#Tilting Safety Chuck

[jinnie-ret]

protection

stray kids x reader (platonic)

genre: fluff, angst

content warnings: bullying, physical abuse, verbal abuse

Remember to reblog if you enjoy, and my asks are open! :)

you're a 15 year old trainee at JYP, good friends with the Stray Kids members who took you under their wing and see you as a younger sister. What they don't know is that you're being bullied by a couple of older trainees, who are jealous of your friendship with them.

MASTERLIST

It was getting worse. The rude comments, the punches, the feeling of being broken apart. Why did they have to pick on you? You deserved to be here as much as anyone else. You had been a trainee at JYP for three years now, joining when you were 12 years old, tearily waving goodbye to your parents as you bravely made the move to achieve your dreams. You would think that any trainee would be able to empathise with the other, knowing that they were all going through their own emotions, figuring out their emotions at the same time as trying to make your debut.

With some people, one emotion was more prevalent than others.

Jealousy.

There were two girls that had noticed you getting closer with the talented group Stray Kids, and they despised the fact that it wasn't them getting all the attention. But it wasn't a thing of getting attention for you, no, it was the guidance, the safety, the ease you felt of being yourself around them. They were your brothers, simple as that.

Going to dance class the next day shouldn't have been so daunting. You had had plenty of help from danceracha, the boys talking you through the steps, helping you correct the finer details whilst encouraging you and hyping you up at the same time. Yet, when you saw the two girls who were making your life miserable, you wanted to run and hide.

It was a breath of fresh air when you finally finished the dance lesson, yet it seemed to all be taken away from you when you felt a hand yank you backwards into a supply closet.

You let out a yelp as the door was harshly slammed.

"W-what?!?" you shakily called out.

Your hair was yanked back and you yelped again.

"Quiet bitch!" you recognise the voice of one of the girls from your class. You thought you had escaped them this time, but they always found a way to catch you off guard and drag you down even further.

"You must have some nerve going near our boys," Daesun practically growled in your ear as she glared down at you.

You pulled a face of confusion but that must have angered them judging by the harsh slap you received.

"Ah!" you winced from the sheer force of the hand colliding with your face.

"Be quiet! Silly girl, don't want people knowing you're weak, do we?" Daesun kicked your shin, hard.

"And don't act like you don't know what we're talking about!!" Jia practically spat.

The silence after they spoke didn't sit well with them, but you were too busy trying to breathe through the pain.

They then pushed into a shelving unit, pain spreading across your back as you tried to regain your balance and not give them the satisfaction of crying out loud in pain once again.

A hand was tightly wrapped around your throat.

"Aren't you gonna say something?!?" Daesun dangerously tilted her head.

"You told me to be quiet" you choked out, trying to push their hands off of you.

They chucked you to the ground, you gasping for air as you felt a foot stomp down on your back.

"Pathetic. You do whatever anyone tells you. So you better listen. Don't go anywhere near our boys or you won't get off as lightly as you are right now!" They threatened you.

But you didn't get off lightly, if it was anything to go by with your bruised back from their angered kicks, or the spontaneous black eye you received for just 'laying there and taking it'.

They had left the supply closet, but their words hadn't left your mind.

Pathetic

Useless

Untalented

They had left the supply closet but you hadn't missed the sound of the lock turning. Whimpering in pain from the slightest movement, you didn't quite have the motivation to try and stand and unlock the door.

You felt guilty as you were due to go and hang out with the boys, but you must have fallen asleep because the next thing you know, the door unlocked and there was the gasp of a cleaner who was trying to collect her supplies.

"Sweetie what happened to you?" She said as she helps you up, concern shining through her eyes as she takes in your bruised, unsteady form.

"Please don't tell anyone I'm just going to head home now," you whispered and quickly walked away. You couldn't head home, not really, you still had a vocal lesson to attend later. But that sweet old lady didn't need to know that.

You limped, holding your back as you rounded the corner, but then you heard their voices. You swiftly changed the direction you were headed in and got into the elevator, pressing the button to the floor you were so used to visiting, like it was second nature.

You made a beeline to Chan's studio, where 3RACHA worked their magic, thankful no one was in there. You just needed a safe space right now, and so you hid under the desk, curling up and trying to calm yourself down from the pain, and from the tears that wouldn't stop falling down your face.

The door opened, a set of footsteps entering and you couldn't help the sound of feat that escaped you because all that was running through your mind is that they found you.

"Hello?" A voice called out.

Shit

It was Han.

There was movement before a face was staring down at you curled up underneath the desk

You didn't think he had quite realised it you.

"Excuse me I don't think you can be in here, is everything ok?" He said gently.

This only made you cry more, my shoulders shaking violently feeling overwhelmed by his gentle tone after having to deal with Daesun and Jia.

"Wait... Y/N? Y/N what are you doing here? What's wrong?" He said hurriedly and concerned, his face peering at me under the desk.

"Please they won't leave me alone.. I'm not meant to talk to you," you cry, unable to forget what the older girls had said to you.

"Hey it's ok, it's ok, just stand up with me.. that's it, now come with me" he says gently holding you as he guides you to stand.

Suddenly he gasps, "your face... what happened?"

"It's my fault I couldn't stop it" you say distressed and still crying, his hands slightly tightening around his grasp on your arms as he realises something horrible must have happened.

"Ok, it's ok Y/N just walk with me" he says leading you out of the studio and into the practice room further down the corridor, but you try and stop him from doing it. You're not meant to talk to them, you remind yourself.

You use your body weight to lean the opposite way but he wraps his arms around you and tries to stop you, not finding it difficult to do so.

"Y/N... Y/N calm down, it's ok," his eyes glisten as he watches my scared and upset form.

"No no no I can't go in there they'll find out" you mumble, shaking your head repeatedly

"I got you ok, and so do the boys. Whatever or whoever you're scared of, forget about it, we'll look after you. And I want to know why you were curled up in the studio terrified out of your mind," Han guides you towards the door, opening it and walking you into the practice room where the rest of the group awaits.

"Hey Han did you get your headphones? Where were- Oh my... Y/N?!?"

"Where did those bruises come from?!"

"What on earth happened?"

"Aish! Quick sit her down."

Han walks you with him over to the sofa and the rest of the boys all moved over to gather around you.

"Y/N, what happened?" Hyunjin asked concerned.

You just shook your head not wanting to answer from your seat between Felix and Lee Know.

"Han... What happened to her?" Chan questioned looking serious, seeing your shaking form.

"I'm not sure hyung. I went into our studio to get my headphones and then I just found her curled up like this underneath the desk." Han explained looking at you concerned.

Felix had an arm gently resting around your shoulders trying to ease your trembling.

"Ah poor girl," Lee know murmured.

A hand tapped your knee making you flinch slightly even at that, but you looked up and saw Changbin which made you relax a bit.

"Y/N... Please tell us what happened, we don't have to do anything if you don't want us to but at least tell us where you're hurt so we know you're not in as much pain." He said to you, looking you in the eyes.

You nodded and heard some sighs of relief as you did so, shuffling slightly to move more into the middle of the sofa out of Felix's hold.

You clasped my hands together nervously thinking where to start.

"It's ok Y/N, it's just us in here." Hyunjin reassured you, standing in between Seungmin and Jeongin.

You nodded and stood up on shaky legs.

"Umm.. well.." you didn't know what to say and just pointed to your back.

"Are you trying to say your back is hurt?" Seungmin asked. You simply nodded in response as you bit your lip.

"Ah then sit down! You'll need to rest if your back is hurt" Chan inputted looking concerned.

Jeongin stepped forward and gently helped you sit down back next to Felix and Lee Know.

"Can you tell us if it's your lower back or whereabouts the pain is?" Changbin gently asked, from where he was now kneeled down in front of you.

But you were at a loss of how to explain that your whole back was in pain.

"Y/N? Is that too much or do you want us to stop now?" Han said sitting on the floor in front of you next to Changbin.

You shook your head, thankful at their consideration, "ah... All?"

You took in deep breaths thinking about how you were going to be able to bullying. Would they be angry at you for not telling them?

"My whole back hurts, but more lower," you close your eyes not wanting to see their reactions.

"Ok well done, good job, thank you for telling us Y/N," Felix said reassuringly.

"Now, is there anything else you can tell us?" Han asked steadily, and that was when you froze up even more.

Your thoughts were taking over and you began to feel scared again.

You grabbed onto your left wrist in hopes that it would help explain where else you were hurt, other than the obvious bruise painting your left eye black and blue.

"Ok, ok Y/N we're just gonna roll up that sleeve and then we can get a female staff member to help with your leg and back ok?" Chan said to you.

"No no no, no special attention, they'll be annoyed." You said, eyes wide open now and terrified.

Lee know immediately rubbed your back soothingly to try and calm you down but it wasn't working.

Meanwhile, Han was whispering to Hyunjin.

"This is what it was like when I was trying to get her to come in, she was saying similar things..."

"She's obviously scared of something or someone but I don't think she'll tell us" Hyunjin replied, hand on his chin in thought of what could have happened to the girl they all saw as their younger sister.

And as if timing couldn't have been any worse, the door opened wide and the two people you didn't want to see walked into the room. All their questions would soon be answered.

"Hey oppas can we have an extra dance practice?" Jia batted her eyelashes at Seungmin, who wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Yeah we want to show you how good we are," Daesun smirked.

"You should not be in this room, this is an idol practice room, please leave," Bang Chan sternly told the two girls.

You tried to get out of Lee Know and Felix's arms in a state of panic, your flight response kicking in. The girls saw you as soon as you moved though.

"Yah why's that brat- I mean oh Y/N are you practicing too?" Jia tried to cover her tracks.

Knowing you couldn't stand up because the boys wouldn't let you leave you just gripped onto Han's hand in front of you.

"What did you just call her?" Changbin asked horrified.

"Oh nothing- you know what I can't keep this up anymore I can't carry on being nice to her when she's clearly seeking attention from you guys," Daesun said bitterly.

Being too used to her harsh tone you recoiled back into the sofa and sucked in a harsh breath.

"There's no way she's seeking attention from us, I'm more curious to why she's so scared of you," Han spoke up.

"I don't think you've been acting all that nice to her either" Jeongin pitched in, looking over at your small form which looked shaken up.

"Oh come on you can't seriously be taking her side?!" Daesun spat.

"Look at her, it's not just a matter of taking her side but it's obvious you're the reason why she's like this," Hyunjin said with his eyes wide, gesturing towards your bruises.

"You're her elders, you're mean to take care of her and help her in dance not make things worse for her," Lee Know said angrily, dance was his passion and he hated how you were struggling even more with it because of two other trainees.

"Oh forget about practice we'll just go now you're clearly occupied" Jia said rolling her eyes and walking away with Daesun following.

"Actually no, you'll be coming with us to JYP's office, then we'll see how much you really cared about practicing," Chan said, gesturing Seungmin Han and Hyunjin to follow him out the room.

The whole time you were distracted, looking at the floor trying to block out what was going on around you, still shaking and just waiting for everything to be over.

You felt someone rub your shoulder in effort to get your attention and saw Jeongin looking at you.

"How about we get you home huh?" He asked you gently.

You nodded lightly because it had been a stressful day and it was exhausting being confronted by the girls twice in one day.

You went to stand up with the help of Changbin and Felix but your back ached making you wince in pain.

"Ahhh" you hissed out.

The boys helped you sit back down.

From beside you Lee Know spoke up.

"Y/N how about just for your back at the moment we get one of the female assistants help you?" He asked, but you felt anxious of the thought of another older girl coming near so you shook your head rapidly.

"Ok ok ok, don't worry no one else will come in here then. How about we get a pain soothing cream and we leave you to apply it on your back?" He asked calming you down.

"Ok," you agreed to that and waited for it as Changbin rushed out to get it.

He came back in with it and with the other boys following behind too, returning from JYP's office and leaving the girls to face their boss's wrath.

You took it and looked at the boys expectantly.

"Ah sorry, we'll wait outside so no one else comes in and just let us know when we can come back in." Chan said.

You odded thankfully and waited for them to leave before applying the cream. You pulled up the back of your jumper whimpering slightly at the smallest movement, but you still managed to rub in the cream gently. After that you put the lid back on and called for the boys to come back in.

"Ok?" Felix said looking at you questioningly.

You simply nodded in response shuffling over so he could sit back down as well as Lee know and Han as they squeezed in too.

"At the moment the girls have been temporarily suspended from the company, obviously nothing can be done until they see you too and hear your side of the story too but we're not gonna put that pressure on you yet" Chan explained.

"We just want you to rest a bit and then when you're ready we'll be right by your side" Hyunjin said to you, looking deep into your eyes trying to read your emotions.

"Thank you guys, it means a lot that you've done this for me," you admit, taking in a deep breath.

"Of course, you're like our little sister, we couldn't just let that slide," Felix said warmly.

"Now, I think it's time we head home?" Changbin stated.

"Yeah, and Y/N is coming to stay with us" Jeongin said nodding at you, and nodded back indicating you were comfortable in doing that.

"Good, we'll take care of you and make sure you're ok," Han smiled reassuringly at you.

They never failed in looking after you, and of course they'd have to ask you more questions on the ins and outs of this later. But for now, they wanted to be able to keep an eye on you and make sure you're safe.

tagged: @oo-li

[sunny-ssunset]

*smiles seductively and comes closer* I'm back, honey, I was really happy with the princess kenny one-shot, I was wondering if you could do something like, kyle and reader don't know each other, but they feed the same stray cat and they conventionally go to feed this cat at the same time *bites my bottom lip and and winks with my both eyes*

How i met your mother

Kyle broflovski x fem reader

Hey boo *Looks you up and down* Hope you dont mind if its fem reader (if its a problem i'll change it lol) Also genuinely sorry for how bad the princess kenny oneshot was, i was on one then. I promise this one wont be as bad *Crouches down awkwardly and worships you cuz ur a snack* (AGED UP)

"Dad??" She looked up at Kyle, beady eyed. "Yes honey" He replied, sounding a little distracted because he was serving their lunch.

"How did you meet mom?" The little girl inquired, tilting her head to the side. Kyle turns around stopping every thing hes doing and he sits at the table, as if he'd been waiting for this moment his whole life. "So there was this cat."

*Cutesy little flashback scene*

I was stopping at the corner shop as per usual, to get this certain brand of cat food. I mean, for a stray cat this one was very picky, This girl from class, was buying the same brand, I let her go first, I'm a gentleman you know how it is. As she mumbled a thanks, I grabbed a tin.

I waited in line and paid, I'm no robber, Then I walked home.

"Dad this is boring...." Patience child....

Anyways I got into the greenish house, "KYLE WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!?!" Jesus..... "Mom I went to the store like normal." After a long talk about safety, I went upstairs and played world of warcraft for a while then at 7 pm i grabbed the cat food and a small dish.

I left the house and walked to the park, To find the little stray kitten, but there she was lying down in all her glory. In my opinion she was starting to look less skinny, To which I of course take credit for, so i poured the cat food into the tin, But the little kitten wouldn't eat it? Then Behind her I saw that there was already food out for her!!

To be honest this really annoyed me. How dare this person feed that cat. I've fed it for MONTHS! Since the day its mother left her. This mystery person wont know what food it should be having?! This guy wont know the kitten like i do! So I devised a plan. I was going to feed the cat directly after school. So I could get there first, off I went to the shop to buy more cat food, I mean i couldn't do it after school I had to feed the cat of course.

Then I went home, and did my chores and stuff

"Boringggg" Stop whining I'm getting there.

I went to school as usual and then went straight to the park, like trust me I ran, FAST. But to my suprise I was too late... But wait a minute?! It was that girl from class??? I sighed and turned around to go home, "Hey your Kyle broflovski?? The kid from my maths class?" SHE KNEW WHO I WAS?! I swear I'd never turned around so fast. "Yeah, I usually come feed this cat too but i guess im to late" I chucked.

"Jesus dad you are so attention seeking" .....

Anyways so. As i was saying ahem...

"Aww I'm sorry well I'm thinking about adopting it, i dont want it to live without a family for ever. How about you come round sometime after i adopt it and check up on her?" A PRETTY GIRL WAS MAYBE INVITING ME TO HER HOUSE?!?!?!

And basically, Y/n did adopt her, and I got number and-

"Whos Y/n?" I'M GETTING TO THAT SWEETHEART.

And as i was saying I went to her house sometimes to check on mittens, The cat she adopted and We started to like eachother and then we started dating... Bought a house and That, Is how i met your mother.

"WAIT WHAT Y/N IS MOM??? WHAT HAPPENED TO MITTENS!?? WHEN WAS I BORN???"

Jesus Child....

[slyvester101]

Tucker knew the moment he got up that today was gonna be a bad day.

All the lights were too bright, his armor constricting in the worst way possible, every noise sounding like tv static in his ears. It made him tense and snappy, his every word hissed out through clenched teeth. He was harsh and impatient and just wanted the day to end.

He knew he wasn’t being fair or kind, knew that nobody was at fault for his piss poor mood, but he was irritated and tired and everything about anything seemed to set him off. It was only by the grace of Tucker’s own goddamn restraint that no one ended up getting choked out or stabbed by the end of the day.

But the day was done and Tucker was finally able to clock out from Captain Duties and hide in his room where no one can bother him.

Thank fucking god.

He almost pulls the door off its hinges when he comes in, not even bothering to be annoyed with the creak of the door before slamming it shut again.

“Tucker?”

Wash is promptly ignored, an incoherent grunt being his only response as Tucker storms across the room to their dresser. Piece after piece of his armor is chucked off, curses streaming out whenever his hands fumble with the clasps. It takes much longer than it should, but he gets everything off himself and dropped in a pile on the floor.

Irritation melts into exhaustion by the time Tucker pulls on a thick sweatshirt and a fresh pair of boxers, limbs heavy and slow as he pulls his hair out of its ponytail and letting his locs fall down his back.

“You alright over there?”

Tucker blinks blearily at Wash, the man giving a comforting smile as he flicks his eyes over the oversized sweatshirt, his sweatshirt, framing Tucker’s thighs. Still giving him no response, Tucker drags himself over to him and plops down in Wash’s lap, habit guiding his limbs to wrap around his partner as he buries his face in Wash’s neck.

The buzzing in the back of Tucker’s head stops when Wash brings his hand to cup the back of his head, the other settling on Tucker’s back and pulling him close. Everything wrong with the day melts away when Wash kisses his temple.

“Rough day?” Wash finally gets a response as Tucker nods against him, hands tangling into the back of his shirt and pulling them impossibly closer. Tucker damn near sobs when Wash starts rubbing his back, arms steady and strong as they keep Tucker from tipping them both over.

He gets another kiss for his worries, soft and sweet and soothing. Tucker presses his own kisses back into Wash’s neck, earning a chuckle as he lazily pecks down his shoulder.

Eventually, Tucker kisses his way up to Wash’s lips, pulling him into a chaste kiss that has Tucker sighing in relief. It’s a little awkward since Tucker didn’t tilt his head before smushing their faces together, but Wash is smiling in to their kiss before readjusting himself into something more comfortable.

They part after an eternity, Tucker completely relaxed into nothing but a pile of goo as Wash rests their heads together. “Better?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Tucker leans a little harder into Wash, a silent plea that they stay like this for a bit longer, not quite ready to snap out of the daze he’s found himself in.

Wash seems just as content to stay right where they are, hands gently guiding Tucker back down to lay on his shoulder so they can press as close as they can. Tucker hears the soft thump thump of Wash’s heart as he slowly drifts to sleep, his mind quiet and his body settled into the safety and warmth of his lover.

Everything is calm and quiet, the room soft and comfortable. Everything has faded into nonexistent, Wash and Tucker being the only things to fill up the empty space.

The day ends with everything as it should be, Wash by Tucker’s side with no end in sight.

[fowlfics]

i don't think this is making it out of my WIPs at this point (considering i started it in like. january. and never added anything LOL) so y'all are getting a treat!

a few drabbles in an AU where Nika is an independent sentient being and shared Luffy's headspace from the moment he ate the gum gum fruit, featuring LawNika (but not LawLu). One (the 3rd) is somewhat NSFW

***

Ace couldn’t just let Akainu get away with insulting his Pops-

“Ace!” Luffy’s voice interrupted his thoughts, the smaller hand wrapping around Ace’s arm in an attempt to stop him, tugging weakly at him. “We need to go!” 

“But he-”

“Whitebeard had been the Strongest Man on the Seas for ageeeeees, he doesn’t need you to protect his honour!” Luffy whined, and something about those words tickled at Ace. “You know who does need your help, though? Your baby brother!”

Ace stopped trying to get away, turning to look at his brother. The smile on his face seemed strained but no less genuine, but now that Ace focused on him, he could see that it was less pulling Ace towards himself and more just his brother trying to keep himself up on his feet. 

