#(there's also other stuff going on with my knight like how she's a no-shields-for-blocking run; but I think the comparison still holds)

[paradife-loft]

something I'm noticing/appreciating/finding interesting in dark souls lately is how different builds, investing in different magics and stats, can serve to redistribute what (especially second-order) soul costs you pay for

like obviously a martial build is likely to spend more on leveling where a mage is going to buy spells. but then also, comparing my pyro/dex/sorcery character to my str/faith character - the latter spends plenty of souls also on routine gear repairs. the former has essentially negated that cost, because she has the Repair spell! but what she doesn't have access to, that my knight does, is the Homeward miracle - so for farming a resource, she needs to purchase a lot of (single-use) homeward bones instead.

there's also the way someone investing in int has easier access to non-consumable weapon buffs than others - the faith buff spells are single-copy-per-character and gated behind covenants, while the sorcery buffs land pretty much in your lap on each playthrough. so then for damage boosting, a non-int character has more motivation to spend on (single use) elemental resins.

anyway, point being I really like the design aspect of this in how it helps to avoid unbalancing different build choices you can make in the game as a whole

[pathetic-gamer]

Graduation Day, baby!!! RSoS Alumni run complete!

shall we do a run recap?

okay FIRST OF ALL this took so much longer than expected (because i just kept Not Playing) and also was honestly a little harder than anticipated lol

This was pretty fun, but idk if it's my favorite of the gimmick roster runs Ive done. there are definitely things I would do differently if i did it again, like classed, but also stuff like the fact that i forgot to recruit Caspar and so lost out on Mercie's paralogue lol

We can get into that later though - let's review the stats:

MVP: tie between Constance and Annette, with 15 each!

Most battles: again, Coco and Annie with 999+ each

Most kills: Coco, with 673 kills

Longest battle: Chapter 22 (52 turns 😭)

Final classes:

Mercedes - gremory

Annette - gremory/dark flier

Constance - sword master

Lorenz - bow knight

These are the builds approximately as they sat for most of the run (shoutout to 130 avo coco)

I will say, I kinda fucked it up a little bit by letting Annette and Mercedes use viskams (hacked item from the AM Fhirdiad map that people sell via travelers at the Monastery). It trivialized a lot of things that maybe would have been more interesting if I hadn't had them around.

Now some reviews/recollections:

I think one of my biggest mistakes was making Constance my dodge tank sword master and Annette my battle mage - I should have switched their roles up or messed around with something different entirely.

iirc, my original thought process behind that was that Constance has higher speed. But! they actually have the same speed growths, and Annette has better strength, dex, and charm. There was no good reason for doing it the way I did other than the fact that I love Annette and I like when she gets to cast spells, since "meta" people always shove her into a dancer or support role lmao

A lot of the run boiled down to patience, going oh so slow and steady around the maps. Constance didn't start really being able to kill enemies on her counters until about part 2, which meant it was her chipping away and then Annette sweeping in and out on her pegasus sniping them from 6 tiles away (s/o thyrsus)

Lorenz was the strongest person for most of the run, but also the slowest. I invested a lot in his ability to just tank damage, but that was not very helpful, turns out. So I struggled to figure out how to use him for a while... That said, this was the first run where I've ever actually used him at all (or seen his supports lmao) and I will say I'm enlightened now. He's a great character.

notable stuff from part 2:

Despite all that posturing about not knowing how to use him, losing Lorenz for half of Part 2 was significantly more impactful than I had thought it would be. But then when he finally got back, he had to play catch up and couldn't even get right back to work smh. It also didn't help that he was already a little underleveled because I had put my attention on leveling up Mercie and Annie as much as possible before Hunting by Daybreak.

The biggest challenge in part 2 was, in fact, chapter 22, where I discovered that I simply couldn't take Edelgard’s last health bar, like, mathematically, just due to the reality of everyone's stats. I asked for help on reddit and was alerted to the sacred shield gambit which I fully had no idea existed, which also sparked running through all the other support gambits I hadn't paid attention to. fun stuff in there!

ultimately, i hired a couple new battalions, gave Mercie the dance of the goddess gambit (which I already had and which I have used before but I had forgotten about it lol), deployed my only two non-run-required units (Marianne and Felix, adjutants kept around for paired endings), and broke my own rules to let them help - mostly blocking stairwells and in Marianne's case healing and chipping away at enemies with Viskam. Felix did also get to tank Edelgard’s ranged attacks and help finish off some monsters, though.

So with the two of them, plus Byleth and Dimitri, we have the rest of the roster:

Byleth - Cavalier (blessing gambit)

Dimitri - Cavalier (sacred shield gambit)

Marianne- bishop (stride gambit, plus healing)

Felix - wyvern rider (just hanging out having a good time w the broskis)

speaking of paired endings, I had planned for Marianne/Lorenz and Dimitri/Mercedes but ended up with Marianne/Dimitri and Lorenz/Mercedes. Surprised, but into it!

(all of the battles and victories listed for Marianne and Felix come from the final battle)

And there we have it! the former student of the Royal School of Sorcery have saved the world and everyone in it 👍 they will pass their group project

Royal School of Sorcery Debate Team DESTROYS Enemies with Facts and Logic

that's right fellas - we're doing the RSoS run

I actually started this a while ago, but never posted about it!

Rules:

Azure Moon, maddening/classic, ng+

Can only use characters who attended the Royal School of Sorcery before attending the Officer’s Academy

Byleth and Dimitri are allowed to help by doing things like use gambits, and finish off stragglers

I reserve the right to turn down the difficulty lol

Units and classes:

Annette, gremory or perhaps dark flier or even wyvern rider

Constance, mortal savant

Mercedes, gremory

Lorenz, dark knight

Notes:

Nothing major to note. Currently at Chapter 7, and everyone is doing pretty well so far. MVP has actually been very evenly distributed. I've classed Felix into armored knight so he can proc guard for Annette lol it's been useful.

I'm very worried for Chapter 13, since Byleth and Dimitri are going to have to hold their own until Mercedes and Annette show up. I want to be able to keep Ashe alive, too, so it's going to be tough. Thus, I'll have a pre-chapter 12 save so I can turn down the difficulty if I can't manage it lol

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #253: CONQUERING VISION

March, 1985

The Vision vs. Quasimodo... in the heart of a machine!

ITS A ROBOT RUMBLE

ON THE INTERNET!

The Avengers seem very perturbed. Or maybe they’ve placed bets and are yelling at each other.

Anyway. Anyyyyyywayyyy.

Last time on Avengers: Vision became confined to a tube and was only fixed when Starfox hooked him up to Titan’s supercomputer ISAAC. While it helped Vision fix himself, it also seems to have changed his personality. Vision began conspiring with ISAAC to build a take-over-the-world-for-its-own-good device so he could take over the world for its own good and erase the evils and inequalities of man.

Vision was hesitant to pull the trigger on becoming a well-intentioned extremist and tried to gain power and influence by becoming the Avengers chairman and trying to make them more prominent with a branch team and closer ties to the White House.

But when anti-mutant arsonists burn down Vision and Scarlet Witch’s house during a new wave of anti-mutant fear, Vision decides ‘mmm yup, taking over the world time’. He distracts the Avengers by sending them to babysit the army as they poke Thanos technology that they shouldn’t poke and accidentally summon the Blood Brothers. And distracts Captain Marvel to go check out Thanos’ ship several light hours away past Pluto. Black Knight shows up unexpectedly but Vision shoves him into a tube to keep him out of trouble.

And now I guess Vision is going to fight Quasimodo the robot guy? Not sure how that fits in.

But first, some West Coast Avengers!

Like I said last time, they didn’t stop doing stuff just because their book is over.

Mockingbird happens to run into some drug runners while getting in some flight practice and figures heck why not beat up an entire boat full of gun-toting people as a light workout.

I guess the Quinjet can hover? Doesn’t seem to have thrusters or repulsors on the bottom or be a VTOL but hey, super advanced possibly Wakanda tech. It can do what it likes.

Mockingbird turns the drug runners over to the Coast Guard and returns to Palos Verdes and even gets to fly into one of those cool cliffside hangers disguised as a perfectly normal cliff. The West Coast Avengers revamped the hell out of the compound they bought.

Can you even legally excavate into a cliff like that? You can if you’re a superhero, I guess.

For some reason, there’s a fakeout where its implied Tigra is licking herself, cat style, but she’s just stretching. At least I hope the joke is that it sounded like she was cat cleaning herself and not something else.

One can never tell.

Anyway, I assume Hawkeye is just annoyed that he’s going to be vacuuming hair out of expensive equipment banks later. But really its that what if he threw a meeting and only he and Tigra came?

Mockingbird comes in not long after Hawkeye complains, slightly delayed from beating up drug runners. Wonder Man comes in shortly after, delayed by

FASHION

You know, this is a pretty great costume for Wonder Man. Its what all his modern outfits are based on when he’s not just dicks out energy man. I think I like the red jacket outfit more because being the only guy who dresses in ‘normal’ clothes while still looking somehow out of fashion with normal people fits for Wonder Man.

But I do love this one too. Its got a simple charm. Deciding that Wonder Man’s colors are black and red instead of Christmas green and red was a great decision and I’m sure that nobody will ever try to put him in red and green again.

Hawkeye grouses “Next, I suppose Iron Man will show up with a new chrome job!” but Iron Man is Sir Not Appearing in This Comic.

And the reason why is... looks like Tony and Rhodey are beating the crap out of each other in Iron Men armor this same month in Iron Man #192.

I don’t know the details but dammit Tony!

Anyway, over at last issue’s plot, the Avengers are still in Thanos’ ex-secret base in Arizona, still rolling their eyes and smh at the US Army for poking things what should not be poked.

Starfox and Scarlet Witch find a chamber blocked by rubble which has a symbio-nullifier which Starfox proposes to use to symbio-nullify the Blood Brothers.

First, he flexes on the US Army.

Army Guy: “It must weigh tons!”

Starfox: “Tons? Yes. But only about eight-and-a-half! Hardly any bother at all!”

Good flexing, Starfox.

Meanwhile, Captain America’s scolding has born fruit. The Pentagon has agreed to seal Thanos’ base, pending further investigation. And Colonel Farnam agrees because his training never prepared him to deal with MONSTERS FROM OUTER SPACE.

Also meanwhile, the army took pity on Hercules’ poor pantsless state and slash or were intimidated by it and have lent him a uniform.

He wears it as you’d expect Hercules to wear it.

With plenty of plunging neckline.

Since the Blood Brothers have a psionic link which makes them stronger the closer they are, Hercules has chained them up on very distant parts of the base.

But this precaution is rendered moot pretty quickly when Starfox returns with the  symbio-nullifier to symbio-nullify the Blood Brothers.

Starfox suspected that Thanos had one of these lying around as a precaution if he was going to let the Blood Brothers into his base.

Hercules lightly complains that he didn’t get a good fight with the Blood Brothers especially since the hordes of Muspell and Maelstrom’s wacky minions were interesting but not all that much of a challenge for the prince of power.

Back at the Avengers Mansion, the giant holographic head of Vision is still dealing with Dane Black Knight Whitman. Mostly by showing him video footage of how the other Avengers are tied up.

Dane is confused for multiple reasons, including that when last he heard Wasp was the leader.

Vision: “My failure to anticipate your arrival was an unfortunate lapse. I regret that, as a result, you must suffer the indignity of incarceration.”

Dane: “But... why?! What does keeping me in a tube accomplish?”

Vision: “It prevents you from interfering! You see, I have come to the conclusion that the only way I can fulfill my duty to make the Earth a safer place... is to run it myself!”

Dane: “What?!? But that’s crazy! Uh... I mean, you can’t possibly...”

Vision: “Exactly the sort of reaction I expected!”

Vision: ‘See, this is why you’re a tube boy now.’

Vision turns off the hologram saying that Dane will understand when its all over.

As usual when somebody says something like that, Dane isn’t reassured, just more convinced he needs to break out and warn someone.

I’m not sure if its not already too late since Vision is safely ensconced in his take over the world chair in his secret take over the world room.

ISAAC’s head hologram shows up to Vision and asks him what the delay is, chop chop get to taking over the world for its own good.

Vision: “Sorry, ISAAC... I was just remembering how much I enjoyed having a body.”

Oh my god.

ISAAC: “What’s the sense of that? This entire world will soon be your ‘body’! How can the mobility of a single humanoid form compare to that?”

Vision: “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, ISAAC. It’s odd, though, so many times others have controlled my body... the robot Ultron, the Mad Thinker, Necrodamus... All have tried to subvert my mind and take me over. And now here am I... about to initiate the greatest takeover of all. One would almost think there were some mad connection -- !”

ISAAC: “Vision! You must not tarry!”

.................. Um, okay. So, rather than just being influenced by his brush with death and also brush with supercomputer, I think Vision is being actively manipulated into this by ISAAC.

I don’t know why but I do know that Vision continues being a viable character for decades so he probably can’t be burning all his bridges here.

Anyway, Vision uploads his psyche into the internet.

And like immediately starts taking over everything. One page montage immediately. The Pentagon, Cheyenne Mountain, SHIELD, satellites, the Kremlin.

Presumably the best security systems in the world barely warrant a mention for Vision’s mighty synthezoid brain.

He’s pulling a Skynet (for the world’s own good, so he says) and its barely an effort.

The scenery of being on the internet is, I dunno, pretty standard? Bright colors  and dashes of light? I feel like I’ve seen it a lot of places.

But if we’re on page 13 of a book and Vision is effortlessly Skynetting, whats the rest of the issue going to be about? Interestingly, to me anyway, despite this being Vision’s turn villainous or well-intentioned extremist, another villain gets shoved in anyway for him to fight.

As Vision is nyooming around the Kremlin’s computers, he nearly runs into another AI, Quasimodo.

Helpfully, we get a recap of Quasimodo’s ENTIRE LIFE STORY because this is pre-fan wikis and I don’t think Quasimodo has appeared in Avengers before.

He was created to be the ultimate computer by the Mad Thinker but was abandoned when he developed a mind of his own.

Quasimodo was found by the Silver Surfer who used the cosmic powers of the Power Cosmic to transform Quasimodo from a computer into a robot.

Turning to the wiki for more information: He turns on Silver Surfer because he doesn’t like the body he got, so Surfer turns him into a stone gargoyle. Let that be a lesson about ingratitude.

Somehow, he stopped being a gargoyle and fought various people until he was defeated by the Fantastic Four and the Sphinx and wound up a disembodied intelligence in a Russian computer system. And here we are!

Quasimodo begs Vision to help him escape this digital hellhole but Vision just turns and leaves because he doesn’t have time for these shenanigans. And also because he knows Quasimodo is a villain who tends to turn on the people who help him so fuck that.

Quasimodo: “You know of my past - of my power - and you still would dare deny me?! There can be but one name for such as you... and that is fool!”

He then hauls off and punches Vision. Because they’re both digital intelligences on the internet they can punch each other and have a fight scene. That’s how internet works.

That’s why Mega Man X can beat up so many people in cyberspace.

Quasimodo says if Vision doesn’t help him get back to the physical world, he’ll destroy him.

Vision: “Now, listen to me... I am consolidating all computers worldwide. I gave up my own physical body to do this, and I’ll not tolerate any interference from the likes of you!”

Quasimodo: “You willingly abandoned your body?! You’re not a fool... you’re mad!”

Faced with an irreconcilable set of priorities, Quasimodo trips them both into “the irresistible currents of the IMPULSE VORTEX!”

Sure. That sounds like how internet works.

Meanwhile, over at Pluto is very far away, Monica Marvel nyooms past the moons of Uranus. Apparently her visual acuity is REALLY good because she takes in the scenery while she’s nyooming and finds it frighteningly beautiful out in the outer planets.

Anyway, Vision scolds Quasimodo for plunging them into a torrent. Which makes me laugh. Surely its too soon for torrents to be a thing. He’s just using it in a metaphorical sense.

Quasimodo tries to shoot EYE BEAM at Vision, which misses the digital synthezoid but obliterates an electron.

In a cutaway that would be at home in a Marvel movie, the scene briefly shifts to a Soviet computing center and a guy named Alexey complaining that his program just crashed.

Quasimodo does Vision some punches but Vision decides to start trying since Quasimodo’s attacks risk alerting people that something is amiss on the internet. And Vision’s powers work just as well on the internet as Quasimodo’s do. In fact, screw that, they work better! Vision just gets more and more powerful the longer he spends on the internet!

Vision: “You might have slain me earlier, but now this world is mine -- and there is no place in it for you!!”

And at Vision’s command the internet launches Quasimodo from Earth itself.

The internet can do that.

Meanwhile, back at Avenger’s Mansion, Dane Whitman determines that the tube he’s a tube boy in may look like glass but its as strong as steel. He’s not punching his way out of here.

But his recently uncursed cursed sword (the curse never stays not cursed for long so I hope Dane enjoys having a notcursed but very enchanted sword) is just a few feet away with the rest of his luggage. And there’s a mystic bond between himself and the sword so if he just thinks about the sword hard enough, surely it’ll manifest in his hand.

Like the Force but slightly more convenient.

Dane Whitman: Nothing’s happening. Must not... be concentrating hard enough! Maybe the link was broken with the curse. No... no, I mustn’t even think that! I need my sword! I must have my sword! I must!

He do it!

The Notcursed Ebony Sword appears in his hand and he slices through that steel glass like its just glass.

Meanwhile, over at Arizona, the Avengers finish up nullifying the Blood Brothers and putting them in suspended animation, or if you prefer, naptime timeout.

Captain America receives a buzz from Hawkeye who wonders what he’s doing within hailing range, ie in the western half of the US.

Captain America: “Arizona... government business... And I’m as surprised to hear you, as you are me! I take it that your team finished its mission in the Pacific early!”

Hawkeye: “Mission? What are you talking about, Cap? We haven’t been on any mission!”

Which is a dun dun dun considering their whole reason for being sent on this mission was that the West Coast Avengers were ostensibly busy.

And Vision lying about that raises a whole lot of questions for the Avengers.

Cap and Wanda Witch rush over to the Quinjet and contact the Mansion.

Vision: “Then you’re aware of my deception. I... am sorry, Cap. I didn’t want to mislead you, but I felt it necessary to carry out my plan.”

Scarlet Witch: “Plan? Vision, what do you mean? What have you done?”

Vision: “I... well, there is no easy way to put this... But I have taken over the world.”

You never want to hear “I have taken over the world” from a friend, unless its followed with “and I want to get you in on the ground floor of this exciting new opportunity.”

Vision promises the two that he’s taking over all of Earth’s computers for a really good reason like ending war and strife. And signs off by telling Wanda everything will be alright and that he loves her.

Aww?

Cap: “He meant it... he meant every word.”

Scarlet Witch: “He’d been upset lately, but I never thought... Cap, we have to stop him!”

Cap: “Yes. If there’s still time!”

DUN DUN DUN!

Follow @essential-avengers​ because I don’t know when I’ve been more excited to get to the next issue! Like and reblog?

[writingithink]

Tangled Timelines Chapter 4 Rated: T Chapter Word Count: 8,468 Chapter Summary: Their tour of Torchwood does not go well. Notes: Okay so it's been awhile, but I'm back! Life is still p busy and chaotic, buuut the muse is kinder to me when there's more sunshine, so ... *shrug* I can only hope the update is worth the wait XP Hopefully the fact that it's the longest chapter yet helps?

MASSIVE thanks to @hey-there-juliet for being an amazing beta, as always.

All mistakes are definitely mine, being as I cannot leave anything alone.

I own nothing.

Read it on AO3!!

<-Ch 3

They left the warehouse through a dingy corridor, which the Doctor suspected was actually a tunnel. The air felt stale and damp despite the ventilation shafts running above them. Plus, Yvonne was currently silent, not giving them an enthusiastic description of where they were or where they were going - likely an attempt to disorient them. Cheeky, really.

“All those times I’ve been to Earth, I’ve never heard of you,” he told her, mostly trying to figure out how that was even possible, and partly because hearing nothing but their echoing footsteps was starting to get on his nerves.

Rose was quiet, both verbally and in his head, as she continuously looked around them. Being escorted by armed guards through a creepy tunnel was putting her on edge. He squeezed her hand, but had a difficult time trying to project reassurance across their bond.

“But of course not. You’re the enemy,” Yvonne said. “You’re actually named in the Torchwood Foundation Charter of 1879 as an enemy of the Crown.”

Wait, 1879?! Torchwood, 1879.

“1879,” the Doctor repeated aloud this time. “That was called Torchwood, that house in Scotland.”

Just you?!, Rose exclaimed, outrage flitting through their connection. They don’t even mention me? Oh, that is just- just typical Victorian. I bet it’s because you said you bought me or whatever. I was just- just a thing. Good enough to be knighted and banished, but don’t get even a teeny tiny mention on this Charter of theirs?

I’m sorry, do you want to be declared an enemy of the crown?, he asked her. While he was able to keep his amusement off of his face, it was very apparent over the bond.

“That’s right,” Yvonne was saying, “where you encountered Queen Victoria and the werewolf.”

“I guess she really was NOT amused,” Rose quipped.

“Her Majesty created the Torchwood Institute with the express intention of keeping Britain great, and fighting the alien horde,” Yvonne informed them.

Suppose it’s best that I wasn’t mentioned, his wife admitted over the bond. Imagine what would’ve happened if Torchwood did know about me and snatched me up, took me prisoner or something before we even met?

She actually made a very good point.

“But if I’m the enemy, does that mean that I’m a prisoner?” the Doctor asked, more than a little worried.

Earth during this time, from his perspective? Mostly harmless. Torchwood, however, had an awful lot of very not-harmless extraterrestrial technology. And while they couldn’t get into the TARDIS and couldn’t actually stop him from sensing where she was, they did seem to have a sporting chance of keeping them from reaching her.

“Oh yes,” Yvonne answered as they made a sharp turn and exited the tunnel to stop abruptly in front of a heavily enforced door. “But we’ll make you perfectly comfortable. And there is so much you can teach us. Starting with this.”

The door slid open and she led them into what appeared to be some sort of laboratory. 

“Now, what do you make of that?” she asked, not needing to be any more specific. There was no way that he couldn’t know what she was referring to, the way the sphere was hovering at the end of the narrow space, every single piece of equipment in the room trained on it. And it was decidedly wrong. More wrong than the ghosts, than Torchwood’s existence, than … anything on the planet , really.

The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off it.

All of his senses were going haywire, forcing him to block out most of the bond in order to shield Rose from just how- how awful this thing was.

“You must be the Doctor,” he was dimly aware that someone was speaking to him. “Rajesh Singh. It’s an honor, sir.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, still unable to look away from the sphere.

The timelines were tangling up around it, some passing over it as if the sphere didn’t exist, others indicating direct consequences of its future actions, or inaction - who knows. But those timelines were the only real sign, aside from the fact that he could see it, that his senses were giving him to prove that it did, in fact, exist at all.

“What is that?” his bondmate asked, dropping his hand. “It’s- it’s-”

“We got no idea,” Yvonne had no qualms to admit.

The Doctor shut down even more of the bond (a difficult feat), activating senses that he rarely used and was sure would only serve to give Rose a headache (or worse) if they leeched over to her. He had some ideas, none of them good, but still needed to narrow it down.

“It’s wrong,” his wife proclaimed.

“What makes you think there’s something wrong with it?” he vaguely heard the bloke - Rajesh - ask her.

“I … I can’t … I think I might be sick.”

His attention snapped back to his bondmate and the Doctor opened the bond a little bit more, as much he safely felt he could, attempting to comfort her while also determining exactly what she was sensing from the sphere. Rose was still new to telepathy, really, and there was a possibility that other senses were activating as well. Unfortunately, he also needed to figure out what the sphere really was, and couldn’t focus the majority of his attention on his wife as he walked up to the platform. All he could safely ascertain, without going too deep into her mind to focus on the task at hand, was that she wasn’t truly ill and that her mind wasn’t in any danger.

“Well, the sphere has that effect on everyone,” Yvonne said. “Makes you want to run and hide, like it’s forbidden.”

“We tried analyzing it using every device imaginable,” Rajesh explained as the Doctor re-blocked the bond and put on his 3D specs, hoping for once that he was wrong. “But according to our instruments, the sphere doesn’t exist.”

Oh, why couldn’t he have been wrong? The sphere was so steeped in Void particles that it almost looked as though it was made of the stuff.

Yvonne had said that the ghosts were a side effect. He was starting to get an idea of what may have happened.

“It weighs nothing,” Rajesh continued, “it doesn’t age. No heat, no radiation, and has no atomic mass.”

“But everyone can see it,” Rose pointed out in disbelief. “Touch it, I’m assuming. It’s there.”

“Fascinating, isn’t it? It upsets people because it gives off nothing. It is absent.”

The Doctor couldn’t stop looking at it. It was … well, obviously it wasn’t impossible, but it should be.

“Well, Doctor?” Yvonne asked, snapping him out of it.

“This is a Void Ship,” he admitted, refocusing on the weakening barriers he’d erected around their bond, trying to reinforce them in order to keep his anxiety and fear from crossing over. The blocks wouldn’t last much longer, the mental energy to keep them in place would be too great, but he just needed a little more time to get a handle on himself. They would figure this all out. They had to.

“And what is that?”

He could feel his wife attempting to reach him and hated that he was keeping her out. But really, they needed to avoid the inevitable negative feedback loop, especially since he had to do his best to appear calm and collected in front of these people. The Doctor took off his glasses, but still couldn’t stop looking at the ship.

“Well, it’s impossible for starters,” he told them, unable to think of a better word. “I always thought it was just a theory, but it’s a vessel designed to exist outside of time and space, traveling through the Void.”

Finally able to rip his gaze away from the sphere, he turned away, sitting down on the stairs leading up to the platform. Yvonne and Rajesh were quick to flank him, forcing Rose to squeeze past them in order to sit next to him. The Doctor put his arm around her automatically, and his barriers crumbled away. It was easier to keep himself calm (well, more calm) now that he wasn’t looking at the thing.

“And what’s the Void?” Rajesh asked.

It’s the space between parallel worlds, yeah?, his bondmate confirmed, attempting to send soothing waves of reassurance across their connection and dutifully not complaining about being cut off.

“The space between dimensions,” he explained to the others after mentally agreeing with his wife. “There’s all sorts of realities around us, different dimensions, billions of parallel universes all stacked up against each other. The Void is the space in between, containing absolutely nothing. Imagine that - nothing. No light, no dark, no up, no down, no life, no time.” The Doctor actually found himself feeling better, giving them a heavily edited lecture, separating himself from all of the potential ramifications for a moment. But only for a moment, before dread began to claw back up his spine. “My people called it the Void. The Eternals call it the Howling. But some people call it Hell.”

“But someone built the sphere,” Rajesh pointed out. “What for? Why go there?”

Oh, he did love it when people asked the important questions.

“To explore?” he hazarded. “To escape? You could sit inside that thing and eternity would pass you by. The Big Bang, end of the Universe, start of the next, wouldn’t even touch the sides. You’d exist outside the whole of creation.”

In a rare moment of complete synchronicity, he and Rose both thought of the Beast in the pit.

The Doctor hadn’t thought it possible, but the Void Ship suddenly seemed even more sinister.

Before time.

Perhaps a being could exist before time … if they crawled out of the Void. But how would that even work? He wanted to convince himself that it was impossible - had to be. But …

It doesn’t matter, Rose chimed in, easily getting his attention. We stopped him. Whatever’s in that thing, it isn’t that.

