So, the season finale of Hazbin Hotel came out last night.
Spoilers ahead
I was never part of the Hazbin Hotel or Helluva Boss fandom(s), though I have been watching Helluva Boss since about midway through when season one was being released. I only watched the pilot for Hazbin Hotel maybe six months to a year ago, and I only ever watched it once. I never kept up with VivziePop or whatever was happening behind the scenes. I watched Hazbin Hotel as it came out the past few weeks, I’ve watched some TikToks about it over the past week, and I read through a few (like, three) of the character’s wiki pages like, yesterday.
So, with all of my inexperience in the fandom and in this universe, I’m going to try to predict how the show is going to end.
Kind of.
Well, I’m going to make a prediction.
I think Angel Dust will be the last resident of the hotel we see get redeemed.
Angel was the first resident of the hotel. It’s only fitting that he’d be the last (that we see, anyway).
I think that season one was almost like a set-up season. The main characters and their characterizations/arcs have been established. The main problem, the extermination, has been temporarily dealt with. It’s been proven that the main objective in the show, redeeming sinners through the Hazbin Hotel, is possible. Seeds of a bigger plot and future trouble have been planted.
Now that the bigger plot things are out of the way, I think the show will be able to (hopefully) slow the pace down now and really focus on the hotel itself and the redemption process of the sinners that choose to be there, along with the individual characters and their personal journeys and arcs.
I think that Sir Pentious getting redeemed and making it into Heaven proved that the concept of the hotel can work, so now that they have the bigger, newly built hotel, they’ll start to get more residents. We’ll meet and bond with more characters as the seasons go on and they’ll go through the hotel and eventually get redeemed and go to Heaven.
I think that during all of this, for the next few seasons, we’ll see Angel work towards redeeming himself too. At this point, he’s accepted the hotel. He’s accepted his place there and he’s been visibly getting better. We’ll see him continue his path to redemption while also dealing with Valentino, his contract with him, and any other personal conflicts that arise.
I think that partway through the show, we’ll see Angel start to kind of put off becoming fully redeemed. Maybe he’ll just slow down, but I think we’ll see him become more apprehensive about completing his redemption.
At this point, he’ll probably already be in an official relationship with Husk, and his situation with Valentino might be resolved or at least not as much of an issue anymore. I think he’ll start putting off officially moving on into Heaven because he realizes that he doesn’t want to leave his friends behind. He won't want to leave the friends he’s made at the hotel, so even though he might be ready or almost ready to go to Heaven, he’ll just keep putting it off.
I think Angel’s ascension to Heaven will be the big series finale. I think that it’ll be a big emotional moment. Angel will accept that it’s time to move on, and there will be an emotional scene where he says goodbye to Charlie (who, as a Hellborn demon and not a mortal soul, can’t go to Heaven like the other sinners), and Vaggie (who will choose to stay with Charlie and has no desire to go back to Heaven), and probably Alastor (who loves his power and control too much to want anything to do with redemption himself) and maybe Niffty (I’m undecided about whether she’ll try for redemption, but I’m thinking no, at least as of right now). If Husk stays behind, that’ll be an absolutely heartbreaking goodbye too, but I’m thinking that, at some point in the show, Husk might decide to try for redemption as well, so maybe he and Angel are going together and saying their goodbyes together.
I think we’ll get a teary goodbye for the people Angel is leaving behind in Hell, but we’ll also get a joyous reunion scene where he meets up with all the redeemed souls in Heaven as well. He’ll get to see all the former residents we got to meet throughout the show, and maybe he’ll even have a moment where he gets to reunite with his sister, too. It’ll be a somewhat bittersweet moment, but a happy one overall, because Angel Dust, the first resident of the Hazbin Hotel, who didn’t take it seriously in the beginning and thought redemption wasn’t possible, who went through so much in Hell and who didn’t think things could get better for him, will have finally completed the journey to redemption and moved on to Heaven.
