✍️ Write based on the line prompt above

Characters: Adrianand Shadow Adrian

"Say that again! I dare you!"

With a feral grin, Ian eyed his original from the cage the male was in. A form of glee danced in his eyes as he noted the frustration in Adrian's voice and the bubbling rage that filled his gaze. Ah yes. It was absolutely delicious.  His yellow orbs watched as Adrian tighten his grip on the bars of the cage. Was it a form of intimidation or perhaps the male was simply trying to force himself to remain calm by using the bars as a form of stress relief? Ian assumed both. Did it work? Nope.

Ian couldn't help but chuckle as he watched the worm grit his teeth at what he said. Ian knew what Adrian wanted to say, He knew the temptation for Adrian to sat those lovely three words was pushing Adrian to the point of insanity.  The male could hide a lot of things. He can hide his feelings for the group. He could hide his dreams. Hell, he can even hide the truth behind what happened to his sister. However, he'll be damned if he hide how he truly felt about Ian.Well technically himself. 

"Come on, Adrian! Speak up! You got the mic now! If you got something to say, say it!"

After all, Ian was Adrian.

However, Adrian doesn't believe that. He doesn't believe that Ian is him. Despite being born from Adrian, Ian was nothing more than a pest or something that he refuse to accept was him. That didn't upset Ian. In fact, this simply filled the male with a form of glee. After all, this was the key he needed to be free. Free from this palace. Free from this form. Free from Adrian. All he needed was Adrian to say those magical words. Those words that he knew Adrian wanted to say but was struggling to say. All he needed was a little push.

"Adrian! Come on! We need to hurry up! Don't tell me you're the same coward as-"

"Shut...up..."

Ian could feel it. He could feel Adrian's heart burn him and god...it felt so damn good! Ian couldn't help but grin more at this. He could see Adrian was breaking even more. He needed another push.

"Hey. If you're going to tell me to shut up, you might as well shut up as well. I'm you remember~"

He could feel the burn intensifies. He watched Adrian snarled at him at what escaped his lips. The sheer rage that filled his gaze was absolutely beautiful to look at. Ian was shaking in delight. His breathing quicken as his grin extended so uncharacteristically large. He heard the the others shout out Adrian name. Perhaps they realized what was occurring. Oh but they were far too late. Poor runts didn't see this coming~

"You're not ME!"

Ian felt them. He felt the shackles that bound him to Adrian shattered. He felt power flooded his system. It was intoxicating power and gave him goosebumps. Adrenaline pumped through his system as he gave out a loud laugh. The laugh echoed through the speakers that surrounded the stage as darkness coated his body.  The darkness tore through him and removed that small bit of care he had for his original.

He was now free.

"You can't keep this up forever, you know. They'll find out eventually." The bucktoothed man cast an uncharacteristically somber look at the table before looking back up at Emil. The latter couldn't help but feel sorry for him. He seemed utterly broken.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." He doesn't mean to sound dismissive, but Emil just wants to stop Leon from--

Oh. There he goes. The lieutenant captain watches helplessly as tears well up in his cadet's eyes. Emil this is a tough decision to make, he's not that irresponsible. Maybe Leon was right; unless his younger brother was some kind of mastermind, there's no way a 15-year-old could slip past military regulations. If anyone found out they were related, Leon could be punished too. Emil remembers that day he overheard the Summers' confrontation; Leon was completely blindsided by his brother's actions. But would covering for them be right? Emil thinks of his own brother, someone who spent his whole life longing to join the Interstellar Forces, just like Leon. The young lieutenant knows he's done some reckless things when he was 15; would it be fair if his older brother got punished for Emil's crimes? Absolutely not.

The blond man refocuses his attention back to his now-sobbing subordinate. "Rookie..."

"Emil, I know y-you're trying to help," the other man interrupts, "But please....don't do this. This is our problem, and I don't want--" he draws in a breath, "I don't want you to get in trouble 'cause of us." Leon attempts to show his trademark smile through his tears. It only makes things worse.

Emil takes a deep breath. "You deserve to be here as much as the rest of us, and your bro's been doing a pretty good job so far. Leon," he pleads, "You love being here so much. We'd hate to see you go." He clasps one of Leon's hands in his and gives him a reassuring nod. "Don't worry. I'll make sure he gets home safely."

Leon stares at the blond for a few seconds, blinking. He hesitantly returns the nod.

"Good." the lieutenant captain replies, pleased. 

"Th-thank...thank y--"

"You're welcome!" Emil interrupts the cadet's stammering with reassurance and a winning smile. Truthfully, he can't stand hearing the cadet's breaking voice; it's starting to make him choke up, too. "Do you need a hug or somethin'? You look like you had a rough night."

"It's okay, really..." Leon humbly refuses.

"Come on...."

Smiling in defeat, Leon gets up from the table to accept a tight hug from Emil.

"We'll figure this out." reassures the lieutenant. He finally lets go and assumes a more authoritative stance. "Now. As your commanding officer, I order you to--" he gives way to a casual tone, "Get some rest, take a chill, and wipe all those tears away, okay?"

Leon salutes him, before walking back towards his sleeping quarters. "Goodnight, Emil....and thank you."

