Work Text:
To Be Hero X
“We just have to keep putting all of our trust into her ability to recover… It’s all up to her now, I’m afraid.”
With a slight bow of the head towards Zhang Lan, the doctor turned and exited the room, the sound of the door shutting quietly in his wake enough to snap the fragile silence that was holding back the agonizing realization:
Nuonuo may never be able to wake up again.
After weeks of treatment, it seemed like a slow recovery built purely upon hope was all that was possible. The most advanced treatments seemed ineffective to treat… whatever had afflicted her on that fateful night.
…And her Father?
Disappeared… Good, Lan thought bitterly, her eyes narrowed and sunken in from a lack of sleep.
The flowers that Wang Yi, AKA Ghostblade , had brought shortly after the mission he had led that ended up with Nuonuo in this state were wilting at this point from a lack of care. Lan felt that was fitting, anyways– Nuonuo didn’t need any secondhand pity from a Father who would lead her into a situation like this.
Looking towards the bedside table, Zhang Lan hesitantly grabbed Nuonuo’s phone that lie there, gazing at the background image that appeared.
The unfamiliar girl in pink stood close to her daughter, both of them with genuine smiles bigger than she had ever seen from Nuonuo. She didn’t know who this girl was, but she clearly meant a lot to her..
No, that wasn’t fully true, Zhang Lan had seen this girl in recent news headlines, shooting up the Hero ranking after the incident had occurred.
Another useless Hero…
She darkened the phone, her own face reflected in the darkness of the screen.
“If you care, you’d be here right now,” she whispered, the double meaning of her words taking root as she sighed and lowered her head into her hands.
…But the words didn’t go unnoticed, as a small, pink robotic bug scuttled along the wall, a camera placed in its back focusing and looking from Zhang Lan to Nuonuo.
Bigger. Stronger. Faster –
These were the aspects of her tech that Loli was striving to perfect after several hellish weeks of effort, and the exhaustion on her face spelled out just how much effort the rising star of a Hero was exuding to try and make things right again.
No.. Things would never be right again. Not while Da Xiong and her Father were still dead–
Not while he was still out there.
A spark sent Loli’s hand backwards as a jolt zapped her, narrowing her eyes at a particularly tricky wiring job that was being difficult. She scowled and went at it again, only to get the same result. Frustrated, the pink-haired girl turned and tossed her tool across the room to clatter loudly along the ground, before taking out another, as if that simple replacement might fix everything.
Fixing everything wasn’t possible, no matter what Loli did, but she knew that she had to try.
There was only so much pain and suffering that she could take between her Mother and Da Xiong’s own family grieving.
This was where Loli could grieve– by preparing her counterattack.
“Ah…!” Her eyes widened as she slammed the metal panel closed and hopped down from her creation, taking a few steps back to marvel at it, a smirk managing to crawl onto her lips. “That’s it…! I think it’s finally ready!”
Wiping sweat from her brow, Loli removed her hat and took a breath, the tall, pink robot before her reflecting in her eyes, a small glimmer of hope towards her plan succeeding.
“I just need a moment now… I know I can get it,” she said to herself, turning to grab a towel and wipe her hands off before picking up her phone. She scrolled for a few moments before gazing at a particular headline she’d saved from the other day, one that filled her with a cold feeling of inevitability.
“Rising superstar Hero, Nice, and his dazzling lover, Moon–
Is their relationship perfection itself?!”
(Author’s Note: Reminder, this is not supposed to be the event where LL-Nice fights his old boss, this is still like 2 years before Lin Ling's story)
It was a stupid article that Loli might’ve scrolled past if it was about anybody else… But it confirmed that the person she needed to confront was going to be in a particular place at a particular time tomorrow, and that’s all she needed.
I’ll make sure I get to the bottom of it all, Loli thought, her hand tightening on her phone and shaking slightly, feeling a rage starting to simmer in her very soul. That lying.. Asshole…!
She turned and was about to throw her phone at the wall, wanting an outlet for her immediate anger, but a chirping noise made her stumble and stop. Looking at her phone, her eyes widened as she swiped her thumb and saw a camera feed pop up.
