#Sure as hell doesn't look like the Hyperion

[godisasimp]

Guys do any of you know what the hell is the drawing on the dorm card.

[rlyc00l]

Rhys is going to put his skills to work and make these people trust the crap out of him if it kills him (Actually, he doesn't want it to kill him, he's actually going to try to avoid dying). Zer0's ego goes through some stuff. Everyone could benefit from like, team building exercises or something.

Also under the cut

The first thing Rhys did, after giving up on lying sleeplessly and considering his new position, was draft a message for Vaughn and Yvette. “Hey, I’m alive, on Pandora. Vasquez tried to have me killed. Sorry for doubting you. I don’t know what he’s gonna do now, be careful. I’ll be back soon.” He paused and deleted the “soon”, replacing it with “Sorry to be vague. I’ll explain everything next time I see you.” before sending. It wouldn’t satisfy them. When he got back to Helios, he’d launch the two of them up the corporate ladder (just slightly below himself) to make it up to them. And then he’d brag about this forever. 

But first, he had to secure his victory.

Step one: Gaining trust. He’d been a pro at that up on Helios. Building trust with your coworkers was one of those pillars of success in business (it went hand-in-hand with “strategic betrayal”). There was even an acronym: DARGH. Dependability, Approachability, Respect, Gratitude, and Honesty. Three out of five were easy, he could do those without trying. He’d have to do away with honesty, which left dependability. Dependability required competency, and he was far from competent in this setting. He still hadn’t even figured out how to reload. Luckily, he had the ECHOnet. He activated his ECHOeye and pulled up everything the Hyperion database could teach him about guns and shooting, and found diagrams of the two guns in his possession.

By sunrise he was outside, dry firing the pistol while aiming at distant bullymong holes, trying to get used to the gun’s auto-stabilizers. 

“What are you doing?” 

Rhys flinched, fumbling with the gun. It was Zer0, of course. The others were still asleep. His immediate impulse was to snap at them–why the hell were they always there? He restrained himself for the sake of DARGH and instead summoned all his Hyperion brand faux-affability. 

“Oh, hey Zer0.” Fake smile. Cheery voice. “I-I’m practicing. Getting ready for today, you know? You’re welcome to join.” Goddamn, that sounded phony. He was better than this. The whole double agent thing was throwing him off his game. 

Zer0 looked at him, then his gun. “There’s a camp, not far. / Living targets are better. / With a loaded gun.” 

“That…I-I’m good, thanks. I’d rather conserve ammo, y’know? For those uh, those Fleshripper guys?” 

“There’s a vendor, there.” They thumbed over their shoulder. An Ammo Dump vending machine leaned haphazardly against a nearby building.

“I don’t have–” 

“Oh, right. Your wallet’s empty. / Save your bullets, then.” A smiley face.

“W-wait, you saw who stole my money?”

They ignored that. “Still, practice, needless. / Today, I’ll kill the bad guys. / Just stand back again.” The word “coward” didn’t fit at the end of their haiku, but it was implied. Their “>:P” made that clear.

Later, as they ventured through Fleshripper territory, he did his best not to deserve the label. At least, his best within reason. He stood back, sure, but only because he didn’t have a shield and the others did. A thrown buzzaxe bounced right off of Axton’s head when it would have split his skull open otherwise. Salvador walked right into oncoming gunfire to kill the shooter. A grenade landed at Gaige’s feet and only gave her a few scratches. A shield was undeniably a necessity, here. 

Rhys checked bodies for one when he got the chance, but there was little intact for him to take. A few dollars here, some bullets there. The bandit’s actual killers got first dibs on everything. So he was forced to shoot from afar, careful to avoid his “allies”. Most of his shots missed, but sometimes they hit, and sometimes the bandits died. Those kills didn’t feel like that first time, but at least he wasn’t almost dying. Small victories.

A further small victory came for his “DARGH initiative”. With Zer0, of all people. 

Bringing up the rear occasionally put him near them, when they’d switch from up-close fighting to sniping. Their sudden appearances had startled him the first few times. They seemed to teleport, but it was a clever combination of hologram and cloaking technology. Rhys found that if he paid attention, he could sometimes see when their footprints in the snow parted from the hologram. Even then, he missed it more often than not.  

Zer0 may have been a total asshole, but it was pretty cool to watch. They’d appear with their sword buried in one man’s back. When the next bandit fired on them, the hologram would feign an attack from the front while they climbed a nearby roof, blowing his brains out without him ever knowing he’d been tricked. Rhys wondered if Jack knew about their method, or if he should report it. If Zer0 meant to fight Hyperion, the soldiers should be forearmed with that knowledge, the way these Fleshrippers weren’t. 

As he was considering recording them for Jack, a gunshot rang off from his left and two bandits dropped dead at the same time. Zer0 appeared with their sniper rifle on a low roof next to him. “Holy crap. Did…Did you just do that?” 

“Yes.” They projected a “:D”. 

“That was actually pretty badass.” 

They didn’t respond, only moved to a higher position, taking out another pair of bandits the same way, then a third with a headshot.

If he didn’t know better, he would have thought they were showing off. But there was no way they cared what he thought, right? It was worth testing. Rhys was well-practiced in the art of sycophancy. “You, uh, you think you could hit that guy way down there before Krieg gets to him? The one taking cover behind the crates.” 

The bandit in question was on the other side of camp, firing at Krieg as he charged. Only a small portion of his head was visible. 

A second after he said it, they’d shot, and the bandit’s head vanished in a spray of red. Krieg slowed to a stop, with a bellow of “Disappointed!” 

“Nice!” The enthusiasm in his voice wasn’t hard to fake. He never expected Zer0 might actually be easy to win over. 

“As I said before. / You need not participate. / I’ve got this handled.” 

“Right, clearly.” It was the same on Helios, flattery didn’t get you respect in return. Still, if he’d swallowed his pride and sucked up to Vasquez, the man wouldn’t have tried to blow him up. Zer0 was more the “literal backstabber” type, but still, the point stood. 

———

Captain Flynt, leader of the Fleshripper bandits, was the last thing standing between the Vault hunters and the mainland. He’d made his throne on a wrecked freighter sitting precariously atop an icy clifftop. Rhys lost count of how many the group had killed on the trek through the surrounding camps and the climb up to the ship’s deck. At that point, a reasonable person would surrender. Captain Flynt wasn’t a reasonable person. 

Claptrap had raced in ahead of the rest of them, waiting at the top of the ramp that led to the ship’s deck. “Yoohoo! Minions, this way!” He waved them on impatiently. 

Maya stopped there. “We should go in with a plan. One would have to be pretty hard to kill to lead a bandit clan of this size for more than a week, and Hammerlock claims he’s tough.” 

Zer0 barely glanced at her as they moved on after Claptrap. 

“I was thinking we shoot him full of bullets. Until he dies.” Salvador said, passing her.

“Yeah, that was more or less what I was gonna say?.” Axton stopped for only a moment, hesitating before jogging after Zer0. “Sorry, not about to let them get all the glory!” he called over his shoulder.

“I need to get keelhauled!” Krieg followed the other three. 

“Hey, wait up!” Gaige had the decency to look guilty as she passed. “Sorry, Maya, but I mean, we have more guns?” 

Rhys could only offer a shrug. “For what it’s worth, I was onboard with the ‘having a plan’ plan.” 

The battle was underway by the time he and Maya caught up. Flynt wasn’t alone, at least twenty more bandits fought alongside him. He was unmistakable among his cohorts. The man dwarfed even Krieg–but part of that might have been the thick, padded suit and the tall horns atop his helmet. He wielded both a flamethrower and an entire anchor with ease. Also, he was on fire, which didn’t seem to bother him.  

Yesterday, Rhys might have stayed on the ledge overlooking the deck, never directly joining battle. Today, he had a promotion and a turbomansion to look forward to, and DARGH to think of. Amazing what getting contacted personally by Handsome Jack could do to a guy. At least, it was enough to make Rhys hop down onto deck–only to slip on a patch of ice and fall on his face. Thankfully, this went unnoticed. The bandits were too occupied with those who got there before him. Each Vault hunter seemed to be fighting their own battle. Huge plumes of fire intermittently shot up from the vents in the deck, leaving thick clouds of smoke in its wake. Maya was already further up, he saw a flash of purple lift Flynt into the air. A buzzaxe-wielding bandit took notice of him as he was getting to his feet. Rhys shot him as he charged, and he stumbled to the ground and didn’t rise again. Then a second bandit was shooting at him. Bullets whizzed past his face, barely missing. Finding flimsy cover behind a wooden crate, he returned fire. Either one of Rhys’s bullets hit the mark, or someone else’s did. Regardless, that bandit fell too. 

He got another glimpse of Flynt near the broken edge of the ship. Zer0 was behind him, sword bearing down at his back. Flynt turned, delivering a blow with his anchor that knocked them off their feet. He lifted the anchor, ready to bring it down on them. Flames went up. Rhys fired a few shots where he’d seen Flynt. The fire faded. Flynt was running at Salvador, whose pair of shotguns seemed to do little to slow him. No sign of Zer0. 

“Krieg, come on! You’re in the way!” He heard Axton before he saw him. He was shooting over a pile of crates. His turret was perched on a crate firing at Flynt, only, Krieg was in front of its target. 

Fire again. A flaming bandit came rushing out of a nearby vent, screaming in agony. Rhys backed up, pulled the trigger. Out of ammo. The bandit fell anyway. He ducked behind cover. His shotgun held only two shots in it, and he’d never actually used it before. It would be better to stay here and wait for the fighting to stop. He heard more screaming–a voice that had to be Gaige’s. 

Could be a hero. That’d be worth points. 

He moved along the intact edge–towards the screams, trying to keep track of Flynt. The jet of fire from his flamethrower gave him away on the far side of the ship. 

When he found Gaige she was crouched behind a junk pile, reloading her submachine gun. Her robot was fighting off a bandit on the other side. Another three bandits lay dead nearby. 

