7 Clothes and video

In the middle of the afternoon, Blaze and Gilly finally stopped to prepare themselves for their so called 'apology' video. Gilly was dead tired from all that walk. She slumped down on the blanket Blaze prepared and stopped moving for a long while.

Blaze used that time to build up the tent and a safe spot for the fire, knowing they would go no further that day.

"Could you please give me your clothes and my sewing kit." Gilly asked without getting herself back up.

"Sure."

He removed all his clothes but his underwear and gave everything to her with her sewing kit.

"Thank you Blaze. You should walk around bare chested more often."

"Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you."

Gilly laughed at the joke and sent him away. He put on another pair of pants and decided to start the training of Dawnshield. He called him from a little further away from her.

"Alright Dawnshield, time to train ourselves."

The chesspawn came running in and stood at attention.

"Good attitude." Blaze praised it. "First, I would like to see what you can do. I would like you to show me every combat techniques you know by using that big tree over there as a target. Don't hold back, give it your all and impress me."

Dawnshield nodded and immediately afterwards, Two spikes from the top of his head extended themselves and smashed against the tree. That was clearly the vine whip. It was to be expected from a chesspawn, they all knew that move.

Afterward, he rolled himself up in a ball like some kind of hedgehog and started to roll towards the tree. He smashed right into it which made him bounce back. After a couple more turns on himself, he stopped somewhat dizzied and activated his synthesis to patch himself up.

Blaze smiled brightly after seeing that, it truly was the ability he had chosen for him seventeen years ago. These were all the moves his chesspawn knew. It was quite enough to start. They were not that strong for now but he was still small, they would only get better and better.

"Good, you did great." Said Blaze to praise him. "Now, we need to do physical training and you need to train your vine whip on top of that. Here is what we are going to do first. We will run laps around the camp and while running, I'm going to throw peanuts in the air. Your goal is to hit or catch them with your vine whip while running. You get to eat each one you catch got it?"

Dawnshield seemed to get fired up by the mention that he could eat each one he caught. The trick to that training was that it was much easier to hit them than catching them. Hitting them merely needed him to flail his vine whip around while catching them required precision and dexterity.

"We are starting with this because it doesn't matter if your vine whip is strong or not if you can't hit a thing with it. We will train it's strength only after you get good at this. Are you ready?" Blaze asked while producing a large bag of peanuts from a nearby backpack.

Dawnshield nodded with energy and took a running pose beside him.

"Then let's go."

As he was running, Blaze was throwing peanuts in the air at various angles and speed, sometimes making a faint. Dawnshield was missing most of them. It wasn't that he had a hard time controlling his own vines. It was more because peanuts are a really small target and that he had to focus on running as well.

After the run, Blaze did some push ups that chesspawn tried to imitate but his arms were a little short for this. While training, he wondered how strong was "almost as strong as captain america". One of the ability he took in the white space claimed he would be almost as strong as captain america. He wondered if they meant almost as in 'nearly as much' or almost as in 'keep it realistic'.

Was he unexpectedly strong or was it all just a bloated lie like some random television adds lying to their customers? Take this perk and everybody will say you are as strong as the one and only Captain America!

He never did much strength training, he just did whatever he wanted to do at the moment, cutting firewood or building stuff in his backyard. Sure he had a couple of friends who he trained with a little but he never tested his strength seriously. He knew he was strong to some extent because of how people always asked him to move furniture for them when no useful battle monster was around, but he had never seriously thought about it before now. Ordinary people didn't need super strength after all.

He did all the training he could for now. He didn't feel tired at all, like always when he trained. If he didn't feel tired, it meant that he did it wrong he thought. He wasn't training hard enough in relation to his own strength and stamina. He knew this but he had never really cared before in his life, as long as he was fit enough to do the things he needed to, he didn't care. Now, he was a wanted man, needed to protect someone and in ten years, would be put in some other terrible situation. He should start to seriously train he thought.

Would it work if he put some weights around his ankles and wrist like in movies and comics? A weighted vest maybe? He could just take all the luggage if he had some way to hold it all on him, it would be super heavy. He was asking himself those questions when he heard Gilly call him.

He went back to her asking what she wanted with an incredibly tired chesspawn on his heels.

"I realized I haven't given you your birthday present yet." She said with a beaming smile.

