#but he allowed him to risk his life on a suicide mission the whole rest of the time

[valleyfthdolls]

I wished people in the fandom interpreted Henry more then "sad guy trying to get back his daughter and has no other flaws" last I saw

I mean you have a point honestly. Because he’s not William people tend to pretend he’s totally flawless, when he’s definitely pretty fucked up on his own. They kinda wrote a whole novel trilogy about that.

I’ll admit I’m kind of guilty of this one too, though I do try to show off a more flawed side by having him similarly spiral into obsession. It’s I think a thing of like, everyone in fnaf sucks. On some level. But no one is really as bad as Afton, so people tend to overlook the others’ flaws at the cost of doing them a total injustice.

[josephinevalor]

Clockwork Princess REVIEW (SPOILER VERSION)

By: Cassandra Clare

TW: Suicide

Characters

Tessa

I already loved her from the previous books. She is assertive. She is brave. She cares for others. 

She also makes a good amount of mistakes but they are the type of mistakes that most people would have made. She agreed to help Mortmain by shape shifting into his adopted father in exchange for Yin Fen for Jem. Which since Jem is dying without it, is a reasonable thing for her to do as an attempt to help prolong one’s loved ones life.

 She forgets to hide her clockwork angel necklace while trying to fool Mrs. Black into thinking she is someone else. An oversight most people would have made in her place. Especially after just being miraculously saved from dying and walking for hours to find an abandoned house to stay at. 

She decides to rush into the fight instead of staying back in the institute. But she was always doing that. Will and the rest of the Shadowhunter gang were fighting. She couldn’t just stay back. 

Those mistakes make her more relatable. They make her more like us. 

Despite her mistakes, she is quite smart and resourceful. She makes a run for it away from Mrs. Brown’s carriage when the opportunity presents itself, she tried her best to appease Mortmain while being kept hostage by him, and she was the one who saved the day by coming up with the genius idea of turning into the angel that was imprisoned in her clockwork necklace. 

Will

He doesn’t have to pretend anymore but old habits die hard. He does start to act a lot better but he still makes rude jokes from time to time, adding a good amount of comedic relief. 

He still has his mischievous and spontaneous side to him. But he is not an outright jerk anymore.

Also we get to see a more serious and angry side of him. He was enraged when he thought his parabatai had died and then he took it out on a group of werewolves.

He starts to show how much he cares for Tessa. He goes alone on a mission to save Tessa from Mortmain despite the risks. It was not the smartest idea but it demonstrates how much she means to him. And every time, he was bringing up how important it is to get Tessa back from Mortmain whenever there was a meeting between Shadowhunters. 

I'm not as team Jem anymore.I love both Jem and Will for Tessa in this novel. Tbh, they should have just ended up as a thrupple, they are so good together. 

Jem

Jem continues to be a tragic character. He runs out of Yin Fen due to taking too much. He was trying to make himself more healthier by using it. He wanted Tessa to see he was doing well because of how much he loved her. 

The Love Triangle

Normally I don’t like love triangles. But due to how all three characters care for each other and love each other so much, this love triangle is just so precious. For example, Jem and Will were arguing about who of the two of them should have Tessa. Both of them were encouraging the other one to be with her. Which is a testament of how much the two of them care for each other.  Will also bought Yin Fen for Jem the whole time, was by his side almost every time when Jem was having his health problems, and hid the way he felt about Tessa. 

Tessa also loves both of them. At the beginning, she chose to be with Jem because she already accepted the engagement. She knew if she were to decline and go for Will, that would ruin their parabatai bond. And that would hurt both Jem and Will. So she made the hard choice to say "no" to Will. 

Tessa and Jem also where willing to go to great length for each other. Jem threw away a sample of Yin Fen he got from Mortmain in protest of Tessa wanting to willingly give herself up to Mortmain in exchange for it to help prolong Jem's life.

After Jem turned into a Silent Brother, that cured his Yin Fen problem. Btw, they fit Jem’s personality pretty well being rule followers and proper and such. But they are not allowed to get married. So Tessa started dating Will but only after Jem gave his blessing. 

Tessa did sleep with Will when he came to rescue her, but she thought that Jem was dead. So because of that, I don't really consider it "cheating". And they were also in extreme circumstances and thought they might die soon as well.

The Ending

Tessa ends up with both Jem and Will. Will in 1878 and then Jem in 2008. The book ends with the two of them getting together again. 

Theme: Loss and Grief

Tessa is immortal (Well... she doesn't age. She can still be killed). Will is Mortal. So Will died and Tessa had to go on living and dealing with the pain of losing the love of her life. And then presumably will have to go through the same thing again with Jem. Unless Jem becomes a vampire or they somehow die together in some sort of an accident or a battle. Usually this elephant in the room of immortal with mortal relationship isn’t addressed. But Cassandra tackled it head on describing it in poignant detail in the epilogue. How Tessa has to deal with loss and grief over and over again and then go on.

Jessamine

Dies in the automaton attack right in front of the institute. I feel for her despite her being a traitor due to how broken down she was in the Silent City (and how naive she was). I don't think she deserved to die. I don’t like her being “resurrected” as a ghost, though. I would have rather her stay dead. That would have made her death more impactful. 

Charlotte

She is back to being a great leader similarly to how she was in Clockwork Angel. Tough when she needs to be. Kind and comforting when she needs to be. This dynamic is especially evident with Gabriel. She has a tough conversation with him while accepting him into the institute. But then shows kindness and empathy towards him over the loss of his father.

She actually starts doing her job as a leader. She leads the attack on Mortmain. She directs the shadowhunter gang more in terms of what needs to get done.

Henry

I love him by this point as well. He joins the fight against Mortmain together with Charlotte instead of staying behind in his lab. And he is not an incompetent scientist anymore. He creates the portal together with Magnus, which allows for them to teleport from place to place and travel at “lightning speed”. It is considered an incredible invention and revolutionizes their way of life. Just goes to show how if you continue on trying, one day you might succeed and do something great, even if most of that time you were screwing everything up. I found Henry to be an inspirational character for that.

Sophie

Sophie now feels like a well developed character not just an extra. She is given her own plot line, with her love story with Gideon. And she spends more time having girl talk with Tessa. The book goes into her thoughts, dreams, feelings and opinions a lot more.

Gideon: 

He is in love with Sophie. Sophie also has feelings for him but at the same time she feels like they are inappropriate due to her being a servant. And him her employer together with Charlotte. 

Sophie and Gideon coming from different worlds as far as wealth goes is perfectly exemplified by the scone scene. Gideon ordered Sophie to bring scones just to see her more. Without realizing that it’s additional work for Sophie. So Gideon made her do pointless work.

He was a bit of a spoiled rich kid with that one. And sadly, this does happen quite often IRL. Rich people often do not see the perspective of their employees.

Gideon does learn his lesson though and they end up being together in the end. His proposal for them to get married when he blurted it out in front of Charlotte was so awkward and funny but also adorable.

Gabriel

Gabriel almost has his turn to the dark side in this one. He almost writes a condemning report on Charlotte to Wayland after he makes Gabriel believe that his father’s death was Charlotte’s fault. Which in a way it was but it had to be done. 

I mean by this is at the end of Clockwork Prince, Charlotte and the gang blackmailed Gabriel’s dad, Bennedict Lightwood, to get him to drop the charges against Charlotte. This saved Charlotte and Henry from losing the institute. Consequently, Bennedict had a fallout with Mortmain. Mortmain stopped giving the cure for his disease, which caused the disease to progress. And this eventually turned him into a warm. So in a way, it is Charlottes fault since if she didn't blackmail him about it, he likely wouldn't have turned into a warm.

At the same time, it had to be done. Not through blackmail but through notifying the clave (which would have been even worse for Gabriel and Gideon). What Bennedict was doing (helping Mortmain) was way too dangerous and bad for the rest of the Shadowhunters. So that had to be stopped somehow.

Gabriel’s almost turn to the dark side makes him feel more real. People falter and have set backs. They don’t start acting all perfect even when they are becoming better people.

Gabriel's relationship with Cecily

Their relationship is so wholesome and fun. They would joke around with each other a lot and have that fun banter. 

Cecily

She is torn between loyalty to her family and doing what she loves. She wants to bring Will home as well as return home herself (which is what her family would have wanted.) But she fell in love with being a Shaowhunter and wants to fight demons, monsters, etc.. with the rest of them. And this conflict is something that most of us experienced as teens. We didn't want to become shadowhunters, of course. But the underlying idea is the same.

Magnus Bane

He is his wise extravagant self. He continues having the wise quotes. Most people consider him more quotable in this book but I liked the “death is oblivion” quote more from the previous one more. 

Counsel Wayland

He is angry at Charlotte for not reporting the Bennedict situation which is fair. She should report that type of a thing to her boss. I don't think he is a villain. What he does is more in line with good old shadowhunter politics.

Mr. Starkweather

Our favorite racist grandpa. He gets his poetic justice with Tessa. Turns out she is her granddaughter. And he decides that family is more important than his hatred for the downworlders so not a racist grandpa anymore.

Mortmain

He is an intelligent villain. His plan with Automatons is genius. Since they are not made of heaven or hell, shadowhunter magic essentially doesn’t work on them. And by adding demons into them from the pyxis, he now has “intelligent” automatons on which magic continues not working. So they become extremely difficult to defeat. 

He also doesn’t care about anything but his goals. He killed Mrs. Black the second that he had Tessa and didn’t find her useful anymore. He doesn’t even care about those who are on his side. To him, everyone who isn't useful is disposable.  

Plot: 

Starts with Bennedict Lightwood turning into a worm due to his demon pox disease. I don’t know if this was a reference to Dune but… I like to believe that it was. It just makes the book more fun that way.

Then, for a while the plot slowed down and shifted towards the side plots with Jem’s Yin Fen and romance. Despite the slightly slower plot, the book was still extremely engaging and almost impossible to put down. The romance and Yin Fen plot lines were interesting in their own ways.

There was also Wayland sending letters to the council. The council apparently likes Charlotte, which makes no sense, since they hated her in the previous book. Those letters are quite sexist. I Do like the more “victorian english” writing style in them, though.

Around the middle of the book, the pace picks up again with Tessa getting kidnapped during the attack on the institute. It shattered that false sense of security.  It was one of those “things just got real" moments.I expected expected something like that to happen. But the way it happened was jarring enough to push me out of that sense of security. 

The Final Battle:

I loved it. Tessa defeated Mortmain through turning into the angel. It was a badass moment for her. And incredibly satisfying.

Angel, Ethereal, delivered the “though had done what is forbidden by the divine" speech through Tessa and then squashed Mortmain like a bug. I love how Tessa defeated him through the use of her powers and through doing something creative (turning into an angel from her necklace). It was an ending that both made sense and relied on Tessa's resourcefulness, skills, and intelligence.

What I didn't like

The reveal that the clockwork angel had an angel spirit imprisoned in it, the job of which was to protect Tessa’s life, didn't make a lot of sense. It made the ending of Clockwork Angel out of place. 

Mortmain new about the necklace since he was the one who gifted it to Tessa’s mom. So he would know it would protect Tessa from killing herself. Then why was he worried that she died again? Or scared of her killing herself? The angel would have stopped her. And she was wearing it while pretending to kill herself in that scene. So the angel not coming out and at least attempting to stop her should have been enough of a hint that she was pretending for Mortmain to call out her bluff.

The timeline also doesn't make a lot of sense. Based on the speed of the events, it should be around summer or maybe fall at the end of Clockwork Princess. But it's December.

[rebellconquerer]

Another random rogue one ficlet in my head. One day I'll write connecting scenes. Blah!

 By the time they come to a stop on Yavin IV ( she is hard pressed to call what happened a ‘landing’) Cassian is all but unconscious. He stops responding to her directly sometime around their third hour in space, and he spends the rest of the trip breathing shallowly while whispering in a language she thinks might be Alderaani, or staring rather blankly around the ship. 

For her part, she doesn't move the entire trip. Cassian seems comfortable enough laying mostly in her lap and she makes the decision that nothing short of her death will make her leave him, not when he didn’t leave her. She wraps her fingers around his wrist, allowing his constant, though thready, pulse to calm her. That is exactly how the medics find them when they are finally, mercifully on the ground. Him laying on her. Her wrapped around him. 

The process of disentangling herself, and getting him onto the stretcher isn’t hard per se, but when she pulls away and they move him, he lets out a short, sharp sound, too quiet to really be called a scream, that breaks her nonetheless. She bats away the helping hands that come to her next, telling them that she is fine. 

It’s true in any case. She has strained a muscle in her right hip that makes it easier to limp than to walk. Apart from that, however, she is tired and sore and feels like one big bruise, but there is nothing deadly about her injuries. Not like Bodhi. Not like Cassian. 

She watches as her crew (her team?) gets carried off the ship and trails close behind them. She’s not sure what to expect when she leaves the ship. The battle overhead on the beach told her that the Alliance did come for them, that they decided to fight, but she isn’t sure how they will react to having their hands forced. 

That Draven is the one to meet her isn’t a surprise. She thinks there will be shouting and recriminations and maybe even a new prison in her future. She tilts her chin up, squaring her shoulders and lets her hardest glare paint her features. She won’t take a lashing for this man’s follies. She won’t go quietly to whatever corner they have prepared for her. She won’t leave Bodhi and Cassian to wake alone.

What she doesn’t expect however, is the quiet devastation that clouds Draven’s face when he sees Cassian being carried on the stretcher. She doesn’t expect him to touch Cassian’s cheek gently. She doesn’t expect his voice to break with what may very well be his last words to his spy.

When the medics brush them off and carry on towards the medward, Draven turns to her, and there it is. The cold fury behind his eyes that she had been expecting. 

“That was a hell of a risk you took. A suicide mission is the term being used.” He says flatly. 

“We did what needed to be done.” She grits out at him. She wants to know, wants to be told what happened after but refuses to ask this man for anything. Even for information. 

They hold each other's eyes a moment too long to be collegiate. “The plans made it off planet. Vader himself took down a command class vessel under  general reedus to get those plans back.*  An entire battalion was lost.” He pauses, seemingly wants to say something else, before he thinks better of it.

“The plans are now with a trusted ally who is being hunted by the Empire. We are attempting to get them somewhere safe. Until we know more, you are dismissed.” He ends curtly, turning sharply on his heel and marching back towards command. 

Jyn stands stock still and allows the quiet of the hallway to leach into her. She glances around. The bright white of the overhead lights wash the colour out of the vaguely orange walls, which seem to run into perpetuity on either side of her. It is hard to miss how empty the place is and how wrong that emptiness feels. All at once it hits her. She has nothing to do. Nowhere to be. For the first time in… she thinks back for a minute, really the first time in longer than she can remember, her life is not governed by a prison schedule or a mission, or the need to find food and shelter. 

She doesn’t know what to do, so she does the only thing she can. She follows her crew into the med bay. 

They see her as a patient as much as a visitor when she enters. She doesn’t object as they fuss around her, stripping her of her filthy clothes. They push her into the sonic, slather her in bacta, from head to toe, and give her very basic, vaguely humanoid new clothes to wear. 

After that, she waits. She waits for them to tell her that Bodhi will need a few Bacta immersions for his burns and a new left hand, but will live. She waits for them to tell her Cassian ruptured his spleen, lacerated his kidney and fractured 3 of his vertebrae so completely, they don’t believe he walked after the fall, much less climbed, and aren’t sure he’ll ever walk again. She waits for them to tell her Cassian died. 

For 12 minutes, alone on a table. 

She waits for them to tell her he’s alive, and will need bacta immersions and implants and…

Well she doesn’t hear too much after that, because Cassian died, but he came back. Again. 

She wanders out of the medward much later, cold and numb and stands just outside of the doors for a full 5 minutes trying to decide where to go. What to do next? She was assigned a bunk in the common dorm on her initial trip here, but the thought of open space and other people make her hackles rise. She should be hungry but the thought of food unsettles her stomach. She starts walking eventually, as much for something to do, as to try and get away from the jagged pieces of her psyche that her mind keeps timidly circling. 

When she looks up again, she realises she recognises where she is. A quieter section of the base that has the officers quarters, or that’s what she had assumed anyway, because it was where Cassian’s quarters were. She had followed him there to grab supplies before they stole the ship. 

She glances around the hallway, somehow expecting someone, maybe even Draven, to appear and yell that she is in defiance of some Alliance ordinance and shouldn’t be there. No one materializes, so she walks slowly towards the door and tilts her head. She shouldn’t invade his space. She knows this on some level, thinks that if it was her, she’d go batshit on anyone who made themselves at home in her quarters. But suddenly she can feel every hit and scrape that she has taken over the past 2 weeks, hell over the past 2 years. And she is so very tired. 

It takes her longer than she would have expected to slice through his locks, but eventually it gives and the door slides open with a sigh. 

She walks quietly around the small space,  not questioning how or why she feels safe for the first time in days. There isn't much here. A datapad tossed casually on a small desk, a well worn jacket hung over the edge of the bed, seemingly forgotten in a hurry, three small plants along the sill of a dusty window that seem to be well taken care of. 

She runs her fingertips along the cool leaves, wondering if Cassian did this. If he is capable of nurturing life as well as taking it. She wonders what that is like.

Soon enough she crawls into his bed, expecting sleep to claim her quickly. She's never had trouble falling asleep. On the floor in some dirt bunker, outside under the trash of derelict buildings and broken dreams. Even in Wobani. Habits built from a lifetime of catching kip wherever she can. It doesn't happen like that tonight though. She spends an eternity staring at the bland ceiling above, trying to will her mind clear. Then the tears come.

She hasn't cried since she was a child sitting on the floor by Saw's feet, mourning deaths she didn't fully understand. She can still hear his voice.

“This is it” He had said, as kindly as he could manage. “The last time you will lose precious water over something you cannot change. The future is ahead of us. the past is dead.”

She wipes angrily at her eyes. This is stupid. The plans are out and she's survived. It's what she always does. She barely knows the lives that were lost. She never truly knew the guardians. Doesn't even really know Bodhi or Cassian. And she stopped caring about both the men that called themselves her father when they abandoned her. 

She's alive and that's all that matters. That's all that ever mattered.

But the tears don't stop. Her face flushes and her nose runs. A fine tremor starts in her hands. She begins to wring the sheet on the bed, over and over, becoming tighter each time, trying to calm her shaking.

Nothing works. Soon her whole body is shaking with mighty sobs. She sees Saw in his cave, old and frail and broken like she never realised when she was with him. She sees her father staring at her with joy and peace as the light goes out of his eyes. She buries her face into the pillow, allowing the soft, cool fabric to sooth her and hide the broken, hideous sounds she is making. 

She gives up and let's herself cry. Let's herself mourn for all that she has lost, let's out the fear and anger that she can no longer carry. She is safe for tonight. The future can wait.

[a-home-for-stray-stories]

WWE Preference: Introductions

Roman Reigns

Seth Rollins

Finn Balor

Baron Corbin

AJ Styles

Jey Uso

Warnings: tiniest bit of language

These are kind of long...

Roman Reigns

You hopped in place while you were waiting in the gorilla. Shit was going down in the ring, and no one had a clue you were there. Only the Authority knew, because they were who brought you to WWE. The last four years you were having the time of your life in Ring of Honor, but it was time for this. Stephanie had spearheaded the attempt to recruit you, and she quickly became someone you looked up to.  She was everything you wanted to be: strong, intelligent, and elegant. Well, from the short time of knowing her, that was your perception of her. You didn’t follow WWE. All you were told was the Shield and the Authority were bitter enemies and you were more than willing to take up the Authority’s cause - especially after the way Stephanie painted the story. If your focus were tangible it would have burned straight through the curtains. You could hear the commotion of the six men in the ring. Randy, Kane, and Batista were in a straight up brawl with Roman, Seth, and Dean. It was your turn to stir the pot. No music, you slipped through the curtain and strolled down the ramp. The men in the ring didn’t notice you at all, but Hunter and Stephanie welcomed you to the side of the ring with open arms. There was a good portion of the crowd who recognized you. Seth and Dean took a couple of suicide dives off the right side of the ring, and as they were getting up, they saw you and paused. You gave them a wink before your eyes went back to the ring. Randy was to your left in the corner closest to you, and Roman was sizing him up for a spear. You already knew what you wanted to do, and Stephanie placed a hand on your back, silently affirming your decision. Roman’s ‘oo-ah’ was your signal. At the same time you slid into the ring, Seth was up on the apron warning Roman. All you did was block his path to Randy, and the entire fight came to a screeching halt. Roman was able to stop himself, but only inches from you. He was just tall enough that you had to look up at him. You put your hands on your hips, smirked, and stared him down. This was a trick you’d used a thousand times before and every time it rattled the man across from you, but not this time. Roman dipped his glare to your eye level and moved closer. It took you off guard. They assured you Roman would immediately back away, but tonight he was too pumped up. The strangest sensation came over you when you found yourself fighting the urge to back away. He was fired up from the fight, and his pent up aggression was causing his body to shake.

