#all my lizard brain wants is to get the hell out of there as fast as possible

[purlturtle]

Conflict avoidant not because I don't think I don't deserve to stand up for myself; conflict-avoidant because it is so fucking tiring and I just. can't.

[woodpengu]

Personal Story: feel free to skip. But I wonder if anyone can relate to having a parent that expressed their trauma as love projected onto their children in a way that disregarded what was most important to said child. Read on if you're curious. Might be triggering for those who've suffered passive (or active) neglect.

My mother romanticized the gift-giving aspect of Christmas to unhealthy degrees. Don't ask why - her trauma isn't my story to tell nor her mind mine to comprehend. She just wouldn't accept anyone being okay with not receiving anything. "No" was not in her vocabulary (we'll save the lesson in consent and boundaries for another day).

My last year speaking or interacting with her directly, she had grown to keeping her eyes peeled all year round for gifts to bestow at Christmas. My sister and I were the number one priority even though both of us had told her "One is enough if you must give us a thing at all". And there was something far more important to me that happened every year between one Christmas and the next: my birthday.

I value this day above other special occasions as a benchmark of survival. I lasted another year. I held fast for another circle of the Earth. I gave myself 365 days more of opportunities for good memories and reasons to keep going. Living another year is much more important. Things aren't necessary for the occasion, but I would like acknowledgment. I'd like to think a parent would find their child that they love being alive and well is more important to them than a holiday that's been turned into a capitalist-driven drain on sanity, safety, and good manners.

But this last time, she forgot my birthday. Until a couple days ahead of it, my mother had been collecting gifts for a holiday that wouldn't happen for another four months that I didn't want a pile of things I'd throw out, donate, or shelve (she tended to get me things she wanted for herself just in case I didn't care for them or couldn't use them... nothing was ever just for me). She told me herself that she forgot what the date was, and pulled something random out of the pile, avoiding the "big important gifts" she didn't want me to have until Christmas.

This is a woman who prides herself on her wrapping skills and being covert with surprises and gifts. She made no effort with it. "Here, have a pretty ramen bowl with this cool gimmick that traditional ramen bowls don't have." It was, in fact, a pretty bowl... that I did not in any way hint at wanting, needing, or yearning for in any capacity. I had two ramen bowls at the time that I loved and was very happy with and did not want another, nor did I have the space for one, which I informed her of when she asked. Unwrapped. No ceremony. Just handed over with an apology about forgetting and "I'll take you somewhere to make up for it". Which she did...

She took me to a place she wanted to go to... while the air was thick with smoke from the wildfires. If you have or know someone with PTSD or CPTSD, activates lizard brain (survival mode) at the drop of a hat, and the one thing we can lose resistance to is the smell of smoke (which for animals turns on the flight response and is how they know to get the heck out of dodge). Of course, I'd explained this to her. CPTSD was the reason for being in therapy, and why COVID hit me harder than most - I was isolated with my worst and most constant abusers who were keyed up and agitated more than usual by circumstances (another story). But... to her, I was throwing a tantrum and being ungrateful.

All she had to do was acknowledge the important part: I was alive and still trying to live. If all she gave me was a hug and a "thank you for being here", that would have been the most meaningful gift and the best birthday of my life. But... she made it about her, her efforts, her compromises, her gifting ability... My day was about her. That's like a relative going to a wedding and giving the bride hell for not putting [relative] on a pedestal. Integrity, please.

Point being... [takes a moment to heave a big ol sigh] (part two of my gifting rambles, here) If a person is important to you, then make the effort to acknowledge what's important to them. It's not about you "being a good friend/relative/companion" in the "I give gifts because I love you" sense. It's about showing real love through acknowledgment of their truths.

[therhythmafterthesummer]

Hi dear.

Got an exam in a couple of days and I'm re-reading all Chris' one short, because why not?

Back to us, could you give me some updates of princess and knight!Chan? Is he courting her or are they already married? If he is courting her I think he'll organise some cute dates around the country to let her see everything her father never allowed her to experience.

Now I'll stop procrastinating and go back to study soils and thin sections. I think I'll be back in a few days, hopefully with a good mark.

Have a nice start of the week and rest when you and your lovely lizard brain need it.

-🌑

re-reading fanfics during exam season is just a way to keep ourselves sane. i support you, bb.

this is so long, oh my god. but here are my Thoughts on Chan and his princess after the events of Runaway Princess:

i imagine it takes a while for them to get married after she settles in Naeel's realm. Chan doesn't want to rush into things, and honestly, our princess doesn't want to, either. she wants to savour this new life of hers before she takes any big steps.

what didn't take long, though, was for Chan to introduce her to his family and friends. it happened a couple of days after they reunited at her doorstep, and of course everyone close to Chan loved her. not only for her, but also because of how happy Chan looked.

"I haven't seen him smiling this bright in years", one of his friends told the princess at some point, which will make her feel all warm and fuzzy.

Chan is often busy with his duties as a Royal Guard, just like she is with her own job, but they still try to make time for each other. They'll go on dates, be it doing a picnic or going to eat at one of Chan's favourite places or just going to see the sunset or sunrise. Whatever it was, they always spent as much time together as possible.

Sometimes, they'll walk past each other in the castle and simply smile and bow their heads at one another, especially if either of them already has company... sometimes, Chan takes a hold of her waist and pushes her against the nearest wall to kiss her breathless, hidden behind a column, giggling like they're both teenagers sneaking around just to make out. "makes my day better", he'll say. because it does. kissing his princess always makes his day ten times brighter.

As a knight, Chan has this reputation of being serious, professional, and intimidating, so, when rumours start to spread of a supposed affair between a Royal Knight and a Royal Seamstress, no one even suspected he was the one involved.

You see, it's not a secret that they're together. There's no need for it to be a secret, the Queen already knows. Hell, she's their number one supporter, she even encourages them to meet often. "Fuck him in the kitchen pantries if you must. Have fun, I'm begging you", she tells her friend sometimes, she tells Chan similar things as well. So it's not really a secret, it's just something that hasn't come up and they haven't explicitly said to anyone in the castle.

Until one day our princess goes to Chan while he's training with his fellow knights, because he left something at her house the night before. He'll just take the item from her hands, and offer a "Thank you, my love", before he presses a lingering kiss on her cheek, right there in front of everyone, with no shame.

News spread fast at the castle, and by the time the princess was back at her workspace the other seamstresses had cornered her and asked for every single detail because "How the hell did you warm up that man's cold heart?"

Nothing really changed much after everyone found out, tbh. everyone quickly realised the story of the anonymous knight and seamstress was way more fun when they didn't know who it was, so as soon as their identities came to light no one really cared about it.

Naeel made sure Chan and our princess took time off together (she alone can make this ship sail, fr...), so whenever they did have some, Chan took her places outside of the castle town, just like you described.

Chan will propose a couple of years after the events of the story. He'll take his princess to the same inn with the hot springs where they first had sex. He'll convince the inn owner to let them go to one of the more private areas of the spring, one reserved only for married couples. The inn owner didn't want to at first, but as soon as Chan explained that he wanted to propose, and why he wanted to propose there, they just let him do it.

the princess says yes, of course. and as soon as they're back home they do get married. and when i say as soon as, i mean 'as soon as'. they didn't even go to their homes to leave their belongings, they went straight to Naeel and asked her to marry them, which she did (she was crying the entire time, just so happy for her best friend and Chan).

they finally moved in together after that, and later on had a ceremony with their loved ones to celebrate their marriage.

and who knows, maybe they started trying for a child after that. or maybe they didn't, maybe they decided they wanted to be just the two of them until the end. regardless, they certainly lived happily ever after.

[animebw]

If you asked me to describe the appeal of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, it would be this: it feels like it was written by a kid.

Admittedly, that sounds like a backhanded compliment. And in some sense, perhaps it is. But for better or worse, no other story, in any medium, so perfectly captures the feeling that it was brought to life specifically by a child’s active imagination. Hell, even saying it was “written” by a child feels too concrete a description. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is like one of those colossal, ongoing make-believe sessions you’d dream up with your friends on the playground, a story you would all craft together on the fly as you pretended to be heroes and villains and wield whatever nonsensical powers you could dream up. I shoot you with my energy laser! Nu-uh, my magic vampire ice powers make me immune to lasers! Oh yeah? Well I punch you with my magic punching ghost who can also stop time! Not so fast, I also have a magic punching ghost but when he punches things, he heals them! And you just keep going, making up new characters, new powers, new settings and new stories to tell within them, coming back day after day to continue the ongoing saga with second and third and fourth generations of your own make-believe heroes. Plus there’s a lot of pointless gross-out humor because you’re all like seven or eight and some dude almost being forced to lick a dirty toilet seat is still the height of comedy.

That is the appeal of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. That is the special sauce that makes this series truly one-of-a-kind. Yes, all long-running shonen are written for kids to some extent, but only Jojo’s truly captures that primal, lizard-brain euphoria of seeing your actual childhood imagination play out before your eyes. And while that style is responsible for all this franchise’s weaknesses and lowest points as well, it provides a niche that simply is not being filled by anything else. If you want to revisit that very specific feeling of being a kid and making up grand stories with your friends, in the days before you were fettered by the expectations of professional writing and could just let your imaginations run free, then Hirohiko Araki’s almost-four-decade-long magnum opus is by far your best option. Who knows, maybe Araki actually is immortal and his childlike whimsy has remained immortal with him. It would explain a lot, honestly.

I bring all this up to put my own feelings toward Jojo’s in context. I like Jojo’s. At times, I love Jojo’s. But when I see so many Jojo’s fans who treat it like gospel, who attack anyone who enjoys it the wrong way (*cough* let people watch parts in whatever order they want *cough*), who embody all the worst aspects of toxic, possessive fandom, and I just can’t help but think... really? This? This, of all franchises, is what you’ve chosen to devote your entire personality to defending? The show that, again, feels like it was written by an actual child? This is the show we’re treating like holy text and excommunicating people for daring to criticize it or see it from a different perspective? Like, guys, come on. This is the show where Araki forgetting how powers work or retconning stuff he no longer likes is literally a running fandom joke and some of y’all losers still treat it like this sacred cow that must not be defiled on pain of death. Get over yourselves already.

Anyway, my point is, as much as I’ve enjoyed Jojo’s, I have never once taken Jojo’s seriously.

Until Stone Ocean.

Stone Ocean is the first time that Jojo’s has felt like an actual fully realized story. Not just a collection of especially dynamic poses or an often logic-less stream of consciousness, but filtering all that insanity through a narrative with genuine stakes, with characters who genuinely grow and change, all building to one of the single most bonkers endings to any anime ever that nevertheless feels like a more meaningful conclusion than any other Jojo’s has managed. It’s so good it honestly makes all the previous parts look worse by comparison. You’re telling me we could’ve had the lovable cast of Diamond is Unbreakable with a plot that doesn’t wait half the season to show up? You’re saying we could’ve had the sheer propulsive energy of Golden Wind with a protagonist who has an actual arc and presence in the story? You mean all this time, Jojo’s could have channeled its childhood-imagination stream of consciousness into a genuinely compelling story without losing that free spirit at its core? Araki took thirteen goddamn years to figure out how to actually write, but the result is so goddamn entertaining it’s hard to care. Stone Ocean is peak Jojo’s, and until Steel Ball Run comes along to show us anime-onlys why it’s apparently the single greatest work of art to ever exist, Jolyne Cujoh will remain the queen of this ridiculous franchise for quite some time to come.

[makeroomforthejolyghost]

so i used to have very ambivalent feelings about this post. glad other people had had this experience, but unsure i liked its implicit promise to other disabled people who're on the fence about trying mobility aids

because i had been exposed to this narrative before i got my first cane, and my experience was more... well, ambivalent. i felt like a wizard with a staff half the time, but the other half the time the cane made me feel (and i quote!) "like a booger on a bus seat."

(as in, like, the knowledge other people found me pathetic/gross/a nuisance and would rather not see me quickly became as or more powerful a sensation than my increased freedom. i learnt to take my new joys for granted sooner than i got used to the social burden.)

aaand also the cane didn't fully satisfy my mobility needs, so i kept seeking out different kinds of aids. seeking out, y'know, mainly just, more practical solutions to the problem of i want to go places and can't, but also definitely hoping to receive a confidence boost like i had with the cane except maybe even better

but instead my first wheelchair (...spoilers) and my rollator made me feel worse. so much worse! i noticed their inconveniences so much more than i noticed any marginal improvements to how i felt/what i could do. and they definitely did not give me a confidence boost. i did not discover my inner badass but got a lot more intimately familiar with my inner bus-seat booger

and i concluded this meant the cane was as good as it would ever get for me. if you notice the nuisance of a mobility aid more than you notice the benefit that means you don't need it, right? so if more Serious mobility aids made me feel caged rather than free then (i thought) i must not be Disabled Enough for them. the amount of extra freedom the cane granted me was the most i could possibly have

except uh.

then i got a powerchair.

how i talked myself into this is still kind of a mystery tbh so i'm afraid i can't at this time offer much advice for the convincing-yourself-to-try-it process. but. what i do know

is that i fantasized about getting one for years but told myself over and over that this was an unrealizable fantasy. and i made this assumption based not just on the nebulous concept of Internalized Ableism that plagues us all! but also on. the concrete, lizard-brain-implicating experience. of trying other mobility aids and fucking hating them. like: i believed that this fantasy i kept having (in which a powerchair would be super convenient and make me feel amazing) was definitely a lie, and the truth was definitely that i would hate it just like i'd hated my manual wheelchair and my rollator.

and then i finally got one and it's uh. yeah it's exactly like the sentiment portrayed in OP's drawing and in the subsequent memes. not just the powerchair-specific one; like yeah i do get to go fast as hell now and it's so fun* but also. the inner-badass thing. the wizard with a magical staff. the amount of space that the people in these pictures happily command. the sense of being able to take on the world--as in, of being the equal of ableism/inaccessibility. turns out that's real.

obviously these things will vary tremendously from person to person. also, i've only had my new wheelchair for two weeks, and it's not unlikely that over time i'll get used to my new sense of power, and that the nuisances of cramped spaces and hard-to-open doors and strangers really needing me to smile back at them because they feel guilty for having noticed i exist, &c., will start wearing on me more.

but. my point is.

if you're choosing to try for the first time a kind of mobility aid that you hope will help you with your existing struggles. like it's not to help you cope with a new injury or a new more challenging environment, but to improve upon a situation that you dislike but are used to. and the new aid doesn't give you this new sense of freedom and joy and confidence

then 1. that may mean it's the wrong aid for you

but 2. it does not necessarily mean that mobility aids in general won't work for you, or that this kind of joy isn't a thing you will ever get to have.

and 3. it especially doesn't mean that how you feel and how well you function right now are as good as it can ever get.

if you want to keep looking then you should do that.

*and then i go out with other people or arrive at a shopping center with sharp turns and other patrons whose locations i can't predict and i have to slow way down and it's so tragic omg pour one out for me (/joke)

also it helps me walk or whatever

[ID: a digitally drawn two-panel comic. / Image 1: Text reads: “How I expected using a cane would feel:” Panel depicts a miserable person in tattered clothes, hunched over a cane and shaking as she walks. / Image 2: Text reads: “How it actually feels:” Panel depicts the same person, now standing tall and wearing flowing wizard robes and a long white beard. Her cane is at her side, glowing with magic, and she looks confident and powerful. /End ID]

[two-gays-in-a-trenchcoat]

“you know he’s in love with you, right?”

Mammon fell for you hard and fast, like heavy stones tumbling from a hole in a torn bag. Everyone knew it, too. He’s always been the sensitive type, wearing his heart on his sleeve. His brothers, the other exchange students could tell he was whipped for the wily little human he’d been tasked with the caretaking of.

“What’re you staring at?” You asked. He looked away quickly, trying to stifle the warmth that spread up from his cheeks. He shuffled the papers on his desk—the ones he was supposed to be filling out in preparation for his history exam—and fiddled with his pencil, feigning indifference.

“I’m not starin’ at nothin,” he mumbled. “Ya just had some pudding on your face and I thought ya looked stupid.”

You immediately wiped at your mouth with your sleeve and Mammon snickered, daring to steal another glance at you. In that moment, he could’ve sworn he’d never seen something so beautiful.

You two were in the House of Lamentation’s library, fully intent on studying and catching up on homework.

That went about as well as you’d imagined.

Mammon stood up suddenly. “Oi, are y’all hungry for anything?”

You peered down at your stomach. “I mean, yeah, I could eat. I didn’t have much of a lunch.”

Mammon scoffed. “Jeez, human, you should’ve said so earlier.” He began packing up his things. “I’m gonna stop by Hell’s Kitchen. I can pick up some of those boring-ass cheese fries ya like so much.”

“Yes please!” You sat up, now eager at the thought of one of your favorite indulgent snacks. “I’ve been craving those all week.”

“Yeah, I know, you couldn’t shut up about ‘em yesterday. They’re so plain, I don’t even see why ya like ‘em so much.”

You stuck out your tongue at him. “It’s not my fault you guys like putting dog tongues and lizard brains on everything you eat.”

He poked at your shoulder playfully. “It’s goat tongues, thank you very much.”

“Whatever.” You elbowed him lightly, grinning. “Now go fetch me my rations, slave.”

“I’ll have you know I’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart, you ungrateful heathen.”

You snorted. “‘Heathen’? That’s rich coming from a demon.”

He waved you off. “Whatever. Don’t miss me too much while I’m out.”

“Never do.” You smirked as he walked out, flipping you off behind his back as he went.

“You know he’s in love with you, right?”

You whipped your head around to see Asmo leaning up against the doorframe, Belphie just behind him.

“What?” You asked.

Asmo snorted. “Mammon. He’s in love with you.”

“It’s getting painful to watch,” Belphie yawned.

It was your turn to chuckle, and you turned back to your work. “Well, yeah, no shit he’s in love with me. I’m not blind.”

Belphie blinked while Asmo gaped at you.

“What, did you think I didn’t notice? He’s not exactly subtle,” you continued.

“Then why haven’t you said anything?” Asmo asked, before gasping. “Do you not like him back?”

“Of course I like him back. If I didn’t, I would’ve shut him down already,” you shrugged. “I guess I just want him to come to terms with it himself before I do anything.”

Belphie yawned again. “Considering Mammon has the emotional self-awareness of a zucchini, you might be waiting a while.”

You smiled softly. “Yeah, I’m okay with that.”

[98prilla]

Shifted

Thomas decides to see what all the Side’s animal forms would be. It does not go so well for Anxiety. 

This is set pre accepting anxiety, and diverges a little from the cannon of that episode, fair warning.

He is terrified. His heart is pounding as he pulls further back into the shadows, hiding under the couch. He can hear the others out there, talking, laughing, having fun. This isn’t fun.

“An owl? Really, Thomas, owls aren’t even actually smart, their eyes take up much of their cranial cavity.”

“Come on, kiddo, they are symbols of wisdom. And those wings sure must be nifty! I’m having a pawsome time myself!” A groan at the pun.

“I always thought Logan was a bit bird brained.” Roman mutters. “But seriously, a dragon? While the scales are quite flattering, it is a bit strange, considering I usually fight them.”

“I don’t know, Roman, I guess cause you’re always talking about questing I just settled on a fantasy creature. It is pretty cool." He rolls his eyes at the huff of pride he can hear as Roman no doubt puffs up his chest, flares his wings.

“Speaking of strange, where's anxiety?” his ears flatten against his head, pulse picking up again. They’re talking about him.  

“He should be here. I did summon him.” Thomas, confused. He curses his inability to sink out in this form.

“Perhaps he has taken the form of a smaller animal and is hiding.” He almost hisses, could Logic shut up for once?

“Aw, maybe we should look for him! He’ll probably be so cute!”

“Please. That weirdo is probably a venomous spider or a little parasite. Who cares, where he is?” yes, thank you Roman, for once being not a moron.

“Patton, if you’re worried perhaps you can sniff him out. You are a cat, after all.” No. Nonono. Logic, shut it!

“Good idea, Logan. Give it a try!” and he is outta here before he even knows what he’s doing.  

His terror skyrockets and he shoots out from under the couch to the startled yelps of everyone else. Everything is big, huge, compared to him, the living room seems endless.

The stairs, he just needs to get to the stairs and he'll be able to physically enter the mindscape, he’s so close-

Then there is the flap of wings, a victorious shriek, and talons are digging into his shoulders pinning him down.

“Well, what have we here?” He shoves aside his fear, proud as his voice comes out just as scathing and steady as ever.

“Get off, you overgrown lizard.” He bites out, Roman’s scaled head coming into view. He glares at Roman’s laughter.

“Anxiety, kiddo? Is that you?”

“No, its Joan, yes it’s me, Patton, now get off, Roman!” His heart is beating fast, too fast, and his words are wavering. He is afraid, afraid, afraid. He hates this, hates it, he just wants this to be over.

“Hmm. I don’t think I will. Think about it, Thomas. We have the opportunity here to get anxiety out of our way for good.” His stomach drops, his blood goes cold, he is shaking.

“Roman, what are you suggesting?” Logan, he can’t be considering this, please no, please!

“I mean, we don’t need to vanquish him. We can keep him like this. Put him in a cage, or something.”

“I'm not a pet, you idiot, and you can’t keep me like this forever.” He hisses out.

“Oh contraire, little mouse, we can keep you weak enough you don’t have any choice.” His heart lurches as he is lifted up, Roman's wings buffeting him, they are in the air.

“Roman, put me down! I… please! Pleasepleaseplease…” he is crying now, begging, because he can’t, this can’t be happening, they can’t actually intend to keep him locked in this form, weak and powerless, in a cage.  

The floor seems so far away, and he feels sick, from the altitude shift or what is happening or both, he can’t tell. The anguished terror is filling him and he lets out a broken, choked sob.  

This is what he gets, for thinking he could ever be accepted, for thinking he could ever be tolerated, much less liked. All he’d ever done was his job, and this is his reward.

“Logan, what-" he lets out a squeak despite himself as a blur of gray rams into Roman, sending him spiraling off balance.

Then he feels the talon’s grip slip, and he screams. He is falling, flipping through the air. From this height in this form his bones will break, shatter, with his luck his neck will snap. He has time to cry for help, before he impacts.

“Gotcha!” The halt is jarring, and he is shaking, instinctively flattening himself to make as small a target as possible as he tries to get ahold of himself. He realizes it’s soft, the ground.

He looks up and nearly screams again, instead flattening further. Patton has caught him, sitting on his back haunches, he is caught in Patton's front paws.

“p-p-put me d-down. Please.” His voice is a whisper, trembles making him stutter, but Patton instantly complies, much to his relief.

He hears a shriek and looks up, just in time to see silver talons coming right at him, then they crash into him and he feels a ripping pain in his shoulder.  

He can hear Patton yelling, Logan screeching, Roman growling, and it is loud so loud and all he can think is he is about to die-

“Enough!” Thomas yells, and suddenly the ground isn’t so close, suddenly he is stumbling to his feet, lunging for his normal spot on the stairs, reaching it in two strides. He lets out a relieved sob as he clutches the bannister, looking back at the others.

Logan has landed in a heap on the couch. Patton and Roman are tangled around each other on the floor. Patton's gaze meets his, worried.

“kiddo, you’re bleeding.” He lifts his hand numbly to his shoulder, mildly surprised as it comes away sticky and red. He lets out a broken, bitter laugh.

“Gee, wonder how that happened. Not like someone was trying to kill me, or worse hold me captive and torture me for my whole existence." His voice is raw and instead of biting sarcasm, it comes out as an almost whisper, red rimmed eyes glaring at the floor as he shakes, from latent fear and pulsing anger.

“Anxiety-" he half successfully chokes back another sob, harsh laughter tearing at his lungs.

“no, know what, it’s fine. It’s fine, Thomas. I always knew I wasn’t wanted. I was an idiot to hope you might… might ever actually change, actually want me around. Hell, even care about me like I care about you and keeping you safe.” He can barely stand, he doesn’t know if it’s from the pain and blood loss or the adrenaline fading or the panic attack he can feel pressing against him, tightening his chest.

“Kiddo…” he shakes his head.

“Y'know, if you really wanted me dead, all you had to do was ask. I would’ve done it myself.” He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t see the pained shock on Patton's face, the suspicious surprise on Roman's, the horror on Logan’s. The pain on Thomas's. Instead, he flips up his hood, hugging himself as he wordlessly sinks out.

He managed to lock the door before he collapses to the floor. His chest feels like it's being squeezed by a boa constrictor, his ribs crushed and all the air shoved out of his lungs. His vision narrows to a dark pinprick, gaze unseeing as he sees Roman's talons again and again, falling and splattering against the floor, bones shattered, bars, a cage, closing in, pressing him tight, he can’t breathe, he’s choking, he’s dying, god, he’s going to die here. Why not? He laughs hysterically, that’s what they want, may as well give it to ‘em.

“virgil, no. It’s not what we all want. Come back to me, stormy. Focus on my voice. You can do it, Virgil.” Virgil. None of them know his name. Only, only…

“Dee?” he chokes out, blurry vision focusing enough to see Deceit, holding his hands in his lap, rubbing circles on his knuckles.

“There we are. Hello, dearest.” Deceit reaches up, softly wiping away his tears, brushing back his hair.

