#and then leave a phone camera inside the wall and teleport out of it

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I feel deeply for Brennan throughout Neverafter because I know the pain of creating a cool magical plot artefact for the players and then having them experiment with it in ways you weren't expecting and having to deconstruct your own game's world logic to figure out what the fuck happens as a result

[alienisticxo]

X Angel - Chapter 4

Elon Musk x Reader

{Authors Note} Sorry for taking so long! I’ll be updating more regularly now! You can also find this story on AO3 and Wattpad, the links are in my description. My asks are also always open for general Elon chat and requests. <3

Warnings: None yet!

“So what’s the verdict? We don’t got all day,” Jett pushed as he strode through the doors once more, irritated and impatient.

Elon backed away from me then as the other men walked in with a ferociousness in their stride, clearly champing at the bit to hear what their most valuable colleague had to say about the cash-robot.

“She truly has no recollection of anything, and not being aware of how her programming works can be dangerous, especially on Earth,” one man said to another, seemingly continuing a conversation from outside.

“However,” the other began even louder, loud enough for everyone to hear, to assure I could hear. “We’re willing to pay the price. Earth needs someone new for the public to idolize or they’ll waste away. Perhaps they’ll listen to the people who know what they’re talking about if someone like {Y/N} tells them what to do from their televisions. What did you find, Musk?” He finished, turning to Elon with interest.

But Elon only shook his head with conviction, confident in his findings.

“I’d like to investigate further before this purchase is made. Something isn’t adding up here, and I agree with the danger it could pose.”

“Nonsense,” the man replied brashly instead, suddenly not treating Elon as though he were their most valuable player in the room.

I wondered why they’d asked him for his opinion at all as the suited man took a holographic card from his own pocket then.

“Whatever the price, we’ll take her,” he demanded.

I could hear Elon breathe a disappointed laugh as he shook his head and turned away, sliding his hands into his suit jacket pockets, then. He very obviously deemed my purchase to be a terrible idea, though I know not for similar reasons I did. Still, the sentiment stung me more than I’d like to admit. He was my hero, after all.

But he was in no position to argue with them, as I wasn’t his pop star to claim. For another moment, I also wondered why they’d asked him to tag along altogether. If they weren’t going to hear him out, there was no reason for his presence. Even though I was sure he saw me more as a threat than beneficial, I was still glad I got to meet him, at least once in my lifetime.

Regardless of that, there was no denying it felt like the entire universe fell apart around me all at once, leaving me spiraling into the galaxy with no direction. I couldn’t go back to Earth— I wouldn’t go back to Earth. I would rather jump out of the window in front of me and disassemble my entire being, than go back there. But I had to stay quiet. I had to remain calm. My teeth ground together behind my lips as every inch of my body tensed up. They didn’t notice, but it was possible Elon had with each occasional glance he took back at me.

I kept my eyes right back on him this time, only averting them when he looked in my direction. When they gathered around the large table to sign the contract, which appeared in mid air at the press of a button on a phone by Jett, Elon stayed behind. He watched me intently as my {e/c} eyes burned holes into the man whose own eyes made steady and confident contact with the contract as it scanned his retinas. Within seconds, it disappeared, my life slipping from my own fingers as it was sent through cyberspace back to Astra. Crypto exchanged cards as Jett, and who I found out to be Mr. Bauer, held them against each other.

The purchase had been made.

It felt like an execution more than anything else.

I had a week to bid farewell to Planet X and all who inhabited it. Their label, something boring like Spinn Records, worked with Jett to plan a facade as to why I was leaving to feed to my adoring public. I was to follow it as per Astra’s orders. Once the official date on the contract arrived, I was to hop a flight with SpaceX and hurdle towards the one place I vowed I’d never return to, and take orders from Spinn instead. After that, I was no longer Astra’s responsibility. Silent rage and hurt and a plethora of other emotions came bubbling to the surface, but I kept them at bay, turning near catatonic as my eyes shifted focus to Elon once more.

Deep down, I was hoping he might be the fairytale hero I needed at the moment; might pick up on my silent distress and come up with a bulletproof excuse for me to stay on X, devoted to Astra. Mention anything from the danger I could pose to simply being uninteresting enough. But he didn’t say another word. He stared at me from time to time. And each time he did, I could see the cogs in his mind working away from my peripheral, as he valiantly attempted to unpiece the puzzle that was myself.

They didn’t even say goodbye to me when they left, and I didn’t dare look up at Elon, though I noticed his hesitation to depart. My emotions were on overdrive—  I didn’t trust myself to make eye contact for fear I might break down on the spot.

The ride back to my penthouse was quiet on my end. It wasn’t unusual, as cybernetic stars were usually seen and not heard behind the scenes. I sat in the back of the Cybertruck as Jett prattled on to the head of Astra about the deal he’d just made for them from the passenger seat. I was drifting in and out, but caught something about how he wanted more than his usual ten percent. Who would be paying him now?

I smiled to myself for just a second as I looked around inside of the vehicle. They were rare on Earth, but one of the status cars on X. Everyone who was anyone had one despite Elon’s standing in the social world.

Self driving, stereo system like a major recording studio, and built like a tank. Despite the autopilot though, we preferred to drive the beast ourselves. I mean, who wouldn’t? But as I thought about the Cybertruck’s creator, and our brief encounter today, I couldn’t help but feel slighted. It wasn’t his responsibility to save me from such a disastrous deal, sure, but I could tell he wanted nothing to do with my appearance on Earth. They didn’t listen to him when he’d tried to speak up, but he didn’t try hard enough, either. Something told me he wanted them to realize their own mistake, but he didn’t know at what cost that was to me.

I shook myself out of the thought. How could he know, really? Why would he even care? Why did I care so much? His small act of slight compassion in the boardroom didn’t mean I was entitled to his entire arsenal of kind deeds. It was absolutely insane to think that. I questioned my own sentience before trying to push my thoughts away altogether. My emotions were jumbled, no one in particular feeling better or worse than another. It was to the point that the only thing I felt was nothing at all.

When I’d finally arrived home, there were no flashing cameras, no screaming fans or journalists and no security guards surrounding me from every direction I looked. I made my way through the lobby of the building and onto the teleportation pad, dying to finally have some privacy in my own space. The damn thing couldn’t work fast enough as I impatiently waited for it to read my code. Eventually, though it was really only mere seconds, I found myself in my penthouse.

Once I locked the door for no outsider entry, I immediately leaned back against it, the soft clang of metal ringing lightly through the space and tainting my view of my life, the sound bitter and empty as it fell on my ears. My line of sight was glued to an onyx black rug in front of me as I recounted the latter half of the day's events. It all replayed to me like a movie I was forced to watch, all of my hard work unraveling for a little currency that didn’t even mean anything just a few years ago. As invincible as I felt to Astra, after all I’d done for them to save their name countless times, to push their agendas when I didn’t necessarily agree with them, to keep them relevant, they felt as though I was disposable.

My label deemed me disposable and my hero considered me a threat.

Then it hit me.

All at once everything I’d been feeling hit me like a swirling hurricane, and I began to near hyperventilation as I let myself truly feel again. The wall I had to build up every day cracked and crumbled as a million different sensations escaped into the ethos from my small frame. A roaring war within my body swept me into a moment that felt tumultuous, everything suddenly chaotic, loud and heavy though it was just myself in an otherwise quiet room.

My chest rose and fell as it all came rushing back like a wave of water, tears forming in my eyes as sobs pushed their way through my throat. It was as though everything else I had ever been fell away, stripping me bare to nothing but my own resolve. My cold hands immediately reached for my head and I started to sink to the floor, the dramatism of the moment not at all underplayed or over exaggerated when compared to how I felt as I began to tear the beautifully detailed chrome pieces from my face— and then my chest— and then the rest of my body, tearing my clothing off along with them. I threw each piece across the large entryway, the sharp echo earsplitting as each one clattered and rolled through the space. The intricacy I’d hid behind for what felt like ages now, meaning nothing and everything all at once. My heart pounded in my chest, a familiar ache I’d not felt since I left earth reigniting my passion, my need to escape. Inside, I was dying to escape the hell I had to endure, pretending to be a body I wasn’t day in and day out just to stay alive.

The jet black mascara I still liked to put on despite no one seeing it dripped down my cheekbones in messy streaks. My soft, warm skin was exposed in the evening's hazy sunset that wasn’t quite like anywhere else in the two worlds I knew. The small tattoos, scars and beauty marks I’d acquired on Earth, a stark indication of my true humanity, revealed to no one but myself and my thoughts. I embraced the way I could feel the blood coursing through my veins, supplying my carbon based vessel beyond what the most complexly built form of artificial intelligence could comprehend. I tasted the salt of my tears on my flushed rose petal lips with slight relief that I still existed as I was, if only for the time being. I reminded myself of who I was— who the world didn’t know me to be, who I’d often forgotten or left behind for the sake of my safety; of my family’s safety.

And as I sat there, naked and distraught, I briefly wondered if I should reveal my secret to the world now that I found myself at an impasse; if I should risk it all to stay on Planet X and continue the life I’d worked so desperately hard for. To use exposing my humanity as a playing card that no one saw coming was a thought, absolutely. Astra would be in shambles if I decided to expose myself as nothing more than a mere mortal after boasting to X and Earth that they had the most realistic A.I. lifeform in the game. While it didn’t seem like such a big deal, it was in the eyes of the public and their competitors. It would tarnish their reputation forever. But the label didn’t exactly play fair, either. My lifeless body would be hurdling into the universe within the hour I told them, and they’d be after anyone else who might be affiliated with me or related to me. It was one thing to outcast an individual to the outskirts. It was a whole other to wipe out any trace of their existence at all. But they had no issues with it, so long as they saved face and crypto.

Earth hadn’t been kind to my family or me in its downfall. I didn’t come from wealth of any kind and we’d made due with humble living while we could. But we’d gotten caught in the grime the moment it all began to fall apart on a grand scale.

X was my escape.

Our escape.

I barely managed to make it out of Earth as a stowaway, let alone alive.

[girls-scenarios]

With The Rain

Idol: Yoohyeon (Dreamcatcher)

Prompt: Hi! I'm so excited to see Dreamcatcher getting so many reactions and oneshots! They deserve so much love! No pressure, but if possible could I request a Yoohyeon scenario where: Yoohyeon and the fem Reader are both superheroes guarding different towns, and they send penpal notes to each other because they have a crush on each other. And one day Reader doesn't respond and Yoohyeon goes to her town to make sure she's okay and finds that her nemesis has finally captured her! Cue an angry rescue!

Writer: Admin Kiwi

A/N: Ugh I suck at titles. Also, this took me forever to write because I kind of forgot how to write an action sequence. And it’s LONG. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this scenario!

Warnings: Weapons (guns), fighting, violence but nothing too graphic, cursing.

♡ Tip Jar♡

Now, under normal circumstances, Yoohyeon wouldn’t have been worried over your silence. She would have just figured that you out saving your city again and that you’d write her back when you could. After all, being a super hero was a busy job that didn’t save a ton of time for writing letters, and you could take care of yourself if anything came up. There had been plenty of times when the two of you had taken short breaks from letter writing to fight some crime. But this time, it was different. This time you weren’t answering her texts either.

Yoohyeon bit her lip as she stared down at her phone, stalling in the long hallway leading to the kitchen. You hadn’t even read the messages she’d sent to you over the course of the past four days and that wasn’t like you. The nagging feeling of unease at the back of her brain was now turning into worry as she sent another text and sighed, running her hand through her hair. What could be happening to keep you away for this long?

“They’re probably fine,” Siyeon said from behind her, making her jump and spin around, letting out a groan.

“Tell me when you’re going to teleport behind me, please,” Yoohyeon grumbled at the older woman, shoving her phone down into her back pocket despite the growing anxiety in her chest. The familiar hallway walls, covered in photos of the team, suddenly felt closer together.

“That would ruin the surprise.” Siyeon shrugged, then raised her eyebrows. “Why are you so worried about (Y/N) anyway? They can handle themselves just fine.”

“I know that.” Yoohyeon sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. “But it’s not like them to just disappear on me, you know? I have this weird feeling....”

“Weirder than sending letters to each other like my grandparents?”

“We’re pen pals and it’s cute, Siyeon. And I’m being serious, I just feel uneasy. I can’t stop worrying about them. About us.”

The older woman seemed to consider this for a moment. “Well, we don’t have anything going on over here. Why don’t you go to their town and see what’s up? Maybe they need some help.”

“That wouldn’t be weird?”

“I mean, if you’re really worried and this isn’t like them, then it would probably make you feel better to go check on them, right? I bet they’re just sick. And if they are okay and they’re just ignoring you on purpose, then tell them off because that’s a dick thing to do.”

She was right. Yoohyeon couldn’t help being a bit nervous that maybe you were ghosting her and didn’t want to see her, but she knew that wasn’t something you would do. Maybe you were sick. So she took out her phone again and checked the time. “Alright. I’ll go over there. Make sure Jiu knows that I’m heading out. I should be home in an hour if nothing goes wrong.”

“And if you aren’t?”

“I’ll send you some sort of signal if I get into trouble.” She slipped past Siyeon and gave her a smile as she walked back to her room. “Thanks for the advice.”

Waving her hand, Siyeon smiled and shrugged again. “No problem,” she said, giving the younger woman a mock salute before disappearing into a cloud of smoke, probably on her way back to the kitchen.

In her room, Yoohyeon quickly grabbed her suit and stuffed it into her bag, along with the long distance Bluetooth earpiece that doubled as a tracker that Handong, the technical brain of the team, had given all of them for emergencies. Then, with a stop in the bathroom to make sure she looked acceptable, she was out the door on her way to your town, her heart beating heavy in her chest. Above her head, clouds began to gather, slowly blocking out the sun.

-

As soon as she arrived in your town, she knew something was wrong. The smell of smoke hung in the air and the streets were deserted. Even the usually busy town hall outside the union station was empty except for the workers, and she frowned, furrowing her brow as she slipped into the bathroom and pulled out her phone. With her heart beginning to pound in her chest, she checked the news for your town, cursing herself for not doing so earlier. The first thing that popped up was a warning for citizens to stay home, and her stomach fell.

The terrorist group known as the Earth Order has returned from hiding after breaking their leader Hornet from prison. This weekend, they stormed the city bank and took everyone inside hostage. Superhero (Y/N) arrived on the scene but has not been seen again since the incident. Law enforcement have warned citizens to stay inside as they are trying to negotiate and have been working with other local heroes, but the public has started to fear the worst.

Yoohyeon swore at herself under her breath and grabbed her suit, internally kicking herself. Of course it was Hornet! You’d told her that he’d been broken out of prison only days before you stopped responding. Why hadn’t she checked the news earlier? Because she was scared that you’d lost interest in her? Because she’d been distracted by her feelings for you? If only she’d known, she could have come earlier. She could have helped you. She could have stopped you from being hurt.

Fear mixed with rage as she slid her mask over her face, concealing her true identity. She wasn’t sure what was going on with the other heroes and law enforcement, but she had to get in there and help you, no matter what she did. As she stuffed her civilian clothes back into her bag, her phone rang and she glanced at the caller. Jiu.

“Something happened,” the older woman said as soon as Yoohyeon answered the phone. “What’s wrong.”

“How did you know?” Yoohyeon asked, slipping her bag over her shoulder as she prepared to leave.

“The weather doesn’t usually go from sunny to a downpour unless you have something to do with it.”

“Oh.” Sure enough, when she stepped out of the bathroom, rain was pouring from the now grey skies, pounding against the ground. Sheepishly, she rubbed the back of her neck. “Yep, that’s me. Sorry, I thought I had more control over my powers now.”

“It’s only when you get really upset. So I know something happened.”

“(Y/N) was captured by Hornet, their nemesis. They went into the bank building after them a few days ago and they haven’t been seen since.”

“That is bad,” Jiu said, and Yoohyeon could hear her leader typing on the other side of the line. “Do you want us to come as backup? I can get the rest of the girls suited up in no time.”

“No, not right now.” Yoohyeon narrowed her eyes and clenched her jaw. This was something she had to do. “I’ll send a panic alert through the tracker if I run into trouble. There are heroes here on the ground. I’ll think something up.”

“Well, if you’re sure. Good luck.”

“Thanks, Jiu.” Yoohyeon ended the call and slipped her phone into her bag, attached the Bluetooth to her ear, and turned on the tracker. With that, she stowed her bag in one of the lockers at the nearby bus station and took off through the rain, headed straight for the bank.

-

It didn’t take long for her to find it. She didn’t know the layout of your town all that well, but all she had to do was follow the smoke and, soon, the sound of sirens. Squad cars, firetrucks, and ambulances crowded and blocked the road as she reached the scene, and she immediately spotted the team of heroes you worked with gathered behind one of the trucks, speaking to local law enforcement. The bank doors were closed, but the windows were broken and smoking, and blackened, burnt-out cars cluttered the surrounding streets. Frowning, she stayed out of sight from the bank’s many windows, looking the tall building up and down from behind one of the cars. For the first time, she wished she had Siyeon’s power of teleportation. The place looked impenetrable.

After surveying the scene, she stayed low and approached the large truck, trying her best to stay out of sight. At the sound of her footsteps, one of your teammates turned around and gasped.

“Rain? What are you doing here?” At the sound of his voice the rest of the team turned around and she pressed a finger to her lips, joining them in their hiding spot.

“I’m here because I heard what happened to (Y/N).”

“Oh.” Another one of your teammates, Dazzler, twisted her hands, throwing a worried glance up at the building. “Were you worried too?”

“Of course, we’re close.” That was all they needed to know for now. “What’s the situation?”

“It’s not good.” Your team leader Miniaturist stepped up, shaking her head. “We arrived as backup as soon as communication from (Y/N) cut out inside the bank, but Hornet called in reinforcements and he knows we’re here. We can’t just run inside because we don’t know where his hostages are and we don’t need any more civilians getting hurt. Any time we get close, members of the terrorist group come pouring out. We’ve gone through so many, but they just keep coming. We have no idea how many people are inside.”

“That is a rough situation.” Yoohyeon crossed her arms, trying to think. “Does he know all of your powers?”

“Sort of. I was able to shrink myself down and slip in one of the first floor windows without anyone noticing, but they’ve locked and sealed the doors to the stairs so that I couldn’t climb in and unlock it, and I can’t just use the elevator. They’re using the bank cameras to track our every move.”

“I could short circuit the cameras,” added your other teammate Shocker, “but I can’t get close enough without getting shot at or attacked. They always see us coming.”

Hornet had really covered every one of his bases this time. Yoohyeon glanced around the team, then back at the building. Any rescue attempt would be risky at this point, but she had to get in there. They couldn’t let this go on any longer. Using Shocker was their best bet, but how could they get him close enough?

An idea hit her and she brought her hand up to her Bluetooth. “Shocker, do you think you’d have enough time to short circuit the cameras if we teleported you in close enough?”

“I can do it in seconds, but we don’t have anyone like that on our team.”

“I do.” She pressed the button and waited until Jiu’s voice cut through the static.

“Yoohyeon, what’s up?”

“Can you have Vanisher teleport to my location?”

“In her suit?”

“Yes please.”

“I’m on it.”

The Bluetooth cut out and Yoohyeon brought her hand down. “She should be here any minute.”

“Teleportation is exactly what we need,” Miniaturist said, perking up for the first time. “Once the cameras are down, they can only see us from the windows. There are plenty of blind spots in the back of the building. I’ll go through the back door and see if I can scope out the place. Once we have an idea of what we’re dealing with, we can send a team to the front of the building to distract Hornet. He doesn’t know you or Vanisher are here, and that gives us an advantage. You guys can go around the back and take him by surprise while we draw his backup away from you.”

“That sounds like a great idea.” A little poof of smoke revealed a grinning Siyeon and everyone jumped upon her arrival, spinning around to look at her.

“Woah, you really can teleport,” commented Shocker, holding his hand to his chest in shock, and she laughed.

“Of course I can! Now, who am I taking to stop the cameras?” She was as nonchalant as ever when faced with danger and Yoohyeon felt a bit better now that she was there. The situation felt a bit more familiar.

“It’s me,” Shocker said, raising his hand, and Siyeon grabbed him by his shoulders, still grinning.

“I’ll try to hold you still so that you don’t get sick. Just ready yourself, okay?” She didn’t give him enough time to resist, disappearing with him in her arms. After a moment, Yoohyeon heard electricity popping and then the fire of automatic guns. Dazzler’s face with white, but with a poof of smoke, Siyeon and Shocker appeared again behind the truck, unharmed.

“Oh thank goodness,” Dazzler said, putting a hand to her chest and letting out a sigh of relief, and Shocker gave her a thumbs up despite looking a bit sick.

“Cameras are all down. I accidentally turned out all their electricity for a minute too but it’s hard to control your power after your entire body is transported through space and time somehow.”

“That’s being dramatic,” Siyeon said, dusting off her suit and looking around. “What’s the plan now?”

“It’s my turn.” Miniaturist disappeared from her spot and Siyeon blinked.

“Wait, I thought they didn’t have a teleporter.”

“We don’t.” A faint voice came from the ground and both Siyeon and Yoohyeon looked down to see a tiny woman waving at them. “I’m going to run around the back and scope out the area. I’ll communicate with my team and have them rely information to you.” With that, Miniaturist jumped up to the top of the truck, leaving Siyeon and Yoohyeon to stare in surprise.

“Man, that’s one weird power. How did she do that?” Siyeon asked, and Dazzler grinned.

“Something about keeping the power she has at normal size when she’s miniature. Isn’t it cool?”

“It really is. It’s useful during times like this too.”

“Yep.” Shocker sat down, rubbing his hands together to recharge his powers. “Now we just sit here and wait.”

-

“She was able to get into the back stairwell.” Dazzler reported, “They’re holding the civilian hostages on the second floor with ten guards. There are terrorist goons on every floor and there’s someone with a gun at every window. The third floor is full of them, it seems like that’s where the reinforcements are. They’re using the back stairwell. She was able to get to each floor other than the sixth, because there’s a blockade there. She thinks that’s where Hornet and (Y/N) are.” Pulling her hand away from her ear, Dazzler peeked out to look at the building and sighed. “We’re way outnumbered. Even if these guys don’t have powers, they have weapons and there’s a lot of them.”

“We have a member who can control metal.” At Yoohyeon’s words, everyone turned to look at her and Dazzler raised her eyebrows.

“That would help. Could you get her here?”

“I can.” The words barely left Siyeon’s mouth before she disappeared into a cloud of smoke.

When she reappeared, it was with two women instead of one. “I brought our leader too. She controls fire and can make explosions.”

“Hi,” Jiu said, waving a hand as she stepped forward. “I’m Firefly, but you guys can call me Jiu.”

“And I’m Handong. You might also know me as Silver.” Handong waved her gloved hand as well, glancing around the team. “We got the rundown from Siyeon. When are we going in?”

Shocker smiled and waved back at them, even though he looked a bit queasy when he saw them teleport. “Whenever our leader gets back from scoping the place out.”

“I’m back.” The voice made them all jump, then Miniaturist’s sudden appearance made them jump again. She was slightly dusty and she frowned as she brushed off her suit.

“I thought they didn’t have a teleporter?” Jiu asked, and Miniaturist laughed.

“I don’t teleport, I get really tiny. Hence my name, Miniaturist.”

“That makes a lot of sense. I’m Firefly, nice to meet you. This beside me is Silver. We’re here to help. I control fire and she controls metal.”

“This is good.” Miniaturist crossed her arms. “Here’s what we’ll do. Silver, we need you here. Shocker, Dazzler, and I will charge in from the front as a distraction, but there are snipers in every window. We need your cover long enough for the others to wipe out the snipers. Vanisher, Rain, and Firefly will go around the back to wipe out the snipers and rescue the hostages, including (Y/N). Does that all sound good?” The team looked at each other and nodded, and Miniaturist put her hand into the middle of the circle. “Then let’s do this. For the hostages, and for (Y/N).”

Yoohyeon’s heart began to beat a bit faster as she put her hand into the circle and cheered with the rest of them. Miniaturist hadn’t been able to find you, were you really inside? Were you okay? Where could Hornet be hiding you? Were you...? She didn’t let herself finish the question, instead clenching her teeth together and holding onto Siyeon. She couldn’t let herself get upset before the mission even started.

“Now!” Miniaturist yelled, and a blast of blinding light from Dazzler signaled the charge. With that, Yoohyeon’s world went momentarily black.

When she came back, she was dizzy and standing in front of the back door. No matter how many times she teleported, she always ended up feeling strange. As she got her balance back, she watched Jiu try the doorknob.

“She must have unlocked it,” the oldest girl said as she swung the door open. “Let’s go.”

