.” The compassion warms Scar’s chest in a way he wouldn’t have expected it to.

122
They next go over how to handle the knife. Cuteguy corrects Scar until his fingers lay correctly
around the hilt before showing him how to hold it up. The knife stays close to his body in the
space between his chest and hip, empty hand protecting his face and neck.

All of the moving parts send Scar’s head spinning as he carefully readjusts himself until his
position mirrors Cuteguy’s. The material isn’t entirely unfamiliar; he’d been shown a thing or
two for the action movie he’d starred in way back when, but the real deal feels so lame in
comparison. How can the same pose look so cool on Cuteguy and so silly on him? Scar’s
supposed to be the cooler one between them!

The groundwork gone over, they stand in front of each other in the ring once more. “A slash
and then a stab is what I default to,” Cuteguy says. “With the creepers’ shields—”

Scar’s seen Cuteguy in action plenty. “Oh, yeah, I’ve got this,” he interrupts, surging ahead with
his knife arm out, aiming for Cuteguy’s chest. He almost topples over when what was once
a solid body turns to empty air, and the knife is wrestled from his grip.

“You don’t got this,” Cuteguy retorts. Scar jumps, and turns to find Cuteguy standing in
his blind spot on his right, Scar’s knife in his hand. “And if you had just listened, I could’ve
explained why.”

Scar raises his hands in accepted defeat, as much as it stings his pride. “I’ll beat you someday,
mister, just you wait.”

Cuteguy looks as irritated as before, but the corner of his lip quirks up at the offered banter.
“I’d like to see you try. Now, as I was saying, with the creepers’ shields, the only thing slashing
will do is get a knife flung back at your face. You’ve got to stab. It leaves less room for error,
and you only have one shot to get it right.”

“No pressure or anything, got it,” Scar remarks. Cuteguy wrinkles his nose and shifts back into
position, and Scar follows his lead.

“You want to aim straight and put your weight into it, but not enough to throw off your
balance.” He pulls his hand back. In his grip, the knife looks natural; an extension of himself.
“With the creepers, one stab did the trick but you’ve got to keep pressing ahead; hesitation
will get you nothing good.”

“Noted.”

“I’ll show you what I mean.”

In slowed motions, Cuteguy’s arm thrusts ahead, the rest of his body moving with it, and
instinctively, Scar steps back.

“Do you want to learn this or not? This was your idea, might I add,” Cuteguy says, annoyed.

“You were coming at me with a knife!” Scar defends. “My instincts kicked in!”

Cuteguy stares at him. “While practicing. With fake knives. That you agreed to.”

“Fine, fine,” Scar concedes. “Why are you stabbing me, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be
showing me how to go against the creepers?”

123
“I am showing you how to go against the creepers!” Cuteguy snaps. “You seem determined
to pay as little attention as possible, and if you keep it up, I’m out of here. No point in wasting
my own time.”

“Aw, don’t be like that, Birdie,” Scar says by way of apology and resumes position.

“And don’t call me that.” Cuteguy’s tone loses some of its bite. He takes a steadying breath.
“Let’s try this again.”

Remembering how to hold his arms is the hardest part. When Cuteguy demonstrates a stab
and allows Scar to practice on him in turn, Scar’s swings come out too far, and his other
arm droops too low to protect his face. After a few attempts, they’re both frustrated, and in
respite, Scar offers, “How about we take a break from this and switch to archery?”

His bow feels so much more at home in Scar’s grasp than the knife did, the grip perfectly
molded to fit his hand. It’s a real beauty—as far as compounds go, his bow is on the simpler
side, since components such as a scope are useless to him, but the sleek black limbs that
arch into blue and orange cams look plenty impressive enough to suit his Hotguy image.

For now, though, Scar sets his main bow down, propped against the wall he’d leaned a couple
quivers of arrows against, and instead picks up a plain backup to hand to Cuteguy.

“Where’s the chalk?” Scar asks.

Cuteguy’s brows furrow. “Pardon?”

“The chalk,” Scar says again. “Figured this padded wall would make for a nice target, but
I forgot to draw it on.”

“And here I was thinking you were the target,” Cuteguy remarks dryly, but hands Scar the chalk.

“That comes later!” Scar calls over his shoulder as he scribbles three rings onto the wall.
A snort—and a hasty attempt to cover it—sounds in reply. Scar smiles to himself.

After the basics of stance and nocking have been covered, Cuteguy stands before the
target, the bowstring drawn back to his cheek. His shoulders tense, once, twice. He releases
the arrow. It embeds into the wall a few inches to the left of the target. Cuteguy groans
in annoyance.

“Not bad for a first attempt!” Scar assures him as he retrieves the arrow, checking its tip. The
wall behind the padding is the same concrete as the rest of the room, but the padding is thick
enough to have cushioned the arrow from taking damage.

“Not good enough, though.” Cuteguy nocks another arrow and lets it fly once Scar’s out of the
way. It strikes close to the puncture the first arrow had left.

Scar watches Cuteguy closely as he strings and shoots his third attempt. His knees tremble
slightly from the force of keeping them locked; further up, his chest is still, a breath trapped
within.

“You’re too tense, Birdie,” Scar says after the fourth arrow fails to hit the target.

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Cuteguy lowers the bow and huffs.

124
“Just that, actually. Let yourself breathe.” Scar steps closer. “And you’ll pass out if you keep
your knees locked like that.”

Frustration plays across his brow, but Cuteguy inhales deeply, and after a tick his nostrils flare
with the release. His knees relax and straighten into a more natural position. His feet flatten
on the floor, where they’d been pitched slightly at the toe before. He raises the bow again.

The arrow slams into the chalk of the outermost ring. Cuteguy turns to Scar and grins, a wild
sort of thing. Scar whoops in celebration.

As he continues, Cuteguy’s consistency improves, the arrows landing closer together, but
despite his best efforts, he’s not able to hit the center of the target.

“How is this so difficult?” he exclaims, after firing an entire quiver’s worth of arrows without
a bullseye in sight. Quieter, reluctantly, he adds, “You make it look so easy.”

“I’ve been doing this for years, CG. You’ve been at it for twenty minutes,” Scar comments,
but as he studies him, something clicks in his brain. Cuteguy’s shaken the tension from his
posture, but it lingers in the faint scrunch of his nose, the concentrated frown of his mouth.
It would’ve been clearer if Scar could see his eyes.

“You’re focusing on the target too much,” Scar says. Cuteguy looks up at him, ready to
disagree, but Scar beats him to it. “It sounds counterinu—counterintu—wrong, but think
about it. If you’re just focusing on your target, you’re not focusing on how you’re going to
reach it.”

“That makes no sense,” Cuteguy says, for contrary’s sake, but he seems to be mulling it over.

“Well, you wouldn’t just be thinking about your knives in a fight, right? You’re also aware of
where your body is and how it needs to move for your weapon to hit. You can’t get locked
into your own head.”

Cuteguy slowly nods. “Focus on me, rather than the target,” he summarizes. Scar gives him
a thumbs up.

Again, Cuteguy raises his bow and pulls the arrow back, a deep breath blown out through his
mouth. He rolls his shoulders slightly, adjusting his foot position. He releases the arrow.

It arcs through the stale air of the gym and pierces the edge of the bullseye, a tiny poof of
chalk billowing in its wake. Scar and Cuteguy’s cheers are the loudest thing the abandoned
room has heard in a long time.

Scar’s intel had told him he had about two weeks until Doc’s plans were back on their weird,
stubby green feet. Cuteguy’s meddling had set the operation back, but the delay is temporary;
they have to be ready this time.

Hours blur into days spent training and planning together. The routine goes as follows: when
the evening sun colors the sky in brilliant shades of pink and orange, Scar makes his way into
the hideout to find Cuteguy waiting for him, perched upon the lone blue couch in the black suit
that mirrors Scar’s own. They proceed to work late into the night, practicing, experimenting.

125
Cuteguy smiles more than before. Scar revels in the feeling of an equal-footed partner,
a teammate against this mammoth task he’s taken on. Some days they get burgers. Some
days they bid farewell and Scar goes home to eat a quiet dinner with Jellie by his side.

By the time the anticipated day arrives, Scar’s figured out how to hold his elbows in and
Cuteguy’s arrows land true on a generally reliable basis. It’s not perfect, but it’ll have to do.
Scar hopes he doesn’t have to resort to hastily-learned tricks. Their real weapon, after all, is
the plan. Or the explosives that line Cuteguy’s pockets. Really, Scar figures the metaphorical is
more poetic, but he can’t deny his excitement to blow something up. Safely and in the most
legal manner possible, of course.

Faced with the squeaky ladder once more, Scar smirks. It’s no match for him and the trusty can
of hinge oil hooked onto his belt! The height of it, however, still presents an issue. Scar glances
at Cuteguy and motions hoisting him up. Cuteguy’s mouth twists skeptically, and he points to
an old milk crate against the side of the brick wall. Scar shrugs—eh, worth a shot—and after
testing his weight on it, reaches up and oils the ladder’s hinges before pulling it down.

The fire escape does, of course, lead to a door, but unsure if opening it would set off an alarm,
they opt to pry open one of the windows set into the wall beside it. The oil comes in handy
here too, easing the way once Cuteguy’s jimmied the latch open.

Metal creaks beneath Scar’s boots, and he lowers himself as quietly as he can while Cuteguy
disappears into the dark rafters above. The warehouse below is bustling with activity—people
in lab coats, about a dozen of them, trading conversation in low, brisk tones that match their
efficient strides as they move from place to place; partially-constructed creepers laying on
conveyor belts and hanging on racks churning between large, complicated-looking machines
connected to a central hub; an almost-dead overhead lamp flickering in an unused corner.

In contrast to the building’s exterior, the inside is sleek and modern, most remnants of the
warehouse’s past gutted to make room. The brick walls and the catwalk Scar crouches on
now are all that’s left of whatever it was before.

Scar glances up, and his eyes catch on Cuteguy’s sunset-colored visor. Cuteguy nods. Scar
nods back, and sets about putting the plan into action.

Something about the flickering light appeals to Scar. He gingerly descends down the narrow
grate stairs and slinks along the far wall until he’s directly beneath it, the yellow glow reflecting
nicely off the logo on his chest. Striking a suitably intimidating pose, Scar says, voice loud
above the clatter, “Who’s the more foolish: the fool, or the fools who follow him?”

The effect is instantaneous. Chaos erupts across the room as murmurs give way to shouts
and footsteps become frantic. A few of the people—lab assistants, probably—run away from
Scar, while others run towards him, and some stay frozen at their stations. No one seems to
know quite what to do.

“You again?” Doc’s voice growls before he comes into view, appearing around a long white
table piled high with various mechanical parts.

“Me again!” Scar says cheerfully, dashing into the disarray, dodging the hands that grab for
him. If he can just get them to chase him—

“You made a big mistake coming here, Hotguy.” Doc says the name like it’s an insult. Turning
to the central hub, he orders, “Enact Code Red.”

126
A young man standing on the raised platform in the middle of the room nods, and at a few
button presses on the controls in front of him, an alarm blares to life somewhere in the
facility. The machines beyond the hub come to a grinding stop, their doors slamming shut.
Scar, confused, almost glances in Cuteguy’s direction before hastily stopping himself from
revealing his partner.

“What is this?” Scar instead demands, swinging towards Doc to give himself a moment to
think. Doc shrugs his shoulders and looks terribly smug about the whole ordeal.

Out of the corner of his eye, the glint of a drive being shoved into the control assistant’s
pocket catches Scar’s attention. He turns fully back just in time to see the assistant hold
down another button and catch the clunk that follows it seconds after. When he removes his
hand, the button stays down, slowly coming back up. All of the other people in the room, Scar
notices, have carefully backed away.

Two creepers appear from seemingly out of nowhere, shiny black eyes trained directly on
Scar. The first he shoots down, but they started too close, there’s not enough distance
between them and Scar—

Fingers fumbling for the knife on his belt, Scar rips it from its sheath and stabs the creeper
just before it can explode. The creeper’s shield burns when his wrist grazes it. Gasping, Scar
lunges forward. He can’t let the assistant release more.

It’s too late; Scar’s too far. The assistant’s hand hovers over the button, its cooldown
almost up.

Suddenly, the assistant lurches back from the controls with a scream, clutching at his hand,
from which an arrow, its fletching orange and blue, protrudes. Scar grins.

Cuteguy slams into the control center, landing with a hand and knee braced against the
ground, wings in a shield around him. He makes quick work of subduing the assistant, taking
him down to the ground and snatching the drive from his pocket. When Cuteguy straightens
back up, another arrow is loaded on his bow and he’s glaring something fierce. Several
assistants run for the door.

“I was hoping we’d be able to do this the easy way,” Scar sighs, before grabbing for the
nearest outstretched arm. Out of their home turf, with Cuteguy guarding access to their only
real weapon, Doc and his workers are defenseless. Scar rounds them up easily, and within
a few moments has a nice, tidy group of lab assistants and one very angry green goat man
tied up together on the old sidewalk down the street. He even wraps the control guy’s hand
and gives it a sympathetic pat.

“Cuteguy!” he calls down the street. “How’re we looking?”

After a tick or two, Cuteguy comes sprinting out of the building with a grin, joining Scar by
his side.

“What are you two—” Doc starts.

Cuteguy’s tone is leisurely as he says over Doc, “Go ahead and light it, will you?”

“Well, of course, my good man!” Flaming arrows do hold such perfect flare. It’s a real shame
Scar doesn’t get to use them more.

127
The arrow hits and bursts through one of the upper story windows, glass raining down in its
wake. There’s a pause as the fuel finds the fuse within, then, with an uproarious boom, the
building explodes.

Smoke pours from shattered windows and bricks are sent flying as the warehouse’s very
foundation crumples upon itself. “Cool guys don’t look back at explosions, you know,” Scar
tells Cuteguy, and continues watching it burn. Cuteguy’s resounding cackle is gleefully mad.

Doc howls in frustration, struggling against his bonds. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

“I’m arresting you, actually!” As if on cue, sirens sound faintly on the horizon, no doubt drawn
by the smoke of the smoldering building. Nudging Cuteguy, Scar says with a wink, “Another
job well done! Let’s get out of here.”

The sirens grow louder as Scar and Cuteguy head further into the city, golden rays of sunlight
pooling on the sidewalk from where they shine through gaps between buildings. Together
they duck into the shadows of an alleyway when a pair of emergency vehicles screech down
the road beside them, heading for where they just were.

They’re not going back to base just yet; the evening is young, and there may be criminals
afoot to stop! But for the moment all is well, and Scar is famished.

“So,” Scar turns to his partner, “how about burgers?”

128
Crow
ConcidineArt (art, writing)  Violet-Fire-Cat (editing)
gingermaple
isjasz, gingermaple (cover)  Zip Zap (writing)
Onawhimsicot, gingermaple, isjasz (editing)
It’s two in the morning, and Grian is exhausted.

Eye-bags deep enough to hold at least twelve pieces of bamboo feel permanently etched
onto his face after the night he’s had. The fight he and Hotguy had just won by the skin
of their teeth left him battered and bruised, and he’d like nothing more than to take an
extremely long bath, curl up in bed with his two cats, and stay there until at least ten o’clock
tomorrow morning.

Instead, he’s at work. Behind a security desk. In the world’s least ergonomic chair.

He curses his past self, who had thought it would be an excellent idea to get himself a job
where he works at night, just for a few days a week. The pay for night shifts isn’t too shabby,
and I’ll be able to actually sleep for a full eight hours after long fights without having to worry
about work the next morning—or burning through all of my sick days, he remembers thinking.
It’s just sitting at a desk watching cameras. If I need to disappear to be Cuteguy for a little bit,
I can always say I had to “investigate something that looked suspicious”, he’d reasoned. And
for once, I’m actually qualified!

And he hadn’t been wrong. There were those benefits.

But he’d already gone home halfway through a shift with “horrific diarrhoea, trust me, you do
not want me to elaborate,” once this week, so all there was to do once he’d changed back
into some regular clothes was return to his desk in moderate pain and wait for the hours to
tick by.

The security agency he was working for was currently contracted to a film studio. The client’s
main concerns were expensive equipment getting stolen, and the general safety of some
minor celebrities Grian had only ever heard of in passing. The vast majority of Grian’s time
was spent watching the monitors in front of him—and blocking out the far too cheerful sound
of access passes beeping as the cast and crew went in and out of the building. He was largely
stationed at the main staff entrance and loading dock, with nothing but dim amber street
lamps, weathered grey concrete, and asphalt for company.

He sighs, rubbing his eyes under his glasses, wincing as they sting a little. The sooner he can
pass out, the better.

He stiffens as he hears footsteps.

At this time of night?

Sitting up a little straighter, elbows on the desk in front of him, he rolls his chair forward and
cranes his neck to see who’s coming. The breadth of their shoulders strikes him first—their
build is probably more typical of a security guard compared to his own. The visitor quickens
his pace as he meets Grian’s eye. “Oh, hello there! Good—morning? Is it morning?”

Grian begins to offer him a decisive no, and how dare he be so cheerful about it, but the
stranger doesn’t seem to be looking for an answer as he jogs up to him, leaning heavily on the
counter with one arm. “So—um—Mr. Security Guy. I’ve had the craziest night. I had to leave
work early to deal with—uh—an emergency—”

137
As the stranger rambles, Grian finds himself zoning out a little. It’s far too early for him to
follow the specifics of the tale he’s being regaled with against his will. If this guy doesn’t have
a pass, Grian’s not going to let him in, simple. Too bad. Come back in the morning.

It’s as the stranger is saying something about his “poor, sweet, innocent Jellie” getting cold
and lonely at night that he notices it: a small rivulet of blood, trickling down from the other
man’s hairline. Grian blurts out before he can stop himself:

“You’re bleeding.”

The man stops in his tracks, his expression so comical that Grian’s surprised he doesn’t hear
brakes squealing. “Am I?”

Grian nods, and silently taps his temple.

The man lifts his hand to check, brows furrowed, mouth pulled into a confused sort of
pout. Even as he pulls his fingers away and finds that they’re bloody, he doesn’t seem truly
concerned. “Oh, weird.”

There’s a beat of silence. Grian eventually prompts him: “You don’t remember how you got hurt?”

“Oh! Oh, no. I do.“

Grian stares at him. This is definitely weird. This is a weird thing to have happen on a Tuesday
night. “O…kay. And now you’re here? At two in the morning?”

“Yeah! I work here. I left my wallet inside. Like I said. Could—um—could I be let in, please?”

“Can I see your pass?” he says flatly.

“It’s… in my wallet.”

“Ah.” Grian’s lips curl into an amused grin. “That’s quite the conundrum.”

The visitor huffs, and if Grian didn’t know any better, he’d say he was pouting. “I’m the lead
actor in the movie being filmed at the moment! Surely you’ve seen me before?”

Grian shrugs. “I dunno. I’m kind of new.”

“Okay, but you’d remember if you’d met me. I’m like, kind of a big deal,” the stranger insists,
flashing a far-too-charming smile. “Scar Goodtimes? Ring any bells?”

“Dude, you turn up in the middle of the night, with a head injury, and no ID. The only bells
you’re ringing are alarm bells.”

Scar’s face falls a little. “Wait, you really don’t know who I am? I’m Scar Goodtimes!” he repeats,
something close to desperation creeping into his voice. “I was in The Crafting Dead? Vex And
The City? Mayor Bud? The Dark Crystals?”

Grian frowns. The Crafting Dead does sound familiar. “You mean that zombie series that got
cancelled? Because no one was watching it?”

“Oh—no, but—yes—but everything’s getting cancelled these days!” Scar splutters, and even in
the dim light Grian can see he’s blushing, embarrassed. “I’m literally on the poster behind you!”

138
Grian doesn’t turn around. “I don’t see a poster.”

Scar stares at him, incredulous, but there’s humour there too. This is a bit, they both know
Grian’s doing a bit, but Scar isn’t ready to give up just yet. “Look, I promise you I’m allowed to
be here, let me show you my IMDb—”

Grian chuckles, resting his chin in his hand as he waits. This is far too much fun. This guy
seems like he could do with being taken down a peg. And he’s technically just doing his job,
at the end of the day. (Or the start of the day. Whatever time of day it is.)

The man—Scar Goodtimes—turns his phone around and begins to scroll through his own IMDb
page. He has an impressive number of credits, but none of the movies seem that notable.
And all the biggest ones are more than a few years old. Grian raises an eyebrow. “And this is
supposed to prove…?”

“That I am who I say I am, and you should let me in! I need my keys to get into my
apartment. Please.”

“I dunno. You could just look similar. It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s tried that.” And,
just to be difficult, Grian pretends to peer more closely at the phone and adds, “I reckon that
guy’s more handsome than you.”

It takes a moment for the penny to drop. But once it does, Scar makes a series of sounds that
categorically cannot be called words. “But—you—buh—!”

Grian cackles. Oh, this is more fun than he’s had in ages. He does his fair share of good as
Cuteguy, surely he can have this, for just one night.

Scar finally lets out a huff. “Yeah—well—I’m gonna stay right here until you let me in, mister.”

Oh, that’s an interesting development. Grian grins, unable to fully contain the part of him
that’s prone to mischief. “Oh, will you now?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

They both fall silent. Scar leans against the wall at the edge of the counter. Grian does his
best to pretend to turn back to his monitors, but he can’t help but sneak a quick look at
Scar every now and again. Forgive him if Scar is the most interesting character he’s come
across since he got this job. There’s something about him that seems awfully familiar. Maybe
he’s seen a movie he was in. But it’s—it’s not his face that Grian feels like he knows. It’s
something far more subtle. The way he moves his hands. The lilt of his voice. It’s, as he’s
stealing his third glance over at him in the least weird way possible, the way his hair looks
in the moonlight—

Scar meets his eye, and Grian freezes. “Uh,” he says intelligently and without a trace of guilt.

Scar raises an eyebrow, a lazy smirk spreading across his face. “Don’t let me keep you from
your work.”

Grian flips him the bird.

Scar is entirely unruffled. “I could do this all night, Birdie. You’ll crack eventually.”

139
He feels his feathers puff up behind him at the nickname, startled. For a moment, he swears
Scar looks startled too. And regretful, almost? Could Scar possibly know? No. Surely not.
Grian very clearly has wings, and it’s not that odd of a nickname. “I don’t think you know who
you’re talking to,” he says slowly, the double meaning not lost on him.

“Hm, you have a point there.” And just like that, any discomfort Scar might have been feeling
seems to melt away. “What was your name again?”

“Grian.”

“Green?”

“Gree-yuhn.”

“Grian,” he tries again, slowly, as if testing out the way it feels on his tongue. “Hi, Grian.”

Grian doesn’t say anything. He turns back to his monitors.

Until Scar starts to fidget.

Grian sets his jaw, looking resolutely away. But it’s hard to filter out the constant little
movements out of the corner of his eye, and the scratch of fabric from Scar’s shirt against
itself. He looks over properly, about to chastise Scar for being a nuisance on purpose
(something he would obviously never do) only to see Scar teasing his fingers through his hair,
poking at his scalp, examining his fingers as they come away slightly bloodied.

He feels a proper stab of guilt at that. Not that the injury is his fault, but he can’t ignore Scar
half as easily when he knows he’s got some supplies left over from fixing himself up earlier.
He glances in Scar’s direction. “If I told you to go and get that looked at, you wouldn’t listen,
would you?”

“No, sir! I’m not leaving,” Scar says cheerfully.

Grian sighs heavily, making a show of it. “Alright. I’ve got a first aid kit back here. Let me sort
you out, buddy.”

The shine of Scar’s eyes is audible in his voice. “We’re buddies?”

“No,” he replies, pretending he’s not smiling a little bit. He reaches under the desk for his
supplies, pulling out some antiseptic spray, a roll of bandages, and some gauze and medical
tape. (He very intentionally leaves the Hotguy themed band-aids that his villain-busting
partner had somehow made a prototype of, eyes shining as he’d excitedly explained that
they could be sold as merchandise. Those are limited edition, he’s not giving them out to
just anyone.)

He steps out of the security room and onto the street, approaching Scar with supplies in
hand and leading him over to a bench on the other side of the road. “Sit down for me?”

Scar obliges, glancing up at Grian. “Did you do a first aid course at security guard school
or something?”

Grian tries—and fails—to suppress a laugh. “There is no security guard school, Scar.”

“But you seem so confident!”

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“I’ve had some practice,” he says, very carefully.

“Oh?”

“I’ve been on some really wild fishing trips,” he says, less carefully, and oh boy was that a
particularly awful lie, that might be the worst lie he’s ever told. He needs to not have
conversations with strangers at two in the morning. He wants to start cramming the words
back into his mouth. And now Scar is giving him a weird look. Oh god. Details, give some
details! “Um—in Alaska! I go fishing in Alaska sometimes. And one time there was—uh—nose
hair involved,” he says finally, because surely that will deter Scar from asking any more
questions. He wants the ground to swallow him.

Scar doesn’t seem to know how to react, his mouth falling open and then promptly shutting
again, which Grian counts as a win. He takes advantage of the silence to barrel onwards,
hoping to never bring that up again. “Is it okay if I look through your hair? I think the actual
wound is on your scalp somewhere.”

“Oh—of course, of course! Be my guest.”

Grian nods, quickly getting to work. He carefully searches through the roots of Scar’s
(admittedly luscious) hair until—oh. His face pales. That’s a lot more blood than he was
expecting. When he’d first noticed, it had been the smallest trickle slowly dripping onto his
forehead, but the source of that trickle is a big clot that he knows better than to disturb.
This isn’t the sort of injury a civilian should be wandering around with. What was Scar doing
before he turned up at the film studio? He tries to keep his voice light. “Um—Scar? Have you
considered going to an actual doctor? Checking you don’t have a concussion and all that?”
It would certainly explain a bit.

Scar stiffens, his voice suddenly uncharacteristically quiet. “Oh. Does it—um—does it
look bad?”

He hesitates. If it’s already clotted on its own, it’s probably not very deep. “I mean—it
could be worse. I think it’ll heal on its own. Just—please tell me you’ll go and see a real
doctor. Please.”

“Just because you asked,” Scar promises, blinking up at him.

“How did you get hurt, anyway?”

“Oh, I had a bit of a tangle with a—uh—” He pauses, sounding embarrassed. “A volleyball net.”

Grian blinks, taken completely aback. That. Huh. That was definitely not what he was expecting.
“Wha—how? When?”

“Well, playing volleyball of course!”

“At this time of night? This wound looks fresh!”

“Okay, and?” Scar says confidently, as if there’s nothing strange about that at all. In fact,
he’s so self-assured about it that Grian questions himself for a second—maybe that’s not
unusual? He’s never played volleyball, he wouldn’t know.

He moves on regardless, pulling a gauze pad out of its packaging. Maybe it’s not really his
business to know. It’s not like they’re friends or anything. It’s not like they really know each

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other. He’s just—he’s not sure he likes the implications of that, if it’s true. He hesitates, before
asking: “Your teammates didn’t fix you up?”

Scar stiffens again, his posture growing strangely defensive. “They—they had to leave! They
had important stuff to do.”

More important than making sure you got home safe? Grian wonders. But the way Scar’s jaw
clenches, and his shoulders curl inwards, stops him from voicing the thought quite so bluntly.
Maybe it’s a touchy subject. He might enjoy being a thorn in Scar’s side, but he has no desire
to twist a knife in his gut. But—but it feels wrong to say nothing. “Are they… good teammates?”
he asks, as if treading on glass.

To his surprise, Scar’s face lights up. “Oh, they’re amazing!” he says, and something about the
way the word rolls off Scar’s tongue is familiar in a way Grian can’t quite place. He doesn’t
pay it too much mind, instead focusing on holding Scar still with a guiding hand at his cheek,
figuring out how to best stick the gauze down. Scar will probably have to take it off if he’s
filming later, but it can’t hurt in the meantime. Scar pays him barely any mind as he works,
gazing into the distance with a fond smile. “They’re smart, and talented, and honestly more in
tune with me than I am sometimes. It’s like they can read my mind when I’m lining up a—spike.
It’s a little scary. I’d trust them with my life.”

There’s a beat of silence. Grian pauses his work. “Your volleyball teammates,” he confirms.

“Volleyball is very serious business, Grian.”

Grian’s not about to question that. The more Scar talks about volleyball, the more he feels
lulled into the ridiculous notion that he could really be talking about volleyball, and that’s not
a path he plans to go down any further. Before sticking the gauze down fully, he reaches for
the little bottle of antiseptic spray. “This will sting,” he warns.

Scar nods, and Grian gives the bottle a couple of little squirts. When Scar doesn’t so much as
flinch, he frowns. “Did I get the right spot?”

“Oh, absolutely! It feels like a hornet’s nest up there.”

“Huh. Are you… used to this?”

“I have a pretty high pain tolerance,” Scar explains, glancing up at Grian, with a slight drawl
that suggests it’s something to be proud of.

Grian’s not sure it is. And he’s not sure what to think of the stab of dismay that makes a home
in his stomach at the thought of Scar hurting in any way, enough to build that tolerance. He
knows what that’s like firsthand. And even if he is a very weird stranger, he hates to imagine
any harm coming to him.

“Did you know when you play enough volleyball, the nerve endings on your forearms get
damaged? So it doesn’t hurt as much when you’re receiving!”

Ah. Never mind. Grian handles him a little more roughly than necessary as he finally secures
the gauze before stepping back. “You’re all done. Don’t wash your hair for a couple of days if
you can help it. And don’t use any weird styling products.”

“Do I get a lollipop?” Scar looks up at him, doe-eyed.

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“No.”

“Should I call you Doctor Grian?”

“No,” Grian says, cracking a small grin.

“What if you had a doctorate in being the light of my life?”

“You’re trying to butter me up, aren’t you?”

Scar’s expression turns a little more sly. “Is it working?”

Grian scoffs, choosing not to answer directly. Plausible deniability is his lifeline. “Does that
normally work?”