“Get out of my way.” He growled. He was not what you expected. None of this was. In your mind they were pissy little brats, and that was not who was standing in front of you. A legitimate anger was radiating from him, and it made you question what exactly the Authority did to get him to this point. It made you question everything Steph had said to you the last few months.

“Get out of my way.” He reiterated.

Your bravado had slipped away and only a, “No” came out. It almost sounded like a question, and Roman gave you a confused look. You started to pull yourself together. “No” you said firmer. You gave him a hard shove, hardly moving him.

“Ha, nice try.” Dean called from the ropes. His voice pulled you back into the reality that this was bigger than you and Roman. If Steph had been lying to you, you needed to figure out the truth, but you couldn’t do that in this moment. You needed to pull this debut off like nothing was wrong, then reassess later. 

“Try?” You ask Dean before stepping closer to Roman and tilting your chin up, “I did exactly what I came here to do.”

The crack of the kendo stick across Seth’s back was soon followed by the one hitting Dean. Kane and Batista had Seth and Dean in a corner. Roman looked from them back to you.

“Ball’s in your yard now, Big Dog.” You teased him. A ripple went through his jaw as he finally moved out of the ring and helped Seth and Dean over the barrier. Once he felt they were at a safe distance, Roman turned to look back and you were still watching them. The rest of The Authority was laughing and celebrating in the retreat as they slid into the ring around you, but not you. Your eyes held his a few more seconds until Randy laid an arm around your shoulders and whispered into your ear. Seth and Dean pulled Roman away as you faked a smile and let Randy do the same.

Seth Rollins

William Regal had done this for you because he knew there would be no stopping you anyways. Sure you’d be a great singles competitor to have in NXT now that your tag partner was out for an indefinite amount of time due to injury, but you were a loose, red-hot cannon with a single target: Lacey Evans. She had just slipped out of your grasp, finding out she’d been called up to Raw at the very TakeOver she took your partner from you. Regal was with you when you got the news...both about your partner and about Lacey.

“There’s no choice is there?” He said quietly as you stared at a wall.

The next Monday night Seth was delivering a promo when Lacey interrupted him. She was her arrogant self as she mocked him and the crowd and announced her arrival to the red brand. As she was explaining her mission to classy up Monday Night Raw, much to the annoyance of everyone else involved, your music hit. It was truly unexpected and the crowd went crazy. Seth was the most confused. He hadn’t met either of you in his life, and wasn’t quite sure how he found himself in the middle of this.

Lacey let out a laugh, “Aren’t there suppose to be two of you?”

You saw red and the next thing you knew you were on top of her. Before you knew it a big arm wrapped around your waist and pulled you off of her. You watched her roll into the corner as Seth moved in between you. Without thinking, you shoved him as hard as you could.

“Whoa!” He stumbled back a little and put his hands up.

Of course, you knew who he was, but seeing him in person was a whole different story. You had always thought he was hot, but damn he was really hot. You saw the smirk cut across his face like he was impressed and to your surprise, he moved out of the way. You went right back to work, only to be interrupted once again by Baron Corbin. His music was nearly drowned out by the boos of the audience.

“Alright, that’s enough!” He yelled from the top of the ramp. “As Acting General Manager, I keep order here on Monday Night Raw.” His words riled up the crowd some more. Lacey had rolled out of the ring leaving you and Seth alone in the ring.

“Oh, is that what you’ve been doing?” Seth quipped, pulling some laughs. Even you couldn’t keep the smile from sneaking across your face.

“Yes...Seth. Not that you would know anything about being a leader.” Baron continued down the ramp. “Y/n, I know it’s your first night here, but this attacking innocent people for no reason isn’t going to fly here.”

“Innocent...” You scoffed at the term.

“Acting General Manager Corbin...” Lacey had grabbed a mic outside the ring, “Allow me to introduce this nasty to everyone...this is Y/n and she’s just angry because she went and let her tag team partner get injured to the point she may not be able to come back...” Lacey was getting back into the ring as she talked. The entire audience booed, having seen it was her who caused the injury.

In a split second you saw an opportunity and you took it. As she was climbing onto the apron she got a stiff kick to the face, sending straight back to the floor. The crack it made was amplified by the mic in her hand.

“Y/n! What did I just say?” Baron jumped onto the apron, “You touch her again, I’ll send your ass back to NXT!”

Your heart dropped at his words and Lacey’s face lit up. Seth saw the pain in your face when you flipped around to see if Baron was being serious. You hadn’t been on Raw long enough to know how things worked.

“Back off...” Seth moved in front of him, “You don’t have that power.”

“You want to find out?” Baron challenged and Seth just stared back at him.

“I, for one, would love to...” Lacey said, glaring at you as she walked around the ring.

“I dare you...” Baron hopped off the apron and pointed at you as you walked to Seth’s side. “Touch her again and we’ll find out.” He and Lacey walked back up the ramp to Baron’s music.

“If he can really send me back to NXT...” You turned to Seth, “I can’t risk it.”

He nodded and took a deep breath, “Well, let’s go figure out if he can.” 

He took a few steps before he realized you weren’t following him, so he turned around to see you giving him a confused look.

“You don’t have to help me...” You told him, not wanting him to feel like he had to.

“You got a better plan?” A smug smile hit his face when you shook your head no. “C’mon...” He motioned to the ropes, “I got resources.”

Finn Balor

You walked into your house after a late night dinner with yet another failed date. This one, though, this one had been particularly bad. No basic etiquette,  no manners, and no filter between his brain and mouth. Two hours of trying not to throw up while watching him eat and listening to sexist garbage spew out of his mouth was pure torture. He didn’t even walk you to your door, which honestly you were grateful for. Before you put your keys down, your phone began to ring. It was a facetime call from you brother, Seth. He normally called you after his matches, so when you accepted the call, you didn’t bother to look at the screen. You left your phone on the counter while you took your shoes off and went straight into ranting about your date.

“Well, my life has been a living hell for the last two and a half hours...” You started, going to your refrigerator for some leftover pizza. “...get this, this is how it ended...he rolled down his window, as I am walking to my door, he YELLS out, for all my neighbors to hear, you sure you don’t want to go back to my place and, ya know, bump uglies or something.” You did your best impersonation of the guy. You let out a groan, “Who even says that?” Laughs burst from your phone, but one of them was definitely not your brother.

“You had to deal with that guy for two and a half hours? It must have been hell.” The thick Irish accent made your heart drop. You were so embarrassed, you didn’t want to look at your phone.

“Ya, not alone, Y/n” Seth called out. They laugh some more while you summoned the courage to look at the phone. You knew who Finn was, but you had never met him.  When you finally looked at the phone, Finn and Seth were still laughing. He was sitting in the passenger seat as Seth drove.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” Finn told you through the laughter.

“Go ahead, laugh. Glad my misery is amusing you two.” You tried to hold onto your frustration, but a full smile lit up your face. The next few minutes you recounted the date.

“I’m sorry, sis. You want me to come beat him up?” Seth asked. You hummed in agreement as nodded your head and ate some pizza.

“I got something that’ll make you feel better.” Finn offered, “You wanna hear what your brother did tonight?” As soon as the words left Finn’s mouth, Seth was groaning, begging Finn to not tell you.

“Yes! What happened?” You asked. Finn looked over to Seth,

“You gotta let me tell her. I can’t let her night end with that shitty date.” His comment made you blush.

“Fine...” Seth groaned. You were just as excited to hear the story as Finn was to tell it.

“He got tripped up on the top rope and face planted on the mat...twice.” You both burst out laughing.

“It’s not that funny...” Seth mumbled.

There was a knock at your door and you all went silent. You flipped around and stared at the door wondering if he would have come back.

“Did he come back?” Seth was not playing around.

“Uh...” You went to peek through the window and relief washed over you, “It’s Katie, I forgot I texted her on my way home and asked her to come over.” You could see the relief in Finn’s face.

“Thank god...that scared the shit out of me.” Seth let out a small laugh.

“Well, thank you, Finn...that did make my night better.” You didn’t want to, but you needed to get off the phone.

“Anytime” His smiled.

“Bye, Seth...Love you.” You called to your brother.

“Love you too!” He answered back.

You wondered if Finn would hang up first, but you ended up looking at each other for a second before you hit the end call.

Baron Corbin

Your mom and Xavier’s dad met later on in their lives. Meaning you and him became step-siblings as young adults. Thankfully, the two of you got along rather well. Really well, actually. You both loved joking around and having fun. He introduced you to WWE. It was something you’d never seen before, but you fell in love with it pretty quickly. Xavier loved having you on Up Up Down Down, because you always gave it your best, but like WWE, it was all so new to you. One of his most viewed videos was when you found out Seth turned on The Shield. It only made it better that you were teaming with him at the very moment you found out. Tonight was a little more low key. Xavier invited you to a show and of course you went. You got there well before the show started and he had a small room set up with a few chairs and his games. Big E and Kofi were already in there when you and Xavier got there.

“Sister!” Big E shouted as he wrapped his arms around you and lifted you up in a hug. You laughed and hugged him back, no where near able to match his force.

“Don’t kill her, E!” Xavier laughed just before he put you down.

“Hi Kofi.” You smiled at Kofi as he gave you a much softer, but just as sincere hug.

“Alright, so as far as I know, it’ll be just us and Baron might come in a little later.” Xavier started messing with cameras and sorting through games.

“Oh good, plenty of time to whip your ass...” You flashed him a smile as you hopped on a table against the wall.

“Have you won a game ever?” He threw back before laughing again.

There was more trash talk as the games began. You each took turns switching out. When Baron walked in, you had just gotten up and Xavier and Kofi were playing. He didn’t make any attempt to hide the fact that you caught his eye,

“Well, Hi.” It was very obvious that was directed only to you. Of course, you caught that arrogant vibe, but for some reason coming from him it turned you on. If you hadn’t been staring at each other, your hi would have been drowned out by the other three greeting him at the top of their voices. You went back to the table you had been sitting on.

“Baron, this is my step-sister, Y/n.” Xavier told him, not looking away from the game.

“Well damn Woods...” Baron looked over at you again, “No wonder you’re so ugly.”

It shouldn’t be hitting you like this. You couldn’t control the smirk on your face and you just knew your cheeks had a pink hue.

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way.” Xavier raised his eyebrows and caught a glimpse of Baron looking at you, “I don’t like this...”

“I do...” Baron patted him on the back before joining you at the table. He leaned against the wall. You were definitely curious to see how the conversation was going to go, but to your surprise he completely sucked you in. So much so, you lost track of time.

“Oh, Y/n, if you want to be out there for the show, you better leave.” Xavier warned you, “I’ll take you.” They knew how to navigate the back halls of venues, but you definitely needed a guide.

“I’ll take her.” Baron offered you his hands to help you get off the table. It was totally unnecessary, but you slid your hands in his.

“I really don’t like this...” Xavier said, only partly joking.

You came up behind him and gave him a hug, “He’ll take me. I’ll see you after the show.”

“Do you want a hug from me too, Woods?” Baron asked, “I’ll miss you so much.”

“Shut up, Corbin. I’m watching the clock...” He looked at Baron and pointed a finger at him, “If you’re not back in ten minutes, I’m hunting you down.”

“Plenty of time...” Baron smirked back at him.

You rolled your eyes, “Oh my god...” You took one of Baron’s arms and began to pull him out of the room, “I’ll see you later.”

“Ten minutes!” Xavier called, but the two of you were already out the door.

A little more than ten minutes later Baron came strolling back in and sat down with Xavier, who gave him quite the glare.

AJ Styles

AJ’s name always came up when you were asked about your favorite wrestlers. You idolized him and secretly had the biggest crush on him, despite being nearly 15 years younger than him. The thought of meeting him made you nervous, but after you signed to WWE you knew running into him was inevitable. It took a few years, but after a stint in NXT you found yourself on Raw with a quickly growing fan base. It was because of your connection with the fans that you were put in the Mixed Match Challenge. Your partner ended up being Elias. The two of you weren’t exactly best friends, you couldn’t think of anyone else you argued more with. You always had to keep your eye out to make sure he wasn’t cheating, but to everyone’s surprise your team kept winning. All you had to do now was beat one more team, then you would be in the finals. The only thing was, the team you had to beat was Charlotte Flair and AJ Styles. You stood in the ring with Elias as Charlotte made her entrance and your stomach turned when AJ made his. You turned around and pulled on the top rope, warming up your muscles, trying to get your mind into the right gear. These were your toughest opponents yet, and eye-fucking AJ wasn’t going to help anyone. 

“You got your shit together?” Elias’ voice never failed to drag you into a pissy mood.

“I should be asking you that...” You shot back, “If you cheat, I lose.”

He leaned close to your face, “Then don’t give me a reason to...”

God, you could backhand him across the face, but you settled for an eye roll. When you turned around, you found your competition in the ring. Charlotte had her robe off and your heart nearly stopped as AJ was in the middle of pulling his shirt off. They were ready to square up in the middle of the ring and Elias went to met them. Instead of going to his side, you ducked between the ropes and made yourself comfortable at your corner - something he had done to you.  The fans, along with AJ and Charlotte were highly amused, but Elias was pissed.

“What happened to the team thing?” He yelled at you.

“I have total faith in you.” You told him, eyes one hundred percent contradicting you, “You got this.”

He barely did anything before he tagged you in. AJ tried to engage him, but Elias kept dodging. They circled the ring, and when Elias got close enough he gave you a rather hard “tag” on the shoulder. The boos from the audience were to be expected, but then AJ shoved Elias from behind.

“Don’t hit her like that.” He scolded, “What are you, twelve?”

“He's actually five.” You answered as you got into the ring.

“Shut up.” Elias said before shoving AJ back.

“Oh, so now you want to fight...” You got in front of Elias and pushed him back, “Well, too bad, it’s my turn.”

Charlotte just laughed, “How have you two made it this far?”

“How ‘bout I show you?” After you said that, things finally got moving. You did your best against her, but her experience was almost too much and eventually you had to choke your pride and tag out. You tumbled onto the floor and took a moment to catch your breath. Your moment was cut short when you heard the ref began a three count and you scrambled back on the apron to see Charlotte break Elias’ cover. She never saw your kick coming, and like all of the MMC matches, the whole thing devolved into chaos. The guys had managed to take their fight outside the ring and Charlotte tried to throw you out there with them. She didn’t see you catch yourself, but she did turn around in time to see you pulling yourself up to the top rope. With a quick swipe at your feet, she sent you to the floor, but AJ was there to break the fall. He hit the ground on his back and your knees went to either side of his waist. Your hands slid up his chest, but thankfully you were able to stop yourself just short of headbutting him.

“I’m so sorry.” You mumbled out, but it only made him laugh.

“You’re apologizing to the guy you’re trying to beat?” He asked, which really threw you off.

“I just- She- I didn’t mean to and I feel bad...” You knew you were rambling because you were nervous, but you couldn’t stop yourself. “I need to get off you, I’m sorr-shit.”  You shook your head catching your apology.

His chest vibrated under your hands as he laughed again, a little harder this time. “It’s alright.”

Before you could move, a thick arm wrapped around your waist and hoisted you off of AJ. Elias nearly drove all the air out of you as he picked you up and carried you over to the barricade.

“What the fuck was that?” He grumbled, setting you against the timekeepers wall. You ignored his question more focused on breathing. What you couldn’t ignore was the fact that he was reaching behind you.

“What are you doing?” You asked, but he ignored you as the guitar floated over your head. AJ had just turned his back when Elias started towards him with the weapon. Charlotte saw it, but was too far to do anything except yell at AJ, which caught his attention and the ref’s. You only had a few seconds. On his back swing, you hopped up and grabbed the neck of the guitar. The way it twisted him backwards forced him to let it go.

“What have I said about cheating!” You yelled at him, taking the instrument back to its rightful spot.

“Why would you do that?” He was right behind you.

“We would have been disqualified, moron!” You turned around and shoved him.

“Tag! Y/n, in the ring!” The ref called to you. You didn’t even look in the ring.

“Only if the ref saw!” Elias was still arguing with you.

You crawled onto the apron, “He did see you! Everyone saw you!”

He yelled something else at you, but you had just gotten through the ropes and the moment Charlotte had an opening, she hit you with a stiff spear. That was it. Three count and you were out of the MMC. Once Charlotte was off of you, you rolled out of the ring. Angry? Disappointed? You weren’t really sure what emotion to call it as you sat with your back against the announce table.

Elias stood a few feet away, “Great job...”

“Shut up” You spit back.

He walked away, you figured to leave, but you looked up to see him taking his guitar to the ring. You caught him before he got there, snatching it once again.

“Would you stop?” He yelled as you got off the apron.

You pointed the guitar at him, “You’re an asshole.” With that you smashed it against the ring post. The entire audience erupted in cheers. Charlotte went over to gawk at the pieces of wood, but AJ couldn’t keep his eyes off you as you walked up the ramp.

Jey

Dash and Scott were two of your closest friends. While the three of you were in NXT, you had been an important part of The Revival, but had decided to stay in NXT when they moved on. Now a few years later, they asked you to join them on Smackdown and you couldn’t resist. You made your surprise debut helping Dash beat Kofi. Scott had the ref distracted and you slid into the ring and hit Kofi with a low-blow from behind. The next week you were a guest on commentary along with the Usos as The Revival and The New Day fought to see who would challenge for the Titles that the Usos held. The Usos made their entrance first, so when you came out with The Revival they were already chilling at commentary.

“Aw man...” Corey started as you walked out behind Dash and Scott, “There she is. I’m not a New Day fan, but I was hoping last week was a dream...well, nightmare.”

“Y/n made her Smackdown debut last week as Corey has just alluded to...” Michael clarified as they replayed the clip, “This means The Revival is now at full force.”

“Have you two had the...honor...of facing The Revival with Y/n in tow?” Corey asked The Usos.

“Ah, no we have not.” Jimmy answered. They kept their eyes on you as you came down the ramp.

“Consider yourselves lucky.” Corey added.

“She don’t look that bad.” Jey commented.

“She’s as bad as they come.” Corey assured him, “There’s no way around it. Y/n is just plain mean.”

You and Corey knew each other from NXT, so when you came around the ring you shot him a glare that could kill a man.

“Oh, there it is...” Jey mumbled. He was talking about the glare, but he caught way more than that. The way your heels wrapped around your ankles, the tan of your bare legs, the way your shorts hugged the curve of your hips perfectly, how your shirt was tailored to show you off, even if it had The Revival printed across it. You got on the apron and posed with Scott and Dash. Jey thought he would melt in his chair. Scott helped you off the apron and you took their jackets to your chair.

“You’re uncharacteristically quiet, Corey.” Michael pointed out.

“I’m terrified...We should all be terrified.” He answered.

“Don’t worry, Corey.” Jimmy patted his shoulder, “We got your back.”

You finally sat in the chair and put the headset on. You had yet to acknowledge anyone’s presence.

“Y/n, we’re glad to have you. Welcome to Smackdown.” Michael was the first to break the ice.

“Thank you, Michael. I’m glad to see one of you knows how to do your job.” You threw back.

“Oh come on...” Corey groaned.

“Don’t come at him like that.” Jimmy defended.

You leaned onto the table and looked at Jimmy, “You want me to come at you like that, champ?”

Jimmy furrowed his brow, but Jey smirked a little bit.

“I kinda want you to...” Jey said.

“Bring it on...” Jimmy challenged. Missing the fact that Jey was not on the same page he was. Before you could go for it, The New Day began their entrance. Once E’s introduction was over, you went to go at it, but Michael cut you off.

“What brought you to Smackdown, Y/n?”

You gave him an irritated look, “Because Dash and Scott asked me to, that’s why.”

“I’m just curious, why now?” He clarified.

You sat back in the chair as The New Day descended upon the ring, “Separate, we’re the best. Together, we’re the most dominant team this place has ever seen.”

“Oh really? Then why’re we the champs?” Jey slid his chair up to get a better look at you when you answered his question. He sure wasn’t disappointed when that smirk cut across your face.

“You haven’t met me.” For the first time, you actually locked eyes with him. He thought he saw a flicker of a slight crack in your rock solid confidence. He didn’t question the fact that your eyes stayed on him longer than you anticipated. A pancake to Corey’s face broke your gaze. E handed The Usos handfuls of pancakes as Kofi and Woods danced around.

“Let a pancake touch me...I dare you.” You warned E.

