#I set the enemies to easy and they still kick my butt RIP

[happylittleshrub]

I may die a lot, but in the words of the great Chumbawamba, "I get knocked down, but I get up again. You're never gonna keep me down!"

[shiftyskip]

Edward James “Babe” Heffron

The real Babe Heffron: 

Edward James Heffron was born on May 16, 1923 to Joseph and Anne Heffron in South Philadelphia. He was the third of five children in his Irish-rooted family. He had three brothers: James, Joseph Jr., John (called Jake or Jack). He also had one sister named Anna Margaret. He attended a Catholic elementary school, but his parents could no longer afford it after a while and in high school, Babe attended public school Southern Philadelphia High (which he called Southern). He dropped out in his third year, to help with finances. Babe took up betting on horses. Every penny he got off of a horse race, he gave to his mother. 

Babe used to rough house and play football when he was younger, but one day he hurt his hand playing. He says that “my hand and fingers contracted to the wrist and curled under, and I was in excruciating pain from my wrist all the way up the arm.” The pain would come back whenever he used his hands too much. The pain would stay with him for decades, even after the war. 

His friends decided to rent a room, fix it up, and make a dance hall called the Shindig. He and his friends were at the dance hall on December 7, 1941.The brothers decided to tell their parents before enlisting. His father had a talk with them the next day, without their mom. Babe states that, “He told us that we had to fight for our country and for the freedom of those less fortunate than ourselves. He made it clear he wouldn’t accept a slacker for a son and that he was expecting us to do our part.” His father had previously served in World War I, so Babe knew what was expected of him. 

Babe enlisted in August of 1942. His brother Joe was drafted into the Army while Jake and Jimmy were in the Navy. His call to service was on November 7, 1942. Which his official date of when he went on Active Duty. Babe was working at a shipyard in New Jersey at the the time. His job was to help fix up ships to become aircraft carriers and he hadn’t told them about his enlistment. His boss handed him a 2B slip, stating that he did not have to serve because his work served the war effort. Babe ripped it up in front of him. In Babe’s words: “I wasn’t going to shrink from my duty to my country. If my brothers, neighbors, and friends were all going, I wasn’t about to stay behind.

Babe went through Basic at Fort Eustis in Virginia, he was not a Toccoa boy. Meaning, Babe didn’t have the absolute joy of training under Sobel.He was assigned to B Battery, an anti-aircraft unit. He was promoted to a tech corporal and helped prepare future officers for officer candidate school. When he had arrived, he instantly put in the paperwork to become a paratrooper, but was told to finish Basic Training first.  Six to Seven months later, he was given the okay and was on his way to Fort Benning, Georgia. Babe was not in Jump School until January of 1943. In Fort Benning, he was put with 1st Parachute Infantry Regiment, K company.

Night life was limited. The boys spent most of their time by reading, listening to one man’s radio, or talking about home. Lights out was at 10:00 PM and they were up by 5:00 AM. When they did get to have some more time, Babe and others went to the Bama Club nearby. One day, a wife of an officer hosted a competition. Her best jitterbug partner got a bottle of champagne. Babe went up and danced with her. He ended up winning the competition. 

In jump school, Babe made a new best friend, Johnny Julian. Johnny was from Alabama and both men thought the other talked weird since Julian had a strong southern drawl and Babe did not. Babe said, “He was clean-cut, believed in God, believed in everything I believed in, believed his was coming home. We could talk to each other real easy.” Babe and Julian also became friends with J.D Henderson. Together, the three made a pact, that if one died the survivors would have to tell the parents. The trio stuck together through Jump School.

Babe loved jumps, even though his hands provided extra difficulty. He enjoyed the beauty of the day jumps, but disliked the night jumps. Night jumps were dangerous and one night, a plane crashed, killing all the men inside the plane. The night jumps were cancelled at the camp and the men were transferred to Camp Mackall for their final jump. Babe got his Jump Wings in March. 

 He was transferred to Camp Shanks, preparing to go home one last time before heading out overseas. In May of 1944, Babe was headed out overseas. When they reached, Liverpool, England, they had learned that the 101st and 82nd had jumped into Normandy. Babe was not part of the D-Day jump, instead he was a replacement for the troops who didn’t return from that jump. Babe, Henderson, and Julian were all transferred to Easy Company once they returned.

Easy Company’s barracks were in the middle of Aldbourne, England. Babe was told to visit Bill Guarnere. Guarnere, also from South Philadelphia, noticed that when Babe walked in, he walked like a penguin. This walk was like a duck, side to side, which Guarnere recognized as the South Philly shuffle. Guarnere and Babe only lived a short distance from each other in South Philly. 

Babe learned that replacements were not easily accepted. Toccoa Men wanted little to do with the replacements. They had trained together, jumped together, fought together, and mourned together. They didn’t want much to do with a replacement, didn’t talk to them and sure as hell didn’t want to fight with one. Babe was assigned to a Toccoa vet’s gun squad, Joe Toye’s. Joe Toye, unlike the others, didn’t give a damn if Babe was a replacement and accepted him. Chuck Grant was another Toccoa man that accepted Babe easily, even gave him a new nickname: Jigger. Guarnere was also often with Babe, going out to pubs and dances. Even so, Babe stuck with his fellow replacement friends, Julian and J.D. 

Babe and his friends enjoyed their time in England. Babe was often jitterbugging with girls and dancing away. They went to several different dance halls and other places. Even when they were supposed to be watching over the shed that held their chutes, Chuck Grant and Babe never made it to the shed. They never did. They were always off somewhere, enjoying a pub or two. 

During his time at Aldbourne, Babe’s girl back home, Doris broke up with him. She dumped him in a letter because she’d found another man. Babe didn’t much care about it. He hadn’t even visited her before he had left for England on his last weekend pass, saying that a previous weekend with her had been, “the most boring few hours [he] could’ve spent.” The world had a funny sense of humor, because the plane Babe boarded to jump into Holland, was named Doris. 

Babe was eager to jump. Babe made the jump into Holland on September 17. The jump in Holland went easy. Babe helped one mad who’d broken his leg during the jump off the field, but other than that there was not much, if any, combat. The Dutch greeted the paratroopers in celebration. They loved the paratroopers and called them angels from the sky. In Son, they received word to take Eidenhoven. On the route there, a Dutch woman gave Babe a baby carriage for him to carry his supplies in. He did so until Popeye threw his weapons in, then Babe made him push the carriage.

His platoon was the first to enter the city, and he instantly set up his machine gun by a footbridge, facing an entry way into the towns. Dutch underground members asked to attack the Germans instead, and Babe allowed them to. When the Germans appeared, the Dutch attacked them and killed all but one. The injured German was taken as a prisoner, but first a woman asked where he was hurt and when he pointed to his shoulder, she beat him with a hidden brick in her pocketbook and screamed something along the lines of evil at him. Babe said that it made his day.

Babe had many close calls in Holland. In Nuenen, a tank caught on fire and all of the men inside had died, leading it to be driven into the ditch next to Babe. How he escaped, he doesn’t remember. Later on, he thought he was hit but Buck Compton has been hit in his butt, tripped over a wheelbarrow, and hit Babe’s leg on his way down. Guarnere and others eventually rescued Compton.

 To escape the Germans, Babe had to get over a 6 foot hedge. To get over, Babe had to back into German fire and get a running start. As he jumped, his rosary came off of him. Sheehy grabbed his jump jacket and pulled him over the hedge. Babe, reluctantly, was about to leave his rosary behind, but found it inside his helmet. His mother had given him the rosary before he left and he was determined to carry it through the war.

Then he had another close call as the Germans shelled a cemetery he was standing in. One last one was when he was stuck in a ditch, with Germans firing at them. He went to return fire when Guarnere kicked him backwards and back into the ditch, saving him from getting shot while Guarnere himself still stood in the fire. Another close call was in October. Babe witnessed Joe Toye and Jim Campbell go into enemy territory. Toye had called for Babe, but Campbell stepped up instead, telling Babe to stay back. Campbell was hit in the back with a shell and died instantly. Toye was wounded pretty badly. But Campbell stuck out in Babe’s mind, for he had taken the hit for Babe. Babe never forgot him.

One time, when stopped by a river, Babe fell asleep by his machine gun. When he woke up, another paratrooper was peeing on his gun, since it was too dark to see. Babe started screaming and yelling, ready to kill the man. He never did shut up.

Babe was on the front lines for 73 days in Holland. When they reached Mourmelon for their rest. All the boys who were left after Holland got dysentery. Bill, as Babe envies, missed this because he had been hit and taken to a hospital. Even with dysentery, the men continued to train and work. In December, they had all received weekend passes to various towns when Bill ran in with the news that they were leaving, the Germans had broken through the Ardennes. Their weekend passes were off and they were headed into one of the worst winters Belgium had without winter gear. They had no combat gear, no ammo, no supplies. They were headed, unprepared, into the winter.

They arrived outside of Bastogne in the early morning. Their greeting was disgraceful to Babe. They encountered American soldiers fleeing. These soldiers tried to convince them to turn back. It was a disgraceful sight for the men to see. Medical supplies were extremely limited after this. On the way up, the 101st medical company was captured, but Babe offered to go get more supplies with another soldier. On the way back, when dark gave them cover to move around, Babe suggested they take a shortcut through the woods. Babe fell into a hole he didn’t see in the dark, snowy forest. Below him, a voice asked, “Hinkle, Hinkle, ist das du?” 

Babe scrambled out of the foxhole and yelled, “Hinkle your ass, Kraut!” And then he ran. 

Babe attended Mass in the snow one day when Father Maloney came up. They took communion in the snow and used the Father’s jeep as an altar. Skip Muck was in front of Babe once, after the communion, Babe said: “At least if we die, we’re going to die in a state of grace.” Skip agreed with him. 

They lost track of days out in Bastogne. It was a despairing, never ending situation. But the boys were determined. Babe states that, “If our general would have said, “Drop your weapons,” I don’t think a man in the 101st would have surrendered. Wouldn’t have happened. I think they would have gone against his orders. As bad off as we were. as cold as we were, as hungry as we were, I don’t think an American Airborne soldier could throw down his gun.” The armored division, according to Babe, likes to believe they saved the Airborne at Bastogne. But Babe says all they did was end the siege. The paratroopers were there before, during the fighting, and after the fighting. 

Joe Toye and Babe had another close call on New Year’s Eve. At exactly midnight, the artillery started shelling the Germans. But the shells started falling short and were landing right in front of Toye and Babe’s foxhole untl Toye called the men in charge and told them to aim better. Turns out, Joe Toye has shit luck, because he was hit in a German air raid by shrapnel the next day. He came back the next morning. 

Eisenhower, much to the dislike of the paratroopers, decided to launch an offensive on Foy and Noville. This extended their stay in the bitter cold, when they thought they were going to be relieved soon. Needless to say, not many were happy. 

The same day, January 1, Babe received word Julian had been hit. Babe ran to where Julian was. The Germans had shot him through the throat and whenever someone tried to move towards Julian, they fired at them. Babe couldn’t get Julian away from the Germans. Julian had wanted his class ring, wallet, and watch to be returned home if he died, but Babe couldn’t reach him. Julian died in the snow and Babe couldn’t reach him. When the Germans were finally pushed back away from Julian, his patrol members told Babe he could visit Julian’s body if he wanted. Babe couldn’t do it. He refused because he couldn’t stand to see Julian that way. His only relief was that Julian hadn’t suffered long.

