#Operation: Ash and Shadow
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sml8180 · 10 months ago
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Phoenix has a new mission following their recovery after Operation: KBOOM; Zor has yet another plan to take over the world, and it's their job -as usual- to stop it. Along the way, they encounter a number of familiar faces from two very different times in their life.
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Friendly reminder that comments and reblogs fuel me to continue writing!
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Just giving a heads-up here (it's also in the notes at the end of the chapter), but the rating of this story will be changing when Chapter 16 goes up, popping from T to M.
Similar to Chapter 11, there's several fun facts at the end of this one! Highlights include: a short history lesson in glow-in-the-dark watches (and their dangers), the somewhat random, mostly useless thing(s) I learned while writing a last-minute scene addition, and how many times I changed how a character would be described because I couldn't decide
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rosemaryhoney27 · 22 days ago
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Daddy's Girl part 1
Let Go of My Daughter
The battle had been brutal. Debris lay scattered across the ruined street, buildings groaning from the damage, smoke rising from the craters left by the fight between the Justice League and the alien war machines that had descended without warning.
From a nearby rooftop, Dani watched with awe, her white hair glowing faintly in the dusk light. She wasn't supposed to be here—Danny had told her to stay away from trouble. But curiosity had a grip on her soul like gravity. These were the heroes she’d only heard about in stories, seen from the shadows: Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern—fighting together in a blur of power and purpose.
Then came the hum. A too-familiar mechanical buzz that made her hair stand on end.
Dani turned. Too late.
Agents in white armor, cold faces under dark visors—the Guys in White. They hadn’t come for the alien invaders.
They had come for her.
She bolted, ducking low, turning invisible mid-leap, but they were ready. A glowing ecto-net shot out from a launcher, wrapping around her mid-air, sizzling with power. She screamed as it struck her core, her body flickering between ghost and human, pain tearing through every atom.
“No—NO! LET ME GO!”
Her thrashing only made the net constrict tighter, burning her. One of the agents barked an order, and the voltage increased.
“Subject is destabilizing. Contain or terminate!”
A sickening jolt surged through her.
Her screams echoed across the battlefield. At first, the Justice League didn't realize what they were hearing—amid the chaos, it was just another sound.
But then Superman paused. His ears twitched. He heard the difference. Fear. Pain. A child.
Wonder Woman turned toward him, already running. “Where?”
“North rooftop!”
Batman was ahead of them both, his grappling hook already in the air.
The GIW agents didn’t see them coming—not until a batarang shorted out their generator, sending Dani crashing to the rooftop, gasping and shivering.
The agents turned in surprise, only for a red and blue blur to knock two of them flying into a wall. Wonder Woman’s lasso whipped through the air, tangling up another pair. Lantern constructs snapped the rifles from their hands and crushed them under emerald fists.
But it was too late.
Dani was curled on the rooftop, panting, hurt, and bleeding ectoplasm. Her wide eyes glowed bright green, tears cutting down her ash-streaked cheeks.
Then she screamed—a raw, primal cry from the deepest part of her.
“DADDY!!!”
The world held its breath.
And then… the sky cracked.
Clouds spiraled unnaturally. Wind howled. The sun dimmed under a sudden pall of swirling green light. Lightning arced across the horizon—green lightning.
From the center of the storm, a figure emerged.
A black cloak whipped in the wind, edged with silver chains. A massive glowing crown floated just above his brow, held in place by raw ectoplasmic power. His white hair streamed behind him like a comet. The air warped with his fury.
And his eyes—normally calm and glowing green—were now blood-red.
Phantom.
No longer just a boy.
Now, the Ghost King.
“LET. GO. OF. MY. DAUGHTER.” His voice was not a shout. It was a command from a being who ruled death itself, echoing through time and space.
The GIW agents who were still conscious dropped their weapons instantly, paralyzed by sheer instinctual dread. One tried to run—only to be caught midair by an invisible hand and slammed into the pavement.
Danny—King Phantom—descended to the rooftop. He didn’t even touch the ground; power thrummed beneath him like a living storm. The League took a cautious step back, not out of fear—but respect.
He knelt beside Dani, rage turning instantly to anguish. “Dani… I’m here.” He gathered her up, cradling her close. Her eyes fluttered open, and a weak smile touched her lips.
“You came…”
“I always will.”
Batman stepped forward. “Who are they?” He gestured to the crumpled agents.
Danny didn’t look up. “Government ghost hunters. Illegal operations. I’ve shut them down before.”
“They attacked a child,” Wonder Woman said grimly. “They’ll answer for it.”
Danny stood, still holding Dani. “Not to you. To me.” A portal yawned open behind him—green and swirling like a rift into another realm.
One of the agents began to beg. “You don’t have jurisdiction here!”
Danny looked back over his shoulder, red eyes gleaming.
“I’m the King of the Infinite Realms. Jurisdiction is what I say it is.”
He stepped through the portal, Dani safe in his arms. The sky rumbled one last time—and then the clouds dispersed.
The rooftop fell quiet.
Green Lantern let out a low whistle. “Well. That was something.”
Superman crossed his arms. “We’ll need to talk to him. If they’re hunting children like her, this isn’t over.”
Batman was already scanning the data from the agents’ suits.
But all of them, for that one moment, stood in the quiet awe of a simple, terrifying truth.
Mess with a ghost girl… and you’ll answer to her father.
The Ghost King.
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marvelseries19 · 2 months ago
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RETURN TO YOU
Chapter Four - Castaway
Chapter one | Chapter two | Chapter three | Chapter Four | Chapter five |
Pairings: Natasha Romanoff x female agent reader
Genre: Angst
Summary: You’re finally found. After years lost and alone, a faint signal is enough to bring someone to your island. You're brought home, weak, scared, and unsure if it’s real.
A/N: Finally, the moment you've been waiting for. I'm not entirely sure if this should be the end. I kinda have more ideas to tell, but maybe I'll post those as like one-shots or something. I wanted to thank you guys for letting me know that you liked it. I don't think I've ever had this much engagement on my fics. I really appreciate the love this one has had.
On another note, in the last chapter, I asked if you read this, and by this, I meant these messages, I leave here, not the chapter. So, once more, do you guys read these messages?? Also, as always, any questions, requests, ideas, and feedback are all welcome. Enjoy :)
Warnings: +18, descriptions of injuries and such.
Word count: 4.4k+
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[You do not have permission to repost or translate any of my stories or claim them as yours.]
The low hum of the SHIELD operations room barely registered as Maria Hill leaned over the dim console. The soft, rhythmic blinking on the screen in front of her was steady, consistent — unmistakable. A signal. Faint, primitive, but deliberate. Her fingers flew across the keys as she opened a secure channel.
"Get me Director Fury," she said, her voice low but urgent.
The line crackled before his voice came through, rough and clipped. "What have you got?"
Maria didn’t look away from the screen. "A signal. Old-school. Someone stripped a Quinjet transponder and spliced it into basic field tech. It’s broadcasting on an early SHIELD frequency — nothing sophisticated, but it’s clean. Repeating."
"That’s a long shot," Fury replied.
"Not if it’s her," Maria said, and there was something unshakable in her tone. "And I believe it is."
There was a pause. She could almost hear him weighing it in silence. Her eyes stayed on the blinking pattern, steady as a heartbeat.
"It’s the captain."
Fury’s silence stretched again — longer this time, heavier.
"You always did trust her instincts more than anyone else," he said eventually.
"She earned that trust," Maria murmured. And she remembered — the smoke, the fire, the chaos.
Kandahar.
The sky was dust-streaked and orange, gunfire painting the air in bursts. Agents scattered, wounded, shouting. No one had orders. The comms were fried. And then you appeared — ash-streaked, limping, blood on her sleeve, and calm in her eyes.
“We lost comms!” someone had yelled. “Do we pull back?! Where’s the fallback point?!”
Maria remembered how you didn’t hesitate. She remembered the way you moved — forward, always forward — as if gravity bent toward your conviction.
"With me," you said. That was all.
Two words.
And twenty agents followed you without looking back.
Maria hadn’t said it aloud that day — but someone else had. A younger recruit, clutching his rifle and running to keep up: “Captain’s got us.”
The name stuck.
Maria exhaled softly, her eyes never leaving the console. "She pulled twenty agents out that night. Half of them wouldn’t be here without her," she said quietly.
"Is she still alive, Hill?" Fury asked.
"She sent that signal," Maria replied. "I know it's her, and that’s all I need to know."
"Take a team," Fury ordered. "Get her back."
Maria was already on her feet. "Already working on it."
She shut the console off, leaving the weak, blinking signal behind — but only for a moment.
She would follow it. All the way to the end.
The quinjet dipped below the clouds like a shadow cutting through the sky, its engines whisper-quiet over the dense canopy below. The sun was just beginning to rise, casting streaks of gold and fire across the endless stretch of green.
Maria stood near the loading ramp, arms crossed, eyes scanning the horizon as if she could will the trees to part and reveal a miracle.
She’d barely slept on the flight over, fingers tight around the datapad that showed the narrowing coordinates. Each pass of the satellite brought them closer. Each sweep of the low-band signal narrowed the window.
Still, it felt like a dream.
Three years.
Three years with no trace.
Three years of dead ends, quiet funerals, and trying to help Natasha through a grief Maria shared but didn’t dare speak aloud.
And now this.
A single echo. A half-broken signal from a beacon no one was supposed to remember how to use.
She hadn’t told Natasha. Couldn't. Not yet.
Hope, Maria had learned, was dangerous when it burned too bright. And she wouldn’t be the one to light it unless she was sure. She had seen firsthand what it did to her friend , how it tore her apart each time a lead turned out to be false. Maria needed more than a faint signal to give Natasha false hope.
The quinjet hovered over the narrowed location, nestled between cliffs and jungle, and the team fast-roped down in practiced silence. Maria followed, landing with a solid thud against the uneven earth.
It was still. Too still. But the readings didn’t lie. Someone was here.
She signaled for the group to split. “Fan out. Sweep the perimeter. Eyes sharp. Weapons down unless you see a threat.”
A chorus of affirmatives crackled through comms.
They moved.
Not far away, tucked in the hollow between two rocks and overgrowth, you stirred.
The sound had been faint — a low thrum, like distant thunder.
It came again, closer this time.
You sat up slowly, your body protesting every movement. Your limbs ached. Your head spun. Your skin had taken on the leathery feel of too much sun and too little water. The weakened body you lived in now barely resembled the one that once trained at SHIELD’s academy. The one that flew the quinjet with quiet confidence. The one that could disappear without leaving a trace.
You had survived.
But barely.
You blinked hard, pressing your fingers to your ears.
Voices.
Were those voices?
You crouched low, instinct taking over even as your knees buckled beneath you. The sound of boots brushing leaves. A sharp rustle of brush being moved aside. You bit the inside of your cheek.
It’s nothing. You’ve imagined things before. You’d seen shadows become people. Branches become outstretched hands.
But the voices were growing louder now. Clearer.
“Check the cliffside—Hill’s got east.”
“There’s a trail here—looks like something’s been walking through.”
“Signal strength increasing. It’s close.”
No. No, that was real. That wasn’t just your mind trying to comfort you again. That was real.
Still, your body didn’t move. Not yet.
You sat frozen, heart pounding, as footsteps closed in.
And then—
“Hey!” a voice called. Not a hallucination. Sharp. Solid. Commanding. “I’ve got something—!”
Then another voice. Lower. Familiar. Too familiar.
“Stand down, it’s her—God—” The foliage parted, and there she was.
Maria.
Your mind couldn’t process it all at once. She was wearing tactical black, hair pulled back, eyes scanning like she didn’t dare believe what she was seeing.
You opened your mouth to say something, anything—but nothing came out.
Maria dropped to her knees, her voice thick and trembling. “Hey, hey—it's okay. It's me. I’ve got you.”
You blinked again, too weak to flinch as her hands gently framed your face.
Her breath caught. “Jesus… you’re really here.”
You tried to speak, lips cracked, throat dry. Only a rasp escaped.
Maria shook her head, a soft curse under her breath. She slipped an arm around your shoulders, guiding a canteen to your lips. “Don’t talk. Just drink.”
The water stung going down, but you drank like you hadn’t in days.
Because you hadn't. Rainwater could only last for so long.
Maria kept holding you, one hand steadying the canteen, the other pressed lightly against your back as if reassuring herself that you were solid. Real. Not another ghost.
And then she whispered, almost like she didn’t want anyone else to hear, "I'm so sorry it took this long.”
Tears pricked at your eyes. You didn’t want to cry. Not yet. Not when it felt like the moment could vanish if you blinked.
But Maria didn’t rush. She stayed there with you in the dirt, surrounded by jungle, brushing a hand gently through your tangled hair.
“You’re safe now,” she said softly. “We’re taking you home. I’m gonna make sure of that. And I’ll tell her—I’ll tell Natasha.”
You didn’t know if it was the relief or her voice, but that’s when the sob broke free.
And Maria, strong as ever, just held you tighter.
The team moved quickly once they found her.
You were conscious, your body trembling with exhaustion and adrenaline as they guided you through the undergrowth. The sight of the quinjet waiting on the shore hit you harder than expected.
Your steps faltered.
The air caught in your throat.
It looked almost exactly like yours—the one that went down in flames, the one that left you stranded and alone. Your chest tightened, breath hitching, muscles locking up as memories flashed behind your eyes. Fire. Smoke. The sound of metal tearing. The impact.
You stopped walking.
“Hey,” Maria’s voice was calm and soft. She stepped in front of you, eyes steady, hand gentle on your shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. We’re taking you home.”
You shook your head weakly, barely audible when you said, “I can’t… I can’t get on that thing. I know it’s stupid, but—”
“It’s not stupid,” Maria cut in, her voice rough with emotion. “After what you’ve been through, it makes perfect sense.”
Your eyes were glassy, full of apology and fear you couldn’t quite name. “I want to go. I just… I can’t.”
Maria glanced at the medic nearby, nodding once.
“We’ll help you sleep through the ride, okay?” she said, already crouching down with her. “No pain. No panic. You’ll wake up at the medical facility. Safe. I promise.”
You gave her the faintest nod, your fingers still gripping Maria’s sleeve like an anchor.
Maria stayed close as the medic prepped the injection, gently brushing damp hair back from your forehead. “You did so good, alright? You held on. We’ve got you now.”
The sedative took hold quickly, easing your breathing as your eyes fluttered shut. Maria caught you carefully as she slumped forward, guiding her into the medic’s arms and onto the stretcher.
And as the engines spun up and the quinjet lifted into the sky, Maria sat beside you, phone already in her hand, staring down at Natasha’s name on the screen.
It was time.
The quinjet hummed around her, steady and familiar. Maria sat strapped in beside the stretcher, her eyes drifting to you every few seconds — as if making sure she was still there, still breathing, still real.
You looked so small.
So fragile.
And it shook Maria more than she wanted to admit. This woman, who once sparred with her until both of them limped off the mat laughing… This woman who had stood beside her through firefights and missions no one else could have survived… Now she lies wrapped in blankets, sedated, ribs visible under her skin, lips cracked from dehydration.
Maria swallowed hard. She stared at the screen for a long second before finally pressing the contact.
The call connected after two rings.
“Maria?” Natasha’s voice came out sharp, tight. Tired. Like she’d been running or not sleeping again. “Is something wrong?”
Maria’s breath caught. “Natasha…”
Something in her tone made Natasha go completely still on the other end.
“We found her,” Maria said softly.
Silence.
“I need you to meet me at the SHIELD medical facility in New York. We’re bringing her in now. She's alive, Nat. She's—she's not in good shape, but she’s alive.”
Natasha didn’t answer at first. Just a breath — hitched, broken — and then, “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I’ve got her right here with me.” Maria looked over again, lowering her voice instinctively. “She held on. Three years, and she never gave up.”
There was a long pause. When Natasha spoke again, her voice cracked.
“I’ll be there.”
The city blurred past the tinted windows of the SUV, but Natasha barely saw any of it.
Her fingers gripped the edge of the seat so tightly her knuckles had gone white. Every red light felt like a personal attack. Every second that passed without her at that facility made her heart pound harder in her chest.
You were alive.
Alive.
It didn’t feel real.
She had imagined this moment too many times — always in dreams, in cruel fantasies her mind would conjure when sleep finally took her. But this wasn’t a dream. Maria had called her. Maria had sounded shaken. That never happened.
Alive.
Natasha’s breath caught again, her throat tight with something she couldn’t name — hope, disbelief, fear. She didn’t even realize tears had started to run down her cheeks until they hit her jaw. She didn’t wipe them away.
Three years.
Three years of not knowing. Of waking up and reaching for someone who wasn’t there. Of closing her eyes and hearing your laugh, only for silence to greet her. Of rage. Of grief so heavy it felt like a second skin.
And now… you were back.
But at what cost?
She kept replaying Maria’s voice in her head. Not in good shape. Those four words sliced deeper than anything else. Natasha had seen the aftermath of war. She had seen what being stranded did to a person, physically and mentally.
What if you didn’t remember her? What if the pain of those years had buried the part of you that knew her name? What if the reunion she’d dreamed of — clung to — was nothing like the reality waiting for her?
The driver turned sharply, and Natasha gritted her teeth, leaning forward.
“How much longer?”
“Five minutes, ma’am.”
Not fast enough.
She closed her eyes. Forced herself to breathe. One hand unconsciously reached for the ring still looped through the chain around her neck — your ring — warm now from her skin.
She didn’t know what she’d find when she walked into that facility.
But for the first time in three years… she had something to walk toward.
You.
The quinjet touched down with a soft thud on the rooftop pad of the SHIELD medical facility.
Before the engines had fully powered down, the med team was already waiting — gurney prepped, portable monitors ready, gloved hands reaching for the ramp before it even dropped.
Maria stood to the side, out of the way but not detached. Her jaw was clenched, arms crossed tightly over her chest, as if holding herself together. She hadn’t said much since the sedation. Only that she’d call Natasha again once they landed. But she didn’t need to. The call had already been made. Natasha would be here soon. She knew it.
The second the hatch opened, the team surged forward.
You were still unconscious — sedated, peaceful in the worst way. Your skin looked pale under the harsh facility lights, your body far too light as they transferred you to the gurney. The bruises, the cuts, the ribs pressing too close to the surface — it was all too visible now.
Monitors were clipped to your finger, an oxygen mask gently pressed to your face, and soft commands echoing between the medics:
“Get her on fluids, stat.”
“We need a CBC and a full metabolic panel.”
“Chest X-ray, abdominal ultrasound.”
“She’s dehydrated; start with normal saline, keep it slow.”
The medics disappeared down the hall with you, swift and practiced, the sound of their shoes a controlled blur of movement.
Natasha had just stepped into the hallway when she saw them roll the gurney past.
She stopped mid-step.
Time halted.
You.
There. Real.
But not awake. Not smiling. Not whole.
Her hand went to the wall to steady herself. Her breath left her in a sharp, silent exhale. She couldn’t move.
Maria stepped in beside her, watching the hallway where the doors had just swung closed behind the gurney. “She’s stable. Vitals are holding. They’ll take care of her.”
Natasha didn’t speak. Her eyes hadn’t moved from that door.
