Keep in mind, the following story I made for as a friend’s birthday gift. This is just a rough draft of what I plan to work on further in the future. There’s a lot to it. This story is what I will be using for my final project as I know certainly, I won’t be able to get a more complete version done in a few days.
To summarize what I have so far, in this draft of this story, Belladonna, ‘Bella’, is the Deadly Nightshade, the super hero. Maverick, ‘Rex’, is the Ember Deceiver. The audience meets them both in the beginning after Ember had burned down a home of the CEO who owns a bank named Ocean Financial Services. After a short fight, Ember asks Nightshade if she could wait to take him to the police until he went to dinner with his friend on Friday. She agreed on the condition she could track him, which he accepted. The following morning, their regular selves, Rex and Bella, happen to cross paths. Only occasionally crossing paths before, Bella never really payed any mind to him but this time she did as Rex had a scrap where the tracker was placed. She eventually learned his true identity. Rex was oblivious to most of in the mean time. During the week, Westly tries to set the two of them up on little dates. Westly even does it for the final date on Friday since it was happening on his parent’s restaurant called Firelight. Bella and Rex meet up and due to some surprising twists (which I haven’t thought of specifically yet), they do fall in love with an ambiguous ending of who might be turning to the other side.
~~~~~?????, a young woman~~~~~
A smaller figure with their skin and face hidden by clothes made of vines and leaves and a mask hiding their face by flowers sits in their car impatiently listening to their radio. They tapped their fingers on the wheel, waiting for something, anything.
“Tonight is monday the third of January. It is currently 9:50 pm and we have urgent news. There have been reports that the Ember Deceiver has set fire to the CEO Ocean Financial Services’ home. There are rumors that the fire has remained contained solely to his building and has not spread to the neighboring homes. It is recommended to stay inside and to close and lock your doors and windows if you have yet to do so. If you have any important information relating to the Ember Deceiver, please provide it to the police,” the femine voice reported.
There’s a small huff from the figure before they click off the radio and start up the car. Heading through the town of Ironbury, avoiding the main roads as the support vehicles would be taking them. In the distance, as the car grew closer, the dark smoke stack grew larger and the light of the burning fire blazed like a star in the night.
“God, why does my main rival have to use fire for all the things? It’s so destructive… And being able to turn invisible afterwards? Gah! So frustrating,” the voice of the plant person, having a soft frustrated tone, revealing that she is a woman.
She pulled into an empty lot near the burning home before getting out of the car. Stretching out her fingers, a loose vine grew out on each of her arms and a few seeds appeared in both of her hands. Heading to the house, but keeping a reasonable distance away to not to be seen by any of the authorities, the woman of plants started looking for Ember Deceiver. It doesn’t take long before she jumps at the feeling of something warm heating her back.
“Ah the beautiful flower finally shows her face to this heart warming pyre,” a honeyed voice purred into the ear of the woman.
Taking a few steps back, the woman lashes out the two thorny vines out to where she once stood but there was no contact upon the disembodied voice. Sticking her fingers into the ground and letting a few seeds into the ground.
“Alright you little bugger, why don’t you show yourself so I don’t have to?”, she growled.
“Oh you know why I’m not doing that darlin’,” the voice purred.
“Actually I don’t, besides for ‘you’re not my target’. I mean, what in god’s name does that even mean?”, the woman huffed and looked around, keeping her fingers in the ground. She hoped to pin down where the voice was.
After a few moments, something slid across the dirt and in response the woman a flood of vines burst out of the ground, all around where the subtle movement was. The vines tighten around the invisible figure. Upon realizing that they were caught, a raven hair boy became visible, surrounded by vines from shoulders down. His hair had a slightly burning effect like the hair itself was ember and the rest of his face is covered in black ash, obscuring what he truly looked liked.
“Ah my sweet little yet deadly Nightshade, you really shouldn’t jump to conclusions like those cops that you love to believe in,” the Ember Deceiver smirked.
