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osamucide · 2 days ago

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⊹ THE FIRST TASTE

LET IT BEGIN, HEAVEN CANNOT WAIT FOREVER . . . ft. Osamu Dazai

wc: ~3.6k

cw: NSFW CONTENT—MDNI (I BLOCK AGELESS+BLANK BLOGS), ada+masc!reader, reader has a tongue piercing, pet names (pretty boy and cutie for u), romantic and sexual tension, established flirtationship->new relationship?, a lil alcohol, making out, oral fixation/finger sucking, oral sex (Dazai receiving), cum eating (Dazai lol), patheticzai makes a spectacle of your shyness even though he can't just ask for what he wants good thing u have telepathy with him /j

reid: trade w my sweet friend @rossithepixie / @selfindulgentpixies who masterminded some beautiful osareid art for me <3 (if u havent seen it yet dw i will be reblogging it a million more times but also check out rossi's work neow cause he's super talented). thank you for trusting me with this rossi—it was such a blast to do a little lovesick dazai desperately chasing ur cute lil self into a corner (i listened to fiona apple's song with the same title a lot while i wrote this—is it obvious? lol). i hope u enjoy so much <3

It’s a cute little habit of yours. Unconscious, he knows, but that makes it no less cute. No less dangerous.

Everyone notices you do it—Atsushi pointed out the jewelry poking from your mouth with awe when he first caught you fidgeting with it (“People can have piercings there? That’s so cool”)—but Osamu highly doubts anyone finds it nearly as charming, as endearing as he himself does. After all, he’s the one consistently wheeling over next to you on his chair to fold his arms under his chin on your desk and admire you unashamedly while you tie a loose end around a sentence in whatever report you’re writing before even thinking about turning your attention to him.

So diligent.

That’s another cute thing about you. You've been a star worker, really, since you started. In the months since you got hired, your reports have been nothing but thorough and on time; even your first steps into fieldwork as a detective have been spotless, practiced, as if you already know this work like the back of your hand. You’re personable yet serious, easygoing and dedicated all at the same time, continually proving your worth as a voice of reason and contribution around the meeting table as well as a supportive, kind, all-around more than pleasant coworker on and off of crime scenes. Not to mention, your ability’s nothing to scoff at.

You’re a true asset to the Armed Detective Agency.

Which is why Kunikida’s glaring Osamu down again, threatening him silently with an HR department that unfortunately doesn’t exist—because, yes, you are for all intents and purposes perfect for this workplace and the blond man will simply not have you driven off by his partner’s insufferable tendencies.

Even Kunikida’s wrath, however, is scarcely known to deter Osamu Dazai, and that is why, when he notices you doing it again—toying with the metal bar through your tongue in an absentminded display of your oh-so-coveted concentration on and application to your task, he scoots himself right over, rowing on his heels, brushing admonishing stares like he might dust off his shoulder and settling next to you, chin in his palm, feet knocking into yours beneath your desk.

As expected, you don’t turn to him immediately. All the better. Gives him a few seconds more to admire you, your parted lips, the glint of the metal and your pretty teeth against the natural light streaming into the office on this lovely day, made all the lovelier by the vision of your adorable expression.

But when you do, it’s melt-worthy.

“Hi, Osamu,” you mumble, turning your eyes to him and tucking your tongue back in to offer him that sweet but aware, workplace-appropriate smile that makes him grin even further. You’d have to be naive not to know he wants to strip you of that professionalism, but you make sure to give him time of day in only the most graceful way when you’re both at the office; for as charming as he is, and for as much as you must shyly admit you find him endearing just the same, you don’t turn a blind eye to his cunning nature.

And like so many things, it’s a bit of a game that he enjoys—seeing what he can do to crack that competence of yours.

But today he’s restless, so he punches low from the jump.

“Hi, pretty boy,” he purrs, gaze searing into you. Signature.

And just like he hopes, your brow raises and you look away, pursing your lips to mask your reaction to his antics. He usually toys with you a little longer before he brandishes the pet name he knows all too well gets your cheeks glowing pink in an instant—and that’s exactly what they do. Your coyness can’t hide that.

“Eager today, are we?” you fill the silence with the lighthearted accusation, busying yourself on your keyboard so as to fight off the squirming you’re sensing will be futile to escape this afternoon.

“Yup.” When he pops the p, he nudges your ankle with his own.

But in your busying, the tip of your tongue flicks out again, and Osamu’s seemingly-aimless display of fluster-inducing attention surges toward its goal, which he’s been contemplating for a few days now, actually: getting you out of this stuffy office (or the all-too public nearby bar you’ve started frequenting with him after hours, strictly as friends it seems—if friends tangle their fingers together after a few cocktails and then don’t make mention of it the next day, anyway) and into his dorm, which he actually tidied up because he calculated with most near-certainty there couldn’t possibly exist a world in which you’d turn down such an invitation. So he hopes, anyway. For as player as he acts, the way you make him feel sows seeds of doubt in him and his usual methods of seduction. You know full well how sincerely captivated he is by you… right? You must. You have to.

“You know,” he continues, “I was wondering…”

Mincing his words is never part of his plans. Unless, of course, it’ll draw a desired outcome closer than being direct will. But now, Osamu finds himself almost hesitating, with no prior inclination to do so; he’s wondering, not thinking, like he seems to do so much when you’re near him, and he doesn't know if you fully realize it, but you might have more control over… whatever this is between you than he does.

You tilt your head, still turned to your screen, as if it begins to occur to you.

“...Drinks at my place?” he spits out—pointedly dropping the “double suicide?” intonation so it’s clear he’s serious—before he can give any more indication that he’s slipping.

When you look to him again, Osamu’s filled the space of his doubt with that low-lidded grin once more.

“Tonight?”

“Tonight? Oh—” You clear your throat in a way that sounds oddly affirmative, as if you’re trying to keep it from bubbling out too soon. You’re so assured in everything else you do around here, so Osamu, ever the contrarian, regains his balance on the premise of your shyness. When you go to confirm, you’ve all but lost your teasing lilt. The flush on your face doesn’t miss him. “Yeah, that’d be nice, Osamu.”

Nice. If he didn’t have an image to upkeep, he’d leap up and fistpump the air like a cartoon character. Perhaps, if he were more in tune with his hand-to-god emotions, he’d crumble to the floor in a ball wondering what the hell he’s getting himself into.

He doesn’t do this. He doesn’t clean his dorm, much less invite romantic prospects over to it. You’re new territory in the way he feels freshly determined not to mess up, so he keeps himself composed behind that smile. “When are you out of here?”

“I can be out of here whenever you’re out of here,” you mumble, your lips pressed into a smirk you won’t let unfurl fully. He wishes you would. He’ll get you to. If he had it his way, he’d whisk you out of here now, clock be damned, and pop open that red dessert wine he picked up specifically for the event in which you would land on his uncomfortable little couch with your tongue lingering in, hopefully, closer proximity to his own. He’s seen you tipsy; you don’t suppress that air of sheepish enthrallment so much when you are, and he’s impatient for it. He needs more of you.

But it’s three in the afternoon, and Kunikida’s abruptly dragging Osamu by the collar of his shirt like a puppy on a leash to roll him back over to his own damn desk, muttering something about how if he had any decency he’d leave you the hell alone and if he wasn’t going to contribute anything of worth to the Agency’s productivity yield, the least he could do was not disturb those who are.

This makes you chuckle fully as you shake your head. Osamu eats it up—and he doesn’t hide it, eyeing you with something most akin to yearning in his gaze. You have such an effortless knack for putting hearts in his eyes in a way he’s not used to.

The rest of his shift dawdles by; as a way to pass the time, Osamu volunteers himself to run out and pick up the Thai takeout for those who will be clocking out later than he hopes he will. Kunikida so graciously (read: reluctantly and irritatedly) let him order on his card, so he claimed it as repayment; really, he needed to get out of his desk chair.

He feels insane watching you play with that piercing of yours, his stack of unfinished reports (or, pre-construction paper planes) serving as no distraction.

He delivers your spring rolls to you with a wink. He eats his pad thai and fools around on his desktop. He watches the sun streak down the window.

He actually considers getting some work done. It’s nearly torture.

He gets up to leave the second the clock strikes eight. If he was bad at focusing on work before, you’ve ruined him.

The implication’s all too clear when you’re stepping into the evening air behind him. You don’t mind—it’s evident in your reserved but knowing smile, the one he so terribly wants to unravel.

His place is threadbare, but cozy. You curl yourself up on one of the two couch cushions while Osamu sets two empty glasses and a bottle on the low table before you—he’s eager, too, for the wine; he’s aching to dispel both your timidity and his anxiety that it feeds. Maybe it’s just that he can’t seem to handle himself positively spiraling over you while you remain enchantingly reticent, quiet in the desire he knows flows between you both. Usually, he’s the one with all the self-control. Tonight he’s counting on you missing the tremble in his fingers as he pours.

“Kunikida’s such a hardass, isn’t he?” he muses while he tucks a glass into your hand and draws himself up onto the couch, facing you, leaving a respectful but still considerably involved distance between you. Your knee almost touches his. “Berating me for something as little as asking such a cutie to come over for drinks. It’d be more criminal not to, I think.”

You chuckle at his dramatics, taking a sip. It’s sweet, red. You remind him, “We are coworkers, Osamu.”

He cocks his head, drinking deeper than you do, with a thoughtful look on his gorgeous face. He hums and reminds you, “We’re not just coworkers.”

Your chuckle becomes a giggle—one less dubious than the short, amused headshakes you save for the office—and with your next question, he knows he’s pulling you in. You’ve been dancing around each other long enough; he’s warm, trying not to overflow when you speak—you finally sound ready to acknowledge what’s been turning him into a mess for you when you hum and press skittishly. If he had a tail, it’d be wagging.

“What else are we then, hm?”

Your bashfulness reads so seamlessly as effortless wooing—he wonders if you’re so purely humble, or actually a mastermind of coquetry. The way you keep yourself veiled, thinly enough to keep him pining for more of you but staunchly too so that he constantly doubts whether the cat or the mouse has the upper hand, turns him to mush—absolute pathetic mush—and he answers a question with a question. You’ve got him going against all sorts of personal philosophy.

“What else do you wanna be?”

The answer gets lost between shifting hands, closing space, conversation and jokes that relax further and further as you both stabilize into one another over the following hour or so. A couple more glasses of wine are poured, drank, tasted—at some point in the blackening night you end up astride his lap in the dim lamplight with your glass in triumphant hand, tucking his hair behind his ear while he cups your face, simpers out another remark that makes you blush and wave him away; Osamu looks at you with something you can only construe through your buzz as pure want. Coming down from laughter that screws your eyes shut—he’s never short on humor, which is one of the things you think you love—love? about him, you say it aloud, tell him you do in fact love that about him and if he was all pure want a moment before, now he’s pure shock.

But he plays it off in his way; you watch the intricate way he takes no more than a half-second to collect himself, just tipsy enough to get snagged on the words love that about you that the half-second seems a feature-length film to you—one you would watch over, over, over again.

Osamu slides four fingers on one side of your jaw, thumb on the other—holding your chin gently but firmly in place so he can bore like fire into you.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he asks, half sincere, half flirtatious. Your gaze scatters momentarily beneath his; you take a second, copy his recovery.

You hesitate before you say, “I think I have some idea,” fully sincere, fully flirtatious. When you pinch your bottom lip between your teeth—not an unconscious habit but an intentional move in this game—he thinks this is what middle school boys must feel like the first time they get close to their crush. It sickens him so sweetly, like he’s swallowed a lump of sugar. He wants more.

Your breath coils around his between your noses, between your mouths. The wine in your glass sloshes and settles.

“Can I tell you what drives me crazy?” he breathes.

You nod like you’ve been waiting lifetimes to know.

He answers not with words but a touch to your lip—a stroke back and forth that leaves you parting for him. He leaves feather-light fingerprints on the sharp of your front teeth, pushing, slowly, forward until the hot muscle in your mouth cradles his thumb and he’s touching that devil-sent piercing of yours, the ball all at once cool and warm as it twirls to evade him.

“This,” he whispers, chasing the metal back and forth. “This drives me crazy.”

You don’t respond with anything but suction, a soft bob of your head like you understand, and a hmm.

Osamu thinks he might implode beneath you.

His attention has hardly ever felt so streamlined as when you search his face, circle his thumb, wet it for him to retract and drag down your chin while you draw your brow together like you miss it—his eyes are all yours, wide and waiting and holding the answers to all the questions drifting around, surrounding both of you.

The kiss is searing as he pulls you into him—or, hardly has to, rather, as your eyes flutter shut and you lean to meet him, five of your fingers matching his grip but on his shoulder while you suffocate that mingled breath so it becomes mingled spit, mingled tongues. He worms himself past your lips, into you—he almost moans when the tip of his own tongue brushes across the jewelry sitting on the pad of your tongue like a pearl in an oyster. He’s finally cracking you open. It makes him smile wickedly into you.

Your arms locking around his neck leave him rolling into you hotly, asking for you with anything but words which escape him again now—so uncharacteristic, but he’s lucky you’re both too entangled to notice, for words aren’t necessary right now; he’s ushering your wine glass out of your hand, setting his, too, onto the table so you can wind your fingers in his hair and tug, prompting the sweetest gasps that you echo back into him while he guides your hips across him. The fervor either of you holds is indistinguishable from the other; you grind, he grips you, the harder he grips you the harder you grind and vice versa until he’s biting down the column of your neck toward absolution.

He mutters your name through an umph; you pick his lips back up the second he goes for air, and he goes for your tongue. When you pull back to observe him, mirroring you in kiss-puffiness and staccato breath, he’s wild between your eyes and your lips.

“That’s all for you,” he tells you when he grabs your wrist and guides you to palm his cock before you hit him with another question for the ages—one that will not receive a verbal answer but a noise from his throat he swears he’s never heard himself make before.

“Wanna feel it?”

God, has he ever wanted anything more in his life? The erection he’s built up just from kissing you, moving you against him, is all the evidence either of you need.

Regardless, Osamu’s nodding fervently, chocolate locks swaying.

So, you take your turn kissing down him until you’re pooled at his feet, between his knees, with devoted fingers undoing the button on his pants; the task at hand, so sweetly and circularly, has your tongue poking out in concentration as you work his waistband down. Osamu twitches at the sight—he doesn’t mean to mutter you’re so fucking adorable but he does, he does. It’s your turn to grin wickedly as you take his cock out, your turn to tease with your thumb on his drooling tip, your turn to explore with your mouth.

You’ve had the reins all this time, really—from the first day you sat at your desk, making that attentive face. He must be the luckiest sucker in the world to have ended up here, with your shining eyes watching him fall apart as your honeyed lips guide him toward sweet devastation.