A nurse came around the corner holding something small and delicate in a gloved hand. She looked between them before gently addressing Natasha.
“She was wearing this,” she said softly, offering the chain.
Natasha reached out slowly, her hand trembling as she took it.
Your ring. Still looped through the chain she gave you three years ago.
She held it tightly in her fist, pressing it to her lips like a prayer.
Maria watched her quietly. “She survived,” she whispered, more to herself than to Natasha. “She actually survived.”
Natasha’s voice cracked when she finally spoke, low and hoarse. “She wasn’t supposed to.”
Down the hallway, machines beeped. Doors swung. A medical team did everything they could to stabilize you — rehydrate, monitor, and evaluate. You didn’t stir, but you were alive.
That was all that mattered.
For now.
It felt like hours.
The sterile hallway never changed, but Natasha hadn't moved from that same spot. She leaned forward in the plastic chair, elbows on her knees, fingers still curled around the chain holding your ring. The weight of it was nothing — and everything.
Maria had stayed close, pacing occasionally, making a few quiet calls, but mostly giving Natasha space. There were no words left to say.
Finally, a doctor emerged from behind the double doors. He looked tired but calm.
“She’s stable. Fluids are working, and her bloodwork came back cleaner than we expected. Malnourished, yes. Exhausted, definitely. But no infection, no internal injuries beyond the obvious bruising, and a few injuries that didn't heal properly, but nothing to worry about. We sedated her gently. She might wake up soon.”
Natasha stood the moment the doctor nodded toward the room. “Can I see her?”
“Yes. Just for a few minutes, and keep it quiet. She’s been through a lot.”
Natasha didn’t answer. She was already moving.
The room was dim and quiet, the steady beep of the heart monitor the only sound. You were there, lying so still under the soft white sheets, a faint oxygen tube at your nose, IVs at your side.
Natasha stopped at the foot of the bed. She wasn’t ready. She’d pictured this moment a hundred different ways over the past three years. None of them came close.
You looked like you and not like you — thinner, paler, yet tanned, your hair longer and tangled in places, and skin marked with sun and wear. But it was you.
Carefully, Natasha stepped closer, lowering herself into the chair beside your bed. She didn’t speak. She just watched. Studied your face. Every part of her wanted to reach out — but she couldn’t bring herself to disturb the fragile stillness.
She opened her hand. The ring glinted dully in the light.
“I never stopped wearing it,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “Never took it off. Not once.”
Her fingers curled gently around your hand, the one not bound by tape and tubing. You were warm. Not cold. Not gone.
“I should’ve been with you,” she whispered. “I should’ve—”
But she couldn’t finish.
Her breath caught, and for the first time in years, Natasha Romanoff let her shoulders fall and her head bow beside the woman she never stopped loving.
She stayed like that. Until the rhythm of your heart monitor seemed to slow into something steadier. Familiar.
Until maybe — just maybe — she felt your fingers twitch beneath her own.
Natasha’s eyes remained fixed on you, but her mind had drifted. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there, nor how many times she had muttered those quiet, broken words — promises, apologies, confessions — to the room, to the air, to you.
The weight of everything she hadn’t said was finally crashing down on her, more than she could have prepared for. The years without you, the months of pretending she could go on without even knowing where you were, the guilt that had gnawed at her every waking moment, the hopelessness she buried deeper each day. It had always felt like she was waiting for something — waiting for the call, the news, anything that would bring you back into her world. She couldn’t breathe without the thought of you, couldn’t focus on anything with your absence hanging like a shadow.
But here you were, lying in front of her, fragile and yet still alive.
Alive.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she held the ring, the very symbol of everything she’d almost lost forever. The years had worn away at its luster, but it still gleamed, faintly — a promise. She had thought she’d never see you again. She thought she’d have to carry this unfulfilled promise forever.
And yet, here you were.
Her eyes filled with tears that she refused to let fall. She wasn’t going to cry. She couldn’t. Not here, not now, when you needed her more than ever.
"I promised you I’d come for you," she whispered, her voice rough. "I promised."
She held the ring in her hand as if it could reach you — as if it could bridge the gap between her pain and your absence. She was scared, more than she cared to admit. Scared of how you might feel when you woke up. Scared of what you might remember. Scared of how fragile this moment was — of how fragile you were.
Her hand moved slowly to the side of your bed. She didn’t want to disturb you, but she couldn’t stop herself. The need to be close to you was overwhelming. The need to feel that connection — that spark of life that had once been so familiar, so undeniable between you.
“I couldn’t live without you,” Natasha whispered, her voice barely above a breath. “I won’t let you go again.”
For a moment, she simply sat there, eyes closed, listening to the steady rhythm of your breath. The world outside the room seemed distant and cold — nothing mattered except the space between her and you, the fragile space that had once been filled with shared laughter, quiet mornings, and stolen moments.
The steady beep of the heart monitor seemed to echo in her mind, a reminder that you were here, that you were real, that you were alive. But what was left for the two of you now? Could things be the same after all that had happened? Natasha didn’t know. All she knew was that she couldn't—wouldn't— let you slip away again.
The door creaked softly, and Maria stepped in, her expression quiet but understanding. Natasha didn’t look up. She didn’t want anyone else in this moment, but Maria’s presence was a grounding force — a reminder that Natasha hadn’t been completely alone through all of this.
“She’s going to be okay,” Maria said, her voice gentle but firm. “She’s a fighter, Nat.”
Natasha didn’t respond, her eyes never leaving you. She wasn’t ready for anyone’s reassurance. Not yet.
Maria waited for a moment, then sighed softly. “I’ll give you some time. Just… don’t do this alone. Not again.”
But Natasha didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She didn’t know how to explain the ache in her chest, the heaviness that had been there for years. There was no way to put it into words.
She only nodded silently, her gaze never wavering from your sleeping form. And in that silence, Natasha finally let herself hope again. Not just for your safety, but for something more. Something she had almost forgotten how to believe in.
She wasn’t alone anymore. Neither of them was.
The first thing you felt was the weight of your own body. The heaviness of skin and bone sinking into the sterile softness of hospital sheets. The dull ache beneath the surface of everything. But more than that, it was the quiet hum of machines, the faint beeping of a heart monitor, and the sterile scent of antiseptic that confirmed it — you weren’t on the island anymore.
You were safe.
That realization alone felt unreal.
Your eyelids fluttered, the light above muted through lashes you struggled to lift. The world came back to you in pieces — sound, then shape, then color. The sharp clarity of a cold IV line in your hand. The warmth of a blanket pulled up to your chest. The dull echo of a familiar voice.
It was the last one that made your heart stutter.
Natasha.
She was sitting beside you. Tired. Still. Her posture held together by force alone, like she hadn’t moved in hours — maybe longer. Her hands were folded in her lap, but her entire body leaned ever so slightly toward you, as if afraid you’d vanish if she didn’t stay close.
You blinked slowly, and her eyes found yours in an instant.
The breath she let out was shaky. You saw it — the moment she shattered just a little more but also held herself together just enough to stay strong for you.
“…hey,” she whispered. Her voice was raw, barely a sound at all. But her eyes were full — of grief, of relief, of everything she hadn’t dared let herself feel until now. “You’re here.”
You opened your mouth to speak, but nothing came out at first. You tried again — your voice rasped and cracked, dry and weak.
“…Hi,” you whispered.
Tears welled up in her eyes immediately. Natasha leaned forward, slowly, cautiously, her hand brushing your arm like she needed to touch you to believe this was real. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. Weeks. Maybe years.
“I didn’t think…” you started, the words struggling to form.
“I know,” she said, voice tight. “Me neither.”
Your eyes darted around, and that’s when you saw it — sitting on the table beside a vase of white flowers, looking oddly solemn in the sterile light — was Red. Your Red. The coconut you once talked to when you were losing hope, when your voice was the only one on that island. Someone had even propped it up with a little folded towel beneath it like a throne.
You stared at it, blinking again, and then let out a breath that was half a laugh, half a sob.
“Red made it?”
“Maria made sure of it,” Natasha said with a hint of a smile, though her voice was still breaking. “Said she’d have murdered her entire team if they left him behind. Apparently you muttered its name after they sedated you.”
Your throat burned. Everything hurt. But Natasha’s presence eased something inside of you that had been coiled tight for years. She looked at you like she was scared you’d disappear if she blinked. And you looked at her like she was the first warmth you’d felt in forever.
You reached for her hand, slowly, shakily. She took it before your fingers even fully stretched toward her.
“You waited,” you said softly.
“I would’ve waited forever,” Natasha whispered back.
Silence stretched between you, but it wasn’t heavy anymore. It was full — of all the words you didn’t need to say, of the pain that was finally beginning to thaw, of the bond between you that had never broken, even after everything.
Even after all this time.
You closed your eyes again, not to sleep — just to rest. Just to breathe. Just to be.
With her hand in yours and Red by your side, for the first time in a long time… you believed everything might be okay.
----
TAGLIST: @womenarehotsstuff @seventeen-x @ctrlaltedits @ciaoooooo111 @unexpected-character @redroomgraduate @natsaffection @cheekysnake @viosblog112 @riyaexee @lilyeyama @idontliketoread2127 @ima-gi--na-tion @sunny-poe @artemisarroxvolkov @hotcocoandonuts @scarletsstarlets @splatashaswife
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aventurineswife · 1 month ago
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Hi! It's me again. Sorry if you haven't gotten to my requests and there is a limit to how many a person can request at once, pls just lmk <3 I just need to get this off my system because I have been cooking on this for days and haven't found many accounts who take requests
Platonic Boothill, Ratio, Aventurine and Gallagher with a young reader who is a former slave (like Aventurine though they escaped by sheer force) and the characters get the news that they got snatched up by the previous captors.
Stars Don’t Belong in Cages
Tags: Aventurine x Reader, Boothill x Reader, Ratio x Reader, Gallagher x Reader, Teen!Reader, Platonic, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Rescue Mission, Angst, Protective, Trauma, Emotional Bonds.
Warnings: Mentions of Slavery, Past Abuse, Violence (Rescue Scene), Emotional Distress, PTSD/Trauma Responses.
Tagslist: @themiddletenmasibling
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Boothill had never been a sentimental man. He had no patience for crying, no love for the helpless. But you—kid, you were different. You had grit, fight in your bones, the kind that reminded him of himself.
And now you were gone.
Word had reached him that your former captors had dragged you back into their grasp, and something inside him snapped like the cocking of a revolver.
The saloon quieted as he stood, chair scraping across the wooden floor. He adjusted his hat, the shadow hiding the wild fury in his eyes. The Galaxy Rangers knew what that meant—someone was gonna die tonight.
"Who told me this?" His voice was eerily calm.
A nervous recruit, still wet behind the ears, swallowed hard. "Got intercepted by a merchant ship. They saw ‘em take the kid near Malbura Ridge—"
Boothill was already moving, his cybernetic fingers tightening into fists. His teeth, razor-sharp, flashed in a snarl. "Then what the fudge are we waitin’ for?"
His mechanical legs carried him to his ship in record time. He didn’t wait for backup, didn’t bother with strategy. He knew one thing—he was going to kill every last one of the bastards who laid a hand on you.
And he wouldn’t stop until you were safe.
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Ratio rarely lost his composure. Even in the face of ignorance, in the presence of fools, he could maintain his air of superiority. But this—this was unacceptable.
He had raised you to think, to question, to defy those who sought to shackle your mind. And now those wretches had dared to take you? Again?
He had no patience for incompetence. He was above emotion. But for the first time in years, he felt it. Anger. Cold, precise, and all-consuming.
He adjusted his vest, then turned to his fellow Intelligentsia members. "We will be leaving immediately. I expect cooperation."
One of them hesitated. "Dr. Ratio, is this—"
His glare silenced them. "I will not repeat myself."
Within hours, he had tracked your captors’ coordinates. The plan was simple: a precise strike. A devastating lesson. He would dismantle their entire operation, leave nothing behind but ash and regret.
They had dared to take his pupil? They would soon understand—ignorance was curable, but stupidity had consequences.
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Aventurine had always believed life was a game. A roll of the dice, a well-played hand. But when he heard the news—when he learned that you had been taken—he felt something he hadn’t felt in years.
Fear.
Not for himself. No, never for himself. But for you? His little wildcard? The one person who could match his wit, keep up with his tricks?
That wasn’t something he was willing to lose.
He exhaled slowly, adjusting his rose-tinted glasses, his fingers tapping a precise rhythm against his sleeve. "Well, well… Seems I have a debt to collect."
His informants were already at work, tracing your location, your captors' weaknesses. He didn’t act impulsively—no, this was a game of patience. Of strategy.
And when the time was right?
He’d make sure your captors paid.
They thought they could outplay him? Please.
This was his game.
And Aventurine never lost.
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Gallagher didn’t speak when he heard the news. Didn’t rage, didn’t curse. He simply set down the glass he had been polishing and exhaled.
He should have seen this coming. Should have done more to protect you.
The familiar ache in his chest—the one he had tried to drown in whiskey—burned anew. Another person, another innocent, taken by the world’s cruelty.
His hand clenched around the flask at his waist.
He had promised himself he wouldn’t get attached again. Wouldn’t let his heart break for someone he couldn’t save. But this wasn’t about him. This was about you.
He grabbed his coat, fastening the police badge at his chest.
"Gallagher?" One of his men hesitated. "Are you sure you wanna—"
He met their gaze, his eyes dull with exhaustion but steeled with resolve.
"Yeah," he muttered. "I’m sure."
He had failed once before.
He wouldn’t fail again.
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cuckoo-on-a-string · 27 days ago
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A Sparrow at Sea 1/?
MDNI
Whitebeard pirates/reader (fem)
Summary: Turned into a bird as part of a slave-smuggling operation, you get your revenge - and then your revenge gets you. Panicked and alone, you crash land on a very large, very famous ship full of very large and quite infamous men.
I promised myself I wouldn't post another incomplete one-shot, but here we are! Dealing with a bit of burnout and could use the interaction, buddies. Aiming for maybe two more 'chapters.'
Enjoy!
Master List
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The bastards turned you into a bird.
So, you set their fucking warehouse on fire.
You sat – perched – several rooftops away, watching the little flames you’d gathered work into the prepared kindling.
Satisfaction glowed warm in hollow bones.
It hadn’t been easy. You’d labored for hours, too angry to rest after escaping the Devil Fruit user’s sweaty hands as he tried to shake your shrunken body out of your clothes and into a cage. You’d pecked his hands bloody and taken off through a broken shutter.
The kidnappers’ second Devil Fruit user, a Zoan type, slammed into the wood behind you, the owl too big to fit through the same crack a sparrow could. He’d hooted in rage, and you went scrambling over rooftiles and windowsills, trying to understand how to grab things with your feet.
Adrenaline fed into growing anger, and your little heart pumped hard with outsized emotions. Hiding was easy when you were so small. Plenty of merchants threw covers over their market stalls at night, and every building had nooks and crannies you could hop inside. Away from the men, their fingers, and their talons.
Once the owl’s shadow stopped circling and the night lost its edge to the blue hour, you set about your revenge.
Flying was more or less intuitive (a few painful experiments aside). Figuring out what you could and couldn’t lift took longer. You’d hoped to wrap some coals to drop on your target, but they were too heavy and dangerous to manage without hands. You took to setting twigs and scraps alight in torches and open lanterns. The flames caught you more than once, but only your poor little feet. If you lost your feathers, you’d have new problems, and you’d rather struggle to stand than fail to fly. At least in your current shape.
Which you’d have to do something about.
At some point.
If it didn’t wear off.
Which was a level of horror you weren’t ready to face yet. You’d contemplate your future as you took a dust bath in the ashes.
What would’ve taken less than an hour in your human body took until daybreak as a sparrow.
You panted as you watched the fruit of your labor ignite like a second sun. Straw and twigs fed the blaze until it clawed past the shingles and into the beams, growing fast and hungry down the walls and into the great room below. You hoped their smuggled goods would go up in smoke. You hoped the man who’d taken your hand to seal a deal for a few pounds of fenced sea stone would lose skin, limb, or life.
Damned slave trader.
It had all been too well-rehearsed to be their first attempt, and the cage was old and well-used. It wasn’t a bad plan, practically speaking. None of the Yonkos liked having people from their territories poached, even if they participated in the trade themselves, and sneaking a whole person out of a busy port was no easy task, let alone a profitable number of whole persons. A cage full of sparrows, though? No one would look twice.
If you were bigger, you’d lock the doors so they could all burn together.
But maybe they would anyway. The first shouts didn’t rise until the roof had collapsed, and you imagined a room full of sleeping men slapped awake with fire and falling beams.
The flesh on your feet cracked as you adjusted your grip on the roof’s edge, but you took the pain with pride. You’d done this. They thought they stripped your power from you with your sturdy bones and your opposable thumbs, but they were all wrong. Dead wrong. Fuckers.
The smoke hung low over the town, blending with the dense fog rolling in from the sea. Leaping flames illuminated the haze and cast writhing shadows on the streets below. Just as the neighborhood woke to the smell and distant screams, and the first calls for water and aid rang out, a winged shadow launched through the hole that used to be the warehouse’s roof.
The owl looked more like a demon from your diminished perspective, and you hunkered low on instinct, hoping he wouldn’t see you – the one animal lacking common sense – lingering within blocks of the mounting inferno.
But sharp, predatory eyes locked on you, and he dove with a shriek that promised murder. He could disembowel you in the public square and no one would even know they were witness to your execution. The owl was built to stab, and rip, and tear flimsy little things like you apart.
His wings spread wide, and his talons flashed gold as they came to bear.
You flung yourself from the roof, flapping wildly to catch the air as you fell away from danger. The blades on the monster’s feet scratched into the wood where you’d just been, and your heart stuttered.
He wanted you dead as much as you wanted him to burn.
As the owl gathered himself, peering into the dark for his target, you managed to find your balance in the air. Fluttering low and fast, you took the first corner. Your hunter’s wings were silent, and you only knew how close he came when an unnatural breeze cur over your back.
Too close.
No matter how small and quick you were, so long as he kept you in sight, he was always a breath from drawing blood. He knew his shape, and you did not. Sooner or later, you’d run out of corners, out of obstacles to keep between you.
And then you would die.
As a fucking bird.
Overhead, the fog thickened as you neared the water. The smoke wasn’t so heavy, but plenty of people lost themselves in weather like this. Maybe you could lose an owl.
You pushed into the damp, white cloud, serpentining to keep the owl from diving at you again. A discontented rumble of a hoot broke the silence in your wake, and you raced on, chasing the sound of waves and the densest cover.
As the sun rose, the water vapor glowed, catching and holding the light. You hoped it blinded the predator. At least convince him the chase wasn’t worth it.
But you couldn’t hear him. Couldn’t see him. So, you kept on flying like you were being hunted. Just because you were clever didn’t mean you were the smartest one in the room. You’d learned that lesson the hard way many times over, and it rubbed itself into your fresh wounds all over again with the salty sea spray.
There was always someone quicker, someone sharper, someone stronger. Someone with better connections and greater wealth. And no one had the decency to lay their traps in the open with a warning signs for casual passersby.
Over confidence wouldn’t get you this time. You’d fly forever if meant escaping the Zoan-user.
It felt like you did fly forever.
