Semi-AU, preslash if your mind works that way.

Disclaimer: Own nothing, receive no profit

Rating: Somewhere between PG-13 and R; no actual explicitness or swearing.

A/N: My italics have been destroyed by ezboard, Alas! Beg patience.

It was a dark night, though a bright glow and riotous noise radiated from inside the pub.

The place was called the Green Nightingale, though the sign outside the door had rotted long ago and the faint icon resembled nothing more than the remnant of an ancient slime mould.

The woman in the black cloak carefully pushed open the door and walked in, glancing under her hood at the crowd of patrons. It had been years since she’d so much as stepped in one of these places, and she was sure back then there hadn’t been so much…disreputable behaviour.

She saw a horned man throwing dice, and even from that distance she could tell that the way he moved his wrist indicated that the game was unfair. A willowy silver-haired woman effortlessly balanced a tray full of drinks on one slender wrist, and swung her hips seductively as she walked through the room. At the back of the pub a man with flames for hair and a red-eyed woman both drew knives in some quarrel. In one swift movement the woman drove her dagger up and under the man’s ribs, and he collapsed onto the straw. Those standing around laughed. As the red-eyed woman calmly withdrew her dagger to clean it on the man’s shirt, she lifted her head to see the cloaked woman observing, and scowled menacingly. To show she wasn’t looking for trouble—not tonight, not ever again, I’m through with the business—the woman in the black cloak quickly turned towards another area of the room, and gasped as she saw a familiar acquaintance, sitting in a corner, alone with a large tankard in front of her which the barmaid was filling.

Their eyes met at the same moment, and the woman in the black cloak sat down opposite her old associate.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

The other woman shrugged, and took a long gulp of her drink before answering.

“My best to get extremely drunk. Don’t worry, I won’t kill you tonight. Not like I’ll be paid for it. How about you? I thought your kind of people weren’t allowed to visit this sort of establishment.”

She’s unusually talkative tonight, the cloaked woman thought, and decided, what the heck, I’ll talk back. Must be the alcohol. She shook back her hood to reveal red hair cut to just meet the shoulders of her plain navy turtleneck.

“I’m not, any more. Remember yesterday?”

“That’s what I’m trying to forget at the moment, but yes.” The woman sitting across from her ran a hand through short dark hair—She looks different from before, the cloaked woman thought, what happened to the costume—before firmly gripping her drink again.

“He said I was too reckless. That he didn’t have any choice. So I’m fired.”

“Ace?”

The cloaked woman nodded.

“Sucks to be you. I’d say I told you so—he always was a self-righteous bastard—but…well, you know how it is.” She looked down into her drink again, almost as trying to avoid a subject.

“I know him a lot better than you do.”

“True.”

“And I would have to say…you’re completely right. He fired me, after I’d done nothing except try to help him blast bad guys.”

“And you won, too. Shame. Pure luck of course. And a certain amount of complete incompetence on the part of certain people I know…”

The cloaked woman grinned in spite of herself. “You shouldn’t have let that smoke bomb blind you from the rockslide I started.”

“And you shouldn’t have let me back you into the cliff. But I forget, you didn’t have an alternative, did you? And, I must add, waltzing right into the middle of the Cliffs of Insanity with thrusters blaring is vaguely equivalent to walking into a vampire convention with a sign reading ‘Bite Me’ on your back.”

“He thought so too,” the cloaked woman said sadly. “Said something about being too impulsive. Hypocritical bas…prick. So, what’s that you’re drinking?”

“Bloodwine.”

“As in…human blood?”

The other woman shot her a look of contempt.

“Of course not. Cannibalism is such a tacky vice. Semi-cannibalism in this case, I suppose, humans are inferior anyway.”

“Okay.” The cloaked woman gestured to the waitress. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

The other woman shook her head. “And I thought you’d sworn a vow of abstinence, chastity, and some other moral standard I couldn’t be bothered to remember.”

“Modesty? Patience? Humility? All three? Either way, I’m through with it all.” She took the large mug from the waitress, and took a long slurp.

“Don’t you think that might be a little too much for you to handle?” the other woman said.

“Bet I could drink you under the table any time, Lady. What do they say about Dark Elves and alcohol?”

“Devious lies and exaggeration to deceive our enemies.” She paused for a moment. “Is there a good reason why you’re suddenly all fuzzy?”

“Probably not.” The cloaked woman took another drink. “Do you know what this tastes like?” She paused thoughtfully, waiting for the other woman to pay attention. “Like someone…left a block of Atmos pepper out in the wild for two years, then melted the whole mess with a blowtorch before dissolving it in sulphuric acid.”

“Interesting metaphor. Most would use the simple, ‘cat piss with remarkably high alcohol content’. Perfect for my current purposes.”

“Wait a second. You haven’t told me what you’re doing here!”

The other woman didn’t look up. “You know, I always thought it would be me who left. Once Good was on the verge of triumphing yet again, I’d be teleporting out the door with a judicious portion of the loot, finding some other idiot sorcerer with dreams of world domination.”