The first stripe you lick up his underside sends Osamu’s head flying back, jaw falling slack on the end of a breathy “fuck!”

And he feels every stride of your tongue piercing when you wrap your lips around his tip and swirl.

The sounds you draw from Osamu’s open mouth are like song; diligent in this task as you are every other one, it’s hardly a minute before he’s tangling his fingers in your hair, crooning your name between broken praises that come naturally as you hold him, lick him, look up at him with eyes that he thinks could turn him to stone—if only you had been evil, that is, but realistically, you can’t be anything other than an angel.

“Pretty boy, you—”

At that name, you groan. Take him further.

And through how good it feels, he laughs.

“Oh, you like that? Huh?” He could pull you off him if he wanted a response, but you’re too heavenly to interrupt—anyway, he already knows how you feel about pretty boy.

You hum around him—another sensation that sends him reeling with oh, god on his lips.

“That’s it… Feels s’good on me. Unh—yeah, like that…”

Indirectivity and grandeur has always been something Osamu considers himself a professional in—everything you do throws him for a loop and the way you bob up and down does him no favors. He whines in the way he does when he’s already going to finish all too quickly, but the fact that it’s you bringing him to his end—his cute coworker he’s been pining after since your first day on the job, the one that’s inspired such foreign feelings of wonder in his long-gone-cold heart—has him unreservedly bucking his hips into your mouth as you rake your nails down his thighs, ardent in this undertaking, bobbing frantically like all you’ve ever wanted was to have him noisy and messy underneath you like this.

“‘m gonna—oh, fuck!”

But he doesn’t have to tell you; you feel him, spasming on your tongue against the otherworldly friction your jewelry provides—his true downfall, that thing, and the image of you formed around it—you pursue his climax like a predator pursuing prey, pulling away to give him that false sense of security as you rise to your feet, pounce back over him and kiss him so intensely while you handle him, jerk him to orgasm between your bodies; Osamu’s hoarse, aching as he humps the hole you make with your fist and chants yes, yes, yes, please! into your mouth, tasting metal, never wanting it to leave.

He settles into soft panting as you draw your fingers up; he’s beginning to speak— “You’re so—” but you’re cutting him off so he can suck your fingers, taste himself and the way you’ve shattered him so beautifully. And he does, he laps like a man possessed, obsessed with the flavor of himself if only it’s leaving your skin, before you let him continue. “You’re incredible. You and that piercing.”

You huff out a laugh, but it’s true. He’s convinced you’re a dream in every sense of the word—how did he get so lucky, no—how did the earth get so lucky to have you dropped upon it, right here in Yokohama, doing such scandalous things with that godly mouth of yours?

“I try,” you quip with a half-shrug, smiling softly, kissing him just so.

“Do you, now?” Osamu Dazai, who so often loses those good things before he can really grasp them, takes note of another new sensation—unwavering resolve, in the amorous sense—and concludes that if he can help it, this dream will not slip away so quickly. He can’t possibly send you back up to heaven.

He grabs your hips, pulls you onto him.

Everything you are—all hard working, handsome face, sweet disposition, and tongue ring—he’s wanted it for so long; it would be nonsensical, a tragedy, to let the same evening air you stumbled in on steal you away again.

This is a dilemma he doesn’t have a solution to; not immediately.

But he speaks anyway, smirking and toying with the button on your pants, overwhelming your frame to put your back to the cushions—turn you into a mess for him.

“Your turn, pretty boy.”

#dazai smut #bsd smut #dazai x reader #bsd x reader #bungou stray dogs x reader #bungou stray dogs smut #with love—reid #reid try to write smut without referencing religion challenge (impossible) (failed) (not clickbait)

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flutterclouds · 10 hours ago

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This was such an amazing chapter, Tesh! I really loved the rush of emotions Nia experiences throughout the chapter. She’s scared and alone, but she’s also angry at both Tobias and herself. She hates that he was rash enough to go down to the mines in the dead of night with basically no backup, and she went along with it. Then, during her frustrated and isolated wander through the tunnel system, she sees the being that’s being following her for weeks: Giratina. I loved the imagery of a fragmented Giratina staring at Nia from the mirrorstone cave wall. I also loved the transition of Nia’s state of horror into one of incredulous disbelief as the god in the fragmented stone wishes for her to follow him. I thought it was really funny when Giratina’s furrowed brow and body language betrayed he was frustrated that Nia would not follow him. It really gave some fun insight into Giratina’s less eldritch and stoic side.

I also really loved reading about how Nia and Giratina’s relationship got fleshed out in this chapter. Given their history, she clearly doesn’t trust him at the start. This clearly starts to change a bit after the Steelix dodge scene. Giratina wants her alive for the moment, but I do have to wonder for what reasons. I also have to wonder if Giratina has tried to get into connect with other transformed humans over the years, or just with Nia. I recall in one of your animatics that Will has some connection to Giratina, but at this point I’m not sure whether they’re working together or have some other dynamic.

I really loved getting to see how Nia has gotten closer to Samir during their time in Asra. As previously established, Samir has been lonely for quite a while after their former partner left them. I can only imagine how much it means for Samir to open up to another person again. I think that really goes to show at her core, Nia is a person capable of forming connections with others most Pokemon would have given up on. Tobias and Samir are good examples of this. I only just realized that particular parallel between Toby and Samir, and I love it so much.

Finally, I want to say how much I adored the fight scene with Eddy and the Steelix. The fight against Eddy was so fun, with Team Scarlet and Samir being able to take him down after all he’s done to Asra. The fight against the Steelix is another beast entirely. Steelixs as a species are known for their vast size and ability to drill through solid sheets of ground. In addition, Steelixs are some of the largest non-legendary Pokemon. Steelix is an entirely new foe compared to the likes of Panpour, the Sevipers, or even Eddy. The stakes of this fight are terrifying in a very new way at this point in the story. Toby and Samir have type advantages, but that isn’t enough to win the fight. Steelix uses the cave environment against the team, burying Toby and Rubble and smacking down Samir with his tail. At this point, Nia is on her own and Giratina can only watch from his fractured vantage point on the cave wall. I loved seeing how even in the midst of such a bleak fight, Nia’s love for her friends gives her the determination to fight on against seemingly impossible odds. It’s such a great moment, and it’s honestly such a good embodiment of the themes of PMD as a series. I think Seekers of Soul works so well because you take the themes and charm of PMD and expand on it in the written format, where you aren’t limited by code, character models or sprites. It’s been such a joy reading this story, and I look forward to reading a chapter every month. Recently I’ve been drawn to stories about confronting loss, such as Final Fantasy 7, Persona 3 Portable, and Night in the Woods. I think Seekers of Soul is one of those stories, one about experiencing loss but still finding the will to live on, whether it be related to the loss of a loved one, finding oneself in some strange new environment, or simply dealing with the world changing. Like the aforementioned games, Seekers of Soul really captures the feeling of somehow finding the strength to go on despite dealing with hardship, and I think that’s a theme the world really needs right now.

Overall, I just want to say thank you for writing such an amazing story. I always appreciate reading your work, and it’s always fun gushing about what I enjoyed in any given chapter. As always, I’m looking forward to seeing what Team Scarlet get up to next time.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Seekers of Soul

[Chapter 45]

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Nia, Tobias and Samir are trapped in the tunnels beneath Asra with two dangerous outlaws. Can they defeat them and escape?

The earth is crumbling beneath Nia’s feet, and she struggles to stay upright despite the solid press of Samir against her side. She sees the floor open up beneath Tobias, and he falls into the blackness without a sound.

Her stomach drops with him. “Tobias!”

She pushes away from Samir—to what? To dive after her partner? But the ground finally cracks apart beneath Nia’s feet as well.

She falls with a breathless shriek. For a beat, weightlessness. Then the ground slams into her all at once, rocky and uneven, knocking the breath out of her. She keeps her eyes squeezed shut as she rolls deeper and deeper, the satchel alternating between cushioning her movements and slapping her in the face.

It’s not until she finally slows to a stop, skin blossoming with painful new bruises, that everything starts to register. That Pokemon—a steelix?—attacked them. Tobias fell. She fell too.

She pushes herself up with a groan, looking around. She’s in a long tunnel similar to the caverns above. The glowing crystals down here seem less gentle, more a blaring red than a cozy rose tone. Mirrorstone still lines the walls in patches, and Nia can tell by her reflection that she looks as roughed up as she feels from that fall.

She’s also entirely alone.

Nia inhales, sharp, and staggers to her feet, looking one way and then the other. “Tobias? Samir?”

No luck, and no sign of either of them. Is it possible the steelix manipulated where they would fall to separate them? Nia glances up, but the earth above her has closed up once again, a few faint cracks and uneven slabs of rock the only sign of its shifting.

A distant, faint vibration makes Nia jump. Fear rolls through her gut, and she stumbles in a random direction. She doesn’t know where she’s going but she feels like a sitting duck here, dropped in the middle of a maze of tunnels that their enemy dug himself. Running feels like a hopeless effort, but what else is there to do? Her best bet right now is to move, to try and find Tobias and Samir and get out of here to find some help.

She knew they shouldn’t have come down here on their own. But she didn’t want to disappoint Tobias because she’s a stupid, stupid people-pleaser and now they’re all in danger. She hasn’t been this angry at her partner in a long while. Probably not since Afon’s Cap.

She swipes tears from her eyes as she jogs down tunnel after tunnel. Her reflection follows her in bits and pieces out of the corner of her eye.

She hits a fork in the road, and glances frantically between the two paths. Which one will lead her back up to the surface? Will either one lead her to her companions? They look exactly the same, identical tunnels of packed dirt walls and cracked patches of crystal.

“C’mon, c’mon!” She whines, bouncing in place. “Make a decision!”

The rumbling in the earth had drifted away a minute ago, but that doesn’t mean the steelix won’t be back soon. Or that he isn’t currently chasing down Tobias or Samir.

Nia goes right on impulse. For a moment she thinks she sees movement out of the corner of her eye that doesn’t match her own, and hopes that it’s Tobias or Samir. But when she looks, it’s nothing. Just her own reflection and the low light playing tricks on her frazzled mind.

Nia slows to a stop at another fork in the road, her fear sharpening to frustration. She feels like a rat in a maze, running around until her eventual demise. Is there even an exit? What if there isn’t?

Nia thinks of the way they usually escape mystery dungeons—which this underground labyrinth probably isn’t, even if she’s bad at telling—and suddenly recalls their rescue badges. She digs through their satchel, pulling out her own badge as well as Tobias’ and clutching them in her hands like lifelines.

But slowly, her mind catches up to her relief.

Even if she did send out a signal to the psychics at the guild to teleport her to safety, Tobias’ badge is with her (stupid, stupid, stupid—why don’t they wear them?!), and she doesn’t have a guarantee that Samir would think to use theirs. She can’t risk just leaving the two of them down here alone.

Besides, the psychics could only teleport her and Tobias so far away from the Lexym guild for their journey. They probably have a limited radius that they can pick them up from, too, and Nia is sure they’re outside of that range. Even the nearest guild, where Samir came from, is likely too far away to pick up their signal out here in the desert. Asra is a small, secluded town, with little authority to help protect it.

A perfect target, really.

With a frustrated little growl, Nia throws her badge down. It bounces with a metallic ping before stopping, wobbling in the dirt as it settles. Very unsatisfying, really.

Nia wipes at her eyes, then bends to pick the badge up. She brushes it off almost apologetically before tucking it away into her satchel again.

She looks up, intent on continuing forward, only to come face-to-face with Giratina.

Nia yelps, falling onto her tail and scrambling back. Giratina stares down at her from bits and pieces of reflected stone, the titan a fractured mosaic of red and black and gold.

Nia holds her breath, heart slamming in her chest as she stares back. She expects Giratina to react in some way. Maybe try to reach through the stone, or beckon her closer. Heck, she half-expects him try bashing through the barrier between their worlds, probably bringing the caves down on all of them in the process.

But no. Giratina just…waits, body and wings swaying behind him against the backdrop of whatever strange void he lives in. His glowing red eyes are as cold as distant satellites, giving no hint as to what he’s thinking.

She imagines this is what it feels like to be a cornered mouse, staring into the eyes of a hungry cat. Except he still hasn't done anything. Is he just playing with her? Or can he physically not do anything? She supposes that might confirm what they’d thought—that Giratina can’t actually touch her unless she makes contact with the reflection too.

Slowly, Nia gathers her shaking legs beneath herself, body still poised to run. Or fight. She doesn’t look away from Giratina.

Giratina nods, once. Approving. Then jerks his head to the right tunnel and slithers through the reflections like a snake through water, down the wall of the tunnel and away from her.

Stunned, Nia blinks after him.

After a moment, the titan slides back into view in front of her, head crest lowered in distinct irritation. Nia's a bit distracted by the fact that his head is larger than her whole body. Giratina jerks his chin to the right again. Insistent.

It suddenly dawns on Nia what Giratina is doing. She barks a hysterical laugh. Maybe there’s a gas leak down here.

“Are you telling me to follow you?”

Giratina gives her a nod, like this is a completely normal thing to be happening.

“And why in the world would I do that?!” Nia asks, throwing her arms up. “Will warned me about you! Plus, all you’ve done is stalk me and try to yank me into your world when I was taking a bath!”

Giratina gives her a flat, unamused look. Well, good—she’s not exactly in a good mood herself.

Nia shakes her head. “Nope, nuh-uh. If anything you’re probably leading me right into a death trap. Not happening.”

Before she can say anything else, the earth around her shakes, a bit harder than before. Nia has to crouch to keep her footing, glancing over her shoulder. She's dreading the thought of seeing that steelix’s terrible face rushing up behind her.

When she looks forward again, Giratina is still glaring down at her, clearly frustrated despite how inflexible his face plates are. His centipede-like legs are moving in an impatient wave down his body. It’s as mesmerizing as it is unsettling. Nia grimaces and takes a step back.

She has to make a decision, here and now. Does she take the advice of an eldritch horror monster who literally every scary story in this world has warned her about, or—

Okay, yeah, this one’s obvious.

Nia marches down the left tunnel. Giratina flickers into being in the reflections at her side, body taking up the whole length of the tunnel. He glares at her silently.

Nia sticks her tongue out at him. He feels a lot less scary when she knows he can’t touch her.

The tunnels rumble distantly with more movement, and Nia picks up her pace a bit. Unfortunately, she still doesn’t know where she’s going. She doesn’t come across another fork in the road over the next few minutes, but the rumbling grows slightly closer and more powerful before dying away again.

Nia wonders how many tunnels there are down here beneath the town, heavy with stale air and danger. If they've made the foundations of the land unstable. If the steelix uses too many ground moves he could probably level the whole town, not to mention bury all of them alive.

She really hopes her friends are all right.

