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the-coconut-asado · 4 years ago

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Our Golden Girl’s Kitchen

A couple of years back, my cousin Doro announced she was going to publish a book of our grandmother’s recipes. It set all the cousins off on an odyssey of frenzied WhatsApps swapping memories, and in my case a mad dash to storage to find yet another of mum’s old scrapbooks, stuffed with fragments of recipes typed up on that onion-skin paper of the Mad Men era.

Slowly but surely, recipes surfaced for Granny’s steak and kidney pudding (to this day, the name of our family WhatsApp group), tallarines (fettuccine by any other name) and more cakes and tarts than a whole series of Masterchef pressure tests.

But Doro’s job was made much easier by someone else who had kept Granny’s legacy alive all these years. The person who, while Granny was a distant memory for many of us, was the biggest influence on our lives. At the end of the book, Doro wrote a dedication to her: “ Auntie Joan, I remember you, sometime before Christmas, making us stir the plum pudding and saying “don’t forget to make a wish!”; the chicken pie or Irish stew with dumplings you prepared when I used to come for lunch after university classes; the plum ice cream you always had in your “ancient” fridge and the smell of scones and cake on our birthdays.’

Last week, Auntie Joan died. 99 years of love, wisdom and many a raised eyebrow at each of us at one time or another. She had a delicious smile that hinted at secrets she might share with you some day, and even up to her mid-nineties kept a ramrod straight back, figure to die for and effortless elegance that prompted a 28 year old male friend to comment at my wedding that she was the only 68 year old he had ever fancied.Cheeky, but at the same time, kudos.

If I’ve made her sound like a warm embrace of a woman, she was. She was also a ninja. For most of her working life, Auntie Joan - Joan Nolan MBE - was Vice Consul at the British Embassy in Rosario, and later in Buenos Aires. She started volunteering there during the war, and eventually they started to pay her (nice of them), then promote her.

This had upsides - her influence to help others (a guiding principle of her life), the opportunity to travel, and the people she met. She once told me of an Embassy cocktail party on board a ship attended by Eva and Juan Peron. She had little time for Peron, but was a little flattered when having started to leave down the gangplank he abruptly turned back, sought Auntie Joan out, kissed her hand and apologised profusely for not having said goodbye. Manners counted for a lot with her, so the apparently off-hand Eva was barely mentioned in despatches.

Her job also had downsides: held at gunpoint more than once, and in the constant company of a bodyguard after her boss was kidnapped (the inspiration for Graham Greene’s novel The Honorary Consul). One day a masked gang raided the embassy, rounded up all the staff, tied them up and locked them in the bathroom. But the ringleader treated Joan with weird courtesy, politely requested she enter the bathroom but left her unbound. Joan said afterwards: “ I think that man knew me. And if I ever see those eyes again, I will know who he was.” She kept looking but never did, but she did show us the hail of bullet holes the gang had let off at the outer wall of the embassy before they left.

30 years on, at 85, clearly feeling she had been down this road before, she wrestled an armed thief trying to steal her friend’s car. ‘ Dear, I knew the gun was a toy’, she said breezily when I had my WTAF! Moment on a phone call with her.

Though all this time she looked after my grandparents and my great aunt until their deaths - pretty thankless and back-breakingly hard as they all survived to their nineties and in my great aunt’s case to 101 - as well as her husband Stanley who died when she was still young. Yet she still made time to feed, nurture and look out for her nieces and nephews as they travelled through her flat en route to school, college and work - and then her grand nieces and nephews as they repeated the cycle.

Living in London, I didn’t see as much of Joan as my cousins, but felt just as close to her thanks to her copious letters. And it was her trips to London I remember most. Wafting glamorously into Gatwick in her boucle red overcoat, nipping up to Newcastle for the day to have lunch with a friend (when Dad retold the story, he always added, untruthfully, ‘And the friend wasn’t even at home!”), leaving a cloud of delicate rose scent in her wake, a perfume that always reminded me of her apartment in Rosario. A bit like Buenos Aires itself, Auntie Joan was an evocation of the best bits of 1930’s Europe.

And despite eating like a mouse in her own home - spreading her morning toast with what looked and tasted like wallpaper paste but was actually zero cholesterol cream cheese - her kitchen with its pots and pans, scoured and gleaming within an inch of their lives, was in a constant hiatus of puddings, pies and roasts for the family as well as that iconic plum pudding at Christmas. And when we took her out to eat the appetite she kept hidden at home came tumbling out. I once witnessed her demolish a whole sea bass, noodles and a quarter of a peking duck when we took her to a restaurant in Chinatown. Unlike the rest of my family, she was unafraid of spice and heat.

Serene, always; sassy, sometimes. After all, Joan’s favourite TV programme when she came to visit us in London was The Golden Girls. In a life where everyone depended on her, she was someone comfortable with not needing to depend on anyone else - until old age meant she had to. I used to smile to myself when, in later years, she would end all of her stories with ‘And they said, “Joan, you are the ONLY one who could have done/ solved/ sorted/ this’’. And yet, if we don’t tell the world how talented, determined and capable we are - who else is going to? #thiswomancould

So here are two dishes that we all eat thanks to Auntie Joan - her plum ice cream (with some added spice from cinnamon) and her Spanish Cake, a delicate and sweet treat that evokes those high teas that are still a family tradition. And finally, a dish that evokes the memory of lemon chicken, the dish that she and my daughter Lara would love to make together.

Hasta luego, nuestra querida tia. We were so lucky to have you as long as we did.

Plum ice cream

I have never eaten plum ice cream other than at Auntie Joan’s house and I have no idea why it isn’t a popular flavour commercially. My version only tweaks her original recipe - two egg whites rather than one, a stick of cinnamon and the seeds of a vanilla pod added to the plums as they poach. The brilliant thing about this ice cream - aside from it’s taste of autumn, log fires and sticky crumble - is that you don’t need an ice cream maker.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

300g red-skinned plums

175g caster sugar

¾ cup water

1 cinnamon stick

Seeds from one vanilla pod

Juice of half a lemon

300g double cream

2 egg whites

How to make

Seed and quarter the plums and pop into a pan with the sugar, cinnamon stick, vanilla seeds and water. Bring to a simmer, cover and continue to simmer on a low heat until the plums are soft and the liquid has become syrupy. Turn off the heat and leave for another 10 minutes - you really want the spices and the red skin of the plums to seep into the syrup.

Turn the plums into a sieve and extract as much syrup and pulp as you can into a clean bowl, using the back of a spatula. Cover and chill for at least an hour.

In two separate bowls, whisk the cream until it forms soft peaks (be careful not to overbeat or it will turn into butter) and the egg whites until they form firm peaks.

Alternate folding the cream, then the egg whites, then cream, then egg whites into the plum pulp.

Pour into a freezer container - or just use an oblong cake tin, cover and freeze overnight. Remember to take out of the fridge for 15 mins before serving.

Spanish Cake

This is the perfect cake to eat with a cup of tea or coffee. Light and delicate from texture to flavour. Simple dust of icing sugar on the top and you are good to go. Auntie Joan’s original recipe as typed - which features in Doro’s book - is as spare with detail as one of Bake Off’s technical challenges. Fortunately I featured it in a column I wrote for Choice magazine a few years ago, so have filled in the gaps. Makes 12-16 squares.

Ingredients

125g melted unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

2 eggs, separated

125ml milk

600g plain flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp mixed spice

Icing sugar to serve

How to Make

Heat the oven to 180C. Grease a 20cm square cake tin and line with baking parchment.

Whisk the sugar with the butter until thick and pale. Add the egg yolks and continue to beat for a couple of minutes.

Add the milk and beat again. Finally, sift in the flour, baking powder and spices and mix gently until incorporated.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff, then fold into the cake batter.

Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes. The cake is ready when the top is golden and a toothpick or sate stick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the cake tine for 5 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. When cool, dust the surface with icing sugar, cut into squares and serve.

Quick Chicken with kale, haricots and caramelised lemon

Auntie Joan loved chicken, and when we visited Buenos Aires when my daughter Lara was little, she and Auntie Joan would love to make lemon chicken together. Am sure she would have loved this flavour-packed little number, courtesy of Alison Roman in the NY Times.

Ingredients

1 lemon, thinly sliced, seeds removed

1 shallot, peeled and cut into 8

6-8 chicken thighs

1 400g can of haricot or cannellini beans

1 bunch kale, leaves only (discard ribs)

1tblspn sunflower oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Olive oil for dressing

How to make

Toss the lemon slices and shallots in a small bowl and season.

Heat a large frying pan or skillet, add the sunflower oil, then add the chicken, skin side down. Press the chicken down with a spatula to ensure the maximum surface gets nice and brown. Cook for 5-8 minutes, then cook on the other side for a further 8-10 minutes until cooked through and the chicken skin is nice and crispy. Transfer the chicken to a plate, leaving the fat in the pan.

Add the lemon and shallot to the hot pan - stand pack as it will probably spit and sizzle. Cook, stirring gently, until the lemon has started to caramelise - about 3-5 minutes.

Add the drained beans to the pan and season. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the beans soak up that caramelised chicken fat - about 4 mins. Working in batches, add kale and toss to wilt, seasoning again as you go.

Return the chicken to the pan, along with the juices that have collected on the plate, and cook for a couple of minutes more.

Serve, drizzled with a little olive oil, and accompany with some crusty bread.