And then maybe we’ll get an epilogue-esque scene or series of clips of Charlie and Vaggie happily continuing to help redeem sinners in the Hazbin Hotel, of Angel and the other redeemed souls happily living their best afterlives in Heaven, of the redeemed sinners meeting and welcoming new redeemed souls into Heaven as they come in.
And maybe, taking place some time in the future, maybe years after Angel goes to Heaven, we’ll get a moment of Charlie and Vaggie, and any of the other original cast that stayed in Hell, being allowed to take a day trip into Heaven. Maybe we’ll get to see them reunite with the redeemed sinners in Heaven in person for the first time since the redeemed souls left, and it’ll be a happy reunion where they’re all just happy to see each other again and catch up. Maybe at this point the show has already established a way for the redeemed souls to still be able to communicate and keep in touch with those in Hell, so maybe this isn’t the first time the two groups have spoken to each other since the redeemed souls left the hotel, but maybe it is the first time since the redeemed souls left that they’ve been able to see each other in person, so the teary hugs all around are expected and maybe even appreciated.
Maybe the show will end on a happy note, where our first and most skeptical hotel resident ends up happily redeemed with a partner who loves and values him for who he is and friends who care for him, and where our main character is able to fulfill her dreams of helping her subjects find the best version of themselves and move on to a better place.
Maybe the extermination no longer happens, so there’s no more deadlines. Maybe being redeemed is no longer just an escape from second death. Not every soul in Hell is going to want to change, but for Charlie, it’s not about redeeming every soul. The Hazbin Hotel started as a way to decrease Hell’s population so that the extermination would no longer be necessary, so that no more souls, however awful, would be needlessly killed, but Charlie knows that the extermination was never about overpopulation, and yet she’s still going through with the hotel and she’s still working to redeem sinners.
So, maybe the extermination is a thing of the past, but Charlie will still continue running the hotel and giving sinners another chance, because everyone deserves another chance. Because Hell isn’t forever, and despite whatever some people did when they were alive, they deserve the chance to try to redeem themselves. They deserve the chance to try to be better. And that’s Charlie’s dream. She just wants to give her subjects the opportunity to do better, and not everyone will take it, but in the end, we'll see that all the effort was worth it for those few souls who do.
So, to recap: I think Angel Dust will be the last sinner we see get redeemed. We might get clips and/or mentions of souls after him, but he’ll be the last character to go to Heaven who’s journey to redemption we’ve seen. In the series finale, he’ll be the last major character to be redeemed, and we’ll get to see him live his best life in Heaven while Charlie happily stays behind in Hell to help guide more souls along the path to redemption.
Or at least, that’s something I’d like to see, anyway.
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Take Me Home 1, 2
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(3227 words)
When Cassie wakes for the second time, it's not with a pounding head and limbs as heavy as iron. No. This time, her awareness of the world rolls in smoothly, and all she feels when she wakes fully is faint buzzing throughout her body.
She revels in it; the fact that theres no pain. She doesn't think too hard about why, she just shifts, moving to stretch her limbs, but hisses when going to move her arm sends a wave of soreness pain up her arm.
She grits her teeth, yelping and suddenly re-entering the world fully when the pain throws her into alertness.
Her eyes shoot open, and she moves to sit up in bed, heart racing when all she can remember is last being in the dark, dingy, falling apart Pizzaplex, but she calms when all she can see is someone's bedroom.
"...Huh?" She mumbles, her mind still not having fully caught up to her yet. She glances around the room, painted a pale blue, with furniture tucked against the neighboring walls and flowing curtains covering most of the sunlight filtering through the window, a light breeze ruffling them.
Movement catches her attention in the corner of her eye, and she glances over just in time for Gregory to snort awake, eyes trailing across her, not really seeing her, until they blow wide in recognition.
"Cassie!" Gregory exclaims, rushing to stand up from the position he was in where he had been sitting in a chair, laying his head in his arms, hunched over on the bed. "You're finally awake!"