The path has been curving for a little while, but Nia's having trouble figuring out if it’s going up or down. Logic says she wants to go up to get closer to the surface, but…

The distant rumbling of the steelix grows more prominent.

Nia speeds up, glancing over her shoulder. She can't do much else, other than hope that the steelix will change direction and the shaking will die down again.

Instead, the rumbling grows stronger second by second, shaking the ground under her feet and making her stagger. She hears a low, distant roar.

He’s coming this way.

Nia takes off, sprinting and hoping for a fork in the path or—she doesn’t know. A miracle.

She didn’t really see the steelix in motion before, but knowing how large he is, seeing the tunnels he’s dug, knowing how effortlessly he’s been destroying the town above…

She knows she’s done for if she’s caught by him down here. He’s in his element.

Nia feels numb with panic, panting as she runs and runs down the neverending cave. Giratina speeds through the reflections at her side, but for the first time since appearing he isn’t staring her down. He’s looking intently ahead as he spirals through reflections with ease.

The shaking grows stronger, and Nia's steps start to stumble as she tries to run and finds that she can’t keep her footing. She falls into the wall with a gasp. She squints against the almost painful shaking as the steelix grows ever closer.

Giratina catches her eye. He’s flaring his spidery wings out in the mirrorstone a few yards ahead of her. Once he sees her looking, he gestures his head down with urgency, towards a large chunk of glowing red stone.

Nia doesn’t know what he’s suggesting, but right now the banished legendary seems a lot less threatening than the steelix literally about to flatten her into the dirt. She scrambles for the spot Giratina pointed out, crawling through the increasingly powerful jerking of the earth.

When she reaches the crystal, gripping its warm, smooth surface, she’s surprised to see a sizable dip in the cave wall behind it. It's small, just a natural crevice in the dirt. But still…

It looks just big enough for Nia to squeeze into. She hurries to do so, yanking her satchel in with her after it gets caught on the gemstones. Her knees are jammed into her chest and her head is ducked at an uncomfortable angle, breaths puffing hot and humid into her chest.

The shaking gets louder and stronger, and she feels her brain rattle around in her head. She wonders with a pang of terror if Giratina lured her back here to get smashed like a bug under a rock.

Then, with all the force and sound of a subway train, the steelix rushes past her hiding spot. He’s a blur of silver segments, just visible through a gap in the gemstones. One second, two, and then his long body is burrowing down the tunnel and away. The shaking slowly recedes.

Nia gives it a minute. At least until the shaking is nearly gone. Then the space feels too tight, too cramped, like she’ll be crushed if she doesn’t get out. She thrashes and finally manages to squeeze an arm out of the cubby. The rest of her body follows, and she collapses onto the tunnel floor on her back. The dirt under her is smooth and packed, almost hot with the speed in which the steelix moved through.

She would’ve been dead if she’d been caught up in that.

The thought sends a fresh bolt of panic through her. She looks up, still trying to catch her breath, only to see Giratina staring back down at her from the mirrorstone in the ceiling.

“You saved me,” she rasps, somewhere between a statement and a question.

Giratina nods. Then he gestures towards the direction they came from.

For the first time, Nia considers the possibility that Giratina might genuinely be trying to help. But why? Will was very clear that the banished legendary was not to be trusted. And it’s not like he has a stellar reputation even outside of Will’s words. He tried to yank her into the distortion world, for God’s sake!

…But he did just save her life. So he at least wants her alive, for whatever reason. Maybe a nefarious plan where he later steals her soul to destroy the world or something. Chances are he isn’t working with these goons who are only in it for the money, so that means he might actually be leading her to safety.

“This is such a bad idea,” she murmurs, still shaky as she sits up. Giratina flickers out of view only to reappear in the wall, closer to eye level.

Nia raises her voice just loud enough to be heard. “O-Okay. Okay. You’ve got my attention. Um…thank you.”

Giratina makes an insistent gesture with his tail for her to turn around and go back the way they came.

Nia gets to her feet, brushing dirt off her fur, and takes a deep breath. “All right. Lead the way.”

Giratina wastes no time, silently slipping away in a blur of muted color. Nia breaks into a run to follow him back the way they came, the satchel bouncing along with each stride.

Giratina leads her through tunnel after tunnel, clearly reluctant to pause and let her catch her breath or stretch out the painful stitch in her side. When he does finally slow to a stop, Nia takes the break gratefully, gasping for air as she rests her hands on her knees.

“W-What is it?”

Giratina doesn’t answer her, looking off into the distance and narrowing his eyes, as if hearing something. Then he flickers out of sight entirely.

Nia yelps. “Giratina?”

Nothing. She’s alone again.

She looks around uneasily, suddenly back on-guard. Was he leading her into a trap? She knows she shouldn’t trust him but she doesn’t exactly have a lot of options right now. Should she go back the way she came? Keep moving forward?

Nia bites her lip. Then, almost hearing Tobias scolding her for trusting too easily, she tentatively continues forward in the direction Giratina had been leading her. She jogs lightly, trying to keep her ears open and her body ready.

To her relief, while she occasionally feels and hears the steelix roaming around, he doesn't comes barreling her way again.

Still, she slows to a stop when she hears something new and out of place. A faint tap-tap, tap-tap. Like a gallop. The steps sound too sharp to be Eddy or Tobias’ softer feet, more like…hooves?

Samir!

Nia runs forward again. She bounds around the next corner and sure enough, nearly slams right into the skiddo.

“Samir!” She cries, thrilled to see at least one of her friends unharmed.

The grass type is clearly relieved to see her too, posture relaxing even as they pant hard to catch their breath. Giratina flickers back into sight beside both of them. Samir jumps, but otherwise looks a little too familiar with the presence for this to be the first time they’ve ran into one another.

Nia blinks, looking between the two. “Was he…guiding you too?” That would explain why he disappeared on her.

Samir nods, looking warily at the legendary. Giratina stares down at the both of them, impassive.

Huh. Another point for Giratina not being a total jerk, then. Good to know.

Another rumble sounds off in the distance, and everyone tenses, looking down the tunnels. When the vibrations settle, Giratina catches their attention with a jerk of his head, gesturing back the way Samir had come from.

“Can you lead us to Tobias?” Nia asks.

Giratina nods, then zips away. Nia and Samir exchange a look and follow as fast as their legs can carry them, since they don’t really have the time to mistrust Giratina right now.

Nia can’t tell the tunnels apart at all, so all she can do is follow and hope Giratina is leading them in the right direction. They all look the same to her: rosy red light like a warning sign and flashes of reflections set into rocky walls and soil. She thinks there might be a slight incline to the path now, making the burn in her legs more pronounced, but she can’t be sure. All she knows is the constant rhythm of her panting breaths, the pain in her lungs, the tingling exhaustion in her legs, and the sound of her and Samir’s footfalls.

Finally, she hears a distant sound. She can’t pinpoint what it is right away, but it isn’t the rumble of the steelix. It almost sounds like…battling. The faint noise of attacks being used.

Nia’s heart jumps hopefully. She follows the sound to the tunnel’s end, where it opens up to the same large cavern where they first saw Eddy with the steelix. Inside, a familiar flash of fire catches her eye immediately.

Tobias is fighting Eddy, barely dodging the otter's weapon: a shell acting like a hilt for a short blade of bright blue water. Tobias is breathing hard, clearly scuffed up. Blood runs down his leg where the wound he’d gotten on the way to Asra has been reopened, but he’s still keeping Eddy on his toes. Considering the charmander is fighting an older, more experienced water type all on his own, he’s doing considerably well.

Still, Tobias' fierce expression and tense shoulders drop when he glances their way, clearly relieved to see them too.

Eddy looks much less pleased. He spits blood into the dirt, lip curling to bare sharp teeth. “You’re kidding me. He didn’t get either of you? That useless lump of steel—“

Tobias cuts him off by smacking him in the face with his tail. He follows up with a one-two swipe of metallic claws.

Samir bounds into action, beelining for Eddy. They swing their head forward as they run, launching razor-sharp leaves at the water type. Eddy flinches and hisses as they hit their mark.

Nia follows right behind. As physically tired as she is, she’s glad she hasn’t used much aura today. She draws on that energy, forming an aura staff between her paws. She slips behind Eddy and sweeps her weapon low to catch his feet. He stumbles but doesn’t go down, sending a spare water attack behind him that nips Nia’s side and sends her skittering back.

Tobias takes the distraction, lunging forward to slash at Eddy again with his claws. The otter grunts with pain, but kicks Tobias away.

Samir shoots forward to take the charmander’s place, lowering their head to tackle the water type directly in the gut. Nia hears the wind whoosh from Eddy’s lungs. The otter doubles over, the bright blue water around his shell falling to the dirt with a splash.

Nia takes the opening. She hauls her staff back like a baseball bat before slamming the otter in the back. Eddy staggers forward from the blow.

Tobias jumps in next, knocking the otter’s shell from his grasp and slamming him with his tail on the backstep.

Samir finishes it, locking their legs and launching a volley of razor leaves at Eddy. The water type covers his face, trying to stand his ground as they rip at his skin. But as soon as the bright green glow of the attack fades, Eddy falls onto his front and lies still.

For a moment, the three of them stare down at their opponent, attack stances still in place.

When Eddy still doesn’t move, Tobias finally inches forward. He uses a foot to roll the otter over. Eddy groans, still alive but clearly down for the count.

Nia relaxes, and shares a triumphant grin with Tobias and Samir.

It’s Giratina, flickering into view on the far wall and flaring his wings to catch her attention, that makes Nia take notice of the slight vibrations under her feet.

Right. They’re not done here yet.

The now-familiar shaking of the earth picks up as the steelix approaches, making all of them crouch to stay on their feet. Tobias in particular looks pained by the motion. They don't have the time to make a run for it, Nia knows. Not if the steelix is this close.

Nia takes a deep breath and tries to reign in her fear. They’re together again, and they already defeated Eddy. The steelix is a terrifying foe, but together they should be able to figure something out.

She looks to the tunnel her and Samir arrived from, hoping that the steelix won’t appear from underground or something. Luckily, she catches a distant glimpse of silver as the steelix rounds the far bend, metal flashing in the warm glow of the crystals.

Unluckily, the steelix barreling towards them looks furious, segments churning as he charges forward with the speed of a semi. He ducks his head as he enters the cavern, and Nia suddenly realizes that he’s not slowing down. They won’t be fast enough to dodge that. Tobias especially. They're going to be smashed like bugs on a windshield.

She feels like she’s back in Ghatha, watching that wreckage come hurtling down to bury her and Junie. She has the distant feeling she's looking death in the face, and something in her desperately wants to cower in terror.

But her aura saved them last time, right?

Nia shoves herself in front of Tobias and Samir. She braces her feet and grits her teeth and hopes that her self-preservation instincts will be enough to trigger—

Blue filters across her vision. Just quick enough for the steelix to crash headfirst into her shield like a train against a mountain.

Nia’s shield breaks. She cries out as a horrible pain lances through her head, vision spotting and quickly going black. Her legs buckle beneath her, and she barely registers a pair of warm arms catching her.

It feels like an instant later that Nia starts to regain consciousness. She catches flashes of sensation as she comes back to herself, trying to work through the cotton-like pain stuffed inside her skull. Tobias’ muffled voice is saying something near her, tone sharp and worried. The leafy scent of Samir has drifted away. The earth jolts in short, harsh movements, like a giant is wrestling nearby.

Nia tries to pry her eyes open, squinting against the rosy light. The ringing pain in her skull has died down, and clearer sound starts to filter back in. Tobias, yelling something. The angry snarls of the steelix. The crumbling and cracking of stone and earth. Samir’s quick hoofsteps.

Nia finally looks up. She’s been shuffled back to sit against the cave wall. Tobias is running defense from a few paces in front of her while he and Samir battle against the steelix.

Samir is using nimble leaps to weave over and under the steelix’s flailing weapon of a tail. Occasionally they even leap off the side of the cave or the steelix itself, sure-footed and nimble as they shoot off razor leaf attacks between strides.

Tobias has stayed closer by, probably in case the steelix tried to take her out while she was incapacitated. He yells distracting insults at the steelix, occasionally shooting bursts of flame that make the giant flinch.

Both types of attacks seem to be dealing heavy damage to the steelix. Tobias’ fire even makes the serpent’s metallic hide glow like molten metal when he lands a direct hit. The outlaw is definitely a steel type Pokemon, but what else could he be? Rock? Ground, maybe?

Either way, fighting type moves would be super-effective if Nia could just use them.

Nia grits her teeth and rises to wobbly feet. She has to help. Even if she can’t use many moves, she still can’t let them handle this guy alone. He’s twenty times their size and willing to kill. If he gets in one good hit they’re done for.

While she steadies her spotty vision, Nia scans the walls for a sign of Giratina. Surely he wouldn’t abandon them now, right? Even if he can’t do anything, surely he’d stick around to see their fates?

She realizes then that most of the mirrorstone in this cavern—the largest chunks at least—have been cracked by the steelix’s rampage. Nia thinks she sees fragmented glimpses of black and gold and gray flitting between stones, but it’s hard to tell what Giratina is doing or thinking.

Nia’s attention jumps back to the fight as the steelix lunges for Tobias, snapping blocky jaws down with enough force to crush a car. Tobias barely steps back in time. He lashes out with his claws in retaliation and scratches the steelix right below the eye.

Nia doesn’t expect the weak move to do much, but the steelix roars, clearly pained, as he rears back. Tobias falters, clearly as confused as she feels. It’s not until the steelix’s face tilts down again, his left eye squeezed shut and furrowed with pain, that Nia thinks she understands.

The steelix’s scar. The long, deep furrow cutting through his face like a canyon must be more vulnerable than the rest of his steely hide.

“His scar!” Nia calls, still trying to gather herself enough to push away from the wall and help. “I think it’s a weak point!”

Tobias and Samir look back at her, clearly surprised that she’s up. But then Samir nods, shooting off another razor leaf attack to get the steelix’s attention. Tobias follows them now that Nia is conscious, attacking the opposite side with his fire to keep the beast busy.

Nia takes a deep breath and stumbles away from the wall. She needs to get in there and help somehow. She can feel her aura settling again, even if it’s nearly depleted after using protect. The ache in her skull has died down, at least.

Nia staggers forward, pulling her hands apart to form her aura into a staff. She manages to get it nearly full-sized, solid and thrumming with quiet energy. Good.

While the steelix is distracted, Nia runs forward and hauls her staff back in a batter’s swing, then slams her aura into the steelix’s side with all her strength.

Her aura splinters out of existence beneath her palms. The steelix doesn’t even seem to notice her, too busy chasing down Samir and Tobias.