It was Nuonuo’s room. It seemed like Zhang Lan, Nuonuo’s Mother, had left the room.
Swiping more, several more feeds appeared in the hallway and beyond in the hospital, and Loli confirmed that the woman had truly left for the first time in days.
“Everything’s looking up…”
Loli put her phone in her pocket, looking back towards her creation again, standing tall, sleek and powerful, before heading out of the lab–
Feeling the weight of the dead pressing down on her with every step.
Paint it Pink
The hospital was relatively quiet as nighttime was gradually creeping up on them, but Loli wasn’t really interested in making a fuss with her arrival.
A light breeze rolled in through the now open window as the pink-haired girl silently entered, looking around the small darkened room. Despite having had her eyes glued to the footage of her drone, there was a sense of unease that had plagued Loli since the ruins incident that she could never quite shake.
Walking to Nuonuo’s bedside, she hesitated only briefly before reaching to take her hand in both of hers. It was warm. She wasn’t exactly sure what she had expected, because it wasn’t like Nuonuo was…
Dead.
Loli fell back into the chair beside the bed and huffed, running a thumb along Nuonuo’s hand as she gazed at nothing in particular, hazy memories dredging up in her mind.
Even in the final moments leading up to his death, her Father had given her advice in her fight, and then, at the end of it all, he had protected Nuonuo.
Da Xiong, however… He’d never been given a chance to do anything.
The thought of the multiplying bastard in the black hat was enough to spark anger in Loli, as she snapped back to reality and realized she was clutching Nuonuo’s hand way too tightly.
Letting go, her eyes widened and she examined the comatosed girl’s hand. After ensuring she was okay, Loli sighed and silently thanked the fact that her rising Trust value had hardly any effect on her due to the Trust-proof tech she used day to day.
All of that crap was completely wrong, she thought, clenching her fists. Nice… He was there to kill everyone, I just know it! And he just must’ve been with that guy too…
Headlines of the Treeman company praising their star hero for his brave actions had plagued Loli’s feeds over the past few weeks. Everything was covered up expertly by the top Hero companies and the Hero Commission as a whole it seemed. Despite her bringing her concerns to the head of her new bosses at FOMO… Nothing was going to ever be done about anything.
I’m just another headliner, a cute girl with a cute suit…
With a sigh, Loli leaned closer to the unconscious Nuonuo, the subtle beep of the heart monitor nearby sounding steady but slow. She hesitantly caressed the girl’s face, before turning to head back towards the window she’d entered from, wondering if this was the last night she’d even be alive.
“I’m sorry,” she spoke softly, even knowing Nuonuo wouldn’t be able to hear her.
BEEP.
“I’m going to… I’m going to kill him.”
BEEP.
“Because I don’t know what else to do anymore. Everyone’s… gone…”
BEEP.. BEEP.
“I can’t be the cute hero anymore… I know you'll get better, you have to.. But.. I.. can't..."
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
Loli turned away and took a step towards the window, but suddenly felt a hand grasp her wrist weakly. She stopped and turned, jumping a bit at the sudden contact, her eyes filled with fury before she saw, as she should have logically realized… It was Nuonuo, her head turned slightly to her, one eye half lidded, the other open and gazing at her with a lack of focus within it.
“Lo… li…”
The heart monitor continued its faster rhythm. Loli felt torn between the resolve she was ready to commit to– the wrath she was ready to unleash upon Nice, and the sight of her one anchor left in this world staring at her.
“P… Please… I… need… the c-cute… hero…”
Nuonuo’s voice was raspy and weak, and her breathing was labored, as if every attempt to speak was painful.
Loli’s cool facade nearly cracked. She turned her head away, unable to bear the look of someone she’d failed to protect looking up at her.
“That’s… impossible,” she muttered. "That part of me is dead. Or it deserves to be, at least.
After a moment, Nuonuo’s hand slipped away. Loli turned to her fearfully, only to watch as the girl, on shaky arms, started to try and sit up.
“H-Hey, don’t be stupid!”