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ununniliad · 4 years ago

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WikiLull EXHALE: “After the After”

November 15th, 2016. The lawn outside LNHQ, which is currently in the process of being rebuilt.

There was a great battle here.

...well, since this is the headquarters of the LNH, there have been many great battles here, and many more yet to come. But today feels like the day after a great, terrible battle, tho in fact it's been a week; coming down from the edge is like that, sometimes. And in a way it's been much longer, almost four years; recovering from trauma is like that, sometimes.

Nevertheless, the battle is over. There's a wind through the trees, blowing off the brightly-colored leaves; the world is stepping back, sitting down, and letting out its breath.

A single oak leaf, red and mottled with brown spots, tumbles down through the air, whirling in the cool autumn breeze. It flips, floats down... and disappears into a bubble of swirling darkness, inky colors shimmering and shifting like an oil slick on its surface. The bubble grows to the side of a person, then pops - and Cheesecake-Eater Lad and Token Girl tumble to the ground. A moment later, a tall, muscular blond woman with red eyes and subtle Star Trek-ian ridges on her face lands solidly on her feet - Captain LNH.

Token Girl coughs, pushing herself up, hands on her knees. "Whew. Felt like I was gonna turn inside-out."

Captain LNH chuckles, helping her to her feet. "That's what it's like, traveling from Looniverse-Astaroth, gateway to the Deep Omnilooniverse."

"Yeah, I think I liked it better back when we called it alt.comics.lnh." Token Girl stretches her arms, hands palm-out in front of her, and lets out a tension-releasing yawn. "How're you doing, Cheesy?"

Cheesecake-Eater Lad pounds himself on the chest and coughs. "Good thing I have such a strong stomach, that's all I'm saying." He shakes his head and turns to Captain LNH. "And you really want to... I mean, of course it's your decision."

Captain LNH nods firmly. "It is, and I do. I'm not..." She looks up at the LNHQ. "Not ready to come back."

"I get it... I think." Cheesecake-Eater Lad puts on a brave smile, but its edges start drooping. "I'm just... you spent so long in your own head. Uh, you didn't have a body at the time, but you know what I mean."

"Right, yeah. But not..." Captain LNH grabs her own shoulder, squeezes it. "Not all of us heal by talking about it. At least not right away."

oh god please let me step away from this awkward conversation, thinks Token Girl.

"Right. Well." Cheesecake-Eater Lad takes Captain LNH's hand, puts his over it. "I support you. And the Deep Omnilooniverse couldn't have a better defender."

Captain LNH smiles, a soft wave of starlight rolling thru her hair. "And the regular Looniverse couldn't have a better Anchor of Indulgence."

Cheesecake-Eater Lad chuckles. "Yeah, uh, you'll have to ask Unixepoch what that actually means, the next time you talk to him." He let go of her hands, and she took a step back.

"Will do. See you later, Tara!" Captain LNH begins to float up in the air, cosmic energy coalescing around her body.

Token Girl lets out a breath. "Right. Looking forward to it! Bring me some of the anime merch Looniverse-Murmur has, it looked amazing!"

Captain LNH laughs. "Gotcha. Oh, and keep an eye on the Loonited States for me. That new president..." She shakes her head, smiling. The energies swirl around her body, forming into a swirling bubble of bright colors, shafts of light shining out from the globular mass. It shimmers bright - then seems to zoom away, from every angle, until it is out of sight.

Cheesecake-Eater Lad takes off his toque, runs his hands thru his hair. "Whew." He turns to Token Girl. "We should probably--"

WHUMPF! He's lifted off his feet and up into the arms of a tall, pudgy, freckled woman who showers his face with kisses. "Oh my goodness dear I missed you!"

He squirms in her arms and laughs, wriggling out and onto the ground. "Jeez, hon." His cheeks are a-blush, and Token Girl smirks. "It was only a couple hours."

"Yes, and a couple decades before that, so forgive me my clinginess." She pulls him in close and presses him to her side.

He wiggles pleasantly, and a lithe, athletic woman in an abbreviated ninja outfit walks around his other side. She leans in to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Hearty Homecoming, Husband! Our Wonderful Wife Was Worried, but your Safety Surely Seemed Secure, by Superhuman Skill and Cosmic Competence!" She slides in, snuggling both of them and smiling at Token Girl.

Cheesecake-Eater Lad blushes. "Ah, I believe you know my wives, aLLiterative Lass and Petunia Boonspackle."

Token Girl nods! "Right. aLLi's a co-worker, of course, and I met Petunia back during the whole Neme.sys thing."

"Ah yes, Tara the Multinaut!" Petunia releases Cheesecake-Eater Lad in order to clasp Token Girl's hand in both of her large, warm hands. "Thank you so much, for helping weave our timelines together."

"Aw, don't worry about it," says Token Girl, blushing herself. Gosh, this lady's presence feels comforting, like a crackling fireplace. "I've always been a shipper, anyway. And if the history where Cheesy's alive can coexist with the one where he's dead, it's a minor problem to make the one where he's married to Petunia coexist with the one where he's married to aLLi."

"'Specially Since Sapphic Sisters Surely Sign-off," says aLLiterative Lass. "Truly, Triads Treat Tenderly. Will you Witness our Wonderful Wedding?"

"Er..." Token Girl's eyes swivel back and forth. "Aren't you already...?"

"Separately," notes Petunia, "but since polygamous marriage is legal in this timeline [The Liminals #1 - Footnote Flower Girl], we wanted to let everybody know that this isn't two marriages, or even three, it's one big one." She puts her arm around aLLi, who rests her head on the taller woman.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," smiles Token Girl. "...unless I have to save the world that day, of course."

"Then that can be your present," says Petunia, smiling wide and giving Token Girl a thumbs-up.

"Precipitant Perfidy is a Powerful Possibility with that Present President," says aLLi, rolling her eyes.

"Now, now, let's save the politics for later. For now, we must be off~" Petunia hefts a squeaking Cheesecake-Eater Lad up under one arm, and aLLi under the other. "Picking up the daughters~"

"Right! See you later!" Token Girl chuckles under her breath as she watches them head off. Maybe this is what being the Looniversal Anchor of Indulgence means - making the people around you happy by making yourself happy. Well, good - they all deserve to be happy for a very long time.

She looks up at the clear blue sky, streaked with whispery clouds, and feels herself inch back from that sense of panic and emergency. There will be more emergencies, more world-shaking battles; but for now, she strolls casually back into LNHQ, looking for cheesecake.

The usual crowd is milling about in the lobby, chatting, getting the mail, rushing out to desperately stop a net.villain, learning the true meaning of Armistice Day, and so on. Subtle breezes flow thru the room, the tarp over the partially-destroyed wall flapping in the wind.

Token Girl makes her way thru the crowd with practiced skill, heading towards the hallway door until she spies a cluster of people and people-like entities that she can't let herself miss.

Escape Lass hefts a bowl of apples under her arm. "...can't sustain over-the-air signals, they just bleed out between the dimensional apertures, so we'll have to lay cable the whole way."

"Which is a problem," speaks the bowl of apples, in fact the MicroMAC Quadcore, "since it is an indeterminate distance which, likely, shall change in indeterminable ways over time."

"Right," says Escape Lass, voice filling with problem-solving enthusiasm, "which-- oh, Tara!" She bounces in her blue short-sleeve straitjacket towards Token Girl, wrapping her free arm around her and squeezing her tight to her side.

Token Girl squirms in surprise, but laughs. "Hey, Evie. Y'all about to head out?"

"I think we are," says Escape Lass, letting go of Token Girl and putting Quadcore in her arms. Token Girl blinks at the robot in disguise, who doesn't blink back, as his form currently lacks eyes. "Foreshadowing Lad, how's it looking?"

"Hmmmm..." Foreshadowing Lad stretches out an arm clad in green spandex, and smiles up at Escape Lass. "Feels like we're almost at a happy ending."

Escape Lass grins, takes Foreshadowing Lad's hand, spins him around, dips him back and kisses him, then lets him go~ The young man stumbles back into the arms of his other partner, Non-Judgmental Agnostic, who squeezes him in a tight hug.

"Man, everybody's in a triad nowadays," says Token Girl, chuckling and handing Quadcore back.

"We'd invite you in and make it a quad," says Non-Judgmental Agnostic in her soft, tinkling, quasi-divine voice, "but I'm afraid it would turn into a Great LNH Polycule and swallow Net.ropolis."

Token Girl flushes. "Uh, so uh, y'all are going to make your way back to your world, Escape Lass?"

Escape Lass nods firmly. "Right. We're going to head down into the depths of the LNHQ, down to the point where the LNHQs of different universes start mingling to save on storage space, and find our way home to the Legacy of Newfangled Hierophants."

"Newly designated Looniverse-Bael," speaks Quadcore.

"That's right, in the Deep Omnilooniverse... ah, dammit." Token Girl tsks at herself. "We could've had Captain LNH take you back."

Escape Lass shakes her head! "No, don't forget, we have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs back."

"Preferably in the form of interuniversal messaging system," speaks Quadcore. "If we can overcome these significant technical issues."

"That's right," nods Token Girl, dislodging some of the details she learned during that whole confusing shebang. "You got a lot of people who'd like to emigrate."

"Right, tho your Looniverse isn't our main destination." Escape Lass smiles down at Quadcore. "Somebody made us a better offer."

"Ohhhh..." Token Girl looks between the lady and the robot and it clicks. "Ohhhhh-- with *them*!"