“And you didn’t just burn down that dude’s house and possibly killed some of his family inside?” Nightshade responded.
“Oh there was none inside. I made sure of that. Just a little… payback for what he’s done to some of the people he’s robbed helpless with that idiotic bank branch he owns. Not like he can’t rebuild it in a couple months anyways,” Ember scoffed.
“That doesn’t give you a good excuse to cause people harm,” scolded Nightshade and Ember rolled his eyes in response.
“Ya know, you don’t seem all that much older then me,” he commented.
“Does that matter?”
“Hmm… probably not. Me being me and noticing things I suppose. Just let me last till this friday, alright?” Ember asked.
“Why should I do that?” Nightshade scoffed.
“I just promised one of my friends to take ‘em out to dinner then. After that, you can do whatever the heck you want with me.”
Nightshade raised an eyebrow, “How do I know I can trust you?”
“You can’t but I’ll give you my word that I won’t do anything. After that, I’ll let you decide what to do with me. Does that seem fair?”
“And where are we supposed to meet so I can find you again?”
Ember Deceiver looks to the dulling fire, with a sad yet extremely amused smile, “How about here. Friday night. 10 pm.”
“Fine. Agreed, but on one condition,” Nightshade chuckled.
“Which is?”
“You have to wear one of my tracking seeds on you.”
“Fine, whatever.”
Nightshade walks over to him and has one of the wines wrapped around him grow a singular thorn. She used it to make an extremely shallow cut along the boy’s cheek. Looking down to her hand, she grew a few sproutlings and placed them along the cut. Ember flinched to the touch before she pulled away.
Ember scoffed trying to connect the dots, “Did you really need to inject those… into my bloodstream…?”
“Only way to make sure you wouldn’t dispose of them,” Nightshade explained.
Ember sighs before his arms heat up and burn down the vines around him.
“Why didn’t you do that before?” she asked
“Because I didn’t feel like it.”
“You could’ve left at any time… and you didn’t”, Nightshade seemed flabbergasted.
Ember shrugged before doing a two finger salute and headed out. Nightshade grumbled something incoherently before strolling over to the burning house to check up with the police. After a quick conversation and relaying that The Ember Deceiver got away, they went to make sure the populace was safe.
“I guess I should be making my way back now. It is getting pretty late,” Nightshade mumbled to herself as she walked back to her car.
It takes over half an hour for Nightshade to drive her way back to campus. Changing back into some normal clothes in the car, she strolls back to her dorm. Along the route back, she bundles up more as the crisp winter air whips past her ears and fingers. Inside the dorm, only the dim lights were turned on. Nightshade looked to her phone’s clock and it read as 12:07 am.
“Oh, that means I won’t wake up Lucine. That’s good,” Nightshade thought to herself, pulling out her key.
She takes a moment to unlock her door and quietly swung it open to a dark room. The light of electronics glowed from the opposite side of the room, blocked by a chair and a humanoid.
“So you’re finally back, huh Bell?” Lucine turned around in her chair.
Bella smiled before grimacing, “Yeah I am. I need you to try and find someone for me.”
“What? No ‘how are your night classes Lucine?’ or ‘Please help me find someone?’’’ Lucine joked.
Rolling her eyes, Bella asked as she held out her remaining few seeds that she didn’t use during the fight., “Can you please help me find someone.”
“Why yes I can, thank you for already knowing what I was going to ask,” Lucine brushed the seeds into her hand and placed them on an advanced electronic scanner.
With several types on the computer Lucine pulls up a new screen on her monitor. As the seeds scan, she zoomed in her image to the east coast and somewhere on campus.
“So it appears that even though you are tracking somewhere all over the United States, which by the way thanks for that difficulty of tracking so many people, it appears that the person you’re looking for is somewhere on campus. I’ll need a bit more time to figure out where or who exactly it is,” Lucine explained.
