#but like i did lose twice before winning and like that first time man. paralyzed to death man.

[goldensunset]

kieran’s champion battle theme is a banger i’m literally feeling residual fear and stress listening to it even afterwards

[bakubros-boo-thang]

Disrespected Devil

Wordcount: -4K

Lucifer x F!Reader

Summary: When you disrespect the demon king, Lucifer is forced to say goodbye to you.

Genre: Angst, smutt, slight fluff, but tbh just angst

A/N: So another first. Not only my first time writing for the Obey me fandom (I have a major Obey me brain rot), but also my first time writing angst and I felt depressed after finishing this (which I did a second ago). I love Diavolo, but I needed a reason for the goodbye to happen so even if his dad is the villain, he is the one to execute it... Hope you enjoy this story.

Warning: NSFW, mentioning of being paralyzed I guess.

‘’What’s with Luci today?’’ ‘’He looks more pissed of than usual…’’ ‘’He probably listened to classical music too long and forgot his homework.’’ ‘’Lucifer forgetting his homework will never happen, but if it did he would look like this.’’ Hearing all those whispers during dinner time is nothing new for you. Tonight is different though. You know why he’s mad and you know who’s the blame. But it’s not as if you don’t have a reason to be just as upset. As dinner slowly ends you know there is only a small gap to avoid a situation. ‘’Beel, how about we go bake something for later this evening?’’ You say, as you cling onto the huge redhead. You know that food is a trigger and you know that this is the way to hide from HIM. ‘’Alright, sounds delicious!’’ He doesn’t seem to notice the way you hold onto him for dear life and the same goes for the others. Clearly, they’ve gotten so used to you that it’s not even necessary to be by your side 24/7. It’s not as if they know tonight will be the last time they see you. It’s a small moment of weakness and you feel your heart clench by the thought of leaving those boys. It’s enough to make you lose your grip on Beel's arm. Enough to bend over, because it physically hurts to leave them behind and enough for Lucifer to finally notice you and come to your aid. ‘’Beel, I think she ate something wrong. No cake tonight, I will see her to her room.’’

And with that, he scoops you up and takes you upstairs. Of course, your room is not an option. It’s way too close to the other rooms. No place to yell. No, Lucifer’s room is soundproof. Made for his nights spent with loud classical music and also made for the occasional screaming match with one of his brothers. As he enters the room, he carefully puts you down on his bed. ‘’Are you feeling alright, Y/n?’’ He says as he lays his palm against your forehead. The feeling of sadness is gone, already replaced by nerves. You know what’s coming. You know you won’t hold back. Will this be your last fight with Lucifer? The question never makes it to the surface, because the moment you nod your head in ensurement, Lucifer opens his mouth. ‘’Good, because you have no idea how foolish you acted today.’’  As mentioned before this room reminds you of the occasional screaming matches he must’ve had with his brothers, but never with you. Pissing Lucifer off is easy. You’ve done that plenty of times. Even made him show his true form, but making him scream, that is something you never achieved. Still, it is worth the try. Tonight is your last chance. As you get up you take a look at his face. What faces you is the cold expression he usually shows when he’s done with someone’s bullshit. The expression you have already mirrored back to him. ‘’So you are going to ignore me?’’ I’m not going to answer him. ‘’Are you serious?’’ I am not going to say a word. ‘’Should I spell out what you did?’’ Don’t say a thing. ‘’You just signed your death certificate.’’ His voice cracks and even though it’s far from the scream you aimed for. It’s still the first sign of emotion from the man you care about so much. ‘’Diavolo didn’t seem upset by what I said?!’’ You can’t help but talk louder. especially after being silent for the past few minutes. ‘’ As if he is going to kill me? ME?! And ruin the bonds that are being formed with the humans?’’

You can feel the tears in your eyes, this fight might’ve been about you being disrespectful in some way, but for you it was different. All this time getting closer with all the brothers. All this time loving them. All this time being there for them. It made you realize that the only one who made it difficult was him. With every step getting closer to each other; there were always a few steps back. An obsession with keeping up appearance, an obsession over a promise he would keep no matter what, an obsession with being a stuck-up asshole; That was Lucifer in a nutshell for you. And still, you couldn’t help being drawn to him. As a moth drawn to a flame. Even when the flame could easily kill the moth. Just as easily Lucifer could kill you. And it’s not as if he hadn’t tried that before. ‘’Y/n, You disrespected his father. I had to bargain for you to even leave the castle. The first time I trusted you enough to take you with me alone. And this is how you behave? You know what he wanted to do to Belphegor…’’ You know this story is his weakness. The reason he ended up becoming the lapdog of his so-called best friend. Still, it only makes you more upset to hear him say it. Even when you can hear the slightest hint of emotion in his voice; his eyes stay just as cold as usual. ‘’He is your best friend, isn’t he? He is my friend too, right? You always do this Lucifer! You always get mad over things and it never solves anything. You get mad at me for having fun. You get mad at me for trying to help. You get mad at me for trying to get closer to you. You don’t share things with me! Maybe Diavolo should’ve locked me up. Might as well get myself killed; it’s not as if you never tried to kill me…’’ Your voice is loud as you speak, but his silence is louder. He just stares at you and then it happens.

It’s not that you’re scared you’ve seen his true form before. It’s just as beautiful as him, but it’s also something that happens when he’s full of rage, just as that one time he tried to kill you. You can feel yourself freeze under his gaze. You can feel yourself moving away from him until you reach the headboard of his bed. Still, he moves closer. Until his lips are inches away from your ears. No screams, only whispers; what a way to say goodbye. ‘’DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON?!’’ You are so shocked by the volume of his voice, the bass it carries, that it takes some time to realize he has more to say. Your ear is beeping as he moves his lips away and locks his gaze onto you. ‘’DIAVOLO IS NOT THE FUCKING PROBLEM, Y/N, HIS DAD IS. YOU INSULTED THE KING OF DEVILDOM IN FRONT OF HIS SON AND MULTIPLE WITNESSES. DIAVOLO CAN’T DO SHIT ABOUT THAT.’’ Only now do you notice the way his hands are gripping your arms; The way his expression has changed from cold to almost desperate. ‘’That guy has only been able to do what his dad wanted. Our friendship is real, but if his father told him to kill me, he would do it without hesitation. Do you really think he would think twice about killing you? IF HE WOULD KILL ME -HIS BEST FRIEND- IN AN INSTANT?” You notice the tears in his eyes. Lucifer is screaming and crying, but this isn’t a win. Before your heart breaks again, his arms are around you and his face is hidden in your neck, but that doesn’t stop the words. ‘’I had to send you away. I had to be cold. They know I care about you, but not to this extent. I had to pretend it was for the sake of the bonds. After you left I had to beg on my knees for your survival. I had to beg. The avatar of pride begged someone on his knees. It was all Lillith over again…’’

There is nothing you can say to fix this. It might’ve slipped your mind while you were there. But you were surrounded by royalty. What might’ve seemed innocent for you, was clearly a lot for them and now you had to leave everyone you loved behind. You can feel the tears fall from your eyes. “I’m sorry Luci, I truly am.” It won’t help, but it’s the least you can say as you look up into his eyes. He is still in his true form, but even with his wings all spread out, he has never looked more vulnerable. There is a sad smile on his lips as he caresses your cheek. “I know you are, you fool.” He says with no trace of the rage he had before. “ I don't want to leave you all…I don't want to leave you!” You know that you sound like a small child that already knows he lost and that’s exactly what you feel like. “It’s too late for that now, Y/n. Diavolo gave me tonight to say my goodbyes.”  You try to distract yourself by focusing on his raven colored wings. “So that means I can’t say goodbye to the rest…”  The pain is back. Never being a fool with Mammon, never dressing up with Levi, doing make-up with Asmo, reading books with Satan, eating with Beel or sleeping with Belphie.  You can’t help but grab your chest again. “Are you okay?” Lucifer is supporting you within seconds as he asks the question. “No I’m not, but atleast I get to say goodbye to you.”  And as you look up he leans in and gives you a tiny peck on the lips. “I’ve wanted to do that for quite some time.” He lets out. You can’t help but smile as you pull him back towards you. “Let's make it a proper goodbye then.” You whisper as you pull him back to your lips.

