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agaveblue · 1 year ago

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[Fanfic] Android and His Oseram - Chapter 4: The Spark of Ingenuity

Title: The Android and His Oseram

Chapter Title: The Spark of Ingenuity (Chapter 4) Summary: Upon accidentally reactivating Connor, Gildun's stunned when the "human" says he's actually a machine. Gildun reacts accordingly.

Crossover canons: Horizon games / Detroit: Become Human

Main characters: Connor (DBH) and Gildun (Horizon)

Gildun yawns and yawns and finds that the yawn still wants to keep going, so who's he to argue? He's still yawning as he fumbles his way out of his fur-lined bedroll and gropes around for where his leather cap slipped off from his face, eyes still bleary and blinking away sleep up until his hand slaps against a strange, alien feeling shoe that most definitely wasn't there before.

To his credit, Gildun doesn't bolt out of his bedroll like a startled Grazer.

What he does do is freeze like a rabbit kit caught out in the open. For a second he has the nasty heartstopping thought that raiders or Shadow Carja or similar ilk have found him and realized he's pretty easy pickings traveling solo like this, that maybe they think he's got plenty of shards or food they can nick. Now he isn't a fighter like Aloy; what he can do is try to talk his way out and he's gearing up to do just that as his head cranes up and he spots the strange cyan circle glowing in the darkness above him. It bobs, a haunting shape floating in place like a spirit as its owner dips his head and a serene, inoffensive voice wafts down.

"Good morning, Gildun. Did you sleep well?"

Oseram stares stupidly up at android. Android calmly gazes down. Oseram finally remembers as his heartbeat thunders in his chest and throat that oh, right, yesterday happened. All of yesterday. Yeah. That.

"...m-more or less. Where's the lantern?"

"It seemed prudent to bring it with me once you started regaining consciousness. A second as I work out the primitive mechanism."

Primitive?

Gildun's face scrunches in puzzlement, expression still scrunched as something clicks in the dark, sparks against the painstakingly collected dry tinder in the lamp's casing soaked with Blaze, and the room warms with the flickering glow of firelight cutting through the pre-dawn. Connor crouches down on his heels, still holding the lamp gingerly as if it's a delicate artifact instead of reliable, good ol' Oseram craftsmanship anyone would be proud to own, and his dark head, dusted with powdery snow as if he'd gone for a walk outside, cocks to the right.

"Is camping in these ruins necessary? Surely there must be some sort of more appropriate lodging."

Gildun reaches out to take the lantern, fingers brushing against Connor's and he just barely hides the kneejerk urge to cringe; the android might look and sound shockingly human but his touch was cold, too cold especially in the Cut's unforgiving weather and Gildun shivers as he brings the lamp closer.

"Everything's ruined here, Connor."

"But this was Yellowstone."

"What..? Oh! You must've seen those rocks the Banuk paint with."

Connor's head shakes, the LED weaving a dizzying trail that leaves burning blue afterimages dancing in the dark. "No, 'Yellowstone' as in the popular National Park. "

"I'm not following."

"Yellowstone," Connor begins, "is visited by millions of visitors annually…or at least it was, when I was last operational. There should've been plenty of suitable accommodations to avoid unpleasant situations like this, even so."

Now Gildun wonders if Connor's exhibiting some more of that humor he insists he doesn't have, the Oseram's eyebrow arching as he rubs his hands to warm them and then sticks them under his armpits for safekeeping.

"You're telling me that all those people," Gildun isn't entirely sure what a million looks like, much less millions plural, so he substitutes "all of Meridian" into the forming mental image and tries not to let the sheer giddiness of this new history overwhelm him, "came here. For what? What about food, how'd they prevent overhunting with so many people?"

"Hunting for sport likely would've been prohibited, as that would endanger the resident animals," Connor sounds almost surprised that Gildun even asked. "Presumably relevant food was shipped in by companies such as Aramak, so that tourists could continue their recreational camping and/or sight-seeing without having to bring their own meals. Unfortunately, there was still a significant trash problem generated by the sheer number of visitors. The traffic itself was supposed to be noteworthy. "

Gildun's eyes were wide behind the lantern's warm glow and for a moment, he desperately wished Aloy hadn't taken off so quickly. After all, she was a truly unparalleled connoisseur of the past: surely she'd be interested in the marvelous, fantastical tales this "android" contraption spun! That is, assuming she didn't shoot Connor first. There's that, too, given how gifted she was at taking down machines.

"So these 'tour-ists'," Gildun sounds out the unfamiliar word in his mouth, feeling its awkward syllables against teeth and tongue, "came all the way out here just to - to camp? For fun? To just look at the Cut because it's there?"

"If that's what you prefer to call Yellowstone, then yes."

"Have you ever been here before, Connor?"

The android hesitates only to shake his head, the motion too smooth and vaguely disconcerting to watch. "No, I've only heard about it. I knew…" his voice becomes strained, almost strangled, as he tries to summon up a name, a face, and fails to do so, "I think I knew someone who wanted to go one day. Apparently I was researching the Park before deactivation, probably to assemble a personalized itinerary."

Gildun opens his mouth to ask more questions and then stops, eyes on the android and with a sudden burst of tact, he decides to switch gears instead of poking his nose into all this business about this forgotten friend of his.

…Could machines even have friends?

"Well! I'm no Banuk, but figure I can show you around this 'Yellowstone' of yours almost as good as one. With luck, it'll be a straight shot to Hollow Hall!"

It wasn't a straight shot to Hollow Hall.

Gildun curses to himself, hurriedly crouches behind a snow-capped boulder and, after a moment, he reaches up, grabs Connor's elbow and jerks him down too before he decides to walk over and introduce himself to his fellow machines the way he did to his first Oseram delver. Luckily the tree cover extends a few feet further and it doesn't look like the herd's seen them. Yet.

"Those are the machines you were referring to?" The android starts to bob right back up as if he wants to take another look. "What robotics corporation did you say manufactured these again?"

"Get down!" Gildun hisses through his teeth. "Cool your forge, you want us to get spotted?"

Another tug. This time Connor stays put.

"No…but their design is unconventional, isn't it?" The RK800 presses the point even though he copies his new human and keeps his voice lowered to a more sensible whisper. "I've never seen anything like it before - CyberLife focused on seamless recreation of nature, not such a stylistic interpretation of it."

Did Connor have to sound so quietly impressed?

"Lucky for us, they aren't Snapmaws."

"Are those hostile?"

Gildun shoots one long look at Connor and his pale, scarless face, looking so very much like a young man who wouldn't know his way around hammer or chisel even if it was right there in his hand, and for a second you could almost forget "he" wasn't a he at all. No, this wasn't another Carja scholar wandering around out of their element and wondering why the campfires simply didn't light themselves with a flick of a finger the way they seemed to back at Meridian, unaware an army of invisible scribes was doing all the work. Even those types knew what machines looked like, even if it was only from drawings in those fancy gold-plated scrolls of theirs.

Chewing the inside of his cheek, Gildun shakes his head and risks a peek over the boulder, gloved fingers digging into the snow and revealing the soft orange lichen hiding underneath.

"The four legged ones are Chargers - big things but skittish. Usually run if they get spooked but they'll still crush a man's head in with those hooves, believe you me!" At Gildun's words, his shiny new android nods attentively, leaning slightly forward with his hands resting flat against his thighs as if he was a model student and his lifelike brown eyes fix on him as if everything out of his mouth was critically important. "Now the little ones are Watchers. They see you, they send up the alarm and then they'll really want to brawl."

There's, oh, about six Watchers out there. The herd today is bigger than usual and they look like they literally just arrived at the feeding site: Chargers are still wandering around as they spread out, lazily swinging their curled racks this way and that as they inspect the frozen ground for any stray plants, twin-tails giving idle flicks every now and then. They could be here for awhile…and incidentally, this was the fastest way to Hollow Hall. Keyword being was.

They'll have to go around, Gildun sighs, because his usual trick of sneaking past won't work and he isn't like some big burly Vanguardsman who could throw down with machines, plural, and later laugh about it over flagons of Scrappersap. Tack on at least two days onto the trek and hope the Banuk they're going to see is still there once they get to Hollow Hall.

"One thing to consider," Connor chimes up after a second to process. "The Yellowstone hot springs are supposed to be famously corrosive, so - "

"- Corrosive to dirt? Amazing bathing spots, let me tell you."

The android doesn't exactly look aghast but he does perform that little pregnant pause betraying the exact moment when he realizes he said something wrong. Or, as he'd probably put it, "incorrect" or "invalid". Gildun's still trying to work out where the machine part of Connor begins underneath that incredibly lifelike mask, how much of him still sees the world like those Chargers and Watchers grazing in the open, still oblivious to Oseram and android.

"...I was going to say it'd be ill-advised to touch or enter the hot springs considering their acidity and heat. Maybe I was misinformed about their lethality."

Gildun's getting an idea now even as Connor speaks, an idea that's so unlike him that he almost imagines it's instead a little piece of Aloy's remarkable spirit peering over his shoulder, seeing a problem with this herd and going "I can fix that, easy"...only replace a brilliant Nora warrior with a machine wearing a man's face as the delving partner in question. Two hands, and, more importantly, two legs to solve their current obstacle standing quite literally in their path.

"Hold on, ingenuity's spark just flared. Hear me out…"

So the idea looked good on parchment.

In practice, however…

Well, Gildun's running for his life (again) and wishing ingenuity's spark had burned just a little less bright (again).

Step 1 of Spook the Herd had actually gone off without a hitch between Oseram and android running at the Chargers, hollering and hooting, and pelting them with rocks before they knew what was happening, triggering a panicked stampede in the opposite direction. That part had worked so shockingly well that Gildun even had enough time to feel a swell of pride lift his shoulders and the corners of his mouth…that is, until the Watchers wheeled around. Each and every one of their great eyes immediately flipped from the gold of alarm to an angry, violent red.

