#a way to have my grandfather and the rest of the troops escape while he sacrificed himself by staying behind to give them time

[khazrablood]

I love how clueless USAmericans are of the destruction upon populations they have funded while blissfully ignorant in their little bubbles. And now they have the gall to threaten these same lives of deportation that their beloved politicians signed off on destroying these countries. Or the moment that anyone even looks at their degenerates wrong that they put on a pedastal as psyops bc of how fucking detached from reality they are.

None of these immigrants and marginalized populations owe you anything when you threaten them like this.

So are you like a government psyop or something? Your hate for Harris just comes off as love for Trump.

No, I'm a simple Afghan who saw his country being destroyed TWICE by your governments as was the case with many other countries in the global south. If nothing was done to stop that, why would I suddenly trust your asses now? I don't trust Yanks to ever make a good decision, because you're all perpetually bound by your false dichtomy.

For what reason could I be harboring this much hatred for your pigsty of a democracy, anon?

[lemons3ason]

Vinsmoke Brothers React To You Coming Back After Their Father Took You From Them!

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

ICHIJI VINSMOKE

“How dare you bring that vermin here with you.”, Judge growled scowling down at his only living grandchild.

Once again he attempted to marry Ichiji off to some spoiled princess from a random kingdom but instead Ichiji would use his infant daughter Asami as an excuse to get out of the engagements. The red haired father simply scoffed as he made his way to the Phoenix Kingdom’s dining hall where the family waited. The princess looked so excited when he entered the room until she noticed the small baby resting his arms, her mood suddenly turned sour. Ichiji sighed and sat across from the girl as he cradled his sleeping daughter against his chest as the parents began to speak amongst themselves. The Queen seemed extremely interested in Ichiji’s daughter, something seemed so familiar about the small infant.

“Pardon me asking but Prince Ichiji does that child have a mother?”, The Queen asked.

“She did unfortunately she passed away due to some unforgivable reason after child birth. It’s been two months since I lost her and in all honesty I don’t intend to remarry so this is a waste of time.”, he admitted much to his father’s disgust.

The story furthered the Queen’s suspicions on the child, she stood up and walked over to him taking in the child’s complete image, she smiled for a brief moment and gently tussled the little girl’s soft (h/c) locks. “H-her mother didn’t happen to be a girl named (Y/n), did it?”, she asked her voice cracking as your name escaped her lips. Ichiji’s reaction was enough to tell her the truth, he tried to soften his body as quickly as he could but he had already been caught.

“You said she passed away, how?”

Ichiji bit his tongue not sure of how to truly word it without making himself cry, “My Father ordered her execution.”, he sighed. The Queen smiled and stood back up to her feet, “Would you like me to reunite you with my first born daughter?”, she asked softly as her husband came to her side.

Ichiji stared at them puzzled, how could they bring back someone dead? He quickly noticed red flames erupt from the Queen’s back and she smiled as her grandchild reacted to her abilities, her own little pair of flame wings flapping softly behind her. Ichiji stared down at his child in awe, your mother smiled and ordered Ichiji to follow along down to some chambers that seemed to be piled up with ashes. One room in specific held one small pile of ash, “It is said that the Phoenix bird was born a female, in our land there is a story that a Phoenix fell in love with a human and bore a child that would later become the first Queen of our land. All the females in the Phoenix kingdom are born with the abilities to be reborn, no matter how they die their body becomes ash and returns home where they choose to stay dormant or be reborn into a new life. These ashes appeared about a month ago and I knew that they belonged to my (Y/n), our kingdom was raided and she was kidnapped by pirates, for years I waited for her return but now I see she’s still needed. (Y/n) left behind a daughter and a man that loved her so that should be more then enough to bring her back.”, she took little Asami from his arms and kneeled down before your ashes. Asami’s little wings touched your ashes igniting them into flame, Ichiji watched in shock as Asami was lifted into the flame, he was worried but then he heard something. Your laughter, your laughter resonated from the flames, he watched them disappear and you remained with your daughter in your arms and tears falling from your beautiful (e/c) hues.

“My beautiful little girl. I’m so sorry you had to wait so long to meet mommy.”, you smiled kissing her small face.

“(Y/n)?”

Your heart skipped a beat to his voice, you looked up to see Ichiji staring at you in shock. You tears spilled faster as you raced to his arms, you cried into his chest emotionally overwhelmed to see him again after what felt like an eternity. His shock was quickly replaced by his urge to hold you tight, his arms wrapped around your shoulder holding your head closer to his chest as he cried your name into your head softly kissing your (h/c) locks until you looked up to kiss him on the lips. Your mother smiled seeing you so happy with your family, at least now she knew you were safe and sound with someone who loved you dearly.

“I’ve missed you so much Ichiji. I’m so sorry.”, you apologized feeling stupid for letting yourself die and leaving him to suffer parenthood alone.

“S-shut up. Don’t you dare apologize for this, it was my fault for not keeping you close. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry but I’m so glad you’re back.”, he sighed kissing your face desperately as if he’d lose you again. Your hand cupped his cheek softly as you deepened the kiss making up for lost time. Little Asami started to cry from being crushed between you both, you apologized and softly cradled her in your arms softly hushing her back to sleep. Ichiji smiled, he was finally complete, you were back thanks to a miracle. Once you had all returned to the dining hall Judge spat out his wine seeing you alive. He dared to say something but Ichiji quickly wrapped an arm around you and activated his raid suit, “You will not take her from me again. She is my wife and I don’t give a shit if you approve or not.”, he growled receiving a kiss from you that made his anger quickly disappear. You moved back to the Germa Kingdom and everyone celebrated your return. A huge party was held for you and everyone drank till they passed out, with Asami in her crib next to your bed you stood in front of your huge window and looked out over the night sky and sea. You hummed feeling his lips press against your cheek and turned to kiss his lips once more, “I’ve missed this, I’ve missed you.”, you smiled staring up at your husband.

He picked you up in his arms and laid you in the bed, for once he’ll sleep happily in your warmth that he’s missed all this time. You felt safe in his arms and slowly drifted off to bed happy to be back home with your family.

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

Niji Vinsmoke

Niji was already the cruelest of his brothers but now that he lost the only woman that mattered to him his heart was frozen solid and broken. Even as he killed all these innocent fishmen he didn’t feel a shred of pity or remorse, yet when he was just about to finish off the elder of the group he was quickly stopped by a voice that only his heart could react to.

“Niji, stop don’t!”, you screamed.

He scanned his surroundings for the source of the voice and found a single woman with short (h/c) hair gasping for breath, “Child no run away.”, the old fish man cried out.

“Niji stop please. Not these people.”, you cried just feet away from the blue haired Vinsmoke.

He released the old fish man from his grip and stumbled toward you, the old man begged Niji to take his life instead of yours but when he came to a stop just in front of you he understood what was going on. Niji couldn’t believe his eyes, you were supposed to be dead and yet here you are. You didn’t fear him in the slightest, you opened up your arms to him for an embrace but he stayed where he was. Just a few feet out of reach taking in your appearance. Scars littered your skin, your hair now cut short, but still you smiled at him as if nothing had happened.

“Child get away from him!”, your grandfather yelled pulling you towards him with his shark tail.

Niji quickly snapped his neck towards your new position and growled at the old man for taking you from him. You calmed your grandfather down and he stared into your eyes looking for a hint of fear or lie in your words but he found nothing but love and let you go. You stepped towards Niji once again opening your arms for him, he raced towards you wrapping one arm around your waist and the other over your back burying your head in his shoulder with his hand as he whined your name.

“Y-You’re supposed to be dead.”, he stuttered.

You nodded your head gently pressing kisses against the skin of his neck that wasn’t covered by the scarf of his neck, “I know but I’m not. I should’ve been but my grandfather found me in the waters and patched me up and I didn’t drown because I’m a fish man hybrid.”, you explained.

He couldn’t believe it, he thought he lost you, he hugged you tightly even as you pulled down his goggles to look him in the eyes and gently brushed back his blue hair so you could enjoy his expression. His teeth gritted into a scowl as Niji tried to fight back his tears but the little kiss you pressed against his lips broke what little restraint he had. He kissed you roughly even through his tears, if you pulled away he chased your lips for more cupping your face in his hands to keep you in place. The battle had come to a standstill as everyone watched you both kiss away the minutes in your own little world.

“I thought I lost you.”, another kiss.

“All this time you were alive, I should’ve looked for you.”, another kiss to your cute plump lips.

“I thought you had died hating me for our fight. I’m sorry.”, another long passionate kiss until you had to pull away for breath.

“If you forgive me for being to afraid to go back then I’ll forgive you for the stupid fight. I can’t blame you for judge wanting to kill me it was obvious from the start that he hated me.”, you sighed resting your head against his chest smiling at the sound of his racing heartbeat.

He nodded kissing your face sweetly, he scooped you up in his arms like a princess and started carrying you away until your grandfather demanded he stopped, “Can’t you see I’m taking my wife back home.”, Niji growled in annoyance.

You smiled at your grandfather over Niji’s shoulder and reassured him that it would be alright, your grandfather allowed you to go. Niji’s troops quickly repaired all the destruction they had caused and respectfully buried the people they had killed while he returned to the small Germa ship with you. As soon as he had you in his quarters he sat you on his bedside and opened a drawer to return something to you, you smiled as he placed your necklace that Judge had taken from you back into your hands.

“I’ve been without you for a year, do you know how hard that was?”, Niji sighed resting his head against your knees.

His hands softly rubbed over your scars as he counted each one that he’d kiss as soon as you were home and safe. You smiled and leaned your head down until your forehead pressed against the top of his head.

“I’ve missed you, you jerk.”, you sighed.

“I love you.”

“I know Niji, I love you more. Come on get up here.”, you ordered opening your arms for him to rest in.

He smiled at you and tackled you into the mattress kissing your face, you had a lot of affection to catch up on but this time he wouldn’t let anything happen to you.

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

Sanji Vinsmoke

The wedding was nearing but Reiju knew her brother wouldn’t be happy without you, after she had pulled your corpse away from his grasp she realized that you still had a weak pulse. You were alive! She quickly rushed you to the laboratory to let the doctors heal your wounds, she paid close attention to them to make sure they didn’t try anything funny with you, now as the day neared she watched your naked form in the healing tube softly breathing in the green liquid.

“Please (Y/n) don’t let Sanji go. He’s a good man with a good heart so please save him even if we die.”, she begged deactivating the machine so she could release you.

She quickly dried and clothed you before scooping you up in her arms and flying you back to the Thousands Sunny. Everyone was ecstatic to see you alright and to have you back, as their mission plan finalized you realized that no matter what you had to save Sanji. As everyone prepared for the wedding Nami presented you with short (f/c) backless dress that would stop just at your mid thigh. You put it on and quickly fixed your hair, you had to look decent since it was a wedding after all. You smiled finding the room that the Charlotte Children had locked away the weapons in and grabbed two handguns that would last you a bit until you had to use your devil fruit powers. As soon as the action began Sanji noticed your head of (h/c) hair and gasped, you were alive. From his place at the top of the wedding cake he screamed your name making it echo over the crowd, you smiled and blew him a kiss before returning to fighting the Big Mom pirates. Once everyone was on Bege’s fortress Sanji tackled you, your giggles quickly erupted in the room as the emotional blonde kissed your lips hungrily.

“S-sanji wait I can’t breathe.”, you whined playfully.

“You can breathe again when I’m done getting my fill of you, I thought you died.”, he sighed holding you carefully as if you were a fragile doll.

You smiled and held his face in your hands before slamming a kiss to his stupid lips, “I’ve missed you so much you idiot.”, you cheered smothering his face in your lipstick.

Sanji smiled, his eyes forming into hearts due to your affection but the fight wasn’t over yet. Until Luffy was back on the ship it was a battlefield on the sea, you worried until Sanji was back on the deck with Luffy. Once they were sailing away from Big Mom territory Sanji cooked an extravagant feast for all of you, his food was delicious as always and he looked so happy to be back in a kitchen. After dinner he found you staring out over the ocean and noticed the scar from your stab wound poking out from the top of your tank top he sighed and wrapped his arms around your waist before softly kissing the sensitive skin.

“Sanji.”, you called sweetly.

He smiled at you and pressed a kiss to your cheek before resting his chin against your shoulder. You laughed at the feeling of his goatee against your skin but calmed down once you felt content. You don’t even remember how long you had been out but you were more then happy to be back at Sanji’s side.

“I’m glad you’re back and safe honey.”, you admitted leaning your head against his.

“As am I darling. Don’t scare me like that ever again though.”, he whined.

You nodded and moved in his arms so you could see his face, and once more placed a kiss to his lips before returning to your quarters.

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

Yonji Vinsmoke

You really were just a puppet, Yonji was so heartbroken by your experimentation that he couldn’t even bring himself to look at you. Every time he stared into your dead eyes he was reminded of how he failed you but his brothers loved to play around with you. They’d take you on missions and would return with you cut up or bruised from the fights, but today as they walked to the dining hall Niji had decided to pick a fight with you and you simply nodded your head in agreement. Yonji’s body froze the moment Niji’s knee connected with your head sending his Henry’s Needle attack through your skull, blood poured from your ears and nose from the shock as your body was thrown into the wall. Yet despite your injuries you listened to Niji’s orders to stand up. Yonji’s stomach lurched in pain watching his brother’s fist meet your stomach but your killing instinct kicked in, you held his wrist tightly and pulled a blade from your belt thrusting it into Niji’s neck. The blade shattered of course due to his hardened skin but your attempt to kill him angered him, he slammed his hand against your face shoving your head into the wall over and over again until you fell unconscious. Niji chuckled once his hand was stopped by his younger brother, he let go both of them listening to the sound of your limp body hitting the floor, “A broken toy is no fun, guess we’ll have to get a new one.”, Niji laughed taking Ichiji’s side as they continued onto the dining room.

“You idiot!”, Reiju growled kicking her brother in the head.

Yonji took the hit he didn’t care if his sister was mad because nothing could beat the rage he had inside his heart, he picked you up in his arms holding you close as he walked back to his room. He ordered one of the doctors to come and heal your injuries immediately but the impact to your head was likely to cause a concussion if not a coma. Yonji held your hand in his remembering the good old days when you’d wake him up with kisses and cook for him but now it was all just a fading dream.

“Damn it (Y/n), please just say something.”, he sighed tears threatening to feel from he cold eyes.

“Y-Yonji my head hurts.”, you sobbed pulling him out of his train of thought.

The green haired man looked up to see you in tears with your free hand holding the side of your head because of the pain. Yonji gasped seeing the light in your eyes and smiled. He gently leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to the side of your head before stealing a kiss from your lips. He wanted to scream and yell that you were back but if you were in pain then he had to keep himself quiet to avoid making your pain worse. Yonji quietly hushed you, he ordered for a servant to bring you pain medication before taking up the other half of the bed.

“Oh (Y/n) you’re back.”, he chuckled softly rubbing circles against your head in hopes that it would help the pain.

“Where...where have I been?”, you asked.

Getting to hear your voice again made Yonji so happy, Niji’s electricity must’ve reversed the effects of your experimentations. Why couldn’t he have been a jerk earlier?! Yonji insisted that it wasn’t important, for some odd reason you couldn’t remember anything but that morning when you baked him cookies but it was probably for the best because now you didn’t suffer. Once you had eaten the pain medication he pulled you right back into bed spooning you, Yonji was never this affectionate but you certainly weren’t complaining when he started peppering your head and face with kisses.

“I love you Yonji.”, you hummed triggering something in him.

“Say it again.”

“I love you.”

“Again.”

“Yonji, I love you.”, you giggled kissing his rough lips.

He made you repeat that phrase over and over again until a new spark lit up inside both of you. Yonji wasn’t seen the rest of the day, it didn’t bother anyone really but Reiju was curious. The next morning she went to check on Yonji only to see you both passed out in bed and a new ring glimmering on your finger. Looks like everything had turned out for the best.

[sweater-daddiesdumbdork]

@stargazingfangirl18​ put a thought in my head and this is what is taking over. 

Chris Evans Characters As Seasons Aesthetics

Spring- 

Steve Rogers- I know many people would probably think of him more as summer, but in my mind he is spring time warmth and rebirth. I can see Steve stepping into the new sunlight warming the earth and soaking it into his tired body, the rays curling through his system to give him brand new life. A rebirth. There is always hope if someone is willing to believe in it.  

Steve sat under the tent, downpour raining all around him. There was no real way to keep dry in the mix of rain and snow drizzling all around him. The ground beaten and muddy disaster as the troops marched through before he arrived. Everything to the eye was a desolate grey and brown, war ravaged everything that could be beautiful. 

Except he found a struggling life, it unfurled in the sun trying its hardest to break through the last grip of winter. Tiny blossom straining to find the light, fighting beyond the mud to reach for hope. Steve could be patient, his pencils lead mimicking its movements onto paper with a patience he didn't normally have. You would drape over his shoulder, chin resting there while you scanned his work, humming softly how his talent made it truly come to life. 

Summer- 

Frank Adler- The epitome of late summer nights having a beer after a sweltering day. Hes speaks a bit of comfort laziness in the heat after a day of hard work staining the back of his shirt. I can see Frank easily slinging his arm around his partner, smiling to himself satisfied because life doesn't get better then seeing the sun set after a day well spent taking care of his family. 

Heavy thuds of boots carried him across the dock till he reached the current project he was hired for. Swinging himself onto the deck, he reached for the part needing replacing, grease stained fingers tracing the part, a red rag pulled from his back pocked to swipe it over. Gleaming in the hot sun baring down above him. 

Nearby was his reward after he finished this project. Cold six pack swimming in ice, the sweltering heat rolled droplets of sweat down his forehead and along the back of his neck to drench into his cotton tee. A shower tonight would be good, wash away the days work to circle the drain. After tucking in Mary, him and his cooler would sit out on the porch step and let all the days worried drain away, enjoying the moment of a day finished while you stepped between his thighs, tilting his head back to catch the wet droplets encasing his mouth. 

Late Summer- 

Ari Levinson- He speaks of golden rays and letting things go for a while. There is almost a lazy rush to accomplish what needs to be finished. Last minute get togethers bring people together, goals accomplished and settling into saying goodbye to the long days of summertime. 

Coming up the beach, beads of water roll between his shoulder blades to be whisked away under the sun. Mornings were for preparations for later, the sunshine putting on a charade of easy times are still to be had. Its sneaky though, Ari knows as his hand runs along the auburn covering his cheek and along his chin. 

The sun would leave sooner, encasing the dark enabling them to move, escape, and like the sun, time for him was running out. It was now a matter of days before it was all going to end. He knew it, you knew it. When you brushed up against his side, glancing up at him with question, he let his fingers skim your equally golden skin, the sun had been nothing but good to you. “Todays the day, now or never.” 

Autumn- 

Ransom Drysdale- He comes in with a cool breeze that will sting your lungs at first. Sharp snaps of long coats and scarves will swarm around him while he looks you up and down, his tone will have a bit of a bite, kind of like a cinnamon stick burning the tip of your tongue. Hes on the move, changing everything before him with a single touch. He can be a mix of ice coldness or hints of summer warmness. 

Leaves crunched under his footfalls as he descended upon his families home, his hands curled in his pockets to keep the days chill from turning his fingertips red. The wind blew lapels of his coat slightly while he descended the stairs. He never hesitated with a pause at his grandfathers door. Sweeping in as if he belonged in the manor, this was his time, it was coming to him, he just knew it. 

“Ransom...” A greeting from you curled warmly in his chest, fighting back the frigid chill his family brought. The rare moments Ransom would loosen his bite chill was with you, you became the soft warmth undertones that made him more tolerable to others. 

Late Autumn- 

Andy Barber- Rolling through in a way that cant be stopped, no matter how hard one tries. Ice edges the water and frost curls over in a finite way that you are left having to watch the ending coming. You can see life trying to hold on, dig deep and persevere, but hibernation is coming. I can see Andy, in his strive to continue with his everyday life having to witness it starting to shut down, sleep for a time to protect itself. 

He sat there, clinks of ice in his glass melting and watering the liquor down till its bite no longer was satisfactory. He wanted that pain, it would match what he was dealing with every day. Tiredly he let it wash over him for a moment, a loss that sat in his chest while everything continued on without him. 

You've seen him slip into these chilling spells, his eyes turning glassy at the memories and you would slide next to him, first your hand would slide up his back that made him quiver and then along the back of his head till you could turn him to look at you. Hollowed in that moment eyes bore into yours looking for forgiveness. A soft smile you would give him while you removed the glass from his trembling fingers and your lips would press to his while whispering. “Sleep Andy.”  

Winter- 

Curtis Everett- He matured in the darkness and cold, survived where death wanted to curl stiffly, sucking out anything that could possibly spark life. Sometimes things thrive in the harshest of elements, turning them to sharp edges and harsh truths about life. Not everyone survives. Sometimes his touch can and will be pain, searing ice to dance along your skin in furls of promise that if you survive, you to can battle the fiercest of elements. The light will be weak, filtered but its the connection to life. 

Those he passed sank away from his path, not from fear but respect. Whispers would howl through the trains car much as the wind did in the weak places. It was a dark promise of revolt, of a war coming in the strive for survival. And it all followed this man, he was walking darkness to those that crossed him. 

But you were the bit of light shining in his darkness, cool as he was, when his harsh hands softened around your face and tilting up to look at him, he found the reason not to let himself succumb to the harshest of elements. Rough fingertips softened for you, a intricate snowflake, one of a kind and the most beautiful made entirely from everything trying to encase life in a frozen memory. If he was not careful, you would cease to exist, forever just a moment. 

[tentimesthecourage]

Mail Through Time And Space

To whoever gets this,

Hello! My name’s Rinku and I’m 8 years old! I have decided I want to send letters to people and you get the first one!

I don’t really know what to put, there’s so much I could say. I’m practicing sword play with my twin, Link. We... don’t really like it, but we do it because we want to protect everyone, especially mom and Aryll, she’s our baby sister!

I hope I can hear from you soon!

Rinku

---

Dear Rinku,

You might find this a little strange, but my name’s also Link, like your twin. I am 9 years old. Sounds like fun, sending letters to strangers, and I’m glad I got to be the first to get one!

I think you two practicing for that reason is… noble. I think that’s the right word. I’m pretty good with a sword myself! Been practicing since I was 7, how long have you been practicing?

I hope this letter finds you well.

Link

---

Dear Link,

Wow! I didn’t think I’d reach someone with the same name as my twin! Link says hi by the way. Aryll probably would too, but she can’t really talk yet.

Noble? I asked mom what that means and she said having good morals, whatever those are, but I guess that means good things so thank you! 

Link and I have been practicing since we were five. Dad Father wants us to become knights when we’re older.

