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waltnut · 3 years

Note

Hey!! Do you have any more lore ideas of the demon bros in their level 3/4 states? Your last post was really interesting!! :)

I do have some that’s kinda dark? Maybe even kind of NSFW-ish? I’m not sure how you’d categorize it but here it is anyway.

I’ve had this idea of when the “heat season” comes around and what is needed to be done to protect MC. This is in no way what I think happens EVERY TIME heat season comes around just an idea that I had in my head for a concept. I’ve read many wonderful Headcanons for the heat seasons for the brothers and they are all way more thought out than this lol.

The idea is that for MC’s protection, it has been tasked to keep the brothers locked up in their room or a specific location until the heat has passed. The scenario is that this is the first time MC has been there for it and Barbatos is explaining to them and showing them what is needed to be done. There are seals in every room to keep them from breaking out, for example. The seals are made for that specific demon and do not affect MC or other demons. Most of them are in Level 4 during this time but will phase into Level 3 to try to manipulate MC into letting their guard down. Each demon is given something to keep the desire at bay. If they stop receiving these things they will go into a rage.

Assume they are in Level 4 unless stated. This is specifically the brothers...Read more below.

Lucifer - Locked in his room

Mc is not allowed even on the same floor as Lucifer during this time. It is said his power and influence can affect a large radius and should you get too close, you will feel unconsciously drawn to him or where he is.

There is a seal on his door to keep him in.

You will hear nothing behind his door, it is as if no one is home.

He stalks around in his room in Level 4, with all his lights off. Ashamed of himself and his lack of control.

If he knows MC is close, or if he can no longer resist, he is able to project illusions of this form throughout the house to Lure MC or scare MC into heading closer to him. You would see these out of the corner of your eye, or red eyes in the shadows of a silhouette of a giant goat man.

Should MC enter his room, the seal does not react to humans and opening the door does not break the seal, MC will be stuck in here until it’s over. Have fun dealing with a scary goat demon in the dark.

Music is needed to keep him calm. If no music is played he will use his illusions more to terrorize others on the outside and become violent if approaching his physical form.

Mammon - Locked away in his room, in a secret cellar type room that is accessible only through his room. It’ll

To get to him, there is a door in the back of his room, that only appears for this season, magic or something. It leads down a spiral staircase where the walls are stone and you come to a large stone room that is lit by conches and it’s filled with gold and treasure and the like. It’s a dragon’s den. And it’s separated by a wall of decorative bars keeping MC on one side and the dragon on the other.

The seal is on the bars and touching the bars would repel him. But MC can touch them and stick a hand through.

He lays on his treasure and gold objects which will stick to his leathery parts on his wings and the underside of his tail and belly.

Nests of treasures, tapestry and fancy rugs are also used as paddings for his nests. There are items from ancient times, which you could only assume he’s had for centuries and his hoard has only grown since then.

If MC enters this chamber he will transform to level 3 and offer his treasures to them. He will also pout and guilt to keep MC there with him.

Treasure is given to him every hour to keep him happy. He transforms back into level 4 in a fit and will destroy his piles of treasures out of anger and upset if they choose to leave him.

If MC chooses to stay, he will dress them in his treasures and make nests for them.

Leviathan - Sealed in his large aquarium tank. Did you think it was built for the fishes?

The only light source comes from the fish tank and TVs. You can see a giant dark mass inside the tank wrapping around everything inside. It has pulsating glowing orange orbs on its form.

There are Tv’s set up in front of the glass. A lot of them. All of them are anime. There are also a lot of plushies floating in the water. To keep him company, Barbatos would say. These objects keep him calm.

If MC approaches he will turn into Level 3 and press himself against the glass with the most sad eyes. He will use words to manipulate MC into feeling guilty for him being alone and to stay there with him and watch all the shows.

If you stay too long in this room you will hear an eerie whale type song in the back of your mind. It seems to make you dizzy and makes you want to stay with him. Maybe you just might jump in the water. Who needs to breathe anyway? He probably has a solution for that.

If MC chooses to leave he will turn back into Level 4 sea monster and wail the saddest deep sea song and slam his huge body against the glass. Hopefully it stays in tact.

Satan - Locked in his room.

A green glowing wall seal separates the door area from the rest of his room. It has a shimmering flame affect but you can see through it.

His room is trashed. Books ripped to shreds, book cases fallen over, small flecks of green flame and ash are scattered on the piles.

He remains in Level 4 even if MC is in the room. And he is not nice. He is mean. He will scream and yell and swear profanities at them, and especially Barbatos since Barbatos will not let Mc go alone. He will say down right terrible things out of anger and frustration.

If MC expresses any type of upset, it’s possible Satan might notice. If he does, he will lower his voice and approach. He will apologize and begin to try to convince Mc to stay with him and read all the books.

If he is refused he will slam on the sealed wall furiously and monstrous screaming continues. His flames in his body are strong and bright.

Books are given to him every half hour as well as audiobooks of plays from every language to keep him calm.

Asmodeus - Sealed in his room, but an altered version of reality.

His room is separated by a clear glass wall with an invisible seal. On the other side there are mirrors everywhere. It’s like a fun house with how they are not in any uniform pattern. Some are cracked and broken.

There is pillows and blankets and a giant bed where there isn’t mirrors.

The mirrors are used to keep his morale low, showing his reflection in his level 4 state causes a depression to keep him from wanting to pursue others, as he is the avatar of Lust and is the most insatiable during this season.

If MC is in the room, he will actually scream and refuse for them to see him. If MC can convince for Asmodeus to show himself, he will come close to the glass barrier and black tear lines would be streaming down his face.

He will show himself in Level 3 to them to convince MC to stay and keep him company. Something about wanting to see them from every angle with all these mirrors?

If refused he will start to break the mirrors around him. The magically repair themselves eventually.

Other demons like succubi/incubi are sent to him to keep his appetite lower. But he will always prefer MC over them.

Beelzebub - Locked in a giant meat freezer storage near the kitchen.

It’s very cold in here, and there are animal carcasses hanging from meat hooks everywhere. Even things you never seen before. It’s a large cold room with tile.

Bars separate you from the monster in the middle of the room. He sits on a pile of meat and flesh, sounds of tearing can be heard. But also the raffling of chains. The bars are not enough to hold him. There are seals on the bars and metal cuffs attached to his wrists and ankles.

Steam can be seen coming off the monster form Beelzebub.

Once MC enters, he will come launch himself towards them but the chains catch him and hold him away. Barbatos will allow MC to throw him some meat but to use a rod to stick it through, like some zoo keeper feeding a lion.

It was said they didn’t start using the chains until one time he broke out and went on a feeding spree. I won’t get into details about that.

He speaks in very few words. “Closer.” Or “Stay.” are usually what he’ll snort at MC. He stares at them, licking his lips. You don’t know if it’s lust or hunger or both.

He doesn’t put up much a fuss if MC leaves, as the food is enough to occupy him.

Food fed to him by the hundreds is needed to keep him from raging.

Belphegor - Locked back up in the attic.

There is a wall of black smoke/fog that hides the rest of the room. It has light flecks off white in them, like stars.

Red eyes stare at you from inside the fog. They disappear and reappear somewhere else.

Barbatos tells you to not touch the smoke. Do not. Ever. Touch the smoke.

Level 3 arms of Belphie can reach out from the smoke to grab you.

His voice is soft and sweet but his words are not. He tells you he is always with you when you sleep. He can see your dreams. He is in them. It’s the way he says these things that are unsettling.

He can disperse the fog enough to show himself to you. He can change the fog to look like space and galaxies to entice MC to want to stay and experience it.

He will guilt trip MC, saying they’re the reason he’s here and they owe him. They need to make it up to him. He can forgive them if they stay.

If he is refused, a wave of tiredness will wash over MC. Barbatos must always accompany them and he is able to take them away before anything happens.

Incense smoke is needed to keep him calm and sedated.

Now you may be thinking...What about Barbatos?? Isn’t he affected by the season?? To that he replies...

“Oh yes, but my constitution is much stronger than the rest.”

Then perhaps you may be wondering about Lord Diavolo. To which he replies...

“It’s best you don’t set foot in the castle. Better yet, just stay in here in the house, where it’s much safer.”

#text post #monster boyfriend #obey me headcanons #long post #obey me

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kythed · 3 years

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“pillow talk” - a collection of conversations between you and matsukawa issei.

1. october 23rd, 1:03am.

“that was fun.” matsukawa props himself up on one elbow, lower half still covered by a disarray of blue dorm sheets.

you’re sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling your t-shirt back on, but you turn to look at him, smiling slightly. “fun?”

“great. excellent. out of this world amazing,” he says teasingly. there’s a glint in his eye and a flush in his cheeks.

“that’s what I thought.” you make to stand up, but matsukawa grabs your wrist before you can move another muscle.

“you can stay,” he says, face strangely hopeful and childlike (a sharp contrast to the night’s earlier… activities). “if you want, I mean.”

your body aches to climb back under the covers with him, to press yourself against his hot skin and let yourself fall asleep in his embrace… but what you have with matsukawa is new and fragile, and you refuse to close your fist on something delicate and shatter it in the process.

“maybe next time. I have class in the morning.” advanced calculus, to be specific. hell on earth, to be even more specific.

“will there be a next time?” there it is again. that hope.

“if you’ll have me,” you say, rising from the mattress.

“I’ll do more than have you.” he grins, cocking his head. “I’ll take you.”

and there it is — matsukawa issei, ladies and gents. you smile to yourself as you slip out of his room, committing the feel of his hands gripping your hips and his lips on yours to memory.

2. october 27th, 4:36pm.

you stay this time. it’s a weeknight, and there’s class in the morning again, but the bed is warm and matsukawa’s arm fits like it was made for you. he’s nervous, you can tell, what with the way his fingers shake slightly as they brush the hair from your eyes — but that’s okay. it’s endearing. cute, even.

“hey,” he says, voice low and throaty.

“hi,” you respond, turning your face to look at him, his sharp, angular face shaded even more dramatic by moonlight. he really is a little too pretty for his own good, you decide, running a light hand down his torso. his mouth twitches when your fingers skim over his waistband and back up again.

“tease,” he sighs, and you laugh.

“it’s what I’m best at,” you say.

“among other things,” matsukawa concedes, grinning. you gasp and hit him lightly on the chest.

“you’re so dirty minded!” you scold, and he scoffs.

“I’m the dirty minded one? listen sweetheart, twenty minutes ago you were —”

you shut him up with a swift kiss on the lips, swallowing his indignant words as he chuckles somewhere in the back of his throat and pulls you on top of him. you slide your fingers into his mess of dark hair and smile into the kiss until he finally breaks away and begins dusting smaller kisses along your jaw and collarbone.

“you know,” you breathe, trying to avoid gasping when matsukawa presses his mouth to that soft spot right below your neck, “you’re acting awfully boyfriend today, issei. you’d better be careful before I up and decide to make you mine.”

“maybe that’s what I want you do to,” he says without looking at you.

you start in surprise, a small smile creeping onto your lips. “oh, really?”

matsukawa unattaches himself from your neck and takes your face in his hands, staring up at you with a grin. “really.”

“okay,” you say, and in response he squishes your cheeks and laughs. you roll your eyes and tug on his wrists until he lets go. “okay, boyfriend.”

“okay, girlfriend.”

you’d never anticipated a relationship to fall into place so easily. but then again, with matsukawa, everything — everything from his sweet talk to his skin to his stupid pickup lines — is pretty damn smooth.

3. january 1st, 11:24pm.

“you have a nice nose,” he says, running a finger down its bridge. golden afternoon light slices through the gaps in his shutters, casting odd stripes across his face.

“I hate my nose.” you bite back a sheepish smile. “it’s weird.”

“no, it’s cute,” he insists, and despite yourself, your heart swells. maybe it’s silly, maybe it’s shallow, but nothing really beats having someone refute your insecurities, however insignificant they may be. “I’m the one with a weird nose.”

you sit straight up, nearly knocking him back. “you do not have a weird nose. I love your nose!”

“I love your face.” matsukawa gently pulls you back down, gathering you into his chest so he can rest his chin on your shoulder.

��well, it is a pretty nice face,” you say, and he huffs.

“you were supposed to say you love my face, too,” he whines in a small voice. you almost giggle at the thought of this six foot two giant baby-talking to you.

“I thought that was self-explanatory,” you say. “I like everything about you.”

matsukawa shoots you a dramatic glare, furrowing his brows. “yesterday you said you didn’t like my t-shirt.”

“it was a rick and morty t-shirt! I was morally obligated to disparage your fashion taste in that moment,” you say piously.

“so you don’t like everything about me,” matsukawa sighs, pretending to wipe a tear from his eye. “my girlfriend is a liar.”

“I like everything about you except for the fact that you like rick and morty,” you correct yourself.

“I like everything about you except for the fact that you don’t like rick and morty,” matsukawa shoots back, and you let out an ugly guffaw.

“alright, then. agree to disagree?”

before answering, he leans forward to give you a brief kiss that you return, enjoying the faint taste of spearmint on his lips. “you’ll come around eventually.”

“I really won’t.”

“you will.”

“I won’t.”

“you won’t.”

“I will,” you say, and then — “wait, no. damn it, issei, I can’t believe that worked on me.”

“gotcha!”

4. march 20th, 3:16am.

“dude,” matsukawa says. “we should go out for ramen.”

“did you just call me dude?” you raise an incredulous eyebrow.

“sorry,” he says, sitting upright and pulling on a shirt. “I meant babe. can we get ramen?”

“it’s 3am,” you say, catching the shirt he tosses to you and putting it on. “is there any place nearby that’s still open at this hour?”

matsukawa whisks you out of bed, bridal style, and spins you around, ignoring your protestations as you attempt to scold him between giggles. when he finally sets you down you’re dizzy, clinging to him for balance. “obviously you don’t understand the ramen business. when the craving hits, it hits, and these guys know that. that’s why there’s a 24 hour ramen-ya near every college campus in the country.”

“then,” you say, blinking hard as the room comes back into focus. “I say we go eat.”

“let zem eat ramen?” matsukawa says in a phony french accent. you want to roll your eyes but you can’t quite bring yourself to do so. he’s too damn charming about it.

“let zem eat ramen,” you repeat, and he laughs, rumpling your hair before grabbing his keys off the bedside table.

“you’re adorable.”

“I’m a legal adult,” you sigh. “why do you insist on calling me cute? I’m sexy.”

“you’re cute and sexy,” he agrees, opening the door for you. “the two are not mutually exclusive.”

“fancy words.”

“I’m just trying to impress you,” he says with an obnoxious wink.

5. april 4th, 1:58am.

“do you think there’s life in space?”

you’re lying side by side next to matsukawa, both staring up at his dorm room ceiling, where a handful of plastic stars glow in the dark.

he snickers. “you mean, like, martians? little green men with antennae?”

“sure,” you say, ignoring his jab. “or maybe enormous space whales swimming somewhere deep in the cosmos. galactic empires of cyborgs and robot servants. train stations that take you from star to star.”

“that reminds me,” he says. you feel him slip his fingers into your hand. “we should watch star wars together sometime.”

“you avoided the question,” you complain, and he laughs.

“sorry,” he says. “I’ve never given much thought to huge space whales or interplanetary train stations.”

“you’ve never wondered might be out there? never wanted to fly to the moon and see what there is to see?” the thought is alien (pun intended) to you. how could anyone look into the star speckled sky and see anything other than a mass of worlds waiting to be explored?

“I don’t need to. kinda have everything I could ever want here on earth already.” matsukawa shrugs, flashing you a grin. “good friends. perfect girlfriend. a really excellent ramen shop down the street.”

“and that’s all you need?”

“that’s all I need,” he agrees, and you stay silent, scooting closer to press yourself into matsukawa’s larger frame. maybe he has a point. you count over your blessings in your head: good friends, perfect boyfriend, a really excellent ramen shop down the street. even space whales can’t really compare, you decide, sneaking a glance at issei only to find he’s already looking down at you with a soft smile.

and maybe that’s enough. maybe it’s enough to have someone who loves you and your flaws, someone who lets you borrow his dumb graphic tees and never lets you pay for your own dinner. maybe what you have here with matsukawa issei, feet on the ground and hands intertwined, is enough.

#because i've recently been obsessed with One (1) mr. matsukawa issei #i'm pretty sure i used the i'll take you line before but you know what #screw it #it's smooth and i'll use it however many times i want #haikyuu #matsukawa #matsukawa issei #matsukawa x reader #matsukawa issei x reader #matsukawa headcanons #hqcorenet

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writseo · 4 years

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Nathan Prescott | I Won’t Say I Am In Love

Word Count: 1.1k

Song: I Won’t Say I Am In Love by Susan Egan

(A/N: I found this song to be so similar and close to “I Can’t Believe My Heart” and decided to make it sort of like a prequel type of deal on Nathan’s perspective for that drabble! I found you don’t mind <3)

Part 1

Nathan couldn’t stop staring at you during all of his classes. He would watch you go down the halls, get your items out of your locker, loving the sight of you. He didn’t know you well, and he wasn’t familiar with your identity. You barely spoke in class, always laid your head low and would generally stay in your own lane. All he knew was that you two shared one class together. In his eyes, you were perfect.

Who’d ya think you’re kiddin’

It didn’t help when his friends would take notice of his strange, new behaviour. They saw the stares he gave you, the way he traced every move you made with his eyes, how sometimes he would accidentally end up following you when you were on your way to somewhere, how Nathan couldn’t even muster up the courage to speak to you properly, and it sure as hell didn’t help how he was in complete denial about you. They noticed how he was always so quick to defend you when the subject came up. In fact, the group would end up teasing him while referring you as “the little dove.” Eventually, it stuck itself into casual conversations. Nathan didn’t even know your real name at all though. It didn’t bother him. In fact, he kind of liked the presented mystery.

“Dude, just admit it,” Hayden said, pulling Nathan out of his thoughts. It was Jefferson’s class and they were just taking a break from their now distracted teacher.

“No, over my dead body,” Nathan snapped.

“At this point, it just might be,” Hayden giggled at his own joke, the rest of the students at their table following suit.

You looked over to the table and gave the group of boys a small stink eye. Those that noticed would tell Nathan, giving him a twisted version of “they just looked over here dude!”

And instead, he just rolled his eyes and he turned to listen to the professor that announced his next project.

It didn’t help his case when he almost choked on air as he saw you walking towards him. For once, at least he knew your name. (Y/N).