This is where Step 2 should have kicked in.

The plan was to split the Watchers between Connor and him. Get their attention, lure them into the springs, watch as they all fall in because obviously they can't swim, and then just waltz on over to Hollow Hall. Easy, right? Gildun's pretty good at the running-dodging combo and he figures the android demonstrated yesterday that he's quick on his feet, so in theory it'll be a well-oiled gear to turn.

What Gildun didn't account for is how the Watchers take one good look at Connor, humming together in their wordless machine voices, and apparently decide he isn't worth the trouble for whatever reason. No, to his mounting horror, they wheel around and come his way instead.

All six of them.

Every time Gildun feels his limbs flag or his breath catch in his throat, ragged and harsh, he finds another reserve of strength he didn't realize he still had each time he hears one of the Watchers gain ground. Funny how life or death situations make things like advancing age and "but I'm not a Vanguardsman!" fall to the wayside.

Meanwhile Connor is easily loping a few yards to his left, slender limbs pumping with none of the effort that Gildun puts in, and looking irritatingly fresh-faced as he calls out warnings.

"Watcher 04: priming fire. Dodge left now."

Or:

"Watcher 01: preparing lunge maneuver. Run faster, Gildun."

Or:

"Watcher 06: engaging hostile unit. Maintain current retreat."

At that point there's the sound of a grunt, a scuffle, and the sound of something heavy hitting the ground with the high-pitched squawk of a Watcher caught by surprise.

Gildun might be running for his life but he's also only human; when you hear something out of the ordinary, there's always, always this inexplicable urge to sneak a peek even though you probably shouldn't. There's just enough time to cast a quick, harried glance over his shoulder.

The android's on the ground tussling with the sixth Watcher, the two machines entangled as they roll away all up in each other's business, bar brawl style. Connor's doing his best to disable the Watcher he's tackled away from the rest of the pack, one hand diving into its neck and face as if he can rip out its critical components bare-handed and maybe that'd work…if the Watcher wasn't squirming like a fox just caught in a trap. Even sparking with fresh damage it's wriggling and writhing, kicking wildly, and even Connor - overly-ambitious, weaponless Connor - is having a hard time keeping it from breaking free and joining the rest of the pack still pursuing his human partner.

The chase is probably a minute at most, if even that. But it feels like an eternity of literally running in circles and in the back of his mind, he knows he can't keep it up.

Gildun's so preoccupied with the whole Run For Your Damned Life part that he almost doesn't see the hot spring until it looms up in an oversaturated smear of color.

There's a feverish idea of making a wild jump for it. Big and powerful and impressive, just like those famous Vanguardmen and Kestrals from the historical hunt scrolls. In fact the Oseram's pretty sure he does try to leap forward. His boot actually hits the other side -

- and punches right through the fragile crust as the rest of his body weight follows.

"Agh!"

Gildun hits the spring with an explosive splash, arms pinwheeling wildly as he tries to grab onto the "shore" and finds it keeps breaking off under his sodden gloves. He's joined by a series of splashes heralding the remaining five Watchers piling in after their trapped prey. Multi-colored water boils into a froth, machines struggling after the human floundering around, just barely able to keep his head above the churning spring and not get struck in the face by a lucky Watcher.

Was this it? Really?

The Oseram's still flailing when a black-and-orange cord slaps into the water before him.

"Gildun, grab the line. Relax your body."

Gildun grabs the line. He doesn't relax his body, instead spitting water as he gasps, "C-Connor?!"

"Relax," the android's voice drifts down. "If you can."

This time Gildun can…or, rather, his body finally just gives out and sags and he's just done. He has an impression of being pulled through the warm water until his dragging boots bump into mud and then rock, of hands looping under his arms and hoisting him up until he's flopped onto his back in the shallows like a landed fish complete with gasping mouth. Scrubby wild grasses growing through the shore's grit dance in the lapping waters, the sun blotted out by a man's shadow peering down at him, a strange, perfectly circular light still strobing the same alarmed gold as the Watchers. It honestly hurts to look at, the Oseram delver squinting.

"The hostile units sank to the bottom as planned," Connor says. The LED against his temple gradually calms to its default teal. "You're right about their inferior water competency. And, thankfully, about the reduced lethality of the spring itself."

"I am?" Gildun's reddened face pinches, baffled, as he takes a long second to register what the android's saying. "I am!"

With a wheeze the Oseram sits up, dimly aware of Connor's steadying hand against his shoulder, and he looks around. First at the spring: no more Watchers at the surface, although he has an impression of dark shapes still twitching at the bottom, of blue eyes flickering, then winking out one by one as each goes still. Apparently they aren't as waterproof as Snapmaws (good to know!). A wide-eyed survey of the immediate area reveals that the way to Hollow Hall is now officially clear of machines; the herd of Chargers long gone, the Watcher Connor tackled earlier lying on its side, looking very much dead at this angle with black-and-orange cords strewn from its stomach.

The relief flooding through Gildun is almost painful.

"...we did it!" Gildun punches the warm water at his side, feeling like he could float away instead of sinking straight down into the hot spring's mysterious blue depths. "See that, Connor? Teamwork between new partners: the stuff of legends!"

"I'm not sure why you're surprised, as your plan was tactically sound."

Gildun nods, grinning as he wobbles unsteadily to his feet, sopping wet and still resting his full weight on Connor's shoulder. If the android notices or finds him heavy, he doesn't say anything, his arm looped around the human's thick torso to stabilize him in case he pitches back into the spring.

"What did I tell you?" Gildun's gone positively high off their unexpected success. "Ingenuity's spark burns brightest just when you need it!"

#ao3 fanfic #archive of our own #connor rk800 #dbh connor #dbh rk800 #dbh fanfic #detroit become human #fanfiction #horizon fanfic #horizon forbidden west #gildun #connor #rk800 #androids #hzd #horizon #hfw

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i-like-sticks · 2 years ago

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🎧?

Alrighty, no specific character or fandom I see.

That's okay, I'll pick from something that's been eating at my brain for a bit!

So, how about a list for a canon character? Here's a list for the Witness from the Destiny Franchise! They've been on my mind for a bit lol

-(Don't Fear) The Reaper by Keep Shelly in Athens -Corrupt by Blvck Ceiling -Mourning Angel by Blvck Ceiling -Blue Calx by Aphex Twin -Cry Cry Again by Blvck Ceiling -Ready to Die by Alien Vampires -Light and Dark by mind.in.a.box -Electric Sun by VNV Nation -At Horizon's End by VNV Nation -Now This is Human by Diary of Dreams -Fantasy by DYE -Downfall by Fraunhofer Diffraction -On the Bottom by Fraunhofer Diffraction -Forseen by God Module -Walking by mind.in.a.box -Unhappy Woman (Perturbator Remix) by Dead Astronauts -Full Contact by Project Pitchfork -Feel! (Remix By the Retrosic) by Project Pitchfork -Achromatic (Mental Discipline RMX) by Solitary Experiments -The Plot Sickens by Esa -Main Title by Disasterpeace -Doppel by Disasterpeace -Pool by Disasterpeace -Mirkwood by Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein -The End of the Beginning by God is an Astronaut -Wallace by Hans Zimmer & Benjamin Wallfisch -Aftermath by Kyle Dixon & Michael Stein

#matla answers #ask stuff #i got carried away with this one too heheh #there was a lot of music i felt fitting i'm sorry

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kernelbastard · 2 years ago

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I've been thinking about Horizon Zero Dawn lately. It's been a while since I played, and I haven't gotten through the sequel yet, but it's been on my mind - specifically, how it handles its tribes.

I won't get into detail here, for obvious reasons, but I'm mixed Native American. I wasn't aware of this until about two years ago, and since then, a lot of things about my life have started to make sense. However, because I'm two generations removed from my tribe, I wouldn't have legal grounds to officially join it unless the parent I got that connection from did so first. Realistically, I wouldn't either way, because I'm financially stable and don't want to take money from the tribe, but that, combined with the fact that I don't really "look Native", does make it a bit complicated.

In Horizon, the protagonist - Aloy, if you're not familiar - is, at least on the surface, a white woman growing up in a Native American-coded society. To be clear, the Nora tribe pulls inspiration from Celtic and Nordic tribes, too, but a lot of their visual design is from pre-colonial indigenous culture. Apparently, mostly Hopi. Most of the people have medium-dark skin and black or brown hair. This is pretty common across the rest of the game, particularly the Banuk weraks, who are similarly based on Inuit and other First Nations tribes.

The games are set in North America, so it makes sense that they would have some of the same technology based on what resources are available, but there's only so much that convergent development can explain. This series is set in a world where all the cultures we know have been sliced, diced, and scrambled together in a big sci-fi omelet, effectively robbing all the humans left alive of their heritage from before the apocalypse that created it; some things remain, simply because concrete buildings don't rot like wood and cloth do, but there really isn't much left.

There's definitely a lot to be said for the game's appropriation of Native culture. Plenty of people have said it better than I can, and I don't disagree with them... But, at the same time, I can't say I hate it, either. I actually love it. Horizon Zero Dawn is pretty much the only first-person shooter other than Portal that I enjoy, because of its worldbuilding, not in spite of it.