She seemed so certain of this that the Doctor couldn’t help but believe her.

“You see, we were right,” Yvonne said, smugly. “There is something inside there.”

“Oh, yes,” he agreed, frowning deeply as she smiled on.

His bondmate was now thinking of a different memory from Krop Tor. What the Beast had predicted for her.

The valiant child, who will die in battle so very soon.

He could feel the beginnings of the negative feedback loop that he’d been trying so hard to prevent.

I told you, it was wrong, the Doctor insisted, trying to project his complete certainty of this fact. Their timelines were entwined - it was all or nothing. And he still didn’t trust what he’d glimpsed at the Olympics, couldn’t allow that kind of hope to blind him of the danger of their current situation, but he played the memory for her anyway. He needed her to believe it. They just needed to get through this.

“So, how do we get in there?” Rajesh asked.

Oh, how he hated it when people asked the wrong questions.

“We don’t!” he ordered, launching himself up off the platform. “We send that thing back into Hell. How did it get here in the first place?”

There would have to be a tear in the fabric of reality for it to come through now that his people were gone. And he was going to have to figure out how to close it before it got bigger.

A tear in the fabric of reality?!, Rose shouted in his mind as she got up to follow him.

“Well, that’s how it all started,” Yvonne unknowingly saved him from having to respond to his seething wife. “The sphere came through into this world and the ghosts followed in its wake.”

“Show me,” the Doctor demanded, voice clipped as he took Rose’s hand and marched out of the room.

You’ve known about this Void stuff the whole bloody time, she continued complaining over the bond. Why the HELL didn’t you say something sooner?

I didn’t want to worry you unless I had to, he admitted. When it was just those ghosts, I thought that maybe it would be a simple fix. But that ship is corporeal. It made it properly through. The ghosts haven’t, so I thought I might just be dealing with a potential crack in the Universe. An almost crack. Like when you drop a mug and it gets a tiny hairline fracture. It hasn’t actually broken, just damaged enough that bacteria can get caught in it. You shouldn’t really drink out of it anymore if you can help it, but if you wanted to you could still use it to store pencils.

They took a left and barely made it past the door before he heard Yvonne shout, “No, Doctor.”

He quickly pivoted, accidentally dragging his bondmate in a circle, and then purposefully held his head high as they walked past the door again.

So the ship broke the mug, then, Rose continued as Yvonne and one of the soldiers caught up to them.

Yup. The metaphor kind of falls apart a bit after that, though. I’ll think of something better, just give us a tick. And … I’m sorry. It’s not like I thought you couldn’t handle it or anything.

They were directed to a lift, and as soon as they got inside his bondmate let go of his hand and crossed her arms.

Honestly, the Doctor pleaded across their bond, I was hoping that I was wrong. That it just appeared like they’d crossed the Void.

She glanced his way before eyeing the screen that was tracking their progress up the floors at a rate that was much faster than he could recall lifts being in this time period. The further up they went, the more his senses were screaming at him that things were not right. Timelines were twisting into strange shapes, and what was an occasional flicker everywhere else was more like a strobe as they shifted in and out of existence. The Doctor felt increasingly grateful that the barriers around his senses were much stronger than the rest.

You really weren’t trying to keep me out of some plan you’re cookin’?

Absolutely not, he hastily agreed. Me? A plan? Bold of you to think I have one.

His bondmate covered her mouth with a hand as her laughter rang out over their connection. Much better. Well, relatively. They were still in the middle of a gigantic potentially-Universe-ending catastrophe, but who said he couldn’t still appreciate the little things?

Yvonne led them out at the 45th floor - the very top of the building. Or maybe skyscraper was a better word.

“Right this way, then,” she said, and while Yvonne had started off leading them, they soon matched her pace - the breach was so large that there was no way the Doctor could have missed it even without the escort. 

Within moments they turned a corner and there it was. Dormant, but there.

“The sphere came through here,” Yvonne stated. “A hole in the world.”

The Doctor dropped Rose’s hand as he approached the tear. Even in its current state, he could tell how large it was - that it had been growing. He reached up a hand, tracing its edge. Tingly. Tingly, but the bad kind. His hairs stood on end.

Is that safe? His wife’s worry coated their bond.

It’s fine, he assured her. It’s closed … for now.

“Not active at the moment,” Yvonne continued, “but when we fire particle engines at that exact spot, the breach opens up.”

So they made the hole, then? Why?!

He could tell that his bondmate was wondering the exact same thing.

“How did you even find it?” the Doctor asked, deciding to start at the beginning (so to speak), as he backed away to look at the rip in reality in its entirety.

“We were getting warning signs for years. A radar black spot. So we built this place, Torchwood Tower. The breach was six hundred feet above sea level. It was the only way to reach it,” Yvonne answered as he put on his 3D glasses.

Oh. Oh. The edges were steeped in just as much Void particles as the ship - which was just about what he’d been thinking, but still. Anticipating and then seeing were two very different things. He didn’t want to see what it was like when active. It should have never been active.

Do they just have an unlimited budget, then? Country spending all it’s money on this?

The Doctor could tell that his wife wasn’t actually talking to him, but the thought was quite loud and quite irritated. He glanced back to see Rose standing a few feet behind him with her arms crossed, frowning as she glared at the back of Yvonne Hartman’s head.

“You built a skyscraper just to reach a spatial disturbance?” he couldn’t help but ask. “How much money have you got?”

“Enough,” Yvonne blithely answered before walking away.

Well, that was … fair? He never had figured out all of the rules for money, especially for talking about money. Humans were just so … so weird. The Doctor took off his glasses and tried not to roll his eyes.

“Look who’s talking,” Rose whispered in his ear.

“Oh, speaking aloud now, are we?” he muttered back.

“Mmhmm,” she responded with a cheeky grin. “Gonna let me try out your 3D glasses? Aren’t these from when we saw It Came from Outer Space after the last time we failed to see Elvis?” Turns out third time isn’t the charm.

This time the Doctor really did roll his eyes as he passed his bondmate the glasses. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to see Elvis Presley, really it-

He stopped himself from going down that train of thought. Much more important things to think about. Rose tilted her head as she stared at the breach, then turned toward him. Her jaw dropped.

“Doc-”

“Come on now, Doctor,” Yvonne called before Rose could finish her sentence.

“Yup! Coming!”

They both turned and followed their ‘tour guide’ away from the rip in the multiverse, his wife passing back the glasses as they went.

Why are those black things all over you, too? The, er, Void stuff, Rose asked over the bond.

They’re also on you. We’ve been through, remember? But we’ve just got a light dusting. Everything else, you can barely see the thing for the Void, he explained as they caught up with Yvonne only to be led into an office.

Rose paused by a window, pressing her face up against the glass as she looked down at the streets below them, while the Doctor … for lack of a better way to phrase it … wandered off. It was different, though! The rule was for Rose not to wander away from him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t wander away from … uptight know-it-all heads of shadow organizations. Whom his wife was- was guarding. While he investigated!

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of interest going on at the moment. And everyone was ignoring him. He was able to get a good look at their equipment, though, so at least there was that. It was simple enough, but he doubted he’d have enough time to dismantle it before a bunch of soldiers with guns came and stopped him.

“Oh!” he heard Rose exclaim from around the corner. “Look, we’re in Canary Wharf!”

The Doctor quickly placed them in his mental map of London. Good to know. He wasn’t yet sure why it would be good to know, but it couldn’t hurt. The ‘ghosts’ were everywhere, so it wouldn’t help with that, but if he needed to contact UNIT at any point, they would need to know his position.

“Well, that is the public name for it,” Yvonne was saying as he headed back toward them. “But to those in the know, it’s Torchwood.”

Right then. And now they were in the know, so it was time they listened.

“So,” he began as soon as he entered the room, “you find the breach, probe it, the sphere comes through six hundred feet above London, bam! It leaves a hole in the fabric of reality. And that hole, you think, oh, shall we leave it alone? Shall we back off? Shall we play it safe? Nah, you think let’s make it bigger!”

“It’s a massive source of energy,” Yvonne justified. “If we can harness that power, we need never depend on the Middle East again. Britain will become truly independent. Look, you can see for yourself. Next Ghost Shift’s in two minutes.”

She began leading them away, yet again, and he was tired of the tour.

“Cancel it,” he ordered as Yvonne walked past.

She’s not gonna listen to ya, his bondmate oh-so-helpfully pointed out.

“I don’t think so.”

The timelines were stretching taught all around him, blinking in and out even faster. He’d experienced temporal tipping points, he’d experienced fixed points, but he’d never experienced something like this. It was fraying his every nerve and it was taking most of his mental energy just to keep the effects of the anomaly from leaching across the bond.

“I’m warning you, cancel it,” he snarled. Why couldn’t she just listen? Why couldn’t she see that her actions right here, right now, could stop the Universe from being ripped apart?!

Rose, unaware of his mental turmoil, recoiled slightly, eyes widening. He could feel her prodding around the bond, trying to get further into his mind, asking what was wrong and baffled at his lack of response.

No no no no no. Not right now, not when he was constantly erecting and re-erecting barriers. It would be too much, if she got in his head fully. Too much, too much, too much.

Yvonne Hartman spun around, showing some real emotion for the first time since they landed at her precious headquarters that she had no idea may as well be a tomb.

“Oh, exactly as the legends would have it,” she said, voice dripping with condescension. “The Doctor, lording it over us, assuming alien authority over the Rights of Man.”

“Let me show you,” the Doctor panted, racing back behind a glass wall just as he succeeded in forcibly pushing Rose out of his head. Their bond went silent. A sinking feeling permeated his being, but … later. He’d deal with it later, explain later. One problem at a bloody time. “Sphere comes through,” he announced, pulling out his sonic and pointing it at the glass, making sure Hartman watched as it splintered around the initial impact site. “But when it made the hole, it cracked the world around it. The entire surface of this dimension splintered. And that’s how the ghosts get through. That’s how they get everywhere. They’re bleeding through the fault lines. Walking from their world, across the Void, and into yours, with the human race hoping and wishing and helping them along. But too many ghosts, and-” he gently poked the glass wall and the whole thing shattered onto the floor.

For a moment, everyone was silent. Maybe he’d gotten through to her.

“Well,” she finally said, “in that case, we’ll have to be more careful.”

He glanced at Rose, meeting her eyes for only a moment before she swallowed and looked away.

“Positions! Ghost Shift in one minute!”

In a few long strides, the Doctor avoided most of the glass, fully ready to beg.

“Miss Hartman, I am asking you, please don’t do it.”

“You’re putting everyone in danger,” his bondmate chimed in, and he didn’t like the panic and desperation in her voice, so he didn’t dare turn and try to look at her again. Seeing Rose upset wasn’t going to help. “Not just London or Britain, but the whole world! Maybe the whole Universe!”

“We have done this a thousand times!” Yvonne shot back, as if that somehow made it better.

“Then stop at a thousand!” he shouted, timelines strobing in and out so quickly that he could barely think straight, barriers beginning to crumble and he didn’t have the energy left to build more, not if he wanted to figure out how to stop whatever Miss Hartman seemed determined to start.

“We’re in control of the ghosts,” she tried to convince him. “The levers can open the breach, but equally they can close it.”

The Doctor stared at her, and came to a decision, though not the most ethical one. Still, desperate times called for desperate measures, and since he was no longer using all of his telepathic energy to keep his wife from stumbling into the minefield that was his mind, he could do something else. He could project towards Miss Yvonne Hartman. She worked right next to the breach, which means her brain was likely primed for this sort of thing. Universe ending? Fine. Fine. Let her end it, then. But could she make that call? Would she be able to live with herself … whether she lived at all?

“Okay,” he said brightly, breaking eye contact once the suggestion was made and practically skipping back toward the office.

“Sorry?” Yvonne asked, just as confused as he figured she’d be.

“Never mind. As you were,” the Doctor smiled, grabbing the nearest chair and rolling it over towards where Rose was standing, still preternaturally silent in his head despite the fact that his barriers were now almost non-existent.

“What, is that it?”

“No, fair enough. Said my bit, don’t mind me,” he replied, taking a seat and turning toward the nearest worker. “Any chance for a cup of tea?”

The woman at the desk ignored him, but she did turn toward Miss Hartman and announce, “Ghost Shift in twenty seconds.”

“Mmm, can’t wait to see it,” the Doctor said, over exaggerating his excitement, his clenched fists the only thing giving him away.

“You can’t stop us, Doctor,” Yvonne declared, though it didn’t seem like her heart was in it. Good.

“No, absolutely not,” he agreed, crossing his arms. “Come here, Rose. Come and watch the fireworks.”

His bondmate finally walked over to him, and he was quick to weave their fingers together. And just like that, every barrier he had, even the ones that were normally easy to maintain, fell away as if they’d never existed in the first place. Her eyes widened, a barely audible gasp escaping before she moved even closer, stumbling before taking a seat on his lap.

I thought-

She didn’t give him time to finish the thought.

Sod it! If this is as long as our forever might be, I’m not gonna spend it pretending that we’re not together, her mental voice a disconcerting mix of defiance, anger, sorrow, and fear.

“Ghost shift in ten seconds,” the woman at the computer announced.

Rose’s grip on his hand tightened.

“Nine.”

The Doctor locked eyes with Miss. Hartman.

“Eight.”

He could see the fear there, just under the surface.

“Seven.”

He raised his eyebrows, daring her.

“Six.”

I love you, Rose’s mental voice whispered across the bond, tentative, afraid to mess up the game of chicken he’d started, but also desperate with the need to tell him.

“Five.”

I love you too, the Doctor replied, squeezing her hand, eyes still never leaving Yvonne’s, grin still plastered on his face.

“Four.”

It was a staring contest, with the entire Universe at stake, and he could tell that the fact that he didn’t actually have to blink was beginning to unnerve her.

“Three.”

C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon !

“Two.”

His respiratory bypass kicked in, though his smile didn’t falter.

The word ‘one’ was about to pass through the worker’s lips.

“Stop the shift,” Yvonne ordered. “I said stop.”

“Thank you,” he said, managing to not let on just how worried he’d been there for a second.

“Yeah,” Rose seconded, “thank you.”

“I suppose it makes sense to get as much intelligence as possible,” Yvonne said, visibly shaken though doing a pretty good job of trying to hide it from her employees. “But the program will recommence, as soon as you’ve explained everything.”

“We’re glad to be of help,” the Doctor replied, not wanting to push her any farther. It wasn’t safe to use telepathy around humans at the best of times, and his mind was all over the place.

What?!, his wife screeched in his head.

Not you, he quickly backpedalled. We’ve been over this, remember? You’ve got the activated genes for it.

Not that, you plum! You went in her head?!

“And someone clear up this glass,” Miss. Hartman was saying, interrupting the silent row that was starting up between them. “They did warn me, Doctor. They said you like to make a mess.”

“They’re not wrong there,” Rose agreed, standing up awfully primly and crossing her arms.

The Doctor pouted up at her.

I wasn’t in her head, it was just a projected suggestion. Just- just like really loudly thinking in her direction, he tried to explain. I’m a touch telepath, I can’t properly enter another mind without direct contact. Well, aside from you, obviously.

And that works? Thinking loudly at someone?, his bondmate scoffed over their connection, disbelief apparent.

When you’re a telepath? Yes. Sometimes.

And in his case, with great difficulty. Really, he’d just gotten lucky.

It was just luck?

The Doctor sighed before finally standing, forced to move out of the way by the workers who had arrived surprisingly quickly to clean up the glass. Right, no barriers at all now, and no mental energy to make more. Rose obviously still had her own, since he wasn’t getting a stream of endless random thoughts and feelings. Well, this was going to be embarrassing. Actually-

Do you have a headache right now?, he asked her, briefly glancing at the workers around them before taking her hand. The ones that were obviously part of the Ghost Shift program had started typing on their computers again.

No, not really.

How’s that?

It didn’t make sense. He felt awful, the Void and the shifting, snarled up timelines constantly grating at his senses.

I mean, for a second there I thought I might pass out, but then I just kind of … I dunno, turned off the weird stuff?

And oh, how he wished he could figure out exactly what she meant by that, but now - unfortunately - wasn’t the time. Glass taken care of, Yvonne was now entering her office, nodding at them to follow. They both glanced back at the wall where the Void sat, waiting.

“C’mon,” his wife whispered, finally giving him a smile as she grabbed the chair and pushed it in front of her.

His gratitude, the Doctor was sure, must have been abundantly apparent. He took a deep breath before they both followed Yvonne into her office. Rose took a seat in what had been his chair, so the Doctor took the other.

“No,” Miss. Hartman was quick to correct, hands on her hips, “that’s my seat. We’ll get another.”

He turned to his wife just in time to see her rolling her eyes while failing to suppress a grin. Yvonne made the request, and by the time he walked around the desk again, a worker was rolling another chair in. They were quite efficient, he’d give them that. Then again, they had still not managed to get him his tea, so …

They’re not getting paid to listen to you, Rose commented. They’d be paid to bring Yvonne Hartman tea. 

The Doctor smiled at her sarcasm as he got comfortable in his new chair, putting his feet up on the desk and leaning back. Blimey, he was tired.

“So these ghosts, whatever they are,” Yvonne asked, getting straight back into it, “did they build the sphere?”

“Must have,” he replied, not that he really knew. “Aimed it at this dimension like a cannonball.”

Though if the ‘ghosts’ were following in the void ship’s wake, he was partly curious and mostly terrified to find out what was actually inside the craft. Hopefully just more of whatever the ghosts really were, but possibly some sort of weapon. Who knew? Hopefully they would never have to find out.

Rose began chewing at a fingernail, looking out the window.

“And the energy?”

He raised both eyebrows, though wasn’t completely surprised that these humans would gladly siphon power even while not understanding how it was being generated. Problem was, they shouldn’t be able to do any of it and wouldn’t be able to do any of it without the alien technology they had stolen. Timelines strobed in and out, faster and faster and faster.

“I could use some energy,” the Doctor replied. “Quite the day I’ve been having. Where is that tea?”

His wife took his hand, weaving their fingers together as Miss. Hartman gazed skyward for a moment before (finally) ordering the tea.

Is there anything I can do to help?,  Rose asked.

I doubt it. Since you can’t sense all of this, and I would not want to show you, it’s not as if I can even-

Before he could finish the thought, his mind was suddenly full of Rose and light and love and over half of his senses cut off. There were no more tangling timelines blinking in and out of existence - there were no more timelines at all . 

The Doctor blinked, trying not to panic.

Yvonne said something, but he wasn’t sure what. Wasn’t paying attention, as he realized that his wife wasn’t in his head. 

No.

She had pulled him into hers.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” he asked, wiggling his fingers in front of his face. It was so strange. His mind was still in his body, but yet … not? There was a slight lag between thought and action - about 5 picoseconds. 

You are amazing, he exclaimed over the bond.

Rose grinned, mind radiating smugness.

How did you even figure out how to do this?

They certainly hadn’t gone over it during any of their telepathy lessons. And he hadn’t yet had the chance to look for more specific information, being as he’d only just found out how it all worked. 

I don’t know, Rose’s mental voice admitted, uncertainty coating the words. I just kinda imagined what I wanted to do and then … I don’t know.

Blimey, she was going to be a much stronger telepath than he was.

“I asked what you would have us do if you had your way. You said send it back, but how exactly do you propose we do that?”

Ah. Good question. And where things got downright complicated (not that they weren’t already). The Doctor gave Rose’s hand a squeeze and then let go, wanting to determine if touch was a factor in this newfound ability of hers? Theirs? He wasn’t sure, had only ever done anything remotely similar when invasively telepathically connected with someone, touching their psi-points. This was much, much different.

The connection held.

And most importantly, for the moment - overall it was completely unsustainable, not having access to most of his senses - he could think clearly.

“I’ll need access to your equipment, and a comprehensive list of exactly what alien technologies you have at your disposal, because there’s a chance you may have what I need to properly seal and contain excess void particles. And I’ll need the TARDIS.”

“A comprehensive list? Hah! Nice try, Doctor. The relevant equipment, I may be able to allow.”

“May?”

“Torchwood serves Queen and Country, and there are calls I would have to make.” Now she didn’t look amused.

“Make them,” he urged.

“And when they ask about the energy?” she requested, eyebrows raised.

Calculations raced through his head.

“Well, there’d have to be energy sending them back. So you’d have that, right?” Rose piped in before he could compare the results with historical precedence - took longer without his time senses.

Point was, his wife was right, pretty much. And now wasn’t really the time to get picky. They were going to have to compromise.

“A lot of energy in the transfer,” he agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “Run the maths yourself, but reversing all of the particles will take up the energy of key commands, power usage normal, and the energy created by all of the particles reversing at once would be massive. Long term may not be what you wanted, but I also doubt you wanted to annihilate the planet and potentially destroy all of reality, so …”

The Doctor shrugged.

Got a little rude, there, Rose oh so helpfully pointed out.

“We’ll just have to see what they say,” Yvonne said, though she didn’t look convinced, even as she began typing quickly on her computer.

You’ve got to admit, at least it’s progress, he had to point out.

Yvonne looked away from her computer, immediately turning toward the ghost shift control area right outside.

“Excuse me?” she called, getting up from her desk, “Everyone? I thought I said ‘stop the ghost shift’.”

Both he and Rose turned toward where she was now shouting out of the doorway.

“Who started the program?”

Not a single person was reacting. The Doctor stood up, taking his wife’s hand as they slowly followed Miss. Hartman out of her office. This was not good not good not good, and he could really use access to a few more senses right about now.

“But I ordered you to stop? Who’s doing this? Right, step away from the monitors, everyone.”

I’ve not exactly trapped you here, y’know, Rose pointed out, thoughts laced with anxiety as she looked from person to person, blankly typing at their monitors.

“Gareth, Addy, stop what you’re doing right now,” Yvonne ordered, the words having no effect. “Matt, step away from your desk.”

The Doctor stretched his awareness, finding that he had more energy than he thought he’d had as he tentatively shifted across their bond, the action feeling like simply walking through a door in his own mind for all of the effort it took. With great care, he was able to selectively access more of his senses without too much discomfort from all of his time senses.

“Matt, step away from your desk! That’s an order!” Yvonne shouted, and he now sensed her building panic. “Stop the levers! Andrew!”

Workers ran in, trying to manually stop the levers without much success.

He could sense nothing from the employees controlling the program. 

“Look at their ears,” Rose breathed, memories from their own trip across the void engulfing the part of his awareness still resting deeply within her mind. 

Their ears.

He listened for another moment before pinpointing the one typing the fastest.

“What’s she doing?” the Doctor wondered aloud as he marched over to the one who Rose identified as Addy, making note of how deeply connected they still were but unable to properly address it. Didn’t have the time.

“Addy, step away from the desk,” Yvonne urged as both she and Rose followed him.

He snapped his fingers in front of Addy’s eyes, not getting a single reaction. 

No one home.

“Listen to me,” Yvonne continued as Rose stifled a gasp before turning and waving her hand in front of the man across the aisle, “Step away from the desk - oh! The call’s connected!”

“She can’t hear you anyway,” he told her, dread forming in the pit of his stomach as he turned toward the monitor. “They’re overriding the system. We’re going into ghost shift.”

With great reluctance, well aware that the results would be exceedingly unpleasant, the Doctor reactivated his time senses. Because he needed to know what exactly was happening in order to fully monitor the situation.

“Hello, this is Torchwood One, calling mayday, threat level alpha, activation code eight- four- delta- whisky- zero- seven- foxtrot,” Yvonne recited over her comm.

Sensations slammed into him all at once, timelines knotted together and breaking off, the spin of the planet speeding up and slowing down at a rate unnoticeable to the humans. He zeroed in on the devices attached to Addy’s ears. 

“It’s the ear piece,” he bit out, swiftly becoming overwhelmed by the activating void but unable to retreat. He couldn’t afford the luxury. “It’s controlling them. I’ve seen this before.”

Of all the parallel worlds, really.

“Situation is dire,” Hartman continued into the phone. “We are requesting backup immediately. The Ghost Shift has been compromised, the Doctor is assisting.”

Hey, that’s where Mickey is, his wife pointed out even as she placed a hand between his shoulder blades, offering him comfort for what would have to come next. With great reluctance, the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He sonicked Addy’s ear pod, and within moments she and all of the other partially converted Torchwood employees screamed before collapsing at their desks.

“What happened?” Yvonne demanded, eyes wide in terror as she likely realized she’d lost complete control over the situation - welcome to his world, really. Typical Tuesday, that. “What did you just do?”

“They’re dead,” he informed her, not having time to sugar coat it.

Despite their connected minds, Rose reached down and felt around for Addy’s pulse point.

“Is it really …” his wife paused, finding herself unable to say it all out loud. “Again, but here? Or …”

The Doctor could feel her mind racing as he attempted to gain control of the ghost shift program. Yvonne’s attention returned to her call, though he stopped paying attention.

“I think I know exactly where they’re coming from,” he admitted, loathe to be the one to confirm her fears, but unwilling (not to mention completely unable) to lie to her.

“But … Mickey was- and Jake, and-”

An image of her parallel father flashed through both their minds as Rose clenched her jaw.

Every sense the Doctor had was positively screaming as the seconds ticked on by and the tear widened.

“We’ll figure it out,” he near shouted as it all became too much. 

Just as he managed to apologize mentally, Rose seemed to breach his mind even as a large portion of his consciousness remained in hers. The pain seemed to dull, sensations cushioned by the added presence.

Please, please tell me you can’t feel this, he found himself pleading, both grateful for the respite and horrified that the pain might simply be being transferred.

M’fine, his bondmate assured him. I’m just trying to help you make barriers.

Oh.

Well.

Huh.

While he had helped her construct some in their initial training, the Doctor had to admit that the sensation of someone doing it for him was novel.

“They’re patching into our systems. What are those ear pieces?” Yvonne asked.

“Don’t,” he ordered as he continued entering commands into the system. It wasn’t overly complex, but the time crunch was a bit of an ask. As much as he wanted to spare her the horror, he couldn’t afford to make time for sentiment.

“But they’re standard comms devices,” Miss. Hartman insisted as Rose stepped away from the desk, getting a better look at the levers.

“Trust me, leave them alone,” the Doctor insisted as he raced over to another terminal.

“But what are they?” he heard her ask, but ignored the question.

There were multiple universes on the line, after all. And nothing he tried was working.

“Ugh!” Yvonne’s exclaimed. “Oh, God!” He had warned her. “It goes inside their brain!”

“What about the Ghost Shift?” he asked, needing their host-slash-captor back on track. The Doctor looked up from the monitor at the bright, terrifying tear in spacetime opening up mere feet away from them all.

“Ninety percent there and still running,” she replied, quickly joining him at the desk. “Can’t you stop it?”

“They’re still controlling it, they’ve hijacked the system,” the Doctor quickly explained, standing up and pulling out his sonic screwdriver.

“Who’s they?” Yvonne asked, and nope! No time to get into that.

“It might be a remote transmitter,” he continued as he scanned the area, “but it’s got to be close by. I can trace it.”

With that, he ran, following the signal, dimly aware that Yvonne Hartman was tagging along. 

“Keep those levers down,” she ordered as they raced out of the room. “Keep them offline! Help is coming.”

Rose broke away from where she’d been helping the others holding the levers back, quickly overtaking Miss. Hartman but still hanging back slightly.