They are the Earth and heaven to you, Try to keep it hidden

Nathan never rested his eyes around you. They were always working and moving in some fashion. One minute they’d be gazing over you. The second he noticed your head slightly move, his pupils would focus on the ways his fingers would fidget. It didn’t help that you weren’t disturbed and intimidated by him like the others. You started carving your name into his walls and while he pretended to hate it, he loved every minute of it. He loved how you two spent your mornings making small chats about your dreams, how you asked him how it was going with his family, and especially when you asked how his day was by the time the night settled into the sky.

He was just sitting on the bench, watching you take photos of the streets into a crouched down position. Your head retracted back as you moved towards his direction. As usual, Nathan turned his attention towards his phone to continue scrolling on Twitter.

“Hey Nate?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

He tilted his head.

“You’ve been acting off lately.”

“I am okay,” he looked at his fingers as he huskily replied, “thanks for asking.”

A part of himself was embarrassed, cringing at the aspect that he showed gratitude. When your stare lingered past its 1 minute mark, he looked back up at you. Even though he loved being the star of your attention, Nathan felt a tad bit uncomfortable and out of place.

“What?” Instinctively, he snapped at you. The attitude startled you, something that made him regret his actions, making you redirect your attention back to your work.

Honey, we can see right through you, Boy, ya can't conceal it

After the project had ended, Nathan would grow to hate your absence. He missed the time you spent together and how you two would go into the Blue Whale, just to order the same meal off of a dirty menu for the third time, listening to the same beat that had been playing all week through the jukebox. His friends started noticing him becoming more frantic. Always wanting to be near you at every chance he got, sometimes purposely being stuck with you in elevators or on the stairs.

Eventually, he would find a way to invite you after your class together had ended. He wanted to hang out with you, talk to you, have a full on conversation. Nathan didn’t want to sound too strong, but neither did he want to sound too ignorant. His first plan was to ask you help him with some homework. However, his words jumbled when he faced you, “Do you want to hang out some time?”

And of course, you nodded to him.

Hayden and Trevor would notice from the doorframe, wolf whistling at the anxious mess.

“Oh, shut up,” He rolled his eyes as he walked through the door, heading to his next class.

We know how ya feel and who you're thinking of

He’d spend his days dozing off into the clear air in front of him. Victoria would notice him being hazy all the time. At first, it was a mystery. At least until you came into the picture, she would notice a pattern. When you were there, his attention was as sharp as a whistle. When you went away, he was daydreaming about his future life. The small personality traits that he had, his aggression, his snarkiness, everything would all fade away the second that he saw you.

Nathan was staring out the bus, ignoring the conversation that was taking place next to him. He then heard and suddenly smelled a whiff of Victoria’s strong perfume next to him.

“So, dreaming about (Y/N) again?” She giggled. Nathan sit back up straight, looked at her with wide eyes.

“How do you-”

“It’s obvious,” she replied as he slunk back into his chair, defeat, ”I can help you, if you let me.”

No chance, no way

I won't say it, no, no

“There’s nothing to help with,” he grunted with his eyebrows furrowed.

“Why not?”

“Because they already have enough and don’t need me. Plus, I don’t need them for shit either,” he turned his gaze back out to the window.

“But you do. You don’t even realize that the last few weeks has been all about them for you. But if you don’t want my help, then fine. But here’s what I would do if I were you….”

I won’t say that I am in love

Despite his former protests, a thought overcame him the same night. And he thought long and hard about Victoria’s words. By the time the 15th minute came, he had made his decision.

Part 2 >

Tagging: @sacredwarrior88

#life is strange #nathan prescott #nathan prescott x reader #life is strange song drabble #song drabble

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capsteddybear · 3 years

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Our Playlist: Candy - Cameo

Song lyric: **" You're like a brand new feeling, in a special way, A surprise package, On a bright clear sunny day."

You and Chris are unpacking all of the food and drinks you just bought from the store for your game night. Tonight you would be meeting some of Chris' friends. Okay not just friends, but his fellow co stars from the Avengers.

You let out a deep breathe, "Not gonna lie I'm kinda nervous about meeting everyone."

Chris stops unpacking and touches your hand, "there's no reason to be. I love you and they will too." He kisses your cheek and continues unpacking the food. You put all of the drinks and beer in the fridge while Chris sets up the snacks on the coffee table. You guys then get games from the hallway closet and place them on the coffee table. You also bring out one of your portal white boards to keep score and to maybe play pictionary.

The doorbell rings and Chris takes your hand, "they're here." You take a deep breath as you're walking to the door and Chris squeezes your hand, "hey, it's gonna be fine" and kisses you on the cheek. You smile and Chris opens the front door. The first person you see is Anthony Mackie.

"Heeeey!" Chris and Anthony exchange hugs and Chris introduces you. "Anthony, this is (y/n). (Y/n) this is Anthony."

You shake his hand, "nice to meet you."

"Pleasure is all mine. You're more beautiful than Chris described."

You blush at his comment, "thank you."

"Hey stop flirting with the poor girl, she's already taken." You turn around and see Scarlett.

You laugh, "Hi Scarlett."

"Hi, it's (y/n), right?" You shake hands.

"Yeah."

"Nice to meet you. And ignore Anthony's flirty comments." She gives him a playfully punch on the shoulder. She greets Chris with a hug, "hi Chris."

"Hi Scarlett."

Next to walk in is Sebastian Stan and Chris Hemsworth.

"This is Sebastian and this is the other Chris. Guys, this is (y/n)."

"Hi (y/n), nice to meet you" Sebastian shakes your hand.

"Nice to meet you."

"Hi, other Chris" you laugh as you shake his hand.

"Please, feel free to call me Hemmy. There'll be less confusion."

You smile, "Alright, Hemmy it is."

Chris closes the front door as everyone takes a seat in the living room, "you guys want a beer or something to drink?"

Everyone including you answers yes in unison. Chris laughs and heads to the kitchen to grab some beers for everyone.

Anthony scoots to the edge of the couch and clips his hands together, "Alright, so what's the first game we're gonna play? I came here to win!"

Scarlett points to the white board, "let's start off easy, how about some pictionary?"

Sebastian answers, "sounds good. Who's on what team?"

"Well I would say boys versus girls, but we're outnumbered" Scarlett replies.

"I'll be the better man and join you ladies," Hemmy raises his hand.

Chris walks back into the living room with everyone's drinks, "so did we decide what we're starting with?"

You answer, "yeah, pictionary. And you're on the loser team with Sebastian and Anthony" you give Chris a smirk and everyone laughs.

"Oh, starting the trash talking early aren't we?" Anthony asks.

"Of course." You smile at Anthony.

"Alright let's start. Our team goes first." Anthony grabs a marker from the table and a card with the subject on it.

You grab the sand timer from the table, "Okay you got 30 seconds to draw. Ready? Go!" You flip it over and the sand starts to flow. Everyone's attention is on Anthony as he starts to draw. He starts with a stick figure standing on some sort of board.

Chris and Sebastian start yelling out their guesses.

"Surfer!"

"Surfing!"

Anthony shakes his head. He adds dots around the stick figure.

"What the fuck is that???" Chris shouts.

Everyone starts laughing. Anthony then draws pine trees.

"Snowboarding?"

"Snowboarder?"

Anthony then draws an arrow to the board.

"Snowboard!" Sebastian stands up and yells.

"Oh my God finally" Anthony says.

"Wait, hang on, what are the dots?" Chris points to the picture, "are those supposed to snowflakes? That's not how you draw snowflakes, man."

"whatever, we got the point."

Anthony takes a seat back on the couch and Scarlett is the first to go from your team. Sebastian flips the timer and Scarlett begins to the draw. She first draws a big mouth with teeth showing. You and Hemmy begin guessing.

"Smile!"

"Teeth."

She then draws a toothbrush.

"Toothbrush!"

She adds bubbles around the toothbrush.

You point to the board and shout, "toothpaste!"

"Yes!" Scarlett runs up to you and gives you a high five.

Sebastian is up next. You flip the timer and he begins drawing. First he draws a t-shirt and pants.

"Clothes!"

"Outfit!"

Sebastian then adds a bed.

"Pajamas!?" Chris yells.

Sebastian nods his head, "Yeeeeeah." He gives Chris and Anthony fist bumps before taking a seat. It's now Hemmy's turn to draw. Chris flips the time and he starts. He draws a circle with a little leaf on the top.

"An apple!"

"A tomato.

He then draws a bottle.

"Apple juice?"

"Apple cider!"

Hemmy shakes his head and quickly draws a hotdog and a squiggly line on it and points to it.

You stand up and shout, "ketchup!"

Hemmy points to you and everyone busts out laughing. Hemmy gives you a high five and passes the marker to Chris. He grabs a card and he waits for you to flip the timer to begin drawing.

Chris starts with a big square.

"Picture frame."

"TV."

Chris laughs and draws a couple of fish.

"A fish tank!"

"Finding Nemo?"

Chris shakes his head and continues drawing. He draws stick figures.

"Scuba diving!"

"Deep sea divers!"

Chris shakes his head again and adds a whale, but the timer runs out.

"Time!!!" Scarlett shouts.

Chris groans, "damn it."

"Was it an aquarium?" Sebastian asks.

"Yeah." Chris answers. He puts his head down and walks over to you and hands you the marker. You give him a pouty face and pat him on the shoulder as you walk by. Sebastian flips the timer and you start drawing.

"Balloon!"

"Hot air balloon"

You then add a stick figure to the bottom of the balloon.

"Skydiving"

"Sky diver."

You draw an arrow to the balloon part of your drawing.

"A parachute!" Hemmy yells.

"Yes!" You run up to your teammates and give a high five.

You guys play a couple more rounds. Your team has been in the lead by just 1 point. It's the last round and Chris' team needs to get this last drawing in order to win the game.

"Alright so who's gonna go for your team?"

"Uh we vote Sebastian to go."

Sebastian stands up and heads to the white board.

"Come on man you got this." Anthony roots.

You flip the timer and he starts drawing. Within a couple of seconds the game is over.

"Cat"

"Kitten!"

Sebastian quickly turns around bows.

"What the fuck? That was too easy." You yell.

Everyone cracks up.

Anthony leans over, "what did you say about the losing team earlier?"

You roll your eyes and stick out your tongue, "oh shush."

"What should we play next?" Scarlett asks.

Anthony quickly replies, "doesn't matter because I'm gonna win."

Sebastian grabs the deck of cards on the table, "Uno?"

You raise an eyebrow, "How about drunk uno? If you forget to shout out Uno when you're down to one card you gotta take a shot in addition to picking up cards."

Everyone nods, "sounds good."

You run to the kitchen to grab shot glasses and liquor from the cabinet while the rest of them clear off the coffee table and grab extra chairs from the dining room and sit around the table. Chris shuffles the cards and passes them out.

While you guys are playing they ask how you and Chris met. Chris explains how you met at the welcome home party. You smile and start to reminisce and forget to yell uno when you put your card down.

Sebastian quickly points to you and shouts, "uno! Take a shot."

"Ah shit, I got distracted."

Chris quickly turns to you and kisses your cheek, "sorry" he whispers.

You laugh and pour yourself a shot.

The game continues. During the game Hemmy and Anthony end up taking shots for forgetting to shout uno. Scarlett ends up winning the first game. Chris wins the second game even though he had to take 2 shots for not yelling uno the first two times. You were starting to think that the alcohol was helping him focus because he also won the next game. You guys play a few more rounds of uno before just lounging around the coffee table talking and drinking.

Chris and Anthony get up from their seats to go to the kitchen for more snacks.

You go to the bathroom while the others pick what game they wanna play next. When you come back from the bathroom the group has decided to play cards against humanity and are setting up the game. You head to the kitchen to tell Chris and Anthony to hurry up when you sneak up on them talking about you. You hide behind one of the pillars and listen in on their conversation.

"You seem really happy", Anthony says leaning against the kitchen counter.

Chris looks down and smiles, "I am, man. I really am", he takes a drink of his beer.

"She's perfect for you, man. She has the same humor as you."

He laughs, "Thanks. I love her so much."

Your eyes tear up a bit and you smile. You take a deep breath and come out from behind the pillar. "Hey guys, we're ready for the next game. Let's go." You walk up to Chris and wrap your arms around him. He notices your eyes are watery.

"You okay?"

"Uh yeah", you put your hand on his chest.

Chris smiles and kisses your forehead.

"Alright you love birds, let's go" Anthony buds in.

You guys head back to the living room and rejoin the rest of the group. During the rounds of Cards Against Humanity the group gets a real feel for the sense of humor you have. A dirty sense of humor to be exact because you win the first two games.

You guys play for a bit longer before calling it quits since its 3 o'clock in the morning. Once everyone has left, you and Chris attempt to clean up, but are distracted by each other. Every time you pass him he grabs you and kisses you.

You moan against his lips, "come on Chris, we gotta clean up. I don't wanna do it tomorrow morning."

He groans and kisses your forehead, "Okay fine, but as soon as we're done you're mine."

You guys continue cleaning up, but when you see Chris in the kitchen putting stuff away in the cupboard you sneak up behind him and wrap your arms around him. He jumps at your touch, "hey, what did you say earlier? Hands off til we're done."

"Yeah, I'm done" You kiss him on the cheek.

He points to the counter, "Okay but I'm not. I still need to put this stuff away."

You tickle his sides, "hurry up."

"Hey!" Chris quickly turns around and tries to tickle you, but you slip out of his reach and take off running down the hallway to your bedroom. "You're not getting away that easy."

Chris grabs you and you both fall onto the bed out of breath and laughing. He rolls you over so he's laying on top of you both of his arms on either side of you so he doesn't squish you. You run your hands up and down his forearms as he looks into your eyes. You both calm down from laughing. "Told you I'll catch you."

You bite your lip, "Now that you have me, what's next?"

"This." Chris leans down and starts kissing you. You moan against his lips. You wrap your arms around him to pull him closer. He kisses your neck, "I love you, (y/n)."

"I love you too."

You guys keep kissing each other before you push on Chris' chest.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm hot."

Chris laughs, "why yes you are."

You smile, "No, well thanks, but I meant you're making me hot."

Chris raises an eyebrow, "you're welcome."

You laugh, "goddamn it, that's not what I meant, Chris. Well in that category you are too, but I mean temperature hot." You tug at his jacket.

He looks down and laughs, "Oh." He sits on the edge of the bed and kicks off his shoes and starts taking off his jacket and shirt. When he turns back he sees you have taken off your shirt as well. He lays back on top of you. "Better?"

"Much better?" You wrap your arms around his back and kiss him. Chris' hands start to wander down your sides, but he feels you tense up and stops.

"Hey what's wrong?" He cups your face with his hand. You keep your eyes close and stay silent. Chris kisses you on the cheek. "(Y/n), what's wrong? Talk to me."

You open your eyes and let out a deep breath, "As much as I would love to have sex with you right now, I'm not ready yet... Sorry." Your eyes are watery so you look away.

Chris cups your face so you would look at him, "Hey, Don't be sorry. I'm more than okay with waiting." He kisses your cheek as a single tear rolls down. "I love you." He hugs you before rolling over and pulling you close to his chest.

"I love you too."

#chris evans #chrisevans #chris evans fanfiction #chrisevansfanfic #chris evans and reader #chris evans smut

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hotcheri · 3 years

Text

Always Something There to Remind Me (a Jen/Khalil Black Lightning fanfic)

DISCLAIMER: I own none of the Black Lightning characters. They solely belong to DC Comics and the CW Network. This is just my take on what could have happened after the show ended.

Prologue

Khalil's POV

They were meditating when TC crept into Khalil's mindscape like a thief in the night.

Well, at least, Khalil was meditating. He loved to empty his mind of all thoughts and focus on his breathing, relishing the mental stillness and the sense of peace he didn't have in his normal life.

Painkiller sat to the side of the mental dojo like he always did whenever Khalil was centering himself, a mocking sneer twisting his lips up as Khalil tried to ignore the rage that was baking off his mind twin like a rabid fever.

Painkiller was always angry, and the people he was mostly enraged at were the Pierces. Jen, to be exact. They lived in Painkiller's head rent free, and since Khalil shared the same mind as him, and almost all of his thoughts, the image of Jen was never far from Khalil. Pain in the ass Jen, who also happened to be Khalil's first love. What a mind fuck to love someone with all your heart while part of you needed to kill her and was in pure agony every second she was alive. Khalil didn't need anyone to tell him about mind fucks, having Painkiller relentlessly prowling through his mind was more than enough.

Every time TC appeared in Khalil's mindscape, Painkiller leapt up from his seat and started pacing back and forth in a tight little line like a tiger stalking its prey, hands clasped behind his back, nostrils flared, glaring at TC as if he wanted nothing more than to boot him out of his head after savaging him a little.

Too bad it's our head, and I'm trying to hear what he has to say.

The thought flitted through Khalil's mind grimly, and he sucked in a breath before opening his eyes and gazing at TC, who kept shooting quick little fearful glances at Painkiller. Khalil knew how he felt. Until he had started working actively with Painkiller, forcing the duality in his brain to coexist, he'd been terrified of him too.

"Uh, hi guys," TC started, his voice trembling as he looked around for exit points even though all he had to do was break the connection with the chip in Khalil's brain if he wanted to leave. Khalil supposed when someone entered a room and found themselves face to face with Painkiller, even if it was a virtual reality room, that person could get very scared very fast. In cases like that, logic was the first thing to escape.

Khalil liked the kid, had liked him even before he had locked Painkiller behind a firewall in his head and had shown Jen how to coax Khalil out of the safe space he'd created in his mind. Khalil knew without a doubt that the Pierces, especially Anissa, would have taken him out after Jen had blasted him with lightning to ward off Painkiller's attack on her family as he tried to complete the kill directive, because that's exactly what he would have done.

But TC had done the inconceivable. He'd managed to read Khalil's real thoughts, thoughts that had somehow filtered through the Painkiller operating system as soon as he set eyes on Jen. Thoughts that he must have been hiding way down in his secret heart, feelings that must have survived the A.S.A. mindwipe that transformed him into a lean, mean, biological weapon. As he lay prone on the table in Gambi's work station, on the verge of unconsciousness, his sharp ears had listened as TC, a total stranger, had his back.

"Hey. Who's Jen?" TC had interrupted the post fight argument, glancing around at the faces of people he didn't know.

Impatiently, with the touch of heat that Khalil loved and had missed with a sudden depth of emotion he hadn't felt since he was just track star Khalil, and not two warring parts of a government weapon whole, Jen replied, "That's me."