Cassie feels her heart warm when she realizes that Gregory had been waiting for her to wake up by her bedside, never leaving her prescence. Long enough for him to fall asleep. Her heart slows to a normal rate when she sets eyes on him, immediately feeling at ease, and she breaths a deep breath, shifting to sit up more and allowing Gregory to help her when he rushes over.
She hisses when the movement jostles her leg and arm, and she finally takes a good look at them, realizing that at some point, in her sleep, her cardigan had been taken off, leaving her in her button-up, and her shoes and socks had been discarded, leaving her in her dark purple tights and shorts.
Gregory notices her staring at her foot, which is propped up on a pillow, peeking out from under the thick comforter, with some sort of makeshift splint made from cloth wrapped around the ankle.
"We had to improvise." He informs her, that lopsided grin Cassie'd always see in her dreams and on her homemade missing posters stretched on his face. "Ness cant exactly take the chance of getting involved with authority."
Cassie furrows her brows, her mind still kind of foggy from her -what she guesses- long sleep. "Ness?"
Gregory perks up. "Oh. It's a nickname we use for Vanessa a lot. Y'know, that blonde girl that was with us in the pizzeria?"
Cassie nods in recognition, remembering her blonde ponytail with rainbow streaks. "Yeah, um... how exactly did--"
She gets cut off when the door clicks open, and speak of the devil. "Oh, you're awake." Vanessa peeks her head in the room, a smile on her face when she sees Cassie sitting up and awake. "We were just making dinner, and I wanted to see if you were up."
"Um..." Cassie trails off. "Dinner?" She settles on.
Gregory senses her uncertainty, and settles a hand on her shoulder. "Vanessa's makin' chicken alfredo. And since you're awake, now you can finally eat."
Her stomach rumbles as if on queue, and her cheeks redden. Gregory has no problem laughing at her. "How long has it been?"
Cassie tries to think. "A few hours before you came and got me, since I ran to the Pizzaplex as soon as I got the message. So... that plus however long I slept for."
"Eighteen hours." Vanessa supplies helpfully.
Cassies eyebrows shoot up to her hairline. "Eighteen hours?!" She exclaims.
Gregory laughs, and Vanessa just looks at her with a crooked smile that reminds her of Gregory's. "Yup. You were exhausted physically and emotionally, and were injured, kiddo. The fact that you slept for so long checks out."
Gregory giggles. "Remember when we first got back, you slept for twenty-one."
Vanessa rolls her eyes. "I think I had a perfectly good reason to sleep the whole day away. Unlike you." She points two fingers from her eyes to Gregory. "Its not my fault you have the same amount of energy as a hyperactive dog."
"You mentioned a dog! So is the dog talk working?" Gregory asks, smugly. "Come on, Ness. Just concede. Its only a matter of time before you cave."
Cassie just watches, unsure of what to do when Gregory and Vanessa talk. Theres a grin on Gregory's face, not one she's used to. Not like the mischievous, pointed ones when Gregory was brewing something up, or the slight, hopeful ones, when Cassie would talk about when they got older, and she and Gregory could work towards getting a car and finally being able to give Gregory a life where he doesnt have to worry, and they can just live. Just a few more years, they'd always say.
This one is easy. Its gentle, with no kind of edge to be detected, and it looks so right on his face. It doesn't look forced, it doesnt look rare. Cassie can tell just by looking that Gregory has smiled like this often, and hes been allowed to be used to it. To smile without the quirk of worry.
It warms Cassies heart, to see that theres been change. But it also hurts.
Because he'd been away for so long, and although Cassie is so, so glad to have him back, she can't help but wonder why he never reached out to her. If he'd been able to smile so easily like this, while she couldn't muster one at times, too empty from his absence.
"I can barely take care of you and Freddy, kid." Vanessa points out, and Cassie is thrown back into reality. "And now I got another destroyed animatronic to fix and another kid. Not even mentioning a dog."
Cassie gasps, big and sudden at Vanessa's words. "Roxy!" She exclaims, and she winces when her voice rasps, and her dry throat burns from dehydration. "Roxy! Where is she? Is--Is she okay?!"