Escape Girl laughs, fingers half-covering her mouth as her eyes sparkle, and nods. "Right."

"That's-- wow," says Token Girl, processing the idea. "A world with tiny robots and giant humans feels very Deep Omnilooniverse, but it's not what I would have expected them to--"

"Cower, fools!" A figure leaps into their midst, with the swish of a cape! He rolls back his head and opens his mouth to let out a megalomaniacal cackle!

"Ah-ha-ha-ha! Mueh-heh-heh-heh! ...how was that?"

"... it sounds like you're making progress!" says Non-Judgmental Agnostic supportively!

The figure smiles in delight. He looks like a very normal person, with hair a few tones darker than his skin and eyes that are a color. The only odd things about him are the crimson circuitry running down from his eyes, over his chin and down his neck, and the symbol on his forehead - a stylized sword tucked into a breast pocket, with fancy monogrammed initials on it - PE, for the Pocket Empire!

"...cool, hi," says Token Girl, eyeing the man. She'll have to catch up with WikiBoy on all his weird clones later, but for now, she's pretty sure this is... "wIkimus Maximus, right?"

"Correct!" says wIkimus proudly, idly battling his cape out of the way.

"Or should we call you..." Escape Lass tosses Quadcore to wIkimus and points a dramatic finger. "Our most thrilling enemy!"

wIkimus juggles Quadcore for a moment before getting his arms solidly under the bowl, then looks back at Escape Lass. "Mwa-ha-heh-heh-ho! That's right! Now that I have deposed the foolish Antiochus XXVIII, I am the one true leader of the Pocket Empire!"

"God, and thank you for doing that," says Escape Lass, shaking her head. "Um, and argh you fiend and such."

Token Girl has her arms crossed and her eyebrow raised. "That's a heck of a thing."

"It probably seems strange," says Non-Judgmental Agnostic, smiling. "But on many worlds, the rivalry of support is one of the strongest social bonds there is."

Token Girl nods, and leans away from the dramatically-proclaiming nerds so that her worlds can go straight to the ears of Non-Judgmental Agnostic and Foreshadowing Lad. "So... what happened to CassAIndra?"

Foreshadowing Lad sighs, a heavy weight on his brow. "Multi-Tasking Man thinks he can fix her."

"He'd be the one if anyone was," murmurs Non-Judgmental Agnostic. "They know each other from the inside out, now."

"Fair. I just wanted to thank her... well, hopefully I'll get the chance." Token Girl shakes her head. "And WikiMan?"

"His WikiPowers are lost," says Foreshadowing Lad, "and I don't see a future where he gets them back. He's now a fixed narrative being, based on his last edit."

"I don't think he minds much, tho," says Non-Judgmental Agnostic. "He gets to experience the childhood he never did the first time, with the MicroMACs as his friends."

Token Girl nods thoughtfully, eyes on Escape Lass and wIkimus. "And... mmm." She shakes her head. "I don't know. It feels strange that all the different factions, the Pocket Empire and the Guardiettes and the AniMACs and the MicroMicroMACs and everybody else, are still going to keep fighting each other, even tho..." Her forehead wrinkles, and she looks up at Non-Judgmental Agnostic. "Like, do they really have a reason?"

Non-Judgmental Agnostic turns her eyes up to the skylight over the foyer, watching the clouds swoosh by. She takes a deep breath, and in an 'I am reciting this from memory' voice, says, "Ever since the Trademarkers used their Alterscope to spy on the RoboMAC worlds, the MicroMACs have been fighting battles for the entertainment of others." She smiles at Token Girl. "They can be more than that, now. They already are. But doing huge, dramatic, splashy stuff for an audience - that's part of them."

"Like it's part of the LNH," says Foreshadowing Lad, nodding.

"Heh. I guess so..." Token Girl turns to Escape Lass and wIkimus Maximus and snaps her fingers, giving them the fingerguns. "Okay, I'm gonna head off. Catch you all on the flipside."

"Oh, before you go!" Escape Lass bounds forward and catches her in a hug. Token Girl squirms in obvious embarassment and quiet delight, and hugs her back.

After she's let go, Token Girl waves and heads out of the foyer and down the winding corridors of LNHQ, towards the cafeteria. As she turns a corner, a figure staring off into space collides with her, both of them falling on their butts.

"--oh, sorry!" The other one scrambles to his feet, and Token Girl can see that it's Can-Handle-Any-Type-of-Change-Except-For-the-Ultimate-Ninja-Wearing-a-Cape Lad, three-time winner of the Longest Name in the Legion contest.

"That's okay," she says, helping him up. "But are you all right? You seem, uh, distracted."

He shakes his head, blushing just a bit. "It's just..." He looks over his shoulder, then leans in to murmur. "I'm afraid my powers are malfunctioning."

"Ohhhh?" Token Girl felt a slight tinge of worry. CHAToCEFtUNWaCLad was a relatively new Legionnaire, but had already become one of their dependable stalwarts.

He nods firmly. "I saw Ultimate Ninja walk by the cape closet, and..." He breathes just a bit deeper. "I didn't feel anything."

"...ah." Token Girl's worry becomes a different kind of... melancholy, really. She had been right there when it happened, but...

"Me too!" Puts-Paperclips-on-The-Ultimate-Ninja's-Desk Lad, three-time loser of the Least Useful Power in the Legion contest, popped into the conversation out of nowhere. "I just got a new jar of clips and they've just been sitting in a drawer all week!"

"Oh, man!" says Can-Handle-Any-Type-of-Change-Except-For-the-Ultimate-Ninja-Wearing-a-Cape Lad. "It's weird, isn't it?"

"It's super weird!"

"Mmmm..." Token Girl draws in a breath. "Well, maybe you should go to Doctor Stomper and have him check up on your powers."

"Ooh, yeah, good idea. Thanks, TG!" The two of them head off in the general direction of sickbay, chattering about the weirdness of the day.

Token Girl rubs her upper arm, getting some of that stiff tension out. She was there when it happened, but... she's not supposed to say anything. She's still not really sure that was the right choice, but it's...

Well, it's what Ultimate Ninja wanted, so.

She makes it down to the cafeteria, grabs a slice of one of Betamax's weird culinary experiments (in this case, pizza with black bean sauce and cotija cheese), reflills her canteen from the water filter, and takes ten to relax, sip, eat and process.

Just about ten minutes later: "Hey, mind if I sit here?"

Token Girl is tired enough that her first impulse is to pull out one of her trademark snappy comebacks so she doesn't have to People any more. But she recognizes the voice, and its owner doesn't count as a People, he counts as a Friend; so she looks up and gives a tired but sincere smile. "Yeah, sure!"

And Wikiboy sits down, putting his Szechuan tacos and soda on the table and smiling back, with just a touch of hard-earned confidence. "How've you been?"

"I've been..." Token Girl rolls her mind over a chaotic landscape of emotion... "I've been a lot. How about you?"

"Uh... also a lot, I think." Wikiboy adjusts his hair and straightens up. "Adjusting to how my powers work now, and the new... part of me, I guess you'd call it."

Token Girl nods, the questions that have been on her mind for a while rolling to the front. "Yeah, uh, did you absorb, like... the whole Apathy Beast, or...?"

"It felt like it at the time, but now it just feels like..." WikiBoy puts his hand over his chest, and takes a deep breath, stilling. "...like an extra bit of... weight? Calmness? Metaphysical machinery?" He shrugs! "Something like."

"Right. But you can still be edited?"

"Yeah, that still works about the same way. It's just that I can ignore edits if I really want to." He looks out the window. "It's kind of... the power to Not Care."

A little wave of regret sloshes on the shores of Token Girl's brain. "Gotcha. ..can you edit yourself?"

WikiBoy stares out the window, quiet for a long while. "...I don't know. When... when we were all together, all in one body, I could, but... I haven't tried since." He takes another deep breath, straightens up, and turns to her with a smile. "Someday, I guess. But right now, it feels like..." His smile droops just a bit at the edges. "WiKaine messed himself up real bad by editing out everything he couldn't stand."

Token Girl summons up her ultra-secret net.ahuman power, Being Distractingly Light and Humorous. "You mean Axen Kiwi, the No One of WikiBoy, right?"

WikiBoy blinks, then laughs. "Oh, god, yeah. I forgot about all the convoluted video game nonsense for a bit."

She grins. "Kingdom Hearts references are the natural destination of ridiculously convoluted crossover plotting."

"They really are." He shakes himself and runs his hands thru his hair, blushing a bit as he realizes how vulnerable he'd been. "I think he ran off into the Deep Omnilooniverse in the end. I hope he finds something to..."

"...put in that literal heart-shaped hole in his chest?" Seeeecret power!

"Oh, god, that's right. WikiBoy laughs. "Jeez our lives are hilarious sometimes." He shakes his head ruefully. "I didn't really get that, when I was the butt of all the jokes."

Oh no, the secret power backfired and now a huge wave of guilt is swamping Token Girl's brain! "I'm--" She stumbles. "I'm sorry if I ever--"

WikiBoy holds up a hand and looks her in the eyes. "Don't worry about it, please."

"...you sure?"

He picks up his taco and gives a big, performative bite, chewing and swallowing. "I was--" Slurp crunch smack. "I was created to be the butt of all the jokes, the one who just takes abuse because it's not as funny if I get revenge. That's who my Writer needed me to be... a harmless fantasy, something you write to find the happy buttons in the folds of your own brain and push them, and maybe find other people with the same buttons that'll enjoy it. That's who I was, then, and... I'm kinda proud of it?" He takes another bite, and licks his fingers. "Yeah, definitely this weird existential pride."