"He loves you."

And Jen's suddenly shaky, tear-filled voice had whispered, "How do you know that?"

TC's answer had been simple. "He told me."

Yeah, TC was good people. And even though the reunion between Khalil and Jen hadn't lasted, even though it had been bittersweet and doomed to fail with a painful, brusque ending, for a short, sweet time, he had been happy again.

But there was no use in thinking about that, no use in brooding over something he couldn't fix. With Painkiller in his head, being with Jen wasn't an option.

Painkiller was the first to talk, stepping forward as TC gave Khalil a half-hearted wave. "Oh, you must be crazy bringin' your ass here," he growled out in his distorted, angry voice.

TC took an involuntary step back, wringing his hands. Khalil could feel the fear in the kid increase as Painkiller stopped inches from his face, glowering down at him.

Raising a hand, Khalil talked to Painkiller like a patient parent calming down a tantrum throwing toddler. "I invited him," he lied, not caring that Painkiller would know that he hadn't.

Sharing his mind with a psychopathic, heartless killer sucked all the time, and keeping secrets was nearly impossible. Painkiller knew he was claustrophobic, that he loved trains, and that he thought about the one that got away daily. But when it came to people Khalil cared for, he didn't give a fuck if Painkiller knew he was lying to protect them from his rage. TC was a friend, and he wasn't going to let Painkiller's angry ass intimidate him.

"Don't think I won't kick your ass, too," Painkiller growled. Khalil fixed him with a steady look. He'd won more fights against Painkiller, especially after his return after a year long silence, and Painkiller knew it. After a few seconds, Painkiller sucked his teeth and resumed scowling at TC.

Spreading his arms out placatingly, TC asked, "What if I come with good and great news?"

A curious expression darted across Painkiller's face. Khalil caught it and grinned to himself. Psychotic or not, everyone liked the idea of good news.

"Speak," Painkiller ground out.

Swallowing nervously, TC said, "Tobias Whale is dead."

Okay, that was unexpected, and so was the rush of relief that coursed through Khalil's body, relaxing muscles that had been tense ever since he had started working for Tobias. Even though the A.S.A. mindwipe had taken all his memories and locked them away, they had been retrieved as soon as TC had put the firewall in his head, and so too had the underlying current of fear that always pulsed whenever he thought of Tobias.

And now his former boss, the man who had ripped out his spine and dumped him on the church steps when he was done with him, the evil torturer who had been responsible for leading Khalil over to the dark side was finally dead. Closing his eyes, Khalil sent up a prayer of thanks to a God he no longer strictly believed in.

Even after becoming Agent Odell's chief asset, Khalil still harbored thoughts that Tobias would come to him, eager to finish what he had started, wanting revenge for Syonide's death, the attempted robbery at the club before Khalil and Jen became runaways, and every single other thing he'd done that had pissed Tobias off. He'd reluctantly come to believe that a showdown with Tobias was inevitable, and even though his road to atonement had led him to Akashic Valley and a new life, he always knew that Tobias would eventually come for him. It was in his nature. But now this piece of good news had been thrown into his lap and Khalil took a moment to bask in gratitude.

Painkiller's reaction was the polar opposite of Khalil's restrained joy. Anger blazed onto his face and his brow creased as he listened to TC give Khalil the best news he'd heard in a while.

Sounding like a petulant child after being asked if he had McDonald's money, Painkiller groaned. "Damn. I wanted to kill him." He fisted both hands into his unruly curls and glowering up at the ceiling. "That's not good news." Turning to Khalil, his voice turned wheedling. "Let me kick his ass just a little."

With a quick glance towards Painkiller, TC cleared his throat before dropping his bombshell. "I've isolated the system code for the kill order. I can free you."

TC backed away till his back was against the wall, as far as he could get from a snarling Painkiller. When he got furious, Painkiller acted just like a wolf ready to attack. Luckily, Khalil had him on a mental leash. Ignoring him, Khalil focused his attention on TC.

"TC, what is your other news?"

Khalil let out a shaky breath, a glimmer of hope blooming in his chest.

At last.

"Good." Both TC and Khalil turned to face Painkiller, who had a look on his face so unnatural that Khalil didn't immediately recognize it. He looked like a doomed man seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Is he...is he happy? "Let's do it."

"But there's a catch," TC started slowly, plucking nervously at his sleeve as his eyes slid from Khalil to Painkiller and back again. Khalil sighed, motioning to TC to continue. There was always a catch and he knew that better than anybody, but for a second he had allowed himself to believe that getting rid of the kill order that brought such pain to both Painkiller and him, finally being freed from the chains that the A.S.A had wound around his body and in his mind, was ripe for the taking, with no blowback. "It's linked to everything you know and love about the whole Pierce family. If you break the kill order, you won't remember the Pierces at all."

The breath went out of Khalil all at once, leaving him feeling weak and boneless. He was glad he was sitting down, because if he had been standing when TC spoke, the strength would have ran out of his legs. And even though this was all in his mind, his physical body had stopped breathing for a second, and he felt his heart skip a beat.

This wasn't a catch, it was a fucking dilemma. There had to be another way.

Chewing on his bottom lip, Khalil found himself thinking about the technology he and Painkiller had found in Maya's safe house. Surely there was something there that would help isolate the kill switch without messing with his memories more than they'd already been messed with? Because this alternative that TC was suggesting... it wasn't fair. After leaving Freeland to keep Jen and her family safe and away from him, hell, after saving Anissa's wife from kidnappers, after everything that had happened in Khalil's life to get him to this point in time, losing the only good memories he had left just plain wrong.

"So what?" Painkiller asked, his top lip turned up into a snarl. Whether he was oblivious to the wave of emotion Khalil was weathering, or if he just didn't care, Khalil didn't know. Painkiller knew what he wanted. He was tired of the agony that came with not fulfilling the kill order. "They're pains in the ass anyway!"

In a chillingly calm voice that brooked no argument, Khalil stared evenly at Painkiller and said, "Shut up and sit your black ass down." Shocked into obedience, Painkiller sank down to the floor as Khalil looked at TC, a pleading tone in his voice. "TC, there's got to be another way around."

"There's none." Khalil could hear the despair in TC's voice, and he knew he was telling the truth. Of course he was. "I've checked and I've double checked."

Painkiller was still silent, and Khalil turned to look at him. "Damn!" He clenched his fist so hard that the veins in his arm popped out, but he took no notice. "You won't stop, will you? Sooner or later you're going to kill Jen and the rest of the Pierces."

Nodding sagely, like he had been the one meditating, Painkiller said, "Best believe. But I'm not nobody's puppy." He pointed at Khalil, his face stern and absolutely serious. "Cut the damn cord."

The muscles in Khalil's jaw worked as he stood up, turning his back on TC and Painkiller so that they couldn't see the emotions playing across his face. He wanted to be free of the kill code more than anything, needed Painkiller to be at rest so that he could figure out a way to become whole again. But the cost- losing Jen again- was it just too great?

Khalil closed his eyes, and suddenly, he was back on the Pierce's roof with Jen after Painkiller had broken free of the firewall for a couple of nasty minutes to wrap his hands around Jen's neck. He could feel everything in that moment, the wind brushing lightly against his face, the shingles of the roof under his sneakers, the terrified look Jen shot him before schooling her features into a coolness Khalil had never seen on her face. Both looks hit him like a ton of bricks.

She was scared of him.

Painkiller had shown her his true colors and had, once again, pushed someone he loved away from him. And what she had said had chilled him to the core, a sudden lump rising in his throat, and tears smarting in his eyes as she let him go.

"I can't love a weapon that's pointed at my family, even if it does have a soul." Her shoulders hunched pitifully as she wrapped her arms around her legs, all at once seeming far younger than her years. "See you around, Khalil."

He took one last look at her, her curly hair brushing past her chin, her eyes chilly and flinty in the dusk as she turned away from him, blinking away tears of her own. "No. You won't," he said, and with that, he had exited Jen's life.

Some things you can't go back to. The way Jen had ended things between them still hurt, and the realization that he wasn't going to be able to salvage things with her caused him pain that was almost physical, but if TC was able to isolate the kill code and erase his memories of her, the pain would go. All the pain would disappear, and his fresh start in Akashic Valley would be just that, a fresh start.

Behind him, TC started to say, "If you need more time, I can-," but by now, Khalil's mind was made up. There was no other choice.

"I always known I'd give my life for that girl." Khalil heaved a sad sigh, running a hand over his face as he turned to look at a nervous TC and an impassive Painkiller. Painkiller smirked, knowing what decision Khalil had made, and in that moment, Khalil hated him, the A.S.A., Odell- everyone who had gotten him into this situation. Especially himself. "Never thought I'd have to forget her." A nod towards TC. "Do it."

TC nodded dumbly, just as another thought flitted into Khalil's mind. If TC was able to isolate the kill code and erase some of his memories, wasn't it possible that he could remove his very worst memory?

Before he left Freeland for good after shooting Odell and letting Black Lightning deal with the evil son of a bitch however he saw fit, Khalil took a detour to the cemetery, picking a bunch of blooming flowers from the ramshackle garden of Mrs. Sutton, the Payne's old landlady. Khalil didn't think she would mind, she had loved Nichelle Payne dearly.

Once at the cemetery, he had laid the flowers on his mother's grave, sat down with his back resting against her tombstone and cried a little. Nobody had been around to see him; Freeland residents weren't crazy about going to the graveyard at nighttime.

"I shot the guy who made me kill you, ma," he'd whispered, his words blown away by the breeze as the tears blurred his vision. "I know you always said vengeance never pays, but I had to do it. I'm sorry, ma. I love you, and I'm so, so sorry."

Nichelle Payne had raised him to be the best in whatever he did, and what had he done in return? Snapped her neck, and the best excuse he could come up with was he'd just been following orders. The knowledge weighed heavily on his soul, and he knew that he would pay for it in time. Everything comes due. But if TC could somehow make him forget...

"I can try," TC said doubtfully, and Khalil raised his eyes from his clenched fists, remembering where he was through the sadness that engulfed his soul.

"No." Khalil shook his head, resigning himself to reality. "It's part of who I am, and I need to find redemption for it, or a way to live with myself."

TC opened his mouth and hesitated before shyly asking, "Do you want to- I mean, I could give you Jen's number and you could talk to her one last time?"

Painkiller groaned, storming around the circumference of the dojo angrily. "Can we fucking do this already? No more flashbacks, no phone calls- get this kill order the fuck out of my head!"

"Our head," Khalil reminded him. "And right now, I'm in charge." He bit his lip, wrestling with himself. Saying goodbye to Jen wouldn't make things better, it would just bring home the truth that he would never see his first girlfriend again, and even if by some weird coincidence he did, he wouldn't know her. It was stupid. They already said their goodbyes on the Pierce roof, what would he gain from this? "What's her number?"

Painkiller actually growled at this and stomped off somewhere. Khalil could still feel him burning in his mind, but it looked like he had opted out of being a part of Khalil's final goodbye. Not that Khalil minded in the least. Before Painkiller, his relationship with Jen had been special. He didn't want his insane mind twin tainting the very last moment he would have with her.

Courteously, TC severed the connection with Khalil's brain chip, promising to return when the phone call was over and start the process. Khalil stared down at his phone and punched in Jen's number before he could lose his cool. Meditation seemed like a lifetime away, it was all he could do to keep his heart from galloping away like a war horse.

Jen's phone rang once, twice, three times, and Khalil was just about to hit the end button when suddenly-

"Hi." Jen's bold, brash voice was in his ear, and Khalil forgot to breathe. The background noise was filled with laughter and music, a noise that Khalil associated with family time, even though he was never fortunate enough to have enjoyed family time with his mother working two jobs, his father in jail, and his brother running the streets with the 100. "You know you're calling from a- Anissa, stop!" Khalil closed his eyes, savoring the sound of Jen's hearty giggles as someone- Anissa, probably- tickled her or something similar. "You're calling from a private number, who is this?"

A male chuckle sounded, and Khalil recognized Gambi's voice sounding from the distance. "Probably a scam, hang up before they get all your info."

Same old Gambi, trusting nobody. A wistful smile turned up Khalil's lips, but he still couldn't come up with a thing to say. It was like all his thought circuits were down, and he wondered if Painkiller had something to do with it.

"Helloooo? Who is this?" Jen's voice turned speculative, and she gave a derisive snort. "This better not be TC playing with me again, how many times do I have to tell you I'm not going to prom wit' you?"

"I'm literally right here," TC protested in the background.

And Khalil found that he couldn't bring himself to say anything, let alone goodbye. He wasn't great with goodbyes, anyway, so who was he fooling? "Uh, sorry," he muttered. Why had he thought this would be a good idea again? "Wrong number."

In the few seconds it took for him to press the end call button, Jen's voice sharpened with recognition and she exclaimed, "Wait, that sounds a little like-."

Call ended blinked up at him from his phone screen as his pulse jumped in his throat. Safe getaway. Of course, he'd ended the call before Jen could say his name, or even more hurtful, the name of somebody else.

But fuck, hearing her voice was bittersweet.

"You hung up?" TC was back in his head, eyes gleaming with relief that Painkiller wasn't around.

Nodding, Khalil strove to keep his face blank and impassive. "Yeah. I'd rather remember her the way she was on that phone, happy, carefree, pain in the ass J."

She sounded happy and normal, like the old her, before the 100 had kidnapped her and she had discovered she had powers. She sounded like the Queen of Garfield. By coming back into her life even for a few seconds, he might jeopardize that happiness, and if there's one thing he wanted her to be after the events of the past few years, it was at peace and she wasn't going to find it with him.

"But you didn't get to say goodbye."

Pity was written all across TC's face, and once again, Khalil felt the wave of sadness engulf him. Did it ever stop? Even with his memories of Jen gone, would he really be at peace?

"I didn't need to." Khalil stopped, his shoulders slumped, and came to stand next to TC, who was still looking at him with that sympathetic look on his face. "TC..."

Looking up at him, TC said, "Yeah?"

"Don't tell her."

TC let out a dramatic gasp that made Khalil crack a smile, even though he had never felt less like smiling. "What? But I was just about to-?"

"No." Khalil shook his head resolutely. "Let her live her life." TC opened his mouth to protest, but Khalil talked over him. It was the only way. "You told me she lost the guy she was seeing, and she's already lost so much. Just- let her think what she's been thinking, that I left Freeland to live my life." He started pacing like Painkiller sometimes did, back and forth, his arms behind his back as he spoke. It felt like atoning for his sins. "I poisoned her. I almost killed her."

Interrupting, his voice utterly horrified, TC exclaimed, "That was Painkiller, not you!"

"Yeah, but don't you get it? He's in me, so even if I know that I'm not the one doing the poisoning, everyone else thinks it, because he's in my head wanting to kill all the time." Khalil stopped pacing and turned to TC, his face serious. "With the kill code gone, we can co-exist without the anger and rage that drives Painkiller. I came here for a fresh start and removing the memories of the Pierces will give me that." To show that he meant business, he clapped his hands together. "Let's do this. How's it gonna work?"

Getting back to business removed the pity from TC's face, and Khalil was glad. Seeing that look on his normally cheery friends face and knowing it was directed at him made him feel like even more of a shitty person.

Tapping his chin, Khalil asked, "So I won't remember that they're metas as well?"

"You'll forget about them. Anything related to them, too."

TC's eyes started to flash green as he went over the logistics of changing Khalil's life.

"No, you'll remember that, you'll know about Black Lightning, Thunder and Lightning, you just won't know their identities. You won't remember they're Pierces."

Nodding, Khalil said, "Got it." Actually, it sounded confusing to him, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it. "But if I want to reinstate my memories, can't I just come to you and-."

TC laughed as Khalil made a casual popping noise with his tongue in his cheek. "No. You won't even know that your memories are gone."

"And you're sure they'll stay gone."

This was the most important part. What ifs ran through Khalil's mind with the speed of a Formula One car. If he somehow ran into the Pierce sisters on vacation. If he helped someone from a mugger and it turned out to be Doctor Pierce? If Black Lightning ended up in Akashic Valley like Anissa had and they ran into each other?

Shifting from one foot to the other, TC said, "Um, 90% sure."

"90?" Khalil asked incredulously.

TC shrugged. "That's an A."

"I used to get straight A's in school," Khalil said musingly. "And then Odell dropped a few Master's degrees into my head, but that happened after I stopped caring about grades." TC gave him a confused, yet concerned look, and Khalil said, "Let's get rid of these memories."

A few minutes later, Khalil was lying on an operating table, a brain scanner that looked like a crown on his head. Philky just happened to have one lying around, which was pure Philky, and after TC had uploaded his program into the lab's computer, he'd told Khalil's master of tech exactly what to do. Donald was on standby in case something went wrong medically. And Painkiller? He was still in the dojo, and Khalil could feel the excitement thrumming through him. Khalil didn't blame him; he was excited too.

A high-pitched whine started up, and Khalil felt a pinprick of electricity tickle his forehead as the process started. TC had warned him about this.

What TC hadn't warned him about was, as the memories left, they replayed in his head, almost like a flashback reel.

Khalil saw himself on the Pierce roof with Jen, giving her a chaste, shy kiss as she agreed to be his girlfriend.

He saw himself stealing into Garfield High and meeting up with Jen by the lockers after enduring more abuse from Tobias, knowing that she was the only person he could really talk to despite what had gone down between them. Sitting down in silence, not needing to say a word because their connection was that powerful.

He saw them running away together, Jen using her lightning powers in front of him for the first time and blasting the 100 hoodlums. How he'd kissed her later on and it had been electric, and the hottest kiss he'd ever had.

He saw himself (the memories were blurry around the edges, soon they'd be gone but so would the kill code, it was for the best but it hurt, TC didn't say it would hurt this much) sitting next to Jen in his special place, his private place, his favorite place, the abandoned subway car, eating ramen and reminiscing on how he had asked her to be his girlfriend, and he had been so shy when he gave her the necklace, something that had caught his eye in Freeland's jewelry store and he'd saved up for two months to buy it for her, a necklace he was giving to her for the second time because he loved her, and he'd lost her once and wasn't about to let her go again and...

The memories faded as Khalil's mind cycled through the deepest, darkest levels of consciousness, and there was only darkness, and finally, blissfully, peace.

(See more on ao3 or wattpad!)