I… I don’t want to… but

Nevermind.

Rinku

---

Dear Rinku,

I’m sorry to hear that being a knight is being forced upon you. Sounds like your father is a bit stubborn.

I know how that feels, my father is the same, though more about teamwork than my plans for the future. Still though, I hope things can become brighter, maybe he’ll see that you and your twin’s passion lies somewhere else.

Take care,

Link

---

Dear Link,

Thanks, that really makes me feel better. Lately things have been getting… bad. I wanna tell you, but Link, my Link, doesn’t think it’s a good idea. So let’s talk about other things!

Our birthday is coming up soon! October 30th! When’s your birthday? Is it soon? I wanna be able to send you a gift!

Write back soon!

Rinku

---

Dear Rinku,

I’m sorry to hear things haven’t improved for you, but as my grandfather says, keep a stiff upper lip. There’s always a storm before a rainbow. He says strange things but he means well.

I don’t know if this’ll arrive before your birthday or after, but happy birthday regardless! I’ve put something in the envelope and hopefully it’ll stay safe.

It’s half of a kinstone, when you find the other half and fuse them together, something good will happen.

As for my birthday, it’s still months away. Mine’s March 4th

Looking forward to your next letter,

Link

---

Dear Link,

I don’t think I’ll be able to send letters as often anymore. Somehow Link and I pulled something called the ‘Master Sword’ and it split in two. Everyone’s calling us the ‘Chosen Heroes’ and telling us that we have to begin training soon.

I’m scared… I have a really bad feeling…

I hope I’ll be able to hear from you soon.

Rinku

---

Dear Link,

Hah… I don’t even know why I’m writing this. It’s been so long… a century. I doubt you're even still alive, but something in my heart urges me to write this anyway.

So much has happened, where do I even begin?

Link became the Hylian Champion at the same time that I became Captain of the Royal Guard. We barely saw each other after that, he always had to follow the princess while I had to train the troops to prepare for Calamity Ganon.

Even with everything, it didn’t matter.

We still failed.

That beast took everything from us, Hyrule is in shambles. I hope wherever you are, you’re safe. 

Link was shot by a guardian, these huge metal monsters, they put him in the Shrine of Ressurection, an ancient piece of Shiekah technology that would supposedly heal him.

I fell in Kakariko… yet, here I am. Apparently they put me in a room that had some sort of Stasis similar to the Shrine.

The difference however… I remember everything.

Link remembers nothing. Not even me.

But we managed, we survived, we took on so many trials together.

And then we took on Calamity Ganon.

It’s gone now, Hyrule is finally safe, we fixed our mistake.

So why does it still feel like we failed?

I wish I could have met you…

Like I said, I don’t even know if you’re alive, I might be sending this to a dead man. But on the slim chance that I’m not…

I really hope I can see you.

Rinku

---

Fiddling with the kinstone half that he had fashioned into a necklace, Rinku sighed heavily. Nearby he could hear Link fiddling with the Slate. The two of them were relaxing on the Plateau, needing some peace and quiet.

A snapping sound caught both of their attention, as one they looked over at the source of the sound, dumbfounded to find themselves staring at a group of people. How the hell did they get up here?

“Pardon us… but would either of you be named Link?” Rinku bristled faintly, defensive as he felt Link tense beside him.

“Who wants to know-?” His terse reply was suddenly caught off by a quiet gasp from seemingly the smallest of the group.

“Rinku…?” His ears flicked and he looked over at the speaker, the guy looked like he’d seen a ghost, the way his gaze kept flicking between his face and… his necklace?

“That’s me, yes…?” He replied cautiously, well aware of the confused looks both of them were getting. He tensed as the other approached after murmuring something to the supposed. The other raised his hands passively, showing they were empty and that he meant no harm.

“Your birthday’s October 30th.”

Rinku stiffened in surprise, he was not expecting him to say that.

“You didn’t want to be a knight and neither did your twin, he has a passion for baking while you had one for sewing.” The stranger continued softly. “On your ninth birthday, you drew the Master Sword together-” They were both aware of the sharp gasp from the group behind the smaller male, but neither acknowledged them.

“Just mere days before then, you received a letter holding half a kinstone.” A soft, hopeful smile crossed his face and Rinku could swear his eyes shone with four different colors. “Kinstones are special… if you fuse two halves together…”

“...Something good will happen.” Rinku managed to finish, staring at the other in disbelief. He managed to stand and half walk, half stumble to the other. He had hoped, he had wished… could it really be…?

“Link…?”

A small laugh escaped him before he held out his arms.

“You said you wanted to meet me, right…? Hope I don’t disappoint-” He grunted softly as Rinku slammed into him, knocking them both over as he hugged him tightly.

Four winced slightly as they hit the ground together, he knew the others would be completely confused about what just happened and he’d definitely owe them an explanation, but right now, he was more focused on finally being able to meet him. Finally focusing back on him, he paused before his heart melted at the mumbling he could barely hear.

“You’re safe, you’re safe, thank the goddess, you’re safe.” 

“I’m safe.” He agreed softly, gently rubbing his back. “I’m safe and you’re safe…” His voice lowered as his grip tightened slightly. “And you didn’t fail.” He felt Rinku stiffen in his arms, but pushed regardless. “Listen to me, you didn’t. You, your twin, you did everything you could, I know you did. And in the end you won.”

“But Link-” He started to protest and Four shushed him sharply.

“But Link nothing.” He replied sternly. “Yes, it took awhile, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Hyrule is safe. You’re safe, Link is safe. You won.”

Rinku sagged against him, burying his face against his shoulder. Four settled with a small sigh before blinking as his gaze met Link’s, Rinku’s Link, his twin.

-You… know my brother?- He asked, cocking his head. -You are… the one he writes to?-

“I am.” He confirmed with a nod. “My name’s Link, just like you. But they-” he nodded to the group behind them. “Call me Four.”

Link seemed to process this before he smiled and raised his hands again.

-Thank you.-

Four blinked, confused as the other continued.

-He told you what happened to us, right? About the Calamity?- At his nod, Link continued. -I think the only thing really keeping him going was the letters he had from you from a hundred years prior. He keeps them in the slate- At that, he pulled up the stone slab from his hip and turned it around so Four could see a screen. On it was the symbol of an envelope and the numbers 523. Internally, he could hear the colors flustering.

“We really wrote that much?”

“Some of them were before us, when it was just Link.”

“Yeesh, all of that…”

“...he kept them all…”

The colors quieted at Red’s words and Four fought back a shiver at the realization. Every letter from their childhood to now, Rinku had found a way to keep them all safe and sound. He tightened his hold on the younger male, overwhelmed at the emotion engulfing his heart.

A soft clearing of someone’s throat caused the trio to jump and finally turn their attention to the group once more.

“Four… perhaps it’s time for introductions?” The smith flushed faintly at the amused glint in Time’s eye.

“Ah… yes.” He managed, fighting back a pout (he did not pout, he did not) when Rinku pulled back to look at the group with a wary eye. Just because he trusted Four, didn’t mean he trusted the rest of them right away.

“Everyone… this is Link and Rinku. Twin brothers and the heroes of this Hyrule.”

His gaze met Rinku’s and he gave a half smile.

“We have a lot to talk about.”

[burnsopale]

So back in August I ensconced myself in a cabin on a mountain to do some writing, and I decided to do a take on the classic “Volkov returns from prison”-scenario.

I got five chapters and 35 000 words in and I will never ever finish it because I have no dicipline. So I figured I could at least share some of the readable bits with you.

Working title: Ashen Characters in this clip: BBA, Russian boys, PPB, mention of the Euro-team Setting: 7 years after season one, Russia, a beyblade park in the evening Summary: Volkov has escaped from prison, attacked PPB headquarters and taken back Black Dranzer. The Russian boys have been living with the PPB, and were used and hurt in the attack. Yuriy left with Volkov for unknown reasons. Daitenji Kogoro has gathered the troops and sent them to Russia to find out what Volkov is up to. Meanwhile, Kai’s grandfather is on his deathbed, and Kai is struggling to deal with it.

The crowd swelled, until there was no way that Takao was going to get any kind of private conversation with his friends. He gave up on the notion for the present, and threw himself into matches. He played the kids who wanted to, holding back as much as he could and leaving Seiryuu simmering in the blade, but eventually they called for a match between Takao and Kai.

Takao loved blading against Kai; somehow, he could never do less than his best against Dranzer, but when Kai now took his place on the other side of the small, grounded dish, something felt off to Takao. Kai looked dull, like he was going to the dentist and just had to get it over with. He fitted Dranzer into the shooter with a look like he was miles away.

“Hey,” Takao said, having to raise his voice a little to get past the crowd. “Are you there?”

 Kai looked up, a little surprised. “What sort of trash talk is that? Are you there?”

 “Just checking. I’ll be in your care.”

 “You’ll be under my heel,” Kai said darkly, and now Takao knew something was wrong, but a beybattle had always been Takao’s way to get through to people, so he just bent his knees and raised Dragoon in front of him.

 “Tri, dva, odin! Idi strelyay!”

 Out of the corner of his eye, Takao saw Emily startle, but he’d have to wonder about that some other time because Seiryuu would not be contained any longer and came out roaring.

Dranzer took Dragoon’s attack head on. Seiryuu bent over it like he was confused as to why Suzaku wasn’t joining him. For the longest moment, Kai just stood there, while Takao watched in disbelief.

 Then, as if he was lifting a great weight, Kai breathed in and cried, “Suzaku!”

 Even the vermillion bird herself didn’t so much soar out of the bit chip as climb laboriously out. Seiryuu hissed, offended by this poor showing, and the battle was over in less than a minute.

 Kai picked up Dranzer and went to stand next to Boris and Kyouju without even commenting on the results. The audience was, thankfully, satisfied, but Takao was not.

 He played Eddie and got a much better match out of him; Trypio was one of those tricky blades that you needed strategy and forward thinking to beat.

 Afterwards he got a chance to say two words to Emily about Kai.

 “He is going through a tough time,” she said.

 “Yeah, but he doesn’t usually let it hurt his blading.”

 “He can’t still be grumpy about the finals?” she wondered.

 Takao shook his head. “Nah, he agreed Ralf deserved that one.”

 Emily nodded, biting her lip in pleasure as she thought back. “Ralf was incredible. It was a team win, but he had the best individual result. The data output was like a laden buffet table.”

 “Ooh, buffet! ... Did he lose at all?” Takao didn’t think he had, but he hadn’t been able to catch every battle.

 “Hmm. Rai came close; lightning is good against such massive holy beasts, and it was close for Kai too of course, but no one can quite top the sheer mastery Ralf has over Griffolyon.”

 “It’s not mastery; it’s teamwork,” Takao insisted, frowning.

 “Call it synergy, then,” she said, shrugging. “Ralf knows his business, that’s all I’m saying. They all do, those European bladers.” She chuckled. “You know, Ivan calls them Earthquaker, Wingshaker and Heartbreaker, from back before he learned their names.”

 Takao matched the nicknames to their right bladers in his head. “... What does he call Johnny?”

 “The hedgehog.”

 “What about you?” he asked, nodding to the dish where Max was getting ready to battle Steve. “Are you going to play?”

 She shook her head, a look of pain crossing her sharp features. “Trygator is ... missing. He was taken in the attack. Volkov has it.”

 For a moment, Takao found nothing to say. Inside he was boiling. “We’ll get him back, Emily,” he vowed, clenching his fist. “I swear it.”

 She smiled a dangerous smile, not unlike a crocodile’s. “Yes, we will.”

 Eventually the group detangled themselves from the crowd and began to journey home. The world was growing dark, but the sky was still pale above. Long stretched of road lay without light, which came in handy when they had to escape from a few fans who apparently wanted to know where they were staying.

 They stopped on the lawn outside the hotel where Emily and company were staying, and Takao finally got to ask his question.

 “What happened?”

 The others looked at each other, except Boris who looked down, and Kai, who now said a brief goodnight, reminded them where to meet in the morning, and walked away. Max made a soft sound, but didn’t try to stop him. Kyouju seemed torn between not wanting to pry and dying to know.

 Emily made it easier by briefly telling them of her encounter with Peter Trotty. “Turns out his real name is Trotsky. He’s one of three Borg spies that have been undercover in the PPB for years. Or rather, one of the three we’ve found so far.”

 “What did he mean by that thing he said? Baba who?”

 The Russian boys shifted their feet. Sergei’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a silent snarl.

 Kyouju could, as usual, not help doing a bit of teaching. “Baba Yaga is the name of a witch in Russian fairy tales. She is an old woman who rides through the woods on a mortar, and lives in a house that stands on four chicken legs.”

 “Chicken legs?” Max echoed doubtfully.

 “She is sometimes an enemy, but can also help the hero or heroine, if they do the tasks she sets them.”

 “In this case,” Sergei said, “she is a real woman. She was in the abbey. She trained us, Ivan and me, and sometimes Yuriy.”

 “Don’t ask about her,” Ivan said, putting his hands over his ears. “I hear the creaking in my head all the time. I thought I was rid of it. I thought it was over!”

 “She is dead,” Sergei said with conviction. It sounded like something he needed to believe. “She was old when I came to the abbey; she must be dead. But they had her voice on a tape recorder and ... it’s hard to disobey.”

 “Fuck her!” Ivan exclaimed, and then grew suddenly pale as if he had said something dangerous. “No more,” he said, more lowly. “She’s a fairy tale now. Only fit for scaring children.”

 For a while they stood in silence, and then Kyouju asked the other question, the one that had been hanging over them all day. “Why did Yuriy go?”

 “Because he’s an idiot!” Boris said, holding up clawed hands like he would like to wrap them around Yuriy’s throat. He turned away and roared behind his teeth up at the darkening sky. “He’s a stupid mudak! Fuck!” He kicked a turf of grass so dirt sprayed up. “Fuck, fuck fuck!”

 They watched him stomp repeatedly on the uprooted bit of turf, and then move on to a flower that was unlucky enough to stand nearby.

 “What Borya said,” Sergei agreed.

 “But we’re to blame too,” Eddie added, pulling his jeans jacket around himself like he was cold. “We thought we were doing a good job making them feel at home.”

 “We thought Michael was taking care of Yuriy,” Steve said, stern with himself. “But Michael and Yuriy are nothing alike. It didn’t work out.”

 “And we didn’t notice,” Eddie finished.

 “Don’t talk like that,” Ivan hissed. “Like we were your homework!”

 “But you were,” Emily said in her factual, merciless way. “At first. Then you became our friends. Now you are ours, whether you like it or not. You won’t rest until Yuriy is liberated, but neither will we. He’s coming back home with us.”

 “We’re with you too,” Max said quickly.

 Takao and Kyouju nodded determinedly.

 “The first step is to figure out where Volkov is and what he is planning,” Kyouju said.

 “And that means getting to bed, so we are ready for tomorrow,” Emily added. “Come on, boys. I promised Judy I’d tuck you all in by ... well not this hour, but she doesn’t need to know that.”

 Takao, Max and Kyouju watched them go, Sergei grabbing Boris by the lapel and pulling him away from the flowers he was chewing up. Then they turned and headed for their own hotel and their beds.

 “What do you think we’ll find tomorrow?” Max wondered.

 “We’re going back to the abbey,” Takao answered. “We could find anything.” A feeling of foreboding was growing in his stomach.

 Takao surprised everyone by being the first to get up that morning. He was too keyed up to sleep any longer. He was digging into his second round of breakfast when the others arrived, but politely stuck around to keep them company until they too were finished. It gave him time for round three anyway.

 “You’d think I don’t feed you,” Dad said as he brought his plate to the table.

 “You’d think Grandpa doesn’t feed you,” Takao retorted, looking at the mountain of food on his dad’s plate.

 Kyouju sipped his tea, two slices of toast with honey lying neatly on a plate in front of him. “Like father like son, I suppose.”

 “They snore like father and son too,” Max said, yawning as he took a seat between Kyouju and Kai.

 Kai smiled. He had his own room.

 Their friends arrived from the other hotel a little before ten o’clock, and at ten precisely, two large black cars came to a halt in front of the hotel doors. A huge man stepped out of the first car. He had bushy moustaches and bushy eyebrows, and a great big belly, and he wore shorts, sneakers and a yellow Hawaii shirt that looked deeply out of place in the middle of the city. He shook hands with Takao’s dad, and with Kai and Emily.

 “Hello hello, everywan,” he said, sounding exactly as jolly as you’d expect, like a big Russian santa. “My name is Gregor Gregorovitsj. You can call me Gregor. I will be your guide today. I understand that some of you will be coming with me to look at the papers and other inventory that we cleared out of the abbey, while some others of you,” He looked to Takao’s dad. “Want to go see the abbey for yourself.”

 He looked at them expectantly. Then his eyes alighted on Sergei, and travelled to Boris, and down to Ivan.

 “Oh.” He said. He scratched his head. “... They didn’t tell me why you wanted to go there. Why would you want to?”

 “You haven’t heard about Vladimir Volkov escaping from prison?” Emily asked.

 Gregor looked surprised, and then a little embarrassed. “To be honest, nobody tells me anything. I am only archivist, but I speak English, so they sent me. I have never been guide before.” He frowned. “But if that man has escaped ... hmm ... that explains some things. I may not be told anything, but I do hear things.” He frowned a little more. Kai cleared his throat, startling him out of his thoughts. “But we should get going! Okay, those who want to go to abbey go in the first car; the driver knows way, and someone will meet you there to show you around. Everyone else, in second car with me.”

 “Who is going where?” Takao wondered. “I’m coming with you, Dad.”

 “As am I,” Kai said.

 “And me.” Boris took a step away from his own group towards theirs. “You won’t find anything without one of us going with you.”

 Kai turned to him. “Then it should be Ivan or Sergei.”

 “No,” Boris said simply. “It will be me.”

 Emily pushed her glasses up and surveyed her troops. “Sergei is taking point on the textual evidence, and Steve and I read enough Russian to aid him. Daitenji Kogoro mentioned a warehouse with inventory, so Eddie and Ivan are going there.”

 Kai rolled his eyes in disgust. “And how do we know you won’t have another episode?” he asked Boris bluntly. “You think going back to that place won’t trigger any memories?”

 Boris lifted his head stubbornly. “There will not be an episode. I am going.”

 “You are not safe,” Kai growled.

 “Stop it!” Takao placed himself between them, facing Kai. “If Boris says he will be fine, then he will be.”

 “Why?” Kai sneered. “Because you believe in him?”

 “Because I trust him,” Takao answered.

 Dad put a hand on Kai’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Kai; we’ll be together the whole time. If anything should happen, we can handle it, but I think Boris knows best if he will be alright or not.”

 Kai shrugged off the hand. “I agree,” he spat. “I just also think he would lie about it.”

 Emily, Eddie and Steve were looking on in confusion and shock, while Ivan and Sergei’s faces were growing dark.

 Boris said something in Russian that was clearly an offer to throw hands, and Kai turned back to him like he absolutely meant to take that offer and go through Takao if he had to, until Max suddenly stepped in front of Kai and drove him backwards.

 “That’s enough, Kai!”

 Takao exhaled in relief as he saw Kai’s attention snap to Max with the irresistible awareness that Max always commanded of him.

 “This isn’t about Boris,” Max said, putting his hands on his hips and leaning forward like he was at work and lecturing one of his kindergardeners. “It’s about you. If you don’t want to go to the abbey, then you don’t have to! But don’t take it out on Boris!”

 Kai’s face got all red and pinched.

 Max straightened up and exhaled. “Kai.” He shook his head. “I’ll come too, and like Kinomiya-san says, we’ll go together, and if you’re scared I can hold your hand and then it will be fine-”

 “Just get in the car,” Kai said in a strangled voice and immediately followed his own advice.

 “Guess I’m coming with you,” Max said, nodding to himself like he thought he had done a good job, and Takao thought so too.

 Max had a way of diffusing – or confusing – Kai that sometimes came in handy.

 Takao just wished they could get to the heart of the problem. This was not about the abbey, he didn’t think so, though it was about going together, and about being lonely even when you were surrounded by friends.

 “Well,” Gregor said, swinging his hands back and forth by his sides. “That was awkward. Would you like to go now?”

 Kyouju decided to go with Ivan and Eddie to the warehouse, and so the teams were agreed upon.

 Takao didn’t know what Daitenji-san wanted them to find in that black stone labyrinth, but as they left the city centre and began to near the desolate edges where Volkov had picked up so many of Moscow’s orphaned and abandoned boys, his feeling of foreboding grew stronger. Something was waiting for them. Something they were not prepared for.

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

Til Death Do Us Part ch 1

This will end up on Ao3 eventually  Based on the @maulusque post (Which You Should Read Before Reading This) where Fox and Palpatine end up in a fake relationship and sham marriage because both thinks the other is sincere and that they are manipulating the other but Fox had one hell of a prenup and ends up cleaning house when he divorces Sheev and saves the galaxy 

This is not that story.  This is a failed version of that story I thought up because my two braincells were like Rey Palpatine? That makes Fox her step-grandpa??? and i wanted them to meet. It also is turning into a Sequels Fix It (disclaimer- I kind of take sequels canon about the sheev clones and mash it with my fist until juice comes out and make lemonade and do whatever i want bc they dont explain enough)

Summary:  Fox wakes up from cryo-stasis to a galaxy recovering from the fall of the Empire as the universe’s Bitterest Ex-Husband because he didn’t get to kill Palpatine himself. He’s not going to let some discount clone of sheev ruin things again either, and ends up with a surprise step-granddaughter along the way.  3k words chapter 1/?

Fox should have known better than to attempt out-manipulating the puppetmaster of a galactic war.  What really rankled was how close he had come, his fingers had metaphorically brushed the salvation of the Republic before it had been snatched away. 

The divorce had been more than halfway processed, and Palpatine had grown more and more panicked.  Under the scrutiny of every lawyer on Coruscant, the prenuptial agreement had been airtight, the political powers Fox tried to give himself in it were unlikely to be enforced, but the monetary and titular aspects were to the letter of the law.  

Of course the law only applied to citizens and sentients.  Palpatine cracked down hard against Clone Rights in those last months.  He himself did not publicly utter a biased word in either direction, only ever praising the effectiveness of the troops, but many of Palpatine’s close associates presented strong cases.  People that had been at their engagement party, people who had been roped by tradition into dancing with Fox’s brothers at the wedding, people who had looked him in the eye over an oiled banquet table and praised his wit, became the ones proclaiming that Fox and his brothers had no more inborn rights or legal merit than a droid or womprat. 

Palpatine drew the court case out in circular debates, and last minute rescheduling.  Fox was kept exhausted and worn to the bone between the ramped up tempo of the war, the grueling hours in court, and the new loathing facing him every second he spent at his job in the Coruscant Guard.  Palpatine had dropped any acts around Fox, no longer the doting grandfather of the republic, or enthusiastic geriatric spouse, but bitter and jilted and cruel-tongued.  Some days Fox feared for his life. 