“You’re not nice!” Woods pointed at you. You feigned hurt feelings as Scott and Dash moved between them and you.

"Back off.” Scott warned.

“They’re idoits.” Dash told you, making you laugh.

“Eh, you an idiot.” Jimmy yelled at him.

“I’m sorry, of everyone present, who’s eating a pancake out of a grown man’s leotard?” You asked.

Jimmy just glared at you. The match got started and the bickering kept up. Jey noticed you rarely took your eyes off the action. It impressed him that you were able to fire back such snide comments when you clearly were fully invested in the match and not the conversation. Michael was in the middle of a comment when Scott stumbled onto the apron. You were growing impatient and wanted this match to be over. You took your headset off and walked over to Scott.

“This has been going on a while...” You told him.

He rolled his eyes, taking deep breaths, “It’s The New Day, what’d you expect?”

“More than this.” You scolded. “What do you need?”

As you spoke to him, you didn’t realize Big E was getting ready to spear him off the apron, but more importantly E didn’t realize that you were on the floor. As E began his charge, Jey made the connection.

“Oh sh-” He ripped his headset off. He had just enough time grab your arm and pull you out of the way. All you knew, was that you were talking to Scott then the next thing you knew you were buried into Jey’s chest. You hadn’t felt this way in a long time. The way he smelled fogged your brain, the way his arms held you tight against him made your knees weak. You only had one word to describe that feeling - stupid. You pushed out of his arms and turned around to see what he had saved you from.

He leaned into your ear, “You’re welcome.”

[swanqueeneverafter]

The Once & Future Queen Pt.5

Storybrooke. Present. (Xena and Gabrielle sit down with the Reporter ahead of their journey to the Isle of the Blessed.) Reporter: "Xena. Gabrielle. Thanks for sitting down with me today." Xena: "No problem." Gabrielle: "We're pleased to be here." Reporter: "Good. Xena, first to you. Why have you volunteered to go on this journey to the Isle of the Blessed?" Xena: "Well, if you'd seen the carnage left in the village of Howden, you'd understand." Reporter: "Yes, your history of heroics is well documented by none other than your constant companion, Gabrielle, of course." Xena: (Smiles:) "What can I say? She writes me well." Reporter: "Indeed, but is it not also true that this mission will have dire consequences for one of your group? There have been many volunteers for this journey, including the knights of Camelot and Lancelot himself. Why did you feel compelled to add your name to that list?" Xena: "Well I've already said-" Reporter: (Cutting in:) "Was the necessity of a blood sacrifice a deciding factor for you? After all, you do have a history of falling on your sword in the name of the Greater Good." Xena: "Now wait a minute-" Gabrielle: "Xena and I are well aware of the risks involved in this mission. The veil between two worlds has been ripped open. No one is safe from the Dorocha's attacks." Reporter: "So when the time comes and the opportunity to mend the veil presents itself?" Xena: "If that time comes then-" Gabrielle: "Xena will not be the one to sacrifice herself. (Xena looks back at her:) She and I will do whatever it takes to aid the knights quest to mend the veil, but the days of Xena sacrificing herself to rid our world of evil spirits are over." Xena: "Gabri-" Gabrielle: "Over my dead body, Xena. You got that?" (Xena looks into Gabrielle's eyes and knows that her soulmate is deathly serious.) Xena: (To the Reporter:) "You heard the lady."

Camelot. Agravaine’s Chambers. (Guinevere hands Agravaine a ring.) Guinevere: “You have to take this. It bears the royal seal. In my absence, responsibility to the kingdom rests with you.” Agravaine: “What about you. Surely Lancelot is capable of succeeding without you risking your own life?” Guinevere: “Should the moment come where there is no choice but to sacrifice himself, I wish to be with him. If neither of us return, you’re to assume the throne.” Agravaine: “Your Majesty-” Guinevere: “You’re the only person I can trust, Agravaine. You know Camelot and its people.” Agravaine: “I beg of you, for the sake of the kingdom, there must be another way.” (Agravaine presses the ring back into Guinevere’s hand.) Guinevere: “My mind’s made up. I’m just grateful you’re here.” (Guinevere leaves Agravaine with the ring.)

Storybrooke. Zelena's Farmhouse. (With a small bag over his shoulder and a bundle of clothes under his arm, Robin Hood sneaks out of the farmhouse and down the steps.) Woods. (Walking through the forest, Robin turns quickly around at the sound of a twig snapping behind him.) Will: "Well, this is a bit of a turnaround isn't it?" Robin Hood: "What are you talking about?" Will: (Slaps his forehead with his palm:) "There I go again you see. Confusing you with the other Robin." Robin Hood: (Scoffs:) "You appear to be the only one who makes that mistake." (Turns and continues walking.) Will: (Jogging to catch up:) "What I meant, you see, was that back in the day, the other Robin caught me sneaking away while everyone was sleeping." Robin Hood: (Uninterested:) "Did he really?" Will: "Yeah, cause he'd just caught me lying to him. I used him for my own personal agenda. I endangered his life and the lives of his merry men." Robin Hood: "It was probably something to do with getting back to your sister, no doubt?" Will: "Yes, actually." Robin Hood: "Well then, your motives were pure." Will: (Stops and considers this. Then catches up with Robin again:) "It's not as simple as that though." Robin Hood: "Seems perfectly simple to me. You got something you wanted and Robin got screwed. It's the way of the world." Will: "You're really not like the other Robin, are you?" Robin Hood: (Turns to face him, walking backwards:) "Finally he gets it." (Turns back around.) Will: "Yeah, well my point is I can't let you do this, mate." Robin Hood: "Let me do what?" Will: "Let you sneak off on some suicide mission. (Robin stops walking:) That is what you're planning to do, right?" Robin Hood: (Sighs:) "You don't understand, Will. Good or bad, you are who you are. There's only one Will Scarlett, but for me I will always be living in my counterpart's shadow." Will: "So you're going to prove to everyone you can be a hero, is that it?" Robin Hood: "Well it sure beats staying around here and seeing that disappointed look on everyone's face when they realise I'm not him." Will: "All right, I get that. But the thing is, mate, lately I've been on this kind of redemption kick. See, I did the other Robin wrong and never got to make it up to him. Somehow that doesn't sit right with me, so I'm going to do right by you." Robin Hood: "Will, what-" Will: "I'm coming with you to this Blessed Isle and if the opportunity comes up, I'm going to make things even between us." Robin Hood: "You mean between you and the other Robin?" Will: "Exactly." Robin Hood: (Shaking his head:) "I suppose there's some logic to that somewhere." Will: (Patting Robin on the back:) "Good lad. You know it makes sense." Enchanted Forest. Past. Bazaar. (Emma catches up with the others in the marketplace.) Emma: (Laughing, hugs Tinker Bell:) "Tink, that was amazing!" Tinker Bell: (Beams:) "Thanks." Emma: (Looking around:) "Wow, you even brought the whole bazaar here. I'm very impressed." Tinker Bell: "After you described what you wanted, I figured why do things halfway eh?" Tiger Lily: "Well, bringing the bazaar here is one thing, now can you send it back?"

(Before Tinker Bell can reply, a young man rushes past them as he is pursued by three guards.) Guard 1: "After him!" Guard 2: "Riff raff!" Guard 3: "Street rat!" Guards: "Scoundrel!" Mulan: "Was that...?" Emma: "Aladdin. Come on, let's go." (They follow after the guards, hoping to get to Aladdin before any harm can come to him.) Elsewhere. (A shopkeeper is eating his lunch when there is a knock at his door.) Farzeen: “Can I help you?” Jafar: “We shall soon find out. (The shopkeeper stands and opens the door:) You are Farzeen Shahmed? You work in the marketplace selling scarves.” Farzeen: “Yes. Uh would you like one?” Jafar: “May I? (Farzeen steps aside to allow him entry. Jafar surveys his surroundings:) Oh. You earn very little income, and yet your home is well- appointed.” Farzeen: “Thank you.” Jafar: “It was not a compliment, but an observation. You have a bounty of fresh vegetables in your garden, and I couldn't help noticing you have two camels outside. Few men in Agrabah can afford even one. And yet here you are with two.” Farzeen: “I have been very fortunate.” Jafar: “Indeed. It seems you have everything a man could possibly wish for. (Moves closer to Farzeen:) Perhaps you've met someone who could grant them. Wishes.” Farzeen: “I am not sure what you mean. (Walks away from him:) My good fortune is due to a family investment that has finally begun to pay off.” Jafar: “Is that so?” Farzeen: “Yes. I can explain further, if you'll allow me to turn off the stove.” Jafar: “Yes. Yes. We wouldn't want you to overcook water. Go on.” (Farzeen bows and enters the back room. Rushing to a cupboard, he pulls out a lamp and rubs it. A red cloud of smoke emerges along with an oddly dressed, bearded man.) Farzeen: (Whispered:) “Genie.” Genie: “Master mine, my will is thine.”

Morgana’s Hovel. Present. Night. (Still wearing her healing bracelet, Morgana has a prophetic dream. Red and black banners lie strewn on a battlefield with knight’s corpses. A raven sitting on a helmet takes flight. Merlin walks onto the field, looking down at Morgana.) Morgana: “Help me, Merlin. Please.” (Morgana’s hand reaches up to Merlin from her position on the ground.) Merlin: “Is this really what you wanted, Morgana?” Morgana: “Please…” (Morgana wakes in her bed. At first she seems afraid, then angry.) Morgana: “Merlin.” Enchanted Forest. Past. Continued. Farzeen: “He's here! The one you spoke of. The man with the serpent staff.” Genie: “Steady. It's not you he's after.” Farzeen: “My third wish! I want it now.” (Farzeen pushes the lamp into the Genie’s hands.) Genie: “Have patience. I can help you.” Farzeen: “I wish you gone!” Genie: “Don't!” Farzeen: “As far from Agrabah as the Earth from the Sun!” (Jafar bursts into the room and reaches for the lamp which swiftly disappears.) Jafar: “No! (Using his powers, he lifts Farzeen into the air:) Where did you send him?” Farzeen: “I don't know! Please!” Jafar: (Calmly:) “What is it you desire?” Farzeen: “Just mercy!” Jafar: “Well, then. It seems neither of us are going to get what we want today.” (Jafar closes his fist and Farzeen screams in agony. Standing outside, having stopped to rest, Aladdin hears the poor man’s screams before he takes off running.)

(Rounding the corner, he sees the guards charging towards him once more. Stepping on a stooped man's back, Aladdin propels himself up onto some overhead beams and maneuvers around them to evade capture. Unfortunately, four more guards appear where he lands.) Aladdin: (Hands raised:) "Let's not be too hasty, we can talk about this." Guard: "The time for talking is over." Mulan: (Standing behind the guards:) "I agree. (The men turn and stare at Mulan as she draws her sword. The four guards burst out laughing at the sight and Mulan gives them a pleasant smile, long used to this kind of reaction from men:) Are you finished? Then let's begin." (Twirling her sword, Mulan makes quick work of the four guards, disarming them and sending them flying into each other to land sprawled in a heap on the ground.) Emma: (Holding her hand out to Aladdin:) "There's sure to be more on the way, so it's up to you if you want to take your chances with them or come with us?" Aladdin: "Who are you?" Emma: "A friend." Aladdin: (Looks her up and down:) "A friend like you I'd remember." Emma: "Fella, you ain't never had a friend like me. Come on! (Aladdin hesitates a moment longer before taking Emma's hand:) Tink, now!" Tinker Bell: "Right!" (With a wave of her wand, Tink, Mulan, Tiger Lily, Emma and Aladdin are enveloped in a cloud of smoke.) Crumbling Fortress. Present. Dusk. (Guinevere, Lancelot, Xena, Gabrielle and the knights arrive amongst the ruins.) Xena: “Pair off. Find any wood you can. Get the fires burning.” (The knights collect firewood while carrying torches. One of the knights hears a man’s scream and drops his firewood. The knights gather together as screams start to surround them. A Dorocha launches at them and Xena wards it off with a torch.) Gabrielle: “Let’s go!” Sir Bedivere: “We haven’t got enough!” Xena: “Go!” (The knights are back at the fire pit with Guinvere and Lancelot. Lancelot attempts to use the flint to light the fire to no avail. Taking the flint from him, Xena strikes and the fire lights instantly. Lancelot looks at her. Xena shrugs. Gabrielle grins in amusement. The knights stand around the fire with torches. Bedivere looks at the fire, then at Lancelot.) Sir Bedivere: “It won’t get us through the night.” Lancelot: “It will keep the area safe for a while.” (Later, Gwaine throws a log on the fire.) Sir Gwaine: “The last one. Maybe we should draw lots, see who gets some more.” Guinevere: (Stands:) “I’ll go.” Lancelot: “You’ll need help. I’ll go with you. (At Guinevere’s look:) Well, since when have you known how to collect firewood?” Guinevere: (Smiles:) “I wasn’t always Queen, you know.” (The knights chuckle. Xena watches as they walk off.)

(Lancelot collects firewood while Guinevere stands guard with a torch. A Dorocha charges them from behind.) Guinevere: “Lancelot! (Guinevere drops the torch to tackle Lancelot out of the way:) Let’s go!” (They rush through some passages and close a door behind them. The Dorocha seems to lose them. The knights back at the fire pit shuffle around anxiously.) Xena: “They should’ve been back by now.” Gabrielle: “Someone needs to go and look for them.” Sir Bedivere: “We’ve only got one torch between us.” (Xena grabs the torch and starts walking off.) Gabrielle: “Who’s coming with us?” (Elyan follows, then the other knights. Gwaine grabs his sword belt and puts it on while following.) Enchanted Forest. Past. (Sitting around the campfire, Aladdin tries to understand what's going on.) Aladdin: "So you mean to tell me that I'm not in Agrabah anymore?" Mulan: "The lush green forest tipped you off, huh?" Tiger Lily: (Smiles:) "No, Aladdin, you're not in Agrabah, this is the Enchanted Forest. But we can drop you back home easily enough." Aladdin: "Oh, well that's all right then. I mean there's no rush, probably best to let things calm down back home first." Mulan: "Good idea." Aladdin: "And I should thank you ladies for saving my neck. (They all look at him expectantly:) Thank you." Mulan: "You're welcome." Aladdin: "I've never seen a woman fight as well as you." Mulan: "Luckily those palace guards hadn't either. Otherwise things might've been different." Aladdin: "Those guys? Nah, palace guards are notoriously easy to get by." Regina: (Stepping out of the shadows:) "I can certainly vouch for that." Emma: "Regina!" Regina: "That was you, wasn't it? The parade?" Emma: (Smiles:) "That depends. Did you like it?" Regina: "Like it? (Walking towards her:) That was the most wonderful birthday gift anyone has ever given me. I loved it."

Tinker Bell: (Beaming:) "You're welcome." Regina: "You're a terrific fairy, Tinker Bell. Don't ever let anyone tell you differently." (Tink blushes and flutters her wings.) Regina: (Looks to Emma and then back at Tink:) "Do you think you could arrange somewhere private where Emma and I could talk? (Now looking at Emma:) I'd like to thank her for my gift." Tinker Bell: "That shouldn't be a problem." (With a wave of Tink's wand, a small tent like structure appears on the small hill, a dozen yards or so away from camp.) Emma: "Regina... are you sure?" Regina: (Leans in and kisses her:) "I've never been more sure of anything." (Regina takes her hand and leads Emma towards the tent.) Emma: (To the others:) "Uh... don't wait up." Elsewhere. (Out in the woods Snow White wanders and scans the stars in the sky.) Snow White: “Is that the star? Or is it that one?” Blue Fairy: “Worry not, Snow White. I have found you.” Snow White: (Spins around:) “Blue.” Blue Fairy: "What's troubling you, Snow?" Snow White: "You're joking, right? You saw the parade today, didn't you?" Blue Fairy: "I heard about it." Snow White: "Clearly magic was involved. Powerful magic." Blue Fairy: "What are you implying?" Snow White: "I'm asking if you knew anything about it." Blue Fairy: "I'm sorry, but no I don't." Snow White: "Well find out! Someone is trying to seduce my step-mother while my father is visiting Midas' kingdom." Blue Fairy: (Smiles:) "How do you know your father wasn't behind the parade? Perhaps he arranged it knowing he'd be away for Regina's birthday?" Snow White: "No! I am telling you this was someone else and they had magical help." Blue Fairy: "I'm sorry, Snow, but you can't expect me to-" Snow White: "I expect Fairies to know their place in my father's kingdom! Need I remind you the King often visits Camelot, a place where all magic is prohibited. King Uther is always warning my father of the dangers magic can bring. It wouldn’t take much to convince him that Uther is right. Just think of what that would mean for your kind." Blue Fairy: "Of course. I-I will find out who was behind today's parade and make sure they are reprimanded." Snow White: (Stamping her feet:) "I want them stopped permanently! Incapable of performing magic ever again. Do I make myself clear?" Blue Fairy: (Taken aback:) "Y-yes, Snow White." Snow White: "Good. I would hate to make my father aware of this." (Snow turns and walks away.) Daelbeth. Present. Continued. (Guinevere and Lancelot hide behind a corner in one of the fortress rooms. Guinevere ties a cloth around Lancelot’s injured arm. Guinevere looks uncomfortable and Lancelot gives her a questioning look.) Guinevere: “It’s cold.” Lancelot: “Right.” Guinevere: “You’re not feeling it?” (Lancelot shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head.) Guinevere: “Men.” (Back in the passages, Xena leads the knights through the fortress, warding off Dorochas with the torch. Back in the hiding chamber, Guinevere and Lancelot listen to the screaming spirits.) Lancelot: “All the things I’ve faced…I never worried about dying.” Guinevere: “We will defeat the Dorocha. We will, Lancelot, together.” (In the passages, Xena, Gabrielle and the knights continue the search. Back in the hiding chamber, Guinevere and Lancelot wait.) Lancelot: “They say the darkest hour is just before the dawn.” Guinevere: “Feels pretty dark right now.” Lancelot: “Well, it can’t be long then. (The Dorocha finds them and sweeps through the door. Lancelot starts to rush out from around the corner, but Guinevere pulls him back and stands up herself, running straight for the Dorocha:) Guin, no!” (Bursting through the door, Robin Hood arrives out of nowhere.) Robin Hood: “Get down, Your Majesty!” (Robin stands in front of Guinevere, bracing himself for the worst when he too is knocked out of the way. Will stumbles and turns to face the Dorocha. It catches Will in the chest, and throws him back against the stone wall. Xena and the others enter, warding off the Dorocha with the torch. Xena then hands the torch to Gabrielle and turns to Robin.) Xena: “What happened?” (Robin goes to Will. Turning him over, Robin sees that Will is frozen, much like the corpses found in the village.)

[simsroyallegacy]

Raymond Velasquez: Inside the Mind of the Princess Royal’s Kidnapper

Almost six months ago a military task force infiltrated a small suburban home in Strangerville, Rivenia. The task force’s goal? To rescue HRH Princess Ashli, the Princess Royal of Lunaria who had been missing for two weeks after being snatched off the streets of Windenburg’s posh shopping district. After the successful rescue mission the culprit was revealed in a shocking twist; one of the Royal Family’s closest bodyguards, Raymond Velasquez, was caught red-handed for having kidnapped the Princess Royal!

Today, almost half a year later, Velasquez (now 43 years old) was finally put on trial and received a sentence. The trial, which was conducted behind closed doors, lasted for eight hours. The press were only told of the sentencing; Mr. Velasquez will be imprisoned for fifty years on account of kidnapping of a child of the Monarch and the assault of a child of the Monarch. Rumor has it the judge added ten years to the original sentence for “making false claims against a senior member of the Royal Family”. Seems like Velasquez really did try to claim that HRH made the whole thing up after all.

Now the public are left with this burning question: why kidnap the Princess Royal? Velasquez was a part of the Royal Security Service, an elite team from the royal guard who have been the personal bodyguards of the Royal Family for over a hundred years. He held a high positions in the RSS, allowed to shadow senior members of the Royal Family for years. He was well paid for his work and seemingly had everything going for him career-wise. So why would he risk it all by kidnapping and attacking HRH? 

(Above: Velasquez escorts HRH the Princess Royal to her high school, Harold Preparatory Academy)

The answer has been found in Velasquez’s personal life; Edward Velasquez, his father, was scorned by Jasper Harold, losing his job and sending the Velasquez family into poverty. Who is Jasper Harold you ask? And what does he have to do with the Royal Family? Lord Jasper Harold was the twelfth Earl of Casterly and was the father of Her Majesty Queen Ana, making him the Princess Royal’s maternal grandfather. 