The sun rose, the fog thinned, and you started circling to look above, below, and behind for the shadow of another, larger bird. Besides a few seagulls, though, nothing appeared. Which was a relief until the fog cleared away and nothing but ocean spread below you.
You nearly fell out of the sky when you realized you couldn’t see land. Not even a lump on the horizon. You’d thought the fog would be gone by midmorning, but you realized the sun was too high and too low at the same time, like it had already crested and started heading down.
You were lost.
Worse, you were tired.
Sparrows weren’t seabirds. They couldn’t soar through empty skies to far-flung islands without many rest points in between.
You had flown far. And you saw no rest points. Not even a rock or a breaching chunk of coral.
Panic drained into a reserve, fueling a mindless fugue state that pulled you away from your growing distress. Your wings burned, but you shouldn’t have them at all. Dangerous thoughts. If felt like you were still carrying fire in your fragile claws, and you shuddered as your legs tucked too close to your body. Wrong feet, wrong legs, wrong body.
You shouldn’t be a bird at all, and you were going to die as one because you picked a fight with many someones much bigger than you without any kind of escape plan or preparation. An idiot in feathers with a small brain and burnt toes.
How much longer could you stay aloft? If not for the strong wind, you thought you might’ve already dropped low enough for the higher waves to catch your wings. And then you’d be doomed. Death by drowning or a hungry shark. Maybe even pecked to death by the gulls loitering in your periphery.
What a way to go.
And then you saw a shape in the distance. Tall and broad. That was all you could make out. It could’ve been a sea king for all you cared, so long as it stayed above the surface and let you rest.
The thing had a whale’s face, but not a whale’s shape. A whale island? No. No, you realized those square clouds were sails. Those holes were for cannons, not little caves in a cliff. Even as a human, you distantly understood, the ship – because it could only be that – was enormous. The whale at the head made sense. Good gods, it might as well be a floating island. Or an island whale.
People milled around the deck, so you fluttered up, calling on the last of your energy and determination to find a safe roost. The top of an empty crow’s nest was just what you needed. You crashed into the platform, rolling into the mast, where you sprawled – legs up – under the crushing weight of survival.
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diejager · 2 years ago
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BEGGING I WAS LEFT ON A CLIFFHANGER FOT THE MONSTER AU 141 😭😭😭😭😭
pretty pretty please 🙏🙏
Only Human pt.2
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Pairing: Monster Task Force 141 + König & Horangi x reader
Cw: canon-typical violence, hate, xenophobia, mention of racism, blood and violence, injury, fighting, protective 141, trauma?, anxiety, tell me if I missed any. wc: 6.3k
Only Human Masterlist
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Previous
You still wonder, to this day, why you were needed on the Task Force. It worked like a well-oiled machine when put to the task, nearly unstoppable in the face of enemies. Although you were prideful to call it your home, you felt lacking compared to them, all much stronger, fiercer, and nimbler than you in every aspect, separated by miles of distance. One thing, however, that you could wield with an iron fist was your human nature and people’s fear of newly implemented hybrids. The public expression from governments about welcoming them into their ranks and their society without staying hidden under the pretence of being sick or behind a veil of secrecy. 
You, after seeing how many Joint Task Forces and other Teams treated the 141, decided to deal with the introductions, the medium, the pacifier, between every team. Humans tended to react differently to another human than to a hybrid, they were nicer, less brutal and honest (a kind that held little spite). Laswell seemed more agreeable to your idea when you first came up to her with it, having seen the hate sent to hybrids she worked with. She encouraged you to be the first to interact or stand beside Price when he greeted human soldiers. Price, unlike Laswell, was reluctant at first. His instinct of protection and possession of his hoard made him less open to such ideas, especially if it brought you some, if any, backlash from other humans (humans are cruel, they shun what they don’t understand, they fear it and push to control it, if not, they destroy it. The need to control every aspect of their life made humans ruthlessly unremorseful and unsympathetic to other causes.).
As a tight-knit TF, some decisions are taken in votes, by hearing what the others thought of the idea or plan and his one was harsh. Ghost was hard-pressed on keeping you between them, the little, fleshy human of their Task Force (the youngest) and to let them deal with xenophobic glares while keeping you protected. Alejandro was similarly worried, but he knew the outcome of letting you speak first or accompany Price. He was torn. The others, Soap, Gaz and Rudy, seemed onboard, with the kind of why the fuck not? kind of look on their faces. Soap especially, he’d be able to stick close to you without having to hover over you like a protective guard dog. 
Seeing the votes in your favour, he let it pass, and no sooner had they needed to meet a second team - human soldiers - for the next deployment. You stood beside Price when he strutted down the walkway, shoulders broad and back straight, an image of a strong and fearless leader with his draconic tail flailing lowly. He, as intended, greeted them first, rank and name before he presented you, his little human helper with humans. They’d taken better to speaking to you, being spoken by one of their own rather than a hybrid. He saluted you more amicably and more sincerely:
“Pleasure meeting you, Hunter.”
“The pleasure’s all mine, Captain.”
Although it wasn't without its setbacks, the operation went well, you had been able to come out mostly unscathed, leaving a few enemies on the brink of death for Ghost to savour. He was most thankful, a part of his body dissolving into the finest mist as they washed over the living bodies sprawled on the ground. You watched on, mesmerised by the uncanny way Ghost’s body absorbed the bodies of others, flooding the area with his shadow while you stayed unbothered, in the same condition as he first started. His darkness reached your neck, covering you in a soft cover of warmth as he ground the bodies to ash and dust. His skin was cold, but his powers were darkly hot, burning with the embers of hell, of a dead soul coming back for revenge and evilness.
Beyond the fact that your idea worked, you liked feeling useful to them, having a semblance of usefulness in a team of extremely competent beings. You felt with first greetings from then on, smiling and saluting to the leading figures of the groups you’d work alongside. It lessened the weight on Price to appease and pacify the new additions, he’d be able to fare better with the operators now that they had a different welcome, a different kind of greeting. It played into the minds of wary men that a human was the one to greet them, that one of theirs was leading the hybrids for them. You played the perfect example of a soldier for any xenophobic bastard. 
Ghost, while still feared, received fewer glares than he usually would, occasional ones from daring or bold soldiers holding a lower rank than him, but he appreciated your attempts at making them more comfortable. He’s used to the negative reactions, had been since his childhood, but you seemed to make him feel like he deserved better, like he shouldn’t be glared, spat and scoffed at.
Soap, Rudy and Alejandro looked like human men in peak condition, if only for Soap and Alejandro’s glowing eyes and heightened strength and agility. Rudy was somewhat human, he looked and acted like one, down to the DNA, but with the title of cadejos vessel came powers. Perhaps not as strongly affecting as the rest of the hybrids, but he had subtle changes in his molecular making. 
Gaz had stares coming left and right, daggers sent his way for having wings and talons he couldn’t will them to disappear, to recess under his skin and wear the appearance of a human man. He felt the heaviest blow by both not being able to cover his gifts and the colour of his skin. Although you wanted to proclaim that your new age came with more open-minded people, you knew that it simply couldn’t fix hundreds of years of standards in a few decades. People would still judge others by the tone and colour of your skin, they’d still hate the different and the strange; just like they hated hybrids. So you kept to his side most often after your introductions, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him close, letting him embrace you with a protective wing and a grateful smile.
You mostly worked hand in hand with human-filled teams and spear-headed human-led operations. So you were shocked, frozen to your core, when you saw a tiger haetae hybrid beside a tall, veiled operator walking down the cargo ramp. The hybrid, a tiger variant from the black-striped, orange tail that flickered slowly in a warning to any approaching beings. Dark glasses and a mask covered his face, his jacket and vest riding to the edge of his jaw, covering any skin from showing, though his lower back was left uncovered for the comfort of his swaying tail. He was neither short nor tall, he was tall enough to be slightly over the average height, but his teammate dwarfed him.
Perhaps his enormous height was an aspect of his monster half, or maybe he had the perfect genes to hold such a frame. He too, like his haetae operator, hid his face under a veil with maroon tears painted under his eyes. Like Ghost, he was covered head to toe in equipment and clothes, a jacket, a vest, gloves and black paint around his eyes. Whoever this was had both height and mass, burly arms and broad shoulders eclipsed by a slim waist and equally, disastrously thick thighs. On their left arm were flags, one from South Korea and the other from Austria.
They were the only ones to walk out, the only ones to approach you. Then your TF only had two new faces to work with rather than a whole team. You were tempted to say it would be easier, you waited until they stopped for Price - Price only - to greet them since they wouldn’t need a human to negate any aggressiveness between human and hybrid - or so you thought. They moved in synchrony, Price stepping forward to cover you with his body, his back facing you as he crossed his arms. Ghost and Alejandro had moved next to the captain, covering your sides. Alejandro had crossed his arm in a similarly menacing way, and Ghost stood still, body rigid but ready to strike at a moment’s notice; both were glaring ahead. Soap and Rudy took their places behind the colonel and the lieutenant, arms glued on their sides, weapons within reach with menacing stares towards the Korean and the Austrian. Gaz’s wings grazed you, soft feathers wrapping themselves around you and pulling you into his chest, acting as a protective cocoon for you. 
“What-?”
They moved so quickly and efficiently that they seemed to suddenly appear in place, back straight and protective. Protective of you. Hybrids, from what you’d heard from couples and families, were possessive of their own, caring and extremely wary of other hybrids they hadn’t formed a bond with. Your TF was your pack, they were all tethered to each other through the familial bond they formed over the years. Then you came in, small and weak with your human self into a den of lions, thrown to be subjugated to their loving mercy and sinfully strong personalities. 
The team of six hybrids encased you, barring the KorTac specialists from seeing you. Monsters and hybrids could sense one another - from what you heard - and they reacted instinctively. You saw their bodies tense as the two approached your team, muscles strained under the compacting anxiety and possessiveness. You could neither see over their shoulders nor feel what was happening, they stopped farther from you than you’d expected and you couldn’t see their feet. 
The only sign you had was your captain’s gravelly voice welcoming them, his tail swaying like a cat’s tail, a slow, cautious motion. It - knowingly or unknowingly, seeing as Price acted on a mix of instincts and worry - wrapped around your ankle, clinging tightly to your boot-clad leg while a rumble rattled his chest. Steam rolled from his lips, billowing over the top of his hat in a show of power and warning. You hoped they wouldn’t take this negatively. They worked hard to curb the harmful rumours of 141 being beasts in human skin, acting like blood-thirsty and ravaging monsters that cared for nothing but themselves. 
Although you couldn’t see them, the Austrian could, his towering height assured that he could see over almost any human, monster and hybrid alike. He was curious about the way they protected one of theirs as if you were weak. He cocked his head, green eyes gleaming red as he stared silently at the small mop of hair between them. What made you so important? What made you such a protected soldier? He couldn’t sense you like he could the others, their scent and magic masking yours in a violent torrent. 
Unlike him, his friend couldn’t be bothered with the show of protection, he’d enrolled for the money and wouldn’t be deterred by much. He was a tiger haetae, honourable to a certain extent and proud. He might be shorter than the hybrids around him, but he was as vicious and talented as the next. He, however, was slightly curious, but he wasn’t paid enough to inquire or worry about the doings of 141’s pack.
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It went as well as anyone would expect for the 141 with the added help of two military, hybrid operators from an elite PMC. As the combat medic of the TF, you followed them from behind and moved to the middle when you entered the building. You’d usually be at the back, being a medic, but you were a combat medic, having seen and participated in complete ops dealing with infiltrations and hostage rescue. You were an integral part of every mission. Now that they had a medic on hand, the wounds the men suffered could be treated in place rather than wait for the long ride home with the possibility of letting infection take root in the gash and watching it fester during hours in the carrier. 
They had a habit of getting shot and slashed, a tad bit reckless in their ways but still effective. The stress of risking infection or the impossibility of reaching a medic after a mission was lessened, Price would still be able to live a few more centuries before his hair turned grey with nerves and his face wrinkled with frowns. You were a treasure beyond the fact that you were extremely helpful and insightful on your own. Your hands were steady and your demeanour calm and collected (albeit fidgety when put under too much pressure and fiery when someone looked at them differently.), you were a beauty, someone they needed to nurse and protect. 
“I warned you about standing so close to the explosion!” They watched you berate Soap, cheeks puffed and lips pulled in an adorable pout. You went on a list of things he could’ve done better and safer than the decision he made, hands pulling the bandage around his arm, your bag set beside you. 
“How was I supposed ta know?” The werewolf grumbled, giving you his best version of his “puppy dog eyes'' while he slouched back, trying to sit as comfortably as possible on the hard seats of the aircraft carrier. 
“You’re a demolition expert, you’re supposed to know, Soap.” You hissed, tightening the wrap and smoothing it over so that it would hold. Your hand dipped into your bag, pulling out a few alcohol wipes for his face. With a jerky motion of your hands, you broke the seal and started patting his bleeding cuts from shrapnel and grazes from bullets. He winces with every dab, fidgeting in his seat while you disinfected his wounds, wiping away the dirt and blood before deeming it clean enough to move to the next one. “You also have a habit of setting things on fire.”
Although you mumbled it so quietly, the others heard you clearly, laughter rumbling out of the others while they watched Soap being scolded by the youngest. You never feared reprimanding them for an idiotic act that would result in having you tending to them, it was something they appreciated, the familiarity and comfort you had with them. They weren’t monsters, hybrids or anything with you, they were your family. 
Seeing you so at ease with them had König and Horangi curious, most would cower or segregate themselves from other hybrids. You especially, seeing as you were the only human with them, they thought it’d be normal to see you shrink onto yourself and ignore the world around you while you waited to return home. Yet here you were, berating a werewolf for cuts and bruises that would heal in the following days, his metabolism prevented infection and permanent scarring unless it was too deep or deadly. They’d simply add to his rugged handsomeness.
König wondered if you’d show him the same amount of compassion and ease when you tended to his wounds - if he ended up having any at all. Would your hands be soft like his mother’s when cradling his arm? Would you whisper soft nothings to him while you cleaned his gashes with antiseptics? Would you also scold him for being reckless? He doubted that. Granted, he was extremely reckless and lost himself to the adrenaline pumping through his system when he entered the field, but he always came out unscathed. As a percht hybrid, his extreme enhancements made him practically numb to pain and sensations, with the small exceptions of a few primarily driven emotions or natural reactions to certain stimuli.
Perhaps, if your efforts were thwarted by his immense height, you’d hold and tend to him as softly as you did with the others, running your fingers through his hair and cradling him against your chest. He thirsted for something mundane, something so human-like that he would be reminded that he wasn’t completely a monster. He missed the softness in people’s gazes or the carefree way they spoke to and with him. He missed being reminded that he - too - was a living being with their rights. You could be the start of a regular life - as regular as a mercenary could have.
Even Horangi, who had vehemently stated to König that he could care less about the small, weak human in the operation, gave you the merit of being strong-willed and confident enough to stand beside them. He, the ever prideful and strong hybrid he was, deemed you competent for a human. Your usefulness started with your quick reactions and impeccable skills in your field and stopped when you couldn’t save someone, which had yet to happen. He was intrigued by the workings of your TF, how they managed to score a single human and an amicable one at that, strong and fierce, yet gentle and compassionate. If he’d grown up with someone like you, would he have turned out the way he did? 
He simply watched from his corner beside König, through tinted glasses his eyes followed your movement, memorising everything you did for your brothers. They felt like imposters in your small, seven-men group, seemingly standing awkwardly in their little corner. 141 had shown a bit of aggression towards them in warning words and deadly glares when they assumed you didn’t see them, hissing out threats to ensure your safety among them. Not only were they confused by the dynamic, but they weren’t told anything besides “Back off” and growls. 
After patting Gaz’s knee, giving him an oscar winning smile with gleaming eyes that were received with enthusiasm, you packed your things in your bag and moved to the next patient. You skipped Price, Ghost and Rudy, crouching in front of Alejandro. Rummaging through your bag and handing him a clean wipe for his dust-covered face, the soot clinging to his cheeks. He expected you to sit by your locked rifle after checking them, but you continued walking. You were heading towards them.
He knew König left the ground unscathed, clean of anything but dirt and blood, which meant he was the one you were heading towards. Hand on your pouch and a steady step backed up by a determined expression, you stopped before him. He tilted his head, a silent question. You blinked dumbly, holding out your hand to him, your small fingers backing him to give you something.
“Can I see your hand?”
His hand? He hadn’t thought much of it as he rested it on yours, palm upwards and gloveless. He saw it then, the small cut that bled red, small enough to be neglectable, but long enough to still be bleeding. He hadn’t felt anything from it before or after boarding the aircraft, he must’ve still been riding the adrenaline rush from the fight. He wondered how you knew he hurt himself.
Your fingers curled around his palm, holding it firmly as you lightly dabbed the inflamed skin with a sterilised tissue, being careful of the flared sides of his torn flesh. Under the blood and dirt, his skin was pale and swollen, the area having demanded his body to react to the potential bacteria that would worm its way into his system. You threw the bloody tissue aside and got an antiseptic wipe, being careful to not irritate his wound. Your care was gentle and patient. To a being like him, a hybrid and KorTac op, gentle and patient were foreign words to him. None were gentle to hybrids and none were patient with mercenaries. 
Even as you wrapped the gauze and bandage around his hand, you gave him all your attention, sweetly cradling his hand between yours and nursing his gash with utmost care. It felt alien, the soothingly soft care of a medic. Other medics would’ve stared at him with disgust or hate if he walked near the infirmary, or they were rough and uncaring towards his needs. 
“Thank you,” he mumbled, the sudden realisation of his silence in the face of a benevolent angel and the rush of embarrassment that flushed his neck hotly. He stared dumbly at his hand when you left, placed on his thigh with the white bandage staring right at him. The warmth of your hand had sunk into his skin, the feather-light tenderness of your fingers painted in his memory and your smile and determined expression stuck to him. 
Even as he let his mind wander and body thirst for another taste of your gentleness, he could feel the burning stares of the other men. König with his curious and envious gaze, wanting to feel the snippet you offered Horangi, wanting your hands and stare at his giant figure. The 141 with their protective and warning glare, resenting him for taking a few minutes of your attention from them. You’d moved on your own, making your decision to help him with his small wounds as you did with them, he hadn’t forced you or compelled you to treat him.
Perhaps there was more than money and experience that was worth in this joint operation. 
When the success of their first mission reached the prying ears of the General, he’d given them a few more joint ops - paid by the United States pockets, of course. Horangi and König were given temporary rooms in the barracks, in the same corner as the other hybrids and you, but far enough to show that they were excluded from them. Fortunately, they wouldn’t share the room, tigers were protective of one’s territory, and a percht hybrid - as rare as it may be - was documented to be hyper-possessive of their things, especially so for someone like König. 
Horangi didn’t ignore you anymore, wanting to start a conversation when he passed you or staring at you from the other side of the room until you waved at him, letting him know he could approach you. He worked relentlessly to close the gap he had made between you, wanting to attach himself to the one good thing he had. Yet he had to be cautious, any indication of him being a threat to you would make your team act out in unison, pushing him back and covering you like they did the second he descended the ramp. 