You weren’t tryin’ ta leave without me, were you?,  his wife asked, her mental landscape pulsing with agitation.

Wouldn’t dream of it, the Doctor assured her. After all, she had complete access to every single thought in his head now. He was fine to leave it entirely up to Rose, whether or not to follow him into near certain death. Not like he could stop her any other time.

“You two, you come with us,” Yvonne ordered a pair of soldiers walking past, not that it would do them any good.

They all slowed down, following his lead as they neared the source of the signal.

“What’s down here?” he asked as they reached a section of hall blocked off by plastic.

“I don’t- I don’t know,” Yvonne admitted. “I think it’s building work. It’s just renovations.”

“You should go back,” the Doctor told her, taking his wife’s hand before carefully passing into the cordoned off area.

“Think again,” Miss. Hartman scoffed, once again ignoring his advice. It’s as if she truly didn’t understand that he was trying to help her.

We’ll figure this out, Rose assured him this time, despite knowing that he was completely aware of the terror and doubt pulsing through her headspace.

I love you, the Doctor told her, hoping that it wouldn’t be his last chance to say it.

I love you, too.

It wasn’t long before they reached the source … though he couldn’t see anything. At least, nothing obvious.

“What is it?” Yvonne asked. “What’s down here?”

“Ear pieces, ear pods,” he finally began to explain. “This world’s colliding with another, and I think I know which one.”

“We’ve met them before,” Rose continued, just as metal footsteps began clanging from every direction, shadows appearing to circle them behind the flimsy curtains.

“Fell through a crack on accident. Should have been impossible. Now we know why,” the Doctor elaborated, shifting so that his wife was directly behind him - connected lifespans or not, he was the one who could regenerate (hopefully).

“What are they?”

“They came through first. The advanced guard,” he told her, trying to keep the fear out of his voice and doing a rather poor job of it as the creatures surrounding them ripped through the plastic. “Cybermen.”

Rose and Yvonne both ducked as the soldiers began to open fire, and he grabbed both their hands in an attempt to get away that was thwarted before they’d even managed to move more than a few feet.

“We surrender!” the Doctor quickly announced, raising his hands above his head to show he was unarmed as the sounds of gunfire faded. He swallowed, blinking a few times and not allowing himself to turn around.

“Yeah, we surrender!” Rose quickly followed suit, gaze straight forward.

He turned to Yvonne, raising his eyebrows and giving her a slight wave.

“I surrender,” she - finally - agreed through gritted teeth, throwing up her hands.

They were quickly marched back to the Ghost Shift area, escorted into the room with guns to their backs.

“Get away from the machines,” the Doctor shouted. “Do what they say. Don’t fight them!”

Before the scientists at the levers had time to move, they were shot down.

“We are the Cyberman,” one of their captors announced - likely the Cyberleader. “The Ghost Shift will be increased to one hundred percent.”

The timelines around them had become utter chaos within the past fifteen minutes - the Doctor wasn’t sure how he would possibly be able to see straight, never mind think properly once the breach was fully opened. 

If it’s not helping, just let go, his wife insisted, tugging him back toward her mind. Despite the fight or flight responses bombarding her systems, it was still much simpler in there, cut off from the nauseating sensations of slowly crumbling dimensions.

Glad my primitive human brain can help, Rose’s (slightly sarcastic) mental voice echoed around him as the levers raised.

“Here come the ghosts,” he warned, bracing himself.

Even cut off from his time senses, the full activation was brutal. The Doctor could sense the barriers Rose had made earlier shatter, despite his primary consciousness being nowhere near them. He grimaced, doing his best to keep the pain of it from touching his wife’s mind. No wonder it was so easy for her to move him telepathically - he no longer had any defenses.

They shielded their eyes, watching as a growing number of spectral figures approached through the rift.

“What are we going to do?” Rose asked, clinging to his side as the strain of protecting them both inside her head began to wear on her.

His precious girl. So, so strong. The last thing he wanted to tell her was that he didn’t know, but the most he could do was not say the words. The last thing he wanted her to feel was his own fear, but all he could do was put on a brave face. Everything else was transparent, an open book.

“Achieving full transfer,” the Cyberleader declared.

The Doctor watched as the forms solidified. “They’re Cybermen. All of the ghosts are Cybermen. Millions of them, right across the world.”

“They’re invading the whole planet,” Yvonne stated, and he noticed the blinking light on her ear piece indicating that she was still in a call.

“It’s not an invasion,” he corrected. “It’s too late for that. It’s a victory.”

“You’re the ones who gave it to them,” Rose couldn’t help but point out.

Yvonne opened her mouth only to clamp it shut again as the nearest computer began to repeat ‘Sphere Activated’ on a loop, claiming each of their attentions as data flashed on the screen. The Doctor frowned, eyes widening as he tried to make sense of it all.

How did a Cyber Invasion lead to a Void ship?

How did a Void ship lead to a Cyber Invasion?

Calculation after calculation, and none of them added up. 

“But I don’t understand,” the Doctor stepped forward, commanding notice, needing to know. “The Cybermen don’t have the technology to build a void ship. That’s way beyond you. How did you create the sphere?”

“The sphere is not ours,” the nearest Cyberman replied.

“What?”

But … it was active.

It had activated precisely when the Cybermen fully manifested out of the void.

Sure, it didn’t make much sense for it to be theirs, but if not …

“The sphere broke down the barriers between worlds. We only followed. Its origin is unknown,” the Cyberman continued.

“Then what’s inside it?” the Doctor asked, despite knowing that the answer wasn’t coming.

[danco110]

If you ever start thinking “Hey, maybe I have too many Commander decks,” let me tell you: you don’t. I do:

WARNING!!! EXTREMELY long post below, describing each deck and a brief summary of its strategy in overly abbreviated and nerdy Commander lingo. I mean, I’m talking a real wall of text, here. I mean it! Read more at your own risk!

——

——

THE A-TEAM: These decks have all been around for a while, and have all seen their fair share of wins.

-Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. Artifact storm, and probably the closest I’ll ever come to cedh. WARNING: my Mana Crypt is in here!

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. OHKO tribal. Seeks to blast people wide open with either Embercleave, Kaya’s Onslaught, or Uncaged Fury.

-Bruna, Light of Alabaster. Voltron that can either play nice and fetch Eldrazi Conscription, or not, and grab Spectra Ward.

-Sigarda, Heron’s Grace. Human tokens tribal, and the rightful recipient of my only Doubling Season.

-Admiral Beckett Brass. Pirate tribal. Taking commanders and wincons is fun. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Gishath, Sun’s Avatar. Dino tribal.

-Hallar, the Firefletcher. Kicker tribal.

-Syr Gwyn of Ashvale. Knights and equipments and equip 0 Colossal Hammers.

-Nikya of the Old Ways. A creatures-only deck that probably has more interaction than most of my other decks!

-Atemsis, All Seeing. Azor’s Gateway / Twiddlestorm / Untap shenanigans. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Gnostro, Voice of the Crags. Flicker tribal with a non-Narset commander so as to not draw too much heat.

-Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty. Cascade / big spells / Simic is broken change my mind / tribal

-Aragon, Roar of the World. Cat tribal, and my first-ever Commander deck!

——

THE B-TEAM: My decks with fairly good performance across their games, independent of wins and losses

-Halana, Kessig Trapper and Alena, Kessig Ranger (Partner). Big bodies / EtB tribal.

-Khorvath Brightflame and Sylvia Brightspear (Partner). Knights and dragons tribal.

-Virtus, the Veiled and Gorm, the Great (Partner). Quietus Spike / force block shenanigans. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate. Azorius party aggro.

-Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats. Phantom Rakdos party control.

-Tazri, Beacon of Unity. 5C party +1/+1 counters.

-Kazarov, Senior Pureblood. “I can’t play against Krenko anymore today” Pyroclasm tribal.

-Liesa, Shroud of Dusk. Angel and demon tribal (NOTE: no synergy there, I just wanted to stick to the flavor of “alliance with a demon lord”)

-Orah, Skyclave Hierophant. Clerics tribal that always tries for an Angel of Destiny win before it (always) defers back to aristocrats.

-Bruna, the Fading Light. Angel tribal that tries to meld Brisela every game.

-Anafenza, the Foremost. +1/+1 counters tribal, and the deck that made me realize Outlast really should’ve been instant-speed.

-Samut, Voice of Dissent. Exert tribal with vigilance, untap, and extra combats.

-Juri, Master of the Revue. Sacrifice tribal, with a burn subtheme.

-Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas. Big tribal, and the deck that made me realize Experience counters were busted. Run Suncleanser, people!

-Quintorius, Field Historian. Reanimate and blow up your graveyard. Also, Purify the Grave is hilarious!

-Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire. Chaos warp tribal, and a Primal Surge deck that doesn’t have Primal Surge because that card is extremely boring.

-Ishkanah, Grafwidow. Spider tribal that seeks to make opponents forget about Ishkanah’s activated ability until it’s too late.

-Omnath, Locus of the Roil. Landfall and elementals.

-Savra, Queen of the Golgari. Grave Pact tribal. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Feather, the Redeemed. Haha, combat tricks go brrrrrr!

-Adeliz, the Cinder Wind. Wizards spellslinger aggro. Also one of the few decks of mine that actually uses cantrips!

-Aryel, Knight of Windgrace. Knights tribal with a removal/control subtheme.

-Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice. Mentor + Double Strike tribal. I only built this deck because I pulled a borderless Outlaws’ Merriment, ok?

-Araumi of the Dead Tide. Self mill encore, and the deck that made me appreciate the singleton rule in Commander.

-Kaza, Roil Chaser. Big spells. BIG! I mean, Electrodominance for 10, into a Karn’s Temporal Sundering, big!

——

THE C-TEAM: My decks that just don’t cut it at a lot of pods, sometimes even against those at appropriate power levels. That being said, however, these tend to be my more storied decks, that I still enjoy playing.

-Syr Alin, the Lion’s Claw. Mono-White go wide, with commons and uncommons only. Part of my cycle of Eldraine uncommon legendary knight decks, 1/5.

-Syr Elenora, the Discerning. Mono-Blue Voltron + draw power, with commons and uncommons only, 2/5.

-Syr Konrad, the Grim. Mono-Black aristocrats...kind of...? It’s complicated, but with commons and uncommons only, 3/5.

-Syr Carah, the Bold. Mono-Red storm, with rares and mythics for Underworld Breach and Past in Flames, because I feel like storm needs those, 4/5.

-Syr Faren, the Hengehammer. Mono-Green infect, with rares and mythics for Phyrexian Swarmlord, because I really wanted a deck that could run that, 5/5.

-Jodah, Archmage Eternal. Avengers Assemble! legendary tribal. I had a lot of bulk legends at the time, and wanted to make something of them!

-Abomination of Llanowar. Literal elf ball. Built in response to my irritation at someone’s Lathril, Blade of the Elves deck.

-Licia, Sanguine Tribute. Lifegain is good, I swear, built in response to my disbelief at the $200 price tag on a store-built Licia deck. Mine costs maybe $100, if you count the sleeves and box?

-Thalisse, Reverent Medium. Tokens tribal that breaks Anointed Procession even further, which made me wonder why green gets all the token doublers *cough*adrixandnev*cough*

-Hamza, Guardian of Arashin. +1/+1 counters, with commons and uncommons only, built because someone at my store wanted to play commons and uncommons only with an uncommon Commander. Thanks for getting me into Artisan Commander, Will!

-Siona, Captain of the Pyleas. Enchantress, with a tokens subtheme. Built because I and a friend both commented that she looked like Wonder Woman.

-Mina and Denn, Wildborn (NOT Partner). Landfall aggro, with all the creatures that pump on landfall.

-Ghired, Conclave Exile. Populate and tokens. Built because I was bored one Saturday and saw I had an extra set of sleeves.

-Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor. Landfall tribal, (again? Sheesh!) built the same lazy Saturday as Ghired, above.

-Armix, Filigree Familiar and Eligeth, Crossroads Augur (YES Partner). Artifact tribal, with a super janky 4-piece Marionette Master loop wincon! Built because Eligeth turns Preordain into “Draw 2 cards, then draw a card.”

-Akiri, Fearless Voyager. Equipment tribal, with an asymmetrical boardwipe subtheme. Built because I pulled an Akiri from a pack, and someone said “ooh, sorry,” from over my shoulder.

-Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch. Unleash counters tribal. Built because I found a Chaos Imps in my bulk!

——

THE MEME-TEAM: These decks...are. Yeah, they are. Not necessarily good or bad. Just...are.

-Kenrith, the Returned King. The game plan is “Get to Trostani’s Summoner, and either flicker it or make a bajillion copies of it.” One day, I found a card named Trostani’s Summoner, and it was love at first sight! My Demonic Tutor went in here!

-Phylath, World Sculptor. Landfall tribal...with 99 basic land cards.

-Rograkh, Son of Rogahh and Keleth, Sunmane Familiar. (Partner) Kill one guy and die tribal.

-Etrata the Silencer. The “I wanted a non-Koma Mirror Gallery deck” deck. Also with a guest appearance from flicker!

-Lazav, Dimir Mastermind. Literally just “Oops! All Control!” Draw, counter, and remove. WARNING: don’t play against this.

-Ravos, Soultender and Livio, Oathsworn Sentinel. (Partner) War of attrition, etb and control. WARNING: don’t play against this. It has like 15 boardwipes!

-Valki, God of Lies / Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter. (NOT Partner) “I want to piss off the table” tribal. It mills your opponents, it plays their stuff, and it removes the stuff it doesn’t play. WARNING: don’t play against this. It runs Jokulhaups, Obliterate, and Decree of Annihilation!

-Svella, Ice Shaper. Colossal Dreadmaw tribal, as in, anything that’s roughly 6/6 makes the cut! It’s actually won games!

-Brion Stoutarm. Hijack and fling tribal. “You know, I’ve never had an Eldrazi titan before. Can I borrow it? Well, see, I wasn’t exactly...asking...?”

-Grumgully, the Generous. Non-human “uno mas” tribal. Tries to run all the counters cards like Renata and the Rhythm of the Wild.

-Subira, Tuzuldi Caravaneer. Small tribal. Just think “mono-r blitz in Commander,” and you’ll get the gist.

-Neheb, the Worthy. Minotaurs and discard tribal. Not as oppressive as Tinybones, or as explosive as Nath, and that’s a good thing. Trust me.

——

THE ALL-RAVNICAN REJECTS: These decks are... *sniff* no longer with us. They were broken down for pieces, for sleeves, or because I slept through each time I played them.

-Najeela, the Blade Blossom. Boring warriors extra combat steps. Broken because I wanted her tri-lands, and I wanted some of her warriors for my party decks.

-Golos, Tireless Pilgrim. Maze’s End lands. Golos is broken and we all know it. Broken for sleeves, and because my first land tutor was always Field of the Dead because of the incoming hate, and not Maze’s End, and I wasn’t happy with that.

-Arcades, the Strategist. Walls. As it turns out, not a lot of decks can contest 3-mana 8/8’s. And against those that could, the deck was put in the ground extremely quickly. Broken because it just wasn’t fun to play.

——

THE DRAWING BOARD: These decks are in the works. Will they see the light of day, and the protection of sleeves? Well, we’ll see, will we not?

-Borborygmos. Go wide and SMASH! My first attempt at a pile of cards; I’m trying for a goblins/saproling hybrid tribal, because both make lots of tokens, but we’ll see how well that translates into actual play.

-Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer. Thopters and artificers and myr, oh my! All joking aside, I just wanted a deck that wants to run cards with Fabricate, because I thought it was a really cool mechanic!

-Garna, the Bloodflame. Reanimator/sacrifice, AKA corpse carousel. It’s a revolving door between the graveyard and the battlefield, yknow, and most of my store’s meta does not run graveyard hate.

I tried to warn ‘ya!

[greetings-inferiors]

Also because I just realised it would be really funny: yes she is a lesbian

In fact I’m just going to add some stuff here that I thought about because ummmmm it’s fun lol

Staying on sexuality - I don’t think she’s realised it yet. I think the running joke would be that she thinks of romance as like achilles Patroclus where it’s like stoic soldiery brotherhood (or sisterhood in this case) but the things she thinks are platonic are VERY NOT. You can probably picture what I mean. Idk if she’s aspec, I think that’s just the default for me so I might describe her as being more aspec but it’s not intentional.

Also with her armour/hero costume - she wanted to be very knight-y, fully covered in plates and fully protected, but she was convinced (begrudgingly) to lessen it, with it mostly being chainmail with plates when needed. This was done for flexibility, but also to increase sex appeal (as being a hero is like being a celebrity, this is something female heroes sadly have to think about.) She was confused, however, as she believed a fully armoured woman was hotter, but eventually caved.

She likes making sculptures (she comes with built in chisels) and fencing (she quite enjoys the weight of a sword you aren’t controlling)

When she’s frightened the swords cower behind her and she could trip over them if she’s not careful.

She doesn’t like her non-dominant (that’s the word I was looking for LOL) swords being in enclosed spaces, so she prefers not to sheath them. They normally rest just touching her back, like how wings do, when walking they do point outwards to avoid hitting her feet.

She really likes meat, and doesn’t care for sweetness that much.

Just as you’re incapable of biting your finger even though it’s as easy as a carrot, she’s incapable of intentionally hurting herself with her swords. It’s not a complete block, if she’s forced or swinging too wildly and accidentally hitting herself she can hurt herself.

She’s scared that if she got drunk she’d lose control of the swords and hurt herself or others, but in reality all but her dominant sword would probably just drop, as if passed out. And just try dragging six swords, I wouldn’t want to drink either. Personality wise I think she’d lose some responsibility and be more carefree and outspoken when drunk, but idk if she enjoys it.

If a sword is broken it would REALLY HURT (just as if a limb was broken) and being reforged would also REALLY HURT, so best be under anaesthetic (thanks for the idea @chanceofprecipitation!)

She’d be a big lord of the rings fan.

She just on the whole leans into the knight thing WAYYYYY too hard.

Doesn’t really like going out alone in public as she both doesn’t want to bring her swords because… they’re massive floating swords, but also doesn’t want to leave them behind because she almost feels naked without them - if you had a detachable limb (not prosthetic, you literally could take it on and off), it would feel weird just leaving it at home. Remember that you can still move that limb and feel with that limb, so it is uncomfortable when it’s not in your immediate area, and YOU ARE MISSING A LIMB????

She has a strong “protector” vibe, like her main goal in life is to help people, hence wanting to be a hero. Also her swords can come together almost to act like a shield which with her dominant sword as a sword is cool imagery

Anyway I might add to this if I think of anything else. This is really just something I do in the shower I just think of cool abilities in shows I watch - like my Jojo oc (who also doesn’t have a name but uhh for story reasons (the poetry of someone who makes people forgotten having no one know her name when she dies is poetry))

Also I swear I have ocs that aren’t women it just so happens the two coolest and most developed ones are both women

So I read a good hundred plus chapters of my hero academia (maybe 200? Can’t remember if it’s even got 200 lol) and I liked it but just stopped reading it. But it’s kind of like Pokémon where I didn’t care for the story but the world itself is FASCINATING I think quirks are such a cool idea, and it’s fun to come up with some yourself

Like one quirk idea I had was one day when she was like 7 she was being picked on in the playground when these swords just fell from the sky, almost hitting her bullies, and one fell right into her hand, and she discovered that she had a psychic (don’t know if this is the term) link to these swords, but she still exerts energy controlling them, it’s just as if it’s extra limbs, it feels easy to wave around your arm but if you do it over and over eventually you’ll get tired, same thing with the swords. She has an odd number of swords, so an even number on each side acting like “wings” and then a “strong hand” like sword she’s most dextrous with (the one that originally fell into her hand). The swords can hold her up and can let her fly, but it is the same as carrying her body weight (plus seven or nine METAL SWORDS) so it’s not something she can just DO willy nilly.

Anyway, her hero name is Valkyrie and she has slots in the back of her armour to hold the base of the swords (making them act like wings) and a sheath for either all of the swords or just the “strong” sword.

I know it isn’t a typical quirk which are more biological and… scientifically explained, but who cares it’s my character idea and I think it’s cool.

I think it’d be a cool dynamic because it’s actually dangerous. She can’t exactly spar or practice with others because THEY’RE FUCKING FLYING SWORDS, I guess the average durability is higher, but they’re still dangerous, and as a child before she got them fully under control they would’ve been a real hazard.

I think the swords would have some level of senses, obviously not sight or anything but I think they’d at least be able to tell when they’re not in the immediate proximity of anything (so they won’t knock into or accidentally slice anyone or anything) and would feel pain, just obviously with a lot higher pain tolerance as they are metal swords. In my mind they are literally limbs that just happen to be psychically controlled swords.

She’d be a very well trained sword fighter (obviously), and she’d be clever and studious and rule following and all that, but also with a layer of social detachment, as having 7-ish flailing death sticks following you and only just being under control (they’d definitely be uncontrollable with intense emotions/stress) isn’t the greatest way to make friends, and she’d be slightly socially awkward already (hence being picked on as a child. Obviously no one picks on her now, because of the swords, but she’s still outcast). This would lead to her being strong of character and high and mighty at times, but I think she’s VERY nerdy about swords, and is also interested in fencing and other blades. She’d be an absolute geek once she’s on the subject of something she’s interested in LOL

You may notice I’ve been referring to her with pronouns this whole time. That is because I am awful with names and do not have one for her. Suggestions are welcome.

Anyway yeah this is the closest format I have to oc dumps since I can’t draw lmao

Oh but yeah both the sword breaking and reforging would be incredibly painful, I cannot stress enough they are like limbs so it would be like a limb being broken or being grafted on to. Not fun.

[dahliawolfe]

Wings

Captain American fanfic. Not cannon. 

The shouting wakes you up with a start, and before your brain can catch up, your body is moving, throwing your only pair of jeans on, grabbing your sneakers and your backpack and racing for the door. Years of running had taught you to always be prepared. But fuck you, if you weren’t thrown off by the sight of…aliens?! invading the shitty pay by the week hotel you were camped out at. Making a quick decision, you head for the fire escape. And dammit, of course the windows are painted shut. Cheap bastards. You grab the closest thing to you, a chair, and hurl it through the window, following after it seconds later, making your descent.

And you’ve made it to the third floor when you saw the little girl. The little girl who was being held in a rapidly burning apartment by a scaly looking alien. And nope. Not your problem. But you freeze. “Fuuuck,” you mutter before throwing your weight into the window, reaching for the knife that you always keep tucked in between your shoulder blades. The alien hisses at you as you charge at it. The knife slashes its scaly skin, and your reward is a green ooze that sprays across your face. Trying not to gag, and knowing that you had done very little actual damage to the beast, you grab the little girl, sling her over your shoulder and head for the door; the alien blocking your path to the window. “Shit. Shit. Shit,” you hiss as you run down the rickety stairs of the hotel. You did not sign up for this. You just wanted a place to sleep, dammit. The lobby was swarming with…superheroes? What the hell? Shaking your head, and hoping to slide by unnoticed, you take to the edges of the room.

“Veronica! Oh my…! Baby!” a babbling woman exclaims, running towards you. She reeks of meth. The acrid cat piss smell stings your nose as she reaches for the kid on your back. You pull away hostilely.

“Hell no, Lady! Who the fuck are you?!”

“I’m her mom! Veronica, honey, come to Mommy,” she slurs, arms outstretched. And gods help her, the kid reaches out to the woman, just in time for you to see a fight coming your way. A large blonde dude in…chainmail? And a red robot guy are leading a huge alien straight down your path.

“Oh, for fucks sake,” you mutter, slinging the kid off of your shoulder and passing her to the woman. “Get your shit together, Woman. And run!” you order, shoving the two out of the way as a wall of muscle slams you into the wall. You hear a sickening crunch as you slide to the floor. But you don’t have long to rest as you see another alien heading towards the first. Struggling to your feet, you reach for a nearby crowd control bar and swing it into the gut of the alien. He hunches over before straightening and looking right at you. Well, shit. You had not thought that through. The alien swipes one hand toward you, cutting your cheek open and making you see red. “You fucker,” you swear, grabbing a sharp shard of glass to your left and charging at the creature, throwing your body weight into it, knocking it to the ground, where you stab and stab and stab, until strong hand lift you under your armpits. It's the blonde knight guy.

“That will be enough, Child. Get to safety,” he commands, putting you on your feet a few yards away.

“Chi-Child?! I am not a child! And I would be in safety if you assholes hadn’t come in here wrecking up the joint!” The man only bellows a laugh and turns away from you. You throw your hands up. “Whatever, I’m out of here.” And that’s when you’re swept off of your feet again, this time very high up. You look to see what has a death grip on your back, and well…it’s not good. A scaly alien sneers down at the crowd.

“Where’s your captain now?!” he gloats.

“Right here, Wise guy,” comes a voice, just as a shield is hurled you. You see the ground coming up to meet you, and you question how, you, of all people, would die by hitting the ground. But someone catches you midair. A large green man smiles evilly at you before gently placing you on the ground. “Nat, get her out of here,” the voice that had challenged the alien orders, and Apollo feels her hand get taken by another one, and she looks up to see two things; one, the most beautiful woman she has ever seen; and two,  a spear coming right toward them. Letting out a yelp, she dives in front of the woman, feeling the hot searing pain radiate down her side as the spear finds its mark.

“Well, shit,” you say, crumpling to the ground.

…

“Experimented on?” a voice questions as Apollo comes around.

“I think so, Cap. She’s littered in scars.” That’s when all of you senses come back to you. The smell of chemicals makes you sick to your stomach. You know that smell. The sanitary stench of a hospital. You jolt, vaulting off of the bed, landing solidly on your feet, facing the voices you heard, back to the nearest wall. And without your bidding, as they always do; some weird protective reflex; your wings unfurl from under your skin, the familiar burn that always accompanies them following closely behind. You crouch, making eye contact with…

“Captain Fucking America?” you exclaim.

“Language,” he chides. He’s one of the good guys. Well, at least you think so. But those types of guys had failed you before. Despite your adrenaline draining, and your wings tugging themselves back under your skin to rest along the back of your ribs, you resist. You don't know you're safe. You never know if you're safe. “What’s your name?” he entreats. You violently shake your head.

“Where’s my stuff? I’m leaving.”

“Hey, wait. Come on. We won’t hurt you here, Kid.” You bark a laugh.

“I’ve heard that before.”

“You’re still pretty roughed up,” he points out, and yeah, you know, the dull thud of pain when you breathe tells you that much.

“I heal quick. Perks of being like this,” you reply, softly rustling the bottom feathers on your grey and black ombre wings.

“You know, this is fascinating,” the other man speaks, stepping forward. A sharp snap of your wings warns him off. You usually have to hide your little secret, but now that the cat’s…bird’s? out of the bag, you feel like you can use them to your advantage. The guy in the glasses holds up his hands. “I’m Bruce. I’m a doctor.” When you recoil more violently at the comment, he frowns.

“Doc, why don’t you give us a minute?” the captain asks gently.

