Enjoy <3

Quiet. It was too quiet. Doc scanned the scene in front of him intensely. It was just an old storehouse, with shrubs and debris decorating the floors and outer walls. Not a single other person in sight.

"I'm starting to think whatever this thing is, isn't it as important as ConCorp hyped it up to be?" He commented, turning to his partner who was crouching down next to him. The man was staring out at the building with a glint of determination in his eyes.

"Come on Doccy! They were willing to pay us a lot from this, and if we get it we'll be rich baby!" He smiled, quickly standing up to jump over the fence they were hidden behind. "Maybe we could move out of that garbage apartment!" Both Doc's eyes blinked as he stood up to swiftly follow his friend.

"Wait up Ren-" He said, catching up to the eager man. Doc then noticed the wolf ear-shaped airpods on Ren's ear, no doubt he had some epic rock music playing. Doc laughed to himself before looking up and around the outside for any sort of camera. He almost didn't expect to find any until right above the main entrance he spotted a single small blip of light. He pulled a small dagger from its place in his pocket and threw it up as hard as he could. The blade broke the camera with a satisfying crack, making some of Doc's worry slip away. "All clear." He said, looking back towards Ren, who gave him a nod in return. Both stepped up to the large door, kicking it open with a loud clang. The two wandered inside to see lots of empty shelves. There were some broken boxes sat upon but other than that...

"There's nothing in here? What??" Doc said, sounding a bit aggravated. Ren walked further in, inspecting some of the shelves and boxes.

"Are we sure this is the right place Doc?" He asked. Doc took his phone out of his pocket, pulling up an email.

"It says this was the location." He explained. Truthfully he would have preferred to get the information from something other than email but the people at ConCorp refused any other form of communication.

"Oh hey! Look!" He heard Ren call out. Doc ran over to where the man stood, waving his hand frantically. Doc ran over to see a large briefcase sitting on top of a stack of boxes. "Check this out." Ren smiled, moving to open up the leather case. Doc felt himself smile as the contents of the case shimmered in the dim light.

"Is that it?" Doc asked, looking down at the black gem. It was beautiful, in a sinister way, with a small symbol that looked like a crescent moon in the middle of its spiked edges.

"If anything in here would fit the name of 'Void Crystal' this would be it," Ren said, looking over at his partner. The two exchanged soft smiles as Ren threw a fist up in the air triumphantly.

"Let's Go! The CyberDogs succeed once again!" He cheered. Doc laughed for a moment, noticing how Ren used that silly team name he made up, before stopping.

"Don't you think it was too easy?" Doc asked, feeling a bit uneasy. Ren lifted the gem from its place, his sunglasses reflecting on the lights.

"Maybe. But I'm not complaining." Ren said. His partner smiled as he held the crystal in front of the two. "Victory baby!" Doc smiled. "With this, we'll be able to go wherever we want."

"You could start that animal center like you've always wanted," Doc said, making Ren laugh.

"What can I say, cute animals bring all the ladies running! And you could have the biggest tech lab anyone has ever seen! Maybe even build a full-fledged android!" Ren smiled. Doc chuckled, he really only knew how to construct a few limbs, and those themselves weren't very good, but maybe with this he really could. As Doc reached out to take the precious gem from Ren's hands, a rumble shook through the entire building. The man's eyes widened as the crystal began to glow. He jumped in fear as a huge chunk of the roof crashed down in between the two. Doc fell backward, looking up quickly as the rest of the building shook. 'It's going to come down on top of us.'

"REN!" Doc screamed, unable to see where his friend was. Before he could get up, another piece of concrete fell on top of him, crushing him. He laid screaming as everything came down around him. Slowly, he couldn't scream or struggle anymore. No. He had to get out. He had to get Ren out. They would be fine and sit under the stars on top of that dusty apartment building like they always had. "No..."

Another crash.

Then silence...

the echoing pain of silence...