“I’m an idiot. I’m a stupid idiot.” He mutters.

“No. Virgil, you’re not. It’s ok.” He hisses in a breath of pain as Dee places a hand on his shoulder, vision going speckly at the slight contact. Dee pulls away, eyes wide, face darkening to fury.

“You’re hurt. Vee, you’re bleeding" he just shrugs, another sob clawing its way out of his throat.

“Doesn’t matter.” He whispers. Deceit hisses, and pulls him onto his lap.

“It does. Even if they don’t care, even if they don’t love you, I do. It matters to me. You will always matter to me. You’re my baby, Virg. Even if you’ve left the nest, you’re still my little rain storm. Got it?” He feels Dee's extra arms removing his hoodie, then all six are cradling him against Dee's chest, holding him tight and safe and secure, letting him relax and melt into the touch, knowing Dee will never let anything hurt him. He feels Dee press a kiss to his head.

“you’ve wiped yourself out, love. I'll take care of that nasty shoulder gash. Get some sleep, dearest.” Weakly, he clings to Dee's shirt. He doesn’t want him to let go, he doesn’t feel safe, if Dee lets go.

“I’m staying, darling. I’ll stay as long as you want.”

“remus-"

“can rain down all the hell he wants. Until you’re better, they deserve it.” He finds he can’t argue with that. He falls asleep to Dee humming softly, stroking his forehead and holding his hand, his other arms working to gently bandage his shoulder.

Deceit sighs as he hears a crash. Looking up, he sees Remus kick in the door, eyes aflame.

“who hurt him? Who’s ass do I gotta beat until it falls off?”  

“hush. I just got him settled.” Dee replies. In three strides, Remus is beside him, head cocked unnaturally far to the side, like a snapped neck.

“He’s ok?” Remus asks, neck snapping back to a normal position with an audible click.

“yes. Keep an eye on him, please?”

“What? Where're you going?” Remus asks. Deceit’s eyes flash.

“I am going to go see what exactly those half-witted buffoons did to send him spiraling. Then I am going to determine whom it is I need to beat the shit out of.” Deceit growled, stepping away from the bed.

“Boo, you never let me have any fun.” Remus pouts. He instantly stops as Virgil lets out a small sound, immediately climbing into the bed with him and spooning around him. Virgil curls against him immediately, stilling as he clings onto Remus.

“Thank you.” Deceit murmurs from the doorway. Remus nods.

“I'll take care of our little stormy night. You go teach ‘em a lesson, Dee.” Remus replies, relishing the sharp fanged smile Deceit flashes him, before sinking out. As an afterthought, he snaps, replacing the door, before turning his attention to Virgil, trying to mentally send him all of his love. Virgil is more of a brother to him  than Roman has ever been, and he hates seeing him hurt.

“hang in there, vee. Dee'll fix everything.”

“I highly doubt he wants to be called right now.”

“But he was so scared! We have to help!”

“I don’t know Pat, seeing us might make it worse.” He clears his throat. He meets three sets of surprised eyes with steel. Thomas yelps and falls backwards, catching himself on the wall.

“Who is that?!”  

“Deceit, you scurrilous snake, what are you doing here?” his eyes narrow at that.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Roman, was I not wanted here at this exact moment?” his voice is a perfect mimicry of Virgil's, and to his satisfaction it makes Roman flinch.

“Thomas. This is Deceit. He is responsible for the lies you tell not only others, but yourself. I am puzzled as to why you have appeared now. To my knowledge, no lies have been spoken.” Logan explains, and his hands ball into fists.

“Oh, truly, why ever would I be here? It'ssss not like Anxiety returned bloody and injured, in the midsssst of a panic attack, talking about how nobody wantssss him and it doessssn't matter. I’m sure that hassss nothing to do with it, Logic.” He hisses out, spitting Logan's title like it burns his tongue.

He can see Patton's guilty face out of the corner of his eye, knows whatever happened, it wasn’t him. But Roman… yes.

“So Thomas, dear, care to explain what happened?” He asks, sickly sweet, turning his gaze to Thomas, who has a slight frown on his face. As an afterthought, he notes that Thomas isn’t afraid of him, despite his scales and sharp fangs. Interesting.

“I thought it would be cool to see what everyone’s animal forms would be. Logan was an owl, Pat was a persian cat, and Roman was a dragon. But we didn’t see anxiety anywhere so we thought he was small and hiding and maybe too scared to move. Pat was gonna find him, then a mouse shot out from under the couch and Roman…” Thomas trails off, eyes shifting away, but it’s enough to confirm his suspicions.

“Roman. Care to continue?” Roman meets his ice cold gaze imperiously.  

“gladly. I captured the fiend in my claws. Hurting him was an accident. I merely meant to catch him while he was small and couldn’t hurt us and contain him. Keep him small, so he’d stop bothering Thomas. It’s not like we need him, anyways.” Roman scoffs.

Rage is filling him. Because Roman truly thinks he is in the right, truly thinks he didn’t do anything wrong, and his voice is proud as he speaks about traumatizing Virgil, who is the youngest, the smallest, the most vulnerable to start with. How dare he?

Before he can think, he has crossed the room, he rears his hand back and slaps Roman hard enough to send him reeling backwards.

“You are a heartless, soulless bastard. I told him not to come, I told him he’d get hurt but he didn’t listen. You know why? It’s certainly not because he wants to be included, he doesn’t yearn for your acceptance, it doesn’t break him a little more each time you all dismiss and send him away unwanted. He definitely doesn’t just want to be liked! He never has a hard enough time just being himself, being afraid, all the fucking time, and you have certainly helped make him feel right at home.” He hisses, ignoring the tears stinging at his eyes as he whips around, facing the rest of them.

“And you’re no better. How do you think it feels, knowing the person who conjured you doesn’t even want you? How terrified would you be, surrounded by people who have never showed you kindness, who have admitted their distaste, small and defenseless, being threatened to be put in a cage? His worst fear is something happening to Thomas and being unable to reach him, to react and help. It’s his job to protect Thomas, and you were threatening to keep him away, to put Thomas’s own safety at risk for your own stupid biases! You were threatening to make his nightmare real, and not a single fucking one of you said otherwise, did you?!” He yells, slowly looking at each of them in turn. No one will meet his eyes now, not even Roman.

“you don’t deserve him. You don’t deserve his name. No wonder he hasn’t told you. You’re a bunch of ignorant bullies. And you’d say I’m the bad guy. You all picked out the most vulnerable and pounced.” He shifts his head, turning to Thomas, a curling, empty smile on his face.

“It was a fucking pleasure, Thomas. I’ll be taking my leave.” The lie is bitter and acrid on his tongue, tasting of ash as he sinks out.

He returns to Virgil's room, immediately hurrying to his bedside, because he is crying, despite Remus's attempts to soothe him.

“Vee, what’s wrong?” he asks. Virgil glares at him through his tears.

“you said you were gonna stay!” he lets out a soft breath, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I know. I just had to check on something. But you know Remus would never let anything hurt you, right?” Virgil nods, leaning back into Remus's arms.

“That’s right, starshine. You’re safe.” Remus whispers, rocking Virgil gently, who responds by pressing his face into Remus's chest.

“You’re staying now, right?” Virgil mumbles. He smiles, slipping under the covers.

“I am. No lies this time.” He murmurs as Virgil lays down, curling into him. He reaches out with all six arms, pulling Remus closer, hugging both of them and sandwiching Virgil in warmth and safety.

“What was it?” Remus asks lowly, once Virgil is out again. He sighs.

“Shapeshifting, animal forms. He was a mouse. Roman was a dragon. Threatened to keep him locked up. It got physical.”

“You mean Roman was a bitch and attacked Virgil unprovoked.” Remus's voice is flat, and he shoots him a soft look, one of his hands slipping into Remus's.

“I’m going to kill him.” He squeezes Remus's hand.

“Later. We can work on murder plans later. Right now Vee needs us.”

“Anxiety, it’s dinner time!” Patton's voice trills. He opens his eyes with a groan, freezing instantly.

This… isn’t his room. It isn’t even the commons. He’s laying in soft bedding. He realizes he’s in a little plastic hut. His heart speeds. He looks down at himself, human, good.

He flinches as the house is lifted up, leaving him exposed. His breath catches in his lungs, Patton is looming over him, he is giant. He skitters back, realizing his back is pressing against metal wire. Cage, he is in a cage, he is tiny, in a cage.

He scrambles, trying to claw his way out, trying to bend the wire enough to wriggle out.

“hey, now. None of that kiddo.” His stomach flips as hands squeaze around his waist and he is lifted into the air. He is barely as tall as Patton's ring finger, he is so high in the air as Patton places him down on his palm.

“patton please, please, just let me go, please!” he begs, feeling tears slipping down his face.

“Aw, I know kiddo. But this is better for everyone. This way you’re still around but don’t bother Thomas.” He stumbles as Patton places him back in the cage, doubling over and choking on sobs as a small food dish is placed inside, the shadows of bars shading his face.

He is still begging, pleading, screaming, for Patton, for anyone, to let him out, let him go, but he knows no one is coming, and the bars are pressing in, and soon there won’t be any more space, any more air.  

“hush, stormy, shhh. It’s ok. It’s ok, lovely.” His eyes fly open, and he clings to Dee, feeling all of his arms cradling him tight as he sniffles into his shoulder, sobs shaking his thin frame.

“Just a dream, Vee." He feels Remus's hand on his, feels the terror and residual fear draining out of him as the nightmare is removed from his mind. The pros of dark creativity. Remus can steal other people’s bad thoughts, bad dreams, but then he experiences whatever the thoughts were. He hears Remus's sharp inhale as he sees it, feels his hand tighten it’s grip.

“thanks ree.” He manages, his voice hoarse and sore.

“Virgil, love, we should talk about it. I only got minor details from them.”

“what’s to say? They were going to keep me in a cage, they d-didn't want me.” Dee draws back a tad, looking down at Virgil's face, eyes hidden behind his bangs.

“did anyone help? Surely not all of them went along with this.” He shrugs, taking a deep breath.

“R-roman g-g-rabbed me in his talons and st-started flying. But he yelled… I think L-Logan tried to stop him. He was an o-o-owl. I think he rammed Roman and made him drop me. P-p-patton c-caught me. And… and he put me down, right away, when I asked. I… I don't think they woulda let Roman k-keep me.” He mumbles out, shaking. Dee feels his heart breaking, can feel the murder on Remus's face.

“That's good, Virge. They were trying to defend you.” Virgil shakes his head.

“but they didn’t. Only p-patton even cared I was h-hurt. Thomas… Thomas didn't say a-anything.”

“but he changed you back.” His brow creases as he looks out from Dee's arms at Remus's words. “if he agrees with Roman, he wouldn’t have changed you back.”  

“He's right, lovely. Thomas doesn’t hate you. I know that. That is fact.” He sighs.

“Doesn’t feel like it right now.” He mumbles.

“I know. And that’s ok, Virge.” Dee kisses his head softly. He startles at a knock on the door.  

“Remus, see who it is?”

“If it’s princey stab him for me.” Virgil mumbles, making Remus chuckle and ruffle his hair.

“Gladly, stormy.”  

He throws open the door, leaning in the doorway with a cocky grin, teeth sharp and eyes glinting.

“Well, well, hello there Daddy. Have I been naughty?” he teases, moving to block Patton's view of the room.

“Remus… what… what are you doing here?” Patton asks nervously.  

“Apparently playing the butler. Y'know, Patton, in the movies the butler is always guilty of murder.” He tilts his head slowly, relishing the fear that races across Patton's face. “Now, what are you doing here, daddio?” Patton fiddles with his sweater sleeves, a frown settling on his face.

“I just… I know he probably doesn’t want to see us right now, heck, maybe ever, and I don’t fault him for it. Today… today was bad. Really, really bad. I just want to make sure he's ok. And apologize. We… we chewed out Roman. His actions were unacceptable. Just… I would never let that happen. He’s not… he’s a person, and I don’t always agree with him, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to take away his voice or opinion. Can you just… pass that on, for me? Please?”  

Remus looks back at the bed, softening as he sees Virgil uncurling from Dee, sitting with his knees pulled to his chest, leaning against Dee, who has an arm around his shoulders. Virgil looks up at Dee, a silent question.  

“No lies.” Dee murmurs, and Virgil bites his lip. “You wanna let him in?” He asks softly. Virgil hesitates, but nods.  

“If he means it... yeah.” Virgil mumbles.  

“He does. Remus, stop playing. V- Anxiety says he can come in.” He calls, catching himself before using Virgil’s actual name. Remus sighs, but steps aside.  

“Well? Come in then.”  

Hesitantly, Patton steps inside the dark room, taking in the soft, dark carpet, the dark to light purple gradient painted on the walls. There are also posters for bands carefully hung in frames, and a few posters for movies that Anxiety must like. He sees fairy lights strung across the ceiling that sparkle like stars without the main lights turned on.  

He lets out a soft noise of hurt as he takes in Anxiety, knees pulled to his chest, his shoulders hunched. His eyeshadow is smeared all over his face, his eyes red and puffy. He glances at Deceit, not as surprised to see him here, tilting his head. Deceit nods minutely, and he sits down next to Anxiety, legs dangling over the edge of the bed, careful not to touch him, to give him space.  

“hey kiddo. How’s your shoulder?” He asks.  

“better. Dee helped. It still... still hurts.” His voice is quiet and unsure and hoarse.  

“Yeah. I think it would be pretty strange if it didn’t. I’m glad you’re going to be ok, though. Even if it hurts now, it’ll feel better eventually.”  

“will it?” He is surprised as Patton pulls him into a hug, startled, but after a moment he leans into it, tucking his chin against Patton’s shoulder.  

“I have never wanted you to die. I have never wanted you to leave. You’re one of my kiddos, kiddo, and that means I stand up for you when something hurts you, no matter who or what it is.”

“i’m scared. I hate... I hate being small... I hate... it’s so big, everything... I could drown, in a puddle, I could be crushed by a book, I could be stepped on, I could be crushed, I could get hurt and no one would know, no one would realize or find me. I could be caged...” He chokes out, fear flooding through him again. “I could be caged and my influence squashed, and then no one would protect Thomas, look out for dangers, keep him... keep him on task, keep him motivated to d-do better. I c-can't... trapped, and b-bars and it-it's too much... too small...” He is shaking again, on the edge of hysteria, but Patton is rocking him, holding him.  

“Oh honey... I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We didn’t know you were gonna be that little. I’m sorry we didn’t ask permission first, we weren’t thinking. I promise, promise,” he pulled back so Anxiety could see his eyes, tears spilling down his own cheeks, “that I will physically fight anyone who suggests we do that again, who even dares to mention putting you in a cage. I nearly did fight Roman, Logan had to hold me back.” That gets a weak laugh out of Anxiety, imagining Logan holding back a kicking and spitting furious Patton. “I love you, kiddo. I really, really do, and if anyone has a problem with that, has a problem with you, they’ll have to go through me first.” Patton’s voice is fierce, and he doesn’t have to look at Dee to know that he isn’t lying.  

“T-thomas-”  

“Is worried about you, kiddo. I came to check on you cause he wanted to make sure you were gonna be ok. What you said... really, really scared us, but we didn’t wanna summon you, because we knew you probably didn’t want to be summoned. He’s sorry, too. We all are.”  

“Even Roman?” He asks, bitterness in his voice. Patton hesitates, sighing.  

“I don’t know. I think... I think he’s sorry he got yelled at, sorry he got in trouble, sorry we didn’t agree with him. But I don’t think he’s sorry for what he actually did to you, said to you. Which makes me angry, because he should be sorry, but he isn’t, and if he isn’t, I can’t change that. What I can do is make sure you are going to be alright. I can learn what else we shouldn’t do without asking your permission. I can be better at speaking up when Roman threatens or takes jabs at you, and eventually, hopefully, his attitude will change as he learns none of us are going to enable him anymore. I’m sorry it went this far.” He blinks, surprised. He didn’t expect Patton to acknowledge Roman’s inability to see his own wrongdoings. He didn’t expect Patton to admit to his own shortcomings. He didn’t expect Patton to be... honest.  

“What would you like us to do for now, Anxiety? Clearly, you have two people who love you very much helping your right now, so I feel ok leaving, if you like. I just didn’t want you to be alone, when you were so upset. Thomas... all of us, want to speak with you about what happened, to try and make ammends, but we’ll do that on your terms, so there’s no rush. Just, whenever you’re ready to talk, we’re ready to listen.  If you like, I can bring you meals, if you don’t wanna leave your room for a while. I wanna keep you healthy, and I know if I leave you to your own devices it’ll be chips and soda for every meal.” He lets out a little snort at that, because Patton is right, of course, and he’s already calmed down so much because Patton is being so nice, and he knows Dee would have told him if Patton had lied.  

“that all sounds good, yeah.” He mumbles, shifting out of Patton’s hug, pulling his knees to his chest once again.  

“ok. Is there anything else you need, or would like me to do?” He bites his lip, thinking.  

“Just... just let them know I’m ok? If they’re really that worried about me.” Patton squeezes his non injured shoulder once as he stands, smiling gently.  

“Will do, kiddo. If you ever need anything, or just want some company, don’t be afraid to call me up.”  

“I... might.” Patton smiles again, soft and warm.  

“I love you, Anxiety.” Patton turns away, but before he sinks out, Virgil steels his courage.  

“Virgil!” He shouts, and the room seems to freeze. Remus is staring at him in wide eyed surprise. Deceit has stopped rubbing his back, and Patton falters mid step, before turning to face him, something akin to awe on his face. “That’s... my name. My name is Virgil.” A huge smile blooms across Patton’s face, his eyes light up with tender joy, and he sniffles, wiping away tears.  

“Virgil. I think that’s a lovely name, Virgil. I know I'm usually a blabber mouth, but it when it counts, I can keep a secret.” Patton winks, sending a smile flashing across his own face as warmth blooms in his chest. With a wave, Patton sinks out, and he collapses back against Deceit with a long, low sigh.  

“You sure about that, Virg?” Remus asks, from where he’s leaning against the wall, having simply observed everything.  

“yeah. Yeah I... think I am.” He feels Dee press another soft kiss to the top of his head.  

“Proud of you, lovely.” He smiles, closing his eyes as he feels Remus settle on the other side of him. He is still scared and afraid and knows the nightmares won’t leave him alone for ages, now. But he also knows that at least Patton is on his side. And Patton is almost more of a mama bear than Deceit. If the two of them are looking out for him, he knows nothing will hurt him like this ever again.

[selfships-in-spanish]

Well, since Tumblr decided to shadowban my post about the alphabet thing, I'm gonna try re-uploading it and see if this time it does go through the tags. This is honestly discouraging...

Sorry for the double post!

Bazillion kudos for my friend @tinmiss1939 who opened the smutty gates 👀

ALLIEEEEEEEEEEE!! ❤❤❤

I’m so glad to have you back here my friend ;v; But hell YEAH I’m glad you asked 👀 these two make me go horny on main, so here we go!

ERWIN:

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Erwin is experienced. This man knows what he is doing, and absolutely knows how to use those fingers and mouth. I bet when he was in the training corps he fooled around more than once. I mean, look at him: he’s tall, he’s big and totally makes people weak on the knees, so he totally grabbed someone’s attention and snuck out to find a spot where they wouldn’t be disturbed. He will never tell how many, though ;)

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Erwin would lie if he said the size difference didn’t get him going absolutely wild. He likes the way his hands engulf whatever body part they lay on, and the sharp inhale he gets as a reaction when he squeezes. It awakens something deep in him that makes him abandon himself to his and their partner’s desires. He also cannot get enough of his partner’s cries and barely contained moans, knowing it’s because of him they are doing them. It goes straight to his pride, and Erwin can be a prideful man.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

He doesn’t get loud very often, knowing the walls are thin and gossip spreads like wildfire, but Erwin does let out deep groans, probably a loud moan too when the sensation of his cock being squeezed is too much and it feels so good he cannot help it. He definitely growls when he’s had a rough day and needs to let out his frustrations, going for a more primal and raw lovemaking (and that’s how Eva wakes up covered in bite marks and strangles him for getting too carried away).

But if for some reason he is, for example, out of the Scouts HQ because he was summoned in the capital, and he spends the night in an inn and has indulged in some good wine, he will be more chatty and loud. Be ready for that deep voice to wreck your entire body 👌

EVA:

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Eva loves it when Erwin pounds her on top of his office desk, down and dirty. The thrill and danger of knowing they can be caught turns her on so much. They have to be fast, get the clothes out of the way just enough and then it’s sweet bliss. She likes feeling the burn on her thighs from the desk and Erwin’s come leaking out of her, even if she knows she must do a detour and change. Worth it.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Eva likes facing Erwin, so the sheer, raw intimacy of straddling his legs and riding him? That’s a big yes for her. Eva loves sitting down on his lap in his office chair, and watch how he bites his lip trying to keep himself quiet when she slowly grinds herself down, feeling his intense gaze on her, devouring her body. His cock reaches deeper and when she leans back it’s pure ecstasy.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Seeing Erwin getting back from a mission, dirty and roughened up, turns her on like no other thing. Eva knows she shouldn’t, hell, she is dirty and roughened up too, and so damn tired and terrified still from facing the titans, not to mention those who sadly didn’t make it… But seeing Erwin like that, having adrenaline still pumping in her veins, makes her want to drag him into a more secluded corner and ravish him. She needs to get all the grief, hurt and frustration out of her, as well as feel alive after everything that happened outside the walls, and she knows Erwin needs it too.

But she guesses it’s the sight of such a handsome man as him that makes Eva’s lizard brain go brr.

This was fun to answer! :D

[seizethecringeofproduction]

Flashpoint 2: Advent Solaris - Chapter 5

Author’s Note: Contains Damirae, but not how you’d expect or want to see them in the “new timeline”.

I still don't know if any of this is really happening…

Part of me thinks that any second now, I'll wake up at my desk back at the station, finding out that the whole time travel thing was just a really super long dream and the original timeline never left at all…

However, I know that if that was the case, I'd have definitely woken up by now…

Barry still was not fully latched to the fact that all that was happening around him was actually real. Every second felt like an intense fever dream of sorts - and the brief migraines and flashing purple vision did not help either. Nor did the fact that his lungs were now receiving a constant influx of smoke and ash from the heated apocalyptic air around him - forcing various coughs out of him. He received a look from Shadow as he did, silently telling him to just keep his mouth closed.

Barry was sure to obey the suggestion.

The air only got worse the farther Barry, Shadow and Rouge were from the remains of the 'future' city. Miles away were the ruins of what once had been a bustling metropolis, and close where dark, blackened mountain ranges accompanied by volcanoes which seemed to be in a constant state of eruption, their lava flows forming entire river systems, their smoke replacing the clouds in the sky, and their flaming rocks taking the place of rain. The ground, for it's part, matched the dark, blackened skies. Patches of dead grass were present, though rare. In the two centuries since the destruction of the world most of what had once been lush grass not only died, but was then stained and replaced by the ash and flaming rock raining down upon it, turning virtually all of the ground to dry, blackened rock and volcanic earth. As Barry traveled with Shadow and Rouge into this bleak realm, he only had one description for all of it:

Are we still on earth?

Or are we in Hell…

The only break from the otherwise dark, dismal lights of the blackened sky and air came from the banks of the lava streams which illuminated the immediate area with auras of heated red light. Even so though, it did not help Barry with telling the time, though considering things were still visible enough to traverse the landscape he assumed that it was at the very least late afternoon.

From what Barry could tell, both Shadow and Rouge were focused on whatever destination they were heading towards, and with how fast the three were going there was no telling how far they had already traveled from the city.

Within a matter of minutes however, their destination was reached.

Overlooking a long canyon itself overlooked by one of the larger volcanoes, their destination was a small rocky, ash-stained cliffside with only two notable pieces of vegetation in the area - specifically two dead, dried out trees that remained standing in a permanent state of silent death. As Barry, Shadow and Rouge stopped the human man could only continue to ponder if this truly was an earthly realm or some far more demonic dimension.

At the very least, the lava that supplied most of the lighting was a distance from the steep cliff that they were on top of - making their bodies less heated by the reddened molten rock.

Waiting for the three was another trio who had already arrived before them - Sonic, Tails and Knuckles. Barry recognized the green-eyed blue hedgehog and the blue-eyed two-tailed fox of orange-yellow fur, though to him the purple-eyed red echidna with the almost lego-like silver plate on his shoes and the white crescent mark on his chest was a brand new sight.

I'm assuming this is that Knuckles guy they mentioned before….

At the very least, I'm not surprised by this anymore...maybe the memories are finally kicking in, though I'm not losing the old ones...

In a fitting fashion, it was Sonic who spoke first as Barry, Shadow and Rouge approached him, Knuckles and Tails:

"Wow" he snarked, "You guys sure showed up fashionably late. What took so long?"

"Oh, us?" Rouge remarked, "We just had a bit of a detour, nothing major though."

It was then that attention went over to Barry, who was in many more ways than one the odd one out of the group. Even though he was in his complete Flash costume, the first thing out of Tails' mouth once he looked the Flash up and down was nothing else but:

"Barry?"

