Merc's Miscellaneous Side Stories

[unknownmercury]

Where I'm going to put my miscellaneous stuff, one-offs, and the like.

[unknownmercury]

RotR Reimaginings

Prompt: RotR where everyone is a magical girl (yes even the guys)

Jared watched as Xander continued to fight against the two senshi who were attacking them. Despite losing an arm in the transformation, the psychic senshi was holding his own pretty well with long-ranged attacks and teleportations to keep his opponents at a distance.

Despite this, he was giving up ground. The older woman had a few ranged attacks of her own, and hers packed a bit more punch than his did. Each time she attacked, Xander had to dodge, and that gave the shadow-girl a chance to move closer. She hadn’t shown any form of magic aside from slipping between shadows, and the knife in her hands implied that she didn’t particularly care about using her magic.

Jared hadn’t made the transformation yet. He was trying to make a decision. Ever since he had woken up, his dark half had been trying to convince him to use the second Familiar that they’d acquired. On the one hand, Jared knew what he was doing with Anubis, and the powers complimented his own fighting style well. On the other hand, Styx had an edge that Anubis didn’t have, and that brutality might be warranted here.

He could feel both of them vying for his attention. He closed his eyes and flinched as he heard Xander take a hit from the dragon woman. Grimly, Jared came to a decision.

The transformation was painful, which was not how it should have been. It was supposed to give a feeling of power and calm, not one of being ripped apart by your own magic. He felt his fingers fuse and form into long dark claws. White fur rippled in patches across his body, the rest hardening into scar tissue. Pain split his head as he grew the blade that was his primary weapon.

He roared as the transformation was complete. Styx and Mercury were ready to rip apart their enemies.


What was that? Xander glanced back at where his ally had been and froze in terror. Despite how long he and Sylph had worked together, he still sometimes lost control to her instincts. Right now, her instincts were warning them that the person they’d been working with had turned into a predator, a monster.

Xander was powerless to stop Sylph from teleporting them as far from the creature as they could get. This, unfortunately, put them right next to the girl who had been called ‘Alma.’ The ghost girl rose up from their shadow, cackling. Her blade sank into their back, and Xander cried out. There was a burst of pink-tinged light, and Xander and Sylph were forced to separate.

That likely would have been the end for them, but Jared -- no, Jared was lost to his Familiar -- rushed in, the blade on his head glowing. With a roar, the silver senshi slashed at Alma, driving her away from Xander and Sylph.

He spared them a quick glance before taking a low, primal stance towards the other two. He grinned, showing the sharp fangs that had replaced his teeth. “You know, I would have ripped you to shreds even if you hadn’t just attacked my teammate. But just for that? I’m going to make it especially painful.” He rushed forward, roaring again, leaving Xander and Sylph to try and fuse again.

The two failed, which wasn’t that surprising. The cooldown period between fusion was at least twelve hours, longer if you had strained yourself or been injured. While you could overcome this, it wasn’t recommended. The two could only watch as their ally attacked relentlessly.



Who even were these guys? Alma was only attacking them because they were standing in the way. If they had just moved like they’d been told, then Belle and Alma would be halfway through with the so-called ‘Hero of Reverse’ by now. The girl was definitely no fighter. She had tried to stand her ground, but once they had transformed, she had turned tail and run, leading them straight into combat with her friends here.

And now this guy was giving them more grief than even Roderick Krane had. Whatever his deal was, Belle would rather not fight him. In fact, she was actively trying to retreat, but he wasn’t having it. Any time she took a step back, he took a step forward and squared with her.

Oh well. At least this gave Alma the chance to attack their actual target while he was distracted.

The target had come back, leading two other people. Alma gave a sigh, even as she felt Shadow’s glee at new opportunities to let loose. While it would be fun, it would also mean having to get rid of more witnesses and the added chance of something going wrong.

The target had knelt by the boy Alma had stabbed, leaving her two new teammates between them. Alma glared. “And who might I ask are you supposed to be?”

The duo struck near-identical poses, a hand on their hip and a finger pointed high in the air. The man gave a confident, even cocky, grin. “I am Evan Tierra, Hero of Space!” he declared boldly. The wind suddenly picked up, blowing his brown hair dramatically.

The girl gave a slightly-less confident grin, but stated in a firm voice, “And I am Jamie Arthur, Hero of Time!”

Alma scowled. So, the so-called Hero of Reverse wasn’t the only one? That spelled trouble for her. Oh well, she would just have to kill them along with the original target to avoid having to make a second trip.

Xander took a deep breath as Dahlia focused on the wound in his back. She had this, he knew. She had come such a long way since their battle with McKinley. He felt the wound closing slowly, and grinned. “Hey, Dahlia, wanna try something new?”

When he told her the idea, the girl seemed a bit uncertain. “Xander, I don’t know if that’s safe. I might go too far.”