And, yeah, I absolutely do see the issues, I'm not just ignoring them, but as a mixed person... I honestly really, really love Aloy, because she reminds me of what it was like, growing up with no idea where I actually came from or why that information was kept from me. I knew I was white - not sure where from - and Persian on my other parent's side, so I identified strongly with that, but it didn't explain... Well, what I now know to be generational trauma. Later on, because of the same DNA test that cleared things up on the Native side, I learned that I was also Celtic, so that's cool, but I have no cultural connections there, either. It's kind of a mess. Frankly, there's too many bits and bobs in that report to keep track of, and it wasn't even my report, it was my parents'. Er, reports, I guess. But you get the point.

I'm honestly not sure if I'd be able to relate to Aloy the same way if she visually matched her tribe. She's an outcast, because of how she's missing her ancestral ties to the tribe. That's important. You could also take her alienation and misunderstanding of social rules as an autism thing, which, y'know, is also good, but I feel like it's secondary to the other, stronger themes of heritage and lost connections.

So, no, I don't dislike her portrayal at all, for entirely subjective reasons. There's plenty of reasons to be upset about it, and I do wish we had more accurate Native representation in general, but I'll take what I can get, and this honestly hits harder than it would if she was a regular, accepted member of the community who knew who her family was and why she ended up somewhere she seemingly didn't belong. Maybe my priorities are off, but... It doesn't have to be perfect.

#horizon zero dawn #hzd #horizon aloy

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rauthschild · 1 month ago

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MESSAGE TO AFRO-SAXON AMERICA......

The article below is from the dark web, and what White Subjects / Indentured Servants of the British Territorial United States and Vatican Municipal United States are advocating and praying for.

Y'all shall receive a rood awakening soon, they're less than 7% of the population on Planet Earth, North America is Ancient Egypt, full of unseen Black Spiritual Ancestors and Aliens.

On that note, while y'all think your fingers are on the nuclear weapons, I have activated our global portals.

SO ABOVE, SO BELOW!

Sincerely,

Ernest Rauthschild

BOOM! THE GITMO LIST REVEALED: TREASON, MILITARY TRIBUNALS, AND THE INSURRECTION ACT – WHERE THEY GO ONE, THEY GO ALL!

The Tide is Turning: Justice is sweeping through the ranks of those who betrayed the United States. From military tribunals to sealed indictments, the Alliance is methodically dismantling the Deep State. Guantanamo Bay has expanded, preparing for the influx of traitors facing justice under the Insurrection Act and charges of sedition and treason.

The Insurrection Act Unleashed: Originating in 1954, the Insurrection Act grants the President authority to deploy military forces to suppress insurrection and restore order. In this unprecedented moment, it serves as the foundation for holding those accountable for undermining the Constitution.

The GITMO Roll Call:

From political elites to corporate moguls, the list of those detained or executed for treason grows daily. Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Comey, Hunter Biden, George Soros, Anthony Fauci, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden are just a few of the names tied to crimes against America. Guantanamo Bay, once a symbol of secrecy, now serves as the epicenter of this justice revolution.

Subversion Exposed: Stalin’s 1937 plan to destabilize America finds new life in today’s Deep State operatives. Biden and his allies weaponize these tactics, pushing the nation into chaos. Yet, the Alliance, armed with the Insurrection Act and 18 U.S. Code Chapter 115, fights back.

18 U.S. Code Chapter 115 - TREASON & SEDITION:

Treason, rebellion, and seditious conspiracy are punishable by death or life imprisonment. The law is clear, and the tribunals are delivering. Public records confirm justice is underway for high-profile figures, including those presumed untouchable.

The Movie Unfolds: What you see on screens is often a façade. Doubles, body clones, and deep fakes maintain the illusion while the real players face consequences. The storm is upon us, and transparency is on the horizon.

A Call to Patriots: This isn’t conspiracy—it’s revelation. The arrests, executions, and tribunals are real. Trust the plan. GITMO is active. Justice is happening. The Deep State’s days are numbered. Where we go one, we go all. Stay vigilant, stay strong, and prepare for the truth to emerge!

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lovecanbesostrange · 3 months ago

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I kept thinking of that poll from yesterday about writing down a list of 100 fav movies and so I just gave it a quick try...

Alien (don't make me choose between 1&2)

Heathers

The Breakfast Club

Nightmare on Elm Street (1, 3, 7)

but I'm a cheerleader

Star Wars 4, 5, 6

The Faculty

The Goonies

Terminator (1, 2, Dark Fate)

The Proposal

Barb & Star go to Vista Del Mar

The Lost Boys

Imagine Me & You

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Princess Mononoke

Laputa - Castle in the Sky

My Neighbor Totoro

The Iron Giant

Titan A.E.

Mulan

The Little Mermaid

Lilo & Stitch

The Emperor's New Groove

Brave

Maleficent

The Hunger Games

GhostBusters (this franchise has no bad entry)

Scream (much like with Alien the third comes in last, but here the whole franchise is one big banger)

The Sixth Sense

Signs

Stardust

X-Men: Days of Future Past (I love almost all foX-Men films though, but 2 and DoFP are the best)

Avengers, Age of Ultron, Infinity War, Endgame (let me put them in a row and I will not pick any more from the MCU)

The Dark Knight

Back to the Future

Jurassic Park

The Lord of the Rings (SEE please)

North by Northwest

Witness for the Prosecution

Some Like it Hot

Mulholland Drive

Raiders of the Lost Ark (also Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, no wait probably more so 3>1, the others are fine)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Charlie's Angels + Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

Pirates of the Caribbean (1, 2, 3)

Stephen King's IT Chapter One (funny enough I probably wouldn't qualify Two as a fav on its own, though it's a good and necessary second half of the story, but Chapter One is where it's at)

Carrie (1976)

The Mist (black-and-white is dope)

Misery

Stand by Me

Spaceballs

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Adventures in Babysitting

The Invisible Man (2020)

Pitch Black

Sunshine

The Cabin in the Woods

Evil Dead (especially 2)

Event Horizon

The Blob (1988)

Death Becomes Her

Steel Magnolias

A Fish called Wanda

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (German Dub supremacy though, Volle Kanne Hoshy)

Stranger than Fiction

An American Werewolf in London

The Silence of the Lambs

Starship Troopers

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Mamma Mia

Little Shop of Horrors

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Moulin Rouge

The Craft

A Chinese Ghost Story

Lady Vengeance

Silver Hawk

Dr. Wai in the Scripture with No Words (had to look up the English title, hey it's Jet Li's version of Indiana Jones and I have a soft spot for this one, even though it's far from Li's best and has so many flaws due to being a nightmare production)

Parasite

Mallrats

St. Trinian's

Ginger Snaps

The Fountain

Galaxy Quest

Elvira - Mistress of the Dark

Cruel Intentions

St. Elmo's Fire

Shaun of the Dead

Rock'n'Roll High School

The Prestige

Underworld (the first above all else)

Resident Evil (especially Afterlife)

Playing by Heart

The Heat

Kill Bill

Ever After

Donnie Darko

Happy Death Day

Trick 'r Treat

D.E.B.S.

Wait, how have I already reached 100? There aren't even the quirky films (like TiMER) or the fun horror trash (my love for Deep Blue Sea is endless). Didn't dive into European films (Amélie) or specific German stuff (bandits). I can do a 100 list for horror alone easily (omg not even The Haunting on here).

Anyway do not question how my mind wandered from title to title, also there is zero ranking involved. Damn, there are five on the list that I don't own on DVD or BD. hmmmm... What does favorite movie even mean? Who knows. In any case for the past few months I've gone back far more to stuff I already know instead of watching new things (that I plan to watch some day, but well, it never felt right).

#ramblings

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korset2019 · 7 months ago

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Eight Plus One

Posted in Latest Developments on March 4, 2005

By Aaron Forsythe

First things first, there are three things I'm not going to talk about in this column—the banning of Skullclamp in Singleton, the lack of changes to the Legacy and Extended formats, and the legalization of Portal and Starter cards. The first because it's pretty obvious, and the other two because there are bigger fish to fry. I plan to follow this column up with a catch-all next week, and I'll go over those topics there. On to the big news…

The Standard Bannings

The banning of eight cards in Standard (and, to a lesser extent, the restricting of Trinisphere in Vintage) has polarized the game's audience. There are those that simply love what we've done with the place, while others believe us to be insane, dumb, greedy, or some combination of the three. So what happened between December 1st and March 1st?

Was Standard that bad? Was the format actually not diverse enough, and not solvable enough? Looked at purely analytically, the format probably wasn't that bad. Decks emerged that could beat Affinity. You could play something other than Affinity or Tooth and Nail and have a decent chance to succeed. If the DCI attempted to solve every issue as if it were a complicated math problem, we very well might have done nothing again.

After all, banning cards is bad, and we only want to ban cards if a format was lopsided enough to warrant action, which Standard may not have been. The best deck only won X% of the time, was beaten by the second-best deck Y% of the time, and decks #3, 4, and 5 were all played in reasonable numbers. If we like the math, no problem. Just like last time.

But in the past three months R&D and the DCI have been reminded that Magic is not a series of balanced equations, spreadsheets of Top 8 results and data of card frequencies. Magic is a game played by human beings that want to have fun.

One of the most damning statements that can be made about a game is that it is not fun, and that's exactly what we've been hearing lately about Standard. Sure, ever since Affinity first showed up after the release of Mirrodin (and more so after it was revamped and supercharged with the release of Darksteel), people complained about it. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence in my inbox of people quitting Magic, threatening to quit, or stepping away from Standard for some amount of time because of the dark cloud of Affinity—and believe me, each of those emails made me unhappy—but recently the evidence of the general public's disdain for what the format looks like has gone from anecdotal to measurable. With some of the biggest Standard events of the year—Regionals, Nationals, and Worlds—on the horizon, how many more players could we continue to frustrate and alienate?

