#Where does horizon zero dawn take place

[bathskybird]

Where does horizon zero dawn take place

The best I could manage at 2160p on a mix of medium and high settings was a stuttering experience that ranged from 25fps to 40fps. Hoping to play Horizon in 4K with performance beyond what the PS4 version can offer? You may also be out of luck. Yet on my setup? Despite playing on a 2080 Ti with a beefy CPU, I experienced framerates that seesawed between the mid 40s and low 50s at the same resolution. The hardware team has also been busy benchmarking the game and experienced averages upwards of 75fps at 1440p on an RTX 2080. Happily for our features producer James Davenport, he ran Horizon at a mostly consistent 60fps at 1440p resolution on an RTX 2080 GPU. Several of the team have played the game across a variety of hardware, and the results are somewhat patchy. Snow-covered wastelands that outdo Rise of the Tomb Raider’s tundras eventually give way to baking prairies that could pass for one of Red Dead Redemption 2’s sweltering deserts.Įarly signs point to Horizon being a slightly inconsistent PC port, though. While the opening hours point to the sort of generic, frost-covered environment so many hypothermia-courting games have already covered, Horizon’s gorgeous world quickly proves itself to be one of the most visually varied around.Īs the story progresses and the restrictions Aloy has been bound by lift, the hunter quickly finds her feet scampering across a hugely diverse landscape. Alongside The Witcher 3, this is one of the most intriguing, believably lived-in open worlds on PC. Horizon Zero Dawn’s world is a lot more interesting than Hope County, though. Horizon’s gorgeous world quickly proves itself to be one of the most visually varied around. Aloy is great at swiping oversized machines down in wide open plains, but plonk her in a boxy camp with guards who can swarm from all sides, and she’s nowhere near as competent a fighter. These base-conquering quests appear all over, so it’s a shame they never showcase the sort of streamlined sneaky confidence Ubisoft finally hit with Far Cry 5.

Want to earn that fancy stealth drop that will let you plummet 50ft without being heard, or open up that skill that lets Aloy draw her bow in slow-motion whenever she jumps? You better murder every primitive bad guy in that nearby camp with the minimum of fuss. What makes these samey, if inoffensive assaults worthwhile? The dangling promise of more XP and unlocking fresh machine-taming abilities. Clearly Aloy copied Far Cry 3 when they were both taking that course in Enemy Strongholds 101, because her map is dotted with encampments you’re encouraged to capture through repetitive stealth takedowns and silent bow kills. In 2020, those overly familiar notes are even more out of tune. When Horizon first launched on console three years ago, there’s no denying it was a little derivative. The first time I encountered one, I may as well have been a flummoxed Alan Grant fumbling to shake off his shades after drinking in the sight of Jurassic Park’s grazing brachiosaurus.Įncounters with Aloy’s fellow humans don’t fare quite so well.

They’re among the most awe-inspiring creatures I’ve seen in any game. These magnificent leviathans more or less work like walking versions of Far Cry’s antenna towers, uncovering areas of the map once you clamber up and hack their satellite skulls. Most captivating of all? Those moments where you crane the camera skywards to admire a lumbering Tallneck leisurely stomping around a set perimeter. The next, you might witness a group of smaller machines scurrying out of the path of a deadly Ravager, as Horizon’s three-ton puma sniffs around for its next likely mechanised meal. One moment you might observe jittery packs of elk-like Broadheads munching on knee high grass, because apparently robots need to eat too. Well, if you can call a 45-foot android crocodile slithering into a lake natural.

Like the odd magic moment where you come across a wild stallion playfully rolling around in the morning dew of Red Dead Redemption’s wetlands, Horizon’s beasts can enthrall with the same style of naturalistic behaviour. It’s also fascinating to see these mechanical wonders simply interact with their environment when they think you’re not looking.

[robo-dino-puppy]

revisiting childhood memories

[cantstoptheimagines]

Their Reaction to You Losing an Eye

Summary — Preferences for Atreus, Kratos, and Thor from God of War!

Requested by @nickeverdeen — Hey there! Can I please ask for hcs with either God Of War or Horizon Zero Dawn characters with a reader who lost their eye and is insecure about it? If for God Of War then pls hcs with: Kratos, Atreus (older or young is up to you) If Horizon Zero Dawn then pls hcs with: Aloy, Talanah (you don’t have to do Talanah if you don’t wanna) Also pls let me know if you’re uncomfortable with the request Take time and care about yourself ❤️

Warnings & Other Tags ➳ Depictions, discussions, and mentions of severe injuries (losing an eye, fainting as a result of pain); canon-typical violence; envisioned Ragnarök!Atreus for this work; I tossed Thor into this request because he’s my husband.

Notes ➳ Word Count is 433. ➳ Reader is gender neutral (they/them). ➳ I recently met T.C. Carson, who was the original voice for Kratos in the God of War series, after which I ran to write this request (even though it’s intended for Christopher Judge’s version)!

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atreus

in all honesty, he wouldn’t quite know how to act. his emotions would be all over the place, tears streaming down his face as his father and freya tried to help you. the coverings on your face are soaked in your own blood. “don’t leave,” muttered atreus. he finds himself kneeling by your side as he pleads with you, one of your weak hands held tightly in both of his, “please don’t go.” but his newly discovered godly abilities are still out of sorts. his sadness quickly shifts to anger at those who caused you harm. his wrath is unlike anything the world has ever seen. he won’t stop until you, his dearest companion, is properly avenged, so don’t be surprised if he returns with your attacker’s head.

kratos

this man does not hesitate. in mere seconds, kratos is lifting you into his arms and calling out for someone, anyone, who can help. he avoids looking at the blood that decorates the place where your eye should be. “i lost faye,” he mutters. “i won’t let you go as well. stay awake!” everything is a blur. whatever vision you have left is slowly turning to gray as a sudden wave of tiredness overtakes your body. the pain of it all is settling deep into your bones. as kratos’s muffled voice calls out for you in a panicked tone, you allow unconsciousness to take over, and the world finally fades into darkness.

thor

he breathes heavily, staring down at heimdall with such rage that the golden-eyed god realized he was experiencing fear for possibly the first time in his life. a gentle touch on his arm, however, tears thor’s focus away from his father’s devotee. his eyes drop to the deep scar on your face — a new habit he’d developed recently — before they drifted to meet your lone eye. heimdall scurries away at the same time thor’s fingertips graze your cheek.  “why do you keep me from tearing him apart?” whispered thor. “he needs to be punished for what he’s done to you.” a sharp inhale came from him when your touch caressed his strong chest, exactly where his heart lay beneath his skin. he was quick to let his rough palm overlap your gentle hand. “heimdall is a fool,” you replied in the same quiet tone he had been using. “why waste your days threatening him when you could be with me instead? his punishment will come when the time is right.” he was only convinced when you pressed a kiss to the back of his hand. perhaps, for now, he could set revenge aside.

[theresattrpgforthat]

do you have any recomendations for ttrpgs with interesting mechanics around inventory management? for example something where you need to fit the items of your inventory in a grid (like dredge (which although it is a videogame rather than a ttrpg does have the kind of mechanic im thinking of)) or where inventory management is a core part of the gameplay.

thank you in advance :D

THEME: Interesting Inventory.

Hello friend! I’ve got a few games here that do interesting things with inventory limit, and I also have some other games that provide limitations on your gear in other ways.

SCRAPPED, by rolomics.

The year is 2124, and 99.9% of the human population is gone. Automatons reign supreme. Homunculi were created by splicing human DNA with other animal/creature DNA to enhance their body structure and strength. Because of this, Homunculi serve as super soldiers for the humans, but even with all their efforts, they still could not stop the automaton take over. 

You are a Homunculus, the echo of a past era and all that remains of humanity.

Scrapped is an original post-apocalyptic rules-lite tabletop role-playing game about scavenging, crafting, and surviving in the unforgiving wastes of a planet obliterated by war. This game was inspired by other post-apocalyptic games from the Fallout franchise.

Scavenging and crafting are at the heart of this game, and that means that Scrapped has paid a lot of attention to inventory. The game comes with item cutouts to help you visualize your inventory, and also requires you to ‘slot” certain items into certain places - if an item doesn’t fit, you can’t carry it! Each character occupation starts with specific pieces of equipment, although you’ll be able to scavenge more along the way. On top of that, you’ll also play around with mutations that affect your character, spending Mutation Points to get beneficial and effective mutations.

If you’re interested in this game, it’s currently free! The designers are eager for feedback and would definitely love to hear from anyone who plays it.

Numenera / The Cypher System, by Monte Cook Games.

This is the Ninth World. The people of the prior worlds are gone—scattered, disappeared, or transcended. But their works remain, in the places and devices that still contain some germ of their original function. The ignorant call these magic, but the wise know that these are our legacy. They are our future. They are the …

Numenera.

Set a billion years in our future, Numenera is a tabletop roleplaying game about exploration and discovery. The people of the Ninth World suffer through a dark age, an era of isolation and struggle in the shadow of the ancient wonders crafted by civilizations millennia gone. But discovery awaits those brave enough to seek out the works of the prior worlds. Those who can uncover and master the numenera can unlock the powers and abilities of the ancients, and perhaps bring new light to a struggling world.

I’ve talked about it before but I really enjoy the way items in this system are used to hold really powerful abilities that are usually only used once. Your character can only carry so many Cyphers at any given time, with a risk of strange or weird things happening if they decide to carry more than their typical limit allows. Cyphers can be found on roll tables, which means that any time players decide to look for loot, the GM can just roll a d100 to generate something interesting - and if you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of customizable inventory, I recommend both the Destiny and Building Tomorrow books to complement your campaign.

Breathless: New Horizons, by The Silent Mage.

Breathless - New Horizons is a game based on a primordial future, where giant technological beasts took over with inexplicable awareness, after a scientific crash down.  This game is freely inspired on the Horizon Zero Dawn games.

As humanity rebuilds itself from nothing, you act as Hunters, skilled member of the Guilds, scouting the world for lost knowledge and mysterious pieces of technology called Echoes. 

In Breathless - New Horizons, your items are nearly equally useful to skills, with a dice attached to each item. As with other rolls in Breathless, the item deteriorates the more you use it, symbolized by the size of your dice getting smaller with each use - but unlike skills, items don’t refresh when you take a break. Use an item too much and it deteriorates to the point of uselessness, which means that getting new items is important if you want to be able to keep adventuring. Fortunately, there are loot check rolls attached to tables, which means that while you might not have a lot of control over what you get, there should be plenty of opportunities to re-stock.

This game also has a special kind of item, called an Echo, which can be carried in limited numbers (typically you can only carry 2). Echoes might require a bit of construction before they’re usable, but have special effects that go above and beyond a regular item, and some of them can even be re-charged.

Dead Meat, by Blind Ink.

Dead Meat is a hack of FIST by Claymore. It is a cyberpunk game set in a brutal, absurd dystopia where man and machine are equally worthless in the eyes of the unrelenting pressure of exploitation. Thrown headfirst into problems beyond their ability to solve, players will have to cheat, steal, and sabotage their way through missions to get by. Put money away in a stash to get out of the life, watching your friends drop like flies.

Dead Meat takes an approach to gear that is similar to what I’ve seen in games like Apocalypse World and Monster of the Week. Your gear is determined by your origin, and how the gear can be used is determined through the use of tags. Some of these tags are mechanically transparent - how many times you can use them, or how much they heal or harm - but other tags are more evocative. For example, a vampiric weapon heals you when you use it, while a messy weapon prevents enemies or victims from being identified by police. I have a feeling some of these tags could also bring a narrative downside - perhaps it’s hard to hide a murder with a messy weapon, and a weapon that houses an AI might disregard the wishes of its user.

As with many cyberpunk games, there’s plenty of items that your character can pick up and carry without that much of a drawback - because regular items aren’t what makes this interesting. What you’re really here for, is the Cyberware. In Dead Meat, Cyberware is difficult to get access to, which means that beggars can’t be choosers - if you decide to get chromed up, you’ll take whatever the market gives you, and you’ll like it. As far as I can tell, getting a new piece of Cyberware is kind of like getting a new PbtA move - for example, if you end up getting Advanced Optics, you get +1 to your Chrome stat and you have the ability to pull up someone’s records off the net.

The Grim Odd, by g0ri.

This is a grim world. Any life lived in this world shall be nasty, brutish and short. This is an odd world. From the foul cracks and fissures of the world creeps a strange and omnipotent current – the Odd. Some say the Odd suffocated the gods. Others insist the Odd is the gods. In either case, the Odd animates the living world and it presents opportunities for the daringly ambitious.