"Goodnight, Rookie."

"I can't believe you would do this! Do you even care?"

Atlas scarcely acknowledged her. Not at first. His mind always did a strange thing whenever he was caught in his own trap, laid bare by his own machinations. It shut down. It went into autopilot. It compelled him to steep his tea, to turn his back on Averill and all of her indignation. It compelled him to pick up his failed attempt to keep a planner. It compelled him to speak. 

"Did you see this? There's to be an eclipse nex-'

"You don't care." Averill said, her words cutting into his like a knife. "Everything you have. Everything  you've built upon all of these years and you would see it crumble. For what? Some man?"

"Not some man." Atlas said, surprised at his own sudden anger. "If a person were to compell me to painstakingly deconstruct my own throne, they are more than some man."

Averill said nothing. Not at first. He saw something in her gaze break, a glacier come drifting away. Something melted, softened. It was minute. It was so small that it scarcely mattered. But it did. It meant more to him than he thought she would ever know. She put her face in her hands. Her words were muffled against her palms. 

"I can't save you from this. You are my friend and I love you. But I will testify against you. I can't destroy what I've had. It's all I have."

Atlas took a long, deep swig of his tea, regarding Averill with both disdain and respect. He remembered how he felt when he first met her. She stood but a few inches taller than him, but with her presence it seemed as if she stood as tall as buildings. Now she was small. Vulnerable and human.

"I would not expect you to. Not for some man."

The question caught Altair off guard, and his jaw gaped a bit. His shocked expression turned to a smirk, and he lunged for the one who asked the question, but he aimed elsewhere, purposefully giving them a scare.

"Ahaha.... Humans. That's what gives me the right," he responded, wiping the blood from his previous victim from his chin. He ran his tongue along his fangs, licking off the excess blood there as well. "You pathetic excuses for my ancestors' creation are willing to take the lives of those you hardly know, man OR beast!" His voice raised, becoming a near snarl as he spoke disdainfully. He gestured to the bloody corpse below him, a large chunk ripped from the neck and claw marks tearing through the clothing. 

"Grandfather had no mercy on pathetic beings such as yourselves. Father was mistaken. I was mistaken. You beings are untrustworthy and must be PURGED!"

The tears began to stream down his face as he gave half-hearted slashes at the being who had asked the question. With each slash was a word, and each word, a fainter tone. "You! Took! My... Nero... From... Me..."

He collapsed to the ground, a sobbing mess, then looked up at his target once more and hissed pathetically, "kill me."

"What is a man? Are we more than what we seem?" the Director asked, adjusting the cuff of her white blouse. She had asked the question before, and Fredric had deflected it with his usual flippant behavior, so she turned it to Christmas, the boy who feared the world and his shadow besides.

"I-I don't know," he stammered, because he had never questioned it. Either he was a subnatural and monster to the world or he was a human--a concept that had moved so far from him he could no longer see it on the horizon. "I thought--I thought I was a...a subnatural?" he offered instead.

"Think, boy," the stern woman snapped, disappointed with how little progress he had made despite the atrocities he and his teammates had faced down, "and consider if the world is so simply black and white."

Her response was a half-retreat--one foot flinching backwards and fear etched into the wide-eyed gaze. She expected him to run now, to turn tail and escape her austere office until he had left the moral dilemmas of existence behind like so much detritus in his wake.

His eventual answer surprised her.

"Even if...if I think differently, the world already wants to be black and white."

Theodore's movement ceased, the selkie though seemed still rather exhausted and stressed, but he didn't continue his fatigued movements.
"I-" He halted in his words, the blond man lets out a trembling sigh as he drives himself to relax, reaches out to lean upon something, his perception dodging in and out. "Forgive me- I simply seem to not have gotten enough sleep last night" he let out a subtle chuckle to keep it in a lightened mood. The Englishman though was pale, standing on his feet seeming to sway to faint at any second. Work has busied him too much, looking track of the days of when he should have settled himself into water, now being caught off guard and almost shoving over a stranger.
"If you'd excuse me-" his droopy puppy grey eyes strained to look for a familiar face, someone to get him back to his hotel and into water to cease the withdrawals.

There it was. The Eye of the Loca. The jewel that men had spilled blood over for centuries, the gem that legends claimed would open the stairway to the heavens, the stone that would allow mortals into the realm of the gods. And with just a couple careful movements, it would be hers for the taking and she could see if the rumors were really true.

Even though a museum like this claimed to have top-of-the-line security, the claim was a load of bull meant to prevent the unaware from ever thinking of stealing any of the treasures within. But for someone like Serafina, who had been playing this game for years now, she learned when to call someone's bluff.

She danced through the shadows with ease, avoiding the cameras and hopping over the laser tripwires that hovered just above the floor. Wedging herself between a column and the wall, she shimmied up to one of the cameras, deactivating it with a quick snip of a wire, and opening her path to the prize.

What she hadn't realized was the lone security guard, the newest addition to the museum's team, had woken up from his brief period of nodding off. The guard grabbed his pistol and ran towards the exhibition hall, praying that in the time it took him to sprint from the security office all the way to the other end of the museum, the thief and whatever her prize was would still be there.