Doc didn't know how long he had been out. Minutes, hours, days. 'What...What happened?' He thought as his mind spurred to life again. Something felt different, Wrong even. As the man tried to breathe he almost choked. It was like all he could inhale was dust. He couldn't cough. His lungs just slowly filled up with soot and dust. 'I need to get out.' Doc thought. 'I need to breathe.' His hand reached around hoping to find something, anything. Suddenly his finger brushed against something hard. Rock. Doc repeatedly pushed up against it, trying to pry it away. 'Air, please.' In one hard shove, the rock flung from its place. His hand shot up, quickly trying to break out from where he was. As the heavy feeling of rumble slowly crumbled off him, there was a sense of relief and freedom. He took a deep breath of air until every inch of his body began to scream. Doc felt his hoodie cling to his skin, making him shiver. He began coughing excessively as he attempted to rip the hoodie off. The torn fabric was tossed to the side as Doc sat there panting. His eyes lit up when he noticed how red the hoodie was. The man's hands tried to reach for his face but stopped when his left arm didn't move. Doc looked over in horror to see his entire arm looked like it had gone through a blender. He felt sick as his right hand touched his blood-stained face.

"I-I'm Alive?"

Doc breathed heavily as he walked. Bdubs walked beside him with an arm around the cyborg as they fled the scene. Doc looked down for a quick second at his coat wrapped around Bdubs chest, it was covered in blood.

"We need to get you somewhere," Doc said, going to pick up the short hero in his arms. Bdubs moved to shove his hands away.

"Don't pick me up, you're hurt too," Bdubs said, looking up at him. Doc knew his body was in pain. His robotic eye was completely busted beyond repair, His face was stinging, and his lungs were screaming in pain, unable to keep up with the mechanical adjustments there that were to keep him alive.

"Looks that bad?" He asked in a joking manner. Doc felt the hero stifle a painful laugh.

"Canem busted up ur face pretty good," Bdubs said before moving to push down on his wound. "We have to go to Keralis," Bdubs said between shaky breaths. "He already knows about my identity." Not really wanting to argue about bringing him to a real hospital, Doc agreed.

"Ok."

Keralis mumbled to himself as he sat on his bed in his room. Xisuma's so-called emergency ended up being that the water pipes in their apartment were busted and leaking into their bathroom. You know, exciting apartment stuff. Keralis lazily rolled to stand up and walked out into the living room. Xisuma was probably in his room so Keralis decided to take this opportunity to grab a cookie from the kitchen. Was this his 8th cookie today? Yes. Suma made good cookies. He smiled as he grabbed one of the delicious chocolate sweets and shoved it in his mouth.

"Hey! Hey, we need help! Its Bdubs-'' A muffled voice announced, Keralis couldn't recognize it but it for sure wasn't Bdubs. "Bdubs is hurt." Keralis's eyes widened as he quickly swallowed. He ran over to the door and swung it open. There standing in the hall was Bdubs, his arm was clung tightly around someone, the other hugged his chest. Keralis's eyes widened as he recognized the person holding Bdubs up. The Mangler? The only thing that snapped him out of his confused stare was the amount of blood on Bdubs's shirt. Keralis was taken aback by what he was seeing but quickly rushed to hold Bdubs. The hero smiled at his friend as he pulled away.

"Sorry Keralis, you were just the first person I could think of and-"

"Just get in here," Keralis said, moving to allow the two in. "Shashwamy we need you!" Keralis watched as the villain helped the hero to sit down on the couch, a slight bit of anger boiling up in him.

"What did you do to him?!" Keralis exploded, his eyes looking on in horror at his friend's condition. The Mangler turned to glare at him.

"You think I did this?! Why the hell would I bring him all the way here?" The villain retorted, making Keralis step back a bit. Before he could say anything else, Xisuma walked out of his room.

"Is everything- oh." X stopped. "Bdubs?!" Bdubs looked over at him.

