Emo Squad

Beginning

Everything went quite peacefully in the mindscape of Thomas Sanders like usual.

Logic, Mortality, and Creativity doing their job as good as possible. Of course, sometimes there were one or two conflicts, but it could always be solved with some talking if nothing else.

Then Anxiety showed up, ruining everything. He gave Thomas constant anxiety attacks, pushing him to be jumpy by everything that happened around him, or so they thought.

Slowly they managed to somehow deal with him as time passed, but he was still a major pain most of the time.

"Why can't you let us have ONE calm day?" Creativity snapped at him for the eleventh time that week. They were in Thomas' living room, doing homework when Anxiety popped up at his usual spot. Princey of course instantly yelled at him, which just worsened the situation but he didn't notice that.

Thomas was in his late teen years when he finally figured out a way to calm himself and keep his anxiety at bay. That, of course, made all the other sides happy but made them even more snappy when he actually appeared.

"Anxiety I want to ask you to leave as soon as you can. Thomas has important events to look forward to and we do not need you to make things even more difficult." Logic said in his usual monotone voice, but it still held some aggression in it that couldn't have been missed even if you didn't know the man better.

Anxiety started spending more and more time in his room because of that. He didn't want to hear Princey's insults whenever he went to the kitchen to eat or Mortality's fearful glance whenever they passed each other in the halls.

He decided. If they want to be hostile to him then he will be the same to them. It's a game of two, isn't it?

And of course that affected Thomas too.

He seemed to lose motivation more and more and none of them knew why. With his Anxiety not being as present as before, he made more reckless decisions too, and embarrassed himself which caused him to doubt what he was doing a lot more often, leading him to get even less motivated in doing anything.

Thomas, Logic, Mortality, and Creativity were sitting in the living room, discussing events that happened not so long ago. It was just some basic family stuff but they felt like they need to talk about it.

Thomas was wearing a black hoodie, looking rather tired, but that was impossible. He slept over 13 hours last night.

"Thomas, we cannot keep this up. You need to pull yourself together a bit." Logic said in a strict tone, not trying to sound harsh. The man scoffed and turned his head to the side "it's easier said than done."

They were all stuck in silence, trying to figure out what to do to improve the situation when--

"Sup."

"AAAAAAAA! ANXIETY!" Thomas yelled and jumped back in surprise or maybe a bit of fear.

"Oh I'm so sorry, was I not needed at this exact moment?" He asked in a teasing tone, flashing a cocky smile.

Creativity glared at him and crossed his arms in front of his chest in a defensive way. "What do you want Anxiety. Haven't you done enough?"

The dark man's smile didn't even flatter, it even got a bit wider. He stood there, hands in his pockets, staring at them wordlessly.

"I must agree with Creativity. We do not need you to worsen the situation. We already see the effect you can make on Thomas, you do not need to rub it in our face." Logic said with a disapproving tone.

Mortality stood in his place, staring at all of them with a blank expression. Truth to be told, Mortality didn't feel anything when he was outside the mindscape, but it seemed like no one noticed that.

"I suppose you all still didn't manage to solve this mess huh? Hah. Pathetic." Anxiety said in a taunting tone and sank down, not breaking eye contact with Logic until he disappeared. Everyone sighed and turned to look at each other.

"God I can't stand that guy.." Creativity shook his head and turned to Thomas. "Listen here. I know it's hard now but I need you to be strong. I know you can do it. We will figure something out soon I promise." He gave him a reassuring smile as he sank down.

Thomas just nodded, a determined look forming on his face. Mortality seemed to come back to life a little as a soft smile found its way to his lips. Both him and Logic sank down with a last wave of goodbye.

Logan was giving Thomas more motivational talks than usual and Creativity helped Mortality to stay in touch with feelings. While all that..

Anxiety didn't interact with any of them. He only went out to eat at night, only stared at them from a distance he can be unnoticed, and never went out to the real world. It was just like he was ducked out. But he wasn't.

-Time passing...-

The light sides were watching a movie on the couch while talking about a way to improve Thomas even better. They all had some good ideas and..some not so good ones.

"I'm just saying that having a just sweet Saturday wouldn't hurt sometimes!" Patton whined to Logan. "Absolutely not. Do you know how unhealthy that would be to his health and teeth? Its--" "Okay okay we get it nerd. Let's think about something else." Roman cut him off, being annoyed by their little argument that had been going on for minutes now.

"What if we would put a whiteboard in his room--" Logan was cut off by a certain dark-clothed emo boy walking down the stairs. "And make it look like a classroom? Hah. Hell naw." Anxiety said in a sarcastic tone.

"Anxiety." Roman said in a voice that could kill anyone. "What are you doing here? It has been months since we saw you then why now?"

"I dunno Princey" he shrugged, a taunting smile on his lips "I just felt like I need to grab some egg salad that's all." He opened the fridge and took out the blue container, filled with the leftover food.

"Anxiety, you know that does not make any sense, right?" Logan asked in a calm but annoyed voice. "I dunno teach, you're the smart cookie here, figure it out." He replied as he went back to his room, taking the plate of food with him.

Roman scoffed once he was out and crossed his arm as a sulking child would do. "God I can't stand that guy.." "We know, Roman." Logan replied as he pushed his glasses back into place.

"Why would Anxiety come back after such long time?" Patton questioned "Did he see how well Thomas was doing?" His voice was full of worry.

Roman shook his head " It's probably to mess with us again!" Logan had a face of realization as he turned to the other sides. "What is it, Lo?" Patton asked, still worried after the strange interaction.

Logan's hands started to shake as he furrowed his brows together, clearly mad-looking. "He.. Knows.." He mumbled, barely loud enough to be heard.

"What do you mean Logan? What does he know?" Princey asked in a confused way, raising an eyebrow.

Logan looked up at them with eyes full of unclear emotions..

"He knows exactly what he's doing.. If... If Anxiety is absent for too long the person becomes reckless which might lead to a series of negative events leading to the person getting paranoid, unmotivated, and insecure.."

Roman and Patton's eyes widened in realization as he continued "But if he comes back sometimes its enough to remind Thomas about all the mistakes he had ever done leading to.."

A boy in full black popped up right in front of them. His clothes kinda matched Anxiety's but he didn't have a hoodie, instead of a long-sleeved shirt with a black button-up on it. He flashed a taunting smirk that looked way too familiar and waved a two-finger salute as a greeting.

"..depression."