At once, all of her inhibitions left as Loli moved forward, putting an arm around Nuonuo and bracing her, watching with eyes threatening to spill with tears as the girl struggled but eventually sat up, her breathing labored, looking towards Loli with the smallest hint of a smile on her face.
“You’re… the stupid one,” Nuonuo retorted quietly.
Hearing something so normal come from the girl whose head was bandaged, body pale, cheeks sunken in from weariness... It made Loli's throat tighten as sorrow erupted within her.
All at once, Loli broke, tears flowing in globs of sorrow as she threw her arms around Nuonuo, burying her face into her arm. As she sobbed, Nuonuo winced at the contact, still feeling frail, and tried to lift a hand to comfort her, but watched it shake with weakness and instead settled for leaning her own head onto Loli’s.
They stayed close like this for a few minutes before Loli finally began to calm a bit, pulling her face back and wiping at her eyes as she stared at Nuonuo and then looked towards the door incredulously.
“Where’s the staff at? Shouldn’t they be alerted that you’re awake?”
Loli turned towards the machinery nearby, giving it a quick look-over. She wasn’t exactly a medical expert, but nothing seemed out of place or missing.
“Probably… my Mom,” Nuonuo croaked weakly, with the softest sigh as she leaned back against the headboard, Loli quickly moving to prop up the girl’s pillow for her. Nuonuo smiled and continued, “I bet.. She wants to be.. the first alerted.. So that.. Someone else.. Wouldn’t know.”
It seemed like Nuonuo wanted to say more, but she abstained, so Loli didn’t press it. She took a seat and pulled the seat closer to the bed, grasping one of Nuonuo’s hands.
“Well, now that you’re awake, should I grab you some sweets? Or maybe your favorite drink?.. Not alcohol! You know what I mean!”
Nuonuo chuckled softly at Loli’s enthusiasm and shook her head. “...I’m fine for now, I’m.. I’m glad you’re.. Okay. Where.. Is Dr. Luo…”
Loli tried to not let her pain resurface, but it must have been obvious as Nuonuo’s eyes narrowed sadly, clutching Loli’s hand a bit tighter and looking down at her own lap, a look of reminiscence in her eyes.
“I can barely remember… We were attacked.. There were.. Shadows…”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know what was… a dream… and what wasn’t,” Nuonuo continued. “I was being… s-swallowed.. In a blackness… Like a black cowl.. And a hundred knives.. Stabbing into me from it… It was awful. Then.. a hard hit to the back of my head and… nothingness.”
Nuonuo shivered and Loli looked at her seriously, considering the fact that Nuonuo’s recovery had been surprisingly treacherous up until this point. She pulled out a small device she’d been working on and held it near the girl, waiting for a result. Soon enough, the smallest of beeps began to sound.
“..What’s that?”
Loli scowled. “I don’t know if it works completely yet but… It should detect Fear particles, and… You definitely have some remnants. But how…?”
Thinking back, Loli had been too beaten and battered and in anguish to do anything but carry the unconscious Nuonuo, while begging for anyone to grab her Father’s body, til she’d collapsed from exhaustion. Since then, she had mostly abstained from visiting since Nuonuo’s Mother was constantly there, not wanting to intrude, and because the quest for vengeance had taken full hold of her.
“I’m going to take care of this,” Loli said, nodding mostly to confirm it to herself. “You won’t have to worry about anything anymore. They’ll pay.”
“Loli…” Nuonuo looked at her with sad eyes, clutching her hand tighter. “Please.. Don’t.”
“I–”
A breeze flowed across the room from the open window, and another of Loli’s sensors on her person began to set off. She spun around in an instant, the chair she was in clattering loudly across the floor as she glared at the dark figure that was now standing there, not a single sound being made to announce their entrance.
Loli’s eyes widened and then narrowed with recognition.
“Ghostblade…? Are you seriously still stalking her despite everything–"
“...Dad.”
Loli turned to her head back to Nuonuo, who was staring past her at the man. Then she looked to Ghostblade again, and saw something etched into the man’s stoic expression. It was in his eyes, a sort of… relief?
