Operation: Moonfall | Jimmy Crystal Revenge & Redemption

The Vows

Ash closed her jacket against the bitter night air. The rest of the house was turning in at this hour and yet, here she was, sitting in the gazebo with nothing but her guitar and the moon to keep her company. Sleep seemed like it would evade her for the time being, so she did what came natural on sleepless nights: Strum her guitar and let the music carry her thoughts. But that wasn't going so well; sometimes she forgot Redshore City was in the desert, where daytime threatened to melt you into a puddle and nighttime would freeze what was left into a popsicle. The cold was settling into Ash's fingers and affecting her ability to play.

Or that's what she told herself. There was a little more to it than that. She wasn't a nihilist, but it was hard to deny the latest sequence of events, the "falling of the dominos" as Cleo Keller would put it, left her with a sense that nothing really mattered. With their careers stalled and their names mud, there didn't seem to be much to strive for. There was a real possibility that their names would fade away, only to be remembered ten or fifteen years later from a semi-viral "ever wonder what happened to those guys?" video or article posted online.

Most notably, Buster wasn't there to keep them stable. She knew he needed to find his own stability, but that selfish need for comfort held on to her. Even though she found Moon's cheesy sayings groan-inducing, it was nice knowing there was always someone there to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

A distant roar, fierce and familiar, ripped Ash from the spiral of her thoughts. She dared not let herself hope, but as that roar steadied into an ever-approaching rumble, it became much harder to deny. She knew that engine—she'd ridden that bike! It calmed to a whirr nearby before falling silent.

Ash made a break for the gate and threw it open, where she spotted an aged lion with a helmet tucked under his arm and a guitar strapped to his back lumber across the front yard in the darkness.

"Clay!" she called out.

The lion headed in her direction, releasing a relaxed exhale through his nostrils, his eyes lulled in a dreamlike state, and greeted her with a gravelly, "Hey."

Ash couldn't help her smiling, but the memories of Clay's last visit wiped that away. "Moon's not here if you came to yell at him again."

Clay's whisker twitched at the thought. "I ain't here to yell at anybody."

He was taken by the hand by the porcupine and pulled into the backyard. They settled in the gazebo, serenaded by crickets and softly lit by the shimmering reflection of moonlight from the pool's surface.

"I'm sorry, Clay," Ash said, and the cascade of feelings translated into a torrent of words. "Moon can be deceptive but that's not my style. I should've told you how the show really came about. But we had so much going on and the show didn't work without you and things started moving so fast and—"

Clay raised a hand to stop her. "I should apologize too," he said. "I shouldn't have blown my top and stormed out like that. Didn't mean to scare you kids. Just had to get away... always did my best thinking on the road."

"You had every right to be upset," Ash said.

"Yeah, I did. But while I was on the road, I reached two conclusions I can't deny: I really like you people, and even though I don't like how everything came out, this almost random chain of events left us better off."

Clay relaxed a bit; Ash could see the tension rolling off his weary body in waves. His eyes seemed to be peering into another time entirely.

"Ruby would be all over this. She'd call it something like a 'god wink.' Reminds me of those cheesy movies she loved so much." There was the smallest twist of a smile. "Happy little coincidences that change lives for the better. Truth is, that's what this was. Gunter could've thrown anyone's name out there as long as it got that Crystal guy excited. Where would that leave me? Stuck back home, drownin' in depression and self-pity 'til the end of my days. None of you had to pick this decrepit old lion, but you did. You literally saved me. Can't be upset about that."