“No,” Scar sighs, feigning forlornity. Grian doesn’t quite manage to suppress a bark of amused
delight. It catches, Scar echoing it with a quiet snicker.

The night winds on with Grian sitting on the edge of the counter, and Scar mostly sitting on
the bench. He continues to pretend he hasn’t convinced Grian of who he is, as if he doesn’t
know what game the two of them are playing at, giving live renditions of some of his best
roles with the road as his stage and the boom gate as his set. When pushed, Grian talks about
an audiobook he’s been listening to recently and his cats. Scar’s eyes light up like a kid at
Christmas, and cat photos are enthusiastically exchanged.

Grian yawns, listening to Scar talk as he scrolls through his cat’s Sumagram page. The adorable
grey tabby probably has as much fame as Scar does. Grian nefariously suggests she might
even have more, which interestingly doesn’t seem to bother Scar one bit. He rests his chin
in his hand as he listens, wondering idly if they should exchange phone numbers. He likes
Scar’s company, but something makes him hesitate. There’s something about this strange,
liminal space between midnight and dawn that feels special. And a part of him is scared that
it wouldn’t be the same, if they met again under more normal circumstances.

“And then here she is when she was a kitten, with her favourite—” Scar breaks off with a yawn,
blinking. “Oh man, sorry, I am tired. If only some nice soul would allow me to fetch the keys to
my apartment.”

Grian begins to feel a bit guilty at that—he didn’t mean to drag this out all night, he does
actually want the man to get some sleep—but as he meets Scar’s eye, there’s an eerily familiar
glimmer of mischief. He’s—he’s still enjoying this strange dance they’re doing. Grian feels
himself smile as he considers his next move. “Hm. Too bad you’re stuck with me.”

“Yeah, what a pain,” Scar says with a degree of downright whimsy that suggests it’s not a pain
at all. “I have to be here pretty early in the morning, actually, so going home feels less and
less—yawwwn—worth it.”

“Yeah?”

Scar nods, stretching his arms high above his head, languid and catlike. “Yeah. Getting ready
for a shoot can take a while. Can I just sleep on the bench?”

“What?” Grian starts suddenly as the question sinks in, pulling himself out of a stupor he hadn’t
quite realised he was in as he gazed at pictures of Jellie. “You want to sleep on the bench?”

143
“Unless there’s somewhere to lie down in your office?”

“No, but—”

Scar is already moving, setting the duffle bag he’s been holding down at the end of the bench
as a makeshift pillow. He glances back at Grian. “Will you protect me while I’m asleep?”

“Excuse me?”

“Because you’re a security guard!”

“I’m not a bodyguard!” Grian protests.

“But would you protect me?” Scar asks again, looking up at him with cartoonishly big,
round eyes.

Grian shakes his head, chuckling. “Sure, Scar. I’ll protect you while you’re asleep.”

“My hero,” Scar croons, and Grian has to stop his feathers from bristling at just how close that
is to the truth. Before he can say a word, Scar yawns again, closing his eyes. “Goodnight, Grian.”

“I can’t believe you’re actually sleeping on the bench.”

“Am I making you feel bad yet?” Scar says, cracking one eye open.

“Yes.”

“Will you let me fetch my keys?”

“I’m strongly considering it.”

“Hmmm,” Scar hums sleepily, his eyes still very much closed. “I win.”

Grian laughs. “You haven’t got them yet.”

“Hmmm.”

“I can’t believe you’re actually trying to sleep on a bench right now. Don’t tell me you’re one of
those people who can sleep anywhere.”

“Hmmmmmmm.”

“Oh my god, you are. Aren’t you?”

Silence.

“Scar,” he says. “Scar?”

The only response he gets is Scar’s soft, quiet breathing.

Grian blinks in surprise. Has he actually…?

Holding his own breath, he carefully hops down from the edge of the counter and walks over,
checking on his strange new companion.

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Has he really managed to fall asleep on a bench?

All signs point to yes as he places a gentle hand on Scar’s shoulder and the man doesn’t stir.
Grian feels something knot in his chest. He must have been exhausted. He tries poking him,
and—oh, that’s. A lot more muscle than he was expecting.

He chuckles fondly as he begins to walk back to his desk, hesitating for a moment when, out
of the corner of his eye, he notices Scar suddenly twitch and shudder. He looks back at him,
curious. Maybe he’s not completely asleep?

“Scar?” he hisses, under his breath. “I can walk you to your wallet if you want me to.”

Scar doesn’t reply. He curls in on himself a little more with a small shiver.

Oh. He’s cold.

Grian feels a pang of pity in his chest. He feels a little bit responsible for this. More than he
wants to feel, less than he should. He eyes the duffle bag under Scar’s head. It looks like it
might have a jacket or something inside. He can even see a little bit of black fabric poking
out through a gap in the zipper. He takes another step closer, thinking about it. Scar wouldn’t
mind, would he? Grian just wants to stop him from getting too cold. If he sees anything
personal, he can forget all about it, and Scar would be none the wiser.

He moves to open it, gently pulling at the zipper. The sound of it sliding along its teeth pierces
the still night air. Grian stops in his tracks. That feels—very loud when everything else is so
quiet. He really doesn’t want to wake Scar. Can he—maybe he can pull the jacket out through
the small gap that’s already there? He gives the fabric he can reach an experimental tug,
but it doesn’t move. There’s something inside that it’s tangled up in, something that makes a
harsh, rattling sound.

He gives up, taking a step back, his heart racing. Scar’s still asleep. Good. He’s saved from
having to explain himself. Then he remembers—his own coat. That’s a much better idea.

He doesn’t hesitate any longer as he quickly slips inside and grabs it, draped over the back of the
office chair. He brings it back to Scar, still with half a mind to wake him so he can sleep in his own
bed. Then again, Scar may have had a point about whether the journey home would be worth it.
He doesn’t know how far away Scar lives. The sky hasn’t started to lighten yet, but it will soon.

“Scar?” he tries one last time, his voice hushed. Then, slowly, he lowers his coat over his
sleeping form, covering him as much as possible. It’s warm, and even if it’s not as long on Scar
as it is on him, it’s something.

He returns to his desk, putting down the window and switching on the oil heater he keeps
inside. Then he rolls his chair back and rests his chin on his arms, keeping an eye on Scar.

As he does, his mind starts to wander. He hopes Hotguy is doing okay. He took some pretty
bad hits too, earlier in the night. He’s startled by a sudden ache in his chest. Does Hotguy
have anyone to make sure he looks after his injuries? Because it’s very easy to imagine him
being like Scar, dismissing his bruises and doing something incredibly stupid like forgetting
his keys and falling asleep in public. He has an incredibly deep respect for Hotguy, sure, but
he also knows him.

He races to pull out his second phone, sending Hotguy a message before he can think twice
about it:

145
 are you okay? just realised I didn’t check on you
after the fight. take care of yourself

Hotguy doesn’t reply. Grian almost panics for a second, before reminding himself: no, that’s a
good sign, Hotguy should be asleep right now.

He glances back at Scar, tracking the soft rise and fall of his torso. He stirs a little bit, rolling
over to lie with his back to Grian—maybe he wasn’t sleeping as deeply as Grian thought. Grian
looks away, giving him some space. If he’s still drifting in and out of sleep in ten minutes or so,
he really will walk him over to his alleged wallet and keys.

He jumps in surprise as his phone buzzes.

Don’t you worry birdie, I’ve got someone very nice looking after me :)

good. go to sleep

I could say the same to you!

i said it first

Wait, were you lying awake thinking about me?

You really are the cutest guy awwwww

GOODNIGHT hotguy

Hahaha, goodnight <3

Grian shakes his head incredulously, grinning at his phone.

The next time he looks up at Scar, the man has flipped back over to face him, fast asleep with
a happy little smile on his face.

146
isjasz
Alias: Cuteguy
Mutation: Wings
(limited functionality)
Status: Vigilante
Abilities: Cqc Fighting
Danger
Level:
Favourite White Bread
Food: (it’s also a lie)
Current Hotguy’s
Concern: attention span

Eirian

Grian
E
E - Endurance 6
F - Flight 3 J F
B - Basic Communication 2
S - Spice Tolerance 5
J - Job Retention 0
S B
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 VesperionNox (cover)  Thello (writing)
Onawhimsicot (editing) MochiWrites (assistance)
The first time Scar sees something about Hotguy online, it’s entirely by accident.

He’s doing something mundane that day, eyes half-focused on the smear of text and images on
his phone screen. The kind of website with sleazy ads plastered all across the page’s real estate.

At the bottom of the webpage—a recipe for blueberry lemon bars, he finally connects—
there’s a small comment box. The first one, atop a stack of positive reviews for the recipe
and recommended suggestions, has a tiny pixel profile picture that blazes back at him with
his winged logo. Scar blinks. He clicks onto the page, suddenly intrigued, but the account’s
disappointedly empty.

The rest of his day swallows his attention, and the spotting of his profile picture drifts into
unimportance. He thinks he tells Cuteguy once, throwing it in passing, to puff his chest and
proclaim his celebrity status (Scar ignores Cuteguy’s reply that his logo was shamelessly
stolen from an aviation brand).

The second time Scar sees something about Hotguy online, he finds Pearl’s blog.

This time, it hadn’t been by accident. Early into his career as he may be, he’s intrigued. What
do people think about the newest, hottest superhero in the city? Curiosity had struck Scar
after a quiet patrol night.

Before Hotguy, he followed the news in uninterested bursts. Now, he finds, the public opinion
feels like a villain of its own to out-maneuver. So he looks up his alias. And after a few auto-
corrected results for beautiful men are passed by, he finds a link to a news column about himself.

He finds dozens of articles and interview snippets featuring himself and Cuteguy. It’s… He
clicks through further. Surprisingly detailed, for one. A subsection of the daily paper dedicated
to him, seemingly, as part of a greater news publication all about mutated folks, superheroes,
and Hermitopia’s seductive thrall of violence. Hotguy’s only been in the public eye for a few
months: how has this much been written about him? He captures as many links and images
as he can, then burrows into his bed to learn more about their creator.

The profile picture boasts a laughing woman, her face a happy parenthesis, framed by smile
lines in the making. A blurb boasts eight years buried in Hermitopia’s beating heart, drawn to
the city with a pen and a hope to capture the stories of their changing world. The face clicks
in his memory. He’s seen her before, her image strewn across news headlines and interviews.
Mixed into crowds of journalists, frontmost and pointing a microphone like a sword.

Flipping through the blog, he finds more of himself. Photos of Hotguy alive in action, blurred
and smeared by the camera’s futile attempt to catch him still. Bow engaged, vaulting from
buildings, pulling a civilian from the remains of an apartment complex. Closeups, too. Scar
frowns at one of the article headers, featuring a shot of him and Cuteguy chatting. No
scratches, no blood—likely from their routine patrols.

Without control, he shivers under the weight of revelation these blurbs and photos bring
him. Scar’s used to people staring, sure—with or without the mask. He’s learning that to be
a vigilante is to become a piece of the public, to give yourself over and over until something
greater is made from your missing parts. But this…

161
Discomfort roils in his stomach.

This is a true power he cannot conquer or arrest. The weight of a camera lens, an all-seeing eye
hanging over Hotguy’s every action. Suddenly, this journalist feels stronger than the violence
beating in every vein of this bright city, wielding her camera and pen like a panopticon beyond
his reach. Standing above his shadow like the moon. He clicks back to the author page. There’s
frustratingly little information about her.

Pearl.

Scar scratches his cheek, feeling the pieces slowly click together. He’s seen that name in his
email, pestering him (or Cub, in reality) for information and interview slots. She knows far, far
more about him than he could ever know of her. His first thought is that Pearl looks kind. His
second is that she wields a power stronger than any mutation he’s ever known.

He shows the article to Cub eventually. Scar tucks the edges in around the full truth: he’d
read every entry on Pearl’s blog. He sits on the edge of his chair now, watching Cub’s profile
as he flicks through the articles. A variety of expressions cross the man’s face. Surprise.
Frustration. Then, when he turns to Scar, resignation.

“Just stay away from her,” Cub says in lieu of any true reaction. “This stuff’s being read by
everyone these days: that means villains too.” Then, amusement breaks his furrowed brow.
“How’d she get this much on you without you noticing, anyway?”

“I’ll have you know,” Scar huffs, pouting at the growing smirk on the man’s face, “I’m very
dedicated to my superhero-ing. No distractions for me, no sir.” He swats at Cub’s shoulder
when his snicker grows.

Cuteguy says the same thing weeks later, lip curled in a frown. “She follows you like a hunting
dog.” He squints at Hotguy’s surprise. “You haven’t noticed her?” He huffs. “See, this is exactly
why I tell you not to pose for photos with civilians after fights.”

Months and months after the first discovery, Pearl’s portrait still lingers in his mind. He’d like
to say he listens to Cub and Cuteguy’s mutual advice to stay away from her.

Scar feels the beginning of a migraine forming between his eyes. His glasses do little to help.
Light, information, movement: they all crowd their way through his skull.

The city’s bright, burning; loud. He got the call halfway tucked into bed: a bank heist gone
explosive, with enough familiar villain faces to sharp-kick the danger meter from bad to
worse. He’d heard Bleeding Hart’s shrieking, ricochet laugh when he finally arrived, and that
had kicked it to catastrophic.

In his ear, Cuteguy’s voice comes in, tuned sharp and static. “You alive?”

Hotguy chuckles at the flat tone of his voice. His headache flares—okay, bad idea. No laughing.

Down below, he’s watching Cuteguy clean up the remains of a crumbled building canopy.
The employees had long been pulled free, now anxiously watching the vigilante work. Hotguy

162
had shot holes clean through the wheels of the getaway cars, leaving them abandoned and
spilling with smoke.

“Sure am.” Hotguy winces. “Though, I don’t know how I’ll feel when I wake up tomorrow
morning.” His body aches, protesting every movement. Turns out one of the henchmen had
a jumping mutation, which—well, Hotguy could feel his bracers twisted in three separate
places, from how hard he’d fallen while catching the man.

“You’ll live,” Cuteguy tuts. Scar smiles despite himself. “Have you seen Scour?”

Hotguy hasn’t. Scour is a rare sighting, so her arrival had been an announcement of dread.
He’d kept close eyes on her throughout the fight, then—well, he wasn’t expecting the flying
mutation. Or the explosives. Everything had gone sideways, after that.

The fire blooms with golden light, an artificial sun that paints dancing shadows across the
metropolis. Out of the corner of his eye, Hotguy sees the shadows twist. Then, a flare of red
unfurls from the darkness and leaps—

“Found ‘er!” He’s racing towards the building’s edge. Adrenaline slams him back awake.
Summoned, his bow sinks into his hand. Like an extra limb, or an extra soul. The weight of it
runs his blood hot in his ears.

He runs a hand over his quiver, fingers brushing feathered ends. One, two—

“I’ve only got seven shots left, Cutie.” Hotguy can hear the challenge in his own voice. He
blinks, and Scour’s shadow is gone. Shoot. The wind is cruel on his skin as he runs. The edge
blurs under his feet, bracers bunching and whirring with stored power, before—

The world goes quiet as he jumps. For a moment, just this shard of time, Hotguy defies the world.

Then the fragment vanishes; he soars, plummeting to the ground like an Icarus, melting in the
moonlight. Free-fall hooks onto his stomach like a rope, tugging him back to earth.

“Guess you can’t miss then, hot stuff.” His partner’s voice bleeds through the static, into his
eyes, right into his blood. “You dropping off my back?”

“‘Fraid I can’t watch your bird dance anymore.” Hotguy grins. “Hope you don’t mind.” He catches
the edge of a balcony with a heavy pull, groaning at the heat that rips up his arm at the motion.
Don’t fall, don’t fall. Scar squeezes his eyes shut tightly, and doesn’t think about the thirty or so
floors dangling between him and flat concrete. His big toe finally catches the railing edge, and he
swings up to his feet. “I don’t think my arm’s going to work tomorrow, man.”

“The price we pay for justice,” Cuteguy drones, as if they hadn’t fished a bullet out of his
wing a few weeks ago. Point taken. “I’m just about done, anyways. I got the last guy tied down
here—so don’t let Scour go.”

“Yessir.” Hotguy shakes the numbness from his hands, straps his bow to his back, sighs, then
leaps to capture the top floor ledge. His communicator buzzes with static in his ear, the hum
of Cuteguy’s reply melting into white noise, when—

Thunk! A blade shrieks the concrete, inches from where his fingers once were. He gasps,
shooting his hands away from the offending blade. On the edge of the knife, a red light glares
from above.

163
The wind is cold on Hotguy’s bare skin as he catches her stare.

Of all the nasty forces Scar has met in his time behind the mask, Scour cuts an unforgettable
figure. All around her, like a ring of danger, her glowing cloak swims and swirls like magic. The
moonlight mask eclipsing her face dehumanizes her even more, looking down at Hotguy with
this cruel imitation of a smile.

The mocking mask tilts, peering down at him from the roof’s edge. Hotguy has seen enough
movies to know the position he’s in isn’t pretty.

“So does the mask change with the moon phases?” Hotguy blurts before he can do the
more reasonable thing, like shutting up. Or, ideally, stop hanging off the edge of a thirty-foot
building. “Or is it just a creepy smile all year ‘round?”

“Guess you gotta find out, Hotguy,” Scour tuts. Her boot creeps dangerously close to his fingers.

“Care for a game of twenty questions, then?” Hotguy winces as he adjusts his grip. The cold,
stone ledge bites at his muscles. He tries to rock back, forth, back again; Scour has another
blade in her hand before he gets far. “Alright, I can—I’ll just hang here.”

“Is this normally how you get intel?” The knife dances between her fingers. “Y’know, this
explains a lot.”

“I’ll take you’re deeply impressed by our operational security?” In his ear, Cuteguy’s gone
quiet. “That’ll be the work of my lovable companion.”

Scour glances at the city behind them, her profile kidnapped in shadow. The long wisps of her
mask ribbons curl around her like tendrils of smoke. “Yes, yes. You and your Cuteguy.” She looks
back. Somewhere in the dark, her voice has sunk like the evening sun. There is a low, rich tenor
that hangs off Scar’s dangling feet when she speaks. “I know a lot about you two.”

“Well, that’s a real shame. I don’t know much about you, Miss Creepy Mask Lady.” Hotguy
closes his eyes. It quiets the overload of sensation—hot pain and tight pinches and bright
lights and red sound and this cold—all fighting for space behind his eyelids. “I’d love an
exclusive—maybe an interview over tea?”

“Let’s leave the reporting to the professionals, big guy.” Her boot brushes his fingernails. His
hands have gone numb, white with stress. “Otherwise, you’ll end up doing something stupid,
like hanging off a rooftop.”

“Hey now,” Hotguy grits through his teeth. In his ear, Cuteguy’s voice clips in and out. All
sound from below is jumbled by the adrenaline pressure-pumped into Scar’s brain. “I’ll have
you know I’m a professional superhero.”

“Is that what you tell yourself, Hotguy?” Hotguy opens his eyes. Scour crouches down, until
the red sheen of her cape spills like blood over his trembling hands. Her mask is red, red, red,
lit by that carved grin and the gloss of midnight. “What’s the goal here? Talking to me, wasting
my time…” The concrete cracks where a new blade rips into the stone, inches from his weak
arm. “What’s the big picture?”

“You and your little band of friends are bad business, Scour,” Hotguy grits. “That’s why I’m
doing this.” He cries out as his hand finally slips free. He hangs on by a single arm, one that
hums louder than his partner’s voice in his ear, louder than the shrill laughter that rips free
from Scour’s mask.

164
“Yeah? You’re out to stop me, are you?” Scour stands up. “How?”

“C’mon, Scour—why’re you doing all this? Wouldn’t it just be easier to do the right thing?”
Sweat runs down his neck like tears. His eyes, shot from overuse, blur and cross; Scour weaves
in and out of focus, a double-image, a vision of red and smiles and omen.

The red follows her as she turns. “I think we’ve got different versions of right, mate. Pity we
won’t see eye to eye.” A helicopter roars above them, chopping her laughter to distorted,
ghoulish shrieks. “Tell the birdie that Hart sends her best wishes for his recovery...”

Her boot strikes his hand. The world tips, melting from his fingers, and he falls.

The last he sees of Scour is her mask, the imprint of scarlet burned into his eyes long after
the balcony ledge catches his body.

Weeks later, Hotguy is hardly halfway out of his costume when Scar’s doorbell rings.

He jumps, arms caught in the stiff fabric of his shirt. Around his ankles, where his cat has
curled up to demand affection, her ears flatten in surprise. At once, danger rings in his ears.

The list of people who know his address could run its course on one hand. Even less is the
list of people who’d show up close to midnight, just minutes after he stumbled in from a shift
behind the mask. Shoot. Is he in trouble? Did he miss his rent payment? The rest of his
costume makes it off, but not without twisting his shoulder into a tight cramp. He bangs his
wrist against something that makes tears well up in his eyes.

The doorbell rings again. Scar gets half his elbow into the closest non-Hotguy shirt before
realizing it’s backwards. He isn’t expecting Cub until Monday. Bdubs doesn’t come by without
a warning. Cuteguy doesn’t know where he lives. Did his secret get out? Is he—

The bell becomes a soft, insistent knock. Scar throws his shirt on right, kicking his costume
under the bed. “Coming!” He shuts the door to his bedroom, and grabs a spare arrow out from
his bathroom sink. “Give me a sec!” With one last glance to ensure his home is Hotguy-free,
he goes for the door.

“Did I interrupt something?” Standing outside his door is none other than the notorious
reporter Pearl. Dread drops like a stone in his stomach. “Sounds like you were fighting
something in there, mate.”

“Just, ah—some spring cleaning,” he says. Ignoring the fact that it’s July, she snorts. He can’t help
but stare. He doesn’t see her notorious camera, the moon-eyed lens that has become a fixture
of his nightmares. No, here Pearl stands armed in patterned pajamas and plastic slippers. In her
hands, rather than a panopticon, she holds a crock pot. “Was I being too noisy—?”

She laughs. “No, not at all. I’ve got a lot of late night cleaning to do myself, honestly.” She looks
past him, her expression softening. “Aww, I knew I saw a cat up in the window. There she is,
little ol’ sweetheart.”

“Saw her?” Scar feels mildly delirious. The reporter who spends most of her time hunting
down his alter alias is standing outside his apartment. He wonders if he hit his head while

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ripping his costume off earlier, if all of this is some concussed delusion. “I, uh—hope she
wasn’t causing problems.”

Pearl clicks her tongue. “‘Course not, I don’t think she could cause a single problem in her life.”
There’s a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. “I moved in six days ago, actually; your cat’s been
keeping me company while I haul boxes.”

Oh. Scar feels a bit silly for missing that. “Welcome to the neighbourhood!” Calm down. Calm
down. She doesn’t know. Chanting this to himself, he sticks his hand out for her to shake. Well,
there goes the empty next-door unit. It was a good run.

“Thank you!” Pearl shifts the pot in her arms so she can take his hand. Her touch is warm. “I’m
Pearl, by the way. I won’t be too loud, promise—I’m a journalist.”

“Scar,” he says. “Up-and-coming A-list actor, so—promise I won’t read any scripts at night.”
Between being an actor and Hotguy, Scar’s rare to spend a full day at home. He almost says
this, before— “Whatever it is that you’ve got there, it smells amazing.” His stomach chooses
this moment to remind him that his last meal was over twelve hours ago.

“It’s for you, actually.” Scar blinks. “I wanted to bake something? But most of my pans are still
somewhere, so…” She shrugs, her face sheepish. “It’s hard to mess up a good soup.”

Scar feels the last of his tension crawl back underneath the mask. The voice in his head
murmuring stay away from her goes soft. Pearl is no opponent here: just a civilian. One who
brings their new neighbor soup, apparently.

“Well, it smells amazing!” Then, an idea strikes. “Why don’t you come in, and we can share
a bowl?” So much for Cub’s warning. Scar was never good at listening to those, anyways.

“Are you sure, Scar?” Pearl’s eyes look hopeful. “I don’t want to impose.”

Scar thinks about the last time someone came over to his home, strictly to see him. Scar. Not
the mask, not the superhero, not on business or obligation.

“‘Course I am.” He rolls back, giving her room to step inside. “Soup’s better with company, anyways.”

Scar gets the call for the robbery during breakfast. By the time he’s standing on the street canopy
facing the shop, the sun’s burst from behind the buildings, casting the scene in full gold.

“A redstone shop? Think they’re here for the early bird special?” The call had come in fast.
He’d only heard robbery and armed and the rest had gone static. “Maybe you should go in
first, Cutiebird.”

“Acting like I didn’t hear that.” From his peripheral, Cuteguy glides from the roof of a diner. “On
your left.” His wings flare and tuck as he lands without making a sound. Showoff. “We don’t
know what kind of mutations are at play here, Hotguy. Keep your eyes peeled.”

“Rise and shine, I guess.” Hotguy hits the awning roof with much less grace. “Where’s the—”
A flare of light is all Hotguy gets as warning. He swerves, ducking as another bullet rips past
his ear. “—Hey, I found them!”

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Cuteguy makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. “Please don’t get shot,” Scar hears him smile.
“That’s my thing.” His voice shifts in static as he swoops into the shop’s broken window.
“There’s no one up front. I’m going in. Watch the exits.”

Hotguy counts his arrows. One, two—Shoot. Five’s a crowd, sure—but not a showstopper.
“Let’s hope these fellas run a small crew.” Tension runs and runs in his muscles, crouched on
the roof and scanning the busy street, until—

Bang! His arrow strikes the driver’s side tire right on the sharp turn. Bang! The truck swerves,
rocked off its course by the strike, and Hotguy drops to the street before the driver can
even shout—

Bang! Speaking of drivers, well. The shot meets its target with a scream, and without stopping,
the car swerves off the curb, colliding with a street light and erupting into smoke. Hotguy is
running towards the crash before the fire eventually meets gasoline. Dark clouds plume from
the car’s crumbled hood, and Hotguy catches sight of the trunk door ripping open—

“Don’t let them go!” Cuteguy’s voice clips the cacophony like a tuning fork. “Whatever they’ve
got, it’s bad news.”

The driver’s slumped over, airbags wrapped around his bleeding arm. There’s a few civilians
too close, white with terror. Thankfully untouched. Whoever bursts from the trunk gets one,
two, three wobbly steps to reorient and meet Scar’s eye—

Bang! The runner gasps, crumpling like a puppet cut from strings. Across her back, the bag
scatters across the street. The runner’s eyes are too wide, frantic. This doesn’t feel right.

“It—” Cuteguy sounds hollow. “Hart was here. This is Soup Group’s doing..”

The arrow gets pulled out of the runner’s leg with a sickly, cracking sound. The civilian couple
behind her gasps.

“I’ve got one shot left,” Hotguy turns the receiver on his comm down. Sound, light, it all makes
his brain thump to the meter of his thundering heart. “Driver’s down. Got a runner on foot. Get
up high to check for any strays.”

Whatever Cuteguy says gets swallowed in static. Hotguy slams into the runner, throwing his
weight into his bracers to send them both off-kilter. He lands in a hard, flat crush of limbs
and adrenaline.

“I reckon those bits are important to you.” He rolls to swing out of the way of the runner’s
leg. It catches him in the stomach, kicking him hard enough to throw his breath. “Care to tell
why?” He sucks his pain in through his teeth. One moment, the runner’s low on the ground.
Then—Hotguy has to roll again, watching her fist collide with the concrete.

His head was there a second ago. The concrete crumbles.

Focus. “Not feeling chatty?” He lunges for the bag, crushing a piece of equipment with his heel.
It earns him a reaction: the face beneath the hood twists in terror. Alright, he can work with that.

Whatever it was he just destroyed, it was important enough to protect.

Scar’s no acrobat, but Hotguy can dance. The sun’s growing on his neck, and the city’s starting
to wake under the smell of violence. It is adrenaline, this push that hurtles Hotguy into action.

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Two more computer parts are crushed under his feet. The runner, villain—whoever it is that’s
got hot fists and a plan to meet Scar with them—gets redder at every crunch.

Scar rips the front sign of the nearest shop from its window, colliding with the swing of the
villain’s body with a crash! that echoes like a gunshot. The plexiglass shatters in his hands.

“I caught the stray,” Cuteguy’s voice comes in cold. “Don’t let yours go far. I’m coming.”

His bow is cold when he fits it with his last arrow. It’s the space between seconds, really.
But this bow, steel and wire and carbon fiber, is the extra limb he needs to survive out here.
Information jams itself through his eyes, pulling his eyelashes apart to pour into his skull.
There’s one last redstone piece, shining like a star across the street.

Hotguy can almost make out the villain’s face. She looks—

“Shoot her!”

Hotguy lets the arrow fly just as her shadow closes in—

Bang!

The building behind him crumbles with the force that strikes him. The world is all sound, all
bright, too much sensation. Is that laughter? (Later, Scar will watch the footage of himself getting
thrown into a building, and his brain will stutter to connect the moments. He watches how his
body flies through the shop window, flung like a ragdoll with the force of the villain’s blow. How
glass had shrieked and metal supports had bent around him, cradling his body like a comet.
How each flower and beautiful pot had flattened under the caved wall like petals rotting in fall.)

When Cuteguy comes to find him in the remains, hands shaking from the rubble he’d cleared,
Hotguy can see the grief on the man’s face. There’s a moment—this sliver—where Scar thinks
Cuteguy is going to ask. But his jaw works, and relief finally eclipses the firestorm of emotion
that’d been there before.

Across the street, the computer parts are scattered like falling stars. The last, pierced with
a glowing arrow, stares back at Hotguy for the next few hours they spend at the building’s
remains, helping the police clear off the area. Waiting for the flower shop’s owner to arrive.
Getting the civilians on with their peaceful lives.

Feeling the eye of a certain journalist’s camera burn down his neck like the sun,
ever-above, ever-watching.