“Do we have a plan?” Siyeon asked as the three of them slipped inside, and Jiu scanned the ceiling.

“I do. I’m going to set of the smoke alarms and the sprinklers. That way Yoohyeon will never run out of water to manipulate and the terrorists will be confused. We need to hit the second floor with the hostages first after we shock them so we catch them by surprise and there’s less chance for people to get hurt.”

“That’s a good idea.” Yoohyeon stopped, tried another door, and nodded for the other girls to come over. “Here are the stairs. We should be able to find a smoke detector in here somewhere.” Outside, the sounds of fighting were loud, and she shuddered at the constant firing of the guns. She knew Handong was good, but they had never faced off against this many enemies before. She could only hope that the other woman could handle it.

“Here’s one! And on the third floor, great.” Jiu stopped and opened her palm. After a second, a fire popped to life above her skin and she held it up to the detector, stretching her arms to reach. At first, nothing happened. Then a piercing siren echoed throughout the building and sprinklers sputtered to life, drenching the floor in seconds.

“Shit, what the fuck was that?”

“I don’t know, but now the elevators won’t work!”

Inside the door that Yoohyeon guessed led to the room where the hostages were being held, she could hear confused yelling. Quickly, the three women moved behind the door and listened to the thud of booted feet rumbling towards the stairwell door.

As soon as the door opened and two men stepped out, Siyeon slammed the door behind them and Yoohyeon manipulated the water, turning the downpour into a whip and sending the two flying down the stairs. There was a crack when their heads landed, and the didn’t move again. Satisfied, the girls turned again to the door.

“Why did you slam the door?” Three more men walked through and Yoohyeon gave them the same treatment, using her water to ram them against the wall. They would be fine, but they wouldn’t wake up for a while.

“That’s five,” Jiu whispered, “five left.”

“Hey, what’s going on out there?” Another voice sounded from behind the door, and they looked at each other. Was this really going to be this easy?

“You goddamn fool! Don’t go through that door, there has to be someone out there!” The next fool foiled their hope for an easy take down. Hearing this, Yoohyeon turned her body to water and slipped underneath the door to look. Five more armed men stood inside, and the biggest one was blocking the rest of the men from the door, glaring at them with his weapon in his hands.

“But who? The whole team is-.”

“They must have called reinforcements. We have to warn Hornet.”

“Oh no you don’t!” Just as quick as she’d turned to water, she returned to her solid form, landing a solid kick against the man’s throat. He choked and went down, and the rest of the men raised their guns, only for them to melt in their hands, making them gasp and scream as it burnt their skin.

“Awe, is it too hot in here for you boys?” Jiu stood in the doorway, her hands and eyes aflame. “Why don’t I make it a bit hotter?” She aimed her arm at one of the big guns at the broken-out window and the goon in her way screamed and dove out of the way just in time to avoid the wave of fire that melted the gun and exploded some of the glass. “Oh, I see you have a survival instinct.”

A few of the men had made a run for the door, but Siyeon was quick and well trained. She kicked one of them, sending him tumbling back against the man running behind him, then jumped onto the back of another, wrapping her legs around his neck and sending him down. With a poof of smoke, she was gone and back again with rope, and soon, all the goons were sat in the corner, their hands and legs tied and their weapons melted or disintegrated.

The scared hostages, mostly bank workers, stared at them with wide eyes as they approached, as if they couldn’t believe they were really there.

“You came to save us?” One woman asked, and Jiu nodded, bending down with a soft smile to burn through the ropes binding them, setting them free.

“We came to save you. Come on, we’ll take you down the back stairs, but we have to be fast. Since the elevators are off, reinforcements might come down the stairs.

The hostages were weak after sitting bound on the floor for so long and most of them stumbled and fell, but with Siyeon’s help for the weakest ones, they were able to get every one of them to the ambulances waiting outside. Still, Yoohyeon couldn’t rest. She was anxious to get back inside.

As the three of them once again entered the stairwell, Jiu turned to Yoohyeon. “I know you want to go find (Y/N), so you should. Siyeon and I can handle the rest of them.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’re sure.” Siyeon patted her shoulder. “If you can’t get around the blockage, call me. And good luck.”

Setting her jaw, Yoohyeon nodded at her teammates, thankful that they understood. “Good luck.” With that, she turned and headed up the stairs, taking them two at a time in her rush. She could still hear gunfire, but she focused on her mission: she had to get to you and trust in the others to be able to handle the rest of the situation. So up she went, running as fast as she could to get to the top.

Just as she was about to round the last set of stairs to get to the blockade, an explosion from above rocked the building and she threw herself onto the floor, covering her head as rubble showered down around her. When the dust settled around her, she slowly stood up and crept up the rest of the stairs to the next landing, every sense on high alert. The air was still cloudy and she had to resist the urge to cough just in case someone was close by. Thankfully, the landing was still intact, but as she looked up at the next set of stairs, she realized what the explosion had been.

The bottom half of the stairs where the blockade had been had been reduced to rubble that cluttered the stairs below, leaving a gaping hole impossible to jump over. At least, for a regular person. Yoohyeon furrowed her eyebrow and looked up. The next landing was still intact was well, although obviously shaken and unsafe. Did this mean Hornet knew they were in the building? He had destroyed his one escape route outside the elevator. He was desperate.

Yoohyeon stepped back until she hit the wall and studied the gap. Going back now was no option. She’d have to jump it.

She closed her eyes and breathed slow and deep, feeling the water all around her and connecting it with her body. Then she readied herself to run in the small space, placing one foot in front of the other and outstretching her hands behind her. It was a technique she’d seen Jiu use, and even though she’d never tried with water before, it had to work.

When she opened her eyes, she started to run, going as fast as she possibly could. Then, at the very last moment as her foot hit the edge of the gap, she jumped and released a jet of water from her hands, propelling her up and forwards at high speed. Her feet landed on the remaining steps and she almost felt relief until the unstable concrete gave out beneath her and she threw herself forward, grabbing onto the corner of the landing to catch herself. The sharp end cut into her hand but she held on, getting her knees onto another more stable step before again throwing her body forward, landing mostly on the ledge. The rest of the stairs crumbled behind her and she gasped for air and carefully crawled forward, not looking back.

The ledge was full of growing cracks, but she spread out her body weight and moved slow and purposeful until she was on the last set of ten stairs, leading to the final floor. Somehow, they were still standing, but not for long. Still careful, Yoohyeon stood to her feet and took them two at a time once again, desperate to get onto solid flooring again. They held her weight and, as she reached the landing and, subsequently, the last doorway, she took a deep breath.

If you weren’t beyond this door....

No, she couldn’t think of that now. Instead of opening the door, she turned her body to water again and slipped silently underneath the door before slithering further into the room. The sprinklers were still going and the water on the floor helped disguise her form, as even in the water she still had a face. The last floor was severely damaged, desks and chairs mangled and holes through the walls. Sparks from broken lights fell into the water and the further through the labyrinth of hallways and offices on the last floor she went, the destruction got worse, until she reached a large meeting room with the door ripped to shreds.

Inside, she heard a voice and her heart stopped. It was you. You were alive.

“Just admit that you’re beaten. They’ve taken out most of your snipers, they took your hostages, and they’re beating the shit out of your guys on the ground. There’s no way you can win this.” Your voice was rough and raspy as you spat at the words, and she could hear chains clanking together and scraping against the floor.

“I think you’re forgetting something,” a man’s voice hissed in return, and anger boiled in Yoohyeon’s chest. Hornet. “I still have you. What do you think your teammates will do if I threaten to kill you?”

“You won’t get away with it. You won’t get away with any of this.”

Yoohyeon followed the sound of your voice, slowly pulling herself from the water so that she could see. In one corner of the meeting room, you were chained to a chair, your legs strapped to the legs and your arms chained so tight behind your back that your arms were streaked with red cuts. You were holding your head high despite the cuts and bruises on your face and the dark circles under your eyes, staring Hornet right in the eyes as he walked over to glare down at you. He was a lean man, not traditionally intimidating, but he towered over you and his eyes were wide, yellow, and crazy. The long fingernails he used to sting and paralyze dug into your skin as he grabbed your face, and Yoohyeon belated realized, to her horror, that you were hooked up to an IV at the back of your neck.

That was how he had captured you. He was continuously paralyzing you through the IV, using the same poison from his nails.

“You sure are brave today. How about I give you another round of electricity and see how brave you are then? With all this water around I can’t guarantee it won’t kill you.”

“But I can.” Yoohyeon stood to her full height, revealing herself as she slashed her hand through the air, sending blades of water to cut through the IV. At the sound of her voice you jerked your head back and Hornet dropped you to spin around, his wild eyes darting around the room until they landed on her.

“Y-Yoohyeon?”

“Who are you?” He demanded, and Yoohyeon glared, the water around her beginning to boil with the intensity of her anger.

“Your worst nightmare.” She pulled her arms back, then pushed them forward, sending a wave of boiling water straight into his core. He let out a cry of pain as he was thrown back into the wall, and she turned her attention to you, slashing at your restraints. The metal of your chain didn’t break as easily as the IV, and he was back on his feet before she could break through, his eyes flashing yellow.

“I won’t let you ruin this! Not after I came so far!” He was faster than she’d thought he would be, and she narrowly missed his charge, jumping to the side just in time to avoid his nails. As he slid to a stop and turned around, she turned her palms upward and pulled up before making a fist, turning the water around her into sharp frozen knives that she then threw towards him with all the force in her body.

They missed his skin but caught on his clothing and dragged him back up against the wall, digging deep into the cheap dry wood. Once again, she had bought herself time and she turned her attention back to you, sharpening her water blade this time through pure anger as she slashed and hacked against your chains.

Just as they fell away and you slumped forward, barely able to catch yourself after the affects of the poison, Hornet roared and broke free, once again charging at Yoohyeon. This time, she was ready, turning her entire body to water and letting him charge right through her before she spun around and grabbed him by the shoulders. Water flowed through her body and up from the ground in a boiling fountain, enveloping him as he screamed. He dragged his body forward and twisted back, trying to escape, but she stared him in the eye, twisted and flexed her fingers, and drew in a purposeful breath, watching with pleasure as the boiling water turned to ice, trapping him inside. Satisfied, she breathed out, freed her hands and pulled away, then immediately refroze the space her hands had made at his shoulders. From inside, he stared at her with his crazy eyes, mid-scream, unable to move but obviously furious.

With Hornet defeated, she turned and ran to your side, helping you sit back up and sucking in a breath when she saw your wounds up close. “Oh my god, (Y/N), are you okay? What did he do to you? I’ll get you down to the ambulance right away.”

Tears were running down your face as you looked up at her, your body shaking as you did your best to move. “You came for me,” you whispered, and she nodded, trying not to cry herself as she dropped to her knees and pulled you gently into her arms.

“I did. I couldn’t let anything happen to you.” She swallowed the lump in her throat, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get here earlier.”

“It’s not your fault.” You let your forehead fall against her shoulder, your body exhausted. “I should have been stronger. I shouldn’t have let him draw me into this small room. He had the advantage.” A sob shuddered through your body. “I let everyone down. I let you down.”

“You didn’t let anyone down,” she assured you, “especially not me. We all came together to get you out of this. I’m just glad you’re alive. I-I don’t know what I would have done if I couldn’t save you.”

“I feel cold.” Your voice was brittle and she quickly scooped you into her arms and stood up, terror rushing through her veins. Your body was cold and your breathing uneven and labored, and your eyes slowly began to close.

“No,” she said, letting the tears flow from her eyes as she ran towards the elevators, using the water to raise her own temperature. She had come this far. She couldn’t lose you like this. “Hand in there, (Y/N). I’ll get you help. Please.” Her voice broke as she stopped in front of the elevator, desperately trying to force it open. Nothing would work and she stomped her foot in frustration, turning the water settled on the floor to steam. “I can’t lose you. I love you! Please don’t leave me.”

Slumping to the floor, she cradled you, sobbing as she pressed her forehead to yours. “Please, (Y/N), wake up.”

At that moment, her Bluetooth crackled to life and Jiu’s voice came through, loud and clear. “Yoohyeon, is everything okay on your side?”

Reluctantly, she pulled an arm away from you to touch her ear, unable to stop sobbing. “No, it’s (Y/N). I got here, but I might be too late. The stairs and destroyed and the elevator isn’t working, I can’t do anything-.”

“I’m sending Siyeon to your location now!” Jiu’s voice was stern. “Stay by their side and do everything you can. She’s coming to help you.”

“Help is coming, (Y/N),” she whispered, cradling you once again. “So please. Just hang in there a little longer.”

-

The world was a blur. Yoohyeon couldn’t control her powers, her body wavering and turning to and from water as the skies poured rain like the city had never seen. The ambulance and police lights all blended together and the sounds around her sounded far away and jumbled. The ambulance with you in it sped away and Miniaturist said something, but Yoohyeon couldn’t hear. She could just watch the lights get smaller and smaller as her body phased in and out, becoming one with the rain.

-

The dry white halls of the hospital were suffocating, yet Yoohyeon found herself walking through them with flowers in her hand, just like she had every day since she rescued you. How long had it been? Four days? Five? They all seemed to blend together now, even if Yoohyeon was doing better. She no longer turned into water without realizing it, but the rain hadn’t stopped.

Her feet stalled in front of your door and she glanced around before stepping inside and quietly closing the door behind her. Flowers, cards, and gifts cluttered the room now, and she added the new ones she’d brought to an old bouquet before approaching your bed.

Your color was better now, and you were no longer cold to the touch. Your limbs twitched and even moved, once. But you were still asleep.

“Hey (Y/N). I’m here again today. Are you feeling better?” She wasn’t expecting an answer. Still, she sighed at the silence and sat down in the chair beside your bed, reaching out to gently touch your arm. “You know, this room is full of gifts for you. Flowers, cards, teddy bears, chocolates.... Everyone is worried about you, and thankful that you risked so much to try and protect them. We all want you to wake up.” After a moment of silence, she took a breath and shook her head. “I need you to wake up. I really don’t know what I’ll do without you, (Y/N). I can hardly breathe without you here.”

The room stayed silent aside from the beeping of machines, and after sitting a while, she stood up with another sigh, her heart heavy. She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. You were usually so vibrant and strong. It was unsettling to see you like this.

“Well,” she said, “I’ll come and see you again tomorrow.” She lingered for another moment, just in case, before turning and walking towards the door. Just as her hand was about to turn the knob, the sheets on your bed shifted and she froze.

“Yoohyeon?” Your voice was hoarse and almost unfamiliar, but relief surged through her body anyway as she spun around to look. You were still laying down, but your head was turned towards her, and your eyes were open.

“(Y/N)?” She let out a half laugh, half sob as she ran over to your bed. “(Y/N), you’re awake!”

Your eyes were wide and confused as you looked up at her, then around the room, blinking slowly. “W-where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital. You collapsed at the bank and we rushed you here.” She took your hand, holding in her tears as she smiled and brushed your hair away from your face. “I’m so glad you’re awake.”

You opened your mouth as if you were about to say something, but the door opened and nurses ran in, followed by the doctor. “They’re awake, just like we heard! We need to check vital signs.”

They milled in and out and the silent room suddenly became alive with activity. Yoohyeon watched in awe until you squeezed her hand, pulling her attention back to you. “I’m scared,” you whispered, “can you stay with me?”

Squeezing your hand back, she nodded. “I’m not going anywhere.”

-

The next day, the halls didn’t seem nearly as suffocating as they had before, and Yoohyeon walked through with a smile, another bunch of flowers in hand. When she opened the door, you were awake to greet her, and once again relief and happiness surged through her as she closed the door behind her.

“Good morning. How are you feeling today?”

“A lot better. Still a bit queasy, but the doctors said I’d feel like that for a while. At least I can move all my limbs again. And I can eat. I was starving, quite literally.”

“That is good.” She walked over to fill the vase next to your bed with the new flowers, her smile never leaving her lips. “I brought you tulips today. Aren’t they pretty?”

“They are,” you agreed. “Thank you for coming. The nurses said you came by every day.”

“I did. I couldn’t just leave you alone here. Especially not when you being sick is my fault.”

You raised your eyebrows, your face falling a bit. “Your fault?”

Now her smile disappeared and she twisted her hands together, sitting in the chair beside your bed. “Yes, my fault. Your team needed backup. Had I checked on you sooner, you might not be in the hospital. Had I just checked the news, I would have known. But instead I was scared that you were ghosting me, or that you had gotten annoyed with me. Because of that, I let you suffer for longer.”

“Yoohyeon, you saved me,” you said, sounding confused. “I don’t blame you for any of this. There was no way you could have known that I was in trouble. And it was my own fault for going in without waiting for backup. I let my pride and determination get ahead of me and I ended up causing a lot of trouble for everyone else. I don’t blame you at all. Instead, I’m really thankful that you came to help me.”

“But I could have done it sooner.”

“Hey, listen to me.” You reached over to touch her arm, just like she’d done with you the day before, and she looked up at you. “The past is the past. All of us made mistakes. But everything turned out okay. I don’t blame you. And even if it was somehow your fault, I think you literally saving my life makes up for it. You were incredible in there.”

Your words made her feel a bit better and she nodded a bit, giving you a weak smile. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Honestly, the memories are a bit fuzzy,” you admitted. “But I remember when you burst in. I was trying to be tough, but I was terrified. Then you burst in and I finally felt some hope that I would get out of there. I remember that you froze Hornet. And I remember feeling really, really cold and not being able to move.”

“That was terrifying. I was just holding you and I couldn’t do anything.”

“It’s really foggy after that, but.... I remember you begging me to wake up and stay with you, and saying... that you, um, loved me.” As you spoke, your cheeks grew red and Yoohyeon felt herself flush, clearing her throat and glancing away. Of all things for you to remember!

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” After a moment of awkward silence, you spoke again, your voice tentative. “Did you mean it?”

“What?” She jerked up, looking back at you. You looked... hopeful, almost.

“Did you mean it when you said that you loved me, or were you just saying it in the heat of the moment?”

Well, she couldn’t lie to you now. Not after everything the two of you had gone through. Almost losing you was the scariest thing that had ever happened to her and when you were laying there in her arms, she’d regretted never telling you her feelings. So she took a deep breath and nodded, giving you a small smile. “I meant it. And I regretted not telling you sooner.”

“Sooner?”

“I’ve been in love with you for a long time, (Y/N).”

Your smile widened and you laughed, immediately brightening up as you reached for her hand instead. “Good. Because I’m in love with you too.”

“Really? This isn’t just because I saved you, right?”

“I mean, that’s part of it.” You squeezed her hand. “But I was drawn to you from the moment we met, and I only started to like you more after we got closer and became pen pals and met up all the time. Long story short, I’ve loved you for a long time too, Yoohyeon.”

“Wow.” This was real. She almost felt like fainting from relief and happiness, but she didn’t, grinning and scooting closer to you instead. Her heart felt like it was too big for her chest as it pounded and, for the first time, she felt butterflies in her stomach. You loved her too. You didn’t blame her. You were okay and you loved her too. The emotions were almost overwhelming, and she had to make a joke to keep herself from crying. Had she ever cried this much before? “I can’t believe it took you being taken hostage for us to confess.”

You laughed, once again looking like your usual self. Like the you she loved so much. “At least something good came out of it, I guess. You know, since you saved me, I should do something to pay you back.”

She flushed and quickly shook her head. “You don’t have to do that, I-.”

“No, I insist.” You smiled affectionately. “What about a kiss for my hero?”

She hadn’t been expecting that. Well, it was certainly a good offer. As embarrassed as she felt, Yoohyeon couldn’t stop herself from smiling like a fool as she leaned in closer to you, all the worry and anger she’d felt over the week washing away. Outside, the sun finally peeked out from behind the clouds.

“You know, I think I could get behind that.”

[dumbkiri]

Buried Secrets Two

Parts: [ 1, Here, 3 ]

Summary: [Name], knowing she and John are in danger, runs to the babysitter’s house to get John back to safety. She also gives the nice babysitter money to go out of the country. Then [Name] is in a stolen car wondering where and who to go for help. She reluctantly goes to the Titans. Although plans don’t go as planned. Dick tells the truth to the Titans and they figure out a plan to stop Deathstroke once and for all. Deathstroke has unfortunate news for [Name]. 

Pairing: Dick Grayson x Female! Reader

Genre: Slight Angst

Word Count: 3k

WARNINGS: Blood

“Wait, Ms. [L.Name], why are you suddenly leaving? Also you’re bleeding,” Samantha, John’s babysitter, had ran behind [Name]. The young teen was not understanding why she was given two grand for only taking care of John for a night. 

[Name] held John closer to her body and noticed that he was going to cry soon. She set John down in a carrier then grabbed Samantha by her shoulders, “Look, sweetie, use the money to finally go to South Korea. Didn’t you say you always wanted to go there?”

“Y-yeah, but I can’t leave without notifying my parents. I’m just a sophomore in high school,” Samantha gave [Name] a weird look. 

[Name] cursed under her breath and grabbed four grand from a duffel bag, “Here use this to bring your parents with you. Just get out of town, no, the country.”

“Why? What’s going on?” Samantha didn’t know when to stop asking questions and it was annoying the older female to no end. [Name] zipped up the duffel bag and grabbed the handle of John’s carrier. She walked over to the front door and zoomed over to her car that she stole. She opened the backseat car door and strapped John into a car seat. 

John began crying now and [Name] closed the door after she stuffed her bags next to John. “Listen carefully, Samantha. Bad people are after me and they might use you to find me which is why you need to leave. Because they’ll only bring harm to you and your family for no reason.”

Samantha’s blue eyes widened, “Bad people like murderers?”

“Worst. Now call your parents and I’ll tell them what to do.”

…… 

[Name] looked at her phone and typed the address to the Titan’s Tower. Her fingers froze and she let her thumb hover over the start button. Deathstroke said that Dick brought the Titans back together. But she couldn’t bring herself to believe him. Deathstroke isn’t known to be a liar, manipulative, yes. If Dick really did bring the Titans back even their old friends, why didn’t he contact her?

“Ma...ma,” John whined in the back seat, his little feet kicking the air, 

[Name] should feel grateful that Dick didn’t call her. It would be awkward to see him. It would be awkward to see them all and John, what would they think? Did Dick tell them about John? Her [e.color] eyes looked at the rearview mirror. She watched as John babbled in his spot. Drool dripping down his chin. 

She worried for her son. [Name] promised herself she wouldn’t go back to being a hero. That was in the past and it was going to stay there because she didn’t want her son getting hurt or worse. He was too young to die. He’s just a baby. 

“Starting route to Titan’s Tower,” 

This was her only chance to keep him safe. They were her family once and John could be a part of it. 

……

“Dick, come on, man, wake up” 

“What happened to the three of them?”

“Do you think they all just passed out here like idiots cause I do.”

“Hank, no.”

Dick groaned and opened his eyes to see Rachel and Gar waking up as well. His brown eyes observing the two teens that laid on each other. 

“Ugh, what happened?” Gar asked rubbing his head with his eyes adjusting to the bright light from Jason’s phone. 

“They seem fine. Maybe they had a sleepover without us” Jason said and Hank chuckled at his remark. Jason turned his phone light off and backed away to give the trio space.

 Rachel removed herself off of Gar’s body with a slight blush apparent. She sat on her knees and rubbed her hands on her thighs. [Name] was on her way. “Did you guys see what I saw?” Rachel asked the two males who were affected by her power. 

Gar nodded his head, “Yeah it was strange. It was like I was next to her when she was fighting Deathstroke and Dr. Light. It was so weird, I couldn’t do anything for her.” 

“Shit,” Dick cursed under his breath and jumped to his feet. He needed to go to the computer. He needed to see how far she was away from the tower. Dick ran out of the kitchen with everyone following him with questioning gazes. 

Donna was the first to reach him, “Whoa, Dick, slow down. Wanna tell us what’s going on?” The Wonder Girl looking at her friends for some help to get Dick to spill. They stayed quiet and watched him type on the keyboard. His fingers going at a crazy rate. 

“Searching for [Name] [L.Name]...” 

Hank stepped up to Dick with his hand placed on his head, “Hold up, why are you looking for [Name]? Is everything okay with her?”

“No,” Rachel spoke up, “My power, it allowed me to see that she was in danger. She was fighting Deathstroke and Dr. Light all by herself.”

“She blew her own home up, it was crazy and she has telekinesis!” Gar exclaimed pulling at his hair. He never saw such a powerful person with a cool ability. Dick tapped his foot impatiently waiting for the computer to give him results and it was painfully slow. His family was in danger. Can he call them his family? He hasn’t seen them in three years. Every time he wanted to contact [Name], he got cold feet. 