#black lightning #fanfic #khalil payne #jennifer pierce #jordan calloway #china anne mcclain #wattpad #ao3fic

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gottawriteanegoortwo · 3 years

Text

Mermay - Dilliam - Getting To Know You

William and Damien want to get to know each other, but these things take time. There are more important matters that need to be addressed first.

Read the first part here!

Word Count: 2,159

Sure enough, early the next day William hobbled down the steps to the shore. He kept his balance with one hand, and gripped a flask with the other. Unlike the previous day, he wore more layers to keep warm. It made the chilly morning more bearable as the pair sat on the picnic bench. Even so, Damien's high energy and energetic gesturing as he told William the story of when he first met his extended merfamily was infectious. William kept the hot flask in both hands as he sat forward to take in everything and encourage Damien with more questions.

At one point, Damien seemed to snap out of the moment and throw William a concerned look.

"I'm sorry… this, this isn't too much, is it? I don't get to talk about my experiences too much -" He was cut off when he felt a warm hand on his.

"Keep talking. I want to hear everything." William's smile was so wide, it could be seen either side of his bushy moustache. He gave Damien's another reassuring squeeze before lifting his hand away; and Damien had to rapidly suppress the instinct to snatch the hand back. It was such a simple thing, yet Damien felt comfortable enough to keep going.

As it turned out, it was very easy to talk to William. He knew nothing about the world of the ocean, except a small selection of fish names… and even that wasn't right:

("Oh yeah! An orca! That's the one with a horn, right?"

"No. It's the large whale that is black with white markings."

"... Then what am I thinking of?"

"Either a unicornfish or a narwhal, I'd imagine.")

However, as William would later argue, it was because he was normally assigned to tasks on land and was better acquainted with recognising animals, something that Damien was not too confident on:

("But what about that big cat with the hair? You know, the one that has the hair all around its head like this!"

"... Damien, that's what I've been telling you about. Male lions have manes, see?"

"... I knew that.")

Back and forth the conversation went, and Damien could feel a pang of disappointment when Mark came down to accompany them when he returned from rehearsals. Then, to make matters worse, William got a call from Celine regarding something that needed to be reassembled ASAP, so he had to scramble back up.

"Hey… Damien?" Mark broke the silence that had descended on the rocky coast. "I know you were told William was staying for a day or two, but if he gets the all-clear to take off the boot at his appointment tomorrow he has offered to stay longer to help us with odd jobs around the house. Would you be okay with that?"

"Why are you asking me? I don't live here." Damien made quite a considerable effort to give a calm response, and he could only hope that Mark couldn't see through the flimsy act. "It doesn't really affect me what happens up there."

"Well… I wasn’t sure if you were going to continue on your travels soon. If you need to keep on track of your itinerary, don't let our possible change of plan mess with that." Mark's response had Damien cursing his sister. Did both Celine and her partner know about his plight? But Damien knew Mark. If that was the case, there would be obvious teasing. Maybe it was genuine concern on the actor's part.

"It's alright. I'm not under any time restriction, remember?" One key difference between humans and merfolk was how humans were obsessed with time and schedules, whereas merfolk were more flexible and carefree. "I don't mind staying a little longer. It's nice to be with family again. I'd be a fool to hurry off too fast and miss out on this." Mark's face lit up as he turned to pick up a bag Damien hadn't noticed originally. It was passed to him without any hesitation.

"Speaking of being with family - here. I had this commissioned for you. Consider it a 'new home' gift from both myself and Celine." The merman gingerly opened the present, surprised when he pulled out a small stacked stone ornament on a waterproof pedestal, complete with aqua blue natural sea glass for decoration. "I know you enjoy travelling the seas. Just know that we want this to be your home as much as it is ours when you are in the area. I might only be your brother-in-law to be, but you are still family, and this can be your home if you want it to be. There’s nothing too hard for us to do to make this your home. Just say the word - I have a credit card." Mark reached forward to ruffle Damien's hair, earning himself a dramatically offended hiss in response.

When Mark left, Damien took the decoration in his hands. It was beautiful, and he was enamoured by it… But it made something in his stomach twist. A home… such a concept was different between a merfolk and a human. If they wanted this to be his 'home', were they going to make some sort of enclosure and expect him to ‘settle down’? Celine wouldn't, he knew she never would. Even so, there was the worry if she felt sorry that he would never have a 'home' in the way a human can.

He put the gift into the chest to keep it safe and slipped into the water. He needed time to think about this.

"You sure you want to help out? I was kidding about working you to the bone." Celine accompanied William back to the car after his appointment the next day. The crutch and boot were gleefully returned as he was given the all-clear. Now all that was needed was to simply not break it again any time soon.

"Of course! You expect Mark to move things around for you? Or are you planning on killing your fiancé by letting him try his hand at wiring a new light in one of the empty rooms?" He threw Celine an accusatory glare when she laughed at the suggestion. Thankfully, the conversation returned to the matter at hand as they spent the drive to the hardware store deciding what needed to be done in the seafront cottage.

"Can I ask you a favour?" Celine had stopped in the middle of the 'outdoor' section during their shopping expedition. William screeched the shopping cart to a halt so he could reverse and see what caught her attention. "I want to make the rock pool a place Damien feels comfortable to call home. The positioning of the rocks means it's sheltered from the tides, but I don't know how safe it will be from winter storms. I don't suppose there's anything you can do about that?" William's eyes went from Celine to see what inspired her to request such a job. It was a rock waterfall, an ornament for a garden. The colour of the rocks matched the ones by the sea.

"I'm not sure, only because I've not seen much of it. It'd depend on if the 'pool' is shallow or not. I could try and add some extra support to those rocks that frame the water, maybe check what supports are normally put along beaches to protect coastal towns?" Celine nodded as William spoke, fetching several LED lamps and dropping them into the cart.

"We should ask Damien when we return. I didn't want to bring it up too soon after we moved in because I know he's not one for staying in one place for too long. I suppose it's the mer instincts at play." When she noticed William's confusion, Celine continued, "When we grow up, we normally want to settle down in a house of our own, right? Merfolk might have nesting grounds or communities of their own, but they tend to travel since they can cover large distances in a short amount of time. It's why Damien would often disappear for months at a time." She sighed as she shoved her hands into her pockets. "I wanted a house by the sea so Damien would have a place he could call home too and feel he can stay longer. I can't protect him if he's forever travelling."

"Protect him?"

"You've heard the stories, right? Where people have exotic 'pets' that are categorised as 'mythical'? Having a merman as beautiful as Damien is one thing, but one with fluency in English and an awareness of human behaviours would be a valuable asset to American collectors… Or worse." Even if her hands were hidden, William knew her fists were tightly clenched in anger at the thought of something bad happening. "I don't want anyone to hurt him. Even if he travels the seas and has plenty of connections, he's still my little brother."

"Hey," William braved putting a hand on Celine's shoulder, "It's okay. He'll be okay. We can go back and see how he feels about rubber duck decorations." He pulled back to lift the item in question. They were tiny LED lights on a string, but each light was encased in a small model that resembled a toy rubber duck. "If we got a few of these and draped them around the rocks, it'd really look like home. And look! They're half-price. It's meant to be, Celine." Though still worried for her brother, the distraction worked as Celine finally cracked a smile and lightly shoved William. "What? Oh! You're right. That's far too ambitious. Just the one will do." That was that as it was innocently dropped in, followed by an actual rubber duck toy.

"Trust me. I might not be an outside landscaper-person, but I know we'll be able to make the rock pool the most spiffing place this side of the seven seas!"

To William's credit, he had only gathered a handful of impulse purchases that he paid for himself, including a pair of small hanging mirror shaped like a crescent moon and a star as a belated housewarming present ("Mark is the star 'cause he an actor, and you're the moon 'cause of your magic stuff."). Everything else was relevant to the required home improvement jobs that William would be working on over the next few weeks. Once they had brought everything inside, it was then the turn of Mark to bring William out of the house and make the drive to William's family home. William could grab his tools and show his elderly parents that his leg had fully healed. His mother insisted they take a loaf of homemade bread and some cupcakes with them once she had smothered William in hugs and kisses and made him promise to come by while he was in the area.

Meanwhile, the twins sat on one of the large rocks, gazing out over the sea. Damien rested his head on Celine's shoulder as she told him about how her job was going and some of the ideas for the home renovation now that William was staying and ready to work. Damien held her phone, idly scrolling through the photos as she explained what was going on, until he realised the next few photos were of the area they were in.

"- some sort of way to make this place a little safer in the storms. Do you think you could have a think and see what can be done?"

"I'll think about it." Damien returned the phone to Celine as he sat up straight. "Whatever happens will happen, I suppose."

"But this is your home. Whatever happens here is your choice first and foremost."

"Yeah, sure."

"Damien. I'm serious." She reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, only for him to pull away. The fins on his collarbones flared briefly in agitation.

"This is your home, Celine. You don't need to pretend that I have a say in any of this, or that you'd even listen to what I'd want anyway. I don't need your pity because I can't go buy a house like you can."

"That's not what this about-"

"Isn't it? Don't think I never heard those conversations you had with Mom and Dad about wishing I could 'settle down'. I'd bet you even want to build me some sort of little enclosure to make up for that fact."

"Damien, stop that!" But it was too late. He had slipped into the water. Confused and frustrated, but wanting to avoid further argument, Celine stormed back up to the house.

Mark and William had decided to cut into the bread when the back door opened. Their argument on what would best accompany their snacks was abruptly cut off as Celine marched past them and down the corridor, before a door slammed shut. A silent nod was swapped between the men. Something happened between the twins. Food could wait. They needed to get to the bottom of this. ---

(I normally don’t stick these notes on the bottom, but I’m planning on spreading out this story over the month. It’s currently 20 pages on g.oogle docs total, so there definitely will be more. However, I will be putting the next part up tomorrow since 1. I’m not mean to leave it on a cliffhanger for several days and 2. It was waaay too long to put everything as one chapter)

#mermay #dilliam #writersofmark #mayor damien #william j barnum #(I never wanna tag Mark and Celine since they play a minor role)#Blue Soul (Damien)#Eccentric Goof (Colonel)#Shattered Heart (Mark Doom)#Red Soul (Celine)#(read-more is for tidiness! :D )

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scullydubois · 4 years

Text

Only the Light: Ch. 15

After shooting Mulder to prevent him from implicating himself in his father's murder, Scully takes Mulder & Melissa on a road trip to Albert Hosteen's Navajo reservation in New Mexico.

TW for mentions of guns/shooting, death, funerals

----------------------------------------------

His eyes flutter open to some place like Heaven, which pisses him off cause that’s not supposed to exist, and if it does, then how in the hell did he make it here? A fiery-haired angel lays a gilded hand upon his chest, her touch made out of air. Tendrils of hair fall against her face, and Mulder wonders where one gets haircuts in Heaven.

He must be floating on a cloud, so close to the sun that it is stained an earthly golden-yellow. His sky accommodation is not as comfortable as all those Renaissance painters made it look, and for that he feels deceived. Is the soul so solid that it is weighed down, even in Heaven? And if it is, well, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a soul?

He is fatigued, and it’s bullshit, in his opinion, that he could be dead and still feel anything but blissful numbness. He’s about to voice this particular grievance when he realizes where he is, and sure English is turning into a lingua franca of sorts, but something tells him that God isn’t spending his spare time teaching the angels the difference between too and to. So he keeps his mouth shut, unnerved by not knowing whether he’ll ever be able to speak his mind again.

“Hey,” a soft voice breathes, and he’s surprised to understand it, but not altogether upset. He tries to respond, but his tongue has tethered itself to the base of his mouth.

“Mulder…” the voice says, and it registers in his mind that it’s not an angel--not technically--but Dana Katherine Scully, and my god, what atrocity has dared to send her to Heaven so damn soon?

He coughs, then grumbles from deep in his throat. He’s got to be the most undignified person in this joint, and he can only hope his welcome dinner with God isn’t anytime soon. The angel’s hand that is actually his partner’s drifts over his forelock, her fingers guiding his hair back into its part.

“Mulder, can you hear me?”

He nods, hungry for some sense of things.

“You were shot, Mulder. By me. Because you were acting very stupid.”

She killed him?!? Maybe he shouldn’t be so shocked by this, but he can’t help himself. And she’s here too, so how did that happen? Murder-suicide?

Her hand sweeps his shoulder, and he looks down to see the space where her bullet must have pierced him. Patched up right above his heart. He didn’t expect to carry wounds into the afterlife.

Her eyes meet his, blue as ever. “I’ve been taking care of you, and you’ll be just fine.”

His lips form an O, but no sound follows.

“Let me get you some water.” Scully disappears from his line of sight, and he realizes that his cloud has a roof and an open door. You can’t see those from the ground.

Scully returns with a plastic water bottle. Deer Park, to be exact--another thing he didn’t expect to find in Heaven. She holds it to his lips, tilting the liquid gently into his mouth. He revels in it, vitality slowly being returned to him.

At last, his tongue functions as it should. “Where are we, Scully?” he asks, his voice creaky. He’s beginning to think it’s not Heaven after all, but the back of his partner’s Chevy. Which feels about as equally likely, if he’s honest.

“At a gas station In Texas, about two miles off I-40,” she answers, twisting the cap back on the bottle. “We’re headed to a Navajo reservation in New Mexico.”

Met with the realization that his life is not, in fact, over, Mulder tries to piece together the last moments he can remember. He squints, the sun outside the vehicle colliding with the darkness in his brain. He remembers a fever and a bed that was not his.

“Did I sleep in your bed?” he asks, fairly confident that more important things before and after have slipped his mind.

“You did indeed,” Scully replies. And before he can get to it--”Melissa and I shared.”

“Ah.” He pushes himself up, every muscle in his arms rebelling.

Scully pats his shoulder. “You should stay reclined.”

“I’m like a whale in a fish bowl back here,” he protests. And he’s not wrong, Scully knows this. To fit him in, she leaned his head against the driver’s side windowsill and let his bare feet push against the passenger side door, then said a silent prayer that there would be no potholes.

“Why can’t I come up front?” he whines. “I’ll lean the seat back.”

“Because Missy’s sitting there.”

Mulder glances into the front, his expectations of privacy shattered. Still, an empty passenger’s seat meets his gaze. “Well, where is she then?” he pesters, more pointed than intended.

Scully chuckles. You can put a hole in the man’s chest, but you can’t take the restlessness out of him. “She’s inside getting snacks.” Scully smiles at her partner, fondness flowing out in a way she rarely lets it. He’s been out for a couple days now--and while she was closely monitoring him and knew he was okay--she’s so glad that he has come back to her. “Do you want sunflower seeds?” she asks with a sparkle in her eyes.

He nods. “Sp--”

“Spitz.” The moments that have gotten them there, that have indebted her with that knowledge, flash through her mind. “I know.”

And it feels almost prophetic, to Mulder, that she does.

--------------------

The plains of North Texas roll past them, headlights and moonlight meeting in a demure embrace. The two-lane road bears a great resemblance to many they’ve gone down in days past. There’s no one else in sight.

Mulder has been relieved of his back seat duties, taking Melissa’s place at the passenger side so she could get some sleep. He’s slipped on the shirt Scully swiped from his apartment, a Knicks 1990 tee that she must have found in the corner of the living room where he throws his dirty clothes. He wonders if she even packed anything for herself before she hightailed it out of the city.

He couldn’t have imagined that punching Skinner would lead to his father dead, him shot by his partner, and them on the run across the country. And yet, there’s no place he’d rather be. The desert gifting them with a stunningly clear night, he’s opened the car’s sunroof and kicked back to stare up at the stars. The radio having long turned to static, quiet permeates the car.

“I’d gladly live in the middle of nowhere if I got this view every night,” Mulder remarks, drinking in the night sky.

Scully glances at him. There’s a rogue part of her brain that hoped he’d be looking back at her. Alas, the sky is his mistress.

They continue barreling down the highway, about seven hours out from their destination. The speedometer reads 87 mph...Scully is prone to speeding when she can get away with it.

“Keep it up and we’ll beat the sunrise,” Mulder jests.

“That’s the plan.”

Mulder pulls his seat back into place, popping suddenly into Scully’s peripheral vision. “Hey Scully, can I ask you a question?”

“If I said no, would that stop you?”

“Negative.”

“Go on, then.”

“Setting aside the why--though I’d be interested in that, too--how exactly did you decide that shooting me near the heart would be the safest bet?...Unless you wanted to kill me.”

“Well, I was pretty certain I’d be able to remove the bullet with what you had in your apartment, since the wound isn’t near a bone. That also makes it easier to prevent infection.”

“So you either have an insane amount of confidence in your shot, or you don’t value me very much,” he quips.

Scully smirks. “Lucky for you, I consider target practice a great stress reliever.”

“Does the Bureau psychologist know that?”

She bats his arm playfully, the car swerving as she does.

“Hey, that’s no way to treat a patient. Now I know why you’re not practicing.”

“Oh, did I forget to mention…? I’ve decided that I prefer Dr. Scully to Special Agent Scully, so this is the last you’ll be hearing from me.”

Mulder chuckles, though the very idea that there could be any truth to that gives him a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. “There are millions of doctors out there,” he says, “and some of them aren’t even the cool type. Special Agent? That’s way sexier.”

“Oh, is that the metric we’re measuring at now?”

“That’s the metric I’m always measuring at,” he deadpans.

“Mmm.” Scully looks at the rearview mirror, her sister’s steady-breathed sleep reflecting back at her. Good. She’d never hear the end of it if Missy overheard this conversation.

Mulder rubs his eyes, the events prior to his blackout having flowed back to him through the waking hours. “I’m sure I’ll regret asking this,” he begins, “but am I a fugitive?”

Scully glances out the driver’s window, as if she were going to change lanes though there is nowhere to go and no one else around. “I took your weapon to ballistics and proved it wasn’t the one used in the murder.” She says it so casually, Mulder notices, distancing them from the fact that the victim was his father. “But you’re still the only one placed at the scene, and it doesn’t look good that you called the police then ran. Still, the evidence implies that it wasn’t you. Of course, there’ll be suspicion…”

“Especially since we’ve both disappeared…”

“Hey, we’re on FBI business,” Scully declares. “We didn’t go through the official channels, but this is related to the X-Files.”

“Maybe Skinner will believe that if he hears it from you.”

“That’s what I’m banking on.”

Mulder smiles. She’s using her reputation to pull off a ruse. And damn, does that turn him on.