The Grim Odd is a fantasy roleplaying game that takes place in a perilous world of unjust dealings and unworldly strangeness. Roll up a character quickly, search for magical artifacts known as Oddities, and delve - as a group or alone - into a role-play experience where rules are mere tools to facilitate the application of the internal laws of the world itself.

OSR/FKR Games often put the lore in pieces of the game like characters or gear and this is a great example. The Odd is a mysterious, powerful piece of the setting, illustrated through Oddities, strange items that grant you power but demand a cost for their use. You can use these oddities to inspire an adventure or mystery, and let the players keep them as they adventure - at great personal risk.

Characters also start with a basic inventory determined by their career, which they should be able to use to solve problems in ways that help them avoid having to roll - and therefore face death or other consequences. If you want a game where your inventory is a fundamental part of telling a story, you might want to check out games like this one.

Convenience Stores & Casinos, by Archangel Studios.

We've all seen those over-the-top, high action heist movies with get-away drivers, explosives, and wild gun fights. Well, what if you took those tropes, typically reserved for the likes of bank, museum, and casino heists, and applied them to just about anything you can get your grubby paws on? I mean, a heist is a heist is a heist as long as you have the right attitude. 

Convenience Stores & Casinos is great for groups that want to go big or go home - even if going big just means an over-complicated heist just to steal a bag of chips. Characters are derived from rolled stats, and playbooks that represent different tropes in heist fiction.

There’s not a lot to do with inventory in this game; the only tables present are the weapon and armour tables. However, weapons and armour are attached to level; you have a chance of getting something good at a low level but that chance is very slim. As the characters prepare for a heist, they can roll to see what kinds of weapons they’re allowed to have, and the higher level they are, the higher chance that they find something that can pack a real punch. Combat is not something you’ll want to get into at the beginning - but as you level up, you’ll take bigger and bigger risks, which will probably lead to more and more things going wrong. I also like the section on the weapon table titled “you just wanted to play D&D didn’t you?”

Other Posts of Mine To Check Out

Markets and Trade

Gathering and Crafting

Weapons and Customization

[novelmonger]

I played Death Stranding and I have...questions.

I considered posting about these things as they came up while playing, but figured that as soon as I started talking about it, Tumblr would start throwing spoilers in my face. So instead of having to tiptoe through that minefield, I've been saving it up until I beat the game and could talk about it freely.

Spoilers ahead, read at your own risk!

Why the heck are the cities all named "____ Knot City"? Why would they not use the names of old cities or even towns that used to be roughly in the same location?

Why does no one use ordinary surnames anymore? There's literally no reason for people not to use them a mere generation (if that) since the apocalypse.

WHAT THE HECK KIND OF NAME IS DIE-HARDMAN THAT IS THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD

For that matter, why has so much changed in such a short time? The last president was still around in living memory, so the Death Stranding just happened a few decades ago at most. And I don't think this is set super far into the future - not like Horizon: Zero Dawn, for example, where it makes sense that no one remembers what life was like in 21st-century America, because it's set a thousand years in the future. Everyone over a certain age in Death Stranding can remember what it was like before, so why is everyone acting like they're unearthing some incredible archeological find when they discover that people used to...I don't know...play video games?

Carrying unborn babies around in a tank because their mothers are braindead and thus connected to the world of the dead and so the babies can detect the presence of the dead...may be one of the creepiest things I've ever done in a game before. And I can't decide if this is a pro-life thing or not, because there are soooooo many mixed messages of some characters insisting that BBs are just tools, and others who treat them like actual babies.... I mean, I saw Lou as a person from day one, and clearly, Sam came to the same conclusion since he named Lou...but I just wonder what the creators of the game were thinking when they implemented that.

Okay, I get that not everybody knows that BBs even exist, but of those who do...why are more people apparently not bothered by carrying around what is apparently a human child in a little tank??? Wouldn't it take an awful lot to convince people that the thing that looks and acts like a human child is in fact not a human being - when you can literally see everything they do, you can hear them crying, they are fully formed, so it's not like they're weird-looking little fetuses? Do I just have too high a view of humanity?!

WHO THE HECK DECIDED THAT THE OMINOUS GHOSTLY SPIRIT THINGS THAT CHASE YOU DOWN TO PULL YOU CLOSER TO DEATH SHOULD BE CALLED "BEACHED THINGS"??? WHY DID THEY GO WITH THE STUPIDEST-SOUNDING, LEAST INTIMIDATING NAME THEY COULD POSSIBLY THINK OF?! I was creeped out when they were just BTs, because that sounds kind of ominous, but as soon as I found out what that stands for, I burst out laughing. They'll never be truly intimidating again.

Why is there an online option at all in this game? Does anybody actually play with it turned on? I immediately went, "lol, nope" as soon as it was explained to me. If I wanted to play an MMO, I'd go play World of Warcraft (or whatever the kids are playing these days).

Why. On Earth. Are bodily fluids used to make grenades. Were they trying to make you feel like a monkey throwing feces around? Why is showering and using the freaking toilet an actual gameplay element? (What is this, The Sims?) Why is there a button you can press to pee on the ground while on the road? WHY DOES A HOLOGRAM OF A MUSHROOM APPEAR TO MARK THE PLACE YOU JUST WATERED THE GRASS???

Why is the tonal shift so severe when you're in a private room? Sam goes from being a stoic grumpypants who just kind of grunts at people, to making faces and breaking the fourth wall. Is this...supposed to be funny? Is what happens in private rooms outside of canon? No, that doesn't work, because there are quite a few plot-advancing cutscenes that happen in private rooms....

Why does Fragile chew so weirdly?

WHY ARE THERE ACTUAL LITERAL MONSTER ENERGY DRINKS IN THIS GAME AAAUUUUGH THE PRODUCT PLACEMENT IS SERIOUSLY MESSING WITH MY SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF DX

Why on earth is there a random hologram of Aloy and a Watcher from Horizon: Zero Dawn? All it does is serve to yank me out of my suspension of disbelief and remind me of a game that does a much more convincing job with the post-apocalyptic future of North America.

Why bother with the whole repatriation thing? Did we really need an in-universe explanation for why you can come back to life if you get a game over? Like...it's not going to make anyone forget they're playing a game. And they didn't do a great job of establishing right away whether or not Sam retained his memories after that scripted repatriation at the beginning. Left me very confused for a long while. If they wanted him to survive his wife's voidout, he could have just...not been there when it happened, you know? (Upon reaching the end of the game, I understand a little better why they did it this way, but I still think it's a bit clunky.)

Why the heck is Conan O'Brien in this game? Like, I can sort of understand Guillermo del Toro, I guess, but....

What's the point of making the MULEs addicted to oxytocin or whatever, so far gone that they're compelled to steal people's packages for the high of it? That's...really stupid and unnecessary. Seriously, you could just have them be bandits. People who are hostile to Bridges to such an extent that they attack porters on sight, or who have broken away from others and created their own little communities, and they have no qualms about stealing packages from people, in case they might contain valuable resources.

Why does nobody in this world know how to use emojis? Were all the mail messages written by boomers?

Who on earth hired the actress who played the Chiral Artist, and why didn't they get someone to play that role who could actually act?

Why is it that all the significant NPCs in the game are so...unique? You've got Mama and her BT baby, not to mention that she doesn't decay after she dies and is somehow alive in Lockne's body. You've got Deadman, who is a literal Frankenstein's monster of corpses stitched together. You've got Heartman, who undergoes cardiac arrest and gets revived every 20 minutes.... I mean, none of the characters important to the story are just normal people dealing with the Death Stranding. They're all one of a kind. Which isn't bad, per se, but it sort of stretches my suspension of disbelief. It would be one thing if it was a deliberate gathering of exceptional minds or something, but it feels like they all just "happened" to be working for Bridges or something. Am I being too picky here?

Why is Higgs that creepy? I mean, I totally dig how hard Troy Baker leaned into the craziness of the role, all slick and sinister, wearing a chiralium mask shaped like a skull, blipping in and out instead of walking two paces just because he can...but why have him smear tar around and lick it off his thumb? Why have him lick Sam's face? It just seems...rather excessive to me <_<

Who on earth came up with having Sam compare himself and Amelie to Mario and Princess Peach? Or for that matter, who had the atrociously lame idea of "Mario and Princess Beach" being an actual line of dialogue we had to hear with our own eardrums? Because I think they need to be fired. Kojima-san, if that was your idea of 'humor' or something, please fire yourself. You're not allowed to string words together anymore.

So...wait. Is it supposed to be a surprise that Clifford Unger is Lou's father? I mean, if it was believable for Sam to not have figured it out a long time ago, that would be fine even if I was pretty sure - that's just dramatic irony. But, like...Sam has been seeing visions of Lou's memories pretty much every time he hooks them up. That's canonically backed up in-story. I find it really hard to believe that Sam wouldn't have pieced it together in all that time.

When Die-Hardman finally takes off his mask...there's nothing unusual about his face? I was expecting some kind of disfigurement from timefall or something, but he looks completely normal, and yet everyone starts muttering in shock?? Is the surprise supposed to be that he's actually completely normal???

WHY ARE THERE TWO CREDIT ROLLS?!?!?!?! (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ This game take so long just to get through the ending....

Why is this game so fun and addictive despite being so wonky and weird? I loved it. Couldn't stop playing ^_^

Now that I've finished, I am so confused by the timeline and who Sam actually is, so I'm headed off to go research what the heck is up with this game @_@

[bluejaybytes]

Top 5 female protagonists in any media?

HIIIII thank you :3 fair warning this is gonna be mostly video games

1. JESSE FADEN FROM CONTROL. ough. I love her. She is my blorbo 4ever. She's besties with the alien (?) that lives in her head. She's thrown into the weirdest possible scenario and goes 'well this might as well happen'. She sees a gun laying next to a man who just died and upon being told to pick it up she immediately does. I'm in love with her

2. Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn/Horizon Forbidden West. Okay so I actually like her mom to an insane degree (ELISABETTTTTTT) and she is My Blorbo Of All Time. She's an extremely compelling character and genuinely the scene where she yells at the Nora in All-Mother Mountain for worshipping her after shunning her is so impactful. Also she's queercoded and if you want to listen for the next 5 hours I can go over every potential hint in painstaking detail

3. Squirrelflight from Warriors. I have a love/hate relationship with the awful cat books (mostly hate) but I genuinely love Squilf. I think she has some of the most interesting and compelling character moments in the entire series and I love her <3

4. Eleanor Shellstrop from The Good Place. Fun fact I share a birthday AND state with her! Wooo Arizona!!!! But also I literally cried at the finale of the show because of how much her story impacted me. She's a genuinely funny and well written character and god. Its so good

5. Diane Nguyen from Bojack Horseman. I make it a rule to not interact with Bojack Horseman content online because of how much that show specifically attracts the worst takes known to man BUT I love Diane. She is hands down the best character on the show. Her entire thing about 'good damage' and writing her memoirs just sticks with me. I love her <3

[fridge-reviews]

Recore: Definitive Edition

Developer: Amature Studio, LLC, Comcept Publisher: Xbox Game Studios Rrp: £14.99 (Humblebundle and Steam) Released: 14th September 2018 Available on: Humblebundle and Steam Played Using: An Xbox One Control Pad Approximate game length: 14 Hours

I remember seeing the trailers for this game when it was first announced, much was promised and it didn't look bad. But what have we learned about trailers? Most of the time they over promise and the games end up under delivering, and it seems that this was the case with Recore. When this game was originally released it got absolutely panned by the critics and understandably so. Buggy game play and slow load times along with a £60 price tag, it was doomed to fail. Just to add insult to injury within months of the games release Horizon Zero Dawn dropped and I can tell you choosing between this game and that one is no contest. Two years after its initial debut the Definitive Edition was released. This new version fixed quite a lot of bugs and reduced the load times as well as seemingly adding a new ending if you did enough. With this review though I'll not be taking into account how the game originally released but from what my was experience at the time of writing.

The game takes place on the planet of Far Eden which has been selected for terraforming for the remnants of humanity to live on after a cataclysm has destroyed Earth. This process of terraforming will take a long time to come to fruition, hundreds of years in fact. Due to this, Corebots (a form AI controlled robot) are sent down to handle the task while the humans remain in cryo-sleep, occasionally waking one or two specialists to oversee things and go back into stasis. This is where you come in, you play as Joule, a young woman who has awoke from cryo-sleep to find that something has gone very wrong, the terraforming hasn't occurred and nearly all the Corebots have become murderous. I say nearly because Joule is accompanied by Mack, her own trusty Corebot, and as you play through the game you'll have more Corebots that join your cause.

