Garnet Dorado: Just Give Us Our Mascot Back

Richard and Indishan had been up through the unholy hours of the night arranging for that one cell to be evacuated. Mortis was with them, throwing things into the deal to help those trapped in the cell. The connection was cut off and late the next day the the two friends plus Indishan and Ursa were driving off as Franz and Hiro stayed home to track down the Grotesquery.


Arduous Marshmallow stood by the cells, grinning. He was twirling a ring of keys around his finger. Beside him stood Prosperity Straker, a man who actually had 'legal' access to the cells, and Arachne, who was tapping her foot nervously. Prosperity shook his head. "We shouldn't do this."
"We're getting paid." Arduous replied nonchalantly.
"But Mevolent-"
"C'mon, it's not like these guys are exactly against us."
"One of them is the son of a Norwegian Elder."
"And? He's not going back to Norway at this rate.

Two men stood by a car outside. Mortis and Ricky were talking in hushed voices. They both raised eyebrows when Garnet came stumbling out, flanked by a man carving something on him with a scalpel and a pregnant woman holding him up. They stopped and the murderer in the middle almost collapsed completely. "Almost finished." The man beside him muttered. "I have to be careful with this. Ruin the lines without damaging anything vital. Would be easier if you weren't so skinny."
"You can talk." He spat back.
"I'm ill, that's why I'm skinny. You have no such illness, I've seen proof of that." Suddenly Gar took a deep gasping breath and pulled away from the man, managing to straighten up. He gave a sigh of relief. "Thank you."
"No problem. Your friends are going to take yourself, the Norwegian gent and this lovely young lady to Roarhaven, as agreed."
"And B-J?"
"We'll find her and help her, we promise."
He took a few minutes, seeming to be trying to get his breath back, and smiled, hugging Mortis, who stiffened and muttered curses under his breath, then turned to Ricky and grinned.
"Never thought I'd ever see you again."
"Likewise...you're not going to hug me, are you?"
"I thought you died ages ago."
"Again, likewise."
Garnet grinned and pulled the reluctant Richard into a hug, despite his protests. Garnet had always been a very touchy feely person. Most of his friends hated that. In fact, the only ones who didn't mind being hugged were B-J and Jayden, and Jayden found being hugged by Garnet horribly awkward.

-----

He went to the window, peering out into the darkness, trying to ease his troubled mind. It didn't work when he caught sight of the barrel of a rather large gun pointing at the window. His eyes widened and he dropped. The bullet whizzed through the glass and he crawled carefully over to the bed and pulled the covers off his wife to wake her up. River turned over and glared at him. "Mem, what the hell?"
"There's a gunman outside. Go get dressed."
She arched an eye brow and did as she was told. He went to look again and the man was gone. He relaxed a little and went to find his sunglasses. There was a knock on the door and River went to answer it, but only opened it a little before slamming it shut again. She had been standing to the side and the next bullet fired had shot through. "Okay, now there's a gunman behind the door." She stated, surprisingly calm. Memphis picked up Jaime and tucked him into a bullet-proof vest from his belongings.
"River? Take him. Keep him safe."
"You're not going out there." She took the baby anyway.
"I have weapons of my own."
"Memphis, no!"
The door splintered as the man on the other side tried to get in. "Come on out and I promise not to shoot you!" he called in earnestly. Memphis shook his head.
"Idiot." There was a long pause as Memphis trained his gun on the door. The door smashed and both men fired at once. Memphis was knocked back into a table and River backed into the corner, unable to pick up a weapon while holding her son. The man went towards her and Memphis aimed his gun. "Leave her alone. You have no reason to harm her."
"No," the man agreed, "I don't. I need her unharmed. You on the other hand..." He grinned darkly, aiming his own gun.
"Why would you need me unharmed?" River asked shakily, trying to stop this man from killing her husband.
"We believe we have use for you, darling." he saw her reluctance and an idea popped into his head. "Give the baby you have there to this gent and I promise not to kill either of them...provided he lowers his weapon." He gestured with the gun for Memphis to go to the window. He followed him there and made him drop his gun out the window. He dropped his own one out after it and smiled. "Wasn't too hard." He backed away and kept his eyes on Memphis. "Give the baby to the man please, River."
She approached him from behind. he turned at the last minute, grabbed the wrists of the hands about to bring a table lamp down over his head, wrenched the lamp from her grip and threw it at Memphis. River screamed as loud as she could as the man attempted to chloroform her. Once she was out, he looked over at Heatwave and winced. The guy had been unable to dodge the lamp and was now unconscious and in a pretty bad state. He left him there with baby Jaime crying in the vest.