When Cassie starts to shift, arms moving to roll the comforter off of herself and somehow leave the bed, Gregory and Vanessa both rush to gently push her back down.
"Its okay, Cassie." Gregory says in that soft voice of his where it feels like it's only reserved for Cassie. "Shes in parts and service. While you were asleep, we wanted to fix her up a little, so we took turns watching you and fixing Roxy up."
Cassie feels the tension melt off of her body when she hears that Roxy is here, and has been fixed a little, but she still furrows her brows in confusion at 'parts and service', because are they not in a house right now?
Cassie can see Vanessa roll her eyes and go to explain. "He means that shes in one of the spare rooms we use to work on animatronics." Vanessa tells her. "We used it to build Freddy a body, and once Freddy started calling it parts and service, Gregory jumped on it, and it just stuck."
Cassie nods slowly, taking in the influx of information that she cant fully sort through right now. "So thats why Freddy didnt have a head."
"Do you want to see her?" Gregory asks. "Roxy, I mean. I'm suprised she hasnt barged in here already. I had to fight her to get her to trust me and Ness enough to work on her and watch you."
Cassie smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. Because Roxy is so worried about her, and Cassie is happy that she cares, but shes upset that Roxy and Gregory are so hostile towards eachother. "Yeah. Um. I would like to see her."
Gregory nods, and smiles. "Kay. She wont look the exact same, since I tried my best to restore her some, but at least she isnt about to fall apart."
Vanessa leaves the room with a curse, and Cassie ignores the slight burning smell coming from outside the door. "...Okay. Just... when you get her, can we have some alone time?"
Gregory nods, halfway out the door. "Okay. Sure. I'll be right back, okay?"
"Okay." She says, and then Gregory is gone.
Cassie breathes deep, playing with the frayed edges of the comforter when theres nothing else to do. She can hear the clattering of kitchen utensils from further in the house, and hushed voices.
The silence stretches further in her room, and when Gregory doesnt return, not right away, Cassie can feel her chest tighten, and something grip her lungs.
She breathes harshly through her nose, and notices how her hands begin to shake slightly.
Something grabs at her chest, something akin to panic, feeling like a giant hand and squeezing.
Gregory. Is all she can think about. He said he'd be right back. Where is he? He shouldn't have been gone this long, right?
Have I lost him again?
She squeezes her eyes shut, trying really hard to keep still, to keep calm, but her brain is jumbled, like its tied itself in knots, and all she can think about is how Gregory isn't here with her.
She has half the mind to get up, to tear through the house to search for him, to make sure she hasnt lost him again, that she wont have to look for him again. But one look at her ankle thats wrapped in cloth and she knows it isnt possible.
She makes a pitiful noise, breaths huffing out of her mouth now, short and heavy, and Gregory hasnt come back yet, and she cant do a thing about it.
It's only when Gregory pops his head back through the door, nudging it open with a creak that Cassie is ripped away from her thoughts and actually realizes how much shes panicking.
Gregory steps inside, a smile on his face, mouth open ready to speak, but it drops right off as soon as he sees Cassie.
Cassie cant find it in her to speak when Gregory rushes over to her, asking if shes okay. Her brain feels like its fogged over, or like its signal is blocked, and she cant think enough to respond to his questions.
All she can do is reach out to him when relief overwhelms her, enough for tears to slip past her lashes, and Gregory pauses in his rapid fire questions, seeming to understand something.
"I'm here, Cassie." He tells her, getting on the bed with her. He let's her wrap her arms around him and squeeze him as much as she needs when she moves to. "I'm not leaving again, okay? I'll be here with you. Nothings going to take me away from you. You arent going to lose me."
Cassie relishes in the reassurance. It reaches past all of the fog into some part of her brain, and it's like hosing down a wildfire. Her breathing slows down as she soaks up the feeling of Gregory right here, with her, and not going anywhere.
