#and are all chaotic loose cannons

[mossybunni]

Our dm introduced The Mechanic to our campaign (he's basically our world's version of The Doctor) and he heavily implied he's met our first campaign charcters.

I feel like it's only a matter of time until our current party meets them and it will be quite the meeting.

[fr3sh-tragedies]

Good Luck Charm

[Arcane] Jinx x Female Reader

Summary: Jinx has been told she's a mistake and a...well, a jinx her whole life, which is why it's such a surprise when you tell her she's your good luck charm.

Word Count: 3.09k Content Warnings: A small breakdown Category: Angst + Heavy fluff || Oneshot

[A/N]: Not proofread. Just wanted a quick break in between characters again. I couldn't stop myself from writing for this dork, especially after seeing the teaser for season two.

Enjoy!

 “Alrighty, toots, I think I’m gonna head to bed. You wanna come with, or you gonna stay up a bit longer?” You turned your head over to glance at Jinx, watching as she repeatedly turned her chair partially back and forth with her eyes fixed on you. Smiling warmly, you shrugged. “Well, I’m not tired just yet, and I wanted to finish this book,” you started, watching from the corner of your eye as she seemed to slump down at your words already. “But I can just keep reading in bed.”

Jinx stood and let out a small cheer, trotting over to you and gently taking ahold of your wrist to tug you toward the bedroom you often crashed in. Ever since you had grown close to the “loose cannon” of the undercity, things in your life had rapidly changed. It started off simple – you would spend far more time hanging out with her than anyone else. Then, as things started to develop between the two of you, you began staying the night almost every night with Jinx cuddled up against you as you slept. Even when she couldn’t sleep, you could feel her arms wrapped around your shoulders while she traced random patterns against your skin.

When Jinx had told Silco of your relationship, you feared the worst, already preparing to write your will or find a way to escape his wrath. Surprisingly, though, he was rather accepting. When you asked Jinx about it in private, she told you she believed it was because he had seen how happy she had been ever since you showed up. A few days later, her theory was confirmed when Silco had called you into his office to set rules about dealing with Jinx and her issues with trust.

He warned you that Jinx could get extremely clingy and would get overprotective of you, which you had already noticed she had begun to do, so you simply nodded. He continued to speak of things such as her hallucinations and wish to keep her past a secret. You agreed to all of the terms he had set to be with his daughter, unaware of the figure stationed above you on her usual platform. Her eyes were trained solely on you, legs swinging back and forth as she let herself rest on her stomach. With her head cradled in her palms, a wide grin made its way to her lips as you calmly agreed to take care of her.

It seemed, however, that she had done the opposite, meaning she seemed to take care of you more than the other way around. More often than not, if you were outside of her hideout, it would come across more as possessive than anything. She’d blurt out insults and impulsively pick fights with people who threatened or flirted with you.

Once they realized who they were dealing with, they backed off instantly. The few poor souls who decided to test their luck suddenly went missing, as well as Jinx for a short time, and then were never seen or heard from again. You had learned to come to terms with her reckless and apathetic behavior towards outsiders rather quickly.

“Trinket? Hello? You in there, or… did ya leave this planet?” You blinked, glancing back over at the blue-haired girl as she waved her hand in your face.

“Hm? Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about what’s going on in my book. I’m near the end, so everything is getting chaotic.” She snickered and hooked her arm around your shoulders as she led you into the bedroom. “Ah, then you’ll have to let me borrow that book sometime. You know I love a bit of chaos. Or a lot of it.” You smiled at her and rolled your eyes, playfully bumping against her and earning another chuckle.

As she plopped down to sit in her spot on the bed, she watched you silently while you flipped your book back open and sat on the other side of the mattress. Once you had leaned back against the pillows, it didn’t take long before you felt a head land gently on your shoulder. A quick look down let you know Jinx had already bundled up under the covers and shuffled over to cuddle against you for the night. With weary eyes, she peered down at the pages of your book, briefly skimming over the short excerpt of the story she could see.

Soon after, she let out a yawn and tucked her head further against your neck. “G’night, sweets. Love you.” You beamed down at her and pressed a small kiss to the top of her head. “Love you too, hun. Sleep well.”

By the time you had finally woken back up the next day, Jinx had already been up for a few hours. She hadn’t left the bed, but she was tracing patterns and words into your arms and back. When you shifted and yawned, she smiled and perked up rather quickly, sitting up in her spot and peeking down at you. Once you had rolled over to look her in the eye, her grin only grew. “Mornin’, toots. Did you sleep well?” You nodded and sat up, yawning again.

“Yeah, what about you?” She shrugged and toyed with the hem of your sleeve. “Eh, I slept okay. I got kinda restless after a while and woke up, and then I couldn’t go back to sleep.”

You nodded at her words. After a while of you trying to keep your eyes open, you felt Jinx lean against you and tug you close. “I don’t wanna leave to go work on those stupid experiments,” she confessed with a frown. “I just want to stay in here with you. I wish I could come down with you to your job instead.” With a small smirk, you raised a brow and glared over at her. “Oh? And why’s that?” She smirked back at you and slipped her hand down to lace your fingers with her own. “‘Cause I could keep you safe. I could beat up all the pervs that keep trying to get their nasty paws on you.”

A gentle chuckle escaped you as you pulled her further into your side. “Yeah, that’s what makes you my good luck charm. Nothing seems to go wrong for me when you’re near.” You had expected another teasing remark of some kind, though nothing came. Instead, you were greeted with silence. After a while of not receiving any kind of acknowledgment of what you had said, you looked down at Jinx. You blinked in surprise when you saw her gazing right back up at you, eyes filled with a concoction of emotions that couldn’t seem to even out.

Her brows furrowed together. One moment, she seemed confused, and the next, she seemed upset or in disbelief. Similarly to her eyes, her eyebrows couldn’t focus on which emotion to express.

“Uh, hun? You okay?”

“What’d you call me?”

“What?”

“What did you call me?”

You continued to stare at her, unsure of what you were supposed to say. “I called you ‘hun.’” She shook her head and lifted it from your shoulder to be eye level with you. “No, before that. What did you call me before that?” It took a moment for you to recall what you had said a mere moment ago. The confusion of the new situation had made it hard to wrack your memory. “‘My good luck charm?’”

She was silent for a few minutes, which felt like hours with how thick the tension had grown.

“You think I’m lucky? That I’m a lucky charm to you? Do you really think that?”

An uneasy smile and chuckle left your lips. “Well, yeah, of course I do. I mean, I always love being around you, and because of all you do for me, everything seems to go right when you’re around. You really are like a being of good luck to me.”

She seemed troubled at that, which certainly was not what you had expected. Tears welled up in her eyes and prompted them to grow glossy, though she fought them back. “But – no, I’m not lucky. I’m, I mean, my name is “Jinx” for goodness sake! I’m not good. I’m a horrible person. I mess everything up. How could you possibly believe that I’m a good luck charm? I don’t understand.” You felt your nerves spike, recognizing that she was at the beginning stages of another episode. “Woah, hey,” you whispered, placing a hand softly on her shoulder in an attempt to ground her back into reality before she could fly too far away from the present.

“No, I’m not lucky, I’m a Jinx. I’m the opposite of lucky – I’m unlucky. I didn’t – no, please, I’m not. No, shut up! She’s not trying to – stop it already!” Unintentionally, you leaned back, making sure to keep your hand in place. It seemed like Mylo had taken over again, throwing insult after insult at her and flooding her mind with false realities.

“Love, I’m sorry,” you murmured. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She glared at you, eyes fixed on you in front of her, though she seemed to be staring so far away. Her eyes flickered as though she were reading some sort of script, incoherent mumbles rolling off her tongue. “No, you shouldn’t be… you didn’t – shut up! You shouldn’t be the one apologizing!”

You remained silent, waiting for the right time to chime in as Mylo continued to torment her. Although you had no idea what he was telling her, you could get a general idea based on the few words you could make out in her sputtering.

It took forever, but she ultimately calmed down, panting for breath and clutching handfuls of hair. When she came back to her senses, she found you holding both of her hands to prevent her from tearing her strands out again. Sometime in between her episode and her break into reality, she had begun copying your breathing the way you had helped her practice each time she had gone through it in the past. At length, she sighed and let her eyes bore down into her lap.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

Softly, you cupped her face in your hands and lifted her head up to look her in the eye. She shifted her focus away from you, unable to meet your gaze. “It’s okay, I promise. I’m not mad.” The feeling of the pads of your thumbs grazing across her cheeks to wipe her tears away brought her a feeling of relief. Her tense shoulders drooped down after she sighed once again.

Moments passed. She finally forced herself to meet your eye. “Did you really mean it?” She whispered with a broken tone. “That you think I’m lucky?” You nodded with a weak grin. Again, tears pricked her eyes, though she leaned forward and buried her face in your shoulder before they could fall. Her arms lifted from her sides, hands grasping at the back of your shirt as she sucked in multiple shaky breaths.

“I’ve always thought you were lucky.”

Weeks had passed since you had started referring to Jinx as your good luck charm, then it shifted into months, and your list of nicknames began to grow. It became a common occurrence for her to hear you call her “lucky charm,” “charmer,” or even “bluebird.” It seemed as though you were shifting to just focus on positive nicknames instead of entirely pinpointing each play on the words “good luck charm,” though she wasn’t complaining.

She certainly wasn’t used to all of the compliments and the nice names. After all, she had been referred to as a jinx, a screwup, and essentially a burden her entire life up until she met Silco. It would take a while for her to accept what you said as truth, but she had started to come around to the loving nicknames. After a while, she even began to look forward to what you would call her for the day. She had started rubbing off on you in terms of nicknames as well. “Trinket” and “sweets” began to creep into your vocabulary, and she adored the way it sounded rolling off your tongue when it was directed at her.

Soon enough, the positivity had worn down part of her insecurity, so long as she was around you. You made her feel safe and secure, which wasn’t something she was used to either. Often, she could be seen practically bouncing down the halls with a cheesy grin plastered on her face, even if she had just left Silco’s office. Silco and Sevika had definitely taken notice of her sudden shift, and although Sevika didn’t understand why she was so much livelier than normal, Silco found himself smiling more often at the sight of Jinx when she’d suddenly remember the nickname you had chosen for her for the day.

When she’d sit up top on her makeshift platform in Silco’s office, she had to be given reminders in between meetings to settle down. Her legs would swing over the edge and kick at the air rhythmically, and her hands would pat randomly at the wooden planks.

She loved the nicknames, to put it bluntly. She absolutely adored them. Since that night, not once had you referred to her as Jinx. Somehow, even though everyone else called her by her known name, the mere mention of what you were calling her for the day gave her a boost of confidence. Whenever a mission would go wrong, she’d come straight to you to talk about it, then listen with a soft smile as you told her repeatedly how things would be okay and how she’s still your lucky charm.

With how suddenly all the flurry of names were thrown at her, she struggled to pick a favorite. Even so, her energy and overall glee grew daily, even beginning to show in her work. Weapons were crafted more cautiously, produced quicker, and had more expressive markings made by her oil crayons. Sevika didn’t enjoy the increase in enthusiasm, Silco certainly appreciated everything.

He still didn’t fully trust you, though it was growing increasingly obvious to him that you weren’t a threat, and in his eyes, you were there for a reason. You made Jinx happy, and that was all he really wanted in the end. As far as he was concerned, you had his blessing. He knew things could change, but after seeing how you treated her during every emotion she expressed, he figured that was a slim possibility.

As he sat in his office one day, he sighed and ran a hand down his face. The door had closed only a moment ago, and still he could hear the tapping and swaying above him. Leaning back in his chair, he gazed up at Jinx sitting on her small platform, biting back a small smile when he saw her grinning gleefully. “Jinx,” he called out just loud enough for her to hear. She finally turned her attention to him curiously. “Hm?”

“You know you need to be quiet when I have people in here. It’s very distracting with you shuffling around up there.” Jinx chuckled nervously. “Sorry.” He finally allowed himself to smile, catching Sevika off guard from her spot on the sofa. “Why don’t you spend the rest of the day with [Y/N]? You’ve earned a break, both of you.”

Instantly, Jinx dropped from her spot above and landed on Silco’s desk. She crouched down and looked him in the eye. “Really? You’re okay with that?” He nodded. “So long as you two don’t cause any major problems,” he added. She beamed brightly at his words and her eyes lit up. “Thanks!” Within an instant, she turned on her heel and hopped off the desk, already out the door and skipping down the hall to find you.

Silco grinned softly with a small shake of his head. He leaned forward again and motioned for Sevika to shut the door as he picked up a few papers to straighten them.

When Sevika returned to her spot on the sofa, she huffed out a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose. She bit her tongue with what she wanted to say, but a look of warning from Silco made her waver. “What are you breathing so heavily for?” She waited, trying to rephrase her words before speaking them, but ultimately gave up.

“It’s nothing against either of you. I’ve just never seen her this energetic before, and I’ve seen her get energetic in the past.” To her relief, Silco hummed and smiled. “Yes, she’s certainly been in a better mood as of lately. It’s refreshing, in a way.”

Sevika waited momentarily, unsure of what to say. “You think that girl is the reason she’s been so cheery?” “I know she is. Her name is [Y/N]. She’s known Jinx for a couple of years now, and the two of them have grown quite close in such a short amount of time. I don’t entirely approve of that girl, but Jinx has taken a liking to her, and I’d be a fool to take that away from her.”

Even with her disliking of  the blue-haired girl, Sevika couldn’t help but grin at his words. “Yeah, it is nice to see she’s stable with someone. I was worried she’d drive someone away. [Y/N], was it? She’s patient, and that’s definitely good for someone like Jinx. To be honest, I’m glad they met.”

“Yes, I am as well. I suppose I should include a few of the names [Y/N] has been using to refer to Jinx as when speaking to her. It seems to put her in a better mood, as you’ve said, and I’ve noticed an improvement in her crafts and missions.” A chuckle slipped from Sevika before she could stop it. “Yeah, she hasn’t screwed up another task in a while.”

“Pardon?”

Sevika swallowed and cleared her throat. “Sorry, sir. It was nothing.”

All the while, as they chatted away about her improvement, Jinx trailed down the hallway and all the way to her hideout. When she saw you there, sitting comfortably by her desk in the extra chair she had pulled into the room to have you nearby while she worked, she couldn’t help the smile that stretched across her lips from ear to ear. As she grew closer, she wondered what you would refer to her as that day.

[thegnomelord]

CH 3: Hold Your Demons Close Maybe Then You'll Feel Something

CW:NSFW blood, gore, mutilation, killing, cannon typical violence, child abuse (it's minor but still there), drugging, military inaccuracies, Mage reader, Monster cod AU, poly141, eventual poly141 X reader, reader isn't a good person, a few masc terms used but overall gn.

Ao3; Word count: 19.1k (It's a heckin chonker) Big thanks for @rodolfoparras and @princeguri66 for betaing for me, love you guys!

Masterlist; Chapter 2 <-Chapter 3 (You are here) -> Chapter 4

Aisha remembers the day she thought she would die.

As a gift for the 10th birthday her mother had taken her to the market in the big city. It had been chaotic compared to their little village, so many people donkey carts, and mopeds moving around like crazy ants in a freshly exposed nest. Aisha had gotten lost, swept away by the time of movement, and ended up at the entrance of a shady alley where she'd stumbled on an old beggar woman.

Long as she lives she will never forget the sight of the woman. Strip her of flesh and blood and the memory will still be etched into her bones — of ghostly blue lines forming impregnable chains across sunken sunburned skin. Of dirty rags loosely hanging off skeleton thin shoulders. Of blood crusted bandages wrapped tightly around her shaved head to not scare the children running about, the cloth dipping into the eyeless sockets of her skull. Of her asking passerby for alms with the handless stumps of her arms.

The sight alone had frightened Aisha, but then the beggar had turned her head to Aisha as if she could hear the frantic beating of her heart. A sad saccharine croon left the mage woman's chapped lips as she looked right at her. "Hello, fellow daughter of Magnus."

Her mother found her then, pulling Aisha back while shouting at the woman at the top of her lungs. Aisha's mind had been too full of thoughts to notice her mother drop their shopping in favor of scurrying out of the market with Aisha in hand. She had only snapped back to reality when her mother had thrown Aisha into her father’s rusted little car, barely able to sit up straight before they were driving home to their village as fast as the car’s geriatric engine could go.

Aisha had been locked in the room she shared with her sisters, but the door did little to mute the way her parents argued all day long, accusations of infidelity and cursed bloodlines thrown around like bird feed. Most of it flew over her head, but Aisha had understood one thing: Her parents were afraid.

The strange men came to her house just as the sun had set, drawn out by the dying light like coyotes hunting for a stray lamb. The strong stench of rot heralding their arrival made her sputter to hold back the bile burning her throat. She remembers the sparks of yellow and red and blue and all the other stolen colors of the rainbow swirling in their cold eyes.

They chatted while inspecting her like a cow in the market, their language just as rough and hard as their hands. But they lost interest quickly, unable to find what they wanted to see. They turned to throw lecherous looks at her mother and older sisters before her father had stepped between them and her, protecting his daughter now that he knew Aisha wasn't a freak. He'd tensely asked them to leave after paying for their time, standing in the doorway and only going back inside when the strange men were well and truly out of sight.

Her parents let them in without complaint; Her father held her down, his steely gaze watching the men crowd her. Her mother whispered trembling words into her ear to just be a good girl as the men tore her shirt off. Aisha's questions and pleas and panic fell on deaf ears, her mother pressing a worn hand over her mouth to silence her cries as the men inspected her chest and arms. They pinched and pulled on her skin with hands scarred like gnarled tree bark, the roughness of their palms chafing her soft flesh.

Aisha remembers the days she thought she would die.

Waking up each day to wash under her mother's stalwart gaze so she could ensure Magnus hadn't sown seeds into Aisha's body while she slept. Going each week to the village elders to drink the special brew of Morgana's tears, spending agonizing hours curled up and sobbing on the floor with a stabbing pain in her chest, her heart beating like the wings of a snared bird as the poison made its way through her system. She'd lost count how many times her heart would stutter after every bout of joy or childish argument on the rare moments the children of the village would interact with her — any lick of emotion would force her to run home to check the pads of her fingers in fear that this time magic had cracked through her skin.

She had been so happy on her 15th birthday — the danger had passed. She wasn’t a mage. She could finally live a normal life, meet a boy, get married, have a family.

She’s 16 now. All those years of worry and fear feel like childhood bliss.

Aisha knows she will die.

It happened so suddenly; When her friend had jokingly rubbed a feather duster in her face, Aisha would have never expected a stupid sneeze to force liquid frost through her fingers. Pain had raced through her chest at the speed of lightning, an unknown force pulling her arms up, and the next thing she knew she had frozen over her neighbor's entire crop field. Aisha had barely heard her friend scream over the pounding in her ears, her legs moving on their own long before her brain could understand the pain in her hands or what she had done.

Her mind might still have been reeling, but her body understood she needed to run, needed to hide, before the sun fell and the coyotes came for her.

The house she's found to hide in is one of the many corpses the Russians left behind, stripped bare to rotting wood bones and crumbling bricks, moldy wall paper peeling in long thick strips and rickety boards creaking under the slightest pressure. Gravel crunches beneath heavy tires outside the decrepit house and a rumbling engine cuts through the silence. Aisha scrambles up the stairs to the second floor, hiding in a dingy closet with it's walls closing in around her like the sides of a cramped coffin. Termite made holes in the closet door act as peepholes, letting her see into the bedroom and watch the long shadows created by the car's lights stretch across the floor.

She bites her lip as the slightest twitch of her pinky finger makes pain bloom across her entire hand, though she's barely able to move her fingers with how stiff they are. Her tan skin bellow the wrists is corpse pale and cold, blood crusting the creases of her knuckles. The creaking of floorboards has Aisha hastily pressing her ice cold hands against her lips, the taste of her blood — copper and iron with a hint of something sweet like antifreeze — failing to churn her stomach when even the hint of slowly encroaching rot has her heart clogging her throat so not even a whimper can make it past her lips.

She’s sure her lungs stop working when a man crosses the threshold into the room, and immediately she’s hit with such a strong smell of decay, like death had crawled up her nose and died there. Her throat and chest spasm with the need to cough, tears freely running down her cheeks from how much effort it takes to keep quiet, but past her blurry vision she can see the man slowly walk into the room.

He’s tall and gangly like a newborn foal, bulky clothes widening his frame that’s mostly skin and bones, thinning blond hair badly swept over a sizable bald spot. He wouldn’t be so scary if his eyes didn’t glow an unnatural mixture of toxic green and burning red— the sight alone has goosebumps spreading across his skin, followed by a deep seated discomfort as if leeches are crawling inside her bones.