“Dick, you got to tell us what is going on,” Dawn set her hand onto his shoulder. He looked behind him and they were all staring at him. Their eyes boring into him to tell them the truth. He took a deep breath in and pushed away from the computer. 

“I haven’t been honest with you guys,” Dick crossed his arms over his chest, “the only ones that know this secret is Bruce and Alfred. Even if I told you a long time ago what had happened between [Name] and I, I don’t think it’s your business in the first place.”

Hank glared at him, “Now it is.”

“Yes,” Dick nodded his head, “Because they’re in danger.”

Dawn tilted her head in confusion and Donna spoke up, “They’re? Someone else is with [Name]?” The two women had no idea what was going on and neither did the rest. Dick was being hesitant and he took a long time to explain what was going on. He bit his lip and chewed on it. Rachel and Gar looked at each other wondering if they should help Dick with telling the truth. 

“It’s not easy to say this,” Dick admitted with his head low in defeat. He had to tell them anyways because [Name] was going to show up to Titan’s Tower eventually. “[Name] and I...we have a son. He’s two years old and-”

“No fucking way,” An unexpected voice cut through and it was Rose Wilson, Deathstroke’s daughter. “You had a secret child and you didn’t bother to tell your teammates. What other secrets are you keeping?”

“None,” Dick said with a sharp tone. 

Dawn removed her hand off of Dick’s shoulder, “Why didn’t you tell us? We’re your friends.”

“It’s because it was none of our business,” Hank bellowed, “obviously we weren't good enough friends for him to confide in us.” Dawn looked over her shoulder at Hank. Their eyes connected. 

Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. 

It was the front entrance. Someone was there and it was definitely [Name]. It had to be. Although when the camera footage popped up on the computer screen, no one was visible. Suddenly, they all heard the elevator dinging. Dick was the first one to investigate. They all waited in the main room to see the elevator doors opening. 

What they saw made their hearts churn especially Dick’s. His eyes couldn’t believe what they were seeing. In the middle of the elevator was a bassinet with a crying baby in it and a woman bloodied and beaten holding tightly onto the bassinet. Dick reacted quicker than the others and immediately ran inside the elevator. His hands flying to the woman’s face. 

Her nose was bleeding and her eyes were barely open. It was like she was trying to stay awake, but her body was forcing herself to sleep. Her breaths were shallow and her hands gripped tightly around the bassinet. She opened her mouth, blood coating her teeth, “Take care of him, okay?” Her head felt lighter in his hands and he understood. 

“[Name],” Dick called softly tears brimming, “you’re not here, are you?” 

She gave him a smile and her body disappeared right in front of him in red waves. The old titans rushed into the elevator and looked down at Dick kneeling in a fetal position. Then he looked up from the spot where [Name] had once laid in. Letting his anger out, Dick punched the elevator wall in front of him, “Goddammit!” 

“W-wait, I don’t understand,“ Gar spoke up trying to see in the elevator, “[Name] was just here. What happened to her body?” The green haired thought of the worst. He thought she had died. Donna looked at the teens and pushed them away from the elevator telling them that the adults would handle this. 

Dawn knelt down beside Dick, “Come on, Dick. We’re going to find her, but right now your son needs you.” Dick wiped his tears away and picked up the bassinet with shaky hands. Hank stopped Dick from exiting the elevator, “I can hold him...if you want.” 

Dick shook his head, “Thank you, but I got him.” For the first time in a long time, Dick was with his son again. Yet he wished the circumstances were better.

……

“Alright an hour later, John is finally sleeping,” Dawn and Donna walked back into the main room where everybody sat in or around the kitchen. Dick gave them a grateful nod and focused his attention back on the wall. 

“So is anyone going to explain what happened to [Name],” Gar asked very curious why the woman disappeared in the elevator. 

Jason tossed a piece of popcorn into his mouth, “It’s because of her ability.” 

The old titans gave him questioning glares. 

“What? Bruce had me study potential allies and [Name] was one of them. According to what she knows, she has the ability to warp reality and teleport. Well that’s not all she can do, but it’s what she used in this situation. My guess is she used teleportation and put little John in the elevator before Deathstroke could get to him.”

“So her body was just her warping reality?” Rachel asked. 

Rose shrugged her shoulders, “If she could teleport, why didn’t she do the same for herself?”

“Because she hasn’t used her powers in a long time ever since John was born. She didn’t want to risk him getting injured.” Dick answered. His brown eyes were directed to the floor in thought. [Name] was in danger and in the hands of Deathstroke. His second worst enemy. 

Rachel slid off the kitchen counter, "Well, aren't we going to save her? Isn't that what the Titans do?" 

Dick looked at Rachel and shook his head. He wasn't going to allow his new recruits, his friends, get involved with Deathstroke. He won't allow another young soul die at his hands. "No, you guys will stay here and keep watch on John." 

"Great," Jason groaned, "you're putting us on babysitting duty while you guys fight a known villain. He's your son, how about you spend time with him for once?"

Dick growled, "Don't go there." 

"Or what?" Jason challenged stepping up to Dick. The teen with black hair was beginning to push Dick's buttons. And they weren't supposed to be bothered with. "I say you sit this one out, Dick. Let us handle the bad guys for once." 

"No," Dick said firmly. He was standing his ground. The presence of the new Robin didn't scare him nor did he tremble. "Deathstroke is mine. Now stand down or I'll put you on probationary timeout." 

Jason scoffed and turned his back on Dick muttering a few curses. The old Titans walked up to Dick and they formed a tiny circle ready to discuss their plans on how to get [Name] back to safety. 

……

“A caring mother, you are,” Deathstroke talked to [Name], sitting directly across from her. Their knees almost touching each other. “I could have promised not to lay a finger on your son, but you made things more difficult for you.” 

[Name] swallowed down the blood from her mouth. The taste of iron bothering her taste buds. “I won’t allow my son to get hurt because you have a personal vendetta for his father.”

“You speak as if Grayson holds no meaning to your heart, is it true you two had a falling out?” Deathstroke asked with a tilt of his head. 

“You can say that,” [Name] responded looking away from him. She wasn’t going to speak about her relationship problems with a psycho like Deathstroke. Her business was her business. This wasn’t a therapy session among a hero and villain. 

“Huh, always thought you two were good for each other.”

“Ah, good one. An attempt of sarcasm by the one and only Deathstroke.” [Name] replied to his remark. Her right eye closed upon feeling the warm liquid that was blood drip down it. She forgot that she was hurting while chained to the chair in special handcuffs. Deathstroke’s presence didn’t allow her to relax. He forced her to be on the edge. 

“Why don’t you use your powers, [Name]?” Deathstroke looked at her crossing his arms over his chest. She got him thinking. She needed him to think of the consequences he’ll reap. 

The blood dripped onto her clothing in a slow rhythm. “I don’t know maybe because you got a hold of Cadmus’ tech. Did you steal them or actually request for them, I’m really curious.” She wiped her chin with her shoulder and sighed. [Name] didn’t like waiting and she hoped the Titans could find her. But it was nearly impossible especially if Deathstroke is good at covering steps and going off grid. It was his specialty. 

“I made a bargain with them,” Deathstroke began ominously, “I give them you in exchange for the Titans.”

[Name] was puzzled. “Cadmus doesn’t have the Titans, you only put yourself in a situation which can’t happen because-”

“I hand you over to them now and they could experiment on you. Then they’ll send out their people and get the Titans for me. It’s an easy trade off.”

“I thought you wanted Dick for yourself. Why not get revenge by you doing what you do best. You’re a killer, Deathstroke. Blinded by your rage toward Dick and vice versa, you two killed an innocent boy. A boy I was beginning to love in my own way. A boy Dick took advantage of. A boy who was your dearest son. Why continue this vengeance and for what reason?”

“You are to blame for my son’s death. You allowed Grayson to let Jericho into the Titan life knowing who his father was. Who I was.” [Name] could feel the anger radiating off of his body with each sentence. “Yet you and the Titans didn’t stop Dick from coercing Jericho. You killed him.”

[Name] shook her head, “No, I left the Titans before Jericho died. I only heard about his passing from Dawn, Dick didn’t tell me the truth until I came back and threatened to search his memories.” She paused and softened her glare, “Slade, I’m really sorry about Jericho. He was a wonderful boy and he could have made a great man.”

Deathstroke uncrossed his arms and leaned closely to [Name]. He placed his right knee in between her legs and let his right hand hold the chair. His left hand wiped the blood away from her eye so she could look up at him with both of her [e.color] eyes. “You will be when I make you feel the pain my wife and I went through.”

[Name] knew exactly what he meant. His words struck her heart and her blood ran cold. "No, please, he's just a baby," Her voice was soft and fragile. Her eyes pooling with unshed tears of sadness. 

Deathstroke gripped her chin tightly with his fingers. 

"I'm begging you, Slade," [Name] was crying now. Her eyes closed as she cried for what Deathstroke was planning. She opened them up and begged again, "Please, don't go after my boy. He's innocent and he would never hurt anyone. Slade, please." 

He removed himself from her and began walking away from her in silence. 

[Name] struggled in her bonds. Her feet pushing against the floor and her chair tilted sideways. The weight of her body made herself and the chair fall on their left side. Her body ached, but that didn't stop her from calling out to him, "Leave him alone! Please!"

Dr. Light popped into the room and watched as the mother cried out to Deathstroke. Feeling a little remorse for her, he questioned the man who wiped his sword with a white rag. "You aren't really going after the baby, are you?" 

"Does it matter to you?" Deathstroke placed his sword back into its sheath. He turned his body to Dr. Light waiting patiently for an answer. 

Dr. Light nodded his head, "You said that she and the baby would only be bait for the Titans. All I want is the Titans, not for us to kill some kid." 

"And all I want is revenge." Deathstroke finished and walked out of the room. 

"Don't do this!" Dr. Light cringed at the hoarse yells coming out of [Name]'s mouth and he turned his attention back on the woman. She was lying helplessly on the floor with tears sliding down her face. 

He wasn't supposed to do this.

“Alright, calm down, will ya?” Dr. Light ran over to [Name] and lifted her chair upright. She sniffled and brought her red eyes onto the villain. “Don’t look at me like that. I cross lines, sure. But killing a kid, that’s not for me...yet.” 

That didn’t make [Name] feel any better. 

“I mean a kid that hasn’t done any wrong to me. Fuck the Titans though, am I right?” Dr. Light chuckled and looked at the special handcuffs on her hands. He didn’t know how to take these off. “This is gonna sound awkward, lady. But I can’t take these handcuffs off you, only that bastard can.” 

“That’s fine,” [Name] finally spoke up and her eyes were a bright red along with her hands, “all I need is you.” 

[project-rebirth]

Shirai Arc: Precure Arc Events Investigation: Part 1.

First and foremost, the news reports did not do the Hoshi no shihai-sha justice. Although there were some reports by local news stations, they had only gotten reports from others and those had not even been that detailed. After all, the destruction here was immense and the censor, in Shirai's eyes was definitely necessary.

Shirai Kuroko looked at the destruction and somehow felt she knew why the reports had been lacking. The destruction had a kind of artistic feeling to it, as if a lot of work and effort had been put into the mere creation of such a scene. Providing a description of such a sight seemed to lessen the simple fact that it was amazing. And it also revealed the fact why Anti-Skill and Judgment were here. If an esper or a group of them with this much power could manage to cause this much destruction in the actual City…..

It was definitely clear that they had to be contained.

Shirai was currently standing in the open observatory, where what used to be a telescope stood. Before she had passed through what had been an interactive constellation room however the aftermath of an explosion could be noted there. All of the equipment inside had been damaged beyond repair.

That was the first thing that she had seen. The next had been backtracking towards a room that led to a flight of stairs that led towards a corridor, one of the only parts of the observatory that had not been utterly destroyed.

Marks of the explosion in the other room had clearly made their mark, parts of the staircase were destroyed in addition to the fact that the floor and other parts of the walls had a number of holes and large cracks running through them. Sunlight came through one of the holes, a large one that had completely covered one side of the wall leaving only three that were partially intact.

Shirai had watched many other espers from the Judgment branches from each District climb what was left of the stairs while she had just teleported. And she had noticed the complete normality of the corridor.

Unlike the rest of the observatory, this was the only place that was not broken in any way, shape or form. It was left untouched. Of course, in the meeting that was going to occur later on, that point would be addressed.

And Shirai Kuroko had walked into the room where she was now in. The top of the roof, a dome shaped she was told had been completely ripped off, the strain of the hinges obvious when one looked at them. She had teleported to the edge of the roof and looked down the mountain that the observatory was on, noting the telescope and what remained of the roof on the bottom of the mountain.

She looked back, wondering how a large tree had managed to burst through the floor and lay strewn about all over the observatory. She had never seen this type of destruction before. Never.

She watched as Anti-Skill and Judgment members walked around the tree, as well as other places like the interactive constellation room, and came down from the edge of what had been the roof and started her own investigation.

She thought immediately what other law enforcement individuals would have thought. The entrance. It was obvious where the person would have come in, through the front door. That way, the destruction would be more contained and thus, she deduced where the person had come in.

She looked at the tree and immediately thought of a nature-based ability, perhaps forced life cycle of plants or even speeding up the process of age however she discarded such thoughts. It was unlikely that anyone involved in this incident even had those powers and it was possible that it was a different power altogether. However that tree was definitely not unimportant. Had the person who had done this used the tree to push the telescope or the like from its hinges?

How much power would that have taken? She couldn't begin to fathom and then a voice came from her left.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't Shirai Kuroko from the 177th Judgment branch."

Shirai groaned as she turned around, groaning again as she came face to face with the reason why she was probably here.

Endo Hanshiro was a boy that was in the exact same grade at school as Shirai however at a different school but they were both in Judgment. While she was in the 177th branch, he was in the 74th. However that was not all.

Due to the fact that both of their senpai's went to the same school, it had somehow gotten to Endo's head that Shirai was someone who he had a personal vendetta against as his senpai was someone who managed to get the same marks as Konori-senpai in everything, quite literally. For some reason, this feeling had grown mutual for Shirai and a feeling of complete contempt had built up for the other as time had went on.

"And if it isn't the Level 3 that has nothing better to do. What are you doing here? This is no place for amateurs like you." She waved a hand in the direction of the destruction. "If you met the person who did this just what do you think you would be able to do?"

Thus was the thinking of a Tokiwadai student: Logical and focused. On the job, Shirai Kuroko never let her thinking get distracted if she could help it. She had to stay focused and Endo was someone that made her thinking distracted. It's probably one of the reasons why she didn't like him.

Endo's tan coloured hair was flipped as he glared at her with his green eyes.

"What, you say? I'll probably act and protect everyone inside Academy City and take all the credit for the 74th Judgment branch."

His clothes that were made up of some jeans and a black hoodie with a yellow shirt underneath were almost a complete contrast to the Tokiwadai winter uniform that Shirai had.

Shirai sighed and pushed him out of the way.

"I have no time for someone like you. Even a day with Onee-sama where nothing happens is more exciting than this."

She walked past him leaving him to his own devices, ignoring what was probably a hateful glare at her back and walked down the corridor, seeing a familiar face that had a smile on her face as if she was thoroughly enjoying herself.

"Is something funny Yomikawa-sensei?" she asked as she came over to the teacher who looked up from her phone, still holding the smile.

"Ah, not at all, not at all. I was just going through a copy of a test that I took a picture of before."

Yomikawa closed the phone and Shirai felt a smile creep up on her own face as she somehow felt she knew the test that she was talking about.

"Can people even get a mark for their name?" she asked with a smile. Yomikawa's smile, if it was even possible, went even wider and she struggled to hold down a laugh.

"You should have seen his teacher's face when she had learned it. Seriously, I was thinking that it was a joke or some hidden camera thing but it turned out to be the actual test. As a teacher, I really shouldn't be laughing but…" she tried to calm down her breathing but had little success, coughing as she tried to compose herself.

"Regardless, apart from that, you should get going. We're going to be briefed soon."

Shirai nodded and walked down the corridor, heading towards the centre of the observatory, where the conference regarding what was going to happen next was being held.

[esonetwork]

Timestamp #226: Let's Kill Hitler

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-226-lets-kill-hitler/

Timestamp #226: Let's Kill Hitler

Doctor Who: Let’s Kill Hitler (1 episode, s06e08, 2011)

Hello, sweetie.

Prequel

A phone rings as the TARDIS is in flight. The answering machine picks up and Amy leaves a message.

As the camera pans across the console and the dark control room, Amy asks if the Doctor will fulfill his promise to find Melody Pond. Even though she knows that everything turns out okay, she doesn’t want to miss Melody’s childhood.

The Doctor listens intently, but doesn’t pick up the phone. He’s clearly wracked with regret and sadness.

Let’s Kill Hitler

It was once a nice wheat field. Then the Ponds plowed through it, scrawling the word “Doctor” into the crop. They stop in the middle of the O – a giant crop circle – to find the TARDIS and the Doctor in his new pea green double-breasted coat. The Doctor shows them a newspaper article chronicling the event.

It turns out that this was the only way Amy and Rory could figure out to get the Doctor’s attention. He consoles Amy: He will find Melody because River lives. The moment is shattered by police sirens, a speeding red car, and a woman named Mels. The new arrival holds the Doctor at gunpoint and demands to be taken in the TARDIS. It seems that she wants to kill Adolf Hitler.

Flash back to a long time ago in Leadworth as young Amelia, your Rory, and young heretofore-unknown Mels grow up together. Apparently, Mels knows all about Amelia’s “imaginary” friend, the Doctor, and that knowledge gets her in trouble. A lot. Including stealing a bus. She’s also present when Amy finally figures out that Rory loves her.

In the present, Mels, Amy, and Rory take a trip in the TARDIS. Mels actually shoots the TARDIS console while in transit to Nazi Germany. In Berlin, 1938, those same Nazis are being observed by a team with future technology as a machine (posing as a custodian) shapeshifts into a Nazi officer. That team is inside the machine, a highly advanced ship called the Teselecta, which shrinks the Nazi officer and draws him inside. Since the officer is responsible for a series of hate crimes – after all, what Nazi wasn’t? – he is disposed of by a series of “antibodies”.

The Teselecta then goes to Adolf Hitler’s office and activates Justice Mode, but two things interfere in the plan. First, they are too early in Hitler’s time stream. Second, the TARDIS crashes through the wall into the office.

The Doctor evacuates everyone from the TARDIS as it smokes away, then stashes Mels’s handgun in a bowl of fruit. The travelers are beside themselves for actually saving Hitler. The Teselecta tries to attack Hitler again, but he shoots the ship before being stashed in a nearby cupboard by the Doctor and Rory. The Teselecta feigns a fainting spell while the crew analyzes the TARDIS and determines that the most wanted war criminal in history has arrived.

Also, Mels has been shot by Hitler.

Mels, short for Melody, regenerates into a very familiar form. Mission complete. Well… sort of. This new woman has no idea who any of her traveling companions are, she is incredibly self-centered, and has maintained her programming that demands murdering the Doctor. She tries multiple times with every weapon in the room, but the Doctor is several steps ahead of her, but he misses the poison lipstick.

Melody jumps out of window and takes on a squad of Nazis. The soldiers try to shoot her, but she survives due to her regenerative state and uses the discharged energy as a weapon. She picks up their guns and drives away on a motorcycle. Rory and Amy give chase with the sonic screwdriver, followed by the Teselecta disguised as a Nazi soldier.

The Doctor enters the TARDIS and extracts the smoke. He consults with the TARDIS voice interface – the sequence of trying to find a face that doesn’t remind him of his failures is hilarious – and determines that regeneration is impossible due to the poison extracted from the Judas tree. The interface mentions “fish fingers and custard,” inspiring the Doctor to set a course in the TARDIS.

Melody storms a restaurant and demands that the patrons give her their clothes. Outside, the Teselecta takes Amy’s form and miniaturizes Amy and Rory. Just before being killed by the antibodies, the Ponds are given clearance privileges and taken to the control room.

The Teselecta nearly passes judgment on Melody for killing the Doctor, but the Doctor arrives in a tuxedo and top hat. He uses a sonic cane to scan the ship. He also verifies that the Ponds are okay. The Teselecta places Melody in stasis before the crew explains that the mete out justice to war criminals at the ends of their respective timelines. Amy convinces the crew to offer any help they can to the Doctor.

The Silence, a religious cult who believe “silence will fall” when the oldest question in the universe is asked, are behind the plot to kill the Doctor. When the Teselecta crew reveals that they don’t know what the question is, the crew resumes their torture of Melody.

The Doctor asks Amy to save her daughter, so Amy disables the crew’s privileges so that they will all be attacked by the antibodies. The Teselecta releases Melody and the crew is teleported away to a mother ship. As the antibodies descend on Amy and Rory, the Doctor tells Melody to save her parents.

As the Doctor faces his imminent demise, he begs Melody to help him. She talks to the TARDIS and learns to fly the ship, rescuing Amy and Rory before returning everyone to the Doctor’s side. Melody Pond, a child of the TARDIS, wonders who she is. The Doctor asks her to find River Song and pass on a message.

As the Doctor falls unconscious, Melody asks who River Song is. Amy uses the Teselecta to show Melody her own face. Melody decides to pass on her regeneration energy – all her remaining lives – to the Doctor with a kiss, thus becoming River Song.

River wakes up in a hospital with the travelers looking on. The Doctor’s message was that no one could save him, which made her think that she could. This is how she learns Rule #1: The Doctor lies. The travelers leave her with the Sisters of the Infinite Schism to recover, complete with an empty TARDIS-shaped diary. She’ll find her way back to them in time.

As the Doctor ponders the data he downloaded from the Teselecta, River Song enrolls at the Luna University in 5123. Her motivations are simple: She’s looking for a good man.

There are a couple of items working against this fun ride: First, the introduction of the previously unknown Mels. Second, the crux of the assassination of the Doctor relies on him being the smartest man in the room again.

The first can be explained if we’re looking at the events of this season through Amy and Rory’s perspective, therefore seeing a low-impact change in the timeline after Melody’s birth and abduction. The second, while an annoying feature of the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who, adds a lot of humor and hangs a lampshade on the Doctor’s blind spot for River Song. Especially considering the fact that she is the person who kills the Doctor, an act for which she is imprisoned and is now revealed to be a fixed point. The second also hearkens back to the Ninth Doctor in Boom Town, but it worked there because it wasn’t as much of a storytelling crutch for Russell T. Davies.

That humor, coupled with the character development for River and the Doctor, really makes this story work. The origin story for River Song helps tie off her story and could have provided a convenient story terminus if not for the character’s immense popularity.

The humor also worked because it was self-deprecating. The scene with the TARDIS voice interface poked at the ongoing theme with companion departures and shame, invoking Rose, Martha, and Donna in the process. The scene also point us back to a moment of combined shame and innocence by invoking Amelia Pond, whom the Doctor had not yet screwed up but did leave hanging for her childhood years.

Going back to Rule #1, we find out in this story that temporal grace – the state in which the TARDIS interior exists – houses a “clever lie”. The Fourth Doctor claimed that weapons could not be used inside the TARDIS in order to stop Eldrad in The Hand of Fear. Of course, we already knew that it wasn’t absolute from Arc of Infinity – “Nobody’s perfect,” claimed the Fifth Doctor when challenged by Nyssa about a Cyberman shooting in the console room – as well as The Invasion of Time, Earthshock, Attack of the Cybermen, The Visitation, and The Parting of the Ways.

With all of the discussions about Doctor Who canon/continuity in fandom, it’s a good reminder that Doctor Who canon/continuity has never been consistent.

This story also presents a fascinating parallel to The Caves of Androzani, during which the Doctor was poisoned by could survive by regenerating. The Doctor had several lives to spare at that point, but this encounter comes at the supposed end of the Doctor’s regeneration cycle due to the events of Journey’s End and The Night of the Doctor.

There are also several other franchise callbacks: We’ve seen “justice machines” in the past, though they were in the form of the Megara; We’ve previously seen the TARDIS materialize in a micro environment, courtesy of Carnival of Monsters, and materialize in a micro state, courtesy of Planet of Giants; We’ve seen the TARDIS materialize around people and objects before in Logopolis, Time-Flight, The Parting of the Ways, and The Waters of Mars; We’ve also heard about transferring regeneration energy in previous adventures like Mawdryn Undead, the TV movie, and The Ultimate Foe.

I’m also a sucker for the “Doctor who?” title drop gag, which has been around since the beginning. It makes me snicker every time.

All told, I really enjoy the action, the spirit, and the heart of this story. It takes a tired time-travel trope (“Let’s kill Hitler!”) and turns it on its ear to both develop characters and move a story along. Well done.