I've been tempted to call this game 'open world' but it doesn't meet my personal qualifiers to be classed as that. The world you play in is separated into specific areas, each time you pass from one area to another (or enter and exit most dungeons) you have to wait for a loading screen. This is quite frustrating when the world itself is quite small and that other games had been released long before this one with bigger worlds and very few loading areas (such as Skyrim and Dying Light).

Each Corebot has a coloured core (thus the name), the colour of the core dictates how the Corebot will act in combat. Typically you'll fight Corebots that are one of three colours; red, yellow or blue. Red Corebots tend to be more aggressive and can perform attacks that have a damage over time effect. Yellow Corebots have an attack that slows you down and lastly blue Corebots have an ability that will stun you, forcing you to waste precious moments freeing yourself from the effect. There are other Corebots you find that are combinations of colours, such as green or orange who can perform attacks from both colours. The last, and most important, colour is white, White Corebots are bosses and will change colour to perform attacks related to that colour.

In combat herself Joule uses a rifle to take down the various Corebots that attack, however she isn't alone, she also has a Corebot companion of her own to assist her. Joule can switch her rifle to use one of four ammo types each of which corresponding to the enemy Corebots colour (Red, Yellow and Blue). Shooting the Corebot with the matching ammo does increased damage and can even interrupt attacks. You also can command your companion Corebot to perform their own special moves on selected targets which can really even the odds. Combat is the only time you can collect enemy cores (more on that later) which cannot be attained by simply destroying the Corebot in question. So while in combat you have to decide if you want the materials the destroyed Corebot will drop or their core. If you want to collect the core you have to first weaken the Corebot to a specific point (which is indicated on their health bar) and then push the [Right Analogue stick] in. Once you do this you enter into a tug of war with that Corebot, though to be honest it has more in common with a fishing game really. Pull back on the analogue stick to try and dislodge the Corebots core, if the line glows red you need to be careful and if its white you have to release it completely or the line will break. Of course, while you're busy having a tug of war the other Corebots aren't simply going to ignore you and any damage you receive will immediately end the tug of war.

The cores and materials you collect are used to improve your friendly Corebots, which is done through two methods (both of which can only be done at a workbench) researching blueprints or fusing cores. Blueprints are found out in the world in chests etc once brought to a work bench you can research them to create new Corebot pieces each of which have stat increases and sometimes special abilities. Doing this will cost materials that you find in the world. Remember I mentioned about collecting cores? This is where those cores become important. Collected cores can be 'fused' to give stat increases to your Corebots making them much more potent in combat. Red cores increase attack power, yellow defence and blue energy (which is used for directed attacks).

Ok, lets talk about the world this game takes place on, Far Eden. From what we're told its a desert planet, with a breathable atmosphere and not much else. The problem is that the world is TOO well realised in that regard. There is nothing alive on this world (apart from the Corebots), the majority of the game is varying shades of brown under a blue sky. Sure, they break it up with the some of the remnants of the terraforming machines but those are just as lifeless and dull. Frankly, playing in this world became a tedious affair, I started using the fast travel as much as possible because I didn't want to have to trudge through that sea of brown again.

How do I feel about Recore... well in its current state I don't feel it deserves the ire it seems to be garnering. I'm not saying this game is good, per say, but it certainly isn't terrible and definitely not deserving of the 'mostly negative' it has on Steam. That being said... play Horizon Zero Dawn instead, the gameplay is better, it's prettier and frankly has a much better story.

If this appeals to you perhaps try;

Horizon Forbidden Dawn Mad Max

----

If you’d like to support me I have a Ko-fi, the reviews will continue to be posted donation or not.

[maximuswolf]

Why dont major ARPGs have randomized loot and enemies/encounters for a better endgame?

Why don’t major ARPGs have randomized loot and enemies/encounters for a better endgame? I grew up playing Diablo games and I just figured that with the success of their loot system and the way that enemies and enemy encounters were randomly generated that this would be the new standard. It probably doubles the number of hours players invest in an ARPG. At least it does for me. I love the experience of not knowing what kind of attributes might be involved in the next enemy encounter or where these encounters might take place and I love the lottery aspect of what items may drop. Games like the Borderland series have found this to be extremely successful so why are games like AC, Horizon Zero Dawn or Ghost Of Tsushima doing the same? Instead of having endgame encounters with larger groups of enemies or, at least endgame powered mini-boss types. I’m fighting the same common enemies using endgame level gear. And instead of finding powerful/interesting items, I end up with a stash of thousands of crafting items with nothing left to upgrade. At which point I stop playing a game that I would love to continue enjoying.To me this seems like a no-brainer which should have been made the standard a long time ago. Even if it’s a matter of devoting a large percentage of budget to one aspect of development over another, I’d rather the map be a little smaller or graphics a little less amazing for the sake of a more interesting endgame. Why is this not common practice in ARPGs? Submitted May 28, 2024 at 11:35AM by Dire_Hulk https://ift.tt/MzS6dwQ via /r/gaming

[elgatofmp]

Multiverse/Alternate Realities

The multiverse is a great theme to explore when making a game as it opens up a wide variety of possibilities when creating a game. The ideas that can be generated for a game using this topic is practically infinite as there is no limit to someone's imagination for a game as anything is possible.

Games such as Ark Survival Evolved and Horizon Zero Dawn are great games that take place in alternate realities where they have their own laws of how things work and various creatures and whatnot. The success behind these games are the great stories that place behind them and in the ways they show it to the character. In Horizon Zero Dawn the player gets a free wide experience of traveling and more while still being slightly guided towards a story game while keeping a feeling of freedom while Ark is a game that allows total freedom over what the player does with their minds by allowing them to tame any creature that they find and build anything they want. The only story that is in the game is when the players decide to go out to the massive obelisks around the map and complete the bosses where they get a story that keeps them engaged and gives the bosses a purpose along with getting a great rewards in terms of items.

Overall multiverses allow the creators of games total freedom over what they make since anything is possible and so this is a great theme to look into depending on the idea that I come up with.

[repentantsky2]

Why a Bloodborne Remake/Remaster is a good idea, but makes most PlayStation first Party remakes complaints, invalid.

Sorry for the long title there, but let’s be honest, people having been asking for a remake or remaster of Bloodborne, since they knew for sure that the next gen, now current gen PS5, was called the PS5. With the recent release of The Last of Us Part 1, not even a month ago as of me writing this, and the rumors of a Horizon Zero Dawn remake and multiplayer co-op game, the demand for a Bloodborne remake or remaster has yet again been in high demand on places like twitter. It’s almost to the point where if you’re on gaming twitter, unless you stick to more niche title like The Legend of Heroes: Trails From Zero, or any other currently popular AA or indie title, you’re going to see talk about Bloodborne. 

I have no problem with the idea of remaking or remastering Bloodborne at all, but it does bring up a point worth mentioning, and that’s that people complaining about The Last of Us getting a remake was a bad idea because it’s on PS4 or because it’s only 9 years old, is complete bull. While I agree that Bloodborne deserves the remake more than Horizon Zero Dawn does, that doesn’t change the fact that the two biggest arguments against TLoU Part 1, and what will inevitably be the two biggest arguments against an HZD Remake, are completely loads of crap. While people like myself already knew this, after all people have been asking for at least that Bloodborne remaster for over 3 years now, despite it being a 2015 game, I think it should become obvious to anyone who hasn’t been paying as much attention, that these supposed solid talking points, are just people who would rather a game they prefer get the treatment that games they don’t are now getting.

Again, don’t misunderstand, while I don’t think HZD needs a remake or remaster, hell on PC the game looks almost as good as the PS5 version of Horizon Forbidden West, I wasn’t as upset about The Last of Us Part 1. But my problem is, I don’t like it when people lie to try and make a point, and it’s clear as day those two major complaints, were along the lines, “rules for thee, but not for me” and you had better believe that if the tables were turned, Bloodborne fans would be acting the same way as they’ve called Last of Us fans out for acting. If someone who would rather Bloodborne was getting this treatment just straight up told me, that’s what they want, and they don’t care about other games getting the same treatment as much, if at all, I could respect that, whether I agreed or not, but the lying to try and not seem that way, honestly comes off as very toxic, if not entitled or just plain “I’m better than you because my game tastes are better, says me and this army of twitter who can’t stop tweeting the same thing.” 

Now, all that aside, a lot of people seem to misunderstand that the barrier for doing anything for the game, is different than other PlayStation exclusives. I’ve seen several people claim that Bloodborne is a 1st party game, and it is not. These days, FromSoftware, the company that developed it, is owned by a lot of different people. Well, technically 3 or 4. While I’m not 100% certain Bandai Namco has anything to do with them anymore, I do know that Tencent, Kadokawa, Kadokawa Games and Sony all have a piece of the pie. While Kadokawa would likely only be one entity to deal with while making a game, Tencent and Sony are different beasts. Obviously, Sony is going to want more games exclusive to the PS5, while Kadokawa and Tencent likely want the biggest audience. Assuming that’s true, the work needed to get the game remade as an exclusive, is a large hurdle to overcome. Sony can’t just snap their fingers, find a developer to make the game, and bam it’s done. Something has to give between at least enough of those who have ownership in FromSoftware, for a game to be made exclusive to the PS5, or even be on PC and PS5. Would I like that to happen, sure, but does it take more work from Sony to get it done, thus decreasing incentive to do it? Yeah. 

So, next time you’re talking about Remasters or Remakes for games that are in Sony’s library, please do everyone a favor, be kind, don’t lie, inform yourself of what it actually takes to get what you want, and don’t insult people who want something different. Let’s just enjoy video games yeah?  

[magnusvale]

I've seen a couple sad AU's where Ingo comes back as a ghost Pokemon, so I'm adding a slightly different one to the mix. This was originally going to be just an aesthetic piece, but my brain decided to go off the deep end and write something. I'm not normally a fanfic writer either, go figure. I might write drabbles in this from time to time too, feel free to play with it yourselves as well! Sorry if my writing isn't too great, I haven't done creative stuff in forever.

Ficlet below the cut.

Warning for major character death and injury (probably obvious by the premise, but just putting this here in case). Also SPOILERS for PLA.

“Child,” Arceus murmurs, as soft as the god could, “I cannot grant what you wish.”

Dawn glares at the creator god, fists clenched, trembling. The flute in her hands creaks precariously under the pressure. Her lips wobble as she attempts to hold in her composure.

“However, while I cannot restore a life that is lost, perhaps there is something that I can do for him.” “Please!” Dawn yells, barely holding onto hope. “He deserves better than this!”

“I will do what I can, child,” Arceus says, as soothingly as they can muster, “But first, I believe it is time to restore you to your correct place.”

“Wait!” Dawn yelps, gesturing wildly. “What are you going to-“ She is not even able to finish her thought as she disappears in a flash of light. As their chosen returns to her own time, Arceus turns to the horizon and considers the fate of the lost Warden. Perhaps there might be a way to reward the man for his service.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dawn dodges, breathless, as the god of Antimatter throws attack after attack. Volo’s ambush had truly caught her off guard, and though she had bested him in battle and Giratina in it’s first form, the second form barely gave her time to react. Most of her Pokémon fainted valiantly in battle already, her dearest Samurott barely hanging on. Cursing, Dawn dodges out of the way of another attack, forcing her out into the open.

A single unlucky moment, and her foot catches on an uneven patch on the floor, sending her sprawling. Panicked, she realizes that her partner is too far across the room to help. Giratina, making an bloodcurdling sound, launches several dark tendrils directly at her. Gasping, Dawn is unable to get to her feet to dodge, staring down the attack in horror as it zeroes in.

Suddenly her vision is blocked. Something warm and wet splatters across her face and clothes.

Ingo falls in front of her with a grunt, dropping to his side.

“Sorry I was so late, Lady Dawn,” he forces out, voice far too quiet for the normally boisterous man. Dawn whimpers softly, turning him to face her. His torso is punctured with multiple wounds from Giratina’s attack. Ingo softly laughs, blood on his lips.

“Looks like this line may be shutting down permanently,” he says sadly. Dawn shakes her head, refusing to accept it. He gently takes her hand from his shoulder, before coughing, splattering the ground below him with blood.

“You need to hurry,” he chokes out. “That Pokémon is definitely going to attach again soon. Please, Dawn.”

He pauses and squeezes her hand with the last of his strength.

“Please, save Hisui, and most importantly, save yourself.”

Ingo’s hand slips from Dawn, and his eyes slide shut.

