#but it's actually light heavy and sniper are the three types

[toastysol]

Something happened to me in the Oda fight just now that has never happened to me during a boss battle before: I ran out of ammo. At first I was pretty sure I was fucked because I'm not very good at melee and it was either that or try to hit him with a sniper rifle or a knife while he zooms around at me. But I had mantis blades!! And so it was actually a super epic fight with mantis blades that took me so long and I'm so full of adrenaline rn. Idk why I'm telling u this I just love when games let you have moments like that. I've literally never run out of all my usable ammo before in this game. But it made the fight so much more interesting and fun. And it made me actually *gasp* use my mantis blades that I love so much! I am so glad that melee counters are a thing here or I would not have been able to make it, Oda is scary lol

[wayward-sword]

White Wolf (A Gunpla verse drabble)

"So who's our target for this mission?" "Some wannabe 'game center crusher'." "Just one player? Either he's really good or we're going overkill for this one. I mean, one against four? That's not very fair odds." "You know better than to count on a straight numbers advantage. They've been callin' this guy the 'White Wolf'." "White Wolf? What kinda name is–" "Hey, I think I've been hearin' about him, actually. They say he uses a barely customized Barbatos, but he's able to wipe the floor with players in the double digits at a time." "That's an impressive count... But there's no need to get freaked out over a numbers game." "Heh heh, yeah. They were all probably a buncha rookies anyway. Gunpla Battle keeps pullin' in all the greenhorns lately." "Like I said, don't let your guard down. Overconfidence is one of the biggest killers on the battlefield." "Don't go sounding too much like some grizzled war dog, now."

"Nero Squad, cut the chatter. We're approaching the operating area now."

Amid the darkness of the dense, virtual jungle, four encroaching lights dot the simulated nighttime sky – the fiery exhaust of mobile suit thrusters.

"Nero 4, taking overwatch."

A single light breaks formation and dips down to an overlooking cliffside. It's an excellent vantage point and, judging by the build of the Gunpla's user – a pitch-black, customized GM Sniper II – well suited to providing reconnaissance and sniper fire.

"Nero 2, Nero 3, you're with me."

"Hard copy, Nero 1." "Roger."

The remaining three silhouettes begin to drop to the ground below, their machines promptly sinking beneath the tree tops of the jungle and settling on the earth below. Despite the variety in their chosen Gunpla – a Zaku High Mobility Surface Type with a fin antenna adorning its head, clearly designating the unit as "Nero 1" of the group, an RF Kampfer, and a Gundam Ez8 Heavy Armed Custom – "Nero Squad" is aptly named for the black color scheme each of their suits have been painted in. What's more, each unit's cameras were specifically colored a deep red, thus adding further to the "low visibility" aesthetic of their customizations. This ragtag band of Gunpla Battlers had clearly made themselves into a well-disciplined fighting force and the ambiance of the current stage gave them every advantage in the world.

"Nero 2, you're on point. Nero 3, you're in charge of our six in case something happens to Nero 4." "Oh come on, Nero 1. When has your eye in the sky ever let you down? Everyone's data link is working, right?" "Affirmative, Nero 4, but it never hurts to be cautious." "This guy ought to be like shooting fish in a barrel. White sticks out like a sore thumb in the dark, you know." "Stay frosty and keep your eyes peeled. All of you. Nero 1, out."

The Kampfer – "Nero 2" – moves ahead of the Zaku and Ez8, brandishing its shotgun at the ready as it leads its team further into the jungle. Both of the monoeyes on the Zaku and Kampfer stay scanning their immediate surroundings while the Ez8 likewise keeps its head on a swivel. So far, so good. Nothing out of the ordinary... Although that creates a slowly building sense of tension among the squad seeing that nothing is happening whatsoever.

Is their prey keeping himself hidden? For what purpose?

"...You don't think he fled, right?" "No. If he pulled his registration, the Plavsky particle generator would've disengaged. Our guy is definitely here somewhere." "How in the world haven't we found him yet? I know it's a pretty dense jungle, but there's no way he can hide that well..." "It's only a matter of time. He'll reveal himself soon enough. He has to."

A dull thud reverberates through the quiet jungle canopy and the three-man squad suddenly freezes in place. Their eyes turn to their radars, their system instruments. Nothing pings to life on any of their detection equipment.

“What was—”

“This is Nero 4! I think I saw a muzzle flash somewhere in the jungle, but I couldn’t pin down the location! What’s– A 300mm round?!”

The GM Sniper rears back from the approaching projectile upon identifying its make and trajectory, the pilot inadvertently raising the rifle to defend itself and destroying its long-range weapon in the process. As the three squadmates on the ground scramble to try and find their prey, they notice a rush of movement too fast to track at their flank. It doesn’t even present a signal on their radars, though instinct still prompts them to train their attention in the direction of the movement.

However, before they can properly surround and encircle their enemy, it suddenly shoots upwards from the jungle floor, boosting its way upward to intercept the hapless “Nero 4” upon the clifftop.

“I-Is that…?!” “It’s him… The White Wolf…!”

With nothing more than a clearing night sky and the artificial moonlight illuminating its frame, a Barbatos 4th form build seems to hover in the air above the GM Sniper II. Its body is adorned with an anti-beam coat mantle, swaying against the simulated wind, and a Gerbera Straight katana attached to its hip. In each hand, the Barbatos wields the Shiranui and Unryu enhanced sabers.

“Just two swords…? Then I’ll—!”

The GM Sniper deploys its beam sabers in each hand, ready to intercept should the Barbatos approach, but instead it crosses its enhanced sabers together. Plavsky particles visibly gather within the blades, as though charging them with some nascent form of energy, and then, it swings in a flurry of motion. With each slice of the blades through the air, a curving purple “slash” of energy shoots towards the unsuspecting GM Sniper, tearing into its frame.

“Wh-What the hell is–?! Aaaahh!!”

“Nero 4” is promptly eviscerated by the tempest of attacks, the mobile suit collapsing in a burning heap under its own weight now that it’s lost all structural integrity before exploding.

“What’s wrong? Nero 4, come in! Do you read me? Report your status!” “...Don’t bother, team leader. The White Wolf’s already sank its fangs into our buddy.” “Ngh… Get ready to ambush him as he lands! We’ll make him pay for taking down our comrade!”

The Kampfer of the group continues remaining close to the rear, adjusting its positioning in preparation for an ambush, while the Ez8 adjusts to a more advantageous firing position. Without hesitation, it rips open with a hailstorm of all of its armaments, the 100mm machine gun, vulcan cannons on its head piece, and the two Salamis-class cannons all spitting their firepower at full bore while its pilot unleashes a beastly roar, attempting to gun down the falling Barbatos custom. Each weapon firing at once creates recoil, causing the pilot to struggle a bit with aim corrections, but some shots do seem to impact the intended target… And to little effect, with the shots mostly bouncing off of the Barbatos’ ABC mantle.

“It deflects bullets?! It should only be resistant against beams!” “Don’t panic and hold your fire! You’re just wasting ammo at this point.” “That builder really knows his stuff, being able to reinforce even an ABC mantle…”

“We’ll see how well he stands up to a more direct attack.”

No sooner does the Barbatos land upon the ground does the Kampfer charge right in, raising its right arm as it boosts forward and firing off the three missiles from its arm-mounted pod and promptly purging the now emptied pod from its hard point. Its mechanical arms swing around then to start popping shots off with increasing closeness to the Barbatos. The so-called “White Wolf”, however, promptly leaps with a boost dash away from the trajectory of the missiles, although the resulting explosion as well as the shotgun’s blasts drive the Gunpla in an easily predictable direction. This seems to be exactly what the Kampfer pilot was counting on as he raises the left arm and, from two protruding points built into the arm itself, a pair of mechanical, tentacle-like wires shoot out and sink themselves into the Barbatos’ arm.

“Ha! I’ve got him by the short hairs now!”

A visible, electrical current runs from the wires and envelops the entirety of the Barbatos’ frame. The Gunpla seems to twitch and jitter against its will before going still, the green glow of its eye cameras flickering for a moment. Without wasting a beat, the Kampfer follows it up with a blast from its shotgun at near point-blank range, creating visible damage upon the Barbatos’ body and head, the glow of its “eyes” dimming to darkness as it lurched backwards and appeared to slump.

“See? He’s no big deal. The ‘White Wolf’ must’ve just been dealing with a bunch of newbies up until now. What a shame for him that his luck finally ran out… Huh?”

There’s a brief glint before its eyes flash back to life, the former green now replaced with an angry, red glow. Its body shudders for just a moment before slowly raising and correcting its posture where it stood.

“N-No way! It’s still functional?! I thought—”

Barbatos wastes no time swinging its uncaptured sword arm and severing the mechanical wires keeping it bound in place by the Kampfer.

“But he’s wounded! One more shot and he’ll definitely fall!”

So the Kampfer pilot thinks, but the Barbatos rushes in and slices with its two blades – first, at the arm containing the triple heat wires, inflicting good cuts that cause a small explosion upon the arm itself as the blows promptly destroy the heat wire launchers built into the arm.

“Damn it, he got my arm! But he’s still… What the?!”

Visible, glowing, Plavsky particles seem to flow from the damage arm and accumulate onto the Barbatos’ body, enveloping the damaged areas with a virtual, blue glow and obscuring them from sight briefly, although once the visual effect begins to fade, the damage inflicted upon it appears to be entirely gone with the Gunpla completely returned to its original, pristine state.

“How in the hell is that possible?! He must be cheating!” “No, he just understands the system better than you do. Repair on hit… That’s an advanced builder’s technique.”

“Rrrgh! I won’t let him get away with this!” “Nero 2, what are you doing? Keep a level head!”

The Kampfer refuses to heed the instruction of its superior and shifts its stance as best as it can to angle the two storm faust launchers mounted to its legs before proceeding to fire the rockets in the Barbatos’ direction. It’s no trouble at all for the Gunpla to avoid being hit as the rockets trail in a wild arc, completely missing their mark, and the resulting detonation causes a chain reaction that quickly sets the nearby jungle awash in a raging blaze, obscuring the vision of both the Ez8 and the Zaku.

“Damn you! I’ll put you down, White Wolf!”

“Nero 2” once again roars with battle fury as the INCOM units on its back detach and begin flying by wire attempting to fire upon the Barbatos. However, the nimble Gunpla practically dances around each shot before closing the gap separating it from its prey.

The team status designator for “Nero 2” upon the surviving team members’ HUDs turns red as the word “LOST” replaces its health indicator.

“Damn… Nero 2 lost.” “No way… What happened to the White Wolf anyway?! The flames are too thick, I-I can’t make anything out in this wildfire!” “Nero 3, calm down and fall back. We’ll regroup and—” “Oh… Oh no! He’s here! The White Wolf is already here!” “What? Nero 3, report!” “I-It’s no good! I can’t hit him with anything! H-He’s too fast! How is that even possible…?!” “Nero 3!”

“Nero 1”, pilot of the Zaku High Mobility type, confirms the Ez8’s last known position on his radar and proceeds to move in, hoping to intercept and save his last remaining ally before the worst could come to pass. His comms are filled with desperate, frightened screams, and he can hear its storm of gunfire ringing out from a distance, growing louder as he drew closer and closer, until suddenly, with an abrupt silence–

<< NERO 3 — LOST >>

No sooner does the confirmation appear that the Zaku manages to clear through the burning shrubbery, only to find the White Wolf standing there, its back turned and painting a menacing silhouette, as the frame of the Ez8 stands motionless in front of the Gunpla, the twin blades piercing its cockpit. The Barbatos glances behind itself, the now blood-red glow of its eyes glinting, as it seems to acknowledge the approach of its newest foe, and then briefly turns its attention back to the motionless Ez8. With a twist of each blade, it pulls its swords free from the inert Gunpla, which then falls to the ground before erupting in an explosion to cement its own destruction.

And then both Gunpla face one another, their respective presences creating a rather picturesque landscape painted against the blaze raging all around them.

“White Wolf…” Nero 1 utters in a low growl, tossing aside its machine gun in silent acknowledgement that the armament would do it no good. Instead, it opts to reach behind and draw the elongated heat saber from its dock upon its thruster backpack. The metal rod soon alights with orange heat, matching the intensity of the flames serving as their backdrop — lending clearly to the weapon’s namesake.

“...It’s hard to believe there’s an actual player at the controls for that thing. It’s rare to see a battler with such skill and ferocity, especially in a game center.”

The Zaku takes up a ready stance with its heat saber, leaning its weight forward, as the Barbatos slowly approaches. A moment of silent intensity passes between both Gunpla and pilots, as though each one is sizing up the other.

And within that moment, Nero 1 finds himself wondering whether he’s truly battling a demon. The White Wolf regards him with no verbal response, but neither is there anything lifeless or artificial about its presence – unlike an AI. No, there was certain intent behind movement, an almost killer instinct rarely seen among Gunpla battlers.

For the first time in Nero 1’s long battling career, he felt not as though he were the hunter, but the hunted.

One breath, one adjustment in the Barbatos’ approach, was all that it took to signal the resumption of their battle. It was the first to move, one step faster, already readying each of its blades to sink into the enemy Gunpla, but Nero 1 was no pushover in that regard. Its leg and back thrusters, coupled together with the hover thrusters in its feet, burst to maximum output as it rushed forward to meet the Barbatos halfway. Its heat saber clashed with the twin blades’ arc as the two machines passed one another, the Zaku using the momentum and force provided by its propulsion to deflect and riposte the attack, forcing back the Barbatos as they passed one another harmlessly.

Nero 1 is already spinning on a dime, readying the heat saber so as to lunge straight towards White Wolf, and the Barbatos is hot on its heels. The superheated steel plunges outwards, hoping to catch the Barbatos mid-sprint, but the beastly machine is faster still – just barely, though – as it slips to one side. Its nanolaminate coating seems to begin warping and bubbling from the close proximity of the heat saber to its body as the Barbatos closes the considerable gap. One blade moves to knock the heat saber away, and the other moves to attempt to catch the Zaku by its hands.

There’s some small success in the attack: The heat saber is knocked unsteady by the first blow, and the second catched the saber just right to send it flying out of the Zaku’s grasp. Nero 1, however, seems unphased, as he immediately propels himself backwards to create space and, within the same movements, his Zaku’s hands are already reaching for two more weapons docked upon its skirt plates – a pair of heat axes that immediately warm to life as soon as they enter the Gunpla’s grasp. Wasting no time, Nero 1 promptly tosses both axes as if they’re tomahawks.

Barbatos had already draw both blades back and was midswing, aiming to bisect the Zaku, in the scant few moments that the heat axes began their trajectory. The first axe collides with the joined blades during their arc, forcing an unintended deflection that causes both of its arms to go wide, opening it up. The second axe sails true not far behind the first, and its heated blade finds its mark upon the Barbatos’ body, sinking straight past the nanolaminate coating and armor to dig slowly into the body’s greater mass. It’s not quite a direct blow to the cockpit, but if it were mere inches closer, it would be a sure kill. The Gunpla had to have been greatly compromised by the successful attack as it stopped dead in its tracks upon its back foot. Its arms twitch and its grip goes shaky as bolts of simulated electricity arc across its limbs, as though they can no longer obey their pilot’s inputs.

The Shiranui and Unryu blades then drop from its grasp, clattering upon the ground below, as each of the Gunpla’s arms fall uselessly to its side, and its front half leans forward, seemingly defeated.

“Heh… Looks like the White Wolf is mortal after all.”

Nero 1 slightly relaxes as his foe seems subdued for the moment, but notes how the system hasn’t registered the battle as “ended” quite just yet. It meant that he still hadn’t delivered the finishing blow, but that was a matter that could be quickly rectified. With a chance to breathe, the Zaku disengages its thrusters and relies on manual movement as it walks to retrieve the elongated heat saber that had been disarmed moments prior. The blade reignites with its namesake heated properties once returned to the Zaku’s grasp, and it moves to loom over the crippled White Wolf, raising the blade above its head.

“You were quite the entertainer, but it ends here.”

As the heat saber begins its downward swing, suddenly the Barbatos’ head jerks upright. The green glow of its camera eyes suddenly burns a deep crimson, emanating outwards from the mechanical irises. In a flash of motions, its left hand moves to secure the katana sheath at its hip, and its right hand grasps the hilt. Taking a moment to adjust the scabbard perpendicular with its body, it suddenly shoots forward and past the Zaku, ending up mere meters behind it with its katana blade drawn in its grasp.

Nero 1 is left speechless by the sheer speed of the movements, especially when he finds his heat saber slams useless into the ground where its foe once lurched before him. Just as he even thinks to try and analyze what just happened, his virtual cockpit suddenly flashes red with error messages. He watches from his monitor as his Zaku suddenly goes unsteady against its will, and its top half slides cleanly off of its bottom half, collapsing onto the ground. The camera feed cuts out, and the AI announcer declares the results in its mechanical voice at the same time the notification pops up on the HUD.

<< BATTLE ENDED >>

——

The Gunpla battle simulator disengages and four men emerge from capsule cockpits into the game center, a few familiar voices loosing sounds of disappointment and disapproval with the results. Amid their din could be heard the commentary of those who served as audience to the match, watching on monitors spread around the game center that played a live feed of the simulator, everyone mumbling about the “White Wolf” and in shock of how the renowned “Nero Team” could be crushed so easily.

Was there anyone that could stand against this beast?

From the opposite side of the simulator setup, another capsule cockpit opened, and a young, caucasian-looking man of black hair, dark brown, somewhat sullen-looking eyes, and a pair of glasses stepped out. Within his grasp was the very same dreaded “White Wolf” that was quickly becoming the talk of the national Japanese Gunpla battle scene – a custom Barbatos wearing an anti-beam coat mantle that partially obscured a 120mm smoothbore cannon mounted upon its back, a pair of Shiranui and Unryu enhanced sabers in its grasp, and a “Gerbera Straight” katana sheathed upon a dock attached to its left waist. He seems to quietly observe his Gunpla for a few moments before slipping it into a carrying case upon his person.

Without paying any heed to whatever attention his revelation may be drawing, he moves to exit the game center. However, the men of “Nero Team” take exception to this upon noticing him and move to intercept. One of them stops the young man’s departure by seizing him by the collar of his shirt.

“Just who the hell do you think you are anyway?!” He barks, the voice sounding reminiscent of “Nero 2”. “Is this how you get your kicks?! Bullyin’ people around game centers?! If you’re such a hotshot, why don’t you compete in a tournament or something with someone at your skill level instead of stompin’ on regular players, huh?!”

“Hey,” another of the men calls out, his voice indicating him as “Nero 1” of the group, reaching out to grasp his comrade by the shoulder and stop him from escalating things further. “Stop that, don’t make a scene.” “But—! Ah!”

The first man winces, then lurches, his grip upon the young man’s collar faltering as he reaches up and takes hold of his captor by the wrist, squeezing firmly. Firm enough to cause considerable pain.

“Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow! What the—?!”

“Nero 2” finally releases the black-haired man and retreats his wrist into the grasp of his other hand, rubbing the affected area. “Too weak,” he remarks, his voice low and listless.

“What?!”

“If you’re gonna complain about someone stomping over the weak,” the young man continues, lifting his gaze to behold the whole of Nero Team with a sharp gaze, as though his eyes could easily cut through the lot of them.

“Then maybe you should get stronger. Strong enough to protect what matters to you. Strong enough to put down a ‘beast’ like me.”

“What did you say?!”

The larger Nero 2 had to be held back by his comrades as the young man continued on his way, completely disregarding the lot of them to exit the game center.

“...Who does that guy think he is?!”

“Wait… Come to think of it, I think I’ve seen that guy before,” another one of the men, “Nero 4”, chimes in.

“Yeah… Hey, yeah. You’re right,” yet another affirms, the voice belonging to “Nero 3”. “Isn’t that the ‘Nanashi Mumei’ guy who qualified for the upcoming regional tournament?”

“I think it is… Yeah, I can see the resemblance.” “So is that how that guy gets his practice in…? By crushing different game centers across the country…?” “What a piece of work… Who can stop a monster like that?”

——

Zechariah, of course, couldn’t be the least bit bothered by the reputation he was garnering overseas like this. So long as he remained behind his identity, the “nameless” Gunpla battler, he could battle as he wished freely. After all, getting a taste of what the locals had on tap was enough to rekindle that particular “hunger” he once had back home.

He should have been more cautious. He should have known what he would be getting himself into, visiting the country like this. Maybe on some level, he did, and he was always just looking for an excuse to lose himself in this little pastime in the first place.

Hoshino… No, Lacie… She was wrong about him. She knew nothing about where he came from. Why he became like this.

No… The reason why he fought was to escape himself. To chase after a thrill until he could no longer chase it. That ferocity within him, that desperate drive, had not been lost yet.

Only in Gunpla battle could he toss what remained of his broken heart, his broken self-esteem, into completely. Only in Gunpla battle could he find something liberating. Something that freed him from his own pain, if even for a little bit.

And so, he would fight. He would play as he wished, and fight senselessly. It’s where he felt his very soul belonged to, after all, a virtual battlefield of senseless carnage and conquest, overcoming adversity, knowing full well that, someday, someone could rise up to finally crush him.

He would fight until there was nothing else left of him. That was why he was here. And that was why he wielded his “Barbatos Bushin” as his blade. A Gunpla built for nothing but battle. A Gunpla that would one day be crushed by someone that could finally succeed him. So impossibly strong and fast, yet so very fragile in its durability, even with its self-sustaining capabilities.

All he needed to do was keep battling and battling until there was nothing else left.

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Abducted by Demons Chapter 2

After how tense the last chapter ends, we need to get back to lighthearted hijinks. Cue the titties.

And I'm absolutely certain the girls were plotting to get Keiichi in that outfit from the start.

I get why Rena had a moment here. It was genuinely cute.

If anyone's interested in the game they played, Rich Man Poor Man or Daifugō can be played with a standard French Deck. You use the standard 52 cards and a joker. It's best played with 3 - 5 people.

You deal the cards evenly to all players. Whoever goes first can play one of six starting sets: one card, a matching pair, a three-of-a-kind, a four-of-a-kind, a five-of-a-kind (requires the Joker), or a set of sequential cards. The Joker is a wild card and can be used in place of other cards.

Players then attempt to play the same type of set but they have to play a set with a higher rank. If you either cannot play anything better or don't want to, you can pass your turn. Once all players either cannot play anything or don't want to play anything, the round is over and whoever played cards last gets to play a new starting set.

The winner is whoever empties their hand first while the loser is whoever is last to do so.

Extra note: Card ranks work like most standard card games except 2 beats an ace and 3 is the weakest rank.

This arc really pushes the Keiichi-Rena romance angle.

The lighting from this panel is because of the flash from Tomitake's camera.

Keiichi and Tomitake are surprisingly good at handling guns.

It's still the first arc and the story still has to introduce everything and get us to care. So that's why Tomitake is hanging out with everyone during the Cotton-Drifting Festival. The story needs to establish who he is, his goals, his dreams, etc. so that it hits harder when he's found dead the next day. Later arcs won't need to do this since we'll already have rapport with them.

This chapter also introduces the basic premise about the bigger mystery going on. Rena mentions Oyashiro-sama, the guardian deity of Hinamizawa. Then right after, Tomitake and Takano tell Keiichi about the series of murders and deaths that have occurred and which are the crux of the whole series.

It feels kinda strange rereading the description of each incident because they're all so bare-bones, especially the one about the woman who was beat to death.

And at the end of the chapter, we meet Detective Delicious Oiishi. Notice that when he shows his badge, the actual prefecture name is hidden so the author doesn't have to bind the location of the story to anywhere real.

NIPA BEAM!!!

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Spoiler Discussion

This arc pushing the Keiichi-Rena romance stuff is likely because it has to speedrun so much as the first arc. The tragedy at the end won't hit as hard if we don't establish how close Keiichi is with Rena.

As I mentioned, Keiichi and Tomitake are good at handling guns. Keiichi had bought a gun and would shoot things to destress and he got in trouble with the law when he intentionally hurt people with it. Meanwhile, Tomitake is a sniper.

I think the Cotton-Drifting festival serves an unintended purpose for the people of Hinamizawa. As we learn later on, everyone in the village and people who frequently visit it are infected with a localized brain parasite. While it is generally benign, the host will often suffer paranoia and hallucinations when under heavy stress. This is called Hinamizawa Syndrome. The symptoms can be reduced or even reversed when the victim has a sense of security and trust with their community.

The festival is a time when all the villagers come together to celebrate and affirm their ties to each other. Throughout the chapter, Keiichi is actually experiencing just that. He's been stressing out because of what he's learned, but spending time at the festival with his friends relieves that stress for him.

Meanwhile two of the previous incidents were caused by people suffering from Hinamizawa Syndrome who felt entirely isolated from everyone. In fact, Keiichi will develop symptoms in this arc because he believes himself isolated from the village as well.

And Rika's ominous comment is the first hint that she knows more than she appears. She knows this is the last day they'll be able to enjoy in this world.

And the message she wrote on Tomitake's shirt was "Let's do our best next time." She's probably already given up on this world and that message is meant for the next Tomitake she meets.

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[scoutsurge]

We need a list, your favorite to least favorite merc?

doing asks again <3 but just for now just ones i can answer like this since i feel like the being artblock/burnout?? Also this might be long so SORRY-

Anyways I can't think of any least! I love all the mercs, their fun!!! In the drawing and fandom sense, I dont have a least favourite But! in the gaming sense when it comes to class I'd go like this from who i play as and how well i can use em and how fun they are!

Drawing --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gaming 1 Scout First of all, obviously I like being a faster class, and that double jump? *mwa* chefs kiss I love being able to move in games- so scout being a quick class and hes just my baby girl, Love him, hes my number 1 I don't get many kills! Though when i do i feel awesome :3 just as will any class Also- I try not to be that 'scout takes all the health packs' BUT FUCKIN When i was a F2P YOU CAN'T CALL MEDIC I WAS DYING OUT THEIR but lowkey, kinda scared to call medic as a scout, no idea why, so i only try to take health packs when i really need it, and then feel bad when i see a medic come around- --------------------------------------- 2 Pyro One of the classes i actually can get decent kills on, spraying everybody Fun class, Pyro is just a goofy thing <3

--------------------------------------- 3 Demoman I can't like do those really cool bomb jumps or like- any of those typa jumps. AT ALL. i feel ashamed/hj BUT! i can blow shit up so Demo is my top 3rd and also cause these three ive played the most ---------------------------------------

4 Medic! Hes great! I like being a helpful teammate, I don't think ive pocketed anyone? WAIT no I pocketed this one guy i played with while streaming, he also pocketed me :> Hes cool but i havent spoken to him in a while-

Now onto classes i dont play as too much cause im stupid and honestly kinda shit at playing as them- ---------------------------------------

5 engineer Awesome class gotta give it that But i straight up went into playing most of the classes blind so i had no idea what any of the controls did as engi YIPPEE KAY YA Awesome fellow <3 just not my type to play

--------------------------------------- 6 Soldier Fella's, I gotta hand it to ya, if you can rocket jump, your awesome <3 if not still you're awesome <3 I can't do that if my life depended on it. Blowin up more shittt YAEAHHH ---------------------------------------

7 Heavy. I praise yall who play heavy cause how. I have the shittest reaction time when i play as him, can't shoot fast enough <3 and slow- sorry im sorry <3 IM NOT TRYING TO SHIT ON THE CLASSES AT ALL BTW Its just- not my typa guy </3

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

8 Spy Haven't played him enough to get a feel for it, I only played as him in a community map that i fucked around in with a mate of mine </3 but i think hes cool, I like sneaky classes, Maybe i'll give him more of the spot light ---------------------------------------

9 Sniper. Im sorry, my aims shit enough as it is and now you give me a sniper rifle? might as well jump off a cliff cause i will be no help- I can't even land my shots as a scout now as a sniper? nope, and also from experience from other games, im not really a sniper person- Im sure hes fun! but as you can see, I haven't played enough as him to really give him a chance- sorry piss man </3

[hollowslantern]

Out of the mercs who is most and least likely to wear silly pajamas

YOU UNDERSTAND ME SO WELL THANK YOU FOR ASKING

okso right off the bat I can tell you spy is the least likely to wear a silly pajamas. he would maybe wear a (high quality made with the finest materials) pj set perhaps even with a (mature and stylish) silly pattern but in his heart of hearts hes a silk boxer briefs guy. a bathrobe guy. a lavish nightgown guy. a negligee guy.

pyro is 100% living the silly pajamas life. while perhaps not actual pajamas this cosmetic is called The Cats Pajamas and it's beautiful. would wear a kigurumi

sniper is actually most likely to prefer sleeping nude but in his line of work (everyone trying to kill you all the time) he can't do that with the peace of mind of knowing you're not going to be forced out of bed with no notice. actually i think he would be pretty unbothered by this because in a life or death situation his outfit or lack thereof has no bearing on his ability to shoot and stab people. but the others hate it and have threatened violence if he doesn't stop showing up to intruder alerts as if they're pussy out events. so he wears boxers. or thermal underwear if its cold. I think he travels pretty light and so probably doesn't buy himself jammies, but if he got some silly pajamas as a gift he would wear them.

he also has the cammy jammies and conspicuous camouflage which I do adore. it's cold out imma wear ma jamas

medic and heavy (do not separate them) are ALREADY wearing silly pajamas which has given life to maybe my favorite image in the WORLD.

you fucking woke them up. im like obsessed with these cosmetics though they're so beautiful. they're so bert and ernie

scout in his ideal world is wearing superhero pajamas, but out of his deep desire to get laid he mostly refrains and wears cool jammies. like boxers with flames on them or something. very likely to wear silly jammies but act like doing so is too lame for him .

demoman is primarily rocking the old t shirt + pajama pants look, definitely with some silly designs going on. silly pajama sets might not be his first choice, but he'll gladly wear them.

soldier would... honestly probably wear anything, like hes not the picky type about sleepwear. he'd sleep in his uniform even. but that's no fun. i think he'd wear a scrooge nightgown WITH the nightcap and slippers.

and last but not least is engie. he seems to me like a real heart pattern boxers and undershirt guy. but I wouldn't rule out his capability of wearing like, a wrench patterned 2 piece set or something fun like that.

BUT!!! if i had to assign each of the mercs only one of the following three classic pajama sets, based on what would be really funny (though they all would be) without going too much against character, I would give them the following.

scrooge nightgown and cap: soldier, pyro, spy, sniper

cotton striped pj's with bunny slippers: medic, heavy

heart pattern boxers and undershirt with socks: scout, engie, demoman

[greenygreenland]

The Floor Is Lava: (Platonic) 501st x Jedi Reader

-saw something about the floor is lava and imagined this in my head at like 3am

-note, you are a jedi padawan of shaak ti’s with your own squad (who are actually my ocs lol). They are called the Nebula Squad (the squad is actually from Wannabe, another one of my Star Wars fanfics)

-basically, you are someone who acts alone (without your master) and goes on special ops missions. you team up with anakin a lot

-CAN BE READ WITHOUT HAVING TO READ WANNABE

Summary: The floor is lava.