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

UP NEXT – Torchwood: The Gathering

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

[putschki1969]

Hikaru//’s Free Writing Vol.#2

Note: This is my English translation of Hikaru//’s Free Writing Vol.#2. Please enjoy!

『teamLab Borderless Forgetting Time Within “Art without Borders”』〜 Hikaru//’s Free Writing Vol.#2〜

Hello, this is Hikaru//. In this second column I will be doing another "report" just like I did in Vol.#1. I was super thrilled on the day of the shoot because I have always been interested in this place! This time we went to... 『MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: EPSON teamLab Borderless』 !

The nearest stations are Aomi Station on the Yurikamome Line or Tokyo Teleport Station on the Rinkai Line. In the stations you will see lots of posters guiding you to the venue. When you look at all the ads you will get even more excited!

At the venue itself visitors are asked to wear a mask as a measure against COVID-19. You also need to disinfect you hands at the entrance. If you wish you can also get disposable vinyl gloves. On the left side of the entrance there are also lots of coin lockers where you can store your luggage. You should definitely make use of that...I recommend going inside carrying as little as possible! When entering the first room your temperature is measured with a thermo camera.

After the temperature measurement there is this huge message plastered to the wall. What do they mean by "wandering"? That’s what I asked myself when I saw these words. But once you have experienced it all, the words will make sense *laughs*  Well then, let’s go inside! You have three options at the beginning. Many museums have a certain route that you need to follow in order to enjoy everything properly but with "TeamLab Borderless" it’s up to you where you want to go, you can go wherever you feel like going. Being led by your feelings is the best way to enjoy art!

I really like butterflies so I am going to the "Butterfly House" first. Butterflies are flying all over the room! If you try touching the butterflies because you think they are so beautiful and cute they will crumble and fall to the floor...The butterflies born here jump out of the room and move on to join the other art in the museum. So you don’t have to feel sad about saying goodbye to the butterflies since you will meet them again soon, you only have to take a few steps to see them flying around in various places.

After chasing butterflies I went to the "Forest of Flowers and People, Lost and Reborn". There are flowers all around the ground and across the walls! Flowers will appear where people are standing and after a while they scatter again, when you stay at a single place for a longer time the flowers will bloom. It’s a very photogenic space. It's large as it is but since there are so many mirrors the space feels even wider! ♪ You can easily take a ton of selfies here *laughs*. Enjoy the various flowers! There are some smaller rooms with several little spaces where the work is displayed on monitors. Also, you can see some animals decorated with flowers moving along the walls. Please try to touch those animals and see what happens ♪

After encountering the animals I entered a space with a big waterfall. The flow of water changes when people stand or sit on it and when you stay there for a while flowers will start to bloom. On the walls where the water doesn’t flow you can see all kinds of art. What might happen when you touch the flowing kanji? Please experience how the art changes when you manage to touch it!

"Team Lab Borderless" is a permanent exhibition but depending on the season you can see lots of different art! Right now you can experience a special "seasonal exhibition", I got to see it. iI’s amazing art that feels reminiscent of Japanese paintings! Apparently this is the first time the exhibition, “Proliferating Immense Life” is open to the public in Japan. Even though it’s a seasonally limited exhibition I would like to talk a little about the art. In the “Flowers - Layered Ultrasubjective Space” you can drown within countless semi-transparent images of hydrangea from June to July. The space “Memory of Topography“ depicts a rural mountain landscape of varying elevations. The scenery instills in the viewer a feeling of eternal permanence. From June to August you can enjoy lush rice fields and crepe myrtles. With the flow of real time the scenery is continuously changing so when I was there, thunder struck and it rained down heavily onto the rice fields (※ Please note that there is no actual water in this exhibition).

In the “Forest of Resonating Lamps” you can experience the sensation of being surrounded by the soft light of lamps whose colour scheme changes as people stand nearby. This production is very much reminiscent of the hydrangea you can see from June to July. The lamps are specially arranged and they are hand-made from Murano glass (Venetian glass). If you take a close look at each individual lamp you will notice that they all look different. The seasonal art is constantly changing. Even the staff members do not know when something new will be installed. So I consider myself very lucky to have been able to experience all these seasonal exhibitions.

Now, let's return to the permanent art. When you continue onwards you will be joined by crows as you enter the “Cave Universe”. This work is to be viewed from a position close to the entrance. The work begins when crows of “Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as well” enter into the Cave Universe in the middle of the aisle.  If you stand at position close to the entrance the boundary between the wall and the floor disappears, the real space dissolves and the lines drawn by the trails of the crows appear to be drawn in three dimensions in the space. Eventually the body becomes immersed in the artwork world, and the border between the artwork and the viewer dissolves. I really want everyone to experience this!

The next space you will reach is "Wander through the Crystal World". This interactive installation artwork uses an accumulation of light points to create a sculptural body. The Crystal World is created when people use their phones to send elements of the natural world into it. It's beautiful and fun ♪

Then we continue towards the “Athletics Forest“ area. In the “Weightless Forest of Resonating Life” you can be three dimensionally immersed by various objects of light that move as though they’re defying gravity, they will also be changing colours... I tried putting an object above my head *laughs*. The “Aerial Climbing through a Flock of Colored Birds“ space features connected boards hanging in mid-air on ropes, creating a floating three dimensional space. You can train your body by trying to navigate the space in mid-air *laughs*.

In “Graffiti Nature - High Mountains and Deep Valleys, Red List” various creatures drawn by visitors live in a large, three-dimensional space consisting of slopes with different elevations. Challenge yourself and draw one of the endangered animals! I did it, I completed my drawing! Once you hand your drawing to a staff member it will appear within the space..It almost feels like you are a parent watching over your child *laughs* You start getting attached!

Last but not least I would like to introduce the "EN TEA HOUSE Genka-Tei". This is the only food and drink art space in the museum. The first thing you will notice when you enter the room is the strong aroma of tea. There are four types of tea, tea leaves from the mountains of Hizen in Kyushu are used. There is also a set menu with rich green tea ice cream filled with umami flavor and accompanied with shirotama. You have to order first at the reception. Then you will be guided to your seat. Tatami mats are used for the tables and chairs, making it a relaxing space. Tea and ice cream are brought in, the art starts once the set is placed in front of you. Make tea and a flower blooms inside the teacup. Flowers bloom infinitely as long as there is tea. Smell, taste, sight... It was a space where all senses were stimulated, a truly healing experience.

There are so many great artworks in "Team Lab Borderless", I cannot possibly write about all of them. I hope you will visit and experience it all for yourself! These are the words written at the exit.

This time, I was wanderiing around the museum for about two and a half hours without a map. Even though I spent so much time there I still couldn’t go everywhere, I only saw parts of it. There is still so much left to discover. I wanna come here again! And here’s a bonus pic for you! I was so absorbed in the art that I didn’t really take too many pictures of myself... *laughs*.

I had a great and exciting time, this experience gave me the opportunity to reflect on many things! Well then, until next time! Text = Hikaru// Photography = Yuki Ohashi, Hikaru//

[emma-nation]

Within You - Bloodbound AU - Chapter 12

Summary: One year after defeating Gaius, the gang has finally found peace… Until a tragic incident awakens the ultimate and most dangerous threat they ever faced.

Genre: Angst/Adventure/Romance

Rating: T - Warning for violence and language

Amy

Amy was standing on the VIP backstage of a big event, where she could hear a famous singer playing distantly, as well as the excited crowd, chanting her name. She smiled, being Kamilah Sayeed's wife had its perks after all.

That was Amy's favorite song. She closed her eyes, enjoying the moment. However, the music became distant as a whisper and all that noise became silence. All her ears could detected were all those heartbeats... thousands of them. The blood being pumped from their hearts and flowing inside their veins. Their lives... so weak and so fragile. And they all belonged to her.

"Don't fight it. Embrace the blood, Amy."

Amy felt a hand on her shoulder, turning around, she faced Rheya. She had the same familiar grin on her face.

"No!" Amy yelled. "I'm not like you. I won't..."

"Too bad, darling," Rheya shrugged. "I don't need you anyways."

In just one movement, she raised her arms, absorbing all those lives. Electric power irradiated through all her body turning her into something even more inhumane, even more deadly, as thousands of bodies fell lifeless on the ground.

"Goddess Phampira is reborn," she announced.

"Fuck!" Amy woke up, sweating and panting. That was the fourth nightmare in a week. Rheya would never leave her alone, even in her sleep. The dream though, was becoming more vivid and clear everyday. It always involved the death of thousands of people, what made clear her intentions were far from an era of vampires and humans living together, in peace.

They had been staying in one of Katherine's safe houses, properly secured by magic against unwanted visitors. She got up from the bed, where Kamilah slept peacefully by her side, and went to the kitchen for a glass of water and a snack. Inside the fridge, she spotted a pudding and smiled. Considering how many people had been visiting that place lately, finding it felt almost like a treasure.

"The label, read it," a female voice spoke behind her, "If it says Ryder or Lowell, you can eat the pudding. Otherwise..."

Amy let out a chuckle, before looking at Katherine.

"Apparently it's Lysimachus'."

"All in the family, so I guess you're allowed to eat anyways."

She sat down at a stool, next to the Nighthunter. They had became quite close in the last few days. While she was not an expert, Katherine helped her training her combat skills and psychic abilities.

"Amy," she spoke, "about yesterday, you're not telling anyone, right? Not even Kamilah."

"Of course not. Your secret is safe with me."

Until then, Amy had no idea how she could use her powers to stop or weaken Rheya. The process to fully develop and control them would possibly take years and they couldn't waste any more time.

During a sparring session with Katherine, Amy was having a hard time to disarm her, or breaking free from her complex moves. She needed more than combat stunts to win that fight. Or end Rheya's reign of terror. If she couldn't handle a highly-trained mortal, how could she have a chance against an Ancient Vampire?

"Use her own memories. Dive into depths of her soul. Into who she is... into what made her."

A male voice whispered directly inside her head.

"Huh?!"

Amy didn't recognize it or even knew where it came from, but the hint of familiarity was enough for her to know she could trust him. Taking his advice, she pulled Katherine into the void.

Suddenly they were both standing in the middle of a desert at night, where she could hear voices and giggles coming from a camping tent. Two girls, one of them being a younger version of Katherine. Her hair was still brown. There was no tattoo or leather clothes.

"W-What the hell are you doing?" The Nighthunter's eyes went wide in pure horror. "Stop! Get me out of here!"

Feeling her panic, Amy tried to comply with her command but it wouldn't work. Her powers couldn't bring them back to the real world. They tried to run, bumping into invisible walls that trapped them into that memory.

Katherine fell down on her knees, completely destroyed. Amy turned around, gathering courage to watch the scene happening in front of her. A monster emerged from behind a bush, chasing both of the girls. While Katherine made it safe back to her truck, the other girl fell behind. Succumbing to the creatures huge jaws.

"Kat-,"

"Ava?!" She called. "I... I'm coming... I..."

She started to unbuckle the seat belt to go back and help her friend but it was too late. The girl's screams were silenced and the creature's eyes were aiming to her next. Katherine stomped on the pedals and drove away as fast as she could, sobbing.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

Amy took a deep breath, getting emotionally involved to that horrible situation. Katherine was right, bringing her there was cruel. That was her worst memory. The one that shaped her into who she was now.

"Please," she sat by her side on the ground, touching her shoulder, "forgive me. I didn't intend to bring you here. God, this is horrible."

"It was my fault," Katherine continued to cry intensely, "I didn't help her. I ran away like a coward."

"It'd have killed you too."

"She was my everything... she was all I had..."

The voice who first guided Amy into that moment returned, she understood the reason behind all of that, besides training her own powers. It wasn't about her. Not anymore.

"Katherine, you were just a girl," she told. "There was nothing you could do."

"I...I wish it had been me!" She grabbed Amy by the collar, pointing to her friend's corpse on the ground. "Me! Ava was the sweetest person. She was special! She... had an unique heart."

The corpse in front of them vanished into ashes, shaping into another scene, one where Katherine herself was lying dead on the floor.

"W-What..." she approached. The void teleported them to another location, a mental institution.

"It was my fault..." Ava repeated, non-stop, while shaking her body back and forth on the bed. "I killed her... I killed her..."

The doctors, or even her own parents, would never believe a monster was responsible for Katherine's death. The stories spreading around ranged from a possible animal attack to rumors that the girls were under the effect of drugs, causing Ava to murder her best friend. Inside her cell, after weeks of loneliness and hallucinations about that night, Ava took her own life.

"Oh god," Katherine covered her mouth. "No! Ava... H-How could them?! You didn't..."

"You're here for a reason, for a purpose," Amy wrapped her arms around her. "You're not a coward, Katherine. You're a warrior. She wanted you to be here. And she forgives you. I can feel it."

After that, she could tell something started to change inside that woman. A burden she had been carrying was being taken from her shoulders, bringing some peace to her tormented soul. Amy's psychic powers didn't defeat her, but they cured her.

"Thank you for that," Katherine gave her a small smile and squeezed her hand. "I really needed it. To see what it had been like if..."

She stopped. Not comfortable to go further into that subject yet.

"Anytime. We all have our own demons to fight."

"Speaking of which, are you ready to fly back to New York tomorrow and face your... nana?"

Amy rolled her eyes, and sighed.

"No. Not even a bit."

----------

Kamilah

The plan didn't feel too elaborated, or even secure, but it was the only choice they had.

The group should return to New York immediately. Kamilah woke up with her cell phone ringing. It was Adrian, with the latest news from Rheya. In the following night, she would be attending an auction at The Metropolitan, where only the most wealth and influential people in the city had been invited to. How she made her way to the guest list was a mystery, but considering Amy's visions, that sounded like a perfect opportunity to commit mass murder.

She called up a meeting with the rest of the group to come up with a plan. Katherine and Nik managed to get into the security team, using as excuse an artifact rumored to be cursed. Being in the guest list, Adrian would attend the event as planned. Kamilah was surprised to not find her own name in it.

Lily and Jax were also contacted and included as part of the mission. While Lily would stay in a safe location, monitoring the place through cameras and pointing directions, Jax would stay outside with some members of his clan, waiting for a false warning to evacuate the building. No mortals should stay at the museum.

The only threat to Rheya's life was the blood of her betrothed, Demetrius, so Ivy cautiously extracted some drops from Lysimachus' blade and added to the tips of taser-like device. Once the building was evacuated, Nik and Katherine would shoot Rheya, temporarily paralyzing her.

Then, would come the hardest part. Amy would emerge from her secret location, one where only she and the Nighthunters would know, and attack Rheya with the bloodied dagger.

"You will need efforts," Katherine told her. "Kamilah and Adrian should be enough to hold her steady and then... you stab her. Right in the heart, as we've been practicing"

"Wait," Lysimachus protested. Kamilah knew it was only a matter of time. "Aren't you missing anything? I'm stronger than Adrian. What's my role in this?"

Kamilah sighed deeply. Before the reunion, she met Katherine in private. Considering how her brother had a previous confrontation with Rheya and how he became her target, they both decided to leave him out of the mission.

"What?! Have you two been plotting against me, behind my back?" Her twin brother protested.

Kamilah was about to patiently list the reasons why he shouldn't be joining the plan, but Katherine anticipated it, rolling her eyes and sighing in annoyance.

"Genius, hear it. Awakening the devil's wrath, right into her nest, wasn't the smartest of your decisions. If she spots you waltzing around The Met, you'll doom us all."

"What she means," Kamilah tried to ease her words, "Rheya would suspect it, if she suddenly see you back to New York."

"Let me take Lily's place," Lysimachus begged. "I'll stay hidden somewhere, monitoring the location and giving instructions. I can emit the false warning. Please, don't leave me behind."

And she agreed, wondering if that was the right decision. Lysimachus could be impulsive when it came to protecting the ones he loved. And three people he cared deeply about would be inside the museum, face to face with the First Vampire. She called Katherine, requesting some last moment actions.

When Kamilah was alone in her bedroom again, she opened her laptop and some news popped-up on her screen, making her eyes go wide in shock.

"Ahmanet Financial presents new CEO: Rheya Apostolous," the headlines said. Apparently, somebody sabotaged her company, causing the actions to plummet in only a few days. Due to Kamilah's absence, a boarding meeting was called and somehow they elected Rheya as the new CEO. She was able to reverse the damage immediately, gaining the respect of all employees and clients.

Kamilah's image was now painted as irresponsible and unprofessional, who refused to answer calls or reply emails. Calls and emails that never happened. Nobody ever warned her about what was happening at Ahmanet Financial.

"That bitch will pay for this," she shouted, slamming the laptop shut.

----------

Lysimachus

In a dangerous battle, where the lives of so many people Lysimachus cared about were at stake, he couldn't act like a simple beholder. He needed to think of a plan B, in case the main plan went wrong.

He lied to the others, saying he needed to pack his bags. Back to his apartment, he opened a hidden passage inside his closet, where he kept some of his most deadly weapons. His biggest surprise was to find it completely empty.

"What?!" Lysimachus punched the wall. The only person capable of opening his blood-secured devices was his twin sister. And Kamilah knew him enough to know he wouldn't stay put, when Rheya could kill everyone.

When he returned to the living room, Katherine was standing there with her arms crossed.

"You were taking too long," she said. "I came here to check if you need any help packing you bags."

"Katherine, where are my weapons?"

"Your sister gave me some of her blood to empty your closet. She imagined you could be planning something stupid inside this head of yours."

"Listen..." he ran his hand through his hair nervously, "I could do the security part too, under that outfit no one would recognize me."

"Right," Katherine smiled, sarcastically, "only Rheya. Who possesses power over your blood."

"I'm worried about you. I mean... all of you. She's extremely dangerous and manipulative."

"Facing her is the only choice we have to save the humankind. It's a risk we have to take."

"Not you, okay?! Then stay behind. Let us, vampires, handle it. We're her progeny. We brought her back. It's our problem!"

"I'm already involved."

There was an uncomfortable silence between them. Lysimachus wanted to find anything, any arguments that could convince Katherine to stay. There was a discourse prepared inside his mind, but somehow he couldn't say it. The words would lose themselves somewhere between his heart and his throat.

"So..." he broke the silence, changing the subject, "you went shopping with Amy this morning."

"What's the surprise?" Katherine shrugged. "Two women bonding over expensive shoes. Nothing weird about it."

"You don't do shopping. It's not you."

"I do, maybe not so often but... in case you never noticed, I need clothes too."

Another pause. Lysimachus finally noticed her hair. It was a couple of inches shorter, and the magenta color more intense than in the last few weeks.

"You also did..." he twirled a finger on her curls, about to comment it, but she interrupted him with a small velvet box.

"I got you something," they spoke at the same time.

Lysimachus took the box from her hands, opening it carefully. It was a necklace. The pendant was beautiful and quite unique. A blue light irradiated from a tiny vial inside it.

"But why?" He asked, furrowing his brows confused.

Katherine grabbed the necklace and standing in the tips of her toes, she wrapped it around his neck herself. She was so close to him in that moment that it felt extremely comfortable and scary at the same time. Lysimachus felt his heart thundering inside his chest.

"Only to..." she leaned back a little, facing him. Their lips were only a whisper away. "Make it easier."

She grabbed him by the new necklace, closing that distance. Her lips never felt so soft and warm before. Her tongue met his and he explored it as much as he could, knowing it could be the last time.

"I hope you know," he smirked when they parted, "I don't intend to take this off."

"You better not," she pulled him by the necklace again, pressing her lips once more.

"Does that mean..."

"We will be doing it more often? Yes."

- MxF Smut Alert -

In an impulse of joy and excitement, Lysimachus pinned her against the nearest wall, devouring her mouth all over again. Katherine responded by nibbling on his lower lip.

"We're gonna be late," she gripped tight on his hair. "We're supposed to be in the airport in ten minutes."

"Twenty?" Lysimachus brushed his lips on her neck, while his hands caressed her side, raising shivers.

"Fifteen."

They both nodded, removing each others' clothes in a frenzied mode. He lifted her up against the wall again and she wrapped her legs around his hips. Lysimachus could feel her warmness calling for him, inviting him... he decided to give her a little taste of what she wanted, teasing her and then pulling back.

"W-What..." she let out a muffled protest.

"Shhhh," Lysimachus silenced her, parting her lips with his tongue and kissing her fiercely.

He could sense how his slow and lazy movements were driving Katherine crazy. He grinned, thrusting a little bit harder. She responded by digging her nails on his shoulder blades, as pleasure started building inside her.

"What do you want?" Lysimachus stopped again, gazing into her brown eyes. "Say it. I want to hear you say it."

"You," Katherine whispered in his ear. Her legs tightened around his hips, attempting to bring him back to where she wanted him the most. "All of you."

As his mouth worked on her neck, scratching her sensitive skin with the tips of his fangs, he intensified his rhythm, thrusting faster and deeper. She arched her head back, moaning loudly. Feeling Katherine's climax, it didn't take long for Lysimachus to reach his own too.

----------

Kamilah

"Is everything okay?" Amy asked, noticing Kamilah's tension at the airport.

They were the first to arrive. Nik was picking up some weapons and she didn't want to imagine why her brother and his possible girlfriend were taking so long to arrive. One thought wouldn't leave her mind. She wanted revenge. Rheya used her company to gain status among the New York's society.

"It will be," Kamilah clenched her fists, "when we kill that snake."

"I'm sorry for what she did. Once she's gone, I'm sure they'll be able to see this misunderstanding and you'll have your company back."

"I don't care much about the company, Amy. I'm more angry about how she fooled me, how she turned me against my own brother and especially, how she tried to take you from me. I feel so guilty for falling into her traps."

"We all did. God, I completely opened up to her. I told her everything about my life, about us and our plans. All the time she was collecting information to use in her favor."

Amy went behind her, applying some relaxing massage on her muscles.

"Are you ready for this?" Kamilah placed a hand over hers.

"I have to be," Amy showed her their hands together and pointed to their wedding bands. "We have a future to build together."

"We do."

Kamilah placed a rushed kiss on her lips, as she noticed the others coming in their direction. Lysimachus had fewer less bags then she assumed, considering how long he took to pack them.

"Oh my god," Amy seemed notice it too. "You guys were totally doing it!"

Katherine blushed and walked away discreetly, to help Nik to carry their stuff to the private jet. Her brother stayed, choking on his words while he tried to explain how come they got so late. He blamed the traffic. Amy teasing and joking about their relationship was a nice distraction for a few minutes, until the plane took flight and they remembered where they were headed too. After that, a deadly silence made everyone too frightened to even speak. They'd only exchange some glances once in a while.

Amy rested her head on Kamilah's shoulder. She imagined what was going on inside her wife's mind, knowing she was destined to kill Rheya, after finding out they were related by blood. That girl had more strength and energy than any other person Kamilah had met before. She knew was capable of that mission, being the only one who could resist the First Vampire's influence. But at what cost? How she have to succumb completely to those dark powers again?

"Kamilah..." Amy whispered close to her ear, placing a soft kiss on the crook of her neck, "what are you thinking about?"

"You," Kamilah answered, running her fingers through Amy's hair. She was her main and only concern at the moment.

- FxF Smut Alert -

"Good, me too. Can you meet me at the back of the plane in a couple of minutes?"

"For what purpose?"

She didn't answer, she only grinned and raised a suggestive eyebrow, walking through the corridor until the very end of the airship. Kamilah looked around, Nik had his eyes closed in some kind of meditation. Katherine had earphones on, listening to some music. Lysimachus was focused on his laptop. She left her seat too, moving cautious and silent.

"Amy! What are we..." Kamilah asked puzzled, when she met her wife by the toilet's door.

"Shhh..." Amy silenced her with a kiss. Not any kiss. A powerful kiss that sent electric impulses down to Kamilah's spine. The way she glided her tongue against hers, made her knees tremble. Her back hit the wall, causing some noise. Luckly, nobody seemed to be alarmed. She pulled Amy closer by the waist with one hand, while the other unlocked the toilet's door.

"I figured out we didn't have a moment alone before we left," inside the toilet, Amy continued to kiss her, desperately. "And I wanted to tell you and show you how much I love you... how much I need you..."

"You could've said it back at the safe house. We could've find time for..." Kamilah stopped, watching as the girl unzipped her dress, exposing a new lingerie. Her eyes couldn't leave the perfect curve of her breasts. "This."

"I know. I just... I was so focused on Rheya, on my role in this mission and I forgot the most important."

"It's not like we won't have another opportunity."

Kamilah wanted to be sure of that, but she wasn't. She didn't spoke it with the confidence she was trying to appear.

"Will we?" Amy gazed deeply into her eyes. She was scared and insecure too. She desired the same as Kamilah. That they had more time and moments of peace.