The panic that gripped her heart loosens some, and shes finally able to breathe, breathing deep breaths when Gregory does too.
"Sorry." She says after a moment, wiping at her eyes. "I dont... I dont know why that happened. I, um..."
"Separation anxiety." Gregory says, and Cassie startles. When shes finally able to unfuse herself with Gregory enough to look at his face, he has a knowing, serious expression on his face. "I had my rodeo with it, too... me and Freddy didnt have too good of a time with it."
Cassie furrows her brows, and it feels like she has ten thousand more questions added to the pile to ask, but Gregory stops her before she can speak.
"I'll tell you another time, okay?" He says, gesturing to the door where Roxy stands, waiting patiently for someone who was, when she last checked, willing to rip apart the guy Cassie just hugged to death. "Just... I promise I'll help you with it, okay? I dont think I'll be too different from you, after trying to reach you all night, and also..."
His eyes glaze over some, looking like a thousand different memories are playing over them, but he shakes it off, offering one more smile. "Itll be fine, okay? I'm gonna go make you a plate, cuz I think dinners ready, and you can talk to Roxy. Sound good?"
Cassie doesnt know what's wrong with her, because she almost tears up again at Gregory's words, because hes being so kind, and so understanding. She shouldn't be surpised, she guesses, Gregory had always found a way to catch her off guard with kindness when she'd been so used to being brushed off or disliked.
She nods, smiling back ag him, and he offers a thumbs up, moving past Roxy and shutting the door behind him.
It's only now that Cassies able to fully pay attention to Roxy, and she gasps, almost not recognizing her.
Before, she hadn't had anything resembling a face. Just her endoskeleton skull exposed due to broken casing. But now, she somehow has her face casing back. The colors are a little off, and it looks dusty and unused, but she looks like herself. Her last remaining strands of hair are fuller now, some new strands added. They've been shifted, too, styled to look adjacent to her old style, just shorter.
Her body isnt much different, one of her arms has its forearms back, a bright, clean purple compared to her filthy leg warmers, and she has her other foot back, just a larger size and different color.
But the most prominent change are definitely the eyeballs, glowing blue LED's, stuck securely in their sockets.
Cassie laughs disbelievingly, joyously, putting her hands up to her mouth with a wide smile.
"Roxy!" She exclaims. "You have eyes again!"
It's only now, when Roxy laughs along with her, that Cassie realizes her voice box has been replaced, too. Cassie laughs even more when Roxys voice filters through, sounding happy, instead of angry, no warbling or static to be found.
Roxy heads to her bedside, and shes walking much more surely, now. Not like her long, wide strides, always careful to not collide with something. She sways from side to side, ever confident in her looks.
"How do I look?" Roxy asks, fluttering her eyelashes now that she has some again and fluffing her new hairdo up with her hand. "The brat gave me a makeover."
Cassie giggles. "You look beautiful, Roxy."
"I know." Roxy says, but then turns her attention towards Cassie. "How are you doing, Speed racer?" Roxy asks, voice soft. "That elevator couldnt have felt good."
Cassie shakes her head, gesturing to her splinted arm and ankle. "Nope, but... Gregory and Vanessa fixed me up pretty good. I'm not hurting that much."
"I'm glad." Roxy smiles, because she can now.
It's just Cassie and Roxy, now. And like with Gregory, everything she'd been feeling, all the thoughts she'd been having all bubble up to the surface, and now that everyones here, and safe, she just wants to get it all out.
So Cassie furrows her brows, and goes to tell Roxy I'm sorry, I didnt want to, I shut you down and you still saved me, why? But before she can, the door clicks back open, and Gregory steps inside her room, balancing two plates on his hands.
"Dinners ready." He tells her, smiling, and Cassie doesn't know why shes suprised when after Gregory hands her her own plate, he crawls up on the bed with her.
So she doesnt voice it. She just smiles, a big, wide one, but still small and soft.
Vanessa walks inside the room with her own plate, and Freddy, looking everything like the home-built animatronic he is, follows behind her, extra pillows and blankets in his arms.