It’s not like it’s your first kiss with Lucifer, but it’s the last and that’s what makes it so much more special. It’s the combination of mutual sadness and desperation, the hint of rage still brewing somewhere deep inside the both of you. He knows your body, the way it will arch when he pushes you all the way down onto the bed. The tiny gasps when he starts kissing your neck. The way you look away when he starts kissing all the way down your body. ‘’Please keep looking at me, dear. I want you to see how much I am going to miss you.’’ It’s enough to make your heart flutter, the way he starts to attack your core with his tongue right away. It’s obvious he is in a hurry, but even with all the sadness, it’s the best way there is. You can’t help your moans; You’re lucky his room is soundproof. He’s fast, maybe too fast, but with everything that’s going on, it’s the best you can get. And that’s what it is. The best, because within a few minutes you can feel yourself starting to reach that point. The knot in your stomach tightens. your hands end up in his hair and with one loud moan, you erupt around him.

‘’I know that Mammon claims he was your first… in multiple ways… and not to discredit my brother, but I intend to be your last in all of them.’’  He says as he looks at you while he licks his lips. Him saying those words, the way he just made you lose your mind. It feels good, after all the fighting, teasing, kisses and losses , you’re with the man you love. You don’t want to ruin the mood. You’re really trying, but the moment you hear yourself thinking about loving him, about leaving him, about leaving his brothers, you just break. The tears start to form in your eyes and as you try to wipe them away you feel something on your arms. Lucifer. His eyes are cold again as he moves up to face you. ‘’Don’t hide your tears. I am just as sad.’’ He takes a long look at you, lets out a sign, and lays next to you as he caresses your back. ‘’I don’t want to play the ‘’Who has it worse’’ game, truly, I don’t want to, but in all the years I’ve been in heaven and hell, you’re the first human to have ever make my blood boil. Both from nerves and anger nonetheless, but losing you. Losing the one that made my family whole, the one that makes me feel all these emotions, the one that I love, hurts.’’ You can’t help but raise your brow. when he notices your expression he lets out a laugh.

You feel his hand grab your chin and suddenly your lips are only inches apart. ‘’I know you love me, Y/n. I’ve always known. Falling for you, was what surprised me.’’ You can’t help, but roll your eyes at him. Trying to ignore the way his hand feels on your back. The way it slowly moves it’s way to your hips. ‘’You know I do love all your brothers quite a lot too…’’ You say with all the confidence you have left. ‘’I know you do, but still I am the one that has you laying here. Practically begging for more.’’ He let’s out a chuckle as he pulls you closer. ‘’Let’s end this conversation, there’s not enough time.’’ And with that he’s on top of you. You know there isn’t much time, but when he starts to unbotton his shirt it’s as if time slows down. Of course he notices your looks and can’t help to give you a sly smirk. ‘’Don’t worry your next.’’ Is all he says as he takes his shirt off and starts tugging on yours. After your shirt is taken off he takes a look at your body and all you see is adoration on his face. ‘’I want to see all of you.’’ It makes your body flutter. ‘’You’re absolutely breathtaking.’’ He whispers. All this praise makes you feel weak. You try to grab his face, but as you put your arms up they fall down. You feel weak. Not because of his words, but something else. You see Lucifers expression change, the adorations is switched to concern, then back to concentration and before you know it he scoops you in his arms and makes you straddle him.

He’s looking at you, but not really. Obviously talking to himself. ‘’He wanted to be sure…’’ And as he says it he’s back. Back to giving you a sad smile. ‘’What’s going on?’’ Is all you let out. Is all you can let out, as you feel your body weighing more and more. He notices you getting weaker, making sure your settled between him and the headboard of the bed, before he speaks again. ‘’I think it’s time… Barbatos must’ve cast a spell… something that gave us a time limit. The probably knew it would be hard saying my goodbyes to you. Now I’m forced to make haste, just to make sure you’re safe.’’ You can’t even respond. You can move, but barely and all you can do is watch as Lucifer grabs his shirt. As he moves away from you, you’re sure of it. No this is not the way we’re going to say our goodbyes. It needs to be on our terms. Of course those words never leave your lips, but with all the power you have you reach out to him and as he looks back you let out a: ‘’No...not like this.’’ And maybe it’s the few words you’ve spoken, or the way your arm is trembling from all the power it takes to hold on to him, but he crawls back to you. His face is right above yours and if it’s not your eyes making it obvious what you want, you’re mouth will do. ‘’Take me…’’ It’s not a lot of words, but with the face you’re making and the fact that you guys were just in the middle of it, it doesn’t take much guessing. You can see that he’s thinking about it, obviously worried for you, but you can see his eyes change the moment it clicks.

His wings ar still there and you wished you could touch them, feel them one last time, but you should be lucky by what you can still get.’’I used to be a rebel, so why not know.’’ He laughs quietly before he lays you flat on your back.  ‘’I’m going to take care of you my love, promise me to let me know when it’s too much or when you want to stop.’’ You nod your head and you know that your eyes tell him all he needs to know. How bad you want him, how even when you were able to just talk normally, you would want this goodbye to be said only in silence. His body is hovering over yours, his hand touching your neck, giving you goosebumps. ‘’Does this feel nice?’’ he whispers as his hands move towards your breasts. You can only let out a tiny gasp and that tells him enough. ‘’I wish we had more time…’’ Is all he says as his finger enters your core. The moan that escapes you is loader then the both of you would’ve expected. As he continues to stretch you out with one hand, his other starts to prep his cock. ‘’Wish I could… do that for you.’’ You manage to say. You can’t keep your eyes from him. The way he’s hovering over you. His finger inside of you and the way you can’t do anything except for your stares, moans and gasps. ‘’All I want is to feel you right now, my love.’’

And with that he places the tip right in front of your entrance. He makes sure your faces are only inches apart and as he slowly slides into you, his arms make there way to your sides. He’s holding you as he bottoms out in you and the only thing you can do is let out a long moan. He starts moving slowly, tender, putting all his love in every trust. He’s the only one speaking from time to time. ‘’I love you’s’’ and ‘’You feel so good’ s’’ are filling the room. All that praise, all the love in his eyes. The fact that he’s not only literally hitting all your spots, but also the spots in your mind, is what does it for you. You feel yourself unravel under him. You’re so close, that you start to tear up. Your eyes are filled with tears, mostly because of how good this feels, the fact that you’re making love on stolen time, but also because the time is probably running out soon. Lucifer never increases his speed. When he notices your tears he quickly wipes them away and as his hand caresses your swollen cheek he whispers:  Don’t cry, my love, let us enjoy these last moments.’’ And just as he is about to give you a kiss on the lips you whisper a soft ‘’Love you Lucifer.’’ You notice his eyes being red as well and it’s devastating, but it feels so good. the way he keeps a steady pace has you reaching your peak and these final ‘’I love you’s’’, the final kisses is all you need to feel yourself tightening around him. He’s close too, because the moment he feels you tighten around his cock he gives you one firmer stroke and that’s all he needs to cum inside of you. He falls next to you and quickly takes you in his arms. ‘’I wish we could stay like this forever. I would sell my soul… but I guess in some way my soul has already been sold.’’ And all you can do is give him a sad smile before your eyes close.

Lucifer knew that it was time. You were starting to feel cold, too cold. After putting on some clothes and making sure you were fully clothed, he grabbed the coin Barbatos had given him. ‘’Use this before the time runs out.’’ So he had warned him for the curse. He knew he couldn’t be mad at his friends. He couldn’t be mad at you, he could only blame himself. He had shown his weakness by loving you. But you loved his brothers, loved him, despite all he stood for, without any shame. And even with the way it felt like he was going to lose you forever, it still meant the world he had the honor of getting to know you. The moment the coin was thrown a portal started to form and as he grabbed your cold body the darkness swallowed the two of you. As he opened his eyes he saw nothing, but darkness. It took a few minutes to notice that he was in a room. It must’ve been yours, because he noticed a picture of you next to a bed. He was going to take the picture, he was a rebel after all. As he tucked you in, he was at a loss for words. So all he could do was give you one last kiss on the forehead. Not being able to stop the tears falling from his eyes. ‘’Goodbye, my love…’’ and as the darkness was about to swallow him, he couldn’t help but leave one more thing behind. A raven feather, just for good measure. Returning to the Devildom was going to be almost as hard as leaving you here. He was once again going to be the villain in yet another story… the story of how he lost you.

