Hellbent [Fairy Tail/Young Justice OC]

Chapter 23: Parched
… Well, shit.

I honestly wasn't sure how to react to Aqualad's question at first. For a moment, I just… stared at him. I knew there'd been something fucky going on with my memories, given… everything, and I wasn't that surprised to find out I wasn't alone in that regard. But…

"Aqualad," I murmured, "what's the last thing you remember?"

He closed his eyes. I could see sweat dripping down his forehead from the heat of the desert sun, contrasting with the dry texture much of his skin had taken on. Jeez, it really wasn't healthy for him to be out here, was it?

"... I have some idea," he eventually said, opening his eyes back up and looking at me. "However, I am afraid–"

"That you don't trust me, right," I interrupted, rubbing my fingers against my temple. It made sense, unfortunately. If he didn't actually remember me, his trust in me was going to be more… limited, even if I did save his life. After all, it would be easy for some enemy of Atlantis or the League to take advantage of his current vulnerability.

Aqualad nodded. "I am… willing to at least hear you out, though. You did just save my life, after all."

I chuckled under my breath. "Well, at least I'm good for something."

That at least got a chuckle out of him, too, as he pulled himself into a more upright sitting position, pulling his backpack into his lap as he did so. I backed off as he did it, giving him a bit of space, and stood as I pondered exactly what to say to him to make him trust me.

It wasn't long before a thought occurred to me, and I glanced back down at Aqualad with what I am not ashamed to admit was a slightly desperate air. "Please tell me you at least remember the Team?"

A look of surprise briefly flitted across his face, though he schooled his expression after a moment. "... Yes, I do. Though…" He glanced around us, at the sand, sand, and more sand.

"Heh, yeah, I think we're out here on a mission. Which… might be my first one?" I shrugged. "You aren't the only one who's missing some shit up here." I gestured at my head.

Then, realizing what I'd skipped over, I crouched back down and stuck my hand out to Aqualad. "Oh, and I'm Ash. Not my hero name, I don't remember what I chose, I'm… kind of new at this whole thing. And you're Aqualad, Kaldur'ahm, or boss-man."

"... That last one is new," he replied after a moment, taking my hand. I shook it for a second, then pulled him up to his feet. "But it is accurate. Either you really are a new member of the Team, or we are quite heavily compromised. For now, I will choose to believe the former."

I let out a small sigh. Good, that was one problem taken care of, and only… a fuck-ton more to go. "So, uh, last thing you remember?"

"... We were checking in on… the friend of a friend," he said. I frowned at that. Okay, maybe that "trust" hurdle wasn't quite cleared, but as long as we could work together it'd… probably work out.

That's about when I noticed that he was swaying on his feet a bit, and hurried over to offer him some support. "Whoa, easy…" I winced at the touch of his skin. It was way too dry, even more that it looked. "I guess we can figure out how long we're missing later. We need to get you some more water first."

I considered for a moment, then jabbed a thumb at the road we were nearby. "I think we're by a military outpost or something, I had to fight off some soldiers near where I think we'd set up camp." Or something like that. I still wasn't sure what that metal thingy had been, but it was definitely different from anything the soldiers had been carrying on them, and I'd found everyone's scents there regardless. "Some of them might drive by, and they should have water–"

"I don't believe… that will be necessary," Aqualad said, putting a hand on my shoulder to interrupt me. "You said we had made a camp. Do you remember where it is?"



* * * * *



The sun blazed overhead.

Oh, well, I was assuming that was the right… adjective? I think? "Blazed" seemed like it should be used here, but it wasn't like I was a good judge of that kind of thing. The heat felt more comfortable to me than anything. Perks of being fireproof.

Aqualad, though, was definitely feeling the heat. I'd already asked him a few times if he wanted me to carry him, save his energy and all that, but he'd just waved me off each time. He was determined to soldier on, and I could honestly respect that. Even if I thought it was kind of dumb at the same time.

