#blobby boys on patrol

[michaeldrawrrett]

Three Biomechanical Devils (This illustration features three drawings referencing artworks by other artists: 'Gryphon' is from a fantastic mural by Josep Maria Sert i Badia in the San Telmo Museoa in Donostia/San Sebastian; 'Azazel' is the face of the Dragon from Bernat Martorell's 'Saint George and the Dragon'; and while I'm not sure who the sculptor is, 'Beppo' is the head of a stone Eagle from the grounds of the Cliveden Estate in Buckinghamshire that I photographed in 2016)

[pfhwrittes]

Hi P!

It’s me again the Mr Blobby anon 😬 thank you for braving the buried trauma to answer my silly ask.

I had another thought about what kind of music the boys might’ve listened to in their formative years. I know everyone and their grandmother was listening to Oasis and The Smiths back then and stuff like The Stone Roses and The Verve made it across the pond to us too, but I was wondering if there were any deep cuts that were big locally that maybe the rest of the world wouldn’t really know about?

On a more serious note - I’m writing a fic about the boys and I think I’ve mostly managed to not butcher Soap’s accent and colloquialisms too bad, but I struggle with the rest of them. I feel like I should be writing more of Ghost and Price’s accent but I just don’t know how. With Gaz it’s easier since his accent isn’t as pronounced, but then comes the job of using the right regional slang for everyone and that just sends me into and overwhelming spiral of despair because there’s just so many different regional accents in such a small area 😵‍💫

Do you have any tips or resources for figuring it all out?

p.s. sorry for being the most longest winded anon in the world 🫣

p.p.s. thank you again for all your Brit picking ♡

hi anon! (i'm not calling you mr blobby anon, that just seems mean!) i'm glad my horrified shrieking about mr blobby was entertaining!

i'm going to pop my reply under a read more because i know i'm about to get really long winded!

first up music. personally i have a sneaky headcanon that soap has a secret fondness for tinchy stryder and n-dubz, price is big into the buzzcocks, gaz still loves labrinth and tinie tempah and ghost has a secret fondness for stereophonics.

but as for hidden treasures? paolo nutini, the libertines, razorlight, leona lewis, birdy, professor green, jack johnson, the wombats, snow patrol, emeli sandé, rudimental, the ting-tings, dido, jess glynne.

hopefully amongst my little list there's some artists you haven't heard of before!

now onto the meaty bit, the bit i was immediately excited about discussing with you. i'm going to break it down what you said so i can dedicate proper paragraphs to each character!

"I think I’ve mostly managed to not butcher Soap’s accent and colloquialisms too bad..."

i have 100% faith that you'll be fine with soap's accent. just remember that soap speaks Scots (which is a recognised language) as well as english. an in-game example of this was when he said "away an' boil yer heid!". personally i find listening to clips of Still Game (a glaswegian based scottish sitcom) really helps me to get my ear in for soap's speech patterns BUT remember that it isn't actually confirmed where exactly soap was born and raised in scotland so there is leeway.

just remember don't go too mad with adding Scots words or phrases, a few indications of soap's accent is fine but don't get too heavy handed otherwise it'll be nearly unreadable.

"I feel like I should be writing more of Ghost and Price’s accent but I just don’t know how."

i can completely understand the difficulty with this one!

so canonically ghost is from manchester, however to my ear there isn't much of a manc accent going on when he speaks in-game (which is a crying shame in my opinion)! take a listen to jamie tartt from Ted Lasso to get an idea of what a manc accent sounds like. notably, the -g off -ing sounds are missing and there's a nasal quality (which i LOVE) to the way he says "you" and "me" that sounds more like "ya" and "meh" to my ear.

this link from the university of manchester has some common slang terms used around manchester that might be helpful too!

as for price, according to the CoD wiki he's from herefordshire but his accent has definitely been flattened out to sound more like Received Pronunciation (RP). herefordshire has definitely got a very interesting accent because of where it is geographically in the UK so it has welsh borders, gloucester and west midlands influences to it. my only recommendation for price is to listen to his voice lines and watch the playthroughs (sorry!) to get an idea of his speech patterns.

however, if you wanted to make me very happy you could definitely sprinkle in some of barry sloane's scouse accent (apologies for the link, it's VERY cringey) but don't feel that you have to!