You wake up to sunlight. Too much of it. Why aren’t your curtains closed? Wait, you have to get out of bed, it’s your turn to cook for everyone. Everyone? You live by yourself… right? It feels like you had a weird dream, but you can’t remember it. All you feel is sadness. As if you’ve lost something or someone important. The pain hits you so hard that the moment you try to stand your legs give out and you lay on the ground as tears fill your eyes. It hurts, but you don’t know why. As your hands try to find some grip to get up, you feel something soft. A feather. A raven black feather. It’s weird, but it feels comforting. Before you can help yourself, your lips are already on it and even when you should be grossed out by it, you plan to cherish the little trinket...

[let-me-love-you-loki]

An Ending Within--Ch. 1

A/N: A sequel to Hounds of Justice. You absolutely SHOULD read HOJ before this one, or a whole lot of shit isn’t going to make sense. 

Chapter 1

           I knew the moment it happened. The moment that it became no longer a secret. It wasn’t easy, making the decision that they’d just splashed all over the dirt sheets.

           The moment that Seth found out.

           From someone other than me.

           “What the hell, Llane?” he asked, tossing his phone on the sofa beside me. Our two-year-old daughter, Iosefina, slept snuggled in my lap. I glared up at my husband, daring him to wake her up. It was the first time the three of us had been together in any kind of calm for weeks. I wanted to enjoy the moment with our family, not fight.

           I looked down long enough to see the Bleacher Report headline that read WWE Superstar set to Leave after Summerslam. It wasn’t exactly the way that I wanted to start this conversation with Seth, but there was no ignoring it now.

           “Can we not do this with Sefina right here?” I whispered, curling our daughter a little closer, as if I could protect her from the fact that Seth and I were about to disagree in the worst way. “Let me put her down and we’ll talk.”

 Seth nodded grudgingly and gingerly took Sefina from my arms. He cradled her against his chest as he rocked her on the way down the hallway. When he was out of sight, I took a moment to sink into the cushions and wonder—not for the first time—if I was making the right choice.

           As soon as I set foot in the Performance Center, I knew that wrestling was the thing that I loved. The thing that was going to keep me going when there was nothing else to give me purpose. I wouldn’t trade a second of my time from the day I tried out to the last instant of my most recent match. Being a wrestler, being a part of the WWE roster, had brought me to the Shield—to my dearest friends, my brothers, and my husband. I didn’t begrudge a second of it.

           Not a millisecond.

           But I’d be lying if I said I’d always been happy. The WWE had given me the chance to achieve my dreams. I’d won the Raw Women’s Championship twice. I’d come back from a near paralyzing injury to be a surprise entrant in the Royal Rumble and win a title shot at Wrestlemania. I’d taken on Ronda Rousey and beat her twice. I fought on the grandest stage of them all. I won against Becky Lynch and went on to hold my second title for four hundred and twelve days. There was nothing left for me to do in the WWE.

           I suppose the start of my disillusionment came when Dean told me he was leaving. He had been unhappy for a while, and not even the Shield could talk him into staying. And it wasn’t like we hadn’t tried. I think I even cried, begging him to stay. To not leave me. Because I couldn’t see how I could make it without him. But in the end, my love for Dean and my desire to see him happy overrode my desperation to keep him with me. When he left after Wrestlemania… something just broke inside me.

           The last match we had together—a house show in Moline—had been the best and worst nights of my career. It had been Baron, McIntyre, and Lashley against the three of them. I was at ringside commentary… as much for Renee as for them. Watching the three of them together for the last time—knowing that I would never get to see Roman and Seth and Dean fighting like a fluid machine—had me in tears for the entire match.

           When it was over, we stood together for the final time. They wrapped their arms around each other—around me—and embraced in the center of the ring amid tears. Time stopped and it was just the four of us together in our own little world.

           “You’re not losing me, dollface,” Dean said vehemently. “Whenever you need me, you know I’ll always come runnin’.”

           Roman murmured something in Samoan. I should have understood with all of his lessons, but it was hard enough for me to remember to breathe. Panic threatened to choke me. It took every ounce of strength to keep myself together in front of the crowd.

           “One last time, dollface,” Dean said with a sad smile. He took my face in his hands and pressed his forehead to mine. Then he dropped a kiss on my hair and pushed me toward the turnbuckle. “For me.”

           I hugged him fiercely and went to the corner on shaking legs. The crowd chanted and stomped their feet, strains of Thank you, Ambrose echoing from the rafters. We stood as a unit, one at each corner of the ring, fists in the air, drinking in the sensation of being with one another for the final match.

           The three of them climbed down, stepped between the ropes and hopped to the floor. I closed my eyes, pushing back tears as I balanced on the top. The post was bare—not like the covered ones with LED lights we used on the live broadcasts—so I couldn’t stand on it. It took focus to balance upright on the top turnbuckle, waiting for them to gather around behind me.

           I lifted my face to the sky and fell back, knowing that they were there to catch me.

           One last time.

           Seth’s footsteps pulled me back into the present and away from that night. He crossed the room with heavy steps, his arms crossed over his chest. The sofa dipped as he sat down, turning sideways to face me.

           “Why did you have to do it like this, Llane?” he asked, the hurt flashing in his eyes.

           My heart ached. “You haven’t wanted to hear it,” I said matter-of-factly. “Since Dean left, it’s seemed like the Hounds were off limits. It’s like you wanted me to forget about all of it as soon as his contract officially expired.”

           “You’ve been pining for him for months. Don’t you think it’s strange that you feel that way for a man who isn’t your husband?” The words came out with venom, a sting that he seemed to recognize when it hit. “Listen… I know he means a lot to you. He means a lot to me, too. But he’s not coming back. And we have to get on without him.”

           “See, that’s why I haven’t told you. Every time I even mention him, you act like he’s dead. Dean is my best friend, Seth. And I miss him so much it hurts. You get that, right? I love you, I will always love you, but there are things about me that no one really understands but him. I thought we’d gotten past that.” I sank back into the cushions, surprised at how utterly empty I felt. “I wouldn’t trade a second of the time I’ve had with you, or with the company. But I need you to understand. I’m not happy anymore.”

           Seth moved forward, reaching out to me but not quite touching me. “They’ve treated you like gold since you got to NXT. You’re basically on par with Charlotte fucking Flair. How could you not be happy?”

           I tried to breathe. To push away the terror that was quickly rising in my chest. I’d gotten much better at handing my panic, but the sensation of powerlessness came back with vengeance when I thought about going through this company without Dean. “I’m just not. Roman is on Smackdown now, so I only get to really see him at events before pay-per-views. Dean is gone. I feel like I’ve told the same story for months now.”

           “Am I not enough?” my husband asked quietly.  

           Tears blurred my vision. I moved closer to him, reaching out to take his hands. “Colby, look at me.” The sound of his given name was enough for him to meet my gaze. “I love you more than anything in the world. You are the center of my universe, you know that don’t you? There’s nothing I want in my life that doesn’t include you and Sefina. When it comes to my love, you are more than enough.”

           “But I can’t make you happy,” he murmured.

           “It isn’t your job to make me happy. The only person who can do that is me.” I squeezed his fingers. “You make me feel loved. Safe. And you are a wonderful father to our daughter. Seeing you with her… I love you more every time I see you with her.”

           Seth brushed his thumbs over my wrists as he pulled me close. “Are you leaving?”

           I blinked, squeezed my eyes shut. The tears came in a burning rush that made my heart ache in my chest. “I’m not leaving you,” I said desperately. “But I can’t be happy in WWE anymore.”

           He settled his cheek against my hair and sighed. “If Dean asked you to come to AEW, would you go?”

           “Part of me says yes,” I confessed. “I miss working with him. And he seems happy there. But I know how everyone turned on him when he left. I have friends here that I don’t want to lose, but I don’t think I’m ready to give up on wrestling.”

           “Would you join an indie company?”

           I breathed deeply, feeling something about the sweetness of this moment slipping away into an interrogation with Dean at the center. My voice cracked as I spoke. “I don’t know, Seth. I haven’t made any choices other than I am leaving WWE at the end of August.”

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[kurtty-drabbles]

Evil Witch Kitty au (Charlie and the monster)

N/A: Hey does anyone here likes Ghibli? Does Princess Mononoke come to mind? Cause Charlie and Talia are going to enter in this plot.