"You know what?" Kamilah pressed her wife against the sink, positioning herself between her legs. Her fingers trailing up her tights. "Screw Rheya. Just be quiet, don't make any noises or..."

"Or?" Amy bit her lower lip in a provoking manner.

"I'll stop. And trust me, you won't want me to stop."

As her fingers moved up slowly, starting to work on her wife's center. Kamilah could feel her mouth against her neck, fighting to muffle her moans. She smirked, pressing in harder. Amy's back arched against her grip and she let out a gasp.

"What was that?" Kamilah stopped for a moment. Teasing Amy by pinching her inner tight's soft skin. "Was that a... sound?"

The girl shook her head in denial.

"As I thought."

Kamilah proceeded, going deeper into her. She could hear Amy's fast heartbeats, as well as her ragged breaths. Her fingers dug hard on Kamilah's back, as she tried to control herself.

"Good girl," she fastened her movements and as Amy's body started to twitch in ecstasy, she escaped a moan. Kamilah quickly silenced her with a kiss.

Amy was panting hard when they finished, but she had a mischievous smirk on her lips.

"Well..." her eyes turned red as she pushed Kamilah hard against the door, making it rattle. "Time for round two."

She went directly to Kamilah's neck, biting and sucking, while her hands caressed between her legs, over the fabric of her underwear.

The older vampire was able to control herself just fine. She was long used to those games.

Amy's fingers slid into her lingerie, stroking harder and faster. Waves of pleasure started to run through all her body. Kamilah's nails gripped tight on the door, as she fought her own sounds.

"What is that, Kamilah? Struggling much?" As Amy sank her fangs into neck, drawing some blood and licking it seductively. Kamilah couldn't hold herself anymore. She collapsed in absolute pleasure, letting out some noise.

"I love you, Amy. I can't lose you..."

"You won't. I love you too."

They both tried to recompose themselves before walking back to their seats.

"Well, now we've got a reason to live," Kamilah squeezed her hand on the way. Amy looked at her confused. "Our game is tied. We'll need a round three later."

----------

Amy

As the plane landed in New York, everything was set for the beginning of the mission. Kamilah and Amy were wearing their gala dresses, Jax and Lily were waiting to pick them up at the airport and drive to the museum.

Nik and Katherine were disguised as security team members. A van waited for them with high-technology equipment, where Lysimachus would stay, monitoring the place and giving directions. Everyone was wearing ear plugs, provided by Raines Corporation. Adrian was already in position. So far, Rheya hadn't arrived for the auction.

"Amy, do you have the blade with you?" Katherine asked through the ear plug. Amy confirmed, touching the plastic bag inside her purse. "We've arrived. Nik will be waiting for you in one of the side entrances. He'll conduct you to your hideaway."

"Okay," Amy felt her heart stopping for a moment as Jax parked the car. "I'll be meeting him in a few minutes."

"Right. And Amy... the most important, no one can know where you are. The only mind Rheya can't easily access is yours."

"Got it."

Amy said a brief goodbye to her friends. She considered embracing Kamilah and tell her how much she loved her again, but she didn't. Not only because she would start crying, but she feared it would jinx their mission.

Nik Ryder was waiting for her at the left side entrance of The Metropolitan. After conducting her to a closed session of the museum no one would have access to, he informed Katherine.

"What do I do now?" She asked the male Nighthunter.

"You wait," he told her. "Lysimachus will tell you when to enter. There's a passage that leads to the auction location right there on that wall. You put this password on the device and it shall open."

He didn't say anything else before vanishing, leaving her in the dark, completely alone. Her only comfort was to know Lysimachus was hearing and watching everything.

The Metropolitan had always been her favorite museum in New York. Her dad would always bring her to visit every Summer or Spring Break. Being a History teacher, he had his own manner of showing and explaining everything about the different sections, making the experience feel even more amazing. Now all that magic had faded away, it was simply... creepy. She looked around, feeling goosebumps all over her body. For some reason, she could feel Rheya had arrived. She felt her presence somewhere in the building.

"She's here," she spoke to Lysimachus on the ear plug. "I can feel it."

"Just a second," he answered. "Thanks, Amy. I spotted her. She's... uhh... being photographed."

Amy sighed and rolled her eyes in displeasure. Rheya had power not only over every living vampire, but over mortals too. It only took her days to become a requested presence in every VIP event. She also had her own Instagram account now, with thousands of followers.

"Listen, I need to keep focused her on her right now. I'll be calling you, at the right moment."

And she was alone again. She started walking around. The temperature seemed to have dropped, she suddenly started to wish she had brought a coat. The lack of news made her even more nervous. Was Kamilah okay? What about Jax and Lily? She was about to ask Lysimachus when she sensed a presence.

"Who's there?" She asked. There was no answer, but she could see a shape moving in the shadows. She went to combat mode, her eyes scanning all her surroundings. Her ears detected another heartbeat around. A vampire's heartbeat.

"Amy," a hand touched her shoulder from behind, making her jump, "ma cherie."

"Serafine," she pressed the button on her ear plug discreetly, forcing Lysimachus to hear the conversation, "what are you doing here?"

The female vampire's expression changed.

"I was searching for you. We must talk, urgently."

"What is going on?"

"Amy," she pressed her index finger on Amy's forehead, making her feel dizzy, "I saw as you left the car and met that hunter. If you're thinking about betraying Rheya, you'll commit the greatest mistake of your life."

"Serafine..." Amy squirmed in pain. Her psychic waves were causing a sharp pain in her skull. "She... She's the only traitor here. She's the... First Vampire."

"I know. This is why I've been helping her."

"What? How could you?!"

"Amy..." the psychic vampire forced her on her knees. "For centuries I lived in fear. Hiding in the shadows, running away to survive, changing my identity and habits. Now Rheya is back we will finally be able to live in peace. She'll grant us a new era and a safe world to live."

"She won't," Amy fought against her powers. She couldn't even hear what Lysimachus was saying through the plug. "She... she will exterminate the humankind for power. I can see it in my visions, can't you?"

She tried to show Serafine some of her visions. But it was useless, she refused to see what was right in front of her. Nothing seemed to change her opinion about Rheya.

"I'm sorry, Amy. I can't let you proceed with your plans."

"Well, then we'll fight."

Remembering all the lessons she had with Katherine, Amy focused on her emotions. Her anger, her pain, her fear... gathering strength from all of it. She could sense her powers emerging inside of her. As Serafine tried to get into her brain again, she entered hers instead. It was easy to control her. To put her on her knees, begging for mercy.

"R-Rheya, my goddess. I'm so sorry... I failed."

Amy approached. Touching and lifting up her chin. She could feel the French vampire's blood running in her veins. She could feel her heart beating inside her chest. And most of all... she seemed to have control over it. Not only she could make her suffer, but she could end her life at any moment.

"Ask your goddess to save you a place by her side... in hell."

She started sending a surge of electricity right inside Serafine's brain. She screamed in agony.

"Amy!" Lysimachus shouted on the ear plug, pulling her back to reality. "Are you alright? I couldn't hear you. There was only static coming from your plug."

"I had to deal with Serafine," she examined the vampire lying unconscious on the floor. "But I didn't kill her. She's only passed out."

"Leave her right there, we can solve this later. At this point, she must have told Rheya everything through their psychic link. We need to act right now."

"Okay."

Amy gripped tightly on the dagger, hidden inside her purse. She waited for a signal to type the code Nik previously gave her. Standing by the door, she feared what came next.

----------

Lysimachus

"Oh fuck!" Lysimachus punched the keyboard. How did they forget about Serafine Dupont? It was obvious Rheya had a servant. Someone that had been helping her in all her actions, being at places she couldn't be. No one better than a psychic vampire to erase memories and manipulate minds. He called Katherine on his microphone. "We've got a big problem. Serafine Dupont has been working for Rheya and she discovered us. She's a psychic vampire too. At this point... Rheya knows."

"Release the warning. Order Lily and Jax to evacuate the building."

"Sure."

He did as told. The speakers on the museum announced there was a bomb that could be exploding at any moment, planted in one of the artifacts for auction. People started to panic, heading to the exit and he spotted Jax and Lily, guiding them outside. In the middle of all that crowd, all that mess, he lost her. Rheya wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"Damn it! Katherine, we should abort the mission. Everything went wrong. I lost her."

"I didn't," she replied. "I can see her from where I'm standing. It may be our only chance. We'll be shooting in 3... 2... 1..."

"No!" Lysimachus shouted, but it was too late. From the high-definition screens he watched as Rheya stopped the devices mid-air, preventing them from getting attached to her body.

She raised one hand, making Katherine and Nik fall on their knees in excruciating pain. Raising the other hand, all the other vampires joined her in the room. One by one, they all went down on their knees too. Including Priya and Lester.

"Tell Amy..." Katherine gasped for air, indicating she was struggling to breath, "to follow plan B. She's... the only one who knows."

"O-Okay. Katherine... I'm getting in there."

"You can't... I... locked the van's door... from outside."

Lysimachus passed Amy the last instructions, before uselessly trying to open the van, or break its bulletproof windows with his fists.

"Fuck!" While his broken and bleeding knuckles healed, he observed Amy had joined the others, pretending to be under Rheya's command too.

The First Vampire placed all of them in a circle, standing in the middle.

"I don't even know what the seven hells I'm doing here," Priya argued. "What bitchcraft is this?!'

"I'm scared," Lester added, "but kinda turned on too. Who's the lady?"

"She's the First Vampire," Jax told them with a scowl.

"And no one informed us about it?! Do you remember this is what this damn Council is for, Adrian?"

"Priya, I'm sorry," Adrian told. "But considering your history, I thought I could not be a good idea."

"Are you calling me a traitor?!"

"My children, silence," Rheya spoke softly and calm, with her usual devious grin, interrupting the argument. "Now we're all reunited, we can finally start our party."

"Rheya!" Kamilah angered. "Let us out! Now!"

"Why, darling? The fun is only beginning," the woman caressed his twin sister's cheek, before moving a empty champagne bottle directly to her hands. "Actually, I've learned from mortals a few games we could play tonight. This one is called Truth Or Dare, but... there are new rules. My rules. First, I'll place the bottle here in middle of the circle and... I'll spin it."

She demonstrated. The bottle stopped on Lily.

"Lily Spencer. You'll be telling us one truth, then you'll perform a dare. You cannot lie or refuse the dare. If you break the rules, you're out of the game."

Out of the game. Lysimachus could read in her face that was a death threat. The others could too, considering the glances they exchanged.

"O-Okay..." Lily forced a smile. "I'm good at this game."

"So tell us, Lily," Rheya placed her hand on Lily's head, as if she was extracting information and forcing her to speak. "Spill us some juicy secrets. Is it true you've got a secret crush on someone here in this room?"

Lily took a moment to answer, looking extremely scared and upset. She faced Amy with a mournful look.

"M-Me? I mean, it's a silly thing. No big deal"

"But who would be that person, darling? Your friends are curious to know."

Lily swallowed dry.

"Kamilah."

"Wow, kinky," Rheya let out a small laugh. "Now Lily, I dare you to show us your deepest thoughts about Kamilah. Unfortunately only vampires with psychic abilities will be able to see it, but I can describe for the others. Don't worry."

Being a psychic vampire and connected to the scene, Lysimachus was also pulled to Lily's memories and thoughts. He could see the night of Amy's debut party, when a drunk Lily accidentally hit on his sister. Or her many thoughts about how she wished to be in Amy's place. And also, her sexual fantasies.

When they got back, Lysimachus buried his face in his hands in desperation. Amy's expression changed. He could tell something had changed inside her. She was broken. Destroyed.

"I'm sorry," Lily muttered to her best friend.

Amy answered with a cold and hard gaze.

Rheya's intentions were clear, she was removing all barriers between the girl and her humanity. First, the Order attack, that unleashed the darkness within her temporarily. Now, by ruining her friendship with Lily.

"Good girl, Lily," Rheya returned to the center of the circle, after describing everything she saw, and spun the bottle again. "Let's see who's next."

"Oh my god," he feared what she was planning for his sister. The most significant person in Amy's life. She was the only one who could prevent her from succumbing to darkness completely.

The bottle stopped, pointing at Katherine. Rheya looked to one of the security cameras. At this point, she should already know Lysimachus was watching. She was provoking him.

"Katherine..." he tried to speak.

"I've got this," she assured him, speaking as low as possible.

"A mortal," Rheya crouched to be face to face with her. "Katherine, the Nighthunter. We finally meet."

She extended a hand. Katherine took it, confident and fearless. Unlike Lily, she didn't show any signs of distress. The only comfort Lysimachus had was to remember how she studied deeply every case she was hired for. She probably knew a lot about the woman in front of her.

"Rheya Apostolous. The legendary First Vampire."

"That's correct. What else do you know about me?"

"Goddess Phampira has granted you those powers when you were trapped in a cave, by an evil king," Katherine wasn't even a little bit intimidated. "You drank the blood from the Tree Of Eternal life and you were... reborn. After taking the king's place, you planned to create a kingdom where humans and vampires could coexist."

"Remarkable," Rheya smiled.

"I heard you have endless powers. The powers of a living goddess."

"Not yet, but I'm close."

Rheya stood up, walking around the circle pensive.

"Now, darling," she went back to Katherine, placing a hand on the top of her head, like she did to Lily. "Let's talk about you. I see... a potential inside you. You... you've been there too. Someone you loved was taken from you, correct?"

Katherine lowered her eyes, fighting off all the emotions Rheya brought back to the surface.

"She was my everything," she said. "And she was taken from me. I blame myself everyday, wondering how I could make things different."

"So this is why you hunt supernatural creatures. Tell me, would you do anything to bring her back?"

"I would."

Rheya seemed to be fascinated. Coming from her, Lysimachus couldn't tell if that was a good or a bad thing.

"Now it's time for your dare," the First Vampire announced. "I dare you to tell me... their plan," she pointed to the vampires on the circle.

"That's easy," Katherine smiled, keeping her posture. "They have a secret weapon against you."

"That's enough. It was a pleasure to meet you, my dear Katherine. You'll be rewarded by your honesty in the end of the game."

She looked at the camera again. Lysimachus felt consumed by rage. She was using Katherine to torture him. He knew it. He started banging at the van's windows again.

"Help!" He yelled. "Somebody help me!"

His attention went back to the screen. Rheya spun the bottle again, searching for her next target. It almost stopped, pointing at Kamilah. But a small force, a psychic force, moved it a little bit further, stopping at... Amy.

"Amy!" Rheya clapped her hands together. "My precious grandchild."

"Rheya," Amy tried to plead, "let them go. This... this is all my fault."

The First Vampire touched her head too. Her face only showed frustration, disappointment. She couldn't get into Amy's mind like she did with the others.

"Did you really want to kill me, darling?"

"I... I don't know. I like you, Rheya. I admire you. But you're scaring me with all these things you've been doing."

"Oh sweetheart," Rheya caressed her cheek, "I've told you I'd never do anything to hurt you. All I've done is for the best. To give you the world you deserve to live."

"Then let them go. I trust you and I'll help you in your goal. I promise!"

"If that's how you feel... I will grant your wish. But first, you must complete your dare."

"Of course."

"Where's the weapon, Amy? The one that is supposed to kill me. Show me."

Rheya made the motion of freeing Amy's hands, without knowing the girl was only pretending to be bounded. The girl opened her purse, revealing the bloodied dagger.

"Amy..." Lysimachus sighed. "What are you doing? That was certainly not the plan."

Rheya stared at the dagger in shock. Analyzing the black poisonous blood on its blade.

"Demetrius..." her faced turned from sadness and mourn to into a ugly snarl in a second. "How could you find him and try to use him against me?"

"I-I didn't," Amy tried to calm her down. "I didn't know about him or the blade until a few days ago, in New Orleans. But Rheya, he's forgiven you for all you've done. He said he loves you, and always will."

Lysimachus couldn't tell what the First Vampire's reaction was upon that revelation. Rheya's expression was unreadable as she kept looking at Demetrius' blood.

He heard police cars and sirens parking at the entrance of the museum. Somebody knocked at the door.

"Hey," he called. "Help me out. I'm trapped in here!"

"Sir, are you alright?" A police officer answered from the outside. "Be patient. We'll set you free in a minute."

They started working on opening the van's door, meanwhile Rheya continued her sick game with the group.

"Ungrateful whelp! You don't deserve living in peace. You deserve pain and misery, being hunted as the insects you are. I did not achieve perfection with my creation, I only faced betrayal!"

"Rheya, we're not going to hurt you," Amy insisted. "We were only scared. Let us go, please."

"Oh Amy..." she approached her granddaughter again. "Now I understand. This city is your kingdom, it was always meant to be yours."

"Rheya..."

"I'll let you rule. I should return to my kingdom in Europe, where I can try to make my creation perfect."

A loud bang from the outside made the van's door burst open. Before several cops entered, Lysimachus turned off the monitors and transferred the video to his phone. They checked on him and inspected the van, searching for evidence of the rumored bomb inside The Metropolitan.

Outside, he watched nervously the last events. Rheya continued her maniac speech with that lethal weapon in hands.

"You're so perfect, so pure. You could only descend from my Iola," she fondly stroked Amy's hair. "Everything I created was always so impure, so dirty... Gaius was nothing more than a brainless puppet and Xenocrates turned into a traitor. Like each one of them!"

"Then..." Amy swallowed dry, trying to get into her mind. "W-We can make them pure. In our New World."

Rheya let out a small laugh.

"Oh Amy, they can't be fixed. But I've always had this theory. I wondered what Demetrius and I could've created together after we were changed." Her eyes flashed red and she jerked her right hand. "And now I'm about to test it."

She pulled Katherine close to her body, holding her by the neck and forcing her to feed from her bleeding wrist. The Nighthunter thrashed and cried under her strong grip.

"No..." Lysimachus rushed straight to the museum's doors. They were sealed by Rheya's psychic powers. He closed his eyes, focusing on what he learned ages ago. That kind of protection was weak to other psychic vampires. Any of them could easily break it.

The doors opened, just in time for him to see Rheya about to stab Katherine with the poisonous blade. Like a blur, he moved across the room, landing on her and throwing her away from the group.

Katherine was free. But he rolled on the floor with Rheya, fighting for the possession of the dagger. Lysimachus held its hilt tightly, pointing it to her chest.

"You..." Rheya snarled. "I had a great purpose for you and you betrayed me."

"Go serve your purpose in hell, Rheya."

Lysimachus tried to move his hand for the final blow, but Rheya grabbed his wrist, crushing it into pieces.

"I gave you a gift... and now I'm taking it away!"

She turned the dagger in the opposite direction, burring it into his stomach. The effects of Demetrius blood instantly started to take effect. Lysimachus felt his entire body being consumed by darkness and pain.

As he felt on the floor, starting to convulse, the last thing he watched was Rheya vanishing across the sections of the museum. Into the darkness.

[self-proclaimed-chaotic-good]

Waiting by an Open Door | Carlton Drake x Reader

Trope Prompt: Fairy Tale

Words: 2053

Fandom: Venom

Summary: You search for your friend and fellow reporter, Eddie Brock, only to find a mysterious mansion where the CEO and founder of the missing LIFE Foundation had been cursed with a creature that will consume him entirely if he can’t find the cure. Beauty and the Beast AU

-

You rolled up to the imposing cliffside and stopped at the deadend in front of a wide clearing that overlooked the ocean. You double checked Eddie’s GPS signal that confirmed that it was indeed coming from this location. The weather had been fair that day and it only seemed to grow cloudier the closer you went to the cliff. You slowly climbed out of your car, spinning around to take in your surroundings, hoping to see Eddie pop out with a sheepish grin, explaining that he had been chasing a lead but came out empty and was left without a ride back.

It was quiet on the cliffside. A gentle breeze brush through your hair, the smell of salt and earth and the impending rain filling your nostrils. You zipped up your jacket and trudged upwards.

“Eddie?” you called out.

Nothing.

You decide to walk closer to the edge of the cliff, taking in the view before you. Ever since you moved to the city for work, you never had the chance to explore and appreciate San Francisco. It was a shame, really. Growing up, counting down the years until you can branch off on your own and travel and do all the things that you want once you’ve got the means to do it, far from your small hometown where you never fit in, only to realize that it wasn’t that simple.

You wanted to be a writer, to create stories that would teleport your readers into another world as your favorite books had done to you. Instead, you became a journalist, exposing corruption and lies that had been buried, and reporting only the truth. That’s where you met Eddie Brock.

The two of you were wary of the other until you were partnered up to cover a story. You worked so well together, that you decided to help with the Eddie Brock Show. You couldn’t be in front of the camera, though. You didn’t have the right charisma for it like Eddie had. It was fine though. As long you had credit for it and that it made a difference.

Which lead to the current situation. Eddie heard of the unethical experiments going down at the LIFE Foundation that was rumored to still be on the very location you were standing on, only hidden. It had been days since he left to check it out without you. The two of you had an agreement to notify the other when any information was found during field research and you have yet to hear from him.

What happened to the LIFE Foundation was a mystery. It used to be this impressive, futuristic, modern facility built into the cliffside with an extension that reached the ocean. Carlton Drake, the CEO and founder of LIFE was a rags to riches story that newspapers and magazines like to eat up, especially with the breakthroughs he’s had.

A blackout occurred one night. Residents flooded emergency call centers and electric companies scrambled to find the source of the problem, but came out empty. And then, the power came back on. No one could find an explanation for it, maybe some old power lines that needed fixing, but was was even curiouser was the fact that the entire LIFE Foundation facility had vanished.

You were nearing the edge of the cliff, continuously trying to call Eddie, when something shot up from the ground. You stumbled back, lowering your phone slowly as you watch the dark gooey substance morph into a large gate that swung open, almost as if inviting you in. It was never a good sign of sanity to see dark goo moving around and forming objects in thin air, let alone seeing a wide rundown mansion with dark vines crawling along the walls, fog and dirt covering the windows, with a healthy and thriving colorful garden in contrast. What the hell is this?

You looked back at your car, then down at your phone where the signal was blinking straight ahead from your current location. You needed to find Eddie.

So, you did as anyone crazy enough to be best friends with Eddie Brock and stepped through the gate.

The gate slammed shut behind you and disappeared, replaced by a thick wall of greenery. The only way was forward, you guessed.

As you neared the building, you realized how alive those dark vines were, squirming and crawling and seemingly watching your movements. You went to open the front door when the vines quickly covered it and opened the door for you.

What should you do? This shouldn’t be possible in the first place, but the shock was keeping the panic at bay for now. Should you try calling Eddie again? You doubt he would answer. If he hadn’t done so during those million times you’ve called and texted him, it was rather unlikely he would right now.

The slam of the heavy front door echoed through the massive space inside. You clutched your phone close to you and crept forward, taking in the interior of the mansion. You heard whispering behind you, making your blood ran cold, convinced that you were caught. You spun around, but saw no one. Your heart picked up, hearing whispers on the other side of the room, then back at where you first heard them.

Were you hallucinating? Were there mercury fumes that LIFE had managed to obtain and experiment on?

“How the hell did she get in here?” a gruffy man’s voice whispered. You spun around again, trying to pinpoint the voice. All you could see was furniture and scattered objects around the room.

“Maybe it was one of the symbiotes,” a soft woman’s voice said.

“She’s here for that damn reporter,” the man growled.

Your ears perked up. “Eddie? Is Eddie here? Please, just tell me where he is and we’ll leave,” you begged, wanting to be out of this strange dream as soon as you could.

“No,” another man’s voice said from the top of the stairwell.

You whipped around to face the stairs, seeing a familiar man half concealed by shadows looking down at you with dark brown eyes. He wore a black suit with a high collar jacket underneath, his appearance clean and presentable in contrast to the mansion.

“You cannot have Eddie Brock,” he said firmly.

“Why not?” you challenged, stepping forward.

He fidgeted in his spot, the thought of retreating completely into the shadows seemed tempting for him. “Eddie Brock not only trespassed, but he also attempted to steal from me!” he said, his voice echoing down the stairs.

You squint your eyes, your feet carrying you towards the staircase. The man immediately took a step back. “You’re Carlton Drake, aren’t you?” you said, “What the hell is going on here? What is all of this?”

He remained silent.

“Look, just let me see Eddie and we can talk this through. He’s been missing for days,” you tried to reason with him.

The whispering started again, though it was sort of comforting to know that he could hear them, too, as his body language responded to their words.

“Just let her, Doctor Drake,” the woman’s voice said.

“Enough, Skirth,” the man, confirmed to be Carlton Drake, hissed under his breath.

“We can’t stay like this!” she hissed back.

Drake glared at the source of the voice, then sighed.  He inhaled sharply, then exhaled through his mouth slowly. “Follow me,” he muttered, finally walking into the light to reveal the surprisingly handsome CEO.