"I'll explain later." He promised. The Mangler went to take off the white bloodstained fabric, revealing a deep slash across Bdubs chest. From what Keralis could see, most of the bleeding had stopped, but it still looked really bad.

"We need to clean it, I'll be right back," X said. Mangler turned to Keralis with a worried expression.

"Does he know what he's doing?" He asked. It took Keralis a second to answer.

"Y-Yes, His dad was a doctor." He explained. Xisuma came back with some towels and went to crouch down near Bdubs.

"My brother always got hurt a lot so to avoid having to tell our parents he would always ask me to patch up his wounds," X said. Xisuma moved to start trying to help Bdubs but Mangler barely moved, only switching to sit next to Bdubs. He clearly wasn't going anywhere. Then Keralis saw it, Bdubs reached out to grip on tightly to Mangler's normal hand, the villain squeezing the short man's hand reassuringly.

'What?...'

=+=Time skip brought to you by Xisuma's lucky knowledge of stitches. Gotta love plot convenience(also its been a while since I've done one of these)=+=

Keralis didn't want to look at the villain in his living room. He knew he was being petty, but this guy had caused so much pain to so many people. Despite not wanting to look at him, talking was ok right?

"So..what happened?" Keralis asked, not looking up. He heard Mangler move a bit before going silent.

"Bdubs got slashed by someone who was trying to break into a place."

"I need more than that Mangelar!? (yes. This is how he says it in my mind)"

"The same guy who attacked the diner broke into ConCorp. Bdubs and I tried to stop him but Bdubs got hit. We managed to knock the guy out but both of us were in pretty bad shape. There, are you happy?" Keralis looked up for a moment, realizing the villain was looking right at him. He stared at the cyborg, noticing then how beaten up and broken he looked.

"I mean I guess..." Keralis mumbled, turning his gaze from Mangler back to the floor. The door to Keralis's room opened, making Keralis's head perk up. "Hey Bdubs!" He smiled. Bdubs leaned against the door frame with one hand against the wrapped up stitches that sat covered under his shirt which he had borrowed from Keralis.

"Hi," Bdubs responded, his eyes looking back and forth between Mangler and Keralis.

"How are you?" Keralis asked. Bdubs shrugged and walked over to the couch to sit next to Mangler.

"All good! Xisuma did a great job." Bdubs paused. "Man, the tension here is thick." He commented, looking over at Mangler with a frown. "Did you explain anything?"

"Just how you got hurt." The villain said with a slight smile as he looked at the hero sitting next to him. Keralis had never seen the cyborg smile, it was off-putting. Before Keralis could talk to Bdubs further, Xisuma came back into the room.

"Feeling ok Bdubs?" He asked as Bdubs angled his head up towards him.

"Yup-" He smiled, following X with his eyes as the tall man sat down on the coffee table in front of the three.

"Ok. now." X looked up at the three, his face suddenly very serious and unemotional. "Mind telling us what's going on?" It was at moments like these that Keralis remembered how dead serious and intense X could be, something that rarely ever happened but when it did it always made Keralis shiver. Bdubs smiled awkwardly as he looked back at Mangler, the villain giving him a blank expression.

"I mean-" Bdubs stuttered, his mind racing to put thoughts into words. "Basically, I'm LuxShield, Do- Mangler isn't bad and we had to stop his old partner that was possessed by this weird crystal, which by the way that crystal and another is how both of us got our powers but those crystals are gone because I had to take in all the magic from one and the other was already gone and-"

"We are dating." Mangler interrupted, still keeping his straight face. Keralis whipped his head towards the villain in shock.

"I'M SORRY WHAT?!" Keralis yelled. Bdubs glared at the cyborg.

"Why did you say that?!" Bdubs questioned. Mangler awkwardly laughed at the hero's concerned face.

"I don't know? Figured I would just throw it out there-" He responded.

"We never even finished the date?!"

"DATE?!" Keralis gasped, his eyebrows rising in confusion.