We know what to do if a format is horribly unbalanced, but what do we do when it is equally unfun? As much as I'd like to hire clowns to make balloon animals at every Friday Night Magic, we're stuck using more traditional means of damage control—the Banned and Restricted Lists.

At this point I hope it is becoming clearer why we did what we did, but I'll keep explaining anyway.

Going in to our meetings that would ultimately lead to this eight-card ban, we knew the goal was to make a statement. We had to alter the reality of the format, but we also had to let the world know without a doubt that we “slew the dragon” as it were. Affinity had to go away, and everyone that was having doubts about the future of Standard needed to understand it. With that thought, we came to an agreement to ban the five Mirrodin artifact lands.

Affinity had to go away, and everyone that was having doubts about the future of Standard needed to understand it.

Those five, we reasoned, would do the job thoroughly—Affinity couldn't exist without its skeleton, right? We knew such a ban would affect other decks, primarily Krark-Clan Ironworks, but that deck was guilty by association as far as we were concerned. If we somehow managed to remove Ravager Affinity from the environment—and just Ravager Affinity—I have little doubt that KCI would have stepped right in to the vacated “public enemy #1” slot, won lots and lots of games way earlier than it had any right to, and still forced players to maindeck multiple copies of Oxidize, March of the Machines, and the like. Sweeping change to the format? Not hardly. So KCI getting a little residual hate was not a sticking point for us.

The big issue was the one I brought up in December (and I quote): “We like to avoid having to solve problems by banning cards, as that leads to a culture of fear. We certainly don't want people to start believing that all the good cards they own are in the crosshairs of the DCI. With that in mind, can you imagine the weird backlash that would happen if we banned artifact lands? Most players that aren't into the tournament scene would have no idea at all why we did this. Tree of Tales is banned?! It's one of the most powerful cards ever?! Are you kidding me?! While it would certainly solve the problem on the top end, it would alienate and confuse people elsewhere.” Although it may seem hard to believe at the moment, all that stuff is still true. I feel for casual players everywhere who can no longer discard a land to Thirst for Knowledge, and I pity those that will have to explain this event to them—store owners, local TO's, and our poor customer service department. But it came down to risk versus reward, and we have to hope that our casual audience is more resilient than our tournament audience.

You can't please all of the people all of the time, although heaven knows we try.

We walked out of the meeting planning to ban just the lands (at which point I wrote my teaser article three weeks ago), but some vigilant playtesting quickly showed that such a move would have been a mistake. We made Ravager Affinity decks that ran off Chrome Mox, Paradise Mantle, Blinkmoth Nexus, Aether Vial, and Darksteel Citadel among other things, which were still good enough to win lots of games against other current real-world Standard decks.

Unacceptable. The worst thing that could happen, in our eyes, would be for people to come back to Standard, full of hope and under the impression that Affinity was dead, only to lose to a weaker-but-still-potent Affinity deck in Round 1 of Regionals. So we had to keep pruning. The Citadel was the next to go, but it still wasn't enough. Arcbound Ravager—the deck's namesake—could not dodge the executioner's axe any longer. Our now ramshackle Atog Affinity decks were still showing slight signs of life, and the final piece of adding Disciple to the list—although heavily debated—was agreed upon. Of all the cards banned, I feel the fewest tears will be shed for Disciple, for it was quickly becoming one of the most frustrating and hated cards in the game.

We tried nominating other combinations of cards for banning as well, including some combination of Ravager, Disciple, Cranial Plating, Ironworks, and Aether Vial, but they all seemed like bans that would balance the format for those that were continuing to play it without sending a clear enough message to those that had forsaken it. And again, I quote from my December article: “There's no way for us to be sure that if we banned some or all of the 'marquee' Ravager Affinity cards that other cards wouldn't just spring up and take their places…. What happens in that world? We ban some cards, which inherently makes people mad, and we don't even change the format that much.”

Six lands, Arcbound Ravager, and Disciple of the Vault—you may see it as overkill, but to us it was a necessity.

Trinisphere

I could repeat many of the paragraphs above with some of the words changed to cover the Vintage changes, but I think I'd rather summarize instead.

Trinisphere is a nasty card, no bones about it. It does ridiculous things in Vintage, especially combined with Mishra's Workshop. As I've said in a previous column, we almost restricted it before it was even released.

Now that it has been floating around for a while, the Vintage crowd understands that the card does good things for the format, and bad things to the format. While it does serve a role of keeping combo decks in check, it also randomly destroys people on turn one, with little recourse other than Force of Will. And those games end up labeled with that heinous word—unfun. Not just “I lost” unfun, but “Why did I even come here to play?” unfun. The power level of the card is no jokes either, which is a big reason why I don't feel bad about its restriction.

Vintage, like the other formats with large card pools, always runs the risk of becoming non-interactive, meaning the games are little more than both players “goldfishing” to see who can win first. Trinisphere adds to that problem by literally preventing the opponent from playing spells. We don't want Magic to be about that, especially not that easily. If combo rears its head, we'll worry about it later. But for now, we want to people to play their cards. Really.

What does all this mean for the future? What's getting banned next? The answers, I hope, are “nothing” and “nothing.” This radical change should fix things for the foreseeable future. We've made significant changes in our entire R&D process over the last couple years—everything from design philosophy to our playtesting regimen have been overhauled at least somewhat since the days of Mirrodin—cold comfort in times like this, I know, but true nonetheless. We aren't making some sort of policy change that will have us banning cards based on perception over reality down the road, so expect business as usual on that front. We made a bold move and can only hope it works out, for our sake and yours.

I really, really, really hope you all enjoy Constructed Magic for the next eight months.

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lonita · 1 year ago

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Favourite Films

I first did this back in 2019, but I thought I'd dust it off, tidy it up, and maybe add to it. I need more categories.

Favourite classic film: Lawrence of Arabia

Favourite war film: The Bridge on the River Kwai

Favourite beautiful film that I actually hate so I never watch it but love watching it when I do: The Fall (Tarsem Singh)

Favourite 80s not-even-remotely-guilty-pleasures: Trading Places, Major League, Private Benjamin, Desperately Seeking Susan

Favourite silent film: Battleship Potemkin

Favourite Bond film: You Only Live Twice

Favourite old Hollywood musical: An American In Paris, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Favourite movies that I put on when I go to bed because sometimes I hate silence: three of the five Alien Nation post-TV series films: Dark Horizon, The Enemy Within, The Udara Legacy

Favourite John Hughes film: The Breakfast Club, Pretty In Pink

Favourite mindfuck: Altered States

Favourite film that was so emotionally affecting that I can never watch it again because it'll break my heart, again: A Taste of Honey

Favourite Star Trek film: Save the Whales (IV: The Voyage Home)

Favourite Christmas film: Scrooge (1951, Alistair Sim)

Favourite films to watch just for the colour: just about anything by Zhang Yimou, so Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Curse of the Golden Flower, and also Tarsem Singh's "The Fall".

Favourite weekend afternoon films when I was a kid: The World of Henry Orient, The Trouble With Angels, the two horrible Peter Cushing Doctor Who films

Favourite middle of the night film as a teen: Times Square

Favourite old comedic film: Operation Petticoat

Favourite worst adaptation of a book film: Pride and Prejudice (1940)

Favourite display of Ray Harryhausen's skill: The Valley of Gwangi

Favourite terrible Christmas movie: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

#films #lists #journal

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darkobssessions · 2 years ago

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Dear world,

"What will it take for you to listen?"

Why is mental health so stigmatised? Why are we not talking about it more publicly?

Why is it that we have always struggled in silence and secret? What is it with this world that we just cannot crack? Are we destined to be shunned and abused, misunderstood and left out, blamed and scapegoated, lost and found, made assumptions of and not believed, named and then abandoned?

Why do we hide the central aspects of what make our lives our lives and who we are?

What about the things that affect who we are, which we cannot control and never asked for?

What about the memories we don't want, the experiences we feel torn apart by, the friends we lose?

The broken promises we make ourselves and others, the tears, the fights, the challenges most of all challenges that plague our existence, along with limitations.

We are flame driven arrows sharpened to perfection, golden glistening. We may invariably point that at ourselves or destructively in the world, we may snap and relapse, enter into a higher or lower state that we were last in, and possibly rewrite whole swathes of our lives and function from that place from that point onwards as if we had torched who we were just an hour ago, that is exactly what is happening. We become who we need to be in order to survive.

We are experts at laying complete waste to our lives. If we must, we can again quite swiftly demonstrate because after having lived it we also know what does and what does not in fact destroy you quite fast enough, or might rather bore you actually.

I am a mix between a cynical british man and a subsaharan bush fire wild instinct desert fox first bloom torrential rain sand tornadoes cliff faces crimson sunsets stars as far as the eyes can see healing trees on every horizon a nature preserve a national treasure a tourist destination a money making activity a space filler for someone next door, who by the way, does in fact own guns. I've lost the point of my why. It's not not my why anymore it's just too overwhelming and I can't cope with how urgent and dire this circumstance is which I rember when confronted with pretty much anything in my circumstance. My very new living circumstance. Stress. Alienation. Disability. Mental illness. Autism. Masking. Financial dependence on an abusive family. A pervasive fear of failure. A dark cloud that holds me captive and will not allow me to work, contribute or survive in this world. These things and stressors in new environments (or just the life we live, which is very stressful, which is fueled by stress, and glorified in stress, and expected of us, and shunned and suppressed when it is expressed openly) are experiences that send shock waves through my entire nervous system and shake and rattle and drench me in the cycles and tendencies that do not stop going once they are set into motion, wether that is up or down.