It was that resignation that he would die that saved Fox’s life.  He updated his will -clones were at least allowed those for any non-GAR-issue items they had - and made sure copies were held by numerous offices, and even on other planets.  He appointed Cody and the Coruscant Guard as the main benefactors, Cody had the authority to divy resources up among the rest of the vode, and the Coruscant Guard were both his closest brothers and deserving of any boon he could grant them.  He left a hefty endowment for the cadets and tubies, to find either adoptive families or to raise them without the military training in the event of the War ending.  He left his half of the cultural artifacts that Palpatine had collected to the Jedi for them to distribute as they saw fit. 

Even if Palpatine managed to pierce holes through every line of the divorce documents, he could not deny Fox’s last will and testament.  Palpatine had to keep Fox alive, or else he would lose many of the assets he was trying to keep in his grasp. 

Fox had counted on more time to slip information to the GAR and the Jedi, he had counted on less supervision, and he had counted on Dooku and Grievous lasting for a few more months than they did.  

He failed to prevent Order 66, and as his brothers lost their free-will, he was abducted from 500 Republica.  A drugged dart jabbing through his blacks and unfamiliar hands hauling him onto a ship.  He was put into cryo-cycle stasis. That counted enough as keeping him alive that his will could not be enacted, but kept him and his insider knowledge from challenging Palpatine. 

Forty years later, a decade after the fledgling New Republic finally closed the buried account that dripped credits into the facility Fox’s stasis pod was in, the power couplings shorted out - whatever droid or employee was in charge of maintenance long departed for salaried work.  The pod had emergency protocols to thaw him out with the last of its energy reserves if the power was cut out. 

And so out he had staggered, head aching and bile rising.  His genetically wired resilience and discipline had carried him through the worst of the stasis sickness. 

The computer terminals were easy enough to slice.  Palpatine did not change his cybersecurity strategy over the decades, and Fox knew more than he wanted to of that man’s mind.  What he found was disturbing, but not surprising.  Weapons capable of destroying entire planets, the genocide of the Jedi, the suicidal brothers made into cyborg Dark Troopers, a Galactic Empire.  And cloning, an overwhelming amount of information on cloning. Not just familiar Kaminoan files, but resources from other cloning facilities, Strand-Casts, Splices, Stem-cells- every method explored and combined.  Palpatine had been seeking immortality.

Fox did not let himself think about what year it was, he did not think about the decades Palpatine had marred for the Galaxy, the vode all marching far away without him, the history ripped apart by waves of propaganda.  What he thought instead about was his own failure to sacrifice himself and put a blaster bolt through Palpatine’s wrinkled forehead so many years ago. It rankled quite a bit that Palpatine died while he was in stasis - the bitterness of unfulfilled hatred. But he could find new purpose. He would not let a false Palpatine return and inflict himself upon the healing Galaxy.  

After he left the lunar facility orbiting its dead planet in a nearly-corroded relic of an emergency escape ship, the first goal he achieved was programming a medical droid to excise the control chip from his brain.  Then he started slicing again.  There were still some accounts he had set up during his sham marriage with credits that had decades of interest.  His backup plan to that was selling the material assets he knew either he or Palpatine had stored away in scattered locations.  

Fox bought a ship, blasters, and assembled piecemeal a set of armor.  He bought bounty hunter credentials, keeping his helmet on always to hide any recognition his face might bring.  He stacked crates of rations in the empty bunks in his ship - a Skipray Blastboat - a vessel meant for four was a roomy choice to travel alone in, but still nearly invisible in its ubiquity.  And he went hunting. 

Palpatine’s clones were hard to find, a challenge Fox embraced for its distraction.  He found out some of the pseudonyms running the older facilities, the constructed identities for whatever apprentices, droids, or imperial loyalists were actually doing the work.  That was a mystery Fox was still investigating.  

Sometimes, to find a clone of Palpatine, Fox anonymously set the bounty himself, and then claimed it as well - getting the resources of the minor guild he worked with, as well as a tracking fob. 

Sometimes he killed them. Sometimes it was easy, the compulsions and the personality of Palpatine showing through, and that hated face looking back.  Sometimes they were worming their way into government positions to undermine the New Republic.  Sometimes it was harder, botched strand-casts that held only a passing resemblance to the man, and were without the force or any malignance.  Those, Fox judged on a case-by-case basis.  Were they in politics? How connected were they to any neo-imperialists? He judged each of them by their own actions, he knew the way a clone could be blamed for the actions of another.

He was not the only one after these clones, someone else was also hunting them - off of any official Bounty Hunting channels. And with the karked up Sith tradition of usurpers, Fox could not assume it was an ally. 

Fox’s unknown rival gradually became more than just a nuisance to compete against.  There had been a strand-cast clone of Palpatine’s that bore only a partial resemblance and had been actively undermining some of the networks Fox thought might be connected to the cloning facilities. Fox had been trying to track him down, to talk to someone who might be able to link him to the roots of this operation - he was even ready to offer personal protection - but his opponent had reached him first. 

The man was dead now. As was the woman he had been traveling with.  It was frustratingly suspicious, and Fox was out of other leads to investigate.  He spent a few months slicing and scouring for information about the strand-cast.  The man had boarded a ship from a large spaceport with a woman and a child, had transferred numerous times, and then, at the last port before his death, had only embarked with the woman.  The child had either died prior the the adults’ deaths, or was still alive.  And if the child was alive, they might know where their father had come from.

Shipyard security cameras and life/heat sensors could only tell him so much.  He looked into crew manifests, ration orders, and fuel receipts.  Between fuel logs and hyperspace maps, he created a list of planets between each refueling stop with more fuel purchased and time between than a direct route would necessitate and worked down that, checking for ships matching their vessel’s description docking with false credentials.  Planets with smaller populations were quicker to investigate so he looked there first.  It was a slow process over weeks. 

 Jakku had only a few scattered settlements, and while their ship monitoring was lacking, the local population was likely to have seen anyone who arrived or left. He landed outside of one of the larger trade centers. 

He disembarked his ship and walked towards the mass of tents and shabby buildings. He was wearing only a minimum of armor, and had left his helmet on the ship. His blaster was still displayed in its holster, a weight he felt pressed against his thigh with every step. He wasn’t here as a bounty hunter, but something closer to undercover instead, and if the kid was here he didn’t want to scare or threaten the child prematurely.  He would blend in more as just another spacer. 

He was met by a varied group of sun-beaten and skeptical beings. The welcoming committee seemed torn between distrust and hope for trade. 

“I’m here for information.” He began, showing a flash of credit chips when he pulled out his holoprojector. “About a year ago a ship of this type would have arrived and left a passenger behind.” 

“Lotta ships come in and out…” A thin Caskadag said unhelpfully.  But Fox could see poorly concealed recognition among some of the faces. He mentally debated who to bribe or how else to persuade the crowd. 

Out of sight, there was a shriek of conversation and then the frantic scuffle of running feet over sand.  A girl emerged from a clump of tents and stopped, almost breathless, staring at him. She was young, between six or eight, Fox struggled like most clones with approximating odd numbered years of natural borns, but she was small. 

“Did my parents send you!? Are they gonna come get me?” She asked with bright desperation. She was staring at the holoprojected ship in his hands.  Fox knew this was the strand-cast’s child. 

“I’m here because of your parents.” He said evenly.  He looked at the group of now unhappy onlookers, denied their chance to weasel credits out of him. “Is there somewhere less busy we can talk?” 

“Mmhmm.” She walked him between tents to a clearing edged with waste heaps. Fox opened his mouth and then stopped again, hesitant. 

“Why did my parents send you?” There was sensible caginess warring with hope in her voice.  She kept glancing back to the crowd they had just left. 

“I’m sorry, Rey,” He hoped that what the other workers had muttered at her had been her name, and dropped down to one knee to be on a level with her. “But your parents are dead.  I’m sorry, but they can’t come get you.” 

There was a watery vulnerability to her eyes.  Fox expected a denial, he hated being the one to deliver this news. It was partially his own failure.  

“So… So I’m just… I’m just going to stay here? And - and work for Mister Plutt forever?” She looked wetly at the pitiful tents around them, the sand, the beating sun, the scrap-sorting piles.  Fox looked at her, at the scabs and callouses on her tiny hands, at the stained clothing, at the bones of her arms, at the ring of faint green skin around her wrist.  Force, he had always been weak for the cadets. 

“No, if you want… If you want I can take you with me.”  It was an impulsive offer, but it felt right. 

“You’re not my dad.” She said sulkily. “I’m only supposed to leave if him or mum comes.” 

“No, I’m not.” Fox did some quick thinking about his relationship to Palpatine, his own apparent age, and the fact her father was a clone of Sheev. “But I am your father’s ex-husband.” 

He knew that she had no reason to trust him, and frankly if she had any sense to not get abducted, she wouldn’t.  Fox was ready to pull up a datapad with the copy of his marriage certificate, proof her father was a clone, and a discussion of family trees.  Instead of an argument, she looked intensely at him and he felt a warmth swell around him, like a summer breeze.  Of course the kriffing kid was force sensitive. 

It was pleasant, as far as being probed by the force ever was.  She was bright and gentle and washed over him, so unlike the cloying oil-slick that he had not realized choked his mind for years until he was finally free of Palpatine. He waited, keeping his thoughts on what he had just said, but not so intently as to raise her suspicion that he was hiding something. 

Eventually she nodded. “Okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“I know when people are lying.  And-” She hesitated, squirming a little. “And you feel nice.” 

Fox smiled. Nice was not the word that Fox would have picked to describe himself currently, considering he had spent a better part of the past year hunting down clones of his ex-husband and killing many of them with extreme prejudice. He wondered unhappily at what relative caliber for niceness she was comparing him to. He stood up and paused. 

“So you’ll come with me?” He asked again for clarity’s sake. 

“Mmhmm.” She confirmed, and stepped to his side, reaching up to worm her little hand into his. 

“Do you have stuff to get? People to say bye to?” He asked uncertainly.  He wasn’t sure how this was supposed to go, and right now it felt too easy.  She started tugging him towards the array of scrap-sorters.  

She went to a spot she had clearly hastily abandoned when he had arrived, and picked up a dingy canvas bag and slung it over her shoulder.  She walked back to him and put her hand back in his again.  

“Okay. Now we need to tell Mister Plutt.” She nodded towards a permanent structure at the edge of the scrapyard. 

“Rey, Rey, Who’s that man?” One of the women who had not been in the group that greeted him, skin toughened by sand and sun, rose up from the heaps of metal and brandished a staff at him.  Part of Fox was relieved that at least someone was stopping little girls from getting kidnapped.  The other part of him put on his most charming, non-threatening smile. 

“I’m her father’s ex-husband.  Her parents are dead and I only just found out…” 

The woman glared at him but shifted to look at Rey, softening her gaze. 

“He tellin’ the truth? Do you know this man?” 

“He’s not lying.” Rey said. “And Dad mentioned he had a complix-complexcated past.” 

“Her father and I may have split over our differences, but I’m not leaving his kid to grow up a scrapper beholden to quotas when I have the resources to raise her instead.”  Fox’s honest determination had the desired effect, the woman lowered her staff and nodded, still suspicious but relenting.  

“You’re going to have to pay Unkar for her.” 

Fox frowned and gestured towards his blaster on his hip. “Sure, I’ll pay.” 

“No. I mean it. You try any funny business and he’ll set the guild on you or worse.” The woman was very serious.  “You got enough to pay?” 

“If I have to, I will.” Fox said with finality.  He did not want to buy another being, but he also wanted Rey off of this planet as smoothly as possible. 

The questioning was repeated with Unkar Plutt, who glared with equal distrust to the people outside.  He took Rey aside into his office room, and Fox hoped it was to question her about his claims and if she actually wanted to leave with him.  Fox was concerned by how easy it was for someone to take a child off of Jakku like this, but also acknowledged that this was incredibly convenient for him. 

Plutt and Rey reemerged and Rey walked over and clung to his pant leg.  Fox brushed a hand over her hair. 

“I’m losing years of good labor.” Unkar said callously. “I expect to be compensated.” 

Fox told himself that the credits he handed over were a bribe. Fox swung Rey’s little bag over his shoulder and after a moment of consideration, hoisted Rey up to rest on his hip as well.  She was light and clung round his neck, giggling with surprise in his ear.  

Fox didn’t need to be force sensitive to know that this decision felt right. 

[jinxthequeergirl]

Promise I'm Not Slipping Away (pt.3)

Poe Dameron x Solo! reader

Summary: the pilot and storm trooper take you hostage but during uour escape things quickly fail.

Warning: swearing, viloence

I HAVE MIXED EMOTIONS ABOUT THIS!