Times were tough for Easy. Although Toye came back January 2, the day after Julian died, the same day Hoobler accidentally shot himself and died. Babe says he was gone before they got him out of the forest. January 3, it started snowing and the boys went back into their foxholes in the Bois Jacques forest. They had just reached the foxholes when the Germans started shelling them. Toye lost his leg in the shelling and Guarnere lost his leg trying to help Toye. Babe tried to light a cigarette for Guarnere, not sure how to help the men. He thought they were both going to die. But a kid in a Jeep pulled by with ammo, Jackson pulled a gun on him and told him to take Guarnere and Toye back, probably saving their lives.

January 10, the Germans shelled them again. When the shelling started, Babe was talking to Penkala and Muck in their foxhole, which was a short distance away from his. As the shelling began, Luz ran by. Penkala and Muck yelled for Luz to join them in theirs. But Luz dove into his own. Shortly after that, a shell exploded directly in Penkala and Muck’s foxhole. When Luz and Babe went over to their foxhole, Babe says that it wasn’t normally like how they went, they just evaporated. There was little left, if anything. “They has just vanished into thin air.” Babe, even while mourning the loss of his friends, couldn’t help thinking that it could’ve been him. Babe believes that Muck, much like he said in the communion together, died in a state of grace and he thought of Muck with every communion afterwards.

By Mid January, they advanced on Foy. The well-known story of Speirs saving the day in Foy. They dug in outside of Foy. When they were preparing to advance on Noville, Babe found he could no longer use his hands without splitting pain. He couldn’t hold a gun anymore due to the pain. He had even tried rubbing ice onto his hands to loosen them up, but the pain was too severe. He was in the hospital for 5 days and 4 nights because his calcium was too low. During his hospital stay, he encountered a nurse from South Philly. She said that he looked like an old man. “That’s what war will do, turn a nineteen-year-old kid into a man.” Due to the fact Babe’s hands were so bad, there was nothing the doctors could do. Babe had to go AWOL to get back to Easy, much like his friend Guarnere had earlier in the war.

He hitchhiked his way back to the company. When he got back, Easy was sent to Hagenau to hold the line up there, but they stayed in houses this time. They spent a few weeks there, crossing the river nearby and capturing German prisoners (Jackson died on one of these trips). They had been fighting for two and a half months by the time they were finally relieved and taken back to Mourmelon.

By the end of March, Easy Company was heading out again. They were headed to Germany, the Ruhr pocket near the bank of the Rhine River. The men were going from house to house to search out Germans. Babe had nightmares about for years about an incident that happened on patrol. His orders were to clean out one side of town, when he stumbled upon a bomb shelter. The procedure was supposed to be throwing a grenade in the bomb shelter and then kicking the door open. Babe felt he shouldn’t throw the grenades, and he told the others not to and kicked the door open. He stumbled upon a girl about 20 years old, with toddlers and an old couple was behind her. Babe had nightmares about what would’ve happened if he had thrown the grenade first and accidentally killed them. He says he wouldn’t have been able to live if he had killed them. 

On another patrol, Spina and Babe stumbled upon several men in the house. They had a small jar of money with them. Babe and Spina took the money, which the other men claimed was a payroll, and the next day gave it out to displaced persons (recently liberated from camps) after church. They’d earned it.

They stayed on duty till the end of April. After that, Babe and Easy Company were on their way to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. They stopped in Landsberg for a few days, where they learned a Concentration Camp was located. When Easy arrived, the sight was devastating. In his words, “If any of the guys didn’t know why we were fighting, they knew then.” He continues later, “If anyone tells you the Holocaust didn’t happen, or that it wasn’t as bad as they say, no it was worse than they say...It wasn’t fair.” 

Easy Company soon continued after helping liberate the camp and made their way up to the Eagle’s Nest. As they went. they passed many German soldiers surrendering and many dead SS officers. Some took their lives, other times the French killed them, and Easy let them have that. On May 5, Easy took Berchtesgaden and were the first ones in the Eagle’s Nest. There, with little resistance, they looted and drank to their hearts content. Babe didn’t like the drink choices very much, so he didn’t drink much. But he says he did have a glass of Hitler’s champagne. 

On May 7, Babe was directing POW traffic when a car pulled up to him. A German general and colonel sat in it. The general was driving the colonel. The colonel told Babe that the general, General Tolsdorf, wanted to surrender to someone of equal rank and asked Babe to find someone. Babe told him to get out of the car. The general got out of the car and saluted to Babe. Babe didn’t salute back and sent the general on his way to Colonel Sink with another lieutenant. Babe then searched his car and took anything of value with him. Babe later learned that this specific general had been in command of the German troops in the Bois Jacques woods. 

May 8, 1945 the war was over. Easy Company left the Eagle’s Nest and went to Saalfelden, where Babe looted and got a gold sword with a swastika engraved on it, encrusted with stones. He took it with him. They were transferred to Kaprun, where they stayed for several months. There Babe met a small, Polish girl, Annie, from a DP camp. (This was common among the troopers and some even married the women in the camps) Sadly, at the end of July, Babe had to leave. Easy Company boarded a train for France, but somehow Annie had found his train. Annie chased after him, with a small suitcase, and the boys hung Babe out the boxcar by his ankles. Annie gave up chasing him after a while. 

In France, Babe did his last jump, this was a qualification to receive jump pay. The man before him hesitated and when Babe got him out of the plane, Babe had jumped wrong. He was facing the wrong way (towards the motor, not the tail) and his ropes were tangled. Babe panicked and started saying his Hail Marys. He eventually got his legs untangled, his chute opened, and he landed safely. 

Babe was discharged in December of 1945. He arrived back home and meet his brothers, Jimmy and Joe, and his father at a local bar. His mother had suffered a heart attack while he was gone, but she had recovered. Babe went to work when he got home. He only worked 2 jobs, and both of them were with Guarnere. He worked at the waterfront as a cargo checker and clerk. He worked there for 27 years until his retirement. 

Babe returned to playing football every weekend. He played on a team with other veterans from the war. He played with that team until he was 32. He also went back to betting on horses. There’s even one named after him in Ireland. The horse is Babe Heffron, and it jumps hurdles. Babe was pretty amazed by the fact he had a horse named after him. 

A year after the war, Babe went to go find Bill Guarnere. Babe found him shooting dice in the street. Babe immediately jumped on him, forgetting that Bill was wearing a prosthetic leg. Bill told him that he had thought he was the cops at first. Babe and Bill went out for a drink, Babe met Bill’s wife. Babe and Bill were inseparable after that. They attended Easy Company reunions (which Bill started and ran for 60 years) together, went to Europe many times together, worked together. They worked on construction projects and each others houses together. Bill copied Babe’s phrases, to the annoyance of Babe. They even got arrested together. They went to an Holocaust memorial dinner together, where they met survivors of the Concentration Camp Babe helped liberate. Bill was Babe’s best man at his wedding. 

Babe married Dolores Kessler when he was 37. She had three kids from a previous marriage, Dolly, Harry, and Bobby. Two years later, Babe and Dolores had a daughter named Patricia, who they called Trisha. Trish called her godfather, Bill Guarnere, Uncle Bill. 

Babe’s hands healed 23 years after he first got home. His hands never bothered him again. He figures his body was lacking something, and after drinking a lot of milk, he got it. He was never told what was wrong with him. 

Babe couldn’t face Julian’s mother for 12 years. He finally contacted her and he visited her at her daughter’s house nearby. Babe gave her the regimental scrapbook, the only one he owned. Babe broke down, while Julian’s mom remained tough. “She was a better soldier than I was,” Babe said. “I knew Julian was looking down on me saying, “Good job, well done.””

Band of Brothers was published and soon the HBO series was in production. Babe and Guarnere were brought out to meet their actors, who they had only had phone conversations with. Robin Laing, a Scottish actor, was playing Babe. Babe had some concerns on how Robin would play him, especially with the South Philly accent, but they vanished when he met Robin. He even teased Robin about the Philly Accent, but told Robin that he did fine. According to Babe, Robin sounded just like him. Robin even had rosary beads and scapular, just like Babe in the war, which touched Babe dearly. 

Bill and Babe stayed at a fine hotel, with HBO providing an open tab, and invited the actors back for drinks. They drank those poor kids under the table and by the end of the stay, they had a $5,000 liquor bill. in the hotel, Bill and Babe gave away any momentos they could to others. One time, Babe put three shirts on, saying, “I know they ain’t gonna get me this time...”, but by the end of the night both men were in their underwear in the hotel. They had given nearly everything away. Babe even gave Robin his scapular, the very one he’d carried through the war.

Babe had told Richard Speight Jr., who played Skip Muck, about his last communion with Skip. After the communion scene, Speight turned to Robin and said, “Well, Heffron, if we die, we’ll die in a state of grace.” Babe was forever touched by Speight’s actions. 

Babe, although he did not watch most of the series because it was too hard to handle, did have a guest appearance in one of the episodes. He’s seen as a cameo in Holland, when Talbert is kissing a Dutch girl. 

After Band of Brothers, Babe and Bill had a book published together about their story. Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends was published in 2007.

Babe died on December 1, 2013. His ashes, along with his wife’s, were later put in bronze heart and put it a statue dedicated to him in his hometown of Philadelphia. Guarnere also has a statue in Philadelphia, so even in death the two are never far apart. 

[luckbeabugaboo]

Misdirection

October 6th entry in my “kiss a day” challenge (requests open).

75. Kiss Meant To Distract The Other Person From Whatever They Were Intently Doing  (Ladynoir; enemies to lovers soulmate AU)

Ladybug sidestepped, barely evading claws. She felt the race of adrenalin fueling her footfalls, giving her the agility to duck beneath his swings and bounce out of range when he lurched forwards to trap her in his steady grip. Something in her ached when their eyes locked. An impossible amount of pain was woven into the green strands of his irises. This had be to just as excruciating for him as it was for her. 

Master Fu had told her a number of times that the ache was a burden they both had to carry until the universe was set right. Balance couldn’t reign if creation and destruction were on opposing sides of the playing field. Her back pressed to cold metal and in an instant, she was cornered. He had every opportunity to strike to kill. From this altitude she could be sent plummeting with a simple shove. But that wasn’t the game they were playing. Cat and bug played a trickier game, the kind where no one was meant to get hurt, they were just meant to surrender. 

His staff made a loud ‘clank’ as it connected with the iron behind her, effectively barring her in. “You know what comes next, my lady.” He hunched over her, domineering but deceivingly gentle. “I’ll be taking your Miraculous.” 

“When has that ever actually played out for you?” Ladybug stood her ground firm, glancing over his shoulder for a way out. Her partner was still tied up in combat with Hawkmoth’s latest victim, which meant she was going to have to find her own solution. These kinds of odds were familiar in a depressing sort of way. “If it were really that easy then you would have gotten them by now.”

His lips curled into an indignant sneer, but the words they wanted to form never found her ears. She leaned back against the wall, yo-yo in hand, and kicked into his gut. Without waiting to see the damage, she threw the unending wire upwards, watching it loop around the scaffolding, before she zipped up and out of reach. She didn’t love dangling above an angry feline, that never ended well for insects, but she hadn’t thought up the next step in her plan yet. “Come on, Carapace.” She barely managed a groan as she swung up and landed on a thin steel ledge.

“You’re aiming pretty high for a ladybug without wings.” Chat Noir taunted, his voice taking on a metallic reverb that sent shivers down her spine. “Cats are natural climbers, you know.” She heard the sound of metal hitting metal long before she processed the visual of him sitting atop his extended staff a mere handful of feet from her. “Peek-a-boo, bugaboo.”