Spring came early. Too early. Maybe it was the fact that this planet had short winters, or the fact that you just weren't used to the warm breezes and scorching heat. After being stationed on Hoth for a good two weeks, you adjusted to the climate. With that came the curse of low heat tolerance.

"I'm going to die." you grumbled.

Your mission was in the more civilised (that was how one of your boys put it) regions of the planet. For some strange reason only the Force knew, your ship broke down in the worst place: a deserted village. Why was this the worst place? Because there was no way you could repair a broken ship without spare parts.

And where were spare parts located? In the city you were supposed to land in. Great, just great.

“(Y/n), can’t we contact General Skywalker for assistance?” inquired Nova. “We are supposed to RV with them anyway.”

Nova was your friend and assigned clone Commander. He, like you, had a knack for getting into sticky situations. Usually he was the one with the plan B, not you. “I can ask Grav and Nimbus if they can get a signal out over there.” He pointed to the mountain on your right. It was tall with a jagged top, where thick forests of luscious greenery sprouted out all over.

Yeah, good luck getting through that.

“You mean to tell me there’s no signal here?” you inquired. “Just how remote is this place?” Even with that bucket over Nova’s face, you knew he was frowning and holding back a long sigh. “Intel said--”

“Intel’s always wrong.” cut in a voice. You peered over Nova’s broad shoulders and met gazes with another member of your squad, Icee. He was just as tall as Nova, sporting the Squad’s signature purple stripes and it’s logo--a nebula. Over his shoulder, he held tight to a sniper rifle. The thing was a beauty, as well as his baby.

“The three things you can never trust are the weather forecast, the canteen menu, and intel. Plain and simple, vode.” Icee added. You shook your head, swatting a few mosquitoes away with a wave of your hand. “If that big ‘ol mountain is the only place we can get a signal from, then I say we go. All of us.”

Nova nodded in agreement. He shouldered his pack, adjusted a few straps on his kama and weapons, and motioned for the rest of the squad to move out. “Is there anything we should know about the wildlife here?” he inquired. “My HUD’s picking up the usual birds and rascals. I’d rather not risk it though. Remember Felucia?”

A shiver ran down your spine at the mention of that jungle-hell. Everywhere you walked lay a deadly plant in need of its next meal. They snuck up on you too, striking out of nowhere like the silence of night. Your number one rule there was not to touch anything.

“There are a few carnivorous plants south of here,” answered Nimbus. “Besides that, all we have to worry about are the birds.” You admired the way he was able to brief everyone so quickly. The only other clone you’ve met with such a well of info was Tech, a member of Clone Force 99.

“What do the birds look like?” you inquired. Nimbus scrunched up his face under that bucket of his. “I don’t think you wanna know.” Grav squinted at the screen and pushed his brother’s head with the back of his hand. It wasn’t enough to hurt him, but you sensed a lingering annoyance in the air after. 

“What, you scared of some little bird Nimbus?“ he teased. Nimbus wordlessly flipped over his datapad for everyone to see. The screen displayed a large bird-like creature with long fangs covered in drool. Its eyes were beady and bloodthirsty, as if it wanted you to be its next meal.

Nimbus scanned over the heading. “This is a...uh...Kah-rah...Kahl-ram-dah-lahm-dahl...?”

“Kara’dalamb’da.” corrected Storm. He pulled off his helmet, the low ponytail of his fanning out in the warm breezes. “I’ve read about them once. They’re not the type of creatures I’d want to run into. They drag you to their caves, pull you apart limb, and then chew you alive. The worst part is that they don’t eat you.”

Nimbus knitted his brows together. “So we’re like chewing gum to them?”

“Exactly.” Storm affirmed. “They come out at night time, then stay around till dawn before hiding in their caves.” Icee blanched and you couldn’t blame him. You were all heading towards the mountains, where plenty of caves and labyrinths lay. There were probably tons of those Kara-whatevers waiting for their dinner.

You folded your hands together with a tight frown. “Is there another way of getting a signal to Anakin?” George shook his head sadly. You sensed an overwhelming amount of resignation rolling off his shoulders. “No. Even if I tried use long-range comms, it wouldn’t work. There’s too much interfering with the signal.”

There was a chance you could telepathically contact Anakin. He’d answer in an instant and personally come to find you. But that would drain your energy. Your boys needed you more than you needed to contact Ani. If you became dead-weight then it would compromise the mission.

“Alright,” you decided. “We have twelve hours to scale that mountain and hurry our shebs to the ship. If we don’t make it back in time, consider ourselves toast.”

You wished you’d consider yourself toast from the start. If that were the case, then you wouldn’t be running for your life. The mission up was a success. You managed to reach the highest point on the mountain in less than eight hours by ways of a local trail (Nimbus noted that this was a popular tourist spot in autumn). Then you contacted Rex, who promised to RV at the foot of the mountain.

The way down was a different story.

It was dusk when you made your descend. The moon rose into the sky while the sun shied away, and if it weren’t for the boys and their helmet lamps, you wouldn’t have been able to see a thing. At first, the walk back was completely fine. The boys were in good spirits and you weren’t hungry for (favourite food).

But then it didn’t go well.

It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t see the giant jaws of death looming over you, or Nimbus, who started arguing with Grav. Again. It also wasn’t you fault that George so happened to trip over a rock and slam into Sapnap, who tried breaking his fall by grabbing onto Halo’s arm. The three went down together, and with the heavy clanking of katarn-class armour, you were sure the whole animal kingdom heard the show.

And that was how the Nebula Squad found themselves in this mess, fleeing from the horrifying Kara’dalamb’da.

“This is your fault Grav!” cried Nimbus. They bumped heads and it took all your willpower not to join the screaming match. “Shut up,” replied Grav. “You were the one who started it!” Nimbus gritted his teeth. “You who else started this?” he seethed. “Them!” He pointed over his shoulder at Halo, George, and Sapnap. They were the ones who had fallen, after all. Why else did the beast wake up?

“It wasn’t my fault!” cried George. Sapnap scoffed and it was lost to the screech of the oversized bird above. “No one said it was your fault anyway! You just have a guilty conscious!”

You eyed the bird with a sharp scowl. It flew higher, into the haunting light of the moon and across the stars. It gave a great screech again. You covered your ears as a shiver ran down your spine. “Is there any place we can hide from that thing? I’m pretty sure it can smell us from klicks away!”

“That’s correct Commander!” Nimbus congratulated. By the light aura around his shoulders, you guessed him and Grav already made up. They always had petty arguments anyway. “The Kara’dalamb’da has an incredible sense of smell and a wingspan of about ten meters! That’s pretty cool.”

Storm stared at his brother in bewilderment. “How is that cool?” he demanded. “You want to be chop suey for that thing? Be my guest.” Halo laughed a little. You knew he was doing it to shake off his nerves. “Why’d you have to go on and say that? Now I’m going to start singing.”

You scanned the forest. For miles, it seemed to be only forest, wildlife, and bare nature. A flicker of...something cut through your senses. Calculating, at the ready, and deadly. You paused in your step, Storm mimicking you. He met your gaze. “You sense it too?”

“Maybe it’s them.”

You heard them before you saw them.

“Blast that bird out of the sky!”

A squad of 501st troops rustled through the trees. They were silent as the night, save for one trooper who decided to whisper-shout a ‘hi’ to your squad. Their formation, lame as it was, worked in their favour. They raised their blaster, lighting up the sky with bright bolts of blue.

“Can we get a rocket launcher over here?”

“Yes, sir!”

The bird dropped out of the sky with a cry, razor-sharp teeth bared and claws at the ready. It was coming closer, diving faster. You pulled out your lightsaber and thumbed it on.

I am one with the Force and the Force is with me.

You heaved in a deep breath and leapt into the moonlight. Your robes fluttered in the wind, and your hair whipped in arc of (hair colour). It was like you had wings. Time slowed and you raised your lightsaber. It came down in a neat slash across the beast’s neck.

You tumbled through the air and met the ground in a roll. The beast fell behind with a loud THUMP!. You turned off your glowing blade and stashed it away on your belt. The adrenaline keeping your nerves hidden away was slowing, and the realisation that you just murdered a beast settled into your mind.

Part of you wished things could have been different. But what choice did you have?

“Commander!” called Nova, stopping by your side. “Are you okay?” You smiled and he heaved out a sigh of relief. “That was some jump, but now look.” He pointed to your dirt-covered robes. It wasn’t a big deal, but to someone like Nova, it was an issue.

“Here.” Nova helped you dust off the robe with a few pats. “That’s better.”

“Oh, it didn’t look bad.” you stated. He folded his arms across his chest. “That’s what you always say (Y/n).” You grinned and bumped shoulders with him. He replied by playfully shaking his head with a sigh.

A familiar boy made his way towards you. Even through the moonlight struggling through the thick canopies, you saw the chipped blue paint. “Rex,” you greeted. “Thanks for the assistance. Although, I wish you toned it down a bit. You made my squad look like a bunch of young fools.” A loud ‘hey’ sounded from your boys, but you elected to ignore it with a grin.

“Your squad did a phenomenal job in staying alive that long.” Rex said with a chuckle. “And besides, you stole the show in the end. The boys had fun watching your display.” You three shared a warm laugh that reminded you of the sun.

Speaking of sun, was it just you or did it get brighter outside? You looked up to gaze at the moon. It still stood high in the sky, just as before. The stars were out too, bright and clear as ever. So why had the temperature risen so quickly? It was at least another eight hours till dawn. That was more than enough time for the moon to stay out.

A scattered cluster of birds flew from out of the trees. Was it just you or was the forest getting really silent? Owls refused to hoot, those kara-whatevers weren’t screeching from their caves, and crickets stopped chirping their calming songs.

“WOAH, WOAH, WOAH!”

“I TOLD YOU IT WAS HERE!”

“I THOUGHT IT WAS IN THE SOUTH!”

You spun around so fast that you could have gotten whiplash. Sapnap, George, and Halo sprinted from out of the thick trees with their helmet lights on the highest setting. You squinted behind them. Something had to be chasing them, otherwise they wouldn’t be sprinting like track stars.

But you didn’t see any deadly animals, nor did you sense them. All that was left was an...

...an eerie silence.

You thought back to the briefing. Back to the meeting you nearly fell asleep in. If it weren’t for Icee kicking your feet every now and then, then you would have passed out completely.

“On this outer rim planet, I suggest you be careful,” Obi-wan had said. “The locals reported the activity of volcanoes erupting unexpectedly. They believe it has to do with an angry spirit plaguing their land, but we’ve found out the Separatists have a hand behind this.”

“Do you know where these volcanoes are, General Kenobi?” inquired Grav. He shook his head. “No, but I’m sure you won’t have to know. The city under siege is our main objective. You will rendezvous with Anakin there.”

Sapnap, George, and Halo motioned for everyone to move. There was a flicker of movement behind them. Fives emerged from the bushes in a frantic sort of panic. “LAVA!” he cried. “THE FLOOR IS LITERALLY LAVA!”

That was all it took for everyone to run. As uncoordinated as the retreat was, having lava behind you wasn’t exactly something anyone could stay calm about. The glowing magma was faster than it was supposed to be, and you had a feeling it was because it had a nice flow coming out of the planet’s core.

“Talk about an intense game of ‘the floor is lava’!” Hardcase shouted with a laugh. Jesse ‘pffted’. “I thought being chased by lava would be worse! This isn’t nearly as bad as last mission!”

Last mission? Oh, what was Ani doing to these poor souls? Your shoulders slumped in defeat. They were so nonchalant. How? Burning to death in lava was said to be the most painful death, and you’d rather not be Gollum in his last moments on Mount Doom.

“Why don’t you turn that frown upside down?” inquired Fives. You hadn’t even realised he’d caught up with you. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s just a bit of lava!”

You threw a hand over your shoulder and pointed to the glowing, hot mass. It burned through everything it touched. A fire was beginning to catch too, and all the smoke and ash from it wasn’t doing you any good. “Just a bit of lava? Well how would you feel running into that?”

“I don’t know!” he retorted. “Never tried it!”

“If you did, then you’d be dead!” Kix shouted. You face-palmed. “That’s a bit of a no-brainer!” Fives pulled off his helmet. The grin smacked upon his lips didn’t leave. “Who’s up for a round of ‘the floor is lava’?”

“Me!” said Jesse.

“And me!” added Hardcase.

“You guys need to cool it.” Kix said. “But don’t leave me out, I want to play too.”

You let out a long sigh. The 501st may have saved your skin today, but tomorrow? They’d probably get you killed.

TIP JAR <--- (if you’re feeling nice)

[masterjedilenawrites]

The Sniper and The Medic: Chapter 5

Starring: Crosshair, OC Joan Vo, Hunter, Wrecker, Tech

Chapter Warnings: Mention of injuries/pain

Taglist: @proadhog @skippyhopperwisdom

AO3 Link (In case you like it better over there, it’s okay, no judgement)

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Chapter 5: Sick and Tired

The next several weeks were filled with activity. Even if Crosshair wanted to improve his sleep schedule, he couldn't with the amount of training and preparing Hunter was having them do.

They were more or less on their own now, free to do whatever they felt necessary to prove themselves for deployment. Commander Cody had accompanied a troop of injured soldiers returning to the planet for treatment, spending one day with the Clone Force to go over expectations and progress before heading back out into the warring galaxy. After that, it was all on Sergeant Hunter to push them. And boy, did he ever.

Every day focused on a simulation run, where Hunter would make them start the mission over any time someone missed their mark or made the wrong call, and refused to let them leave until they had run it through perfectly at least five different ways. In their "free time," they practiced with their own weapons and gear, trying to best their own scores, learn new tricks, and just nail down a personal rhythm.

Evenings were mostly spent learning various strategies, and occasionally cleaning up or decorating their gear. They'd settled on some skull imagery and a black-and-red color scheme that not only looked cool, but also made them really stand apart from the regs. There was also talk about them getting a specially-outfitted ship in the next week. Their dedication kept them from getting a decent amount of sleep each night, but Hunter argued that's how it would be out in the field, so might as well get used to it.

Outside of their group and a few protocol droids that assisted them with odd errands, there was only one other they saw on a regular basis. Doctor Vo. Sometimes it was scheduled visits to the examination room, other times she observed their training sessions. If the others were nervous with her watching, Crosshair couldn't tell. He tried to play it cool, too, and only focus on the mission. But any shot he missed made him flush beneath his helmet in embarrassment. He really, really wanted to impress her.

It was starting to distract him.

* * *

After a particularly grueling day through the simulation room, where they'd pretended to be rescuing hostages from a temple on the forest moon of Endor, the four of them lay panting and sweating on the tile floor of the locker room. Tired, but satisfied. They were getting really good.

"Tomorrow we're running the Mon Cala sim," said Hunter, the first to catch his breath and stand back up. He started peeling off his blacks, heading for the refresher.

Crosshair and Tech shared a weary look, and even Wrecker let out a little groan.

"Um, Hunter," Tech sat up to catch him before he left the room. "We really ought to take a day to rest."

"No," the Sergeant immediately disagreed. He wadded up his sweaty clothes and tossed them like a ball into the hamper on the other side of the locker. "War doesn't rest, and neither should we."

"Actually, we should."

Tech rose to his feet, his face screwed up in what they all recognized as a sign he was about to info-dump. Crosshair and Wrecker started to get up as well, knowing this would be too good to watch from the floor. Hunter had proven himself to be a capable leader, but he wasn't perfect. And now was the first time one of them was challenging him.

"According to leading studies, on both human and humanoid bodies, rest is a critical part to ensuring continued performance. It is essential that our bodies have time to recover and repair before we push them again."

Hunter had his arms folded over his bare chest. "Is that so?"

It was more of a rhetorical question, but Tech took it as permission to really spew forth all the details he had on the topic.

"Yes. See, any type of physical exercise creates microscopic tears in the tissue of your muscles, which then needs rest in order for fibroblast cells to repair them and create stronger tissue. If that repair isn't done, it can result in muscle fatigue and soreness and even actual injury."

Crosshair shifted uncomfortably. He had actually sustained an injury earlier that morning, one that he hadn't told any of them about, not only because it was embarrassing, but because it actually hadn't bothered him at first. But as the day drew on, the pain near his ribs grew worse. Now he felt almost sick to be standing up.

"In addition to that," Tech was still rambling on, "there's the glycogen carbohydrates that are broken down to be used for energy, which also needs to rest to replenish. That energy is needed for both physical and mental performance. However, physical exertion also boosts other hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, which, when they are overproduced through over-exercise, can interfere with getting quality sleep. So a double-whammy."

Tech seemed ready to continue making points but Hunter finally held up a hand.

"Okay, okay, Tech. I get it. I know it's important. But we're not always going to have the luxury of taking days off once we're out of here. I don't want us getting used to doing whatever we want whenever we feel like it."

Wrecker groaned loudly. "What do you mean? We haven't done anything we've wanted to do. We don't get to pick the sims. We can't go to bed without your permission. If anyone's doing whatever they want whenever they feel like it, it's you."

Hunter's eyes flashed dangerously and he pointed an angry finger up at his large brother. "That's not true, Wrecker, and you know it. I'm busting my ass off, same as all you. You don't think I want to take a break too? My head hurts all the time now. There's no relief anymore, just constant... stimulation...."

His voice petered out with a heavy sigh. The three of them looked amongst each other but said nothing. Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose in thought for a moment. "I just... I want us to be prepared. All those stories we hear, from Cody and Joan and everyone, about what it's really like out there.... Brothers, the galaxy needs us. We need to be the best."

Tech nodded his head sympathetically. "We understand, Hunter. We know you're working hard. All I'm saying is if we want to be the best, we have to take what breaks we can get. While we can still get them. Otherwise, we risk running ourselves into the ground before we've even had the change to get out and help anyone."

Hunter chewed it over before conceding, just a little bit. "Fine, we can take the rest of the evening. I won't open the strategy manuals, and it'll be lights about by 8."

Wrecker let out a satisfied holler, starting to head for the showers himself. But Tech looked at him suspiciously.

"And tomorrow...?"

Hunter chuckled darkly. "Oh we're still running the Mon Cala sim. I've been looking forward to that one all week. You boys will be fine."

The Sergeant clapped Crosshair on the back as he turned to leave, causing the sniper to immediately double over in pain. He'd been quiet the whole argument, despite having many points to contribute himself. The pain in his abdomen had become too much. All he could do was focus on his breathing.

"Oh kriff," Hunter cursed, catching him by the shoulder.

"Cross, are you injured?" Tech scurried over, concerned. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I'm fine," Crosshair spat out. He shook Hunter's grip off and mustered up whatever strength he could to stand up straight again. He was not giving them any reason to ask what had happened. "I just pulled a muscle but I'm fine. It's nothing."

Tech was trying to catch Hunter's eye, mostly likely to continue arguing against tomorrow's training now that a new reason had presented itself. But Wrecker spoke up first.

"You should see Joan," he suggested.

"I'm fine," Crosshair growled again. He definitely didn't want her to know about the injury, either.

"Just go," Hunter huffed. "Even if you are fine, at least you get to see her."

Crosshair looked back to find the three of them all had knowing smirks on their faces. He wanted to punch them, but he also couldn't argue. It would be nice to see her.

Even if she was the reason he'd gotten himself injured.

[thelordofdarkreunion]

Magnificent Scoundrels- Gifts

More sci-fi gadgets for all of you.  I go into more detail on the workings of some of the more interesting ones.  As usual, I own no one except Drake.  Enjoy the story.  

Aboard the Normandy

John Shepard pressed the locking mechanism on the doors to his quarters.  The automatic doors slid open noiselessly, and he stepped into the room beyond.  It was dark inside, the only light emanating from a large fish tank on the far wall.  It was his hobby, per say.  A welcome distraction from the rigors and challenges of his life.  He enjoyed relaxing and simply watching the fish swim.  

The rest of the room was simple, yet elegant, in the way that a mid-level hotel was.  Nothing exceptionally fancy, no wild designs.  It had few personalizations, save for several framed photographs and some slight tinkering projects he stored there.  

He sighed.  It had been quite the long day.  Quite the long month, come to think of it.  The implants that had brought him back from the dead all that long time ago...or was it really that long ago? he asked himself.  Well, either way, that had started to hurt again, a constant dull ache, especially located in the back of his neck.  So much to do.  So much stress.  First his death, then the Collectors, who were still a problem, now this.  Now new worlds, which, in turn, brought new problems.  It was the end of a long day, which would lead into a short night, which would bring yet another long day.  The cycle continued.  

He walked, slowly, over to his bed, before his tired eyes noticed something different.  A package, wrapped in plain black paper, lay upon it.  Attached was a note, written in neat cursive.  

To Commander John Shepard, a soldier after my own heart when it comes to personal weaponry.  From, Thomas Drake

His tiredness forgotten and curiosity piqued, he sat down beside the rectangular package, slit open the paper, and took out a heavy plastic case.  With a click of latches, it opened, revealing a sleek and compact silver rifle sunk into black felt.  On the side, where the ejection port of a bullet-firing weapon would be, was a small vent, glowing with purple and blue energy.  A miniaturized plasma reactor.  Three barrels, each heavily reinforced to take the heat buildup of the weapon, protruded from the front.  A small packet came with instructions on the gun’s cleaning and upkeep.  Emblazoned into the side of the weapon, small enough so it didn’t take away any of its looks, was the name X-45 Plasma Repeater.  

Shepard instantly recognized the gun.  It was the same model that Drake wielded during their missions, and the same model he had told them all was the pinnacle of plasma weaponry design in his home galaxy.  Come to think of it, actually, it was the only plasma weapon in any of their galaxies capable of fully automatic fire.  Drake had just...given one to him.  He wasn’t sure if he should be touched beyond measure or extremely suspicious.  He decided on touched.  Suspicion could wait.  It was an utterly magnificent gift.  The personal shields and armor in his galaxy were all designed around stopping projectiles.  He grinned evilly in the darkness of the room at the thought of what he could do with such a weapon.  He had seen Drake’s melt straight through unprotected torsos.  This...this would do nicely.  

Garrus Vakarian, one of Shepard’s closest friends and most trusted advisors, walked through the sleek halls of the Normandy into his own quarters.  Much more spartan and austere than the Commander’s, or, for that matter, most of the other crew members, his room had only various weapons and projects he had been working on.  He didn’t need anything else.  Plus, his culture was not flamboyant like humans or Asari.  He was a Turian, practical, result focused.  His body was humanoid, with two legs, two arms, and a head, but no one would ever mistake him for Human.  His limbs were spindly, his torso massive, and he was distinctly taller than most other species.  His face was flat, the back of his head a crest that seemed somewhat between a lizard and a bird.  Once, a human had compared him to a velociraptor.  He had taken the time to look it up, and found a distinct similarity between himself and the long-dead animal.  Interesting, but, ultimately, unimportant.  

A single bed sat in his room.  Mass produced, it wasn’t luxurious, but it would suffice.  On, it though...something new.  A long rectangular package, wrapped in black paper.  He walked up to it and read the small note.  

To Garrus Vakarian, a sniper of both lethal accuracy and renown. 

P.S.  It’s probably best if Cain didn’t know this was in your possession. 

From, Thomas Drake

His mandibles twitched as he smiled to himself.  He thought he knew what it was.  Long talons tore through the paper, and revealed a long black box, emblazoned with a double-headed golden eagle.  Bingo.   He opened it silently, to reveal the Exitus Rifle.  Nearly as tall as he was, it was a massive beast of a weapon.  While some sniper weapons were just glorified assault rifles with scopes, others were large, unwieldy, and extremely heavy.  The Exitus was far on the side of bulky and brutal.  A huge scope, able to switch between nine different types of viewing the world, was mounted on the top.  The entire thing was painted black, and a golden skull with outstretched wings was embellished on the side.  Garrus snorted.  What was it with xenophobic groups and their odd need to put their symbols on everything?  A good question, actually.  One to ask a behavioral specialist.  But, back to the task at hand.

Drake had given him the gun to use on the Scoundrels' mission against Batarian slavers, and he had fallen in love with it ever since.  While it was too unwieldy to move around quickly, it had a range of over ten miles and enough power to blow straight through any target he aimed at.  Ten miles.  He chuckled to himself.  

Before the mission, Drake, accompanied by a reluctant Cain, had explained how the rifle worked.  It fired bolt shells, .75 calibre monstrosities as long as a human foot.  Emblazoned with the Imperial Aquila (of course), they were essentially rocket propelled explosive bullets.  Fired at an unarmored target would mean it would quite simply cease to exist in a shower of gore.  But, it looked like there was even more to it.  Located in the box, next to the rifle, were a series of small cardboard cartons, each a different solid color.  Judging by the distinct lack of any Imperial iconography, Garrus assumed Drake, or one of his crew, had added them.  Above them was a note, written in Drake’s neat cursive.  

Special issue ammunition.  I can not easily replace it, so use with care.  

Printed on each box was a small note describing each’s contents.  He went over them all in turn.

Shell Breaker Rounds: Will punch through any shielding, even of a ‘magical’ or biotic nature.

Hellfire Rounds: Contains a very powerful mutagenic acid that eats through organic tissue at a rapid rate.  Useful against large monstrosities.  

Turbo-penetrator Rounds: For use against armored targets.  Will punch through most armor plating.

Seeker Rounds: For when you absolutely, positively, cannot miss a target.  Lock on to your target through the Rifle’s scope, and this bolt will follow it by itself.

Oh, this was going to be good.  Garrus would be enjoying himself very much in the coming weeks.

Aboard the Omen

Admiral Adam Vir returned to his quarters.  They were slightly larger than those of the regular ratings and officers, as benefitted an Admiral, but not obscenely so.  Cluttering the room were trinkets and items of personal importance, things he liked to keep from his childhood or his travels across the stars.  But this time, something was out of place.  A black package, about the length of his leg, lay on the bed.  Curious, he walked up to it, leaned over, and examined the note.

To Admiral Adam Vir, whose giddiness at seeing new things is a constant source of amusement.  I’ve heard you always wanted a lightsaber.  This is the closest I could get.

From, Thomas Drake.

Intrigued, he opened the box.  Resting inside was a...sword.  Interesting.  The scabbard was of red velvet, edged and wrapped with gold.  It was approximately two feet in length, and looked like an old Medieval-era broadsword.  The hilt was wrapped in a black material that he didn’t recognize, but it looked as if it would give him an excellent grip nevertheless.  The crosspiece was of a white gold color, and while it was a plain and straight design, it still did not diminish the weapon’s beauty.  Vir picked up the blade and unsheathed it.  

Two long groves were cut in the metal, and the blade itself was wickedly sharp.  As he lifted the weapon, a small note fluttered from where it was tucked in the shealth.  Frowning, Vir bent down and read it.  

Activate the blade by pressing the rune near the hilt.  Be careful, as it can cut through almost anything.  

He turned the blade over in his hands.  A small button, inscribed with a strange symbol he didn’t recognize, was located on the hilt near the crosspiece.  He pressed it.  

Instantly, the blade was surrounded by a crackling corona of blue energy.  He jumped back, slightly startled, but still kept his grip.  Spinning the sword through the air, the energy field hummed and sparked.  

It can cut through almost anything…

He deactivated the sword, pressing the button and putting it back into its sheath.  Turning on his heel, he half-walked, half-jogged out of the room...only to return three minutes later with a length of heavy metal pipe.  Once more, he pulled the sword from its scabbard, and activated the energy field.  Slowly, carefully, just in case he had misinterpreted or Drake was mistaken, he lowered the edge of the pipe onto the edge of the blade.  The energy field, supported by the blade behind it, cut through the pipe like a razor through tissue paper.  Vir grinned, then stood from his crouch.    

He lowered the sword to knee length, then dropped the pipe on it.  The blade sheared straight through it with no effort whatsoever.  Vir deactivated the gift.  He knew he was standing there with an idiotic grin on his face.  He didn’t really care.  There was no one to see it and, goddamn it, he had just gotten the equivalent to a lightsaber.  The only question was: what to do with it?  His smile only widened.  

Sunny, the Chief Weapons Officer of the Omen, trekked into the bowels of the ship.  Her quarters were located deep in the engineering section, into the metal-plated, darkly-lit heart of the ship, as benefitted a weapons expert and engineer.  The walls of her quarters were metal, and covered with drawings, blueprints, and schematics.  Various projects and weapons, some in a state or repair of disassembly, sat on tables and workbenches.  The room was a cluttered mess, the type of space that belonged to someone who enjoyed tinkering. 

Despite the mess, Sunny knew her way around the clutter.  Every object had a place, despite the apparent lack of order.  So it was with great perplexion that she noticed something that shouldn’t be there.  Sitting on her main workbench was a large package.  Bemused, she wandered up to it, and read the small note attached to the black paper.  

To Chalan.  While hand to hand fighting is perfectly fine, sometimes the only way to win the day is through superior firepower.  Plus, I think you are one of the few amongst our fleet able to wield this with any sort of ease.  

From, Thomas Drake

Curious, she unwrapped the package.  Inside was one of the strangest weapons she’d ever seen.  Looking more like a massive box instead of a gun, it was painted black, with tubing underneath, connecting one part, which seemed to be the ammunition storage, to the frontal part.  Twin barrels, both extremely large, with vents cut in the side of them for better cooling, stuck out of the front, while an oversized trigger lay to the rear.  She hefted the weapon with a grunt.  Drake was right, it was huge and heavy.  In fact, it seemed to be created for someone about her size.  Odd.  Some sort of alien weapon?  

Looking down, she saw a sheet of paper with maintenance and firing instructions, accompanied by a small note. 

It’s called a multi-melta.  It fires massive, short-range blasts of thermal energy, designed to go through armored targets.  

Hmm.  Sunny wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.  On one hand, it seemed to be quite the weapon.  On the other, well, she much preferred her spear.  Eventually, she decided that it would probably depend on the situation.  Having a heavy weapon that shot balls of pure heat couldn’t hurt anyone...at least not on her side…

Commissar Ciaphas Cain trudged back to his quarters, a combination office and sleeping area.  Over his long career, he had been assigned to many different quarters, from massive suites in gubernatorial palaces to the cramped and dimly-lit rooms of Mechanicus exploratory ships.  His room aboard the Omen was neither.  It was of decent size, with plain walls and austere furniture.  Nothing elaborate, nothing terrible, they were simply average.  A normal room.  Nothing wrong with that, in his opinion.  

