Molly's Cliffhanger

[Gildarts]

Filtered light streamed from the pearly walls as Molly's dress shoes lightly tapped the ground. With a light hum and a well-paced frolic, the girl had already created a large distance between herself the Coruscant gate. Her pigtails sprouted from the sides of her head and rolled over her shoulders in rippled waves. The girl was adorned in pink and resembled a fairy, or would have if it wasn't for the hardened expression tainting her ability to smile.

To her dismay, she had yet to get a response from the internet sensation Agnès whom she had requested help. Meanwhile Gildarts - the oaf - was no where to be found. Lastly, and perhaps the most devastating, she had run out of mochi ice cream.

As she walked, the youth fiddled with the buttons on her phone but could not help but to feel a sense of impending doom riveting in her shaking bones. Behind her eyelids, the images of death flashed - no it had been murder - and the willingness of even her idolized friend to do such a deed was earth-shattering. Didn't he know what death meant to her? Probably not considering she wasn't the mushy type. She would never admit it's true reference. Death was the loss of her family, and with it, the love and hope anyone had shared with her seemed to vanish. Primes or not, for this girl, there was no room in the Omniverse for double-standards.

Perhaps watching Dante's Abyss had been too much for her childish morality, her thoughts strained and she reverted to her reflexive defense of snarky comebacks which she quickly waved away from her mind. "Sigh... Gildarts," She expressed her action aloud as the smallest tear escaped from the corner of her eye, "How could you?"

It shouldn't have surprised her, considering the terms, or rather, the ruins they had met in. Yet still, his words shook her as she recalled the darkness on his face, and the truth never seemed more real. In fact, it's shockwave of shivers even transcended the wake of the memory. Three simple words that shattered the moment she stood in with the utmost consequence.

"You could die."

As she blinked away the memory, her eyes rolled to her toes. She melted at the sight of her pretty and glossed little shoes that had been touched with the carefully caressed imprint of painted flower pedals. The girl noted that there was no shadow cast in her stoop but today, she chose not to investigate. Not now, Her chin sunk low in disappointment, and almost touched her neck as she realized that the man she was searching for could be dead.

Gildarts. His charismatic smile flickered before her eyes, then, she saw a glimpse at what he had sacrificed for whatever their mission had meant to him. It was the same, he wore the same expression on the island, she could tell. Whatever it had been for, whatever the repercussions wrought, the man hadn't given up. Even when it had landed him in a hospital gurney. It was unreal that in the same passage of admiring thought, came the unthinkable.

He could be dead.

The idea of this was much worse for the secondary, than the idea of him becoming a murderer. There's my double standard, I suppose. If Karl Jak had banished Gildarts to the Underverse, Molly would never forgive him. Perhaps she would even extract a little revenge. Her never-ending ploys distracted her from the longing drain tugging on her heartstrings.

She had even planned-out what she was going to say to the mage first, and had taken an unflattering screenshot of him in the collar. Molly smirked as she held it in her hand before crumpling it out of either disgust for herself showing weakness, or sick anger at the Prime for abandoning her.

"What about your promise? You didn't keep it, and I'm the fool, I should have known. Of all the people to speak empty words, yours had been the fullest."

The orphan girl let the flooding turmoil of emotion breach her thoughts as her expression grew from sorrowful into one closer to her trademark sassy smile. "That oblivious guy had probably gotten lost, or ran himself into a tree." It wasn't unlike him, and the thought put the charming glitter of light back into her eyes. All the while, the unsaid question had yet to be answered.

Where had he gone?

[Guu]

Guu was casually walking from the Coruscant gate. Her feet was conflicted on whether to power walk the entire way to the Tangled gate or to go at a usual pace, so it did something down the middle. While she wanted to go home, she wasn’t prepared for the disappointment she’d find there. She knew they wouldn’t outwardly judge her, but that gut feeling of what they are silently keeping to themselves rocked her to the very core.

However, her attention was quickly grabbed when the image of a little girl popped into her head. She was young and cute, wandering the Nexus, all alone. The pink haired princess pondered if the little one was lost or homeless. A child like that could really use a leg up. Finding an excuse to delay her trip home, she swiveled her feet in that little girl’s direction.