For a moment, they sat in stalemate. Suspended in silence that both refused to break. Chat Noir watched her with an antagonizing interest, his gaze latching onto something in her soul and threatening to rip it open if she didn’t comply with his wishes. In another world, they could have been good friends. That was something she used to remind herself often when they first began this dance. 

His reasons for lashing out against her and for blindly following Hawkmoth weren’t hers to know or judge, but they were variables she hated calculating around. Chat Noir was the paragon of devotion to his cause, eager to impress the disembodied voice on the other side of the dark butterflies that tainted so many Parisian hearts. The most willing puppet she’d ever seen. Whatever strings bound him were invisible to her eyes.

Despite the fact that he was her true rival, Ladybug had yet to ever meet Hawkmoth in person. He was the whisper of doubt that created monsters. He was the dark butterfly wings that gave nightmares flesh. But she had no way to reference him in her mind. When she put a face on the things that troubled her it was almost always Chat Noir’s. He had been the only tangible constant in her time as a superhero, unpleasant or otherwise. 

“Ladybug!” Carapace broke the stupor as he called out to her. “Get the wand!” 

The heroine turned her head fast, glancing down two levels to find her green suited partner squared off with the akumatized victim. He was dressed in full magician costume, his face painted white and a magic wand poised in his hand. He went by the name ‘Presto’ and Ladybug was unfortunately not able to say much else about him since Chat hadn’t given her much chance to assist. 

It was time to whip out that big guns. Pulling her yo-yo back into grasp, she was about to call for her Lucky Charm when she felt fingers on her wrist. The grasp not tight enough to hurt, but tight enough that she wasn’t about to get free easily.

“Leaving so soon?” Chat was at her side, having closed the distance while her eyes were elsewhere. She shouldn’t have let her guard down. “I a-paw-logize, teenage mutant magic turtle, but I’m not quite ready to part with her yet.”

Carapace groaned. She didn’t need to see him to know that his eyes were rolling. “Can you kick his butt already?”

“I’m working on it!” Ladybug huffed. Her partner made it sound like it was easy to get the upper hand, an assumption that could only really come from someone who hadn’t had to deal with Chat in large doses. “You don’t have to do this, Chat.”

“Neither do you.” The edge to his voice was cutting, almost accusatory. “But here we are.” With that, he tugged her forwards. 

The grasp on her wrist was kept tight, likely because he knew if he let go she’d just grapple away. She searched for every possible escape route but was finding herself at a loss. He was close enough that she could see how many strands made up the stunning green and yellow of his eyes, which meant he was close enough to stop her from making any quick motions. 

His free hand rose up, clawed fingers brushing against the stray hair beside her left ear. He was so careful in the way he tucked it back, it almost seemed tender. Alarms were screaming in her mind as she tried to think of some way out. Doing the only thing that seemed reasonable, she began to take steps backwards. Any space she gained from him was immediately taken back and no matter how she thrashed her hand around there didn’t seem to be any chance of freedom. 

“Don’t…” He whispered. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

Fight or flight adrenaline was searing through her veins as she looked at his troubled eyes. There was story in there, one that she hoped someday she could learn. But right now her priority was giving him the slip. A single idea was running around in her skull, a really stupid, really bad, not at all good sort of idea. It had a slim margin of success, but slim was better than none at all.

“Okay.” She relaxed her frame, doing her best not to flinch when his hand settled on her cheek. “You win.”

Confusion lit every corner of his face, but she didn’t waste too much time watching it. Instead, she leaned in and placed her lips over his. Something sparked. Electricity in her soul igniting every nerve in her body. This felt so right, to be connected so intimately with Chat Noir. Her fated partner, the other half that was meant to make her powers whole. His grasp on her wrist loosened enough for her to slide her hand free, first lifting it to settle on his chest. 

The kiss was fake. She had to keep reminding herself that as she felt the way her heart was racing. It was a means to an end, a distraction meant to take his mind out of the element long enough that she could make a bold move. 

And said bold move happened fast. The hand on his chest pushed him back and she watched his balance falter on the thin metal perch. 

“Wh--” He opened his mouth to question her, but was cut off when she tossed her yo-yo up to the sky.

“Lucky Charm!” A flourish of ladybugs lit around her, sparkling brightly before dropping a rabbit into her hands. “Oh jeez… They can’t ever make these easy.”

“Why did you--” Chat seemed to have regained some of his wits and was about to lunge at her again. Or at least that was her assumption. 

Instead of waiting around for him to make his next move, she offered him a salute before cradling the rabbit to her chest and stepping off the ledge. “Bug out!” Soon enough, she was swinging back into the real fight.

“Welcome to the party.” Carapace shot her a smile.

“Sorry it took so long.”

[thdorkmagnet]

Starco Wedding: Perfect

Hey everyone! So yeah I decided to go ahead and post a chapter or two of some other stuff while I finish up Chapter 14. This one was originally for my Starcoweek5 prompts but I think it works as a stand alone story. Basically you can probably guess what is happening here. It’s the biggest day of Star and Marco’s lives and Marco has gone above and beyond to make this the perfect wedding for him and Star. This is about as fluffy as I could possibly get, until probably my next chapter, hehehehe.

Please enjoy and have some tissues ready, this is one of those chapters that tugs at those heartstrings. 

Check out my other stuff over on Fanfiction! 

Disclaimer: Star vs and all its characters are owned by Daron Nefcy and Disney. All rights go to them.

“Today was supposed to be perfect,” Marco mumbled to himself, rolling his eyes before kicking his opponent back, ignoring the scuff he created on his nice dress shoes. At this point his tux was ruined anyways, covered in dirt and rips from the intense battle that was taking place. The warrior Marco was fighting growled, before rising back to his feet, charging at him with a raised sword. Marco just dodged easily out of the way, hitting him in the back and knocking the enemy out cold. “Why do things never go my way?” the boy asked the sky.

The day had started off wonderfully, too, the day both he and Star had been waiting for when they would finally take each others hand in marriage and seal their love forever. Since Marco had proposed to her (earning him lots of tears and kisses from his future wife) the young man had been planning the perfect wedding for them. He admitted he had gone overboard a bit: selecting the perfect day, the perfect place, the best flowers in Earth-ni, the most delicious cake money could afford, the works. But that was only because he wanted everything to be just right when he married the woman of his dreams. This was going to be the most special and amazing day of his life, he wanted it to be one to remember.

Star hadn't seemed as invested in the planning, only pitching in an idea here and there with varying levels of success with her finance, like when he had to hesitantly and gently remind his love that warnicorns were wild and dangerous animals and probably shouldn't be used to pull any of the carriages, especially when cars would suffice just fine. Mostly Star seemed to leave the planning to Marco, squealing and showing off her ring to all her friends and even some strangers, bragging about the fact that she was going to marry her Marco, which ceased to cause the man to blush bright red.

But Marco didn't mind that Star had taken a step back from the planning, after all he could handle it just fine on his own and he wanted to surprise her with most perfect wedding this world had ever seen.

And at the start of the day it seemed like that was exactly what he had gotten. As the proceedings began, things had started off well, the selected church looking like something out of a fairy tale, its halls gleaming with light and coated in beautiful white roses. Marco was overjoyed to see the seats filling up with the loving faces of Marco and Star's friends and family (as well as some news crew who were determined not to miss out on the “wedding of the century”) and he couldn't help but smile at every familiar face he saw.

The proceeding as well, went off without a hitch, as the gentle, peaceful melody from Ruberiot set the tone perfectly as the flower girls started their walk down the aisle. Or in the case of the four year olds, Mari and Meteora, it was more like ran down the aisle throwing flower petals up in the air and even sometimes at each other giggling away, making the whole crowd smile and awe at the young girls antics. Marco shook his head as he watched his sister and her best friend take their spots at the front, Mariposa waving over at him eagerly and he gave her a small wave back.

But all thoughts after that were forgotten, as the music suddenly changed and he looked across the hall just as the woman of his dreams stepped into view. He froze filled with so much love and joy at that second that he could barely breath and his best man, Tom, had to put a hand on his back to keep him from falling over as he swayed unevenly on his feet. He drank in every inch of her appearance, reveling in the soft white dress that flowed beautifully and gracefully off of his wife-to-be, admiring how perfectly the dress held her small frame in just the right ways and how the faded pink hearts that decorated the bottom were a nice and adorable touch. She had on long, pure white gloves that ran past her elbows and made a heart shape at the end. And a wedding veil that flowed down her golden blond hair, which had been curled delicately at the ends.

Her piercing blue eyes and loving smile matched his own as she almost glided down the aisle, held in the tight and loving embrace of her father, Marco only breaking off the stare for an instant to give a quick, grateful smile to Moon, for somehow convincing her barbarian husband to re-dawn a fancy suit for the event, which she returned warmly.

After that, all else faded into the background, the music and chatter fading into a dull barely audible sound, the crowd of faces vanishing as his Star became the center of his universe once more, right where she belonged. He hung on her every movement, on every twinkle in her eye, every step that she took, not one detail of his lovely wife leaving his sight.

When she finally reached him, they just stared at each other, for what felt like an eternity, just like they had the day they had gotten together, when their worlds had forever cleaved together. “Hey,” Star muttered, the love on her face and tone unmistakable to the boy.

“Hey,” Marco replied, swallowing down the lump in his throat.

It was Tom who had broken through this moment, as he loudly cleared his throat, drawing the two back to reality as they took their place in front of Queen Eclipsa, standing beside one another, waiting to hear their vows as the older woman began. But as the ceremony continued, no one was aware of a creeping evil lurking just outside. And this evil decided to rear its ugly head just as Star and Marco were about to declare their vows, the doors to bursting open loudly, drawing everyone's attention to the entrance, eyes widening and mouths dropping open in fear.

There stood none other than Mina Loveberry, wanted criminal of Earth-ni, with a group of rebel warriors behind her, all with hatred directed on the royal family and, more importantly, Star and Marco, all determined to make the couple pay by destroying their cherished day.

Marco had known that many Mewmans and even humans had never adjusted to the new world Star and Marco had unintentionally created, resenting them greatly for destroying magic and then forcing their worlds to merge into one, but he hadn't realized how far they would go to get revenge until right then, when the two lovers became a target of retaliation.

The room was quickly stormed with enemies and the peaceful wedding scene became an all out battle. Which was where Marco was now, fighting warrior after warrior that came his way, which was fairly easy, none of them a match for his impressive set of skills honed after years upon years of training. The real blow for Marco was from the disappointment he felt, his perfect moment ruined, stolen from him by a bunch of petty, narrow-minded jerks who were too stuck in their ways to see the good their change had brought. Marco knocked another one of these said jerks back with a swing of his sword, before looking to see how everyone else was faring in their fights.

Tom was currently lighting everyone in range on fire, Janna helping the process along by spraying the shaken bottle of wine at the burning opponents. Buff Frog was holding his own against at least four of the angry Mewmans, his daughter Katrina lending her father support as she showed off her own skills in battle, side by side with her dad. Pony was stabbing at them with her horn, making sure to be in good view of her camera as she did, looking as brave and dramatic as possible and Marco couldn't help but roll his eyes as he blocked a sword with his own.

Eclipsa and Globgor were holding there own against a large group of enemies as well, the royal couple fighting as one, so in sync with each other that Marco couldn't help but smile. River had gone all out barbarian ripping off his suit and beating them all senseless with his bare hands. Even Mariposa and Meteora were using their small forms to trip their opponents and knock them off balance. Many others knights and friends were lending their help in the fight, as well, while everyone else was hiding as best as they could from the danger, Moon directing many of them away and out of harm's way, thus giving the more confident fighters as much space as possible for their battle. Marco's eyes, however, were now searching for someone else in the crowd, his heart pounding in fear as he scanned the room for the love of his life and nearly sighed out loud when he finally spotted her.