Scar doesn’t cry much about his job. He wonders sometimes if it’s a side effect of his mutation,
strain on his eyes drying his tear ducts somewhere along the line. He’s not complaining, really;
it’s quite a perk for cutting onions. But—

The redstone shop has become massive news. Scar’s seen the video of Hotguy getting thrown
into a window more times than he’s seen his most recent toothpaste ad.

The four or so most popular videos are all from Pearl. Her camera had captured how glass
had shrieked past her, dust pouring out like chimney smoke from where a small business once

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sat. It’d captured the shop owner’s tearstained face, heaving between words to tell the story
about how she’d grown her first daisy there, now buried beneath stone and glass. The clips
all lead to her full article. Pearl is no stranger to heavy hitting, but the interview with the shop
owner seals the piece’s thesis with a bullseye shot. On the header, it reads: WHO DO THE
VIGILANTES REALLY FIGHT FOR? In every video there are glimpses of his partner, shoulders
curled in while a man screams in anger. There are tears in everyone’s eyes.

—Hotguy puts the phone down, clattering in the sink next to rolls of gauze and bandages.
Scar weeps.

The next few days pass fast. Or slow. Or, do they pass at all?

Scar can’t really tell. He’s stuck in a Sisyphean loop of pain. Exertion, old scars, new damage
from getting shot-put into a brick wall—there’s a long list. It keeps him confined to his
apartment for the first time in ages. His mask sits on his bathroom sink, collecting dust next
to his toothbrush. His phone and charger are… somewhere.

Without a call of justice to answer, with nothing better to do than hide and heal, the article
becomes the newest wound that settles onto Hotguy’s back. The hallway between him and
Pearl’s apartment is deathly quiet over the next few days. If Pearl comes, goes, or if she
festers in her four walls like him, then Scar’s none the wiser. If she sees him, what would she
think? What would she see with her moon-eyed lens, her all-seeing eyes?

He wonders when Cuteguy is going to call. To scrape his partner out from hiding, put him back
into a facsimile of a man—hardly a superhero—and swoop with him back into the public eye. But
over the next few days, his communicator makes no sound. On the TV, in the news, even under
Cub’s brief check-in: Cuteguy is not seen at all. If there was no mask between them, would it
feel this way? Would they both slink behind their respective walls, licking their wounds alone?

Hotguy hates it. Scar hates it more.

On the third day, a reprieve: a pair of soft footsteps stall out by his front door as Scar’s
wheeling out from the shower. After a long pause, he hears a familiar knock. Scar is even
slower to answer the door, hoping the sight of Pearl’s face won’t make him crumble.

“I haven’t seen you over the past few days,” she says by way of greeting. Her eyes are
purple-ringed, face dull with exhaustion. Scar’s sure he looks a similar sight. “You been doing
alright, Scar?”

Here, Hotguy is long tucked away, buried somewhere quiet in his chest. Still, his heart squeezes
at the sight of the reporter, looping her written words around his head like an incantation. Or
a curse. “I’ve been better, Miss Pearl.” He smiles, hoping it looks honest. “Coming off the end
of a rough week.”

Sympathy blooms on her face. “You and me both, mate.” In her arms, she’s cradling a plastic
bag. “Care for some spinach curry?” Something soft falls over her eyes. “Looks like you could
use a friend.”

Scar thinks about the state of his apartment, the way his anger has been rubbed into every
crevice of air. Behind him, the late night news loops the segment on his explosive failures.

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He breaks. “Mind if we eat at your place?” He doesn’t spare a look back at his communicator,
buried somewhere with his grief. “I’m a bit tired of my four walls.”

Pearl’s eyes crease with the force of her smile. “You and me both,” she repeats. She steps
back, letting Scar out of his apartment doorway, and sealing the door to his world for just
a moment. “Let’s go upstairs instead. The rooftop view’s amazing.”

“What’s this about?” Cuteguy’s visor glows red in the dark.

He’d answered the call quicker than Hotguy had expected. He’d hoped for a few more minutes
to rehearse his pitch, playing the story under his breath like a puppeteer, pacing a path into
the disarray of rugs scattered across their compound.

When he’d finally fished his communicator out from under his laundry, there’d been nothing
from his partner. Tonight, an end to their silent stalemate. Hotguy wishes his partner’s face
could bring him relief, but what he sees isn’t a pretty sight. Cuteguy’s got a dark, unshaved
shadow around his jaw and tight shoulders. His foot taps erratically against the rug. His hair
is wild, as if brushed only by manic fingers.

“You know, I’ve been thinking recently.”

“Dangerous start,” Cuteguy quips, but doesn’t budge from his spot.

Hotguy throws a hand to his chest. “I’ll have you know my brilliant plans have never faltered,
mister. I’m deeply wounded by your lack of faith.” It works. Cuteguy’s arms uncross and he
finally—finally—laughs. Hardly more than a snort, really.

The room shrinks in the dark as he steps closer. “I miss hearing you laugh, Birdie.” Hotguy
looks around, bracers clicking against the floors, soaked in months of memory. “We’ve been
run ragged recently, and we’ve taken a few heavy beatings.” Literally. Cuteguy’s right wing still
hangs lower, a reminder of their close calls. “Morale’s pretty low right now, isn’t it? I… I think
we deserve some time to just… be us.”

Cuteguy steps back, almost without realizing. “What are you talking about?”

“I have an idea.”

“Dangerous,” Cuteguy murmurs.

“What if we just—” Hope, this foolish and feeble thing, winds Hotguy’s arm back to retrieve the
tickets in his pocket. At once, the script he’d carefully repeated to himself, his multi-step plan,
all fizzles away. “I’ve got two tickets to a comedy show. I’ve heard this guy’s real good, too.
Great crowd work.” Scar had signed hours of his life away to Bdubs in the form of ambiguous
favors to get his hands on the seats. Bdubs was a hard man to haggle. “It’s tomorrow, and
it’s—”

“Do you really think it’s a good idea for two known vigilantes to make a public appearance like
this?” Cuteguy’s voice is clipped with frustration. “Come on, Hotguy. I know you’ve read the
news recently.”

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Hotguy fights a dry smile. “I’m aware my handsome face is plastered on most hours of the
local news, yes.” He turns the tickets over in his hands, chest heavy. “But, you know… We
wouldn’t pull any headlines if we just went as a pair of civilians, would we?”

Cuteguy isn’t slow. “You—”

Hotguy barrels past his no. His words stumble out in a slew: “Think about it. We don’t make
a big deal out of it. We go, get a couple laughs, maybe get dinner at one of those skeezy
diners downtown.” He wishes the lights were on. He wishes Cuteguy’s visor was clear, or gone
altogether, so he could see the fight play across the man’s face. He wishes he knew the man’s
name. Their bunker, the only space in the world without the eyes of Hermitopia on them, is
dark and heavy with grief. “Come on, Cutie.” Hotguy’s voice goes low, pleading. His knees go
soft, ready to kneel. “I… I think we need each other right now.”

The room swallows his plea. The silence grows like sculk up his nape.

“Hotguy.” There’s a faraway note to his partner’s voice. “This isn’t—”

“Please.” Scar leaps forward, until the rise and fall of Cuteguy’s emblem on his chest is close
enough to touch. He’s hoarse, throat dried of hope. “You can hide. You can wear a face mask,
or—or big shades, or anything.” A hand rises to his own mask. “I just need—” His own fingers
are clammy on his face as he lifts up the edge to reveal—

“Stop!”

Cuteguy’s hands are hot on his cheek. Hands which, shakingly, push his mask back onto his
nose. Covering his eyes. Behind the man’s visor, Hotguy can finally make out the expression
hidden below: fury.

“Don’t do that.” His partner’s voice is taut around the edges, stripped of any humor. “Hotguy,
this isn’t—” Cuteguy rips back, wings curling in like a second shadow. “What could possibly
make you think this is a good idea?”

“I just—” Hotguy swallows. His skin is feverishly warm where the man’s hands had been before.
“I feel like we’ve been distant. I—” his voice croaks. “I miss you.”

“No.” Cuteguy clenches his hands, unclenches them, tension running a long line over his body.
“It’s not safe. You can never know who I am. I will never want to see beneath your mask. Do
you understand, Hotguy? What could happen if your secret got out?” His breath falls short,
hastily. Fear rides on the edge of every syllable. Cuteguy’s afraid. He’s terrified. The red of his
visor glows like a warning sign in Hotguy’s vision. Danger, danger, danger. “Do you know what
could happen if they knew who you really are?”

Long after he’s been left alone to stand in their bunker, long after the tickets have gone
cold on the windowsill, Scar watches the place where Cuteguy had stood before fleeing. The
man’s words, the last scrap of company in the quiet dark of this space, keep running a broken
record in his head.

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It’s fitting then, that the next time he sees Cuteguy is at a crime scene.

The call comes in just before twilight. A downtown building has reported another robbery:
precious goods stolen by dangerous hands. Hotguy lands at the scene and wades through
the onlookers, dread curled in his stomach as the building comes into view.

When Hermitopia bleeds, he’s never stopped to question who it was that needed saving. If
there was ever a time to… Hotguy doesn’t finish the thought, stumbling up the steps of the
TCG building. Sirens swoop in every direction. The building’s all dark and fenced off, a labyrinth
of its own.

“We found them on the Intelligence floor,” is the first thing Cuteguy says to him. The man’s
halfway between another vigilante and a man in handcuffs, slumped in a painful-looking heap
on the concrete. “We got a few, but the building hasn’t been cleared yet.”

“Intelligence? What, like papers?” Hotguy studies the windows. From inside, the only movement
is the slow, measured spin of the red security lights. “I can’t imagine they got very far.”

“The secretary had a panic alarm.” His partner doesn’t look up. “Thankfully, no injuries. One of our
suspects—” Cuteguy nudges the figure with his boot— “kindly shared his plans.” From the floor,
Scar sees a string of drool fall from slack lips. The man groans, earning another firm nudge. “He
tried to threaten the secretary,” his partner chirps. “Her mutation made this a lot easier.”

“Why haven’t they evacuated?” Hotguy wrinkles his nose.

“There’s eyes and drones on every exit, every window. All communication’s gone dead along
the whole block; no intel is getting in or out unless it’s on foot.” Cuteguy sighs. “And frankly,
I’m not eager to race into that building.”

“Sounds fancy…” A quick peek above confirms there are figures on every building corner,
drones circling above like scavenger birds. His leg bounces with adrenaline, bracers tap, tap,
tap-ing against the marble steps. He’s restless. What good is he doing here waiting?

The sirens, the chatter, it all swirls around his ears into a mindless wall of noise. He’s not sure
how long they stay outside, swarmed by a crowd of masked figures and civilians. What kind of
villain would send their underlings to rob the most well-protected building in Hermitopia? It’s
almost deadening, this useless feeling, and Hotguy almost calls it a night before—

“Fire!”

Someone comes stumbling down the building steps. A man soot-streaked, eyes wide with
terror. Around his neck, a TCG badge is charred black.

“It’s—” Hotguy catches the man before he falls. The smell of smoke follows him like a ghost. “I saw
fire—” The arm around his shoulders becomes two, carefully sliding the man onto the ground.

“Where?” Cuteguy’s down low. His wings shield the man from stray eyes.

“I—I work on a secured floor,” the man gasps. “It’s not—no one’s supposed to be there. I saw
a shadow, but the door was closed, and it was hot—”

Hotguy squats down. “How many people are inside?” From his peripheral, Cuteguy glances
over sharply.

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“Uh—” Hotguy takes a deep breath, two, repeating them until the man follows the motions.
Then, he wipes his eyes. “Not many. It’s a skeleton crew tonight. Maybe a dozen—max two?”
The man starts to shiver. Hotguy peels his windbreaker back, throwing it across his shoulders.
“The basement’s empty.”

The windows above confirm the man’s story. Heat radiates from the upper windows, smoke
making its first trickle through the twisted building vents. A dozen people. Fear runs through
his fingers. Scar takes a deep breath. “Someone ring the fire department. We’ll get everyone
out and try to put out the fires.” A murmur ripples through the crowd of vigilantes, but he
doesn’t wait for confirmation.

Before he can reach the door, a hand grips his forearm.

“Wait.”

Cuteguy’s mouth is twisted in a tight line when he looks over.

“I take the main floors, you go up?” Hotguy goes for another step, frowning when his partner
doesn’t let go.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Cuteguy sounds scared.

Hotguy tugs at his arm. “I’ll take upstairs.” When his partner shakes his head, the other ball
silently drops. “Wait, are you talking about—”

The man before him is all unfamiliar angles and twisted words. “Maybe we… Let’s leave this one
to the authorities, Hotguy.” Cuteguy glances up. “The papers I found on this guy were—we’d
be doing a lot of good by letting that information burn.”

Hotguy’s ears go hot. Under his emblem, his heart rate triples and burns. “Are you kidding?”
Anger rips through him. “You’re joking, right?” Cuteguy doesn’t break his eye contact. “Right?”

“This is TCG, Hotguy. They’re hunting us down. I’m trying to keep our identities safe.”

“And I’m trying to keep people safe.” He finally rips his arm free. The man in front of him is
a stranger. A vigilante with a shapeshifting mutation, or a puppet, or a nightmare. “I—I can’t
believe this.” A fire alarm finally bursts from the window above. Both of them flinch. Cuteguy
looks ready to disappear.

“Please.” How had it only been last night, when Scar had been the one begging?

Hotguy opens his mouth, and finds nothing to say. His stomach is raging with tension, anger
and fear sitting on his shoulders and pulling him back. He takes one step, two, before finally
turning and racing into the building.

The next hour passes like a dream. Time runs past Hotguy’s fingers like a river stream. The
only thing he feels is heat, crowding him all over, sharp on his nape like a knife. In, out. The
only guiding force is the pulsing red panic lights, flooding every corridor. Slowly, he pulls TCG
employees out of barricaded rooms, or stairwells, or office balconies. He doesn’t remember
any of their faces, their names. The only memory that will last longer than this night is the tight
grip of clammy hands on his arms, of rabbit-quick heartbeats that burn him through his suit.
In, out. Rows and rows of computers blur past his vision, filing cabinets that probably contain
all the city’s secrets. He walks past them, weaving through the burning maze to find more

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beating life. He doesn’t see Cuteguy. He doesn’t see any other vigilante. In, out. Maybe they’d
joined in, crawling across the other floors in search of life. Maybe they’d stayed outside—

From somewhere near him, a voice cries for help. It bluntly ends the thought.

The smartly dressed woman he finds in a bathroom wrinkles her nose at him when he jogs in.
Likely not because he smells like a bonfire.

“I watch the news, you know,” she says to his outstretched hand.

Hotguy flashes a grin. “Bet I’m even more handsome in person, aren’t I?” He ignores her scowl
and throws her over his shoulder, hauling her downstairs.

The last trip he makes inside, he finds the basement. It’s dark, vacant, only accompanied by a dull-
ringing fire alarm and a red glow. Whoever started these fires wasn’t anywhere in the building.
Hotguy hadn’t heard anything from outside, meaning they hadn’t left, either. Which means—

“Hello?” He hopes to find them before they find an exit. Maybe they’re taking a breather, hiding
in the basement of the most well-secured building in Hermitopia, armed with potentially life-
threatening information. The thought makes him reach for his holster, thumb shaking on the
familiar shape of arrows.

One left.

“I’m a bit of a pyromaniac myself,” he says, stepping through shattered glass, “but this is a bit
much.” The door he finds is suspiciously unlabeled. Thankfully, whoever was here first was
merciful enough to blow it clean off its hinges. “What do you say we get you out of here, and
out of any danger?”

“You don’t like my handiwork?” A familiar voice pierces Hotguy like a bullet. “Pity. I worked real
hard on it.”

Scour’s voice makes him flinch. Soup Group. The final dot connects as he jogs to a full sprint,
fumbling for his communicator. It’d been Soup Group. They hadn’t sent some nameless
underling to break into TCG. No; they’d only been a distraction from the main event.

Hotguy jams the buttons on his communicator. “Come on, come on—” The service light stays
stubbornly empty. Where did she—there. Footsteps float past him. He sees a flare of red.
Communicator abandoned. “Out doing your normal supervillain business, Scour?” The hall
leads to a winding metal staircase. “Or is this a house call?”

“Wrong question, Hotguy!” Her voice is carved sweet like a knife. “I’m studying for a test, you
see. I’ve got to get a good score.”

The stairs lead to—

Scar throws a hand out to catch himself before falling off the railing.

The basement to TCG isn’t a single floor, or a warehouse. It’s an abyss. Hotguy sees layers of
maze-like stairs, doors and machines, all winding down into darkness. The room is cold like
a cave. It’s wide enough across to fit a skyscraper inside.

“What’s on the test?” He sees a glimmer of red stars below. Her silhouette dances between
machines. He scrambles to catch up. “Can I borrow your homework? I promise I won’t destroy it.”

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“I’ve already got the answer key, Hotguy.” Her voice distorts and skips, playing twice, thrice,
pouring from all over. Suddenly Hotguy is chasing a dozen red masks, a telescopic distortion
of her eerie smile. “It starts with you and your little sidekick. Ready for the pop quiz?”

Shit. “Stop running, Scour.” The bow in his hand is hot. His arm shakes as he draws it back,
finding a sliver of her cape and releasing—

Bang! She shrieks in laughter. Next to where her head was a moment ago, a computer screen
explodes. “Gotta be quicker than that, Hotguy.” Her moon-eyed mask peers at him through
the plumes of rising smoke. “Or should I say, Scar?”

He freezes. The ground under his feet nearly falls.

“What?”

The mask curls. “A B-list actor playing pretend-superhero when the sun goes down, is that
it? Did I get the right answer?” Her steps are silent as she drops to another floor. Around her,
her cape curls like spirals of magic.

“Why are you doing this?” Hotguy looks between the railing and Scour’s dancing steps. It’s
a three story drop. He rips the metal railing free, swallowing his anger, and leaps.

The air drops colder. They are far, far below the streets. How far does this maze of tunnels
and stairs go? The ground meets his feet in an explosion of noise. Pain ripples up his legs. His
headache flares hot behind his eyes. He nearly buckles there, lips sealed to avoid crying out.
Even with bracers, it’s a long fall.

The red of Scour’s mask glows on his chest as Scar creeps closer in the dark. “What’s the
big picture, Scour?” His voice drops to a whisper. “Why’re you doing this?” He pries his last
arrow free from the screen. In his hand, the shaft is fragile-necked, slim like his hope.

Her laugh ripples around them, bending space. Like a storyteller, she leans in closer. “Don’t
you want to answer the next question, Scar?” She sounds giddy. She sounds excited.
“We’re not done with our pop quiz, mate.” She walks backwards, tracing the railing with
her throwing knife. “What’s the name behind the pink mask? I’ve got an answer, and
I think it’s—”

Several things happen at once. Memory will fold them together, smearing the seconds into
one blur of motion. Hotguy doesn’t remember raising his arm, golden arrow clutched like
a holy spear. He doesn’t remember driving it into Scour’s mask. He doesn’t remember the
sound of steps finally breaking into the basement, shaking the railings from far above.

But he does remember Scour’s mask falling off. He remembers watching it clamor to the floor.
And he remembers looking down.

For a moment, Scar can’t breathe.

“Pearl?”

Through the curtain of her hair, Pearl stares up at him from Scour’s body. Scar’s brain stalls,
mind torn in two. Scour’s knives spill around her lap. Pearl’s face, so often seen pinched in
her sweet-eyed smile, is ghast and bleeding. Between them, eclipsing the dark, Scour’s cruel,
smiling mask shines red.

175
His world crashes around his feet. “What are you…” He steps back. At once, every interaction
they’ve had runs like a river upwards. “You—” Scar can’t even speak. From above them,
footsteps finally ring into focus. He hears voices, a low ripple of noise.

“Clever move with that arrow, Scar,” she sneers. Without her mask, the words feel horrible
against his ears. It’s Pearl. She’s Pearl. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag, now.”

Scar swallows. “You—how?” He doesn’t get it. A journalist by day, villain by night. The highest-
profile detective after Hotguy’s identity, and his next door neighbor. The greatest threat to his
life sits before him, the same neighbor who shares meals with him and pets his cat.

His chest is heavy. “Why, Pearl?”

“Because it’s what’s right, Scar.” Her eyes are dark, red-rimmed, glowing and dangerous. “You
don’t see the full picture.”

“Right.” Hotguy’s jaw is tight. “Because I just evacuated a whole building full of people you
tried to burn down.” His ears ring. “I think we’ve got different definitions of that word.”

She doesn’t say anything more. The silence brings clarity, and with clarity comes dread. Scour
is Pearl. Scour is Pearl. The moment he lets her out of his sight, she’ll leak his identity. The one,
true friend he’d had in the world above.

“Hotguy?” Faintly, his partner’s voice calls from above. “I think he’s down there. Go. Go!” Steps
get louder. One, two, Hotguy can’t keep track. Enough to make confronting Scour easy. She’s
strong, sure. But she’s backed into a corner. Exhausted. But seemingly unafraid to put up
a fight, as he watches her reach for a knife—

Hotguy slams his boot down on top of the blade.

“No.” His voice creaks. He’s so tired. “No.”

He doesn’t know what compels his body to move as he reaches between them. His fingers
shake around the edge of her mask. The glow bathes him in red, feeling dirty. This mask that
haunts his nightmares, his fears—the shape of violence sits in his open hand.

It lands in Pearl’s lap. She looks up, lost.

“Scar?”

“Go.” He steps backward. “Just—get out of here. If you leave now, you’ll get away.”

Pearl doesn’t need to be told twice. At once, she’s at her feet, mask clutched between her
hands. Like this, standing tall and menacing before him, the connection clicks. Her shoulders.
Her height. The length of her hands. It’s Pearl. It’s all Pearl.

“Why?” His own question sounds hollow in her voice.

He watches her bring the mask up to her face. “I—I don’t know.” His heart crushes his throat,
roaring in his ears. His stomach is thick with guilt. With grief.

From above, Cuteguy’s voice gets louder. “Hotguy’s not moving. Get to him!”

176
She fastens the mask, becoming Scour once more. Scour stares at him, head tipped in that
eerie manner, and vaults into the darkness below. In the silence of her absence, Scar is left
standing there alone with the weight of his actions.

Then Cuteguy crash-lands next to him, crowding his space. “Hotguy!” Soot is streaked along
his hair, high on his visor. “We saw Scour—what happened?”

Hotguy doesn’t meet his eyes. “She got away.”

Scar doesn’t remember getting out from the TCG basement.

He doesn’t remember getting back to his apartment, either. If he focuses, wading through
the marsh of memory, he can imagine Cuteguy’s silhouette trailing him, pantomiming concern
around him. Hotguy hasn’t made a public appearance since the robbery, where his face had
been plastered on evening news. Mixed stories about a vigilante who ran into a TCG building:
hero, or traitor?

There’s no point in going out, Scar convinces himself. Not when Pearl’s writing the words to
ruin his life.

He combs through every article on her blog again, pulling them all apart with a newfound
understanding. How long was she toying with him? How long had she known? The world
becomes confined to his apartment, a holding cell for his sealed fate. She’d lived next door to
him. There were so many moments, close calls and questionable things she could have seen.
For goodness sake, she’s a journalist. Gathering intel is her job. Besides being a supervillain,
evidently. And Scar, the blind, trusting fool he’d been, had handed her the keys to ruin him.

And then he’d let her get away.

Seven sunsets pass by his windows. Hotguy ignores his communicator. Scar ignores his
phone. When he spares a glance into the mirror on the last night, he’s not sure which of them
is looking back at him.

But what he does see is a crescent smile of red.

He freezes. Scour’s mask rips a line of tension up his body. That red is one he’s seen in his
nightmares each night. He wonders if he’s dreaming.

Scar takes a brief overview of his environment. He’s in his boxers. No mask, no bow. His
holster’s been empty of arrows since that fateful night. He can’t imagine a worse time to face
the city’s most ominous supervillain.

A gloved hand knocks timidly on the glass. It’s Pearl’s familiar knock. The dream shatters.

When he opens the door, Scour moves to let him wheel onto the balcony. Cold runs the
breeze right through his thin shirt he’d thrown on. He shivers.

“When’s my secret going to get out?” He’s tired of the dread. He wonders if the blow finally
landing will feel as awful as the anticipation of the strike.

177
Scour doesn’t reply. Without her shrieking laughter, she seems a shadow of herself.

When she slips her mask off, it’s just as jarring as the first time; there is something inexplicably
wrong about Pearl’s tired expression behind Scour’s mask. Her eyes are swollen, like she hasn’t
slept. The mask in her hands glows like a magic ball.

“Why’re you here, Scour?” Scar can’t bring himself to play their old game. “Come to gloat?”

The look in her eyes will haunt him until he puts up the mask for the final time, years and years
later down in his life. “I don’t know why you let me go free,” she admits. The words come out
pained. “Can’t quite wrap my head around it. You’re an awful superhero for that, I should say.”

Before Scar can reply, she continues. “... And for some reason I can’t bring myself to hit publish
on that article because of it.” She tips her head, and without her menacing mask, the action
looks childish, lost. “Does that make me an awful villain?”

His heart burns with hope. “Why should I believe that you didn’t spill my secret to Soup Group?”

Pearl raises an eyebrow. “Did you tell anyone about my secret?”

“Well… no.”

“Then there’s your answer.” She shrugs. As if it’s that simple to her. Scar thinks about telling
Cuteguy, even for a moment, and recoils. Perhaps it is. “A secret for a secret.” Pearl tosses her
broken mask at him. The glossy material is fractured, reflecting a hundred moons from above.
He nearly drops it, fumbling in his lap. “Consider my debt repaid.”

“Are you—?” He doesn’t say leaving, but it hangs around them regardless.

“It was fun living here, I’d say.” Scour pulls her hood up. Without her mask, she looks like
nobody. In his lap, the red of her mask glows like an artificial sun.

“Oh, and Scar?”

He looks up.

“I’d go check on your little sidekick, if I were you.” Pearl looks sad. “He’s being paid a visit by
a good friend of mine.”

178
Thello
Wormtime
 Droid (writer)
Antimony_Medusa (editor)

Scar Goodtimes Says New ‘Crafting Dead’

Movie Script ‘No Longer Reads Like It Was
Written In One Sitting’; Claims He Is Also
Surprised By This

Charlie 200 days ago | Culture

Agent Vincent Berger: Vigilantism adds to

the chaos of the new Hermitopia, offers
net negative results

Choco 220 days ago | Vigilantism

The open secret of Hermitopia’s outdated

water infrastructure

Choco 234 days ago | Hermitopia

No, You’re Not Imagining It: 5 Ways Your

Mutation Could Be Hindering Your Career

Kaze 428 days ago | Finance

Why Do Social Media Founders Often Turn

To Villainy? Redstone Valley CEO Xisuma
Voide Weighs In

Traffrogers 521 days ago | Vigilantism

182
 z/HermitopiaPowered • 14h ago
Thefakecuteguy

Pearl Moon took down all of her articles

about Hotguy’s identity. Am I the last person
to notice this?
News

Hey guys, basically what the title says. I was on the Herald website looking for citations
today and it looks like all of Moon’s articles from 2031 on about possibilities for Hotguy’s
civilian identity, including the article that I was specifically trying to find, have been deleted.
I’ve been able to use The Wayback Machine to recover a couple of older ones, but I’m
getting no results for most of them, and even an error message when I seek out articles
from the past year. All of the other articles criticizing Hotguy and Cuteguy or discussing
heroes’ impact on society are still up, so it isn’t a mass deletion.

Does anyone know what’s going on here? My first thought was a civil suit about libel or
something, but I feel like that would have been reported on by now.

56 25 Share

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RedEyedLawyer • 12h ago

State law defines defamation as a false statement that leaves the victim open to
contempt, hatred, ridicule, shunning, or injury to their occupation, while defamation
per se occurs when a statement is so inherently damaging that you don’t have to
prove specific damages, because the libel/slander itself is bad enough that damages
are inevitable. Under these definitions, speculation about vigilante identities wouldn’t
fall under defamation unless the reporter names an individual, in which case they
generally avoid making concrete statements unless they had enough proof to use
the defense that their statements were true. Journalists and reporters specifically
are also protected by the First Amendment, where you have to prove that they acted
unreasonably before you can claim libel or slander.

Now, in a case where a reporter directly accused an individual of harboring a secret

vigilante identity, the person accused would still have to be willing to lawyer up and
sue, if they didn’t have people on retainer. It’s possible that some kind of deal was
reached behind the scenes between Hotguy’s people and the Hermit Herald, but

183
impossible to say for sure — and I would say it’s unlikely that this is a legal matter,
since Pearl Moon did not actually lose her entire mind and outright accuse someone
of being Hotguy without the requisite evidence.
31 Reply Award Share

point_and_clique • 12h ago

Defamation per se shouldn’t apply to speculations of vigilantism, in that case?

Having your identity as Hotguy revealed would probably just make whoever it is
a star, considering the fanbase the guy somehow still has.
5 Reply Award Share

RedEyedLawyer • 11h ago

Vigilantism is still a crime, dumbass. Get out of your echo chamber and
into the real world sometime — fame isn’t about to save even a celebrity
from criminal prosecution, and a false accusation could seriously disrupt
someone’s life.

12 Reply Award Share

HappyFaceError • 11h ago

Hey u/darkofthe_night, any input on this? I’m a big fan of your vigilante writeups, and if
I’m remembering right, you were following the Scour-Hotguy conflict.

10 Reply Award Share

respawnanchor999 • 8h ago

I’m responding in Night’s place here because he’s currently in the hospital (pro
tip, kiddos: don’t grab a small unidentifiable drone if you know tech-related
villains are fighting in literally the next street) but yes, we were both following
the Scour-Hotguy conflict, and as far as I can tell, Scour’s appearances have
dropped off dramatically in the past month. I couldn’t tell you when the Herald
erased those articles, and I doubt it’s related— it isn’t the only conflict Hotguy
has been involved with recently, nor is it the first time he and Scour have
clashed— but according to my activity charts, the last known confrontation
between Hotguy/Cuteguy and Scour was reported here, if that helps. I wouldn’t
personally theorize that Hotguy saved Pearl Moon from Scour or something
behind the scenes and earned her reluctant respect, but if that’s what you’re
thinking of by asking this question, go wild.