"My birthday present? I thought 'you' were my birthday present."

"Yes, of course, but no, I meant a real thing I got for you. I even fixed it for our needs look."

She presented him a duster, a very strange duster. Gilly told him exactly what she had done to it while giving it to him.

"I had already somewhat modified it before at home. You are tall so I took a very long one as a base. It's so long in fact that I had to add a bunch of buttons inside it to let you fold the bottom part inside. I had also sowed a bunch of pockets inside cause I know you like to go around with a bunch of tools you never know where to put. finally, I thought that red and black would look good on it so I carefully died parts of it in tints of reds and oranges so the middle part is black and the more you go towards its extremities, the more it gets fiery.

Blaze was impressed by all the work Gilly had put in it. He let her put it on him as he marveled at her work. Most people just bought something in a shop but she had done much more. She said she had sowed some pockets on the inside but there were so many of them, there was even a bunch of leather rings to strap or hang stuff inside.

"The cuffs can also be buttoned up and when you unfold the collar, it makes an effect that looks like the dented edge of a fire. Since I lined the inside with a golden-yellow tinted elesheep-wool fabric, the inside is comfy and makes the lapel look like sunshine.

"What the hell is a lapel?" Thought Blaze while she continued.

"Of course, the outside is made out of waxed cotton to make it somewhat waterproof though it will take a long time to dry because of the wool if it does get wet. I put the badge there up front where it's easy to see. Finally, I tried something that I want to test out. Would you please walk around with it."

Blaze did as he was told and made a couple of steps with the duster on and immediately noticed a weird crackling noise. He looked behind him to see the bottom part of the coat jumping around as he moved. What kind of magic was that?

"I can't believe it's working! I put some steel wires of random lengths down there to make the whole thing move randomly like fire and crackle like it. Is it too much?"

"Well, first of all, I really like it, thank you Gilly, it's a wonderful birthday gift. I love the pockets."

"That was a sure bet." She said proud of herself.

"I understand the goal of the rest and the wool really is smooth and comfy I always thought that wool was scratchy before."

"That depends on the type of wool and the age of the sheep."

Was it really a thing? He had no idea.

"The crackling thing is really impressive but it's noisy, what if we have to stealth somewhere?

"Well, you could fold it back inside like I designed it to do but I guess you are right, if some kind of urgency happen, you may not have time to fight with the wires to fold it back."

"Should I just keep it folded up until I need to be on fire?"

"Maybe... Do you want me to remove them?"

"Will they wear the whole thing down?"

"It shouldn't."

"Will I prick myself on them?"

"Probably not, at least if it's folded, but it may hinder it's flexibility I guess?"

"Let's keep it like that for now then and I will ask you to remove them if they become a hindrance in some way later, okay?"

He didn't want to undo all the hard work she had done to please him. Whether it was useful or not, he didn't really care. What he cared about was the fact that she was the one who had made it.

"Okay, let's do it like that." She said, satisfied.

Blaze hugged her to express his thanks.

"Thank you for that gift Gilly, it's really like you and I can feel the hard work you put in it. I really love it and I will certainly wear it."

"I'm glad you like it. You know, dusters were made to protect the clothes inside from the rain and all the dust you produce while riding a fast mount, that's why there's a long cut at the back so it can go on either side of the mount when you ride."

Blaze didn't know this either.

"When I bought it, I just thought it would look cool on you. The shoulder pads make you look even larger and stronger and I think the whole thing looks manly, even after I added all that color. Maybe I added a little too much of it, I think the beauty of a duster lies in its dark and serious look. I think the yellow inner layer was too much but it's too late now and you can still hide it by just buttoning it back up. The good thing though is that it's going to be really warm because of the wool and the wax protecting you from the cold and wind. Now that we are on the run, this will be super valuable."

"I'm sure it will."

Gilly freed herself from his arms, kissed him and extend her hand towards him.

"Now, you have to give it back for a second so you can put back some clothes underneath."

Blaze laughed and gave her the duster. He then proceeded to put on the clothes she gave him one piece at a time as he listened silently to the explanation of why he had to wear each piece for the video.

"First off, your pants needs to be either black or dark brown so you'll put on those. The belt needs to be brighter with a golden buckle to keep the sun theme going. Then, your top underneath the duster needs to be really bright and colorful. You want to give the impression that even if you appear dark and scary on the outside with your duster, you are bright on the inside. Let's go for that red shirt. Then the duster, you need to keep it open so we can see the red shirt underneath for the video. Unfold every extremities of it too, for the flaming effect."