“Nika,” he sighed, already knowing he wouldn’t be allowed to attack Akainu. 

“Yep!” The grin widened marginally. “Seriously, though, Luffy passed out and I do not have enough energy to get us back to safety.” 

Scooping his brother up in a princess carry, fuelled by adrenaline and determination alone, Ace ran towards the closest ally ship. 

***

Law made his way up to the deck the very moment the Polar Tang resurfaced, waiting at the railing as they slowly approached the Thousand Sunny. 

“Tooooooooraaaaaaaooooooo!” Came the rapidly-approaching screech as Luffy launched himself towards them, slamming into Law with unerring accuracy. 

“Strawhat-ya,” Law greeted, looking down at the newest appendage, Luffy’s arms winding around him. “And am I going to see my boyfriend today?” 

“Nope! Shishishi,” Luffy giggled. “Just me today!” 

Law couldn’t help the pang of concern. “Is everything-?” 

“Nika’s okay!” Luffy assured quickly. “I just got put in seastone earlier, so he’s still resting!” 

Law just nodded at the news. “Let me guess,” he said. “You want to-”

“PARTY!”

***

Law isn’t sure what, exactly, tipped him off. One moment, he was making his way up Nika’s chest, kissing every inch, and the next-

He pulled away, resting on his elbows above him as he scrutinized his face. 

“...Luffy-ya,” he said eventually. 

Luffy, predictably, laughed. “Torao always notices so fast!” 

Law groaned, rolling himself off of Luffy and throwing an arm over his eyes. 

“If he changed his mind, he could’ve just said so,” he muttered. 

“Oh, Nika still wants to fuck you,” Luffy assured confidently. “He just got too flustered and lost control, that’s all.”

Law dropped his arm, turning to look at Luffy, a smirk slowly appearing on his face. “Yeah?” 

“Yep! Shishishi…”

“Any chance he’s gonna come back out soon?”

“Nope,” Luffy sat up in the bed, scooting towards the edge. “I’m hungry. SANJI! FOOD!”

Law swore, chucking Luffy’s pants at his retreating back. 

“Luffy-ya! Put on your clothes!”

***

Law made his way into the kitchen half-asleep. There were a few people inside already including-

Squinting, Law stalked towards the Strawhat, looking down to stare into his wide eyes, his cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk’s and a half-eaten drumstick in hand. He tilted his head to the left lightly. 

“Morning, Luffy-ya,” Law offered around a yawn, moving towards the coffee. 

“I don’t get how he can always tell,” Usopp complained towards Sanji, Nami and Zoro. 

“It’s easy,” Ace shrugged on the other side of the table, his mouth almost as full as Luffy’s. 

“Shishishi!” Luffy finished the drumstick in a single bite. “Ace, Sabo and Torao are the only ones who always know.”

“I get your brothers, because they grew up with you,” Nami said. “But Torao’s known you for less than most of us! It’s so unfair.” 

“I don’t get how you can’t tell,” Law scoffed, bringing his cup to sit beside Strawhat. Leaning forward, he pressed a kiss to Nika’s lips. “Morning, sunshine.” 

“See?! There was no change! How are we supposed to tell?” Usopp despaired. 

[vajazzly]

mlm (and not in the gay way) reg, as a treat

Around the age of 21, Sirius gave up all hope that Regulus would ever pull his head out of his ass.

Twenty, they figured, was an age at which one was expected to start thinking for oneself, and though Regulus had always been a bit of a late bloomer, holding onto the false hope that Regulus would ever be the brother they wanted was starting to become more of a burden than anything else. And at 21 Sirius had acquired several things - a lovely boyfriend, a prescription for HRT, a therapist, and a bit of perspective, most notably - that softened the blow of their brother’s rejection. At 26, though they never thought it would be possible, Sirius barely thinks of Regulus anymore, more of a passing thought during the holidays or around his birthday, the lump of resentment and grief smaller each year, something they can sit with and then dismiss with a firm hand.

So when, on the eve of Sirius and Remus’s second wedding anniversary, Sirius receives a follow request on their very private instagram from regulusablack, it comes as rather a shock, enough to make them sit up straight from where they were lounging with their husband on the couch, half-asleep with Keeping Up With the Kardashians on in the background.

“The fuck?”

“Mm?”

Sirius tilts their phone screen so Remus can see, and he makes another soft, confused sound. “Weird.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You gonna accept?”

Sirius pauses, for just a moment. A voice in their head, small but mighty, tells them no. They’ve worked hard over the years to scrub any trace of themselves that their family could track from the internet, only using their private instagram under a vague username, and they like it that way, like the anonymity and the disconnect and the sense of safety that comes with it, even now, when their family can’t really touch them. It’s the control more than anything else, probably, or the need for the freedom to be themself without the constant second thoughts, the anxiety, knowing their family will see. 

They click on Regulus’s profile, which is public - scroll through his posts, all awkwardly posed photos of him in suits with a rotating cast of other formally dressed people, some outside of their old church, others at what must be an office or business conferences of some sort. It’s all horribly generic, expected. Sort of soulless. Still, it makes Sirius smile, seeing him grown out of his awkward boyhood into a man, sends a spark of something through his gut. 

“Dear god,” Remus says, with a note of amusement in his voice, and Sirius chuckles, scrolling back up to the top and pausing with their finger over the accept follow request button, considering. Everything about this is more than a little suspicious - Regulus seems to have settled into the life that was expected of the both of them, and they were never very close, even as children - Regulus has no real reason to contact them, unless…

Sirius presses accept follow request firmly and sets the phone down next to them, turning to peck Remus on the lips, reveling in his contented hum. A few years ago something like this might have sent them spiraling, but now, with a family of their own with Remus and their dogs, Lily and James and Harry just down the street, the sting of their family’s rejection has faded into a dull ache, a bruise - painful when pressed, but easily soothed.

Sirius hasn’t even gotten Remus’s fly all the way down when their phone lets out a soft ping, and despite themselves they pause to check it, curiosity briefly winning. It’s a DM from Regulus’s account, and they open it.

Hey bro! Hope you’re doing well. Recently I’ve been working towards a promotion, and I’ve got an incredible business opportunity…

Sirius tries to read through the rest of the message, but once they see the phrase more freedom than a 9-5 they break - at first into giggles, then full-on stomach-cramping fist-pounding laughter, dropping their phone onto Remus’s chest so he can read it - which he does, chuckling incredulously.

“Is this - is he trying to recruit you for a pyramid scheme?”

[creative-caramel-coffee]

Stuck storming Pt.2

Pairings: Weems x R (Platonic)

Word count: 1.7K

Summary: You and Weems are still stuck in Burlington. Your still sick, weems is in touch with her parental side.

TW: flooding, sickness (like flu symptoms), medicine

A/n Im slowly working my way through your requests :)

When she returned with the supplies, she looked over at you. You had drifted off to a fevered sleep and she was thankful she had locked the car when she left. She reached over and felt your check for signs of improvement concern only growing as she felt that your fever had risen in her absence.

Placing the goods in the backseat she turned the engine on and made her way back to the apartment.

She looked over at you and immediately felt bad. She couldn’t carry you and the things from the chemist so she would have to wake you up. She felt guilty for making you come with. After gently rousing you from your sleep she guided you back to the building under the safety of the umbrella.

After the two of you were back in the apartment, you beelined for the couch and curled up in a ball planning to go back to sleep asap.

However, weems had other plans. After fixing you a glass of apple juice she came over and crouched in front of you. You cracked open an eye and looked at her making her chuckle softly at your threatening expression.

“Darling take these and let me take your temperature then you can go back to sleep.” She reasoned and you grunted and sat up. She passed you the tablet and then the juice. Deciding not to give you the fever reducers just yet until she had a read on how hot you were. Depending on that she may give your body a chance to fight it on its own.

With a gentle hand she placed a finger on the underside of your chin and tilted your head to face her. She used her thumb to open your lips and slipped the thermometer inside. You were confused and the glaze in your eyes seemed thicker now than it had been in the car. Weems was only growing more worried.

She took the juice from where the cup was tilting dangerously in your loose grip and placed it on the coffee table. She waited and after a minute was rewarded by the beeping of the stick. You jolted slightly half asleep and forgetting it was there. The principal chucked despite her worry and took the plastic from your mouth. She looked at the little screen and frowned.

“I guess you're getting those fever reducers after all my darling girl.” She said and you nodded still seeming only distantly aware of what was going on around you.

The principal popped two white tablets from a blister packet and put them directly in your mouth before bringing the glass of juice to your lips and telling you to swallow. You did and she guided you back into a lying posting. Lifting your legs up onto the couch and propping you up and pillow. Once you were asleep, she went over to the dining table and pulled out her laptop, aiming to get some emails she knew she would have, sorted before you woke up again.

You slept fitfully for an hour, the fever dulling but still hot enough to make you have some questionable and mildly horrific dreams which had led to a lot of whimpering.

You were laid on the couch in the living room with the TV on a low volume. You whimpered again as you dreamt of fire and brimstone. Weems looked up from where she was answering emails from teachers at the dining table nearby. She glanced over your sweaty and pale form before another ding from her computer drew her attention again as a new email pinged into her inbox. Nothing too interesting, a couple requests for changes in lunch duties and two requests for sick days and an alert of a three-day absence to attend a family funeral, so she would need to organise a substitute. Apparently nevermore was safe from the flooding so that was a relief. Another whimper drew her attention again and she stood, trying to avoid her chair making noise as she stood.

She made her way to you and crouched down on the flood, sitting on her hunches beside where you laid your head against the pillows. Your face was screwed up either from the nightmare, fever or a mix of both Larissa couldn’t quite tell. The small crease in your brow looked tight. She gently wiped the sweaty curls from your forehead with her left hand gently holding the hair back, before bringing the back of her right palm up to your brow to gauge your fever. Your face was pale with a dark flush of fever over your cheeks. Under her hand your skin felt hot and clammy. Much hotter than it been before when she checked. Your fever reducers must have worn off and as she checked the time on her gold watch she sighed. Yes. They had worn off about fifteen minutes ago and it was time for another dose. Which had given your fever enough time to amp right up.

Flipping her hand over she used both to brush your hair back, smoothing it with tender gentle care she stood and went to fetch you a fresh glass of water, the medicine, a fresh cool cloth and the thermometer. She easily located the items from where she had left them earlier that day and quickly hurried back to your side.

Using the back of her hand she stroked your cheek and whispered softly to wake you up.

“Y/n/n, honey. Time to wake up sweet girl.” She said and you stirred, whining softly and shifting your position turning slightly away from her. Larissa chuckled and tried again.

“Y/n darling you need to wake up.” She said still softly, her hand cupping your cheek and her thumb running soothingly over your cheekbone. This time your eyes fluttered open. And Larissa cooed softly.

“Oh darling.” She said sympathetically when she saw your eyes were glazed and glassy, looking around sluggishly evidently confused. You clumsily tried to sit up but Larissa gently pressed her hand flat against your chest.

“Sh sh shhh. Its ok. Stay lying down darling. Let me help you. Slowly does it.” She said, her hands under your armpits to guide you gently into a sitting position without hurting yourself. You were limp and let her manhandle you into a better position.

When you were finally propped up against the pillows on the couch Larissa smiled softly at you.

“How are you feeling Y/n?” She asked and you smiled lopsidedly still half asleep. Merely humming a response. She chuckled softly.

“That good huh?” And you hummed again still giving her nothing useful to work with. She leaned down to pull the wet cloth from the bowl of water, not taking her eyes off you as she wrung it out.

Your eyes were drooping as she ran the cloth over your face and arms to cool you down. Occasionally dipping it back into the cold water and ridding the excess water. You made small noises when the cloth came into contact with your feverish skin which made Larissa smiled softly. You were adorable even when sick. She had quickly developed a soft spot for you in her heart.

Once the cloth rested on your forehead, she pulled out the thermometer from behind her on the coffee table. You thought it was impressive in heels, however if you had been more lucid you would have noticed she wasn’t wearing her usual heels but fluffy socks. She tapped your cheek, and you opened your mouth obediently.

“Good girl.” She smiled and you beamed from behind the thermometer she had slipped in your mouth.

She moved to sit beside you and started flicking through Netflix now your show had ended. She moved to put on another studio Ghibli film, my neighbour Totoro this time. You smiled at the choice.

You jumped slightly when the stick you had forgotten about beeped and Larissa chuckled softly and rubbed your arm.

“Alright sweet girl let's take a look.” She said and slowly removed it. She frowned slightly.

“101.3” she turned to you, seeing your sad expression as you fed off her energy. “But that’s ok we can fix that.” She said with a soft smile. You nodded and she reached for the glass beside you on the table.

She helped guide the glass to your lips encouraging you to take small sips. She gave you the medicine and fluffed the pillows a bit. Gently she guided you back into them for more rest. Your eyes fluttered shut of their own accord and you smiled sleepily.

After a bit she moved from beside you and went back to the dining table. Slowly slipping back into her work she settled back into the rhythm listening to your soft breathing. Every once in a while, she would pause to hazard a glance in your direction to check on you. More than twice, she gauged your temperature again with the back of her hand and made note of its lowering intensity. At one point she had replaced a wet cloth on your forehead which now sat limp and dejectedly on the floor having fallen from it spot on your head whilst you rolled around in a fevered haze.

After about an hour your fever broke, and Larissa was glad that that was over. You were still sick but on the upswing of it all and it was now late evening after she left you to sleep though lunch.

After an amazing dinner that Larissa hand fed you despite your half-attempted excuses and failed tries to feed yourself with shaking hands. After diner she tucked you into a real bed this time and the rain was slowing outside. It would likely be another day before the roads cleared and the principal was sure you would be ok by then. But to be honest it felt good to be cared for instead of isolated when you were this sick. Maybe the principal wasn’t as uptight and professional as she seemed. After all she had provided you with a fresh band t-shirt after your fever broke and you had sweat through the last one. Imagine dragons this time. Cute.

MASTERLIST

[halothenthehorns]

Chapter 22: WE TRASH THE ETERNAL CITY

Nico forced himself out from under Will's arm and tried to take an even breath as he took the book. He hated how he still felt as unsure of himself and his creepy death-drawn-to-him abilities as when all of this had started, gods if he could ball up his insecurity and chuck it in that trash he would.

But he couldn't. He could have something he found just as comforting though, and Will did indeed draw him right back to his side and it was always very nice and warm there as he read the new chapter title.

"You would," Jason frowned at Percy. Just Percy.

"It said we!" Percy protested. "Annabeth's probably blown up her own share of national monuments and just hasn't had it on print yet!"

"Yeah, I know," Jason tried hard to resist smiling as he kept his stern look in place, "it's just habit to blame you first."

"It's okay, I don't mind sharing the blame, Athena knows we share everything else," Annabeth chuckled. Jason finally nodded and looked away while Percy grumbled at the two.

The bridge to Olympus was dissolving. We stepped out of the elevator onto the white marble walkway, and immediately cracks appeared at our feet.

Thalia groaned and was more than happy she'd given the book up before she had to read that. The memory in her head of the ground falling from beneath her feet like so many a vivid nightmare had done to her was more than enough without her voice shaking to add to it all!

"Jump!" Grover said, which was easy for him since he's part mountain goat.

"The only ones at camp who can still beat me at the lava wall," Will chuckled. It was a running gag to get newbies to try and beat the slow, shaky legs of satyrs and have to do all the chores as consequences.

"Mmm," Nico said with interest for more insights into Camp as he studied Will's long, nimble fingers that had more calluses than someone who claimed to just sit around reading in the infirmary all day should have. It wouldn't surprise him in the slightest if Will just didn't think it important to mention what else he got up to around there, but Nico certainly wanted to know.

He sprang to the next slab of stone while ours tilted sickeningly.

"Gods, I hate heights!" Thalia yelled as she and I leaped. But Annabeth was in no shape for jumping.

She stumbled and yelled, "Percy!"

Percy felt a glowing sense of pride as he held her hand firmly and she just sighed from exhaustion and leaned against him without a trace of distress for this specific thing happening. It hadn't been a question if he'd catch her. Just a plea for help he'd answered as usual.

Thalia shook her head affectionately at the two. She couldn't even begrudge her little sister that happiness and peace she'd found. She actively tried to hope it might just last long enough Nico could get through this fast enough that whatever had happened to Luke while she'd once again been absent from Annabeth needing her would just pass.

Like that wasn't a wasted wish.

I caught her hand as the pavement fell, crumbling into dust. For a second I thought she was going to pull us both over. Her feet dangled in the open air. Her hand started to slip until I was holding her only by her fingers. Then Grover and Thalia grabbed my legs, and I found extra strength.

Jason had been toying with the winds in his mind, some part of him he didn't yet have full memory of but his muscles did was dusting all of their hair around like a sharp breeze he'd only vaguely been aware of. They stopped with a row of goosebumps for everyone though as he sadly at his sister.

He'd only ever heard of her problems with heights, seen the faces she'd made as an outsider of her life. The part of him that had been wanting to kick up the air and push them all to safety while he floated harmlessly over the void vanished though. She didn't need his help. She was there to keep them alive just like always. Thalia wasn't going to let them fall any more than he would, magic god powers be damned. Or dammed.

Annabeth was not going to fall.

There was something too tight in her grip though. It wasn't uncomfortable for him, but the way her nails dug in, the stress he could feel as he watched those stormy gray eyes glare at the book. Was she picturing that manticore and the sea below?

"I'm not ever going to let you fall," he promised her in surprise she could be doubting that.

"Yeah, I know Percy," she said it like she meant it too, smiling at him, but he could feel something about this was bothering her as she tried to dart her eyes back away.

He jumped up, but not away. She didn't release his arm as she tried to get up too. Instead he spun and was now kneeling before her, knees pressed into the cracked ground. His hands braced themselves on either side of her beanbag, still trying to meet her eyes that wanted to see what he couldn't. "I'm not going to let you fall," he repeated stubbornly.

"I know," her smile was sad, her grip too tight. He didn't understand.

She'd let him fall. She'd been unable to stop it as he fell off the face of the earth. Artemis had to step in to get her back where she belonged beside him.

He watched her silently and she just stared back with that sad smile because her failures were already out loud in every stupid word of this and if he didn't realize it already he would eventually. He'd stick around and not blame her but she needed to hold onto that blame or she'd forget to keep her focus.

"Let's just concentrate on this," she reminded, running her other hand through his hair. She wished Nico would keep reading and distract him.

Stubborn met stubborn for a very long, uncomfortable amount of time as the rest of them exchanged looks wondering if they were supposed to interrupt.

Yeah, Thalia decided. She did need to do that. "If you two don't stop this we're never getting out of here!" She fought hard not to get up and grab the bag of books and whack the pair with it. It would hurt Annabeth more than Percy, but even he might feel it as many as there still were left to go.

It really was like asking which would stop first, the immovable object or the unstoppable force. So they would have been equally surprised no matter who said what.

But it was Percy who leaned back and said, "fine, we'll finish this later," and settled back into his beanbag as if nothing had happened.

Annabeth had no doubts about that. She just knew she could distract him until she made that later set at her own time.

I pulled her up and we lay trembling on the pavement. I didn't realize we had our arms around each other until she suddenly tensed.

"Um, thanks," she muttered.

Annabeth let herself chuckle and whisper to him for at least some answer, "gods, you had your arms around me more this day than ever before. It was what I really needed, and I hated you for distracting me!" She gave him a light swat on said arm.

"Consider it my specialty wise girl," Percy grinned back. She wasn't sure if he meant distracting her, or holding her, but she liked the answer either way.

I tried to say Don't mention it, but it came out as, "Uh duh."

"You were pretty close Percy, only a few syllables off," Magnus told him in pity.

"Reading all of these could only have helped with his annunciation problems," Alex chuckled.

"Keep moving!" Grover tugged my shoulder. We untangled ourselves and sprinted across the sky bridge as more stones disintegrated and fell into oblivion. We made it to the edge of the mountain just as the final section collapsed.

"Maybe next time you decide to nearly die, do it on solid ground," Thalia groaned. She loathed how useless she constantly felt to Annabeth.

"I will pencil that in just for you," Annabeth promised.

Annabeth looked back at the elevator, which was now completely out of reach—a polished set of metal doors hanging in space, attached to nothing, six hundred stories above Manhattan.

Magnus did not like that. Not one little bit. It was horrifying literally, symbolically, and physically to imagine. Just doors floating in space now his cousin could not reach. No turning back, no more magical backup.

"We're marooned," she said. "On our own."

"Blah-ha-ha!" Grover said. "The connection between Olympus and America is dissolving. If it fails—"

"The gods won't move on to another country this time," Thalia said. "This will be the end of Olympus. The final end."

We ran through streets.

"Not away from the danger," Magnus needlessly clarified to no one. "Not towards safety and some magical ex-machina McGuffin! Towards the psycho Titan who could kill you all with a look, blasting you off the ground vanishing beneath your feet!"