Bella nods, “Alright, I’m going to get some sleep. Try not to do anything too crazy alright?”
Waving her off, Lucine faced back to her computer and pulled up a multiplayer minecraft world.
* * * * *Ember* * * * *
After changing somewhere along the way, Ember quietly returned to the dorm and opened the door to his room. He raised an eyebrow at the fact of his roommate still being up.
“I’m surprised you’re still up Westly. Shouldn’t you be asleep?” Ember asked.
Westly turned around in his swival chair after taking a glance at his watch, “Oh, well… I didn’t realize it was already eleven. I sorta got distracted with this project of mine that I was helping my friend Lucine build…”
“That minecraft dnd world right? What was it called… Dueling academy or something?”
Westly flusteredly looked away, “It’s the Magic academy…”
“Right, right,” Ember chuckled a little.
Westly huffs as he turned his attention back to his friend, “But that doesn’t explain where you were these past few hours Rex!”
“Don’t worry about pal, after all we have that little ‘dinner date’ friday night after all. I promise I will fix up my schedule before then so we can have a good time,” Rex joked.
Westly rolled his eyes as he started getting ready for bed, “Okay, just get to sleep soon alright? I don’t want you failing your classes because you decided to play hooky on your homework nearly every other night.”
“Roger that captain!” Rex smiled and did a salute as he laughed.
Morning came just as quick to Rex and Westly as they danced around each other as they prepared for their morning schedules. Both of them headed out of their room for breakfast just as a coffee colored woman happened to be locking her dorm room door with a backpack on her back.
“Heya Bell, you heading out to breakfast as well?” Westly asked.
Bell turned slightly, with a brush of her dirty blond hair out of her eyes, nodded in response. After a moment, she crossed her arms as she stood to face them.
“I suppose you would want me to join you?” Bell asked.
Westly nodded as Rex spoke up, “I don’t think I had the pleasure of meeting you. My name is Maverick, but my friends call me Rex.”
Bell raised an eyebrow as she seemed to fixate on the scratch on his face before bluntly saying after a moment of silence, “Belladonna, but most people call me Bell or Bella.”
“Belladonna, hmm? What a lovely name for such a beautiful flower of a girl like you,” Rex teased as a smirk continued to grow.
Bell flinched at that comment as Westly smacked him on the back of his head, “Come on mate, don’t hit on girl ya meet.
“You seem to recognize me or don’t like the name flower or is it something else?” Rex asked, glaring at Westly.
“No, it’s nothing,” Belladonna smiled a sickly sweet smile to the two of them.
The three of them headed to the dinning hall and got their meals. Rex looked over to Bella’s plate and raised an eyebrow.
“No meat?” He questioned.
“I swear… everyone who eats with me asks that. To answer that, yeah, no meat. I’m a vegetarian,” Bella stated blandly as she dug into her pancakes.
“I still think it’s quite impressive that you are able to completely deny the savory luscious flavors of meat,” Rex tapped his knuckles to his chest.
Westly nodded, “Very noble and I respect that.”
“Thanks but it was just how I was raised. Dad’s a chief and mom’s a gardener and landscaper so there’s a lot of veggies around,” Bella spat out an answer that she seemed to have said hundreds of times before.
Westly whispers with a frown to Rex as Bella stood to return her plate, “Do you actually want to get to know her or do you just want to do what you normally do?”
“I don’t know… I do want to know why she seems to know more about me then I know about her.”
“If you plan to hurt her Rex…,” Westly growled under his breath.
“Oh I don’t plan on that I’m waaaay too curious about her Storm Bird.”
“So do you want me to put in a good word for you?” Westly wiggled his eyebrows.
Rex grinned and nodded right as Bella returned. His eyes skimmed over the rest of the cafeteria as a few people flowed in and out. He tried to place his finger on the familiarity to Belladonna but the missing link wasn’t there.
