A fanfic of @caffinatedOtter's Pilot Princess Soul Defender Moonstone series
Sabine awoke to the piercing ring of her cellphone. She pawed blindly at her nightstand, the irritating jingle an icepick to her hungover brain. Her fingers grazed the device and she considered flinging it across the room, but this was the ring. The "Official Pilot Princess Soul Defender business" ring. She swiped to pick up the call on speaker and retreated into her blanket.
"What?" She grumbled.
"Are you still sleeping?" Came the irritated voice of a boss who had to listen to the phone ring for slightly too long. "It's almost four."
"Yes, Sapphire, I'm still sleeping. What is it?"
"You know, evil doesn't wait to fit your schedule Moonstone. If you could try a little harder-"
"If there's nothing important I'm gonna hang up now."
"Wait! There's something going on at the pier. We've got a bunch of sailors calling in saying they can't get to work because of a horde of robots."
"Got it. On my way." Moonstone said, and hung up before Sapphire could say anything else. She downed a couple of ibuprofen, brushed her hair, and got dressed, then paced her room searching for wherever the fuck she had left her keys when she stumbled into bed the night before. She found them strewn on top of a rubber duck and sighed, snatching them up and heading out the door.
"You don't want him back?" She asked, holding out a rubber duck with a band-aid plastered across its side.
"No!" Hazel said, flinching at the intensity of her own voice. "It's nice that you saved him, but no. I'm making good progress and I can't-"
"-Can't risk having him around." Sabine finished for her. "Like you can't risk having me around."
Hazel couldn't look her in the eyes as she spoke. "It's not- I don't mean anything by it I just-" She stopped and took a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before continuing. "Recompartmentalizing is difficult, and I'm trying to make it more stable than last time, and I can't do that if I'm surrounding myself with... With, um..."
"Old coping mechanisms?" Sabine offered.
"No! You're not an old coping mechanism you're a... Potential relapse trigger?" Hazel said, and winced as the words left her mouth. "I shouldn't even be here right now, but you figured it out and I couldn't just ignore you and I thought maybe just a quick visit would be okay as a test."
"I understand." Sabine said quietly, deciding to leave out "But this still hurts pretty fucking bad, Hazel."
"I'll be back."
"Okay."
"I will, I mean it." Hazel said, clearly unconvinced by the stoic badass act. She cautiously hugged Sabine, and gave the Professor a quick squeeze. "I just need a little more time."
"I get it, I do." Sabine said, gently hugging Hazel back. "I can see you're doing better, I'm just... I miss you."
"I miss you too."
Pilot Princess Soul Defender Moonstone rolled a cigarette as Amethyst's laughter drowned out the comms channel. The Soul Defenders had arrived at the pier and found themselves faced with hundreds of robot crustaceans about two feet long, all swaying their claws in the air in some sort of victory dance. Sapphire shushed her and attempted to take control of what was shaping up to be a complete waste of their time.
"So what do we think? Eco-terrorist?"
"It's crab rave, they're doing fucking crab rave-" Amethyst cackled, and was promptly muted by Sapphire.
"Anyone else?"
"I think," Moonstone said, lighting her cigarette, "I didn't need to get out of bed for this."
"Anyone who takes their job seriously?" Sapphire said, determined to remain heroically steadfast in the face of whatever the hell this was. "These robots are terrorizing the populace!"
"Terrorizing is a strong word. They're dancing at the populace."
"They were threatening people who tried to get past them, we can't just let them stay." Said Cinnabar.
"Right!" Said Sapphire. "We need to come up with a plan to disperse them without risking any-"
"I'm just gonna step on them." Moonstone interrupted.
"No! We don't know how they'll react-" Sapphire protested, but Moonstone had already stepped into the horde. The sea of robo-crustaceans parted to avoid being caught under her mechanical foot, and then reformed around it.
"INTRUDER! INTERLOPER!" The robots shrieked, ceasing their dance and snapping their claws in the air. "PINCH HER! FOR THE EMPRESS!" Those closest to her began snipping harmlessly at her mech's foot, while the rest simply kept clicking their claws. They didn't even advance to try attacking her other foot, just stayed where they were. Moonstone took a long drag and opened her cockpit, blowing smoke into the open air. "Yeah, I'm feeling pretty terrorized." She said, and swung herself over the side of the cockpit to slide down her mech's leg. She could hear Sapphire yelling something over comms, but that had never stopped her before. The robots didn't react to her landing on her mech's foot, and she lifted one out of the crowd by the tail and held it at arms length. It wiggled and screamed, but made no attempt to attack her.
"UNHAND ME! FIEND! HAVE YOU NO HONOR?"
"UNHAND HIM! FOOLISH MEATBAG!"
The rest of the swarm made a hell of a fuss, but none actually did anything, and so she did not unhand him.
"Alright, what's the deal?"
"WE CLAIM THESE LANDS FOR OUR EMPRESS, NONE MAY INTRUDE!"
"Well, I'm intruding." She said, and took another drag. "What're you going to do about it?"
"THAT WILL BE YOUR DOOM, INTERLOPER! OUR EMPRESS RULES THE SEA AND STARS! THE LAND WILL FALL TO HER AND ALL WILL BE HER DOMAIN!"
Moonstone's eyes widened and she choked on the cloud of smoke she was inhaling, dropping the robot as gears spun in her mind. She climbed back up to the cockpit with shaking hands and brought a robotic fist down into the swarm.
"RETREAT, BROTHERS! WE ARE OUTMATCHED! YOU HAVEN'T HEARD THE LAST OF US!!!" The robots cried, and scuttled off into the water. Sapphire sighed loudly over comms. "I guess that solves things. Good job team."
Amethyst's mic clicked back to life, and she was still giggling to herself.
"C'mon Amethyst," Cinnabar said, "It's not that funny."
"They're not even crabs," Added Onyx, "They're clearly lobsters."
"Crayfish." Moonstone said faintly.
"What?"
"Nothing. I'm going home, don't call me out here for stupid shit like this." She snapped.
But if the other Pilot Princesses had looked into her cockpit, they would've seen that she was beaming.