The man took a step forward, his black cloak he wore during Hero duties fluttering behind him, but Loli wasn’t having it, staying between them. After recent events, Ghostblade had left his company and gone MIA. There was no way she was going to trust this man, no matter what the situation was.
“Don’t get any closer you creep,” Loli growled.
“L-Loli… stop…”
Nuonuo’s words fell on deaf ears as Loli ran forward, throwing her fist out, activating a sleeve of her armor that shot up along her arm from under her jacket and then encapsulated her hand.
Ghostblade, to her surprise, made no attempt to move nor to counterattack. Her punch connected, sending him back into the windows so hard that the glass shattered and the frames bent in. The man fell to a knee, one hand over his face as glass fragments fell around him.
“You’re lucky I held back and didn’t send you flying out the window, what the heck are you doing here?!”
Loli scowled, surprised and unsure what to do seeing him take her hit without doing anything about it.
Ghostblade slowly rose to his feet, removing his hand, a bruise visible across his cheek and nose peeking up from the mask he wore. The man was resilient if nothing else, a testament to the fact that he still held so many followers purely off of his mysterious nature after leaving MG, as he seemed to not be moving any more sluggish even after a strong blow like that.
“As if anybody wants to see you right now, just go die somewhere like a stray dog or something-!”
“ Loli! ”
Nuonuo’s frail voice sounded like a thread being ripped apart as she exerted herself to yell, the guttural sputtering and coughing afterwards enough to make Loli and even Ghostblade react with wide eyes.
Before Loli could take a step, Ghostblade was moving past her. She grit her teeth, but watched as he didn’t even touch Nuonuo, but produced a small handkerchief, handing it to her.
She shakily grabbed the offered cloth and brought it to her mouth, coughing into it as Ghostblade loomed semi-awkwardly beside her bed. Loli’s eyes narrowed at him, seeing the way that he looked at her.
Dad…? I guess that makes sense.. but he still disappeared, and the stalking..! Loli huffed and crossed her arms, trying to forget about her own Father for the moment as the memories started to creep up, before she noticed Ghostblade had turned to face her.
Ghostblade raised his left hand, making Loli tense, but he just gestured to himself and then to her. She was about ready to yell at him about what he meant, but he then took out his phone and showed her a specific article, one that she herself had been focused on recently– the one about Nice and his girlfriend, Moon.
“...What about it?”
Ghostblade looked over to his daughter, who was breathing in and out to try and stop her coughing fit. Loli realized what he was getting at.
“Together? You and me? Maybe you can just go attack a high profile hero now, but I’m a signed Hero now,” Loli said, trying to hide the fact that she already had her own plans to do something terrible. “I.. I can’t.”
Nuonuo moved the handkerchief from her mouth, a tear falling down her cheek.
“I don’t want.. anymore fighting,” she said hoarsely.
She looked up at Ghostblade, the man’s eyes looking troubled. He lifted a hand slowly, moving it forward with shaky hesitation as if he was pushing through an invisible barrier, and placed his hand on her cheek. Her eyes widened and her face flushed a bit at the first ever true contact with her Father.
Loli watched the scene in awe. She was about ready to go on a suicide mission to take down Nice, but now, suddenly… Things were different.
Maybe there’s a chance to get some actual, proper revenge...
The pink-haired girl chuckled, making the others look at her as she slipped her hands into her pockets and grinned mischievously towards Ghostblade. The man was a bit taken aback by the strange look.
“So you want a lil revenge too? Because I’m totally down.”
Nuonuo looked worried, so Loli held up a hand to stop her from speaking and then pointed at Ghostblade, giving him a stern look.
“No killing! We’re just going to take that pretty-boy down a peg, got it?”
At her commanding tone, Ghostblade’s expression returned to the solemn mask as he nodded. Nuonuo sighed and dared to reach out to touch her Father’s arm. He looked down at her as she offered a small smile, clearly too tired to try and stop them further.
“..Be careful then.”
She looked past him to Loli, nodding to her. The girl grinned and hopped over to hug her tightly, ignoring her still frail state, though Nuonuo didn’t mind as she giggled softly and returned the hug.
