#Impulse is the only survivor. Naturally

[thedo0zyslider]

hear me out here, team gigs horror movie au fic

[void-kissed]

My selfship with Aqua is about finding someone worth fitting in with and my selfship with Clio is about finding someone you don't have to fit in around

And yes I will elaborate (or try to, anyway)

[sophiamcdougall]

As a writer who knows a lot of people in the British SFF scene I really want to push back on the "everyone knew about Neil Gaiman" narrative. I don't know anyone who knew. I don't know anyone who isn't shocked. Yes, we now know there were people who did know, people who created whisper networks, but by their very nature whisper networks can only reach a minority of people. (Which incidentally, isn't a condemnation of whisper networks at all. If you've heard a rumour you have no way of verifying, or even if you know a victim who quite rationally does not want to be outed, what else can you do but warn people privately when you can?) Obviously the victims didn't know until it was too late, so why would anyone else? Gaiman had such a celebrity status that he was "above" basically everyone in the field. He was the famous, powerful person generously dipping into their lives. I'd never met him, but even people I knew who considered him a friend were mostly seeing him on occasions where of course he'd have his charming, gregarious persona in play. There seems to be this impulse, perhaps fuelled by Gaiman's silence, to attack everyone who's not him (and especially women and NB acquaintances, it's not lost on me.) Yesterday a casual friend of his with a minor platform felt she had to apologise, humbly, for not having made a public statement before! She'd done absolutely nothing wrong and had been made to feel ashamed of something he'd done. Yes, there are conversations we can have about power structures and privilege and press organs that told a survivor her experience "wasn't enough." But ultimately Neil Gaiman did this. He made those choices. He owes accountability.

[lassieposting]

Concept:

You are Bhaal, god of murder, and someone is praying to you.

And that's not necessarily unusual. Lots of people pray to you, usually for the untimely death of a rival, an ex-spouse, an overseer. The prayer itself is a small and broken thing, bloody and raw, whispered by a man whose vision is dulled by agony and the dark spectre of approaching death. The pathetic not-quite-survivor of some rather brutal torture, wishing murder upon his captor. You take a moment to enjoy the fear, the pain, the suffering - and then you tune him out. There are millions like him, and your favour is for those willing to do their killing themselves. Besides, that wretch will be nothing but a corpse all too soon.

Except...he doesn't die. You never feel that timid little spark of existence stutter and go out. Far beyond the breaking point of a mortal body, this one lingers on, clinging to being with fingers all but stripped back to bare bone.

It's intriguing enough to warrant a second look and - interesting. The prayer comes from a vampire, a pretty little corpse becoming an even prettier corpse under the skilled hand of a cruel master.

It is not in your nature to intervene. You favour the strong, not the weak. The master, not the slave. Your first instinct is to leave the wretched little thing to his fate.

But the thing is. Your child - your favourite child, shaped from your own flesh, coldest and most brutal of your progeny - has gone and got a boyfriend.

And you don't like him.

You don't like the effect he's having on your chosen, the way they're becoming distracted, attached, less devoted to their true purpose. And right now, your nature takes a back seat to your desire to get rid of that smug, arrogant little Baanite whelp, Enver Gortash. Your granddaughter's spiteful machinations have given you an opening, but you know they're bound to run into one another eventually, and it will all start over.

The vampire is beautiful. Well-trained. Accustomed to brutality. Already purged of sympathy and compassion, eaten up inside by hatred and bitterness and harm. And immortal; able to survive the worst of your son's inclinations. At this point, he'll do.

So you redirect a nautiloid. It's not that you're showing the creature any favour - it's just pragmatism, really. He is simply a tiny piece of a very large puzzle.

And then you watch.

You watch the vampire take the spectacular murder of a young bard in stride.

You watch him identify your memory-addled, sanity-challenged offspring as the most dangerous one in their sad little group of unwashed tragedies - the strongest protector, the solution to his fear of being discarded or returned to his master.

You watch him expertly lure your progeny into a pit trap of sex and lies and manipulation, dressed up with honeyed words and an exaggerated performance of desire.

Your child comes face to face with Enver Gortash and remembers nothing - feels nothing. They only have eyes for Astarion, and you are filled with satisfaction. The vampire is pathetic and fearful now, but already he plans to take over his master's ritual, and then he will be perfectly placed to feed your child's very worst impulses, to bring out the sharpest edge of the darkness inside.

You watch the vampire say, "I want us to be real."

You watch your child happily become a glorified comfort blanket, your masterwork living weapon reduced to little more than a prey animal, a do-gooder, a sacrifice.

Watch them vow, "I will be the person you see in me."

Watch them talk the blasted creature out of going through with the ritual at all.

Watch them start fighting their own nature for the pantomime love of someone else's broken toy.

Watch them turn on you.

And you decide, with the benefit of hindsight, that Enver Gortash was not that bad, actually.

[wszczebrzyszynie]

Hello everyone. Today i bring you the Space Mining au masterpost ... this is somehting i planned on doing for a while now, as space mining started becoming more and more fleshed out and my answers to your questions started getting more convoluted. Answered one question created 5 more kind of thing. So here is a timeline i made and a lot of links to different asks explaining even different-er things. Its a lot of loredumping but i tried to make it as clear as possible. Normally its the kind of thing youd learn by reading the story but im not planning on making a comic and i will never write a fic so this is how it has to work. average bartek story treatment

Despite humanity spreading all over the universe in post-space colonisation era, the only other life form ever found was a fungi-like, small organism living in giant colonies, which by their appearance resemble earth minerals. it can be found deep below the surface of different, seemingly unrelated moons and planets, desperately hiding from all forms of light; most of it is long dead, found in its rock-like form. commonly known as sculk, it is the newest and most important discovery in recent human history, although very little is actually known about it. Tango is a former HASA engineer, one of the people who revolutionized space mining, renowned for his work on the nature of sculk, and currently a wanted terrorist on the run, after he blew up a chunk of callisto, one of Jupiters moons, durning an illegal sculk mining operation. Completly unfit for the criminal lifestyle, its a miracle he hasnt been caught yet, especially with many bounty hunters and criminals alike on his tail

I tried to include the absolute most important parts. Doesnt look very well but i hope its at least readable

* Everything starts when Tango blows up a part of callisto. He worked there on a practically illegal sculk mining site; everything was meant to be kept secret, obviously, so when it turned out that the sculk is actually alive, parasitic and infecting everyone at a rapid pace, there was little help they could get. The outbreak was catastrophic but with HASA being a govermnent organisation that set up an illegal mining site not only outside of their controled area, but also in the solar system (which was and still is considered something like a buffer state... in space. At the time of the story lots of people from different places live there because its considered peaceful enough) there is no way they would get involved. So the few remaining survivors chose to blow up the mining site to save themselves. It both did and didnt work as intented, destroying a chunk of the moon and succesfully sealing the cave system, but also killing the remaining miners, with Tango being the sole survivor. Despite being a great asset to the company (he is, despite it all, considered the father of modern space mining), everything that happened was swifly pinned on him, with HASA claiming everything happened behind their back. Tango became a wanted terrorist in one day. An important note about the worldbuilding is that everything is corrupted and not good

More information to be found here. I havent linked every post ive ever made about it, just the ones i think are the most important! every space mining related thing can be found in the space mining au tag. This part will be updated with new information whenever i post it!

Designs:

Tango and Jimmy / Scar / Hotguy Scar / Grian / Pearl (+ info) / Joel / Martyn / Skizz / Impulse / Scott (+ info) / Bdubs and Cleo / pre-retirement Cleo, Lizzie and Gem / Ren / Doc

About:

Character relationship chart (not everyone is included) Desert duo/Ranchers/Imp and Skizz relationships More about desert duo / more about the ranchers / more about Impulse and Skizz + space mining as a whole More about Scott and Jimmy + space stations Etho and Bdubs (and Cleo) / more about Etho Cub (and the burning of the ranch) More about Grian Pearl (+ design) Martyn Gem Doc

Zeds full reference/design isnt included because it isnt up to date.

[thegnomelord]

CH:2 You Were Made For This At Least You're Good For Something

CW: NSFW, blood, gore, scars, cannon typical violence, dissociating, Mage reader, Monster cod AU, poly141, eventual poly141 X reader, reader isn't a good person, survivor's guilt, military inaccuracies. Heavy description of reader having scars, reader gets called 'sir' once but overall GN.

AO3: 13.7k words. Big thanks for @rodolfoparras and @princeguri66 for betaing for me, love you guys!

Magic is often described as a loaded gun, a double edged sword, a grenade with a missing pin, an unmarked minefield — and a thousand more little comparisons parents have come up with to frighten their children, to drill the dangers of magic into their heads. And, should their spawn unfortunately present with said aptitude, to teach them how to spend the rest of their lives vigilantly holding the leash on their emotions tight, lest the magic consume them the next time they throw a tantrum.

Your own parents spoke about magic like it was a beast sent by a vengeful God; a venomous insect hiding in your boots, a beautiful creature luring you to touch it's deadly skin, glowing eyes peering at you from the darkness, a handsome wolf stalking your red hood from the tree line. Something so desperate for a single chance to devour you. Famished. Ravenous.

What a load of shit.

—Ethereal mana rushes through your veins like water through a busted dam, your fingers forcing it to form into skin chafing ash. Large dark clouds swirl around you like a shield, stray cinders brush your feverish skin in a distorted attempt to mimic a lover's touch, smog curls around your head like blinders to focus your eyes forward so you don't need to notice if it's a combatant or a civilian your ash consumes—

If magic was half as unpredictable as people made it out to be, you would have never reached the heights you did.

—The thick disgusting scent of gas and burning human flesh tenderly presses down on your chest, sharp claws persuading you to breathe out by gently caressing the spaces between your ribs. Your breath fogs over the darkened lenses, steam rising from your chest as the generator inside churns out more mana—

What does that make you?

—Sparks nip at your heel when your body thinks of faltering, sharp needles pricking half dead nerves and commanding your limbs to move in order to evade obstacles and falling debris and whatever else is thrown at you, magic strengthening your muscles so you can rush through the streets like a forest fire—

A weapon? A fellow beast?

—Silent black flames devour the corpses your magic creates, leaving nothing behind. Stifling heat straddles your brainstem and burns away the weeds of empathy before they can spread the seeds of hesitation in your mind, isolating your heart so it remains too hot to harbor any mercy, regardless of how many lives you cut short—

Yeah, sounds about right.

—The roar of fire deafens the screams and sirens, the soft crackle of flames is indistinguishable to the crack! of breaking buildings and snapping bones. It makes it so easy to retain the single minded focus you were praised and cursed for. To remind yourself of what you are; a mage, a soldier, an Ifrit, a Red Right Hand—

What else are you good for?

You—

Breathe.

You need to breathe.

You need to think.

While you still can.

Your brain is a jumbled mess of puzzle pieces a frustrated child threw into the fireplace. Burnt edges and missing corners prevent your mind from its natural configuration and forces your thoughts into obtuse positions. It takes time and effort to open your eyes, needles of stagnated mana stabbing your irises and making what should be a pitch black room feel like you're staring into the sun. Your body feels light like you're falling, your vision swims with spots of blurriness and sharpness, the back of your throat tight in an attempt to get you to puke up your empty stomach. You only manage to cough, but the vestigial impulse gets some other thoughts to trickle from your mind.

You focus your eyes to one point and stare until the blurriness retreats to the edges of your vision and the tripling shapes solidify into one. It takes more time for your brain to understand what your eyes are seeing through the steam, but you manage to make out. . . your glowing hands. . . your knees. . . dark ash, muddied water, bathroom tiles.

Your vision improves the longer you keep your eyes open, the room steadily darkening and becoming more bearable as the stagnated mana is forced to recede.

You concentrate on what you feel; water pelts your naked body, only to sizzle and turn into steam after rolling an inch down your skin. Cool ceramic tiles brush against your spine every time you shift, rapidly warming up to your body temperature. A drizzle of discomfort nibbles on your nerves when the hot air you breathe out burns the corners of your dry lips. Your fingers feel like rusted pistons as you intertwine them and numbly watch your 'skin' bubble, and those bubbles 'pop', giving you a grim glimpse of your blackened muscle and sinew and bone before the surrounding lava covers them up.

You don't even notice the ringing in your ears until your slowly sharpening mind forces it to go away, replacing it with the sound of running water, of the ventilation fan uselessly trying to suck up the steam, of your own heart beating like a hummingbird against your ribs, woodpeckers drilling into your skull from all angles as the world becomes so fucking—

—Loud. The world is Loud. Nothing like the calm and quiet brought to you by the battlefield, nothing like the sense of safety that comes from familiarity. No. Now the world feels like a swarm of angry wasps are burrowing into your ears to build a nest in your skull, sharp pincers gnawing on your bones and flesh and nerves and—

No.

You got this far.

You're not allowed to fall back into panic.

You force your chest to expand and take in a deep, unfiltered, unrestricted, breath. Ash with the disgusting undertone of rotten eggs curls inside your nose and doesn't let anything else pass. But a small hint of you manages to register in your brain, light and calming; your body’s lackluster attempt at incense to cover up the stench of rot.

And you taste. . . a lot. Too much; morning breath, ash, smoke, blood, the peppery battery acid quality of your blood — all blended together into a disgusting cocktail tailor made for you by what's left of the butchered angel sitting on your shoulder.

You don't think when you reach out to grab the glass of whatever shit liquor past you had bought. 'Glass' is far too kind a word for the tin can you're using, but metal doesn't shatter in your burning hands like ceramic or glass.

Your head thunks against the wall as you throw it back to gulp down the alcohol before it can boil, swallowing in big gulps like it's water. Your stomach cramps, the devil's finest piss would taste better going down your throat than the booze, but it's as effective as it is disgusting and bleaches your mouth until it's the only thing you can taste — sweet relief wrapped in thorns.

You don't revel in it.

The tin can bends like playdoh as you squeeze your burning hand, quickly reddening metal molding to your palm before you crumple it into a small ball. You flick it into the corner where it becomes another piece of the small pile that's been steadily growing there over the months.

Breathing in deep makes your ribs creak and groan like rusted hinges, your lungs burn and complain as you keep the air trapped in them until they're forced to function properly and a shuddered breath escapes your parted lips. The water feels nice and a part of you wants to stay under the stream forever, a part of you would be content growing moss and listening to the soft apologies your mana murmurs as it nibbles on your blood vessels.

You would hit that part of yourself if you could.

