✍️ Write based on the line prompt above

"Well, I thought it was a good idea."
Isaac raised an eyebrow at Neoka, "You thought having a candlelit dinner immediately after a water balloon fight... with gasoline instead of water... was a good idea?" He paused as he thought the activity over in his mind. "Who the hell plays with gasoline filled water balloons?"
Neoka shrugged. "Demi, and I guess I do now." He sighed and gave a slight shrug. "I just... don't see how this wasn't a good idea. Did you not like the food? Do I just smell too weird for you? Did I need to take a shower first?"
Isaac pursed his lips and brought a hand up to his mouth, as if considering his words carefully. "Well... I mean it would've helped if you changed or washed off first, but it's not the smell that's the problem."
"So my cooking hasn't improved since our last dinner then?"
Isaac pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and gave a huff. "Noooo... that's not it."
Neoka frowned and glanced around at his surroundings, searching for what could be the problem with their environment, but that only seemed to frustrate Isaac further. "What? Did I pick the wrong candles?"
"It's not about the dinner, it's about the..." Isaac stopped. "Why the hell am I trying to explain this to you when it's so blatantly obvious? Why would you think lighting candles and then leaning over said candles when you’re soaked in gasoline was a good idea?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"It's always a bad idea."
"That's pretty subjective."
"YOU'RE ON FIRE."
Neoka didn't seem to react to the flames engulfing his clothes and burning his skin. "That's open to interpretation."
"NO IT'S NOT. YOU'RE MELTING BEFORE MY EYES AND IT'S FREAKING ME OUT."
Neoka rolled his eyes while brushing his bangs out of them, or at least what was left of them as his head was consumed in fire. "You're always saying I'm too hot for words though. I guess this is what I get for trying to be romantic. I should stick to being straight, shouldn't I?"
"Well, I wouldn't go that far, but-"
"I mean, if this isn't what you'd call romantic, then I don't know what you're asking for, Isaac."
"I'M ASKING FOR YOU TO NOT BE ON FIRE. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE FLAMING IN ORDER TO TAKE ME ON A DATE."
Neoka took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, all the while his body shifted black for a moment before he morphed into a previous state of himself. One that was not a living bonfire. "Well, the fact that I took that too literally just shows how painfully straight I am. Or painfully inept at dating, I dunno. Either way, I put up with getting into a water balloon fight with Demi for this date. We destroyed five villages and three forests because I thought it would prepare me for this."
Isaac shook his head. "I don't like it when I'm the more reasonable one out of us. You should stick to questioning my ideas instead of doing... whatever that was."
"I still don't see how it wasn't a good idea. It was just the wrong good idea."
"You keep telling yourself that, sweetcakes. Now how about you take me out to a more normal dinner and we can burn down a restaurant instead of ourselves, hm?"
"Oh, you're no fun."

It was a typical summer day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Basil was on his garage work in on his new project. It was a strange machine. It looked like a toaster, with a calculator screen and a cheap computer microphone taped onto it. Right besides him was sitting his best friend, Olive, playing with her phone. She put the phone down and looked at the strange device.

"Where are you going with this again?" She said, with a disinterested expression on her face.

"Y-you don't know?! B-but I told you a few minutes ago..." He looked brokenhearted.

"Ah, yeah. I wasn't paying attention"

He could hardly be surprised. She was always like this. She never listened to anyone unless they were praising her, and she often ignored him unless she needed something. Right now she was at his house because she had broken a vase, and they were waiting for Basil's dad to come so he could fix it.

"Uhm, a-as I said before, the X-pro translator 3000 is supposed to translate animal speech into english. I've tested it a few times but it keeps failing, so now I'm gonna try and-"

"Why don't you give up?"

Basil looked back at her.

"W-what?"

"Why don't you give up?  It has failed all your other attempts at getting it to work and it will probably fail again, right? Besides, it's a stupid idea. You can't translate animal speech, not without magic, and this thing is the least magical thing I have ever seen." She touched the small spring that protuded from the machine.

He supposed she was right. It had never worked, and probably never will. It wasn't magic. It looked stupid. Almost everything was stacked against him, and yet he could not give up, precisely because of that. He had always been regarded as useless, a good for nothing and an idiot who couldn't contribute to society, even by his closest friends, and he was aching to prove them wrong. He had to, he had to do it so they knew that he could do it, that he was capable of something, that he wasn't a nuisance. So, even though most of the time he would do what she wanted, today he wasn't going to. And he had to let her know.