“You okay?” he needed to raise his voice to be heard over the battle. She was soaked in sweat and covered in ash but otherwise, she looked okay. 

She gave him a strange look, then turned to finish that last bandit. 

He ducked down next to her. “I–someone was screaming. Was that Maya?” It hadn’t sounded like Maya.

“Oh! Yeah, that was me! Look at this shit.” She stuck out her leg. Her nylon tights had partially burned away, revealing her calf red and blistered beneath it. “Hurt like a bitch!” She’d sounded like she was being murdered. “Right. So you’re not in any immediate trouble?” 

“Nope. You’re bleeding, by the way. Like a lot.” She turned back to the battle. It was quieter now.

“Haha, what?” He looked down, not seeing any blood on him. “No, I’m not.” “Your face.” 

He was so soaked in sweat, it took a moment to find the blood on the right of his face, longer to find the gash starting at his temple and ending just past his ear. He hadn’t felt it until now, but suddenly his body seemed to remember that this was supposed to hurt. “Oh jeez… How…How bad is it?” “I think you just got grazed, dude. You’re fine.” 

“Owwww…” It burned.  

Gaige, put away her gun, getting to her feet. “Anyway, I think we’re done?” 

Clutching his head, he followed her lead. There were dead bandits everywhere. On the far side was Flynt, lying in a heap on the deck. Flames had stopped coming up from the vents. “Huh, wonder if he was like, remotely controlling the fire somehow…”   

“Dunno.” Rhys couldn’t find it in himself to be that curious right now. He couldn’t remember the last time so much blood was coming out of him.  “First time being shot?” Axton joined him and Gaige as they crossed the deck to meet with the others. 

“Kinda hope it’s my last.” Axton laughed. “Good luck with that.” He looked him up and down. “Hell, did you ever get a shield?” 

“Couldn’t find one.” “Why didn’t you say something?” Axton stopped, opening his storage deck holoscreen. He was using his left hand, his right hung at his side, covered in blood. 

“Kind of got the sense that uh, begging would be a bad look?” 

Axton shrugged. “This isn’t Hyperion. And I mean, a little more to the left and you’d be dead.” He’d produced a Tediore shield, handing it to Rhys. 

“Thanks.” He clipped it to his belt.

They passed Salvador, looting a corpse. “Y’all see what happened to Zer0?” he asked. “Cuz if they’re dead, I already called dibs on that gun. The acid one.” 

Rhys glanced at where he’d last seen them, half expecting their mangled corpse. They weren’t there, but between the sheer number of corpses and trash on deck, they could still be dead and he’d just missed them. He didn’t feel like looking so hard, his head hurt. 

Maya and Krieg waited outside the deckhouse, beneath Flynt’s throne. Krieg sat on a still-panic-moded Claptrap. A buzzaxe was half buried in his shoulder, and Maya was trying to calm him enough to pull it out. She scowled when she saw them. “Couldn’t have spent a few minutes trying to coordinate an attack?” 

“Hey, the guy’s dead, right? And we’re alive.” Axton radiated self-satisfaction. 

“Hell yeah, you are!” Claptrap popped out of his panic-mode, almost knocking Krieg over as he rolled out to gloat over Flynt’s corpse. “Take that, Flynt! My minions are certified badasses!” 

Maya ignored Claptrap, grabbing the buzzaxe’s hand with both hands. “Your turret drained Krieg’s shield.” She gritted her teeth as she yanked the blade out. 

“No! I needed that there!” Krieg protested. The wound already began to knit together before Maya jabbed a hypo in the flesh near it. “Augh! How will I find anything now?!” 

She ignored that too. “Not to mention, if I hadn’t made it in time, Salvador would have gotten crushed by that anchor. And, I have no idea where Zer0 went.” 

“Another one into the pit!” That one took her a moment. “Wait, they went over the side?”

Krieg tensed, grabbed his head, and then managed an exaggerated nod. “Anchors aweigh!” Crap.” She looked around at the others. “There’s more hypos inside, get yourselves fixed up. I’m going back for Zer0.” 

Inside the deckhouse was what once was a lounge for the crew, when this was still a functioning corporate cargo ship. Now, maybe it was still a lounge, but hanging from the ceiling were bouquets of human skulls, and staked to the dart board was a man’s corpse, dead at least a few weeks. After the bandit camps, this kind of decor seemed pretty standard. Rhys took a seat on one of the lopsided, threadbare couches opposite the corpse. At least it was cold enough it didn’t smell, much. 

Gaige, Salvador, and Axton were going through the chests and crates that lined that wall, arguing over loot. “I did get the kill, so y’know, I think I should get the shotgun.” “You only got the kill because my turret softened him up!”  

“Oh come on, you guys killed one guy, me and Deathtrap killed like, a gazillion of them while you were fighting him.” 

“Those little guys? I was saving them for after.”

“Yeah, they weren’t exactly our primary objective.”

“So next time I should just let them shoot at you? Cuz I totally will.” 

Rhys tuned them out, absently studying the crude map next to the dartboard corpse as he tried to distract himself from the pain. The map must have been made by one of the bandits, it was an indecipherable mess, there was no way it was to scale. Was that supposed to be the ocean? Then that there would probably be Sanctuary… But what was that thing in the center? It didn’t match up with the maps he studied in his ECHOeye, but maps of border planets tended to be lacking… 

“Oh, right, Rhys!” Axton crossed the room to him, holding out a hypo. There was a bullet hole in his forearm, rapidly closing up as he offered it. “Hate to see a face like that go to necrosis.”

He took it with a “Right, thanks so much,” and a forced smile. It was only once his face started to heal that he realized Axton had probably been flirting with him. He didn’t know what to do with that fact, did it still count as a win for DARGH? Did that mean he was doing a good job winning these people over, or should he just take it as a testament to his looks? 

It was then that Zer0 finally limped into the cabin, just ahead of Maya. They crossed the room without looking at any of the others. “The path is open. / We board Claptrap’s freakin’ boat. / And get out of here.” They sounded pissed. 

“Couldn’t have said it better myself!” Claptrap said as he followed them. “Let's board me mighty vessel and kiss the shelf goodbye!” 

“Woah, wait, Zer0, You alright, dude?” Axton asked. 

“Yes,” they said. 

“Cause I have like, one more insta-health here.” He held up another hypo, smirking. 

“Give me it.” “I dunno. If you’re okay, I might save it for later. Does our untouchable assassin really need some healing?”

Zer0’s hand closed around the hilt of their sword. “You have eyes.” 

“Axton, just give them the damn instahealth.” Maya stepped in. 

Axton sighed, and Zer0 snatched it up. “This feels like enabling their crap, y’know?” 

———

Considering that the boat they were to take belonged to Claptrap, Rhys expected the prize to be some sad little dinghy. He wasn’t well-versed on boats, but it had actually probably been some sort of fishing trawler. He wasn’t sure how a Claptrap would end up with something like that, but it had SS Claptrap spray painted on it. It was a good-sized boat, even with eight passengers there was space to spare. Sturdy, too, though that didn’t make Rhys feel much better as they lowered it into the water from a pair of cranes attached to Flynt’s wreck. He clung to the side as it was slowly lowered into the water, wondering if the shield would save him from falling to his death. Every bump felt like it might be the end, but somehow the ship touched down without incident.  

“So, how long is it to the mainland?” Gaige asked when they finally got moving. 

“Fifteen hours! But don’t worry chums, I’m sure it’ll pass in a flash! I know some great boat trip games!”  

“Ugh. If anyone needs me I’m gonna go over there and tune up Deathtrap.” 

“Yeah, uh, shouldn’t you be steering? Keep us from hitting any icebergs, or something?” Rhys tried.  

“You’re absolutely right! I guess you guys can have fun, I’ll provide the background music. Just gotta load up some sea shanties, and it’ll be a party in no time!” 

Rhys just hoped that Pandora wasn’t home to any horrific sea monsters. Before anything else, he found a tiny little bathroom in the boat’s cabin, a mirror on the door. There was a sink, but no water ran through it. Instead, he was stuck wiping what blood and sweat he could get off with his sleeve–Maybe Sanctuary would have actual laundry machines. 

It was then that Vaughn called him back, the notification lit up in his ECHOeye. He ignored it, no telling what the Vault hunters would do if they caught him communicating with someone on Helios. A moment later he got the voicemail and played it directly into his implants. 

“Holy shit, Rhys. I just saw your message. I’m so glad you’re okay. Or, I hope you’re okay. I’m gonna choose to believe you’re not answering because you are busy actively surviving that hellhole. What happened? Where are you? Can we do anything to help? Yvette can send down supplies? You, uh, you don’t have to worry about us. Get this, Vasquez disappeared, his nameplate’s gone, office cleaned out, no one knows what’s going on. But supposedly, he got called in for a meeting with Jack, and you know… Try to get back up here soon. And don’t drink the water down there! Or eat anything weird. Call me back. If you’re still alive, I mean.” 

Rhys texted a reply, practicing with the ECHOeye functionality he’d used to message Jack: “Still alive. Can’t call you, I’m surrounded by bandits. We’ve reached an understanding though, they trust me. I’m not going to be in mortal danger anytime soon unless I start openly talking to someone on Helios.” 

The text response from Vaughn came a minute later: “Holy shit, dude. Are you sure they’re not planning to eat you? I heard Pandora is chock full of cannibals.” 

“I’m sure.” 

“Okay, still, you should really find a Hyperion base or something.” “I’ll keep an eye out.” A lie, but he wasn’t about to give too much away. 

“I gotta get back to work, Don’t want anyone else up here getting called into Jack’s office. I’ll message later. But seriously, you need anything, let me or Yvette know.” “Yep. See you later.” He had to smile–Vaughn had nothing to worry about up there, Jack had already done him a favor and gotten Vasquez out of the way. He played this right and he could get his friends comfy, safe positions before this was over. 

He passed Axton on his way out of the cabin, already napping on one of the little cots. 