He had, however, occasionally stumbled, prompting me to give him a shoulder to lean on while he caught his breath. We never stopped for very long, but even so, it ended up taking a lot longer to get back than it had to get out to find Aqualad in the first place.

At least I was able to follow my own scent back to camp, making the trail a lot clearer for me. Even if sniffing out my own scent always left me feeling weird.

At any rate, eventually we emerged over a sand dune to see the depression with that weird metal thing. All the soldiers I'd fought beforehand were long gone, and a quick hop down confirmed that none of them were hiding under the sand this time.

"Alright, we're good," I said as Aqualad picked his way down the dune, wincing at the hot sand stinging his bare feet. I raised an eyebrow at him. "So, we're looking for… a ship?"

"Indeed. It should be around here somewhere."

I nodded, and the two of us split up, circling out from the main camp as we searched. According to Aqualad, apparently Miss Martian owned some sort of "bio-ship" that, if he was right, was probably how we'd gotten out here. Wherever here was. After all, it's not like we could have just taken the Zeta Tubes anywhere, there apparently needed to be "gates" at both ends for that to work.

I did feel a little stupid, the way he'd had to spell that out for me, but it made sense in hindsight.

Anyways, the ship could apparently be camouflaged, so it was unlikely the soldiers had taken it. The flip side being that it also made finding the damn thing a lot harder. Our best guess at this point was to just sweep the area and hope we ran into i–

BONK

"GAH, FUCK!" I fell back, stumbling and rubbing at my face that had apparently just ran into thin air. It didn't really hurt, but I hadn't expected our plan to work out quite so literally.

"Ash?" Aqualad called out, breathing heavily as he stumbled his way over to me.

"Ugh… I think I found it," I called back. Putting my hand out, I felt around at the air before me until I touched something cool and strangely… fleshy.

The air rippled out, waves of red and black spreading from my point of contact, and I stepped back as the Bio-Ship revealed itself to us. It had a very sleek look to it, the kind of stuff I'd probably have imagined from reading sci-fi, red with bacl highlights and a blue window situated behind the front… what would those be called? Pincers?

After a moment, a ramp sort of… grew out of the bottom of the ship, leading up to a hole that hadn't been there before. Aqualad showed no hesitation before walking up it, and I followed behind him shortly afterwards.

The inside of the Bio-Ship looked even stranger. Blue-ish purple-ish and strangely organic-looking, the interior was completely bare, save for a sort of desk that ran around the outer edge of the cockpit. Round blue lights glowed across it, and as I watched, Aqualad went up to one of them and put his hand on it. It glowed for a moment, then a hole opened next to it, allowing Aqualad to reach in and pull out a canteen. I heard him mutter "thank you, Robin" under his breath before opening it and taking a long drink.

I let him take care of that while I walked up to the desk myself, trailing a hand along the surface. It was strange to the touch, feeling somehow like both metal and skin. Not quite like anything I'd ever felt before. Guess the "Bio" had to come from somewhere, though.

My hand ghosted over one of the blue lights, and I felt… something, almost like a feather brushing across my brain. I winced as my headache surged back into focus, and with a hiss, I pulled back from the light. The pounding receded almost at once, and I rubbed at my forehead.

… Was… was Bio-Ship telepathic like M'gann? It certainly felt like she had just brushed up against my mind, a lot like when M'gann had showed me…

"Ash?" I turned at Aqualad's question, He had made his way to the other side of the cockpit, and had been pulling out what looked like snack bars from another opening. Between the water and the cool interior, he already looked much better.

"Just a headache," I said, walking over to him. I nodded at the bars. "Lemme guess, for Wa– uh, I mean Kid Flash?"

Aqualad looked at me for a long moment before nodding. "Indeed."

I nodded – Wally had told me a while back that he had an insane metabolism, so it was probably a good idea to get extra snacks for him, even on missions – and glanced around. "So, now that you're not about to get barbequed out here, we should probably find the others, huh?" I pondered, before stiffening as an idea occurred. "Uh, are we gonna be flying around in Bio-Ship?" I asked, unable to keep a note of nervousness out of my voice.

