A/N 1: Well, I was hoping I'd be able to post this at a more opportune time, but here's like ... the Seventh Omake today? Follow up/prequel to
this
Miraculous Meetings in the Deep Snow.
"Speculations Abounds as Kronos Corp continues advertising their upcoming Sands Gala-"
Swipe
"Following the public statement by DEI-"
Swipe
"Another disappearance was reported in the woods of British Columbia; the fifth one in the same week-"
Nothing I didn't already know- Swipe. Ah, there we go.
"Clear skies abound this week as summer swings into action! Expect temperatures in the upper twenties as you go out and enjoy the fresh air!"
"Perfect!" Shutting his phone off as he put it back in the side pocket, Noel ran through his equipment bag one more time. Flashlight, poncho in case the weather was somehow wrong, or as an emergency blanket If he was in the woods overnight, bug spray, food and water to last a couple of days of course. That should be everything. Wait.
He spared a moment to facepalm and pulled his phone out again, tapping his foot as the boot up sequence started up. After fumbling for a moment to get cell reception, he fired off a quick text.
"Going in now"
Then, without waiting for a response, he shut the phone off again as he trod into the woods. The last disappearance had caught their attention, given that the only surviving witness had been screaming about this "weird reindeer creature" that almost certainly shouldn't be native to the area. That could have been brushed off as panic induced mania, but then the investigative team looking
also went missing with no trace. So that brought him here to see what the hell was going on, spending four days tracking down rumors and narrowing down the approximate locations of the victims.
It would have been so much easier if he hadn't been on this investigation alone, but the others were busy with more important things leaving him the only one available. Besides, he was just scouting for now, not getting into any fights. What was going to happen?
He couldn't help but start softly hum as he waltzed into the forest, enjoying the warmth of the sun as he picked his way through the trees. The forest was warm, full of life, the occasional green leaf drifting down from a tree, defying gravity for as long as possible. One fell on a small bird, covering it like a blanket, and a smile came onto his face as the blue bird shook it off and flew away into the sunrise.
Smiling at the sight, Noel moved just a little bit faster to what would surely be a productive day of work.
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This, Noel thought bitterly, shivering and soaked to the bone by the pouring rain, flinching and whirling at the shadows chasing him in the darkness, was
not a productive day of work.
He spent nine hours moving through the woods only to find
nothing. If he had found something he might have been begrudgingly fine with it but nope. Zip. Nada.
What had happened was the local wildlife had finding him multiple times over the course of the day. The area where bandages wrapped around his leg throbbed painfully at the reminder of the bear he didn't notice until it was a bit too late. The severity of his injury meant that most of the trails he used to get into this part of the forest were unfeasible, slowing down his exit, and had also made him lose any sense of how close he was to civilization due to having to find new paths, most of them winding away. Then, when he tried to get in touch with his friends, he couldn't get any cell reception, meaning he had to probably get all the way out of the forest to get a message out. The sudden rainstorm was the cherry on top – even with the clothes he was wearing, he probably would have gotten frostbite without his resistance to the cold.
So injured alone in a forest and he had no idea how he was going to get out. What a great adventure in the summer.
"Grk!"
He nearly bit his tongue as his foot caught his poncho, sending him sliding into the mud, his flashlight slipping from his grasp, taking most of his visibility with it. It rolled away tauntingly, just out of his grasp from where he was faceplanted.
Clothes and hair now covered in mud, Noel pulled himself up, the rain doing most of the work in washing away the mud. He resisted the urge to wipe away the stains. Some creature cawed in it's hiding place, cutting into the undertone of the pouring rain pattering on the ground, causing him to take a few shuddering breaths to try and calm his nerves. A couple of tentative steps took him over to the flashlight, shining off into the underbrush just ahead when he picked it up with shaking hands.
"Help me!"
A faint voice rang out … somewhere in the direction he was heading. But there was someone else here? It sounded like a young girl if he had to guess by the voice. All his instincts
screamed it was a trap. But if he ran the back the way he came, he'd be even more lost than he was before-
The ray of light suddenly cut to half its original distance. Noel looked at his lifeline in horror, desperately hoping that his equipment wasn't faltering now.
It wasn't.
His head came up slowly, gaze tracking the top of the light as it too raised, shining a spot light on broad shoulders and spikes on it, head covered in a hood that combined with the darkness hid the creature's identity-
"-can you hear me?"
The slightly gruff, youngish voice drew him out of his hysteria, allowing him to realize that the person in front of him was, in fact, a person.