“Come out little girl,” Even his voice feels wrong, like glass ground on sandpaper, but he speaks with so much sweetness it’s disgusting. “We only want to talk to you, don’t worry you’re not in trouble.” She can tell he’s not from Urzikstan by the rough accent that muddles the Arabic words he speaks.

The floorboards creak softly as she shifts. His head swivels to look around the room and the man quickly walks over to the bed, dropping to his knees to look under it. “Fuck!” His facade falls as he snarls when he sees she’s not there, stumbling to his feet like a drunk. “I mean uh- don’t worry I’m not mad kid,” He chuckles lightly, trying to put on an act of a worried Samaritan, though the attempt falls short when his predatory eyes fall on the closet she’s hiding in.

“Hey, did you find her yet?” Another voice rings from the entrance of the room, this one feminine and with a slight drawl to her words as she speaks in english. It makes Aisha jump, though the squeaking boards beneath her go unnoticed when the new voice continues. “Boss is starting to get antsy and if we don’t find her soon he’ll be sticking your ass with the pigs.”

She can’t see well, but she’s certain the man shows a middle finger to the unseen person. “Fuck off,” He spits out the response like it’s a mouthful of poison, “We both know you’re the dead weight.” He says, taking a few steps around the bed, but luckily for Aisha he stops in the middle of the room. Aisha can hear how deeply he breathes in, before something catches in his throat and he coughs. “I can smell the magic, the wench is still in the house.”

“Bullshit.” The woman scoffs, “You say that every hunt and we end up wasting our time.” A moment passes before the unseen woman chuckles and adds. “You couldn’t smell shit if you shoved your head up your ass!”

The man openly seethes, quick and heavy footsteps carrying him right up to the woman and out of Aisha’s field of view. “You take that back you fucking bitch!” The snarl is more animal than man. Aisha can only assume he punches the woman from the way the floorboards groan loudly in the otherwise silent night, shoes scuffing on the floor, grunts and swears filling the air as the noises of fighting steadily recede to another room.

She’s light headed by the time she manages to pull her hands away from her mouth enough to draw in a breath of stale air, her lungs burning from how long she had gone without breathing. Her heart drums loudly in her skull, her ears pricked to listen to the two strangers exchange angry words in a language she doesn't understand, each passing second of the continuing scuffle making confidence slowly form in her mind.

This is her chance!

. . . to do what?

She doubts she could take them on, she's pretty sure she saw a gun hanging off the man's waist, and she definitely knows she won't be able to outrun them. She's stuck. Cornered.

“Whatever, you just fin-” The sound of footsteps once again nearing the room she's in forces her body to act without her input.

Fishhooks tug on her fingers and force them to splay out flat in the air despite the pain. Her mind scrambles to think of something, anything, before unseen hands pull her mouth open. A shaky breath escapes her lungs and before she knows it words are falling from her lips, so smooth and fluent like her mind is reading a script carved into her bones. “Oh harsh creatures of brutal winter, please, I need your help-” Something cold and sharp stabs behind her chest, more of her skin turning pale as magic slowly crawls down her arms.

It hurts —

Spiderweb cracks of broken glass spread across her knuckles and a fat drop of blood rolls down her chin from how tightly she bites her lip. Her blood beads through the cracks in her skin, the dark crimson turned a light pink by the freshly exposed white light that pulses beneath her skin like a living thing.  Aisha sucks in a sharp breath before continuing, “- I beg you, give me a crumb of your power, a ball of silent snow to hide my life-” The more she speaks, the more the white light cracks through her skin until it cracks through the pads of her fingers and escapes as shoddily formed snowflakes.

They dance through the air like drunken fireflies before finding the right position and floating in the air. More of them spawn from each finger with every word spoken, taking their own place in an unknown pattern.

Slowly the overlapping snowflakes take on the shape of a scratchy circle, trembling lines forming a complex web of shapes inside it. The pain grows with it; it turns her fingers pale and numb as if she had stuck her hands in freezing water, the icy bite of frost spreading up her wrists. Her frozen skin cracks from even the slightest tremor in her hands, white speckles dancing in her crimson blood as it leaks down her palms. Each second taken to breathe and bite back a whimper disrupts the fragile collection of snowflakes, causing parts of the circle to break off and drop to the ground in big watery drops.

Her chest feels like it’s tightly packed with soaked wool, a type of pressure building behind her sternum, her shoulders stiff as her body is getting ready for. . . something good—

The closet door swings open with enough force to break it off its hinges. White light of the circle refracts off the gun aimed at her.

Bang!

A bullet tears through the magic circle and shatters it into pieces, all the pressure that had been building in her body rushing through the crumbling remains of the circle right back at her.

She screams and shakes, fat tears freely running down her cheek like the blood flowing from her palms. There’s not a single word in any language able to describe the pain rushing through her veins, the liquid agony infesting every cell — sharp and blunt and deep and gnawing, like her body is trying to eat itself, like she’s infested with maggots; the bullet that tears through her side feels like a soft mercy.

“Fucking moron!” She barely hears the woman snarl over the rush of blood in her ears. The gun aimed at her is roughly pushed down. “Are you trying to get the boss to take our heads?” The stench of rot only worsens it, disorientating her further and she’s barely able to make her fingers twitch. She’s got no defense from the rough hand that roughly grabs her by the hair and pulls her out of the closet.

“I’d rather not die from a first time mage!” The man yells, grabbing her by the shoulder. Aisha’s legs can’t support her weight no matter how much she tries, but the man is far stronger than she had expected and has no problem holding her up. Her lungs manage a pained sound before her arms are grabbed and painfully wrenched behind her back, handcuffs softly clicking as they’re tightened until the steel digs into her aching wrists.

“Oh so when I’m the one on the end of the damn spells it’s fine then?” The woman’s anger shows in the way her cracked nails dig into Aisha’s scalp and pull her head back like she's trying to take it off entirely. Aisha struggles to breathe, gasping and wriggling to the best of her ability but it’s useless and a second later a thick metal collar is tightened around her neck, rusted needles on the inside of it pricking her skin enough to draw blood.

It burns. The collar rapidly heats up like she's got a string of hot coals around her neck, the heat traveling down her skin to grip her heart in a vice. The collar is so tight she can’t even gasp, fresh adrenaline pouring through her veins as she tries to scramble out of the handcuffs, tries to shake out of their hold, tries to just get away. . . but she’s about as strong as a kitten.

“You’re expendable. The girl could make a better spell than you.” The man holding her shoulder laughs and pulls her away as soon as the woman lets go of her hair, all too happy to drag her like a sack of potatoes behind him. Each step down the stairs has the base of her spine awkwardly hitting the step, accosting her frazzled brain with even more pain.

“We got the girl, boss!” The man says triumphantly, pulling her up so she’s facing another man. Even with the tears blurring her vision, Aisha can tell the ‘boss’ isn’t from Urzikstan; He’s a pudgy little man with a wide flat nose and other features that don’t quite fit his face, but his eyes — they glow the same rainbow hue as the other two, with the same malice.

“Finally.” The boss huffs, not wasting a single second and pulling a knife from his pocket. A rough hand holds Aisha’s head so she can’t squirm away from the knife as it cuts across her cheek. Just that small cut feels like a gaping wound and a small whimper falls from her lips as the boss pulls the knife back, specks of white floating in the dark blood coating the metal. A black tongue slips from his lips to lick up the bloodied edge, the sight making her stomach curl with disgust.

Another hand grabs her cheek, cracked fingers like claws digging into the cut until blood flows over the man's fingers. The man holding her pulls his bloodied fingers into his mouth, humming. A second passes before he curses and spits at his feet. “There’s barely anything there,” He says, the hold he has on her tightening. “Barely worth the bullet.”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem.” The boss waves him off, sharp rainbow eyes looking her up and down. “Couple of grams from ol’ daddy Magnus and we’ll have ourselves a proper sow.” He reaches out to pat the top of her head, condescending — like she's just a dumb animal. “Alright, put it in the truck.” The boss orders and the man holding her complies, starting to drag her to the truck parked in front of the house.

Somehow, behind the the loud beating of her heart, she hears rumbling. Somehow, though her mind is like tangled yarn and she can barely grasp a thought, she feels something — an emotion that doesn't belong to her: Anger

Violent anger. Burning hot in the cold night, so all consuming it leaves the world around her trembling.

"Hold on-" The boss says suddenly, quickly raising his head to sniff the air. "Do you smell that?"

Tires screech against the rocky road, orange flames sparking from thin air as a motorcycle appears out of nowhere. Aisha only manages to get a glimpse of glowing orange eyes before she's blinded by bright light. She closes her eyes, heat washing over her body before she hears the head of the man holding her explode.

Shards of bone and brain matter rain down on her, sticking to her dark curly hair. The body stands for a second, unaware it no longer has a head as the charred stump of the neck steams. The body falls to the ground and takes Aisha with it, falling on top of her.

The elbow digs into her bleeding side, her eyes flying open as she struggles to get out from under the man, managing to push him off. Her gaze flies to the steaming charred stump where the head used to be. Panic rising she breathes in and oh god the smell — it’s an automatic response; Her stomach convulses and she pukes, bile burning her throat, retching and crying as the scent of her bile only makes it worse.

She feels heat rush over her and she doesn’t need to see to know your magic makes the other man and woman’s heads pop like grapes. Their bodies drop to the ground somewhere behind her, but what makes adrenaline rush through her is the soft sound of the motorcycle stand clicking against the ground.

Her head flies up to look, heart beating like a bird in the cage of her ribs; Dirt crunches beneath your boots but to her it sounds like breaking bones, steam rises off your body, the bright glow of your arms and the intense glare of your eyes behind the tinted lenses of your mask. . . it all gives the image of a demon — of something she needs to flee from.

If the people had been coyotes, then this person— no. . . the thing that had found her was a starved lion.

She tries to scramble back but it's useless when the smallest twitch of a muscle has her whimpering, blistering cold gnawing on every inch of her nerves.

You reach her in seconds, leaning down to grab her by the front of her clothes to pick her up like she weighs nothing. Your scent floods her nose, rot and just a small hint of sweetness, like honey poured on the floors of a burning charnel house. She tries to kick you but can barely move her toes, her legs just swaying uselessly beneath her. Your fingers, warm but not burning hot, hook under the steel wrapped around her neck.

Your jaw tenses, trying to remember how to speak. "Hold still." You order.

Your voice is soft. Not the velvet softness of her mothers', more akin to the smoothness of a tar pit right before it pulls a hapless creature into its inky depths. But you don't hurt her.

Metal screeches as the rusted steel bends like clay under your fingers. It only takes a few seconds before the collar clatters to the ground. The sudden release of pressure has Aisha gasping for breath so quickly she starts coughing and almost pukes but luckily her stomach is empty.

She doesn't feel you free her hands, the world spinning a thousand miles a minute before her eyes. She's forced to close her eyes shut in an attempt to fight back the nausea, rainbow spots crackling in the darkness of her vision.

Casually stepping over the corpse of the Devourer you sit her down on the hood of the truck, keeping a hand on her shoulder to make sure she doesn't fall face first to the ground. She shivers under your touch, trembling hands slowly raising to grip your wrist. You don't need magical sight to know an aborted spell is ravaging her insides; her fingertips turning black in front of your eyes and the specks of white dancing in her pupil is enough.

Judging by the way you can barely pick up the scent of mage standard rot on her, you can only assume she's a late bloomer. With a small huff you place your other hand on the middle of her chest, casting a simple circle at your palm.

Aisha gasps, fingers scrambling to try and pull your hand off, too numb with cold to register how the cooling lava making up your skin warms up. But it's like trying to move a mountain. You don't budge an inch. She can feel something inside her move, burning frost shepherded by blistering heat slinking down her fingers back into her heart, increasing speed with every inch it travels. She barely notices the aching in her side subsiding, or the sensation returning to her fingers.

You let go of the girl when you’re satisfied she won’t die from either blood loss or mana shock, leaving her to sit on the hood of the car as she looks dumbly at you.

The bullet loudly clatters on the steel hood. She turns her head and her eyes nearly pop out of her skull at the sight of her blood literally bleaching out of her clothes like it's being drawn back into her body. Letting go of your wrist she lifts her shirt, and there's not even a mark on her tan skin.

She’s no threat to you.

No sooner that you take a step away from her does Beelzebub's cold presence rush out of your heart with enough force to make you stumble back. People say it’s madness for a spell, a tool, to have personality. But the way black candlelight flames spark at your fingers and immediately rush out like a swarm of locusts to devour the three bodies is. . . it's angry. Vengeful As it should be. You can't fool yourself into thinking the way Beelzebub's magical fires eat away the Devourers hands before spreading over the rest of the body, crackling and buzzing like thousands of flies as they devour skin, then muscle, then bone until not even dust remains, is anything but vindictive.

Like erasing mistakes, it brings you a sense of satisfaction.

Your fingers twitch but you stop yourself from reaching up to trace the faint blue magic gluing your throat together. Instead, you focus on converting the mangled chunks of mana Beelzebub deposits in your chest into something you can use. Devours are a pain in the ass, so much different mana all twisted and held together with gum and staples, all of it now bashing against your ribs like wailing ghosts. With a huff you focus, the rock chunks on your arms getting wider and bigger as you store the stolen mana for later use, steam lazily rolling off your shoulders.

Aisha watches you, eyes wide, but. . . not scared. She doesn’t notice when she opens her mouth, her voice far too loud in the silent night. “Are you a jinn?” She asks, and cringes at her words. Of all the things she could have said, she chose that?

You don't know how you manage to open your mouth enough to answer. “No.” Beelzebub, satisfied as a hog in shit, burns on the ground for a few seconds in the shape of the bodies before seeping back into the earth, settling back to slumber in your heart.

You roll your shoulders. The slight bite of pain and the spasm of your muscles reminds you of the glass sticking out of your back. A grunt forces past your lips, more from annoyance than actual pain. A simple thought is enough to activate the magic you had cast on yourself, vestigial sparks flickering across your shoulders and boring a hole into your jacket. The edges glow brightly before they birth flames that eat away the bulletproof vest and the rest of your clothing until a sizable chunk of your back is exposed.

Aisha catches the edge of a small circle scribed atop your spine in the middle of your back, but her eyes are soon drawn to the mess of glass shards sticking out of your skin. There’s not a speck of blood in sight, but somehow that makes the sight more disturbing. Her gasp falls deaf on your ears, your mind more focused in trying to remove them.

Forcing your opposite hand to cool down enough so the heat doesn’t shatter the glass, you reach back as far as you can, trying to feel as best you can with your numb fingers. But your hands are stiff and unfeeling, making you fumble about like a bull in a china shop as you try to get one shard and miss. The only time you manage to grasp the sharp edge, you break it when you attempt to pull it out. A curse slips past your lips and you crush the broken piece between your fingers.

Aisha doesn’t know what possesses her, nothing good probably, but she speaks up. “Can I-” Your head turns to her so fast she startles, mouth snapping shut with an audible clack of her teeth. She can only stare at those burning eyes for a second before her animal brain forces her to look away, focusing on the gas mask portion of your mask because looking at your eyes feels wrong. But she powers through it, forcing herself to speak. “Can I help you?”

That was not what you expected.

“No.” You say, your head swiveling to glance at the road and then back up to the sky, a pulse of formless magic slipping past your fingers on instinct to ensure you’re covering all your bases as far as relative safety goes. You don’t see nor sense any form of life besides the girl, nor any mage magic save for the tracker in your pocket.

You hate to admit it, but the wraith was good. And so was the mage that made the tracker, it took you a good while until you had sensed the small piece of enchanted rock hidden in your pocket. You’re still unsure what you want to do with it, maybe you could somehow game the situation or send the monsters after you on a wild goose chase, so for now you’ve only isolated it with your magic instead of destroying it.

Aisha persists. “Please,” She grits her teeth, resisting the urge to shrink back when your eyes once again settle on her. “I- you helped me, I don’t want to hold debts.” There is a kind of determination in her eyes you know too well, the same kind Frosty had right before you and him—

If anyone asks or puts a gun to your head, you will blame this moment on many things — the fatigue, the side effects of using too much magic, the spiraling descent into lichdom, finally losing what dredges of sense you have in your no good skull;  “Fine.”

You take careful steps towards her until your knees press against the bumper before turning your back to her, forcing her to spread her legs to accompany your body. You keep your body turned in a way that still keeps her in your periphery. Not that it matters. Even if she had a knife hidden on her person nothing short of 30/06 ammo could leave any damage you couldn’t immediately heal off.

Aisha hates the part of her that regrets her decision now that she's presented with the large array of glass sticking out of your skin. She reaches out like she would try to pet a wild dog, cold fingers gripping the sides of one piece, bracing her other hand on your back. She tries to wiggle it out, and though you keep yourself from hissing, your muscles still spasm around the sharp glass. “Sorry, sorry-”

“You’re fine rookie,” You grunt automatically. “Just yank it out.”

She sucks in a sharp breath and prepares herself like she’s the one with half a ton of glass using her as a pin cushion. But she does as you say before she can shy away from it. The glass slides out easily enough, glowing orange blood staining it. Her eyes go wide when the blood suddenly drips off the shard in one continuous stream until she’s holding a perfectly clean piece of glass. The blood lands on your back and slithers up your skin into the wound, repairing muscle and flesh until there’s not even a mark to indicate where the glass had pierced your skin.

“Are you like me?” She asks tentatively, mentally hitting herself for such a stupid question; of course you’re a mage, what is she even thinking? Hoping to escape the embarrassment she pulls another shard out of your back.

“You and I are mages.” You say simply, occasionally glancing to the road and sky before turning your attention back on the girl. It feels… strange. You don't remember the last time you've spoken with someone who didn't want anything from you. Someone who didn't want to use you. Kill you.

“Ye- yeah, I figured.” Aisha bites her lip, squinting her eyes. “Why… why did you save me?” She finally asks the question that had been plaguing her.

“I just did.” You shrug your shoulder, a small breath slipping past your clenched teeth as the motion makes the glass dig deeper into your shoulder.

Aisha’s shoulders fall, a frown tugging on her lips. She doesn’t know what she had expected. “Thank you.”

Her words make your head turn to look at her fully, “Why?”

“Why not?” Another chunk of glass falls to the ground, “You saved me from. . . them. You killed to save me.” She says, nodding her head at the three body shaped scorch marks on the ground. She doesn’t know why talking about the death of them suddenly feels so. . . normal, like she’s walking through a dream and none of this is real. More like a nightmare.

“Killing bad men doesn't make me a good one.” You grunt, choosing not to voice how your motives for killing them had been far more selfish than she could imagine. Vengeance and anger are poor motives, but motives nonetheless.

Aisha clicks her tongue and scowls. “And saving me would make you bad? One good deed has to amount for something, right?”

A pregnant pause rings through the silent night.

“You are strange.” Is the only thing your mind can turn into words.

“So are you!” She shoots back quickly, lowering her head when her words register in her brain. Chewing on her bottom lip she pulls out the last glass shard from your skin, letting it fall from her fingers where it joins the small pile on the ground. She awkwardly pats your shoulder. “Who were they?” She finds her voice again.

“Devourers.” You fail to hide the hate in your tone. Stepping away from her you activate the spell you’ve cast on yourself. The magic burning at the edges of the hole in your clothing flares up, fire washing over your naked skin to reconstruct the fabric you had destroyed. “Humans who want magic, and will bleed you dry to get it.” The jacket feels bigger on you than it should, you don’t even doubt that you’ve lost a few pounds just in the past few hours as you’re forced to tighten your belt to keep your pants from sagging. "Kill them if you can, avoid them if you can't."

“Why did they want me?” Aisha asks, bracing herself on the car’s hood and slowly sliding down until her feet touch the ground. She feels lightheaded and sways on her feet, gripping the hood to keep upright. You glance at her but she just shakes her head — you two are even now, she hopes, she doesn’t want to have to ask for help for something as simple as standing.

“You’re a mage, they want magic.” You shrug, fixing the cuffs on your jacket so not an inch of your mage marked skin shows. “They want your blood, by drinking it they can use what they lack.”

Unwanted thoughts laugh at the back of your mind. Phantom pain blooms across your throat as you swallow, your lungs stuttering to draw breath. Memories you'd rather not revisit nibble at the back of your mind, just begging to gain your attention. Your hand reaches out to hold the tags—

Nothing.

You come up empty.

Your heart finally stops.

You hold your fist against your chest for a few seconds, the need to break something, even your own sternum, crooning soft melodies in your ears. Finally your fingers slowly uncurl so your palm rests flat over your heart. Your body is warm, but a blizzard rages inside your ribcage. You lost them, again. . . and you don’t feel fury, or sadness, or any other way. You don’t feel shit.