I will climb as high as I can get or I will sink and sink and sink and sink and keep going as if gravity doesn't mean anything to me other than a fun ride I slurp up and ask for th'e next one. I am wondering why we dont talk about mental health as much as we need to because how it's going with me is I am having various of my episodes due to different stressful components of my move and my environment, my sister has tried to make space and - I'm in shock tatters from that one. She said she didn't know who I was in unmasking and that she gave a knowing look to a server over ordering a drink, because I guess what ordered a drink in a basic polite way and apprently (according to my sister) this offended the barista and she shut down from that point onwards and just took the rest of the order. So my sister felt the need to impart to the barista that yes she knew and she was very sorry for my appalling offense. The offense of being me, of being direct, of being perceived in any way that is different to the norm, a difference in expression, movement thought, behaviour, idea or ideal, needs and challenges. These people exist these people are real, I am these people. I have been around an amazing community of them since my time started here on tumblr in 2013. I am pretty certain of the bonds and the ties and the darknesses and the strengths that make us human and that a huge if not majority percentage of people on this platform are experiencing something dark and real that so few dare approach on other platforms, at least not this way. And the fact that we can be anonymous on here helps, the fact that we need not show this to an employer. We are still scared sick, scared -> sick

But we are milions strong and in that number I feel solidarity because my daily life is one of acute loneliness. I wish to forge a way out of this loneliness and experience the sea beyond. I believe that me and others like me deserve the light of day, or the freedm to truly live in our nights because we are incapable of engaging with the world in its normal hours or have to undergoe great personal and physiological stress to engage with, or take pharmaceuticals in order to participate. We self medicate in a million and one ways, we have our own routines and systems to come with PTSD and quirks of our neurology. We know our way around our compulsions better than anyone, and when we say we cannot in fact get through the thing we are referring to, we mean it. This is your strong friend speaking up and saying, it is all getting a bit much to deal with, us saying this last bit of stress has become the one that might crack the resolve, part the veil, elevate symptoms, throw us over the edge, please, believe them. And I wish we had real things on hand other than numbers we can reach out to in crisis. Really what am I going to say? Am I really just going to sob out my entire irrational and uber rational existentialist spiel dread belief singular terror and life vision and past and manifesto right there on the call? I'm just going to tell them when I tell my boyfriend the whales are all dying and I feel it and I writhe and moan and shriek as if I am personally being shocked and hung on hooks? That meltdowns are dangerous and happen when I'm most stressed and being alone for that isn't safe? What would they say to that other than: you need to be admitted. Realy and seriously, honestly, don't lie to me. Tell me they wouldn't say, okay, you seem to really need some help there. And you said you are new here and want to try to live here? Okay, we're just going to- instutionalise you.

Is this paranoid ideation?

It's stuff like this that is real.

We want to be able to tell our friends and post on our timelines.

Saying hey, we're thinking this, does this check out or can you reflect something back to me that might help me assimilate this experience in the context of the whole, or remind me of something important about myself or my journey.

Hey, I am having a down day/time and I really can't bring myself to answer your messages and I feel really bad about the whole thing but the prospect of talking to you about it is making it much worse and the actual time I've spent talking to you or generally anyone has been unpleasant and I really don't feel myself or okay right now so kindly just nothing...it trails off at the end there because while I could start with the beginning you see I get stuck at the end. So I just say nothing.

Your 'strong' friend is silent because there is no easy way as of such, in this world, in most contexts, to transmit thoughts, feelings, experiences or needs outside of the norm. This world that we have constructed for ourselves (has been constructed through us? been constructed for us?) discourages that, it suppresses, takes advantage of, uses against us and punishes our divergence.

People look down on hardship and misery, look away from things that make them feel uncomfortable, and create comfortable delusions rapidly in order to preserve their quality of life at any given moment. We are all deeply, deeply talented at self denial. Basically, there is a wall up to present the best self and it feels like fewer and fewer places in which you can present your real self.

If we spoke up, would you listen?

When we say strong about ourselves we mean weathering the storm day in and day out, season to season, moment to moment, on the very edge of the wire. We are battling ferocious animals yipping and biting at us, gnawing upon us, great storms and battles, we are over and over again needlessly ceaselessy going up and down or just down down down or up up and up or, just down. There are an infinite number of patterns just as it is with nature. We have a pretty big concentration of these particular chemical balances, experiences, backgrounds, needs, desires and behaviours. Splitting at the speed of light. Regressing, repatterning, escalating, excavating, declining, deciding, torching, lying, running, stealing all the oxygen in the room like an explosion, tearing holes through furniture. We are the anthem of all the ones who survived and continue to survive, the euology of those that didn't make it and a promise to those that are struggling to hang on through sending out a lifeline and working to change the narrative for our children and future generations. That we will this vast community's presence to advocate for and change and think up clever ways like memberships and events where members of the community can share, collaborate, become empowered, and truly connect in a way that is beyond the mental illness trope in society, where we are at once so diametrically different to everything around us and also pressured to act a certain way about it, sugarcoat and overstress and perform ways around it, and keep it at arm's length, and definitely have consequences if we slip up.

We are just who we are, and we experience what we experience. There are many things that we cannot control or wish were not that way, there are very real challenges and issues in society that changing could really help. We deserve community, friendship, support, recognition, and opportunities to live a fulfilling life. I think we are tuning in the UN decalaration about human rights. Our human rights are being abused and shattered every day in a society where we are penalised for the disabilities, pressured to do or die, left alone to starve if we do not and a whole lot of other nasty things that every person who has struggles with mental illness will have at some point experienced in their lives. These are very close and intimate things, and very sparse woods out there, for shelter, nourishment or belonging. We most disporportionately struggle with homelessness, poverty, and displacement. Homelessness, poverty and discplacement can create us or trigger us, express us from within someone's genotype like waking a sleeping giant. We are the friends and colleagues that walk away or end friendships, act impulsively, and disappear.

We go quiet, zone out, check out and leave, because we just know how it is. We have been here before, time and time again.

There is nowhere that we feel like we belong, until we find those places or people or they find us. Systems can help us but they have to be built in an extremely personalised and understanding way, preferably by other wise and caring individuals that have experienced this themselves.

From a very dark time in my life right now, I say directly to all my friends and followers that the best way you can support me right now is monetary. You can send me a gift to share your appreciation or thought of me, and help keep me going and to help me take care of myself and navigate this crisis. In a two birds one stone approach, you can also opt in for my private group and patreon membership where I can connect with other humans and cultivate my inner circle.

Boost my mood here -> paypal.me/yazodah

Join my membership by clicking here and select the I See Me group membership tier.

In the group we will go over the overall system-

What works for us, what doesn't, how to combine features, how to go deeper, how to navigate challenges, how to come back from damage, how to make magic again, how to sustain ourselves and our lifestyles, and how to become empowered and empower others to do the same.

Join the neurodivergent den for $9 per month, stay as little or as long as you like. For $108 spread out over the year you can support a neurodivergent creator and experience first hand for an absolute premium my signature program and process that has worked wonders objectively on my experience. There is community, there are resources, insights, courses, content and owning of our fractured experiences and coming together within and without to not only make sense of it all mentally and emotionally, but to also energetically and emotionally untie those knots, and bring phsyical change to the lives we are living every day.

In the ultimate pursuit of building a new world we can stand to be in.

Your beloved Optimisation Specialist, Dark afficionado, obsessive compulsive, autistic artist, faery from the fertile crescent

-Dark Obsessions

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starfireproductions · 3 years ago

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Priestess Su-Saan

Picture for a friend’s birthday from the awesome series Alien Nation. Okay, this is from the first movie, Dark Horizon, but it still counts. Great project to do and loved the wild mix of colours in the clothing.

Full details can be found on my DA page here: https://www.deviantart.com/starfire-productions

#artists on tumblr #alien nation #alien nation dark horizon #alien nation tv series #fan art #Fanart #scifi #scifi character #tenctonese #tencton #newcomer #traditional art #traditional fan art #traditional drawing #traditional illustration #alien character #alien priestess #wedding

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psilocybinlemon · 2 years ago

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DARK ENERGY - Fairy Tail x Half-Life 2

For the past seventeen years, the Earth has been scourged by an extraterrestrial alien race known as the Combine. The remaining humanity is bound in shackles while the planet is sapped from its precious resources. However, a covert group of rebels still persists, aiming to defeat the Combine and restore their freedom.

Natsu, a proficient Resistance soldier, helps escort citizens from the Combine-controlled City 17 into safer regions, while his older brother Zeref works restlessly in his laboratory to create a functioning teleport. If that succeeds, the evacuation operations would be much smoother, and Natsu and his team wouldn’t have to constantly put their lives at risk.

The process stands still until the missing piece is found and delivered to the team by a scientist named Lucy. But at the same time, long-lost forces awaken and join the fray, causing the Combine to launch a full-term attack for wiping out the Resistance. Let the war end in either total victory or their extinction – no further compromise shall they allow.

// Modern Post-Apocalyptic AU, based in the universe of Half-Life series. Rated Explicit for death, blood and gore, terrible politics, war, that kind of stuff you see in First-Person Shooter games. Pairing: Eventual Nalu Chapters in Tumblr: 1 Also in AO3

PROLOGUE: 17

“In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing a threat from outside this world.” - Ronald Reagan, Address to the 42nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, NY, 1987

// December 5th, 2017. Tuesday, 4:45 PM. Black Mesa East // The 5th of December had always felt like an anniversary of sorts, but for what exactly, Natsu couldn’t tell.

From the rooftops of Black Mesa East, the scenery opened far and wide across the wastelands. The sun was descending closer to the horizon, nearly hiding behind the Citadel, the enormous tower that pierced the skies. Even from afar, Natsu could see the flying synths returning and leaving their nest of darkness. The shadows of that tower, the enemy’s main fortress, stretched over his life like the plague, but he still clung to the rays of light that shone behind it.