The thinning steam urges you to move. Shifting to your knees is difficult with Atlas's burden weighing on your shoulders, forcing your fingers to find purchase in the scorched grooves previously melted in the wall. Pulling yourself to your feet causes them to grow a few inches deeper, your burning hands leaving singed handprints on the ceramic walls.

The weakness in your knees forces you to spend a few seconds just standing, watching your magic slowly start to slumber. The once runny lava consistency of your 'skin' shifts to that of cooling magma, the vast excess of loose mana still in your blood slowly coagulating atop your 'skin' in the form of large chunks of volcanic rock, little cracks remaining between them to simulate blood vessels.

Washing yourself isn't a relaxing affair in general, but it's made worse by the heavy duty soap and rough sponge you have to use in order to scrub away the grime and ash stubbornly clinging to your skin. You try not to look at your body more than you have to, your eyes transfixed on the way the dirty water carries the signs of your violence down the drain. You never get any blood on you, your fires burn too hot for that, and you don’t know if seeing the water turn red instead of black would make you feel better or worse.

The most painful place to wash is the sharp transition between mage marks and living tissue at your shoulders; magic cares little for appearances, volcanic rock abruptly transitioning to soft skin that boasts spiderweb cracks — a tell tale sign of your mana intending to spread further. The nerves there are partially eaten away too, turning your skin into a minefield of zero sensation and absolute hell when one of those nerves is prodded.

You get out when the water runs clear, the residual droplets turning to steam the second you turn off the shower. You stumble as take a few steps, bracing against the small sink next to the shower, staring at the tap to keep your gaze from doubling again.

Something gnaws on your heart as you recognize that you're standing naked in your small safehouse. You should have recovered by now, gotten your shit together and went off to carry out whatever other massacre your employer wanted to commit. Your mind, ever the problematic thing, chimes in: How improper.

Your eyes skirt to the dog tags sitting on the sink, those little plates of steel chastising you "Fuck's sake firebug, this isn't a nudist beach!" like their owners did before. . . before.

Just thinking about it gives you the phantom taste of blood and something acidic, makes you feel a ghostly ache in your bones as if your chest had been ripped open one rib at a time. Invisible glass digs into your throat as you swallow, fish hooks tug on your skin. The mirror hanging above the sink calls for you, mocks you, dares you, orders you to look at the horrid thing that replaced a sweet young child.

Burning flames greet your gaze, swallowing up every last bit of natural color in your eyes just as the hungering beast devours those stupid enough to enter its woods. And you were that fool. The raised bumps of veins and arteries snaking across your chest and throat like creeping ivy attest to that, each inch of your blood vessels meticulously, painfully, pulled from the safe depths of skin and bone to heal on the surface of your skin (or bleed and rot. You could never tell when torture turned into intended murder.)

Your body tells a tale of your survival (for whatever that's good for), most of your scars old and healed, created at a time when you didn't know how to heal yourself. Dimly glowing lines of hardened mana occasionally stretch across your skin, spiderwebs of deep cyan peek beneath your hair on one side of your head and pulse across your throat, glittering amber swirls across your side — small and pretty testaments of wounds so horrendous only magic could keep you in one piece.

An eternal flame burns in your chest, its steady unfaltering glow outlining your sternum and each rib in such clarity it's like you're a cadaver in a morgue, a textbook example of a person slowly spiraling towards lichdom. The light emanating from within you makes the jagged dark ink curving along the space of your ribs stand out like a sore thumb, D.O.D. 2016.01.01. Your fingers ache to trace the little shaky messages of not Today, Guess again, yuo wish, NO, just one more day that circle it, but you can't bring yourself to do it.

You can't sully the last few things you have left of them, you can't, you can't you can't—

Crack!

You realize you've broken the mirror when you pull your hand back and see large shards stick out between your knuckles. Little reflections of yourself continue to mock you as you pull the pieces out. It doesn't hurt, it hasn't hurt since the mage marks first cracked the pads of your fingers, though you're still unsure if it's a gift or a curse —"leave it for the scholars to bicker about" as your Commander loved to say.

A shadow flickers in the corner of your eye, almost like a silhouette of someone you think you knew. Glowing lines of a magic circle burst into the air before you can physically react, mana simmering beneath your skin as magic comes to you easier than breathing.

The hallway lights up to reveal nothing. The thing you saw was just the shadow of a tree branch moving in the wind. You unsummon your magic before it can burn anything, the dwindling sparks nipping your fingers before they’re snuffed out as a way to show your mana is not pleased by the false alarm.

There is nothing there.

You are alone.

Again.

Your phone rings, the factory setting music grating on your ears. The phone is a piece of shit Nokia brick that belongs in a museum, but it works fine as far as burner phones go. Archaic technology like this plays better with magic than the flashy electronics people use nowadays, and the fact it doesn't connect to wifi helps make you harder to track.

You use the back of your knuckle to answer the phone, luckily not needing to pick it up as your mana enhanced hearing is a lot better than human. You manage to force a rough "Yes?" out of your throat.

"Nicely done my friend." Khaled sounds pleased with the death you brought, "You put on a very nice show." The eloquent Arabic he speaks makes the praise sound even nicer to your ears, like a balm of milk and honey to soothe your mind after what you went through. You can see how he's amassed as many men as he has, you could see yourself joining him full time if you were younger and dumber.

Your thoughts sit on your tongue like hot coals, but you swallow them down. "Thank you sir." You say instead, politely. Respect for your superiors was beaten into you years ago, yet exhaustion makes your words sound far rougher than his. Thankfully you're able to keep the accent of your mother tongue from deforming the fragile vowels.

"Ever the modest one." Khaled's chuckle is deep and just at the edge of mean, the subtle change in tone making the fine hairs at the back of your neck stand on end. "I need to pick up some more toys." And by 'I' he means you.

Toys — guns, bombs, other weapons intended for mass destruction; you're not surprised he's using slang instead of saying it outright. Your employer may be an overgrown murderous warlord, but he's not dumb, there's no doubt heavy surveillance has been put on both of you and Al-Qatala as a whole after your stunt.

It makes sense why he'd want to send you for the weapon's deal instead of going himself, there's no telling when some military group or pmc will try to bushwhack them in hopes of body bagging Khaled. Hell, you'd be disappointed if the CIA wasn't already in the final stages of planning a counter terrorism measure. Nosy fucks.

"Understood sir. Send me the shopping list." You feel your brow twitch with irritation when Khaled abruptly cuts the call. A sigh escapes you; your stomach feels like a witch is using it for a cauldron, all sorts of nastiness bubbling into a disgusting brew — your body's trying to warn you of something you can't see.

Not like you listen.

Dropping the last of the mirror shards into the sink you reach over to grab the dog tags and slip the cold chain around your neck. The metal warms up quickly, becoming indistinguishable from your skin. You rest your hand over them. If you try hard enough, you can just about sense the last remaining dregs of their magic— cool water, nibbling ice, soft soil — but the rest blend together into senseless mana, nothing but whispers of the past.

16 other tags rest against your skin, your own nestled somewhere between the dead.

You should have died instead.

You tear your hand away with a scoff, shaking those thoughts off and go get dressed. You slip on your helmet last, the tension in your shoulders evaporating when your face is hidden. Your lungs stutter for a second before adapting to breathe normally. You throw a glance at the shattered mirror and this time it's the helmet that greets you; just another soldier, just a mage.

Yeah. . . that's you alright.

Your phone vibrates, telling you you've received a message.

Right. You have a job to do. Here's to hoping this one isn't your last.

You're not holding your beath.

. . .

The briefing room is silent as Laswell goes over the census: 200 confirmed dead, hundreds in serious condition, thousands more who will be affected in the coming weeks and months when the seasonal storms wash the toxins into water sources and pollute the earth. And that's not talking about the long term effects, who knows how many will be lost in the coming years trying to neutralize the poisonous magic and rebuild.

Toxic gas itself is problematic when they don't know what specific kind it is, but when it binds with loose particle magic like ash or sand it can linger for decades, eroding concrete and skin alike. A whole generation will be born in hazmat suits.

Kate finishes speaking. A minute of silence follows.

Soap takes the time to try and visualize the dead as people rather than just a statistic, but his mind falls short. His tail twitches with irritation, fists clenching by his sides; he just can't understand how one person could do all of that without rockets or explosives.

His brain births a grim thought — fire hot enough to burn through concrete wouldn't leave behind any bodies, so he can tack on several more hundred deaths to the census, ones that have no way of being confirmed, leaving families without a body to grieve over.

"As far as we know." Kate begins again, her face grim, deep dark shadows stretching beneath her eyes. Only caffeine and determination have helped chase away her exhaustion. "This was a terrorist attack organized by Khaled Al-Asad," She pulls up two pictures on the interactive board, one of Khaled, the other — the same featureless helmet they'd seen on the news. "And carried out by a mage mercenary called Ifrit. True identity unknown."

Soap's ear twitches and he tilts his head at Ghost. "Bet yeh he's an ugly focker."

Ghost's dark eyes flicker to him. "Didn't think that 'bout me did you?" He mutters, eyes returning to the screen, staring at your picture as if it'll reveal some deeper meaning; an insight into a murderer's mind. Soap holds off on doing the same, he doesn't want any of the sludge on him.

“Could also be a ‘her’.”

Their gazes turn to the two women sitting at the front, the captain and lieutenant of another pmc the US has contracted to help them deal with this problem.

The one who spoke is a woman in her late 30's, brown hair pulled in a tight bun, green eyes occasionally flickering with whisps of unnatural blue; Captain Roberts – if Johnny remembered her name correctly from orientation – continues. “Women are better at using magic, and control it with the finesse required for more complex spells.” She explains with a dismissive look, absentmindedly waving her gloved hand like they’re just insects buzzing around her head.

Yeah, Johnny doesn't like her. And it's not because she smells like sweet lotus mixed with the stench of rancid fish rotting under the sun. It's because she's as hoity-toity as every other mage he's met (thankfully he's only met a few).

The shorter woman sitting next to Captain Roberts shrugs, black hair pulled into a similarly tight bun. "A little biased there captain." Lieutenant Martinez says, her black eyes flickering to look at the monsters. "Though, I can't say it's unwarranted." He hears her mutter.

Johnny notices striped patches velcroed to their arms, 2 icy blue ones on Martinez, 3 deep blue on Roberts. Distantly he remembers them to signal the power level of a mage on the international power scale, though he's blurry on the finer details.

Johnny’s ears twitch as he hears Ghost mutter a “Fuckin’ ‘ell.” under his breath before the wraith gruffly speaks up loud enough for all to hear. “Nail Ifrit and you’ll get the chance to check for bollocks.”

Roberts turns her head to look at Ghost. Her eyes look him over and the initial scowl (which Johnny's sure she was born with) turns into something that makes Johnny's fur stand on end and gums itch with the need to bare his teeth. She opens her mouth to speak—

A low rumble wafts through the air as Price blows out a puff of cigar smoke, the soft cloud escaping through the open window but the strong scent remains. "Hush." Price's pupils are thin like needles, shutting up Roberts with one look before he looks at Kate. "What do we know about 'em?"

Kate frowns, "Not enough." She pulls up a map of the world, a red dot placed somewhere in Libya. “Ifrit first appeared on our radars 2 years ago under the employment of a Libyan warlord called Ahmed Saleh.” Next she pulls up a video, playing it. The camera work is shaky, but Soap's able to make out said warlord speaking in a language he doesn't know, Ifrit standing by his side like some freaky statue. The camera shifts to focus on the row of men behind them, all bound on their knees with bags over their heads.

Johnny knows immediately what this is.

He still flinches when glowing circles spring beneath the mens knees, violent flames shooting high up into the sky as if Ifrit just used their personal key to open Satan's backyard. The camera flickers like an old TV, catching the last few seconds of glitched dying screams and magic burning away skin and muscle before the the video ends.

"Jesus." Kyle mutters next to Soap, his clawed fingers carding through the black feathers on his other forearm in a self soothing motion. "Just. . . Jesus."

"Ah dinnae think he’ll help." Soap mutters back, nose wrinkling as if he can already smell the burning bodies.

"A few weeks after this video was taken, Ifrit went into hiding before resurfacing again under a different employer." If Kate's bothered by the public execution, she doesn't show it. "Cross referencing the attack in Uzrikstan we’ve found over 50 arson attacks with the same M.O.” More red dots spread across the world map haphazardly, seemingly with no rhyme or reason. “As well as indication of Ifrit's involvement in numerous organized crime groups. Khaled is just their latest employer.”

Ghost lets out a low whistle. "Our arsonist's been busy."

"So what?" Soap's fur bristles even more, "The torcher just pop oot like a weed aw o'a sudden an' immediately jump intae terrorism?"

"Maybe?" Kyle scratches the back of his neck. "If they're a late bloomer and unbound then it makes sense why some crime rings would want them," He turns his head to look at Captain Roberts, "Right?"

She doesn't spare him a look, chewing on her words like Kyle had put something foul in her mouth. "I suppose developing strong magic after adolescence is possible." She begrudgingly says, "And unbound magic is stronger than bound, making Ifrit look like an appealing attack dog." She crosses her arms over her chest, stroking her chin in thought.

"But unbound magic also damages to the body." Lieutenant Martinez pipes up. "And that type of mage marks would take more than just 2 years to develop even if they used magic 24/7."

"You're correct." Captain Roberts finally glances at Kyle, giving him a look as if he had asked the difference between a pug and a werewolf. "It's more likely they had magic for a while. Not to mention received training for it."

Another low rumble escapes Price's chest, the sound reminiscent of construction machinery. "How come we didn't know about the firebug earlier?" His voice is calm, making the sharp edge underneath it cut deeper.

Kate sighs, "I hate to say it, but Ifrit is good." She says solemnly. "Their magic destroys electronics, they never show their face or leave witnesses, and they manage to cover their tracks up so well that we can't find even a partial mana-cule signature on the arson attacks, the most recent one included."

Her words make little sense to him, entering Johnny's ear and exiting through the other. He remembers taking a few classes on the types of magic that can mimic explosive materials when he was doing his demolition course, but all the jargons had made his head hurt and wasn't needed in the end. His tail tucks closer to his leg. "A what?"

Captain Roberts scoffs, but her Lieutenant speaks up. "A mana-cule detector picks up the way magic that's left in a victim's body refracts light. It's specific to every mage, so, like a magical fingerprint." She holds up her gloved hand to give visual to her comparison.