“…I’ll be back soon and I’ll tell you all about it, okay?” Loli moved back a bit and stared into Nuonuo’s eyes, before giving her a gentle kiss on the cheek, remembering a similar moment before the tragedies had happened. “..I think my drones are detecting that your Mom is already coming up, good luck.”
Hearing that, Ghostblade’s eyes widened and he turned and darted out like a shadow, diving through the broken window from before. Loli and Nuonuo watched him go before exchanging a glance, with Nuonuo shaking her head as if to say: ‘ It’s too much to explain.’
Also taking her cue, Loli gave Nuonuo’s hand a squeeze before she followed suit, jumping out the window as she activated boosters in her shoes to hover right across to the adjacent building’s rooftop. Down below, she spotted a dark shape maneuvering and swinging along a fire escape and a light pole before reaching the street. Loli gave him a wave, receiving a gesture she couldn’t quite make out in return, then pulled out her phone.
Alright… It’s on then. Loli exhaled, thinking about Nuonuo's plea to them both as she formulated a plan. We can't fix the system if we throw everything away and do something drastic, but we can still mess them up real good.
We'll get the sweetest revenge... For all of you!
The doors slid open, and Moon glanced up from her phone, a tired smile appearing on her face.
“You’re finally done,” she said as she approached Nice, the Hero walking with his cape fluttering behind him, the portrait of perfection as always. “I was surprised they wanted to interview you solo so much, I…”
Nice continued to walk right past Moon towards their limousine. She stopped and watched him, her smile dropping.
After the event where they had to parade their blossoming romance to a live studio audience, Moon had practically been pushed out of the building while they continued with a solo deep-dive on Nice. She had known the entire story was more about him, but being left out in the cold of the night for so long had only added to her loneliness.
…And even now that he was here with her again, Nice was hardly acknowledging her existence.
Opening the car door, Nice turned and offered her a smile.
“We need to head back. There are a lot of things to go over,” he spoke, as regal and elegant as always, his words holding a deeper meaning that only someone who spent as much time with him as Moon could truly understand.
That smile... It once ignited a burning beacon in her heart, but now it only filled Moon with a chill. She knew now how fake it was, how fake all of this was… But at this point, she was still holding onto some hope that something, some aspect no matter how small, was still real.
“Of course.” She smiled and stepped towards the car.
All at once, the lights of the side street cut out, plunging them into darkness.
At that same moment, the door Nice was holding open slammed shut, and he watched incredulously as the limo began to rev and it suddenly took off.
Flying into the air, Nice was about to make chase before he noticed someone slumped against the wall nearby. They’d been on the other side of the car where they couldn’t see, and he recognized it to be their driver.
“..You didn’t see anything?”
Nice looked back and down at Moon, who was wide-eyed at the unconscious driver. She looked up at Nice, seeing a look in his eyes that she didn’t like.
“I.. I don’t know, I wasn’t fully focused but I.. should’ve noticed..” Moon was stammering to try and defend herself, but stopped as the lights of the side street suddenly came back on. Her eyes widened. “Look out!”
Nice turned just as what looked like a pink metal fist flew in and rocked the side of his head, sending him spinning in the air before he recovered and glared towards the source.
The fist flew back to a familiar person Nice wasn’t expecting to see anytime soon— but once he saw her, it made a wicked smile creep onto his face.
“ Not so perfect after all, ” came a voice with a robotic buzz to it as the metal arm returned to Loli, reattaching itself to her arm and the rest of her mechanized suit.
“You’re… that new Hero,” Moon said, confused as she drew her portal gun, looking up towards Nice. “Is this on the schedule or..?”
A humorless chuckle escaped Nice like a shuddering breath in the cold, making Moon shiver. He brushed a hand along his face where he had been struck, but no mark was there to break his perfect image.
“…I’ll have Miss J pen her in later.”
He shot forward, creating a boom in the air in his wake as he raised his fist. Loli watched him rapidly fly towards her, his eyes gleaming with that same look of murderous enjoyment she’d seen the last time they fought.