Ghost would hover over you, his body moving the darkness around him to seem more menacing. Ghost always glared at him when you turned your back to the Brit, his brown eyes swirling with the promise of death and devastation. Ghost wasn’t a physical hybrid, as Horangi had learned, but he had no qualms about keeping a hand on your hip or over your shoulder, acting as an imposing being that showcased his claim on you so publicly. It filled the Korean with envy and anger, he wanted to touch you as easily as the wraith did, he wanted a claim on you like the Lieutenant did, and he wanted to hold you close. 
If not Ghost, it’d be Rudy or Gaz crowding you. If you were in the rec room, Gaz would usually be there with you. His arm thrown over your shoulders, pulling you into his side while his wings curled around you two, dark brown feathers ruffled to look menacing but comfortable to your touch. With the way he sat, slouching and legs spread across the sofa, he took all the available seats on the cheap, brown couch. When Gaz caught sight of him, he’d purposefully moved to take up more space, showing just how much one of the nicest of the 141 ostracised him. Although when someone from his TF, he’d move aside, giving space to the man to join them. 
If you were walking around the base, Rudy - or Rudolfo as Horangi was forced to call him - would be by your side. Rudy had an arm wrapped around yours, seemingly like a military couple out on a casual walk, or he had his hand on your back, acting as the protective lover. Rudolfo’s smile was always wide and adoring when Horangi saw him walk you, exchanging words and making you laugh. It stung Horangi in an inexplicable way as if someone was knowingly sentencing him to death without any proof of his accountability. Rudy, the second nicest guy, also made glaring passes his way, pulling you closer to his side, directing you away and staring coldly at Horangi.
It rubbed him wrong, all the silent glares and insults at him to push him farther from you, but he was Horangi the Tiger haetae. He made his calculations, he was as smart and as resourceful as he was patient. Give it a few more missions together and they would loosen enough to let him swoop you off your feet. You were his source of comfort, of love and gentleness, he had to protect it. 
Unlike Horangi, König actively sought you out on the base, following the trail of your scent and the soft noises of your voice and heartbeat. He was like a dog on your trail, nose sniffing every bit of air for you and ears strained for any noise you’d make. His senses were stretched thin to find a moment with you. He was as animalistic as a hybrid could get, leaning towards his monster to help him with his ops and trials. 
You piqued König’s curiosity, making him wander the halls like a lumbering monster in a dark veil and glaring, red eyes. He saw how you treated big and dangerous monsters like the dragon hybrid you had as a captain, a respectable man, as soft as you treated the rowdy and rough werewolf and gracefully dangerous nagual. König wanted to feel your softness on him, your small hand grasping the tight muscles of his shoulders and back, kneading the tension away with grounding massages and stretches. You were their doctor, you cared enough to join them in the field, so you’d naturally be willing to mass the pain out of his body, no? 
He wanted moments alone, where he could speak his mind without fear of being interrupted or pushed away for his imposing stature and aura. He wanted to place a hand on your waist, to feel the plush roundness of your stomach and the firm contour of muscle on your thighs. He wanted his voice to carry easily in the void of silence, where his voice could be heard by you from a small whisper. He wanted your eyes to focus on him, solely, as if he was your world. 
He found it rather irritatingly difficult to find such moments. When he followed your scent through the halls and down to the medic's office, he’d find Captain Price crowding the room with his powerful musk of Ashe and fire - of metal and iron. Although Price was much shorter and lesser ranked than König was, he held the power of age and wisdom, an unfathomable strength that lay solely in draconic beings. This eternal power that none could rival apart from Eldritch beings, most cower, whimper and hide from dragons. He wore his power and wisdom on his sleeves, a warning for everyone, him and his KorTac operators included. König might’ve been reckless, but he wasn’t a fool, fighting headfirst with dragon seamed chaos and devastation. So, as any hybrid did, he backed away, an old dragon was dangerous, but a crippled one made it even more perilous.
When König tried to find you in the rec room, you were held in the tight embrace of a possessive wolf. Soap had you straddling his lap, facing him as he nuzzled his head into the crook of your neck. He purred and kissed your skin, making you squirm and giggle, but then Soap’s eyes gazed upwards and grew cold and unruly at König’s appearance. A proud - dare he say, cruel - smirk curled the corners of his lips. That was when he realised what the sergeant was doing. Soap, in the open, was scenting you, rubbing his musk over your neck, where - if you were another sifting hybrid like him and Alejandro - would’ve been your scent gland. It was a blatant show of possession. He nipped at your throat, drinking in your yelp and hiss, your back arching and moving to push him from biting too much. It filled him with rage.
If you weren’t with either dragon or werewolf, you were with Alejandro, the Hispanic scenting you as much as Soap did, but he did it with more finesse and subtlety. He would draw your hair back, the gland on his wrist grazing your neck and ears, imprinting you with him. Alejandro would hold your hand, fingers neatly intertwined with yours, his face laying on your shoulder as he spooned you in his lap. He purred and whispered sweet promises that had you nodding and smiling like a child on Christmas. He oosed of pheromones, filling the area with his scent and in turn, covering you completely in him. König watched with envy as Alejandro read to you, cradled between his thighs and falling asleep, his, Soap and everyone else’s musk laying a possession over you. 
König’s a determined person when he put his mind to it, willing his beaten and bloodied self back to camp, or his sleep-deprived and insomniac-ridden mind to concentrate on the enemy. He was a battering ram, he pushed forward forcefully, however hard he had to, all to reach the end goal. This time, it wouldn’t be the head of his target, or the capture of an asset, this time, it would be you.
They both wondered, with how close your TF was, what was the dynamic. Was it a pack that shared the same lover? Was it a pack that had formed such a close connection to a human that you were deemed an integral part of the pack? Or were you the child they watched over and protected?
The next few missions 141 and the two from KorTac went on were as successful as the first, the cooperation of two ruthless mercenaries and a hybrid, specialist group made these tasks easy, near child’s play for them. Along with the aspect of having a medic on hand, it let them run wild, play along the edge and act more recklessly than they normally would. Having Horangi and König for so long, made them become a standard in the base, seeing them walk among the shorter and weaker humans. That also meant they had seen their fair share of xenophobic soldiers with balls bigger than a dragon’s and an ego the size of an Eldritch creature. 
Every hybrid and monster was used to their hateful glares and sneering venom-dripping words. Ignoring them had become easier after the first year of enrolment. Horangi and König were, however, not used to someone defending them with their most honest heart of gold with earth-shattering words. 
The first time they’d seen you defend your team was right after a mission, haunches, lumbering bodies descending the carrier’s ramp with their bags slung over their shoulders and addled with fatigue after a week of deployment. Young, power-hungry sergeants who’d let their ranks get to their heads had slid before them, head held high and shoulders held wide. Every single one of them knew that the moment the sergeant’s mouth opened, nothing good would come out of it. Perhaps degrading insults or back-handed sneers.
When the first sentence slipped from the man’s tongue, you pushed your way between them, barrelling into the man who’d insulted them. A deep frown was etched into your lips, brows creased so darkly into you that it cast a dark shroud of anger over your face. If König hadn’t known that you were a human, he would’ve thought that you were a being of darkness. 
“You dim-witted bastards-!” Was the first word you let out, your usually soft-spoken self with gentle hands spewed acid at them, threatening to burn their skin. 
Dim-witted, indeed. Old, conservative assholes who thought they were better than the rest with their pro-human propaganda and xenophobic acts against hybrids. Horangi had expected you to continue your scolding, wringing the sergeant dry with your words, not your hands. You used your hands, fingers curled inward, thumb over the curves of your bones and decked the man. It shocked them both, you were smaller, shorter, human and seemed weaker than the men, yet here you were, sending him toppling on the floor, his friend gaping and pouncing on you. Only to be met with your foot to his crotch. 
“You bet your ass you won’t get any medical attention after this,” you hissed.
Although your words sounded improbable since you weren’t the only medic on base, you had built a connection through the system, every medic knew you and heeded your words. If one didn’t want a man healed, you and the rest wouldn’t help him. If you wanted a man to suffer, the rest would watch on with you. Medics were themselves, a tight-knit couple that helped one another. So your words were more than a threat, it was a promise. 
“Until I see your sorry asses on your deathbed or grovelling, none of us will lift a finger for you. Bleed and beg all you want, but you aren’t getting help.”
You acted with an iron hand, sending the rest to the ground, moaning and groaning, cradling whatever part of their body you’d hit. They wondered why Ghost hadn’t moved, and neither did Gaz or Rudy, the most protective ones. When König glanced down at Ghost, he saw pride in his eyes, dark curled on sadistic pleasure swirling in his brown eyes. When Horangi gazed at Gaz and Rudy, he saw simple amusement, their mouths threatening to curl in a smirk.
All of them had known you’d act this way, erratic and violent rather than calmly scold them and stomp over their ego. You were strong-headed and blunt to them, making them bow to you, like lesser men to a lady, a queen, a goddess. 
Horangi had experienced his own protection from you. After the men had loosened enough to trust him and König, he could walk beside you and hold a simple banter, albeit awkward at the start. You were much more violent this time, reaching for the downed man while hissing and screeching after you sent him to the floor with well-aimed kicks. You were like a gremlin, small and lively. He understood your anger, they’d called him racist things, calling out his Asian roots and hybrid characteristics. 
Horangi had to hold you from going off on him following your promise of neglecting his medical needs. It worked, though. The first group had searched to plead, to apologise and beg for medical attention. You’d sent them away with a small note lifting the ban for medical help. You were as ruthless with people as they were to enemies. 
Any other encounters with hot-headed men and women that glanced at them weirdly were met with a varying amount of anger and disgust from you. Horangi understood why 141 held you so carefully, so tightly in their hold. Why they worshipped you like a priest would do with his goddess. It was a sense of camaraderie that had evolved into love, affection dripping from their pores. 
König received a bit more attention for his size, the threatening nature of his ouster coupled with his brute figure, made him a subject of fear and rejection. That hadn’t stopped you from wanting to approach him, had it? Going as far as calling him cute when he stuttered while broaching the subject of him liking certain things. For a burly man with the height of a giant, he was nice to sit next to, his quiet but anxious stature when he wasn’t deployed made it easy to talk to. He might sometimes let his instincts drive him, but they were all well-meaning, wanting nothing but goodness for you. 
His turn came in quick succession, he was shunned and ridiculed left and right. It never helped that he would shy from others, preferring his little corner that made the room look stranger and claustrophobic (not that he let them walk all over him, he growled and glared, standing tall with the promise of lashing out or eating them. Even when humans feared König, they still attempted to rile his anger.). But with you, he wasn’t by his lonesome, he had someone to rattle on about the things he liked to do, or the things he wanted to do. His shoulders were relaxed and mind calm, free to speak his mind about the goriest and the sweetest dreams he had, his speech unperturbed by his anxiety. 
Unlike the others, König stood before you as an impenetrable wall of muscle and fat when you raised your hand at an insignificant pig. Why would he let someone so disgusting touch you (even though it was to hit and kick the man, he would do it for you instead)? He guarded you as if they were insulting you rather than him - though it was the reverse - and glared down at anyone with dreadfully scary eyes. Like the devil that had risen, he sent them running with their tails tucked between their legs. Although he was the one that had gotten rid of them, he was always so proud of you, holding you close to him and gushing about your brave and inspiring actions. 
He saw how the men in 141 looked at you, he wanted to be a part of it, to be able to freely nuzzle your face and hold you like Soap would, to cradle you in his arms and carry you around the base. König wanted a piece of your heart, to be able to show the world he held it in his hands, caring for it between his big, calloused fingers and soft affection. He might be dangerous, he might be deadly, he might be reckless, but if you let him, you would be his world like you were to the others (Horangi would agree, they spoke about it on their own.).
Next
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vegan-peppermint · 5 months ago
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In which Toby is kidnapping the reader.
Toby never wanted to hurt you. He's just young and stupid, too eager to prove to those creatures lurking in the shadows that he is cut from the same cloth as them.
It's been no more than two years since the fire swallowed his life whole, since the faceless figure first started treading on the edges of his mind. Every day spent in that eerie house, under the watchful eyes of his so-called "mentors," pushed him further from the boy he used to be. Tim's unbearable presence didn’t help—Toby had even toyed with the idea of doubling down on his pyromaniac tendencies.
Then The Operator spoke his name—his name alone. It wasn’t just a command in Toby's mind, more like a one-way ticket out of being a second-class proxy, lesser than the other two. This was his first solo mission, a validation of all the time and effort he'd poured into this twisted world. A reward.
You.
He at least had the courtesy to stalk you first. He tracked your habbits down, watching your work from across the street or joining you on your bus ride home on particularly uneventful evenings. He has been creeping closer, gliding from shadow to light and back into the dark- just like Hoodie had thought him.
Toby never wanted to scare you, that's why the first thing he did after parking the car in front you your house was going to the convenience store down the street. He'd seen you buy this particular brand of chocolate many times before. He hoped once he handed it to you it would bring an once of comfort amidst the circumstances.
The fact your hands are tied behind your back and your mouth stuffed didn't cross his mind then.
You were nothing like the others, he observed. You didn't scream or cry- hell, didn't even bite. He wanted to be grateful for such an easy capture, but -for fucks sake- you stared. Stared with gloomy, empty eyes past him into some far-off, unreadable place. Shaking his head in frustration, he muttered to himself dissaponted he ended up with the creepy chick, before slamming the the trunk door down, leaving you blind in the cramped space.
The drive to the mansion was uneventul for Toby, giving him plenty of time to let his mind wander. He hadn’t asked why you were wanted or what his boss planned for you—it didn’t matter to him then. But he couldn't help notice how you were rather easy on the eye. Maybe it was the isolation, the pent-up frustration and loneliness but a thought crossed his mind; what harm could it do if Slender let him borrow you for a little while? He chuckled darkly at his own thoughts, already imagining your surprise when, after a few days surviving on scraps in the manor’s cellar, he'd hand over the chocolate he’d picked up. You’d probably think he was your savior, fall right to his feet.
And if you would still be devoid of any reaction, he'd fuck your face into a pretty nice expression.
The old Mazda pulled into the driveway, its engine puffing and huffing, similar the old man Toby had swiped it from. Tim and Brian were already outside, blowing smoke and ash into the brittle winter air, their jackets hanging loose against the chill. The car's strained chug faltered as it rolled to a stop, steam curling from under the hood. Without waiting for Toby to fully park, Tim burried his cigarette into the frozen ground with the heel of his boot, his sharp gaze fixed on the boy as if he didnt expect him to ever return. Brian exhaled a plume of smoke, letting it drift lazily into the night.
"Back already, Tics?" Tim snarled, looking back to his friend. "What you say, Brian- think he's got her?"
The hooded man didnt respond but stepped closer with hesitation.
"Obviously I g-got her, got her," he smirked proudly getting out the driver's seat. "Hardly a challenge, really" he added, tilting his head back so high he might've been mistaken for a certain snouted animal.
"I gotta admit, that's a pretty impressive first job," Tim said, clapping Toby on the back as they approached the trunk. Brian hummed in agreement but kept a few cautious steps behind.
"What d-does Slender even want-t with some goth bitch?" Toby asked, gripping the key with newfound confidence and turning it smoothly in the rusty trunk lock. The red, corroded door creaked open with a deafening shriek, the sound swallowed immediately by an even louder silence.
So heavy was the quiet, Brian was certain he heard Tim's grin vanish, and he Toby's posture shrink. The trunk was empty.
A collared dove cooed mockingly as it flapped past their heads.
"A witch, Toby," Tim finally exhaled. "She's a witch."
"Yep, a witch, thats exactly what I was gonna say..."
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midnight-shadow-cafe · 5 months ago
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Masterlist 2
Key:
Fluff ☕️
Spice 🍵
Angst 🫖
Smut ✨
Requests: OPEN
Note: I do write for a lot of people, if you request something I will try to fulfill it! I'll also update this as I go, but please enjoy my work! 💜✨ dividers by @/saradika-graphics
Masterlist 1
Masterlist 3
MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+MDNI18+
Call of Duty
John “Bravo-6” Price
Underneath it All ☕️
The Captain’s Omega ☕️
Home Sweet Home ☕️
Steady As You ☕️
The Calm In Their Storm ☕️
Big Enough ☕️
A Kettle on the Stove and a Hand on Your Belly ☕️
The Softest Mission ☕️
Kyle “Gaz” Garrick
"You’ve Got This, Love" ☕️🫖
Through His Eyes ☕️
Lazy Mornings with You ☕️
Just As You Are ☕️🫖
Where You Go, I Go ☕️🫖
Not Yours To Push ☕️🫖
Lazy Mornings and Love ☕️
Watch Over You ☕️🫖
Coming Home ☕️🫖
Nowhere to Run ☕️🫖
Nowhere to Run Part 2 ☕️🫖
A Perfectly Imperfect Love Story ☕️
Just Knock ☕️
Sparks to Garrick ☕️
Orders from the Heart ☕️
Johnny “Soap” Mactavish
Snowed In ☕️
Between Loyalty and Love ☕️🫖✨🍵
Sunlit Mornings ☕️
Bound by Instinct ☕️🫖
Bound by Love ☕️
The Regulars Should Have Known ☕️
Deadly Devotion ☕️🫖
Soft Spot ☕️🫖
Dead Stare, Loud Mouth ☕️
Didn’t Know, Never Forgot ☕️
Simon “Ghost” Riley
Whiskers and Kittens ☕️
A Cut Above ☕️
Carved into my Heart ☕️
Between Loyalty and Love ☕️🫖✨🍵
Bound by Instinct ☕️🫖
Always Asleep ☕️
Bound by Love ☕️
Deadly Devotion ☕️🫖
Special Delivery ☕️
“I’m So Proud Of You” ☕️🫖
First Date ☕️
The Threads to Something More ☕️
Safe With You, Always 🫖☕️
Far, Far Away ☕️
The Calm In Their Storm ☕️
Soft Spots ☕️
Soft Spots Part 2 ☕️
Forever and always ☕️✨🍵
Spoiled Rotten ☕️
Unexpected ☕️
Little Shadow ☕️
His Whole World ☕️✨🍵
You Said You’d Handcuff Me ☕️✨🍵
Boys On Their Worst Behavior ☕️
The Best Surprise ☕️🫖
Miles Between, Heartbeats Close ☕️✨🫖🍵
What Time Is It? ☕️
Seashells & Sparks ☕️
Right Here, Always ☕️🫖
Tell Me Without Saying It ☕️
The Boys
Parenthood Prep with the 141 ☕️
First Time Meetings ☕️
The Phantom of the 141 ☕️🫖
An Angel ☕️🫖
An Angel Part 2 ☕️🫖
The Phantom of the 141- Chosen by Love 🫖☕️
A Game Night to Remember ☕️
141 Movie Night of TERROR 🫖
Wherever I’m With You 🫖☕️
Night Owl ☕️
Arguments to I Love You’s ☕️🫖
Stolen Clothes, Stolen Hearts ☕️
The Coziest Night of Them All ☕️
Ocean’s Embrace ☕️
Operation: Prank Wars ☕️
Small but Mighty ☕️🫖
The Great Task Force 141 Hide-and-Seek Champion ☕️
Anxious No More ☕️🫖
Rolling for Romance ☕️
Achoo! ☕️
At Their Mercy ☕️🫖
When It Builds Up ☕️🫖
You Work For Me ☕️
Baby’s Bottle Brigade ☕️
Blue Shells and Pillow Fights ☕️
Dream Girl ☕️
König
About Damn Time! ☕️
Hold My Hand or I Will Fall (On Purpose) ☕️
Loud and Clear, Always Yours ☕️
Gary “Roach” Sanderson
Like It’s Nothing ☕️
The Walking Dead
Daryl Dixon
Safe Haven ☕️
Through the Ashes ☕️
A Firecracker’s Fury ☕️🫖
Never Been Safer ☕️
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probablyasocialecologist · 2 years ago
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We search for God on this land. Theologically, philosophically, we ask: Where is God when we suffer? How do we explain his silence? But away from philosophy and existential questions. In this land, even God is a victim of oppression, death, the war machine, and colonialism. We see the Son of God on this land crying out the same question on the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why do you let me be tortured? Crucified? God suffers with the people of this land, sharing the same fate with us. As Mitri Al-Raheb wrote in his article “Theology in the Palestinian Context,” which appeared in an Arabic book I edited: “As for the God of this land, he is not like all the gods... His land is plowed with iron... His temples are destroyed by fire ... His people are trampled underfoot, and He does not move a muscle. The God of this earth is hidden from view. You search for His traces but do not see them. You long for Him to split the heavens and come down to see. To listen, to be compassionate, to be saved. The God of this land does not repel brutal armies, but rather shares one fate with his people. His house is demolished. His son is crucified. But his mystery does not perish. Rather, he rises from the ashes, and with the refugees you see him. He walks, and in the dark of the night he raises springs of hope. Without this God, Palestine remains a scorched land ... it remains a field of destruction. But if God tramples its foundations, he will only make it a holy land, a land in whose hills the good news of peace resounds.” Beloved, in these difficult times let us comfort ourselves with God’s presence amid pain, and even amid death, for Jesus is no stranger to pain, arrest, torture, and death. He walks with us in our pain. God is under the rubble in Gaza. He is with the frightened and the refugees. He is in the operating room. This is our consolation. He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death.