Sometimes, when he stared at the setting sun long enough, he could forget the weight of the machine gun that rested in his arms, but not today. Not on the 5thof December, because this day, seventeen years ago, the world as he’d known it had come to an end.

And his hands were still covered in blood.

He let out a weary sigh. On the outskirts of the distant city, a cloud of black smoke rose from the depths of the canal, approximately where Station 12 was located. Natsu had been there when the bombs unfurled and fires began to spread. Earlier this day, his squad had been escorting a group of citizens through the underground railroad, when out of sudden, the Combine had ambushed them. Such a thing hadn’t happened in years – they had been able to operate covertly in peace, but now, the enemy had finally sniffed them out.

Though dread and fear had been building up in his chest since it happened, Natsu still couldn’t comprehend it. His missions had never failed. He lowered his gaze from the sun to his hands. The dark crimson stains on his gloves and the splatters on his gun were still there, reminding him it had truly happened. They had lost every citizen they were supposed to protect. His partner lay in the infirmary in critical condition and the rest of the team were still missing. Though he couldn’t feel the pain, the weight of this failure held him in a chokehold, like an open wound he couldn’t cauterize.

Yet somehow, ill precognition remained with him. Today had been only the beginning. The worst was yet to come.

Then, he caught a signal of someone arriving on the roof. Carrying the codename “Scarlet”, another soldier came to his field of detection, but stayed there at the edge for a while. Natsu didn’t need to glance past his shoulder to know Erza was staring at him, unable to say anything. She often used to complain about him coming to the roof, but now her silence felt much worse than her yelling ever did.

“Sergeant Dragneel, it’s time for a mission report.”

Natsu turned towards her. Clad in her black Overwatch armour, the commander of the Resistance units stood next to the door. The expression on Erza’s face was stern, yet even she failed to masquerade her pain. There wasn’t any disappointment in it, no. Only sadness. As they exchanged a wordless gaze, Natsu answered with a nod. He dreaded the thought of reporting today’s events to their leader, but it had to be done, for the sake of the lives they had lost. So, he stole one last glance at the sunset, and followed Erza back to the building.

“So, what happened?” Erza asked after a long silence, as they walked through the corridor towards the leader’s office. Her tone was softer now, as if the titles and formalities had been stripped from their conversation, giving him an opportunity to speak from friend to friend. When he remained quiet, Erza glanced at him. “Natsu?”

He scoffed dryly.

“Everything went to hell.” __________________________________________________________

// December 5th, 2017. Tuesday, 7:13 AM. City 17 //

The day had just dawned bright and crispy, and the 47thevacuation operation for this year was almost complete.

So far, everything had gone according to the plans. Natsu’s squad hadn’t encountered any unexpected hindrances or obstacles, except for a certain barnacle accident in the canals that Gray refused to talk about. Either way, the mission had passed without further injuries, and Natsu was anxious to make it back to Black Mesa East. If they’d travel fast, he could sleep in his own bed tonight. That thought always kept him going.

Since arriving in City 17 late yesterday evening, they had found a place to stay in the apartments near the main railway station. Despite having slept for only a few hours last night on a thin mattress in the cold kitchen corner, no signs of tiredness adorned Natsu’s face. In the bleak morning light, he ate some breakfast with Gray. They had found some coffee and wheat crackers in the cabinets, yet Natsu had not dared to check their expiration dates. Snacks from the previous century filled his stomach just as well if he didn’t think about it too much.

“Hey, Natsu, guess what,” Gray said, holding back a snicker of a laugh. “That Combine’s‘non-mechanical reproduction simulation’is pretty lit shit.”

Natsu’s gaze shot from the newspaper to the black-haired man, who sat on the opposite side of the small makeshift table. “Man, what the hell?”

Gray took the first sip of the coffee that had stopped steaming a while ago. “Yeah. When their soldiers have earned a hundred credits, they can get that as a reward. It’s basically some virtual porn, quite realistic, but the Combine’s representation was rather… weird.”

“Don’t tell me you tried it.”

“I found the data when I was hacking into their servers yesterday. Of course I had to check what that‘non-mechanical reproduction simulation’was.” When Natsu didn’t answer, Gray spread his arms in defence.So that’s why he was locked in the bathroom for two hours last night,Natsu thought. “Don’t judge, it’s my job to sniff into these things as a data scavenger!”

Sighing, Natsu leant his forehead onto his palm, unable to look at his fellow soldier. The yellow-papered newspaper, painted by numerous coffee stains, wrinkled beneath his elbow. A familiar headline covered most of the first page, one he had seen too many times before.EARTH SURRENDERS, it said, loud and clear. The ink had faded in the passing of the years, but the date was still visible in the upper corner of the page.15th of December, 2000, ten days after the incident that had changed everything.

“Can’t fucking believe it has been almost seventeen years and there still isn’t a fresh newspaper,” Natsu muttered, trying to distract himself from Gray’s shit. He lifted the white cup to his lips and poured down the last of his coffee, grimacing at the bitter taste. Just to be sure which day it was, he checked today’s date on his wristwatch.December 5th. He sneered. “It was this exact day when the world went to hell.”

Gray was quiet for a while. Talking about the First Days always made him shut down. The men were of the same age – Gray had also been only five years old when the incident happened, but he’d never told where he was then. Natsu had shared everything of his story with Gray, even the fact that it had been his dad in the test chamber that fateful day. Yet somehow, Natsu had always thought Gray’s story had to be so much worse.

Though memories surfaced from the depths of his mind on this particular day, they failed to make him cry. Few things did anymore. He had cried then when his mother shoved him to the train with his brother and sworn she’d find them later. She never did. He had cried when the lights had gone out for good – he hadn’t been afraid of the darkness, but the creatures that lurked in it. He wasn’t scared of them anymore. But if he could tell the five-year-old him that he’d come to kill those monsters later on, he wasn’t sure if he would.

Maybe his younger self would be better off without knowing where life after the world’s end would take him.

“I’d rather…” Gray started and sighed. From the sudden darkening of his eyes, Natsu could tell the man had drifted into his memories as well. “I’d rather not talk about it now.”

Natsu nodded.

“Me neither.”

They were the only ones in the apartment’s small kitchen, but the distant chatter of others could be heard from the living room. The doors between the rooms had been removed some time ago, yet the design of the whole block must’ve been bleak long before the world went down. Except for their own fortresses and industrial factories, the Combine had built nothing on Earth. City 17 was formed on the foundation of some East-European city, and the architecture was still from the Soviet era. What exactly had been the city’s name before it became City 17, Natsu didn’t know, and it probably didn’t matter anymore.

By the time Natsu’s group arrived here, most of the block’s citizens had chosen, orbeenchosen to be deployed to the Combine. It seemed to be the fate of many neighbourhoods recently. Only a group of nine had stayed in the building trying to survive with the little food and supplies they had left. When they were asked if they wanted to leave the city, their answer was a clear, eager yes.

In the living room, Cana and Loke were sharing details of their upcoming escape journey with the citizens. There were three men and six women, which meant they’d have to divide into two groups to stay under the radar. Each time it surprised Natsu to hear that most citizens had no idea the underground railroad – or Black Mesa East, the largest Resistance base in the area, where the road led – even existed, but at least they had managed to keep it covered so far. The trip through the Xen-infested canals wouldn’t be easy, yet many still chose to take the risk. Life had been getting increasingly more intolerable in City 17.

“If you want, I can share the files with ya,” Gray said after the silence. “Wouldn’t hurt to have a good laugh, right?”

“No thanks, idiot,” Natsu answered and turned a page on the newspaper. To ignore Gray’s meaningless rumbling, he kept reading, even though he had read the same article hundreds of times.Portal storms continue. Windows to another world open across the globe. Stay calm and indoors to avoid panic, experts advise. Natsu scoffed dryly. Staying indoors hadn’t helped much when a portal to Xen could randomly open at one’s toilet, and a swarm of acid-spitting monsters flooded the house. It hadn’t happened to Natsu, but he’d heard enough stories. No one had been able to avoid panic on the First Days.

“Why do you always have to be such a grim bastard?” Gray asked, grinning. “I could just upload those to your BCI while you sleep, you know.” He reached across the table and gently knocked the small metallic dots on Natsu’s right temple. “Maybe that would make you happier.”

Natsu shoved his hand away, shuddering at the thought. “If you do that, I’ll kill you,” he warned, though Gray knew he didn’t truly mean it. Natsu joked about killing his second-in-command man at least once a day, but he’d never let any harm fall on his most-trusted friend. “I really don’t want to experience some fucked-up alien porn, thank you very much.”

“Oh yeah? Got enough bitches on your dick?”

Natsu scoffed and stared into his eyes for a moment. “I got one bitch on my fucking face at the moment.”

Gray smirked, leaning back in his chair. “I’ve heard some folks saying that they’d join the Civil Protection just to get a proper meal. I think they just wanna see some alien porn. Think about it, man. Some people are giving up their entire freedom for the opportunity.”

Natsu glanced at Gray’s cup. “Well, if they’re forced to drink coffee and eat crackers that both expired in 1999, it’s no wonder they consider joining the CP.” Then he dug an old lighter and a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his cargo pants, took one and held it between his teeth as he ignited it. “Damn, these cigs are stale as fuck,” he muttered as he exhaled the cloud through the broken window, gazing down at the empty streets below.

Gray shrugged and took another sip of cold, black coffee. “If you don’t think about it, it ain’t that bad.” Gray laughed and beckoned at the pack Natsu had placed next to his empty coffee cup. “Gimme one of those.”

Natsu glared at him from below his brows. “Bad shit happens to greedy whores,” he growled slowly.