"Huh?" Barry was shocked to hear that, not used to people just figuring out secret identities like that, still, he had to address it: "What, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, now I see it!" Sonic exclaimed with a snap of his fingers, "You're that guy me and Tails ran into back in Soleanna! Surprised to see you here! I'm assuming you got sent to this future with the rest of us, huh?"

"Firstly, yeah, I did" Barry answered, "Secondly, how'd you figure out who I was?"

"Hahaha" Tails childishly laughed, "It'll take more than to fool me! Got an I.Q. of 300!"

"Yep!" Sonic exclaimed, "Tails is quite the child prodigy!" - Tails continued to chuckle as Sonic ruffled the top of his head, with smiles on both their faces. It reminded Barry of himself and his nephews, though in a manner which made him softly smile.

"Ahem" with that sound, the sound of Knuckles clearing his throat, everyone's attention was driven over to him instead: "Guys, I think we can save this chat for later, in favor of ya know, getting back to where we came from?"

"Luckily" Rouge interjected, "We found just the thing to help us do that!"

It was then that Sonic, Tails and Knuckles saw in Shadow's hands the green chaos emerald achieved from the city prior to encountering Barry. Tails himself was pleasantly surprised, and exclaimed appropriately:

"You guys found a chaos emerald!"

"Of course we did" Rouge said as she snarked, "I'm a real treasure hunter, after all" and it was with a smirk that she added, "unlike a certain echidna I know."

Hearing that, Knuckles quickly stormed towards the gloating bat - Shadow silently following him with his eyes with arms folding him. All Knuckles did was say a slightly angered:

"What?", before he stormed back to where he was after a huff, with Shadow's eyes still silently following him. Rouge just kept the smirk on her face. With that small exchange over as quickly as it started, Shadow was quick to resume discussion of business and asked Sonic, Tails and Knuckles but a simple question:

"Have you guys discovered anything?"

"Yeah, actually" Tails explained with a nod of his head, "We discovered a lab in the city, and on one of the computers there I was able to discover a signal indicating there was a chaos emerald around here, possibly in that huge volcano over there!"

Rouge, surprised at the nation of traversing the vast, volcanic canyon before them, could only complain in surprise at the notion:

"You mean we have to go through there?"

Knuckles, with Shadow's eyes following him, yet again turned and faced Rouge directly as she said in a confrontational tone:

"If you don't like it, you can stay here."

"You've got to be kidding."

Once Knuckles huffed back to his place, that was when Barry finally had enough of observing and interjected his own words into the conversation as he was still having quite the struggle with processing all of the information his brain was receiving:

"Okay, okay, can someone just explain to me ho-"

"No time!" Shadow exclaimed, marching forward to be ahead of the others as he interrupted Barry's words, "Let's move!"

With Shadow, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Rouge rushing on into the volcanic, hellish canyon it was Barry who found himself left to shrug. He still had barely any idea of what was going on or what it was that needed to be done, but he followed his new allies regardless - at the very least they all seemed to be heroes like himself. Thankfully, he caught up to them all within a matter of seconds - a speed at which even Sonic was impressed:

"Wow Barry!" the blue hedgehog exclaimed as he and the blonde were virtually side by side rushing forward into the dark landscape, "You're really fast! Almost as fast as me!"

"Heh" Barry smirked, "Call me the Flash, and we'll be seeing about that 'almost' part."

"So we shall", Sonic was smirking in precisely the same way.

Sonic, Shadow and the Flash naturally led the charge into the canyon, finding themselves speeding down what appeared to be a flat highway of black earth with the heated air flowing past them as during any regular high speed run. There were brief appearances by what appeared to be lizard beasts made out of the molten rock and flames - though their entire forms were easily dispersed by being rammed by either of them ramming into the beasts at such high velocities of sheer speed.

Barry could hardly believe the geography of the place: one second he and the two hedgehogs were careening down a long, winding path faster than a speeding sports car. The next that same path turned into a loop made of darkened earth, before their speed sent them into the air to briefly overlook the lands before landing onto yet another winding pathway. All the while avoiding seemingly random pillars of fire that would sprout from the ground like geysers, requiring nigh perfect timing in order to avoid being scorched.

This is hellish, but exhilarating

Though, hopefully I don't fall into the lava…

He couldn't have thought that at a better time. Within moments it was apparent that the roads of rock they were racing down were descending, and soon they were mere feet if not inches away from a stream of the red molten rock that fed directly into a small lake of it complete with spires and even platforms of rock emerging from the top of it.

Luckily, all of this proved surprisingly easy to traverse with a good usage of momentum and acrobatics - though Barry could still feel sweat pouring from his body due to his proximity to the heat. He only hoped his suit would not glue itself to his skin.

Jumping from rock spire to rock spire and from platform to platform - making quick work of any lizard or 'bat' lava monster that manifested in their way, the group quickly found a steep wall that headed to a plateau, and headed there. The flat plateau was not very large, but did overlook a sea of lava as well as feature a closed off cave connection to it. The only trouble was the geysers of fire and the emergence of various bat and lizard demons as soon as their feet touched the ground.

What are these things…

The lizard and bat-like beasts were joined by other fiery faces however - large worm-like beasts that casme up from the ground with large flaming mouths that almost looked like two pairs of hooked tweezers, and one large, golem like beast that was humanoid in stance but incredibly large - about as large as that Doomsday beast had been. Though it was not as threatening since it's head was but a pure circle of bright, heated lava.

Still, seeing it triggered a small bout of Barry's headaches as well as purple vision. Though he avoided an outright hallucination, for a few brief moments the beast flashed into a screeching, growling paradoom while Barry himself grabbed his head and hissed due to the migraine.

This was not unnoticed by Shadow, who looked at the struggling Barry curiously while he was destroying one of the lizard beasts with a single chaos spear - alongside all of the others who also managed to take care of the monsters with relative ease. Tails, Knuckles and Rouge all had just as much ease defeating them as Sonic and Shadow: Knuckles' punches, Tails' tail whips, and even Rouge's martial arts kicks all managed to disperse the lava monsters in but a few hits - reducing them to nothing as though they hadn't even existed at all.

The only exception was the golem-like beast, which had enough blackened, heated rock to serve as armor that it seemed virtually impenetrable. It managed to disperse Shadow, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Rouge from getting too close to it by tossing explosive fireballs at them - evidently trying to lead them towards the geysers and their regular blasts of fire.

It did not take any account of Barry, however.

Once Barry recovered from the headache, he was quick to notice the predicament that the others were in - and just as quickly he knew what to do. It was actually rather simple really, a mad dash for the mountainous 'wall' behind it followed by a jump off allowed Barry to punch the creature's 'eye' with enough sheer momentum that it dispersed to nothing within a matter of seconds. Barry landed back to the ground as the cave behind them opened up, revealing a short caven illuminated by glowing purple gemstones as it led to another section of the canyon.

"Way to go, Flash!" Sonic congratulated. Barry responded with a smirk and a nod of his head, before the group pressed on to the rest of the canyon.

Hopefully we get back to the wonderful world of air conditioning soon enough.

The rest of the canyon proved rather easy to traverse through once all of the demons within it were proven to be rather physically weak. They continued emerging to attack the group, though just as quickly they were reduced to nothing once more.

The next major section of their journey was as beautiful as it was haunting: a deep waterfall made of lava, dropping down into a small lake miles beneath their feet, though platforms of stone stuck out from the lava flow along with other platforms and even weakened 'bridges' of rock to help them get over to the waterfall. Tails, Rouge and Knuckles easily flew or glided across the chasm, though the three speedsters had to use the platforms.

The entire time, it couldn't be stated enough how both haunting and gorgeous seeing such a large waterfall of lava was. With everything else around it being increasingly darkened by just how bleak this future world was, it served as both the largest source of light as well as a reminder of the doom that occurred many years before.

It also of course, served as a threat due to the heat it gave off. The heroes had no choice but to be up close and personal with it's radiating warmth, making many of them feel as though they were being slowly cooked alive. Having to keep moving at a fast pace did not help.

Nor did the fact that the bridges they tried to cross over began to collapse the moment they were stepped on. Had Sonic, Shadow and the Flash not been speedsters they would have fallen directly into the lake of lava beneath them. They would not have been able to properly jump up the 'lavafall' via the platforms jutting out from it, and from there navigate the small platforms being sent down it's current while land bridges turned red by it's heated light overlooked them from above, forming a pseudo cave-like area.

Beyond that, they reached another plateau where they had to face off with another small team of fire beasts before proceeding. There was little time paid to them, as all of the monsters were virtually now incapable of putting up any serious resistance to the team's attacks. Within a matter of seconds they were already rushing through a second short cave towards what would be their final segment of the outside volcanic canyons:

With the massive canyon that served as their destination now looming over them in plain view of their eyes, they now only had to avoid a steep drop into the wide volcanic river that rested miles beneath them. They had various bridges, platforms and spires of volcanic rock to help them from doing just that. Due to them having to avoid flaming chunks of molten rock raining down onto them like the polar opposite of a rough hail storm in addition to not wanting to breathe in any toxic fumes, there was not much talking between them at this stage. Though there remained easy defeatings of the various fire-based demons that sprung out to attack them.

Before they even knew it, they were all blazing through the air towards the massive volcano before them - on a direct collision course with whatever existed on the inside of it.

As they approached it, it dawned on them all just how large it was. It was the size of yellowstone's grand caldera from what Barry could see, except in the shape of a traditional volcano. Though he gulped as he descended towards it alongside his newfound allies, he had hoped that soon it would all be alright.

That would prove to take quite a while, however.

The descent into the massive volcano was hectic for all of them as they dropped down for what had to be miles upon miles of heated, dark air. They held their mouths shut so as to not take in any of the toxic fumes from the stacks of smoke emitting from the large triangular mountain - though their eyes were forced to struggle.

The stacks of fumes soon were behind them though, only to be replaced by another, arguably more pressing threat. Soon surrounded on all sides by circular walls of rock, the large team was left at the mercy of fire geysers lining the side of the chasm they were falling down. Once he realized what was coming, Shadow was sure to exclaim to the others:

"Watch for the fire!"

"Here it comes!" Knuckles' own exclamation came with him and Rouge having to latch themselves onto the wall around them to steer clear of at least four different blasts of fire that came from the wall-perched geysers. They managed to just barely dodge getting burned alive by the vicious streams. Thankfully, so did the others. Tails managed to grab hold of Sonic, and lifted him to a spot not being occupied by the streams of flame. Shadow managed to grab hold of one of Rouge's ankles, and for good measure sank one of his hands deep within the walls of rock so that neither of them would fall. Barry had to push himself to the wall and with his sheer momentum sank both his hands and his feet into the wall.

"Heh" Sonic chuckled, "This place sure doesn't hold back!"

"You can say that again." Barry muttered in response, agreeing with Sonic's cocky statement. The conversation was then taken over by Tails:

"According to the signal I found, the chaos emerald is in the deeper regions of this volcano, so we're really only half way there now!"

"Assuming we don't get cooked alive down here" Knuckles added in, there was little argument to his statement - since there wasn't much of one to make. Thankfully though, the streams of flame receded and allowed the group to press on for the remainder of the chasm - there were other geysers on the way down though thanks to their timing all of them to the groups' relief only went off after they had already passed by.

Landing on a large circular platform surrounded by a small stream of lava, the six looked around and saw that the cave immediately in front of them was their only way of continued travelling, and so proceeded to rush down the winding pathway connected to their landing sight. At the very least, the cave was well illuminated by the red-yellow-orange magma beneath them - turning all of the cave walls, stalagmites, stalactites and ceiling alike into a red color just like itself.

The pathway did not last long, courtesy of the six's sheer speed. Soon enough of the winding path led them to a much larger chamber of the volcano, one where the light was not nearly as strong as it was in the previous 'hallway' they had just gotten out of.

Almost immediately did they all find themselves struggling to see, the rock pathways they stood on becoming even darker, as did the lava and magma all around them - turning a much darker shade of red in conjunction with the rest of the room. They could tell that the room increased in height on one side due to the small lavafall before them, but they could no longer properly make out what path was safest to go down due to the sudden shift in lighting.

However, Sonic took quick notice of mysterious, levitating purple spheres of rock that were present. Without much in the way of hesitation, he impulsively curled into his ball state and homed in on them - his striking of one causing it to light up and provide a source of visibility for himself and the rest of the group in the immediate area.

"If we just hit these purple ball things, we should be able to find our way through this chamber!" Sonic exclaimed to the rest of the group, though Shadow was quick to remark back:

"Thank you for stating the obvious."

"Heh" Sonic snarked back, "You're welcome too, Shadow."

"Hmph."

The group quickly continued their journey through the cavernous chamber, with each of them making sure to make impact with any purple spherical rock they found levitating in the air once they were outside inside of any generated source of light.

With all of their speed combined, it was only a matter of seconds before they all found themselves out of that dimly lit chamber and in a section of the volcano's insides, one where at the very least proper visibility was a thing. Yet again were they hit with a sight that was haunting, yet at the same time strangely beautiful for their eyes to behold:

They were inside a tall, spacious, hallway-esque cavern, standing on yet another winding pathway of blackened rock, surrounded on virtually all sides by scorching hot, red, glowing and flowing magma. Yet, there was a strange beauty to the fact that out of many large holes within the cavernous walls, flowed large and seemingly endless streams of magma into the one beneath and around their only 'road'. Rather than the sounds of streaming water, was the sound bubbling molten rock and the fire that would occasionally spit out from it. Their flows actually fed into a large, incredibly steep lavafall situated behind them, though they did not venture to see what was beyond that. As horrifying as it was, it was just as mystifying in it's own hellish way. Rouge in particular made note of this:

"You know, as horrifying as this place is, some of these sights actually are strangely beautiful too."

"Yes" Shadow admitted, looking to Rouge with a blank yet agreeing expression, "In a way, they are….but let's keep moving."

As the group pressed on down the winding path through the boiling hot cave, all Barry could focus on was thinking ever fastly to himself:

She's not wrong, this place is kind of beautiful…

In the same kind of way Hell is, I imagine, but still...

Would much prefer a honeymoon in Niagara Falls to a honeymoon in whatever 'Falls' these are called, though, not gonna lie.

Maybe Robin and Raven would prefer this place, though. Maybe.

The winding path ultimately did not last long with how fast the group moved through it - and neither did their ability to properly see where they were headed. Soon enough the group found themselves in yet another chamber that was incredibly poorly lit - quickly forcing their vision to dim down along with it. The difference this time however was that the chamber had winding pathways of its own, ascending up the chamber's lavafall and beyond - along with various platforms and miniature plateaus situated around it at various heights.

There were however two glaring differences between this darkened chamber and the previous one they had been in: one was that there were no levitating pieces of rock, but instead more widely spread out purple-ish orbs of light that were currently turned 'off' from what it seemed. Second, was that the fire-and-rock demons were emerging in full force when it came to this chamber with all currently revealed types of them appearing as though they were adamant about preventing the six from progressing any further inside of the volcano.

It was evident to all of the six that the way to press on likely had to do with those spread out orbs, though with squadrons of fire demons guarding each one in addition to being present along the pathway itself it was evident the group would not be able to deal with this chamber as a single cohesive unit, as such Rouge did not waste much time in coming up with a simple solution for their problem:

"Looks like me and the echidna are gonna have to check out those light orbs while the rest of you guys handle these monsters down here!"

Pounding his fists together, Knuckles remarked:

"Works for me!"

"Just be careful" Shadow spoke to Rouge, "Don't fall into the lava."

"Shadow" Rouge winked, "You don't need to worry about me so much!"

"Hmph."

"Alright, that's enough talkin' for the moment!" Sonic exclaimed, his own loud-mouth self smirking up a storm, "Let's kick some monster butt!"

"You're speaking my language!" - Knuckles couldn't help but add that.

With those things all having been said, the group did as Rouge had suggested - herself and Knuckles took to the air and used the parts of rock that weren't too overly heated or fading slowly into flowing lava in order to climb to greater heights in order to more easily reach the orbs while the remaining four continued on the path and engaged in battle with the monsters before them.

Of course, small groups still attacked Knuckles and Rouge as well. However, they yet again did not prove to be much of a threat.

The lizard beasts proved that they could breathe fire, but being stationary while they did so left them open to drop kicks from Rouge or near kryptonian-strength punches on the side of their heads from Knuckles. They were dispersed to nothing without burning their foes at all. The bat-like creatures generated and dropped fireballs like miniature bombs, though with Rouge's skill at aerial maneuvers, Tails' own similar abilities, and Sonic & Shadow's jumping height they were just as easily reduced to a non-entity within moments.

The large, worm-like beasts along with the tall and armored golem-like ones were slightly more of a threat, though the worms could only take a bit more punishment before fading into oblivion while the golems having their weak point exposed usually only got one strike in before said weak spot was exploited by any one of the six and they were promptly defeated. A well placed chaos spear or even just an aerial punch or kick from Shadow made short work of them - let alone one from Knuckles or Rouge.

Getting beyond this chamber was little more than a matter of Knuckles and Rouge smacking the levitating orbs on either side of the chamber - getting them to light up with bright and almost blinding light, while the others slew the monsters down below with their various powers.

At times, entire circles of the worm-like beasts would emerge, only to be taken down by a stream of kicks to the head from Rouge from the air. Knuckles with a few combined punches made short-work of one ambitious golem demon that emerged in front of him at one point.

The lizard demons tried to burn the others with their fire breath, though more often than not they were taken out from behind as quickly as they started their attack. Lunging at the heroes proved even more fatal for them.

After what we went through with those Paradooms… - Barry thought - This is practically therapy!

Before long, all of the orbs were glowing brightly thanks to Knuckles and Rouge, and equally so all of the monsters that had emerged were reduced to those two objectives being accomplished, the six saw that their way to the next section of the volcano had opened up - like a sliding door, a portion of the cavern had sunk itself into the ground below to expose the way to them. Without any hesitation, the six continued on as a group of one.

What they found once they exited the cavern was the massive, spacious core of the volcano, complete with but one circular platform for them to stay on while a massive sea of lava virtually surrounded them. There were pathways leading other caverns within the volcano, though the sheer size of this chamber pointed to this being where the entire system led to. Behind them was not only the cave they had just left, but also the jagged, rugged volcanic rock that encompassed the outer walls of the chamber itself.

Far above them was the hole, the 'eye' of the volcano, with large towers of billowing smoke and sparks of fire floating up into and out of it into the dark world on the outside.

Most important of all though, was the glowing diamond-cut gemstone levitating in the air before them - spotted just as they looked upwards towards the hole far above them. It's color and glow gave off either a turquoise or cyan coloration, depending on which way one looked at it. Naturally, it was Rouge who with a smirk was the first to take notice of the emerald:

"There's the chaos emerald you guys were talking about earlier!" she said as she took off into the air, flying towards it, saying to it and herself in an almost greedy fashion: "Come to mama!"

However, it was not long before Shadow unfolded his arms as the realization that this was far too easy dawned on him. He quickly shouted to Rouge as loud as he possibly could:

"DON'T TOUCH IT!"

Luckily, Rouge managed to fly back onto the platform with a gasp as well as a flip - as within seconds of Shadow shouting that a massive eruption of flame occurred that completely shrouded and seemingly took the chaos emerald with it. Rouge would have been charred had she not gotten out of the way. Shadow instinctively stood in front of the group in a protective, battle stance as the others got into their own fighting stances - for once the flames and lava cleared, a true monster was revealed. With his eyes widened, Barry knew immediately what it was:

Iblis…

Iblis was certainly quite the beast. Barry was sure this was not his only form, though he did not want to wait around to see any others.

Iblis in the form he appeared to the six was similar to the weak worm-like demons that he spawned around the volcano, though extended to truly massive proportions, his head alone being virtually the size of a moderately sized building while his body was akin to the trailer one would attach to a eighteen wheeled truck - perhaps two lined up beside each other even. The entirety of the beast's body appeared to be made out of concentrated lava, from the massive snake-like body to the massive, armored head. The only exceptions appeared to be it's sharp teeth and the armor protruding from the body - the latter of which appeared to be made of black, volcanic rock. The armor around the hard was complete by the presence of three large, sharpened horns. One located between Iblis' prominent, dark green, triangular pupil eyes. The others were on either side of the beast's jaw.

Looking at the beast for the first time triggered yet another splitting migraine and flash of purple vision for Barry. He gritted his teeth and groaned in pain for another few moments as the beast's horrific roar bellowed throughout the volcano. He recovered once more, but still the creature did not go away.

To him, there was something strangely familiar about this beast once he looked at its eyes. It's green, yet soulless eyes. There was as much familiar as there was new, yet at the same time his brain was incapable of piecing it together.

Nor did it have the time to do so, as defeating Iblis was now top priority for the lot of them.

Before any of the six could even speak at all, Iblis let out it's booming roar and from it's smouth a massive stream of fire was unleashed upon the group. All of them gasped, some of them shouted, though all of them immediately jumped, glided or flew out of the way of the fire's radius.

"Heh!" Sonic snarked, "This must be the origin for those monsters from before! Guess 'mama's' come out to play!"

"Sonic, take this seriously!" Shadow exclaimed to the blue hedgehog, though Sonic was ever the cocky creature:

"Relax Shadow, I think we've got this one easy!"

With that having been said, Sonic rushed in the direction that the six had just recently come from - just barely grazing the large continuous stream of fire as he did so. With a slight grumble, Shadow did the same along the opposite side of the flame, until the two were racing along the mountainous walls of the dark chamber's exteriors. Practically in sync with each other as Shadow realized what Sonic's plan of attack was, they waited until they had just the right amount of height before launching themselves directly at the creature.

Iblis attempted to raise it's head to aim at them, but their sheer momentum more than outpaced it - their fists soon landed onto it's eyes, and their feet kicked said eyes as they bounced off of the creature once it's closed its eyes and writhed in pain from the blows, even being knocked back a bit from it's position due to the strength of both combined blows.

Luckily, Sonic and Shadow landed on two small pillars of rock that spared them from falling directly into the sea of lava beneath them. However, the snake-like demon lord was not finished with them quite yet. As it recovered from the first strike made to it, it attempted to swing the lower half of its body at all of them - first Sonic, then the four on the large platform, and then shadow. All managed to dodge it. Once it had completely flipped its body around, it submerged itself into the lava beneath itself - seemingly having retreated from the battle.

"Is that all?" Sonic questioned, before chuckling a bit, "Wow, what a coward!"

Shadow however, was not so easily convinced: his eyes were locked in battle-ready suspicion, looking around the massive caldera for any sign of the monster.

When Sonic was inevitably proven wrong, he was not surprised at all.

Crawling from the lava around the platform were hordes of Iblis' various relatively weak minions. The lizard demons crawled onto the platform itself, while the more worm-like beasts surrounded it best that they could and fired balls of flame at the grounded four while the lizard beasts attempted to lunge at them. Seemingly endless were their numbers, even if all of them were excessively weak to strikes upon their bodies.

Sonic gasped as he watch this occur, not wanting his friends to be hurt:

"Guys! Hold on!"

However, his panic was soon replaced by further shock as a massive stream of lava shot up at him - forcing him to gasp and jump out of the way immediately. He ultimately had to use aerial momentum to just barely latch onto the rock that Shadow was held up on. Shadow did have to slide himself down to the lower end of the rock in order to catch Sonic's hand though, lest the blue hedgehog fall directly into the lava.

Sonic gratefully looked back up to Shadow, using his free hand to give the black hedgehog a thumbs up:

"Thanks, Shadow!"

"Don't mention it." Shadow wasted no time pulling himself and Sonic back up, though naturally the moment they were on more steady ground was also the moment that Iblis re-emerged from beneath the surface of the lava surrounding them.

Lunging it's entire body high into the air, the beast with one more growl charged directly at them from above.

However, both Hedgehogs stood their ground. Only once the creature was just about to make impact with the rock did Shadow break his brave stance and make his move against it:

"Chaos Spear!"

One well timed blast of a chaos spear struck the base of the creature's center horn, which alone caused enough of a blast to knock the beast off it's collision course with the rock, though as if that wasn't enough Sonic himself spun himself into his ball form and quickly rammed the creature in the spot of impact as hard as he possibly could. Not only did it get one final shriek from the creature before it was once again submerged, though it visibly caused enough damage to the horn to make it start becoming looser as though it was now beginning to come off.

It should also be stressed that by running up the length of the creature's body as it descended into the lava and then jumping back onto the rock formation with Shadow on it, Sonic was able to save himself from falling into the molten liquid rock.

With Iblis once again submerged, Sonic and Shadow turned back to the remaining four of the group to make sure that they were doing well as well. Luckily, they were.

They were gathered in the center of the platform, focused entirely on not letting the endless horde of lava beasts get too much time to strike. While single punches, kicks or tail swipes took each individual out easily it was still apparent that their bodies were deadly to touch for long periods of time and that with enough numbers even these beasts could cause serious damage.

Thankfully, Barry's ability to create miniature vortexes of fast-moving wind using the momentum generated by vibrating & twirling his arms around proved too much for the creatures to handle as well as an effective strategy against the worm-like minions providing support for the lizards - who were mercilessly being picked up and tossed at the former as though they were nothing, and thus causing both types of creatures to meet their demise.

Both Sonic and Shadow were happy to know that for the time being, their allies were holding their own against the weaker minions. However, they still had to deal with the progenitor.