"So, since you are making me wear all that, does that mean that you know what we should say in the video?"

"Somewhat, yes." She hesitated a second. "Just to be clear, we have to make Dragonlaw think that we really are their boss and the rest of the world that we aren't with them and are in fact good guys right?"

"Yes, it seems contradictory, but that right. Can we really do it?"

"I don't know, but we sure as hell are going to try anyway. She said while removing her own clothes to put something else on. I need to look like I'm serious and I know what I'm doing but still look bright and innocent and somehow look enticing too so guys will want to protect me."

Blaze wasn't quite convinced he wanted to let his girlfriend try to seduce a bunch of random internet perverts. It must have shown on his face because Gilly started to smirk.

"Oh... You don't want other guys to look at me?"

"If they do, I will consider it an attack and break them in half."

She giggled and kissed him on the cheek.

"You're silly, it's a little exaggerated for only looking at me."

"You are right, but still..."

"It's not like I'm going out with them, I just want them to look at us and say damn, I wish I was that guy. Don't be that possessive jerk and enjoy the feeling of being the winner. Also, don't look at other girls, if you do, I will slap you so hard you will spin all around the world like a headspun.

"What? What kind of double standard is this?"

"It's not though, other people are looking at me, I'm not the one looking at them."

"It's impossible to not look at any girls. What will happen if we walk on the streets? Am I supposed to walk around blindfolded so I don't see any?"

"Why not?"

"Because it's crazy and I need to stay on guard!"

"Dawnshield is there for that!"

"Him alone is not enough!"

"Fine, you are really making it hard. Let me propose a middle ground. I will let you look and even speak to girls I permit and in exchange, I will let you beat up guys that try something funny on me, is that alright?"

"Okay, got it, let's go with that..."

"Good, you can't go back on your words now."

Blaze felt relieved he wouldn't have to go around blindfolded but then again, something didn't feel quite right.

"Wait, I had no reason to agree to this in the first place. You tricked me into accepting something crazy! Why would I need your permission to talk to people?"

"Too late, you accepted already! She showed him her tongue while giggling. Don't worry, you can still talk to them, I just got myself the right to boot any girls I don't want to let near you. It's really important because you have no judgement in people at all."

"I feel somewhat insulted."

"You don't need to be perfect in everything, everyone has some weak spots. I feel like yours is that if I don't keep watch over you, you will just do whatever people tell you to do so long as they don't seem bad at first glance. You like to help too much."

"Isn't that supposed to be a good thing, how come it sounds like a flaw?"

"I just told you why, if I don't watch out for you, you'll end up with fifteen wives and become the head of like thirty orphanages for which you will have to pay for everything. I swear, people will just throw all their problems at you like some sort of MC from an RPG and try to have you take care of everyone."

"Fifteen wives would be great though." He said to tease her.

She punched him on the shoulder and went back to dressing herself has Blaze laughed.

"The only wives I will let you have are the ones I choose." she said.

Like many of their conversations ended up, they had started to spout nonsense somewhere along the way. At this point neither of them was really taking this conversation seriously and were just saying whatever came to their minds to get an interesting reaction from the other.

"I don't think polygamy is permitted by the law."

"I don't think the law matters at all to us."

"Good point. In this case, I trust you to present me only the best."

"Sure, I will find you the most beautiful common-carp to marry."

"Ha yes, the beauty and intelligence of those common-carps are renowned around the world. Maybe I should replace all your clothes by common-carps costumes to decrease your jealousy towards them. Maybe I can even make it all slimy to feel like a fish too."

"Oh gross, it would be so bad!"

Blaze laughed.

"At least you're not married to it!"

"You'll see, next time it will be my win, she said acting angrily as if she was looking for revenge. Anyway, What were we talking about?"

"We were talking about what you were going to wear."

"Oh yes, that's right. At first, I wanted to go for the sexy secretary look. But then, I thought it was super inappropriate in the forest. People would think I'm a super unprepared idiot. I guess staying simple is the best. I'm going to keep those pants but put on a light pink cropped top bellow my long sleeved vest to reveal my belly. I don't get why, but guys love it."