"I mean...I count it-" Mangler shrugged. Bdubs's face went bright red as he leaned into the villain like an angry child.

"Stupid," Bdubs grumbled. Keralis stared at the two with his mouth gaped open. 'Bdubs? Dating a villain?'

"Oh, ok?" X said. "Thanks for telling us!" Keralis turned to look at his roommate in horror.

"How can you just casually accept that?!" Keralis scorned. X turned to look at him with a shrug.

"Because of the fact that they trust us with all this?" Keralis blinked at X's response. He was right, coming here and having to tell them what has been happening must have taken a lot of trust. Keralis locked eyes with Bdubs as the hero sat up to look at them, his words echoing in his mind from when he first found out the man was LuxShield. 'It is! How could it not! Lying to your friends over and over again... trying constantly not to cry after just witnessing a man get killed-'. Keralis inhaled quickly. He walked over to the hero, and for the first time since Bdubs and the villain next to him got there, Keralis felt his concern wash away.

"I'm glad you are ok Bubbles," Keralis said, looking down at the sitting man. Bdubs smiled, his brown eyes sparkled with relief.

"Thanks K." He grinned. Keralis felt himself tense up as he pulled Bdubs up from his seat into a hug. Bdubs hugged him back with a smile until his side squirmed and his hand pulled away from Keralis to his chest. "I'm ok." He assured, smiling more at Keralis. From the corner of his eye, Keralis could see Mangler's eye filled with silent concern. Keralis turned to frown at the villain.

"Don't think I trust you yet Mister. I'm only ok with this because Bubbles and Shashwamy are." Keralis stated firmly. The response from Mangler was the last thing he expected. The villain began laughing a little bit before awkwardly nodding.

"I get it." He said. "I wouldn't trust me either." His voice sounded sarcastic, but at the same time almost annoyed. Keralis laughed nervously in return, kinda feeling threatened when he was trying to be the threatening one to begin with. Bdubs then turned to both Keralis and X.

"Thank you guys, for helping us." He said with a smile. Mangler nodded and rose from his seat, the tall villain towering over the two standing men.

"We should probably go to my base to be in a more secure location. And so I can repair myself." He said, Keralis's eyes going to the cyborgs busted up eye and face.

"But- What if something happens to Bdubs?" Keralis stumbled, looking for an excuse to keep his friend close.

"Then I'll call you, but Manglers right, him and I being here might not be a good idea. Especially if someone like Cub shows up." Bdubs concluded. Keralis frowned. He was right, seeing two of the people that damaged a large faction of his company would not be good. X placed his chin into his hands. He sat like that for a moment before standing up, his head reaching above Mangler's eyes.

"Come back tomorrow morning so I can make sure Bdubs stitches are ok," X said. Both Bdubs and Mangler agreed, making Keralis happy that Xisuma gave them an excuse to come back. Part of Keralis's heart stung as he watched Bdubs and Mangler. He knew they would be back tomorrow, they had promised. He watched as the door shut, leaving the two roommates alone. X probably noticed the worry on his face and came up to put a hand on Keralis's shoulder.

"I know you're worried."

"How could I not be?" Keralis sighed, turning to face his friend. "My little sweet face is being swept away by some man." He whined, his voice rising a few octaves. "I see that face and I think, should I be scared? Should I be happy? Or should I just love the face because that is a face only a mom could love....and I'm not even his mom." Keralis paused dramatically, making X laugh. "But look at how happy he is, setting off on a brave new adventure..."

"Ok Papa K calm down." X smiled, the taller man bringing the shorter one into a small hug. "Bdubs will be fine." He assured him. Keralis hugged X back with a worried smile. All joking aside, he was concerned.

"I know."

Dadralis my beloved <3 Haha i finally got to use art I did from a few months ago when I was planning Doc and Ren's backstory! Also I totally didnt bust up Doc's face so i could change the design-