No. 2 - Tumblr Posts
Whumptober Day 2: "They Don't Care About You."
Fandom: Nimona
Summary: A story from when Ballister was younger. Todd never was nice to him, even when they were young.
Waring: Some violence
Ballister didn't want to be here. He didn't want Todd to be looking over him. He felt small even if he was only a bit shorter than him. He held him to the wall, not letting him do so much as move.
Boldheart looked past Todd to his fellow knights in training. They had never helped him before so he didn't really know why he tried.
Sureblade grabbed Ballister's face and forced him to look at him, "they won't help you."
Hands wrapped around the man's throat, "They don't care about you."
Pulling his arms up, Bal clawed at Todd's hands. He scratched himself but the marks on Todd's hands were worse.
The world started to feel strange. He eyed the other who had all gone back to what they had been doing but faster.
That's when he realized, they truly didn't care about him. Here he was being choked out and they would rather finish what they're doing then help. They would rather let him suffer then do anything at all.
They other trainees sure but what about Ambrosius? What about him? And the Director? Did she care? The queen? The one who believed in him from the beginning, the one who gave him a chance?
Did they pity him? Did they care? What would he do if they didn't? What if he was alone after all? What if Todd was right?
The world started to fade. Ballister tried kicking at Todd but nothing worked. As his vision blurred he stopped fighting so hard.
After a moment Todd tossed him to the ground. Leaving him unconscious on the dirty floor.
When Ballister awoke on the floor, alone, he didn't bother getting up yet. He lied on the floor knowing he needed to get up anyway. He stood and looked at the wall then to the rest of the room.
Meeting his eyes in the mirror felt cold and lonely. But he was lonely. Ballister walked over to the mirror and punched the glass. Then, with a bloody hand he walked towards the door.
No one had come to look for him. Maybe Todd was right he thought, maybe no one cared about him.
You are excellent at drawing Feitan, @meowzanin33 . 🙂♥️ Daring, detailed, and productive- gorgeous. ✨🖤🗡️🥰💜💕✨✨
I’m not very good at drawing umbrellas lol
Trust Issues
(amusement park / role reversal / "you got away with the crime while the knife's in my back"
***
It was somewhat tricky to get a read on Faye.
Spike prided himself on knowing what a person would do before they did it. Anticipating movements in a physical fight, reading their tells in a game of poker, sensing seconds beforehand the swoops and dives of their vessel in an aerial or space battle, cataloguing all the things he would need or say or do to charm a lady... the list went on. And typically Spike was right on the mark.
Faye however continued to bamboozle him. It made it exceptionally difficult to determine how she'd react to situations. In a life-or-death fight or flight instance she was right out there alongside him in her zipcraft. Typically that was when woolongs were on the line however. Money, or the dangling carrot promise thereof, tended to control her more than anything else.
But sometimes she did things completely unexpected. There had been bounties with hefty price tags that she'd simply ignored. Then there was her tendency to literally run away. The escape to Callisto was only one instance. She'd tried to run off with that scammer Whitney Haggis or whatever his name was... though that seemed to have been motivated by a personal desire for answers. Her craving for knowledge of her own past was insatiable and left him baffled but also curiously understanding. His own past was considerably checkered and he'd gladly purge the majority of it if he could. Nightmares haunted his sleep and his waking hours often felt like he was just biding time until his own demise, nothing to separate one day from another save for the occasional near-death experience.
Like the one that assuredly awaited him at Space Land.
Faye had teased him as though he'd invited the attack that left him banged up on the couch but scant hours later tried to keep him from learning about the disturbing invitation from the creepy killer he'd accidentally stumbled upon after leaving the bar the other night. She had known that of course he'd go. Had wanted to stop him from getting himself killed. She'd act like she couldn't care less and then prove herself wrong by caring quite a lot.
Did he want her to follow him? No.
Did he want to face this lunatic alone? Also no. But, also yes.
He had teased Faye before leaving. A thoughtless jape about going to his death. Could he trust her to turn up and keep him alive? Did he trust himself to win against this freakish mad hatter - a man who glowed green when bouncing bullets off some invisible impossible force field around his own body? What the fuck even was that?
The abandoned amusement park gave him the willies, quite frankly.
Fortunately, the pain radiating from his injuries from his first nearly lethal encounter with this guy was an adequate distraction from the tendrils of fear trying to take root in his mind.
If he had to hear those teeth grind again though... to see those haunted eyes staring at him...