That's it? All of this for only a cropped top? If Blaze had known, he wouldn't have fallen for her trap earlier. He would have kept his mouth shut. Since he couldn't go back, he chose to shut his mouth this time to let the plan progress.

"Then, are you ready for the video?" Asked Gilly.

"I would like to know what we are doing exactly first."

"Well, it's super simple, all you have to do is follow my lead."

"That's not a satisfying answer."

"Go place the recorder over there and listen."

As he placed the recorder, she went into the details of the plan.

"First of all, you'll have to keep me in your arms trough the whole thing, maybe an arm around the shoulders is enough."

"I'm not complaining here, but why?"

"It's all about the way people see us. Have you ever wondered why politicians always appear with their family around them? It makes it easier for other people to see them as someone they can trust. Everybody love couples and family."

"I see."

Hearing that he understood, she went on to the next point as she hid everything they had in the tent.

"Obviously, we also need to hide your gun and both our monsters, we should recall them in their balls and hide the rest. "

Of course, Blaze agreed with her. It would be a disaster if his cards were revealed right from the get go so he helped her hide everything in the tent and recalled his battle monster with hers. The two small creature seemed sad to be recalled but they wouldn't be in there for long anyway so it didn't matter. The only thing they left out was the computer which Gilly kept in her hands

"So, what is going to happen is, I will do most of the talking for two important reason. First, you have no idea what to say or how to say it."

That was the truth, Blaze had no idea what he was supposed to say.

"The other thing is that I need to prove that I came with you from my own accord and it wasn't some kind of abduction. They may say that I was forced to talk though so I will ask you things at some point and you will have to do as I say without complaining okay?"

"OK."

He thought it was exaggerated but complied anyway because he had no reason not to.

"Then, we run into the risk of people saying you have no spine or that you are just doing whatever I tell you to and that I'm the real mastermind behind it all. To counter that, you need to speak your own opinions on what I'm saying without waiting for me to ask you to.

"So I just need to say what I think whenever I feel like it? That seems easy enough."

"Right? Nothing more easy. When you feel like you are ready, just press the record button and tell me." She concluded by nestling herself in his arms.

Blaze couldn't help but smile and took his sweet time to enjoy the sensation before starting the recording. He loved to hug his girlfriend, the video could wait a second could it not? Gilly did not really mind the delay. They didn't have a lot of time for cuddling since she had managed to get him to be her boyfriend. She had worked really hard for a very long time for this and wanted to enjoy the fruit of her labor. But, there was still work to be done.

"Okay, I'm ready, I'm turning it on... Now."

Gilly replaced herself to look toward the device just before he pressed the record button and started the show with a serious look.

"Hello, I'm sure you recognize us by now but I will still introduce us. I am Gilly Linton alias Firstlight and this is Blaze Sherwood, he calls himself the Dawnbreaker."

"Isn't it a weird way of presenting me?"

"Would you prefer if I presented you as the nuclear bomb guy?"

"No."

"Then let me continue. First of all, I would like to address the elephant in the room. Yes, we are the authors of the codes that activated the bomb. We are very deeply sorry about that and we truly wish to express our condolences to the families of all the victims."

Blaze chose to not add anything to this as he would most likely break her plan or something if he did.

"There are many things to say about what happened and I think you all deserve to know the how's and why's of this. Maybe you'll think we are trying to dodge the consequences or put the fault on someone else or just plainly make up excuses. If you followed the news a little, you will know that we are wanted dead no matter what. We have no escape and no reason to lie.

To be honest, we don't even have to make this video, we could just leave everyone in the dark, it would be much safer for us to just hide and hope to never be found.

To start, I would like to point out that I am in fact here from my own free will. I was not abducted, I wasn't brainwashed and I am not crazy. I grew up with Blaze and I know he is not a bad guy, he is not even a misunderstood revolutionist. He is just my ordinary Blaze who loves to tinker with electronics and lend a helping hand to those who ask. Why did we do it then? The simple, dumb, answer is that we had absolutely no idea."

She took a short pause before following.

"I know, it is really stupid and no one will believe us but we were only asked to make the codes. We had no idea how they would be used, we knew nothing of that part of the plan. To us, It was only a small time job for a couple of friends, I don't even remember how long it took."