He breathes in the scents of the car--the McDonalds fries they bought with Melissa’s credit card (just to be safe), his own eau de cologne from three days without a shower, but, above all, Scully’s sweetness. Her, just...her. A hint of strawberry, a swipe of gardenia perfume, and her honey-suckle skin. Smoke was never a fitting scent for her, and he is glad she has given it up.

“I’m guessing it’s safe to say you never caught up to Krycek,” Mulder mutters, balling up the fast-food straw paper and tossing it in the air. “Unless you’ve got him in the trunk.”

Scully shakes her head. “No stowaways besides you. He ran off after I shot and catching him wasn’t exactly my top priority.”

“So you do value my life…”

Scully flashes a brilliant but bashful smile. “You caught me.”

What a relationship they have. They are each other’s slayer and savior; a cut of the knife stitched by a meticulous hand. Hurt then healed on the other’s command.

“Fox…”

Mulder glances at the backseat. He finds Melissa sound asleep, snoring softly, and his gaze snaps back to the other Scully in the car. What glitch in the universe has led her to address him by his dreaded name?

He has never been so sure as in this moment---his partner is an otherworldly being, something supernatural. Not an alien, nothing so sinister...but perhaps the angel he imagined, or a fairy who has guided mankind for millennia, or a genie granting his wishes in freeze-frames. She looks through him...not in a way which makes him invisible, but one that takes the physical aspect out of it entirely. She sees his soul. He knows this.

“Fox,” she continues, layering on the vulnerability, “I’m sorry about your father. I know you loved him, above it all.”

Mulder pinches the bridge of his nose. “Something like that...I don’t know, honestly, that he ever loved me.” He looks at his lap. “He spent his last breath asking for forgiveness. You have to wonder what he’s done with his life to end up there.”

“It all becomes clear at the end,” Scully responds, not so much a hypothesis as a statement of fact, drawn from experience. “His regrets caught up to him, and he loathed some things he did while cursing himself for the things he left undone...And in that moment, an apology was all he could do to right some wrongs.”

Mulder looks at her through the corner of his eye, somewhat disturbed by the oracle she has become. “He asked me to forgive him,” Mulder replies. “That’s not the same as an apology.”

“Isn’t it, though?’

Mulder crosses his arms over his chest, the lumpy gauze of his wound rubbing him through his shirt. “Well, first of all, he didn’t even specify what I was supposed to forgive him for, so I don’t see how that can yield any sort of apology. And the very fact that was saying it at the end of his life means that it wasn’t actually about soothing my feelings, but lessening his guilt. Really, it didn’t have a damn thing to do with me.”

“So you’re saying it was a selfish apology, and that doesn’t count.”

“Exactly.”

“So do apologies only work if the recipient accepts them?” Scully interjects. “Is there no value in the attempt?”

Mulder bites his lip.

“I’m not trying to play devil’s advocate,” she clarifies. “I’m genuinely curious about what you think.”

He sighs. “I think...what matters is not necessarily if the apology is accepted, but the intent of it. Like in this case, it was ill-timed, and so I don’t accept it. Maybe if he had said it to me ten years ago, it would have mattered, even if I were too stubborn to accept it at the time.”

“So if your father had apologized to you ten years ago, you would accept it now that he’s dead…?”

Mulder shrugs. “I think I’d realize that he actually meant it, and so I should cut him some slack.”

“Interesting.” Scully says nothing else, keeping her attention straight ahead.

Mulder smirks. “You don’t agree with me, do you?”

She pulls her lips into a tightly-knitted line. “No, no, that makes sense. I just think there are instances when a poorly-timed apology is accepted, and what then? Is the inevitable misunderstanding that will result the recipient’s fault for being so naive? Or do they get to place all the blame on the dishonest person?”

“How about a little bit of both, ey? Spread the blame out nice and evenly. A sprinkle there, a pinch here...”

Scully cracks a smile. Of course he’d make this conversation dirty. “You know, you scare me sometimes, Mulder.”

And just like that, they’re back to his preferred name. He lets out a sideways smile. “Yeah? Why?”

“Because I think that maybe you’re truly crazy, you’re not just faking it.”

He laughs, deep and sudden. Pulled from the trenches of his being. “Glad to hear it,” he snickers. “Glad to hear it.”

-------------------------

As the motorcycle rumbles over the desert dust, Scully wonders how she could be so stupid. Barely out of psychosis and she sends Mulder to a burial ground. She didn’t intend for it to be his final resting place.

Eric had tried to warn him before the helicopter men, as he called them when describing the scene to Scully and Melissa, burned the place. But Mulder couldn’t hear him over the whirl of the blades--that’s what Eric suspected. As he recounted to the girls, the smoking man had threatened him, had laid a grotesque hand on him and forced him to show the way back to his house. They interrogated his father Albert and bruised and bloodied him. The conclusion, all around, was that nobody knew where Mulder was. Regardless of whether he had burned in that boxcar or somehow disappeared into the desert beforehand, he was gone.

Scully has a pretty clear idea of who’s responsible, and she wishes she had a helicopter she could ram into their dumb black helicopter to wipe them off the face of the Earth... and prevent them from wiping anyone else off the face of the Earth. Thwarting their ambitions will have to be enough.

But how? Desert heat mixes with smoldering ash as she stands over what’s left of the boxcar, making the moment unbearable. It is obvious to her that if Mulder was still in the boxcar when the ignitor went off, he is now dead. No human can survive that magnitude of burning--he would, in fact, be incinerated. Not a piece of him left behind, identifiable even to Scully’s trained eye.

And if he wasn’t in the boxcar, if he heard the helicopter and gave himself over to the desert? What then? Surely he would have found his way back to where she was standing by now. Surely she’d be able to see him, hear him, touch him. There’d be proof he was something more than ashes. Maybe even, he might have made it back to the motel. But Melissa is keeping watch, and she hasn’t said a word. Missy would not play games about this.

Logic prevailing, as it often does with her, Scully lets Eric drive her back to the motel. If he’s not here, then he’s there. And if he’s not there then--well, she knows. And isn’t it just like Mulder to leave her enough evidence to point one way without giving her the proof she needs to conclude? She imagines a funeral sans a body and shutters.

When they get back to the motel and Missy opens the door and she is alone in the room, Scully is not surprised. She is shattered. It’s like learning the day you’ll die, then waking up on that day and recoiling at the calendar. What will be cannot be stopped. Not by any power of persuasion. Any.

She wants to scream, cry, file a personal complaint with God. Instead, she walks through the door, thanks Eric for his help, then asks her sister what she wants for dinner. Scully’s not hungry--she rarely is these days, and how could she be at a time like this?--but Melissa, she’s human, and she’s been waiting around all day, and all they have in the room is a quarter-full bag of gummy worms, so yeah, Scully decides, Missy probably is hungry. And that’s something she can take care of.

Missy looks at her sister like--well, like she said she just saw an alien. “Dana, you’re not well.” Then, after getting no reaction--”It’s okay to be upset.”

Scully throws her blazer over a chair. ”I didn’t say I wasn’t upset.”

Missy sits down on the bed and pats the space next to her. “Come on, let’s talk about it.”

Scully throws her hands in the air. “He’s gone, Melissa, what else can I say?” She paces through the room. “If he was in the box car, he burned to death. And if he wasn’t, then shouldn’t we have found him by now?”

“Not necessarily,” Missy counters. “Albert told me about the Anasazi, a tribe that lived here hundreds of years ago.”

“I know, I know. They disappeared, historians have no explanation for it.”

‘“That’s what they say. But, honestly, Dana--nothing disappears without a trace. Mulder included.”

Scully shoots her a look. “So what is your explanation? That he was abducted, despite there being multiple witnesses who didn’t see a thing?”

“He called you, he said he saw something in the boxcar.”

Scully nods. “Bodies...lots of them. He said they didn’t look human. And they all had smallpox vaccination scars.”

“What do you make of that?”

Scully shrugs. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the Anasazi.”

“So why did the men burn the boxcar?”

“It could have been because Mulder was in there, and they wanted to kill him. Or because what’s in there was damning to them.”

Missy bites her lip. “Did the boxcar blow up?”

“No, but it’s still smoldering.”

“Could you go in tomorrow and take a look? See what you can find?”

“Missy, I doubt there’s anything left. And besides, I’ve already ignored about thirty calls from Director Skinner. I need to get back to DC...I’m lucky if I’ll still have a job.”

“Fuck the job. Think of Mulder.”

“I need to consider both if I’m actually to uncover any of the conspiracies that Mulder--and his father and so many others--died as a result of.”

Melissa frowns. Dana’s already counting her partner out...that’s hard to come back from, being christened as a corpse. She sighs. ”Alright, I’m going to preface this by saying that I truly don’t believe that Mulder’s dead, and I know you will find him.”

Scully’s eyes narrow, intrigued by her sister’s shift in tone. “Okay…”

“There’s a technique that I learned from my therapist friend,” Missy begins, already setting off alarm bells in Scully’s head, “that is meant to help process complicated feelings about a person.”

Scully purses her lips as Missy continues--”It’s used to find clarity and--if it’s someone you’ve lost, literally or metaphorically--to give closure. I think it would help you establish a clear motivation to keep up your work on the X-Files.”

Scully’s forehead creases right between the eyebrows. “I just told you, I have one.”

“Yes, but if you go back to Washington, bureaucracy’s gonna get in the way of all of that. That’s why you drove out here in the first place, isn’t it? To avoid bureaucracy and push forward with the case?”

“I suppose,” Scully mumbles.

“And that’s exactly what Mulder would have done, and that’s what he would want you to do now.”

“This is beginning to sound like one of those ‘if x jumped off a bridge, would you?’ scenarios,” Scully retorts.

“But with the opposite sentiment,” Melissa clarifies. “You and Mulder have never been closer to finding the truth. Now do you want to hear my suggestion or not?”

Hands on her hips, Scully’s silence commands Missy to continue.

“Let me remind you that Mulder is not dead, and this is just an exercise.”

Scully nods, more to keep her moving than in agreement.

“I want you to write a eulogy for him.”

Scully’s mouth drops open in protest. “And this is going to advance the investigation how?”

“By giving you emotional clarity. Essentially, you’ll realize how much he means to you, and it will push you to do whatever you can to complete the investigation.”

Scully scoffs. “You act like I don’t even like him or something.”

“You like him, but you’re afraid of imitating him. There’s a lack of...respect for his methods. And they’re the only way this case is gonna get solved.”

Scully crosses her arms. “Gee, apparently you should have gone to Quantico in my place.” It’s not that she’s afraid, per say, but that she doesn’t think Mulder’s unconventional approach will work. Two plus years in and she still believes herself more than him. She wishes she didn’t.

“You don’t have to read the eulogy out loud,” Missy coos, knowing full well that she’ll be sneaking around during the night to get her hands on it when her sister refuses to share.

“Wow, thanks. That makes me feel a lot better,” Scully groans.

Melissa squeezes her sister’s shoulders. “It’s gonna be okay. You’ll find him, and this will help you know what to say when you do.”

Scully leans into the hug. “For the record, I think this is insane, alright? I’m only doing it because it’s getting too late to search the desert.”

“Understood.” Missy stands up. “Oh, and to answer your question, Albert invited us over for a traditional tribal feast at his house.”

“What?”

“You asked what I wanted for dinner. Those are our plans.”

“Oh.” Scully looks at her lap. It seems unfair to have to face the world at a time like this. Especially when her head is plagued with thoughts about what she would--will?--say at her partner’s funeral. And still, she continues.

--------------------

Crowding around Albert’s dining table, the party finishes the last bites left on their plates. It has been a long day--or days, more accurately--and the desolate black sky outside makes Scully feel like it’s 4am, though the clock only reads 7. She blinks toward her company, trying to remain present.

“I am thankful we could share this meal,” Albert says, nodding to Scully and her sister. “It is not often we get outsiders here, and even less often that we’re able to indulge in the foods of our ancestors.”

Missy reaches for the final piece of fry bread, biting into it daintily.

“There’s not a lot here,” Albert tells them, eyes downcast. “Nowadays, we take what we can get, and that means eating to survive...your processed foods and non-perishables have become the staples of our diets.”

Scully tries not to frown. “Well, we’re very glad that you prepared this for us. It was delicious,” she says, trying to inject enthusiasm into her downtrodden heart.

“Yes, thank you very much,” Missy affirms.

Albert casts his eyes in Scully’s direction. A shadow falls over her. From where, she is not certain.

“You are hurting, but you do not need to be. What is yours will find you. There is no such thing as disappearance.”

Scully pulls her lips into a solemn smile. “That’s kind of you to say.”

“It is the truth. The desert acts in its own way, and it is never wrong.”

Scully nods, trying to believe him. Trying to have faith. “Thank you, Albert.”

From across the table, he extends his palms toward her. “Pray with me.”

She clasps his hands and closes her eyes. Prayer is not normally something she engages in with others around, but neither is grief.

Albert begins speaking in the language written on the Defense Department files. She doesn’t understand the words, but his sincerity transcends semantics. The spirit of faith--the spirit of God--is there.

She has been thinking lately of faith. The faith she has been feeling is not that of Sunday mornings and ‘forgive me Father for I have sinned.’ It’s something else entirely, something that has compelled her to do things she would never do... until she looked down at her hands and she was doing them.

So many transgressions to count, and yet she hesitates to even call them that. Injured her partner--a suspected fugitive--to keep him from implicating himself, tapped her sister as her sidekick to take him halfway across the country, and deserted her duties at the FBI, all in favor of the truth.

Maybe truth is faith that good will prevail.

--------------------------

When Scully sits down that night with the motel notepad and a pen, she becomes a conduit for everything she couldn’t say out loud. She copies the entire Mulder file from her brain, and it still doesn’t feel like enough. It doesn’t capture any of his essence, the unique flavor of humanity that he bravely faced the world with which made him so...him.

It is then that Scully realizes you can know all the details of someone’s life without ever really knowing them, and that scares her because she gets the inkling that she has never truly let Mulder in--though he has opened up to her--and what if he dies feeling like he never got further than the young woman whose physics thesis he read? That’s not fair, not when she knows him so well.

She takes a breath and puts the pen down. She can’t compose Mulder to life. Resurrection doesn’t work that way. What she can do--and what she realizes is what every person does in this situation, and there must be something wrong with her because it wasn’t her first instinct--is write about how the man she knows (knew?) made her feel. About the impact his life had on her life.

Her vision blurs as she works to consolidate her unauthorized biography of Fox William Mulder into a passage that suggests the joy their partnership brought into her life. Though Missy said she wouldn’t have to share, Scully can’t shake the feeling that she will need this at some point in time, that having a eulogy on call might not be such a bad idea. It’s a terrible thought, but a truth every agent knows. After all, she and Mulder witnessed each other writing their wills, and that was considered a customary work duty. Nothing is out of reach.

And so she wrote as if she’ll have to read it one day, letting her emotions flow within the confines of her finely tuned self-awareness. The end product turns out somewhat more sentimental than she envisioned, but she caps her pen and walks away, giving herself permission to take up space.

--Fox William Mulder--

As he despised being called by his first name, I must take the liberty of referring to my partner as Mulder one last time. I was lucky to know him. Not as Spooky or the alien-obsessed man in the basement, but for who he truly was. Nothing was more important to Mulder than the truth. And the truest truth I know about him is that he loved his sister, and he wanted justice for her. It’s what he spent his life on, and ultimately, what he sacrificed it for. I am honored to have played any role in his mission, and I hope to continue it in his memory.

If there’s one piece of Mulder that I hope to carry with me for the rest of my life, it’s his tenacity. Mulder never, never let any obstacle get in his way. I can’t tell you how many times I wasn’t sure where he was, only to learn that he had flown to the ends of the Earth to investigate whatever lead he found promising that day. I doubt that I’ll ever encounter anyone who lives up to the passion and determination he contained within him. And it’s a shame because the world needs that...The world needed him.

I needed him too. He challenged me in ways I never dreamed of. Sometimes I wanted to pull my hair out, but mostly, I just kept thinking about how boring my life would be if I never met him. And now...I don’t know what’s next. There were so many possible futures ahead for us and the X-Files. This isn’t just a eulogy for Mulder, it’s a eulogy for all that could have been. He was my best friend. There’s nothing more I can say.

When she reads it back the next morning, she falls to her knees in conversation with God, pleading for a miracle to bring the man she has finally realized she loves back into her life.

#this got tender as hell #truly a labor of love <3 #thank you for reading as always #only the light fic #missy and scully fic #the x-files #txf fanfic #txf #dana scully #fox mulder #melissa scully #mine

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andrewmoocow · 3 years

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Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 15: The Warning (originally posted on April 26, 2021)

AN: Dread it, run from it, the end is near. Part 1 of the two-part Part 2 finale has arrived. And with this two-parter, we will officially be halfway through Alternate Future. What could Parts 3 and 4 possibly hold for us? Well, that's for later. Right now, we return to Homeworld which means we once again won't be fully focusing on Steven, and we will also see a certain Gem in action.

Synopsis: Lars and the Off-Colors return to Earth with an urgent message.

Cast:

Matthew Moy as Lars, Dante

Enuka Okuma as Rhodonite

Kathleen Fisher as Fluorite

Ashly Burch as Rutile Twins

Erica Luttrell as Padparadscha Sapphire

Christine Baranski as Hessonite

Shelby Rabara as Squaridot, Demantoid's Peridots

Olivia Olson as Citrine

Jinkx Monsoon as Emerald

Noël Wells as Black Rutile

Lauren Ash as White Topaz

Amy Sedaris as Yellow Zircon, Blue Zircon

Christine Pedi as Holly Blue Agate

Hayley Kiyoko as Morganite

Jennifer Paz as Mean Lapis

Charlyne Yi as Navy, Eyeball

Della Saba as Aquamarine

Kari Wahlgren as Pyrope

Melissa Fahn as Demantoid

Uzo Aduba as Demantoid's Bismuths

Miriam Hyman as Demantoid's Bismuths

Deedee Magno-Hall as Black Pearl

Dee Bradley Baker as George the Light Prism

Zach Callison as Steven

Kate Micucci as Sadie

Indya Moore as Shep

Nancy Linari as Martha

Featuring Hugh Laurie as Doctor Laurie

Hushed whispers filled the grand hall as many former Gem aristocrats filed in. Behind a holographic podium were posters of the prosecuting Zircon's smug face with the word "HOPE" underneath the picture in very big letters. When the last of the ex-nobles arrived and the doors shut behind them, out came Yellow Zircon with a prideful spring in her step as she took her place at the podium.