Star was in the middle of karate kicking her opponent in the face, a look of such hate and anger that Marco almost felt sorry for whoever had to go up against his beautiful fiance. Though he wouldn't be lying if her graceful yet intense display of fighting skills didn't make his heart flutter. She looked so confident and gorgeous even in her ruined wedding dress, which was also getting torn up from all the fighting. Still Marco silently thanked himself for instructing Star in karate because, wow, did she look amazing while kicking bad guy butt.

This brought a new fire to the young man's soul, as he was reminded of how much he loved his Star and how angry he was at being prevented from taking her as his wife. He roughly grabbed a charging warrior by the collar yelling, “Why did you guys have to attack us today?! Seriously any other day wouldn't have been better?”

The villain sneered at the young man, spitting out, “Because we wanted to destroy your chance at happiness, Marco Diaz. You and your fiancee both will know what it's like to lose everything you cherished, to have your whole world torn apart!”

Marco growled, his hand tightening its hold on his sword. “That was over four years ago, why can't you people just let that go and move on already? Why do you have to destroy the best moment of my life just for petty, pointless revenge?!”

The young man was so lost in his own anger and too distracted yelling in the face of his smug opponent that he didn't see Mina coming up behind him, a sword raised in strike.

“Marco, look out!” came a familiar scream as the Latino turned to see Star kick Mina right in the jaw, sending her stumbling backward. But she didn't lose hold on her sword, as she just charged Star again with a crazed look in her eye. The blond easily dodged the swing, before Marco parried the blow and kicked the insane woman off of her feet. But Mina started to recover, rising back onto her feet, only to be attacked by a furious and unstoppable Globgore, who yelled, “You stay away from those two!” Eclipsa soon joined in as well, helping her husband to take on the once proud warrior.

Star and Marco panted for a moment, as they watched Mina struggle to hold off the royal couple on her own, before turning back to one another, Star asking in worry, “Marco, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine Star,” Marco replied with a reassuring and grateful smile. “Thanks for the save back there.”

“Anytime,” Star said cheerfully. But seeing an enemy fast approaching she yelled, “Incoming!” The two dodged the violent swing, before punching him back as one. The two were quickly surrounded by more opponents as they fought them off as a team but Star seemed to notice something was off with her boyfriend as she asked with a worried frown, “Marco, what's wrong?”

“I'm sorry, Star,” he quickly blurted out, dodging underneath a sword swing before hitting them as hard as he could with the blunt end of his sword, knocking them back and into more enemies. “I wanted out wedding to be perfect but now everything is ruined!”

“What, are you kidding? This is the most fun I've had all year!” Star declared, kicking her enemy in the side and knocking him over. “And I ain't letting this silly old fight get in the way of being with the man I love. So,” she continued, before quickly jumped over to Marco's side, surprising him as she took his hand tightly in her own. “Why don't we just get married right here?”

“Wait, now?!” Marco yelled in shock. “But we're in the middle of a fight!”

“Yeah but, everyone is here and afterwords their all gonna be too tired and everything, not to mention the police report.” Star explained, sounding annoyed. “And we'll end up having to wait until another day. And I don't know about you but, I don't want to wait.”

“Well no but-”

“Marco Diaz do you want to marry me or not!” Star shouted and Marco instantly answered, “No I do, I do!”

The loving smile returned to Star's pretty face as she gave his hand a tight squeeze, adding, “Then, what do you say? Let's get married right now.”

Marco took in a shaky breath, before nodding determinedly. “Okay, let's do it.”

Star smiled before directing her attention to the acting queen. “Hey, Eclipsa! Can you do us a favor and marry us?” the blond shouted.

“Now!” Eclipsa's panted voice asked in shock.

“Yeah, right now, we want to be married!” Marco yelled back.

“Oh very well then,” Eclipsa said with no hesitation, clearing her throat before saying, “Do you Star Butterfly take Marco Ubaldo Diaz to be your lawfully wedded husband in sickness and-”

“No, no, read the thing I gave you, remember?” Star interrupted, Marco looking over at her in confusion, before immediately having to direct his attention back on the fight. “What thing?” he asked, punching a warrior directly in the face.

“Your not the only one who made plans,” Star replied, with a knowing wink.

“Oh right, of course,” the queen of darkness replied, before searching her dress for something, finally finding the small slip of paper, hidden in one of the many pockets of the formal dress.

“Let's see now,” she muttered to herself, trying to regain her train of thought. “Oh, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to stand beside him through all the adventures that come...” Did Star write this? Marco wondered as the woman continued. “...to love and care for him even when he's being a royal doofus sometimes...”

Marco shot Star a small glare, who had a smug smile on her face. Yep she definitely wrote it. “...to promise to share the bed with him, even when he's hogging all the covers for himself...” The Latino blushed at this, nearly forgetting to block as a sword came far to close to stabbing him in the eye. “...to do whatever it takes to make him happy and smile...” The room let out a collective 'Awww' at that, all except the attempted assassins of course. This was when Star and Marco noticed that many of their family and friends had moved closer to the site of the battle, most of the warriors already defeated so it was safer to do so, watching as the impromptu wedding took place. “...but most importantly to be his very best friend as long as you both shall live.”

“I do!” Star exclaimed, breaking off the fight long enough, to pull Marco into a quick hug, making the young man smile ear to ear, so distracted by the blood rushing to his face that he almost didn't hear as Eclipsa began his vows.

“And do you Marco Ubaldo Diaz take Star Butterfly to be your lawfully wedded wife, to stand beside her in peace and in danger...” Marco's eyes got teared up as Eclipsa continued, his mind rushing back to so many years ago, reminded of the first time he had heard this speech, when he had knelt before his princess as she proclaimed him her royal squire. “...as her trusted equal and love...”  But now, they stood side by side facing the danger as one and that made tears of joy and emotion spill from his eyes, the young man barely able to see anything, as the knights took over the fighting, protecting the lovebirds as the vows were completed. “...to go clubbing with her even when you are too tired, to share your late night nachos but again, most importantly...” Star took Marco's hand tightly in her own, drawing his eyes onto her as she whispered the last part in sync with Eclipsa...  “to be her (my) very best friend as long as you both shall live.”

Star leaned in closer to the boy, now next to his ear, as she added in the softest tone Marco had ever heard, “Amen.”

The Latino was wiping the falling tears from his eyes with his sleeve, his sword long since clattering to the ground, as he replied with a barely repressed sob, “I do.”

Eclipsa nodded, saying, “Then we will need the rings.”

“On it!” Tom shouted from the corner of the room, shoving about three warriors out of his way, as he flew over to his two besties at a blazing speed, by the time he reached them he was panting for breath. He held out his hand, showing them their rings and they both took them eagerly smiling gratefully at Tom. They both took turns slipping the rings on, before holding each others hands again, eyes locked in a mixture of bright brown and blue.

Eclipsa gave them a soft smile, before looking over to see Mina and most of the warriors in chains and watching the couple with intense glares on their faces, guarded by Higgs and the other knights. She let out a quick sigh, glad the danger had passed for the young couple for now. And as her eyes drifted back to the young, smiling couple, looking lost in each others eyes, she was reminded of her and Globgore, wishing for the two to never suffer as they had in order to stay together as she said, “Then by the power vested in me as the Queen of Earth-ni, I now pronounce you, husband and wife. You may-”

But Star didn't wait for her to finish, as she pulled to her, planting a loving, passionate kiss to his lips, dipping him low, as he clung tightly onto her, drawing her in as close to himself as he could. “-kiss,” Eclipsa finished needlessly.

Clapping sounded around the room, cheers and shouts from Star and Marco's loved ones, as the two just revealed in the kiss, letting it go for as possible, their lips moving against one another in a dance. Both the Diaz's and Butterfly's were in tears, Rafael and River holding each other as they bawled their eyes out, while Moon and Angela just sniffed and wiped small tears from their eyes. Mari and Meteora were gagging, too young to understand the concept of kissing and love, mostly just finding it gross. And everyone else, Tom, Janna, Jackie, Starfan13, Pony Head, Ferguson, Alfonso, Buff Frog, and many others were all just clapping and smiling, glad to see their two friends finally married.

As the two finally broke away the kiss, they went back to just staring at each other lovingly, surrounded by everyone important to them, and Star asked, “So what did you think, Marco? I know it wasn't the wedding you planned but-”

Marco cupped Star's cheeks with both of his hands as he replied in a loving whisper, “It was perfect.”

And then the two went in for a shorter, but equally passionate kiss, pouring their love for one another into the breathless act. Once they parted, Star leaned her forehead against his own, staring deep into the chocolate brown orbs of her husband, as she said something that sent shivers of joy and anticipation spiraling down Marco's spine, as he wondered what her wife had been planning. “Just wait until you see the honeymoon.”  

And then the couple proceeded to have pillow fights, eat nachos until they were sick and rode wild warnicorns until they fell asleep cuddling with one another... haha, at least that's how I think the honeymoon went! So I hope you all liked, I know this wasn't a traditional fluffy wedding, since I turned it into an all out battle at one point... but I just didn't really want to write a perfect wedding where everything goes great and felt like this was a bit more fitting of our favorite couple. After all, when has anything with these two ever been normal. They enjoy the crazy, weirdness that is their life, so long as they have each other through it all! 

[highkingfen]

Someone asked my why I loved Fen. Tumblr ate the answer, so here what I said.

Alright that is a really good question

It started during the Haitus between season 2 and 3. I liked Fen and was intriged by what her life would be as someone who was raised to be married of (if ever the guy shows up). So I started to dig around and saw that she was really hated by the fandom

At this point, we knew nothing of her but her arc in s02 which is from wanting to be obedient to Eliot to being pregnant and fucked over by Margo; basically being a pawn and mistreated. A lot of fan hated (and still hate) her because she is married to Eliot and Queliot couldn’t happen anymore. And I started to defend her saying that she was forced into her marriage as well and she was just trying to make the best of it while having a husband who is not attracted to her and probably grew up being told: you will get married, you will get pregnant, you will provide an heir, that is your role on the fillorian throne.

 I became very protective of her, trying to make people understand that it is not her fault that Queliot is not happening.

Honestly, it bumped me and almost drove me away from the fandom. Some friend suggested to me to write a fanfic of how I saw her growing up before Eliot would be, so maybe others could understand my point of view. It was near November and Nanowrimo was on the corner so I took all of a month to write The Girl from the World in the Wall which is a 50k + fic about Fen pre-Eliot. From her mother’s death when she was two to her wedding day.