A low pathetic sound escapes you. Titanium wires stitch your jaw closed, pulled so taut you'd chip a tooth without your magic. For a split second you think of dispelling the magic around the tracker and letting them come to you. . . but you don’t; at least Taurus’s training remains effective. You’re sure your brain will let you feel anger as soon as you’ll be in a position to survive the consequences of anger birthed stupidity.

Aisha leans to her side just enough to see your front, confusion written on her face as to why you had suddenly gone quiet. Though your eyes still burn with an inferno, they feel empty to her. She remembers her father’s eyes had been the same when he had returned from fighting. “Did you lose someone?” She asks, voice soft.

“Yes.” You grunt, and fuck, it feels insulting to them how lost you sound. You’re one of the best mages on the planet for fuck’s sake, you’re not supposed to feel this way. “Lost a lot of people.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be.” You finally pry your hand off your chest, both hands now hanging by your sides, fingers curled into fists. “You had nothing to do with it.” You wish you could say the same to yourself.

You shake your head; feelings can come after the job is done. You know the general lay of the land enough to know there is a small city not far from where you are, one that isn’t too harsh on mages. It would take her a couple of hours on foot to reach, but it’s better than nothing. You tell as such, starting to walk towards your motorcycle. “Get to the city, don’t linger around here.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Aisha follows after you, struggling to keep up. “What am I supposed to do when I get there?” Her mind swirls with all sorts of questions, where will she go? What of her parents? What if���

“Do what you want.” You shrug and get on the motorcycle, the engine roaring to life. “Join the military or the circus or whatever else, just don’t stay here.” And with that you drive off.

. . .

"Well, would you look at that." A man sighs as he pulls the binoculars down to rest in his lap, a deep frown on his face. It only lasts for a scant few seconds before he smirks, crows feet forming around his eyes. "Our firebug's manners haven't changed one bit." The man chuckles and turns his head to regard his companion, eyes glowing the color of crystal clear quartz.

"Oh, I wonder who taught him that." The woman sitting next to him snarks, the blue chains marring her arms disappearing like a mirage when she dispels the illusion spell. The human skin melts away to coarse sand and weathered whalebone, red bone eating worms squirming and boring holes into the whalebone, small anglerfish lures softly waving through the air as if she's deep beneath the sea.

The man purses his lip, "I've no idea what you're talking about."

"I'm sure, mister 'I dropped a mountain on an oil rig with my second in command still in it'." Water flows between the seams of whalebone, extending past the stumps of her wrists to form hands of seafoam and salt.

She uses her newly remade hands to tug on the man’s ear like he’s a disobedient child.

The man scoffs and bats her hand away. "Hey now, you did say you wanted to go diving." He shrugs, "Oh, and looks like I won our bet." He smirks, catching the golden coin the woman throws him. Charles's face smiles on one side of it, but the man pays it no mind and puts the coin in his pocket; they’re both far too old to care about money and the dead kings on them.

“Yes, but not like that!” She snaps, not even the bandages around her head able to hide the glare she throws at him. But instead of following up on her anger she sighs and looks down at her hands. Glowing blue plankton swim in the crystal clear waters, but it feels like yesterday her hands were dyed a burning orange.

She hates what they had to do. What they continue to do. “Ifrit is still too reckless. Your plan failed.”

“No it didn’t.” He shoots back. “We just overestimated the kid again. It wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t coddled them all so much.”

The man fully expects the slap on the shoulder he receives, cool water splashing on his greying blond hair. He doesn’t comment on it, simply runs his hand over the patch of wet hair. Small green shrubs bloom on the cracked earth texture of his palm, moss crawling up the crystalline outcrops along his elbow bone, little flowers sprouting in his hair and beard.

They sit in silence for a moment before the woman sighs and hangs her head. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.” Lifting her head she angles it to look at the man. “I just… I wish we didn’t have to do this.” She confesses. “It breaks my heart to see Ifrit so lost.” As much as her still heart can be broken.

“I know, I know.” He reaches out to gently take her hands into his. Though she can’t see his face, even her magic can only go so far, she knows he’s sporting a gentle smile. “Ifrit will be fine. He has no choice.”

Two jet planes fly overhead, engines screaming, blind to their existence as they rush after their prodigal soldier like bats out of hell.

The woman grimaces, water easily sliding past his fingers as she pulls her hands away. “I know,” She tilts her head towards the abandoned house, and the girl slowly walking away from it. “I suppose I’ll find something to occupy myself with.” The woman gets up, glancing at the man once again. “I hope you know what you’re doing Taurus.”

"I always do Sierra."

. . .

The atmosphere is so thick a vampire could bite into it. They all know first hand how missions can go wrong in a moment’s notice, but none of them had expected it to go this pear shaped; some of the mages they had been given are dead, the rest are all in some kind of coma, and it’s a miracle that Captain Roberts had survived long enough to get medical evac with how burned up she was. Gaz had almost lost his lunch when he’d gone to pick up the mage captain and her arm had fallen off in brittle pieces of blackened bone, fabric and skin melted together all over her torso.

"Are you boys alive?" Is the first question out of Laswell's lips when the contact her. The shoddy connection makes her face grainy and pixelated, but her voice is clear enough, tinged with exhaustion and the light of the screen darkens the bags under her eyes.

“Yeah,” Kyle says, “Besides nearly getting turned into KFC we’re fine.” He moves his wings for emphasis, holding back a grimace at how the residual soot and ash irritates the soft skin beneath his feathers. He’ll be lucky if it’ll wash out after a week, though the grime is only secondary to the stench of death and heat clinging to him.

Soap grunts, not bothering or simply forgetting to pull the frozen piece of rubber from his mouth before speaking. “O-cgh ohnlhy ah fheph burhnrs.” Spit leaks down his swollen lip as he gurgles. It hadn't been noticeable at first, but when the adrenaline wore off the pain in his gums hit him like a truck. The medic had given him the rubber to soothe the burns all over his mouth, and he would have been pissed about how much it looked like a doggy chew toy if the relief it brought wasn’t worth it. Doesn’t mean he’s any less agitated about looking like a teething puppy.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Kyle chides, singed wingtips flicking against the back of Soap’s skull.

Johnny pulls the rubber out of his mouth enough to growl back and simultaneously tries to swallow the saliva. He chokes, hitting his chest a few times and coughing, “Yae try ta talk with a burned mouth! Feel like ah’ve been gargling devil pish.”

“Boys.” Price snaps, voice as cold and hard as his reptilian eyes. “Enough.” There’s a hardness in his gaze neither men have seen in a while or even think of challenging. It’s easy to see that something is bothering the dragon, even if he doesn’t say it, and whatever it is, it’s got Price angry.

Not the usual ‘shouting and arguing’ angry Price gets when he’s given dog shit orders, no. This is the cold and silent anger that precedes the destruction of cities.

Soap looks away, biting down on the frozen rubber. Gaz mumbles an apology.

“John,” Kate begins, sensing the storm in his head. “What did you find out?”

“Ifrit knows Ruin magic.” Price says, bits of steam rising from the corners of his lips as his anger shows. He had gone centuries believing that despicable magic had finally died out and rotted away like every mage that used it. He was wrong. Very wrong.

“Shit.” Laswell rubs the bridge of her nose, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Price’s wing flares out a bit, tail flicking side to side in a subconscious show of agitation. “I felt it.”

“Anyone care to share with the class.” Simon asks, arms crossed over his chest and claws digging into his biceps. The light pricks of pain keep him grounded enough to ensure his arms don’t turn into puffs of dark smoke; he’s had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach ever since the fight, something about you — how you moved, how confidently you used magic — he hadn’t seen it in a while.

And it didn’t bode well. It was better when a mage was scared of their own shadow and put on a cheap mask of confidence. But with you? There wasn’t even a single second of hesitation in anything you did.

Price looks at him, then at the two sergeants, finally looking at Laswell as the two exchange nods. “It’s nothing good.” A sigh leaves him. “Ruin magic is old and dangerous,” Price starts, eyes hard like stone. “The last time it was used a plague swept across Europe.”

“What?” Kyle’s eyebrows furrow. “Do you seriously mean the black death was caused by magic?”

"Yes," Kate says, "But we can have a history lesson later. Ifrit knowing ruin magic changes things, they're now our top priority."

"Ah dhogh geh-" Soap remembers they can't understand him and pulls the rubber out of his mouth. "Ah don't get it, what's so special about ruin magic? Ain't all that magical shite the same?"

"No." Price grunts, "A ruin mage needs the body of another person to learn a spell. They see anything or anyone living as chunks of meat to be used in their spells." His eyes darken, claws digging into his palms.

He shakes his head. “Did you manage to get any information about Ifrit from the tags?” Price asks. He had sent photo copies of each dog tag to Laswell as soon as Johnny had given them to him.

Soap pulls the rubber from his mouth, swallowing the excess spit before reaching out to grab the tags laying on the table. He doesn’t know why, but something about holding them feels sacrilegious to him; like he’s holding the pelt of another werewolf instead of pieces of metal.

“No, Ifrit’s tags aren’t ones made by the military.” Laswell says, and that piques Kyle's interest. He leans over to look at the tags as Johnny inspects them. The metal chain hangs loosely off his fingers, weighed down by more than a dozen tags dangling from it. They vary in damage, some are bent, some have black heat marks on them in the shape of fingertips, and some are so blackened he needs to use his fingers to feel the text. Silicon silencers prevent the tags from making noise when he lays them down in a pile on his palm, a couple of them spilling over to hang at the sides of his hand. The first thing he notices is the stench, nothing specific like the smell mages have, but it’s not pleasant either.

Soap takes a random tag and reads off the fine text —

‘JACHAL

VENENUM, ACIDUM, L9

MAJOR

O NEG

JEWISH’

“Yer telling me.” Soap huffs, taking out his own tags from beneath his shirt to compare the two, just to make sure he’s not insane and the tags don’t make sense.

“What kind of shite even is this?” Johnny’s tags sport his full government name and security name without mentioning his rank. The tags he has in his hand look more like the ones civies would get personalized than anything else. He grimaces and hands the tags over to Gaz, “Are they even real?” He asks.

“Why would someone just carry around a bunch of fake tags?” Gaz asks, inspecting them as well.

“Could be part of a wannabe militia. Wouldn’t be the first time some punks with guns tried to play army.” Ghost shrugs. “Could also be to throw us off.” Ghost suggests, tilting his head enough to see Kyle appraise the small hunks of metal. “Or it’s all for shits n’ giggles.”

Kyle’s sharp eyes spot the tag he had been looking for; the tag is the only one without a silencer, the metal caked in soot and ash that the letters are hard to see and Kyle needs to trace the metal with the pad of his thumb to understand what they say:

‘IFRIT

IGNIS, CINIS, RUINA L10

CAPTAIN–

“Whoa,” Gaz’s eyebrows raise. “Ifrit’s a bloody captain.”

“What’s someone like that doing as a terrorist’s dog?” Soap asks.

“Ifrit’s motives remain unclear, but I did find something.” Kate shuffles some papers off screen, pulling up two thin looking file folders. “Two of the tags you sent me have actual people on them.” She says, taking a paper from each folder. Even through the camera they can see how the once crisp white paper has been yellowed with age. “Lance Corporals Hutch and Lambert, both presumed KIA nearly 11 years ago along with their entire squad. Apparently they were led by Corporal Yerrow to conduct a reconnaissance mission in Iraq to investigate a human smuggling ring, but a shoot-out caused a forest fire and no bodies were ever recovered.”

Johnny sniffs the air, crossing his arms over his chest, tail tip slowly wagging. “Anyone smell bull shite?”

“You’re not the only one.” Kate turns the files so the text side is aimed at the camera. More than half of the documents are redacted to the point it looks like a rorschach test. “I haven’t been able to access the original files, if they even exist, but the agent that oversaw the mission was a predecessor of mine, I’ll see if I can get in contact with him. ” It wouldn’t be the first time the CIA covered something up, but what could have happened back then that even Kate couldn’t get to the files?

“Great, what other shite can we pile on our plates?” Soap growls, ears twitching.

“Don’t jinx it.” Kyle says, gently setting the tags on the table. 

“There’s another thing.” Kate adds, putting the files away.

“Nice going puppy.” Ghost grunts, ignoring the look Soap gives him.

“Whatever it is, it’ll need to wait.” Price says, speaking up finally. “Ifrit’s a ruin mage. We need to put it down before it melts half the country to slag.”

“That’s the problem.” Kate’s voice makes Price’s eyes sharpen, slitted pupils turning into thin black lines. “We’ve managed to identify the gas used in the terror attack. It was Sarin gas, remnants of Barkov. The same ones Makarov stole.”

“Told you they’re a damn magnet fer wankers.” Soap mutters under his breath. Price's eyes shift to him, giving him a hard look and making it very clear it’s not the time for his comments. Soap’s ears twitch and his tail curls around his leg.

“How did Al-Qatala get their hands on the gas? There’s no way Makarov would just hand over his toys.” Ghost asks.

“We don’t know yet. And we might not ever know if you don’t hurry.” Kate stresses. “The top brass figured out Khaled’s location, they think Ifrit’s going after Khaled so they’re sending troops to take them both out in one place as we speak.”

Price catches on quickly. “Kate, you’re not telling me we need Ifrit alive?” Price stresses, body stiff.

“I’m not,” Kate rebuts, just as tense. “This is an order.” Price flashes his teeth at her, but finally looks away, black smog escaping past the corner of his lips.

“If you can’t get to Khaled, Ifrit will be our only chance to get Makarov.” She ads.

“So go capture the human bomb without dying.” Gaz summarizes, claw tips nervously scratching at the fresh pin feathers growing from his forearms. “Sounds easy.”

“Walk in tae park.” Johnny snarks.

"Only the parks on fire." Ghost adds, tone dry as old bone.

Price stays still and silent for a few moments. Thunder rumbles in his chest and his tail tip lashes against the floor as indications of his anger. His claws scrape against his palms with the need to tear into the festered flesh of the ruin mage, to rip out the heart and destroy it so he can make sure that blasted magic is gone for good.

But he relents, only so he can have unrestrained access to you once they get the information they need. “Pack up. On the double.” Price growls. “We’ve got a mage to hunt.”

. . .

Why did you do it?

It had been a split second decision to divert course when you'd sensed the Devourers, and even then, the mana they gave you through Beelzebub was miniscule compared to what you were used to handling. Hell, you probably wasted more mana using the temporary invisibility spell to get close to the Devourers than what you made from them.

With Khaled's betrayal and an unknown military likely after your head, ignoring the Devourers would have been the smart move. Your ‘heroic’ act won’t earn you any brownie points with whatever made the mistake of putting you on the planet — that’s for fucking sure.

But. . . she reminded you of, well, you. The you violent flames had cremated when they first sparked across your fingers. The you you’d left behind when you took your friend’s hand and ran as fast as your legs could carry. The you you’d been forced to stuff beneath the floorboards and ignore as you lied to the recruiter. The you you sometimes wish you hadn’t forsaken for the sake of survival.

. . . eh, what does it matter? Frosty’s as dead as the rest of them and no amount of grief and tears (assuming you could even force yourself to weep) will bring him back. Maybe it’s a good thing you never found his tags, the universe’s way of keeping him from suffering the humiliation you’ve inflicted on the others.

The engine roars beneath you like a caged beast, each little rock and hole in the uneven terrain causing the motorcycle to buck, the back of the seat knocking up into your tailbone. It’s a necessary evil, driving far away from the main road with the lights off helps you evade detection slightly better, and you’ll take anything you can get. Your commander’s words are etched into your bones: “Only let your enemies know you’re coming when your knife is hilt deep in their throat.”.

The sizzle in your bones and little deep pinpricks of pain in your lower back are barely noticeable with how numb you feel. Both in body and in what’s left of your humanity. You’ve gotten good at that — turning off your emotions and doing what needs to be done; you’re sure if you got shot dead that your body would finish the mission before it figured out there was a bullet in your skull.

Sometimes you even wonder what a witch would see if she ever tried to scry into your heart. Would it still be the hellish landscape Taurus showed you all those years ago? Or would it be like Pompei? Or some other landscape of impeccably preserved tragedy?

Your fingers twitch around the handlebars in an attempt to stop yourself from reaching out for something that’s not there anymore. Some vestigial and selfish part of you whimpers and yearns for the brief respite the tags brought. Their absence feels more suffocating than all the times you’ve been hanged; more painful than when your throat had been used as an artistic butcher’s canvas.

Your magical senses pick up the life signs long before your enhanced ears hear the screech of jet engines. You nearly snap your neck with how quickly you look up, able to catch two jet planes flying overhead by the glow of their engines, trying to track both of their flight paths.

You tighten the grip on the handlebars and increase the speed. You don’t stop to see if they saw you, you know they did from the way the planes twirl in the air. . . and from the way they shoot rockets at you.

Letting go of one handle you let mana rush to your fingers, cinders burning away your sleeve and glove. Just as the rockets get close enough for you to hear their screeching you swing your arm up, a burning arch of flames following after your palm. The motion is enough to tell your brain what you want, a thick screen of roaring flames spreading out from the arc in front of you.

The missiles hit the wall of flames instead of you. You swear you nearly go deaf from the loud explosion the missiles make when they connect with your defense magic, everything around you shaking from the sudden force but the spell holds, not even a scratch in sight. The resulting smoke flares around the sides in a suffocating cloud, the thick wall of fire obscuring your vision and forcing you to blindly swerve side to side.

Your magic may protect you, but it can’t stop the rocket from hitting the ground right in front of the wheel. The whistle and screech of the missile is the only warning you get before the ground beneath you explodes and sends you flying. You hit the ground and roll, jagged rocks slamming into your bones, scraps of metal pelting your back. Magic washes over you to heal the bones you break.

It leaves you feeling every bit of pain when the motorcycle falls on top of you, pushing the breath out of your lungs. The sudden force has your jaw slamming onto the ground, your tongue caught between your teeth. Blood floods your mouth. It tastes like battery acid and burns your throat on its way down to your stomach, but it forces adrenaline to rush through your system and let you push the motorcycle off you.

Your spine cracks multiple times in the short seconds it takes for your magic to fix the bones, giving you back the sensation in your limbs so you can roll to your side and avoid another missile. You summon a few smaller flame shields to protect your head and vitals from the blast, but not from the sharp rocks that hit your back like grenade pieces.

Your vision swimming and ears ringing you scramble to your knees. You’re given no choice but to use your own blood. Even with the distraction of another missile hitting your shield, it’s easy for you to focus your mana. It flows from your heart to your fingers but you don’t let it escape like it wants. Forcing it to pool in your palms until the heat burns away your remaining glove and turns the stone of your hands into lava.

It only takes a few seconds for fat drops of brightly melted rock to drip onto the ground, and only then can you feel your blood, both the one in your veins and the rivulets of bright orange freely flowing down your back. Burning hot and brimming with so much mana it’s no problem for you to take hold of the blood you've bled. Bright crimson crawls across your back to draw a magic circle from memory alone.

Quickly hunching your back generates enough force to make your blood bust through your vessels, two arcs of blood tearing through skin and muscle like a knife. The bright glow of your blood lights up the dark, stray droplets hovering in the air like oil in water as more of it flows from your body and branches out until it resembles skeletonized wings. Fire sparks at your skin and follows the blood, forcing it to crystallize in place as ash takes up the space between the bones and cascades down in long shrouds. Obsidian sharp crystal blood digs into your skin with every little move of your new wings as they twitch erratically. Lighting races up your spine, your mind forced to create new nerves and deal with sensations it wasn’t designed for.

You summon a circle beneath your feet, ash bursting up to send you high into the air in a long continuous column like it’s the tower of Babel just as another missile hits the place you had been moments ago. The spark from the rocket ignites the ash, giving you an extra few feet in the air before you start to fall.

The leftover smoke swallows you whole, gravity forcibly tipping you back until you’re falling head first. The wind screeches in your ears and the grounds gets closer and closer with every second, the grim reaper laughing over your shoulder; you remember yelling and screaming, even passing out, many times during this type of training. Now, you are calm.

Your mind finally creates the right nerves to move your limbs. Your wings spread out with the same violence they burst out of your back, sharply pulling on your chest muscles as they swing out and down. The flap of your wings breaks off a bit of the ash covering your crystallized blood, flames burning at the tips of your wings making the ash erupt in an explosion and creating enough force for you to soar high into the air.

Flying is hard regardless of how often you’ve done this, your back muscles cramping as you struggle to use your new wings. Not that it actually is flying in the same sense the harpies or other winged creatures would call it. More like gliding with extra steps. Either way, it serves its purpose in making you airborne and mobile.

You shoot high up into the sky like a bullet, trails of ash following after you and wrapping around you like a shroud. The quick movement of your wings and sharp turns let you avoid a set of missiles shot at you, but even at your fastest speed you’ve got no chance of hitting the quick jets flying around you like flies. So instead you use simple spells and hope your aim hasn’t gotten rusty. The muscles in your core and arms tense, a circle forming flush with your palms. Mana rushes to your arms and you use the brief stability in the air between the flaps of your wings to set off your spell.