“Rex!” Bella snapped her fingers in front of his face.
“Oh! Huh? What is it?” Rex asked.
“We’re heading out. I’ll be heading to class so you’ll be joining our lovely Bella to her class,” Westly nudges Rex’s side.
“Of course my lady,” Rex offers his hand to Bella, who let out a grumble.
“I’m not taking your hand lovebird. Let’s just walk to the science hall,” Bella turns and starts to walk off.
Rex picks up pace to walk step and step with her, “Oh come now, surely you had feelings for me at one point beautiful flower. Everyone has.”
“Oh not this gal.”
“Aww I’m hurt,” Rex does a fake pout and a hand to his chest, “why not?”
Bella speeds up and turns to walk backward in front of Rex. She taps her pointer finger into his chest, “It’s because I don’t like cocky jerks who feel like they deserve anyone or anyone that they please. Nor do I appreciate the heat of a lie. Besides, I’m a demisexual.”
Before Rex is even able to react, Bella stumbles and quickly twists her feet to turn forward and back to his side.
“Not exactly my smartest move there…” she mumbles to herself.
“Nice moves and uh… what exactly is a demisexual?” Rex asks curiosity, scratching the back of his neck, as it was the first time hearing the term.
“Have you heard of people that are pansexual?”
Rex nods, “Aren’t they the ones that could love pretty much anyone?”
“It’s pretty much that, but I only fall in love or have an attraction to people that I already have a relationship with.”
“Guess I’ll just have to try even harder to make you love me then,” Rex cockly proclaims.
Bella groans before she stops in front of a building, “This is the building where my class is so move along boy.”
“Boy? Please you wish! I’m my own man,” Rex’s through rumbles with a purr as he waves off her comment.
Rubbing at her temple, Bella starts walking inside, “Yeah, maybe being a man of lackluster pickup lines. Besides, I’m fairly certain I’m older than you anyways.”
“Sureeeee,” Rex drags out the word, being skeptical as he was, though he knew he was one of the youngest of this year’s class, “I’m nineteen by the way!”
“Twenty!” Bella calls back before entering the building.
“So she is older. That means the game is afoot.”
~~~~~Bella/Nightshade~~~~~
“Ugh, he’s just… I don’t even know how to put words to it! Just a disgusting human being. I don’t understand how he couldn’t pick up my hints to not even bother to win me over with his ‘charming personality’ of his,” Bella grumbled to herself as she zoned out during her math class.
“Not to mention that scar of his. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but it appears to be in roughly the same spot where I cut the Ember Deceiver’s face. It doesn’t help with the fact that Lucine said that he was somewhere on campus,” Bella thought to herself.
She starts sketching what she remembers the Ember Deceiver looks like, occasionally pausing to answer a question or writing down the occasional note. At the end of class, she hurriedly packed up everything to head back to her room. Bella needed to add a bit of color to this picture to get a full grasp of what the Ember Deceiver could really look like. After doing that, she knew she would have to ask around to see if anyone recognized him. It took a few minutes for her to stumble through her supplies but Bella managed to find a few loose color pencils.
“Let’s see… Black and maroon for the hair. Brown with a bit of a green for the eyes… and pale skin,” Bellam mumbles to herself as she sorted through what colors she had on hand.
It only takes her a few minutes to lightly color her recreation of what she remembered. Lucine stirs awake and sits up with a yawn before she rubs her eyes.
Yawning as she speaks, “Bella, that you?”
“Oh, did I wake you Lucine? Sorry about that,” Bella stands apologetically with the picture in hand.
Lucine rubs her eyes with her thumb and pointer finger as she waves off Bella, “You’re fine. I needed to wake for food anyways.”
“That’s good then,” weakly laughing, Bella starts heading back to the door, “I should be heading out again.”
“Hmm, what’s you got there in your hand?”
“This? It’s nothing,” Bella walks over and shows it to Lucine, “You recognize him?”