"Good day to you all." Yellow Zircon announced as she presented the speech prepared for her today. "As you all know, the Gem race has now entered a new golden age thanks to Steven Universe, the son of Pink Diamond, and the Crystal Gems." As she spoke, an image of Steven and the Gems appeared behind her. "But don't think they have good intentions."

Suddenly, the hall turned a bright red as a big red X was crossed over the Crystal Gems. "With the loss of our caste system, our weapons, armies, colonies, and the Diamonds' control over us, our kind has become weak. Perhaps weak enough to be conquered."

The former nobles began muttering to each other with concern while Yellow Zircon stared at the speech in confusion. "Wait, this is my speech?" she quietly asked herself before returning to the subject at hand. "Anyways, their pacifistic ways could soon be the end of us all. That is why as a potential democratic leader of the Gems, I promise to restore our old ways so that we may be better prepared for a possible invasion. Thank you everyone for your time."

The other Gems began clapping and cheering while Yellow Zircon walked backstage, continuing to examine her speech when she ran into her campaign manager, a seemingly docile Ruby with her gem on her stomach. "Oh, Navy was it?" she asked the Ruby. "I'm pretty sure my speech is all wrong. I could've sworn I had something different planned earlier!"

"Oh don't be such a worrywart Zircon!" Navy laughed, slapping the taller Gem on the leg. "I just made a few changes, that's all! Which reminds me, you got some special guests arranged for your next speech, so do make a good impression on them!"

"Okay, if you say so." Yellow Zircon reluctantly obliged and kept walking, leaving Navy alone to snicker maliciously as she pulled a black egg-shaped communicator from her gem. "This is Agent Navy, come in Black Rutile." She said to the egg as it produced a holographic image of her superior.

"Ah, Ruby, so glad of you to call." Black Rutile said delightedly. "How has your infiltration of the Zircon's campaign going?"

"All according to plan my Rutile." Navy saluted the hologram. "She doesn't suspect a thing."

"Excellent." Black Rutile grinned. "Once she's in power, we'll come in, reveal our goal to the galaxy and initiate our coup. I knew I chose the right Gem for the job."

"Oh, you're too kind my Rutile." Navy giggled. "My magnanimous, visionary, absolutely gorgeous Rutile!"

"Okay, now you're just brown-nosing." Black Rutile scowled. "Morganite should be meeting with you shortly, so keep an eye out for her while I go gather forces." She commanded. "Over and out."

Meanwhile, on a different part of the Gem Homeworld, the Sun Incinerator began to make its landing at a spaceport where many Gems were either departing from Homeworld by spaceship or returning home. But this crew in particular was only here for a quick pitstop.

"Well, here we are back on Homeworld Off-Colors." Lars declared as he and his motley crew of Off-Color Gems disembarked from their pilfered vessel to look around the spaceport. "Man, it's wonderful how much Steven has changed everything."

"Yeah, once these ships were out conquering worlds." The left Rutile replied.

"But now they're out spreading peace and fixing what they broke." The right Rutile remarked.

"We can sing Steven's praises later." Rhodonite said, getting her fellow Gems back on track. "We came back here to refuel."

"Yes, we know Rhodonite." Fluorite said slowly. "I'm just going to take a breather over there." She then pointed over to a little hangout spot where different Gems were striking up conversations. "How about you?"

"I'm just going to explore a bit." Lars answered. "Anyone coming with?"

"I'm gonna go over there to where those other fusions are." Rhodonite replied as she pointed to another hangout spot populated with cross-Gem fusions just like her.

"Guess that leaves me and Paddy to watch over the ship." The left Rutile said.

"Our crew shall go their separate ways for the time being." Padparadscha declared sweetly.

However, as the Off-Colors briefly split up to relax, a sinister plot was brewing without their knowledge. Emerald and a squad of Black Pearls were hiding inside one of the unoccupied ships, having been spying on the Gem team this whole time. "My Rutile, I have visual on the Sun Incinerator." Emerald said into a communicator. "At long last, it'll finally be mine!"

"Yes Emerald, the sole reason you joined my alliance." Black Rutile said sarcastically. "But remember that once you finally reacquire the Incinerator, you are to rendezvous with your teammates and provide our transport to Earth."

"But what about your dropship, my Rutile?" one of the Black Pearls inquired. "Can't you use that to come to Earth instead?"

"I'm currently using it to reach Blue 4." Black Rutile explained. "Lars will no doubt use another ship to reach Earth, but by then it'll be too late for him"

"Understood." Emerald nodded as the communicator shut off, and then she turned to the Pearls. "You heard her, move out!"

"Yes, your Emerald." The Black Pearls monotonously replied and marched towards the Sun Incinerator.

The Rutile twins noticed the squad of Pearls marching to them and decided to ask what was up. "Uh, hello there." The left Rutile nervously greeted. "Don't think we've ever seen you Pearls around before."

"Forgive our intrusion, we were only created not too long ago." The leading Black Pearl apologized with a bow. "My fellow Pearls and I are working for a higher power who believes she can bring peace to Homeworld."

"Ooh, look at those Pearls over there!" Padparadscha exclaimed. "I don't like the looks of them Rutiles, they look suspicious!"

"Yeah, that reminds me." The right Rutile said. "Who is this higher power you're working for?"

"She refuses to disclose her identity at the moment," another of the Pearls said. "but she doesn't like a certain friend of yours very much."

Before the Rutiles and Padparadscha could comprehend what the Pearl said, a pair of crystalline thigh-high boots clinked loudly as their owner snuck aboard the Sun Incinerator, and they turned around to discover that it was Emerald.

"We've been discovered!" Emerald yelled before she raced further into the ship. "Pearls, seize them!"

"Emerald?!" the Rutile twins exclaimed in shock.

"Emerald has stolen the ship!" Padparadscha added as Lars, Rhodonite, and Fluorite raced to discover what had happened.

"So we meet again Emerald!" Lars said angrily as Emerald began to take off in her reclaimed ship. "What do you have planned this time?!"

"I think the better question is, what do WE have planned!" Emerald corrected just as furiously. "You're so distracted by the destruction that Steven has caused, you're just as blind to his impending fall! Now Pearls!"

The Pearls summoned their spears and threateningly pointed them at Lars and the Off-Colors. But just then, three silhouettes that have been watching things play out made themselves known by emerging from the shadows to strike.

The first Gem had orange skin, a red-orange gemstone at the center of her chest, a red and white jumpsuit with black shoulder pads, a blue-purple cape, and a pale yellow afro that came together at a widow's peak. She was the first of the trio to attack, plunging her sword into a Black Pearl's chest and causing her to poof.

The second Gem was a Peridot with rectangular chartreuse-yellow hair, her triangular gem replacing her left eye, a medium green jumpsuit with dark green shoulder pads and a four-pointed star symbol on the torso, a light green cape, dark green leggings, and medium green boots with yellow triangles on her knees. She lifted a metal crate into the air with ferrokinesis and tossed it at another group of Black Pearls, poofing them as well.

Finally, there was a Gem Lars easily recognized. Citrine was also a member of this trio, whaling on Black Pearls as they tried to dogpile her, and she was wearing a cape as well. It was black, matching the mask she wore over her eyes.

"Citrine!" Lars cried excitedly as the three Gems fought off the seemingly growing mob of Pearls. "Hey, who are those other two Gems?"

"Lars, long time no see!" Citrine replied while backhanding a Black Pearl in the face. "I can introduce you to my new partners later, now help us out!"

"Finally time to put my new musti-yuddha skills to use." Lars declared while taking off his cape and gloves to fight the Black Pearls. "Come at me bros!" he challenged the Gems as he put up his fists, using his newfound Indian boxing skills to punch, kick, grab, knee, and elbow his way through the Pearls.

"Nice moves there my friend!" the yellow afroed Gem complimented Lars before they, along with Citrine and the Peridot, stood back to back against the Pearls while the Off-Colors watched. "What do you call that kind of fighting?"

"It's an Earth type of combat called musti-yuddha." Lars explained as yet another Black Pearl charged at him. "SHORYUKEN!" he yelled, uppercutting the Pearl into the air before it poofed, and her gem clattered on the ground.

"I've got to get me some of those lessons." Rhodonite said to herself.

"The human is stronger than we were led to believe!" one of the remaining Black Pearls gasped in shock. "Everybody retreat!"

With that, the Black Pearl squadron officially withdrew from combat, leaving Lars and his Gem allies to collect themselves.

"So, like I was gonna say, meet some new friends I made since you were last here." Citrine introduced her new partners.

"You may call me Hessonite." Hessonite greeted Lars with a handshake. "Former commander of Yellow Diamond's army turned ally of the Crystal Gems and Gem vigilante. Pleased to meet you."

"I'm her sidekick, Peridot Facet-4E3M Cut-7ZY." The Peridot introduced herself. "Though most call me Squaridot due to my hair. Much like my former commander turned partner, I have once antagonized the Crystal Gems before Steven showed me the light. Well, after quite a few setbacks, of course."

"I'm Lars." Lars replied as he pointed to himself, and then to the Off-Colors. "Meet my teammates, the-"

"We know full well about you and your exploits Lars." Hessonite cut Lars off. "Citrine told us about you when we first crossed paths, and she has proven useful to my cause."

"Excuse me, but what cause?" Fluorite asked Hessonite.

"The detainment of a Gem revolutionary known as Black Rutile!" Squaridot dramatically announced as she presented an image of the Gem in question. "For the past couple years ever since Steven began the process of reforming the Gem empire, this felon has been gathering up an army to rebel against him and the Crystal Gems, and now that the Spinel incident has come and gone, Black Rutile has finally decided now to initiate her plans to destroy him and conquer the Gem race!"

"Wait, why does Black Rutile have it out for Steven?" Lars asked when he came to a realization. "Wait, I remember her! She came to Earth once and interviewed me about my experiences with Steven! Is that all a part of her plan?"

"Indubitably," Citrine answered. "She's been gathering as much info as she can on Steven, the Crystal Gems, and almost everyone they've ever met in preparation for her forthcoming invasion. She knows everyone's strengths and weaknesses, and will use them against us with extreme prejudice."

"Black Rutile may seem like a genial reporter," Hessonite continued her sidekicks' explanation. "But it's all an act to disguise the cunning, devious, opportunistic, sociopathic monster she is underneath. Black Rutile was a former member of White Diamond's court and a fearsome warrior during the Rebellion with a burning vendetta against Pink Diamond because she believed Pink always got what she wanted by whining & crying all the time instead of doing any actual hard work to deserve things."

"So she hates Pink, big whoop." Rhodonite snarked.

"It's not just Pink, my dear fusion." Hessonite stated, putting a gloved hand on Rhodonite's shoulder. "By proxy, she has a hatred for Steven and the Crystal Gems because they continued her work by reforming our society, and some aren't very kind towards Steven's decisions."

"We were surrounded by those Black Pearls, but a trio of caped crusaders have come to save us!" Padparadscha cheered.

"Yes, thank you for adding to the conversation Sapphire." Hessonite muttered, glaring at Padparadscha before she turned back to Lars. "Recent intel we have gathered tells us that Black Rutile has inserted a Ruby spy into Yellow Zircon's democratic campaign, feeding her nothing but lies to inspire Gems to rebel against Era 3. I'm planning on infiltrating a speech she is giving, but I need help." She grabbed Lars by the hand and gazed at him with determined eyes. "Tell me Lars of the Stars, are you with us?"

"Well, with intel like that, I don't see why not." Lars declared, taking Hessonite's hand and giving it a firm shake. "I'm in!"

With that, the Off-Colors had some new allies by their side, and a new adventure to go on. One that might be their most dangerous yet.

Meanwhile, the remaining Black Pearls continued fleeing from Hessonite's squad and found somewhere safe to hide, where their leader turned on a communicator on her wrist.

"Black Pearl-6G9, report!" Black Rutile barked to her subordinates.

"It is the Hessonite, she has struck once again." The Pearl stated. "And it seems she has allied with the so-called "Lars of the Stars" to undermine your hard work."

"That traitor has been a thorn in my side for too long." Black Rutile snarled irritatedly. "A real shame too. She and I got along quite swimmingly before she went to retrieve that Prism." She then remarked nostalgically. "But enough about my backstory. The Zircon is preparing to make her speech soon. I need what's left of your force to protect her at the auditorium in Igneous Square no matter what. Affirmative?"

"Affirmative, my Rutile." Black Pearl-6G9 nodded and shut off her communicator before she turned to her fellow Pearls, nodding to them as well.

Later that day, Lars & Hessonite stood atop a building and gazed down upon the Gems gathered at Igneous Square where Yellow Zircon was set to make another speech. Also on stage with her were a group of Black Pearls, her mysterious campaign manager Navy and their special guest Morganite.

"Good day my fellow Gems." Yellow Zircon announced while Lars followed Hessonite down the building and blending in with the crowd. "As you can see, I brought a very special guest with me. I'd like you all to please give a warm welcome to the legendary designer, Morganite!"

"Wait, she's with them?" Lars whispered to Hessonite as Morganite stepped up to the podium. "But she seemed so chill when we first met her!"

"Looks can be very deceiving Lars." Hessonite advised her human ally. "Black Rutile has supporters all across Homeworld and their former colonies, but Morganite here is a part of her inner circle."

"Wait, inner circle?" Lars asked. "You mean she's got, like, a whole legion of doom by her side?"

"I wouldn't put it that way, but yes." Hessonite answered. "Now shush."

"Thank you Zircon for the marvelous introduction." Morganite said gratefully to the Zircon before she turned to the audience with a speech prepared. "Today shall be the end of Era 3. The end of the Crystal Gems, who have acquiesced to gaslighting and manipulation for thousands of years. At this very moment, hundreds of lightyears away, Steven Universe continues lying to the Gem race and brainwashing the mindless masses to his so-called "peace and love", while hypocritically abandoning all in actual need of his alleged assistance!" As Morganite went on, her speaking became more and more dictatorial until she began outright shrieking every word that came out of her mouth. "Once WE are in power, we shall return to our ways of conquering and terraforming, starting WITH PLANET EARTH! AND SOON STEVEN SHALL REALIZE THAT IF HE AND HIS MOTHER WEREN'T SUCH IRRITATING BRATS, HE WOULDN'T BE HIS OWN UNDOING!"

The Gems in the audience all began cheering and pumping their fists, chanting Morganite's name as she took a bow and began to leave the unnerved Yellow Zircon to take back her podium, until someone else took the microphone.

"Steven gaslighting and manipulating?" Lars hijacked the podium to make his own speech. "Frankly my friends, you're all dead wrong! Sure, he and I got off on the wrong foot more times than I can count, but I know that he is an actual good person. A fact that you are all just blind to for the sake of being mouthpieces for a complete maniac! You're no revolutionaries; you're just a bunch of proud clods! And another thing-"

"Hey pinky, get off the stage!" one Agate jeered while the Black Pearls began to surround Lars onstage.

"You shall come quietly human for questioning." The lead Pearl ordered, spear pointed directing across Lars's neck.

"Uh Hess, little help here!" Lars cried out nervously. Suddenly, a golden blur emerged from the crowd and easily dispatched the Pearls, along with any other Gems trying to get on the stage to attack Lars.

"Come on, let's head to my lair!" Hessonite stated before the screen behind the podium began to short-circuit before finally, Black Rutile appeared on it. "You."

"Ah Hessonite, so glad you could make it to the eve of my grand takeover." Black Rutile purred in greeting. "And look, you even brought a plus-one! Lars of the Stars, am I right?"

"Master, I sincerely apologize for my failure!" Morganite dropped on her knees and begged for Black Rutile's mercy. "It was the human who tried to expose me!"

"Save the apologies Morganite, I'll send in reinforcements later." Black Rutile replied before turning back to her pair of foes. "And as for you, go ahead and run around this planet all you like, 'cause you won't find me anywhere on it!"

"Well, where are you?!" Lars yelled.

"That is highly classified." Black Rutile responded with a sneer. "Not that you would care, you rose-colored hippie. Toodles!" With that, she disappeared from the screen, leaving the pair aghast at her sudden appearance before one of the Gems spoke up.

"Can't you see, Steven is forcing us to waste ourselves away being all caring and helping, when we should be returning to enslaving!" a particularly vigorous Pyrope yelled. "Who's with me?! OUR HEARTS AND GEMS TO HER CAUSE!"

"YEAH, OUR HEARTS AND GEMS TO HER CAUSE!" a Jasper agreed, inspiring the other Gems to chant those same words.

"OUR HEARTS AND GEMS TO HER CAUSE! OUR HEARTS AND GEMS TO HER CAUSE! OUR HEARTS AND GEMS TO HER CAUSE! OUR HEARTS AND GEMS TO HER CAUSE! OUR HEARTS AND GEMS TO HER CAUSE! OUR HEARTS AND GEMS TO HER CAUSE!"

"It's worse than I thought." Hessonite muttered nervously while she and Lars made their escape. "She's manipulated them all."

"Do the Diamonds know about this?" Lars asked his new ally.

"I'm not sure, but that will definitely get their attention." Hessonite replied as they got further away from Igneous Square, where the chanting kept on going and Yellow Zircon stared in shock at what just happened.

"Was I just a tool for a fascist cause?" Yellow Zircon muttered in utter despondence while Navy stood behind her with an evil grin.

"Fascist cause? No." Navy grinned as she retreated into the shadows. "Tool? Oh so very much."

Not too far away from Homeworld was the former colony of Blue 4, a once pristine colony that has fallen on hard times due to its ruler's neglect of her subjects. And far from Blue 4 on its own little asteroid was the Palace of Light, formerly the capital of Blue 4 that was the current residence, or rather a prison, of the ex-elite Gems Pyrope and Demantoid.

"Day….I've lost count, of our imprisonment in the Palace of Light." Demantoid muttered robotically to herself as she sat across from Pyrope in their shared cell. "I have been making countless plans to break out of this cell and exact our revenge, but a certain someone just keeps debunking them all."

"Well, it's not my fault that most of your plans will fail!" Pyrope said haughtily. "Kind of like how it was your fault that we lost to Steven!"

"My fault?!" Demantoid yelled back as she hopped up and marched over to meet Pyrope's gaze. "If it weren't for your arrogance, we wouldn't be stuck in here with no status, no weapons, and no hope of escaping!"

Suddenly, the destabilizing forcefield that prevented the pair of Garnets from escaping shut off, allowing them to leave their cell with no trouble.

"Who could've possibly done this?" Pyrope wondered, looking around at how only their cell was deactivated while the others were still operational.