The lights in the street went out again, and Loli’s suit vanished from sight— or at least, that’s how it had appeared, giving Nice pause.
Ghostblade had moved in front of the girl, his black cloak flowing to veil her actions from Nice as she fired off rockets from her suit that flew around Ghostblade, homing right in towards Nice.
Gritting his teeth, Nice pulled his fist back, using his momentum to spin past the first missile, before expertly flicking another into the air— but the team-up diversion under the cover of darkness allowed another of them to slam into his shoulder, the metal tube-shaped rocket exploding into a cloud of pink sparkles and smoke.
“Nice!”
Moon watched as he flew backwards through the pink smoke, eventually landing on his feet and sliding to a stop. She created a portal and emerged right behind him, but stopped as she saw what he looked like now.
Nice, usually clad in pristine and elegant white, was now covered head to toe in sparkling pink glitter with streaks of pink paint marring his usually perfect image.
The Hero looked down at himself with shaky hands, then looked over towards Moon, who froze up at the look in his eyes.
“... … Die.”
The words were muttered under his breath like a curse as he flew slowly into the air, before a laugh followed. Then he shot straight towards Loli, blinded by a rage that drove a maddened smile onto his sparkling face.
Ghostblade was there to intercept, sliding in like a blur and pushing Nice’s oncoming fist upwards, before drawing a large butcher knife with his other hand and slashing towards his chest. Nice spun elegantly to the side on his heel before driving his boot upwards towards the other Hero’s neck.
Loli watched as Ghostblade ducked under the blow before striking out at Nice’s exposed leg. The Hero in white was forced to jump into the air, doing a somersault before trying to crash down upon Ghostblade from above.
“ Okay! Let’s do it now,” Loli exclaimed, her voice carrying through to the device in Ghostblade’s ear.
Ghostblade jumped backwards as Nice slammed his legs into the ground, debris from the road flying all around, his blue eyes gleaming with unhidden desire for battle as he then flew right towards Ghostblade, fists outstretched in front of him.
Reacting quickly as Nice was about to slam into him at full force, Ghostblade threw the butcher knife towards his head, forcing Nice to move his neck to avoid it without giving up the momentum of his attack—
At that moment, the street lights flashed back on, this time even more intense than before, the sound of electrical buzzing growing as they were overloaded by an outside force.
Nice was forced to close his eyes, finding quickly that he hadn’t made contact with anything as he stopped his flight, slid and then stumbled across the road, the bulbs of the streetlights around starting to shatter and break before one lone light shined down upon the pink-covered Nice.
“You’re really annoying… Like a bug,” he said in a breathy voice, opening his eyes again and grinning towards Loli, before he realized she was holding her phone up towards him.
SNAP! Her camera shutter went off, and the digital expression on her facemask turned cheeky.
“ Yeah, that’ll be a great one for the press tomorrow!”
Confused, Nice felt a presence behind him and turned, throwing his arm towards Ghostblade who was looming right behind him, a whoosh of air in the wake of the attack as Ghostblade jumped backwards to avoid it.
The final light above Nice gave out and burst, plunging him into darkness again. The figure of Ghostblade slipped into the shadows, and he turned angrily to find that Loli was nowhere to be found either.
“Come on out, you can’t hide from me,” Nice called as he flew towards a nearby dumpster, grabbing the lid and ripping it off, scanning with his eyes before flying towards a nearby group of bushes and demolishing them as well.
Moon hesitantly walked over to the scene, her eyes moving back and forth as Nice flicked around in the darkness, calling out angry lines as he destroyed everything he could on the side street.
A chime sounded, and Moon dared to check her phone. It was an image, sent through the FOMO app…
Seemingly to everyone who used the platform.
Nice paused his rampage as he heard Moon make a noise. He slowly flew to her, his face a mix of mostly hidden exhaustion and a false smile. She looked up at him, her momentary amusement ar what she saw on her screen changing to horror.
“It’s… I think we need to call Miss J,” Moon said solemnly as she handed him her phone.