@djinmer4 @dannybagpipesarecalling @sailorstar9 @discordsworld @look-ma-no-hands336

The X-men receive a call for help from the Flea, a city who primes to have the best environment protection of all cities, is facing a dire problem, a monster is attacking them and the Flea´s citizen trust the X-men to protect them and to solve the situation in their best interest at heart. The team is composed of Hank, Pixie, Talia and Damian. The monster is stopping the construction of more hotels.

A monster who wears a cloak and has strange glowing green eyes and no one manages to come closer to the construction site ever since the monster appears.

It is to be a simple mission, so, of course, Talia is ready for any obstacle the mission may be hidden(her father often speak to Talia to never let her guard down as even a simple mission can be a dangerous one if the person is a fool and Talia Maximoff is not a fool) and her thoughts(and by extension her father´s) is proved correct as the monster appears howling and attacking the X-men.

“A vaporhag!” Talia exclaimed amazed, her mother, hiring the best tutors for Talia, mentioned how Vaporhags are rare as dangerous. His body resembles of a dog, except is far bigger than a normal one(bigger than a horse), his skin is tough than metal, his fangs can tear anything apart and they can see in the dark. For a moment, Talia remembers her father.

Damian and the others appear to be thinking the same thing as the fur of the monster is blue and is absorbing the light and camouflage in the shadows. “Just like dad!” Damian jokes, that joke does nothing to uplift the mood, and the members’ won´t be Kurt´s fan so soon.

“Dami” Talia chided him “is not the time to joke, the monster is not alone” and Talia is true as the Vaporhags are now 8 and ready to attack and Pixie power-up is ready to fight and kill. The fighting issue and the citizens watch in awe as the X-men are defeating the monsters.

Sadly, their celebration is cut short when a cloaked figure shows up and starts to fight off each X-men, Pixie, Damiam, Hank were all defeated and paralyzed as their bodies are stuck in the first position their minds could come up.

Talia, however, is fighting with a lonesome Vaporhag and is winning, until, she´s not. The Vaporhag is ready to rip her head, until, the mysterious person intervenes. “Jelly, no!” his voice is strong and the monster listens to the man. “Let her go” and Talia watches as the monster left.

The figure, still wearing a cloak, has no time to explain as Talia uses her tail to make this man fall on the ground and, using a dagger she summons quickly, is looking dead set in his eyes, her blue hair is free, her golden eyes are shinning and her lips are in a thin line. The man sees Talia with the dagger and can only think and speak one thing. “You´re beautiful!”

And that makes Talia loosen the dagger in confusion as the man still gazes upon her, doe eyes that are so familiar, until, finally, something click on her mind. “Charlie Pryde?” she inquires and the man finally let go of his secrecy. “Hi, Talia, last time we saw each other you did threaten with a spoon, now, we things are on the next level” and chuckles amused and Talia shakes her head at this crazy man.

Damian watches as the mysterious figure turned out to be a druid and one that does not have the best tracking record with the X-men as Dr MCcoy points out. “Damian, this is Charlie Pryde…the son of the Lady Necromancer” his tone is dry and his glare is not friendly to Charlie. Damian is not the son of Wanda, so, he has no real knowledge of who this woman is, the Lady Necromancer, Talia mentioned her once or twice(“she´s a friend of mom, she´s a necromancer and older than father …and she had one son, Charlie, they are Druids and no…don´t ask me what this means”)

Pixie, Hank are communicating to the others X-men the presence of Charlie with hissed tones and insecurity. Talia is talking with the man as she never saw him before, come to think of, she did mention how he was in a long training or something like that and Damian is the one to explain to people why the monsters are still alive. Whatever Damian said, with the best intentions, it wasn´t enough to satisfy the people.

“Kill those monsters now!” the mayor demands furiously and Charlie´s eyes are fully green and a wall of earth is created(thanks to his words) and the mayor´s words are loud enough to be heard by everyone, even the monsters.

“You won´t hurt them, and if you insist, I´ll destroy the monster right here and now” his glowing hand are pointing to the mayor and the X-men, even Damian are giving him awry eyes, Talia is a practical woman (she has to be) and can put 1 + 1 together to notice one thing.

“Ok, I can see this story is missing many parts” Talia speaks with a firm tone “tell me what is going on, why those Vaporhags are attacking now?” The mayor speaks in gibberish and Talia can see that maybe the monsters aren´t the real villains in this story.

“The mayor wants to deforest in order to open more hotels and commerce and the Vaporhags will lose their last home, so, I´m here to defend them by any means necessary” Charlie speaks firmly and Talia could swear Pixie called him evil Lorax.

“Guys, please, we don´t need to draw blood, we can solve this like adults” Talia beings smiling like in a political fashion. “I´d have the solution, I conquer this land for Genosha and I´ll increase the laws of environmental protection” the mayor lost his grin and is terrified, Pixie and Hank are speaking how she can do that, and Damian seems to be the only one who understands what´s going on. Charlie is confused.

“You can´t do that?” the man asked in fear and Talia continues “I´m princess Talia Maximoff and if I said so we can add this land to the Empire of Genosha, especially as you aren´t treating the land so well” Talia explained.  Then, she turns to Charlie “How long the construction has been going on?”

“I stop them, but, the idea was in motion for more than 3 months” Charlie explained and Talia nods and she continues “And didn´t you signed an accord saying that the forest is sacred and is illegal to build anything there? Now, Genosha was the mediator of the accord and if you are thinking of breaking…things won´t end well to you politically” Talia concluded smiling and the man lets his head down.

Charlie is not politically savvy, but, when Talia gives him a thumbs up he can believe things are ok.

In fact, it did, one week after this exchange and the construction site is over(Charlie saw no problem in using his powers to speed up the cleaning) and the Vaporhags can return to the forest and be protected. One of them lowers his head enough so Charlie could say goodbye, the man touches the creature´s fur with care and get licked on his face in return, and quickly leave with his family. Charlie watches and waves goodbye to them.

Talia explained the situation to the team, however, even knowing it was the mayor at the fault, Hank and Pixie aren´t ready to accept Charlie with open arms, Damian knows nothing about this Lady Necromancer, but, if the X-men are fine with him and Talia then why Charlie is a criminal in their eyes?

“Well, I can´t say I´m surprised” Charlie speaks calmly, once is more than clear Pixie and Hank are avoiding Charlie(Damian has to admit this behaviour is opening some wounds from the past)” If the X-men won´t accept me as a hero, I´ll be one be myself” Charlie offers and Talia and Damian look as this is something completely new.

“Are you going to your next adventurer, druid?” Talia asked crossing her arms a bit amused that he´s not going be all flashy and summon a dragon to take him to his destination, instead, Charlie is using the public transportation. “No, I´ll return home and Netflix and Chill” Charlie concludes and Talia shakes her head again smiling at the man. “And the princess and the prince?”

“Not a prince,” Damian explained having the feeling he´s the third wheel “and I´ll see if Pixie needs help” and leaves the two alone.

“I´ll deal with the political aspect of the situation” Talia explained with a smirk on her face, again, Charlie is not a savvy in politics, yet, he can´t help to add “then the situation is already solved, you seem to have a good grasp of this, the political thing…I´m not expert the art of politics, but, if you want help…” Charlie trails off and knows he´s rubbish in politics.

“Well, you´re not affiliated with the X-men, I may need a witness here” Talia replied calmly and Charlie knows he can Netflix and Chill later.

Jia and Magik are with Kitty as the older woman is gathering clues of this Jimmy person and so far all lead to one place, and she´s not so sure the baby got a happy ending in this deal. “the baby is with Doom?” Jia asked not getting how a baby ended up with Doom, of all people, Magik gives some suggestions, but, still, even she has trouble in understanding the logic.

“Well, it seems Doom has the baby, uhm, I´ll think about my next move” Kitty pipes in.

Kurt is watching Logan with a big grin on his face and logan is drinking his beer wishing the earth could swallow him now. “So, you were having an affair with Magneto´s fiancé/wife? When that happened?”

Logan sighs. “It was a long and complex story, I´m a changed man” Logan then gives the details and Kurt is too amused.