"I don't really get it," says Token Girl, "buuuuut that's good?"

WikiBoy giggles and lets out a little snort. "Yeah, it is. But then other writers got ahold of me, ones with different buttons, and they decided to take the elements of the fantasy and use them for a different kind of story. Like Jay Edidin embracing Chris Claremont's version of Lee and Kirby's Cyclops - finding the part that appeals to you. That's what collaborative fiction universes are about. And now I'm who I am right now." He pulls out a wet-wipe and cleans off his fingers. "There's plenty of room in there for different interpretations, too. I still get into wacky unfortunate comedic peril." He tosses the wipe on his tray and leans back in his chair. "I dunno. It's weird to think about who I used to be, but... yeah, I'm not sorry I was him."

Token Girl looks at WikiBoy, relaxing, thoughtful, and warmth swells in her chest. "I'm proud of you, man."

"Awh. Well." WikiBoy blushes, straightens up, and grabs the rest of his taco, shoving it in his mouth and mumbling "Thanks." around the food.

Token Girl chuckles. "So, uh... what haven't we... oh, yeah, WikiCide. He decided to become your evil opposite, huh?"

"Yeah~" WikiBoy swallows. "I'm proud of him, too. He's had a longer path than I have, even, but I think he's gonna do a great job."

"Four outta five ain't bad, I think," says Token Girl.

WikiBoy nods, and streeeetches and yaaaaaaaawns. "Mmmmm... I think I'm gonna go take a post-lunch nap."

"Hey, nap buddies~" Token Girl holds up her fist, and WikiBoy bumps it. She stands up and stretches. "See ya when I see ya."

"See ya too, assuming I have eyes at that point." WikiBoy stands up and picks up his tray.

Token Girl turns to go... ponders for a moment. "Hey, WikiBoy?" She snaps her fingers. "You're an SD Deathscythe."

"...yeah, sure~" WikiBoy poofs into an adorably chibi battle robot holding a glowing laser scythe, and toddles off on his chunky robotic feet.

Token Girl makes her way out of the cafeteria and down to her room without any more run-ins. She shuts the door and leans back on it, closing her eyes. Jeez, what a day. And it isn't over yet, but she can kick off her big stompy boots, hang up her button-covered denim jacket, flop into bed, cuddle a body pillow with a badass anime girl on it, and take a nap.

...she dreams of patterns in the sky, lines that aren't lines and gods that are great rotating symbols, and she watches the lines separate until the symbol is gone, and she watches Discord wave as she passes...

Token Girl wakes up 23 minutes after her alarm was supposed to go off. Oh, crap, she's supposed to get the Metatronium Sifter back in-- oh crap oh crap oh crap!!

She pushes her feet into her boots and wiggles her heels into place, grabs her jacket, and charges down the hallway to the transporter room. Parking Karma Kid is there, sitting behind the console and watching a compliation of ridiculous Grand Theft Auto vehicle tricks on his phone.

"Pete!" Token Girl says, leaping onto a transporter.thingy pad.thingee. "Gotta be at a place right exactly now! Address!" She throws a paper airplane at him.

Parking Karma Kid catches it out of the air and unfolds it. "So you're asking me to drop you off, not in some open space at sea level, but inside a mid-city building on the fifth floor?"

Token Girl nods desperately!!

Parking Karma Kid cracks his knuckles. "Thanks! But next time, give me a hard one!" His fingers dance over the console and she's gone~

Token Girl materializes in the hallway outside apartment 507-- whew, only a minute and a half late. She knocks on the door, and a kinda butch lady with short curly hair and devastating cheekbones opens it - "Terrible" Maddie Turnip. Token Girl holds out her hand, Maddie grabs it with a little grin, and they go up, down, left, right, wiggle your pinkies - the old Radikool Kidz Klub secret handshake. Then Maddie pulls her forward unexpectedly into a brief but strong hug that makes Token Girl gasp - not unpleasantly - as the air is squeezed out of her.

Behind Maddie, on the couch, are two people. One is a tall, dark-haired woman with a sort of 40's pinup girl look and an infectuous smile - Forgotten Gal. The other is a scrawny young man of Polish descent, with long blue hair and wearing a lemon-yellow T-shirt and blue jeans - Skrajny the Multinaut.

"C'mon, c'mon, I got a cherry crumble in the oven." Maddie leads Token Girl in and sits her down in a big plush recliner, a plate of dessert pressed into her hands.

"Okay, okay," laughs Token Girl. "But just one slice for me, please, I've got a dinner date." She takes the proffered fork and nibbles - delicious. "Lessee, uh..." She reaches into her satchel and pulls out a weird, septagonal device. "Here ya go, Skrajny."

"Please, call me Kacper." He says 'Casper' but Token Girl's gone thru enough baby naming sites to know how it's spelled. Kacper takes the Metatronium Sifter. "Tho I don't know what I'm gonna do with it."

"We'll figure it out," says Forgotten Gal, squeezing Skrajny's hand and giving him a reassuring smile. Token Girl notices that she's still wearing the Nostalgic Brace she'd gotten... somewhere along the line, Token Girl wasn't really sure. But it counterbalanced her forgettability, for people who had an emotional investment in her - which everyone in the room definitely did.

Token Girl decides to jump directly to the elephant in the room. "You're definitely not going home, then?"

Kacper sucks in a breath, lets it blow out loose lips. "...I want to go back. I want to help my people, the ones who are still trapped in that messed-up imperialist view of the multiverse." He puts his hands out in front of him and shakes his head. "But the Ordered Realities bureaucracy would hunt me down as a deserter even if I wasn't keeping the Idoloid technology. It's much safer, for now, for me to stay in an unregistered world where their influence is strictly indirect."

Maddie nods. "'Sides, this way, we can keep each other safe."

"Hell yeah!" Forgotten Girl pumps her fist. "Heroes together!"

"Woo!" says Kacper, giving a thumbs-up.

Token Girl grins and finishes off her bit of cherry crumble. "I'm glad to have someone like you on the force, Maddie."

"Heh, well." Maddie puts down her beer and gives Token Girl a tired but sincere smile. "Thanks, but I ain't on the force anymore."

"...oh. Uh." Social snafu? Had something happened?? "Sorry???"

"Nah, it's okay." Maddie sits back, arms crossed. "You're right, I was a good cop. But I was mostly good at not being like a cop's supposed to be. And after we found out..." She shakes her head. "Some of Shadez Radikal's people were... acquaintances, maybe even kind of friends. People I thought I could count on - people who'd given me orders. And I thought about those orders..." She shrugs. "I'm done with necessary evils. Or as done as you can be, in this world."

Token Girl let out a breath. "Yeah, that's fair. And like, who even knows what the laws are gonna be like with that new President."

"Oh lord, that guy," says Maddie, shaking her head and tilting her beer back, pouring the rest of it down her throat, then letting out a satisfying belch.

"Coulda been worse, tho," says Forgotten Gal, punching Maddie lightly in the shoulder.

"Yeah," says Token Girl, shaking her head too. "Anyway, what are you gonna do now?"

"You wanna take this one?" Maddie says to Forgotten Gal, who smiles and leans forward.

"We're gonna try and make something new. A place for Weird People."

"While everything was going down, we ended up getting to know some of your Shadow People," says Kacper.

"And we had ideas, and they had ideas..." says Maggie. "And a lotta those ideas were compatible."

"It's gonna be a place where weirdos like us can just, like, live, and support each other," says Forgotten Gal, eyes sparkling with possibility. "Without having to worry about cops, or CEOs, or weird people in frog masks, or any of that."

"Sounds great," says Token Girl. "But..." She rubs her chin thoughtfully. "Isn't that basically the LNH?"

Maggie lets out a little bark of a laugh. "Kid, you got a flippin' ninja death machine for a leader. It ain't an egalitarian society yet, that's for sure."

"...yeah, you know, fair, reasonable."

"Besides," interjects Forgotten Gal enthusiastically, "we can have more than one!"

"We gotta have more than one," says Maddie. "As many as we can get, I think."

Token Girl mmmmmms. "Good point..."

"It's like the Powernauts taught me," says Kacper. "You gotta spread the power around."

Token Girl giggles. "Right, and--" She's interrupted by her phone, which belts out a rousing chorus of 'Yappapa'. "Aw shoot!" She bounces to her feet! "Gotta get going to dinner!"

"Hugs first!" Forgotten Gal leaps up and hugs her, and Token Girl puts up only minimal protest. Maggie pushes herself to her feet and wraps her arms around the both of them with even less protest, and after a hesitant moment, Kacper joins in. Token Girl feels embarassingly warm and snuggly and appreciated, and only lets it go on for so long before she squirms out and away.

"See ya!" Everybody waves as she heads out the door.

This time, she walks to her destination; it's only a few blocks down the street, and exercise is always a useful prelude to the kind of food you get at the Pizza Pit.

At the door, she checks her phone; 7:57 PM. Awesome, just a couple minutes early. She slides inside and finds a place to lean up against the wall, looking up at the stage. She wouldn't want to miss this - the very last performance of the Cool Name Band.

Merissa is absolutely shredding on the bass, and Kid Occultism Kid is leading on guitar. Keeping up the beat is, of course, Deathspork: The Terminator on drums, with accompaniment by Amnesiac Brad Pitt on saxophone. And belting out the vocals at the top of her lungs is the one and only top of the pops, Rock'n'Roll Lass!