Speaking of which, Iblis wasted little time in yet again breaching the surface - though this time he paused right in front of the two small hedgehogs. Just as the two prepared for another round of their battle against him, Iblis tilted his head back to let out a deep roar before lifting it back in their direction to let out another stream of fire from its mouth.

However, as with the first time it attempted this, they avoided it by jumping into the air.

Instead of striking the monster's eyes this time, Sonic instead landed a ball-form strike to the scar at the base of the loosening horn, before also striking one of the eyes yet again for good measure. Sonic grabbed onto one of the jawline horns as the beast tilted it's head and roared in pain - thrashing it's head from side to side.

That was Shadow's opportunity to strike.

With a single, well placed punch to the scar created by his previous attack, the sheer force of the ultimate lifeform's strength was enough to get the horn to actually break off from the beast's head - complete with a loud, echoing cracking sound as it did so and promptly fell into the lava below. As Iblis yet again shrieked in absolute pain, it was revealed that a third eye had been hidden within the horn.

"Chaos Spear!" - Shadow wasted no time in unleashing a mid-air strike to the creature's now exposed third eye. Once the chaos spear struck the beast and caused it's third eye to erupt into an intense explosion across its face, Iblis virtually screamed in absolute agony. It thrashed itself around more violently than ever, eventually forcing Sonic to jump off of it before it yet again descended itself into the depths of the lava below.

Thankfully, Sonic and Shadow both maintained enough momentum be it from Sonic's speed or Shadow's rocket shoes in order to land on the platform with their four companions as well as a few remaining stragglers of Iblis' minions.

The remaining worm-like creatures were taken out quickly by Sonic bouncing off of their heads like he was a pinball ball, maintaining enough force to destroy all of them before landing back on the platform. Shadow took out the remaining lizard beasts by stomping on one's head and using that same foot to sideswipe one that was preparing to breathe it's fire onto him from behind. Knuckles gave a third straggling lizard beast an uppercut before it could sneak up on Barry.

With the last of the minions dispersed into nothing and Iblis submerged in the lava, the six heroes were all reunited in the form of their battle stances.

They all knew that it wasn't quite over yet. Though the chamber returned to silence for a few moments more, there was a sense amongst all of them that Iblis was not finished 'playing' just yet.

Their hunches were quickly proven correct.

Iblis emerged from the lava one more time, determined to finally finish off it's six enemies once and for all - in the form of making a final charge directly towards the platform that all of them were gathered on, displacing waves of lava in his wake as he roared angrily at his incoming prey.

However, it had underestimated the arsenal of the three speedsters that it was fighting.

Shadow, Sonic and Barry did not waste any time as it approached from the far end of the caldera. Following Sonic's strategy from the beginning of the battle, the three of them rushed at their top speeds up the rock walls behind them until they were at just the right height before launching themselves directly at the creature as it approached the platform like a freight train. Just as it opened it's jaws to roar did they make their impact.

Barry struck the left eye with a maximum momentum punch, and Shadow struck the right eye with a maximum momentum kick powered by his own personal strength. Sonic, in ball form, struck the center eye with maximum ball-state momentum.

A shockwave emitted from the impacts as the three speedsters successfully navigated themselves back to the platform with their four allies - watching as Iblis screamed in agony one last time as he was sent back to the wall on the other side of the caldera by the sheer might of their combined strikes. Not only that, but the collision that the beast made with the wall was strong enough to create a hole in the wall of rocks - the sound of crumbling rock and splashing lava echoing throughout the massive chamber as the creature tumbled out of it along with a newly created lava flow and also with one final cry, this time one of defeat.

With Iblis now forced into a different chamber of the volcano, it seemingly lost interest in the group and fled to deeper depths of the lava and magma in order to lick its wounds.

As silence returned to the group of six, the heroes turned to each other; all of them had but one issue on their mind:

"Does that thing still have the chaos emerald?!" Tails exclaimed, being the first to bring up the issue. To the happiness of all, Shadow quickly revealed that he had the cyan-turquoise emerald in his hands, having grabbed it from the creature during the final phases of the battle.

Everyone nearly sighed with relief after seeing it.

"What was that thing?!" Tails exclaimed after that had been settled, the second thing on his mind.

"I'm assuming that thing was Iblis" Barry remarked, remembering exactly what he had been told about this future, "The being that ends up destroying the world, and making all of this happen."

"Oh yeah?" Knuckles snarked, "Well for a destroyer of the world, he wasn't so tough!"

"More than likely, that was some kind of larval or transitional stage." Shadow was swift to explain, "It's almost certain that we did not fight that beast in its most powerful state, and I for one would rather get back to the present time before we actually do."

There was a nod of agreement from the others in response to his words. Absolutely none of the group wanted to stick around for that.

"So" Barry spoke once more, "How are we going to get back to the present, again? Are we just going to like, use the chaos emeralds or something?"

"Well, yeah" Sonic nodded, "Unless you got any better ideas?"

Barry thought about it, though he was hard-pressed to come up with any other idea on how to get back to the present. He knew he could theoretically create a fourth flashpoint, though knew that would change everything - if there was a method that would get them back to the present without causing yet another massive rift throughout the universe, he would certainly prefer it to another flashpoint. However, as he still needed an explanation on what the chaos emeralds were, he worded his response accordingly:

"Well, no," he admitted, "I don't have a single idea on how else to get back to the present. But, how exactly would the chaos emeralds help with that?"

"Simple" Tails exclaimed, "The seven chaos emeralds are each, essentially, generators of unlimited chaos energy - with each individual emerald giving off a different type of chaos energy. I can create fake emeralds with the same wavelength and overall properties, though my fake emeralds can only have a limited supply of energy while the real ones can both store and generate energy near endlessly! The chaos emeralds are a source of truly unlimited power, hence why it's always most important that they are kept out of the wrong hands! The only thing more powerful than them is the Master Emerald."

"Which" Knuckles interjected, "I am usually guarding, but since I had to come in and help you guys again I phoned in the Chaotix to substitute."

As he stood by and listened to every word that the young fox said, all he could picture in his mind was the idea of these emeralds existing on earth in his previous timeline. The things that people like Luthor and the innumerous other villains would do to get their hands on those emeralds was about as unlimited as the power they would give to them. He almost shivered at the thought of what Darkseid would be willing to do to get his hands on them, or what he would do if he did acquire them.

His thoughts were interrupted by Tails continuing to speak:

"For the most part though, the emeralds are only most useful if one acquires all seven of them. So I'm not entirely sure myself if two will be enough to take us back to the present, but I know that with one chaos emerald, chaos control does have the ability to temporarily freeze time in the immediate area around the emerald!"

Shadow nodded at that point, speaking out an explanation of his own:

"That's correct" he said, "In addition, the sensation I felt when I was sent to this time period felt very similar to my own chaos control, only transporting me through time instead of freezing it."

It was then that Barry remembered that certain something which was told to him earlier; regarding what chaos energy had similar properties too:

"I think trying with the two we have right now is at least worth a shot" Barry said with a nod, not bothering to explain why it was that he suddenly felt this way, "We might as well try it while we're here."

Sonic and Shadow turned to each other, and as Shadow pulled out his green chaos emerald he tossed the cyan one over to Sonic - who perfectly caught it in his hand. With one more exchange of nods between the two, they approached each other with the emeralds in-hand. Holding their emeralds close to each other as they held out their hands into the air, the two said in near unison:

"Chaos Control!"

And like that, the emeralds flashed a surge of bright light before within an instant a mysterious portal was opened through the sheer power of their combined energies, starting as a small white light that travelled upwards into the air before turning into the larger portal itself. The emeralds themselves seemed to disappear, being sucked into the rift that they themselves created - presumably to be found on the other side. Barry was stunned as it appeared like a ripple in both space and time had just occurred before his eyes within a matter of seconds, a swirling vortex of blue and white that had just materialized out of thin air. Or, out of the power of 'chaos energy'.

I definitely need to do more research on these things…

Before any of the others could even speak, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles rushed into the portal and disappeared into it - travelling to whatever was on the receiving end of it. Rouge took flight and was prepared to enter it, turning back only to see what Shadow and Barry were going to do.

Barry and Shadow both were about to follow Rouge as she flew into the portal and disappeared to wherever it led, though both were stopped by the sound of something behind them.

The sound of crackling fire.

Turning around, the two saw a small stack of fire burning beside a cloud of pitch black darkness. Peering their eyes, they were able to see movement within the darkness - Mephiles. Emerging from the darkness in a manner impossible to decipher whether or not he was coming from the darkness or the ground, he was fixated entirely on the fire in front of him as it burned and crackled with each passing second.

Only when he looked directly at the two did the fire intensify, suddenly growing larger and wider within a single instant as though the flame itself was inherently enraged with their presence.

Allowing Rouge to vanish into the portal and for the portal to vanish after her, Shadow and Barry silently opted to instead chase after their common enemy. While Shadow gracefully skated and Barry quickly ran, Mephiles seemed to not move his legs what-so-ever as he moved across the ground.

Nor did he or either of them say a single word.

He was quickly leading them somewhere, and even more clearly challenging them, though neither of them had any idea as to where they were being led other than the fact it was yet another chamber of the volcano.

Soon enough, Mephiles seemingly vanished from their sights just as they reached whatever section of the volcano that he had been leading them towards - yet another circular platform surrounded by lava within the area of the massive caldera itself. Above them was only pitch, black darkness though around them the flowing lava provided enough lighting for moderately decent visibility. A small wall of volcanic rock provided small lava falls which fed into the greater stream surrounding the platform they were on.

However, there was the matter of where Mephiles had gone.

The answer was that he was in this section with them, though was standing above them - looking down on them from a single spire of rock, directly above a mysterious purple orb that rested in the 'claws' of this spire.

He made sure to point out how 'comedic' he found their choices of actions:

"So, decided to void your return tickets, did you?"

"Mephiles!" Barry exclaimed as he glared at the demon standing above him, "You lied to me! You're the one who ruined this world, aren't you?!"

Mephiles softly and coldly chuckled in response, finding the human quite amusing so it seemed. This only response was a dry:

"The answer's yes, and no...perhaps it's better to show you two."

With a snap of his finger, something appeared before the two - something which shocked both of them, but Shadow far more than Barry. It appeared to be Shadow himself, trapped in a rhombus-like stasis pod, bright pink lights surrounding him as he appeared to be permanently stuck in some form of deep sleep with his arms and legs both restrained on the inside - as though he were nothing more than a prisoner. Looking at this sight brought back deep memories Shadow had from his past, not a single one of them present. The sight also made his eyes widen, almost as though he was having a hard time believing what he was seeing to be real.

Mephiles was quick to confirm:

"Yes" he said to the stunned Shadow, "That's you."

The demonic being was quick to continue his explanation while the two's eyes were locked on the apparition he was presenting to them:

"After the world was devastated by Iblis' flames, what do you think happened? A search for the guilty. Who did this you may ask? Society wasn't just jealous of your power, they feared it. They used this incident as an excuse, to hunt you down."

Shadow couldn't help but bow his head and turn away from the sight of himself as a prisoner of the very people he was created to protect. The very people who employed him. It was always in the background of his mind that something like this would happen, though actually seeing and being told that it was in store for him in the future, it was all too real even for him to take.

"Shadow…" Barry softly spoke as he saw the Hedgehog's response. He felt sympathy for his newfound ally, though of course his presence was not forgotten by Mephiles:

"And do you honestly think this would not befall yourself, Barry?" the entity said to the human, "Now that your powers have been restored, do you not think that eventually society shall turn it's back on you as well? The story is all the same. Today's heroes can just as easily become tomorrow's villains. Who's to say that this event would not have happened in the previous timeline you were in, following such devastation of your world? If it can happen to someone like Shadow, surely it can happen to someone such as yourself. "

Soon, Barry was reduced to a similar response as Shadow. Reduced to at the very least silence. The fact that memories of the previous timeline were yet again triggered in his brain did not help him either.

Seeing as how both Shadow and Barry were successfully silenced, Mephiles took the opportunity to continue speaking to the two of them:

"Come with me" he said, holding out a single hand, "Let the three of us punish this world and it's foolish society. It's only fair to give back what was intended for you! You have every right to want justice!"

Thankfully for all of existence, Shadow was not so easily manipulated. Lifting his head back up and turning to Mephiles he spoke defiantly:

"That's absurd!" he exclaimed as he glared at the evil being, "Whatever it is you want to do, you can do it alone."

Barry, with Shadow saying everything he wanted to say, nodded in response while glaring at Mephiles himself. Mephiles, for his part, seemed to be processing his next words. Whether he expected Shadow and Barry to reject his offer or not was difficult to decipher, though response presented the latter:

"You forgive this folly then?" he asked while gesturing a hand towards the apparition of the imprisoned Shadow of the future. Shadow only had one, defiant thing to say in response to that:

"I determine my own destiny."

Mephiles was silent in response to what was said to him. At first, it was as though he had completely been surprised by what was said to him. Within moments however, the look in his soulless eyes gave off the sense that he had accepted Shadow and Barry's responses - though he was far from being willing to simply let them leave. Most certainly not alive. Extending his arms out to either side of his body, soon he, Barry, Shadow and seemingly all that surrounded them were enveloped in a black flash - as though all of the light that there was in the world had suddenly gone out, though just as quickly that flash of black turned into a flash of blinding white as the light had returned before anyone could possibly comprehend it's prior absence. Once the bright light faded, Shadow and Barry could both now see what Mephiles truly was; for he had finally revealed what was undoubtedly his 'true' form to them.

While he still resembled Shadow's form, he was now far more demonic in appearance. Any resemblance to a pale flesh color was replaced with a pale, almost rock-like blue appearance. In fact, his entire body now appeared as though it was made of some mixture of both leather and rock, with his stripes appearing to be bright, almost blue yet also almost white crystals. The sclera of his eyes turned a deep, piercing red though the reptilian green pupils remained. His hands and feet no longer resembled Shadow's, only vaguely in shape. There were no rings or gloves, only a black hand with crystalline claws for tips. His feet had no shoes either, instead only some twisted mass of crystalline features that vaguely resembled some type of foot and had the same function as them. As if these details were not enough, the demon's face was now even more unnatural, as he neither had a mouth nor a nose any longer. For that matter, even his 'ears' now seemed to be curled in a manner somewhat reminiscent of demonic horns. All of this while an aura of darkness, a flame of black, purple and blue, was surrounding him - further bringing him into an appearance that seemed far more unnatural, even more so than the appearance he had been using up to this point.

Despite all of this, neither Shadow nor Barry dare showed Mephiles any fear. They readied their battle stances, knowing full well that they were in for a fight.

That said, Mephiles' attitude came off as though he hardly viewed this as an honest battle at all.

"Such foolishness" he commented as he gazed down upon the two from his perch, "Very well, let's see how long the two of you can entertain me."

Mephiles made sure that he made the first strike in the battle, and leaped from his perch in an aerial charge directly towards Barry and Shadow with speed nearly comparable to their own. Assuming that he was intending to strike them, the two swiftly jumped out of the way - only to watch as Mephiles vanished into the ground with yet another black cloud of darkness, accompanied by the entity's demonic laughter.

It didn't take long for them to realize what he was actually intending to do.

Within moments, a pulsing surge of darkness came over Shadow, Barry and the entire area around them. While it made a shiver run down the two's spine, it did not give them any real pain. What it did accomplish however was turning the flames and flowing lava around them from their natural red color to a more unnatural blue color - by extension changing the lighting around the area as well, to a point where things appeared to be darker yet at the same time neither Shadow nor Barry suffered from impaired visibility. Though this gave off the appearance that the area was now cooler, in reality this blue lava was actually notably more heated than the prior red, with both Shadow and Barry feeling it all too well.

Just as Shadow and Barry began to ponder where the demon himself had gone to, he materialized. Under Shadow's feet, as though he was part of the ground beneath him. Not only that, but it was as though he was Shadow's very own shadow himself - moving with any stance or movement that Shadow made, mimicking him flawlessly.

The moment Shadow looked down and saw that, his eyes widened in shock before turning into an angry glare. All he could hiss out of his mouth was:

"Your tricks won't work on me, I know who I am!"

Mephiles only laughed maniacally in response as he mimicked every movement Shadow made in flawless synchronicity. Though Shadow kicked and punched at the ground, even fired chaos spears and other projectiles or beams of chaos energy all he accomplished was creating craters in the ground. Mephiles remained his shadow. Barry could only watch, not knowing what to do.

Of course, Mephiles did not forget about him.

Distracting both Shadow and Barry, suddenly the blue lava surrounding them erupted into a tall wall of intense blue flame with an echoing roar throughout the area. From this fire materialized dark silhouettes - each humanoid in shape though of varying heights and proportions. As these silhouettes exited the wall of flame and became figures standing on the circular platform with Shadow and Barry, the latter's eyes widened as another shiver ran down his entire spine.

"No..."

He was virtually reduced to tears, though they were unrecognizable due to how much his body was sweating with the heat surrounding him.

"No" he repeated, "This...this can't be…"

Surrounding him and Shadow, was the Justice League as well as the Teen Titans. Barry recognized every single one of them. Superman, Hal Jordan, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Shazam, Hawkman, Cyborg, Mera, Aquaman, John Constantine, Zatanna, Nightwing, Starfire, Robin, Raven, Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, Wonder Girl, Superboy, Kid Flash I, Kid Flash II, Speedy, Bumblebee, Batwoman, Batgirl, and even Lex Luthor.

Every single one of them was just as Barry remembered, including Damian being the older and more handsome teenager that Barry last saw him as - though these were not the same figures that he remembered. All of them appeared to be without color, reduced to nothing but shades of black and grey - a look that made even Batman and Raven seem unnatural due to the complete absence of their natural skin colors as well as any color that their suits had. Of course, Hal and Beast Boy certainly looked the most unnatural, with their green being exchanged for a lifeless grey, and Beast Boy's suit now being a dark black.

That's not to mention the fact that none of them had their pupils, only pure red scleras that present not souls, but only lifeless and evil and obedience to the demonic being that summoned them to the playing field. Gone were Superboy's beautiful crystal eyes, Batman and Robin's white mask 'holes' and even the two Wallys' own innocent appearances as Barry's own nephews.

Barry quivered as he saw them, his guard being forcibly let down by the sight thrusted upon his eyes. All of his friends. Members of his family. They looked just as he remembered them previously looking, yet now were gazing upon him with soulless, emotionless looks to their faces - reduced to being nothing but pawns of a demonic entity. He didn't even know if these were really them, or just apparitions.

Only Shadow, who did not recognize these people at all, remained in a battle stance as these figures surrounded him and the Flash. He could see the Flash was emotionally distraught, though knew full well that it was important for his ally to remain focused:

"Flash!" he shouted, "These aren't the people you remember them to be! You need to focus yourself, let go of your past!"

Barry shook his head of the tears joining with his sweat, and responded with a nod. Though it pained him to no end, he knew that Shadow was right. He had to battle his mind, even though the more he looked at these 'nega' apparitions of his friends, family and allies the more his mind flashed with visions of them in their colored, lively states.

Mephiles only laughed in response once more, saying to the two of them in an almost mocking tone of voice:

"Try to forget all you want" he mocked, "There's nothing you can do to change the fact that you are why they are no longer part of this world."

"No!" Barry yelled, now more angry and distraught than ever before, "I didn't kill them! Darkseid did! The Paradooms did! I didn't kill them!"

"Ha" Mephiles almost chuckled, "Perhaps that is true when speaking of the literal sense, but let's see if they feel that way, shall we?"

With those words having been exchanged, the true battle began. The soulless copies of the Justice League, Titans and Luthor approached Shadow and Barry with full intent of causing harm to them, though the two living heroes were not going to go down easily. Superman, Superboy, Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl immediately charged at Shadow - with Superboy being one to strike Shadow first with a bunch. Though he was able to push Shadow to the edge of the platform with but one punch, Shadow did manage to use his reflexes and block the punch from striking his face, allowing him to keep his feet planted on the ground. Still, that didn't stop the much larger Superman from getting a direct blow from the side which did successfully knock Shadow to the ground as well as generate a good sized crater.

That said however, Superman was kept from flying upwards and landing on Shadow when Shadow used two beams of chaos energy from his hands to successfully disrupt Superman's planned attack. He later had to deal with Wonderwoman as well as Wonder Girl though, with Superboy flying overhead like some form of support.

With Superboy using his heat vision while Wonder Girl and Wonderwoman lunged at Shadow to kick and punch at the smaller target, it was a testament to Shadow's strength that he was able to hold his own at all against them. Whenever a hit was landed upon him, it was far stronger than any opponent he'd ever faced before, though only the ultimate lifeform would be able to withstand this kind of battle. Any normal mortal would have had their bones long destroyed by this point.

Shadow's own retaliation strikes were just as hard, as he was no longer holding anything back. Many times each of them would take turns sending the other barreling to the other end of the platform, only to charge at each other once more for a few more strikes. Even when Superman rejoined the battle, using his heat vision in tandem with Superboy's to send an airborne Shadow back to the ground, it only seemed to moderately harm Shadow rather than render him unable to fight further. However, scratches and signs of battle were increasingly present on all of their bodies, showing that the ultimate life was in fact fighting his matches.

Even so, he was going to press on until the bitter end.

While Shadow did his best to hold his own against the most powerful members of the minions, Barry was left with the rest. He had to use all of his speed to dodge the charge that Shazam made at him, and was equally lucky to evade a dropkick attempted by Batman. He had to swiftly jump to avoid his neck being cut open by Robin's own use of a sword afterwards - though unfortunately for him he was then swiftly brought down by both of his nephews slamming into him from either side with their own super speed.

"I didn't kill you! It's not my fault!" Barry exclaimed as he recovered, in just enough time to avoid the white noise blast of cyborg's arm cannon, managing to race ahead of it's blast until he gave up on trying, allowing the Kid Flashes to resume focus on Barry for a while as they quickly used their speed to race their uncle allowed the perimeter of the platform - the three all going in a circle while the younger two attempted to repeatedly ram into their uncle, with Barry having to speed up or slow down to successfully dodge either of them.

He did not want to hurt either of them. To his brain, this was perhaps the highest form of torture that any being could force upon him.

"Kids" he said to them, "I don't want to hurt you! Just, snap out of it, if it's really you! If it's really you, I know you're in there somewhere!"

"That's too bad!" Wally II remarked, his voice echoing as though multiple versions of him were speaking at once through his own mouth.

"Because we do want to hurt you!" Wally I added in, both him and his cousin now grinning almost ear to ear in the most sadistic of fashions, before they grabbed each other's hands and charged at their uncle. Barry managed to jump over them and was then behind them, but he did not seem to realize what their strategy was, as Wally I carried Wally II into a small impromptu tornado and soon enough threw him at Barry, with Wally II kicking his uncle in the face and to the ground before the former had even realized what was going on.

As he slowly recovered to his feet, Barry could only force himself to ask but one question:

"W-w-why?"

"Because" Raven said as she approached him from behind, holding hands with Robin who approached Barry along with her, "You did this to us" she coldly said as she used one of her black beam attacks aimed for Barry's head. Barry managed to dodge it, though was yet again knocked to the ground when Wally I rammed into him with his own speedster speed.

"Ugh" Barry once more groaned as he got up from the blow, but he continued to plead to those attacking him in a hope that their true selves were still underneath their soulless appearances, "I, I didn't do anything to you! It was Darkseid! It was his Paradooms! I didn't do anything!"

"If you hadn't travelled through time in the first place" Damian explained as he embraced Raven's hands with both of his own, the two gazing into each other's now reddened, soulless eyes, "Me and Raven would be together in happiness."

"Rather", Raven added just as coldly, "Than in misery."

Barry was speechless upon hearing the two's words, and was further rendered speechless as the two almost disturbingly kissed in front of him. Normally, such a sight would be beautiful - true love expressing itself. However here it was unnatural and not helped by the fact their tongues were elongated, forked and snake-like as they entangled and danced with one another even after the lips had already separated - causing saliva to drool from both of the two as they remained inhumanly embracing each other.

Barry attempted to use their distraction to his own advantage, though before he could speed away he was surrounded by a purple-black aura that lifted him above the ground and effectively stopped him in his tracks - Raven using her powers to stop him without breaking her 'kiss' with Robin.

Before Barry could even think about finding a way to escape Raven's grasp, the black aura dispersed - but only because he had been tackled by a grey colored Tiger: Beast Boy. Once the two were on the ground, the soulless version of the boy turned into a massive anaconda snake and wrapped himself around Barry with full intent of suffocating him to his demise, while others such as Batman, Blue Beetle, Hawkman, Lex Luthor, John Constantine and Zatanna gathered as if to ensure that if he escaped the snake's grip that they would ensure said escape would be futile.

As the choking, barely able to struggle Barry looked into Beast Boy's eyes, he still only saw that pure red, soulless, lifeless sclera. No pupils or irises. Not even those of the reptile he had turned into. Only pure red, glowing eyes. Just as with all of the others. He wanted to believe the boy he once knew was still in there, but another part of him feared the absolute worst.

It wouldn't be long before his rib cage would begin to shatter. It didn't help that as he was facing his potential end at the hands of what was once a titan, all he could hear in his ears were repeated words from the others, their voices sounding like a symphony of judgement, blame and scorn as they spoke at him:

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

Those words, repeating from the mouths of his former friends. In their voices, though each one sounded as though an army of them was speaking at once, thus creating a true orchestra of echoing words once the lot of them spoke these condemnations at once.