As I wrote I just fucking fell in love with her. Even if my story is not canon, to put myself in the shoes of a girl that knew she will never be able to marry who she wanted and decided to join the FU Fighters in the hope to help Fillory if she was not on the throne. She have a lot of love for her land but also for her familly. She sacrificed everything to go in a loveless marriage. It took having her baby girl ripped away from her for Fen to decided that she was done playing by the rule everyone put in front of her

Season 3 happen and more people love her. Which I adore the writer for. Fen is more complex than a peasant girl who makes Eliot unhappy. She is her own person. And she discovers that by herself, with the help of Eliot, Julia and Margo. Having her saying to Eliot that she couldn’t stay in Fillory and needed time for herself was so BIG for her. She never put herself in front of others need. She never said or ask anything that could bring light on her. I doubt she even wonders who she was out of the role of the wife of a High King. This is why, when Eliot says she could leave, Fen reminds him she is married to him, not his title. We are stuck together with each other is her reminding Eliot that she is more than a pawn in his life and, if they don’t love each other, they could still respect each other; she is by his side while he is in the election despite him just having said she could leave. It’s not only to protect herself from what people could do to her; when Fen has her heart set on something, she does it. She promised to be my Eliot’s side for better or worse and that is what she is doing

This is why I SCREAMED when I saw that Margo gave her the role of acting king. Not only this is Margo saying ‘’Hey I know I screwed up but I trust you now and I trust you care enough about Fillory to look after it and not have a power trip. This is Margo saying to Fen that a Fillorian can be on the throne, just like the FU Fighters wanted. But also, I am sure this will give Fen the kick in the butt she needs to affirm herself; not to hesitate about what she wants or feel bad for asking things. Having to speak as a High King is different than being in the Council and I am more than excited to see where the writer will bring her this season. From what I saw, Margo and Her share the crown. Not only its big for Margo but for Fen too!

And before I finish this novella, I want to point out that what sold me about Fen being a kind and compassionate person and not only acting like it because she had to, it’s her arc with the fairies. She is kidnapped by them, made unable to hold her daughter after she gave birth and yet, came back without her to warn Eliot about the Fairies plan to invade. She hates de fairies, with an excellent reason. And yet, her heartache so much that she is ready to believe the Fairy Queen’s lie about Fray. When we learn the truth about the whole thing, not only she is destroyed as a mother, but the small spark of hope and of the Fen she uses to be before the kidnapping is gone; there is a before and an after when you lose a child. Fen stew in her hate on earth and is not jumping on the call when Julia ask for help; for the first time in her life probably, she decides to put herself, her pain, her emotions, in front of others. Which she probably never did. When she said to Skye ‘’Shit you are a slave’’ its her being mad at the fact that part of her feels bad for the fairy and know herself well enough that if she continues, she will start to care. This is why she pushes away any attempt Julia makes to make her join the investigation, reminding her (and herself) that because of them her daughter is dead

But then, she had to confront the Fairy Queen. And something sparks inside Fen; she realizes that she is not mad at the fairies as a species. She is mad at the Fairy Queen and what she did to her. She calls her out and tells her that she is willing to help them despite what the Queen did to her; meaning that once again Fen put her feeling aside from the greater good. But this time, it is by choice and not because she is told to. Her ‘’I Hate Fairies’’ is the most venomous thing Fen probably ever said. Fen doesn’t hate usually. Not that deep, not that much. And yet, despite her hate, she cared. And that ended up freeing fairies that were mistreated and use as slave despite what they were telling her (When she choke up after seeing they took Skye’s leg, mymy I cried)

So back when she is Acting King and the Fairy Queen comes to her, not only she dresses herself as a fairy to find who steal them, but confront them: affirming that Fairies were full citizen of Fillory and under her protection is so fucking big from a girl that tried not to care that a handful were slave on Earth. And goddamit, she even cries when the Fairy Queen sacrifice herself for her people. Because, at that moment, Fen understand that whatever the Queen did, it was always for her people; she stole children because the Fairies were unable to have babies, she stole limbs because that’s what magicians have been doing to them for centuries, she took over Fillory because that land was better for her people and now, she was ready to die to make sure they will be safe (hell, I am even ready to say that the Queen is actually sad that Fen’s daughter died in all of this, just by her unease to announce the news). ‘’Tears, for your enemies’’ This is the most powerful thing the Fairy Queen says and describe so much Fen. Because, in the end, and despite everything, Fairies are not enemies anymore and Fen even finds compassion for the Fairy Queen.

Compassion, Forgiveness and Love are hard to have in times of war, in times of doubt, in time of despair. We see with the others how easy it is to follow your demon and go the wrong way. And yet, Fen fights it and find a way to be kind and understanding. And even if she doesn’t have proper magic, I think this is Fen’s actual magical power; the power of love.  And it the world we are living right now, I want to be more like her

(I am not even sorry for that novella, I fucking love Fen ok)

[scribble-fics]

You end up where??

( This was requested by one of my friends on discord, angst warning!! This is what happens when you are an s/o to a turtle in bayverse. But something happens and you end up in the 2k3 tmnt.)

things couldn't be better for you. You had a caring boyfriend, you got along with his brothers, and father. It was all just perfect.

until something happened, some weird flash of light blinded you, and when you woke up. You were in a new looking lair. Much more spacy and open than the one you remember. But you realise you're still in the sewer. That smell is still clogging your nostrils.

You heard voices. Not the ones you were used to. Where the hell did you end up? Where are the turtles??

You decided to get up and search around. Investigating the noises coming from the other room. As you approached the doorway you saw- turtles.

They looked different, smaller than they used to be, their bandanas all the same except their color. And then one if them noticed you-

Raph-

🍕 he saw you watching them in the door frame and instantly charged to you, holding you in a pin.

🍕 "And who da' shell do ya' think you are?!" His voice was different. Not as deep but still threatening. And his accent was stronger.

🍕 "raph!! It's me!! Y/n!" He still didn't let go. By now his brothers were surrounding you. You still being in raphs pin.

🍕 "I don't know any y/n! So you're ganna' have ta' do better than that" hearing those words broke your heart. He didn't know you?? After all the things you two have been though?

🍕 tears bubble up in your eyes. Then you start crying, lightly at first gaining all the brothers attention. Then heavy, you felt your eyes sting as your tears fell down your cheeks.

🍕 raph let you out of his grasp in confusion (and slight fear that you just started crying) he kinda felt bad, but he was still defensive.

🍕 "lay off raph" he ignored Leo's demand as he squatted next to your body, that was now lying on the floor weeping, "hey hey. Easy now stop cryin' jus' calm down."

🍕 after you had calmed down a bit, the turtles asked you question and you told them everything, "I'm sorry, but we have no clue who you are. Or how to get you back home" and those words rung in your head when they left donnie's mouth.

🍕 you'd probably never see your turtles again. You didn't even know if your turtles remember you anymore. Did they even know you were gone? None of your questions could be answered. You'd never know.

Leo-

🍕 he most likely heard you before seeing you. He is a well trained ninja after all.

🍕 he'd be holding you with your arms behind your back in an instant, "Donnie check for weapons. Who do you think you are??"

🍕 you were baffled. Your blue hero was now treating you as some sort of threat, "L-Leonardo? Its me y/n!" He still didn't let you go. Saying nothing to you, "she got anything on her don?"

🍕 that stung. You wiggled and squirmed in his hold, "No I don't have anything on me leo!! Let me go!!"

🍕 "whoever you are, you need to explain yourself! What are you doing in our lair?!" Who ever you where?! Did he not know you??

🍕 "I told you leo..i-it's me y/n. You know your s/o?" All eyes were on Leo at this point. "Dude you have an s/o we don't know about??", "no mikey! I dont! I think you're confused-"

🍕 you felt hot tears burn in your eyes as you thrashed more and more in his grip, making him hold you tighter, "I'm not confused!! You're Leonardo my mutant turtle boyfriend!! How do you not remember me?!"

🍕 Leo let you go when you fell slack. You only moved when your body jolted from sobbing. He set you down and thought for a moment, "look. Y/n right? I'm sorry but I have no clue who you are."

🍕 it took hours of explanation. But they soon figured out you were not from here. Not this dimension. And they had no idea on where to start to getting you back. Or if they ever could.

Donnie-

🍕 when Donnie saw you, he alerted his brothers right away, "guys look! Someone's here!!" At that they all charged at you.

🍕 you ran but was quickly blocked off by don. Holding is staff pointed right at you, "who are you?!"

🍕 you looked at him with pure fear and Shock, "don its me!! Y/n! What's going on?"

🍕 he lowered his bo staff a bit and gave you a questioning look, "y/n? I-I'm sorry but I don't remember anyone named y/n."

🍕 you shook your head lightly, your gaze still fixed on him, "n-no. Come on don't play this game don, im y/n your s/o." You could see his face twist more, "s/o?? I don't have an s/o. I'm sorry but I've never seen you before in my life."

🍕 your heart crumbled. This wasn't your donnie. This wasn't your family. This wasn't your world. You didn't even notice the tears spilling out your eyes.

🍕 the four brothers put their weapons away and did their best to calm you down. After some discussing with you, they soon realised that you had come from some sort of dimensional portal or crack.

🍕 "i-I'm sorry to tell you this y/n. But i have no idea how to send you back. I dont even know where to start.." as soon as the words I'm sorry left donnie's mouth you spaced out. More tears falling from your eyes and more thoughts flooded your head. Would you ever see your donnie again??

Mikey-

🍕 he noticed you and blinked a few times to make sure he wasn't seeing things, maybe during training raph hit him a bit yo hard. But nope there you stand.

🍕 he pointed and let out a light shriek, "GUYS SOMEONE'S HERE" that lead all their attention on you.

🍕 you held your hands high in the air before they could charge you. "PLEASE DONT HURT ME IM NOT YOUR ENEMY!" you knew fully well that if they were anything like your turtles they'd kick your butt.

🍕 "then if you don't mind us asking. Who are you and what are you doing here?" The four brothers had their weapons at the ready as they stared at you. The question from Leo shocked you.

🍕 "who am i?? Come on Leo its me! Y/n. You know right? Don? Raph?...mikey?" They all looked to one another with a confused look.

🍕 "mikey come on don't play like this it's me!! Your angel remember? All our kisses and cuddles and promises to each other?" All the brothers then looked at mikey, "mind tellin' us what the shell you've been up ta'?" Raph asked mikey slapping him over the head.

🍕 "Guys I have no clue who this person is!! I don't know a y/n!!!" To hear him say that, it crushed you. You started sniffing, which gained their attention.

🍕 "you really aren't my mikey..are you?" They all decided to comfort and calm you down. Getting as much of this situated and understood as they could, "so you're not from this dimention. But from one where just so happened to be a rip. Making you end up here." Donnie tried his best to explain to everyone but you couldn't pay attention. You were pretty heartbroken still. The fact that you might never see your Michelangelo again stung your heart every second.

(I hope this is okay!! It was a doozy to write and I'm bad at angst. But hey yeah sure let's call this angst. Hope you enjoy!!)

[solidandsound]

I have a whole essay of thoughts on KH3. Let’s see if I can be remotely coherent.

Gameplay is fun. Movement feels good, and so does combat. Keyblade switching is neat, although it would be better if there were some cooler keyblades to use. I’d take Oblivion, Oathkeeper, etc over some of the silly stuff we got. Grand magic is cool. The only new mechanic I don’t like is the attractions. They aren’t fun to use, they don’t feel good, they’re just flashy. But you can mostly ignore them, so overall combat is fun. The real problem is that it’s too easy, even on Proud mode. There were a couple of tricky spots for me early on while Sora’s HP was low, but they really throw those HP upgrades at you and enemy damage doesn’t scale fast enough to continue to be a threat. Even the last boss was basically doing chip damage to me while I took out half a bar of health per fire spell. There was nothing like the Riku fight in KH1 or the final boss sequences for 1 or 2. Other KH games have fights leaving me pumped with adrenaline because they’re so good at keeping you on your toes, but KH3 never got me that worked up. Some folks cite all the powerful finishers, attractions, etc, but I think it could have still been challenging with those things if the damage scaling was better.

Exploration is fun, and I like the different approaches each world took to it, with some being large open spaces and others being more linear. It does make searching for treasure and emblems more difficult, though, and some sort of tool to help with that late game would have been nice.