(And as for Night, he’s going to be fine. I’m in contact with his wife, he has some
second-degree burns but the main concern was a head injury and how it might
interact with his mutation.)

24 Reply Award Share

HappyFaceError • 2h ago

Shit, man, I’m sorry to hear that. Hope he feels better soon

6 Reply Award Share

184
 genuine_Genius • 3h ago

Finagling some backups and screenshots and looks like the articles were
available as recently as last week. Could actually be connected?

4 Reply Award Share

8 more replies

WorthlessHearts0102 • 6h ago

A civil suit isn’t out of the question. How many years now has she just been targeting
these guys? I swear she popped up like a week after their first appearance and has
been nipping at their heels ever since for some easy clicks

13 Reply Award Share

feather_falling • 5h ago

Pearl Moon is an investigative journalist who tackles topics in Hermitopia that

other journalists won’t even touch. She’s consistently thorough, consistently
able to ferret out corruption, and a fantastic writer just on a technical level,
never mind the detail of her research. A journalist interviewing public figures
and seeking out information on their secret dealings isn’t “nipping at their heels”,
that’s doing her goddamn job. You might as well be arguing that a reporter
discussing gentrification is “nipping at the heels” of the city council.

11 Reply Award Share

neutrallyyours • 2h ago

She’s been kind of quiet lately. Hope she’s okay.

6 Reply Award Share

185
Wormtime (cover) MochiWrites (writing)
TJ (editing) Thello (assistance)
“This way!”

The soles of Grian’s shoes meet the pavement below with a sharp slap as he dashes through
the dark alley, voice bouncing off the walls around him. Wind whips through his hair and wings;
ahead of him, the robber he and Hotguy are pursuing darts around a corner, an amethyst
necklace falling from his bag in the process.

Grian doesn’t bother slowing his pace. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve taken the
time to study his environment before rushing in, get a better eye on his surroundings—but
tonight is not one of those nights. He knows without turning back that Hotguy is still following
him, albeit with a little distance between them. So instead, he lets determination push him
forward, and focuses.

A sharp turn brings him around the corner and into an open street, past several late-night
onlookers. His chest burns with the exaggerated movement, breath hitching—but he can’t let
that stop him. They have a job to do, and no amount of pain or healing injuries are going to
prevent him from doing it—

Underneath a nearby streetlamp, he catches a flash of ginger hair.

Adrenaline crashes through him like a great tidal wave hitting the sand. Grian slams to
a halt, heart leaping into his throat as his breaths come out rough and heavy. A hand darts
to the front of his suit, digging fingers into the material until his knuckles go white from how
harshly he grips it. Frantic, he checks his surroundings; is that a sneaky red dot flickering on
the brick wall beside him? Is the phantom pang of a gunshot in his chest real, or is it only
in his head?

Focus on the robber. Focus on the robber.

Grian sucks in another breath, shaking his head as he snaps his attention back to the criminal
in front of him, but—

All he finds is an empty street.

You let them get away!

Grian groans, frustration settling in his chest. Get your head on straight, he thinks, irritated.
Some vigilante he is, letting some random bystander shake him up so fiercely; he can’t afford
to be a burden like this. He needs to get it together, before he has to watch someone else
die. Hotguy is counting on him to watch his six—if Grian can’t do that, then what is he even
good for?

A faint shadow moving at the edge of his vision is his only warning before a hand lands on
his shoulder.

Grian jerks forward, fight or flight overwhelming his senses. Wings flaring, he pivots on his
heel, ignoring the ache in his right wing and curling his hand into a fist… only to meet the
shaded visor of his partner. “Whoa there, Birdie,” Hotguy says, ripping his hand back from
Grian’s shoulder. “Little tense, are we?”

187
All the tension zaps from Grian’s body at once. “Hotguy,” he breathes, the name spilling from
him with a weak exhale. He wills his heart rate to slow, dropping his arms and relaxing his fist
as his brain catches up to his body.

“The one and only.” Hotguy pauses for a second, lips pursing together in a thin line. “So…
where’d our guy go?”

The confession sits bitterly on his tongue. “Lost him. He got away.”

“He escaped?” Hotguy echoes, and his voice betrays his surprise. His mouth opens, then
shuts; for a long moment, he stays quiet, as if thinking on what to say.

Even hidden behind the visor, Grian can sense the way his eyes are locked on his. He’d almost
prefer some sort of dumb quip over having his soul stared at like this.

“It’s fine,” he spits out, and turns away so Hotguy can’t get a chance to read his face any
further. “I won’t let it happen again.”

He can’t afford to.

“That’s not—” Hotguy starts, but the syllables cut off, and his voice grows stilted and strained.
He takes a deep breath. “Are you—?”

That deathly red dot flickers back to the front of his mind, and Grian clenches his fists. “It’s
fine, Hotguy,” he stresses as he stalks past. He screwed up; they don’t have to linger on it.
“Come on. We’ve got a lot more patrolling to do.”

Pushing down the burning protest, Grian flexes his wings, and ignores the tight frown Hotguy
offers him in return.

Neither of them pay mind to the other eyes watching them.

Grian has always been confident as a vigilante.

Thinking and planning, strategizing and following through—he keeps the focus where Hotguy
doesn’t, keeps their goals at the forefront of his mind as they protect the innocent civilians
of this city. He’s an excellent fighter, a skilled defender. A good vigilante.

Except lately, he’s been falling asleep to the same nightmare playing over and over again in his
head: red dots and the bark of a gunshot, pain blooming in his chest and his wing. Orange hair
in a halo around a shrouded silhouette. Blood painting a cheap rubber mask.

(He never did find Jimmy’s body, after he recovered enough to look.)

So Grian is a pretty confident guy—except lately, there’s been a new weight upon his shoulders.
A new worry. Except lately, he can’t rule out that this won’t happen again.

Except lately, he’s just not so sure of anything, anymore.

188
“Hotguy!” Grian shouts when the folded supports and shattered window of the flower shop
wall come into view. He reaches the building at a run, heart beating anxiously in his throat as
he scans the scene. Hotguy’s body is covered in rubble, broken glass, and shards of pottery
from the flower pot display out front; his hands tremble as he rushes to clear them off.
Hotguy groans when he’s pulled free, debris sliding off of him as Grian guides him to sit up.

Guilt swarms his chest. Grian opens his mouth—to say something, ask if he’s alright, ask how
he even got himself thrown into the building in the first place—then shuts it with a snap. It’s
not like he doesn’t know the answer, after all. He hadn’t been there when Hotguy needed him.
He hadn’t kept his focus.

Again.

Grian swallows the lump in his throat, pushes away everything but his own quiet relief, and helps
Hotguy stagger to his feet. Neither of them speak; Hotguy is once again staring at him, the visor
impenetrable and protecting his expression. Grian grimaces, eyes fluttering down and away—

There’s a faint red dot on the ground by Hotguy’s feet.

No. Grian’s lungs freeze, breath turning cold and trapping itself in his chest. Blood pumps loudly
in his ears; the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Not again. Not again. Not again—

Grian rips his gaze up to scan the growing crowd for any sign of ginger hair. Every building,
every shadow near him—if only he had Hotguy’s superior sight right now. Is she watching?
Training another target on him? On Hotguy? The world blurs, left behind as Grian twists
frantically in place.

He knows she’s here. He’d said it himself moments ago: “Hart was here. This is Soup
Group’s doing.”

Tension thrums in his body as Grian’s eyes land back on where he’d last seen the dot.

It’s gone.

The air in his lungs pops like a balloon. What? Surely he hadn’t… it had looked too real. The
image of dried blood on the concrete of that empty alleyway swims to mind, and Grian shakes
his head. Focus! He has to focus—

“What is wrong with you people!”

Grian jolts at the sudden voice, eyes widening as he twists to find someone storming up
to them. Familiar flashes of both brown and green: it’s Iskall, the redstone shop owner. His
expression is nothing short of thunderous.

“That’s the third time this month!” he exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air. “The third time
Stress’s shop has been damaged thanks to your heroic feats! Do you know how long it takes
to get her windows repaired? Especially without insurance? There isn’t even insurance for
windows damaged in a mutation-related incident yet, and we’ve been trying!” Iskall glares at
them both. “Have we learned nothing from the permit office?”

Dozens of eyes bore into them; attracted to the shouting, a second crowd begins to form, this
time glowering with judgement. It lingers in the intensity of their gazes, disapproval growing
the longer Iskall shouts. Grian glances at Hotguy, waiting for him to step in, say something to

189
quell the rising tension and reassure the people. He’s always been grateful for Hotguy’s ability
to work a crowd.

But his partner says nothing.

“I mean, seriously, you guys call yourselves heroes, but you’re causing all this damage!” With
no one to stop him, Iskall’s tirade continues, building momentum. Body rigid, he takes a step
forward, jabbing an accusing finger into Grian’s chest. “You tell us you’re here to help, but
we’re the ones left behind to clean up your mess, while you celebrate a job well done!” Gaze
dark, chest heaving, Iskall gestures to the collateral—the crumbled shop, his robbed store, the
nervous citizens—all around them. “What are you even protecting, man?”

Something in Grian’s chest begins to crack, splintering and shattering. The damage is…
extensive. Sure, they’d arrived on the scene to help people, keep them safe—and they had. No
one, aside from the robbers, has been hurt. But what about the next time? Or the time after
that? It slams into him, heavy and unforgiving: what about the people he’s already failed?

(Ginger hair tickles the corner of his vision from somewhere deep within the crowd. Jimmy
comes to mind.)

What are they protecting?

Grian’s not sure if he knows anymore.

The mood is one of exhaustion when Hotguy and Cuteguy finally make it back to their base
of operations.

Grian allows himself to shuck off the Cuteguy mentality as they patch each other up; it feels
wrong while wearing the mask, but today has only cemented what he’s beginning to suspect
has been happening all along. Dressed in this costume—because it is just a costume—he
doesn’t see a brave vigilante. He doesn’t even see a hero.

Instead, he just sees himself.

Grian.

He’s not sure when he began losing Cuteguy to a failure weak enough to let people get hurt,
but it’s terrifying. His back is sore, wings aching—but he ignores it. He’s fine. It’s all about
keeping focus.

(A flash of orange hair. The glint of a rifle. Jimmy’s blood pooling on the ground.

Truthfully, he knows the exact moment Cuteguy began slipping.)

“Crazy morning,” Hotguy finally murmurs. He’s set his bow and quiver aside in favor of packing
away their first aid kit. “What’s with all of these robberies, lately? Is there some kind of secret
club I don’t know about?”

Grian snorts in answer. “I think we’d both know about it by now.”

190
“Maybe they’re just being extra sneaky,” Hotguy says, tired. “Hiding in the shadows. Like
the Boogeyman.”

“The Boogeyman? What are you, five?” Grian shoots him an amused glance, then bites the
inside of his cheek. Hotguy is a mess; after today’s disaster, there’s no doubt they’ll be
watched closely. They’re going to have to be a lot more careful from now on.

“... I don’t know, Birdie,” Hotguy says after a moment, and Grian’s chest twists, tense and
uneasy. He’s never heard Hotguy sound so… defeated, before.

It rubs him wrong. “Well, don’t expect to get coddled like one,” he says, trying for flippancy
as he stands and makes for their cots. The mattress springs squeak under his weight as he
sits down, and Grian takes a carefully measured breath, trying to hide a yawn. His voice turns
bitter. “Not much use for a vigilante who can’t do his job, after all.”

When he looks back up, Hotguy is on his feet, leaning against the counter Grian had left him
at. His eyes are locked on his phone, lips set in a thin line; reflected in his visor is the mirror
image of a body colliding with a flower shop.

Slowly, Hotguy lowers his phone. Then, mechanically, he turns toward the door without sparing
Grian another glance.

“Wait,” Grian says, confused, “where are you going?”

“Home,” Hotguy mutters in response. His voice is oddly hollow. “I need to leave.”

“Leave?” Confusion blossoms into alarm. Grian stands abruptly, following his footsteps to the
door. “Wait, Hotguy—you were hit pretty hard—”

Hotguy laughs without humor. “Yeah. I saw.”

“So maybe stop for a second and sit down!” Grian snaps, reaching out and grabbing his wrist.
Frustration builds in his chest, simmering like a powder keg ready to explode. “You got thrown
through a building. Take a break before we head back out for patrol!”

Hotguy tears his wrist out of Grian’s grip. “What was that about coddling?” he mocks lightly.
He looks away. “I can take a break at home. I don’t think anyone needs Hotguy out there right
now... not after this.”

Grian stares at him, heart pounding in his ears. Everything he could possibly say to that
weighs on his tongue like lead.

“It’s fine, Birdie,” Hotguy says at last, voice drained. “... You know where to call me if you
need me.”

He leaves before Grian can fully register it, shutting the door softly behind him. His heart
pounds, fit to burst out of his ribcage. Since when did Hotguy just leave?

Since when did Grian let him?

The mattress sinks beneath him when he falls back into it, hands buried tightly in his hair. His
chest rises and falls rapidly, tightening the pressure within; if Hotguy won’t finish their patrol,
then he’ll have to do it without him.

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It’s fine. He’s fine. He can keep the focus for both of them.

Still, Grian briefly gives into weakness and lets his aching body, begging for respite, slip
sideways onto the cot. Just for a little while—he can continue their patrol after he’s gotten
some rest. His eyes begin to shut.

There’s something hard under his pillow.

Something round, too. The pillow is thin, but it’s never felt like that before. Face scrunching,
Grian sits back up, reaching under his pillow to grasp the object lying beneath it. He pulls it
out… and his heart promptly stops.

In his hands is an empty bullet casing.

He can’t tear his eyes from it. Even as his hands begin to shake, pulse thundering like a drum,
the thick padding of the stick slamming into his ribcage over and over again—he can’t look
away. Breath trapped, Grian sits tense as a livewire, a deer frozen in sudden headlights.

Bleeding Hart.

It’s her—it has to be. Neither Grian nor Hotguy use bullets of this caliber, and for as well-
hidden as this place is, she’s the only person who could ever find it. She knows. She knows—
and she’s left him a crystal clear message about it. A sign. A warning. He’s been catching
glimpses of her everywhere he goes, and now she’s found their base.

But how? He’d been so careful, so vigilant—Grian has always done his best to stay aware
whenever they slink back here to lick their wounds… or so he’d thought. It only takes one
moment of carelessness to lead the enemy right to their front door, after all. It only takes
a moment of inattention to get shot by a sniper.

A sudden chill runs through him. If she’s been following them, if she knows where their base
is… then what else does she know? What else has been compromised?

Does she know his identity?

Worse: has his slip-up cost Hotguy’s?

Abruptly, Grian stands. The bullet casing falls from his fingers with a clatter, and panic claws
through him, wrapping around his spine and squeezing his lungs until his breath hitches.
There’s a chance here that Grian has screwed up in the biggest way possible, and he hadn’t
even known.

He has to find her. Bleeding Hart is more than just dangerous with this level of information—
losing these secrets spells nothing short of life-ending disaster for both of them. And if Hart
knows who they are, where they live, where their base is… then he has to turn the knife on her
before she can stab them in the back with it.

Hunter, becoming the hunted. It’s time for him to move the chess pieces on the board now.

Grian opens the door, and bolts.

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He doesn’t call Hotguy. Instead, Grian spends the next few days tracking.

He doesn’t stop to go home, not when she might follow him—truthfully, he hasn’t even changed
out of his suit. Shrouded in shadows, Grian stalks the night, patrolling the streets alone as he
hunts down whatever leads he can find.

There aren’t many, and things begin to blur the longer he goes without rest. But he has to
keep moving. She could be lurking around any corner, ready to strike; when she does, he’s got
to be ready.

Just so long as he just keeps moving, keeps his focus, then Bleeding Hart won’t catch up.

Days later, when Hotguy calls him to the base with two tickets and a hand ready to pull up his
own mask, Grian shuts him down. You can never know who I am, he snaps, because it’s easier
than admitting how terrified he is of Hart watching. I will never want to see beneath your
mask, he snarls in the same breath, because explaining how Hotguy’s identity might already
be compromised simply isn’t an option. He can’t afford to lose anything else here.

Do you understand, Hotguy? What could happen if your secret got out? Do you know what
could happen if they knew who you really are?

Grian hopes against hope they’ll never find out.

Naturally, the next time they see each other, it’s during a crisis.

The inside of the TCG’s building is painted orange by the time he finds Hotguy, lit from
within by roaring fire. Neither of them speak the entire way out; when they stumble from the
building, Grian steers them right past the TCG, civilians, and lingering vigilantes to duck into
the nearest alleyway he can find. The hideout isn’t safe—this will have to do.

Hotguy doesn’t try to stop him. There’s a smear of dried blood on his temple, and he leans
with his head tipped back on the brick behind him. For a moment, the two of them only
cough, gasping in the clean air. Grian’s throat burns.

The second he catches his breath and the ache in his chest subsides to a dull throb, he whirls
on his partner. “What is wrong with you!”

Hotguy flinches. “Pick something, Birdie,” he says, and his voice sounds painfully tired.

“We could’ve easily left this to the authorities! In fact, we should have!” He’s a rubber band
stretched too thin, a ball of tension growing tighter every second. Heart pounding in his ears,
Grian snaps, “You didn’t even think twice about it, either! You just—ran off like you always do,
and didn’t even think—”

“I was trying to keep people safe,” Hotguy interrupts, but his voice sounds empty. Hollow.

193
“And I’m trying to keep us safe!” A harsh wave of nausea rolls through him. Their base,
found. Their identities possibly compromised. Consequences. It always comes back to the
consequences, and tonight, with Scour… This could’ve been Hotguy’s last. “We didn’t need to
get involved in a fire—you could’ve gotten seriously hurt!”

(Jimmy’s blood is a smear on the alleyway floor. How many times will he fail the people he’s
supposed to protect? What is he supposed to do when they won’t let him?)

Hotguy looks away, lips twisting.

Grian inhales sharply. “Are you hurt?” he demands, concern overriding his anger. It takes root
in his chest, curving out and spreading through him like the sweeping branches of a tree. This
is his fault, isn’t it? Because he hesitated, because he couldn’t make a choice between doing
the right thing and doing right. Because he lost his focus.

Maybe Bleeding Hart had a point about him.

“No,” Hotguy says quietly. He still won’t look at him.

Silence follows. For one heavy moment, Grian considers telling him about his hunt. About the
empty bullet casing he found in their base. About how, over and over again, every choice he’s
made keeps leading them both to ruin.

But guilt slashes at his vocal cords, effectively cutting off any words he could possibly speak.
He can’t say it. He can’t say it.

“You should go home,” he says instead, and tears his gaze away, ashamed.

When he finally looks up again, Hotguy is gone.

Grian clenches his fists, swallowing. He’s on his own for this one—and that’s fine. It’s his
mistake to fix.

It’s as he walks out of the alley alone that he catches a flicker of movement from the corner
of his eye. Grian takes a small step back as his eyes adjust, training on the familiar silhouette
above him.

Up on the roof, illuminated by firelight, stands Bleeding Hart. She smiles, offers him a wave,
and disappears behind the building’s ledge.

Grian grits his teeth. He’s going to find her. It’s a vow.

He redoubles his tracking efforts after that, and a week later, they finally pay off.

The tip leads him down to the outskirts of town, back to a familiar warehouse—it feels like
forever ago that he and Hotguy fought Doc in this large, rusted space. The moon follows him
like a shadow as he approaches it, footsteps as silent as he can make them to preserve the
element of surprise.

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In the darkness, the warehouse looms, tall and ominous. Grian’s hands shake as he comes to
a stand in front of it; he curls them into tight fists, forcing them to still. He can’t afford to be
afraid here. One wrong move, and it’s game over.

He enters with a deep breath. The inside has been gutted of Doc’s machines, and at some
point metal shelving had replaced them. The storage containers stacked on top of them rise
at least four levels high, and he spots a few crates on the ground. Dimly lit by the moon, it
looks like a regular warehouse, nothing special.

Grian isn’t stupid enough to let that curb his apprehension. Just because the warehouse
looks innocuous doesn’t mean he’s safe; he tenses, heart pounding, and strains his ears
for any sounds of movement. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as the eerie
silence continues.

Hugging the wall as he walks, Grian peers through the rows of shelving. Darkness is all he can
make out between them—there isn’t a single sign of life. Doubt begins to creep in: had the
man who tipped him off sent him to the wrong place? What could Hart possibly be doing
here, anyway?

Eyes narrowed, Grian pauses, watching the shadows around him. The silence is unnatural.
He waits.

“Wow, you finally caught me!”

He jumps as Bleeding Hart’s voice echoes through the warehouse. It’s followed by a series of
slow, sarcastic claps that are impossible to pinpoint in the darkness. Grian turns on his heel
anyway, trying to find their source. “Where–?”

“I don’t think that’s very important,” Bleeding Hart drawls. It echoes from everywhere all at
once, and Grian swallows, taking a few careful steps toward the nearest cover. She could be
anywhere in here, scope trained and ready, and he’d never see it coming. All it would take is
one pull of the trigger—and this time, she might not miss his heart. Come on, Cuteguy.

Reaching a nearby crate, he ducks behind it and pulls out the spare bow Hotguy had taught
him to shoot months ago. He knocks an arrow, though he doesn’t draw yet. Then, mustering
the memory of his grandiose partner, Grian calls out: “Well then, to what do I owe the pleasure?
Come to finish the job?”

“And here I thought you were looking for me.” This time, Hart’s voice is accompanied by
a subtle flash of movement to his far right. Grian turns his head, pulse thumping painfully as
he follows it. Quietly, he slides to the left, leaving the crate to disappear between the shelves.

“I dunno,” he says, projecting his voice as he peeks through the nooks and crannies between
storage containers. “You tell me… because I’m starting to get a real sneaky suspicion you
already knew I was coming.”

“Aww… maybe you are better at paying attention than I thought!” Another shadow shifts;
Grian ducks out of sight, the hairs on his arms rising. When Hart sighs, he’s certain the sound
echoes closer than before. “Or maybe not. All that effort to teach you a lesson, and you still
came looking. You’d think you’d know better by now.”

Grian stops mid-step, spluttering despite himself. “A lesson?” he scoffs, scowling. “What sort
of lesson could I possibly learn from a two-bit villain like you?”

195
“Two-bit? Ouch.” Grian whips around as her voice bounces behind him, bow up and at the
ready. He finds nothing; the darkness is entirely empty. Tiptoeing backwards, he edges around
another shelf and makes for the last place he’d seen her shadow. “I didn’t think it was very
two-bit when I shot you.”

Eyes straining in the dark, Grian replies: “Then maybe you should enlighten me. What’s this
lesson actually about?”

Silence. Grian takes another step to the side, profile low. They’re prowling around each other
in circles, predator stalking prey, prey stalking predator. The shadows shift again, and Grian
presses himself along the shelves, ignoring how they crush his wings.

After a moment, he tries again. “If this is still about ‘dying for your ideals’, then I think you’ve
missed your own point.” He waits. “Unless you happened to blink when you shot me.”

A soft scuff rings out from beyond his shelf. Grian circles to the next one, keeping his eyes
glued to the darkness.

At last, Hart speaks. “You are such a problem, dude,” she bites out—Grian can practically hear
the eyeroll accompanying it. “You think you know everything, playing dress up and pretending
to be heroes. Don’t you think that’s kinda selfish?”

Grian carefully pokes his head around the next shelf, surveying his surroundings. He’s greeted
by more darkness, but beyond the next crate is a ladder leading up to the second-floor
catwalk. If he can just reach it, and get himself a proper bird’s eye view…

“You call helping people selfish?” he asks, plucking anxiously at his bowstring. His heart lurches;
Jimmy. The flower shop. Hotguy’s identity. The TCG building. Of course he’s been questioning
himself, his motivations, his ability to protect—lately, he hasn’t been able to stop. But he won’t
give Hart the satisfaction of his doubt. He’ll grit his teeth, put on the mask, and play the role
of Cuteguy. He’ll finally clean this mess up.

Abruptly, Hart laughs. The sound is shocking as it bounces off the walls, obscuring its exact
location. “And there you go, proving my point! C’mon, Cuteguy, let’s face it—you aren’t actually
a hero. None of us are.”

The words stop Grian in his tracks, feathers ruffling. “Bit ironic, coming from you,” he snaps.
“You’re not exactly the image of heroism, Hart.”

“Like I care,” Hart tells him, matter-of-fact. “I’m not in it for the glory. I’m here to actually
fix stuff.”

The words spur him back into motion, aiming for the ladder. In front of it, a patch of moonlight
shines on the floor. Grian bites his lip, staring it down; if he crosses it, he’ll be visible, vulnerable.
But if he doesn’t…

Well, his chances of winning this fight are slim.

“What does that mean?” he asks, stalling for time.

“It means that all you ‘heroes’ never attack things at the root. You just—show up when the problem
starts, claim you’re helping people, and make it all worse in the process.” Annoyance laces Hart’s
tone. “You don’t look at the real issue. So, we’ll do it for you. Since, y’know, we actually care.”

196
Realization dawns on him like ice water down his back. “Wait—do you mean the mutations?”

Hart snorts. “Now he gets it.”

“That’s not possible,” Grian says flatly. “There’s no way—”

“That you know of,” she points out, and Grian falls silent. His mind reels—reverse the mutations?
Do they even know exactly how they started? He’s read HEP research on the sculk; they’ve
only just started scratching the surface of what it can do.

“It’s been years,” he says out loud, clutching his bow tight. The moonlight ripples in front of
him. “Don’t you think it’s a little late for that, Hart?”

“You and I both know it’d be better for everyone if we went back to how things were yesterday,”
Hart says, right behind him, and Grian whirls.

He’s not fast enough. Even as he draws back his arrow, Hart lashes out; the world tilts as his
legs are swept out from under him. With a harsh twang, the arrow goes wide, and Grian’s head
collides with the floor.

A shadow falls over him; when he looks up, it’s to the business end of Bleeding Hart’s rifle.
There’s no hint of triumph in her eyes as she moves her finger to rest over the trigger—only
composed neutrality. “Sorry, Birdie,” she says. “Guess playtime’s over.”

Grian sucks in a cold breath. Paralyzed, he stares down the barrel, unable to move or dodge.
So this is it, then. There’s not enough time for regrets, but he—he—

Something whistles out from the darkness.

It whizzes past Grian’s face, knocking Hart’s rifle right out of her hands. The weapon hits the
ground with a loud clatter, landing right next to what had struck it.

An arrow.

“Good evening to you both!” a familiar voice calls out. Grian and Hart jolt, turning around
as one. “Hope you don’t mind that I’ve come to pick up my bird. Now, normally, dastardly
supervillains aren’t allowed to watch him—but I’m willing to forgive and forget!”

Near the entrance of the warehouse, bow in hand, is Hotguy. He’s already got another
arrow resting between his fingers, the ghost of a cocky grin sitting on his face. He aims
it at Hart, stepping farther into the warehouse, and Grian springs to his feet while Hart
is distracted.

“And here I thought I was the impulsive one between the two of us,” Hotguy says softly,
appearing at Grian’s side. His bow remains pointed at Hart, an obvious threat. “You’re
outnumbered, Hart!” he says, louder. “Two versus one, no use fighting now! Your only choice
is to come with us.”

Hart looks between the two of them rapidly as Grian pulls out his escrima sticks. He sighs in
relief as he kicks her rifle away.

With Hotguy beside him, they advance, closing in on her together. “Give it up,” Grian suggests.
“You’re not reversing any mutations once we get you into TCG custody.”

197
Hart scoffs and raises her eyebrows. “TCG?” she demands. “You’re gonna give me up to the
TCG? Really?”

“Forget being a deer,” Hotguy tells her. “You’re heading straight to life as a jailbird.”

“Is that so?” Somehow, Hart looks amused. “Jeez. You guys really are stupid.”

Then she lunges.

Hotguy staggers as she darts forward and rips something off his belt. But Grian doesn’t get
a chance to try and pull her away; she backs up on her own, arm raised high above her head.
In her hand is a familiar cylindrical capsule.

“You guys really gotta lock these up better,” Hart says, and throws it down at their feet without
another word.

Orange and blue smoke billows from it, obscuring their vision. Grian yelps, stepping closer
to Hotguy and putting a hand over his nose and mouth. They end up standing back to back,
trying to peer through the screen.

When it clears, the warehouse is empty. Bleeding Hart is gone, and the abandoned rifle on the
ground vanished with her.

Grian waits for a moment, holding his breath. His nerves are frayed—but when nothing
happens, he lets his shoulders finally drop, gasping as the tension catches up to him. His
knees threaten to buckle.

An arm wraps around his middle before they can. “Whoa, easy, easy,” Hotguy says in his ear,
keeping him upright. “C’mon, Birdie, let’s get you out of here.”

A week ago, Grian had led Hotguy away from the burning TCG building; now Hotguy leads him
outside the warehouse, taking some of his weight. They collapse on the ground beside each
other, and Grian grunts as he leans back against the wall. Hotguy mirrors him. For a moment,
neither of them speak.

The tension between them peaks. Grian stares into the distance, and Hotguy glances down at
his lap. Only the night sky is their witness.

“How’d you know where to find me?” Grian asks at last.

Hotguy jolts. “Oh. Uh… well, a little birdie told me.”

Grian can’t help but snort at that, shaking his head. “A little one, huh?” he parrots back,
glancing sideways.

Hotguy hums noncommittally, uncharacteristically quiet. The silence leaves Grian

uncomfortable, uneasy, with an open pit in his stomach.

He hates it.

“... Why were you going after Bleeding Hart?” Hotguy asks eventually, shattering the air
between them like a glass jar thrown at the ground.