Back when HM the Queen was still engaged to then Crown Prince Vincent, her father cut his household staff to a third of what it had been due to illness. Edward Velasquez was one of many employed by the Casterly Estate that lost their jobs. Lord Casterly then sold off almost all of his estate before renouncing his title, resulting in the Crown taking back any remaining land and holdings. The Velasquez family suffered so badly with the loss of Edward’s income that they lost their home, resulting in alcoholism in Edward, which then lead to his eventual suicide. 

(Above: Velasquez escorts TRH the Crown Prince and Princess at a United Sims Nations conference.)

Young Raymond grew up to become the sole breadwinner for his family, consisting of his mother and younger sister. When he turned eighteen he joined the military, where he excelled, quickly moving up the ranks to a captain. After his successful time in the Lunarian Royal Army Corps, he was hired by the RSS with impeccable recommendations from his superiors. He became a personal guard of the senior members of the Royal Family most often shadowing HM the Queen, eventually being put on the Princess Royal’s personal security team. It is during this assignment that his mother became severely ill, her medical bills becoming too large even for Velasquez’s considerable paycheck.

Velasquez reportedly went to his superiors for a raise or to add his mother to his health benefits but was denied. He then went to Queen Ana, whom he had become close with, begging for help with his mother’s bills. HM agreed to help fund his mother’s treatment, but unfortunately Mrs. Velasquez succumbed to her illness even with her treatments. 

(Above: the Princess Royal tours the University of Britechester with Velasquez tailing her.)

Velasquez, distraught over her death, blamed the Queen and reportedly flew into a rage at HM, blaming her family for once again destroying his; leading to his termination on the Queen’s orders. Three weeks after his termination he grabs HRH the Princess Royal off the street, and the rest is history. 

Hopefully the Royal Family and the RSS will learn from these incidents and will be able to prevent anything like this happening again!

[floosies]

bury a friend: The Birth of Adelasia

pairing: platonic!steve rogers x possessed!oc x mcu!au x romantic!bucky barnes

summary: there have been sightings of a dark creature who vanishes with night and in the mornings only remains of once living people are found scattered in open fields or forests nearby.

warnings: mentions of abuse, mentions of attempted suicide, violence, gore, cursing, mentions/scenes of sexual nature.

Please read with discretion. 18+ content.

A/N: This is my first attempt at something more dark. It’s been in my brain since hearing some of biilie’s works and quiet frankly I want to venture into new territory. However, I understand the severity of some topics that I will write about. If you or someone you know is in need please look at these resources

Tags: @indecisivedolly

Part 9: renovamen (renewal)

Her decision came after pleading and debating. Her great future awaited her, of course she did not believe it would come. Nothing had ever been great for, it was always a battle with sweet moments that contorted to some sort of painful reminder of what never was. Yet here she was awake and the man who loathed her the most was sat at her bedside. 

The moment did not last, he was practically tossed out of the room. Doctors surrounding her, “Miss Plutarch-” “It’s not Plutarch it’s Barnett.” They all looked alarmed at her. After several questions and answers, they let her see her reflection, her eyes were a hazel green now, her hair darker and longer. How peculiar. Soon another doctor came in, however this doctor was not in medical gear or in a lab coat, she was however with doctor Banner, “how ya holding up Noctua.” His voice was soft, not out of worry, he was just a gentle man. She smiled, “it’s Adelasia now. My parents told me my birth name while I was in limbo.” The doctor looked at Banner with concern, he shrugged at her.

She read their minds, “I did not intend on killing myself. It was not a suicide mission.” The doctor gave Adelasia a look of sympathy, Banner gave her a sad smile. “Doctor Lewis is an old friend of mine, she just wants to help ya out kiddo. I myself got help from her, I know there’s more going on in that head of yours.” The young witch could not deny his truth, but usually these matters would be handled privately between her and a slow, meticulously killing of a predator. Then a good cry and some sleep, however she supposed she entertain the poor woman.

Banner left them to speak. The burgundy coat that sat on her arm was placed on a chair, “Adelasia right?” She nodded watching as she sat on the chair, “I can see you read my mind. So you know why the team was worried about your decision making.” The team, the people who were supposed to become her friends, “you can read my mind, but I can’t read yours unfortunately.” Her gaze fell on her again, her brown eyes holding a look of patience, “right. It was quick thinking. The decision came down to being shot because there was nothing to prevent it, even if I moved there would still be some kind of wound-” “presumably the wound would have been less deadly though, right?” She was never really one for crudeness, but fuck this lady. What was she trying to do?  

Anger began to bubble in her, “Wanda needed to be protected from it. I wouldn’t let her get hurt,” she spoke trying to maintain her cool. Lewis looked at her, she was trying to decipher what was going on, “so you were protecting your friend, but decided to do so by having her leave you behind to die? When you had told the team you could always use your powers if things got difficult.” What could she say, except “I do not need to explain myself to you-” “What about them? What about Wanda? She felt guilt for letting you go through with your plan or Steve who felt responsibility for allowing you to attend. Bucky and Sam looked after you the whole flight back to the compound, you may feel that these people do not care for you, but their actions say other wise.” 

In an hour of speaking, Doctor Lewis felt that Adelasia was dealing with serious depression and problems regarding trust. It was evident from her upbringing that many factors had led to her mental issues. Oddly enough, she understood that this girl could see things many couldn’t including spirits. They made a promise that knowing this now, they would use it as a way for her to better herself. What an odd thing, but it was suited for her personally. Another meeting was arranged for the following Monday. With that, she was allowed to return to her room.

Being in the living world again made her realize her room was very dark in tone. Perhaps she should take time to revive it. Though some had left to another mission, Wanda had stayed behind. When she heard that her friend was in her room again, she went straight to visit her. Opening the door, she was greeted to a whole new atmosphere. There was a whole garden in the room, like something from Narnia. “Noctua?” From some tall grass her head popped out, “Wanda!” Carefully, she walked over to the older witch and embraced her. 

On the other side of the world. Bucky cleared his dingy motel room in the outskirts of Italy. The mission was not as quick as they hoped for. Tony was in the room over making his nightly call to Pepper. Steve went to shower and Thor had promised to return by morning from where ever he flew off to. A strong tired feeling over took him and as soon as he hit the old mattress he was fast asleep. His dreams were not his, these were someone else’s memories. They were sweet and happy memories. Then he saw her, or at least he thought it was here. No it was, he could tell her apart from the other girls in the circle, what was this?

Cake suddenly appeared, the girls were in some beautiful home now. She was sat at the end of a table. Every one in the room wearing victorian clothing. Perhaps this was her home once. He wondered how old she was here, what birthday she was celebrating. Suddenly he was on a beach, he could hear her crying. He saw her holding something or someone in her arms. As he neared her, he could see it was a young girl, she was pale and blue. Bucky wanted to comfort her, but as he reached for her she began to further away from his grasp. Her cries growing louder, and the beach becoming even more distant. It was then when he woke up with a gasp.

Piano keys gently played in the garden she’d created. Sat on soft grasses the few that were at the compound had gathered to hear her play. She suggested it as an apology, and better to let her than to argue. It was beautiful, she could tell everyone was memorized by the light sounding piece. Nat was especially moved, it reminded her of an innocence that she’d once held. When it was over and she turned most of the room back into a bedroom, a conversation started. It was a mostly calm conversation until Peter unintentionally mentioned the elephant in the room, “I’m so glad you’re alive. They were saying it looked really bad for a while,” the faces turned to him with a stern look except hers. “I’m glad i’m alive too. I’m sorry for worrying you.” She laughed lightly before continuing, “I- I did’t think you would actually hold such concern towards me. We were still practically strangers, I presumed.” She meant no harm by her comments, but when she saw they were not laughing off her comments she realized perhaps she was wrong. 

Wanda spoke candidly, “we are not strangers. You are our part of our team now, we look out for each other. Always,” the others nodded and mumbled agreements. “Ms. Adelasia? Right?” Peter asked before speaking, she nodded giving him a soft smile, “you’re the kindest person I’ve ever met and you saved my life. I’m really glad you’re here.” Sam had few words but they were all kind, he was mushy mess internally, externally he wanted to look cool. Of course it was Nat’s words that made her cry, “they’re all right. You have been a new breath of life in this odd ball group. Whether or not they were all scared of you at first or not, it doesn’t matter. You risked your life for the greater good, you proved you care and are willing to sacrifice yourself to save the world. Adelasia, we will always look out for you. We’re a family, it’s what we do.” She took her hand then, holding it gently as a way to affirm her words.

She didn’t feel the need to rest, her body had rested for two weeks. In fact she felt a vigor to create. So while the others slept she teleported to her favorite place, France. Of course she only went for some supplies before returning back to her room. A sense of light felt like it was shining through her, as if saying this was who she was meant to be. It was beautiful. 

As the days turned into some weeks, she wondered when the others would return. Wonder did not last, as intelligence came of their mission. They had successfully completed it. No deaths, but some injuries. Her heart raced at the idea of seeing him again. Should she dare ask why he was sat beside her in that medical room? What was he thinking? Did he still loathe her as she assumed? The days and nights filled with these kinds of thoughts were dwindled as the realization of their return neared. When the day came and she caught his gaze from the entrance hallway, her heart raced once more. Little did she know his heart raced just as much.

[vagrantblvrd]

halo au (definitely inspired but laso) mavin. just gavin being cheeky fuck and saving the day (and michael, who won't admit it that he needs saving) and michael being michael

Ugh, yessss.

My knowledge of Halo lore is spotty at best (I’ve only played three of the games and not in any kind of order that makes sense + random bits of Halo-verse since then and stuff I’ve looked up on the various Halo wikis out there, but I love this so much? Like. Yes. The Halo universe is a deeply fucked up because wow, and super fascinating and incredible and One Day I will delve back into it, but I digress.)

Setting this sometime during the events of the first three games/Human-Covenant war era and doing a lot of handwaving/~artistic license on pretty much everything to do with things? (Because reasons.)

Anyway, anyway.

Everyone’s a Spartan-III and they’ve all been assigned to a special ops unit under Burnie’s command because reasons.

Newly formed after some incident or other that had the UNSC realizing they needed people properly trained to handle Shiny new, and he’s pulling people from other

They’re all Spartan-IIIs like Noble Team in Halo: Reach, right?

Hand-picked by Burnie and Geoff (and Jack) who have been given (nearly) free reign to fill the ranks and so on and go over thousands of reports they’ve been given clearance to read to select their people. Pull Spartans from other companies and all that and have them reassigned to their little corner of the galaxy for training and all that fun stuff.

Michael’s team is this anomaly in that things are a bit…weird as fuck.

Geoff’s the team leader with Jack as his second-in-command, and things get weird(er) from there with the addition of Ryan and Jeremy.

Which, fair, because Ryan and Jeremy, okay.

A.K.A. the “Battle Buddies”, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean, and also there’s a rumor around base one of them is actually a Spartan-II? But neither of them will tell anyone which one of them it is, or if the rumor’s even true.

Geoff thinks it’s hilarious the way everyone on base tries to figure out this Great Mystery so of course he’s not talking. (And when he does it’s to sow confusion and chaos and generally be an asshole.)

There’s this glaring empty position because the last recruit for the team has been held up in transit.

Something about the ship he’s on getting caught up in a skirmish somewhere and just this whole series of improbable events that delay his arrival by a few months. Long after the rest of the team has trained together, gone on a few missions that had them forming bonds with one another that means they eye new faces a bit…warily/defensively?

Because, look.

That empty position being a liability on missions, so Trevor or Alfredo get tapped to fill in. (Lindsay and Fiona too, but those missions end in more chaos and confusion than anyone’s really comfortable with? So yeah. Lotta redacted sections in the reports.)

Anyway.

They become a close-knit team pretty fast, because war is hell and they’re all they have out there in enemy territory and other such cliches.

Michael and the others settle into life on base, get used to the way various teams get selected for what would be a suicide mission for any other bunch of assholes. (Luck and skill and a whole lot of who the fuck knows gets them through time and again even though there’s this knowledge it can’t last in the back of their minds, you know? Too many casualties in this war as it is, and the Covenant are relentless fuckers, but until then might as well give ‘em hell.)

And then!

The last member of the team finally, finally gets to base.

Michael and the rest are in the middle of a training exercise when he gets there and once they’re finished he gets back to the barracks first. Finds some asshole testing out the bunks like he’s Goldilocks and seeing it rubs Michael the wrong way because Jesus fucking Christ, okay. What asshole does something like that? (Not, as one would say, a great start.)

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?”

And Gavin – because of course it’s Gavin – is just :DDDDDDDDDDDD at him as he walks over to introduce himself.

Which goes about as well as you’d expect, because Michael is Not Happy?

But before he can get into it with Gavin (asshole doesn’t have the decency to be apologetic about being an asshole, no. Just grins at Michael like he finds all of this hilarious) the others arrive and there’s this whole Thing where Geoff’s like, “Oh, yeah, This is the asshole we’ve been waiting on,” and introductions all around?

Michael is like oh, Jesus fuck, no, but of course his life sucks just that much.

Cue montage scene of Gavin being a little menace all over the place, right?

Makes friends with Jeremy way too fucking fast – they’re horrible little goblins and should never have been allowed to meet, but again, war is hell.

Somehow doesn’t get murderized by Ryan, even after the Coin Incident, and the entire base learns to be wary of the two of them when they Plot and/or Scheme.

Geoff is horrifically amused by Gavin and Jack is like.

(Don’t ask, okay. Because those two are a goddamned nightmare and no one is safe and just. Don’t.)

Gavin also gets along alarmingly well with Trevor and Alfredo once someone makes the mistake of allowing the three of them within a hundred yard radius of each other. (If letting Trevor and Alfredo work together was a bad idea, letting them work with Gavin is catastrophically bad.)

Even worse, he gets along with Lindsay and Fiona and that’s like. At least as terrifying as him getting along with the Terror Twins.

He and Matt are just as bafflingly terrifying as Jack and Gavin and no one knows how that’s even possible. (Because Matt, mostly. But also Gavin.)

Through all of this Michael is just.

Annoyed with this little shit of a teammate, right?

Assumed Burnie or Geoff had made a mistake in picking him for their unit, the team. Thought he’d do something to fuck up and have him reassigned if not kicked out of the military entirely, but no, no.

He’s either some kind of savant or luck as fuck to have survived as long as he has given the kinds of combat he’s seen – Michael may have ~sweet talked Matt or someone else into letting him see Gavin’s files at some point because no way this little idiot got here with what Michael’s seen of him in training.

Sure, he squeaks by during training exercises and such, only just getting through/pass objectives/obstacles and looking like an idiot as he does. (And to Michael’s increasing annoyance/resentment the others don’t seem bothered by any of that? Like it won’t matter in the field on a mission with them relying on Gavin to watch their backs and so on, but fine. Whatever.)

Anyway.

Gavin is :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDD at Michael this whole time while Michael is >:(((((((((((((((((((((((((( and everyone else is either oblivious or amused at the two of them.

Gavin forever trying to get on Michael’s good side while Michael takes every opportunity to avoid him and all the shenanigans that entails.

AND THEN.

The team gets deployed for a Very Sekrit Hush-Hush Mission Of Utmost Importance somewhere.

(Because reasons.)

Get sent out to secure a McGuffin that was on a Pelican that went down in enemy territory and because reasons and shit goes wrong. (Of course it does.)

A hell of a fight to the damn thing to start with, this fucking Elite with a plasma sword making their mission a fucking nightmare.

Manages to get the drop on Geoff just as they get to the rendezvous point where their Pelican is waiting. Serious enough they loaded him on board with the McGuffin and Jack, but before the rest of them could get on the Covenant forces who have been on their asses this whole time catches up to them and the shooting starts. (Again.)

Odds stacked against them and the McGuffin too important to risk falling into enemy hands, so they have no choice but to get it the hell out of there.

Not quite a Last Stand for the rest of the team because Jack left them with an ammo crate before the Pelican lifted off and anyway, they manage to kill the fuckers who tried to kill them.

(Well, most of them before that fucking Elite calls a retreat and they’re left licking their wounds as they regroup.)

From there it’s going to be a long slog out of enemy territory, but Ryan who’s next in the chain of command goes all unsettling cheerful the way he’s wont to do sometimes and gives a rousing speech that mainly consists of  “Well, shit,” and “I think it’s that way?” (referring to safe territory), and “Let’s go boys,” which.

Yeah.

Michael is Not Impressed, but things could be worse, and anyway, anyway, they had to die sometime, right? (Why not now.)

Things go about as you’d expect for the first few miles, and then Gavin gets bored and starts in on his Questions.

Hypothetical nonsense that – for whatever reason – the others indulge him on.

Ryan and Jeremy have no problem arguing with Gavin over some dumb thing or another for a mile, then two before they switch to another idiotic Question and the whole time Michael is Annoyed.

They have to set up camp when it gets dark. (Could have pushed on through it with their armor’s capabilities, but it’s been a hell of a day and Ryan insists. Doesn’t want them making stupid mistakes that will get them killed because they didn’t stop to rest.)

It’s an uneasy night for all of them, worrying about Geoff and Jack more than their own predicament, which. Yeah.

Gavin seems unperturbed by it all the way he always does, and that irritates Michael who’s already tired and annoyed and that worry for Geoff and Jack not making things better? All of it making him shorter, sharper with Gavin to the point he gets looks from Ryan and Jeremy and ends up volunteering to take first watch to cool off.

Things aren’t exactly better the next day, but Gavin seems to have picked up on Michael’s mood or maybe the whole shitty mission is catching up to him because he’s quieter. Doesn’t stick as close to Michael as he usually does, which has Michael feeling guilty about being an asshole, you know.

(Gavin isn’t Michael’s favorite person, but he’s not the worst human being he’s ever met. That honor goes to Ryan, because have you met the man? Absolutely horrible.) Also, the others like him so he can’t be all bad?)

They trudge on for a few hours, Michael’s guilt about being a bastard to Gavin getting to him – along with the looks he’s getting from Ryan and Jeremy – and just as he decides to suck it up and apologize to him they get ambushed by Covenant forces lead by that same fucking Elite from before.

It happens when they’ve reached some kind of outpost, long abandoned because of the war. Damage and such around that looks like more than one battle’s taken place here and the odds of finding any supplies to help them get back out of there are pretty slim?

But they need a break and maybe there’s stuff here that’s been overlooked by other scavengers. (Or something.)

So of course that’s when the Covenant attack, and then the firefight with the shooting and killing (and explosions and ALL the fire?) and the four of them get separated, because of course.

Gavin knocking Michael out of the way of the Elite with a plasma sword, but in the process they fall into a storage area and it’s just.

A fucking nightmare down there fighting the bastard off before he can get either of them with his plasma sword. Gavin manages to stick it with a plasma grenade he got off a dead Grunt earlier in the fight, and it’s enough to send it packing.

Clawing its way out of the storage area and leaving behind a (convenient) exit route for them too, since there’s no way they’d be able to climb back out the way they came in.

By the time they make it back to the surface Ryan and Jeremy are gone, forced to make a run for it from the looks of things, and there are signs they’re being pursued by the rest of the Covenant forces that ambushed them. (Also, a trail of blood and whatnot most likely from the Elite headed in the same direction.)

And it’s.

Michael knows the Battle Buddies are more than capable of looking out for themselves, that even in the worst situation – which this is looking more and more like one – they’ll be able to handle whatever is left of the group chasing them, but.

Team, and Worry, and Jesus fucking Christ, how could the day get any worse?

(Murphy’s Law looks like it’s in action so best not to ask in case the universe decides to demonstrate.)

The whole thing is annoying as shit because Gavin’s armor is fucked from when he tackled Michael out of the way of the Elite’s attack.

Long, horrible rent in the back of his armor cutting across his shoulders and down to his hip. Didn’t make it through the plating, but it was damn close and the Elite managed to nick the power supply control unit (just missed the fusion reactor, which is good because obvious reasons?) and other important bits of Gavin’s armor in the process.

They don’t have much time/proper tools to fuck around with it because Ryan and Jeremy and them being hunted and all?

But Gavin doesn’t seem to care about getting it fully functional again.

As long as he can still move and the filtration systems work he’s good.

Really.

Sure, his HUD’s dead and there are other things drastically wrong, but the people who designed the armor knew what they were doing and it should keep him alive long to get the job done. (Whatever that is, so yeah.)

Gavin doesn’t say a damn thing about that stupid move of his, which is even more irritating, because Michael had things handled okay. Didn’t need Gavin playing hero or whatever he thought he was doing and he stews over the incident as they follow the trail Ryan and Jeremy (and their pursuers) left behind.

They continue on their merry little way, Michael taking the lead and shooting Gavin these looks when he lags behind.

