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bellybuttonbooks · 7 months ago

Text

THE SIXTH | Ekko x Fem!OC

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Rest of the fanfic can be found here.

SUMMARY:

Shimmer is back. Two years after the war with Noxus has ended, a new gangster emerges within the undercity, now known as 'Zaun'.

Daunter is a ruthless chem-baron who has reformed the city's drug empire. He refloods the streets with shimmer and gains the title 'Silco's Heir'.

The Firelights are back in commission after two years of lax, taking down exports just like the days when Silco was still alive.

When the group arrives at an export and finds it already taken down with the barrels drained of shimmer, it becomes apparent that Daunter and his gang aren't the only ones they need to look out for. They had competition. Or... did they?

Ekko finds himself involved in a seemingly endless cat-and-mouse chase with another gang leader-a woman who moves like the wind. He wants to know what her motives are, but he has to catch her first.

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CHAPTER ONE:

- Zaun, two years after the conclusion of Arcane

"Fuck—"

It happened again. Their mission had been sabotaged, just like before. Someone had arrived before he and the Firelights had gotten there, Daunter's goons paralyzed and tied up, the barrels drained of shimmer.

Daunter was Zaun's newest chem baron—and currently it's biggest. He reintroduced shimmer to the Lanes, reflooding the streets with the purple drug.

After Silco had died and the undercity got caught up in a battle with Piltover and Noxus, shimmer had been mostly exterminated by Caitlyn and her enforcers. It still lingered in the black market, but mass exports ceased to exist. Until a few months ago, that is. Daunter crept in like slow-forming shadows caused by a rising moon. In increments so small that no one noticed until everything was drenched in its darkness.

This forced the Firelights back into action. But now, there seemed to be someone else who was intent on interrupting Daunter's operations. Ekko would have accepted the help if it wasn't for the fact that they'd taken the shimmer. He couldn't help but suspect that the culprit had ill intentions, and that put them at odds with the Firelights.

"Looks like we got competition," a distorted voice said from beside him.

Ekko turned his head to look at the masked face of Scar, a tall chirean who served as his Lieutenant and second in command. Chireans held bat-like appearances (minus the wings), with large ears, grey-toned skin, bat-like noses, and neon green eyes.

Both men stood atop a nearby roof, out of hearing distance of the restrained goons on the cargo airship.

"More like another enemy," Ekko responded.

Scar processed his leader's remark before speaking again. "You think they got bad intentions?"

"They're up to no good if they're stealing shimmer. Probably selling it themselves to make bank," he said pointedly.

Scar took in Ekko's words. It made sense and sounded like the most likely scenario. Though, one thing stood out to him.

"Why would they tie em' up? They already have em' paralyzed somehow. It's like they're leaving 'em here for someone to arrest or something."

Ekko considered this but had already thought up a reason. "The paralysis might not last long. Could be a precaution."

Scar nodded, agreeing that his reasoning seemed plausible.

"What should we do? Seems we keep missing 'em. Should we put out scouters across the city?"

Ekko exhaled through his nose, mulling over Scar's suggestion. It did sound like a good idea, but he had to also consider the risks. He didn't want to put his people in danger. This wouldn't be like their typical 'element of surprise' mission. This would involve spying, waiting, and watching—usually from the shadows to avoid detection. Despite this, Ekko had faith in the Firelights.

"Yeah. Could assign shifts. But we still need to keep most of our numbers back at the hideout in case of any surprise missions."

Scar agreed. Daunter was becoming more and more unpredictable, and there were times when they had to act quickly, creating plans with only hours to spare.

The conversation between the men ended there and Ekko mounted his aeroglider. He flew over to the transport ship and hopped off the board, sliding it behind his back to attach to the magnetic piece on his coat. He neared Daz, one of the newer Firelights.

Daz was a little on the shorter side, his body mass nothing impressive. But he was quick, and that made up for his size.

"You find anything useful? Anything they might've left behind?"

Daz stood from his crouching position. "Nothing. But this guy says that it was a bunch of people dressed in black wearing cloaks," he said.

The younger male nudged the oversized goon who was laying on the boarded floors of the airship with his booted foot.

Ekko's eyes narrowed in thought from the goon's revelation. He crouched down, deciding to take questioning the brute into his own hands.

"Did you see any faces? Anything?"

Daunter's ruffian shook his head, his double chin jigging as he did so.

"I was lucky to even see 'em in the first place. Bastards were quick as shit, bouncin' all over the place like a bunch 'a damn shimmer addicts."

Ekko stared down at the overweight man for a few moments before standing.

'Was it possible that whoever had done this was also consuming the drug to give themselves a physical advantage?'

Authoritative voices sounded from the distance, pulling him from his thoughts and signaling him and the other firelights that enforcers were nearby. Ekko yanked his aeroglider from behind his back once again, hopping onto it before instructing the other Firelights to follow him out of there.

The group flew to their hideout, flickers of green trails decorating the air behind them as they moved.

The Firelight hideout was impressive—only accessible through a labyrinth of abandoned sewer pipes. He and his people had the pipes memorized by now, knowing exactly where to go to reach the entrance. The entrance was covered by a heavy, circular piece of metal—resembling that of a manhole cover. It rolled to the side, allowing them access.

Each time Ekko walked through the gate, he was struck with amazement at what he had accomplished so far. He had created a community in the last ten years, having found a large tree growing from the deep, dark depths of Zaun—a miracle, but also a symbol of hope. He had built himself a home, a sanctuary, and shared it with the people of the undercity that had been affected by the shimmer epidemic and the victims of the battle. He was proud of himself, and the people who had joined him in forming the Firelights. They had done well.

During the war, they'd almost lost the tree. Well, they had lost the tree. The corruption from the hexcore had bled into the roots of their tree, causing the leaves to become tainted in wild rune markings before ultimately falling off. But using the knowledge he had learned in the other timeline he'd been teleported to, Ekko was able to form a time bubble around the hideout, reversing time in sphere they'd created but no where else. After ensuring no one was in the bubble, Ekko was able to bring the tree back to its former condition—before his mural had been painted on it.

Before the war, he'd vanished for months, leaving the Firelight no choice but to assume his death. They painted his face on the mural. It was a chilling thing to see once he'd returned; a symbol of his own death that hadn't occurred. A bad omen.

He had lost people throughout his twenty-three years of life—too many people. He carried the memories of his fallen friends with him and honored their memory by having a mural painted on the tall walls of the sewer, colourful portraits of the people who had passed on. It added to the surrealness of their hideout, while also ensuring who they've lost remained with them in, watching over them as they worked, lived, and thrived underneath their still gaze.

His eyes skimmed over the mural; Vi, Powder, Claggor, Mylo, Momo, Chip, Kurt, Jal, Eve, Radar, Heimerdinger, Jinx, and the most recent addition—Ajuna.

He lowered his gaze and walked to his room. It was located in one of the higher structures of the tree. Usually, he would use his hoverboard to fly there, but he decided to take the long way so that he could think on the way there. Plus, the exercise wouldn't hurt. He began his venture up the lengthy stairs, his mind occupied as he did so.

He soon reached his destination, pushing open the door before closing it behind him again after stepping inside.

His room was clean, but also messy. His bed was made, which was something he forced himself to do every morning. It was a twin bed that lined the back right corner of the room. Opposite the bed was his workbench, where the mess began. It was a disorganized madness, but it was his madness, and it worked for him. He was an inventor, a prodigy and a genius, as his parents called him. The workbench was evidence of his success and failures. His tools scattered across the wooden surface, grooves beginning to form in the shape of his fingers from how often he used them. Pieces of scrap lined the walls next to the desk, things he refused to throw out because he was determined to find a use for them some day.

The wall behind his desk was littered with plans, blueprints, diagrams—either of inventions he had already made, planned to make, or things he still hadn't finished planning yet. Next to the bed was his desk. It was situated underneath a curtained window. That was where some of the mission planning took place. He was the leader, and he was the one who created intricate plans for his team to embark on (with some help from Scar at times).

Ekko yanked his aeroglider from his back and rested it against the leg of his workbench before shedding his graffitied coat and folding it over his work chair. He removed his mask and placed it on his desk before sitting in his chair.

His mind was tossing and turning, thinking back to their wrecked mission. It was clear that the Firelights had another enemy to deal with now, as if Daunter and his gang weren't enough. He worried about what this might mean for their future undertakings, what confronting the group would be like, what their leader was like—if they even had one. They most likely did. They wouldn't have been able to pull off such swift heists if they didn't.

Ekko exhaled and willed his troubled thoughts to leave with his breath. He needed to focus. Make a schedule. Make a plan. He pulled out some parchment and leaned over his desk, getting to work.

Weeks passed, and the Firelights had no luck with spotting the culprits. Whoever they were, they knew what they were doing. That and any physical altercations made using shimmer made them dangerously fast foes.

Ekko stood atop a roof, his mask adorning his face and the hood pulled over his head. He held his hoverboard to his side, having just landed. The building he was situated on was positioned along one of the main routes for Daunter's shimmer exports.

At this hour, the city was dark but also illuminated by the lights within its buildings. It was pretty, no one could deny that. Pink and green light outlined its contents, adding to its nighttime radiance. It was a contrast to the dank stench that polluted their air.

He lingered on the roof for a while, hoping to spot some movement.

His scouting shift was ending. His body was tense with anticipation and eagerness that didn't seem to dissipate as the time ticked well beyond when he should have gone home. This mystery had been bothering him since the first time they came across an empty transport about a month ago. He couldn't understand how he and the Firelights kept missing them. How this mysterious group of people in black seemed to be getting away with it. Right now, all he knew was that he would not rest until he figured it out, and then took care of it by taking them down.

A flicker of movement occurred from the top right of his peripheral. In a flash his head wagged in the direction, his focus zooming in on it. There. He could see a very faint outline of what looked like the side of someone, the rest of them drenched in inky shadows. They stood upon a roof in the near distance. When Ekko moved onto the other side of the roof he was standing on, he noticed that there were other figures standing with the initial one he had noticed. It had to be them.

He knew that he'd have to stay hidden and quiet. He was outnumbered by people who had unknown capabilities. Instead of confronting them, he would follow them. Watch them and their moves, learn their techniques, inspect them for any weaknesses, and figure out who was leading them.

He put his aeroglider on his back, knowing that the green lights on it would immediately reveal his location—especially in the darkness of the night. He would have to move on foot. He wasn't exactly skilled in moving stealthily. His boots always felt too heavy, his breathing too loud—especially behind his mask. Despite this, he was determined to pursue the group. He'd been chasing nothing but possibilities for weeks. The possibility that he might spot them. The possibility of learning more about them. The possibility of the Firelights having the capability to take them down. He was sick of unanswered questions, and if slinking into the shadows like some kind of damn ninja was what he had to do to get them, then so be it.

When they moved, he moved, trying to mask any footsteps or sounds he made with theirs. So far, it seemed they were moving aimlessly. They headed in every which direction, making quick yet precise movements. Ekko was almost in awe. This group moved with grace and excellence. They used acrobatics and parkour together, the combination of the two giving the group a unique advantage in means of travel and stealth.

Ekko was able to see that the group consisted of about 6 people, with one of them leading the lot. He could see that they were indeed adorned in black attire, which included black cloaks. Any other physical details remained a blur due to their continuous motion.