“Cap, she’s…”

“I know,” was the simple reply. You feel the blood leaking freely from your wound. You know that whatever they’d done to patch you up, hadn’t stuck. Might’ve if you had gone guns a blazing, but nonetheless, you know that you’re bleeding. And you know that while you do heal fast, you had been dealt and death blow, and you are damn lucky to be here. You also know that you have very little strength left in you, and that shit right there, that scares you more than anything. The doctor leaves. Without your permission, your wings retract, and you flop to the floor. The captain scoops you up seconds later. “Listen, I don’t know who hurt you. Or why they hurt you. But no one will ever touch you again. You’re safe here. And I know you don’t know me from Adam, but you can trust me. Now, I’m going to stay with you while the doc patches you up, then I’m going to get you cleaned up. And you’re going to get some rest. When you’re healed, if you still want to leave, I won’t stop you. Ok?”

How could you tell Captain America no?

…

The captain has you slung over his arms, bridal style, and he’s carrying you to his suite in the Avenger’s tower. He sits you softly on the edge of the sink as he runs a bath. Your body is sagging with exhaustion. You hadn’t slept more than two hours in months and hadn’t eaten real food in longer than that. And it’s getting to you. So, when the kind captain begins to lift your shirt over your head, you simply hold your arms up. He looks at you hesitantly, and you chuckle tiredly. “They don’t come out unless I need them,” you inform. He nods silently and rids you of the hospital scrubs tied loosely around your waist before lifting you and placing you in the warm water. His hands are gentle as they run over your scarred back.

“Who?” he asks quietly.

“Doctors. Scientists. Nuns. You name it. Being an orphan that’s…special, is a rough life.”

“Why?”

You shrug, sighing as he tilts your head back to wash your long cherry cola hair.

“You were a kid.”

“A kid with wings,” you correct, grabbing his arm for stability as he leans you further back.

“I gotcha,” he promises, holding you steady as he lathers your hair. “How did you get away?”

“I fought. They caught me a few times. But I always managed to escape again. It’s been two…no, three years since they found me. I’m honestly just waiting for the other shoe to drop before the lab coats converge again.”

“We won’t let them take you again. You have my word…”

“Apollo,” you supply.

“Apollo. That’s a pretty neat name,” he smiles down at you.

“It was Mary Catherine St. John. Orphanage named me when I was found. As an orphan, you get to choose what you want to be called when you turn 10. And I chose Apollo. Because they flew.” Your eyes had begun to droop.

“Well, I like Apollo much better. Ok, up we go,” he urged, helping you sit up. He lifts you from the water, swiftly wrapping a towel around you. You look at the bathwater in shame. It’s nearly brown from the filth that came off of your body. The captain slips on of his shirts over your head and scoops you up again. You are nearly asleep when he places you on the bed.

…

“She’s not a superhero,” Tony Stark argues the next morning. “She’s a human kid.”

“Actually,” you interject, forcing your wings to the surface. “I’m neither a kid, or completely human.” You sit, wings still spread, and finish your bacon. Tony stares at you, mouth agape. You roll your eyes.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you can touch them. You too, Doc,” you huff. Cap scowls at your language. “Also, I didn’t ask to be part of the Super Squad,” you add, reaching for more toast.

“That’s true. She didn’t. But, she is part of the team, whether she goes on missions or not,” Steve Rogers says, sipping his coffee.

“You can’t make those decisions!” Tony exclaims, pulling a little too roughly on one of Apollo’s feathers.

“Ow, Dick,” you mutter, flicking him.

“I’m the captain. I decide who’s on the team. And I say Apollo is.” There’s no room for argument, but when Tony opens his mouth to try, Natasha slaps his shoulder and shakes her head.

And that’s how you, freaky little bird/orphan/science experiment that you are, become an Avenger.

…

“Bucky? His name is Bucky?” you clarify. Because who names their kid Bucky.

“Yes. And he’s my best friend,” Cap replies. And you pout, cuz you’re supposed to be his best friend.

“Oh,” you answer softly, deftly stepping around the crack in the sidewalk.

“Hey. Come on, you’re my best girl,” Steve replies, chucking you under the chin. And as always, the words make your tummy do weird little flip flops.

“I don’t know how amenable Tony’s gonna be to you taking in the supersoldier who’s been trying to kill us for the last few days now.”

“That’s why we’re not gonna ask him,” he says simply, shrugging his shoulders.

…

You’re hurt. You know you’re hurt. But dammit, you have to find Cap. Sam was fine. Well, fine-ish, so now, you needed to find your leader. Letting your wings spread, you take to the air, scanning the ground for him. Until you spot him. He’s being dragged out of the river by that guy. The Winter Soldier. Bucky. You swoop down, feet landing lightly on the gravel shore. Bucky roughly drops Cap, gives you a scornful study, and takes off in the other direction, not once speaking to you. And injured though you might be, you limp to Cap, wrap your arms around his torso, and let your wings push hard against the atmosphere, lifting you into the sky. And damn, man. Who knew supersoldiers weighed so damn much. You make it to the tower, depositing Cap with a grunt, as your legs crumple beneath you, and you fall next to him on the roof.

…

Sam is off somewhere laying low, but you and Cap are never apart. Keeping your faces hidden, and staying on the move so Tony doesn’t find you. But Natasha does. And seeing her blatant flirting with Cap sets you on edge for some reason. So, while they’re on their little recon mission, you unfurl your wings and take to the sky, letting the wind catch the bottoms of your wings and lift you higher until you’re soaring, eyes closed. You land around dusk, making a small bed for yourself in the leaves under a maple tree and settle in. You’ll find Cap soon enough, but for now, he has Natasha. Your sleep is fitful to say the least, but the coolness of the night feels good against your skin.

∞

“You don’t understand, Nat. Apollo wouldn’t just leave. She knows that I need her safe.”

“Steve,” Natasha says softly, resting a hand on his shoulder as he huddles in Sam’s kitchen. “I’m sure everything is alright. Apollo is a good kid. Smart. She’ll come back.”

“Or Tony will find her. What then, Natasha? You think he won’t kill her for choosing my side?”

“Tony wouldn’t kill a kid, Steve. You know that.”

“Do I?”

…

Steve waits until Natasha is asleep before leaving the house, determined to find his girl.

∞

It’s nearing sunrise, when the nightmare finally jolts you awake. Instinctively, you reach for Cap. But he’s not there. You haven’t had to deal with nightmares alone in a long time, and you suddenly can’t breathe. You tuck yourself into a ball and sob against your knees, wishing Cap were with you.

∞

You’d once told him that you could only fly roughly 20 miles a day, so Steve was banking on those calculations when he began his search. The radius takes him to a large city on one side, and the mountains on the other. And he knows you wouldn’t choose the city, so he decides that the mountains would be his best bet. “Borrowing” a motorcycle from a townie, he makes his way to the mountains. 200 square miles. But come hell or high water, he will find you. He has to.

∞

The sobs have turned to whimpers by the time the sound of a motorcycle appears. You can only curl tighter, knowing that you are most certainly not in fighting shape at the moment.

“Apollo?” comes the query. And you let out a wail.  Because Cap is here. He found you. “Baby, are you hurt? Did you fall?” his voice is panicked, and his footsteps are racing towards you. He gently scoops you up, cradling you to his chest. You bury your face in his neck, sobbing wetly. “Hey, shh. It’s ok. I’m here, Darlin’. Everything’s ok now.” He leans against the tree, putting you on his lap, chest to chest, as he scans you for any obvious signs of injury. “You scared me to death, Apollo. Why’d you leave me like that?”

“Was-was gonna come back. Needa- needa be alone.”

“But you don’t like being alone, do you, Baby?” you vigorously shake your head, clutching at him. When did you become such a pussy? You’d been alone your whole life. Why did you suddenly need someone now?

Because it’s Cap the unhelpful part of your brain answers.

Cap places a firm hand under your chin, forcing you to look up at him. “Promise me, Apollo. Promise me you won’t do this again.”

“Pr-Promise. Don’t wanna leave Cap,” you swear. He gives you a gentle smile and places a kiss between your eyes.

“That’s my good girl. Now, when we get to Sam’s, you’re gonna tell me what’s got you so upset, then you’re gonna get your punishment and get some sleep. We got a lead today, and I’m not going without you.” You nod, letting him lift you and get on the bike, you still clinging to his neck. The word “punishment” doesn’t hit you until you’re almost to Sam’s.

…

“Thank gawd you found her!” Sam exclaims when you and Cap walk through the front door. Then he scoops you into a hug. After squeezing the breath out of you, Sam pulls away, ruffling your hair and reaching for his cup of coffee. Natasha gives you a smile, which you nod at, taking Cap’s hand back securely in your own. Her smile widens, and she gives you a nod, turning back to her paper.

“Sam, mind if we use your room for a bit? Apollo and I have a conversation that needs to happen,” Cap inquires. Sam waves you on dismissively. Cap leads you to the back of the house, shutting the door behind him. He sits on the bed, positioning you in front of him. “Now, Apollo, I never wanted to have to do this to you. But you’re mine, and I’m responsible for you. You made a mistake last night, didn’t you?” You nod, suddenly finding your shoes very interesting. “Words, Apollo.”

“Yes, sir,” you reply, feeling like the formality is needed.

“And you promised you won’t do it again. And I believe you, but I need to make sure you remember what’ll happen if you do. But first, you’re going to tell me why you left, AND why you were so upset when I found you.” Your lip wobbles. You definitely do not want to do any of that. “I’m waiting, Apollo,” he urges after your continued silence.

“I…I was upset,” you state, hoping it’ll be enough, but also knowing it won’t be.

“About?” You dig your toe into the carpet.

“Natasha.”

“Did Natasha do or say something bad to you?” he prods. You shake your head.

“She…You like her more than me.” You squeeze your eyes shut in humiliation. Because never in your 20 years, have you ever felt like more of a moron.

“Aww, Baby. That isn’t true. You’re my best girl. You know that.” You sniffle, opening your mouth to further your slide into mortification.

“But she’s prettier than me, and she’s older. And she knows more stuff. I can barely read.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true anymore, Cap had taught you how to read. “And she…she kept making you laugh and flirting with you. And you don’t need me anymore now that she’s here. She’s way better…” Cap lunges forward, pulling your chin up so he can look into his eyes. Blue eyes that shine with anger and passion.

“That is absolutely not true. I will always need you. You are the most beautiful girl that I have ever laid my eyes on. You’re smart as a whip, and I’d rather have you covering my six any day of the week. Don’t you ever say those things about yourself again, Apollo. I won’t have anyone speak badly about you, not even you.” He gives your chin one more squeeze before stepping away again. “Why were you crying, out there in the woods?”

“I-I had a nightmare, and you weren’t there to hold-hold me. And I was sc-scared.” He hums, stroking your cheek.

“In this family. Our family, we talk things through, Apollo. We don’t run away. And we certainly don’t put ourselves in danger. What you did was reckless, and it terrified me. And now, I’m going to give you your punishment and put you to bed because you’re drooping with exhaustion, and you need rest.” You nod solemnly.  

“Pants down and over my lap,” he orders. “Ten swats. No arguing.” And it’s said with such finality that you know he won’t budge. So, steeling yourself, you unzip your jeans and step out of them, kicking your shoes off with them. You stretch yourself over Cap’s lap and brace against his right thigh. “Thank you for not making this harder,” he praises, rubbing a soothing hand against the small of your back, where he’s hiked your shirt up.

And by the fifth swat, you’re absolutely sobbing. Snot is coating Cap’s jeans and your face. And you’re a mess. Immediately after the tenth, Cap scoops you into his arms, shushing you and kissing your temple. “Such a good girl,” he praises. “Always my good girl.”

Once you’ve mostly calmed down, Cap carries you to the bathroom, where he sits you on the sink and wipes your overheated face with a cool towel. Then, just as promised, he carries you to bed, tucking you under the covers and rubbing your back until you’re asleep.

…

“There’s no way in hell that 2 supersoldiers, 2 bird people, and a feisty red head are going to fit in this car,” you complain.

“Language, Apollo. Bucky, let Apollo sit on your lap,” Cap commands, sliding behind the wheel.

“Excuse me? That sounds unsafe and uncomfortable. No offense, Bucky.” Cap rolls his eyes.

“Buck, make sure she’s secure. Apollo, enough with the sass. Get in.” Sighing, you comply, sliding onto Bucky’s thick thighs. His arm wraps around your waist.

“Steve, drop me at the airport,” Natasha demands. You frown. She’s been acting sketchy.

“Taking a trip, Nat?”

“I need to keep Tony off of your trail for now. I can’t hold him off long.”

“Convenient,” you mumble, eliciting a chuckle from Bucky and a stern look from Cap.

…

“Dammit, Cap. I told you she was no good!” you rage, flapping your wings and scouting the ground below for escape routes for the rest of the team. Natasha had turned on all of you, going to Tony. So now, here you were, neck deep in shit; Clint hold up in a rooftop; Sam scratched to hell and back from one of his own wings failing; and you, Bucky, and Cap just trying to make it out alive. You know that if they catch Bucky, they will kill him. And the thought makes your gut twist. Cap had told you story after story of Bucky and their friendship, so even before you met him, you felt like you knew him. And now, he feels like an extension of you, much like Cap.

“Apollo, not now!” Cap barks.

“Fine, but women know these things. Veer left!” you yell, suddenly spotting a way out. Without question, they follow the order. “To your right! See it?! See the tunnel?!” Then suddenly a burning pain ricochets through your side. Immediately clamping a hand to it, you glance down. Your fingers are coated in blood. Those bastards shot you! “Fuck, ok, guys, I’m hit. I’m not going to be able to fly much longer. Keep going. The tunnel…” Your vision is blurring as another pain shoots through your hip. Then your arm. Then your thigh. Finally, something rips through your wing. And you know that’s it. You’re going down. You can hear Cap and Bucky yelling for you as you spiral down towards the ground. “Keep going,” you hiss one last time, landing roughly on a hill, rolling to the bottom.

∞

“Apollo!” he yells through the comm. “Dammit, answer me!” They haven’t stopped running.

“Steve, we gotta go find her!” Bucky shouts, making to turn around.

“NO! Keep going! Find us transport! I’ll find Apollo!” Bucky looks uncertain but nods, heading towards the tunnel. Steve turns on his heel. “Apollo, Baby, can you hear me?” Silence follows. “I’m coming, Doll. I’ll be right there.” He runs, making calculations in his head of where you had been heading. He’s nearly losing his mind when he finally spots you at the bottom of a steep hill. “Apollo!” He slides down the hill, landing next to you at the bottom. And what he sees makes him want to vomit. One of your beautiful wings is nearly severed, you’re covered in blood, and your breaths are shallow. He leans over you, brushing a hair behind your ear. “Oh, Baby,” he breathes. He begins to scoop you up. And your wings begin to retract, almost as if they can sense that you’re safe now. But the injured one snaps and falls limply to the ground. You jolt in his arms. And he steels himself against the tears that are determined to fall.

“Steve, I’ve got a Jeep! Meet me outside the tunnel when you find her!” Bucky’s voice exclaims in his ear.

“On my way, Buck,” the captain replies solemnly. He carries you, cradled to his chest until he reaches the Jeep.

“Shit,” Bucky hisses. Steve slides in the vehicle, holding Apollo close as Bucky peels out of the place. “What are we gonna do, Steve? She looks bad.” Steve’s always believed in God, and even now, ever since he lost your voice over the comm, he’s been praying. But a thought hits him.

“THOR!” he exclaims loudly, making Bucky jump.

“What the hell, Steve?!”

“Thor! If you can hear me, man, we really need you!” Steve continues shouting into the sky.

“Who the hell…” A sudden burst of lightning causes Bucky to swerve, barely missing Thor, who has landed in the middle of the road. He throws the door open and rushes from the vehicle, Apollo still caged in his arms.

“Thor, you have to help her!” Thor who had been smiling, frowns at the sight of Apollo. The demi-god nods.

“We shall take her to Asgard. The healers will help her.”

“Buck, let’s go!” the captain shouts. Bucky, to his credit, follows his friend’s order, despite being confused as hell.  Thor holds the troupe close as he takes them back to his home.

…

“I believe her other wing will heal, Captain,” a healer informs him hours later.

“Heal? It fell off,” Steve reminds.

“Yes, but I believe with time, it will regrow.”

“And the other injuries?”

“Yes. We are working on the young bird-girl. She will live.” Steve curls his lips in distaste at her description of you, but doesn’t say anything.

∞

You feel a dull throbbing throughout your body as you open your eyes. Cap’s blonde head is resting gently on your arm.

“Cap,” you rasp. His head immediately jerks up.

“Apollo,” he sighs in relief. “Babygirl, I was so scared. How do you feel?”

“Buzzy,” you answer truthfully. Steve laughs.

“The healers fixed the most of the damage, so it’s probably the magic.”

“Healers?”

“Buck and I brought you to Asgard. Thor had his best healers work on you.”

“I’m in Asgard?!” you exclaim, struggling to sit up.

“Hey, hey. Stay still. You’re not completely out of the woods yet,” he demands, gently easing you back on to the bed.

“But, Dude, we’re in Asgard! I can’t stay in this bed all day while I’m on another planet!” You hear a husky chuckle from the other side of the room and look up to see Bucky smiling at you.

“Glad to see you awake,” he states, coming forward.

“Hey, Buck. I see you guys made it out ok. The winged wonder strikes again,” you joke, but both men duck their heads. “What?” you demand.

“Apollo, when you were shot…You…” Cap began.

“I what?!” your stomach is beginning to sink.

“You lost one of your wings.” And no! Because they were part of you. Fuck knows many scientists had tried to rip them out of you before, but they were still there.

“No,” you deny on a whisper.

“The healers think it’ll grow back,” Cap says, gently stroking your cheek.

“My wing?” you still can’t wrap your head around it. It couldn’t just be gone.

“Yes, Baby,” Steve says, kissing your forehead. Bucky clears his throat.

“I’m gonna leave you two alone for a bit,” he adds, leaning to kiss your cheek and leaving the room. Cap simply draws you into his arms, whispering sweet words in your ear until you fall into a teary sleep.

…

You convalesce on Asgard for nearly two weeks, before Thor takes you back to Earth. In that time, despite their best efforts, Cap and Bucky can’t get you out of your grief. You had lost something that at once you had hated, but now knew was the only reliable thing you had ever had. And sure, the healers thought it would grow back, but it wouldn’t be the same. It would never be the same.

…

Cap had helped you shower and was now taking off his boots at the end of the bed. The safe house you guys are in Berlin is nice. It’s clean, and has an amazing view. But you haven’t spent much time outside of the bed, so you haven’t even explored the place yet.

“Ok. That’s it,” Cap sighs. You look up at him as he approaches. “I haven’t seen that smile in two weeks. And it’s killing me.” He slides into the bed, facing you, framing you with his legs. “Talk to me, Darlin’. Tell me what’s going through that pretty little head of yours. Let Daddy make it better.” You two had never really discussed it before, but the title suited him. He took care of you. Held you when you were sad. Rocked you to sleep when you had had a nightmare. Bathed you. Spoiled you. Loved you. Still, you can’t help the tear that rolls down your face.

“My w-wing,” you whimper pathetically.

“Oh, Sweetheart,” he coos, drawing you into his chest. “I know it’s so hard for you, Angel. But it’s all gonna be ok. I’m here. Bucky’s here. And you’re wing will come back.”

“But-But it won’t be the same!” you wail. You hadn’t cried a tear since the first night in Asgard, but you need to let it out.

“Shh. Shh. It’s ok. It’s ok.” And he rocks you. He rocks you until your sobs silence and your breathing evens. And then, he tips your chin up, meeting your eyes as his lifts land softly onto yours. And you have your first kiss, courtesy of Captain America, himself.

“Let me help you feel better, Baby.”

[calpalirwin]

Betrothed

Summary: Lady Keira finds herself betrothed to Lord Ashton.

A/N: Last part of my Game of Thrones AU. Be sure to read parts 1 and 2!

Content: Medieval stuffs.

Word Count: 2.3k

And away, and away we go!

__

Part 3

“My lady!” Ashton’s squire burst into the dining hall, breathless. Ashton had been knighted the evening after their arrival at Riverton in preparation for the wedding and subsequent acquisition of title as Lord and Lady of House Irwin, and as such had been given a squire.

“Yes, Bryen?” Keira asked, smiling softly at him. She had spent her first week studying the people closest to her and Ashton, and that meant Bryen Hawthorne. He was a young lad of barely fifteen, but the boy was more than eager to prove his value to his lord by doing every task at a literal run. She’d grown accustomed to his smiling face and the way shocks of his black hair would flop about when he nodded too fast at a request before dashing off with a quick “Right away, my lord.”

“Lord. Ashton,” he panted as he caught his breath, “is requesting your presence. He’s down in the training yard.”

Keira pushed back her chair, rising to her feet. “The training yard?” she wondered aloud.

“Said something about a surprise, my lady. And that I should send for you at once.”

The lady chuckled. “That man and his surprises.”

~~~

She followed Bryen out to the training yard where Ashton was conversing with three other men she had come to learn were set to become his small council. “M-my lord,” Bryen stammered, both announcing his arrival with Keira and interrupting the conversation at hand.

Ashton’s head snapped to attention, the markings of a scowl ready to lecture his squire for not waiting for a break in the conversation. The scowl however, turned quickly into a grin as he took notice of Keira. “Ah, thank you, Bryen. Keira, you remember Lords Calum, Luke, and Michael, yes?”

“My lords,” she curtsied in greeting.

“My lady,” they chorused, bowing back.

“Bryen spoke of a surprise?” she asked Ashton.

“Yes. Michael, if you would.”

Michael, set to become Ashton’s lead general, turned towards the table that was usually home to an assortment of dull practice weapons, but today housed a single shortsword and two matching daggers. The green-eyed blonde picked up the shortsword and offered it to her.

Keira gasped as the weight dropped in her hand, expecting it to clatter on the dusty ground. Instead, she found the blade to be light and balanced, like it was crafted just for her hand. The pieces finally clicked together as she recalled Ashton’s mention of teaching her how to fight, and his hushed conversations with the blacksmith and master-at-arms. “It’s not too heavy is it? I had the daggers made in case it was. Or we could try another weapon if you find none of this suits you. I just remember you admiring my own sword and dagger that I thought you might like some of your own.” The words tumbled from Ashton’s mouth as his cheeks flushed and his friends held back their laughter at his apparent embarrassment.

She tried her best to move her arms the way she had seen Ashton do so when he trained, causing all four men to jump back and out of her way as the blade sliced through the air.

“Oi!” Calum exclaimed, looking over at Ashton to see if he would step in before his friends got hacked to bits by accident.

“It’s dull, right mate?” Luke asked, his blue eyes sharp as they focused on the sword’s wild movements.

“Stance and technique needs work,” Michael critiqued.

“Careful not to nick anybody. I had it sharpened this morning,” Ashton warned her.

Calum, Luke, and Michael jumped further away. “You gave an inexperienced swordsman a sharp blade?!” they thundered.

Ashton howled with laughter as Keira continued to test the weight, liking the feel of it more and more with each pass. “How’s it feel?” he asked, while his friends continued to glare at him and question his sanity.

“I expected it to be heavier,” she answered. 

“A good sword matches the strength of the one weilding it. Too heavy and you won’t be able to use it. Too light and it’ll fly from your hand, leaving you unarmed,” Michael told her.

“Precisely,” Ashton nodded at Michael’s words. “Focus, Keira. You want it to feel like an extension of your arm.”

She closed her eyes and made a few more small passes, really paying attention to the weight of it as it moved with her. “It feels…” she started, pausing to find the right way to phrase herself. “Like I’m passing my hand through water. No resistance.”

Ashton was smiling at her when she opened her eyes again. “Perfect. That’s exactly what I was hoping for. Ready for your first lesson?”

~~~

“Sideface!” Michael directed from beside Keira. “You make yourself a much smaller target that way and your opponent has to work that much harder. As the less skilled fighter, your advantage is in the long game. Tire them out.”

She shifted her feet and lunged at Ashton. He effortlessly blocked her attack, knocking the weapon from her hands. He had been practicing with her for the better part of three weeks now, with Michael coaching her from the side. Being her practice partner had three benefits for Keira. One: no one dared question what the lord was doing parrying with his lady. Two: while he trusted Michael to coach and direct Keira, he only trusted himself to partner up with her, which meant she she got to spend a lot of uninterrupted time with Ashton. Which lead to three: she had all the time in the world to admire the way he held the practice shield and blunt practice sword, while imaging how handsome he looked in his full set of armor. “Also focus on keeping your face blank. You twist your mouth at the edges and your eyebrows furrow. I know your attack before you even move,” Ashton chided with a playful smile.

Keira felt her chest heave with her breaths as she forced her face to relax. Her eyes darted to where her sword lay in the dust and back at Ashton who followed her movements. She knew he would allow her to reach for the sword and then go in for an attack with another quip about not letting her guard down. Another steady breath and she remembered the daggers at her side. She fought back the grin, and with her eyes locked on Ashton, she reached for the sword. He moved with her and the shield dropped ever so slightly in preparation for her sword. In a blink, she changed her course, reaching for her daggers, placing one up against his ribcage and the other pressing into the base of his throat. Ashton dropped his shield and sword, raising his hands in surrender as he backed away. “Yield,” he told her, smiling proudly while Michael laughed his approval, “Good one, my lady.”

“Now if only I could find my own handsome lord to teach me to fight like that,” a dreamy sigh spoke and Keira whirled around to find Lilliyan Malver resting her arms along the fenced yard, admiring Calum as he practiced with Luke a few paces away.

“Lilliyan!” Keira rushed over to wrap her friend in a hug. “Oh, how I’ve missed you!”

The other lady laughed as she returned the embrace. “Well, I couldn’t very well miss your wedding now, could I? Although, you could have warned me that you had such a handsome council.”

“My lords, might I introduce you all to Lady Lilliyan of House Malver,” Keira began and Calum and Luke stopped their battle to come join the ladies along with Ashton and Michael. “These are Lords Calum, Luke, and Michael. And you’ve already met Lord Ashton.”

“My lady,” the men bowed and Lilliyan curtsied in kind.

“I trust you had a pleasant journey?” Ashton asked.

“Yes, the view was wonderful riding up. Although not nearly as good as the view inside your walls, Lord Ashton,” Lilliyan replied, her eyes still fixed on Calum. “Keira tells me you’re on the small council?”

“Lady Keira would be correct,” Calum nodded.

“Yes, I remember now,” Lilliyan smiled flirtatiously. “The married off lead general, Michael Clifford. The master of coin, and betrothed, Luke Hemmings. And Lord Ashton’s right hand man, Calum Hood, who still has yet to find a lady of his own. Pity… Say, Keira, would you happen to know of any eligible ladies who might be suited for such a handsome bachelor such as Lord Calum?”

Keira smiled brightly, playing along with her friend’s game. “Why yes. Matter of fact, word has it that Lord Malver is looking for a match for his eldest daughter.”

“Well it might be in Calum’s best interest if he were to send Father a raven, expressing his interest. Do you think he would teach me to fight like your lord does?”

“Oi!” Calum scoffed at Ashton. “Training all the ladyfolk now, are we?”

“Afraid you’ll get bested?” Luke teased.

“I’m sure Michael has much more pressing duties to attend to,” Calum deflected.

“She’s quite good with a bow,” Keira boasted.

“I’d pay my weight in gold to see Calum get bested by a bow,” Michael marveled at the thought.

“You’d be wise to consider it, Calum,” Ashton told the man. “It’s a relief on the mind to know that your lady is always in capable hands- her own. Plus, who better to learn from than by a skilled archer like yourself?”