His desk was cluttered with papers and data pads, each describing new aspects of different universes.  He was assigned to report back to the Inquisition on exactly what went on in these galaxies, and, frankly, it made his head hurt.  Councils and Federations and Assemblies, where all species were treated equal, where no one wanted to go to war.  How incredibly strange.  And he used to think the Tau were odd…

He unlocked the door to his room (didn’t want any nosy Guardsmen or, Emperor forbid, xenos rummaging around his papers), but was immediately brought up short.  Laying on his bed was a small package, wrapped in black paper.  Cautiously, he approached it.  Written in cursive was a small tag.

To Commissar Ciaphas Cain, a man who understands that the best way to stay alive is to have a good defense.  

From, Thomas Drake

A frown creased his brow, and he opened the package slowly.  Inside was a black box, about fifteen centimeters by fifteen centimeters.  What the hell…?  Cain turned it over in his hands, then picked up a small note from the bottom of the package.  

My engineers reverse-engineered and combined the shielding from Mjolnir armor and kinetic barriers.  It should stop all but the heaviest weapons, including blows from hand-to-hand weapons.  For it to work, it must be on your person.  To activate it, press the button on the base.  If it starts smoking, sparking, or making funny noises, take it off and return it to me.  We haven’t ironed out all the kinks, but it should work without fault unless it’s hit with sufficient force or dropped from a significant height.  

Cain grunted, then set down the box.  He had a breastplate of carapace armor, worn only on dangerous missions, but this was a lot less bulky, and covered his entire form.  A very helpful gift, if, of course, it worked.  He sighed, picked it up, and walked out of the room.  Time to see if it did what Drake said it would.  He was fairly certain he could find someone willing to beat the pulp out of him.  

Aboard the Milano

Peter Quill’s quarters, were, to put it bluntly, an absolute mess.  Not an organized mess, either, mind you.  Clothing, trinkets, toys, weapons, and other miscellaneous items were strewn throughout the space as if a hurricane had blown through.   He never bothered to organize it.  After all, it took a lot more effort to clean things up and put them into place that it did to search for hidden items.  Despite the mess, he did have a vague idea where things were, so it was with great surprise that he flopped onto his bed, then immediately jumped up as his back struck something hard.  

Rubbing his spine, he peered down at the bed.  On top was a small box-like package, wrapped in black paper.  On it was a small note.  

To Star-Lord, a man who delights in interesting gadgets and weapons.  This ought to fit your fighting style.

From, Thomas Drake

Quill ripped apart the paper, and opened the box.  Inside, was a thin, sleek pistol.  He read the inscription emblazoned on the side: Smart Pistol Mk-6.  Resting on the bottom of the box was a sheet of paper with maintenance and set-up instructions.  Set up?  For a gun?  What the hell?  Neatly folded into the sheet was a small note, written by the same hand as the gift’s tag.

The Smart Pistol scans for hostile targets within a short range and locks onto them automatically.  Any rounds fired will then maneuver to hit the locked targets.  For it to work, you need to synch it to your visor.  Instructions are included.  

Quill rolled the weapon around in his hand.  He briefly considered testing it out inside the ship, but immediately discarded the idea.  Despite what others might think, he did not have a total lack of common sense.  

Re-holstering the gun, he smiled to himself.  This would definitely come in handy.  He didn’t even need to aim anymore!  What fun.  

Gamora stepped into her room aboard the Milano.  Much smaller than its counterparts aboard the larger ships of the Socundrels’ fleet, it was nevertheless comfortable and tidy.  Each piece of gear, each item, object and weapon were in its place.  Not bare and spartan, not large and elaborate, but it would suffice.  Everything was exactly where it should be, so it was with some surprise that she saw a small black package resting on her bed the moment she walked into the room.  Curious, she walked over to it and read the tag.  

To Gamora, a woman of a very particular set of skills, who can find you and will kill you.  I heard you express a desire for a device such as this.  

From, Thomas Drake

Her fingers deftly unwrapped the box, and drew out a silver disk approximately five centimeters across.  What the...

Resting next to it was another note.

Pilot’s Cloak.  Mount it on your wrist, tap the device, and disappear.  However, be warned: it can only last for a short time before it has to recharge, and sharp eyes can still pick out your silhouette.  

Gamora smiled to herself.  Excellent.  One more trick, one more thing to help her in battle.  While the master assassin was good, very good indeed, a little help never hurt anyone but the enemy.  

Aboard the Enterprise

Master Chief John-117 walked to his assigned quarters aboard the Enterprise.  They were grey walled, and though plain, had a simple elegance and comfortable feeling to them.  However, unlike many of the other quarters aboard the ship, they had no decoration or personalization whatsoever.  It was not because the Federation’s guest was not allowed to personalize his quarters.  No.  It was because the Chief had never known anything along the lines of personal items except his weapons and armor.  He was born for war, literally created at a young age to be the perfect soldier.  He owned no personal items of effects.  He did not need them to carry out his duty.  

As he walked into the room, he immediately noticed a black package laying on the borrowed bed.  How strange.  Attached was a small white tag; a note written in flawless cursive.

To Master Chief John-117.  A soldier with no equal ought to have a weapon with no equal.  

From, Thomas Drake

His heavy gauntlets fumbled over the creases of the paper as he unwrapped the package.  Inside was a huge weapon, painted black with hints of purple and red.  The stock and trigger locked normal, but the barrel was a strange cylinder, ending in a purple, cone-like object that looked like some sort of focus.  Surrounding the cylinder were three triangular black fins.  Master Chief turned the weapon around in his hands.  Painted on the side of the stock were the numerals M-490.  

Turning, he looked into the bottom of the box, and found a note.  

M-490 Blackstorm.  Fires miniaturized black holes at a target.  Requires advanced power cells to fire, so use sparingly, as I cannot easily replenish its ammunition.  

Unbeknownst to anyone but himself, Master Chief smiled under his helmet.  A gun that fires black holes at a target was nothing to be scoffed at.  He could put this to great use.  Great use indeed.  

Captain James Kirk looked across the bridge of the Enterprise.  The finest ship in the Starfleet.  He smiled to himself, though his outward appearance remained stern.  He was glad to command her, and even more proud to command her crew.  

“Engines online, sir.  Preparing for warp transition,” radioed the chief engineer, Scotty.  Kirk pressed a button on the command console.  

“Very good.  Proceed.”  After all the strangeness, all the craziness, all the new people, they were returning home.  His mission from the Starfleet had originally been to explore new places, to go bravely where no man had gone before, but that had all changed.  Now there were eight other galaxies.  Eight new places to learn about, and it was all overwhelming.  He was glad to be returning home, to Earth, to present his finds to the Federation.  

He very purposefully ignored the package next to him.  Drake had given him two things.  A suit of armor now hung in the armory of the Enterprise, most likely never to see use.  Drake had pointed out that “a shirt and pants aren’t going to stop any sort of weapon”, but Kirk had never needed armor before, and he wasn’t going to start using it now.  The second gift sat in its box, wrapping paper surrounding it, and left to rot.  It was a heavy handgun, a sleek, matte black .44 calibre monster.  The note accompanying it had been shredded, its mocking message destroyed.

“Stun” is for cowards and fools.  

While some of the people he had met were much like him, and others were simply products of their environment, others were not.  He was going to have choice words to the Federation about Captain Thomas Drake.  

Aboard the Millennium Falcon

The familiar lights and switches of the Falcon’s cockpit were a reassuring sight to Han Solo.  The past weeks had been some of the strangest of his life.  Or maybe not.  He had seen massive amounts of strange things that shook his understanding of the universe before.  This was just one more to add to the total.  He was a man who rolled with the punches.  

He turned and nodded to his furry copilot, currently seating in the chair next to him.

“Punch it, Chewy.”  The world around the cockpit streaked with stars, and the whine of the starship’s engines filled the air.  Another familiar sight in a changing universe.  He was heading back to his home galaxy, giving his report on the new people he had met.  Hopefully Leia didn't try to kill him for being gone too long.  

Before he had gone, Drake had presented him with two gifts.  A phaser, some sort of pistol-like weapon that could be calibrated to different energy levels.  He wasn’t going to ever use it.  His blaster was much more comfortable, much more reassuring.  He knew what it didn, knew how to use it, knew all of its ins and outs.  Something different would be an interruption, and perhaps a dangerous one at that.  The phaser now was resting in a forgotten box in an unused room.  But it was not that gift that was the most interesting.  

The second of Drake’s gifts had been a heavy metal box, about two feet by two feet.  More the size of a trunk than a conventional box, it had been accompanied by strict instructions.

This box is to be delivered to Luke Skywalker in person.  Under no circumstances is it to be opened by anyone else.  While I’m sure your reading skills are fine, and you can understand directions with crystal clarity, allow me to be perfectly clear about this.  This box is not to be opened by anyone other than Luke Skywalker for any reason whatsoever.  

The box itself was sealed and locked, the keys given to Solo along with the instructions and a letter addressed to Skywalker.  Solo turned in his chair.  It emanated a faint aura of dread, as if some dark secret was locked inside.  Although, that could just be curiosity or paranoia playing with his nerves.  Or maybe it was something else.  Luke was a Jedi.  Some dark secret…

Enough.  It’s perfectly fine.  That didn’t stop him from wanting to get it off his ship as soon as possible, though.

And there you have it.  If you have any comments, concerns, criticisms, questions, explanations, or requests, feel free to ask!  

[celestialmark]

Solitude - Part One

Characters: Mark Lee x reader, members of nct 

Genre: sniper!mark, mafia au 

Word count: 5.1k 

Warnings: mentions of death, alcohol, cursing 

Navigation: preview | part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | epilogue 

Author’s note: I've never written anything like this before- but I do hope you enjoy!! 

A bead of sweat trickles down the side of Mark’s face and it leaves a subtle trail on his skin, a rare indication of his nerves. Mark hated it. He hated feeling nervous because the feeling was unfamiliar to him, especially on occasions like these, where he’s aligning his viewer to the target. With one eye shut tight, he uses his other to navigate to the precise area he wants his bullet to penetrate. He sucks in a huge breath and tightens his palms around his weapon, exerting all his unnecessary nerves into it so that it leaves no room for second-guesses and doubts in his turbulent mind.

Mark was notorious for his one-shot kills. And the secret to that was to have a perfectly clear mind. And knowing that he was nowhere near achieving that today, drives him to think for the first time ever, that he might actually miss.

But Mark lives up to his reputation when he pulls the trigger after eons of perfecting his centre, the silence boring into his ears, his adrenaline rush pushing him to the edge. It isn’t long before the bullet flies, whizzing through the air in a crazy speed, the initial screech of it being launched deafening Mark momentarily before it disappears into thin air like it never happened. It’s a mere second before the crowd below breaks in a frantic, people running and screaming left and right and in all sorts of directions at the sight of the person at the centre of all the attention having collapsed out of nowhere, bright red blood seeping through clothes. Security comes to aid but the damage has already been done.

Mark shoots you.

And it just so happens, that he doesn’t miss today.

“Mission clear,” Donghyuck, the one who catches your body, speaks discretely into the mic attached to his ear, his words transcending to other members of his team disguised as the target’s security just like he is. “Jeno, clear the target. Mark should be down soon.” The said boy scurries to carry the lifeless body out of the scene, away from the eyes of the press who are shaking in fear, seeking shelter in any direction possible while the police who had arrived prior, attempt to handle the mess. Police surround the area and its vicinity, exerting useless efforts to catch the culprit who by now has successfully returned to the vehicle he left before situating himself on the rooftop.

Mark is already preparing to drive the van parked just metres away from the location of the commotion, when Jeno arrives to dispatch your now blood-soaked body at the back seat. From the rear-view mirror, Mark catches Jeno’s eyes for a second and Jeno nods curtly before sliding the door shut, leaving Mark to rev the engine and zoom into the distance. He’s still sweating and by now his fingers have begun to tremble. But he shakes it off, focusing all his attention on ensuring he escapes with you.

“Johnny!” Mark yells as he bangs on the door with his foot. “Johnny!” he calls again, desperation and haste in his thick voice. “I swear to God Johnny—“

Mark is about to kick the door open when Johnny finally comes into view after unlocking the door. His disheveled hair and the wrinkle in his clothes tell Mark that the elder had been in deep sleep prior to his arrival. Johnny’s eyes that’s squinting to adjust to light immediately widen when he takes in the sight of Mark carrying your barely breathing body. Mark follows Johnny’s eyes and find your eyes rolling back, occasional breaths heavy and uneven, both of your shoulders rising and falling each and every time you draw in air with much difficulty. Your clothes are soaked with blood and even with the temporary patch Mark put on your wound to prevent even more bleeding, the gushing would not stop.

“What the fuck— what is this?” Johnny asks, fully awake, stepping aside to let Mark into his place. Johnny glances outwards in all directions to ensure no one witnessed Mark’s frantic screaming before closing the door shut.

Mark lays your body on Johnny’s trolley in his makeshift clinic, a home for all the wounded members of their gang. Mark tears your blouse open to inspect the damage he caused, eyebrows furrowed and jaw taught. He grabs a nearby gauze to press on the wound, replacing the old one,  and it elicits a grimace from you, although a very weak response.

Johnny already has gloves on when he comes beside Mark, examining you from head to toe so that he could formulate a plan. Things were not looking good. You were borderline turning purple and you were struggling to breathe. “How long has she been out for?”

“A little over thirty minutes,” Mark says curtly, eyes trained on you. “I brought her here as soon as she was shot.”

Mark knows there’s questions boring at the back of Johnny’s head and he really didn’t have the time for that now so when his friend doesn’t press on the matter, he silently thanks the heavens. “Mark, she’s lost too much blood. We need to get her at least two units and I don’t have any here. I don’t even know what her blood type is—“

“She’s AB,” Mark interrupts, limbs growing weak by the second at the sight of you clinging onto your dear life but his voice firm and clear. “I’m A. Take some from me. Now.”

Mark finds himself lying on another trolley Johnny pushed beside yours earlier. There’s a dull pain radiating from his right arm, right where the needle’s poking him, drawing his blood and transfusing it directly into you as Johnny tends to your wound. The oxygen mask Johnny has put on you is barely assisting in making your lungs inflate and deflate but you’re way more relaxed now that he’s downed your system with anaesthetics and sedation. He keeps a close eye on you and switches his attention between the monitor above your head, and on Mark who’s just staring straight into the ceiling, focusing on the subtle flicker of the lightbulb that lights up the whole room.

An echo of a clang resonates in the room and Mark knows Johnny has retrieved the bullet he mercilessly penetrated you with an hour ago, placing it to the metal kidney dish. He brings himself to look to his right, to your almost lifeless body, guilt gnawing at him more than he would ever admit. Mark’s beginning to feel dizzy, maybe from the fatigue with a combination of him presently losing blood, but he fights to stay awake, to ensure that he hears Johnny say you’re going to be okay.

It takes Johnny another good fifteen minutes to successfully stitch all the damage up. And another five minutes for him to settle Mark’s silent concerns.

“She’s doing okay for now. But we’ll have to keep a close eye.”

“Where the fuck is Mark?”

Donghyuck raises the phone to his ear for the umpteenth time, dialling the man in question’s number. He lets out a frustrated groan, having not seen his friend since this afternoon’s events and now, being unable to reach him with no knowledge of his whereabouts whatsoever.

“Why are you so worried? Mark always does his job fine,” Renjun, who’s sitting in the corner of the room, feet resting up on the table, says nonchalantly, unfazed by his friend’s unnecessary behaviour.

“Mark isn’t the type keep us in the dark,” Donghyuck retaliates, his forefinger finding its way to his temple to ease an impending headache. “Did he say anything before he left?” Donghyuck asks, turning to Jeno.

Jeno, attention solely on the articles flooding his laptop from today’s shooting, a result of his skills, briefly glances at Donghyuck before shifting his eyes to his screen again, shakes his head curtly, “Nope.”

“Then where could he be?” Donghyuck asks into the void, knowing all too well he wasn’t going to receive a decent answer any time soon.

Jaemin hops off the table he’s been sitting on and walks over to Donghyuck, patting his shoulder to hopefully calm his stress. “On a good note, the whole country thinks y/n is dead.” Jeno looks up from his laptop and nods his head, confirming the truth to Jaemin’s words after scanning all the news headlines with you on the covers.

“We’d be sure of that if Mark picked up his bloody phone,” Donghyuck prods, gripping his phone tight, still on edge, even when he knew there was no need to be because what Renjun had said earlier was right.

Renjun frowns, growing impatient at Donghyuck’s temper. “Mark never misses. He wouldn’t start now. And you were there yourself, you saw how he shot right at her heart. Just how he always does.”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes, “Whatever.”

Renjun has already risen from his seat and is ready to storm towards Donghyuck in fury when Jaemin purposefully impedes his way, preventing him from advancing further. Jaemin stares into Renjun’s eyes and once he’s sure he’s gotten his attention, he shakes his head to warn Renjun not to start any petty exchange.

The door to their headquarters suddenly open harshly, the steel material making a disturbing bang when it hits the wall from being swung too strongly. By the doorway reveals Taeyong; the very man in charge, the man who has everyone shaking under his mercy. Jeno immediately stands from the couch, fixing his clothes in the process while the others straighten themselves, unconsciously falling next to one another.

“Good job boys!” Taeyong’s voice booms through the room, clapping his hands three times, looking genuinely pleased with a menacing grin hanging on the corner of his lips. “A well executed job done today.” Taeyong scans the place and then lands his eyes on the boys who are staring at the ground. “Oh? Where’s Mark?”

There’s silence that hangs in the air for what seems like centuries and Donghyuck is about to open his mouth to say something, most probably a lie that he can come up with the quickest, but doesn’t get the chance to speak when Taeyong shakes his head, “Doesn’t matter. He can do whatever he wants. He did his part today.” Taeyong nods and exhales a breath, reaching out to tap Donghyuck’s shoulders firmly. “Go out and celebrate. You deserve it,” he winks.

Once Taeyong leaves and is out of sight, the four instantly relax, their shoulders drooping slightly, letting go of the breaths they held. Jaemin rests his arms on Donghyuck and Renjun’s shoulders, a grin forming on his lips, “Well? You heard the man. Let’s celebrate? Where should we go?”

“The usual?” Jeno suggests from beside Donghyuck who still hasn’t looked away from the door Taeyong has just disappeared to.

“I’m good with anything,” Renjun says, shrugging his shoulders.

“What about you Hyuck?” Jaemin asks, turning to his left.

“Nowhere until I find Mark,” he says shortly.

Renjun rolls his eyes while Jeno blinks. “Why are you so concerned with Mark anyways?” Jaemin asks curiously. “He’s probably gotten rid of y/n’s body since ages ago and is most likely catching up on his sleep. All the planning for today did tire everyone out.”

Donghyuck turns his head to Jaemin and Renjun, after glancing at Jeno, his features still rigid and have never relaxed since the day began. “You haven’t noticed anything about Mark?”

Renjun raises a brow, “What?”

“Something’s been off,” Donghyuck admits, blinking into the distance.

“Maybe you’re just overthinking,” Jaemin pipes up, letting go of Renjun so that he can ruffle Donghyuck’s hair. “Come on, a few drinks will surely help ya.”

“Go on, I know you have a million questions to ask,” Mark says, voice low and eyes fixated onto the blood staining his hands, running them under hot water to remove the remnants of today’s events.

“You missed her heart,” Johnny points out, not even glancing at Mark, the unusual observation, let alone the younger bringing his very victim, confusing him to his wits end. Mark stills, his hands freezing in their spot before resuming. “It’s unlikely of you.”

Johnny momentarily halts putting his equipment away on the counter, opens his mouth to say something, but closes them just as fast and proceeds to clean. “And I do have questions. But I know you. You’d be talking by now if you wanted to tell me,” Johnny pauses and contemplates what he’s going to say, quietly sensing the younger’s inner dilemmas through the distraught in his eyes. “So no, I’m not going to ask. You don’t want me to.”

Mark turns the tap off and it emits a low screech. Setting his hands on the edges of the sink, he lets out a sigh, his head dropping low. Johnny was right. He didn’t want to talk about it because if he was honest, he wouldn’t know where to begin. He’s mulled over today’s happenings a million times over in his head and no matter how hard he recalculates his actions, he really couldn’t find a better alternative that could possibly result to an ideal outcome, maybe one that involved him avoiding hurting you in any way or form. But that was his job. He was set out for that task. And he knew better than anyone else that once he’s given orders from the higher ups, there was no asking questions nor objections.

Mark comes back to earth when he feels a palm on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly, “Take it easy, okay? Rest up while you wait for her to wake up. She should be awake soon,” Johnny smiles gently before he’s leaving the room.

Mark takes Johnny’s advice and grabs a chair, lifting it across the room and placing it right beside where you’re sleeping. He stares at you for a few seconds before bringing his head down, fiddling with his fingers and letting his thoughts drown out the constant beeping of the machine monitoring your progress. He realises he doesn’t have much of a plan, unsure of what to do or what to tell you once you awoke from your unconscious state. All he knew was that he needed to save you. He leans forward in his seat, resting his arms on the trolley beside your body. He rests his head on his arm then, closes his eyes and falls asleep slowly, with you being the last thing he sees before exhaustion consumes him.

After an hour, you wake up to an ache in your head, your eyes fluttering open with much difficulty and immediately squinting them shut when they’re met by light from the ceiling. You inhale a breath and that’s when you become aware of the oxygen mask wrapped around your head and also of the stinging pain shooting up on your left chest. The gush of pain makes you groan lowly, your breathing becoming a little heavier as you wait for it to subside. But it doesn’t and it makes breathing a heavy effort. In no less than a minute, a tear rolls down the side of your face, slowly recollecting brief images of what had happened before you passed out. You remember being on the verge of fainting, most likely from the lack of sleep, stress and pressure from being in front of the public’s eyes for as long as you can remember, and then falling apart together because of a bullet. Another painful groan leaves your lips when you try to rise from where you’re lying only to fall back again when the pain intensifies.

You notice then a sleeping figure by your side, who has now woken up because of your haste movements, staring at you with wide eyes and raised brows. It takes him a moment to say something, eyes merely blinking at you who’s struggling to breathe. “Y/n?” He finally speaks out, voice a little hoarse from his sleep. “Are you okay?”

Your head falls back down, eyes darting to the ceiling above, an exasperated breath escaping your lips, your hands balling into fists. “S-sore..” You croak helplessly. “It hurts.”

The stranger switches his gaze to your face and then to your wound and then back and forth a few more times before he’s scrambling off his chair, running into a direction you don’t see. You hear him distantly calling out to someone in another room before he reappears again, his figure now towering over you. He seems to be in a panic, his hands flailing in the air, not knowing what to do to be of any help to you. Another pain shoots up your wound and it travels down to your whole body, making you hiss. You reach your left hand out to anything you can grab a hold of and it lands on the stranger’s arm. You clutch it, not even caring whether you were exerting too much force or not, whether you were hurting him or not, your mind too focused on distracting you from the pain.

He doesn’t back away nor removes your grasp on him, instead, he places his other hand on top of yours, the warmth of his skin comforting you in some way. And if that wasn’t enough, he begins to rub the back of your hand with his thumb in a slow, rhythmic manner, your whole attention now focused on the feeling of his touch. It’s helping. But it’s not enough.

It’s not long before another figure appears beside him, his stature a lot taller with soft eyes. “Hey hey,” he speaks gently, assessing you from head to toe before landing his eyes longer onto the monitor above your head. “How’s the pain?”

“Terrible,” you croak in between breaths. “I can’t breathe.”

The tall man nods and shuffles off to somewhere before coming back to where he was in a heartbeat, this time with something that looks like a syringe in his hand. “I’m gonna give you a strong painkiller okay? It’s gonna make you a little drowsy but should make the pain better.” You barely manage a nod before he’s injecting it into your line you didn’t notice before.

True to his words, the pain subsides little by little and it pulls you back into another slumber. “I’m Johnny,” you hear him say, adjusting another drip he’s connecting you to. “You’re going to be okay.” He smiles at you again, his eyes disappearing in the process and it convinces you to believe his words. Taking one last glance at your monitor, he leaves the room, but not before nodding at the stranger who hasn’t ceased on holding your hand.

You’re falling asleep again and you’re staring hard at the stranger who’s now looking at you, concern evident in his eyes that’s boring into yours. You can’t get your words out, your eyelids getting heavier by the second but you so badly want to know his name because even though you’ve never ever seen him in your life before, you feel good in his presence. Your eyes are shutting, breathing becoming even and steady, but before you become unconscious altogether, you vaguely hear him say something as if reading your mind,

“Mark. My name’s Mark.”

“Quit it already!” Jaemin reprimands, taking Donghyuck’s phone away from his grasp. “For goodness sake Hyuck, loosen up a little!”

Donghyuck glares at Jaemin who’s tucking his phone away in his pocket before surrendering and leaning forward on the counter of the bar they frequented. “Fine,” he says as he takes a sip of the drink Jaemin had ordered for him earlier.

“Finally!” Renjun exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air to which Jeno grins.

“Should we make a toast?” Jaemin suggests, already reaching for his glass. The three follow suit, everyone grinning to themselves happily, remembering the success they attained during the day after excruciating months of preparation. “To future kills!

“To future kills!” The three re-echo, clinking their glasses together and downing each of their respective drinks like a champion, only to grimace afterwards at the after taste.

“Wow I can’t believe it’s really done,” Renjun says, playing with his glass. “Feels like it was just yesterday we were stressing about it.”

Jaemin nods in agreement, resting his chin on his palm, “Probably the hardest thing we’ve had to do so far. I mean killing someone in public with so many watching.. That’s not easy.”

“We could’ve gotten caught so easily,” Donghyuck points out.

“But we didn’t!” Jaemin claps his hands, landing a palm on Jeno’s shoulder. “All thanks to Jeno’s sick hacking skills, Mark’s perfect aim, and our convincing disguises as y/n’s security. Teamwork makes the dream work!” Jaemin winks.

Renjun rolls his eyes, “Lame.”

“So what now?” Jeno asks. “Now that it’s over, what now?”

“We get our money back,” Renjun replies curtly. “Remember the money her parents stole? We get that back.”

Donghyuck clucks his tongue, “Don’t know how that’s going to work now that they’re all dead though. I feel like Taeyong just wanted them dead merely for revenge.”

“Could we not just take their money and go?” Jaemin asks, disappointment hinted in his voice.

“Not unless Jeno can hack his way through,” Donghyuck answers. “I mean it was already hard getting into her world and pretending to be her guards.”

There’s silence for a while, each of the boys getting lost in their own thought before Jeno breaks it.

“Gotta give it to Mark though,” he speaks for the first time tonight. “I’ve never seen him practice his shooting so hard before. He already knows he’s good.”

Donghyuck ponders on the thought, his mind wandering to Mark again and the worry of not being able to get to him. “Just goes to show how this whole thing has been stressful for him too,” Jaemin offers.

“And he did have the most vital role today,” Donghyuck adds.

Renjun shrugs, “Guess his practicing paid off then. He got his target right where he wanted.”

Jeno is about to say something about what he observed weeks back but chooses to drop the topic when Jaemin switches to another one altogether. The four of them fall into conversation just like that, boisterous laughter erupting when alcohol completely takes over their systems. Donghyuck, who’s been on edge the whole day, even after the success of their mission, forgets about Mark completely, allowing all of what he’s downing relieve him of the stress that’s been eating him up alive for so long.

“Is this all Jeno’s doing?” Johnny asks, scrolling through countless of pages containing different articles which all have the same topic on its headlines: your assassination and death. It’s been twenty four hours and the occurrences of yesterday has been the only focus of media outlets.

Mark nods absentmindedly, merely glancing at what the elder’s reading before trailing his eyes back on you, still unconscious on the trolley. “He’s getting better and better,” Johnny comments, clicking on and scanning random articles Jeno had created that seemed so real and convincing. “I’m guessing the others think y/n is dead too then?”

Mark nods again, feeling a little less on edge when he studies the steady pattern of your breathing. “I was asked to get rid of her body after I shot her.”

“Oh man, I’d be well convinced she was gone too if I’d read these,” Johnny says, still so fascinated at the skill Jeno has perfected over the years. “And of course if she wasn’t in front of me.”

Mark remains silent, still waiting for Johnny to break the ice and go ahead in asking the big question. But he doesn’t ask even then, still choosing to avoid the topic like a plague and directing the conversation elsewhere. “Don’t think this is going to sit well with Taeyong though.”

Mark tries not to shudder at the chilling thought and though he knows out of all people that what Johnny had said was true, he’d be lying if he said it had occurred to him, too carried away in the moment, too focused on putting your life on the line just to save it in the end. “Yeah, it won’t,” he mumbles, eyes never leaving you.

Jonny says something but Mark doesn’t quite hear when he’s already leaving his spot beside the elder, realising you’re waking up from your slumber. You’re blinking your eyes to adjust to the light when Mark comes into your peripheral vision until he’s completely all you can see. “Hey,” he says softly, eyes warm and gentle. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” you manage to reply, lifting your hand to take off your oxygen mask that’s making communication difficult. “Still painful. But a lot better.”

Johnny is beside Mark in no time just as Mark takes the mask from you and when he examines the monitor again, he looks down at you and smiles, “Your numbers look good. Would you like another painkiller? Maybe a milder one?”

You realise you don’t know anything about anyone in this room apart from their names and in a normal situation, this would be alarming to you. But somehow, for the first time in a while, you’re not fearing for your life even though you’re surrounded by complete strangers. “Y-yeah, that’d be great, thanks,” you croak.

Johnny disappears again and Mark darts his eyes elsewhere when silence falls upon the both of you. “Mark?” you call out, praying to the heavens your memory didn’t fail you to save you from embarrassment. You almost exhale a breath of relief when he turns to you, responding to his name with curious eyes. “What happened? Where are we?”

Mark’s eyes widen for a split second, something you could have easily missed had you not been staring at him all this while. He blinks a couple times, avoids your gaze for another few seconds before finally returning his eyes on you, “Um— What do you remember last y/n?”

You rest your eyes by closing them as you rack your brain for any recollections of the day before blacking out. “The press conference— I remember a lot of cameras, and a lot of people. That’s it. The next thing I can remember is security carrying me out before I passed out.”

Johnny returns and exchanges a quick glance with Mark before injecting another painkiller into your line. You open your eyes when you feel Johnny fiddle with your line and see Mark still staring at you with a glint in his eyes you can’t quite put a name on. He’s about to speak when a vivid image from your memory comes back to you, “Donghyuck!” you almost exclaim and it grabs Johnny’s attention too, now staring at you also. “I remember one of the security’s name was Donghyuck.. I heard someone calling his name. I believe he carried me out. And I remember a Jeno too. I think Jeno was the last person I’d seen before blacking out.”

