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Ruin would lie and say he doesn’t know when this all started, but he did know when it did start. It all started when he found Solstice’s dimension and revealed him to be the demented and filthy liar he is.
Not that he could say anything about that, Ruin was just as much of a filthy and demented liar. He’s always been one. He’s tried to reveal his truth before, but it would usually result in others not believing him.
Nexus was the only one who knew his truth, and that was the part that scared him. He knew Nexus had been through his head, his memories, he knew what he was like before his life went downhill.
He was terrified of Nexus. He was terrified of the villain being able to break him so easily, just as easily as his Creator was able to.
Thankfully, he wasn’t working with Nexus today.
Ruin had been charging behind his boxes when Solstice woke him up, saying he had a task for him.
“I need you to eliminate someone for me. Doesn’t matter where or how, just make it soon.”
The Brit hummed and got up, stretching his limbs. This wouldn’t be his first time killing someone, he’s had to before, but it unsettled him that Solstice had wanted someone dead.
“Alright, who’s the target…?”
“Lunar.”
If Ruin had blood, it’d be cold right now. “A- Any reason why Lunar of all people…?”
“You don’t need to know why, you just need to kill him. If you don’t, I’ll make sure Nexus does his little experiments on you all day.”
He flinched and nodded, “Right… Lunar it is then… I’ll be on it.. Sun…”
“Good. And Ruin? Don’t try lying to me about killing him.”
With that, Solstice left. Ruin slumped against the wall, breathing shakily as he thought about how he would do this.
—
A good old wrench would do the trick. It’s not Ruin’s first time knocking out members of the Celestial family, but it would be his first time knocking out an Astral.
He took deep, artificial breaths as he waited for Lunar to be isolated enough for Ruin to attack. He hated having to watch them all run around with children for hours upon hours.
Eventually, Lunar left to grab something for the children, going to a staff only room. Only 1 human was in there, so Ruin had to once again wait.
That human and Lunar talked for what felt like forever, but in reality it was only 5 minutes. Then, the human’s break was over, and Lunar was finally alone.
Ruin wasted no time, stealthy exiting the vents, raising the wrench up, and whacking Lunar across the head.
The smaller fell to the floor unconscious.
His hands shook as he dropped the wrench and picked up Lunar, carrying him in his arms and out of the Pizzaplex.
—
Sun nodded at Earth as he left the children with her. Lunar had left almost 25 minutes ago to get popcorn kernels and paper, a fun little arts & crafts idea that Earth had. But Lunar never came back.
Sun entered the staff room he knew Lunar was supposed to go to and looked around. Everything looked normal, there were 3 humans on break in there, and nothing looked out of place.
Except for a wrench on the ground.
The solar animatronic took the wrench and left the staff room, waving bye to the humans as he did. Quickly, he took a picture of the wrench and sent it to Moon.
‘Is this any of the staff's wrench?’
A few minutes of silence.
‘Not sure. Solar says there aren’t any missing tools. Bring it to us, we’ll figure it out.’
He sighed and rushed to his brother and cousin, hoping that the wrench was a clue to Lunar’s disappearance.
—
Lunar slowly stirred away, pinching his eyes shut again as a blinding white light hung over him and illuminated the room. He tried to move his arms to cover his eyes, but quickly found that they were bound.
In fact, all of his was bound to a very uncomfortable metal chair.
He blinked and let his eyes adjust to the light finally, scanning his surroundings. He was in a white padded room with only 1 door and a camera with an intercom in the corner.
“Mm.. Hello..? Where am I? Who are you? What do you want with me?”
His head pang with a sharp pain as he spoke, he hissed and lowered his head. The intercom came to life with a very familiar voice.
“Ah, you’re awake, good!”
He heard the door unlock and turned his attention to it. In the doorway stood Ruin, who frankly looked worse than he usually did.
His clothes were more tattered than Lunar remembered, he was covered with scratches, scuffs, and even some dents. Despite the fact that his faceplate couldn’t change expressions or move, he looked dead exhausted and anxious… no… more like terrified.
“…The hell happened to you? You look like shit.”
“Oh. Yes, um, I’m aware of my… current condition. It’s fine,” He waved a dismissive hand, “Do you know why I brought you here today, Lunar?”
“Uhhh, no?? Why do you think I asked? What, you couldn’t get enough out of killing Solar so you’re coming after me now?” It was clearly meant to be a joke, but the way Ruin tensed made Lunar realize it wasn’t just a joke.
“Wait… No… You’re actually gonna kill me?”