"Can you even imagine us doing that?" Thalia smiled in surprise like he'd just told the funniest joke.

"I'd be so hacked off if Grover suggested that," Percy shook his head. "All that crap we did, building up to that! No fight! What was all that training for otherwise?"

"You should cut him some slack guys," Annabeth chuckled, "maybe Percy would have gotten into slightly less trouble if he'd been there to warn us what bad ideas you always have."

"Me?" Percy sighed.

"Don't underestimate your cousin Annabeth," Thalia scoffed, "I think he does it for show half the time now. He's far to indulgent of Percy and Alex's every whim. Have you heard him actually pretending he wouldn't help every step of the way once while freaking out?"

Annabeth smiled in agreement, which grew as Magnus sighed and right in line did not bother to deny that's exactly what he'd do while slumping into the arm of the couch.

Mansions were burning. Statues had been hacked down. Trees in the parks were blasted to splinters. It looked like someone had attacked the city with a giant Weedwacker.

"Was the we not even about Percy and you guys?" Jason asked, still smirking at Percy's put out look for being singled out. "It's already trashed before you even finished stepping foot around there."

"It would be a nice change of pace if so, these stupid things are finally targeting Kronos and Ethan," Percy shrugged without much care.

"Kronos's scythe," I said.

We followed the winding path toward the palace of the gods. I didn't remember the road being so long. Maybe Kronos was making time go slower, or maybe it was just dread slowing me down. The whole mountaintop was in ruins—so many beautiful buildings and gardens gone.

Annabeth couldn't help but grin at him as she told in a weirdly happy tone of voice after all that destruction, "it really hasn't gotten old yet to know what you focused on."

It didn't take a genius, let alone a seaweed brain to grasp she'd been seeing the same as him. He smiled right back. It was always nice to know they were on the same page even without a book between them.

A few minor gods and nature spirits had tried to stop Kronos. What remained of them was strewn about the road: shattered armor, ripped clothing, swords and spears broken in half.

To say nothing of their shattered, ripped, and broken bodies, Percy shook his head in sorrow. There had been as much ichor on the streets as rubble with as little mercy as had been shown.

Somewhere ahead of us, Kronos's voice roared: "Brick by brick! That was my promise. Tear it down BRICK BY BRICK!"

"That sounds like it would take a really long time though," Alex sounded grudgingly admirable of putting that much patience into something. "I'm surprised really, though I guess he of all of them does have the time to spare."

"Well it wasn't a very well kept promise, just like all of them," Percy rolled his eyes. "I saw plenty of half toppled buildings and bricks standing."

"Guess Hades has something new he can agree with his siblings about," Thalia smiled faintly, "their father is a terrible liar too."

"Hmm, I'm sure he'll be thrilled," Nico chuckled.

A white marble temple with a gold dome suddenly exploded. The dome shot up like the lid of a teapot and shattered into a billion pieces, raining rubble over the city.

"That was a shrine to Artemis," Thalia grumbled. "He'll pay for that."

"As opposed to all the other things he'd done he was just going to get some minor gripes over," Jason asked her mildly.

"Well it's not like the stakes were personal for any other reason," she groused without meeting his eyes. He sighed and quickly let it go.

We were running under the marble archway with the huge statues of Zeus and Hera when the entire mountain groaned, rocking sideways like a boat in a storm.

"Look out!" Grover yelped. The archway crumbled. I looked up in time to see a twenty-ton scowling Hera topple over on us. Annabeth and I would've been flattened, but Thalia shoved us from behind and we landed just out of danger.

"Thalia!" Grover cried.

"When, when it said we-" Jason was suddenly so stark pale in concern the faint tattoo on his lip was the clearest thing on his face.

"Relax, I'm not a ghost haunting Percy or anything," she said with a casual enough smile, but it did little to soothe him or Percy who shuddered in fear right along with him. Gods, if he'd gone into this battle with one of his best friend's deaths hanging over him like this, he'd be as reckless as she'd once accused Luke of being. The light fading from Zoe's eyes would have been the only thing he'd see in her dark blue gaze.

Jason couldn't swallow, couldn't breathe for a moment as he realized she could have died just then and he'd have never met her. He would have gone the entirety of his life never meeting her...he still wasn't sure if that was in his future at all except for this cosmic joke of a room!

"Thank you," Annabeth said all the same, her voice as small and full of warmth as that girl she'd found on the streets.

"Of course," Thalia bobbed her head as if acknowledging she'd given her the extra fries.

Annabeth sighed at once again realizing far to much how alike Percy and Thalia were. Always eager to brush off their own compliments and then worry they hadn't done enough.

When the dust cleared and the mountain stopped rocking, we found her still alive, but her legs were pinned under the statue.

We tried desperately to move it, but it would've taken several Cyclopes.

"Even I wouldn't have protested a team of them showing up right then," Thalia scowled as she fought the urge to rub her legs. She had about as much love for them as Annabeth did just seeing one pop up, but she might have tried to pull a Nobody at minimum or begged for help at worst to get that thing off so she could continue what she started all those years ago...

When we tried to pull Thalia out from under it, she yelled in pain.

"I survive all those battles," she growled, "and I get defeated by a stupid chunk of rock!"

"Hopefully the height of your Greek tragedy?" Nico told her in mild concern, though it did come out as more of a question he at least hoped it for her. She did seem to have found some kind of happy ending with the Hunters in between all this.

"I'll get back to you on that," Thalia scowled at the dark ceiling. She dared not glance at Jason, or hear the Fates laughing in her ear.

"It's Hera," Annabeth said in outrage. "She's had it in for me all year. Her statue would've killed me if you hadn't pushed us away."

Thalia grimaced. "Well, don't just stand there! I'll be fine. Go!"*

We didn't want to leave her, but I could hear Kronos laughing as he approached the hall of the gods.

More buildings exploded.

"We'll be back," I promised.

"I'm not going anywhere," Thalia groaned.

A fireball erupted on the side of the mountain, right near the gates of the palace.

"We've got to run," I said.

"I don't suppose you mean away," Grover murmured hopefully.

I sprinted toward the palace, Annabeth right behind me.

"I was afraid of that," Grover sighed, and clip-clopped after us.

Magnus laughed into the awkward silence their joke had come to pass. Even Jason might not have been able to keep track of how many times that happened and went right over their heads.

He was to busy watching his sister in concern.

Thalia had watched them go feeling gutted, useless. As if she might as well go steal some seeds and plant herself there as a tree for another thousand years as Annabeth had dashed off after Percy with one last lingering look at her, mouthing something. She didn't know what. She didn't want to ask. A promise to save Luke? A promise to kill Kronos once and for all?

She'd struggled under that statue until she couldn't breathe from her burning muscles, hating herself for everything she'd ever done, and feeling a laugh echo in her head from a demigod she'd never met. Hercules might as well have appeared above her though, scolding her for trying to be like him. No child of Zeus should ever hope for more than just getting the chance to grow up, let alone be important enough to have some sort of final say in the lives she'd revolved around.

When she'd finally been dug out, when Luke's body was carried past her, she'd convinced herself she didn't care she hadn't been there. She'd gone back to the Hunters with a sense of peace that it was meant to be this way and she'd played her part as Annabeth and Percy had held hands.

But being back in the thick of this was really thinning out that resolve.

The doors of the palace were big enough to steer a cruise ship through, but they'd been ripped off their hinges and smashed like they weighed nothing. We had to climb over a huge pile of broken stone and twisted metal to get inside.

Kronos stood in the middle of the throne room, his arms wide, staring at the starry ceiling as if taking it all in. His laughter echoed even louder than it had from the pit of Tartarus.

"Which is strange, you think it would have far less of an echo in there. As big as that place is, it's still got to be slightly smaller than Tartarus," Alex offered.

"I should have recorded it," Percy frowned at her, "so I can make you fall asleep listening to it every night."

"What does Chiron take away if he catches you torturing someone?" Magnus asked in mild concern, more worried about other campers than Percy specifically. "Hopefully something worse than desert, right?"

Alex's laugh sounded far to amused. Percy had no idea that would truly be a comical noise compared to her usual dreams.

"Give us a little more credit than that, would you?" Will sighed at his usual theatrics. Any psychos the place had really collected over the years had quickly vanished to Luke's side, and hadn't been seen since.

"Finally!" he bellowed. "The Olympian Council—so proud and mighty. Which seat of power shall I destroy first?"

"Was he actually asking for advice?" Nico asked with a small smirk. He had some opinions.

"No, and I doubt he'd give you a vote. His loss," Annabeth rolled her eyes. She really hoped they'd stop with the jokes soon, this wasn't funny to her.

Ethan Nakamura stood to one side, trying to stay out of the way of his master's scythe. The hearth was almost dead, just a few coals glowing deep in the ashes. Hestia was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Rachel. I hoped she was okay, but I'd seen so much destruction I was afraid to think about it. The Ophiotaurus swam in his water sphere in the far corner of the room, wisely not making a sound, but it wouldn't be long before Kronos noticed him.

"Could Kronos himself sacrifice him?" Magnus shivered in unease. Zoe had only said it would give one power to destroy the gods, there hadn't been a clause mentioning a Titan was exempt.

Nobody answered him, which usually meant yes and nobody wanted to admit it.

Annabeth, Grover, and I stepped forward into the torchlight. Ethan saw us first.

"My lord," he warned.

"He needs to die first, like, seven backstabs ago," Alex said in a deep, guttural voice of anger.

To her surprise though, Percy frowned. He looked like he was fighting back a sigh and just seemed very, very tired. She'd thought he'd be at least wincing in pain over how this victory went down so close at hand, or even pleased he had at least some confirmation at his side those important to him lived through it.

It left her feeling unbalanced what was to come even knowing the outcome.

Kronos turned and smiled through Luke's face. Except for the golden eyes, he looked just the same as he had four years ago when he'd welcomed me into the Hermes cabin. Annabeth made a painful sound in the back of her throat, like someone had just sucker punched her.

Which was a very strange thing to ever exist in Magnus's mind for even a moment. He just imagined Percy's hand coming out of nowhere and snatching that fist away to break someone's arm if someone ever tried while Annabeth wound up to punch back.

"Shall I destroy you first, Jackson?" Kronos asked. "Is that the choice you will make—to fight me and die instead of bowing down? Prophecies never end well, you know."

"I must have a better track record than most," Percy muttered in absent surprise. He gestured to Jason in a subconscious way he must have learned from Rachel, like summoning his accountant. "Right?"

"Going by my numbers, yeah," he agreed. Though only two had been specifically about him, Percy's involvement did seem to be a good mark.

"Luke would fight with a sword," I said. "But I suppose you don't have his skill."

Kronos sneered. His scythe began to change, until he held Luke's old weapon, Backbiter, with its half-steel, half-Celestial bronze blade.

"Why would you want that thing back?" Will asked in concern.

"Mental strategies and such," Percy grinned in his usual doofus way, tapping the side of his head.

Will wasn't fooled. Percy turned to Annabeth and gave her an exaggerated wink before his eyes slid back to the book. Will shifted through his mind for a few moments before he felt he'd landed on some sort of Percy like reason. He was trying to draw Luke out as much as he could. He'd seen the human behind those golden eyes enough times to at least hope he could draw him out.

Next to me, Annabeth gasped like she'd suddenly had an idea. "Percy, the blade!" She unsheathed her knife. "The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap."

A broken promise could curse an item, in some myths. It had been a long shot, but Annabeth had rallied with absolute confidence as she'd looked upon her hero for the last time without the tunnel vision of the halo of light surrounding him. Maybe he didn't have to just be a hero to her if she did this right.

It seemed a miracle even Zeus couldn't perform it had all worked out, if not in the way she'd have once wished.

I didn't understand why she was reminding me of that prophecy line right now. It wasn't exactly a morale booster, but before I could say anything, Kronos raised his sword.

"I think this is one of those times where it's allowed for you to shout the answer without completing the sentence!" Alex threw her hands up with a groan.

"I don't judge how your mind works," Annabeth frowned.

Alex still had to sigh and grumble for a moment before letting it go, more eager to get to the answer than complain to her. For now.

"Wait!" Annabeth yelled.

Kronos came at me like a whirlwind.

"I cannot believe he didn't stop to listen to you," Thalia sounded far to sarcastic for her outrage to be real. Annabeth still wished it was. That some part of Luke would have hesitated even after all this.

My instincts took over. I dodged and slashed and rolled, but I felt like I was fighting a hundred swordsmen. Ethan ducked to one side, trying to get behind me until Annabeth intercepted him. They started to fight, but I couldn't focus on how she was doing.

Magnus sure could, he had no problems splitting his attention between wondering how Percy wasn't headless and how his cousin had survived with one entire freaking arm being a hindrance!

I was vaguely aware of Grover playing his reed pipes. The sound filled me with warmth and courage—thoughts of sunlight and a blue sky and a calm meadow, somewhere far away from the war.

Kronos backed me up against the throne of Hephaestus—a huge mechanical La-Z-Boy type thing covered with bronze and silver gears. Kronos slashed, and I managed to jump straight up onto the seat.

"If you're hoping that godly smiting thing redirects, I wouldn't think your luck extends that well," Jason cringed and glanced down at his seat for the first time as if to make sure it wasn't going to start strangling him by association.

"I didn't do it on purpose," but even to Percy's own ears he could hear how useless that would be to the God of the Forge. He definitely didn't think he'd get away with this one for nothing even if he won. Great. Any future hope of getting on a bus without it exploding had probably just vanished too.

Nobody looked twice at Magnus's mouth hanging open Percy had managed to jump that high only on adrenline. It was just another detail in the long list of Percy's fighting feats.

The throne whirred and hummed with secret mechanisms. Defense mode, it warned. Defense mode.

"I would move," Will oh so helpfully pointed out in case Percy had never tried to poke a high-voltage electrical fence before. That would strangle him. Then shock him back to life and kill him again.

"Thanks man, don't know how I got through this without you there," Percy snorted.

That couldn't be good. I jumped straight over Kronos's head as the throne shot tendrils of electricity in all directions. One hit Kronos in the face, arcing down his body and up his sword.

"ARG!" He crumpled to his knees and dropped Backbiter.

At least that got a good round of laughter throughout the room, Nico helpfully adding, "look on the bright side, of all the gods in there, he might be the sole one to thank you for helping him get more ideas of how to weaponize his chair."

"Yeah, just what I always wanted, to help a god figure out more ways to kill me," but Percy was smiling along something had gone right.

Annabeth saw her chance. She kicked Ethan out of the way and charged Kronos. "Luke, listen!"

I wanted to shout at her, to tell her she was crazy for trying to reason with Kronos, but there was no time.

"Literally in this instance," Magnus tried his best to say without an eep in his voice and covering his face like that would do any good to stop the words pouring in.

It was true though, Alex gave him a sad smile. Kronos was sucking up all the time for himself and refusing to share. He'd really been the worst.

Kronos flicked his hand. Annabeth flew backward, slamming into the throne of her mother and crumpling to the floor.

Gods that felt so deliberate, Thalia winced in disgust. She didn't know anymore how aware Luke really was in there, Kronos had been spying on them long enough, either of the personas could have done that to her with a purpose...or no care at all where she landed. She wasn't even entirely sure Athena would recognize which child it was right away to care past the insult.

"Annabeth!" I screamed.

Ethan Nakamura got to his feet. He now stood between Annabeth and me.

The most dangerous place to be, Nico frowned to himself. Nobody could say this guy wasn't brave.

I couldn't fight him without turning my back on Kronos.

The fact that he was in there alone having to deal with this fight was still a ragged edge inside Thalia that made every breath a painful exhale, every new breath feel wasted. Screw the stupid prophecy saying Percy was the only one to stand against this! This had not been an epic tale told around the campfire, but quick hushed words around Camp between the shouts of delight in Kronos being gone and the cries for the dead.

It really wasn't better to have it all inlaid in detail where she couldn't ever escape it again, but a chain she allowed upon her shoulders without regret if it would help Annabeth even a moment later at having to revisit this too.

Grover's music took on a more urgent tune. He moved toward Annabeth, but he couldn't go any faster and keep up the song. Grass grew on the floor of the throne room. Tiny roots crept up between the cracks of the marble stones.

Even among everything else going on, Magnus couldn't help but shiver as Hyperion came back to mind. Grover probably wasn't capable of single-handedly recreating that given past evidence, but he wouldn't put it past the guy to try.

Kronos rose to one knee. His hair smoldered. His face was covered with electrical burns. He reached for his sword, but this time it didn't fly into his hands.

"Nakamura!" he groaned. "Time to prove yourself. You know Jackson's secret weakness. Kill him, and you will have rewards beyond measure."

"The reward of, being killed last?" Alex's voice was disdainful and mocking and something else tied in such a knot it should have sounded only painful.

"He's not going to get to find out," Percy's voice was a cold menace, only tempered because Annabeth was in his arms now, breathing. Alive.

Ethan's eyes dropped to my midsection, and I was sure that he knew. Even if he couldn't kill me himself, all he had to do was tell Kronos. There was no way I could defend myself forever.

"Look around you, Ethan," I said. "The end of the world. Is this the reward you want? Do you really want everything destroyed—the good with the bad? Everything?"

Grover was almost to Annabeth now. The grass thickened on the floor. The roots were almost a foot long, like a stubble of whiskers.

"There is no throne to Nemesis," Ethan muttered. "No throne to my mother."

Will sighed deeply that so many of their worlds problems could have been solved if this had just been able to be solved with a quick lawn chair around the room. The power imbalance wasn't theirs to say, but that didn't mean they should be silenced for voicing it. There just had to be a balance. Percy might have stopped the war, but hearing that only reminded him there were going to be more battles down the road if something didn't change.

"That's right!" Kronos tried to get up, but stumbled. Above his left ear, a patch of blond hair still smoldered.

Jason laughed, a dark noise under his breath. His sister might not be in there to have done the deed, but it felt good all the same to know that chair must have fried his brain for even a split second before the Titan shrugged it off.

"Strike them down! They deserve to suffer."

"You said your mom is the goddess of balance," I reminded him. "The minor gods deserve better, Ethan, but total destruction isn't balance. Kronos doesn't build. He only destroys."

Ethan looked at the sizzling throne of Hephaestus. Grover's music kept playing, and Ethan swayed to it, as if the song were filling him with nostalgia—a wish to see a beautiful day, to be anywhere but here.

His good eye blinked.

Then he charged . . . but not at me.

While Kronos was still on his knees, Ethan brought down his sword on the Titan lord's neck. It should have killed him instantly, but the blade shattered. Ethan fell back, grasping his stomach. A shard of his own blade had ricocheted and pierced his armor.

Annabeth gasped, covering her mouth with her hand on instinct to muffle it. She'd been in white hot pain and pretty out of it, but the moment now replayed in her head in too vivid detail. That could have been her if she'd been given half a chance, if she'd struck out with her knife like she'd wanted to upon seeing him.

Kronos rose unsteadily, towering over his servant. "Treason," he snarled.

Jason wondered if Ethan so flagrantly taking back his once vow had done any good at this point. Had it weakend Kronos in the body he'd constructed of magic and power? Had it made Luke take even a fraction of a stronger hold inside seeing the boy so easily tossed aside as a god would do to him?

Grover's music kept playing, and grass grew around Ethan's body. Ethan stared at me, his face tight with pain.

"Deserve better," he gasped. "If they just . . . had thrones—"

Kronos stomped his foot, and the floor ruptured around Ethan Nakamura. The son of Nemesis fell through a fissure that went straight through the heart of the mountain—straight into open air.

"So much for him." Kronos picked up his sword. "And now for the rest of you."

Percy leaned forward in his seat, that scowl back on his face he'd never admit to. The one they'd first had described upon meeting Ethan back in that arena but had seen numerous times now.

About the same amount of times as Ethan had backstabbed, betrayed, and generally made the wrong decision again, and again.

Yet Percy had gone from shock at such a death, to this.

He would have helped Ethan. He would have offered his hand and pulled him back into that thrown room and gotten him ambrosia and taken him back to Camp after turning that look on Kronos.

Ethan had already lost his eye for his cause. Was this last minute change of heart enough to redeem him? Did he deserve anything else besides this?

Percy clearly thought so.

My only thought was to keep him away from Annabeth.

Jason felt a shaky sigh though, wishing he could stop Nico for a moment to really catch his breath, catch up with the whirlwind of emotions that gave him. He didn't know this guy, it wasn't an unsound guess to say nobody would mourn this loss. He wanted to, he just didn't know anything more on how to do it.

Grover was at her side now. He'd stopped playing and was feeding her ambrosia.

Everywhere Kronos stepped, the roots wrapped around his feet, but Grover had stopped his magic too early. The roots weren't thick or strong enough to do much more than annoy the Titan.