"With Gaz it’s easier since his accent isn’t as pronounced..."

this is actually really interesting to me because gaz sounds SO much like a londoner to my ears (i think i spoke to someone before about gaz's accent and i think i said it was either south london or west london).

as for slang for gaz? i can only recommend that you find some clips of Love Island UK to hear some of the slang phrases he'd use OR listen to the recon by fire mission to get your ear in for his speech patterns (also a very good resource for price's accent too).

i hope my break down of accents and slang has helped just a little bit but if you have any more questions for me i'm more than happy to help! 💜

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (215/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball,  which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made  on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: This story This story takes place about 66 years after the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[9 May, Age 791. The Tuffle Planet.]

Son Goku was the Legendary Super Saiyan, perhaps the last, depending on how the legend was interpreted. The stories said that one arose every thousand years, but after Son Goku's ascension, there were many other Super Saiyans who arose in the next few decades. Were they any less legendary for it? Or was the timing all that mattered?

None of that was important to Goku now. The legend, his Saiyan heritage, his recent recruitment into the Time Patrol, the lore behind his present location. All of it was secondary to his current problem: He was fighting the previous Legendary Super Saiyan, and she had him on the run.

With incredible speed, he darted through a vast industrial complex, slipping between buildings and computer stations and leaping through gaps among the tangle of cables and pipes. When necessary, he would smash his way through an obstacle, but he tended to any course through the woods that didn't slow him down.

Behind him, a swarm of ghostly creatures chased after him. Their bodies looked like they were sculpted out of mochi, with mitten-like hands and blobby tails instead of legs. But their heads were more defined, and each of their cackling faces bore the likeness of Goku's opponent, the Super Saiyan Luffa.

Goku wasn't sure how many of the ghosts she had made. Counting wasn't something he excelled at, and there were so many of them that he couldn't spare the time to get an accurate tally. Also, the ghosts exploded whenever they touched anything, which was why he led them through the deserted complex. Every so often, a ghost would run into a retaining wall, or a fence, or one of her comrades. Each collision set off an explosion, which potentially caused other ghosts to get knocked into something else and set off additional explosions. And so there was no point in trying to count, since the number kept changing anyway.

Another issue was the yellow fog that continued to spread across the ground. Goku was unfamiliar with the technique, but he had enough combat experience to hazard a guess. It seemed like means to track Goku's location. He could sense Luffa's unique power in the fog, just as he could sense it in the ghosts. But the fog wasn't attacking him. At worst, it accumulated on his boots and pant legs as he ran. So if he concealed his ki , as he was doing now, then she could still track him by sensing her own ki, which was emanated by the fog. Any disturbance would represent her target, and the ghosts could follow Goku's wake.

It was a brilliant application, and Goku couldn't help but imagine how useful this would have been during the conflict with Dr. Gero and his androids. The ghost swarm also might have helped, as the energy constructs were just independent enough to search a large swath of territory. The only downside Goku could find was that both techniques used a great deal of power to implement. He doubted that he or Vegeta could have accomplished something like this back when Gero was causing trouble. As for the ki ghosts, they were a favorite technique of Gotenks, the fusion of Goten and Trunks. In the boys' hands, it was little more than a childish prank, and Goku had never seen either of the boys try to use it separately. Gotenks had the power to spare on such flashy techniques, but Goten and Trunks did not.

All of this meant that Luffa seemed to be operating on a different level. Whether or not she was on a higher level remained to be seen. Goku looked forward to putting that to the test, but he was still taking her measure. For now, though, it seemed she was much more willing to unload costly ki techniques to overwhelm an opponent. As powerful as her ghost swarm was, most of that power was being wasted on stacks and cooling towers and other inanimate objects that couldn't fight back. It suggested that Luffa was either reckless or overconfident, or she really did have the kind of power in store that would justify these tactics. Goku was very interested in seeing which it would be.

As he contemplated all of this, his next leap brought his foot down on a rusty pipe, and his weight caused it to burst apart into pieces. This gave him an idea, and he quickly turned around in the middle of his next jump and held out his hands. With a "Kiai!" shout, he produced a shockwave in the air, one powerful enough to blow the broken fragments along the path he had traveled. Before he spun around to continue on his path, he saw the ghosts were starting to catch up to him.

"Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo- hoooooo !" came the ghosts' mocking laughter.

Then came a fresh round of explosions, followed by shrieks of panic.

"Heh-hee!" Goku chuckled to himself as he ran. The forest was doing most of what he needed without any help, but that didn't mean he couldn't help things along.

His best guess was that Luffa was flustered by the hit-and-run tactics he had used against her earlier. She kept increasing her ki , while he maintained a certain level, and she was impatient to know what he was up to. The fog and the ghost swarm were her attempt to force his hand, but what she didn't realize was that this was Goku's hand. He was used to fighting at a disadvantage, and holding back at the start of a fight was a terrific way to gauge an opponent's strengths and weaknesses.

And… all strategic considerations aside, Goku just enjoyed fighting this way. Battles like these were few and far between, and he had no interest in wearing himself out before things got really good later on. He believed that Luffa could understand that sentiment, since there probably wasn't a great deal of competition in her own era, but she seemed to have a different approach to that.

This fight was clearly important to her, in many ways. Goku didn't think he understood completely, but he understood enough. For her, it was more than just a battle with a worthy adversary. She saw in Goku a kindred spirit, someone who understood what it was like to be what she was. She wanted to make a good impression, and maybe that was affecting her judgment. She was trying too hard to make this moment live up to her expectations.

That troubled him somewhat. Goku felt she deserved to have a worthwhile experience from all of this. At the same time, however, he recognized this as a vulnerability that he could exploit.

As he ran, he snatched something from a catwalk that looked like a toolbox. Wrapping both hands around it, he crushed it, then charged a small amount of ki into his palms. When he threw the pieces over his shoulder, they launched from his fingers like bullets, which spread out in all directions behind him. The explosions that followed were further away than before, suggesting that the ghost herd had thinned out a little more, or perhaps they had learned to keep their distance.

There seemed to be a clearing up ahead, and Goku considered doubling back to stay under the relative cover of the facilty. Then, as he got closer to the edge of the complex, he could see another one that lay just beyond it. He would only be exposed for the short time it would take him to cross the clearing, so it seemed like a risk worth taking. Goku had lived in the woods around Mt. Paozu for most of his life, and he reasoned that if Planet Vegeta's terrain was anything like Earth, then the space in between was probably a creek or a river. With any luck, he could get a drink as he crossed.

But as he reached the edge, he soon realized that he had miscalculated. There was a stream running between the two complexes, but it was at the bottom of a deep ravine. By the time Goku was close enough to see this, he barely had time to grab hold of a guardrail to stop himself from going over a cliff.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed as he took a closer down the ravine. The water at the bottom looked like a thin blue ribbon along the rocks. It would be easy to fly across, but that would risk giving away his position to Luffa.

Whatever he did next, he would have to choose quickly. The ghosts were still on his tail, and they showed no signs of slowing down. As Goku considered it, he noticed the yellow fog was drifting over the edge, and dissipating as it fell down the ravine. That gave him an idea.

"Here goes nothing," he said as he stood on the edge with his back to the ravine. He held out his hands and raised them over his face. "All right," he called out. "Come an' get me!"

The ghosts obliged, and as they raced toward him, Goku shouted "Taiyo-ken!" and dropped over the edge.

The bright light he created could be seen for kilometers in all directions. As he had hoped, many of the ghosts, dazzled by the effect, veered off course and ended up colliding with each other. Others continued on their path, crossing the ravine only to run into the trees on the other side. Then there were some who managed to track Goku's movements. These pursued him down the ravine as he fell, but most of them were unprepared for the uneven surfaces along the sides. There simply wasn't room for all of them, and as the walls of the ravine narrowed on the way down, they found it even harder to avoid one another.

As Goku fell, he saw the ground above beginning to collapse from all of the explosions. Soon, he had an avalanche bearing down on him instead of a swarm of exploding ghosts.

"Yikes!" he cried. "I guess I didn't think this through so well after all!"