Outside, the rest of them were keeping their distance from each other. Krieg was at the prow of the ship, yelling incoherently at the sea ahead. Maya sat on a crate nearby, somehow ignoring him enough to be reading a book. Gaige worked on her robot, disassembled parts laid out across the deck in front of her. Salvador was cleaning his shotgun. Zer0 was just leaning against the side of the boat, arms crossed, things like “B0R3D”, “...”, and “UGH” occasionally flashing over their helm. 

Claptrap, at least, was too occupied with steering to bother anyone with more than singing.

Everyone still seemed too tense to approach, but he still had a lot of material on the Hyperion database that may or may not come in handy to study. He sat down leaning against the cabin’s outer wall, and pulled up an entry of their destination, Three Horns. 

“Three Horns is a small region named for its three stone crags. Ringed by mountains to the east and precipitous cliffs to the west, the area is…” 

“That should be removed.” Zer0’s voice interrupted his reading. They were kneeling in front of him. “Before we reach the city. / It may get you killed.”

“Wha..?” He closed out of the ECHOeye entry. “What?” 

They poked his chest.  “Oh. Yeah.” It barely peered out under the bandit’s jacket, only the “Hy” visible, but it was undeniably Hyperion’s logo on his vest

“In Sanctuary / I hear they find clever ways / Of killing your kind.” They projected a “;)”. 

“Right…” It was a nice vest. Expensive, hardy. He couldn’t just throw the whole thing out. But he could probably cut through the stitching. “You’ve got a knife or something?” 

“Yes,” they said. 

He waited. They made no move to offer him anything. 

“Can I use it?” 

They cocked their head, seeming to consider for a moment. “No.” They stood and returned to their prior spot. 

After half an hour of fighting with the label, he’d managed to pull it a third of the way off. Hyperion stitching was good. He was considering resorting to using his teeth when a folded pocket knife landed in front of him. He looked up to see Zer0, and took the knife with a “Thanks? Wish you’d given this to me before?” 

The knife was marked “DAHL”. 

“Er…Did…Did you steal this from Axton?” 

“He is still sleeping. / If I were you, I’d work fast. / He will wake angry.” They projected a “:3”. 

[llixulia]

A Long Overdue Conversation

The throne room suddenly became colder, and Sheekara ordered everyone to leave. She kept looking forward, knowing exactly who had come.

“Nyxalius.”-she said coldly. She could feel as if he’d placed a hand on the wall she had erected between them in their bond.

“Sheekara.” Nyxalius kept quiet for a few moments, considering his words. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep watching you kill innocents with a smile on your face just because someone else put you in this position… Because I wasn’t there to stop it. I can’t keep watching as you influence the nobles to treat the rest of the Vor’iek poorly, Sheekara. I can’t. Enough. They’ve suffered enough. They’re not guilty of what happened to you. You should be taking out your rage on me or the other gods, not them.”

A soft hiss left Sheekara and she stood up from the throne, her wings tense, glaring at him. “It hurts more when your creations suffer. And the other gods deserve all the pain for doing this to me. For forcing me to marry a mortal I didn’t love. Then again, it was that or the Vor’iek died, wasn’t it? Not like I had much of a choice. They chose the mortals, so I will hurt them to get to them, no matter what.” She growled to him. “And you. How dare you speak to me that way? You weren’t there when it happened.”

“You could have fucking said something to them, even if it meant our relationship came to light!”-he snarled. “Do you think it was easy for me? To find out my mate had been given away as if she was an object? Do you think I don’t feel guilty for not being there when it mattered? To stop it from happening? But I couldn’t be contacted because I was in the Afterlife, taking care of souls. I didn’t know what was happening. I found out too late.”

"And what exactly have you done since then to solve it, hm? You could have fought for me once you found out, or at least supported me on my revenge, but no, you kept quiet, leaving me to deal with this! Hells, even Kailgraesh doesn't know you're his father because you weren't there! I had to make sure he was well protected with a spell so he didn't resemble you."

"Protected? If you love him so much, why you treat him as a servant? Why did you hurt his mate? Because you didn't approve?"-he snarled.

"He reminds me of you! And that bitch wasn't worthy!"-she snarled back at him.

"Yihla was a good person, and a much better female than what you've become!"-he roared, black tendrils appearing around him, as if they were ready to lash out. "And our son, despite you, has grown to be a stand-out Vor'iek, in all the good ways."

She tilted her head. “If you don’t like what I do, you can always kill me.” A blade appeared between them. “Here. It would be easy, wouldn’t it? To just thrust the dagger into my heart. So why don’t you?” An ironic smirk appeared on her face. “What’s the matter? Afraid of death?”

His claws clenched, and he had to take a deep breath. “It is not your time yet. And despite everything you’ve done… I always wondered if there was anything left of the person I used to know and love.” He closed his eyes. “Clearly there isn’t… Or I didn’t really know you at all. I don’t want this bond between us. It hurts too much.”

Pain crossed her face, if only for a brief moment. “And risk you killing me? No.”

“Sheekara. I will not take a life if it is not their time.”

“What about Hyperion? He will come after me. No. I refuse to break the bond.”

“So you intend to use me as a meat shield.” He closed his eyes. “I had hoped to resolve this peacefully, but if you won’t cooperate… I will do it by force. Even if it kills both of us. Our son will be a worthy successor.”-he said, fading into mist and disappearing.

[buttercup-art]

so I'm a little tired atm, but I still wanted to talk about this because it really reminds me of Noa and Hugo's relationship

I've already talked a little with @hyperionhugo about how Hugo thinks the reason Noa is so mean to him is because she secretly likes him (and that's 1000% true, believe it or not lol). But she also treats him like that on purpose to try to push him away.

I think the line "I love you...as much as someone like me can love anyone" is perfect for her because that's what she always says when she tries to convince herself that she does not love him at all, even though some of her actions clearly say otherwise.

If she didn't love him in the slightest, she wouldn't even be giving him the time of day, considering her busy schedule.

She wouldn't be giving him gifts out of nowhere, delivered straight to his apartment with ornate-looking packaging (there have been a few times she got him various suits, perfectly tailored to his measurements. She claimed it was because he needed to dress better if he wanted to keep following her around like a lost puppy, but she actually just wanted to get him something nice. Because she likes seeing him happy).

She wouldn't be bringing him along to whatever business she has to deal with. Sure, he's useful as "corporate muscle" or someone to do her dirty work, but she could just as easily get someone else to do that. Hyperion has plenty of security and interns she can push around. She can just as easily get someone else to drive her around whenever she needs to conduct business on Pandora. But she chooses him because she secretly enjoys his company. Not that she'd ever admit that to him, of course...

So yeah, Hugo's right about that. Noa does like him. Yes, a lot of things about him don't impress her and she gets annoyed with a lot of things he does, but she finds him endearing for some reason. And she doesn't know how to handle that. She's stays up late at night trying to figure out why the hell she likes that idiot so much, like a detective trying to crack a case-

And I just find the idea of her trying to dance around those types of feelings so funny. And then Hugo rubbing it in her face when he finally gets her to admit it. He'd get a massive ego boost from that, for sure.

Anyway, that's all for now. Enjoy the song!

[reveromantique]

She heals him.

He doesn't know why, or how quickly she'd noticed, considering how much garuda blood he was currently wearing, but her small hand slides right beneath his coat and administers a cure like it's nothing at all.

Seifer is too stunned to speak for a second, until she's done and smiling at him again.

"Uh. Yeah. Sure. I'll try to keep myself in one piece," he says, and can't help but return the smile she gives him. He'd honestly just expected to bleed until he took the time to patch himself up-- Garden would have slapped him with a potion or a paramagic cure, something cold and artificial.

Her magic is warm, refreshing. And when he touches his side, it feels like there wasn't a wound at all.

She leads him to the showers, shows him right where everything is, and thanks him for saving her life in nearly the same breath.

She's damn cute, he's gotta admit.

"Anytime," and that's offered with a grin that can only really be called flirtatious-- anywhere else, and he'd have chatted her up in a bar, or at a party.

No different here, covered in blood and standing outside a bathouse, right?

"I'll be fast," he adds to her back as she goes, and rolls his eyes at the attendant at the door who's smothering a grin. "You think you can get blood out of this?" he asks, gesturing to the coat.

"Yeah, we'll hit it with a waterga or two and some soap, it'll be good as new in a few. Leave it on the bench and I'll bring it back before you're done."

"Great."

It's better news than he was expecting. Seifer does what he's asked, leaving everything piled on the bench, (except Hyperion, and the blade he takes with him into the stall, using the water pressure to clean off all the gunk and salt water damage it had taken from his initial arrival, and then setting it carefully to dry just outside the curtain.

The shower is the best thing he's had in months-- he is half-tempted to stay there forever, beneath the hot water, but everyone seems to be in a bit of a hurry for no reason, so he makes hasty work of a bar of coconut-scented soap, scrubbing himself down, eradicating any traces of monster blood from his skin.

Eventually, he shuts off the water, wraps a towel around his waist, and comes face to face with a mirror the second he steps out, hanging over the sink across the way.

Seifer nearly doesn't recognize himself-- he can't remember the last time he'd looked in a mirror after Ultimecia'd scooped him up and then dumped him like an unwanted puppy-- and he nearly doesn't recognize himself.

Hair's wild, sticking up every which way-- he rakes his fingers back through it, corralling the strands into something like a semblance of order-- but his cheekbones are sharper, and there's a faint crop of blond stubble all over, threatening to grow into a proper beard if he doesn't get his hands on a razor soon. He's scarred, a bunch of new ones he doesn't (or only vaguely) remembers getting, a big ugly one in his right elbow from the Garden battle that still feels numb when he presses his fingers into it. Seifer turns his back to the mirror slightly to assess the damage there.

It's as bad as he remembers, five massive, searing black stripes from his shoulder practically to his waist, healed over almost fucking tenderly by Ultimecia, telling him what a good boy he was, how well behaved.

The memory makes him want to puke. Seifer turns on the sink hastily, splashing cold water over his face to try to quell the urge, and comes up dripping, but feeling less like he's going to vomit.