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sevi007 · 10 months ago
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"Who you were meant to be..."
Twitter | Instagram
Tales of the Abyss fanart - done! Some insights on the symbolism and a closeup under the cut:
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I put a lot of thought into the whole "Scion of Lorelei" prophecy while I was playing the game. If I remember correctly, the prophecy was not public knowledge but only a select few higher ups knew the entire content of it. Still I couldn't help but wonder - what if there was a kind of hero worship for the Scion of Lorelei? He was prophesized to bring glory to Kimlasca, so at least THEY would have loved him. What if there were statues or like here, paintings of the hero that would be coming? What if Asch, who feels like he is no longer that hero, is reminded over and over again by this of all that he no longer is? Hence, this picture
If you look closely you will see that the sword (of Lorelei) is aiming straight at Asch below the picture. I was going for a sort of "Sword of Damocles" feel here, the destiny hanging over his head, and how if he would have followed the prophecy, he would have died
Also, Asch is shown standing in shadow and "lower" than the hero, because that's how he feels like - he no longer is the hero, he is the burnt out ashes of one, operating in the shadow now.
I tried to aim for an outfit that is somewhere in between Luke, Asch, and Mister End, and is still not one of them entirely. The hero depicted here is not one of those three men. He is all of them, and neither. Also, I wanted to go for the Kimlascan colors on his outfit - since he is prophesized to bring good for Kimlasca specifically - but I couldn't rememember if they have a specific flag or anything. I went for violet / purple on the shoulder pads, because that's the color the Kimlascan king wears
There is a small ring of colors beneath the "sun", three colors on each side and an empty one in the middle. This is supposed to represent the seven Fonons and their element: Shadow, Earth and Wind on the left, Water, Fire and Light on the right. The middle is empty, since the Seventh Fonon is not attached to an element and has no color.
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xoln04f1xo · 1 month ago
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An alternate F1 world where vampires secretly rule the grid. Some humans work for the teams, unaware of the true nature of their employers... until you arrive.
Pairings: Vampire!Lando x Human!Reader
Warnings: none!
WC: 0.8k
Divider Credit: @bleedingspiral
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The motorsport world is filled with adrenaline, speed, and spectacle - but no one tells you what hides beneath the surface. Not until you’re already knee-deep in it.
You arrived in Bahrain just after midnight. The desert air was dry, the breeze unusually cool against your skin as you stepped off the plane, dragging your suitcase behind you. You were exhausted from the 12 hour flight, but nerves kept you sharp. It was your first real job - communications assistant with McLaren Racing, a role you'd barely dared to dream of landing. Your interview had been swift, almost too easy, and the onboarding process oddly efficient. There were whispers online that F1 teams operated like secret societies. You were about to find out just how true that was.
You reached the paddock the next morning, half an hour before sunrise. Everything was still - too still. Mechanics moved with silent precision, voices hushed in a way that felt rehearsed. The hospitality suite gleamed in the pre-dawn dark, it's glass reflecting soft golden light, but the inside was cold. Not temperature-wise but something else. Something deeper. The kind of cold that came from empty rooms and too much silence.
A woman in a McLaren polo met you at the door, clipboard in hand.
“You’re early,” she said, voice clipped. “That’s good. You’ll learn that things… move differently around here.”
You nodded, unsure of what she meant. She didn’t introduce herself. Just led you inside and began rattling off a list of duties and expectations: press management, social media scheduling, handling Lando’s more… eccentric requests. You barely registered the names. It was all too much.
Then, you met him.
Lando Norris.
You'd seen the photos online, bright smile, boyish charm, a cheeky energy in every interview. But the man who stepped into the suite was... not that.
He was dressed in black, not the usual papaya orange, and he moved like smoke. Effortless. Silent. Controlled. His eyes found yours almost immediately.
He didn’t smile.
“You’re the new comms girl,” he said simply. His accent was softer in person, but his words carried a strange weight. He stepped closer, too close, and you felt your heart stutter.
His eyes were strange, too bright. A pale green laced with gold. They gleamed in the low light, and when you blinked, they seemed to glow.
"Yes," you said, trying to hide your nerves, "I'm..."
"I know who you are," he looked you over slowly, and not in the usual celebrity-sizes-up-the-staff kind of way. His gaze lingered at your throat.
It was then that he smiled, faint, just the barest curve of his lips. "Try not to get eaten alive."
You didn't respond, mostly because your brain short-circuited. He walked past you, and the cold he brought with him seemed to cling to the room.
The rest of the day passed in a blur. You met the team, were shown the media pen, given a lanyard and badge that said "All Access." But no where felt safe. People kept their voices down. Everyone avoided the shadows, especially the garages.
You caught a glimpse of Charles Leclerc during the press briefing. He was laughing with Max Verstappen, but when he turned towards you, the laughter died. His smile became something sharp, something hungry. You looked away quickly.
Later, when you were alone in the hospitality, reviewing your notes, when the lights flickered. A low hum filled the air - not mechanical, not quite electric. You froze.
Then he appeared.
Charles stepped out from the darkness, hands in his pockets, head tilted.
“There are rules here,” he said. His voice was like silk and ash, soft but laced with something deadly. “If you want to survive, you’ll need to learn them.”
You stood, your notebook clutched in your hand like a shield. "Excuse me?"
He was in front of you before you could blink.
Too fast. Inhuman. His fingers brushed a strand of hair from your face. Cold. Icy cold.
“You smell like sunlight,” he murmured, nose nearly grazing your cheek. “They’ll notice.”
You jerked back, stumbling. But Charles just smiled.
“You don’t belong here,” he said simply. “But perhaps that’s what makes you interesting.”
You didn’t sleep that night. Every creak in the hotel room, every whisper of wind against the window made your skin crawl.
The next morning, the drivers gathered for a team shoot. You watched them - Lando, Charles, Max, Lewis, and the rest - moving like predators in expensive race suits. Their movements were too smooth, too synchronized. You began to notice things. Lando never ate. Carlos Sainz wore gloves even in the heat. Esteban Ocon never blinked.
And none of them were ever out in the full sun.
Your breath caught when you realized you were the only one who ever flinched at the light.
Later, while uploading footage, you caught Lando staring at you from the garage. His eyes met yours through the tinted glass. You couldn’t look away. There was something in his expression - not menace, but hunger. Curiosity.
Possession.
You pressed your hand to your throat. It still felt warm. Still… untouched.
For now.
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sml8180 · 10 months ago
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Me, giving Reginald a watch that more than likely contributed to the death of somebody in the process of its manufacturing?
More likely than you think.
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magic-shop-stories · 4 months ago
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mafia au where they react to reader getting hurt ? (my tumblr has been messing up so i apologize if it was sent twice)
💌 Reply:
Hey there, THANK YOU for your request, I loved the idea - tho it's my first time writing mafia AU in any fandom. I hope this is what you wanted and is to your liking. And don't worry! It's kinda funny, bc I got an almsot similar mafia request the same day, however I think it wasn't you xD I hope you have fun reading 💜
BTS MAFIA AU! HEADCANONS
~ CONTENT WARNING~
dark themes = violence, psychological manipulation, (intense) power dynamics
(mafia-style vengeance), possessiveness, strategic brutality, protective obsession
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NAMJOON
cold rage
strategic vengeance
quiet devotion
IMMEDIATE REACTION
Silent Storm
freezes mid-sentence when he sees your injury
cigar in his hand crumbling to ash
voice drops to a whisper, glacial and lethal
“Who. Was. It.” 
not a question = a death warrant
secretly blames himself for your loyalty
Controlled Chaos
calm before a calculated storm
orders his men to lock down the district
every exit, every alley, every shadow belongs to him now
“Bring them to me alive. I want to teach them manners.”
ACTION
Interrogation as Art
drags the culprits to his underground vault
no screams, no theatrics = just logic
 “You harmed what’s mine. Let’s discuss… consequences.” 
uses their own secrets against them
psychological annihilation
breaking their will with psychological precision
leaves them begging for death
Strategic Retribution
ruins lives with paperwork (not bullets = for you he makes an exception)
burns their operations to the ground
not before rerouting their funds to your account
texts you a screenshot: 
“For your trouble.”
Your Security Overhaul
replaces your guards with his most ruthless enforcers
assigns you a 24/7 shadow
“You’re not leaving this penthouse until I redesign the world.”
AFTERMATH
Caretaker
tends to your wound himself
hands steady but jaw clenched
“This shouldn’t have happened. I miscalculated.” 
guilt is a silent third person in the room
Philosophy & Promises
reads Marcus Aurelius aloud while disinfecting your stitches
“‘The best revenge is to be unlike your enemy.’ But tonight… I’ll make an exception.”
Sleep-Watch
sits vigil by your bed, laptop open to surveillance feeds
murders a rival via encrypted email while brushing hair from your forehead
DIALOGUE
“You are my equilibrium. Disturb you, and I dismantle the universe.”
to a trembling underling:
“If she dies, you’ll wish I’d only killed you.”
whispered against your temple:
“Forgive me. I’ll burn heaven itself to keep you safe.”
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JIN
charm
cunning
vengeance served with a smile
IMMEDIATE REACTION
Masked Fury
laughs, sharp and cold
inspects your wound
“Yah, who dared scratch my masterpiece?” 
his grin doesn’t reach his eyes
his eyes are glacial, calculating
Deadly Composure
lpours himself a drink
exhaling slowly
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ll make sure they regret their life choices.”
ACTION
Theatrical Retribution
invites the culprits to a “truce dinner” at his penthouse
serves champagne laced with arsenic
toasting: “To poor decisions!” (they collapse)
Psychological Warfare
leaks their secrets to their families
ruining their reputations
sends you a bouquet with a note: 
“Roses are red, revenge is sweeter. Sleep well.”
Overprotective Protocol
assigns his most loyal hitman as your shadow
“His name’s Kimchi. He’s great at gardening.” 
Kimchi’s specialty is burying bodies
AFTERMATH
Mother Hen Mode
force-feeds you homemade jjajangmyeon
fussing over your bandages
“Eat. You’ll need energy to watch me ruin more people.”
Guilt in Disguise
jokes about your “clumsiness”
but stays up all night reviewing security footage
“Next time, I’m wrapping you in bubble wrap. Worldwide Handsome brand.”
Secret Softness
leaves a custom first-aid kit by your bed
filled with painkillers, chocolate, and a tiny knife
“For emergencies. Or snacks.”
DIALOGUE
“You hurt my favorite toy. Now I’ll play with you.”
to you, while stitching your wound: 
“If you die, I’ll kill you myself. Understood?”
whispered against your ear: 
“Next time, let me do the stabbing. I’m prettier when I’m covered in blood.”
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YOONGI
silent rage
calculated cruelty
love that bleeds in the shadows
IMMEDIATE REACTION
Dead Calm
freezes when he sees your injury
eyes narrowing to slits
his voice is a whisper, colder than a winter grave
“Who. Touched. You.” 
the room chills; even his men step back
Assessment
runs a gloved thumb over your wound
analyzing it like a broken track
“Shallow. Clean. They wanted you alive to scare me.” 
his smile is venomous
“Mistake.”
ACTION
Methodical Vengeance
Intel First
hacks into city cameras, traffic cams, even smartwatches to trace every step of your attackers
finds them in 47 minutes
The Studio
drags them to his soundproofed studio
outfitted with chains, scalpels
a vintage record player blaring Schubert’s "Death and the Maiden."
Interrogation
uses a soldering iron to brand their skin with musical notes
“This is fortissimo. Let’s see how loud you scream.”
Finale
records their confession
edits it into a symphony of screams
sends it to their boss
texts you: “Track 8. Your lullaby.”
Strategic Annihilation
burns their drug shipments
poisons their cash flow
leaks their ledgers to the feds
leaves their leader’s severed hands in a piano bench with a note: 
“Play your swan song.”
AFTERMATH
Surgeon
stitches your wound himself
hands steady but jaw ticking
“Don’t move. I’m not a fucking nurse.”
Guilt in Silence
sits in the dark
cleaning his gun
when you find him, he rasps: 
“Should’ve been me. Not you. Never you.”
New Rules
implants a GPS tracker in all your clothes 
“Try to remove it, and I’ll cuff you to my bed. Permanently.”
HIDDEN SOFTNESS
Midnight Watch
sleeps on the floor beside your bed
back against the door
wakes at every sound, gun in hand
Gifts of War
leaves a diamond necklace on your pillow
stolen from the rival boss’s vault
“Wear it. Reminds them who you belong to.”
Secret Ritual
plays Clair de Lune on the piano
fingers trembling
“You’re my only quiet. Don’t take that from me.”
DIALOGUE
to the traitors: 
“You don’t get to die until I’m bored.”
to you, bandaging you:
“Hurting you is like cutting my own veins. I’ll bleed the world dry before I let it happen again.”
whispered in the dark:
“You’re my fucking heartbeat. If they stop you, I stop everything.”
BONUS Youngi as the consigliere who writes symphonies of violence? Chef’s kiss. He’d 100% use a metronome during torture
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J-HOPE
radiant rage
choreographed/well planned vengeance
a smile that hides daggers
IMMEDIATE REACTION
Smiling Fury
his grin doesn’t falter when he sees your injury
it sharpens
eyes glinting like polished steel
he tilts his head
“Who made you bleed, baby? Let’s dance.” 
his voice is sing-song, but the room tenses
even the air feels charged
Controlled Chaos
claps twice, summoning his men
“Lock the exits. We’re throwing a party.” 
the word “party” drips with menace
ACTION
Theatrical Retribution
Stage Setup
lures the attackers to an abandoned theater
rigged with spotlights and explosives
Performance
forces them to fight each other in a grotesque “dance battle” at gunpoint
“You wanted attention? Spotlight’s on you!”
Finale
drops a chandelier on the last survivor
humming “Blood Sweat & Tears” as it crashes.
texts you a video with the caption: “Encore?”
Strategic Flair
floods their warehouses with neon paint (his signature color)
ruining millions in product
“Now their drugs match their personalities, toxic and tacky.”
leaves their leader’s severed tongue in a glitter-filled envelope
“For lying to me.”
AFTERMATH
Overprotective Mode
assigns you a 24/7 guard detail dressed as backup dancers
“If they can’t pirouette and shoot, what’s the point?”
installs panic buttons in your jewelry
“Press it, and I’ll waltz in. Literally.”
Guilt Masked as Energy
drowns his worry in hyperactive planning
rearranges your safehouse into a pastel fortress
“New decor! Bulletproof doors. And they’re blush pink!”
Secret Softness
plays “Chicken Noodle Soup” on loop while disinfecting your wound
“It’s… calming. Shut up.”
HIDDEN DEPTHS
Dancefloor Trauma
reveals he once used his dance crew as a hit squad
“We pirouetted past security. Knives in our socks.”
Flashback Triggers
finds you practicing a old choreography he taught you
freezes, then snaps: 
“Never do that again.” 
later admits: 
“That routine… it’s how I lost my first love.”
DIALOGUE
to the attackers: 
“You messed with my rhythm. Now I’ll break your beat.”
to you, tightening your bandages: 
“You’re my only melody. I’ll silence anyone who tries to scratch the record.”
whispered in your ear, voice breaking: 
“If you die, I’ll forget how to smile. Don’t take that from me.”
BONUS
He’d 10000% coordinate his bullets to match his outfit!!!
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JIMIN
deadly ballet of cruelty and devotion,
love and vengeance = pirouette in perfect harmony
IMMEDIATE REACTION
Tears and Tremors
freezes when he sees your wound
eyes pooling with tears
“Who did this to you?” 
his voice cracks
trembling hands hovering over your injury
then, like a switch flipped, his tears dry
his gaze turns arctic
“Never mind. I’ll ask them myself.”
Silent Fury
walks to the nearest mirror
adjusts his blood-splattered collar
smiles, a hollow, chilling grin
“Time to dance, boys.”
ACTION
Seduction
Lure
sends the attackers a bottle of champagne with a note: 
“Let’s talk.”
signs it with a lipstick kiss
Performance
greets them in a silk robe
swaying to jazz
“You hurt my heart. Let’s… discuss.” 
offers them drugged wine
Revelation
as they slump, he strips to a tailored suit underneath
“Surprise... You just kissed death.”
Punishment
Elegant Brutality
uses ballet ribbons to bind them to a grand piano
plays Swan Lake while slicing their tendons in rhythm
“This is plié. This is relevé. This is agony.”
Artistic Finale
carves a heart into their leader’s chest
fills it with rose thorns
“Love hurts, right?” 
texts you a photo: 
“Made you art”
AFTERMATH
Possessive Care
bathes you himself
scrubbing blood from your skin
“Mine. Only mine.” 
his grip bruises
his kisses are feather-light
Guilt-Driven Obsession
rearranges your entire schedule
"No more outings. No more risks. You’re my treasure, locked away forever.”
Night Terrors
wakes screaming
clawing at invisible threats
pulls you into his arms, sobbing
“I’ll kill the world. I’ll kill myself. Just… stay alive.”
HIDDEN SOFTNESS
Secret Sanctuary
builds a hidden garden for you
filled with white roses
“No blood here. Just us.”
murders a henchman for stepping on a petal
Guilty Gifts
leaves a diamond choker on your pillow
stolen from a rival
“Wear it. It matches your new scars.”