The crowd looks up from their pizzas, at the stage usually reserved for animatronic animals and karaoke performances of Baby Shark, enraptured by the sudden sense of something special happening; a magical alchemy that will disappear after tonight, and somehow, that feels okay; somehow, that feels right.

Token Girl leans back and lets the sound wash over her; the secret chord that pleased Discord. She hadn't been able to appreciate it properly before, either during the Secret War of the Bands or during the moment they had played to the universe itself. Now... her eyes lid, and her breath slows, and something opens up in her chest, and she lets it flow thru her...

When the music ends, she opens her eyes, stands up, and streeeetches. It feels like she's taken another nap, but she's absolutely brimming with energy...

"Thank you, Net.ropolis!" shouts Rock'n'Roll Lass. "Never forget where the rock came from! Good night!" The curtains swish closed, and Token Girl slips around the side and heads backstage.

The five of them are in the dressing room, taking off their stage makeup and chatting, letting themselves wind down too. Token Girl knock-knocked and leaned in. "Hey! Got a minute for your biggest fan?"

All five look up and all five smile, tho Deathspork's expression is annoyed at his own happiness. Rock'n'Roll Lass crosses the room, grabs Token Girl's hand, and pulls her up close in a sororal fist-clasp. "Glad you could make it, babe."

Token Girl feels that warmth rise to her cheeks again. "Wouldn't miss seeing y'all off!"

"Indeed, you are just in time!" Deathspork rises, having strapped his drums to a wheely cart, and gestures grandly. "For our alliance has been fruitful-- but now it must end! You have earned my respect, but the next time we meet, it will be-- as enemies!!"

Merissa rolls her eyes exaggeratedly. "Dude. PLEASE get over yourself and you might stop sucking."

"Verily," speaks Kid Occultism Kid, "you have far greater potential than you allow yourself to know. Especially on the drums."

"Bah!" Deathspork opens the stage door and sweeps dramatically out of the Pizza Pit. Tries to sweep dramatically out of the Pizza Pit. Trips on the steps and falls out of the Pizza Pit.

Screaming.

"...right," says Token Girl. "How about you, babe?"

Rock'n'Roll Lass laughs. "Yeah, I'm headed off too. Got to get back to the '60s and make sure all the 'classic rock' isn't being produced by white boys." She shakes her head. "'Classic'. Man, what a trip."

"Hang it loose!" says Amnesiac Brad Pitt, throwing up the horns.

Rock'n'Roll Lass raises her eyebrows and chuckles. "Yeah, you do you! G'night, folks!" She steps carefully over Deathspork, and disappears into the night.

"I have taken the liberty of ordering our repast for the evening!" Kid Occultism Kid thrusts out a hand, and the wood warps within the dressing room wall, turning into a mystic swirly portal! "Shall we?"

Merissa rolls her eyes. "You really didn't need to be that extra." She walks up to the door... and blasts it into tiny pieces with her Ultra-Mega-BIGGUN! "Not when you could be that extra!" >:D

"oh my god you nerds." Token Girl stepped thru the pieces of broken door, pulling Amnesiac Brad Pitt along with her. Kid Occultism Kid waves their hands, and a giant arrow appears, guiding them to their table. A waitress drops off their pizza and gets Merissa's signature, and they dive in.

"So," says Token Girl, dipping one of their gloriously greasy breadsticks into marinara, "how are you holding up, Brad?"

"Ah..." Amnesiac Brad Pitt shakes his head. "I don't think I'm going to call myself that anymore." He gets up and stands behind his chair, putting one hand on the faded First Trenchcoat draped over it. "After the other Brad Pitts formed the Idolon of Millions and sacrificed themselves, the idea of holding up that name, that legacy... that's not what I am."

Kid Occultism Kid swallows and says, "And what, then, would you be?"

"I'm just a memory of what came before." The former Amnesiac Brad Pitt puts on the First Trenchcoat and turns towards the door, but stops for a moment, looks back. "I'm just... a Memento."

"...uh," says Merissa, "you weren't in that movie."

He freezes. "Wait, really?"

"Are you thinking of Guy Pearce, maybe?" says Kid Occultism Kid.

"Well shit." The still-nameless Idolon turns around and sit back down at the table. "So... how about that election?"

The tension breaks and the table turns into a caophony of nods, sighs, mumbles and eyerolls.

"Like jeez that new President," says Merissa, shaking her head. "I mean, I was too busy to run, but..."

"Yeah," says Token Girl, "but... it could definitely have been worse."

Merissa pauses, remembering, and nods firmly. "Yeah, it really could..."

"And for now," says Kid Occultism Kid, "we shall look forward, to the future. To what we can do to keep this from happening again - to make things truly better."

"Hear, hear," says Mr. What's-His-Name.

Between them, the foursome quickly finish off the pizza, the breadsticks, and the side order of wings. Token Girl lets out a satisfied belch, and Merissa gives her a high-five. "Okay," she says, "I'm gonna head back to LNHQ, how 'bout y'all?"

"I'll totes come with," says Merissa, picking up her bass.

"I shall stay here and help our friend consult on a new moniker," says Kid Occultism Kid.

"yeah thanks," says you-know-who.

The two of them head out the door, into the cool autumn night, gibbous moon waning overhead. As they walk, Token Girl feels Merissa's demeanor change, from the chill relaxed lady she likes to project to the insecure teenager-esque being she actually is (in Token Girl's estimation). Something wants to come out, but it can't be forced, so she waits...

They're almost there when Merissa turns to her and bursts out with a "So hey..."

"Yeah?" says Token Girl, like she hadn't been waiting.

"It's just..." Merissa fidgets, and her face wrinkles up in the frustration of being kuudere, trying to hold back her feelings to maintain her persona of Cool. Thankfully, she isn't very good at it, and the words come spilling out. "Do you really think we can make stuff better? Like, the world almost went totally to shit! It's fucked up in so many different ways! I don't think..." Her voice softens, and she turns her gaze away. "I don't think anybody, no matter how cool and powerful they are, can deal with it by themselves."

Shit. Token Girl does not consider herself anything like 'good at this stuff'. Fearless Leader or Catalyst Lass would be much better at the encouraging speeches, and Special Bonding Boy or Fairy Princess Lad would be much much better at the talking about feelings. But, well, she was there and now she's here, so she takes a deep breath and...

"...yeah, I think you're right. Like... during all the shit that happened, all of the crazy and cosmic and depressing and amazing stuff-- I couldn't have done any of it by myself. Which..." Okay, here goes. "Which is why we all had to do that together. So many of us had to take it on from so many different angles, your band, the Powernauts, Captain LNH and Cheesecake-Eater Lad, the MicroMACs, Maddie and Forgotten Gal, Escape Lass and WikiMan, all the WikiBoys, all of us... We had to come from different places, different backgrounds, different powersets and different stations in life, because we were all needed, we all helped in different ways."

Merissa's eyes are wide and-- oh, dear, yes, they're sparkling. Well, at least it's working - better wrap up while she's ahead.

"So like... yeah, I do think we can stuff better, but only if we keep doing that. If we all value each other's efforts, and don't stop supporting each other - the front line fighters, the healers and comforters, the big public speakers, the logistics nerds, the hyperspecialists..." Token Girl chuckles. "And the token weirdos like me, who just happened to be in the right time and place to kinda, give a little push in a helpful direction."

"...hey!" says Merissa, snorting. "Don't be so down on yourself, grandma. You did a lot of the work too." She shrugs~ "Not as much as me, of course~"

Token Girl laughs. Oh thank fuck it worked. "Grandma, eh? Well, sonny, er, little lady... no, that sounds dumb, I don't know how grandmas talk."

Merissa lets out a gigglesnort. "Okay, okay, so stop talking. See you in the morning, I'm gonna do something cooler than hanging out with you~" She runs down the sidewalk to the back door of the LNHQ, swings it open, and yells, "Also you're rad and thanks!" before disappearing.

Token Girl chuckles, running her hands thru her hair as she saunters thru the back door. Whew. It's been a day of far too many emotions... time to vegetate.

She finds her way to the TV room, the hallways gently guiding her as always. Forsaken Lass and Net.Access are on one of the overstuffed couches, making out and oblivious to the world around them, so she flops down on the other one, next to Fuzzy. "What's on the boob tube?"

"Well, I don't watch the news a lot," says Fuzzy, flipping from channel to channel like it's 1992 or something. "But I figured this was important." She stops on an image of a podium with American flags around it. Vaguely stirring, vaguely patriotic music was playing.

"...welp," says Token Girl, running her hands thru her hair. "Let's do this."

The vague music quiets, and a warm and enthusiastic announcer comes on, completely unfazed by what he's about to say. "Ladies and gentlemen, in his first address to the nation, please welcome the new President-Elect of the Loonited Sates of Ame.rec.a..."

A person walks up to the podium. A person both of them recognize. A person both of them have fought with. And before last week, the last person either of them would have expected to see up there...

"...Bad Judgment Boy!"

The Icon of Ill-Considered Ideas strolls saucily up to the podium. He's wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Che Guevara on it and tight shorts that say "JUICY" on the bottom. He grabs the microphone (causing a screech of feedback) and addresses the nation.

"Hey guys! Wait, there's a teleprompter. My... fellow... Africans..."