He lead you around the mansion towards another set of stairs that led downwards to a large basement. You slowly followed in after him, internally cursing yourself for not bringing any form of self-defense besides the lessons you’ve been having. You fell into the habit of looking behind you, almost hoping to see another person in order to put a body with the voice.

Drake turned on the lights, revealing a long corridor that led into a wide room filled with glass paneled chambers. You gasped when you realized there were people in them, many curled up in the corner of their chambers whimpering. Their eyes widened as they spot you, crawling over to the panel and banging their palms to catch your attention.

“Silence!” Drake ordered, breathing heavily as he tried to control his anger.

“(Y/n)!” Eddie shouted from the last chamber.

You ran passed Drake towards your friend, slamming your hands on the panel, looking for a way to get him out, “Oh, god, Eddie! What are they doing here? What is going on?” you demanded.

“(Y/n/n), you have to get away from him!” Eddie said, “He’s got a freaky parasite up his ass! And he’s been trying to get one in all of us as well!”

“Enough from you, Eddie Brock!” Drake snapped, stalking over.

Eddie pressed himself against the glass and laughed. “Or what? Gonna force that freaky parasite in me? Your subjects are dying! You think it’ll work just like that? You think the world won’t get suspicious about this company?”

“Eddie, stop! Doctor Drake, release him and everyone else,” you said, stepping in between them.

“A company founded on a mountain of bodies!” Eddie shouted, provoking him.

“Eddie!”

Drake growled, clutching his head as dark veins, reminiscent to the vines covering the mansion, crawled over his skin until it swallowed him whole. A slimy grotesque creature took over, his mouth opened in a cruel grin.

“I should have eaten you when you walked in,” the creature growled.

“You can have a go.”

“Please you two, stop it! Just released Eddie and everyone here, and I promise that the information won’t get leaked out,” you said, holding your ground, though on the inside, while you were scared for your life, the need to protect the others overrode that.

“A trade, then,” the creature said, his long tongue drooling out of his mouth, “You for the others.”

“What? No!” Eddie protested, banging on the panel.

“And what will I have to do?” you asked, ignoring Eddie.

The creature groaned, retreating back into Drake’s body. He shook, staggering backwards as he clutched his head, He took a moment to collect himself again, but when he raised his head, half of his face were covered by the dark veins like a grotesque lace mask.

“Help me get rid of this,” he said, a shaky hand hovering over the veiny half of his face, “and I will release you, too. I am bound to honor my words. I promise I will release them. Deal?”

You looked back at Eddie who pleaded with you not to do it, but you saw the others, weakened, disheartened, and possibly malnourished. No one deserves this type of treatment.

“Deal,” you said, sticking a hand out to him.

He grabbed it firmly and shook. The walls began to melt into piles of dark goo, giving the imprisoned a means to escape. They all laughed and cried, seeing the outside after who knows how long. They ran out with their arms wide, feeling the warm sun against their skin and the breeze caressing them.

Eddie looked over at the others and the car, then back at you. He didn’t want to leave you. He knew that he shouldn’t have gone alone, but his resource was sketchy and there was no proof that the LIFE Foundation was still there. Whatever thing is keeping the place together allowed only certain people to go through.

In all honesty, Carlton Drake hadn’t done anything to him. Yet. Maybe he would have if you hadn’t gone looking for him. He only knew about the experiments because of the other subjects trapped along with him, a pile of goo next to the bodies that didn’t survive the experiment. Even then, he couldn’t quite figure out what he was planning on doing.

“I can’t leave,” Eddie said, shaking his head.

You gave him a grim smile, tossing your keys to him. “Annie misses you,” was all you said before the walls reformed again.

Panic was starting to set in, you could feel it. Your heart beating against your ribcage and the tips of your fingers tingling while you began to feel lightheaded. Your body swayed until your legs gave out. Drake quickly caught you, carrying you up three flights of stairs to the guest room.

[eisforeidolon]

Episode: Back and to the Future

I get why, thematically, they chose that song for the previouslies that kick off the final season. However, from my perspective I just do not think it actually works at all.  It is far too sedate for the action it’s recapping and the scene it cuts into.  The juxtaposition of such different paces is just ... odd.

I guess I'm supposed to feel all sad and shit from the lingering shots of dead!Jack's burned out eye holes?  Maybe if he'd had a personality other than being an amorphous shifting blob of unbelievable power and permanent intellectual infancy I was supposed to care about because of the number of times they had the other characters say he was their son/family/awesome.  As is?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I wish I could say I was surprised that the veritable army of animate corpses making a beeline for the Winchesters and Cas just … somehow … let them escape and run away.  I'd have been a lot more surprised if the writers had actually bothered to do the work to get the characters out of the corner the last finale put them into, at this point.  Then there's the bit where the writers shove some nonsense into Dean's mouth to try and make it seem like this whole thing with Chuck isn't a sudden random asspull to go for the most absurdly overpowered villain they could think of for the last season.  Totally believable, oh yeah.

Although the idea of a sewer running through a graveyard including right to the wall of a crypt does not exactly seem likely to me, I do actually give the writers points for having that not actually work as an escape route.  Also awarding some points for them remembering that as an angel, Castiel should be able to see demons.

As other people have already pointed out, considering what he did to the Novak family and how haphazardly he handled Claire, especially?  Him bitching about any other creature defiling somebody's corpse is pretty fucking hilarious.  Though I'd possibly be more sympathetic if demon!Jack didn't already show a 500% more interesting personality in thirty seconds than actual!Jack did in two seasons.  So far as I’ve been concerned, the only think Jack has really had going for him is Alex, so Alex as a different character, even a demon, I’m calling a win.

I honestly do not get the decision of trying garner fan nostalgia by bringing back ghosts from previous seasons if they're just going to arbitrarily make them kill anyone at random for kicks.  Would it have been that hard to have shown “Bloody Mary” killing one person who might have had a secret where someone died?  Because I could buy it for one of those teen girls, but not both.  Or limiting the “Woman in White” to attacking men along highways who might possibly be unfaithful?  Maybe we're supposed to believe that they're all just so pissed off at having spent all that time in hell that they have completely lost touch with what originally tied them to earth and drove them to kill in the first place?  I don't mind them no longer being tied to a physical location since they were banished and unnaturally returned, but to be so disconnected to what drove them to become angry spirits seems much more intrinsic to who and what they were.  I guess even the ghosts lose their personalities to become cardboard in the hands of Dabbernatural.  

Oh, look, mysteriously, big G God's tantrum opening up hell is not actually big enough to impact the whole planet – or even, you know, more than the literal next town over.  This is my surprised face.

Then we get to the bit where the Winchesters find an abandoned car with a bloody mess inside and are all, “Look at this Woman in White kill!  Obviously it was a Woman in White!  Totally the specific one we sent to hell!  Because … car!  And, uh, blood!  And, oh, because the fucking script says so.” REASONS, YO.

Aren't all garage doors required to have an emergency pull for if the power goes out?  Obviously the script required the pair of VotW end up stuck hiding in the garage, which, uh, a ghost can't find people hiding now?  Did I miss something in there that explained that silly convenience that makes the ghost even less spooky in an episode that really really fails on that count even more later on?

I guess maybe I should be happy that it's Castiel that gets hit with the dumb characterization stick to necessitate Sam & Dean not work together to clear out the town? Look, at this point, considering the way the writers have had him act as a constant disaster zone of idiotic choices and betrayals for several seasons now, my ability to sympathize with Cas is a wee bit limited.  To have him now sulk like a toddler and refuse to work with the demon to help the Winchesters save an entire town full of people and prevent the spread of angry hell ghosts to the world beyond that? Because oh noes it's wearing Jack's face and he was just sooooo attached?  Even though all of them supposedly thought of Jack as their kid?  He doesn't even try to offer up alternatives to working with the demon with the very convenient solution, just whines about it? 

So basically this billions of years old angel somehow has less fucking practicality than the Winchesters (despite how easily he killed the shit out of his fellow angels when it suited his plans).  Not to mention that by refusing, he's saddling Dean with having to work with demon!Jack. The human guy who was just recently convinced he had to kill Jack for the good of the world after Jack killed his mother, only to have a change of heart when he saw Jack’s understanding, only for Jack to end up killed anyway – you know, emotions a hell of a lot more conflicted about their supposed kid's than Castiel's?  Castiel is just fine with that!  What a self-centered dick.

I liked Dean's conversation with Rowena on the phone and his response to her presumable demand to ask more nicely.  I laughed at Sam accidentally shooting Cas and Cas' resultant reaction.  I thought it was curious that they had the demon bring up Dean's time as a torturer in hell, though I'd be pleasantly surprised if it was anything but a way to segue into the Cage getting opened.  One utterly wasted Michael storyline is apparently not enough for Dabb!  Maybe it's just supposed to be some kind of weird demon idea of flattery, but I did find their interactions interesting.  I would be intrigued by the weird flashes when Cas was trying to heal Sam (Another angel power that actually works for once?  Wow!) … if Dabb hadn't already yammered on about what it means in an interview.  That dude is absolutely allergic to leaving any kind of major storyline an open mystery or letting it retain any intrigue for fans to speculate about.  I was not impressed with Sam getting damsel-ed to be saved by Castiel at least twice.  Come on, show.

As I speculated before and said above, I’m fine with the Chuckified nature of their release meaning some rules don’t apply.  I could maybe even understand the thought process that them being out in the daytime, without being limited to darkness, was scarier? I just wish anyone behind the camera was awake enough to actually look at the aesthetics of what they did here and realize that no, it's really really not.  The whole thing just looked so embarrassingly mediocre - pantomime actors in bad bargain basement costumes silly.  I think it was @hippychick006 that suggested gifs of the whole end portion looked like they should be set to Yackety Sax?  The context of the episode does not in any way negate that. Just … wow.  Like with the wire fight, I am flabbergasted that this made it to air without somebody finding the brakes.

I'm not sure if the writers actually made a failed reference by having the Woman in White say Dean was the one who took her home when it was Sam, or if they meant to imply he and Sam together had been there/responsible and Dean was the one she was addressing.  Regardless, I'm not impressed with how all the ghosts Sam & Cas were being confronted by just … stood there to be shot one by one for a while.  And then … ran … literally ran … chasing them down the street instead of doing the whole ghost teleport thing.  There are way, way too many times in this episode where the guys get away or win a fight because reasons and there is absolutely no tension in that.  Even if it didn't also look ridiculous.  Dean’s part of the confrontation was a little less absurd in that respect, at least.  And the spell effects actually looked reasonably cool.

I'm a little annoyed at myself that the obligatory brother scene at the end of the episode kind of works on me.  Though I’m not particularly impressed with Sam's conclusion that God is totally going to leave them alone now.  Sure, Chuck has a long habit of leaving when he's bored, but he isn't leaving this world because he's bored.  You guys actively pissed him off!  Yet Sam treats it like a foregone conclusion Chuck will have buggered off instead of sticking around to watch his previously favorite but now uncooperative toys suffer and die first. Though I'm not sure if that's a writer issue, actually, or just a legit choice I don’t care for.  I could see Sam insisting on trying to sell a potential positive side with no room for doubt with as fatalistic as Dean is being.  I could also see it just being one of those things Sam convinces himself must be true because he's reasoned it out in his head and refuses to consider alternatives may exist.  Like how he was so convinced it could only be God planting visions in his head back in season 11.  Still, I like the callback and I can even see why Dean is the most immediately cynical and pissed off, so hey!  There was actually one whole entire scene I enjoyed in there!

[ohgoddard]

Fist of Fire.2.12

AN: Warning, heavy topics in this chapter.

“Court is now in session. On the matter of ‘The State of South Carolina vs Joseph Ellington’ on matters of extreme destruction of public and private property, endangering the lives of the innocent, partaking in heroic actions without a valid license, and conspiracy to destroy the government.” The judge takes a deep breath, reaching up to his face to straighten his glasses.

“How does the defense plead?”

The courtroom was packed. Behind the fencing that separated the legal teams from the people, every available seat was packed with news teams, cameras, and those lucky enough to get in before all the seats were taken. Dozens of eyes were centered at the legal teams, which were feeling the heat of the public gaze. The plaintiffs were four neatly dressed men, the most lawyer people you can think of. In front of them on their table lay briefcases of paperwork, with piles around them as well. This was a legal case they wanted to win. The defense on the other hand, was remarkably bland. Their table had nothing on it, save for a glass of water. But every movement the defense made sent off the camera shutters in the back of the room, and elicited hushed whispers of the news crews. The defense was a huge man, dressed in a custom tailored striped suit, with his hair slicked back. And he had the largest smile yet.

“Yes, the Defense pleads innocent to these charges.” When he spoke, the room exploded in the snapping of shutter lenses and the scribbling of pencils and pens onto notepads. The judge slammed his gavel on his desk, calling for order. The Judge peered over his post to eye up the defense, his eyesight failing him at identifying who it is. “Am I to believe you are who we are prosecuting today? Are you Mr.Ellington?”

The defense laughed and shook his head. The Judge did not like this display of non-professionalism in his court. “Just who are you then? And where is the defendant?”

The large man stood up and did a courteous bow to the Judge. “Excuse my manners, your honor. I am not accustomed to American law. My client will not be joining us today. I doubt he will be walking in anytime soon.” He stands up and straightens his tie.

“As for my name? I am a good friend of Rev-I mean, Joseph Ellington. And I believe I can help him out in this situation. My name is All Might.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jade had been in a violent depression for weeks now. Since the fight in Charleston, the last time she saw Reverse..and his body laying at the bottom the crater he caused. In the following days of the fight, of her scuffle with the golden haired boy, she was in dozens of police stations. She gave the same story, the same details. But they always brushed off one part of her story. How the golden haired boy spoke of Emesh’s plan. How it would happen, regardless of her being there or not. But they were not interested in that. They wanted her to say they saw Reverse destroy the stadium. That he without calling for backup jumped into a fight. That he was a reckless man who did only the wrong.

You killed him.You caused all this destruction.

Then came the chastising. The scolding. The ‘You should have just run.’ They seem to forget she was paralyzed for a good bit of her story. A lot of this though was aimed at her other classmates, who instead of running away assisted in getting the civilians out. Riley, who instead of running away ran to the people who were too slow to get out on their own. John, who teleported to far away places. Emily, who grabbed those under rubble. Seems like there was a good bone in her after all. Ricardo, who managed to cut a hole in the wall for them to escape. Grace, for keeping their captors under wraps. They got the worst of it. They were being hit with all manner of charges with juvenile heroism and such. They would have all gone to prison if not some big shot from the school called in a favor from overseas. Some “Mighty Strength” ass hole. 

But her friends being given the slack on their sentences did not alleviate the depression that built up in Jade. In her head a whirlwind of emotion whizzed around, hurling insults and depreciation.

It was all your fault. They came after YOU. Reverse would still be here if not for YOU. YOU CAUSED ALL THIS. After the police were done grilling the teenagers, weeks of testifying and interrogations and interviews, they sent them back home to Atlanta. However, the school could not legally take them into the dorms due to the police investigation going on over there. So they had to go to their parent’s homes. Which, for some like Emily, were good. But then there was Jade.

Jade’s mom lived in an apartment in Boulevard Heights. It was not a desirable neighborhood to be in. The streets still had their usual aroma of spilled alcohol and urine, the streetlights were flickering in and out. Jade was unfortunately the last person to be dropped off by the police, and even then they dropped her a block away from her home and drove off. They must have been scared of her street, the only reason why they must have dropped a teenage white girl off by herself in the middle of Boulevard Heights.The sun was setting too, but this wasn’t the problem. Being out in the dark on her street was nothing foreign to Jade, especially when you had to grow up here.

He would still be here if not YOU. You saw his body. You know he’s dead.

Jade began her walk home, looking around at how her block has gotten worse since she was last there, Whole buildings now nothing but rubble, larger congregations of people around shops.

She sighed deeply and kept walking, keeping her head down. It was like putting on a familiar hat. She melded right back into the place. Except, instead of a hidden bravado and looking for a fight, she was not trying her hardest to not scream and cry. All around her she is reminded of that day.

The flashing of the broken street lights reminds her of the warning lights in the corridor. The humidity of the air reminded her of the restricting telekinetic grab around her throat and chest. The yelling and hollering of people having fun that night only ring in her ears as the cries of people being crushed by falling debris.

Jade’s phone buzzed.She took it out, saw that it was Riley, and put it back in her pocket. It was hard to talk. Especially to her. And especially about this. The missed calls tallied up to seven. The dozens of text messages only given one word replies. She ran her hand through her hair, grabbing it in a faint attempt to give herself any feeling. But there was nothing. Her being sent back to Boulevard would not help her get better. Her outside now reflected her inside. She walked by an old man sitting on a stoop, listening to a radio. The court case in South Carolina against Reverse was dropped. The broadcaster was going on about ‘celebrity judges’ and the swaying of the juries. But all that doesn’t matter.

Because Reverse was dead. And she killed him. 

A few minutes later, Jade appeared at her mom’s apartment’s door. She knocked and waited. And waited. Down the hall, the old lady who used to look after her as a child was leaving her room turned to see Jade. She waved happily at Jade, who only replied in a meek hand gesture. Her mom’s door opened and.. She was exactly as Jade remembered from when she was here three years ago. Her bright ginger hair was put up in a messy bun, zero makeup on her freckled face, and a slim frame dressed in a nurse’s scrubs. Her face was one of joy when she saw her daughter standing there. She immediately swept Jade up in a huge hug and gave a yelp of joy. Jade was lifted off the ground for a moment as her mom bear hugged her.

“Oh my Jesus thank God you’re safe!”

“Thanks mom. I’m a bit tired though, from being in the car all day. Can I go to sleep?”

Jade’s mom put her down and let her walk in. The apartment was very tidy, as there was only one very organized nurse living there. Her teenage daughter would not have messed it up in a  while. Jade made a bee-line to her room, where she closed the door behind her almost just as fast. She didn’t like doing this to her mom, but she could not talk right now. Her room was just as she left it, posters of mighty heroes on the wall, piles of books on gasoline and petrol. Kinda useless now. And her bed, which was -

Full?

A figure was laying in her bed, and when Jade turned on the lights..It was Riley.

Jade just kinda stood their dumbstruck, as her classmate got out of her bed and walked over to her, looking down.

“If you don’t respond to me, I’m not just gonna sit by and let you do it. I’m gonna track you down, and we’re talking about it.” Riley tried to reach for Jade’s hand,but she snatched it away. Riley took a step back, and gave a look to Jade.

“I’m..I’m sorry. But I can’t talk.” Jade turned her face away from Riley, not wanting her to see her face. Not see her eyes. 

“But you can talk. You need to. If you keep all this bubbled up inside you you’re going to do something bad like -”

“Like what?!” Jade turned around to face Riley in a fit, her eyes tearing up and her hands and arms starting to glow. Riley kept her calm composure and slowly walked back to Jade.

“I’m worried about you. You didn’t go through what me and the other teammates went through. You went through worse. I know it was awful. I know it left a mark on you. I saw the way you walked on the way to your home.” Jade took a step back from the approaching Riley, her arms lighting up another level of light.

“You followed me?!” Riley yelled back, “Because you weren’t answering my calls! You weren’t talking to me!” Jade wanted to punch her. Just to vent. 

“I DON’T NEED YOU!” she yelled as her arms lit up in a flame,her whole body becoming a blinding light.

She didn’t want to be cared for right now. She wanted to be alone. Be alone with herself. With those violent thoughts. The memories of the corridor fight, and how helpless she felt until her body was overtaken by some golden feeling. The memory of seeing Reverse’s body at the bottom of a crater. She wanted to be alone with those memories. And her thoughts. The ones that told her she killed her teacher, the only connection to her father that wasn’t her mother. The man who had taught her how to use her power better. The man who told her stories about her father that her mom could or would not. The man who was..more of a dad to her than her own father. She wanted to be alone with those thoughts. The ones that reminded her of the extension cords in the closest and the height of her ceiling fan. The ones that told her to do it.

Jade didn’t know when Riley took her arm. Nor when she started crying. Jade didn’t know she said all that aloud. Her eyes were too full of tears and her mind was gone. All that was left was the sorrow and regret. The pain she had been holding onto for so long. The burden she put upon herself to kill her father’s killer. To stop his evil plans and make her father proud. She let it all out, holding tightly onto the arms of Riley and sobbing. She fell onto her bed, whimpering and bawling while Riley calmly rubbed her arm and gave soothing words. Riley rebuked every foul statement Jade made about herself, about her inability to be a hero, her cause of Reverse’s death. She just let Jade get it all out.

And in the morning, when Jade awoke from a night of sobbing and release, she found herself alone in her room.

Then her phone buzzed. She saw that it was Riley. She hesitated. Was she ready to just talk? Talk like it didn’t happen? Maybe it didn’t. Maybe Riley was never here. Maybe Jade made it all up in her head. Was she even in the right headspace? No, no Jade still felt the haranguing pain in her soul that she caused all of this. But, it was not as heavy. And with it came vindication. A drive. A need to turn that pain into something else. To ruin whatever plans Emesh left behind. To avenge Reverse. 

She picked up her phone.

“Thank you.”

[thecomicsnexus]

THE WILDSTORM #3-6 JUNE - SEPTEMBER 2017 BY WARREN ELLIS, JON DAVIS-HUNT, JOHN KALISZ, STEVE BUCCELLATO

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

In New York, Ivana Baiul is on the phone with someone, explaining that her work is in lockdown while they deal with the fallout from the Angela Spica situation, but that she anticipates a promotion out of it, which could lead to the removal of Miles Craven. The room of analysts she is technically overseeing includes two men watching footage of Angela Spica activating her armor in the middle of a crowd.

On the screen, a woman in the crowd turns around, and then she's gone. The same woman is suddenly inside a digital comic on a nearby tablet. She walks from that to the background of a currently-broadcast episode of the forensics show Crime Doctor on the Galaxy television network, and from that to a soda commercial. She appears in a commercial for the same soda in Times Square, and is then walking through Times Square itself. Critical of the soda, she pulls out her phone to watch a Kord video of Martian Manhunter. Appearing in the background of that, she is suddenly in her flat. Pausing to light a cigarette using a lighter that commemorates the "1955 Mars Expedition", she looks up at a wall of pins and pieces of paper, and wonders where she will add the information she has newly gained about Angela Spica.

Angie Spica thinks about her life. Working for a front organization for a year before being brought into I.O. proper. Getting suddenly transferred to the Senior Reporting Group in Manhattan. Then getting pressganged into brainstorming new armor designs for the Razor covert action teams, despite her background being in medical engineering. Trying to square the circle, which led her here, on the run, doing diagnostics on the launch system she built into herself.

Energy bleeding out of the air suddenly earths itself like lightning in the middle of the room, and three newcomers are standing there. They introduce themselves as Adrianna, Cole, and Kenesha, and say they were sent by Jacob Marlowe, to offer her "aid and shelter". Angie begins losing her composure, claiming that I.O. runs the planet and that she will be safe nowhere, but before the newcomers can calm her down, Miles Craven's Razor team dynamites their way through the door and throws flashbangs.

Reacting first, Cole jumps backwards, pulling out his pistols, shooting at the flashbangs, causing them to ricochet backwards into the Razors. The resulting explosion knocks everyone in the room down, and the Razors stride in, wearing fearsome body armor. They demand that everyone lay down their weapons. Cole has a mask on at this stage, and before the Razors have time to process what is happening, Angie activates her armor and launches a set of micro-drones equipped with searchlights, which cripple the optics on the Razors' armor. Blinded, the Razors' pointman is easily knocked backwards by a dum-dum bullet from Kenesha.

In the command room at I.O., the woman from Analysis uses the little their cameras are currently able to catch to discern the make of the micro-drone Angie is using: a design proposed for rescue missions, but then shelved because Strike insisted that they had a military application as smartbombs.

In the bunker, the pointman suddenly realizes that Kenesha's dum-dum bullet is also an explosive device, seconds before he is blown to bloody chunks. The other members of his team are knocked down, and Cole keeps them down with suppressive fire, but Adrianna has her own problems: a piece of shrapnel in her head has caused her to bleed silver and speak in a nonhuman tongue.

Craven orders the Razors to fall back and use explosives, but Cole knocks the grenade back towards them again. Cole looks back to see Kenesha fretting over Adrianna, and Angie, fully armored, clutching the remains of her laptop and cutting a hole in the roof to escape through.

Facing defeat, Miles Craven orders a scorched-earth tactic: to demolish the building and leave no survivors.