Grian hesitates. He almost died today, again—he should tell him what Hart knows. He should.

198
But he can’t open his mouth and say it.

He looks down at his lap instead, hands curling into fists. “I just—needed answers,” he lies, and
looks away.

A beat passes before Hotguy responds. “And? What’d you find?”

Grian shifts. “A motive, for one.” A deep frown tugs at his lips. “She as good as said her little
group is trying to reverse the mutations. As for their exact plan?” He shakes his head. “Not
the slightest clue.”

Hotguy lets out a breath, brows knitting together. When Grian looks over at him, he looks
unsettled. Exhausted. “That’s… hoo boy,” he says on another heavy exhale, eyes downcast.

Grian has to look away, digging nails into his palms as he hikes up an arm around his knee.
Confronting Hart had been to solve his issues, get him centered again. Regain his slipping
focus. He’d hoped that maybe, maybe, getting rid of her would alleviate the new weight on
his shoulders, so he could feel like himself again. But the inside of his chest is numb and bleak
down into his bones; instead of feeling centered, balanced, he’s been left with more questions
and uncertainties than before—and Bleeding Hart is still out there.

He’d failed, once again. Grian bites the inside of his cheek.

“Hotguy,” he starts. “Should we—maybe we should split up.”

That earns him Hotguy’s attention immediately. “Wait—what?”

Bleeding Hart’s voice echoes in his head. “... You know we’re not heroes, right Hotguy?” he
asks. “No matter how much we want to pretend… isn’t it all just more damage? Maybe—maybe
it’d be better if we just…”

Stopped.

Hotguy is silent enough that a pin could drop. “But we’re trying to be, aren’t we?” he says
finally, voice tapering off into something quiet, fragile. When Grian glances at him, conflict is
written all over the lower half of his face. “Isn’t that enough?”

“And what if it isn’t?” Grian asks, just as soft. “Half the time we barely know what we’re doing.
People get hurt. Buildings get destroyed. That’s on us, Hotguy. How is that any better than
what the villains are doing?”

Something in Hotguy’s expression suddenly firms. “Because I know we’re giving it an honest
effort to help innocent people,” he says, shoulders straightening. “So what if we stumble a bit
trying to figure it out? This city needs us, and it needs us to be a team. And—”

He hesitates, growing more subdued. “And if you want my honest opinion… you’re better at
this than I am. I’m still gonna try, with or without your help, but… I don’t think I can do it if
you’re not here beside me.”

Grian’s eyes widen. Of all the things to expect from Hotguy—he has to glance away from the
open honesty. “You really do love your dramatic speeches, don’t you?”

Hotguy chuckles, and he can hear the smile in it. “Well, everybody loves a charmer.”

199
Behind him, the sun is rising. “Hotguy…”

“I need you, Birdie,” Hotguy says, blunt as a hammer. His smile widens, teeth gleaming; it
doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “We’ll always work things out, so long as we’ve got ol’ Cuteguy
on the team!”

Like watercolor, oranges and pinks begin to bleed into the sky, mixing in with the last shades
of night. Grian stares hard at Hotguy as he thinks about what Bleeding Hart had said.

They aren’t heroes. She was right about that much—Grian still has his reservations about
what they’re doing, now. But if Hotguy doesn’t plan on stopping anyway…

Well. He still needs Cuteguy to protect his six.

(Maybe someday, that’ll make up for his failure to Jimmy.)

“So, what do you say?” Hotguy asks him. Grian can sense the intensity of his gaze even through
the shaded visor. “We keep sticking together? Give the people of Hermitopia a little hope?”

Grian sighs. “Alright,” he says, tired. “I’ll stick around.” Without permission, his lips quirk up in
a tiny, reluctant smile. “You win.”

Hotguy beams, almost brighter than the sun peeking over the horizon line behind him. “It’s
gonna be amazin’, Birdie, you’ll see,” he says, holding out one hand for Grian to grab. Together,
they climb to their feet. Hotguy wraps one arm around his shoulders, then gestures to the
sky as it gradually lightens in front of them. “Just look at that great, big, beautiful tomorrow.”

200
Traffrogers
 Droid (writer)  Antimony_Medusa (editor)

z/HermitopiaPowered • 12h ago

darkofthe_night

[Vigilante Writeup #24] Cuteguy

Performance Analysis
Analysis

NOTE: I am not a government official and do not have access to surveillance footage or
classified information outside of what has been officially released by TCG. My analysis
comes from cell phone footage uploaded to social media or sent to me personally (many
thanks to u/respawnanchor999 for collecting information and sending it in bulk— I would
encourage anyone who likes this analysis to check out his posts on changes in villain
activity over the past five years), and from personal observation.

I took some paid time off from both jobs this past week to deal with a family emergency,
had that emergency unexpectedly resolved, and found myself with a metric crapton of
free time. Like any reasonable person, I used this free time to meet up with some buddies
and creep around rooftops downtown until the TCG chased us off… and the end result of
this endeavor is an analysis I feel is especially pertinent to discussions here in the past few
weeks. Namely: what the hell is up with Cuteguy recently?

If you keep up with hero news, which I sincerely hope you do if you live in this city, you may
have noticed that Cuteguy is having some trouble doing his self-assigned job. The incident
with the flower shop, much memed upon after Pearl Moon’s article on the subject (if you
haven’t checked that out, I’d suggest it: Moon is very thorough) is the one that’s gone viral,
but my sources tell me there have been several incidents, uncharacteristic of Cuteguy’s
usual standards. I’ve broken my analysis up into two parts below.

SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

Notable in most videos you can find of Cuteguy online is just how quickly he reacts to
events. This is something I’ve seen that can make or break wannabe vigilantes, and villains
for that matter, when they’re just starting out: you get the powered individuals who have or
gain the vigilance and fitness levels necessary to avoid taking serious hits early on, and then
you get the ones who show up once or twice and don’t make the cut.

In Cuteguy’s case, we can take the vault robbery last April (link to a video of the fight) as
a good example: Cuteguy dodged a projectile based on— presumably— the noise it made
whistling through the air, and clearly reacted to an opponent on the rooftop as soon as he
was close enough to the scene to be able to see him. You can see the same pattern in a lot
of melee encounters Cuteguy has, especially the ones caught on video where the person
filming only became aware of the altercation because they saw someone in costume: this
fight with Dr Zedaph where Cuteguy uses a passing garbage truck to hide as he gets closer,
or this altercation with some of Doctor Monster’s inventions, where Cuteguy diverts from
the battle to avoid mixing downed power lines with the smoke emitted by his opponents
(note for the audience: smoke can carry an electric charge and this can be deadly).

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Now look at this fight from two weeks ago (link), where Cuteguy only reacts to Hotguy
being thrown through a window after it happens: you can see him pausing mid-battle and
dropping some of his combat stance at 5:13, before Hotguy hits the window at 5:17 and he
jumps into the fight.

This has been a pattern recently. Cuteguy misses cues that bystanders catch, his fights
suffer for it, and when he notices his fights suffering for it, he becomes more scattered,
never regaining his earlier momentum. Pickpocketing and robberies that are usually
clockable before the incident escalates— this post from u/respawnanchor999 on
r/Hermitopia illustrates some common signs of a villainous incident about to occur, for
tourists new to the city— have more recently been unnoticed until the perpetrator is either
fleeing, drawing a weapon, or utilizing an ability. This is especially clear in this encounter,
where Hotguy visibly attempts to get Cuteguy’s attention, fails, and is left to react to
a situation that neither of them is in control of anymore.

REACTION SPEED/DISTRACTION

I am a gigantic nerd who no longer owns a bed and does not require sleep (if someone
wants to make fun of me in the comments about the bed thing, go ahead, but be aware I’ve
heard every funny joke and am keeping a binder of unfunny ones so I can assure myself, at
three in the morning when I am camped out on a rooftop with binoculars, that I am not the
lamest person I know) and so I have timed Cuteguy’s average reaction speeds, when I’m
fortunate enough to receive a clip or see him become aware that a crime is taking place.
Cuteguy reacts to stimuli at an average of 188ms, and can extend his batons fast enough
that you miss it if you blink. This serves him well working with Hotguy, whose ranged combat
stats can be found here (big thanks to u/HoTGuYSiXPacK), because it lets them coordinate
to keep Cuteguy out of Hotguy’s sightlines or to complete a maneuver as soon as the arrow
comes in.

However, in the last few weeks, Cuteguy’s reaction times have increased to 300ms, or
in some videos even 400ms, a marked difference. The robbery on Octagon Boulevard
is a good example: Cuteguy lets the robber get away, and fails to react to changes in
the situation quickly enough to intercept him another way. Interestingly, in this video
specifically, he also seems to be injured: it’s obscured by the angle the video is taken at, but
at 12:47 you can see Cuteguy double over and clutch his chest. I haven’t been able to find
evidence of what specific injury it could be— despite the cell phone footage I receive, the
general rule of thumb is that at least 30% of vigilante and villain encounters happen out of
sight of civilians with recording devices— but given that Cuteguy does not have a known
healing factor, I would wager that it was a half-healed injury, as taking recovery time would
be consistent with Cuteguy’s appearance patterns for the last two months.

CONCLUSIONS

The obvious conclusion here is that Cuteguy is not fully recovered from a recent injury,
which is impairing his mental faculties and making him a danger to himself, his teammate,
bystanders, and innocent flower shops. There is a lot of public pressure on vigilantes to
be consistent public figures, and so it is not unusual to see vigilantes deal with blows that
would make the average person take a month or two off work and come back less than
a week later while still visibly limping (looking at you, Wiseguy).

Moreover, the societal circumstances that led to individuals picking up the slack of official
authorities unfortunately have the result of barring vigilantes from conventional medical
care. Hermitopia’s unique criminal landscape is a relatively recent phenomenon, so there are
no long-term studies on the cumulative effects of being a vigilante, but I would bet money

203
that chronic injuries, including traumatic brain injuries and negative effects of exposure to
various mutations, are at least as common in the vigilante profession as they would be for
a professional MMA fighter, never mind the mental health impacts of keeping up a secret
identity and responding to threats without official sanction, backup, or resources.

My conclusion here would be that Cuteguy is experiencing detrimental effects from some
injury, and may be cracking under pressure because of it. I’d suggest treating him with some
grace about it, or would at least prefer that this comment section not devolve into hate, but
I will also say that my personal belief is that a vigilante who is not capable of acting effectively
should step down until they are recovered. Cuteguy, if you frequent this sub, ignore the fact
that that is my personal nightmare and please consider taking a longer break than you’ve
given yourself. You may not be an official first responder, but you are subject to the same
standards that they should be, and an exhausted hero is more dangerous than an absent one.

Edit: It looks like the link to the fight with Dr Zedaph broke. I’m looking for a replacement, but
that specific video may have been scrubbed from the Internet. If anyone has it downloaded
and has it in their hearts to share, I’d appreciate it.

Edit 2: And I now have three different perspectives on the Dr Zedaph fight, thank you
Hermitopians! Can always count on Zedditors to know the location of our hallowed founder.

563 42 Share

Add a Comment

Sort by: Best Search Comments

genuine_Genius • 7h ago

Honest question, how did you get into this? Speaking as a fellow Hermitopia citizen, it
seems like a dangerous hobby to pick up as a parent.

58 Reply Award Share

darkofthe_night OP • 6h ago

It was mostly boredom. Mutating in a way that kept me from going all the way
to sleep opened my nights up in a way I hadn’t experienced since college, and
since the kids were old enough to go to daycare by then, I found myself with
a lot more energy just as the demands on my life dropped off. I started off with
DIY projects, meal prepping, and other ways to help out my wife, which I still
do, and eventually I got a job that covered some night shifts, but after a while
the chance to see some cool things was too tempting to ignore. I went out
wandering the city some nights, met up with some cool folks on a villain watch
forum, and it all continued from there.

Also, contrary to what my posts may imply, I don’t spend most of my time on
rooftops waiting for vigilantes to get concussed in my vicinity. It’s once a week
at most. I have a wife and children, two jobs, and parents that live nearby. Much
of my life these past ten years has consisted of PTA casseroles and ferrying
offspring to softball practice.

45 Reply Award Share

204
55clownshoes • 5h ago

Refreshing departure from the usual “if these two guys fought, who would win?”
sludge. Might spend more time on this sub than z/Hermitopia now that I’m seeing this
higher register is something of a pattern.

58 Reply Award Share

point_and_clique • 5h ago

Yeah, z/Hermitopia is regrettably unmodded and it shows. Meanwhile over

here we have dudes like OP who use abilities like letting their brains sleep
one hemisphere at a time to synthesize data for the rest of us to enjoy! It’s
freaking awesome.

45 Reply Award Share

3 more replies

DaysEndShining • 9h ago

Why do you always refer to heroes as vigilantes? I understand that it’s the language
the TCG uses in reference to them, but given their actual function, it seems a little bit
suspicious if you think they do good for the city.

2 Reply Award Share

darkofthe_night OP • 9h ago

I call them vigilantes because they are vigilantes. “Hero” is a nice slang term, but
I’m here to be accurate, not trendy.

79 Reply Award Share

Fortunate_Daughters • 11h ago

I swear this is the third time this year that the flower shop downtown has been
sideswiped somehow by a villain/vigilante. Amazing how TCG has all this funding for
busting kids using their powers to jump the turnstile in the subway and none for
dealing with the actual threats to our community.

75 Reply Award Share

feather_falling • 4h ago

Well they’re about to have even less funding now that they don’t have a building

32 Reply Award Share

WorthlessHearts0102 • 3h ago

Do you think they tried to arrest Hotguy after he went into their burning
building for them? Seems like something they’d do.

37 Reply Award Share

8 more replies

205
HappyFaceError • 11h ago

Didn’t the guy on the left in that video die last year in the Electric Subway incident?

1 Reply Award Share

point_and_clique • 11h ago

Do you think there’s only one blond guy in the city?

47 Reply Award Share

Thefakecuteguy • 11h ago

Nobody died in the Electric Subway incident. Maybe get your apartment
checked for carbon monoxide.

83 Reply Award Share

HappyFaceError • 10h ago

[removed]

-228 Reply Award Share

AutoModerator • 10h ago

Your comment has been removed because it contained identifying

information on a civilian involved in a superpowered incident.
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HappyFaceError • 8h ago

You’re worried about me doxxing a dead guy? There was

a whole obituary. It was on the news.

-32 Reply Award Share

feather_falling • 7h ago

Dude what are you talking about

6 Reply Award Share

206
Traffrogers
 Alias: Scour
Mutation: Sticky Hands
Status: Villain, Reporter
Abilities: Investigation
Danger
Level:
Favourite Spiders
Food: (The Drink)
Current Her Next
Concern: Big Scoop

Pearl Moon
R
R - Regrets 6
S S S - Soup Cookery 0
N - N osiness 5
S - Spice Tolerance 2
S - Spin 4
S N
Alias: Bleeding Hart
Mutation: Lactose Intolerance
Status: Villain
Abilities: Sharpshooting
Danger
Level:
Favourite Roast Chicken
Food:
Current Birthday Gift
Concern: For Her Brother

WormTIme

Gem
R
R - Regrets 0
F - Financial Stability 1 M F
R - Ruthlessness 6
S - Spice Tolerance 5
M - Motorcycle 4
S R
Chrisrin (art)
Dux (writing) )
g
Res (Editin
isjasz, Vanyel, Zip Zap
 Droid (writer)  Antimony_Medusa (editor)

sweetferaline
5m ago

1 hotguygate Follow

#hotguy #cuteguy #vrpf #i got shot #merch

Choco

2 hermitopia Follow

#aesthetic #train crash #vigilante #scar goodtimes #cw hospital

Gingermaple

3 superwholock Follow

#supernatural #destiel #ao3

Charlie

well this is just fantastic.

#hermitopia #hotguygate #politics

55 notes

224
 Hotguy @HotguyOfficial • 2 days ago

We here in the Hotguy Team would like to express our sincerest apologies for recent
incidents involving overzealous advertising, unprofessional behavior during rescues,
and creative solutions for hostage recovery. We would like to remind the public that
serving as a protector of Hermitopia’s citizens is a stressful task, and that Hotguy
has contributed a great deal to Hermitopia’s present safety and stability.

Recently, Hotguy has been adversely affected by technology developed by Dr.

Zedaph, which is causing irregularities in his behavior. The situation is in the process
of being resolved.

Reimbursements have been made available for citizens who can prove that they
were pressured into providing tips or purchasing merchandise.

3:32 PM

628 Quote Rechats

214 3k 12k 108

Post your reply! Reply

Mumbo Jumbo @MumboJumbo • 2 days ago

So glad to hear an explanation for this! Wishing Hotguy all the best in his
recovery. We’re all very worried for him!

102 359 2k

Grain Rustic @npcgrain • 2 days ago

Mind control? We’re going with mind control now?

0 0 10

IsJaszper @thatIsJaszperthere • 2 days ago

i always wondered when these criminals would start using “villains” as
excuses for blatant corruption

1 0 16

JEANNIE ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @bluejeanns • 2 days ago

WTF

0 0 0

225
 Rosie D @spaceshiprosie • 2 days ago
Knew it had to be something like this. Hotguy saved my daughter’s life back
when he was starting out. This behavior didn’t reflect what I know is in
his heart.

2 0 5

Kate Guerrera @kathikitkat • 2 days ago

how tf are ppl supposed to prove they were pressured?? did HG give out
freaking receipts??

1 2 22

Doctor Monster @docmonster • 2 days ago

Creative solutions… lol…. I should call it creative solutions when I finally show
that showboater and his bird friend the meaning of revenge. It can’t be bad if
it’s said in corporate lingo!

34 105 3.4k

Alicia Gonzalo @aliciagonzalo • 1 day ago

#Hotguygate Giant bruises on my friend’s arm after a “rescue” this morning. Never
thought I’d root for TCG over a hero, but whatever the hell is going on with Hotguy is
beyond the pale. He wouldn’t let go until my friend, a SINGLE MOTHER, tipped him for
saving her life.

9:52 AM

2 Quote Rechats

23 66 789

Post your reply! Reply

HotguyOfficial @HotguyOfficial • 1 day ago

Hello Alicia, thank you for reaching out. We’re sorry that your friend had a
negative rescue experience. If you’re willing to DM us, we can see what we
can do to help.

14 221 876

226
 Grain Rustic @npcgrain • 1 day ago
In before @HotguyOfficial shows up to call this a creative solution to the
cost of living crisis.

6 20 333

Doctor Monster @docmonster • 1 day ago

Hahahahaha! This just keeps getting better. Is it my birthday?

I should give Hotguy a negative hero experience.

Alicia Gonzalo @aliciagonzalo • 1 day ago

#Hotguygate Giant bruises on my friend’s arm after a “rescue” this
morning. Never thought I’d root for TCG over a hero, but whatever the
hell is going on with Hotguy is beyond the pale. He wouldn’t let go until
my friend, a SINGLE MOTHER, tipped him for saving her life.

2:43 PM

8 Quote Rechats

45 156 4k

Post your reply! Reply

HotguyOfficial @HotguyOfficial • 2 days ago

Hello Alicia, thank you for reaching out. We’re sorry that your friend had a
negative rescue experience. If you’re willing to DM us, we can see what we
can do to help.

1 1 5

Grain Rustic @npcgrain • 2 days ago

ratio

227
mina | visionsofwilhelm @wilhelminascrem • 2 days ago
#Hotguygate

2 0 5

Doctor Monster @docmonster • 2 days ago

Some people do NOT understand that their actions have consequences

and they are not the center of the world’s narrative. Talk about
unhinged @HotguyOfficial

Readers added context they thought people might want to know

Doctor Monster rules a micronation and is wanted by the TCG for

several crimes, including threatening to incinerate his enemies with
rooftop-mounted megalasers.

34 105 3.4k

228
 rosietheribbeter reblogged grayglass
35 min ago

grayglass
50m ago

Idk guys I just don’t think HG’s acting that weird. How long has he been fighting for
Hermitopia without recognition? How much can merch sales really fund? I’m not
defending everything he’s doing but I think maybe we should be nicer about a hero in
a stressful job realizing he’s not compensated nearly enough for the things he does.

rosietheribbeter
35m ago

Let me spell this out for you so anyone with basic reading comprehension can
understand it: heroes are volunteers. Heroics is a form of mutual aid. Hotguy has one
of the biggest brands in the city. This isn’t an underappreciation situation, you stupid
bootlicker, it’s another example of someone getting wealthy and entitled because of it.
Frankly we should’ve known the status quo for Hermitopia couldn’t last. In the end, no
matter how much grassroots effort does for a community, capitalist brainrot always
wins.

#discourse #capitalism #i hate this city. #poor cuteguy man i hope he gets away from
that bastard #hotguygate #hermitopia

41 notes

rosietheribbeter
1h ago

hotterguy --> rosietheribbeter

going dark

334 notes

229
 heroicbrine
5h ago

it’s official. i’m tossing all of my Hotguy merch, and encouraging anybody who
follows me to do the same + listen to what people are saying about his recent
behavior. i’m a strong supporter of heroes in Hermitopia, and i have never
minded that some heroes sell merchandise and buy into the capitalist system to
stay afloat while they donate their time to the city, but there is merchandising
and there is intimidating and assaulting people because you feel entitled to
hero worship, and Hotguy has sprinted over that line. If you haven’t checked
the #hotguygate tag on Chatter/M, i suggest you do so now, and if you are
still supportive of Hotguy after that, you need to take a good long look at
your personal relationship to heroes you have never met and your stances on
supporting objectively terrible people. i wouldn’t be surprised to see Hotguy
transition to full villainy after the shit i’ve heard today. i hope cuteguy won’t be
following him (but let’s be real i’m not optimistic about anything rn).

to anyone who’s reached out to me in DM’s over the past few days, i’m fine, just
pissed off past the point of equanimity. i’m going to block this tag, as much good
as it will do when half the damn city is talking about this, and stay off Mumblr for
a few days. sick of my faves going evil for no good reason.

#hotguygate #hotguy #tw politics #not tagging this one like my usual posts

334 notes

hermitopia-explained
10h ago

anon asked:
No pressure, but I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on the Hotguy
situation -

Hello Fireworks Anon! It’s good to hear from you, and I’m glad that you sent in this
ask. I have been deliberating, these past few days, over whether or not to address the
recent controversy surrounding Hotguy, but since he is one of the most high-profile
vigilantes in Hermitopia and holds (or held) a special place in many people’s hearts
here on Mumblr, I think it is not unreasonable to discuss the situation on this blog.

For those not in the know, Hotguy is famous in Hermitopia, being one of the few
vigilantes with an official public presence— including a trademarked name, official
merchandise, official appearances, and a PR department— and a consistent fanbase.

230
You may have heard of him through dashboard osmosis, if you follow the Hermitopia
tag or people from the area; you may also have heard of him through the viral post
about a Hotguy movie fancast that posited Scar Goodtimes as a potential Cuteguy,
or the viral video of Cuteguy going on a hysterical rant after trying and failing to
catch a cow loose downtown, or the other viral post about Okayguy, the secret third
teammate who acts as a stunt double every time one of them gets thrown through
a wall and is incapable of feeling pain. Up until recently, Hotguy’s public reputation was
as a charming and generally competent vigilante, who is kind to animals and children.

I won’t recount all of what started the #Hotguygate scandal (this post by my beloved
mutual @sweetferaline does a much better job of it), but the gist of it is that Hotguy’s
recent behavior has tipped from showboating to outright demands for recognition, up
to and including harassing people he rescues for adulation, and that he publicly injured
a hostage taken by a villain by shooting her in the leg. This has understandably left
a lot of people feeling betrayed by someone they had previously considered a good
and trustworthy person. I know that I myself have been rethinking my position on
unregulated heroics and the Hotguy-Cuteguy team as a result of these actions.

However, I would like to say that this is all new information, being reacted to much
more quickly online than it might be dealt with in person, and that as bystanders
and civilians, we do not know all of the details of what goes on behind the scenes in
Hermitopia. There are powers documented to cause hallucinations or personality shifts
in a similar way to psychoactive drugs. There are villains who blackmail, extort, and
threaten; and there are heroes whose potential villain status is unclear; and there are
circumstances like traumatic brain injuries, burnout, and interpersonal disputes that
may cause behavioral changes without necessarily signifying a turn to the Dark Side.
I am not arguing that anything Hotguy has done is justified; I am simply stating that we
don’t know whether some things could have more or less sympathetic explanations
than we are assuming.

Aside from that, I think it would be helpful to remember that Hotguy and Cuteguy
are not the only heroes in the city that deserve our support, and that one hero
acting badly does not necessarily reflect on all of the volunteers who risk their lives,
livelihoods, and freedom to protect us from danger. Mirrorblade saved me from
a collapsing bridge a few years ago, and I know several people who have Cuteguy to
thank for their lives after the attack on GigaJacks Studios last year. It is perfectly valid
to feel betrayed by this situation, and to feel like idolizing heroes is a bad idea— which,
to be entirely honest, it is, since we do not know these people— but I think that taking
a moment to breathe and remind ourselves that Hotguy is not all the justice that exists
in the world would be a good idea.

#ask #anonymous #firework anon #hotguygate #politics

1657 notes

231
 Anneliis (art) Vanyel (writing)
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Topsy (art, writing)  Res (editing)
Anneliis, Crow, gingermaple,
Julia, Kazehita, traffrogers, Sparks (assistance)
Interlude: gredient
The Secre t In
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eadin

The early morning sun warmed Impulse’s shoulders through the windows of The Secret
Ingredient bakery and cafe. The shop wouldn’t open for another hour, but the proprietor had
let Impulse in early as a favor to his new apprentice.

“Comin’ right up!” Skizz shouted, hustling a tray of cookies over to Impulse like a quarterback
rushing the ball. He served them onto Impulse’s plate one by one with steel tongs dwarfed in
a massive hand.

“These’re looking good, Skizz!”

“Thanks, Dipple Dop!” Skizz puffed out his chest in the way that always made Impulse roll his
eyes. “You should feel lucky, mmkay? You get to be the first to test out Skizz the Baker’s very
first original cookie recipe, nooch!”

“Gee, I’m so fortunate to be a guinea pig…”

But Impulse grinned, and Skizz grinned back, and they could’ve gone back and forth for quite
a bit if Big B hadn’t come out of the kitchen to remind them not to let the cookies grow cold.

Impulse took a bite. It… wasn’t bad. It wasn’t the worst. Good texture, soft and not too chewy—
but the flavor was overpowering. Each bite was like being hit in the nose with fists of chocolate
and spice.

He didn’t need to say anything; Skizz could read it on his face.

“Aw, that bad? Really? Dang it!”

At Skizz’s theatrical distress, Impulse cracked up laughing. Big B, over by the counter, joined
in with a few giggles. Skizz called them both jerks, the worst, such assholes—but he grinned
the entire time.

After catching his breath, Impulse told Skizz it was a good first try.

“I think it just needs refining,” he said. “You might be onto something with these flavors.”

“Ah!” Skizz said, puffing out his chest once more. “That’s all down to my own special,
secret ingredient!”

“Oh, really?” Impulse said. “You gonna tell me?”

308
He already knew the answer; he was just setting Skizz up for the touchdown.

“The secret ingredient…” Pause for effect. “Is love!”

“Actually, it’s nutmeg,” Big B said. “And he used way, way too much.”

“Boppers! Hey! You jerk!”

Impulse laughed. First a snort at B’s dryness, then great guffaws as Skizz’s indignation wound
him into a swelling balloon of mock-fury.

“C’mon, guys! I’m trying to say something nice about my buddies! You both suck!”

A fond memory, a happy yesterday…

Laughter, fresh cookies, and the clear morning light.

Now…

A cold evening downpour pelts Smoke Signal’s head and shoulders as he stands outside The
Secret Ingredient. The bakery is closed. The sign on the door says so—but anyone who has
or wants power in this city knows that the opening hours for the proprietor’s other business
have only just begun.

Through the tall, wide windows, Smoke Signal spots an employee mopping up for the night.
The light is dim, his view obscured, but he doesn’t need much to recognize Skizz LeMan,
journeyman baker.

Also known as: Wiseguy, chief enforcer.

Smoke Signal double-checks that his mask is secure, and that the voice changer hidden by
the collar of his cloak is active. He braces himself. Crosses the street, steps over a puddle,
opens the door and brings the fog inside.

“Hey!” Skizz spins to face him. “Bakery’s closed!”

“I’m not here for bread and cookies,” says Smoke Signal. It’s tougher than he thought it would
be to keep from rising to match Skizz’s energy, from slotting back into their old rhythm like
two sticks held by the same drummer.

“I’m here to see the Secret Keeper.”

“He’s appointment only, pal. If you know his name, you should know that already.”

“I’d like him to make an exception.”

Skizz scowls, and sets the mop aside. “Now listen here—”

“It’s alright, Skizz,” a new voice cuts in.

309
A door behind the counter swings open, and through it strolls “Big” B. Statz, the Secret Keeper
of Hermitopia. He’s tall—almost as tall as Skizz—with meticulously kept brows and a subtle
beard. His well-pressed indigo shirt and midnight blue pants are technically civilian clothes,
but there’s an element of performance to the way he wears them.

They call him ‘the Watcher in blue…’ Impulse thinks. But really, ‘Listener’ would be more
accurate.

The Secret Keeper regards Smoke Signal with shrewd, uneasy eyes. He does not seem
surprised to find an intruder within his bakery—but knowing him, that’s to be expected.

“Evening,” the Secret Keeper says. “I was wondering how long you’d stand out there in the rain.
What business does the Soup Group have with The Secret Ingredient?”

“Good evening to you as well!” Smoke Signal spreads his palms and puts on his most honeyed
affectation. “I am seeking something that only the city’s premier information brokerage can
provide. Money is no object—I just wish to buy the precise location of something called the
Altar of the Catalyst.”

With every word Smoke Signal releases a plume of heavy fog into the bakery. It pools thick
and heavy around his legs and spreads more with each passing moment.

It isn’t a threat. Not yet.

“Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about, Secret Keeper,” he continues. “Nothing
moves in, above, or below Hermitopia without you hearing about it.”

“I appreciate the compliment,” the Secret Keeper says. “But you’re out of luck. That information
has already been bought by a third party—and they paid for exclusive rights.”

Smoke Signal rubs his fingers together. A spark sizzles up and down his glove. In response,
Wiseguy cracks his knuckles and clears his throat. Smoke Signal does not acknowledge him.

“Surely we can work something out… a little exception won’t hurt nobody!”

“Nope. Not possible.” The Secret Keeper’s voice remains placid, but he’s betrayed by the
trickle of sweat rolling down his temple.

Time to up the pressure.

Smoke Signal raises his hand, showing off how the lightning dances from finger to finger—and
that’s when Wiseguy makes his move.

Yelling like a madman, swinging like an all-star slugger, Wiseguy rushes Smoke Signal fists-first.
He’s quick, and he has the element of surprise—or he would, if he were fighting anyone other
than Impulse.

Smoke Signal dodges with ease, almost dancing, aided by his form-concealing cloak and the
swirling fog.

“You jerk!” Wiseguy bellows. “You’re not attacking this place! I won’t let you! Boppers’ bakery…
The Secret Ingredient… it’s love! It’s family! And it’s my home!”

Smoke Signal knows he can only evade for so long.

310
Dammit… we need that info! They’re counting on me!

Each of his gauntlets spark and sizzle. He ups the voltage.

I have to… no matter who I hurt… and no matter how much it hurts me.

Skizz goes for an uppercut right when Impulse expects him to—and Smoke Signal rewards him
with fistfuls of lightning. Wiseguy yells, starts to collapse, and Smoke Signal catches him—with
a hand around his throat.

His gauntlet sends a warning buzz to the tender flesh under Wiseguy’s chin. The big man
gasps from pain and lack of air.

Impulse can’t bear to look at—no.

Smoke Signal turns his eyes away from the trapped lackey.

“Like I was saying,” he tells the Secret Keeper. “Make just a little exception, and nobody has
to get hurt.”

The Secret Keeper smiles.

“Sorry, Skizz,” he says. “You knew the risks.”

Wiseguy chokes out an unintelligible response—or maybe it’s just a laugh.

And that puts Smoke Signal in a bad situation. Because Impulse knows that Big B is bluffing.

I’ve come this far, done this much… Who would I be if I stopped now?

“Very well,” Smoke Signal says. “Have it your way.”

His gloves spark up again.

One small mercy—it doesn’t take very long.

Big B screams for him to stop, and Impulse—no, it’s Smoke Signal—Smoke Signal lets Skizz
crash to the floor. Fog, cold and gray, covers him where he falls. His mewls of pain—Smoke
Signal commits them to memory. He etches them on his heart like a brand of castigation.

“The location,” he says to B. “The location, for his life.”

Big B stares at him with something a little like sorrow, but mostly like spite.

“That’s really how it is? Fine.”

The Secret Keeper rattles off coordinates and access points. Smoke Signal takes notes.
Mission complete.

“Pleasure doing business with you.”

Smoke Signal turns to go. It’s done. All he has to do now is just leave.

But there’s a trembling hand on his ankle.

311
“Dipple… Dop?”

Impulse recoils. Skizz recognized him. Of course he did.

I stayed too long!

He looks back in panic, hoping that the Secret Keeper didn’t catch the nickname—and his
blood freezes in his veins.

Big B’s face is not one of shock, or even sudden recognition. It’s resignation and—oh god—
sympathy. It’s a face that tells a story.

Skizz may have only just recognized him now… but Big B had known all along.

Impulse can barely breathe.

“You knew my identity, B?”

“Always have.”

“And you kept it a secret? This whole time?”

“I did.”

“Why?” Impulse reels. “It’s not like I’m your client.”

“Oh, you know the reason.”

“I don’t!”

Big B’s eyes fill with pity. He points towards the man hidden by fog at Smoke Signal’s feet.

“Well, it isn’t nutmeg.”

“Dop? What is this, buddy? What’re you…”

Smoke Signal jerks his leg out of Skizz’s unsteady grasp, and flees.

Out the door, crashing through the puddles, heedless of Skizz’s mangled screams for him
to come back. He runs, head spinning, uncertain of his course through the pitiless rain. His
destination, however, has never been more clear.

If he’s already sacrificed Skizz for the cause, then he has nothing left to lose—and only one
thing left to give.

312
 Alias: Smoke Signal
Mutation: Fog Breath
Status: Villain
Abilities: What needs
to be done

WormTime
Danger
Level:
Favourite Smoked Fish
Food: Chowder
Current I hope one day
Concern: he’ll understand

Impulse  V.
D
D - Determination 6
V L L - Loyalty 5
P - Perspective 0
S - Spice Tolerance 2
V - Visibility 1
S P
WormT
Alice ( ime (cover) TJ (writing)
Not ALice) (cheer
leading)
Years ago, when the sculk festering in this rotten cathedral finally dragged its roots down to
water and poisoned the well, Gem had wondered, idly, if the city of Hermitopia was akin to
an egg.

Peering at it sideways, there was a certain beatific logic to it; the ley lines running underneath
these streets had always reeked of sulfur, for those actually brave enough to skirt close and
smell it. She’d made her living in the hairline fractures of its putrefying shell, one empty bullet
casing at a time—and when the first mutations began to catalyze, the imagery had stuck with
her: a great, big, putrid egg, oozing lifeblood in the form of fetid yolk.

Mutated crime had only been the first crack in a society collapsing underneath the weight of
its own decaying underbelly, but she hadn’t spared it much thought beyond that. Sometimes,
cities sink; Hermitopia sat on a wall. Hermitopia had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all
the king’s men—

Well.

You know what they say about omelettes.

“... Alright!” Impulse’s voice echoes over itself in a multi-layered choir, bouncing off half-
ragged walls and burrowing in amongst the sculk. “Well, she could definitely use a bit of an
updo, but… yeah! Here it is!”

An understatement; Forgery’s former lair is a cyan-speckled, moldering infestation, three-

quarters sculk and still growing. Here at its center, ravenous fingers have already punched
their way into stone, scrawling up the vaulted walls in strange, fungal swoops—letters without
language, glyphs without meaning. Spokes reaching out from a glistening pool. The pale glint
of sculk in liquid culture is… mesmerizing, a tapestry of night stretched taut and encrusted
with stars. Hemmed in by something akin to thick, yellow limestone, the malignant mixture in
the cistern below them undulates in time with every echo—and when Gem peers into it, locks
her gaze with that yearning abyss, her skin begins to crawl.

Impulse had called it the Catalyst. Gem calls it for what it really is:

Hungry.

It’s only once the last trembling traces of Impulse’s voice stop cycling within the basin that
Pearl, shrouded by the hood of her cloak, speaks. “Guess we should start loadin’ up the truck,
then,” she rasps, and the words scrape over cragged stone, tumbling in a scree from the
balcony their tunnel had opened up into. “Bring in some stuff to get rid of all… this.”

She’s punctuated by the crystalline plink of water from high above the ancient knee braces
still supporting the ceiling. Gem tosses them an idle, upward glance, just to wrench her
gaze from the sculk; even here, fungus has overgrown, dripping in thin, fibrous ropes where
it’s pierced right through the reinforcements. To the naked eye, their structural integrity
remains uncompromised—but Gem has long since acquainted herself with just how easily
everything crumbles.

Best to stay wary.

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Impulse’s answering laugh is high, thready, and just this side of breathless, a wisping exhale that
pours fog all over their feet. “Oh, god, yeah. Yeah, this?” He gestures with one gloved hand at the
pockmarked expanse of Forgery’s former death maze. “All of this? It’s definitely gonna have to go.”

Below them, the Catalyst ripples, lapping up each filmy word. Gem sighs. “Too bad Forgery
couldn’t have just done it for us, back when he lived here.”

The skin around Impulse’s eyes crinkles, fanning out and casting furrowed laugh-lines high
over the subtle rounds of his cheeks. “Rude of him, right? He could’ve saved us a lot of trouble.”

Like this—eyes steady, the cast of his brows open, cheeks betraying a smile underneath the
mask—his image inundates that of Smoke Signal, painting him in the well-sanded hues of
a friend. Like this, the aura of cultivated danger shudders, gives way—falls prey to a mask far
more approachable. Genial. Easy-going. Like a middle-aged dad at the barbecue, Gem had
joked once, and he’d laughed, for so long and so loud that the fog had whorled in ringlets
around their shoulders, trailing gossamer fingers through the strands of her hair until it grew
too damp to curl.

“I dunno,” Pearl says after a beat, and when Gem turns, her gaze is glossy, middle-distant. The
hem of her cloak sweeps the ground in one, great, scarlet streak. “I kinda liked it. I’m gonna be
a little sad to see it go.”

“Gotta do what you gotta do, Pearl,” Gem replies with a shrug, and without permission, flicks
her gaze back to the pool of mycofolic liquid. Fitfully, it shivers.

The fine hairs at the nape of her neck prickle, standing on end, but Gem doesn’t shiver back.

“C’mon,” she says at last, pivoting until the Catalyst is nothing more than a raw, curdled void
behind her. “Let’s go get the stuff—I’ll drive.”

Forgery’s maze collapses in snarls of tumbled stone and ancient brick, dust plumes rising in
voluminous jets from the rubble. The blank, empty canvas it paints in its wake distends across
the entire cavern floor, and their work after condenses itself into hours, into seconds, into
systematic snapshot splices: Impulse, hunched by a wooden crate; redstone stained at the
tips of Pearl’s fingers; Gem bundling amethysts together, shard to scabbling shard. Between
the three of them, countless wires twist to form cords, then ropes, and, at last, four massive
cables, all hooked into the ports of each individual generator. Cobbled by fastidious hands,
the wiring snaps, crackles—but it holds. It holds.

Halfway through, Gem excuses herself to the forlorn space beneath their balcony, one of the
few driblets left intact from Forgery’s maze. Piles of empty, wooden crates swarm beneath its
overhang, hedging all the way up to the makeshift steps Impulse had carved for the Catalyst’s
altar. The sculk within has already begun winding its way through nearby cleats, creeping
along corners and drenching the plywood in winks of cerulean. In another life, their stained-
glass glimmer could, perhaps, be evocative—even beautiful—but Gem heaves her dogged
gaze forward. Just as her rifle is a tool, so too is the Catalyst: an egg-tooth, the violent shatter
of society made right. A hatching, of sorts—if one deigns to peer at it sideways.

She picks through the throng to drop herself down on an unmarred crate, with all the grace
and mindlessness of a comet tumbling to earth. All soldiers—no matter how abandoned they

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are by their clandestine government programs—are fed on the well-trodden paths of muscle
memory; her rifle, for as well as it fires, still needs regular maintenance.

Sinking back to that routine is as commonplace as the air pumping in and out of her lungs:
remove the magazine, pull the bolt, check the chamber. Set aside. Impale a clean cotton
patch on a spear-headed jag—wet the cloth in powder solvent. Run it through the bore: one
pass, one new cloth. Two. Three. Gem scrubs it down with a bronze-bristle brush, muscles
bunching as she works out the carbon fouling; fifteen strokes, up and down the barrel, then
a thirty-minute rest to let the cleaner soak.

Only as the rifle tilts in her hands does she catch it: a spark of teal, glinting in the wide-
sweeping floodlights they’d installed days ago. Gem pauses, tips the rifle back up. Peers
through the scope, and—ah.

Sculk. On her lens.

It glitters in thin, fungal flashes, dappling the glass with patches of caliginous teal. Gem sucks
in a sharp breath, then exhales it all at once; the air billows out from her lungs in a pale
imitation of Impulse’s mist, hanging before her in delicate, lacy shrouds before melting back
into aether. “Dude,” she says, and the Catalyst beside her swallows the sound, thrashes within
its basin to reflect each fitful echo with an eerie gurgle. Crack. Slosh. Crunch. “Seriously?
What are you doing, this is my scope!”

The fungus has already crept out from the lens and up the sides, a twining of filaments
around the eye bell and all three adjustment turrets. Her upper lip curls, baring porcelain
teeth as she fumbles to dislodge the scope from its anchor. “You’re awful,” she tells it,
draping a clean cotton patch over the nail of her thumb. With meticulous motions, she sets
it against the eye piece’s curvature, scratching at a thin speckle of membrane; when she
lifts it, flecks of sculk follow, pulling away in a symphony of viscid, gummy veins. In the span
of a heartbeat, they collapse, their remnants dribbling back to the crate below in a trickle
of runny, blue strings.

Gem considers the soiled patch. Then, without ceremony, she folds it in half and begins to
scrub harder.

“Go,” she snaps, “Go on, shoo, shoo—I’m sorry but you can’t be on this.” If there is one wisdom
sculk has imparted upon her, it’s that to devour is to collapse. This ready tomb is a testament
to the depths of glut sculk can reach—first to weaken, then to gnaw, and finally replace an
object’s materials, preserving only their fragile delineations in the process. She only has so
much scope to work with, here. “Go somewhere else, you’re gonna ruin the whole thing!”

“Alright there, Gem?”

Pearl’s voice is an abrupt thawing of ice down her spine, a lawny curl shuddering across her
shoulders. Gem pries her gaze off the scope just long enough to catch a glimpse of Pearl
settling in against the adjacent wall, face hooded.

“It’s trying to eat my rifle, Pearl,” she grates out, lifting its bell for proof; beneath her scrabbling
ministrations, the sculk begins to smear. “Can you believe that? My rifle.”

Pearl meets Gem’s words with a blink, blank and a little rapid. Even with the hood up, she
can’t conceal the bounce of her eyebrows as they rocket into her hairline. “Well, jeez,” she
says after a beat—slow, stumbling, as if rolling the words out one by one from behind loose
teeth—“when’d that happen?”

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“I don’t know,” Gem says, glaring down at her hands. “I didn’t even set it down until just now!”

Dozens of festering tendrils still run the length between cotton and glass when she peels
back the patch again, clinging to both with diligent tenacity. The cloth warps, a stain beneath
her fingers; brows punching together, Gem abandons the filthy patch to the ground and pulls
out another, cleaner one, before setting it back against her lens with a prejudice.

Pearl hums—one long, sustained, tuneless note that resonates in the air between them. Slosh.
Crack. Pop. Before them, the basin’s contents slap the edge of its inner rim, a hissing lash
that scatters drops of fungal slurry against the ground. Within moments, the rot blooms out,
gnawing its way into mortar to surround each woebegone, pockmarked flagstone.

“Ew.” Gem winces, fingers still scraping away at mycelium. For each torn thread, another
protracts, wreathing out to form a tight noose that loops the circumference of the scope’s
metal tube. It’s an arm’s race between them for victory; Gem and her stubborn cloth, or the
insatiable sculk trying to break through it. “Gross—why’s it so active?”

The note still thrumming around them fractures, caves to a beat of silence. When Gem tilts
her head, Pearl’s lower lip is caught between her teeth, worrying the skin until it splits, fresh
and shining as a shard of ruby glass.

“Impy’s calibrations must be working,” Pearl says at last, quiet and faraway. Each syllable
follows an ephemeral horizon-line she’s half-turned to, ebbing downriver to pool at the base
of the Catalyst’s altar. But Pearl’s eyes skim away before they can fully latch, and instead her
chin juts, angling her head back to the generators they’ve both, temporarily, abandoned.

“Uh, I sure hope they do,” Gem replies, absent and wry in equal measure. “We’ve kinda spent
a long time on this.”

Pearl’s shoulders curve, chipping away at her silhouette until it falters, diminishes, folds
small against the backdrop of luminous floodlights. “Yeah,” she says, and the word falls sour,
acescent where it drips to the floor. Her gaze remains locked to the generators, half-mast
and unfocused. Empty. “Yeah, we sure have.”

Silence descends, cut only to the Catalyst’s frenzied swashing; it presses into Gem’s ears like
cotton, winnowing sullen and static within her tympanic cavity. Across from her, Pearl clasps
both arms over her chest, fingers pinching elbows, and does not turn her head.

A tendril of sculk winds around Gem’s thumb; her fingers freeze mid-motion, eyes still pinned
to the scarlet rim of Pearl’s hooded cloak. “What’s up?” she asks after a beat.

Pearl rewards her with a full-bodied jolt, finally swinging back to peer at Gem with round,
disarmed eyes. “What?”

“Something’s up,” Gem repeats, slower. She straightens, discarding the cotton patch in favor
of clenching her fingers, rhythmically, around the scope until its edges crease against her
palm, dig into flesh to form tender grooves. Caught between metal and tissue, the sculk inside
squelches. “What’s up with you?”

“With me?” Pearl’s voice rattles in her throat, taking a belated leap to crouch, alarmed,
at the soles of Gem’s dangling feet. “Now hold up, what are you talking ‘bout? I’m not—”
A conspicuous pause. Pearl’s left hand twitches, fingers spasming for her hood—only to sink
back down, crumble into fists at her side. Knuckles white, Pearl says, “I mean, this counts as
something, doesn’t it?”

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“Well, yeah, but that’s not what I’m talking about.” White imprints cleave themselves into
Gem’s palm. Beside her, the Catalyst froths; she drops from her perch without ceremony,
slinking through shadow to halt before Pearl with predatory, single-minded elegance. “What’s
going on?”

The line of Pearl’s shoulders grows taut. “Mate, I just said—”

“Yeah, and you lied to me about it,” Gem interrupts her, clipping off each syllable with the
comportment of a dog tearing meat. “What’s the big deal, why are you suddenly all mopey?”

“Mopey?” Pearl repeats, scandalized. The ridge of her brows stiffens, caves, forms deep
valleys over the fragile skin of her eyes. Her spine snaps straight against the stone behind her,
echoed in the staccato crackle of the Catalyst now at Gem’s back. “Mopey?”

“Yeah, mopey.” Where Pearl leads, Gem follows, springing up to her tiptoes to meet Pearl’s
floundering gaze. And Pearl has always been a tower, a portrait so high it soars above the
ruins of this brisant city—and even hunched, Pearl’s figure is a lanky suture unfolded, frogged
and split out into separate limbs—and here, like this, she is no familiar fortress-spire. Like this,
her eyes are bruises, hollows set deep above the thin cut of her cheeks. Like this, she is as
ragged as the maze they’d just bulldozed, days upon days ago.

Gem has never pretended she’s a stone-mason. “Look at you! You are literally moping right
now, Pearl,” she exclaims.

“Will you stop?” Pearl’s eyes are wild around the edges, rimmed red and gleaming panic.
They flick back and forth between the Catalyst and the generators, over and over again in
a ceaseless, frantic feedback loop. “What in the world—y’know what, Gem, I think you’re
moping, how d’ya like that?”

“Oh, yeah,” Gem says, flat, every tendon in her hand clenched, every inch of her spine a locked
razor preparing to slice. “Totally in shambles over here, yep.” Crack. Slosh. “Why are you being
so difficult right now, come on, Pearl. Just tell me what’s wro—”

Elucidation dawns as a sudden chill of breath fanning across the back of her neck. “You think
it’s not gonna work,” she accuses, wrenching one cramped finger off her scope to poke Pearl
square in the chest with it. Mottled with half-smeared fungus, it smudges the fabric of her
shirt blue, deep and moody. “Look, we got—Impulse has literally done the math, we’ve got it
all figured out. It’ll be fine!”

Pearl remains quiet.

In the ringing eddies of her own voice, Gem swallows: copper, iron, ash. It’s Pearl’s turn to
imitate; her throat bobs roughly as she turns away, tipping her head back until it meets jagged
rock. Her eyes once again bounce back to the generators and stick there, lingering; after one
long, suffocating moment, she clears her throat.

“... I dunno.” Pearl’s voice is a hoarse slip over weathered stone, a throaty warble skimming
through the atmosphere. “I guess I’m not—I’m just kinda wondering, y’know. If it’s—I mean,
I have faith in us, I know we’ll get the job done, but…”

The words trail off, stumbling over her tongue with each half-hearted drop. Gem tracks them
all with the great, keen gaze of a hawk, wheeling in wide circles with her talons extended; the
fine bones of her hand creak around the scope, and the back of her neck prickles, electric.
She does not follow Pearl’s canted gaze.

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Finally, Pearl sags. Her eyes are abyssal when she pulls them back, pinning Gem beneath their
leaden weight. “Is it really worth it, Gem?” she asks, quiet—face downturned, cast in shadow.
Gaze slipping back to the side, questing past the incandescent floodlights for something only
she can see. “If Impulse has to—to—”

Crunch.

The voltaic slice of crushed glass and metal ricochets up Gem’s hand and into her arm,
magmic ripples of blistering nerves that scorch right through her. Heady warmth seeps out
from between her fingers; she rears back from Pearl’s space, eyes blown wide as the Catalyst
behind her laps up the viscous drip, drip, drips.

“What?” she chokes on an arrhythmic inhale. “Hold on, what—are you hearing yourself right
now? Pearl! We can’t just stop, we’ve almost won!”

With no space left to retreat, Pearl’s head jerks, the hood slipping back just far enough to
expose swathes of pale, translucent skin. The floodlights strip her clean, limn her in clinical
white as she rasps, “I’m just sayin’, Gem—it just—it’s Impulse. Can’t you think about that for
a minute?” Her lips press together, bloodless and flat; Pearl sways, ducking again to glance
along the cables snaking their way out between the Catalyst and its generators. And Gem,
finally, follows it, roams the aching distance until she lands on the ember they both have
dubbed as north.

From this distance, Impulse’s presence shrinks, a radiant firefly gleaming against smatters of
stygian. Unwittingly, Gem turns, traces after his path—he putters between generators with
the leisurely pace of a man long-used to fiddling with experimental redstone, confident and
routine, rote and mechanical. The same, well-trodden muscle memory like that of cleaning
out a rifle.

“It’s our Impulse, Gem,” Pearl whispers, and the words quake.

The space between her fingers paints itself in fervid, liquid heat. “Yeah, Pearl,” she spits, and
shards of fire run the length of her palm, slicking the pads of each bruised finger. “And he
wouldn’t want us to quit. You’re saying you don’t want us to win? To finally get what we’ve
been working for this whole time?”

“That’s not what—” Pearl’s expression is sick.

Gem ignores her. “We’ve done way too much to back out now. You know that! We all know
that! If we stop—”

“Yeah, but—but Gem—”

“We’re doing what’s right,” Gem snarls. Behind her, the Catalyst spumes, undulating violently
with each word; before her, Pearl trembles, shudders, shatters; alongside her, Impulse
constructs the bridge between them and a city just fractured enough to still heal. And in her
hand, bloody and splintered, its shell cracked and oozing sculk, is her stupid fucking scope.
“It’s—this is the right thing to do. We all knew it was gonna be a risk. Impulse knew it was a risk.”

Heavy silence. The air, already cool from so far underground, plummets closer into frigid.

Pearl’s voice is a bitter pill when she finally speaks. “I just think it shouldn’t have to be this
way,” she says, thick.

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“When you’re in this business,” Gem parrots herself, “you have to be willing to die for
your ideals.”

Pearl’s eyes skirt past hers and back to that all-distant horizon, to the luminous figure painted
stark against the cavern walls. “Yeah,” she says at last, and the word rattles like loose shingles
in the gale of a thunderstorm. “I know.”

Blood soaks the cradle of her fingers, seeping out to water the sculk. “And Impulse knows that.”

“I know.”

“We got this far because he wanted it,” Gem adds. “It was his idea.”

“I know, Gem.” Pearl sniffs, once. Then, jaw clenched, she dips a hand deep within the recesses
of her cloak. What emerges from it is a familiar mask; glistening, flushed and cerise. Eternity
stretches wide and vast as Pearl stares down at it, one errant thumb blankly brushing the
curved edge of its soulless smile.

“I just don’t like it,” Pearl whispers, and her voice sinks with all the weight, buoyancy, and life
of a stone. “That Impulse has to…”

She doesn’t finish the sentence.

Gem doesn’t either.

“He made his choice,” she says instead. Simple. Matter-of-fact. Her hand pulses, a raw, steady
pump spilling out between her fingers like sand from the hourglass. When Gem pries open her
fist, the scope—tortive with sculk, saturated in blood—lies mangled, shattered, nothing more
than a smattering of metal shell and glass gored deep into the meat of her palm. She holds
it up to eye-level, studying the interplay between them, and does not look for Impulse. “Now
we have to make ours.”

A beat. The silence tumbles far past its event horizon, and Pearl says nothing.

Then, with sharp, methodical motions, she raises the mask and affixes it to her face. The cold,
plastic moon etched into it grins Gem down, a rictus of cheshire and crimson.

“Help me get the rest of this set up,” Scour says, emotionless, “once you’ve fixed up your hand.
We’ve still got a ton of work left to do.”

And Bleeding Hart can only follow.

321
Emry, Luna
Emrys (art)  Luna (writing)
TerraGlows (editing)
Emry, Luna
 Droid (writer)  Antimony_Medusa (editor)

JEANNIE ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @bluejeanns • 14h ago

#Hermitopia Does anyone know wth is going on around acacia station?? tcg
has it blocked off and i think i see a hero on the rooftops watching.

elise @elisasillygoose • 14h ago

work let out early bc literally everyone on set got sick at once. unsure
whether to blame catering or just stress about filming but lets gooooo

Tori @vexandthecitygrrl • 14h ago

lmao why are my gills so dry today where is my precious humidity

HERMITOPIA TIMES @hermitopiatimes • 12h ago

Just in : TCG has announced an evacuation for the Port District,

including the blocks between 7th Street, Hermitopia International
Airport, and Little Atlantis, effective immediately. If you must shelter in
place, subway stations are not recommended. Read evacuation details
here: https://www.cityofhermitopia.gov…

67 55 1.6k

Jamal Ahmad @jamalaspeaks • 11h ago

#Hermitopia Under a shelter in place order in a Hot Topic rn and my ears feel
like shit, they won’t stop ringing. Usually villains don’t bother with my part of
town. I really don’t like this

12

Ronald Large @bigronsbigdeals • 11h ago

anyone stuck outside looking for a place to stay can come into Big Ron’s!
we have power and wifi for the mo and space for several more

#Hermitopia

332
 Heroics QUEEN @IAmHeroicsQueen • 10h ago

moots r welcome to come talk to me if there in allay heights station we r

playing gin rummy #Hermitopia

2 5

Gerry Manez @goatman55 • 12h ago

At a festival in the Perimeter and it just went dark for a sec. Looks like
emergency power’s on now. @DoctorMonster Assuming it’s not you doing
all this?

#Hermitopia

2 5

Kelly Johanssen @johkelly • 12h ago

@TCGOfficial Trapped on the subway between Mending Beach and

HIA Station and power is out for the whole line. We’re seeing some odd
substance on the tunnel walls ahead. Please send help fast, there are a lot of
kids here

2 13 19

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 IsJaszper @thatIsJaszperthere • 9h ago
@TCGOfficial @HotguyOfficial where the hell are you whats going ON

Mirabella @goodtimeswithart • 12h ago

I’m canceling the art stream tonight because of a situation in the city. Stay
safe everyone

60 121 8k

wishes @wishingstars • 12h ago

I saw Mirrorblade by Hermit Heights a couple hours ago… does anyone have more
recent updates?

#Hermitopia

10:23 AM

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JEANNIE ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ @bluejeanns • 12h ago

I saw Iskallman at Spore Park about 30 min ago, but he didn’t look like he was
doing too good.

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Robbie Hipolito @vanlife4evr • 11h ago

guys idk if u should share this info if we dont know if its villains yet

150

Mirabella @goodtimeswithart • 13h ago

HG&CG were on the move this afternoon, saw them on the subway. No word
on them since though

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Jonathan Villager @jonathanvillager1 • 9h ago
Symptoms continue to be reported for citizens in South Bay. Regen Health
is at capacity and redirecting patients to Sahara Southland Hospital. Further
information can be found here: https://www.cityofhermitopia.gov…

45 8 550

Paige Annette @platinumbed • 7h ago

okay so basically i can’t walk right & no one else around me can use their
powers… im freaking out is this permanent #Hermitopia

IsJaszper @thatIsJaszperthere • 12h ago

@undergroundtaylor3 is Keeli still at your place? do you have cell service?

Elizabeth Chen @elizabethchen12 • 9h ago

Does anyone near 8th & Beacon know what’s going on at Moo-Pop please?
My son works there and he flies home. He’s just 17 and I don’t know how
these pulses would have affected that. I can’t reach him. #Hermitopia

1 17 262

wishes @wishingstars • 8h ago

I live nearby and went to check…looks like someone crashed their car into the
building next door but Moo-Pop employees are fine, just stuck. Cell service
and wifi are down and there’s ambulances

3 14 260

EJ @everthegenuine321 • 9h ago

has anyone seen any heroes????? #Hermitopia

News 4 Hermitopia @news4hermits • 6h ago

#Hermitopia Update:

Fire reported at Cobblestone Apartments on Aqua Avenue and spreading.

TCG advises citizens to evacuate nearby buildings and head to emergency
shelters on 2nd and 3rd Street.

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 Kate Guerrera @kathikitkat • 9h ago
My headache is getting worse and my phone is dying. I’ll keep sharing info if/
when I find a way to charge it but until then I’m going dark. Hoping we don’t
have to evacuate too. #Hermitopia

Kate Guerrera @kathikitkat • 10h ago

Compiling some information on the pulse situation below

13 590 3k

Tori @vexandthecitygrrl • 5h ago

#Hermitopia Is it just me or are the pulses getting more intense? IDK if i’m safe
here anymore

5:09 PM

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wishes @wishingstars • 3h ago

If you live near 4th Street they just expanded the evacuation. Get out now
before you’re incapacitated, I’m seeing a lot of emergency vehicles on
the road

Mr.Amarillo @armadillodays • 3h ago

Are the pulses hurting everyone?