Which Percy was usually all on board with, but maybe now was a good time to hope for something a little stronger so he wouldn't join Ethan.

We fought through the hearth, kicking up coals and sparks. Kronos slashed an armrest off the throne of Ares, which was okay by me, but then he backed me up to my dad's throne.

"Oh, yes," Kronos said. "This one will make fine kindling for my new hearth!"

Our blades clashed in a shower of sparks. He was stronger than me, but for the moment I felt the power of the ocean in my arms. I pushed him back and struck again—slashing Riptide across his breastplate so hard I cut a gash in the Celestial bronze.

He stamped his foot again and time slowed. I tried to attack but I was moving at the speed of a glacier. Kronos backed up leisurely, catching his breath. He examined the gash in his armor while I struggled forward, silently cursing him. He could take all the time-outs he wanted. He could freeze me in place at will.

Will gave a shaky smile, that stupid old joke on his lips, but what he instead said was, "at least you can take all the breaks you want this time around."

Percy nodded with gratitude. The adrenaline, the near constant stress of the past days, hell the past years of his life had not been easy to all be tipped back into his brain a teaspoon at a time. It had felt, strange, but almost better getting to laugh with his friends about the absurdity of it all along the way and not feel like an outcast or alone through so much of it. He could look back on some of those more painful memories with a sense of nostalgia now.

My only hope was that the effort was draining him. If I could wear him down . . .

Magnus winced though at how that would wear Percy down faster than him. Even fighting over a body, Kronos had been raining hell down. Had he even bothered needing to sleep? Eat? But Percy was far more human. It didn't feel possible that could be the downfall of this battle, but could it be?

"It's too late, Percy Jackson," he said. "Behold."

He pointed to the hearth, and the coals glowed. A sheet of white smoke poured from the fire, forming images like an Iris-message.

"I really hope Hestia and Iris band together to at least make him regret using their shtick before he gets thrown back in the pit," Alex grumbled. She was personally imagining him just being trapped in a rainbow bubble he couldn't escape and watching Percy and his friends enjoy the victory party that was soon to follow all of this.

I saw Nico and my parents down on Fifth Avenue, fighting a hopeless battle, ringed in enemies.

It had been bad enough when he'd been in that situation, but being forced to see them doing this without him really was like Kronos had just thrown one of his worst nightmares right into his face with the burning hot coals being the least painful part.

In the background Hades fought from his black chariot, summoning wave after wave of zombies out of the ground, but the forces of the Titan's army seemed just as endless.

And yet Hades's forces had made all the difference, the reason Percy's mom was even alive, Will sighed in relief. Nico would have been overwhelmed trying to keep Percy's parents alive on his own. He couldn't help his thudding heart that had him squeezing Nico's arm again in relief to have him here now. The muscle only went into double time as Nico just grinned back at him.

Meanwhile, Manhattan was being destroyed. Mortals, now fully awake, were running in terror. Cars swerved and crashed.

The scene shifted, and I saw something even more terrifying.

A column of storm was approaching the Hudson River, moving rapidly over the Jersey shore.

Chariots circled it, locked in combat with the creature in the cloud.

The gods attacked. Lightning flashed. Arrows of gold and silver streaked into the cloud like rocket tracers and exploded. Slowly, the cloud ripped apart, and I saw Typhon clearly for the first time.

I knew as long as I lived (which might not be that long) I would never be able to get the image out of my mind. Typhon's head shifted constantly. Every moment he was a different monster, each more horrible than the last. Looking at his face would've driven me insane, so I focused on his body, which wasn't much better. He was humanoid, but his skin reminded me of a meat loaf sandwich that had been in someone's locker all year. He was mottled green, with blisters the size of buildings, and blackened patches from eons of being stuck under a volcano. His hands were human, but with talons like an eagle's. His legs were scaly and reptilian.

"I can see why he and Echidna make the perfect couple though," Nico said snidly.

"I'm back wondering why meatloaf sandwiches keep being mentioned so much." Jason rolled his eyes. "Does Percy's mind ever leave his stomach?"

"Not that I've heard," Thalia agreed.

"The Olympians are giving their final effort." Kronos laughed. "How pathetic."

Zeus threw a thunderbolt from his chariot. The blast lit up the world. I could feel the shock even here on Olympus, but when the dust cleared, Typhon was still standing. He staggered a bit, with a smoking crater on top of his misshapen head, but he roared in anger and kept advancing.

My limbs began to loosen up. Kronos didn't seem to notice. His attention was focused on the fight and his final victory. If I could hold out a few more seconds, and if my dad kept his word . . .

Typhon stepped into the Hudson River and barely sank to midcalf.

The fact that it covered half his foot gave Magnus's mind a weird influx of trying to figure out how to scale this guy in his head. None of it made sense, and he was sitting here listening to a book that had made it all real. This was his life right now.

Now, I thought, imploring the image in the smoke. Please, it has to happen now.

Like a miracle, a conch horn sounded from the smoky picture. The call of the ocean. The call of Poseidon.

Percy's grin was a wild thing. He finally felt like he'd been a part of this battle in a significant way, like he'd been crouched in that muddy water tense and waiting for the order to charge right along with his dad and godly and mermaid family. His dad had really listened to him!

All around Typhon, the Hudson River erupted, churning with forty-foot waves. Out of the water burst a new chariot—this one pulled by massive hippocampi, who swam in air as easily as in water.

"It's been an option to ride Rainbow or Blackjack this whole time?" Magnus yelped.

"I'm going to be chased by a whole herd of animals when I get out of here and it's going to be entirely you's two's fault," Percy sighed as he gestured between him and Alex. Neither looked the slightest bit repentant.

My father, glowing with a blue aura of power, rode a defiant circle around the giant's legs. Poseidon was no longer an old man. He looked like himself again—tan and strong with a black beard.

Jason smiled. He would have loved to have done a whole essay to study on how Poseidon depicted himself not truly on the shape of his realm but the way he perceived it. Now his home was in ruins but he was back to his favorite body. His eyes flickered between Percy and Alex as his hands itched with curiosity to get started.

As he swung his trident, the river responded, making a funnel cloud around the monster.

Nico laughed at having gotten to witness that once with Percy doing the same. The seaweed didn't flow far from the ocean on those ideas.

"No!" Kronos bellowed after a moment of stunned silence. "NO!"

"NOW, MY BRETHREN!" Poseidon's voice was so loud I wasn't sure if I was hearing it from the smoke image or from all the way across town. "STRIKE FOR OLYMPUS!"

Warriors burst out of the river, riding the waves on huge sharks and dragons and sea horses. It was a legion of Cyclopes, and leading them into battle was . . .

"Tyson!" I yelled.

I knew he couldn't hear me, but I stared at him in amazement. He'd magically grown in size. He had to be thirty feet tall, as big as any of his older cousins, and for the first time he was wearing full battle armor.

Annabeth had a hard time wrapping that one around her mind. She'd grown to like Tyson for how much he was like Percy, sweet with a big heart and smarter than most people gave him credit for. To hear of his ruthless size, that he was and could be as vicious as the monster who had once haunted her nightmares as clearly as the furies made it hard to swallow for a few moments even if she knew she'd hug him tight next time she saw him again.

Riding behind him was Briares, the Hundred-Handed One.

All the Cyclopes held huge lengths of black iron chains—big enough to anchor a battleship—with grappling hooks at the ends. They swung them like lassos and began to ensnare Typhon, throwing lines around the creature's legs and arms, using the tide to keep circling, slowly tangling him. Typhon shook and roared and yanked at the chains, pulling some of the Cyclopes off their mounts; but there were too many chains. The sheer weight of the Cyclops battalion began to weigh Typhon down. Poseidon threw his trident and impaled the monster in the throat. Golden blood, immortal ichor, spewed from the wound, making a waterfall taller than a skyscraper. The trident flew back to Poseidon's hand.

It was a strategy worthy of Athena, Percy and Annabeth exchanged grins. The timing was just glorious, the age old trick of just toppling your enemy with their own weight.

The other gods struck with renewed force. Ares rode in and stabbed Typhon in the nose. Artemis shot the monster in the eye with a dozen silver arrows. Apollo shot a blazing volley of arrows and set the monster's loincloth on fire. And Zeus kept pounding the giant with lightning, until finally, slowly, the water rose, wrapping Typhon like a cocoon, and he began to sink under the weight of the chains. Typhon bellowed in agony, thrashing with such force that waves sloshed the Jersey shore, soaking five-story buildings and splashing over the George Washington Bridge—but down he went as my dad opened a special tunnel for him at the bottom of the river—an endless waterslide that would take him straight to Tartarus. The giant's head went under in a seething whirlpool, and he was gone.

"I want to get a raccoon and name him Typhoon now," Alex nodded to herself. She had plenty of options finding them, it was just a matter of picking the right little monster to tame.

"Because that's the first thing someone should think after hearing all that," Percy said in resigned exhaustion to her. At least that should be the worst thing he should ever have to face, he could brush off Alex making light of it since he'd never had to be around that thing in person.

"It will be now," Thalia promised as she rubbed her temples.

"BAH!" Kronos screamed. He slashed his sword through the smoke, tearing the image to shreds.

"They're on their way," I said. "You've lost."

"I haven't even started."

He advanced with blinding speed. Grover—brave, stupid satyr that he was—tried to protect me, but Kronos tossed him aside like a rag doll.

Percy's heart thumped in his chest like it was trying to take the impact for his best friend. Grover had just thrown himself in front of a Titan for him! He didn't know how to even describe to himself how stupid and reckless and impulsive that was any more than how much it meant to him.

"He's our Protector Percy," Annabeth reminded his tense hands, which still held hers. He breathed and brushed his hand through her hair instead. It was all he could do.

I sidestepped and jabbed under Kronos's guard. It was a good trick. Unfortunately, Luke knew it. He countered the strike and disarmed me using one of the first moves he'd ever taught me. My sword skittered across the ground and fell straight into the open fissure.

"STOP!" Annabeth came from nowhere.

Kronos whirled to face her and slashed with Backbiter, but somehow Annabeth caught the strike on her dagger hilt. It was a move only the quickest and most skilled knife fighter could've managed. Don't ask me where she found the strength,

"Funny, because you're the first person I think of where that strength comes from," she whispered gently into his ear.

Percy huffed and wondered if that impact knocked a few columns loose in her head. Brilliant still, of course, but maybe kind of nuts.

but she stepped in closer for leverage, their blades crossed, and for a moment she stood face-to-face with the Titan lord, holding him at a standstill.

"Luke," she said, gritting her teeth, "I understand now. You have to trust me."

Thalia physically bit her tongue to stop herself waving at Annabeth, 'see! You did not Do Fine! You are still talking to that traitor!'

She didn't though because here finally was an answer to a question that had plagued her. How had it worked? No filter, nothing from her sister to glorify this moment. Just Percy finding the right thing to say.

Kronos roared in outrage. "Luke Castellan is dead! His body will burn away as I assume my true form!"

I tried to move, but my body was frozen again. How could Annabeth, battered and half dead with exhaustion, have the strength to fight a Titan like Kronos?

Annabeth couldn't help but chuckle at the absurd way he phrased that. It wasn't the kind of strength she'd get by jumping in the Styx. He should know that better than anyone.

Kronos pushed against her, trying to dislodge his blade, but she held him in check, her arms trembling as he forced his sword down toward her neck.

"Your mother," Annabeth grunted. "She saw your fate."

"Service to Kronos!" the Titan roared. "This is my fate."

"The Fate's seem kind of bad at telling the whole story," Nico wanted very much to snap back in his face. He'd never sat around looking for someone to cut a string in front of him, and he wouldn't care now if they did.

"No!" Annabeth insisted. Her eyes were tearing up, but I didn't know if it was from sadness or pain.

Sadness and pain were to light of words for what she'd been crushed with looking into those golden eyes and trying to get through to him. This had been her moment. From the day she'd realized Luke had broken his promise she'd tried to stop this.

And she had.

But she didn't know if the cost would have been worth it to her before this day.

"That's not the end, Luke. The prophecy: she saw what you would do. It applies to you!"

"I will crush you, child!" Kronos bellowed.

"You won't," Annabeth said. "You promised. You're holding Kronos back even now."

"LIES!" Kronos pushed again, and this time Annabeth lost her balance. With his free hand, Kronos struck her face, and she slid backward.

There was a collective wince around the room, the anger and outrage that instinctively went around was heartwarming and something Annabeth had never seen before aside from Percy, all in her name.

I summoned all my will. I managed to rise, but it was like holding the weight of the sky again.

"It's a good thing you got all that practice in," Will nodded. Something about what Nico had said really paying off right now about history repeating itself with Percy. He brought it on himself in this marvelous kind of way.

Kronos loomed over Annabeth, his sword raised.

Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. She croaked, "Family, Luke. You promised."

Thalia still couldn't believe what she was hearing with her own ears. How stubborn her sister was for still trying. For thinking that reminding him of this one last time would do any good.

That it had worked.

I took a painful step forward. Grover was back on his feet, over by the throne of Hera, but he seemed to be struggling to move as well. Before either of us could get anywhere close to Annabeth, Kronos staggered.

He stared at the knife in Annabeth's hand, the blood on her face. "Promise."

Then he gasped like he couldn't get air. "Annabeth . . ." But it wasn't the Titan's voice. It was Luke's. He stumbled forward like he couldn't control his own body. "You're bleeding. . . ."

There was a triumphant air about her now that was to hollow to feel like a real victory. She'd done this with nothing. No knife, nothing to snatch out of her bag, no training from Chiron, she couldn't even really attribute this to her mother's wits. She'd just taken a breath and said something to Luke, as herself. That seven year old girl who'd been abandoned at every turn finally got to be heard, and it changed everything.

"My knife." Annabeth tried to raise her dagger, but it clattered out of her hand. Her arm was bent at a funny angle. She looked at me, imploring, "Percy, please . . ."

I could move again.

I surged forward and scooped up her knife. I knocked Backbiter out of Luke's hand, and it spun into the hearth. Luke hardly paid me any attention. He stepped toward Annabeth, but I put myself between him and her.

"Don't touch her," I said.

Percy was starting to get angry at how many times he'd had to say that lately. Annabeth was so strong and usually the one to lead him in the right direction. It was downright strange to have to defend her even when he stepped up to do it without thinking.

Anger rippled across his face. Kronos's voice growled: "Jackson . . ." Was it my imagination, or was his whole body glowing, turning gold?

Percy had been around a few to many gods who liked to burst into their godly form without warning to not know the danger that this came with. He wouldn't even be able to fight Kronos anymore. He would be truly unstoppable.

He gasped again. Luke's voice: "He's changing. Help. He's . . . he's almost ready. He won't need my body anymore. Please—"

"NO!" Kronos bellowed. He looked around for his sword, but it was in the hearth, glowing among the coals.

He stumbled toward it. I tried to stop him, but he pushed me out of the way with such force I landed next to Annabeth and cracked my head on the base of Athena's throne.

Percy rubbed the back of his head and looked around at his girlfriend with the most exhausted puppy dog eyes. "Think this'll finally get her to cut me some slack? Or did I just dig myself deeper?"

"It's not like you decided which throne to crash into," she chuckled lightly for him, patting the back of his hand.

"The knife, Percy," Annabeth muttered. Her breath was shallow. "Hero . . . cursed blade . . ."

When my vision came back into focus, I saw Kronos grasping his sword. Then he bellowed in pain and dropped it. His hands were smoking and seared. The hearth fire had grown red-hot, like the scythe wasn't compatible with it. I saw an image of Hestia flickering in the ashes, frowning at Kronos with disapproval.

There was a soft but sincere laugh that echoed in the room for several moments. Last Olympian indeed, she'd done more to cripple Kronos with that one disapproving act in her own flames than all the others had done up to this point to thwart him.

Luke turned and collapsed, clutching his ruined hands. "Please, Percy . . ."

I struggled to my feet. I moved toward him with the knife. I should kill him. That was the plan.

But Percy wasn't a murderer. He never had been. Even in the throws of battle, given chance and again to preemptively strike to protect, he only defended. When he did kill, only dust was left.

Luke was still just human enough, nobody considered he'd go through with it.

So the prophecy could really only end one way now.

Luke seemed to know what I was thinking. He moistened his lips. "You can't . . . can't do it yourself. He'll break my control. He'll defend himself. Only my hand. I know where. I can . . . can keep him controlled."

He was definitely glowing now, his skin starting to smoke.

Percy had never watched a baby chick crack out of an egg, but he had a bad feeling that's what he was about to see while throwing in a star exploding. There had been translucent cracks under his skin, like something was pulsing and glowing. Like the godly blood they all had inside of them was straining to get out at every pore possible at once.

I raised the knife to strike. Then I looked at Annabeth, at Grover cradling her in his arms, trying to shield her. And I finally understood what she'd been trying to tell me.

You are not the hero, Rachel had said. It will affect what you do.

"Please," Luke groaned. "No time."

If Kronos evolved into his true form, there would be no stopping him. He would make Typhon look like a playground bully.

Which Percy had an abundance of practice dealing with, but even the gods and great prophesies and all the forces in their world didn't mean a matchup could be possible. There would always be a bigger monster in the world, until there wasn't.

The line from the great prophecy echoed in my head: A hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap. My whole world tipped upside down, and I gave the knife to Luke.

There was still a small part inside of Thalia that resented Percy this moment. Even knowing she never would have done the same, and it would have ended the world as they knew it. She should have been there, even while Percy ignored her to tilt the handle to him.

But, like Luke had used her name in vain, like Annabeth had only needed her for a short time as a crutch, like Percy only needed her for a stepping stone to see what he shouldn't be like, like Artemis needed her to replace Zoe, she'd only been involved long enough to be a vague memory.

Grover yelped. "Percy? Are you . . . um . . ."

Crazy. Insane. Off my rocker. Probably.

Oh I'm sure Grover was going to say something much more colorful than that, Alex shook her head at this guy. Grover had been there for at least a majority of Percy's crazy stunts and this was somehow the most mad as a hatter of them all.

But she wasn't really surprised. It seemed Percy's innate ability to do the right thing for everyone, just like any proper hero from a story should. He was just real enough to be a bit of an idiot in their world to be doing it.

But I watched as Luke grasped the hilt.

I stood before him—defenseless.

He unlatched the side straps of his armor, exposing a small bit of his skin just under his left arm, a place that would be very hard to hit.

Percy waited for the jokes. For the teasing and laughter that Luke had actually used his armpit for his weak spot. Somebody to start making snide comments about worshiping his gut. Something.

There was just a long heavy silence. They'd won. They'd all wanted Luke and Kronos dead. But the moment was here. And there was just silence.

With difficulty, he stabbed himself.

It wasn't a deep cut, but Luke howled. His eyes glowed like lava. The throne room shook, throwing me off my feet.

Again. Jason could never turn off that part of himself, but he just blinked a few times as he held it back. Percy had been thrown off his feet three times in that thrown room.

He couldn't wait to find out what kind of patterns he'd find in his own past.

An aura of energy surrounded Luke, growing brighter and brighter. I shut my eyes and felt a force like a nuclear explosion blister my skin and crack my lips.

It was silent for a long time.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Luke sprawled at the hearth. On the floor around him was a blackened circle of ash. Kronos's scythe had liquefied into molten metal and was trickling into the coals of the hearth, which now glowed like a blacksmith's furnace.

Luke's left side was bloody. His eyes were open—blue eyes, the way they used to be. His breath was a deep rattle.

"Good . . . blade," he croaked.

Annabeth finally broke down in tears. She'd been trying so hard not to. She'd known this was coming and it felt silly and ridiculous but she couldn't stop the sob that shook loose and the hot feeling pouring out.

Thalia watched Percy gather her as tight to his chest as she could, her arms wrapping around his throat and pulling herself closer still. She'd never told the story of how Luke had come into the possession of it nor its even more sordid past with Apollo. She should though. She could see the questions and the hunger in more than just Jason.

Maybe when they got out of here though. These dark halls and corridors they couldn't leave were full of to many shadows.

I knelt next to him. Annabeth limped over with Grover's support. They both had tears in their eyes.

Luke gazed at Annabeth. "You knew. I almost killed you, but you knew . . ."

"Shhh." Her voice trembled. "You were a hero at the end, Luke. You'll go to Elysium."

He shook his head weakly. "Think . . . rebirth. Try for three times. Isles of the Blest."

Annabeth sniffled. "You always pushed yourself too hard."

"Oh, is that what he was doing this whole time? I always knew over achievers were the worst," Percy grinned at the one in his arms.

She coughed on a laugh and kissed his neck as she tried to convince herself to stop crying. The secure feeling of being in his arms was helping with that a lot.

He held up his charred hand. Annabeth touched his fingertips.