Soap feels Gaz's feathers brush against him as the man folds his wings closer to his body, resting his elbows on his knees as he looks at the screen. Kyle's eyes wander back to the starting image of the video where you're standing behind the warlord, mentally comparing it with the brief glimpse of you he got on the news. Something about you screams 'professional' to him, like you've done this so many times you got used to it the same way he got used to pulling the trigger of his gun.

"Ifrit doesn't look like some gang banger Khaled or some warlord picked off the street." Kyle finally says, and though he knows Laswell probably had the same thought, he still asks. "Could they be ex military or part of some pmc?"

"We're operating under this assumption, but we can't confirm anything." Kate frowns. "We're still trying to find any personal information about them."

"Getting to the important information." Captain Roberts says, giving them a pointed look. "What even is Ifrit’s level? With destruction like that I can’t imagine anything beneath L3. L4 if they’re 3 seconds away from becoming a lich or just high on Magnus dust."

"Fuck what dust?" Soap asks, but Captain Roberts just waves him off like his question is too stupid for her to answer.

"Magical crack." Ghost shrugs. "Makes the magic stronger, but also turns the mage into a firecracker."

Kate rubs her brows, a headache starting to pound behind her eyes. "By our calculations Ifrit falls into the L5 category." Her words make the rest of them go silent, but Soap just looks around confused.

"Preposterous." Captain Roberts huffs, "I can count on my fingers how many L5's there have been since Christ was born. Ifrit being one is just impossible." A deep scowl etches across her face. "At best, Ifrit is just an L3 high on Magnus dust with no regard for their body. They'll be a lich in a couple months."

"Regardless of what Ifrit is," Price speaks up, stubbing the cigar butt on the window sill and throwing it out the window. "What do we do about them?" A small bit of smoke escapes the corner of his lip, dragon fire burning hot in his chest in response to his well masked anger.

"An insider in Al-Qatala claims a weapon deal will be going down in a day." Kate swipes away the previous pictures, putting on a bird’s eye-view map of a shipping dock. 5 large warehouses circle an empty concrete space bordering the ocean, clearly long abandoned. "From what we know, Khaled has Ifrit secure most of his weapons because they’re careful. If a buyer’s even a minute late they call it all off."

"So punctual and paranoid?" Gaz sumarrises.

Ghost hums to himself. "Quite the work ethic." He side-eyes Johnny. "You could lean som'thin' from 'em."

Soap just huffs, his tail bumping against Ghost's leg in retaliation, his snagglefang showing as his lip quirks up into a small smirk when Ghost's dark eyes flicker to him.

"You’ll need to be tight, there's no telling when this opportunity will present itself again." Kate continues, ignoring them. "Team Alfa," A dot pops up on one side of the docks, Price's and Lieutenant Martinez's faces beneath it. "you'll be going in from the north. Bravo—" Another dot appears on the opposite side with Ghost's and Captain Robert's faces. "—the south."

The dots move to indicate how they're supposed to approach the position, ending up with them completely surrounding the docks. "We don't know Ifrit's full battle capabilities, so you'll need to be careful. Isolate and tire them out before attempting capture, but kill if you must." Laswell looks at them all. "We can only assume ifrit's magic is short ranged so under no circumstances do you get close to them, understood?"

"Crystal ma'am." Captain Roberts shrugs, throwing a look at the monsters at Taskforce 141. "Just let us take care of the mage and keep out of the way so you don't become collateral. I would hate to waste my time healing you." Her eyes linger on Ghost, bits of bright blue mana flickering in her eyes. "Well, most of you." Soap feels Ghost subtly stiffen next to him.

That woman's charming as a train wreck; Soap can feel himself prickle with irritation, more and more strands of fur rising to stand straight on his tail the longer he has to stay near Roberts.

Luckily they're let go early to go rest up and prepare while the two mages stay with Price and Kate to iron out the finer details of which mages which team is taking and what spells to use. Apparently everyone but Price and Kate are too stupid to understand the 'complexity' of their spells.

Soap would be insulted, but he takes the opportunity offered to him. He glues himself to Ghost's side as much as he can 'professionally', his tail curling around his leg as Johnny throws a smug look over his shoulder at Captain Roberts.

Johnny catches her looking back at him like he’s a flea ridden mutt and that just makes his tail wag. He forgets about her the moment the door of the briefing room closes, busying himself by subtly rubbing his arm against Ghost's, spreading a bit of his scent on the wraith's jacket. It's one of the few times he's glad wraith's don't have a scent — makes it easy to smell himself on Ghost.

"Someone's territorial." Gaz chirps as he joins them on Ghost's other side, feathers brushing against their backs to throw his own scent into the mix.

Ghost just looks at Soap bemused, his thick paw of a hand coming up to cradle the back of Johnny's head, gloved fingers gripping his skin like he's a puppy. "You bettah not piss on me."

Gaz breaks out into laughter and Johnny feels his cheeks grow warm. "Dirty bastard." He huffs, but stores the idea for later. "Are all mages like that?" He tilts his head back at the door.

"Uptight?" Gaz asks. "Snotty?"

"Wankers with their heads shoved up their arse?" Ghost helpfully adds.

"That's putting it brawly," Soap lets out a breath, amusement tugging at his lips as his tail wags.

"Yeah, I think it's like a requirement to be a military mage." Kyle chuckles, holding up his hand like he's judging someone's height. "You've got to be this much of a twat to join." He grins, passing them as he goes to get ready.

Soap wants to say more but Ghost's hand on his neck demands his attention, tilting his head up. His breath catches in his throat as Ghost bends down until their foreheads bonk together softly, the cool metal of the mask tickling Soap's skin. "Don't go doing anything dumb pup, olright?"

Dark eyes meet his own, a shiver runs down Soap's spine, his mouth dry as a desert when he tries to swallow the rock in his throat; Soap can't even begin to define the strange thing that was born between them on that one night in Las Almas, he can still remember the way Ghost's deep voice had kept him sane and his wolf's demands to blindly rush the enemy and get back to his pack quiet.

Johnny certainly can't define the late nights spent sharing that dog piss Simon likes drinking, nor the rough touches and hickeys they leave on the other, though they never have time to get further than that.

This feels nice too.

His hands sneak to Ghost's hips, thumbs hooking under his belt loops to pull their bodies closer, pressing his chest against Ghost's. "When have I ever done that?" He smirks, lips ghosting over Simon's masked ones.

He feels Ghost's chest rumble as the man chuckles, his other hand roughly gripping Johnny's arse. "You want a list?"

Johnny's tail wags more, "Well, I reckon I'd be up fer-"

"Oi, I’d hate to break the snogfest but we’ve got things to do!" Kyle’s chuckle breaks them up before they can do anything else. Soap turns to flip the bird to the bird, but Kyle's tail feathers have already disappeared into the changing room.

. . .

 The night is calm.

Mellow waves break against the well worn concrete walls of the docks, tree leaves softly flutter in the mild breeze, crickets and frogs sing their songs into the night air. The world itself doesn't care about you or the soldiers guarding the docks. Absentmindedly you track the movements of the men Khaled gave you, the barely noticeable crumbs of magic you stuck on them flickering at the back of your mind like dwindling coals.

All are accounted for. The night is calm. There is nothing out of the ordinary.

And yet your nerves are on a razor's edge. The relative silence scratches down your spine with long crooked claws, the calmness crackles beneath your skin like electricity. Your fingers itch with the need to tap them against your thigh, to do something; waiting has always been your least refined quality regardless of how often you needed to use it. Your body, your magic, Hell — the very essence of what you are — craves the heat of battle, the sweet lull of adrenaline's song to put your nerves at ease.

You resist moving too much. Years of training make hiding the signs of unease and nervousness easy as breathing, your body so still you could be mistaken for a statue if your chest didn't steadily rise and fall.

Taim doesn't possess your abilities. You can feel his nervousness on your tongue, like licking an old battery. His hands shift to re-adjust the hold on his gun for the 6th time in the past 10 minutes. You doubt he knows you're watching him from the corner of your eye, so the tenseness of his shoulders must be from you just being near him.

It doesn't surprise you — many countries that have had Russian or Soviet influence consider mages more monstrous than actual monsters. Mages like you are perversions of God's template, thieves who possess power not intended for you. Urzikstan is no different.

You don't point out how Taim flinches when you raise your hand to look at the time, the watch face strapped to the inside of your wrist; some habits are hard to break.

The deal is supposed to happen at 3AM, and it's 02:57 already. "The seller's taking their sweet time." You say under your breath, lowering your hand. You have half the mind to call it off and tell Khaled to teach his suppliers punctuality. Hell, you've done it before when you had less surveillance on yourself and your employer. This just feels like tempting luck.

Taim looks at his own watch and glances your way. "I understand your frustration sir, but- but we just need to wait a bit more." He absentmindedly holds up three fingers to indicate the minutes left, starting the count from his thumb.

It wouldn't be so odd if middle eastern countries such as Urzikstan didn't start counting with the pinky finger. Americans count with the index. That just leaves the entirety of Europe. You hum a low sound at the back of your throat.

"They-" Taim quickly puts his hand down and grips his gun in both hands, apparently thinking you hadn't noticed his blunder. "They should be here any min- minuta." Another slipup; the hint of a different accent softens and shortens the last vowel of the Arabic word. It narrows down a couple countries, but nothing specific.

Taurus would have made you run around the base for days if you had ever made the same mistakes, provided you survived the consequences of getting caught.

What a fucking amateur.

But Khaled isn't paying you to get rid of vermin, so you let it slide. You catalogue this moment in case you'll need it later, concentrating on the present.

The radio inside your helmet sputters to life, a rough voice speaking quickly in Arabic. "Ship incoming."

Your gaze falls on the dark ocean, mana flowing to your eyes without even having to cast a spell. It's not the same as using a mana sensing spell, those leave your head feeling like you'd volunteered it to be used as a church bell in exchange for perfect clarity of the world around you. But your sight becomes significantly brighter and sharper, enough to see the ship sailing towards the docks. It's a medium sized fishing vessel, the lights inside turned off so as not to attract too much attention, but it meets the specifications Khaled had given you.

You reach up to activate the voice receiver of your radio, pressing the button hidden on the inside of your helmet just behind the gas mask portion. "Our seller's incoming. Get the truck, secure the perimeter and keep tight." You order into the radio, cutting it off again.

You motion for Taim to follow as you walk out from your cover. You had hidden yourselves between two warehouses, their roofs extending to the sides enough to hide you from the sight of drones.

You stop a few feet from the edge of the docks, listening to the truck back up behind you as the boat slowly sails up to the edge of the dock and drops it's anchor.

You don't recognize most of the men on the boat, except for one. "Ah, Ifrit, long time no see," Victor Zakhaev greets you in Russian as he steps off the boat first. You notice a new scar across his face, but otherwise he looks good considering last you've heard of him he'd gotten himself shot and left for dead by some monster taskforce. "I am not late, yes?" He asks in English, offering you his hand.

"Right on time." You say and take his hand in a firm handshake. You try to ignore the way the touch of another human, regardless of the fact you can't really feel his touch, makes your skin crawl.

"Good, good, from you, that is a compliment." He smirks and steps to your side, giving room for his men to unload the heavy weapon crates from the bowels of the ship onto the dock. "I assure you, you'll find the garden hoses and other peashooters are all accounted for." Zakhaev makes a motion with his hand, making his workers put a heavy box onto the ground beside you. "But I know you well, you want to check the goods, yes?"

Needles prick your skin and your mind kicks itself for becoming so predictable. But Zakhaev has known you since your stint with that warlord in Libya, it's only natural he would learn a few of your habits after so long. "You would be correct." You say, your voice betraying nothing.

Zakhaev just chuckles, his workers undoing the crate's top board with his company logo printed on top of it. Inside, nestled between a sea of white packing peanuts, lies one of many M134 miniguns Khaled has been keen on getting — people of your ilk call it the garden hose for the ridiculous amount of ammunition it can spit out in a minute.

Say what you want about the yankees, but their weapons are top notch. Having once been on the receiving end of that weapon, you know first had how useful it can be; both for tearing enemy combatants to shreds and for decimating their morale.

You look over the weapon, unable to find anything wrong with it. Zakhaev takes pride in the guns he sells, you've never had any problem with them. "Looks good." You nod your head at Khaled's men and stand up. "Load them up."

You reach into your pocket and pull out a flash drive. Khaled had paid half of the price up front, leaving you to deliver the second half. Inside the flash drive are wallets with thousands of dollars worth of crypto currency. This is a smart play on your employer's part; you don't need to lug around suspicious briefcases full of cash, and there's no wire transfer some nosy agent can trace back to Khaled.

"Rest of your payment." You say simply, handing the inconspicuous flash drive to Zakhaev.

"Thank you kindly." Zakhaev slips the drive into his pocket. You watch the men carry the heavy weapon crates and put them in the truck.

Zakhaev shuffles through his pockets and pulls out a packet of cigarettes, some Russian brand. He taps the bottom of the carton on the back of his hand, offering you the stick that partially sticks out of the box. "Care to join me?" He asks, taking it in stride when you don't react. With a shrug, he puts the cigarette between his teeth. "Help an old friend, yes?"

You don't particularly like being the personal lighter for anyone, but you acquiesce — powerful and resourceful men with fragile prides are better as friends than foes; The task is so simple you don't even need to form a magic circle, a single thought making the end of the cigarette smolder before vestigial flames spark up from nothing, catching on the tightly packed dried leaves and setting them alight.

"Impressive trick." Zakhaev compliments and breathes in the nicotine, unbothered when he receives your silence again. You expect the rest of the weapons exchange to pass quietly, you and him watching from the sidelines as the men load heavy crates into the back of a truck. Your presence here is only as a guard dog.

Zakhaev surprises you by speaking up again. "Ah, there was another thing I wanted to speak to you about."

Another crate is set by your feet. You tilt your head to look at Zakhaev before your gaze flickers to the worker who pries the top board open. Inside isn't a minigun or an automatic rifle Khaled had ordered, but a sniper rifle.

"What is this?" You ask, just about keeping yourself from tensing; This is unexpected, a surprise, and surprises can get you killed faster than playing patty cake with a landmine.

Zakhaev, as if sensing your unease, waves you off. "A gift, my friend." He says in Russian, the words easy to understand. "And a. . . taste, shall we say, of what I can offer you in the event you decide to seek other employment opportunities."

Ah. So that's what this is about — he's trying to bribe you.