Angling his descent, he added just enough power to fall faster than gravity would allow. When he finally splashed into the stream at the bottom, he was mostly clear of the rockslide, and from there he could allow the current to carry him the rest of the way to safety. Satisfied, Goku floated along for a few more minutes before swimming to a bank to regroup.

He could still hear explosions in the distance, but he believed the worst of the ghost swarm was over. As for the fog, he could still sense traces of Luffa's ki on his clothes and in the air, but it was not nearly as concentrated as it had been up above. There seemed to be a limit to her ability's range. If he kept his distance, he could avoid detection.

"She must not be able to sense it when it's this diluted," Goku said as he looked over his boots. "Either that, or she's not looking for anything this far away. The ki from the water and plants is enough to drown it out. Hey, wait a minute…"

He snapped his fingers and a broad genial grin crossed his lips. "Yeah!" he said. "It just might work!"

Above the ruined industrial complex, Luffa surveyed her handiwork. There was no sign of Son Goku, and no indication that he had used his ki to escape the scene either. Frustrated, she turned her head and spat.

"This is really starting to piss me off," she muttered to no one. "Oh, it's impressive, sure, but we didn't go to all this trouble to play hide and seek! If I wanted to match wits in some sort of asymmetrical wargame, I would have set something up with the other Time Patrollers, or…"

The moment suddenly reminded her of training sessions with a band of Saiyans on Nat-Chezz II. Maybe it was the smell of burning buildings, or the lack of an opponent who could just stand and fight. Whatever it was, Luffa found herself thinking about her wife again. If she had been here for this, Zatte would have been rooting for Goku.

"You'd be proud of him, Zattie," Luffa said. "I'm proud too, but if that big orange goof doesn't start taking this seriously, I'm going to beat him within an inch of his life!"

"Looking for me, Luffa? Well, here I am!"

She turned to find Goku floating nearby. To her surprise, he was back in his base form.

"What the hell is this ?" she demanded. "Are you giving up already? We've barely gotten started!"

"Sorry, but you won't win this fight so easily, Luffa," Goku replied. "You did a lot of damage down there, but I didn't get a scratch. If you're not careful, you'll wear yourself out."

"Save your concern, Kakarot," Luffa said. "I've got all the power I need to put you down. Now get back into Super Saiyan and let's continue, unless you'd rather teleport back to your hiding place again."

"You fight your way, Luffa," Goku said, "and I'll fight my way. Just because I can turn into a Super Saiyan doesn't mean that's always the best move. I'll use it when I'm good and ready."

"Fine," Luffa said. "Have it your way. If this is all you've got for me, then I might as well wrap this up!"

With that, she charged Goku, ready to strike, though expecting him to teleport to safety. Instead, he backed away, and when she caught him with a punch, he rolled with it.

"You would have been better off surrendering, Kakarot!" Luffa shouted. "At least there's some dignity in that!"

She caught up to him and hit him again. This time, Goku dodged, but she caught him with a kick, and then punched him again. Every time she hit him, he cried out in pain.

"You're not even trying anymore!" she snarled. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"

Goku recovered and caught his breath. Then he raised his arms in front of his face. "Are you gonna talk, or fight?" he asked.

Luffa screamed as she pummeled him again. To his credit, Goku was able to block or avoid the first few strikes, but Luffa was too skilled and the gap between their powers was too great for him to last long. Soon, she was picking him apart with precision blows on his arms, chest, and abdomen. When she was satisfied with this, she readied a ki blast and fired. The resulting explosion sent Goku sailing through the air until he crashed to the scorched earth where the industrial facility had once been.

He lay there in a heap, not moving until Luffa alighted near him and grabbed him by the collar of the blue shirt he wore under his gi . Then he began to make a giddy chuckle, as though he were too delirious from the beating he was taking.

"What is the meaning of this?" Luffa demanded. " You challenged me , and then you go and make a mockery of our fight?! Now you won't even defend yourself? And you call yourself a Super Saiyan ?!"

"Heh… Heh-heh," Goku gasped. "Well… it seemed like the best way… but I gotta admit, I'm starting to wish I'd come up with a better distraction."

"Distraction?!" Luffa growled. "Distraction from what?!"

She saw it in his eyes. There was a glow reflected in his brown irises, one that Luffa might have mistaken for the sun, except the angle was all wrong. And it was getting bigger and brighter. By the time Luffa turned, it was nearly on top of her, and she barely had time to fly out of its path.