“My lord, you flatter me,” Calum said with biting sarcasm and a roll of his eyes. “Alright, someone fetch Lady Lilliyan a bow.”

“And perhaps your writing material as well?” Keira pressed.

“Yes, yes. That too.”

~~~

“You look beautiful, Keira,” Ashton murmured low for only Keira to hear as he wrapped the cloak around her shoulders.

She didn’t have time to respond as the septon continued with the ceremony, so she merely smiled, hoping that Ashton understood the thought she wasn’t speaking. Which was that he too, looked as handsome as ever in his long sleeved, forest green overcoat that highlighted the green flecks in his eyes, and was fastened shut with golden clasps that glistened in the afternoon light.

“Look upon each other and say the words.”

“Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger,” they spoke in unison. “I am yours, and you are mine, from this day, until the end of my days.”

“With this kiss,” Ashton continued, “I pledge my love.” His lips were soft as they pressed against hers, and while the kiss was brief, she felt the power behind it, like he was willing her to believe that they could be more than an arrangement.

~~~

Keira was watching the crowd enjoy the feast, particularly amused by Calum and Lillyan’s growing affections. “Think they’re all distracted enough that we might sneak away?” Ashton’s voice was low in her ear.

“What about the bedding ceremony?” she asked, feeling a knot in her stomach tighten at the very concept. While she certainly planned to consummate her marriage to her new husband, the idea of it being public knowledge was unsettling.

Ashton waved a hand dismissively. “There will be no ceremony. Our chambers are adjoined should you ever wish to spend your night elsewhere, as it were.”

“Mmm, so that’s where that door leads,” she teased. She had already known about this fact, having explored every inch of her room in the early morning after her arrival, and reveling in the fact that one door had opened to reveal another bedchamber, with Ashton sleeping soundly.

“Something tells me you already knew that though,” he teased back, having caught her on more than one occasion admiring him from the doorway when she thought him to be asleep.

“Perhaps I’ll find my way there.”

“Perhaps I’ll be waiting when you do.”

“And where do you propose we sneak off to now?”