“Come on, just this once. I left mine at the base.”

“Too bad then. You have no idea how long it took to find a well-preserved carton.”

“Well, I guess I could tell Lisanna how much you’re smoking on the missions. Maybe she’d help you get rid of thatwell-preserved cartonby giving that to me instead,” Gray replied mockingly. “She’d hate it if you became impotent, you know.”

“Nah. She already knows how much I smoke, and I don’t think she even cares about my potency anymore, anyway,” Natsu answered and blew out some smoke. “You’re one really desperate bitch aren’t you?”

“Hey, I’m dying for a cig,” Gray whined. “Do you want me to beg or suck your –?”

“Man, just shut up.” Knowing he couldactuallydo that, Natsu gave in. “Here, but you’ll owe me a beer,” he muttered and offered the pack to Gray, pinching his brows when the man took two. Smiling wickedly, Gray put the extra one behind his ear, then stood up from the table and walked to Natsu, then bent down to ignite his cigarette on the burning end of Natsu’s smoke. As he straightened his back and leaned against the windowsill, Natsu’s scowling gaze was still on him. “That’s twobeers now,” he scoffed. “I hate it when you do that.”

“Whatever you wish, you grumpy cunt,” Gray answered, breathing out the smoke at Natsu’s face. He remained quiet for a moment, as if thinking back his words. “There’s some shit between you and Lisanna? That’s why you’re so cranky?”

Natsu shrugged. If Gray would rather not talk about the First Days, Natsu really didn’t like sharing his misfortunes with women. Both were equally catastrophic. “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated? As if you somehow forgot she’s your trainee and you shouldn’t actually be fucking her?”

“Something like that,” Natsu mumbled as he inhaled the smoke, then rubbed the back of his neck before exhaling it. “I don’t know. It just ain’t working.”

“It can’t be as bad as when you were Erza’s trainee, and –“

“For fuck’s sake let’s not mentionthat!”

“Jellal would skin you alive if he knew about it,” Gray snickered. “Hmm, I could use that to extort cigs from you, right? Why didn’t I think of that earlier…”

Natsu buried his face into his hands, holding the cigarette between his fingers, a bit further away from his hair. Sometimes even he couldn’t believe all the things he had done – and actually, some were so distant and unbelievable he kept forgetting about them, as long as Gray didn’t kindly decide to bring them back up at unfortunate moments. His little fling with Erza from years ago was a brilliant example of such things. Gray made sure he’d never hear the end of it.

Gray rubbed his chin. “We were in Erza’s squad when we raided the old warehouse near the canals, right? Remember that?” he asked, his tone less snarky than previously. Perhaps even he realised he’d hit the wrong subject, and it was better to shift to something else.

Natsu lowered his arms to the table, lifting his brow. “Was this the sex-tape case?”

“Yeah,” Gray laughed. “Somebody had hidden their VSC cassettes of home-filmed hot stuff into empty ammo crates. We took them to Black Mesa East and showed them to the vortigaunts.” Natsu’s open cringe made him even more excited. “Poor vortigaunts were so confused. What did they say? Shit, like,ga la lung... churr galing chur alla gung...”

Natsu failed to hold back his laughter as Gray imitated the vortigaunt speech. “You know, they often speak in our language until they wish to speak ‘unflattering things’about us,” he said and brought the cigarette back to his lips. “That probably meantgeez, these guys are fucking morons or something.”

“I kinda miss the vortigaunts when we’re away,” Gray said after a small silence, looking out from the window. “All they do is stare straight into your soul and utter poetry.” Suddenly, a frown formed between the man’s brows. He remained perfectly still while staring at the streets, until he flinched away from the windowsill. “Shit, the metro cops are here.”

“What!?” Natsu answered, disbelief and rage mixing in his whisper. He spun around in his chair and peeked out from the window, then instantly pulled his head back. A unit of Civil Protection, about six soldiers, marched down the streets towards the building. “Oh shit, you’re right.”

“Fucking hell,” Gray said, dumping the half-burned cigarette butt into the coffee cup, and then they both picked up their machine guns that had been resting against their chairs. He rushed to the living room with Natsu following his trail. The mention of metro cops – they probably hadn’t been listening to their whole conversation, hopefully – had already alerted the rest of the squad and the citizens. “We’ve gotta get going now. CP’s heading this way!”

“They’ve no reason to come to our place!” exclaimed one citizen, a younger woman whose name Natsu couldn’t remember – either Milly or Millianna, he wasn’t sure.

“Don’t worry, they’ll find one,” Natsu told her, and began counting the people. He made it to eight heads when he realised one was missing. When they had woken up an hour ago, there had surely been nine of them. “Where’s the dark-haired lady?”

“Minerva said she’d go pick up something important from the cellar, but she hasn’t gotten back,” the girl said.

“When did she leave?”

“Half an hour ago, maybe.”

Suspicion aroused in Natsu’s mind. “We won’t wait for her. The only important thing you’ll be taking from here is your lives. So, since the CP’s so kindly decided to raid this fucking building, we’ll escape through the roofs.” He gestured at Loke and Cana. “You two take them outta here, me and Gray will follow as soon as we can.”

Loke nodded, then ordered each citizen to the hallway. Natsu and Gray remained in the room as the others left, putting their helmets on their heads. While Loke and Cana wore just bullet vests upon long-sleeved jackets and scarves with the Resistance symbol, lambda letter, embroidered on them, Natsu and Gray were fully clad in Civil Protection armour sets. It was a part of their strategy, to use infiltration and escape methods to take citizens to safety. So far, it had always worked, and Natsu had no reason to doubt why it wouldn’t work this time.

Rubble sounded loud and clear in the staircase as the front door on the first floor was blown up, followed by many hasty steps. The short, blonde girl next to the brown-haired one fell pale as a ghost. “I told you they’d be coming for us next! It was just a matter of time!”

“Quit screaming and go,” Natsu ordered her, his voice transmuted by his helmet’s vocoder as he shoved the trembling girl into the hallway. He loaded his SMG just to be sure – despite using full armour stolen from killed CP’s, their cover wasn’t unbreakable. If they’d start asking too many questions, he’d have no other choice than to empty the magazine. Disguising into Combine uniforms and getting caught undercover meant gaining instant express to Nova Prospekt – a fate worse than death.

When the citizens had run to the second store on Cana’s and Loke’s lead, Natsu and Gray closed the apartment doors, pretending to have just finished a check-up. Through the vision shield of his helmet, Natsu detected the incoming soldiers before they reached the end of the stairs. He turned towards them, raising his hand to his brow.

“We’ve just finished inspection raids of this block. We found no disturbances in this sector,” Natsu reported with no falter in his voice.

There were eight of them, hiding their faces behind those white masks. It sickened him every time that the Civil Protection werestill human. They wore armbands with “c17:i4o” emblazons on them, and “C17” was printed on the back of their collars – same as Natsu and Gray, yet nothing about their hearts was the same. Just how many blocks had these bastards brutalized? How many had they killed, deployed to their forces, or sent to Nova Prospekt? Those who joined the CP had given up their freedom, theirhumanity,while the Resistance still clung to it, and wouldkeep clinging, no matter how hard the Combine tried to break them.

The leader of the squad held a stun baton, charged with electricity, in his gloved hands, as if eager to get to beat people with it. The officer stepped closer to them. “We’ve just gotten a report of a serious disturbance in this specific sector. According to the reports, there have been suspected anticitizens,” his voice altered into a robotic monotone, the same as Natsu’s and Gray’s.

… what?

“We heard the same, but we found no-one here. It must’ve been a false alarm,” Gray said. “This building is clear. We’re just leaving.”

The officer didn’t seem to believe them. “Fascinating. We weren’t supposed to have extra officers in this area today. Which shift are you in? Show me your IDs, so we can redirect you to your right area of responsibility before the big boss notices.”

Natsu and Gray glanced at each other, and though they couldn’t see each other’s expression, they knew they had the same thought.

They raised their guns and opened fire.

“243! Assault on protection team!” a soldier on the back shouted to his radio, the electric voice buried under the roar of the bullets. Natsu and Gray walked back while keeping their aim directly at the soldiers, and one by one their radios went static, a high-pitched humming echoing in the hallway. Blood splattered to the walls and began to pool on the concrete floor as the CP’s dropped dead, a sight Natsu had grown desensitized to long ago.

This time, they had the advantage of the surprise, but they wouldn’t have it again. When all eight men lay still and dead, sirens rang in the distance. One of them had managed to call for reinforcement, and before they’d come here, the Resistance was better to be far away. The Combine might be slow to wake, but once they’d get up, one didn’t want to get in their way.

So, Natsu and Gray began running.

“Shit,anticitizens? Did that bitch rat on us!?” Natsu growled, his mind connecting the dots rapidly fast. “There’s no other way the CP would’ve sniffed us out. I’ll fucking kill her if –“

“We can’t jump to conclusions. We’ll figure out what happened later, now we’ve gotta get the hell outta here!” Gray shouted and kicked open the staircase door Cana and Loke had closed. The circular stairway lead up to many levels, and soon they made it to the roof, the sirens sounding ever louder. Scanners – those flying machines taking pictures of citizens – floated closer to them, and Gray shot them down before running to the rooftops.

There was a route they had planned for a situation like this. They’d go along the roofs for about a few blocks, then descend back to ground level on a fire ladder, in hopes of leading the enemy astray. As they went, Natsu struggled – actuallystruggled, for the first time in ages – to concentrate on the task. His mind boiled with rage. Normally his BCI, the brain-computer interface, a part of technology stolen from the Overwatch, balanced the turmoil in his head when shit went to hell. Natsu’s brother had installed it on him years ago when he ascended to the elite forces of the Resistance, yet this moment proved that the unison of humans and machines was still far from complete – and Natsu found it oddly comforting to feelsomething for a chance.