Then it turned and followed her .

She had seen the Spirit Bomb before. On past Time Patrol missions, she had seen Goku deploy it against Vegeta, then Frieza, and finally Majin Buu. Each time, the Spirit Bomb had proven exceptionally difficult to assemble and launch. The Tuffle Planet was abandoned, and yet somehow Goku had made a Spirit Bomb as big as a house, and in a fraction of the time it should have taken.

She had forgotten about the auto-tracking feature of the Spirit Bomb, but this didn't seem to pose much of a problem either. With her power, she could outrun it with little trouble, and its power probably wasn't enough to make it a threat. And yet, Goku had gone to a lot of effort to spring this little trap. What was his plan?

Then she heard the scream. For a man, he had a rather high voice. There was nothing wrong about that, and he sounded quite pleasant in casual conversation, but when he raised his power level, his voice became almost frightening, like a cat howling in pain.

She felt his transformation before she spotted it. The Spirit Bomb was big enough that she had difficulty keeping him in her line of sight, but Luffa was sure now that Goku was back in his Super Saiyan form. It was as though he had never turned it off in the first place. Luffa was impressed. Over the years, she had gotten better at controlling her transformations, but she still found it difficult to switch on and off in rapid succession. Goku had gone from high power to minimal power and back with a horrifying ease. That, along with his unorthodox tactics, made him dangerous.

More dangerous was the fist that suddenly collided with her jaw. She didn't even know if he had teleported or flown to her at super-speed. The Spirit Bomb kept getting in her way, and it still followed her, even as Goku's punch carried her through the air and into the dirt. Luffa scrambled to her feet, ready to confront them both, when suddenly the Spirit Bomb seemed to… open fire on her?

It was a barrage of ki blasts, not unlike any of the countless attacks she had dealt with in the past, but it took her a moment to realize that it was Goku firing at her from behind the Spirit Bomb. She deflected the shots, but this left her wide open to the Bomb itself. And while she believed its power was manageable, she knew that Goku would be ready to capitalize while she took the time to deal with it.

She couldn't help but smile. Goku had turned a one-on-one match and turned it into a double-team. It was only fair after her assault with the ki ghosts. What she still didn't understand was how he had managed to neutralize her fog, the technique she called Golden Duster. It was a mist of tiny globules of her own ki , spread across a large surface area, and yet somehow it was all gone, as though Goku had soaked it all up with a towel--

"Oh no," she said as she realized the truth. "No wonder he got that bomb ready so fast. Curse me for a fool! I practically handed him all that energy!"

Then, suddenly, the Spirit Bomb accelerated, and Luffa found that she couldn't move fast enough to get out of its way. She quickly caught it in her arms, and planted her boots in the dirt to brace herself. Frieza and Buu had done the same, with little success. Her only advantage was that she was reasonably certain this Spirit Bomb didn't have enough power to knock her out if it exploded. She still didn't want to take the chance, which left her pinned down as she tried to understand how to push it back.

There was still Goku to contend with as well. Luffa cast out with her senses, trying to locate him. As it turned out, he was still behind the Spirit Bomb, and wasn't moving. Then it all began to make sense.

"He's pushing it!" Luffa muttered. "Just like he did with Buu! That little twerp was strong enough to overpower Kakarot, and strong enough to throw the bomb back in his face, but when once Kakarot pushed it back, it was too much for him! He's using this damn thing to close the gap between our powers!"

"Ka… me…!"

Luffa heard him, and knew exactly what that meant. He knew the Spirit Bomb alone wouldn't be enough to beat her, so he was going to throw fuel onto the fire. Growing desperate, Luffa charged her own ki and fired an energy blast from her mouth. If she couldn't repel the bomb, then maybe she could destroy it.

But no. The golden beam from her throat was absorbed harmlessly into the Spirit Bomb. Any ki attack would only feed it. And without a trick like Instant Transmission up her sleeve, Luffa couldn't escape.

"Ha… me…!"

"No! There is a way!" Luffa said when the solution finally hit her. "Dammit, I should have figured it out sooner!"