A solid beam of concentrated flame shoots out, thin as a pencil but it tears through the clouds and metal plane like butter. You manage to cleave off a wing, the wound left behind in the metal glows brightly, before a simple thought activates the latent magic and the entire jet explodes a second later.

Rockets and bullets fly at your back like plague carrying insects, only to be burned away by your magic. Your neck hurts from how sharply you jerk your head to look behind you, mana flowing to your eyes to enhance your sight until the jet is clearly visible. At least you have comfort in the fact your hand eye coordination is still as sharp as ever, another beam of fire cleaving the jet in two.

And just like that, you’re alone in the sky.

You don’t realize how rapidly your heart is beating until you take a moment to breathe, wings spreading out to let you glide through the sky. You reach into your pocket to pull out the tracker, a small piece of rich green rock. Your magic swirls across the surface of it, cinders worming through the stone; You don’t know how they found you when your magic is still active on the tracker, there are no ‘happy accidents’ in your line of work.

Gritting your teeth you dispel your magic around the tracker and toss it as far as you can in the opposite direction, wings pressing closer to your body to increase the speed of your glide.

With your motorcycle more than likely fucked, you have no choice but to rely on your bloodmade wings longer than you’d like. Using the mana you’d stuck on Khaled as a compass you let yourself fall and gain speed before spreading out your wings. The deep muscles in your back and chest scream for a second with each flap of your wings before your magic silences them, the discomfort of using temporary limbs easy to shove into the back of your mind. Your flying speed is much faster than that of the motorcycle, the ground moving rapidly beneath you.

You’re only mildly surprised to feel Khaled’s presence in his base. It’s an old oil refinery that was abandoned when the Russians restricted the production of oil in the country. Khaled found it and turned it into a bastion, hiding up high in the mountains like he’s some kind of king.

Any old dragon can attest a kingdom of steel and concrete like that won’t survive scorching flame.

Your only problem is that it’s got magic sensing tech, which just means there’s some extremely sensitive electronics that end up sparking like shoddily made light bulbs when more than just the smallest amount of modern magic is used. Sometimes you hate how thorough you are.

Luckily for you, it’s not the first time you’ve had to sneak past such tech.

You land near the base of the mountain, just at the edge where you know the range of those sensors ends. You’d like to say you land gracefully and with barely a sound, but you’re pretty sure a tank would have an easier time than you. The exhaustion and the added weight on your back doesn’t help you in any way to keep balance, making you stumble forward and almost trip on a root. Your arms spread out to grip the trees for support, but you underestimate your strength and the wood splinters under your right hand, making you fall face first.

The few seconds you spend flat on the ground is probably the longest you’ve spent laying down in the past month.

With a sharp breath you get to your feet, carefully leaning your shoulder against a tree. Your makeshift wings press against your back and pull on your muscles, but the thought of ‘what if you’ll need them?’ keeps you from dispelling them. Embers burn away the clothing shielding your front, giving yourself just enough sight of your skin to be able to cast the spells you need.

It’s one thing to push your mana to your hands and out as magic, it’s another to force the burning heat through every little capillary in your skin and pull on it in certain spots until magical circles etch themselves into your skin. It’s not that far off from using blood magic, only it requires a little less mana and focus. You’ve done this so much you could do it with your eyes closed, filling the insides of the circles with little diamonds and magical sigils only your mind can grasp.

The body enhancing spell has an immediate effect. The pain in your back disappears suddenly like it was never there, the vestiges of weakness from mana use getting pushed back to the back of your mind. It even dispels the base painful thrum in your skull you hadn’t realized you had.

With a clearer mind you go about casting more similar spells that carve themselves into your skin; one to temporarily strengthen your body beyond what you already have, another to force your mana generator to increase in productivity, yet a third one to increase the potency of your spells; Buffs that push your body past the edge of what it can take, to the point you barely feel human.

This is the closest man will ever come to godhood. ”Don’t let it get to your little head firebug.”

Your last spell to prepare is different. A dirty trick.

“Valefar.” You huff, speaking another name for a spell that deserves respect. Nothing happens at first, but then you feel it. Like a living thing deep beneath the earth, Valefar hums a soft lullaby to the tune of crackling flames. The dirt beneath you expands and black flames break through the earth, creating a spider web of dark old magic that fills up the empty root system spanning the entire mountain. The flames don’t dare touch you yet. They’re waiting. . . hungry.

Before the problematic thing in your skull can give you grief, you let the waiting beast in and welcome it like a brother. Valefar’s black flames shudder and slowly, carefully, crawl up your legs, scampering along your abdomen and kissing the sharp transition between skin and mage marks. They paint the yellow glow of your mage marks a pitch black, the magma of your arms and your crystalized blood turning black as obsidian. Even the flames tipping the ends of your wings turn black as pitch.

For a second you’re accosted with the sensation of every bit of magic you had pushed into the earth over the months, every drop of mana obediently waiting its time in the rotten root system. But Valefar soothes your mind, dampening the glow of your eyes and shrouding your brain in water cool flames. Valefar lacks the crushing weight or the freezing cold of most ruin spells, simply almost thrilled to be used.

Ruin magic is too old to be tracked by modern means, and you take the first step into the range of the sensors without fear. You knew Khaled would betray you, you’ve almost started growing old in an industry that killed its soldiers young, you knew to listen to your stomach. Khaled had been one of those people you wouldn’t trust as far as you could throw them, though you never expected him to be so brazen about it. It’s no different than the day hellfire rained down on your hea-

You stop yourself mid thought the second you register your anger trying to boil over, the burning heat inside your chest making steam rise off your shoulders. Asmodeus, the one spell you won’t ever use, sparks beneath your skin; angry, vengeful. You stifle it before it can gain an upper hand, sparks of black flame flying past your lips as you breathe out and escaping through the filters of your mask.

Taurus always blamed your hotheadedness on your magic. What is a mage if not the fire Prometheus stole for you? The suffocating hate Vesuvius spewed? The blackened rotten blood giving birth to spells like Beelzebub and Valefar?

Loud gunfire breaks through your thoughts; Khaled would never practice shooting drills in the middle of the night.

You increase your pace, turning your jog into a run. As you near the old refinery something immediately stands out to you – there’s way too many life signatures than there should be. Even without a good line of sight you can sense them, all those beating hearts and flickers of life fluttering together like moths until you find yourself with a massive pain in your skull.

Breathing out a small breath you duck behind the tall trees just at the edge of the compound. To say you’re surprised to find Urzikstan soldiers engaged in combat with Khaled’s men would be an understatement. And the army didn’t hold anything back. There’s a fuck ton of soldiers, most of them hiding behind tanks that block the only exit from the compound and sponge up the machine gun fire Khaled’s men are unloading into them. Bullets rain down on both sides, there’s even fucking helicopters flying in the air — this is a full on assault.

You can still sense Khaled is in the refinery somewhere, you would be able to narrow down on his exact location if there weren’t so many living bodies buzzing around like ants. Your mind whirls with ideas; you could use the distraction and sneak past, or you could just destroy both sides in one quick and clean attack, you doubt anyone would be able to notice you using magic when they’re more focused about the hail of bullets.

A tree branch snaps beneath you, followed by the clicking of a gun and three rounds going off. “Mage in sight! I repeat I got mage in sight!”

Nevermind.

The bullets tear through your vest but just bounce off your magic enhanced skin. You turn on your heel, holding your arm out. “Beelzebub.” Burning cold swells in your heart and crawls through your veins, black flames shooting out from your palm at the soldier. He barely has the chance to scream before the black fire eats away his vocal cords, his gun clattering to the floor. In only a few seconds the only thing left of him is the uniform and the black flames burning in the shape of a man.

Despite how stupid it might be, you let go of the fine control you have over Beelzebub. It doesn’t waste a second, thousands of little wisps of obsidian fire breaking off from the main mass and shooting out at the nearest source of organic matter. Be they tree or human, Beelzebub will devour them all the same.

Fresh mana fills your chest and you’re quick to turn it into something useful. This time it takes significantly less time to spread your wings, summoning ash beneath your feet and launching yourself up into the air.

Tree branches whack you over the head before you make it into the open air. . . and accidentally smash your head into the belly of a helicopter. A dull 'thump' sounds and you're not sure if it's your head that's empty or the helicopter.

Your vision blurs for a second, and you shake your head to get rid of the temporary headache. The helicopter swerves to the side, the tail swinging right at you, the soldiers inside yelling. Tucking your wings close to your body you fall just in time to avoid the tail, twisting your body as you careen through the air until you’ve got a clear line of sight. One magic circle is all it takes to blast a sizable hole through the center of the flying machine, taking out the engine and the blades all at once.

Quickly flapping your wings you dart up through the hole you created, ash flooding the inside of the heli as you pass and erupting in an explosion a second later. The heli plumets down to the ground but you stay in the air, spreading your wings out to soar. This high up you’ve got a clear view of everything — the entire compound, made up of two big buildings connected with a catwalk and oil storage towers; The machine gun men shooting at tanks with no regard for how many bullets they use; Beelzebub’s black flames spreading across the terrain like a forest fire, consuming everything in sight until the only thing left is scorched earth and dust.

First things first, the machine guns. Though not as dangerous to you as the tanks, you’ve had enough of them to sate you for a lifetime, and you’d rather not be on the receiving end again. With sitting ducks for targets it’s laughably easy to cast simple homing spells to kill the gunner and melt the machine guns mounted on the rails.

A bullet hits your chest, tearing through the bullet proof vest. It bounces off your skin but the force nearly knocks you out of the sky. You go with the force, tucking your wings and flipping backwards in the air until you can spread them out to glide down. You notice the snipers, two on the roof of each building, one on the middle one of the tall oil towers just behind the buildings. You go for the straggler first, diving down with the speed of a bullet.

The sniper tries to shoot you again but you barrel roll out of the way. You shoot a ball of flames at the sniper when you're close enough, completely disintegrating him on contact. Turning to your side you soar through the gap between two oil towers, making a sharp left turn around the tower with a quick flap of your wings so you can quickly soar up.

The building to your right is closer and your next target. Gliding down close to the roof you you summon your spell, incinerating the closer of the two snipers. The other one drops his rifle to shoot at you with a pistol, but you just tuck your wings close and barrel roll to evade the bullets.

Your wings suddenly spread out with the force of a tightly coiled spring, the crystalline edge slicing straight through the sniper's neck like a guillotine. You're given no time to focus on the remaining snipers when a massive artillery shell flies at you. With a swing of your arm your flames race out to collide with the shell, an explosion going off right in front of your face. Ash and soot cake on top of your lenses but that's a small price to pay when you can safely dart through the smoke cloud; looks like the tanks have noticed you.

Pulling your wings close to your wings close to your body you divebomb to take out the final two snipers. You crash into one of them, your boots making contact with his chest and the force you’ve generated from your flight means you completely smash through his ribs the second his back hits the roof. The concrete cracks beneath your boot, but that doesn't stop you as you race across it, pulling your arm back to swing a fist at the remaining sniper. The skull cracks the second your fist connects, breaking completely under your knuckles, blood and brains splattering on the lenses of your gasmask.

The roof you're on has a helicopter on it, and you think of destroying it, but the tanks present a bigger problem. Leaping off the edge of the building you launch yourself back into the air, turning your attention to the tanks. There’s four of them, all spread out in a vague arc across the empty field of land between the buildings and the road leading out. Not a problem for you.

Slowing down to a smooth glide you stretch your arms out in front of you. Your flames rush out to hit the artillery shells shot at you, but it also forces the mana Beelzebub keeps stuffing into your chest to move to your palms. Summoning four evenly sized circles in front of you is easy for a mage of your caliber. With mana burning in your palms you squeeze your hands, forcing all that magic to shoot out through the centers of the circles as concentrated beams of flame. As if struck down by some god's smite, The tanks blow up the moment your magic hits them, leaving smoldering half melted skeletons of steel behind.

You land near one of the tanks with enough force to crack the charred ground beneath you, stumbling a few steps forward. You turn your head, using the tattered remains of your jacket near your shoulders to wipe away the lenses. It makes you see the clear destruction Beelzebub has wrought, the once lush forest surrounding the compound turned baren. Yet the spell hungers still, given the chance it would easily devour the entire world, and you can feel it gnaw on the edges of your passive control in it's attempt to stray away from you. Biting the hand that feeds. Arrogant. Just like Lambert.

You're forced to snuff it out, dispelling Beelzebub before it tries to sweep through the country like all ten plagues.

A shuddering breath leaves you for the first time in a while, your lungs stuttering as you breathe in for the first time in a while. Despite how stuffed to the gills with mana your chest is, how you can barely breathe with the pressure against your ribs, you can feel the familiar sting of your bones — the cost of mana use burrowing into your marrow. The missions, the ambush, this, it’s all starting to pile on. It’s the cost, you suppose, no mortal will ever become god, this is simply a consequence for your choices.

Shots ring out above the crackle of flames, bullets bouncing off your body and only making you aware of the soldiers. Thy are too much of a problem to be kept alive, but killing them with magic would be a waste of mana considering you’re slowly reaching the breaking point of how much even your augmented body can handle.

Fortunately, you’ve got a cheap trick up your sleeve. Quickly sensing the exact location of the Urzikstan soldiers you cast another spell, circles forming beneath their feet before chains of living flame ensnare them like rabbits. "Belial." You say, your gaze fixed on the Urzikstan soldiers. 

Belial is softer on your arteries than Beelzebub, but it still passes from your heart and into your fingers like a kidney stone. Big globs of tar black lava drip from your arms, sizzling and steaming when splatter on the ground. But they don’t stay inert for long. You’ve seen the sight a thousand times; Roaches made of pure black lava crawl out of the puddles by the dozens, quickly skittering towards the hapless humans. They crawl up the bound soldiers, fiery mandibles eating away the flesh and boring holes through muscle, squirming into every orifice, infesting every inch of their insides.

The soldiers try to scream but their vocal cords are soon devoured as the roaches eat everything they deem useless. They gorge themselves on the fat, groups of them peeling off the skin in long strips until the bowels and other organs fall out to the ground with a wet 'splat' to be eaten by yet more roaches. The bodies twitch and convulse, falling to the ground when you dispel the chains. Blood and mucus froths at their mouths but the roaches drink up even that like it's the finest wine.

When they're done feasting they crawl into the body that's nothing more but muscle, ligament, and bone. A single hand motion is enough to command the bodies to rise. They do so slowly, limbs twitching and bodies shaking as the magical roaches squirm in the homes they've made between muscle fibers. The bodies stumble to their feet, eyeless slack jawed heads full of roaches staring at you.

Your control over them isn’t as fine as Jackal had over his puppets, but it’s still better than what most militaries see. Your well hidden anger bleeds into your magic, you don’t even need to speak for the charred puppets to stumble past you, seeking out to devour the stragglers you missed.

With that done you turn your attention to the large two story building where you can still sense Khaled’s presence.

. . .

"Ah still think this is bollocks." Soap growls when his head bumps against the roof of the Humvee because Price drove over yet another pot hole in the road. "Go capture tae mage that can turn yeh into a kebab, wonderful idea, no wee problem there."

"Noted sergeant." Price grunts, knuckles almost white as he grips the steering wheel. "Anything else you want to add?" He asks but receives a few grumbles in return. They've heard that one part of the army had come to lay siege on the refinery, and from the preliminary reports Laswell gave them, it didn't end well for the poor bastards.

"Do we even have a game plan sir?" Gaz asks, glancing between Ghost and Soap sitting in the backseat. "One that isn't 'let the mage shoot at us until they tucker out'?"

"Got a better idea?" Ghost asks with a small huff. "Let me n' Price do the heavy lifting." He grunts, "You two stay back and provide support."

Even with irritation nibbling on his nerves, Soap can't help himself. "Oh, you like it hot Lt?"

Gaz gives a surprised snort. Ghost side eyes Soap. "Mhm, scorching."

"We're getting close." Price warns, switching gears as the road starts going up the hill. His sharp senses already pick up the lingering hints of smoke and ash along with the tang of burnt flesh. Beneath all of that is something older: the rancid festering flesh of crumbling empires and wild animalistic grief.

Price grits his teeth. "Remember, we need Ifrit alive."

"Laswell never said we had to keep 'em in one piece." Ghost ads.

"Thank fock for that." Johnny says and bumps his shoulder against Ghost's. "Yae reckon she won't mind if ah take a few fingers off?" He asks, a mean grin pulling his lips back to bare his teeth.

"Play nice and I'll throw you a femur too." Ghost chuckles, ignoring the look Johnny gives him.

"Are we even sure this thing will work?" Gaz asks, looking down at the heavy piece of metal in his hands. It looks like a metal collar, runes and circles etched into the outside surface, tiny needles poking from the inside. Three vials filled with bright purple liquid are slotted into the back of the collar. The thing buzzes softly beneath his claws, like there’s a thunderstorm stuck inside the metal, making his fingers go numb.

"That's why we brought the arm restraints to be sure." Ghost says, absentmindedly tapping a clawed finger against the restraints he's holding. They look like big elbow length mittens made out of metal, similar runes scrawled over every inch.

Kyle purses his lips before his gaze turns to the roll of silver tape Price had haphazardly thrown on top of the dashboard. "What's the tape for? Planning to put a bow on Ifrit?"

"Got to wrap up the gift somehow." Ghost shrugs.

"Oh yeah, an I reckon the mage will just sit nice n pretty and let us play dress up." Soap snarks.

"Focus." Price orders, pulling their attention to the front windshield. The forest surrounding the main road abruptly disappears as if a god had photoshopped a different part of the world in it's place, verdant green replaced by scorched black ground and nothing else. The smell of burning metal and flesh is inescapable now, seeping through the cracks of the windows and making Gaz cough.

"Fucking hell." Gaz mumbles, tears stinging his eyes and forcing him to quickly put on the gas mask hanging off his neck. It doesn't help a single bit with the god awful smell.

"This shite is useless." Soap complains as he secures the gas mask to his own face. Soap had smelled his fair share of foul things in the demolition school, from Sulphur to gas and everything that could be used in making explosives, but the stench he's exposed to now makes everything else smell like daisies. "How the hell did the matchstick do this?" He can't help but ask.

"That's the work of ruin magic." Price says, tone hard and clipped.

They're forced to stop a little bit away from the compound as their path is blocked by the wreckage of a helicopter, the steel melted into the concrete road and the sides of the road too steep to drive around. They pile out of the Humvee, Soap and Gaz clutching their guns close; it's uncommon for them to use human made weapons when they're monsters, but Price isn't taking any chances with his mens safety.

They inch carefully past the remains of the helicopter, burnt cracked dirt crunching beneath their boots. With no trees in the way the compound is easy to see, and it looks just as bad as the surrounding area.

"Steaming Jesus." Johnny mutters as they walk around one of the four tanks, the metal melted and flames still flickering a top it. The land here looks like the hell his ma would describe in an attempt to put some godliness in him; The ground is cracked and charred black, hot under their boots. Ash and steam blanket the ground, making it hard to see where they step. Parts of the buildings have been melted, long strands of slag running down the sides of them. There's no light save the fires burning haphazardly across the ground, but their eyes can see fine in the dark.

"Should we check for survivors?" Kyle asks, finger tightly pressed against the safety switch, his wings spread out just enough to be able to quickly launch himself into the air if the need arises.

"Don't bother." Simon says, dark smoke slowly fizzling off his hands. The air in the compound feels heavy, feels like he's back in that fucking coffin. The hair on the back of his neck stands on end, anticipation crackling under his skin like static. "We didn't bring a dust bin. Or Henry the Hoover."

"Fuck Lt," Soap opens his mouth to speak more, but before he can make a sound, they hear a half mangled groan ring out from their side. Immediately raising his gun Soap narrows his eyes, managing to make out a dark outline stumbling towards them. At first Johnny thinks it’s a survivor, but then the steam clears enough to see it’s clearly not. What stumbles towards them is a completely skinned human, muscle and bone charred black, jaw gnashing as if it's already got their throat between its teeth.

Without thinking Johnny unloads a couple of bullets into the body, silenced gunshots echoing in the smoke. The body just soaks up the bullets, continuing to stumble after them. "Shit!" Soap hisses as he steps back, but before he can shoot at it again, Simon's shadows lash out at it.

The whips of darkness knock the corpse to the ground, managing to tear off a desecrated arm off in the process. A disgusting sound gurgles in it's throat as it tries to crawl towards them, the cracked bone of its fingers clawing at the ground. Simon moves his hand up and a spike of darkness erupts from the walking corpse's shadow, destroying the head in an instant. Soap doesn't even have time to breathe before the body starts convulsing, large black pustules rapidly swelling on its back. They explode without warning, black flames spewing out in a few feet around it like a miniature bomb, incinerating the corpse in the process.