It was enough to make his mind begin to break, in addition to the rest of his body from the mounting pressure of a long, thick cylinder of muscle slowly crushing him.

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

Repeating on and on...

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

It was enough to get to him. As he gritted his teeth, as he closed his eyes tightly. It got to him. It did not take much longer at all before finally he snapped. The migraines kicked in. The purple vision yet again began to flash rapidly in his eyes, until the stress of all that was going on around him was too much for him to take anymore.

With one loud, enraged scream, a surge of purple electricity coursed over his body, making Beast Boy scream in pain as he felt the full force of it's electric shock. With his coils weakening, Barry was able to vibrate his body out of Beast Boy's grasp as the titan slithered away from him to allow the others to have their turn. However, even they took a few steps back from Barry - at least until he found the nagging headache too much to handle. Just looking at his former allies was enough to send it into overdrive, forcing him to his knees while he held his head in agony.

His so-called allies showed him no mercy, however. Not even 'Batman' - who in fact made the first strike. Batman first used some of the smoke bombs from inside of his utility belt, surrounding Barry with vision-impairing smoke while Batman himself leaped into the air and descended upon the Flash with his cape extended almost as though it was a side of wings. Barry successfully kicked to the ground and pinned by the man's feet - though of course he had enough sense to quickly vibrate before Batman could take out one of his sharp Batarangs and use it to slit Barry's neck wide open. Had he not vibrated out of Bruce's grasp, that would indeed have been his fate. Batman did jump out of Barry's way before he could be kicked from behind, though at the very least Barry had saved his own life.

For the time being, anyway.

Having a standoff with Batman wasn't precisely the best career choice for him. Nor did he ever want to have one. Yet here the two, standing before each other in their battle stances - even if it was an evil, soulless version of the man he came to view as a friend and an ally.

However, in focusing so much on Batman he neglected the various other fighters on the playing field. It was only mere seconds before Batman was standing idly by when Barry was suddenly grabbed from behind, flipped onto the ground, and seemingly dragged by invisible force into the same rock spire that Mephiles himself had been standing on prior to the battle. It was not an invisible force of course, Barry could see just barely that it was a strong grip of Martian Manhunter that had grabbed onto him. He was intangible and so appeared transparent, though his shape could just barely be seen by Barry's eyes. Still, his grip was strong - and his powerful mind worked fast, fast enough that he began relentlessly bashing Barry's head brutally against the rock, even managing to draw blood from the back of the blonde's head, at least four times before lifting him by the neck and beginning to suffocate him as he struggled to break free from the martian's grasp. The usually green though now grayscale martian did phase himself out of his intangibility, though it was perhaps only so that Barry would have a face to properly look at during his end.

J'onn was soon joined by Hawkman, who also without saying any words pulled out his nth mace and with as much strength as he could muster smashed Barry's right knee with it - making Barry let out a piercing whine as he could feel his bone actually crack wide open from the strike, let alone the mace's electric stunning effect and the spikes stabbing into his skin - yet again drawing blood from the speedster.

With how hard the hand of what once was his friend held down on his throat, the speedster couldn't even speak. All he could muster up the strength to do was gaze into his former ally's silent, soulless eyes.

There was not even a semblance of the martian man he recognized - and the same could be said for Hawkman, Katar. He began to doubt that there was any chance that the people he remembered and missed were actually still present in any sense of the word.

Though he wanted to keep up the fight, the fact that it seemed as though all of who were once his friends wanted him dead - blaming him for their horrible fates even, proved enough to break him. Slowly he allowed his eyes to close, silently accepting his fate.

At the very least, he thought as blackness took over his vision, this will all be over soon.

And, fortunately for the Flash, it was.

With the sound of a single blast followed by a familiar screech of alien pain, Barry opened his eyes to find that he was released from J'onn's grasp, and now the Martian Manhunter seemed to be screaming and writhing in pain - the arm that had been strangling Barry having just been severed at the elbow, with the Martian himself primarily screaming from the fact that the part of that arm still connected him appeared to be now on fire.

Both Flash and Hawkman looked to see Shadow glaring in their direction. He had scratches, cuts and bruises all over him as well as blood on some parts of fur let alone the fact he was panting as though he was heavily exhausted, but the smoke from his hand revealed he had done a chaos spear in order to save Barry. Knowing this, Barry and Shadow exchanged nods to one another mere seconds before Barry had to evade a swing of Hawkman's nth hammer.

Shadow motioned to join in Barry's fight, but was distracted when he caught the sight of Superboy charging at him from the air. Having the time to anticipate this, he grabbed the 'Nega' Superboy just before impact and with a twirl tossed him directly at Wonder Girl before she could use her lasso on the hedgehog - the two nega titans collided with each other, with a strong enough impact to send both of them back into the blue fire wall that spawned them.

"It doesn't matter how many of them you defeat, you know" Mephiles mocked from his position as Shadow's literal shadow, "I'm still your shadow, you can't even touch me."

"Whatever it is you're trying to do, it's not working on me!" Shadow barked back at Mephiles, though he had hardly any time to confront the demon directly - as within a matter of seconds he was met with Superman.

Having been able to see Superman charging at him, he was able to block the man's fists from punching him by grabbing hold of them. However, the sheer power of Superman was enough to push Shadow back complete with a shockwave from the impact of their hands meeting - though he hissed and grunted, Shadow planted his feet hard onto the ground and with enough straining was able to actually hold his ground against the kryptonian.

Just as their hands were liked in trying to shove the other, so were their eyes - locked permanently in a glare directed at one another. Both of them standing their ground. Both of them seemingly testing their muscles to the limit.

Barry would have been astonished at Shadow's ability to hold his own against the full grown kryptonian if he didn't have a battle of his own to focus on.

As he waited for his healing factor to kick in regarding his injured knee, he had to worry about the Hawkman still being fixated on him. With this speed impaired by his wounded knee, he could just barely dodge Hawkman's several attempts at swinging the nth mace at him, having an easier time ducking his head and body than jumping or moving from side to side to evade each swing.

Eventually, Hawkman did attempt to stomp his foot down on Barry, taking advantage of the man still having a weakened knee by stomping down on that same leg's foot. With a pained groan, Barry fell to the ground. Having to look back on what looked like his former ally as Hawkman lifted his mace into the air, Barry could only mutter out but one phrase in an almost grieving tone of voice:

"Forgive me…"

With one well timed creation of a wind vertex, Barry was able to blast Hawkman into the air just moments before the mace made contact with his head - giving Barry a few moments to recover his breath.

Hawkman managed to break his forced ascent by extending his wings, before immediately diving down from the air directly at Barry - still brandishing his mace. Barry closed his eyes and prepared for impact - not with his friend, but rather with a charged up momentum-propelled punch to Hawkman's face just prior to impact. Combined with the force Hawkman was flying, it was enough to send the thanagarian flying into the wall of blue fire from once he spawned - his nega form seemingly defeated.

Barry took no pleasure in having to do this. In fact, as he saw Hawkman disappear into the ghostly blue flames a vision of the man's brutal demise from the previous timeline flashed before his eyes - as vivid as though he was witnessing it in life. It was only for half of a second, but was enough to make Barry grimace in pain as he struggled to stand him. His knee would heal, but it needed to heal faster than it was - as the remaining combatants had no intentions of showing the slightly limping speedster any mercy.

He was first approached by his nephews, who were yet again rushing him virtually in tandem with one another. Just as quickly as he finally stood up on both of his feet, Wally II jabbed him right in the wounded knee, forcing him back to the ground with a loud hiss. Before he could even comprehend that, he was struck in the face and nearly fully onto the ground by a punch in the face from Wally I.

Having to do this was going to hurt the most. He couldn't even spare the time to take in a deep breath.

Never in a million years did I picture myself doing this…

But you leave me no choice…

Once he saw that both Wallys were running in opposite directions to one another, Barry swiftly formulated a plan. He could feel that his knee was healing just enough so that he could properly run again, and with a determined face waited until the last possible second to rush - causing both of his nephews to punch each other in the face rather than collide with him. The momentum of their punches both sent the two back a good distance, and gave Barry enough time to get his proper speed going well before the two got back up to their feet and rushed to fight with him once more.

He first slowed down so that he could dodge a direct ramming attack from Wally I, though this left him vulnerable to a rear strike from Wally II. Seeing this coming though, Barry easily turned the tables on his darker skinned nephew by turning himself to the ground and grabbing the boys first before he could properly land the strike. Before Wally II even had the chance to vibrate his way out of his uncle's grip, the older male flipped him over onto the ground with as much strength as his upper body could muster.

It brought tears to Barry's eyes, but he wanted and needed this to end.

To his surprise though, he did not see Wally II when he opened his eyes. Only the black ground of the rock he stood on, surrounded by the roaring wall of blue flames. There was no sign of Wally II either in the form of a speedster blur or even a body - as though the boy had suddenly vanished the moment he made contact with the ground.

There was unfortunately little time for Barry to properly comprehend this, for within moments his other nephew punched him directly in the gut and yet again nearly to the ground before speeding off in an effort to make another hit-and-run strike.

Before the original Kid Flash could land his next strike though, Barry's quick thinking mind successfully deduced what direction he was charging from, and Barry charged in that same direction at his own top speed. Colliding with Wally I within a matter of moments, with all of his superior physical strength and maximum momentum, Wally grabbed his nephew by his upper arms, headbutted him and then proceeded to throw him towards the lone rock spire on the platform - Wally I letting out but a whimper of agony as his body made enough of impact on the rock to not only get him to cough up blood but also make a notable dent in the rock itself.

What stopped Barry in his tracks however was the fact that his body did not vanish as his cousins did. Instead, it appeared as though color had actually returned to it. His costume returned to its yellow-and-red coloring. His hair returned to it's light brown coloration. His eyes were closed, though likely regained their blue irises and black pupils.

Tears streamed Barry's face as he saw this - his nephew, returned to a normal, living state. Only to be coughing up blood and whimpering in pain before falling to the ground with scarcely any movement at all.

Barry feared the worst. The absolute worst.

No...no...no no no no no no...

He instinctively wanted to rush over to Wally to ensure he was okay, but was denied that act of compassion when he was suddenly trapped inside of a black sphere of pure energy - courtesy of the colorless, soulless Hal Jordan. With his emotionless face and soulless red eyes, he denied Barry the ability to investigate Wally's sudden 'rebirth' any further and instead swung him around in a circle multiple times before releasing him into the air as though he were a slingshot - only for John Steward to use his ring to form a massive baseball bat which promptly smacked Barry back down to the impromptu arena, an impact crater forming on the ground when Barry landed.

Barry got up, though was attacked by Hal from behind - kicked brutally in the back, causing him to slide into the knees of Shazam, only to be got by a bubble generated by John Stewart, and from there only transferred to to be smacked around by a giant hand crafted by Hal Jordan, with the speedster making groans, hisses and shouts of agony with each hit landed upon him until he was again tossed towards Shazam, who this time restrained him grappling both of his arms.

Seeing Cyborg approach him with intent of taking advantage of Barry's restrained status, Barry knew he had to break from Shazam's grasp quickly.

Barry vibrated his way out of Shazam's grasp the best that he could, at just the right time so that Cyborg blasted Shazam into the wall of blue flame instead of the speedster himself. Of course, Barry had to yet again keep his pace ahead of Cyborg's blasts afterwards, only this time he performed a turn directly towards the half-robotic man. Though he swayed from side to side in order to evade Cyborg's attempts to attack him, he ultimately did make a direct hit to Cyborg's chest with enough force to send Cyborg flying back into the blue wall of flame from which he came - seemingly defeating him for the time being.

Just Barry recovered his breath from his run-ins with the nega of versions of those previous three, he was met with several figures approaching him in order to challenge him to the most unfair of battles.

Lex Luthor, John Constantine, Zatanna, Mera and Aquaman now stood before him with Hal Jordan and John Steward circling the group overhead. With Shadow still preoccupied with both Superman and Wonder Woman - Barry seeing the three still violently tossing each other around - only Barry was there to deal with these individuals.

"John" Barry said to John, remembering that he was the one who told him to create the flashpoint in the first place, "John, I know you're in there! You were the one who told me to 'clear the board'! This was your idea! You should know that more than anyone! If you're in there, you should be able to fight this demonic asshole! What kind of occult investigator are you if you let a four foot tall hedgehog enslave you like this?! The real John Constantine would have broken free of his control by now!"

The sound of Mephiles' laughter echoed through the 'arena' in response to that, and even the minions smirked and smiled as though they found amusement in what Barry had yelled out.

"Choosing the pen rather than the sword?" Mephiles yet again mocked despite not being truly present on the field though speaking as if he were, "I must admit, I am impressed by your attempt at diplomacy. However, fighting fire with words is rather, shall I say, ineffective."

With any words being said, John Constantine did as his master suggested and conjured up balls of fire which he swiftly launched in Barry's direction. Barry could only gasp as he used his feet to swiftly avoid the balls of flame, though his evasion of Constantine's magic made him distracted enough to be struck by several small rocks from the ground that were telekinetically thrown at him by Zatanna.

It was within seconds afterwards that he was yet again struck by the lanterns, both of them spawning enlarged fists from their rings, punching Barry from the back to send him through the air towards the wall of room - only to be grabbed by a black tentacle, which proceeded to wrap around his body briefly before slamming him to the ground.

Barry didn't even have the time to recover before he had the black boot of a certain Batman crushing down on his neck, the darkly dressed caped crusader yet again looming over him with only the light of the flames around them illuminating him. Damian, Raven, Batgirl and Batwoman were there soon enough, with the others following suit.

"Bruce" Barry pleaded with what little ability to speak that he had, "Please...are….are you in there?"

He received no response, other than the dark knight's boot crushing down further on his throat - slowly cutting off the speedster's air supply and making it harder for him to speak. It was just like his battle with Shadow, only without the opponent holding back.

Barry had many things he wanted to say, but he couldn't. Instead he could only think.

Bruce...please…

I know, deep down, you're not just his slave.

You were able to free yourself from Darkseid, you can free yourself from this asshole!

Can't you?

Are….are you even there?

Batman did not speak. He only did. Once it was evident that Barry had effectively been worn out of energy for the time being, Batman lifted his foot off of the man's throat, picked him up by the neck of his uniform, and shoved him back to the ground so that he was properly facing the others. Or, more accurate, he for whom the others had parted.

Mephiles.

Mephiles had re-emerged from the ground at the front of two separate rows of his apparition minions. Shadow was still occupied with Superman and Wonder Woman, leaving the exhausted Barry without any allies as Mephiles looked upon him with his emotionless demonic face. Looking up at his newfound nemesis, Barry glared angrily. There were many choice words he had for the entity standing before him, but the only ones he could muster the power to speak out were:

"What...what are you?"

"What I am does not matter to you" Mephiles shook his head in a condescending manner, "Not only would you not be able to truly comprehend it, but you will not be around long enough for it to be relevant to your feeble mortal mind. Be grateful that I am giving you the mercy of oblivion, the least that I can do."

Barry bowed his head in defeat at that point, accepting his defeat. He was outnumbered, outmatched, and exhausted. It was a miracle he had even lasted as long as he did.

As Barry looked up only to see how Mephiles intended to kill him - he saw a horrifyingly familiar sight. Two bright, red lights were forming on Mephiles' eyes. Piercing red lights, matching with his pure red scleras. It was the same type of light that emitted from Darkseid's eyes:

He...he can use Omega Beams?...

He closed his eyes the second he realized what was about to befall him, bracing himself for the intense burning that was surely awaiting him.

He was not the only one seeing this however. Having seen Mephiles emerge from the ground, Shadow was just freeing himself from the grip of Wonder Woman's lasso through his sheer will alone, and once he saw what Mephiles was about to do to Barry he prepared to charge at the demon, though was briefly stopped by Superman attempting to grapple him from behind. Curling into his ball form and effectively uppercutting the nega kryptonian was enough to free himself from his grasp however, and the ultimate lifeform broke from his fight in an effort to interrupt the execution of the Flash.

All of this happened in a matter of mere seconds.

When Mephiles fired his piercing red omega beams directly at Barry, Shadow successfully intercepted them - jumping in front of Barry just before they could have made contact with the flash. Barry watched as Shadow took the full force of the Omega Beams, but instead of being incinerated like a lantern or singed like a boy wonder the ultimate lifeform only grunted - feeling some form of pain, though not a single part of him seemed burned at all.

Mephiles himself for once seemed shocked as he saw it with his own eyes. Shadow had managed to not only withstand the omega effect energy, but was absorbing it. No mortal being outside of Apokolips or evidently Mephiles himself could do such a thing, yet in a most defiant manner Shadow now had a deep red aura surrounding himself - the power of omega energy enhancing him.

Barry, even the nega minions for that matter, were all speechless. Shadow himself however was fixated solely on Mephiles, glaring at the demonic being with the full force of his rage.

Only one thought crossed Barry's mind as his mind processed all of this:

He wasn't kidding when he said he was the ultimate lifeform...

The first one to make a move was Batman. Several batarangs were thrown at Shadow from behind to prevent him from making a move on Mephiles - however the omega aura surrounding Shadow caused them all to explode before their sharp wings could even graze Shadow's skin. From the black smoke came Shadow, speeding through the air in his own black ball-like state, barreling through Batman's very own chest and out his back with enough speed so that the dark knight couldn't even properly respond.

Barry was mortified as he saw this, unable to comprehend the sight. There was no blood. No gore whatsoever. It looked as though a hole had been burned clear through the world's greatest detective, and on the inside was only pure darkness. Batman soon vanished afterwards, a cloud of darkness remaining of him for only a few seconds. As though he wasn't even a true living being at all.

Still, Barry was able to use this distraction to rush to his fallen nephew's side.

Shadow had no time to waste on sights however, as he immediately fixated himself on the opponents surrounding him - with all of Mephiles' minions wanting a piece of him. Hal Jordan and John Stewart attempted to trap him inside of a bubble shield, though with one concentrated pulse of energy it was shattered as though it were an incredibly weak glass. The hedgehog then sent himself into the air with his rocket shoes and grabbed hold of Hal Jordan's hand by the wrist - the omega energy coursing around him having an incinerating effect on the lantern which ultimately caused the hand to be burned clean off. As it was the hand with the ring on it, this caused Hal Jordan to be reduced to a powerless state and fall to the ground - vanishing just as Batman did upon hitting the ground.

John Stewart followed not long after. The large fists he desperately generated from his ring were repeatedly destroyed effortlessly as Shadow charged at him - eventually burning directly through the lantern's body, causing him to vanish in mid-air not long after his entire torso had been destroyed.

Shadow then returned to the ground, making short work of Batwoman with a kick directly to her chest and Batgirl by grabbing her by her shoulders and viciously headbutting her with a full force impact. Lex Luthor was handled by a solid punch directly through his heart, while Aquaman, Mera, Blue Beetle and Cyborg were finished off by four chaos spears being unleashed at once by Shadow merely extending his arm out. With the spears also being endowed with omega effect energy, their forms were easily destroyed with a single set of four small explosions, vaporizing their darkness.

Bumblebee changed to her insect size to charge at Shadow from the air, while Speedy supported her by firing a stream of explosives at the black hedgehog. However, a single shield forged from omega chaos energy made every single arrow prove meaningless. A well timed charge from Shadow's spin dash easily turned Bumblebee into a dissipating puff of darkness - and decapitated Speedy, with him meeting the same fate once he fell completely to the ground.

The next challenger for the ultimate lifeform was Damian, who charged at him with his sword. Only for said sword to be caught by a clap of Shadow's hands - the omega energy turning it to useless stub of melted metal within seconds. Damian managed to evade Shadow's first attempt to strike him, managing to jump over Shadow and get behind him. However, before he could even pull out another piece of equipment the boy was slapped across the face by the back of Shadow's hand - his face disintegrating to darkness as he fell, before his body followed afterwards.

"DAMIAN!" The 'nega' Raven screamed with as much horror and emotion as her colored counterpart, before charging at Shadow with pure absolute rage at what she had just witnessed. With Shadow's omega aura making him resistant to telekinesis, she restored to her other abilities. Conjuring massive boulders, tentacles and even sharp shards of darkness to throw at Shadow - though the hedgehog tore through every last one as though he was super heated enough cutting through a mere stick of butter.

Raven herself eventually lunged at him soon after, though the rage she felt towards him blinded her. Though she had a black mass of tentacles and great power accompanying her, Shadow's unleashed power tore through everything she tried - and even herself as well. With Shadow slicing through her in her ball form as she tried to envelop him in her own darkness, she was soon reduced to nothing but the latter before even that dissipated into absolute nothingness.

John Constantine and Zatanna stepped up to the task next - with their magic shields successfully deflecting Shadow's spin dashes, allowing Constantine to fire a series of fireballs at Shadow once he was briefly sent back. Zatanna attempted to use her telekinesis magic though she could only find rocks to throw at Shadow - to little effect. Unfortunately for the two magical minions, they were soon destroyed when Shadow unleashed two chaos spears at them - shattering the shields they put up and destroying their bodies entirely.

With all of those individuals vanquished, all that remained to surround Shadow as he stood on the volcanic ground were Superman, Wonder Woman, Shazam, Nightwing and Starfire. Though they were glaring and snarling angrily at Shadow, it was difficult to truly discern if they were mourning those whom Shadow had just defeated or not.

They wouldn't have enough time to do so anyway.

The moment that all of them charged Shadow at once, Shadow jumped himself into the air and curled himself up as energy pulsated and electrified around him. Just before impact could be made he let out one mighty battle cry as he extended his body back out:

"Chaos…..BLAST!"

With those two words, a massive blast of pure omega chaos energy was unleashed from the hedgehog's body - completely incinerating the five beings charging at him within a matter of seconds as it's radius soon encompassed the entire stone platform - even managing to disperse the wall of blue flame surrounding the platform.

Barry watched as this bright red light emitted from Shadow's body and the burning explosion came in his direction. Grabbing Wally's body he rushed to the other side of the rock spire and shielded Wally as tightly as he could. Though his body was spared certain incineration thanks to the energy primarily eating away at the rock, Barry still screamed and hissed due to the searing heat all around him. Parts of his clothes and even skin that just barely grazed the energy were still singed as though he had touched an extremely hot stove.

Thankfully, it was all over within seconds. Once Barry, carrying Wally in his arms, emerged from behind the rock all he could see was Shadow standing on the ground with stacks of smoke surrounding him. The chaos blast had released all of the omega energy from Shadow, meaning he was back to his usual form - though still panted heavily after exerting so much power.

Still amazed and horrified, Barry addressed what had just happened:

"Did...did you?"

"It wasn't them" Shadow swiftly reminded Barry, "Whatever those things were, they weren't the people you remember them to be."

Barry looked down at Wally whom he held in his arms, the only one who returned to his living from out of the group. He didn't know what that meant, if the others were really themselves or not, but all he knew was that at the very least he had one of his nephews back. Or at least he hoped so, as Wally still had his eyes closed. Shadow, seeing the boy in Barry's arms:

"Is he?"

"My nephew" Barry explained without looking away from the boy, "And he's alive...only barely.." looking back up at Shadow hee said to his ally, "We need to get out of here."

Shadow nodded in agreement to those words, though it was at that moment which they were greeted with the return of Mephiles' diabolical echoing laugh. As Shadow readied his battle stance and looked around the ghostly blue volcanic field for where the demon was, Barry made sure to place the vulnerable Wally down by the rock spire out of the way before doing the same.

"Where are you?!" Shadow exclaimed angrily to the laughing entity, "Show yourself!"

Mephiles coldly chuckled:

"Since you so cordially insist…"

Emerging from behind Shadow as though he had been there the entire time, Mephiles folded his arms and swiftly extended them back out - releasing in the process a powerful concussive blast that sent both Barry and Shadow into the air - Shadow's spine smashing into the rock spire and proceeding to slide down to the ground, while Barry slid painfully on the ground until being stopped by one of the various impact craters created from the previous battle.

As the two recovered from the blast, Mephiles promptly addressed them in as menacing a tone that he could muster:

"You two have not the faintest idea of the sheer power you are up against."

Before Mephiles could approach the two any further however, all three had their attention taken by a sudden stream of machine gun bullets that fired at the ground in a line between them. Turning to the direction of these bullets, Shadow was astonished at where the bullets had come from:

E-123 Omega, the bulky, 'muscular' robot of red, golden yellow and black that he had no choice but to abandon back in crisis city, as much as it pained him internally to abandon one of the only two beings he considers a true friend. Now he was standing before him, at last fully activated and without any dust on his glossy metallic body at all. One of his clawed hands had shifted into the form of a machine gun, which had of course been the weapon used to gain Mephiles, Shadow and Barry's attention.

As he turned the gun back into one of his clawed hands, his robotic voice explained his presence:

"Now is designated time" he said to Shadow, "I shall assist."

While Shadow came closer than ever to smiling, Mephiles was more amused than anything else as he coldly remarked:

"You are nothing but a nuisance, robot."

Mephiles' first attempted attack against Omega was to generate a large, piercing bright beam of pure, concentrated energy from the palm of one of his hands - though Omega was able to jump out of the way and retaliated by turning one of his hands into an RPG launcher, firing a missile directly at the demonic being.