Screaming, Dawn prays to the Almighty, and the Almighty answers her rage. Giratina does not last much longer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two hundred years later, a man trudges through the snow filled paths of Mount Coronet. His pure white coat sways in the gentle breeze. It is a clear day, but cold, not the worst weather for a climb up the blustery peak. Emmet, were he in a more coherent state of mind, would thank Elesa for giving him a winter version of his normal uniform coat. The soft, insulated lining was certainly making the trek much easier on him. However, Emmet was not currently in the state of mind to be thinking much of other people, or even of his own sorry state.

The Sinnoh Historical Research Society had given him directions to a certain location at the peak. Chandelure, loyal Pokémon that they were, gently lit the way for him as they move forward, providing him with a soft and gentle warmth. He keeps one hand on their glass, and they trill gently to comfort him.

Finally, Emmet reaches a cave hidden in one of the crevices of mountain. Next to the cave’s entrance, his target awaits, a stone monument softly covered in a layer of snow. Trembling, Emmet reaches a gloved hand to wipe the precipitation away from the inscription.

“Ingo

Warden of Sneasler

Your Heroic Sacrifice Was Not in Vain

All of Hisui is Thankful for your Courage”

The words echo in Emmet’s mind blankly, as if they refused to set in. Stumbling back, he collapses into a snow drift, unable to find the strength to get up. This was the final confirmation of his brother’s fate, the one thing he never wanted to hear. Emmet wants to scream, to rage against the heaven, but his voice dies in his throat and all he manages is a strangled sound. He feels unshed tears freeze in his eyes as he stares at the ground, as if wishing it to give him a better answer. Emmet spirals into a state of despair, and he almost misses the soft chime of alarm that Chandelure makes.

Looking up, Emmet sees a blue and purple flame softly burning in front of Ingo’s grave. As he watches, it coalesces into a familiar shape, the same as the loyal Pokémon that had accompanied him here. However…

“Strange,” Emmet thinks, half in a fugue stage,” I’ve never seen a Chandelure with silver eyes before.”

The strange Chandelure stares at him and his Chandelure for a moment, then suddenly bursts into a giant conflagration. Emmet yells and launches himself backwards automatically, Ingo’s and his Chandelure weaving between him and the blaze protectively. The flames are so bright that Emmet throws an arm across his face, protecting himself from the light and heat.

After a few moments, Emmet can feel the surge die down. As he moves his arm away from his face, he hears Chandelure make a loud cry of surprise. Worried, he looks immediately where the other Chandelure had been and has to choke back a cry of his own.

Instead of a Pokémon, a familiar, too familiar form is standing where the Chandelure had been.

“Ingo?” Emmet manages to croak out, before immediately dropping into a dead faint.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ingo was rather surprised to find himself back near Sneasler’s cave when he was fairly sure he had been dying of blood loss at the summit of Mount Coronet just a short while ago. He glances down, and realizes that not only are his feet not on the ground, he doesn’t even have feet. Starting to panic, he realizes that his new body looks strangely familiar, almost like a …

“Chandelure…” his mind supplies, and with that a flood of memories rushes through him. His past, his life in Unova, memories all flood through him, filling him with regret and sadness. All the people he had lost, his Pokémon partners, his beloved subway. And worst of all, his brother, his other half, his best friend! How could he have forgotten so much! Would he never see it again?

Suddenly, Ingo feels a rush of power through him. A strange divine energy fills him and he only has a moment to feel pain before it entirely overwhelms him. Distantly, he thinks he can hear the crackle of flames, but he can barely think straight at the moment.

Almost as quickly as the power enters, it leaves. Ingo crosses his arms tightly across his chest to try and control his shaking, then comes to a realization. He has arms! Glancing down he can see that he has legs again! Certainly, things are looking a bit up, although he is fairly certain that the fact that he was a Chandelure a few moments ago bodes ill for his current predicament.

“Ingo?” Ingo glances up in shock as he hears his name called, just in time to see his brother collapse into the snow.

“EMMET!” Ingo yells, rushing forward to pull his brother out of the snow drift. Emmet is out like a light, unresponsive to Ingo’s gentle shaking. Ingo gently lifts his brother into his arms and moves into the cave, where Lady Sneasler had once made her home. As he enters, a monument next to the door catches his eye, and he quickly reads the inscription that had been recently cleared off. A feeling of dread fills him as the words sink in, confirming his theory about him previously being a Chandelure.

Something trills near Ingo’s ear, nearly causing him to drop Emmet in surprise. Glancing over, he sees a very familiar Pokémon, and the corners of Ingo’s mouth quirk upwards in his form of a delighted smile.

“Chandelure, my beloved partner!” Ingo crows. Chandelure makes a happy noise, and gently bonks their face against his forehead in a gentle greeting. Ingo can’t believe that he had forgotten his most reliable Pokémon partner, the years of memory gently resettling in his mind with a feeling of warmth and comfort. Motioning with his head for Chandelure to follow, Ingo brings Emmet into the cave to get him out of the colder air.

Ingo briefly feels a moment of sadness entering the cave, which had obviously been long abandoned. None of his furnishings or any marks of Lady Sneasler’s presence remain, only an empty room. Sighing, Ingo places Emmet’s unconscious body on a ledge where Ingo used to sleep, and steps back into mountain area to grab branches from a nearby tree for firewood.

Reentering the cave, he places the branches in the center in the indentation where the firepit once stood. Ingo feels a soft rush of gratitude that his partner is there to help him make a fire, as this would be quite difficult without proper kindling or tools.

Ingo motions towards the branches.

“Chandelure, would you…” Ingo cuts off his request as fire jumps from his own hands and onto the gathered wood. Ingo and his partner Pokémon both stare at the newly crackling fire in silent shock.

Sighing, Ingo moves Emmet a bit closer to the flames to keep him warm. Chandelure hovers close by.

While his brother rests, Ingo gives himself a once over to try and figure out what has happened to himself. He goes to lift his hands to his face, and stops, staring at the strange marks across his wrists, that look almost like those around Chandelure’s mouth. His nails have turned dark, as if wearing black nail polish, and they look almost as though they’ve been filed to points. Finally lifting his hands to his face, he runs his fingers across the planes of his face. He sighs in relief as his visage feels the same as always. He runs his hands through his hair and finds the feeling strange, almost wispy, as if he’s trying to put his hands through a thick steam. Grabbing the end of the ponyta tail that he had grown while in Hisui, he notes worriedly that while the base looks fairly normal, the end has almost a wispy, flame like quality, and the silver appears to fade into a purple blue color.

Looking down, it’s clear that the most obvious change has occurred in his torso area. His chest appears to be covered in a glass like substance. Ingo nervously notes that his chest appears to be glowing from within, and much as he doesn’t want to consider the possibility, he doesn’t think the glass is some kind of covering. He taps his tapered fingernails against the glass gently, and he can definitely feel something, as if a vibration is occurring down to his very core. Ingo shudders, and Chandelure swoops closer, murmuring worriedly. Ingo softly rubs one of Chandelure’s swirls to comfort them, then realizes that a very similar swirl was decorating the edge of his clothing.

His coat had certainly changed since he last saw it. The stripes and tearing was gone, replaced by a dark purplish black, edged with glowing blue. Within the folds of his coat, he could see more glowing material, although it wasn’t immediately obvious when the coat was resting on the ground. The edges of the coat were decorated with swirls in a motif similar to his partner’s design.

Instead of his usual pants, he was wearing a different black set with multiple seams running down his legs. Whatever had changed his clothes had apparently forgotten to give him shoes, as he was currently barefoot, showing off his toes that now matched his fingernails. Around his ankles, a pair of small familiar flames hovered.

“Apparently we match now,” Ingo says distractedly to Chandelure, who gives the Pokémon version of a shrug.

There is only one conclusion to be made, as much as Ingo hates to make it. He had definitely died back on Mount Coronet, he had somehow come back as a ghost Pokémon, and something had given him the ability to take a mostly human form. The entire twisted logic process makes his head hurt.

Ingo doesn’t have much time to think on it, though, as Emmet begins to moan softly and rouse from unconsciousness. Panicking, Ingo tries to look for somewhere to hide, so that he wouldn’t immediately stress out his brother upon waking. With a sudden pop, Ingo vanishes from sight.

Emmet takes a moment to move himself into a sitting position, holding his head in his hands. Suddenly the memories of the moments before his dive into unconsciousness return, and he jumps to his feet, looking around frantically. He was sure he had seen his brother, was he just hallucinating?

“Ingo!?” Emmet yells, realizing that he is suddenly inside the cave with no idea how he got there. Chandelure suddenly drifts by his head, making a soft chiming sound that almost sounds like laughter. Emmet starts to wonder if he hit his head a little too hard and had made up some sort of bizarre dream regarding his brother in his grief, when an achingly familiar voice echoes through the cave.

“Emmet,” Ingo’s voice rings out, sounding strangely soft and muffled.

“I am Emmet!” Emmet yelps, looking around frantically, “You are Ingo, yes? Where are you?”

“That is an excellent question!” Ingo proclaims. Feelings rush through Emmet, relief, worry, sadness, confusion, and comfort at the familiar tone, as echoey and weird as it was sounding at the moment.

“Ingo! Come out now!” Emmet demands, searching.

“I AM TRYING—oof!” Suddenly Ingo pops out of nowhere and lands on top of his brother. Yelping, the two go down in a pile of tangled limbs. Attempting to get up, Emmet accidentally places his hand on his brother’s chest, and Ingo recoils backwards, crossing his arms.

“PLEASE DO NOT CROSS THE YELLOW LINE!” He bellows, bewildered. Emmet, equally as bewildered, stares at him.

“You are glowing,” he says, finally. Ingo nods.

“It feels strange to touch. I am not used to it yet,” he admits. Emmet stares at his brother’s new appearance, remembers the events before his appearance, and asks the question he really doesn’t want answered.

“Ingo, are you dead?” Ingo looks away before giving a barely perceptible nod. Emmet feels like he’s about to break down again when his brother continues to speak.

“Emmet, I’m so sorry,” Ingo says, loud voice quavering, “I never meant to leave you alone for so long! When I got pulled to Hisui, I lost my memories, and had no idea how to get back or even where back was!”

“I know,” Emmet says softly, fiddling with his gloves, “I read about you in Sinnoh’s historical records. That’s how I found…” Emmet swallows, then forces the word out, “Your grave.”

Ingo looks briefly distraught at the fact that he even has a grave. Seeing Emmet’s downturned face, barely holding it together, Ingo shoves aside his own grief at his predicament. He gently puts an arm around his brother’s shoulders, startling Emmet into making a small gasp.

“I know it’s far from ideal,” Ingo says, pulling Emmet closer, pushing their heads together, “But I’m pretty sure that I’m not going anywhere now. I know that I look horrible, but…”

“You’re staying?” Emmet asks, a small feeling of hope growing in his chest.

“As long as there’s a place for me,” Ingo agrees. Emmet flaps his hands a few times in joy, then gently puts his arms around Ingo’s neck, avoiding the glass for now. Chandelure gently swoops overhead a few times, trilling happily.

“Explaining this to Elesa is going to be weird,” Emmet comments, as the two brothers rise off the floor, and head out of the cave.

“Elesa,” Ingo repeats, the memories of the spirited woman finally returning. “I doubt she’d be fooled into thinking I’m trying a new style, right?” He asks slyly, holding back a laugh.

“Nope!” Emmet chirps, marching forwards gleefully. “She knows you too well! And the glowing gives it away!”

“Oh well,” Ingo finally gives in and laughs, “We can figure out what to tell people once we get home.”

As they leave the cave, Ingo glances back one more time, and says a small prayer of gratitude to his Lady for his time in Hisui. Although he has finally returned to his station, he feels a slight chill of melancholy at the thought of all those he had left in the past. He’s sure that he will have time to dwell on it later, but for now, he wants to celebrate his reunion with his most precious family. Rushing, he catches up to his brother, who has paused his trek down the mountain to wait for Ingo to catch up.

Emmet stares at him a moment, before pointing at his feet.

“You know you’re floating, right?” “WHAT?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s really quite simple,” Arceus muses aloud, as they lounge on a bank of clouds in the Celestial Realm. Palkia rolls their eyes and Dialaga tunes out their divine parent. Mew rolls by somewhere in the background in an iridescent bubble, then immediately vanishes with a pop.

“The human’s soul had quite a strong attachment to the world, based on his love for both the land of Hisui and for his friends and family in the future,” Arceus continues, ignoring their uninterested audience. “Therefore, he remained. However, a human soul cannot be seen by most people. So we needed his soul to become something that people can see!”