The leader seemed to lead the group to some sort of abandoned warehouse. It had long since been cleared out of its storage—Ekko and the Firelights having raided it once after Squirt, one of the older members of the gang, spotted it during a mission.

Ekko kept himself tucked away in a nearby alley, sparing only a few glances as he saw the group circle on the concrete clearing in front of the warehouse. As he glanced over the corner, he noticed there was one fewer than before. Before he could even begin wondering what happened to them, he felt an abrupt poke on the back of his neck, directly in the center. In seconds he was crumbling to the ground, his own body refusing to listen to his brain signals that demanded he move. He lay there helplessly, now at the complete mercy of this group that he knew nothing about. He tested his eyes, seeing if he could glance around and blink. He could. He tried opening his mouth. He could. But that was it.

His eyes caught sight of the person who had managed to take him down in mere seconds without him even knowing they were there. They were small—a small female. She was dressed in all black besides a crimson scarf wrapped around her neck. He couldn't see her face because she was wearing a black half mask that covered her nose and mouth, and tinted goggles that covered her eyes. One of the most prominent things he noticed was how long and bushy her hair was. She had it tied in a low ponytail and the ends of it reached all the way to her ankles.

'There's no way that was the ideal way to keep her hair during outings like these,' Ekko thought. It reminded him of Pow—Jinx. Long hair. Always getting in the way when she fought. He felt his heart clench, but he banished the impending memories that threatened to come forth. He didn't have time to think about that now.

"You've been following us," the woman said, her voice firm and yet soft at the same time.

She began circling him, sizing him up before coming to a stop near his head. She squatted down beside him, her head tilting to the side as she looked over his masked face.

"And you've been stealing shimmer to do who knows what with."

Her head tilted to the other side as she listened to him respond in the distorted voice caused by his mask. "What of it? You want some?" Her voice was muffled by the material of her mask.

He scoffed, disgust filling him and lacing his voice with venom as he spoke. "So, you do make profit off it."

She didn't respond to that. Instead, she gripped the edges of his mask and began to tug it off. When she felt a resistance, she reached into his hood and unsnapped the fastens and then tried again.

Ekko could do nothing to stop her as she revealed his face to the night air.

She gave him a good stare down, as if memorizing every facial feature he had. She reached a hand down to him, her fingers making gentle contact with the hourglass marking on his forehead and nose.

Ekko would have jolted away from her touch if he wasn't paralyzed.

She traced along the edges of the marking with two of her fingers, her movements slow and deliberate. After pulling her hand away, she stared down at him some more, almost like she was contemplating something. "What does it mean?"

Ekko's mouth parted, confusion and bewilderment striking him from her abrupt question. He couldn't even think of forming an answer to that question, too caught off guard by it.

"Nothing? Just thought the shape was cool, huh?" She stood, his mask still pinched between her fingers.

"This thing is neat. Did you make it yourself?" She turned the mask over in her hands and held it up, getting a closer look at the neon pink 'x' painting on the front of it and then looking at the mechanics on the inside that made the wearer's voice distorted.

"What did you do to me? I can't move."

She looked from his mask and down at him again as she ignored her question. She seemed to pause, as if stunned by the sound of his actual voice that was no longer disguised by his mask.

"It's temporary. It'll wear off in an hour or so."

Ekko's eyes widened. "An hour? Stuck like this? With you?"

She snickered. "Hey, you're the one who was following us. I had to make sure you weren't a threat." She bent forward and gazed down at him; her eyes still hidden behind the goggles she wore. "So, are you? A threat, I mean."

Ekko swallowed. "Depends. I don't know you, or what your intentions are. I'm only a threat to those who are a threat to me," he said.

"Well, that's quite the predicament. We don't know your intentions, and you don't know ours." She stood up straight before continuing. "But you were the one following us. That's not very nice, y'know."

Ekko could feel her words ignite annoyance within him like a flame touching gas.

"I had my reasons," he retorted matter-of-factly.

The girl turned around, hiding her face from view before pulling down her mask and removing her goggles from her eyes, leaving them resting on her head like a headband. Then she put on his mask. It was too big for her, but she kept it on, nonetheless.

Ekko became enraged. "Take it off, now." His voice was angered and demanding.

She snickered again, this time teasingly as she turned around to show him her face now covered by his own mask.

"No, I don't think I will." Her voice came out distorted now, and it only added to Ekko's fury.

Before Ekko could make a response, she moved quickly out of his peripheral. And suddenly, she was atop the roof of one of the buildings lining the alleyway. She gave him a taunting wave before dashing away.

Ekko could hear her voice in the distance as she ordered the group to head back.

'So, she's their leader.'

Ekko mulled over that fact for a few seconds until he realized that he was now left in the alleyway, defenseless. She had left him there paralyzed and alone, completely vulnerable to any possible thugs in the area.

"Shit—"

Just as the word left his mouth, she returned to her spot on the roof. He watched her plop down, her short legs dangling over the ledge. He could hear her muffled, distorted snicker.

'Bitch.'

"Don't worry, I'll babysit you until you can move again."

Ekko blinked, confusion dousing him from her odd intentions.

"Why?"

"To make sure no one hurts you silly," she replied, her oddly cheerful voice making the distortion effects of the mask glitch out. He heard her giggle.

He stared up at her in disbelief. "You wouldn't have to do that if you hadn't paralyzed me in the first place."

"And I wouldn't have had to paralyze you if you hadn't been following us in the first place."

She had a point, and he knew it, But he also knew he was justified for following them. He needed to know what their intentions were.

"What are you doing with the shimmer that you've been stealing?" He knew his question was a long shot, but at this point he didn't have anything to lose.

"That's for me to know, and for you... To not know."

This woman was infuriating.

"Then I have no choice but to assume that you're selling it for profit. You're just continuing to add to the problems of the undercity. How do you live with yourself? Contributing to the pain and suffering of other people for the sake of coins."

She seemed to pause at his words, like she was thinking carefully before responding. "You're quick to assume things, huh?"

Ekko watched as she crossed her arms over her chest, her head still tilted downwards as she stared at him through his mask from her perch on the roof ledge.

"What choice do I have when you won't give me anything."

She hummed. "Touche."

Ekko could feel pins and needles erupt in the tips of his fingers and toes. The paralysis was starting to wear off. He decided to keep this information to himself. Maybe he could try and get her to come down here and strike after the paralysis had completely worn off without her knowledge.

"How'd you do this? You poked me and suddenly I'm all paralyzed and helpless."

He heard her make a noise of amusement, hinting that she was probably smirking behind his mask.

"More questions?

He rolled his eyes. "Are you gonna answer this one?"

She shook her head in amusement, and Ekko watched in astonishment as she stood and flipped into the air, landing on the ground right beside his head with absolute grace.

'She just flipped off a god damn building.'

He had to admit, that was impressive as hell. He'd lived in the undercity his whole life, and many kids grew up learning how to do parkour, but nothing like this. Sure, he could do his own mid-air flip, but his landings were far from as graceful and quiet as hers. It was like she was a dancer or something.

She squatted next to his head again, peering down at him like before but this time behind his mask.

"How about we swap secrets, yeah? You tell me what this means—" She paused and then poked the white marking on his forehead and nose. "—And I tell you how I made you 'all paralyzed and helpless'."

Ekko was taken aback. She would really reveal something so valuable in exchange for something that was merely personal to him?

"It means a lot of things. It's shaped like an hourglass. I've always had a thing for time."

She made another amused sound—probably smirking again.

"That's it? You have a thing for time? No deep, mysterious meaning for painting a freaking hourglass on your face?"

"Guess so."

She stood and crossed her arms over her chest.

He was starting to get more feeling in his face now, and he didn't even notice when he furrowed his eyebrows.

"Who are you?" he asked her, not really expecting an answer.

She shook her head disapprovingly again before replying. "Another question? But I haven't even answered the other one yet," she pointed out jeeringly.

He grit his teeth. This teeny tiny woman had started a raging anger within him. She dodged questions, was sassy as shit, and she'd stolen his mask and was now wearing it just to piss him off.

She noticed when his eyebrows furrowed, hinting that he was regaining use of his muscles now. She took a step back but didn't fully retreat just yet, lingering behind for a moment to say something else.

"I thought you would've found another fascination by now. But nope, still obsessed with time, aren't you, Ekko?"

Ekko felt like he'd been abruptly drenched in ice-cold water. She spoke to him as if she knew him.

'Who the fuck is this person?'

His shock was evident on his face, and she immediately picked up on it.

In a blur of movements, he was suddenly standing, the paralysis having worn off by now. Despite his quickness, she had maneuvered out of the way and was now standing on the same ledge she had been sitting on minutes before.

"Who the fuck are you?! Tell me, God dammit!"

She was quiet and unmoving for a few moments, as if she was contemplating something.

"Toodaloo." She waved at him and laughed before disappearing.

He growled and pulled his aeroglider from his back, immediately mounting it and taking to the air. She couldn't have gotten too far. It took him only a few moments to spot her in the distance. She was fast—real fast. But he had his hoverboard, which made him faster. He flew his board in her direction, gaining momentum on her quickly.

He watched as she turned a corner abruptly. He quickly made the sharp turn, about to catch up to her when he was forced to come to a stop. She was gone.

He gained altitude, moving up higher to get a better map of the place. He looked around, but still couldn't find anything. She had quite literally vanished into thin air.

"Fuck!"

Rest of the fanfic can be found here.

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fatkish · 1 year ago

Note

Of course, you can put a spin on my cat quirk user ♡

(Alright, just wanted to make sure.)

(Trigger warning: human and animal trafficking mentioned, also mentions of drugging someone)

Aizawa x Jaguar Reader

(The reader in this story is an actual Jaguar with a quirk that allows them to transform into a human)

Reader is a Jaguar who was naturally born with a human transformation quirk. They grew up in the Amazon jungle with their mother who was a normal Jaguar. The reader learned to hunt and was taught everything they needed in order to be a successful apex predator by their mother

The reader has human level intelligence due to their quirk.

One day, villains from Brazil found out about the reader. They eventually tranquillized and captured the reader, smuggling them into Japan were the villains planned to sell the reader in a black market auction

When the reader had woken up halfway through the shipping to Japan, they realized that their best chance of survival was to wait for the villains to let their guard down, then the reader could have a better chance of escaping. When the smugglers realized that the reader was awake they drugged them again, putting the reader back to sleep

Meanwhile in Japan, Detective Tsukauchi and the police had been tracking two of the main villains in charge of the auctions and running them. The police were planning a raid on the building the night of the auction. The people running it were notorious for human trafficking, the sale and trafficking of parts of or whole endangered animal species, kidnapping, etc.

Detective Tsukauchi was the lead investigator and asked Aizawa as well as Midnight to help in the raid. Midnight’s primary role was to help subdue the criminals as well as protect the heroes and police from any dangerous animals that might be found

On the night of the auction the reader wakes up inside a metal cage with a shock collar on their neck. They’re hidden beneath the stage in the storage area, surrounded by various cages with other humans and some animals

The humans all seemed to be young and mostly female, the reader could sense the fear that belonged to the humans in the cages. The humans also were wearing the strange collar that was around their own neck

The humans outside the cages all had white masks covering their faces. One of these people was walking around going to each cage and putting their hands on the humans heads. Once the person had come to them the reader snarled at them but was rewarded with a powerful shock running through their body.