“Hah! You think I would recognize a person from a drawing? I hardly even leave this room during the day. I barely interact with people. Can’t help you there kiddo,” Lucine stretches.
“Don’t worry bud. I figured you wouldn’t recognize him anyways. Anyways, I’m going to ask around.”
“I’ll join you on the way out,” Lucine gets up out of bed and pats Bella on the back.
Bella waits for a minute to allow Lucine to put on a hoodie and slips on her shoes. They pass by the study room on the way out. Lucine takes a moment to poke her head to see if anyone happened to be inside it.
“Is that you West? Good to see you! Man, when was the last time I saw your face?” Lucine walks in.
Stumbling in after her, Bella pokes her head over Lucine’s shoulder as Westly says, “Hey, good to see you’re up and about Moony. Actually getting food and some exercise for once?”
“Oh hush, you’re the one encuragine me to do it, you old fool,” Lucine laughs, “But actually, blue bell here has a question for you.”
Westly tilts his head as he looks over to Bella, “What’s up Bella?”
“Have you’ve seen anyone who looks like him?” Bella holds out the sketch in front of Westly.
“Huh… by any chance is this your interpretation of the Ember Deceiver? That’s actually pretty good,” Westly stares at the picture for a minute, “Huh… kinda looks like Rex now that I look at it more…”
“Really?” Both Bella and Lucine exclaim.
Rex nods and Bella whispers over into Lucine’s ear, “Check into that would you?”
“Of course,” Lucine whispered back.
“Ya know, there isn’t that big of a connection between them right? It’s just a coincidence that this interpretation looks similar to both of them,” Westly chuckles awkwardly, “Anyways, could you two go now? I got this huge creative fiction paper to write.”
“Right! Sorry Westly. We’ll leave you be now,” Bella smiles and pulls Lucine out of the study room.
“If this is true, you know what this could mean?” Lucine asked.
Bella rolls her eyes, “Of course I do! Look it into. I’ll bring you some food.”
~ * ~ * ~ After many attempts from Westly to try and get Bella and Rex together. Lucine confirms Bella and her suspicions that Rex is more than likely the Ember Deceiver. It is now friday afternoon. * ~ * ~ *
Westly comes up behind Bella and taps her shoulder, which causes her to jump. She turns around to see who it was and lets out a breath upon seeing it was Westly.
“Geez you scared me Westly,” Bella said.
Rubbing the back of his neck, Westly lets out a meek laugh, “Sorry Bella. I actually wanted to ask you something.”
“Sure. What’s up?” Bella relaxes from her tense composure.
“Will you go out on a date with me? W-well not exactly a date! But sorta like a friend hang out thing tonight? Sorry this sounds really stupid. You see… Rex was planning to go to my family restaurant with me to try some new recipes with me but he said something came up and bailed on me and I kinda promised my parents I would bring a friend with me to try the recipes so I wouldn’t be the only to try them…” Westly fidgets with his fingers as he stammers.
“So… you’re telling me that something came up with Rex so you want to invite me to this dinner date as a friend Westly?” Bella asks as she raises an eyebrow skeptically.
Westly nods with a childish grin on his face, “Yep, just friends. Nothing more. Everything has already been paid for so don’t worry about that.”
“Now why don’t I believe you Westly?” Bella taps her foot on the ground as she presses her back against the wall next to her room door.
Westly pouts, “Because you think that this is a trap?”
“Exactly, you can’t just keep trying to set up blind dates between me and Rex nearly every day. It gets tiring. Besides, he’s not even my type,” Bella sighs as she gets off the wall to shoo him off with a hand.
Westly raises a hand before his entire body slouches, “Come on, please, Belladonna? My parents set up this date in their restaurant. The entire section is going to be closed off to the two of you and everything! Plus he doesn’t even know that I am doing this.”
Bella sighs, without even looking to him as she fumbles for her room key, “At what time is the reservation?”