Fragile Confession
dances with you in the moonlight
lips brushing your ear
“If I lose you, I’ll forget how to be human.”
DIALOGUE
to the traitors: 
“You thought I was pretty? How cute. Pretty things bite.”
to you, bandaging your wound: 
“I’ll carve my apology into their bones. Is that enough?”
whispered in the dark, voice breaking: 
“I’m a monster. But you… you’re my holy ground.”
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TAEHYUNG
charismatic chaos
psychological warfare
love that thrives in the unexpected
IMMEDIATE REACTION
Eerie Calm
tilts his head
studying your wound like a curious child
“Hmm. This is new.” 
his voice is honey-sweet
his eyes darken, pupils dilating
“Did they enjoy hurting you? I’ll ask them… slowly.”
Chilling Charm
grins, adjusting his suit sleeves
“Don’t worry, jagiya. I’ll make their death fascinating.”
ACTION
Masquerade
Infiltration
disguises himself as a medic to enter the rival gang’s hideout
flirts with their leader’s sister
slipping her a poisoned rose
“For your beauty..." 
she collapses mid-laugh
Mind Games
forces the attackers to play Russian roulette
but every chamber is loaded
“Life’s a gamble! Let’s see if you’re lucky.”
records their screams and loops them as their ringtone
Grand Finale
locks the survivors in a room with a “gift”
a bomb disguised as a vintage wine crate
texts them: 
“Pop the cork! 🍾”
Strategic Cruelty
replaces their drugs with crushed glass
“Customers love extra crunch.”
sends their families personalized condolence letter
before the victims die
“I’m thoughtful like that.”
AFTERMATH
Possessive Obsession
moves you into his penthouse
walls lined with surveillance screens
“Now I can watch you and the sunset. Romantic, right?”
Guilt-Fueled Whimsy
buys a zoo’s worth of exotic pets “to cheer you up.”
lets a panther sleep at the foot of your bed (not a real one but the biggest black dog he can find)
“His name’s Marshmallow. He’s great at security.”
Nighttime Rituals
bathes you in champagne bath
scrubbing away blood with gold-leaf soap
“Only the best for my masterpiece.”
HIDDEN DEPTHS
Trauma Trigger
finds you humming a lullaby he’d forgotten
his mother’s song (lost her in a turf war)
snaps, smashing a vase
“Never. Sing. That. Again.” 
later, soaks your hands in milk to heal cuts from the glass
Secret Sacrifice
takes a bullet meant for you during a deal
laughs, blood staining his teeth
“Jokes on them. I look good in red.”
DIALOGUE
to the enemies: 
“You thought I was playful? How cute. Playtime’s over.”
to you, stitching your wound: 
“Hurting you is like breaking a rare vase. I’ll glue them back together… piece by piece.”
whispered against your neck, voice trembling: 
“If you die, I’ll forget how to breathe. So don’t.”
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JUNGKOOK
feral protectiveness
raw rage
a love that’s as brutal as it is tender
IMMEDIATE REACTION
Silent Storm
his body goes rigid when he sees your injury
nostrils flaring like a wolf catching blood-scent
he doesn’t speak
just picks up his aluminum baseball bat
spins it once
cracks his neck
“Stay here!” 
he growls, voice low, guttural
“I’ll clean this up.”
Calculated Rage
texts you a single emoji an hour later: ⚾
when you call, he answers mid-swing
“Almost done, baby.”
ACTION
Brutal Efficiency
Hunt
tracks the attackers to a scrapyard
no guns, no knives
just the bat
breaks knees first, so they can’t run
“Gotta level the field.”
Interrogation
forces them to kneel on shattered glass
“Who sent you?” 
he already knows
just wants them to say it
Message
carves “PROPERTY OF JK” into their leader’s chest
leaves him breathing but mangled
dumped on the rival boss’s doorstep
Strategic Terror
floods their headquarters with stray dogs
trained to attack on command
“Meet my puppies. They’re hungry.”
slashes tires on every car in their flee
replaces brake fluid with gasoline
“Drive safe”
AFTERMATH
Possessive Care
cleans your wound with whiskey
hands steady but jaw clenched
“Don’t. Move.” 
wraps you in his leather jacket
still warm and reeking of iron
Guilt in Motion
stalks your every move for weeks
installs motion sensors in your house
“You’ll know if a fly sneezes.”
Night Watch
sleeps on the floor beside your bed
bat propped against the wall
wakes at every sound
“Just me. Go back to sleep.”
HIDDEN DEPTHS
Training Trauma
finds you lifting weights in the gym, mimicking his routine
snaps, slamming the dumbbell rack
“Stop. You’re not me.” 
later, teaches you self-defense moves
hands trembling
“If I’m not here… you’ll know what to do.”
Secret Ritual
leaves protein bars in your bag
each with a note: 
“Eat. Stay strong.” 
(eats one himself every time he leaves you alone)
Fragile Confession
after a nightmare, he curls around you, voice breaking
“I’m not a hero. I’m just… good at breaking things.”
DIALOGUE
to enemies: 
“You don’t get to die until I’m bored.”
to you, changing your bandage: 
“You’re my fucking heartbeat. Stop skipping.”
whispered against your hair, voice fractured: 
“I’ll break the world. Just… stay whole.”
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cyberpunkonline · 3 months ago
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10 CYBERPUNK ARTISTS THAT'LL JACK INTO YOUR SKULL AND REWRITE YOUR TASTE IN MUSIC
Your auditory implants won’t know what hit ‘em.
Right then, reader — pull up your faux-leather trousers and strap on your chrome-plated headphones. We’re blasting through the corrupted circuits of the 2025 underground, bringing you 10 contemporary artists who sound like they’re scoring a riot in Neo-Tokyo while being hacked in real time. Yes, there’s synths. Yes, there’s screaming. No, Grimes isn’t on this list.
MACHINE GIRL Genre: Gabberpunk, Cybercore, ADHD-core Ever wanted to be mugged in a server room by a rave demon? Machine Girl has you covered. It’s breakbeats plus punk plus absolute chaos. Every track is a manic assault from a frothing modem on fire. Start with “MG Ultra” — it's like doing parkour through a collapsing arcade. Machine Girl is a project from New York-based Matt Stephenson, who started it in 2013. What began as breakcore mutated fast into a multi-genre freakout. Live performances are frenzied, sweaty, and borderline ritualistic, often featuring live drums and mosh pit energy in tiny venues. Bandcamp: https://machinegirl.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0WwSkZ7LtFUFjGjMZBMt6T
TENGUSHEE Genre: Faewave, Electrofolk, Cyberdrift, Post-Ratcore This glitching shadow-beast of the net is what happens if a faerie takes too many digital drugs and starts a resistance movement in a cursed VR chatroom. Tengushee doesn’t just cross genres — they light them on fire, digitise the ashes, and make a concept album out of it. Expect story-driven drops, haunted samplers, and the occasional whisper from the void. Tengushee operates like a ghost in the wires, often dropping full-concept albums with narrative arcs tied to multimedia projects, zines, or even encoded tone signals. Based somewhere between London and Faewave, their work includes collaborations with glitch-artists and mythmakers, crafting a world as deep as it is weird. Bandcamp: https://tengushee.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5pPzJk8q2YbVRo3dEiE5rZ
PERTURBATOR Genre: Darksynth, CyberGoth Former black metal guitarist turns synth wizard and soundtracks the end of civilisation in style. Every track feels like the opening credits to a forbidden anime you found on a hacked VHS tape. His recent albums dip into goth rock, coldwave, and grim industrial — a sonic warehouse rave thrown inside a haunted monolith. James Kent is the man behind Perturbator, rising out of the French synthwave explosion in the early 2010s. What set him apart was the sheer cinematic density of his work, as well as his willingness to evolve. His later albums feel like full-blown existential crises scored with analog doom. Bandcamp: https://perturbator.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0O02jvPzKT1kQEYg5XEqRA
GUNSHIP Genre: Synthwave with Dad Issues Think “Stranger Things” but horny for Blade Runner. GUNSHIP slaps synth arpeggios across your face while whispering movie references into your ear. Songs like “Tech Noir” and “Dark All Day” are pure neon cocaine. Bonus points for the video with Tim Capello, the sax guy from The Lost Boys. Formed in the UK, GUNSHIP emerged from the ashes of alternative rock band Fightstar. What they lacked in punk energy, they made up for with lush synth arrangements and cinematic ambition. With vocal guests ranging from horror icons to YouTube animators, they’re a love letter to analog future-fantasies. Bandcamp: https://gunshipmusic.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3dD9W6Gh8Mo9Tu4S7ydz8q
SHREDDER 1984 Genre: Darksynth, CyberMetal French producer who mashes heavy metal energy into a screaming cyberpunk blender. His album "Dystopian Future" is all dark atmosphere and adrenaline. This is music for doing squats with a neural interface strapped to your head. Shredder 1984 is exactly what it says on the tin: shred. A project born from metal roots but raised on VHS aesthetics and neon grime, Shredder builds tracks that feel like boss fights in an underground data vault. Occasionally throws in face-melting guitar solos for good measure. Bandcamp: https://shredder1984.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2YlR5FzF4XWgeXGxR2b3Vh
REVOLTING PUPPETS Genre: Cyberpunk Punk These Swiss psychos deliver rebellious punk fused with grinding electronics. The kind of band that would stage-dive into a riot squad. Add in LED helmets and maximum cyber attitude and you’ve got a live act worth risking a black eye for. Born in Bern, Switzerland, the Puppets are part cyber-art project, part live-action political tantrum. The band leans hard into performance art, complete with backstories and a lore-rich website that feels like an ARG. Think Rage Against the Machine, but upgraded with malware. Website: http://revoltingpuppets.com
CLIPPING. Genre: Sci-fi Horror Rap Experimental hip hop trio fronted by Daveed Diggs that brings tales of malfunctioning AIs, haunted ships, and cosmic terror over glitch-heavy beats. Their albums feel like audio novellas for doomed protagonists. Start with "There Existed an Addiction to Blood" or "Visions of Bodies Being Burned." clipping. formed in Los Angeles, with William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes providing the surgical, abrasive production. Their use of silence, static, and horror tropes makes them unique in the rap world. And yes, Diggs was in Hamilton, but don’t let that fool you — these guys write soundtracks for existential dread. Bandcamp: https://clppng.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7cNNNhdJDrt3vgQjwSavNf
BEAST IN BLACK Genre: Cyber Metal, Synth Power If you're into big riffs, bigger vocals, and synths that sound like they were mined from an alien war machine, Beast in Black delivers. Their album "Dark Connection" is basically a concept record about AI girlfriends and cyber-samurai. Finnish-Greek metal band formed by former Battle Beast guitarist Anton Kabanen, Beast in Black are unapologetically bombastic. They mix anime aesthetics with power metal drama, and if you can get past the over-the-top vocals, you’ll find a band that gets how to marry synths with shredding. Website: https://beastinblack.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5wJ1z2KgFvb1GQ9ApnFlog
OKLOU Genre: Glitchpop, Cyberambient A softer, prettier ghost in the machine. Oklou blends vaporous vocals with ambient electronics and medieval fantasy energy. It’s like if a fairy princess got lost inside a Sega Dreamcast. Oklou is the moniker of French artist Marylou Mayniel. With classical music training and a background in club culture, she creates tracks that are emotionally dense but digitally fragile. Her work occupies the misty edges of cyberpunk, where romance and signal loss overlap. Bandcamp: https://oklou.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1FqqOl9itIUpXr4jZPIVoT
NAZAR Genre: Deconstructed Club, Warwave Amsterdam-based producer with beats sharp enough to cut through reinforced concrete. Inspired by war, trauma, and classic cyberpunk anime. His upcoming album "Demilitarize" might be the most realistic sonic vision of future conflict you’ll hear this year. Nazar was born in Angola and raised in Europe, and his music reflects that blend of postcolonial tension and Western club evolution. His productions on labels like Hyperdub use field recordings, mechanical rhythms, and unflinching political commentary. Harsh, heavy, and honest. Bandcamp: https://nazarmusic.bandcamp.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1pQWsZQehhS4wavwh7Fe8D
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imagine-darksiders · 3 months ago
Text
Cold Hands, Warm Heart.
Chapter 25 - Friction.
Loss will affect you, whether you realise it or not. It can make you angry. It can make you bitter. Words are traded when wounds are prodded, and they'll come back to haunt you when it's most inconvenient.
There are billions of grains of ash blanketing the Gilded Arena, layer heaped upon layer of dead cells, deep enough for you to drown in, if the particles weren’t condensed so solidly, interlocking like sand on a beach to keep your weight distributed. To have accumulated this much, the place must be ancient, far older than humanity, far older than Earth even. So old that it might have existed for as long as the Universe has known the concept of death.
Thousands of grains – history in each and every one - hiss through the gaps between your spread fingers as you teeter forwards, hands rising from the ash to catch yourself on the colossal skull in front of you when you start sinking down to your knees.
It’s hard not to think about how you’re surrounded by the remnants of people right now, that you have been since you first entered the realm.
And now here’s another one, another death to add to an unending multitude.
One of your palms has landed on the lustreless crystal jammed inside Gnashor’s cranium, while the fingers of your other hand curl with an unexpected fervour into the edge of an empty eye socket, as dark as it is deep. So deep that you could fit your entire fist inside the cavity, though the prospect causes your stomach to fill with bile.
You know it’s utterly illogical to try and search for any traces of those vivid, green lights that had, mere seconds ago, been burning down at you with inscrutable intent.
For God’s sake, the skull has been completely severed. It lays a few feet from the top of Gnashor’s spine where the rest of its titanic body has fallen, already breaking apart at the joints and allowing the smallest of those borrowed bones to sink back into the ground, where they too will one day become ash.
“Gnashor?” you croak at the skull anyway, wincing when the name stings at your throat and reminds you of the aching lines that have been crushed intermittently into the skin around your neck.
Jesus, you’ll be feeling those for a while…
You don’t know exactly why you call its name. Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of how this realm operates that leaves you wondering if there’s a part of the creature that might yet live and hear you. How do you know the dead here truly die, after all? Does decapitation work the same as it would on any living thing when Gnashor had already borrowed most of its other bones from the skeletons around it?
Then again, perhaps you’re just feeling guilty, and saying the name aloud is all you can think to do in the moment.
Because you could have done something.
… Couldn’t you?
Because the Champion, for reasons you can’t yet begin to fathom, just saved your life.
Whatever the case, you suppose you get an answer to your unspoken question when Gnashor remains perfectly still and wholly silent, a husk in the ash. Dead as any other corpse scattered inside this wretched arena.
It’s…. sad.
You’re sad, and you can’t immediately pinpoint why.
Somewhere nearby, there's the muted thud of boots hitting the ground.
“You killed him,” comes your tepid voice, curling your hand into a fist over Gnashor’s crystal.
Silent footsteps trace around the skull and slip close to your side, a dark shadow falling across your face and blotting out some of the morning light.
“Well,” Death’s throaty timbre sounds too far away in your ears, as if he isn’t standing right next to you, looming like a spectre at its favourite haunt, “That was the goal of our being here.”
A ‘shink’ of metal draws your bloodshot eyes to the Horseman, and you observe bleakly whilst he throws his scythes back into their straps on each hip.
“… He didn’t attack me,” you draw out in a daze, your eyebrows crawling together as you stare at Death’s curving blades.
“Yes, I endeavoured to make sure that was the case,” he quips bluntly, bending down to slip a hand underneath your arm, “Regardless, it seemed very inclined to attack me.”
His callused fingers feel even colder than usual as his grip tightens and he hauls you up off your knees too quickly, too roughly. The sudden movement jars your dizzy head and betrays the Horseman’s agitation, not to mention his urgency.
If it weren’t for the hand still keeping your bicep trapped in its iron grip, your legs might buckle and send you toppling straight down onto your backside again.
Ash hisses into the indents left by your weight.
Death has his forefinger tucked beneath your chin before your brain has a chance to stop teetering.
“Mmf,” you grunt softly as he pushes your head up, giving him a good view of your neck. Squeezing your eyes shut to try and alleviate the headache building at the base of your skull, you start to speak even with the Horseman silently twisting your head from side to side. “I think it was because of your scythes,” you tell him, “Ostegoth warned me not to raise a weapon against Gnashor. A-and Karn’s sword is still up there, in the stands.”
Death doesn’t speak for several beats, and when he finally does – voice pitched so low you can feel it in your teeth – he growls, “When I get my hands on that wretched nothus-!” Hesitating, he flicks his eyes up to meet your gaze and gruffly amends, “Do not repeat that word.”
Frowning back up at him, you wrench your head from his fingertips and huff, “Are you even listening to me?”
His arm remains suspended in the air for a moment, poised as if to reach out and gather your chin in his palm once more, but then the Horseman’s eyes harden behind his mask and a muscle jumps in his jaw – what little you can see of it. With a dull thwack, he lets his hand flop back down to his side. The other, still wrapped around your bicep, gradually slides away and joins its twin on Death’s opposite flank.
“What?” he sighs out. His gaze has already returned to your throat.
It’s the impatience in his tone that strikes a nerve, and suddenly, it isn’t sad.
It’s funny.
‘How stupid,’ you think, ‘to assume I could have stopped Death from killing.’
Why, it’s so funny you want to rip your hair out and laugh until you stop breathing altogether.
But that would hurt too much.
So you don’t.
“I’m telling you; Gnashor didn’t want to fight,” you declare, raising a hand and jabbing your forefinger at the Horseman’s mask whilst the other digits carve crescent moons into your palms, “He didn’t attack until you pulled a weapon on him!”
It’s curt and accusatory, and it gets Death bristling.
“If you’re trying to make a point, then make it,” he sneers, eyes flashing like an amber warning sign, “Because if I hadn’t pulled a weapon on it, you might have been killed!”
“Gnashor didn’t have to die.”
There. That’s your point.
A crack in your vocal chords disrupts you on the final word, a break in your own aching throat as you squeeze it out. It hurts, you’re reminded quite unfairly.
Quieter this time, but still with fierce conviction, you glower up at the Horseman and bite out, “I don’t think he wanted to fight. But he probably didn’t think he had a choice.”
Death’s chest lurches with a ludicrous scoff. “Even if your theory holds any merit, what would you have had me do instead? Hm?” Throwing an arm up to indicate the arena as a whole, he barks, “We came here to collect its skull. Or did you forget that that’s the only way to get an audience with the Dead King?”
At that, your brows manage to beetle together into such a deep, solid line, you’d swear you could make them touch.
There have been many instances where you’ve let his condescending tone roll off your shoulders.
This isn’t one of them.
“No, I didn’t forget,” you snap, irritated by the way each word squeezes painfully past your gullet, like you’ve swallowed something too large, and it’s wedged itself in the middle of your neck.
There’s a tiny voice at the back of your head asking why you give so much of a damn about this that you’re willing to stand here and argue with Death while your temples throb excruciatingly with every heartbeat and the ghosts of powerful fingers are still curled around your neck.
Another part of you even suggests that your reasons are borderline shallow. That if Gnashor hadn’t pulled you out from underneath that falling pillar, you probably wouldn’t be making this much of a fuss. But whatever the case may be, the fact remains that the Champion had, in the span of a few seconds, gone from a mere obstacle to a sapient creature who recognised you weren’t a threat and made an active choice to save you.