Thankfully, Aqualad shook his head. "Unfortunately, I have not learned how to pilot this ship," he explained. "Though perhaps I should learn, lest a situation similar to this occurs in the future. For now, though, we must go on foot."

We didn't leave immediately, of course. Aqualad still had to recover from the heat, after all, and going back out into it wouldn't end well for him. Instead, we took a little while to rest, even as we discussed who to try and track down next.

Unfortunately, both Miss Martian and Superboy were right out as options. I hadn't even managed to get their trails last night, and Aqualad apparently didn't have much in the way of overland tracking himself. Robin was also a non-starter for similar reasons, though Aqualad acted like the so-called Boy Wonder would be able to take care of himself for a while. Of the other two, it was a bit of a toss-up. Kid Flash had powers while Artemis didn't, but Kid would also be running low on energy at this point, while from what little Aqualad could tell me of Artemis suggested that she had at least some survivial training. Green Arrow may not be Batman, but I guess he still managed to keep his place on the League somehow, so it'd make sense that he'd pass some skills down to her.

Throughout the conversation, Aqualad kept a close eye on me, as if he was expecting to trap me in a lie or something. Which, yeah, reasonable. I wasn't able to contribute much to the discussion in terms of each person's capabilities, but I was able to add in a few pieces of the impressions I'd gotten from each of them… At least what little I apparently remembered.

He seemed oddly amused when I called Robin a prick, even as he assured me that the kid was apparently a professional.

I also took a brief moment to run down my abilities for him again, including how I'd tracked him down in the first place. I was a little worried about pulling that trick off again, though, given how long it had been since we'd all apparently set out. It was damn lucky none of the trails had gone cold before I found them, but at this point, I wasn't willing to bet they were still there.

Still… I had to at least try.



* * * * *



"Dammit!"

I paced at the top of the dune, scowling. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" I cursed, all but pulling at my hair in my frustration.

"Ash, calm down," Aqualad said, putting a placating hand on my shoulder. And nearly getting his arm wrenched out his his socket before I stopped, but he didn't need to know that. "We will figure this out, but we need to be calm."

"How can I be calm? I lost the stupid trail!" I hissed, throwing my hands up in frustration.

In the end, we'd elected to go after Kid Flash next, on the basis of him likely needing the extra energy from the snack bars. Aqualad had managed to at least partially refill his pack, and had taken an extra couple of canteens to help sustain him in the desert. We'd ended up having to wait for a few hours, and while I didn't think it was much cooler right now than it had been when I found Aqualad, neither of us had been willing to wait any longer than that.

With that in mind, we'd returned to the camp (Bio-Ship returning to her camouflage mode after we'd left, apparently on a standing order), and I'd done my best to find what little of Kid's scent I still could. It had taken longer than I'd have liked, but I did manage to find just enough to go on, and the two of us had spent the last couple of hours trekking through the desert following it. At least, until about five minutes ago.

"It's this fucking wind!" I bit out, even as the stated lifted my hair and flitted through it. "There's not a lot of it, but it's blown off all the scent by this point. I don't think I could find anyone else now… Dammit!" I punctuated the sentence by dropping into a crouch and burying my face in my hands.

I heard Aqualad sigh, before the rustle of sand told me he'd dropped into a crouch as well. "Ash. We did our best. And there is a chance one or more of our Team may find their way back to camp. Would you be able to take us back?"

"... I think so," I replied, quiet. The wind couldn't have blown off our newer scents entirely just yet, we should be able to backtrack.

Aqualad clapped me on the back. "Then it is time to regroup and come up with a new plan. It happens on the job. One must learn to… adjust."

I let out a long sigh before nodding. He was right. I hated it, but he was right. I pushed myself to my feet, giving Aqualad a weak smile, before turning back the way we'd come.

Then I stopped and turned back around, sweeping my gaze across the sky.

"... Ash?"

"Did you see that?" I asked, not taking my eyes off of the sky.