I was also in a piss mood somewhere in the middle so its super bad but enjoy!

~~~~~

"This is...this is real clever of you boys." You stated sarcastically as the storm trooper, who after a touching moment between the two men, poe had named Finn, finished cuffing your arm which now had you attached to poe.

"C'mon, supreme leader, taking me in was your first mistake." Poe stated smoothly with a grin. You scowled as finn yanked poes free arm pulling you both into the corridor outside of the room.

"Just shut up and follow us." Finn said sharply as he placed his helmet back on his head.

"Yhea got that." You replied back annoyed. You would've slipped away by now. But you didn't, not that you didn't want you, because you really did want to take both of these idiots out a while ago. But any time you attempted you felt something awful grip your gut. It only stopped when you did, not only that but you could tell that even if Finn wasn't trusting in himself to actually shoot you down you could sense poe was. He was, although slightly uncertain about it, he still had enough certainty to do it. So you followed.

You where silent and looked back at the control station above hoping someone above would catch wind of you. Luckily for you Hux was on post and looking down. "Now what is she doing down there?" He asked himself. You tripped slightly and poe moved his arm pulling you up. That was all he needed to know you weren't following along willingly.

"Someone stop that pilot!" He yelled and almost instantly the alarms went off and a squad of troops moved quickly after the three of you.

"Shit!" You heard poe mutter before he harshly pulled you along to a ship. He pulled you up the ramp and finn stayed behind you pushing you in. "Stop it! Stop it!" You hissed eventually the ramp shut and you where being pulled to the cockpit and sat you in the passenger seat. "Finn man the guns!"

Finn was quick to find it and get settled. You moved your arm in an attempt to free it but the ship was already taking off. "It's too late! They already know you have me! They aren't going to let us go!" Poe looked at you with a smirk and before you knew it the ship jerked forward fast and zipped out of the bay.

As the ship jerked forward you did too looking at him with a scowl. "Alright finn! Get ready they'll be hot on our tail...right about.... Now!" As he said that two red beams shot past the ship.

You could hear finn shout excitedly from where he sat and poe turned the ship suddenly causing you to slide right next to him.

"Ready finn!?"

"Rea-" before the rest of the word left his mouth something hit the ship with a solid slam and the lights turned red. "What the fuck was that!?" You asked.

Poe didn't answer and only hit a series of buttons. "Ok...change of plans...switching gears." You watched him as he moved his hands dragging your arm with his still attached.

"HANG ON!" You gripped the side of his seat as he drove the ship forward and flipped upside down so you now ended up behind the last two tie-fighters. "Finn, buddy? You in a better position?"

"Yea!'

"Then go!" With two of them where shot down, the last one menover  so it just missed it and shot at one of the engines.

"Finn! Now!" With that it was shot down amd you went flying through space again only to start malfunctioning. "Oh stars,oh stars! We're going to die!" The last thing you remember from the ship was watching the bright yellow sands of Jakku come into view before you crashed.

The sun was hot. But you really didn't expect anything less when you woke up facing the sky with nothing but pain overcoming your entire being. You groaned and moved your hands to rub your eyes but your wrist was caught.

You turned your head and caught the glint of the sun reflecting back into your eyes from the restrains that still connected you and the pilot, who laid motionless on the ground on the other end of the restraints.

"Shit..." You pushed yourself upright and pulled your arms shaking him in an attempt to wake him. "C'mon get up! I'm not frying alive out here!" He groaned as you continued to do so.

"What!?" He finally asked annoyed. "Get up.we need to get off this damn planet."

You said rising to your feet pulling his arm. He huffed and followed suit quickly, and following behind you as you picked through the pile of metal that was the ship. "Here." You handed him a blaster and waved your hand over the restraints so that they clicked free and fell to the ground.

"Whats this for?"

"Well i am expecting you to safely lead me across this hell planet." You said pulling off layers of your clothes and rolling your sleeves.

"Wait, wait, wait wheres finn?" You stopped and looked around. "Who's to say? The wreckage goes back for miles maybe he fell out way back...maybe he already left. Which would be a great idea! This land is filled with scavengers, ruthless scavengers."

He sighed and looked torn. You pushed your hair back and patted his shoulder. "I'm sure he's alright...you did a really good thing getting him out of there...now lets go." You said that softly before walking past him in the opposite direction he faced.

You heard him let out a deep breath before he turned and followed you. "If we wanna get off this planet we need to keep heading that way." He said pointing far off in the distance. "Thats where you found me last night...that where my ship will be. We get there and I do a few repairs on it we'll be off."

You nodded and stepped aside letting him take lead.

The sun was now some what low by the time the both of you saw the little town off in the distance. "Think we'll make it by sun down?" You asked as you continued to walk.

"We should...hey why haven't you run away by now? Found your own way back? You following me just means your still my prisoners."

You shrugged and stopped to face him. Searching for an explanation. "I..." You trailed off seeing something behind him.

"You what?" He pushed but you where so focused on the the group that made there way towards the both of you, blasters ready in hand. "Shit get down!" You grabbed his shoulders and tackled him to the ground, crashing on top of him as they began to fire.

You grabbed the blaster you had given him earlier and shot back.

You rolled off of him and continued to shoot. "Start running i'll cover you!"

"Are you crazy!?"

"Go!" You snapped rising to your knees, you stopped a blaster beam mid air and forced it back at the attackers. Poe stood up and started running towards the town.

You pushed your hand out to them and they fell back giving you enough time to turn and run.

"What are they!?"

"I told you scavengers! They tend to attack and strip any one and any thing of something they can sell off!"

He grabbed your arm and pulled you behind a small hut so you could catch your breath.

"Well we made it.." He said. You looked up at the small scattered houses that the farther you looked the closer and more crowded they got.

"Finally..."

You set up a small camp right next to poe's x-wing. You sat by the fire as he worked away on the ship.

You stared into the fire and got lost in deep thought.

"Your grandfather would be proud."

You scoffed at the thought, but mainly yourself. You knew full well why you hadn't killed poe when you should have, why you hadn't run away from him and waited for your brother, even hux to come find you.

And though you obviously wheren't resisting the pull. You hated it, but you also hated not feeling it.

"You look conflicted." You snapped from your thoughts when you heard poes voice.

"What?...OH! uh..no im..im fine!" He didn't look convinced but sat down across from you. "We should be ready to go early afternoon tomorrow.."

"Great!" You said rolling your sleeves down now that it had gotten somewhat chilly do to the lack of the beating sun.

"And...uh thanks for..ya know saving my tail back there." Before you could respond he was already laying back in the sand ready to sleep.

You sighed and did the same thing and slowly dozed off.

By morning you found that sleeping in the sands of jakku wasn't necessarily the most comfortable pf terrains to fall asleep on especially with it's increasing temperatures as soon as the sun began to rise.

"Finally awake i see!" Poe shot sarcastically to you. "Oh ha very funny fly boy!"

"Well if it means anything i got a head start and she's already to go!"

You made your way over to him. "So we can leave this awful planet finally!"

"And go back to the resistance base." He said. You said nothing in turn to that going back to your thoughts from the night before.

"Well if you are ready then lets go!" The ride to the base was somewhat quiet and when you arrived you felt extremely unnerved by a strong presents that only grew as you followed poe through the base.

"General organa!"

"Commander Dameron! It's good to have you back!"

"Thank you general but i have news i brought someone who i think might help."

Poe gestured to you and both general organa and poe looked at you.

You could hear her let out a soft breath and You stood in the door way eyes glued to the ground as she walked over to you. She stood there in front of you, saying nothing, making no movement for a while. Then quietly she reached up to your chin and lifted your head so that you where looking at her.

"You've got my eye's...." She said softly with a light smile. "And your tall now...you get that from your dad....you both do." You gave her the same light smile in return.

Soon enough her arms where around you hugging you tightly it took you by surprise but you slowly returned the gesture and wrapped your arms around her burying your face in the crook of her neck.

"I'm sorry..." You mumbled.

"I know...I know you are...it's not your fault."

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Tagging!

@theamazingprincessofgifs​​ @stella-nebella​​ @leilei-draws​​ @captainlarsonn​​ @taina-eny​​ @angelcvsmic​​ @creativelyquestioninglife​

[basadd]

It starts off in this rectangular compound with shelves up some of the sides. It’s forward long and it’s got doors on each end, and a little door in the middle on the right. Somehow and somewhy there’s a bunch of people stuck in that room by chance and were being shot fire(that hurt like *shit* by the way) at by some dude/villain in one of the end doors. I was one of those shelf people, and the easiest way to get away from the fire was to go up, climbing the shelves, which made near zero sense because the flamethrower’s flames can reach even the corners of the room. There’s also a pretty whitish BIG golden retriever that’s wearing a sort of vest and just now reminiscing i feel *really* bad for the person whose service dog got dumped in there without them.

So, you know, I’m climbing up the shelves (which aren’t empty by the way) to try and get away from the hellfire. People are dropping off left and right. The fire’s source is stationary, not that it matters. I’m pretty sure the reason we were all there was to kill or at least stop the fire guy, but it’s not like us civilians were doing that anytime soon.  I don’t know when i consciously realize i’ve had this dream before, but i have, and all might in the later parts i’m pretty sure was santa claus before.

Eventually, after a good half hour or so of murder and terrorization, the fire stops and the man behind it talks to us. What does he say? He’s a white skinny villain wearing all black flanked by soldiers and tanks. He’s a thirty-something. I’m slightly confused at this point because i was fully expecting endeavor. It’s all of our first glance at him. I think he was even using a machine for shooting fire. Huh. Anyway, he’s talking to us, I barely absorb any of it, being freshly terrorized. He announces that we made it through the ‘first wave’, and i sicken. As they parade down the rectangle, perfectly fire-free, to make their exit through the opposite door, i dread the fact that they’re coming back, and it’ll get worse, as things in video games tend to do. This really feels like a video game, and i don’t like it. They exit, tanks and all, through that door. All of us are too stunned to attempt an assassination.

While they’re gone, through the side door, two heroines emerge. They say nothing, and fail to acknowledge us, eyes only for the door/chamber that the flamethrower and troop of villains were stationed in before. They’re wearing superhero costumes, and they’re of the american heros-- i’m pretty sure one of them is wonder woman, and the other, i’m not sure. But they weren’t wonder woman and whoever else the second woman was dressed up as. They were, through, competent infiltrators. They pry open the fire-source door and ??? do something? Steal something? Probably steal something, but for the life of me i can’t remember what it was. The POV is following these women now. After they’re done stealing or breaking or gathering data or whatever they have to pry the side door open to return out of it. It does not stay open very long, and one of them get pinched when she’s mostly out. (it’s a thick door.) Her (?)friend pulls her out, and the door inconveniently reopens. One of the people trapped in the warehouse try to escape after them but the door starts to close on them, too, so they back off. That pretty dog i mentioned earlier didn’t know better, though. They jumped through, got stuck at the three quarters point of the thick door, and the women doubled back to help the currently thrashing service dog and possibly take it along wherever they were going. They pry the door open again just wide enough for the dog to move freely again and instead of going the final step, the dog leaps backwards back into the enclosure. This stumps the women, but they decide not to question it.

Here, somehow, the women’s clothes change from superhero to ragged prisoner garb. Not proper orange prisoner’s, but grey smudged and ripped like anime prisoners-of-war’s.

Their surroundings remind me of a hospital. They need to leave it, but if nurses notice them they’re done for. Doing the deer thing and staying still works remarkably well in my dreams, so that is the best way to reach their goal. The short-haired one, whose haircut sort of reminds me of shigaraki’s, lays down on a cart belly-down and stills. She lets her eyes scan the halls on their own. Her companion, with longer, dark brown hair, wheels the cart to the nearest corner and lets her look around. There’s a nurse. So they wait.

Somehow, glossed-over events take place and they end up exactly where they were in the hall with the cart, but now sitting around a table with a third person. Shigaraki-hair’s face is crumpled with the weight of something she has to do, and i’m also filled with dread because I know what it is, and I know how it’ll turn out. She’s handed a knife---a weird one, looking to be carved out of one of those metal rulers with cork backs. There’s a commotion of nurses around the corner. Shigaraki-hair stands up from her chair and clutches that blade in her hand. The commotion is waiting for her.

It turns out through some semblance of misunderstanding Shigaraki-hair managed to claim that she could kill the man in the chamber’s chamber-- where the flamethrower had been stationed-- but now All Might was in there. As a prisoner. And the people in the first big chamber were chucked in there to kill him. And for some reason, these nurses thought that she was volunteering to 1v1 him and kill him herself. With…. The ruler knife.

Shigaraki-hair’s companion and probably girlfriend at this point grabs her face and makes her sit down again. She grabbed her face wrong so she spends a good couple of seconds rearranging her hands to grab her cheeks better and it takes like a second too long so they both laugh a little.

I think she wishes shigaraki-hair well. I know what’ll happen. Does she?

Shigaraki-hair gets led to the chamber, and now it’s filled with red auditorium seats in an angled around a rectangular floor in front of the All Might-prison. She gets shoved into one and left there. The same people who were climbing shelves earlier but are now there against their will to kill All Might are there, too, but I don’t know about the dog. Kyle, one of my friends from school, sits next to her and greets her. I’m minisculely comforted by his presence because there are friends here, but that means that he must be there the be forced into killing All Might or being killed, too. That’s his only cameo.

Shigaraki-hair is manhandled to the open floor in front of All MIght’s door, and the bad people back away to let her ready herself. She holds up her knife. What the nurses believed was a lie, there was no chance she could stand against All Might. Whether it be by the number one hero himself or the bad people after she failed, she was going to get killed.

She was.

The scene changed. I’m myself, in my real-life grandfather’s backyard, sitting at a picnic table that was never there in real life. A party must be going on, with all the people around me. My parents are there, but the rest of my relatives, i’m not so sure about. I know the All Might scene hasn’t ended, by surroundings have just changed-- this backyard is exactly the space of the chamber with the red auditorium seats. The battle was still going to happen and shigaraki-hair was still going to lose. It was dangerous to be here, because here *was* there. The river behind me was the wall that withheld the great hero, and my grandfather’s house the wall that the flamethrower man and his following had disappeared to. I stood up. It wasn’t just shigaraki-hair that was going to die, now, it was some of us, too. Some of us were aware of this happening and had precautionary things set up so they wouldn’t die. My mother wasn’t one of them while my dad was, and i was perfectly okay with that.

Then my grandfather’s dream-neighbor shows up from the direction of his backyard. I remember him from my previous dreams. I distinctly remember him holding three skinny, tall waffle cones of the good rich chocolate soft serve ice cream, but I also distinctly remember him having two hands. Well, that didn’t matter; he couldn’t be here. He was innocent and completely uninvolved--he also had two kids, I knew that. He couldn’t be here.

He greets people. When he turns to me, I walk around the table and grab him by his arms, looking him in the eye. “You need to leave,” I tell him forcefully but quietly. “You need to get out of here. Please, get out.” I pray to all hell no one will call me out for kicking out a guest this rudely, and it’s a near miracle no one does. He’s a little offended but mostly confused as he looks at me, a greasy teenager shaking the life out of his arms and practically begging him to go away. I keep pleading, and eventually he must comprehend the desperation in my eyes and relents. As i let him go and he collects his bag and ice cream cones, he makes a joke about being jewish because i’ve had something like this dream before but instead of All Might it was Santa Claus.

He doesn’t leave the yard by the time I wake up.

[dungeons-and-denizens]

(image courtesy of starshipsally)

02 - JAILBREAK

The party returns to their manor after an eventful day of archeological discovery and monster-fighting. Upon arrival, however, they are immediately faced with an unfamiliar prospitian sitting casually in their lobby. 

She introduces herself as Katrina Aldmeri, but tells them little else of why she’s there or what she wants. Unable to get more out of her, they go about their usual business around the manor. DD arrives soon after, and when the party asks him if Katrina can be trusted, he tells them definitely not, but if they need to get behind locked doors, then there’s nobody better for the job. Hearing this, and after a brief yet wily conversation with the prospitian woman, Jude strikes up a tentative camaraderie with Katrina, as he can relate quite well to her work in the shadows, being a Void player.

After some deliberation, the party hatches a plan to infiltrate Derse to finally get Jack Noir out of prison, as he had intentionally gotten arrested to foil the party’s objective to exile him. Having enlisted the help of DD and Katrina, the party sans Freddy head off to Derse to begin the mission. Freddy requested some time to speak with his grandfather, and that it would be brief, promising to catch up with the party as soon as he finished.

DD ferries them over to Derse and the plan is set in motion. He drops off Jude and Katrina along the jail tower that Jack is being held in. The two shadowy members of the group set off scaling the building while the rest of the party is deposited on the nearby bridge, where they are to cause a distraction that would allow Katrina and Jude to sneak past the guards easily. As soon as everyone exits DD’s cab and his car speeds off into the darkness, the prison guards immediately aggress the group on the bridge.

Despite Sarah’s request to keep the mission casualty-free, Abigail’s flail launches a dersite guard over the edge of the bridge. Sarah leaps off the bridge after him, distressed beyond logic. However, the disturbance has sufficiently drawn the attention of all of the nearby security, and all eyes are on the chaos unfolding on the platform.

Meanwhile, Jude and Katrina have successfully scaled the tower up to the first parapet, and sneak past the guard with little issue. Having realized that Jack would be held in the topmost cell, they continue their brisk climb up the tower and soon reach the second parapet, which connects to the bridge hosting the party’s commotion. Despite a few brief slips, the two manage to slip past the guards again with more or less success.

On their way up the last stretch of the tower, a green and white explosion erupts from the other side of the bridge. A silhouette stands-- or floats, rather-- shadowed by the light, and with a burst of green flames several nearby dersites are flung off of the bridge as rubble rains down on the streets below. When the smoke clears, Freddy hovers slightly above the violet cobblestone-- before rushing into another cluster of guards and shoving them over the edge as well with another pulse of electric green energy. The telltale sparks and crackles of Doc Scratch’s power courses around him, as the party stares dumbfounded at this newest development.

The now destructive force that Freddy has become completely tips the tide into the party’s favor despite the large troop of guards that came to contain the situation. Given that everyone was sufficiently distracted, Katrina and Jude had no issue climbing over the last parapet and tipping over the two guards leaning too far forward over the edge. With security out of the way, Katrina gets to lockpicking the solid iron door that separates them from the only cell on this level of the jail tower.

It slides open with a clink and they quietly swing open the door. A hulking giant of a dersite stands turned away from them, arguing with his prisoner-- Jack Noir. With a nod of understanding toward each other, Katrina darts behind the iron door, and Jude stands directly in the center of the doorway, where he taunts the large guard.

However, Jude’s taunts didn’t go as he planned, and instead of charging at him like the two thieves had hoped, the large guard instead pulls out a massive spiked flail and whips it at the unfortunately defenseless Jude. He opens up a portal, redirecting the spiked head of the weapon to smash into the skull of the prison guard, before closing the portal and severing the chain holding the weapon together. Immediately as the portal closed, though, the large dersite guard slammed full force into the unsuspecting Jude who wasn’t expecting a charge immediately afterwards.

As he’s pinned between a parapet and a dersite, he glances over to Katrina, who, after deliberating briefly, decides Jude could find his own way in, and runs into the room with Jack’s cell, swinging the large door shut and locking it. Jude looks over the edge of the wall, where he sees that down below, a new enemy has entered the fray.

The slim, elegant, dark figure of the Black Queen stands before Freddy, a sinister blade in one hand as she surveys the damage. “I suppose the Doctor isn’t on my side after all,” She laments aloud, “even after he gave me such a lovely gift.” as she slides a gold band with six orbs onto her carapaced finger.

The transformation begins immediately as scales begin to grow off of her body, and a reptilian snout stretches out from her face. Leathery wings unfurl from her back as she lifts up into the air, now a terrifying mix between a cross Black Queen and a dragon.

Mark and Freddy charge the obsidian royal, making an immediate attempt to remove the ring from her body. Despite several blows to her arm, most of them glance off the armor-like surface of her scales. Earlier on, Abigail and Axel had leapt off of the bridge after Sarah and to escape the oncoming rush of personnel headed their way, leaving only Viktor, Freddy, and Mark on the bridge to fight the Black Queen. Raising her hand, the Red Miles stretched out over the crumbling bridge, piercing Freddy and Mark in several places as they clashed against the Queen. Viktor uses his Doom abilities in order to cause the bridge to erode in the near future, preventing any more guards from joining their now chaotic battle. Mark and Freddy make another attempt at cutting through the Black Queen’s arm, and manage to take a chunk off of her shoulder.

However, the green energy pulsing around Freddy begins to weaken and fade as his time runs short, and the power of the Green Sun begins to ebb away. With a malevolent gleam in her eyes, the Queen unleashes a torrent of flames in the direction of the Time and Light players, finishing off Freddy and knocking him to unconsciousness. Viktor’s spell then takes effect as the bridge cracks and collapses, sending the three party members standing on it plummeting downwards.

Meanwhile, Jude takes advantage of being in close quarters with the guard, and pickpockets the keys off of the dersite’s belt while he’s pinned, before using a small portal only large enough for the Void player to fit through to teleport himself back inside of the room with Jack’s cell, where Katrina waits. Jude and Katrina make swift work of breaking out Jack, demanding that he drop the makeshift pike he had crafted, before creating an opening in the cell wall for the three of them to climb into the waiting passenger cabin of DD’s limousine. Jude hesitates, and instead takes a moment to call Emile, asking if he should leave the area or attempt to grab the ring. After a distressed response from the Gaian, he decides that he’d look a lot cooler going for the ring, as he’s warned by several different people to not die (he makes no promises). Swinging the door of the car shut and waving DD and Katrina away, he uses a portal to bring himself down to the base of the tower, where the bridge has just collapsed.

As he arrives, the ring on the Queen’s hand begins to glow once more. The scales covering her carapace shake and shudder as they extend outwards from her body, sharpening to deadly points as sharp blades and knives blossom across every available inch of her form. To the party’s collective dread, it becomes clear that the Queen has only reached stage two of her prototyped form, and that the immense strength she showed earlier was a mere fraction of the pain about to be served up.

With a cheeky declaration of “hashtag worth”, Jude uses a portal to launch himself directly on top of the bladed Queen’s arm, the sharp edges digging into his arms and chest and cutting deep gashes into his body, dealing heavy damage. In a moment of pure disregard for self-preservation, he spawns a guillotine around the two of them in mid air, lined up directly with the Queen’s shoulder. Through incredible luck, the large, heavy blade of the medieval structure came plummeting downwards onto the two of them, managing to avoid damaging Jude as it crunches into the Black Queen’s thickly armored shoulder.

But, the arm does not sever.

The force of the impact, combined with the blood streaming from Jude’s wounds, makes it impossible for him to maintain his hold on the Queen, and he slips off of her, unable to retrieve the ring. The blade of the guillotine, still lodged deeply into the arm of the Queen, finally manages to rip through the last bit of muscle and carapace keeping the arm intact, and severs it from the dersite royal, sending the Queen, her sundered arm (with the ring still on its finger), and the executory contraption plummeting to the ground below.

With a loud thunk, three bodies land in the cab of DD’s limousine. Viktor, the unconscious Freddy, and the now-unconscious Mark (who had attempted to use his Time powers to see if he could circumvent the conservation of momentum, and subsequently sent himself falling faster into DD’s car, knocking himself out on impact), all slam into the floor of the passenger cabin. Shortly after, a black severed arm falls in after them, a gold band glimmering on its finger. All eyes lock onto the ring, and the air between the 3 conscious passengers goes tense as they realize what is about to happen. Jack, Viktor, and Katrina all dive for the arm.

Jack makes it first, with a craze in his eyes as he leaps onto the floor and swipes up the arm before the other two make it. Katrina quickly turns and leaps at the dersite, but instead of going for him like he was expecting, she deftly slides the ring off of the limb Jack has clutched to his chest, and immediately puts it onto her middle finger, flipping off Jack as she jumps out of the limo and transforms into a scaly dragon-prospitian. The furious dersite snarls at her as she flies away from the car, cursing her vehemently as she disappears from view.

Viktor uses his last potion in order to resuscitate the nearly-dead Freddy, and together they tell DD to take Jack to the Veil and take care of the exiling, and grab the unconscious Mark, leaping out of the car after Katrina, and the dark limousine speeds off. The impact of the three of them hitting the violet cobblestone damages Mark further, causing him to nearly perish, but as they are now on the streets below, Sarah (who has been healing fallen dersites the whole fight) rushes over and manages to drag him back from the brink of death. All of the party except for Jude has made it more or less safely to the ground.

Jude, seeing that their new prospitian ally has gained wings, cries out desperately for her to catch him, as hitting the ground would definitely knock him out, and probably kill him. Katrina tries to catch him with her new found powers of flight, but, being unaccustomed to using her wings, overshoots the catch and he plummets past her. In a last ditch effort, she throws the rope down towards him, which he manages to catch. His shoulder dislocates from the force of it, but manages to maintain his grip on their tenuous link. He calls up to her, asking her to lift him up to her to ease the stress on his damaged arm, and the two of them each pull the rope until Jude is being held in Katrina’s arms. He babbles at her an endless stream of “thank you”’s as she begins to lower the two of them to the ground below.