Nice peered down at the screen.
It was a picture of him, standing in a spotlight, an incredibly maddened look on his face and pink sparkly glitter and paint splattered across his person…
And behind him?
Ghostblade was there, doing bunny ears behind Nice’s head with his hand.
CRACK. Nice crushed Moon’s phone, but she was already resigned to the fact that it was a goner and said nothing. Plus, her phone was the least of her worries for now, at least..
Calming NIce down was going to be difficult.
Maybe I'll call Wreck... Once I have another phone.
Moon sighed.
Not far off, Loli and Ghostblade stood atop a building, peering across the way to the street below, their tension fading as no chase was made or any sign that they were followed.
“ That was perfect! You’re pretty funny when you wanna be, old man, ” Loli said, offering a fist towards Ghostblade as she let her helmet visor recede to show her face. “They’ll have a hell of a time trying to spin that one!”
Ghostblade blinked at her, then looked down at her outstretched fist. His eyes shifted to the side for a moment, and Loli felt a bit ticked off at the dismissal, but to her surprise, Ghostblade eventually tapped his fist against hers very briefly.
Grinning, Loli let the visor come back up and crossed her arms.
“ What’s your plan now anyways? Pranking your enemies some more? I don't know if that'll work with your whole cool persona though."
Ghostblade looked up towards the moon and stars twinkling above for a few moments, as if resigned to a fate he couldn’t say. Loli watched him for a few moments, then sighed and the expression on her helmet’s display became something like a face of helplessness.
“ Well, either way.. Maybe you’re actually alright, ” she said as she turned and stepped towards the edge of the building. “ ..But I have to become better and better, so I won’t stop even if I have to take you down eventually, got it? Especially if you keep being weird with Nuonuo! "
Loli’s suit display showed a tongue out and a wink as she looked back at Ghostblade, before she jumped into the night, her boosters firing her along the night sky… And then she was gone, leaving Ghostblade to the silence and the cool nighttime breeze that rolled over him.
After watching the rambunctious girl leave, Ghostblade took out his phone and gazed at the embarrassing image they’d managed to get of Nice.
While Loli’s plan hadn’t made much sense to him at first, seeing the fruits of it now…
No, it still didn’t make much sense to him. All he had known in his Hero work was to do as he was told, to kill who he had to kill. Ending a life always made a difference, no matter who it was, or for what purpose.
This was.. just kind of weird.
But Ghostblade was looking for a change since he’d left MG, so he had a fleeting thought—
That maybe, just maybe, weird wasn’t so bad for now.
Sunlight in through the nearby window of Nuonuo's hospital room, thankfully in-tact since they had promptly moved her into a new room after she had awakened. She had refused to explain what had happened, but Zhang Lan could only assume based on her relations to two heroes, much to her annoyance.. But she stayed silent on it for her daughter's sake.
Nuonuo’s phone chimed on the table beside her hospital bed. Her Mother turned towards it, instinctively reaching for it, but Nuonuo grabbed it and checked it.
“Pfft…”
Zhang Lan raised an eyebrow at her daughter, the girl bringing her phone over her mouth as she giggled softly.
"...So stupid," Nuonuo said in a soft, giggly voice as she gazed at the picture on her phone, some stray locks of her silver hair slipping from under the bandages on her head, as if symbolizing her slow return to normalcy. Zhang Lan stared, her daughter’s joy a bit strange to see after everything that had happened…
But... it was nice. Lan managed a slight smile, feeling a lot of her tensions and sorrows of the past few weeks finally receding.
Behind her, new, fresh white flowers were displayed on the table, unnoticed to her yet.
…With one cheeky, vibrant pink flower in there for good measure.
END
A/N: I originally didn’t want to have them actually fight Nice, just sort of imply it, but I was inspired by the idea of a more .. “lighthearted” ending to the scuffle so.. there we go!
The title of this fic is purely because the song “Paint it Black” sounded really cool, but a bit too edgy, and thus Paint it Pink is very fitting for a Loli-centric fic. Shrug.
Thanks for reading! I’ll be thankful for any and all feedback!