“…It’s not what I want to do… Rather.. I was commanded to kill you… I.. apologize Lunar… I’ll try to make it as painless as possible…”
Ruin reached for the smaller animatronic while Lunar frantically squirmed and tried to lean away.
As he got closer, his hands started to shake more and more. He could hear the internal clicking of his machinery in his own auditory sensors, his breathing picked up, he suddenly felt light-headed and nauseous.
He didn’t understand. Why was he getting this way all of a sudden? It was just a stupid animatronic, this should be an easy job.
He squeezed his eyes shut in attempts to ground himself.
But when he reopened his eyes, he saw Gregory in Lunar’s place. He saw the fear in his eyes, the tears streaming down his cheeks as he begged for mercy.
Ruin’s hands were covered in the blood and oil of other animatronics and humans. He could hear Roxanne, the love of his life, the one he held so close to his heart, screaming in his auditory sensors. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he could hear that she was yelling something at him.
He remembered this.
Roxanne had told him to kill Gregory, her son, his step-son. She told him to prove his loyalty to her, to all of the other animatronics, to the Creator.
He remembered afterwards.
She walked away with a scoff, remarking that he barely made the cut. He held Gregory in his arms, shaking and holding back his sobs. He made up the excuse that he just wanted to feel his body go cold, but he had wanted to bring Gregory comfort in his last living moments.
…
Back in reality, Lunar shook as he watched Ruin get closer to him, then suddenly freeze. The smaller was confused for a moment, one second he was having his life threatened, and the next the person trying to kill him was crying.
Then he smelt it, tasted it, felt it.
Dark star power.
Lunar already could faintly feel it coming from him, but now it was like a floodgate. He gagged and coughed, wincing away from the poisonous power.
Ruin snapped back to reality, and stepped away from Lunar. He whimpered to himself and clutched at his head.
“Oh gods… What am I going to do… I- I can’t kill him…”
He mumbled to himself as he curled into a ball, unable to do anything with himself or Lunar at that moment.
—
Back with Sun, Solar, and Moon, they were analyzing the wrench.
“Fazco doesn’t usually have this type of wrench just laying around… And we typically don’t have titanium in our wrenches either.” Solar remarked.
Moon hummed, “Call me crazy for checking this, but it’s also not from our dimension.”
“…Actually that’s pretty smart…” Solar brought a hand up to his mouth.
“…So whoever took Lunar is from another dimension and used this wrench to take him or something..?” Sun questioned.
“Seems like it. I mean, I got knocked out once by a wrench,” Solar shrugged.
Moon looked at him, confused, “What?? When??”
“When Ruin was living with us and pretending to be our friend. He knocked me out with a wrench so he could rebuild Eclipse.”
“…Wild guess, I think Ruin took Lunar.” Sun said with a deadpan expression.
Solar sighed, “Wouldn’t doubt it. But why?”
The celestial twins shrugged.
“Dunno, but we’re about to find out. I got Lunar location, Sun and I are heading out now. Solar, you track us and make sure to be prepared in case something happens to us.”
Solar gave a little salute and nod to the two as they ran off immediately, sending Earth a text about the situation, and heading to Lunar’s location.
—
At some point, Ruin got up and started to pace back and forth.
“Okay I could say that the other Astral’s got in the way… but then he’d question why I didn’t go to another dimension… But Lunar’s powers..! …No, he’d bring up ways to limit it… The celestial family… No, he’s smarter than that…”
Lunar cleared his throat, “So uh… Whatcha mumbling about over there..?”
Ruin sighs and rubs his face, “Lunar, I’ll be very honest, I can’t kill you… But Dark Sun instructed me to… I’m trying to come up with a convincing lie…”
“…Why does he want me dead?”
“If I knew, I would’ve told you! But he always has to be vague and cryptic about his plans!” He lets out a frustrated sigh and goes back to pacing.
Lunar stayed quiet for a while, before asking a question that was just itching the back of his head, “…Why can’t you kill me..?”
“…Because you look too much like… Oh, bollocks. Forget about it. You won’t believe me anyway.”
“What? No! Tell me! Who do I look like!?”
The Brit glanced in Lunar direction and sighed, pinching the area between his eyes, “…You reminded me of.. of my step-son…”
“YOU HAVE A STEP-SON!?”
“Had… I had a step-son…” He looked mournfully at the smaller animatronic.
All of Lunar’s shock drained to sympathy as his voice quieted, “Oh… What happened to him…?”