The human placed their hands an the reader’s head, after feeling a weird tingling sensation, the human retracted their hands. The human then told the reader that they had better do whatever they are told, if they don’t listen, they will be shocked. With the effects of the drugs still wearing off, the reader didn’t question how they could suddenly understand what the human’s language.

Suddenly a loud voice is heard from above as the auction begins. After a few minutes, cages are wheeled over to a platform that lifts things onto the stage through the floor.

After the last cage before them is brought up, the human from earlier commands the reader to change into their human form. Not listening to the commands, the reader is shocked again when the human presses a rectangular object.

After that the reader transforms and a hook attached to a long pole is connected to their collar as they are led onto the lift

Outside the heroes and police are setting up and getting into position to start the raid. All entrances and exits have been surrounded. Once Tsukauchi has made sure everything and everyone was in place and ready, he gave the order to cut the buildings power supply thus signaling the start of the raid

As the heroes begin to enter the building and start taking out the buyers, auctioneers and other participants, the reader, having been sold to a wealthy businessman with a cat-girl fetish, is being led to one of the back rooms when the power goes out

Since the system that was controlling the collars was being powered by the building’s electrical system, once the power was shut off, the collars unlocked and deactivated

Realizing that this is their best chance at escaping, the reader transforms into their original form and attacks the nearest person in a mask. Using their natural predatory night vision, as well as their hunting skills, the reader slinks through the hall avoiding as many people as possible using the darkness to their advantage

After passing by a hall filled with a purple fog, the reader turns the corner and finds themselves back at the stage where a human with strange glowing red eyes protected by some strange yellow covering, is fighting the humans in white masks

This human had some strange long grey appendage? No, tool? They were using it to capture the humans and fight them. This human also smelled different than the humans in masks

Distracted by their predatory analyzation of the human, they didn’t notice that the human had defeated all of the other humans present. When the human suddenly turned their attention and focus onto them.

The human stared at the reader for a moment before removing the yellow eye coverings. Quickly retrieving something from its waist, the human tilted their head back, dropping some kind of liquid into its eyes.

The human, after a few blinks, stares the reader in the eyes as the human’s mane raises and its eyes glow red. Seeing this as some kind of human threatening display, the reader snarls as they bear their fangs and crouch into position to pounce onto the human if necessary

After a few seconds the human lowered its mane as its eyes stopped glowing. The human raised its front paw and told the reader that they are not a threat and that they are not going to hurt them. The human didn’t seem to have any sort of fear and was obviously not a prey but they were still wary of the reader.

Suddenly another human called out and was running up behind the human, before either human could react, the reader pounced onto the new human, believing them to be a threat. Sinking their claws into the human’s shoulders and about to go for the head, Aizawa shouts no, in distress.

Realizing that the human was upset by them attacking the other human, the reader turns to look at Aizawa as they get off of the police officer.

After checking on the officer’s condition and making sure they were okay, Aizawa turns to the reader after realizing that they stopped their attack after he told them to

Carefully approaching the reader, Aizawa asks them if they can understand what he’s saying and to lift their front paw if they can. The reader lifts their paw and afterwards slowly approaches Aizawa. Before the reader can get to close a purple fog surrounds them as a loud sound is made as they feel a sharp pain in their hind leg. Before they can turn and attack the human the reader falls asleep

After dealing with the clean up and arresting the criminals, Tsukauchi approaches Aizawa with a file containing a list of the items being sold. When looking at the file, Tsukauchi points out the reader’s information.

When Aizawa confirms that the listed information is true, that being that the reader is actually an animal with a quirk, Aizawa asks Tsukauchi what would be done with the reader.

Tsukauchi tells him that there really isn’t much he can do about what would happen to the reader, but that the reader would either be handed over to scientists or placed in a zoo or research sanctuary.

Aizawa decides that the reader would probably be subjected to experiments and would be forced to undergo extensive and invasive tests, he calls Nedzu and tells him about the reader

When the reader wakes up, they are laying on a pile of blankets with bandages wrapped around the top of their left hind leg. Looking around they are met by a white rodent.

The rodent introduces himself as Nedzu, he explains to the reader what happened and what their current situation is. He explains that humans are not used to seeing animals with abilities like theirs. He tells the reader that humans are likely to experiment on animals like them since they are different.

Nedzu tells them that since they are capable of understanding humans, that the reader’s best course of action is to learn to live like a human and understand human society. He tells the reader that he can help them and give them the opportunity to become what humans call a hero

After much discussion mainly on Nedzu’s part, the reader agrees to live at UA. Aizawa, being the one who found them, is put in charge of the reader and is made their handler/guardian

Aizawa teaches the reader what they need to know and how society works. While Aizawa teaches, the reader either sleeps or patrols the grounds. At night, when Aizawa is on patrol, the reader follows him as his sidekick.

Power loader creates a special suit for the reader to wear made of the reader’s own fur, that way they are not naked when they transform. The reader is officially a member of the Aizawa family

Hope you enjoyed this

#mha x reader #bnha x reader #aizawa x reader #mha aizawa #aizawa shouta #x cat reader #mha #bnha #aizawa sensei #bnha aizawa #mha pro heroes #bnha pro heroes

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banditophi · 1 year ago

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ྀི Pairing: Simon “Ghost” Riley x F! Reader

ྀི Warning: None

ྀི This is my work, my writing. Do not steal or repost elsewhere.

Ghost is not one to manifest endearment- an imperishable wall he has built throughout the years of labour and untold agonies. An astonishing discovery for others; you are the complete opposite of the man they had known as a bearer of a cold heart.

A facade they are acquainted with, as behind closed doors, when the exhaustion is stripped away and the notorious mask is off, is Simon, your Simon.

Still, you have to thread carefully; there were times, and certainly there will be times when it is difficult. The gnawing hollowness you tolerate when he is deployed has remained on the far end of your tongue until today.

Simon expected the tender engulfment of your embrace when he arrived; however, he was greeted with the bedroom door slammed shut. His duffel bag is to be released from the unforgiving grip of his gnarled hand as he unveils the oranges he bought from the market before heading to your shared home. The favourite of yours and the resentment of his.

There you lie in the comfort of your bed, sulking with a heavy heart, unknowing of your lover’s presence in the room. A familiar scent is detected in the air, which causes you to face your surroundings. “How many more oranges can you peel, Simon?” you questioned, aware of his hatred of citrus. Placing a peeled fruit on a bowl, his sunburned irises gaze at you. “How many would it take for you to forgive me?”

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therivercrow · 29 days ago

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Nice Little Things

I was tagged by both @pixiedurango and @antivan-sprig in this cute tag game from @akuma-misery.

I've loved seeing what other people chose for their Rooks - objects can tell you so much about a character.

Rules: Choose 10 objects that you will place in the room of your Rooks on the places intended for customization. These should be small objects that can be placed in the following places: 2 on the tables by the doors, 2 on the tables by the aquarium, 4 on the bookcases and 2 on the walls. Attach a photo of these objects and give a short description of why your Rooks chose them.

Answers for Alana de Riva under the cut:

Tables (2 items)

Elven Bass (in game item)

Much like Antivan Sprig's Lisel, Alana is a bass player. Viago wanted them to learn an instrument as part of their Crow training, in case they needed to go undercover as a musician for an assassination contract. After trying and getting frustrated with the more obvious choices of piano and violin, Teia gave Alana this elven bass that she got from a Dalish contact. Alana picked it up quickly and learned some traditional Antivan and elven tunes. They play it when they need to think, but have never performed with it in front of others.

Vanity Kit

Alana never goes anywhere without their makeup. They favour dramatic purple eyeshadow, smoky eyeliner, and dark black lips. It may not be subtle, it may not be traditionally beautiful, but it makes Alana feel like a badass Crow. For certain battles or contracts, they paint their face with streaks of black and purple, obscuring their features or shading their eyes even further. The kit also contains various perfumes from the Treviso market, another part of Alana's regular preparations to face the day.

Bookcases (4 items)

Novels and Serials

Borrowed from Bellara, mostly, though Alana has taken to buying their own whenever they pass through Minrathous. Reading "trashy" books helps them unwind after a long day. Alana enjoys sapphic romances and whodunnit mysteries. They can't stand books about assassins, though - they always get the details wrong.

Azure Crow Mask (in game item)

Given to Alana on the night they became a fully fledged Crow. This was a deeply significant moment in their life and they keep the mask on display as a reminder of who they are, even when the world seems spiralling out of their control.

Decanter of Antivan Brandy

With two glasses for sharing with a certain detective who may have reason to spend the evening in Alana's room. This is a rare vintage, which Alana stole from Viago's personal collection (after checking for poison of course). It is mellow and sweet, with hints of exotic fruit. A drink for sipping while telling stories long into the night.

Medical and Poison Kit

As a mage, Alana doesn't tend to use poisons as a weapon, but every de Riva fledgling received extensive poison training, to build up immunity and to know how to make antidotes out of common ingredients, as well as basic field medic training to tend to injuries on the job. Alana keeps a medical kit in a small case, in easy reach just in case they ever need it.

Walls (2 items)

Weapons Rack

Alana is meticulously organised. Keeping your weapons clean, polished, sharp and ready was drilled into them in their training. One wall features a number of mageknives, from the first basic blade they were given as a Crow through to ornate enchanted knives with jewels and crystals embedded in their hilts, and carved filigree running down their curving blades. You can tell the ones Alana uses in combat the most from their more worn handles and scuffed metal. Others are purely decorative, or taken as trophies from contracts.

Painting of the Drowned District

A reminder of where they came from - not the gilded spires of Treviso's wealthy core, painted in so many classical landscapes, but the humble poverty of the city's Drowned District, where dockhands and fishermen eke out a living on the edges of the city and the sea.

I chose Van Gogh's lesser-known "starry night" painting, Starry Night over the Rhone (1888) to represent this image. Alana is more drawn to impressionism and the emotional play of light and brushstrokes than the technical accuracy of the classical Antivan Masters.

Aquarium Tables (2 items)

Chess Board

Alana enjoys chess and played it with Viago a lot as a fledgling. He used it as a way of teaching Alana how to read their opponents, getting to know their strategies, their tells, their approach to battle. In the lighthouse, they play mostly with Emmrich who is something of a master, at least when Manfred isn't knocking the pieces off the board.

Vase of Lilacs

Alana keeps this in a position where they can see it when they are sitting on the sofa or meditating. The magic of the Fade keeps the flowers fresh for far longer than they would normally last.

Tagging: @robinsea for either Ivy or Sihu!

#dragon age veilguard #oc: alana de riva #rook de riva #dragon age rook #ask game #tag game #nice little things #of course i got the lilacs in there somehow #even though i still don't know what they mean #alana tell me about the damn lilacs please

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nobody-nexus · 1 year ago

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TADC Obsession AU

So yes I finally made this a whole ass AU- which is why I haven't posted art for a hot second. The idea of this honestly kinda fucked up AU is that Ragatha is the protagonist HOWEVER we see the story through the eyes of Pomni (aka it's a Second POV)

Let's meet the gang ^^

Amanda, or Ragatha, is a seamstress who has decided to move back into town in order to start anew with her dress making business. She was actually a little surprised to see a new face within the town

Eliza, or Pomni, is the new butcher for the town. Well 'new' for Amanda. In reality, she's been there for a few years now. And seeing that seamstress.... it was love at first sight for the deranged woman

Jackson, or Jax, is the younger brother of Amanda and a complete loser. He can't seem to keep a job to save his life and lives in a small but cheap ass apartment. Amanda is... slightly disappointed in him

Grace, or Gangle, is a librarian for the town. She's a bit of a germaphobe due to being a sickly kid, but thankfully she keeps gloves and face masks in her library as well as medkits all about

Zoe, or Zooble, is the owner of the tattoo parlor in the town. They were the first to be suspicious of Pomni, and therefore always warns people not to trust her. But, that won't stop everyone from doing so

Cesar, or Kinger, is a sad soul. Only leaving his house for work and to go shopping, he's hardly seen out of his house. Ever since Quinn, his wife, had gone missing- he's not had the best time recovering

Caine is the CEO of one of the most well-known meat production sites in the United States. He stays in the small town, finding it very quant, and it had the benefit of having his favorite customer!