"You are fine," he tells his reflection sternly, and he better mean it-- he's escaped. She isn't here. She is dead, hopefully.

(He hopes like hell Squall's managed that much, at least, and only regrets that he hadn't been able to do it himself.)

His clothes are, surprisingly, clean. Folded neatly, too, and his personal effects from his pockets are set alongside in a little woven bowl. Somehow, he'd managed to not lose his wallet, and there's fifty gil stuffed in there, still, along with his Garden ID and a bank card that undoubtedly will do him no good here. His watch, broken beyond repair; Seifer tosses it into the trash, because there's no point in keeping it. A comb, two tines broken out of it but otherwise okay. Good enough by him, and he uses that to fix what his hands couldn't manage with his hair. No gel, he'll just have to suffer looking like a teenage heartthrob from a boy band for a while.

Twenty-three cents in coins; he adds those to his pants pocket with the wallet. A crumpled feather from a black chocobo-- no idea where he'd gotten that. Trash. Pocketknife, still wickedly sharp and more than useful-- definitely keeping that.

The hem of his coat is mangled, torn to shit; he carefully uses the knife, cutting off an approximately straight line to get rid of the worst of the damage. It's dragonskin; it's not like it's going to unravel on him if there's no fancy hem.

He dresses. Shrugs on the coat, laces up his boots. Puts Hyperion back in its case, now that she's clean and dry, and slings the nylon, padded strap across his chest.

Time to go be a guardian. Whatever the fuck that means.

(But whatever gets him off this tiny island, he supposes. He'll figure the rest of it out as he goes.)

The moment he agrees, Yuna was immediately enthralled. Both hands fold towards her chest with a look of endearment written on her face. "I thank you, Seifer. Truly." that's when she noticed a large scarlet pool seeping through the white of his jacket. Yuna lets out a sweet, panicked, noise and rushes towards him. With both hands extended, she presses her palms flat underneath the opening of his coat, feeling around for the sticky residue, and administering the warmth of her heals.

The showcase prompts the black mage to facepalm and shake her head. She'd already known he was a reckless brute due to everything that had just transpired. She also wasn't ignorant when it came to observing how Yuna looked at the man. How excited she was, wholly and innocently enjoying his company when everything he did or expressed bore a huge red flag.

"There," Yuna takes a step back, "Try not to overdo it, okay?"

Wakka and Tidus stroll up to the party as Kimahri stands directly behind Yuna without a word.

Seifer's next string of words pulls another sigh from Lulu. Before she was able to sling a crusade of unforgiving sentences at the blond, Yuna had taken it upon herself to grab Seifer by the hand.

"Yes! Come with me!" she tugs him along back down towards the village, her giggles going out of proximity as the rest of her guardians stared at each other.

Kimahri already knew.

Tidus was oblivious.

Lulu and Wakka share a glance.

"Uhhh…do we stop this or…?" Wakka asks.

"He's a guardian now. By temple law, once you are officially instated, you cannot abandon your summoner unless you wish to be turned in to Yevon's judgement. However, Yevon scripture claims that should one impede a summoner's journey, we may remove them by force." Lulu states, crimson irises observing her adoptive sister excitedly leading Seifer down the hill, and cutely pointing at the crusader's lodgings.

"Ah geez…" Wakka mutters, "She really likes him, though? Why? I mean, I never met the guy, ya? Only seen him act like a numbskull a little bit ago. Can't say how I really feel about him. Well… I guess there's something. Like any minute he's gonna snap, ya know?"

Lulu lets out a frustrated sigh, shaking her head, "There's a lot to be said. Yuna has always opened her arms to anyone, closing them when she feels threatened. If she really finds someone as brash and violent as Seifer worth befriending, then perhaps she sees something in him in which we cannot?

"Even so, don't let down your guard. Yuna can be naive. For all we know, Seifer either plans to slaughter us all for a sick fantasy, or he is genuinely misunderstood. We cannot know for sure until we spend time with him." And saying that elicits a disgusted noise.

"It's right over here," Yuna gently drops Seifer's hand, pointing him in the direction of the showers, "Don't worry. Just grab anything that's provided and leave it on the counter for the attendants to clean up. Any towels that have been used, just hang them over the shower rack when you're done. Okay?" she was about to leave him to his devices, but Yuna suddenly stops mid-stride and spins around one last time. "Um, Seifer?" she offers a respectful bow, "Thank you for saving me. If there is anything I can do to ever repay you, please, tell me." that said, she finally exits the lodge and strolls down the dusty path towards the village entrance to speak with the townspeople and say her goodbyes.

[yandere-plague]

This is a semi-au that I randomly thought up, should I make a part 2?

[Yandere Handsome Jack]

(Story)

Hyperion Stooge

Tw // mentions of kidnapping , betrayal , blackmail , implied Lilith relationship

"Hey kiddos, I'm offering a bounty of a million dollars for whoever brings me my good friend (y/n). I've had some reports that she's hiding somewhere near Sanctuary. Oh, and before I leave, if there is even a single scratch on her I'll kill each and every single one of you! chao."

His voice rung across Pandora, the many a radio's and other miscellaneous methods of communication leads everyone to hear his fucking voice.

Handsome Jack, ever since I met him he's been looking for me. I fled to Pandora short after he had his run-in with the Firehawk on Elpis.

We all know Jack though, he doesn't take no for an answer, and will kill anyone who disagrees.

I know nobody will turn me in inside sanctuary, but I can't help but feel somewhat blamefull for everything Jack has done here.

He's killed, manipulated thousands of people.

For one thing only, me.

Its like a game to him, every second he gets a centimetre closer to me.

"Dont worry (y/n). none of us will turn you in, I promise." Lilith the Firehawk stood beside me, the new leader of the Crimson Raiders.

I have no idea how she manages to stay composed, even after the death of Roland.

"Why does Jack want you though, you've never left sanctuary from what I've seen..."

I tensed up, if she knew the fact that all of this is going on just because Jack wants me. She would kill me.

"Well, I guess he's going to try and use you to get to me. If Jack tries to ECHO you, tell me immediately." She got up, stretched and walked off.

She doesn't suspect anything, it feels wierd saying that even though I'm on her side...

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

Jack has a hunch on this planet, called Pandora.

Its funny, you look at one word of any description of the planet and you will already be distained of wanting to visit.

So why has it interested Jack? He's just a low level programmer, non of the higher ups would batt an eye of his ludicrous idea.

But of course he was right about that hunch, otherwise non of us would be here... - and that's when I shortly met him.

I was even lower then him, working in IT support. Which is contradicting for me to call Jack low.

But of course that doesn't matter at all now, he's the big shot CEO of Hyperion, and I'm just a rando in Sanctuary I guess...

I wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't have left him there.

Probably being forced to be his "pet".

Though I guess we are both somewhat working towards the same goal.

Jack wants to look for the Vault still, but he refuses until he has me.

I don't know whats in a Vault, but I sure as hell know I'll be using it against jack.

-----

I walked into HQ, going up the stairs past Tannis's lab.

Lilith, Brick and Mordicai stood round the Table in the middle of the room. The hologram in the center displaying a map of Pandora.

"Hey guys." I waved, seeing what they were looking at. They had mapped out the locations that the Vault Hunters have been, trying to guess where the Warrior could be buried.

Nothing really interesting was being said so I said my goodbyes and headed out to Moxxi's.

My ECHO device rang, Paranoia hitting me like a hyperion train.

With a sharp breath I answered the call.

And then I wish I didn't.

"Nice ECHO encryption (y/n)! Certainly a tough one, hmm. I wonder where you got the coding skills from..." it's Jack.

"Enough about that, so... How's Pandora? Or should I say... Sanctuary?"

That bitch.

"Go to hell John." Short but sweet.

"Its... Jack, sweetie." Great, nicknames.

I'm not too worried, he can't destroy Sanctuary now that it's in the air.

"Yeah, like I care." Hes still being an asshole, but a calm asshole, that's unlike him.

"Soo, I assume you've seen those bounties I put on you? Its probably scary right? I mean, I wouldn't know I'm not running for my life right now. I'm in my office, like you could, and still can, have been. Ruling the entire Galaxy one planet at a time."

"I don't care what you threatening me with, I am not going with you Jack! The Crimson Raiders are practically family to me!"

"Oh really? How about I tell everyone about you? The Crimson Raiders won't want to work with an Hyperion worker will they?"

"Are you seriously trying to blackmail me right now?! Go on then, tell them. They won't care!"

"And for the record, I'm not even working for you. Haven't been for years."

"...Your wish is my command (y/n)."

He hung up, I laughed myself to the ground. This just did not happen.

"It appears as that some ex-hyperion troops has been hiding in sewers, and they have a insatiable lust for Pizza. Go get some from Moxxi's and head to the location I sent you."

Why did I have to remember this.

I had overheard it as I was taking a jog around Sanctuary.

Listening to other people's conversations was a nasty habit I got from Hyperion, after all secrets and blackmail are your only way to get up to the top without physically hurting anyone.

Tannis had sent a Vault Hunter to kill the Hyperion personnel, claiming that not even they can be 'redeemed'.

I had brushed it off though, I wasn't apart of them during Jacks reign. So, maybe there is a chance they will spare me.

I hope to god...

----

I headed to HQ, feeling sick to my stomach-

"Sup (y/n), you feeling okay?" Lilith said as she rested on a table, her faces smile turning concerned.

"I- you trust me, dont you Lilith?"

She was taken aback by that, that was out of character even for you.

"Of course we- I do. Why? What has Jack said to you?" She walked towards me.

"I dont have time to explain, he's going to tell everyone! Just... Promise me, this won't change anything between us right? I'm not-"

"Bandits of Sanctuary!" His voice stung, like it was poison to even speak those words.

So... you might be wondering why I'm after (y/n). Well, ya see. We worked together during the first vault opening, and during the second vault... she left me. Shes still Hyperion, no matter what she says."