"I was thinking we have a movie night." Vanessa says, sitting in the same chair Gregory was when she first woke up. "Better than you having to sit in here bored, right, kid?"
Cassie nods, and her mouth waters when she catches a whiff of the chicken alfredo sitting in her lap.
Gregory snatches the remote from Vanessa, holding it away from her arms when she tries to take it back. The TV in front of them that she just now notices is in the room comes to life, Disney+ appearing on screen.
Gregory hands the remote to Cassie when Vanessa finally gives up, and shes able to pick the movie, putting on a happy, animated movie, where all the characters have their happy endings and nothing bad really ever happens.
The chicken alfredo was delicious, and they sat in her makeshift room, pillows and blankets built up like jenga around her to make her as comfortable as possible for hours, laughing together.
Cassies cheeks hurt by the end, and although shes so thrilled after hanging out with Gregory again, just having fun together like they used to, she cant help but notice that Roxy was really quiet the whole time. Really quiet.
Cassie doesnt think shes very good at reading animatronics yet, not like Vanessa and Gregory seem to be able to with Freddy, but Cassie cant help but feel like Roxy wasnt really able to relax this whole time, and shes surrounded with people she feels unsafe with.
By the end of it all, when the suns long set and Cassie feels tiredness drag her eyelids down, she cant rest, even when Vanessa's retired to her room, Gregory's left, and Roxy and Freddy went to parts and service.
She feels the same panic as earlier grip her heart. It's not like a panic attack; she's had a few of those, it's more like any chance of relaxation has left her body, and all that's left is feeling tense, on edge, and like something bad is going to happen. Like Gregory isnt going to be there when she wakes up.
But she needn't have worried, because it isnt too long until Gregory re-enters her room, wearing pajamas and Roxy and Freddy plushies clutched in one hand, with a night light in the other.
"This helped me and Freddy when it'd get bad, too." Gregory explains, tucking the Roxy plushie into her own arm as he lays down with her, clicking the night light shaped like Sundrop on. "That way, you can see me if you get scared that I'm gone."
Cassie can't put into words how grateful she is, or how glad she is that Gregory's back, and that she finally has him again, so she just doesn't, even though she wants to. Instead, she just clicks the lamp off, and when she lays down, wraps her arms around his middle.
Once Gregory is pressed up against her, with her forehead against his collarbone, and she can feel his slow, calm breaths, she feels relaxed. She finally feels herself slip into dreamland, and has no nightmares.
2nd ao3 link
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It's a small world
A fic about various things I wanted to write about instead of rambling about them; focuses on Manta and Hannah. The whole thing is under the cut.
Manta didn’t expect his and Hannah’s connection to fizzle out the way it did.
Not that he was expecting anything specific; She wasn’t someone he would really consider a friend. At the same time, though, he couldn’t deny that they weren’t exactly strangers, either. They hung out sometimes, she tried to help him during his illegal race against Corto, and they bonded over how great they thought Teach tech was – something that left a bitter taste in his mouth now.
He would have expected some kind of a lukewarm goodbye, or an awkward wave as they stepped onto the boats meant to take them to their homes. But as the boat steering towards the Solar Sea took off, there was no exchange between them - in fact, he wasn’t even anywhere nearby, instead preparing for his and Shino’s attempt at getting a better life for themselves.
He did think then if he should have approached her outburst the day before the way he did. Back then, he didn’t see it as anything more than a show of weakness; she wouldn’t have lasted a day in what he had to live through on Polaris. Why should she get sympathy for being a double-crosser? For only feeling bad now that it was too late anyway, now that Gavinda’s plan was in full swing?
But it wasn’t too late. Not to her and the Tikis, anyway. And she did her part in fighting against Teach…
Unlike him, at first.
No, Hannah wasn’t weak. After everything, Manta could tell that much.
Maybe he shouldn’t have underestimated how cruel Teach could have been to her. Maybe that shouldn’t have been his last words to her.