[cerastes]

Years ago, I wanted to make a game. It didn’t pan out due to problems in the team, but I’ve always kept the plot and details of the game dear and never really put it out there in hopes of turning it into a short story instead, some 11 to 13 chapters. However, the more I think about it, the more I realize it is impossible to do so in a direct manner, due to how Video Game the core concept is, that is, it simply wouldn’t work in a literary format, at least not with the same oopmh it’d have as the game I conceived it as. Today, I will reveal all of it, in part because I want to get it out of my chest, in part because I don’t want for this to go unshared and forever trapped in the sands of “maybe one day”. A writing prompt I have pending has to do with this, and that is still coming, but otherwise, this is all about the game I wanted to make, “Notches”, a side-scroller action-platformer game.

Big, long post under the cut. It’s a design document, after all!

This is Part 2, in which I will explain the Shattering and the Grievous Attack mechanics, gameplay mechanics exclusive to Lantern Boss Fights, which are different from the regular Boss Fights we’ve discussed so far. We’ll also get acquainted with three boss fights: The Spider-legged Doctor, Delwin, The 4th Lantern of Manjha, Mirko, and The 6th Lantern of Gemini, Cecile/Vogt. We’ll explore the boss fights themselves as well as the lore of the characters and their place in the story.

Here’s a link to Part 1!

Let’s change up the pace and introduce a Boss Fight that isn’t a dual boss fight! Doctor Delwin Pardosa shall meet you as the boss of the Anti-Soul Laboratories stage. Delwin “wields” what seems to be several small black cubes with blue “veins” that float around him, but you’d be surprised to hear that this isn’t what’s most notorious about Delwin! See, out of his right shoulder, four massive, long, thick spider legs protrude, upon which he normally stands. He looks like a regular scientist, he does, with a lab coat, some khakis, and a coffee-stained green shirt, just, with four massive spider legs protruding from his right shoulder, slicked back hair, black hands with blue veins, and long fangs that suggest that maybe there’s nothing mere about this human any longer. It seems the good doctor has been playing with things we should say “no” to, morally speaking, but would immediately say “hell yeah!” to should the chance present itself (don’t lie). In any case, Doctor Delwin opens up with saying “You’ve caused enough trouble, you little skunk. You’re coming back with us, senseless or limbless if you must. In fact, you get to choose, and I recommend the former”. Summergale simply smirks, golden smile flashing a shine, and responds with “You know, Doc, I always none too subtly wanted to throttle your pencil-pushing neck, I just really wish it wasn’t under these damn circumstances, man”. Delwin lowers his gaze just slightly, his cubes still floating around him in orderly chaos, and murmurs back, “Believe me, Summer, neither did I wish for this, but you leave us no choice”. The cutscene ends, and the fight begins. Delwin has immense mobility thanks to his mutant spider legs, being able to move fast and to stick to the walls of the arena. You must constantly stay on the move while dodging the cubes he seemingly magnetically throws at you. Whenever a cube has missed or you have shot it to deflect it, don’t get careless, because cubes then re-lock onto you and go at you again! There’s three different kinds of cubes: Small, Medium, and Big. The Big ones only go at you once before returning to Delwin, the Medium ones will go at you twice, while the Small ones will pursue you three times before going back to the good doctor. For the First Phase, he mostly just sticks to the walls and ceiling while launching cubes at you, with the occasional swipe of a big hitbox leg to catch you off guard when you’re all up in his grill, shooting the hell out of him. Of note is, if you can get close enough to him, using a Ruby Shot (point blank explosion shot) will knock him right out of the wall or ceiling, making him crash onto the floor and leaving him vulnerable for a couple of shots. Usage of the Ruby Vulture technique (using Ruby Shots to navigate mid air via the explosions, launching yourself in the opposite direction of where you shoot a Ruby Shot midair) is recommended, although in moderation, as many Ruby Shots will exhaust your Mana quickly! Once you reach 75% of his HP, Delwin’s true strategy, Phase Two, begins! Using the magnetic connection between his hands and his cubes, Delwin assembles the cubes together in different shapes, creating Weapon Formations. By combining his many cubes in different shapes, Delwin is able to create different weapons, using a rich diversity of attacks. He’ll sometimes form the cubes in a Sword Formation, always Dyed blue, swiping at you a number of times before dissolving the formation (or immediately, if you clash it thrice). There’s also the Guillotine Formation, which consists of a number of cubes swarming you quickly, colliding with you for no damage, but pushing you and trying to hold you still, while the rest of the cubes form a guillotine blade above you, which soon comes chopping down for big damage. Melee and shoot at the cubes rapidly so you can move out of the way in time, simply jumping or Quickstepping away won’t work! Delwin can also form the cubes together in a Flak Formation, forming several autocannons around him briefly before they all begin shooting a barrage of bullets at you. Keep moving or you’ll get caught! Last but not least, there’s the Prowler Formation, which assembles the cubes into many different flying pods that pursue you and open fire autonomously while the good doctor tries to bum rush you with spider kicks. Watch out for the shots and the spider leg strikes, and don’t panic! The Prowlers are Dyed red, so shoot them out of the air while timing your Quicksteps so as to not get hit by Delwin’s spider kicks and stomps. Keep dodging and responding appropriately to each Formation until you empty his life bar, making him collapse, the cubes falling helplessly, raining around him as the harmlessly hit the floor. The “STAGE COMPLETE” message begins to appear from the bottom of the screen, but as the letters ascend, Delwin knocks them away with a spider kick. “No! Not yet! You stubborn fool, you selfish imbecile! It doesn’t end like this! I’m dragging you back comatose if I have to, Summer!” As he yells, Delwin’s life bar reappears, and it fills back to 30%. This begins the Third and final Phase of Doctor Delwin. Standing up on his human legs, not his spider legs, Delwin raises an arm and assembles all of his cubes in Prowler Formation, in which they will remain for the rest of the fight, and then produces a retractable baton. Not using his big mutated spider legs, the doctor moves far less than before, but he moves around with Quicksteps now that, much like your own, have i-frames. He becomes practically impossible to hit with his Quickstep spam, and attacking too much will prompt a counterswing or leave you open to Prowler fire. His Prowlers are still Dyed red, but shooting them out just temporarily puts them out. He’ll Quickstep towards you and swipe, during which he becomes Dyed blue. You can clash with him by using melee, and you’ll enter a button mashing mini-game, in which you must press melee or space (if you don’t feel comfortable with mashing your right click too hard so as to not abuse your mouse) repeatedly as Summergale clutches the baton and tries to overpower Delwin. Be careful! Prowlers still shoot at you in this situation, not dealing damage but giving advantage to Delwin, so shoot down as many as you can before engaging in the clash. If Delwin wins the mash-out, he bashes the baton against Summergale’s head, damaging and paralyzing her before lashing out at her with all four legs, hitting her for heavy damage and blowing her away. If Summergale wins the mash-out, she throws the baton away, grabs her rifle by the barrel like a baseball bat, and swings it violently at Delwin, dealing a heavy damage and leaving him at a smidgen of HP (near 8%). After this, the player loses control of Summergale as she drops her rifle, approaches the downed Delwin and puts him in a Sleeper Hold. You must then mash Space again to slowly deplete the rest of his life bar. This is more of an ‘interactive’ cutscene at this point, with Summergale pleading for him to just give up while he keeps screaming back at her. “It’ll all be over before you know it, you dumbass! Let me do my job!” Summergale chastises as she chokes Delwin out. “You... Arc damned... Fool... You won’t surv... We can find another... Way to do this... Summer... Think of Sigrun and... The rest of...!” As he finally hits 0% HP, he’s finally out for good, unconscious, and you’ve defeated Doctor Delwin. “There’s simply no time, Delwin...” Summergale murmurs before picking up her rifle and moving on as the “Stage Complete” message pops up again. Momentum opportunities come from interacting with anything Dyed (clashing melee against his Sword Formation and shooting Prowlers), but otherwise, don’t expect much Avalanche against him; he’s a cautious man, which is reflected by how little Momentum you receive (by design, you’re expected to get one, maybe two Avalanches against him).