"I'll leave you to talk things out. Oh and one thing! (Y/n)? You can come back any time baby. I'm waiting with open arms!"

I suddenly realised everyone was in HQ, I couldn't stop shaking.

"... its true, I did work for Hyperion. But I promise I left soon after Lilith did the thing in the vault. He's insane." I never thought i would have to reveal this to anyone.

"Are you going to kill me?" The overwhelming sense of dread filled me.

"Why... why would you say such a thing?! You arn't working for Hyperion now, so why should we care?" She answered for everyone, except Tannis, probably.

"But- But Tannis-" this doesn't make any sense.

"I know Tannis asked the Vault Hunters to kill some Hyperion workers but, I just- couldn't do it to you. Okay?" Before I could even process what was going on she hugged me.

"Though this does give me an idea, and you're not going to like it..."

I gulped, what's it going to be?

-

Should I do a part 2?

[idabbleincrazy]

All Souls' Day ~ A Different Perspective

Fandom: Angel (Buffyverse)

Rating: T

Pairing: Spangel

Word Count: 713

Warnings: minor angst, fluff, post-NFA some introspection

Summary: Angel watches Spike make Soul Cakes and offers some comfort.

A/N: written for @leatafanfiction as part of my 200 fics celebration! Read the original here.

Standing in the kitchen doorway, Angel watched Spike retrieve the Soul Cakes from the oven, wondering what thoughts had such a hold on his Childe that he’d taken no notice of his presence.

He’d not gone Souling himself very often during his childhood, and had been surprised when Spike had asked him to join him out of the blue. Sure, his mother had given him a basket to go collecting the sweets around the village a few times over the years, when his father would allow it, and he had watched, slightly enviously, as she had taught young Kathy the cake making process one year. His mother had thought to teach him once, but his father had forbade it, dragging him away to work down at the shipyard loading their merchant vessel with crates until well into the night.

He remembered Kathy’s sweet voice filling the night air as he led her around the neighboring streets to sing for the treats being doled out in remembrance of the dearly departed. Her smiling face flitted through his mind, and his heart clenched.

He pulled himself from the painful memories as the soft sound of humming reached his ears, his attention turning back to his blonde lover as he placed the cakes into the basket. He could sense the heavy sadness that cloaked the younger vampire, and he drifted closer to him.

Angel caught the slight flinch as he laid his hand on Spike's shoulder, startling the younger vampire from his reverie, and was relieved when he relaxed slightly against his hand while he finished filling the basket. His heart sank lower when Spike turned around, blonde head dipped in attempt to hide the pained look on his face.

"Did I damn her soul, Angel; when I took it from her, did I send it off to Hell?"

Angel stared down at him, momentarily confused. As realization struck, he felt his lips tug in a deep frown, and he pulled Spike into arms, urging his chin up to meet his sad gaze.

"Spike, you know I can't truly answer that. I wish I could. But, I do believe that when a human is turned, when their soul leaves them, I believe it goes where it was already meant to. The demon doesn't corrupt the soul, it just takes up shop in the shell left behind."

Angel watched as Spike studied him, searching for a lie that wouldn't be found. He knew he'd accepted his response when he gave a small nod and smiled up at him. He laid a chaste kiss to Spike's forehead as he released his chin and allowed him to rest his head on his shoulder.

He felt Spike relax into his embrace and was glad to be able to bring some small amount of peace to his troubled Grandchilde. He'd meant what he said; it was that same belief that granted him an easing of guilt when he contemplated the fates he'd caused so many. Penn, Drusilla, countless minions he could no longer remember the names of, if he ever did at all. He was glad Spike could rest easy about the fate of his mother's soul.

Spike muttered his thanks into Angel's shirt, pressing a fleeting kiss into the hollow of his throat before extracting himself from the hug.

"For a broody bugger who don't speak much, when you find the words, you sure get 'em right."

Angel shook his head at the playful jibe and nodded at the basket of pastries on the counter.

"If you're ready, we should head out. The evening service starts soon."

Spike picked up the basket and followed him out the kitchen doors and through the lobby of the old hotel.

"We must make sure we light a candle for Fred and the Watcher. Cordelia, too, even if she did get upgraded like you figure."

Angel smiled as Spike’s hand slipped easily into his as they walked out of the Hyperion, surprised at how oddly normal it felt to be heading to church with his beloved Childe, for the service of All Souls, of all things.