“Had you seen those people before?” Mark asks, testing your memory and clarifying how much you know. Johnny looks at Mark wearily before returning his attention to you.

You shake your head, “No. I don’t think so.” You look down at your wound, where the pain is coming from and then back up at Mark. “I’ve been shot. Right?”

Mark hesitates. But nods.

“Do you know who shot me? Is it the same person who’s been sending me death threats?” You ask again, not really knowing why you would ask a complete stranger something he might not even have answers to. A thought occurs to you then. Why were you so open to someone you’d just met? For all you knew, this person could be trying to kill you too. But you decide against it, your desperation driving you to trust Mark, probably the only person you could trust right now despite not knowing a thing about him. Besides, he saved your life, right?

Instincts. Your gut tells you to. And your guts were never wrong.

Mark raises a brow, a frown lining his forehead, the mention of death threats catching him off guard. The definitely was not his group’s doing, “Death threats? Someone’s been threatening to kill you?”

“Yeah,” you nod slowly. “Ever since—“

A series of nasty bangs against the door prevents you from speaking further, all of you immediately snapping your head to the direction of the frantic knocks. “Johnny!!” Someone screams, the volume of their voice traveling to reach your location. Mark and Johnny look at each other, a hint of confusion and alarm flashing in their orbs before Johnny’s jogging away to check the culprit.

“Who’s that?” You ask, your heartbeat unknowingly picking up its pace, the numbers on the monitor reflecting your internal panic. You watch Mark seemingly formulate a plan silently in his head when he walks in circles beside your bed. “Mark, what’s happening?”

Johnny’s by the doorway and calls out to Mark, eyebrows meeting in the middle and his features stern, “You have to get her out of here.” Johnny glances at you, “Now.”

Mark doesn’t spare any time when he quickly detaches you from wires you were connected to, pulling at different places, his hands moving in a blur. “You think you can walk?” He asks, not even looking at you, utterly focused on disconnecting you to everything that’s keeping you from leaving.

“W-What’s happening Mark?” Seeing Mark in a frantic makes you fearful and he could tell by the way your voice had begun to shake and quieten down.

Mark stops then. He looks at you, your fearful eyes reflecting onto his rigid ones. “Listen to me carefully okay,” his voice suddenly becoming stern and low. “You’re not safe here. I’ll answer your questions later but I’m going to need you to come with me,” Mark says, his eyes not wavering from yours.

Mark sees your uncertainty and he feels you tremble under his touch when he holds both of your shoulders. “I know you’re scared and I’m a stranger to you. But I need you to trust me,” he pauses, giving your shoulders a light squeeze.

“I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”

Mark laughs at himself mentally. How contradicting of him to say that when he was the very one behind your current state.

You put your whole life in Mark’s hands when you give him a nod, a silent signal for him to whisk you away from here, to wherever “safe” was. And that’s all Mark needed because he’s already lifting you off the trolley and carrying you into his arms.

Mark knows he has to tell you the truth soon. Though he didn’t know what or how much to tell you yet, he had to tell you soon.  

But not today.

Not yet.

[novel-reader]