“I hear the beach is lovely this time of day.”

~~~

“I know I mentioned it already, but you really do look beautiful,” he confessed as the water rushed over their bare feet, soaking the edges of their clothes.

“And you look quite handsome yourself, Ashton. More so than usual,” she returned the compliment.

“Ah, so you do think me to be handsome.”

“Among other things.”

Hmm? How do you mean?”

“You mentioned once that you don’t wish for this to be a matter of business. That it hardly seemed fair that our marriage should be viewed as another duty to attend to.”

“Yes. I believe I also mentioned that I only wish for you to be content here, and that I enjoy your company. But what does that have to do with how you think of me?”

“It has everything to do with how I think of you. It is one thing to say you wish for me to be content. It is another to consistently go out of your way to ensure it. And from showing me this beach to probably defying everyone close to you in order to both craft me my own set of weapons and then teach me how to use them… well it shows me that you're a man of your word. A quality I greatly admire.”

“A man is only as good as his word.”

“That may be so. The point remains however, that I long had little interest in being a lady because I envied those who got to marry for love.”

“And has your interest since changed?”

“Very much so. See, I found myself betrothed to a lord with much to offer in terms of prestige and title. And while he easily could have been a stubborn lord who viewed his lady as a mere plaything meant to please him, that wasn’t the what happened. In addition to being charming and handsome, he is kind and wise. Any lady would be a fool not to love him. And, I’m no fool, Ashton.”

Rather than speak, he decided to let his actions do the talking as he ducked his head to kiss her, much like he had before at the ceremony. This time though, his arms wrapped around her lower back, holding her tightly as her eyes fluttered shut and she melted into him. Fuck duty, they both thought, love was far better.

__

Tag List

@frontmanash​ @goeatsomelife​ @flameraine​ @here-for-the-uproars​ @cxddlyash​ @1-irwin-94​ @sparkling-calm​ @tea4sykes​ @youngblood199456​ @5-seconds-of-obsession​ @gosh-im-short​ @aquarius-hood1996​ @talkfastromance4​ @itjustkindahappenedreally​ @philthepegacorn​ @boomerash​ (and @sexgodashton​ because I thought you’d like to read the rest)

[crackimagines]

To the End of a Dream (evil!Byleth AU)

AU Masterlist Here!

Withering Flower - FINALE (Part 1)

With the Knights of Nemesis retreating from Gronder and about to activate the Javelin of Liberation, Dimitri, Edelgard, and Claude leave the Church forces behind to pursue Byleth.

Their final clash will be at Garreg Mach.

-----

The Elites of the Fell Star Journal - “Second battle of Garreg Mach”

Having everything end where our plans began.

There was no need for anyone to point out the irony of the situation. 

Not only was the Empire attacking us, but the Kingdom and Alliance and even the damned Church raised arms against us, and only us.

One way or another that day, we all thought the same thing.

“This will finally end when hundreds of us lay dead at either side.”

-----

Byleth was in the classroom organizing his papers when he heard the doors open.

(Byleth) “Hm? Oh, class.”

The Black Eagles class walked up to him, looking very excited.

(Byleth) “What’s with the smile on everyone’s faces?”

(Dorothea) “Well, professor! The ball is tomorrow!”

(Edelgard) “Hah, I have no worthwhile memories of such an event, yet I am still looking forward to it.”

(Hubert) “As am I, in the sense that I look forward to destroying all the unworthy suitors that would swarm Lady Edelgard.”

(Ferdinand) “I admit, Edelgard is adorable, however I think I am far superior on the dance floor!”

(Dorothea) “You’re not a bad dancer Ferdie but you have some moves that are...hard to watch.”

(Linhardt) “I also know how to dance...in theory. Maybe I should participate as well.”

(Bernadetta) “N-NOT ME! You wouldn’t catch me dancing no sooner than you’d see a fish swimming through the sky!”

(Caspar) “You do tend to flop around like a fish on land after all! Though, speaking of it, do we get to choose who we dance with and stuff? I wonder who I’ll ask...”

(Petra) “I will fight with all I have!”

(Byleth) “Er...I don’t think fighting is what you’ll be doing, Petra-”

(Dorothea) “So, professor, got anyone in mind?~”

Byleth raised his eyebrow at her.

(Byleth) “I...don’t think I’m going to dance, I’m a mercenary not a-”

(Ferdinand) “No, you’re not a mercenary either, professor! You’re our teacher!”

(Bernadetta) “I-I won’t be dancing but, I’m sure watching you would be interesting!”

(Edelgard) “Our professor ball dancing?” Snrrk!

(Byleth) “I-I can dance! At least...I think I can?”

(Caspar) “You mean those ‘dances’ you do with the other mercenaries? That’s drunk dancing!”

(Hubert) “Seeing our professor ‘drunk dance’ at a ball as fancy as this would be very entertaining? May I humbly request you do this?”

(Byleth) “Absolutely not.”

Everyone began chatting about the dance, Byleth’s dancing skills and who they were going to ask to dance.

Edelgard watched the class engage in such a lively manner, it brought a smile to her face.

(Edelgard) “Excuse me, sorry to change the subject but I have a proposition. Five years from tomorrow, let’s all agree to meet up again!”

(Caspar) “Like a class reunion? That’s a great idea!”

(Petra) “Yes, you will get to see how much growing I have done! This is a good idea!”

(Byleth) “Five years time? Hah, I wonder how all you kids will be five years from now.”

(Linhardt) “And you won’t be enjoying a cozy retirement by then, professor?”

(Byleth) “Hah, not likely being honest. Though, no matter what I’ll be, I’ll be right back here in time.”

(Edelgard) “It’s a promise, professor. Don’t you forget it!”

-----

(Edelgard) “Five years...”

(Dimitri) “El?”

(Edelgard) “O-Oh, Dimitri. Sorry I...”

He stood next to Edelgard, looking up at the monastery.

(Dimitri) “We cannot turn the hands of time back to what it once was.”

(Edelgard) “I know but...maybe if I had done something different...Byleth wouldn’t be what he is now. If I had never started the war then...Maybe we could have all lived in peace together-”

(Claude) “What’s done is done, Edelgard.”

He walked up beside her, looking up with the two.

(Claude) “Much as I would have loved to live a life of friendship, reality doesn’t work that way. All we can do now is try to right our wrongs.”

(Dimitri) “No matter what, we’ll stay alive long enough to fix this world, together.”

(Edelgard) “...Together.”

(Claude) “I like the sound of that. But, right now we gotta hurry. We’ll be within Garreg Mach in an hour...”

(Edelgard) “Byleth...”

(Everyone) “...”

(Edelgard) “Alright. Let us put an end to it, once and for all.”

...

Byleth stood near the gates watching the three armies converge on their location.

(Soldier) “Sir, the Javelin of Liberation will be activating soon. All of the main forces who haven’t rebelled are out here in the gates.”

He nodded.

Ever since the massive casualties at Gronder, their morale was shaken and started to question their loyalty.

The fact that Shamir, Alois, and Leonie had defected did not help easing their fears.

There was an uprising within the barracks that had to be contained. No one had time to properly kill them.

(Soldier) “If I may sir?”

(Byleth) “Go ahead.”

(Soldier) “I don’t think there’s much chances of us surviving this fight, so you need to get to a safespot and ensure that the Javelin activates.”

Byleth turned to the soldier.

(Byleth) “You are right but...Not being with my men in this battle would surely break mora-”

(Soldier) “We’re all dying for this cause, one way or another. For us loyalists, I’d be more comfortable knowing our deaths ensured victory.”

Byleth looked at the armies who were getting closer, seeing Edelgard leading everyone alongside Dimitri and Claude.

(Byleth) “...Understood. Sothis watch over you all.”

The soldier nodded, and started directing commands to the others, preparing for battle.

Byleth went to the roof to watch the Javelin’s progress on activation.

The main core was in the Tombs where he found the Sword of the Creator, near the chapel.

(Byleth) “All of this blood I have shed...All the lives lost. All will soon be forgiven for everyone...”

...

(Dimitri) “Even though he is our old friend, we must not go easy today...”

(Claude) “As long as we pull off the victory, doesn’t matter how.”

(Edelgard) “Our victory must be absolute, no matter what it may take...”

Kingdom, Alliance, and Empire soldiers drew their swords, the House Leaders retainers coming up to them.

(Dedue) “We all are ready to lay down our lives to stop this madness.”

(Hilda) “Speak for yourself! I don’t plan on dying. I plan on kicking their butts, and living to tell the tale!”

(Hubert) “An inelegant way of putting it, but something I agree with nevertheless.”

...

The Blue Lions slowly drew out their weapons.

(Sylvain) “Can’t say that this is where I imagined the war taking us but...I’m glad we’re all together today.”

(Ingrid) “I will protect my homeland, and my people!”

(Felix) “Tch...If I die here, then the Old Man would never let me hear the end of it...”

(Annette) “My father is gone, but I will not be losing anyone else today!”

(Mercedes) “I’ll protect everyone, even if it means losing my own life!”

(Death Knight) “You will not be losing it when I am around, because I will make sure you die by my hands...”

(Ashe) “Lonato, Christophe, everyone...Today, we’ll make things right for everyone!”

...

The Golden Deers all stood behind Hilda.

(Marianne) “After seeing so much death firsthand, I now realize how precious life is. I won’t let everyone be robbed of such a wonderful thing!”

(Raphael) “I got my little sister, and she sure as heck isn’t going to get killed by this weird Javelin thing if I have anything to say about it!”

(Ignatz) “I’ll protect my family, and all of ours!”

(Lorenz) “What kind of noble would I be if I let a tragedy such as this slide? It is my honor to-”

(Lysithea) “Put a sock in it, would you?...Hmph, I’m not sure I have long to live but, I won’t be letting it end early!”

...

The Black Eagles Strike Force looked down sadly.

(Linhardt) “To think this is where 5 years would put us...”

(Bernadetta) “This one time, I won’t run away. If I die today, well...At least I know it was for all of you.”

(Caspar) “Randolph...even though I didn’t know you that well, I’ll make the professor pay for what he’s done to you, and your sister!”

(Dorothea) “Professor...”

(Ferdinand) “I am conflicted as well but, I will be protecting all of our homes.”

(Petra) “Whether it be Brigid or Fodlan, protect them I shall!”

...

(Edelgard) “Hubert. From the schematics and plans Leonie told us, you and the other retainers will lead the students to the core.”

(Hubert) “And you’ll be going for the control room where Byleth is, correct?”

She nodded.

(Hilda) “We’ll get it done, don’t you worry Miss Edelgard!”

(Dedue) “Leave it to us.”

Everyone looked back to the gates and took a deep breath.

Everything they did here would decide the fate of everyone.

[Apex of the World (Rain) - Fire Emblem Three Houses] 

(Edelgard) “FORWARD, NOW!”

(Dimitri) “FOR HONOR!”

Claude motioned forward, and charged with everyone else.

Demonic Beasts came barreling out of the gate, running at a full tilt sprint at them.

Dimitri jumped into the air slammed the lance straight into its head, making it stop and trip over, the corpse now acting as a mini shield for everyone.

The second beast tried going for Claude, only to miss as his Wyvern flew into the air, letting Claude land a shot in the eye.

Hilda, Lorenz, and Ignatz attacked from the sides, sticking their weapons into its head as it tried to break free from the barrage.

Marianne and Lysithea finished it off with a combination of holy and dark magic, burning parts of the body off or completely disintegrating it.

The third beast swung its claws at Edelgard, which was blocked by a magical barrier that reflected it back.

She stood still readying her axe as the rest of the class charged in front of her.

Caspar grabbed onto its head while it was recoiling, and started punching it in the eye, with Hubert, Dorothea, and Linhardt keeping it down with magic.

Ferdinand, Petra, and Bernadetta began taking down the soldiers that were accompanying the beasts and were eventually joined in by the others.

The Blue Lions rushed into the town with Dimitri, seeing the soldiers in formation, walking towards them.

(Ingrid) “RIGHT AND LEFT FLANKS!”

Soldiers emerged from the houses, catching several Kingdom soldiers off guard and killed them.

The Death Knight was almost caught off guard by two soldiers, but his horse leaped back, and cut both their heads off with his scythe.

(Dimitri) “KEEP AN EYE ON THE HOUSES, SOME ARE IN HIDING!”

Dimitri swiped his lance upwards, cutting off the limbs of one knight as he helped one of his own up.

The rest of the classes joined in, with troopers on all sides pouring from the other entrances.

(Nemesis Knight 1) “THEY’RE IN, SHUT THE GATES!”

The Gates closed behind Edelgard, seeing that a good portion of her soldiers were still out there, alongside Claude’s and Dimitri’s.

Claude’s Wyvern landed on a porch right in front of the gate and motioned to everyone.

(Claude) “PREVENT ANY REINFORCEMENTS FROM COMING IN OUTSIDE, AND FIND A WAY TO BLAST THESE GATES OPEN!”

(Alliance Captain) “Yes, Milord!”

Claude nodded and flew back into the fight that was ensuing in the town.

Felix and Sylvain struck down a soldier trying to charge Annette and Mercedes who were trying to cast a spell.

As another squad tried to come at them from behind, Ingrid swooped in, knocking them all back with her Pegasus and skewered one of the soldiers on her lance, making her drop it and pulling out a sword.

Annette and Mercedes shot a line of ice spikes that shot out of the ground, sending a battalion flying into the buildings around them.

Ashe took out the enemy snipers trying to shoot Ingrid, and Dedue protected him from any attackers coming from behind. 

A soldier turned the corner and ran straight into Dedue’s shield, making him kick the soldier down, tumbling onto other soldiers falling at the bottom.

Once the Town Square was clear, they all moved to the gates.

However, more and more soldiers began to surround them.

(Dimitri) “Damn, there’s no end to them!”

Dimitri cut down several soldiers, twirling his lance and impaling a soldier behind him without turning to look at him.

Edelgard crushed a soldier completely into the concrete, breaking it and making blood splatter everywhere as Hubert shot a fireball into the building, making everything inside explode.

A soldier opened the door from the building, completely on fire as he fell to the ground dead.

(Edelgard) “We will not be able to make it to Monastery at this rate!”

(Hilda) “Claude, take Dimitri and Edelgard to the monastery, there’s no time to wait up on us!”

They all looked back to their retainers, realizing if they had any chance, they had to be left behind.

(Dedue) “Your highness, go!”

(Hubert) “We have no intention of dying just yet!”

(Hilda) “GO YOU IDIOT!”

Claude nodded, and had Dimitri and Edelgard hop on.

(Claude) “This ride’s gonna be really bumpy, so hang on!”

His Wyvern shot off towards the Monastery, leaving everyone behind.

(Dedue) “Now, it’s up to us!”

The soldiers who accompanied the classes were finally wiped out by the overwhelming numbers of Knights of Nemesis, who slowly began to surround them.

(Hilda) “Looks like they still haven’t found a way to enter in yet! We need reinforcements!”

(Hubert) “EVERYONE, HOLD YOUR GROUND!”

All the classes stood back to back, drawing out their weapons as they moved closer in.

(Ingrid) “So many of them...!”

(Lorenz) “I admit, I’m more than a little worried!”

(Hilda) “I never thought I’d be dying back at the schoolgrounds!”

(Dedue) “How about side by side with your classmates?”

(Hilda) “...No!”

(Hubert) “Both of you be quiet, we need a plan!”

(Bernadetta) “You know what...?!”

Everyone turned to Bernadetta who grasped her bow firmly.

(Bernadetta) “TO HELL WITH ALL OF YOU, NONE OF YOU ARE GONNA KILL ANY OF US TODAY!”

She took the chance to fire her arrow straight through someone’s head, making the soldiers flinch.

(Death Knight) “Well said, little one! General Vestra, you have your plan!”

Before they could react, the Death Knight jumped into the crowd, swinging his sycthe left and right and decapitating and chopping people into pieces.

Now, the rest of the class began attacking, charging and making their enemies back up in fear.

Ashe and Petra pulled out a sword and started trading blows with anyone who got too close to their circle, followed by Felix and Sylvain.

Annette and Mercedes went back into the circle as everyone was keeping the close combat soldiers at bay, alongside Marianne, Lysithea, Dorothea, Linhardt and Hubert.

Spells ranging from healing to offensive were being cast, keeping everyone in fighting shape as they slowly turned the odds back into their favor.

Ingrid grabbed Ignatz by the hand and onto her Pegasus, leading them towards archers who were about to fire into the crowd.

Ignatz dropped down and sliced most of their bows in half, with one archer being able to shoot into the crowd.

Dedue grabbed his shield and deflected an arrow that was about to hit HIlda.

(Dedue) “Ineffective!”

(Hilda) “Thanks!”

She said cheerfully as she swung her axe down, cutting someone in half, and kicking the legs toward a crowd.

Caspar and Raphael used their gauntlets to pulverize the enemies, charging straight in together, crushing heads and stabbing through stomachs.

A group tried to gang up on Raphael, who grabbed one of the soldiers by the legs and swung his body like a weapon, sending troopers flying back from the sheer force.

Ferdinand and Lorenz had to get off their horses to fight in such close quarters, elegantly dodging with their lances and striking back, almost as if they were fencing instead.

The more that everyone cut down, the more soldiers that took their place coming in.

(Ashe) “S-So many!”

(Dedue) “WHERE ARE THE REINFORCEMENTS?!”

As if on cue, one of the gates close by completely exploded, shooting debris all over the floor.

Everyone stopped fighting and looked towards the noise, unsure of whose side it was.

(Nemesis Knight) “That came from the barracks we had in town!”

More Knights of Nemesis emerged from the smoke, raising their weapons.

The students clenched their teeth, raising their weapons as the Knights of Nemesis started to cheer.

Their cheering stopped when they saw Thunder Catherine step out in front of them.

(Catherine) “Sorry to keep you all waiting!”

An arrow flew out of the smoke, hitting a soldier dead in the eye, letting the Knights with Catherine charge out into the fray.

They were joined by Knights of Seiros, adding more to the chaos and confusion.

(Nemesis Knight) “DAMN IT, THE DEFECTORS GOT OU-AUGH!”

A soldier had an axe thrown into his chest, and another was taken out by a woman on horseback.

(Shamir) “Looks like we made it in time.”

(Alois) “Had to make a quick detour!”

(Leonie) “Come on, the Monastery guards will be too busy to deal with us!”

The classes looked off into the distance and saw smoke coming from Garreg Mach.

Even the demonic beasts were having a hard time dealing with the Defectors.

(Shamir) “The beasts we made were ordered not to attack our own forces in the event someone possessed them or Those Who Slither were still around. Obviously, that came to bite them in the ass.”

(Hilda) “Then what are we waiting for, let’s get a move on!”

Everyone nodded, and left the fighting to the soldiers, running towards Garreg Mach.

Catherine was leading the charge, cutting down anyone foolish enough to get in her way, with the classes coming in right behind her.

(Alois) “We’re heading towards the chapel’s Tomb! That’s where the core is!”

Everyone nodded and made a mad dash for the chapel.

Able to run through most of the mayhem with the Loyalists and Defectos fighting each other, they ran down the stairs and saw the core.

It was a massive glowing crystal that was so bright, it almost illuminated the entire tomb.

(Leonie) “There it is, let’s go!”

(Dedue) “A moment, Leonie.”

(Leonie) “Huh?”

(Hilda) “Where are the guards at?”

Everyone remained silent until they saw a shadowy figure form in front of the crystal.

(Hubert) “That sword shape!”

Catherine turned her attention to the weapon the figure was holding.

(Catherine) “The Sword of the Creator! Damn it, it’s Byleth!”

(Linhardt) “N-No it isn’t! Look at the shape of that person!”

(Death Knight) “It is someone worse...”

The core pulsated, and now lit the entire room up to where everyone could see the figure clear as day.

...

“Who...WHO ARE YOU ALL?!”

(Mage) “Sir, the ressurection is working, and he’s under our control.”

(Byleth) “Amazing, Thales. Simply amazing. Trying to resurrect this man against Seiros. How symbolic.”

“That sword...that is mine...! And that crest...!”

(Byleth) “It was never yours to begin with. Sothis belongs to no one.”

“Your hair...your eyes..that means...YOU’RE ONE OF THEM-”

(Byleth) “Kneel.”

“HRRGH! I...CANNOT...MOVE...”

(Byleth) “This is your duty, and you will obey. You are to protect this room from invaders, and you will forfeit your life in order to protect it.”

“I AM A KING! YOU CANNOT CHAIN ME DOWN LIKE-”

(Byleth) “I can, and will. I’ve read the reports on what you are. You’re nothing more than a pathetic old man, but a useful one I suppose. Put him into stasis and have him reemerge once someone has infiltrated.”

(Mage) “Yes sir.”

“YOU WHELPS, DO YOU NOT KNOW WHO I AM?!”

...

[God-Shattering Star - Fire Emblem Three Houses]

(Hubert) “Nemesis...!”

“You...YOU ALL WILL DI-”

(Hilda) “GO BACK TO HELL YOU CRUSTY OLD BASTARD!”

(Leonie) “Goddess, that’s what Byleth was doing all this time down here?!”

(Dedue) “Tch, doesn’t matter! We must get to the core, from the way it’s glowing its about to activate!”

(Catherine) “THEN LET’S DO THIS! EVERYONE, CHARGE!”

(Everyone) “HYAAAAAAAAA-”

(Nemesis) “NO ONE WILL GET IN MY WAY TO DESTROY SEIROS AND HER CRONIES!”

Nemesis charged into the students, and clashed swords with Catherine.

The swings were met blow for blow, both of them too fast to actually make any decisive hits.

Alois and Leonie came in from the sides, attempting to flank him.

Kicking Catherine away, he cut the head off Leonie’s horse, making her fly off and the horse making Alois roll out the way.

Bernadetta, Ignatz, and Ashe fired several arrows at him while he was in place, making him back off.

Activating the whip, he deflected the arrows and swung it the archers.

Ignatz managed to dodge in time, but Ashe and Bernadetta were hit by it, making them hit the floor.

Leonie and Alois charged again, Alois slamming the axe onto the floor with Nemesis rolling out the way, blocking Leonie’s hit in time.

Pulling back his sword, he swung at Alois, cutting his axe in half and striking him down, a visible scar on his armor as he fell down.

Leonie sustained a similar injury, though without the blessing of armor, having blood spill out.

(Hilda) “LEONIE!”

(Hubert) “FOCUS!”

Nemesis jumped into the air, slamming his bastardized version of the Sword of the Creator into the ground, creating a mini shockwave.

Dedue, Hilda, and Hubert, and Catherine were sent flying and hit the pillars behind them, falling onto the ground.

Annette and Mercedes fired a multitude of spells at him, Nemesis using the whip to absorb the spells with his sword.

Quickly deactivating the whip, he countered both the Death Knight and Felix’s attacks, who came from his sides.

Nemesis grabbed Felix and threw him onto the Death Knight, making him fall off his horse.

The horse went ballistic, and started charging at Nemesis out of pure fear, which he cut in half with a single slice.

He turned to his right and saw Ferdinand, Lorenz, and Sylvain charging with their lances in three separate directions. 

Flicking his wrist, the whip reactivated and he swung it upwards, decapitating all the horses and inflicting cuts that went through all three of their armors.

He noticed that his shadow was growing larger, and looked upwards seeing Ingrid trying to divebomb him with the Pegasus.

Rolling to the side and taking several swings, both unable to land a solid hit on each other.

Nemesis grabbed Ingrid by the arm, and pulled her towards him and off her mount.

He punched her in the stomach, denting the armor and making her cough up blood.

The force which he grabbed her dislocated Ingrid’s arm, and he threw her into the closest wall, making the wall crack using Ingrid as a projectile.

When she fell onto the floor, it was then he noticed that Lysithea, Annette, and Dorothea were charging up a spell.

It was starting to become brighter than the core in the room.

(Lysithea) “FIRE!”

Unleashing a beam of dark magic, it completely incinerated the pillars next to Nemesis, with him barely dodging in time.

He was about to run before he noticed that parts of his arms were singed off, making it hard to hold the Sword of the Creator.

Flicking his wrist, he was about to strike at the three mages until it got caught onto something.

Looking back, he saw the Death Knight’s scythe was holding the whip.

Caspar and Raphael leaped out from cover, and drove their gauntlets into his head, making an audible cracking noise.

Instead of falling over, Nemesis mustered all his strength to throw the Death Knight around like a ragdoll, finally releasing his grip.

Having nothing to restrain him, he headbutted Caspar so hard that blood came out from both their heads, and kicked Raphael into the ground.

Nemesis aimed his sword at Raphael’s heart, but his hand was shot by a precision shot, making the sword fly off from his hands.

Turning back, he saw Shamir and Petra, loading up arrows.

He ran up to them, leaving his sword behind and using rage as his weapons, raised his fists.

Petra and Shamir dodged his punch, as he punched the wall and created two massive holes.

They took out their daggers and went for the his knees, slicing the major arteries and hopping away quickly before he could retaliate.

From this position, Nemesis could see the room clearly.

All the mages in the room immediately went to healing the injured, Mercedes, Marianne and Linhardt healing the gravely injured first.

However it was at this point he realized he didn’t see Hubert, Catherine, Hilda or Dedue from where he knocked them out.

He saw Lysithea in the distance, firing at a spell behind a rock.

Then, the bright light appeared right above him.

Catherine was warped right on top of him, slamming Thunderbrand into his arms, which he tried to use as a shield.

Feeling his bones start to split apart, he then realized where the other three were.

Right beside Catherine.

Hilda slammed her axe into his legs, severing it, which made him lose balance, leading to his arm getting cut off by Thunderbrand.

Dedue slammed his shield with all his strength on top of Nemesis’s head, crushing it and splattering his head all over the floor.

Everyone hopped out the way as Hubert casted his most powerful dark spell, completely overwhelming Nemesis’s body and vaporizing it into dust.

Once his body was gone, the mock Sword of the Creator dissipated into the air.

(Shamir) “Leonie, Alois!”

Marianne grabbed Leonie while Mercedes helped Alois up, trying to heal their injuries.

(Leonie) “D-Don’t worry about us, the core...!”

They all looked to the core which was pulsating faster and faster.

(Shamir) “Shit, it’s about to activate!”

(Alois) “Y-you-agh! N-Need to overload it with magic! HURRY!”

Dorothea, Linhardt, Lysithea, and Annette all started to cast their strongest spells and aimed it at the core.

(Shamir) “NOW!”

At the same time, all of them shot from their hands, ranging from ice, holy, dark, meteoric spells onto the core, hitting it all at once.

The core exploded into fragments, the energy overtaking the room in a bright light.

[SONG END]

Catherine held her eyes shut, expecting to lose all feeling from the blast, until she opened an eye.

The room was just lit dimly with the orange torches that were in the room, no longer outshined by the core.

She looked around her, seeing all the students were having a similar reaction.

(Leonie) “We...did it...hah...!”

Marianne felt Leonie go limp, which prompted her to start shaking her.

(Hilda) “L-LEONIE!”

(Marianne) “I-It’s the shock from her blood loss, I can still save her!”

(Catherine) “And the others?!”

(Sylvain) “A-Agh...right here...!”

Sylvain was helped up by Felix, but they nearly tripped over themselves once they saw how Ingrid was.

Ferdinand and Lorenz helped each other up, which Linhardt began to heal the both of them, alongside Dorothea.

(Hubert) “That was far closer than I’d like...”

(Hilda) “N-No kidding...!”

(Dedue) “Wait a second, our lords!”

Everyone’s eyes widened when Dedue said that.

They may have taken out the core.

But what about Byleth?

-------

[sapphires-and-gold-fics]

Fictober Day 21: “Change is annoyingly difficult.”

Fandom: Game of Thrones / ASOIAF

Characters: Jaime Lannister / Brienne of Tarth

Read on AO3

xxxxxxxxxxx

Jaime hated physical therapy, though not as much as he hated the absence of his right hand. In the grand scheme of things, it was a hatred of physical therapy, an abhorrence for the lack of a hand, his ex, and then most of all, Brienne. 

His physiotherapist was a brute. Tall - taller than him, broad of shoulder - broader than his, scarred - okay, on that account he could concede that his were worse. She was freckled all over - down to gods knew where, and she hated him. So naturally, he hated her back. Even though she had absolutely astonishing blue eyes that liked to trip him up. And even though, at the end of the day, what she was doing was helping him. And okay maybe she didn’t hate him, maybe she was just like that with everyone. 

The accident that had taken his hand had been just that - he hadn’t asked for it to happen. He’d just broken up with his ex - again - and he’d been angry and  cocky in his driving. It never paid to do that. The next thing he knew, the sports car was wrapped around a tree and his hand was trapped between the dash and the door frame. 

From what he could tell in passing, the bulk of Brienne’s patients were alcoholics. They’d all done something idiotic like drive off a bridge, or try to do a handstand on a train platform, or operate a saw while not knowing how to operate a saw. She seemed to show them no sympathy, and he apparently was grouped in with the rest. It’s not that she wasn’t a good physiotherapist, it’s that maybe she probably would have been better suited to working with prison inmates. 

On this fine Tuesday morning, she was being really hard on him, by Jaime’s standards. Not only did he have to suffer through his usual semi-weekly routine of standard recovery exercises, but every session she now had him trying to lift a little more weight using the remaining forearm - today he was up to 10 pounds. Afterwards, she would always beat his arm until it was bruised, like normal. Sure, the medical bills called it therapeutic massage, an alternating of cold packs and heat packs with pressure, but really it was just torture. If he had a physiotherapist with smaller hands, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much. Of course then maybe it also wouldn’t feel as loose and flexible come next session. 

He was in the middle of lifting the ten pound weight with his forearm when he stopped and stared at Brienne across the small gym space. She stared back, an eyebrow up. “What’s up, Lannister?”

“Wench, I’ve just realized that my arm doesn’t hurt.”

“I told you not to call me that.” 

Okay, so some of the antagonism had been his fault. “Sorry - Brienne. My arm doesn’t hurt.”

“Like the pressure of the band is cutting off your circulation, or like it doesn’t hurt to be moving it like that?”

“The latter. Definitely the latter.”

The therapist broke into a crooked-toothed smile that brightened her eyes, and for a second Jaime thought she actually looked like a pleasant person to know. 

“That’s good, Lannister. It means your muscles are building up. Have you been working with the band between appointments?”

“Yes,” he said, curling his arm toward his chest again. 

“What about your other arm?”

He nearly dropped the weight, but he stopped himself and slowly lowered it to the ground. “Uh…?”

Brienne sighed and walked over, stepping around mats and blocks. “Lannister, you’ve gotta work both arms.”

“My left arm is fine!” he flexed it and spun his wrist to show her. 

“Lannister, the loss of a dominant hand means that the other is going to take some strain. It’s best if you build it up so that not only can you do everything you need to with it, but this way when the muscles build up on the injured arm, you don’t wind up looking like Popeye after only half a can of spinach.”

Jaime let out an exasperated sigh. “Change is annoyingly difficult. It’s bad enough I have to come here and be tortured by you.”

Brienne cocked her head and raised her brow.

judging me, wench? “I never went to the gym before all this.”

“You didn’t?”

“Not like this! I mean I have a gym membership but mostly I used it for cardio when it rains, or for the shower when my building doesn’t have hot water.”

Brienne’s brows drew together, but the glance was gone in an instant. “Excuse me for observing, but you seemed in excellent shape other than - this. What were you doing before the incident?”

“Incident,” Jaime said with a sneer. “You say it like all I did was stub my toe on the sofa leg. I’m down a hand, wench. At least call it a maiming.”

She took a breath and counted to ten. “What were you doing before you lost it?”

“It’s not mislaid!”

“Mr. Lannister.”

“Jaime.”

Fine, Jaime, what were you doing to keep up your physical health when you had all of your appendages? 

“He scowled and muttered an answer under his breath before doing another rep.”

“What was that?”

He set the weight down with a heavy sigh. “I’m a choreographer.”

Brienne’s eyebrows perked up, and she bent her head toward him with interest. “Like dancing?”

“Almost. I thought about it for a while,” he smiled to himself. “But actually, like combat. Some film stuff but mostly stage.”

“Professionally?”

She sounds... impressed? “Yeah. You know that national tour of Targaryen Times they started running once the local franchises proved unprofitable?”

She nodded, and he noticed her neck was suddenly the faintest pink; he looked away.

“I choreographed all the sword play for that, and the jousting.” Jaime could have stopped there, but it had been so long since he’d had a chance to talk to someone about something he loved so much. “On top of that,” he continued, “my niece and nephews have been in high school for the last ten years or so, overlapping you know, and you wouldn’t believe how much Shakespeare one school can do in a decade - it’s a lot. So I kept busy… I guess I stayed in shape by handling heavy weaponry.”

“And dancing,” she japed.

He chuckled, “Yeah.” 

“Well you can still do that, can’t you?”

“Why, did you want to dance my lady?”

She snorted. 

Oh, that’s kind of endearing, he thought.

“I meant the fight choreo.”

“Sure I can still technically do it but I’ve always marked out a fight by doing it myself. And then I make a video of me playing it out so that the actors can learn it. My dominant hand is gone. I can barely handle a dagger in my left hand—”

“—all the more reason to work up that arm.”

“But even then my right —”

“Jaime you’re lifting 10 pounds without pain on your right arm now. Couldn’t you use a shield on that arm?” 

He toyed with the thought. “I see what you’re saying. Maybe in another ten pounds I could think about that. But not all choreo requires a shield. And some weapons require two hands. At this point I’ll need to hire someone for me to direct in order to record the fights.”

She was thinking. Loudly. 

“What?”

“Have you thought about prosthetics? You might be able to get one made that would be specifically for managing a two-handed grip like for a broadsword, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that you could get one made that had a lock grip with enough of a rating to hold a foil so that it would be like using your right hand again - you wouldn’t have the same range of motion, so it might not be ideal but I think it’s worth a shot, Jaime. I’ve got a colleague who specializes in 3D printing and prosthetic parts with weight ratings - maybe you can talk to him about something that does have some range of motion? I mean if you’re looking at handling a mace or a morning star I would probably insist on you just training your left hand for those - too tricky - but for other things there might be another way.”

Jaime’s mouth was hanging open, he could tell. But he wasn’t sure he had the strength to close it. He dipped his head in order to force his jaw closed. 

“Did you—”

Brienne was now blushing - quite prettily, if he was honest - all over. 

Huh. 

“Are you trained?”

She nodded. “I actually worked for the local Targaryen Times before -”

“You were a--”

“--A knight, yeah.” 

Suddenly some pieces fell into place. Her height. Her breadth. Her strength. 

“So you can—”

“Yeah - spar, joust - I’ve handled a lot of weapons.” She grinned that goofy crooked tooth grin that made those astonishing eyes even bluer somehow and Jaime’s gut suddenly felt like it was on fire. “I usually won.”

“Of course you did,” he sighed before swallowing hard. “Um…” he gestured at the weight on the ground, “Should I...?” he gestured dumbly in a flexing motion, like he was suddenly struck stupid under her gaze. 

She nodded, “10 more reps and then we’ll get everything nice and loose again.” 

“Uhhuh.”

He did the reps and then climbed up on the table for her to start the massage that always felt like ice and fire but which today just felt profoundly like a massage - a good one. He made sure to ask her for her prosthetic guy’s info. And then he made sure to get her number - “for the videos,” he said. “I could use someone I don’t need to train on top of direct, you know?” 

She’d nodded and handed him back his phone. “And maybe I can help train you. Get your sword back in your hand.”

“What?”

“Your left hand - maybe I can help you? You’re a choreographer so I think your instincts are probably good, you just need to improve your flexibility.” The belly fire was back. Huh. 

[likesomekindofcheese]

The Knight of Hallow’s Eve (A Knight!Gwylim Lee Oneshot)

Pairing: Knight! Gwylim Lee x fem! Reader

Word Count: 6,000 (wahoo)

Get ready for some fluuuffff!

Warnings: A mention of sex feat. a creeper, witches, a bit of violence, mentions of violence, Halloween magic, a DND reference, and good ol’ fashioned Urban Fantasy.

Prompts: #10 - “Nope, I’m not scared. Not at all” and #45:  “I hate the woods…especially at midnight on flippin’ Halloween! How did we get so lost?”

A/N: This is my oneshot for @forever-rogue‘s 2019 Halloween Challenge! I wanted to get a little more creative this time around. I hope it’s Halloweeny enough for all of your tastes. I hope you guys all enjoy it! (Also tagging @jimmypagesandbrianmayshair, here you go! Knight! Gwilym on the house!)

“I’ll take your dare; I’m heading to the woods,” you said.

Your darer, Carl, smirks with slight disappointment. Alcohol mixed with truth or dare on a Halloween’s night get together made him bold. His leering at you made the chocolates in your stomach flip over.

For your dare, you were given two choices-you had chosen heading to the woods over stripping for him. You’d take anything over that.

Your friend, Erin, runs over to get your arm.

“You can’t! You know that’s where that killer’s been lurking! You’ve seen the news!” she begs. Her black eyeliner is smudged with worried tears.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes. I won’t run into any killer. Set a timer.” You suggest.

You know what the alternative is and so does she.

Erin shoves her purple manicured hand into her black corset. From it, she retrieves a necklace with a simple, dark blue stone.

“Here, take this. For protection” she offers.

You accept it. You know she has always been obsessed with the magical, claiming to be a witch (“but…I’m a different witch…it’s complicated, Y/N!”) and you could accept any possible good luck to get through these next ten minutes. Kindness from her was always a blessing itself, superstition or not.

I can handle this you think.

Crickets chirruped quietly. The trees make the air clean along with the crispness of the breeze. You peek back behind you. You see the back-porch lights of Erin’s house and their faint chatter of what truth to give the next sucker in your group.

An owl swoops over your head. You turn around to look for it, but you only see a faint silhouette and hear its wings flutter away.

You turn your head back to the house. The porch lights are gone.

You take ten steps closer to the house. Besides, if you are still in the woods and can still see them, it still counts as being in the woods. Dare accomplished.

There is no house.

You keep walking, trying to convince yourself that you misjudged your steps. Another turn, and there it will be. Progressing slowly, the night is getting darker and the moon is bobbling in its slow line above.