"I do." Interrupted blaze. "It took us only an afternoon. I remember because you complained about the heat the whole day, pestering me to go buy you ice cream."

"Oh, yeah, I remember something like that."

"You even removed most of your clothes while complaining and sticking to..."

"Okay, stop, I get it, it's embarrassing, don't say anything else! The important part is that it was incredibly easy. Shouldn't those damn things be more safe?"

"Is it a real question or a rhetorical one?"

"It doesn't matter! To go back to the story, we got paid with a battle monster and a bunch of junk for that. We got it all by mail with a letter telling us what we had done the day the bomb blew up, yesterday. We panicked and ran. It's a good thing we did too because we would be dead by now otherwise.

What else happened?" She wondered out loud. "We got ratted by the neighbor, the cops tried to use our families to catch us and we walked a lot. As we came to understand really quickly, the government doesn't intend to let us stay alive so we have no other choice but to defend ourselves. This is something we wish to make clear. We could run around committing all the crimes we want since there is no way things could get worse for us but we won't.

If something come at us we will retaliate with all we have but we do not condone acts of violence against innocent peoples. The policemen that intends to go after us should prepare themselves for a fight to the death because we literally have no other option but I would like to ensure people that we do not intend to go after anyone but the one who is truly behind this thing, Blaze's father. We do not intend to cause further harm. We may, by accident, or by being forced by who know what, but as far as we are concerned, we do not wish to. This is all we really wanted to say."

She took another short pause to let her words sink in and moved her speech forward again.

"The cops seem to think Blaze is the leader of Dragonlaw but it's probably best if we don't say anything about it so the only thing left is to answer questions. Since yesterday, we got absolutely spammed by angry comments and treats but we will try our best to go through most of them. I isolated those that could be answered for you. The rest are mostly impossible to understand or would put us in danger if we answered. Blaze, if you would do the honor please, start from the top."

Blaze took the computer from her hands with apprehension and started reading. The first one he read was pretty heavy, he wondered why Gilly had put this one in first.

Blaze not only looked at it but turned the computer around to show it to the recorder. before continuing.

"Yes, I am, I just did."

"There are probably many things I could say to answer that but none of them will bring him back to you. Of course If I could, I would go back in time and not write that code but I can't. I didn't know Sebastian... Sebastien? How do you pronounce that? However you pronounce his name, I am sure he was a great guy. You are right, he had nothing to do with this and he had no reason to die. I didn't mean for him to die."

"To explain it simply, let me give you a metaphor of sorts. A guy I have known for all my life comes around with a crate with <baseballs> written on it and ask me if I could open it for him. Of course I do it, I trust him and just want to help him out. Once the crate is opened, he proceed to take a rocket launcher from it and shoot at a bus. How was I supposed to know and why is everyone after me instead of him? Might as well go after those who built the weapon, they seem more guilty to me than the random dude who opened the crate. There are many people to blame for this, why is this all on my head? What I really want to know is how the fuck was a seventeen years old guy able to hack this from an ordinary small town halfway across the world in an afternoon? Shouldn't that thing be safer? Don't hide something so powerful behind paper walls!"

"Blaze, you are blaming the victim."

"I'm sorry, I went overboard. You are right, I shouldn't blame the guy's that got hacked, thank you for telling me."

"No problem, now, please continue."

"Yes, right. Where was I? Ha, there."

"I do not know why this all happened, it wasn't my plan, I swear on anything you want. I will try to find out and let everyone know when I do but for now, I do not have the answers you are seeking. As for surrendering, I am sorry but... I don't want to die. Do I need a better reason? I don't have a better one than this."

Blaze wanted to say the right words but he did not have them. He couldn't even see the reaction of the one he was talking to. It felt sad and disturbing to him. Still, he pressed on to the next question.

"What kind of dumb question is that? I thought you chose good questions. Who cares what my favorite color is?"

"Well that guy does it seems."

"I don't really care about colors, then I guess my favorite would be this one. He said while propping up a handful of her hair."

"Really? That sounds so cheesy."

"What? Can't I like your hair color?"

"Well yeah but it's seems really far fetched."

"I don't get colors, they don't matter at all, they have no real purpose since they don't change anything aside from the wavelength of the light reflected from it. In that case, I go with my favorite thing which is you and take the first color that comes to my mind when I think about you. Hence your hair color is my favorite color."