Molly was still looking at her phone, pacing back and forth, a mixture of worry and melancholy on her face. She didn’t even notice Guu walking up to her.

“Hi.” She stated plainly. Molly jumped at the sudden intrusion as she moved to shoot a glare at the pink princess. As she noticed that the person standing before who was a little girl a foot and half shorter than she was, she let her guard down.

“Woah, you know, it’s rude to sneak up on someone like that.” Molly stated. Glad to have a distraction from her thoughts, she motioned in to shake “I see I’m not the only kid alone in the Nexus right now. What’s you’re name?”

“Guu.” She replied, returning the shake. Molly cocked an eyebrow.

“Really?” She asked, baffled. Though oddly enough, the name sounded familiar. She quickly straightened herself out. “Well, I’m Molly.”

“Why were you pacing back-in-forth like that?” Guu asked. This took the 10-year-old aback. She didn’t expect her to ask about her actions earlier. She contemplated on whether or not if it would be wise to share her feelings with a stranger, but in the end decided that this kid seemed innocent enough. And considering she had the same love for pink that she had, maybe they have a lot in common.

“Well, I’m worried about my friend. I don’t know where he is and I’m worried he might be hurt or…” She plopped down, sitting on the cold hard white floor of the Nexus. Guu sat down next to her. “To be honest, I don’t have anyone else. I don’t have anything. I don’t even have any Mochi Ice Cream left.”

Guu placed an arm stub on her shoulder in confort. It was around this point that she finally noticed that her new companion didn’t have any hands, but she was too melancholy to think about it right now.

Suddenly, Guu’s arm pulled away and a glow emanated from the Pink haired girl’s direction. Molly looked over and saw the rainbow colored orb floating in front of her.

“Wait, you’re a prime?!?”


-----


Molly was munching her way through a brand new box of Mochi Ice Cream.

“So you’re actually a Princess of a Kingdom? So you’re like some King’s daughter or something?”

“Nah, I rule the place myself.”

“But wouldn’t that make you a queen then?”

“Maybe, I dunno. Subjects call me a princess.”

She finishes off her current mochi and offers the box to Guu. The pink princess grabs one and shoves it down her throat.

“But still, running a city, totally something I could see a prime doing.” Molly said, chuckling. “What kind of people are there?”

“Oh most of the human citizens are teens. The adults left a long time ago.” Guu responded.

“Wow, a city full of Teenagers.” She stated, trying to imagine what such a place would be like. Then she had another jolt. “Wait, ‘human’ citizens?”

“Oh yeah, we have moogles; they’re like batwinged cat things, and we have Animal Humanoids too. All nice creatures.”

“And they all talk?”

“Oh yeah, very sentient. We even have a pig running a diner.”

Molly laughed out loud at the concept. She could imagine a pig wearing an apron, asking her for her order.

“It’s a good bunch. We have a couple of primes besides me as well, though they mostly do their own thing.”

“I know how that feels.” She said, being reminded of her concerns.

“Yeah, there’s my best friend Desco, and then there’s Gildarts…”

The box of mochi ice cream hit the ground. Guu looked up to be met by Molly’s shocked face.

“You know Gildarts?”

“Well, yeah.” Guu responded, a little surprised at the sudden outburst. “I mean he’s a new addition. We’ve only done part of DA together and I sent him on that one mission...”

Suddenly, both girls facepalm in unison. Guu had heard the name Molly in her e-mails from Gildarts. Molly had seen Guu in the footage from Dante’s Abyss. Somehow, they’ve had this entire conversation without making the connection.


-----


After a long contemplating silence, Molly spoke up.

“So you were the one he was talking to on the dataverse?”

“Yep.”

“I just assumed it was his girlfriend.”

“Nope, I’m his boss.”

Molly had another laugh at this.

“And I thought I was the first kid he was taking orders from.”

“And I’m guessing you’re the Molly from the e-mails. Well, you have my gratitude. Sounds like you were an important part of that mission.”

“You could say that again.”

They both laughed at that one, Guu giving a menacing little chuckle.