Above, Son Goku had nearly completed his attack. Luffa was trapped, and his Kamehameha would drive the Spirit Bomb to deal her a critical hit. He had worried that she might find a way out, but now it was too late.

"Haaaaa!" he shouted as he released the energy gathered in his hands. A column of blue light spilled forth from his arms and down to the white globe below.

Or it would have, except the Spirit Bomb began to move…

"What?!" Goku cried out. "Where'd she go?"

He spotted her flying away from Goku and the Spirit Bomb. The bomb was giving chase, but Goku's Kamehameha was still firing down at their original location. But as the wave hit the ground, he felt something resisting it down below.

It was like there were two Luffas, one leading the Spirit Bomb away, while the other fought the Kamehameha. And then the Spirit Bomb exploded. Goku was so confused that he failed to notice that something was wrong with the Kamehameha. By the time he realized it, it was too late.

"Hah!" Luffa shouted as she emerged from the beam, just inches from Goku's hands. Before he could react, she slammed her fist into his face, knocking him head over heels through the air.

When he landed, he gathered himself up and found her standing over him.

"Nice try," she said. "I thought you almost had me."

"What went wrong?" Goku asked. "It seemed to be going so well!"

"I coughed up another ki ghost," Luffa said. "It couldn't destroy your Spirit Bomb, but I could put enough Golden Duster mist onto it that the Spirit Bomb would follow it, thinking it was me."

"Wha--?" Goku asked. "I didn't think you could fool a Spirit Bomb like that…"

"I wasn't sure it would work either," Luffa said, "But it probably helped that I let go of the thing and put the ghost in front of me. As for that Kamehameha, well, it was never going to do the job by itself. You kept it weak so it wouldn't damage the planet."

"Ha ha… yeah, I did," Goku said. He rose to his feet and faced off with her. "So, where do we go from here?"

"Seems pretty simple to me," Luffa said. "You've got a lot of sneaky moves and fancy techniques, but so do I, Kakarot. So why don't we just cut the crap and hit each other as hard as we can until one of us drops?"

"Maybe you've got something there," Goku said. He brushed the dust from his clothes and slapped his hands together. "All right, we'll do it your way. Ready?"

"Always," Luffa said.

They each drew back their dominant hands, and then punched each other simultaneously.

The ground trembled from the impact.

NEXT: Go Beyond.

[scribemerlin]

Inhuman Determination; Chp 1: To Reject The World For Legend

Section One: The Great Escape

Moonlight glittered across crimson eyes and a toothy smile as a lone wakeful child strode past the sleeping forms of the human boys they’d had to dorm with for this school trip to Ireland that their blobby cousin had been so set on coming to. Perhaps it was because of all the talk of leprechauns, rainbows and pots of gold? Well, the child didn’t particularly care, for all that the mental image of their cousin trying and failing to beat up a leprechaun for such a golden reward was amusing.

All that mattered was that their so-called family member would look suspicious coming without them, when they’d been so obvious in sharing their interest in the trip as well – and investing a not-inconsiderable amount of ‘good behaviour’ and charm into the endeavour. Not out of any weird sentimentality for somewhere they’d never seen, of course, but out of a desperate desire to break free while outside of the reach of the adult members of their 'family’. To be honest, even if there hadn’t been a chance to break away, the thought of an entire week away from the house and its adult inhabitants would have lured them in.

Now, in the sympathetic shadows, they were working on attaining supplies for their escape, their nerves thrumming with anticipation and fear as they did their best to remain silent. They’d been too closely watched at the house to take anything of use with them, even from the rubbish, so they were resorting to outright theft. That didn’t bother them – they’d learnt the hard way that sometimes they couldn’t get what they needed any other way. They needed these things more than their classmates did.

Someone had undies and socks that would do, while someone else had a decent pair of brown trousers that would fit them. Still another had a rather warm-looking green jumper with a thick horizontal yellow stripe across the belly. It was a little too baggy, bulging when they tucked it in just slightly, but they liked it. They had to try on a few pairs of shoes to be certain of stealing the right pair, before mostly emptying the worn old bag they’d been provided with to secrete their cousin’s packed snacks and other things within. It was only the second night, so there were still a fair few of those left. This done, they carefully slunk out  of the dorm and down towards the kitchen of the boarding school that was hosting them – something about twinned schools.