“Oh well. Too bad”, he thought, going back to packing his stuff. What’s done is done.
He hasn’t really thought about this, or anything related to the Mirages, for the next few months. He had more important things on his mind - building a new life from scratch with Shino (and Debbie) on an entirely new island was challenging enough to take away any time he could have had for reminiscing about his old acquaintances from the Whale Cup.
They weren’t on his mind these few months later, as he was walking through one of the lesser known alleys of Tortuga to his boat, either - at least not until he saw a familiar looking silhouette walking through one of the streets he’d usually pass.
“Hannah?” He called out instinctively, more out of surprise than anything else.
“Oh– hi, Manta.” She replied, turning around to face him. “Been a while, huh?”
“Yeah, but– What are you doing here?”
“On Tortuga? I came for the Rotor Punch, obviously.” She shrugged. “But, I wanted to see how you’re doing with my own two eyes while I’m here, too.”
“You heard of me?” He asked, squinting his eyes.
“Duh. It’d be harder to not hear of the famous White Tiger, honestly.” She said, leaning on the wall next to her. “You’re taking Aquagram by storm– You know that, right?”
He shrugged and made an indecipherable hum. Debbie did tell him that he was getting more popular day by day, but he never really got interested in how popular he was outside of Tortuga, exactly. His winning streak mattered to him more than whatever she was doing over on her hologlove.
“Wait, but– Rotor Punch? You’re competing?”
“What, you think I can’t handle it?”
“It’s just– I didn’t know if you’d still be racing after… Everything.”
Hannah frowned for a short second, but quickly smirked instead.
“It takes more than that to make me quit, you know. I managed to get into Solar Empire’s drone guard.”
She crossed her arms, still leaning on the wall.
“So, I’m the one representing the Empire this year.”
“Oh, wow. You got yourself a solid position, huh?” He said, walking over and sitting down on the stairs next to her. “How’d you even do that?”
“Eh, turns out getting to the finals of the Whale Cup was good enough of an achievement to sign up. Only had to climb a few ranks after that.”
“Pshf, sounds easy.” He teased. She only hummed in response.
“What about Adam? Is he participating with you?”
A slight grimace showed up on Hannah’s face. Manta wasn’t sure how to decipher what emotion it was supposed to show.
“...No, he’s not. He hasn’t reached out to me after Teach’s defeat.”
“Oh.” Manta said. “...Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Hannah sighed, sitting next to him on the stairs.
“...I haven’t tried to reach him, either. At first I thought I should, since Teach manipulated him, too, but… He was always more invested in her plans than I was. It seems like we both picked our sides.”
“...I see.”
“Yeah.”
A moment of silence fell upon them.
“And you’re…not worried?”
Hannah glared at him for a few seconds before deciding on an answer.
“I… don’t know. I have mixed feelings about it all.” She stated, resting her chin on her hand.
“Teach was cruel to him, too. She’s not going to suddenly do a 180. But, if that was his choice, then–”
She suddenly waved with the same hand in the air, leaning back.
“--so be it! I’m not going to chase after someone who made up their mind!”
She let out something between a groan and a sigh, hiding her face with her hands for a moment.
“...What’s it to you, anyway? I didn’t take you for the type to talk about this kinda stuff.”
Manta shrugged, looking somewhere else.
“You were the one who said it’s been a while.”
“Heh– yeah, that’s true.” She chuckled. “I guess it did a number on you.”
“Hmm.”
They sat for a moment in silence before Hannah stood up from the stairs.
“...Well, I should go. I take it you’re taking part in the Rotor Punch too, right?”
“Of course. Who do you take me for?”
“Yeah, thought so.” She smirked again, turning back to go about her way.
“I’ll see you around, then. Just don’t expect me to go easy on you.”
“Psh, as if I’d need that. But yeah. See you around.” He replied, also getting up from the sidewalk.
As he got back to walking to his boat, he felt a sense of a relief he didn’t expect.
Turns out, he was sorta glad to see her again.
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