71-80

71-80

71 Earning money faster than a money printer After the night, dawn. Luo Feng stood on the balcony of the 12th floor. The winter chill of the morning touched his face, startling Luo Feng's spirit. "It's around 5 or 6 degrees below 0 today" laughed Gao Feng. "It is a bit cold". Luo  Feng looked down from the balcony and saw a monster hunting for prey,  "But right in the morning, there are already quite a bit of monsters in  the area! Look, there are around 12 monsters in my field of vision, and  three of them are commander level! Hmhm, #003 city is indeed the camp of  the monsters". Gao Feng laughed. Indeed, in a regular city, a  commander usually leads around a few hundred regular monsters; they have  lots of authority! And in the city that Luo Feng stayed in to train his  blade technique, a commander level monster had around a few hundred to  even a few thousand monsters under its control! In a city, the fewer the commanders, the more monsters each one can lead! But  in #003 city, even in the outskirts, a commander level monster only has  around two to three soldiers with it. Sometimes they have none,  becoming a leader without any followers. "These are all weaker  commanders, they don't have many followers! As for the stronger  commanders and even horde leaders, they'll have tens of thousands of  followers!" Gao Feng turned his head to look at the others, "Everyone,  wake up, let's go hunt the monsters below!". "Let's go brothers, let's earn some money" Chen Gu couldn't help but to laugh as he said. "This #003 city is full of opportunity! Commanders are everywhere!" the eyes of Wei Qing and Wei Tie flashed. #003 city is dangerous! But  chances exist together with danger. There are many powerful monsters  here, and if you don't have enough skill, you'll easily die. Even if  you're powerful, once you get surrounded by a horde, you're also  finished..... however! The commanders here don't have many followers, so  it's much easier to hunt these commanders! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Luo  Feng was in front of the staircase, and after using his spiritual force  to scan the corners, waved his hand: "No problem, no monsters in a 20  meter radius". Monsters usually lie in ambush from the corners! And Luo Feng's spiritual force is the best detector. "Being with a spirit reader is fantastic" smiled Chen Gu. "Everyone  watch yourselves, don't make a sound. Monsters ears' are very  sensitive" Gao Feng glared at Chen Gu, and Chen Gu immediately shut up. Luo Feng was leading while Gao Feng was in the back. Wei Tie and Wei Qing were on the two sides, and Chen Gu was in the middle! "Hm?"  Luo Feng's gaze landed on a three horned boars around 100 meters away.  One of the horned boars was extremely large and its horn was black.  Unlike the usual gray fur, its needle-like fur was black. All of this  pointed to its identity--Low level commander! "It's that" Luo Feng said quietly, "I'll take care of that horned boar ahead. Everyone watch the surroundings". Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Luo  Feng charged ahead while the four in the back naturally spread out  according to the formation. They were watching for other commander  monsters, or if there were other human fighters trying to interfere. "HOWL~~"  the commander level horned boar saw the human Luo Feng rushing alone  and immediately howled. Its speed shot to 100 m/s, which is around 360  km/h. And that horned boar was charging straight at Luo Feng! With its  body size, the force of impact would be enough to even smash open a  truck. Luo Feng held his ghost blade and kept his regular speed of around 60 to 70 m/s. The two met! Luo  Feng's speed instantly rose, and with a step, he accurately dodged to  the centimeter. Meanwhile, Luo Feng's blade was drawing up! As the blade  went, it increased in speed twice, making the blade blurry! It became a  blinding light! The cold light of the blade was like a thunderbolt,  and it drew across the neck of the horned boar. The light of the blade  was like a mist from a dream, and instantly dispersed! Blade technique--Thunderbolt! First success! PUCHI! PUCHI! The  two seemingly simple slashes from Luo Feng's ghost blade instantly  slashed across the necks of the other two soldier level horned boars. "RUMBLE~~"  the commander level horned boar who lost its life continued to sprint  for around 10 more meters before falling to the ground with a rumble. It  slid on the ground for a few dozen meters before smashing into a large,  tough tree that has been growing on the side for dozens of years,  causing the entire tree to shake a bit before stopping. "Hmhm, nice job, destroying a commander level monster with just blade technique alone" Chen Gu and the others huddled around. "You've improved quite a bit" Gao Feng was also happy, and he was already heading over to dissect the corpse of the monster. "My  technique, along with my blade technique and bountiful experience, made  killing a low level commander so easy" Luo Feng was amazed inside.  Since he killed over 10,000 monsters, Luo Feng was able to remain  perfectly calm when dealing with these monsters, enabling him to use his  blade technique and technique to their maximum. Using the smallest amount of strength to instantly get rid of the opponent! "Alright, dissection complete" Gao Feng let out a smile, "Let's see, we can hunt quite a bit of commander level monsters today". "Go, to the next one" Luo Feng also let out a smile. Everyone in the fire hammer squad were in high spirits. In  #003 city, even though they knew that they were going to be able to  hunt many monsters, once they actually started fighting, Luo Feng  realized..... Holy shit. They weren't killing monsters. They were  basically printing money! Even a money printer wouldn't be able to make  as much money as Luo Feng and the others were making right now! The materials of a low level commander are worth around 5 million ~ 15 million. The materials of a medium level commander are worth around 10 million ~ 100 million. The materials of a high level commander are worth around 50 million ~ 600 to 700 million. Of  course, there are some exceptions, like some extremely rare monster, or  some high level commander that's approaching the horde leader level.  Naturally, the prices for their materials will be higher. But most of  the monsters fit the price range above. The fire hammer squad killed  around 10 commanders a day! Of course, most of them were low level  commanders! The amount of money they made was simply shocking! After  fighting for 10 days, Luo Feng and the others killed 92 low level  commanders and 3 medium level commanders. The estimated price for them  is probably a billion! Since they fought hard for 10 days, Luo Feng and  the others were quite tired, so they took a good day to rest. After  that, they kept hunting monsters and oh..... it's just that the monsters  in the area have clearly decreased by a significant amount. The 15th day. On the 12th floor of the 18 story apartment building, Luo Feng and the others were resting. "Captain, we rarely see any low level commanders near this area anymore" said Chen Gu hopelessly. "It  can't be helped. We've been killing quite cruelly recently" laughed Gao  Feng, "But no need to rush, monsters come in groups..... According to  my estimations, the amount of monsters here will start increasing within  10 days! All we have to do is quietly defend here, since we're familiar  with the area". Luo Feng also nodded. Even though this area was big, Luo Feng and the others memorized it completely these past few days. "Looks like #003 city is still the best for making money" Wei Tie couldn't help but to be amazed. Even  though Luo Feng and Gao Feng mainly did all the work, Wei Tie, Wei  Qing, and Chen Gu still benefit greatly. After dividing the money, each  of them will get over 100 million! Before, in the small cities,  commanders were rare. Wei Qing and Wei Tie probably couldn't earn 100  million in a year. But now they passed that amount in just 15 days. Of course-- The  bigger the gain, the bigger the risks! In these past few days, Luo Feng  and the others also encountered an assault from a flying monster.  Thankfully, they hid in the house and relied on Luo Feng's throwing  knives to scare them away. "Tons of money? It's not a lot at all"  laughed Gao Feng, "It's normal for a spirit reader to earn billions a  year. The only reason we're able to stay here is mainly thanks to Luo  Feng". "Haha" Chen Gu, Wei Qing, and Wei Tie couldn't help but to start laughing. "Captain,  don't say that. It's because of your help that killing these monsters  became that much easier". Luo Feng was telling the truth when he said  that. It's impossible for one person to pay attention to all of his  surroundings. Some squads have three members responsible for keeping  watch and to remove potential dangers. And only with the help of an 'intermediate warlord' like Gao Feng will Luo Feng's efficiency be high. Luo Feng and the others talked in a relaxed manner, but their voices weren't raised high. "Hm?" Chen Gu looked down through the laser aimer of his heavy sniper rifle and suddenly said, "****, a big one's here!". "What?" Luo Feng and the others basically immediately came over and looked through their binoculars. Luo Feng looked carefully..... In  a apartment building faraway, the corners were filled with vines and  moss. And in these vines was a gigantic snake that was 20 meters long  and as thick as a person's waist. The snake's body had black stripes and  the closer they got to its head, the thicker they became. The very  end of the gigantic snake split into two triangular snake heads, and  both of these heads had a bulge on their foreheads. "****, is this  the snake type monster, 'black striped', that has lethal poison?" cursed  Gao Feng under his voice, "And this is even a mutated snake type  monster, 'twin headed black striped snake'. And it's almost growing a  horn and becoming a dragon". Luo Feng also took in a deep breath. A mutated black striped snake that's almost a dragon? This thing shouldn't be messed with! 72 Twin Headed Black Striped Snake "A  black striped snake that's about to become a dragon; it's surely a high  level commander and nearing the horde leader level!" Gao Feng's  expression was extremely serious, and he said in a small voice, "And  since it's a mutated twin headed black striped snake, its venom is many  times more powerful than a regular black striped snake! It also has two  venom sacs, and each of those venom sacs are worth double the amount of a  non-mutated black striped snake". "In other words--" "This twin  headed black striped snake is worth the same amount as four black  striped snakes of the same level! A black striped snake that's about to  become a dragon is worth around 400 million, so this twin headed black  striped snake is worth 1.6 billion! The price is comparable to a regular  low level horde leader monster" after Gao Feng said these numbers, the  heart rate of the others started increasing rapidly...... they have  killed hundreds of commander level monsters over the past few days. But  all of that is not even close to the amount of money that the twin  headed black striped snake is worth! Obviously, killing stronger  monsters earns money at a higher rate. "Of course, this twin headed  black striped snake is extremely dangerous, once you get bit by it or  get poisoned by it in any way, it's certain death!" Gao Feng said lowly,  "And it has two brains, so both heads can attack the enemy together". "Are we doing this?" Gao Feng looked towards the other members of the squad and finally laid his eyes on Luo Feng. Everyone was silent as they looked at Luo Feng. Luo Feng was the one to make the decision! A twin headed black striped snake would make them tons of money! But at the same time, it's extremely dangerous! "I'm in!" Luo Feng clenched his teeth, "Captain, what about you?". With his spiritual force, his dodging would be unpredictable! "Luo  Feng, help me a bit if there's trouble" Gao Feng clenched his teeth,  "Fighters are supposed to walk on the border of life and death. Wei Tie,  give me your shield". "Here, captain". Wei Tie had no hesitation  as he gave his shield to Gao Feng. And Gao Feng put one of his hammers  on the ground. He had a shield in his left hand and a hammer in his  right. He laughed at himself: "After all this time, I still rarely use a  shield in combat. However, this twin headed black striped snake is just  too dangerous. If I don't use a shield, I'll actually be quite scared". "Captain,  I'll attack from afar and you attack up close" said Luo Feng quietly,  "If something happens, I'll use my spiritual force on your shield or  hammer and you can use that force to dodge away". "Understood" Gao Feng nodded. Luo  Feng looked at the other three and said: "I'll go down with the  captain, you guys stay here. Oh yea, brother Chen, aim with your sniper  rifle...... and make sure nobody tries to take advantage of us and steal  the kill!". "No worries, I'll keep aiming below" laughed Chen Gu slightly, "If you want me to fire, just notify me directly". "Okay" Through the tactical communications watch, members of a squad can keep in touch any time. "Captain,  let's go". Luo Feng and Gao Feng speeded down the stairs. Against a  monster of this level, Chen Gu and the others could do nothing to help. Luo  Feng and Gao Feng reached the ground and, using their memory, went  along a ruined, stony path towards the location of the twin headed black  striped snake. "BOOM!" "HISS~" the ear piercing hiss of the snake carried over from far away. Luo  Feng and Gao Feng exchanged glances, and the tactical communications  watch slightly vibrated at the same time. Luo Feng lowered his head to  look, and a line of words appeared on the tactical communications  watch--"three people suddenly appeared and are currently in an intense  battle with the twin headed black striped snake". Gao Feng also  received the news and said quietly: "Didn't think that some other group  would get to it first. However, let's go take a look". "Let's go" Luo Feng also nodded. The  two of them rapidly got close and quickly arrived at the corner of a  residential apartment. Past the corner, Luo Feng caught a glimpse of the  three men currently fighting against the twin headed black striped  snake around a few dozen meters away. The three men looked like they  were from Western or Southern Asia. Their hair was slightly curly and  their skin color was slightly dark. The bald man who seemed to be the leader of these three men held a dark, golden bo staff around three meters long. The  staff in his hand was like a swimming dragon. Every time the triangular  head of the twin headed black striped snake hissed as it flew over to  him, the bo staff would always be quick enough to smash the snake. Even  if it couldn't smash the head, it would still smash the body of the twin  headed black striped snake. Sometimes, the 'point' on the head of the  bo staff would connect, causing the twin headed black striped snake to  hiss in rage! As for the other two, they both held a rectangular  shield in one hand and a gigantic scimitar in the other. These two were  close together and attacked as a team: their coordination was amazing. "PENG!" The  rusty fitness machines that filled the sector from long ago were all  smashed open by the swinging tail of the twin headed black striped  snake, and the bald brute also retreated rapidly. The bo staff turned  and formed a whirlwind that blocked all of the scrap metal, and the  master of the staff retreated rapidly. "Great bo staff technique" Gao  Feng couldn't help but to say quietly, "This bald guy is probably an  advanced level warlord. The other two are probably medium level  warlords". Luo Feng nodded. This brute dared to go head to head with the twin headed black striped snake, so it's easy to tell that he's strong. "SI SI~~" The  twin headed black striped snake was enraged, and the cold eyes of the  two gigantic snake heads were enough to send chills down your spine. It  repeatedly widely opened its mouth as it attacked. Under the attack of  the twin headed black striped snake, the three of them retreated rapidly  and started to exchange words. After hearing the conversation between  the three, Luo Feng and Gao Feng instantly determined--Indians! After  the battle, one of the heads of the twin headed black striped snake was  bleeding. It was smashed by the bo staff of the bald brute! However,  this wound was clearly not fatal. WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! The three Indians swiftly headed towards the direction of Luo Feng and Gao Feng. "Feel  free to fight it if you can" the bald brute squeezed out some chinese.  At this time, the twin headed black snake was hissing as it charged  over. Luo Feng and Gao Feng laughed coldly and didn't say much, and  then swiftly dodged to the side. They weren't stupid enough to charge  directly at a twin headed black striped snake. The leader of the three  Indians, the bald brute, couldn't help but to curse under his voice and  then shot his three meter long bo staff at the twin headed black striped  snake. "Now is the time" Luo Feng already grabbed his black  throwing knife as he dodged, and this was a 9th series throwing knife!  He threw it with lightning speed! The throwing knife formed a cold  light as it shot towards the left head of the twin headed black striped  snake. As an existence that is almost a dragon, the twin headed black  striped snake is extremely intelligent. It saw that the insignificant  human threw a throwing knife, so its left head swiftly waved. The brain  of a snake has always worked extremely quickly! The left head of the twin headed black striped snake instantly became blurred. "Its intellect was used against itself" laughed Luo Feng coldly, "Change!" He  purposefully threw his throwing knife to make the wiseacre twin headed  black striped snake to think he used hidden weapons. Using common sense,  throwing knives can't change direction in the air. Sadly..... Luo Feng  wasn't some hidden weapons expert, but was tens to hundreds of times  stronger than a hidden weapons expert. When there was just barely a  meter left between the throwing knife and the twin headed black striped  snake, the knife slightly changed direction. Just this slight change  caused the knife to charge towards one of the eyes of the twin headed  black striped snake's left head. "HISS~" the twin headed black  striped snake hissed out of rage, and in that short moment, actually  made an dodging movement with its left head! Know that, Luo Feng's  throwing knife was already going at a few times faster than the speed of  sound, even faster than a sniper bullet! A distance of one meter and a speed several times the speed of sound, not even a thousandth of a second! And  since the throwing knife was moving so quickly, even Luo Feng couldn't  be sure that he changed it at 1 meter or 1.5 meters. Since the throwing  knife was so fast, a slight delay means that the knife could've moved  forward by 10 meters already. Even if he reacts quickly, in that short  moment, Luo Feng can only change the knife's direction once! And in  just that short moment, not only did the twin headed black striped snake  react, but it also dodged! Of course, since it was such a short moment,  the twin headed black striped snake dodged under extreme circumstances. "PU!"  the throwing knife shot at the mouth of the twin headed black striped  snake and drew out a gap, and grazed the twin headed black striped  snake's scales. CHI CHI~~ It only left a white mark, and the throwing knife directly reflected into the ground. "Such  horrifying defense" Luo Feng was startled, "Such amazing dodging  capabilities. It changed direction in such a short distance, and this  twin headed black striped snake was still able to dodge? This is going  to be a problem!" Luo Feng knew that getting rid of this twin headed  black striped snake by himself would be extremely difficult. "Hiss~"  the two heads of the twin headed black striped snake both turned towards  Luo Feng. Its left head had a huge gap in its mouth, and a deep, green  colored blood flowed out continuously. The bald brute who wielded the  long bo staff laughed loudly, and as he retreated, he yelled in his  awkward chinese, "Team up, split half?". His gaze was on Luo Feng. Luo Feng and Gao Feng exchanged glances. "Alright" said Luo Feng. "OK!" Gao Feng even purposefully made a gesture. The  three Indians and Luo Feng and Gao Feng, both groups instantly made  their decision to cooperate. The bald brute's strength earned Luo Feng  and Gao Feng's recognition while Luo Feng's throwing knives earned the  three Indian's recognition! Only with strength can you earn others'  attention and respect! And outside of Wan-Ke dream city was a fighter  squad of nine that was currently slowly heading forward. In this squad  of nine were the members of the tiger fang squad. "Hm? That's the sound of a snake, and an extremely powerful one at that". Out of the nine, a veteran whose hair was white spoke. 73 A steal In Wan-Ke dream city's ruined, barren land was a sound of rumbling. A  snake as thick as a person's waist charged like lightning towards the  two scimitar-wielding Indians. The two Indians leaped with a 'WHOOSH'  five or six meters high and grabbed the window railing of an apartment  building. The snake's tail then cruelly smashed into a tree on the side.  From around five or six meters up the tree was a 'KACHA' sound as it  directly split open and rumbled as it fell. "Haha, trying to kill me?" at this time, Luo Feng was sprinting quickly with a shield in one hand. The two heads of the twin headed black striped snake were crazily chasing after Luo Feng! Whoosh! Whoosh! He  swung his arm and two throwing knives came out. It seemed like Luo Feng  used his arm to throw them, but actually, the throwing knives were  completely controlled by spiritual force right when they were thrown,  causing the two throwing knives to accelerate to an amazing speed. An  eye would barely be able to see two blurred, cold lights headed towards  the twin headed black striped snake! "HISS~~" the twin headed black striped snake roared as it tried to dodge. "Change!" Luo Feng's gaze was cold. The  two throwing knives slightly changed direction, but not by a large  amount. Since the throwing knives were way faster than bullets fired  from a sniper rifle, the others couldn't even tell that the throwing  knives changed direction. "PUCHI!" "CHI!" One of the two throwing  knives grazed the left head of the snake as it flew by, but the other  throwing knife hit the left head. Ever since they started fighting, Luo  Feng already let out six throwing knives, and all six of these throwing  knives were attacking the snake's left head. At this time, the snake's  left head was covered with fresh blood, and its wounds were shocking. "Hu!" Luo Feng's body was extremely light, and his sprinting speed was startling. The  bo staff-wielding leader of the Indian group made an excited shout and  chased the snake, as if it was a running dog, while it was chasing after  Luo Feng. One hit after another, he fiercely shot his staff towards the  twin headed black striped snake's right head. The twin headed black  striped snake didn't dare to use its head to block the alloyed staff, so  it could only dodge. Know that, even though this staff doesn't seem powerful and isn't sharp like a spear... Once  it makes contact, all of its power will be focused on the tip. The area  of the tip isn't large, so that small tip is like a blunt weapon! "Come on Indian, keep at it!" howled Gao Feng. The  other two large scimitar and shield wielding Indian fighters, with Gao  Feng, closely attacked the body of the twin headed black striped snake.  First, doing this prevented the twin headed black striped snake from  using its tail to attack Luo Feng and the Indian leader. Second, they  also wanted to attack this giant snake at around 7 inches! The snake's weak point is at 7 inches. Of course 7 inches is an abstract number; the main point is to attack its vital organs.* TL note: Refer to the end for more information. Even  though the snake was confident in its defense, it still didn't want to  let Gao Feng and the other two aim for its vitals. So the snake  retracted its tail and wrapped it..... as it tried to think of a way to  deal with Gao Feng and the other two. "Whoosh!" The shield in Luo  Feng's left hand was affected by spiritual force and, after Luo Feng  exerted force in his foot, he intensely flew straight towards captain  Gao Feng's position. When he was near Gao Feng, Luo Feng whispered:  "Captain, when you get near the snake to attack, use your hammer and  smash right towards this snake's left head!". "Hehe, understood" Gao Feng immediately understood what Luo Feng meant. Luo  Feng's movements on the battlefield were strange and erratic. He never  got close to the snake; he just relied on his amazing speed to hover  around the battlefield. "YA!" The Indian leader suddenly shouted and  his face reddened; the blood in his body was pumping to its limit. For a  moment, his body looked like a legendary buddhist arhat. The bo staff  in his body rapidly and ferociously increased in speed and, as if he was  throwing away his life, he charged straight towards the twin headed  black striped snake. The speed of the bo staff reached its limit and, in  a blink of an eye, dozens of shadows were smashing towards the snake! BANG! BANG! Two  of the dozens of shadows smashed directly into the snake's right head.  The right head of the gigantic snake couldn't help but to shake, as if  it was going to faint. With a rumble, the snake's right head directly  fell onto the ground. "HISS~" the left head of the twin headed black  striped snake immediately let out a horrifying growl and its large, soft  body suddenly moved. It actually shot up and speedily ran in a wavy  motion. "Hurry!" the Indian leader, the bald brute, quickly roared. Gao  Feng, who always stuck close to the twin headed black striped snake,  roared: "Die!". He used all of the power in his body to ferociously  swing the heavy hammer in his hand. The heavy hammer was like an  artillery shell as it cruelly smashed towards the left head of the twin  headed black striped snake. The left head of the twin headed black  striped snake immediately dodged away. Luo Feng, who wasn't too far  away, saw this and concentrated all of his spiritual force on the heavy  hammer, instantly accelerating it by a huge margin! "PENG!" The  twin headed black striped snake instantly dodged away. But even though  the heavy hammer didn't directly hit its head, it still hit the neck! With  Gao Feng's extreme power and Luo Feng's spiritual force as support, the  force of impact of this hammer was unrivaled. The left head of the twin  headed black striped snake also couldn't help but to fall to the ground  with a dizzy motion. But right when it regained consciousness and was  going to raise its head back up! Luo Feng let out a smile! "PUCHI!"  a black knife instantly came out of the ground, went along the face of  the left head of the snake, and directly shot into the head! The left head didn't rise up again. "PU!"  The alloyed bo staff of the bald brute Indian leader shot like  lightning towards the eye of the right head, destroyed it, and then  pierced the right head of the twin headed black striped snake! The twin  headed black stripe snake already lost its life, but its gigantic body  was still twisting around unconsciously. The movements slowed down and  then it never moved again! "Haha!" The Indian leader couldn't help but to laugh loudly. "Beautiful"  Gao Feng was also happy as he went to pick up his hammer. Luo Feng was  also smiling as he went to pick up his throwing knives. From beginning to end, the Indians probably never realized that their weapons were being controlled by spiritual force! Especially  the last hit. Only until the head of the twin headed black striped  snake fell on the ground did Luo Feng's throwing knife come out of the  ground to pierce its head. "Friend" the bald brute smiled towards Luo Feng and Gao Feng and made a greeting, "Good!*" TL note: He said "good" in english. "You  aren't so bad either" laughed Luo Feng as he said. He could tell that  the Indian staked his life on his final move. Even now, the bald brute's  face was completely flushed and his veins were still bursting. "You guys get half, we get half!" spoke the bald brute. Luo Feng pointed at the left head of the snake and slightly smiled: "The scales are half half too". Both  sides felt each other's strength. Whether Luo Feng's squad or the  Indian squad, both probably have heated weapons aiming from a hidden  area. That, and both parties are powerful. So both of them were in a  good mood. Luo Feng and Gao Feng started dissecting the left head of the  twin headed black striped snake! And the Indians dissected the right head. "Luo Feng, that blade was cruel" whispered Gao Feng. Luo  Feng laughed as he took out the black throwing knife from the head of  the snake after dissecting it. It was indeed that strike that killed the  left head. Suddenly-- "Hm?" Luo Feng and Gao Feng quickly  turned over to look, and the faces of the three members of the Indian  squad also changed as they looked. Nine human fighters from not too  far away started walking towards them; most of them were yellow. When  these nine people came and saw the gigantic snake in front of them, they  instantly determined the price of it--a few billion dollars. With such a  huge amount of wealth, quite a few people would show their inner greed. "Please go away!" the bald brute leader of the Indian group squeezed out some chinese. "Who  would've thought that we'd meet the tiger fang squad here too. You sure  linger around us" Gao Feng's gaze scanned across the group in front of  him. Luo Feng looked silently. Out of the nine people in front of  them, other than the six members of the tiger fang squad, there was an  old veteran, a huge white brute, and a mixed youth. "Haha, Gao Feng,  you guys actually teamed up with Indians. Hmhm..... but for you guys to  kill this twin headed black striped snake, how rare" the captain of the  tiger fang squad laughed coldly, "If you're wise, you'd hurry up and  **** off. If so, our thunderbolt squad might spare your lives, or  else..... hmhm, don't blame us. Oh, senior Liu here is the captain of  our thunderbolt squad. Mr. Ka Long here is our vice captain". Senior Liu was that old veteran, and Ka Long was that white brute. Luo Feng's gaze was cold. "This is my first time here in #003 city, this prey is mine. You guys can leave" said the mixed youth as he smiled. The old veteran and the white brute stood on the two sides of the mixed youth as they scanned Luo Feng's group. "Whoever  dares to steal my prey..... dies!" said the bald brute leader of the  Indian group. The two scimitar wielding Indians beside him were also  displaying their killing intent. Do you think killing this twin headed  black striped snake was easy? First of all, this valuable, mutated  monster was already rare in the first place, and the battle was bitter  too. Gao Feng also held his twin hammers with a fearsome gaze. "If  you want to steal it, then come" Luo Feng stepped on the head of the  snake and gave out a cold laugh as he looked at the group in front of  him, "If we can kill this twin headed black striped snake, then your  group..... oh yea, our brother's sniper rifle is aimed right at your  group!" "Our sniper rifle is also aimed at you!" said one of the scimitar wielding men of the Indian group coldly. "Sniper?" Quite  a few of the nine couldn't help but to raise their heads to the  surrounding residential apartments, but not even a shadow could be seen  in these ruined buildings. But because they couldn't see them, they  became even more afraid. The tiger fang squad was clear: the fire hammer  squad had Chen Gu as their sniper. And would the Indian group not bring  their own professional snipers too? ---- TL note (for the 7  inches part): Okay, for those interested/want more information, this is  actually a saying: ߴߴ (if you want to attack a snake, attack at 7  inches). I heard there are variations like 3 inches too, but there are  two meanings for this saying. First, don't attack a snake if it isn't at  least 7 inches long. Next, 7 inches is the best spot to attack a snake.  Refer to the photos below (although I'm not sure if these photos are  exactly correct. I'm sure that it varies for different types of snakes). 74 Solo Usually,  a heavy sniper rifle can barely threaten a 'low level commander level'  monster. But monsters are different from humans. Humans are powerful,  but the defense of their skin and muscle is much lower than the defense  of the monsters' fur and scales. This is also why human fighters have to  wear battle uniforms! If an intermediate level warlord fighter gets shot, even if he doesn't die, he would still suffer a heavy wound. However,  a sniper rifle is much less threatening to an advanced level warlord  level fighter, and as for a wargod? A sniper rifle can't even threaten a  wargod at all. "It looks like the old veteran and the white brute  are protecting the mixed youth, so he's the most important member of the  squad" Luo Feng's gaze scanned across the thunderbolt squad. Some of  the members of the thunderbolt squad were raised towards the residential  apartments, searching for the snipers' locations. And some of them  exchanged glances. Silence. Luo Feng, Gao Feng, the Indians, and the thunderbolt squad were all silent for a bit. "Senior  Liu" the tiger fang captain looked towards the indifferent, balding  veteran. This balding veteran frowned and looked at him, and the tiger  fang captain immediately shut up. The old, balding veteran then said  quietly to the mixed youth's ear: "Young master, since you want to come  here to train, you should fight against the monsters personally". The mixed youth looked at the veteran and then turned his head to the white brute. The white brute also slightly nodded. "Alright, let's go!" ordered the mixed youth helplessly. His father has seriously warned him-- After entering the wilderness, he must listen to his two bodyguards. Even  though the leader of the squad is technically the old veteran, but the  actual leader is this mixed youth. And now that the mixed youth gave his  order, the members of the tiger fang squad stared at Gao Feng and Luo  Feng with a look of dissatisfaction. Zhang Ze Hu even cursed under his  breath: "Luo Feng kid, you got lucky this time!". Zhang Ze Hu didn't  even try to hide his hatred for Luo Feng. It has always been clear that the tiger fang squad and the fire hammer squad weren't on good terms. Very quickly, the nine members of the thunderbolt squad left. Wan-Ke Dream city is gigantic in area, and the thunderbolt squad continued to move forward in this small sector. "Pan Ya" as they walked on the road, the old veteran frowned as he spoke. "Senior Liu" the captain of the tiger fang squad neared and lowered himself. The  old veteran named Liu spoke solemnly: "Since you tiger fang squad  members accepted this mission, you should know that the young master's  safety takes priority over everything! That twin headed black striped  snake is indeed a treasure, but is not even close to the importance of  young master's safety. If something happened to the young master, not  only will I not be able to escape, but all of you tiger fang squad  members will die too!". The tiger fang squad captain froze, and soon nodded: "Understood!". "Ok,  as long as you understand" said the old veteran named Liu coldly,  "We'll soon arrive at a ruined JJ liquor chain store. The young master  will then kill the monsters in that area. If you guys want to steal  others' prey, do it yourselves. Don't drag in the young master". "I understand". The captain of the tiger fang squad replied that, but was cursing in his heart. Which  fighter squad in the vicinity of #003 city is weak? If it wasn't for  the two 'advanced level warlords', the old veteran named Liu and the  white brute, the tiger fang squad doesn't even have the power to steal  prey. The tiger fang captain slightly nodded: "I understand. The fire  hammer squad dared to enter #003 city, so I understand that their skill  has increased". "Captain, we can't delay anymore. Especially that  Luo Feng, he just became a fighter not too recently. I heard he's  already a beginner level warlord" said Zhang Ze Hu hurriedly. Zhang Ze  Hu is clearly the one who holds the most hatred for Luo Feng. "This kid, does have surprising potential". The  tiger fang captain said lowly, "Leaving our enemies like that will just  make their threat to us larger and larger! Since we met them in the  wilderness this time, well good, I'll think of a way in these few days  to kill them directly! Or else..... I'll spend some money and ask senior  Liu and the other senior to help". On the grass of the residential  apartments filled with the scent of blood, Luo Feng, Gao Feng, and the  three Indians were dissecting the gigantic snake. Not only did they take  out the poison sacs, but they also took out things like the bladder. Of  course, they'll have to skin it. The skin of this twin headed black  striped snake is worth quite a bit. "Half!" "Half!" The Indian group and Luo Feng's group quickly split apart the large amounts of material. "No  matter toughness or hardness, the scales of this snake is amazing" Gao  Feng couldn't help but to say as he touched the scales, "These scales  are definitely important materials for battle uniform production!". The  most important invention by man--Ke Luo Alloy, is mainly made from all  sorts of monsters' material. Of course, it was the 'Blue Gold' metal  found on the moon that finally made the Ke Luo alloy! Ke Luo alloy  allows human fighters to wear battle uniforms with extremely high  defense and wield blades that are unrivaled in sharpness! Even some  heated weapons gain a huge increase in power. "Cooperate, great!" the Indian leader, the bald brute, squeezed out some Chinese as he greeted Luo Feng and Gao Feng. "Haha, great" Gao Feng also laughed. Luo  Feng and Gao Feng both carried their bulging bags and headed upstairs.  The snake's scales seemed to have a huge area, but they were actually  very thin. Half of the snakes' scales stacked together can't even fill  up one bag! And fighter's bags already had amazing elasticity. With the  bag's mechanism, you can adjust the size of the bag. At its largest, you can make it as large as a regular man. However, that size isn't needed for these scales. They quickly arrived at the 12th floor of the residential building. Right when they entered, they were greeted with cheering. "Warm welcome, warm welcome" shouted Wei Tie purposefully. "Welcome  back, captain and Luo Feng, from your battle" Chen Gu also said  purposefully. Of course they were happy. Since Luo Feng and Gao Feng  came back successfully, they would get quite a bit of money too. Gao Feng didn't have such a happy look on his face: "You guys saw the members of the tiger fang squad right?". "We  saw them" the faces of Chen Gu, Wei Tie, and Wei Qing immediately sank.  Chen Gu even grit his teeth: "I even wanted to shoot them in revenge  for old Zhang!". Out of the entire squad, Chen Gu was clearly the  closest to Zhang Ke, since they were both from Ming-Yue sector. Together throughout the life threatening times, together as they went back home. All  these years, they're even closer than brothers! But Chen Gu knew he  couldn't fire back them. Even if he was able to kill someone, the  thunderbolt squad would certainly immediately take action..... at that  point, there's no turning back. "Chen Gu, where's the tiger fang squad right now?" asked Luo Feng. "We've been watching them the whole time" At  the northern window, Wei Qing held his binoculars as he looked down,  "that group just walked out of the dream city sector and are walking  east along that street!". Whoosh! Whoosh! Luo Feng and the others  immediately went. Luo Feng first took the binoculars and looked  downwards. Indeed..... the nine members of the thunderbolt squad were  walking along a street a few miles away. Thankfully, Luo Feng and the  others picked a good residential building, a tall building that was  farthest up north in their sector. In front of their residential  building towards the northern sector were just some short buildings, so  they could freely look towards the northern area. "Captain, brother Chen" spoke Luo Feng. "Hm?" the members of the fire hammer squad all looked towards Luo Feng. Luo  Feng couldn't help but to clench his fists and say with his teeth  clenched: "I'll never forget what they did to brother Zhang. I swore  long ago..... once I meet the trash of the tiger fang squad in the  wilderness, I'll destroy them!" "Luo Feng, your point is?" said Gao Feng in a surprised tone. "I'll  go after them secretly and find a chance to kill all the members of the  tiger fang squad! Since they were prepared to kill all of us, of course  we have to strike first!". Luo Feng will never forget the two sniper  rifle bullets. One of them was barely dodged thanks to his spiritual  force. But the other one handicapped brother Zhang! "Luo Feng, I'll go with you. We have to avenge brother Zhang" said Chen Gu with his teeth clenched. "Brother  Chen, going alone is best for me" Luo Feng said in a low tone, "With my  spiritual force, I can escape even from a wargod just by flying!". This is why spirit readers are horrifying! Even  if a wargod fighter is tens to hundreds of times stronger than them,  even a weak spirit reader can fly! Other than spirit readers, only  existences that surpass the wargod level can fly. "Chen Gu, Luo Feng is right. You'll just be a burden" commanded Gao Feng. Chen Gu clenched his teeth. The captain said it in a bad way, but he knew the captain said it for his own good. "And  if we want to destroy the tiger fang squad, then wouldn't they try to  destroy us too?" said Gao Feng, "Ever since their scheme from last time,  of course they wouldn't want us to live. However, they just haven't met  us in the wilderness. Now that they've met us..... they'll take action  for sure". Everyone there was surprised. Indeed..... With the way the tiger fang squad handles things, they'll definitely do something like this. "We  killed enough monsters this time anyway and our bags are almost full.  The other members of the squad will first return to the resupplying  base" said Gao Feng, and then looked towards Luo Feng, "Luo Feng, you're  a spirit reader. No one knows how many times better you are at escaping  than us, but you still have to be careful and not let your guard down". Luo Feng nodded. As they talked, the members took up their binoculars and observed where the thunderbolt squad was headed. "They entered the JJ liquor chain store" said Chen Gu excitedly, "Looks like that'll be their temporary base". "No delay, let's go now" said Gao Feng clearly. Luo Feng also stood up and saw the captain and the others off. This  was already the border of the city, so Luo Feng saw the captain and the  others off in just two to three miles on the highway. After leaving the  #003 city section, there were barely any monsters. It'll be weird if  something happens to the fire hammer squad on the highway with their  current strength. "Luo Feng, be careful" Gao Feng and the other members of the fire hammer squad looked towards Luo Feng. This time, Luo Feng is going to take up the fire hammer squad's task alone. "Captain,  don't worry, none of the members of the tiger fang squad will make it  out alive!" laughed Luo Feng, and then he became a shadow and  disappeared into the distance and towards the city densely filled with  buildings far away. 75 Can’t wait anymore At times, Luo Feng would  sprint, and at times, Luo Feng would suddenly hide behind a wall,  waiting for the hungry monsters to pass by. Only until they pass does  Luo Feng start moving forward again! With his spiritual force scanning the area, Luo Feng can correctly determine whether or not there's danger ahead. "This house then!" like a cannonball, Luo Feng directly flew into the third story's window of a three story villa. Since  no one has lived here for dozens of years, the room was long filled  with dust. However, a few electronic household appliances could be  discerned with just a look. It's just that most of them were already  split apart and broken. Luo Feng quickly flipped the Simmons mattress,  since the opposite side was much cleaner. After a bit of cleaning up, he  can sleep on it. After putting his bag down, Luo Feng took out his binoculars and went to the northern window. The  window had tons of dust all over it, making the once transparent window  seem like a black window. After opening the window halfway, Luo Feng  took his binoculars and looked towards the north. His current position  is within Wan-Ke dream city's inner sector. From here, he can clearly  see the northern JJ liquor chain store. He can also see the street in  front of the liquor store. Since there's only a difference of two miles  between the street and his villa, with Luo Feng's eyesight, he doesn't  even need binoculars to see what's happening on the street. But with the  binoculars, he can see more clearly. "JJ" Luo Feng stood in front of the window and watched silently. 5 minutes later. "Hm?"  Luo Feng let out a face of happiness, "It was originally that  building!". Through the binoculars, Luo Feng could see two people  standing on the rooftop of the six story liquor chain store five miles  away. They were both currently holding binoculars, and the two were  Zhang Ze Hu and a gunner named Li Xiao. "I have to wait for my chance" Luo Feng put down his binoculars and started his days of observation. At this time, inside the JJ liquor chain store. The  tiger fang captain said coldly: "Tiger, Xiao, both of you look closely!  We must find out where the fire hammer squad is hiding! Since their  team's Chen Gu has to use his sniper rifle, then they must be at a high  location! So you guys look towards the higher levels of the tall  buildings and search for them". "Yes, captain" Zhang Ze Hu and Xiao  stood on the rooftop and, through their binoculars, continuously  searched the tall buildings in Wan-Ke dream city. "Pan Ya, the  information you told me about the fire hammer squad is correct, right?"  the old veteran, whose hair was gray, frowned. The tiger fang captain  followed: "There is definitely no problem. The information for these  six people are extremely accurate..... only this Luo Feng's info is  changing. He was scouted by the Dojo of Limits and is extremely  talented. His strength has already reached the beginner warlord level". "Okay". The old veteran named Liu slightly nodded, "If so, Pan Ya, find me after you have located the fire hammer squad's position". "Okay" the tiger fang captain responded as he smiled. Unfortunately, the tiger fang squad couldn't even find the fire hammer squad's shadow. Dawn of the next day. "Young  master, according to the plan, young master's goal at dawn today is  that low level commander monster. That monster is high in power but low  in speed. At that time, Ka Long and I won't help" smiled the old veteran  Liu. The mixed youth laughed: "Okay, you and Ka Long watch on the side.  I'll take care of it myself". The white brute also smiled. "Pan  Ya" the old veteran named Liu turned his head and commanded, "The two  members of the tiger fang squad that were on night watch can rest today,  the rest of the members will come with us". "Understood" the tiger fang captain, Pan Ya, smiled. As of now, the tiger fang squad consists of two intermediate level and four beginner level warlords! "Steel  head, Dong. You two were on watch last night, so rest here today"  commanded Pan Ya. Protecting that young master is their first priority,  so naturally, the members they leave behind are the weakest two..... and  of course, the two are picked from the four beginner warlords. Today it was steel head and Dong. Tomorrow it'll be tiger and Xiao. Taking turns. "Understood" the bald brute and Dong, who was cleaning his gun, smiled. "Let's go" commanded the old veteran named Liu. The  mixed youth, the old veteran named Liu, the white brute, and the four  members of the tiger fang squad. The seven of them left the liquor  store, leaving behind the bald brute and Dong in the spacious room. "Damn,  having a powerful father is just great" the bald brute couldn't help  but to say, "To gain experience with fighting against monsters, two  advanced level warlords can be summoned as bodyguards. Even our whole  squad is here to cover him. Hmhm..... when I came out here in the  wilderness the other year, I had to bring out everything I had with my  life on the line". Dong laughed: "How can we compare with him? Didn't  you hear him..... that senior Liu or whatever. He even said in a tone  of a butler--'The young master's goal for today is a low level commander  monster who is high in power and low in speed'. ****, he even has the  training session all scheduled out! Which monster to kill first and  which monster to kill next!". In a dangerous place like the wilderness. When does the fighter ever have the chance to decide anything! If  you encounter a powerful monster, can you just immediately shout 'I'm  not fighting this monster'? If you don't fight, then the monster will  chase after you and force you to act. "But that young master is  different. If they encounter a powerful monster, then that senior Liu  can just take care of it. They'll especially wait for a low level  commander monster for their young master to practice on" laughed the  bald brute as he shook his head. Luo Feng, who woke up early in the  morning and was already squatting in wait, quickly saw the seven members  of the thunderbolt squad walk out the liquor store. "Seven? Wasn't there nine in total?". Luo Feng immediately thought, "Then the other two must still be inside the liquor store!". Luo Feng understood his strength well. Against  an 'intermediate level warlord', he can certainly wipe the floor with  them. However, it's hard to say about what will happen if he fights  against an 'advanced level warlord'. For example, he might be able to  instantly kill his opponent if he attacks them by surprise, but if that  fails..... then there'll be a problem. Since in a frontal fight, an  advanced level warlord can immediately dodge away from a sniper rifle  bullet. An advanced level warlord's reaction speed is much higher than his own. "Out  of the nine members of the thunderbolt squad, that white brute and the  old veteran named Liu are most likely advanced level warlords. Or else  they wouldn't have been so arrogant and have tried to steal the twin  headed black striped snake's corpse". "Let's say that I go alone and  face all nine of them! With a surprise attack and some luck, I might be  able to succeed. However..... only one of them has to spread the word  that I'm the murderer to the world via their communications watch and,  once that happens, I'll be in huge trouble". Luo Feng understood that,  from the old veteran named Liu and the white brute's attitude towards  that mixed youth and how they call him 'young master'..... That mixed youth's background is extremely horrifying! Since  that person can get two advanced warlords as bodyguards, then that big  person behind the mixed youth is at least a wargod! Or maybe even a  position higher than a wargod! "Right now, there are only two people in the liquor store, should I kill them?". Luo Feng hesitated, and then decided against it. "I  can't kill them. If I kill these two, then the other seven will be on  guard. If so, then it'll be much more troublesome to kill the tiger fang  captain and Zhang Ze Hu". "I don't believe that my chance won't come!" Day  after day passed, and the thunderbolt squad never found the fire hammer  squad. And Luo Feng never found a good chance to strike! Everytime the  thunderbolt squad left the liquor store, only the two people who were on  night watch remain. First it's steel head and Dong, then it's Tiger and  Xiao. And they took turns..... Luo Feng waited for nine whole days! "****!" "They're  too systematic!" Luo Feng had a bitter face on, "This thunderbolt squad  is just that young master's nanny squad!". Not only did Luo Feng watch  the liquor store, but he also watched the seven people that came out to  hunt these past few days. He tried to see if he could find a moment  where the tiger fang squad was separated from the old veteran named Liu  and the white brute. But, not even one moment was found! The thunderbolt squad was always protecting that mixed youth and never strayed too far, giving Luo Feng no chance at all. The tenth day! "If  I keep waiting like this, then I'll probably never get a chance by the  time they start to return to the headquarter city! I can't wait  anymore!" Luo Feng clenched his teeth and a cold light flashed across  his eyes, "Today is the tenth day, so it should be Zhang Ze Hu and that  gunner Li Xiao guarding the liquor store..... Zhang Ze Hu, hmph, I'll  destroy both of you two today!". At the JJ liquor chain store. "Tiger, Xiao, you two haven't slept all night so take a good rest now" said the tiger fang captain and he smiled. "Understood, captain". Zhang Ze Hu and Li Xiao both smiled as they replied. "Let's go" With  a command from the old veteran named Liu, the tiger fang squad and the  others followed him. A total of seven people left the liquor store. And  Luo Feng, who saw that the seven people have left the store, quietly  left his own spot and went along another road headed towards the liquor  store. 