Arceus lunged down from his perch, landing in front of Dialaga and startling them out of their daydreams.

“And what dead thing can people see all the time?” Arceus asks their time-wielding offspring.

“Ghost Pokémon?” Dialaga ventures, already knowing the answer.

“Ghost Pokémon! I convert the human’s soul to his favorite ghost type!” Arceus confirms, eagerly. They prance, off, leaving Dialaga to slump back down and return to their thoughts.

“Of course, unfortunately, ghost Pokémon aren’t particularly good at communicating with people, so I had to fix that. I’m sure that not being able to communicate would be quite distressing for the human’s family and to my chosen, of course. And if my chosen gets distressed, she’ll do that little lip wobbly thing. And nobody wants to see the lip wobble.”

Everyone present makes soft sounds of agreement. Nobody was safe from Dawn’s sad face.

“So, I simply force the Pokémon form into a human form, simple as can be. An elegant solution, if I do say so myself,” Arceus croons, smugly.

“And that’s just going to work?” Palka asks, somewhat perturbed.

“Certainly,” Arceus says assuredly. “The human is Ingo on the inside and Ingo on the outside. A Chandelure in the middle somewhere shouldn’t cause any major issues.”

“You sure about that, oh divine creator?” Dialaga asks, sighing.

“Either way, it’s not my problem anymore,” Arceus continues blithely. “All humans are in their correct time zone and mostly intact. They can handle it from here.”

Mew goes rolling past a second time at mach speeds, crashing through a cloudbank. Palkia sighs and decides it’s not worth arguing about.

How much trouble could one ghost human Pokémon hybrid cause anyway?

[edenmemes]

horizon zero dawn starters

❝  you can sense it. you already know you’re going to lose.  ❞ ❝  did you want to be alone?  ❞ ❝  you wouldn’t be so eager to speak with me if you knew me.  ❞ ❝  that will draw attention. we won’t have this place to ourselves for long now.  ❞ ❝  it’s a world worth fighting for. not just here. everywhere.  ❞ ❝  trying to live up to glorious pasts has a way of getting people killed.  ❞ ❝  never celebrate a victory before it’s earned.  ❞ ❝  i crave vengeance. do you?  ❞ ❝  my comrades weren’t so lucky. i might shed a tear, if they weren’t all cutthroats and cheaters.  ❞ ❝  i’ll always have a minute for you. maybe even two.  ❞ ❝  you walk on the edge of life and death. i can tell.  ❞ ❝  what is a gift but an award you did not earn?  ❞ ❝  so many voices to listen to, it must make your head hurt. i promise my voice will be soft and soothing.  ❞ ❝  i wish i could borrow some of your courage now.  ❞ ❝  i’ve always wondered. are all your kind hunters and fighters, or just a few?  ❞ ❝  no one doubts your determination. but you need to rest.  ❞ ❝  a bold claim. i wonder if you’ll live up to it.  ❞ ❝  why would someone name a knife?  ❞ ❝  so you’re alive ! we should celebrate! drinks on me!  ❞ ❝  try not to forget me, while you’re out there saving the world.  ❞ ❝  when we spoke earlier, you winced, then looked like you were in pain - or frightened.  ❞ ❝  i’m really not one for crowds.  ❞ ❝  so - how are we gonna do that? oh, wait, i forgot. we won’t. i do all the dangerous stuff.  ❞ ❝  i knew there was something about you. hammered from the stuff they make leaders out of.  ❞ ❝  no matter what happens, i will not intervene. do you understand? you are on your own.  ❞ ❝  it’s always a pain in the neck when you show up, girl, one way or another.  ❞ ❝  you’re bleeding, let me have a look. here, hold still.  ❞ ❝  just don’t think this means i enjoy it.  ❞ ❝  i don’t want to jinx it, but we might be in the clear.  ❞ ❝  when i start a fuss, i like to finish it.  ❞ ❝  i promise to look solemn at your funeral before i hit the bar.  ❞ ❝  what could go wrong? turns out, a lot.  ❞ ❝  let me come with you! i won’t be a bother. i know how to stay out of sight.  ❞ ❝  now i’m supposed to fill ____’s shoes. and instead, here i am, stumbling around in them.  ❞ ❝  we need to talk - alone. and you need to pull it together.  ❞ ❝  i guess growing up means putting what you should do in front of what you want to do, right?  ❞ ❝  oh, are you going to shut your mouth now? because that would be a surprise.  ❞ ❝  i will come to you in secret. no one will see me, so i won’t get in trouble.  ❞ ❝  it looks like something chewed you up and spat you out.  ❞ ❝  these are the true wilds, with threats unlike any you have ever faced.  ❞ ❝  that moment the door opened and you were standing there, and the way you smiled... i had to look away or you were going to see. on my face. what had just... blossomed inside me, you know?  ❞ ❝  i’m not afraid of you - i’m not afraid of anything.  ❞ ❝  stop being evasive? you might as well tell me to stop being charming. it’s impossible.  ❞ ❝  what a waste. at least he died better than he lived.  ❞ ❝  i’ve been looking up at the stars a lot, and the only story i see written across them is that we are small and insignificant and will soon disappear with hardly a trace left behind. it’s a hard story, and i don’t like it much..  ❞ ❝  if i’m going to stand for something, it’ll have to be something i believe in.  ❞ ❝  the strength to stand alone, is the strength to make a stand.  ❞ ❝  soon it’ll all seem familiar. like home.  ❞ ❝  now i see that i was just lucky to get a minute of your time.  ❞ ❝  i know my duty to them - and to you. i’m here. and wherever you go...i will follow.  ❞ ❝  you're really good at making it impossible to like you.  ❞ ❝  i’ve missed our little talks.  ❞ ❝  will change happen at all, while men live in palaces?  ❞ ❝  confidence is quiet. you’re not.  ❞ ❝  you’re not a very convincing liar.  ❞ ❝  i already have all the friends i need. i don’t need the bother.  ❞ ❝  all right, cool your fire. i got nothing to hide.  ❞ ❝  i see you don’t recognize me. well, it was a long time ago.  ❞ ❝  you will turn back - or bleed. your choice.  ❞ ❝  when we met, i thought i was a big shot talking to a pretty girl hidden away in the middle of nowhere.  ❞ ❝  you would speak ill of the dead? truly you have no shame.  ❞ ❝  truth is, i get lonely once in awhile. there. i admitted it. don’t think less of me.  ❞ ❝  do you have any idea how dangerous it is out there?  ❞ ❝  but i don’t know anyone here.  ❞ ❝  come on, stop. you’re going to make me tear up.  ❞ ❝  i feel like i should drop to my knees and worship you.  ❞ ❝  think i’m done? think again. i’ve gotten out of worse scrapes.  ❞ ❝  it’s hard to imagine where we’d be without you - and i don’t want to try.  ❞ ❝  if we’re to fight together on the brink of life and death, i’d prefer to do so with your forgiveness.  ❞ ❝  trust is for fools. it shifts and crumbles like sand.  ❞ ❝  what will you do while i risk my life?  ❞ ❝  you can smile, can’t you? ...no, that’s a grimace.  ❞ ❝  you killed that demon...pulled its guts from the carcass!  ❞ ❝  the sooner you’re gone from here, the better.  ❞ ❝  for now, all you need to know is that i’m a whisper of reason in this howling pit of insanity.  ❞ ❝  i heard the rumors, but i didn’t know for sure until saw you just now. i’m glad to see you’re okay.  ❞ ❝  no barrier can now stay you from your sacred task.  ❞ ❝  i won’t deny i risked your life. but it was the only way.  ❞ ❝  they can’t shoot if they’re dead. keep them busy, i’ll find an angle.  ❞ ❝  comforts are weakness.  ❞ ❝  as for honor, sacrifice-- true sacrifice, the kind rulers know nothing of -- it’s all a fat joke.  ❞ ❝  i’ve been sharpening my blade, anticipating the scent of the fight.  ❞ ❝  you’re not just a traveler. that armor was fitted for you. and the way you hold your bow...  ❞ ❝  i’d expect to see some tomatoes fly, maybe rocks. hopefully not spears. in any case, be ready to duck.  ❞ ❝  i’m not here for the price on your head.  ❞ ❝  for a moment, i was a child again, rapt from stories told by hunters at the campfire.  ❞ ❝  this...attachment to me will only hold you back.  ❞ ❝  whatever you do, don’t let their shabby looks fool you! they’ll kill you as soon as look at you.  ❞ ❝  i’m doing what i love. and what could be wrong with that?  ❞ ❝  when the arrowhead passes between armor and skin - that’s the place i belong.  ❞ ❝  right. why would i expect an answer? it’s so much more exciting to keep it all a mystery...  ❞ ❝  oh, it’s a story all right, but it takes a while to tell. maybe another time, over a drink or three?  ❞ ❝  why are you talking like we’ll never see each other again?  ❞ ❝  i’ll wager you don’t scare easy - it’s a good quality.  ❞ ❝  there will be people celebrating, and feasting. more than you've ever see in one place.  ❞ ❝  i didn’t bring you here to answer questions. i brought you here to deal with that.  ❞ ❝  ...you’ve...put a lot of thought into this.  ❞ ❝  i do not want to hear this talk from you again. doubt is heavier than a week’s snow.  ❞ ❝  bandits are drawn to here like infection to a wound.  ❞ ❝  i guess you’re doing the right thing for the wrong reason.  ❞ ❝  i thought you and i were agreed: only enjoy the killing as much as the challenge.  ❞ ❝  rumors spread like blood.  ❞ ❝  they would steal from us, chase us through the night, laughing.  ❞ ❝  leave it too long, your fingers itch for the bowstring.  ❞ ❝  you’re strong, shrewd, capable... i could use someone like you on my side.  ❞ ❝  you defeated it? alone?  ❞ ❝  grasp your grief. and kill it.  ❞ ❝  at least i’ll have a fire to keep me company.  ❞ ❝  only survivors scar. after everything you’ve been through, you keep going.  ❞ ❝  just stop being evasive and tell me who you really are.  ❞ ❝  i don’t mind putting my worthless ass on the line. but not yours.  ❞ ❝  i’m not here to intrigue you.  ❞ ❝  how about you? who do you think i am? what will you remember of me? ❞ ❝  everything freezing. the ground, the air... me.  ❞ ❝  you lost someone you care about. that leaves a wound. the sort of wound a lot of people don’t recover from.  ❞ ❝  the only thing i know i’m still fighting for is...you.  ❞ ❝  i didn’t earn this mercy, but i will die to make myself worthy of it.  ❞ ❝  to say you have my gratitude feels woefully insufficient. you saved my life.  ❞ ❝  makes you wish you could kill them more than once, doesn’t it?  ❞ ❝  why did you act so strange when we spoke earlier?  ❞ ❝  being smart won’t count for nothing if you don’t make the world a better place.  ❞ ❝  to serve a purpose greater than yourself...that is the lesson you must learn.  ❞ ❝   if a big, meaningful talk is what you’re after, move along.  ❞ ❝  that carcass! what sort of beast was that?  ❞ ❝  what are you doing out here all alone? where are your men?  ❞ ❝  you’ve obviously heard of me. you know what i’m capable of. why do you think this will turn out well for you?  ❞ ❝  there’s so much to discover before the world ends.  ❞ ❝  i couldn’t wait to see you again. it’s like...i’m dead and only come alive when i’m here with you.  ❞ ❝  some even say you have a conscience. how extraordinary!  ❞ ❝  do you always accuse people you’ve just met of lying?  ❞ ❝  if you ever visit, look me up. i’ll show you around, make introductions. it’d be a whole new life, if you want it.  ❞ ❝  it had a name once, not that it matters now. i was born there.  ❞ ❝  i always knew you were different... i think you’re a blessing.  ❞ ❝  no one hears your prayers anyway.  ❞ ❝  this place is difficult even for the prepared.  ❞ ❝  i underestimated you. i won’t make that same mistake again.  ❞ ❝  oh. is that supposed to sound scary or something?  ❞ ❝  look, maybe i shouldn’t say this, but it’s obvious that you don’t belong in this... backwater.  ❞ ❝  were you kept hidden away? did you have overprotective parents or something?  ❞ ❝  hmph. don’t go soft on me.  ❞ ❝  i prefer the company of spirits. or my own.  ❞ ❝  blood spilled calls for blood spilled! if the ground is cursed, then let our vengeance sanctify it.  ❞ ❝  so many people here, all talking at once. how does anyone think?  ❞ ❝  why is it that every time something bad happens to you, someone else tells you something bad that happened to them, as if that makes it any better?  ❞ ❝  i’ve never seen armor like yours.  ❞ ❝  the wrongness here jags at me like an arrowhead.  ❞ ❝  when you found me, i was trying to eke out a glorious death. but now a glorious life seems more preferable.  ❞ ❝  tomorrow, may the sun rise on the world.  ❞ ❝  you saved my epitaph from being ‘a fine soldier but a fool of a man’.  ❞ ❝  i don’t think i know you at all. but i’d like to.  ❞ ❝  i don’t like this. it feels...wrong.  ❞ ❝  oh, i’m grateful for this wound. it’s a lesson i won’t forget.  ❞ ❝  you’re a clever one. but not so clever as to heed my warning, i see.  ❞ ❝  not everyone follows the law like you do.  ❞ ❝  how many times have i pulled you from danger by your neck? made excuses for your behavior?  ❞ ❝  for what it’s worth, i’m glad you’re coming with me.  ❞ ❝  what have i ever given you but struggle?  ❞ ❝  it’s starting to feel real, you know? that we might actually get out of this place.  ❞ ❝  i’ve never been part of anything. i serve my own interests. always.  ❞ ❝  i apologize for my...behavior. i thought i was dead.  ❞ ❝  look, i don’t even know your story. must be a good one. if you ever feel like telling it, look me up.  ❞ ❝  when my anger has thawed, i will feel nothing.  ❞ ❝  i can’t remember when i had this much fun! i should be thanking you!  ❞ ❝  you gave him a quicker death than he deserved.  ❞ ❝  that...could be the last creepy thing you’ve said to me.  ❞ ❝  something’s really bothering you. if you think i’m gonna abandon you, you’re wrong.  ❞ ❝  surprised you saw me, the way you keep looking every other direction to make sure no one’s watching. careful there, or you’ll sprain your neck.  ❞ ❝  remember how the blood pounded in your ears? they’ll ring later, in the calm. it’s a call to arms, from your inner desires.  ❞ ❝  ___’s dead. i was ready to go through anything to make that happen. and i did.  ❞ ❝  is there a reason why you’re acting so cranky today?  ❞ ❝  you hold your grief close, like a tailsman.  ❞ ❝  i hope you can find peace.  ❞ ❝  you don’t know who i am, do you?  ❞ ❝  you know there’s always been dirt on my hands. now there’s blood too.  ❞ ❝  i want to be strong like you. but...  ❞ ❝  i hadn’t given up on hope, but i’ve forgotten the taste of it.  ❞ ❝  just...don’t start singing again.  ❞ ❝  you’re sparing me? after all i’ve done?  ❞ ❝  i don’t intend to die today.  ❞ ❝  it will take many good deeds to make up for the crimes you’ve committed.  ❞ ❝  but why should you have justice, and not me?  ❞ ❝  such a voice... a cold, awful jangle that scrapes your bones and hollows your guts.  ❞ ❝  one more word, and i’ll throw you in jail myself.  ❞ ❝  only in the struggle against death do we find, even for a moment, the spark of life.  ❞ ❝  the war changed you. changed us both. we’re not kids anymore.  ❞ ❝  i can’t sleep, i can’t breathe knowing you could be out there...hurting...  ❞ ❝  now i’m left to wear my sins. for me, at least, they hang heavy.  ❞       ❝  but what does a girl like you know of loss?  ❞ ❝  it’s a good thing you’ve got brains. because your personality could use some work.  ❞ ❝  i was going to ask you to leave with me...to go somewhere out in the sun where no shadow could reach us.  ❞ ❝  they didn’t need to disgrace my name. i did it myself, serving a rotten throne. ❞ ❝  you don’t approve? well, i have a secret for you. neither do i.  ❞ ❝  perhaps you are not an evil man. just a weak one.  ❞ ❝  losses can feel... overwhelming. but they remind us of our connections to others.  ❞ ❝  i don’t exactly see anyone beating down the door to spend time with you.  ❞ ❝  if i had known, i would never have spoken to you.  ❞ ❝  forge a new life. one of better make.  ❞ ❝  impossible odds, fine company, killing without consequence --- how could i resist?  ❞ ❝  look at me. i can’t imagine how you’re feeling, but you don’t have to go through it alone.  ❞ ❝  i wish i had known, all this time, what you were going through.  ❞ ❝  i’m with you. until the end.  ❞ ❝  i thought you just wanted to have tea and conversation! is there a battle coming? i wasn’t informed!  ❞ ❝  we’ve only met a few times, and yet you know me so well.  ❞ ❝  are you going to drive me off, too? it’s okay. i’ve dealt with worse.  ❞ ❝  now i know the kind of person i want to be, watching you.  ❞ ❝  it’s so...bittersweet. like a smile through bloodied teeth.  ❞ ❝  i swear i saw my ancestors... they said: ‘we’re not surprised to see you here’.  ❞ ❝  more mercenaries? what kind of person sells their loyalty?  ❞ ❝  keep moving or you’ll die!  ❞ ❝  this is the kind of place you’d take someone if you want to lose them forever.  ❞ ❝  if that’s destiny, i wouldn’t wish it on anyone.  ❞ ❝  i’ve thought about what you said. every time, the wound you gave me caught on my ribs.  ❞ ❝  i’ve never seen such disregard for personal safety.  ❞ ❝  the most important thing is what you’re not like - your father.  ❞ ❝  i’m never lonely where there’s killing to be done.  ❞ ❝  my past - and my secrets - are my own. you’ll do well to remember that.  ❞ ❝  only to you do i extend the courtesy of a warning.  ❞ ❝  if the war’s not over, i’m not done.  ❞ ❝  a long kiss, the best kind... i can still remember the feel of your hand on the back of my neck.  ❞ ❝  it would be a worse fate to bow our heads to the challenge and say, ‘too much’.  ❞ ❝  let’s not say farewell. i’ve had enough of that to last me a dozen winters.  ❞ ❝  have your wounds even had time to heal?  ❞ ❝  you can stop worrying. the secret’s safe with me.  ❞ ❝  just to be clear, i have no plans to murder you, alright?  ❞ ❝  you’re an idiot. a dangerous idiot, but an idiot.  ❞ ❝  i’m kicking myself for not seeing your potential from the beginning.  ❞ ❝  for your sake, you must go where you will never find me. this is goodbye.   ❞ ❝  so that’s what this is? a tantrum? a cry for attention?  ❞ ❝  change won’t come in a single sunrise.  ❞ ❝  this place may not seem like much, but we’ll make the best of it.  ❞ ❝  no murderers here, if that’s what you’re asking.  ❞