It was easier when you thought Death was only putting down a feral, bloodthirsty beast.
Now, after what Gnashor did, you can’t pretend that’s still the case.
Worse still, it was a death that could have been avoided. Just like-
A flash of white beard, strands stained scarlet as the deluge of a storm cascades across the vale, a mighty chest growing quiet and still beneath your hands…
Exhaling sharply, you give your head a shake to dislodge Eideard’s wizened face from your mind’s eye. And although it feels like the ultimate disservice to banish his memory so brusquely, you can’t think of him now, not here, not when the body laying in the ash nearby is so nearly the same size as a maker’s.
Wetting your lips, you try to take a breath, in through the nose, out through a tight jaw. “I just mean, couldn’t we have… - Shit, I don’t know - found another way?”
Sometimes you feel as though you sound more and more like a child with values still drenched in idealism, trying to appeal to the most real, unavoidable truth of the Universe.
“And wasted even more time trying to find the Well of Souls?” the Horseman retorts, taking a single step away and cocking his head back, peering at you down the hollow ridge of his mask’s nose.
You can’t ignore the guilty twinge your guts give at his question. It rankles you, fuels the aggravation where pain is already fanning sparks into open flames. The urge to claw at your hair returns.
“If the Well’s as old as I think it is, it’s not going anywhere,” you argue tightly, “Why are you suddenly so concerned about wasting time?”
Unnoticed by you, Death’s hands spring into closed fists as he snaps his head down again to level you with a blistering glare that’s one part offence and three parts disbelief.
Have you forgotten why he wants to find the Well in the first place? Have you forgotten who’s name he’s trying to clear? Has your foolish and misguided compassion for an undead monster blinded you to the bigger picture?!
Or did Brumox knock some sense out of you after he dropped you into the Gilded arena?
Grinding his teeth, Death finds himself further taken aback by the unexpected squirm of disappointment that rears its head.
Its presence is unwelcome. ‘Because,’ he realises with a pang in his dried up guts, ‘it means her opinion - her verdict – matters.’
It matters to him, more than he realised it did. More than it should. He wouldn’t be disappointed if it didn’t.
The revelation is… foreboding, to say the least.
When did it start to matter?
“Maybe,” he bridles, defensive in the face of his own realisation, “I wouldn’t be so concerned about time if I hadn’t already lost so much of it watching somebody else’s back.”
He doesn’t notice that he’s drawn himself up, a towering, prickling spectre that looms over you, all burning eyes and bitter acid rising into his gorge.
He doesn’t notice…. until your expression bursts open as if his words had just struck you across the cheek.
Pinched brows spring apart, and your eyes widen exponentially, then blink. Your mouth falls open – whether to gasp or retaliate, Death doesn’t find out, because before he can even register that he’s just planted his boot right over an invisible line, the sudden slap of footsteps on ancient stone begins to echo through the arena, drawing his gaze from yours and turning it to the railings overhead.
A figure, tall and decaying and entirely too familiar, all but slams into the barrier at full speed, careening to a halt only when his hands catch the bars.
Wild green eyes blaze vividly from inside the darkness of the newcomer’s hood. Frantic, they dart across the pit as he leans over the railings, his shoulders heaving beneath a tattered cloak and the weight of several broken swords.
“Lady Y/n!” he pants raggedly, finding you within seconds and locking you in his sights.
Momentarily startled by his unexpected arrival, you do a double-take, letting your jaw fall open for a second before you manage to sputter out, “Draven?”
“Oh, oh thank God,” the undead rasps, his rigid hands going slack on the bars when he sees you looking back at him, “Thank God… Stay right there! I’m coming down!”
Then, as briskly as he’d arrived, he’s gone, shoving himself off the railings and whirling around, disappearing from view.
Brows raised, you return your focus to Death, only to find the Horseman is already staring back at you with an unreadable expression. Upon meeting his gaze, your eyebrows instantly snap into a scowl, and you grace him with a heated glare for another moment before turning sharply away from him, crossing your arms over your chest and hoping he hadn’t been looking too closely at the wetness teetering perilously close to the edge of your lashes.
It’s… never an easy thing to have an ugly truth ripped up from the grave you buried it in and held in front of your face, forcing you to look at it for the first time.
Several years ago, you ignored a warning light on your car for three months before the vehicle sputtered to a halt five miles from home. You knew the problem was there… it was just easier to pretend it wasn’t. Until you couldn’t… Until something else broke on the back of it.
You know you rely too heavily on his protection, even if – until now – the fact had remained largely unspoken. You know that if it weren’t for you, Death would be miles ahead of where he is. You know it, but it still hurts to hear it aloud from the Horseman’s mouth.
And it hurts because you believe it.
You believe him.
You care about what he thinks of you.
The sudden clanking of heavy chains snaps you from your ruminations, tearing your gaze from the Horseman and turning it to the side of the arena, where a narrow portcullis is built into the wall not far from where Gnashor had fallen.
Beyond the dark, iron bars, you spot the familiar Blademaster, furiously hauling at a winch with all his might.
His hood has drooped down to conceal much of his face, but you can still make out the sinewy strands of his jaw tightening and falling slack again as he grits his exposed teeth around arduous grunts of effort, raising the portcullis up off the ground.
He barely gets it halfway open before he evidently decides that he’s raised it far enough.
Jamming a lever into the winch to lock the chains in place, he ducks beneath the jutting spokes with a flourish of his cloak, shaking his hood back so he can peer underneath the lip of it as he strides towards you, his viridescent eyes riveted doggedly in your direction.
“There you are,” he gushes out, suggesting a breathlessness that shouldn’t be biologically possible.
“Draven-” you begin, only to have the wind knocked out of you when the undead reaches you and, without warning, throws his hands out to grasp you by the arms, anchoring you in place as his eyes scour you from head to toe – presumably hunting for injuries.
“I came to find you at my quarters,” he says stiffly, “When I saw you gone, I… I admit I feared the worst.”
A chilly presence brushes close to your back. You don’t have to look to know who’s standing there, couldn’t even if you wanted to. Draven is dominating your focus, drawing one of his bony hands up to catch your chin and tilt it back in much the same way Death had, inspecting the bruises around your neck.
A rough hiss slips between his bared teeth.
“… The merchant told me you were challenging Gnashor for an audience with the King,” he utters in a dangerous lilt, tearing his eyes off your throat to toss a glare at Death over the top of your head, “What were you thinking? Bringing her to the battle!?”
“I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than-,” you begin, only to choke on the words when an ice-cold hand snatches the back of your shirt and you’re unceremoniously ripped out of Draven’s grasp and flung backwards behind Death, who immediately surges forth to take the spot you’d just been standing in.
Staggering to an unsteady halt in the ash, you press your fingertips tenderly to your neck and aim a grumble at the back of his head, tugging your shirt back into its proper place. The damn thing is sure to wrinkle if he keeps that up.
Towering at least a foot over the incensed undead, he jabs a finger in Draven’s rotting face, shoulders all quivering and ruffled as he barks, “Perhaps, Blademaster, if you spent less time fretting over her, and more time focusing on your recruits, she wouldn’t be down here in the first place!”
“The Hell’re you on about?” Draven snarls back, irritably smacking Death’s hand away from his face, “What have my recruits to do with your follies?”
But you see it there, in his eyes – that tiny narrowing of the flaky lids, the way the pale lights flick to the left, as if something brief and sudden has just occurred to him.
As if he knows something…
“My follies!?” Death’s outrage comes through palpably, thickening the air with the necrotic stench of rot, “One of your men followed us here and saw fit to toss the girl straight over those bars-!” Flinging an arm out, he gestures wildly at the iron spokes ringing the arena overhead. “No doubt-” he continues, spitting vehemently, “- in the hopes that Gnashor would finish us both off! That-! is what your recruits have to do with my follies.”
Draven’s lips curl downwards at the admonishment, but when he peers around Death’s shoulder to catch your eye, the hard line of his jaw eases, and he grows rather urgent, brushing past the Horseman to reclaim his position in front of you once again.
“Fair Lady, I trust your word in all of this-“
“-But not my own?” Death barks incredulously from the rear.
Ignoring his indignation, Draven reaches down and scoops up your hand, clasping it firmly but ever so carefully between his enormous palms. Bewildered, you blink up into the shadows of his hood as he peers back down at you, the ridges of his brow furrowed to leave a crevice in the paper-thin flesh between his sunken eye sockets.
“Was it Brumox?” he whispers hoarsely, leaning closer to your face, “Was it he who laid his hands on you?”
“Brumox?” you echo, eyes narrowing. You never said his name.
Subconsciously, you give your hand a tug, feeling his grip tighten in response. “Draven… Did you know he’d do this?”
“No,” he declares so firmly that you jump, his voice like unwavering steel. Then, heaving a sigh, he lowers his gaze to your hands grasped between his own, and winces at the bone gleaming through tears in his flesh. “No…” he continues, a note quieter, “Believe me, If I had known what he was planning, I’d’ve…”
Gruffly clearing his throat, he finally lets you go, taking a step back and glaring hard at the ash around his boots. “Of all my recruits….” he begins to explain, “Brumox has been the most opposed to your being here, my lady.”
“You knew this,” Death spits, “And yet you allowed him to remain a threat to my-…! To her!?”
“I knew he had no love for the living,” Draven argues, twisting his head towards a shoulder and addressing the Horseman, “I knew his feathers were ruffled by her arrival in the Eternal Throne. I did not, however, think that even he could be capable of this treachery.”
Throwing an arm out in your direction, Death continues on his tirade. “And because of your oversight, she was almost killed - would have been, had I not saved her life.”
“Uh, Gnashor saved my life,” you interject petulantly, irked to be spoken about you as if you aren’t even here.
“Gnashor?” Draven’s skeletal face goes slack as he shoots several glances between you and the skull laying nearby. All it takes is one more look at the branded fingers sweeping around your neck before he presses his teeth together and lets a sigh slip between the miniscule gaps. “Ah, perhaps you can regale me with the story later,” he amends, “You need rest, and those bruises must be tended to.”
Before you can open your mouth to argue that you’ll be all right, that you’ve been through worse, Death cuts in. “And Brumox? What do you intend to do about him? Because believe you me, Blademaster, when I get my hands on –“
“-You leave Brumox to me,” Draven interrupts darkly, “His transgression was done by a man under my watch. I’ll be the one to deal with it.”
And with that said, the Blademaster moves to stand beside you and raises a long, sinewy arm, letting it hover mere millimetres from your back.
You know when you’re being steered, and you’re not averse to it here. Draven doesn’t push or pull or use his strength to move you where he wants you to go. He simply waits, content to let you take the first step.
Offering the undead a tired smile, you begin to trudge slowly towards the portcullis, wiping a hand down the length of your face and feeling coarse grains of ash scrape gently over your cheeks. Draven easily keeps in step with you, taking a single stride for every two of your own.
The pair of you breeze past Death, paying the Horseman no mind even as he twists to follow you with his eyes, glaring caustically at the arm Draven has snuck around the back of your shoulders.
Gnashing his teeth together hard, his jaw springs open again and he snaps testily after your retreating forms, “And I suppose I’m to lug this skull back by myself, am I?”
Your stride doesn’t even falter, though Draven’s hood turns slightly towards you, as if he’s prepared and ready to receive an instruction at the drop of a hat, so long as it comes from you.
Striking a sharp look over your shoulder, you lock eyes with the Horseman and primly retort, “You killed him, you carry him.”
You don’t give yourself time to see the expression shift underneath that pale, mask of bone. You’re too sore from the insecurity he’d just pried open with those cold, calloused fingers, laying it bare for you to acknowledge properly for the first time. So, you turn away without another word, leaning heavily against the undead at your side, weary enough to let yourself rely on his sturdiness to keep you moving forwards.
Draven, in his most private opinion, is only too pleased to be used as a makeshift crutch. The warmth of a flesh-and-blood woman under his arm seeps through his flaking skin and fills him with a vigour he hasn’t known since those bygone days, when he was a young man himself, alive and striking, with a lover on his arm and a burst of affection in his chest. He can almost remember it so clearly in the hollow cavity that used to house his heart. It’s intoxicating to be allowed to feel it again, and he finds his appreciation for your presence in the Dead Plains is beginning to grow tenfold.
He is, however, less than pleased to see the injuries you’ve sustained, and there’s a rage rapidly building in his long-decayed guts that insists upon finding retribution for the crimes committed against you here today.
What Brumox did was nothing less than an egregious betrayal. And Draven won’t abide by traitors under his command, even if it isn’t directly himself that they’ve betrayed.
There’s a sudden, phantom twinge in the middle of his back, between the notches of his spine that reminds him of his own fate. The face of a coward rises from the depths of his memory, and he has to clamp his jaw shut to conceal the growl that almost slips out.
It won’t do to frighten the object of his sudden yearning. Right now, there’s only one order of business, and that’s to return you to the relative safety of the Eternal Throne.
He distracts himself from thoughts of bloody, searing vengeance by braving the last few iotas of space between your skin and his, pressing his forearm across the breadth of your shoulder blades and trying not to shudder at the warmth spreading through his limb.
It’s like feeling the first touch of sunlight after an eternity spent embraced by a cold, dark grave...
----------
Ancient, wooden doors fly open with a resounding ‘wham’ that sends a jolt of momentary alarm through the undead milling about the Eternal Throne’s courtyard.
Dozens of heads whip towards the source of the sound – the courtyard’s main entrance – and every eye in the place grows wide upon spotting the Blademaster himself prowling out into the sunlight, an unfamiliar yet easily recognisable figure sheltered underneath the weight of one of his outstretched arms.
Draven ignores the stares. His eyes are on the hunt, flicking from left to right as he glares poisonously at each undead in search of one particular face.
His arm - the one without an array of rusted blades sprouting from his mouldering flesh – is loosely slung around your shoulders, keeping you close against his side, though he hopes not so close that you’re able to pick up on the faint stench of rot that perpetually clings to his remains.
He hasn’t said a word since he pulled you from the Gilded Arena and left Death in the proverbial dust, mindful that with his thoughts circling Brumox like a bird of prey, nothing that leaves his lips would be suited for a lady’s ears.
Not that you’re in any particular mood to converse either, too preoccupied by the very plausible worry of running into Brumox again. You’ve been chewing a fresh ulcer into the inside of your cheek for the last five minutes, fretting over how he’ll react when he sees you alive. Will he deny ever being in the Arena? It’s your word – and Death’s – against his. Are you about to find yourself caught up in the Dead Plain’s judicial system?
Is there a judicial system here?
The unanswered questions cause your stomach to roll miserably like a ball of lead has dropped down inside it, and you curl an arm across your abdomen, grimacing at nothing in particular as your other hand idly squeezes the grip of Karn’s sword.
It’s an unbelievable relief to have the weapon back in your grasp where it belongs. The scabbard, however, hadn’t fared so well. Its leather was snapped just in front the buckle when it was torn so unceremoniously from your hip, leaving you with no way to secure it around you anymore.
Your crestfallen expression was enough to send Draven scrambling to offer reassurance. “We got plenty of those back at the Barracks,” he’d told you as you took the broken leather in hand and gazed down at it with a quivering lip, “I’ll take you there myself after your business with the King’s in order.”
It was kind and thoughtful, and you told him as much, earning yourself several sputtered sentences and stilted chuckles in response. Still, you don’t know to explain to him, without sounding like a fool, that it just won’t be the same. This is Karn’s scabbard. It, and the sword he forged, are the only parts of the young maker that could follow you into this strange, new world, and to be without even one of them feels…
“Bastard’s not ‘ere,” Draven grumbles to himself, pulling your gaze off the toes of your boots as you shuffle along next to him. Casting him a sideways glance, you’re just in time to catch the wince that warps his expression before he spares you a sheepish look. “Er, Brumox isn’t here, I mean.”
There’s a tiny shift of the leaden weight in your guts.
“Oh, good,” you sigh, returning your eyes to the courtyard and sweeping them towards the stairs.
All at once, you perk up significantly when you see the large, woollen figure standing near the undercroft, a spiralling trail of soft, purple smoke drifting lazily from the pipe between his lips.
He’s in the midst of waving off a wiry undead and feeding several glinting coins into one of the pouches on his side when he glances up, his movements coming to an abrupt halt once he catches sight of you halfway across the courtyard.
Beside you, Draven has lifted his gaze to the rickety ramparts above, a snarl pulling the skin around his mouth even further from his crooked teeth. “Don’t worry,” he tells you in a low growl, “I’ll track ‘im down… He won’t get away with what he did…”
The decisive nature of his remark prompts you to put a voice to one of your fears. “… What if he doesn’t admit to it?”
“Oh, he’ll get a chance to say his piece,” Draven amends, albeit darkly, “But those bruises don’t lie. Gnashor ain’t the stranglin’ type. And I’ll bet the Horseman’d rather cut his own legs off than put a mark on you.”
He says it so matter-of-factly that your concern is knocked slightly askew, and you wonder what in the world had given him that impression. He barely knows Death.
“Whatever the outcome though,” he continues, hesitating for just a moment before he plucks up the courage to give your shoulders a consoling squeeze, “I don’t intend to let this happen again.”
Before you can ask him what exactly he’s planning to do to, Draven roves his head up once more and tosses his chin forwards, calling out across the courtyard. “Ostegoth, ‘ve got a favour to ask.”
The Capracus has already taken several steps towards your unlikely duo, meeting you both right in front of the staircase, ripping the pipe from his mouth. 
Concern, painfully genuine, has been etched deeply into the lines between his brows.
“Lamb,” he squeezes out, nostrils puffing quietly at the air. His strange, yellow eyes dart back and forth between the bruises on your neck and your solemn expression. “What happened to-?”
“-Gnashor,” you cut him off, shaking your head, “You were right.”
Blinking back visible bewilderment, he lifts one of his lengthy arms up to take you by the elbow, pulling you gently away from Draven, who lets you go with a soft pat to your back.
“Stay with the Old one,” the undead tells you, earning a harrumph from Ostegoth, but Draven has already tugged the lip of his cowl forwards to cover his eyes and turned on a heel, letting his cloak swish regally behind him as he stalks his way across the courtyard on a dead-set path towards the recruits still training diligently in their circle.
“Where are you going?” you call after him, straining through discomfort to raise your voice enough to be heard.
Without turning back, Draven raises an arm and jabs his thumb at you over his shoulder, loudly declaring, “To find the bastard who gave you those.”
You can only assume he means the bruises.
A large, spindly appendage lands on your shoulder and draws your attention back to Ostegoth, who is gazing down at you through wide, searching eyes. You don’t miss how they flick to your neck and back again.
“Oh,” he croaks hoarsely, “Gnashor… did he do…?”
“He didn’t hurt me,” you’re quick to reassure him, giving him a probing squint of your own, “He�� actually, he saved me, Ostegoth.”
The Capracus’s hand slackens by a fraction, and his expression, once taut with concern, loses some of its rigidity. “You did not raise your sword against him….” he breathes, gazing down at you in astonishment.