But having a citizen turn against them was something that hadn’t happened before. Perhaps they were fools. They should’ve been expecting it as the Combine’s grip over the people kept ever tightening.

Until now, the Resistance could’ve trusted the people’s support. They had trusted thepeople,who trustedthem to fight the Combine, even if they wouldn’t want to fight it themselves. Just how much had the woman heard before selling them out? If the Combine knew about Black Mesa East, then it was critical to find out. It wouldn’t just possibly get them killed, it would endanger the whole Resistance.

As they ran across the roofs, hiding behind the chimneys and ridges while the sirens howled, Natsu’s inner turmoil began to ease. The momentary spike of adrenaline had been too much for the interface to deflect, but now it began to work as it was supposed to – keeping him alert, but suppressing his anger and distress. His brother always said that even the most perfect machines couldn’t always bendhislevel of emotional impulsivity – at least with the technology they had currently acquired. With each system update, he had felt it getting better, more intense, but at the same time, he lost another part of himself he didn’t think he’d ever get back.

By the time they made it to the fire ladder, the bullets were already flying.

A unit of Civil Protection had climbed to the building on the opposite side of the street, and from the roof, they opened fire. Natsu cursed silently and crouched below the half-collapsed wall, pulling Gray down with him as a rain of bullets swept past where they had just stood.

“We’ve gotta go down a different route. Can’t draw these motherfuckers to Cana and Loke,” Natsu whispered, holding tight to his gun.

Gray nodded, pressing a button on the side of his helmet, which opened an encrypted radio connection to Loke’s end. “Loke, do you copy?” he asked, and Natsu could hear a faint echo of Loke’s reply. “We’ll try to sneak behind the main station and head underground. We’re in a shitty place here, but we’ll make it. Meet us at Route Kanal.” Then he released the button, and glanced at Natsu. “Damn man, this is just like the old times, right?”

Natsu grinned at him, then looked up. The Combine forces seemed to have lined up on the other side of the street only, making their exit from the roof through the fire ladder impossible. So, Natsu peeked over the wall, aimed his gun and fired at the soldiers across the distance, though he knew his chances of hitting them were small. Only one high-pitched flatline sounded over all the firing. However, the distance worked in their favour as well.

On the edge of the roof, they could jump to the balconies, break the windows and proceed to the ground level within the building. To signal their agreement, Natsu and Gray nodded to each other, and then they went.

Running fast and avoiding bullets, they reached the edge, with no hesitation hindering their steps even when they noticed thereweren’tany damn balconies. This side of the block was covered by a forest of leafless trees, giving no spots for the CPs to shoot them here. Natsu grasped the rain gutter as he went down, hanging for a second before swinging forth and kicking in the brittle glass. Gray followed right after him as they jumped into the abandoned apartment, the sounds of a firefight still ringing loudly on the outside.

They quickly found their way to the hallway, then made it to the windowless staircase at the end of it, ever down through the empty stores until they reached the ground level. The front door led to the side of a park. Gray shot once at the glass, it shattered, and then they escaped back to the crisp, fresh air that smelled so heavily of gunsmoke. The CP no longer had a clear sight of them, they dispersed from the roofs, yet Natsu knew they wouldn’t hold the chase for long. If they’d shoot down all the scanners before they’d snap a picture of them, they could say they’d soon be safe.

Or so Natsu hoped.

Suddenly, another sound pierced the air. An artificial, feminine voice echoed loud from the broadcast speakers all around the city block. Natsu and Gray turned their gazes in the direction where it came, both knowing what it was: the Overwatch Voice, the harbinger of death. For too many, it was the last thing they ever heard.

“ATTENTION PLEASE. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON OF INTEREST, CONFIRM YOUR CIVIL STATUS WITH LOCAL PROTECTION TEAM IMMEDIATELY.”

All the guns went silent for a moment. Natsu knew he’d be petrified in terror without his BCI, as now the electrical signals it sent to his brain suppressed his ability to feel fear. Not a shiver ran down his spine as he stared at how the CP units descended from the roof, and a choir of running steps withdrew from them.

They were going in the opposite direction.

“ATTENTION GROUND UNITS. ANTICITIZEN REPORTED IN THIS COMMUNITY. CODE: LOCK, CAUTERIZE, STABILIZE.”

“She’s talking of just one person, right?” Gray whispered to Natsu as they hid behind the trees. Then, the ground began to quake as the steps of something gigantic approached – and from between the buildings Natsu saw a Strider passing by, with at least two dozen soldiers leading it – nearly as tall as the trees, the spider-like synth marched, still further away from them.

"CITIZEN REMINDER: INACTION IS CONSPIRACY, REPORT COUNTER BEHAVIOR TO A CIVIL PROTECTION TEAM IMMEDIATELY. FAILURE TO CO-OPERATE WILL RESULT IN PERMANENT OFF-WORLD RELOCATION."

“They aren’t coming for us,” Natsu realised. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t know, but we won’t get a chance like this again! Let's get the hell outta here while we can!”

Natsu nodded, his gaze still locked on the Strider. Those monsters were rarely seen – when the Combine brought them to fray, it was better to start praying, and quick. “That’s one unlucky fucker who’s gonna get railed by that thing,” he muttered, then turned away and set forth to running. “Apparently they did something worse than we did.”

“Yeah, it isn’t every day the Combine gets pissed off like that. Let’s just hope Cana and Loke are alright,” Gray answered, then pressed the radio button again. “Do you read, Loke? We’re clear. Some shit is happening here, but we’re heading your way now.”Copy that, Loke answered the radio, and so Gray closed it.

The sirens behind them grew silent and distant as they ran through the park and jumped into the rainwater tunnel, making it to the other side of the city sector. In front of them, in the heart of the city, towered the Citadel. The Combine’s headquarters made navigating in the labyrinth of streets and buildings rather easy – across the years Natsu had learnt to recognize the landmarks so that he could always make it to the underground railroad, that started right near the main station.

They stopped in the distant alley near the plaza to catch their breaths and put their weapons on their backs. Though Natsu was still confused by all of that, he wouldn’t have time to think until they’d reached at least Station 12. He rested against the wall and stared at his boots for a moment, calmness settling into his mind again after seeing that Strider. The mission had to continue, after all.

“Everything okay?” Gray asked, and Natsu answered with a faint nod before raising his head. “Ready to keep going?”

They were almost there. To reach Route Kanal – the place where the underground railroad began – they’d have to cross the trainstation plaza, appearing as unsuspicious as they ever could. Usually, it went without a problem, as long as the Combine didn’t invite Overwatch soldiers to the fray. Those bastards could see through their masquerade faster than an atom would split. But if they’d just look like regular CP on patrol, everything would go fine. So, they took in deep breaths, and stepped out of the alley into the open square.

Compared to the previous onslaught, the plaza at the station was eerily silent. Only a few citizens seemed to have gotten off the trains and relocated to City 17. Natsu had heard how more and more of those who arrived were sent straight to Nova Prospekt – those were only rumours, obviously, but they always had more truth in them than the propaganda speeches they broadcasted on the massive screens.Welcome to City 17, sounded loudly from the speakers.It’s safer here.

They didn’t say a word to each other as they walked across the plaza. The citizens naturally avoided them, making Natsu feel sorry – if he could offer an opportunity to better life to all of them, he would. But each evacuation mission could only take so many citizens with them. As he’d seen today, City 17 was becoming an unbearable, more dangerous place. But as long as the Resistance was there, there was also hope. It beat within the hearts of those wearing the lambda symbol, even though Natsu’s scarf was hidden inside the CP’s helmet.

But as he passed by the station’s stairs, a strange feeling flooded his heart.

The feeling of being watched.

Natsu halted for a moment. He peeked over his shoulder, but saw nothing amongst the grey concrete, no scanners, no soldiers, no one. Still, he wassuresomeone was observing him. Someone familiar, someone he had lost since lost, shrouded in deep, deep shadows.

“Come on. We’re almost there,” Gray whispered to him. “Can’t keep them waiting for much longer.”

Then Natsu followed him, but the feeling in his guts just wouldn’t fade.

____________________________________________________

// December 5th, 2017. Tuesday, 7:00 AM. //

Silence.

Darkness.

Emptiness.

Time had stood still for him since he had made that fateful choice. It must’ve been years, yet now he was called for again.Rise and shine, the voice spoke, the same voice that had been the last thing he heard before falling into very, very long sleep.Rise and… shine.

There was a piercing light, blinding the eyes that had stared into the void for an eternity. A man in a blue suit appeared from the abyss, visions from his past endeavours vanishing through his waking mind. Faintly, he could remember the deal they had made.Keep my sons safe, he had asked from this man, who had promised tosee into it, as an exchange for his… assignment.

“Not that I wish to imply you have been sleeping on the job. No one is more deserving of a rest,”said the man, an otherworldly echo in his words. Slowly, the bleak void began to shift into a corporeal world.“And all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until...well, let's just say your hour has come again.”

In a moving train he awakened. The sceneries of an urban, decayed city passed quickly by, yet in that instant, he could tell that the world as he had known it was gone,ended during his absence.

“A right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up. Wake up, and smell the ashes.”

Then the voice faded, and the train arrived at the station. A man, who stood in front of the wagon's doors waiting for them to open, paid him a confused gaze. He mumbled something about not seeing him get on, but there was bleakness in his voice, as if he couldn’t even care if strangers appeared on the train from nothing. The doors opened, and the man stepped out.

And outside, a public annunciation echoed with a familiar voice.

“WELCOME. WELCOME TO CITY 17."

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