The missile did not get to make impact however, as Mephiles had managed to grab it telekinetically, surrounding it in a black aura akin to Raven's own powers, and then promptly sent it back on course to Omega himself. However, Omega destroyed it with a second missile anyway.

This moment may have been small, but did distract Mephiles just enough so that Shadow was able to strike him in the back of the head with a sweeping mid-air kick. It managed to knock Mephiles to the ground, though only because Shadow was not holding back any of his physical strength against the demonic being. Landing in between Mephiles and Omega, Shadow readied his battle stance - not daring to break eye contact with the demon as he waited to see what he was going to unleash next.

Though his face was virtually emotionless, it could easily be inferred that Mephiles was not precisely amused with this battle any longer. Or, perhaps in his own sadistic way he actually still was. Without any expressive facial features, his emotions were hard to decipher.

"You are quite the persistent annoyance, Shadow" Mephiles remarked, "But no matter, sooner or later, you will fall!"

Mephiles did not hesitate. Extending out his arms he began to command the lava surrounding the platform release nigh endless streams of piercing hot blue flames into the air, before the demon showed complete control over them; with the sheer power of his mind these streams curved towards Shadow and Omega as though they were flaming tentacles of some creature, proceeding to come at the two as though they were burning whips.

As it was futile to fire weapons at fire, Shadow and Omega settled for dodging and evading the literal whips of flame, though while it was easy to dodge the initial strikes - eventually massive blasts of blue fire came at them from behind while other streams of it rained down on them from above - forcing Shadow to do various acrobatic moves in order to avoid being burned. Flips both front and back, somersaults, he even narrowly avoided a stream that nearly struck him in his groin area. Omega was durable enough to stand a single blast - though even he knew the metal compromising his body had a limit at some point and so made a point to avoid the flames as well. He attempted to fire his missiles and even machine gun fire at Mephiles, though the demon often just used a single wave of blue flame to either melt the bullets or destroy the missiles before they could strike him.

Watching the battle unfold from the sidelines, Barry was lucky to seemingly be getting no attention from the demon. He decided it was best to use that fact to his advantage, and naturally rushed at Mephiles with the full force of his speed.

It didn't last long, unfortunately.

It was as though his speed had just stopped. As though he was frozen in place, moments he could land a punch to Mephiles' demonic face. As though he was parlyzed. Looking down he could see that underneath him was a puddle of pure darkness extending out from Mephiles - with the darkness latching onto the speedster's feet as though it was engulfing him from the bottom-up, some of it looking as though black tentacles were wrapping around his muscular legs and thighs while moving slowly upwards to do the same with the rest of him.

The worst parts were both that he couldn't vibrate himself out of their grasp, and that whatever this was it made it feel as though whatever they touched was numb - not hot or cold, only numb as though the limbs were asleep yet forced to be standing upright.

Barry could only struggle with his upper body as the lower half was slowly taken over by the darkness. Try as he did, he seemingly was fully unable to break free.

Without breaking from his fight against Shadow and Omega, Mephiles turned to Barry solely to mock him for his evidently failed attempt:

"Foolish mortal" the entity chuckled, "Did you honestly think that was going to work?"

Barry did not give Mephiles the dignity of a response. He only gritted his teeth, scowling, practically snarling even, at the demon who has put him through far more mental and emotional torment than Darkseid himself ever could have accomplished.

"No matter" the being continued on, "Soon it will be as though you had never even existed. It's no use resisting, you can't fight eternal darkness forever."

With the darkness increasingly engulfing his body, now passing over his upper half, Barry only had one thing to tell the demonic entity:

"Go fuck yourself."

Mephiles only laughed in response to that petty insult.

No longer willing to give himself up to the evil being, Barry continued to do all he could to struggle and fight the darkness consuming him - even though it's continued engulfing of his body told him that it was in fact futile. Even as Mephiles' mocking laughter was about all his ears actually heard.

At least until two other voices entered the fray:

"Initiating Zeta Energy Cannons!"

"Chaos Spear!"

In an instant, a single chaos spear managed to cut off the darkness engulfing Barry from Mephiles' shadow, weakening it enough for Barry to finally break free of it as it dissipated from his body. Before Mephiles could even conjure up a counter-attack however, a duet of two massive, bright purple beams of weaponized energy fired onto him with enough force to actually send him back to the edge of the platform.

Once the beams stopped firing, Shadow and Omega rejoined Barry's side - having freed themselves from the onslaught of blue flames.

"Thanks, guys" Barry said to the two during this brief moment he had, "He almost had me there, for a moment."

"Sensors indicate the target has not yet been neutralized, now is not time for idle chatter." - Omega was swiftly proven rather correct.

Within an instant the ground shook in a line extending out from Mephiles as though a small earthquake was suddenly occurring before their eyes, making the three jump out of the way as tendrils made of darkness emerged from the cracks in the rock to violently attempt in grappling the three - though well timed chaos spears and missiles managed to keep the darkness at bay.

A large mass of darkness attempted to ensnarl Omega before long, though with a swipe of his arms with his flamethrowers initiated the robot was able to disperse the darkness before it could get a proper hold of him - he also continued supporting Shadow and Barry by using his missiles to disperse any of the black tentacles before they could grapple either of them.

As to be expected, that wasn't the only hazard that Mephiles conjured for the trio as before long he spawned before him a series of telekinetically levitating spiked rocks with each encased in an aura of darkness, sending it at the three within a matter of moments to emulate Omega's own missiles.

With Omega handling the stream of darkness, Barry and Shadow had to divert their attention to these rock missiles - Barry was fast enough to evade them, though Mephiles conjured a thick wall of piercing blue flame and would send violent streams of it towards the speedster if he dared to try anything with his speed. Shadow was strong enough to home in on each in his ball form and shatter them to pieces, though the stream of them seemed to be endless.

Eventually however, Barry's quick thinking mind came up with an idea: with Shadow taking the majority of the rock towers, he decided to use the wind vortexes created from his arm to blow away the blue fire protecting Mephiles. Just as Mephiles taken aback by this and hissed angrily at Barry upon being exposed, Barry shouted to his ally:

"Shadow! Opening! Now!"

Seeing as Mephiles was getting ready to unleash a stream of darkness on Barry, Shadow yet again no time to waste. He diverted his attention to diving from a mid-air position directly to Mephiles - who naturally realized what was going on and abandoned his attack on Barry to charge at Shadow, the two colliding in mid-air within a matter of seconds.

Mephiles quickly slashed at Shadow's chest with his claws, drawing blood as well as making Shadow actually hiss in pain, though his other hand was caught by Shadow's own before he could do the same to the ultimate lifeform's face. Holding said hand by the wrist, Shadow did not give Mephiles any time to retaliate before punching the demon in his own chest at maximum strength - enough to send Mephiles barreling back to the ground below them.

The fact that punching Mephiles felt nearly like slamming his fist into a steel wall was not lost on Shadow.

With the stream of darkness dissipating, all three allies were able to surround Mephiles as he stood up to face them. Ever difficult to read, Mephiles grunted as he got up to face his adversaries - though it was hard to know if he felt defeated by them or not. Nevertheless, he did generate from one of his hands a large orb of dark energy - swirling vortex of black, blue and purple. At first the three assumed it was a final attack, though without saying a single word Mephiles leaped himself into it and vanished, just as the area all around them began to shake.

With the ground cracking and crumbling apart at the seams, the light of the blued magma shining from underneath as it bubbled up to the surface, Omega's words were readily apparent well before he spoke them:

"I am indicating an eruption of this volcano is imminent, we must leave this area at once!"

Shadow nodded, and looking towards the portal Mephiles had generated he could see that as massive stacks of steam lava erupted from the floor that it was still there, yet diminishing in size quickly.

"INTO THE PORTAL, NOW!" he yelled, himself Omega charging for it immediately. Barry was about to, but swiftly remembered Wally.

Just as Shadow and Omega jumped into the portal to follow Mephiles and escape the impending eruption, Barry swiftly rushed to Wally's still unconscious body. Scooping his nephew up into his arms, he just as swiftly rushed into the portal mere moments before it vanished completely - just narrowly avoiding being caught in the volcano's eruption, hearing the first few seconds of the final roar as the white flash of travelling through the portal took over his eyes.

When the bright lights of portal travel left him, Barry could see that he, Shadow, Omega and Wally had been transported back to Soleanna's New City district, evidently the present time from which they left. They landed on a tiled plaza, with a large clock tower behind them and the various brick-and-mortar buildings that blended in with one another surrounding them. The solace in all of this was that the sky was yet again blue as they reflected the beauty of the ocean, and the clouds were white, joining the sun in the sky as it yet again shined down upon the world - though Barry did have to adjust to seeing sunlight again after spending so much time in darkness.

Speaking of which, there was no sign of Mephiles. Shadow looked around for the demon, but shook his head in frustration once it was apparent the dark entity was nowhere to be found. Omega summarized their situation as such:

"It appears that we have been transported back to the present, though Mephiles managed to transport himself to a different location. I will assist in pursuing him."

Shadow nodded in response to that, though Omega was not the only one desiring to join the quest:

"So will I." Barry proudly declared, wanting more than anything else to track down Mephiles and see him defeated. Though Shadow did not seem to disagree with the sentiment, he was swift to point out one glaring thing:

"First, you need to get your nephew proper medical treatment."

Looking down at the unconscious boy in his arms, Barry closed his eyes and yet again shed a small tear from his eyes. Seeing Wally like that, fighting for his life, and the guilt that he was potentially who caused it, was almost too much for him. Turning to Shadow and Omega, Barry said:

"Where's the nearest hospital?"

The voice Rouge descending into the conversation was ultimately what responded to that statement:

"Unfortunately, the Duke Arturo Memorial Hospital is already filled to maximum capacity" she stated as she landed with the rest of the group, "However, G.U.N. has finally been able to institute both a blockade and a no-fly-zone, thanks to a recent change in Soleanna's leadership. We can take him to a med-bay on one of the ships, hopefully that will be enough."

As Rouge talked to her communicator device to get G.U.N. clearance to one of the vessels now surrounding the border of Soleanna's waters, Barry looked down onto his nephew and spoke softly to him in the vain hope that the boy could hear what he was being told:

"It's alright Wally, we're gonna get you help. You're gonna be back up and running in no time, just trust me, alright bud? We're gonna get you back up faster than I can even run! Promise!"

Of course, Barry knew that Wally was not the only one who needed some form of medical help. Though, he wasn't sure if there was anything that could be done to fix all of his problems at this point.

Not after what he had just been through.

[butterflyeffectiveless]

I was inspired to send an ask by one of your latest posts, so I just wanted to fire in and say I'm very grateful for finding your blog. In one of your recent posts you said that you felt that you were criticizing the show too much, but all in all, the show is not without flaws and there's no issue in bringing those out for discussion.

However, I just feel like the show has become basically the punching bag of animation fans, being constantly brought up as an example of 'shit show' in every single discussion on the show itself and beyond. Hell, it makes it even difficult for me, one who overall still liked to show in its entirety, including the ending, to actually enjoy discussions for other shows, when SVTFOE keeps being mentioned as the example of everything that's evil in animation or something.

Sorry for the rant, but all that to say that it's incredibly refreshing, and charming, to find someone who has a more positive look on the show and can discuss things about it without bringing out the same, old discussion about what happened with the last season every single time. Even if I don't agree with everything, it's just interesting to read your opinion pieces.

Also, I never followed a blog focusing on Toffee (and the other monster characters) before, so your content and reblogs focusing on our favorite lizard are appreciated as well :D

Sorry for the wall-text ask, but I just wanted to tell you that. Have a good one!

Oh lord, I’m sorry about that. It is a shame that we got the point of completely demonizing the show we all were fans of. I totally get that it is hard to turn from dissatisfaction and disappointment to acceptance, but I personally felt guilty for crucifying something that may bring joy to other people.. especially children. And the whole “only focusing on what I don’t like and criticizing it” feels like abandoning the good things and making at look as if the crew never made something we liked in the first place. I am not sure, maybe I am being tolerant because I am not an artist nor animator and I just give the benefit of the doubt. I don’t know what is going on there so I just assume they did all they could to make it as best as it was possible.

Also I wanted to add in that post of mine the comment about the show’s OST but I forgot; I feel bad that I never brought it up until now but the composer for the show deserves all praise they could get, because the music in Svtfoe was just so good, and it wasn’t “just good, nice”, it was.. it sort of “made” the show, if that makes sense., it was a huge part of the show. Personally to me, when I think of the title Star vs the forces of evil, the first thing that comes to my brain is the soundtrack. And, well, it wasn’t even like, “the soundtrack is great in the opening and in major episodes but just okay in the rest of the show” it was consistently good, and memorable, even in episodes that don’t seem so important. It’s probably too dramatic and blown out of proportion but its like, if the show was an ice cream, the soundtrack would be its flavor.

Also! While writing out the OST bit, I remembered the opening of the show. Another good thing about that show, and good as in “unique and memorable”. I don’t have any knowledge in animation but I personally noticed something in svtfoe opening that felt Very different from other shows I watched. I only watched a few so my judgement may be not great, but.. For example, in Gravity Falls and Steven Universe, the opening was like “a scene – cut to the next scene – cut to the next scene”. Even in Adventure Time, the opening was kind of similar to that. In svtfoe there were..almost no cuts? The whole opening felt so dynamic and, had such a nice flow, it was so fast-paced but it didn’t feel rushed, and the transition from one place to another was made with the use of dimensional scissors and portals. It felt like Portal, it blew my mind. And what so great about that opening is that the animators used dimensional scissors as a tool for transition from one scene to another which is ..? so clever?? Because dimensional scissors are a huge part of the show’s lore and incorporating it into your animation is a genius big brain idea. Not to mention that the opening of the show, despite being super fast, it didn’t feel chaotic or confusing at all, it actually gave the viewers a gist of the situation. While being to fast paced, the opening clearly showed us

1) Why did Star end up on Earth

2) Her parents’ attitude toward her destructive magic

3) Marco’s interest in karate

4) Star and Marco’s friendship

5) That the show’s universe is basically a bunch of dimensions

6) The show’s mood and atmosphere

Some people say how much the show sucks at executing the “show dont tell” rule but the opening of the show was a perfect example of that exact rule- (although I kinda get that the later seasons the event were mostly delivered through words than actions so yeah..)

A, yes, as for the animation..

I have heard too, that some people dislike the animation in latest seasons. The main argument was that it got more bland than in season 1. Part of me feels the same way, but I feel like I can understand why it changed like that. For example, in season 1, the animation was very fast and fluid and flashy, but I assume (correct me if im wrong..) that it was much more dynamic and flexible because the events of the show just happened quickly? I mean, there were a lot of random things going on (situation comedy stuff-) so it was meant to be fast if that makes sense. Plus if Im not mistaken, all fights in season 1 were short-range, and mostly included fist-fights and punching, which is something animators are more used to drawing I assume. Plus the magic in s1 was mostly blasts. Also , my assumption is, the 1st season being comedic contributed to the animation. In season 1 there were many smear frames and as I know, the smear frames look very silly so the animators could use it as much as possible, which is also why the animation was so dynamic and flowy (bs smear frames give that effect).

In later seasons the events became more slow paced and there were much less randomness going on, so means no room for dynamic flowy animation maybe. Plus the fights in later seasons became much much more sophisticated, because they included elaborate and complex magic spells and also bc the fights happened in wider areas. In season 1 animation included blasting and punching, in later seasons animation included ‘whispering the name of the spell, doing certain moves like in sailor moon, animation of the spell, longer fights because the enemy is much stronger and can put up a fight’.

People say the animation in later seasons was bad, but what about the fight between Eclipsa and Meteora? The animation looked much more restrained but it was fitting for the mood of the scene: it was dark and serious. If people were to use smears and same techniques as in season 1 it would destroy the mood I think

Thank you very much for your ask, that was very nice of you You too

[katsidhe]

Ranking Every SPN Midseason Premiere

15) 10.10 The Hunter Games. Wow, this one is real bad. Has not one, not two, but three subplots I either don’t care about or actively despise: Claire bonding with Cas (uh, he’s wearing her dad’s corpse), Rowena’s petty infighting with Crowley (bleh why), and Metatron smugly egging on Dean’s violence (why would he care?). This is deep in the slog of s10 episodes that go nowhere fast.

14) 13.10 Wayward Sisters. Is it clear yet that I really don’t like Claire episodes? Sam and Dean roasting lizards is the only real moment of fun here. I liked Kaia, so I hated that she gets used as Claire’s insta-friend/retconned love interest in order to immediately fridge her for the backdoor pilot… so that Claire, who was orphaned young, can understand loss, I guess? Pointless and unimaginative. I also resent the deeply, deeply directionless magic spear/Alt!Kaia subplot that eats up, like, four other episodes in s14-15 and accomplishes exactly nothing.

13) 3.09 Malleus Maleficarum. I like this episode for the insight we get into Ruby’s backstory, and the frank conversation that she and Dean have about demons and his impending Hell tour. But other than that, there isn’t too much to recommend it.

12) 8.10 Torn and Frayed. The next several episodes are all good, and are difficult to sort. In 8.10, Sam and Dean choose each other over Amelia and Benny, in all-or-none ultimatums. I truly enjoy how miserable they both seem to find themselves about this, about how their relationship has grown more and more isolating when tbh it needn’t be. Naomi’s control of Cas in this episode fleshes out the chilling implications we got in The Rapture: Heaven is best when its dark AF.

11) 6.12 Like A Virgin. Monsters, dragons, and Eve: the reveal of Purgatory kicks off a brand new chapter of the show’s mythology. But more importantly, Sam is fully back now! Watching him navigate this brave new world while no one will tell him anything is fascinating and more than a little sad.

10) 4.11 Family Remains. Actually frightening! I like it when the show does the ~it was just humans~ twist. And this episode has great commentary on Dean’s emotional state after his reveal about Hell last time. It’s a good MOTW.

9) 15.10 Nihilism. Dean’s bar mindscape. It’s no Sam mindscape, but it’s definitely the most interesting thing that’s been done with Dean and possession. It’s kinda fascinating that Dean’s uncomplicated happy place exists in an underdog Americana limbo without either Cas or Sam. Also gives us, at last, a good take on Alt!Michael’s motivations—he’s hunting down God. Loses points because the idea of managing to lock Michael in Dean’s mind for any length of time is still extremely unlikely.

8) 1.11 Scarecrow. Meg’s iconic introduction, Dean and Sam’s first breakup; emotional clashing over Winchester family dynamics: what’s not to love?

7) 12.09 First Blood. We’ve got Sam and Dean coping with prison very differently, then using their deaths to escape, and an action sequence through the woods: it’s just real fun. Cas breaks their deal with Billie, which ends up having, uh, no consequences whatsoever. It’s a strong kickoff to a regrettably weak second half of s12.

6) 7.11 Adventures in Babysitting. A quiet, emotional breath after Bobby’s death: Sam and Dean are deep, deep in terrible misery. The potent psychological suffering of season 7 is a delight, and 7.11 doesn’t shy away from it. Plus, it’s got Sam volunteering to get bit in the neck, and a rare example of a Plucky Teen (tm) done right.

5) 15.09 The Trap. This is just a worse 11.10. But 11.10 is amazing, so that’s still a compliment: Chuck tries both torture and the promise of various bleak futures to get Sam to cave. Even if the various futures aren’t staged that well, there is so much stuff here that’s ripe for analysis: especially on the broader stage of s15, this episode is plain interesting.

4) 5.11 Sam, Interrupted. Sam and Dean in a psych ward! They’re dealing with the extreme stress and grief of season 5, and they’re doing it badly—this episode provides a great way for their respective coping mechanisms to be forcefully stripped away. In a delightful microcosm of the show, Sam confesses his anger and gets consequently wrestled down and tied down to a cot.

3) 2.10 Hunted. Gordon Walker, whose old-fashioned absolutism is only matched by his competence, is one of the most memorable early seasons antagonists, and for good reason. We also get Ava, the queen of season 2, who has taken it upon herself to warn Sam and save his life. Then Sam and Dean using code words to disarm Gordon’s trap, and the fallout from John’s final words: quality television.

2) 9.10 Road Trip. Oh my god, what a horror show. This is an exemplary episode. Just incredible. Kinda unfair that it has to compete with 11.10, because it would take the gold by a mile in most other matchups. It’s got a fascinating character study of Gadreel, which also serves to inject interest into the s9 angel conflict; it’s the violent, hypocritical lengths to which Dean is willing to go; it’s got needles in Sam’s brain and a nauseating, horrific picture of possession; it’s got That Bridge Scene. The payoff for 9.01 begins to come due, in spades.

1) 11.10 Devil in the Details. Season 11 gets two D-tier ranks and two S-tier ranks; this is the duality of man. Do I even have to explain why I love 11.10 so much? It’s Sam and Lucifer in a room in Hell for an entire episode, nuff said. It gets better with every rewatch—there are so many great tiny moments, so much history. Lucifer’s combination salespitch/dressing-down is threatening and fascinating and mostly accurate; Sam’s rigid terror and courage and heartbreak and anger and resignation and determination are intoxicating. I want to watch them talk in a room forever.

[rpmemesbyarat]

RP meme from "Jungle 2 Jungle"

Hey, bonehead, moron!

Keep your pencil to yourself!

Get out of my way.

You call that a hunch?

I call that an opportunity.

You're not still leaving, after what you did in there?

You give me that same patronizing little speech every time you play one of your stupid hunches.

I am outrageously pleased to meet with you.

He who knows what a woman wants, knows everything, but not even God knows that.

You look different.

I have a boat waiting.

I don't want any money.

Hey, stop! You can't leave me here!

What you're doing is very unprofessional!

Come back here!

I'm gonna need all these clothes back, right where they came from, all right?

Bring on the bachelors.

There's something that you don't know.

I figured you'd be happier that way.

You thought this would make me happy?

How long before you noticed I was gone?

Why didn't you talk to me?

Excuse me. The real world calls.

Look, I was right. I was right!

Coffee has gone crazy.

I realized that I had lost you somehow.

God, it's good to be good!

This is nuts. This is nuts.

This is unbelievable.

This is unforgivable!

It's a territorial thing.

No! Don't touch that!

You wouldn't happen to have a place where I could stick that, would you?

Talk about your wind instruments.

I gotta admit, this isn't easy for me.

I don't have any regrets.

Well, I have regrets.

Maybe I can teach him about commodities.

Baboon! Baboon!

Parasite.

Cut, infection, death !

So, you understood everything I said last night.

These shoes cost me $500.

Scared of snake?

I do not eat snake.

I have a whole 'nother life where I live.

I'm a trader. That's what I do, okay?

Don't move! There's a giant spider on you!

I don't want to hurt you, but I will.

I will crush you like---a bug!

This place is a nightmare!

The hair on your chest reminds them of a monkey.

Here, if you make a promise, you keep it.

Get on. It's just a moving sidewalk.

You do have a reason, right?

Oh, God, I'm dead !

Where are all the animals?

Just wait it out. Something will happen.

You can't always depend on a natural disaster.

We can hope for an assassination.

Behave yourselves here!

Something better happen fast, or I'm gonna throw your butts out the window!

What do you hotshots think about when you make these deals?

I'll shout, I'll yell, I'll scream as much as I want.

Look up! It's an alien circle with Mickey Rourke's picture in it.

Catch the damn spider, will you, please?

Wow! Nice shot!

I missed you. You never called me.

Just act natural.

So, did you miss me, darling?

There's a Fashion Channel?

So, what did you bring me?

You brought back a child.

This is my female.

Is there anything special you like to eat?

Great earrings.

Before you pee, you lift the seat. After you pee, you put the seat back down.

I'm gonna die up here.

Don't you ever, ever, ever do that to me again!

When I tell you to do something, I mean it. Do you understand me?

I was just worried about you out there. I really was. All right?

When I saw the shoulders on this gown, I plotzed.

A little champagne?

What is taking so long with the food?

I don't eat meat, I don't eat dairy or nightshade vegetables, and, of course, I don't touch preservatives.

We eat cat.

We are not going to eat the cat.

You had no right to change the rules.

Are you saying that I knew that I had a child?

Well, if I had a child, I certainly would have known.

So now you're saying that you having a child is my fault?

This is cereal. It's just corn, brown sugar, yellow #5 and zinc oxide? They've added a sunblock to it.

I'd like to be around you, but, but I'm obligated to go.

You won't shoot any more animals?

You're probably in the bathroom, making yourself look beautiful.

You can never have enough pictures of your kids.

On top of everything else, didn't I tell you to wait in the apartment?

I've got a life here. I can't change everything just because you showed up.

Get out of the street! Come on!

This is a dangerous jungle.

No, you're not a man.

You are an adolescent.

You are free to do whatever you want.

There are no guarantees.

This is speculation.

When can we expect payment?

Now we're laundering money for the Russian Mafia?

You cannot walk away on this, please.

Tastes like lizard guts.

I haven't danced like that since I was a little kid.

I've been in this bathroom for hours!

Stay away from the door!

I'm gonna put it in the wastebasket.

It's still moving.

Put the thing back in its box.

It's as big as an ox!

A cat is a pet!

How do you know it hasn't already laid eggs in the apartment?

What if they miss one and it crawls into my ear while I'm sleeping and lays its eggs in my brain?