"Did you . . ." Luke coughed and his lips glistened red. "Did you love me?"**

Yes and no, no and yes. It depended on the way he meant love, it depended on what Percy had said to her within the hour, it depended on what year of her life he meant. Gods, if she'd been able to freeze time to this moment she still didn't know how she would have given him a better answer.

Annabeth wiped her tears away. "There was a time I thought . . . well, I thought . . ." She looked at me, like she was drinking in the fact that I was still here. And I realized I was doing the same thing. The world was collapsing, and the only thing that really mattered to me was that she was alive.

Nico fought the urge to surround himself with shadows so he could groan and vomit in peace for just a moment. He really hoped those two were done being the most sickeningly in love people. It was old.

"You were like a brother to me, Luke," she said softly. "But I didn't love you."

Annabeth rubbed at her flushed cheeks and was unsurprised to see it didn't look like the others believed her. She'd probably come across to all of them in her absence as some love sick princess not to be taken seriously. She grimaced though at the alternative of trying to justify herself and no one listening to her either, possibly not even Percy depending on how strong his crush had really been through all this.

He nodded, as if he'd expected it. He winced in pain.

"We can get ambrosia," Grover said. "We can—"

"Grover," Luke gulped. "You're the bravest satyr I ever knew. But no. There's no healing. . . ."

Another cough.

He gripped my sleeve, and I could feel the heat of his skin like a fire. "Ethan. Me. All the unclaimed. Don't let it . . . Don't let it happen again."

His eyes were angry, but pleading too.

"I won't," I said. "I promise."

Luke nodded, and his hand went slack.

It meant something to Will that his last words were for others. The ones at Camp who hadn't fallen into complacency at their lot in life. Luke had gone about fixing it in the wrong way, but then, if he'd never done all of this, who ever would have figured out if there was another way to do it?

The gods arrived a few minutes later in their full war regalia, thundering into the throne room and expecting a battle.

"And not a single one of them even flinched," Alex muttered without surprise, elbows digging into her legs, head resting on her palms as she watched in jittery anticipation for Will's turn, for the real fall out of how the gods were going to act to all this. Sweep it under the rug? Try to just throw another party and move on like nothing had happened? The real story ended when the dust settled.

What they found were Annabeth, Grover, and me standing over the body of a broken half-blood, in the dim warm light of the hearth.

"Percy," my father called, awe in his voice. "What . . . what is this?"

I turned and faced the Olympians.

"We need a shroud," I announced, my voice cracking. "A shroud for the son of Hermes."

Jason could see that Nico was done. That this final page of Luke's life was at an end as he cradled the book and whispered something only Will heard. The son of Apollo gave him a rogue smile and whispered something back Jason didn't have a care to listen to, eyes on his sister.

He'd felt out of place here since the beginning. Mismatched. Alone. Everyone in here had someone they could relate to, even Magnus who'd thought himself a mortal had come in with one of his best friends and quickly found a companion in Alex.

Thalia should have been that for him. Instead, she'd been at Percy's side, keeping him out, at arm's length.

So he snatched up his beanbag and dragged it back to where it had once been without question and plopped back down beside her. One of them had to deal with this eventually and he didn't feel like waiting and hoping for a miracle from their dad for it to happen.

She jumped. Thalia Grace jumped. He'd startled her, and he grinned as her red-rimmed eyes narrowed on him and she had a wicked hunting knife in her hand he was not afraid of.

Nobody said anything more as Will took the book.

PJOPJOPJOPJO

*I will never forgive RR how he ROBBED Thalia of her resolution of being in that room with them. He really couldn't have come up with any better way for Hera to get her last lick in at Annabeth for this?!

And I haven't even gotten Started on Jason.

Is this some divine joke about ignoring Zeus's children in the narrative, or does he secretly have a grudge against the Grace children for personal reasons!?

Regardless, the majority of this fic has been soothing my teenage constipation of emotions of this topic, and I hope you've been enjoying the ride as much as I have writing it.

So, I'm already working on a draft for the next chapter because I'm so excited to almost be done with this, and I have a question for you all. What do you think Percy wished for before Zeus offered him immortality? We never get any moment in the series before this of Percy longingly thinking of Something he couldn't achieve-ably have that Zeus would even grant him before Luke died. I toyed with him wanting to gift his mom something, but A) the point of the first book was she didn't need Percy's help and that feels regressive for that to be Percy's first thought, and B) He is well aware that any gift a god gave him would come with some sort of kick-back price and he'd never put that on his mom so I'm stewing on ideas I'd love to hear from you guys.

**Ah the most controversial moment in this entire series. When I first read this I wasn't clear on how much older than Annabeth Luke was, I thought him like, seveteen to their fifteen so middle school me who already had a distinct lack of care in relationships just read right past this moment without thinking twice on it.

This series just didn't have much of an impact on my life except fondly remembering how it made me laugh in class with friends. I hadn't reread it in many years before deciding to do this series.

Now you can read back on this moment two different ways. RR is notoriously poor at cannon, changing it between series and sometimes books. You can imagine Luke whatever age you want to make this less creepy.

Or you can be one of the amount of people who send me comments saying Luke was a creepy creeper creep who groomed Annabeth and fell in love with a seven year old the second he met her at fourteen.

Regardless of your opinion on a piece of fiction, let's all just take a step back and appreciate that this story did have an impact on so many for the good of getting us into looking at other cultures and history. That's how I chose to look at it.

Hope you enjoyed.

[justplainwhump]

Waterfront

Adrian and Bea drive home after the Noor-incident.

[Pet Safety]

Content: BBU, recovery, setbacks. Short reference to (recovery) dubcon, and references to sex.

On their ride home, silence was hanging over them like a wet blanket, all-absorbing and suffocating, punctuated only by Bea slowly tapping her fingers to the passenger window as she looked outside. It was a little foggy, early in the morning, but the fog would dissolve soon and give way to a sunny day. Adrian was pretty sure that what happened between them would not dissolve that quickly.

"I asked him," Bea said to the window pane, so quietly Adrian only heard it because there was no other noise in the car.

He frowned. "What?"

"Noor," Bea clarified. "Before I went down on him. I asked him, if he wanted it."

Adrian flinched, his hands clenched around the steering wheel, gaze glued to the street in front of them. He forbid himself to render the images of what she'd just said.

Of Noor and Bea.

Of himself and Bea.

The memory made him nauseous.

"That's..." He cleared his throat. "That's... good. Consent... Consent is important."

"You didn't want it," she said.

Adrian's hands were sweaty. "Yeah," he replied stiffly.

"You didn't want both of it." The tapping of her fingers on the window pane had stopped. "You didn't consent to me fucking you, and that hurt you. Noor consented. And that hurt you, too. I... Did I.. Did I do it wrong?" Her voice trembled a little on the question.

"No," Adrian said, focusing on the road in front of him. "You did great, Bea."

He felt her gaze on him for long seconds, before she tilted her head. "You are hurt, Adrian Delgado," she insisted, voice soft with sadness. "Because of me. Again."

"It's not because of you. It's... It's complicated."

Her jaw tensed. "I'm not stupid."

"I know." Adrian exhaled sharply. "But I am."

He was. It was stupid being jealous, it was stupid falling for her, it had been stupid taking her in in the first place.

Bea glared at him. "You aren't allowed to be stupid."

"Why not?"

She paused for a moment, lips pressed into a thin line, before she shrugged and turned away.

Adrian bit back a curse.

He was stupid, but he was decent enough at reading body language.

Bea was crying.

She was doing her best not to show it, keeping her shoulders straight, her head up high, but Adrian knew it anyway.

He drove the car onto a parking lot. One of the touristy ones, right by the water front. It was near empty at this time of the morning. Someone with neon pink shorts was jogging past them, while at the far end of the lot a lady set up a coffee stand.

Apart from them, they were alone.

Adrian turned off the ignition.

"Bea?"

She shook her head.

"I'm sorry." Adrian said.

Bea pushed open the car door and walked away. She kept her shoulders straight still, moved her hips with the casually sensual sway all Romantics mastered. It didn't work as well with Converse chucks as it did in heels.

"Bea!"

He got out as well.

She didn't stop.

Adrian hissed the curses audibly now. She was too far away to hear him. Fuck. He wished Marta was here.

But she wasn't. This was his to deal with.

He pressed the lock button on his car key, and once he heard the loud click, fell into a jog past her.

"Bea!"

A man with a tiny dog and barely veiled interest in anything unusual during his morning walk passed them, not without gawking at Bea's collar and then at Adrian. "I thought one paid for them to not act like the wife."

"Fuck off," Adrian hissed, and at least the man flinched.

He picked up his dog, pressed it to his chest and brushed past them, shooing and loudly whispering, "You're the only decent sort of pet anyway, Cesar" into the dog's fur.

One shove would be all it took to send this pathetic man and his dog stumbling into the cold water.

Adrian banned the thought. Bea didn't even seem to have noticed. At least she'd stopped. She looked over the fog in the bay, arms crossed, hugging herself.

"I'm not a pet." She spoke quietly, without turning back to him. "Or, it's not all that I am. I'm a person. You taught me. I'm a person." She swallowed, and he could hear the sobs still clinging to her voice. "If you are stupid, Adrian Delgado, then how can I know this is true?"

-

---

Pet Safety tag list (ask to be added or removed!): @gottawhump @flowersarefreetherapy @whumplr-reader @highwaywhump @tauntedoctopuses @pigeonwhumps @whumppsychology @labgrowndemon @whumpinggrounds @somewhumpyguy @whumpzone @tragedyinblue e

[whumpinthepot]

Hamster Interactive Story

Chapter 8. Threat

Prev - Masterlist

Content: CYOA format, poll options, Being watched, physical restraint, verbal threats, cages, pet trope, Giant/Tiny, Selective Mutism, poor vision, drug mention (in poll), no medication for pain, fear for ones life, dehumanization, female cast, ableism,

Pov: Hamster, then switches to Ashley for the poll.

Poll winner: Rub your eyes and crawl closer to see if they’re real

—-

You rub your eyes and clumsily crawl closer to the blurry image that stands across the bars. You fall into your shoulder a couple of times but lucky enough the padding in the cage cushions any pain it might have caused. The figure does look like one of Ashley’s prop dolls, and you start to relax. 

Until it talks- “You really are blind, aren’t you, Pet?” 

You scream immediately, kicking backwards from reflex, and the voice becomes shrill, “Hey! Shut up- Stop screaming!” The figure is opening the cage now to get to you. They force the door to stay ajar by shoving a pencil into it. 

They storm towards you, and you don’t stop screaming. In fact you scream more from terror. Until he’s shoving a hand against your mouth and you’re face to face with someone who is the same size as you, “Stop screaming before something bad happens to both of us!” His hand shoves against your lips, and grinds flesh into your teeth. It hurts, and you want it to stop. 

You stop screaming in hopes he’ll let go of you. It doesn’t stop the tears though, and when he takes his hand away you continue to back up to distance yourself from him. 

The man closes the distance and towers over you, “Does the human know about me?” He asks. You stare at him in disbelief, and he says it again, “Does. The. Human. Know. About. Me?” This time you shake your head quickly. 

“You don’t talk do you?” He tilts his face sideways.

Once again you shake your head. You’re not going to say a word to him. 

“Then you won’t tell the human you saw me, right?” 

You keep shaking your head, though you’re not sure if you’re supposed to nod at that last question. It doesn’t matter, because he understands it anyway, “Good.” He seems satisfied enough. 

You both stare at each other for a second, then he takes off. The cage door slams shut, and he’s gone. 

You’re left shaking like a leaf, and you need Ashley to come home NOW so that she can protect you. The medicine in your system dies down mid day, and your arm starts to throb against the inside of the cast. You feel miserable. 

Once Ashley finally comes through the front door, it's late, and you’ve already cried your heart out from fear and pain. 

When she puts her hand in your cage to check on you, you cling to her fingers immediately for safety. Ashley startles, but she scoops you up with no problem, “Oh Honey, does your arm hurt? It's okay, Mummy’s home. Here-“ She puts you to her chest where her heart thumps against you as she chucks her purse onto the counter. She then takes you to the bathroom to get more medicine syringed into your mouth. It’s bittersweet but you swallow it. 

When Ashley tries to put you back down you latch to her thumb, and refuse to let go. You’re still terrified of the tiny man killing you in your sleep. You’ve never done this before, and Ashley seems rightfully worried. She brings you back up to her chest and looks around as if lost. 

—

(Top two or three poll winners may be used) 

Taglist under the cut:

Tag list: @frogkingdom @verkja @whumpsday @octopus-reactivated @marvel-gt @rsitb-second-account @fallen-grace-smd @winged-wolf-s-collection-of-arts @kyp-the-spacekiwi @dramat1ques @ilasknives @hollowgast1 @whither-wander-whump @redd956 @zobodahobo @alittlewhump @blackrosesandwhump @angst-after-dark @sandygarnelle @copperyote @kim-poce @mayisreallygay @smoll-stace @demondamage @vickytokio @sunshiline-writes @whump-in-the-closet

[like-rain-or-confetti]

"I'm normal!?"

"They're the piece of normality that keeps me sane in life!" The rogue declared. "...I'm normal?" You furrowed your brow in confusion.

The Riddler: "I'm afraid so..." He replied before tilting your chin to keep your gaze on him. "...but I wouldn't change you for anything." You rolled your eyes. "Nice save, Nygma." You retorted. "Nothing to save, dear." He replied.

Scarecrow: Jonathan smiled at you. "Of course you are." "Wow, well now I just sound boring." You blinked. "Many perceive normality to be boring. It makes them feel better about their problems. The truth is, everyone is a lot more normal and those who fit the stereotype are far from normal." He shrugged. "It's not even a specific thing. My normal is much different to yours." "So it's perception based?" You concluded. "Indeed." Jonathan replied, wrapping an arm around your shoulders.

Two-Face: "You are." Harvey replied. "Tell that to the rest of Gotham who thinks I'm nuts for dating you." You retorted. "I will." Harvey smirked before kissing the top of your head. "I'll tell them your the best part of my life." He smirked. "Sap." You deadpanned and he chucked, holding you close.

Black Mask: "You bet." He confirmed. You stared at him. "You're lucky that I know what that actually means Roman." He chuckled. "Sure thing, doll." He didn't say it but you both knew when he said normal he really referred to his trust and vulnerability. You were his safe place to land. He didn't need to worry about your intentions. Only your safety.

Mad Hatter: He turned his head towards you. "Hm?" "I'm normal?" You repeated. "I don't know what that means." He said simply making you chuckle as he cracked a mischevious smile. That was Jervis, always aiming to respond with the unexpected. Especially if it made you laugh.

[celestiall0tus]

Miraculous Salvation - Chapter 17 - Fear

Beginning || Previous || Next

            Tikki grinned and chuckled as she watched the mayhem unfold from countless news feeds and social media sites. The city was under fire, the avatar of fear ran wild, and Adrien had been found. She looked up at the group before her. Marinette and Bridgette had settled into a civil conversation with Luka while Alya twitched and fidgeted. She could keep them all here and in the dark, but what was the fun in that? Especially with the avatar of fear roaming free of its chains.

            Tikki let out an exasperated sigh and chucked Luka’s phone at him. “I’m bored!”

            Luka grumbled as he took his phone. He froze seeing the news and social media feeds. “What did you do?”

            “Oh, don’t be silly, Luka. I had nothing to do with any of that. I would never do anything that’d compromise the safety of the people. But you certainly are by staying here. Who knows how many lives have been lost already due to your negligence.”

            Luka winced. “I… I didn’t think….”

            “I can’t imagine you do. There’s never a thought in that empty head of yours, is there? Well, except your mediocre works you call music.”

            “Enough! We’re wasting time! The people need us,” Alya yelled.

            “Oh? But wouldn’t you rather sit this one out? The avatar of fear is already cut loose, free of his chains. Would you ladies want to face your deepest fears?” Tikki asked.

            “Bring it on,” Marinette said.

            “Not you,” Alya and Bridgette said.

            “What? Why not?”

            “Why not? Are you kidding? In your state, you’d be a prime target. Easy pickings. You’re staying here,” Bridgette pointed out.

            “But I have to be there for the people. How else am I going to rebuild my strength if the people are killed? What’s more is couldn’t I rebuild it by being a hero that the people can count on? Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to embrace what I am and get my strength back?”

            “What? Ab-!” Bridgette started.

            “Absolutely!” Tikki cheered.

            Bridgette grabbed Tikki’s arm. “Fuck you, Creation. There’s no way I’m letting my cousin kill herself.”

            Tikki glared at Bridgette for a moment before a wicked grin twisted on her face. “What if I promise no harm will come to her? Would that make you happy?”

            “I-!”

            Tikki snapped her fingers, then removed Bridgette’s hand. “There. All done.”

            “What did you do?” Alya demanded.

            “I did as I promised. No harm will come to Marinette. Now, let’s get going.”

~~

            Felix moved through the city with the monsters behind him. He struck fear into the hearts of the people that made them easy pickings for the monsters. He looked up again, hoping for the heroes to arrive, but saw little ladybugs. He tilted his head as one landed on his nose and dissolved. He was plunged into a void with a red misty light swirling around him.

            “There you are, little bat. I have an offer for you. You want to make your master happy? Bring him the little bee hero. She’s worth so much more than any jewel. She’s sure to buy you more freedom, little bat.”

            Felix gasped as he returned to the city. His mind raced and heart leapt at the prospect of a chance to appease Colt. To earn more favor and reward. He fell back behind the horde of monsters to hide within the shadows. He crept along with them until the heroes arrived.

            Lincina and Fawn were the first to arrive. They focused on gathering the monsters until Tigrix and Dracone arrived. Tigrix took over corralling the monsters while Dracone shifted to nature form and grew a cage. They worked to keep the monsters caged as Vipress arrived with Bunella and Metal Bug. Hot on Metal Bug’s heels were Aegis, Muridae, and the bee hero.

            Felix grinned. He transformed into a bat and flew into the middle of the cage. He hid amongst the monsters as he produced a potent fear aura that covered the area in a black fog. Most of the heroes panicked save for Muridae and Tigrix. He disregarded them as he drew on the fear of the others and looked into their hearts to their greatest fears. He flew to the ground, transformed, and slammed his scythe into the ground. Black, formless blobs emerged from the fog. The heroes cried out as each blob ensnared them. They each froze in fear as visions of terror consumed them.

            Felix moved out from the cage towards the bee hero. He reached to grab her but was sent flying a short distance. He got his bearings and faced his opponents, Muridae and Tigrix. He could see Muridae’s fears, but not Tigrix’s. He sneered but had a hunch on what he could use. He slammed his scythe on the ground as a small army of shadow warriors came to life. He issued a silent command to hunt down the heroes’ family and kill them. He held his weapon at the ready.

            “Your move, heroes. Me, or your loved ones.”

            Muridae froze as she looked out into the city for the shadows. Tigrix snorted and rushed Felix. He dodged her wild attack and drove his scythe into her, gouging out her side. Tigrix took a sharp breath, then coughed up blood.

            “Not fast enough,” Felix taunted.

            Felix flung Tigrix off his blade into Muridae. Muridae crashed into the pavement as she was brought back to the battle. She looked around frantically and eyed Felix beside Bumblebee. She started towards Bumblebee when Felix raised his scythe and held it.

            “A choice. You can fight me and lose everything, or you let me leave with the bee and you keep everything you love.”

            Muridae froze. She could take Felix. She had the power to overthrow him on her own, but what of the others. Even with her powers, could she save everyone? Could she save her family across the city from being killed by the shadows? Could she prevent Tigrix from bleeding out? Could she free everyone from his grasp? Could she save Bumblebee?

            At the thought of Bumblebee, Muridae’s body moved on its own. She charged forward as she manipulated time around her, slowing it down. She hurried over to Bumblebee and placed a hand on Bumblebee’s forehead. A light flashed and Bumblebee was freed of the fear hold.

            “What… what happened? What’s going on?” Bumblebee asked.

            “Please, command me to let you go. Please, give me permission to not save you,” Muridae begged.

            “I don’t understand.”

            “Fear plans to take you, and it’s you or my family. Please. I can’t lose them.”

            Bumblebee looked at Felix and paled. “Ok. Ok. Muridae, let him take me.”

            Compulsion rolled over Muridae that calmed her. She smiled and hugged Bumblebee. “Thank you. We’ll save you, I promise. Just… be careful.”

            “No. Don’t come after me. For the sake of our friends, the city, and your family.”

            Compulsion fell over Muridae again. “But what do I tell Aegis?”

            “That I went willingly to save everyone. That if it means less bloodshed, I will give myself over. She won’t like it, but I hope she’ll understand. If she presses you more, tell her in confidence.”

            “Understood. Anything else?”

            “No. Let’s see me off.”

            Muridae nodded. She ended her powers and grabbed Felix’s scythe. He fought with her until he saw Bumblebee rise.