Marina, or Moon, is Caine's wife and a detective for the local police force. Although she's incredible at her job, she seems to have run into a road block with a list of seemingly unrelated murders....

Summer, or Sun, is the older sister of Marina and a schoolteacher for the town. She's a kind soul who is trying to make sure no one worries, but isn't afraid to be blunt with others. In the middle of the madness

Bubble is, to put it simply, Caine and Marina's pet dog. Nothing more, nothing less (like actually I just wanted to draw Bubble as a dog)

Gabriella, or The Gloink Queen, is the manager of a local strip club known as 'The Gloink Cave'. Despite her business, and a very commanding personality, she's seen as a potential suspect for it all

Ivy, or The Influencer, is the local hermit of the town. Hardly leaves her apartment and is a local dark web and black-market salesman! She's a criminal with a fanbase. And Amanda's deranged cousin

I have a lot of this AU, and it's been infecting my brain as of recent, so much so that... well, I made reference sheets for ALL of the characters. Hope you like it! If you have any questions, my inbox is nice and open! So, ask away

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blueikeproductions · 9 months ago

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They finally posted a trailer and poster for the next batch of EarthSpark. And it’s described as S3, though experience with Netflix makes me think this is just the remainder of S2… Still according to the marketing, fans finally got a third season, so that counts for something. It’s only roughly 7 episodes, but G1’s final fourth season was a three part finale, so a very short season isn’t unheard of.

This poster is a lot better than the past main posters they’ve used over and over.

These are better also, but they don’t get used much.

But after RotB & TFONE, I think we can all agree decent advertising isn’t modern Hasbro & Paramount’s strong suit.

As for the trailer itself, it continues a trend I’ve noticed where most EarthSpark ancillary stuff tends to down play the Terrans. Twitch appears for a split second and Thrash appears in a gag where he gets shot… continuing his “just kinda there” vibe.

The trailer primarily focuses on the traditional Autobot & Decepticon conflict, with a big focus put on Prowl, the newest and seemingly only Transformer added to the cast so far.

A news article further describes Prowl as an “old world” Autobot detective who trusts the hard facts & always finds the truth. He is immediately distrustful of Optimus’ allies, so presumably that includes the Maltos, Terrans and naturally Megatron. It’s interesting how he’s specifically described as a detective, perhaps that’s to avoid ACAB allegations I could see the old writers attempt through him….

Prowl’s G1 profiles cast him as a by the books, semi prickly, military strategist. This doesn’t really get explored in the old cartoon, and while it was touched on briefly in Marvel, IDW went hog wild with it, casting its Prowl as a corrupt cop antagonist towards the end of the run. IDW2 cast him as more of a detective pre-war though, possibly where EarthSpark borrowed it from, and while he was still a hard-aft, he had a soft spot for his pet dinosaur-alien.

The main villains of the season, unsurprisingly, are the Quintessons. Their leader is a female Judge, who the blurb declares it “is her birthright to possess the power of the Emberstone. She’s wise, dangerous, and her ego is so large that it’s no wonder she has five heads”.

What exactly constitutes gender among the Quints has never really been defined before.

It might be safe to say as far as the G1 cartoon is concerned, they’re an all male race.

WFC & CV attempted to insert female gender among the Judges, having some of the masks speak in a female voice.

That adds another oddity to Judge biology, as the G1 cartoon or Marvel UK comics never stated the other faces being separate personalities, instead other media describes them as different emotional states.

Alpha Q in Superlink did have multiple personalities based on which mask was displayed, each one squabbling/talking amongst themselves.

Presumably WFC/CV borrowed from Alpha Q, but the ES Quintesson Judge might be operating on G1 logic, each mask being a single (female) gender, as she has a female voice actor only.

The other big G1 thing the trailer shows is the Hate Plague. The leaked synopsis already revealed it, but like G1, those infected with the plague glow an intense red.

Once infected, they turn incredibly violent and try to kill each other. Despite the G1 show’s violence, nobody actually died ironically, at least it was never confirmed. The synopsis implies the Quintessons unleashed the Hate Plague on the Transformers, and while the 80’s Quints were instead among the victims of the outbreak, they do have a vague connection to it.

The oldest known leader within the Matrix, only known as “It”, resembles a Quintesson, with Japanese media confirming that’s what they are. Optimus Prime asks this ancient Quintesson how to combat the Hate Plague, with It saying the Plague couldn’t be outright destroyed but contained, where a wise man trapped the spores in a star. The spores nevertheless has a weakness to pure wisdom, so Optimus unleashes the power of the Matrix and uses its eons long store of wisdom to eradicate the virus once and for all… Until it briefly returns in Beast Machines.

As mentioned before, the Hate Plague isn’t exactly a popular concept cartoons like to go back to. Comics don’t like using it typically either, so its inclusion here is both unique but also a little… peculiar. I’m leaning towards it being a vague, modern topical metaphor for something, as an infected Megatron is fighting Optimus in particular. Probably some hogwash about Megatron succumbing to his biases and own hatred, but we’ll see soon enough.

Perhaps the most utterly bizarre detail is the blurb seemingly confirming the return of Spitfire and Aftermath.

How…?

Starscream yanked out their Allspar-er-Emberstone Shards, and the rock itself is dust. You can’t get any deader than that.

The only thing I can guess, is similar to Sari’s key, the Sleeves are the repository of the Emberstone’s life giving energies (the sleeves do just about anything else now so why not), and the Malto kids are incentivized to revive the two Decepticon Terrans for some reason.

MetroTitans in IDW also can grant life and that was carried over to Prime Wars, so it’s possible Terratronus can grant life too, and she restores the Terracons.

Worst case scenario is the two hellions are back up and running like nothing happened, and their death is never addressed again.

Crap writing if so, but the previous two scenarios would be preferable.

Not much longer to wait now. This might be the final batch, as the Quintessons make sense as the final end goal in the struggle over the Emberstone. The show has never been super committed to showing what’s going on Cybertron that whatever Prowl and Cosmos have to add to the matter is probably the best we’ll get. Plus the Terrans don’t have much incentive or interest to even go to Cybertron anyway; Alex would get more out of going there than his kids. Only thing I could guess is the Quints took over Cybertron off screen and that loosely ties into the Judge’s role on Earth, but eh. We’ll see.

#blueike productions #blueike #transformers #transformers earthspark #maccadam #earthspark

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elderflowergin · 1 year ago

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blood free v secret forest, a quick and dirty comparison:-

As someone who fell for Kdrama through Stranger, i loved it because it appeared seamless, grounded and weaved several systems and levels of privilege very elegantly. Most of all it seemed morally urgent, even if it was at its core a detective mystery. (Which, to be fair, Blood Free is as well.)

Secret Forest’s first success was that it held nuance for everyone in the middle of the road; LSY afforded so much thoughtful shading to those men. I often think they will never look as beautiful as they do on SF, and that’s only partly because of whoever did the lighting etc, but they’re not Kdrama glossy perfect; they’re real people trying to reckon with themselves and the moral calculus they have agreed to, and their dignity comes from the reckoning. Lee Chang-joon, Kang Won-chul, Lee Yeon-jae, even Seo Dong-jae for that matter, all have that advantage. LSY managed this for Jung Sung-il in the scant few minutes of screen time he had.

The second success was Cho Seung-woo and Bae Doona. If Secret Forest was a universe they were its gravitational field; it was their fierce sense of honour and morality that drives both seasons. And their moral decency is hard-won; it is tested constantly, and it’s burnished at each opportunity, which is why they are respected. It is a dream that people like that can influence or impact those around them, but you don’t question that they do, by the end of each season, and that’s the victory of writing, casting and the charisma of both leads.

That’s why that funeral scene in season 1 is so important (to me); it shows the gravity shifting. The prosecutors rely on their forest of secrets to keep the centre together, but Hwang Si-mok demonstrates how untenable this has become, how the roots must be pulled out so the weeds die; so new healthy things can grow. The chaebols are at the periphery, and they continue to be there because, most audaciously of all, they don’t matter if enough people shift their moral calculus. I think this gravitational pull happens to Lee Chang-joon in season 1 thanks to Hwang Si-mok and it happens to Choi Bit in season 2 thanks to Han Yeo-jin. They are easily some of the most powerful parts of the show.

On the other hand, we have Blood Free. I’m not sure who the moral gravitational field of this show is meant to be. Maybe it’s Yun Ja-yu and/or Woo Chae-woon. Maybe it’s Lee Mu-saeng. Maybe it’s about the ethical dilemma of experimentation and whether that’s a worthwhile price to pay for the scientific advancements in cultured meat and seafood. Perhaps we need more time to really see the middle of the road characters, but four episodes in there’s not much to go on: there’s Lee Mu-saeng, there’s Queen Dowager as a VP, here’s Jeon Seok-ho. There are three chaebols, all of whom seem like one-note characters to me. (Why ask a talented sketch artist to produce cartoons like these? Unless they’re not, but nothing seems to suggest otherwise.)

The most interesting insight from episode 4 was about Yun Jayu - when offered 72 trillion won for her company, she actually considers it because it means she doesn’t have to face investors and can focus on research. She has influence and money but these are means to an end, for her. I wish we could see more of that, and not necessarily through exposition alone.

When she gives deft, cool answers to reporters, did that come naturally to her or did she work at it? Is she the face of the company because she hated it a little less than Lee Mu-saeng did? If so, why? What comparative advantage did they determine she had? When she wears Chanel tweed skirts and smiles her way through presentations, is that a natural extension of her work or is that a mask she wears? Give me process, guys! Give us the backstory, the way the markets work, the environment for cutting-edge bio research in Korea, the reaction of Big Meat, the interplay of new rich and old rich, some indication of her actual influence (which must be considerably more than what we see on the show, although what little we see, while uncomfortable, is frankly not that inconceivable in a world where you’re constantly connected.) I am so interested in her, and yet I feel I am made to watch the story of her reacting to chaebols and to the mystery of corporate sabotage rather than her being the fulcrum of her own universe. And at no point does the mystery seem morally urgent to me, and it’s because 1) why does it matter if all this is is a giant M&A negotiation 2) why should we care if it doesn’t feel real to us? So what if there’s sabotage? Why on earth isn’t this company guarded like fucking Fort Knox? Why is this company ostensibly so influential, so powerful and yet capable of unusually amateurish errors that are the centre of the show so far and not on the periphery of it? Where is the moral quandary that is meant to grab us by the throat?