Now that you think about it, it isn't too surprising. He knows what you're capable of, and mages of your abilities don't grow on trees. "Is that so?" You ask in Russian, playing along as you kneel down and pick up the gun.

Your fingers move with life of their own, gliding smoothly and confidently over the metal as if you'd been born with it. The barrel is straight as an arrow, the butt fits comfortably against your shoulder, the magazine locks into place with a soft 'click', the bolt moves back with buttery smoothness and gives you sight of the live round before it's loaded into place with a second satisfying sound. It tickles your brain, that violent thing in your chest stirs with interest.

"You like it, yes?" Zakhaev chuckles, the sharpness in his eyes momentarily lost as he observes you as one does a child opening gifts on Christmas morning. "It’s a .50BMG, semi-auto, 5 rounds every 1.6 seconds, 1,800mile range, 1,319 m/s velocity, and has a 5-round detachable box mag with a muzzle brake." He details, and you mentally whistle to yourself; guns like these cost a fortune. "It's a nice gun, no?"

It is a very nice gun.

Something at the back of your mind tingles; a smoldering coal is quenched, a string snaps and sends a single needle through your amygdala. Foreign mana, as subtle as a tank, traipses at the edge of your consciousness — a fly unknowingly vibrates the threads of a spider's nest.

It is a very nice gun.

And you just found a target to practice on.

. . .

"What is Zakhaev doing here? I thought we buried him in Verdansk?" Sergeant Garrick’s voice chatters quietly over the coms as Captain Roberts makes her way through the swamp, muddy water up to her knees and insects buzzing around her head. A few of her best mages trail behind her, the rest of her team mingled between the monsters on the other side of the docks.

"Turns out our matchstick's just a magnet for wankers." Sergeant MacTavish’s voice crackles. She doesn’t stop the scoff that comes to her lips. He just has a voice that’s easy to dislike, then again she never did like mutts.

"Our mission remains the same, get Zakhaev if you can but Ifrit’s a more dangerous target." Captain Roberts wants to argue with Price. Hell, she did for nearly an hour after the briefing was done just on the subject why everyone but him and the wraith had to wear gas masks. Captain Price is too paranoid in her opinion; after the terrorist attack there's no way their target's mana reserves aren't depleted to shit, Ifrit probably couldn't put up a fight tougher than wet tissue paper but nooo, Laswell just had to pick that lizard over her own kind.

"Took care of a straggler." The deep rumble of Lieutenant Ghost’s voice sends a nice shiver down her spine. He had broken off to go ahead, briefly giving her a nice look at his ass. At least there’s one sideshow in that freakshow of a taskforce that’s easy on the eyes. She bets he would look even better without that ugly mask, all those big muscles on display and quivering beneath her…

"Alfa team in position." Price speaks into the radio.

Roberts shakes her head, refocusing on the task as she kneels in the dark water. She's partially hidden behind a rotten tree stump, but the night is dark and there's enough critters and insects in the swamp to make sensing them with mana difficult. "Team Bravo in position." She says.

"Good, stand by, we only get one chance at this." That's probably the only thing she and Price agree on. Opportunities like this don't fall into their laps often, maybe she can even nab herself a promotion if she captures both Ifrit and Zakhaev.

Curiosity tugs on her mind as she watches the weapons deal go down. She doesn’t know what she expected but this isn’t it; The last time she had seen someone capable of similar destruction, it had been a teenager in the late stages of lichdom— mind eroded, body nothing but skin and bones, magic rotting the poor girl from the inside out until all that was left was an animal in human skin.

She expected something similar, maybe worse, not for Ifrit to look no different than every other criminal piece of shit she's seen.

Unable to hold back her curiosity she hunches her shoulders and takes off her gloves. Her mage marks are extensive and ugly; reach to the first knuckle of each finger, the dried coral like texture scratching her skin as she places one hand on her face to peer between her fingers, another resting over her chest.

Captain Roberts can at least feel proud for being so magically gifted she can shorten a 40 something word incantation to just 13 measly words: "Sister of steams, daughter of oceans, give me sight to see the hidden." She can feel her mana leisurely crawl through her veins as she murmurs the spell, like squeezing honey through a cheesecloth.

The world lights up in an array of colors like a broken kaleidoscope, shapes and outlines flickering in and out as the mana inside every living creature mixes and twirls with the dark backdrop of dead mana without rhyme or reason. The sight is something humans were never meant to see, and it stabs at her eyes for even daring to look, but she can stomach it long enough to catch sight of Ifrit's mana.

Captain Roberts is disappointed to see the mana surrounding you is nothing to write home about; orange mana cleanly outlines your entire frame, barely a couple of inches thick, not too bright and not even the barest flicker in the even surface to indicate mana suppression.

The disappointment morphs into relief as she deactivates her spell — at the very least she won't need to waste her time with this monster and terrorist nonsense longer than she has to. Shame, she had been looking for a challenge—

A violent shiver runs down her spine, her heart lurches and bashes against her ribs with the feral panic of a prey animal trying to escape, cold sweat breaks out across her skin and pain blooming in her arteries as mana rushes to her fingers—

A bullet strikes the rotten stump she's hiding behind.

Magic explodes on contact.

Violent flames race to devour those still living.

. . .

You count 5 seconds between the bullet hitting it's target, the magic you imbued it with exploding, and it all going to shit.

You throw a hand over Zakhaev's shoulder and force him to the ground as the first hail of bullets comes your way. You drop to your knee just in time to avoid receiving a lead injection, the concrete behind you exploding in small puffs of dust as the high caliber bullets hit the ground or bounce off Zakhaev's boat to tear through the meat shields that are Khaled's men. You try to take a few potshots, but your position is bad and you can't tell where the shots are coming from.

You catch large elongated sticks fall from the sky and clatter to the ground. You immediately screw your eyes shut, bending at the waist to put your face parallel with the ground and pressing your hands to your ears. You avoid the flash as the stun grenades go off, but the following bang! rattles inside your ears and makes you stumble as you straighten out.

But you know this is just a distraction: beneath the whizzing bullets and echoing shots you can feel the world groan, the air shivering with disgust as magic slowly gathers at the fingertips of enemy mages. They take every precious second given to them to build and strengthen their spells, the average cast time around a minute.

You need no such preparation.

The moment you feel their spells release, like a rubber band snapping against your skin, you summon your own magic. You have neither the time nor space to produce a proper counter spell when you haven't seen your enemies casting circles, so your offence becomes your best defense — glowing circles spark across the air to shoot out violent flames, burning heat and freezing cold colliding in the crisp night air. Your magic is far superior, turning the balls of ice and water into steam.

The boundless steam floods the area and rushes at you like a stampede of frantic beasts. You pull Zakhaev close to you, shielding his fragile body from the blistering mist as it washes over you, nothing but a mild inconvenience. Your stomach feels tight, as if mocking you for not listening to your body.

At least you can be certain this isn't just some group of Khaled's enemies or gangsters that stumbled on you. The fact they're using water and ice spells means this was preplanned, they have a specific target — you.

The thought makes something inside you stir. You feel your heart begin to beat a little faster, a little harder, a little louder, banging against your ribs in the slow start of a war march to rouse the slumbering beast in your veins. Enticing it with what it you craves.

You hear Zakhaev say something but his words fail to reach your ears, not that you'd be able to respond with how your tongue feels like it's made of lead. Your body always does this; jaw tensing to keep you quiet, muscles relaxing in preparation, the lingering vestiges of nervousness evaporating to clear your mind so you can focus. Something in that fucked up brain of yours makes you switch to the first language you ever learned — violence.

Your grip is ironclad as you throw Zakhaev over your shoulder like he's a sack of potatoes, summoning more spells for cover instead of listening to his cursing. Even more steam blankets the ground, joining alongside gunfire and magic to create a disorientating shroud you're very familiar with. You easily duck and weave through Khaled's men, catching glimpses of enemy bodies moving beyond the steam as you head to the truck, hoping to use it for momentary cover.

Throwing Zakhaev into the back of the truck with the weapon boxes you skirt to the front of the vehicle, the sharp bang! of your fist knocking against the metal door scaring the shit out of the driver. You meet the man's eyes through the darkened lenses of your helmet, giving a hand gesture for him to drive.

Hummingbirds peck at the back of your skull, giving you ample warning to jump out of the way even before a circle spreads beneath your feet. A shard of ice erupts from the ground where you'd just stood, thankfully avoiding the car and giving the driver further incentive to get the fuck out. Ants crawl down your spine in another warning, and you saw enough of the previous circle to disrupt the one that appears behind you, a few orange lines springing up in the neat blue circle to make it fizzle out and send the half built spell right back at the caster.

With the primary targets secured you can turn your full attention on the attackers, your gloves smoldering as hot mana rushes to your fingertips. You hear pebbles crunch under a boot while you summon your own magic circles, the return of that tight feeling in your stomach making you break concentration just enough to catch sight of one of Khaled's men in your periphery.

You notice the gun aimed at you a second too late.

Bang!

Pain flares through your shoulder, your body moving on its own as you throw yourself to the side to avoid another round. You don't need to think for your flames to burst beneath the feet of your attacker, using the distraction to retreat into the space between two warehouses, giving yourself better cover. Mana rushes to the hole in your shoulder, drops of molten metal leaking from your wound when you lean forward, your clothing greedily drinking up your mana saturated blood and sticking to your skin.

Your magic repairs your body as quickly as you're injured, pain rapidly fading away until only the dull sting of betrayal remains. Like a sacrificial lamb, it catches the deadly attention of the thing slumbering in your heart.

It wakes up angry and feral and oh so hungry.

Fangs of freezing heat tenderly grip your heart, ravenous nothingness once birthed by your desperation now begs and demands for your will to give it shape. How can you refuse?

Flames spark at your palms, burning away the thick material of your gloves to free your hands. A freezing chill gnaws on your burning fingers and harkens the arrival of something that slinks out of your heart like crude oil, bulging and molding itself to your veins as it crawls to your palms. Darkness consumes the orange glow of your magic, leaving behind little pitch black candlelight flames burning at your fingertips. 'Flames' is a bad word to describe them when they suck the light around them; it's like looking at black silhouettes in the approximation of fire, painted straight onto reality by a child's hand.

A magic circle spirals beneath you, glowing bright blue and stinking of enemy magic. You can just about hear the chanting of spells near you, more circles appearing on either side of you, trapping you.

"Beelzebub," You mutter under your breath, not out of need — you've long since mastered the art of wordless magic — but out of respect. "Devour."

2 measly words is all it takes for the black fires to shoot straight up like the fangs of a beast, leaping off your fingers in wide arcs and creating a quickly expanding perimeter around you, circling like sharks as they rush outwards. The meticulously crafted circles shatter like glass, hundreds of little shards of visible mana fluttering around you for a second before they're swallowed up by the black fires.

Beelzebub is a ravenous spell, lashing out at everything around you with the sole intent to consume, to devour every little bit of mana in an endlessly fruitless attempt to sate its hunger. Regardless, if said mana has already been made into a spell, of it's still inside a person.

You don't see it, but you know the exact moment Beelzebub finds the enemy mages, screams of horror and pain filling the air as black flames descend on them like bloodhounds. You can feel Beelzebub's freezing claws tear into them, leaving the flesh unharmed but tearing their mana out bit by bit, devouring it, syphoning the power back to you.

Once, long ago, the acrid rush of foreign mana through your system would have knocked you on your ass, now it just forces you to sway and lean against the warehouse wall. Long ago, the way stolen mana gnaws on your veins and claws at your chest for escape would have left you writhing on the floor, but now you can barely feel it. Your stomach cramps, the urge to vomit still as strong as it was back then, your senses registering all the rot; people don't think about how many forms rot can take — decaying kelp, festering flesh, acid rain, gangrene, moldy wall paper — hundreds of little deaths making up the very essence mages depend on.

Your body begs to use magic before you explode, muscles tensing, chest fluttering, ribs squeezing down on your lungs in an attempt to keep the stolen mana imprisoned. Sweet relief floods your mind as the searing heat of your own magic pushes the stolen mana through your veins, herding it into your palms where you can easily reshape it into something familiar to you: Ash.

Pushing off the wall you rush into the open, using Beelzebub's flames to burn the lines of the attack circle into the ground. The thinning steam lets you catch sight of enemies rounding the warehouses in front of you, likely human or monster since Beelzebub would have taken mages closest to you out of commission. You don't ponder this further, the second the final line is drawn you use Beelzebub as a transition point and push all the stolen mana out.

The docks erupt in a puff of disorientating ash. You don't waste time waiting for someone to fire the shot needed to ignite your magic, falling to your knee as you punch the ground. All it takes is for the chips of volcanic rock along your knuckles to scrape against the concrete for a spark to form.

The resulting explosion is never pleasant.

The sudden surge of light and the loud bang! leaves you disorientated for a few seconds, your skin dry yet clammy as if you has just got sprayed by a flash flood of boiling water. Tiny chisels pick at your bones as you stumble to your feet, trying to sculpt you into something holier than what you are.

But you can't complain when the same explosion tears through soldiers like they're paper, not even leaving behind blood to stain you when the harsh heat cremates the bodies closest to you. Your lungs struggle to get in a good breath, the stench of smog and burning meat passing through the filter and clinging to your tongue. You can hear your enemies coughing, you can feel them moving through the smog in search for you, but your ash is so thick it completely hides you, giving you a few seconds to think.

Thousands of thoughts roll around your skull, but one stands out — Khaled finally betrayed you.

Fire shoots out from beyond the ash at you. Your body moves instinctively as you throw your hand up to guard your head and turn away. The hot flames lick harmlessly over your skin, too similar to the heat inside you to harm you, so all it can do is burn your outer clothes until your shirt and bulletproof vest peek out beneath the large smoldering holes.

You get a second to catch sight of sharp curving horns and predatory blue eyes staring at you from the ash, the smog shifting around a rapidly approaching figure. Next thing you know something hard hits you right in the stomach, fast and unyielding like a truck.

Your skin and muscles ripple under the fist, you feel and hear your ribs crack! under the immense strength right before the punch flings you back like a ragdoll.

You crash into a warehouse wall, the metal denting in the shape of your back as more bones crack. Pain flares through your body, your tongue, caught between your teeth, bleeds peppery acrid blood into your mouth. You gasp for breath as much as you're able to, chest weakly fluttering like a butterfly's wing as you find yourself unable to take in a deep breath.