            “Enough. I’ll go with you,” Bumblebee announced.

            Felix eyed Bumblebee suspiciously. “Just like that?”

            “I’m no fool. If there is a way to avoid more bloodshed, even just for this day, I will take it.”

            Felix considered and nodded. He snapped his fingers and the shadows that lurked around the Cesaire family vanished. Muridae sighed in relief seeing her family safe again. She turned as Bumblebee left with Felix and everyone else came out of the fear stupor. The pair vanished as Aegis approached her.

            “Where is Bumblebee?” Aegis demanded.

            “She went with the enemy willingly to save our friends from Fear,” Muridae answered.

            “But she’s in danger! Who knows what they’ll do to her. We have to go after her!”

            “No. She also commanded me not to go after her. I would recommend you don’t to avoid encountering the avatar of transformation and fear.”

            Aegis stiffened. “Transformation? He’s there wherever Fear is taking Cousin?”

            “Yes. It’s best we bide our time rather than rushing in like fools.”

            “And if he weaponizes her?”

            Muridae chuckled. “What’s worse? A bee that’s lost all her power or an avatar form spider?”

            Aegis grimaced. “Fair point. So, just trust Cousin?”

            “Yes. Unless she says otherwise or we see an opportunity, we leave her for the time. Understood?”

            Aegis nodded. Muridae looked past Aegis as the holders started to gather around.

            “So, what do we do?” Bunella asked.

            “We finish these monsters and head home. We prepare for the true start of their plan now that they have the two that they were searching for. We must be ready for what comes next,” Muridae said.

            Everyone nodded. They took care of the caged monsters before they all dispersed.

~~

            Colt sat at his desk as he worked away on paperwork. A thud and swish stole his attention. He glanced up at Felix still in his avatar form with Bumblebee at his side. He sat back in his chair.

            “What have we here? Another toy? I thought you only enjoyed men.”

            “I am Bumblebee, avatar of devotion. I agreed to come to save those near and dear to my heart,” Bumblebee announced.

            Colt’s eyes widened and he looked at Felix. “Leave us.”

            Felix bowed his head and left.

            “Pull up a seat. Let’s chat. And you change out of that ridiculous ensemble. No need for such costumes here,” Colt said.

            Bumblebee took a seat as her outfit changed into a one shoulder black and gold gradient dress. Beads lined the strap and her left side that sparkled like rhinestones. Her hair unfurled from its bun and fell around her in a beautiful wavy mess.

            “Well, well, look who we have here. Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

            “How do you know me?”

            “How could I not? You’re quite famous in this mansion. Two of my associates are tearing each other apart as we speak for your favor. While another demands your death.”

            Marinette gulped. “The… the black cat, right?”

            “Correct. Nasty business that was. Cost me my little toy for a few days. But I digress, we have business to discuss. You are well aware of this lovely game we play. Unfortunately, you don’t fit into the grand scheme of my plans. However, you can help me.”

            “Help you with what?”

            “Why, it’s quite simple, really. You are devotion, the ultimate loyalty. You come above all else in this world to those bound to you. Your word is law.”

            “And?”

            “See, I have a pair of teens your age that need reeling in. You put them under your thumb, directing them to act as I want through you. In turn, you get to live, and you get the beginnings of your strength back. Perhaps even set you on the path to becoming a proper avatar.”

            “I… I’ve never done things like that. Not… not willingly.”

            “That’s not a problem. It’ll come as naturally to you as all our powers do.”

            “I guess? I suppose I can see what I can do.”

            “Then we have a deal? You reel in the troublemakers and act as my mouthpiece and neither you nor your loved ones will die. How does that sound?”

            Marinette considered. She didn’t like the idea of using her powers. She didn’t want to make people loyal to just her, but she had to do something. Bridgette and Alya were right. She couldn’t afford the luxury of hesitation or resistance. She couldn’t deny her powers and what she was anymore. This wasn’t like when she was younger, when she was unsure and desperate. She had more power than she realized, and it was time to learn to actually use it.

            “Very well, but before I fully agree, I have conditions.”

            “And what would those be?” Colt asked.

            “I be allowed to go to and from this residence for modeling and brand that I need to rebuild after the encounter with the spider. I assume you’ll want me to stay here, and I have no qualms with it, but please inform my parents so they are aware of what’s going on.”

            Colt hummed. “Very well. I can accept that.”

            “Good. Now I’ll-.”

            “Not yet. Hold a moment.”

            Marinette sat back down. Colt snapped his fingers as a plain paper transformed into a formal contract.

            “Sign here and you’ll be free to go about business.”

            Marinette snorted and took the contract. She read over the terms and conditions, but didn’t see anything contradictory or added in. Everything they had discussed was on the paper.

            “Worried?” Colt cooed.

            “Only a fool signs a contract without first reading it,” Marinette remarked.

            Marinette took a pen and signed her name. Uneasiness rolled through her as Colt took the contract and tucked it away.

            “Very well. Your first task is to make the two teens, Chloe Bourgeois and Adrien Agreste, utterly loyal to you. Now, go.”

            Compulsion fell over Marinette as her body moved on its own. She yelped as it headed to Felix’s room where Chloe remained unconscious. She fought to regain control as her powers were used and a new bond was forged between her and Chloe. She moved on to Adrien’s room. She crossed the space to where Adrien lay unconscious. She forged a new bond with him before she headed back to Colt’s office. She sat back down and looked at his face that wore a shit-eating grin.

            “What did you do?” Marinette demanded.

            “Actually, my dear, it’s what you did. You signed the contract in which one of the terms was you’d do as I commanded. Innocuous enough, especially considering you need to direct them with my orders, until you remember you are Devotion. You cannot go against what is stated in a legally binding contract and must carry out all that is here.”

            Marinette’s jaw dropped. “You fucking bastard.”

            “Oh, stop it. You’ll make me blush. Now, go on. Get settled in, then you can go about your business. Oh, and we’ll be keeping this between us. Not a word to anyone.”

            Compulsion fell over Marinette again that made her sick. She buzzed angrily as she moved on her own again. She left the office and headed through the mansion to a vacant room. She stepped inside and sat on the bed. She dug her nails into the bedspread as her anger flared.

            Marinette felt like a fool. She didn’t consider the repercussions of that in the contract. She didn’t think how binding it would have been and the effect on her. She cursed herself for being so foolish. Now she was bound in a contract, condemned to do as Colt demanded with no hope of fighting. At least, not on the surface.

            The gears in Marinette’s head turned as a plan was spun. She couldn’t betrayal Colt, so she wouldn’t. That didn’t mean she could work on something in between the lines, but she’d need to be careful. Colt was no fool and she couldn’t underestimate him. Though she could undermine him.

            Colt had mentioned that two of his associates had been fighting over Marinette. She assumed that was Audrey Bourgeois and Gabriel Agreste given everything so far. She knew Gabriel wanted her for his brand, but Audrey would too. Perhaps she could strike a deal with both of them. Give Colt some peace from their arguing while entering new contracts. Any clauses and terms that are contradictory should either be nullified or hopefully canceled out.

            Marinette nodded and stood. She moved about the mansion when she saw Audrey stomping towards a closed door with a rooster kwami beside her. She hung back when she heard Audrey screaming with a man that sounded like Gabriel. She grinned, approached the door, and knocked.

            “Come in,” Gabriel said.

            Marinette strolled in and stood by the entrance. Audrey and Gabriel froze with their jaws agape.

            “Hello. You’re Audrey Bourgeois and Gabriel Agreste, yes? I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Colt had informed me that you two had been fighting over me, so I came to see if I could help.”

            Audrey shoved Gabriel onto the floor and beamed. “Why, yes! Darling Marinette, I have a deal for you. One far better than this wayward drunken shell of a man. You be the face of my brand as a whole. Imagine the two of us as the heads of new, inventive designs. We could be revolutionaries and usher in every new trend.”

            Gabriel scrambled to his feet, pushing Audrey aside. “Out of my way, harpy woman. A deal was struck earlier. Tell me, did Nathalie meet with you?”

            “She did. Our meeting was interrupted by the attack,” Marinette answered.

            “What did she offer you?”

            “She offered me a position as a designer. However, I have a better idea.

            “Go on,” Gabriel encouraged.

            “To my understanding of… certain circumstances, you two are to be working together. So, perhaps, a marriage of brands. Show the public that you two are working together to create something new. I can assist as a designer on Gabriel’s brand to ensure it matches the quality of Audrey’s, while being the face for Audrey’s brand seen modeling with Adrien, the face of Gabriel’s brand.”

            Gabriel hummed. “It’s not a bad idea. We are supposed to be working together through this venture. Us squabbling isn’t helping matters. This might make things easier on everyone, including each other.”

            “Ugh, fine. I suppose that’ll work. But I want a formal contract written up by Nathalie. I would also like to review it once it’s done and before anything is signed. And for copies to be made,” Audrey demanded.

            “I’ll see to it. Miss Dupain-Cheng, would you write out a list of your personal terms? I’ll send it over to Nathalie so she can include it in.”

            “Could I have Nathalie’s number, mayhaps? I would like to speak with her about earlier,” Marinette asked.

            Gabriel nodded. He grabbed a scrap of paper, wrote it out, and handed it to Marinette.

            “Thank you. I’ll be sure to let her know my terms when I speak with her.”

            “Wonderful. Is there anything else we go do for you?” Gabriel asked.

            “No, thank you. By your leave, I’m going to head back to my room.”

            “You’re staying here?” Audrey asked.

            “Yup. Colt’s orders.”

            Gabriel and Audrey exchanged glances while Marinette slipped out. She hurried back to her room as she punched in Nathalie’s number to her phone. She sent a message introducing herself. She waited before Nathalie called. She took a deep breath and answered.

            “Hello?”

            “Hello, little bee. What can I do for you?”

            “Would you be available to speak in person?”

            “Would this be about the agreement you made with the two buffoons?”

            “Yes. I wish to relay my terms directly to you. It’s of the utmost importance.”

            “Very well. I’ll pick you up this evening. I’ll be sure to inform Colt of this to avoid suspicion.”

            “How do you-?”

            “Hush. There are eyes everywhere in that mansion. Behave and be a good little girl. Step out of line and he’ll punish you. Play your cards right and you walk away with yourself intact. Understood?”

            “Yes, ma’am. I’ll see you later. Thank you.”

            “Anything for you, little bee. See you soon.”

[simmeons]

ggrrr...rnrnnnn..........gay priest vampire make me MAD!! no prof read☝️🤓

Despite the harsh sun, I always found myself drawn to wildlife. I always wanted to understand it, learn it. I never thought it was possible, but I never thought it was possible for a priest to love me either.

He stands beside me, a grip on an umbrella to protect me from the rays of the sun. He's not saying anything, but I can feel his eyes on me.

We've worked together to make a small garden, a variety of vegetables and other plants. The majority of the time Monty would hold an umbrella for me, since without the shade I would burn to a crisp.

The red of the tomatoes are bright in the daylight. They would normally be dull in the dark, and I am thankful Monty is willing to help me so I can appreciate the plants in another light.

"They're looking pretty ripe." Monty spoke softly, to himself or me, I'm unsure.

"Another day or two."

I feel the touch of his elbow against mine, a hand reaching out to grab the watering pail I'm using.

"Let me help."

His hand brushes mine, his soft warm pinky touching mine. I am quite tired, this being the time I rest. I can't deny his help even if I wanted to.

I let go of the pail, moving both my hands to the handle of the umbrella. He moves his hands, allowing me full control of the umbrella.

"Thank you."

He smiles at me, a soft and caring smile. I feel a twinge of uselessness as I watch him carefully water the plants, his ginger hair shimmering slightly in the sunlight. His hair reminds me of copper wire, the things I've watched being bent in those Internet videos Monty has watched before.

I watch as the priest finishes watering our plants, humming to himself softly. My eyelids are growing heavy, the need to sleep setting into my bones. I wish to say something, speak up, but even talking feels like a chore.

Monty sets the pail down and turns to me, pressing a hand to my cheek.

"Someone looks tired."

"Unfortunately."

"Nonsense. Let's get ye to bed." I nod, not able to refuse such a appealing idea.

He takes the umbrella from me, and walks me out of the small garden. I lean onto him as we walk, a small yawn slipping past my lips. I cover my mouth to be respectful, finding it rude to yawn so openly.

Monty must've found it cute as he presses a kiss to my cheek. I huff and speak up.

"If you're going to kiss me, at least do it properly."

He looks a little surprised before chucking a little. "Well, I must correct my mistake."

I sigh as we halt, the Scottish priest leaning in to press his lips against mine. It's a feeling I'll never get tired of. My eyes close, and I relax into the feeling of our kiss. Neither of us make a move to deepen the kiss, not only is it the wrong time, it's too dangerous with my fangs.

The kiss is enjoyable, until I feel a warm sensation on my face. I assume it's me blushing, but that's until the warm feeling becomes hotter, and hotter. I pull away from the kiss when I realize the error of the placement of the kiss.

"Give me that!" I bark and grab the umbrella from Monty, the priest was too caught up in the kiss and his hand had weakened, the umbrella tilting and leaving my face bare for the harsh sun to burn.

"Oh! Are ye okay? I'm sorry!" Monty grabs my warm face, a gente steam coming from my pale skin as my just burnt face cools off. He waves some of the soft gray air away to look more directly at me, where he puffs out a held back laugh.

"What?" I frown, Monty is just smiling.

"Ye got a suntan!" He laughs more openly, laughing at my predicament.

I feel my face heat up with embarrassment and a pinch of anger, frustrated at myself for falling for such a clumsy human.

Forcing myself to leave his grasp I leave the laughing priest outside to himself as I make my way back to the safety and shade of the house.

[hedgiwithapen]

Beth finds the cameras

No ask I'm just mean. set 3x1

Beth sat cross legged on her bed, one hand absently pulling at her blanket where the fabric was starting to pill. Chuck had been combing through files for hours, but she could hardly fault that. The Gambler was his nemesis, after all.  And he was back in Blue Valley, clearly trying to pull something. Chuck had been certain of it, and Beth had to admit the logic was sound. Courtney seemed to think he might have been telling the truth, about wanting to turn over a new leaf, but that was who she was. Beth admired and envied Courtney that, always able to see the best in people. Beth tried, she really did, but after everything that had happened in the last year, with supervillains, and people actually trying to kill her and her friends? She needed data to back people up, not blind faith. Chuck had agreed before she even had to voice the concern. So they’d spent the last few hours pouring over every scrap they could find, Chuck doing most of the work while Beth finished her math homework.  Thus far, they’d uncovered nothing but emptied bank accounts, scam sites left unchecked for weeks, phishing emails still in drafts. “Not even a fraudulent facebook market scheme,” Chuck reported,  sounding as close to a lament as an AI could get.

“Maybe he was telling the truth,” Beth mused. “Or he could be building up to something.” “You’d think he'd at least want his money back,” Chuck agreed. “Don’t worry, the accounts are safe.” Beth nodded, unnecessarily. She’d kept only a small portion of the Gambler’s stolen fortune last fall, set aside for college funds for the team. Investing in their future was a very good cause. She clicked through another set of tabs, frowning.  There had to be a reason Gambler was back. He could have apologized from Aruba, or Scotland, or Markovia, if that was all he’d wanted to do. “Oh, can you check the Zarrick collection?” she asked.  “Maybe there’s something in there he’s after. Like how the Shade wanted to find the Black Diamond?” Of course the Shade hadn’t been trying to kill them,  like the Gambler probably was. “Good call, Beth,” Chuck praised. “Hacking into the American Dream  now.” “Huh,” Beth tilted her head, looking at something on Chuck’s display. “What’s that?” “Security camera feed. Must be new, it was not  there the last time we hacked in.” “Really new,” Beth said, puzzled. “Dad hates when they put in cameras. He always complains and he hasn’t mentioned this yet. “Beth, it’s not just at the American Dream. Look,” Chuck  flashed up a map of Blue Valley. Dozens of lights pinpricked around it. The school, the American Dream, the Pit Stop, Ripped City, the trailer park on the road to the woods… and just outside her house.  Inside Courtney’s house. “Oh, no,” she whispered.  “Oh, that’s bad. We gotta warn everyone.” She jammed her feet into shoes, even as Chuck worked on tracing the feeds, grumbling about the Gambler’s tech.

“JSA stuff,” she yelped at her mother’s raised eyebrow, slamming out the back door. There was a time and a place for closing a door quietly, and this was not either.  She’d call Court, ask to meet her, but where? Where was safe?

“The Park,” Chuck flashed in bold green letters, displaying the map for her again. There were no camera pinpoints there.  “Yeah, ok. Text the groupchat. Park, but don’t say anything out loud, and I’ll explain everything there.” She felt her phone buzz as Chuck did exactly that. Everyone needed to know, and fast, and without letting anyone who’d put Cameras in Courtney’s kitchen knowing that they knew.

She had to take a longer route, uncertain of how much the cameras in Ripped City or in other places on her map could pick up. She panted as she reached the soft grass of the park and the safety of the gazebo. She was really going to have to take Yolanda up on the offer of endurance training at some point. That would be safer than taking Artemis up on her offer.

She was relieved to see she wasn’t the first to arrive.

“Sylvester! I mean, Mr. Pemberton. Hi!” she lowered her voice “Did you bring the Staff? Is Courtney here?”

He held up his severely outdated phone. “No, sorry. It’s Courtney’s staff, she’s on her way. I was just in the area already. What’s wrong? It sounded urgent.” “Someone’s spying on us,” Beth said, lowering her voice even more. “ I found cameras.” “You found cameras? How--oh, the goggles.  Right.  Charles was right to leave them with you. Good work, Beth.” He beamed at her.

“Chuck did the hard work. We think we can trace them. But everyone has to know.” she said, serious. “So what’s our next move?”

“You just leave that to me,” Sylvester glanced over the top of her head towards the treeline, in the direction of Rick’s house. Beth turned, hoping to see Rick’s car. “Beth,” Chuck said in her ear, low and urgent, “watch--”

An avalanche of white fur burst through the flimsy gazebo roof, splintering it, before Chuck could finish a warning no one would ever hear.

[kxlinthesky]

EPISODE 5 LIGHT NOVEL Chapter 4-5 English Translation

Owl’s legs pounded against the ground as he sped straight toward the roaring volcano spewing its haze into the air. When he burst out of the thicket near the church he found himself, for better or worse, on the edge of the barren wasteland found near all volcanoes. This therefore made it rather easy for him to spot that up above.

“Owl! Get on!!” Tristan was hot on his heels astride his knight, its hooves thundering along the earth. He caught up to Owl in a flash. Owl reached out and grabbed his arm as he passed, hauling himself up onto the horse behind him.

 He turned his attention skyward from the back of that horse.

And there, hovering above them, was the man he’d been chasing.

He cut quite the sublime figure, hanging above the mouth of the volcano and humming a hymn to himself. Each flap of his wings battered the air. The people of Teos had always wanted to behold this very sight for themselves.

 Here, before his eyes, an angel was descending upon the earth.

Unlike the island’s inhabitants, though, there wasn’t a speck of reverence to be found within Owl. No, he nearly tore his throat asunder with the weight of his fury. “MASTEMAAAA!!!”

 “My, my.” Mastema’s gaze lowered, staring at Owl with an uncanny glow burning in his eyes. His eyebrows raised. “How surprising. You know, it’s rather impolite of all of you to come all the way here without an invitation.”

“We finally found you, Mastema!!” Owl leaped off the horse and pulled his gun in one fluid motion. “Give Ellie back!!” He clicked the safety and prepared to fire, a transmutation circle already flaring to life around his hand.

Yet even with the muzzle trained firmly on him, Mastema didn’t so much as twitch. He looked down at Owl as though he was as inconsequential as a mouse used for experiments... no, to him, humanity itself was nothing more than bottom-feeding clams caked in mud and filth. Harmless, powerless little clams. Only the rare few who produced pearls were of any value – only those he could farm those precious pearls known as “azoth” from.

“Ellie?” Mastema chucked, low and dripping with derision. “Tell me, who in the world is Ellie? You can’t possibly be referring to this.”

He raised his arms a little, drawing all eyes to the tiny girl in his arms, the girl Owl and everyone in his orbit called “Ellie”... the girl created by a forbidden art. She was a “flask,” born as a homunculus, transformed into a statue and hidden away, and somehow dragged back into the light as a work of art. At the moment, she was unconscious – in fact, it didn’t look like she’d moved at all since she’d been taken. Her scarlet hood flapped in the wind.

“Shut the hell up!” Owl’s hand trembled. His fingers twitched on the trigger.

“Stay calm, Owl,” Tristan advised, as unflappable as ever. He tilted his head to stare up at the angel. Behind his implacable mask, one could see the soldier who’d walked many a battlefield in his time. He twirled his cane. “Hey, Mastema. I came to continue our match.”