Is it a question of the writing? Have her interests shifted and did she want to do a show without having to do too much character work? If anyone has earned a vibes-only moment it’s Lee Soo-yeon, and I respect that for her. I hope the direction isn’t stifling the writing, because that means there is an arresting, politically trenchant drama underneath this dry procedural, and that’s upsetting to consider. We still have a ways to go and I think there is potential, but I have to remind myself not to expect something like SF, that maybe you can’t bottle that formula. That it’s the gold standard for a reason. But honestly, Disney, in the words of TikTok star imo_unusual, you’ve made this show like God was dozing off when the angels were working, now RELEASE US (and LSY writernim)

#sorry i didn’t finish life #and I didn’t include grid in the analysis #although that’s a good comparison to make too #but kudos to whoever costumed hhj #and gave her that expensive overcoat #that looks exactly like a doctor’s coat but in rich black #costuming is the only dept that has not been interfered with #blood free #tvn stranger

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duffyyy911 · 6 months ago

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𝙰 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝙱𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔: 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 3 - 𝙼𝚞𝚛𝚍𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚢 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚌𝚝

Summary: Instead of sleeping like a normal person, the detective decides to go to the Sump and then hang out with a homeless man. Content Warnings: Physical violence. Mentions of alcohol. Mentions of smoking. If he existed in League, I'd blame Ronald Reagan. Word Count: 7.6k Author's Notes: Finally at chapter 3. I know this is a reader x Lest fic, so sorry we had to do without for today and it almost killed me. Here's your plot contrivance chapter lmfao. Proofread by: @madschiavelique @6selkie

Masterlist: Here

Even if it weren’t the middle of the night on the surface, the lowest levels of the Sump would still be shrouded in pitch blackness. No amount of sunlight could reach this far down, past the levels of Zaun and its crumbling infrastructure all the way to the bottom levels that collected Zaun’s runoff. What was once another district, far gone and far forgotten, had been reduced to the shattered ruins of bygone prosperity. Just a chasm of collapsed buildings that toppled down the face of the fissure and interweaving between each other, arching over your head like predatory teeth. You could barely see more than ten feet in front of you, even with the bright mining lamp you had picked up in the boundary markets before you made the descent. Heaps of cans, bags of trash, glass dust, faded shells of tools and machinery crumpled under your boots as you scaled through the mass.

You felt like you were wading through a river of lost time and ill begotten memories. Like the remnants of an entire century lay in dormant sleep under your feet. The dripping echoes of running water bounced around the walls of the fissure, trickling down and pooling between the masses of junk. Sometimes on the higher levels of the fissures, the rain pouring from the topside would find its way down and trickle through cracks in the roofs of homes or spill in and pool up in the markets. But down here, the rain never made it. The sound of running water was a collection of runoff and liquids trapped beneath the surface, never having the sunlight to evaporate. Nothing lived down here, not even the rats.

Along with your hand lamp, you had scored a shoddy filtration mask. It was bulky, its filtration ports were unnaturally heavy around your mouth and the strain in your neck from keeping your head upright was starting to wear on you. The thin visor that ran up from the mouthpiece and over your face fogged up in the hot condensation of the deep. You hated wearing the thing, but you weren’t about to get any number of the diseases or poisoning one could find by breathing in the Gray down here. You wiped away the droplets of condensation from the mask, your filthy fingers smearing wet grime against the flexible plastic.

You scanned your lamp around to what was in front of you, but all you could see was more heaps of junk and shells of collapsed buildings. You inched forward, your light shining against the knob of a door still in its frame. From what you could see, it was an entire segment of a wall that had fallen down the chasm and tore itself from its structure, wedging itself between rock. You gripped the knob and gave it a twist, pushing against the doors mangled hinges until it gave way and opened up. You almost fell right through and tumbled into another pile of refuse, but you caught yourself by hanging onto the knob. You looked up, finding yourself before a wider opening in the depths where the faint light of the upper slums shone down into the dark and illuminated the area like an imitation of moonlight.

You could see the outline of the factory Aquil had told you about. An industrial behemoth of a structure built tall against the rock, like it had always been there and had just been waiting for you. From what you could visualize in the dim light, it looked as if a rockslide broke free of the fissure and caved in on part of the tall squarish structure, crushing brick and stone and collapsing the back half of the building. You felt another crunch beneath your foot, and you looked down to see the shards of glass and filament of a lightbulb beneath the tread of your boot. This had to be the factory where the meeting was going to take place, there were no other options. It felt like the complex was the only thing left standing at the bottom, like it was trapped in time.

You trod past the crumple remnants of a chain link fence surrounding the building, taking careful steps not to skewer your foot on mangled wire. You approached the heavy doors of the entrance to the structure, taking a moment to look up at the partially standing smoke stacks towering above your head from over the roof. This was the place. It was almost midnight, five minutes if your watch was correct when you checked it. You wanted to light a cigarette while you waited, you were desperate for a smoke. But there was no way you were taking this mask off. Not for a million dollars.

“Psst.” You hear a faint muffled voice echo out from the dark around you, like the hiss of a piston. You spun about, flaring your lamp’s light wildly from the fright.

“Come out.” You commanded with a robotic voice, the filters of your mask crackling as your breath passed through. You flashed the lamp light at a pyramid of huge iron spools standing in a stack far to your right. The light illuminated strands of dirty blond hair and reflected off the glass of another mask. Someone was hiding behind the crates, and doing a very poor job at that. “Don’t make me walk to you.” You warned again.

The familiar thin frame and blue jumpsuited body of Aquil slowly rose up from his hiding spot. You couldn’t see his face from behind his banged up gas mask, but you took the notion that he looked just as much of a little rat man as he did when you interrogated him. He slowly raised his hands up, taking careful steps as he approached you. “Don’t shoot, man.” He asked in a hushed tone. “I got the machine, it’s inside. You’re early, man.”

“It’s none of your concern how early I am.” You aimed the light to the ground and away from his face. “And why’d you put it inside already? Are you setting me up?” You took a stride towards him, grabbing your dusty hands around the lip of his collar.

“No, no, man! It’s like heavy and shit, man. I couldn’t just keep holding it out here,” Aquil begged, cowering as he wormed in your grip. “No tricks, I swear man!”

“How is this going down then?” You let him go slowly, almost dropping him to the ground as you did. “Are they expecting just you? Or should I just follow you in.” You looked to the front set of doors to the factory, still and motionless in the ages it has spent down here.

“No, man, they’re expecting just me. They see you, and they won’t even show up.” Aquil rubbed his hands together a bit, very rodent-like as you had made note of before. “There’s old vents in this place, man. Like some kind of hvac that’s been gutted or something. It’s real wide in there, you could just crawl in.”

“Yeah, so I can trip the wire to a grenade trap, right?”

“Where the hell would I even get a grenade, man!” Aquil stammered. He was telling the truth from what you could tell. You must have really scared him enough to pull this off, because the little rat looked like he was about to piss himself. You let out a slow sigh, looking back to the rusted doors.

“Fine. Just do the trade. And remember, I’ll be watching you.”

You walked through the empty and dark halls of the factory, its insides barren and gutted from decades of scavs passing through. You glide your fingers across the rough surface of the degraded walls, the stone and concrete slowly breaking down after decades of ruination. Nothing remained besides the machinery too heavy to lift and anything that was too useless to steal. Sopping wet sheets of paper sprawled across the teal tile flooring, the remnants of ransacked offices and disregarded ledgers. The first doorway you found in the long, dark hall was left open, its door taken off and away some time ago. You walked into a bare square room, shining your light around the darkened place carefully.

The entire room was gutted like the rest of the factory, but an overturned desk hid itself away in the corner. On the wall above it, just a bit over halfway up, you saw a grate to what you could only assume was the ventilation system. You stood up on the old desk carefully, and shined your light down it. Aquil was telling the truth and that the shafts were wider than usual, not huge but spacious enough to just barely fit an adult body. You could definitely slip in, but where you’d go was another matter. You reckoned if you took two right turns and then a left, and so long as you were going up in elevation, you’d end up just above the factory floor. There was only the front half of the building left after the remnants of the rockslide you saw earlier, so if you took a wrong turn you’d eventually end up outside again anyway.

You pulled off the vent cover, then wormed your way into the vents, dragging yourself up bit by bit until you had entered into the tunnel fully. If the outside of the factory was filthy, the inside of these vents were downright disgusting. You felt like you were crawling through an ocean of dust and ash, your mind begged for a shower that was nowhere in sight. You were pretty sure you just brushed past the corpse of some small animal, but you weren’t about to back up and check either. You had to see this through, it was your only lead, and if this fell out, then you were back to square one. You eventually crawled up a slope in the shafts, rising in elevation before the tunnel leveled out again. You came to a stop before another ventilation grate beneath you, and you made your camp there.

The factory floor was as dark as the rest of the place, but your time in the low light shifted your sight and you could make out the faint outlines of objects. Conveyor lines, the large fitting machines, soggy cardboard boxes of half-built light bulbs spilling off the lines and across the smooth stone floor. And there was the machine, the one Aquil had said he was building. You couldn’t make out its features, just its outline, rectangular with a wide heavy base and the shape of some kind of tubes or piping sticking out its top like the silhouette of a cathedra. You got glimpses of it as you watched Aquil nervously amble about the floor and shine his flashlight around. You waited for a moment in silence, your only company being the hiss of the filters. After a while that seemed like hours on end, the sounds of rusted doors opening echoed through the hollow factory one after another. Aquil spun about nervously, but eventually turned to face the back entrance of the floor.

Two men, unidentifiable in feature in the dark, moseyed in through the open archway at the back of the floor, one that seemed like it went back out into the Sump. You couldn’t see their faces at all, just the shape of their frames and their heights. One was a very tall figure, lean but not skinny. He barely made noise as he walked about, pacing around the perimeter of the factory floor. Like he could sneak up on anybody at any time. The other was larger in frame, and you weren’t sure if he was well built or heavy, but you could hear that one walk from a mile away. He waddled with a weird tilt when he walked, like one of his legs was bummed. He rasped like an old accordion through his mask, like he was constantly out of breath and could never catch it. These two were the ones picking up the machine, and if you could find out where they came from then you could follow the paper trail.

“The machine’s here, man.” Aquil patted the outline of the device he had constructed with a nervous shake. “Followed the instructions to a T, man. It’s all accounted for, I even tested it.”

“Very good.” The heavier man coughed out. His voice was muffled and crackled in the filters, but he had a strange accent. The kind of thick accent you could find from the people living in the lower slums of the fissures. His voice was deep, not naturally but more as if his throat was scarred. “Where’s the sample, then?” He looked about.

“I.. Uh.” Aquil stammered. He didn’t have the sample because you had it. You held your breath, piercing daggers into the back of Aquils head as you watched him without blinking. He better not sell you out. “I don’t have it anymore, man.”

“What? You took it all?”

“Uh. Yeah, man. Sorry, shit was tempting.”

The heavier man said nothing in return besides the rasping of his mask, looking about at the darkness inside the factory floor. He looked at the taller man, who turned back to him and nodded. The taller man walked forward and picked up the device with relative ease, like it barely weighed anything at all.

“Your help is appreciated. But you won’t be paid because of that.” The heavy man rasped out.

“But!” Aquil squeaked, then paused when it looked like the man had given him a glare. “No, that’s like fine and shit, man. Take it.” He backed off. Aquil watched the men take the machine in silence as they went back through the passage they entered through. It would have been as simple as that, you were planning to interrogate Aquil about who they were once they left. But he just had to open his big mouth. “Tell Lenare she’s like welcome and shit, man. It was hard to make.”