And okay, Michael doesn’t hate him, no matter what some people might think, right? That initial…irritation/dislike/whatever the hell from their first meeting giving way to this general sort of irritation because Gavin -

Look.

Everyone in the unit has a Tragic Backstory, it’s the whole goddamned reason they exist, you know? Snatched up for the Spartan-III program when they passed whatever checklist they had for it, all these war orphans who wanted payback for what the Covenant did to them and theirs.

And Michael’s fine with that most days, living and working with people who understand what being a Spartan-III means. (Cannon fodder, mostly, even if no one says as much. But also the chance to get a little of their own back before they bite it, so yes.)

But then in comes Gavin who doesn’t seem to take it as seriously as he should. Fucks around in training and acts like it’s a joke.

Different from the shit the others get up to, stupid shit they pull when they’re off-duty or just being the idiots they are. Something that gets under Michael’s skin the way the others never did.

Only that’s not quite right, is it? Because Gavin’s an an idiot sure, but not that kind of idiot? Couldn’t be, if the others have taken to him the way they have. If Ryan and Jeremy haven’t done their best to chase/scare him off they way they have others in the past. (If Geoff hasn’t booted him out by now.)

And then there are the training exercises/tests and Gavin barely squeaks by those, sure, but the whole thing where he gets through them anyway. (What Michael’s seen of his files, different battles and other shit he’s survived this long.)

The way he’s kept up with the rest of them, carried his own weight. (This disaster of a mission.)

Not useless, like others Michael’s served with. Knows what he’s doing with that sniper rifle he carries, and none of the others seem to have a problem with him.

ANYWAY.

Michael looks at the idiot, sees Gavin gamely keeping up with him even with his damaged armor slowing him down and is just.

“I don’t get you,” which is mostly the truth.

Gavin confuses the hell out of him.

Most people get the hint when Michael scowls at them whenever he sees them, stop trying to make friends or whatever the fuck Gavin’s been up to all this time. (Most people though, Michael’s realizing, aren’t Gavin, so.)

Gavin, for his part, seems just as confused when he looks Michael’s way because what is he talking about?

They’re teammates, and while Michael’s an unfriendly bastard he’s Team? Growlier than the others, sure, but not unbearably awful and anyway, Gavin thinks he’s hilarious.

And then the slow, cautious Getting To Know Each Other bit where they actually talk? Like. A way to keep their minds off what they might find when they catch up to Ryan and Jeremy and the bastards chasing them and just.

Seems like the thing to do, what with the odds of them getting out of this being what they are.

They ~bond, and some part of Michael is annoyed at that because the principle of the thing or something? (OR maybe he’s annoyed at how easily he starts to like Gavin or just. Something. Whatever his deal is, he’s annoyed about it. Gavin notices, of course, and finds it funny as hell which is also annoying and it’s just. This vicious cycle of annoying.)

Around nightfall they come across this little canyon/gorge where Ryan and Jeremy have been forced into. Some kind of caves or other shelter they’re hiding in with the remaining Covenant forces facing them and doing their best to drive them out into the open to kill them?

Also, that fucking Elite.

Looks like he’s been through hell, part of his armor twisted and melted – from Gavin’s lucky plasma grenade and everything else they’ve thrown at him and all that – and some missing altogether, but still standing.

Barking out orders and clearly furious that humans did this to him and his troops and it’s beyond personal now.

(Mutual feeling, really.)

Conveniently (or not so conveniently) Michael’s comms are busted – took a bad hit during the initial attack at the rendezvous point – and Gavin’s has been busted since he saved Michael’s life in the ambush so they can’t contact Ryan and Jeremy to come up with a battle plan.

Not, you know, that they need anything too complicated?

About a dozen Covies between them and the Battle Buddies and a nice little spot for a sniper to get cozy for a bit, do some damage before things really kick off.

Gavin still has ammo for his sniper rifle – not a lot, but enough to give them a fighting chance here. Take out the Jackals along the ridge facing the caves, take out the threat they pose and leaving the rest to deal with later once he runs out.

They’re not doing great on the weapons front, Michael’s assault rifle and shotgun, and Gavin’s only other weapon is the Magnum pistol Gavin picked up off the ground after the ambush at the outpost after he lost his DMR in the scuffle with the Elite. (Used it to block an attack from the bastard’s  plasma sword and it didn’t survive, but better it than Gavin, so, again. Yes.)

Anyway, anyway.

Michael’s forte isn’t stealth, but even he can make his way close to the Covenant forces while Gavin picks off the snipers, take out a few grunts before they realize what’s happening and it turns into a free-for-all.

And he does get there because Gavin’s got his - their backs covered and it’s impressive as hell, really, considering he doesn’t even have a working HUD.

Michael feels this vicious little satisfaction when he hears the first shot from Gavin’s sniper rifle, sees the Jackal drop. Doesn’t bother to watch the others fall because there’s a Grunt in front of him and it’s muscle memory from there.

He gets two of them from behind before they know what’s going on, and goes for his shotgun when the third startles and whirls around on him, plasma pistol swinging in his direction.

Things get hectic after that, Ryan and Jeremy realizing the cavalry’s (such as it is) is there to save their asses and a whole lot of dying going on.

Somewhere in there Gavin makes his way down into the fray, Michael catching sight of his armor here and there before losing sight of him as the fight wages on.

There’s this moment – that slo-mo kind of moment – where the smoke clears and the crowd parts and all that Dramatic Moment shit and the damned Elite shows up.

Furious as fuck and bearing down on Michael who brings his shotgun to bear – assault rifle lost somewhere after he ran out of ammo and used it to melee a Grunt and couldn’t be bothered to retrieve it with a suicide Grunt running at him.

He fires, but there’s that godawful click because he used the last of his ammo on another Covie and Christ, what a shitty way to go out, right?

But then there’s Gavin again, the stupid fucker.

This wild yell and flash of blue from behind the Elite as he leaps over a dead body and onto the fucker’s back. Combat knife sinking into the unprotected back (took his chest piece off because it was so badly damaged before and useless) and then he’s grabbing the bastard’s head and twists, the Elite making this surprised noise before it goes down, finally, finally fucking dead as shit.

Michael stares because Jesus Christ, what the hell, and Gavin looks up to catch his eye. Breathing hard and kind of desperate in the way he looks Michael over because wow, adrenaline, huh?

Another Moment where they’re just holy fuck because what a situation and also a rescue – risky as fuck because if the Elite had turned when Gavin made that jump he would have killed Gavin while Michael watched and just.

A whole lot going on between them before some asshole Grunt fires off a shot way too fucking close to them to snap them out of it, remind them the fight’s not over yet, so maybe save it for later?

Gavin yanks his combat knife out of the Elite’s back and Michael takes his plasma sword to use while Gavin plucks up an abandoned plasma pistol from a dead Grunt nearby and they get back to it.

Cut down the rest of the Covies with Ryan and Jeremy until they’re the only ones left standing and then it’s “What took you guys so long,” and “We had everything perfectly under control,” and “Hey, assholes,” and so on.

Scavenging (looting) weapons and the long walk to safe territory.

And, like.

Michael still getting looks from Ryan and Jeremy, but this time it’s because Michael’s being friendly towards Gavin who is :DDDDD about it and things kind of go from there.

Once they get back to base the whole Play Pals thing happens – or the equivalent -  to counterbalance the Battle Buddies and Geoff hates these assholes, he really does. And then other shit happens, like Michael experiencing an accelerated case of Pining for Gavin who is amused as fuck once he realizes what’s going on? (Not like he didn’t have his own case of Pining, but that’s old news by now that pretty much the entire base knew about before he did? But Michael’s so damn surly about his own affliction.)

More missions and close calls – a few presumed dead scenarios and Hard Truths and Shocked Realizations and then the Smoochening.

Also.

Almost literally everyone else on the entire base being in on the betting pool regarding the two of them to Michael’s >:(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( because assholes.

~*The End*~

(Also, though. Gavin or Jeremy – or both – pick up a stray kitten on a mission somewhere and bring it back to base where it becomes a mascot and makes Michael’s life a misery because it can? Meanwhile Gavin laughing his ass off while Michael bitches about this tiny cat that has some kind of vendetta against him and Michael, Michael, please.)

EDIT: Also, turns out Jeremy’s the Spartan-II, something they all find out on a later mission where he saves the day via Spartan-II awesomeness involving like. A tank or something he punches to death. (Because that’s a thing you can do in Halo and it’s awesome as fuck and also fun.)

[carrotwine4captainhops]

Major Character Death as a creative writing tool

I’ve always been interested in the craft of writing. I’ve been mulling over the way Major Character Death is used as a tool in fiction for awhile, and after watching the extremely problematic death of Quentin Coldwater, (and the self-congratulatory responses of the show’s producers who apparently believe they invented the concept) I thought I’d give you the the high school level compare and contrast MCD essay you didn’t really need or want.

Before I start, I want to be clear that MCD as a tool is not a bad thing by itself. Many, many fiction authors use it in a very calculated way, and as long as it serves the story well, they’re doing their job. Many essays and books about the craft of writing discuss its use because it is just another tool in the creative writer’s tool box. When done well, it makes you cry in a good way; when done badly, the death feels like a cheap gimmick to force an emotion without doing much work as a story teller. The latter is definitely what happened with the season finale of The Magicians.

If season 4 of the magicians had been a novel, it would have been sent back for major revisions before publication.

The first MCD that came to mind while watching the season 4 finale of The Magicians, wasn’t technically an MCD, but may as well be: the ending of the Golden Compass trilogy. The two protagonists have recently fallen in love, and make the difficult decision to return to never see each other again as a way to save the multiverse from the damage caused by traveling between worlds. They won’t even be able to contact each other, and will have to live out their lives as if the other had died.

It was incredibly painful to read (it’s the first book I cried over), but it was beautifully written and a very logical conclusion that the author set up from book one. The books are about (among many other things) the failures of adults and authority when they make selfish decisions, and by choosing to put the health of the universe above their own happiness, they made the bravest, most adult decision they could. It’s a message about the hope that younger generations can fix the things that their predecessors broke if they’re brave enough. The Magicians almost had a similar message.

The second MCD I thought of was that of “Wash” from Firefly. Like a lot of other fans of the show, I got angry at this death in the movie Serenity (essentially the series finale of the TV show). Wash was the comedic relief and voice of optimism in a dark and dystopic show. While Quentin was clinically depressed, and, in the words of Margo Hanson, ”moderately socially maladjusted”, he also acted as the voice of hope to his peers. Both characters were the emotional core of their shows, which was a big reason why they were chosen by their perspective creators as the deaths that would be most felt by the audience. They both got a funeral scene, to really drive home how much the other characters (and by extension, the audience) would be impacted by their death.

In Wash’s case, having his death be accidental impalement during a crash didn’t feel entirely satisfying or necessary. It felt like a lazy way to make the audience sad and motivate the rest of the characters to Really Get That Baddie… BUT, this cheapness is balanced by the symbolism of an outlaw pilot literally dying at the helm of the ship he loved while trying to save the world. It also didn’t send any problematic messages to the audience. Wash was not the protagonist or a “self-insert” the way Quentin was; he wasn’t suicidal or part of an underserved minority group (and make no mistake, by making Quentin sexually fluid/bisexual, the producers signed themselves up for a more thoughtful treatment of his death, if it had to happen.)

The message from Wash’s death is one that is very familiar to readers of genre fiction MCDs: simply: “not everyone lives” and “people who put themselves in high-risk situations sometimes die”. Both of which are painful but fair messages to absorb.

This same tactic was used again by Whedon with Agent Coulson in The Avengers. As an optimistic “plot-armor-free” side character who had become a fan favorite, he was given an entire arc in the movie that the audience wasn’t expecting, made to be even more loveable, and then killed off in a long emotional death scene which was then used in the third act turning point of the movie. Whedon made it clear in interviews that the whole death was coldly calculated to squeeze emotion from the audience, and up the stakes in a way that a large body count couldn’t. It upset a lot of fans, it wasn’t perfect, but it was well done and fitting for the narrative and made the movie stronger, and, again, he wasn’t a member of a minority group. (And as a side note, a different creative team knew how popular Coulson was and managed to resurrect him for his own TV show and managed to do it in a way that wasn’t flip-his resurrection had consequences that lasted at least until season 5, the current season).

There is no mitigating balance to Quentin’s death. He was suicidal  from day one of the series, and he left via (a purposefully plausible) suicide. His first question, once he realizes he’s dead, is not, “Did the plan work?” or “is Eliot OK?” (the friend he’d been working so hard all season to save) or even “is Julia/Alice/Josh/all my other friends ok?” These are questions that would be plausible and fitting in a character who’s journey has about helping friends and the world out of tough situations. But no, the first thing he asks is “did I finally kill myself?” 

With one sentence, his character returned to the self-centered, timid, low-confidence, suicidal mess he’d been established as within five minutes of the show’s pilot. He had no self-realization until after watching his own funeral, at which point he happily and peacefully goes to heaven. At best, that’s heavy-handed symbolism. At worst, it’s erasing all of his character growth and making his entire story pointless, while sending the very dangerous message to the audience. 

The writers stated in interviews that they made his death all about suicide on purpose, and now (as of this writing) they continue to refuse to grapple with how problematic that is.

Another MCD that seemed to do the same thing was Tris from the Divergent series. Like Quentin, she was the protagonist. Also similar to Quentin, her arc was almost too on the nose: she was born into a clan literally named “Abnegation” and indoctrinated from birth to sacrifice herself for her community. She wasn’t even allowed to look into mirrors in case she caught even a smidgen of self-regard. And how does her story end? By her sacrificing her life to get the “big baddie” and save her friends and family. 

Like Quentin’s death, a lot of her character growth appeared to be erased in the last few chapters of the book. Prior to Book 3, Tris had been learning to question her upbringing, to think for herself, that it’s ok to look for happiness for oneself, and that selfishness takes many forms, not all of them bad. When she makes the decision to kill herself in the end, it left a bad taste in my mouth. The plot didn’t require her death, (for example, there were other characters who could have gone in her place, and as a leader at that point, the more difficult decision probably would have been to send someone else on that mission and learn to live with the guilt). Her death and the manner of it, seemed to say, “just kidding, actually the only way to realize your self-worth is to is sacrifice your happiness and entire self for your community.”

Sound familiar?

Quentin Coldwater was just starting to learn (and because he had an audience, to teach) many of these same things. For three and a half seasons, we see him form strong friendships (when he thought he couldn’t); help people (when he thought he was useless), pursue romantic relationships (when he thought no one could love him); he lives an entire lifetime with Eliot during a quest on alternate timeline, where he’s shown having to make the difficult decision every day, to stay alive, to keep working on the tedious and almost hopeless task of completing the puzzle to finish a quest, and then it turns out that the answer to the puzzle all along WAS that daily struggle. Later, in season 4, he tells us that he hopes to be a dad (again) someday; he shows more and more confidence in his magical abilities every season. All of that was erased by the way his death was written.

Even with the uneven messaging of Tris’ death, there is at least lots of room for interpretation. I believe the author was trying to show her final sacrifice as a way of reclaiming part of her upbringing that wasn’t toxic. The character went through a rebellious phase during book one, during which she seems to reject all parts of her former life, even the good ones, right after leaving the Abnegation community for the hedonistic clan of Dauntless. It would definitely be good growth for her, as part of self-actualization, to accept the good parts of her upbringing. I don’t necessarily believe that’s the message we get at the end, but we at least have the possibility. Not everyone has reacted negatively to the way Quentin’s death was handled, so maybe there is more possibility of interpretation than what I see. I’m willing to be proven wrong, but nothing I’ve seen from critics or the showrunners statements has yet convinced me.

Another (highly speculative), parallel I couldn’t help but make over the last few days, is between the Magicians showrunners’s treatment of this MCD and Joss Whedon of a decade ago. His recent fall from grace has finally allowed more critical examination of his past works, but I remember how, at his peak, he could do no wrong. He was the voice of hollywood feminism. He was lauded by critics, peers, and fans. Any voice that questioned him was mocked, dismissed, and even harassed. Anyone else remember when critics call “Dollhouse” a feminist show? None of that has not aged well, has it?

The Magicians producers, riding high off of critical acclaim of Quentin’s homosexual romance in Season 3x05, had ample chance to make the braver choice: to allow a queer suicidal boy make the choice to keep fighting every day despite how hard it was; To break rank with 99% of other TV shows and allow his homosexual romance to be explored and given the same consideration as the hetersexual romances. Instead, they made him kill himself and be happy about it, literally saying in interviews that he had nothing left to live for. Without even addressing his feelings for Eliot. They buried yet another gay, all in the name of a shock-value gimmick, and they think they’re being “revolutionary” and that anyone critical of their choices is “just sad”.

There are about a thousand different ways season 4 could have gone that would have made the writers’ intended message less problematic, more impactful, and more satisfying, and none of them involve a MCD OR a trite “happily ever after”. Consider, for example, that Zelda could have completed her redemption arc in some kind of sacrifice similar to quentin’s. Everett was much more her “big baddie” than he was Quentin’s, it’s just strange that she never got to really confront her mentor-turned-enemy. Consider that, since Quentin’s main focus and motivation all season was to get Eliot back, that he actually succeeds, but, their reunion and relationship is strained. If we must push this idea that “magic comes from pain”, think how much more painful it would be to be to have Eliot finally confess his love to Quentin, but now Quentin is unable to pursue that relationship because of all the trauma he’s suffered at the hands of Eliot’s possessed body all season. Consider that he finally breaks under the strain and excuses himself from further questing, which would easily allow Julia, Kady, or Alice to get more screentime. (I mean, this is just stuff off the top of my head. For a hundred other ideas, check out Archive of Our Own).

They did just about everything wrong with this particular major character death, and I don’t think their choice is going to age well in the years to come.

[draconia-bsd]

Can I please get 7 for Oda x Yosano? (Yoda? Looooool xD)

Lmaoooo, that's it, Yoda is their ship name now. xD

Thank you for requesting this, and I'm really sorry it took so long to finish. ;-; (also I hope you don't mind me setting this in BEAST au)

7- "I've missed you" kiss:

Auburn paysages appeared to have hastily changed through the narrow glass windows, and in such an overwhelming manner it made all the more tired passengers think about the train as a cage spinning in circles, holding them in the same time and place until they finally go insane and catch fire to match the colour of their surroundings. Despite it's appearance, however, the morning itself wasn't particularly poetic, at least not to one man. Oda, just like majority of people around him, stared into the nature, but it's beauty failed to impress him as his mind was entranced by a force of a different sort. His heart ached for warmth, arms longed for tenderness and soul craved the sweet, familiar smell of a loved one. Nothing in this world did he cherish more than her, making their separation during these numerous days unbearable, and this journey, ultimately, the most vicious torture.

Habitually, Oda would reach for his phone ready to dial her number, just to be faced by the cruel reality of his current situation. The mission he and his protégé, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, were given was of extreme importance for the whole city and it's surrounding aeria as it was their job to dismantle a group of criminals coming from various organisations, calling themselves "The Midheaven Clan". What made them so dangerous was not only their access to sensitive information from their original affiliates, but their grudge against both the underworld and the goverment, making them a threat which could easily cause mayhem all around. Considering a similar event has happened in the past, it was in everyone's interest to destroy this newly formed group, but of course, that was no easy job for they had known majority of people who could be involved in their demise. Naturally, this asked for an obscure party to join in the game, and who better than an organisation whose entire existance is considered an urban legend- the "Armed Detective Agency". President Fukuzawa was seldom to accept the mission at first, but after realising it is, indeed, the best way of dealing with the situation, he decided to help for the love of his city and people within it. Not long after this, Ranpo announced a plan which consisted of their two most capable members infiltrating the problematic group and gathering information that is to be sent to the goverment. During this time, their connection to the Agency is strictly to be done through Katai as he is the only one who can protect them from being spied on or tracked. The mission started immediately leaving time for goodbyes to a bare minimum. Luckily, with meticulous study of the backstories Ranpo provided, everything turned out as planned. Both he and Ryunosuke felt a weird mix of pitty and anger towards people they had spent the past two months with, but in the end, even with all the suicides upon their capture, justice was served and the city was safe for the time being.

