I cannot honestly believe I wrote a fic about this. I’m also not very good at dramatic prose so I hope this works. Done for my Ace Lightning fanfic100 challenge. Prompt #36: Smell. Standard disclaimers apply. Reviews and concrit appreciated, as always.

She smells faintly of brimstone and old, worn time. Like the fires of the Oblivion Mines mingled with the odour of the Haunted House. Strange, yet not as unpleasant as it should be,

Smell is something quite distinctive for mortals, or so Ace has discovered during his time here. For Lightning Knights it is almost optional, but for mortals, it exists as one of their senses, as clear and evident to humans as the visual power gauge within Ace’s eyes seems to him. He also knows that, in many cases, it is not one of their favourites.

For example: at times, Ace has seen Chuck gag in the presence of that old zombie from the Mini Golf course, or Mark choking on the backlash from a misfired Wrist Cannon setting fire to something close by. Times when even Sparx, who is still getting used to the quirks and oddities of this very mortal world, has looked as if she’s just about ready to gag on the stench of Pigface.

But there are other things. Like when Mark follows his girlfriend with his eyes and mentions something about perfume. Kat always smiles when he says things like that, and her smile is nothing like Lady Illusion’s.

Until he came to the mortal world, Ace had been mostly unaware of such things. Or perhaps it was simply that she had never been close enough for him to be aware of it. Mark said that when you were around a person for long enough, you began to stop noticing the small things about them, and only became aware of them again when they were absent. But she is close enough to touch him now, and smiling at him the way that reminds him of a Haunting Ghost, moments before it snares its prey.

The Haunting Ghosts have a smell all of their own, too – as Ace also discovered one day, when one emerged from the Kent Brothers’ Dairy ice-cream truck and “almost turned Random into a borg’sicle” as Chuckdude had put it. And Random, too. Random smells of oil and faint rust and the old dorm rooms of the Academy. The mortals are... strange. Their smell is difficult to pinpoint, and seems to depend on a number of things. Sparx...

He can’t work out what Sparx smells of, but he bets that whatever it is, it’s probably a spice.

None of them seem like Lady Illusion does.

Ace finds, to his surprise, that he does not find this the least bit bothersomeThe brimstone is... peculiar, certainly, and the smell of old wood and dust makes him feel that she is older than she appears, but there is nothing remarkable about either of them. There is nothing remarkable about the way she can shift and reshape her form into anything –anything– that she wishes to be, and let, her smell remains constantly the same – always faint brimstone and dust. Always old and powerful, even while muted. The taste is similar also, when she kisses him.

It’s a means by which he can still recognize her, regardless of what form she takes. And Ace honestly doesn’t see what’s so bad about it.