While the prospitian woman is preoccupied, Jude takes the opportunity to slip the ring off of her finger, since she can’t avoid it while holding onto the red-headed thief at the same time. He slides it free from her hand, and shoves himself away from her, sending her falling 30 feet to the ground, and teleporting himself to the Furthest Ring, the ring safely in his hands.

Jude coughs roughly into his phone, informing Emile that his risk was, in fact, “worth it”, when he hears a voice behind him.

“Give me the ring.” Baldur holds his hand out, expression serious.

Hesitant, Jude says into his phone “Emile...should I? Do you trust him?” but when no reply comes back, he looks down to see that the signal has been lost. Or rather, voided. “He doesn’t know you’re here, does he.” Jude tightens his grip on the ring in his palm.

Baldur only shakes his head at Jude, before once again restating his demand.

“Give me the ring, Jude.”

====> CONTINUE THE STORY AT SUMMARY #3: STRINGS AND SUNS !

[andrewmawby]

PFC Melvin Carter

Author's Note: The following text appeared in Chapter One of the Adventures & Advice book that I wrote at the request of my youngest daughter. I also shared the book with my other two older children. This book is not available to the general public as it was a special gift to my children, my older sister, and a very small select group of my friends.

It's important to realize that my father, PFC Carter, passed away before any of my children were even a glint in my eye. The details of his life in what you're about to read are what he might have shared with my children had he been able to sit them on his lap and talk about who he was and what he did.

I only came to appreciate and deeply love my father years later after he had been worn down by life and the horrors of what he experienced in the great World War II. My mother, sister, and I sent him back to Heaven when I was a very young man.

Grandfather Melvin Carter

  Your Grandfather Carter looks pretty smart in his US Army uniform, doesn’t he? He’s beaming because he’s sitting next to your grandmother no doubt! This photo was taken in June of 1945 after he returned from the hellish experience of World War II. The photo was taken at Coney Island amusement park in Cincinnati, Ohio. Many people went to Coney Island before Kings Island ravaged and plundered its customer base.

My dad was born on April 10, 1917. That was just four days after the USA entered World War One in Europe. His middle name honored the tiny hamlet he was born in, Mt. Vernon, Indiana. His father, William Columbus Carter was born in 1846. That made him 70 years old at the time your grandfather was conceived!  

Your great-grandfather was a country veterinarian in the middle of nowhere. Mt. Vernon, Indiana is a sleepy town now, so you can imagine what it was like in the early 1900s.

I have no clue when the family relocated from Indiana to New Richmond, Ohio, just fifteen or so miles upstream on the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati. But before ending up in New Richmond, they must have relocated to Cincinnati not too long after my dad was born because my great-grandfather is buried at the Baltimore Pike Cemetery in Cincinnati.

I do know that my dad’s mother, Ida, married three times. Ida remarried a man with the last name Steinbrecher. This is why all the urgent telegrams she received about her son during World War ll were addressed to Ida Steinbrecher. I don’t have a record of this but Ida’s second husband must have died and Ida, not wanting to be lonely, remarried a third, and final time, to Louis Nitzel. Ida passed away in 1957 and her final resting place is in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Your grandfather, his four sisters, and one older brother lived in or adjacent to a boarding house operated by his mother, Ida Steinbrecher Carter. I was five years old when my grandmother passed away. I have a dim memory of seeing her on her deathbed in a house just off Beechmont Avenue in Mt. Washington. 

Your grandfather's oldest sister was my Aunt Margaret. She dated and married your grandmother’s older brother, my Uncle Louie. Your grandfather must have run into Louie at the boarding house and at some point, Uncle Louie hired him to help collect money from jukeboxes that Louie owned in local bars and other places of disrepute. 

World War II started when your grandfather was twenty-one years old. He enlisted in the US Army to fight our enemies just like millions of other young men. He traveled to at least two Army camps across the US. His first training camp was Camp Pickett in Virginia where he was in Company A of the 6th Medical Training Battalion. He was trained as a battlefield medic and ambulance driver.

After Camp Pickett, he was sent to gorgeous Camp Carson in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. He must have been in awe, as my guess is he’d never before seen snow-covered mountains like these. 

Your grandfather was shipped to North Africa from Camp Carson on April 29, 1943. He was assigned to the Medical Detachment 180th Infantry 45th Division and became part of General Bradley’s Second Corps.

US and British troops were fighting the Germans in North Africa and it was also a staging ground for the invasion of Italy at Anzio Beach. I don’t believe your grandfather was part of the invasion force. My research leads me to believe that once the beachhead was established and the Germans were being pushed up towards Rome, his battalion landed some days after the primary invasion.

He worked his way from Anzio to Rome, and was part of the force that liberated the city of Rome from the clutches of the Nazis on June 4, 1944. Based on photos your grandfather took while in Rome, he appears to have gotten some time off while in this ancient city. However, just days later, on June 12, 1944, he was wounded in his left forearm by a Nazi bullet.

The wound was not serious and he was still able to be part of the fighting force. He also contracted malaria while in Italy. An old newspaper clipping talks about how he was recovering from it before being shipped to southern France.

I’m not clear how he made it to southern France as the Allies continued to push the Germans back towards Berlin, but on October 5, 1944, his unit was sent to the front lines. They engaged the Germans the following morning and the battle raged on all day. As sometimes happens in battle, one side can run out of ammunition. This happened to your grandfather’s unit.

The Germans captured your grandfather on October 6, 1944. I have a very dim memory of my mom saying that he could have avoided capture, but he stayed with his injured soldiers to provide aid and comfort for them.

A newspaper clipping that your grandmother saved indicated that his best friend and tentmate, Vance Hallman PFC, was able to somehow escape capture. I suspect that Vance was not sent out on patrol at the same time your grandfather was dispatched with his rifle company.

Vance subsequently wrote a letter to your grandmother dated November 8, 1944, sharing the details of the battle and your grandfather’s capture.

I’ve transcribed the actual letter here:

France

8 Nov 1944

Dear Jeane,

The letter that I’ve been waiting for came last night and it was yours of Oct 24 telling me that the War Dept had notified you of Carter being missing in action. I would have written you sooner, in fact I did write you all about it but I destroyed the letter after thinking it over and decided to wait until you had heard from the WD.

I wrote Mary all about it and told her to write you so you’ve probably heard from her by now. But in case you haven’t I’ll tell you about it and I hope this relieves you and his mother of a great part of the anxiety that you must be in.

First of all I want to tell you that Carter is only a prisoner, and I know that relieves you some because the WD never gets into detail and it’s human nature for us to expect the worst when it involves someone we love. Those three words “missing in action” cover a lot of territory and I can imagine how you all felt when you got the telegram.

Carter was an aid man with one of the rifle companies and on Oct 6 there was a big battle in the forests that (Please excuse the two kinds of paper, I didn’t know I was so near out of the other.) lasted all day and up into the night. The enemy broke through our lines and Carter’s Company was surrounded. There were many casualties so Carter and some of the men carried them into a farmhouse and down into the cellar where he could give them medical attention.

About dark that evening the enemy encircled the house and took Carter and the seventeen wounded men prisoners. Some of the other men that were at the house with Carter made a break for it and got away but Carter chose to stay and take care of his wounded buddies who might have died otherwise. Knowing Carter like I do, I don’t believe he would have left those buddies of his under any circumstances and Jeane, don’t you think any of us has forgot that heroic deed and he will certainly get recognition for it from the War Department.

I talked to one of the men that were in the house with Carter who made a break for it and got away, and he praised Carter very highly for his sacrifice. Jeane, the Germans were seen evacuating Carter and the wounded men from the house that evening with the help of five more of our medics that were captured the same time Carter was. So he has five more of his buddies in the medics that are prisoners with him.

They were litter bearers and were in a jeep on the way up to the house to get the wounded men that Carter was looking after, when they were captured.

Jeane, we’ve had reports from medic prisoners and they say the medics get the best of treatment, and they also get priority on the list of exchange prisoners which is very good news.

Yes, Jeane, I do know that you and Carter mean everything to each other and I can readily understand that, and Mary and I are looking forward to being with you all when this war is over. You’re right, we’re going to have a swell time together after this mess is all over, and I don’t think that’s so long off either. Carter and I already have a trip to the Indianapolis races and one to Florida planned.

I miss him very much, we used to lie in bed at night and talk about you and Mary and make all kinds of plans, etc. He’s a swell guy, Jeane, and I’ll be seeing more of him after this war. A fellow doesn’t find friends like Carter every day. He’s one of the best friends I ever had and I feel as if I’ve known him all my life.

Jeane, I received your other two letters sometime ago and this is the reason I haven’t answered them. I sincerely hope that I’ve taken away some of the worry off your and Carter’s mother and if there’s anything else you want to know or anything that I can do for you please don’t hesitate to call on me, I’m sure Carter would do the same for me.

Sincerely yours,

Vance Hallman

I’d love to know more about this and how terrifying it must have been. Imagine having one or more German soldiers, possibly with their bloodlust overflowing, pointing their rifles at your chest.

Another newspaper clipping recounting the battle and capture, states that he also suffered a head wound from a bullet. He was sent to Stalag II-B in Poland after his capture. This camp was located in the far northeastern corner of that occupied country. The newspaper clipping states he ate potato peels to stay alive and went without bread for weeks at a time.

He received a Purple Heart for this injury. Far greater than the gunshot wounds were the psychological injuries he suffered. These would bubble to the surface once back home and would plague your grandfather for the rest of his life.

Your grandmother told me many years after your grandfather died that he had an unpleasant time in the German POW camp. He lost quite a bit of weight and I remember a story told once at the dinner table about him being hit by one of the guards. Dad had cursed at the guard out of frustration and the guard either knew English or could simply understand what my dad was trying to convey.

In April, 1945 Dad’s POW camp was liberated by advancing Russian forces that were beating the Germans back towards Berlin. Your grandfather shared the story of how on that day he and all the other prisoners awoke to find all their guards had abandoned them.

They heard a rumbling sound and a Russian tank crashed through the prison gates. Dad and all his POW buddies were fearful that they might be killed, but the tank commander opened his hatch, popped his head out, went back into the tank and brought out a 5-gallon fuel container.

The container didn’t contain gasoline. It was filled with vodka and they all had a giant liberation party right there in the POW camp!

The war ended not too long after this and your grandfather was moved to the coast of France to await a transport ship to take him back home to his sweetheart, your grandmother. Here is the first letter he sent to her once he was liberated from the POW camp. 

Germany - May 6 - 45

My Dearest Darling,

Honey just a few lines to let you know I am well and getting along fine. I know you have been waiting seven months to hear from me and I know you have thought I have been dead but when you are a prisoner you are not allowed to write much but I did write you a few letters whether you got them I don’t know.

Honey here is the main thing you want to hear right now. I am at an airport waiting for a plane to take me to the coast of France where I will (missing verb) the boat for home and I should be there within a month. Well honey right now I am very tired and sleepy so I will close until tomorrow with all my love.

Yours forever,

Melvin

He got back from Europe on June 2, 1945. He was sent to Camp Atterbury in nearby Indiana. They were married within weeks on June 14, 1945.

His experiences on the battlefield, the fear of being killed when his unit was overrun, and then the seven months in a German POW camp caused permanent debilitating injuries to your grandfather’s psyche. He suffered from severe depression that, unfortunately, was made worse by electroshock treatments administered by the Veterans hospital psychiatrists.

Doctors back in the late 1940s and 1950s thought this was the best way to treat depression, just like hundreds of years ago doctors thought that bloodletting was the way to cure sick patients.

Should you want to see disturbing and vivid examples of this electro-shock treatment, watch the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest with Jack Nicholson. Based on what I’ve discovered, each successive shock treatment intensified the depression so the doctors were setting up your grandfather for failure. I don’t blame them, nor should you. They were doing the best they could do at the time.

I don’t have a clear picture of the time period from 1945-1955, but my guess is it was a tumultuous time for your grandmother. She was not alone as tens of thousands of other young wives were dealing with their tormented soulmates. There’s a reason why the three-word saying war is hell rings true.

At one point, my Uncle Raymond, Aunt Thelma’s husband, got your grandfather a job at the massive Cincinnati Milling Machine factory. I have one faded memory of Dad either leaving for or coming back home from the plant. He had on dark blue pants and shirt and was carrying a metal lunchbox.

I also have a sad memory of his escalating torment. One warm summer day, he and Mom were involved in a heated discussion. It was close to my birthday and evidently, he wanted to rescind his promise of taking me and some friends on some sort of birthday outing. It might have been an afternoon at Putt-Putt miniature golf. I was quite young and I remember sitting on the front porch crying as I heard Mom’s frustrated voice. I can’t tell you how that discussion or the day turned out, but I’m sure it wasn’t the only time that things that should have been easy were instead a challenge.

It’s important to realize that back then, at least in our family, these hardships were not discussed. It might have been too painful for Mom to do. She might not have had the energy. She might not have wanted to frighten your Aunt Lynn and me any more than we already were. She might have thought that all of it was nice-to-know but not need-to-know information for our young minds.

The downside of being kept in the dark about my dad was that as I grew older, I began to resent his behavior. I couldn’t understand why he stayed home all day sleeping on the couch listening to country music over and over on the hi-fi while all my friends’ dads went to work each day.

The thought of not working was hateful to me. The animosity between us climaxed while I was in high school. I was working seven days a week at Skyline Chili. Monday through Friday, I worked from 4 until 7 p.m. to help out with the dinner rush. I’d miss dinner with the family and would bring home a pint of chili, a packet of diced onions, and a packet of cheese.

I’d eat it at the kitchen table in my favorite red-glass bowl, and Dad would come in most nights to watch me. I look back now and understand why he did this. He wanted to be with me and discover how my day had been just like how I want to hear about your days now. He’d be smoking a cigarette and the stench of it nauseated me. This just added to the dark cloud hovering over us. I so wish I could go back in time and change my behavior as it wasn’t Dad’s fault he was suffering. I was just too young to understand his pain and his own feelings of shame.

Fortunately, I began to mature as I made my way through college. The resentment faded and your grandfather and I began to become friends. I’d talk to him about what I was learning in geology and he was genuinely interested.

Once I graduated from the University of Cincinnati in June of 1974 with my geology degree, I started my own little remodeling business. Not a year passed before I had purchased my first house at 2865 Minto Avenue in East Hyde Park.

I remember one day your grandfather stopped by to watch while I worked. It was a beehive of activity and he just stood there for about an hour shaking his head in amazement at the scope of the project and what his son was doing.

Mom told me years later he was really proud of me. He knew I was tackling what for him would have been an impossible challenge.

Your grandfather’s health had always been poor. His sedentary lifestyle mixed with his heavy smoking was a recipe for nothing but bad things. When I was in grade school he had revolutionary surgery where they installed artificial arteries from just below his heart all the way down both legs. I remember crying about this in school the day of his surgery because I knew it was very serious.

In the middle of August 1976, he went for a normal doctor’s visit and the doctor listened to his heart. He was in the middle of an arrhythmia episode and the doctor told him to get to the hospital immediately.

Your grandfather didn’t last a week. He was in intensive care, had multiple heart failures, and was brought back to life with defibrillators. Your grandmother, your Aunt Lynn, and I watched one of these terrifying events happen. I’ll never forget it. 

We sent your grandfather back to Heaven on August 21, 1976, while I was living in the starter home in Hyde Park. I remember your grandmother calling to tell me he had passed away. I have many regrets about your grandfather and one is not being by his side as he passed. He died alone in his hospital room and it bothers me to this day. Your grandfather was still a young man as he was only 59-years-old. His final resting place is in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio, near the rear exit.

Not a week goes by that I don’t think about my dad. There are so many things I’ve done that I wish he could have seen. It would have been so cool to have him stop by while I was building the house in Amberley. He would have been speechless at all the carpentry involved in that huge project! I think he’d be really proud of how my life has turned out. I know he’d be proud of you!

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[thegregorybruce]

PFC Melvin Carter

Author's Note: The following text appeared in Chapter One of the Adventures & Advice book that I wrote at the request of my youngest daughter. I also shared the book with my other two older children. This book is not available to the general public as it was a special gift to my children, my older sister, and a very small select group of my friends.

It's important to realize that my father, PFC Carter, passed away before any of my children were even a glint in my eye. The details of his life in what you're about to read are what he might have shared with my children had he been able to sit them on his lap and talk about who he was and what he did.

I only came to appreciate and deeply love my father years later after he had been worn down by life and the horrors of what he experienced in the great World War II. My mother, sister, and I sent him back to Heaven when I was a very young man.

Grandfather Melvin Carter

  Your Grandfather Carter looks pretty smart in his US Army uniform, doesn’t he? He’s beaming because he’s sitting next to your grandmother no doubt! This photo was taken in June of 1945 after he returned from the hellish experience of World War II. The photo was taken at Coney Island amusement park in Cincinnati, Ohio. Many people went to Coney Island before Kings Island ravaged and plundered its customer base.

My dad was born on April 10, 1917. That was just four days after the USA entered World War One in Europe. His middle name honored the tiny hamlet he was born in, Mt. Vernon, Indiana. His father, William Columbus Carter was born in 1846. That made him 70 years old at the time your grandfather was conceived!  

Your great-grandfather was a country veterinarian in the middle of nowhere. Mt. Vernon, Indiana is a sleepy town now, so you can imagine what it was like in the early 1900s.

I have no clue when the family relocated from Indiana to New Richmond, Ohio, just fifteen or so miles upstream on the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati. But before ending up in New Richmond, they must have relocated to Cincinnati not too long after my dad was born because my great-grandfather is buried at the Baltimore Pike Cemetery in Cincinnati.

I do know that my dad’s mother, Ida, married three times. Ida remarried a man with the last name Steinbrecher. This is why all the urgent telegrams she received about her son during World War ll were addressed to Ida Steinbrecher. I don’t have a record of this but Ida’s second husband must have died and Ida, not wanting to be lonely, remarried a third, and final time, to Louis Nitzel. Ida passed away in 1957 and her final resting place is in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Your grandfather, his four sisters, and one older brother lived in or adjacent to a boarding house operated by his mother, Ida Steinbrecher Carter. I was five years old when my grandmother passed away. I have a dim memory of seeing her on her deathbed in a house just off Beechmont Avenue in Mt. Washington. 

Your grandfather's oldest sister was my Aunt Margaret. She dated and married your grandmother’s older brother, my Uncle Louie. Your grandfather must have run into Louie at the boarding house and at some point, Uncle Louie hired him to help collect money from jukeboxes that Louie owned in local bars and other places of disrepute. 

World War II started when your grandfather was twenty-one years old. He enlisted in the US Army to fight our enemies just like millions of other young men. He traveled to at least two Army camps across the US. His first training camp was Camp Pickett in Virginia where he was in Company A of the 6th Medical Training Battalion. He was trained as a battlefield medic and ambulance driver.

After Camp Pickett, he was sent to gorgeous Camp Carson in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. He must have been in awe, as my guess is he’d never before seen snow-covered mountains like these. 

Your grandfather was shipped to North Africa from Camp Carson on April 29, 1943. He was assigned to the Medical Detachment 180th Infantry 45th Division and became part of General Bradley’s Second Corps.

US and British troops were fighting the Germans in North Africa and it was also a staging ground for the invasion of Italy at Anzio Beach. I don’t believe your grandfather was part of the invasion force. My research leads me to believe that once the beachhead was established and the Germans were being pushed up towards Rome, his battalion landed some days after the primary invasion.

He worked his way from Anzio to Rome, and was part of the force that liberated the city of Rome from the clutches of the Nazis on June 4, 1944. Based on photos your grandfather took while in Rome, he appears to have gotten some time off while in this ancient city. However, just days later, on June 12, 1944, he was wounded in his left forearm by a Nazi bullet.

The wound was not serious and he was still able to be part of the fighting force. He also contracted malaria while in Italy. An old newspaper clipping talks about how he was recovering from it before being shipped to southern France.

I’m not clear how he made it to southern France as the Allies continued to push the Germans back towards Berlin, but on October 5, 1944, his unit was sent to the front lines. They engaged the Germans the following morning and the battle raged on all day. As sometimes happens in battle, one side can run out of ammunition. This happened to your grandfather’s unit.

The Germans captured your grandfather on October 6, 1944. I have a very dim memory of my mom saying that he could have avoided capture, but he stayed with his injured soldiers to provide aid and comfort for them.

A newspaper clipping that your grandmother saved indicated that his best friend and tentmate, Vance Hallman PFC, was able to somehow escape capture. I suspect that Vance was not sent out on patrol at the same time your grandfather was dispatched with his rifle company.

Vance subsequently wrote a letter to your grandmother dated November 8, 1944, sharing the details of the battle and your grandfather’s capture.

I’ve transcribed the actual letter here:

France

8 Nov 1944

Dear Jeane,

The letter that I’ve been waiting for came last night and it was yours of Oct 24 telling me that the War Dept had notified you of Carter being missing in action. I would have written you sooner, in fact I did write you all about it but I destroyed the letter after thinking it over and decided to wait until you had heard from the WD.

I wrote Mary all about it and told her to write you so you’ve probably heard from her by now. But in case you haven’t I’ll tell you about it and I hope this relieves you and his mother of a great part of the anxiety that you must be in.

First of all I want to tell you that Carter is only a prisoner, and I know that relieves you some because the WD never gets into detail and it’s human nature for us to expect the worst when it involves someone we love. Those three words “missing in action” cover a lot of territory and I can imagine how you all felt when you got the telegram.

Carter was an aid man with one of the rifle companies and on Oct 6 there was a big battle in the forests that (Please excuse the two kinds of paper, I didn’t know I was so near out of the other.) lasted all day and up into the night. The enemy broke through our lines and Carter’s Company was surrounded. There were many casualties so Carter and some of the men carried them into a farmhouse and down into the cellar where he could give them medical attention.

About dark that evening the enemy encircled the house and took Carter and the seventeen wounded men prisoners. Some of the other men that were at the house with Carter made a break for it and got away but Carter chose to stay and take care of his wounded buddies who might have died otherwise. Knowing Carter like I do, I don’t believe he would have left those buddies of his under any circumstances and Jeane, don’t you think any of us has forgot that heroic deed and he will certainly get recognition for it from the War Department.

I talked to one of the men that were in the house with Carter who made a break for it and got away, and he praised Carter very highly for his sacrifice. Jeane, the Germans were seen evacuating Carter and the wounded men from the house that evening with the help of five more of our medics that were captured the same time Carter was. So he has five more of his buddies in the medics that are prisoners with him.

They were litter bearers and were in a jeep on the way up to the house to get the wounded men that Carter was looking after, when they were captured.

Jeane, we’ve had reports from medic prisoners and they say the medics get the best of treatment, and they also get priority on the list of exchange prisoners which is very good news.

Yes, Jeane, I do know that you and Carter mean everything to each other and I can readily understand that, and Mary and I are looking forward to being with you all when this war is over. You’re right, we’re going to have a swell time together after this mess is all over, and I don’t think that’s so long off either. Carter and I already have a trip to the Indianapolis races and one to Florida planned.

I miss him very much, we used to lie in bed at night and talk about you and Mary and make all kinds of plans, etc. He’s a swell guy, Jeane, and I’ll be seeing more of him after this war. A fellow doesn’t find friends like Carter every day. He’s one of the best friends I ever had and I feel as if I’ve known him all my life.

Jeane, I received your other two letters sometime ago and this is the reason I haven’t answered them. I sincerely hope that I’ve taken away some of the worry off your and Carter’s mother and if there’s anything else you want to know or anything that I can do for you please don’t hesitate to call on me, I’m sure Carter would do the same for me.

Sincerely yours,

Vance Hallman

I’d love to know more about this and how terrifying it must have been. Imagine having one or more German soldiers, possibly with their bloodlust overflowing, pointing their rifles at your chest.

Another newspaper clipping recounting the battle and capture, states that he also suffered a head wound from a bullet. He was sent to Stalag II-B in Poland after his capture. This camp was located in the far northeastern corner of that occupied country. The newspaper clipping states he ate potato peels to stay alive and went without bread for weeks at a time.