The worlds themselves and how they play out have their ups and downs. You never really fight any big bads in them, so none of them feel like they have the stakes of KH2 worlds, but they don’t all need to. Olympus was a very solid world, and a pretty good setup for what Sora’s trying to do in KH3 (which unfortunately falls flat later, but in Olympus it feels good). It also sets up some intrigue with Maleficent looking for the box (which goes even more poorly later, but again, here it feels good). It’s a big, pretty playground to experiment with all the new stuff in the game. My only real gripe is Phil’s awkward silence. If you want him to show up, Square, give him at least one line. If you can’t give him any lines, don’t have him show up! This was awkward later with Aeleus and Dilan later as well. They make for such clear time/budget cuts, it breaks immersion something terrible.

Twilight Town was a huge disappointment. While it’s nice that it’s so populated (and that goes for many other worlds as well), only having a small part of what we know to exist available to explore is pretty sad. The story there sets things up so that Pence has to do some research which takes time, so I figured we could come back and go up the hill later, but of course that never happens.

Toy Box was fun. It was nice to have a world where almost all of it is just one big open area with lots of vertical space. The Gigases here were some of the only enemies in the game to pose a threat, but only because you need to also use the Gigases, which makes them and the whole world easy. The idea that the organization is doing research on inanimate objects acquiring hearts is interesting, but never amounts to anything, and the main conflict here goes unresolved until the end credits where it’s maybe kinda resolved without our input.

The Tangled world was interesting. It’s probably the most faithful adaptation of a Disney movie’s plot in a KH world in the series, down to specific scene setups, lines, framing, etc. I thought it was bizarre at first, but exploring the world with Rapunzel, which she’s seeing for the first time, and seeing her reactions to it made me feel like I was playing the game of the movie, in a good way. And of course this world had some gorgeous greenery. It also introduces the New Seven Hearts, which is interesting in theory but ends up being irrelevant and underutilized, especially since it could have fixed a problem that’s present for the entire game.

The bad guys want Sora and co to gather the seven lights. By rescuing Aqua, etc, they are playing into Xehanort’s plan. There should be some conflict about this. As it stands, there’s no tension. We’re not really doing anything to stop their plan. Of course Sora wants to save everyone, but maybe they could wonder if they can just not fight, or hide some people away, or something. But, it’s mentioned that if Sora fails to gather the seven lights, the new princesses can be used instead. That makes them leverage: if Sora and his allies fail to show up to the final battle, then these innocent princesses will be used, which of course forces Sora to move forward with the original plan. There’s conflict and tension there, where currently, in the game, there is none.

Monstropolis is interesting because it serves as a sequel to Monsters Inc, developing the lore of the Disney property in an interesting way. The factory’s a little bland but it has some fun sequences. Boo gets some cute moments. What’s annoying is that a Vanitas fight is teased here, and then ripped away from us. By this point I was dying for a good old classic KH person v. person hardcore showdown, because those are always the best fights, but alas. And of course nothing here ends up being super relevant to the main plot.

The Frozen world was fairly faithful to the movie, similar to the Tangled world, except with Sora mostly doing his own thing while the plot of the movie happened elsewhere. I actually thought this world set up an interesting theme that could have been explored more, which is Sora’s hero complex. He sees Elsa hurting and wants to help her, but it’s not something he can help with, so he has to learn to let her work through it on her own instead of coming to the rescue. Unfortunately they don’t do much with it, but it’s an interesting angle. And the New Seven Hearts come up again, which continues to be a waste of potential. The one thing that stood out as a peculiar choice to me was reanimating the entirety of the Let It Go scene. It was so bizarre I was laughing the whole time. I like the song, but what point did that serve? I actually heard a streamer mention that Elsa sings all of Let It Go when I watched some prerelease streams, but I assumed he was joking.

The Pirates world is the only one in this game based on a movie I haven’t seen, so I was a little lost as to the larger plot, but it gave some good characterization for Luxord. It’s nice that he seems to come to this world just because he likes it. I enjoyed the ship exploration and island setup, but I always do (see also: Wind Waker, Suikoden IV). Underwater movement and combat feel much better in this game than Atlantica worlds in earlier games. Ship battles got a little repetitive after a while.

San Fransokyo was one of my favourite worlds. The GTA-esque open city setup is fun, although a little small, and I love that we can see it during the day and at night, although having some chests and emblems only appear at certain times was a bit annoying. The music is excellent here. I like Big Hero 6 a lot, and the story of the world was a very interesting way to build off of the movie. I would love to watch a full BH6 sequel that’s basically the KH3 plot. It’s also a cool and interesting way to reintroduce Dark Riku as a member of the organization. Even though none of the Disney worlds really advance the plot directly, I’m okay with it because they serve another purpose, which is to slowly reveal organization members, keeping us guessing as to who the full 13 will be. Of course, it would be better if we didn’t see almost everyone in trailers, but it was fun to guess at the ones we didn’t know. What is disappointing about the Disney worlds is that Sora is supposed to be learning how to use the power of waking, but it’s obvious early on that it’s going to work when it needs to and he’s not going to figure it out before then, so that entire quest feels pointless.

In between these we get cutscenes of other plot points, and briefly play Riku in the world of darkness. I don’t like that so much of the cool plot stuff happens elsewhere. To me, that’s all the interesting stuff, the stuff I’m playing KH3 for, and I wanted to be involved in it instead of it happening elsewhere or hearing about it over the gummiphone. I did like that we get to play as Riku, as one of the things I’ve come to love about the series is seeing the different keyblade wielders’ combat styles. I also liked that, after we save Aqua, we get a fight as her. I was pumped to see my favourite keyblade master and the most badass character in the series in action again, but after the fight she gets inexplicably knocked out so that she can be rescued, which was both disappointing and out of character.

And then we go to the Keyblade Graveyard, which is where things really fall apart. First of all, the KG is a disappointing final world. It’s somewhere we’ve been before, and it’s nothing like the big, mysterious final worlds of previous games. The End of the World and the World That Never Was are two of my favourite worlds in the series, and the KG here fails to stack up. The labyrinth is a cool concept, but sorely underutilized. But before we even get there we get a very poorly explained time loop thing, and another moment where Aqua doesn’t seem nearly as capable as we know her to be, not to mention all the other great keyblade wielders with them at that point. We get some sort of afterlife, which complicates the life and death mythos of Kingdom Hearts even further, and we get an optional scene there that really should have been mandatory.

Then we go into the final showdown stuff. What was most exciting leading up to KH3 to me was this promised showdown, the 7 lights vs the 13 darknesses, all the keyblade wielders fighting together against overwhelming odds and kicking butt because they’re all great. Instead, what we get is Sora going through and systematically rescuing every one of his allies. It’s not the 7 lights vs the 13 darknesses, it’s Sora vs the 13 darknesses. What’s the point of having everyone there if Sora does everything in the end anyway? It’s especially grating to have extremely capable people like Aqua have to be rescued again. There’s also the matter of Kairi and Axel, who I was most excited to see finally fight with their keyblades. Instead they get trounced immediately and we don’t get any Kairi action at all, and then she gets fucking kidnapped. I’d understand her being less skilled than the others, but what was all that training for? And Axel may be new to the keyblade, but he’s a great fighter, much better than we see here. It’s all so disappointing. The entire section completely fails to live up to the promise of the big group showdown. We have Riku and Aqua programmed as playable characters, so even if they had been playable for their fights that would have made things feel a lot better, although it doesn’t fix everything. The Kairi issue is the biggest bummer for me.

This is where a lot of the important character stuff is resolved, too, and it’s all done quickly and sloppily. The ‘fight, stop for a cutscene, continue the fight, get another cutscene’ format is lazy and immersion breaking. Xion shows up with very little explanation. The whole struggle with her is that no one remembers her, and yet that’s brushed aside without ever really being addressed. And no one really gets the time they need to live in these moments of being reunited with the people they care about. I wanted to see more of them interacting, and more characters interacting who never have before but have clear links to each other. The way everything was quickly resolved, and the way things are set up for the future, makes me think Nomura was getting bored of these characters and wanted to get them out of the way as quickly as possible to move on to his current infatuation, which is the mobile game garbage.

It’s not as if I dislike everything the mobile game has to offer in terms of story and lore additions, but too much of that stuff bled into KH3. The thing where Sora summons the power of all the past keyblade wielders was fine, although I don’t like the 4th wall breaking of including everyone’s usernames. Still, it’s innocent enough. Making the epilogue all about the mobile game, tying the motivations of characters from earlier games to stuff from the mobile game, and introducing new mysteries that are clearly tied to the mobile game but never get resolved here lessened the quality of KH3. I expect some new mysteries and elements to be introduced each game to tease sequels. But in most games, those aspects were relegated to the secret endings and secret reports. That way you get a full game, leaving you feeling satisfied as you watch the ending, and then getting a teaser for another satisfying experience to come. For KH3, as I watched the ending I wasn’t satisfied. There was still too much left unresolved, or poorly resolved, things I needed from the game that I didn’t get. I was still looking for those things when I got to the secret ending, and of course it offered no closure. It made this entire game feel like sequel bait, when this is the game the previous games were supposed to be sequel bait for. I feel like I’m being strung along by the developers and taken advantage of.

There are some things I like about the ending. Although I don’t like the way it was shown so briefly and vaguely, I like the idea that Sora sacrificed himself to save Kairi. In multiple worlds in this game, we see characters try to sacrifice themselves for their loved ones, so when Sora does it, it makes for an interesting thematic link between the Disney content and main story content. I also like that the game seems to imply a switching of roles for Sora and Kairi, in the way the shots are framed so that Kairi is where Sora normally would be. This is the one thing that made me excited for future games: the thought that maybe Kairi could be the protagonist and go on her own journey to save Sora, that she could finally fucking do something other than be the damsel and love interest. Both KH2 and DDD suggested that she would have a more active role as well, though, and look how that turned out. So, I don’t trust it, especially with the secret ending showing Sora and Riku.

Speaking of which… Yozora. He’s clearly a Versus XIII reference, and I thought it was rightfully petty and hilarious when I saw the Toy Box scene, like Nomura was showing off how much cooler his game would have been than FFXV. Seeing Yozora in the secret ending makes me worry, though. Is he so petty that he would use a future KH game as a vehicle for the characters and ideas that didn’t come to fruition with Versus? With this and all the mobile game stuff, not to mention the general quality of KH3, I’m seriously worried about future games. For over a decade I’ve been thrilled every time a new KH game was announced. Now, though, I feel I’m going to have to be more cautious. It’s not a good feeling to have. Kingdom Hearts has never been perfect, but KH3 makes me feel like Nomura has forgotten what it is that made Kingdom Hearts great in the first place.

[destiny-smasher]

TIGERFIST

So! I opened writing commissions recently since I’m unemployed and, well, really struggling to find a new job. Every little bit helps! I have a Ko-Fo set up, my fiancee and I have a Patreon we’re posting things up on every month, and you can commission me to write fic or edit or whatever if you so choose - no job is too small, just give me your budget and your request and we’ll see if we can work something out!

This commission was from Twitter user @PKFCx, who requested,

“And yeah dunno. Kind of a story like a Contra/Bad Dudes type character has to kick butt :P Just cliche filled. Because cliches are like a breath of fresh air for me”

Suffice it to say, the end result is unlike anything I’ve written before. (also, I must’ve subconsciously gotten the name/concept from Gravity Falls but this is different)

Inspirations: Kung Fury, Axe Cop, Half Life: Full Life Consequences

The phone was ringing.

It kept ringing. It was annoying.

The man didn't pick up the phone.

The man was trying to win Fortnite.