Acting fast, Cole achieves twin close-range headshots on both surviving members of the I.O. Razor covert action team, seemingly killing both. Cole pauses to congratulate the team, missing the fact that one of the Razors has survived, and pulled the pins on two grenades. Acting fast, Kenesha pulls the shrapnel out of Adrianna's head, causing her to come back to her senses and teleport the three of them out of there with no time to spare.

Over Montauk sound, Angie Spica's armor transforms in order to adapt to underwater travel and she dives into water.

In the I.O. command room, Miles Craven is looking at a bank of dead monitors. He says he needs Ben Santini to handle this, and that he needs to talk to Michael Cray.

At the safehouse in Brooklyn, Cole is angry at the outcome of the mission, and shocked that Adrianna managed to survive traumatic head injury, but doesn't know how. Adrianna says that the issue needs to be resolved, and that she will recover Angie.

Miles Craven walks into his New York apartment to get a change of clothes. His husband, Julian, is up, and the two pull out a bottle of wine while Miles lays out the situation: the flying power-armored woman who saved Jacob Marlowe on the news is actually the rogue researcher who recently stalked them, and who built her suit with technology she stole from I.O. - technology that I.O. itself stole from a crashed spacecraft called a "Breslau" which belonged to Henry Bendix, a creepy old man who is a peer of Miles'. Trying to cover this up, they discovered an unaffiliated covert action team - a wild CAT, something they've never encountered before.

In an unspecified location, Henry Bendix walks out of a teleport machine, and then chews out the operator for taking so long. Meeting his underling, Lauren Pennington, he walks out with her, insisting that she brief him in his private quarters. However, as soon as they are alone, his shoulders slump in relief and she takes a seat. Bendix starts drinking alcohol and complaining about the air quality on Earth. As he opines that he sometimes wishes he could have the excuse to blow up the world, the view pans out to reveal their location - a massive space station, orbiting Earth.

In the I.O. cafeteria, Michael Cray is having a coffee, but suddenly part of the cup deflagrates in his hand. He recovers from this shock just in time to talk to Miles Craven, to who he lays out the news: he has an inoperable brain tumor, but feels fine. Miles Craven asks him if he still wants to do his job.

On the road into Tiverton, RI, Angie Spica slouches purposefully.

In an I.O. facility, the assassin Michael Cray is taking his last assignment. He wants to leave and begin treatment for his brain tumor, but his boss, Miles Craven, is persuasive - his previous target, Jacob Marlowe, was saved from him by a woman identified as Angela Spica, who built a suit of armor from tech stolen from I.O. - tech I.O. was not supposed to have. Craven needs Spica dealt with, and Michael is the best for the job, but time is a factor and Craven needs him to also make the dossier. In private, Michael admits to himself that he loves the world for its strangeness and, because of that, he's afraid to die.

At night, Lucy Blaze is arriving at Camp Hero, responding to seismic activity and a sighting of Angela Spica. Via her earpiece, she confirms evidence of a struggle and the mangled corpse of an I.O. covert action operative. She finds an egress, not created by seismic activity, but before she can add more, the radio becomes useless from sudden static. At this point, a nonhuman creature steps out of the shadows and greets her verbally. Blaze refers to the creature as a "daemon" and pulls a smallarm. The creature says it is simply observing these events, as she is, and that it and its allies have reached the conclusion that if the situation surrounding Angela Spica is allowed to come to a head without either of their factions interfering, it will be for the best. The creature then vanishes, leaving Blaze to ponder.

A woman against a background of planets and pink energy. An arm, shapeshifting to reveal blue skin and talons. A chair surrounded by a wall of televisions, all showing one woman making a myriad of choices. "Incision", the new single from Voodoo. Coming soon on Lady Backlash Records.

In Michael Cray's headquarters, he is going over the raw data, trying to distract himself from his life-threatening condition. However, when he reviews the footage from the bodycams the covert action team was wearing, he makes a startling discovery...

On a street in America, Angela Spica is on the run. Without money or even a jacket equal to the wind, she uses her suit implants to hack into an ATM, wryly ashamed of herself for doing so. Suddenly, bursts of pink energy outline a human shape at multiple locations on this block, with the effect eventually grounding itself on the pavement in front of her. The woman in the spacesuit now standing there introduces herself as a friend, and asks for a chance to tell her story.

At a nearby diner, the astronaut introduces herself as Adrianna Tereshkova, a former member of a secret space program called Skywatch. Skywatch built the stealth system she reverse-engineered for her suit. She left due to the incident which left her with the mirrorglass eyes and teleporting abilities she now has.

Tereshkova explains that most of Skywatch's spacecrafts use electromagnetism, to great effect, but that they are keen to master interstellar engines. By interfacing with Angela's tech, she is able to show Angela a VR representation of her memories: Skywatch had assigned her to the astronaut team testing the Incision system. The Incision system was based on the theory that if one could cut through reality, one would find an "under-verse", through which it would theoretically be faster than light in travel. The designers had nicknamed this under-verse "the Bleed". But when the Incision system activated, the ship was crushed and the crew died. However, in the Bleed, she was found by... something, who put her back together and caused her to wake up in a crater in Russia. Adrift, she was found by Jacob Marlowe, who she acknowledges as a flawed employer, but also one who respects the needs of outsiders like her and Angela.

In New York, Michael Cray confronts Miles Craven, and turns down the mission to assassinate Angela Spica. Craven insists that Spica is a "good target", but Michael disagrees, pointing out that she was deemed trustworthy by every test I.O. put her through. That she needs a sympathetic ear, not a hitman. That she responds with fear in the footage from the CAT bodycam. And then Michael lays out his bigger problem: Craven assured him she deserved death, but he only found out she didn't because he was given raw data instead of manifactured profiles for the first time. So now, at the end of his career, he is left to wonder how many of his targets were good people who fell afoul of Miles Craven.

Craven jokes that Michael is not thinking straight due to his brain tumor, but Michael is unmoved. Craven shrugs, and says that if Michael will not kill, then he's useless to him. He orders Michael to hand over his badge and implies that he will withhold Michael's tumor treatment unless he complies.

In his quarters, Michael is left to think about the course of his life. The pride of his father. The wondrous strangeness of the world, at its best and its worst. The failings of his fellow men, and his efforts to correct it. Then, the Navy. National service with handgun and shotgun and hacksaw. And then, being recruited by Miles Craven. The wondrous strangeness of the world reduced down to a distant head in a rifle scope.

There is a knock on Michael Cray's door. When he answers it, a woman named Christine Trelane introduces herself as working for a private outfit, Executive Protection Services, who can offer him better medical treatment than his current employer, to do the same job but with more freedom.

There is a second knock at the door, and the knocker says that his personal effects have been taken to him.

In his apartment, Michael Cray is reacting suspiciously to a knock on the door. Informing the knocker that he is just changing clothes, he pulls out a handgun and waits the thirty seconds necessary for the knockers to try to sneak into his flat, at which point he shoots one in the leg. In the ensuing fight, Michael uses handguns, furniture, and in one case, the subject's own neck, to gain situational dominance and kill both attackers. His visitor, Christine Trelane, repeats her job offer: better pay, medical insurance, and more freedom. Michael asks if the job includes a flat with better security, and when Christine responds in the affirmative, he accepts her offer.

At the safehouse in Brooklyn, Adrianna arrives with Angie. Cole and Jacob arrive to meet her. Cole promises coffee, while Jacob promises answers. Angie accepts both.

Adrianna takes this time to retire to her room, where she takes off her clothes, revealing that she has no human face, just a mask and a silvery humanoid body, complete with toes and ears but void of facial features. Sitting down to meditate, she generates a miniaturized rainstorm.

In the kitchen, Jacob sits down with a bottle of alcohol to tell Angie a story: he created the Halo Corporation to design and sell consumer electronic devices. Jacob Marlowe believes in the future, and he wants the optimal version thereof. To that end, he assembled a group of incredible people and gave them a support structure, creating what I.O. refers to as a "CAT" (Covert Action Team).

Jacob then moves on to explain I.O. Created at some point in the 1950s as a classified joint intelligence committee, I.O. metastatized beyond all attempts to curtail it, and has been secretly running world events for years. The notable holdout is Skywatch, a secret space program which predates I.O. Skywatch was briefly part of I.O., but broke loose. As a result of the break, a series of treaties were signed between the two agencies, amounting to a non-aggression pact - I.O. can do what it wants on Earth, and Skywatch can do what it wants in space.

Angie interjects here, asking why I.O. would voluntarily give up control of Skywatch. Jacob, pausing to take another drink, explains that while I.O. envies Skywatch's hardware, the technology is in service to an ideology and a mission which is at odds with I.O.'s goals of control and medium-term benefit. Earth is rich and warm. Space is cold and dead. Mars is theoretically habitable, but still a challenge to get to and borderline unsurvivable, for... a host of reasons. So I.O. lets Skywatch alone.

Jacob moves on to the final key point: both I.O. and Skywatch are masters of their own domain. Each demeans the ideology of the other, but each secretly desires the resources the other commands. And while the treaties hold them in check, enough shock might make them fight, which would be disastrous.

At this point, Jacob pauses, and asks her why she rabbited at the bunker in Montauk. Angie tries to bluff, but eventually reveals the truth: when she created her drysuit, she gave it medical-grade scanning equipment, for use in disaster zones. Cole registered as a human. Adrianna registered as... something. But Kenesha has a completely inhuman internal structure, and that frightened Angie. In the quiet, Jacob asks if she would briefly scan him. Angie complies... and gets a shocking look at his skeleton. He states his case - he is not a medical miracle, but simply a lifeform alien to Earth, like Kenesha. He built the safehouse and populated it with people who have no home in the outside world. He and they are fighting two rival world-ruling powers, and a host of smaller powers, to fix a world that doesn't understand them. And he is offering her a place in this endeavour.

In Skywatch's space station, Ms. Pennington rouses Henry Bendix with new intel. Grumbling, Bendix watches footage of Angie Spica's transdermal drysuit changing configuration over Montauk sound. After a few seconds, he recognises the technology as being copied from the old Breslau II spaceships that Skywatch used when he was younger. As a brace of Skywatch craft make launch for the planet, Henry Bendix announces that he will "rain fire from heaven" to discover who is stealing from him.

REVIEW

By the pacing of these first six issues, I feel sometimes that this story was meant for HBO. But depending on the budget, it could also end up on Netflix (well, it would most likely end in the DC Universe service).

It’s all about world building in these issues, and putting all the players on the board. Some of them we barely seen. But Angela, Grifter and Michael Cray are clearly the stars of this part of the story.

I should have continued reviewing individual chapters, but to be honest, every chapter would have the same score (it has a very consistent quality). The fact that it is a 24 issue maxi-series is also a bit ridiculous, most comic-books these days do not get to issue 13.

This is a great story thus far, but I feel a lot more could have been done in the meantime (there is a Michael Cray series as well). What I am trying to say is... it’s been a while since DC/Wildstorm published WildCATs. The whole point of Flashpoint was to integrate the two universes. Now this is some kind of reboot? Or is it a stand-alone story? Just wondering, doesn’t really affect the quality of this story, but brings many questions to my mind.

The art is very consistent as well, and apart from very well placed cliffhangers, it feels like these are not episodes. Perhaps six issues make one episode. In an HBO show, these six chapters would make one episode (maybe I am overestimating HBO... it could be half a season).

I give these chapters a score of 7

[revolutionwhoop]

(R)Evolution 04: The Old Tuck and Roll

Dahlia groaned as she climbed from beneath the rubble. It smelled horrible! What in the world had happened, here? She was in pain, but looking around, she wasn’t sure why she was even alive! But, then again… That guy SHOT her! She checked herself for signs of the shooting, and there wasn’t even a scar there. She heard something and looked over to see a drone fly by her head. She didn’t know who was in control of it, but she wanted to get out of it’s way.

After a moment, soldiers were coming in her direction. She began to run, her breasts and buttocks bouncing around as she tried to get over the piles of stone and broken glass. “You, stop!” They might as well had said run faster, because that was what she did. Someone fired at her and she winced when she was hit by a dart? Tranquilizer, she guessed. The dart shot out of her flesh and the tranquilizer didn’t seem to do a damn thing. Either it was defective, her adrenaline was pumping too much, or something else altogether that she didn’t have the time to think about. Now, she wasn’t particularly fast, but the soldiers were briefly taken aback by her resistance to the dart, so they gave chase a little late. Someone grabbed her and she yelped, but they covered her mouth. “Where the hell did she go?” a soldier asked and they ran right past her and whoever had grabbed her.

When they were out of sight, the woman unhanded her mouth and said, “You should leave with us.” She turned to see a beautiful woman wearing a shash and garbasaar, accompanied by a few other people. “I am Bishaaro. What is your name?”

“Dahlia,” Dahlia answered. The soldiers came back and she almost took off running, but Bishaaro and her friends joined hands and grabbed her too, and the soldiers passed them again. Bishaaro placed her finger over her mouth at Dahlia, and led the way, walking opposite of the soldiers, nobody breaking contact with her.

They got off of the site, and into a nearby abandoned building. Dahlia wondered, “What the hell is going on? One minute, I was being told that I have a condition that’s like a second period, the next, I’m being shot, and then I wake up buried under I don’t even know how many feet of just a whole ass crumbled building? And why the soldiers couldn’t see us?”

Bishaaro reached for one of her friends’ hands, and the two vanished, then they reappeared. “It is my blessing. If I don’t want them to, people can’t see me. If I touch you, the same becomes true for you. Those men meant you harm. You were wise to run from them. The missing people, all over the city? They are actually being taken from all over the world, not just here.” She opened her phone and showed Dahlia a photo of Niyilolawa Uchechukwu. “Did you see her, while you were inside?”

“The girl who’s been in the news? No! Should I have? Was she in there? Is she sick, too?”

Bishaaro smiled sadly, “No, she isn’t sick and neither are you. You have no idea what we are. We are glorious, Sister. We are magical. We are evolved.”

“Look, I love me some black pride too, but I’ve been miserable. I’ve been extremely ill,” Dahlia argued.

Bishaaro thought for a moment, then said, “Whenever my evolution began to process, I would literally vanish at times, sometimes, only a little - They said that I looked like a ghost, like you could see right through me… Maybe what you are capable of has to do with health. You told me that you were shot. What happened with that?”

Dahli checked for the shot wound again, even though she knew it wasn’t there. “Well, I maybe had a bad dream, because I thought I was shot right here, but there’s nothing there, you know?”

“Perhaps you can regenerate. I have a friend who is capable of this. He does get hurt and it does make a temporary effect, but then he heals completely. This must be your blessing, as well.”

“Shut up! You think… I can’t be killed?” Dahlia wondered. She had just seen an invisible woman, so, hell, maybe.

“I can’t be sure. It could be something else, but whatever it is that you can do - you aren’t sick…”

One of the men with her said, “She hasn’t seen Niyilolawa. We need to report back to the King of Spades.”

“King of Spades?” Dahlia repeated, “Princess of Spades! I heard that name whenever I was in there. They put me in some kind of chamber. They would knock us out, but I would always wake up, and sometimes overhear stuff. The Princess of Spades was being taken out before they…” She covered her mouth, “Before they destroyed the building. It wasn’t an accident! They meant to blow up the building, with us in it, but they said that they were taking her away.”

“Should we bring Dahlia back with us? Papa Diamond might want to check her out and see if there’s anything in there that we can use to help us find Lola,” one of the other women asked.

Bishaaro smiled at Dahlia and wondered, “Do you consent to coming with us, so that one of our leaders might search your mind for information?”

Dahlia put both of her hands over her chest, “That sounds scary, but being here seems scary, too. I have no idea what has happened to my life. All because I was worried about losing some hair and some weight…” They were waiting on her answer. “Oh, yes… I’ll consent to that. Though, the last time I consented to something, I ended up getting abducted, shot and blew up…” They had all joined hands again and within moments, were vanishing again - but this was different. It was scary. It was quick, and it moved, instantaneously. They ended up somewhere else and while everyone else seemed fine and returned just how they vanished; she landed on her butt, then she vomited. “Oh, Lord…”

The crabby guy said, “Sorry. Didn’t have much time to prepare you for long distance teleportation. But, I anticipated this.”

The woman who suggested that they bring her offered, “This ought to be easier.” She opened her arms wide and a hole opened in the sky, which led to a room. The others stepped through, so Dahlia followed.

“Y’all got some good blessings!” As quickly as she commented, the others were gone. She didn’t know if she should take a seat or remain standing, but there was a chair, so she sat down. Moments later, what she mistook for a wall opened like an elevator and a completely different group of people stepped out of it. She jumped, startled, and stood up.

“Please. Remain seated,” one of the men said.

“That girl that’s missing… She a real princess, huh? Y’all like some African dignitaries, here to get your princess back and because I came out the building, I’m about to be tortured for information!” Dahlia panicked.

Two of the men slightly chuckled. The other two What’s her name’s parents were very grave in appearance. Everyone looked well off. The first man, a dark brown with a bald head and a mustache told her, “I’ll clarify for you. One could say that she’s a princess. We tend to refer to her as a queen, however. And we are dignitaries, in our own right. But, nobody is going to torture you Dahlia. You have already consented and this will not hurt, though you may feel overwhelmed and dizzy at certain points. I’m basically going to take a journey into your mind and only sift through the moments spent inside of that facility.”

“How do you do that?” She wondered.

“It’s quite simple for you. I do all the work, and I’m very good at what I do. First, I search for your earliest memory of the facility, and you do me the favor, just from me mentioning it, of thinking of it for me. Then, I take a glance around, cataloging what I see, and scanning it, like software, to find anything related to Niyilolawa, Princess, or “that girl.” Then, I meet you back here, at this very spot where we first met.”

“Okay. Okay, that sounds simple. Let’s do it.”

“It’s done. Thank you for your time.” The four of them left and she frowned. “We’ll have Bishaaro’s search team take you back to wherever you desire.” As the four vanished through the camouflaged elevator, she heard him say, “She knows less than we do, but I did see the face of the man in charge of the place.” The elevator closed, then opened and the same four people who found her and brought her here came out of it this time.

“Okay, look… I can’t tell if this is some kind of weird laboratory simulation, a drug induced nightmare, or real life. Make this more real for me. Who are y’all?” Dahlia insisted.

Bishaaro gave her a warm, small smile. “We are friends of the woman that you recognized from the news. She is missing, and we are a search team, trying to find her. We brought you here because you survived the destruction of the lab. Not all of us did, and some who were there may have seen something that can help us to know where they took our friend. We’ll bring you outside of the danger zone. There is a quarantine. We have several friends trapped inside, trying to find each other and touch base with one another, so that they can be retracted when ready.”

“Has… The world ended?” Dahlia asked.

“Maybe. Maybe the world has only begun…” She placed a hand on her cheek, and the others touched, up through where the teleportation guy did his thing and they wound up right outside of Dahlia’s apartment. “There are soldiers here,” Bishaaro observed. “Stay in this spot, I will take her inside, to look around.” The other three nodded. As they entered, Bishaaro reminded her, “I can only affect them not seeing us. Be very quiet.”

Dahlia opened her front door and had to immediately cover her mouth with both hands to hide a gasp. Her things were thrown all over the place.

Bishaaro had hold of her pocket and they slowly went through the place. She whispered, “It’s empty, but there might be cameras. If you need to pack anything, move slowly, in case they’re watching from outside in a van or something.”

Dahlia whispered in fear, “I have no idea what they could be looking for or would have wanted!”

Bishaaro cupped her cheeks, “Please keep calm… They probably wanted to check with your friends and family to see who they may be able to use to find you. It will not be safe for you to return to anyone that you know. If you’d like, I am willing to offer you refuge at our compound.”

“I… Can’t. If they’re going to be visiting or watching my loved ones, I can’t just hide and let them go after them to get to me. They don’t have healing skin. They won’t be able to protect themselves from these crazy people!”

“That is very brave of you. I’ll stay until you’ve packed a bag, and we’ll see you to some drop off spot. But, if you do need an extraction, or even just a sit down with our leader, use this.”  She handed her a playing card - the 2 of diamonds. “You remember what Tonya did, when she spread her arms and opened the air?”

“She created a portal,” Dahlia confirmed.

“Yes. She also created these for us. I am the Deuce of Diamonds. Whenever you lift this to the sky and open your arms, you will open the sky and the portal will lead you to me.”

“What if… You in a shoot out or something?”

“Well, then, hopefully neither of us dies. I can’t just leave you without a means to return to safety.” She hugged her. “Let’s finish gathering your things.”

.

Everywhere they teleported to, there were guards or had been guards. Ife, the teleporter, grew weary. “We will have to leave her,” he said. Bishaaro wanted to argue with him, but Dahlia could see that she knew he was right. They were on a mission, and they had gone off mission to help her and were taking a lot out of him to do so.

“Yeah, this is fine. I’ll be alright,” she said. “Thank y’all for everything, even you Ife. You are so fine, but you need to lighten up, Bruh.”

“Our friend may be being tortured right now, Dahlia. And she doesn’t heal. So, perhaps I’m under pressure!” He fussed.

“Sorry. Thank you. I hope that you find her unharmed,” Dahlia said, and just like that, they were gone. She covered herself in her hoodie, to hide and went along. They had taken her to withdraw all of her money from an ATM, then teleport away from it, in case her card was being monitored. So, she had a little cash, but only so much as to survive a little while, if extremely frugal. She went into the library to check on the stories about the lab and saw a list of people who had died there. She saw the name Folami Adebowale. She wasn’t sure why that looked familiar, but for some reason, it jumped out at her. She checked social media, to double check it and saw the lady that she met whenever she first signed in. “Oh no!” She said, upon seeing her face. She seemed alright. Dahlia had a feeling that she wasn’t a part of whatever they were doing to people in there.

Her page had a photo of her with four other women who were basically identical in looks, to her, and she sent one of them a message. Hi, Faith. I wanted to say that I’m sorry for what happened to your sister. She seemed very nice, and I’m positive that whatever you might hear, she didn’t have nothing to do with the mess that was going down in that place.

Faith: Hi. Who is this, might I ask?

Dahlia: People may be looking for me, so I don’t want to get you into any trouble.

Faith: My sister knew what was happening. She was going to try to stop it. We were going to try to help… Please, tell me who you are!

Dahlia: My name is Dahlia Henderson.

Faith: Dahlia! Bloom! It’s me, Folami. We have to meet. I’m not dead, but it’s a long story. You’re the first person that I know of, besides me to have survived.

Dahlia: That’s a long story, too… Are you… You know?

Faith/Folami: Special? Lol. Look… Let’s meet some place neutral. I need a friend. I’m so glad that you made it out. Where can we meet?

[folkloreguk]

Earth and Hell (pt.2)

Summary: Georgina, an egoistic vampire. Baekhyun, a loyal werewolf. Exo as hosts, zombies, demons, and warlocks. A city that needs saving.  ||  "You owe me for saving your life."  ||

warnings: blood, gore, death, mentions of sex (literally pure sin)

In case anyone prefers it, I also post this story on my wattpad!

Earth and Hell MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST

Sehun's finger ran over my bottom lip, collecting the drops of blood left on it. He then took the tip of it between his own lips, tasting the last bit of the innocent girl that now was no more. Minseok and Jongdae watched from their seats, not finding any liking in human blood. They weren't very fond of humans, but they were definitely not into killing them. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo were having a brain - feast at a nearby table, their content chews and licks echoing through the room. I knew Chanyeol wasn't too fond of killing humans, but I guessed he must have been especially hungry that night.

Baekhyun had, to my surprise, not participated in the whole killing thing. He was sat on the other side of the lounge on a bar stool, looking into his phone grimly. Shaking my head, I looked away. I was not going to let a moody dog mess up my meal.

"Kai?" he suddenly asked. Involuntarily, I turned my head again. Just like every other person in the room. "You can have this, actually. I won't need it anymore."

Then he put his phone down on the bar. Kai instantly appeared, his head poking through the tabletop, grinning widely. Because he had no freedom to leave this place, he absolutely adored presents. I wasn't sure what he was going to do with a phone, though. Then Baekhyun got up, pulled the collar of his jacket up, and walked towards the exit.

"You're already leaving?" Chanyeol asked, a little disappointed. I really couldn't grasp what made Baekhyun so interesting to the demon.

"I can't wait to get that dog smell out of my nose," I said quietly, smirking. Not quietly enough, though. Baekhyun's throat released a low, dangerous growl. That was it. Then he simply left.

"Someone's extra moody today," Sehun grinned. Usually Baekhyun was fun to tease, making me a little disappointed at his boring reaction of tonight. But then I remembered the bar fight from the other week, and was glad he had left without a quarrel. For the sake of Chanyeol's bar. Meanwhile, Kai was busy with his newest possession. Faster than I had thought, he had found the camera function. The way he looked at the screen whilst holding it not even half an inch from his eyes made me wonder, though.