Nia steps back, heart dropping. That did nothing. She should’ve guessed as much—a normal type move like that, without any fighting type energy behind it? No way that would even leave a scratch on a metallic tank like this.

She’s useless in this fight.

Nia steps back and looks around, desperate to help.

She’s watching at just the right time to see Samir slip. The skiddo is bouncing off the wall to give themself some height, when a chunk of stone gives way under their hoof. Nia sees their eyes widen. Sees the sudden loss of grace as they scramble to catch themselves.

She also sees the steelix notice, a nasty grin spreading across his face. He turns, heavy tail swinging around like a wrecking ball, and slams it into Samir. The hit sends the little goat flying across the cavern.

Samir hits the far wall hard enough to send cracks webbing outward, then drops lifelessly to the dirt. They don’t get back up again, and Nia can’t tell if they’re still breathing from this far away. She stares at them, willing them to get back up. To be okay. She feels numb, suddenly, caught between terror and nausea and—

"Nia!" Tobias yells.

She snaps to attention, just in time to drop and flatten herself to the ground. The steelix’s tail swings by right overhead, a wind buffeting her from the momentum.

Shaking, Nia sits up. She looks to Tobias, only to see the charmander trying to inch his way around the cavern to Samir. He’s still dodging and attacking, but he keeps glancing towards the downed skiddo.

The steelix roars and slams his tail into the earth, but Nia can tell that this motion is different than before. She senses something—move energy, maybe. The dirt fissures in a line, shooting under Tobias’ feet like lightning. It continues past him and up the wall of the cavern.

A sickening crack is the only warning before the wall behind Tobias shifts and buckles. A wave of rock and dirt slides down quick as an avalanche. Nia sees Tobias go pale. Then the wave swallows him whole, burying him alive in a mountain of earth.

“Tobias!” Nia shrieks.

Before she can even think—can even doubt or hope or grieve or try to help either of her friends—the steelix turns to her. He’s not smiling, but there’s something satisfied in his expression that feels even worse. Like he’s an exterminator wiping out pesky vermin.

And Nia, with nothing but normal type energy to her name, is left alone to fight him.

Terror and grief makes her stumble back. Her attack earlier did nothing, and she’s sure that a quick attack would be equally unhelpful. She can feel her chest squeeze with panic.

Her teary gaze flicks to the nearest wall, to Giratina scattered and broken in abstract bits, but the legendary seems equally frazzled, moving in erratic movements. He almost looks like he’s trying to ram his way through the reflections, to no avail.

Somehow, that only makes her feel worse.

The steelix lunges for her, and Nia dives under his head to dodge. Panicked, she finds her aura and pumps it into her paw, lashing up with a desperate, sloppy punch mimicking Val’s power-packed moves.

(Wait—mimic?)

But her move bounces harmlessly off the steelix’s hard coat, and her fist blooms with a painful bruise from the hit. Nia bites back a cry and scrabbles out from under the steelix before she’s smushed.

Mimic. Right! She’s been trying to learn mimic. If she could just use one of Tobias’ fire type moves, or Samir’s razor leaf, she might have a chance.

The steelix swings his tail at her, gouging a furrow into the dirt. She nearly trips running out of the way. Then, panting, Nia scrambles over to Samir. The goat is still unnervingly still, but when Nia gets closer she can see the faint rise and fall of their side.

Oh, thank God.

Nia couldn’t figure out how to use mimic on a good day, let alone in the heat of a life-threatening battle. She hasn't even really asked Val how to do it yet, but it’s the only thing she can think of. She’s desperate.

Nia puts her hand on Samir’s leafy mane, where his razor leaf attack seemed to come from. Then, with no better idea of how she could even go about “borrowing” a move, she shoots her aura down her arm until it brushes against Samir’s.

Samir’s aura is…silver. She doesn’t try to look, really, but it flashes into her mind before she thinks to look away. Their soul is silver like steel, ironically. Solid and unyielding. Silver like a mirror, reflective and quiet. Silver like a sword and shield, sharp but protective, hard and seemingly cold. But steel makes tools, steel means safety and strength and durability and—

Focus, Nia! You’re not here to read Samir’s soul. You’re here to grab the last move they used, their razor leaf attack.

…Except Nia has no idea how to do that. Does it even have anything to do with the skiddo’s aura? Surely it does since aura is the basis for move energy, but how can she mold her own aura to match it? How can she even single out an attack from who Samir is, from the lifeblood running through them?

Nia realizes with a pang that she can’t. She simply doesn’t know how. And her instincts as a riolu are apparently not enough to learn on the spot.

Nia’s eyes snap open, breath catching as she sees the steelix’s tail bearing down on them again. Nia loops her arms around Samir’s body and lunges as far as possible.

The steelix’s tail slams down not a foot away from both of them, making their bodies jump off the ground. The attack leaves an indent like a trench in the dirt, and Nia’s heart jumps into her throat.

She needs to move this fight away from here. Samir and Tobias are unconscious, and the steelix is after her now. Her partners are in the line of fire as long as the fight continues in this cavern.

Nia shoves away from Samir and bolts for the nearest opening, the one leading down into the tunnel system. She hears the steelix let out a booming laugh far behind her. She’s confused until she realizes he must think she’s trying to run.

For the first time since this fight started, she feels angry rather than afraid. He thinks this is funny? Thinks it’s hilarious to bury her partner alive and slam Samir into the wall like a doll? Thinks it's funny to hurt them, terrorize them, endanger the whole town?

It feels easier to think, suddenly, with her terror sharpening to fury. She understands why Tobias chooses anger now, instead of losing himself to despair. It feels more like she's in control. Like she can use this fire under her skin.

The rumble of the steelix following her into the tunnels makes her stumble. She picks herself up and runs harder, gasping for breath. Giratina flickers into view at her side, whole again.

When Nia reaches the first fork in the path, she hesitates. She just—she needs a second to breathe. To think. She needs a plan. Her lungs are on fire and she tastes metal in her mouth. Her emotions are a frayed knot of fear and grief and anger. But that doesn’t mean anything to the creature trying to kill her.

The shaking of the earth grows stronger, almost shaking her off her feet. On a whim, Nia staggers down the right path and around the bend until she can hunker down against the wall.

All she’s working with at this point is luck. Hoping that by pure chance, the steelix won’t pick this path. That’s what their lives are depending on.

Luckily, some kind of deity must decide that her fortune has been bad enough today, because she feels and hears the steelix rumble down the left path, his movements slowly fading away.

Nia breathes out a shuddery breath, sliding down the wall to the ground. That stroke of luck bought her a minute, maybe, before he turns around. She has to think.

She has to get them all out of here, but even if she turns around now, grabs Samir, and manages to haul the two of them up the ladder and to safety before the steelix can stop her (which is unlikely), she’s not just going to leave Tobias down here, buried under a mountain of rubble.

Giratina flickers into view across the tunnel. Nia looks up at him as she slows her breathing, knowing her emotions are clear as day on her face.

Giratina looks irritated.

And Nia feels angry in return.

“What?!” She hisses, careful to keep her voice down. “You have some great idea?! It’s a little hard to feel optimistic when I have no way to fight that thing!”

Giratina’s eyes narrow, moving around as if trying to think of something. Finally, they settle on the satchel still looped over her shoulder.

Nia, teetering violently between despair and fury, rips it off and throws it down. She yanks it open and turns it over so their meager collection of items spill out.

“There’s nothing here!" She says, voice breaking. She swallows hard and gestures at the mess. “What? What’s going to miraculously beat him for us? Berries? Half a flask of water? Badges that won’t even work? Blast seeds?“

Nia pauses, panting, and stares at the unassuming little yellow seeds sitting on the ground. The ones they’d gotten as a reward from their last client.

“Blast seeds,” she breathes.

With something like hope blossoming in her chest, Nia stuffs the rest of their items back into the satchel and pulls it back over her shoulder. Then, delicately, as if handling precious jewels, she scoops the little seeds into her hands. There are only three of them, small and unassuming. But she recalls Tobias’ words about them.

If she ate one, it would give her a short burst of flames to attack with, even without any move energy. And that would hurt even the steelix, right?

But there are only three. And even if they’re strong, what if they’re still not strong enough? Tobias’ flames clearly hurt the steelix earlier, left his hard hide soft as molten metal. But she needs a surefire way to take him down for good. A weak point, maybe—

A weak point exactly like that scar of his.

Nia laughs a wet, weak laugh, and wipes at her eyes. A plan is unfolding in her mind, and she can only desperately hope she can pull it off.

The steelix’s rumbling had faded away, but it’s starting to strengthen again as he returns. Nia gives Giratina a nod of thanks before hurrying back to the main cavern where Tobias, Samir, and Eddy are lying unconscious.

When she arrives, none of them have moved. That’s worrying on its own, but Nia doesn’t have time to fret over them, not until the steelix is dealt with.

Nia puts two of the blast seeds back in the satchel. The third she clutches in her paw, before moving to stand off to the side of the cave entrance.

Then, she waits.

The steelix rumbles back to the fork in the path, his cursing audible even from where she is. She hears him check out the other cave, but he doesn’t go far before turning around. He moves closer and closer to where she is, the ground shaking under her feet while she clings to the wall for stability.

Nia holds the blast seed up to her mouth. As soon as that giant silver face emerges from the cavern, she takes a note from Tobias' book and shouts, “Hey, ugly!”

The steelix’s head swings around to look at her.

Nia cracks the blast seed between her teeth, swallowing.

And immediately she feels an unfamiliar flare of energy erupt in her stomach, hot and powerful. It pushes up into her throat and out through her mouth and—

The explosive blast of fire nearly blinds her. But the pained roar of the steelix tells her she hit her target head-on.

A great thrashing follows. She feels more than sees the steelix’s tail swing dangerously close to her head as he roars with pain. Coughing up smoke and an unfamiliar sense of heat in her airways, Nia stumbles away from the blast zone. She blinks hard, squinting, until she can see the steelix writhing on the ground, churning up the dirt. The left side of his face is glowing white-hot with lingering heat.

Nia feels a thrill of victory, but hurriedly pulls out the second blast seed. Without giving the steelix time to recover, she runs straight at his face and cracks the second blast seed between her teeth.

He must hear her coming, because he pulls away just in time, dodging the majority of the seed’s explosion as he twists upright. Wavering, but once again stories above her head.

Nia curses, biting back a stab of panic. Only one seed left. She can’t afford to mess up with this one, and since he’s upright again, she’s going to need some leverage to use it.

Nia picks up a nearby rock loosened by the hubbub and launches it at his side. It pings uselessly against his armored body, but catches his attention. He squints down at her, clearly still blinking the explosions out of his vision and battling the pain.

Nia sticks her tongue out at him, then turns tail and sprints for the first cave, where the rope ladder leading outside hangs.

The steelix follows, slamming into walls in his dazed state and making it even harder for her to stay on her feet. She stumbles, but manages to stay ahead of him until she hits the cave. The bottom of the rope ladder is just visible in the little alcove off to the side. Nia ducks inside and jumps onto the rope ladder just in time.

The steelix slams into the wall separating the little space from the main cavern. The vertical tunnel around her shakes, and dirt powders her fur like snow.

Nia climbs higher, up and up as the steelix batters the wall with mindless fury. He must think she’s trying to escape. The rope ladder swings slightly under the onslaught. The wall behind her cracks ominously under the steelix’s weight.

Finally, Nia thinks she’s high enough. She turns around, facing the wall and the steelix behind it. She rummages in her satchel until she finds the last blast seed, then places it between her teeth.

The steelix is still roaring, slamming into the wall of the alcove over and over again. Nia clings to the rope ladder, locking her arms and praying this will work.

Finally, the layer of rock between the two of them begins to crack and crumble. It falls away in noisy chunks that plummet to the ground far below. The steelix’s face becomes visible, right at her level. He tears away the last chunk of rock between them, looking like a frenzied animal after its prey. Once she’s in sight, mere feet away from his giant maw, he goes for her.

And Nia swallows the blast seed.

Like the two times before, the seed immediately erupts. Flames explode in a cloud of biting heat. The steelix’s agonized roar only barely registers over the ringing in her ears. She remembers to close her eyes this time.

When she opens them, her heart skips a beat. The steelix is still upright. Rearing back with his face a molten hue, clearly hurting, but not unconscious.

One more final push. That’s all she needs. The heat should’ve softened the metal a bit, so—

Nia snaps her arm out and summons a staff of aura, feeling her reserves run low. Then, she pushes off the back wall of the alcove and leaps. For an instant, she feels like she’s flying. It’d be enjoyable if she weren’t flinging herself directly at the mouth of a monster.

Then she swings her aura staff up, and brings it down with all the strength left in her body.

The makeshift weapon hits true. It meets the softened split of the steelix’s scar with a crack like a gunshot. Nia isn’t sure if the sound is from the force of the blow, from the steelix’s shell splitting open further, or from her aura snapping to pieces in her hands.

Whatever it is, it seems to be enough.

The steelix doesn’t roar, or cry out, or rear back. Instead, he drops. Nia, who had landed on his head, struggles to hang on to the metal surface as the huge Pokemon topples. When he hits the ground, the earth itself shakes, throwing up a plume of dirt and dust that has Nia hacking.

An unnerving quiet falls over the cavern. The only sounds are her panting breaths, the quiet settling of dirt and earth, and the heavy puffs of the steelix passed out like a derailed train below her.

Giratina flickers into view off to the side, looking solemn as ever. He meets her eyes, then flicks his head back the way they came, to the other cavern.

She feels a cocktail of emotions building in her chest, but tries to stuff them away. At least for now. Relief and exhaustion make her limbs feel like jelly, but she’s not done yet. She has to get to her friends.

Nia slides down the hulking mass of the steelix. She staggers through the cavern, still coughing up smoke. She feels like her throat has first degree burns.

Finally, she finally makes it back to the cavern where Tobias, Samir, and Eddy lie knocked out.

She’s relieved to see Samir is waking up, dragging themself into a sitting position. They’re grimacing, one eye squeezed shut with pain, but they look coordinated enough.

“Samir!” She gasps, hurrying to their side.

The skiddo jumps, looking first at her, then around the cavern. Their anxious expression melts into confusion.

“The steelix is down,” Nia says, kneeling at the skiddo’s side and peering into their eyes to see if they have a concussion or anything. She doesn’t even know what she’s supposed to be looking for. “How do you feel?”

Samir blinks at her, clearly bewildered by the easy dismissal. Their gaze flicks over Nia’s shoulder, as if not quite believing her.

“I’ll tell you later,” she says, too tired to deal with this right now. “Seriously, are you okay? You got thrown into a wall and I thought…”

Samir must hear the way her throat closes up, because they finally soften and focus on Nia’s questions. Hesitantly, they nod. Their eyes flick down Nia’s form as they tilt their head with a furrowed brow.