A second of silence passes.

"What the fock was that?" Soap stresses, staring at the black flames as they burn on the ground.

"Belial." Price mumbles under his breath, blue eyes narrowing as a small breath of smoke escapes past his lips. "Magic made undead.” Price grunts. “Ruin magic lets the mage control the body like a puppet."

"Great." Soap grunts, trying not to breathe in the scent of burning flesh. "First the bomb shaped mage, now focking zombies? Firecracker's pulling out all the stops." Soap’s tail flicks to his leg and he grips his riffle tighter. "Shit, that smell too." He doesn't know how you keep managing to make things smell worse and worse, but fuck, he's sure the stench will be stuck in his pores for the rest of his life.

"Not a fan of barbeque?" Ghost asks as they step around the burning corpse. Or rather what remains of it.

"Not quite the cook out ah have in mind LT." Johnny grumbles.

"Remind me not to join you two at the next brass dinner." Gaz ads with a humorless chuckle before his harpy eyes spot more movement. "Tangos, one o'clock." He says, and doesn't need to be prompted to fly up into the sky to be their eyes.

"Stick close and aim for the head." Price orders, all of them slowly and quietly making their way into the compound. They encounter more zombies, some of them stumbling around mindlessly, some simply standing. Knowing where to hit they're easy to take out unawares, a couple of bullets through the skull enough to get the corpses on the ground.

Kyle lands behind them when they near a two story building. Another one is opposite it, a catwalk above them connecting the buildings together. A nearby door is torn off its hinges, smoke spilling through it into the surrounding air. It's the only place they can think of where you might be.

"Simon, with me." Price says, "Gaz, Soap, secure the perimeter." Price doesn't need to say it twice. Simon steps close to him, guarding his six as they enter the building. Large holding tanks are built in the center of the building, smoke filling the room up to their knees and the occasional cinder of ash gracefully fluttering through the air. Price automatically checks his right, eyes focusing on the stairs leading to a small room on the second floor, one set of stairs on both sides of the room. Bits of thick ash cascade down the stairs, and both of them can smell the rot.

He makes a small hand motion and Simon understands easily, leaving his side to duck behind the towering oil tanks, crossing the room and reaching the other set of stairs. Quietly they make their way up, making sure not to make a single sound. The door on Price’s side is torn off too, his pointy ear flicking as he hears what he assumes to be your voice, low and muffled, simply asking: "How?"

. . .

Your hand shakes from how hard you try to keep yourself from crushing Khaled's skull. You can already imagine the way bone would softly creak before finally splintering to pieces, the way blood and brains would squelch between your fingers. You grip his head hard enough to bruise instead, his skin bubbling and hair burning from the barely controlled heat of your hand.

Khaled looks exactly how other prideful men look when you come to collect your due — eyes wide, teeth clenched, legs weakly kicking you as you have him dangling in the air. You’d usually feel satisfaction, but the only thing in your heart right now is a suffocating cold.

The cold extends to your free hand, turning the lava into inert stone so not even a single thread of the patch laying in your palm is burned; A black decapitated right hand sits in a crimson backdrop. A crimson eye in the center of it cries bloody tears. ‘Mortem Opetere’ is stitched on top of it, boldly proclaiming what awaits you. Across both sides just three measly words turn your world upside down: ‘Red Right Hand’.

Your jaw feels welded shut as you try to open it, moving your tongue like your mouth's full of barbed wire before you manage to force out one word: "How?"

Khaled grunts instead of answering, coughing as the ash cascading off your wings continues to twirl in the air. Beelzebub’s flames dance at your feet, consuming the magical ash the second it touches the floor so the room feels suffocating, but it doesn’t make him pass out.

You grip him harder, claws of lava burning through the surface of his skin until you’re digging into the muscles covering his bones, his screams fall deaf on your ears. Even like this, barely able to hold yourself back from cracking his skull like an egg, your magic is controlled. You only let enough mana linger in your palm so the heat burns and stabs at his nerves, but not enough to completely destroy them. “How. Did. You. Get. This?” You ask again, each word like a sharp stab to your tongue.

Khaled bites his lip so hard it bleeds, glaring at you with utter disgust in his eyes. “Ask your- mh!- your commander lich-”

You notice the enemy presence a second too late, gunshots blasting in your ears. Having dispelled your body enhancing spells because of how taxing they were, you’re left with no  choice but to blindly throw up a shield of crackling flames to destroy the bullets.

You miss one.

The bullet hits the crystalized bone of your wing and it's all it takes to create a spark. The ash making up your wings erupts, the resulting explosion unable to damage your wing but it does knock you forward. Khaled slips through your fingers as you both are tossed to the ground from the force. Your magic surges through your hand even as you scramble to stand, magic circles forming in the air to shoot uncontrolled flames at the two exits of the room.

Ropes of dark shadows shoot out from the right doorway, forcing you to throw yourself to the side to dodge them. You get to your feet just as the shadows hit the wall at the height of your head, quickly eroding a hole into the steel; The wraith has found you, and likely the rest of the misfits too.

You're careful as you stuff the patch into your pocket, but have no regard for the muscles in your back when you spread your wings out. Fresh ash cascades down the crystalline bones just as you flap your wings to send a gust of ash towards the front of the room. Mana surges to your cold arm and melts the stone into liquid lava which you fling into the cloud of ash, the heat from those drops of lava causing another explosion. Unable to sense where the wraith is, you focus on completely blocking off the exits in your flames, bright circles forming at the doorways and white hot flames shooting up, spilling over the door frame to scorch the ceiling.

You’re too distracted to notice Khaled move "Idiot boy have I taught you nothing?" the crackle of flames and the exploding ash masking his labored footsteps. His hand grabs your shoulder and pulls you back enough to jab a cold needle of a syringe into your neck.

Your wing shoots out automatically, knocking him back with enough force to have him crash into the wall. You yank the syringe out and toss it to the ground. The glass shatters, residual drops of bright purple liquid seeping into the ground.

But it’s too late.

You can feel Morgana’s tears course through your system, burning each cell in your blood vessels like battery acid, leaving your throat feeling numb and head light and heavy at the same time. You sway on your feet before your legs go weak and you fall to your knees with a gasp as if someone had punched you in the gut, your burning fingers tearing gouges into the floor as your muscles tense and relax a million times a second. Beelzebub’s black flames shoot out from between your fingers, freezing cold solidifying around your heart and in your arteries. It's a useless attempt to stave off the serum, to give you a few seconds more to escape, but you're glad for it.

You push on the ground with all the strength you can muster and get back on your feet. The weight of your wings nearly makes you fall on your ass as you’re forced to take a few shaky steps to keep your balance. From the corner of your eye you can see Khaled stumbling away from you, to the third exit to the room which leads to a catwalk connecting this building with another.

Raising your hand you try to summon a spell to take him out, a shaky circle forming at your palm. It breaks into a million pieces when a heavy body slams into you like a train, breaking your concentration and your ribs. You’re forced back until your wings hit the wall, forcing them to spread out as some of the crystal audibly breaks and cracks, accosting your brain with pain signals your mind was never created to handle.

Your hands shoot up, “Fire-” You force out in an attempt to combat the shroud Morgana’s tears weave around your mind. A circle forms, the usually crisp lines wonky and inconsistent. A few measly sputtering sparks flicker in the center of the circle before you’re able to force a bout of unwieldy flames in the face of your opponent.

You can feel how weak your fire is, you doubt you could give a man a second degree burn, let alone scratch the fireproof skin of the dragon that comes charging through your magic. Icy blue eyes dance in the periphery of your vision seconds before the dragon punches you right in the diaphragm.

You hunch over and almost vomit up an organ as all the air is forced out of your lungs. You feel your muscles tear and ribs break, your magic too focused on healing you to numb any of the pain that comes racing to your brain. You don’t know how you’re still standing but you weakly manage to slam your elbow back into the wall, quickly cooling lava scraping the metal and causing a spark.

The ash explodes for a second time, the force of it making your wings crack further yet they still hold. It creates a hole in the wall and forces the dragon to stumble back with a cough. You tip back and fall through the hole, the whole world weighing down on your body before you crash on the hot hard ground. The sudden stop knocks the breath out of you a second time, every muscle in your back screaming at you. Your chest is steadily growing colder as Morgana’s tears bypass Beelzebub, your arms feeling stiffer with every waking second as the serum forces your mana to slumber.

Your vision swims and blurs like the lines of a water drenched painting, voices somewhere close echoing in your ears. The dragon’s cold blue eyes stare down at you for a second before he jumps through the hole. You roll out of the way with great difficulty, avoiding him just in time as the dragon’s fist lands where you had just been and shatters the earth.

Stumbling to your feet you feel your blood leak down your back, pain pulsing in your chest as your mana struggles to heal each broken bone. Your mind is scrambling for the names of the spells you haven't needed to use in a long time, your thoughts further slowed by the fact you need to dodge out of the way of the dragon's fist. “Jump.” You speak. You summon a circle beneath your feet you that launches you into the air, the whirling world almost making you vomit and you barely manage to catch yourself on an oil containment tower.

Somehow through the ringing in your ears you hear the whirring of helicopter blades, turning your head to see a helicopter quickly rise from the roof of a building and start to fly away. You don’t need magic sense to know Khaled is in it. Your hand shakes as you raise it, Morgana’s tears steadily taking more of your mana hostage to the point it's getting hard to cast a single spell. “Fire bullet.” You manage to say, shooting off a shaky ball of concentrated flames.

You miss the rotor you had been aiming for, but by a lucky chance manage to hit the tail. Your fire isn't hot enough to melt the metal fully, but it still enough to make the helicopter swerve wildly. You watch it slowly loose altitude and crash somewhere beyond the tree line.

You’re not given even a second to catch your breath before the tower shakes violently, beginning to list heavily. You catch sight of a werewolf trying to scale it and that forces you to jump off the tower. You land on the one in front of you and don't stop, leaping across the three towers. Jumping off the last one you manage to flap your wings, the pitiful explosion that goes off beneath you gives just enough lift for your slowly liquifying wings to reach the roof of the second building.

You stumble as you land on the roof, the coagulated blood forming your Daedalus wings falling to the ground with a wet 'splat'. It feels like every single inch of your veins and arteries have been turned into pin cushions, the hot lava of your arms, absent of mana, quickly cools until there’s only a thin surface of cracked rock covering your muscles and bones. Your vision swims and you can barely move your arms, trying your best to just stay upright.

Asmodeus is the only thing unaffected, burning at the back of your mind like the last star of an empty universe. It tempts you with the heat of the magic it can give, with the power you could use if you just let it in. What's a few more drops of blood when you're drowning in it?

The harpy comes out of nowhere, slamming into you with enough force to knock you off the building.

You land on your back, barely able to utter a sound from how loudly your bones crack. Your leg is numb. Lingering dredges of your magic crawl across your spine, trying to fix your wounds with the same grace as cavemen with stole tools. You whimper like a child as you try to get up, barely able to dig your fingers into the scorched dirt to get some stability.

Footsteps approach you. A boot sharply kicks your side and forces you to roll on your front. "Playtime's over." A voice rings somewhere in your ears. Your scattered brain focuses on the accent — Manchester you think — instead of the clawed hands that yank your arms behind your back. Instinctively you try to scramble out of the firm hold but it's useless and the only thing you achieve is making the enemy pull on you harder.

Your arm is forced into a sickeningly familiar constraint; The mage cuff seals around your forearm and forces your hand into a fist, the binding spells making the metal feel like your arm is coated in liquid nitrogen. Your other arm follows suit, powerful magnets activating and binding the cuffs. They lock your arms together and painfully force your chest to stick out to the point you can barely move your arm without the risk of dislocating it.

More footsteps ring behind you as you weakly struggle. "Stay fucking still." The man above you growls as he yanks the helmet off your head with enough force you’re surprised he doesn’t take your head off. You gasp as the ash and smoke filled air enters your lungs, so unused to going without your helmet. A collar is quickly snapped around your throat, so tight you can barely breathe, needles on the inside digging into your skin. The binding spell on the collar is just as vicious as the one on the cuffs, forcibly pulling your brain into the bottom of the ocean.

Your vision swims with black spots and you’re barely able to see a man squat in front of you until rough clawed fingers grip your chin hard enough to make you bleed dark purple-red blood over his fingers. The enemy tugs your head up, but you’re unable to make out more than bright blue eyes and a stupid mohawk. "Huh, ah was expecting uglier."

Spite flares in your heart. A glob of spit and red blood shoots from your mouth at his face before you can think. The slap you receive nearly knocks your head off your shoulders and bashes your brain against your skull. His claws rake across your cheek, blood pouring down your skin. "Ahgk! Fockin' disgusting-" But It's worth it to hear the man curse.

"Told you not to take it off." The enemy on top of you growls.

"Charming." A lighter voice, you think it's the harpy, ads. "He's not going to turn into. . . one of them?"

"No." A new voice joins in, hard, angry, rumbling like thunder. You think it's the dragon, but your brain struggles to stay conscious let alone try to think. "Tape."

You shake your head to be difficult just out of spite, but sharp fingers bury into your scalp and pull your head up so the tape can be sealed over your mouth.

The enemy, wraith, your mind reminds, has no problem hoisting up your cold body, manhandling you like a doll.

You’re barely conscious as you’re roughly pushed into somewhere, somewhere without a lot of space. Two unyielding bodies squeeze you in on either side, your chest is barely able to move enough to ensure your lungs get a bit of air. Panic tries to get a foothold in your mind, to make your silent heart race. The walls and ceiling feel like they’re closing in, like you’re getting squished down and at any moment your organs will rupture—

But the drugs smooth out your brain like ocean waves weather down massive cliffs, your body so exhausted you can’t manage even a small twitch of a struggle. You feel the cold muzzle of a gun press against your temple, the cool sensation making you aware of the pounding headache.

"Move," The man on your left says, voice rough like sandpaper and with a distinct accent, "An’ yer dead." His threat sounds like an order, you don’t doubt he’s just itching for you to make a single move he can justify to his brass as aggression and kill you. You know you would do the same.

The vehicle you’re in rumbles to life but you can barely feel it, body and mind too exhausted to even hold your head up. Your stomach twists and turns as if trying to find a way to crawl up through your mouth, your lungs burn from the lack of air.

“Laswell we got-”

“-bout Khaled-”

“-ead, arsonist shot do-”

“-get out, the army reinforcements are co-”

You try to pay attention to what they say, but their words bang uselessly around your hollow skull, shapes and edges blurring together into abstract art. With nothing stopping it, Morgana’s tears leisurely branch through your blood vessels like brambles, making you shiver from how cold you are. You’re stuck in maddening limbo, there’s not enough of the drug in your system to turn you temporarily catatonic — your body is too used to the drug — but at the same time it’s fucking agony.

You've done this before, you know how much small victories count. You don’t know what they want from you, but you swear to yourself not to cry from the pain, both now and when the torture starts. You’re not a fucking child, not that snot nosed private you were when you first felt the sting of Morgana’s tears, you’ve been through worse.

But the problem is, you’re not out of tricks.

Your control over Valefar slips, the exhaustion and drugs slowly wearing down the rope of control you've been maintaining for months. Since the first day you started working for Khaled. You knew he’d betray you, you had that feeling in your gut. The collar beeps as mana suddenly sparks in your chest, thawed by the ancient magic you use. Without warning the needles in the collar jab into your neck as your mana builds, pumping more of the poison into your blood.

But it’s useless, with steam starting to rise off your chest not even you are able to hold it back. A rough chuckle forces its way out of your throat. You always figured you would die by your hand or not at all.

"What’s with the giggling?" The werewolf demands, gun still trained on you. "Something funny?"

You gather your strength and slowly roll your head back, every vertebra in your spine cracking from how much damage your body has received. The trembling wall of the truck gives you the support you lack. Black spots dance in your vision, but you manage to turn your gaze to one side.

On your right is the wraith. A creature of death. Violent Death.

You feel like there’s a joke about the situation somewhere. Figures you’d be sat against the personification of violent death. You’ve been living on borrowed time for too long, the reaper doesn’t like to wait.

Shadows darkening what little you can see of his face through the skull mask, making his eyes look like you’re staring into the void.

Unnerving. 

You’ve been told your eyes are much the same.

The wraith stares at your face, into your eyes. You’re pretty sure this is the first time in ten years that someone has seen the eyes you were born with. The color is so painfully drab and human.

But it don’t last. Out of nowhere mana sparks in your eyes like a violent forest fire set off from the cinder of a forgotten cigarette. Oranges, reds, and yellows swirl around the pitch blackness of your pupil, bright and intense like staring into a black hole.

There’s no grand gesture to show the snapping of your control. Your heart skips a beat as it births Valefar, the soft cool magic nibbling on your veins as a pulse of cool mana rushes through to your fingers. You see the wraith stiffen, only barely able to sense how the world quivers.

The earth shatters.

The truck jerks forward and you almost fly out of the front windshield, kept in place by someone's rough hand gripping and pulling you back in place. The earth shakes violently as months of accumulated mana melts through rock and suddenly erupts from the ground as a beam of pitch black flames. You can feel Valefar laughing beneath the ground, inside your hollow heart. It takes joy in spreading your magic as far as it can, incinerating the arriving helicopters full of soldiers before they can even understand what's happening.

The car swerves to avoid the rocks falling from the sky, the air around you trembling as Valefar makes a crater out of the mountain. They’re lucky that your control finally evaporated when they were far enough to escape the impact zone.

You tilt your head, catching sight of the wraith. He stares at you.

Your eyelids flutter without your consent, all strength leaving you, but you manage to wink at him.

You pass out.

Tag list: @resident-cryptid @diejager @lovingtyrantkitten @lieutnt @lilpothoscuttings @krystiannng @crankyweasel @ashy-kit @fyolaizs @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @aldis-nuts @whoislucas @birdiiiiiiiiiii @thigh-o-saur @dont-look-at-me-im-shy @reaperxxxxzz @patronizingbitch @kaoyamamegami @mauvette268 @inspector-m3 @gaynesspersonified @fluffysteampunkd @fall-myriad

[pzychojinx]

so, jinx in act one of season two. see, for three years i expected a full on descent into chaos and madness beyond any repair. i'd made peace with that, too. so i'm surprised - pleasantly, joyfully surprised.

very long analysis ahead on where they're taking her and how it speaks to me.

we first meet her again during silco's eulogy sequence - a beautiful sequence, halfway between dreamlike and real. "just like when vander shoved off", she says about his death. except it's not. after vander's death, after vi's perceived abandonment, everything jinx could feel was self-centered. she would say "she's not my sister anymore". she would devalue these people entirely. in fact, every single reaction to any action done by her loved ones would be self-centered and extreme. that is very much how her mental process works, how her trauma caused her to work. and more so: when silco would ask of her any work, any mission, she'd do the job purely for his sake, his affection, his approval, never caring about the cause.

in short, she was never able to get out of her own head for as much as a single minute. now, she starts the funeral off with "chembarons warring for control of the lanes. wannabe street thugs squabbling over scraps. just like when vander shoved off." and it's not about her abandonment anymore. it's not about being left alone. it's not about her. she's talking to silco about his city, his legacy, his world, his chembarons, his lanes. she's out of her own head, and it's the first time we ever see it.