"No. I won't give up." He said simply, in a sudden bout of confidence, confidence he lost as soon as he finished that sentence.

"Why?"

"B-because... Because..." He couldn't tell her, not really. He couldn't afford to do that, he was too small and pitiful and she could punch him. "Because... I want to." It was the most simple answer he could find.

"Huh. Fair enough." She said, and looked back at her phone. 

He kept working on it for a little while, then tried to turn it on. He switched the little lever besides it, and waited. The screen began to flash and come to life. Basil could barely believe it, it had never done that before! He got closer. Olive took her eyes off her phone again, just to look. The machine started to vibrate, and it began  to release sparks of light everywhere, before it made a loud "BOOM" noise and broke into thousands of tiny pieces. Basil face was black with soot and frozen in a disbelieving smile. Olive was laughing so hard she started to cry. 

He got up to pick up the broken remains of the machine, so he could start again.

"I don't care about what you've done, I'm sticking with you until the very end."

Those words surprised him, specially because of who they were coming from. The young faun was standing there, looking at him with a stern expression. She had made a decision, and was sticking with it. 

"Are you sure?" said Xyzabd. "The entire world is going to be against you, you know. They are going to call you crazy. Are you sure you want to go through all?"

"I don't care about that." said Tabitha. "I only care about the mission. Is important, and I can't stand not being able to do anything to change it. I was ignorant before, and you opened my eyes. I don't care if you made a mistake. It's not that important."

"I only ask because I'm worried, Tabbie. You are my friend, you know this, and I just don't want you to get hurt."

"As I said, it doesn't matter. I'm staying witih you."

There was nothing else he could do. She was going to stay with him, and she was going to suffer for it, but she had an iron will and wasn't going to be convinced. None of this had happened if he had shut his mouth. He wouldn't have lost nearly as many followers as he did. But he was never going to shut his mouth and not say what he was thinking, especially if it had to do with the awful humans and their overtaking of territories that rightfully belong to monsters. He didn't care that everyone seemed to think he was an extremist for thinking the way he did. If his followers didn't agree with what he was saying, then he didn't need them. He was worried about Tabitha, but since she had already made a choice, he had no other option than to include her in his plans,

"Alright Tabitha. I have something I want to ask you. Since society is completely against us, I thought about  making a smal camp on a forest close to here, and bring everyone there, so we can live together. Do you think it's a good idea?" he asked.

"I think it's excellent" she responded. 

And so, they kept on walking through the streets of a highly populated city, talking about plans for the future and the complete destruction of humanity, the man who was widely hated by everyone, and his brainwashed childhood friend.

Isela stood, frozen, in the blazing hallway, eyes wide with horror.  This didn't make any sense.  Not even an hour ago she'd been called into the office just a few feet in front of her and sent off on a request, and now... that whole room was essentially non-existent.  The fire had completely consumed it and what was worse is she could smell the scent of burning flesh.  The flames licked at her feet and she took a step back, clutching her tote bag with her stolen goods tightly to her.  She had to get out of here.  But Brielle... were was Brielle?!

The oni turned and fled the burning hall.  The flames were erupting everywhere, jumping across walls and setting her place of employment- no, her home- ablaze quicker with every second.  The air was thick with smoke and Isela found herself coughing; her eyes burned but she continued on to the dorms, ignoring the exit as she passed it. Bodies littered the floor as she ran; employees and fellow workers who had succumb to the smoke, no doubt.  Isela knew better than to look and continued deeper into the building. It never crossed her mind to leave.  Not without her friend.

However, as she approached her room, she found a separate, new wave of flames on this side of the building.  How was that possible?  There wasn't time for questions; Brielle hadn't been sent on a mission today.  She was here somewhere.  Isela stopped for only a moment, wetting her sweater sleeve in a water fountain and bringing it to her face to filter some of the smoke as she passed through it.  Just around the corner was her bedroom; she knew it by heart even through the inferno.  The oni knew better than to grab the door handle.  Instead, she stepped back and spun, kicking the door right off its hinges.  

Brielle was standing there silently, surrounded by flames though none dared near her enough to even singe her beautiful green feathers.  Isela froze, feeling a chill go through her even as waves of heat rushed her.  Brielle was smiling, and in her hand she held a jar with a single, bright red eye floating in a clear liquid.  Isela recognized that eye; it belonged to their employer.  It didn't take long for her to put two and two together, and she took a soft step forward, hand outstretched towards her friend even as her fingers trembled.

"How could you do this?"