Trees and darkness is all there is.

You tried to remember what the back of the house looked like. A sign. Anything. But your brain has blanked in panic. You keep walking, almost running, trying to see anything in the darkness.

Reaching down into the pocket of your jacket, you feel the necklace. It’s suddenly hot. Surprised, you take it out and to your shock, it’s glowing light blue. Squinting from the darkness, you see a tree a few feet from you has started glowing bright blue too.

Getting closer, it becomes more beautiful and surreal. It’s a tall willow tree with light blue leaves that seem to swirl as they rustle with the wind. Your eyes blink to make sure it’s real. You have never heard of glowing trees anywhere!

You let the amulet rest on your palm. Suddenly, it floats above your hand. You scream a little in surprise. It’s too heavy for the wind. You feel your head spinning.

A bright beam of light blue light, matching that of the leaves of the tree shoots forth until it meets the dark wood- making a large black hole.

“AAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

Clunk!

A form falls through the hole and lands facedown into the leaf-ridden ground. The colors melt from light-blue to a musty red. Though it is night, there is enough light that one might think it was the early evening.

“Are you alright?” you ask, shell shocked.

“I…hope I am” he answers.

He starts to groan and get up. Two things strike you: first, not only is he incredibly tall with dark brown hair and the most astonishingly blue eyes you have ever seen, but even more so his clothes.

He is wearing a full plate of shining armor.

This is nothing like the plastic knight armor you see in costume shops. It thuds with heaviness and its silver sheen makes him bright amongst the redness. There is a bit of rust and dirt, here and there. But the edges and quality you know would make any cosplayer or costume designer drool.

How rich would someone have to be to buy a full plate of armor that good for only one night?

“Who is that?” The man pecks his head up. You step back a little. He’s a handsome man with high cheekbones, soft lips, and eyes the color of the sky.

He starts to pull his arms down to get up. “I…I’m alright, I think. But may I ask, where am I?”

You tell him the name of the city you live in.

He arches his eyebrows. “What kind of kingdom is that? Do you have a ruler?”

You tilt your head.

“No…uhm…we don’t. Look, are you a part of a live Dungeons and Dragons campaign?”

“I have no campaign; other than slaying monsters I’ve been sworn to slay and protecting the innocent. I made a vow to the king of my land after the dragon attack” he says.

He sounds genuine.

“Well…wherever you are, you must be far from home.”

“As a knight, I must go where I am called to. You see, the good witches gave me this…” he begins.

From beneath the breastplate of his armor, he reveals an amulet identical to yours. You stop breathing until you must take in a sharp inhale.

“The good witches of my kingdom tell me that if help is truly needed, then the amulet will lead me there. I am on a quest to fight the black rider. I have asked the amulet where the black rider is-what I must do, and if someone is in need or in danger. And it glowed to this tree…and now I am here.” He confesses. He straightens his back in a bit of pride.

“Well, uh…let’s make this simple. You see…this stuff isn’t normal where I’m from but, I could use some help. My name is Y/N. Y/N L/N.” you inform.

“I am Sir Gwilym of the Lee house, my lady.” He replies, with a short bow. He grins and stands erect as if saying he won a championship.

“I…I guess you could say I’m not…not a real lady” you stutter, gathering what knowledge you gained from Fantasy books and period dramas. Anything to help him.

“I’m just a humble peasant, according to your world.” You add, turning pink.

“Yet every woman, peasant or none, is a lady and deserves protection when needed. And if no one else will protect and assist them, then I must, my lady.” He responds with a shrug.

Smiling toothily, you remind him “I have a name, it’s Y/N.”

“Lady Y/N then!” he finishes raising his arms a little.

The wind picks up speed a little and it feels like a bony finger brushing your necks. Gwil’s armor shivers a little, despite its thickness.

“Lady Y/N, I have been riding and searching for two days. I haven’t rest and ate only grass. Do you know of shelter?” he questions. The dark circles under his eyes and slight weakness in his steps are more obvious.

“Yes. There’s a house somewhere around here…I just have trouble remembering where. I had to go out here and I got lost.” You recall. You start clutching and fiddling with the amulet in your pocket.

“May I accompany you? For your safety?” he asks.

“Sure.”

He takes a branch from the tree full of red and orange leaves. Gwilym notices how your jaw drops a little at the sight of them.

“Trees like these may light our way. They’ve aided me many a time” he explains.

“Ours don’t glow here. They bloom green when it’s warm. And some have flowers. Normal stuff” you explain.

“Ah! That is its own set of magic.”

You walk together for a bit. He lumbers across and you must scurry to keep his pace. His armor clanks a little mixing with the crunch of leaves beneath your feet. Walking alone in the dark with a knight as kind (and handsome, you confess silently) as Gwilym you feel your heart pick up the pace. You distract yourself by looking around for a path or sign of the house. There’s still nothing.

“I hate the woods…especially at midnight, on flippin’ Halloween! How did we get so lost?” you whine.

“We could find the tree and turn around” Gwilym suggests. He waves the branch in the other direction.

But when you try that strategy, the tree is nowhere to be seen. You begin wandering together hoping for any sign of human life. After a few minutes in silence, curiosity strikes you.

“Sir Gwilym, uhm…why have you been traveling in the woods?” you ask.

Gwilym grits his teeth. “There is a foe I have sworn to defeat. A foe that has been preying on the children and maidens of my kingdom and some say of neighboring ones. He has been spotted in these very woods. I must find him and bring him to justice” he says.

You nod. You admire his profile from the glow of the magic leaves.

“That’s very brave of you.” You laud. You can smell the cold air in your throat.

“Especially…since I have a little niece” he sighed. His face tightened. Did knights normally speak of their loved ones? Were they permitted?

“She is so dear to me. If anything were to happen to her, I would never…” he stopped himself.

He grew pale with fear of what could happen. You give him a hopeful smile, touching his arm feels too bold.

“You’ll find your foe.” You assure to him, looking up into his eyes, softly.

“Your niece will be …”

You are interrupted by a horse whinny and the clutter of hooves.

“Looks like you’re right” Gwilym stammers.

Before you stands a huge knight on a white Clydesdale horse, both in full black armor with faint red stains. Blood and dirt reek from them.

You freeze, unsure what to do. Gwilym leaps in front of you, blocking you, and unleashes a gleaming sword from his hilt. But the Knight’s shield, twice the size of your body, smacks him across the jaw and knocks him to the ground. Gwylim’s sword falls to the side with a clatter.

“Gwilym!” you cry impulsively.

The knight turns his head and looks at you. He lifts his visor to reveal big, yellow eyes like that of a piranha. You rush and grab the sword, aiming the hilt at him and circling around Gwilym.

The knight hops off the horse and approaches you, sword in hand aimed at your heart.

“Be scared, little girl” he booms.

“Nope. I’m not scared. Not at all” you half-lie. Anything to stop your shaking grip.

You charge and stab him in the breast quickly. His frightened horse dashes away. The black rider falls to the grass. Black leaves replace his plates of armor until they drift away into eternity.

You run over and lend Gwilym your hand to help him up. He looks up at you in amazement.

In the distance, you hear your friends calling out your name. You can make out the distant lights of flashlights.

Gwilym breaks the silence saying, “Lady Y/N…thank you.”

He kisses your hand devotedly. His lips were so soft that it was not stopping your adrenaline from the fight.

He asks for the sword and you hand it to him. Gwyilm kneels on one knee. His two large hands holding onto the hilt while the sword digs lightly into the ground. He lowers his head.

“I am ever in your debt…though I am not sure yet how I may return home. But I swear, even after I return, you are ever my lady and should you need me, I will always be in your service” he promises.

[mcsmseason3]

MCSM Origins Book I: Enter Lapilisia Lazul - Part 1

Summary:

Lapilisia Lazul, or Lapis for short, is a Gemonyk from Krystalyx in search of adventure beyond her own world. Her travels lead her to Emerl, another Gem from Krystalyx and a knight of the Order of the Stone. Little does she know that her life is about to change completely.

Next Chapter: Here

Many years ago, before the defeat of the Ender Dragon…

 It was a sunny afternoon. The forest was silent aside from the occasional trickling of a stream or the odd animal or bird passing by. A cliff stuck out from the tree line, looking out over the woods which seemed to stretch out for blocks and blocks. The sound of footsteps on grass interrupted the silence as a woman seeming to be in her mid-20’s wearing sky blue robes and a blue cape hiked up the cliff. She had brown hair with blue highlights, pale skin, and golden freckles. What stood out most was a round lapis lazuli stone with a golden casing around the edges that seemed to be embedded in her chest.

  Lapilisia Lazul, otherwise known as Lapis, looked out at the forest with bright eyes. “Wow…” she gasped in awe as she admired the view, “This is even prettier than the forests in Verde.” Lapis sat down on the cliff edge, her legs dangling off the edge as she felt a light breeze blew past her. Lapis had been travelling for the past few months, travelling by ship from her home in the Azurialis Archipelago to the Kingdom of Verde before crossing the Farlands that separated Krystalyx and Minecraftia. There were quite a few similarities between the two worlds…the biggest difference, of course, being the lack of magic in Minecraftia compared to Krystalyx. That and the lack of humanoids that are made of light and have gemstones embedded in their bodies. The people of her home were sad to see her go – she was the Blue Shard after all, she was pretty much their national hero-to-be – but knew that the journey would be good for her.

 Lapis’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of hissing coming from behind her. She looked behind her, only to be greeted by a creeper trudging towards her. “Uh oh!” Lapis went to get to her feet, but the creeper was quicker on the draw. It exploded, causing Lapis to fall backwards off the cliff. “Please just poof, please don’t shatter, please just poof, please don’t shatter!” Lapis prayed as she squeezed her eyes shut and fell to the ground below.

 *POOF!*

*TINK, TI-TINK!*

 Lapis’s form disappeared upon impact with the ground as her gem clattered onto the earth, thankfully unharmed.

“Who goes there?!”

A voice rang out followed by the sound of footsteps running through the forest, “I heard an explosion! Is someone hurt?” A woman – roughly in her late 30’s – rushed through the trees into the small clearing near the cliff. She had short, side-swept, black hair with bright green tips and bangs. She wore a green shirt with long flowing sleeves and exposed an emerald stone on her chest, black trousers and green boots. There was a bright green sash around her waist and black and green gloves. Covering her outfit was black cape with an odd green symbol on it. She had pale skin and bright green eyes with pupils shaped similar to her gem.

  Emerl Verdyk glanced around the clearing, an emerald sword with a golden hilt in hand, with a confused look on her face, “Hello? Anyone here?” Emerl looked up and the cliff top and noticed a small crater taken out of it. “Tch…creepers. Such a pain…” she sighed. Emerl turned to leave before a small glint of the sun hitting something caught her eye. She dismissed her sword and walked over to the object and picked it up. “A lapis lazuli?” Emerl muttered, confused as to why loose lapis was just lying around, “No wait…this is a Gemonyk. What are you doing all the way in Minecraftia, friend?” Almost on cue, the gemstone began to glow and levitate into the air. Emerl took a few steps back as the light being emitted from the gem shifted into a humanoid form before scattering to revel Lapis – good as new. “Whoa!” Lapis exclaimed as she landed on her feet, stumbling a bit before examining herself, “Okay, gem’s intact…outfit still looks awesome…still have hair, that’s a plus…can’t see my face so gonna have to hope my freckles are still there. I love my babies! Alright, overall: looking good!” Lapis breathed a sigh of relief. Noticing a presence behind her, Lapis turned around to see Emerl standing there with a small smile. Lapis noticed the emerald stone on her chest and her eyes lit up, “OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSH!!! You- you’re a Gem! You’re like me!”

Emerl nodded before extending her hand, “Emerl Verdyk; former knight of the Kingdom of Verde, current knight of the Order of the Stone. At your service.”

“Lapilisia Lazul, but you can call me Lapis!” Lapis grinned shaking Emerl’s hand before her eyes going wide, “Wait a sec! Emerl Verdyk? THE Emerl Verdyk?”

“That’s me.”

“No way!” Lapis’s jaw nearly hit the floor, “You’re the Green Shard that went rogue and disappeared! You’re in Minecraftia?”

“Yep. When you’re trained from the moment you emerge from the earth to be a ‘great warrior-hero of legend’, you tend to get sick of it after over 30 years.” Emerl shrugged, before looking around, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing you were poofed by that creeper explosion just there, right? Come. I’ll bring you to the Order’s temple where we’ll be safe from any more day-time monsters. You can tell me about how you ended up here on the way.”

“Alrighty! Lead the way!” Lapis smiled cheerfully as she followed Emerl through the trees.

 -------------------------------------------------------------

 “So you’re a Shard too, then?” Emerl asked as they emerged from the forest. “Yep!” Lapis replied with a smile, “But I don’t have a handle on my powers yet. They tend to come and go as they please.”

“The Blue Shard’s power is Future Vision, right? You can see glimpses into the future?”

“Yup. It’s a pretty cool power, in my opinion! But not so cool when you get a bad vision, especially since the events are kinda set in stone.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve tried to change the events myself. But it seems that every time I try, I somehow end up ensuring they happen. Ugh…even just thinking about it makes my head hurt.” Lapis then laughed nervously, “Kinda wish I was given a heads up about that creeper though. My visions tend to have lousy timing sometimes.”

“You’ll learn to control it eventually.” Emerl gave a reassuring smile as she summoned a green and gold shield, “You’d be surprised how many times I’ve summoned this thing by accident. Hit my mentor in the head one time!”

“Oh no!” Lapis giggled. “Yeah, got an extra hour of training for a month after that.” Emerl chuckled as she dismissed the shield, “But it was pretty funny.” Emerl looked up as she spotted the temple peeking over the hilltops, “Ah! Almost at the temple now!”

“By the way,” Lapis began, “Who are the Order of the Stone? You’ve mentioned them a bit now.”

“Where do I begin?” Emerl chuckled, “They’re a group of heroes that travel to the far corners of the world in search of adventure. They’ve been from the Nether to the bottom of the sea!”

“Cool!” Lapis’s eyes brightened in awe, “You guys must have to travel a lot.”

“Yeah, but we have a rail system in the Nether that helps us get to places.” Emerl replied, “Their actually down there working on it while I patrol the are around the temple. Looks like it was a good thing I did, eh?” Emerl gave Lapis a playful nudge, earning a giggle from the Gem.

 The two Gems entered the temple. Lapis gazed in awe at the beautiful structure. “Watch your step!” Emerl warned as she stepped over a pressure plate, “There are anti-monster traps set up here to protect the place.” Lapis looked at the walls and saw small dispensers embedded in them. “Aww! They look like lil’ faces!” Lapis cooed. “They’re not so cute when you take an arrow to the foot. Trust me.” Emerl chuckled, remembering the time Magnus stepped on one of the plates by accident and Emerl nearly got poofed as a result. “So what are the rest of the Order like?” Lapis asked as they walked through the Library, “Well, the Leader and Founder of the Order is Soren.” Emerl began, “He’s a master builder, a genius, but also a bit of a goofball…and prone to burst into song for reasons I’ll never understand. There’s Gabriel the Warrior, who is the strongest out of us. He’s a little full of himself, but he means well. Magnus is the Order’s rogue and a walking disaster zone. Seriously, his room is so full of TNT and I’ve no idea how he hasn’t blown a hole in the temple yet. Ellegaard is another genius of the Order. She knows pretty much everything about redstone and what it can be used for. The stuff she’s able to come up with is incredible. However, she and Magnus tend to butt heads a lot. If you ever hear shouting echoing around the temple, it’s more-than-likely them. Last is Ivor, the Brewer. He’s an expert in potions and enchantments. He looks grumpy but he’s actually quite eccentric when it comes to adventures. Whenever we leave on a trip, he always yells at the top of his voice ‘ADVENTURE!!!’”

Lapis laughed as Emerl mimicked Ivor’s shout, her voice echoing off the walls as they walked up the staircase. “What about you?” Lapis asked. “Well, I’m not really a member of the Order per se. I’m more like…” Emerl searched for the word in her mind, “…a bodyguard! Like, you know how the Shards had the Royal Guard back in the dark days? I’m like that!”

“That’s kinda funny considering you’re a Shard!”

“I guess it is!”

As the two walked up the stairs into the map room, Lapis’s eyes were drawn to a small trinket standing upon a pedestal. “What’s that?” Lapis asked. “That’s the Order’s Amulet.” Emerl replied, “The Order uses it to track the other members when they’re on the surface. Hmm…” Emerl glanced between the Amulet and the map, “Odd…they should be on the surface by now. What’s taking them so long?” Emerl turned to Lapis, “Hey. Ever been to the Nether?”

 -------------------------------------------------------------

 “Whoa!” Lapis gazed up at the obsidian framing the purple portal, “This thing leads to the Nether?”

“You got it.” Emerl nodded, “Just a heads up: the heat in there is pretty intense, so water powers might not work.”

“Don’t you worry.” Lapis grinned, “I don’t need my powers to kick butt!”

“Keep that enthusiasm going!” Emerl smirked, “Off we go!” Emerl jumped into the portal, Lapis following suit. Lapis’s jaw nearly hit the floor at the view around her. Red rocks, fire and lava as far as the eye could see. The two gems stood upon a dark coloured platform with stairs leading downwards to several minecart railways. “Keep up.” Emerl called behind her as she made her way down the steps, “If I remember correctly, they took…this one.” Emerl hopped into a minecart and Lapis hopped into one behind her. “Hang on tight!” Emerl grinned as the carts took off down the railway. “Whoa! Whoohoo!” Lapis laughed as the carts sped through the Nether, “This is amazing!”

“It’s fun, right?” Emerl chuckled, “So a few Nether-Need-to-Knows. Number 1: don’t attack the pigmen. They won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt them. Number 2: Keep a distance from blazes and magma cubes – or lava accordions as I like to call ‘em. Number 3: Soul sand is the sandy brown stuff. That’ll slow you down if you step in it so be careful. And number 4: beware of-”

Emerl was cut off by a distant wail followed by shouting which was coming from up ahead. “…ghasts." Emerl finished with a sigh as she summoned her sword in one hand and held tightly onto the minecart with the other, “I should’ve known. You ready for a fight, kiddo?”

“Bring it on!” Lapis cheered.

This was gonna be fun!

 To Be Continued…

[pyropsychiccollector]

            Elfman breathed heavily as he rested his hands on his knees, hunched over.

            “So… did we finally win…?”

            Lisanna smiled as she noticed Ajeel wasn’t standing back up.

            “Looks like it…”

            “The one with the stronger ideology will always win! Love is a powerful feeling, oh YEAH!” Richard gushed, causing Lisanna to giggle and Elfman to sweatdrop.

            “… Always with the love preaching with this guy…”

            “I think it’s cute~…” Lisanna mused happily.

            Down in the dirt, Ajeel looked up at his celebrating enemies with a twitching gaze.

            “It’s… not over… I’m not… finished yet, ya naïve Fairies…!” His eyes widened as a figure hobbled in-between him and his three opponents. “Gramps?!”

            “This war has taken a toll on both sides…” Yajeel muttered regretfully. “Please, can put an end to it…?”

            Elfman arched an eyebrow.

            “This war? All wars lead to the same result…”

            “You just never noticed ‘cause you win all your wars…” Lisanna agreed, quietly.

            Yajeel stared down at the ground, becoming more depressed.

            “… I don’t care if you decide to kill me… But please, spare my grandson…”

            Ajeel pounded the dirt with his fist as he struggled to raise his head up.

            “Don’t beg for my life, Gramps! I can still win…!”

            “We’ve never sought to kill anyone.” Lisanna told Yajeel, smiling as gently as she could. “Take your grandson home and live happily together… That’s all we want.”

            Yajeel didn’t dare raise his head, but he shed tears of gratitude. Elfman ruffled the top of Lisanna’s head.

            “No one understands the importance of family like we do! Everyone in Fairy Tail is like family, but Lisanna’s my only real little Sis!”

            Ajeel looked up at the pair of white-haired siblings, dumbfounded.

            “You’re brother and sister?! But you look nothing alike…”

            “Shaddup!” Elfman griped.

            “You and your Grandpa don’t look alike, either…” Lisanna giggled. Meanwhile, Richard was so overwhelmed by the camaraderie between once enemies that he ran over and hugged Yajeel and Ajeel both.

            “Such love…! I’m so happy for you both!” Richard was crying tears of joy.

            Ajeel twitched again, but only mildly annoyed.

            “You’re still obnoxious with that love stuff…. Geez…”

            ~*~

            A chill went down the length of Brandish’s whole body the moment she registered that she was once again in control of her body… The most obvious sign being the collar around her neck that melted away. She barely had time to process this before she was punched by Makarov and sent sprawling on her back with a thundering crash.

            And rather than get back up in retaliation to the strike… Brandish remained there flat on her back, staring up at the sky with a mixture of shock, pain, and regret swirling in her eyes. Kagura, seeming to notice this change in demeanor in her opponent, hopped up on Brandish’s cheek before jumping to the tip of Brandish’s nose, glaring down into her eyes.

            “I take it you have finally accepted your defeat…?” She asked coldly. Brandish couldn’t move a muscle. She continued to stare up listlessly into the sky.

            “… I lost the moment that I let Invel control me.” Though Brandish’s voice rumbled due to her size, there was a quiet, defeated quality to it. “So no, I will not fight you anymore…”

            Makarov stomped over to her, his pupil-less glowing eyes glaring scaldingly down at her face.

            “You claim it was Invel who made you slaughter my children…?”

            Brandish averted her eyes without turning her head so as to not force Kagura to move.

            “I’m still responsible for every last death… I have no excuse for it. All Invel did was kill off my heart and command me to exterminate your Guild… The blood remains on my hands. I won’t stop you if you seek retribution… Just get it over with.”

            An uncomfortable silence fell over them. Kagura’s glare remained unyielding, but Makarov turned his burning rage away from her.

            “No… If you have surrendered unconditionally, I will not kill you. That is not the Fairy Tail way. You must live and pay penance for your part in this war.”

            Brandish closed her eyes sorrowfully.

            “… If that is what you wish.” She shrunk down to her normal size, making Kagura leap off of her. She remained on the ground for a while, unmoving. Makarov shrunk down as well; his gaze was still hot with fury, but still he barely cast any of it onto Brandish.

            “I would speak with August now. This senseless bloodshed must end now.”

            Brandish reopened her eyes slowly, her face remained blank.

            ~*~

            From atop Kardia Cathedral, August looked out at the battlefield shrewdly. The harsh blizzard had died down. Brandish, free from Invel’s enslavement Magic, had been beaten down once she had regained control of her body and realized it, shocked beyond belief at what she had done… August could also feel the disturbance Dimaria had made with her Magic had been quelled as well, leaving the battlefield rather scarce of Spriggan Shields… Neinhart was still functioning, but if events continued progressing the way they were, he too would fall. Ajeel seemed to come to terms with his own defeat. The Historias had been dealt with, and Jacob lay defeated.

            “It seems the time has come to speak with Irene…” The Magic King heaved an airy sigh. He remained out of the fight to see how far Fairy Tail would manage to get… and their tenacity was remarkable. He could freely admit that, after seeing Fairy Tail struggle so valiantly, he was much keener to negotiate with them. At the very least, they should set aside their feud until Acnologia was dealt with… August’s eyes snapped wide open as he felt a disturbance in the air, recognizing instantly what was happening. “Irene… you would go this far?”

            The Magic King gripped his staff harshly. The Spriggan 12 in fighting shape had been whittled down to a measly two – only the mightiest remaining – and still Irene chose to go this far. He was revolted by her vulgar cruelty, and it stirred a rage within him that nearly bubbled over.

            And yet…

            “I will not raise a hand against Alvarez.” August firmly declared. “Nor can I in good faith defend a country that Alvarez has branded an enemy… I will allow Fairy Tail to deal with you, Irene, but mark my words: I will have you court-martialed for this. The toll for this decision will be too steep…”

            The aged men let out a gruff snarl. He knew Irene would not stop here. She was not known for lenience and moderation. Irene Belserion was the Crimson Despair, and the battlefield would indeed run red with blood this day…

            ~*~

            Irene yanked Mavis by the hair as they stepped outside the Guildhall. She stopped at the edge of the top of the hill to gaze upon the battlefield.

            “Your Guild… gets under my skin, little girl…” Irene cruelly smirked. “The Spriggan 12 are practically extinct, and August won’t lift a finger! I have no doubt your stubborn pawns will crawl their way up here, if left alone. So I will do what August will not… and exterminate the pests. Enchant… Berserker!”

            The redhead spread out her free arm, casting a glow that could be seen all around Magnolia. And down below, all of the thousands of remaining Alvarez soldiers started to glow, too – moaning in pain as their bodies mutated. Erza, standing over a defeated Neinhart, stared warily at the nearby soldiers who had previously been retreating from her general area. Other Fairy Tail members near the scarlet knight were taking notice of this development.

            “What the?!” Max exclaimed.

            “The enemy soldiers are acting strangely!” Warren observed.

            The transformations ended abruptly, and the soldiers roared monstrously as their forms had become much stronger but their sanity was stripped away. The soldiers surrounding Erza and her allies charged, intent on striking down the Fairy Tail Wizards. Erza blocked their path, but she was knocked back from their brute strength.

            “Erza…!” Warren cried out distressfully. Erza stood her ground as best as she could manage.

            “The enemy army’s combat capabilities have been significantly upgraded!!” The scarlet knight warned everybody to keep their distance. Cana gritted her teeth.

            “Tch! We already had our hands full with their overwhelming numbers… and now this…!”

            Makarov stared at the new carnage with a grim expression. Up on the hill, Irene hummed thoughtfully.

            “’Berserker’ amplifies their powers many times over. Its one occasional drawback is that they lose their ability to reason… But I digress.” She lifted Mavis’s head up by tugging on her hair. “I wonder how your pawns will counter this, Mavis…?”

            Erza changed out of the armor she was in and switched to her Clear Heart Armor, choosing to pour her Magic into offense for now. She charged a crowd of soldiers and slashed at them with her sword, and they did indeed reel back… But instead of falling over, they recovered and let out more inhuman roars.

            “That’s just great… on top of everything, you’re telling me they don’t feel pain?!” Max exclaimed in outrage.

            Much to Fairy Tail’s regret, the tide of war was changing back in the enemy’s favor… And if it kept going this way, they were going to get slaughtered. Even the S-Class mages were feeling the pressure. Erza. Laxus. Mirajane. Gildarts. And that said nothing of the significantly less powerful mages, like Mest, Vijeeter, Nab, Max, and Warren… Makarov steeled himself for what he was about to do, after seeing his Guild in such agony.

            “Is this… where we make our final stand?” Makarov wondered.

            “Master, we mustn’t give up…!” Erza pleaded with the man, fighting as ferociously as she could manage. “I will create a path… give us an opening… no matter the cost!!!”

            Makarov laid one hand on top of the other, shutting his eyes.

            “So this is where it finally comes to an end… my long journey…”

            Seeing what Makarov was doing, some of his Guildmates felt like they were getting a second wind.

            “That stance…!” Warren grinned.

            “It’s Fairy Law…!” Vijeeter smirked.

            “That’s right, we’ve still got that up our sleeve!” Max cheered.

            “This battle’s as good as one!” Cana was in high spirits, too.

            Some of the members of the Guild were wary of Makarov’s choice of words, though…

            “His journey… is ending…?” Mira asked in confusion.

            Up on the hill, Mavis’s eyes widened as she realized exactly what Makarov was going to do in response to this threat. And she was not happy.

            “He absolutely mustn’t…!” Mavis ignored the raised eyebrow from Irene. ‘Fairy Law is a Magic which shaves away at one’s very life in direct proportion to the amount of enemies on which it’s cast! If he uses it on such a large force, his body will not be able to endure it…! Please stop, Makarov!!!’

            She screamed into the telepathic link that Warren still had set up. But Makarov kept his hands clasped together in a prayer pose.

            ‘First Master, I am well aware of the burden of Fairy Law… I beg of you, do not stop me. The time has come for me to make my grand exit. To join that rambunctious Pyro on the other side…!’

            Mavis’s eyes quivered sorrowfully as Irene maintained her grip on her head.

            ‘I… I have a plan!! I’ve formulated a strategy which ensures our escape from this dire situation!’ Mavis knew she was bluffing at this point, because she was too scared of Makarov dying on everyone… on her…

            “Enough!!!” Makarov bellowed, making Mavis go quiet. ‘My precious little brats are suffering right before my eyes! They’re being beaten and bruised on this hellish battlefield as we speak! To you, they may be nothing more than soldiers you can maneuver… But to me, these brats are my irreplaceable children!’

            Mavis squirmed.

            ‘I… that’s not…!’

            ‘I know it all too well!’ Makarov denied any excuses the First was trying to formulate. ‘If we but follow your plan, we will surely seize the momentum and come out victorious! But that matters not! I cannot bear to stand idly by and watch my family’s blood be shed any longer! With the last few remaining years of this old soldier’s life… If I can use them to create a bright future for these brats… Well… Then I know what I must do… My job is a simple one.’

            “Master?!” Erza screamed, as she listened on the conversation between Makarov and Mavis like everyone else. But Makarov smiled even as she turned to him.

            “Listen well, Erza…”

            “No!” Erza wailed frantically. “I will not… I refuse to listen!! We must return to the Guild… all of us together!!!”

            Makarov took a deep breath as he launched into his final speech.

            “No matter what hardships may fall upon you from here on out… If you walk hand-in-hand with your friends and allies, there will always be a path forward! Believe in your friends… and believe in yourself! A guild is a family… Do not ever forget that. Thanks to all of you, my journey was one filled with an abundance of elation and jubilation!”

            “MASTEEER!!!” Erza shrieked as the other members of the Guild cried around them.

            “Perhaps my only regret was not reeling that knucklehead in before he died… But even then, he turned out to be a fine young man, don’t you think, Erza?” Makarov’s smile widened. He then closed his eyes solemnly. “All of you… be well! I invoke… Fairy Law!!!”

            An ocean of light burst out from the ground and enveloped so much of the battlefield… The Fairy Tail members wept for their Master, who was making such a sacrifice for them, and Irene, Mavis, and August looked on in awe as the battlefield was painted white for what seemed like an eternity… When it died down, there was large amounts of dust kicked up into the air, creating dense clouds. Erza stared numbly as her Master remained stuck in his heroic pose, head bowed, as the life was clearly extinguished from him. He did not collapse, however… Miraculously, he stayed standing in that pose. Like an undying symbol of their Guild’s fire and tenacity… Makarov had dedicated his life to Fairy Tail, and he served as an example to all that he called his children.

            Erza shed more tears as she stood there speechless for several moments. All around the battlefield, throughout Magnolia, thousands of soldiers had been wiped out. Tens of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Master Makarov had nearly won them the war with that one attack, and it would be so easy to return home and reclaim their First Master now…

            But the price was still too high. Erza sank to her knees and prostrated herself, forehead touching the ground in her deep, respectful bow.

            ‘To have been able to grow up as your child… I was happy beyond words.’

            Mavis, too, wanted nothing more than to sink her knees and cry her heart out. However, Irene would not allow it.

            “H…How many was that…? How many did he take out?”

            Irene rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

            “I’d say roughly 70-80% of all Alvarez soldiers. If I were to make a quick estimate.”

            Mavis’s eyes widened further at hearing that estimate. Then her eyes rippled as fresh tears trailed down her cheeks and she smiled bitterly.

            “I’d expect nothing less from him… He was an outstanding mage.”

            “That being said…” Irene continued on airily. “There were no casualties among the remaining members of the twelve. Though I’ll admit they were beaten down, sans August and myself… The flow of battle is unlikely to change in any significant way from this point forth. August is a wishy-washy bystander – willing to negotiate, but will not betray his country. Even if it’s me, who he disagrees with on so many matters, he will not help you. And there is no one in your precious Guild who can stand up to me. August and I are on our own level in sorcery… Since the others were so inept, I will exterminate Fairy Tail and its allies by myself. And I will enjoy it!”          

            Flinging Mavis back into the Guildhall, Irene slammed her staff on the ground and threw up an Enchantment that would prevent Mavis from leaving and others from entering. One that she knew only she would be able to break. A twisted, cruel smirk was plastered on Irene’s lips, her face darkly promising a horrific death for all of her enemies.

            ~*~

            Gajeel flashed a toothy smirk as he leaped off a pile of defeated soldiers.

            “Gihi… Gramps sure cut them down to size… I’m sure glad he was on our side. Look at this!” Gajeel gestured at such a large, breathable space. The bodies of Alvarez troops littered the streets, buildings, and other areas, but none of them were going to pose a threat. Not anymore.

            Levy’s head was bowed as her tears fell onto the dirt.

            “Weren’t you listening…? Master is…!” She sobbed, unable to finish that sentence. Gajeel’s grin dimmed at seeing Levy’s state.

            “… I know, squirt.” He dipped his head, staring down at his clenching and unclenching hand while his bangs fell over his eyes.

            “Then… why…?” Levy looked up at him, only mildly accusing him with a glare.

            “Because we don’t got the time to bury our dead yet!” Gajeel snapped, a little too forceful than he meant to, but he didn’t apologize. “… We still got a war to wrap up, shrimp. Gramps thinned the herd, but we’re still stuck in this… distorted Magnolia. What does that tell us?”

            Levy bit her lip as she looked around warily. Indeed, Magnolia seemed a bit… disorderly in its layout. It was subtle, but it was rearranged for defensive purposes, to keep Fairy Tail away from the Guild. The hill that the Guild was on that rose high into the sky was the biggest indicator of this.

            “… That there’s still Spriggan Shields out there…”

            “Exactly.” Gajeel grunted. He lifted up a soldier for emphasis. “There’s no way one of these pansies cast that Spell. These guys are the meatshields. I dunno how many Spriggans are left, but I bet you my bottom dollar that there’s at least one left, even after that last attack… It’s not over yet.”

            Levy teared up more as that sank in for her. Despite Master’s sacrifice, it wasn’t over yet… How much more would they have to lose?

            “Heeey! Gajeel…!”

            The Iron Dragon Slayer and Script user looked up at the sound of the familiar voice. Gajeel blinked owlishly as the blond teen came running up to them.

            “You’re only just now getting here? Sheesh. That Spell musta sent you miles away… We’re getting to the nitty-gritty here!”

            Sting twitched, a vein pulsing on his forehead as he shook his fist at Gajeel.

            “Cut me some slack! I was all by myself, and I stink with directions! Not to mention the world’s all outta whack… I mean, Crocus is, like, within a mile of Magnolia. That ain’t right!”

            Gajeel rubbed his chin, scowl deepening.

            “Yep… Definitely a Spriggan Shield’s work… But how the hell do ya fight someone who can play around with the world itself?” He muttered lowly to himself.

            Levy smiled wryly at Sting, bringing him up to speed on everything they caught wind of through Warren’s telepathy. When she was finished, Sting’s face had become much more solemn.

            “Damn… Guess you guys did start the party without me. And Master Makarov took out most of the enemy with a single attack? Sounds just like him…” Sting trailed off, his eyes fogging over with uncertainty a little.  He stared up at Gajeel. “Hey… Can you tell me somethin’? Where’s… Natsu been in all this? It’s weird you’ve brought up all these big fights, and he hasn’t even been in one… At least from what you told me.”

            The Iron Dragon Slayer grunted as Sting picked up on that little detail. Of course Levy would gloss over that bit of news, which happened way before the world went to hell… And looking over at her, he could tell she wasn’t in any shape to inform Sting.

            He closed his eyes, steeling himself for Sting’s outburst.