Ruin sat on the ground and leaned against the wall, “…When the virus had spread to Roxanne, who was my wife mind you, she had told me to… to kill Gregory… To prove my loyalty to her…”
“Roxy was your wife? I thought she was a lesbian.”
“Yes, well, every dimension is different. Maybe my Roxanne was a lesbian and just hadn’t realized it, maybe she was bisexual, or maybe she was just straight. Regardless, she didn’t live long enough to figure it out, nor have the mental capacity to even think about it…”
Awkward silence, then, “…So you two were happy..?”
A fond smile met Ruin’s face, “Very much… She was everything to me… …I did have a normal life once… Sun and Moon merged, creating me… And with that, I had great friends, a wife, a son… I was even happy with my job… But then I just.. I lost all of it…”
Lunar nodded, hanging onto every word.
“…Everyone else was driven mad by the virus, I was the only one immune to it… But I was still driven mad… It’s what happens when you lose everything… Pathetic, is it not? I had everything once, and now I have nothing… I am nothing…”
He cleared his throat.
“Apologies. You don’t need to be hearing any of that… I should be killing you instead… But uh, it seems we’ll have company in about… 3 more minutes! I suppose I should be acting like a threat so they’ll force me to retreat and-“
“How old are you?” The question was so sudden and out of left field. It took Ruin aback.
“Um, pardon me??”
“You heard me. How old are you?”
“Oh uh, well, at some point I stopped counting but I suppose I’m somewhere in my 50s? Maybe in my 60s?”
“DAMN, sorry-“
The unexpected reaction got a laugh, a genuine laugh, out of the taller and much older animatronic.
“I don’t blame you for reacting that way, I am much older than most assume me to be.”
“You’ve really been alive for that long??”
“Well, yes. I mean, did you see the state my original body was in? Of course I’m somewhere in my 50s-60s.”
“I mean, yeah, but I just assumed that was the virus.”
“Then it’s not just a virus but some sort of rapidly growing rust or decay on metal!”
The two chuckled. For once, Ruin felt like he was being listened to, that someone thought of him as more than just a tool, but as something.
The moment didn’t last very long though, as Sun and Moon broke down the door, Moon immediately pointed a gun at Ruin while Sun attended to Lunar.
“Not one step or word! I swear, if we find out you did something to Lunar, Nexus won’t even be your biggest concern.” Moon snarled at Ruin.
The older animatronic shivered and backed down, watching as Sun assessed the younger animatronic for any damage.
“…Fine… You may have him… You’ve won this time… But mark my words… I’ll be back for him… And this time, I won’t take my time…”
He opened a portal behind him and quickly jumped through, just barely missing getting shot by Moon’s gun. The portal closed and Ruin laid on the ground in absolute relief.
—
The three brothers stared at the empty air before attention was turned back onto Lunar.
Sun held his face in his hands, “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine Sun, star powers, remember?”
“But there’s a massive dent in your head!! And he had you bound up when we got here!”
“Well, yeah, but I could’ve escaped whenever, besides he didn’t even touch me.”
Moon raised an eyebrow, “He didn’t?”
“…No… He tried to but then he just… froze up… and panicked… He apparently had a step-son and I reminded him of him…”
“He had a step-son?” Moon, always with the important questions.
“Yeah! And he’s apparently in his 60s or something! And he had a wife!”
“Whoa! Who’s his wife?”
“Roxanne-“
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Suddenly, all tension melted as the two lunar animatronics laughed at Sun’s embarrassment and misery.
—
“They stopped you?”
“Yes… Sun and Moon came before I could do anything to Lunar…”
“…Mhm… Why didn’t you kill him when you had time?”
“I- I just wanted to have a bit of fun! You know! For old times sake!” The older looked at the figure standing above him, a nervous smile printed on his face.
The authority stared him down, analyzing every detail about him, before waving a hand.
“Fine. But next time, don’t waste time. Just get to it.”
Ruin nods, “I- I won’t waste any time!”
“Good. You know what’ll happen if you do.”
“…I know…”
The solar animatronic above him tilted his head slightly.
“By the way, Nexus needs some help in his lab. Go to him. Now.”
“…Right away, Sun…”
He looked at the doors with a grim expression, hoping he made the right choice sparing Lunar’s life. It barely even felt like a choice, he couldn’t just hurt a child like that. Not again. He won’t hurt any more children. Not anymore.
He opened the doors and stepped through to his demise, but at least it’d be with a less guilty conscience. If only he could say it was completely guilt free.