Gazing through the train window with a blank face, Oda remembered how horrible it was day after day on that forsaken mission. Yes, Ryunosuke is a dear person to him, like a younger brother he never had, and he did enjoy the time they spent together away from those awful people, but nothing could put his mind away from his precious Akiko. In a way, she was his biggest strength, and also his biggest weakness. Every day he would think of her to get through with his act and every night he would curl up and silently cry for her. He was well aware she will be fine, after all she is a tough person, sometimes even more so that himself, but the thought of her coming to an empty apartment, having nobody to vent her frustrations to, nobody to hug and feel her warmth...it tore him appart. Despite being aware of his role in her life, he oftentimes found himself uncontrollably exploring scenarios where she replaced him with someone else, causing him to feel like a fragile child before a wicked illness, short with air and filled with burning rage he only dared express upon himself. Those nights were the hardest, all he wanted to do was hear her voice, be reassured, or at least grab a straw and ask Katai how she is...and a few times he almost did listen to his heart, but thoughts of how disappointed she would be if he failed the mission, not because of his natural weakness or sloppy planning, but because he was lacking trust in her, of all people! Akiko's heart would undoubtedly ceumble like a fallen autumn leaf beneath his feet, and that was not allowable, he was a better human being than that.

This bitter reminiscing was soon interrupted by a flash of sunlight burning his azure eyes. Instinctively, he closed them tight, but in a way, it was a perfect indicator that they are close to home, he needed something to shake him up. Oda then woke his protégé up with gentle strokes on his sholder and the black haired man reluctantly moved his body in a straight sitting position. It was rare to see Ryunosuke this tired, but somehow dark circles around his eyes looked more natural on him than his regular rested look; probably because that was the state they first found him in before recruiting him into the Agency- a vulnerable boy with despair deep within his midnight eyes. It was in times like this that Oda wished to hug and comfort him, but his ego was still a frail one, making him still a child in many ways.

"Are you alright Ryunosuke?" Oda asked.

"Quite fine, thank you." the younger man replied while rubbing his eyes.

It was obvious something wasn't right, but before Oda could say anything, it was time to exit the train. Stepping outside, Oda thought to himself that time seems to be an insignificant variable in this place, since it was as busy as in any other part of the day, the only difference being colour and intensity of the light. Holding onto his luggage and his fellow detective, Oda frantically searched for the fastest way to distance from this mess, guided solely by desire of his heart. Ryunosuke followed with great difficulty to keep up with such energetic movements, basically jumping a few times in order not to let go of the redheads hand. To bypassers it was a funny scene, but neither of them were in the mood to laugh. When they finally came to their usual parting spot, on Oda's initiative, the two men hugged and exchanged their well wishes for the other. It will definitely take them a while to start working and see each other again, so as an elder, Oda felt the need to know his partner won't be hard on himself and will take the rest he deserved. Albeit, the hug may have been too much for his younger co-worker, but he didn't worry, kindness and tenderness were needed in that boy's life, and he was full of it, especially now.

Yet again, swiftly moving through the streets, Sakunosuke constantly checked his watch, hoping he arrives before Akiko's lectures. She never missed them, but he had to see her, at least for a few minutes, before she leaves. His lovesickness was ever-growing and had reached it's peak, if they missed each other now, he would fall asleep and remain imprisoned in sweet dreams filled with her image until the end of time. Even with his mind in a sweet mist, he managed to notice that a flowershop on the corner was opening. Accepting the risk, he quickly got in and asked if they had her favourite flowers, carnations, in the colour of red. With a smile on his face, an old gardener put down his scissors and with a snap of his fingers made a bouquet worth of a queen. Oda never saw such a graceful ability before, but he didn't think much of it at the moment- with glee in his eyes, he left a generous tip to the shopkeeper and thanked him before hurrying off again. When he came to the apartment door his hands begun shaking and throat became dry, still he unconsciously curled his mouth into a dumb smile, making him look much like an excited dog. He rang the bell, and to his surprise, the door opened immediately revealing to him a mesmerising sight. Her. Akiko was standing there only for a second before wrapping herself around his neck and locking him in a tigh hug, but he had already absorbed her appearance. Purple eyes shined with a light so bright and soft it looked like fairy dust and her skin was so mild and soothing that neither ice or fire could overpower it. Breathing out of sync, feeling each others heartbeats, their lips slowly merged into a kiss, gentle but passionate, so long they were both left out of breath. But that wasn't enough.

"Welcome." She whispered, gazing into his deep blue eyes as she dragged him inside and closed the door.

He smiled and placed a series of small kisses on her lips, cheeks and neck before officially giving her the flowers.

Akiko smelled them and smiled innocently "How wonderful of you." she exclaimed and kissed him passionately as a thankful gesture.

From this moment on words were unnecessary, all they needed was each other, and with no obstacles anymore, there was absolutely nothing that could distract them- this was a torture for far too long...

[over-canon-watchh]

Hello! I just found you and you’re doing amazing-keep it up! Also I hope you’re doing okay from your accident! Anyways, I really enjoy your writing style and I was hoping that whenever you’re feeling up to it if you could write some HC’s for mcree whose s/o is pretty much a daredevil and just unnecessarily reckless due to be suicidal and eventually confronts them about it after they are almost killed due to it during a mission? If you’re not okay with these kind of requests that’s totally cool

guys, gals and non-binary pals, strap yourselves in because this is a LONG one, I hope you enjoy and that I did this request justice.TW: mentions and themes of suicide

You and Jesse had been together for almost a year now, but you’d known each other for what seemed like years.

Throughout your time at Overwatch, you had been dubbed as one of their most reckless agents, constantly putting yourself on the line for others.

To say you were happy about this title would be an overstatement – you appreciated the acknowledgement that you received but you weren’t exactly proud of the reputation and the expectations that came with it.

During your most recent mission, a solo operation, you had cut it close. Too close for comfort. Especially for your boyfriend, who had been on the com to you the whole time.

You had risked your life to save half a dozen civilians from yet another bomb that’d been left behind by Talon. You escaped with only seconds to spare.

Much to your discomfort, you heard nothing from Jesse on your way back to the base and you knew exactly why.

For months now, he’d been begging you to be more careful. You always brushed him off with a confident remark.

The second your pod landed on the roof, you nearly raced past Winston who had come to congratulate you on your success.

“Sorry big guy, I appreciate the love but there’s something I really have to do first.”

Catching on in an instant, Winston apologised and allowed you to run into the building.

Within minutes, you were banging on Jesse’s door. Your heart was racing and you felt sick to your stomach.

He opened the door, his skin greyer than usual and his eyes sunken and emotionless.

“Jesse, I- “

But he cut you off as he turned his back and walked further into the room.

You followed him, still blabbing incoherently and shutting the door behind you.

He stood by the window, shoulders tense as he held himself upright.

“I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve asked – hell, how many times I’ve begged – you to be careful. Every time it’s ‘don’t worry about me’ or ‘I haven’t gotten hurt yet’. But today… Jesus – fuck! Y/N, what the hell were you thinking?!”

His voice was broken, laced with anger and betrayal. He was now staring at you; his expression was hard but his eyes were soft with defeat.

Suddenly, you dropped to your knees, head in your hands and sobbing violently.

This was possibly the last reaction he was expecting; he stood there stunned and frozen.

“I just- “ Your voice was breaking as you spoke, “I’ve been ke-eping this f-from you for mon-nths. And there’s n-no easy way to s-s-say how I feel-“

Jesse caved.

He was on his knees, pulling you close and rocking you gently. His head was buried in your hair. Your breathing was uneven and rapid.

“What is it, tell me babygirl, please.”

Between the chokes, you managed the words: “I don’t feel worthy enough to live.”

That was enough to shatter Jesse’s heart into a million pieces.

There was too much going through his head for him to say anything, and his silence in no way helped you in calming down.

Eventually, all he could manage was, “This is my fault.”

Your mood suddenly did a 180, you started to blab about how it was all your fault and that he had nothing to do with it and he couldn’t have done anything.

Jesse hit back, saying that if he’d have known, he would have done so much more. He would have done everything to make sure you’re okay – he will do everything to make sure you’re okay.

The pair of you argued like that for a while, curled up in each other’s arms.

The words soon faded into silence… you found comfort in the silence and the embrace of your boyfriend. Your head was killing and you were worn down in every way, shape and form.

“Baby?” you whispered. Jesse hummed, his fingers dancing through your hair. “I’m tired.”

He nodded in agreement, retracted his arms and helped you to your feet.

“We can talk about this properly in the morning. I’m just so fucking relieved you’re safe.”

He kissed you, feeling of love, relief, desperation and anguish, swirled within that moment.

Jesse pulled you into bed. Both of you were still clothed and damp from the tears and the sweat but too tired to care.

It wasn’t long before the weight of sleep overcame the both of you and your minds were once again, at rest.

[officialleehadan]

Colliding Galaxies

It turned out that getting Neutron and her opposite, Quasar, together was significantly harder than expected.

The largest problem being, how to do it without taking either of them through populated areas.

Neutron was lethal at ten miles at this point, and Ice thought that Quasar was probably just as bad.

At least both of them, although surprised to be receiving telepathic messages out of the blue, were willing to work with them. Sweetwater didn’t know what they would do if one of the Elementals refused.

“They’re not the type,” Inferno said, absolutely sure of himself. The situation had him and Ice both spooked, and he had an arm around his chillier half at almost all times. “If we get a problem child, we’ll know it immediately,”

“How?” Sweetwater wondered, and watched as messages, transposed by fast-typing telepaths, popped up on the screen. It was the only way for the two electro-mag Elementals to communicate, but they were both very willing to do so once they had that option. “What makes you so sure?”

“You can tell because they tried to limit themselves,” Ice said, and twined his fingers together with Inferno’s. They were so close that their powers were almost totally neutralized, and only the faintest wisp of steam curled between them. “Neutron was looking for a faraday cage to contain her blackouts. Quasar went north where his radiation couldn’t kill anyone.”

“If they didn’t want a fix, they would head for cities and we would have a different problem,” Inferno finished. He pressed his nose into Ice’s hair. “If that happened, we would try and bring them down. At our worst, we could do something about them.”

A battle of the titans.

Sweetwater was desperately glad that wasn’t happening, for all that they were right. While their partnership kept them both restrained, if they truly let themselves off the hook, Ice and Inferno could take on the new Elementals. It just happened that the manifestations of their respective Powers were more controllable than the new pair’s.

Of course, they would also probably die doing it. Sweetwater wondered at that kind of sacrifice. She hadn’t expected it of them.

Ice gave her the side-eye and huffed his annoyance.

“If the world dies,” he explained as if she was somewhat dim. “So do we. If either of them go critical- and they’re close- we die anyway. Might as well save the world, right?”

“Right,” Sweetwater agreed. That made sense, she supposed, and also explained why Ice and Inferno were being even more touchy than usual. “Are we ready to do this?”

“I think we are,” Ice said, and turned his attention on the view screens. More than a dozen teleporters and object movers- a very rare power that could move an object from one place to another- were gathered together. “Alright, listen up. The plan is to daisy-chain these two together. Pair up, one Mover to one ‘Porter. ‘Porters, grab them, Port to the next Mover in the line.”

He flicked a laser pointed up and over a map, detailing reach set of coordinates. “Movers, do not wait to send the Elementals onward to the next ‘Porter. As soon as you see them, kick them along the line. Speed matters. They know this isn’t going to be pleasant, so don’t waste your time on kindness. It might cost your life.”

The plan was relatively simple. Teleporters and Movers would pop in, grab the Neutron and Quasar, and bring them together in a predetermined location.

Executing the plan was more complicated.

Because of their radiation, both Elementals tended to overload whoever they were with faster than a long Port could complete. Instead, they would be making lots of little jumps.

Everyone was in radiation gear that would, hopefully, buy them a few crucial moments.

Ice was not optimistic, and made it clear to all of their volunteers that this might easily be a suicide mission.

They volunteered anyway. People changed when the world itself was in peril. Sweetwater was proud of them.

“You think this will work?” she asked Ice as the teleporters vanished to scatter themselves across carefully-planned trajectories. Only the first two stayed, waiting for the signal that everyone else was ready. “We’ll only get one shot at this once they’re both out of containment.”

“It’s a risk no matter what,” Ice said, and nodded as they got confirmation. “Everyone is in place?”

“Looks like it,” Inferno checked, and double checked. “Yeah. We’re set.”

“Good luck,” Ice said seriously to their two starting teleporters, who had the longest range, and the fastest jump-times. It was their job to write the two Elementals with range of the rest of the chain. “Go save the world.”

The two teleporters vanished.

Far-Seers stood ready, watching each step of the way and projecting what they saw on screens, designed for this exact sort of situation. The kind of situation where technology failed, and they were left scrambling for options.

Sweetwater held her breath as the chain began. On satellite, Quasar’s vortex of radiation began to unravel, poisonous red fading into softer blues and greens, and then the images came hard and fast, as everyone worked together to get the two Elementals together with a minimum cost in human lives.

Each landing point was left burned and irradiated, but that they had planned for. The landing points were remote, and easily managed. Containment teams moved in as soon as the Elementals were gone, and began cleanup immediately.

“Where are we putting them?” Sweetwater wanted to know. She had been in charge of getting the teleporters together, and while someone must have told her the final destination, she didn’t remember it.

“Abandoned military test site,” Inferno supplied, watching as people blinked in and out of sight almost too fast to spot. Shimmers in the air marked the thought-quick trail both chains blazed across the world. “Snowflake, you made arrangements?”

“The place is already closed off, and we dropped some supplies to make things more comfortable,” Ice said, watching closely as each teleporter collected their Mover and popped into containment themselves as soon as their part was done, ready for decontamination. “No casualties yet.”

“Better than we hoped,” Sweetwater muttered, and sent a prayer out into the ether. They needed all the help they could get. “Will they react like you two?”

“Will they form a relationship you mean?” Ice asked, and didn’t look at her, although he curled a hand possessively around Inferno’s bicep. “Maybe. Depends on them. I suspect one of the reasons we show up in pairs is because we happen to be very compatible with our opposite.”

“Like soulmates?”

“Maybe. It’s not like there’s a huge sample size to examine,” Ice shrugged as he drifted farther and farther into Inferno’s space and was welcomed there. “Far as I know, me and Inferno are the only two to survive longer than a few weeks, besides these ones.”

“They’re close,” Inferno interrupted their conversation. He was right. Sweetwater looked up just in time to see the last Mover reach out and send Quasar, who was only visible in flickers, to his final destination. Everything around him immediately began fading out of side, and everything metal, from the beams to the screws under his feet, began to glow, and then melt. “There’s one...”

Neutron popped in a moment later, and then Quasar was sweeping her into a crushing hug. She buried her face in his shoulder and held on even as they sank to the ground, as close as they could be and still be wearing clothes.

A shockwave exploded in every direction, and Sweetwater was very glad their landing location was miles away from anything human. The sky lit up as streamers of aurora ignited through the cloudless sky.

“They’re like us,” Inferno decided as cheers broke out through the room. Finally he allowed himself a gruff, relieved smile. “They didn’t have as long to think about it, but I bet you anything they’ll be together inside a day.”

“Inside an hour,” Ice said, and smirked smugly. He had a right to be proud. After all, the plan had been his, and it worked better than they ever dared hope. “Word to the wise, leave them alone for a while. It’ll take a week or two for them to balance out, and they’ll be unstable until they do. Also, we’re reading a whole lot of Hawking radiation, but that’s not something we need to worry about”

“Will they be able to control their abilities like you do once they’re balanced?” Sweetwater suspected so and hoped not. For all their usefulness in this crisis, Ice and Inferno were still criminals. If Neutron and Quasar decided to do the same, there would be no stopping them. “Deliberately I mean?”

“Probably,” Ice said, and turned to get a better hold on Inferno, who wrapped them both in his coat. “Neutron’s a physicist, and Quasar was involved in some interesting matter manipulation studies before he vanished and turned into what he is now. I imagine they’re going to want to study their shared condition before they go looking for something else to do.”

“We’ll deal with that when we get there,” Sweetwater decided, and watched as Neutron and Quasar managed to move inside the small, but comfortable housing to wait out the worst of their new situation. “We have time to worry about it, thanks to you.”

+++

Opposing Elements:

Cold Front

Elemental

Rising Power

Neutron Star

Colliding Galaxies

+++

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[cavaliant]

A little bit about Lachesis and relationships:

Lachesis is, imo, a woman acutely shaped by loss. The loss of her brother is the obvious one...but like the other gen 1 units who survive for even a short amount of time into gen 2, the loss of her friends and comrades weighs heavily upon her as well.

As much as I dislike her Heroes portrayal, she does have some quotes from there that focus on this:

"You mustn't ever perish. I have suffered far too much loss as it is. I would wither away."

“One hopes—that is, I hope—that you will take great care and let me battle with you. I can't stand any more loss.”

"I beg of you—don't stray from my side."

She is desperate to hold on to whoever she has left. Eldigan’s death shatters her--it isn’t just the fact that he died, but also that his death was so senseless. He was executed by a king he had only tried his very best to serve despite every foul deed that king had done. She kind of knew the world wasn’t fair already, but it started hitting her more while defending Nordion Castle and then here with his death. Her brother had only ever tried to live with honour, despite how foolish and hardheaded he could be about it, and his unwavering devotion was repaid with death.

She continues living, because she has to. She still has things to do, even if she alternates between raging at the unfairness of his death and feeling sapped of all strength, will, and life. She is able to move forward eventually, though she never really ‘gets over it’--it’s always there, in the corner of her mind, what Eldigan would say or do if he could see her now.

She gets into relationships during her time in the army, but none of them are serious--she’s looking for some stress relief and a briefly fun time, not a long term commitment dealing with feelings and love she’s too wrung out to give. So when she finds out she’s pregnant with Diarmuid--her first reactions are shock and disbelief, because there is no way someone like her is in any way prepared to raise a child. But after a lot of conflicting emotions about it (being pregnant will later impair her ability to train and fight, for one), she does become determined to see this through just like anything else--the baby is going to be her family, some of her only family left in the world.

This is also why she ends up going back for Diarmuid after Belhalla--it’s true she has responsibilities in Leonster--her younger daughter, Nanna, and her basically-adoptive son, Leif. Ares is in Leonster somewhere, whether she’s allowed to see him or not. However, Diarmuid is far, far away from the rest of her family, and she wants desperately to have them all close to her within arm’s reach, to be able to protect them with her own hands.

This is part of the reason why she became a Master Knight--if sword and staff were not enough to save those precious to her, then she would just have to learn them all. Every weapon she could get her hands on, she trained relentlessly, driving herself forwards though a mixture of ever-present grief and burning resolve to never again allow such loss to happen.

Her plan to cross the desert alone to retrieve her son was a foolish one, but it was a decision made less out of suicidal overconfidence and more one made out of a deep, aching need to have all her remaining family together where they belonged (with her). In her mind, Nanna and Leif would have someone watching over them anyway in the time she’d be gone, and it made more sense to bring Diarmuid over rather than uproot everyone else and cross the Yied Desert to get to Tirnanog when they’d have to go back to Leif’s home of Leonster eventually anyway. So, she packed up all kinds of weapons, her armour, and provisions, and left, protests or not.

As you can imagine, her trip did not end well--and once again, it was something she could not fight. The desert had no reason to take her life, and yet it did anyway--another unfair death onto the pile of unfair deaths scattered through her life. All she’d wanted was to bring her son to be with her and her family again, to have her family as whole as it would ever be, but her stubbornness was her downfall. She did not listen to any attempts to make her reconsider her plan or even to bring someone with her, sure that it would be faster on her own and that she had no need of guards risking their lives on such a mission when it was her own guilt that drove her towards her sent-away son, her own need to fulfill the promise she had made of going back for him one day.

Once she sets her mind to something, there’s no changing it--she can be just as hardheaded as her brother once was, if not even more so, and thus to the desert she went. She did not intend to abandon the children she already had in Leonster, nor did she intend for her actions to imply that they weren’t enough for her. But she didn’t consider the full effects her actions might have on others, and though she’d gotten a bit better at it during her years in Leonster as a mother, she still kind of had the mindset of “if I need to do it, then nothing (regardless of what that is) will get in my way”.

It was only as she was dying that she realized just how much her absence would impact everyone who’d depended on her, but by then it was too late. In Askr, if Lachesis is summoned post-desert, she tries to be more considerate of her family’s feelings due to this, and will resignedly accept being chewed out by them for making ill-thought out decisions.

[prairiesongserial]

5.7

It didn’t take long to figure out why, presumably, no one else had ever tried to steal the water at the top of the mesa: it was suicidal. Unless you had access to the underground tunnel, you had to pass through the packs of muties that were all over the mesa, whose hearing was so sharp that they could find you if you so much as spoke above a whisper. Cody and Sailor had figured that much out after limited success with hand signals, but they were still proceeding as softly as they could, both of them watching the ground to ensure neither of them snapped any twigs, or happened to disturb a rock or animal. One slip like that, and it was over. They would have to sprint to the top of the mesa, and they were barely halfway there. They couldn’t even risk firing their guns at a lone mutie that came after them, because the sound would surely attract a much larger attack.