Then a sickening crack! rings right behind your eardrums as your magic pulls out the rib piercing your lung, pushing on it until it fully expands and you can breathe again. Heat slithers through your body to glue together broken bones and torn muscles, repairing you as if nothing ever happened. You're on your feet in seconds, the ripple in the ash giving you enough warning to lunge out of the way before another stream of flames can wash over you. You send your own in return, a magic circle forming in front of you before spewing out a beam of concentrated flame. The force behind it causes the lingering ash to disperse, giving you better sight of your opponent—

Dragon.

Of course your luck has to be so dogshit you'd get a fucking dragon sicked on you. What's next, a damn stone-skinned goliath? Maybe a leviathan to really fuck you over?

You bend your knees as you summon a magic circle beneath your feet. The ash erupts with such force it sends you careening through the air, launching you into the ash free air above you. You're close enough to a warehouse to grasp the jutting out metal sheet of the steel roof, your muscles tensing as you haul yourself up.

Quickly wiping away the ash stuck to your helmet lenses your eyes instinctively look up to search the sky, the bright spotlights of the docks making the night so much darker. If a dragon's after you then there's a high likelihood there are more monsters, and those rarely come without at least one flyer in their team.

The subtle, unnatural, flutter of distant stars across the dark sky gives you enough incentive to throw up a fiery shield, retreating further back onto the roof. Feathers sharp as knives burn to cinders in your flames, some stragglers imbedding themselves near your feet, easily slicing through the steel roof; Harpy.

You can't tell what kind it is, probably a common variety, but it doesn't really matter so long as you can clip the bird's wings.

Mana floods into your eyes as you use a mana sensing spell. The sky lights up like an aurora borealis, the ground below explodes in all sorts of nauseating colors that makes a headache pound against your skull. But it's worth it when the body of the harpy lights up like a lightbulb, contrasting sharply against the sky, it's wings making for the perfect target.

You know harpies are fast fliers. It forces you to give up some firepower in exchange for a homing ability. Changing a spell is an easy thing to do, mentally erasing and adding a couple of lines in your circle before you summon it. You disable your mana sight so you don't blind yourself and let your magic loose, firing off 4 tightly packed balls of fire in rapid order.

You don't stick around to see it try to dodge your magic, turning to your heel to race across the roof after you flood the earth bellow with even more ash. You need to escape; you could try to kill the monsters, you doubt they have anything worse than that dragon, but you have bigger problems — you can't let an enemy like Khaled live.

Something catches your leg like you're a rabbit in a snare, an unforgettable cold creeping up your skin to gnaw on your brain. Ethereal shadows curl like ropes around your ankle and pull you down before you can burn them away. You tumble to the steel roof and blindly summon flames around you, rolling to your side the moment you get yourself free and just barely managing to avoid your own shadow trying to skewer you.

You burn away the shadowy spikes sticking out from the ground, flames flaring up around you to momentarily distract your opponent as you get to your feet. Your eyes settle on the one that tripped you; big fucker, tall and wide, half wreathed in shadows, a skull mask peering at your from the darkness. Your spine feels like it wants to crawl out of your back, the silence of the grave ringing in your ears when you go to sense his magic and pick up nothing.

The same nothing that makes up Beelzebub. Furious. Hungry. Dead.

Wraith. You are facing a Wraith.

Not a goliath, not a leviathan. Worse. Much, much worse.

You have no shot at outrunning that thing when your own shadow can betray you, not to mention the wraith's range is far larger than yours in the dead of night. You have no choice but to charge at him, a circle forming beneath your heel and ash bursting out to launch you forward, your magic burning hot and bright to produce as much light as you can in an attempt to limit the shadows he can use.

Flames wreathe your fist as you throw a punch to his side, your sudden advance taking him off guard just enough for you to hit him, fire eating away at tactical gear to gnaw on the dead flesh. It forces a grunt out of him before shadows spew out from where you hit him to engulf your arm, leaving you open for a sharp knee to the gut. Your hands flare up, volcanic stone melting into active lava to burn away the shadows holding you. A pillar of flame erupts between you two to force him back, but whips of shadow shoot through the fire in quick retaliation. You duck and roll, adrenaline rushing through your veins like a feral hound as you charge at him again.

Shadows and flames are both volatile and taxing, making you two employ similar tactics: rush and overwhelm your opponent. You have to admit, the wraith is fucking good; he's not an oaf despite his size, using it to his advantage and giving you no reprieve from the constant jabs, trying to bully you into a position where you'd be open for his shadows to pierce your flesh.

But you're faster, ducking and weaving between his blows, mana pulsing through your blood and strengthening your muscles when they think of failing you down. You can almost hear Jackal shouting at you for being too slow.

Your flames are an extension of you, you trust them to clash with his shadows so you can focus purely on the Wraith. You can tell he's getting annoyed when you duck under another swing and jab your elbow into his ribs, the un-melted rocks covering your joint much more painful than actual bone. And that's before magic shoots out from your elbow, flames burning away both of your clothes and creating a sizable blistering wound on his side.

"Fucker," His shadows flare out to put out your flames, "Stay still." You catch a hind of a British accent in his rough voice, unable to get any more as liquid shadows roll of his shoulders and shoot out at you. You're forced to stumble back in an attempt to avoid the shadows trying to claw your face off, your heel ending right on the edge of the roof.

There's a small space between the edge you're standing on and the start of the roof of the warehouse adjacent to this one, the space big enough for you to fall through if you're not careful. The fall itself wouldn't be pleasant either. Your jaw clenches harder and you swing your arm down in an arch, summoning dozens of palm sized circles and shooting out bolts of concentrated flame through the shroud of darkness. Some of them hit him and force black smoke to fizzle out from the wounds you inflict on him, his shadows repairing the walking corpse the same way your magic does to you.

That's not good. While you could go hours, you'll run out of the mana you'll need to take out Khaled if you continue this attempt to put the wraith down. Beelzebub's cold flame simmers in your heart, begging to be set free. You'd rather not use it again when the closest mana source is a wraith — a dead thing full of unfiltered rot — god forbid it triggers the only spell you've sworn not to use, but you don't think you have many other options.

Just as Beelzebub readies to crawl from your heart something else grabs your foot, sharp claws digging into your skin and jerking you down. You buck forward and nearly fall face first, throwing your head to look at the thing that's caught you. A man has half hoisted himself up on the roof, clothes torn and barely hanging on to his frame, a gas mask obscuring his face, one clawed hand gripping the steel to keep himself up as the other has your leg in an iron grip that leaves your bones groaning.

You notice the man's elongated ears and gleaming blue eyes as those of a werewolf. Those blue eyes widen to the size of dinner plates when you summon a magic circle point black with his head, the reflective orange glow of your magic swallowing up all the color his eyes.

Shadows shoot out into the space between his head and your circle, devouring the ball of flames you shoot out so the worst the wolf gets is a face full of smoke and singed hair. You turn your body back to face the wrath, throwing up both hands to summon different circles to take both out, but you're too slow. Whips of shadow shoot out and hit you dead center in the chest. The force sends you crashing back, the dumb wolf holding onto your leg pulled down with you.

You crash through the window of the other warehouse and straight down to the ground. The fall forces a loud wheeze from your lungs as large glass shards embed themselves into your back and shoulders where the bulletproof vest doesn't reach. Your ribs crackle like popcorn as magic heals them, but the pain from constantly getting them broken and repaired is starting to linger.

Dark brown fur flickers in the periphery of your vision, the sensation of a heavy body bearing down on your own snapping you back to action. You throw your arm up, the sharp fangs meant for your throat biting down on your forearm. You don't feel pain there, but a sick sense of satisfaction bubbles in your stomach as you get the first row view of your assailant registering the blistering head of your mage marks against the tender flesh of his mouth.

He yelps like a kicked dog as he releases your forearm. With a grunt you grip his shoulders, the patches of fur there smoldering the few brief seconds it takes you to gather enough strength to throw the heavy mutt off you. You stumble to your knees quickly, forced to dampen your healing abilities. The glass shards dig deeper into your muscles as you move, but the threat of them exploding from the heat of your magic prevents you from doing healing your wounds; the best you can do is dull the pain.

The warehouse is dark, but the mana in your eyes gives you a rudimentary night vision, letting you see the werewolf scramble to his own feet, spitting saliva and curses at you, "Aw ye fockin' bawbag! I-"

The rest of his words fail to reach your brain as you register the ignited remains of your ash blanketing the ground, making it impossible to see your feet bellow your knees. The scent of melting steel and smoke invades your nose, your mind taking this as the most opportune time to replace the metal ceiling high above you with hundreds of feet of rubble. Your chest tightens, the wide walls of the warehouse closing in until you feel like there's no space to move.

You're trapped. Again.

Your eyes flicker around in search for an escape, flames sparking from your fingers to burn all the way up to your shoulders, your mage marks burning hot and bright in the darkness. There! — at the very back of the warehouse you spy a motorcycle, your way out. Only a werewolf stands between it and you. It's true what Taurus used to tell you: freedom is a rope and God wants you to hang from it.

Steeling yourself, your hands reach out to grasp the knives you keep strapped to your shins, a subtle shift of the handles in your palms letting your magic flow freely into the steel.

Let him try to stop you.

. . .

Soap 's hackles raise, his fur feeling like it wants to leap off his tail. Such a deep and strong stench of rot permeates his senses his mind thinks he's the one decaying for a second. His eyes focuse on you as flames coat the knives in your hands and artificially extend the blades to give you better reach. Laswell's voice replays in his mind, telling him not to get close. Hell, he swears he can he can hear his ma's voice call him a bloody idjit for thinking of rushing at the fucking demon.

But his body still shifts further, bones snapping and reforming, muscles growing and the tattered remains of his shirt snapping off his torso as his body doubles in size. He can see his glowing eyes reflect in the tinted lenses of your mask before he rushes at you, body low to the ground before he leaps, claws bared.

You sidestep at the last second and raise your arm, the artificial blade of flames licking a blistering cut across his side. Pain shoots up his spine, his blood literally boiling as the fire both cuts him and cautarizes the wound.

"Focker-" He yelps and drops to all fours to dodge a second slash, leaping up and swinging his arm in an uppercut. His claws cut into the Kevlar as they scrape against the bulletproof vest instead of your skin, snagging on something around your neck and pulling it with him as you lean down and duck back to create distance.

Johnny doesn't get to check what it is when you immediately retaliate by throwing your knife at him. He quickly pockets what he got off you and tries to avoid the weapon but it still hits him in the shoulder, hot flames burning at his skin to let the metal slide in deeper. "Bastard-" He snarls but before he can do anything you're next to him, ripping the knife from his shoulder as you duck past him to slash at the back of his knee.

Soap yelps from the pain as he tumbles forward, turning his body as he falls to roughly swipe at you with his superior reach. The force behind his swing makes you stumble, giving his body the few seconds it needs to regenerate. He rolls to all fours, muscles tensing to lunge again— a sense of wrongness shoots down his spine, forcing him to pause.

A pillar of flames erupts from the ground where he would have been had he lunged at you, the bright light blinding him. When he can see again, he catches your form on top of one of the shipping containers, magical circles appearing as you run across the container to pelt him with balls of concentrated ash. The balls explode in large puffballs of ash as they hit the ground, his mind urging him to move to avoid getting a face full of ash. "Aw no yer fockin' not." He mutters under his breath, taking a few quick and wide steps before he leaps onto the shipping container to escape the suffocating smog, racing after you on all fours.

This proves to be a mistake as you suddenly turn around, thrusting your hand out to cast a giant circle right in front of his eyes. Claws digging into the metal Soap throws himself to his side just as a beam of flames shoots out, singeing his furry tail and forcing a strangled gasp out of his lips as a bit of his thigh gets caught in the blast of fire.

He crashes to the concrete ground, the scent rot curling in his nose as the ash swirls over him, but can't reach his lungs thanks to the gas mask. Johnny's leg muscles twitch, his though skin blistered and red like a tomato, the tattered remains of his pants partially burned into his skin. He struggles to get to his knees, pain stabbing his skin as his body tries to heal, watching through blurry eyes as you reach your target — the motorcycle.

The engine revs to life and you get on it without wasting a second. A violent sensation rushes down his spine as you summon another circle, this one so big it stretches across the entire back wall of the warehouse. In a second the metal heats up to the point it's glowing, solid steel turning into molten slag and dropping to the ground like melting snow. Soap's mind stutters when you flip him off before racing away, shouting and gunfire audible but quickly growing quiet as you get away.

Fucking Bastard.

"So- Soap! H-ghr!- ow co-kghr-ppy?" Price's voice crackles through the radio, barely understandable thanks to how much magic is floating around him.

He groans, sucking in a sharp breath. "Still alive." He grinds out. Rapidly approaching footsteps make him stumble to stand, a threatening growl erupting from his throat.

"Just me." Ghost's voice makes him instantly calm down. His body presses against Johnny's and Soap lets himself put his weight on Ghost. "You broken?" Ghost asks, slipping Johnny's arm over his shoulder and gripping his waist, easily holding him up despite Johnny being nearly twice his size currently.

Johnny tries to breathe in deep with the gas mask restricting his lungs, "Just me pride." He glances down to his leg, the wound glistening with clear fluid and still blistered, his healing factor not even making a dent in it. "Fucker got me good." His ears twitch,

"We'll track 'em down." Ghost grunts as he helps Soap limp out of the ash filled warehouse, safe from the magic as he doesn't need to breathe. "I stuck a tracker, they're not getting far."

"Fockin' hope so, ah got a score to settle an' the bawbag flipped me off for fuck—" A thought comes to him. The tattered remains of his pants have pockets high up so he doesn't tear them when he transforms. He reaches into the pocket and pulls the thing he'd accidentally nicked off you. Johnny lifts it up so both of them can see the chain hanging off his fingers, a little more than a dozen dog tags dangling from it.

Even with the gas mask obscuring part of his face, Ghost knows Johnny's smirking. "Bet you Laswell will love this."

Tag list: @resident-cryptid @diejager @lovingtyrantkitten @lieutnt @lilpothoscuttings @krystiannng @crankyweasel @ashy-kit @fyolaizs @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @aldis-nuts @whoislucas @birdiiiiiiiiiii

Masterlist; Chapter 1 <- Chapter 2(you are here) -> Chapter 3

[imsosleepyofyourbull]

This is an impulsive draft of a scene I thought up based on @orange-artist‘s Time Travel AU of the Kamaboko Squad… if you read this, know that I love your art and that I genuinely can’t stop thinking about it. Please enjoy the hyper-fixation soup of words that I call my unedited writing!