"I believe I can answer that for you." A voice answered pridefully as she marched towards the Garnets and revealed her identity. "Black Rutile, at your service. Long time no see you two."

"My stars, THE Black Rutile?!" Demantoid gasped in recognition of the Rutile. "Where have you been all this time?! Why are you only now helping us when you could've been useful during our clashes with the Crystal Gems?!"

"I've been plotting their downfall for quite some time Demantoid." Black Rutile answered. "I suppose you have been disenfranchised by Steven, much like my compatriots here, no?" she then asked as White Topaz, Aquamarine, Eyeball, Lapis 1J9G and Holly Blue emerged from behind her.

"So, you've been plotting your own rebellion, just like Rose Quartz?" Pyrope asked as she gazed at the Gems Black Rutile has gathered for her alliance.

"Indeed, and I believe you both deserve seats in it." Black Rutile replied as she took the pair's hands. "Now then, are you with me?"

"I am with you." Demantoid accepted the offer. "But only if she gets left here."

"No no no, she should be left to rot while I join you!" Pyrope demanded.

"Uh, something wrong you two?" White Topaz asked.

"It's all her fault we lost!" the Garnets blamed each other with fingers pointed, but they were quickly proven wrong.

"No, it's neither of your faults." Black Rutile stated as she brought up a projection of the pair's final battle with the Crystal Gems using the Light Prisms. "It's all because of Steven that you lost. That cunning, devious, opportunistic, sociopathic monster wanted you out of the way because you had no place in his dystopia, but there is room for you in the utopia I will soon build. Now let me repeat myself," She deactivated the hologram and looked back at Pyrope & Demantoid. "are you with me?"

"Okay, we're in!" Pyrope exclaimed, shaking the fearsome Rutile's hand. "Now tell us, what do you need us for?"

"I am planning on going down to Earth to strike at the Gems when they least expect it." Black Rutile explained, leading the group out into the main area of the Palace while pulling out another hologram from her visor detailing her plans. "Once we detain them once and for all, we shall indoctrinate the Gems they have brainwashed into their so-called Little Homeschool to our cause and overwhelm the Diamonds with our superior armies. After that, we'll have to discuss lat-"

Suddenly, the signaling of an urgent message cut off Black Rutile's plans. "One second everyone." She muttered before taking the message. "Ruby, report!"

"My Rutile, we need you!" Navy exclaimed fearfully. "The Zircon has already been seized since the speech, and now Morganite & I are on the run!"

"Yes, I'm well aware of that." Black Rutile said while pinching the gem on her face. "That Morganite, always such a self-important coward. I shall send in backup posthaste!"

"Oh thank you my glamorous Rutile!" Navy cheered. "I am so honored to be in your presence like always!"

"What did I say about the brownnosing?" Black Rutile shut Navy up before the message ended, then she turned to her minions. "Holly Blue, 1J9G, keep Lars of the Stars away from Earth no matter the cost."

"Understood my Rutile." Holly Blue obliged with her master's salute. "Come along terraformer."

"Really, we're going all this way just to get revenge on Steven?" Lapis 1J9G snarked. "You know, we don't have to make all these super complicated plans, we can just go down and kill everyone."

"Bite your tongue Lapis!" Holly barked at the Lapis Lazuli. "Is that the way you want to speak about someone who promised you your friend back?"

"No your clarity!" 1J9G squeaked in fear of the Agate's terror.

"Very good." Holly Blue replied pleasantly. "Now, let's return to Homeworld."

As the pair of blue Gems departed, 1J9G looked back at Black Rutile with a sneer while the alliance was being unknowingly watched.

The Light Prism George let out a gasp at what he just witnessed and began speaking in Gem Glyph to his fellow Prisms, who had now taken forms similar to his own. The three of them nodded, knowing just who to call.

Meanwhile, back on Homeworld, Lars and Hessonite had finally escaped the mob of furious Gems and found themselves standing before a pair of large doors at a tower.

"Welcome to my lair, Lars." Hessonite declared as she placed her palm on a scanner that allowed her entrance into the room. At the top of the steps was a large & elaborate computer system, along with the Off-Colors, Squaridot, and Citrine all waiting for the pair's return. "This was once Yellow Diamond's bubbling chamber before Era 3, and I've heavily repurposed it to suit my vigilante needs."

"Lars, you're back!" Rhodonite cried, and the Off-Colors all gave Lars a big hug as soon as he reached the top of the steps.

"Lars is coming back!" Padparadscha cheered.

"So, what's the situation like out there?" the right Rutile asked Lars as he took a seat at a workbench covered with gadgets either being built or fixed.

"It's worse than what Hessonite led us to believe." Lars muttered. "Black Rutile has brainwashed so many Gems into thinking Steven is the bad guy by using that Zircon's presidential campaign as a mouthpiece for her beliefs. And remember Morganite? She's one of her supporters."

"Are you serious?!" Rhodonite exclaimed in shock, since the last time she met her former superior, Morganite seemed so ambivalent towards Era 3. "I could never forgive her for how she treated us, but this is just going too far!"

"My thoughts exactly." Lars agreed. "Morganite gave a big speech about how the Crystal Gems are even more oppressive than the Diamonds were, but I took to the stage to argue against her claims. And then came a message from Black Rutile."

"What was she like?" Fluorite asked the undead human.

"She seemed so condescending, yet utterly monstrous at the same time." Lars answered. "When Black Rutile ended her message, all the Gems at the auditorium started chanting about their support for her. It's almost like those fascist regimes I read about."

"Holy revolution Lars!" Squaridot cried out. "We must warn someone, pronto!"

As Lars continued discussing the events at Igneous Square, Hessonite sat down at her massive computer and began putting down her findings on the screen before calling up Blue Zircon. "Zircon, this is Hessonite."

"Hessonite, glad to hear from you." Blue Zircon greeted the Garnet. "How's your investigation of my opponent going?"

"I had a little help exposing her." Hessonite stated, turning her screen to focus on Lars a bit. "This human and his Off-Color friends were at Spaceport Epsilon when their vessel, the Sun Incinerator, was hijacked by its former owner Emerald. Now I've enlisted them in helping me stop Black Rutile, and even had Lars accompany me to Igneous Square where Morganite made a speech at Yellow Zircon's conference."

"What were you two able to gather?" Blue Zircon asked.

"She turned out to be merely a puppet for Black Rutile's syndicate through the installation of a navel-Gem Ruby as her campaign manager." Hessonite continued with her findings before another message came through. "One second, have to take this." She tapped on the new message, which came out as a series of symbols that seemed unrecognizable to Lars when he took his place by Hessonite's side.

"What is that?" Lars asked, gazing at what he believed to be gibberish.

"It's Gem Glyph, the language of our people. Allow me to translate." Hessonite answered. "FROM GEORGE. SOS, PYROPE, AND DEMANTOID ESCAPED. BLACK RUTILE AND OTHER GEMS BROKE THEM OUT OF PALACE OF LIGHT. PLEASE SEND-, and then it just stops. Like the writer was captured before they could finish."

"Uh, one question." Lars said. "Who's George, and who are those Gems he's talking about?"

"George is what your friend Steven calls one of the Light Prisms that formerly belonged to yours truly." Hessonite answered as she stood up from her chair. "And Pyrope and Demantoid are a pair of high-ranking Garnets much like I who owned two other Light Prisms, before Steven confiscated them and we defeated the pair. It seems Black Rutile has recruited them into her alliance." Then she turned to Blue Zircon. "Zircon, send a warning to Steven!"

"I'm sorry Hessonite, but it seems my communication line to Earth has been compromised!" Blue Zircon exclaimed nervously. "How can we possibly warn the Crystal Gems now?!"

"Simple," Lars answered courageously. "we go back to Earth."

"You all can go ahead, I'll hunt down Ruby and Morganite." Citrine announced.

"Right, good luck out there big guy." Lars agreed before Citrine hugged him. "And thanks for the hug, but can you let me go?"

Later, Lars and the team returned to the spaceport where the Sun Incinerator was once in to search for another ship. "Where do we find a ship now?" Squaridot asked hurriedly.

"Simple, we take mine." Hessonite answered as she pointed to her warship, a large, orange inverted pyramid that stood tall and proud over all the others. At least, until it was destroyed by a saw blade made of water that instantly cut the ship in half.

"Oops, sorry about your ship!" Lapis 1J9G called from above with a laugh. "But seriously, I'm being forced to do this because my boss loves to make everything super-complex."

"Now what do we do?" Rhodonite asked nervously while the terraformer flew off.

"Easy, we take another ship." Hessonite instantly formed another plan and dashed to a different vessel parked nearby.

It was a green spaceship that was in the shape of a massive octahedron and had four long, claw-like prongs extending from all four sides. Lars instantly recognized this other ship as the Destiny Destroyer, the one that Emerald used to chase him and the Off-Colors after they stole the Sun Incinerator.

"So, taking another one of Emerald's ships, huh?" Lars wondered. "Ah, just like the old days when Emerald was after our heads, eh gang?"

"We are going to steal the Destiny Destroyer!" Padparadscha answered while everyone boarded Emerald's warship, all except Citrine, who had already volunteered to remain on Homeworld.

"Stay safe there Citrine." Lars promised Citrine before he went inside to pilot the ship out of Homeworld.

"Godspeed Lars of the Stars." Citrine replied as the Destiny Destroyer finally took off and left the planet. "There goes one of the bravest creatures I've ever had the pleasure of meeting."

"Where is he?!" Citrine heard Holly Blue scream as she, Morganite, Navy, and a squad of Gem guards stormed Spaceport Epsilon in search of Lars. "You, Citrine, where is Lars?!"

"Lars isn't here right now." Citrine answered sardonically as she summoned her weapon from the gem on her stomach, a massive war hammer. "But if you'd like, I'll tell them you said hi and you give up."

"Well, it seems you finally caught us." Morganite announced as she put up her hands. "Go ahead, cuff us all."

"Quit acting so defeatist, our old ways are on the line here!" Holly Blue yelled before summoning her whip. "Now, any last words before I execute you for defying our master?!"

With an uncomfortable twitch in her eye, Citrine dropped her hammer and spread out her arms. "Go ahead." She snarled. "Bring it on."

"You really believed you can try to stop us little Prism?" Pyrope cooed mockingly to the three captive Light Prisms on Black Rutile's dropship. "Once we get rid of Steven once and for all, we'll use you three to raze everything he loves to the ground, and you'll be utterly powerless to stop us."

While the other two Light Prisms hugged each other in fear, George bravely took a stand against the Garnet, and yelled some form of retort in Gem Glyph.

"Oh keep quiet you." Pyrope shut George down immediately before turning away from the Prisms to meet Demantoid, who had now received perfect replicas of her former limb enhancers. "And how are you doing Demantoid?"

"Splendidly!" Demantoid exclaimed. "I feel like we've never met Steven to begin with!"

"Yes, you can compliment me for recreating your limb enhancers later." Black Rutile said to Demantoid. "Right now, I've set a course for one of your old colonies because I require your Peridots and Bismuths for a special task."

"What kind of task?" Demantoid asked while the dropship settled down on a planet covered with green hi-tech structures.

"You shall see." Black Rutile said as she, Demantoid, Pyrope, White Topaz, Eyeball, and Aquamarine disembarked to greet some Peridots and Bismuths nearby. "Salutations worker Gems!" she energetically greeted them. "Have I got an offer you certainly can't refuse."

"Demantoid?" one of the Peridots gasped at the sight of her former superior. "But we were told the Crystal Gems stopped you!"

"Well, you were wrong." Demantoid stated. "Black Rutile here has broken me and Pyrope out, and now we've joined her for revenge!"

"We have come to this little planet because we want you." Aquamarine announced. "We need more soldiers for our army, and you have the perfect amount of brains & brawn for the job."

"Fat chance you uppercrusts!" One of the Bismuths yelled as she stepped forward. "Steven would never allow you to control anyone in this era!"

"That's because this era will soon be over!" Black Rutile argued with the Bismuth. "Once I am in power, I will be the sole ruler of all Gemkind! You really think this is any way to talk back to your future empress?!"

"Oh, they will find out about this." The Bismuth said, quietly angering Black Rutile. "And they will stop you no matter what."

Black Rutile was utterly enraged at this kind of rebellion, but she kept a cool head even as she pulled a bowie knife from her gem and held it at the Bismuth's gem. Then suddenly, as if a completely different Gem replaced her, Black Rutile abruptly stabbed that Bismuth in the gem on her chest, and slowly scraped it down her gem while the Bismuth screeched in pain. When Black Rutile removed her knife, the Bismuth's form split in half just like her gem before she was finally shattered.

"Get rid of her remains." Black Rutile ruthlessly commanded to the frightened masses. As another Bismuth picked up her coworker's remains, Black Rutile turned to the other worker Gems. "Now let me repeat myself. I have an offer you most certainly can't refuse!" she said to the Peridots and Bismuth with cheer like she didn't just sadistically shatter another Gem. "Are you with me?"

"We're with you." Demantoid's terrified subordinates muttered.

"I can't hear you." Black Rutile insisted.

"We're with you!" the scared Gems repeated much louder than before.

"Peridots?" Black Rutile then asked the Peridots.

"We're with you!"

"Bismuths?" Black Rutile asked the surviving Bismuths.

"We're with you."

"And what about you?" Black Rutile said to the Bismuth she just shattered with her knife. "Oh right, shattered!" Then she started giving out orders. "Topaz, I need you with me to find more recruits. Aquamarine, Ruby, keep watch over our new recruits." She once again turned back to the Peridots. "And I got a few questions for you."

"What do you mean Rutile?" one of the Peridots with her gem on her chest asked.

"First off, can you call me "my Rutile" from here on out?" Black Rutile commanded. "Second, what's a Gem gotta do to find some corrupted Gems in this era? And three," She reached for her gem and pulled out a massive bubble containing various chunks of Cactus Steven. "what can you do with these?"

At long last, Lars, the Off-Colors, Hessonite, and Squaridot had left Homeworld via the Destiny Destroyer, ready to jump to hyperspeed, return to Earth and warn Steven of Black Rutile's plans.

"Ugh, I'm pooped!" Lars groaned as he slumped back in the captain's chair. "Think when we get to Earth, I'll go back to my old house and take a nice long nap before we save the planet and then head back into space."

"It would be nice to see Earth again, without threatening its existence though." Hessonite smirked, gazing out at the infinite sea of stars, planets, comets, and all sorts of cosmic scenery. "How about any of you?"

"Uh captains, we have a problem!" Rhodonite yelped as she stared at the radar screen. "It's the Sun Incinerator, and it's shooting right at us!"

"Emerald!" Lars grumbled as he pounded his fist on the armrest. "Come out and fight like the so-called commander you call yourself!"

A viewing screen turned on, allowing the team to see Emerald, sadistically excited to finally get her revenge. "How are you Off-Colors, now that you're on your way to destruction?"

"You won't take us down Emerald!" Lars bravely declared.

"Famous last words human filth." Emerald responded hatefully. "I've been begging, no, pleading to get my vengeance only for Steven to heartlessly take it away from me with his dumb little Era 3! Well, once Black Rutile is in power, she will render all of this era's laws null and void in favor of returning the Gems to the terrifying conquerors they were born to be!"

"Fat chance One-Eyed Jerk!" Squaridot cried out before she suddenly realized the hypocrisy of her retort.

"Engines to hyperspeed, quick!" Lars commanded his crew.

"Already on it Lars." Fluorite announced as she retreated to the engine room.

"We are under attack by Emerald, but we shall win!" Padparadscha declared eagerly.

The Destiny Destroyer's thrusters burned brightly as the ship prepared to leave the space above Homeworld and make a break for Earth, leaving the Sun Incinerator in the dust.

"Oh no, you don't!" Emerald yelled, forcing her ship to go into hyperspeed as well in hot pursuit.

The chase soon began in hyperspace, with Emerald continuing to pursue her purloined Destiny Destroyer while Lars and his crew were set on their path to Earth.

"Keep firing!" Emerald yelled, commanding her subordinates to fire her ship's blasters.

"Do a barrel roll!" Lars yelled in response.

"I'm sorry, a what now?" the Rutiles wondered in unison.

"You know, like in the video games!" Lars added. The Rutiles quickly caught onto this and began spinning the ship in a perfect circle.

"Actually, I don't believe that qualified as a barrel roll." Hessonite snidely corrected. "It seemed to me more like a-"

"Can't let you do that Hessonite!" Lars interrupted the orange Gem in a thick accent.

"Do what?" Hessonite replied.

"Ruin the joke." Lars answered. "Turn this around and start firing!"

With that, the Destiny Destroyer was flipped around to face the Sun Incinerator and began firing from its prongs.

The Sun Incinerator began to sustain heavy damage, much to Emerald's fury, and she gave another command to her subordinates. "RAIN FIRE!"

"But my Emerald, your Destroyer!" one of the Citrines serving as a part of Emerald's crew replied fearfully.

"JUST DO IT!" Emerald roared. The Citrines did as they were told and fired the Incinerator's blasters at the Destroyer, now causing the enemy ship to start falling apart as well.

"She's falling apart!" Lars cried as alarms sounded, signaling that the Destiny Destroyer didn't have much time left. "How much longer till we leave hyperspace?!"

"We've just arrived at our destination!" Squaridot yelled when the Destiny Destroyer finally left hyperspace and now hovered close to the planet Earth. "And good timing too, this ship is gonna fall apart!"

With not much time left till the Destiny Destroyer's destiny is to be destroyed, Lars thought up a plan right on the spot. "Everyone in my hair!"

"Come again?" Hessonite asked, one half of her monobrow raised.

"My hair's like a portal, and on the other end there's a lion Steven owns who's been brought back to life with powers like mine!" Lars explained. "But I think we're all gonna have to get in one at a time, so fusions are out of the picture!"

"You got it." Fluorite replied as she de-fused into Titanite, Lavender Jade, Iolite, Rubellite, Indicolite, and Verdelite, who all dove into Lars's hair.

"Don't forget us!" Rhodonite said as she de-fused into her Ruby and Pearl, who got into Lars's hair next.

"I wonder how this even works." Squaridot wondered just as Hessonite grabbed her and shoved her into the hairy portal. "Hey, quit it!"

"Lars has made an unorthodox plan to escape Emerald!" Padparadscha yelled while Hessonite grabbed her under her arm and dove in after Squaridot.

"What about you Lars?" the left Rutile asked, sticking her hand in Lars's hair.