Still, the operation was on a time limit. If Cody and Sailor went too slow, they risked leaving John alone in the underground tunnel for too long, or Nash just up and leaving them. So they had to move quickly - but not quickly enough to make mistakes. It was frustrating, and Cody had to wonder exactly how much Marc had known about this mutie nest before sending him and Sailor into the thick of it.

Cody’s hands were drenched in sweat, and he wiped them on his jeans, doing his best to keep up the pace with Sailor. It wasn’t hard, not when she stopped every couple of minutes to carefully adjust her leg, sometimes wincing a little as she did so.

“You okay?” Cody asked under his breath the fifth or sixth time it happened, tracking a nearby pack of muties that was filing down a rock formation in the distance. Their long limbs seemed to be built for climbing, and they moved slowly, almost lazily. Cody wasn’t fooled. He’d seen how fast the ones after the rock earlier had moved, when they’d thought it was prey.

“It’s this goddamn leg,” Sailor said, as though the source of her problem wasn’t immediately evident. “It pinches. And it’s too light. Can’t move right with it.”

Cody frowned. Suddenly he had a whole new reason to resent Marc, besides the pool full of water that could otherwise have been drinkable, and the fact that Marc had come up with this terrible plan in the first place. Who just replaced someone’s custom-made prosthetic on a whim, without even fitting them for it first? And right before expecting them to pull off a huge job? A couple of the Dead-Eyes had prosthetics, and Cody remembered exactly how particular they were about the way their limbs were fine-tuned, and who was allowed to make adjustments to them. He was starting to suspect that Marc only cared about theatrics and end results, not how hard it was for everyone else to get from Point A to Point B.

“Marc’s a dick,” he muttered.

Sailor snorted, straightening up. “Yeah. I was pretty sure I prepared you for that.”

“Not enough,” Cody said, making an effort to keep his voice no louder than a murmur. He wiped his hands on his jeans again, though it didn’t do much for him. The sun was high in the sky by now, and there wasn’t much shade on the path, unless they wanted to risk resting under one of the rocky outcroppings the muties were traveling up and down.

“Wonder how John’s gettin’ on,” he said.

“He’s probably down there waiting for us to get a move on,” Sailor said, taking a few light, experimental steps, then setting off properly on the trail again. “All he had to do was take care of a couple guards, not God knows how many muties.”

“Still,” Cody said. He followed Sailor, staying close enough that they could hear each other speak. “Guards are at least a little smarter than muties.”

“Only a little,” Sailor said, with another amused sort of snort. She glanced back at Cody over her shoulder, caught him watching, and shrugged. “I’m sure he’s fine. You’ve got enough to worry about without adding his mission in the mix.”

Sound advice, but it didn’t mean Cody had to take it. Or even like it.

“You know, I’m supposed to have family down here,” he said, judging the need for a change of subject. “I mean, my mom died before I got to meet th-”

He didn’t know what he stepped on. Maybe he never would - looking over his shoulder to check behind him, Cody didn’t see anything in the path that would have made the sharp, gunshot-like sound he’d caused just a moment ago. And looking out in front of him and Sailor, he doubted for a long moment that the misstep had actually made things any worse for them than they already had been.

“Shit,” Sailor said, flatly, in a tone of voice that said she had been expecting one of them to fuck up eventually. Judging from that tone - and from the look on her face - she was a little relieved that it hadn’t been her.

Cody couldn’t say he blamed her. He opened his mouth to reply, and snapped it shut again as he saw movement in the corner of his eye, and turned his attention towards its source with dawning horror. The group of muties he had been hanging back was moving with purpose now, turning around in a distinct, tight arc that would point them right back towards where Cody and Sailor were standing.

Cody’s breath caught in his throat. Oh. So it’s gonna be like that, I guess.

“Okay,” he said, aloud. He adjusted his clothes slightly, making sure the collar of his poncho wouldn’t flap up into his face, and that both his pistol and his rifle were secure against his body. “Guess we’re sprintin’.”

“Guess we are,” Sailor said grimly, hunching over into a runner’s crouch.

The race up the top half of the mesa was grueling, with a narrow, winding path, and a pack of muties breathing down their necks. Even so, they covered more ground than Cody had thought they would, and he wondered why he and Sailor hadn’t been running this entire time, before remembering that it probably would have been impossible. Not only did it make a lot more noise than walking slowly and carefully, but Sailor’s leg was clearly bothering her, sometimes causing her to fall out of step and lag behind. Cody tried to slow down to match her, and she waved him off every time, looking frustrated.

“Stop it,” she snapped, just as he’d started to jog alongside her again. “One of us needs to get to the top.”

“I’m not gonna leave you behind,” Cody insisted, between labored breaths. He couldn’t ever remember having run this much in his life, and his heart was pounding so hard that he could barely hear himself over it. But he was stubborn, and he didn’t like the idea of leaving Sailor behind, not when she’d saved him and John from Marc’s men the night before. The way he saw it, he owed her a rescue - or at least his support, until they got out of this mess.

“Cody,” Sailor said. “I’m a fucking professional. I’m not gonna die.”

If she was bluffing, it wasn’t immediately evident. She was confident enough that it made Cody falter, then speed up a bit, gaining on her by a couple of steps. The muties were still bearing down on them from behind, though a clearly man-made fence at the top of the mesa had come into sight over the horizon, and one last push might -

Cody’s train of thought was derailed by the noise of a gun firing, so close to him that he almost startled right out of his skin. He faltered on his feet again, twisting to look over his shoulder just in time to see a mutie drop to the ground like a stone some ten feet away. Sailor had stopped in her tracks, lining up another shot with her rifle, and Cody slowed to watch her do it.

The muties, however, didn’t. Cody could still see them charging up from below, a great wave of them coming up the path, and realized with dawning horror that they had been close enough for him to hear the noise of them gibbering to each other the entire time, growing louder as they grew nearer. He just hadn’t been able to hear them over the sound of his own pulse.

“Go! Don’t slow down,” Sailor snapped, without even looking at him. “Don’t wait for me!”

“But -” Cody started to protest, and was cut off by the sound of her firing the rifle again, then a third time, picking off two more muties that had broken away from the pack to sprint at her. Her aim was good, and both dropped to the ground several yards out. Cody couldn’t help but wonder if Sailor had enough ammunition to take on the whole pack, once they caught up to her.

“Go!” Sailor said, cutting through his thoughts.

Without giving himself time to second guess it, Cody went.

The compound at the top of the mesa where the water was kept wasn’t much to look at. Just a tall, chain link fence blocking off a few yards of dirt, with a handful of barrels resing on a metal platform smack in the middle of it. The lift. There was even a small column poking up on one side of it that no doubt had the controls to move it up and down.

Cody began to scale the fence, painfully conscious of the sound of gunfire and muties growling and groaning in the distance. He’d lost sight of Sailor as the path had twisted around towards a different side of the mesa, taking him around a sharp turn, but he’d also lost the muties.

Or he thought he had, anyway. A sound from much closer by let him know that the assumption wasn’t entirely true - at least one mutie had given chase to the compound. Cody tried to climb faster, grabbing handholds up as high as he could, but he could see it cresting the horizon in his peripheral vision. Gaining on him. Definitely not slowing down as it headed for the fence. He clenched his fingers through the gaps in the metal so tightly that his knuckles turned paper-white, and braced for impact.

It was the right decision. The mutie threw itself against the fence, shaking the entire structure. Cody’s stomach turned over as he wobbled back and forth, one of his feet slipping for just a moment before he rammed the toe of his boot back where it had been. That shook the fence, too, and the mutie below him made that horrible, dog-like grunting sound that Cody hated.

Cody stayed where he was for a long moment, wondering if he could hold on to the fence with one hand, and reach his pistol with the other. He might have tried it, if his hands hadn’t been once again drenched in sweat - and if the mutie hadn’t latched onto the fence with both hands. At first, Cody thought it was just going to shake the fence again, trying to knock him down, but then it started to climb.

It was fast. Inhumanly so. Cody froze in terror for a moment, and that was all the mutie needed to start gaining on him. He could feel the weight of it bending the fence, making it bulge inwards towards the small compound area. He bit back a scream, and focused on the top of the fence, on reaching it - but even if he did, he would still have to climb down the other side, and that would bring him face to face with the mutie.

A hand brushed his ankle, then grabbed the hem of his jeans and pulled. One of Cody’s hands fell away from the fence, and he grasped for it desperately, trying to correct. He could feel the grip of his other hand loosening, feel himself about to fall - and then the grip on his jeans loosened, like it had never been there to begin with. Cody swallowed hard, getting his bearings and his grip on the fence again, then looked down.

Sailor was there, panting, cleaning the blade of her knife off on her jeans. The mutie that had been pursuing him was crumpled in a heap on the ground, a pool of blood spreading rapidly out from underneath of it.

“Told you I wasn’t gonna die,” she said, sheathing her knife and hopping up onto the fence. Her rifle was noticeably absent - either she’d run out of ammo and abandoned it, or it had gotten too damaged to be worth using. Cody hoped it was the former.

“How fast can you climb?” he asked her, catching sight of another mutie as it crested the horizon.

Sailor bared her teeth in a strained smile. “Let’s find out.”

5.6 || 5.8

[iatethepomegranate]

Blue is the New Red Chapter 46

Masterlist

Note that due to tumblr being ridiculous, I no longer post external links on individual chapters. If you prefer to read on AO3, please refer to the masterlist link above.

Rated: M for torture, flashbacks, trauma reactions, PTSD, sexual assault of minors, consensual sexual content and related freaking out about it, drug references, non-consensual drug use, possibly underage drinking, homophobia and biphobia, references to self-harm, suicidal ideation and attempt. Chapter warnings:  animal cruelty, allusions to the sexual assault of minors, mentions of Wally's jerkass dad, hints of PTSD

Main Pairing: Birdflash

Status: Multiple chapters, in progress

Overall summary: Nightwing has finally made his return to the Team, but he finds the events of the past two years aren’t quite done with him yet.

Chapter notes:  Batgirl is participating in her first team mission, and Nightwing is finally back on active duty after his long absence.

Additional notes (and an apology): It's been far too long since I last updated. I'm so sorry. I wish I had a good explanation, but the fact is I just could not get myself into the right mindset to write this, let alone reread what I've written so I can remember how it goes. (See a longer explanation on the AO3 page)

Reminder: dialogue in bold is said through M'gann's mind link.

Chapter 46: Reconnaissance (Maybe)

It took Batman three tries before he was able to let Nightwing on the bioship the following morning. If it hadn't been for the smorgasbord of trackers embedded into every piece of Nightwing's uniform, he probably wouldn't have been allowed to go at all.

Batgirl squeaked when the seatbelt fastened itself over her chest. Nightwing, very charitably, he thought, did not laugh.

“You control the ship with your brain?” she asked Miss Martian once she'd recovered.

Miss Martian nodded. “I can also make her respond to commands from non-telepaths. I'll show you how to fly her one day.”

Batgirl rubbed the seatbelt between her gloved fingers. “Maybe once I've gotten used to this.”

“Wait until you see her shapeshifting,” said Kid Flash.

“You just want her to turn into that version of you with boobs again,” said Nightwing.

“Who can blame me? I'm hot.”

“Oh, grow out of your hormones already,” Artemis complained. “You don't hear Nightwing going on like this anymore.”

There was a very specific reason for that, but Nightwing made a conscious decision not to ruin the mood. At least it shut Kid Flash up, probably because he'd had the same thought. Artemis winced and opened her mouth to apologise, but Nightwing waved her off before she could. Better to just move on.

Miss Martian smiled awkwardly and called Batgirl over to show her how the bioship controls worked.

“Batman said he added colour change options to these suits, didn't he?” said Artemis, pressing various spots on the chest logo of her cold-weather uniform until it switched to her usual green. She pressed it again to switch back to white. “Nice.”

“I told him we wouldn't be very covert if we wore white indoors,” said Nightwing. “Nice to see he listened for once.” Nightwing hadn't had call to wear his new cold-weather uniform until today. Similar design to his usual costume, except in white, plus the cowl that had featured on his cold-weather Robin uniform. For the first time in a while, he felt naked without a cape. If the weather proved too punishing, he might have to add one for future missions.

“You stole that idea from me,” Robin complained. Seeing him in the same cold weather uniform Nightwing once wore brought on a feeling of nostalgia that he thought he'd finally gotten over.

“You snooze, you lose,” he said, shaking it off.

Everyone strapped into their seats and Miss Martian willed the ship into flight. It would take a few hours to reach their destination and Nightwing could barely contain his excitement. After such a long time of being stuck on the sidelines due to a never-ending parade of bullshit, he was finally back where he wanted to be, with his best friends in the whole world. There was that nagging fear in the back of his mind about what would happen if they came across the al Ghuls, but the likelihood of that happening was so remote that it didn't take more precedence than that.

Besides, there was nothing better at sharpening his focus than a good old-fashioned team mission. He already felt a thousand times smarter and they'd only just left home base.

“This is exciting,” Batgirl admitted. “I had no idea there was a team like this until a few months ago. How did you convince the Justice League to let you do this?”

“Well, to be fair, it started when KF, Aqualad and I broke into a supervillain's science lab without anyone's permission,” Nightwing said. “Then we found Superboy in a pod and busted him out. We also may have blown up the place, just a little bit.”

“Then we had to wait a thousand years for them to officially approve the team,” Kid Flash added. “Supey crashed at my place in the meantime.” The corner of his mouth tightened. “Well, I wouldn't call it my place anymore...”

“You've mentioned something about your dad before,” said Batgirl. “Ages ago, at that gala where you embarrassed Nightwing with that Enrique Iglesias song.”

“I'm amazed you remember that,” Kid Flash replied. “I don't even remember what I told you.” At least that eased some of the pain out of his expression, even if they were still talking about it.

“I have an eidetic memory,” Batgirl said. “Comes in handy. You mentioned Dick's—I mean Nightwing's—dad took the news about you two better than your own dad did.”

“Yeah...” His mouth tightened again. “He kicked me out of home last year. Been staying with my aunt and uncle.”

“That's horrible. I'm so sorry.”

Kid Flash shrugged, but no one believed he meant it. “My aunt and uncle have had all of us in the same room for a family dinner so it's not like he and Mum are out of my life completely. Just... mostly. I'm gonna invite them to my graduation. No idea if they'll show. No point dwelling on something I can't do anything about.”

Nightwing rested his foot on the edge of Kid Flash's seat; they were too far away for hugging, even if that's what he really wanted to do right now. A friendly foot of support would have to do.

“You really remember everything?” Zatanna asked Batgirl, who grasped onto the change of topic.

“No one remembers everything,” she replied, “but I can get pretty close.”

“Impressive,” said Aqualad.

The conversation very pointedly moved on, but Kid Flash had this faraway look in his eyes, even as he went through the motions of smiling and nodding at what the others said.

“Hey,” Nightwing said quietly. Superboy would hear, but he was pretty good at pretending he couldn't.

Kid Flash sighed. “I'm fine, babe. I just miss them sometimes.”

“I know.”

“I don't know whether I'm more afraid they'll come to my graduation and be horrible, or they won't come at all.”

“You sure you wanna invite them?”

“Yeah. I wanna know they care. If they care.”

“Whatever happens, you're surrounded by people who love you. And we're fully prepared to fight your dad if you want.”

Kid Flash snickered, just a little bit. “Please don't. He'll think we're moving into the final phase of the gay agenda: eliminate the heterosexuals.”

Nightwing cackled. “I'll pencil it in after brunch.”

The issue wasn't resolved, but the levity helped in the short term. Kid Flash relaxed in his seat over time and his father slowly filtered out of everyone's minds. There'd be time to deal with that can of worms later. No need to let it spoil the upcoming excitement of the mission.

Nightwing was so ready for this.

Miss Martian had to land the bioship a mile away from the facility due to a lack of surrounding cover, plus the thermal imaging at the base. Small groups wearing insulated costumes would have a better chance of slipping in undetected.

The team split into their squads and put some distance between each other, the better to trick the sensors. Zatanna prepared a teleportation spell for alpha squad while Nightwing hopped on Kid Flash's back for beta's run to the facility. Rocket expanded her bubble to include Superboy and Robin to improve the speed of gamma.

Alpha would arrive first and relay any immediate findings to the other squads. Batgirl was already a talented hacker and could handle any low-risk hacks, though anything more serious would have to await Nightwing's arrival. Batgirl was a quick study and would surpass him eventually, but that wasn't today.

Nightwing buried his face against Kid Flash's shoulder as they began to move. They screeched to a halt maybe a minute later, but he didn't get the chance to climb down before Batgirl's voice was in his head.

“I've got a virus into the external cameras. Nightwing should be able to take out the infrareds with minimal interference.”

“Thanks, BG.” Nightwing climbed off Kid Flash's back and they pressed themselves against the dull stone wall that surrounded the entire complex.

Miss Martian dropped to the snowy ground and rolled a few times. “There. My body temperature should blend into our surroundings if I'm quick. I'll find the sensors for you.” Martians already ran cooler than humans anyway. She camouflaged and phased through the wall.

“We're definitely safe from the infrared cameras here, right?” said Kid Flash.

“As long as we stick to the wall,” Nightwing replied. “The walls are insulated and the exterior cameras angled to watch for approaching invaders, remember?”

“I may have dozed off in the briefing a little bit.”

Whatever smartass reply Nightwing was cooking up had to be aborted when Miss Martian reappeared. They hugged the wall as they slipped in through a gate, the guard already unconscious, and then legged it to the security station.

Said station was a rickety little shack with a tin roof and a door thicker than its walls. Nightwing slipped inside with Kid Flash while Miss Martian stood guard outside.

Nightwing found a port on the three-monitor computer's CPU and pulled a plug from his wrist computer. He went slowly at first, just poking around in the guts of the programming to see what he had.

“Looks like the al Ghul techs added a shutdown sequence in a hurry,” he said, leafing through the programmers' documentation attached to the code. “Not part of the original programming. It's tied into some functions deeper in the facility.”

“Can you turn them off without alerting anyone?” asked Aqualad.

“I can make it look like a malfunction, but they're gonna know about it.” It wasn't ideal, but that's what he had to work with. “Are you in position? We won't have long to get inside, and we'll have trouble getting out again if they fix the system faster than we can work.”

“Perhaps we should consult Batman. It may affect the League's mission if we are discovered.”

“Make it quick. We had to knock out a guard to get here and I don't know if there are any alarms in this system.”

There were a few tense moments, each longer than the last. Nightwing half-expected they would have to fall back, but Aqualad's voice filled his head again, giving the go-ahead to shut down the infrareds.

It only took a moment. He'd had plenty of time to plan how to do it, after all. Then they hurried out of the security building and through the nearest door, Miss Martian taking point. Invisibly.

“I found an alarm system,” Robin said. “Doesn't look hard to turn off but, you know...”

“Looks can be deceiving?” Nightwing replied.

“Well, this is Ra's al Ghul we're talking about.”

“If you are concerned, perhaps we should leave it alone,” said Aqualad.

“Sure thing, boss,” said Nightwing. “We'll avoid detection the old-fashioned way.”

Kid Flash stifled a snicker beside him. Old-fashioned for him meant tripping over things and falling right into the people they were trying to avoid. So maybe they wouldn't do that.

“Our priority is reconnaissance,” Aqualad pointed out. “No unnecessary risks.”

“You ever notice how our recon missions always end with explosions?” said Kid Flash. Aqualad didn't respond, but his annoyed vibes through the link got the point across. The link wasn't typically strong enough to pick up on specific emotions, but Aqualad was uniquely talented in that regard. He'd certainly had plenty of practice making his frustration with the team's nonsense clear without uttering a word.

The corridors were long and made of soulless concrete. It was not like Ra’s at all. He preferred old-fashioned stone whenever possible, but maybe it didn’t hold the heat in this climate.

“What’re you thinking?” asked Kid Flash

“This place doesn’t look like an al Ghul original,” Nightwing replied. “Maybe it’s an adaptation for the cold weather, or he doesn’t care about aesthetics in a facility he’ll rarely visit. I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.”

“Maybe he didn’t build it,” suggested Artemis. “He could’ve found it abandoned or killed the original inhabitants.”

“Possibly. If he was desperate enough.”

Unfortunately, Nightwing had been hoping for a more traditional interior, because there tended to be little alcoves that made good hiding spots. No such luck here. He spotted a heating vent and Miss Martian floated up to test if it would open, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Fused shut,” she whispered. Damn it.

“That’d be too easy,” Nightwing muttered. Ra’s knew about the batfamily’s tendency toward air vents and had clearly taken steps to thwart their use.

“I could get it open,” Miss Martian said, “but it would make too much noise.”