Westly’s entire body perks up, “Six! Six o’clock tonight. It’s the balcony table, overlooking the lake.”
Wearily nodding, Bella swings open her door, “Guess I better ready then?” She then looks back over to Westly with a goofy smile and the lightest of blushes coloring her cheeks.
Westly giggles before he darts back to his room. She quietly enters her room and locks it behind her. Bella glances at the clock and jumps at the time.
“Geez it’s already 5?! I really should be getting ready now! I only meant that jokingly!” Bella immediately covers her mouth, hoping she didn’t wake Lucine.
There is a bit of stirring under Lucine’s blanket but she doesn’t get up, which Bella lets out a breath of relief. Belladonna quietly opens her closet door and starts flipping through her dresses. She pulls out a black dress with two roses with thorns on the stems, spiraling up it, with one blooming rose on each shoulder, one on the back and one on the front side. Glancing at the mirror and softly lets out a breathy chuckle, wondering why she was even bothering to put in an effort for this pretentious guy. Bella quickly grabs a warm fuzzy jacket and tossed a pair of sneakers into her trunk of her car, before she drove over to the FireFlight restaurant.
* * * * *Rex/Ember Deceiver* * * * *
Rex stands, relaxed, at the guard railing. In the distance, the moonlight shimmers in the lake and almost jumping at hearing the crackling of flames, Rex glances below to see a few people around the dancing of the flickering fire in the fire pits. He lets out a self conscious sigh of relief, knowing it wasn’t him that accidentally caused a new destructive flame to his friend’s restaurant. Glancing back to the lake, he noticed small orbs of red, orange, and yellow light dancing amongst the trees, occasionally blinking in and out of existence.
Smiling as he pulls up a chair, “Oh right, the fireflies… I forgot these special ones came out this time of the year.”
Rex holds up his hand, palm up, and slowly curls in his fingers as a bit of light grows from nothing on each of those fingertips. Gently, he takes his hand and starts writing and doodling random things in the air, which linger like sparklers. Jumping and immediately stopping when he hears a bit of movement of a door opening behind him. Rex stands and turns around to see Belladonna stumbling in.
Hurting over and offering a hand, Rex mumbles embarrassingly, “Let me help you beautiful.”
“I’m fine. Really, I’m fine. I just stumbled over my flats,” Bella brushes herself off and stands before she looks Rex up and down, “How are you not cold in that?”
Rex glances down to his white t-shirt, black shorts, and sneakers, “What can I say? I’m warm blooded, and hot headed.”
“Do you think you could at least help me figure out how to light one of these fire pits that are up here? You may love the cold, but I’m freezing and I can’t even feel my hands,” Bella sighs and settles down into one of the chairs by one of the tables.
Bowing extravagantly and chucking, Rex hides his smile, “Of course my princess. Your wish is my command.”
He strolls over to the one nearest to her and while keeping his back to her, he dimly lights one of his fingers and gets a gentle quiet fire going.
“Thanks Rex,” Bella lets out a shaky breath as she wraps the jacket she brought with her, around her a bit more tightly.
Rex holds out a hand to Bella, “If I may? I know something that can warm you up a bit.”
“Is it because you’re…” Bella looks away before she goes silent and shakes her head, “You know what, yeah sure. Whatever.”
Sitting down next to her, Rex warms his hands, without causing any fire to form. He pauses a moment before he gingerly rubs his hands along Bella’s back and arms, “Something seems to be bothering you dear. I mean, I… I suspected something like this could happen based on all of what happened during the week but why not just go with the flow and enjoy tonight without thinking about all that? After all, you’re not going to be seeing or hearing of me after tonight after all.”
“You want to know something stupid about me?” Belladonna avoids the question.
Looking up to her with a concerned look, Rex sits back in his chair, “What is it?”