“Well, I don’t know where Gildarts is, but I know he has an obligation to me so he’ll be returning to my stead eventually. Why don’t you come live in Ambrosia?”

“Really?” Molly asked.

“Yeah, my kingdom owes you a great debt, and we’d love to have you.”

Molly mulled it over, thinking hard. After a few seconds…

“Well, if Gildart’s will show up there eventually, then I might as well go.”

Guu shot to her feet and started walks, signaling Molly to follow. She shot up as well.

“But I’m still worried though. What if he dies out there?”

“He’ll reincarnate.”

“But, that’s not true for all primes, what if he…”

Guu raised a hand to stop her mid-sentence.

“Omni made it very clear that primes that interest him will always come back. And from what I know of Gildarts, he’s very interesting.”

Molly had to think about that one, it was a very good point. Even though he was dimwitted, he was a very fun guy to be around. Omni would certainly favor a person like that.

With that re-assurance, a content smile spread across her face. Guu picked up the box of mochi ice cream and handed it to her.

“No more worries.” Guu said with a small little smile.

[Carn_Val]

2 hours into my lovely Nexus stroll, I found a good conversation with the volleyball. We asked each other a few times about the little things. Orbo's just carrying the volleyball on top. I think I'll keep Orbo. This little camera orb from DA is a handy pet companion.

With the bag shouldered, my body kept dragging me to places, boring ones. I look back at the volleyball, hoping to find some sort of distraction this way.

"Isn't this quite a drag, eh Wilson?"

"..."

"Haha! You got that right, pal! "

"..."

"Wow? Really? So cool then. You telling me you lasted 3 years on an island by yourself and inspired someone to make a movie out of it?"

"..."

"What? They put a human in their version of the story? What for?"

"..."

"Woah! So you're saying that, aside from changing the main character of the story, they made you second fiddle? Humans..."

"..."

"Nah. Don't worry, I'm not human, we should stick together with our fellow anomalies. Besides, we got Orbo with us! Say 'hi' Orbo."

The little orb shook up and down a little to try acting like he/she/it acknowledges our presence. Orbo's still a bit rough of the sides but soon enough, Orbo's goig to be better than ever. I'll make sure of that.

A few meters onward, I see a particular sight in the surrounding, a pink haired animal(?) in the middle of the Nexus crowd. Upon closer inspection, it was an upright bipedal lifeform that appears to be human, 'appears to be' meaning I'm not sure if that's human since this world tends to make use of the humanoid form a lot. I have to close in and make sure whatever that thing was, doesn't have extra arms or legs and immediately disqualified to be human. I sneak in to get a much more closer look, ignoring the similarly pink-loving being the little pink one is currently talking to. Somehow, I feel like i've met this food before...and that it knows I'm here.

"G-Guu?? Guu!" I ref'lexively jump at the little humanform, giving it a tight hug with my teeth arms. "I missed you so much! We didn't get to meet up on the island. A shame," I greet her, spinning around like a super-accelerated merry-go-round.

"Yo," the princess said happily with the usual look she carries.

"Oh? Who's this? " my finger points at the human 6.39 millimetters in front of it. "I'm Carn! I came to eat you!" I jest. The other girl has her eyes enlarge and starts to sniffle into tears. "Just kidding! Kidding, " I panic, no idea what to do. The girl starts crying, somehow my conclusion was to overpower it by making a bigger scene. I fall on my knees and drop the bag I was carrying. "Please stop! Don't cry! I'm sorry! I- I, I'm sorry! Forgive meeeeeeeeeee!" I fall to my side and start crying as well.

________________

3 minutes later, Guu starts dragging me by the foot, the little girl who I learned was named Molly silently following behind us. Orbo recording everything.
"Where are we heading to?" I asked the princess.

"Ambrosia, my home,. It's in the Tangled Green. You can cry there all you want while not making it feel...embarassing."

"O-okay...fine by me," I agreed.

After that random event I sincerely apologize for making a mess out of, we arrive at the Tangled gate. Before we entered, we stopped and I asked a simple question: "Where's Desco?"

sorry, had to cut my post short since something happened and I'm needed back at the lab. sorry for the short post