Pressing your lips together, you hesitate for a moment, scuffing the toe of your boot against the ground.  “Well... I didn’t,” you stress at last, twisting to shoot a glance over your shoulder, directing Ostegoth’s gaze to the doors at the far end of the courtyard. “But…”
As if on cue, there’s an almighty ruckus as the doors are battered open, cracking off the stone foundations surrounding them.
From the darkness of the corridor, twin flashes of burning, golden fire precede the rest of the Horseman as he prowls into the pale light, his knees stooped to bear the awkward weight of Gnashor’s skull upon his back.
The whole courtyard seems to stop and hold its breath. Undead milling about the outskirts pause to stare, and even you find yourself freezing, goosebumps raising along your arms when you feel that luminous glare sweep over you.
 At your back, Ostegoth shifts, and his hand slides slowly from your arm. “Ah,” he utters, the relief gone from his voice, “I see.”
“I’m sorry,” you immediately turn back to him, “I tried-“
But he merely raises a hand to stop you, his horned head bowed, understanding.
 “What’s done is done,” he says, ears flicking back, “To secure your audience with the Lord of Bones, a sacrifice must be made."
'Sacrifice?' you blink, silently wondering at the term.
"It is…” Trailing off, the merchant hums to himself, then heaves a sigh that causes his entire frame to sag, like all the wind has been taken from his sails. “He will be all right.”
You don’t know how anyone could be ‘all right’ after decapitation, but before you can try to gently broach the topic, the percolating chill that rolls of Death finally reaches you, raising the hairs on the nape of your neck.
A glance to your left reveals the Horseman in profile, paused at the foot of the wooden staircase that leads up to the upper balcony and the adjoining throne room. His mask has tilted towards you, an impassive stare catching yours and holding it for the breadth of a second.
You exhale softly.
While you're still sore about his comment in the Arena, it would be a lie to say that your frustration with him hasn’t already started to wane, leaving a kernel of guilt to lodge itself between your ribs. You open your mouth, prepared to extend the proverbial olive branch and offer a stilted and awkward apology for leaving him to carry Gnashor’s skull all the way here, but just then, he speaks, cutting you off.
“Will you be joining me now?”
And okay, perhaps that was deserved, but you let it roll of your shoulders. He’s said more hurtful things before, and if he was truly angry, you’d wager he wouldn’t be inviting you back to his side.
Perhaps you're not the only one with designs on making peace.
Bolstered by this revelation, you find it in you to offer him a sheepish grin and a nod. “Yeah,” you say, timidly adding, “If that’s okay.”
And Death, for as adept as he is at maintaining an air of emotional vacancy, allows himself a blink, the hard creases around his eyes smoothing over as his face relaxes beneath the mask.
“Of course,” he returns, appraising you as you give Ostegoth a murmured farewell.
Eyeing the Horseman through a narrow gaze, the Capracus waits until you’ve sidled away from him before he suddenly pipes up, “Shall I tell the Blademaster where you’ve gone?”
Death has already begun his ascent, but you hold back just long enough to knock two fingers off your forehead in a quick salute. “Please, and thanks, Ostegoth.”
He grumbles something as he waves you off, flapping a wrist at you until you turn and fall into step behind the Horseman, traipsing along in his shadow.
At the top of the stairs, the pair of guards posted outside the throne room promptly snap to attention, crossing their weapons over one another to bar any attempt at entry. Death, however, readily ignores them. They’re not his quarry. Not quite yet, anyway.
Instead, he makes a beeline for the Chancellor, who reels away from the balcony and squawks out in shock when he sees the two of you coming, his jaw is hanging so far from the roof of his mouth that it looks as if it might pop off and tumble to the ground at any second. The undead starts to sputter something, and you can’t help but take some childish glee in his floundering as you lean around the Horseman and catch a glimpse of those pale, green eyes bulging with unmitigated alarm.
Then, with all the collected poise of a diplomat but none of the gentility, Death hoists Gnashor’s skull over his shoulder and drops it discourteously to the ground.
It lands just in front of the Chancellor’s robes with a ‘crack’ that has you cringing sympathetically, and the undead stumbling back until his spine hits the railings behind him.
“Your Champion,” Death drawls, pleased to see him squirm, “As requested.”
The Chancellor’s mouth flaps open and closed before he eventually locks his jaw, gaze darting down to you, as if you might offer him an explanation more concise than Death abruptly dumping a skull at his feet.  
Instead, all he gets from you is a nonchalant shrug.
At that, his eyes fly back to Death, and he manages to squeeze out a tight, “Impossible!”
You wonder what he’d been expecting. And then you start to wonder how many people he’s sent to Gnashor who hadn’t returned. Enough to apparently warrant such shock.
Your lip curls disdainfully.
“I believe your King will see us now,” Death continues with a cock of his hips, draping one hand over his belt.
Once again, the Chancellor looks to you, apparently still hoping that you can talk some sense into the Horseman. Several terse seconds pass, one of which he even seems to spend noticing the marks around your neck, but whatever he thinks, he neglects to mention them at all.
At long last, his lip starts to twist into a nasty frown as he senses that he’s only delaying the inevitable.
You brace yourself, ready to for him to refuse you entry yet again or come up with some other bad excuse as to why you can’t see his Lord.
But then, to his credit…
“I… cannot deny you,” he realises softly, and gestures with a slow wave of his arm towards the guards at the door.
You and Death turn to them, and it’s almost comical to see how readily the two, hulking undead stand to attention and uncross their weapons. One of them reaches back and raps his knuckles soundly four times against the petrified wood, and with a shudder and a groan of their hinges, the doors start to swing inwards, letting a gust of stale air rush out through the gap and waft across your face.
"Watch your tongue around my Lord," the Chancellor hisses at the back of your heads, "You'll find he is not so forgiving as I..." 
Swallowing thickly, you take a single step forward, only to find a hand pulling you up short. Glancing at the pale appendage curled around your shoulder, you follow the arm up to Death’s mask, and his narrowed eyes floating in the dark sockets. He’s peering ahead, straight through the open doors and into the throne room.
You catch his drift without needing to hear a word.
He’ll be going first then.
“After you,” you concede, leaning onto your back foot and letting him move ahead.
Straightening his shoulders, the Horseman moves purposefully through the open doors whilst you follow along in his wake, whispering a quiet ‘thanks,’ to the undead who tips his helmet at you as you pass.
Just as you set your first foot inside, something dark and feathery shoots over your head without warning, zooming into the room ahead of you and Death.
“Dust!” you exclaim, startled yet pleased to see the crow, “Where the Hell have you been!?”
“He has a habit of turning up when the hard work is finished,” Death remarks coolly, watching with a bored expression as the bird flaps his way towards the tall throne at the far end of the room, perching daintily on top of it and cocking his head down to beadily eye the figure slouched in the seat below him.
“Aw, I missed him.”
“Speak for yourself.”
"Alright, hardman." 
Trailing over the threshold properly, Dust’s emergence is soon forgotten. You can’t keep your eyes from drinking in the sombre architecture all around you.
There are two more guards posted up inside the entrance, and another pair standing at the top of some stone steps on the other side of the room, both clasping their respective halberds as they glower you and the Horseman down.
The air is stale in here despite the high, curved ceilings and gaping holes in the walls that let daylight spill inside. It reeks of old stone, like the cold, sepulchral church you’d sought refuge in all those days ago… But beneath the must and stagnant dust, there’s another smell, something earthy like compost. It reminds you of Draven, though it’s far stronger in here than it is on him.
And then, as Death moves forwards and slows his pace, allowing you a glimpse of what’s ahead, you spot the likely source of the smell.
Instinct keeps you holding onto your words whilst you slip into place behind the Horseman, edging out to peek around him at the corpse slumped over in the throne ahead of you. A reverent breath slides past your lips as you take it in.
There’s no life inside it. Not even the bastardisation of life the rest of the undead you’ve met seem animated by. It... No... He sits as stiffly as a long-dead carcass in the throne, shadowed by the high backrest that’s been inlaid with skulls in a gruesome depiction of power. Even in his elevated position on the dais, he looks tall. Taller than Death, perhaps in the same league as Ostegoth, but nowhere near as soft and approachable.
You’re not expecting it at all when, all of a sudden, the cadaver moves.
A sharp yelp jumps out of you before you can catch it as a pair of blank, green eyes spring open, lighting up the sunken sockets of a drawn, skeletal face. Lips as dry as ash crackle and flake at their edges, turned down into a grimace, and without warning, the head jerks up with a visceral ‘snap.'
Raising a hand to cover your mouth, you realise with a dawning sense of horror that you’re watching rigor mortis in motion.
Ancient bones that probably haven’t moved for a long, long time start to wake up. They creak like tree limbs as he wrenches his shoulders back.
‘Snap!’
And tugs at the limbs draped over the arms of his throne.
‘Crack!’
Every little movement looks painful and stilted, and even the crown of bones perched on top of his skull seems too heavy as he pushes his body forwards in the seat, hands spasming into fists when his terrible gaze takes in his new visitors.
When he speaks however, you’re taken aback by the rich, if gravelly voice that thrums from his half-decomposed throat, hidden partially by thin strands of a wispy, white beard which has somehow managed to cling to what little scraps of leathery flesh still remain along his jawline.
“Horseman,” the Lord of Bones sneers, and you can’t help but stare at the puff of dust that flies out from between his crooked teeth, “You stink of the living….”
With an accusing glance down over his shoulder at you, Death lets out a soft little ‘hmph.’
Offended, you furrow your brows right back at him and mouth, ‘dick.’  
There’s no way you’ve made him smell like you…. If anything, you’re probably the one who smells like him.
Your little stare-down is cut short when there’s another crack of bones from the figurehead before you.
In a far more violent motion, the King surges forwards as far as his spine will allow, curls of fetid, green smoke rising from his shoulders like a miasma. Eyes ablaze, he locks the Horseman in his sights, peels blackened lips back over his teeth and snarls, “You are not welcome here.”
“Pity,” Death remarks, casual as can be, “I was starting to enjoy the atmosphere.”
The Lord of Bones sneers derisively, leaning back and sitting tall with another crack of his spine, leering down the length of his nasal ridge at Death. “Then you have not been here long.”
You’re growing bolder, inching further from the Horseman’s side to stare unabashedly up at the King on his throne.
He could have been human once, you marvel, old as the Earth’s core, a giant among men, now wizened and haggard but no less an imposing figure with his regalia made from bone and a face so sunken and cruel, it makes your palms sweat just to look at it.
But it’s as you find yourself taking that first step out into the open, mouth slightly ajar and eyes on stalks, the King finally takes note of your presence.
You know precisely when he meets your gaze because you’re suddenly frozen solid. A bolt of ice lances up your spine, anchoring you in place like a beetle pinned to a corkboard.
It occurs to you then, that accompanying Death in here might have been a terrible idea. Officially, you’ve met exactly three undead. One had welcomed you warmly into the realm. Another met you with scorn and derision. And the third had tried to kill you.
So, how will you be received here by the Lord of this realm?
You suppress a shudder, averting your gaze at once.
“So… the whispers were true,” the old undead finally rasps, breaking the suffocating hush that had drifted into the room.
You hear him lean forwards, flinching when sharp, splintered fingernails curl over the throne’s armrests and scrape audibly against the bone as they tighten their grip.
“One survived after all.”
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lura-valentine · 27 days ago
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Blueprints of Fire
Pro Hero Touya x Rain AU
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Hi ho 👋😊
After my last AU presentation, I've kind of gotten a taste for it – so I'd like to share another idea with you that's been floating around in my head for ages.
The story centers on Enji Todoroki, who, just like in the canon, is obsessed with creating the perfect hero. To achieve this goal, he wants to marry his eldest son, Touya, to an "ideal" partner: Rain.
But the whole thing isn't without resistance: Touya rebels against his father in his own quiet way, and Ryen, Rain's older brother, sets clear boundaries to ensure Rain isn't reduced to a pawn. Should the connection with Touya fail, she still has a way out.
Like my fanfiction "Son of Fire," this story will be a multi-chapter series. It will be a story about rebellion, duty, forced life paths, and decisions that demand more than one is willing to give.
I hope you like the concept 🖤🔥💙
Everything related to this AU will be listed under #BlueprintsOfFire_ProHeroTouya_AU for convenience.
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The World
Set in the world of My Hero Academia, in the present day – a modern society with widespread quirks.
The hero structure remains the same, with this strange popularity scale where no one is 100% sure what is being measured - popularity, strength, both... or something else entirely... who knows.😅
The league doesn't exist. It will exist, but not in the form everyone knows and expects.
Touya Todoroki
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Hero name: Blue Blaze
Age: 20 - 22
Improved heat tolerance than in canon - can actively use his Quirk for longer without immediately getting injured.
No external scars, no staples – wears tailored, temperature-regulating hero clothing with high insulation to prevent overheating.
Appearance: Snow-white hair, upright, controlled gait, cool gaze, master of serious facial expressions.
Fighting style: precise, calculated, aggressive – prefers short fights.
Known for high efficiency and success rate, adheres to regulations, but often with minimal emotional involvement.
Public image: aloof, serious, respected – he's considered an up-and-coming top hero with a bright future. He's barely present in the media and avoids interviews whenever possible.
Family background is deliberately hardly mentioned by the agency – Enji is more of a mentor than his father in interviews.
His desire to please his father and not be in Shoto's shadow remains unchanged. However, he struggles internally for independence and his father's approval. This leads him to be rebellious toward Enji, but still obey him to the letter.
Rain Black
Codename: Firewing
Age: 16 - 18
Quirk: Dark Phoenix – Controls dark red to black flames channeled through feather projection. Each feather contains a heat-based core that dissolves into ash after use and is regenerable.
➥ Special Attributes: High firepower, complete resistance to fire and heat.
Appearance: Long black hair, medium-sized with striking black wings whose feathers shimmer blood-red in the light. Deep red eyes with a calm, slightly suspicious gaze.
Character: Calm, attentive, and controlled in her body language – she moves with the efficiency and precision of a military-trained fighter, yet her charisma is permeated with natural warmth. She speaks openly and directly and displays a strong protective instinct in the presence of the helpless.
Training focus (previously): Training facility of the Black Wings, an independent, internationally operating mercenary group specializing in infiltration, combat tactics, and contract operations.
➥ Within the organization, she is considered tactically reliable, adaptable, and loyal – especially to her brother, in whom she has absolute trust.
Retraining Path: At Enji's politically motivated request, Rain stays in Japan at her brother's behest.
➥ Official reason: Cultural exchange and participation in a strategic training program to expand their skills.
➥ Unofficial reason: Preparation for a possible political alliance with the Todoroki family.
New career: Acceptance into a recognized training program to become a professional hero with a significantly reduced training period. She must adapt to legally regulated hero structures, public relations protocols, and civilian rescue missions. Except for the missions, everything is new territory for her.
Dealing with the situation in Japan: feels like a pawn, but tolerates her brother's decision out of a sense of duty - sees the two years as a mission with an open outcome.
Enji und Touya
Enji continues to consistently pursue the goal of creating the “perfect hero” – and sees his children primarily as a means to achieve his goals rather than as autonomous individuals.
Has put Touya under massive pressure to perform since his childhood. Physical and mental training always at the breaking point, with little regard for his emotional well-being.
Family ties are severely strained – communication is mostly functional and authoritarian, characterized by goals, instructions and admonitions – positive, fatherly attention is largely lacking.
Despite heat tolerance and physical performance, Enji feels Touya is inadequate compared to Shoto – considers him a transitional stage and not a final product. (It was so hard to write this😢)
Touya struggles with an inner conflict.
➥ He longs for his father's recognition and respect. He interprets the fulfillment of his duty as an opportunity to finally be recognized as worthy.
➥ He increasingly rejects Enji's claim to control, begins to question his decisions, and occasionally deliberately challenges his authority.
The relationship is characterized by an underlying tension – open confrontations are rare, instead the conflict manifests itself through passive rebellion, subtle backtalk, and deliberately distant behavior.
Despite his inner isolation, Touya is receptive to Enji's recognition – even the smallest positive remarks or signs of satisfaction have a disproportionate effect on his motivation and self-image.
Enji, on the other hand, takes Touya's obedience for granted and his backtalk as a weakness - he either doesn't notice emotional subtleties or deliberately ignores them.
Enji and Rain
Enji doesn't view Rain as an individual personality, but rather as a functional component of his long-term plan – a suitable genetic foundation to create the next stage of his perfect hero through a deliberate bond with Touya. (Uff😰)
Her abilities –Quirk and physical resistance–were carefully chosen by Enji. Their origin from an elite military unit increases their value in his eyes. Nevertheless, he sees her as a malleable resource, not an equal partner for Touya.
The arranged connection serves strategic goals:
➥ political influence for the Black Wings.
➥ control over a potential bloodline with high combat power and power expansion over Japan's network of heroes.
For Rain, Enji's decision represents a profound turning point – her previously self-chosen path in life is being restructured by external influences.
Her acceptance of the agreement is not an expression of obedience to Enji, but rather the result of a sense of duty and loyalty to her brother Ryen, who had persuaded her to accept the terms. The reason: to expand the Black Wings' influence in Japan.
Ryen's condition: Rain must stay in Japan for two years and at the end, regardless of Enji's wishes, she can decide for herself whether to enter into a relationship with Touya.
Rain treats Enji with polite reserve and maintains military respect, but refuses to open up to him emotionally – she sees him as a manipulative strategist to whom she neither trusts nor feels obligated.
Enji interprets her willingness to adapt as a weakness, not a strategy – and underestimates her inner resilience and emotional independence.
A cool, practical relationship exists between the two – respectful in tone, but lacking trust or appreciation. Rain tolerates his authority but doesn't recognize it.
Touya and Rain
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The initial encounter is characterized by distance and mutual neutrality – no open hostility, but a noticeable emotional barrier.
Touya approaches Rain with reserve, which, however, does not stem from disinterest, but from inner resistance to the situation imposed by Enji.
➥ For Touya, Rain is initially a symbol of his father's claim to control. Another decision made over his head.
➥ The emotional defense is directed less against Rain as a person, but rather against the role into which both have been forced.
Rain, on the other hand, faces the situation with inner discipline and outward composure; she is polite but vigilant – initially sees Touya as a temporary deployment partner, not as a possible life partner.
Both unconsciously share the feeling of being tools in a larger plan – this common starting point creates a silent connection, even before mutual trust develops
In everyday life their walls crumble:
➥ Touya observes Rain closely and recognizes her sensitive, warm nature behind the disciplined surface
➥ Under Touya's controlled posture, Rain senses a deep-seated vulnerability and a constant urge to assert herself – which touches her emotionally.
The situation remains tense for a long time, but not hostile – a kind of quiet coexistence develops in which the two get along without getting too close..
Subtle impulses from outside act as a catalyst for rapprochement:
➥ Fuyumi, who positively encourages Touya.
➥ Keigo, who secretly organizes dates.
➥ Tomura, who gives fine food for thought with his sarcasm – and etc.
Over a period of weeks, cautious acceptance creates a first bridge – conversations become more personal, closeness is not created by physical touch, but by looks, shared thoughts and quiet moments.
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My moral supporters
@tiny-roki-todoroki | @alexandhisstuff | @doumadono | @unhinged-bratty-boy | @within-eyesight | @kittenl4
I mention accounts that my works ❤️ and 🔄. If anyone no longer wishes to be mentioned, please let me know.
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