He received a Purple Heart for this injury. Far greater than the gunshot wounds were the psychological injuries he suffered. These would bubble to the surface once back home and would plague your grandfather for the rest of his life.

Your grandmother told me many years after your grandfather died that he had an unpleasant time in the German POW camp. He lost quite a bit of weight and I remember a story told once at the dinner table about him being hit by one of the guards. Dad had cursed at the guard out of frustration and the guard either knew English or could simply understand what my dad was trying to convey.

In April, 1945 Dad’s POW camp was liberated by advancing Russian forces that were beating the Germans back towards Berlin. Your grandfather shared the story of how on that day he and all the other prisoners awoke to find all their guards had abandoned them.

They heard a rumbling sound and a Russian tank crashed through the prison gates. Dad and all his POW buddies were fearful that they might be killed, but the tank commander opened his hatch, popped his head out, went back into the tank and brought out a 5-gallon fuel container.

The container didn’t contain gasoline. It was filled with vodka and they all had a giant liberation party right there in the POW camp!

The war ended not too long after this and your grandfather was moved to the coast of France to await a transport ship to take him back home to his sweetheart, your grandmother. Here is the first letter he sent to her once he was liberated from the POW camp. 

Germany - May 6 - 45

My Dearest Darling,

Honey just a few lines to let you know I am well and getting along fine. I know you have been waiting seven months to hear from me and I know you have thought I have been dead but when you are a prisoner you are not allowed to write much but I did write you a few letters whether you got them I don’t know.

Honey here is the main thing you want to hear right now. I am at an airport waiting for a plane to take me to the coast of France where I will (missing verb) the boat for home and I should be there within a month. Well honey right now I am very tired and sleepy so I will close until tomorrow with all my love.

Yours forever,

Melvin

He got back from Europe on June 2, 1945. He was sent to Camp Atterbury in nearby Indiana. They were married within weeks on June 14, 1945.

His experiences on the battlefield, the fear of being killed when his unit was overrun, and then the seven months in a German POW camp caused permanent debilitating injuries to your grandfather’s psyche. He suffered from severe depression that, unfortunately, was made worse by electroshock treatments administered by the Veterans hospital psychiatrists.

Doctors back in the late 1940s and 1950s thought this was the best way to treat depression, just like hundreds of years ago doctors thought that bloodletting was the way to cure sick patients.

Should you want to see disturbing and vivid examples of this electro-shock treatment, watch the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest with Jack Nicholson. Based on what I’ve discovered, each successive shock treatment intensified the depression so the doctors were setting up your grandfather for failure. I don’t blame them, nor should you. They were doing the best they could do at the time.

I don’t have a clear picture of the time period from 1945-1955, but my guess is it was a tumultuous time for your grandmother. She was not alone as tens of thousands of other young wives were dealing with their tormented soulmates. There’s a reason why the three-word saying war is hell rings true.

At one point, my Uncle Raymond, Aunt Thelma’s husband, got your grandfather a job at the massive Cincinnati Milling Machine factory. I have one faded memory of Dad either leaving for or coming back home from the plant. He had on dark blue pants and shirt and was carrying a metal lunchbox.

I also have a sad memory of his escalating torment. One warm summer day, he and Mom were involved in a heated discussion. It was close to my birthday and evidently, he wanted to rescind his promise of taking me and some friends on some sort of birthday outing. It might have been an afternoon at Putt-Putt miniature golf. I was quite young and I remember sitting on the front porch crying as I heard Mom’s frustrated voice. I can’t tell you how that discussion or the day turned out, but I’m sure it wasn’t the only time that things that should have been easy were instead a challenge.

It’s important to realize that back then, at least in our family, these hardships were not discussed. It might have been too painful for Mom to do. She might not have had the energy. She might not have wanted to frighten your Aunt Lynn and me any more than we already were. She might have thought that all of it was nice-to-know but not need-to-know information for our young minds.

The downside of being kept in the dark about my dad was that as I grew older, I began to resent his behavior. I couldn’t understand why he stayed home all day sleeping on the couch listening to country music over and over on the hi-fi while all my friends’ dads went to work each day.

The thought of not working was hateful to me. The animosity between us climaxed while I was in high school. I was working seven days a week at Skyline Chili. Monday through Friday, I worked from 4 until 7 p.m. to help out with the dinner rush. I’d miss dinner with the family and would bring home a pint of chili, a packet of diced onions, and a packet of cheese.

I’d eat it at the kitchen table in my favorite red-glass bowl, and Dad would come in most nights to watch me. I look back now and understand why he did this. He wanted to be with me and discover how my day had been just like how I want to hear about your days now. He’d be smoking a cigarette and the stench of it nauseated me. This just added to the dark cloud hovering over us. I so wish I could go back in time and change my behavior as it wasn’t Dad’s fault he was suffering. I was just too young to understand his pain and his own feelings of shame.

Fortunately, I began to mature as I made my way through college. The resentment faded and your grandfather and I began to become friends. I’d talk to him about what I was learning in geology and he was genuinely interested.

Once I graduated from the University of Cincinnati in June of 1974 with my geology degree, I started my own little remodeling business. Not a year passed before I had purchased my first house at 2865 Minto Avenue in East Hyde Park.

I remember one day your grandfather stopped by to watch while I worked. It was a beehive of activity and he just stood there for about an hour shaking his head in amazement at the scope of the project and what his son was doing.

Mom told me years later he was really proud of me. He knew I was tackling what for him would have been an impossible challenge.

Your grandfather’s health had always been poor. His sedentary lifestyle mixed with his heavy smoking was a recipe for nothing but bad things. When I was in grade school he had revolutionary surgery where they installed artificial arteries from just below his heart all the way down both legs. I remember crying about this in school the day of his surgery because I knew it was very serious.

In the middle of August 1976, he went for a normal doctor’s visit and the doctor listened to his heart. He was in the middle of an arrhythmia episode and the doctor told him to get to the hospital immediately.

Your grandfather didn’t last a week. He was in intensive care, had multiple heart failures, and was brought back to life with defibrillators. Your grandmother, your Aunt Lynn, and I watched one of these terrifying events happen. I’ll never forget it. 

We sent your grandfather back to Heaven on August 21, 1976, while I was living in the starter home in Hyde Park. I remember your grandmother calling to tell me he had passed away. I have many regrets about your grandfather and one is not being by his side as he passed. He died alone in his hospital room and it bothers me to this day. Your grandfather was still a young man as he was only 59-years-old. His final resting place is in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio, near the rear exit.

Not a week goes by that I don’t think about my dad. There are so many things I’ve done that I wish he could have seen. It would have been so cool to have him stop by while I was building the house in Amberley. He would have been speechless at all the carpentry involved in that huge project! I think he’d be really proud of how my life has turned out. I know he’d be proud of you!

The post PFC Melvin Carter appeared first on Ask the Builder.

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[williamccreynolds]

PFC Melvin Carter

Author's Note: The following text appeared in chapter seven of the Adventures & Advice book that I wrote at the request of my youngest daughter. I also shared the book with my other two older children. This book is not available to the general public as it was a special gift to my children, my older sister, and a very small select group of my friends.

It's important to realize that my father, PFC Carter, passed away before any of my children were even a glint in my eye. The details of his life in what you're about to read are what he might have shared with my children had he been able to sit them on his lap and talk about who he was and what he did.

I only came to appreciate and deeply love my father years later after he had been worn down by life and the horrors of what he experienced in the great World War II. My mother, sister, and I sent him back to Heaven when I was a very young man.

Grandfather Melvin Carter

  Your Grandfather Carter looks pretty smart in his US Army uniform, doesn’t he? He’s beaming because he’s sitting next to your grandmother no doubt! This photo was taken in June of 1945 after he returned from the hellish experience of World War II. The photo was taken at Coney Island amusement park in Cincinnati, Ohio. Many people went to Coney Island before Kings Island ravaged and plundered its customer base.

My dad was born on April 10, 1917. That was just four days after the USA entered World War One in Europe. His middle name honored the tiny hamlet he was born in, Mt. Vernon, Indiana. His father, William Columbus Carter was born in 1846. That made him 70 years old at the time your grandfather was conceived!  

Your great-grandfather was a country veterinarian in the middle of nowhere. Mt. Vernon, Indiana is a sleepy town now, so you can imagine what it was like in the early 1900s.

I have no clue when the family relocated from Indiana to New Richmond, Ohio, just fifteen or so miles upstream on the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati. But before ending up in New Richmond, they must have relocated to Cincinnati not too long after my dad was born because my great-grandfather is buried at the Baltimore Pike Cemetery in Cincinnati.

I do know that my dad’s mother, Ida, married three times. Ida remarried a man with the last name Steinbrecher. This is why all the urgent telegrams she received about her son during World War ll were addressed to Ida Steinbrecher. I don’t have a record of this but Ida’s second husband must have died and Ida, not wanting to be lonely, remarried a third, and final time, to Louis Nitzel. Ida passed away in 1957 and her final resting place is in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Your grandfather, his four sisters, and one older brother lived in or adjacent to a boarding house operated by his mother, Ida Steinbrecher Carter. I was five years old when my grandmother passed away. I have a dim memory of seeing her on her deathbed in a house just off Beechmont Avenue in Mt. Washington. 

Your grandfather's oldest sister was my Aunt Margaret. She dated and married your grandmother’s older brother, my Uncle Louie. Your grandfather must have run into Louie at the boarding house and at some point, Uncle Louie hired him to help collect money from jukeboxes that Louie owned in local bars and other places of disrepute. 

World War II started when your grandfather was twenty-one years old. He enlisted in the US Army to fight our enemies just like millions of other young men. He traveled to at least two Army camps across the US. His first training camp was Camp Pickett in Virginia where he was in Company A of the 6th Medical Training Battalion. He was trained as a battlefield medic and ambulance driver.

After Camp Pickett, he was sent to gorgeous Camp Carson in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. He must have been in awe, as my guess is he’d never before seen snow-covered mountains like these. 

Your grandfather was shipped to North Africa from Camp Carson on April 29, 1943. He was assigned to the Medical Detachment 180th Infantry 45th Division and became part of General Bradley’s Second Corps.

US and British troops were fighting the Germans in North Africa and it was also a staging ground for the invasion of Italy at Anzio Beach. I don’t believe your grandfather was part of the invasion force. My research leads me to believe that once the beachhead was established and the Germans were being pushed up towards Rome, his battalion landed some days after the primary invasion.

He worked his way from Anzio to Rome and was part of the force that liberated the city of Rome from the clutches of the Nazis on June 4, 1944. Based on photos your grandfather took while in Rome, he appears to have gotten some time off while in this ancient city. However, just days later, on June 12, 1944 he was wounded in his left forearm by a Nazi bullet.

The wound was not serious and he was still able to be part of the fighting force. He also contracted malaria while in Italy. An old newspaper clipping talks about how he was recovering from it before being shipped to southern France.

I’m not clear how he made it to southern France as the Allies continued to push the Germans back towards Berlin, but on October 5, 1944, his unit was sent to the front lines. They engaged the Germans the following morning and the battle raged on all day. As sometimes happens in battle, one side can run out of ammunition. This happened to your grandfather’s unit.

The Germans captured your grandfather on October 6, 1944. I have a very dim memory of my mom saying that he could have avoided capture, but he stayed with his injured soldiers to provide aid and comfort for them.

A newspaper clipping that your grandmother saved indicated that his best friend and tentmate, Vance Hallman PFC, was able to somehow escape capture. I suspect that Vance was not sent out on patrol at the same time your grandfather was dispatched with his rifle company.

Vance subsequently wrote a letter to your grandmother dated November 8, 1944 sharing the details of the battle and your grandfather’s capture.

I’ve transcribed the actual letter here:

France

8 Nov 1944

Dear Jeane,

The letter that I’ve been waiting for came last night and it was yours of Oct 24 telling me that the War Dept had notified you of Carter being missing in action. I would have written you sooner, in fact I did write you all about it but I destroyed the letter after thinking it over and decided to wait until you had heard from the WD.

I wrote Mary all about it and told her to write you so you’ve probably heard from her by now. But in case you haven’t I’ll tell you about it and I hope this relieves you and his mother of a great part of the anxiety that you must be in.

First of all I want to tell you that Carter is only a prisoner, and I know that relieves you some because the WD never gets into detail and it’s human nature for us to expect the worst when it involves someone we love. Those three words “missing in action” cover a lot of territory and I can imagine how you all felt when you got the telegram.

Carter was an aid man with one of the rifle companies and on Oct 6 there was a big battle in the forests that (Please excuse the two kinds of paper, I didn’t know I was so near out of the other.) lasted all day and up into the night. The enemy broke through our lines and Carter’s Company was surrounded. There were many casualties so Carter and some of the men carried them into a farmhouse and down into the cellar where he could give them medical attention.

About dark that evening the enemy encircled the house and took Carter and the seventeen wounded men prisoners. Some of the other men that were at the house with Carter made a break for it and got away but Carter chose to stay and take care of his wounded buddies who might have died otherwise. Knowing Carter like I do, I don’t believe he would have left those buddies of his under any circumstances and Jeane, don’t you think any of us has forgot that heroic deed and he will certainly get recognition for it from the War Department.

I talked to one of the men that were in the house with Carter who made a break for it and got away, and he praised Carter very highly for his sacrifice. Jeane, the Germans were seen evacuating Carter and the wounded men from the house that evening with the help of five more of our medics that were captured the same time Carter was. So he has five more of his buddies in the medics that are prisoners with him.

They were litter bearers and were in a jeep on the way up to the house to get the wounded men that Carter was looking after, when they were captured.

Jeane, we’ve had reports from medic prisoners and they say the medics get the best of treatment, and they also get priority on the list of exchange prisoners which is very good news.

Yes, Jeane, I do know that you and Carter mean everything to each other and I can readily understand that, and Mary and I are looking forward to being with you all when this war is over. You’re right, we’re going to have a swell time together after this mess is all over, and I don’t think that’s so long off either. Carter and I already have a trip to the Indianapolis races and one to Florida planned.

I miss him very much, we used to lie in bed at night and talk about you and Mary and make all kinds of plans, etc. He’s a swell guy, Jeane, and I’ll be seeing more of him after this war. A fellow doesn’t find friends like Carter every day. He’s one of the best friends I ever had and I feel as if I’ve known him all my life.

Jeane, I received your other two letters sometime ago and this is the reason I haven’t answered them. I sincerely hope that I’ve taken away some of the worry off your and Carter’s mother and if there’s anything else you want to know or anything that I can do for you please don’t hesitate to call on me, I’m sure Carter would do the same for me.

Sincerely yours,

Vance Hallman

I’d love to know more about this and how terrifying it must have been. Imagine having one or more German soldiers, possibly with their bloodlust overflowing, pointing their rifles at your chest.

Another newspaper clipping recounting the battle and capture, states that he also suffered a head wound from a bullet. He was sent to Stalag II-B in Poland after his capture. This camp was located in the far northeastern corner of that occupied country. The newspaper clipping states he ate potato peels to stay alive and went without bread for weeks at a time.

He received a Purple Heart for this injury. Far greater than the gunshot wounds were the psychological injuries he suffered. These would bubble to the surface once back home and would plague your grandfather for the rest of his life.

Your grandmother told me many years after your grandfather died that he had an unpleasant time in the German POW camp. He lost quite a bit of weight and I remember a story told once at the dinner table about him being hit by one of the guards. Dad had cursed at the guard out of frustration and the guard either knew English or could simply understand what my dad was trying to convey.

In April, 1945 Dad’s POW camp was liberated by advancing Russian forces that were beating the Germans back towards Berlin. Your grandfather shared the story of how on that day he and all the other prisoners awoke to find all their guards had abandoned them.

They heard a rumbling sound and a Russian tank crashed through the prison gates. Dad and all his POW buddies were fearful that they might be killed, but the tank commander opened his hatch, popped his head out, went back into the tank and brought out a 5-gallon fuel container.

The container didn’t contain gasoline. It was filled with vodka and they all had a giant liberation party right there in the POW camp!

The war ended not too long after this and your grandfather was moved to the coast of France to await a transport ship to take him back home to his sweetheart, your grandmother. Here is the first letter he sent to her once he was liberated from the POW camp. 

Germany - May 6 - 45

My Dearest Darling,

Honey just a few lines to let you know I am well and getting along fine. I know you have been waiting seven months to hear from me and I know you have thought I have been dead but when you are a prisoner you are not allowed to write much but I did write you a few letters whether you got them I don’t know.

Honey here is the main thing you want to hear right now. I am at an airport waiting for a plane to take me to the coast of France where I will (missing verb) the boat for home and I should be there within a month. Well honey right now I am very tired and sleepy so I will close until tomorrow with all my love.

Yours forever,

Melvin

He got back from Europe on June 2, 1945. He was sent to Camp Atterbury in nearby Indiana. They were married within weeks on June 14, 1945.

His experiences on the battlefield, the fear of being killed when his unit was overrun, and then the seven months in a German POW camp caused permanent debilitating injuries to your grandfather’s psyche. He suffered from severe depression that, unfortunately, was made worse by electroshock treatments administered by the Veterans hospital psychiatrists.

Doctors back in the late 1940s and 1950s thought this was the best way to treat depression, just like hundreds of years ago doctors thought that bloodletting was the way to cure sick patients.

Should you want to see disturbing and vivid examples of this electro-shock treatment, watch the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest with Jack Nicholson. Based on what I’ve discovered, each successive shock treatment intensified the depression so the doctors were setting up your grandfather for failure. I don’t blame them nor should you. They were doing the best they could do at the time.

I don’t have a clear picture of the time period from 1945-1955, but my guess is it was a tumultuous time for your grandmother. She was not alone as tens of thousands of other young wives were dealing with their tormented soulmates. There’s a reason why the three-word saying war is hell rings true.

At one point my Uncle Raymond, Aunt Thelma’s husband, got your grandfather a job at the massive Cincinnati Milling Machine factory. I have one faded memory of Dad either leaving for or coming back home from the plant. He had on dark blue pants and shirt and was carrying a metal lunchbox.

I also have a sad memory of his escalating torment. One warm summer day he and Mom were involved in a heated discussion. It was close to my birthday and evidently, he wanted to rescind his promise of taking me and some friends on some sort of birthday outing. It might have been an afternoon at Putt-Putt miniature golf. I was quite young and I remember sitting on the front porch crying as I heard Mom’s frustrated voice. I can’t tell you how that discussion or the day turned out but I’m sure it wasn’t the only time that things that should have been easy were instead a challenge.

It’s important to realize that back then, at least in our family, these hardships were not discussed. It might have been too painful for Mom to do. She might not have had the energy. She might not have wanted to frighten your Aunt Lynn and me any more than we already were. She might have thought that all of it was nice-to-know but not need-to-know information for our young minds.

The downside of being kept in the dark about my dad was that as I grew older, I began to resent his behavior. I couldn’t understand why he stayed home all day sleeping on the couch listening to country music over and over on the hi-fi while all my friends’ dads went to work each day.

The thought of not working was hateful to me. The animosity between us climaxed while I was in high school. I was working seven days a week at Skyline Chili. Monday through Friday I worked from 4 until 7 p.m. to help out with the dinner rush. I’d miss dinner with the family and would bring home a pint of chili, a packet of diced onions, and a packet of cheese.

I’d eat it at the kitchen table in my favorite red-glass bowl and Dad would come in most nights to watch me. I look back now and understand why he did this. He wanted to be with me and discover how my day had been just like how I want to hear about your days now. He’d be smoking a cigarette and the stench of it nauseated me. This just added to the dark cloud hovering over us. I so wish I could go back in time and change my behavior as it wasn’t Dad’s fault he was suffering. I was just too young to understand his pain and his own feelings of shame.

Fortunately, I began to mature as I made my way through college. The resentment faded and your grandfather and I began to become friends. I’d talk to him about what I was learning in geology and he was genuinely interested.

Once I graduated from the University of Cincinnati in June of 1974 with my geology degree, I started my own little remodeling business. Not a year passed before I had purchased my first house at 2865 Minto Avenue in East Hyde Park.

I remember one day your grandfather stopped by to watch while I worked. It was a beehive of activity and he just stood there for about an hour shaking his head in amazement at the scope of the project and what his son was doing.

Mom told me years later he was really proud of me. He knew I was tackling what for him would have been an impossible challenge.

Your grandfather’s health had always been poor. His sedentary lifestyle mixed with his heavy smoking was a recipe for nothing but bad things. When I was in grade school he had revolutionary surgery where they installed artificial arteries from just below his heart all the way down both legs. I remember crying about this in school the day of his surgery because I knew it was very serious.

In the middle of August 1976, he went for a normal doctor’s visit and the doctor listened to his heart. He was in the middle of an arrhythmia episode and the doctor told him to get to the hospital immediately.

Your grandfather didn’t last a week. He was in intensive care, had multiple heart failures, and was brought back to life with defibrillators. Your grandmother, your Aunt Lynn, and I watched one of these terrifying events happen. I’ll never forget it. 

We sent your grandfather back to Heaven on August 21, 1976 while I was living in the starter home in Hyde Park. I remember your grandmother calling to tell me he had passed away. I have many regrets about your grandfather and one is not being by his side as he passed. He died alone in his hospital room and it bothers me to this day. Your grandfather was still a young man as he was only 59 years old. His final resting place is in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio near the rear exit.

Not a week goes by that I don’t think about my dad. There are so many things I’ve done that I wish he could have seen. It would have been so cool to have him stop by while I was building the house in Amberley. He would have been speechless at all the carpentry involved in that huge project! I think he’d be really proud of how my life has turned out. I know he’d be proud of you!

The post PFC Melvin Carter appeared first on Ask the Builder.

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[manuelclapid]

PFC Melvin Carter

Author's Note: The following text appeared in chapter seven of the Adventures & Advice book that I wrote at the request of my youngest daughter. I also shared the book with my other two older children. This book is not available to the general public as it was a special gift to my children, my older sister, and a very small select group of my friends.

It's important to realize that my father, PFC Carter, passed away before any of my children were even a glint in my eye. The details of his life in what you're about to read are what he might have shared with my children had he been able to sit them on his lap and talk about who he was and what he did.

I only came to appreciate and deeply love my father years later after he had been worn down by life and the horrors of what he experienced in the great World War II. My mother, sister, and I sent him back to Heaven when I was a very young man.

Grandfather Melvin Carter

  Your Grandfather Carter looks pretty smart in his US Army uniform, doesn’t he? He’s beaming because he’s sitting next to your grandmother no doubt! This photo was taken in June of 1945 after he returned from the hellish experience of World War II. The photo was taken at Coney Island amusement park in Cincinnati, Ohio. Many people went to Coney Island before Kings Island ravaged and plundered its customer base.

My dad was born on April 10, 1917. That was just four days after the USA entered World War One in Europe. His middle name honored the tiny hamlet he was born in, Mt. Vernon, Indiana. His father, William Columbus Carter was born in 1846. That made him 70 years old at the time your grandfather was conceived!  

Your great-grandfather was a country veterinarian in the middle of nowhere. Mt. Vernon, Indiana is a sleepy town now, so you can imagine what it was like in the early 1900s.

I have no clue when the family relocated from Indiana to New Richmond, Ohio, just fifteen or so miles upstream on the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati. But before ending up in New Richmond, they must have relocated to Cincinnati not too long after my dad was born because my great-grandfather is buried at the Baltimore Pike Cemetery in Cincinnati.

I do know that my dad’s mother, Ida, married three times. Ida remarried a man with the last name Steinbrecher. This is why all the urgent telegrams she received about her son during World War ll were addressed to Ida Steinbrecher. I don’t have a record of this but Ida’s second husband must have died and Ida, not wanting to be lonely, remarried a third, and final time, to Louis Nitzel. Ida passed away in 1957 and her final resting place is in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Your grandfather, his four sisters, and one older brother lived in or adjacent to a boarding house operated by his mother, Ida Steinbrecher Carter. I was five years old when my grandmother passed away. I have a dim memory of seeing her on her deathbed in a house just off Beechmont Avenue in Mt. Washington. 