"Hell, we'll even light one for Darla, pet. Now, if someone hands you a sweet, for love of all things holy, don’t sing. Opt for the prayer, instead."

~~~

All Things Spike: @leatafanfiction

Spangel Only: @highonbandcandy

[cleaverqueer]

Hyperion, Darla, and Ichor are a trio of familiars who were snakes turned humanoid due to the spell of demon who was kinda just fucking around with magic to see what he could do. Now they can change between those forms, plus a naga-like middle form, at will. (with varying levels of discomfort at staying in any one of them for too long)

Then they kinda???? joined his harem i guess. It's what you do in hell. There's weirder shaped demons than them fucking down there im sure. And he wasn't bad, for a demon; managed to win their hearts, all three of them. Anyway

Darla, who was a constrictor, is the oldest, around 50 if i remember correctly, and Desi. She's kinda motherly, but only to Ichor and Hyperion. Hard to explain but she kinda comes across nicer than she is? Like shes very polite and kind but she doesn't let people walk on her and she knows what she wants. She's aspec and the only person she's ever wanted to be with was the demon who made her a thinking person. i cant remember if she had a face claim, but I think she worked a desk job after- well wait let me introduce them all first

Ichor, or Ike, was a king cobra and is like. early 30s. american irish i think??? i dont remember everything i picked for all of them. He's kinda surly but in a bitchier way. like if John Constantine was a stripper. think bojack horseman as a twink. the only one actually actively looking for a new 'owner' for them, because the other two are still holding onto hope. fc is Matt Bomer :)

Hyperion or Hiram, as he changed his name to in order to pass in human society better, is the youngest at 28, despite being the tallest of them all. He was a horned pit viper i think?? And human him was ,,,, i think from somewhere nordic.... But of them all he misses being a snake the most. He thinks it was simpler. He is like. a militant submissive, if he respects you and you tell him to do something he will see it fucking done. i. forget his fc too....

Yeah so three snakes-made-people who got sent to earth to tempt and kill and spy and whatnot for their Demon Master- til he was slain, as rumor goes, by another demon who wanted his power. all the three of them know is they were out on their little tasks on earth and suddenly they felt his...... idk powers or being or consciousness or influence, whatever piece of him they carried with him in their heads, go silent.

So they found each other and vowed to stick together and take care of one another til.... whatevers gonna happen happens. they dont know much about their own existence already, who couldnt guessed they'd outlive their creator so who knows what it'll take to kill them now?

Local platonic bdsm polycule looking for new owner

[writr4luvrs]

Troy Calypso/Siren!Reader

[Cheers, Drink to That]

Request: "Troy x siren reader but Tyreen hates it"

You were a siren, a powerful one. With your unique power to call whatever eridium like copy's of you to aid your side, it was something about battle royale that you loved when cracking the skulls of your competitors, shaking the concrete and causing them to shaken and stumble, or simply watching competitors explode into a bloody muck that made you feel so fucking good. They were weak and simply dust to be blown away and forgotten when challenged against you.

"Yes!" you cheer to yourself, your copy's trying mimick you as humanly possible before vanishing. The cheers from the audience, the awarding music, the bloody murder that surrounds you, goddamn this felt amazing. You were on top of the world....well Promethea. You were on a winning streak and all 10 million of your followers expected you to win as they watched whether in person or on the echonet. What you hadn't expected were the Calypso twins to holographically present themselves to you. "Holy hell, killer!" Tyreen exclaims.

"Did you see the way that guy's head just blethh?!" Troy laughs while making a explosion sound to someone's head. You scowled at the two, sure you weren't one of their cult followers nor were you fighting the resistance along Sanctuary. Were they fans?

"We've been watching you for a while now, killer." Tyreen answers your question as if on cue. "God, someone that's just as strong and cool and badass! Ugh, and the gore! I love it!"

"Definitely! And you smashed that concrete- hey!" Troy lightly hits Tyreen's arm. "Did hear the way that girl screamed? "no wait!!" Haha!!" they both bend over laughing.

"We'd love to meet you for a drink, come on by!" Tyreen says with a cool cheery demeanor yet you felt as though there was no questioning.

"Yeah, I'm definitely interested in getting to know you better." His giant hologram smirks and winks at you, earning him a scowl from you. Before either could say another word, you spot a pout and scowl from Tyreen.

You later help yourself the bar where for the next few hours your drinks were free, not that it mattered with the millions sitting in your bank account, the guns awaiting to digistruct from Maliwan, Hyperion, and Dahl, and the extremely attractives eyeing you down. But all the attention seemed to soon transition when a couple entered, you turned to face them, knowing exactly who they were. The people of the club gazing in awe or cheering the two: The Calypso Twins. You stay leaned up on the bar, smiling, you drink the rest of your drink before pushing yourself, opening your arms welcomingly, smiling and laughing as they made their way towards you.

They were exactly like they were on the echonet streams: ecstatic, magnetic, dramatic. The three of you connected quickly and they bought the entire room drinks and a cheer erupted. You noticed Troy's looks from you, his touches on your arm, how close he'd get. The small moments you both talked into each other's ear, you both became flirtatious.

"You're hotter in person." You practically have to yell into his ear over the music and chatter. Why had you said that? The drinks were really sinking in but despite he smiled and chuckle.

"You look really good as well, fuck!" he chuckled out. Not a moment more, you feel a pull on your arm, both you and Troy were being pulled to the bar by Tyreen.

"We're taking shots in here, you want one?" she stands between the both of you, getting the attention of the workers and partiers. "Shots, shots, shots, shots, you want one?" the three of you down the sambuca that was douced with a very small percentage of rakk venom (as your told). Troy and you smile, talk, and flirt over Tyreen, not that you could help it, she was shorter than the both of you. Only for her to yell to one of the workers to change the song, and her jumping on the bar with another shot in hand, grabbing the crowds attention.

"Cheers!" she yells. "To the siren killer who's winning streak goes unnoticed!" the crowd cheers, the bar was a party, being pushed around only pushed you and Troy closer.

"I'll drink to that! Yeah!" he says to you after ordering another shot for the two of you. You pour salt on the back of your hand.

"Stoooop!" you laugh as he tries to mess you up and almost cause you to skill your shot. "Together!"

"Drink, drink, drink!" he said quickly as you both down the shot together and quickly lick your salt and suck on your lemon. After a moment, you felt dizziness taking over you, all you hear is music and loud cheer, your control leaves you to put each other's arms around each other. Only for Tyreen to but in-between you two with her legs by sitting on the bar, yelling to grab attention over the crowd (those who could hear her) "Cheers! To the freaking ...WEEKEND!" Troy catches the sudden change of who we're cheering and rolls his eyes laughing, pushing his way to you and pull you out of the bar.

It's more quiet and surprisingly warm. He lights a cigarette to smoke, offering you one but you decline. "It's so fucking loud." you laugh.

"Ahhhh, I love it! It so fun!"

"I want to go home, I think... I'm too drunk, oh my fucking god."

"We can ride one of the cycles, there fast and fun."

"Too fast, I can't drive, I'll swerve into the wall."

"Yeah, me too. I'll get someone to drive you home."

"Come home with me! I think someone sent me some yayo!"

"Yes!"

You hear the door to the club close and see Tyreen and a few followers talking and laughing behind her. She hugs Troy from behind, jumping on his back. "Troooooyyyy, take me hoomme!"

"I gotta take them home as well, okay?" earning an annoyed groan from the sister. "But there's a party at the bar."

"Do you want me to take you home or the bar?"

"Both!" she exclaims, Troy scoffs at her.

"I'm gonna call a cab." you drowsily let out.

"Yeah, you call a cab. Leave my brother ALONE!" she barks at you, Troy pats her to calm down.

"Ignore her, she's drunk."

"I'm okay...."

"She doesn't like sharing."

"No, I don't." she eyes you and pouts. "Play with me instead." she tells you, you feel your face become warmer and smile at Tyreen, taken aback and at loss of words

"Alright....." Troy calls a cab and waits for it to come pick you up. As it lowers itself for you, you say goodbye, giving a hug to both of them, Tyreen hugging you tight, trying to get in the cab with you at first only to have Troy pull her away.

You remember falling asleep in the cab, stumbling up the stairs to your apartment, kicking your shoes off, and falling into bed and nothing else. Waking up to the sun beaming on your face, you lazily gesture for the windows to make it appear night to sleep more. Only to have a notification jingle wake you back up and open your echo, the blue hue hurting your eyes a bit. It was an email from Troy.

" ;)"

That's it.

That's the whole email.

[ernmark]

Please please please continue the one where Juno's working for Ramses and ends up shooting Peter. It was so good! I need to know what happens. What did Peter steal? What does he know about Ramses that Juno clearly doesn't? How did Juno end up at the point where carrying a gun that doesn't even have a stun function is *not a problem* for him? And what is Peter thinking about all this? He pulled a knife on Juno!

Part 1

God, this took me a long time to write, but that conversation with Peter was way harder than it had any right to be.

Also I’m jumping from third person to first, because I can.

Nureyev is still pretty heavily sedated by the time he’s cleared to leave the hospital. There’s not much more that the doctors can do for him– the tissue scaffolding is already in place in his leg, and now it’s just a matter of waiting until the new cellular growth fills in what used to be there. All this fancy medical talk goes a bit over my head, really. It used to be this kind of thing was something out of a fantasy– best case scenario, Nureyev would be spending the rest of his life walking with a limp. But the insurance plan Ramses has me on means Nureyev will be on his feet in a month with nothing but a bit of discoloration to show for his trouble.

There’s a catch, though– even Ramses’ insurance doesn’t cover every random schmuck I carry in off the street. To get them to treat Nureyev, I had to give them a name. 

Specifically, my name. 

Which is why I’m busy signing the release forms for Duke Steel, my… er… husband.

Yeah.

So that’s why I leave the hospital with a packet of outpatient instructions, a collapsible wheelchair, and a heavily sedated master thief. 

He’s too delirious to tell me where he’s staying, so I… um… bring him back to my place. And I set him up in my bed, because it’s either that or the couch, and I don’t think that leg of his is going to recover very well if it’s being squeezed between cushions and an armrest.

“Ths’s… ths’s your room,” Nureyev slurs when I wheel him up to the bed. He giggles oddly. “Think ‘m too drunk for that, Juno.” 

“You’re drugged, not drunk,” I tell him, pulling back the sheets. “You’re only here to get some rest. Come here.” I’ve done it a few times, but it’s still a bit awkward to lift him out of the chair and onto the bed. He wraps his arms around my neck and shifts his weight to help me hold him.

I’m painfully aware of the trust he’s putting in me right now. I’m even more aware that he wouldn’t if he was even remotely sober.

I’m expecting the call, but that doesn’t mean I’m any happier about it when it comes.

“I take it congratulations are in order for the happy couple?” Ramses asks the moment I pick up. There’s no introduction. There never is.

“What? Didn’t your research on me tell you I was married?”

“Either your spouse has had quite a lot of work done in the last few years, or that isn’t the man you married. I don’t take kindly to insurance fraud, Juno. Even less so to fraternizing with people who tried to rob me.” 

I scrub a hand down my face. “I’ve worked with him before. He’s more useful working with us than against us.”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is consulting criminal.” He doesn’t need to remind me how he feels about those.

“What do you want me to do, arrest him? He’s too slippery for the HCPD– they learned that the hard way.”

“I want you to take care of it.” 

“And I am. He’s going to be less of a hassle if I can convince him to leave town than if he decides to stick around.”

“Take care of it, Juno,” he repeats. “And do it quickly. I don’t have time for distractions.”

The call ends, and I’m left staring at my comms. 

Convince Nureyev to leave Hyperion City. Easy enough: judging by the last time he was lucid, I’m halfway there already.

The doctors said the painkillers will wear off after four hours or so. Nureyev’s brow starts creasing a little after three and a half. 