An aide runs up to Bad Judgment Boy and whispers urgently in his ear, but he waves them off.

"Look, look, I know you wanted me to talk about the economy or whatever, but let's focus on what's really important: Me! See, I'll be great for the Ame.rec.an people. Most politicians are big in debt to shady figures in industry. But all the shady figures *I*'m in debt to disappeared last week, so it's fine!"

Token Girl watches, open-mouthed, for as long as she can stand. Then she grabs the remote, clicks off the TV, and falls back on the couch. She looks up at Fuzzy. "...well, it coulda been worse, right?"

Fuzzy chuckles. "It really could have. But..." She scratches her head. "I still don't understand how the heck he won!"

Token Girl sits up and shakes her head. "I should head to bed." She stands up, streeeetching out. "But I'll tell you what I can tomorrow." She walks to the door, but turns when she gets there. "And we can start at the end." She gives Fuzzy a wink, then ambles away.

Fuzzy shakes her head. "Good night." She turns to the camera. "And sleep well, when you do."

----

Author's Notes: So, the thing is...

I had SO MANY PLANS for WikiLull. And they grew, and they grew, and they just kept growing. And I realized - what I really wanted WikiLull to be was a catharsis to all the pain and awfulness of the 2016 election, all of its causes and all of its effects. And that's just too big for one story to be.

So instead, I decided to tie off the loose ends, and take a lot of the places Jeanne and I had wanted characters to go and just move them there, and leave the Looniverse with a good status quo. And get it done before the 2020 election, eheheh... just under the wire.

The Deep Omnilooniverse is, of course, a parody of DC's Dark Multiverse. Jeanne and I were originally going to call it the "Dark Omnilooniverse", but using "dark" like that is overdone and carries Weird Racial Overtones, and the play on the idea of the "deep web" was really compelling. All of the Deep Omnilooniverse worlds mentioned in this issue are named after demons from the Ars Goetia, because we're fancy like that. It's not very well-defined here, so feel free to go wild!

#Fiction #Original Fiction #Superheroes #Silliness #Drama #Adventure #Legion of Net.Heroes #Classic LNH #WikiLull

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breaking-earth · 7 years ago

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Breaking Earth (Ninjago Fanfic): Chapter 10

The final chapter of Cole’s journey to survive, and whether he even does. But Cole’s journey led him to his nightmare; maybe here is where his legacy ends.

Prologue - Chapter 9: here

With a gasp of fear, Cole instantly flattened himself on the closed doorway. “No…not here…anywhere but here…”

Madge stared at him in shock, but she wasn’t the only one. Other people from the new realm looked up from their work and turned to stare as well. The room was dark by itself, the only light emitting from each of the workers’ workspace. They all had on the exact same attire as Madge, and all of them were pale like they had never seen sunlight in their life. But it wasn’t the people that scared Cole…it was the room. It was the room.

“Cole, what in Ninjago is wrong with you?” Madge hissed. She reached out to take a hold of his wrist before hesitating. Her hand jerked upwards, grabbing his ninja suit and then pulled him off the wall, where it was covered in hissing orange cracks. “This is not the sort of reaction I was expecting!”

“I’ve…been here…” Cole breathed heavily as all the nightmares washed over him again. The panic…the fear…no escape…

Madge snorted. “That’s impossible. No one in Ninjago has EVER been-“

“In a nightmare-“ Cole interrupted. “I was here, alone. I couldn’t escape, but I could hear my friends – they needed me – and I couldn’t find them and-“

Cole glanced around nervously at all the confused workers as they paused from their work. Cole ignored their faces as he stared in fear at all the other faces.

The workers all stood in front of their own technically advanced computer screens with a hologram image of a random person they were currently Designing for Ninjago. They were the exact same computer screens Cole saw in his nightmare, and this was the same exact building he destroyed with his own fists.

“Madge, I can’t be here- I destroyed this place in my nightmare- this is just a bad sign – please, I have to go back –“ Cole pleaded with the taller woman, but she grabbed Cole by his tattered gi and lifted him just a little off the ground and stared into his eyes.

“If you go back, you-your friends-and all of Ninjago will perish by your hand. Here, you are safe, but only for a few more minutes before you destroy this realm. And if our realm falls, the Cloud Kingdom falls too, and Ninjago will not be in good shape. So I am telling you right now to put on your big boy panties and grow up.”

Cole gulped back a knot in his throat. “But I destroyed this place-“

“In your dreams, Master of Earth.” Madge told him sarcastically as he put him back down. “In your dreams.” Cole paused, then nodded, trying to swallow down his growing fear and pain that was beginning to build up in his head.

Both Cole and Madge turned back to the rest of the room where all the other Designers were staring in an awkward awe. Cole was still terrified of the environment while Madge put on a fake smile and tightened her coat. “Well, I’m back!”

The room was deadly silent as they all blinked at her. There was a pause as Madge basked in the awkward silence before clapping her hands together. “Good to see you all too, I’m going to take Cole to my station now.” She tugged on Cole’s suit and hissed down at him, “Come with me and touch nothing.”

With that, Madge took off down the center isle followed quickly by Cole who was too terrified to make eye contact with any of the Designers or of the people they were designing. Truth be that all the Designers were just as scared of Cole as Cole was scared of himself.

________________________________________________________

Jay had no idea how he ended up outside, but that’s where the other ninja found him. He was perched on a boulder as he delicately held his photograph of him and Cole, his eyes dry but still drowning with unspoken emotion. He heard the Bounty approach from overhead and the other four ninja drop down in their Airjitzu formation.

Someone instantly grabbed him from behind and pulled him into a hug. Jay instantly recognized Nya’s smell, and the sudden sense of comfort made Jay tear up all over again. The ninja were all talking to him, asking him about Cole and where he was, but in that moment all he wanted was to be wrapped in Nya’s arms like he was. He stuffed the photo in his suit and turned to Nya and stuffed his face into her chest, his face wet with tears again. He wrapped his arms around her and began to sob, and somehow through his disorientation he felt Nya kiss his forehead and rest her chin on Jay’s head as she too began to cry.

Off to the side, Kai finally stopped demanding answers from the heartbroken blue ninja. Instead, as his eyes began to tear up, he slowly walked over and wrapped his arms around his sister from the back as he buried his face into her shoulder.

Zane took a seat next to Jay and placed his metallic arm on Jay’s shoulder. Lloyd followed and sat on the other side of Jay. Zane and Lloyd exchanged a sad look before Lloyd glanced over his shoulder into an unfamiliar mouth of a dark cave that the five of them gathered outside. Together, the team was broken hearted to even think that Cole could very possibly be gone for good.

________________________________________________________

It was impossible to remember all the lefts and rights in the maze of the building. Madge was swiftly pacing the hallways while Cole was stumbling behind her, focusing on internalizing the pain, not touching anything, staying on his feet, and remembering the path out of the building if anything went wrong. But after turn fifteen he forgot which way was left and which way was right. Also his whole sight turned green.

Finally Madge turned into a small square room with one hologram desk tucked to the side. A huge face of a young girl who oddly looked a bit like Kai filled the room. Cole froze in shock, but Madge quickly tapped a button and the face vanished. “Pretend you didn’t see that,” she murmured as she quickly made small finger motions in the air around her screen. “Go over there,” she directed the ninja, pointing to the middle of the room.

Cole stumbled to his spot before looking down at his hands. They were neon orange now, glowing so brightly it was almost unbearable to look. There was some hissing sound that was beginning to be detected in Cole’s ears, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. He looked around, but to no luck. He looked down, then realized he was barefoot. “Those were my favorite shoes…” he murmured, then tried to see if something on his chest was hissing. He made the wrong decision with touching his gi.

With a yelp he watched as his ninja gi exploded with orange cracks before breaking apart into ash. Even his bandages decayed, leaving huge half-healed gashes in his chest. The ash rained to the floor around him, creating a ring around his glowing feet. Cole nervously looked up at Madge, but she was already staring. Cole looked down at his chest again only to see his right breast decorated with green cracks, his left breast almost the same but nearing his heart.

“When it reaches your heart, time’s up,” Madge snapped as she vigorously continued ‘typing’. “Give me just a few more seconds…”

Cole bit his lip, but a few seconds didn’t seem long enough. The pain was increasing steadily, and his mind was screaming bloody murder while he patiently waited for whatever Madge had up her long black sleeves.

The seconds slowly turned to a minute. The hissing increased, causing Cole to check his hands again. Ash was curling off his fingers even though he wasn’t touching anything…wait.

“Madge, I’m turning the air into ash…” Cole groaned through the pain, watching in horror as the ash-air drifted around him.

“That’s lovely dear just tell me if your cracks spread okay,” Madge responded with an emotionless drawl, not even glancing up from her computer.

Cole clenched his fist as the pain grew, and a puff of ash clouded around him. “C’mon c’mon c’mon,” Cole whispered to himself as the pain did nothing but swell. His body was the most tense it had ever been, and his muscles were so tight it was like they would fall off if he loosened up only a little. “Please hurry please hurry please hurr-“

“Cole I can hear you and it’s not helping.” Madge hissed as she slammed her fingers on a few screens, as if bypassing something on the hologram.

Cole tried to respond, but it was at that moment the pain decided to surge. Cole squeezed his eyes shut and wailed in pain, fighting his mind and will to not fall on the ground. There was a huge snap as the ground cracked at his feet. The floor shook only minimally as Cole wobbled, keeping balance but not calmness. The pain was so bad it was hard for him to continue breathing.