Your grandfather's oldest sister was my Aunt Margaret. She dated and married your grandmother’s older brother, my Uncle Louie. Your grandfather must have run into Louie at the boarding house and at some point, Uncle Louie hired him to help collect money from jukeboxes that Louie owned in local bars and other places of disrepute. 

World War II started when your grandfather was twenty-one years old. He enlisted in the US Army to fight our enemies just like millions of other young men. He traveled to at least two Army camps across the US. His first training camp was Camp Pickett in Virginia where he was in Company A of the 6th Medical Training Battalion. He was trained as a battlefield medic and ambulance driver.

After Camp Pickett, he was sent to gorgeous Camp Carson in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. He must have been in awe, as my guess is he’d never before seen snow-covered mountains like these. 

Your grandfather was shipped to North Africa from Camp Carson on April 29, 1943. He was assigned to the Medical Detachment 180th Infantry 45th Division and became part of General Bradley’s Second Corps.

US and British troops were fighting the Germans in North Africa and it was also a staging ground for the invasion of Italy at Anzio Beach. I don’t believe your grandfather was part of the invasion force. My research leads me to believe that once the beachhead was established and the Germans were being pushed up towards Rome, his battalion landed some days after the primary invasion.

He worked his way from Anzio to Rome and was part of the force that liberated the city of Rome from the clutches of the Nazis on June 4, 1944. Based on photos your grandfather took while in Rome, he appears to have gotten some time off while in this ancient city. However, just days later, on June 12, 1944 he was wounded in his left forearm by a Nazi bullet.

The wound was not serious and he was still able to be part of the fighting force. He also contracted malaria while in Italy. An old newspaper clipping talks about how he was recovering from it before being shipped to southern France.

I’m not clear how he made it to southern France as the Allies continued to push the Germans back towards Berlin, but on October 5, 1944, his unit was sent to the front lines. They engaged the Germans the following morning and the battle raged on all day. As sometimes happens in battle, one side can run out of ammunition. This happened to your grandfather’s unit.

The Germans captured your grandfather on October 6, 1944. I have a very dim memory of my mom saying that he could have avoided capture, but he stayed with his injured soldiers to provide aid and comfort for them.

A newspaper clipping that your grandmother saved indicated that his best friend and tentmate, Vance Hallman PFC, was able to somehow escape capture. I suspect that Vance was not sent out on patrol at the same time your grandfather was dispatched with his rifle company.

Vance subsequently wrote a letter to your grandmother dated November 8, 1944 sharing the details of the battle and your grandfather’s capture.

I’ve transcribed the actual letter here:

France

8 Nov 1944

Dear Jeane,

The letter that I’ve been waiting for came last night and it was yours of Oct 24 telling me that the War Dept had notified you of Carter being missing in action. I would have written you sooner, in fact I did write you all about it but I destroyed the letter after thinking it over and decided to wait until you had heard from the WD.

I wrote Mary all about it and told her to write you so you’ve probably heard from her by now. But in case you haven’t I’ll tell you about it and I hope this relieves you and his mother of a great part of the anxiety that you must be in.

First of all I want to tell you that Carter is only a prisoner, and I know that relieves you some because the WD never gets into detail and it’s human nature for us to expect the worst when it involves someone we love. Those three words “missing in action” cover a lot of territory and I can imagine how you all felt when you got the telegram.

Carter was an aid man with one of the rifle companies and on Oct 6 there was a big battle in the forests that (Please excuse the two kinds of paper, I didn’t know I was so near out of the other.) lasted all day and up into the night. The enemy broke through our lines and Carter’s Company was surrounded. There were many casualties so Carter and some of the men carried them into a farmhouse and down into the cellar where he could give them medical attention.

About dark that evening the enemy encircled the house and took Carter and the seventeen wounded men prisoners. Some of the other men that were at the house with Carter made a break for it and got away but Carter chose to stay and take care of his wounded buddies who might have died otherwise. Knowing Carter like I do, I don’t believe he would have left those buddies of his under any circumstances and Jeane, don’t you think any of us has forgot that heroic deed and he will certainly get recognition for it from the War Department.

I talked to one of the men that were in the house with Carter who made a break for it and got away, and he praised Carter very highly for his sacrifice. Jeane, the Germans were seen evacuating Carter and the wounded men from the house that evening with the help of five more of our medics that were captured the same time Carter was. So he has five more of his buddies in the medics that are prisoners with him.

They were litter bearers and were in a jeep on the way up to the house to get the wounded men that Carter was looking after, when they were captured.

Jeane, we’ve had reports from medic prisoners and they say the medics get the best of treatment, and they also get priority on the list of exchange prisoners which is very good news.

Yes, Jeane, I do know that you and Carter mean everything to each other and I can readily understand that, and Mary and I are looking forward to being with you all when this war is over. You’re right, we’re going to have a swell time together after this mess is all over, and I don’t think that’s so long off either. Carter and I already have a trip to the Indianapolis races and one to Florida planned.

I miss him very much, we used to lie in bed at night and talk about you and Mary and make all kinds of plans, etc. He’s a swell guy, Jeane, and I’ll be seeing more of him after this war. A fellow doesn’t find friends like Carter every day. He’s one of the best friends I ever had and I feel as if I’ve known him all my life.

Jeane, I received your other two letters sometime ago and this is the reason I haven’t answered them. I sincerely hope that I’ve taken away some of the worry off your and Carter’s mother and if there’s anything else you want to know or anything that I can do for you please don’t hesitate to call on me, I’m sure Carter would do the same for me.

Sincerely yours,

Vance Hallman

I’d love to know more about this and how terrifying it must have been. Imagine having one or more German soldiers, possibly with their bloodlust overflowing, pointing their rifles at your chest.

Another newspaper clipping recounting the battle and capture, states that he also suffered a head wound from a bullet. He was sent to Stalag II-B in Poland after his capture. This camp was located in the far northeastern corner of that occupied country. The newspaper clipping states he ate potato peels to stay alive and went without bread for weeks at a time.

He received a Purple Heart for this injury. Far greater than the gunshot wounds were the psychological injuries he suffered. These would bubble to the surface once back home and would plague your grandfather for the rest of his life.

Your grandmother told me many years after your grandfather died that he had an unpleasant time in the German POW camp. He lost quite a bit of weight and I remember a story told once at the dinner table about him being hit by one of the guards. Dad had cursed at the guard out of frustration and the guard either knew English or could simply understand what my dad was trying to convey.

In April, 1945 Dad’s POW camp was liberated by advancing Russian forces that were beating the Germans back towards Berlin. Your grandfather shared the story of how on that day he and all the other prisoners awoke to find all their guards had abandoned them.

They heard a rumbling sound and a Russian tank crashed through the prison gates. Dad and all his POW buddies were fearful that they might be killed, but the tank commander opened his hatch, popped his head out, went back into the tank and brought out a 5-gallon fuel container.

The container didn’t contain gasoline. It was filled with vodka and they all had a giant liberation party right there in the POW camp!

The war ended not too long after this and your grandfather was moved to the coast of France to await a transport ship to take him back home to his sweetheart, your grandmother. Here is the first letter he sent to her once he was liberated from the POW camp. 

Germany - May 6 - 45

My Dearest Darling,

Honey just a few lines to let you know I am well and getting along fine. I know you have been waiting seven months to hear from me and I know you have thought I have been dead but when you are a prisoner you are not allowed to write much but I did write you a few letters whether you got them I don’t know.

Honey here is the main thing you want to hear right now. I am at an airport waiting for a plane to take me to the coast of France where I will (missing verb) the boat for home and I should be there within a month. Well honey right now I am very tired and sleepy so I will close until tomorrow with all my love.

Yours forever,

Melvin

He got back from Europe on June 2, 1945. He was sent to Camp Atterbury in nearby Indiana. They were married within weeks on June 14, 1945.

His experiences on the battlefield, the fear of being killed when his unit was overrun, and then the seven months in a German POW camp caused permanent debilitating injuries to your grandfather’s psyche. He suffered from severe depression that, unfortunately, was made worse by electroshock treatments administered by the Veterans hospital psychiatrists.

Doctors back in the late 1940s and 1950s thought this was the best way to treat depression, just like hundreds of years ago doctors thought that bloodletting was the way to cure sick patients.

Should you want to see disturbing and vivid examples of this electro-shock treatment, watch the movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest with Jack Nicholson. Based on what I’ve discovered, each successive shock treatment intensified the depression so the doctors were setting up your grandfather for failure. I don’t blame them nor should you. They were doing the best they could do at the time.

I don’t have a clear picture of the time period from 1945-1955, but my guess is it was a tumultuous time for your grandmother. She was not alone as tens of thousands of other young wives were dealing with their tormented soulmates. There’s a reason why the three-word saying war is hell rings true.

At one point my Uncle Raymond, Aunt Thelma’s husband, got your grandfather a job at the massive Cincinnati Milling Machine factory. I have one faded memory of Dad either leaving for or coming back home from the plant. He had on dark blue pants and shirt and was carrying a metal lunchbox.

I also have a sad memory of his escalating torment. One warm summer day he and Mom were involved in a heated discussion. It was close to my birthday and evidently, he wanted to rescind his promise of taking me and some friends on some sort of birthday outing. It might have been an afternoon at Putt-Putt miniature golf. I was quite young and I remember sitting on the front porch crying as I heard Mom’s frustrated voice. I can’t tell you how that discussion or the day turned out but I’m sure it wasn’t the only time that things that should have been easy were instead a challenge.

It’s important to realize that back then, at least in our family, these hardships were not discussed. It might have been too painful for Mom to do. She might not have had the energy. She might not have wanted to frighten your Aunt Lynn and me any more than we already were. She might have thought that all of it was nice-to-know but not need-to-know information for our young minds.

The downside of being kept in the dark about my dad was that as I grew older, I began to resent his behavior. I couldn’t understand why he stayed home all day sleeping on the couch listening to country music over and over on the hi-fi while all my friends’ dads went to work each day.

The thought of not working was hateful to me. The animosity between us climaxed while I was in high school. I was working seven days a week at Skyline Chili. Monday through Friday I worked from 4 until 7 p.m. to help out with the dinner rush. I’d miss dinner with the family and would bring home a pint of chili, a packet of diced onions, and a packet of cheese.

I’d eat it at the kitchen table in my favorite red-glass bowl and Dad would come in most nights to watch me. I look back now and understand why he did this. He wanted to be with me and discover how my day had been just like how I want to hear about your days now. He’d be smoking a cigarette and the stench of it nauseated me. This just added to the dark cloud hovering over us. I so wish I could go back in time and change my behavior as it wasn’t Dad’s fault he was suffering. I was just too young to understand his pain and his own feelings of shame.

Fortunately, I began to mature as I made my way through college. The resentment faded and your grandfather and I began to become friends. I’d talk to him about what I was learning in geology and he was genuinely interested.

Once I graduated from the University of Cincinnati in June of 1974 with my geology degree, I started my own little remodeling business. Not a year passed before I had purchased my first house at 2865 Minto Avenue in East Hyde Park.

I remember one day your grandfather stopped by to watch while I worked. It was a beehive of activity and he just stood there for about an hour shaking his head in amazement at the scope of the project and what his son was doing.

Mom told me years later he was really proud of me. He knew I was tackling what for him would have been an impossible challenge.

Your grandfather’s health had always been poor. His sedentary lifestyle mixed with his heavy smoking was a recipe for nothing but bad things. When I was in grade school he had revolutionary surgery where they installed artificial arteries from just below his heart all the way down both legs. I remember crying about this in school the day of his surgery because I knew it was very serious.

In the middle of August 1976, he went for a normal doctor’s visit and the doctor listened to his heart. He was in the middle of an arrhythmia episode and the doctor told him to get to the hospital immediately.

Your grandfather didn’t last a week. He was in intensive care, had multiple heart failures, and was brought back to life with defibrillators. Your grandmother, your Aunt Lynn, and I watched one of these terrifying events happen. I’ll never forget it. 

We sent your grandfather back to Heaven on August 21, 1976 while I was living in the starter home in Hyde Park. I remember your grandmother calling to tell me he had passed away. I have many regrets about your grandfather and one is not being by his side as he passed. He died alone in his hospital room and it bothers me to this day. Your grandfather was still a young man as he was only 59 years old. His final resting place is in Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio near the rear exit.

Not a week goes by that I don’t think about my dad. There are so many things I’ve done that I wish he could have seen. It would have been so cool to have him stop by while I was building the house in Amberley. He would have been speechless at all the carpentry involved in that huge project! I think he’d be really proud of how my life has turned out. I know he’d be proud of you!

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[elodying-blog]

events by week.

this is more of a timeline reference for me, not you, but i’m making it a post i can link to on my blog for easy navigation.  it’s also there if people are more interested in lltq or elodie’s experiences!!

this will be mostly spoiler free (assuming spoilers count as tying up plot threads and not just experiencing the game) but notes regarding lore and motives will be marked and present.

week 1 - 

elodie arrives at home from boarding school to be reigning princess

family visits ( aunt lucille, uncle laurent, cousins charlotte, emry, and zahra ) from merva

week 2 - 

julianna, duchess of ursul and known lumen, arrives at the castle and offers to train elodie in magic.

willful elodie accepts her offer

cheerful & lonely elodie arrest her

week 3 - 

a milk viper is found in the garden while charlotte and elodie are playing

( willful ) the viper bites charlotte, and her family leaves for merva in a hurry

( cheerful & lonely ) the viper bites elodie, and charlotte heals elodie with a strange magic. 

spoilers note: milk vipers are native no where near to the royal castle, it was brought by lucille in the first attempt on elodie’s life.  their venom is highly poisonous.

week 4 -

no events...  charlotte is probably fine

week 5 - 

talarist, duke of sedna, sends elodie a necklace as a gift

willful elodie puts it on, unaware of the social consequence

cheerful elodie puts it on, knowing full well it’s a courting gesture

lonely elodie puts it away, because it’s inappropriate

week 6 - 

willful elodie notices julianna and the castle’s cleric, selene, holding hands in the courtyard

there is an intruder, but elodie can’t climb fast enough to see who it is.

cheerful & lonely elodie are confronted by selene.  she asks her to let julianna out of prison.  elodie does not.

week 7 - 

a maid nearly runs into elodie in the halls

willful & cheerful elodie avoid the maid

lonely elodie apologizes for it

cheerful & lonely elodie have julianna in prison

her elder brother, ignatius, duke-consort of mead, visits her in the dungeons.

elodie offers her title of duchess of ursul to him.  he becomes duke of ursul.

willful elodie becomes a lumen with julianna’s guidance

week 8 - 

a man proposes the invention of the printing press

willful & lonely elodie invest and produce it

cheerful elodie denies the request

week 9 -

banion, duke of maree, earl of serenitatis, arrives asking for aid against foreign incursions of ixion.

willful & cheerful elodie prepare for battle against ixion

willful elodie will use battle-magic

lonely elodie prepares to negotiate

banion notices ( willful & cheerful ) elodie wearing duke talarist’s necklace

willful elodie is lectured by him that it was a betrothal gesture

cheerful elodie vaguely says she’s considering wedding talarist

week 10 - 

willful & cheerful elodie go to war against ixion

cheerful elodie wins but loses a moderate number of troops

willful elodie scares the ixionites off before fighting begins

lonely elodie negotiates with an ixionite diplomat

elodie pays the ixionites to withdraw

week 11 - 

a keythong is spotted in the old forest

week 12 - 

talarist, duke of sedna, visits ( willful & cheerful ) elodie

willful elodie clumsily declines his betrothal

cheerful elodie gracefully declines his betrothal

a woman approaches ( lonely ) elodie with the proposal to establish a hospital

elodie thinks it would be a bad idea

week 13 - 

kevan, earl of io, brings forth a woman who attempted to poison one of his family members, demanding justice

willful elodie accidentally insults his family and kevan executes the woman on the spot

cheerful elodie executes her and her body is cruelly displayed as a warning

lonely elodie puts the woman to work as punishment

week 14 - 

an owl flies overhead

spoiler note: an omen of ill health and a death causing issues

willful & cheerful elodie are asked to invest in a hospital

they both think it would be a bad idea

week 15 - 

a letter arrives from briony, lady of mead

lonely elodie begins printing religious doctrine with the newly created printing press

week 16 - 

the procession of the good lady takes place

elodie leads the parade

lonely elodie gives a lovely a speech

willful elodie faces an assassin

she blasts him with magic and escapes with her life.

julianna escapes the dungeons ( lonely & cheerful paths )

week 17 - 

the grand ball takes place

willful elodie has a coded paper as evidence from her attack

dancing

willful elodie dances with linley of kigal

cheerful elodie dances with earl chaine of mima

lonely elodie dances with earl erwin of ishtar

willful elodie discovers lucille is a lumen

she offers her a court position

week 18 - 

elodie catches her father speaking with sirin, countess of miranda and callisto

willful elodie trips her

cheerful elodie insults her with false flattery

lonely elodie embarrasses herself

joslyn admonishes his daughter for not being aware of her surroundings

cheerful elodie names julianna as her biggest threat

she puts out a manhunt for her head

lonely elodie names assassins as her biggest threat

she gets more guards to protect her

week 19 - 

tax season!

willful elodie lowers taxes

cheerful elodie raises taxes

lonely elodie keeps them the same

week 20 - 

a prisoner is brought before elodie, accused of killing his wife.  he says he was possessed by a demon

cheerful elodie schedules him for execution

lonely elodie imprisons him

willful elodie discovers he’s a lumen

she faces him in a magic duel and kills him, gaining his crystal

week 21 - 

elodie receives a poem about her and a squid

willful elodie thinks it’s hilarious

cheerful & lonely elodie don’t think it’s so funny

the prisoner from week 20 escapes

he blows up a portion of the dungeon ( cheerful path )

cheerful elodie receives news that julianna has been killed

she talks to her father about how scary lumen are

week 22 - 

fabian, earl of titan and duke-regent of elath, passes away.  adair, his heir, is too young to rule

willful elodie sends him to live with her uncle

cheerful elodie decides to marry him when he’s older

lonely elodie sends him to live with his grandfather

week 23 - 

an aspiring musician visits

willful & lonely elodie appoint her court minstrel

cheerful elodie hires her as a spy

week 24 - 

adair is doing well

cheerful elodie keeps him at a distance

week 25 - 

elodie sees a falling star

spoiler note: an omen of war

week 26 - 

lonely elodie learns adair has been killed

she ennobles an elath administrator to reign as duke

tariffs are raised on the talasse border

willful & lonely elodie send money to aid the people

cheerful elodie does not

week 27 - 

( lonely ) sedna invades elath.  elodie covers the damages

elodie receives a letter from gwenelle about her birthday

willful & lonely elodie will attend

cheerful elodie will not

week 28 - 

lonely elodie is attacked by bandits on the way to sudbury

her extra guards successfully protect her

at the party, briony asks elodie about the old forest

elodie says she’ll help

week 29 - 

a gift of an embroidered horse pillow from lillah arrives

spoiler note: horses are icons to that duchy

briony is preparing to enter the old forest

willful elodie tells her to go home

lonely elodie asks her about her family troubles

week 30 - 

( willful & lonely ) elodie receive a letter from briony

elodie learns her parents are divorcing and a terrible secret

spoiler note: secret is about briony’s mother affair with her brother, kevan, and about kevan’s mental illness and previous sexual assault by his step-father

week 31 -

nothing for our elodies

week 32 - 

elodie organizes a tournament

willful elodie offers status and praise as a prize

cheerful elodie offers employment

lonely elodie offers gold

( cheerful & lonely ) elodie gets a box of chocolates

cheerful elodie tests them for poison

she shoves it down a chicken’s throat, but it seems inconclusive

lonely elodie’s dog barks at them

she decides to save it for later

week 33 - 

the week of the tournament

willful elodie joins the fencing tournament

and wins her first match!

cheerful elodie stays home

lonely elodie joins the music tournament

and wins the whole thing!

the chocolates from week 32 are confirmed to have been poisoned

cheerful elodie waits for more information

lonely elodie is afraid some one tried to kill her

week 34 - 

an approaching war fleet is spotted encroaching on Nova

willful elodie says she will lead her ships in battle

cheerful & lonely elodie wait and see

week 35 - 

the novan fleet is not enough to drive away the invaders

willful elodie’s magic helps her escape the battle unharmed

week 36 - 

the shanjian commander, king togami, meets with elodie in the capital.  he challenges elodie to a magical duel

willful elodie accepts

she conjures a magic sword, on which the king is killed

cheerful elodie cannot accept

her father duels in her place

spoiler note: he produces a magical artifact that redirects togami’s magic and ends up killing him.  joslyn is left permanently mentally and physically disabled.

lonely elodie sings to him

spoiler note: the former bard is moved by her song, and is reminded of his children at home.  he resigns, surrenders, and becomes a fond friend to the new novan queen

week 37 - 

the shanjian army leaves nova

willful & cheerful elodie must deal with shanjian soldiers looting the country

lonely elodie has a tentative optimism

cheerful elodie learns lucille has been making attempts on her life

she puts lucille to the axe, and banishes the rest of the family

week 38 - 

plans for elodie’s coronation begin

willful elodie plans a respectable feast

cheerful elodie plans no feast

lonely elodie plans an extravagant feast

willful elodie sees her aunt’s family move into the castle

week 39 - 

elodie makes plans for her oncoming marriage

willful elodie would like to court kevan of io

cheerful elodie is engaged to adair of elath

lonely elodie thinks of courting ignatius of ursul

week 40 - 

elodie becomes queen!

[tankfriedeggs]

Attack of the Dead Men

“Forward!” My commanding officer barked as he stood, determined to rally his troops who were  pinned down. Me and my comrades were hunkered down in a crater from an artillery shell or anything that could protect us from the storm of bullets. Our officer gave the order when there was a lack of enemy fire, giving us an opening to advance.

The men gathered their wits and new found courage, “God with us!” They all cried out, rushing the French entrenchment. As I got up to join the attack, I felt something splatter against my face and froze. I watched in horror as the officer’s body crumbled to the ground. A bloody hole in the side of his head.

I scramble back into the crater, all moral I gained vanished in an instant. “My god..” I muttered to myself in fear. I heard the familiar whistle of an artillery shell and felt my blood run cold as my stomach drop. I quickly got up and looked to where my squad ran. I soon found them still charging the enemy trench. Unknown to what happened to their leader.

                I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted at the top of my lungs, “TAKE COVER!” Only for my warning to fall on deaf ears. There was soon after a thunderous boom as they were all engulfed by hell fire. Body parts and shrapnel flying every which way.

    I jolted awake as I woke up in a cold sweat in the den I dug in the wall of the trench. Some of the men who were still on night watch looked towards me to see what caused the sudden noise, only to look back out into no man’s land. I slowly sat up, blindly placing my head in my hands. The sun hasn’t come up when I was awoken by the dreaded memory. I depressingly rub my eyes and grabbed the bridge of my nose, preparing myself for what the day will bring.

    With the hiss of an igniting match, I lit the lantern next to me for some light. I then reached into my coat pocket to pull out my grandfather’s pocketwatch and opened the cover in the yellow burning light. For a while the night had been eerily silent, aside from the moans of wounded men trapped in no man’s land. I read that the watch says it’s half past three in the morning.

Crack!... “Ah!” A distant rifle shot broke the silence as the round made its mark. I could hear the pained man’s screams continue. “Help!” I heard the same man plead, then continued with barely audible sobs. Crack!.. Another distant shot rang out, silencing the forsaken soul most likely trapped in no man’s land.

    I felt the hairs on my body stand on end as dread and sorrow engulfed my whole body. Not even five minutes passed and the killing has already begun. The Russians had successfully pushed back every assault we made on Osowiec Fortress, even when we brought our most latest of military achievements. Four 420mm siege howitzers that came to be known as ‘Big Bertha’ were set up in the beginning of the assault three months ago. They were able to breach the fortress’s two meter thick steel and concrete walls, but the defender’s own artillery were able to destroy two of them, forcing command to pull them out.

    I grabbed my rifle and opened the bolt. Glad to see it was still loaded, I cycled the bolt to unload the magazine. Only to find out that there was only three of the five rounds left. “Good thing there wasn’t a raid last night,” I muttered to myself. I put the rounds back in one by one. After I loaded the three back in, I took a stripper clip out of one of my ammo pouches and topped the magazine off. Once the last two rounds were loaded, I put the remaining three on the clip back in the pouch.

I locked the bolt home chambering the first round and putting on the safety. I then got up and donned my pickelhelm after checking I had all my equipment on me. After making sure everything’s in order, I grabbed the oil lamp while I slung my rifle on my shoulder and headed down to my guard post. As I walk, I can see muddy sandbags, wooden support walls, a few machine gun nests and its crew, devil’s wire lining along the top of the trench every so often, and the occasional rat all bathed in the lantern’s glow. These are the things I’ve grown use too as I depressingly walk down our trenches day by day for months. When I reached my post, I was greeted by the muzzle of a rifle.

“Hold it right there!” Yelled the on edge night guard, rifle in hand.