They had to keep their eyes and ears peeled for any hint of approaching danger, and their tread as soft as they could manage. They couldn’t afford to be caught by any patrolling staff, or they would certainly never get a chance like this again. Gritting their teeth against the prickling fear and the mental images of the sort of punishment and increased monitoring such a thing would result in, the child ghosted through the corridors. Sometimes, they stopped, listening against the percussion of their pulse as they held their breath to keep it from giving them away, but they didn’t dare tarry too long. Once they reached the kitchen door, they found to their vexation that it was locked. However, this wasn’t going to stop a 'little demon’ like them.

They knew, both from experience and an odd nebulous certainty in the back of their mind, that they were capable of conscious bursts of magic. It made sense, after all,  for something like them to have such a power. It was the same thing that had smoothed and browned their hair after their uncle had punished them for having a 'head like the devil’s bog brush’, and the same thing that had granted blushes of pink to their cheeks after their aunt had given them a direct order to not turn up for their first day of school looking like a vampire. They preferred to use it for getting away from bullies, getting back at said bullies in secret, and stealing food. As far as they were concerned, this qualified under all categories. A moment’s concentration and a sweaty face saw the door swing soundlessly open, and the child strode in.

Selecting a knife from the drawer, for protection and hacking through any plants that got in their way, they felt a thrilling rush of imagined power. They had never been so well-armed before. Carefully, they wrapped their new weapon in a hand towel and stowed it in their bag. They also took a bottle of water from the fridge and some granola bars from the cupboards, and stuffed them in with the rest. Supplies acquired, they set off, closing the door carefully behind them and willing it to lock. They had already taken the precaution of stealing a roll of toilet paper and some soap, sealing it in a plastic bag, and stowing it. No sense being caught off-guard by their digestive system, and then having nothing to clean themself with.

There had been a fire drill the previous day, so they knew where to find an exit that wasn’t all the way over at the main door. Padding softly, they could faintly feel the swishing of the lithe demon’s tail they didn’t actually have as they slunk. The seven-year-old magic user had to strain slightly to unlock the emergency exit, and then lock it after them – it was so late that it was early, and they’d been desperately focused on staying awake and alert enough to pull of this caper.

There were trees in the direction they were heading for, so the weary child lurched towards them, knowing that they only had so much time to gain cover before they might be spotted. The cool night air carried the soothing scent of leaves and tree sap, and it felt like some wild, primeval place where unwary humans might be swallowed up by the darkness. The child liked that about it.

Munching delightedly on one of their cousin’s chocolate bars to stave off hunger and exhaustion, they snuck through the moon-painted trees with urgency, contemplating their identity. They knew what their relatives had claimed was their name, but… it was an awfully boring human name for someone they claimed was a little demon. Perhaps they thought that a human name might make the monster brat slowly become more human?

The child wanted none of that. Even if they had thought there might be some benefit to humanity, they would NOT want to share the category with the humans they’d lived with since they could remember. Besides, their current name tended to lead people into assumptions about them – clearly, they needed a better appellation, now that they were free to make their own decisions. Something… short and snappy, with a bite to it. Something that began with a strong, striking sound.

After a while of thoughtful munching through the undergrowth, they settled on the name Chara. They’d made it up on the spot, so it would probably be difficult to guess – they’d even decided to spell it in such a way that people trying to pronounce it after reading it could mess it up easily. They’d heard that some people could summon demons, and apparently names were an important part of that – they wanted to be ready to trip interfering summoners up in as many ways as possible.

Satisfied with their name, Chara felt a vague tickle of deja vu – had they ever tried to rename themself before? They couldn’t remember. Now that they’d finished the brand-name chocolate bar, Chara was feeling more awake again. They also still had that lovely smooth taste in their mouth – truly, chocolate was a food fit for kings. Too bad their supplies of it wouldn’t last for very long. Well, they knew they could survive on other things – they’d read about what kind of edible things could be found outdoors, so they felt pretty prepared. Instead of taking a break, Chara was determined to get as far as they could before daybreak – they just KNEW that they could be hunted down and trapped as soon as the teachers found that they were gone, unless they could just reach the magic mountain.