"because someone put all those holes in you", she says then. and this is so interesting because there's obviously a dissociation here, as well as a very intense grief and sadness. we are obviously still dealing with someone who's deeply traumatized and unstable, but let's compare this with powder after the deaths of vander, mylo and claggor. powder had a full breakdown, both turned into a complete de-evaluation of vi as i was mentioning earlier and full desperation. "i only wanted to help, i only wanted to help, i only wanted to help".

this chaotic desperation is something jinx kept within herself throughout the entirety of s1 up until - the tea party. which i'm getting at, in a minute. point being, for now, that the jinx we see during silco's eulogy is grieving and lost and rootless and asking herself "what am i supposed to do with that?", but she lacks the chaotic full-on desperation that would lead her to acts of explosive destruction and/or self-destruction in s1. in fact, she's incredibly quieter. she's more grounded, more present in her movements, in the way she fights, in the way she talks.

in retrospect even her final action in s1, the infamous missile, already had the energy we're seeing now. it wasn't instinctive, driven by hallucinations or trauma or rage or an unrestrained trigger; it was silco's legacy and it was calculated. silco's death, i think now, left jinx as rootless as she's ever been, but it also left her with an acceptance of who she is. "don't cry, you're perfect". the tea party ends with her 'choosing' jinx and if you'd asked me before season two, i would have said with full certainty it meant she'd be going to be a loose cannon. entirely and with no possibility of ever being anything else. that's not what i think now.

i think she came to terms with who she is. i think now that the seat at the tea party wasn't a symbol of complete derailing, it was in a way a symbol of acceptance. "here's to the new us". she's fought her fight between powder and jinx and the tea party has permitted her to gain, in some way, a sense of closure. very importantly, having lost what she perceived as vi's acceptance, and having lost a father, she has also been able to shed the constant and desperate need to be in their favor.

during the 'sucker' sequence, we see her going through the lanes with a hood on her hair, very low-key. loose cannon jinx would have never, ever done that. loose cannon jinx would, quite simply, not have cared. she would have been extra, and explosive, and in everyone's faces. she's preserving herself not to be found, and that's new. again, i think she's still lost and rootless and grieving and really asking herself what she's supposed to do now that she's entirely autonomous and i also think there's definitely still a lot of bitterness and rage when it comes to vi which we obviously get to see during their fight and in no way is she magically ~healthy or anything like that - however.

she is still walking those streets in a way that indicates self-preservation. it would have been very, very easy for jinx to be captured by any of those goons and/or got herself killed. and for some reason, whether that be an apathetic, mourning state or mind, or whether that be some gained peace in who she is, or both - she didn't.

given all this, the new element that season two act one has introduced for her that truly moved me and made me feel... healed in a sort of way, is the introduction of human bonds for jinx that defy her historical, co-dependent mechanism of idolization and de-evaluation. ergo, sevika and isha. this is incredible for her and most of all, it's realistic. it's a chance at something, but it doesn't feel forced, nor fairytale-esque, nor does it resemble your usual ~redemption arc.

sevika and isha function as people who she's building some bond with, and since she's a little bit less in her own fucking head, and since she's not clinging to them as idealized protectors / saviours and neither is she refusing them as betrayers, and since she's not constantly fighting between what she perceives as her double identity anymore, she finally has the possibility to experience healthier bonds. sevika functions as somebody who still ties her to silco, possibly the closest thing she has right now to any root she might have left, and it works: reminiscing silco with her, gifting her the arm, doesn't leave her utterly alone but neither does it let her fall into the trap of clinging onto yet another figure from whom to fully depend.

and isha, very obviously, functions as the possibility of healing her inner child which is a goldmine for her storyline. her bond with isha could clearly have a narrative tie to jinx & silco, to jinx & vi, and most importantly to jinx and powder herself - this is all quite obvious but again, it's not executed in a way that feels like a forced 'redemption arc' or whatnot. the idea of this little street kid who just imprints on her like a lost little duckling, which is in no way jinx's decision, simply feels natural and heartwarming. does this mean i presume such healing of her inner child is going to come easy to her? no. but it's something. it's something very different from anything she's ever experienced before.

even through the loss, the rootlessness, the grief and confusion, the panic attack we see her experiencing through the lanes as a consequence of the moment she sees vi and caitlyn's enforcer squad, even through the brutality of the fight with vi, - and this is all to say, she's still a very traumatized individual, which is important because it would have just been senseless to have jinx somehow get fully stable like a switch had been flipped - we're seeing something new for jinx here. i've seen many posts related to "i'm glad it's you", and i might be unpopular here but while i do think jinx still has an element of suicidality, i also think she was at least half bluffing there. comparing her micro-expressions with the ones back on the bridge fight with ekko, i'm under the impression she was testing vi, at the very least partially. "poisoning us with gas?" is also an interesting line because even in her attack at her sister, she's less focused on her own trauma and more on something that we've hardly seen from her before - belonging to the lanes.

all of this to say, i'm loving the path they're taking for her. it's still very much jinx. it feels like jinx. but she's not just about to wreak senseless and desperate havoc in order to be seen by either her sister or her father, because there's no one to be seen by anymore. she's not fighting a desperate battle between her identities either, because she's accepted her place. she's not loud and erratic, she's quieter and coming to terms with herself. closure is truly the word that comes to mind, for me, in how i see her arc right now. closure, and unexpectedly, possibility.

[homunculus-argument]

Anime concept: One of those Group Of Heroes On An Adventure - animes that start out upbeat, cute, lighthearted and funny, but which keeps getting steeply more serious and dramatic as the story goes on. There's a wide range of characters and unfortunately one of them is the Comic Relief Pervert whose "oh I just cannot help myself I am so pathetic ówò" bullshit - and the female characters' various responses to being sexually harrassed - are played for laughs.

And halfway through the first season, the party gets split and the characters are dealing with their own challenges in groups of two or three. The Kindest Sweetest Girl Ever and the Comic Relief Pervert end up in some situation where the latter is trapped in a way that he can't escape, but the Sweet Girl could easily save him by doing something really simple, like pulling a lever, flicking a switch, just moving her hand, and he pleads her to do it, fully expecting her to, because come on, obviously she's the Sweet Girl who's never been mean to anyone, ever.

And instead she smiles sweetly and asks: "Do you have any idea how much I've always hated you?" And calmly watches him get consumed by whatever death had been prepared for him. Snapping out of this sweet, catharhic satisfaction she looks around to make sure nobody saw that, and turns out that somebody did. Another character of the party, the Chaotic Neutral At Best Loose Cannon Fighter Woman who frequently has to be kept on leash to keep her from causing destruction that'd compromise the party's goals. And she famously fucking hates The Sweet Girl. She had just been silently standing in the background, unseen at a distance, this whole time. Saying nothing, she disappears back into the shadows.

Once the party is re-united, everyone starts giving their accounts of what happened to each of them. Somebody asks The Sweet Girl what happened to the Comic Relief Pervert, since the two of them were last seen together. Everyone knows she doesn't know how to lie, and she stammers, when the Loose Cannon interrupts, saying oh yeah he died, real tragic. This girl totally did everything she could to save him. Which wasn't much because we all know she's fucking pathetic but I'm almost impressed by the absolute heroism she displayed back there. Too bad he was beyond redemption. Anyway at least we're all free of hi- I mean sure we're all going to mourn him now. Anyway what's for dinner.

It doesn't even cross anyone's mind to consider the possibility that The Sweetest Girl Ever could hurt anyone - she can't even kill enemies - or that the Fighter Woman would side with her on anything. And The Sweet Girl looks to her in awe, astonished that this woman who hates her would pass up the opportunity to throw her under the bus when it was served to her on a platter. And the Loose Cannon just silently glares at her, with a distinct "if you ever speak to anyone about this again, I will fucking kill you" look.

And they never speak of it again.

[mcu-4-you]

War Child

Part one

Bucky Barnes x (Fem) Reader

Avengers x (Fem) Reader

Warnings: Blood, mention of deaths, other creepy hydra shit, bad language words (lol) and a lot more other warnings, so be prepared.

Characters: Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Clint Barton (Sometimes) Natasha Romanoff, Bruce Banner (Sometimes) Thor Odison, Loki Laufeyson, Peter Parker, Sam Wilson, Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff, Bucky Barnes, Yelena Belova, Arnim Zola,

Description: You're a hydra experiment or had been one since you were young, For years you lived within the cold walls of Siberia and when you finally get free, faces from the past and demons come out to haunt you Reader is an enchanted superhuman, she has the super soldier serum giving her, super speed, super strength, a healing factor, fast metabolism, endurance, strong lung capacity & etc, she also has both fire and ice magic. The time line in this will review the past and present. Reader can look anyway you want. Her soon love interest will be Bucky. Authors Note: Please know that none of these characters belong to me, they belong to marvel, Y/N is your character of choice. also your thoughts will be orange, Bucky's thoughts will be blue and the others will be purple

Avengers tower present 9:34 am Avengers pov

Gathered around table enjoying breakfast and conversation sits the avengers, everyone seems happy, Bucky and Loki bantering with one another about who can do bad better, Steve acting like a mom and Tony being the overgrown brat, Wanda, Natasha and Yelena talking quietly amongst each other in sokovian, then there's Peter, Pietro, Sam and Thor arguing about how many bad guys they can beat in a fight, like family they're fun and chaotic. Everything seemed to go quiet when the leather jacket wearing, eye patched man walks in with a file and flash drive, the atmosphere once relaxed and playful now tense and serious, as all eyes land on the director Nick Fury. "Hope i'm not souring the mood." he says his tone, dripping with his usual uncaring sarcasm. "Anyways." he continues, "We have a problem, a big one, a loose cannon hydra related one." He sets down the file on the middle of the table and Bucky is the first to grab it, the minute he opens it, the color from his face drains, there it was a whole section dedicated to you, a ghost is what you are, one he was made to train when he was The winter soldier, a deadly weapon is what you became, just like him, but unlike him, he was captured, but you, you were born and raised into a hell, and turned into something so deadly.

Steve looks at Bucky and raises a brow in concern and curiosity, Steve pauses debating whether he should say anything but he decides to anyway, "Hey Buck, you alright, you look a little pale." Bucky snaps out of his current thoughts and glances at Steve and the rest of the team and he swallows, a shaky sigh leaving his lips and he says "I know her, i knew her." Every member of the team gives each other looks before nodding and taking turns to look at the entire file and Sam speaks "So where do we start?"

Italy present

Your Pov I arrive back into my rented apartment, after getting some needed food and water, i knew my time here in Italy was running thin but there was something about this place i liked, i couldn't get comfortable though, it was only a matter of time before the devil came knocking. After heating up a simple tv dinner, i sit on the small couch in my living room watching the old school box television, it's on the news channel, the headlines read "Avengers strike once again saving over a hundred innocent civilians from a hostage situation with the terrorist group known as HYDRA." A sigh leaves me and i start eating as i change the channel to a cartoon, it wasn't one i've seen before, it was a blonde with really long hair and a pretty purple dress, now interested i continue to watch the movie and finish my dinner, soon i set my plate aside and just watch tv, i was enjoying the movie more than i'd like to admit. Berlin 1953 (Past & your nightmare) "Papa, i don't understand what you want me to do, you little voice trembles as you look up at the man in front of you, he stare you down and pats you head, his German accent thick as he speaks, "In time, you will learn to master the gift i have given you my child." a grin spreads on Zola's lips, to you it seemed innocent but only if you knew it was anything but innocent.

Your Pov (Present) I jolted awake in a slight sweat, my eyes dart around the room, weariness and confusion etched on my features, i thought i was back hom-there, but i'm in my living room, i'm in Italy, i swallow and wipe my forehead with the sleeve of my sweater and i stand up, my steps are silent on the wood floors as i walk into the kitchen, i fill me a glass of water and gulp it down as if i was a man stuck in the desert. my hands are shaky as i set the glass down and stare at the dark curtained covered windows. "He's gone, no longer here." i tell myself and i make my way to my bathroom, a shower was much needed to calm myself.

Berlin 1954 (Past & Bucky's nightmare) "Soldat! you're back with the stuff." Zola hums in approval and takes the metal case from the winter soldier, he snaps his fingers for the soldier to follow him and the soldier complies without question. Zola leads the soldier into the lab, for a moment the soldier tenses, he didn't think he had another procedure today but then his eyes falls onto you, a girl strapped down onto a table asleep, he blinks, he couldn't tell if it was worry, or surprise but he manages to school it like he was taught, the soldiers eyes follow Zola as he pulls out the bag of super serum, it was a cheap one, not to affective but it'll still work, just not like his, the soldier watches as Zola sticks it into an IV like bag and he watches as Zola stick the IV into you and slowly the serum makes it way to your skin and finally it slips into your blood stream making you jolt in pain and cry out.

Avengers tower (Present) Bucky's room Bucky's Pov His eyes snap open quickly and they dart around, checking for any signs of danger or anyone one at all, nothing it's all silent except for his racing heart and his own breathing, his brows are furrowed as he recalls the nightmare, that day, the day when Karpor made him bring that serum to Zola, that day where your life would change for ever and not for the good, a wave of guilt floods through Bucky as he thinks about that day, how he just watched, and stood there as that evil son of a bitch gave you that serum with no remorse as he hurt and changed you drastically. Bucky knew he had to find you, hell he knew you were lost and confused like he was and like he had steve, you'll have him.

Let me know what you think, i will definitely be making different parts to this story, i'm pausing my other story to work on this one since i had this longer and like this better. Part two is being worked on so stay tuned.

Tag list: @sapphirebarnes i know you wanted to be tagged in my other post but i'm keeping that on hold right now, so i hope you like this one just as much.

[host-hubliminal]

>>START_LOG:

HostLog_8:

Subject: Host 2.8

Name: Popcorn

Species: Bag (Of Popcorn)

Source: Showvember

Gender: Intersex Genderfluid (Femme-leaning)

Pronouns: she/he/they

Description:

Popcorn was added to the list as a joke by MOLES. Her arrival however was taken seriously.

Popcorn is a white and coral red striped bag with popcorn inside. She is not the popcorn itself, she is the bag. Her name is misleading. We know. Popcorn has limbs akin to that of a furred dragon, a very rare limb type, and her legs can shapeshift between digitigrade and plantigrade. Her limb color is a wine-plum with darker black around the foot/hand areas. She wears two white arm bands, one on each arm. Her tail follows the furred dragon shape, as well as coloration, but the plume of fur at the tip of the tail is a light, almost cotton candy pink color.

Popcorn’s object-part is known to change in size, shape, and color, but she stays consistent with a pair of 3-D glasses, and a striped popcorn bag. Her appearance is largely unimportant as no currently known forms have any special abilities that make him any different. The reason as to why this is is still unknown, but it seems to be normal for any other object in his universe.

Popcorn is a loose cannon. At first she seems unpredictable, but unlike Host 2.9 and Host 2.6, she is able to reign in this chaotic nature and use it to her advantage. And oh boy does she do that. She can be seen as greedy, self-centered, and almost barbaric, doing anything she can to get anything she wants. Despite this, she is seen to have some remorse and guilt for her actions. Her actions seem to be more influenced by emotion than anything else.

Known Abilities:

Popcorn’s abilities… Hm. Where do we begin?

The shapeshifting is most obvious and was already mentioned in his visual description.

Popcorn’s most fundamental abilities seem cartoonish in nature, slapstick if you will. Theoretically almost any object could do it but isn’t ‘Popcorn’ enough to do it. [Addendum./ We would like to thank a source of whom shall remain anonymous for the time being for this analysis and the following data as well.]

Theories say that he may have chaos-influenced abilities; the chaos they cause in turn influences what they are able to do in said situation. ‘If it’s funny enough, he can do it’.

Observed possible abilities are the snap to teleport (most normal for most show hosts, is also Host 2.2’s preferred method of teleportation), memory erasure (though it is unconfirmed if he did this with or without a device), high jumping/floatation, and minor shapeshifting of objects other than oneself.

Whether she has all of these abilities innately or by assistance is unknown.

It is also theorized that she can ‘respawn herself’, but this has also been thought up as simple as a restoration chamber in another room. Either way, whether or not he can respawn himself is unknown. If he is, we may be dealing with a literal god of chaos.

Procedures to take:

She will be nerfed via standard object protocol.

END_LOG.

[little-wolfpuppy]

Can you pleasee write caregiver team free will headcanons? I love your supernatural cg hcs sm!😁😁

TW Cannon-typical mentions of violence, supernatural beings, alcohol, weapons,

You know that meme "you want a beer?" "Dude, he's FOUR?" yea that's this trio in a nutshell

Castiel

Solo Cas HCs are -> here

He's the last to find out you regress, simply because his "people skills" are "rusty" (/ref)[He actually notices you're acting odd and bluntly asks what's going on. He can tell if you lie about it XD]

He does NOT understand at first- probably accidentally says something mean - but once he does understand, he's SO apologetic. Scarily protective of you from that moment on.

Dean

He's canonically good with kids and raised Sam, so I think he'd be the best caregiver out of the three of them, TBH. Probably the first out of the three to find out.

You 100% have to explain what agere/petre is to him and why you do it, but he's supportive.

Most likely to give you sweets and let you stay up late to watch tv with him

Sam

Knows what agere is bc he reads and searches the web so much. Does NOT realize you're a regressor until you tell him. He feels like an idiot when he realizes how many hints there were and how obvious it was.

Most likely to reward you with storytime and bedtime stories

Together

They're definitely... chaotic together

All three are super overprotective, almost helicopter caregivers, I mean, with all the beings after them and being hunters and a fallen angel, their concerns are valid.

If they're out on a hunt, they'll bring you back souvenirs. If you're with them, they would totally let you loose on a playground at midnight

Sam wants you to eat healthy, Dean offers you pie, and Cas has to mediate because he just wants you to eat at all

The bunker is babyproofed even if you're a teen regressor. Overprotective much

Cas heals all your ouchies easily, but Dean will kiss the bandaid and say it's special big brother healing magic

I don't see any of them taking on a parental cg role if they're caring for you together, more like three older brothers. If you give any of them a nickname like Bubba or Bubby, the other two will totally get jealous, so come up with nicknames for all 3 of them ;-;

Only trust eachother with you. They take "trust nobody" to a whole new level

Dean gets you retro toys because "they last longer and are better quality"; Cas gets you stuffed animals; Sam gets you educational toys and coloring books

Divider

[bucket-barnes]

what if the hook siblings met Peter Pan and the neverlanders (and Wendy and her siblings and their children)? What would their reactions be?

Well, going off my loose interpretation of cannon…bloodshed, probably

Harriet would have the biggest grudge since Peter Pan was basically the catalyst for the Hook family’s long history of bad shit happening to them (and might be old enough to remember some of it) she would chase Peter down and finish the job her father started by gutting him like a fish and taking his entrails as a trophy- anyone who gets in her way is just collateral

Harry’s just plain nuts, he would be the one to gamefy the hunting. He’d probably flirt with Wendy a little bit and tease her, but he wouldn’t maim her…the lost boys however, fair game, if they get within sword range, they’re getting sliced. Harry’s violent, but more so because he thinks it’s fun- he was raised by pirates after all. The only reason I think he would go fully off the rails with the bloodshed is if one of the lost boys went for his sisters, then he’s a worse version of Harriet

CJ’s like Harry, but she’s never been overtly violent- she’s chaotic, not a killer. CJ would chase but she wouldn’t maim. Most likely, she’d be the one looting and vandalizing, maybe burning. Peter Pan has a lot of treasure stolen from Captain Hook, she’d be the one to reclaim it…and then some. CJ would only get violent if she were cornered and her siblings weren’t close by, even then, she’d only disarm

[myriadium]

5h4D0w (meaning light), 7'3'', [they]/he, chimera build (sleeper base),

notoriously unpredictable and chaotic, shadow was ranked third out of the vestals and first in darkus brawlers. he's very much a loose cannon and some wonder if he's all that useful to the vexos.

despite the uncontrollable spontaneity he exhibits, others are surprised to know that he consistently likes to pester mylene, who refused to be seen with him when he's in that "hideously inaccurate human illusion". Would you believe that his current human form is his fourteenth version? He keeps changing it around, and not a single time did it look accurate.

i realize that i've never showed how vestal's mouths work. their faces move up to reveal it. their "teeth" don't do the chewing, they're just there to prevent escape because vestals are primarily photosynthesizers but secondarily carnivores. They prefer to keep their mouths hidden because exposing it is a sign of extreme vulnerability, but shadow does not give a fuck lmao.

brawlers' comments:

Umm...I don't know what he's playing at. I can tell he's good but uh...his playstyle is very unorthodox. I'm actually surprised that they're ranked as high as they are, but watching replays of his previous battles show that his opponents are usually the ones making bad plays. I think somehow he's able to throw them off and get them to mess up, which is a valid strat, I suppose.

Hm? Oh, I mean he doesn't usually play the explosive high risk/high reward moves that darkus is known for (those moves are the strongest, since the vestal battle format doesn't let you sacrifice other Bakugan). he plays like a DoT oriented Aquos player.

- Alice

I didn't even know Vestals had mouths. Usually the holes in their faces let them make whistling sounds to communicate but Shadow just sounds like he's screaming. it's very haunting, and I think even other vestals are thrown off by them. baron seems scared of him, so that should say something.

I definitely agree with Alice; he's a strange player. I usually don't go for psychological warfare in Bakugan battles but to each their own, I guess.

- Shun

I enjoy psychological warfare in Bakugan brawls. It lends an extra dimension to battles that allows even a novice player to beat a more experienced player if the latter has little experience with targeted harrassment. [5h4D0w] is a mediocre player, but [they]'re very good at throwing off [their] opponents with taunts and...acting like a fool, admittedly. However, his win rate is quite good for his skill level, so [they]'re definitely someone to look out for.

I'm not sure how [M_y|_E|\|e] can stand him. I suppose [they] are usually paired up with [5h4D0w] on missions so [they] just learned how to tune out his [absurdity]. I can't help but respect that.

- M/RA

[axl-ion]

OK, time to talk one of the ships I would call my favourite before I drop a completely unrelated thing to you.