            “… Salamander’s dead. He killed Zeref before we were all sent out to back you guys up, and he died in the process.”

            No verbal outburst came. Gajeel reopened his to see Sting overcome with a pensive expression, eyes trained on the ground. His hands were unclenched, and there wasn’t really anything that could reveal what the blond had going through his head. After a while, he clenched his fists, but his face remained unreadable.

            “So… he’s really dead…” His voice was empty and hollow. Levy cringed, but Gajeel narrowed his eyes.

            “Don’t tell me you’re flakin’ out… I don’t buy it that you’re depressed. You’re the kinda guy to blow up over shit like this… Don’t bottle it all in.”

            Sting scoffed, raising a twitching hand to face level.

            “So, what? I’m supposed ta blow up at you guys? No way in hell. I might be a hothead, but I’m not stupid! Venting at you guys won’t solve anything… I’ll pay these losers back a hundredfold for Natsu’s death, but I’m not gonna take it out on you guys. It’s thanks to Natsu, and Fairy Tail, that I turned my life around! If he died takin’ out the leader of Alvarez, least I can do is help take the rest of these assholes out… not to mention Acnologia. We’ve gotta do it for Natsu!”

            As Sting declared this with nothing but conviction in his voice and determination in his eyes, Gajeel could only stare at the young Guildmaster. Levy, too, was surprised by how much maturity the blond was showing.

            ‘Natsu, you really did a number on this little punk… He’s come of age.’ Gajeel thought, acknowledging both Dragon Slayers with respect. Levy bit her lower lip, stuck in her own thoughts.

            ‘Natsu, I hope you’re watching… Your spirit and passion is living on through the people you inspired!’ A small, sad smile formed on her lips.

            Out of sight, out of smelling distance from Gajeel, Laxus leaned against the wall of a crumbled building, hidden in the shadows. He craned his head up and stared at the sky contemplatively.

            ~*~

            Slowly, Irene hovered across the sky as she stared down at her enemies, who were regrouping. She had gone unnoticed at first, but slowly, they were becoming aware of her presence as she leaked out more and more of her Magic power. She hummed noncommittally.

            “Now, where do I even begin…?” She turned around slowly as she hovered around, taking in all of her targets. “A volcanic eruption? A meteor shower? So many options, but which is the most brutal and cruel…”

            As she came to a stop, Irene suddenly smirked. Something was flying at her backside with high speed and power. Within a few moments, her opponent could probably land a solid hit… But…

            “I’m not in the mood for playing around with you children anymore…!” Irene’s face became outright malicious as she whipped around at the last second and pierced her staff through Mira’s stomach violently, blood and guts exploding outward from the impact. Irene had enchanted her staff to have the consistency of a steel blade. Mira coughed up gobs of blood, but not a fleck of it got onto Irene as they floated there for a few moments. When Mira reverted back to her human form, Irene cupped her chin cruelly, uncaring that the light was slowly fading from the white-haired woman’s eyes. “You really were brazen, to attack the Queen of Alvarez in such a way… Be a good girl and go join your decrepit Guildmaster and vile demonic Dragon Slayer… Don’t worry, your friends will be right behind you!”

            Coldly, and smoothly, Irene yanked out her staff and watched as Mira, unable to keep herself air-bound anymore, plummeted and thunderously crashed through the remains of a ruined building. As Irene had chosen to intercept Mira in the air, the cruel act was equivalent to a public execution. Many began to panic with how much ease the Crimson Despair had taken down the Demon of Fairy Tail, and many were concerned for the white-haired woman.

            But of course, none screamed louder than Mirajane’s sister.

            “MIRAAA!”

[gamearamamegathons]

Dragon Warrior IV: The Rise And Fall And Rise And Fall Again Of Evil

Circe here! So when we left off, we still had to find the Zenthian Sword and Zenthian Armor. This is around the point that I start losing the plot a bit, in the most literal sense, because I'm struggling to find hints in-game and I'm just poking at a guide to tell where to go. However, there are two other things we're going to need to do: we want to infiltrate the monsters' castle, and we need to find a hot air balloon. I don't recall exactly the order I did everything, so I'll just outline broadly what's up. First, if you go to Izmet, you can have yourself an odd dream, in which you see a girl in a tower named Rosa, and then Saro enters the tower through a secret passage and tells her that he's going to destroy all the humans, and she doesn't like that. If you go to a town called Rosaville (yes, really) you'll find the tower, and the dream is supposed to tell you how to enter the tower, but I got kinda stuck here. It turns out that you were supposed to intuit that Saro used a flute to open the way, but all it uses to indicate that is a weird bit of music, and unless you actually use the Flute of Uncovering, you won't know that it makes the same sound (oh yeah, that's another random quest item we found in a chest in Santeem). But whatever, I'm using a guide anyway. There's a knight in the tower guarding Rosa, but if we defeat him, we can talk to her.

Rosa is an elf whom Saro was protecting from humans (who were abusing her because elves cry rubies, naturally). But she doesn't want him to kill everyone, so she tells you that you have to stop him. You also get a lead on finding a Staff of Transform, which will let us disguise ourselves as monsters. The staff can be found in a crypt south of Endor, and aside from being a run-of-the-mill dungeon, this is also a great place to farm for Metal Babbles, so I'm going to be coming back here a bunch later on. The monsters' castle can be found on a rocky island we haven't explored up till now. Because the coast is mostly mountains, we're going to be walking around this area on foot a lot. This also means we're going to have to go through another dungeon to reach the castle, a humanoid statue called the Colossus. This dungeon is actually a huge pain, because it restricts you from using Outside to escape the dungeon. If you end up in a dire situation, you're kinda fucked and you just have to drag your party out the old-fashioned way. This is also where it sunk in for me that Nara, the character I'm using as a healer, does not know Antidote and will never learn it. Well, that sucks. So I ended up walking around large chunks of this dungeon poisoned. Once you get to the top of the colossus, though, you find a switch that causes it to walk across a small body of water. This lets us finally reach the monsters' castle, the Dire Palace.

Without a disguise, monsters here will fight you, but it's not really a dungeon. You just have to go to a room where Necrosaro will meet with the monsters, and tell them that the mining town of Aktemto has dug too greedily and too deep, and unsealed the Ruler of Evil, Esturk. So, naturally you have to race over there to do something about it. Dungeons are starting to get pretty tough. The first part of this dungeon will be familiar, from when we got the gunpowder, but naturally, it now extends deeper, and the monsters in this new area are much stronger. The mine shafts eventually give way to an underground city, and if we go deeper still, we will find Esturk, still sleeping. Surprisingly enough, when you enter battle with him, he will still be asleep, and this might seem like a big advantage, but it turns out that for every turn he sleeps, his body emits a light that deals significant damage to the whole party. The best you can hope for is that he wakes quickly, because he will neither emit sleep-light nor do a normal attack on the turn he awakens. It did take me a few tries to take this guy out, which was a bit of a pain since it meant going all the way back down the dungeon each time. But I got it eventually, and the Ruler of Evil lies dead at your feet. No big fake-out, he's just straight up dead. Necrosaro is, understandably, pretty pissed about this, and he leaves. We can't Outside in this dungeon either, so we have to walk out by foot, but luckily, on our way out we do find a super vital item we couldn't reach before -- the Gas Canister. If we take this to an otherwise-unassuming town near the colossus called Riverton, we can find a guy who will use it to make a hot air balloon for us. This is, of course, a far more convenient way to travel than by boat. It basically functions the same as our phoenix in Dragon Warrior III, which is a bit curious because the flight patterns of large birds and hot air balloons are...not terribly similar. But who am I to complain?

The hot air balloon will allow us to reach a place we couldn't before, a desert surrounded by mountains with a town in the center called...Elfville. Okay. Elfville is at the foot of the world tree, which is, of course, infested with monsters. It's not too bad of a dungeon, although I missed an important detail before I went up; you're going to bump into a winged being named Lucia, who will block your path until you let them join your party. If your party is full they, uh, can't. So I had to leave, remove a party member, then go all the way back up. Oh well. We do find the Zenthian Sword here, so that's cool.

So where's the Zanthian Armor? Well, it turns out it's stashed away in a relatively unassuming dungeon, which, at this point it turns out I'm kinda overleveled for. But that's not really my fault...I tend not to explore unmarked dungeons without being told to go there, just because there's no telling if the monsters there will be appropriate for your level. But hey, that makes it pretty easy to grab, so that gives us the whole set.

It's interesting, though -- you can start collecting equipment at this point in the game that's actually much better than the Zanthian stuff, that being the Metal Babble equipment. Is it made out of Metal Babbles? Probably. They're kind of liquid metal, so that sounds difficult, but the equipment is really good. I proooobably got the Metal Babble Sword back when I beat Esturk. You can also find a shop that sells Metal Babble Armor at a very high price, but it's worth it. This is also the first Dragon Quest game that introduces Small Medals, which are hidden items that can be collected and exchanged for cool stuff. I didn't take much interest in them, especially since Small Medals take up an entire inventory slot each till you turn them in. This is how you get a Metal Babble Helm, but I didn't end up bothering. And as for the Metal Babble Shield...well, I'll get to that later.

There's an odd little island in the center of the world we need to go next. It's only accessible by hot air balloon, and when we land on it, it takes us to a map that shows the island to be much larger than it appears. This area has one town, Gottside, but the main attraction is the Zenthian Tower, which will let us travel to Zenthia. We've got all the equipment now, so our hero gets kitted out and we walk inside (and then immediately re-equip the Metal Babble Sword, it's really good okay). Reaching the pinnacle of this dungeon will take us to a castle in the clouds. Here, we meet with Master Dragon, and learn cool plot stuff, like that the hero is half-Zenthian, and that Necrosaro is going to become the new Ruler of Evil and we have to defeat him. Apparently, the powers of evil use something called the Secret of Evolution to twist the natural evolution of creatures and create powerful monsters, which is...not anything, but okay. Necrosaro managed to perfect the Secret of Evolution using an artifact called the Golden Bracelet, so he's going to be...evil...er...than Esturk. So now it's time to jump through a hole in the clouds to reach the dark world and stop him.

Wait, what?

Apparently there's no fall damage in this universe, 'cause we're just fine after we leap from the literal sky. This next dungeon is the longest yet, full of powerful monsters, but it took a while to dawn on me that this is Dragon Warrior IV's Cave to Rhone. I'll admit...although I've had my frustrations with this game, it never reaches the peak of spiteful, bitter difficulty that any of the previous ones did. This dungeon is long enough to really drain your MP reserves, but I found the monsters takeable and I still managed to come out the other side, eventually. The encounter rate is still pretty awful, though.

The world of darkness here is pretty straightforward. It has one safe place to rest and save, Necrosaro's Castle sealed by four barriers, and four small buildings in each corner of the map where a boss guards one of the barriers. The bosses weren't that tough to beat, although I did need a few tries here and there. With that done, we're finally able to enter the final dungeon. As you'd expect, it's winding and complicated and full of very powerful monsters, so it took me a couple attempts to get a feel for the route to make it all the way through to the other side. You actually just leave out the back of his castle, and emerge in front of a large mountain, where Necrosaro himself is waiting. You climb up a winding path and find him, having taken on the same form as Esturk. Here, the final battle begins.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I get pretty beat up. Necrosaro is a very strong and difficult boss, and for maybe the first time, he really feels like a good and proper dramatic final boss. It makes him pretty freaking hard, though. Eventually I give in and concede the need to grind, so at this point I retreat and head back to the crypt to farm metal babbles. I'd been sticking with my starting party of hero, Nara, Mara, and Taloon for most of the game, but at this point I finally caved and admitted that Taloon wasn't going to cut it, so I added Alena to the party to grind her up to an appropriate level. After I got everyone to level 40 or higher, the last thing to do was to make sure the party was kitted out with the best gear. Mostly this just involved buying stuff, but there was...a snag.

I don't think I've mentioned it much, but Endor has a casino. I ignored it completely, because I absolutely hate gambling minigames. But, as it happens, this is the only way to get the Metal Babble Shield, as well as Meteor Armbands, which double the agility of their wearer. I need both of these. To that end, well...I finally went ahead and did a bit of savestate abuse, because I absolutely do not have the patience for this nonsense. If you win a hand of poker, you get this little double-or-nothing guessing game, and by using savestates to cheat, it's trivial to get thousands of gambling coins. So...that's that done, I guess. I get my stuff and get the heck out. There is one more item to acquire, in Necrosaro's Castle -- the Sage's Stone, which gives free healing to the party, as in the last game. It's not as strong as before, so it doesn't quite trivialize the fight, but we're really gonna want it. And with that...it's time to put an end to this.

I don't often draw attention to the visuals, because, well...I'm doing text-only posts, and also, NES visuals are not usually that spectacular. But I have to admit, the way that Necrosaro's different forms play out is incredibly creative, and I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. So I think you ought to just watch the fight yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA88WWOObMo&feature=youtu.be&t=13729

Alena is a key part of this fight, because with the Stilletto Earrings weapon, she can hit twice per turn, and with the Meteor Armband, she has a dramatically increased hit rate. By keeping up with the healing, and battering Necrosaro with spells and Alena's crits, you can tear through his different forms and, finally, put an end to him. After the battle, Master Dragon rescues you as the dark world crumbles, and takes you back to Zenthia. He offers to let you stay here, but you choose to go back to earth, and you're treated to a little cutscene of all your party members going home in the hot air balloon. And that's it. That's the end, the final chapter of Dragon Quest's stay on the NES.

So how was it? Honestly...really good. I think Necrosaro really embodies all of the things I like about this game. For the first time, we're presented with a final boss whose towering, epic nature feels earned within the mechanics. After the clunky damage sponge Dragonlord, the underwhelming Malroth, and the extremely cheeseable Zoma, the design improvements that culminate in Dragon Warrior IV bring us a final villain that forces you to push yourself and makes your victory feel satisfying and powerful. Although the game is still grindy in spots (I think that's pretty much inevitable in this series) it manages to keep it reasonable, and it never gets quite so absurdly hard as the past games did. It manages to be pretty much the perfect length, and if you don't mind starting from level 1 five separate times, the unique way that the early game is paced is interesting and fun, and gives you ample time to spend in this world without making the main quest drag on too much. If you want to see the best that NES Dragon Quest has to offer, just skip the first three games, and play this one instead.

I do have a few beefs, though. I think the choice to make your companions AI controlled wasn't the best, although it manages to even out to where they mostly make decisions that make sense. The fact that they didn't screw me over too much in the game's difficult final battle is a sign that the system works, even though it isn't really what I would have preferred. Most of the other flaws in the game are flaws with the series in general, so it really is easily the best of the NES games. But while I'm at it...well, there's no better place to put this rant, so let's talk about Vivify.

Have I talked about Vivify? I hate Vivify. I hate it a lot. In the same way that Necrosaro represents everything I like about this game, Vivify represents everything I hate about it. See, Vivify is your revival spell. Inexplicably, it is your *only* revival spell in Dragon Warrior IV. And it only has a 50% chance to work. The decision to make it this way is baffling, and it's all the more baffling because it has remained this way through the entire series, pretty much. This isn't just an NES-era fluke to be ironed out later. They doubled down on this. Because Vivify doesn't always work, even when using it out of combat, you can spend an entire dungeon keeping careful track of your MP, only for a single character to die and waste dozens of MP on unlucky Vivify casts, basically sinking the run in one fell swoop. It's miserable. And aside from paying hundreds of gold per dead character, it's the only reliable way to revive anyone, so anytime you get a party wipe, the first thing you're going to have to do is spend a couple minutes casting Vivify over and over and over again to revive three separate characters. It's arbitrary, it's cruel, it's punishing for no especially good reason, and if there was any better place for them to rethink the whole idea, this game would be it. Instead, it has persisted to the present day. And unfortunately, if you're going to enjoy the Dragon Quest series, you're just gonna have to get used to warts like this. They aren't all going to go away once we leave the NES behind.

Phew. Okay, I really had to get that off my chest, but don't let that give you the impression that I didn't have fun. Despite a lot of NES-era clunkiness, this game has shed enough of that stuff to really be enjoyable all the way through, which is a legit first for the series. It really is a good jumping-on point, if you want to enjoy yourself and aren't turning it into some huge masochistic endeavor like I am.

But hey, if you're looking forward to finally being free of the NES, well...I am to. This is it. We've cleared an entire console's worth of Dragon Quest games. So, join me next time, when we begin Dragon Quest and/or Warrior V.

[imjustthemechanic]

The Stone Knight

Part 1/? - Two Statues Part 2/? - A Curious Interview Part 3/? - John Doe Part 4/? - Escape Attempt Part 5/? - Making the News Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - More Impossible Part 8/? - The Shield Thieves Part 9/? - Reality Sinks In Part 10/? - Preparing a Quest Part 11/? - The Marvelous History of Sir Stephen Part 12/? - Uninvited Guests Part 13/? - So That’s What It Does Part 14/? - The What and the Where Part 15/? - Gearing Up Part 16/? - Just Passing Through Part 17/? - Dinner with Druids Part 18/? - Kracness Henge Part 19/? - A Task Interrupted

The Red Death finally shows up in person.

Everybody leaned in to see what Sir Stephen had uncovered, and everyone was disappointed.  There was no sign of a grail or anything that might contain one – only a thriving colony of tiny black ants, running around in a fenzy as they realized their roof had been lifted off.

“Do those bite?” asked Sharon.  She was looking at Nat.

“I'm an archaeologist, not a myrmecologist,” Natasha replied, mostly just to show off that she knew the proper word.

“Well, you're both digging critters,” Sam pointed out.  “We thought you might know.”

“I can tell you that eighty-eight percent of all archaeologists do not bite,” Nat told him, deadpan.

“What about the other twelve?” he asked.

“If you step in our trench and leave giant modern boot prints all over our freshly-excavated twelfth-century ground level, we will definitely bite you!” she said.

Even Sir Stephen's miraculously enhanced muscles couldn't hold the stone up for very long, and the rest of them quickly crawled out from under it so he could set it down again.  If they were going to dig in the anthill, they were going to have to prop the stone on something. Sir Stephen's immediate idea was to use another one of the circle stones, but Natasha and Sharon joined forces to forbid it.

“You think we've got problems with the evil wizards and stuff,” said Natasha.  “The last thing we need to add to that is Historic Scotland on our asses.  Those guys make the KGB look merciful.”

“The fact that I haven't arrested any of you yet makes me an accessory to pretty much all the illegal things we've done so far,” Sharon added.  “I will not be an accessory to the destruction of a World Heritage Site!”

“I cannot stand and hold it up for hours on end!” Sir Stephen protested.

“What about that building we passed on the way in?” Sam asked. “It didn't look very world heritage-y.  We could take some of the rubble from that.”

They climbed back over the fence and headed back down the slope for a look.  The derelict building appeared to be a relic of one or other of the world wars, and there clearly hadn't been anybody looking after it – it was covered in lichen and grass, and the concrete walls were crumbling away in the fierce Orkney weather.  When new it must have looked much more solid than the bladelike standing stones a short walk away, but it clearly did not have their staying power. 

“What do you think?” asked Sam.

“There's no sign,” Natasha said.  If this place were protected, nobody had bothered to lable it as such, which would allow them to argue that they hadn't known.  “If worst comes to worst, we know a hell of a lot more about what went on here during the world wars than we do about the stone age.”

Sir Stephen selected a large chunk of concrete, with rusting rebar protruding from its broken ends, and tried to lift it.  He couldn't actually get it off the ground, but he could flip it over.  A half dozen of the crows swooped in to get at the worms and insects that had been living under it, while Sir Stephen grabbed the near edge and stood it up to flip it again.  He continued to progress in that way, rolling it end-over-end up the slope.

“How are we gonna get it over the fence?” asked Sam.

There was only one possible solution to that.  “We'll have to knock the fence down,” Nat admitted.

Sharon looked back at Sir Stephen.  “I don't think that'll be a problem.  You okay back there, Sisyphus?  Can we help?”

“I don't think all of you together would have the strength to assist me,” Sir Stephen grunted.

Nat let Sharon and Rushman get ahead of them a bit, while she and Sam fell back to walk on either side of Sir Stephen.  He was obviously straining himself every time he lifted the piece of masonry.  As fast as he healed, he probably didn't have to worry much about injuring himself.  Nat was more afraid that if he slipped, the chunk of concrete would fall and squash him.

He rolled the chunk over again, letting it hit the ground with a thud.  “May I ask, Natalia,” he said, “what is an archaeologist?”

Nat was amazed he had the breath to talk with.  “It's somebody who digs up old ruins and tombs to see what's in them,” she explained. “It helps us figure out how people lived and what happened in the past.”

“Tombs?”  Sir Stephen looked up at her and frowned.  “Do you not let the dead lie?”

“Depends on the dead,” Nat said.  “If there's somebody still around who says don't dig up my ancestors we usually leave them alone... usually.”  She could think of more than a few unfortunate incidents when such protests had been ignored.  “We can learn a lot from them.  What people ate, how long they lived, what they believed about the after life... we can find out if they moved around a lot, what diseases they suffered from...”

“Would you not be upset to think that in a thousand years somebody might dig up your bones to examine them?” asked Sir Stephen.

“Honestly, we fantasize about that,” said Nat with a smile.  It was a favourite topic of conversation among the archaeology faculty at Dundee and probably in other places as well.  “We've all got different plans for how we'll lie to the future with our corpses.”

“What about written histories, can you not use those?” Sir Stephen asked, panting as he turned the stone over again.

“They often don't tell us what we want to know,” said Nat. “Anyway, any written history was written by a person with their own point of view, and they'll leave things out or even make things up in order to support their argument.”  Zola had said that truth was something people made up, but for archaeologists, truth was something to dig up out of the muck of lies and omissions and misconceptions it got buried in, just like digging old bones out of the dirt.

They reached the fence.  The gate was obviously the weakest point – Sir Stephen stood his piece of concrete on end, turned it edge-on to the gate to focus the force on the smallest possible area, and gave it a tremendous shove.  It crashed through, ripping the gate right off its hinges, and then to everybody's horror it kept going, turning a couple more times before toppling on its side like a rolled coin, just inches short of colliding with the nearest of the standing slabs.

Everybody breathed a sigh of relief, and Sir Stephen headed in to stand the slab up again, while Natasha realized she could hear something.  Her phone was ringing in her jacket pocket.  She pulled it out and put it to one ear, covering the other with her hand in an attempt to block out the sound of the wind. “Hello?” she said.

She did not immediately hear the reply, because her companions seemed to decide this would be a good moment to hold a conversation.

“We've got a problem!” Sam said.  The biting wind meant everybody still had to shout to be heard.  “Sir Steve's the only one who can move the slab, but he's also the only one who can hold up the fallen stone!  How are we gonna do this?” 

“Maybe the rest of us together can hold the stone up while he puts the slab under it?” Rushman suggested.  “There's not ten of us, but we can try!”

“Everybody shut up, I'm on the phone!” Nat told them.  She tried again.  “Hello!  I can't hear you!”

“Dr. Rushman!”  It was the voice of the Sea Dog.  Nat had given him her number to ring if he thought the weather were about to change, or if somebody were coming.  “My radar's got three airborn targets coming in from the south!  They look like helicopters!  They could be for the refinery, but they're off course if they are, and you asked me to let you know about things like that!”

“Okay, thanks!” Nat said.  “Give me a few minutes, and I'll let you know if we're coming back!”  She put the phone away, and went to the edge of the cliff to see if his radar targets were visible to the naked eye.  With her hands around her face to protect her eyes from the wind, by squinting at the horizon she could just barely make out three little lights in the misty drizzle.

“What do you see?” asked Sir Stephen, as the others joined her.

“We've got incoming,” Nat replied.  “Could be nothing, but we better lie low just in case!”

Everybody looked at the crushed gate and the slab of concrete, and realized there was no way to fix it before their visitors arrived. They didn't want to go back to the boat before they knew for sure who their guests were, though, so they returned to the ruined building to crouch among the moldering walls.  From that vantage point they would be able to see if the helicopters turned away or passed over... but they didn't.  As they drew closer and closer they also descended lower and lower, and it started to look worryingly indeed like they intended to land not far away.

Even with the wind whistling by, Natasha could hear Rushman's labored breathing.  He sounded as if he were about to have an asthma attack, and she wondered if that were possible.  She'd never said anywhere that her father suffered from such an ailment, but she'd also never said he didn't.

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

“I'm too old for this!” he panted.

The first helicopter came in to land on a level area just beyond the ruined building and, unfortunately, between it and the wharf where the Sea Dog was waiting.  The rotor whirred to a stop, the door opened, and Zola stepped out, having to slide down from a sitting position like a child getting down from a sofa.  He was back in his black suit and tie, apparently not a bit conscious of the weather though the wind was stirring his mutton chops.

Behind him were two more men.  The first, Nat was startled to see, was Mr. Pierce, in a suit and tie and a long beige coat that was not at all appropriate for the cold weather.  He turned up his collar and folded his arms across his chest, shivering.  Then, as the other two helicopters also set down, Pierce moved aside to let a third man disembark. Natasha, peeking over the broken walls to watch, almost stopped breathing.  Here she was, for the second time in a week, seeing a statue come to life. Johann Totenkopf was a little over six feet tall and perhaps in his fifties, with pale skin and a receding hairline.  His face was fierce, his nose long and his eyebrows sharply tilted, his forehead and mouth deeply lined from long ears of frowning.  He was dressed in entirely normal clothing – a dark green down parka and a fur hat.

He looked around at the landscape, then turned as a man in a black uniform, a rifle in his hands, came running up to say smething to him.  Whatever it was, Nat couldn't hear him over the sound of wind and engines, but she had a good idea what it might be.  The broken gate and the slab of concrete would make it perfectly obvious that somebody else was here... and there weren't very many places that somebody could hide.

Nat wasn't the only one watching.  Sir Stephen was beside her, and she saw his hand go to the sword at his belt.  “The Red Death,” he growled, and began to stand up.  Nat had a horrifying mental image of him running straight at the man then and there, and she quickly tackled him to prevent it.  Sam and Sharon made the same observation, and had the same reaction.

“What the hell are you doing?” Nat hissed, once they'd wrestled Sir Stephen to the ground.  “You'd be dead before you got over the wall!”

“His sorcery cannot harm me, and none of his followers has so much as a dagger!” Sir Stephen protested.

“They've got guns, you moron!” said Nat, and then realized that might not mean anything to him.  Sir Stephen had been shot before, but at the time he must have been disoriented from suddenly popping into existence, and the warehouse might already have been on fire.  Maybe he hadn't realized where the shots had come from, only that they hurt.  She'd handed out guns to her companions, but hadn't demonstrated them for him.  He might have no idea what they did.

The helicopters had all shut down by now, and voices were drawing closer.  Everybody scrambled into corners of the walls so as not to be seen.

“The stone's been lifted and then put back!” somebody was saying.

“It's Rogsey,” another voice replied – this one, Natasha was sure, had to be the Red Death's.  “It can be no other!”  Like Sir Stephen, he spoke modern English with a little old-fashioned grammar thrown in for flavour.  He also had a strong German accent, almost to the point of being stagey.  Not a real person, Nat thought.  A figure from legend, who talked the way the average twenty-first century reader of the medieval poems might imagine him talking.

“Rogsey?”  That was Pierce.  “How would he get out here?”

“He might well have swam!” snarled the Red Death.  “I care not!  Find him for me!”

[ebonwinged-nova]

Breath of the Wild day one impressions, the really articulate version:

(Includes spoilers for the beginning of the game.)

(I will be referencing events up until talking to Impa at Kakariko for the first time.)

Okay so. I am really, really impressed with this game so far. I’ve purposefully kept my expectations low even after I saw enough to convince me that Nintendo handled changes made to the classic Zelda formula well, and now my mind is blown. But let's go through it chronologically.

After the initial waking up sequence I opted to go talk to the old man straight away, and here I have to mention, I got attached to him almost instantly. I don't know what it was, he just grew on me really quickly. (I also called him being the ghost of the king of Hyrule almost instantly.) Either way, he doesn't really tell you much at that point, so I went off wandering around until more story stuff happened.

I quickly got into a battle or two, with some chu-chus and bokoblins, armed with a couple of tree branches and an oversized axe. Gameplay feels fluid and the controls are tight, even though it took some time until I got used to the different control scheme. I also realised at that point that this game is herb picking paradise. I love it.

The game eventually guides you to raise the first Shiekah tower, and then the old man will prompt you to clear the first four shrines in exchange for his paraglider so you can get off the Plateau. And here I was really pleasantly surprised that the game let me fumble around, because you're supposed to find the shrines from the tower with the shiekah slate's zoom function and then mark them on the map, and I... don't really like the zoom function. It zooms in too much with no option to adjust and it moves too fast, so I had some trouble with finding them at first... but not only did nobody butt in to help you regardless of whether you wanted it or not, the old man even tells you that you need to learn to be self-sufficient if you talk to him about it. After the excessive handholding in Skyward Sword that was great.

One of the shrines on the Plateau is in a cold region, so I had my first experience with cooking and it is sooooo much fun. Watching the food bounce around with a little jingle and then Link's excitement at having made food is great and I love it and it also makes me really hungry because the food art looks delicious.

On the way to that shrine I died for the first two times out of... a bunch. Seriously. I died more often just today than I usually do in an entire blind Zelda playthrough. One was because I jumped into ice water (oops) and the other was when an enemy straight up OHKO'd me. People weren't kidding when they said this game is harder than other Zeldas—but it's also very forgiving with saves, so even with all the deaths that happened I've never actually lost any progress.

The first shrines themselves are brilliantly executed tutorials that don't look like tutorials whatsoever. They give your four shiekah slate abilities (bombs, making ice blocks, magnet and time stop) and then require you to solve puzzles using these abilities. It's very intuitive how you need to use them and it teaches you the basics of what you can do with them much better than some onscreen text could. The abilities themselves are really fun to use too, and they do lend themselves to really unexpected uses! There's an area on the plateau where a couple of stationary guardians will snipe you if you're not careful. I grabbed an iron door that was lying around and used it as a shield with the magnet ability. It was a bit finnicky because you can't turn the object you're levitating around, but it actually worked!

All shrines being done I went and met the old man at the ruined Temple of Time, where, unsurprisingly, he revealed himself to be the ghost of the old king of Hyrule from 100 years ago. At this point I was actually a bit sad, because as I mentioned I grew attached to him and as you might expect, he did not stick around afterwards. RIP, old man king, RIP.

Either way, he dropped some exposition on what happened 100 years ago and I... I'm really into it so far. Partly because the voice acting really adds to cutscenes, but also...

THEY'RE DEPICTING ZELDA AS A BADASS COMMANDER AND IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY.

Seriously. She's the commander. Link's her sworn knight. She's calling the shots. She's the one going to face Ganon all on her own. THIS IS GREAT. I LOVE IT.

Also, Hyrulean mechas.

So yeah. After that cutscene I went and explored the rest of the plateau before leaving and promptly ran into the talus, then proceeded to run away very quickly. Then I timed my departure so I could fly off into the East into a beautiful sunrise (man, does this game have beautiful lighting), and then completely ignored the directions the old man gave me and wandered off in search of cool things. And ho boy did I find them.

The world is teeming with details and things to check out. I was worried about that becase some of the footage made the game look a bit barren, but I've almost found myself wishing there was *less*, because it just. Never. Ends. I keep finding more stuff. It's the ultimate OOOOH SHINY experience. Thank god for map marking.

I found my way to the outpost stable that I think they showed on Nintendo Treehouse? I like that the NPCs say a thing as you walk past. Adds a bit of life to them. I also really like that the game tracks sidequests. It would have been a pain to remember the tiny errands they want you to run. I went and tried to tame a horse nearby, but the amount of stamina you start out with doesn't seem to be enough, so I gave up and moved on.

From there on I wandered around more or less aimlessly. There's so much freedom in navigating the environment that it's just really fun to travel around. I did a few more shrines (they really are everywhere), I saw a lot of cool things like accordion playing birds and cute foxes to murder in cold blood and a centaur that murdered me in cold blood... Because death is just not a big deal, I never had to worry much about consequences and did whatever I felt like. It led to a couple "I immensely regret my decisions" moments (like the time I jumped right into a bunch of guardians—that ended just as well as you might imagine) but that was a lot of fun too! This is a game where you can feel free to try out whatever crazy thing you think of and aren’t punished for it, I think.

I did eventually make my way towards Kakariko, like the old man said. I don't *think* you were supposed to climb straight over the mountain, but hey, YOU CAN DO THAT NOW. It's awesome. Link is basically spiderman. See that surface? You can climb on it. Even if it’s a solid ice block.

Kakariko turned out to be a very Japanese-looking village. I wasn't expecting that, given how Kakariko looked in past games, but I don't mind at all! It's very pretty. I encountered my first shops there and the way shopping works is really immersive. You don't select items from a shopkeeper list, they're displayed in the store in correct numbers, and if you don't buy the entire stock only the corresponding amount of items vanishes. I love that.

The player economy in this game is a bit... different. It doesn't seem like you can find rupees as easily anymore—I couldn't find any outside of some treasure chests. You can sell any items you collected though, and they do fetch quite a bit of money, so I assume they intended that as the main repeatable way of getting money. I like it. Makes more sense.

The music in this game takes a very different approach. It's mostly confined to stray piano notes or chords (although I haven't exactly seen a lot of it yet, so other areas may be different in this). Amazingly, this didn't strike me as odd or out of place in the least. It just makes the game all the more immersive.

So! There you have it. These are my day one impressions, or at least the ones I can still remember.