76 Zhang Ze Hu, Die! The dawn of winter was quite cold, and  some of the monsters' corpses on the ground were freezing up. Luo Feng  slowly walked on this road, and there were two shadow cats enjoyably  feasting on a wild boar's flesh. However, right when they realized  someone was coming, they quickly hid. Monsters had some intelligence  too. In #003 city, all the humans meddling around here were very  powerful, so one or two soldier level monsters can't stop them at all. "Those two shadow cats probably went to summon the other shadow cats". Luo  Feng swiftly went through the road and continued going forward, going  around in a huge circle on purpose to waste some time. He slowly moved  forward, and took around half an hour to arrive at the northern door of  the liquor store. The door to the liquor store was extremely dirty,  and there was some black colored blood that not even rain can wash away  on the ground. Luo Feng stood alone there. "It's been half an hour  already, so the seven members of the thunderbolt squad have probably  walked far away by now". Luo Feng looked at the door in front of him  that has been long broken, and immediately focused his spiritual force  onto his armbands, the shield on his back, and his blade. This powerful  force made Luo Feng's body extremely light; every one of his steps  became light. "Upstairs!" He went along the staircase step by step without making even the slightest sound. Luo  Feng was extremely careful, but right when he reached the third floor,  with a glance, he saw that there was a huge mastiff tiger that was  slowly moving forward. That mastiff tiger also instantly found this  human fighter, Luo Feng! Both of them practically noticed each other at  the exact same time, and Luo Feng was so scared he immediately broke out  in a cold sweat! Whoosh! Whoosh! Two black shadows basically  instantly drew across the mastiff tiger monster, and its gigantic head  fell off before it even had the chance to roar. The two throwing knives  flew around in a circle and then landed in the outer pockets of his  pants. "Phew, no problem" Luo Feng was relieved, "Thankfully this  monster didn't remember to roar. If it attracted Zhang Ze Hu and Li  Xiao's attention, then there would be some trouble". Even though killing Zhang Ze Hu and Li Xiao is as easy as killing chickens. But  if Zhang Ze Hu and Li Xiao were cautious, then they might be able to  contact the other members of the thunderbolt squad right before they  die..... once the other members of the thunderbolt squad know that  there's a human fighter targeting them, then Luo Feng's next action  would be tens to hundreds of times harder to carry out. "Sixth floor!" Luo  Feng couldn't help but to let out a smile when he reached the sixth  floor, luckily he only encountered one monster on the way to the sixth  floor. The thunderbolt squad probably quickly scanned the building the  first time they came here, and that mastiff tiger monster probably just  entered the liquor store not too long ago. On the hallway of the sixth floor, Luo Feng slowly moved forward. "In  the room with the window pointed towards the south, the eighth window  from east to west". Luo Feng couldn't be sure as to which room this  eighth window corresponded to. "It's probably one of these three or four rooms". Luo  Feng held his breath and his light body made no sound. He walked into  one of the rooms and stopped, then put his ear near the wall and  listened carefully. Indeed, he could slightly hear some chatting sounds,  which made Luo Feng determine that those two were in that room. He then  quietly walked outside the room. "It should be this room" Luo Feng scanned the situation of the room with his spiritual force. "They're just chatting there?" Luo Feng laughed. Inside the room. Zhang  Ze Hu was currently sitting against the broken sofa, while Li Xiao was  cleaning the machine gun in his hand. Both of them were nonchalantly  chatting. "That fire hammer squad sure has no balls. Last time they  met us, they directly ran straight back to the resupplying base. No  wonder we couldn't find them no matter how long we searched" insulted  Zhang Ze Hu as he said. Li Xiao laughed coldly: "They can escape for  now, but not forever. Since we're enemies now, they're dead for sure". Zhang Ze Hu sneered: "They think they can fight against us with just them? Hm?". Zhang Ze Hu's face slightly changed, and Li Xiao's face also slightly changed. "I  felt like there was something just now" Zhang Ze Hu looked towards Li  Xiao. Li Xiao also frowned as he said: "I also, felt something". Since  fighters are always on the border of life and death, they'll have some  feeling in their heart when they encounter danger. And they had such an  obvious feeling because..... Luo Feng scanned the room with his  spiritual force. When this spiritual force spreads out, regular people  have a hard time noticing it, but powerful fighters will still have some  feeling of it. "Could there be a monster outside?" said Zhang Ze Hu quietly. "Probably"  Li Xiao nodded, "Even though we cleaned up all the monsters in the  entire liquor store when we first came, there could still be some  monster horde that just entered the store". "KA!" Li Xiao held his  machine gun while Zhang Ze Hu held his machete. Both of them stood up  and headed towards the door. After several dozen years of corrosion, the  locks of these doors were long broken. With a light pull from Zhang Ze  Hu, the door easily opened. And outside of the door was neither a  human's shadow nor a monster's shadow. "Not many sounds" Zhang Ze Hu  and Li Xiao exchanged glances. Zhang Ze Hu then took in a deep breath  and cautiously started to exit the room. And then! Whoosh! Whoosh! Two  eerie, black lights instantly appeared in front of Zhang Ze Hu and Li  Xiao. One of the eerie, black lights instantly drew across Zhang Ze Hu's  left arm and instantly cut his left arm off. After cutting the arm off,  without slowing down, it instantly drew across gunner 'Li Xiao"s neck,  causing Li Xiao's head to fly up. And the second eerie, black light instantly drew across Zhang Ze Hu's throat! PUCHI! PUCHI! Fresh blood poured out. "Eh--eh--"Zhang Ze Hu's eyes were wide open, but he couldn't make a sound. These  two black lights were way too fast. There was probably only one or two  meters between Zhang Ze Hu and the black light, and Li Xiao was only  three or four meters away from it. In such a short distance......  against a speed even faster than a bullet fired from a sniper rifle, how  could they dodge? Maybe an advanced level warlord would have a chance of survival but, as for them, they didn't even have the tiniest chance. "Eh--"Zhang  Ze Hu wanted to speak, but he couldn't make a sound. He wanted to press  his tactical communications watch, but his left arm was already cut off  and the tactical communications watch was on the ground. "I'm going to die? How, how could I die?" Zhang  Ze Hu grabbed his throat with his right hand. As fresh blood crazily  poured outside from his throat, he could clearly feel his life slowly  fading away, "How could this happen? HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN!!!" Suddenly-- A  shadow appeared at the door, wearing a fighter's battle uniform,  alloyed boots, and had a shield and blade on his back. His two eyes were  coldly staring at him. "Eh!" Zhang Ze Hu's eyes instantly became round as he stared, as he couldn't believe which fighter was in front of him! Luo Feng! It was actually Luo Feng! It was actually that rookie Luo Feng who he didn't take seriously at all??? "You  go on first, the other members of the tiger fang squad will join you  soon enough" Luo Feng's voice rang. Zhang Ze Hu's mouth was wide open,  but with his throat slit, he couldn't say anything at all. And as Zhang  Ze Hu felt his vision starting to fade, the two eerie, black lights  returned to Luo Feng and hovered in front of him. Clearly, they were two  throwing knives. The two throwing knives just hovered like this, and then landed inside Luo Feng's thigh's pockets. "Ah,  ah!" Zhang Ze Hu's eyes were wide open as if he wanted to say  something, but his body froze and instantly, lifelessly fell to the  ground. Before dying..... He finally realized Luo Feng's biggest  secret--Luo Feng was actually a spirit reader!!! Before dying, Zhang Ze  Hu saw the grave, nightmarish future of all the members of his tiger  fang squad. Silence! Only the 'DRIP' sound from the blood hitting  the ground rang throughout the room; there was no other sound. The two  corpses just lay there, and Luo Feng silently stood there as he looked. "Zhang Ze Hu" Luo Feng lowered his head as he looked at the person in front of him. Right  from the start, Zhang Ze Hu thought he was a seasoned veteran while Luo  Feng was just a rookie. So that's why he didn't lower his head at all  when they were discussing about Zhang Hao Bai's case. And it was then  that Luo Feng's spiritual force awakened. That argument was just a small case. If  you want a reason, then blame the time where the tiger fang squad tried  to kill everyone in the fire hammer squad. Thankfully, Luo Feng managed  to save everyone in the end, but even so, Zhang Ke still lost his arm. Because of that, the fire hammer squad clenched their teeth as they swore for revenge. The  tiger fang squad also feared that the enemy would grow strong, so they  tried to destroy them completely! Both of squads wouldn't rest until one  side was dead! "With Zhang Ze Hu and Li Xiao's death, there are  still four members of the six tiger fang squad members remaining" Luo  Feng stood at the door as he thought to himself, "Once they come back  here and realize that these two have been killed, they'll certainly get  cautious and think about the various possibilities! Then..... I have to  decorate this scene and trick them. It's up to the heavens whether or  not this works". 77 Making the scene Luo Feng swiftly rushed down  the stairs, all the way from the sixth floor to the first floor, to the  entrance of the liquor store. "Hm?" Luo Feng looked around the area. "There  aren't many large monster packs nearby, how annoying" Luo Feng frowned  as he could see a few monsters around with just a glance, but there  weren't enough monsters. For his plan, he wants to trick the other seven  members of the thunderbolt squad into thinking that Zhang Ze Hu and Li  Xiao were killed by monsters. After that, Luo Feng sprinted along the  alley towards the outer area. After leaving the alley, with a glance,  he noticed a large horde of horned boars. There were at least one  hundred of them. If a regular fighter saw this, they probably wouldn't  even have time to run away, but Luo Feng let out a smile. "It'll be them" Luo Feng swiftly got closer to them. "HOWL~~" Quite  a few horned boars were staring at this human fighter. One enraged roar  carried from the horde, which was from the leader of this horned boar  horde! Suddenly, all the horned boars spread out and crazily rushed  towards Luo Feng. In an instant, the entire street started rumbling. RUMBLE~~ The horned boar horde came rushing! "****,  I was going to kill one or two monsters first to make them hate me  first. I didn't know it would be this easy to get them to chase after  me" Luo Feng turned around and started running away. He quickly headed  towards the alley and started running in there. RUMBLE~~ The alley  was quite wide, so two horned boars could run in it side by side. Luo  Feng was sprinting ahead while the horde of horned boars were crazily  chasing from behind. "PUCHI!" "PUCHI!" Two eerie black lights flew  around a circle and returned to Luo Feng. The two horned boars in front  of the horde instantly died, and another horned boar behind them also  had a gigantic wound. At this time, the horned boars' enraged howls  became even louder, showing that they were clearly even more enraged. "The angrier the better!" Luo Feng, like lightning, went up the stairs past the backdoor of the liquor store. RUMBLE~~ The  horned boars crazily flew up the stairs one by one. The quality of the  concrete making up the stairs was pretty good; even after a dozen years,  it can still support the running of the horned boars. Luo Feng  purposefully ran ahead the horde by around 10 meters and rushed to his  destination--sixth floor! After arriving at the sixth floor, under  the effects of Luo Feng's spiritual force, Zhang Ze Hu's machete and Li  Xiao's machine gun started hovering. The machine gun even dragged along  the long, long bullet chain with it. The machine gun floated in front of Luo Feng, and so did the machete. "HOWL~~"  the monsters, like a flood, rushed into the sixth floor. Each of them  went along the hallway as they crazily charged towards Luo Feng. "Come at me!" Luo  Feng sneered and a crazed light appeared in his eye. His spiritual  force pulled the trigger, and the large barrel of the machine gun  started roaring as it crazily fired bullets out one by one. The force of  each boar's charge was absurd, so even though the bullets crazily shot  into the horned boars, they couldn't make them stop! Puchi! Puchi! The  floating machete started crazily dancing around, drawing across the  throats of the horned boars one after another. The bodies of the boars  that lost control started slamming into the walls, "RUMBLE~~" , the  walls started splitting apart after getting slammed into so many times.  With the power of both the machine gun and the machete, dozens of horned  boars were killed in a breath. The hallway was filled with corpses. "HOWL~~" an enraged roar came. A huge horned boar with black spots and shining silver fur appeared. However,  the machete and machine gun already fell beside the two corpses in the  room, and Luo Feng himself has long jumped out the northern window! Whoosh! Luo  Feng shot down the window like lightning and, using his spiritual force  on both of his arm guards, created an uplifting force which slowed him  down. Luo Feng easily landed on the roof of a two story building,  sprinted right into an alley, and quickly disappeared. ...... "HOWL~~" The  horned boar horde, which lost a couple dozen monsters, madly rammed the  insides of the liquor store as they tried to find that damned human  fighter. They didn't find that human fighter, but they did find two  fresh human fighter corpses. These horned boars then immediately crazily  chewed up the flesh of these corpses. To horned boars, the flesh of humans is indeed a delicacy. Even  more horned boars went for the corpses of the dead horned boars! For  the monsters that live in such cruel environments, they are rarely able  to eat any humans, so they mostly eat other monsters' corpses..... for  especially savage monsters, eating corpses from the same species is very  normal. Whether the human corpses or the horned boar corpses, they quickly became a pile of crushed bones. Luo Feng snuck back to his original spot and watched silently. "The  seven members of the thunderbolt squad will probably come back in  around two hours". Luo Feng finally saw the seven people in his field of  vision, "Well yeah, you could hear the roars of the monsters everywhere  in #003 city, and the battle just now occurred in the liquor store.....  since the thunderbolt squad is only a few miles away, it'll be weird if  they didn't notice". ...... In front of the liquor store, the seven high-spirited members of the thunderbolt squad laughed as they returned. "Young  master's blade just now was beautiful, it so accurately drew across the  throat of that commander level monster, 'Rapid Wolf'" the captain of  the tiger fang squad smiled as he praised, but his expression suddenly  froze. "Hm?" The tiger fang captain looked towards the interior of  the liquor store, and the other members of the thunderbolt squad did  the same. "The scent of blood!" the old veteran named Liu directly  walked into the liquor store, and the others followed, "The scent of  blood became stronger". "A large scale battle happened here, one or  two monsters can't have such a heavy scent of blood" the tiger fang  captain frowned, and the one eyed middle aged man beside him immediately  pressed his tactical communications watch and yelled: "Tiger, Xiao!  Tiger, Xiao, both of you hurry and respond. What happened?". The faces of the four members of the tiger fang squad all changed. "Captain, they didn't reply" the one eyed middle aged man looked towards his captain. "Maybe they didn't notice that their watches were vibrating" the bald brute couldn't help but to say. Fighters are all extremely sensitive, how can they not notice? The tiger fang captain said quietly: "Let's go take a look upstairs". "Go,  let's go see" the old veteran named Liu also commanded. Soon, the seven  of them all arrived at the staircase, but after seeing the marks on the  staircase in front of them, all of their faces changed slightly.  Clearly, this staircase was just stomped on by a huge amount of  monsters; quite a bit of the concrete was already split open. "Everyone be careful" The seven of them carefully and slowly moved forward. Even though they went slowly, they arrived at the sixth floor without spending too much time. "Hu!"  the seven members of the thunderbolt squad all took in a deep breath.  The entire sixth floor of the liquor store was clearly a huge mess. The  walls of the rooms of the liquor store were smashed to pieces, the floor  was filled with marks of blood, and there were large amounts of crushed  bones from corpses, most of them being from monsters. All the hearts  of the seven members of the thunderbolt squad sank, they knew..... that  Zhang Ze Hu and Li Xiao weren't lucky today. "Look, there are even bullet holes on the wall" "There  are quite a few bullet shells on the ground. Xiao probably fired his  machine gun to try and stop the monster horde. Sadly, there were just  too many of them". Everyone quickly found various marks. Soon  after, everyone looked at the ripped up battle uniform, the slightly  deformed machete, the completely smashed up machine gun, and a few human  bones. "Tiger's machete and Xiao's gun" "These two battle uniforms......" The  battle uniforms were extremely sturdy. Even though they were chewed up  by the horned boars and were in tatters, they could still be made out.  They were precisely Zhang Ze Hu and Li Xiao's battle uniforms. "How  could this happen?" the bald brute couldn't help but to clench his teeth  as he said, "Tiger and Xiao were in their room. How could they be so  unlucky to meet a hungry monster horde?" "Go, let's go downstairs!" the old veteran named Liu suddenly ordered. "Downstairs?" the one eyed middle aged man, the bald brute, and Dong were all shocked, and then were slightly angry. The  tiger fang captain frowned as he ordered: "Alright, tidy up Tiger and  Xiao's remains and then go downstairs!". Since their captain gave an  order, of course they wouldn't dare to refuse. ...... Moments later, the seven members of the thunderbolt squad stood in the lobby of the liquor store's first floor. "Everyone  should know" the tiger fang captain, 'Pan Ya', said quietly, "With  Tiger and Xiao being as cautious as they are, even if a monster horde  enters the liquor store, they should have had over a 50% chance of  escaping! Even if they couldn't escape, they should have been able to  contact us once they noticed danger!". The faces of the other members slightly changed and couldn't help but to nod their heads. "Indeed"  the old veteran named Liu nodded and said, "It's suspicious because  these two didn't contact us at all before dying. So I'm worried that  someone purposefully set up the scene and left a listening device at the  scene. That's why I brought everyone downstairs to discuss about this". The other members of the tiger fang squad couldn't help but to respect the old veteran named Liu even more. To be able to instantly find the problem and make his decision, old veterans are clearly more experienced. "This  is one possibility, the other possibility is...... the commander level  monster in the monster horde! Once they found the traces of those two,  they sneakily attacked them. Huge amounts of monsters rushing  upstairs...... under such an urgent situation, the two of them didn't  have the chance to contact us" the old veteran named Liu continued  speaking. The four members of the tiger fang squad exchanged glances. The  mixed youth let out a worried expression, and the old veteran named Liu  laughed as he quietly said: "Don't worry, young master. Even if someone  made this scene, he isn't necessarily targeting you. Wargod fighters  wouldn't use such tactics and warlord fighters wouldn't dare mess with  you". "Senior Liu, taking the young master's safety into  consideration, we should return back to the headquarter city" spoke the  tiger fang captain, 'Pan Ya'. 78 Phone call with his little brother The  scent of blood that emanated around the liquor store filled the heart  of Pan Ya, the tiger fang captain, with anxiety: "Their death could've  been caused by monsters. But it's even more likely that a fighter was  behind this! And what kind of regular fighter would dare to go against  young master Li Wei? They most likely have a grudge against my tiger  fang squad!". He was clear of this young master's identity. Even though he's a mixed youth, his father is Chinese. Whether  the strength of the young master's father, or his background..... few  fighters would dare to anger this young master Li Wei. "No need" the old veteran Liu waved his hand, "With me and Ka Long here, the young master's safety is guaranteed". The white brute also looked at the few members of the tiger fang squad and laughed coldly. "Young master Li" Pan ya couldn't help but to look at the mixed youth. "My training schedule isn't over yet" frowned the mixed youth. Senior  Liu slightly frowned as he said, "Fighters always walk on the border  between life and death. How can you be so afraid about some  uncertainties? If you're always so afraid, how can you ever accomplish  anything in the future?". Pan Ya and the others said nothing. "You  guys can just keep following us. Wouldn't that work?" when senior Liu  said this, Pan Ya and the other members of the tiger fang exchanged  glances. All of them abandoned the thought of returning to the  headquarter city. They were clear..... that following two advanced  warlords was indeed very safe. "Senior Liu is right. If we're always  so afraid, can we even be considered as fighters? Even if someone is  actually after us, right when we find him, we'll kill him directly" a  cold light flashed across Pan Ya's eyes. "We'll listen to senior Liu" the one eyed middle aged man laughed as he said. The members of the tiger fang squad all signalled that they'll listen to senior Liu. "This place is full of the scent of blood, let's switch a location" said senior Liu. Immediately, the seven members of the thunderbolt squad left the JJ liquor chain store. Luo Feng silently watched with his binoculars from his original location. "They  indeed left the JJ liquor chain store" the seven members of the  thunderbolt squad left the store and went along the street for quite a  bit, and then disappeared from Luo Feng's field of vision. "Shit, this villa isn't high enough so I can't see that far". Luo  Feng swiftly got his backpack, shield, and blade and flew out the villa  like a jaguar. He sprinted at an astounding speed and directly rushed  into the tall apartment building across the street. This apartment  building was 18 stories tall. With Luo Feng's shield and blade all  affected by his spiritual force, Luo Feng's speed was shocking. A shadow continuously dashed up the stairs. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Within  a few seconds, he went from the first floor to the 18th floor! In one  of the rooms on the 18th floor, Luo Feng stood beside the northern  window and looked down through his binoculars. From such a high  location, he was able to see further. He quickly found the seven members  of the thunderbolt squad walking along the street. These seven people  walked along for quite a bit, and then finally entered a broken  residential apartment that was six stories tall. "I wonder if the scene I made had any effect" Luo Feng squinted, "Whether it works or not is up to the heavens". "I'll keep waiting for my chance!". Luo Feng started his days of watching again. As  a fighter, you first need enough patience and determination! Without  either of them, how could you ever achieve astonishing power? Naturally,  Luo Feng was fine with watching alone. On the first day, the thunderbolt squad went hunting during the afternoon. This time, all seven of them left together. The  second day, the thunderbolt squad went out in the morning and  afternoon, allowing their mixed youth young master to train. Like  before, the seven of them left together, giving Luo Feng no chance. The third day, they still went out in the morning and afternoon, and they still went out with all seven members together. "Looks  like this tiger fang squad is actually suspicious" Luo Feng sat on the  bed that he already slightly cleaned and silently looked through the  window. As of now, the sky was dark and filled with stars. The starlight  shone into the room through the window. The air was slightly filled  with the scent of blood. "What should I do?" Luo Feng frowned. If  it keeps going on like this, then that mixed youth young master's  training schedule will finish and might return back to the headquarter  city. "Ring~~" Luo Feng felt the tactical communications watch on  his wrist vibrate slightly. When he looked down, he saw that it was a  phone call from his brother. "Recall" commanded Luo Feng. "Beep--beep--beep--Hello, bro!" Luo Hua's voice came from the watch. "Luo  Hua, how come you're calling me?" a smile filled Luo Feng's face, as he  was extremely happy. Hunting down other people in the wilderness all  alone is lonely..... to be able to chat with his family, his entire  heart felt warm. "I've just been thinking about you bro" Luo Hua was  clearly relaxed and happy, "Bro, I've recently made a ton of money from  my stocks again, it feels great". "Oh?" How did you get the money?" laughed Luo Feng as he asked. Luo  Hua excitedly said: "Six of the eight stocks that I've been dealing  with are quality stocks, while the other two are investment ones. The  quality stocks are great and earn me lots of money every year. But out  of these six stocks, one of them started plunging in value rapidly! I  was so scared and thought something went wrong with the company. After  looking into it, I didn't find anything wrong with it! Jeez, if this  happened to my investment stocks, then I would probably cut my flesh  off". "But I have faith in these quality stocks and I'd rather hold  on to them for a long period of time. And since I didn't find anything  wrong with the company, there's nothing for me to be afraid of" "If it drops, I'll buy it!" "It  kept falling continuously, ****, it dropped for like a dozen days and  lost 50% of its value. I virtually took 80% of all my money and threw it  at those stocks. Who could've knew that it would start flying up in  value these past few days. Within 20 days, not only did it return to its  original value, but it even went a bit higher! Jeez, just from this, I  basically doubled my money. Haha, feels great". Luo Feng could feel his brother's excitement from the tone coming from the watch. "Nice, way better than your brother" Luo Feng laughed as he complimented, "Don't you have around 100 million right now?". He gave his brother 50 million last time, so Luo Hua should have around 80 million. "Yea,  now it's around 170 million" laughed Luo Hua, "Bro, this is all thanks  to the money you gave me. If my principal wasn't great enough, how could  I earn so much money?". Since he doubled the money. If he only had 10 thousand, he would only have 20 thousand in total. But  since he had around 80 to 90 million, he turned it into 170 to 180  million. This is also why people say that your first 100 million is the  hardest to earn, while your second 100 million is way easier to earn. "You're  good. Your brother has been hunting in the wilderness for around two  months, but I only earned around 100 million" said Luo Feng, but in his  heart, he was amazed..... Playing around with stocks earns tons of  money. You're making money with money; the more money you have, the more  money you earn! Of course, you could potentially lose tons of money  too. "However, bro, these chances don't come around often" laughed Luo Hua. Luo  Hua has been playing around with stocks for years already, so making  this much money in such a short time is indeed quite rare. "Hm" Luo  Feng thought to himself while he operated his tactical communications  watch. He entered his bank account and transferred 180 million to his  brother's account. "Ah!" exclaimed Luo Hua in a surprised tone, "Bro, my account....." "Your  brother just made a ton of money recently, so that's for you. Work hard  and use them in the stock market. If, one day, you reach 15 billion,  your brother will give you a huge surprise!" said Luo Feng as he  laughed. Luo Feng never told his brother about the 'elixir of life'. Since that thing is too expensive. But according to Luo Feng's plan, if he and his brother both earn money..... He  can give some of his money to his brother, and his brother can use that  money to make even more money. If they keep making money out of money,  then maybe reaching 30 billion isn't impossible! "15 billion" exclaimed Luo Hua. "Don't  worry, I'll keep lending you money" laughed Luo Feng. Maybe then, his  money and Luo Hua's money combined will reach 30 billion. After he gets the money, he'll think of a way to purchase the 'elixir of life' so that his brother can stand up again! "Okay, bro, I'll work hard" said Luo Hua in a confident tone. "Okay" laughed Luo Feng, "well, you should rest earlier". "Okay, bro, be careful in the wilderness". The two brothers quickly finished their call. ...... Ming-Yue  sector, Luo Feng's home. In his brother's room on the first floor, Luo  Hua excitedly closed his phone and started chatting on his computer. "Hua, look's like you're having fun" smiled a young girl on the screen. "Hehe,  of course I'm happy" Luo Hua excitedly chatted with this young girl on  the screen. This young girl's cheeks were like a baby's and had small  ears and short hair. She seemed like a very bright and pure girl. She is  Luo Hua's girlfriend, 'Xiao Nan'. ...... Since Xiao Nan's college is right here, even if she's a college student, she's still sleeping at home. Xiao Nan was currently in her bedroom chatting with Luo Hua through her computer. And outside of her room, in the living room. A  middle-aged couple was currently sitting on the sofas in the living  room. Even though they were watching TV, neither of them were focusing  on it. "What should we do?" the middle-aged woman said hurriedly,  "You know Xiao Nan's temper, if we split them apart by force, she'll  surely hate us". "If she wants to hate us, then let her. This is for her own good!". The  middle-aged man couldn't help but to angrily say, "She never went  through any sort of hardship since she was young. Does she still think  she's living in a fairytale? We aren't extremely rich, but we are still  living a good life. Our girl has nice looks, so why is she with a  handicapped person? That handicapped person's brother is a fighter! But  so what if he's a fighter? It's not like his brother is in a  relationship with our girl". "No matter what, I can't watch our girl jump into a fiery pit like this!" "If  it wasn't for old Li, I never would've known that our girl was dating  that Ming-Yue sector's handicapped person behind our backs. I'm so  infuriated right now" the middle-aged man's face was livid. 79 Huge Chance The  middle-aged woman hurriedly said: "Don't be angry. No matter how angry  you get, it's no use. You only have this one daughter, so what can you  do? Most importantly, we should think of a way to separate our daughter  with that handicapped person, and try our best not to hurt our  daughter's feelings". "I UNDERSTAND!" The middle-aged man was then silent with a frown on his face as he smoked. The  smoke from the cigarette emanated around the room, and the room  remained silent for a while. The only sound was the "Tick, Tock" from  the mechanical clock. The second morning, #003 city was filled with a  deathly, cold air as usual. And the usual heart-chilling monster roar  carried from the city from time to time. If we say Jiang-Nan city is a  technologically advanced city teeming with life, then this city that  used to be the greatest city of China a few decades ago is now a  playground for the monsters. Here, you could see the stains of blood and  corpses anywhere and everywhere. This is the monster den! In that  18 story apartment that was filled with dust, Luo Feng, in his battle  uniform, held his binoculars as he looked down in one hand and ate a  skewer of meat on another hand, taking a bite and chewing twice before  he swallowed. Chew, swallow. In the aged room, it was clearly quiet: there was only the sound of Luo Feng's chewing. "Gulp gulp~~" Luo Feng took out his water sack and drank a bit. After a moment, he took another drink. Luo Feng didn't bring too much food and water to the wilderness, so he has to conserve a bit every day. "All  seven of them together again!" Luo Feng looked through his binoculars  and clearly saw that the seven of them left the six story apartment  building together under the morning mist. Luo Feng frowned as he angrily  threw his binoculars on top of the bed on the side. Luo Feng massaged his temples and spent the whole day stooping; his eyes were extremely tired. "All  seven of them together every day. They don't give me even the slightest  chance" frowned Luo Feng, "At this rate, I'll have to keep waiting  until that young master finishes his training plan. When that happens, I  would've wasted all my time waiting! What should I do?" Luo Feng  quickly started thinking, since he hasn't even had a single chance to  take action. Is he just going to wait like this? "There are no chances" Luo Feng's eyes flashed and he clenched his teeth, "Since there aren't any chances, then I can make them!" "Aren't they always together? I'll force them to separate!" Luo Feng lightly tightened the cap on the water sack. ...... Around  three hours later, the seven members of the thunderbolt squad carefully  treaded forward in the old den of the monsters. Sometimes they move  forward, sometimes they walk around, and finally they arrived at the six  story residential apartment from before. "Time to act!" Luo Feng,  who was fully equipped, slightly smiled as he left his room and ran  down the stairs like a swift monkey. Even Luo Feng can't be too cocky  after leaving this 18 story residential building, so he carefully moved  forward while searching the area. Avoiding monsters is hard, but finding them is easy! 15  minutes later, Luo Feng arrived at a dog-type monster horde that had  around two to three thousand monsters. This dog-type monster horde was  staying in a gigantic factory that manufactured home appliances.  Usually, no human fighter would even try to challenge such a horde,  since the threat of two to three thousand monsters is too great. "Roar~~" The roars of the large monsters echoed around the factory and the smell of urine emanated around the area. "Heh, what a strong monster horde" Luo Feng looked through the cap of the wall, "Let's begin!". Soon after-- "Roar~" "Roar Roar Roar~~" The  monsters in the factory howled madly. The death of a few dozen monsters  caused this huge monster horde to become enraged, because they have  never suffered such shame before. Even the leader of the monster horde  and two high leveled commander level lion mastiffs started howling. The  entire monster horde crazily chased after. "They sure run fast!" The  hexagonal shield on Luo Feng's back was under effects of the powerful  force of his spiritual force; in an instant, Luo Feng became a flying  hurricane. RUMBLE~~ Some tiger mastiffs were mixed into the lion  mastiff horde. The tiger mastiffs ran just as quickly as the lion  mastiffs as they chased after Luo Feng. The ones in the front of the  horde were sprinting at a rate of 70 to 80 m/s! Under such astonishing  speed, it would take only 30 seconds for them to cover the 4 miles  between the factory and the six story residential building! Just 30 seconds! And Luo Feng ran towards the six story residential building like lightning. In  one of the suite rooms on the sixth floor of the six story residential  apartment, the seven members of thunderbolt squad were resting.  Actually, when the entire monster horde was howling as they chased after  Luo Feng, the seven members of the thunderbolt squad weren't alerted at  all.... because what kind of place in the city doesn't have a monster  howling in a four mile radius? But after around 10 seconds. "Seems like a battle has occurred to our east" laughed the one eyed middle aged man. "Who  cares, there's always a fight going on between fighters and monster  hordes here in #003 city. This time, a fighter probably enraged some  monster horde" the tiger fang captain, Pan Ya, was completely calm.  Since he has dozens of years of experience as a fighter, he has seen  this type of scenario way too many times. But in the time that these words were passed around. "The monster horde seems to be really close to us now!" "Even the building is shaking a bit" Within  an instant, the seven members of the thunderbolt squad rushed towards  the northern window and looked down, and saw that there were large  amounts of mastiff monsters near the entrance to the staircase of the  six story residential apartment. Some of the lion mastiff monsters were  even charging into the staircase. In just these few seconds, the entire  residential apartment started shaking, like an earthquake was occurring.  The roars of many monsters also echoed around. "BOOM!" The door to the room where the seven members of the thunderbolt squad were in was blasted open. The  lion mastiffs with their SUV sized bodies charged in the room one by  one. Not only was the door directly smashed into smithereens, but even  the walls were startling to crumble. The over a thousand monsters were  continuously smashing the residential building up. It seemed like the  building could fall down at any moment. And outside of the  residential building were around one to two thousand more lion mastiff  monsters. These lion mastiff monsters can't even enter the building, so  they just surrounded the residential apartment completely. If you can  imagine a scene where one to two thousand SUVs are surrounding a  building, then you can imagine how scary it'll be for so many monsters  to surround a residential apartment. "WHAT'S GOING ON!!!" the mixed youth immediately started screaming as his face turned pale. Anyone  would panic after witnessing the apartment building that has shook so  much that it's on the verge of collapse, the large amounts of monsters  pouring into the room, and the densely packed horde of monsters  surrounding the residential apartment building below. "Protect the young master! Tiger fang squad, protect the rear!" roared the old veteran named Liu. "DADADADA~~~" Dong  Zi's machine gun was crazily roaring and the bullet shells crazily flew  around. The powerful bullets shot into the bodies of the lion mastiff  monsters one by one. The monsters were charging so quickly that even  when they were hit by the bullets, they would continue charging  forwards. The bald brute, the one eyed man, and the tiger fang captain  Pan Ya relied on their cold weapons to smash the monsters to the side  one by one. "PENG!" "PENG!" "PENG!" The old veteran named Liu and  the white brute already brought the mixed youth along with them as they  directly jumped out the window. "Let's go!" The tiger fang captain roared and was the first to follow as he jumped from the window. "Dong Zi, hurry!" roared the one eyed man. When  comparing physical fitness, gunners are the weakest. The gunner, Dong  Zi, also clenched his teeth as he jumped out the window. Finally, the  one eyed middle aged man and the bald brute also jumped out the window.  Even if a beginner level warlord fighter is carrying several hundred kg  of things on him, they wouldn't suffer any injury from jumping from a  height of six stories. However, the thing awaiting them below isn't a flat ground, but over a thousand monsters! ...... The  walls of the second floor of the residential apartment were already  smashed into pieces. And Luo Feng was hiding in the corner of a room on  the second floor! When Luo Feng rushed into this room, he used his  spiritual force to control the concrete walls, the stone tables, etc. to  completely seal the bathroom he is in, and he even broke the ceiling.  After the concrete fell down, the room was completely ruined, so even  after the monsters charged in, they wouldn't be able to find Luo Feng. After that, the monster horde spotted the thunderbolt squad on the sixth floor and directed all their attention onto them. Standing beside the bathroom's window, Luo Feng stared outside and his ears were listening closely. "They're fighting!" Luo Feng heard a few faint roars from the sixth floor. After that, three shadows quickly fell from above. "They jumped" Luo Feng's eyes flashed and two black throwing knives immediately hovered beside him. 80 Arrival of the Wargod Out  of the three shadows, the first to fall was the old veteran named Liu  and the mixed youth, followed by the white brute. Closely following them  was the captain of the tiger fang squad, 'Pan Ya'. "HOWL~~" "Protect  the young master, charge out!" right when the old veteran named Liu  landed, his legs smashed onto two nearby lion mastiff monsters like two  war axes. The two lion mastiff monsters howled in pain as they flew away  and smashed into seven or eight nearby lion mastiff lion and tigers,  causing chaos in the area for a moment. The white brute had a  gigantic two handed sword in hand as he crazily charged forward! The  tiger captain, 'Pan Ya', supported the white brute beside him. One of  them had unrivaled strength while the other was sinister and  unpredictable. The two of them combined were like a bulldozer, sweeping  away the monsters in front of them. "HOWL~~" A low, thunder-like  sound started rumbling. Not too far away, a huge body that was around  four to five meters tall and even larger than an average truck appeared.  It's whole body was silver and was even slightly reflecting light,  since there were some silver scales on it's fur. There was a small bump  on it's huge forehead, as if it was going to break it's fur open. This is one of the two high level commander level monsters in the whole horde! A high level commander lion mastiff! "BOOM!"  With just a leap, the commander lion mastiff flew a distance of 20  meters like a silver light and shot straight towards the thunderbolt  squad. "Pan Ya, you protect the young master and hurry up and run"  roared the old veteran named Liu. With a blade in hand, he howled, "KA  LONG!". "UNDERSTOOD!" The white brute also roared. The old veteran  named Liu and the white brute engaged the commander lion mastiff at  virtually the same time. There was no helping it; if they didn't engage  it..... then the mixed youth would be in grave danger. "HOWL~~" The  commander lion mastiff roared and it's body started to blur a bit as  it's claws headed straight towards the two humans in front of it. "QIANG!" "KUANG!" "BOOM!"  The clash between the two advanced level warlords and the high level  commander level monster caused chaos. The surrounding lion mastiffs were  caught in and blown away. Even the surrounding walls and the floor was  affected and messed up. With large amounts of lion mastiff monsters  supporting, the commander lion mastiff was practically even with the  veteran named Liu and the white brute. PENG! PENG! PENG! The gunner Dong Zi, the bald brute, and the one eyed middle aged man also jumped out at this time. However,  the one eyed middle aged man, the bald brute, and the gunner Dong Zi  were all panicking. The group of the old veteran named Liu, the white  brute, the mixed youth, and Pan Ya were able to mess around in the  monster horde, but the one eyed middle aged man and the others were  clearly having a hard time. "Hurry, let's go" said the one eyed middle aged man. "Hurry!" "DADADADA~~" Dong Zi dragged his machine gun along as he freely fired at the surrounding monsters. At this time-- "HOWL~~" After  the heart shuddering howl, another huge body that was also completely  silver came jumping down from the six story apartment. Suddenly, the  lion mastiff leader that was fighting against the old veteran named Liu  and the white brute immediately started roaring excitedly as it  conversed with the huge shadow coming from above. Another lion mastiff leader! Also a high level commander! The  faces of the old veteran named Liu and the white brute changed  drastically. They glanced at the tiger fang captain 'Pan Ya' and the  mixed youth who were already far away..... when the two of them were  stalling the large amounts of monsters, Pan Ya and the mixed youth were  able to get away. "Hurry, go!" "Go" The white brute and the old  veteran named Liu didn't dare to delay at all. Even without the monster  horde, they couldn't go head to head with two high level commander  monsters..... and there's a gigantic monster horde surrounding them! "HOWL~" "HOWL~" The  two high level commander level lion mastiff leaders roared as they  charged; would they allow these two damned humans to get away? ...... On  the second floor of the ruined six story residential apartment, Luo  Feng watched what was going on outside through the window silently. The  white brute and the old veteran named Liu ran away while the one eyed  middle aged man, the bald brute, and Dong Zi were still bitterly  charging out, Luo Feng let out a smile on his face. "Now's the time!" Two  black throwing knives instantly flew out from the window towards the  one eyed middle aged man and the bald brute in the horde of the lion  mastiff monsters. It's better like this! If he fought out in the  open, then the one eyed middle aged man who has reached the intermediate  warlord level could put up a bit of a fight, but under this ambush..... "PU!" "PU!" The  brains of the one eyed middle aged man and the bald brute were  instantly pierced and blew up like watermelons. Soon after, the two  eerie black lights virtually instantly pierced through the head of the  gunner Dong Zi, who was currently crazily shooting his machine gun! When  the three of them died, they were filled with fear, question, and  dissatisfaction. They didn't even know what killed them. "RUMBLE~~"  the three human corpses were instantly charged at by the large amounts  of monsters. The lion mastiff and tiger mastiff monsters excitedly  ripped apart their flesh. In the bathroom on the second floor, Luo  Feng quietly watched the two lion mastiff leaders charge after the old  veteran named Liu and the white brute. "Out of the six members of the tiger fang squad, five of them are already dead!" "Good,  all according to plan. Even though I was the one behind this, they're  clueless" Luo Feng was satisfied with what he has done so far, since he  doesn't want to hurt that mixed youth. As long as you aren't dumb, you  can figure out that..... the power behind the mixed youth is great! So-- Luo Feng didn't attack the members of the tiger fang squad when they were with the young master! However,  because of the monster horde's attack, the seven members of the squad  split into three. Running in front was the mixed youth and Pan Ya, being  chased by the two high level commander monsters was the old veteran  named Liu and the white brute, while the last section was the one eyed  middle aged man and the others! Because the mixed youth, the old  veteran named Liu, and the white brute have ran far away already, they  couldn't see what was going on with the one eyed middle aged man and the  others at all, which was why Luo Feng chose that time to strike! "However, the young master is probably in big trouble this time" Luo Feng thought to himself. However, suddenly-- A  blurry shadow of a human appeared in Luo Feng's field of vision. This  human was carrying some type of staff-type weapon. With a flash, he  covered a few hundred meters and charged straight into the monster  horde. "RUMBLE~~" A shocking blasting sound carried out, and the  dozens of lion mastiffs and tiger mastiffs around Pan Ya and the mixed  youth instantly turned into piles of flesh. The speed that surpassed the  speed of sound caused the blasting sound. The shadow moved again! It  directly arrived in front of the two lion mastiff leaders. The two lion  mastiff leaders immediately let out an astonished howl and,  surprisingly, started to run away! "BOOM!" The staff-type weapon  harshly smashed onto the body of one of the lion mastiff leaders like  lightning. The silver lion mastiff leader was launched up by around  twenty meters, and all the scales on its body completely split open.  Fresh blood sprayed around in the air, and while this lion mastiff was  launched up by around twenty meters-- "BOOM!" The shadow instantly chased after the other lion mastiff leader and also gave it a ferocious smash! The  lion mastiff leader was like a thrown bowling ball as it was launched  away and then smashed into the large amounts of lion mastiffs and tiger  mastiffs behind it. The lion mastiffs that were near were directly  shocked to death, while the other large amounts of lion mastiffs and  tiger mastiffs were smashed away. As for the high level commander  level lion mastiff leader, it rolled on the ground a few times and then  stopped moving completely. Large amounts of blood came pouring from it's  nose and ears. "BOOM!" And at this time, the lion mastiff leader  that was launched high up into the air came crashing down onto the  ground, not moving an inch. In an instant! Two high level commander level monsters instantly dead! "AO  WU~" All the lion mastiffs, tiger mastiffs, and some other low level  commander level monsters were completely shocked. All of them wailed as  they all started running away. Only at this time did the shadow start to take up more of a form.. Luo  Feng just saw what the guy looked like: a huge brute that was around  2.3 to 2.4 meters tall and a face that looked like it was sculpted. He  wore a completely gray battle uniform and held a gigantic..... mace! One  can't help but to shiver after seeing the spikes on that mace! "Too messed up" Luo  Feng looked at the two lifeless lion mastiff leaders' corpses and was  completely stunned. He was so shocked that he didn't even dare to  breathe loudly, "This is a wargod level fighter! It must be! I should be  careful. If he finds me here, then there'll be trouble". Even the  throwing knives that were originally shot out, under Luo Feng's will,  dug into the ground. Luo Feng was too scared to retrieve them. "Uncle Li!" The mixed youth came running over and thanked him repeatedly. "Mr. Lee" The old veteran named Liu and the white brute respectfully bowed. The  large brute laughed as he looked at the mixed youth: "Li Wei, when your  dad received your SOS signal and found your location, there were two  wargods nearby: me and brother Wang. He quickly contacted me first.  Luckily, I wasn't too far away..... so I could make it in time". "Uncle Wang is here too?" the eyes of the mixed youth flashed with light. At this time..... As  if a wind blew past, a blurry shadow appeared in the vicinity. After  stabilizing, a handsome person who seemed to be around 20 to 30 years  old wearing a blue battle uniform appeared. "Uncle Wang" The mixed youth yelled. "Look at your shameful self" said the man as he slightly laughed. The  white brute and the old veteran named Liu didn't dare to make a sound  on the side, while the tiger fang captain Pan Ya was looking around the  area. When he saw that there were some battle uniforms, remains from  corpses, and a machine gun lying on the ground, his eyes couldn't help  but to turn red.