Haunted Tea Sets reveal that Delwin, along with Sigrun, were the ones that found Summergale in the first place. As her body was carried by the river, they were the ones that were there and hauled her out of it, immediately bringing her back to Delwin’s laboratory in Oflans, the only place remotely technological in the otherwise small town, where they tried their best to care for her. Delwin might be a doctor, but he’s not the healing kind of doctor, so it was all a process of trial and hopefully no error. Summergale was lucky that Delwin was adept enough, and when she woke up, she thanked him and introduced herself as... As... Ah, hey, sorry, do you know who I might be...? Those words came out of her mouth as Sigrun and Delwin looked at her with concern: Amnesiac and beaten up all over. No doubt whatever left her to die in the river didn’t go easy on her. She also made a rather honest and rude comment on his spider legs, but Delwin would like us to not go into that. Delwin is a magitech and physics-focused scientist who enjoys a productive partnership with Sigrun the Blacksmith: He comes up with innovative designs, and Sigrun helps him with the manufacturing process. Sigrun’s clearly much more interested in the more traditional kind of weaponry, but the techniques she’s learned from making Delwin’s ideas into reality has been an invaluable experience. While Sigrun and Summergale became fast friends, the same cannot be said about Delwin and Summergale. Their relationship was vitriolic, and not in the fun and games way, but Summergale knew he was a good man despite his crude, caustic personality, and Delwin knew she was a good woman despite her rowdy, devil-may-care attitude, so they put up with the situation and had a real, if unspoken, respect for each other. Delwin was heavily opposed to Summergale interfering with Markus when he came to squat, but following the voice of her heart, and also Sigrun’s cheering for her to break his nose, she went and beat him up. He’s also the one who cooked up a method to get in the castle: By using samples of Summergale’s blood that he took to determine her blood type in case she ever needed a blood transfusion (a thorough man, this Delwin), he made a “blood perfume” that he sprayed on himself, Sigrun, and Axehilt, riding on the hypothesis that Ceoca Castle searches for specific blood matches in order to determine who goes in and who doesn’t. Seeing as the castle let them in, it seems he was right! Or not. It’s not the blood perfume that let them in, as an out-of-the-way Haunted Tea Set will reveal. The blood perfume was a red herring crafted by the good doctor, and the castle simply recognized Delwin, as he used to work in its Research And Development division at the Anti-Soul Laboratories, where he is a boss. This is lightly hinted at because, while Sigrun and Axehilt are lost as all hell and basically wandering around having their own adventure while hoping to come across Summergale, Delwin knew more or less exactly where to go, as there IS a sense of consistency even with the spatial chaos that rends and twists the castle’s insides, and he banked on Summergale needing to go through the Laboratories. His dialogue is intended to imply that he was waiting for her there, unlike Sigrun, who runs into you. Delwin’s spider legs... Will be elaborated on later.

But that’s enough of these outliers, right? Let’s talk about the Dim Lanterns. The Dim Lanterns are Royal Operatives of Phebea that answer directly to the King and Queen of Phebea, and while they are an elite unit dispatched for important tasks, they were assembled for a very, very specific purpose, and to be able to carry out this important mission, Phebea, a small time kingdom trapped between giants, developed truly remarkable weapons: The Lanterns. The Lanterns possess great power and allow very specific manners of rending reality apart to accomplish something or emulate an ability, and nothing like them has ever been created before. Armed with these, the Dim Lanterns were loved by those who knew of them and feared by those who opposed them. When Ceoca Castle closed up, however, people stopped seeing them, and rumors immediately began popping up that, perhaps, it was them that put the chairs up, turned the lights off, and locked those doors...

The Dim Lanterns serve as the main “Boss Squad”, if you will, in the game. They are very explicitly hostile towards Summergale, and she’d REALLY love to know why this is. Let’s talk about the first Lantern you meet in battle! Mirko The 4th Lantern wields the Manjha Lantern, visually identical to a regular railroad lantern, which Mirko holds by the handle. swinging lo and forth with his every footstep. However, this Lantern endows Mirko with the ability to use razor light. Every light source in a radius around him can be controlled into tendrils of cutting light by Mirko. Mirko is actually a very early game boss, and as mentioned previously, the first Lantern you fight. The purpose of Mirko was not only to introduce the player to Lantern Bosses, but also to drive home the point that Notches is in media res, as in, things were definitely happening before the start of the game, things you can and will find out about, but that you don’t initially know, even if the characters do. When Mirko shows up, his upper torso is covered in bandages and he clearly isn’t at his best. “You ended up coming, you mongrel! Couldn’t just leave it alone, huh? Turning around and walking away just isn’t in your dictionary… And I banked on that.”. Summergale shakes her head and simply points her rifle at him. “I already mangled you once, I sure as hell can and want to do it again”. Mirko fakes a guffaw and then turns his Lantern on, a myriad of tentacles of light sprawling out of the bulbs. “Oh no, don’t get me wrong, you lowlife. We’ve already won. The party’s already going on in the Throne room, and there’s no way for you to stop the gears. I’m just here for myself. Can’t quite let you walk away after leaving me like this, now can I, mongrel!?” The fight begins and, as Mirko is an early game boss, he’s very straight forward and not too fancy. A bit of etymology! “Manjha” is cured and gummed thread covered in powdered glass used in kite fights. The Manjha Lantern takes its name from this thread, as its ability to manipulate light into something physical is used primarily, but not exclusively, to generate hundreds of light threads to cut down foes. Mirko will telegraph long range attacks and lash out with tendrils of light in different patterns: Two tendril thrust, three tendril ascending lashes, a number of tendrils raining on you from above, attempting to pincushion you to the ground, etc. He’s straight forward and attacks with his razor light as you’d expect. Hitting 75% of his HP adds a new move: Matches. Mirko will produce three matches on one hand and, by striking them against his coarse, falconer-like leather gauntlet, will light them. Mirko then flicks the lit matches at Summergale. Lit matches are a source of light, and thus, fall within the jurisdiction of his power, letting him sprawl tendrils of light from them, thus giving Mirko a lot more points of attack from which to strike at you. It all becomes a fight about managing his matches (by shooting them) and dodging appropriately. Shooting matches will award Momentum. Mirko also functions as the tutorial for the Shattering mechanic. Shattering is exclusive to Lantern Boss Fights, and it involves attacking the Lantern during a specific window of time (Shatter Moments) to inflict Shatter on the boss, and what does Shatter do? It functions as a special stun state that allow you to land a Grievous Attack on the boss, powerful attacks with special animations that deal considerable damage. Mirko’s particular Shatter Moment is when he’s striking his matches, taking attention off from his Lantern. Hitting the Lantern doesn’t deal damage to the boss (usually), but it does deplete their Lantern HP, which takes the form of icons depicting their Lantern under their HP bar. Each boss has different amounts of Lantern HP, with Mirko having 2. You hit his Shatter Moment twice, and BAM, you earn a Grievous Attack. The moment you earn a Grievous Attack, a marker will appear somewhere on the arena, such as right next to the boss, or a few character’s width away, or maybe above the boss. Move to the marker during the Shatter Stun and then use Shoot or Melee to use the Grievous Attack. In Mirko’s case, you need to stand right next to him. Using Shoot results in Summergale hitting Mirko in the stomach with three consecutive uppercuts, lifting him off the floor and then using her rifle while he’s above her to stab him in the stomach, exploding him away with a Ruby Shot. Melee, on the other hand, has Summergale thrust her hand in his bandaged injuries, draining a ton of Mana from his and then kicking him away. This deals less damage that the Shoot Grievous, but it seals away his Match attack for a while and restores your MP! That’s the general rule behind Grievous Attacks! A Shoot Grievous does a lot of damage, while a Melee Grievous recharges all of your MP and inflicts a debuff on the boss, usually locking away their most powerful attacks for a bit. Knowing whether to use Shoot G or Melee G is essential: Do I go for big damage? Or do I seal an annoying attack for a while at the cost of damage? I want the player to ask themselves this question when fighting different Lantern Bosses! Maybe you’re good at dealing with the particular attack the Melee G seals, so you go for extra damage instead! Maybe you particularly have trouble with the move, so you seal it and thus are able to deal with the fight much more easily for some time, racking up damage! It’s up to you! This continues until he drops. Simple! Very early game boss, and in fact he was designed with “First boss of the game” in mind. He’s actually the prototype of the Dim Lanterns in general, with a simplistic power compared to those of his peers. As the boss ends, Mirko curses your name and bleeds out, forcing a stiff, bitter laughter as the light abandons his eyes, reminding you that “the ball is already rolling, mongrel...!”. And so ends Mirko’s life, his Lantern shattering. Instead of her usual Stage Complete pose, Summergale instead takes out a small knife and carves another notch on the stock of her rifle.