I slip an arm under his neck and shoulders and ease him upright. The next dose is in my other hand, and I’m about to press it into his mouth when he grabs my wrist. 

“No.” His eyes open slowly, like it takes an effort to force them to move. 

“It’ll help with the pain,” I say softly. 

“I said no.”

I want to fight him on this, but I back off. “Well, they’re here if you want them.” I put them down on his bedside table, but he doesn’t glance at the pills. His eyes never leave mine. “Are you… are you hungry or something?”

He says nothing.

“Look, I get it, okay? I’m probably the last person you want to talk to right now. And you don’t have to. Give it a few weeks and your leg will be fine. Just let me drive you to the spaceport, and then you can get on the first ship out of here and you never have to see me again.“

“Do you really think I’m just going to leave and let you destroy this city?” 

Jeez, those drugs must still be doing a number on him. “Nureyev, I’m not destroying anything. Hell, I’m trying to help save this goddamn place.” I hesitate. “Or, at least I’m trying to put it in the hands of someone who can.” 

I must finally have gotten through to him, because some of the hardness leaves his eyes. What takes its place feels too much like pity. “Is that really what you think you’re doing?”

“Ramses is going to clean up the HCPD. He’s going to get rid of the Fortezza. He’s going to take Hyperion away from the Triad and the Kanagawas and all those bastards.”

Nureyev looks like he’s going to be sick. “Did you ever ask him how he planned to do it?”

“How does any politician do anything around here?” I ask. “With��� with legislation and fundraisers and–”

“And the best sharpshooter Mars has produced since the end of the War.”

“You’ve got it all wrong. I’m his bodyguard, not–” No. No, I’m not going to argue with him about that. I won’t waste time talking myself into corners about the people I’ve killed. “The guy builds fucking soup kitchens by the gross, Nureyev. He’s a good man– probably the last good man left in this goddamn city.”

“Not everyone who feeds orphans is a good man, Juno,” he says wearily. 

I want so badly to make him understand, but I force myself to stop pushing. He’s only been conscious for a few minutes and already he looks exhausted.

“Listen, we don’t have to talk about this right now,” I tell him. "You need to rest.”

His eyes slide shut and he goes still. I’m almost sure he’s fallen asleep when he speaks again.

“The files I took,” he says, weighing each word carefully. “Did you give them back to him?”

“Nureyev, you need to–”

“Answer the question, Juno.”

“Of course I did.”

“Did you look at them?”

I hesitate. I wouldn’t be much of a detective if I didn’t. “They were too heavily encrypted for me to make anything of them.”

He sighs. “Then maybe there’s some hope for you yet.”

“Why?” I ask. “What were they? Blackmail material?”

Nureyev chokes out a bitter laugh. “He keeps you as his private assassin, and you think he can be blackmailed?”

“I’m not–”

He doesn’t let me finish. “They were schematics. The blueprints for his grand plan to save Hyperion city.” He spits out the word like it’s battery acid. “Tell me, Juno. Have you ever heard of the Guardian Angel System?”

[reveromantique]

She stops him.

This is not how this is supposed to go-- Rio has never stopped him before, never touched his face gently and pushed him away.

Seifer sits back on his heels, hands still digging into her legs, and looks up at her-- confused, perhaps, a wounded animal unsure of how to proceed. A feral dog, left beaten and unwanted.

"--Okay," he says, because he isn't sure what the hell else to say.

(She's not even wrong-- if goddamned Squall Leonhart called him up and invited him back into Garden's arms to do the one thing he's ever been good at, Seifer'd probably do it, Hyperion in his grasp, running up that hill.)

"So what."

He can't even muster up annoyance in those two words-- Rio is the only good thing he has, and she's right, and it's like she's taken the knife he keeps next to the bed, plunging it into his heart.

(God, he doesn't even want to think about what would happen if she ever came back, reaching out her blackened hand.)

She's seen him do this before, and far too often. This isn't an act of passion.

It's fear.

She feels it in the way he holds her, the way he kisses her. He's doing this to get her to stop talking about a part of his life that he can't let go but doesn't want to acknowledge.

As he makes his way up her thighs, she stares at the terrible scars along his back. And for once, she doesn't give in. Just once, she needed to do more than lie back and let him use her body to cope with his broken life.

Her palm rests against the edge of the scar stretching across his face, her fingers gently curling in his hair as she pushes his face away from his skin.

"I don't believe you."

[ernmark]

Could I get a fluffy jupeter bodyswapping au? Maybe nureyev takes care of Juno's body and juno doesn't know what to do about it?

This one was fun.

Juno rushes back to the apartment as quickly as he can without bumping into things or falling over. It’s been more than a day, but he’s still not used to this body. He feels almost like a gazelle, effortlessly bounding around on Peter’s long legs. It’s hard to judge distances now that he’s got two eyes again, and it’s even harder now that he’s a good half-foot taller than he was a week ago. And every bump and misstep leaves a mark-- Juno’s seen peaches that bruise less easily.  

So when he climbs the stairs to his apartment, he takes them slowly, careful not to cause any extra harm. 

He’s still bouncing on the balls of Peter’s feet when he unlocks the door. 

“Peter!” he calls the moment he gets inside. “Peter, they’ve found the lab!” 

There’s no reply.

The apartment is unoccupied. The blinds are drawn. The air is humid, and smells like... lilac? And faintly he can hear the strings of a Brahmese sitar. Cautiously, he follows the strains of music.

“Peter?” he asks, knocking on the bathroom door. “You in there?”

“You can come in,” calls a voice from the other side. “The door’s unlocked.”

Listening to that voice is like the auditory equivalent of looking into a funhouse mirror. Juno can recognize it as his own, but only barely. It’s already too high when Peter tries to imitate Juno’s tone; in Peter’s own lilting cadences, it sounds almost shrill. How can Peter stand to be in the same room as him?

When he opens the door, he’s hit by a wave of aromatic steam so thick he has trouble breathing for a second. As he stops to catch his breath, he shuts the door behind him and averts his eyes.

Peter’s lounging in the bathtub, entirely nude. Which is fine-- it isn’t like Juno hasn’t seen Peter naked before-- but looking at him now, in Juno’s body, feels a little like looking at a stranger. The body language is right, but the body is all wrong-- too short, too stocky, too scarred. He’s lounging in the bathtub, his-- Juno’s-- face obscured by a mud mask, his hair soaking in what might be coconut oil. One leg is folded over his lap, and he’s working at the soles of his feet with a pumice stone and looking entirely too pleased with himself.

“Peter?” Juno says blankly. 

“Hm?”

“What are you doing?” 

“I think that’s fairly obvious, don’t you?” 

Alright, maybe. The better question is why? Peter’s grooming habits have always been more particular than Juno’s, but this looks pretty extreme even for him. He’s even had a manicure.

“If you didn’t like the smell, you could have just taken a shower. You didn’t have to open a spa in here.” 

Peter chuckles, and the sound is so completely him, regardless of the voice he uses. 

“Anyway,” Juno says quickly. “Rita just called from the station. The HCPD found the lab. If we head over now, we can help catch the bastards that did this to us.” 

He hums. “I’m sure Hyperion City’s finest can handle it.” 

“Finest? Have you met these guys?” 

Peter chuckles again, but doesn’t rise out of the tub. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.” He stretches out his legs and then begins working on the other foot with his pumice stone. “Besides, I’m in no hurry.”

“Why not?” Juno asks, more puzzled than exasperated. Why wouldn’t anyone be rushing to get out of that body?

“It’s quite educational, really,” Peter says. “You know, you’ve never mentioned the pain in your knee when you run.”

Juno blinks. “It’s fine.” 

“I’m sure it is, love, but you could probably avoid most of that with a knee brace. Just for the bad days. Occasional supplements might keep it from getting any worse. I can pick some up at the store sometime, if you’d like.” 

It isn’t like Juno hasn’t noticed the lack of pain since he’s been in Peter’s body. It was a little disorienting at first. “Um... yeah. If you want to.” 

“And your back-- there’s just so much tension.” He pauses in buffing Juno’s feet for a moment and lays back with a sigh. The noises he’s making as the hot water hits his shoulders are obscene, and Juno has absolutely no idea how to feel about that. Normally he’d be thinking about joining Peter in that tub, but it’s his own body. “I think more back rubs are in order once this is all sorted out, don’t you? Work some of these kinks out.”

Juno is seriously wondering if the kinks in his back aren’t the only ones Peter’s talking about. Is Peter one of those guys who’s always wanted to know what it’s like to have sex with himself? Juno won’t deny that watching two Peter Nureyevs going at it would be hot as hell, but he still can’t get over seeing his own face peeking out at him from behind that mud mask. That would be weird. He’d be willing to try for Peter’s sake, but it would still be weird.

Peter sinks below the water, scrubbing his hands over his face and hair. The water, already dyed purple from whatever he’s been soaking in, turns opaque as the facial dissolves. When he sits up again, rivulets of water pour down his back. 

Juno swallows. “You... ah... you’re really enjoying yourself, huh?”

Peter flashes a grin that Juno’s going to have to remember the next time he wants to get laid. Why didn’t anyone tell him his face could look like that?

“I enjoy taking care of you, Juno. And if I’m going to have the opportunity to do so directly, far be it from me to waste it.” 

[strongfuck]

Never in Rhys' wildest dreams did he ever picture Handsome Jack praising him like this, especially not when he looked like absolute hell. The further he walks in, the more Jack keeps talking, and by the time Rhys is standing directly in front of him, he's not sure whether to play it cool or act as smugly as he's sure any other Hyperion stooge would.

Fortunately, the decision becomes unimportant in the end, because it ends up more pressing to ask a confused, "'Take care' of them?"

Rhys is obedient, as any good employee is, as he's led to sit down. Even as Jack moves around to pull up security footage, Rhys stays rooted to the spot, the ice pack still pressed to his eye and his head tilted in question.

"I'm grateful for the recognition, sir. I mean, I'm happy doing anything for the company, and for you especially. But what're you doing--"

He hears the voice of his supposed work mentor over the speakers, and the sound of it makes him blink once. The audio feed from the video Jack's currently playing is a little garbled from the static, but nevertheless familiar. Rhys' mentor, a weaselly bastard named Russell, says something along the lines of I heard what you did on Pandora. And Rhys remembers what he said in turn, hears it from the video-- I was hoping you would, he'd said, cheeky as ever, you proud of me, sir?-- and hears Russell's answering laugh and his request for Rhys to follow him.

"Jack? You don't have to watch this." Rhys laughs. "C'mon..."

Because it all plays out exactly as expected. In the video, Rhys is led to a conference room, where Russell and two others from the department start beating down on him, berating him all the while for cutting a deal without them and "disrespecting authority". It's humiliating listening to it happen; Rhys wonders if Jack can see how he'd tried to fight back and failed to land a punch, anyway. Each time he was knocked over, Rhys had tried to get up, but then he'd either been shoved, kicked, or punched back down. Sure, he hadn't cowered even once, hadn't even curled up into a ball, but it doesn't stop shame from filling him at how useless he'd been.

With a sigh, Rhys presses his ice pack to both his eyes to shield them from Jack's gaze.

Since rising to the top through murder and placing himself in the seat of CEO, no one challenged their new king. In fact it was the opposite, many came to idolize the man. If someone who had just a few years ago been a nobody in the IT and programming department become a legendary hero, vault hunter and savior of Hyperion, then that gave hope to those at the bottom to grab some power. Jack had been planning for years to take over this company, it was why he chose Hyperion to invest his time and skills in and it more than paid off.

His top priority was the eridium mines on Pandora. It was a key element for the company to progress and secure their wealth. That was true but it wasn't the full reason he was desperately fighting for it. The main reason he needed the usually toxic element was for Angel, his beloved daughter. She was just a rumor on Helios because no one ever saw her, but that was because she was not on the space station. He kept her condition a secret, only those closest and most trusted knew about her and took care of her on Pandora. Every step in his rise to power has been to protect her and strive to give her a better quality of life.