“I-I think I’m okay?” Nia answers. She stumbles back to her feet, helping Samir up after. “But we need to find Tobias.”

Samir’s eyes widen. The skiddo went down first so they’re probably wanting to know what exactly happened, but Nia doesn’t have time to explain. Now that her adrenaline is fading, the fear is returning tenfold.

She really, really hopes Tobias is okay.

“This way,” she says, hurrying as fast as she can to the mountain of earth and rock that buried the charmander. The closer she gets, the more her distant panic surfaces.

This is…a huge mountain of dirt and rock. And while she saw Tobias get buried, she’d been too focused on his face to notice where exactly he would end up by the end of it. But she needs to get him out of there. What if he’s seriously hurt? What if he’s—

Fear spiking, Nia kneels in the dirt at a random spot and starts digging with her hands. She was hoping it would be easy to move, but the rocks and chunks of earth make it painful and clunky to handle, and the clay-like soil sticks everything together.

Nia feels her eyes sting with tears. She digs harder. Faster. Samir tugs on her satchel, but she doesn’t stop to look at them.

She doesn’t know where Tobias is. What if he dies because she can’t find him? What if he’s suffocating?

Her eyes blur with tears as she chokes. Desperately, Nia looks up at the nearest cave wall to find Giratina. The titan is still there, fragmented and a bit hard to see in the broken chunks of mirrorstone. He shakes his head. Nia isn’t sure if that means that he didn’t see where Tobias ended up either, or—

Samir is tugging at Nia’s satchel with their teeth again, hard enough to disrupt her work.

She finally turns to them, snapping, “What?!”

Samir looks concerned, but their gaze darts nervously to where Eddy is lying on the ground across the cave. They jerk their head towards the tunnel leading out of here.

Nia shoves the goat away, panic making her movements and words sharper than usual. “I’m not leaving him down here! W-What if he’s suffocating?!”

The thought only makes everything worse, and Nia’s breath hitches with a sob as she gets up, skittering around the cave-in, pawing small handfuls of rubble free before moving again to a new spot. Where is he? Where is he?!

Samir doesn’t argue again. Just staggers over to her side and starts trying to dig with their own hooves. After only a few seconds they stop, looking over at her with clear conflicted feelings.

She knows. She knows. It’s going to be impossible to find the charmander in this mess since neither of them know exactly where Tobias is. But she can’t just leave him down here! What if he dies because they take too long to get help digging him out? What if Eddy or the steelix wake up and find him first? What if the whole tunnel system caves in?

Nia is crying openly now. She ignores the pain of rocks and dirt straining and scraping at her desperate hands. She can hardly see in front of her through her tears, and swipes a frustrated, dirty arm across her face.

She can’t let Tobias die here. He’s her partner! Her friend! She can’t just let him go!

A small flash from her chest startles her and Samir alike. Nia sniffles, looking down at herself. She’s not surprised to find her body outlined with blue, the tired remnants of her aura manifesting with her rising emotions. Another spark flashes off her body.

Frustrated, she takes a moment to ball her fists against her temples and shriek into her inner arms. She supposedly has this great power, this ability to use her energy like no other species of Pokemon, and still she’s useless when people really need her.

Would one of her moves help if she could actually use them? She feels as powerless as she did in that fire in Ghatha. Or in the fight against the seviper. Or when she was grabbed by Giratina. When she was first transported to this world, scared out of her wits. When her and Tobias were trying to find that tropius calf, trying to see an enemy ambushing them from beneath the earth and Nia had tried and failed to—

Nia’s breath catches, tears and snot and grief making her cough. But wait, wait. That time in the cave dungeon, she’d tried something with her aura. Tried to find that burrowing enemy by sending out a pulse of her aura, like radar.

She didn’t even get close to succeeding then. And she hasn’t tried anything like it since. Her attempt at using mimic earlier was a total failure. But…

What other option does she have?

Nia’s aura flares, making her flinch as it pulses through her like a rush of energy. Nearby pebbles rattle and roll away. Distantly, she registers Samir stepping back out of the corner of her eye.

This is dangerous. She can’t control this yet. She could make the rock slide worse, could unsettle the precarious stability of the earth. They could all be buried alive.

But if she does nothing, Tobias could die. And it’s worth the risk if it might save him.

“Samir, step back,” Nia whispers, widening the arms she has braced against the dirt and rock. She hears the skiddo follow her order without complaint, scrabbling away.

Then, Nia takes a deep, shuddering breath. Tries to imagine her aura coursing through her body. Tries to remember what Val told her, long ago, about casting her aura out not as a solid stream, but as a veil. A wave.

Her first attempt erupts from her hands with an earth-rumbling burst. Nia flinches, gritting her teeth. Too strong. Too much, all at once.

She tries to slow the flow of her aura, less like a faucet full-blast, and more like barely nudging it on. Lets her aura trickle out at a much smaller, much steadier pace.

Like this, it’s easier to control how the aura disperses. She can hold the contents of that gentle flow, then scatter it like water drops from cupped hands. Like a fine mist, rather than a stream.

She tries it. The energy disperses, and for a moment Nia fears nothing has happened. Did she still not get it right? Val said she should be able to sense any aura hers bumps into.

Could Tobias already be..?

Nia whimpers and tries the technique again, struggling to keep her emotions from getting out of control. She can’t let them get out of control. She has to do this. She has to help Tobias!

She just…she just wants him to be safe.

The second try is better than the first one. Less a net with gaping holes in it and more a…pulse. A wave, gently passing through the earth beneath her.

For an instant, there’s nothing.

Then, a new color flashes in her mind, there and gone in an instant. Red. Not the bright blood red of Xander or their scarves, but a deep, maroon red.

Nia’s breath catches.

“Tobias..?” She murmurs. Desperately, she sends out another pulse. The second time her aura brushes against another’s makes her choke out a sob.

There’s life there. And despite the fact that Nia has never seen Tobias’ aura before, despite the fact that she’s trying not to look too deeply into it, she knows it’s him. She can feel it’s him, almost as clearly as she knows her own soul.

And he’s still alive.

Nia sends another pulse of aura into the earth, hands shaking. Then another. Tries to pinpoint with her aura exactly where he is in this mess of rubble. It’s hard, when she isn’t familiar navigating this disconnected part of herself. But after a few more times, it starts to make sense. It’s like…sonar. Like a radar. Like a beacon.

“I found him,” she says, breathless. Her heart pounds in her ears. Her eyes snap open, blue still outlining the edges of her vision, and she slides clumsily down from the top of the rubble.

Samir trots to her side, wide-eyed but looking to her for direction. Nia hurries to the edge of the debris, biting her lip and sending another pulse of aura into the pile. She swallows down a cry when she “sees” that same flash of red, only a few feet forward.

“Here,” she says, getting to work. “Just ahead!”

Samir nods, then immediately joins her in digging. After a minute or two, Nia’s bloodied hands have made a sizeable dent in the earth. Samir has adjusted their strategy to start moving the discarded dirt further away, and they stabilize the gap Nia is creating. Nia wants to use her aura and blast the rubble away, or ask Samir to use one of their own attacks, but she knows they risk hurting Tobias if they do.

Still, it seems like it takes forever to dig deeper and deeper into the loose rock and earth. Nia sends the occasional pulse of aura out to make sure they’re still on the right track.

Finally, Nia pulls away a small slab of rock to reveal a dusty orange arm.

“Tobias!” She gasps, fresh tears flooding her eyes. She frantically digs more, using her aura to help fling away the larger chunks.

Once they uncover half of Tobias’ body, Samir helps to drag him free completely, trying to be mindful of any injuries.

The charmander's face is bruised and slack, eyes closed, but his tail flame is like a breath of fresh air. Small, but bright.

Nia gathers him into her lap, hugging his warm body close. She knew he was her friend, she knew she cared about him, but she didn’t realize how much the thought of losing him hurt until she nearly did.

“Gh…Nia?”

The throaty whisper makes Nia pull back, looking down at Tobias through a blurry watercolor of tears.

He squints up at her, wincing and lifting a hand to his head. “What happened? Feels like I got hit by a mountain.”

“More or less,” Nia says, voice aiming for joking but coming out strangled.

Tobias blinks up at her, frowning, probably about to ask more questions, but Nia can’t resist. She leans down and wraps him up in another tight hug, crying into his dusty scarf.

“N-Nia! Hey!”

“Are you okay?” She asks.

“I think so? What—“

That’s all Nia needed to hear. She ignores Tobias weak protests and flailing limbs, hugging him tighter. After a few moments, he seems to give in, grumbling something and letting his arms fall heavily around her back.

Samir is the one to interrupt the emotional reunion. They tug at Nia’s scarf, tied around her bicep. When she looks up, wiping at her eyes, the goat gives her an apologetic but nervous look, glancing once again at Eddy. The otter Pokemon is still knocked out for now, but Nia heard him groan earlier. He could wake up at any moment, and none of them are in any condition to fight.

“R-Right. We need to get out of here and grab Calder.”

Samir nods, helping Nia to her feet. Then they lean into Tobias’ other side to force the charmander to use them as a crutch.

“‘M up, I’m up,” Tobias grumbles half-heartedly. Nia can tell he’s exhausted by how little he protests their help.

“Let’s go,” she says, looping his free arm over her shoulder.

Slowly, the three of them hobble past Eddy, back through the tunnel and into the first cave with the rope ladder. Both Tobias and Samir stop sharply when they see the downed steelix surrounded by rubble.

“How..?” Tobias chokes. She feels him turn his head to look at her. “Did you—“

“Later,” Nia insists, too on-edge to feel flustered.

When they finally make it to the ladder, Nia has to spend a full minute convincing Samir to go first. She knows they’re the slowest climber, that’s why she wants them to go first! She doesn’t want to have to worry about accidentally leaving them behind.

The skiddo looks bitter at that, but finally acquiesces when Nia gives them a pleading look and reminds them that it’s really not a good time to be arguing.

Nia sends Tobias up between them, to give the charmander someone to follow but to allow her to try to catch him if he slips. She can tell that almost starts another argument, but Samir, thank God, starts climbing and Nia puts on her I’m Serious About This face so Tobias finally starts climbing himself. Slower than Nia would like, but it’ll have to do. Nia shoots nervous glances over her shoulder at the steelix and towards the tunnel where Eddy lies unconscious.

When Tobias’ tail flame is high up in the tunnel, he calls down, “Nia!”

“Coming!” She whisper-yells back, finally scrambling after the two of them. Her tense muscles are sore and heavy with exhaustion, but she doesn’t think she’s ever climbed so fast in her life, leftover terror giving her energy.

She catches up to Tobias just as Samir is hauling him over the edge and into the surface cave of the old mine. When she’s out too, Nia takes a moment to catch her breath. Tobias looks seconds away from passing out, and Nia is tempted to let him, but…

Samir tap-taps in the dirt. They jerk their head towards the mouth of the tunnel, in the direction of Asra. Their brown eyes are tired and sympathetic, but unyielding.

“I know, I know,” Nia groans, pushing herself to her feet. Tobias hisses a weak protest when she drags him up too, slinging his arm over her shoulders again.

Slowly, the three of them trudge back to the opening of the cave. Nia sees the dim gray light of early morning, dawn just starting to touch the horizon, and tears flood her eyes again. The cold desert breeze brushing against her face is the sweetest air she’s ever tasted.

When they step outside, Nia can see the vague mass of Fort Asra in the distance, and she wants to cry for another reason entirely. It’s so, so far. She’s not sure they can actually make it.

A quiet sound behind Nia makes her instincts jolt. She sees Samir tense at the same time, ears swiveling back.

Nia spins, Tobias stumbling without her support. But she’s just in time to put up a weak screen of aura, a poor imitation of her earlier protect.

Bright blue slices of water hammer against her shield, cracking it. Nia grunts and stumbles back from the blow. Tobias catches her, nearly falling himself. Samir steps in front of both of them.

Eddy is at the mouth of the cave, leaning heavily against the wall. He sneers at them with bared, bloody teeth and wild eyes. If they were at full strength, Nia is sure they would be able to handle him as easily as they did earlier. But after that Steelix..?

Nia can barely get her legs under her again. She and Tobias are holding each other up like a wobbly tower of cards. Samir’s legs are visibly trembling with fatigue.

Eddy snarls, lunging forward with his shells drawn. Nia tenses, and she sees Samir do the same.

A familiar jet of water shoots past her shoulder, slamming into Eddy and sniping him out of the air.

Nia blinks, then whips her head around to see none other than Calder rushing up to them. Behind the inteleon, Nia is even more surprised to see Takeo and Granite hauling themselves up the rocks.

“Calder?” She asks, bewildered. She must be hallucinating.

But the inteleon runs past them without a word, tackling Eddy to the dirt and pinning him easily. The dewott snarls but can barely put up a fight.

A light touch to Nia’s back makes her jump, but when she looks it’s just Granite, reaching out with his trunk to get her attention. The donphan scans her and then Tobias with serious eyes.

“You three all right?”

Tobias snorts weakly into her neck, clearly thinking a sarcastic retort but too fatigued to verbalize it.

“Tired,” Nia manages.

Granite nods. “I’m guessing ol’ Ed here was up to no good to have you three looking like that?”

“Caused the quakes,” Tobias says, words half-slurred as he struggles to stay conscious.

Takeo, who had crouched in front of Samir to check them over, matches Granite’s surprised expression. The two of them openly stare at the charmander.

“Eddy can’t use ground moves,” Granite finally says, dumbfounded.

“He's working with an, um…a steelix,” Nia says, struggling to recall the species. “He’s knocked out, but he’s still down there.”

Calder, with Eddy’s unconscious body tucked under his arm like an unruly toddler, steps back over to them. He frowns. “There’s someone else involved?”

Nia waits a beat, before realizing that Tobias is legitimately passing out as they speak and Samir is almost there as well, swaying on their hooves. Not to mention mute.

She rubs at her eyes. “There’s a tunnel leading under the mines. Beneath the mine cart. Leads to a tunnel system. A steelix was causing the quakes. Eddy was making it rain so much to increase the damage.”

Nia can see all the adults taking that in with furrowed brows. Calder’s grip on Eddy grows tighter. Takeo narrows his eyes and glances at the otter with a dark expression. Granite curses under his breath, steadying Tobias when he starts to to tilt.

Finally, Calder nods, handing Eddy off to Takeo. The spidops wordlessly gets to work bundling the smaller Pokemon up with…silk? He skillfully twines it around and around the otter with his long arms weaving like a loom. Nia watches the motion as if in a trance, blinking sluggishly.

“Should we call for backup as soon as we get back?” Granite gruffs.

Calder nods again. “Yes. Send Lara and Cody for sure. We need a sleep powder and a heavy hitter to make sure we can keep the steelix controlled until authorities arrive. Send Jay to the guild. He’ll need to grab some psychics to take these two in.”