-----

Sierra knocked on the door and waited. There was some movement from inside and a pale man with brown curls opened the door and smiled a little. "Sierra." He greeted with a slight nod.
"Vampire." She greeted back. His smile died on his lips.
"You're here to see Box?"
"He's a good informant. Better to trust than Gale Blaze or China Sorrows...and you know I used to go to Myron Stray if I needed something..."
"Okay, look, Helper isn't in right now, but you can come in for a cup of coffee or something in you want."
Sierra smiled. "Yes please." She stepped inside and took off her shoes and coat. There were two people arguing in the living room, where Daemon went out of curiosity. She saw a ginger man and a sick-looking blonde man. It took a moment to register who they were.
"Austin! Gale!"
They both looked round and Gale smiled. "Daemon, hey!"
Daemon smiled and went over to Austin. "You okay?"
He arched an eyebrow. "F-fine..."
"Where's the Amethyst of Abran-k'uhl?"
"U-upstairs...in my j-jacket pocket..."
She nodded and smiled. "Great to see you again, by the way."

-----


Madame Mist got out of bed and carefully, quietly, edged round to her husband's side of the bed. She palmed a knife from a sheath hidden in her night gown and raised it for a deadly strike. She was stopped when a shadow stabbed through her stomach. She let out a blood-curdling scream of pure agony. Ravel sat up, shocked as he clicked on the bedside light and saw what had just happened. Naturally he looked horrified. Then the redheaded man came to stand beside her. She was still screaming. He held a gun to her head and silenced her. She fell to reveal a man with long, dark hair in a ponytail and...

The woman stood beside the dark-haired man frowned. She didn't have her veil on and her stomach was swollen. "Do I count this as cheating or can it be completely excused under the circumstances?"
The redhead grinned. "I think you can forgive him, Elder Mist. I've met this one." He nudged the corpse with his heel. "She's a good'un."
The dark-haired man muttered something about the body that sounded like 'I think we're related'. Mist, the real Mist, the one who was still pregnant, came forward and sat beside her husband on the bed, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. "Erskine?"
"She...I...where...?"
"I got into a fight with her and a friend of hers, oh I don't know, six or so months ago? Unfortunately, they won and she stole my clothes while her associate bundled me into a van..." She gestured loosely to the two men now standing at the end of the bed, looking expectant. "Oh, these are my new friends, Garnet and Mortis. They helped get me out of Mevolent's dungeon. They wanted to ask a favour."
Erskine frowned. "Uh...weren't those the guys who tried to kill Justice a few months back?"
The men exchanged looks and Mortis spoke. "Ah...you remember that, do you?"
"Of course I do! I don't even know how you got away, but if Richard Sloth had anything to do with it, I swear he-"
Garnet cut him off. "Ricky helped Mort, I got captured my Mevo's lot. See it this way: If we hadn't been there, your wife wouldn't be beside you right now and Miss Adonia here may have killed you easily in your sleep."
"...will be rewarded, naturally..."
The redhead smirked. "Well then, Grand Mage, glad you see it our way. We have a request to ask though, since you have been reunited with your beautiful wife and unborn child thanks to us, and since we have both just saved your life...You have a friend of ours in your holding cells. A Jayden Slander, dark skin, no hair, a Child of the Spider who killed a few Cleavers that day. We'd like him set free, especially since he's done you no harm."
"He admitted to killing a close friend of mine."
Mortis looked at his feet. "Anton Shudder?"
"Dexter Vex actually."
Garnet shook his head. "I think that was me..."
"I think he bled out through the wound I inflicted." Mortis responded, looking up, a little confused.
"Wait, so your friend killed Anton as well?"
"I kind of forced him to do that one."
Erskine was now trying very hard not to get up and try kill them. His hands her balled into tight fists, getting tighter the more they talked. He did his best to remember one had Necromancy, one had a gun and they had both just saved his wife as well as him. "I am so tempted to throw you both in the cell with him..."
"I tunnel." Garnet stated simply.
"You're murderers! Senseless killers!"
"Don't forget psychopaths." Mort added happily, clapping his hands.
Erskine spluttered and Gar glared at his friend. "Listen, Grand Mage, the world is full of...severely screwed up people like myself and Mr Grievance here...Jayden is his boyfriend and keeps him sane during what would otherwise be long, lonely nights, and he attacked no-one apart from a few cleavers, and that was only in an attempt to protect the man he loved."
"Who was trying to murder an Elder..."
Dorado frowned. "Just give us our mascot back or we'll take your wife all the way back to Mevolent where we found her."
He looked like he was going to object, but Madame Mist put a hand on his shoulder. "Jayden Slander is a Child of the Spider and a man I once knew."
"Fine, now bugger off, both of you...and take that piece of filth with you." He gestured furiously at the remains of Acacia Adonia. Once they left, he put his head in his hands and tried to deal with the whirl of thoughts.

Mortis stopped off halfway back, went into a shop, came out with a stack of crocodile-skin stuff and carefully dressed Acacia in it. Garnet pulled a face. "This is why we were always poor."
"Quit complaining." The Necromancer replied as he savagely attacked the corpse.

((Look guys! a present! And a taste of 'I have no clue what's going on in my own story'...and a magical powerful amethyst from a different SP fic...which has Daemon in it...and Electrolytic and Hauter and Nemone and also some people you've never heard of! And Hiro, actually...sorry, babbling. Anyway, have some stuff.))