The psychic grinned softly. “No, you won’t. You’ve been doing really well with Jared, haven’t you?”

The girl hesitated, then nodded. “Right. Then here we go!” Light flared around them.

The man had transformed into a creature that looked similar to the coat he wore. Alma found that a bit odd, but she had more important things to worry about, such as the fact that the Hero of Time had just launched an Ice Beam at her. Alma narrowly dodged, and that brought her into position to see something even worse. The target had just used magic, despite not being fused with a Familiar. That wasn’t supposed to be possible.

Even worse, the flash of light signaled the psychic senshi she had stabbed turning back into his one-armed form. The boy was standing, using his sole arm to dust off his silvery skirt. Purple eyes locked with her red ones, and he smirked.

“Evan, Jamie, glad you could join us.” The psychic stepped forward, standing between the two Heroes. The man, Evan, threw a thumbs-up. “No problem, Xander. We wouldn’t want to miss the action, would we?”

Alma scowled, taking a step back. When faced with overwhelming odds, you had to get creative in your approach. This was such an instance. She would have to break the rule of transformations, and she would have to do it quickly. But first, she had to distract this group.

She threw her knife. It rushed through the air right at the Hero of Time, and Alma was fairly certain it would eliminate one threat.

But it didn’t. The girl simply glared at the knife, and it stopped, suspended in mid-air. What was that?

Still, it was enough. Their attention split, Alma reverted to her normal form quickly, then reached for the being of fire and shadows that her master had supplied her with. Her form grew, muscles formed, her skin was covered in orange fur striped with black. She snarled, fangs forming quickly in her mouth. She would regret this action later, but for now, she was strong.

She charged forward, flames swirling around her. The girl who had stopped her knife was covered in ice, which meant that this Fire Spin would do plenty of damage to her. Alma was almost upon her, but then she shouted. “Time will freeze!”

Belle finally got the dark senshi out of her way. She was fairly sure she hadn’t killed him, since senshi in their transformed state were tough, but she couldn’t be sure. She had used her Dragon Tail attack to twist his neck, and he had fallen. If she had killed him, though, she was fine with that. He’d been trying to kill her. She strode forward and growled. Alma, fused with Cuhulainn, was standing surrounded by unmoving fire, and surrounded by three other senshi.

What even were these people? The psychic boy from before pointed at her, and a man covered in purple scales and scars turned to smirk at her.

“I think now is a good time for you to give up. After all, we’re the good guys, so we have to give you a chance to surrender before we lay a beatdown!”

Belle scowled. How pretentious. Still, if they could neutralize Alma so easily . . .

She reverted and allowed herself to be subdued. A moment later, the original target was doing something to Alma. As Belle watched, the girl was forced back to her Shadow form, then back to her human form. Whatever these “Hero” powers were, they seemed to defy all understanding in magic.

This mission had definitely not been a success, and she had a feeling they wouldn’t get any other jobs after this.

[unknownmercury]

Just a short little vignette inspired by a misunderstanding from Kon.

Not canon in any way, shape, or form (except that yes, he is shredded.)



Chronicle of the Battle of Vermilion, as recorded by annalist and chief medical officer Croaker (Or: Mercury's Killer Abs)


The Black Company had seen better days. In Sinnoh, an army over a thousand strong whittled down to enough men to fill less than two platoons. Small ones. That's what happens when you get hired to fight rebels and they're split up into a hundred different factions. They spen time fighting each other, too, sure. But they fight like demons, no matter who it's against.



After picking up some recruits, Plucky alerted me to some things he'd been seeing, things that shook him up bad. He gave me the dates and the places, and I wrote them down and took them to the Captain. He made the executive decision that Rocket wasn't paying us enough to die up north, so we left, headed for Kanto.



We'd heard rumors of a rebel faction in Vermilion, some group trying to restore the city's name. Wasn't long before they heard we were in town. Wasn't long that they heard only a fraction of our army was paying a visit.



Wasn't long before me and some of the men were in a scrap. The new recruit, Mercury, he'd proven himself as bloodthirsty and vicious as any among us (and, if I'm being perfectly honest, worse than most) but even he could see we were outgunned. Fifty rebels from this so-called Vermilion Company against ten men?



It was going to be a slaughter, or so I thought. New guy, though, just laughed and shrugged his coat off. I'd never seen him without it. It was almost like his safety blanket, something he hunched down into when he was feeling threatened or uncertain.



Then the lunatic started removing his shirt. What? I thought. Sure, we were down south, but it was the middle of January. Even in Vermilion, the temperature was in single digits. He flexed, and hard muscles stood out on his arms. He tensed, pecs and abs tightening. The kid was young, maybe fourteen or fifteen, but he had a solid six pack that would make most men envious.



For whatever reason, they were glowing. I couldn't tear my eyes away as he flexed harder. With a great cry, he uncoiled, and light the color of blood shot from him.



Fifty rebels, killed with a single flex of his stomach.