Madge finally slammed her hand on something and a spherical forcefield surrounded Cole, including the area that cracked at his feet. Cole instantly reached his hands out and put his weight on the forcefield, looking down at the ground in weak pain.

The Designer checked the readings on her computer while looking back and forth with her subject, who was barely standing. He let out a yell every few seconds, causing his green cracks and orange fists and feet to flare. After a few seconds of double checking, Madge nodded her head. “You’re good Cole! Release!”

The echo of his heartbeat racing deafened Cole’s hearing. “What?” Cole screeched through almost clenched teeth.

“I said it’s safe now!” Madge yelled back, but then hesitated when the room began to vibrate. “Cole you have to release the energy!”

Cole heard that part. “I can’t!” he screamed back. “If I do I’ll die!”

“The energy is contained, so you won’t destroy the realm! You have to release now!!!”

Cole opened his eyes only enough to see skin beginning to peel off his body and blacken to ash in the air. His body was definitely breaking apart for sure. “Madge, I-I can’t! I can’t leave-I can’t leave them!”

“Cole! Listen to me now, you have to let go!”

The orange glow in his arms began to slowly creep up his arms and legs as the pain increased even more. Madge sucked in a breath, realizing what could happen if Cole didn’t release his instability at that very moment.

“AaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” The pain was ungodly now. Cole was somehow only surviving on the hope that he could see his friends again. “Madge, I can’t-I can’t-“ he yelled, a bit weaker now as his hands slid down the forcefield bubble some. “Please…I can’t…”

“Cole, please!” Madge pleaded as the room began to shake. Other Designers were at the door now, shielding their eyes from the unstable teen inside the forcefield.

“Cole you have to let go!”

Through his shut eyes, Cole could see his team clear as day.

“Cole-“

Kai’s smug smirk, Nya’s warm smile-

“Cole can you hear me?”

Zane’s awkward grin, Lloyd’s side smile-

“Cole let go-now!”

Jay’s huge grin-

“Let go!”

Cole’s last memory of Jay was that look he gave him before he vanished into the realm…the broken eyes and tear-covered face…that was what Jay was without Cole.

“Let-“

That was the team without Cole.

“GO!”

Broken.

With a deep breath (which was incredibly painful), Cole snapped open his glowing green eyes and spoke as calmly as possible, “I will survive.”

The halls of the realm echoed with Cole’s scream as he let go.

______________________________________________________

Tiny scraping was the only sound that came from the large hall. As all of the monks stood over their scrolls writing quickly but carefully, the Master Writer stood calmly in the front, looking over his staff.

Not much was eventful in the world they delicately controlled. Maybe one monk was writing a love story for their subject while one was ending another’s story with a house fire. Destiny after destiny was being written, all in control of a monk’s pen and their heightened mind.

The Master Writer had the sharpest mind in the room, and his job was to sense the destinies being written and ensure it was all to be planned. Each destiny must be controlled, for free will of the Ninjagian people was not in the eyes of the First Spinjitzu Master. They may think they have free will, but their futures are controlled like puppets, and the Cloud Kingdom was the Puppet Master.

His aged eyes were shut, in meditation in the power in the air. He could almost see the destinies take place down below, one losing their favorite shoe or one bumping into an old friend. Everything was in order until-

His eyes shot open. “Carson!” he gasped, and a monk near the middle flinched.

The Master Writer took off down the middle aisle before appearing next to his work desk. “What has happened?”

“I do not know, Master Writer!” he gasped, looking at his words. “I wrote for him to walk into the school, but he…he disobeyed and went into the forest instead!”

The two monks stared at the page, where the words were starting to write themselves. Only instead of black ink, the words were glittering gold.

Carson lifted the page and flipped it over, where the name of the subject was written. Before their very eyes, a golden mark bled through the paper, forming the mark of an elemental master. Carson yelped and dropped the paper.

It took a moment, but suddenly the Master Writer realized what higher being had control of this child’s destiny. “This is not your hand at work, Carson…” the Master Writer whispered as he gazed at the page. “This is the hand of the First Spinjitzu Master writing the destiny for young Cole.”

Murmurs spread throughout the room as the news spread. “This has only happened a few times before, but each is a wonder.” The Master Writer continued, as much in awe as the other monks. “One thing is clear, however.”

“Cole has been chosen. His destiny is going to be legendary.”

_______________________________________________________

The pristine white light was blinding, making Cole squint his eyes as soon as he snapped them open. “Gosh darn it,” he groaned as he shielded his eyes. “I’m dead, aren’t I.”

“You were,” came a response. The light shut off with a flick and the room returned to darkness. Cole blinked quickly, letting his eyes adjust. “I was?” he squeaked.

Madge stood from her chair behind her desk and approached the ninja. “Well, you seemed like that. Either that or you are a heavy sleeper. You hit your head pretty hard when you collapsed.” She offered her hand. Cole hesitated, then looked at his own hand.

The skin had returned to normal, with no sign or damage of the energy that just pulsed through it. He looked back at Madge, who was still extending her hand. “Are you going to take it or not?”

With a smile, Cole grasped her hand and she helped him to a standing position. He wobbled for a second, realizing the ground was uneven. “What the..” Cole gasped as he turned to the floor, only to see a tiny crater in the center and the floor caving upwards, as if a small bomb had detonated. “What happened?”

Madge walked back over to her desk and shrugged. “I Designed a safehouse for the power of that quantity and placed you inside it. The bubble-forcefield absorbed your instability when you released it. Quite simple, actually.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. “So…is the energy still in the building?”

Madge nodded. “Don’t worry, we tucked it away. It’s a great power source actually. And it’s really pretty. A constant changing glow of orange and green.” She smiled, as if recalling it. “Anywho, now that you are awake, it’s time to get you back home.”

She hit a few buttons on her screen and it powered down, as if it was asleep. Cole took those few seconds to inspect himself, shocked to see all the green cracks that decorated his chest were all just a bad memory.

“Are these…someone’s pants?” Cole grinned while touching the black leather pants that he was wearing. “Because I definitely wasn’t wearing these earlier.”

Madge’s pale face turned a light shade of pink. “After the…explosion…you burned off everything on your body then fell unconscious. It was a little awkward having a sleeping nude teenager in my quarters, so I borrowed an extra pair of pants from a coworker. And before you ask, I did have to put them on you.”

Now Cole’s face turned pink. “TMI, Madge, TMI.”

Madge smiled before saying, “I have no idea what you just said. And I rather not know. Now, come on Cole.”

The two made their way through the maze of hallways again, this time Madge with a smirk of victory and Cole a flushed face of embarrassment as he wore nothing but a pair a leather pants a size or two too small. He definitely got a lot of looks, and Cole secretly knew that Madge was just showcasing her greatest achievement like he was a trophy. The muscles just make it shinier.

They finally turned the last corner into the main Designer studio where the Designers were busy at work at their stations. Cole tried to not look at any of the holographic faces, but one face of a young looking Jay with spiky black hair caught his eye. He paused only enough to confirm his suspicions before Madge grabbed his arm and pulled him to the doorway.

Cole was grinning ear to ear, but Madge’s look made that smile fade instantly. “So um,” Cole looked around, as if pleased with himself. “I didn’t blow the place up.”

Madge nodded, not even offering a chuckle to the joke. “I can see that. Looks like your nightmare was just a nightmare.”

Cole nodded at that, and an uncomfortable silence fell on the two. Madge paused, gazing at a spot next to Cole’s head before turning to the door and pressing a few buttons.

The door honey-combed again into brightness and Madge gestured for him to leave. “Well, my mission is complete, so you are welcome to go. Oh, but first..” Madge turned to fumble with something on a desk behind her.

“Thank you.”

Madge froze and turned back to Cole with her eyebrows raised. “For curing you? Oh, of course.”

Cole laughed, looking down at the floor. “Well that of course, but more of…thank you for being there.”

The look on her face shared that she had no idea what he was talking about.

He cleared his throat. “I haven’t had a figure like..you in my life, and I never really noticed how much I needed one until you became one. So…uh, thank you.”

His voice tightened with emotion again, and Madge placed the item she had in her hand back on the table. “Became…what?”

A single tear dashed down Cole’s cheek. “My…uh…my mom, I guess….”

Madge’s heart skipped a beat.

Cole wiped his face quickly. “I dunno, you reassured me when I was upset and yet you still pushed me to my limit. And in the end, everything you did…was to make sure I was okay. I’ve never had a mom, so I guess I got to feel like I did for a bit. And…and I’m…I’m going to miss you…” He began to cry again, this time without holding back. “I’m going to miss you because…. You fought off a pack of mountain lions and you were never scared of me and you told me why I was important – you were the first one to tell me all that stuff and I will never forget it and I wish….” He took a deep breath, trying to fight back the sobs. “I wish I had a mom like you. I wouldn’t have felt broken all the time.”

She was speechless. Sure, Cole was like the son she’d never had, but she’d never imagine that Cole would have ever pictured her as his mom. Her eyes teared up as she did the one thing she hadn’t of done in years.

She pulled him into a hug.

Cole held her tightly as they embraced for the longest time, each knowing this was the last time they would ever see each other. Finally, Madge stepped away and smiled at the teenager. “Then you are the best son I could have ever asked for. Thank you, Cole.”

Cole chuckled and wiped his eyes. “So, uh, do you have some protocol where if a mere mortal like me were to see this place you would wipe my memories?”