Nia barely registers the words of the three Asra ‘mon as she fights to stay standing. Tobias is leaning more and more heavily into her as he slowly slides to the ground. She eventually gives up and goes with him, sitting down in the dirt.

She must start to doze, because she’s woken up by Tobias’ weight being shifted off her shoulder. She looks up, bleary-eyed, to find Takeo securing the unconscious charmander to Granite’s broad back with some of that same silk. A string shot attack, maybe? Samir is already tied down as well, their head up as they fight to stay awake. Their eyes are lidded with exhaustion.

“Wh’re we going?” Nia mumbles.

Takeo effortlessly scoops Nia up to hold her in his arms. She doesn’t have it in her to feel embarrassed about being carried like a child. At least she’s not swaddled up in a cocoon and strapped to the bug type’s back like Eddy is.

“Taking you kids back to town,” Takeo grunts, starting to carefully pick his way down the rocks. Granite follows with a clumsy slide that sends pebbles raining down after him.

Nia blinks up at the slowly-brightening sky framing Takeo’s chin. The air is still cool with night air, but the dawn is turning from gray to blue, clear and lovely.

Her eyes slide to the side, until she catches a glimpse of orange and green atop Granite’s gray back.

“Are they gonna be okay?” She asks.

Takeo hums. “They should be fine. You kids are tough, and smarter than we gave you credit for. Dumber, too.”

Nia huffs something like a laugh as she closes her eyes. She can’t really argue with that.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #riolu #charmander #skiddo #dewott #steelix #giratina #inteleon #donphan #spidops #friend art #friend writing #fanfic rec #cloudicqueue

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whats-a-username · 3 days ago

Text

CSM 193

im gonna be honest i hope part 2 never gets animated because what the fuck

The formatering/grammar will be a lil messy, so sorry abt that!!

Asa likes Denji because of their previous interactions, Yoru likes Denji because she likes pain. To quote her from a few chapters ago,

”Cuz you’re cute when you cry.”

Yoru is influenced by Asa’s feelings, sure, but Yoru’s feelings extend more into the fact she likes to hurt people. She’s a devil after all. She rips Denji’s hands away from his face because seeing him cry is cute to her.

Also, this may seem small, but Yoru telling Denji straight up that Asa likes him is another point to how little Yoru values Asa as a person. Anything Asa does, says or thinks will be used against her. And that is a terrifying thought.

Yoru kisses Denji out of pity, she feels bad and wants to make him happy. But it lacks love, care. It feels forced because in some way, it is. Yoru’s perception of love is so flawed so she resort to assuming and acting on instinct.

This panel destroys me.

Like with Makima in part 1. Denji is in a state of confusion or emotional turmoil and someone uses that. Denji is still a kid, what he wants is love, a connection. He’s crying at the thought of one person still liking him. Compare that to him in early part 2.

Asa wants that too, and honestly their relationship is the biggest tradgedies in part 2. Two teens who found eachother, yet who’s lives were ruined because they were cursed with simply being them.

#csm 193 #csm193 #chainsaw man #chainsaw man manga #csm #csm denji #denji csm #csm yoru #yoru csm #war devil #my thoughts #my rambles #my txt #lets start a yoru hate club i NEED her gone

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kleinv01 · 1 day ago

Note

Hi-hi!

I recently started going through your game and during the 2nd day and I had a question. is the relationship between Sera and Ethan mostly matriarchal? (I'm not sure why I thought that, but it's probably because Ethan is mostly silent(?))

://SYSTEM_MESSAGE_ANSWERED!

yes! Ethan has always been a quieter person and Sera has always preferred taking the lead in their relationship. it's what makes both him and Sera the happiest.

but their relationship is still balanced when it comes to big decision making as they work through those together. Ethan simply loves encouraging Sera and staying by her side, knowing he’s helping her be her best and happiest self

#:// answered.#://about_sera #://about_ethan

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airybcby · 1 hour ago

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જ⁀♡⊹｡° and he keeps a picture of you

( bllk boys x gn! reader )

♡ a/n — been MIA for so long i wanted to write something small ans cute :)

♡ word count — 1k

♡ content — yukimiya kenyu x gn! reader, sae itoshi x gn! reader, alexis ness x gn! reader, rin itoshi x gn! reader, all characters are 18+, just cutieness , engagement (yukimiya), childhood lovers (sae), nickname 'love' used (ness),

♡ synopsis — some bllk boys (yukimiya, sae, ness, rin) and what their phone lock screen is :)

⊹｡° yukimiya kenyu

out of all the boys, yukimiya kenyu is the one most likely to have the cutest picture of the two of you as his background.

everyone gets sick of him bragging about your relationship, just how perfect you are, how sickly sweet you are to him.

yukimiya changes his lock screen every week, and of course he has to show them off to his team.

most of the time, it's a picture of you two holding hands- or you two in matching outfits that yuki had chosen himself.

everyone on his team had gotten tired of him showing off his perfect life and amazing relationship.

while, if you held down long enough, yukimiya's options for a lock screen weren't limited.

one was of you sitting across from him at dinner- a win glass in front of you as you gave him a smile. 'because you look like a dream in this' he'd told you when you asked why that one was his new lock screen of the week.

another of you asleep on his shoulder, a clear patch of drool showing in the picture. 'i wanna wake up to this every morning' he'd justified.

and this weeks lock screen, hm? well, it's his personal favorite.

a photo of you jumping on yukimiya while the two of you are dressed in another set of matching outfits. to anyone else, this may just look like his average screen saver.

but to him, and anyone who looks hard enough, the shiny new ring on your left hand ring finger is a clear sign; yukimiya finally asked you to marry him.

this one wouldn't be changed for a while.

not until he saw you in your wedding outfit.

⊹｡° sae itoshi

everyone of his nosey fans always wonders...what is sae itoshi's lock screen? flashes of it had been shown at press interviews, but no one could figure out what it was.

for a week on social media, fangirls (and guys) were stopping interviews for the tiniest glimpse at his phone. eventually, after coming to the assumption that he was a bland man who simply left it on the default lock screen, the internet calmed down.

and was sae a calm man who usually didn't change things that were fine as is? yes.

but what no one knew, what no one would ever find out, is that sae itoshi had a secret life- one secret from the press and internet- only for him to have and hold.

you.

you had been his girlfriend since he was 14, yet he refused to let the world and its nosiness ruin a perfect thing.

he was careless during the singular press interview, his phone in view- he was just lucky that the quality wasn't the best because then everyone in the world would know; sae itoshi was utterly whipped.

his lock screen, you ask? it's the only one he has set- and he'll never change it.

it's a simple picture of you on the balcony of your shared home, the sunset illuminating you perfectly as you looked over your shoulder at him with the most stunning smile on your face.

sae itoshi wouldn't let the world ruin that smile.

ever.

⊹｡° alexis ness

for the first year you were dating ness, his lock screen was a picture of him and kaiser in their uniforms- their last names stretched across their backs.

was this insane to you? yes. but you knew how much kaiser had changed ness' passion and love for soccer, and that's all you could be grateful for.

so when you grabbed ness' phone one morning to change the playlist while the two of you made breakfast and saw that he changed the background? you almost cried.

was it silly to be so emotional over? sure. but you knew how much kaiser meant to ness- he possibly loved him more than you (joking) (no i'm not)

the picture was so cute and innocent- the lock screen now a picture of you in a magicians get-up with cards in your hand.

you'd done it for ness' birthday, for his love of magic- you'd learned to do a few card tricks and he laughed at you as you tried ( and failed ) to shuffle- the cards flying everywhere.

when he realized the music hadn't changed , ness looked back at you - his pink apron wrapped around him, "everything okay, love?"

yeah.

everything was perfect.

⊹｡° rin itoshi

refused to change his lock screen when you started dating.

he was perfectly fine with the default one, why should be have to change his phone set-up just to prove his love?

in his mind, that was silly.

he loved you more than (almost) anything, except soccer.

let's be serious soccer was a very close second when it came to you, but rin would never admit that- his dream of becoming the best striker and his ego too high to say that.

he didn't understand why people needed their significant other on their lock screen. they'd see them everyday, was one picture really that important?

he thought that until he walked into your shared bedroom one day after a long day and a hard fought win against Manshine City.

all he wanted to do was take a shower, eat dinner, and lay down with you.

then he saw you, curled up on the bed wearing his jersey.

he told you not to wait up for him. you couldn't attend the game in person due to work, but he didn't mind. you were with him always.

but seeing you, fast asleep with his last name on your back- he finally understood.

he could look at this scene for hours.

he grabbed his phone out of his pocket and quickly snapped a picture before he slipped into bed next to you.

he suddenly didn't need a shower and he wasn't hungry.

he just wanted to be near you.

when you woke up the next morning while rin was on his morning run, you grabbed his phone to check the time

your sleeping face met your gaze, and a smile that probably looked so goofy spread across your face.

rin had never seen the point of changing his lock screen

until he saw you with his name on your figure.

suddenly he wanted to give you that last name for the two of you to share.

may make a part 2 , be on the look out :)

likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!

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undercover-stories · 18 hours ago

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I like the idea of the Lan Juniors hiding a copy of the first edition (Lan Zhan revises it every 5 years) among themselves and when they're alone they read it to each other or compare notes with what they've been taught. After all, Hanguang Jun's lesson was always to form your own opinion with what you know. If several 'Jingyi's pop up in every other history class contesting with 'the facts' and asking too many questions than is appropriate for a Lan then well, that's Lan Qirens problem to deal with. Eventually, all the juniors simply made a list of all their questions and asked Lan Zhan and Wei Ying himself when they returned to Ghusu every winter.

Jin Ling finds out and demands to be the one who gets the first copy of every edition, and Lan Zhan humors him. But for his nephews copy, Wei Ying always adds a few extra stories about Yanli. When Jin Ling is older and has managed to amass the respect and authority he fully needed as Leader, he makes it part of the Jin disciples curriculum. But his mother's stories he keeps for himself.

Other clans don't do similar revisions, but almost every cultivator worth their salt has read or heard of it. Civilians who've read it use it to tell stories of the 'The True Yiling Patriarch!'. There will always be haters, but now there's precedent for challenge.

As for Jiang Cheng, he would try to read the first copy but can't even get halfway through because it hurts too much. Lan Zhan's writings are truthful and even graceful towards those who don't deserve it, like his mother. Lan Zhan never met her and trusts Wei Ying when he paints her as simply a stern but revered cultivator and partner to Jiang Fengmian. Nothing about the whippings. The spiteful arguments. The cold wars. The screaming matches. And somehow, that hurts more. Knowing that even in his 2nd life, Wei Ying still holds onto whatever is left of the loyalty and love he remembers existing in their broken family, above everything else. A reminder that Wei Ying is still his brother, and both of them hold more secrets than any other Jiang clan member will ever know. Maybe this would help them properly rekindle their relationship. Who knows? But Jiang Cheng would still keep his own personal copy at arms length. Hidden among the other scrolls and books that resided in his office.

@xiaokuer-schmetterling these 2 might be too short to make a pod fic out of

Thinking about a headcanon where Lan Zhan writes a history book focused on Wei Ying. Because I'd my bet good money on all the other clans omitting Wei Ying entirely from their official history books. Even his role during the sunshot campaign, which was incredibly significant since he's the one who hunted down and killed Wen Chao and his men. Wen Zhuliu in particular. Wen Chao might have been a pompous idiot but he was still Wen Ruohan's son. He was pivotal in decimating Lotus Pier. At best they might have just given the credit of the death to Jiang Cheng.

So imagine Lan Zhan knowing all of this and deciding he'll just do it himself! Because Wei Ying lived a full and meaningful life. Filled with deliberate actions that reflected the morals he stood by. To not have his story told, in all honesty, would be so tragic. Wei Ying wouldn't care. As long as the people who were talking about him knew he was handsome, of course.

But it would hurt the people who loved him to see it happen. Lan Zhan probably knows he can't do anything about the Lan's official teachings as long as Lan Qiren is still alive but he most definitely could still write his own history book focussed on Wei Ying and everything he did. From his childish mischievous days to his death protecting the people he loved to his revival and efforts in rectifying the wrongs other people had done.

Wei Ying, on his part, would probably talk about the remnants, insisting they be put in with every little detail he could remember. No matter how trivial it might seem. He would talk endlessly about Wen Qing, but Wen Ning would be the one giving him the details of his and his sisters life. Her work. Her expertise. To have all of it be written down. To be remembered, Wen Ning would love that for his sister. Lan Zhan would make sure their voices would be heard. He was too late to save the Remnants. But this small thing he can do.

#wangxian #lan zhan #wei ying #wen ning #wei wuxian #lan wangji #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #jiang cheng #jin ling #mine

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elainsgirl · 1 day ago

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Whilst discussing arguing the ships with an anti, they told me that

“Im so arrogant in believing elriel is endgame that I can’t take a step back and realise each ship has a 50/50 chance of happening”

And it made me realise - she’s right, I don’t believe there is a 50/50 chance for any ship to happen. To me - gwynriel, where Gwyn and Az aren’t even canon love interests - neither have confirmed attraction or shift in their relationship to a more romantic tone - do not have the same, equal chance of happening as elriel - a ship were the two characters are canon LIs. Where there is on page confirmation they are attracted to each other. The romantic tone of their relationship has been made clear. Same goes for Elucien. A ship where there is no chemistry. You have Elain who shrinks into herself bcs of Lucien, Sjm literally wrote that despite his mate being in the NC, Luciens loyalty lays with another woman. That ship - in my eyes - again, doesn’t have the same chance of happening as elriel. Elriel that have been built up for 3 books. That bring out the positive in each other. Who have had countless significant moments between them that were integral to their individual characters, a ship that is following the same path that feysand and nessian followed. I feel like it’s completely valid to believe that elriel have a higher chance of happening and im sick and tired of antis constantly telling elriels off for not believing in this 50/50 nonsense. What they label as arrogance, I simply call confidence.