...However, this is not the last you see of Mirko! Well, in a way, it is, but remember what I said before? That Mirko was meant to show that the narrative of Notches is in media res? Well! Let’s introduce a new gameplay mechanic! Some Haunted Tea Sets unlock boss fights that took place before the game’s start in the form of playable flashbacks. After unlocking certain Haunted Tea Sets that have to do with each other (let’s say, for example, #3, #7, and #21), the memories jostled by these associated flashbacks will unlock a new memory in Summergale, which allows her to remember or reminisce about events that took place before the game’s chronological beginning, especially fights! Mirko dies as the first boss, but MUCH later in the game, you unlock his Flashback Fight! In this fight, Mirko is much tougher. He’s not wounded and he’s at top condition, unlike the ‘first’ fight, which had him severely wounded. I had the idea of giving Mirko a pretty big HP bar in the first fight, but only filled up to around a third of its total capacity, to reflect that he was badly, badly wounded. Now, that big HP bar is full, and Mirko gets access to his full moveset! Unlike the prior fights, I will begin explaining the lore and plot of the fight, and then proceed to the boss fight per se, as it is important to know the context for Mirko’s second round (but first chronologically) to make sense of a big part of his arsenal this time around.

Mirko is the 4th Lantern of the Dim Lanterns, a hot headed young adult who’s got what it takes to talk the talk and walk the walk. Rising the ranks of the Phebean Army quickly thanks to his motivation and vim, he was hand-picked by the King to participate in the Lantern Project after winning an unsanctioned fistfight tournament the soldiers organized by themselves and that the King caught wind of. The King of Phebea, a capricious man with an intense love for the people and the things the people did for entertainment, disguised himself as a civilian and attended the tournament, cheering and jeering with the best of them. After Mirko won, some bad cats that didn’t particularly agree to his underdog victory, mostly due to losing big at the betting table, were looking to introduce Mirko to their daggers, but the King, a man with experience in the realm of rotten eggs due to his political background, immediately caught on and announced his presence, stopping them in their tracks and inducting Mirko to the good life of high society and elite guardsmanship. After a brief stint as a royal guard and tavern hero at Ceoca Castle, the King asked him if he wished to volunteer for the Lantern Project, and Mirko, eternally thankful to the King, accepted. Mirko was assigned the 4th Lantern, the Manjha Lantern, which made good use of his imagination and stamina to properly draw out the hidden potential of the otherwise simple Lantern; The Manjha Lantern was always meant to be a support Lantern to the others, not one to operate by itself. The ability to manipulate light as a hard construct might sound simple, but it is its simplicity that makes it so strong: By functioning as support to other Lanterns, he effectively can keep their Lanterns safe by erecting razor tendrils from them, as their Lanterns, being a source of light, fall under the jurisdiction of his power.

When Markus reported that someone name of ‘Summergale’ had thoroughly trounced him, Mirko immediately departed the castle and headed for this backwater village. Though he didn’t find her in Oflans, he simply asked if anyone knew where she was, and the townspeople, who admire the Dim Lanterns and Summergale, thought he came to offer her a job with them, and immediately told him her whereabouts: The Jalibu Plains, to the northwest of Oflans Town. The Jalibu Plains were known for being beautiful and full of greenery, and on that particular day, Summergale was accompanying the wheelchair-bound Benson Lomprat, aspiring mapmaker, through the plains so he could properly draw the map of the geography on his up-and-coming map. The Lomprat Family (more on them later when we tackle the plot in full!) is the household that took Summergale in initially after she was found in the river. Benson, 15 years old, the son of the household, has always been handy with ink, his dreams of drawing an accurate map of Phebea were only slightly curbed by his disability. He didn’t want to make just any old map, oh no, he wanted to make a truly dedicated, detailed map of his homeland, with illustrations and trivia of the flora and fauna, where one could find cultural heritage, the whole nine (and more!) yards. Summergale would take the passionate Benson on treks through the Oflans countryside to help him with his dream. Unfortunately, this particular outing to the Jalibu Plains would see some problem: Bugbears. Creatures native to these plains, these brutish monsters are intensely territorial, and while they usually keep to the hillside borders just outside the Plains, they sometimes intrude, and today seemed to be one day. There’s a cutscene here, where Summergale and Benson have some small talk before two Bugbears arrive and threaten them. “Alright, Benny, hang on tight, I’ll deal with these punks before the ink on your feather dries!” “...That sounded cooler in your head, didn’t it, Summer?” “I’m going to feed you to them.” The cutscene ends and you fight these two enemies. Despite their intimidating appearance, they are actually an easy fight. However, once you finish them off, a clapping is heard in the distance. It’s Mirko, and he compliments you on your fine riflemanship: “...Well, you were always pretty damn formidable with your hands.” Summergale is shocked, as that statement implies he knows her. “Wait... You know who I am? E-excellent…! Please, please tell me, who was I in the past?” It’s here that Mirko realizes she’s amnesiac, and he can only laugh. Plead as she might, however, the mysterious man refuses to divulge any information, and ultimately says “beat it out of me, if you can, you filthy dog!”.

The real boss fight with Mirko begins now. His patterns are far more complex and he plays a lot more with delays to throw off your dodge timing. Unlike before, shooting at him wildly will prompt a counterattack in the form of him catching your bullets and shooting them back at you with Light Tendrils if you overdo it. He also uses the matches from the get-go, meaning you can have to keep an eye out for his multiple sources of light and their fluid attacks at all times. Unlike the first fight, Mirko also tosses out flashbangs, which, if your are caught in the blast radius off, stun you, but even without the stun effect, they produce short-lived, VERY damaging masses of Light Tendrils. The flashbangs are Dyed red, and shooting them makes them explode. If you can shoot one in front of Mirko, he will become stunned himself, an act that awards you plenty of Momentum. His Lantern HP is now 5 instead of 2. However, the true terror of Mirko starts at 50% HP. When he hits half health, a small cutscene begins in which he yells “Every time…. Every time! You Arc damned obstinate, obscene mongrel! Even back in the castle, every time, you…!” A myriad of tendrils sprawl out of Mirko’s Lantern and start piercing the Bugbear corpses, making them rise on their feet as puppets controlled by Mirko’s threads of cruel light. The fight resumes, and now you have to fight the ever-rising Bugbears as you handle Mirko himself simultaneously. Emptying the Bugbears’ HP bars makes them collapse momentarily, but Mirko soon enough sews them back together and makes them rise and haul with his Tendrils. In addition to his prior strategies, now he organizes team attacks with the Bugbears, such as making them rush you and then attacking you right after you Quickstep with a tight timing, or making them do a grapple attack that holds you in place while he uses a powerful charge attack or throws a flashbang to deal big damage to you. Mirko’s Flashback Boss Fight is meant to be a fairly difficult micromanagement-based fight that tests you on quick decisions, but it’s still mid-game level stuff. The Bugbears are pretty fragile, and if you hit Mirko with the flashbang trick, he loses control of them, making them crumple. It’s all about finding the right timing, as there’s a lot to keep in mind, but Mirko and the Bugbears are rather slow. Keep a calm head, deal with each attack as it comes, and you should emerge victorious.

After the fight, Mirko, gravely wounded, still refuses to speak a word about Summergale’s past, claims this isn’t over, and rips open the Bugbears, spreading their blood around in a spectacular manner. Summergale is about to go at him again, but Benson cries out to Summer, warning her that they must leave immediately: Bugbear blood is pungent, and it attracts other Bugbears, enraging them. The area will soon crawl with Bugbears from all the blood spread from these two, and so Summergale gives up and takes Benson and herself out of there… But not before Mirko says one last thing: “It doesn’t matter if you have your memories or not… It’s already begun, and not even you can stop it now. Just go back to your hovel and await the great news, traitor”. Summergale didn’t quite fully understand this, but her stomach felt like a bottomless chasm when the words “It’s already begun” reached her ears: She didn’t know what that meant, but just judging from her body’s response, she knew something: It was bad, and it had to do with her.

Well… More on Mirko later, when we tackle the plot in full. He is, in a way, one of the catalysts of the story, after all. After this, they meet in the castle and Summergale kills him, as mentioned previously.

But enough about Mirko, let’s meet the last entry in this post… Or shall I say, Entries. Plural.

“Another dual boss, Dreamer?” you no doubt asked yourself. No, but at the same time, yes! That’s my answer, and this is my explanation: The 6th Lantern of Gemini, Cecile/Vogt.