[redstringraven]

Pretend That I Never Left

CHAPTER 10: THE NEXT TIME

“...what’re you thinking?”

Mikey frowned. He shifted his fingers to better wrap them around hers, and he huffed. “You remember… after we left that shrine in Meridian? And I kinda word vomited all over the place about there always being one super bad dude?”

She hummed, and he continued, “like a year or so ago, we learned about where we came from. What, like. Made us what we are. Big, mutant turtles. I guess the short version is that it... it tied us right back to the Shredder. If he’d never gotten himself trapped on earth, the stuff that mutated us wouldn’t have existed. …it’s super weird, and kinda gross, to think about. That, without that creep, we might just be…” he shrugged. “I dunno. Chowing down on lettuce in a tank somewhere.”

He trailed off. Aloy stayed quiet. When she didn’t say anything, he continued, “and now, it’s like. The Utroms are gone, and we’re the only ones who know what a bad dude Shredder is, or that he’s up to no good. The city thinks he's a hero right now just because he's twisted damage the Triceratons did into his favor.”

Aloy’s hand tightened around his in a light squeeze, and he felt her shoulders sink. “...and destiny?” She asked. “What do you think about that?”

“Eh. …it’s cool when it’s in video games or comic books, but. …sometimes it feels like ‘destiny’ is just a fancier way of saying something’s the right thing to do. To make it less scary. Y’know?" He paused. "...when we talked about what made us, Master Splinter said that, like. Even though Shred-head is part of our origins, we choose our own fate.” Mikey shrugged. “Some people could look and be like... Us being tied to the Shredder, bumping into him again after all that time and getting all tangled up in his crap means we're 'destined' to stop him or whatever. But we could just say 'screw that' and keep chilling at home. Maybe someone else would come along, see how evil he is, and take care of it. But. Why would we? When we can do something, and maybe less people would get hurt. …does that make sense?”

“...you do it because it’s the right thing to do,” Aloy muttered. “Not because the circumstances surrounding demand it’s the path you’re meant to take.”

“Yeah. …yeah, something like that.”

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When the Ultimate Drako appears and transports the turtles through parallel and alternate dimensions, Mikey finds himself in a far future where life seems almost backward. Humans live in scattered, tribal-like populations with limited access to technology, yet advanced and animal-like machines roam the lands. It’s a rare instance where turtle-luck is in his favor that he happens to cross paths with someone just as used to being an outsider to humanity as he is.

an alternative take on Reality Check where Mikey winds up in the world of Horizon: Zero Dawn.

pairings: n/a characters: mikey, aloy ; mentions of don, raph, leo, and others rating: t (violence) relevant tags: crossover / canon-divergence, action/adventure, friendship

[milkteamoon]

To Scale the Stars

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Fandom: Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun Rating: general audience Tags: space au, introspection Relationships: Amane Yugi & Nene Yashiro It gets lonely up in space sometimes. Maybe it's being alone that's making Amane imagine a fish outside his window. Written for Ad Lunam Zine @jshkspacezine

It’s early one morning when he first sees her.

Or late one night. The clock above his bed reads 5:53 am, but time means little when you’re floating through space, stitched between the dawn and twilight, caught up in the milky expanse of the moon’s glow. 

Amane knows he should be better about keeping time. He’s been meaning to since college- work on that whole “getting your life together” concept. But life skips stones at the speed of light, and suddenly he’s twenty-one, twenty-seven, thirty-two. Suddenly he’s picking through his hair to see if that one particular strand is blonde or gray, sifting through the infinite amount of work contacts in his phone just to find his brother’s number, staring out over the tiny lights of the world below wondering if anyone misses him up here. He already knows the answer to that last one- Tsukasa asks him every day when he’s coming home (and every day he tells him “soon.” And every day his twin tells him “not soon enough,” and every day the cycle repeats). And though his middle school teacher would sooner drink pen ink than admit it, Tsuchigomori is all too quick to take him up on the offer to go get a drink sometime.

But seriously, Amane needs to get better about the whole time thing. It’s really ruining his sleep schedule (one he barely had to begin with), but he can’t help that his body simply won’t adjust to zero gravity even after six months of living it.

So it’s 5:53 am when he straps on his helmet, attaches his lure, and makes his way out into the inky void of the universe. It’s a typical space walk, like he’s done a thousand times before. Check the meters, skim the paneling, adjust the satellite dish that came loose after the station drifted through a cloud of space debris.

The usual.

He knows how it goes.

He knows how quiet it is out there, lost in only the vibrations of his own breathing and the soft whir of his suit.

He knows where his head starts wandering when left to his own devices.

And it’s wandering he assumes it’s doing when he spots the tiny nebulous cloud on the horizon.

Something….moving.

Swishing. 

Swimming. 

At least, that’s the best way he can describe it.

It’s enough to make him rub his helmet in place of his eyes, attempting to blink away some sleep-deprived hallucination or trick of the lunar light. Trying to convince himself that it’s just his imagination. That somehow the dream he had the other night about an alien movie he’d seen with his brother had wriggled its way into reality in the most tantalizing concoction of space dust and astral debris.

The reality check fails to dissipate whatever it is, so Amane does the next most rational thing.

Winds his way back around the space station paneling. Slips his way out of the vast expanse of space and into the comfort of his quarters. Takes two aspirin – just for good measure, reminds himself to get new contacts when he returns to terra firma, and does his best to force his mind into a fitful sleep.

He doesn’t drift off until about three hours later, but when he finally does, he dreams he’s at sea.

Floating. Drifting over an infinitely vast stretch of blue. One that he can’t see the bottom of, no matter how much he squints or how hard he imagines.

Which is funny. Kind of. In the ironic non-humor sort of way that elicits more of an exhausted huff than an amused chuckle. Because Amane never really liked the ocean. And he has an inkling that the feeling’s mutual.

~

It’s a fish, he decides. Or at least, something akin to it. Something with fins and gills that twists its way in between the satellite paneling and the tail of Ursa Major. That inches its way closer with every passing sunset, to the point that it chips itself out of his imagination and into the corporeal world just outside his window.

Amane’s first thought is that he’s losing it. 