“My name. It’s actually pretty ironic. I think I mentioned it before, or maybe Westly did. But my dad’s last name is Solanaceae and our family works with nature a decent amount. If you know scientific names of plants you would know that our last name means Nightshade. My mom had the amazing idea to name me Belladonna which you translate it with my last name, you get-”
Rex interrupts with a gasp, “Deadly Nightshade! Right?”
“You’re quick. Yeah, it does,” Bella nods in agreement.
Narrowing his brow, “Does that mean your-”
Bursting out in laughter, Bella shakes her hands, “Oh no, no, no, that would be so idiotic of me if I would to just out myself if I were her, wouldn’t you think?”
“I guess you’re right about that…” Rex sighs.
As if seeing Rex’s disappointed expression, Bella nudges him, “How about this, after we get out food, let’s play a little game.”
“A game?” Rex perks up at this, “What kind of game Belladonna?”
Bella holds up two fingers, “Well, there’s two different ones I was thinking of. The first is truth or dare. The other is a game of questions. It’s sorta similar to truth or dare. The main difference is whenever you ask a question to the other person, they have to answer as truthfully as possible. No avoiding the question or lying. In return for asking the question, the other person is allowed to ask one in turn.”
“That second one actually sounds pretty fun,” and right as Rex says that, a waiter happens to come out like magic.
“Huh… it almost seemed like she was listening to the conversation based on when she showed up,” Rex made note of that in his head.
“Good evening love birds. Can I start you on anything to drink?” the woman asks as she passes both of them a menu.
“Give us a second to look and see…” Bella trails off as she takes a menu and her eyes scan the drinks section, “How about your specialty hot chocolate for now?”
“Get me a Dark and stormy would you sweet heart?” Rex smirks as he skims the rest of the menu.
Writing down the drinks, the woman nods, “Of course, they will be out shortly.”
“Want to share an appetizer or just want to order the main meal?” Bella asked as she looked up from her menu.
“I recommend saving room for their cheese cake. It would make your mouth absolutely melt. I’m not even kidding. Get an entire cake to share with whoever your roommate is because they are so expensive.”
“Ooo, that sounds like a plan then. Their homemade fettuccine with their homemade sauce sounds pretty tasty.”
“I was thinking the same exact thing.”
Both of them chuckle before the waiter shows up with their drinks. After placing them in front of their respective owner, she pulls out her pen and paper again, “Have you thought about what you wanted to order yet?”
“Both of us would like your homemade fettuccine with your homemade sauce, but add some sausages into mine and broccoli into the lady’s,” Rex winks.
“Of course. They will be out shortly.”
Bella crosses her fingers as a smile creeps onto her face, “So shall we start the game?”
“You know I am ready for it, flower,” Rex purrs.
Tilting her head and stretching, “Shall I go first or you?”
“Since you’re asking all of the questions, how about you?” Rex smiles and Bella rolls her eyes in response.
“I guess let’s start off easy then. If you could have any super power, what would it be and why?”
“Heh, easy. Fire and invisibility. Fire ‘cause… well you experienced it first hand. Invisibility ‘cause I honestly don’t want to be noticed. I hate all the attention. But… that’s only ‘cause I was invisible for most of my life. Getting all of the attention makes me feel like I have to do more to only go half as far. If I could just vanish from my normal life, even just for a little bit, would be such a relief. I’ve been so busy and I could use a break.”
“Huh, okay…” Bella nods in thought.
“Why do you seem to be so snippy around me? And well, with pretty much anyone that you seem to interact with a daily basis?”
“It’s because I know that in a few years, I will be long gone from here. I plan to move to Japan with Lucine once we are both done with college. Afterwards, I highly doubt that I will see anyone here ever again unless they go to Japan as well.”
“I’m hurt Belladonna, can’t even play nice with someone who’s on their very last date?”
Bella scoffs, “Fine, I will play nice. For now. Now, I have my suspicions, but tell me this, are you really the Ember Deceiver?”