"That's silly, does that mean that if I give you pink clothes you won't mind putting them on?"

"No, I will mind, there are no colors I really prefer but there are colors I dislike. I don't like half tones, like pink, turquoise, baby blue, pale green and especially greys."

"Why?"

"Because grey is too in-between, it's like it doesn't want to chose if he wants to be black or white and that pisses me off. Choose a side! You can be one or the other but not both it just seems so disingenuous."

"Now people are going to interpret what you just said in all the wrong ways! Why did you have to phrase it that way?"

"Why not? I don't care at all what they think about the colors I like or don't! Ask me a real question and I will give a real answer."

"For fuck sake, sometimes you are so dumb!"

Blaze ignored her and moved on.

"Next question!"

"Wait... That's not a question, it's just a dumb statement from the neighbor."

Blaze had a raised eyebrow while shooting a look at Gilly.

"Aye, it is. I want you to answer it anyway."

"But the whole thing is just plain wrong, he can't even spell back right! He fucked up his caps too. It's even more moronic than the usual stupid shit he says. I don't feel like it's even worth answering, I shouldn't even have read it, it's just plain embarrassing for him."

"It made me laugh so hard when I first read it, I wanted to know what you thought about it. Please, just say it." She pleaded, eager to hear him bash Russ.

Blaze made a sigh before releasing the dam.

"First of all, it's rude, at least call me if you want to insult me. You do have my number, why do you send your treats by e-mail? Then, the order of your demands are wrong, If I leave her be, I can't bring her to you.

The next thing you have to understand is that she doesn't want to see you at all. I thought she was pretty clear about that yesterday. The next thing is that if I do bring her back home, she will get killed by the cops so it would be the stupidest move to ever do.

Then, for the last point, I can't bring back something to you if it never belonged to you in the first place. It should have been something like 'give her to me' instead to make more sense, or "'giv' her to me" with how you write. Even then, she isn't a thing, I can't give her to you, she can perfectly make her own decisions."

Gilly was trying very hard to not laugh.

"Can you even believe there was a time when you told me to go out with him just so he would shut up and leave you alone."

"It's probably the lowest point in my life."

"Shouldn't it be the bomb thing?"

"Good, I was making a joke and now I look even more like an asshole. Next question."

He read it as Gilly was laughing out loud.

"A decent question, and written properly as well, but it's only been one night since the bomb happened. The answer is that I don't. I haven't slept well since I was six years old, I make nightmares almost every night. Next one."

"No, I do not really feel guilty. I don't know what it means to you but to me, a bunch of stranger died in a catastrophe unrelated to me or people I know. When you see a catastrophe on TV, you feel sad for a second and then change the channel. This is more like what I feel then guilt. Also, that guilt wouldn't help me in any way. in this case, it's a pointless emotion to have. If anything, I will probably live a shorter life if I start to feel guilty about this."

Blaze passed his arm on his forehead to remove the sweat that was drenching it. At first he had felt really bad reading an answering those things knowing that everyone would hate him anyway. What was the point of doing this at all if it only stressed him out? But after the message from Russ he had found some courage or determination or whatever it was he currently felt and decided that since he didn't care at all, might as well tell everyone whatever he thought. At least they would have a reason to blast him.

"The next one is:"

"I didn't have much time to follow news unrelated to myself but I did hear about that around half an hour before my life turned into hell.

Before I answer that, I would like to point out the way you wrote this, "As a criminal leader yourself" I don't want to debate on the question of am I or am I not the leader of Dragonlaw but the way you wrote this is as if you are implying that the Stardust president is a criminal leader. I have no info on that and I don't know how or why you came to that conclusion or even why you felt the need to use me to tell everyone but I wanted to point it out. That guy is convinced Stardust is a criminal, I have no opinion on that part.

Then there's the political view thing. I don't understand how firing or not a bunch of people is a political statement. If you asked about the president of a country, sure it would have been a political view but this isn't. It's just a rich guy who wanted to make more money, how is this even remotely political."

"Blaze, you are getting off topic again. No one cares if this is political or not, they just want your opinion."

"Fine then, as for Aurora, I feel like the video of her saying this, which by the way I hadn't had the time to watch yet, is awfully convenient. Why would there be a camera there and who would post this? I may just be biased because of what happened to me but I feel like all of this is too perfectly convenient and that she got framed, like me, for some odd reason. This is what I think, I have no proof and I don't know anyone related so don't take my word for it and continue to believe in whatever you believe."