Naturally. Sure, it’s not the first time he’s been up in space alone, but it’s certainly the longest. Shijima’s team wasn’t set to dock for another three weeks, and the little human interaction he could manage were emails to his brother and the occasional check-in from mission control. 

Which was....fine, he supposed. In all honesty, Amane much preferred silence or his own choice of music to the prattle of other passengers. The lilting hum of the spaceship and the occasional beeps from the dashboard to the snores of coworkers who managed a much better sleep schedule than him.

But Amane’s not stupid. He also knows how silence gets to a person. He’s seen it many times.

But he doesn’t linger on the possibility of a dwindling psyche. He’s much too intrigued by this odd little creature that has taken up residence outside his window.

And there’s something sorta funny about the whole situation, because Amane’s never liked the ocean. Never liked the possibility of millennium-old creatures dwelling in hydrothermal vents, of things waiting to drag him down beneath the waves. Never liked the way his classmates’ stares settled into the back of his head like eyes lurking in the deep. Space isn’t like the ocean. Space is infinitely vast and infinitely empty. Space is made up of numbers and theories and rocket-fuel and rocks.

Space is dead. But he’s okay with that. Amane likes the silence. Amane likes to be alone.

Amane’s always wanted to get away.

And he’s been true to that whole “space is empty” belief until now. Sure, alien life might be statistically probable, but it was biologically impossible. Not real. A fabrication. Nothing but pipe dreams. 

Amane sends a message to Tsuchigomori before he crawls into bed that night. One he doesn’t really expect a reply to, because it’s nearly 3 a.m. in Japan. That is, unless Tsuchigomori’s been up grading again. Amane knows he has a bad habit of doing so.

And it’s nearly four hours later when he rolls over to check his smartphone and finds it blinking with a response that irks him for just how typical it is of his old school teacher, blunt as ever.

Amane: do you think there’s life out there somewhere?

Tsuchigomori-sensei: sure, why not?

~

And that weird little creature melts into his life much in the same way of cream into coffee: sweetly, slowly, and then all at once. To the point that his days feel empty the moments it drifts out of his glass canvas of the universe outside, if days can exist in a world filled with infinite sunsets. Well, about fifteen that is. Something that started awe-inspiring, then grated into a nuisance, and finally dipped their way into becoming the best part of his waking hours. 

Because every sunset the fish would resurface, and Amane took the time to sit. Watch as the sun glimmered off the switchboard at the head of the cabin and twisted its way between the creature’s translucent scales. Breathed in the much too filtered air and breathed out a stillness he hadn’t felt in years. 

It never speaks — not that he thought it would — but he comes to know its language. Its erratic swishes when he comes to peek outside, its bouncing when he tends to the zinnias. Maybe in another life, it’d have been a gardener, or a mermaid, or a novelist. Maybe that’s why it slows to a halt and allows him to bask in every glinting, rainbow scale when he finds the courage to speak.

It’s not the possibility that he’s losing it that eats at him. Of course not. Amane’s always been the weird kid, the hot topic of back-of-the-classroom conversations and breakroom gossip, and he’s used to that. It’s fine. In all honesty, finding out that he’s hallucinating sea creatures would probably be the least of his worries.

But there’s that small sliver of a chance that manages to keep him up at night. That somehow he’s.....not. That maybe, just maybe, the fish really is swimming through the stars outside the space station, and that maybe, just maybe, it’s nothing more than that.

Just a fish.

Impossibly normal.

Not some eldritch monster from one of Tsukasa’s horror manga, nor some anomalous amalgamation of undiscovered extraterrestrial life. Not some figment of a loose air tank that was slowly spinning his brain to mush.

But a fish. Just a fish. One with gills and fins and eyes glazed in nictitating nothingness. Just a fish as simple as that moon rock he had as a child, or the sun being nothing more than a ball of burning gas.

Perfectly........ordinary. 

And that frightens him, but he’s not sure why.

Amane presses his face to the glass one evening and finds it cold as ice. And as he does, the fish follows suit, bopping its nose into the window and wiggling its horns (fins? He’s not quite sure) in a sympathetic gesture.

And Amane whispers into the space between.

“Are you real?”

Even though it can’t hear him.

And the fish stares glassy-eyed and keeps its mouth shut.

Always does.

Always silent.

Why should he expect anything different?

~

It’s a Wednesday that the fish fails to show at the day’s first sunset.

Amane sits alone.

Goes about his day as one would without a fish.

Once, he thinks he catches it skirting around the edges of the paneling. Clipping the last rays of sun before dipping back into the faint luster of starlight. Swimming just as brisk as if it were navigating the inky black waves that he used to fear as a child. 

And then it’s gone. Just a blip. Just his imagination.

It’s gone again on Thursday. And Friday.

Amane sits at the window. Waiting. Watching for something that might have been a fish, or might have been just his imagination.

And when the final sunset dies on the horizon, he crawls into bed. Forces himself into a fitful sleep – or at least, he tries to. Because the whirs of the station are much louder now, much heavier and dripping into the static silence like mercury. Much more rhythmic, in a sense, that it almost reminds him of ocean waves.

Crashing. Clawing. 

And then still.

~

Amane dreams of his old middle school.

Dreams that it’s still drenched in that awful teal paint and that the old wing still sits abandoned and unrenovated. 

Amane dreams of himself. That he never grew past five-foot, squished down by some old school cap he remembers wearing on orientation day of first year. Amane dreams of a weird sticker on his face, ironically scrawled with the word “seal,” that he’s certain would itch like peeling face paint if his hands were just a bit more solid and his feet could touch the ground.

Amane dreams of a girl, one with droopy eyes and messy hair. One with a voice loud as thunder with ankles to match, and one that calls him some weird nickname he can’t remember when he wakes up. She yells a lot, and he laughs, and then she follows suit. As they should. As if they always should.

Amane dreams of the moon, stretched across the sky in luminescent majesty.

That the celestial body still holds the same wonder as it did in the tiny rock he had as a child. That rabbits still dance on its surface and that an old youthful wish still crawls beneath his skin. 

Amane knows that he’s not going to the moon in his dream, but that’s okay. It’s okay when that funny girl drags him along, adjusts his cap, and calls him things he might be embarrassed by as an adult. It’s okay when the umbrella kid comes to eat donuts (plain, no less!) with them, and they laugh about a joke he doesn’t quite get.

It’s okay that he’s not going to the moon.

Amane’s not going anywhere in his dream, but he’s not so lonely this time around.

And it’s okay. Somehow, it’s still okay.

~

It’s 5:53 am when Amane is awoken by one, two, three knocks at his window. It’s just enough to pull him from the warm haze of his mind into the chill of the cabin, just enough to do a quick sweep of the monitors and valves. And logically he knows no one should be knocking on his window some 250 miles above the earth. That realistically it’s space junk, or rogue rocks, or even more likely his imagination. But it’s still 5:53 am, and it’s much too early to go back to bed. 

So Amane does the next most rational thing. Straps on his helmet. Attaches his lure. Makes his way out into the inky void of the universe glazed in the red hue of another sunset. 

Just another day in the booming silence of non-gravity.

Until it isn’t.

Until he makes it to the rim of the plexiglass paneling and spots what he’s been searching for for the past 2 weeks.

Something moving.

Swishing. 

Swimming. 

He doesn’t even need to stretch his tether to full length, because the tiny nebulous cloud comes to meet him. 

“You’re still here huh?” he asks, not expecting a response. Because the fish never speaks, never gives him more than a shake of its star-dusted tail and a blink of those black, nebulous eyes. 

And maybe a week ago he’d have been saddened by this. Upset. Angered. Lonely, like the ocean itself far below his feet.

But it’s okay.

It’s okay when it doesn’t respond as he whispers about going to the moon like he did as a child. About his dream to get away from those bandages that tied him down, and the infinite space to do so. About the silence, conversation just through pixelated text, a sky that pulls his loneliness from his chest and knits it across the stars for all to see.

And he watches the sunset until it slips beyond the horizon yet again. Until his suit beeps at half oxygen, and until he realizes he’s alone once more in the rungs of the night’s shadow.

Amane then does three things.

Makes his way back inside and peels off his chilled suit. Catch the faintest of glimmers on the horizon, of starlight and scales and gills that breathe space dust, just before it slips off into the twinkle between Alcor and Mizar. Heads to his desk, opens his messages, and sends a quick note to his brother promising to be home soon. Even though it’s only 6 am there, and Tsukasa won’t – shouldn’t be awake for another three hours.

The response is almost immediate.

Not soon enough.

And Amane laughs, just a bit, into the silence of the cabin before typing his response.

You can’t wait a week?

But he already knows the answer.

And for once, it’s something the both of them can agree on.

[kayr0ss]

Hands that Remember [AO3 Link]

[Horizon Zero Dawn, Elisabet Sobeck Lives, Found Family, Mother-Daughter Feelings, GAIA is recovering, Ereloy]

Summary: Aloy saw the recordings, felt their grief over the death of their culture - the loss of their identity. Ted Faro had blown away the light meant to guide humanity through darkness - but she was willing to risk it all to take it back. To bring APOLLO back.  It wasn't the first time that the world asked her for a miracle, but it bargained with a miracle of its own: This time - she didn't have to do it alone.

[Wherein Elisabet Sobeck returns, GAIA is recovering, Erend is done waiting around, and Aloy discovers a family she's never had before to help lift the weight of the world off her shoulders.]

---

Chapter 1: Resurfacing

It was endless.

The dust and sand reminded him of the canyons north of Meridian—but it seemed harsher.  Endless, expansive. Flat. He’d lost sight of All-Mother Mountain days ago and soon even the icy northern peaks of the Cut had fallen behind the horizon. All that was around him were rocks and packed earth.

Clouds of dust rose from under his footsteps, caught in a wind swooping over from further west. He wondered if they would reach the end of the world before the end of this desert. Did it just… stop? Was there an edge where everything ceased to be, a void down below ready to consume anything unfortunate enough to travel just a bit too far?

He grunted at his thoughts. Way too poetic. Been hanging around too many Carja these days—and not enough ale to drown out all the needless chatter.

What was Aloy doing out here anyway?

Still, he pressed on with gritted teeth, pulling up the fabric of his scarf above his nose. There was shelter up ahead. The faint purple glow he was following led him straight down its path: a ruin of the Old Ones full of rusting metal and crumbling rock. There were a few trees in the vicinity, tall and shooting straight up from the ground as though they were arrows.

“Must’ve taken shelter here,” he grumbled to himself.

It was a short trek to reach the threshold of the ruins. There was an archway holding a dilapidated sign, looking as if a strong kick to the base would be enough to knock it over. For a minute he entertained the thought, but what for?

A pile of metal junk lies near the perimeter of the building—one of those rectangular containers, similar to those dumped by the Old Ones in the scrapyard near Free Heap. The building itself was covered in vines and… flowers? That’s when he noticed the grass by his feet. It was lush and green, much like in the Embrace, and where plant life thrives it means—

“Water.”

He picked up his pace, falling into a jog. The journey had taken a toll on him. He was glad to have kept some empty water skins on hand—a fresh refill and his store of dried meats would be more than enough to last him the walk back. It was a small comfort against the mounting restlessness that clawed at the back of his mind, the feeling that he was never going to catch up with her at the rate he was going. He wondered if he’d tracked Aloy down this far west only to have her meet him on the road—already on the way back.

At least he hoped she was. Coming back, that is. He shook his head. Not the best time to think about that.

Further inspection revealed no machines in sight. Odd. Did Aloy clear the way already? Or was there something else, something that kept them away? The thought was unnerving, but he kept his hammer stowed away at his back. Couldn’t pick up any threats, anyway. No mines either, he nodded to himself. Stalkers could be ruled out.

He looked up towards the building. It was worn down, only the haunting twisted metal of its skeleton left standing, rubble littered at the base. “Probably fed a whole thunderjaw into a forge to build this one.” He chortled. “Great. Now I’m talking to myself. Right. Water.”

He followed the way to a patch where the growth was thicker. “Huh.” He paused, frowning. There were purple flowers arranged in a triangle too perfect to be natural. Some sort of stone seating structure was in the center and—

“Fire and spit!” he sputtered out, war-hammer pulled at the ready while he awkwardly regained his footing after nearly tripping. For some reason, even in the heat of battle he decided he didn’t want to step on the violet blooms that seemed so dainty and beautiful.

Was that… a person?

His frown deepened, brows knitting together as he looked over some sort of machine suit. It reminded him of the material Aloy had crafted over standard Nora leathers. He gently prodded at the suit with the end of his hammer’s grip. No movement. The overgrowth consuming it was an indication that it’d been sitting there for, well, a while.