The time it took Serafina to pick the lock on the display case was all the guard needed. As Serafina wrapped her hand around the fist-sized ruby, he charged into the room, pointing his gun right at the thief. "P-Put that down! Right now!" he shouted, his hands trembling. When the succubus didn't move, he raised his voice again. "Drop it or I'll shoot! I mean it!"

The thief paused, pouting slightly. "Now isn't this a problem. I thought you were asleep..." she whined, shaking her head. "Now why can't I have an easy run for once?"

"Put the jewel down! I will shoot you if you don't!"

Serafina was good at calling someone's bluff. "You aren't going to shoot me," she crooned.

"I-I will!" the guard bellowed, and Serafina could see the gleam of sweat on his brow in the low light.

Maybe she'd give her new toy a try now. If it worked, cool. If not, she could at least take one gunshot while she got away. But having a witness was going to be a pain...

"No, no, you're not going to shoot me..." Serafina replied calmly, almost casually. "Insteeeead...you're going to watch me become a god."

Clenching the gem tightly in her hand, Serafina felt it splintering in her grasp, and in a brilliant explosion, the Eye shattered, engulfing the area in a blinding light.

When the security guard opened his eyes, the thief--and the gem--were gone.

Perhaps the legends were true.

A white owl fumbled through the books on his wooden desk. He wore a fancy business suit, which fit him comfortably. The feathers on his wings were white which faded to a dark gray at the end. His tail feathers and his plumicorns were the same way. His face was covered with colorful patterns in mint green, pink, and yellow-orange. His beak and eyes were a dull olive green. He quickly picked up one of the books, a college math textbook. He opened the book up to the first page and started trying to read it. The words seemed confusing and almost impossible to read. He frustratedly slammed the book down on his desk and fluttered over to his nest. He laid his head down and let his thoughts get the best of him. You idiot, he thought, you stupid idiot. You were the smartest being on the planet, but now you’re just a bumbling idiot. You should’ve never gone to Jatinga.

He heard a knock on his door. “Hello, who is it?” he asked.

The voice sounded odd, which gave the owl a clue that it was another animal speaking. “Grayson, my name is Card Tricks. I am a magician, and I wish to talk to you, sir.”

“Give me a minute or two.” Grayson fluttered to his desk and grabbed two pills that were on there. One was for a headache, which he was what he was getting from the noise of the book slamming on his desk, and the other was for his head trauma. He swallowed the pills, nibbled on some pebbles on a pile at his desk afterward, and flew back to his nest. His brain tuned out the questions of Card Tricks, who at his door until he finally tuned back in and remembered the person outside.

“Sir, it’s been five minutes. If you don’t want to talk to me, let me know…”

“No, no! Come in!” Grayson answered. 

Card Tricks came in, revealing himself to be a snake. The first notable thing Grayson noticed about him was his arms and legs, unusual for a snake. He had a gold underbelly, with multiple colors on his scales: the closest to his underbelly was a gray, then a small sliver of orange, followed by a small sliver of black that went to his eyes, and then a darker gray with a white spray-paint like pattern at his back. He wore a black hat with a red strap and a red clock bowtie that was functional. His tail had a pen, which seemed pretty practical. His eyes faded from dark green to yellow with a slit pupil. He had white markings on his front legs that seemed almost like gloves. He had dark orange markings under his eyes with white and black lines going through it.

“Sorry, didn’t hear you. I was too busy, uh… Moping,” Grayson apologized.

“That’s alright, but… May I ask why?” Card tricks asked with a confused tone.

“It’s a long story… How can I help you?”

“Well, sir, I wanted to ask if you could maybe help me with a memory spell. See, I was revived from a fossil, and I’ve been wanting to remember back then to maybe give scientists a feel of what it was like to be a snake back then. This is something no other magician has accomplished, so I need your help.”

Grayson’s emotions were mixed. If he helped Card Tricks, he would get his intelligence back, maybe for good this time. But how would he help him without his intelligence? He only asked with uncertainty, “Don’t you know about the accident?

“Accident?” Card Tricks echoed with a confused tone.

“Yeah, the accident. I tried to study the bird suicides of Jatinga, but instead got hit by a bamboo pole. I became an amnesiac, forgetting all of what I have learned. At least I have learned my metric, imperial, English and German back. How is a stupid amnesiac of any use to you?”

Card Tricks shook his head. “You’re not a stupid amnesiac. You’re Grayson, the smartest living thing on this Earth. Sure, maybe you are an amnesiac now. So? That doesn’t make you stupid. You can, and you will learn it all back and more. Soon, you’ll laugh at how foolish you were for thinking you couldn’t do it. I remember I laughed at myself from when I believed I couldn’t become a magician from the fact that I’m a magician, but hey, look at me now! If you could help me, the spell can speed up quicker, and you’ll be rewarded with all of your intelligence back. Of course, that isn’t to say that I wouldn’t do it if you didn’t help. You are my idol, and I will do anything to help you. So, what do you say?” He held out his hand to Grayson.

Grayson nodded and shook his wing with Card Tricks. “Let’s do it.”