“Woah wait, same side, same side, don’t shoot!” I told him, both hand and lantern in the air as I held my hands up.

The guard gave a sigh of relief as he lowered his gun, “Jesus Christ, don’t walk up on me without saying something, I almost shot your head off,” He lectured as he went back to his post. “So, what are you doing here?”

I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding as I let my hand and lantern hang to my sides. “Sorry, I had a lot of things on my mind that I forgot to,” I apologized while moving to his right, setting the lantern down on the fire step, “As for why, I couldn’t sleep. So, I decided I would try and give whoever was at my post some company till the assault.” That got a chuckle from the night guard.

“Alright then,” he replied, setting his rifle against the trench wall. Some minutes past in silence while I was sitting on the firestep, having a hard time trying to think of something to talk about.

The guard then turned his head towards me, “Hey, do you think the assault today will let us finally capture Osowiec?” He asked me worriedly.

I got up and stood on the firestep to look him in the face. In the dieing moonlight I can see he was a young looking man, maybe even the same age as me, if not close. “I’m sure we will, the defenders are poorly equipped. So they’ll most likely not have gas masks for all, if not most of the troops,” I reassured him as I went and put a firm hand on his shoulder. “So don’t worry, but make sure to be cautious when we advance to capture the fortress. You’ll never know what’ll happen, alright?”

“Alright, thanks,” He said, giving me a small smile until he remembered something, “Oh, where are my manners. My name’s Erwin,” he told me, extending his hand for a shake.

“Oswald,” I replied to him, giving his hand a firm shake and a nod. After the formalities were over, I turned my head to look out towards no man’s land, only to see a figure standing in the distance. It looked to be wearing a blue field coat and red trousers like the French soldiers wear. I closed my eyes to rub them, making sure I wasn’t seeing things.

As I lifted head back up, there was the pale face of a French man in mere centimeters in front of my face. A small trickle of blood on the corner of his mouth running down to his chin. Its glazed over eyes staring deeply into mine. Recognizing him as the man I first killed back on the western front. “Ah!” I screamed, taking a step back. Only to fall back off the firestep.

I landed with a hard thud as I landed on the duckboard. “Woah, you alright? What happened?” I heard Erwin ask worriedly, looking down upon me. “Are you hit?”

I got back up, dusting myself off and grabbing my leather helmet. “Yeah, I'm alright, the edge of the step gave way causing me to fall,” I lied to him.

“Oh, ok then,” he said as he shifted his gaze back to the dark, scarred fields. I felt like he knew I wasn’t saying what really happened, but he didn’t press the issue forward.

I moved back to sit on the step, I gave a chuckle and asked, “Hey, wanna hear a joke?”

Thirty minutes passed by while we talked about our family, friends, and fond memories till the officers came round waking the men up for the coming assault. So, we said our goodbyes and we parted ways to go to our respected officers. When I reached my officer, everyone was awake and I was scolded for not being known of where I was. After that, I followed my squad to join up with the fourteen battalions that made up the assault.

It took about five minutes when we formed up with them, waiting for further orders. “Masks on!” One of the officers barked. Me and all seven-thousand men reached to grab our gas masks. Wind conditions were perfect to carry the gas over to their trench without fear of the wind blowing it back at us. I put mine on and looked through the small glass eye holes. Each of their metal circles, with lines branching off to the edge that’s holding them securely, slightly obscuring my vision. I can hear my breath as I breath through my mask.

“Release the gas!” The same officer ordered. There were men moving to the wheel valves of the chlorine cylinders that were dug into the bottom of the trench. Each one spaced about three meters apart. We all heard a hiss as the chlorine escaped into the air. Forming a sickly green and reddish cloud of death as parts of it were illuminated by a few lit lanterns. I could hear quiet muffled prayers from some of the men as I stood stiff, fearing and hoping my mask will keep me alive. Just as fast as it formed, the wind started to slowly blow the gas towards the russian defenders. They were releasing it only for a couple minutes, but it felt like hours till they closed the valves. I dreadfully watched as the gas cloud slowly drifted across no man’s land. As if taking its time, knowing that it can’t be harmed.

Then, distant yells were heard which were quickly replaced with screams and gurgling pleas of help broke the silent night when the gas finally reach the fortress’s first line of defence. Soon, It was quiet once more, as if nothing had ever happened. It sent chills down my spine and almost making me want to retch as to knowing what had happened to them.

“Over the top!” Once more the officer commanded, after a few minutes had passed to make sure the gas did its job. I climbed the ladder that lead out of our trench and stood up in no man’s land. For the second time ever, there was no fire from the enemy. No precise rifle fire, no barrage of machine gun fire, no explosions from grenades or mortars. Just… nothing. It was like the defenders had just vanished.

“Advance!” Once more the officer ordered when the rest of the men climbed the ladders. We were all hesitant to move, fearing that there might still be some left alive waiting for us to get close enough for them to throw grenades and cut us down with their machine guns. Yet, we continued on for fear of a firing squad by our own men. I shackley grab my lockit to try and find some comfort in this blood soaked field. We were halfway across when I suddenly felt the hard ground go soft and heard a sickening squelch as my right foot sunk into the mysterious terrain. I looked down to see what it was. To my horror, my foot had sunken into the stomach cavity of a german soldier that’s been long past away. I could barely see the maggots crawling around in every opening he had and inside his gut where my boot was currently in. I quickly rip my foot out, sending bits of rotten flesh, organs, and maggots alike into the sky while I fell back. “Oh god..” I whispered to myself, horrified by what I’ve done. I then looked away from the corpse, feeling my stomach turn and wanting to puke from the wretched sight.

It took a couple minutes for my stomach to settle down so I could stand up without feeling nauseous. I got on my feet and cautiously continued on, making sure I don’t step on any more bodies. The sun was beginning to break the dark horizon when we reached the first line, and I felt my whole body go numb. We found what happened to the defenders, and it was a ghastly horrid sight. In their trench, we found them on the ground with their faces still in a look of surprise, sorrow, and despair. Their mouths and uniforms drenched in their blood. A disturbing result that the chlorine gas had. We found out most of the gas had dissipated when we got there, which we found out by a good amount of the men who quickly took their masks off and immediately started to vomit their morning rations. No doubt new recruits.

“Vo imya tsarya!” We looked to where the source of the yell came and couldn’t believe our eyes. From the inside of the crumbled walls of the fortress came charging a group of russian soldiers. We were terrified, for most of their faces were wrapped in blood soaked rags. The ones who didn’t, I can see blood spilling out of their mouths. Coughing almost nonstop stop spraying blood and lung matter into the air. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! Some of them stopped and took shots at us while the rest charged with bayonets or anything that could be used to kill us. A comrade to my left went limp, a round going through his leather helmet. I shouldered my G98 and fired at the closest enemy. The 7.92mm round making its mark as it tore through the chest of one of the defenders.

“Oh my god,” I heard one of my men muttered shockingly, “I.. I gotta get out of here!” He then turned sprinted towards our trench. After he did, one by one followed suit. Even the officers, who the men look up to most, were frightened to what’s happening. Seconds later, there was not enough men for us to continue to hold their trench.

“Fall back!” one of the officers ordered, fear clearly in his voice. I took another shot and turned to head back to our trench. Right as I turned, I felt a heavy mass slam into me to the ground. I quickly turn over on my back and reach for my bayonet with one hand while struggling to hold the attacker’s weapon back. I could feel his blood drip onto my face from his damaged lungs while he tried to bring a makeshift knife down onto me. I was able to grab my bayonet and slide it out of its sheath. Slick. I was able to plunge it into his neck, the tip of the blade going out the other side.

I pushed him over and got up, quickly grabbing my rifle. I could still hear him gurgling when I ran to no man’s land. I could see my men running in groups or by themselves. I was almost halfway across when the russian machine guns opened up again. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat! I watched as one of the groups got cut down. I looked away and kept moving, bullets flying past as I ran. I was almost to my trench when I felt my foot get caught on something, causing me to trip. I looked to what caused me to lose my footing, and there tangled around my ankle were the remains of a barbed wire fence.

I try to pull my ankle free, but it only caused the barbs to dig in deeper. I quickly grab the now blood covered wire, while minding the barbs, and tried to get my foot untangled. I yelled in pain as I felt the barbs get pulled out of my now bleeding ankle as I carefully moved my foot out the wire. With it out now, I tried to walk back.”Gah!” Pain shot throughout my lower leg when I put my weight on it, causing me to stumble to my knees in agony. I was at least ten meters from my trench. So, with rifle in hand, I crawled.

The defenders were still shooting any poor unlucky soul who was still in the killing field. After five excruciating minutes, I was finally at the edge of my trench. “Someone, help me,” I called out to anyone who would listen. To my luck, a few of the men who made it back came to help. I gave my rifle to one of them and two others helped me down when I moved my body over the edge. With one arm over each of them, they helped me limp to the medical tent.

When we got there, one of the doctors greeted us. “What happened to you?” He asked me in a professional tone.

“I got tripped by some barbed wire out in the field,” I replied to him in a pained expression.

“Ok, bring him over here,” he ordered the two men helping me to bring me to an empty blood stained cot. Grabbing his doctor’s bag, he then made his way to a small table next to the cot. Setting it on top of it.

When I sat on the uncomfortable bed he asked me to lay down. “Alright, let’s see how bad it is,” he muttered to himself. I winced when he pulled my trouser leg up to look at the damage. “Well, good news for you, you’ll still be able to walk,” he told me. “But the bad news is that I’ll have to stitch up the wounds.”

I could feel my stomach drop when he mentioned that. This is gonna be painful. “Alright,” I nervously replied to him. He opened his bag and began acquiring what he needed. It was the worst thirty minutes of my life. My lower leg felt like fire when he poured the antiseptic on my wound. I clenched my teeth as I had a death grip on the sides of the bed as I felt the needle dig through of my skin, over and over again. After it was all over, I was soaked in sweat, breathing rapidly as if I ran a kilometer.

I heard him let out a sigh and the sharp snip of a pair of scissors. “There, all done,” he told me while bandaging my ankle up.

I relaxed, feeling my teeth and hands hurt from trying to take the pain. “Finally,” I shakily muttered, glad that the pain was finally over.

The doctor turned towards the table he sat his equipment on. “Now you’ll have to rest for a while until that ankle heals up, aright?” He informed me while putting his equipment away.

“Ok, thank you for helping me,” I thanked him as I went to sit up on the bed.

“No need to thank me, it’s my job,” he replied before he turned away. “Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s other wounded that I need to attend to.”

As he walked away, one of the nurses came up to me. “Excuse me sir,” she asked. “Would you like me to get you anything?”

I looked at her, thinking for a moment, then decided on what I wanted. “Yeah, can you please get me something to write with?” I politely asked. “And maybe some water?”

“Yes sir,” she gave me small smile, then turned and left to get what I asked.

[midwesttiltking-blog]

15 - I Wanted So Badly To Be Brave

In my movie mine this would be a 30 minute action scene flipping back and forth between the groups highlighting huge battles all for one city. I really wanted to do a chapter about Chicago cause I love that city and how could you travel across the country and not have to go through at least one big city right? Well I hope you enjoy it!

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“My grandfather was born in this city. His parents escaped Poland before the nazis took it over and they came to the beautiful southside of Chicago. He stayed in this city his whole life. He worked on the trains here for forty years. Even after his retirement he would set up a camping chair just a few feet away from the tracks by his house and watch them go by. He told me when I was younger that he believed the trains were what truly brought america together. That people could travel and learn so much about each other from the trains. It also tied together America’s goods, the one true system we established of sharing and distributing the wealth of this wonderful nation. The trains did not discriminate, anyone from anywhere could catch a train to west coast, Seattle and Los Angeles, or the south,  Houston and Atlanta, or the east coast, New York and Philly, and most importantly to bring us right back home to the mid-west! He believed if we put faith in the train system eventually we would all be truly connected and the people from Michigan could know what summer feels like in Florida, and those lucky southerners could get to see the snow we deal with every year!” Kevin paused for a moment as the crowd applauded and laughed. “My grandfather passed away in that camping chair, his dying day spent hoping, wishing, believing in the promise of unity.” He paused again trying not to get choked up on his words.  “So I am here people of Chicago, and all those who have followed us from Portland to now, to ask you to carry on my grandfather's dream. The mid-west provides so much that people need in this country, I know it will not be easy, and we will have a lot of work to do, but I ask please, Lets get these trains running again!” The crowd cheered in agreement “These last four years have been tough, but this is our chance to truly take back what took from us. We can live in a world where we don’t have to slave away each day just to have an apartment that is far too small to sleep in at night. We can have families who instead of spending time arguing over how they will pay the electric bill this month, can argue over where to put all of the beautiful art their children make. We can make a place where everyone can walk the streets and feel safe without the threat of an officer's gun to make it happen.” A loud roar filled the field, people began jumping and throwing shirts and hats into the sky. “But we cannot do it without Chicago. The city is teeming with zombies, but you and I will change that. We’ve proven time and time again we are stronger than them. The battle will be long, but my sword will split rotting flesh on every single street from the Aragon to the Museum of Science and Industry and every street between until we can all rest easy. This is not a hopeless battle. This is not humanity's last stand. Today we will show them the power of hope and unity and our enemy will shake in the shadow of our strength!”

Matt’s followers separated into groups led by Kevin, Matt, Garrett and Moon. Kevin’s plan was to take the city from north to south like a wave. Garrett taking the coast of Lake Michigan, Matt and Kevin traveling through the center of the city and Moon on the western side starting in O’hare. Matt’s group was filled with mostly older men and a few shadowy quiet members. All of them dressed in very simple drab clothing. The group that followed Garrett was clearly the strongest of the pack. Muscled men in tank tops that had taken care to maintain their figure even during the apocalypse. Moon’s unit looked prepared for stealth combat, almost all of the women followers chose to be in her group, all of them covered in hoods and jackets carrying light weapons. Kevin’s group walked behind him, a rambunctious young crowd, many of them wearing colorful outfits and humorously overdressed for battle.  

Matt and Kevin marched out ahead of their groups nearing the labyrinth of the city. They stopped as Kevin wave his hand across the city “Even at the end of the world, this place still looks so beautiful to me” Matt stood silent next to him. “Matt, you raised an army and saved the world. How’d you steal my spotlight?”

Matt turned to him “I just kept thinking what would that idiot say if he was here. It was really hard” He paused for a moment his eyes welling up  “I wanted so badly to be brave like you”

Kevin smiled “Brave huh? I’m used to hearing stupid I guess” pulling out his knife, he made a small cut in the palm of his hand and extended it out to Matt “We weren’t born brothers, but we’ll die that way”

Matt took the knife and copied Kevin. As they shook on it Matt spoke “Dwarven vow number 7”

Kevin and Matt recited in unison “Justice and love will always win!”

They broke their handshake and sprinted forward into the city. The followers drew their bows and slowly marched behind. As Matt and Kevin ran into the city they cut down a few stray zombies wandering the streets. They stopped at the first opening they could find, the cemetery, and turned to the east and west. Hordes of zombies began spilling out of buildings and appearing on city streets walking towards them. Matt drew his staff and nudged Kevin in the back with it “Don’t die before I get to kill you”

Kevin lit a roman candle and held it up to the air “Same to you punk”. After a few rounds from the candle fired off Matt and Kevin took cover behind adjacent gravestones. A hail of arrows blacked out the sky for a moment raining down on the zombies. Once the volley ended they jumped out going opposite directions through the crowded graveyard.

Matt laid waste to the undead waves, his staff making quick work of any loosely connected body parts. With each swing tens of zombies fell over each other as those that could survive the impact were hurled back into the crowds. Eventually a well maintained zombie was able to grab hold of Matt’s staff preventing him from swinging. Matt dashed forward forcing the zombie into the ground, he pressed down on the staff and vaulted forward into the crowd. Before landing on the ground he had already drawn his sabre and dirk. Even surrounded by the undead horrors facing incredible odds, Matt’s expression did not waver, maintaining a calm that would suggest this was just a normal part of the day.

Kevin employed less aggressive tactics. Attempting to single out as many zombies as possible, he dodged around gravestones and trees as he fired off arrows. A zombie unexpectedly grabbed him from the opposite side of a tree. He threw himself backward to the ground to avoid it’s gnashing teeth. An arrow pierced the zombie’s chin, its head spun off into the the hoard. Kevin sat up loading two more arrows he turned the bow horizontal firing into the nearest targets. He threw down the bow. Drawing his sword and making a wide swing as he got back to his feet. Spinning the blade in his hand he stabbed just past his hip catching a zombie on his backside. He pulled the blade out and continued the battle using Moon’s underhanded style.

Matt and Kevin met once again in the middle of the courtyard. Kevin grabbed Matt and pulled him to the ground. “FIRE” A hail of bullets and arrows flew overhead as the zombie horde thinned out. Kevin scrambled to his feet stabbing one that had been missed. He lifted his blade into the air and the weight of the body caused the zombie to split in half. His gang cheered him on as Matt’s troops closed in with spears finishing of the last few zombies and making sure those on the ground were not still moving. Kevin looked with a grin “Zero casualties?”

One of the members of his group responded proudly “Zero casualties!” They began to high five and joyfully shove each other, while Matt’s group looked for salvageable weapons and arrows among the dead. A man rode up to Matt on a  bicycle. He dismounted and bowed “Matt! Garrett has reached Wrigley and it waiting for instructions!”

Matt’s voice shook “uuhhhh… ummm, Have him”

Kevin walked over and put his arm around Matt “Dang that sucker is fast. Tell him to wait for us, Wrigley is too big to take on his own… especially if there was a game going on during the outbreak.” The man got back on his bike and peddled off swiftly. Kevin bandaged his hand, and handed some cloth to Matt “Pretty good plan huh?, now we only have to worry about them coming in front of us, or from Moon’s side, till we hear from her I guess.

Matt nodded and bandaged his hand while retrieving his staff.

As Wrigley field came into sight gunshots screams could already be heard. Kevin’s face turned to frustration “Dammit, I told him to wait.” He began to run and waved for his gang to follow. They slowed down as they got to the outside of the building, zombies already crawling across the lot. He stopped to address the soldiers one more time “This is going to be like nothing you’ve ever seen. Don’t let their numbers intimidate you. We are the last hope, there is nowhere to turn and run. Show them the resolve of humanity! When your back is against the wall, break that wall down cause fuck walls!” The group laughed and cheered as they drew their weapons of choice and approached the stadium’s west entrance.

They spilled into the hallways and spread out slaughtering zombies. “Don’t go up the stairs! They’re death traps.” Kevin and Matt pushed forward to get to the field where the battle was already in action. Once making it into the opening it apparent that Garrett’s group was struggling to survive the onslaught. Garrett stood in the center of the field completely surrounded, body parts hurtling into the sky away from his position. Very few of his followers were able to make it to him. Many of them were stuck grappling with individual monsters or being outright trampled by the undead. “Foward! push forward to help Garrett! We have to give up the hallways!” Their groups spilled out onto the field as Matt and Kevin fought their way to Garrett’s location. Matt’s group put up shields to block the entrance behind them, stabbing spears through the gaps in the shields. From time to time the zombies were able to push someone back or bite an exposed leg. Without hesitation another soldier would take his place. Kevin’s group scrambled wildly into the field very willingly engaging the enemy. Some of them attempting their best anime dramatic slash, others diving cross body into the hordes knocking over as many as possible at the cost of their own lives.

Kevin cut an opening into the circle surrounding Garrett “What the hell Garrett” He didn’t respond as he continued using the zombies as punching bags. “You were supposed to wait for us”

Garrett punched past Kevin beheading a zombie behind him “You were too slow. I can do this alone”

“You aren’t alone though!” Kevin blocked a crushing blow from a zombie and drew his knife stabbing the zombie in the chest and ripping it sideways “People are counting on us. Fighting in an open area like this is suicide.”

Garrett picked up a zombie which had an exposed gash on its chest. He pulled the cut open, the rotting entrails spilled out onto the field as he discarded the body “They chose to follow me.”

As they argued thousands of zombies spilled onto the field falling out of the stands and through the open entrances.

Kevin frustratedly turned back to the entrance he came from “Open the door way”

Matt’s followers opened the door way splitting at the middle. A volley unloaded into the zombies on the other side. Kevin dashed forward drawing his second blade “Shield!!”  He ran past the entrance and one of the soldiers threw a shield out in front of him, He turned and dove backwards into the shield extending both blades outward he flew into the pack of zombies cleaving the monsters into chunks. Matt’s staff flew out above him collapsing the skull of a zombie and bouncing backward . Matt caught the staff turning to one of the hallways keeping it parallel to his body, he pushed the zombies back. Kevin picked up the shield leaving his short sword behind, with the back of his blade horizontal to the crowd he barred off the other hallway “Grenades!”  A few of Kevin’s soldiers entered the hallway and whipped multiple grenades into the two divided crowds. Matt and Kevin covered themselves as a hail of guts and bones exploded into the hallway. “Spears!” This time Matt’s troops flooded into the hallway handing both Kevin and Matt large pikes. They lowered their spears and marched forward. Kevin and Matt flayed zombies from a distance as the soldiers slowly gained ground. “Guard the staircases, if we can keep the fight restricted to those doorways we can limit their numbers.” Kevin picked his sword up and made his way back to the field. He looked onto the now overcrowded field, a much more chaotic fight than that of the hallways. He exhaled and pulled off his outer shirt which was mostly covered in guts and holes now, revealing his arsenal of knives fireworks and dynamite underneath. Matt stepped up next to him and matched his pose both holding their swords toward the melee. Kevin looked over to him and grinned “That bastard is trying to show us up!” Matt’s face turned slightly to a smirk as the two entered combat once again.

“Garrett, catch!” Kevin threw his short sword into a zombie approaching Garrett from behind. Garrett pulled the blade through the zombies chest and without adjusting his hold on it, he whipped the blade horizontally back toward Kevin mowing down a slew of zombies between them. Kevin blocked the blade and grinned at Garrett as a path opened between them. “You animal.” He put his blades away and turned to Matt “Mind if I borrow that?” Matt tossed his staff over to Kevin and drew his sabre. Kevin ran forward directly at Garrett who had his arm cradled extended in front of him. Kevin Jumped up and Garrett vaulted him over his head. Zombies fell backward in an avalanche as Kevin smashed into them. From the ground Kevin spun the staff around creating a crop circle of rotting bodies. He got back to his feet and tossed the staff back to Matt like a javelin “We have to get to the bats. Get these boys some weapons!” Kevin’s followers pressed forward rushing into the dugouts, tossing bats onto the field. The few followers still alive that were originally with Garrett armed themselves.

Despite the increase in arms it was clear that they would not be able to finish this fight hand to hand. Kevin watched on in terror seeing the stands were no where near near empty as more zombies flopped onto the field. He looked down at his chest and jostled the row of dynamite strapped to him “hm...not even enough to take this place down” He looked up toward Matt and Garrett his mind seeming to slow down. All around him Matt’s followers were being overwhelmed, body parts continued to fly. Some took their lives before turning, crying out to their loved ones, or praying before their last moments. “Failure”. The grip on his sword loosened and his eyes began to glaze over “Look, you thought you could make a difference, but all you did was get these people killed” The sounds of combat around him started to fade and he fell to his knees. “You useless faggot” Kevin’s hands shook as he covered his face “That is right just sit there and cry pussy!” Everything went silent on his voice could be heard. “Give up”. Kevin ignited his lighter bringing it towards the fuse. “Kill yourself. They are better off without you anyway”.

Suddenly Kevin felt himself pulled up from the ground. Garrett’s eyes matched his A dark shade surrounded them. Kevin could feel the rumored demons in Garrett’s presence. Kevin could feel their aurora's in sync and knew Garrett understood what was just happening and he understood the pain Garrett endures during every battle  “Well genius, what so we do?”

Kevin’s trance was broken as the voice faded away. He looked down at the lighter for a second then out at the stands. “We have to burn this place down.” Garrett smiled at the suggestion and pushed Kevin behind him into Matt. Garrett took stance with a bat and beheaded a zombie sending bone shrapnel exploding into the monsters behind. “Fall back! To the entrance!!”

As the followers filed into the hallway Kevin made his way to a concessions stand. He jumped over the counter top and began to rummage through the supplies. Returning back to the party with 2 jugs of cooking oil. He cut the lids off and began dousing the hoards with oil. The zombies slipped and stumbled over each other still attempting to approach him. Kevin smirked as he calmly lit the wick of a spinning firework. “Come on guys you’ll never win the war just hurling yourselves at me. If I could remember a good one I’d say some epic Sun Tsu quote right now like ‘The best way to win is to outsmart them not out number them’ or something like that. But I’m not so well read so we’ll go with… Don’t let your enemy set you on fire” Kevin tossed the spinners into the crowd and the colorful fireworks quickly turned into roaring flames as the piles of bodies ignited.

They ran out of the building and began to gather themselves as the fire spread.

Someone from Kevin’s group called out “Look to the south, a beacon.

The group turned to see three flares in the sky as Kevin stressfully ran his hand through his hair “Jesus. She is across the river already. “ He adjusted his weapon belt and looked to Matt and Garrett letting out a heavy sigh before speaking “well I guess we’ve gotta catch up”