The men stopped in place, like they froze when they heard that name. They looked at each other for a brief moment, silently communicating. The taller man holding the machine stepped forward into the shadow, though you heard no footsteps of him walking away. The heavier set man turned about and approached Aquil once more. “Where’d you learn that name?” He wheezed. “How do you know Lenare?”

“The prints, man. The way I built it, it looked like it plugged into one of them golems and shit. I figured it was Lenare who wanted this built, man. It was no problem.” Aquil stammered out.

The heavy man looked at him in pure silence, like he was mulling something over. The man began to reach behind his back and to his beltline as Aquil kept stuttering on.

“I mean. Like it’s smart and stuff, man. Like it’s really ingenious, I would be willing to work on it-”

The shot rang out like the crack of a whip, bouncing off the thick walls of the factory and rumbling through the thin sheet metal of the ventilation system. You blinked, processing what had just transpired. The man had taken out a pistol and put a bullet right into Aquils head. The pittering sound of blood splat against the concrete before his body even dropped. You felt a bad taste in your mouth, a tangy metallic hue like you had swallowed a coin. Aquil’s body crumpled to the floor with a heavy thud like a ragdoll, his genius being reduced to nothing but a gaping hole and a fine red mist. You felt your stomach churn as your mind caught up with what you witnessed. You felt like you were going to puke in your mask, and you struggled to keep it down so you didn’t have to take it off and breathe in the Gray.

“You should have shut up.” The man put his pistol back into his beltline, taking a moment to stare at Aquil’s still body laid out on the ground.

“Come on, we don’t have the time to do this shit!” The taller man called back through the door. He had a far fairer voice, like the accent of an upper city dweller that had faded after years away from home.

“Sorry, my finger must have slipped.” The heavier man called back and hurried to join his partner at the door. “We’re still meeting up at the same location?”

“Yeah, same place.”

“Let’s drop it off and head somewhere fun. I’ve had enough of dealing with this for today.” The heavier man began to leave, leaving your line of sight through the entrance. “I need a drink.”

“Man, they couldn’t pull you off black cat with a pry bar you sick fuck.” The taller man laughed deeply as they exited.

The still silence of the bottom of the slump returned. Nothing but quiet and the ring of the shot echoed in your ears as you watched from your hovel in the vent. You weren’t sure how to react. You’ve seen people die before, anybody growing up in the underground has. It was just a way of life. You could count the times you saw chem gang members shooting each other up on the district blocks with both hands. But you haven’t seen something like that. That was cold. Instantaneous. The man shot Aquil like he was screwing off a lid to a bottle just to get to the water. Like it was just a thing he did and he didn’t think anything about it. You hissed out a silent sob, just one. Your nose ran a bit and you could feel the faint emerging of tears from the corners of your eyes. You took a wounded, jagged breath in, pushing the feelings down until they went away completely. You steeled yourself, closing your heart off to it. You didn’t even know Aquil. Hell, you didn’t even like him. But to be shot like that? Left here? You wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy. You couldn’t even take his body. You wondered if he had family. Yet, you could do nothing to reconcile any of this. You just had to go.

You had no lead anymore. This whole plan had been botched far worse than you were expecting. You almost wished Aquil had ratted you out, then you could have at least made a quick escape and he would have fled. But you didn’t. You just watched. You took a moment to wipe the condensation from your mask again. You weren’t even sure what to report back with. The man had mentioned getting a drink, and a black cat. You wracked your brain for any kind of answer to what he was talking about. A drink. A black cat. There was a bar up on the Entresol level called the Black Cat. It was a joint frequented by chem gangs. You had to salvage this. You had to find that lead. You weren’t going home until you did.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had taken you hours to climb out of the Sump. It was hard walking back to the upper levels, your legs felt so weak that you could have collapsed on any step. That ill feeling at the bottom of your stomach never left, like you had swallowed a bag of stones. Even now, while sitting on a damp bench in the Blacklanes, your hands couldn’t stop shaking. Your fingers trembled as you brought up your lit cigarette and inhaled deeply from it. You held the intake, feeling the smoke stirring in your lungs before you exhaled it all steadily through your nose. You looked around the dark lane running between the tall Commercia Hall buildings from your spot near some makeshift stalls in the market square. Your eyes felt stiff from minutes on end staring at the ground, lost in thought. You couldn’t peel your thoughts away from what happened. The sound. The taste. Watching a body fall like that. You’ve seen too much harshness in the underground, you’ve suffered through just as much. But not something like that.

You watched the ripples in your styrofoam cup of cheap coffee as you tried to keep a steady hand to take another sip. No matter how much you washed your mouth out with the bitter black drink you couldn’t remove that metallic taste. It just wouldn’t leave you, like it was atomically flashed onto your tongue. You dumped the cup out on the ground beside you, the splattering of the coffee only reminding you of what you saw. You looked back to the torch and filter mask laying on the table you sat upon. You decided it was best if you just left them there, somebody else would swipe them by dawn and take them to sell. You got up, dusting the vent grime off your faded jeans only to notice more had transferred onto your filth covered hands. You began walking down the empty lane of the Boundary market, passing by the doors to the steel shack commercial halls that were locked up tight for the night. The street was purely empty, not a soul in sight besides yourself, and you planned to keep it that way.

You noticed a small faucet sticking out of the wall by one of the doors to the halls, a water pipe for merchants to draw from. You took a moment to kneel down and twist the stiff faucet valve. Ice cold water came rushing out onto the stone pathway, splashing your bent knee. You quickly scrubbed your hands thoroughly, as if washing off the grime would somehow make you clean again. You couldn’t forget, though. You hadn’t given yourself time to even think about it, not by a long shot. You cupped your hands to collect some of the icy water before raising it to your face to wash it too. The chill on your skin mixing with half of the cup of coffee you had just poured out kept you wired in the early morning.

As you were twisting off the valve, you heard the scuffle of many shoes scrape against the rough pathway stone. You looked about, then down the lane in the direction you were heading in. A small gang of hooded ruffians were making their way towards a display window for one of the many halls. One took a brick from the street and tossed it through the glass, shattering it. The rest were quick to hop in through the now open space and start looting what was out on display. It was a strange sight to you, like watching termites eat away wood at lighting speed. They came as quick as they left, fleeing away from your direction with armfuls of mechanical junk and novelty devices. Like rats scattering from a pantry with their latest hauls. You dried off your hands with a series of flicks, then stuffed them into your jean pockets to warm back up. You slowly approached the storefront curiously, minding the huge jagged sheets of shattered glass as you looked in through the store window.

Not much was left from the shop, but the few things left behind gave you an impression it was a store for novelty gear-wound devices. A few wind up cymbal monkey toys lay in a row, toppled like dominoes. A cube like object held another shard of glass up, a common puzzle toy that you remembered from your childhood. In the center amongst the pulverised shards, a gun-like tool had been crushed by one of the delinquents when they hopped up. You picked it up, inspecting the thing. It was an entirely cylindrical device, save for the handle and trigger, made of what was most likely brass. You carefully looked down the wide circular barrel, spying the sheen of what looked to be a barbed hook. Was this some kind of grappling gun or something, you wondered? You took aim with it, pointing it at the unscathed display window directly adjacent from the looted one. You pulled the trigger slowly, but the gun refused to fire, only clicking dryly. You considered tossing it back in the wreckage, but a little idea that you should hang onto it wormed its way into your brain, and you did so by stuffing it under your beltline. You flared your shirt a bit, covering the handle up so nobody would notice you had it at first glance.

You continued your walk down the lane before the path split into a cross intersection. To your right, a large road opened up to a chain of equally packed storefronts. All the lights were off, retaining the stillness of the night. Save for one, whose foggy glow pushed through green stained glass and cast faint rays onto the street. A low hanging sign was perched above the door in the shape of a walking stylized cat painted black. This was the bar. You took a moment to cut your nerves, shaking your head rapidly to get back into a train of thought. You were out of leads, but you weren’t going to accept that. If those men said they were going to the black cat, then this was the only place they had to be. And if they went here, then one of the patrons surely would be able to identify them. Hell, you couldn’t even identify them with it being so dark in that factory. But you knew the way they talked, the way they walked. That was enough for you, you could bullshit the rest just like everything you did when you were in way over your head.

You opened the door of the bar, heading in with a steady head. The cold night air in the underground began to mix with a stuffy warmness flowing out of the quiet room. You could hear the hum off a small heater as you squinted your eyes to adjust to the orange brightness of the interior. The hum was accompanied by faint music, a sappy slow dance song played quietly from the speakers hooked to the corners of the room. You shut the door behind you carefully and took a silent look around the room. It was as usual as most dive bars you’ve frequented. Unfinished wood board floors, open space with a high ceiling. An overly decorated bar with an absolutely bored tender behind it flipping through a magazine as he leaned against the sill. Booths chaining along the walls with vagrants face first into the tables, fast asleep. Two men played pool at the table to the far side of the room, you standing between the bar and them as they gave you shifty looks before going back to their game. The one thing you noticed between everyone you could see is that they all wore the same type of leather jacket sporting a blue armband. These were chem gang members, that was no doubt. You stepped carefully across the bar floor and approached the sill, walking past an older looking man sitting on one of the stools. He didn’t wear any of the insignia the others were wearing, just a raggedy parka jacket. He had to be over six and a half feet tall from the way he hunched over as he sipped from a low glass. Yet he gave you no glance or look as you passed him by to the sill.

“What do you want?” The scruffy bartender asked your order in a monotone voice as he flipped another page in his magazine lazily, not even glancing up at you.

“Uh.” You blinked as your thoughts trailed back into numbness. “Just whiskey, I guess.” You pulled yourself back from distraction, then leaned up against the sill of the bar.

The tender straightened up, then pulled a dusty bottle of brown whiskey from the shelf behind him. He was obviously giving you the cheap stuff without asking, which means he’ll probably charge you the price of something better. You didn’t care, though. The last thing you needed to worry about right now was money. That was a first.

You watched him slowly pour your drink into a short glass. As he passed it over, you leaned in close to ask him something. “Hey.” You cleared your throat, then gave a glance back to the men playing pool behind you. “I heard that someone here knows where to score some Jitter.”

The bartender blinked passively at you without even a flex in his expression. He passed the glass slowly over to you as its bottom dragged against the dry wood of the bar. “I think you’re mistaken.” A sadistic smirk crossed his lips, complementing the tenders' deep sleep deprived eyes. If he was charging you extra just for a drink, then he most definitely wasn’t about to tell you anything useful. “Just drink your drink, buddy.”

“No, seriously.” You leaned in further. You took the glass in your hand and quickly downed the whiskey, ignoring the burn without any problem because of your wracked nerves. “Look, I’m not a mark or anything. Just help a guy out, y’know?”

“Go back across the river, Piltie.” One of the men playing pool called to you as he eavesdropped in on your conversation. He was tall, but lanky. A Chirean punk with shortish black hair. His buddy was just as shifty looking as he was, who was snickering away as he putted the cue ball.

You look at him from over your shoulder, giving him a disgusted sneer like the fact he even spoke to you was a crime. It was becoming apparent that all three believed you were an enforcer or at least a small-time beat cop. “Look, man. Just help me out? It’s kind of urgent.” You fibbed as you turned back to the bartender. You didn’t pull off the desperate junkie look, but your next plan was to flash some actual cash that could change his tune.