Brielle frowned and turned her head, gazing at her friend with a soft pity.  

"Oh Isela, I hope you weren't hurt.  You weren't supposed to come home quite so fast.  This was supposed to be all over by time you arrived."

Brielle was  calm.  Of course, she was always calm; it only made sense that even in the face of a horrific slaughter like the one she'd just committed that she'd remain emotionless and level-headed.  As terrified as Isela was, she found comfort in the fact that Brielle, no matter what, had always taken her safety into consideration.  She was the only one; the harpy killed without hesitation and even with disturbing delight but she would never let herself or anyone else hurt the oni.  She took her friends hand, keeping the small jar tucked under her other wing, and quickly ran down the hall and out of the exit.  Isela could hear the screams of her colleagues around her but they didn't stop.  There was no turning back from this. 

"Man, I'm so hungry, I could eat a horse!" Ethan beamed as he stepped out of the restaurant, two large styrofoam boxes in his hands. They were steaks from an expensive restaurant, one that cost him about two weeks' paycheck. One was for Detective Waltz, who was always around to help him when his bad luck caught up to him. This steak was the least he could do to say thanks.
Ethan pursed his lips. How would Frederick look when he was handed the food? Would he still keep that scary look on his face? Or maybe he'd smile a little? Maybe even... blush?
The Texan tensed and shook the thoughts out of his head. Get rid of those weird thoughts! Just... Just give him a thanks and run off! Balancing the boxes on one hand, he reached into his pocket to dig out his keys.
Suddenly, something hard slammed against Ethan, forcing him to stumble and drop his boxes. Panicked, he looked down at the boxes, both opened on impact and their contents now littering the dirty sidewalk. He stared in shock for a moment before looking up. "H-Hey-!"
Standing in front of him was a man around his age, wearing a thin white shirt and black skinny jeans with a smug look on his face. "Sorry, bro!" he cackled, holding his phone up to take a video of Ethan's expression and the mess on the floor. "Maybe watch where you're going, huh?"
"I was standing in the same spot the entire time!" Ethan argued. He ran his fingers through his hair. What was he going to do now? One of those steaks was for him to eat too, and he wasted all his money on this. He wouldn't get paid til tomorrow, he didn't have the money for groceries now...
The man with the phone only laughed at the other's misfortune until something made him stop. "Huh? What the f-ck?" He angrily tapped his phone, the screen frozen and not replying. Suddenly, a large, gloved hand tightly gripped his shoulder and spun him around. "Wh-"
SMACK!!!
The man hit the ground before he could even finish, his face landing in the food, unconscious.
Ethan jumped back at the sudden fall then looked up to see Frederick standing there. Although his expression was as serious as ever, there was a glint of anger in those dark blue eyes.
"People will do anything to get famous. If even for three seconds," the detective murmured while rubbing his knuckles. He briefly glanced at the food then up at Ethan. He opened his mouth to ask why there were two steaks, but stopped when he saw the tears the Texan was trying not to show. Frederick stayed quiet for a minute then looked over at the restaurant. "... I haven't eaten yet, and was on my way here for dinner." His dark blue eyes glanced at Ethan. "Would you... care to join me?"
The smaller man hesitated then gave him a tearful smile. "Y-Yeah," he sniffed, wiping his eyes. "I can't pay for it, though."
"When have I ever made you pay?" the detective said with a small smile.

    "I can't do it! I just can't!" Roxy cried out to Ghostie. She snapped her wand in half and threw it on the ground, stomping off only to trip on a rock. She landed face flat and just sighed, rolling onto her back. She put her arm over her stomach. Ghostie frowns and floated over to her, curling up on her stomach. "You can't give up that easily. Isn't our motto 'Never give up?' Cause right now, giving up is what you seem to be doing." Ghostie said. He spoke softly as if to try and calm Roxy down. Roxy turned her head to the side and let out a long sigh. "Yeah it is. But I mean, what's the point in learning spells and magic if I can never see what they are.." Tears start to form in her eyes. "The world seems like such a lovely place. The sounds, the smells. But I can't see any of it. What's the point Ghostie?" She asked, sitting up. Ghostie frowned and floated close to her face, patting her shoulder. "I'm sorry you feel this way Rox. But, it's how you were born. I don't know why. Just know that I'll be here with you every step of the way. Maybe we can learn a spell that can give you eyesight! Doesn't that sound good?" He asked, sounding more enthusiastic. Roxy gave him a weak smile and wiped away her tears. "It sounds lovely. I don't think theres spells for that though silly."