This is serious! We have to move!

You're blowing this out of proportion.

Look, if something dramatic has happened, it should be on film.

I look at something and see what it can be and who can wear it.

She doesn't like me.

It's not you at all. It's me.

Well, when you pick one to love, it's very different.

lt's a poecilia latipinna. They're from the Amazon.

You're walking around New York City with a million dollars in a suitcase?

Don't tell me. You're leaving.

You are the most important thing in the world to me, except for this other thing I gotta do now.

This better be an emergency.

Try everything once, I always say.

We'll manage to survive this, okay?

Beluga. Best caviar in whole world.

Believe me, shrewdness is not in the picture.

I told you. Time heals everything.

And this is supposed to be a bribe?

Now where is this champagne?

You're so feisty today.

What do you say we take the champagne and drink it in the bedroom?

I think what we have here is an intercultural misunderstanding.

You just downed $10,000 worth of sushi.

You started a wildfire in my yard.

Maybe you're overreacting?

I still don't understand the problem.

You have nothing to be upset about.

That's a pain that's here to stay.

Screaming's no way to deal with a child.

I'm a parent, therefore, I'm an idiot.

Anybody can land on their feet.

Don't make me lose temper.

Don't move! The spider could kill you.

Oh, that's gotta hurt.

I'm starting to really like that spider.

I have many enemies but none like that spider.

What do you say you and I get the hell outta here?

You know my back affects my work.

Money is honey.

Boys, we're gonna clean up.

Now that's a very big bug.

You're a professional.

[iamcath]

You and Your one Kita Shinsuke

It’s quite a surprise and it still amazes you when you start dating one, Kita Shinsuke. You still feel like it was just yesterday when you saw him smile for the first time. It was during your senior year at Inarizaki High.

Kita was not a kind of person who would openly smile at anyone which made him a peerless elite if one might say but that didn’t stop you from admiring him from afar. Some of your friends will ask you ‘why? Why him?’ saying how there's a lot of guys who are much more attractive and friendlier than him but you simply answered them with, “Why not?”. It’s not like you're so pretty to choose whoever you want and even if you are, you would certainly choose Kita over and over again.

This choice happened when you were running in wanting to catch up with your teacher so that you could hand in your report but your lizard brain didn’t think that you might end up injured if you hadn't avoided the wall and landed on it. Instead you bumped to someone who you didn't notice walking along the same path as you earlier. You thought you would fall but when you opened your eyes, you saw this person. It happened so fast and all that you can remember was him holding your waist, preventing you from falling off the ground.

You get so flustered and embarrassed, pulling yourself away, bowing your head when you realize who this person is. It’s Kita Shinsuke from class 3-7, the student who achieved excellent scores in all of his test papers and school activities. The honor student, Kita Shinsuke. “I’m so sorry! Kita-san. I didn’t see you... I was-” you stutter explained.

“Are you hurt?” He asked, face still wearing his usual stiff expressionless self but you had the chance to look at him in his eyes. Not to brag about it, but you know how to read one person’s personality just by looking at them in the eyes and you know that instant, Kita is a nice and dependable type of guy. You shook your head and apologized for the trouble that you caused him.

He shakes his head saying that you didn’t trouble him but he reminded you not to run within the vicinity of the school ground as it may lead you to an accident like this. You bowed your head again stating how sorry you are and you will absolutely take note of this.

And for the first time, you saw that smile. That smile that will change how you see him, a smile that will change your perspective about him. As he walks away, your lips curve into a smile with flushed cheeks as you say to yourself, ‘Kita-san, sure is nice..’

From there, you always made sure that you watched every game that the volleyball team had. It doesn’t matter if it was just a practice or an exhibition game. Although Kita rarely enters the court to play, you know that he, as the captain, really boosts the team's confidence. Kita’s presence is something else. Like a talisman or a good luck charm(but only you would think this) because you know and heard some members of the team talking about how strict he was as a captain. Kita is the only person who can make everyone get their shit together inside and outside of the court. He started noticing you when he saw you cheering at the bleachers. You cheered so loud for him, of course it would be too hard not to notice you. You blushed the hell out of you, when your eyes and his eyes met and your heart almost jumped out of your chest when he gave you that smile again. The kind of smile that he gives when you are around that you almost thought that’s the smile he only wears only for you.

The two of you, as if natural, get closer to each other. He made sure that you wouldn’t skip lunch and even help you out with your failing grades. If you get lucky enough, he will walk with you to your house just to make sure you are safe. Kita Shinsuke is perfect and nobody could tell you otherwise. He’s perfect regardless of what other people say.

Everyone would be so jealous and envious of you if they were given a chance to take a peek of that smile that Kita let out every time you tell him how handsome he was or to hear him laugh when you tell him the crappiest joke but you would never gonna allow anyone to see and hear that. You are selfish even though you can’t call him ‘mine’.

“Why are you so mad today? Did I do something wrong?” Kita asked you. You have been hella annoyed when you saw him accepting another girl’s gift earlier. It’s Valentine's day and you want him to stand still and do nothing at all but to accept your homemade chocolate that you took all night to prepare. And to think that you have been waiting for him for exactly 15 minutes just to see him accepting someone’s chocolate … He's gonna be kidding you.. You are so pissed and decided to let him be.

Although Kita is a very smart, nice and dependable kind of guy, he could also be the stupidest guy ever in the whole wide world. (at least not on academically or being street wise stupid.) The guy is just too dense, to not be able to tell and understand how you feel. Should you try to put it out into words? Nah, scrap that. You can’t even look him straight in the eyes without getting so flustered. You look so red all over your face as you fidget your fingers and he actually mistook it as a fever that he carried you on his back and wouldn’t put you down despite you telling him to do so. He’s just too stupid like that sometimes, that you wanted to smack him down already.

“Nothing.. Go and talk to the girl who has given you that chocolate earlier. Sorry for disturbing your precious time.” you sarcastically answer, pouting your lips, rolling your eyes as you shrug your shoulders.

Kita covered his mouth and looked away from you in an attempt to hold his laughter back. You squint your eyes hard so hard on him as you can’t believe that he actually finds something funny in your annoyances, “Are you laughing at me just now? Wow Shinsuke-kun.”

You don’t call him by his given name but you usually call him with your made up nickname just for him, it could be ‘Shin-shin’ or could be ‘Shinkin’ and if you called him ‘Shinsuke’, that could only mean one thing.. You are mad and already planning on how to kill him.

You huff your cheeks and about to walk out on him when he grabbed your arms and hugged you as he says, “Calm down will ya? It’s not for me.. The girl you saw earlier requested that I give her chocolates to Aran-kun. I’m sorry for laughing okay? I’m actually waiting for you the entire day..”

Your head is spinning that you almost wanted to faint as your heart skips a beat. You wanted to say something but it seems like no words can escape your lips. You have been waiting for this but you anticipated that Kita would actually do something like this to you.

He pulls away slowly as he gives you that smile, that smile that you know is just for you., “So, Can I have my chocolate now?”

“Only because you insist!.” you yelled, trying to hide your flustered face as you handed him the box of chocolates. You finally decided that today will be the day you gonna make him yours. You straighten your posture as your gulp to finally say the words that you have meaning to say to him, “Shin-kun.. I like you..”.

You finally said it, bowing your head as you didn’t want him to see your face. It was so red that it practically showed steam over your head. Your nervous heart can’t take the silence anymore, what were you thinking anyway? There’s no way one Kita Shinsuke could like you back. He’s just nice that he puts up with you all this time.. You are just stupid to think that it was something.. You were about to cry when he touched your face, pulling your chin back up..

And you were a little surprised when you saw his face probably mirroring the same face as you had but he never took his stares away from you, “Don’t you cry at me now.. Whatever you were thinking, that’s not it.. You caught me a little off guard that’s why I couldn’t say anything but.. I also wanted to say something to you.. For a little while now… I like you.. I always have, ever since the day I first saw you. So.. Will you go out with me?” he asked as he rubbed the back of his neck, nervously waiting for your answer.

You never saw him get nervous before as he always says that there’s nothing to be nervous about with the things you usually do daily. So seeing him like this, you knew that he never did this before and this is the first time he said something like this.

You giggled and smiled at him, “Okay.. I’ll do you a favor… I’ll go out with you.” you said which made him smile right back at you and that is how you got yourself one ‘Kita Shinsuke’.

Your body still aches from delivering your new born baby and just opening your eyes with the view that you would love to look at for the rest of your life. It’s been seven years already after that day and you still can’t believe that the man in front of you, who is now cradling your baby in his arms, is the father of your child and your husband.

When Kita noticed you were awake, he approached you slowly, trying not to wake up your son who already looks like him and took a seat beside you on your hospital bed, “You did a great job love, just look how perfect this tiny human is. Thank you for making me the luckiest and the happiest man in the entire world.” he said, tears falling in his eyes.

You wipe it away with your hand, slightly gazing at your ring finger where your wedding ring shines, as you said, “You will be a great father to our baby as you are a great husband to me. Thank you for making me the luckiest and happiest woman in the entire world.”

With those words that bring comfort to your other half, you knew how imperfect Kita was and even though he's not perfect as other people proclaimed him to be, you wouldn’t change anything.. Because for you… He’s imperfect but he’s your Kita Shinsuke.

[banalbones]

The Petite Prince: Chapter 6

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8

Chapter 6: The Prince’s Plan

Summary: Roman is a child. Virgil and Logan have finally found him, no one is pleased with Patton and Patton just wanted to give Roman some brownies.

Words: 2510

Ships: Familial prinxiety, logince and Creativitwins. Eventual familial royality, roceit and DRLAMP  

Genre: Fluff with a side dose of angst

Warnings: A few swears, arguing, falling, tell me if there’s any more!

Taglist: @pricklyfish777 @sunflowerblondeuwu @itriedandimtired @draw-your-perfect-world @cemmy @battlebunnyteardropsinthesun @nonbinary-lizard-2

________________________

Patton was glancing around Remus’s room when the ceiling fell in, two figures with it. Two figures who were…

Logan and Virgil?

Logan and Virgil!

And Remus was watching them, a hysterical grin on his face.

And then… a child?  

Patton was really confused.

It looked to him, and it’s face crumpled.

It then let out a small “Wha?” and began shrinking rapidly.

Is it regressing? And why did it seem so sad when it saw me? And who is it?

Regardless of who the child- well, now the baby- was, Patton needed to help it! He rushed over to the baby, only to be stopped by an arm barring his way.

“Hey!”

“Stay away from him,” Remus’s voice snarled. The grin had completely faded from his face, leaving only a stormy expression in its place.

All I wanted to do was give Roman brownies. What is happening?

___________________________

Remus grinned madly as the left brain boys fell through the ceiling, screaming their heads off.

Hehe… imagine if their heads actually fell off.

“Why hello there! Enjoy your trip?”

Virgil looked up and whacked Logan on the arm, whispering something to the logical side. Logan’s head whipped towards him, his expression something Remus couldn’t quite place.

“Wha?”

Remus turned his head towards his baby bro, grinning wider.

Then he saw Patton.

The grin faded from his face immediately.

The Duke looked back towards the smol one, and saw him growing smaller.

What?!

It was Patton. It had to be.

Remus moved closer to the even littler prince, before seeing that the moral side was doing the same.

He whipped his arm out, stopping the dad from getting any closer.

“Hey!”

“Stay away from him,” Remus snarled.

Like hell was he going to let the cause of this extra regression go anywhere near his brother.

________________________

Virgil screamed as the floor crashed beneath him, arms flailing madly.

He landed in a heap in the rubble of the floor (ceiling?), with Logan sprawled out beside him. He then spotted a bewildered looking Roman sitting on the floor.

“Why hello there! Enjoy your trip?”

The emo turned his head, looking for the source of the voice, and found Remus. He whacked Logan on the arm.

“Logan,” he hissed, “Remus is here. And so is Roman. He kidnapped him!”

Virgil was aware that that wasn’t the only possible thing that could have happened, but it was the first thing that his (admittedly shook up) mind came up with, and it was the thing he decided to cling to.

At least the bean seemed to be okay.

“Wha?”

Virgil heard the small, adorable voice of the petite prince and once again turned his head to see him regressing.

Wait, regressing?!

What was the cause? Regression only happened when sides were feeling too many bad feelings, or when they were overwhelmed.

Was Roman feeling overwhelmed?

Was he making him feel overwhelmed?!

And then Virgil saw Patton.

Now, Virgil loved Patton, he was like a father figure to the anxious side, and he had always been there when Virgil needed it. But at this moment in time, after hearing all of what had just happened with the dad, snake and prince, his feelings were changing.

And fast.

It was obvious that Patton was the cause of the beans re-regression, and so when he moved towards the small royal, Virgil was ready to jump up and shield the precious child-or baby.

And then the trash gremlin flung out an arm to stop the dad.

Was he… protecting Roman?

“Hey!”

“Stay away from him.”

Maybe Remus wasn’t as bad as he first thought.

______________________

Logan, though he would never admit it, screamed, as he fell through the floor.

Ow.

Wait, where am I? I can’t see. Why do I have to be blind?

The logical side looked around, seeing a few wall shaped blobs, and then a figure in red and white.

Roman?

Maybe the miniature prince could summon him a new pair of glasses.

That would be nice.

Logan was saw caught up in his thoughts of longing for clear eyesight that he missed the voice speaking to him.

Then he was whacked on the arm.

Once again, ow.

“Logan,” Virgil’s voice hissed in his ear, “Remus is here. And so is Roman. He kidnapped him!”

That doesn’t seem entirely probable.

But Logan still looked up and gazed around until catching sight of a green and black blob. It wasn’t moving much.

That really doesn’t seem likely.

“Wha?”

Well, Roman is definitely here.

He looked back to where the red and white blob was, and saw a bright teal one move towards it, only to be stopped by the green and black one.

“Hey!”

Was that Patton?

“Stay away from him.”

Logan decided that something bad was happening, and closed his eyes.

It would be much easier to deal with this if I could see.

Seriously, having less than 20/20 vision was annoying.

_________________________

“Wha?”

Roman wasn’t sure what was happening. There were too many big people! And they were getting bigger!

Roman, in the back of his mind, knew who these people were, but he couldn’t- he just couldn’t! Not now, anyway.

Then the loud noises started.

The big people were shouting at each other, most of them at the blue one.

Roman didn’t know why, but the blue one made him sad.

Sad, sad, sad.

Tears leaked from the miniature princes eyes, his lips wobbling as he held back full on sobs. He didn’t want the big people to shout at him.

But then the shouting got louder, and he couldn’t help himself.

He let out a loud wail.

The shouting stopped almost immediately.

Oh no.

__________________________

Virgil was getting mad.

Both he and Remus were trying to keep Patton away from the bean, but the moral side kept on arguing back.

“You’re the one who’s making him so upset!”

“How? I don’t even know who he is!”

“He was five before he saw you, he was getting better!”

“Well I’m sorry I wanted to give Roman brownies-”

A loud wail sounded throughout the room, and the three realized their mistake.

For in trying to protect the petite prince, they had caused him greater harm.

I made the bean cry.

I…

Holy crap what have I done?!

______________________

Logan heard the cry of the red and white blob and made his way towards it. He was now 93% certain that the blob was Roman, and that he was crying, and that crying wasn’t good.

The other three sides had fallen silent as soon as the wail sounded, so Logan decided that he was the only one who should go near the child.

Logan knelt down next to the small royal and picked him up, causing the cries to stop. The prince was a lot smaller than he remembered. What had happened?

…

A small hand reached up and whacked his face, before tapping the logical side’s nose.

And suddenly, Logan could see!

The familiar weight of his glasses on his nose was surprisingly comforting.

The same small hand from before whacked his face again, prompting him to look down.

What in the name of god…

Why is he a baby?

Logan knew that the younger the age of regression, the more intense the ‘bad’ emotions, but a side growing younger whilst already regressed? That was unheard of.

“What the fuck did you guys do?” Logan asked, at last acknowledging the other sides, “He seems to be fifteen months old. That’s the youngest any side has gotten!”

The nerd looked around, spotting the horror on Virgil’s face, the anger and shock on Remus’s and the guilt on Patton’s.

The idiot list was back and stronger than ever.

Then a quiet “Mama?”

Logan glared at the other sides before turning his attention back to Roman. “Yes?”

The small prince chubby little face broke into a grin.

“Mama!”

Logan normally would have felt overwhelmed at the cuteness in his arms, but he really needed to know what had happened.

“Well?”

Silence.

This would take longer than he thought.

__________________________

“Who… is that Roman?” Patton whispered.

Logan rolled his eyes.

“Yes.”

Patton frowned.

Roman had regressed? That wasn’t good.

That was terrible!

And he was apparently the cause? Even worse!

“I didn’t mean to… I was just trying to protect him! But I hurt him more… what if he hates me now? What if he got so sad because of me that he never grows up again? What if I broke Roman?!”

Virgil was obviously panicking, and was going on a tangent because of it.

Patton wanted to help him so, so much, but he knew that it would probably cause more harm than good.

Swallowing down his words of comfort, the dad turned to Remus, who was being strangely silent.

Roman was obviously affecting the sides in drastic ways.

And he had regressed twice.

Patton didn’t know what to do.

Because he had caused this.

____________________

I did this. I did this to my baby bro. I made him get younger all because I wanted to pull a prank.

Remus walked up to Logan.

“Do you have the crown?”

Logan frowned, before nodding towards a satchel amidst the rubble of the ceiling. Remus walked over to it and took out the piece of crinkled yellow paper.

The little prince had really wanted the crown, so it was time to give it to him, and then go.

Possibly forever.

The Duke placed the paper crown on his literal baby bro’s head, trying to ignore the big green eyes staring at him.

“Br-br-ReeRee?”

Remus gave a watery smile to the smol one, before turning on his heel to leave.

“Don’ go!”

_____________________

Roman was confused.

The big people, two of which he had identified, were all so sad.

He had thought they would be mad at him for making so much noise, like with Big him, but they were just sad.

Determination filled the little prince’s eyes.

Sad=bad.

Mama no sad, so ReeRee and the other two no sad!

And so with this excellent plan in mind, Roman’s mission began.

Just because he felt sad, that didn’t mean other people should too!

_____________________

That’s a really cute mindset!

Yeah…

It’s cute for a child, but not for an adult.

You shouldn’t push assside your own pain to sssstop others.

Oh. I guess that makes sense.

_____________________

Logan looked at the prince in his arms, at the determination in his eyes and smiled softly.

The baby had a plan.

Roman pointed to the floor, most likely wanting to be put down. Logan nodded and obliged, then watched as the tiny prince crawled over to Remus before latching himself onto to his big brothers leg, almost like a koala.

Remus then looked down at the child, who was now pouting and saying “Stay.”

The Duke stared sadly at Roman, before relenting as the prince made puppy dog eyes.

Logan smirked.

Smart kid.

The royal’s face then broke into a wide, happy grin.

“YAY!”

I think the little prince is much smarter than we give him credit for.

________________________

It’s true. I am extremely intelligent.

The child version of you is, don’t misunderstand.

Rude!

________________________

Virgil watched as the little prince grinned up at his brother and felt his heart melt a little.

So. Cute.

But the cuteness didn’t fully eliminate the creeping suspicion that Remus was up to something.

Virgil hated it.

He knew that Remus cared about his brother, he knew he knew this, but being the literal embodiment of anxiety made him think about every possible outcome, almost to a fault.

So the emo took a deep breath, focusing on the bean.

He had to admit, Roman being so clingy with Remus kind of made him jealous, especially with Remus grinning with contentedness. Maybe that was the ‘Dark Side’ overprotectiveness shining through.

Yeah, probably.

_________________________

Roman laughed loudly as he was scooped up and tickled by his brother, who was grinning happily.

Part one of his plan: success!

_________________________

Patton watched the twins (well, the brothers) grinning and laughing and smiled softly.

That’s adorable!

He wished he had a camera, this would look great in the family photo album.

As you can see, Patton often tried to ignore the bad in life in favor of the good.

The moral side then turned to Logan, who was also watching the creative sides.

“Brownie?”

Logan blinked, looking a bit disoriented.

“What?”

“Would you like a brownie?”

Paton smiled brightly.

“Are… are you serious?” Logan looked shocked.

Patton swallowed.

His smile wavered.

“Yeah! I was going to give them to Roman, but since he’s so young now, I don’t want him to damage his teeth. So…” he looked at the logical side questioningly, “Want one?”

_________________________

Logan was slightly annoyed.

A brownie?

A… brownie?!

This was the side who had pressed skip, the side who was one of the main factors of Roman’s regression.

But, Logan reasoned, he knew that Patton hadn’t meant to be a factor, and that he had tried to comfort Roman with his (to the princely side at least) meager ‘We love you.’

With the skip though… Logan knew he was overwhelmed, but it didn’t make it hurt any less.

But… Patton was trying.

In truth, Logan didn’t want to forgive Patton, especially not so soon after the whole ‘event’.

But, perhaps the brownie would be good. Eating chocolate has been shown to increase levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which helps reduce the stress that leads to anxiety, which would definitely be helpful for him and the other sides in this situation.

Logan sighed but accepted.

“Sure.”

________________________

Remus‘s insides were screaming with joy. His baby bro wanted him to stay!

The little crown on the prince’s head sat slightly askew, causing it to cover Roman’s eyes.

Remus pushed the paper coronet away, then ruffled his brother’s dark brown curls.

Despite the moral side being in his room, the smol one’s love washed away most of the bad feelings.

The precious little prince.

________________________

Roman was glad that stage one of his mission had went well, but there were other sad big people too! And sad=bad.

The small royal narrowed his eyes and gazed around the room, before his line of sight landed on a Virgil who was anxiously chewing his thumbnail.

Next target spotted.

And so phase two of his plan began.

_________________________

Virgil saw the little bean staring at him.

Why was he staring at him?

Did he do something wrong?

Had he upset the prince in some way?

Did Roman hate him?!

His worry dissipated as the petite prince’s grin widened and he tugged at Remus’s sleeve, pointing at the anxious side.

“VeeVee!”

You know what, battling that dragon was so worth it.

So frickin’ worth it.

_________________________

Logan looked back to the small royal, seeing the adorable transfer of Roman from one side’s arms to the others.

He gave a subtle smile before returning to his conversation with Patton.

Everything was going to be fine.

Hopefully.

_________________________

Thanks for reading this chapter of the Petite Prince!

This chapter could alternatively be called ‘he’s baby. Literally.’

Any feedback would be great, so don’t be afraid to give constructive criticism.

Thanks again!

[rubbishrobots]

I wrote a Doctor Who story for Christmas

It's been a funny old year. High highs and low lows. My brain processes everything in terms of Doctor Who, so I thought I'd write a little story about a crap Christmas.

Doctor Who - “The Best Of it”

The drop in air pressure was first detected on December 24th. About 3% approximately every 5 hours, which might not seem like that big of a drop, but when you’re in a big research base right down at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, any air pressure escaping is a bit of a big deal.

And so I found myself, on Christmas Eve, in a big clunky OxySuit, lumbering around upon the sea floor at the deepest point in the Earth’s Ocean. I moved around the outer walls of Cameron Base One with great difficulty, pushing my limbs forward through the high-pressure water, the headlamps on either side of my helmet providing minimal light.

Reaching the West Wing of the base, the first thing I saw were the cracks in the floor. It began right where the wall of the base touched the ground, and then snaked out and broke off until the ground in front of me looked like a shatter pattern. This was an alarming sight, to say the least. It meant that the ground which Cameron Base One sat on, that the crew walked across, was unstable. I would have turned around immediately and gone to raise the alarm. But I didn’t.

Because the second thing I noticed was the tall, blue phone box. With a lamp on top and two square windows that sent wavy shimmers of light wafting through the ocean. It was right at the furthest reaches of the cracks in the floor. I wondered how the hell it had got there.

Of course, then I was plummeting through one of the cracks that opened up at my feet, so there wasn’t much else I could do except fall.

I only remember bits of my plummet, so it’s hard to describe now. But it was like being on a pitch black water slide that you fully expected to die at the end of. Something had struck the lights on my helmet almost immediately so I couldn’t see a darn thing, but my stomach twisted and turned, which told me I was being tossed to and fro. Then I remember a tiny bit of light approaching fast, and an impact. Then nothing.

Nothing until I was blinking awake in a dimly lit cave, and there was a woman peering down at me.

“What size shoe do you take?” she asked.

I stared at the fractured image of her through the cracked glass of my helmet. She had short yellow hair, a long pale blue coat, and a t shirt with a rainbow stripe across it. She waited expectantly for me to answer.

“I’m Ellie Tyson, Chief Engineer at Cameron Base One,” I said, unsure what else but name and rank was appropriate in this conversation.

“I’m the Doctor,” the woman replied. “I just knock about space, really. You alright?”

She helped me to my feet and out of my OxySuit. I was bumped and bruised, and the jumpsuit I wore beneath the suit was a bit scuffed, but I was otherwise okay and able to survey my surroundings. The cave was not spacious. There were small tea light candles dotted about, and a steady drip of water coming from the breach in the ceiling that I must have fallen through.

“Right! Welcome, welcome,” said the Doctor. “Let me show you around. I’d say this is the living area over here.” She gestured to the left side of the cave, where a fireplace had been drawn on the uneven rock wall. “But to be honest, it’s a bit of a studio apartment situation.”