Wow, shocker his brain goes. It also caused him to realize that he had slipped into a combat stance, the rain freezing around him into slightly aggressive looking spikes.
"O-oh, um, l-let me get rid of that…" a wave of his hand dissipated the ice, the rain pouring back down. Now that he wasn't panicking (he wasn't alone!), he could see that he had run into another guy, brown hair under the hood, some bits of stubble coating the other teen's chin. Brown eyes looked at him cautiously as Noel rubbed the back of his head, a minor grimace sprouting up as he pressed the remnants of the mud deeper into his hair. "Sorry about that. Just was
really jumpy from, well, everything. I'm Noel?"
The guy looked a bit skeptical or a bit understanding (let it be known that he was never exactly the greatest judge of social signs), nodding when he said his name. "What is someone doing in the woods at this hour, anyway?"
…There wasn't any point in hiding it, so, "I was hoping to find something out about the disappearances, but," he gestured at himself, "It hasn't been the greatest trip ever." Noel raised an eyebrow. "You know, I could ask you the same question."
The guy shrugged, "Call me Cazador." Probably not his real name, but that was fair enough. "As for why I'm here, someone asked me to find their kid. They went missing recently."
Noel nodded. Going by his build, 'Cazador' was probably a mercenary or something, and he could understand the "probably rich parents throwing money to look for missing kid" thing. His mouth was open to continue the conversation when the voice from earlier came back.
"Is someone there?"
They both whirled around in the general direction the noise came from, before an ear-piercing shriek rang out for a second before the worsening rain drowned it out. Rubbing his ears from the disturbance, Noel asked, "Did you see anyone else out here?"
The slightly blurry form of Cazador's head turned his head from side to side. "You were the first person I met."
The scream rang out again in the distance, cut off faster this time.
Well, he had found one person, maybe they could find a third person?
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Apparently, they couldn't.
The first couple of minutes was fine. They just kept walking towards the voice, and his leg was doing better now, so he could at least keep up without too much trouble.
Then the blizzard rolled in. Despite it being, y'know, the middle of June. It shouldn't be cold enough for his breath to become visible!
Unfortunately, this complete defiance for the laws of nature was still happening, cutting down their visibility to the point the flashlight is useless, the wind howling, drowning out any noise other than their footsteps, and the snow made traversing the landscape even more difficult. The cold was starting to get to him as well, and he could only imagine how it was for Cazador, who was already slowing down a bit.
"Help!" The annoying, repeating calls for help weren't helping. At all.
"Does she say anything else? It almost sounds cliché at this point."
"Wait, I can see you! Turn around!" Finally! Something different
Cazador turned around on a dime, clearly looking for the person that they had missed on their way through. Noel, meanwhile, was in the middle of taking a step, and thus caught the glowing eyes in the darkness half a second before something launched at Cazador's back.
"Behind you!" In an instant, the water dripping from the trees all around them is frozen, the ice snatched and fired.
Cazador continues his spin so he's once again facing forwards – most of Noel's projectiles miss, the blur obfuscating the shape, but enough hit to slow it down for a precious second – and catches the claw that was going to go through his back with almost visible ease despite the cold.
The claw extends up a long, thin arm to furry shoulders. A gaunt body exposes multiple ribs under a inhuman head. Cazador throws a punch; it smashes right through it's stomach and blasting it away, the claw the brown haired boy's holding torn off the main body in the process.
They have enough time to relax for about a second before a furious roar erupts from it's approximate landing site. Fuck.
Noel shouts to his partner in this fight, barely about to tell him above the howling weather, "It's a Wendigo! Stay together and don't let it bite you!" He has enough time to see him show that he heard it before he's forced to put his own advice into practice, ice making a wedge to stall the bloody fangs aiming for his head.
It doesn't do much to stop the Wendigo, which just smashes the block as it's claw rakes horizontal, barely catching him as he jumps back, eliciting a grunt of pain. Once again, Cazador charges in to try and land a hit, but the creature retreats into the blizzard before he can land a blow.
"You don't seem too surprised Wendigos exist."
Cazador simply raises his arms around at the blizzard.
"Point," Noel concedes. "I don't suppose there's any chance you can light it on fire?"
"I can't do that, no."
He sighs. "Well, brute force it is." Spikes glisten in the air, rotating around them in a makeshift cocoon. "Nail it when it crashes through?"