“Ugh, do you have to ask that?” Rex covers his face.
“Hey, I’m just confirming my suspicions that I’ve been having about you recently. So answer up boy,” Bella skootches to the edge of her sit, awaiting the answer.
Rex slumps back, and looks up to the starry sky above, “What gave it away that we were the same person?”
“Besides the tracker you mean?” Bella asked.
Rex shrugs then nods, “Well, I figured that tracker would get me eventually, but yeah.”
“Let’s see… That scar didn’t exactly help. That’s what made me first suspicious, granted you could’ve gotten that scar anywhere, so I had to wait for Lucine to confirm that it was someone in the dorm. Next was… uh… what was it… I guess there also was the fact that you didn’t try and hide your identity when you revealed yourself to me a few days ago. All of those puzzle pieces connected just right, all I needed was the last piece.”
Letting out a weak chuckle, Rex looks down into his drink, “So no matter how I played it, you would’ve found me out huh?”
“Yeah… most likely. Westly would’ve said something to suspect you anyways,” Bella takes a large gulp of her hot coco.
The waiter comes out with their food and places it in front of each of them, saying before leaving, “Additional bread rolls are on the house if you would like them.”
“So who’s turn was it?” Rex asked as he twirled the pasta around with his fork.
Bella sits and thinks for a moment, “I mean, we went back and forth with questions which answered the questions asked. But I guess it’s your turn?”
“Mind if I ask the last question and save it till the end of the date?”
Bella smiled understandingly with a nod. The flower and the flame ate the rest of the meal in silence as the moon rose higher in the sky. The voices quieted down as cars left the parking lot. Eventually, lights started appearing and disappearing directly around Rex and Belladonna. They stared in awe as fireflies danced around them. After a few minutes, the quiet background music seemed to ring in Rex’s ears as it turned to slow ball dancing music. Tapping his foot fast in thought, he then stood and started moving some of the chairs and tables to create an open area.
“Hey what do you think you’re doing Rex?” Bella stumbled as she stood.
Rex looks back over to her as he moves the last chair into place. He held out a hand, “Care to give this little flame one last dance for the fireflies, beautiful flower?”
Timidly, Bella took his hand, “W-why not… I just never slowed dance before.”
Pulling her in, Rex smiles, “Don’t worry, just follow my lead.”
Before Rex starts leading the dance, he pulls out a piece of paper and quickly writes to the waiter to get one complete oreo cheesecake in a box and two slices of chocolate cheese cake. Pulling Bella in close to his chest, he smiles softly to her sheepish expression. He leads her through each of the steps of the dance and right near the very end of the song, Rex twirls Bella around. With the last beat coming to a close, he dips Bella, basically pressing their noses together.
“This is my question, may I kiss you my lady?” the words barely escape Rex’s lips before Bella presses her lips against his.
Rex nearly loosens his grip around Bella in surprise but manages to keep her in his arms. A few seconds pass before Rex sits Bella down into a chair just as the Waiter brings out the bag and the two plates with the cheese cake.
“I guess you have your answer, huh?” Bella shakely gets out.
Rex picks at his cheesecake slice, “Thanks miss, I really appreciate the work you’ve done for us.”
“Your welcome sir,” the waiter nods her head before heading back inside.
Looking back over to Bella, Rex lets out a breath, “But you’re still going to turn me in aren’t you, flower?”
“I don’t think I am actually. I have hopes you could turn good, or at least stop with the destructive acts?” Bella gives Rex a hopeful smile.
“Heh… Maybe you would be willing to try a few ‘horrendous acts’ too. But nothing too bad though,” Rex teases.
Bella smiles, “We’ll have to see Ember.”
Standing with his cheesecake and walking over to the guardrail, Rex hums, “We will have to thank Westly for this later. His parent’s Fireflight restaurant was the right choice.”
Bella joins Rex and kisses his cheek, “Agreed.”