336
HERMITOPIA TIMES @hermitopiatimes • 4h ago

Just in : TCG has expanded the evacuation order west to 4th Street and
east to Aqua Avenue. Roads east of 4th Street are closed to civilian vehicles.
Read evacuation details here: https://www.cityofhermitopia.gov…

139 68 2.2k

Gerry Manez @goatman55 • 2h ago

@docmonster URGENT!! We had to call an ambulance for someone in the
crowd but we can’t manually open the gate for it to come in— can you fix this
shit from where you are?

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Doctor Monster @docmonster • 2h ago

Yes. Try it now.

6 50

Kelly Johanssen @johkelly • 4h ago

@HotguyOfficial @Iskallman @RedTheKing @JoeHillsVillainy It’s been hours

and we’re still trapped between Mending Beach and HIA Stations. We can’t
get the doors open. SEND HELP PLEASE. Some people here are having
trouble breathing.

5 15 38

IsJaszper @thatIsJaszperthere • 1h ago

@keelisaysfacts answer your phone Keeli this isnt fucking funny

Jamal Ahmad @jamalaspeaks • 1h ago

my hands shouldnt look like this

Mumbo Jumbo @MumboJumbo • 10h ago

The Mumbocorp building still has power and is now open as an emergency
shelter with water bottles, food, and other amenities for staying overnight.
Be careful out there everyone. Not sure what’s going on but sure it will be
resolved soon

46 39 3.7k

337
 Joe Hills @JoeHillsVillainy • 10h ago
#Hermitopia Howdy everyone, just letting you know that this isn’t me, but
I am helping citizens out! Let’s consider this a once in a lifetime surprise
vigilantism special. Also, anyone looking for missing loved ones can check
this thread, where folks are giving live updates from the ground!

lady lanternfly @ladylanternfly • 12h ago

HERMITOPIA MISSING PERSONS THREAD - USE THIS TO ASK

ABOUT PEOPLE YOU CAN’T FIND

69 134 1.7k

Doctor Monster @docmonster • 9h ago

The Perimeter is open to people needing shelter from the pulses until the
situation is resolved

This is not my doing. Whoever it is…will REGRET the day they were born!

89 37 8.4k

HotguyOfficial @HotguyOfficial • 12h ago

Please remain calm and follow TCG instructions. Hotguy and Cuteguy are on
the scene.

9:45 AM

2 Quote Rechats

23 66 789

Replying to @HotguyOfficial

See you there

Reply

338
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There’s not much left for Bleeding Hart to do except keep watch.

She’s lying on her stomach, rifle resting on its stock, sights trained unwavering on a wall of
dark rubble. The two vigilantes fighting for their lives behind it know better than to leave its
cover, even as more and more sculk soldiers pincer them.

The cavern that houses the final level of Forgery’s game is dotted with scores of eerie cyan
lights—relics of the ancient city given new life. Most of the playing field, once an intricate
maze, was bulldozed and cleared by the Soup Group’s supporters. Bleeding Hart and Scour
stand watch from the last remaining tower.

Hart’s job is to prevent anyone from interfering with the Catalyst—but the sculk is doing most
of the work for her.

Scour’s only duty is to monitor the sculk soldiers as they rise, faintly glowing, from the pitch-
dark turquoise pool in the center of the ruin where Smoke Signal stands, sunk up to his
shoulders. These sludgy, brutal constructs of ancient hivemold pay the women on the tower
no mind—for now. Soon, Hart knows, the swarm will target them as well, and when it does…

Well. That will mean mission success. Once the man within the sculk no longer knows friend
from foe, then the bonding process will be complete, and irreversible. He’s giving up his very
self for his ideal of a world without heroes, without villains—a world back to the way things
were. A living death, a death of the soul.

Bleeding Hart is a professional. She does not wince. She does not shudder.

She does not linger on Impulse, all alone, sinking into the dark.

Hart hears Scour fidgeting, her long cloak brushing against the stone. She’s not trained for
stakeouts the same way Hart was, but even so… this level of restlessness is unusual.

“Gem,” Scour says suddenly. It takes Bleeding Hart a moment to clock that Scour is addressing her.

“What’s up?” Hart responds, her tone bright and breezy as always. Adding cheer to her voice
is as simple and quick as loading a fresh magazine into her rifle.

“Why are we doing this?”

“To make the choice no one else would,” Hart replies. “To protect people from themselves.”

Scour shifts from one foot to another. Hart waits for her to say more, but in vain.

Through her scope, Hart witnesses a burst of flame. It’s followed by a hiss as several dozen
sculk soldiers reach a smoldering conclusion. Hart is impressed. She didn’t think the two over
there had any incendiaries remaining.

They’ll retreat soon anyway, she thinks idly. Once they accept it’s death to remain, those
hotshots will be on their way out.

43 minutes until… The End!

355
Cuteguy can’t feel his wings, but that’s probably a good thing right now. They can’t strike
or glide anymore—so he’s been blocking with them instead. Beneath the feathers must be
nothing but bruises. Or fractures.

He lights another cherry bomb and tosses it into the center of a crowd of shambling sculk
creatures. The blast incapacitates most of them, but not all. Two stumble forward—their
bipedal shamble morphing into a rippling, spider-like charge—far too sudden and far too
quick. Cuteguy yips curses and flips his blades up and ready. Melee against one of these
things is never a good time, but two, when he’s already faced dozens—

—is something he won’t have to deal with, at least this time.

An arrow strikes one of the chargers and explodes into thick orange sludge that Cuteguy
knows to be quick-setting cement.

“I gotcha Cuteguy—woah!”

“Watch yourself!” Cuteguy shouts back. He can’t afford the time it would take to turn his head
and see what Hotguy is facing. The abyssal creature before him, with its amorphous, glow-
dappled body and multitude of bludgeoning limbs, will take his life if he gives it less than his
full attention.

Get within range. Dodge the strikes you can, tank one you can’t. Four quick slices to expose
the control nerve. One strong jab to disable it. Done.

The soldier loses cohesion and spills into dull black goo over Cuteguy’s boots. Ahead, the
second fungal construct has almost wormed free of its cement coating.

Cuteguy hears his partner gasp behind him.

“Hotguy?”

“I got it!”

Trusting Hotguy with his back, he lunges forward and dispatches the minion just as it escapes
its bonds. A quick check to confirm no enemies remain on his side, and Cuteguy whirls around
in time to see Hotguy loose a flame arrow into a cluster of sculk soldiers.

The minions hiss like tea kettles as the flame withers them into charcoal. Hotguy reels back
from the heat.

“You good?” asks Cuteguy.

“Yeah! All good, never been better.”

Hotguy’s head swivels back and forth, and Cuteguy knows he’s checking the surrounding
darkness for threats. There’s a grimace on his face.

“Careful, don’t strain your eyes.”

356
“I know, I know. Habit.” Hotguy rubs his temples. “But we’re clear, for now.”

“It was about a minute between waves last time,” Cuteguy says. As he speaks, he leans against
the wall of dark rubble and pats himself down, both checking for injuries and counting his
remaining weapons. He has too many of one, not enough of the other. “That lot lasted… at
least six minutes.”

“I’m ready for the next batch!” Hotguy’s grin is exhausted, but dazzling. “Why, millions of moldy
minions couldn’t take down Hotguy and Cuteguy!”

Hotguy is putting on his one-man show, and Cuteguy—Grian—is too weary to pretend it isn’t
working. He smiles back.

“The mold isn’t the problem, buddy.” There’s levity in Cuteguy’s voice, rising above the
weariness. “We need to get past her.”

“I know. I know. Dang it! We’re so close!” Hotguy furrows his brow, squinting. “If I could just
trust my eyes, I know I could hit the Catalyst before Bloody-Boo could get a read on me.”

“With things as they are, though—if you didn’t have to worry about getting sniped—could you
make the shot from here?”

“Pah! Of course I could, I’m Hotguy!”

Cuteguy purses his lips.

“How long do you need to line up the shot?”

Hotguy closes his eyes. His fingers pluck and release a phantom bowstring.

“A second,” he says finally. “At most.”

He says that, and Cuteguy sees the future.

It ends an arrow’s length away.

“Right. Here’s how it’s gonna go. We leave cover at the same time, I shield you while you take
the shot.”

Hotguy freezes. Cuteguy watches the realization dawn.

“Grian, I won’t—“

“No—no, listen! I shield you. She shoots me. You shoot the Catalyst. She shoots you.”

The sparkle fades from Hotguy’s eyes.

“… I see. I see.” A long breath, a haggard smile. “Not bad, as far as our plans go.”

Cuteguy can’t help but chuckle.

“You’re right! Honestly, this might be the most planning we’ve ever done!”

Now they’re laughing together—and god, it hurts, because he knows it’s for the last time.

357
Cuteguy glances upward, back towards the shaft they entered from.

“It’s still not too late to just leave,” he says.

“Yeah, I know. Doesn’t matter.”

“Cool. So long as we’re both aware.”

A steady, monotonous thudding reaches their ears. The next wave approaches. Cuteguy closes
his eyes and pictures the sun; recalls the wind through his feathers. The smell of the bakery in
the morning. The view from HQ at night. The warmth, the weight of someone at his side.

“I know… I know I haven’t always acted like it, but I did really love… I mean, I always—”

“C’mon, don’t get sappy on me now!”

Cuteguy snaps his eyes open.

“I’m being serious!”

“I know.”

Scar’s visor is in his hand. His eyes are wet. That brilliant smile has a crack.

“I’m barely holdin’ on here, man. Don’t break me.”

Grian gulps. Takes a breath—and Cuteguy stands up straight. He claps Scar on the shoulder.

“Dry your eyes, Hotguy. You’ve got a target to hit.”

A shudder, a swipe across the face—then the visor’s back in place, and Hotguy is ready for
action. He reaches into his quiver and draws one of the few remaining arrows. Practiced
fingers swap the arrowhead out for one bearing a high-powered incendiary—developed for
use against the likes of Doctor Monster’s mechs. Cuteguy wonders if he’ll live long enough to
see if it works.

“All set,” says Hotguy.

Cuteguy faces the bulwark. There’s a spot towards the center where it dips to waist-height.
He edges up to it, stopping just before leaving cover. Hotguy follows, humming their theme
song. Cuteguy knows that Hart’s rifle is fully capable of shooting Hotguy right through him—
but there’s one thing he can do to obfuscate her aim.

It’s not easy—it takes concentration and both arms—but Cuteguy spreads his rosy wings
wide, one last time. The partner sheltering behind them twangs his bowstring.

“Ready when you are,” Hotguy says.

“Ready as we’ll ever be.”

Cuteguy tenses, prepares to spring out of cover—

… And then a red maple leaf flutters in front of his eyes.

358
He tracks its path backwards and up just in time to catch the moment a steel ladder plunges
from the entrance to the level below. Before either of them can react, a figure starts to slide
down it. Their body is fully covered by a shield that looks a lot like the head of one of the
gargoyles from the levels above. A rifle cracks: once, twice.

“Ohhhhh snappers.”

The descending newcomer’s whole body shakes as their shield craters and cracks—but they
manage to leap from the ladder and roll to safety beside the two vigilantes.

“Oh my goodness. Oh, that was close.”

As the late arrival sheds the shield and stands, Cuteguy recognizes him as the Maple Prince;
a tall, nimble figure in autumn colors with a mask of bright red leaves over his mouth and nose.
He’s still trembling as he gets to his feet.

“I hate coming down here…”

Cuteguy and Hotguy exchange a bewildered glance.

“Excuse me!” Hotguy sputters. “Can we help you?”

“Um, hold on.” The Prince reaches into his cloak and retrieves a tape-covered object that
Cuteguy thinks might be a radio.

“Mission Control, I found them! They are outside the planned trajectory; you are clear to
launch—I repeat, you are clear to launch!”

The beat-up radio crackles to life.

“Let’s goooooo!”

It’s Scour’s assignment to keep an eye on Smoke Signal’s progress as he bonds with
the Catalyst.

It’s Pearl’s job to watch as Impulse dies.

Her hands clutch the stone of the tower wall. She still isn’t used to how… feeble her grip is
now. Everything she tries to hold on to slips away so easily.

The next horde of sculk soldiers rises from the pool at the base of the Catalyst’s altar. They
scuttle and lurch towards their target—the two vigilantes taking shelter in the remnants of
the maze. Towards Scar. None seem to be breaking off for her and Hart’s position. Impulse
must still be conscious.

There’s still time… wait, what am I thinking?

But before Scour can complete that thought, an explosion rocks her eardrums. Through the
ringing she hears Bleeding Hart curse. Beyond the Catalyst’s altar, from across the ruins of the

359
ancient city, smoke and dust billow from an opening freshly-blown in the cavern wall. A horn
blares—and into the arena roars a city trolley fitted with what appear to be rocket boosters.

“Hart, on your eight!” Scour shouts.

Bleeding Hart is already in motion. She’s rising, swinging her rifle around. In another moment
the trolley driver will be in her sights—but before that moment can arrive, the tower they’re
standing on is drowned in plumes of colored fog.

A goblin-like cackle rises from speakers around them as the hidden smoke jets obscure their view.

“Take that, jerkies! The only master of this dungeon is me!”

39 minutes until… The End!

Hotguy finds himself in an unusual position. He can’t believe his eyes.

Cub careens across the burning dark in a rocket-powered trolley, plowing through sculk
minions and tugging the bell cord. Cheery clanging echoes over squealing wheels. Every
bounce over rubble threatens to shiver it to pieces, but whether by momentum or the sheer
force of Cub’s will, the public transit vehicle holds together.

But that’s not what Hotguy finds so amazing, no. After all this time, Hotguy could believe
anything if Cub is involved.

It’s what’s spilling through the entrance Cub blasted.

Headlights. Roaring engines. Pounding feet. People. So many people.

“Who—what is this?” Cuteguy sputters beside him. “What are they all doing here?”

“Well, it was Forgery who called your publicist after he lost contact with you guys,” says the
Prince. “So Dr. Fan started calling in favors. Turns out, you can get a lot of people moving very
quickly with the words ‘Hotguy needs your help.’”

Motorbikes and trucks and people on foot pour into the cavern. The larger vehicles have flood
lights mounted to them, and the subterranean chamber brightens like the morning.

It’s not just vigilantes, he realizes. He sees more than one old foe in the mix—even some TCG
agents. The reinforcements spread out and engage the sculk minions, which belatedly turn
to face the new assailants.

Something flutters in Hotguy’s chest.

Hope, when hope was lost. Heroes are coming to save the day.

The rocket trolley, well ahead of the rest of the pack, careens over the foremost sculk minions
and, with a white-hot burst from its engines, vaults over the wall and bounces to a clattering halt.

Cub leans out the window of the smoking trolley, a full quiver slung over his shoulder.

360
“Fear not my friends, the cavalry has arrived!”

“Cub, you beautiful man!” Hotguy dashes to meet him. “I’ve never been so happy to
see someone!”

“Hey, man. How’s it going?”

“It’s been rough, pal. We were going to—I’m so happy to see you.”

“Sorry to hear that, but it’s good to see you as well.”

Cub passes him the full quiver. The arrows within clatter reassuringly.

“What’s the plan?” Hotguy says, exchanging arsenals.

“Plan?” says Cub. “There wasn’t really time for one of those.”

At Cub’s words, Hotguy’s ears recognize the disorganized din of battle. Cub hasn’t brought an
army, but a haphazard collection of individuals and small groups to face a unified, unrelenting
hivemind.

He looks up in time to see the four sickly spires of the Catalyst pulse in unison—another
depowerment wave. The more time passes, the weaker those who rely on their mutations will
become. And the enemy will only grow in number all the while.

They need direction, some firm ground to stand on. They need a leader. They need—

“Cuteguy!”

Hotguy turns. Cuteguy’s back at the wall of rubble with the Maple Prince, peering cautiously
over the edge.

“What is it?” Cuteguy says. “We have a problem—I don’t think we can risk that incendiary
anymore. There’s too many people and the ceiling is too low.”

“Too many people is a problem, indeed!” Hotguy strides to his partner’s side. “And you’re the
solution.”

“What are you—”

“They need a leader. I’m appointing you.”

Grian’s face is pale in the cerulean firelight.

“I don’t think—I can’t—”

“Of course you can! You’re Cuteguy! I’ve never met anyone better at bossing people around
than you.”

Cuteguy swallows. Then a smirk crosses his face and a gleam enters his eyes.

“Okay, fine. Before anything else, we have got to keep eyes on that sniper tower. That
smokescreen won’t stop Bleeding Hart forever. I need someone with good dark-vision and
a loud voice.”

361
The Maple Prince nods.

“I know someone here like that.”

“Really?” Hotguy asks.

“Yeah. You should know him, too.”

As Hotguy tries to process who the Prince is most likely talking about—him? Here?—Cuteguy
has already moved on.

“I’ll leave that job with you, then. Cub!”

“Yessir!”

“How did you all stay in contact?”

“I had a look at Tango’s communicator design. I’ll save the technical discussion for later, but
basically, we found a frequency that compliments the sculk resonance instead of trying to
fight through it.”

“What frequency is that?” Cuteguy asks, already waking up the device sewn into the wrist of
his glove.

“1-3-5.”

“Gotcha.”

With a cautious glance back at the tower, Cuteguy scales the ruined wall and surveys the
battlefield. He steadies himself, breathing in and out and looks back, down at Hotguy.

Scar smiles and gives Grian a double thumbs-up.

Cuteguy opens the channel. Chaos, overlapping shouts, unhinged laughter. Cub yanks on the
trolley’s horn, blasting a long, flat tone reverberating through the cavern. As the cacophony
recedes, Cuteguy begins to speak.

“Your attention please!” His voice is firm and efficient, like a skilled manager coordinating
a rush hour push. “Cuteguy speaking; welcome to the battle for Hermitopia. We are currently
facing an army of sculky monstrosities. Be advised they are quicker than they look and if you
see someone grappled, you must help them immediately. Weak point is eight inches above
center mass. Keep this line clear unless you need immediate assistance, I’ll make sure you get
help. Thank you for coming, you’re all wonderful, let’s save the goddamned day. Cuteguy out!”

The rumble of combat swells and bursts to a ferocious roar from Hermitopia’s defenders.
Hotguy throws his own voice into the mix. He’s still hoarse, sweaty, and exhausted— but he’s
starting to think he might just get to see tomorrow.

A clatter of metal—Hotguy turns to see Cub exit the trolley hefting a flamethrower—while the
Maple Prince takes a dirt bike from the rack up front.

“Wow, you came prepared.”

“I’m always prepared,” Cub replies. “Remember the FFF principle—Fire n’ Fungicide Fuck ‘em up!”

362
“You got it.” Hotguy draws the incendiary once more. He spins the dial at the arrowhead’s
base, narrowing its blast radius.

Ready.

Before jumping back in, he has just one last question for Cub.

“How did you all even get down here without going through that death maze?”

“I know a guy,” Cub replies. “And that guy has a tunnel bore.”

Boom!

Hotguy runs back to the wall, scaling it in a heartbeat to stand beside Cuteguy. Together, they
watch as a robotic green goat crashes into the cavern. It’s two stories tall, blasting heavy
metal—and it’s not alone. Through the opening crawls another mech—this one also green, but
oddly plantlike, crawling along on metal vines; its cockpit is in the shape of a bright yellow
flower. As Hotguy and Cuteguy whoop in unison, the goat mech parts its jaws and spews
a jet of righteous flame.

34 minutes until… The End!

The surgical saw in Cleo’s hand buzzes messily into the center mass of a sculk soldier. Its
heavy collapse almost drags them down with it, but with a curse and a shove she remains on
her feet. For now.

They cast a baleful eye towards the bone-yellow altar forty yards away. The eerie ambient
light of the ancient city lends an uncanny movement to the massive, pillar-like tendrils at
each of its four corners. Or is it only just a trick of the light?

A panicked shout interrupts their thoughts—she switches focus to a lanky person in lime
green, long hair flailing as they narrowly avoid the grasp of a sculk minion.

“Careful, Joe!” Cleo calls. “We both know you’re not exactly a fighter.”

“I am today, Cleo! I am for you.”

“That’s right!” the short, sturdy man at Joe’s side pipes up.

His oversized brown eyes are wide with anxiety, and his lip is somehow already split, but
Bdubs’s voice rings bold as a bell tower all the same. He stabs a burning torch—made
hastily from a table leg not two hours ago—towards the minion attempting to grapple Joe
Hills. It wards the construct back long enough for Cleo to arrive, the angry buzz of her
saw combining with the vegetable crunch of snapping sculkflesh for a truly unpleasant
soundscape. All the minions nearest to the trio have been dispatched, and not a moment
too soon.

An eldritch glow flickers up and down the giant fronds of the Catalyst. The wave of light
spreads down and out—minions flaring bright for a moment as the pulse passes through
them. Cleo braces. The ring passes over them like an invisible wave of pain.

363
Cleo’s body is a ship of Theseus—a mess of transplants and experiments and donated organs
made possible by her mutation of becoming a universal receptor. Their patchwork body is in
greater danger the longer she stays down here; mass organ rejection is a messy way to die.

A motor revs behind them. A man whose gleaming aqua hair matches his motorbike roars by,
elegant revolver in hand. His rainbow-striped leather jacket is somehow still pristine in this
place of mold and grime. He zooms past their little huddle with a cry of “Found them!” and
continues on.

“Hi, Scott!” Cleo shouts. “Bye, Scott!”

A second bike blows past them, but its rider turns sharply, his forest-green cloak billowing
behind him and his body almost parallel to the ground as he slides to a stop.

Cleo double checks that the nearest minions are already occupied with battling the formidable
trio of Iskallman, Mirrorblade, and Stress Monster before following Bdubs in his rush to greet
the rider.

“Keep a lookout, Joe.”

“Can do!”

The Maple Prince rights himself as Bdubs joins him.

“Eth—I mean, um.” Bdubs struggles for a moment. “Whadda you want, oh mysterious
masked man?”

“Hi, Etho,” Cleo says.

“Hey!” Bdubs yelps. “You just—!”

The Prince stills Bdubs’s alarm with a friendly knock against his shoulder—then his eyes
register Cleo’s presence and open wide.

“You’re here too, Cleo?”

“I am.”

“But you’re…”

“Fighting for my own life. My own future. No one kills me but me.”

The Prince nods.

“Can’t argue with that. No time to, anyways.” He swaps his attention to Bdubs. “Hey, is your
dark-vision still good?”

“I can see perfect, as always!”

Indeed, Bdubs’s wide, dark eyes gleam with animal intensity.

“Good. See that tower over there?”

“I see a column of smoke.”

364
“That’s the one. Cuteguy’s orders, we need you to…”

Cleo disengages from the relay of instructions. They rejoin Joe, who’s dual-wielding spray
bottles of fungicide and preparing to square off against a pair of minions that slipped by
False’s sword.

“With you, Joe!”

Joe Hills responds in verse:

“Onwards to battle,

we wardens of tomorrow—

never going back!”

28 minutes until… The End!

Cuteguy perches on a pile of ancient cobblestones.

“Red King!” he barks into his communicator. “The Surgeon and Joe Hills need support on your
seven, ASAP.”

“You got it dude!” A furry-eared driver in diamond shades swings his bus around so quickly
the wheels come off the ground. “Hand, ready the spore-slayer-sprayers!”

“Aye, milord!”

Cuteguy watches a moment longer to ensure the reinforcements are well on their way. One
of the figures inside catches his eye—a man in blue, looking worn but determined, clinging to
the back of the ex-king’s seat.

B’s here? He left his stronghold for this?

No time to wonder—there’s someone crying for help on his left. Everyone nearby is otherwise
occupied, so Cuteguy dashes off himself. There’s a tall, struggling figure half-swallowed by
a sculk soldier’s bulk. There are two people already there—Cuteguy recognizes the pink and
green of Guy and Gal. They’re both doing their best to pull the trapped person free, but they
won’t be quick enough; Cuteguy holsters his escrima sticks and draws a machete instead.

Three slashes—one to disable, one to kill, the last to free the victim within.

“Get it off me—it’s in my ears! There’s goop in my ears!”

Cuteguy stares up at the person he now recognizes.

“Timmy?” he asks, weak. “You—how are you—?”

The man in question spits out a bit of mold. Despite being obviously shaken, he still manages
to grin broadly.

365
“C’mon, man!” Jimmy says. “I’m big man Jim! You can’t get rid of me!”

“Yes, he can!” Guy shouts. “The weird Cata-whatever took your regeneration powers!”

“It did do that, yeah,” Jimmy admits. “But we’re gettin’ em back, alright?”

“That’s right!” Gal rummages through her skirt pockets and pulls out a scary number of
dynamite sticks. “We’re protecting Jimmy’s health, and, more importantly, my adorable cat
ears!”

“For the cat ears!” Guy shouts, brandishing his tree branch.

He joins Gal in a battle cry and the two of them sprint off to help a TCG fighter in a black
bandanna, who does not appear to need any assistance.

Jimmy makes to join them, but Cuteguy stops him first. There’s a faint scar at the center of
Jimmy’s forehead. Cuteguy stares at it.

“You know what this stuff can do,” Grian says. “You got this?”

“I do.”

“Go on, then!”

Grian shoves Jimmy forward and bolts. Offended squawks fading in the distance, Cuteguy
returns to his lookout perch and checks the status of the field.

Voidguy somehow got separated from the pack, so Cuteguy diverts the Guardian over to aid
him.

Next he checks on a bull-featured man whose “mask” is just a paper bag with holes for his
eyes and his horns. He’s with a petty thief called Big-Eyes, who doesn’t appear too fussed
about fighting shoulder to shoulder with the thinly-disguised V. Berger, head of the TCG.

They’re doing alright, so Cuteguy flicks his gaze over to the two mechs—which haven’t been
able to advance all that far since the battle was joined, swarmed as they are by sculk soldiers.
Neither pilot seems to be in immediate danger, though, so he moves his attention on.

Be careful, Mumbo.

A cluster of constructs lurch towards Stress Monster’s group, but the giant moth-woman and
her allies are dealing with a batch already. Cuteguy prepares to call for additional support—
but there’s somebody already on it.

An arrow strikes the ground in the center of the cluster and splits into dozens of flying pieces,
whirring back and forth until the minions have been cut to ribbons.

Scatter arrow!

Cuteguy follows the path of the shot with his eyes, back up to the roof of a ruined building.
Hotguy waves, then draws another shaft.

And maybe it’s strange to be overwhelmed by pride and affection in the midst of all this
chaos… but Grian is.

366
Okay, back to work.

Caught up on the state of the battlefield, Cuteguy faces a cold, simple truth.

We’re in trouble.

It’s a war of attrition against an inexhaustible army. Mathematically, all of them will fall, and
sooner rather than later. Once encircled by superior numbers, it’ll be game over—unless
something changes the field.

He stares at the Catalyst. Ominous, unearthly: a massive, square altar formed from a curdled,
yellowish substance. Skulk veins ooze from the well at its center and flow over the sides,
budding minion after minion as they hit the earth. Four curved pillars of deep cyan encircle
its pit, studded with enormous amethyst crystals and coated in grasping fingers of sculk. The
more he looks at it, the less confident he is that even the biggest explosion in Hotguy’s quiver
could have done more than slow it down.

Those towering, pulsating spires—as well as the altar beneath them—seem to belong to some
other world. A world whose people don’t build their structures from wood and stone, but
carve them from madness and flesh.

And that is what they have to destroy.

A crackle on his communicator—

“Birdie, I’ve spotted something!”

Cuteguy turns back to his partner. Despite the distance, they’re quick to lock eyes.

“What’ve you got for me?”

“There’s a whole mess of big, thick tubes feeding into the Catalyst! Don’t know what they do,
but they’ve gotta be important!”

He points, and Cuteguy follows the gesture. Yes—now that they’ve been pointed out to him,
he can clearly see a number of massive pipes, all covered in sculk, running across the city’s
grounds and converging at the Catalyst. They were so large, he’d mistaken them for ancient
streets buckled by time and earthquakes—but now he spies the tell-tale, subtle red sparkle of
an active redstone cable. He taps the back of his glove, opening comms once more.

It’s as good a place to start as any.

“Everyone, heads up!” Cuteguy addresses the open channel. “You’re all doing amazing, keep
up the good work! I just need anyone with the knowledge of how to quickly disrupt meter-
thick, steelclad redstone lines to please safely disengage and make yourself known to Hotguy
on the high ground to the west.”

Acknowledgements buzz back at him.

Good. That’s one iron in the fire. Let’s see if I can wrangle another.

21 minutes until… The End!

367
The pilot of the swamp-green, fire-breathing robo-goat raises an eyebrow at the man within
the cockpit of the plant-like mech beside him.

“Aren’t you the CEO of that weird website?” Doctor Monster says. “What are you doing here?
And in a… flower mecha?”

“I’m not quite sure myself, actually!” the mustachioed man responds, his tone of light bemusement
at odds with the chaos surrounding him. “I heard a lot of radio chatter about getting people
together to ‘save the city,’ and it seemed like a good chance to test my new walking machine!”

As he speaks, the metal tendrils surrounding him writhe with oddly organic fluidity, beating
away the sculk creatures attempting to crawl up the walking machine’s many rootlike legs.

Doc flips a switch and sends a cone of flame down upon the swarm of puny fungal minions
who dare approach the Great Goat Guardian.

“It’s an impressive device,” he calls back. “Your own design?”

“It is! I’m actually quite chuffed with it—”

“Excuse me! Could the two madmen in the giant robots please give me their attention?”

Doc scowls at the familiar voice coming through the mech’s speakers.

“Pesky bird, how dare you interrupt my theme music!”

“I can hear you Gr—I mean, ah, Cuteguy!”

“Wonderful. I need the both of you to direct your attention towards the four evil frondy pillars
in the center of this room. Please make your way there carefully and dismantle them however
you see fit. Do not, I repeat, do NOT trample your fellow combatants while doing so—Doctor
Monster, this means you.”

“Don’t insult me! Why would I crush my own forces, that would be wildly inefficient!”

The sovereign of the Perimeter continues his grumbling—but both pilots move to comply.