Cazador nods, the plan clear. They're both glancing around at this point looking for any sign of their foe. Noel rubs his fingers together to avoid the increasing numbness-
A bird spirals into view, spinning right between the spikes. A vague memory comes to surface (
the only good thing from back then), but it's too late as the monstrous entity detransforms from the avian foe, stomping onto Cazador hard enough he hears something crack. Hopefully it wasn't his skull against a rock.
But there's no time to consider that anymore while the creature roars in triumph, it's jaws unhinging to take a bite out of it's dinner, as his wall inverts on itself as he throws himself to the ground, the air above him becoming a killzone filled with frozen projectiles. The white haired boy looks up to see the creature knocked off of Cazador, still moving despite how it almost looks like swiss cheese with the sheer amount of holes in it. It's gaze turns to him, yellow eyes burning into him with an almost startling degree of sheer hatred, then the eyes are glowing and the wind is picking up again, forming a massive cyclone with them in the middle. The world starts spinning in and out of focus and his vision whites out when snow is blasted into his eyes as he starts grasping at his throat in an attempt to breathbreath
breathjustneedair-
Crunch
The cyclone dies down as quick as it starts, leaving Noel falling to the ground, gasping for air, even if all the snow is getting in his mouth. He looks up to see Cazador hunched over from where he kicked the creature's head, knocking it out (or whatever the equivalent was).
His leg's throbbing again and his chest is stinging, the adrenaline preventing him from noticing wearing off as he hobbles over to the Wendigo. A frown pops up on his face when he notices it already regenerating. Cazador, for some reason, seems to be recalling something as he sees the wounds regenerating.
"We need to get out of here." The other boy's drawn out of his reverie at his words. "It's not going to be under for long and there are significantly more terrifying things that it could do if it can, and every second is going to count." His mind goes through at a million kilometers per hour. "I wish Soleil and Lily were here but they're all the way in Toronto…"
Cazador seems to be considering something before some realization comes to his face. "Why's the snowstorm still going?"
The question makes him freeze. If the wendigo was causing it, which was looking like the most plausible explanation at this point, it should have at least weakened. But if anything, it's gotten even stronger. But-
Noel blinks and suddenly the world is frozen for a brief moment a second creature is right in his face, close enough so that he's staring directly into it's eyes. His gaze is drawn down for some reason and he sees a claw impaling him through his stomach.
Oh.
Unlike right before where he was panicking in the face of his near death, there's a sort of calmness to it this time. The events above him drift in and out, seeing Cazador fighting back and forth against another blur above him, before he's right above him picking him up. He has a pair of scissors and he's cutting the air for some reason and the thought is ridiculous for some reason. Then they're inside and the last thing he sees is Soleil's face for some reason before he really needs to take a nap and his eyes shuuuttt and everything's black.
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When Noel regains consciousness, he's in a bed in a plain room instead of the outdoors. He lies there for a moment, just relaxing there. For some reason when he tries to move, he feels really stiff. Looking at his body reveals that he's wrapped in bandages up the wazoo.
Something shuffles off to his side, and he can't get a chance to look at it before something clatters to the ground and he's suddenly being hugged really tightly.
"I get you want to hug me for some reason, but for some reason it's starting to hurt."
A muffled sob is heard before the weight pulls off his body. Noel's head finally turns to see Soleil wiping something off her face before a more neutral look appears.
"What happened?"
A more familiar, exasperated look appears on her face, "You wake up and that's the first thing you ask … well what do you remember?"
He tries to recall what happened. They were fighting off a wendigo, then a second one showed up, and then … "I got injured, I think."
"Think nothing, the wendigo that ambushed you nailed you right through the stomach. We were surprised when a portal showed up right in the middle of the back room, and then we saw you." He can barely catch something in her eye before it's gone again. "I'll be honest, the fact that you're still alive is a miracle."
He was that close… Shoving his mind off his near death experience, he asked, "What happened to Cazador?"
She entertained his change in subject, "He wasn't as bad off, the guy only had a couple of scratches, besides mild hypothermia."
He breathed a sigh of relief. "… Is there any chance I could thank him?"
His friend shook her head. "He left a couple of days ago. But I think Lily was talking to him about passing information onto him or something later. Wasn't paying attention to that."
…days? It must have shown on his face, because she's already continuing, "Oh yeah, you've been asleep for about a week."
"Great. Well, at least I can go back to desk work by tomorrow." Soleil clearly has
thoughts about it, but she's interrupted by another voice.
"I'm sorry, did you just say that you'll be going back to work?"