Mastema looked down on the pitiable loser. “Our match has already been decided, Tristan,” he answered. “It’s checkmate for you.”

“Checkmate, you say?” Tristan slammed his cane into the ground. A massive symbol flared to life at its end. “What makes you say that? The king is still here!”

His alchemical chessboard appeared at his feet, from which eight soldiers – pawns – leaped out to stand before him, swords drawn.

“Owl! Stop him!!” he shouted.

“I know!” Owl took aim. “Transmute –”

A golden circle sparked to life around the muzzle of his gun.

“Alnesfog!”

Circles upon circles mixed and overlapped, honing his accuracy to a fine point and gathering all the strength in his body. He pulled the trigger.

BANG!

A beam of golden light shot out of his gun and straight for Mastema’s forehead in a single, unwavering attack.

“Do you really believe such paltry power could even hope to reach me?! How naive!!”

But Mastema simply swept his arm and flicked the golden light aside like it was nothing. The bullet shattered.

“Ah...!” Owl took a step back. He’d poured so much into that technique, and it’d gone up in smoke.

“You pitiful creature,” sighed Mastema. His eyes slid shut regretfully. “It’s truly deplorable to lay eyes on one who doesn’t know their place. I’m not one of the Possessed – you can’t disassemble me with alchemy, O helpless mouse.”

Owl’s teeth gnashed together.

Mastema’s eyes opened again, the light within them shining even brighter. “Now sit quietly down there where you belong.”

“Something’s coming!” yelled Tristan.

That was all the warning Owl got before he saw half of the pawns Tristan had summoned get blown up into the air. A gasp slipped out of his lips unbidden; he hadn’t even gotten a glimpse of what hit them. All Mastema had done was blink, and yet he’d somehow decimated the gentleman’s ranks.

“Ugh...!!” Tristan staggered and fell to his knees. The blowback from losing his pawns had knocked him off balance.

“Father!!!” Owl turned back to help him stand, but –

“Don’t worry about me! Keep your eyes on the enemy!”

Owl halted.

Above them, Mastema gracefully raised his arms overhead. “Oh, yes, keep your eyes on me. Don’t look away. For you have the great honor of gazing upon an exalted presence as you die.”

Countless transmutation circles flared up around Mastema, each one spewing burning red magma. They hung overhead like a boiling storm cloud, poised to release its red-hot rain and wipe out all life below.

“Farewell, O great detective,” he whispered.

The cherry red downpour began to fall.

Owl immediately bent over Tristan, prepared to shield him from the coming onslaught.

But just then, a new voice cut through the air. “I’ll stop him from moving! Keep firing!”

“Clemens!”

The priest appeared in front of them, having chased them all the way here. He’d already Demonized into his vampiric form, crimson droplets dripping from the end of his saber as he flung it around.

“Peering Windows of Twilight!” Clemens shouted. “Let beasts be caged! Pierce through, Prison of Stakes!!”

Countless windows appeared and boxed Mastema in. Each window spawned a gigantic stake dyed a deep, dark red, each stake pointed squarely at the angel. He watched these banes of a vampire’s existence rocketing toward him, utterly entranced. “How interesting,” he murmured. “A vampire.... Ahh, it hurts me so to have to end such a rare specimen... but.”

His extraordinary gaze turned to Clemens.

“You are nothing more than a tiny, impudent little bat, to think you could cage an apostle like myself!!”

He switched Ellie to his other arm and snapped his fingers. A gale whipped out from his hand with an earsplitting roar, slicing the stakes to pieces like a knife through butter, leaving the shards to crumble and vanish without reaching their target.

Clemens remained unphased. “An angel who’s never communed with God, an apostle? Don’t make me laugh! I myself was once a member of a choir...!!!”

And with that, a terrific shout burst from his mouth – no, not a shout, but the ultrasonic waves of a bat, so high and so powerful that they produced a shockwave inaudible to human ears. The blast of sound warped the air around it as it sped at Mastema. It hit his wings dead-on.

 Glory

To the saints marching in

No retreat, so falter not

Our flags wave in the light of honor

 The sounds coming out of Clemens’ mouth weren’t just unintelligible gibberish, either. He was singing.

 The only fear is fear of failure

Our friends become our heroes

And my body becomes a gun

 “A priest like me can manage this just by singing, you tiny little canary!”

The high-pitched song grated on everyone’s ears as bloody stakes shot through the open windows once more. Mastema’s eyebrows drew down. “A hymn, hm? It sounds like a war song coming from you.” He snapped his fingers again, sending another gust of wind to slash the stakes apart. The angel laughed mockingly from above – no matter how many times Clemens tried, the outcome would be the same.

But in the next moment, a different voice spoke up. “Yes, a war song for one’s allies!!” Ralph sprung out from behind Clemens and leaped into the air, closing the distance between him and Mastema in an instant with sharp claws poised to pierce the angel’s windpipe. Like Clemens, he had also already Demonized into his werewolf form. “Master Clemens’ song was not meant to reach Heaven, but me!”

Needle-sharp fangs jutted out from Ralph’s gaping mouth. A ferocious, guttural growl rumbled in his throat as he rocketed up toward Mastema.

The angel didn’t even spare him a single glance, though. “I know exactly how you fight, Tristan!!” he shouted gleefully. With a single powerful flap of his wings, he sent Ralph careening away. “This was your real aim...!”

Another flap slammed into Ralph’s other side, where a soldier – one of Tristan’s pawns – had its sword poised to slash through the arm holding Ellie, ready to take her back. Mastema, however, neatly dodged the blow and cast the pawn aside triumphantly.

“I know how many times you’ve used important pieces as decoys, after all,” Mastema finished, flitting through the air as if he was dancing. When he finally slowed, he tilted his head down to meet Tristan’s eyes.

“True enough,” Tristan admitted with a nod and a shrug. “I may have let you see too much of my fighting style. But don’t get the wrong idea, Mastema.”

“Oh?”

“I’m not your opponent right now.” Tristan stabbed his cane into the earth, summoning his chessboard. And standing atop it was –

“Keep your eyes on your real enemy, Mastema. The one you provoked was me!”

Owl stood tall, gun at the ready and transmutation circle already twinkling to life around the muzzle. One circle became two, then three, the magic strengthened and refined to the point it looked ready to fire off at any moment.

But even in the face of a force of magic powerful enough to produce a plasma ray, Mastema merely gave a scornful little chuckle. “And here I thought you were a touch smarter than that.” He spread his arms wide, as defenseless as he could be. “Your bullets will never reach me. I wonder, if I keep obliterating your feeble attempts, will you finally realize your own helplessness and fall into despair? Go ahead, give it a try.”

“Unfortunately for you, I happen to like running experiments.” Owl flicked the safety off. “And I’ll run them as many times as I have to!”

BANG! A beam of golden light shot out of the gun and raced straight for Mastema. The angel simply scoffed, not even trying to avoid it. “Sorry, but I have no interest in playing along with your silly little tests,” he said. His wings folded in front of him, forming a thick feathery shield. The bullet slammed into the wings... and shattered into thousands of microscopic scarlet shards. His expression didn’t so much as twitch – why would it, when he knew from the start what would happen?

But while he was distracted the pieces of the bullet scattering in the air, Owl shouted, “Transmute – wave molecule!” and slammed his hand into the earth, producing a roaring flame that he promptly sent hurtling at Mastema. A normal flame couldn’t hope to reach the airborne angel – but just then, the fragments of the bullet burst alight as well. Each piece popped and sparked like a miniature firework, flaring to life and dying out in seconds.

“Guh...?!” The smoke from all the tiny fireworks blanketed Mastema. He sucked in a breath and bent backward, hurriedly flapping his wings to clear his sight. The gusts of wind warped the air around him. He pressed a palm to his mouth with a choked groan, “This is...!”

Owl carefully observed his reaction. “I see,” he said with a nod. “Apparently angels are also susceptible to poison. I should write this down.”

“What...?”

“You should be careful. Danger is a necessary component of any experiment.”

Owl loaded a fresh bright red bullet into his gun. The new ammo looked strangely like a crystal. Mastema squinted at it, unsure of what exactly it was.

“The symbol of transformation and materialization, Owl whispered. He aimed once more. The transmutation circle flickered to life around the gun. “Dragon’s blood.”

“Dragon’s blood?!” Mastema gasped.

BANG! Owl pulled the trigger once more. The bullet shattered against Mastema’s shield technique once more. And the flames and fireworks covered Mastema in a smokescreen once more.

Mastema screeched in anguish. “Poison!!” He writhed in midair, his wings beating overtime, trying desperately to rid himself of the toxic cloud wreathing his body.

“I used the McCreech’s texts for reference. Looks like it really does have an effect.” Owl sounded almost boastful as he flipped his coat up to reveal the scientific implements hanging inside, including a particular mineral. “Cinnabar... a mineral made of mercury sulfide. According to what I read, the smoke it produces under heat is completely incompatible with angels, or something like that. Better be careful; if you keep destroying my bullets like that it’ll only spread!”

“!!”

A third bullet shot through the air, smashing against Mastema’s transmutation circle and once again shattering to pieces, which Owl immediately ignited. The resulting cloud of smoke was comprised of mercury vapor... poison, in other words. Apparently even angels faltered in the face of mercury poisoning.

Clemens watched with interest. “What an intriguing experiment,” he murmured. “Perhaps I ought to participate as well.” With a twirl of his saber, he shouted, “Behold, this bat’s thousand gunners!” His windows split apart even further, completely surrounding Mastema. One of them appeared in front of Owl’s gun as well.

Mastema unconsciously sucked in a breath at the sight. Those windows – he’d seen those on the train, piercing Cerberus’ body clean through. The bullet back then had gone in one window and had shot out of every single other window simultaneously. And now it was going to happen to him, surrounded on all sides by thousands of those very portals. If he destroyed all those bullets, and they all went up in mercury smoke....

“– You WORMS!” Mastema roared.

“FIRE!” Clemens yelled.

Owl loaded a new bullet and pulled the trigger. It vanished the instant it passed through Clemens’ window.

“Now accept the judgment of blackened blood!” Clemens pointed the tip of his saber directly at Mastema. On cue, the windows opened, and a hailstorm of bullet fire shot out, cracking and bursting against his feathers....

Or so they thought. “Insolent little trick!!” With a single, even more powerful flap of his wings, a maelstrom whipped up around Mastema and blasted all the bullets off course without damaging a single one. “Pesky rats! I will be the one passing judgment on you!!” As he rose higher in the air, combing fingers through his slightly disheveled hair, he yelled, “Playtime is over!!”

His burning red eyes, filled to the brim with overwhelming hatred, fluttered closed. Then he opened them again. It was nothing, the tiniest movement he could have possibly made, and yet above him a gigantic transmutation circle appeared, wide enough to blot out the sky.

“What is that...!” Owl’s group could only stare in wide-eyed shock. The ancient script was inscribed along the circle, each character glowing a sick, ominous violet. Ice trickled down their spines at the sight.

Mastema flapped his wings. “This land and the flask have granted me power beyond your wildest dreams.... And now, you will feel despair. Flee! Flee for your pathetic lives!! Go ahead, crawl away like the insignificant little beasts you are!!”

The ground began to heave beneath them.

“What’s going on?!” The group closed ranks, ready and waiting for whatever would come as the earth trembled. Something was boiling beneath their feet, ready to burst out of the planet’s crust. The vibrations left them reeling, barely able to stand upright, and yet none of them tore their eyes away from Mastema for even a second.

Then, with a rumbling, deafening BOOM, the volcano erupted.

Was it truly an eruption this time? Was it spouting smoke? Lava? No one dared to breathe. However, it wasn’t smoke coming from the volcano’s maw, and it wasn’t lava – it was a brilliant flash of violet light. The stupendous surge of energy exploded from the mountain in a dazzling, blinding pillar. Twisters began roiling around them, springing to life from the outpour of power.

Mastema stared up at the roaring sky, utterly ecstatic. “Ah, what a marvelous sight – the great salvation known as ‘destruction.’ This is the mercy of Heaven granted unto all without even time to mourn!!” Perhaps, to him, this moment in time was akin to gazing upon a magnificent painting in a quiet museum.

The angel danced above them. Stones threatened to crack around them. The earth vibrated, ready to tear itself asunder. The maelstrom threatened to rip the trees from the soil.

 Our God

Our Guide of Love

I am Lightning

A lance to shatter your sorrow

 The wind whipped even higher as he hummed his hymn.

 “The island... is going to break apart...!” Clemens shouted over the hurricane threatening to consume the entire spit of land.

 Owl aimed. The sound of his gunshot got lost amid the roar of rushing energy. His bullet, laden with all the power he could muster, trailed more light than ever before as it hurtled for Mastema –

“It’s no use!!” Mastema flicked the bullet away like it was nothing more than a fly. “The same trick won’t work twice, you worm!!”

And his eyes fell to Owl, and his eyes fell shut, and his eyes fluttered open.

“Behold! The end of the world!”

 – Something was coming.

 In that moment, Owl came to a realization.

They were about to be attacked.

But he realized too late. Before he could react, one of the tornadoes roiled into his line of sight, heading straight for them and blowing the rest of Tristan’s pawns away. The soldiers meant to protect him splintered into bits as the tornado swallowed them whole. Then the force of nature encroached on Owl, poised to swallow him next, surrounding him completely. It would consume him in an instant, quicker than the speed of light.

Owl watched it approach as if in slow motion, his eyes glued to the roiling mass of wind and water.

But just then –

 “You stupid detective!!!”

“?!”

Snow-white wings fluttered wide before his eyes – but no, those weren’t wings, that was a huge cape. Dozens of cards appeared from within the flapping white folds to encircle Owl.

“Rampart Crevasse!!”

Ice shot forth from the cards, forming a glacial rampart wall around him made of solid, sharp ice. But though that wall halted the tornado’s surging advance, the sheer aggressive force of the maelstrom splintered it apart the instant they made contact. The ice melted into mercury. The tornado and the glacial barrier had vanquished each other.

“Damn it all! We had a perfect chance and everything...!” The person turned and shouted, “Owl! Are you really that stupid when you decide to go on the offensive?!”

“Hude Lou?!” Owl gasped.

It was indeed the phantom thief, having once again shown up out of nowhere.

“You really came!” the detective continued. “How did you make it –”

“I’m the one asking the questions here! You can’t even put up a decent defense! And here I thought you were someone worth acknowledging – now I look like an idiot for even letting it cross my mind!”

“I have some defensive techniques! But his wind keeps getting stronger, and you know what my element is! Besides, Fath... Tristan was right there.”

“Hahaah, that makes sense. You’re so good at being protected – that makes you, what, the princess element?”

“It’s fire and you know it!! Quit making stuff up!”

“Relying on your precious papa makes you a pretty little princess!”

The two fell into an argument as easily as breathing. They came back to themselves quickly, though – this wasn’t the time for a back and forth. Two pairs of eyes tilted skyward. “We can talk about this later,” said Hude Lou. “We need to get that girl back!”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Owl growled. “I’ll protect Ellie!”

He readied his gun, but Hude Lou pushed him aside and stepped in front. “I’ll go first. You follow!”

And just as he said that –

 You get lost super-easy in the forest, after all.

 Something flashed in the back of Owl’s mind.

“... Huh?”

But the silhouette that appeared behind his eyelids for a split second crumbled to nothing in the face of the howling wind. What was that just now? he wondered, his gaze falling to the side.

But the fragment of memory was already long gone, lost to the dark reality spread before his eyes.

 Floating in the blackened sky, Mastema gazed down upon the two of them. “Well, well, it seems the pitiful mice are multiplying.” To him, Hude Lou’s entrance was just one more pebble in the road to shatter under his heel. “It’s good of you to go out of your way to receive your judgment in person.”

He blinked again. When his eyelids fluttered open, transmutation circles flared to life in the sky above him. They were smaller than the violet pillar of light, but what they lacked in size they more than made up for in number; a spectacular number of circles spread across the sky, propagating at an explosive rate like a particularly contagious virus. They covered the entire sky in the blink of an eye, each one inscribed with the ancient script, each one roiling with power.

Peering up at the spell, Mastema began to sing again.

 Our God

Our Boundless Voice

I am a Fang

A shield to bear your fury

 The pillar of light erupting from the volcano grew even larger. The raging wind grew even wilder, slicing through the air like a sharpened blade.

 “Inescapable World!!!”

CLACK went Tristan’s cane against the ground. The golden chessboard spun to life at his feet. In the blink of an eye the alchemical board widened, spreading without end far into the distance... farther, farther it went, until it encompassed the entire island.

“I won’t let you do as you please, Mastema!”

As the name implied, there was no leaving the world he had created, and angels were no exception.

But still Mastema threw his head back and roared with laughter. “AHAHAHAHAHA!!! You won’t let me? Such confidence, Tristan!”

Tristan’s declaration was just so funny! It took some time for Mastema to get his laughter under control. When he finally did, he slowly opened his eyes wide. The transmutation circles around him shot out beams of dark violet light that struck the chessboard below and slowly began eating away at it, burning it away to nothing.

“What a shame. They may call you the ‘Imprisoning Noble,’ but that only applies to earthly matters. I am an angel who calls the beginning of the end of this world! Your power isn’t even worth wasting my time on!!”

Mastema’s spell circles rotated in the air. Tristan eyed the ancient script etched into them. It only took him a second to decipher them, and the instant he did he froze. “...  It can’t be... don’t tell me you plan on connecting Heaven and Earth...!”

Mastema let out a theatrical, regretful sigh. “You have held in your hands a power that marked you as beloved by Heaven, Tristan. But you chose the wrong person to bestow that power upon – you bequeathed it to your only son. What a foolish sin to commit.”

 Our God

Our Eternal Mercy

I am a Flame

An axe to melt away your pain

 Mastema’s singing rang throughout the sky. More globules of red-hot magma swirled to life around him, as if resonating with his voice, and began to fall onto the group below.

“Ralph!” Tristan shouted.

“I’ll cover you!” Ralph promptly broke into a sprint. He leaped through the gaps between the molten rock and made to clear away the projectiles heading for Owl and Hude Lou with his claws. But the rocks Mastema had summoned apparently weren’t just regular clumps of lava – Ralph’s claws, capable of slicing through steel like butter, began to crack.

Clemens noted the pained look on Ralph’s face and rose up to shield him. “Pierce through, Prison of Stakes!” he called.

Thousands of scarlet windows encircled Mastema once more, opening in the space of a breath to allow thousands of gigantic bloodred stakes to shoot out and box him in. And yet his stakes, in the end, were as easily destroyed as last time.

“Worthless, pointless, meaningless!” crowed Mastema. “Let all return to ash! Let nothing remain! Let everything burn!” He rose even higher in the sky, his gaze fixed upon the volcano still spewing its violent violet light. “Fall to your knees and pray! Today you shall be liberated from all suffering! This world shall be saved through the eternity granted by your noble deaths! Here and now, all sins shall be cleansed!”

Mastema held Ellie over the open volcano.

 He’s going to throw her in, Owl realized.

 He ran as fast as his legs would allow, and then some.

“Stop!!” But even so, Hude Lou was just a split second faster. “Glacier Road!!”

The thief yanked a card from under his cape and threw it at his feet, spawning a flurry of ice crystals that solidified into a freezing pathway.

“I’ll get you this time!!” He raced up the icy road.

Mastema’s lips curled into a sadistic leer. “My, my, what a shame, indeed.” He tipped Hude Lou a wink. The ice was suddenly swallowed up by the roiling wind, and it shattered before the thief reached Mastema. Hude Lou gnashed his teeth and skidded to a halt, having lost his path up.

“Move!!”

Owl had followed Hude Lou up the path, and now he shoved past the thief and leaped into the air.

 “You were so close.”

And with that final whisper, Mastema raised Ellie high, then casually tossed her away.

 A guttural scream tore itself from Owl’s throat.

 Her tiny, tiny body plummeted into the mouth of the volcano. There was no stopping her descent.

“ELLIEEEE!!!”

Owl lunged, his hand reaching out for her, but to no avail. He knew that, though, so his next move was swift. He leaned forward, ready to dive into the volcano himself –

“Stop, you idiot!!” Lightning quick, Hude Lou’s hand clamped around Owl’s arm like a vice.

And at the same time, Owl’s outstretched fingers, for a split second, clenched around Ellie’s robe.

 “...!!!”