He was playing all day to win but could not win even though he was the best because people were being cheap.

But the phone was STILL RINGING it would not stop.

RIIIIING RIIIIIING RIIIING went the special red phone with the blinking light.

“I'm in top five!!” yelled the man at the phone. “Stop ringing so I can beat this scrubs!!”

Finally the phone shut up for a minute.

“Yes. now I can play with my maximum ability...!” and the man did. He built the stairs up and behind the enemy tower and blew them up with rockets and won chicken dinner.

“ok phone,” said the man when he was done winning the game. “now I can take your call.”

RIIIIING RIIING RIIIng

The man picked up the phone and said to it, “This better be important, you almost made me lose.”

“It's about the world safety!” said the phone. “Yes it is important!!”

“HMM what is it??”

“The presidents of every place are kidnapped!!”

“WHOA that is important for sure!”

“Yes it is and we need you TIGERFIST, only you could do it.” The man who was the hero of the story put on his sunglasses and looked at us. His muscles became so big his shirt exploded.

He raised his tiger arm and made a tiger fist with determined look on his face. “Yes,” he said. “Only I could do it.

Because I am TIGERFIST.”

And his claws came out, and they were so sharp they cut the phone in his hand. But he did not need the phone until next time. The presidents could buy a new one. After he saved them.

So Tigerfist flexed his muscles so hard his shirt came off, and his tiger stripes could be seen to put fear in the eyes of his enemies. He put his Minecraft hat on backwards because it was time to mean business. He tied his shoes tight because safety. He got a cold one from the fridged and cracked it so much it broke.

Tigerfist kicked open the door to his house and roared at the sky so his enemies knew he was coming for a challenge.

AT THE ENEMY BASE:

A roar from far away...

“Whoa,” says one guard to another guard. “That must be him.”

And then the other guard says “I heard he has a pack of eight. But I don't think he will share it with us.”

“He must be coming for a challenge. We better tell the boss.”

And so they went to turn on the alarms and the sirens. But then something stopped them. VRRRMMMMM

Up over the cliff was a motorbike with rocketmods and heavy machine gun attached. It flew up over the cliff in the air in slow motion.

It was TIGERFIST on the motorbike. He took out his lazer pistol and fired it two times at the guards, and they both were zapped and fell dead.

The motorbike landed and drove past them. Tigerfist said to the dead guards “You shouldn't be guards for the bad guys or bad things will happen to you!!” and some other guards heard him roaring this and ran to save themselves. He drove across the big bridge to the base and there was resistance but it did not resist good enough.

He opened his heavy machine gun attachment and blowed away all of the guards at the doors.

“code orange code orange!!” yelled one guard into his walkie talkie. “he is here!!”

But the walkie talkie was lazer shot out of his hand, and Tigerfist drove by, cutting his face with his tiger claws as he drove. “I am everywhere!!!” yelled Tigerfist, raising his gun as he drove.

The big metal door was in front of him so he JUMPED from his motorbike with a backflip, and the rocketmods went up to maximum power, and the motorbike ran into the door with a explosion to open a hole. As he landed like Iron Man, he remembered, “I have a backup at home,” and went into the base. “WELCOME!” said a voice from speakers, as Tigerfist walked into the dark inside of the base. “This is a bad welcome,” said Tigerfist. But his tiger eyes let him see that there was a tank in front of him in the darkness. “Oh, that is a better welcome,” he said, and jumped as the tank fired at him. He did flip in the air and cut the giant tank bullet in half with his tiger claws. The two halfs of bullet split up and blew up the two speakers as they tried to talk, like, “If cats have nine lives then we will-BOOM!” And Tigerfist landed on the tank, and it tried to move around to find him but it was too dark. Tigerfist cut open the tank and threw a grenade into it, and it exploded the entire tank in fire. He flew through the air from the explosion and landed in the next room of the base. There were more speakers and they said, “You ruined my line!!” “It was a bad line!” said Tigerfist, as he suplexed a big guard through the floor. The speakers said “I didn't finish it how can you know it was bad??”

Tigerfist straighted his sunglasses as he punched another guard so hard he flew out of the base. “it's coming from a bad GUY,” he said.

“At least listen to it first!” “Fine ok go ahead.” “cough cough. If cats have nine lives then we will have to kill you nine TIMES!!” “OK I guess that is actually not too bad.” “Yea, see? Told you.” “The tank was a nice touch also.” “Thanks, that was a last minute choice but it was good wasn't it?” “Yea, I liked that. Also. NOW YOU DIE.”

And Tigerfist shot his lazer gun he was charging all the time into one of the speakers, and the lazer went through the system and came out the other side and zapped the bad guy talking into the speakers. Tigerfist went to the next room and there was all dark but a light in the middle. Tigerfist made sure his teeth were showing and his claws were sharp and his muscles were big and he walked to the light. Then the ninjas attacked. It was a team of ninjas, jumping from the shadow and using swords and throwing stars and numb-chucks and smoke balls and tricks. But Tigerfist was a ninja when he was a kid and his uncle and auntie were ninjas who trained him so it was too easy for him. And SLICE and KICK and PUNCH and BITE and CLAW and ROAR and the ninjas were all defeated and ran back into the shadows with smoke balls because ninjas always live to the next fight unless they want to be dead. Tigerfist laughed at them and took one of their katana swords and said while laughing, “You will need more training before you can beat someone like me, I'm the best.” And Tigerfist went to the next room where there was a elevator leading up the tower to the sky. So he rode the elevator, ready for an ambush. But there was a voice from the darkness that said to him, “You came just as expected, Tigerfist.” And Tigerfist remembered the voice...from somewhere...! “Who is it?!” he called to the voice as the elevator went up. “What do you want with the presidents?” The voice laughed “Hahaha heheh” and their yellow eyes glowed from the shadows. And Tigerfist knew those eyes. “It's YOU,” he said, surprised, but only a little. “Pantherfist, I should have known.” The enemy came out from the darkness onto the elevator as it went up higher to the sky. It was for sure Pantherfist, the arch nenemis of Tigerfist, and she was wearing all black soldier uniform. “You have a lot of nervous to be showing your face to me,” said Tigerfist. “We have unfinished business big sister.” because she was his older sister when they were kids when things were not so angry between them. “haha, yes, we do, little brother,” said Pantherfist, and she flexed her muscles so hard that her sleeves ripped off and her panther claws came out sharp. She put on her sunglasses the same as his, because it was handed down from their grandparents'. “Where did you go the wrong way, sister?” said Tigerfist, shaking his head. “I made the direction that was more fun, I made bases and armies when you just listened to what cops want you to do.” “I could never forgive you...” said Tigerfist with his teeth showing. Tigerfist tightened his hands and looked down with sadness and being angry. “You...killed...MY HUSBAND!!” he roared, and he pounced for the attack at his evil family member. But she was fast like him and maybe faster and his attacks were missing. She blocked his claws with her own claws, and sparks were flying. And she tried to slice at him but he blocked it also. They punched at each other but their fists just both hit at the same time, and they both knocked back. They kicked at each other but their own feet blocked the other foot. “We are both the same strength,” said Tigerfist. “This will go forever like this at this rate.” “That would be fun,” said Pantherfist. “But also a waste of time.” And then the elevator reached the top, where all of the presidents were tied to a rocket pointed at the sun. “Why do you do this dumb, evil stuff?” said Tigerfist. “You know it is useless to try to kidnap the presidents. It is too easy for me to save them from any bad guys.” “Yes,” said the voice. And she pushed the button that started the rocket countdown. “You are right. Fighting bad guys is too easy for you..” And then from the top of the rocket another person jumped and landed with their hand to the floor. There was the moment of calm before the storm and the man who had jumped stood up and took his hat off, showing his face. It was a half robot face with cyborg eyes and metal teeth and a headband. It was...his HUSBAND?? It was Cheetahfeet?? “NO...” said Tigerfist in shock and he reached out his hand. And Pantherfist laughed, yelling, “Fighting bad guys is easy but what if you have to fight A GOOD GUY INSTEAD??” And Tigerfist fell to his knee and punched his fist at the floor, and it made a crack. Indeed his sister was evil and always planning a step in front of him. “I AM CHEETAH BOT” said the cyborg of Cheetahfeet. And he slammed his foot on the ground and it made a shockwave that pushed Tigerfist back but also ripped his pants off and showed his robo cheetah legs. “No!” said Tigerfist when he tried to stay determined. “You are still inside the heart of yourself!!” “THE MAN WHO LOVED YOU IS NO MORE” said the robot cybrog cheetah man. Pantherfist laughed. “He cannot be a bad guy when he is a ROBOT because they cannot be evil! NOW GO my robot! Fight Tigerfist to the DEATH.” “I CANNOT KILL,” said the Cheetah Bot. “IT IS AGAINST MY PROGRAMMING.” “Oh right because you are a robot,” said Pantherfist. “BUT STILL beat him up!” “I CAN DO THAT,” said the Cheetah Bot, and he was faster than any of them and he ran in circles so fast that Tigerfist was going to be sucked into the sky. So Pantherfist made sure the ropes were tight so the presidents would not slip away, and the countdown was going on, and Tigerfist was going to be flying away. But Tigerfist remembered: the katana sword! So he took the sword and he timed it with perfect timing and THREW it at the Cheetah Bot, and the Cheetah Bot ran into the sword because he was too fast to slow down, and tripped onto the floor. Tigerfist yelled “CHEETAHFEET!” and went to his side. And he was glitching and mall functioning and the Cheetah Bot said “...TI...GER...FIST..MY...OL..D..SELF...IS...S..TILL..HERE...SO..ME..WHE...RE..” and his eyes were flashing and and his robot parts were moving weird, and Tigerfist felt his chest and it was not a person heart but a robot heart BUT a person heartbeat was inside...somewhere. And Cheetah Bot was bleeding robot blood all over the floor. “HAHAHA” said Pantherfist, jumping down from the rocket. “You have hurt a GOOD GUY now Tigerfist! You can never go back from this!!” And Tigerfist did not cry even though it was sad to hurt his husband who was now a robot because the presidents needed to see him be the hero who did not give up. And Tigerfist walked to the Cheetah Bot and pulled the sword out, and the Cheetah Bot shut down but was not dead. “I did not hurt a good guy,” said Tigerfist, and he flciked the sword and blue robot blood came off. “Because if he is a robot and cannot be evil, then he ALSO cannot be good!” And Pantherfist was quiet and opened her mouth because...he was right. “You will never make me become bad,” said Tigerfist, and he stood with the katana sword with some blue blood still on it and the wind blew over him. “And YOU will never make me become GOOD!” said Pantherfist, and she stood with the remote and her claws sharp at her side. “Someday maybe I will,” said Tigerfist sadly, and his sunglasses shining in the sunset. “Someday maybe I will...” “Not on THIS someday!” and Pantherfist pushed the other button on her remote, and the rocket countdown was finished and began to shoot jetfire. “NO! The presidents!” yelled Tigerfist, and he leaned down and JUMPED as hard as he could jump, and landed at the rocket as it took off. Pantherfist picked up the Cheetah Bot cyborg. “Your husband is still TRAPPED inside the robot soul!!” she yelled at him. “I married him because he is strong as I am!!” said Tigerfist as he began to untie the ropes for the predidents. “He will stay alive inside the robot soul until he can be free again from you!!” “So it looks like our unfinished is still unfinished for NEXT TIME!!” said Pantherfist, and she escaped with his robot husband. “No more distractions,” said Tigerfist as he carried more and more presidents on his back as the rocket started to go away from the planet through the clouds. And when he got to the last president...he left them tied to the rocket. And he jumped off, holding all of the presidents because his tiger arms were so strong to do it. And he fell and fell and just before landing back at the earth he used the presidents to build stairs down like in Fortnite and landed safe. As he walked down the stairs made of presidents the reporters came and had cameras and microphones. “Tigerfist! You have saved the presidents!” “Wait but one is missing..!!” said one reporter. And Tigerfist watched as the rocket with the missing president went closer to the sun. And the reporters asked, “You saved the presidents but forgot the most important one of the United States!!” And Tigerfist looked up at the sky, and in his sunglasses was the reflection of the rocket reaching the sun and blowing up. “Not MY president,” said Tigerfist. And the reporters did not know what to say. “But...wait, now we need a new president!” said one of the saved presidents. “Yes,” said Tigerfist, and he took off his sunglasses and winked and put them back on. “Yes we do.”