What little blood remains drains from his face as their blue haired medicinal expert walks into the room, his expression the very picture of cold fury.
"Oh, hi Eir."
That was the wrong thing to say, considering he can just see the fire in his eyes swell to even greater heights, his stance going rigid for one of his more
longwinded rants whenever they did something stupid.
"Is that really all you have to say when you come back like this?"
…Was there any chance he could go back to fighting the Wendigo? He looked at Soleil, trying to beg with his eyes for her to save him, but she just smirked and shook her head, leaving him to his fate. Traitor!
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3 days ago…
"Thank you for your help, Cazador."
They're sitting in Lily's office, finally done with all the paperwork and cover stories required with hiding both a freak blizzard in June and a sudden fire in the same week. Unfortunately, they managed to find the half-eaten body of the girl he was looking for, but given what had happened to the rest of those poor people, it might have been a marginally better fate.
(Honestly if Lily hadn't wanted to be sure about making sure they were all stamped out she might have just sent Soleil on her own going by the sheer amount of emotion throughout the last few days, and how ruthlessly she burned the oppostion.)
"It wasn't a problem, I was happy to help." The brown eyed boy sitting in the comfy chair is clearly nervous about something, but it's overshadowed by the genuineness in his words. She can probably guess why.
"If it's about your magic tool, I promise none of us will say anything. All of us here know the importance of that."
(It was true, she would know all about keeping secrets, considering the backgrounds of her friends.)
(Soleil is the one that comes to mind here. A memory of a burning building flashes for a second before it's quashed.)
"But if there's anything I really need to thank you for, it's for getting my friend home alive."
Cazador looks embarrassed at this point, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, I couldn't exactly leave him to die, y'know… It wasn't a hard choice to make. And you didn't have to pay me for it." The last bit is spoken in that really awkward tone people use when they really think it wasn't worth being paid over, but they also need the money.
The brunette smiles, "and yet, you used something you wanted to keep hidden in order to do so when you didn't have to. It's the least I can do." Cazador shrugs at that, his conscious apparently sated. "If there's anything I can do for you…"
Cazador makes to give an answer, stops for a moment, and then opens his mouth again. "Actually, there are a couple of things you can help me with."
"As long as it's within reason, I'm sure I'll be able to help."
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Marco has gained Shatterpoint Investigations as a contact on his search for Star! If they hear any rumors about her, they'll pass it your way! And they even promised to keep it a secret too! Since they work in Canada, there is almost no chance Toffee will found out about you through them bar a freak accident.
Shatterpoint Investigations will also send the occasional job to you!
Marco has gained +7 income from both the completion of the job and a bonus payment from Lily out of gratitude.
A/N 2: So this has somehow become significantly longer than I initially expected, and gone through several rough drafts. I'm hoping I managed to get Cazador down as a character fine.
-If the beginning wasn't clear, this takes place around June 2015
-Marco and Noel were fighting Wendigos. Cannibalistic monsters found roaming around North America, they had a lot of interesting powers so I figured I could use it.
-They probably could have won the fight if both of them were at peak condition. Unfortunately, they both spent an hour trekking through the woods in a freak snowstorm, and then Noel got critically ambushed, forcing Marco to choose between winning the fight and getting Noel to safety.
-The last bit is probably why this won't be canonized, but my justification for it is simply that given how critically Noel was injured, there was literally no other option to even try and save his life without using them. Plus in-universe the entire Shatterpoint team has a decent amount of baggage, so they'll keep it (and if this does somehow get canonized, I will say that they didn't mention it to anyone in the past year in quest. They don't really work in the US either, so NEIMZ won't be finding out from them).
-Relatedly, the only thing Marco said concerning Star could basically be summed up as "If you see this girl, could you tell me?" Nothing about Mewni, other dimensions or etc.
-Shatterpoint, in my current headcanonish space, is probably the most similar to the Dickens in concept, except slightly more geared to investigations into the Occult, among other things (And obviously nowhere near 55 intrigue).
-I'm not going into specific into the healing process, mainly because I need to find characters for that, but suffice to say a lot of favors were pulled.
-As a side note, because this probably won't come up – Marco was only there to find the missing girl, neither of them were really expecting to be thrown into a fight.
-The last section with the Marco gained stuff is admittedly just fluff text as if this was Marco!Quest thrown in on a whim. Basically, this is another group of contacts that Marco has on his search for Star, and also another source of jobs for him to take. Now, if they actually found anything or not is something I'll leave to the QM's
If this is the only reason this doesn't get canonized I swear