18 minutes until… The End!

Hotguy’s head is pounding. It’s been pounding non-stop for hours. Even so, he smiles and
shouts encouragement at the embattled ex-King, who perks up and rallies his own cohort. His
quiver of tricks is running light again, but that’s a problem for future Hotguy. Right now, he’s
gotta worry about the red-eyed inventor waving him down.

One grappling arrow later and Hotguy lands at Forgery’s side.

368
“Well, hello there!”

“I can cut them!” Forgery shouts.

“Good for you! Uh, cut what now?”

“The cables! I know how to get through their armor and everything underneath!”

Hotguy nocks and fires a boomerang arrow; it cleaves through two approaching minions
before returning to his gloved hand.

“Wonderful!” he says without missing a beat. “Please share.”

“I had this level about eighty, ninety percent done before I changed my wicked ways—the
Soupies tore up months of work for their big dumb thing of dumbness—”

“Can I get the abridged version?”

“They built the logic cables for their mushroomy-minionificator right across the path of my
favorite trap!” Forgery says, bouncing on his heels. “I had a look at the wiring earlier and the
lava wave should still work. I think. Probably!”

“I’ll tell you what, ‘probably’ sounds good enough for me!”

Hotguy pings Cuteguy on their private channel.

“It is probably our best bet,” Cuteguy says, “but it won’t be easy to wrangle this lot out of
the way…”

Cuteguy’s tone is sour, and Hotguy has to stifle a laugh—he always sounds so funny when
he’s annoyed.

“You can do it, c’mon now!”

“Eugh. Fine. Cuteguy, out.”

A heartbeat later, Cuteguy speaks in the general channel—giving clear and concise instructions
to organize a frothing storm of individuals towards a common goal. His voice throughout is as
firm and steady as the stone beneath Hotguy’s feet.

“He’s actually pretty good at this,” Forgery observes.

“Yeah,” Hotguy says. “He’s a natural. ‘Bout time people noticed.”

12 minutes until… The End!

Hart has been cursing under her breath for twenty minutes straight. Cyan smoke continues
to obscure her view outside the tower. It’s tempting, so tempting, to descend outside and
find her target, but she knows the mob will rush her the second she leaves cover.

369
She’s removed her gloves to search the walls by texture. Harsh, cracked stone scrapes her
skin raw—but finally, she hits rubber. Hart rips off the fake brick cover hiding the control panel,
but while the various switches and wires contained therein are technically labeled, the tiny,
faded pencil scribbles might as well be hieroglyphs for all the meaning they have to her.

With a shriek of frustration, she jams her combat knife into the panel, over and over. Sparks
fly, something smolders—and somewhere a valve twists shut. The smoke around the tower
begins to dissipate.

“Finally!”

Bleeding Hart returns to her vantage point, lifts her rifle and peers through the scope. Her
goggles fight through the gloom, the resolving haze; she seeks her target—

“Sniper!”

A magnificent bellow shakes the cavern. The combatants, barely in focus, all dive for cover.

“Sniper, sniper, sniper! Everybody down!”

Hart bites her lip, holds her grip steady.

She finds Hotguy.

Takes the shot—but before she’s even finished squeezing the trigger, a figure in silver plate
armor intercedes. No, not armor—a shining exoskeleton—but its wearer tanks the shot all the
same with only a stumble. Hotguy brings his bow up in response and Hart dives for cover as
the return fire sails overhead.

Crouched against the guard wall, ejecting a cartridge, she continues to curse. They’ll be
coming for her now. There’s shouting in her ears, pain in her fingers, a crack at the end of her
sights—and a pair of boots standing in the corner of her vision.

They belong to Scour. She’s still at her post, facing out towards the Catalyst, towards
Smoke Signal.

Has she… has she not moved at all?

Hart has no idea.

How did I lose sight of her this whole time?

“Scour!” Hart barks. “You with me?”

Scour remains. Fixed. Silent. Long, red cloak unmoving.

“Scour!”

Like the moon emerging from behind heavy clouds, Scour’s grinning mask turns towards
Bleeding Hart.

“Why are we doing this?” Scour says. Quavering. Small.

Hart rallies.

370
“I told you,” she says. “To protect—”

“That’s what he always said,” Scour snaps. “Why are you doing this?”

Hart opens her mouth to give the usual response… but the words won’t leave her throat. In her
ears roar the battle cries of dozens of people who, any other day, would be fighting against
each other. Scour is looking to her for answers, for something.

“I don’t know,” Hart admits. “I don’t—I just. I wanted, for once in my life, to kill for something
higher. An ideal that actually matters, a cause worth dying for. But whenever I look up… all
I see is you two.”

Scour nods, once. She lifts her hands. The mask with the blood-red grin clatters to the ground,
and a beautiful woman looks down at Bleeding Hart with clear eyes and a firm smile.

“I’m getting our Impy back,” she says. “Cover me.”

“What? Wait, Pearl!”

Bleeding Hart—Gem—moves too late to stop her friend from leaping over the tower wall, out
into the fray.

9 minutes until… The End!

Hotguy waits on his belly, but no second shot arrives. The booming voice of Bdubs sounds
all-clear. Rising to his feet, he offers a hand to the man in shining armor who took a bullet
meant for him.

“You alright there, Officer Knight?”

“Doing fine, thank you.”

Hotguy suspects that Knight accepts the offered hand out of politeness more than any real
need, but the bullet lodged in the “pauldron” of his exoskeleton draws worried looks from
them both.

“It actually pierced a bit,” Knight says in the tone of someone who’s just noticed a stain on
their shirt. “My armor’s getting weaker the longer I stay down here.”

“Yeah, that’s not good.” Hotguy flicks his gaze around the cavern, headache a dull thud.
Clunk. His vision is like a camera with a stuck shutter, struggling to find its focus. Clunk.
Clunk. Clunk.

The two mechs have made it only about halfway to the writhing, star-speckled columns of
the Catalyst. The majority of the sculk soldiers are rushing their mechanical limbs, swarming
upwards. It’s taking everything their pilots can do just to keep from being swamped.

The communicator crackles to life. Cuteguy calls for the status of the lava wave—Forgery
claims it’s nearly ready, almost, he thinks. Hotguy prepares to rejoin the fray, to help the King
and his court clear the way for the Goat—

371
A flash of scarlet. Hotguy sees Scour in her red cloak sprinting across the burning dark as if
she rules it. On instinct he raises his bow, tracks her, leads the shot…

She isn’t wearing her mask.

“Pearl…”

Hotguy adjusts his aim. Targets one of the sculk minions crowding the two mechs.

Right. Gotta clear the path.

7 minutes until… The End!

Impulse had always imagined the sculk as quiet. Silent growth, steady decay. Now, sunk up
to his chest in the heart of the Catalyst, he knows otherwise. The sculk… it sings to him.
A thousand arias, one voice. It sings of everything it encounters—be they stone or bone
or still-living flesh—and it calls for them to be remembered. Consumed, mourned, archived.
Impulse will be remembered, too. Soon his voice will join the voice—dissolved and inseparable.
The man lost, the Ideal immortal. Undying, like the citizens of a city lost a thousand years ago.
The city remembers, the sculk remembers, Impulse remembers… he looks back…

The beginning. How it began. What brought me here… what was it, again?

The appearance of rogues, of villains. The TCG creating problems quicker than they could be
solved. Grim newspaper headlines, despairing social media posts.

No… all that fueled the fire… but what was the spark, again?

The dense mat of mycelium creeps higher. It’s about up to his shoulders. Not long left.
Perhaps it’s only natural, as his existence as a man draws to a close, that Impulse finds himself
remembering a friend.

A better friend than I ever deserved.

Big man, bigger heart. The type of guy who withers like an orchard without rain if he can’t
show his friends he loves them. A bear hug, a slap on the back, a playful punch.

That man, suddenly burdened with an ungovernable strength.

Yes…

Impulse remembers it. The first time he saw Skizz reach out to pet one of his beloved dogs,
only to hesitate and drop his hands… that was the moment he first wondered if the world
would be better off without mutations.

Soon… soon we’ll go back… to that happy yesterday…

Deeper… sinking… reaching for the past, obliterating tomorrow… letting it all become lost to
the sculk…

372
Someone calls him by name.

“Impulse! Impulse, I’m here!”

The words reach him dimly, like candlelight fighting through fog.

“Please, look at me!”

Pearl? Is that Pearl’s voice?

“I can’t—I’m getting you out of here, don’t worry!”

Getting me out? But that—no! If I don’t—if I stop… if I change course now… what was it all for?

“I can’t reach you, Impulse! You have to help me—c’mon, take my hand!”

All the damage I’ve done… why did I do it?

“Impy, please!”

At the pain in her voice, Impulse finally opens his eyes. Her tear-streaked face pierces the fog
in his mind the way sunlight scatters the morning mist.

Oh. That’s right.

He remembers now.

I don’t like to see my friends sad.

Pearl screams again for him to reach, and Impulse… does. In spite of everything, he does. His
hands are slick with sculk and sweat, but Pearl’s grip is true.

She leans, struggling backwards, growling her exertion. She’s on her stomach, long arms fully
extended, fighting the downward pull of the Catalyst with only her raw, human strength.
Impulse has nothing firm to stand on, no leverage to help her. Even so, Pearl hauls him an inch
towards the edge—and the calibration pit starts to simmer.

The surface of the cyan-and-black, star-speckled ooze crackles and pops, its dense carpet
of mycelium hairs twitching like frantic spider legs. The sculk, sensing a threat, moves to
protect its calibrating host. Movement catches Impulse’s eye. He struggles to find his voice,
speaks in a hoarse croak.

“Behind you!”

Pearl looks over her shoulder at the sculk soldier barreling towards her. Her hands tighten
around Impulse’s wrist. She braces.

A whine like a flying insect. The minion’s central control node bursts, pierced from its chest.
Its body slops onto the cartilaginous bricks.

Pearl grins.

“Gem!”

373
“… Gem?”

Impulse thinks he might be crying.

“I’ve got you, Impy. We’ve got you. We’re not gonna lose you.”

The organic snap of shifting sculk fills his ears. A dense web of ocean-black threads flows up
his arm and over Pearl’s hands. She only grimaces and grips him tighter. Impulse can feel the
hivemold, stronger than ever, pulling him downwards. Only the trembling exertion in Pearl’s
shoulders holds his head above the surface now. The veins spread to her neck. They encroach
on her face. She slides an inch forward as the sculk attempts once more to envelop its host.

“Pearl…”

“Don’t say let go, Impulse. Don’t you dare tell me to let go!”

Impulse holds his tongue, but he knows it’s hopeless. She doesn’t have the strength to free
him; the only one who might is—

“I’m comin’ buddy!”

Pounding footsteps ascend the altar steps. Wild, incoherent, familiar bellowing reaches
Impulse’s ears. A man with ripped sleeves and shoulders as wide as a truck thunders into
view. Yelling like a madman, diving like an outfielder for the game-winning ball, he bellyflops
beside Pearl with both arms reaching out.

“Skizzly?” Pearl gasps.

“Hey, Pearlie Pop!”

Skizz’s massive hands join her grip on Impulse’s wrist. Impulse turns his face away.

“Hey, buddy.”

Impulse forces himself to look up, to meet Skizz’s eyes. It hurts. The blistering light of
forgiveness—he can barely stand it.

“Skizz…”

“I’m here, Dipple Dop! I’ve got you.”

The strength of one friend, together with the grit of another, keeps Impulse tethered to solid ground.

Thunderous footsteps and a shredding guitar solo signal the arrival of the Great Goat
Guardian of the Independent Perimeter, along with a certain genius’s prototype walking
machine. Impulse looks up and is almost blinded by a spurt of light from the machine’s jaws.
One of the towering, organic antennae writhes as it’s coated in flame. Green metal vines wrap
around its burning height and pull, and Impulse—Impulse screams.

“We gotta get ‘em outta there, Pearlie!”

Impulse perceives the next events through a series of disjointed images: Skizz, turning red
from the strain. The two mechs, struggling to topple a pillar. Pearl’s neck, her jaw, her mouth,
all covered in inky veins.

374
A winged man wearing the colors of dawn, shouting Now, do it now! A wave of searing orange
racing along the ground; red sparks flying from the great tuning cables as lava cleaves them
in twain.

The curdled white surface of the Catalyst’s edge as he’s finally hauled free of the calibration
pool. Flaming spires, falling.

Then Impulse sees nothing but darkness.

He hears nothing but a crowd roaring victory.

He knows nothing but the people who are holding him close.

The smoke has fully cleared from around the tower, not that it matters anymore. When the
cables were cut, the sculk soldiers lost their cohesion and collapsed in on themselves, leaving
nothing but mildewy puddles. Gem, forgotten by the victors for now, dangles her feet over
the edge and listens to the sounds of celebration.

“Look at me False, Iskall! I’m myself again!”

She watches from afar as the eight-foot, moth-like woman excitedly shows her friends the
pink fuzz regrowing on her arms.

Gem stands up.

She pulls the goggles from her eyes.

When pain is a constant—when it fades into the background as an unceasing, yet mundane
agony—the moment it finally stops becomes euphoria. The destruction of the Catalyst
evaporates Hotguy’s piercing migraine like it never was. Vision back in HD, he scans the
ancient city, absorbing the state of things in rapid-fire snapshots.

Snap—the Guardian’s helping Big-Eyes out from under a piece of debris.

Snap—a blue, jelly-like TCG agent is passing out celebratory snack packs.

Snap—Dr. Zedaph emerges from a hole in the ground and merrily waves a clipboard at
a sputtering Forgery.

Snap—a white-haired fellow with a beard like summer clouds lays his bludgeon down and fills
the air with laughter.

Snap—Bleeding Hart’s rifle sits abandoned on the tower wall.

Snap—The Surgeon collapses into their companions’ embrace, giggling her relief.

375
Snap—Smoke Signal lies dazed between Wiseguy and Scour.

No… not Scour right now, Hotguy corrects himself. The mask’s off. It’s just Pearl.

Scar knows a reckoning is coming for Pearl and her friends. Not from him though, and not right
now. He turns his back to the Catalyst, trusting that she won’t be there the next time he looks.

Raucous, crowing laughter fills his ears—Hotguy looks up. Cuteguy, perched atop a tilted
column, spreads his wings wide and screams in pain and triumph.

“You good there, Birdie?”

Cuteguy looks down and matches Hotguy’s grin.

“My wings hurt, but I can feel them again!”

“Amazing! And I can see again!”

“It is amazing!”

Cuteguy slides down the column, a little shaky from exhaustion mixed with elation. He reaches
out a hand, and even though they’re both in costume, surrounded by allies and enemies, when
the two of them embrace—shouting, stumbling—in that moment, it’s just Grian and Scar.

It’s a good moment. Scar wants it to last.

But of course…

“Excuse me? Somebody?”

Hotguy recognizes the anxious voice belonging to the boss of the city’s most feared
information network—and Grian’s landlord. The Secret Keeper stumbles out from the back of
a wrecked white bus. Hotguy feels his partner tense.

“B? You alright?”

The man in blue has his hands over his ears and pain on his face. The people around him take
notice. The din of celebration peters out.

“Can’t you hear them?” Big B says through gritted teeth. “They won’t… stop… screaming!”

“Hotguy!”

Snap—Hotguy locates Cub, also not far away, bent double in pain.

“Cub, what’s wrong?”

“Ssssculk!” Cub groans. “Resonating! Something’s coming!”

45 seconds until… The End!

The drifts of formless sculk coating the rubble-strewn battleground begin to pulse and
crackle. Before Hotguy’s eyes, the remains of the sculk soldiers assemble into veins snaking

376
along the floor like black rivers towards one goal—the Catalyst. Cuteguy calls for fire. A dozen
people answer—but it’s far too little, already too late.

The calibration pit boils over. A slow, pounding rhythm rattles Hotguy’s teeth. From the
ancient darkness within the Catalyst rises…

A beast. A midnight giant, horned and eyeless, its shoulders level with the pair of mechs
flanking it; its cyan heart the size of a car, beating visibly in its hollow chest.

The Goat and the Buttercup scramble; one spewing fire and the other whipping metal vines
around the behemoth’s neck. The beast struggles, raises its massive, club-like arms—

CRUNCH.

One moment, three giants stand locked in combat. The next, the ancient city’s monstrosity
towers over its challengers, crushed like soda cans beside it.

“Mumbo!”

Cuteguy’s shout goes unanswered. For the rest, it’s pandemonium. Panic, shouting, scrambling,
cries of what the hell is that? Hotguy readies his bow, knowing he’s out of flame arrows,
uncertain if that even matters.

“Hotguy!” Cub’s voice reaches him over the din.

“Cub?”

“It’s a host of the sculk Hotguy! Do you still have it?”

Like a thunderclap, the memory bursts—

“—In case you need it.”

Hotguy reaches under his collar and pulls out the thin leather cord around his neck. Dangling
from it like a pendant is the unique arrowhead Cub gave him so long ago—the one containing
a single-target injection of concentrated sculkicide. He snaps it from its sheath and onto a trick
arrow shaft. Beside him, Cuteguy readies his escrima seemingly by instinct, but his eyes are on
Hotguy as he raises his bow, eyes flaring wide as he recognizes the orange arrowhead.

Right before Hotguy can line up the shot, however, the monstrosity shrieks.

From the cavern around the giant’s heart crashes a wave of darkness. It drowns the city’s aqua
flames and lights from the surface-world alike. Hotguy’s eyes sting; his breath turns to coughing.
This isn’t true shadow, the absence of light… but a thick, choking cloud of black spores.

27 seconds until… The End!

Hotguy hears the people around him gasping and calling for each other. His eyes snap shut
against the dense, swirling particulate, but he forces them back open. It might as well be pitch
black. He strains his eyes to see something, anything in the thick, mildew-scented darkness.
The sculkicide arrow is heavy in his hands—it bears the weight of all the lives around him.

“Scar! Take the shot!”

377
At Cuteguy’s strangled shout, Hotguy nocks the arrow and aims towards where he remembers
the nightmare creature being. His hands tremble. His head pounds. He can’t see. And he has
only one shot.

“Grian, I can’t—”

“Of course you can, you idiot! You’re Hotguy!”

Oh boy, Scar thinks. Then, aloud—

“Damn right I am!”

He focuses his vision, more than he ever has before, as if maybe he could force himself to
see through the tiny gaps between the spores. The camera lens of his left eye stutters. His
head pounds.

The scar at the nape of his neck starts to burn.

C’mon… c’mon!

14 seconds until… The End!

The swirling sculk, the pounding heartbeat…

Scar breathes it in. He aligns its rhythm to his own.

Flash—for a moment, he perceives. Through the sculk, with the sculk; he sees the bow in his
hands. He sees Grian’s face at his side.

Flash—he sees friends and enemies, allies and acquaintances, strangers and the people he
loves. He sees Hermitopia, fighting for tomorrow—but not the goliath threatening them all.

Flash—he sees further this time, over the battlefield ruin, but not far enough. Something
breaks behind his eye. Something bleeds.

6 seconds until… The End!

Scar makes a decision.

Straining, tearing, pulling power from the blood of the bug still in his veins, and the faith of the
world’s greatest sidekick, Hotguy draws his bow.

Flash—

Rip—

The arrow flies.

A lens shatters.

Hotguy doesn’t see the injection hit the creature’s heart. His partner’s screech of victory tells
him all he needs to know.

Time’s Up!

378
As the dust settles and the spores clear away; as those nearest extract the pilots from their
mechs, rattled but unharmed; as the tentative murmurs expand into cheers—Cuteguy finally,
finally lets himself relax. Allows himself to feel satisfied—even proud.

He turns to Hotguy.

“You did it!” he cries… but further congratulations die on his lips.

Scar’s got his visor off. He’s clutching his left eye. Noticing Cuteguy, he lifts his face and
lowers his hand. It comes away bloody.

“Scar!”

Grian removes his own visor, as if that will change what he’s seeing, as if that will somehow
return the light to a sculk-blinded eye. Scar only smiles back at him, soft and knowing.

“No need to thank… heh.”

“Scar…” Grian’s face breaks. “Oh, Scar.”

“It’s alright, Grian. It’s alright.”

“Scar, no…”

With his one good eye, Hotguy looks at the people around them. He settles back on Grian.

Scar grins.

“Don’t you worry, Birdie. I can still see everything I need.”

The End!

379
Wormtime
 janessa.leonard • 3 days Droid (writer)
Hermitopia Antimony_Medusa (editor)

Crow

Liked by   and 110 others

janessa.leonad Leah and Jamie spent this Halloween fighting crime as Hotguy and
Cuteguy! Heroes have been a favorite for the kiddos this year, including a joint Hotguy-
themed birthday party with real autographed teddies. We’re so glad the streets are safe
enough this Halloween for kids to go out trick-or-treating like before!

Mirabella @goodtimeswithart • 2 days ago

@HotguyOfficial In honor of Hotguy’s retirement, I’ve compiled some clips of

his and Cuteguy’s best moments. Was going to call this a cringe compilation,
but aside from a few bloopers I think it mostly shows just how badass these
guys have been: https://www.youtube.com…

60 58 903

382
Regen Health @regenhealth • 4 days ago
A HUGE thank you to @HotGuyOfficial for his generous donation to the
Regen Health children’s ward! Our patients work hard to improve their health
and a budget for entertainment really brightens their stays.

29 26 1.7k

Jamal Ahmad @jamalaspeaks • 1 week ago

Thank you to the anonymous donor who got me to my GoFundMe goal.
I never expected this level of support and it’s blown me away. @HotguyOfficial
and Cuteguy saved my life and now it just keeps going. Shit.

15 21 343

marguerite @margueregret • 12h ago

Hotguy dragged me out of a burning building during a villain fight and went
back in for my eighteen-year-old cat. I had her two more years after that. If
that’s not concrete, I don’t know what is, dude.

Leggo my eggolas @eggolas • 1 day ago

Can anyone in Hermitopia name something good a vigilante

has done for them personally? Having a hard time wrapping
my head around how that stuff works, I feel like I’d be so
uncomfortable having dudes dressed in costumes running
around doing whatever.

6 2 561

Hermit Herald @hermitherald • 3 days ago

HOTGUY INTERVIEW
READ MORE → https://www.hermitherald.com…

Thello
hermitherald.com
Pearl Moon interviews famous vigilante Hotguy about his decade-long
career and retirement.

52 48 2.1k

383
File: lottiesad.png (105 KB, 297x245)
Anonymous 1 year ago No. 20110323
>be me
>16 y/o
>just moved to Hermitopia
>don’t even have a power but get obsessed with superheroes
>curious about hotguy controversy
>start wearing hotguy merch because they’re giving it away free
>fast forward a few years
>Sculk Pulse Thing
>get trapped with friends in subway
>rescued but favorite shirt ruined
>limited edition merch and no one can replace it
>in the hospital complaining about this and hotguy is there visiting childrens ward
>mfw a new shirt gets mailed to me
>mfw i still don’t know how he got my address

heroicbrine reblogged rosietheribbeter

35 min ago

hermitopia-explained
4d ago

In honor of Hotguy’s retirement announcement,

what’s your favorite Hermitopia-specific meme?
The Chemical Mutating People Is Just Estrogen (Becoming A Girl
11%
Just Does That To You)

Doctor Monster’s Rent-Lowering Megalasers 21%

Do You Love The Color Of The Guy 5%

The HeroCon Debacle, Featuring Wanted Villain Joe Hills 32%

Superpowered, My Favorite Gender 4%

Cuteguy vs Escaped Cattle Liveblog 13%

Zeddit Guy Who Never Sleeps 4%

Other/I’m Wanted By The TCG/Just Want Results 10%

4821 votes • Time left: 4 days 5 hours

#hermitopia #poll

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 heroicbrine
1h ago

Wormtime TibbyCaps Gingermaple

isjasz Choco Charlie

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#hermitopia #aesthetic #moodboard #tag yourself

2137 notes

heroicbrine
7d ago

mutuals will remember hearing about this as it happened, but since we’re coming up
on the 10-year anniversary of Hotguy’s appearance on the heroism scene, and since
most of my mutuals at the time are now either free of this website (good for them)
(couldn’t be me) or like, married, I figure I have enough new followers that they wouldn’t
have heard about this firsthand.

so, in honor of Hotguy’s retirement announcement, a story:

several years ago, i found myself in a really bad place. before the Hills v. Sahara decision
made powered individuals a protected class, it was hard for me to keep a job with my
powers the way they were. i needed accommodations to minimize physical contact
with others. i worked a lot of remote jobs and a lot of jobs where I wouldn’t be near
people, but the job market wasn’t good, and I ended up being fired for being a liability
to the company I worked for as a receptionist. on top of that, i’d just gotten my license
suspended for a ticket i couldn’t afford to pay, and i was facing down further fines for

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the kind of shit that catches up to you when you barely have money to pay rent and
can’t dig yourself out of the hole you’ve ended up in.

so i’d just been fired, and my roommate situation meant i couldn’t go back to our
apartment for a few more hours, and i was just sitting on the steps of Hermitopia
Public Library, because it was closed for a national holiday. i wasn’t crying or anything,
but i guess i must’ve looked pretty bad, because Hotguy came and sat beside me.

this was just six months after Hotguygate, if you’ll believe it. people were leery about
him still. i’d been a fan, but i’d sworn off him after that point, and i hadn’t thought
i’d ever really meet him up close. at that point i didn’t give a shit about anything but
feeling justifiably bad about my situation, though, so i didn’t cuss him out, even though
i’d told myself i would if i ever had the chance.

i remember thinking he looked kind of scraped up, to the point where i asked if he was
okay. he told me he was fine and asked if i’d had a bad day, and when i said i had, he
asked if i wanted to talk about it.

it’s been a while, and i’ve lost the original post, so i don’t have a good transcription
of the conversation. i know i told him some stuff about what had happened, and why
i’d lost my job (my power was pretty obvious. i was wearing long layers and a hat and
plastic gloves in high summer, and i kept a warning tag on my backpack), and he just
listened to me while i ranted.

at some point I lost my mind and told him i’d burnt all the Hotguy kids’ meal toys i’d
collected in effigy, because i’d been so mad about the stuff he did, and he told me (this
i remember clearly) that he’d used to use them as target practice, so he understood
completely. he said he used to sneak the weirdest ones into cuteguy’s backpack to
mess with him. I think that was the first time in a while that something made me laugh.
he must’ve sat with me for at least an hour before he left, but he gave me a number for
a hotline for people with superpower troubles first.

anyway

when i got home that day, i found out he’d been in a huge fight just that morning, which
he must have been coming right off when he sat down with me. he’d been hit pretty hard
in it, which in retrospect explained a lot, because he’d seemed like he wanted the chance
to sit and rest a while, and the number he gave me ended up being for a pizza place.

it helped, though, so: Hotguy, i know you’re never gonna see this, but thank you. i’m glad
i met you that day. i’m glad you recovered from all the shit that went down before we
knew why we’d all gotten powers, and that you got to retire on your own terms.

i’m not mad you messed up the hotline number, either. the pizza from that place was
freaking amazing.

#hotguy #hermitopia #personal

334 notes

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Julia
Connor Nopedog (art, writing)
Antimony Medusa (editing)
Hoffen
Elle
 isjasz

The End!
thanks for re
ading!
 Credits Organ
izers

TJ Eirian
E A definitelynotshouting ED kunehokki
A definitelynotaroughdraft

Julia Crow
EDCB cocoabats ED corvidaeArts

i b u to rs
Contr

Alice Anneliis Antimony

(not alice) ED anneliis18 _medusa
E alicenotalice E antimony-medusa
A antimony_medusa

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 Berry Briefle CaloCreek
ED berrysquared E briefle E calocreek
A in_the_forest

Charlie Chrisrin Choco

E fudgecake-charlie E B chrisrin E Bad12amcomic
D chrisriin

Concidine Connor Corn

Art Nopedog Papers
E concidineart E cosmic-nopedog ED Cornpapers
D Nopedog_

Dux Doody Elle

E masque-of-plague ED kitsuneisi E periwinklemoonlight
A MasqueofPlague D periwinkelles

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 Emrys Fishbloc ginger
E emryste ED fishbloc maple
C emrystee E gingermaple

Googly Hoffen Inga

E googly88fancy E ink-ghoul potejto
D Google88F D _InkGhoul E IngaPotejtoo
D C IngaPotejto

isjasz Jonny Kaya

E isjasz Sixteenthdays EA kayawolfhorse
D isjaszzz ED sixteenth-days
A sixteenthdays

Kazehita Kkoct-ik Luna

E C Kazehita E kkoct-ik ECA lunarblazes
D Kazehita_

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Marmarmiya Maruu Mochi
EDB marmarmiya ED xmaruu11 Writes
EA mochiwrites

Odaigahara Onawhimsicot Otse

A droidofmay EA onawhimsicot E otselotus
D hahaotsegoesbr

Rainy Res Second

EA rainyinautumn EA RedisentHesitant E theminecraftbee
A bee_4

Sisyphean Sun Szad

E sisyphean-writes E coppersunflower E goodtimeswithgrian
A Sisyphean Anon D green_mess_ E cebulik

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 Telk Terra Thello
E good-chimes Glows EA sillyfairygarden
D Terraglows D sillyfairygardn

TibbyCaps Topsy Traffrogers

E tibby-art ED mumblesplash E traffrogers
D tibbycaps_ C archiillustrates
B Tibby Caps

Vanyel Vesperion Violet-

E Boonbeenblade Nox Fire-cat
A Vanyel EDCB VesperionNox E violet-fire-cat

WormTime Zephaniah Zera Zip Zap

E wormtime123 Grains E A hopepetal D zipzapzooooooom
A sixteenthdays D hopepetal_ A zipzapzoooooom
(cowriter) zipzapzoom

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 With additional help from:
Addie D bitofhoney
Brandyy0Moss E C Brandyy0Moss
Dew E d3wlux
Jos isjasz’s Brother
Sparks E C emberglowfox

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Berry