😎 😎 😎 😎

[rambling-at-midnight]

Hacked: Part 8

Spider-man is chasing you through the streets of Queens.

If it wasn’t so serious you might be laughing right now.

You should have known better than to steal from a store in broad daylight, but you’d been drunk with exhilaration and reckless. It doesn’t count as a heist if it’s only a few candy bars, right? Stick’s probably going to yell at you later, but you’re so close to finishing the article he’ll only tell you to keep focused.

You’ve never been more glad for Pom’s training than now. Navigating the different alleys and narrow streets is laughably easy compared to racing through the woods.

You take a sharp corner and lean back, lowering the board, but you do it so much your butt hits the ground. The board pulls you the remaining few feet until you’re lying on your back under a car. You hear Spider-boy curse when he swings ‘round the corner and grin.

Your watch, new from Dennis, buzzes against your skin. Inaudibly, you bring your wrist up to see a text from Pom: His suit can do heat-reads. I’m trying to hack into it before he sees you.

You mentally curse. Of course the suit has heat-reads; it was made by your dad! You type back that you’ve got it and pull up a hologram of the suit. Within seconds you’re in. You shut the suit down, grinning even wider when Spider-boy lets out a shout of surprise.

“What the hell, Y/N? I could have done it!” Pom snaps in your ear.

“Sorry, Pom, but it was a bit time-sensitive,” you grumble, worm-crawling your way out from under the car, made more difficult by the dead weight that is the board and your feet.

“Karen?” Spider-boy asks.

You tap a button on the side of your neck, activating the mask that Dennis had also gotten you, and wait until it’s covered your whole head except for your ponytail before whirling around. “My name isn’t Karen.” He’d even included a voice-warper. He’s endlessly surprising you with how smart he is. He could probably rival your dad in brains.

“I know; my suit’s named Karen! Did you break her? Who are you?” Without his suit on, he sounds just as young as you, maybe younger. You turn away. Putting a face on your enemy will just make your mission harder.

You try to gain height, but you can’t. You look down to see that Spider-boy’s suit has disappeared except for the helmet. You’ve been webbed by a superhero wearing boxers and a mask. You hadn’t even heard him getting out of his suit! His chest is distractingly muscular.

Saying a silent good-bye to the board Dennis had lent you for a new test run, part of his new version, you crouch to press the ‘shock and detonate’ button before jumping off and starting to run. Behind you, you hear Spider-boy’s pained yell as electricity carries down his web and an explosion.

“Pom?” you say, pressing your earpiece. “Bit of a situation. Stick’s prototype is gone, and this bag’s bound to attract attention.”

“Oh, you can’t handle this on your own?” she snaps but then sighs. “I’ve got you. Take a left up here. Spidey’s not chasing you yet. You’ve just got to make it to me and Dennis.”

When you get into the tunnel they’re hiding in, Pom starts laughing at you. “Your pants!” she gasps. You look down at them. “I don’t see the issue.”

“The butt,” Dennis snickers. You twist around to see that your trick with the car had ripped the butt of your jeans into shreds. You curse.

Pom offers, “Here, have my sweatshirt,” and chucks it at you. You tie it around your waist.

“Your tech’s amazing,” you say honestly to Dennis. When you touch the button on your neck, your mask stretching out again. It’s smooth black metal except for the eyes, which are grey and completely see-through from the inside. You only have to press the top for it to contract or stretch, and touching the outside will cause the button to detach itself from your skin. Your new watch has holograms for texting, emailing, and video calls, and you can pull up holograms of nearby tech for hacking.

He waves a flippant hand at you. “It’s really not that impressive.”

“It is,” you insist. “The prototype was amazing. ‘Shock and detonate’ worked so well.” You shake your hair out of its ponytail, effectively hiding the button on the back of your neck. “It’s perfect for facing Spidey.”

“Well, we’ll be seeing a lot of him in the future,” Dennis says grimly.

“Who do you think is under that mask?” Pom asks thoughtfully.

“Most likely no one we know. An Avenger’s kid, probably, so they would most likely stay in the tower except for stopping crime,” you hypothesize. “Shall we go?”

You, in a new pair of jeans, frown when you browse through the deleted articles about Tony Stark. They all seem to be about one of his kids that got kidnapped. He had been looking frantically for them when suddenly he just… stopped.

Finally, good stuff. What kind of father would just stop looking for their child? The articles saying that he took the child’s pictures down from the Missing Kids list said they had only been missing for a week and that they were definitely not found. A week? Seriously? You may not be patient, but even you could wait more than a week if one of your kids disappeared.

Finally you find a picture of the kid. You can’t tell if they were a boy or girl, only that they were wearing a baseball cap and a shirt that said “Iron Man is my favorite Avenger”. They disappeared when you were about three or four years old. You can’t find any trace of them on the internet, not at all. You can’t find pictures, their name, or when they were born.

You suppose that Tony’s got so many bastards running around that one missing won’t make a difference. If you went missing today he wouldn’t even notice. He doesn’t even know you exist.

You add that to the article you’re writing. It’s pretty good, if you do say so yourself. You’ve got a list of every woman that wanted to be featured in the article (not that many, and the ones that do want in are either holding out that he’ll come back when he sees their statements or just looking for attention), the fact that he only looked for his missing kid for a week before giving up, construction charges he hasn’t yet paid, and you’re working on hacking into his credit card to see how much alcohol he buys. You haven’t really sat down and focused on that, and you’re sure if you do make time for it, you’ll be able to finish the job easy-peasy.

Your laptop beeps with an incoming video message. You open it and smile shyly at Stick, hoping he doesn’t even know about your robbery earlier.

“Do you think you’ll be finished with the article by tonight?” he asks quickly.

Taken aback, you stare at him, before nodding slowly. “I could probably do that.”

“I’ve got contacts set up in Canada for you. You’ve got papers there, too. You’re going to be an orphan who’s living with a foster family. By your senior year you should be able to come back here. I can ‘adopt’ you. Your travel’s all planned out, too.”

Your jaw drops. “Senior year?” you squeak.

“You can’t come back too quickly or you’ll be caught,” he explains. “And even when you do come back you’ll need to look drastically different.”

“Senior year,” you repeat again, leaning back in your chair. Could you really leave your friends for two years? Could you leave Peter?

“Do you want Tony Stark to get away with abandoning you?” Stick presses. “Do you want other kids around the world growing up the same way you did?”

“I’ll be in his card by tonight,” you promise. It’s encoded but you’ve got time. You had thought that you were all right with ending the life you know and either getting arrested or starting a completely new one, but now that the fact is staring you in the face, you’re having cold feet. Which is ridiculous. You’ve been working on this for months. Tony Stark ruined your life. He’s murdered so many people. You’ve known what you’re going to do. You’ve been preparing yourself.

“Good,” Stick says and ends the call. You take a deep breath, squeeze your eyes shut, and begin the final steps in ending your life.

It’s six-oh-five in the morning, but you’ve written the article, complete with sources, graphs, and who knows what else. It looks like it really was written by a professional, and you’ve hacked into multiple newspaper websites and are one click away from posting it from under a fake name on all of them; you’d written the code that way. Stick, Pom, and Dennis had all looked over and revised the essay, but you’re still jittery with nerves because this is truly, truly, going to end your life. Your stomach is filled with butterflies and falling down fifty floors at once. After today, you’re going to be Ava Blake, orphan, currently living with foster parents Bella and Jacob Miles.

You’re going to live in Canada for two years with no contact with Michelle, Ned, or Peter. You’re going to go through sophomore and junior year without being able to skip class to wander the hallways with MJ or argue with Ned during lunch. You’re going to have to learn a whole new neighborhood. You’re going to have to meet a whole new school of people. You’re going to have to play on a new lacrosse team. You’re going to have to memorize a new school layout.

Occasionally you might be able to see Pom, Stick, and Dennis, but not often. You’re not going to see Crookshanks. Juna’s going to grow up without you, and maybe even forget you. Your mother’s going to die without you being there—you might not love her all that much anymore, but you still can remember her pushing you on the swings when you were younger, and you can at least want her not to be alone when she dies. Maybe MJ will kick Flash off the Decathlon team. Maybe they’ll stand up to the bully.

Maybe Peter will fall in love with someone else.

You close your eyes and twist your face with determination before letting out a loud breath, running your hands through your hair. You open your eyes and slam the burner laptop shut. You can’t do it just yet. You need to do one more thing first.

MJ had mentioned a before-school Decathlon meeting today, and the second you remember that, you know exactly what you need to do. You shove both the real and the burner laptops in your real backpack, not the school one, and put your board under your arm. You’re going to the cabin directly after this.

You sprint down the streets of New York, grateful for your training and how you’re not that out of breath. You occasionally whack people with your board, but it doesn’t matter. You’re never going to see them again.

You stop short when the looming building of your high school is directly in front of you. You can definitely feel the butterflies in your stomach now, and you’re pretty sure that the police are going to show up any second now, preventing you from posting the article and sending you to jail for the rest of your life.

You nearly kick the doors to the school open—one step closer to dying—before striding down the hallways to the Decathlon room. When did you start thinking about completing the mission as dying? Sure enough, the whole team is in there. You open the door and ask the teacher, “Can I borrow Peter for a second?”

Looking confused, he nods. Peter turns red when you look at him and hurriedly stalks out of the room. “Y/N? What are you doing?”

“I just wanted to do this,” you say quietly, mentally preparing yourself for what you’re about to do.

“That’s not your regular backpack,” Peter notices. “And that… that’s…” He points to the board under your arm, his eyes widening.

“Peter,” you say sternly. “At first I thought you hated me.” The poor boy’s eyes widen and he splutters, but you put your finger over his lips. “But then you started talking to me and you were sweet and funny and nice and I… have to do something before…”

“Before what?” Peter asks, panicked, against your finger. “Y/N, are you all right?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” you say with teary eyes. “I’m fine.” For the first time in your life, you might be completely fine. Which is odd, considering in five minutes you’re going to practically be killing yourself. Before you can talk yourself out of it, you grab Peter by the collar of his (adorable) sweater and smash his lips onto yours. Fire erupts from your lips, burning your whole face. Peter’s mouth opens against yours, obviously a question, but you just put your hand on the back of his neck and deepen the kiss. He says something against your mouth and you pull back, your lips and fingers tingling. You can’t believe you just did that.

“I’m sorry,” you say, breathing heavy, voice surprisingly steady for someone who just kissed the person you may or may not be—but you don’t say it, you don’t think it, because if you do, you might not be able to go through with it. But do you love Peter more than you hate Stark? “But I’ve gotta go. I’ve got… a job. Tell Michelle and Ned I love them, all right?”

You sprint out of the school, leaving Peter not even able to put two words together.

Here we go.