"You know what guys? I think I'm gonna get going too," I stated. "It's Halloween. Gotta scare some kids."

"Do me a favor, don't feed on them," Minseok advised.

"I said scare, not eat," I replied, getting up from Sehun's lap. He huffed in protest, Junmyeon joining him.

"I'll be back later," I grinned, pulling my dress into place a little, before strutting towards the door. I waved at the men one last time before taking the back door into the rather cold October air. Not that any temperature bothered a vampire.

The night club wasn't far from the sea, luckily. I enjoyed being down by the water at night, when it was quiet and the waves were the only sound interrupting the night. My city was not a common one. It composed of many islands, all connected through countless bridges. The one I was on at the moment was the one I called home. The high cliffs of the island were connected with the surrounding ones through five bridges, going in different directions. I preferred my home island over all others. Not only because there was no werewolf pack residing on this one. But mainly because of the old buildings and museums making up the biggest part of it. Hardly anything had changed since I had moved there 80 years ago.

I smoothly flashed my sharp teeth at a group of teenage boys walking past me. They only snickered in excitement, turning their heads my way. Silly, silly, humans. As I got closer to the north bridge, I let my eyes run along the sky and over the millions of stars. Super eyesight surely was useful if you wanted to watch the stars, even in the city. All of a sudden, something caught my attention. Not something. Someone.

A figure stood on top of a tall building, right by the edge. Taking your life on Halloween, ironic. Becoming a ghost on the one day of the year people once tried to get rid of them. I snorted. Then, I narrowed my eyes to slits. No way. That was not just any stupid human. It was the stupidest werewolf I had ever had the ordeal of knowing. Having drawn my interest, I sped up. My feet raced along the asphalt, until I arrived at the side of the tall building. My hands grabbed the rain downwater pipe while I shed off my heels. In the time of seconds, I clambered up the side of the high brick wall, my bare feet and hands accompanied by my vampire light speed. I was careful not to arouse his attention as I lifted myself up on top of the edge. I felt dizzy looking down at the small humans for a moment, but then my gaze turned. Baekhyun was standing on the edge like before, nervously knotting his fingers. He kept looking down and over the city as if someone could come and save him. The building was so tall, I could view past the cliffs to the other islands. Around us, the water surrounded the small land. I could hear the waves clearly, not sure if the wolf could too, though. I watched him for a minute, but got bored quickly.

Although werewolves were resistant and could heal usually deadly wounds, this fall would for sure take his breath. I wasn't sure what to do. My difficult decision was taken by a quiet sound. Only a vampire would hear this. There were steps coming up from inside the building. Judging by the volume of the noise, they were only one, maybe two levels away.

Soundlessly, I jumped onto the roof of the small part over the stairway that lead through the door onto the rooftop. Then Baekhyun heard the steps as well. But it was too late. Seconds before he could react, the metal door swung open. I watched from above as four figures stormed in the wolf's direction. They were pointing guns at him and shouting.

"Hands where we can see them!" a woman shouted, angrily. The figures were dressed in black, making it easy for me to spot their brown weapon belts. Silver bullets and wooden daggers. I knew what that meant, and so did Baekhyun, who held his hands high in fear. Hunters. I wondered why he didn't just let them kill him, if that's what he came for anyway. Silly dog. I waited for the loud shot. Would passer-byers hear it? Where were they going to get rid of his body? I waited, and waited.

But nothing came. One of the figures approached Baekhyun from behind, a pair of handcuffs ready. Oh no. Just like before, I also knew exactly what that meant. Capture. Torture. Slow death. I didn't feel sorry for the werewolf. I wish he could have just stop bugging me, take his pack and go someplace else. But this was a problem. I realized how much he knew about me. And judging by how mutual our hate was, he would not hesitate to talk about me. And the last thing I needed was an annoying group of hunters making my life complicated. I thought of Chanyeol's lounge, of Minseok and Jongdae, Kyungsoo and innocent Kai. They would hunt them all down if Baekhyun told them. And he would. If not freely, he would give up after being tortured for days. I knew he wasn't strong enough. I huffed in annoyance. I had to help him.

By now the werewolf had let them tie him up, the figure behind him brutally shoving him toward the rooftop door they had come through. Just before they could reach it, I dropped from the roof. I landed like a cat on my feet, right in front of them.

"I must admit," I announced. Before any of the surprised hunters could react, I had practically teleported behind one of them, taking his knife. "This is not how I had imagined my night to go."

Then I slit his throat. The smell of blood made its way into my cells rapidly, making my eyes shine in a bright red. A shot fired my way, accompanied by a gasp from one of the slower-reacting hunters. Before the bullet had even come half my way, I took my place behind the next hunter, the silver knife at his throat. His body was covering mine, so that the hunters had no chance of shooting me that moment. Baekhyun's eyes stared at me in surprise. He had been quite lucky I had been around.

"Now, if you would like to see this young man die too, keep pointing that gun at me," I said, getting annoyed. These humans really thought they stood a chance against me. "If not, I suggest you open that dog's cuffs."

For a second they blinked, and I almost wanted to correct myself and say 'werewolf'. Stupid humans. Reluctantly, the woman walked over to Baekhyun, fumbling behind his back, until he flinched and pulled his hands out of the silver handcuffs, rubbing his wrists in pain.

"Now that wasn't so difficult, was it?" I smirked. "Now, I want you all to go through that door, and don't you dare look back."

Hunters were so easily scared. They thought they knew everything about us creatures, but really they were terrified of every of our talents. Agonizingly slowly, the two remaining figures made their way through the door, while I still held on to the third member. When they had made it, I pushed the third guy inside, rapidly slamming the door closed and pressing my entire weight against it.

Just like I had expected, they weren't big on giving up. Vampires surely were strong, but three against one wasn't fair.

"Are you just gonna stand there, dog?" I asked Baekhyun, who quickly took his place next to me. He still had a look of confusion on his face as he gazed at me. Suddenly, a shot ripped through the night, and through the door. It missed me by inches. I had to get away from here. Hastily, I searched for Baekhyun's eyes.

"Let go in three... two...," I began, as Baekhyun looked at me. "-one!"

At 'one' - I couldn't believe it myself - I grabbed the brown haired wolf by the waist and jumped. The second we had landed on the small roof above the staircase I tackled him, throwing him to the ground so we lay flat next to each other. That's when the metal door swung open once more. Those hunters apparently didn't treasure their lives. But I was always careful when deadly weapons were in play. I held my finger to my lips, signaling Baekhyun to keep quiet next to me. He was way too close for my liking, our shoulders were touching. But I couldn't risk moving now.

Like headless chickens the hunters searched the roof for almost a minute. As if we were going to jump out if they stayed extra long. When they finally left, Baekhyun let out an exaggerated breath next to me. As I got up, I brushed some dirt from my dress and wiped my hair out of my face.

"You owe me for saving your life," I let out, matter of fact. He shot me an annoyed glare, but didn't fight back. "I take that as a thanks. You're welcome."

"What the hell were you doing following me?" he suddenly asked, looking pissed.

"Don't be full of yourself. As if I, a sophisticated child of the night, would follow you, a dirty dog," I laughed.

"Stop calling me that, bloodsucker," he argued.

"I was just coming to watch you jump to your death, that is all," I replied, ignoring his comment. "What was that about, anyways?"

"None of your business," he spat.

Oh really? I'll remember that next time you're almost being taken by hunters. What would your pack possibly do without you, their trusty, smelly, alpha?" I joked. At my words he flinched visibly, looking to the ground. I had obviously touched onto a weak spot. Interested, I gazed at him closely.

"There is no more pack," he suddenly said. I raised my eyebrows. "They're gone. All of them."

"Gone? Have they had enough of you? You see, I don't know how werewolf rules work but-" I started.

"Dead," he said. "They're all dead."

At his words something inside of me changed. His pack had been the biggest I had ever seen, at least 40 wolves by my guess. Baekhyun avoided my look, acting as if the black roof tiles were suddenly the most exciting thing he had ever laid eyes on.

"And you're telling me those idiotic hunters from just now managed to do that?" I wondered.

"I don't know. Earlier today I was walking home when I heard the howls from my people. When I arrived it was too late. No one's left alive. I don't know who would've been able to do a such thing and get away with it. My pack was strong," he told. In my years as a vampire I had seen werewolves fight humans. They were stronger, faster, and could get away even with deep wounds. You'd need an army to slaughter Baekhyun's pack like he had told me. Unease crept up to me.

"Whatever killed them. It was not human," he added. That explained why he was standing on the rooftop's edge at 3 in the morning. If I had a little more compassion, I would probably feel honest sorrow for the alpha. Now, I only feared for my own safety.

"I should go tell Minseok and Jongdae. Maybe they've heard something," I said. Like that, I jumped off the small roof, walking over to the rainwater pipe. "Don't try to kill yourself again or I won't be there to help."

Swiftly, I left an annoyed - looking wolf behind, climbing down the building's wall again. The rough material of the brick wall felt nice under my bare feet. I felt free. The last five meters I jumped, landing in an empty, narrow alley. My heels were still where I had left them. I gladly put them on, before walking back the way I came. I didn't get far until the dog smell drifted into my nose again. Without turning around I knew he was right behind me.

"Byun Baekhyun, what on earth could you want from me now?" I asked, looking forward sternly. He quickly caught up, so he was walking next to me, but left at least two meters space between us. I appreciated it.

"What could I, a sophisticated child of the moon, possibly want from you, a stubborn, nerve-racking bloodsucker?" he replied, making me grin in annoyance. "I wanna ask Chanyeol to stay at his for the night. Do you mind? Wait, I don't care if you do," he went on.

I had to restrain myself from ripping his head off right in the middle of the street. Like two sulky children we walked, not sharing another word the rest of the way.

[winterflash-2019]

End of time pt5

A/n: sorry for the long wait I’ve been trying to write updates for my other stories but here you go

Its been a week since Barry dropped the bomb on you about your death. Everyone has been getting on your nerves lately at the same time. Barry thinks you’re making reckless decisions, Caitlyn thinks you need to calm down, and you know Cisco feels the same way although he doesn’t say it.

You get up and get ready for work. You being a forensic nurse had its cons meaning you didn’t get to do many exciting things like actually going on “missions” as Barry calls it.

But this particular day you were going on a mission and only you know about it of course. It involves a certain meta that Star Labs is trying to catch at the moment, he goes by Dr. smoke and his main targets are women. You had tried to share your ideas with team flash but of course Barry shut them down at an instant so you decided to take matter in your own hands.

You quickly stuff a knife in your boots and walk out the door.

“Here goes nothing” you sigh

When you finally arrive at work you spot Barry handing Singh a file so you pick up your pace, making your way over there.

“Any news?” You fold your arms and Barry looks at you and sticks his hands in his pockets.

“Y/n, the body is already in your area ready for the autopsy” Singh says and nods at Barry and walks off

“So how you been” Barry’s voice fills the awkward silence and you scratch the back of your neck, trying to avoid his gaze.

“I’m fine, just been thinking about going on vacation I guess”

“Y/n you literally just came from vacation like last month” Barry completely turns to you now.

“Well I just want to cross things off my bucket list Barry” you fold your arms and shift your weight on your left foot and Barry squints his eyes as he looked at you.

“Since the day I found out I was going to die” you mumble and look at the ground

“Huh?”

“It’s nothing Barr don’t worry”you pat his shoulder and walk around him to start on the autopsy however you were going to start your mission as soon as you clocked out.

-

You rushed out the glass doors as soon as 3:00 hit. You’d been trying to think of locations where Dr.smoke could be all day and you only came up with one and of course it was underground.

“You got this y/n” you whispered to yourself as you mashed the gas petal. The speed of the car forced you back against the seat as the wind temporarily gets knocked out of you. As soon as you regain control of the car you felt a boost of speed onto your side and suddenly you ended upside down.

Smoke and fire filled the air as you struggled to take the seat belt off. You tried to remain calm but the longer you stayed in the car the harder it got for you to breathe so you started hyperventilating when suddenly you found your way outside the car on your back with Dr.smoke in front of you.

“Well hello” his deep and raspy voice fills your ears and you roll onto your side, trying to crawl away.

“Oh no missy, you have to come with me” Dr.smoke’s foot finds its way on your back to stop you from moving. You find the strength to flip over and push him off.

“Not today smoke” you get to your feet and jump on his back, trying to strangle him into a calm state but he easily flicks you off him but he did it so fast you went flying towards the wall but he teleported and caught you before you made contact with it.

Once again the air was knocked out of you but before you can regain your strength you black out. - “Hey has anyone heard from y/n?” Barry shoves his phone into his pocket as he walks into Star labs

“Nope, isn’t…she at work?” Cisco’s voice was filled with confusion as he turns around to face Barry.

“Singh actually texted me an hour ago asking if I seen her, I called her at least 40 times and messaged her for at least 60” Barry starts to rub the back of his neck as a bad feeling starts to overcome him.

“Something’s wrong” Barrys nose flare up as he runs to the computer

“HEY” cisco yells

“It has to be Dr.Smoke, who else could it be” Barry was using his super speed to type on the computer, he was trying to track your phone.

“Barry, if she encountered Dr.Smoke then its probably too late”

“Cisco please you and I both know that y/n is still alive” Barry was starting to get frustrated

“Barry, how would you know that maybe the future changed and-“

“Don’t you say it” Barry barked as he swiftly turns around to face cisco

“Don’t you dare say it y/n is not going to die alright not today not tomorrow and no time in the future”

“Barry man I’m sorry” cisco mumbles but Barry just sighs and runs off to the CCPD

- “Rise and shine sleeping beauty” A haunting voice fills your ears and you struggle to open your eyes.

“Leave me the fuck alone” you growl but it only came out as a whisper.

“That wouldn’t be any fun now would it” Dr.smoke tilts his head as a sick smile forms on his face. He grabs your chin to look you in the eye.

“The Flash will stop you” You slowly say but as the words were coming out your mouth you almost forgot why you put yourself in this situation.

“Oh I’m not worried about flashy pants, my main concern is you dearie” another sick smile and his hand crept down your chest and rested on your thigh

“You sick bastard” you whisper and just before Dr.smoke could do anything else you felt a gust of wind and next thing you know you were inside Star Labs.

“What the hell were you thinking” Barry was shaking with anger he looked at the camera at the CCPD and saw you sneaking out the building.

“Barry can we talk about this later, Dr.smoke’s gonna escape” As the words flew out your mouth you felt like you were swaying.

“No we’re talking about this now to hell with Dr.smoke ” Barry growls but he notices you wobbling so he flashes a chair behind you and he calculated just right, you fell back right into the chair.

“Just tell me y/n, why did you do it” Barry begs ad he kneeled in front of you.

“I-I just wanted to help barr” you whimper

“We’ve been trying to capture Dr.smoke for a while and we failed every time so I just decided to use myself as bait and it would’ve worked if you went back to catch him instead of questioning me”

At this point you were done with the secrets Barry was gonna know how you felt one way or another.

“What the hell kind of sense does that make y/n don’t you realize we’re trying to save you from the future and you putting yourself in danger defeats the purpose” Barry’s tone was rising by every second

“Barry that’s why I did it ok, THATS exactly why I did it…you cannot cheat death Barry I will DIE whether you like it or not so the little time I have left I want to make it count barr I wanna be known as the girl who helped millions…and if I have to put myself in danger to do so then that’s what I’ll do”

You close your eyes as you felt them water. You didn’t want to appear as weak you wasn’t going to let yourself crack in front of Barry sure you was afraid to die but you weren’t going to let him know that.

“Y/n I-“

“No Barry just, please leave me alone” you whisper and walk out the laboratory leaving everyone alone with their thoughts.

[dreams-of-headcanons]

Hallo!! I love your stuff and, since your ask box was open, I thought I'd finally get over my own nerves and send something in! So... how would the US skelebros and the UF skelebros react to their S/O actually being kidnapped? I though it might be a good angsty-fluff combo :3 Thanks in adavance! I really do love your work :D

Hello ( ´ ∀ ` )ﾉ I’m glad you enjoy my content! I’m sorry it took me so long to get to yours. and to everyone else’s I haven’t got to yet (>_

Trigger Warning: violence, mentions of sex trade, torture

Disclaimer: s/o comes out unharmed in all scenarios

Underswap

Blueberry

Berry is worried sick. He found out in one of the worse ways possible. He had just come home from training with Scales(Us Alphys). He had even picked up a bouquet of your favorite flowers. No special occasion. He just saw a flower shop on his way home and decided to get some for you. When he went to stick his key in the door of your shared apartment the door was ajar. His soul dropped instantly but he tried to remain optimistic, hoping you had only left it like that by accident. But that’s not like you at all. Maybe you heard him coming and left it like that on purpose? His fears are confirmed when he steps inside and finds things knocked over, clearly showing a struggle. He lies the flowers down on the table and calls the police immediately. They take his statement and any evidence and leave. Once Berry is left alone he’s in shock and disbelief. Who did this? Why? Why you? You didn’t even have any enemies and neither did he. Not that he knows of at least. The police check in with him in a few days but haven’t had any luck. Berry has been tending the bouquet of flowers, hoping you’ll be found before they die and trying to keep his own hope alive. It doesn’t take long before his patience snaps. He’s trying to let the police do their job and not interfere but he doesn’t feel like they’re trying very hard. He’s mad at himself for not starting his own investigation sooner. As soon as Scales finds out she, Angelfish(Us Undyne), and Stretch all become a part of his team. Berry loves you and if he loves you that means these three see you like family, even if you and Berry aren’t married yet. Scales goes on the aggressive and starts interrogating any suspicious characters. Berry goes with her and they pretty much play good cop bad cop. Angelfish and Stretch provide tech support. Angel gives wires to Scales and Berry so they can record their interrogations. The rest of her and Stretch’s time is spent hacking into security cameras around town until they finally find something. They can’t make out faces because it was night in this particular tape but she KNOWS the person being thrown into the back of a car is you. The recording happened near your apartment complex and she can see an item/piece of clothes that she recognizes. She calls Berry immediately and gets a license plate number. She suggests telling the police about it but he refuses. He doesn’t want to rely on them anymore and reminds her that they could find out about her hacking. She could get in trouble whether her soul was in the right place or not. Stretch teleports Berry and Scales as close to the location as possible. The two can hardly contain themselves as they sneak in and they both feel sick to their stomachs when they realize that the place trades sex slaves. Berry immediately loses any control he had and pins the nearest guards to the wall with blue bones and demands to know which room you’re being kept in. He and Scales leave them hanging, not caring if they bleed out. When he finds you he’s clinging to you and practically sobbing with relief, especially when you assure him no one had touched you yet. They make an anonymous call to the police about the sex slave ring and after the whole incident is over Berry moves you and himself to a safer place and starts putting traps up around the house and calling in at random to check on you while he’s gone. Expect a trip to an adoption shelter on your next Birthday.

Stretch

He was on a date with you when it happened. You were walking hand in skeletal hand when someone leapt out and snatched you away from him. He tried to go after them but someone else knocked him out with a blunt object to the back of his skull. It wasn’t a very populated area but there were a couple of nearby witnesses that called 911 and gave what information they could while medics made sure Stretch was okay. He was admitted to the hospital for the night and Berry came to make sure he was okay. But that night, as much as Stretch likes to nap, he couldn’t sleep. Not a wink. Not while he knows you’re in danger. Who were those people? Why did they do this? Was this some sort of punishment? As soon as he was let out the next day he wasted no time. He didn’t check in with the police. Screw relying on them. He goes straight to Angelfish and asks her to check the security cameras in the vicinity of where it happened. The two of them sit down together and he refuses to eat until they’ve got something. It happens faster than he expected before they’ve got pictures and tape of you being dragged away. Angel enhances the pictures as best as she can and he recognizes one of the offenders as your jealous ex and he knows where they live. Before Angel has a chance to stop him he’s gone. He pops up right behind your ex in their house and scares the living hell out of them right before they’re pinned to the wall with bones. Stretch’s hood is up and the shade it provides along with his blazing orange eye light gives him a menacing aura. He forces what information he wants out of them and leaves them with a bone chilling threat that he won’t be so lenient if they ever mess with you again. He knocks them out and leaves them as he goes and rescues you from their basement. The Sick Psycho. He takes you home, puts on some of your favorite shows/movies, and doesn’t leave your side for the rest of the night, comforting you any way he can. From now on he keeps his guard up almost to a level that makes him seem like he’s from a Fell universe.

Underfell

Red

He knew something like this might happen eventually. He just doesn’t know how they managed to get past his defenses so easily. A lot of monsters and humans don’t like him but most of them are too dumb. He either pissed off the wrong person, they had help, or it was pure dumb luck. He found out when he got a taunting phone call asking for a ransom. He could hear you sassing one of your captors in the background and calling his name when you realized they had him on the phone. The smart ones always want some sort of revenge over money so he’s pretty sure it was dumb luck by now. He’s also kind of relieved. It’s still bad that you’ve been kidnapped but he’s glad you’re not a target for revenge. Because that means you’ll come out of the ordeal mostly unscathed. However, the ransom they demanded before hanging up on him isn’t something he can afford and he’s too impatient to waste time collecting it, so he goes to Blaze(Uf Grillby). Now Blaze normally charges a pretty hefty price for his aid but Red is a patron and close friend, so he already gets a discount to begin with and when he tells Blaze that you’ve been snatched he cuts the price in half. Blaze gives him a suitcase filled with convincing fake bills. An person/monster with average intelligence will take about 1-2 minutes to figure it out but these dumb sounding bastards will probably take 5+ minutes or never realize it at all. Either way Red hands it over and you’re shoved into his arms as the two jackasses that snatched you excitedly play with the fake money. Red just stands back, with you behind him, watching them. It’s pretty amusing and he’s trying to contain his laughter. He almost feels bad for them. Almost. He’s so amused by their moronic behavior that he teleports you home and comes back. By now they’ve discovered that the money is fake and as soon as they notice him he’s greeted with anger. He dodges them easily while taunting them with his guffaws and when he’s had his fill of fun he goes back to being serious. And with you safe at home he can finally show some of his pent up anger. How dare these pieces of shit touch you. He doesn’t feel like he’s worthy of having such great s/o as you sometimes. You’re such an awesome person and these two twits definitely aren’t even worthy enough to even breathe the same air as you. Before the two know it they’ve been impaled and suspended by their limbs with bone attacks. Red cusses them out and tortures them by stabbing non vital parts of their bodies and twisting the bones until they’re begging for forgiveness or death. When he’s finally satisfied he lets them down and leaves, not caring if they bleed out or not (bit of a yandere streak there, Red). He hopes you won’t mind the little bit of blood splatter. Because as soon as he gets inside the house he’s throwing his coat off and smothering you with love.

Edge

Oh boy. Oooooooh BOY. Somebody done fucked up. Somebody is also a top tier moron. Edge came home from training with Stingray(Uf Undyne) and found his little shared home with you looking like a hurricane had passed through. At first he’s mildly irritated, thinking maybe you had just been fooling around or that his brother had done it. He’s pisssssed when he finds a very obviously placed ransom note. They attempted to make it anonymous but he knows who the dumbasses are. The Underfell dog guard. Even though everyone is on the surface now they’ve always held a grudge against him because they wanted higher positions in the guard before it was disbanded. They were jealous of him and never got along with him. How DARE those WORTHLESS mutts touch THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE PAPYRUS’ datemate!? He doesn’t even finish reading the note before shredding it to pieces and storming out of the house. If they think they can get away with this they are VERY wrong. He’s not gonna bring what they want no matter what it was and he knows all their most frequented locations. He goes into stealth mode until he’s found you. He’s seething when he reveals himself and they’re surprised at his arrival because they hadn’t told him where they were yet. They were expecting him to call the number they’d left on the note so they could use a voice changer to talk to him. He wastes no time in subduing them, leaving all of them with 1 hp and teetering on the line between life and death. They were stupid to mess with him and he doesn’t care if they dust or not. He takes you and leaves. Once he gets you home he completely ignores the mess that’s waiting for him(he swears they left it this messy on purpose because everyone knows how he hates messiness) and carries you straight to bed, flopping down on it with you and nuzzling his skull against your neck. He won’t admit it but he was the tiniest bit scared and he really missed you in the short amount of time that you were gone. Even if he knew it was only the dog guard being dumb with him he couldn’t stand being apart from you. What? Crying? He’s not crying! How dare you suggest such a thing. Those totally aren’t tears. But he also doesn’t have a valid excuse for what they might actually be besides tears. Expect lots of cuddles and breakfast in bed the next morning. Somehow he already has the entire house clean by the time you wake up too, whether you had planned on helping him or not. He didn’t want you to have to help him anyways. He wants you to rest.