"I cannot say I did. What was it?"

"It looked like…" There! It was crossing the sky, little more than a vague shape at this distance, but… That was no bird, and it was definitely no plane. Not a Superman (or Superboy) either, though it was definitely the right shape for one of them.

But neither of them could have made that faint, distant flash of green that had first caught my attention.

Without even thinking, I leapt off the dune, leaving Aqualad behind as I landed atop another nearby. I took in a deep breath, letting my diaphragm expand fully and air fill every single inch of my lungs, before cupping my hands to my mouth and shouting in the loudest possible voice I could manage.

And let me tell you, when you've worked up your lung capacity like a Dragon Slayer has? You can shout very loudly indeed.

"M'GAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!"

I'm back, baby!

... In my defense, sometimes you know you want to cover point A, and then point B, but you're not quite sure how to get there. Sometimes you can just roll with it. Other times, it takes you a couple months before you know what to do.

Hopefully the rest of this arc won't take nearly as long to come out.
 
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"That you don't trust me, right," I interrupted, rubbing my fingers against my temple. It made sense, unfortunately. If he didn't actually remember me, his trust in me was going to be more… limited, even if I did save his life. After all, it would be easy for some enemy of Atlantis or the League to take advantage of his current vulnerability.

Aqualad nodded. "I am… willing to at least hear you out, though. You did just save my life, after all."

I chuckled under my breath. "Well, at least I'm good for something."

That at least got a chuckle out of him, too, as he pulled himself into a more upright sitting position, pulling his backpack into his lap as he did so. I backed off as he did it, giving him a bit of space, and stood as I pondered exactly what to say to him to make him trust me.
They both are being really reasonable about it, Kaldur is wary but is willing to play ball even if he doesn't trust her and Ash totally understands that.

… Was… was Bio-Ship telepathic like M'gann? It certainly felt like she had just brushed up against my mind, a lot like when M'gann had showed me…

"Ash?" I turned at Aqualad's question, He had made his way to the other side of the cockpit, and had been pulling out what looked like snack bars from another opening. Between the water and the cool interior, he already looked much better.

"Just a headache," I said, walking over to him. I nodded at the bars. "Lemme guess, for Wa– uh, I mean Kid Flash?"

Aqualad looked at me for a long moment before nodding. "Indeed."

I nodded – Wally had told me a while back that he had an insane metabolism, so it was probably a good idea to get extra snacks for him, even on missions – and glanced around. "So, now that you're bot about to get barbequed out here, we should probably find the others, huh?" I pondered, before stiffening as an idea occurred. "Uh, are we gonna be flying around in Bio-Ship?" I asked, unable to keep a note of nervousness out of my voice.
So it seems like Kaldur remembers the Team, I'm guessing Ash helped them resist the mindwipe. Also she's showing in depth understanding of the team which Kaldur is aware of.

Throughout the conversation, Aqualad kept a close eye on me, as if he was expecting to trap me in a lie or something. Which, yeah, reasonable. I wasn't able to contribute much to the discussion in terms of each person's capabilities, but I was able to add in a few pieces of the impressions I'd gotten from each of them… At least what little I apparently remembered.

He seemed oddly amused when I called Robin a prick, even as he assured me that the kid was apparently a professional.
Smart of him to keep track of what she's saying.

Without even thinking, I leapt off the dune, leaving Aqualad behind as I landed atop another nearby. I took in a deep breath, letting my diaphragm expand fully and air fill every single inch of my lungs, before cupping my hands to my mouth and shouting in the loudest possible voice I could manage.

And let me tell you, when you've worked up your lung capacity like a Dragon Slayer has? You can shout very loudly indeed.

"M'GAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!"
Honestly that's the smart option.

I'm back, baby!

... In my defense, sometimes you know you want to cover point A, and then point B, but you're not quite sure how to get there. Sometimes you can just roll with it. Other times, it takes you a couple months before you know what to do.

Hopefully the rest of this arc won't take nearly as long to come out.
It's okay writer's block and life happens.
 
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