I am confident in elriel, why? Bcs canon backs them up. Every theory, arguement or point can be backed up with sufficient amount of relevant canon. Another reason im so confident - antis are so disorganised and divided. Sure, they’ve come together and all mutually agree that “yh elriel isn’t happening” yet:

Have different reasons why elriel aren’t happening.

have different ideas on how elucien/gwynriel will start. Some say that Sjm ended elriel and they won’t be brought up again, others say that a portion of the book will be elriel and then “they’ll go to their respective red heads”

You’ve got some Gwynriels believing that “Yes absolutely, Gwyn is a lightsinger!” Others are horrified at the idea and reject it, claiming there’s no evidence

The gwynriel plot. They all say something different. Somehow gwyn and az will be involved in the prison (?) others say their book will centre around Illyrians

eluciens can’t decide on a plot. Either they’re ruling the day court or spring court or off travelling on a lake elain has 0 connections too, saving another woman.

most importantly, 4 years later and neither side have come to an agreement whose book is next. Is it gwynriel or elucien. Some say elucien, but then whats the point of Azriels bonus? Others say gwynriel but then what was the point of Feysands’ bonus? You see how both ships can unravel so easily? How weak the foundation for both ships are?

now look at elriel. We’ve all here bcs as a group we came to the same conclusion- Elain and Az will have the next book. We’re united because we all mutually believe in the same theories and arguments. Take Elains spy arc for example, every elriel will agree that yes. Elain is foreshadowed to be a spy, yes that will be part of her arc - some elriels may not like the theory but you’ll never see them disagree or disprove it bcs its in the text and elriels don’t nitpick what pieces of canon to use for our ship and what pieces of canon not to use. We dont let our personal opinions influence canon and what we take from it, its why across the elriel fandom - you will come across the same points. Whereas with the anti fandom - you will come across different points. Why? Bcs they nitpick. They let their opinions influence what they take from canon.

This is a long winded way of saying - why should elriels be shamed for being confident in our ship just bcs antis aren’t in their ships?

#elriel #pro elriel #two cents to guess who the anti is #elain archeron #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar #azriel acosf #gwyn berdara #lucien vanserra #pro elain archeron #pro azriel

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c4tluver02 · 10 hours ago

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Maple Syrup Kisses

warnings: the use of "y/n" LOL but besides that none! flufffff :3

wk: 1k

summery: you and Steve have your first date and your first kiss. you truly are infatuated with him but its okay because Steve would argue he's even more infatuated with you.

・゜✭・✽・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・✽・.・。.・✭・✽・.・.・。.・

When Steve asked you out on a date it was a no-brainer. How could you turn down such an amazing person like him? His big eyes, kind smile, perfect hair of course, he’s everything you need and more. Although now your room is a mess from how many outfits you tried on and you're sitting by the window trying to peek to see if he's here. It was your first date with him and you needed it to go perfect.

Steve had also done his own stressing. Making sure his hair is sitting perfectly and nothing was out of place. Before you he had started to give up hope on finding “the one”. Was it him? Did he do something wrong? It was all starting to go to his head. Until he spotted you and simply couldn't resist saying hi. He can't believe now he's driving to your house to pick you up.

You finally see Steve pull into your driveway right at the time he said he'd pick you up. You take a look at yourself once more in the mirror double checking everything looks right. You then hear the knock on the door and walk over and open it.

“Hi pretty girl” Steve says looking at you with the world's biggest smile on his face. Thinking how you got all dolled up just for him. How did he get so lucky to go on a date with you?

“Hi Stevie.” You say in a more sincere tone, feeling the spotlight of Steve's look. “You look really pretty too.”

Steve flushes as the complement. “Pretty huh?” He smiles, “Never been called pretty before” There is a quiet tone connected with his words.

Your heart melts at his soft voice. You know a bit about Steve's past relationships, it breaks your heart he wasn't treated in the way he deserves. But now youre here and things will change.

“Well you're extremely pretty so get used to it!” You say kissing his cheek and grabbing Steve's hand as he walks you to his car.

You and Steve haven't had your first kiss yet, and well this is the first date after all. You'd secretly hope he decides to kiss you today. The excitement of it already erupts your belly in butterflies.

Steve is all smiles, he wonders if he looks as happy as he feels. You start to look through his tapes trying to pick out some music as you drive to your destination. But you suddenly remember you dont even know where Steve is taking you.

“So are you gonna tell me where we are going?” You flash him your best puppy dog eyes in hopes of getting the information.

“Nope, it's a surprise. But I know you’ll love it.” He says smiling devilishly, as he puts his hand on your thigh.

You roll your eyes playfully at him finally deciding on Queen for your music. Despite it being the first date he’s yelling the lyrics and all you can do is fall into a pit off giggles. And although he's driving he just can't stop looking at you. Your laugh is the best sound he's ever heard and he only wants to hear it more. If him singing Queen at a crazy volume means he can see you laugh then he would do it all day no problem.

Once you guys make it to the restaurant you immediately fall in love with the decor. It is very you and it makes your heart all fuzzy that Steve knows you this well already. You got waffles and Steve got pancakes but you both ended up sharing each other's food. It was crazy how smooth the conversation flowed. As if you two fit perfectly together. It was something Steve could only dream about.

After a perfect meal and fighting with Steve about the bill, you losing that fight, Steve drives you back home. You are already planning your next date in your head. The ideas make you excited all over again for the next time you see him which will probably be very soon. Who could blame you? You just had an amazing date with an amazing person. How could you not be thinking about him more?

Once Steve pulled into your driveway you sighed, not wanting to get out of the car. The thought of just sitting in Steve's car and talking the day away sounded like a perfect date in itself. However, Steve has work tonight and you have homework. It was just gonna have to be the end of the night for you two.

“I had an amazing time with you Steve. Thank you for all of this.” You say eyes burning with pure happiness.

Steve smiled “Of course baby anytime. Maybe we can start planning for our next date, hm?” He says, unable to hold eye contact as he can't help but look at your lips.

“I would like that” You blush feeling our face immediately heat up at the pet name.

“Can I kiss you?” Steve says quickly, as if it's all one word and he simply couldn't wait to ask it.

“Please do” It comes out rushed when you say it. Steve's lips are immediately on yours and it's like two puzzle pieces connecting. It is a perfect fit.

You can't help but smile like an idiot and Steve notices making him laugh.

“What? What's so funny?” You ask curious but unable to stop gleaming at what just happened.

“You taste like maple syrup!” He says a laugh coming out with the sentence. You can't help but giggle with him.

“I'll call you tonight after your shift? Then we can talk about our next date.” You say as your hands play with the hair on the nape of his neck. Steve's doe eyes look deeply into your own.

“Okay baby.” It's simple. It comes out soft just like him and he's perfect. It's all you can think about, he's all you can think about. Completely infiltrating your brain.

You finally let go of him about to get out of the car until he pulls your arm back a bit.

“One more kiss?” He says almost pouting. As if the thought of you saying no to it would kill him right then and there.

“Okay one more kiss.” It comes out silly and sweet as you kneel into the seat to kiss him.

When you pull back you decide it's probably time for you to go inside. “Thank you again Steve.”

“Thank you y/n” You're not sure what he's thanking you for, you haven't done much but you just smile at him. Something you feel you haven't stopped doing since he picked up. You walk up to your front door making sure to wave a final goodbye before going inside. He waved back just as enthusiastically if not more.

You can't wait to start planning your next date but all Steve can think about is you calling him later tonight.

#steve harrington fluff #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington #fluff #stranger things #stranger things au #writing #blurb

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dreamwreaver · 11 hours ago

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ngl it's surprising to see how many parallels from canon ships Charlastor has with. lucilith, stolitz, Millie x Moxxie (have no clue what their ship name is) and Huskerdust(not canon yet but there's definitely a few similar traits charlastor shares with it)

For a non-canon ship, it sure is similar to a lot of canon relationships

If hazbin was made by literally any other person charlastor would be endgame canon. Viv has made a couple of comparisons about what chaggie is "allegedly" like that I simply don't see. They're like Jack and Sally, no because Sally never told Jack stop being the person you are to please others she actually told him to stop being something your not to try and fill an emotional void.

Oh, they made chaggie canon because the boarders were working on scenes where Charlie is talking to her partner and they just kept drawing vaggie in there because there was so much chemistry. Like, can we see this fucking amazeballs script that had the boarders sticking vaggie in all those moments because from where I'm standing show vaggie doesn't even pass the sexy lamp test. We already know chaggie wasn't originally supposed to be canon because Proto Vaggie was paired with angel dust! So what exactly is so captivating about Charlie and Vaggie's dynamic that they're established canon and yet don't feel like it? And before anyone says "well they've been together a while so it's dumb to expect them to be as passionate as the beginning"

Fizzmodeus. I don't care that Ozzie's the embodiment of lust. Half the time we saw those two together the point of their dynamic was demonstrating how stupidly in love they were while trying to disguise it as simple sexual attraction. And just based off simple math; fizz met Ozzie after becoming mammon's heir right? That clown competition has been held every year since fizz first won it right? And by the time he quits he's been doing it for nearly 10 years. Even being generous and figuring fizz and Ozzie didn't immediately get together I would still wager based on Ozzie's protectiveness, the detailed portrait in his office, the fact that he has a first aid kit with ready to go robotic limb placements it's been at least 5 years they've been together. So in that 5-10 year range they are still so in love it's sickening and obvious enough to everyone that the general reaction to the public finding out was "I knew it!"

And before we say that it was constrained for time, fizzmodeus before season 2 had a song, and Ozzie comforting fizz after he'd been knocked out. And the entire fandom clocked them as a ship. Even if they weren't originally intended to be, like chaggie, like huskerdust too, we can see them as a pre-established couple that STILL has chemistry despite having their own lives and having been together for a while.

Ozzie flat out refused to give stolas a crystal because fizz hated blitz, was trusted enough to be given the details of the worst day of fizz's life, could clock immediately once fizz and blitz had reconciled that this was the person who had his most important person's back and could be counted on. And even though Ozzie didn't like that fizz felt obligated to continue on with the clown thing for mammon, communicated that he didn't like how so many people saw fizz as a product to be bought and enjoyed, didn't like having to be the one in charge of MAKING that product, he never stopped fizz from making his own choices, he supported his partner in MEANINGFUL ways that do not change the essence of who fizz is. He listens and offers support if not solutions, encouragement that their partner can handle themselves and they will be there if needed.

Who does that for Charlie? Who refuses to leave her alone while she falls into a pit of self loathing? Really look Charlie and alastor's screen time in hello Rosie. Alastor is very calculating, and when he chooses to speak is exactly as important as what he chooses to say.

1. He doesn't like seeing Charlie wallow in self pity, as condescending as it likely comes across we already know he loves seeing Vox with his tail between his legs and doesn't believe in Charlie's goals so why wouldn't he take the opportunity to gloat about being right?

2. While he may like to prey on overconfidence in his victims we already know Charlie would have been more than willing to sell her soul for a chance at protecting her people. She was at her lowest point and rather than striking when she was in her darkest most defeated place he chose to wait until she was good and pissed and STILL didn't ask for her soul.

I fully believe he intended to make her mad because being mad means you're more than likely to do something about it. He antagonizes her on purpose so her fire comes back. When they go to Rosie's (which, again, we know he chose because cannibal town caters to Charlie's natural communication style) he only does enough to make sure Charlie's needs are clearly communicated to the overlord and provides a tangible benefit catered to their sensibilities. And when she's fully ready to be herself he does the equivalent of putting his actual heart in her hands. He had every confidence she could convince the other cannibals to join her cause. And then again the night before they could all die; he gives her his mic AGAIN. Charlie and Alastor might as well be pre-established canon because he does all the emotional work of a partner and they work together so seamlessly even when he's doing things she doesn't particularly like she knows why he does business the way he does.

#charlastor #radiobelle #hazbin hotel #dream replies #charlie morningstar #alastor #fizzmodeus #i guess

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is-on-its-way · 7 hours ago

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okay ive finally come to see your vision on mulder here, although i do still think scully was uncomfy too, i think mulder was wildly uncomfy, definately in part due to the normalness of this neighborhood and suggestion this is what married life should look like, and knowing he isnt this person. Hes pushing her away with his treatment of her. But I think theres also another reason hes behaving like this that just clicked everything into place for me.

I preface this by saying i watch arcadia right after one son bc it makes canonical sense that way, they even say its their first case back. And this way i think it makes alot of sense for mulders characterization and for how their relationship would be post their fight

Agua Mala was not the episode filmed directly after One Son. Instead, Arcadia was shot between the two episodes. It simply was not ready to air in time. Mulder even refers to the case in Arcadia as the duo’s “first catch back on the X-Files.” Source: https://them0vieblog.com/2015/07/22/the-x-files-agua-mala-review/

I posit that every time scully is hurt, he goes to the ends of the earth to make sure shes okay, and then once she is, he flees or actively tries to get her to quit the x files, and overtly or inadvertently treats her poorly. Because he cant lose her again and survive, because he thinks he is completely responsible for everything that happens to her because his childhood trauma requires he carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. And because he loves her more than anything and has a decent amount of self hatred so he thinks he doesn't deserve her.

His behavior in one son/two fathers and arcadia to me is directly tied to her getting shot and almost dying in tithonus. I dont think its completely conscious on his part especially this time around but i also think something happened between arcadia monday and agua mala to get them to the more comfortable companionship they display in alpha.

That something being scully finally asking him for something or declaring something like he does when she pulls away. Finally calling him out and asking him to change his behavior, which he does, in alpha when she warns him about women he listens and isnt a dick about it.

anyway yeah thats it lol

Arcadia Analysis: Mulder’s Struggle

Contrary to popular belief, it was Mulder (and not Scully– my long post of her experience here) who was having a rough time in Arcadia.

When Mulder arrives, his enthusiasm shines brighter than Scully’s placid happiness, momentarily disguising his true mood from her, the neighbors, and the viewers: dour, trapped, tense.

Keep reading

#Arcadia my beloved #txf #txf meta #randomfoggytiger

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lezleonardo · 15 hours ago

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Yk? Honestly I have read many danmeis (and bahies) and all of them have been great! All beautifully written and deserve more popularity than they get! But, non of them have ever really gotten to me like mdzs did, maybe its bias because well the novel had grown my love for reading and writing, But I also think it's because of how human it is and how the obstacles wangxian face are never at their own faults.

Like, In novel, the reason to why wangxian never got together in their first life was also because of third party interference, a lot of people blame the fact that wwx thought lwj wanted to punish him as a reason to why they never got together and honestly? I disagree, yes this miscommunication definitely strained their relationship but, I'd never go as far as to say it ruined it, Wwx was still very much willing to go out at lunch with lwj, he was even willing to let lwj take care of Wen Yuan! Wwx still trusted lwj to a certain degree post-war and that's evident, I firmly believe if wwx had the chance to live longer this miscommunication could've eventually been easily cleared, What DID stop their relationship were the sects and the general propaganda against wwx, Lwj was simply too tightly held back by his sect duties (Note: Gusu was ACTUALLY struggling post-war unlike another sect everyone likes to talk about) and wwx had a duty to the Wens, their was no magical power making them hate each other, no debts between each other, not false info on the future, not even oblivousness, nothing. Just the world and its cruelty.

And personally I think that makes the ending of mdzs more fulfilling and bittersweet.