“Kanata and Kiriya,” Kagaya gasped, his usually gentle and composed features overrun with surprise as he desperately hoped he had not misheard them. “How… how many of the children did you say survived this year’s Final Selection?”

“Of the thirty-three test takers, thirty-three have passed and will continue to serve the Demon Slayer Corps,” Kanata replied dutifully.

“Of those thirty-three,” Kiriya continued after, already anticipating their father’s next question. “Five were noted to be especially skilled.”

“The independent swordsman who developed his own breathing style, Hashibira Inosuke.”

“The independent swordsman who does not use a breathing style, Shinazugawa Genya.”

“The youngest student of the retired Rumbling Pillar Kuwajima Jigoro, Agatsuma Zenitsu.”

“The newest student of the retired Water Pillar Urokodaki Sakonji, Kamado Tanjiro.”

“And the only student of the current Insect Pillar Kocho Shinobu, Tsuyuri Kanao.”

Kiriya gave their father a moment to commit the different names to memory before concluding, “the remaining twenty-eight state one or more of these five had saved their lives at least once and stayed close by until they were healthy enough to survive the rest of the week. We saw each of them waiting at the edge of the forest for the rest of the stragglers before passing themselves. Additionally, the Kasugai Crows we sent on a final expedition of the forest afterward reported that only one or two of the demons were left alive.”

Kagaya had believed the Miracle Selection to be a once in a lifetime phenomena — marked by a lonely gravestone in their strange family’s shared cemetery and the memory of a peach colored fox wielding violent waters in defense of its peers.

Unimaginable, and unrepeatable.

He was right, but only because this Miracle Selection was nothing like the first. This one was intentional and decisive and everything that his family made of blood, bone, and steel had been waiting for. The beginning, or perhaps just the first visible omen, of a change in the very course of the world that Kagaya had been unable to foresee until it had already happened. Was it any coincidence that there were thirty-three survivors specifically? That, of those thirty-three, five of them in particular had saved the rest?

The Ubuyashiki were superstitious by nature; marrying their heirs to the daughters of priests and teaching their children to create rings of salt around their beds when they wanted some extra protection at night. The importance of the numbers three and five were not lost on him. With the three sacred treasures and the five directions (the five senses) marking their way, there was no question as to what he must do. Kanata and Kiriya know it too, or they would’ve sent a crow instead of making a personal report.

“Tell our most reliable kasugai to follow the five children you just mentioned,” he ordered Kanata, “they don’t have to be especially quiet… though I would appreciate it if they were undisruptive.”

He could not see her, but he knew that she gave him a solemn bow before turning to leave.

For Kiriya, “I need a missive to be sent to all of the currently active Pillars as well as the retired Rumbling and Water Pillars for a meeting at the northwestern estate three months from now.”

“Understood.”

The tide of change was fast approaching, and he knows that it will spell the end of this centuries long battle against the night. Kibutsuji Muzan will not live to see the next era — that, he promises.

(What he does not know just yet is that his chosen children have already sat on the horizon of a demon free world, and they know that they cannot afford to fail twice. Once was enough.)

[my-fancy-hat]

Denji's hypersexuality is a common coping mechanism in SA victims, to try to give the assault a logical meaning of why did it happen, or to get to know the foreign at getting close to the act itself. Genitalia in this case would be representative not only of his lust but also the element reminder of his trauma: "wanting to have tons of sex lead his life to end up miserably", so, the victim blames himself for feeling hurt, accuses himself as the perpetrator of his still ongoing tragedy. The yakuza reminds him of his failure in performing manhood, as Katana Man calls him weak, crybaby, "Chainsaw woman" as kicking his genitals joking to stick them in his behind, and Makima to have twisted his idea of love and taken advantage of his needs, making Denji believe he isn't deserving of forgiveness. At the end it all falls into self-harm, the result of this macabre recipe to make a human to hate every facet of his being: his identity as Denji, as CSM, as a man / his existence: to have born in poverty, orphan, to have killed his father and adoptive family, suggested to perform downgrading gender roles in prostitution (accused woman's job to give men pleasure) / his hopes and dreams for the future, everything is poisoned on his mind. This chapter is about relapse and realization.

Denji is under layers and layers of misconceptions, he is unable to see things through. He thinks his lust is the reason of his tragedy, when he hasn't took an active role in doing anything sexually inappropriate to anyone to get blamed on. He isn't the one to punish for not being strong enough to stood by himself sooner against his abusers and let them have their way, and yet, he still capable to recognize the act is wrong and undeserving (even if he was told through all of his life men should always accept a sex offer and sex = love/joy), ex with Fumiko he inmediatly recognized she assaulted him. So saying sex is his drive in life is utterly wrong, sex isn't Denji's priority and never was actually, and that's something admirable on itself when the world has told him otherwise, because is important to never forget how his happiest was with Aki and Power, putting their friendship above everything else, even above Makima's offers.

I don't think cutting his genitals or even transitioning will fix anything, it would be an impulsive act by trying to escape from the natural progression of the stages of grief and give the instant solution Denji wants so bad right now, where the real cause of his grief is the guilt of the survivor, his self-hatred for having been treated as an object of repulsion and failure through all his life he ended up believing it; to have suffered so much abuse which lead him to see his priorities and identity unclear, amoung other things, seems like it started to click on his mind. This is why Yoru, of all characters, is the one who offers to give Denji "the solution", the character who exists to inflict pain and death on CSM. Also, because he's a hybrid, it will regenerate eventually. It's not gonna happen, probably.

[ollywhoag]

Slugcat designs!!!!! round 2

simpler style this time around, this is mostly for me so feel free to stylize them if you ever draw them. also not height accurate lol

close(er) ups + notes below:

Survivor

albino, prefers the shade

bite scar on neck + scar on tail

Monk

runt of the litter, has bits of fur scattered everywhere

scar on ear

Hunter

bits of fur/torn skin runs down back/tail, helps with mobility

has red lizard DNA (through patch on chest). impulsive and goal driven

x pupils are optional, can be a shine instead

usually seen with a vulture mask

Nightcat

resides in territory above the clouds

hair is all natural

feel free to play around with red markings (he is emo)

one bent ear

selectively mute. prefers solitude

opt ponytail

Enot/Inv

red highlights depend on lighting

uses emoticon facial expressions (can also have pupils sometimes)

tail prehensile

silly

Gourmand

pretty average scug. ambassador of her species. distantly related to survivor, monk & nightcat

has bits of fur, mainly for slugpups to grab onto

Artificer

gnarly sideburn (it feels like charcoal to the touch), left eye is completely gone

partly blind & deaf as a result

go crazy with the scars hes pretty miserable

tuft of fur sticks up behind neck

overbite

Rivulet

evolved to resemble an aquepede for defense purposes

toothy grin and thousand yard stare

build like an eel for optimum mobility in water

Large

eyeliner opt

Spearmaster

ominous. inquisitive creature

7 spots only on face

spots on tail are random

worm

Saint

pattern on tail can be on the ears sometimes

patterns + eyes glow when at max karma

usually wet

[turbulentscrawl]

Luchino Diruse General HCs

The time has finally come. I have a LOT to say about Luchino. This covers both his survivor and hunter forms, and it might be a bit jumbled because I had so many thoughts to try and organize.

-The exact subject of the Professor’s research is left in the air, but given his focus on venom and poisons, and the necessity of testing them on animals, I’m guessing he worked in toxicology. He likely helped to develop antidotes and other products from the substances he and his colleagues studied—and taught students about these subjects in the university laboratory—as well as had a general interest in reptile biology and genetics.

-While Luchino was a bit too open to self-testing during his venom and toxicology research, he did not willingly take the mutated reptile’s venom. The information provided for Luchino doesn’t specifically say that the venom was forced on him…but Luchino’s experiment report from his first manor game describes him as “Vigilant” and as having a “moderate thirst for knowledge.” He was also the only one to survive, due to his curiosity and his respect for potential danger. Because of these, I find it unlikely that he would let a mysterious, mutating reptile bite him. When he self-tested venom before, it’s said he always had antidotes/antivenoms within reach. This just isn’t a risk he’d take. Additionally, Luchino went missing from the labs where this happened, and Dr. Thompson was never mentioned again, so I think it’s likely there was some sort of struggle immediately after Luchino was bitten. For that, a fight had to have been warranted.

-Eli describes Luchino as cautious, dignified, courteous, and “kinder and more friendly than expected.” You all know I talk about it any time I can, but I state once again that Luchino is a gentleman to most if not all people. His vigilance mentioned earlier makes his intuition rather good, so he can fairly reliably tell good people apart from the bad, and uses that to keep himself a safe distance from trouble. He’s also very open-minded and sees atypical traits and behaviors as interesting more than anything else. He feels secure in his judgement of people, which allows his curiosity for all things to flourish.

-But he’s also obsessed with his work. Sometimes that makes him willing to cut corners. (Once again, self-testing with venom.) Which is how he got himself in his current predicament in the first place. He had some concerns about the intentions of Dr. Thompson asking for his help…but his curiosity for this new and strange reptile overpowered his concerns.

-Luchino is a man of indulgence (indicated both by some of the prior hcs, and his S-tier skin wherein he is Dionysus, a god of pleasure and madness.) He sees no sense in being ashamed of desiring sensual, carnal, or dangerous things. Luscious food, rich wine, mind-blowing sex. He also indulges his thirst for knowledge with hands-on experimentation. But indulgence implies a choice, self-control. Indulgence means giving in to something you typically deny yourself. This is where he and Evil Reptilian really diverge.

-So E.R. is very much still Luchino, personality-wise…but his new, more animalistic nature has made him entirely beholden to impulse. He’s still rather gentlemanly, and still a man-beast of science, but he’s more reactive to aggression/challenges and gives into his desires almost indiscriminately. And several of those desires are very much based in his newfound carnivorousness; he’s one of the most vicious hunters because his instinct screams at him to chase and kill anything that runs.

-The two do get along…but Luchino and he strongly disagree on how good the end results of his biological changes are. E.R. considers all of his changes to be positive; he’s faster, stronger, and still smart as a whip—he’s far more capable, overall. Meanwhile Luchino can look at his Hunter self and see exactly how much of his self-restraint is gone. Luchino thinks the biggest thing separating man from animals is free will, and you can’t truly have that if you’re a slave to your impulses.

-Luchino’s COA skin has what I’m pretty sure is an explosive strapped to his chest, which indicates to me that he’d rather go out in a blaze of glory than lose himself entirely. And as a lot of the A/S tier skins share something with their core character, I assume this trait is the same for regular Luchino. Some people theorize that he’s unbothered by his changes, but I don’t think that’s entirely true. As much as he’s intrigued and excited about the scientific implications of the changes he’s undergone, Luchino DOES NOT want to become a mindless animal, to lose himself entirely. He’d rather die and take his mind and all its knowledge with him than let it waste away.

-He’s a more dominant sort of person, but he’s secure in it and his masculinity, so he’s not overbearing or pushy. Rather, Luchino passively presents as something of a natural leader (if not a slightly removed one) because of his level-headed judgement and work ethic. So people tend to look to him for direction. If they don’t, and if he doesn’t like the person who is leading, he’s fine just stepping away and doing his own thing. He’s always the dominant partner in his romantic entanglements and enjoys taking on a provider role.

-He’s not as reclusive as Alva or Luca, but he is less outwardly social than others. He blends in well with most crowds and paces the amount he speaks when in conversation with others. He’s one of those who prompts others to talk more with thoughtful questions—sometimes just to listen to someone he cares for talk more, and sometimes to subtly get information out of someone.

-Despite a few “mad scientist” tendencies, Luchino isn’t usually hyper focused to the point of damaging his health. He’s typically good about sticking to a regular sleep schedule, stays relatively active, and eats healthy. He’s in good shape despite having a career that keeps you at a desk a lot.

-Supposedly, Luchino played a hand in the “failure” of Dr. Thompson’s “matchmaking” business, and this is what made the man want revenge on him. Luchino expresses concern for this, implying that he doesn’t know for sure if he caused it, but feels bad if he did. As such, I’m under the impression that Luchino was just making some negative commentary about the idea of a “matchmaking service” to their colleagues. Luchino seems to have been likeable and respected, so word got around about his opinion on the matter and the business (likely already struggling) tanked.

[deusvervewrites]

Inko is a Saiyan (and the number two hero, poor Enji), making Izuku half Saiyan.

Good news about the Era of Chaos! There was no one to notice the Saiyan pod that touched down on earth. After all, this was around the time Yagi acquired One For All (give or take a few years). With how absolutely fucked everything still was, no one from the small community of survivors batted an eye at the woman with a tail showing up with her infant daughter sharing the same 'mutation'

All Might's work to restore peace meant that the small community was able to survive, and not too long after Inko and her mother, Coli, were taken in, society was reestablished, which was great for their food intake. Coli realized pretty quick that if people reacted to Quirks the way they did, aliens were in even more danger so she took the pod and hid it.

Inko's drive to seek out fights plus her family's efforts at reigning in her worse impulses led her to becoming a Hero. Inko is canonically about 5 years younger than Endeavor, and while I could fiddle with that and make them classmates, it's way funnier to me if she becomes a rising star at UA like immediately after he graduates. Sorry, Todoroki Family, this will have repercussions. As a sidenote, Inko's Hero Costume is based on Shallot's Sadala Saiyan armor, because it represents pre-Freeza Saiyans and looks dope as hell.

Inko skyrocketed up the rankings due to her incredible power and proactive attitude (read: she really wanted to find a good fight), while also being more personable with civilians. Endeavor never hit Number 2 Hero, stalling him at Number 3. The HPSC considers her basically a second All Might, for better or for worse (for them). Because of her higher rank, and her ability to associate more with top Heroes, she does eventually confide the truth of her origins to a select few. Namely, All Might and Star and Stripe: the only two Heroes who can match her when she gets in one of her fighting moods.

Hey so the fun thing about aliens is that they don't have Quirks. All Might thus tells Inko about All For One, since she's also uniquely suited to kicking his ass, and indeed, she is a huge help in mopping up AFO's operations that All Might hadn't yet by this point. Naturally, she's a part of the proper showdown when Izuku is 9, and the two of them together are way more than AFO can handle. The look on his face when he couldn't steal Inko's Quirk was priceless. It was also one of the last expressions he ever had.