“Loyal, aren’t you?” the cloaked woman interjected.

“And your point is…?” she said, still gazing into her drink. “Funny, really. It’s not a good thing when evil triumphs, because then you’re out of a job and have to wait until a new hero rises and all that. I suppose you know that story. Much easier, you know, being sidekick; you get paid, he gets all the bad PR and you can always find a new job when the hero puts him out of everyone else’s misery.” She sighed. “Oh yeah, I will have my revenge on Ace-bloody-Lightning for how he crippled me in battle…” Her voice had changed to a loud tenor tone, rather incongruous coming from her mouth, and the cloaked woman noticed that people in the bar were turning to stare.

“Hey, keep it down,” she said, and motioned to the stares. “People are looking at us.”

“Right. Anyway. It is painfully obvious that Lord Fear is an imbecile. Don’t you agree?”

“Finally seen the light?”

“No. Only that Darkness appears to be entirely populated with poseur-faux-gothic freaks.”

“You included?” The cloaked woman laughed, for longer than she thought she should have. Must be the drink, she thought, taking another sip. I’m getting used to the taste, I think.

“I am merely somewhat…individual. And I hate black. And have you left the path of Light permanently?”

“Yeah.” For some reason, she talks a lot more around alcohol. And I think I’m talking less. And slurring my words. “Like you said. Bastard.”

“Oh dear. Virtue, destroyed. Such language from the lips of a Knight. Unless there’s some shadow in Mr Perfect’s past…”

“Former Knight. And he has no past. Perfect all the way.”

“Pity. Would’ve made good taunting material. So, given any thoughts to a future career?”

“I…don’t know. Mercenary?”

“The pay’s decent. Work’s interesting. Let’s face it, better than prostitution. So, why be a Knight in the first place?”

“It was something to do. And there’s only so many jobs that let a girl do whatever she wants with a sword. Wait. Did that sound dirty to you?”

“No. But you’re a hero. All that clean living warps the mind. Makes you see innuendo in everything. We don’t need innuendo. Unless we’re being witty. Witty is good. Bad, rather. ” She paused. “I believe I’m making more sense than you. That counts. Anyway. Evil means…”

“I’m on my own now,” the cloaked woman said miserably. “What about you?”

“Rooming here. When I’m done feeling sorry for myself I’ll be off to the Fourth. I hear Father Time’s hiring.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go. And being a Knight never paid that much.”

“As I said. Sucks to be you.” There was a smirk in the woman’s voice, though for some reason she didn’t sound quite so articulate any more.

“We’re…old foes in the same boat. Mind if I stay with you?” It’s probably the drink talking, she thought, but she didn’t think she minded, and finished draining the large glass.

Her opponent shrugged, and half-slumped onto the table.

- -

Sparx couldn’t remember much about the rest of the night, just a blur of colour and noise and yelling. And at least three more drinks. She thought she might have tried to sing while standing on top of a table at one point, and decided that she wasn’t that interested in remembering. Somehow they’d both made it up to the room at the top of the stairs before collapsing, leaning against each other.

I’m in bed, she realised, still in the process of waking up, and I’m…not alone. Oh no.

The room was rather cleaner than she’d expected, considering the pub downstairs. But that small consolation wasn’t much compared to waking up in a bed next to Lady Illusion. And the massive headache.

“This…hurts,” she said. “And I thought fighting you was bad.”

“Symptom known as hangover,” Lady Illusion said briskly, stepping out of bed and reaching for her pack. “Typical for humans.”

“So…you feel no pain?”

The other woman grinned. “Advantages of being Elvish.” She reached inside the pack, and pulled out a grey jacket.

“Wait. Last night, did we…um, do stuff?”

“Have sex? No, I tend to be choosy over one-night stands. And from what I remember, we were both to drunk.”

“Good, because I really don’t like women. Or you. Especially not in that way.”

“That’s not what you said last night…” the other woman began teasingly, but stopped when she saw Sparx’ expression. “Look, we both woke up nearly dressed, right? And I’m Elvish. It’s different for you humans, you breed like rabbits anyway, but same-gender is one particular perversion we don’t happen to subscribe to.”

“Rabbits breed like rabbits,” Sparx said sullenly. “And my head still hurts. And I think someone stole my wallet.”

“Don’t worry. A teleport to the Fourth Dimension should take care of the headache. Or make it worse. Apparently teleporting is really hard on other people.” She grinned.

“So…you want me to come with you?”

“We could work together now we don’t have…idiot sidekicks holding us back any more. Take it or leave it.”

“Or we could stay around here. Show Ace and Fear that they made the biggest mistake of their lives. Or unlife.”

“Seize the amulet, sabotage both campaigns…I like the way you think. You have a lot of repressed evilness in you, don’t you? Must be all that goodness. It’s a deal.”

“Deal.” Sparx offered her a hand to shake, and after a slight hesitation she did so.

A/N: And LightningFlash gave me fanart! Yay!