"I hadn't thought of that." Interrupted Gilly.

"About what?"

"That she could have been framed."

"Well, it's just an hypothesis, we haven't even watched the video yet."

"But it's a good one, I like it, why would a kid be so rude?"

"You always were that rude."

"What are you saying! I wasn't!"

"Oh you were, don't lie to everyone now, you were a real pest."

"I can't believe you!"

Blaze decided to bail from the subject and went straight for the next question.

"Next question... Wait, that's it? There's nothing else."

He had already ran out of questions to answer. He sent an interrogating look at Gilly to see if this was right. She was shooting him a half angry look and he thought he was done for.

"Yeah, they didn't have much time to write questions so this is the most I could gather, beside this, there was a lot of things like; 'Where are you hiding so that I can go there myself to beat you up.' "

"Let me take a look then, you fired me up with that message from Russ, I feel like talking some more."

"It's probably a bad idea."

"It will be fine, I can't go much further down in the general opinion anyway. Let's see..."

He scanned trough the comment on both of their pages, looking for something interesting.

"Someone is asking about the list."

"What list?"

"The one the police found in your room."

"I'm not answering that, that thing is personal and super embarrassing, forget about the list."

"Now, they will want to know even more."

"I don't care, that thing doesn't mean anything and no one should read it, why is this even a thing? Go to the next question."

"Okay then, the next one is:"

"I have no idea what this is about, I called my mother this morning and the police was there. They tried to convince me to surrender and die for them and tried to lengthen the call so they could trace me back. There was nothing to talk about so I hung up after telling them that I would defend myself.

Next, there's a bunch of random stupid questions like the color one that I won't answer because I have better stuff to do. Believe it or not, surviving alone against the world is a very hard full time job. Then there is this one:

Usually, kids from around the world would go out on a journey as some sort of initiation to life. They would go visit nearby gyms and the leaders would choose a team according to the number of badges the challenger already possessed. Going back home with at least one badge would prove that they would be able to live on their own. Collecting more of them was just to impress people around you or to become a true battle monster trainer. It was a bit like passing your driving license, nothing was forcing you to do it, but everyone expected you to do so anyway.

"The answer is no, absolutely not, it would be incredibly stupid. Those gym are like fortresses of law and order and the guys who hand out badges are all monsters of incredible power. If I ever set foot in one of those gym, I would never come back out alive."

He continued to scroll through everything while mumbling "Not this, not this". Then, he found an interesting message.

"I guess this is the last one, a guy named Antoine, god, another strange name, wrote something in Kalos language. I can still read it though. He said:

"Before I answer this, I would like to say that if this is a troll, it isn't funny at all, there are probably real people like this and gathering attention that way is disgusting.

If this is a real message, I'm impressed he managed to find us. Is there no one watching over that probably small child who just lost his mother to stop him from sending messages to a terrorist? To answer the question. I am really sorry for you like I am for the wife of that Sebastien guy but I cannot help you. I do not rule over death nor time. I cannot fix what has been broken however much I want to.

You have all the rights in the world to be sad or angry at me but even so, I cannot revive the dead. If it makes you feel less bad to hate me than by all means do so. I will keep on going with the hate of all the ones who decides to do so. I will bear it because it seems like no one else is ready to do so. Throw all your feelings at me and live on. I do not have a perfect solution and I don't have a deep thoughtful thing to say. I'm just a guy, that's it.

He turned his head towards Gilly to see if there was anything else she wanted to say. She had a bunch of small tears in the corner of her eyes that she was trying to suppress.

"That poor little guy..." She said.

He brought her closer to him and held her tight to comfort her.

"Then I'll stop the record I guess."

He pressed the stop button and put the computer back down on the ground to give his full attention to Gilly.

They posted the video a little later and decided to take a break for the rest of the day.

*** Bonus I guess ***

That night, Blaze and Gilly were snuggled in their tent, relaxing together with the little time they had. Both their battle monsters were once again outside of their balls and everyone had eaten. At first, Houndy had clawed at the entrance to be let inside but he had tired himself out and was now sleeping in front of it.