[chaosangel767]

Lullaby OC’s: The Clubs

Lullaby Masterlist II Neutral OC’s II The Diamonds II Extra OC’s

Introductions to the Combat Division of Lullaby - The Clubs 

Chase Aspen: The Stoic and Protective King of Clubs

Age: 24 

Pairing: Amelia Brown 

Description: Pretty tall at 5’11” and muscular. He looks similar to his sister, the Queen of Diamonds. He has darker caramel eyes than his sister and short and wavy brown hair streaked blonde. Casual clothes are nice, but usually missing a few buttons and the sleeves are always rolled up. 

Summary: He is insanely protective of his older sister, but thinks he’s inadequate to her. He is very mature and composed in front of others, only relaxing around his close friends. He rose through the ranks solely to be there for his sister. He is talented with any blade, preferring sabers and greatswords. 

Amelia Brown: The Stubborn and Rowdy Queen of Clubs

Age: 24

Pairing: Chase Aspen 

Description: She is pale with tons of freckles and muscular, but still only 5’4”. She has strawberry blonde curls that fall to her shoulders but are usually pulled back. She has large minty green eyes.  She likes wearing black mens trousers with a black and teal corset and heeled combat boots. She keeps her daggers and throwing knives on garters around her thighs. 

Summary: Stubborn and Rowdy, Amelia grew up around guys and always preferred to fight and train as opposed to getting dressed up to play house. She specializes in any short dagger or throwing knife. She graduated at the top of her class and despite being a girl worked her way up the ranks. She is better about dressing up now, only doing it when she has too. 

Chester Leilani: The Calculating and Observant Jack of Clubs

Age: 27

Pairing: Asexual (thinks love is a liability and a waste of time) 

Description: Very similar to his sister, he has dark emerald eyes and pale skin with lots of freckles. He is 5’10” and extremely lean and toned. He has short mahogany hair and prefers a simple button up with a vest and trousers. His uniform and outfits are spotless at all times. 

Summary: Shy and quiet like his sister the medic for the Diamonds, he climbed the Clubs ranks purely to protect her. If anything was to go down, he wanted to be with her on the battlefield. He is observant and the main tactician for the Clubs, the only person he can’t beat in a chess game is the King of Diamonds. He is a sniper, preferring to stay out of the close combat so he can get a better view of the battlefield and strategize to the best of his ability. 

Sky Night: The Talented and Enigmatic Ten of Clubs

Age: 24 

Pairing: Asexual (thinks love is a hoax and relationships are a weakness) 

Description: Black hair with dark brown highlights, and pale skin that tans easily, he looks quite forgettable, if not for his dark purple eyes. In the shadows, they look black, but in the sunlight, they seem to glow. His build is average, but muscular, and his clothes are simple too, whether it’s on duty or off. 

Summary: He’s kind and pleasant to interact with, but seems to keep his distance from everyone. He takes orders from both armies yet doesn't seem particularly close to anyone. He’s a great informant, able to blend into shadows and stay unnoticed, with amazing memory as well. To top it off, he’s mastered throwing knives, having invented an almost perfect technique himself, and works well with snipers. He doesn’t talk much about himself or his past. He claims to have gone to IOL yet no one recalls him. 

Jasper Dawn: The Soft and Naïve Nine of Clubs

Age: 23 

Pairing: None (doesn't even know his sexual orientation, this adorable softboi) 

Description: He has dark brown skin with milky white patches, vitiligo. His skin is quite sensitive, so he usually wears layers of sunscreen to protect it. He likes to wear scarves or turtlenecks, even in the burning hot summer. Either that, or some uneven patch of makeup on his neck. Rumors say he used to be in a gang and is hiding a tattoo for whatever reason. It doesn’t help that he’s muscular to the point of being buff, and that his face looks scary, nor the fact that those who’ve seen him without all the long shirts and pants say he’s covered in scars. His hair used to be black, but it’s now a light teal that matches his eyes, currently loose and messy around his shoulders with golden accents. They used to be in dreadlocks. 

Summary: As a kid, he was very quiet and confused, keeping to himself most of the time. He made one good friend, and remembers a stranger with dark hair and silver eyes that gave him candy, but that’s it. He eventually showed up in Clubs Academy and began his training there. Even as an adult, he’s still quiet, but really kind with his soldiers. Despite his intimidating face and presence, he’s just an innocent little softboi! 

Avi Gatilin: The Gentle Giant and Night Owl The Eight of Clubs

Age: 26

Pairing: Saiya Shade

Description: Flawless darker skin, is 6’0” tall with broad shoulders and muscles for days. His hair is semi long, and a rich brown color depending on light. His eyes are a dark blue that could almost pass for black. He wears a black shirt and pants out of uniform and keeps a pair of leather gloves on him at all times. 

Summary: Looks are extremely deceiving with this gentle giant. He is really quiet and shy, preferring to blend with the shadows. He may be intimidating, but is actually very soft spoken, preferring to capture people alive and peacefully. He is the other night unit and is only awake between the hours from 4pm - 8am. IS best friends with Saiya, they have been working together at night for years. 

Declan Maverick: The Relaxed but Relaxed Tank and The Seven of Clubs

Age: 28

Pairing: Married to Candance Valentine 

Description: Is another tall boi 6’0” with toned but buff muscles. He has dark gold eyes and longish mahogany hair. He usually just wears his clubs uniform with the sleeve rolled up and jacket open. Wears a broken watch on his wrist that is the only thing that connects him to his family. 

Summary: Declan specializes in a blunt weapons unit, liking the two handed staff the best. He is very laid back and relaxed, but is still extremely protective of Lullaby. Nothing will threaten his wife and twin boys. He was raised by Jacobs family after being found outside the barrier with only a watch. When he grew up he decided to take the name on the back of the watch since that was his only clue to his real identity. His wife is the second diplomat of Lullaby and he rarely sees her.  

Jace Grant: The Trigger Happy and Competitive Six of Clubs

Age: 28 

Pairing: None 

Description: His skin color is medium and his hair would be brown, if it wasn’t shaved. His built is tanky, slow, bulky even. His eyes are brown and it’s been compared to sh*t on multiple occasions. He usually wears something he thinks is cool, but actually isn’t. 

Summary: Jace isn’t the easiest to get along with, even harder to understand than people like Jacob. He by no means had a sad backstory, nor was he born into a rich and spoiled family. Looking at his childhood, no one would have guessed that he would grow up to be the a**hole of Lullaby. Don’t challenge him unless you want to end up in a hospital. If it wasn’t for his position, he would’ve long become a fugitive from multiple murders. 

Celeste Soleil: The Timid and Celestial Five of Clubs

Age: 23 and a half 

Pairing: Kyle Ash 

Description: Tanned flawless skin and a dimple on her cheek, she would look ordinary if it wasn’t for the star shaped freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. They’re something she takes pride in, as a Soleil. Her hair is in shades of pinks and purples, like a galaxy. Her eyes are a pale lilac. Her uniforms usually have clusters of stars on the edges that she embroidered on herself. Around her neck rests a sphere filled with glitter that sparkled like a galaxy. 

Summary: Unfortunately, Celeste was born with a weak body, being unable to use her magic because of it. Because of her delicateness, she was deemed unfit for the role of Jack of Diamonds, a role her family has had for generations. Instead, it went to her cousin, the older twin, Lunarye Star. Luckily, Celeste was still able to join the Clubs Army as a medic. She’s the third best in all of Lullaby. 

Aro Shielde: The Pussy and Scaredy Cat Four of Clubs

Age: 23 

Pairing: Mei Venus 

Description: He’s pale and doesn’t like the sun, since he’s the type that gets sunburned easily. His hair is dirty blonde with long bangs over the left eye, just like his cousin Zepherin. The said eyes are dark blue, almost black, like two deep pools of water (Mei’s words). He’s lithe and very tall, like a big beanpole. He would go around wearing armor if given the chance, but it’s too heavy and bulky. 

Summary: He’s, well, the pussy of Lullaby. That’s all there is to him. He’s a scaredy cat that would run and hide at any possible chance, even if deep down he knows he’s more than capable of fighting. If he can get over his fear of pain and blood, perhaps he can even take the position of King of Clubs. But for now, he’s just the logistics guy, the nitpicker of plans, the one who over worries to the point where people just wanna knock him out. Jace almost does on more than one occasion. 

Kayne Hanshaw: The Quiet and Romantic Three of Clubs

Age: 28 

Pairing: Married to Floria Hanshaw 

Description: His long and silky blonde hair reminds people of gold or elves. Mei approves. Some of the Diamonds are even jealous. His eyes are a bright, sky blue, and he’s tall and muscular. His skin is pale, but it’s been tanned from working in the sun with his wife. He just wears the usual uniform, but sometimes wears a hair clip or badge personally made by his daughter, Lily. 

Summary: Kayne came from a very wealthy and prestigious family that’s serious about fencing. Because of that, he was able to get the best tutors and managed to become one of the best fencers in the area. Eventually, he joined the Clubs Academy and met Floria. They fell in love and became known as the cutest couple or power couple of the schools. People say that high school sweethearts never work out, but that’s not the case for Kayne and Floria. They got married and even adopted a kid! Kayne is usually quiet but is a real sweetheart, always writing little letters to his wife and daughter. They’re all he talks about, whether it’s at the Clubs Headquarters or at the animal rescue centers Kayne and his wife volunteers at. 

Crystal Mare: The Timid and Shy Two of Clubs

Age: 23 and a half 

Pairing: Zero 

Description: Unlike her older sister, Jewel Mare, Crystal isn’t as fixated on her looks. Although her family is a renown family of jewelers, and although they’re considered the nobility of the Clubs, Crystal was never that fond of jewels. With pale, easily sunburned skin, jet black hair that rests by her hips, and her bluebelle eyes, she doesn’t look a thing like her family. The only thing that might be able to tie her together with them would be her tall and slender frame, perfect for modeling. She prefers to dress down rather than dress up, and her style can be considered ‘old-fashioned granny’ in a bad way. Mei’s been begging her to dress in clothes other than long skirts and ugly sweaters, but she refuses. 

Summary: Despite her filthy rich family, Crystal never liked the luxuries. She was known as the black sheep of the family, and all the attention usually goes to her elder sister. When Crystal decided to join the humble military, her family practically disowned her right then and there. She isn’t in touch with them anymore, but does occasionally exchange letters with Jewel. As long as Crystal doesn’t take the spot of ‘Most Beautiful Girl in Lullaby’, Jewel is neutral with her. Because of always hiding in the shadows during fancy aristocratic banquets, Crystal developed a shy and timid personality. She prefers to avoid violence, so she uses non-lethal bullets when sniping. 

Dynite Spark: The Chaotic Explosives Expert and Ace of Clubs

Age: 27

Pairing: Solaria Star 

Description: Tall at 6’2” and slightly muscular with tanned skin and bright blue eyes. He has messy orange and blonde hair. He wears pretty basic clothes that are always charred around the sleeves from his experiments and explosions. 

Summary: He used to be a fire and dark elemental but his magic was extracted when he couldn’t control it, now it is used in his guns and explosives. He kept his pyromaniac personality. Very blunt and straightforward, he is a loudmouth and an extrovert and will always say what’s on his mind even if it would offend others. Very honest, probably can’t keep a secret. People naturally flock to him because of his carefree personality, but he can be a true gentleman when he has to. He is very chaotic and passionate about his job. Is a huge daredevil, if you dare him to race down the stairs, he will jump out the window. One of the only non magic users to have a familiar. 

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #12- Gay Rights: the Movie

Finally finished with our franchise obligations! Let’s get back to the main story.

Those are some ominous ellipses. Almost like something bad is going to happen!

Let’s take a look at Cover A for this issue.

When this was released to the general public, alongside the synopsis that stated the Lost Lighters were going to run into a group of Decepticons, a lot of people thought we’d be seeing them meet the Scavengers. This isn’t the case, and that’s not Fulcrum. It’s some other K-Con, one that has purple in his color scheme.

Our story opens up with a narrative framing device:

Welcome to “Before & After”, one of the more ambitious issues of MTMTE in terms of storytelling. Roberts really likes bouncing between scenes and POVs, and he’s really indulging that here.

Rodimus and crew have loaded up on one of the Lost Light’s scouting ships to check in on a planet called Temptoria. Whirl’s leading all the guys in the front in a war cry that wouldn’t be out of place in Hollywood’s version of the Vietnam war, while Brawn demonstrates how to not properly handle a gun. Rodimus tries to explain what exactly they’ll be doing, but no one’s listening, feeding off of the chaotic energy. The back seat isn’t quite as rowdy.

Oh, Ambulon’s here? That’s got to be awkward. And Perceptor’s looking mighty cross about having to pick up a gun again. Isn’t he supposed to be retired from being a science sniper?

Rodimus finally gets everyone to settle down long enough to explain the situation, though not without a little jargon mixup.

Basically, Ultra Magnus went down to Temptoria while the “Shadowplay” story was being told, and found out that the organic populace had been enslaved by a group of Decepticons, and, more importantly, the sovereign agreement that the planet had with Cybertron’s been violated. Also, these guys might have been the one’s who kidnapped the Circle of Light. You remember those guys, right? The guys who were supposed to be in the 2012 Annual, but they weren’t, and Drift got really mad about it.

Rodimus wraps up the briefing with a “’Til all are one!” And we cut over to see what Swerve and Tailgate are up to. Tailgate seems to be a little nervous, not the type to enjoy waiting, but Swerve seems to be doing just fine. Why is that, exactly?

Even if Rung’s still a steamed side dish of a vegetable, he’s still here, in a way. And good on Swerve for not assuming Tailgate can visualize in the same way he can. Aphantasia is more common than one might think.

Escapism is an interesting way of dealing with your problems, but I don’t know enough about wartime psychiatry to know if this is something that would actually be considered a viable solution or not.

Oh, now that I’ve said it, I’ve got the research itch.

Later, later.

Anyway, Tailgate gives it a spin, and his happy place is surprisingly domestic for such a seasoned professional.

Pipes, it’s a clear glass, it’s not hiding anything from you.

Speaking of Pipes, he’s seated next to Hound, as they discuss what happened to Red Alert. Or, rather, the cover story that’s been fed to the rest of the crew by Rodimus, which is that the engine room pretty much attacked him. This is how ghost stories get started.

Trailcutter’s gotten some guns installed in his legs, because he’s a hypocrite.

Over with Chromedome and Rewind, there’s trouble in paradise, as they’re having a lovers’ spat. Chromedome’s giving Rewind the silent treatment, and Rewind’s having none of it. What exactly are they fighting about? We don’t get to know about that yet, but it’s digging up other issues, like Chromedome going back on his promise to stop injecting. The only thing keeping this from becoming a total meltdown is Whirl can-canning through the door to kidnap Rewind, so he can film Whirl getting in the zone before the fight. Whirl’s having a great time. This is probably the first time they’ve gotten to fight something since the Lost Light took off, and he’s all about it.

Rewind’s dragged away, and Chromedome just lets it happen, because he’s feeling cross. It’s good to take a moment to cool off, but I’m not quite sure this was the best time or way for it to happen.

Meanwhile, on the Temptorian surface, Blip the Decepticon, who is likely the dirtiest son of a gun we’ve run into so far, is asked to take a look at the monitor by a guy who sounds exactly like Megatron. It doesn’t particularly matter which Megatron, because comics are not an audio-based medium, so you can pick whichever one you like best. What’s on the monitor does not please Blip in the slightest.

I feel like maybe having guys who don’t turn into flying machines jump out of the bottom of the shuttlecraft isn’t the greatest tactical thinking, but I’m sure everything will be okay. Brawn’s got a gun, maybe he’ll figure out how to rocket-jump before he hits terminal velocity.

Then the narrative jumps to after the fight, as the ship flies away from the scene, and Chromedome isn’t happy. It’s for a different reason than earlier, though.

Man, Pipes just can’t win, can he?

Ambulon remembers that he is, in fact, a medical professional, and starts working on Rewind, while Chromedome tries to ask Swerve just what the hell happened. Swerve’s having his own issues, however.

I’d nearly forgotten they had skeletons.

On the production side of this issue, we’ve got two artists: there’s our usual guy, Alex Milne on the “Before” sections, and Brandon Cahill on the “After”. Cahill’s other Transformers work includes The Transformers (2009) and the sister series to MTMTE, Robots in Disguise. Outside of the franchise, he’s worked on several Marvel pieces, including writing Sable & Fortune and Legion of Monsters. Unlike a lot of the alternate artists we’ve seen for the series, Cahill won’t be a one-and-done; we’ll see his art again in Dark Cybertron, Season 2 of MTMTE, and even Lost Light.

Getting back to the story, we’ve jumped back to the point in the battle where everyone’s hit the ground and are just wailing on each other. Tailgate and Swerve watch the chaos unfold, as Ultra Magnus more or less takes on a platoon of Decepticons.

Drift’s having a great time, as he Naruto runs through the enemy, slashing as he goes with a big ol’ smile on his face. He stabs a guy in the back of the head who was trying to grapple with Rodimus, thus interrupting the little dialogue they had going on. Rodimus is vaguely upset that his moment was cut short.

In the “After”, the shuttle’s landed back on the Lost Light, and Chromedome rushes out with Rewind in his arms to find First Aid with a motorized stretcher. He was hoping for Ratchet- he wants only the best for his shnookums. As they run Rewind down to the medibay, Chromedome starts listing off his allergies- which include ultraviolet light, something we know reveals mnemosurgery scars. This is a holdover from a dropped plot point I’ll cover at a later time; as it stands in the canon narrative, Rewind’s just got an allergy to the friggin’ sun.

Back at the shuttle, Tailgate starts dragging Cyclonus down the gangplank. Oh, hell. You know it’s a bad situation when the guy who literally couldn’t die for six million years is out of commission.

Spoke and Lockstock are a bit of a gag- they always manage to get their asses kicked, but everyone on the ship really likes them. They will never be seen on-panel, and have no character designs.

Over in the medibay, history is being made.

Esteemed members of the jury, I present to you: canon gay robots. The first in a long line of them. This is the starting point of the queer community being handed the Transformers franchise on a silver platter.

Up to this point, Roberts hadn’t gotten any further than implied attraction and affection between robots, in either his fanworks or professional credits. Pretty heavy-handed implication in some cases-

-but implication nonetheless. Here is the first, honest-to-god direct confirmation of two male-coded robots in love.

In love and space-married and recognized by the authority in power, in a comic written in 2012, as a part of a major franchise owned by a massive American company, three years before same-sex marriage would be legalized on a federal level.

As part of the story, it’s great. Within the context of the time during which it was published, it’s a whole other level. This wasn’t just good writing, it was important.

Let me part the kimono a little here, with some personal backstory- I grew up in Buttfuck Nowhere, NC, and went to a high school that was so homogeneous, they were threatening to bus students in after I graduated. I didn’t know what a gay person even was until I was 12. “Lesbian” was used as an insult, and it was one I was subjected to because I had cut my hair short in middle school and wore cargo shorts on occasion. It was something I really pushed against, because that’s how a lot of people react to being forcibly given a label.

Not the best environment for a little queer kid, clearly.

It wasn’t until well after I’d gone to college that I really started understanding who I was. Hell, I’m still figuring some things out, but at least I’m getting somewhere.

I remember reading this for the first time in 2015- yes, I got into the comics sort of late- and then having to reread it. I needed a moment just to process what had happened. As a person who had only recently come to terms with their sexuality at the time, it was kind of mind-blowing to have that sort of representation, especially since I was also watching Transformers Prime at around the same time. Talk about the duality of man, am I right?

These days, there’s a lot more representation in many different forms of media. Things are getting better. Which, y’know, yay! I’m glad. I just can’t help but wonder if things would have been a little different if this sort of representation had been available earlier on.

Anyway, so yes, Chromedome’s got a difficult choice to make for Rewind- either let his body try to sort itself out, or let First Aid break out the clamps and try to jumpstart him. Rewind’s got a relatively rare spark type, but luckily Chromedome’s the same type. Looks like everything’s coming up roses for our boys!

Tailgate and Cyclonus aren’t getting nearly as good a break.

My god, he’s filled with grape soda!

Back in the “Before”, things are getting a little silly.

Chromedome, what POSSIBLE tactical advantage could you be gaining from riding the giant, fire-breathing robot dinosaur? This is why they threw you in Kimia, isn’t it? Because you’re a dumbass.

While this bullshit is happening, Rewind and Tailgate are stacked on top of each other to look through a window, because I guess that’s just how things turn out when the resident couple on the ship is upset with one another. Rewind’s found something, but it isn’t the Circle of Light. Rather, it seems the Decepticons are dabbling in Pink Alchemy- a rather inefficient process that allows organic creatures to be turned into energon for consumption.

The good guy thing to do would be to save all the organics, but there’s a bit of a problem- the door is wired to a massive bomb. Good thing Tailgate was in Bomb Disposal, and is just generally an impressive and well-established dude. He gets to work.

Getting back to a point I made during Chaos Theory, Whirl can’t make a fist. Punching himself in the face is probably more akin to slashing it.

Tailgate’s got a weird approach to bombs, taking the time to teach Rewind how to do it, by way of student-led learning. They decide to poke a hole in the bottom of the bomb to drain all the explosive fluid out, which Tailgate does with little robot tears streaming down his face. Fear is a great motivator.

Oof, not a “Domey” in sight. That’s how you know things are rough.

Outside of this little scene, Whirl and Cyclonus are handling Decepticons. Whirl’s got a hold on that guy who’s voiced by Frank Welker, and we get a nice shot of his sad cat face before Whirl turns his head into a memory.

Swerve- who is also here- asks Whirl to loan him a gun.

GODDAMMIT SWERVE.

Not a single one of you bastards know proper gun safety! Between all the severe depression and reckless weapon-handling, I genuinely have no idea how the hell are any of you are still alive.

In the “After”, Chromedome’s just finished jumpstarting Rewind, and it’ll take a bit to see if it worked, so he’s left alone with his thoughts.

Just kidding, Tailgate’s come over to check in. Seems like Cyclonus is gonna pull through, something Chromedome’s not terribly thrilled about. Chromedome’s still miffed about the whole Kimia thing.

We finally learn why Chromedome and Rewind were fighting; it was because Rewind, as a walking historical database, has been deemed too important to die, and can opt out of any fight he choose to, but he doesn’t, thereby putting himself in harm’s way unnecessarily. Maybe he just worries about you when you go out there on the battlefield alone, Chromedome, you ever think of that? Maybe he doesn’t want to wonder when his husband will return home from the war.

Tailgate asks about all the little vials that are scattered around Rewind’s hospital bed, and we get a little Cybertronian tradition thrown at us.

The vials are filled with innermost energon, the stuff that surrounds the spark casing and never changes, no matter how much you modify or upgrade your body. Leaving a little of the stuff for someone in an offering signifies that you care very much for that person. Chromedome can’t give Rewind any, because he was “born dry”, but I think being space-married to the guy more than makes up for it.

Tailgate asks how the two of them met, and unlike in issue #6, Chromedome is feeling vulnerable enough to indulge the question this time.

But first we need to establish that Chromedome is insanely insecure.

So, Rewind is fucking old. He’s older than the Cybertronian civil war, he’s older than the calendar system, and he’s old enough to have been affected by Functionist society’s categorization system. Due to being a memory stick- something that there were millions of back in the day- Ratioism dictated that Rewind as an individual was worth very little, and made him and his like into slaves. Because he was a slave, he needed a master, and that master was none other than Dominus Ambus, also known as Cybertron’s Mech of the Year for 40,000 consecutive years.

Even on Cybertron, there’s a weird stigma about breastfeeding.

Rewind and Dominus quickly became friends, because that’s just the sort of guy Rewind is, and it made Dominus realize that maybe these slaves Cybertron had been working to death were sentient creatures worthy of respect too. He even developed a test to prove that all the slave classes were on the same level of functionality as everyone else.

On their quest to find a cure for the horrible disease Cybercrosis, Rewind and Dominus fucked off into space, on a wild goose chase to try and find Luna 1, the Cybertronian moon that just disappeared one day. Weird, that. They didn’t find it, and by the time they’d come back home, the war was well underway. They immediately became Autobots, and that was it for a while.

Then we move on to how Chromedome and Rewind met, and boy is it a doozy.

Chromedome had decided he wanted to kill himself, so he moseyed on over to the nearest relinquishment clinic- they did assisted suicides instead of body-swaps at this point- to do the deed. He was sitting in the waiting room, when he heard someone screaming. He wandered into the back to find Rewind weeping over a coffin, and he thought to himself “Maybe I don’t need to die after all” as he offered his future conjunx a shoulder to cry on.

What a fucking dark start to a relationship.

Rewind wasn’t upset about anyone who was dead though, but rather missing- Dominus had disappeared into thin air months ago, and Rewind was getting desperate to find him, looking in more and more awful places in the hope of recovering what he’d lost.

As it turns out, he’s still doing that. The reason the two of them are on the Lost Light is because Rewind needs to find Dominus- alive or dead, it doesn’t seem to particularly matter at this point. That’s why he buys snuff films in dark alleys.

See, Tailgate gets it.

Guys, bad news.

Chromedome’s spark is too weak to jumpstart Rewind. Unless they find another compatible donor, Rewind’s gonna be in big trouble. There’s nothing to do but wait.

Later, in their room, Chromedome is sitting on the floor and very much not following doctor’s orders to get some sleep. Someone on the opposite side of the door he’s leaning up against starts talking to him. Chromedome doesn’t seem to want to hear any of it, until he does.

Given who the basement dweller is, this probably won’t turn out so hot.

Chromedome gets a call from the medibay, and fortunately the universe has decided to play nice this go around, because someone came forward as a match.

But it’s not like Whirl cares about anyone, right? Not in the slightest, nuh-uh, not him!

While Chromedome gives Whirl what is probably an uncomfortably long hug, and they both most likely ignore the fact that Chromedome would be actively suicidal without Rewind, Tailgate’s off in the corner, having taken his hand off and begun pouring cartoon toxic waste into a vial. It’s actually his innermost energon. Boy’s making an offering, but it isn’t to Rewind.

It’s to this ungrateful fuck.

Cyclonus stalks away from Tailgate’s kindness, until he’s stopped by witnessing the power of love.

Everyone likes Rewind, and these displays of affection seems to have reminded Cyclonus that he’s horrifically lonely. Feeling some remorse over his actions- not that he’ll ever admit it out loud- he goes back to help Tailgate pick up the pieces of the vial he broke.

Wrapping up our story, we go back to the “Before”, right before the bomb is set to go off. Whirl and Cyclonus have more or less taken care of the Decepticons, Whirl suggests they set aside their differences and agree to stop trying to murder each other, in a surprising show of reason and, perhaps, self-preservation. Cyclonus doesn’t seem to agree with the idea.

I genuinely think that’s the most he’s said all series up to this point.

Rewind calls the two idiots over for help, because Tailgate’s about to pull a self-sacrifice to get this bomb emptied, and he just isn’t listening to reason. Cyclonus assists.

Once Tailgate’s been fastball-specialed out of the room, Whirl decides to get back to being a bastard, and locks Cyclonus and Rewind in with the bomb with 10 seconds left on the clock. Ah, so the donation was out of guilt, I see. Still a form of caring, in its own way.

With no way to escape, all Cyclonus can do is attempt to shield Rewind with his body as the bomb goes off.

That’s the end of the issue but it’s the middle of the story, and despite what Cyclonus says, dynamics are changing. Slowly, but surely, things are shifting. He’s headed for a lot of character development, and he’ll be kicking and screaming the whole way.

[pogaytosalad]

Heres a wip of a sequel.

Dmviolence, by jade

Hello, if youre hearing this, it probably means im dead. Either that, or im alive and just got tired of keeping this hidden. You might remember my voice from a previous recording about a takeover in sector ⬽:➻, in which id helped prevent total annihilation of the sector. At the time i was unnamed, however now you may call me Kalton. After the takeover i resigned and moved to a job at a dmv. This planet was, for some reason, in one of the most tactically advantageous locations in the galaxy. And for some reason the higher ups dedicated the whole damn planet to dmvs. Dont ask why. Now, onto the story.

I woke up, and i put on my emerald green contact lenses. Just like any other day. I put on a basic white t-shirt and a leather bomber jacket along with a pair of jean shorts. If you cant tell by now, im gay.

I live in a small apartment. By small apartment i mean a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen all crammed into 2 rooms. I hopped out the bedroom window onto my motorcycle. It was a diamond white motorcycle with deep red stripes along the sides and the handlebars. My pride and joy. I put on my jet black helmet and took off towards my job at the, you guessed it, dmv.

Chapter 2

I pulled up in the parking lot and took off my helmet, my blue hair a total rats nest. The doors were push doors, yet i somehow ALWAYS pulled first. I entered the dmv and went to my station. A few hours passed by and no one had come in yet, which was unusual. So naturally i decided to sit down on the floor, put in my earbuds, and enjoyed some heavy metal. A few more hours passed by, and usually by now i wouldve been yelled at by my boss. This struck me as odd so i stood up. I really wish i hadnt stood up. The place had been completely destroyed. There were drop pods crashed in through the roof and they all had the ERGON logo on them. Ergon was a multi trillion dollar pencil manufacturing company with its own military. They had previously tried to take over sector ⬽:➻ when i had been working there. I was not looking forwards to what was about to happen.

Quickly, i ducked back onto the floor before anyone saw me. There were 4 riot soldiers holding this building. This was gonna be fun. The riot soldiers are your stereotypical riot gear and police baton soldiers. But these guys had laser batons and the riot gear gave them heightened strength and speed. They also had some, dare I say, shitty energy pistols. I crawled over to one of the soldiers who wasnt being watched and broke their neck. Carefully I took the baton and the pistol. Slowly crawled my way back to my station and checked the shot count in the pistol. I had 6 shots, just enough to take care of the remaining three soldiers. I stood up quickly and shot each soldier twice in the head. First shot to open the riot helmet, second shot to kill. I vaulted over the counter and grabbed the three pistols. These things were so stupid. You couldnt even remove the clips. Once you ran out of shots, the pistol was useless. Nonetheless, i didnt have any choice. I had a laser baton and 18 total shots in 3 pistols.