So for the sake of clarity:

My age headcannons for Melli and Ingo is that Ingo's 39 going on 40 and just... Looks like he does and Melli is 35 + these headcannons apply for some time after PLA in my little thing (basically just a soft rewrite where both Akari (faller) and Rei are protagonists and there isn't just 1 ancient dinosaur going Origin forme but TWO... Yeah...). The reason I do it because:

1. Love having fun by manipulating the cannon using headcannos

2. Love the idea of a man in his 30s beefing with a 15 year old for no other reason that "Hey, MAYBE getting saved by 2 teens is a BAD IDEA." (Love the mean person that's actually really concerned trope... Ingo hates that idea too but feels like he has no choice so just tries to get the protag as prepared as he can and almost swings a chair at Kamado)

So one thing I headcannon when it comes to their relationship is that they kinda just... Complement (compliment???) eachother in funky ways because of how they are (1 is an autistic man playing confident person the other is even more autistic man who... Let's face it, probably is fathering a bunch of weasels so he let's loose of his mask and embraces being chaotic)...

By that I mean that if Melli gets too baffled to say the mean thing, Ingo steps in (very rare event).

If Ingo needs to get some intel on who has birthday and what to get them, Melli knows (through Arezu probably).

Melli's the yapper, Ingo's all ears, but they can switch occasionally.

Also they probably do be unmasking when together, but tbf, I need to study the specifics of autistic masking even tho I am autistic, just very freshly diagnosed.

[spookytastemakercolor]

CANNIBAL DAD

Dad! Bob x Baby/Kid/teen! Reader

Yes I have become a part of the Bob simps, BUT THIS IS NOT A FANFIC! No, THIS is Mista' Bob Velseb as a dad! Cause who doesn't want him as a dad? I know you heathens like me want him as a DA-, Ahem. Sorry for that. Anyway onto the post and enjoy! As a FYI some things may not be cannon.

Warning: Cannibalism, gore, mention of murder/killing, Abandonment, Cursing, Mentions of being drunk, Mention of trying to feed off of Bob (Don't.), Used as bait, knifes, bones, kid behavior but more unhinged

BOB VELSED

To say the least you're mother never even wanted you after getting drunk and sleeping with a notorious cannibal killer that was loose after he tried killing her one night.

Bob found out he had a kid when she just left you at the front door of his hideout in the winter with a simple note saying, " Here's your kid, I don't give a shit if you eat them or not but I'm not keeping them. " ( She didn't live long after that)

Definitely didn't know WTF to do once he got you inside (Man was not prepared). He stood in his living room holding you for about a hour debating whether to eat you or not.

Once you started to try and grab his sweater he decided to keep you and raise you, even if he was on the run or not you are his little ball of sunshine!

He sat on his slightly disheveled couch for about a hour trying to think of what to do. Sure he'd had one night stands before getting caught but THIS! This wasn't something he would have ever expected to happen as he looked down to the small infant wrapped in his sweater to keep them from the winter cold. He had just got back from killing that cursed woman who left you out in the cold but now he had no idea what to do, he was stuck between eating you or not.

Finally he decided to just eat you and as he went for his knife something snatched his 2nd sweater, he froze as his head slowly looked down at the small hands closed down on it as if asking to be held up closer to him. Slowly but surely he lifted you up and held you with one arm as his claw like hand went to grab your hands, you gave small coo's and babbles as you played with his fingers. He knew then and there he wouldn't let the world take you away from him.

Robbed a convenient store 5 hours after he realized he needs to get you food and supplies when you tried latching onto him. (Headlines were fucking CHAOTIC with the pictures and tape!)

Definitely experienced with some baby care knowledge. I will die on this hill.

Since he's on the run the house isn't in the BEST conditions. . . . . But he makes due with what he has and knows he can keep you warm through the winter!

He doesn't know how to handle you crying so he usually keeps a victim alive for help until eventually killing and cooking them. Can't have anyone see him be a softy

You're toys and chew toys consistent of bones, anything he steals off victims, his horns (Yes. He gives you the horns.) Any and all clothes, blankets, and victim hand's (Don't question how it stays fresh. . . .)

The girl kept screaming for bob to let her go as he made his way to his hideout, he was slightly running since he had gone out pretty far in the woods and was worried you had hurt yourself. He opened the door and could hear the little screams of his ball of sunshine, " I-Is that a baby? Oh god please don't hur- " " Quiet! Now I need ya' help and your gonna' help me or else I take ya' eyes and SHOVE 'em down your throat! "

Bob dragged her closer to the screaming as they entered and saw a little baracade of blankets with you in the middle screaming and crying. He let go of the girl and gently picked you up while turning to the girl slightly panicked " They been cryin' for 6 hours now and I can't find what's wrong, Now help me so they can stop! " she made her way towards you and held you close as they started to try and calm you down, which proved difficult from bob death staring them.

Slowly but surely you calmed down and looked up at the girl " Th-There we go, just tired aren't you? " she slowly rocked you back and forth to sleep as bob loosened up before taking you back and mimicking her movement while talking to you. She slowly made her way out of the door and bolted for the front door ' Finally! Freedo- ' it was short lived as they were yanked back by their hair and had their mouth covered " Now where do you think yer' goin'? I can't have you living after what you saw. . . . " she screamed, but being muffled, as bob dragged her to the basement.

As you grow older into the time frame of crawling or walking he had to start buildin' baracades!

Man saw you crawling for the first time and was starstruck! Until he noticed his knife hanging a LITTLE too close to the edge. Baracade numbro 1!

Now seeing as you are the child of a man who most definitely has ties to a certain cult and is definitely non-human in some way can he REALLY be surprised the first time you crawled on the ceiling and were over him while he tried to sleep?

Yeeeaaahhhh wall crawling? Be glad you haven't been stabbed or accidentally thrown when you fall off at random points

In total there are 13 baracades and 5 wall crawling stoppers (He got proper baby proofing materials later down the road, don't worry)

Ontop of the wall crawling is the, and in order of how he found out about them, Glowing eyes, Locking your jaw on anything that's flesh (R.I.P finger's from the chew toy) sounds like a demon escaping everytime you cry, demonic animal noises, and then finally you having surprisingly sharp teeth!

Bob held a camera as he set it up while setting you across the room " Ok, Come to papa! " you looked at him dumbfounded for a minute before starting to attempt to make your way towards him " That's it! Ya' can do it! " finally you started to crawling and his eyes got star's in them " There you go! Come on! " you were about half way before the lights went out and both your eyes started to glow " Oh shi- " before he could finish he heard you on the walls making those demonic noises that stuck in his nightmares " SHI-SHOOT! WHERE'D I PUT THE NET!!!! " he grabbed the little net bed as he tried finding you on the wall's.

" (N/N) WHERE ARE YA'! COME OUT FOR PAPA! " he went for the kitchen first until he heard you crawling on the ground in the living room then on a wall again, he went from room to room with you one step ahead of him until finally he decided to return on the power and look for you. " There now I can- " he covered his ears at the screech you let out from your guys room

' NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo!!!! ' he slammed open the door expecting to find blood from you getting his knife but instead found a broken bone and slightly chipped tooth. He let out a sigh of relief before cradling you and trying to calm you down ' I really gotta' get 'em some soft chew toys. . . . '

When you got to the stage of being able to speak and stand he is the type of man to try and make you say Dada but instead you say Mama. Also becomes VERY protective and cautious once you start walking.

Around this time he'll try to hunt more since when you were a baby he couldn't leave you alone so he was limited to hunt around him instead of far out. Also will refuse to take you with him no matter how big of puppy dog eyes you give him.

Never excluded sneaking out and following him when he didn't take you!

It was 8:00 and bob had finished getting his hair slicked back and painting his face, you were put to bed and should be asleep by now. He had been hungry for about 4 weeks now but can you really blame him? He had to take care of his little ray of sunshine that's you! " * Sigh * Finally, I can go out and get me some meat. Don't need to worry about littl' (Y/N) tryin ta' come along eitha' " He made his way out the front door not noticing two glowing eyes watching on the ceiling or hearing the little demonic giggle that came out of you while following after Bob.

------Time skip------

Bob pinned his victim onto the wall while digging his knife as far as he could into their abdomen while letting out a holler of laughter. " HAHAHA HAHAHA!!!!!! Oh how I've MISSED this! " he pulled the knife out as the victim sprayed blood from his mouth onto his clawed hand, they dropped limp as Bob released them to the ground before pressing his knee down into the wound while placing his knife into their neck. " Did you know- "

" MAMA! "

.

.

.

.

.

.

" W-Wha- " before the victim had more of a chance to speak bob squeezed their throat to make them pass out before turning to their littl' sunshine who ran up to him while making grabby hands " Mama mama!!!! Up up! " he picked you up with a big and slightly concerned smile, " Now how did you get here littl' lamb! " he could be mad another time. Rn, he just needs to take you home and bring the body with him " Mama, can I help? " bob was caught off guard but slowly he gave you a soft smile " Of course ya' can, just help papa with the body. " " MAMA! " he would have to find a way to break you out of the ' mama ' thing eventually, all that mattered at the moment was getting home and avoiding the approaching police.

He tries and take you out with him on peaceful walks and sometimes hunting since you will also most likely pick up cannibalism from bob and have his more sadistic traits, but you can cover them well like him too.

Since you now talk and walk he of course brings you little trinkets and gives you you're own room if you want one! If you don't he will build shelves from already broken ones or steal one for all your little gifts and finds. ( Has a secret compartment in his sweater where he keeps your drawings for himself 🤭)

He let's you keep whatever you want from a hunt and if you want something from a store he'll make sure to dress you up and wear a disguise so you can go shopping.

He also tries his best to pick up on sewing and knitting for you and himself. He remembered how much you loved watching people make things but never brought it up because you were so shy about it, so he surprised you with a semi wearable scarf! Since then he's been trying to do more but still needs practice.

You were waiting at the door for bob to show up again, you sadly couldn't got hunting with him but he promised to bring you back something special! Slowly you were loosing the battle of sleep until the door opened " Mama! " you never let him live the name down as you tried to jump up on him " Hey! How'd my little hell spawn hold up da' fort? " you straighten up while saluting to him " Guarded and secure! I even caught you a present! " you ran off to bring your gift over as bob set the multiple bags down on the fixed dinning table.

As you came back bob was slightly shocked to see the heavily bleeding and unconscious person you dragged along with you " I saw them in the woods lining the house and they tried to break in! " bob let a smile adorn his face, on that didn't look so crazy and forced, before picking you up and spinning you around as you giggled " Hahah! That's my girl/boy! " he set you down in a chair before pushing the bags towards you " Now you remember how I was gonna give you something special? Weeelllll I noticed you eyein' a few things in the store that you didn't grab sooooo- "

He didn't finish before you tore into the bags and started making excited demonic animal noises " Mama! Thank you! " you lunge to bob as he caught you and returned the hug " Anythin' for you my littl' sunshine. Now, how about I start dinner'? " " Yay! Dinner! "

Getting about 5-8 years old he allows you to venture out on your own but not to far to where he can't find you, but still you get to explore none the less. Of course you bring back things you find to bob which he cherishes with his life and makes sure to get you something back.

Buuuttttt your also a little rebel so you usually decide to go a LITTLE farther than allowed without him knowing.

This is also how you come across skid and pump one of the days you get lost and Bob's loosing his shit trying to find you and telling himself you're alright

Of course you make friends with the two and when you tell bob he is in a bit of a crossroad considering he tried EATING them last Halloween, But their your friends and he'll accept it eventually!

Are they allowed at the house? HELL NO! (Still sneak 'em in tho)

When he has a re encounter with the four people from last year because you were waving goodbye at the edge of the woods and he popped up to scold you for going out so far until seeing the four across the street. Cue awkward silence

Bob saw you waving towards the sidewalk across the forest and came up behind you with a worried but angry look " (Y/N) (M/N) Velseb. What are you doing out here? " " Mama! I was waving goodbye to my friends! " Bob turned to the sidewalk and froze as he saw the two familiar pumpkin and skeleton kid with two concerned parents. " Mama, can they come over for a play date PLEEEAASSSEEEEE!!!!!!!! " bob looked down at you with the biggest puppy dog eyes he could have imagined and felt his heart tighten as he looked back and forth between you and the others, finally he let out a sigh while looking at you " Fine. They can come but ONLY if you agree to tell me when to expect guest. Got it? " " Mhm Mhm! I got it! "

bob let out a tired sigh as you turned to tell skid and pump they could go over before happily climbing up to sit on his shoulders as you headed back leaving two very confused Lila and jaune behind with skid and pump feeling excited to have a new friend.

Now as I said, rebellious kid. Meaning you have gone into town which results in you getting both almost kidnapped by frank and having some very scary encounters with others.

Roy is a perfect example! Your first interaction was scary as shit for all of them cause you decide to pull the same did you know your old man pulled on them! Doesn't help you also have a Southern accent like him with a more deranged smile. Safe to say he don't wanna try shit with you

Other interactions that were tense at first are Frank, had tried bribing skid and pump with candy and you pulled off a head tilt with a smile which sent him driving, Dexter, you had met him when bob grounded you and he tried coming in through the front door, the cult, they had no clue of any ties between you and bob so they thought it was a good idea to try kidnapping you! Fucking. Not. Never came back to the house, and finally! Jack and john, you can use your imagination 🙃

Now of course once Jack and John find out you two are blood related (after you went to the police station because you lost bob on one of your hunts) they use you as bait every chance they get! Doesn't work out well though 🙂

You were currently sitting in a cell scared out of your mind and making the most eardrum bursting screeching anyone can imagine as you try to clue bob where you are. " Jesus! How the hell did that phsyco get laid and have this thing birthed! " John complained as you stopped and threw one of the pieces of the destroyed cell bed at him, he quickly ducked as you start giggling uncontrollably " That's not important! What is is that he shows up to try and get them out so we can catch him. " you started to actually loose your breath as you finally looked at the two with tears in your eyes while speaking " You can't catch mama! He's just gonna escape! "

You stopped laughing as the power went out and your eyes glowed as you started jumping up and down " Mama's here mama's here! " both men drew their guns as the turned on their flashlights trying to find him " Jack, get to the breaker box and turn on the- " before John could continue he was thrown across the room as Jack turned his gun and flashlight towards him, and oh BOY was bob pissed. He was in his signature costume drenched in blood and guts from what the flashlight showed.

" Did you know? " his voice was strained as his glowing eyes turned to jack before he was being held up by a claw around his throat " That you neva' fuck with a man who would do anythin' for his KID. " he blocked off more of Jack's airway before feeling a bullet got through his chest and hit Jack in the leg " MAMA! " you panicked slightly as you watch bob drop Jack and face towards the cowering John while smiling more pissed than ever " I'm alright sunshine! Just close yer' eyes and ears for me, well be home soon. " you followed his instructions as he lunged at John more determined than every to rip him piece by piece for putting you in a cell and trying to use you as bait.

This next section is for girl things, I'll do one for the boys but girls gotta be done first so I can get it out of the way

You have now entered teen years (11-18, sorry if you disagree) and guess what? You now have a period! Yaaaaayyyyyyyy........ Yeah god have mercy on anyone who hears the screams of demonic pain in the woods or enters the woods.

Bob has no experience whatsoever ever dealing with this subject so he is going to probably be the equivalent of a new dad panicking that his wife/girlfriend went into labor.

Tell him exactly what you need or this man will pop back up at the house with a human sacrifice ready for you to consume if it means he's safe from your wrath.

Be thankful he never dropped his sewing and knitting hobby cause you getting custom shit if it's certified help material

Bob had been pacing back and forth as he tried to think of how to help you as you were currently curled into a ball on his bed with blood all over your legs. He knew this day would come but he didn't think like this! Slowly you started to groan again as bob heard the slight clicks in it " Ok bob, what do you remember your ma' telling you and how ta' handle it. " he perked up when he thought he heard meat painfully came out of your mouth " Ok, I'll be back sunshine. Just stay tight and I'll bring ya' somethin' to help. " he exited the house now on a mission.

------Time skip------

You had been waiting for bob for about a hour now, the pain wasn't there anymore so you found it easy to shower and go about trying to stop the blood from getting everywhere. " I wonder why dad's taking so long..... " you chuckled slightly as you remember how you'd always say " mama " instead, just then the door opened with bob having a giant bag in his mouth while dragging a body behind him. He set the bag down before placing, who you recognize as a cashier, on the table.

" Ok I got whatever I could possibly think of before the police arrived and took me to a cell. " bob started pulling out all sorts of materials to help you before turning to look at you to see you facing the body " Dad, why did you bring a cashier? I thought we had enough meat? " he picked up the cashier before turning to you with a smile " For a offering so you don't kill me of course! " you almost laughed before composing yourself and looking at bob " Dad I don't need a sacrifice! Why in the world would you think I need a sacrifice???? " he scratched the back of his neck as you face palmed yourself not believing what was happening right now. " It's the thought that counts dad " you gave bob a hug as he hugged you back before turning to the now conscious cashier and punching them unconscious.

Hormones is 100% something he can't help you with even if he tried, but he's 100% gonna be your gossip buddy and do runway modeling for you if you pick up a habit of designing clothes or do things to help in anything you pick up (I can't help but imagine him striking a pose with duck lips as you laugh your ass off at his attempt at looking hot in a dress you made)

Having " The Talk " has got to be the only other time you've seen him visibly have to take more mental breaks than when he told you about cursing. Man was praying you'd stay little forever

He makes sure you drink your setting boundaries and respecting people who respect you juice 👏! (If you a Top he's gonna give you the finest gentleman juices in👏the👏world👏!)

One thing that's a constant he tells you is that no matter who or what you want to date he's gonna be happy as long as you are, so long as they pass his test! Also tells you if you do a secret relationship you better make it worth keeping it from your old man! And if they do something to hurt you or they weren't worth it YOU will be able to get all the revenge you want!

He really is just that dad who may not know anything about what happens when a girl matures but will happily try his best ever thought he knows absolutely nothing. Just don't bring up people drama cause you both gonna go and kill that person for dinner.

Bob heard the house door slam and saw you running up the stairs mumbling nope under your breath on repeat and red faced. He set down his book and glasses as he made his way up to your room that he gave you once you become 11, hearing you pacing and panicking made him slightly jog up and knock on your door as softly as he could. " Littl' lamb? Are you alright? Ya' ran up the stairs and were kinda' red. " " I-I'm fine dad! Nothing's wrong! " Bob was about to say alright but then something struck him like a hammer as he realized what was going on ' Right, she probably has a crush or her hormones must be going crazy. ' he opened the door as you stopped pacing and looked at him with some slight panic but tried to play cool as you smiled at him

" (F/N). I think it's time I talked to you about something. " you visibly tense as you sit on your bed while bob sits to your right " What do you need to talk about? " bob could see how tense you were before letting out a sigh and placing his hand on your shoulder " Listen kid, I know it might be hard now with all ya' hormones and feelings going haywire right now but, no matter what I'll always give ya' the same love I give ya' now. "

It was confusing to understand what bob was saying but you guessed you got it " Thanks dad? " that's when bob put on a smile before getting serious " But just so you know, if anyone hurts ya' or don't pass my test I ain't hesitatin' to kill 'em. And make a secret relationship' worth it! " finally you got what he was saying before and start laughing while bob tried to stay composed " I mean it! And make sure to get me some grandkids! " you laughed harder as bob slowly joined in.

Finally you both calm down and you give bob a hug as he wrapped his arms around you " Thanks dad. . . " " Anytime sweety'. "

Ok now that I've ran out of ideas for the girls it time for the boyz!!!!!!

First and foremost he is 10000% more prepared for this than anything for a daughter, I mean he had to go through this as well!

Boners and stuff of that nature is the easiest talk he's ever had to talk to you about. Man probably will give you the secret holy grail of how to hide a boner in any type of pants in this world

He still has the sewing and knitting hobby and I see him just crafting shit every teen boy would need to survive teen years. (ESPECIALLY if you get achne!)

He also gotta show you the groom my friends 🤌

It was around 10:00 and bob was on the verge of passing out from watching Kitchen Nightmares

(Fight me but he definitely watches it)

Until the scream of his son woke him up and had him running upstairs. He slammed open your rooms door as he searched around to find you sitting with the blanket over your head " (M/N)! Is everythin' alright!?!?!?!? " He made his way towards you and tried pulling down the blanket but you retracted and pulled it further on " Yup! Just a nightmare! " now bob knew this to be a lie so he had to think for a minute until remembering how old you were now.

" Son, pull the blanket off yer' face. It can't be as bad as some of the victums' I've seen. " Slowly but surely you pulled the blanket down to your shoulders as bob sighed with a slight smile on his face making his way towards you " Son I know you probably already know what's happenin' and I know this is probably scary but it's not as bad as it could be! " knowing how embarrassing but comforting this would be he pulled out a photo and handed it to you. " No way. Is that- " " Yup! That's my' freshman year picture. . . . " It showed a much younger bob with much longer hair than what he has now, slightly skinnier but still chubby body, and OMG he had a punk phase.