When he heard that someone practically single handedly seal the eridium deal on Pandora he was over the moon happy. Jack did quite a bit of digging about this young man that had done what some of his top management couldn't do. An intern out of everyone! Rhys Strongfork certainly had Handsome Jack's full attention. He went ahead and cleared the intern's schedule for the day and went ahead to upgrade the man's status to premium so he could move into a suite that was a quality that upper management had. Not to mention a sizeable payment into Rhys' personal bank account.

He was just finishing up when the man he wanted to see enter his luxurious office. "Rhys, my man! I could kiss you right now! You are amazing, you closing the Eridium deal is the best thing anyone could do for me." Jack exclaimed, it was clear he was very proud of this intern even though this was their first time meeting. Rhys' accomplishment was more than enough to earn praise in his eyes. He got up from his desk and came around to meet the intern. But as soon as he laid eyes on the other's condition his expression changed, darkened even. Jack instantly understood what had happened.

"Oh, there's going to be consequences for this." His tone soft, barely hiding his anger. "Don't you worry Rhys. I will take care of those who did this to you." Jack promised as he reached out to gently place a hand on the shorter male's back and lead him over to the lounge seat for Rhys to sit and rest. He gave Rhys' shoulder a reassuring pat before he returned to his desk to bring up the security cameras to bring up the footage of Rhys getting jumped so he could see who assaulted the intern.

[jaymendell]

"It wouldn't be that bad," Lupo continued, "if they could just pick a movie without having to debate about it for two fucking hours beforehand."

Hyperion gave a theatrical wince, rattling his chains. Lupo bore the grating sound without complaint—it was hardly the hero's fault that they were in this mess. They had actually been minding their own business (for once) before a sudden flash of light had caught them off guard, and Lupo had promptly woken up chained to a pipe in an underground jail cell alongside the man who had once been their mortal enemy. Enough time had passed that Lupo figured they were something more like mortal acquaintances by now, so at least this much pleasantry was acceptable.

Besides, considering they had no idea who would be targeting both Lupo and Hyperion, it might be for the best that they played nice.

"I feel that," Hyperion said sympathetically. "A week after I was first strong-armed into the league, I came home to find that the team had completely redone my apartment while I was gone. Talk about a pain in my ass! Sure, it was nice to have the holes in the wall fixed, and the new couch was definitely a major upgrade, but I had a hell of a time trying to explain to my landlord who all of the people going in and out of my apartment were."

Hyperion tilted his head back, sighing dramatically. His electric-blond hair was flopping sadly over his forehead, making him look far more disheveled than the hero typically was, even though his 'hoodie and sweatpants' ensemble was pretty casual to begin with. For god's sake, the man didn't even wear a full face-mask—just a black diamond mask that covered his eyes, standing out starkly against the warm brown of his skin. Which, sure, Lupo could admit was a classic of the hero industry, but still! He was lucky that Lupo cared little for uncovering a hero's identity; as far as they were concerned, work was work, and anything that happened outside of it wasn't their problem.

Actually, did this count as doing overtime?

"Are you gonna get paid for this?" they asked, leaning closer curiously, ignoring the way the chains yanked at their arms. "I mean, you're technically doing hero work right now, aren't you? Even if you aren't on shift?"

"Well, there are provisions for stuff like this, and there's hazard pay," Hyperion admitted, shrugging. "But I've never actually made use of it before, so I'm not sure how it works."

"Yeah, I guess a guy like you doesn't get taken down very often," Lupo said thoughtfully. 

Usually, the combined powers of Hyperion's golden solid-light projections and Lupo's monstrous strength would be enough to break them out of a place like this easily, but the power inhibitors locked around their necks would prevent any such shenanigans. Lupo wasn't much a fan of that—not only did it suck to have their powers stripped away, but the collar also dug deep into their skin, pulling painfully at the roots of their fur.

"Do you get paid for this?" Hyperion asked suddenly, looking at Lupo with pursed lips. "I don't actually know if you get benefits."

He sounded as if he was almost disapproving of that, like he was about to tell Lupo about some kind of superhero union they could join.

Lupo snorted, amusement curling their lips into a wolfish grin. A hero even now, huh?

"I mean, they're under the table, but yeah," Lupo informed him, resisting a laugh at the way he immediately perked up. "They even gave me a reinforced phone, since I kept breaking all my old ones. It's not even on the market yet."

"Oh, nice," Hyperion nodded enthusiastically, a bright smile on his face.

There was a moment of silence, interspersed with dripping pipe water, before the hero spoke up again.

"...Do you have games on your phone?" Hyperion asked, almost sheepish.

Lupo thought about it for a moment, and eventually shrugged. It wasn't like they'd been stripped of all their gear—just tied up so that they couldn't reach any of it. With enough maneuvering, it might work.

"You know what, lemme try and wriggle around, you might be able to grab it out of my back pocket," they declared.

"Oh, hell yeah! Sorry if I accidentally pull your tail."

"Buy me a drink when we get out of here, and I'll call it even."

They would both get rescued soon enough. After all, it wasn't like their families would ever leave them behind.

Prompt #3186

“Wait,” said their hero, “I thought you didn’t have a family? Lone wolf motif and all that.”

The villain groaned. “Yeah, I was. Until [supervillain] decided I was in need of adopting for ‘safety’ and ‘community’ and ‘doing something about your attitude issues’ reasons. It’s like a kidnapping with extra steps.”

“Oof. That sounds exactly when I got inducted into the hero’s league. Do you have bimonthly check-ins too?”

“Worse. We have group movie nights and mandatory therapy sessions.”

“Ouch.”

[darrowsrising]

This is a great take! I too feel the same about Cadus, he was a dickhead and very wrong and jealous of Darrow in a 'holier than thou' way that pissed me off. But he grew on me to the point where I feel sorry he is a dead man walking - it's true that Darrow's father figures have a target on their back, though. I appreciate him at the end of the day.

I loved the love the soldiers have for Darrow though - the Reaper love in Dark Age was such a blessing.

I agree that Orion's betrayal and the consequences of her storm put things in perspective for Darrow, but I don't think that was his (only) reason for choosing his army over the demise of the enemy or making his soldiers respect the New Compact. It's not like the Free Legions or his own Legions were acting like the enemy legions do up until 754 PCE.

After Sefi and her Obsidians attacked Hyperion like they did, I am pretty sure Darrow mantained a tighter control on the morality issue, so to speak.

Yes, Darrow was hellbent on obliterating the enemy, but he also learnt a pretty valuable lesson in IG - killing the leader, doesn't mean you won the war. And in sacrificing his army to kill Atalantia, he wouldn't have won anything.

Let's look at it this way - pretend for a second that Orion wouldn't have betrayed Darrow, she didn't go past primary horizon - it wasn't a mistake to use the Storm God, given the dire circumstances (Second Army wiped out, many more chem attacks to come, radiations and so on, all other options and plans failed). It was a mistake to trust that Orion can handle trauma as Darrow does. Darrow still has PTSD from his time in Attica, but controls it as much as he can - a busy mind is fed, his, at rest, eats itself.

In Dark Age, he came to understand better why Virginia is hellbent on walking that stiletto, why demokracy. But Darrow always wanted his armies to behave morally - even from his Institute days when Tactus behaved horribly and attempted to rape Nyla and he punished him in a way that made his army understand why and how they should behave.

Yes, he did a lot of questionable things and some outside of the law - hell, he was stripped of his title, he actually has no bussiness leading thr Free Legions on Mercury, it's not valid - for the sake of winning. But he has also always been chaotic good - the law isn't necessarily moral too. His reasons for winning were never amoral, and his means, although questionable, were never to Magnus au Grimmus' scale of wrong.

Pierce Brown himself says that Magnus was lawful evil - in obeying his Sovereign he has lost himself. Darrow in disobeying the Senate (they were wrong af too) didn't exactly lost himself like Magnus - he was actually right, but too hellbent on ending the war once and for all to pay attention - the enemy wasn't one person - it's a system, it's a hydra. He did need someone to be his conscience, his voice of reason, but on Tyche, I'd say that it was a crossroad similar to that Magnus had with Rhea. And Darrow is nothing of what Magnus' grand dying speech described.

I think that Darrow's choice was a culmination of lessons he learnt recently - that no matter how dark his mental state is, no matter how tired he is, no matter how much of a monster he has become and will have to continue to be, no matter how hard he has to push, to fight, to cheat in order to win - he has lines he will never cross, because while he is a Peerless Scarred, he is not a Core Gold.

Lysander accuses Darrow of making Golds the monsters they are to combat him - but in fact, Darrow became a monster to combat the monsters that they already were. But Dark Age makes clear that Darrow and his enemies are not the same kind of monsters - even with Reaper's hero status crumbling away (a thing Darrow doesn't necessarily care for - as Pierce says in HowlerPod ep. 31), there is a clear moral demilitation between him and the enemy.

Yes, as the war progressed he had to get darker, but while he always toed the line, he never crossed it. He may disobey the Senate, he may do illegal things, he pull wild cards, he certainly makes mistakes and those cost a lot - but he was never what Magnus described.

If he chose differently, yes, Magnus would have been right. But he understood that this war isn't and will never be easy to win. He can't kill a major player and then go back to finally play house with his family. And this is the action he takes that shows that - he admitted it earlier, but this is the action that shows that he understood it beyond any doubt. There was absolutely no way he would sacrifice his army at that point.

At least, that's what I think on this issue. Darrow came to Mercury for the soldiers - although he couldn't save them and he expected the absolute worst, he never gave the impression that he would sacrifice absolutely everything and everyone to win, because there was no actual win to have.

Hope I am making sense in my rambling, lol.

Did you like the background soldiers who threatened to shank Harnassus if he thought of 'taking charge' as per the power invested in him byvthe cock-sucking Senate? I did!😏

Definitely! Darrow’s men love him. They’d kill and die for him, and a part of that is because they know Darrow would do the same for them. He has killed for them, and he has almost died many, many times for them. Darrow genuinely cares for every life he is responsible for.

According to Harnassus’ confession to Darrow toward the end, he wanted Darrow’s position because he couldn’t understand why Ares chose a Red like Darrow for the job. Not to say Harnassus doesn’t care for his army, but the way he coveted Darrow’s title wasn’t rooted in pure selflessness, despite his self-righteous claims to follow the Senate’s orders to a fault in order to be “the voice” that counters “the sword” (much like Dancer’s motivation for opposing Darrow).

I didn’t care much for Harnassus at all at first, and he’s still not my favorite, but this series excels at giving every character a gray area. He’s responsible for the destruction of Orion’s fleet but justified it because he was following orders. Yet he’s also the one who first pleaded Darrow, that if he had to choose between killing Atalantia’s army and saving theirs, he’d choose the latter, as the moral choice. Darrow at first is hellbent on killing the enemy at all costs but after Orion goes rogue with the Storm God, Darrow begins to realize he’s crept toward Magnus’ cold tactics over the years, as the war has beaten him down. After seeing the mistake he made with Orion, he does ultimately pivot toward saving his army instead. He wants his army to behave morally, which was the backbone of their rebellion in the first place.

Ultimately, Harnassus did what he thought was the moral choice. But after seeing how the Vox butchered the Sovereign and the Senate, he realized he’d made a mistake and instead put his weight behind Darrow instead. So I think he is a very interesting character, in that sense. Too bad he’s probably going to die, because any character that Darrow thinks of as a father figure is a dead man walking.

All that said, he totally deserved to be threatened by the soldiers because he did get the fleet killed, and he way overestimated how much the men love him in comparison to Darrow. (That is, they don’t. At all.) So it was cathartic to see him put in his place.