+1. As the son of the Number 2 Hero and a Number 1 Hero (Yes it's CathInko. You people know what I'm about), Izuku actually lives the high life. The Midoriya/Bate Family has pretty substantial funding, and Izuku gets the benefits of that. This also means he and Bakugou don't know each other. Inko and Coli train Izuku in using his Ki and his Ozaru Form safely. Additionally, as a half-Saiyan, Izuku can't have a Quirk.

+2. Inko's signature technique is called Emerald Lance

+3. Ashido has a tail and a sweet tooth.

[wheretheharekissesthefox]

I hate Halsin's ending and here's why:

The thing I hate most, honestly, is the lack of continuity.

Halsin feels guilty for not being able to lift the Shadow Curse sooner and on his own:

"Thaniel is trapped in the Shadowfell, but thanks to you efforts, I know where to look. Now, I must go there - alone. [...] This opportunity has been a hundred years in the making. It has to be me, and only me."

"[...] I wasted too much time already - years in which nature has suffered."

"[...] Nature suffered while I dawdled, and allowed myself to be distracted."

Him about being Archdruid and the responsibilities as such:

"I wanted to try and find him [Thaniel], but we couldn't stay - we would have all succumbed. When the Archdruid of the Grove, my predeccessor, was seized by the curse, I had to lead the survivors to safety. That was my first day as Archdruid. An inauspicious beginning."

"I reveived a dispatch from the Grove [...] My chosen successor, Francesca, has proven to be a wise choice. Perhaps the wisest I ever made as Archdruid."

"I was all too eager to surrender my responsibilities towards the grove. Perhaps I was never meant to be Archdruid, to be a leader. [...] I cannot help but wonder if there was more I could have done. Perhaps I may yet have the chance some day."

"[...] I live for the wilderness. Comfort is for the farm animal, snug in its pen."

His plans on returning to the former Shadow-Cursed-Lands:

"Still, I would like to return here some day. See Thaniel and Oliver again - in my meditations, or perhaps in person, if the Oak Father wills it. I hope he does. [...] Anyway, once the curse is lifted, nature can take its course without me. I belong at your side."

His future plans:

"[...] The Shadow Curse occupied me so entirely and for so long... I almost miss the purpose it gave me. Now, I must find a new one."

"My mind still drifts to that dream I shared with you, for a better future for all those who need it... but that must wait. I remain yours of course."

Things he says to you regarding you relationship:

"I haven taken many lovers. My heart does not stir lightly. But it does now."

"You are all I want, but I won't hoard you to myself. Let others know the happiness of being with you."

"[...] The Grove became my family, with Silvanus as my teacher. And now, I have you."

"We shall triumph. Our time together does not end here."

"[...] So long as I am surviving, and I have you by my side, I am faring as well as anyone can be."

When breaking up with him:

"[...] If that's truly what you desire, I shall respect it. No matter how much I wish it was not the case. I will remain by your side whenever you wish, of course. As ally, advisor, friend... in any way you desire, safe for as a lover."

When you change your mind about breaking up:

"I'm glad you have reconsidered, but please don't trivially bring up such difficult topics. My heart can be wounded like any other "

"[...] I told you your heart is yours, but I do not wish for mine to be toyed with."

... and break up with him again (lol):

"Does it please you to see me crestfallen? That is the only reason I can think why you might toy with my heart like this."

"I warned you not to broach such matters lightly. Perhaps you care less for me than I supposed..."

Nicknames for Tav (at least the ones I heard):

"my love" and "my heart"

When being in a relationship with him and asking for having more partners:

"[...] Don't punish yourself on my account - remember we are both free to roam and love as we see fit."

"I'm glad you didn't feel the need to deprive yourself. To deny the most essential of impulses is to cut yourself off of nature."

"[...] I asked for freedom to follow my heart, and of course, I offer it in return."

"[...] I'm glad you shown yourself to be comfortable in exploring without me."

When in a relationship with him, having sex with Mizora and telling him you didn't enjoy it:

"[...] I'm sorry to hear that [...] I just hope it doesn't dissuade you from exploring nature's bounty. If you ever want to talk, my ears are all yours. Any part of me is yours, should you wish."

In conclusion:

Halsin feels guilty for not being able to lift the Shadow Curse sooner and on his own, wasting 100 years by doing so.

He feels like he failed as Archdruid and that he's not made for being a leader.

He doesn't want to settle down but roam.

The Shadow Curse was the only thing on his mind and his only purpose for 100 years.

He doesn't know what to do, now that the curse is lifted, and is looking for a new purpose.

He voices his wish to eventually see Thaniel again.

He's poly, had a lot of flings, and doesn't fall in love easily, but he fell hard for you.

He talks about sharing the future with you.

Halsin's ending:

"They [refugees & orphans] need help - help what this city cannot provide right now. I shall aid them to make a new place for themselves, in Thaniel's realm, under nature's watch. [...] There were nine whole wagons of children in tow. They are my duty now. 'Daddy Halsin', they call me. Who am I to tell them otherwise? We are each free, as we always were... but that does not to be the end. You must visit me soon [...] I shall have my own selfish reasons for wanting to see you again, if you wish the same."

How the game ends:

Halsin brings the refugees and orphans to Thaniel's lands, inevitably becoming a leader again and settling down.

He tells you to visit him, but doesn't ask you to join him, meaning he doesn't actually want to share that "dream I shared with you, for a better future for all those who need it", treating you like a normal fling instead of the love he claims you are.

It's a weird, unsatisfying ending, and honestly, most possible endings are. Baldur's Gate 3 is such an amazing game, but most endings feel incredibly rushed or unsatisfying (I'm especially glaring at the Karlach & Astarion endings, but that's for another rant). My dislike for the Halsin ending isn't that he doesn't magically turn monogamous, but that he tells you over and over again how much you mean to him ("You are all I want", "Anything for you, my heart") and then he just fucking leaves on his own without even asking if you want to join him. He's just like "I found a new purpose, bye, see ya, visit if you want to fuck."

It feels like the writers just gave up in the end - or didn't have enough time left to do it right (I get that, I work as a translator & editor). It just feels weird.

[togglesbloggle]

I've noticed a lot less... consistency? Plot? Worldbuilding? In many of the more popular video games ever since I stopped chasing the latest AAA sensations. More than once I've made the mistake of asking what a game is 'about' only to get blank looks- I'm making a category error even by asking the question!

Here I'm thinking especially of the 'mega-hit' games like Fortnite, Dead by Daylight, that sort of thing; Overwatch is famously not even canon to itself. Though there's plenty of the type at all levels of popularity, especially among imitators of the heavyweights. They tend to stream well, so they build big fanbases on Twitch and so on, and often involve quick (~15-25 minute) pvp matches in a bounded arena. But there's a decent amount of variation within the 'lore-light' type; I bet most of the new Vampire Survivor microgenre probably qualifies from what I've seen. Even Minecraft might, if you're feeling expansive.

Anyway, I try to resist the impulse to Kids These Days about it- it's not like games with plot and worldbuilding stopped being made, after all, and BG3 proves that there's still voracious appetite for more elaborate constructions. And besides, these arena games have obvious inheritance from classic multiplayer shooters like Halo and Quake, even Goldeneye, so it's been coming for a long time, almost as long as digital gaming has been a thing. They just... stopped bothering to include the single player campaign, so to speak.

Actually, I think it's probably a side effect of video games getting more and more culturally mainstream across my lifespan. Try this thesis on for size: The more mainstream that electronic gaming becomes, the more it comes to resemble sports. Or maybe the reverse! Maybe you can triangulate towards millions upon millions of fans by deeply intuiting interesting things about the nature of sports, and using digital media to explore that landscape in unexpected ways. This is, genuinely, a really interesting trend to me- this thing where many of the elements that I personally enjoy most in games become, sort of, just different-colored jerseys on a small squad of players that are here primarily to test their virtuosity against some opponent.

They tell me that much of the fun of sports is in the narrative, but it's an emergent narrative between the teams and players themselves, something that flows from the contest itself rather than some writer in a studio somewhere. All this seems like a really interesting sort of thing to enjoy, and I'm fascinated by the thought that there's some giant mass of humanity that eternally finds its way back to this participatory storytelling style, no matter how hard the Tolkiens of the world build their own de novo narratives systematically.

[kayawolfhorse]

Everything You Thought You Knew | Read on Ao3

—☾—

The moon’s big.

Really big, in fact. Its edges encompass and stretch beyond what’s possible to carve out of the observatory’s dome roof without cutting into the wall that supports it, and while being crushed by a ginormous moon isn’t Grian’s choice of death, he might prefer being buried in rubble even less.

Well, that’s not quite true. If it were only the observatory to collapse, the rest of the world would go on as usual, and Grian would respawn and laugh over a silly death with the silly friends that he calls his family. Just about anything is preferable to death by the big moon, anyway.

By Grian’s unscientific calculations—and unscientific they are, if one wants scientific they ought to approach Cub—the moon is going to crash into and destroy the server in its entirety tomorrow night. That puts just about twenty four hours on a particularly gruesome clock hanging over their heads. Grian doesn’t wear a watch, but Impulse, he knows, does. Grian wonders if Impulse feels their impending doom with every tick against the pulse of his wrist.

There’s no reason for Grian to linger; the observatory’s usefulness outlived. The etches on the ceiling have no new information to give him, and it’s been a long time since he’s needed the telescope to make out details upon the moon’s surface.

Taking flight, Grian beats his wings and tries to feel some semblance of control over the floaty feeling that grabs hold of him in the current bout of gravity-weirdness. And the sound. Grian’s half-tempted to plug his ears against it. The terrible groan and crash of the earth tearing itself apart holds a sort of building crescendo to it; this is far from the worst it can get.

Even so close to the end of the world, even as blocks of the natural terrain are lifted upwards and dropped back into place beneath the ever-looming moon, Boatem is beautiful, and Grian can’t help but admire it as a wave of affection washes over him. An entire rainbow of build styles and personal touches create a vibrant conglomerate full of life and love, its chaos harmonious in its own way. He’s proud of what he’s made this season, what they’ve all made.

Down below, in front of her starter boat, Grian spots Pearl, swerving to avoid a levitating block while balancing a stack of shulker boxes in her arms, only her fluffy antennae visible above them. Swooping down, Grian lands in front of her and jumps up to relieve her of two of her boxes.

Peeking around a grey shulker, Pearl smiles when she catches sight of him. “Oh, hey, Grian!”

“Hi, Pearl,” Grian greets back, and is surprised to find his voice so tight. “Moon’s big.”

“Really? Hadn’t noticed.” Pearl’s banterous sarcasm doesn’t often fail to lift Grian’s mood, an opportunity to trade a quip of his own and laugh together as their conversation grows more ridiculous, but it does now, and Pearl notices, her smile tipping downwards as she places the boxes at her feet.

Pearl isn’t one to prompt, not like how Scar and Mumbo tend to when someone’s upset. She stands and she waits, and it doesn’t take long for Grian to say, “The world’s ending tomorrow.”

“I know.” She does, everyone does. The entire server can feel the tension breathing down their necks.

“I don’t know if there will be any survivors.” This isn’t like jumping into the Boatem hole or flying into a wall too hard or dueling with a friend. The server protects the hermits; softens the pain of dying and negates the permanence of it. If the server itself is what’s being killed? Grian doesn’t know.

“There will be. We’ll find a way.” Pearl’s looking at him, her expression determined, but the fear that squeezes Grian’s chest is reflected in her ocean-blue eyes.

“How can you promise that, Pearl?” Grian thinks he might sound like he’s pleading, but his voice is tinny within his own ears. “I’m sorry, this isn’t how it was meant to go, this is your first season and it’s ending like this—”

Grian’s head is eased into Pearl’s shoulder, and arms wrap around his middle. Her starry pajama shirt is soft against his face as he presses into it, soaking up as much of Pearl’s solid warmth as he can.

“I’m going to call a meeting,” Pearl says from above him.

“In the Boatem hole?” Grian asks. He’s not sure they have the time to set up another meeting room, nor if it matters at all.

Pearl pauses. “…No. In my base. My mega one. I just finished the interior. It’s very cozy, you know.”

The arms around Grian tense slightly as Pearl types into her communicator, messaging the other three members of their little group. Grian knows the message has been received when the communicator vibrates thrice against his back, assumedly from confirmations of assent.

Pearl hums and holds Grian a bit closer, and Grian squeezes back with all he has.

—☾—

The interior is cozy. Despite the white walls and high ceilings, Pearl’s added enough warmly colored carpets, potted plants, and wooden accents that the inside of her lighthouse palace feels wonderfully welcoming. Grian could definitely stand to live here forever.

Not that forever is a term he can longer afford in this doomed world.

Soft murmuring floats from the room beyond the entryway, and Pearl and Grian step into it to find Scar, Impulse, and Mumbo settled on the large, curved living room couch, talking quietly amongst themselves. Boatem is a lot of things, but quiet isn’t one of them. The moon doesn’t weigh on Grian’s mind alone.

“Hey, gang.” Grian raises a hand in a wave as three heads turn towards him and Pearl.

Impulse grins, but it’s strained around the edges. “Hey, guys! Great to see you.” Grian saw Impulse last about three hours ago. Still, he agrees—it is nice to see them. The knot of anxiety in his chest loosens ever so slightly.

Once Grian and Pearl have settled onto the couch with the rest of them, Pearl hugging her knees between Impulse and Mumbo and Grian leaning on Scar, Mumbo asks, “So, Pearl, what’s the meeting for?”

Grian expects her to propose an escape route, or go over the grim inevitabilities of the day to come, and from the look on everyone else’s faces, so do they, but instead Pearl says, “You’re all invited to my sleepover! Happening right here, right now.”

“A sleepover?” Impulse asks, incredulous. The purple of his bowtie makes the circles under his eyes appear darker. They’d all given up this Mooner business a couple days ago, when it was apparent that nothing would change for it, but the lack of sleep had yet to leave most of their faces.

Pearl shrugs. “The moon’s going to crash into the world tomorrow night. Might as well enjoy the last good one we have, right? Cousin or not, I’m not going to sit around and let it ruin a night that could be spent with friends.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Mumbo says. “If anything, it’s another night of rest.”

“Tactical sleeping, I like it!” Scar’s eyes aren’t marred by darkness. Grian silently harrumphs at this.

“Not just sleeping!” Pearl laughs. Quieter, she adds, “I was thinking we could grab snacks and watch a movie, or something.” A distraction, and something to drown out the awful noises outside.