It was a good thing he had flirted with Faye before leaving. Riling her up like that should have pissed her off enough to leave the ship for the race tracks and would therefore leave him to his own suicidal devices. And showing up here meant that Ed would be left alone on the Bebop. Two people kept safely out of the way. And who knew where Jet was? He'd trotted off after bandaging Spike up, muttering something about giving Bob a shakedown for intel on the attacker that had left Spike staggering out of the harbor in agony.
It was just him against this freak of nature. Someone more heavily armed than even Spike had ever been in his explosive Red Dragon heyday. Someone who repelled bullets and could literally fly. And who, despite his portly stature, had run Spike through the wringer previously.
His right cheek throbbed from the incredibly solid punch that the well-dressed fellow had landed. His back felt like it was on fire - almost had been, since he'd barely been able to outrun the blast he'd cause or that had resulted from the grenade launched from the mad man. His jaw probably should have been wired, it was a wonder that his teeth hadn't shattered or his neck broken from repeatedly being kicked while lurching through the air from the force of the other man's vicious attack. And the stab wound to his upper right arm certainly wasn't helping his odds of a participating in a fair fight.
A true challenge.
Climbing down from the Swordfish II, Spike landed in a crouch and immediately curled in on himself with a gasping shudder as all the accumulated injuries accosted him at once. Then, sucking in a painful breath, he summoned the resolution borne of years of being brutalized through one bad encounter after another. Fight clubs as a kid, training missions as a syndicate lackey, bounty hunts gone horribly wrong... pain could be shoved aside. Force it to the back of his back, file it away to give into later. Focus was what was required now. Focus and... well, some sort of plan would be nice but beggars can't be choosers after all.
He was sure some solution would come to him. That, or death.
The silence was ominous. And then, in a startlingly flash, everything lit up in front of him. The man took a bow and somehow activated everything surrounding them in the theme park.
Discretion being the better part of valor, Spike made to escape the volley of gunfire being launched from the cane the other man used.
Lost in a strange ice world that apparently served as some sort of ride, Spike reeled as penguins slide across the ground and blasted off into the air. This place was no good. He had to get out.
Making his way to a sort of mall space, he tried to follow the sounds of maniacal laughter in order to get a good shot at his target. Too many moving pieces, nothing made sense.
Fleeing, then advancing, then on the run again. Explosions knocking him about like a rag doll and it felt like all the rides themselves were against him. The other man moved supernaturally fast. He also did not hold still. There was no advantage that Spike could find. How do you fight someone impervious to gunshots? How do you land a hit on somebody ducking and dodging quicker than the eye could follow? How do you get the upper ground against someone that could float or fly?
Wave after wave of pain swept over his battered body as he crawled out of the pool that had caught his body when he plummeted from the roller coaster. Blinding lights helped the other man target Spike with grenade after grenade.
This was it. He was in over his head. Terror warred with frustration and exhaustion tugged at him as aggressively as the agony of his wounds.
Suddenly the air whooshed around him as a new contender entered the playing field.
The RedTail!
Faye that beautiful fucking lunkhead... she was gonna get herself killed! And probably him while she was at it.
Damn, he should have known he couldn't trust her to stay away.
Or perhaps he had known all along and it was his own self that he couldn't trust... sabotaging his own self-righteous standoff by inviting her to tag along and play hero...
His chest ached fiercely, his heart hammering as he watched Faye zipping around. Her indelicate attack on the maniac spurred the cackling man to turn his attention on her and soon debris - along with the RedTail - was raining down all over.
There was no time to check and see if she was okay. There was barely time for Spike to dodge being splatted by an enormous statue toppling down from above.
And then he was sprawled out in a damaged storefront, some novelty kitten toy tumbling out of the wreckage and putting the man into what looked like a horrified frenzy.
Screaming, the fellow opened fire on the toy and Spike staggered from the building while saved once more by a distracting feline. Saved for a moment at least because all too soon the man's wide-eyed stare was fixed back on him. A well-placed bullet sent his Jericho flying from his grasp... the noise of an oncoming parade kept Spike from hearing (but not from seeing) the man grind his teeth... and then something made the fellow gasp and gave Spike the opening he'd been hoping for. Diving to avoid the inevitable retaliation, Spike threw the ace up his sleeve - the knife behind his back - and thankfully that was not stopped by the peculiar force field that had saved the man from bullets before.
But he couldn't count on that keeping the man down for long. He was superhuman in speed, strength, and possibly healing as well. Surely the battle was not yet over... though the way the man was rolling about and crying out for his mother was something of a shock. It made a shiver run down his spine from where he sat trying not to give into his own relentlessly throbbing wounds. And then a very decided yet unexpected end... frankly a traumatizing way for any fight to finish.
What a hellish night.
And there was still Faye to find.
Trust a woman to be a bother when all a man wanted was to pass out from blood loss.