“How long have you been here?” I asked, eyeing the crudely illustrated roaring fire and wondering if this was the sign of stir craziness.

“About a week. Been surviving on rations.” She held up a box of dried raisins. “And a few bits I had in my coat pockets to keep me busy.” On the floor of the cave, there was the aforementioned candles, a pack of crayons, a pair of knitting needles and some wool, and a tourist pamphlet for the Blue Man Group. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any food in that big clunky diving suit?”

I shook my head no. The only thing in the utility belt section of the suit was some bandages, medical tape, and a flare. None of which struck me as particularly edible.

“No hope of escape?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“Well, not until now.” She started walking to the mouth of the cave. “Come on, then.”

I followed. There were no candles in the long, narrow passageway she crept down, but the Doctor had a metallic remote thingy that was giving off an orange glow, and she rooted around her pockets until she found a small torch she could toss to me.

“So full disclosure,” said the Doctor, “I got knocked silly on the way down. Consequently, I was half unconscious for like the first 3 days, but as soon as I was able to, I did a bit of exploring. Didn’t get very far. There’s a massive wall just up ahead that proved to be a big fat dead end for me.”

I frowned. “So why are we bothering?”

The Doctor waved a hand impatiently. “You’ll see in a min. Anyway, I knew someone else was bound to fall down the same hole I did, it being next to a massive human science-y base thing.”

The word ‘human’ got caught on some filters in my head, but I moved past it. “Nobody else knows. They sent me out to see why we were having air pressure problems.”

“Exactly, so I knew it was only a matter of time till I had a mate. That reminds me, what size shoe did you say you took?”

“I didn’t, and we have much bigger problems. If the ground up there is this unstable, the whole crew of Cameron Base One could be in real danger.”

The Doctor pulled a face. “I’m working on that! Give us a chance.”

“Except you’re not working on it – you’ve been down here a week and you’re no closer to escaping. Now I’m stuck down here too. The whole base could collapse any second and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“You literally just told me the only passageway leads to a dead end!”

“No,” the Doctor corrected. “I said it was a dead end for me.” We came to the huge wall she’d spoken off. It was about twice our height, but it did not reach the roof of the cave passage. There was a sizeable space at the top of the wall, and beyond that some source of light could be seen blinking on and off from out of view. In the torchlight, the Doctor grinned with great satisfaction. “See? All I needed was someone to give me a boost. I’ll go first and pull you up after. Don’t worry, I’m dead nimble in this body.”

The brain filter picked up that last weird comment too, but I didn’t have time to question. I laced my fingers and let the Doctor put her dirty boots in the palm of my hands, whereupon I heaved her high enough for her to grab something to hold onto and pull herself, and then me after, up onto the raised ground.

Wiping the muck off of my knees, I stood up and looked at where we’d ascended to. The sight before me made no sense. For at the top of this ledge, in this cavern deep down in the Earth’s crust, were a large pair of steel doors with a blinking control panel next to it.

“Oh, brilliant!” said the Doctor. She rushed towards it, aimed her metallic torch thingy at it, and I was amazed to see the doors rumble and draw themselves open. There was a great cloud of dust as they parted.

“These doors must have been sat closed for a good amount of time, then,” I coughed, as I followed the Doctor through the doorway.

On the other side, the Doctor stood dead still. “A very long time,” she said.

If the sight of steel doors had shocked me, it was nothing compared to the room of cryogenically frozen lizard people I was looking at now.

In this laboratory the length of a football pitch, there were rows and rows of pods, half metallic, half rock formations, and each of them contained a bipedal, human-sized lizard. There was frost on the glass of the pods, and they were cold to my touch. The creatures inside had not stirred a bit during our entrance or my examining of their containers. Astonished, I turned to the Doctor, hoping to gain some comfort in a shared vibe of ‘not knowing what the hell was going on.’

So imagine my surprise when I found her gazing at the cyro-pods in delight. “This works out perfectly.”

Silurians, she called them. I dropped to a seated position, probably going into some form of shock, while she paced around the room and ranted about the civilisation that walked the Earth eons before humans evolved (“Eons,” she paused to grin at me. “Love that word. Eons!”). Apparently they saw an asteroid approaching, and evacuated deep underground, putting themselves in stasis until such time as the damage from any impact would have passed. She’d moved over to a raised console built into a slab of rock and had been tinkering with the controls for a good minute before she realise I still hadn’t spoken.

“Soz, that was probably a bit of an overload, wasn’t it? Which bit did I lose you on?”

“The lizards who ruled the earth before humans,” I said softly.

The Doctor’s nose scrunched up in confusion. “Really? That bit makes sense, if you think about it.”

“In what universe does a secret society of Lizards frozen beneath the Mariana Trench make sense?!”

“Well that’s where all those daft stories about the Illuminati come from. It’s just people stumbling across all the different Silurian hibernation chambers and letting their imagination run wild.”  

That did actually make a little bit of sense, but I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of saying so, so I just stayed silent.

“Anyway,” she said, turning back to the controls. “Cheer up, this means there’s probably a way out of here.” That got my attention. I leapt to my feet and came to her side, staring at the panel of strange, unlabelled controls. “The Silurians tunnelled all the way down here, and they were obviously planning to return at some point. So logic says there must be a way out. A lift, or a teleport, or something.” She gasped. “Could be a massive ladder!”

“I’m not climbing a ladder out of the Mariana Trench, Doctor.”

She looked about to respond, but then a shrill, angry bleeping noise erupted from the console. The Doctor stuck her tongue out thoughtfully, the pressed some other buttons, only to be greeted with the same angry bleeping noise. She then tried pointing her metallic object at the controls, but the bleeping noise sounded again. The Doctor glared at the console panel. “Well, now you’re just being difficult.”

“Doctor,” I said, pointing to a small indent in the bottom corner of the console, that looked something like a fingerprint scanner. “It must need, I dunno, authorisation or something.”

I should have noticed the Doctor’s falling expression as she stared at what I’d pointed out. “Oh,” she said, and I should have noticed it was without her usual pep. “That’s a blow.”

Maybe I didn’t want to notice any of it. I was already looking around at which of the Silurians was closest. “So will we need to fully wake them up, or can we just sort of drag one over and then put it back?”

The Doctor turned to me. Her expression was grave. I turned my back on her and marched quickly over to one of the pods so I could pretend to be having a look. “And can it be any old one or does it need to be, like, a Boss or a President or a Mayor? I don’t know what the Silurian political hierarchy was like, was it like ours?”

“Ellie…” said the Doctor. “We can’t. The Silurians wouldn’t understand. They’d want to come back to the surface with us, and they can’t. The Earth isn’t ready for them yet.”

The trip back to the cave was awkward. I walked ahead, in silence. I heard the scuff of the Doctor’s boots behind me, and I felt her worried gaze on my back. And when we got back to the cave, I sat in the corner and didn’t look at her.

I was going to die down here. At Christmas. And everyone in that base above us had no idea they were walking and working on ground that could crumble awake at any second.

And worst of all, the only company I had, the person with which I was to perish, was a buffoon. At a certain point I had to break my sulk and look up at the Doctor, because I could sense her constantly moving and wondered how the hell she could be finding so much to do in a tiny little cave at the bottom of the planet.

Watching her, I still didn’t know. She was rummaging inside her coat pocket for a while, eventually fishing out old Quality Street sweet wrappers of red, green and gold. At one point, I heard her squeak with delight and drop down to examine something in the dirt and soil of the cave floor. When she began to draw more cave paintings and hum merrily to herself, I could take no more. I briefly considered digging the medical tape out of my suit and using it to seal her mouth shut.

“What on earth are you doing?” I asked instead.

She glanced at me over her shoulder. “I’m making the best of it!” she said, and moved aside so that I could see. Next to her 2D fireplace, she had scrawled a Christmas Tree on the wall, with scribbled baubles and doodled tinsel. And now she was humming White Christmas. “We might be stuck down here with no hope of escape. But it’s still Christmas.”

I stared in disbelief. “Are you for real? It is not Christmas.”

She did that nose-scrunch thing again. “I mean, it sort of is.”

“It is Christmas on a technicality!” I yelled. “It is Christmas only in the sense that the date is December 24th. Our current predicament, that being our impending death, takes precedent. And, for that matter, negates all circumstantial Christmas-ness.” I realised that tirade had come off oddly formal, so I added: “So stop being a dope, you big blonde-haired nutter.”

The Doctor, annoyingly, did not look hurt. Or offended. She just shook her head, like I didn’t understand. “That’s not how it works. It doesn’t matter what’s happening. Could be right in the middle of wartime, could be disease and pestilence sweeping the globe, you could be separated from everyone you love. The Titanic could be falling out of the sky! But if any of those things are happening in December, you get to press pause on them for a little bit, and be happy. Because it’s Christmas, and Christmas is magic like that.”

Nice speech. It didn’t work. “You’re a child,” I said, turning back around.

We didn’t talk again for a while. I sat and sat and sat, and at some point I lay down, and at another point I fell asleep.

Hours later, I awoke to a veritable Winter Wonderland.

The Doctor had been busy through the night. She had gone all around the cave, drawing holly and garlands all over the walls. Three tiny knitted stockings were stuck to the hand drawn fireplace. She had carefully placed the different sweet wrappers around the candles, creating a fairylight-like effect of flickering red, green and gold all around. And as I sat up, she was in front of me, beaming.

“Happy Christmas!” she bellowed, and thrust a folded piece of kitchen roll in my face. I took it from her delicately, realising that it was only obscuring something folded within. “Sorry, no wrapping paper. Best I could do.”

I did my best attempt at a smile, given the still pretty awful circumstances, and opened the gift. I had expected to find some random object standing in as a gift. After all, there was hardly a Henrick’s or Magpie Electricals to pop to down here. So when I opened the paper and found two carefully knitted socks, I took me a second to put the pieces together. Finally though, I looked up at her in wonder.

“Is this why you kept asking for my shoe size?”

The Doctor grinned. “Got it in the end. Took a tape measure to your footprint.” She pointed at what I’d seen her messing with on the floor the previous night, an indentation in the mucky ground from my shoe.

That broke my Scrooge-ness. I could continue to be a misery no longer. I thanked the Doctor genuinely, pulled on my new socks, and allowed her to lead me around the cave and tell me in great detail how she had thrown together every single makeshift Christmas decoration. We played snap and charades, and then gathered around the illustrated roaring fireplace to tell ghost stories (the Doctor’s were better than mine).

“I wish I had a gift for you,” I lamented after our Christmas Dinner of raisins and half a Wham bar. The socks really were quite cosy.

The Doctor waved a hand and tried not to look bothered. “No worries. It’s not the getting at this time of year, it’s the giving. That’s what my Mam used to say.” She paused though, then added “But also, if you happened to pack a toothbrush in that suit, I’ll love you forever. It’s been a week.”

A thought struck me. I stood up and wandered over to my discarded OxySuit, and reached into the utility belt. “No toothbrush, sorry. But in the spirit of the season, I gift you the one thing in my possession and pray it brings you happiness and good fortune.” I produced the small roll of medical tape, and tossed it to her.

She did not catch it. She did not even make an attempt. The Doctor had gone dead still since the moment she saw me pull the tape out of the suit. The roll bounced off her tummy and then fell lamely to the floor. Here, she stared at it, eyes wide.

“Doctor?”

When she looked up, there was the biggest smile on her face. “Ellie Tyson, this might be the most important Christmas gift I’ve ever been given.” Then she rushed across the distance and flung her arms around me. “Do you even realise what you’ve done? You’ve saved our lives, you daft little human.”

I had no chance to question her further. The second she let me out of her death-clutch hug, she snatched up the roll of tape and went sprinting out of the cave. I followed her through the narrow passage as best I could, but she was faster than you’d think, and by the time I reached the wall at the end, she was bouncing up and down impatiently. “Come on, come on, come on,” she begged, and I quickly boosted her up onto the ledge and let her heave me up after her.

Back in the Silurian chamber, the Doctor rushed over to the nearest cryogenic pod and started messing with the controls.

“But you said we couldn’t wake them up!” I shouted.

“No time to explain,” she shouted back. “Try and find some sort of powder or talc, any type will do.”

As she pointed her metallic thingy at the pod, I searched all over until I found what was probably the lizard equivalent of baby powder in what was probably the lizard equivalent of a medicine cabinet. I came back to the Doctor to find one of the pod doors open. The Silurian was still completely unmoving, and the air coming from the pod was predictably ice cold.

“What are we doing?” I asked, handing her the bottle.

“Spy stuff,” was her reply. And then, teeth chattering from the cold, I watched her crouch down to be able to coat one of the Silurian’s finger tips in the powder. Then, taking my Christmas gift, she pressed the scale-covered finger into a piece of tape and applied pressure. “That should do it,” she said, and stood up straight again.

“Do what?” I said. Except, no. That wasn’t my voice who had said that. And it wasn’t the Doctor’s either.

It was the Silurian. He was blinking awake, groggy like he’d overslept. “What are we doing?” he asked, then squinted at what was surely a blurry sight of two strangers in front of him. “Who are you?”

“Nobody,” the Doctor squeaked, pressing a complicated sequence of buttons on the panel next to the pod. “We’re nobody. Go back to sleep. We’re just… ghosts. We’re the Ghosts of Christmas Yet To Come.”

The Silurian frowned. “…what’s Christmas?”

“Shush,” said the Doctor, and she quickly closed the door and zapped the controls with her metallic remote, and the Silurian was asleep again.

The Doctor pressed the borrowed fingerprint on the tape into the scanner on the console and it worked perfectly. We were directed to an area at the back of the chamber, where a steel compartment took us back to the surface with frightening speed. We emerged into sparkling daylight, finding ourselves on an island in the Philippines. Well, there are worse places to spend Christmas Day. The Doctor helped me find a phone, which I used to contact central command, who in turn got in touch with Cameron Base One and ordered a speedy evacuation. The Doctor made friends with an old man who had a submarine, and he said he would take her down to retrieve her Blue Box after he’d had his Christmas dinner.

While we waited for the old man to finish his afters, the Doctor and I sat on a beach overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I thought it to be the bluest blue I’d ever seen, but the Doctor said she’d seen blue-er.

“It’s going to be mental down there,” I said, thinking of Cameron Base One. “Everyone loading stuff into boxes, shutting down all the experiments. Must be chaos.”

The Doctor smiled, looking out at the point where, miles and miles below the water, there was a whole base of people packing up and heading home. “It won’t be that bad,” she said. “It will still be Christmas. They’ll make the best of it.”

[tonystarkbingo]

TSB Discord Party 3 Prompt Summary Game

How to play: we all took turns throwing in three prompts, and then everyone turned those prompts into a fanfic blurb or summary.

phone, blanket, "nope" - suggested by @rebelmeg

@fightingforcreativity - "Tony put your phone away," came a sleepy voice from beside Tony. Because Steve wanted, needed to sleep for a few hours now, he finally had given up on being nice to his newly wed spouse. "Nope" 'That is a war declaration!', the blond thought and decided to do the one thing Tony had told him the genius hated. Steve tucked the blankets away and hooked them.

@rebelmeg - The thud of the phone hitting the floor clinched it for Tony. "Nope." Today was going to be a bad day. Curling up further under the blanket, he decided to dedicate his immediate future to a nap, and to hell with everything else. "Nope. No adulting today. Nope."

@jamesbuckystark - "Nope. Can't today." Tony says and hangs up the phone. He crawls back under the blanket fort where Morgan is waiting for him. It's Daddy/Daughter Day

@somesortofitalianroast - Bucky was bundled up in a blanket on the couch with some hot chocolate. He checked his phone, and saw that it was snowing outside. “Nope,” he said to himself, “not going for a walk.”

@darthbloodorange - Steve pulls the blankets further over his head. "No." 

Tony laughs at the images his husband made, wrapped up in their blankets. "Steve, you can't just ignore a call from the Secretary of Defence." He says. 

"Well, I am." comes a grumble from within the blankets. 

"Steve" He wheezes. "That's not very Captain America of you" 

"Don't care. I'm on vacation. Don't want to. Nope."

apples, cats, Science - suggested by @fightingforcreativity

@saganarojanaolt - "Unlike most cats, Alpine was well behaved. Except when there was something in his place by the window. It didn't matter what it was, if it was there it got dropped. Spices for cooking, flowers to liven up the place, apples to ripen, science books to study, didn't matter. It got summarily pushed off. So Alpine could take his rightful place. "

@menatiera - Cats were known to dislike citrus fruit. So Tony wouldn't have been surprised to find out Bucky's cat disliking oranges and such. Instead, Alpine decided that he absolutely hates apples with furious passion. Tony obviously needs Science to answer why. And if he gets to spend some more time with Bucky while conducting experiments with his cats, well, that's just a happy coincidence.

@rebelmeg - Dum-E was very excited. It wasn't every day Ton-E let a Kit-E into the lab, and today there were two Kit-E's. One of them was chewing on Bruc-E's airpods, but Dum-E knew that was okay. Ton-E liked to tease Bruc-E about his bad apples.

@jamesbuckystark - There was a flash, and now instead of Rhodey, Bruce, Peter, and Harley in the lab with him, there are two cats and two apples, all with unimpressed eyes looking at him. "This is not magic! It's science, I swear!" Tony pleads. "I'll fix this!"

@somesortofitalianroast - Tony was working in his lab, cranking out music, when two things happened: Alpine jumped up on his work bench, and Dum-E somehow got a hold of an apple, which he promptly threw at Tony. Hilarious ensues.

@darthbloodorange - Steve looks down at the mess of apples on the lab floor and sighs. He knew better than to ask at this point, but he does anyway. "Why?" "Science!" Tony says, as if it should be obvious. Socrates knocks another apple from down from the shelf, watching as it lends on the floor with a wet crunch. "See!"

dragon, hotel, blue - suggested by @saganarojanaolt

@jamesbuckystark - Rhodey blinks his eyes. In front of him is a hotel with a red dragon standing in front. "Do you have the courage to wear the Blue Tunic of Valor and save the prince?" It rumbles. Rhodey looks up. In the penthouse is Tony, dressed in a beautiful gown.

@menatiera - Being turned into a dragon is generally not a horrible thing. Dragons are cool, majestic and all that. Even if blue is not really Tony's color, he could say at least ten other things from the top of his head to happen to him that would be worse than having his color scheme messed up in a magical animal transformation. Still. Being turned into a dragon in the middle of the hotel lobby on his honeymoon is still rude.

@rebelmeg - "Pepper, there is a dragon in my hotel room. No, you did not mishear me. Yes, Pepper, there is a dragon in my hotel room. NO, I DIDN'T DO IT! ...at least, I don't think I did... Pepper, stop shouting. Pepper. Pepper. Pepper. Oh, for the love-- PEPPER! Hi. Yes, I'm shouting, and so are you! Are too. Are too. Are-- hey! Just because I regularly play with things I shouldn't doesn't mean the gigantic lizard with pretty blue scales is automatically my fault! No, don't call Stephen. Pepper. Pepper, no, he'll just get all uppity like he does, you know how I-- DAMN IT, PEPPER."

@gavilansblog - His room in the Blue Dragon Hotel wasn't blue. It was an off-white beige color. Also, it had no dragons. Well, that was just rude, Tony thought, staring at the nondescript fruit bowl print over the bed. The least a Blue Dragon Hotel could do is have, y'know, a blue dragon. Tony sat down on the bed, then jumped up with a yelp as something nudged the backs of his legs. He turned and looked in completed befuddlement as a blue snout poked out from under the bed, followed by a very definitely draconic little body. Well, that did explain the name.

@somesortofitalianroast - “Pepper. Did you really make reservations at the Blue Dragon Hotel?” 

“Yes, Tony. I did. Why?” 

“Because it’s an RV park, not a 5-star hotel.”

@darthbloodorange - (Iron Man Noir!) Tony sits down on the edge his hotel bed with a huff. He pulls the large, blue scale out of his travel bag, turning over it in his hands. It had been months now, but Tony wasn't about to give up on the search for the dragon that saved his teams life. (Dragon!Steve?)

enlightment, postcard, chocolate - suggested by @menatiera

@jamesbuckystark - Tony got some interesting mail today... from Victor von Doom. He got a postcard and a chocolate heart. BE DOOM'S "Well this is a time of enlightenment," he muses

@menatiera - 'Willy Wonka is behind the dementor attacks because he wants to sell more chocolate.' Well. Postcards are usually not the format for these kind of enlightments to go, especially not postcards without names to them. Tony turns the paper in his hand, deep in thought, then mentally shrugs, because why not? It's not the weirdest thing he's heard. And he can relieve his nerdy days while investigating for clues in a fictional book series for proof or denial of this statement.

@rebelmeg - "riddle me this, jarvis," tony said as he turned over the postcard in his hand. "how precisely did someone manage to make an actual postcard out of chocolate and send it through the mail intact?" 

"perhaps you should bite it and find out." jarvis replied pertly.

with a roll of his eyes, tony had to tell the idiot side of his brain to sit down and shut up. "y'know j, i think you might be spending too much time around harley." 

"blasphemy. i'm a perfectly enlightened being that needs no outside interference to contribute to my sass." 

tony choked on his bite of postcard.

@somesortofitalianroast - It wasn’t any day that Steve got a postcard in the mail. Especially not one that was addressed to him and didn’t get bundled up with the rest of his fan mail. This postcard was completely blank, except what appeared to be a chess move, but he wasn’t sure. The front of the postcard had a picture of a chocolate store in Ukraine with the tagline “find chocolate enlightenment in Kyiv.”

@darthbloodorange - It's no secret that out of all of them Tony was the Chocolate hoarder. While Tony is away on a business trip the Avengers raid Tony's chocolate stores. But while searching for chocolate they find some enlightening postcards, postcards that reveal a more better kept secret between Tony and Steve.

Dreams, Wheel, and Dynamite - suggested by @jamesbuckystark

@rebelmeg - "just think, rhodey. a huge wheel of fireworks and dynamite. it's what dreams are made of!" tony's eyes were wide, sparkling with mania, and rhodey was justifiably concerned. "tony, i don't think you should watch mythbusters anymore."

@somesortofitalianroast - In his dream, he was in a tour bus. He was watching the band, some playing cards, some reading, some sleeping, but no one seemed to notice him. The movement of the wheels of the bus was hypnotic, as was the guitarist gently strumming on an acoustic guitar. The singer, half asleep with a book, started singing along. He couldn’t make out most of the words, but he seemed to be singing about dynamite. Interesting choice for a lullaby, but Steve wasn’t complaining. The singer looked right at him, paused in his singing. “You should wake up now.”

@27dragons - Tony was usually much more careful around dynamite than Pepper gave him credit for. Sure, he sometimes played it fast and loose with safety, but actual dynamite was no laughing matter. So it absolutely was not his fault that the charge blew early, before he had a chance to get back behind the protective barrier, he would like that understood. But regardless of whose fault it was, he had a concussion, a ringing in his ears that wouldn't go away, and every time he drifted off to sleep he was having the most peculiar dreams -- or rather, dream: a single dream, over and over, of a giant wheel covered with beautiful blue-steel eyes that stared at him in shock. "I think," he told Pepper when she came to check him out of the hospital, "that I've met my guardian angel."

@jamesbuckystark - "I had the weirdest dream," Tony rubs his head. "I was a contender on Wheel of Fortune, and Pat Sajek told me I didn't win even though the phrase was 'Made from dynamite and daisies.' And I knew what the phrase was!"

@darthbloodorange - Tony is sure he was having a bad dream when he walks into his lab to find Steve fastening explosives to the wheels of his motorcycle. "Wheels shouldn't need dynamite to turn!" Tony cries, throwing his hands into the air. "I can't believe you're making me say this but Steve, this is too dangerous. That's too much firepower, you're going to be blown into space!"

"Well, I've always dreamt of being an astronaut." Steve says, grinning.

varenyky, U2, dancing - suggested by @somesortofitalianroast

@jamesbuckystark - "Is this what all galas are like?" Bucky asks, eyes wide. "No," Tony examines his nails. "U2 never plays a set for galas. They only dance at the Christmas ones, and I have never seen varenyky on the buffet table."

@rebelmeg - tony wiggled his booty as he danced around the kitchen, singing along to U2 and putting frozen pierogis on a plate.

"shaking what your mama gave you?" nat asked as she came into the room, smiling as he waggled his eyebrows at her. 

"you betcha. want a pierogi?" he rattled the frozen dumplings on the plate. "gonna microwave some." 

natasha's eyes narrowed, then she was storming across the room and seizing the plate. "i am absolutely not letting you eat that." 

tony whined as she dumped them right in the garbage. "my lunch!" 

"if you want varenyky, i will make you some. you will not eat that trash." 

tony was still pouting over the garbage can. "but i'm hungry." 

"come on," natasha grabbed his sleeve and tugged him over. "i'll teach you how and it'll go fast." 

or, how tony and nat bonded over pierogis while dancing to U2

@darthbloodorange - (College AU) It was 4AM. He knew they knew they were probably get into loads of trouble. Any moment now Security would be knocking on their door with a noise complaint. But Tony couldn't care less, he's hasn't been so happy in a long time. He was dancing with Steve in the kitchen to U2, cooking varenyky.