“A movie sounds good,” Grian says. Anything to stop hearing the world falling apart beyond Pearl’s arched windows.

Impulse and Pearl move to set it up, Pearl crouching in front of the cabinet the movie collection is stored in, Impulse fiddling with the remote, while Mumbo and Scar raid the pantry and Grian stacks extra pillows and blankets on the couch.

After deciding on one, Pearl hands the movie disk to Impulse, who slides it into its player beneath the television and presses play. The screen remains dark and silent. Grian can see his reflection within its glassy surface. He looks terrible.

“Ah.” Impulse heaves a sigh that floats upon something heavier. “Of course it’d affect all of the redstone; all of my overworld farms have stopped working, too.”

This is news to Grian, whose most complicated farm this season had been a couple beehives in front of dispensers with shears, and he hasn’t checked that thing in ages.

Pearl rocks back on her heels. “Well, that’s a bust, then. Why the redstone?”

Impulse shrugs. “Beyond me. Guess there’s no precedent for all of this; anything goes.”

“At least it’s only the redstone—imagine if it would’ve done something like sponge up all the water or blow out all of the torches!”

In unison, all three of them glance up at the lanterns hanging above the couch.

“That would’ve been hilarious,” Grian admits, after the lanterns remain unsurprisingly unchanged. Impulse and Pearl nod their agreement.

They share the news with Mumbo and Scar, who return with an armload of candy courtesy of Impulse’s factory, potatoes Pearl had sliced and fries into chips, and whatever other junk food they’d managed to find.

Looking utterly perplexed, Mumbo says, “That explains why my door stopped working. Ran straight into it the other day and died!”

“Oh, redstone, you frackle thing,” Scar muses in sympathy with Impulse and Mumbo, nodding solemnly.

“Frackle—? Fickle. Fickle thing, Scar,” Grian corrects, shaking his head, but the corners of his mouth lift in a way they hadn’t all night.

“Of course, of course,” Scar agrees and smiles back, and a bit more of the burden nestled next to Grian’s heart dissipates.

“Failing a movie,” Impulse ventures, after a moment, “What could we do?”

After a brief trip back to their own bases to change into proper pajamas, a nest is made on the couch and the snacks are piled onto the table in front of it, soft light from the lanterns illuminating the tired faces of the Boatem crew from where they sit around the curve of the sofa. Even as the end of the world roars outside, conversation comes to them easily, and naturally turns to reminiscing on the season they’ve lived.

Mumbo tells stories of end crystals and terraforming, of potatoes and the time he briefly spent moonlighting as a vigilante that quickly fell apart with no real laws to uphold. Impulse recounts a narrative of magic pigs and candy shards, the road to perfecting the server’s best candy bar and the joy of sharing it with friends. Pearl speaks of llamas, clock heists, magic pumpkins, and the instances completely unrelated to her in which all of the animals were mysteriously turned upside down.

Scar weaves a tale of fantastic sales owed to his patented traveling Swaggon. “Everyone loves the Swaggon!” he proclaims, after sharing a deal that, if it were offered by anyone else, would have never been accepted.

“Everyone loves you, Scar, which is how you got away with that one,” Mumbo says with a laugh. The rest of the group laughs with him, and Scar waves a bashful hand.

When the attention falls to Grian, he talks about the G-Train and the Midnight Alley and the lengths he went through to collect mobs for the Magical Menagerie, charged creeper shenanigans with Scar included. He talks about pretend-sleep adventures and mini-games and everything in between.

Most of all, Grian talks about Boatem. From the first stacking of the Boatem pole, to the many Boatem hole-related antics, to the chaos of every meeting and prank, the Boatem crew has become family, as the village has become home.

“I’m gonna miss it,” Impulse says.

“It was all really fun.” Scar smiles, and the corners of his eyes are crinkled with sadness-tinged fondness.

“Now, don’t be saying that like a goodbye, mate,” Pearl says, and her voice is crinkled with it, too.

“It’s not a goodbye to us,” Scar clarifies. “Boatem will live on forever. We’ll all find each other again in that great, big, beautiful tomorrow.”

“Promise?” Grian asks.

“Promise.”

—☾—

Morning drags forward after a night of cuddled rest. Grian’s the second awake, beaten only by Pearl, who stands with her hands braced around a mug at the kitchen counter, looking out across nothing.

“The world’s to end today,” Grian says.

“Yeah, I know,” she responds. “Coffee?”

(They make it, in the void following the end. On another world, an alchemist, an elf, an alien, a dwarf, and the server’s richest man huddle together atop a nest of blankets within a giant mushroom the alien calls home. Laughter dances in the air around them as stories and snacks alike are swapped between them, catching up on what this world has become beneath their hands. The moon hangs high and small above them, a beautiful cloudless night. The world carries on as usual. The Boatem crew is safe.)

[thisisnotthenerd]

bands of iron, bands of gold

Elody finds out about the siege from a messenger. Snowhold struck while her forces were scattered, holding back the rapid encroachment from the north.

“The women and children have gathered–,” he says, “--gathered in the cellar of the keep while the guardsmen defend from the parapets. They say the prince is with them, with so few guards to spare.”

“And what of the progress?” she pores over slowly shrinking territory on a map that changes every hour. The prince is with them.

“The castle walls have not been breached, and the keep remains unmolested. The people of Greenleigh are afraid, but hidden. They cannot last much longer without aid.”

“I will send all that I can, but we are more than a day’s ride out. Their forces here may yet seek to join the siege, and there are not enough soldiers even now to hold the line.”

“Whatever you can spare, your highness.” The prince is with them.

Prince Gerard is hidden in the keep of Castle Greenleigh, with the women and children of a falling kingdom.

As the troops under her command march back to the heart of Greenleigh, Elody cannot help the impulse to hold her mace. The gold, far less burnished now, dulled with the blood of enemy combatants, is far from the simple trinket it once was. This is not something that can be left to fall in a pond, to be found by something more than a frog. The weight of a kingdom rests in her hands, scepter and orb made a weapon of war.

She snaps back to attention as the verdant flags of Castle Greenleigh flutter on the horizon. The sigil of a lily flutters in the wind, torn to and fro as beings of ice and wind batter at the walls of the keep. The stones fall with every mile she pushes forth.

When all is said and done, the survivors emerge from the keep, eyes seeking the light and wincing at the brightness of the winter sun after weeks of darkness. One by one, they emerge from a battered keep, seeking the comfort of home.

She does not wait to see if he comes up, safe in the hope that he would not have left the castle.

The call to search comes hours later, when no one has seen the prince in over a day. Those that stayed with him only recall the reflection of bloodshot eyes in a shadowed corner, and the reassurance that war could not reach them dying down in the final days.

In all the rubble and destruction, there are many bodies–but none that she knows, warped as it has become.

Prince Gerard is gone, gone with the winds that battered the keep for days on end.

She sends scouts to search in the guise of monitoring the changes in borders as the Snow Queen sends her inhuman armies. Many people have fled Greenleigh in the wake of the battling soldiers, but there is no prince to be found among them.

The pond is her last resort–maybe the only place left in Greenleigh that has not truly been touched by war. It is a feeble hope that this worry might be allayed by whatever is there.

But indeed, there is only the pond she remembers from nearly twenty years ago–frozen over in the dead of winter, the frogs and fish far beneath the ice.

War has never stopped for love–why would it now? She cannot afford the time anymore than she can the heartbreak, buried as it is.

Prince Gerard is gone, gone like her parents, gone like the peace that Greenleigh cherished for decades.

Whispers of battles fought across the Neverafter reach Greenleigh as fast as all tales of war spread, rapid enough to know the nature of the danger only after the conclusion of the battle. Undead armies in the north, giants in Marienne, missing princesses and dead princes in faraway Elegy.

Jubilee is her closest ally in this ever growing war–the old king is solemn as he fights in the name of fiddlers three. When the kingdom falls she offers him a place in Greenleigh, if only for a moment’s respite. He thanks her, but leaves in the night for the Blackwood Forest.

After a while, she stops hearing from Old King Cole. At first, she sends scouting parties down the road to Shoeberg to track the latest caravan. The people who flee may brave the haunts of the Blackwood to find refuge in Shoeberg’s prosperity, as the world falls apart around it.

She goes herself on impulse, wanting to know what happened to the old king.

A ways off the path, she finds furniture, misshapen and warped into the proportions of men, wandering the Blackwood in search of flesh and blood, the magic that changed them fading into the air.

A day’s ride after she passes the border into Elegy, she happens upon a town, abandoned and falling apart as all things do in the Neverafter.

The remains of the fairy who made men of objects are easy to find in the outskirts of the abandoned home of the princess of Elegy. A large rotting pumpkin sits at the heart of a battlefield, surrounded by the rogue enchanted furniture. The fresh bodies are more unnerving than the silence of the clearing, disturbed only by the creaking of wood and metal joints that bend in strange and fractal ways.

The first is an old man–past the prime of life, limbs spread at odd angles–crushed by the enchanted creatures. He has the look of a budding witch, magic tinting the air around, but a strange lack of personal effects.

The second is that of a young woman in a tattered gown and small tiara. Her bow lays at her side, quiver emptied into the enchanted onslaught. The scavengers have already started to come for her far more than any other. When Elody moves the bow to try and see what felled this girl, this young princess far from the land of her birth, foreign briars creep up the wood towards her seeking hand. They do not grow from the cursed ground but seemingly from the girl herself.

The sight of a mutilated little girl is jarring; the various chests and tables surround a canyon in which she is the only occupant, presumably drawing fire from her allies. Had Elody and Gerard married earlier, she could have borne a daughter the same age as this girl in a red cloak, bearing the ax of a woodsman far larger than her.

The puppet left under the table must be the toy of the younger girl, abandoned on the battlefield. Shaped like a marionette’s attempt at a little boy, it reeks of fading enchantment magic and something else, darker than the innocent face would have her believe. The only thing marring the toy is a missing nose, ripped from a wooden face with clawed hands that do not match those of the martyred girl.

The cat in boots is peculiar, and sticks in her memories of Marienne, of a humble boy rising to become the Marquis de Carabas with the aid of a trickster. This little animal, mangled by magic, is far from the estate now, no title nor land to speak of. She would not have noticed it save for a little blue cape now stained with blood.

The fairy’s corpse is odd–the progress of rot and death more advanced than would be expected for something that could not have died more than a few days prior. At a glance, the magic sustaining her and the furniture is seeping into the blackened earth and spreading from the clearing with a vengeance. Elody brandishes her mace and approaches the fairy, hoping the magic is not a sign of the fairy’s life returning, when she sees it.

A glass shard, torn from a greater structure and bloodstained buried in the chest of a man whose eyes she recognizes, warped as they are. Gerard.

He looks more froglike than the last she saw of him, at the dinner table arguing that war could not reach them in the castle. His crown rests on his brow between bloodshot human eyes, ill-sized for a frog’s head. His hands, membranous and viridescent, are flayed where they desperately pull at the shard. The shard pins his body to the earth–much as she tries to remove it, she cannot without taking it into herself.

She walks from the battlefield, mace stowed and Gerard’s wedding ring on her right hand.

Prince Gerard is dead and gone, taken by the times of shadow. Not in Greenleigh, but in a forest, far from home, condemned again at the hands of a fairy.

[commsroom]

It’s my birthday too! !! Happy Birthday! I wanted to ask you about Jacobi since he rotates around my brain like he’s on a microwave plate 24/7. Just, general Jacobi thoughts, go crazy , I think about him all the time

yayy, shared birthday!! i hope you had a good one. you're actually the second person who told me it was their birthday too... june 21st birthday club!!

i feel a little guilty saying this, since it was your birthday too, but jacobi is one of my least favorite characters. not to say i don't have things to say about him, but. i don't care for him at all.

some things i can say about jacobi:

i think the most compelling thing about him is that his character arc is a perfect loop back around to his backstory mini episode - two people are dead. he feels responsible. he's out of a job. what now? in things that break other things, he deflects. he rationalizes - "it wasn't anyone's fault; everyone was just doing their jobs" - but is that really true? or is that what he has to tell himself in order to live with himself, and to keep doing the work that he wants to do. when jacobi says "i was wrong and people died, and the only thing i can do is not be wrong again" to kepler in the finale, it's as much about the deaths that weigh on him. maxwell's most of all.

... and i think there's potential for change there, now that he's able to confront it, but in a lot of ways that's the start of a character arc rather than the culmination of one. i will never believe that jacobi wants to spend any more time around minkowski, eiffel, and hera (nor vice versa, really) - they are also the people who killed maxwell to him, and they will never be "his" people. but i think if you were going to write about post-canon jacobi and that theme of survivor's guilt + escaping destructive cycles, lovelace would be a good counterpart to him for that - she's further along on that journey, he expresses a kind of respect and even almost-friendship for her that he doesn't for the rest of the hephaestus crew, and she has a more... biting sense of humor; i think they could actually be friends (or at least narrative parallels) given the right conditions.

and speaking of narrative parallels: he actually has a lot in common with minkowski. jacobi plays at being a rebel, a loose cannon, etc. because it gets people's guards down, but he's very, very patient, calculating, and measured. he is not an impulsive person, and more than that - he's a follower by nature, and a rule follower. jacobi doesn't believe in the "bigger picture" for his own sake, but he is deeply committed to maxwell's bigger picture. he wants to be told what to do, he wants to feel like he has a purpose within a greater system/structure, and - crucially to dirty work - he wants to be able to shirk responsibility when something goes wrong. jacobi craves certainty, he needs that faith in the judgment of the people who give him orders, and i think what dirty work does by positioning jacobi and minkowski as narrative foils highlights a lot of similarities in their faults.

(it does drive me a little crazy when people compare him to eiffel or say they'd get along under different circumstances, like... no? for all his other faults, eiffel is distinctly anti-authoritarian and sincere. they're like, coworkers with different politics who would really rather not speak to each other if at all possible.)

appearance-wise: i firmly believe he needs glasses (the line about his eyesight not quite being good enough is the kind of thing he'd downplay + it's a fun inverse of people drawing maxwell with glasses when she canonically doesn't need them), he has very specific military masculinity issues (thanks to his father) (and gabriel urbina once said jacobi's car is probably the civilian model of something used in the military) so i think he keeps his hair very short, and. i actually don't think he has notable burn scars. i respect that it's a distinct design choice, but canonically i think it makes more thematic sense that he wasn't personally, physically hurt by that accident (and i think someone would probably have made a remark about visible burn scars on the guy insisting he "is that good" with explosives.)