"I'll cover things from here, just find Steven on the other end if he's nearby!" Lars ordered.

"Okay, be safe." The right Rutile said before both twins fully dove into the portal, leaving Lars as the only one onboard the Destiny Destroyer as he slowly stepped forward. Just then, Emerald showed up on the viewscreen.

"Any last words before I finally destroy you, Lars?" Emerald grinned maliciously.

"Yes, yes I do." Lars declared, glancing at a big red button that really stuck out from the rest of the green ship, and then looking back at Emerald with a smirk. "Hope you don't mind losing another ship!"

And so, Lars punched the button, causing the alarms to sound. "WARNING, SELF DESTRUCT SYSTEM ACTIVATED!" an automated voice declared. "PLEASE REMAIN CALM AND PROCEED TO THE ESCAPE PODS!"

"No, what are you doing?!" Emerald shrieked in terror at what was in store for her beloved ship.

"Saving the universe, that's what!" Lars declared before he shut his eyes and dropped to his knees. "Sadie, Shep, Mom and Dad, Steven, everyone." He whispered to himself. "I'm sorry."

With that, the Destiny Destroyer finally detonated, and its remains began careening towards Earth's surface. As Emerald watched from her prized Incinerator, she went ballistic. "NOOOOOO! YOU MAY HAVE OUTSMARTED ME AGAIN LARS, BUT I STILL HAVE THE SUN INCINERATOR!" she screamed angrily while her Citrines stared awkwardly at her. "Mourn with me!"

"Emerald!" Black Rutile yelled as her hologram appeared behind her green subordinate, giving her a scare. "I've been watching the entire battle. You almost had Lars right there, but then he had to press the self-destruct button!"

"I apologize my Rutile, please forgive me!" Emerald bowed for her black-colored master.

"Eh, you win some, you lose some." Black Rutile rolled her eyes. "Head to my current location at once. It's finally time."

"Yes, master." Emerald nodded in compliance as the hologram disappeared. "At long last, vengeance will be mine."

After the Destiny Destroyer began falling to Earth, everything else was but a blur to Lars. All he could remember were all his friends from Beach City gathering around the wreckage before being taken away somewhere.

As he slowly opened his eyes, he could barely make out four people standing by him in a hospital bed.

"Astounding, his heart rate has slowed dramatically, but he is still alive!" the muffled voice of a doctor exclaimed in astonishment. "Also, is the pink skin something he had all his life?"

"No doctor, it's been a thing for almost three years now." Lars's mother Martha answered. "I think it all started when he was abducted by aliens."

"S-Steven. Steven." Lars groaned lethargically as he fruitlessly reached out his hands for Steven. "Steven!"

"Doc, I think he's coming to!" Sadie yelled.

"Lars!" Dante Barriga exclaimed as he and his wife raced to their son's side. "Please, give us a sign that you're all right!"

"Steven, need Steven!" Lars cried out as he tried to get up out of bed.

"Mr. Barriga, please remain in your bed!" the doctor advised Lars. "You thankfully suffered no serious injuries, but you've just woken up from a coma sustained from that crash!"

"No, I think he's trying to tell us something!" Shep stated as they kept Lars stuck in his hospital bed. "You want to see Steven, right?"

"I need Steven, he in big trouble!" Lars replied, slowly beginning to regain some grasp of his words just as a nurse came in.

"Doctor Laurie, our patient has one more visitor." The nurse told the doctor. "He said a bunch of "Off-Colors" told him everything."

"I'm here Lars!" Steven exclaimed as he rushed into the hospital room to be by Lars's side. "Hessonite and the Off-Colors told me what happened when they came flying out of Lion's mane!"

"Steven, finally!" Lars cried happily as he grabbed Steven's shoulders. "Listen, I need to warn you! You and the entire planet are doomed!"

Meanwhile, as men in black suits began cleaning up the Destiny Destroyer's remains and taking them away for further inspection, the Sun Incinerator zoomed past Beach City, now with Black Rutile, White Topaz, Aquamarine, Eyeball, Lapis 1J9G, Demantoid & Pyrope, some Peridots and an army of cybernetically-enhanced Cactus Stevens on board.

"My Rutile, I've got bad news!" Eyeball exclaimed as she got reports back from Homeworld. "It's about our forces back on Homeworld. Holly Blue and Morganite have successfully been detained by a Citrine in league with Hessonite."

"Is that so?" Black Rutile wondered while she sat in a meditative pose, examining all the data she had collected on Steven and the Crystal Gems. "Well, they weren't going to be useful to me until further notice anyway." She got back to looking at all her data and began deleting what she found to be useless. Most of them involved Ronaldo. "Seriously, why do they keep hanging out with this human if he's such an irritating rat?!"

"My Rutile, we are en route to the Alpha Kindergarten and Facet Five." One of the Peridots announced. "There, you will find the Cluster Gems you seek."

"Excellent." Black Rutile replied, steepling her fingers together before she stood up. "My friends, our finest hour will soon be upon us. Once we have enough fodder to terminate the Crystal Gems, our next stop will be returning to Homeworld, where we shall overthrow the Diamonds and take their empire for ourselves."

"Yeah!" Aquamarine, Eyeball, Emerald, Demantoid, and Pyrope cheered. White Topaz was very unsure of herself while 1J9G just rolled her eyes irritatedly.

"We're here." Black Rutile added as the Incinerator finally touched down in the Alpha Kindergarten, and she disembarked from the ship. "Ah, reminds me of the Zeta Kindergarten where I first emerged. So many memories of far happier times. Now tell me, where is the control room?"

"It should be nearby." A Peridot announced as she used a GPS on her screens to guide the rebellious Gems through the Kindergarten until they discovered a green elevator pad that led them straight down to a large, green hexagonal room. "We have arrived."

"Finally." Black Rutile muttered as she looked around at the tube-like structures littered about the control room. Poking one of them with her bowie knife, the tube began to shake a bit before it began growing into a strange Gem monster with multiple limbs that had a gemstone made from the shattered remains of other Gems. "It's alive! Alive!" she gasped excitedly. "Everyone, wake them all up!"

"Uh, are you sure boss?" White Topaz stuttered, insanely unnerved at the creepy atmosphere of the control room. "I think I'll just wait back at the ship with those cactus things."

"You are not leaving us, you coward." Aquamarine barked, holding White Topaz back with her newly reclaimed wand. "You will assist us in awakening these experiments so we can use them against Steven! Are we clear?!"

"Yes ma'am." White Topaz replied meekly and got to work on awakening the other Cluster Gems.

"Hey, I'm just as scared as you are Topaz." 1J9G said to White Topaz. "I'm only here so I can get back at Steven for taking my friends away, so I'm not that interested in the boss's psycho vendetta either."

Soon, more and more Cluster Gems began to awaken from their slumber, feebly grasping at their captors while their gems projected other Gems in pain. And Black Rutile was utterly excited to see them all.

"Yes, yes!" Black Rutile cheered, her cries of joy echoing throughout the control room. "THEY'RE ALL ALIVE!"

And so it begins. This was quite probably the longest chapter of Alternate Future I've written yet, and I'm definitely quite proud of it. Was Black Rutile to your liking folks? Was she evil enough yet still had some form of a point? Well, I hope you're excited to see more of her as she takes center stage in the final chapter of Part 2, Enemy of my Enemy! After that, I'll be going on another hiatus. But when we meet again for Part 3, I've got tons more where that came from!

17 notes · View notes

birdy-bat-writes · 4 years

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Friends Day In

Word count: 2.3k

Prompt: You and Jason planned to spend the day together, until Roy called asking him to babysit.

I might rewrite this one in the future with a different character because I like the prompt. Hope you enjoy it!

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It was relatively cold for a summer day in Gotham. There was a breeze blowing and it didn’t smell like smoke. The sky was a rich blue and filled with white clouds. The sun was shining over the city. It was weird. But the good kind of weird. You weren’t used to Gotham looking this pretty, and neither were you used to playing dollies with a five-year-old, so nothing about today was normal. But you liked It!

The night before, you convinced Jason to take day off from everything and spend some time with you, because you hadn’t had a best friend’s day out in a very long time. He had been busy on missions away from you and you really missed him. Not as much as he missed you though. You hadn’t heard someone say yes that quickly in your life! The two of you had decided on meeting up at his place and going out later. The evening would end with dinner although you hadn’t decided if it would be a ‘takeout and movies’ kind of night, or the ‘chili dogs and strolling down the street’ type yet. You supposed you’d let the magic of the moment bring you to a decision, because either way if you were together you had something to enjoy.

That morning you hopped out of bed with a spring in your step. You were definitely more willing to get out of bed than you usually were, but who could blame you? You hadn’t had any quality time Jason in weeks. The idea of seeing your best pal and crush after that long was enticing enough to get you to pick out your clothes, finish a shower and breakfast all in under an hour. Somewhere around 12:00 pm, you headed oto your car, or should we say, skipped to your car and made your way downtown, opening the windows and enjoying the cool air.

Jason was in a similar position. He too, woke up feeling more energized and got through his morning routine much quicker than necessary, but he couldn’t help himself. He was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, paired with his favorite leather jacket, to give him the boost he knew he’d need today. Jason was looking forward to seeing you today for more than one reason; the first obviously being that he missed you, and the second being that he realized he didn’t want to have to miss you as much as he did and today would be the day he would confess how he felt about you. He had been in love with you for about year, and now he wanted you to know. So, he stared at his TV, not really paying attention to what was playing. He only glanced at his phone to check the time.

The next time he picked up his phone it buzzed it his hand. Roy was calling. “Hey, Roy. What’s up?”

“Jay, there’s an emergency.”

“What’s wrong?” Jason’s casual tone shifted to something a little more serious.

“There’s something going on in Star City. Oliver needs me.”

“Oka-,”

“Of course, I’ll watch her, don’t worry about it. And Roy, in our line off work, there isn’t exactly time off. Will you drop her over?” Jason could hear the panic in Roy’s voice and kept his own soft. This must be really bad. The last thing he wanted was to give Roy another reason to worry and taking are of Lian was the least he could do for his best pal.

The unfortunate downside to this would be that he would miss out on his time with you. He knew you would understand but the pang of guilt in his chest still stayed. He was just about to call you when he heard his doorbell ring. He opened the door to you, wearing that slightly apologetic look and you knew something was up.

“Hi, what’s wrong?”

“Y/N, I’m really sorry. Somethings come up.”

“That’s okay, but… What’s going on?”

“Roy needs to leave town for an emergency, and he needs me to take care of Lian. There was no one else he could find in time.”

“That’s alright, Jay. We could meet up another day.”

“I promise I’ll make it up to you.” He had an idea. “But you know you’re welcome to stay. We can have a friend’s day in!”

“That sounds great, but what about Lian?”

“We can hang out while she’s here. She’s an absolute angel. When did you meet her last?”

“Well it’s been a while, I haven’t seen her in like a year.”

“You should stay. We can babysit together. She’ll love you.” He flashed you his signature smile, dimples and all. You were a little hesitant, you didn’t want to take up too much of his time if he was busy. You knew what Roy and Jason did wasn’t easy and things often came up, so you were more than understanding. Jason then added a, “Please?”

“Okay.”, you said, putting your purse down the table.

Only minutes later, the doorbell rang. Jason opened the door and saw Roy with duffle bag thrown over his shoulder and his daughter in his arms. She had a little Dora the Explorer backpack with her and she was smiling, flaunting gaps in her baby teeth.

“Uncle Jay!”

“Hey kiddo!” Roy put her down and she hugged Jason’s legs. He smiled down at her adorable behavior and crouched down to her level, “Why don’t go inside and turn on the TV? We can watch Power Rangers.” He watched her speed away into his apartment and then stood back up. “Roy, be careful Ok?”

“When am I not?” He smirked. “Don’t worry its nothing too crazy, so I’ll only be gone for a few hours. Thanks for doing this.”

“No problem.”

While Jason was and Roy shared their well-wishes, Lian and ran into the living room at speeds that could rival the Flash, and then stopped. She was looking at you, visibly confused.

“Hi! I’m Y/N. You must be Lian. I’m friends with your dad and Jason.” She nodded plopped herself on the couch, one cushion away from you.

“Do you like power Rangers?”

“I do. Which one’s your favorite?”

“Blue one.”

“Blue’s my favorite color.”

“Me too!” She’s so cute. She rummaged through her little backpack and pulled out a small blue whale and two barbie dolls. “Your name is Y/N?”

“Yeah.” You wanted to think it was just something kids did, but something seemed odd about the way she started staring at you. Right on time Jason waked into the living room. He took in the sight of you intently watching power Rangers and holding a doll in your hand next to a small child plying with a whale plushy.

“Anyone hungry?”, he called out.

“Me!” Lian responded.

“PB&J like usual?” She nodded cheerily in response. “Anything for you, Y/N?”

“Can I get a PB&J too?” You asked.

“Anything for my favorite girls.” He said with a breathy laugh and disappeared off into the kitchen. He could kiss his plans of confessing today goodbye, but on the bright side now he had a little more time to plan it. He made four sandwiches and cut the crust off of one. He decided to go the extra mile and cut the sandwich into a heart just to see Lian get excited over it.

He walked back to the living room and put the plates down on the coffee table. He looked up for you and Lian, but you weren’t in the room. He walked around a bit and heard a giggle from the second bedroom. His heart melted at the sight. Lian was sitting on your lap while you were braiding her hair, tying it with a bow hair tie. “Pretty as a princess!”, you called her. Jason had no idea you were that good with kids. It was endearing.

Smiling lightly, he said, “Lunch is ready.” Lian jumped off of you and walked to the living room, picking up her heart-shaped sandwiched. She gasped,

“Thank you!” and began eating her sandwich. You stood next to jason and looked at the little girl in awe.

The day consisted of Pokémon marathons, hide and seek, and a game of tag that ended up with Jason picking you up and running around the apartment. You did the same with Lian the next round. The cheerful energy of little children was very contagious, but at some point, the energy burned out. The three of you sat down to take break before putting Lian down for a nap. Today you saw a side of Jason you didn’t even know existed. He was always calmer and goofier when you were around, but when he was with Lian, it was something else. You fell for him even more, if that was possible. Seeing him with her made your lips involuntarily perk up at the corners. And then it happened.

“Hey uncle jay?”

“Hm?”

“Is this the girl you’re always talking to Daddy about? The soulmate?” you saw Jason stiffen. You were very intrigued though. Jason talked about you to Roy? “Her name is Y/N too. Is she your girlfriend?”

“No, she’s not my girlfriend.” He was genuinely mortified.

“I think she wants to be your girlfriend.” Now it was your turn to stiffen. How did she-? “She hugs you a lot.”

“Lian aren’t you tired? Let’s get you to bed.”

“Okay. Uncle Jay, you should kiss her.” Jason picked her up and hurried into the guest bedroom, leaving you a blushing mess where you sat.

He returned around ten minutes later, looking pretty tired himself. “I. Am. Exhausted”

“Same here,” you replied. “You’re really good with kids.”

“So are you.”

“Lian is such a sweetheart! Roy is going to have to deal with me a lot more now.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I want visit Lian all the time.”

“Oh.”

“Hey, can I ask you something?” He nods.

“What was Lian talking about when she said you spoke to Roy about me?”

“Well,” I guess confessing is back on the table. “I talked to Roy about you because I wanted his advice.” You gave him the ‘please elaborate’ look. “I like you.” He finally blurted out.

You looked up at him feeling butterflies. “I like you too, Jay.” As soon as the words left your mouth, you could feel your heart racing. Jason met your eyes, grinning ear to ear and asked,

“So, does this mean I can ask you on a date?”

“I believe it does.”

“Y/N, would you like to go out with me sometime?”

“Yeah I would.” You pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I am a little concerned though.”

“About?”

“You were trained by the world’s greatest detective, and yet, a five-year-old figured that I liked you before you did.” Jason’s expression turned into one of both shock and disappointment and you couldn’t help but laugh. “Todd, you’re losing your edge. You were beaten by a toddler.”

“Huh, so were you!” The two of you joked around quietly as not to wake the toddler in the other room. “You know it’s only 6:30. Feel like staying for dinner?”

“I’d like that.” You were looking up him due to the height difference.

The phone rang. Roy was calling to let Jason know he would be by to pick Lian up soon. The two of you sat comfortably and put on a movie.

“You sure you don’t want to watch power Rangers? I know how much you love the blue one.” He teased, which earned him a light punch to the shoulder.

Soon after, Lian woke up from her nap and crawled in between you. There was comfortable silence in the room. Jason had his arm around you, and you nuzzled into him holding Lian. The way Lian held his hand made your heart swell. He was going to be the best father one day.

Just then the doorbell rang. “That’s your dad.” She climbed down and walked with Jason to the door.

“Daddy!”

“Hey princess!” He lifted her into his arms. “Did you have fun today?”

“Yeah! I played with Jay and Auntie Y/N.”

“Oh, wow.” Roy looked at Jason with an eyebrow raised. “Auntie Y/N?” as if on cue, you showed up at the door.

“Hey, Lian you forgot your backpack.” You said handing it to her. “Roy! Oh, my goodness I haven’t seen you in a month! You have got to come over more.” You said, hugging him.

“I definitely will.” He said, hugging back with one arm.

“Good. Bye guys! I’ll see you soon!” And with that you, turned back and made your way to the kitchen.

“Roy how’d everything go? Is the city Ok?”, Jason asked.

“Yeah, yeah. City’s fine, Ollie’s fine. What’s up with you two? Did you finally tell her?”, Roy asked expectantly. With a smirk and a dramatic sigh, Jason replied,

“All I will say is that your daughter is a much better wing woman than you.” He punctuated his sentence by high fiving the little girl in Roy’s arms.

“ARE YOU GUYS DAT-?!”

“Bye, Roy! Bye, Lian! See you guys later…!” And he closed the door, fully expecting his phone to be flooded with messages in an hour, but in the meantime, he planned on taking advantage of some much-needed alone time with his new girlfriend.

“So, princess, where would you like to go for dinner?” Snaking your arms around his torso, you said,

“I don’t know, what do you feel like having?”

“You in my arms.” Your face heated up.

“I meant for dinner! And I’m already in your arms.” He chuckled lightly.

“Chinese takeout?”

“Chinese takeout.”

“And movies?”

“Of course.”

“…. Cuddles?”

“Like we don’t do that anyway.” All in all, that day did not go as planned but you weren’t about to complain.

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