Upon leaving the building, my motorcycle was one of the few things to survive. It had alot of scratches and damage, but it still worked. The helmet was shattered however. I mounted the motorcycle and took off towards the next closest dmv. Maybe id find some better gear there.

Chapter 3

Pulling up next to the second dmv i immediately noticed 3 things. 1: there was blood everywhere. 2: there were 25 soldiers here. And 3: they all had energy weapons. The reason these things are relevant is because energy weapons dont cause bloodshed. This was the result of something else. Something new i hadnt dealt with yet.

I drove up and ran over 5 of the soldiers. This was probably an incredibly bad idea, seeing as i had 18 shots, enough for 9 kills, and there were 20 soldiers left. Every single soldier turned to me and i, being the absolute genius that i am, welded the front of one of the pistols shut with the laser baton, shot it off, and threw it into thei crowd of soldiers. It exploded, releasing a shockwave of energy and disabling the soldiers. I then used the baton to cut through the riot gear and kill the soldiers. I felt like a badass. That is until a mechanical looking wolf jumped at me and started trying to rip my face off.

The wolf was a frostwolf, except it had been placed into a mechanical frame and its teeth and claws had been replaced with lasers. I tried to bash it off of me with the baton but it just bit it in two. This gave me just enough time to grab an energy pistol and shoot the wolf. It kept trying to kill me amd i wasted a whole clip on it until suddenly, the dog started to levitate in the air and got thrown aside into a wall. I got up and was instantly frozen in place. Thats when.. she walked up.

Chapter 4

The she i am reffering to is ebony. A goth/punk wannabe with light blue tear shaped eyes and black hair with purple streaks. Shes a bitch whos mind got too powerful and now she can move things without touching them. Shes been chasing me for months. Not in a murderous way. Shes just obsessed with me. Ive tried to tell her im gay but she wont listen. And now im at her mercy.

She walked up to me and kissed me on the cheek. I hated it. She looked as if she was contemplating whether or not to free me when a pod came down from the sky and crushed her. Thank god. But i honestly wouldve rathered suffered at her hand than deal with what i had to deal with next...

Out of the pod came the warden. The goddamn warden from sector ⬽:➻. Last id seen him hed been in the same situation as ebony. Crushed to death under a pod. But this time, instead of being on my side, he was here to kill me. He was huge. Like seriously huge. He was at least 8 feet tall and shaped like gaston. Whos gaston? Nobody knows these days. But its basically a way to say "extremely buff and wide". Back to the story. The warden wasnt looking very good, considering the rotten skin, obviously quickly patched together face, and muscles hanging loose out of his skin. His rotting ruined body was held together by an exoskeleton of chromium-tungsten alloy. Nothing i had was gonna cut through that. I was gonna have to get creative here..

The warden had 2 weapons, both of them were his fists. Huge gauntlets that were each about the size of a cow. Definitely bigger than his previous set. They were a golden green metal i couldnt identify. But i didnt want to get hit with one to try and find out. I ran. I ran as fast i could run into the dmv and hid. I could hear the wardens footsteps. It was as if a small earthquake happened each time he took a step.

I peeked over the desk i was hiding behind and saw him punch through the 2 desks opposite to me. It took no effort and i couldve sworn i saw him smile. Obviously i didnt. Cause he didnt have a mouth anymore. But if he did, he definitely wouldve smiled. I took a shot to get his attention and ran off towards the wall. The warden was definitely faster than i expected.

Luckily i managed to dodge the blow by a centimeter. The metal smelled of decaying flesh and popcorn. The wardens blow punched a huge hole in the wall. I hope you see where im going with this.

I ran off to another wall and we repeated this same process a number of times until the building was barely still up. I ran out the doors and threw the baton at the last of the supports, cutting through it and causing the building to collapse in on the warden. He wasnt getting out of that. I decided to search the rubble to see if i could find anything worth taking. I found a new baton, a flame rifle and a few more energy pistols.

The flame rifle was a very interesting design. The sides were painted jet black with flame decals scattered about. You could feel the heat on the inside and it made the gun warm to the touch. Comfortable to hold. Other than that though, it looked like an old fashioned 8.59mm sniper rifle. It had 4 shots remaining, so id have to use it sparingly.

I grabbed some scrap materials out of the rubble to make a holster for it and put it on my back.

The energy pistols just dangled from a keychain. The baton was simply turned off and placed through a hole in the back pockets of my shorts. I ran to my motorcycle and drove off, i needed to find out more. I had questions, and i had a sneaking suspicion that i knew where to find the answers.

I drove off again, i was dirty and there was blood on me and my bike. I probably looked like a serial killer. But i knew that if anyone was still alive, itd be jayden. They were.. well. They were a vampire. They lived in a swampland area and wore sparkly rainbow shirts and a huge sunhat. The sunhat allowed them to go outside in the sun, and they only drank coconut water. They also had a crazy amount of weaponry and used to work at ergon, before being fired for stealing weaponry. By the way, if you havent noticed by now, im using they/them to refer to jayden. Jayden doesnt have a gender. Jayden.. is kind of my crush. It probably has something to do with the fact that theyre the only person on this planet who talks to me. Other than ebony.. but ebony is... not my type i guess. Anyways, back to jayden. Jayden was on the roof of their swamp shack drinking coconut water out of a wine glass. I yelled up at them and they fell off the roof onto my back. I guess i cushioned their fall. Jayden immediately said "What do you need dear" without waiting for me to stand up, and shattered the wine glass. I informed them of the situation and asked the questions i had. Things like "what are the ergon soldiers defences like on their ships" and "how did they reanimate the warden" they had answers.

Jayden told me about the new security measures that had been put in place since id last been on an ergon ship. There was now a code for each teleportation pod and the gaurds had doubled. As for the warden, it turns out jayden was actually the first test run in reanimation sciences, and couldnt answer me because they had been unconcious in a lab when the warden was reanimated. That explained the vampire undead thing. Jayden invited me into the shack where they pulled a nail out of the floorboards and it turned into a ramp to the basement. Down in the basement? Thats where jayden kept their weapons they stole. And boy oh boy were there some interesting ones.

One that immediately caught my attention was the big rocket launcher. It had 3 barrels and each was a different colour, indicating a different effect. One was red, one was yellow, and one was green. The red barrel fired a normal explosive rocket, the yellow barrel fired an electromagnetic pulse rocket, and the green barrel fired an acidic explosive. And the launcher shrunk down to the size of an energy pistol when a button was pressed. It gathered up dirt and dust and garbage around it from the back to quickly convert into ammo but the only downside is that it would be difficult to use more than once in an area.

Jayden picked out an old shotgun. At first i didnt understand why, but then they loaded the clip. The clip was a huge drum that loaded in the bottom of the barrel. The drum was see through and inside you could see sawblades lined up side by side. When they pumped the shotgun a blade got lifted into a slot between the 2 shotgun barrels and started glowing red. When the trigger was pulled, the blade spun at high speeds and fired out of the slot, spinning along the ground like a wheel. It could cut through anything a baton could cut through and seemed to almost follow its target. The gun itself looked like an DP-12, except behind the pump, a large clear drum full of sawblades was in place. The blade sat between the barrels in place of the iron sights and got heated up by an electrical circut.

I also took a laser sword instead of my baton, it was just like the one that [3825968] had, except this one was about an inch longer. The final weapon i took was an acid thrower. It was basically just a watergun with acid in it. Ive always been partial to acidic weapons. If youve heard my other story, youd know why..

Jayden also took a submachine gun that fired freezing rounds. The rounds were essentially glorified waterballoons with liquid nitrogen in them. Though the rounds were bullet sized, enough shots from it would certainly freeze you in place. The freeze gun was about the size of the average human head, and was painted navy blue with blue saphire stripes placed along it. We both left the shack, me with my sword and jayden with a wine glass. We were ready to kick ass and put a stop to this.

We left and immediately both got flung into some trees. Guess who it was. It was ebony. Her body had been found and reanimated. I was starting to see a pattern. And now we had to fight the telekinetic who could kill us with a wave of her hand.

She was levitating. Her eyes were glowing red and her hair was floating in the air. She had a smile of someone about to rip your arms off and beat you with them. I tried to take a shot at her but my hand got knocked aside by an invisible force. So i tried the next best thing. Seduction. Fake seduction. Hopefully the whole dying and coming back from the dead thing didnt make her stop being weirdly obsessed with me.

While i faked surrender and complimented ebony and attempted to seduce her, jayden took aim of their ice gun and shot a burst at ebonys right arm. The arm froze in place and shattered. Hopefully that would lower the strength of her telekinetic abilities. It did. But only by about half. Which meant jayden got thrown into the air as i tried to discreetly unholster my acid gun. It wasnt discreet enough and the gun was knocked from my hand.

The gun flew forwards and the impact of hitting the ground set it off for a second, just enough to spray an acidic burn through her arm. Incapacitating her. Jayden ended up sneaking up behind her and impaling her through the skull with the shattered end of their wine glass. Finally ebony was dead for good.

The acid gun was busted, so we had to leave it behind. We got onto my motorcycle and took off towards my apartment building. We would need food if we were going to be traveling. An apartment complex would probably be full of foods, and alot of dead people who wouldnt care if we took some stuff.

[valkyrjuk]

hi everybody the apex pinging system is truly phenomenal like one of the greatest tools to grace video games that I really hope becomes more mainstream I love it I just do

which is why I feel fit to say it could use like just a couple minor tweaks

I just want to be able to order squadmates to go someplace specifically. Just next to (or in an expanded flowering menu) the "Going There" button should also be a "Go there" button in the colors of your respective squad members (Yellow tells blue go here, green tells yellow, blue tells green, yadda yadda). That alone would add a totally new tactical dimension, allowing for tighter coordination in attacks and personal communication between voiceless players. There is also significant meme potential there like imagine pinging a fiery chasm after your buddy steals that hat you really wanted

Along the same line I also wanna ping for an ally's ultimate or tactical - I think this could work using a two-step ping that requires you to look at a highlighted squad member (like a doc drone) where you select an option, then ping where you want it. Ordering tactical smoke when you need it, or begging for a care package, or asking Crypto to recon a spot, or calling an airstrike, or getting a zipline just right... again, the tactical capability is enormous. Could make the first idea work this way too, asking a highlighted target to move somewhere specifically.

A third, perhaps more of a quality of life ping, would be the ability to, from the inventory menu, request types of weapons or even specifics. Would love to be able to ask for a sniper when I'm looking for one, or maybe specifically a Prowler when I've got all the heavy gear and a Select Fire but nothing fun to put it on. It would work just by holding the button, not clicking it, or by pinging the ammunition in your inventory instead of the gun (pinging energy ammo for an energy weapon vs. pinging your P2020 for light ammo)

None of these ideas are very strong deviations from the way the pinging system works now, in fact I think that not only are they perfectly in line with the rules at present but these ideas also actualize the potential of the pinging system as probably the greatest communication tool since people dug up the Rosetta Stone (ok that's a little ambitious). Already you can play the game and do very well without speaking, even pinging - but you could also totally put all three squad members at each door to a building in a coordinated breaching maneuver without using a microphone so

[miragerules]

With theaters unfortunately shut down, and me sadly being laid off because Oregon has a shelter in place order it's given me a lot of time to play video games as well as think about the best films of each decade, and the who I believe are the current directors of all time. I am going to start with who are believe are the current 15 best directors of all time.

15. Bong Joon Ho: I have not seen all of Bong Joon Ho films only seen Snowpiercer, The Host, Memories of Murder, and Parasite with Snowpiercer being his best film.

14. David Lynch: David Lynch is probably the most visionary and unique director on this list. It has not paid off for Lynch all the time, but all his films and series are certainly memorable. I have seen Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, Dune, Twin Peaks, Dune, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive with Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive being is best films. Even though Lynch has not directed a full-length feature film since I think 2006's Inland Empire Lynch is still one of the best directors of all time.

13. Clint Eastwood: Although this biographical themed obsession Eastwood had been on this past decade with good, but flawed films in Richard Jewell, The 1517 to Paris, American Sniper, and J. Edgar among others it does not take away from Clint Eastwood's nearly fifty years of directing with some of his classics being Unforgiven, Mystic River, The Outlaw Josey Wales, A Perfect World, and Letters from Iwo Jima to name a few.

12. David Fincher: I could say David Fincher is the best suspense thriller director, but that would be disrespecting the one and only Alfred Hitchcock, so I will that Fincher is the Hitchcock of our time with his most known film being Fight Club, but not his best film. That would go to Gone Girl, The Game, and Se7en. Then here is the elephant in the room by the name of Alien 3. Alien 3 had its problems in production and especially with studio interference by FOX in not having faith in the young up and coming director, which hurt the film, but by no means does that make Alien 3 a bad film. Alien 3 had good acting by Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Sigourney Weaver, and the rest of the pretty unknown cast. The score by Elliot Goldenthal is riveting, and one of the best scores in the Alien franchise if not the best. William Gibson original screenplay would have been the best route to go with the film, and there were a lot of hands on the script for Alien 3 with ultimately the writing brainstormed, poorly put together, and written by producers Walter Hill and David Giler. The screenplay was definitely flawed, but not bad with a decent story and good ending to Ripley’s journey that was ruined by the truly terrible Alien Resurrection. Overall, I say Alien 3 is the third best Alien film not as good as Alien or Aliens, but not as bad as the rest of the Alien films or the Alien vs Predator films.

11. Zhang Yimou: Sadly, I have not had a chance to see some of Zhang's older films like Not One Less, Raise the Red Lantern, and especially To Live, which some have said is one of Zhang's best films. I have seen all Zhang's films since the new millennium with films that include Hero, Shadow, Under the Hawthorn Tree, House of the Flying Daggers, Coming Home, Curse of the Golden Flower, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, Happy Times, The Flowers of War, A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop, and The Great Wall. Zhang is a master of using aesthetics whether it be the story, lighting, or choreography of his action sequences. The Great War is easily Zhang's worst film, and it is not a terrible film, and not for the reasons you might be thinking. I know when The Great Wall was coming out and came out a certain group of so called up set people were outrage that a fantasy film had a some white characters in the film and Zhang and the writers were using the white savior trope in the film, but if you actually watch the film that was not what happen or why The Great Wall was a mediocre film. It was because of the at best average CGI, poor writing, and uninspired action sequences. As for Zhang's best films they are Hero, Curse of the Golden Flower, Happy Times, and The House of the Flying Daggers. Yes, Zhang Yimou is best known for his historical films with simply masterfully choreographed action sequences I definitely recommend you give some of his smaller films like Happy Times and Coming Home a chance.

10. Ridley Scott: Although some of Scott's latest films like Robin Hood, Prometheus, All the Money in the World, and Exodus: Gods and Kings have not lived up to the directors reputation Ridley Scott will still go down as one of the best directors of all time by directing some of the best films of all time. I would also recommend Kingdom of Heaven. It is one of Scott's best film that was underrated by critics and the general population.

9. Michael Mann: Like Scott above Michael Mann's most recent films in Blackhat, Public Enemies, and Miami Vice have not lived up to the reputation Mann has earned as a director or his vision and style as a writer and director. Mann as not directed a lot of films and it is debatable what his best film is between The Insider, Heat, Thief, and The Last of the Mohicans. For me it is Heat.

8. Denis Villeneuve: Denis Villeneuve has only been directing since 1998, but has already made it into the top 10 of this list, and it is for a reason. Villeneuve is helped to craft some of the most riveting and compelling stories in films this past decade that was also greatly impacted by Villeneuve’s masterful use of cinematography creating an atmosphere in his films with Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, and Sicaro being masterpieces and three of the best films this past decade. I am really looking forward to his vision of Dune.

7. Hayao Miyazaki: Miyazaki is by far the most mainstream and acclaimed director of anime films from Japan, and for good reason. Hayao Miyazaki is a masterful writer and director who stands by his belief of caring for the environment, being anti-war, and love. Speaking out on his beliefs regulating not caring if it offends some of his fans or his own government. His beliefs play a heavy influence in his films, which I think make is unique visions all the better for that. In my view Miyazaki’s best film is Princess Mononoke. 1999 was a terrible year for me on many levels and Princess Mononoke just blew my mind and help to lift my spirits and my will to go on. No other Hayao Miyazaki film has come close to affecting me that way.

6. Terrance Malick: Terrance Malick has been directing films for directing films for 47 years, but has only directed ten films in that time with 1973’s Badlands. I think the reason is while other directors like Uwe Boll, Michael Bay, and Paul W.S. Anderson will just make films no matter the quality of the film Terrance Malick is determined that his artistry be perfect, and it shows in his film. Malick’s determination to perfection shows in his true mastery of cinematography and his use of nature and the environment to enhance the story and isolate they characters. His perfectionism shows in all his films, and while Malick’s films may not always land on perfection, but his films always leave a mark on the viewer. I consider Terrance Malick’s best film to be 1998’s The Thin Red Line, and a far better film than Saving Private Ryan that came out earlier that year.

5. Christopher Nolan: We have finally reached the top 5 of what I consider to be the current best directors of all time with number five being Christopher Nolan. Nolan is number five on this list, and is the best director alive today. There are better directors on this list, but they all have passed away. Christopher Nolan is known for his love of the theatrical experience, and the technical side of filmmaking. Christopher Nolan along with his brother Jonathan Nolan and other writers to craft unique and captivation stories and their use of memories, time, space, dreams, perspective, and war in each of film of films. Nolan has also directed has put his stamp on Batman and the comic book film genre by directing the Dark Knight Trilogy that is the best superhero/comic book trilogy. As for what is Christopher Nolan’s best film, it is too hard for me to choose between Prestige, The Dark Knight, and Dunkirk.

4. Alfred Hitchcock: Alfred Hitchcock is and as far I am concerned will go down as the best suspense thriller director of all time. Hell, the term Hitchcockian was named after the type of films he wrote and directed. It wasn’t just the huge impact Hitchcock had on the suspense, thriller, and horror genre’s, it was Hitchcocks technical and writing imfluence that has had a lasting impact on in film and popular culture. Alfred Hitchcock’s basically created a new filmmaking style using camera’s for perspective many times putting making the viewer the voyeur in his films to brilliantly adding to the suspense to his films. Hitchcock along his early writers created for better or worse the plot device called the MacGuffin that has a tremendous influence today in filmmaking that is used too much in not correctly. In my view Alfred Hitchcocks best films are North by Northwest, Rear Window, and Strangers on a Train.

3. Sergio Leone: The legendary director Akira Kurosawa who had a huge influence on Sergio Leone’s filmmaking, and in doing so Sergio Leone created his own impact on filmmaking creating the “spaghetti western” with his script writing long sprawling epics, and the use of long sweeping shots and extreme close ups. While Leone did not direct a lot of films, he did direct perhaps the two best unofficial trilogies of all time in No Name trilogy and the Once Upon A Time trilogy. All six films could easily fit into the top 50 films of all time and two of them in the top 20 films of all time. While both Clint Eastwood and composer Ennio Morricone were in the business of filmmaking Sergio Leone should get credit for lunching both to super stardom of the film industry in the 1960’s.

2. Stanley Kubrick: Whether it be Crime drama, Science Fiction, Epics, War, or Comedy Kubrick has had a lasting influence on virtually every genre. Like Terrance Malick, Stanley Kubrick had a different style with his filmmaking process saying his scripts were never really finished before his film started filming so he could be willing to adapt during filming, his relentless and sometimes endless scene takes sometimes making his actors shoot scenes dozens of times trying to get what he view as the perfect shot. Some film historians would call Stanley Kubrick the most influential filmmaker in history with in my view Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

1. Akira Kurosawa: It was a little hard to choose between Stanley Kubrick, Sergio Leone, and Kurosawa, and in my view the most influential, and all-around best director of all time is Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa has had so much influence on cinema in story, style and technique throughout the years influencing directors like George Lucas, Sergio Leone, Quinton Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Stanley Kubrick, and countless others. Akira Kurosawa introduced the world two different story styles/tropes in with the “Team building” trope, and the perspective or Rashomon style that can be seen in the Dirty Dozen films, Star Wars films, Ocean 11 films, Hero, Knives out, and countless other films as well as just about every part of popular culture. Akira Kurosawa as faced some criticism over his career with one that I can understand was his filmmaking during WWII. Like many filmmakers throughout the world in the late 1930’s and through the 1940’s they were pushed, paid, and sometimes forced to make propaganda films for the citizens of their countries. Akira Kurosawa was one of those directors, and I can understand the criticism of Kurosawa’s first films as a director in the early 1940’s. Another criticism that is completely unfounded and is laughable was by the French new wave movement in the 1950’s with many of the film makers saying Kurosawa was elitist and his films were not Japanese enough. Really men Frenchman from a former colonial power telling a Japanese filmmaker that his films were Japanese enough. That would be me as a white man like telling Spike Lee that his films aren’t black enough or Zhang Yimou that his films aren’t Chinese enough. Simple that is unfounded and just wrong. Even with some small legitimate criticism of Akira Kurosawa’s life and work it does not take away from his brilliance as a filmmaker crafting some of the best films made influencing countless others. As for Kurosawa’s best film that is hard, but even though I love his sprawling historical masterpieces in Yojimbo, Seven Samurai, Ran, Rashomon in my view it is one of Kurosawa’s smaller films that is the director’s best film. That would be 1952’s moving and poignant drama Ikiru.

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

Honorable mentions that I briefly considered for this list: David Lean, Steven Spielberg, John Ford, Charlie Chaplin, Sergey Eisenstein, Ingmar Bergman, and Billy Wilder to name a few. I have seen very few films from the silent film era.

[nilmerg-ecid]

updated ideas

One piece inspired pirate rpg Basic stuff and ideas: Instead of 6 stats, instead only have 3: body, mind, and spirit Have different skills, based on combinations of body mind and spirit as well as just normal skills “Saves”: wisdom (mind and spirit), endurance (body and spirit), focus(mind and body) Speed and strength also important stats that feed into dodge and block respectively, as well as movement for speed Skill list: persuasion (mind/spirit), deception (mind/spirit), history (mind), animal handling (spirit), insight (mind), intimidation (body/spirit), perception (mind/spirit), performance(body/spirit), nature (mind), stealth (body), sleight of hand (body/mind), constitution (body), athletics (body), investigation (mind) Combined skills are the average of both unless you get a feat Instead of simple ac, have dodge skills and block skills that act like saves to physical attacks Get to take special skills, basically feats, either 1 major or 2 minor and a skill proficiency, at start Each class/subclass gets extra special skill and boost to stat + proficiency in something related Initiative is somehow body, mind and spirit; If subtracting for any mod, it is a 1:1 ratio, body is always 1:1 for initiative, mind is 0.5x mind mod, rounded down, and spirit is 1.5x spirit mod, rounded up Add all together after calculating +1 to mind is +0 to initiative, +2 to mind is +1 to initiative, +3 to mind is +1, etc. +1 to spirit is +2 to initiative, +2 to spirit is +3 to initiative, +3 spirit is +4, + 4 spirit is +6, etc Ex: +1 mind, +2 body, +3 spirit would be 0 for mind, 1 for body, and 4 for spirit, so a total of a +5 initiative Armor and weapons give bonuses to block, depending on weapons and armor, might detract from dodge Basically a feat in any given crew for “captain” that gives them bonus to initiative, bonus to persuasion to own crew and bonus to intimidation for others (or vice versa if you're a crappy captain/ maybe a marine) Design your own ship? Upgrade it during rests, have lots of fun weapons? Everyone has a swim speed, but tritons and mermaids have more, plus certain classes and feats might make it faster? Movement speed: every 10ft walking spd is +1 to dodge  (round up), so 25ft is +3, etc. Stats?? Roll 5d6 drop the lowest or just standard 4d6 drop the lowest….. Point buy so total of mods is +7 or total points for body mind spirit is 42?? idk

Classes: Fighter (with altered subclasses based on monk, ranger/gunslinger, and fighter/barbarian) Sniper- ranger/gunslinger Fighter- what it says on the tin Monk- idk if there's a better name Spellcasters Archaelogist- (ok this one is just straight up only robin) basically a wizard, good at languages?? And history and stuff navigator - combination sorcerer +divination powers? Weather related mostly musician - basically a bard doctor - basically a cleric with hints of druid? Or maybe thats just chopper Other: shipwright - can control ship, gets to choose upgrades?, kinda like artificer, cook - paladin ish and can give buffs during/after rests, thief - just a rogue bc nami is both navigator and thief so i made a separate role, hmmm maybe warlocks could just be devil fruit users tho that would be complicated

Races: Humans - basically just variant humans with a way wider range of size and can have fun stuff like horns and teeth Three eyed people - divination powers? Long arm and long leg - bonus to attack and speed respectively or something Skypeople - useless wings and have primitive observation haki aka super high perception and passive perception snakeneck - honestly idk man but why not Cyborg - halfway between warforged and human Modified humans - humans but physically better and not nice Minks- furries aka shifters but they have an animal form and an even more animal form Fishmen- tritons basically Merfolk- what it says on the tin\ Giants?- idk how that would work in a dnd inspired world bc they too big Dwarfs- like pixies/halflings Celestial dragons- worse and more stuck up than elves but otherwise humans Hybrids: Centaurs, satyrs, harpies, zombies?, skeletons, clones, idk everything

Skills: Major skillz Uhh captain First mate - gets basically telepathy w captain, same but lesser skills plus attack bonus coward - gives you bonus action disengage/hide/dodge/dash Heckin skilled mate - lets you use the full combined total for 3 skills and 1 save Swimmer - underwater combat, higher swim speed, dont need to breathe for like 15 min idk, can get like sneak attack if they come up from the water Minor skills Artist - honestly mostly an aesthetic but also possibly can give bonuses to the ship for stealth, intimidation, plus can make money on the side or something Liar - prof in deception, exceptionally good at distracting and granting advantage Good with animals idk - proficiency in animal handling plus get to have basically a familiar? Built in weapons Language expert idk this is becoming very straw hat specific Helmsman - idk what this one would do if you already have a shipwright i guess allows you to also control the ship bc someone has to be manning the ship unless somehow they get autopilot Blocking - bonus to blocks Coward but cheap - bonus to dodge Like,, calligrapher or forgery artist or something that gives adv on persuasion and deception when through a written message

Fighter Class features: HP: 1d12 per fighter level Proficiencies: all armor, shields, simple and martial weapons Saves: Endurance, strength or speed Bonus to body Fighting style: Evasive: bonus to speed and dodge, get bonus action disengage Just straight up dueling: +2 to damage rolls with that one weapon, goes up to +3 at level 5 Two weapon fighting: goes up to 3 weapon fighting at level 5 Protection: when someone attacks an ally within 5ft of you, can use reaction to give their attack disadv and attempt to block it, at lvl 5 can attack back if you successfully block their attack Second wind (1d12 instead) Action surge Reckless attack

Sniper Class features: HP: 1d10 per sniper level Proficiencies: all ranged weapons and simple weapons, light and medium armor, and shields Saves: the focus one, maybe also wisdom Bonus to mind or body Fighting style: Rifle: long range bonus, adv if use action to aim last turn Pistol: closer range bonus, no disadv on melee range ranged attacks Slingshot: multiple types of shots Bow: bonus to something idk, prolly somewhere between slingshot and rifle Can do dif types of shots, like fire dmg, pierc, ice, basically cast entangle, but unless rifle and pistol get to choose 2 types outside of standard, bow gets 3, slingshot gets 5 Second wind Action surge

Monk is basically exactly the same as 5e so far

Archaeologist/wizard Class Features: HP: 1d8 per archeologist lvl Proficiencies: 4 simple weapons of your choice, 2 mind based skill of your choice, idk some sort of archaeologist kit Saves: wisdom Bonus to mind Spells!!! - mind based Ritual Casting the wizard way Learn spells by spending time during a long rest 1hr/spell Arcane recovery School: - get history related bonuses for each of these? Conjuration Illusion Enchantment Invention

Navigator Class features: HP: 1d8 per navigator lvl Proficiencies: 5 simple weapons of your choice, two skills of your choice, navigator’s tools Saves: wisdom Bonus to mind Spellssss No ritual casting but more cantrips i guess “Navigator points” aka sorcery points also metamagic but i need a better name Style: Weather manipulation/prediction - divination and weather magic mostly Playing field control- move other people/extra charismatic, illusions

Bard is basically the same as 5e so far

Doctor Class features: HP: 1d8 per doctor level Proficiencies: light, med armor, shields, simple weapons, medical kit Saves: focus one, blocks Bonus to mind Speellllss; more healing spells and buff spells, less ranged spells -- mind based Ritual casting,, the cleric way Style: An actual doctor ^™: bonus to healing spells, prof. With heavy armor and more weapons Animal doctor: talk to animals, wildshape basically but still appear weird and sentient and only have like 3 forms and limited uses until later levels War: what it says on the tin again Surgeon of death: hey its trafalgar law and he's here to steal your heart (literally) - confusion powers, plus bonus to dodge and more weapons

Shipwright Class Features: HP: 1d10 per shipwright level Proficiencies: any weapon used in building a ship as well as guns and unarmed attacks, carpenters’ tools, alchemist supplies, woodcarver’s supplies, tinkers tools, smiths tools, leather workers tools, steering the ship, shields, light and medium armor Saves: endurance idk Bonus to body “Magical tinkering” its just cola but sure Infusions Cannons Style: Artillerist- extra cannon options and damage, plus can eventually add them to the ship Armorer- more personal focuses, can idk have extra attacks Battle smith - yeet a companion (or a tank if you want) also eventually get extra attacks

Cook/chef Class Features: HP: 1d10 per cook level Proficiencies: cooks supplies, all weapons, shields, light and medium armor Saves: endurance? Probably Bonus to spirit Essentially casts spells only during rests and as rituals, but has cantrips?? Basically divine sense except its chef’s instincts and specializes in if something is edible or a threat or neither Can essentially craft potions that give buffs and health and use them during battle if necessary, can make like 5x chef level in common “potions”, increase rarity costs more Fighting style: No weapons fighting, no hands, aka the sanji: feet are weapons and boy are they good ones Knives: common weapon, extra damage and bonus to attack rolls Literally any other weapon: idk same as above??

Rogue Literally a swashbuckler rogue,,, idk what else to say, except all rogue ac bonus goes to dodge

Warlocks Required to multiclass into warlock, have 3 basic types: -can turn into animal (aka a zoan) - animal related powers -control/produce element (aka logia) -other (aka paramecia) idk how to do this one tho