Madge hesitated before smiling. “Of course not. That’s a little too ridiculous.” She gestured the door again. “I bet your team will be thrilled to see you.”

“As am I,” Cole grinned. He turned to the door and gave one last look to Madge. “Goodbye, Madge.”

Madge folded her hands and smiled back. “Farewell, Cole. Go keep being awesome.”

Cole winked before taking a step out of the realm, the door shutting behind him.

Madge watched the door close completely before turning to the table behind her. The small device she had taken a hold of earlier sat on the table, exactly as it was to plan.

One of her coworkers approached her from behind. “You knew you were supposed to wipe his mind, right?” he asked curiously.

She fingered the device before sighing. “I couldn’t. If he’d forgotten everything that had transpired in the last twenty-four hours, he’d still be broken. My mission was to fix him, right? Well, I fixed him. Both physically and emotionally.” She paused, terrified of what was about to happen. Holding back tears, she turned to the Designer and handed him the device. “But I do know what must be done to me. I am ready.”

_________________________________________________________

Cole stepped out of the doorway and into the cave. His eyes only needed to adjust a little bit to see the five silhouettes at the mouth of the cave. They all stood frozen for a second, shocked a little to see the sixth, alive and in tight leather pants. Finally, Cole broke into a grin.

“Did ya miss me?”

#breaking earth #ninjago fanfic #epilogue may come later #but have fun crying

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dimancheetoile · 7 years ago

Text

The dirt on our boots shakes free over time

Written for @shikasaku-week and tagging @raendown for the help with Sasuke’s troublesome love life.

Day Three: Sky/Earth (I went a bit far with it, tho)

"Sobo-sama! Sobo-sama!"

The old lady turns around, a smile already blooming on her thin lips. The child running towards her has the widest grin on his face, his short pink hair plastered on his forehead. He finally catches up to her, his small hands fisting around the hem of her formal kimono.

"How are you doing, Kiseki-chan?"

"Kaa-san told me about Sofu-sama and the Fifth War! Is it true?"

She chuckles, her wrinkled eyes glittering with mirth. Kiseki looks up to her face, wonder on his features. Her hair is still as pink as it was in her youth, and there are now three seals on her forehead. She doesn't have any reason to use them, but she knows how important it might one day be to have that much chakra to pass on.

It does make for an interesting sight when she's invited by the Hyūga clan. Their children practice their Byakugan on her and most of them end up with teary eyes and a headache for days. She's been told on numerous account that she's a supernova of chakra. It does wonder to her ego in her old age.

"It is very much true, Kiseki-chan. Would you like to know more?"

"Totally! Do you mind if I bring my friends?"

"Of course not. Tell your father he can take a day off watching over you little hooligans."

"Sobo-sama!"

Sakura keeps walking, laughing softly as he starts to pout. She slows down when she feels the familiar chakra of her daughter-in-law. In a swirl of leaves and dust, the woman appears next to them.

"Hello, Giri-san," she says, nodding towards the dark-haired woman.

"Honoured Clan Head," her daughter-in-law answers with a private smile. They've always gotten along just fine, often finding a shared enjoyment in making their respective son and husband miserable. "I hope Kiseki hasn't been bothering you."

"Nonsense. I hear you've been telling my grandson stories."

"Shouldn't I?" Giri tenses, knowing the subject is a sensitive one.

"As long as you made it into epic tales of glorious battles and complete victories, I shall be happy," Sakura says with her straightest face, before giggling like a school girl at Giri's paling cheeks.

"You are cruel, Sakura-sama."

"Of course I am, I was in a team with your father for almost three decades."

Kiseki looks between them like they're passing a ball, an amazed expression on his sweet face. Sakura doesn't mention the sharingan he must have activated on accident, and neither does Giri. She was born without the kekkai genkai, and knew how happy Sasuke was that Kiseki inherited the eyes.

"I've invited Kiseki and his friends for a cup of tea and a chat. I believe they are quite interested in the war stories involving my husband."

"I'm glad to hear that, Sakura-sama."

"Give my regards to my son, will you? You should both take a small break, I wouldn't mind taking care of Kiseki for a few days."

Giri looks unmistakably grateful at the offer and bows respectfully before vanishing. Kiseki takes off running, promising to come back later for tea. Sakura shakes her head fondly and continues her path towards the Hokage's office. She longs for her son to accept the Clan Head position so she can step down. She's been leading the Nara clan for almost twenty years now, and she'd like a vacation. Or at least for those painful Council sessions to stop.

The room is already full by the time she steps inside. She hides a smirk when she sees Kakashi, looking younger than her and sitting at Suisen's right. Ino's son looks as sharp as ever in his Hokage's robes, his blond hair and blue eyes a painful reminder of the precious people they lost.

The session begins and Sakura is becoming quickly bored. Most of the matters addressed aren't relevant to her clan and she quite frankly doesn't give a fuck about the trade routes being slowed down by a caravan from Kumo. But she might have the second most powerful position in the entire village and her presence has been mandatory for the better half of her life.

Kakashi sends up a sharp look, sharper than his tremendously old age should allow him to. She carefully checks that no one is looking her way before sticking her tong out. His eyes go wide and he tries his best to hide a snort of laughter. She does her best not to feel smug about it.

Finally, Suisen frees them from the torture and Sakura leaves the room side by side with Shino and Chōji, her only friends still sharing her difficult (ahem) position of Clan Head. She nods towards Shiawase, Giri's younger sister and actual Uchiha Clan Head. The young woman bows, her dark skin and brown hair an impressive contrast in front of the white wall.

Sakura still has no idea how Sasuke managed to score a wife as kind, honourable, pretty and terrifying as Kumui. He came back with her one day, declared that they got married in Kumo and that anyone who had a problem with this could take it up to his wife because she was way scarier than him. Despite being a civilian and missing a leg. No one asked. If Giri took her father's colourings, Shiawase looks a great deal more like her mother despite having the sharingan, albeit a weak version of it.

Chōji walks her home and she kisses him on the cheek before going inside. She could already hear the chatter and laughter of the children in her garden. Sakura joins them, not surprised to find Kiseki gathering medicinal plants, helped by his friends. She's even less surprised to recognize in them a good portion of the Konoha 11's legacy.

Sakura will never get rid of the bitter taste in her mouth when she can't find any mop of black hair, or any white eyes. She knows she should be grateful that a good half of her promotion survived the Fifth War, but the price is too much in her eyes. Iwa has been wiped out from the map and is now Land of Fire territory. Kiri and Konoha are the strongest villages, and most of Kumo's ninja moved to the Land of Wind, where they established a new Kumo. The ashes of the old one where still burning when Kiri made it their. There are only three great nations now, and it's mostly on Iwa's greedy hands.

Yet Hinata was killed in the first days of the war, followed by Lee a few weeks later. How is that fair, that two of the sweetest persons in her village died so soon? Looking at the children playing before her eyes, Sakura has to fight against the frown she can feel twisting her features. She lost her best friend in the whole word in this fucking war, and no one managed to replace the Naruto-shaped hole in her heart. And if that wasn't enough, Shikamaru gave his life to ensure that peace would last. The Fifth War took everything from her, and if it hadn't been for her sons, Sakura would have found a way to bring them back and to hell with her soul and principles.

"Sobo-sama! You're home!"

At Kiseki's shout, everyone turns around to look at the legend standing in a kimono and tight bun, with a soft smile on her wrinkled face. After the Fifth War, people started calling her Titan. She has never heard a more ridiculous nickname, and her promotion has made sure not to let her forget it as the years went by, prompting their children to call her that, and later their grandchildren.

(in her defence, how could she know that destroying the entirety of Iwa's defensive wall with the press of a finger and throwing the massive door in the Tsuchikage's face would result in this nonsense?) (yes, she knows she's a hypocrite)

"I'm glad to see all of you. Has anyone brought you tea, yet?"

Murasaki points in the direction of the tray, under the shadow of a sakura tree. Her face turns three shades darker under Sakura's amused eyes. She goes to kneel next to the tray and pours herself a cup. The children quietly gather around her, her three grandchildren closer to her. Sōga nestles under her arm, her green eyes closing slowly as she waits for the story. Yaseika leans on Kiseki's shoulder, his new clan marking slowly healing on his round cheeks.

"You're all here to hear about your grandparents and the stories of their battles in the Fourth and Fifth war, yes?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, last week I told you about my first partner, Inuzuka Kiba." She has to stop when Yaseika and Sōga start cheering. "This week, I have for you the tale of Konoha's greatest mind, who was also my husband. His name was Nara Shikamaru, and he is the reason the Land of Fire still stands today."

Just to clarify: I WILL WRITE MORE IN THIS VERSE

Naruto and Ino's kids: Suisen and Inojin Uzumaki Sasuke and Kumui's kids: Shiawase Uchiha and Giri Nara (née Uchiha) Sakura and Shikamaru's son: Shikaoi Nara Shikaoi and Giri's son: Kiseki Nara Sakura and Kiba's son: Kenshi Inuzuka Kenshi's kids: Yaseika and Souga Inuzuka

Kiseki: miracle Giri: honour, duty Suisen: daffodil/narcissus tazetta Shiawase: happiness, good fortune Kumui: crossed, linked Murasaki: purple Souga: claws and fangs Yaseika: feral Kenshi: swordsman

#shikasaku #shikasakuweek #shikasaku-week #sakura haruno #shikamaru nara #kibasaku #naruino #my writing

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