They continued, peeking into solid metal doors as they went. Each room looked like a horror movie version of an examination room, some with beds or dental chairs or even metal tables. No computers or samples yet. Nothing they could work with.

“Found something,” said Batgirl. “In the heart of the facility. Some kind of computer server. There are cages, too. We haven’t gone inside yet. I think there may be an elevator in there. Get here quick.”

“On our way,” said Nightwing. Kid Flash’s running would be too loud, so they ran at a Nightwing-level pace instead. Well, Miss Martian flew a little ahead with her camouflage.

If there really was an elevator, maybe that would explain why there was so little of use on this level. It made sense, really. Any infiltrator worth their salt could get in here. Maybe the central chamber was more difficult, or at least the fact it was central would deter all but the most determined snoops. Ah, language.

All three squads met up at a giant pair of metal doors, all taking turns to peer inside. The door was electrified shut, linked to a keypad beside it.

“Does anyone else think it’s strange we haven’t seen anyone aside from that one guard?” said Robin.

“Super strange,” Nightwing agreed. He pressed a button on his mask and scanned the keypad, lighting up four fingerprints that denoted the most commonly-used buttons: 5, 7, 1, 4. There were 24 permutations of those four numbers, and trying them all in a brute-force strategy would undoubtedly trip another alarm.

There was a camera on the wall behind the team, which was dead. It must have gone off when the infrareds did… Nightwing hoped. If he could break into the system and find the camera footage for the code.

“I need to find another security room to have any chance of cracking this without ruining the mission,” he said. Sadly, Ra’s al Ghul knew better than to use WayneTech. “Think there’s one inside, or do we have to go all the way outside again?”

“We passed one on our route,” said Batgirl. “It’s a few doors down that way.” She pointed behind her, to Nightwing’s right.

“What do the rest of us do in the meantime?” asked Rocket. “I feel silly just standing around.”

“We look for alternative entrances,” said Aqualad. “I want everyone to know this place so well they could walk it blindfolded.”

“Now you sound like Batman,” said Robin, as Nightwing took Miss Martian and Kid Flash down the corridor to find the security room.

“I will take that as a compliment. Begin searching.”

The security room was the third door on the left of the concrete corridor. Nightwing had to swallow bile, because the stack of cassette tapes on the wall reminded him too much of Skinner’s compound. He shook his head to clear it.

“Get a fucking grip, Nightwing,” he muttered, crossing to the computer on the cheap grey desk before Kid Flash or Miss Martian could question or comfort him. It was a modern computer with a flat-screen monitor, and it took him moments to break in. Fortunately, the video records were archived on the computer itself. The tapes must’ve been old. Good. He didn’t want to look at them again.

Nightwing also didn’t want to delve too deeply into the video archives. He found a digital map of the facility with all the cameras marked and downloaded a copy to his wrist computer. He also passed copies to Robin and Batgirl.

He found the central chamber on the map and made a note of the camera’s codename: AX253. He then found that folder in the archive and started sifting through the footage until he found someone using the code. It was a bad angle, but it was all he had. He ran the video a couple of times and finally figured out the first digit: 4. That brought the possible number of combinations down to six. Better, but still too many to risk a brute-force approach. Most systems got antsy after more than three attempts, especially in places such as this. If he could piece together at least one more digit…

“What’s taking so long?” said Superboy. “Whatever you did to the cameras could’ve been fixed already.”

“It hasn’t,” Nightwing replied. “I need a few more minutes. Got one digit figured out. Need at least one more to make brute-forcing an option.”

“Genius takes time,” Kid Flash added. Nightwing would’ve elbowed him and told him to shut up, but he was busy.

He sifted through the footage and found a shorter person. Both people had been wearing labcoats. This one was a woman, and she fumbled the combination the first two times because her hands shook. She got it on the third because she went slowly, enough that Nightwing could pick up the whole combination. That was nice. He also knew the keypad could take at least two mistakes.

The combination was: 4157.

“Got it,” said Nightwing. “Anything cool on your end?”

“No luck,” said Zatanna. “That door is our only way in and out.”

“Wonderful.”

They headed back to the door and Nightwing keyed in the combination. The door buzzed and released. Aqualad tested the handle, and it turned.

There were more metal tables in the room, and fur was stuck in some of the cages. Nightwing made a beeline for the enormous computer that took up an entire wall, dragging Robin and Batgirl with him.

“Find another way down if you can,” Aqualad said. “I would prefer not to use the elevator.”

“Bit of a fire hazard if it’s the only option,” Kid Flash quipped.

“Would Ra’s al Ghul care?” said Robin.

“Probably not,” Nightwing replied, pulling a cord from his wrist computer and plugging it into a port. “As long as he gets out in once piece, most of his people are expendable. Hell, even he is to an extent. Yay, Lazarus Pits.” He shook off a sick feeling at the green memory and focused on breaking into this computer, explaining his steps to Robin and Batgirl as he went.

It was a simple enough task to log in and poke around in the files.

“Nightwing, what are we dealing with?” asked Aqualad, who was examining the elevator across the room.

Zatanna had freed some fur from a cage and was feeling it between her fingers. “This is real fur. A wolf, I think?”

Nightwing found some research notes. “I’m not sure what I’m looking at yet yet. KF, get your science brain over here and help me make sense of this. I think we’ve got some test results.”

“All the test subjects have codes,” said Batgirl, pointing to the screen. “Can we find what those mean?”

“Sounds like a good starting point,” said Kid Flash, zipping over to them. He rested his hand on Nightwing’s shoulder, leaning in to get a look as Nightwing sifted through the files until he found a name authority file. “Maybe that’s it.”

Nightwing opened it. “Each code translates to a Latin name and a number.”

“Scientific animal names?” Kid Flash suggested.

“Makes sense,” said Robin. “Zatanna, can we look at that fur?”

Zatanna brought it over. Between the five of them, they were able to identify most of the Latin animal names. Lots of wolves, which made since given the grey animal fur. There were also foxes, various kind of large-breed dogs, large canines, and even horses and a bear or two. Nightwing swore he saw the scientific name for an African elephant as well, which was just upsetting and made him think of the circus.

“So, they’re doing animal tests here,” said Kid Flash. “Can we save some of this data? Uncle Flash would have a field day.”

“I’ll save as much as I can,” said Nightwing. “We still need to take a look downstairs.”

“The elevator is not code-protected,” said Aqualad. “It would appear we are clear to use it, if there is no other option.” He sounded less than enthused. Nightwing couldn’t blame him. You never wanted to get stuck in an elevator when you weren’t supposed to be there at all. Sure, they could try the elevator shaft, but it was a bad idea when you didn’t know if you could get in and out of the elevator if the need arose.

Nightwing went back to the test results, but even knowing the code meanings wasn’t much help. He downloaded those records and went searching for a thesis statement that would explain all this.

Finally, he lucked out:

Mission: devise a method to command dangerous animals to control human population levels.

Classic Ra’s al Ghul. Environmentalism through genocide. How exactly was he trying to command these animals?

“There a lot of information,” Nightwing said. “We should probably leave a small team here to gather as much as possible and keep a lookout for any patrols. There has to be a reason we haven’t encountered many people yet.”

“Robin, Batgirl, are you confident continuing Nightwing’s work here?” asked Aqualad. “We may need him underground.”

“We can do it,” said Robin. “He’s done the hard work already.”

“Very well. New squad assignments: Robin, Batgirl and Rocket are to stay here. Everyone else, with me. Should we need to split further, I want Superboy and Kid Flash protecting Nightwing.”

Nightwing almost made a smartass comment, but it did make sense. He was the only hacker going underground. If something happened, the rest of the team could become trapped if they were unlucky.

They headed to the elevator and peeked inside. There was a hatch up top. Superboy gave Nightwing a boost so he could test the opening. It budged without too much effort, so Aqualad pressed the down button and they all climbed out the hatch. If anyone was in the room below, better they saw an empty elevator than one full of invaders.

Nightwing crouched on top of the elevator beside Zatanna as it lurched downwards. He checked over the blueprints he’d downloaded, but they didn’t provide any information on the bottom floor. They were going into this without any knowledge of what was down there.

“I figured out why the infrared cameras need to be turned off,” Robin said.

“We figured it out,” Batgirl cut in. “These animals are controlled by radio and light signals. The canine and feline animals are controlled by high frequencies, but some of the others are controlled by low frequencies.”

“The cameras interfere with the signals,” said Robin. “Also, they’re probably jammed full of machinery. Enjoy.”

“Thank you,” said Aqualad. Aloud he whispered, “Be ready. We could find anything down here.”

The elevator shuddered to a halt and the doors pinged open.

“Hello?” came a voice. “Who’s there?”

“Oh, god, has someone come to rescue us?” came another voice.

“Please, show yourselves.” A third voice.

The team shared a look.

“I’ll go,” said Superboy. “They’ll recognise my logo.”

“And you’re harder to shoot,” Artemis added.

Superboy didn’t dignify that with a response. Aqualad gave the okay, and he dropped through the hatch.

“Superman?!”

“That’s Superboy, genius. God, I thought you had a PhD.”

“Care to tell me what’s going on here?” Superman said.

“We were kidnapped months ago to work on cybernetic animals.”

“Are there more of you?” asked Superboy.

“Yes! Are you going to get us out?”

“Sure.”

Superboy followed the three people out of earshot, so Superboy narrated through the mind link.

“They’ve taken me to another door. There are dozens of scientists in there. One of them is telling me they have been stuck here for days. They have to swipe identity cards to get back in the elevator, but they stopped working. Someone needs to stay in the elevator to keep it open for us.”

“Can you get to the scientists?” asked Aqualad.

“We should… no. Their cards have stopped working on this door and they don’t know what would happen if I broke it. We need Nightwing.”

Aqualad nodded to Nightwing, who dropped into the elevator with Kid Flash.

This room had even more cages, and the metal tables were covered in fur and stained with blood. Kid Flash shuddered. Superboy and the three scientists were on the other end of the room. Someone inside the room was beating against the glass.

“Hi, everyone,” Nightwing said. “Now, let’s see what we’ve got here.” A scientist offered her key card and Nightwing tested it on the keypad. It didn’t respond at all. “Do the upstairs security features affect these cards?”

“No,” said the scientist. “We have to swipe for all the rooms around here. We can’t do our tests if we can’t get the doors open.”

“Are there any animals left on-site?”

“No,” said another scientist, wiping sweat off his brow. “Soldiers came in and loaded them onto trucks a few days ago.”

“Did they leave us to die in here?” said the third. Nightwing decided against answering, because the answer was absolutely yes.

“We’re here now,” he said instead. “What kind of security measures are down here?” The keypad didn’t accept any codes and had no way to plug in and open it with his computer.

“Not many,” said the first scientist. “We have emergency buttons to shut down everything, but I don’t think anything happens with the keypads.”

“Okay, but just in case, we have to get everyone out quickly,” said Nightwing. “Aqualad, we might have to smash the security measures to get people out of this room. Are we ready for that?”

“This is supposed to be recon only,” said Aqualad.

“I know. Call Batman while I see if we’ve got any other options?”

“I will. One moment.”

“I’m going to see if there’s another way to get this open,” said Nightwing, “but there’s a very good chance I’ll have to ask our muscled friend here to tear it off to get at the wires instead. Do you have any computers you can access?”

The scientists showed him to a few laptops. He saved the research files on there but couldn’t find a way to get into the security system. He hadn’t expected anything, given these scientists were prisoners and possibly geniuses, but it was worth a shot.

“Batman gives his approval to get the scientists out. He is sending backup to take them from there. We are to rendezvous at the front of the facility and then head home.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Nightwing. “Okay, I can’t see any other options. Superboy, could you rip that keypad off the wall for me?”

Superboy tugged it off like a piece of gum from his shoe. The door was still shut, so Nightwing dug around in the wires until he found the right two and tapped the copper ends together to complete the circuit. The door slid open.

“Everyone out, please!” he called. “Go straight to the elevator. No dawdling.”

The trapped scientists flooded out and headed for the elevator. Nightwing nudged their three new friends to join the crowd. Not everyone could fit.

“We’ll take this group up and come back,” said Aqualad. Nightwing relayed that to the people stuck in the room.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” he promised. “Our teammates will be back with the elevator in a few—”

A growl erupted from one of the other rooms.

“Um,” said Kid Flash, “didn’t the scientists say those soldiers took all the animals?”

Well, shit.

[determined-magi-archive]

[There is no turning back... is there?]

...

he can’t really sleep.

Agarwaenor lies on the makeshift bed of his, a pair of potato sacks sewed into a single small bed filled with hay. blackened eyes staring absently towards the exit as he listens carefully to everyone around the camp, nostrils opening and closing over his scaled face. Brows furrowed before he lets a frustrated, inhuman growl and snaps from his resting position.

He really hated this timeline...

Everyone was... just so MISERABLE, so damn depressing on it, he hated it, and it was all his fault. All his fault for chosing to have a little hope from seeing one of them take the initiative, all because he thought things could go differently with everyone involved. What a fucking moron he was, right? An absolute fucking tool of stupidity. Of course it would never work... It didn’t to him, with all the power he had... what fucking chance they had to right it? It would take a miracle to right this world, or change the course of history, it was a suicide mission.

He should have let it run its course, perhaps... perhaps that way they would get some control on how they went, perhaps that way they wouldn’t be stuck in the place they were, burning bridge after bridge against their will so horribly, they wouldn’t lose everyone’s trust, their trust on themselves. Where did this little ruse left them? They were sick, losing control, losing friends, killing allies... perhaps they were worse now than how they would have been the other way around... and for what? Monsterkind would never value that, they’d just see everything that was wrong, pain their kind as barbarians, even those who wanted to do right by them... and they? They would be painted the worst, most likely, for rising a coup so disastrous, and a long-lasting bloodshed that would expand to other kingdoms allied with Bellegur’s father... there was no use in saving a few monsters if the price to pay was that... It would have led to the same position they were, with little allies, and with them struggling to control themselves and avoid risking the future for both races...

He claws at his face, letting a long insufferable growl. Before roaring in frustration whilst he throws around his table. Futile... it was all futile. He knew it was futile, and like the dumb madman he is, he tried anyways.

What a fucking joke.

Look where it got him? He was dying on body and mind, sick beyond life, sick beyond death. Living more in an endless torture sustained by a dumb spell that was failing, mutilated in body by his magic, and in mind by his LOVE. And the worst of it? He dragged the others into it, his dumb decision had them all suffer the same thing, how? he doesn’t remember... but he knows it was all hist fault too, whatever happened the last Reset? it was bad, and it is involved... and he dragged them into it too. For some miracle it got handled... but now? now they were risking doing that all over again, with no assurance that whatever happened last time would save anyone again. He’s fucked and he fucked everyone else too...

Just look at his friends... his family...

They hardly looked human, they hardly acted so. They couldn’t even speak anymore, for fuck’s sake. What kind of path was this? Their magic was making their bodies collapse on themselves, their Love was twisting their mind until they didn’t know what was real and what not, what was the poison trying to further screw them over beyond salvation, twisting their bodies into a mockery of the race they were trying to save. How long until they lost it? Or people couldn’t keep up anymore? When was enough... enough? He should fix this... he has to... he has to fix this, what else is this power for, if not fixing things?

He just needs to find that old save... that old file before this conflict started. That... that should do, right? Gilrin will be back to her academy, no wiser and happy with her students, Thanneth? She’d still have her privileges, a prestigious position and enjoy a rather comfortable day to day basis being an asshole. Braigon? He wouldn’t have to fight many men he knew and saw grow over his long life, he didn’t deserve to fight people he once knew, he deserved his life with his colleagues, his family... Belle? He shouldn’t be fucking killing his whole family, for fuck’s sake, what kind of life was that? He shouldn’t be doing a coup to get his crown, or lead a civil war to stop the extinction of an species, what kind of sick bastard was he to allow this?

What of Thannor? He had a happy life with Kairos as his apprentice before all of this came crashing down, even if it was a lie, they both were happy, who was he to take that away? to ruin that by entertaining this pointless path? He ruined everything he worked hard for, decades of work with the bastard to keep him from being the same as most of the rotten fucks wrong in this world are. He ruined a perfectly good dishonest friendship, and chance at him to get actually better for once... that is what he did...

And Rhowën?... oh dear Rhowën... that poor judge...

He ruined his friendship with Lost, With Kairos, the only persons beside him and the other mages that had managed to get a semblance of a honest, good and close friendship... Made him burn bridges he deeply valued, only to watch him come to the crashing realization of how his sacrifises were FOR NOTHING. They didn’t mean ANYTHING, the outcomes all led to the same fucking endings. They fought, they worsened, they fell from grace, and they would die for it.

He ruined Kairos and Lost too, ruined yet another chance at hoping to find something that was different, ruined their relationships with his friends, nay.... his family. He ruined honest, well meaning attempts by humoring this all, now he could see that fucking mistake. Discouraged one from showing ever again, and now was cutting the last ties with the other, at the pace they were going. He ruined everyone and it was his fucking fault, he ruined a perfect lie in a desperate attempt to find another way, knowing there was no other, and he ruined everything for doing so. And he was even risking being found out on top of it, he was losing everything over a fucking maybe, AGAIN.

Well... screw turning this all into a meaningless lost battle, he’s got the power to stop this, right? he should fix this mess, before it couldn’t be undone... he had to fix it... he had to... He didn’t care if everyone hated him for it, he had to fix this. he didn’t care if he was seen as a greceless bastard or anything, for turning all into a joke, he had to undo this damage, he had the power to do that.

He would fix it... no matter what cost was on him. He just wanted to see them be happy, he just wanted to be happy... if only a little longer... he just needed a little more time to figure things out... just... give him more time...

He would fix this, he promises. He had to...

For everyone.

*You open the menu  You move to the files and  look for the old save file.

* The file is older than desired    But it seems fine...    It should do, right?

* Load?

[Yes]  -   [No]

His hand hovers over the loading option...

This was right, wasn’t it? It should be enough. Perhaps Kairos and Lost would have to pretend a bit again, until they didn’t need to feing like they didn’t know much about them... but... that couldn’t hurt them, they were good at that? Not like each had their lies to keep, or anything really, it would make their lives easier, really... isn’t he right? It would suck seeing things go bad, once they do, but they would learn from this and perhaps find a way to lessen the blows... Kairos spell should work then, they’d get way less LV than the amount they currently had... it should work... it had to...

Then? They could figure out a way to have things be different, perhaps get a shot at a happy ending, because this? This would never lead to it. Going against the current would never work for them, they weren’t like salmon were... No.

Load?

*[Yes]    -    [No]

Are you sure you want to load the file?

[Yes]    -    [No]

His hand hovers over the yes, snorting at the question seeking confirmation. Of course he wanted to, he wouldn’t hover over it without a reason, or if he didn’t want to do so. That was a senseless thing, he never understood why it was there to begin with, really.

Or... well... used to never do so.

The moment moment he’s about to press the option to confirm, a tearing pain rushes from his chest towards his head. Ravaging every inch of his mind as he lets a single agonic cry towards the sky. Hands snapping at his head and clawing at its sides, tears falling down as eyes light up with magic and his face twists in pure, unbriddled pain and despair. Before doubling down as his magic grows volatile immediatelly... ramming against the spell viciously as Agarwaenor shakes profusely, as if trying to get something off his head.

Once that proves useless, he goes back towards tearing at the side of his head and jaws, screeching unholy, inhuman cries as the guards immediatelly run into the sight. Alerted by the sudden cry breaking through the sound proofing spells, and the sheer emotions conveyed through the camp by his magic screaming at their souls. Only to find the sight of the distressed mage grow less reassuring, as his gaze grows from helplesss anguish into a derranged irate beast with tears still falling down.

“ Fuck... get whoever had those fucking meds, NOW. “

He doesn’t waste time using his magic o stop them, against his instincts screeching that it would only worsen the pain. He doesn’t care then, no... And that leads to both guards deaths, quick and as sudden as they could be. And the mutilation of their bodies as he continues to slam claws around their corpses until Bellegur and Gilrin come to tackle him... knowing well this time they would be needed to pin him down for a shot.

But not without a fight, that is, he made sure to be hard to catch. As he thrashed and fought fiercely against his would-be captors. Wrathfully screeching and roaring madly whilst tears fell down his face, clawing, striking and biting at anyone trying to pin him as his body was soon to follow signs of strain, until he couldn’t fight anymore out of pure pain...

He didn’t fade into restless sleep silently however, not at all. And the camp echoed with his inhuman cries, until his breath could no longer let such jarring cries. And even then, his eyes remained wide open, face twisted back towards a distressed grieving cry until they closed his eyes.

No one slept that night.