“Just go home.” The bartender rolled his eyes, turning back to put the bottle back on the shelf.

“I just-” You paused your sentence when you felt the tight grip of a hand on your shoulder pull you back and spin you around. The man heckling you from before had gotten straight in your face, grabbing you by the lapel of your jacket as he pressed your back into the smooth lip of the bar sill. You could smell the cheap beer on his breath, and the faint stain of too many cigarillos wafting from his dirty jacket.

“Daz. No.” The tender pointed at him without much effort to break the confrontation up. “Not in my bar, take it outside.”

“You fucking enforcers come in here thinking you can just walk in and say ‘one drug please’ and just get handed it? Fuck off back across the river, pony boy.” He looked at you, then to the tender as he kept a hold of you. “Are you just going to let trash like this walk in here?”

You could handle being called any name in the book. But being mistaken for someone from Piltover? That would not fly, no, not for a second. “I’m not a goddamn Piltie, get out of my face before you regret it.” Your hands wrapped around the wrist of Daz, slowly but surely forcing him to let you go as you struggled against his strength.

“Fuck you.” He practically spat in your face, reaffirming his grip on your collar. You glanced at his buddy, who was sitting back on the edge of the pool table and snickering as he did before. You look between them, then at the bartender, then back to the guy grabbing at you. You really weren’t in the mood for any of this shit and if you knew anything it was to not let some smartmouth think he owns the place. You reel your head back and smash your forehead straight into Daz’s battish nose. You could hear the crunch of what little bone there was breaking as you connected. Daz stumbled back in a daze, letting you go and bringing a hand up to his now bleeding crumpled nose in disbelief.

“I said take it outside!” The bartender barked at both of you, throwing a finger to the door. It was too late for any of that, though. You knew the minute you did what you just did, it’ll be all over in a flash. One move was all you got, maybe two, but it had to be quick.

Daz closed his bloody fingers into a fist and reeled back for a swing at you. You ducked under the right hook in one smooth motion as his fist just barely grazed your hair. As you straightened back up, you moved forward to grab him and to throw him to the floor. He brought down his elbow to plant it into your back, so you quickly changed your intention mid-motion and opted for a swift punch into his gut while his guard was up. Daz let out a low heaving wheeze, as the punch had knocked the wind far out of him. He stumbled back, knocking into the large greying man who was sitting quietly on his stool, not even looking at the fight unfold next to him. Daz caught himself on the bar before he fell completely over, and in the process he elbowed the strangers drink and spilled the whole glass.

“You’re dead!” Daz’s buddy called out to you as he strode towards you from the pool table, wielding a cue like a baseball bat in preparation to wrap it around your head. You looked to Daz, who had just pulled himself back up onto his feet, then to the other guy approaching you. One you could handle, but two? On good days you could hold your own, but you hadn’t the energy to keep up with it tonight.

Just as Daz surged forward to grapple with you, the large man he had bumped into finally stood up after staying perfectly still. Before Daz could even cross the gap between the both of you, the taller man brought his fist down. In one swing, Daz was suckerpunched straight into the back of his head as he surged forward, knocked clean out. As he collapsed at your feet, his buddy wielding the pool cue stopped in his tracks at the sight.

Before any of the recent events came a truly ravenous crescendo, the singular ring of gunfire cracked and billowed through the room. You flinched hard, your eyes twitching in reaction but not peeling away from the man in front of you. The larger man whose beer you had spilled before now stood over Daz, who was still reeling on the harsh floorboards. You glanced away from the man wielding the pool cue, who took a few slow steps back as he nervously returned the cue to the table without turning away. Your eyes flicked back to the tender behind the bar, who had took stance and fired a scrappy but intimidating pipe revolver at the ceiling only a moment ago. He glanced at you with a stern furrow in his bushy brow, the tip of his tongue gracing his lips as he decided what to say. From behind you, you could hear the patrons asleep at the booths begin to shift and wake up after the still ringing shot, all giving the bartender the half-present attention that was demanded.

“First off.” He spoke up, raising his voice so even the still half-asleep could hear him. “You.” he pointed to you with the end of his revolver as if it were his finger. “Get the fuck out of my bar, you’re banned. And you.” The barrel flicked to the tall older man who had knocked Daz clean out on the floor. “You’re on thin ice, go home. The rest of you, pay tab. We’re closed.”

The man didn’t say a word in response, he only took his coat and headed towards the door. You watched your unlikely ally leave, then looked to the friend who was about to jump in. He gave you an equally mean glare back, but you cut the exchange short as you too went for the exit. The tender had just walked around the bar by the time you had reached the door you had walked in through.

“That’s enough shit flinging from you two. Take him home.” You heard the tender mutter to Daz’s friend as they pulled him to his feet. “The backdoor.”

As you returned to the cool crispness of night in the fissures, you stopped to think for a moment before taking another foot beyond the sidewalk. You shut the loose wood of the old door behind you and you hear the fair click of its latch as your eyes drift down the street, looking for somewhere to nest as you thought. The factory was your only lead. Besides that, it was this jitter stuff that Lest had told you about. With those two options now completely gone, you were beginning to think that this whole adventure had fallen through before the interesting part had even begun. And what were you going to report back with? ‘Oh hey, I know I only had one lead but I saw its brain being blown out the back of its head so I went to a bar but not to drink or anything!’ yeah, that’d really be a great excuse.

Jitter. If the Jitter was being produced, then the machine Aquil had been working on couldn’t have been the only one. If it was, then it wouldn’t have been distributed this quickly. Aquil mentioned that the machine looked like it connected to something, something he described as ‘golems.’ Then he also mentioned a Lenare, who he may have thought was the one to order something like this. But you have no idea who this Lenare person was either. Yet given all the other information, a workable theory is that whoever this person actually is, had to be a machinist of some kind. You were hoping to find a source to the jitter here, or at least any identification on the man who shot Aquil. Yet fist fighting and then being banned ruled out interrogating any of the men in the booths.

“You’re not even going to offer me a light?” You heard a coarse but hollow-ish voice speak to you from over your shoulder.

You turned about, snapping from your deep trance in thought and pulling yourself back to the land of the living. Behind you was that man from before, the one whose beer you had spilled by shoving that chem ganger. Your first observation was entirely right, because the guy was definitely over six and a half feet tall. He wore a grey-tan truckers cap, whose logo had cracked and fractured off from what looked like years of wear. It fitted to a scruffy head of dry gray hair that he tied into a shoddy bun at the base of his nape. He wore a frayed wool red-black mackinaw under his jacket and his cigarette hole burned denim jeans were kept up by two thin leather overall straps. Because of how fast the recent events had occurred, you really never stopped to get a proper look at the fellow. He held a long cigarette between his lips as he sparked a cheap lighter that just refused to light.

“What?” You blinked, then looked at his cigarette. “For you? Sorry.” You shake your head with a sheepish smirk as you slinked your hands into your jacket pockets to warm up.

“You know, you make a horrible plainclothes.” The man coughed before putting his bad light back and rooting around in his back pocket for what would assumedly be a second one. “You don’t look like shit enough to pass as a jitter addict, but props for effort.”

“I’m not a-” You paused yourself before explaining something you shouldn’t even have had to explain. “Look, if you want me to pay for your drink it’s a bit too late.”

“I mean, if you’re offering.” The older man harrumphed, then finally retrieved a second lighter from his pocket before taking a not-so-steady moment to light his cigarette. “I was wondering if you were still looking.”

You paused with confusion, looking up the street then back down it. You wondered if this was just another joke and if it would be best if you just went home instead. “Looking for what?” You feigned ignorance.

“For drugs, idiot!” The man laughed with a wheeze like a muddy whistle. “You really are a shitty enforcer.”

“Why does everyone think I’m a cop!”

“Because your eyes are too shifty! You look around like you’re a little kid trying not to get into trouble. Plus you don’t walk right, and you talk like you have somewhere to be. Chem addicts have nowhere to be, besides taking chems I suppose.”

“Says you.” You scoffed. The stranger didn’t look all too impressive either, to be fair. Though the answer to the question of how to properly define and identify a Zaunite is a difficult one to find in all truthfulness. “You- You..” You stammered, trying to come up with any kind of comeback that went beyond the scope of playground taunting.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” You paused again. Who? “Who even are you?”

“Ronk.” The man stated, squinting one eye as he let his cigarette roll to the corner of his wide lippy smile. You could mistake this man for anybody else in the underground, not even identify him in a crowd. This might be exactly who you were looking for. Not somebody with any power or know-how, but somebody on the street long enough to have learned a thing or two. Or even seen a thing or two. “What about you?” He nodded.

“Ronk?” You asked with amusement. Who names their child Ronk? Was this ancient dinosaur even a child once? He looked like he sprouted from the ground that way and started drinking the remnants of the bottoms of beer cans and eating old cigarette butts for sustenance. “That can’t be your real name, can it?” You stifled a laugh.

The man thought about it for a moment, taking a short bit to mull it over and shift the way he stood. He returned his lighter to his pocket, gave his cigarette a puff, then nodded slowly as his half-lucid stare returned to you. “Dave. That’s my real name.”

“Keep Ronk, I’d say.” You chuckled. You began to pace a bit as you stood in front of the closed bar past midnight in the Entresol. You ought to be heading home to try and catch the sleep that would never come, but standing out in the cold with some random bar fish who helped you out in a bar fight might as well be just as good a use of your time. “If you thought I was a cop, why do you want to sell me drugs so badly?”

“I said that you were a bad cop, not that you were a cop.”

“You’re going in circles now.”

“What I mean.” Ronk cleared his throat, then spat coarsely on the ground next to his dirt crusted work boots. “Is that if you were really an enforcer? This whole block would be shut down for just that little stunt.”

“So?” You shrugged.

“So. We’re still here. And that asshole in there currently isn’t getting a perp walk and a one way ticket to Stillwater. So you’re not a cop.”

“Wow. You’ve got such a sharp eye we could switch jobs.” You remarked sarcastically as you absentmindedly redid the buttons on your faded jacket. “I can spend twelve hours a day drinking, and you can go crawl around in shit and mud and do whatever the hells that was in there.” You articulated as you paced.

“Detective, then?”

“What?” You spun about on your heel again to face him. You had been in such a nervous spin about what you were going to do, you hadn’t noticed that you were beginning to pace circles around the scruffy man as you two conversed beneath a stark street lamp.

“You’re a detective, then. Not a cop, but still the same kind of bullshit.”

“If you say so.” You gave him another respective glance. “So?”

“So.”

“So, are you going to sell me Jitter or what?” You spoke up. Conversing with Ronk felt like you were being sucked down into a grain silo but instead of suffocating, your brain cells were being eaten one by one.

“Right, right. You still owe me a drink, though.”

“I told you. I don’t have any money, old man. No lighter, no coins, nothing.” You fibbed turning out your coat pockets. You had money, plenty wadded up in the wallet in your pants pocket, but you weren’t about to set your budget and have him meet it. For all you knew, you were being sized up and that tomorrow afternoon you were going to end up being mugged in some out of the way alley.

Ronk stopped to think for a moment in his increasingly usual old man way. He ashed his cigarette into the open breeze, then looked back and forth up the street with a whiny pensive hum.

“I reckon you could owe it. I know a better place that’s still open. You follow me, pay for my drink, I give you that information. Everybody is happy.” He breezed past your mention of no money, it was an obvious lie.