Blaze was sat cross-legged against their bags in the middle of tent and Gilly had sunken herself in his lap, squashing her back against his chest and resting her head on his shoulder beside his. Like usual, they were telling each other nonsensical things to relax a bit before going to bed.

Naturally, the topic slowly drifted towards more adult subjects, mostly because of Gilly.

"Should we get married first before we do anything?" He asked.

"Is it a proposal already? Do you have the ring? I'm suddenly super excited!"

"No, I don't have a ring, sorry. I didn't prepare in case I got a girlfriend out of the blue that I wanted to marry instantly."

"It wasn't out of the blue at all! And also, you are so short-sighted it's unbelievable."

"I am not the one wearing glasses here."

"That's not what I meant... Wait was this a pun or a dad joke?"

"Certainly not a pun but maybe a dad joke? I don't know, it's not like my dad ever told me jokes. Anyway, what is your opinion on the marriage thing?"

"Is it really necessary?"

"I don't think so, but isn't it the big thing to take your spouse for the first time on the wedding night?"

"In what century are you living?"

"I don't know, I just want to be sure to not fuck it up! There is only one first time for everything after all. I want to make sure you will think later that it would have been impossible to be any better. If you don't care about marriage at all, then I don't either."

"But no one will accept to marry us anyway."

"Why not?"

"They are going to call the cops long before we get to the altar!"

"I did not think of that."

There was a short silence while Blaze thought about it.

"Could we just make up our own."

"Isn't that like saying we could build our own car. Of course you could but it's not going to be as good looking as the real thing."

"Isn't it exaggerated to use a car as an example? Who can build a car on his own."

"I'm sure you can, you always understand all those things super easily."

"A car isn't at all the same thing as a toaster or a washing machine, those things are actually complicated. I guess you do have a point though, for the car it wouldn't matter at all to me what it looks like as long as it works. But, if I want it to be the best, I need the real thing, not just something that can roll."

He paused for a second again before asking once again.

"If I ever could manage to find a solution to this, would you prefer to wait and give me your all on that day or not. It's important that I know what it is you really desire, not what you can or can't get. I need to know so that I can do my very best. I want to give you what you want, whatever it is, not what you resigned yourself to get."

Gilly thought about it for a long while, relaxing in the soothing arms of Blaze. She seemed to have come to a decision when she turned around to face him and wrapped her legs around him to squeeze herself onto his chest. She put her forehead against his and told him while looking at him straight in the eyes.

"I reeeeaaaaaly want to do it now but you are right, that super special wedding night is kinda tempting so I will wait. I will give you one year, but only one, to fix this."

"Okay, I will do my best. In less than a year, I will get us married."

"Also, to make sure you hurry up, I will put one condition on this."

"What is it?" Asked Blaze suddenly somewhat apprehensive.

"It's about the list..."

Even in his apprehension, he could not resist the sudden temptation.

"Forget the list!"

"That's my line!"

"Sorry I couldn't resist." Said Blaze laughing only an inch in front of her face.

She proceeded to give him a vague description of what was on that famous list to his great embarrassment. Blaze wasn't liking were this was going.

"I want you my sweet flame to re-enact one of the things on that list for every month you will take to make it up to me. So, if you take a month, you will have to do one thing from the list, and so on. The worst possible case is that you fail to make it happen and in this case, you will have to do twelve of those messed up things to me."

"I don't even know exactly what's on the list! How could I do or accept this?"

"Don't worry, I remember them all, I will be the one choosing so you don't have to panic. You have to know though that some are really fucked up, like the one in which you tie me up and...

"OK stop, don't say it, I don't want to know what happens next. I will do it as fast as I can."

"Good, just to be clear, those things mostly aren't wishes I want to happen, just things that went through my mind. Like, "I wonder what would happen if" kind of things. There was even one in which I was the guy and you were the girl."

Blaze felt a shiver run through his spine, what was on that damn list? Gilly interrupted his train of thoughts by getting her face even closer to his and whispering to him, their lips almost touching.

"In the meantime, I want lots and lots of kisses. Even more kisses than you would think since I want some to make up for the nightmares hit."

"Got it, many kisses, I can do that, no problems. In fact, I would be really disappointed if there were no kisses involved. He said, while tightening his arms around her even more as if to merge her to him. Do I start now?"

"Sure." She answered as she let him take her lips.

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