And Owl’s vision burned pure white.

original written by Nagaya Kawaji here

[aqg-arts]

This is a writing WIP for the Griffin Petition. I plan on sending it through to 343 with the petition when it reaches 100+ signs:

The pro-log is mostly finished, we just need to go through and add some names to the members of Fireteam Windfall + some cutting, changing and wishing to God that I was some-what better at writing than what I am 😎

Enjoy... I think? Like I said, there are some parts that are a bit on the nose or just a bit cringe to me, so uh, be very mindful lol

UNSC Infinity, Spartan Battle Simulations:

November 4th, 2559

0945 hours,

The mountains in the distance looked down upon the ONI base below. A calmness washed over the site, something rare to find in these times. A few birds squawked and flew high in the distance, enjoying the freedom of flight. Together, they moved in perfect synchronised movements, taking on different obscure shapes. The peaceful scene was like a painting that Spartan Hudson Griffin was sure his mother had had when he was a kid. The few trees that were dotted around made him feel a strange sense of safety, like the world around him wasn't too terrible.

Suddenly, the moment was taken from his grasp as a couple of bullets zipped pass his Mjolnir armour. His energy shields came up, and he dashed behind a tree. It's just a simulation- nothing real about it, he thought as he took a moment to let the shielding come down. Hudson peered out from behind the tree, trying to spot the Spartan that shot at him. Nothing. He looked down at his ammunition count. The MA5B Assault Riffle only had a hundred rounds left from the two-hundred-and-forty he'd started with. Damn it. He checked his one o'clock. His team should be coming up on his potion any time now...

"Griffin, I think your plan is gonna work," said Spartan Bertold Vettel, the second member of Fireteam Taurus. Hudson looked up and saw Vettel running towards a nearby tree, his crimson armour reflecting the artificial light coming through the trees. He slided into cover, a trail of leaves dancing in his wake. "I just took out Horvath. Intrepid is out."

"Good, now we wait for the others to show themselves. ," Hudson said, just as the rest of his team, Spartan's Dimka and Oshiro, came running in, just a few seconds behind Vettel. Always him and his timing of words. Vettel gave him a helmet tilt as if to say, 'you were saying? ' He allowed himself a chuckle. "Glad you two could make it. Any word on how the party's going?"

"Well, we did cause some havoc; Fireteam Windfall is chasing us, as we planned. Most of Fireteam Shadow is out- only one left," Oshiro reported.

"As for Fireteam Intrpid?"

"They're also out, thanks to Vettel. Using you as bait was an amazing idea, wish we had thought of it before, honestly," Oshiro teased. Hudson gave a small eye roll, but he couldn’t hold back the smile that crept onto his face. It was good to have some fun; this job would probably-no, definitely would- wreck you if you didn't from what he had seen.

"Good," Hudson said. "Now we have some more fun. Vettel; take a sniping position, I want you to cover us. Dimka; play rabbit and get ready for my signal. Oshiro," he gestured to the grenades on her hip- he'd used all of his in a previous firefight. "You're with me. Those pineapples will be our parting gifts- if you can share them, of course." In reply, Oshiro chucked a grenade to him. The M9's weren't much to look at, but boy did they pack a punch. However, for this trick, he intended to use them for a more 'passive' purpose.

He returned his attention to the other two. Vettel and Dimka gave him a nod, then they sprinted off. Dimka went left, Vettel right. Oshiro also gave him a nod, and together they moved up to another tree. He didn't need to know who had shot at him, nor where they had come from. He was going to use the grenade as a lure, get it as far as he could, but not out of sight.

"Ready when you are Griff," Vettel said through coms, just a few moments later.

"On my mark," Hudson stepped out, his arm back, ready to throw the grenade at the field in front of him. He took a step back- he'd need a good piff for this one to work the way he hoped it would.

"Mark!" He threw the M9 as far as he could. Instantly, bullets started spraying in his direction, and he dashed back into cover. Dimka sprinted around the outskirts of the wooded area and started to draw the enemy teams' fire. As one Spartan stepped out from behind a slab of rusted metal, Griffin knew instantly that this wasn't just any Spartan. This was Spartan Stone, a member of Fireteam Shadow.

"Sync!" Oshiro replied in a split second. She stepped out from behind her tree, spraying Spartan Stone with a full clip of BR55 bullets. As her shields feared and gave out, she dropped to the ground. The last member of Fireteam Shadow was out. However, Hudson spotted two other Spartan’s running out from behind their own cover; Fireteam Windfall.

"Sync!" Dimka chimed in. Hudson started to shoot at the the other Spartans, just as Dimka started running. She had her own AR out and was making a beline for Stone's cover. Just as she made it, Hudson saw one of the Windfall Spartan’s take aim at him. He retreated back into cover.

"Sinking!" Vettel said through the coms channel, a few seconds later. The sound of an M392 DMR opening fire was audible in the background. Uh oh, he thought as loud boom sounded in the distance, the air swallowed up by the explosion of his grenade. Hudson's plan had worked like a charm, but Vettel was now in need of help. He suspected that this was a part of Windfalls plan- get Taurus divided and then make a move. However, Hudson was no newbie to these things. In fact, improvisation was one of his many skills.

"Dimka, Oshiro; move into covering positions, and get ready to move. When I reach Vettel, I'll need you two to hold this area until we get back. Vettel; hold out until I get to your location," Hudson said, a plan already formed in his head.

"Roger that," Vettel said, the sound of sniper fire breaking up his words; Hudson would have to hurry if he wanted to get to Vettel in time. He waited until the other two gave him a nod, then he took off in the direction of Vettel's location.

The aim of this simulation was to build up team relations. Not that Taurus needed that- their combat effectiveness was rather high, compared to the other Spartan IV teams. However, Hudson liked to do them every now and again- it never hurt them to be prepared, nor to be tested. It was these small training efforts that made them so effective on the battlefield- what made every Spartan effective; The one he had learned all throughout his time in the military was that no one is an individual in war. You need to be one cohesive movement to get the job done. And as a Spartan, you don't only have be united, but also extremely precise. The lack of this won't just result in your own death, but the death of everyone around you. This was why these exercises were needed- the better you are at something, the more likely you are to use it to your advantage. Granted, this was just a simulation, but Taurus- as Spartan’s and as people with experience in the UNSC- had survived some very dangerous situations.

He was closer now, he could now actually hear the sound of the scrabble in the distance. He swapped over to his BR55, mag-locking his AR to his back. Pulling the Weapon up, he looked down the scope; Vettel had made it to the sniper position- a small rock slab, maybe 20 ft off the ground and with a rocky wall-like structure that was currently serving as cover. He moved his riffle to the left a bit. From what Hudson could see, it was two members of Windfall that were giving Vettel hell; They were parked maybe ten metres from his location.

From what Hudson could tell, the one good thing about the whole situation was that Vettel had the high ground. However, the two were holding him there, no doubt probably trying to get word out to their team leader about the situation so they can regroup. However, no one from their team had shown up. That meant that their improvised part of the plan had worked. They were being held off from joining the others.

Hudson carefully moved his way around the two Spartans. From where he was, he was coming up on their flank. However, after a quick re-thinking this move, he decided he wanted to take a bit of a risk. There was a chance for a two-for-one here, and he intended on making that shot.

He stalked around from where he was. Crossing one foot in front of the other and trying to not be heard. He kept moving until he saw his window of opertunity; The two were now diagonal to him, taking shots at Vettel. He lined up his shot. As Vettel shot back at them, they ducked behind a rock. Hudson readjusted his position, again moving diagonal to them. He only needed the bullet to just skim them for them to be considered 'dead'. This game was about not getting hit- as was anything, really. Hudson waited, his finger on his trigger, not breathing and not moving, ready to fire at any moment. Come on you two, move closer together, he thought. Just a bit more. Then, in a heartbeat, the shot was there- they had lined up perfectly.

He squeezed his trigger.

The bullet went through the shielding of one Spartan, 'killing' them instantly, and landed in the centre of the other's visor. They were out.

"Nice shot, Griff!" Vettel gave him a quick nod and a small thank you wave from where he was, his helmet briefly looking down at where the two Spartans were. "They got pretty close there, actually was a bit worried for a moment," he chuckled. That was one of the many things Hudson appreciated about Bertold Vettel- he could make the best out of the absolute worse situations. His constant switch between light and dark humour had always been able to lift the spirits of the entire team up when things got gloomy.

"You would have done the same for me. Plus, I figure you had had enough fun. They most certainly did," Hudson said, looking at the Spartans. Two down, two to go. Their plan was working like a bloody charm. He was almost half shocked. Almost.

"Yeah, guess so. Our sniping position has been given away, no thanks to these two."

"Well, we did just take out half their team..."

"Correction; you just took out half their team," Vettel said, jumping down from the rock slab. He gave the Spartan’s a final glance before jogging over to where Hudson was standing.

"Hey, you wanna play that game; you took their attention for me. I call it fifty-fifty," Hudson teased. Although his jokes were nothing compared to Vettel's, he hoped he'd gotten at least a smile for that one. Vettel just gave him a look for a long moment. Then, Hudson heard a chuckle come through the coms. "Shall we head back to the others, see what trouble they've caused?" He asked, letting out a sigh of relief. His comedy was getting better, he hoped

"Sir, yes, sir." Vettel gave him a nod. Hudosn took the lead, hitting the ground at a full on sprint. As they were running, Hudson looked at his HUD. They had been in here for twelve and a half minutes. They'd only have five minutes, give or take, before the simulation would end and they'd run out of time. However, depending on how quickly things went, this might be one of Fireteam Taurus' quickest games yet. If they could just get under that eighteen minute mark...

The sound of Dimka and Oshiro's fire fight echoed all around them. As they were nearing the two, Hudson caught sight Dimka, weaving her away around trees and rocks for cover, drawing the fire of one of Spartan’s- She was still playing rabbit. Oshiro, on the other hand, was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the other supersoldier. She managed to pull back, narrowly missing a punch. As she reared back, she reached for her sidearm- an M6/Z pistol. She quickly fired a round into the Spartan, then made a dash for a nearby tree, a trail of bullets following her.

"Need a hand?" Hudson called, lifting his BR up and taking a few shots at the Spartan Oshiro had just escaped from. The Spartan took an extra ten bullets before finally falling to the ground. One left.

"What do you think?" Dimka said. She was now leading the final soldier to the rest of Taurus. The final 'kill'. "We have one left, let me get him in closer to you guys!"

Just as Dimka finished her sentence, the Spartan fired off at her, three bullets grazing her shields. However, as she had planned, they were closer now. Hudson gave Oshiro and Vettel a nod, the three of them opening fire on the Spartan. With a loud thud, the Spartan hit the ground

"Roger, roger," Hudson smiled beneath his helmet. He held his weapon up to his shoulder and watched as Dimka came jogging to a halt beside Vettel. He took a moment to take his team in. They had done it. They had set a new team record- hell, maybe a new record for Spartan IV's on the Infinity in general. A loud horn sounded in the distance, crackling through the air like a whip. Hudson looked up in the general direction of the noise. The horn meant that simulation was over- Fireteam Taurus had won.

Hudson, not for the first time, but definitely for the first time in a while, felt a surge of pride form within him. And this pride wasn't for him:

It was for Fireteam Taurus- his family.

[lillykayewrites]

CHANGE ME CHAPTER THREE:

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2233

Let me tell you, the scariest part of this entire story... was signing my safety waver... but let's backtrack.

After I left the apartment, I headed over to the entire reason I moved to Utah.

'Fazbear's Frights: Fazbear's Entertainment'

Yep.

A horror attraction based on a pizza place with a dark past of murder, tragedy, sadness, and horror.

Yep. That's where I wanted to work...

As I pulled into the dingy parking lot of the attraction, I erupted with nervousness. Was it nervousness? Or was it excitement?.... I couldn't tell but it was almost teeth chattering badly.

   Exiting the car, I fixed my clothes and hair and made my way determinedly over to my existential doom.

With upon entering the building, I was hit with the smell of mold, gas, and an underlying odor that I couldn't quite place.

'What a shit hole....' I thought to myself as I closed the door.

Looking to my right I saw a door and reached for the handle, thinking it was the security office.

"Ahem. Wrong way. Down the hall and on your left is the office..." A voice said over the intercom.

Jumping in surprise, I looked around until I saw a camera with a blinking red light.

Well, that makes sense.

"I-uh! Sorry!" I yelled to the voice embarrassed by my actions.

Now knowing that wasn't the office and someone was expecting my presence, I followed the voice's directions

and made my way down the hall. I eventually made it to see the security guard that presumably talked to me sitting in a room that had a big window separating us.

      The guy smiled at me and waved me over to the door which was just a big opening in the side of the room.

Nodding, I made my way over to him,

"Hi, I'm sorry for our last short interaction! But I'm here for an interview?" I asked shyly, staring at the guard in the chair.

Chuckling a bit, the guy waved me off in understanding.

"Yeah, I was just about to close up actually. We close early on Sunday, but my boss told me you would be coming in for an interview! By the way, names Tommy."

He said, extending a hand out for me to shake,

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Tommy! My name is Y/N, and yes... I am here to apply for the night guard position."

Nodding, he looked me up and down with curiosity.

"No offense Y/N and I will be real with you for a second, but what makes you want to be a night guard, especially at any Freddy Fazbear's establishment?" Tommy questioned with a smirk.

Now feeling caught off guard, knowing I didn't look the sort to want to be any kind of night guard at all, and of all places here.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked up at the taller man in front of me,

"Well...I have my license in private security, but truthfully...I want to see what all of this local legend is all about.  I want to see how much is all myth. Plus I might enjoy a bit of the fun by saying I work at the only Faszbear's establishments and tell about the horrifying hauntings!" I said with as much confidence as I could muster.

Tommy laughed, nodding along with what I was saying. his tilted his, smiling at me like he was searching for something but couldn't find it.

He finally just leaned his head back as he relaxed into his rolling chair

"Well, to be honest, I just started working here as the day guard...

Keeping watch of things in this dinky place, it's the most boring, but alsomet time-relieving job ever! But, if you are a night owl, I would suppose the night shift is too," he said nonchalantly taking a bite of what looked like a croissant.

"A night owl I am..." I said chucking, "So, I get the whole day guard thing... with all the people and just keeping them out of props, but why is there a night guard position? What is there to guard?" I inquired.

"Well..." Tommy dragged, as he finished chewing. "Pretty much the same thing...So people don't come stealing or touch anything. Because believe it or not, the rumors are taken seriously, people out there really see what they can get their hands on. This blows my mind but...I guess it's easy picking." Tommy laughed.

"I suppose! I mean, I told my neighbor I was going to apply and she flipped just hearing the name of the place. So I guess it does carry weight to its name."

Tommy put up a hand, gesturing to what I had said to emphasize his point,

"That's why we have a night guard."

"Which speaking of," I continued. "What do I have to do to get the job?" I questioned.

"You already got it!" Tommy chuckled with a mouth full of pastry.

"Oh... wow! Just like that?!" I asked astonished.

"Yep." A smirk came across his lips. "No one was going to apply for it, so you got it."

Nodding slowly with a big grin coming across my lips, I looked at my new coworker in joy, "Well thank you so much! I promise not to disappoint!" I giggled.

After Shaking Tommy's hand, I pulled away to sign the contract that officially said, "I would be working for the Fazbear Franchise."

Without even reading it; I signed the form.

Handing it to Tommy with a grin, he took it back.

He studied thoroughly, taking in the fact I just signed the Fazbear safety waiver without care.

With a change of expression, his face went grim. Suddenly, he tossed me a small object. Catching it before it hit my face, I snatched it with my small palm.

Keys.

"Since this is the job of your life...You can start tonight. Lock up the place so I can go home. On Monday evening, come in before eleven thirty and your uniform with be on your desk."

All of a sudden, Tommy's mood switched.

He dropped the friendly persona and a disdainful look overtook his tired features. Grabbing his stuff he waltzed out of the room, bumping me as he passed.

"Glad to know there's going to be a foot up your ass from now on..." I sneered, turning back at him with sass.

Yelling through the plexiglass, he stared at me with an irritated but a disappointed expression,

"I don't know why you applied, but it's not some fun girly playtime...it's- ugh! It's a night guard position! The worst part is Y/N...You just signed your life away to this shitty company..." Tommy whispered the last part, looking incredulously at me and shaking his head. With that, he briskly turned and left, exiting the building.

Standing there in confusion, babbling as I was trying to find words for that strange, and dare I say and out of the blue encounter.

   Not caring anymore, I sat my stuff down on the desk and blew off the remaining croissant crumbs that clung to the table because of the moist environment.

"Well isn't everyone just peachy in this town?" I said, dripping with sarcasm.

Not putting any more thought into it, I just brushed it off. This industry had a dark past. So with it being the way it is, that is a huge factor in how people think about it.

Pulling into the rolling chair, I sat down and looked at the tablet Tommy was skimming over when he was checking the cameras.

   Flipping through the numbered cams still trying to figure everything out, I looked around for something to help me. A notebook was placed near the far left corner of the desk and was flipped open to a page with scribbled handwriting,

'1-5 of training tapes are on message box on phone, tell Tommy to listen to them before Monday'

"Convenient~" 

Smiling, I slid over to the phone that looked absolutely ancient. My grandparents used to have one as a house phone so it replays the messages they missed during the day.

It doesn't take a genius to know that there the red flashing button that reads, 'Missed Messages' meant that you were missing messages!

So I clicked it, and the guy on the other end sounded like his only language was surfing and Mary Jane. And he was a hundred times more excited than Tommy sounded about working here.

Leaning back I wondered the soul's reason he wasn't, all that motivated, but then again, who is...

   I kept listening to the messages, as he went through what to do, and how great of a job I had.....

and then my ears perked up at one specific sentence.

"But dude! I have a huge surprise! We found one, a real one!"

"A real what?!..." My pulse quickened as I looked for the repeat button.

I replayed the tape and listened to the petty excuse the guy threw out, saying he had to go. He wasn't supposed to disclose that information, but, it didn't matter now.

I looked over the cameras once again and saw nothing.

  "Where would it even be?!" I scanned the tablet frantically.

Then I saw it.

The door!

The large grey door that I had tried to open before Tommy stopped me. That was where it was! It was right by the exit and conveniently so. With that, I picked up my stuff and the keys to the building and walked out of the office.

  As I made my way through the hall, I suddenly felt a strange sensation alight against my forehead. It was like a pulsating sensation, and it was almost bad enough to be a shitty headache.

"They need to air filter this place or something... the mold is unbelievable in here!" I muttered rubbing my frontal lobe trying to get the annoying feeling to tame down.

"It's just your allergies... it will go away when you leave." I sighed lifting my head now walking with purpose.

I made it to the large heavy grey door from earlier. I stared in front of me suddenly feeling the sensation in my head grow to a level I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.

Mold my ass...

I reached for the handle and turned its rusty knob. It screeched but it didn't budge.

"Of course..."

I jiggled the handle once more, before running my thumb over the key hole.

"I have something for that!"

Rummaging through my purse, I pulled out my lone but lucky bobby pin. Grinning from ear to ear I aligned the Bobby pin into the key hole.

"Come on buddy, don't fail me now!"

Pushing the pin in, a sharp click sounded from the door. I quickly stood up, and pulled my Bobby pin fro the keyhole and put it back into my purse.

"I still got it." I chuckled softly to myself as I turned the rusty metal knob letting the heavy door creak open.

  I was met with darkness, it enveloped my vision. It took a moment to adjust my eyes but it didn't take long before I could see.

There. There it sat.

In the darkness, the room's only illumination being the dank hall light in from behind me.

But I could still see an old, mangled, and torn-looking rabbit.

This was the "real one"...

Stepping into the room, I approached the rot colored animatronic, and unexpectedly, I was also met with a horrid...debilitating smell.

I lunged back in repulsion.

"Holy fucking shit... oh- oh my God..."

This was odor I smelled earlier, only this was intensified by a hundred. It was secreting the odor as if you could see the waves of it come from the suit .

Along with the smell, my head felt like it was about to explode.

Something wanted me here. Something wanted me to find this. I remembered from my classes with the medium, the ways spirits can communicate are strange and sometimes sensations are how they do it.

   I flipped on the switch by the door and I nearly gasped. Looking at the disheveled suit, I shakily pulled out a picture from my pocket. It was a picture of two happy-looking men standing proud in front of their animatronic creations.

The first man was a built and the gruffer looking of the two. He had broad shoulders, a beard, and he wore a checkered flannel, proudly standing in front of a golden bear.

Henry Emily... one of the co-founders of Fazbear's and originally the creator of Fredbear's Family Diner.

The second man, however, was much leaner and charming looking, but something about it seemed off, he had dusty brown hair and a large smile that seemed just a bit to big for his face standing in front of a golden rabbit animatronic.

William Afton.

The second and main co-founder of the two of Fazbear's entertainment and the founder of Afton Robotics.

Looking back down at the rabbit, I squinted my eyes and tilted my head with a small smirk.

It was him.

It was undoubtedly him.

Pushing the picture back into my pocket I crouched in front of the horrendous -smelling robot and stared into his lifeless eyes.

"Good afternoon Mr. Afton..."