#the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #mdzs novel #mxtx #the grandmaster of diabolism #wangxian

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gingerteafairy · 1 day ago

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Hii, I had an idea about Dave, I don't know if you could do something between him and a female reader. where the reader has always been used for her body, and the boys have classified her as 'ugly face, beautiful body'. She is in a relationship with Dave and feels very happy and safe with him, until at a party she goes to get something to drink and when she returns she hears how several guys ask her if he has already slept with her, or things like that. She gets angry and leaves, Dave notices and they solve his problem. It ends with something very romantic and with a lot of fluff

ugh, loved this. sorry for taking so long, college's crazy rn

𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬

“You’re worth it, my love. You’re priceless to me.”

tags n warning: dave lizewski x reader, language, verbal harassment, self deprecating, violence, hurt/comfort. word count: 2.9k masterlist

“You have worth.”

Those words, so simple yet so profound, were truths that were difficult to accept. Your entire life, you had felt like a useless object, a shadow without identity, without purpose. Your existence seemed like a mistake, as if you were invisible to the world. Men had become monsters in your mind, and the reflection in the mirror, with each passing day, seemed more distant, more unrecognizable. When you met Dave, something inside you sparked, but your heart still carried the scars of a painful past. Your body still felt tainted, as if the marks from others' gazes and judgments could never be erased.

It was as if, with each step, the shadow of who you had been, of what they'd made of you, was chasing you. That confrontation in the college courtyard, when one of the guys who had been with you before decided to challenge Dave in front of everyone, was the final straw. The pain tightened in your chest, a mix of anger and helplessness.

“Are you dating her? How bold. She’s worth nothing.”

The boy's words were sharp, like knives, but Dave, with the calm of someone who knew exactly what they wanted, stood firm. He was different from all the others, not just because he didn’t care what people thought, but because he saw you in a way no one else seemed capable of seeing. He didn’t view you as just a body, an object of desire. He saw you as a complete person, with feelings, with untold stories, with complexity.

He saw you as beautiful, but not in a superficial way. He saw something in you that others would never be able to perceive. That’s why, when he responded so firmly to that idiot, you felt a wave of gratitude and admiration.

“I want her, no matter what you think. I believe in her. I won’t accept judgment from someone as rotten as you.”

He stood there, unwavering, like the hero you knew he was. The others laughed at him, thinking he was a fool for choosing someone with a past like yours, but he didn’t care. He only cared about you. He knew your past, but that didn’t define who you were. To him, you weren’t your past; you were what he saw in your eyes, what he felt when he was with you. And that made him stronger every day.

With a sigh, you almost begged, your voice trembling, your fingers intertwined with his. “Dave, if you want, I’ll change for you,” you whispered, as if your words were a plea for forgiveness, a desire to be enough for him. “I’ll do anything. If you want me to change the way I speak, the way I dress, the way I have fun… everything. I don’t want you to feel insecure with me.”

But Dave, with his endless kindness, simply pulled you into his arms, enveloping you in a tight hug, and with a serene smile, he said:

“I never asked you to change anything,” he whispered, his words wrapping around you like a protective blanket. “I love you just the way you are, no matter what you say or do. I will always be here for you.”

Your eyes closed, and your body relaxed as you felt the strength of his embrace. You murmured, feeling the weight on your shoulders ease with each word:

“I’m so grateful to have you, Dave.”

And he, in a tender gesture, cupped your face in his hands and placed a soft kiss on your forehead, slowly moving to your cheeks, as if each touch was a promise. Instinctively, you mirrored the gesture, making the moment a small ritual of affection, just yours and his.

“I’m just worried about your safety,” he said, his gaze filled with genuine concern. His hands gently stroked your hair with a tenderness only he knew how to offer. “That’s the only thing that scares me.”

You looked into his eyes, feeling safer than ever. “I’ll go with you. I want to make sure you're okay.”

“Really?” you asked, your eyes shining with surprise and gratitude, when he nodded with a simple, reassuring gesture.

“You’re so good to me, Dave,” you whispered, your hand resting on his chest.

“You make me want to be the best version of myself,” he replied, with sincerity overflowing. In a sweet impulse, he pressed a quick kiss to your lips before pulling you back into his arms, sealing the moment with a soft kiss on top of your head.

The night was drawing near, and you got ready at Dave's house, with him helping adjust the details of your outfit, of your shirt, as if each gesture was a quiet, yet immense, act of care. When you both arrived at the party, something felt different. It wasn’t like the other parties where you felt out of place, like a piece in a pointless game.

With Dave by your side, everything seemed new. The music, the laughter, the movement of people—everything had a different glow. It was light, uncomplicated, as if, for the first time, you were really there to enjoy yourself, to live, without pressure or expectations. And in that moment, you knew: Dave Lizewski had transformed everything. He didn’t just love you, he made you see the beauty of life, and for the first time, you felt worthy of that beauty.

“Are you enjoying the party?” Dave asked, tilting his head slightly as he watched you dance. His smile was genuine, enchanted by your spontaneous happiness.

“Yes, I’m loving it!” you replied, your heart racing with the rhythm of the music and the energy around you. Without hesitation, you slid your arms around his neck, gently pulling him to dance with you. Your bodies swayed in sync, a brief yet intimate moment. “What about you?”

Dave leaned in closer, his mouth almost grazing your ear as he spoke, trying to cut through the noise of the music. “It’s good, but I think I’ll head to the bathroom.” His voice was almost a whisper, and you could feel the warmth of his breath against your skin.

“Do you want a drink? I’ll go get one for you,” he offered, his gaze soft and protective.

You shook your head with a smile. “No need, go to the bathroom. I’ll get us something!”

He hesitated for a second, as if he wanted to make sure you’d really be okay, but then he nodded. Before pulling away, he leaned in quickly and placed a soft kiss on your cheek. The light touch of his lips sent a shiver down your spine.

Then, he disappeared among the people on the dance floor, and a faint unease settled in you. It was just a moment without Dave—nothing to worry about. Taking a deep breath, you decided not to let that strange feeling take over.

You made your way to the kitchen, where the counter was scattered with cups and open bottles. You grabbed two glasses and began mixing drinks for you and Dave, focusing on the sound of the liquid splashing against the glass.

“And what’s up, princess?”

The voice came from nowhere, rough and filled with intent. You turned your head and met the intrusive gaze of an unfamiliar guy, who was eyeing you up and down without any shame. Your entire body tensed. The way he looked at you made you feel naked, exposed in an uncomfortable way.

“Back off,” you hissed, gripping the glass tightly in your fingers.

He made a face for a second, but then smirked mockingly, leaning in closer. The strong smell of alcohol radiated off him, nauseating.

“If you didn’t want attention, you shouldn’t wear clothes like that,” he murmured, his voice low and laced with malice, too close to your ear.

Your stomach churned with disgust, and without thinking twice, you raised your elbow and hit him hard in the stomach. The impact made him let out a grunt of pain, bending slightly forward.

“Ah, you—”

Before he could finish, another voice interrupted.

“Hey, babe, long time no see.”

Your body immediately froze. You knew that voice. You turned your head and found Gary, your ex, leaning against the counter with a cynical smile on his face.

The guy beside you disappeared with a grunt, clearly recognizing Gary and not wanting to start any trouble.

“Hey, Gary. How’s it going?” you replied, trying to keep your voice neutral, even though you felt a knot form in your throat.

“I’m good, babe. I saw you walking around here. Since we broke up, you’ve disappeared, huh?” He took a step closer, invading your personal space without hesitation.

You automatically took a step back, trying to distance yourself from him without looking nervous. “What do you mean?”

Gary chuckled, a low sound full of something you couldn’t quite decipher.

Before you could respond, a few of his friends appeared around you, forming a small circle. One of them casually placed a hand on your waist, but you felt the touch burn, like a warning.

Your body stiffened, and your breathing quickened.

“I don’t like this, Gary,” you said, your voice firmer now, though your heart pounded violently against your chest.

He simply smiled. “Relax, we’re friends, remember?”

Gary’s voice had a fake tone of camaraderie, but it carried an underlying intention that made your skin crawl. He watched you with a confident smirk, waiting for your hesitation to convince you.

You, however, kept your gaze fixed on the ground, avoiding looking at any of the guys who had once been part of your life. The weight of their presence around you was suffocating, and each second felt like it dragged on endlessly.

Without you noticing, Gary grabbed a few cups and, with a swift and practiced motion, pulled a small plastic bag from his pocket. Quickly, he poured something into one of the drinks before offering it to you.

“No hard feelings?” He smiled, gently swirling the cup, as if it were a reconciliation toast.

You stared at it for a moment, watching the liquid swirl inside the glass. Your mind wavered for a second, considering the offer, but the bitter memory of who Gary really was sliced through any hesitation.

Without thinking twice, you raised the cup and splashed the entire drink into his face.

The liquid dripped down Gary’s face, soaking his hair and splattering onto the collar of his T-shirt. He closed his eyes for a moment, his fists clenching by his sides. When he opened them again, his gaze was filled with pure rage.

But it didn’t compare to what you felt for him.

“See if I’m on the corner asshole,” you spat, your words sharp with defiance, raising your middle finger, without the slightest shame.

“You bitch! Go cry on that idiot boyfriend of yours. See if he knows about your history!” He growled, but you ignored him. The group of guys around you burst into boos against Gary, clapping and mocking him. Some laughed, others whistled, fueling his humiliation. Gary remained still for a second, his jaw clenched, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.

You were boiling with hatred, your entire body vibrating. You felt the hot blood pulsing in your temples, as if smoke could come out of your nostrils at any moment. It was then that Dave appeared, waving quickly to a few people as he approached. His usual playful look disappeared as soon as he saw your expression contorted with anger.

“Baby? What happened while I…”

“Let’s get out of here.” Your voice came out sharp and without room for argument. Before he could question you, you grabbed his hand and pulled him without looking back, away from that mess that should never have been part of your life again. As you walked through the door, you slammed it shut, the bang echoing like a full stop. But not satisfied, you kicked the wood, ignoring the fact that this house wasn't even yours.

You simply didn't care. You were furious. "Fuck!" You screamed, picking up a random can from the floor and throwing it at the door. "Shit! Fuck! Shit!" You growled, almost pulling your hair out.

"Hey, calm down. Hey! Babe, hey!"

Dave held your shoulder, trying to contain his outburst. But as soon as his eyes met yours, he froze. Your face was covered in tears, expression filled with emotions that seemed too big to fit inside you. Something inside him twisted. Anger. A cold, cutting hatred took over him when he realized that someone had hurt you like that.

Whoever it was, they would pay. But first, he needed to take care of you. “Babe, tell me. What happened?” His voice softened, but his grip on your shoulder tightened, as if he wanted to anchor you there, close to him.

“Those fucking assholes, Dave. They’re the ones who happened!” You exploded, throwing your hands in the air, unable to contain the scream of hatred stuck in your throat. Your breathing was irregular, panting, as if each word was fuel for your frustration. “They talk so much shit about you. So much shit about me that… that I’m starting to believe it. It seems like I’ll always be this. A bitch! You know about my past, Dave. I’m nothing but a whore, Gary’s right.”

Dave frowned, his eyes growing darker. Before you could sink any further into those thoughts, he pulled you lightly, forcing you to face him. “Hey, listen to me.” His voice was firm, filled with unshakable certainty. “You. Are. Not. That.”

Your eyes widened at his intensity. His grip on your shoulder tightened, not in a rough way, but as if he was holding you steady so you wouldn’t lose yourself inside yourself. You felt something different at that moment. The hatred Dave felt for the guys who had hurt you was clear, but more than that, he was furious because you doubted your own worth.

“You’re perfect. You don’t deserve anything from those fucking assholes. You never did.” His jaw clenched, his eyes burning with sincerity. “You’re worth it, my love. You’re priceless to me.”

The turmoil inside you seemed to slow down. As if, with each word he said, the thorns in your chest were being pulled out one by one. And then, Dave didn’t wait any longer. He pulled you into his arms, wrapping you tightly around him, as if he wanted to protect you from the world itself. You gave in, sinking into his warmth, allowing yourself to fall apart. His hands slid down your back, holding you tenderly, his fingers lightly digging into the strands of your hair in a soothing touch. You cried. Not out of anger, but because you felt you weren’t alone.

“It’s okay, let it all go,” Dave murmured against your hair, holding you tighter. He placed a soft kiss on the top of your head, like a silent promise that you would be safe there. “I’m here. Don’t feel like you’re worthless or whatever horrible thing they tried to make you believe.” His voice was hoarse, but full of tenderness. “You’re so much more than that. You’re precious. You’re my world, you know that. I say this single everyday..”

You laughed humorlessly, your eyes still watery. “What an ugly world you have,” you grumbled, your voice thick with self-deprecation.

The hug was suddenly interrupted. Dave pulled away just enough to look you straight in the eye, and what you saw there made you hold your breath. “Dave?”

“If you say that one more time, I’m gonna be so fucking angry,” he hissed, his jaw clenched. “Start to believe in the things i say to you! Believe me.”

The cute, loving Dave wasn’t there now. In his place, there was someone ready to fight to the end of the world for you. And it was in that moment that you realized… how much he loved you. “I’m sorry,” you mumbled, almost without thinking.

But he shook his head, taking a deep breath as if trying to dispel his anger. “Don’t apologize.” His fingers slid up to your face, brushing away a wet strand of tears. “Don’t apologize. Just change. Just see how much I love you and that you shouldn’t give a damn about these assholes.”

The intensity in his voice made your heart race. “No one will ever reach your feet. You’re mine, and I take care of what’s mine. I’m capable of doing anything for what’s mine.”Dave’s words came as a shock to you, triggering a wave of uncontrollable emotions. Your lips trembled and, before you could stop them, new tears fell.

“No one has ever said that to me,” you sobbed, your hand instinctively reaching for his, which was still resting on your arm. “No one has ever cared about me this much.”

Dave leaned closer, and his eyes softened, returning to the Dave you knew. “I care,” he stated, his affection so genuine it warmed your chest. “I will always care. Even if it’s annoying, I will always remind you of who you are.” He smiled, his lips touching your cheek in a gentle kiss before murmuring against your skin, “My beautiful, perfect girlfriend.”

You sniffed, laughing softly. “You spoil me too much, Dave.”

“I have a lifetime to spoil you.” He kissed your forehead, then your lips in a soft, tender kiss. When he pulled away, he left a kiss on the tip of your nose and rested his forehead against yours. “Come on, let’s go home. It’s freezing in this hellhole.”

You laughed, feeling the tension finally dissipate. “What a contradiction.” He squeezed your arm lightly in response, laughing along with you. “I love you, Dave. Forever.”

Dave cupped your face gently, his eyes shining in the dim streetlight. “I love you forever, my angel,” he murmured, before kissing your wet eyes. “Always and forever."

divider: @strangergraphics

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