He stepped in a little closer, laying a hand along the suit’s shoulder to dust it away. Cold. He recoiled.

Cold as death.

For a second or two he considered scavenging the strange machine-suit for parts, but quickly dismissed the thought when he realized there might be someone… inside. He stepped back, putting down his hammer. Oseram were delvers, not grave robbers.

I should probably go. He rubbed at the back of his neck, feeling intrusive and out of place, but one last look over the suit made him shake his head. Was this their home? He tried to imagine what the ruins might have looked before. Like Meridian, perhaps?

The person looked peaceful. Content. But it looked like a lonely way to go.

“You, uh…” he set a heavy gloved hand on the suit’s shoulder. “Have a good rest.”

The stillness didn’t last for very long. As he lifted his hand a cloud of cold, frigid gas began to leak from the small slits along the suit’s shoulders and joints.

The focus Aloy gifted him began to buzz, in sync with the deep onset of frantic panic at the pit of his stomach. By the forge did he break something? He stumbled backwards, hand coming up to tap his focus. Purple lights sprung to life—a spattering of odd blinking symbols and words that were enough to disorient him. Circles of light hovered highlighted portions of the suit, bringing up numbers and flashing words—counting down with urgency.

[WARNING:  Ultraweave Terrestrial Suit Atmospheric Seal Compromised]

"Seal?" What was that supposed to mean? He frowned. Too sober for this.

A disembodied voice buzzed into his ear—eerie and inhuman, like how the Shadow Carja’s god HADES sounded, except not quite as threatening. A woman’s voice.

[Ultraweave Terrestrial Suit Oxygen Supply—Depleted. Ultraweave Terrestrial Suit Potable Liquid Tank—Depleted]

There was a chilling pause.

[External Personnel Detected. Assessment: User of FAS Standard-Issue FOCUS Unit Number ZERO-ONE-ONE-THREE - Assistance Required. Please attend to personnel within UTS Unit Zero-Alpha-Psi.]

“What am I—?!” He looked around in a panic, feeling out of his element. Was it talking to him? This was the sort of thing Aloy was good at! “What am I supposed to do?!”

[Please attend to personnel within UTS Unit Zero-Alpha-Psi.]

“You already said that.” He grumbled back, frustrated. Does that mean this thing—this…Old One—was still alive? Upon closer inspection he could see it: frost crawling out of the vents. Cold. Still as cold as death.

He couldn’t believe it. Frozen in time.

[Stand-by for assisted reanimation.]

He reached out towards the blinking lights across the rectangular badge on the suit’s odd chest plate. It responded to his touch with purple lights blinking into living words floating across his fingertips. He gasped.

He recognized that name.

[Disengaging Cryostasis Protocol. Stand-by for assisted reanimation. Projection: ninety-three minutes to thermal homeostasis.]

--

“Captain, what happened?”

Voices. Too far away. Or were they nearby? Damn. She couldn’t tell. Couldn’t even open her eyes. It was cold. So fucking cold—colder than Nevada had any right to be.

“Get blankets! Anything! Beladga, got any shirts you can spare?”

Why was everyone in a panic? Had she fallen asleep in the control center? Huh. She didn’t recall Travis sounding nearly as gruff as that.

Travis? The others—

She… she had a job to do. A mission. What was it? Everything felt distant—disconnected. She vaguely realized she that she was shivering but why? She tried to call out but realized that she was physically unable to speak, her throat feeling dry as sandpaper. Coughing erratically, she noticed that she was partially intubated with a sort of breathing apparatus.

[Seventeen minutes to thermal homeostasis. Please prepare for disengagement of auxiliary respirator.]

An automated voice was buzzing into her ear through her focus. She could feel her senses turning, along with the slight mobility of her limbs. It seems she was being carried—or rather, being laid down onto something soft. There were footsteps. Movements. The voices were hushed, secretive and confused. There was a soft yellow light through the ambiguous blur of color that swam around her vision.

[Auxiliary respirator disengaging.]

The machinery abruptly detached the mask from her nose and mouth. The sudden brightness made her recoil, her face feeling exposed. She fell into a fit of violent coughing—as if she had forgotten how to breathe. It was painful. God, it fucking sucked.

“Take it easy now,” said the voice from earlier. It was a man. He—He was speaking with her through his own voice. How is that possible? No one could survive out here without a suit. The atmosphere was too—

A sudden wave of nausea overcame her.

Memories of her last excursion came flooding back: the bunker door failing to seal. Her last transmission to the Alphas. Project Zero Dawn. GAIA—the Swarm!

Coming home.

Dying.

I’m supposed to be dead.

“I—” she rasped out, voice hoarse and jagged. Panicked.

“Whoa there,” there was a steady hand on her shoulder, helping her turn to her side. She felt something press against her mouth almost forcefully. “Drink this.”

“We got to get her out of that suit, captain.” There was another voice, female this time.

“I think—” the captain, she assumed, replied “—I think we need to wait a few more minutes. The device is telling me that—”

Everything was fading into black again.

--

“—else to go follow her trail, or just hope she comes back. She has to… she needsto see this. I just… Oh. She’s awake, I think.”

There was some shuffling. Once again, she was offered water. It was sweet this time. Did they mix in sugar? She tried to ask but she was so, so tired and…

--

Sobeck Journal, 1-27-66

I wasn’t going to see any of it anyway.

Best I can do is hope, I guess. The landscape is barren now – I’m kind of glad the other Alphas don’t have to see it this close up. Stings. I’m half-expecting to hear Patrick patch me in via holo, asking why I haven’t dragged my feet to the conference hall for the scheduled status briefing. He’ll take good care of the younger kids, him and Charles both. ZD and the Swarm seem so small and faraway now that I’m walking away from it all. Quite literally. Hauled my ass all the way to Nevada.

Glad mom isn’t around to see the ranch like this. When I close my eyes I can almost imagine it: the tall pine trees, the grass. Maybe I’ll get to see things the way they were before on the other side… wherever that might be.

I’m tired.

Time to rest.

--

She woke up with a jolt.

“Hey.

He was still there, sitting on the ground across from her and looking just as confused as she was. Her vision was clearer now—and every detail she managed to catalogue drove a spike of panic and confusion deeper into the hollow of her chest. They were in a leather tent lit by a small gasoline lamp in the corner. They seemed to be in the outskirts of an encampment, faraway enough to not be disturbed.

“I’m guessing this is freaking you out a little.” He scratched at the back of his head, unable to meet her eyes. He pointed to a waterskin laid down beside her bedroll. “Maybe get some more water in before you speak? I’ve got some dried meats too. I’m guessing you haven’t eaten in… a while.”

On the matter of guesses, she had a vague idea what might be going on. It was equal parts terrifying and exciting and a hundred percent something she did notask for.

She had an unfortunately stellar track record for hypothesizing, though. Chances of her guess being wrong were dreadfully slim. The cold. The scenery. Even the clinical tone and instructions of her Ultraweave Suit’s reanimation module—a system she helped develop herself, back when the prospect of sleeping through the disaster was considered an option.

It wasn’t. Not consistent enough to use en masse—not enough foresight to secure species continuity.

She took a drink of water, willing to steel her nerves before panic caught up with her executive faculties. She needed to orient herself with wherever it was she woke up in. Hell, forget where, the real question is—

“When… is it?”

He blinked. “Uh, today?”

“What year is it?”

The man’s expression softened—a look that didn’t quite fit with the rest of his character. He was big. Towering—even while seated on the floor—with broad shoulders and a figure strong enough to walk around with enough steel to build a car door, apparently. “You sound so much like her.”

“I don’t follow.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling a headache coming along. She needed to eat.

“Sorry I—” he scratched at his beard. “It’s the reign of the 14th Sun-King, Avad the Liberator.”

Kings? Again?

“I’m Erend, captain of the King’s vanguard.”

He paused.

“You’re Aloy’s mother, aren’t you?”

-

fin

-

A/N: I'd like to acknowledge Tototops for doing an amazing job beta-reading this! It's always a pleasure, and my writing is always pushed to grow better with every suggestion and correction you help me with. x) And to my friends Sleepy, @theguardiandragon1, @saltypyrotato, @tanuki-pyon and Fridge for listening to my HZD manic fever ramblings and helping me make sense of the plot I had in mind.

Just finished the game about two weeks ago and read a bunch of fanfic. I consumed Writerly's Second Dawn (which is absolutely amazing!!!!), which is my foremost inspiration for even attempting to write fanfic of this wonderful franchise. I base a lot of my characterizations and format of story telling in this fic from their work, and hope to do so in a way which is still true to the unique plot I've set for it. I am very excited to be trying something new and to learn and get better along the way. Hope you all enjoy. :)

[stormikins]

WIP Wednesday

Its actually Wednesday!! Lets goooo

I was tagged by @chronic-ghost who’s fantastic by the way. And this is part of the next chapter of my Aloy/Varl fic, You Set My Soul Alight, from Horizon: Zero Dawn. It’s set after the events of the game. I’m gonna tag @zet-sway @spookyvalentine @yellingaboutmasseffect if you want to participate! (I know it’s been a hot min since I’ve talked with y’all) And of course, if anyone else wants to join

Aloy gazes out at the small herd of striders grazing, mentally planning. “Do you wanna try for yourself first or do you wanna ride with me?” She whispers to him.

 They’re crouched in some tall grass, Aloy squatting and Varl kneeling at her side. One knee is on the ground behind her and the other has his hand braced on it, foot flat on the ground. In this position they’re close, very close. It’s because their patch of grass isn’t large, and it’s fine, really, only that she can feel him and she’s just all that more aware of her own actions.

She can hear the hesitation in his answer. “Uh, ride with you first.” She hums, softly, continuing to eye the machines. She mentally maps where all the other herds are, striders, chargers, longhorns. They’ll find another one easily when Varl is ready.

 “Do you want to be in front, or do you want me to be?” She asks him. Truthfully, she should wait to ask this after she’s acquired a strider, but she likes the intimacy of them whispering together. Even though it’ll probably grab the attention of the striders. At least, this herd doesn’t have a watcher. Varl hasn’t answered and so she turns to him. He’s resolutely staring at the herd. He then blinks and looks back at her.

 “I- I can ride behind.”

 “…Okay.” Giving him a look, she turns back to the herd. “Stay here. I’ll get one.”

 She singles out the one farthest from the others, it’s back turned. It had just wandered over to that patch of grass so it should stay there for a bit. One by one she takes down the striders silently with her spear, rolling from grass to grass, small whistles coming from her lips.

 She’s aware that Varl creeps along with her, but he stays at the edges of the small clearing and always out of sight. Well, from anyone else but her. He doesn’t try to intervene which is good. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Varl to take down a herd of striders, quite the opposite actually, but, she might want to show off a little.

 She slowly and silently makes her way to the last strider while crouched. Its head is still ducked. She flips her spear and activates the override module. The blue tendrils creep over the machine as she rewrites its code, and it makes a whirring noise, stumbling slightly. In seconds, its over, the machine is under her command.

 She stands, holding her spear at her side. She places a hand on the striders leg and turns to where Varl is crouched in the shadows. He stands, walking into the clearing and to her. He eyes the strider, but his steps are sure, and he stops next to her.

 “You ready?”

 “As I’ll ever be.”

 She walks to the side, holstering her spear. She makes sure Varl watches how she gets on and settles, griping the blue strands at the strider’s head.

 “Up you come,” she smirks down at him.

 “I wish I could say this is the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

 “Then it should be no problem.” Varl shakes his head with a small smile, he reaches out to grip the strider.

 “Sometimes your logic makes no sense.”

 “Important part is that it makes sense to me, which it does. Stop stalling.”

 It only takes him two tries to get his leg over the strider, but he does it and she clearly has not thought this through at all, because he’s sitting pressed up against her back. She takes a steading breath. From the corner of her eye, she sees his hands hover before firmly setting them on his thighs.

 “Alright, so I use these-” she lifts the tendrils in her hands. “To steer.” She tugs them, left and right and the strider turns accordingly. “Using my feet, I control the speed.” She gives a light kick to the side and the strider starts forward.

 “Woah!” Varl’s hands shoot to her hips as the strider starts. She sucks in a breath.

 “You okay?” She has half a mind to ask.

 “Yeah. Can we go faster?”

 Aloy smiles at the voice in her ear. “We sure can.” She gives the strider another kick, and another, and they’re off. She leans forward a bit, instinctual but Varl follows, staying pressed against her. It doubles her heart rate, the feeling of him, the machine under her, the wind blowing against them. Varl’s hands tight on her hips.

 They ride towards Daytower, their laughter in the air.