(YUP!, I feel like starting shit and just like with Kitchen Nightmares you can fight me because I'll die on these hills!)

But the one thing that had you in shock was to achne that lightly went all over his face " Go on, get it out yer' system! " and get it out of your system you did. When you finally calmed down as bob re-took his very much embarrassing high school photo, you look up at bob as you sideways hug with a smile on your face " Thanks dad, you really are the best dad someone could ask for. " Bob smiled as he hugged you back to the best of his abilities " Anytime. Now I gotta show ya' some tricks I learned for groomin'! "

Now, same rules apply with hormones. He may be able to give advice but he's not going to be fully there. Also applies with the interests, he will play basketball like he's 19 again until his leg gives out and your now trying to get him in the house so you can have him sleep like he's 80.

" The Talk " was so weird for you because he was bringing shit up that you ain't never fucking image goes with puberty. He just got no filter between what is happening simplified and what's happening with too much detail!

You getting your respect women juice and your gonna get your beat anybody's ass if they disrespectful juice! Man raising a gentleman! (If your a bottom he's gonna make sure your a power bottom, Mama don't raise someone who don't say what they want)

Dating rules and secret relationship rules still apply along with the revenge. This man is VERY supportive

He's all and all better at handling a boy than he is at handling a girl because this man is one of the most unprepared people possible for a daughter than you can ever imagine.

Bob had set down some plates as he made his way up to your room knowing you would have sneaked into the window to avoid him, but can you blame him? He's gotta worry when you have a temper that's almost got you and sometimes him caught (But he's proud). Getting to your door he heard you throwing things around the room while talking to yourself. He knocked as loud as he could which caused the room to go silent. " (M/N)! I'm coming in the room! " " Dad NO! "

Bob opened the door to a absolute mess, everything was thrown about or some destroyed as you stood in the middle gripping at your hair " (M/N)! WHAT'S WRONG!?!?!? " Bob ran to you, grabbing your shoulders and turning you towards him. You froze and went stiff as you started to well up tears " N-Nothing I just- I- " bob wrapped you in a tight hug as he tried to calm you down while you cried, calming down bob looked at you again and asked what was wrong. Letting out a sigh you looked away from him " I. . . . . I got a crush...... "

Bob got a smile on his face as he let you go and put his hands on his hips " Well who's the lucky gal'! " You rubbed your arm feeling nervous as bob looked confused, then he slightly went wide eyed as he let out a sigh putting his hand on your shoulder " Son. Listen. " you tensed up expecting the worst " I don't care who ya' love or what ya' love. Your still my kid. I'll be there for ya' no matter what. Just know if they dare hurt ya' anyway possible or don't fly with me I'm killing 'em. "

You smile as he hugged you, slowly returning the hug and looking up at him " Thanks dad...... " " Of course, just get me some grandbabies! " you laughed while going red as bob joined in with you before letting you go " Now, tell me about the boy who got my littl' devil's heart! "

Now gender neutral teenage stuff because I've got what needed to be divided slightly (Of course it's gonna be short so I can end my misery because my fingers hurting)

Kidnapping and going out hunting is going to be the most common things to happen.

Bob doesn't always go to your rescue every time though cause you handle yourself pretty well sometimes, RIP Jack and John's goddamn wallets from the hospital trips 💀

You honestly just get alot more freedom than expected but he still worries so you always gotta keep him updated every 6 hours

Bringing anybody home you like so he can meet them or a photo is a MUST. Don't want them getting accidentally killed!!!! Although it might sometimes be on purpose......

I imagine him starting to get you to be more social and him also trying as well while also being in disguise (I realized I forgot to mention this but bob will age just not as quick as you think he will)

You both walked down the park path making jokes and enjoying some quality time before night, since bob or you both would leave on your own seperate hunts. Sitting on a nearby bench bob gave you a tired lazy smile as he tried to catch his breath " I told you the hoodie was a bad idea. Besides nobody's here! " you opened your arms to make a point as bob let out a breathy laugh " I know kid, but I ain't as yong' as I used to be. I'm almost 100 you know? " you rolled your eyes at Bob's over exaggeration before sitting next to him " Lies. You look like your in your 60's. "

" Oh really? " bob looked at you before narrowing his eyes " How old do ya' think I was when you were a kid? " you crossed your arms as you looked at him " 34 " bob gave you a smile before leaning back on the bench " Wrong kid, 61. " you sprang up from your spot and got in front of him " WHAT!?!?!? How are you just now getting streaks of gray in your hair!?!?!? "

Bob let out a short laugh before looking back up at you " Have ya' ever wondered why ya' can do what you can do? " " Yes but I ju- " then it clicked " You were a cult member!?!?!?!? " bob stood back up again before giving you a smile and walking into the woods " It's almost night. We betta' head back. " you stood in stunned silence before quickly running up to bob sputtering on your words " HOW CAN YOU BRUSH THIS OFF!?!?!?!? "

Now to the faithful day somebody steals his baby's heart! Aka the day he becomes the most hardest man to please when you try dating someone.

Partners are a VERY hard thing to come across when you are the daughter of a notorious killer and killer yourself, plus the police and everything doesn't help either.

So saying you ACTUALLY found someone who isn't trying to collect some sort of bounty or apart of the cult he is V E R Y on guard. The first interaction feels like a stand off in the wild west between the two.

Now of course he'll want to know how you met up, so for your sake and theirs lie. Say you met in the park or somewhere instead of the truth which is you saw them on a killing spree and they saw you.

Staying for dinner is like a spin the wheel for how you will compromise dinner with bob. Human meat is DEFINITELY off the table so finding a substitute is key to them actually staying.

Overall this man ain't gonna chill until he's certain they can be trusted

The air in the room was heavy and felt like a snake, almost ready to tear out the poor boy/girl next to you who had a all cheery look. Bob sat across from you two and was silently death glaring them while you tried to think of a way to defuse the situation " Dad, this is (R/N). There my Boyfriend/Girlfriend. " bob looked at you briefly before looking back at the boy/girl next to you " So, (R/N). How did ya' meet my daughter/son/kid? " he was trying to scare the kid in hopes he'd give bob a reason to gut them on the living room floor.

" Oh! I had met them one night when taking a stroll around the park, they were alone and I was curious so I introduced myself and the rest is good memories. " you could hear the imaginary hammer hit one nail into a coffin with their name on it as you decide to quickly chime in to stop another one being hammered " It was after I left to hang out with Skid and Pump! It was beautiful outside and I didn't want to head home just yet. We hanged out for a while until I headed back and we just kept meeting up there. " That's when Bob's eyes got a sadistic look before he started rapid firing questions at your boyfriend/girlfriend.

" How often would they stay at your house? "

" Sometimes for 2 day's. "

THUMP. 2 nails

" How did ya' know where to meet up? "

" They would text me when and where before 6. "

3

" How did ya' already know where we live? "

" I've been inside before "

4. Bod started going for his knife.

" Do you know what we do for a livin'? "

" I've been told "

5. You kept your hand stead on your own knife.

" Do ya' know who I am? "

" Bob velseb. Wanted serial killer and cannibal. "

6. Bob started drooling as he prepared to stab him.

" And tell me young' man/woman. Where exactly do ya' work? "

" The butcher shop right by your old restaurant! "

.

.

.

Bob smiled and looked towards you " They can stay fer' dinner! " you let out a breath you didn't know you were holding as you hugged bob with a goofy smile before turning around and saying " Welcome to the family! "

FINALLY!!!!!!! FUCKING. FINISHED. This has been in my drafts since 2022 and I have poured way too much energy into this that I'm about to cry in joy for finishing.

Anyway I hope you enjoy this read and that it isn't disappointing for how long this has taken me. Request are open and pinned with all my rules and such if you want to request something. BYE!!!!!

[imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese]

Destinytober24: Day 21 - Ensnare

Further adventures in bog slug ownership.

Link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there

Eris Morn frowned as she stepped into the Gambit ready room on the Derelict.

It was quiet. The Derelict was never quiet. It was also dark.

She scanned her surroundings, her stolen Hive eyes giving her an advantage in the dark few other humans had, although they also could just as easily give away her position.

The floor was littered with small items. Shell casings. Eris picked one up and examined it. Unspent. A nearby ammunition crate lay on its side.

The Drifter's ship was cluttered with an excess of items ranging from the practical to the bizarre. And he frequently left them in heaps positioned in ways Eris found highly chaotic and ill-kept. But he always kept the Gambit ready room clear. And it was unlike him to have ammunition rolling about on the floor. He would have responded to such a mishap with a groan and taken immediate action to rectify the situation. For such a mess to be left in-place, he would have either not known about it, or been otherwise occupied.

The Drifter's ghost was also not present. Another unusual occurrence, albeit only for Eris. Normally the little light would have found her by now to guide her to its chosen. The Drifter did not like for anyone to see his ghost, but Eris was a unique exception and his ghost was inordinately fond of her. Its absence, combined with the silence from the ship's engines and the loose ammunition scattered around the floor filled Eris with concern.

She approached the exit with caution. The doors into and out of the Gambit ready room remained perpetually closed and locked at all times. All doors within the Drifter's ship were keyed to his biometrics, the particular light resonance pattern of his ghost, and, more recently, the biometric data of Eris Morn as well.

The door did not slide open at her approach, but it did unlock. Emergency power was functional, at least.

The well-oiled hinges made no sound and Eris stepped through the doorway into a completely unlit hall. The light from her orb and her eyes bathed everything in a sickly green glow. She paused at an intersection and looked into the rooms on either side.

The storage room on her right looked ransacked. Many items normally stacked on the shelving along three of the room's four walls had toppled down in heaps. A sack of flour had fallen and split, spilling white powder in a large spray across the metal floor. Long, snake-like trails through the flour led out of the room across the hall to the Drifter's garden. They reminded Eris of the tendrils from a Taken Primeval, the one the Drifter called "the Meatball."

But it was the inside of the garden through the other door which caused Eris' Ahamkara bone to frost over. She drew her hand cannon. Several of the plant frames had been smashed. A stray cucumber had rolled along the floor. A strawberry plant was trampled, its fruit leaving sticky red splotches among crushed leaves.

This was not a situation where an explosion from his workshop or the Drifter's sometimes questionable piloting decisions were at fault. Eris was looking upon signs of a struggle.

Cautious, ready to defend herself, Eris stalked silently down the hallway and into the Galley at the centre of the ship. Several pots and pans were on the ground. A plate had been smashed. Cupboard doors hung open as though something or someone had grasped them in a frantic search. The Drifter's metal coffee pot lay on its side, its dark liquid looking like blood in the light from her eyes .

As she slunk through the Galley, Eris heard the clang of metal on metal up ahead of her and the sound of something falling. Someone was moving nearby. Possibly even in the next room. The three-eyed former god of Vengeance pressed herself against the wall next to the door leading out into the rest of the ship, her weapons ready. The sound came again. Closer.

She waited.

The Drifter's ghost emitted its single tone in a long beep as it flew past her along the middle of the hallway at waist height. Behind it Eris heard a frantic scrambling, as though something were chasing it.

Eris stepped out into the doorway with a snarl, her frozen sphere hovering ready in one hand, her finger on the trigger of Loud Lullaby in the other, ready to defend the Drifter's ghost with extreme violence.

A very long, brown, many-legged blur flowed around a corner, up one wall, and along the ceiling over her head, chasing after the drone.

Eris lowered her weapon and turned to watch as the Bog Slug's considerable length flowed past her in pursuit of the Drifter's ghost. She watched it coil itself on top of the Drifter's kitchen table and spring across to the other side of the Galley, its many legs quivering in the air as it soared at shoulder height to pounce upon the Drifter's ghost as it hovered, blinking and twitching on the other side of the room.

The Bog Slug caught the misshapen drone in its jaws and landed with a clatter among the pots and pans scattered on the floor, twisting in on itself until it was a messy knot of worm segments and legs.

"Udon!" Eris called out sharply.

The writhing worm-knot became still. Slowly, the single eye of the Bog Slug rose from the coils of its body, gently holding the Drifter's twitching ghost ensnared within its mandibles.

"What are you doing?" Eris asked it.

It stopped moving again, its three-horned head at waist height. Watching her. It remained completely still for another moment, staring, before opening its pincers to release the ghost. The ghost, in turn, fell a few inches in the air and then levitated itself next to the Bog Slug's head.

Both the enormous many-legged worm and the ghost managed to look contrite and ashamed, despite neither one having much in the way of facial features to do so.

Eris' eyes narrowed as she looked around. "Is all this destruction… caused by the two of you?"

The poorly welded lopsided shell of the Drifter's ghost visibly drooped. It emitted its tone again, almost solemnly while blinking from red to blue to red again, turning its single electronic eye away from Eris slightly, as though it were unable to look her in all three of her eyes.

The Bog Slug also was unable to make eye contact. It trembled, unused to hearing reproach in Eris' voice. It drooped and slunk back down to the floor before skittering across the Galley toward Eris. As it reached her feet it began coiling itself around her legs, climbing her in a spiral of segments and chitin.

"No. Down," she commanded.

The Bog Slug pulled away from her and scurried into a dark corner of the Galley where it gave a contrite and mournful trill.

Eris turned back to the ghost. "Where is he?" she demanded.

Eris followed the Drifter's remorseful ghost into the Engine room where the Drifter was on his back with the front half of him partially inside of a maintenance hatch.

The ghost emitted its single tone as they approached.

"I told you to keep him busy while I'm workin'. The fuck you doing back here again?" he said, his voice echoing against the metal walls around him, making him sound simultaneously both louder and farther away.

"He was bringing me," Eris intoned.

"What? Eris?" There was a loud clang and the sound of something heavy falling. "Fuck!"

The Drifter slid on his back out from the hatch and looked up at her, blinking. His head was tilted to the side where he had a flashlight pinned between his ear and his shoulder. There was something black and oily on his face and in his beard. His shirt was torn and partially burnt. Wrenches of several sizes lay across his chest.

"What you doin' here, Moondust? I thought you were gone for a week."

"I was," she intoned.

"You get back early?"

"No."

"No?" he looked up at her, confused.

"No," she said, firmly.

He blinked. "What day is it?" He began gathering his tools off of himself.

"It is Wednesday."

"Wednesday? Shit. I was supposed to meet ya on the Moon."

"You were."

"I'm sorry. I've been fightin' this thing so long I lost track of time."

"Clearly." The frost left her orb and Eris heaved a deep sigh.

He looked over as the lingering Stasis crystals made small crackling noises as they dissipated from the sphere.

"You fighting something?"

"I thought I might have to. Your ship looks like a combat zone."

"Ha! Wait… more than usual?"

"Yes."

"What?"

The Drifter's ghost emitted its tone again. Somehow, despite having only one sound it could make, it managed to sound contrite.

"The fuck did you do?" he pointed at the drone with a crescent wrench. "I told you to watch him!"

"I believe they have been… playing tag… or perhaps fetch… It was difficult to determine."

"Really?"

"Yes," Eris crouched down near him and took the flashlight from where he had it pinned against his neck. "Vigorously."

The Drifter's grin widened. "That's… awesome! That's real cute."

"You may find it less 'awesome' when you witness the state of your garden."

"My garden!"

The Drifter's ghost looked away from both of them and emitted its tone again.

"Ok well… that's sub-optimal."

"Indeed. Hopefully you did not have any grand plans for your strawberries."

"Seriously? They were just gettin' ripe!"

Eris helped him to his feet and they ventured out into the ship together to survey the consequences of unrestrained playtime.

Link to the entire month's worth of prompts on Ao3, posted daily.

[imobsessed123]

KOTLC SQUAD BEING CHAOTIC

Sophie: Bye Keefe ! Bye Fitz! Bye Biana! Bye Dex! Bye Keefe ! Fitz: You said 'bye Keefe ' twice. Sophie: I like Keefe .

Sophie: Looking left cause you don't treat me right Keefe : Looking right because you left Fitz: Looking up cause you let me down Biana: Looking down cause you fucked up Dex: What is wrong with you guys

Sophie: What's the scariest horror movie you've ever watched? Fitz: IT. Biana: Annabelle. Keefe : Paranormal Activity. Dex: High School Musical. All throughout high school I was scared that everyone was gonna randomly get up and start singing and dancing, and I would be the only one who doesn't know the words.

Sophie: Biana is late again. Keefe : How did this happen? I called them at 8 o'clock this morning and pretended it was 11. Dex: I printed up a fake schedule for them saying we were starting at 9 instead of noon. Fitz: I set their clock to say PM when it's really AM. Sophie: Oh boy.We may have overdone it. Biana bursts through the door* Biana: WHAT TIME IS IT?

Sophie: Okay! Let's play Kiss Marry Kill! Sophie: First who would you kill? *Dex points at Keefe * *Fitz points at Keefe * *Biana points at Keefe * Keefe : * shrugs * I would kill me too.

Sophie: You're a loose cannon, Keefe . Keefe : No, I'm not.I'm a cannon, maybe, but a loose cannon? Is that what you think of me? Dex: I think you play by your own rules. Biana: No way, they think rules were made to be broken. Sophie: Those are all attributes of a loose cannon. Keefe : No, I'm just a reckless renegade.Fitz is a loose cannon. Fitz: * smashes a chair* Aah! You shut your trap, Keefe ! Biana: I'd say Fitz's more of a cop on the edge with nothing to lose.That's an entirely different thing. Dex: Now I'm just confused.Is Keefe a loose cannon or not? Sophie: All right, put on a pot of coffee.We're gonna get to the bottom of this. Keefe : groans Fitz: Aw, man.

Sophie: We need more help. Maybe I should call my friends. Keefe : …Your what? Sophie: My friends. Fitz: Are they saying “friends”? Biana: I think they're being sarcastic. Dex: No, no, no, this is delirium, they've cracked from being awake all night. Hey, Sophie! All of your friends are in this room. Sophie: I have other friends! You asked me to make new friends, I made new friends! It was a task.I complete tasks.

(I’m gonna start using tag lists so ask if you wanna be added to that!)

[livelaughghoul]

Kevin Magnussen - Race Ban Tarot Analysis

Disclaimer: This is for entertainment purposes only, nothing observed or taken away from this should be considered fact. As a reminder, I know fuck all about Formula 1, I just like fast cars and have a dumb amount of knowledge of astrology and tarot. 

Kevin has never done anything wrong in his life. He is a perfect driver, has never once been at the scene of the crime, and loves his Haasband. Have no worries either, the Haasbands will be getting a separate reading when I have some additional time. Most of this is being written while I’m walking on the treadmill, and I’m not bringing my cards into the gym with me. 

Gun to my head, and you make me pick a favorite driver, It’s going to be Kevin, solely because of his whimsy and his chaotic nature. There is not one thing about this man that I do not find entertaining. He is the moment, even if he doesn’t know it. His reading is actually so all over the place, and it’s pretty funny. I took this in more of a “what did we learn and how are we going to act moving forward” kind of way, and it’s so much funnier to me than it probably should be. 

Here is what the cards had to say about our little track terrorist, Kevin. 

What did we learn from the Race ban - The World 

My man Kevin didn’t learn shit, LOL. The World is integration, accomplishment, travel, or fulfillment. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Kevin fulfilled the obligation of a one-race ban, and that is it. I’m going to bet that there is also a little bit of fulfillment in terms of WHY he got the ban like this man really said I’m going to do whatever I need to do for my teammate, and there is probably a little bit of backward pride there. Kevin showed up his ban and is not going to make any changes to his on-track behavior. This man is a loose cannon, and I am SO looking forward to it. 

How are we going to implement what we learned - Two of Cups, reversed. 

This man learned that he would do anything for his Haasband, and everyone else is just going to have to come to terms with it. This is a card of connection, one of attraction, and one of bargaining. With it being in the reversal position, I’m going to guess that Kevin and Nico are now in a stronger or better place because they now have an understanding of what teamwork means to each other. When it comes to the bargaining aspect of this card and learning, I think that Kevin may be learning to let things go and accept things without so much pushback. He may not agree with the racing ban, but he isn’t going to let it dictate his life or the remainder of his career. It is what it is, and he is just going to go up from here. 

[sezja]

RPing Stephanivien for a couple years really hammered home to me the fact that people interpret "loud and enthusiastic" as "chaotic and unpredictable," with a side of dangerous and incompetent, when that's not at all what we're presented with in Stephanivien in canon.

The closest he comes to that is embracing Joye's chaos when she draws her firearm, and she's not dangerous either, just boisterous.

"Loose cannon." My ass. >:c

If you want a chaotic engineer-type, Kakkol Dankkol is right there.