“This better not be a trick. Or a mistake.” You huffed.

“What? Are you scared of having a good time?” Ronk motioned up the street to where you came from, then began to slowly hobble down the street and away from you. He gave you an encouraging motion for you to follow, then continued walking. You were out of leads, and it was this or go home and feel worse about it.

“Not this early.”

𝙽𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛

Taglist: @6selkie @madschiavelique @roku907

#arcane #arcane fic #arcane lest #arcane x reader #lest arcane #canon x reader #lest x reader

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jainydoe · 6 months ago

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I haven't played my rook claudia in a while but hey it's fun to get to know your characters and i'll do anything my wife tells me thanks @caffeinatedmunchkin LUST: desire for connection. pursuit of pleasure. emotional intelligence. obsessive. lovesick. one-night stands. seductive encounter. flirtatious conversation. erotic party. seductive attire. revealing clothing. passionate gaze. provocative makeup. sensual expressions. suggestive gestures. flirtatious smiles. lingerie. love letters. perfumes. provocative behavior. love poems. erotic art.

x I reckon she's a real flirt who enjoys something casual. Someone who loves sex for the beauty of it, the chase of it, the game of it, not so much the love-making bit. I think she's a romantic who finds big gestures typically corny but appreciates a good bottle of wine and something shiny.

GLUTTONY: indulgence in experiences. savoring moments. hospitality. generosity. hedonism. culinary expertise. wine-tasting. excessive snacking. overloaded plates. excessive portions. bloated stomachs. messy eating. greasy fingers. full tables. indulgent spreads. overflowing cups. satisfied expressions. wine bottles. just can’t get enough. fast food wrappers.

x She's got the heart of a fat cat who's been reduced to alleyway scraps. But on days they're not out questing, she's got on a face mask, a steaming bubble bath with some oils she picked up in a market and a juicy flick featuring their resident detective. Very much a work hard so you can play harder type.

ENVY: motivation. competitive spirit. strategic planning. observational skills. bitter rivalry. contest. envious gossip. resentment-filled argument. social media jealousy. furrowed brows. clenched jaws. side-eye looks. pursed lips. tense posture. whispering behind backs. crossed arms. gossip magazines. keeping up with the joneses. the grass is always greener. feeling inadequate.

x Hm I think her envy tends to go hand in hand with her wrath. Like she probably has some envy over Myrna just because she can live in Nevarra and wasn't pushed into some Sofia Falcone type "go to Italy" bullshit.

GREED: resourcefulness. entrepreneurial spirit. negotiation. materialistic. aggressive investment. lavish spending spree. resource-hoarding. get-rich-quick schemes. auction-bidding war. property acquisition. piles of money. overflowing wallets. luxury items. locked safes. penny-pinching. rare collectibles. selfishness. unwillingness to share.

x Oh yeah. Dragon behavior supreme. It's not hoarding if your shit is good. I mean she's Nevarran so like yeah she's a show-off and finer-things appreciator. Someone who likes keeping tabs on market fluctuations and what's hot.

SLOTH: calmness. stress management. nonchalance. relaxation techniques. lethargic. apathetic. inactive. lazy weekend. binge-watching marathon. neglected chores. skipped workout. long nap. lounging on the couch. missed deadlines. unkempt appearance. messy hair. pajamas. blankets. slippers. procrastination station. self-care routines.

x Yeah I think we touched on it in gluttony but when you grow up the way she did, you learn to take care of yourself. Now it's a ritual. The months following veilguard include long naps on the coast and fruit bowls and sweat.

PRIDE: confidence. self-assurance. self-respect. dignity. public speaking. self-promotion. arrogant. conceited. egotistical. self-important. vain. boastful speech. puffed chest. raised chin. smug smiles. spotlight. tooting your own horn. showing off. refusing to admit mistakes. feeling entitled. personal branding. leadership development.

x Yeah her fatal flaw is justifying her mistakes which is Bad when you're a thief. Something to work on now that you're saving the world I guess.

WRATH: assertiveness. decisiveness. strength. intensity. boundary setting. courage. indignant. heated arguments. road rage incident. physical altercation. angry outburst. clenched fists. glaring eyes. tense muscles. raised voices. reddened faces. aggressive gestures. stormy demeanour. intense frowns. destructive actions. broken objects. punching bag. out for blood. fists. simmering anger.

x I think her anger is either incredibly petty or takes ages to build. Very ides of march. A diplomat who, when pushed, pulls a blade. Makes sense given she's a rogue etc etc etc

This was fun! Imma tag some mutuals I haven't really gotten the chance to talk to but definitely wanna know more about!!! Let's chat!!! @pansexualbat @iridescentleaf @aldisobey @kviatuszki If I didn't tag you but you wanna talk, tag me! I'd love to learn more about your characters i LOVE COMMUNITY AHAFHEIQOHRWIH ER

#rook #ask list

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jcmarchi · 7 months ago

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Students strive for “Balance!” in a lively product showcase

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/students-strive-for-balance-in-a-lively-product-showcase/

Students strive for “Balance!” in a lively product showcase

On an otherwise dark and rainy Monday night, attendees packed Kresge Auditorium for a lively and colorful celebration of student product designs, as part of the final presentations for MIT’s popular class 2.009 (Product Engineering Processes).

With “Balance!” as its theme, the vibrant show attracted hundreds of attendees along with thousands more who tuned in online to see students pitch their products.

The presentations were the culmination of a semester’s worth of work in which six student teams were challenged to design, build, and draft a business plan for a product, in a process meant to emulate what engineers experience as part of a design team at a product development firm.

“This semester, we pushed the six teams to step outside of their comfort zones and find equilibrium between creativity and technical rigor, all as they embarked on a product engineering process journey,” said 2.009 lecturer Josh Wiesman.

Trying to find a balance

The course, known on campus as “two-double-oh-nine,” marks a colorful end to the fall semester on campus. Each team, named after a different color, was given mentors, access to makerspaces, and a budget of $7,500 to turn their ideas into working products. In the process, they learned about creativity, product design, and teamwork.

Various on-stage demonstrations and videos alluded to this year’s theme, from balance beam walks to scooter and skateboard rides.

“Balance is a word that can be used to describe stability, steadiness, symmetry, even fairness or impartiality,” said Professor Peko Hosoi, who co-instructed the class with Wiesman this semester. “Balance is something we all strive for, but we rarely stop to reflect on. Tonight, we invite you to reflect on balance and to celebrate the energy and creativity of each student and team.”

Safety first

The student products spanned industries and sectors. The Red Team developed a respirator for wildland firefighters, who work to prevent and control forest fires by building “fire lines.” Over the course of long days in challenging terrain, these firefighters use hand tools and chainsaws to create fire barriers by digging trenches, clearing vegetation, and other work based on soil and weather conditions. The team’s respirator is designed to comfortably rest on a user’s face and includes a battery-powered air filter the size of a large water bottle that can fit inside a backpack.

The mask includes a filter and a valve for exhalations, with a hose that connects to the blower unit. Team members said their system provides effective respiratory protection against airborne particles and organic vapors as users’ work. Each unit costs $40 to make, and the team plans to license the product to manufacturers, who can sell directly to fire departments and governments.

The Purple Team presented Contact, a crash-detection system designed to enhance safety for young bicycle riders. The device combines hardware and smart algorithms to detect accidents and alert parents or guardians. The system includes features like a head-sensing algorithm to minimize false alerts, plus a crash-detection algorithm that uses acceleration data to calculate injury severity. The compact device is splashproof and dustproof, includes Wi-Fi/LTE connectivity, and can run for a week on a single charge. With a retail price of $75 based on initial production of 5,000 units, the team plans to market the product to schools and outdoor youth groups, aiming to give young riders more independence while keeping them safe.

On ergonomics and rehabilitation

The Yellow Team presented an innovative device for knee rehabilitation. Their prototype is an adjustable, wearable device that monitors patients’ seated exercises in real-time. The data is processed by a mobile app and shared with the patient’s physical therapist, enabling tailored feedback and adjustments. The app also encourages patients to exercise each day, tracks range of motion, and gives therapists a quick overview of each patient’s progress. The product aims to improve recovery outcomes for postsurgery patients or those undergoing rehabilitation for knee-related injuries.

The Blue Team, meanwhile, presented Band-It, an ergonomic tool designed to address the issue of wrist pain among lobstermen. With their research showing that among the 20,000 lobstermen in North America, 1 in 3 suffer from wrist pain, the team developed a durable and simple-to-use banding tool. The product would retail for $50, with a manufacturing cost of $10.50, and includes a licensing model with 10 percent royalties plus a $5,000 base licensing fee. The team emphasized three key features: ergonomic design, simplicity, and durability.

Underwater solutions

Some products were designed for the sea. The Pink Team presented MARLIN (Marine Augmented Reality Lens Imaging Network), a system designed to help divers see more clearly underwater. The device integrates into diving masks and features a video projection system that improves visibility in murky or cloudy water conditions. The system creates a 3D-like view that helps divers better judge distances and depth, while also processing and improving the video feed in real-time to make it easier to see in poor conditions. The team included a hinged design that allows the system to be easily removed from the mask when needed.

The Green Team presented Neptune, an underwater communication device designed for beginner scuba divers. The system features six preprogrammed messages, including essential diving communications like “Ascend,” “Marine Life,” “Look at Me,” “Something’s Off,” “Air,” and “SOS.” The compact device has a range of 20 meters underwater, can operate at depths of up to 50 meters, and runs for six hours on a battery charge. Built with custom electronics to ensure clear and reliable communications underwater, Neptune is housed in a waterproof enclosure with an intuitive button interface. The communications systems will be sold to dive shops in packs of two for $800. The team plans to have dive shops rent the devices for $15 a dive.

“Product engineers of the future”

Throughout the night, spectators in Kresge cheered and waved colorful pompoms as teams demonstrated their prototypes and shared business plans. Teams pitched their products with videos, stories, and elaborate props.

In closing, Wiesman and Hosoi thanked the many people behind the scenes, from lab instructors and teaching assistants to those working to produce the night’s show. They also commended the students for embracing the rigorous and often chaotic coursework, all while striving for balance.

“This all started a mere 13 weeks ago with ideation, talking to people from all walks of life to understand their challenges and uncover problems and opportunities,” Hosoi said. “The class’s six phases of product design ultimately turned our students into product engineers of the future.”

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bellybuttonbooks · 7 months ago

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Hey guys. I’m writing an Ekko x Fem!OC fanfic on Wattpad. I have 31 chapters written so far, with 14 of them posted (the other 16 are in editing stage).

TITLE: The Sixth

SUMMARY: Shimmer is back. Two years after the war with Noxus has ended, a new gangster emerges within the undercity, now known as 'Zaun'.

Daunter is a ruthless chem-baron who has reformed the city's drug empire. He refloods the streets with shimmer and gains the title 'Silco's Heir'.

The Firelights are back in commission after two years of lax, taking down exports just like the days when Silco was still alive.

Ekko finds himself involved in a seemingly endless cat-and-mouse chase with another gang leader-a woman who moves like the wind. He wants to know what her motives are, but he has to catch her first.

LINK: https://www.wattpad.com/story/385476895?utm_source=ios&utm_medium=link&utm_content=story_info&wp_page=story_details&wp_uname=bellybuttonbooks

COVER:

🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩🧩

SNIPPET OF CHAPTER ONE (not the full chapter):