In an area known as the “Numb Gaol”, the otherwise unnamed underground prison of Ceoca Castle, Summergale and the player, surrounded by torture tools and chains that have not seen sunlight in years, will do battle with Cecile. Cecile, much like Summergale, is tanned, which contrasts beautifully with her light blue hair. However, neither of these is the most striking aspect of Cecile, oh no, that’d be her crown of horns. Cecile’s eyes are completely covered by what can only be described as a crown of horns. Cecile is a Glaistan, from the Glais Commonwealth, a country in the Southern Half of the continent known for its goat-like people. Most Glaistans have a set of two long horns, but Cecile is an abnormality, possessing instead an innumerable amount of smaller horns that grew like an unkempt garden on her forehead area and around her head, covering her eyes. Cecile wields the 6th Lantern, the Pact Lantern, which looks exactly like a traffic light. Cecile wears the seemingly unwieldy pole-supported traffic light on her back without a problem, which contrasts with her purple robes with silver patterns. The Glaistan expresses her gratitude for being able to confront Summergale, telling her not to worry about the torture tools surrounding them: She plans to kill her at the first opportunity. Summergale responds with “What, you don’t want to hear how I did that in the first place?”, which is immediately shot down by Cecile with “Oh, don’t try to to get any impassioned hint from me like that. Mirko already told me you don’t remember a thing. It’s a pity you’ll die without knowing why… You won’t be able to repent in the afterlife, and the mere thought makes me ache, but it is what it is.”

“Tch… Arc damned slimy bastard made sure to let everyone know about my little memory loss problem, huh? Hey, I’ve come this far, at least talk to me a bit. You’re going to kill me, right? At least let me know what I did to you all!”

“...No,” replies Cecile, “there’s no need to te… To te… Hrrrg… YYYYYOU FLACCID BACK ALLEY WHORE, YOU’VE GOT A LOT OF NERVE SHOWING UP HERE!”

As she’s saying this, Cecile suddenly clutches her chest, and her horns begin to shift, opening the way to her eyes and accommodating themselves more orderly, on her forehead and to the side of her head, completely unlike the unkempt garden of horns she previously had. Her red eyes now visible, it seems her change was not only physical.

“You! How dare you forget about everything! How dare you just relinquish your sins as if you weren’t the one who ki-- No, shut up, Cecile, I’m letting her have it! This bitch will die regretting what she did, she doesn’t deserve a pleasant passing!” -- ‘Cecile’ convulses once anew, and her horns become an messy crown that covers her eyes again -- “You don’t get to decide that, Volg. On the off chance that she beats us, she’ll armed with more knowledge, and knowing is half the--” -- Cecile’s horns shift once again -- “BY THE ARC, yes yes, it’s half the damn fuckin’ battle, yes, you say that every time, would it KILL you to look up some new phrases or proverbs? You ok we beat her to an inch of her life, then I tell her, then we kill her, then?” -- Volg once again turns into Cecile -- “That’s acceptable, actually.”

“Well, you can tell my amnesia is particularly terrible, because there’s no way I would otherwise forget a freakshow like you,” snarks Summergale as she assumes her combat stance.

“My, how rude.” “Choke on dick and die!”

Cecile and Vogt reply in quick succession and the Lantern Boss Fight against Cecile/Vogt begins.

Cecile and Vogt are two personalities that are housed within the same body. Cecile is the more rational and calm of the two, while Vogt is rowdy and aggressive. Despite their fundamental differences, however, the two consciousnesses usually find a middle ground where they can agree to do something, for they come from the same psyche, after all. The Pact Lantern that they wield has the special power of allowing the wielder to do “intrinsic transactions”. That means they can trade aspects of themselves for other aspects, or to heighten something they already have. Cecile and Vogt, however, utilize the Lantern in a different manner: Cecile, a skilled and intelligent spellcaster, trades her physical faculties for heightened mental faculties. This manifests around her as a transparent green ‘command center’ that surrounds her (imagine keyboards, monitors, a little spinning radar, etc), with the Lantern standing tall behind her as the centerpiece. She floats around very slowly, but she is constantly bombarding the player with different spells. As she’s traded most of her physical faculties, she can only move her arms and hands, and does so to operate her ‘command center’, which is how she launches spells (it makes her own advanced spellcasting easier to comprehend to herself by associating some physical actions to it is the lore reasoning, and the design reasoning is that it looks cool). Cecile bombards the player with the Four Elements, in contrast to her otherwise technological look (intentional; she might be using the primordially technological Pact Lantern, but she is from a Southern Half nation, and an expert traditional spellcaster), all of which have a different tell before assailing Summergale. The Glaistan will shoot quick blue-Dyed Firebolts directly at Summergale, (you can melee these to absorb them; the tell is her mashing on her keyboard), splash around blobs of water that remain suspended in the air before sharpening into ice spikes that descend all at once (you can shoot attack these blobs in any manner to get rid of them, which is recommended as they are numerous and descend quickly and all at once, which might catch you off-guard as you’re dealing with other attacks; the tell is Cecile spinning a steam valve with her right hand), creating a Summergale-sized wave of earth that comes from behind you or, if used on one of the platforms in the arena, makes that platform unusable for a while (there’s nothing you can do about these other than dodge them; the tell is her yanking on a lever with her left hand), and creating delayed blasts of wind where you stand (keep moving, nothing to do about these; the tell is Cecile manually making the radar device on the command center spin faster with her hand). Cecile moves slowly across the air and doesn’t really do much to defend herself other than viciously launch attacks. Periodically, an Earth Carapace generates around her, which takes a couple of shots or melees to break, and if you hit her too many times, she’ll use a blast of wind to propel herself away, regenerating a set amount of Earth Carapace. At set intervals, however, Cecil will tag Volg in by yelling her name. When Volg is in control, she becomes a completely different boss. Volg’s usage of the Pact Lantern is to trade “perception” for “wrath” and “instinct”. In place of the ‘command center’, Volg wears a transparent red spiritual armor, and instead of using magic, she uses the Pact Lantern itself as a large polearm-club. She attacks in a variety of ways by swinging the traffic light around. Her main attacks are a warcry followed by a quick thrust with the Lantern, dragging the Lantern across the ground in an uppercut motion to launch damaging torture tools at you (Dyed red), and spinning the Lantern rapidly to deflect shots and advance towards you. Shooting at Volg is mostly useless, as she will block most bullet. All of her attacks, however, are dyed Blue, and clashing is how you mostly will defend against her. Trying to simply dodge her around is going to get you beaten to pulp, as most of her ferocious moves have follow ups with very strict timing to dodge, or frame trap you entirely if you don’t clash. Volg can also stomp hard on the ground to make torture tools near her bounce upwards, catching a cleaver between her teeth, and VERY quickly lunge at you with the Lantern, spitting the cleaver either mid-sprint or immediately after the attack. Unlike Cecile, Volg is an expert physical fighter, especially trained against ranged foes. Volg can also tag Cecile back in by yelling her name.

So, how do you even deal with this boss? Cecile is what I’d call “HP Phase” and Volg is what I’d call “Lantern Phase”. When Cecile’s out, you mostly have to dodge, Quickstep, and disable her attacks while putting damage into her. If her floating away is too annoying, use the Amethyst Shot (Chain shot) to pull yourself to surrounding platforms, to the ceiling, or, if you can, to hit her and pull her to you. Summergale’s melee attacks drain magic, remember? Chain her in and melee her to debilitate her magic powers while refilling your own Mana. Directly after meleeing Cecile, she’ll use her wind to pull herself away from you, but will fly noticeably slower, attack slower (and her magic is smaller), and generate Earth Carapace slower. Melee her a certain amount of times, and you’ll forcefully make the AI tag out. It’s important to note that Cecile will cancel out all of your Gem Shots except Amethyst Shot with her own magic, so you’ll rely mostly on normal attacks and Chain for this. While she’s Volg, shots are mostly useless, and instead of dodging, you’ll want to meet her attacks with clashes. Volg phases are mostly to deal Lantern Damage and fill Avalanche when mastered. Clashing any of her attacks builds Momentum, every third clash you land directly against the head of her traffic light Lantern will take one Lantern HP out of her total of 4. But watch out, Volg’s attacks reduce a lot of Momentum if they land! Taking out one Lantern HP from Volg stuns her momentarily, dissipating her “armor” and letting you hit her for increased damage (especially with a Ruby Shot, the explosive one). Do NOT use Amethyst Shot (Chain shot) on her, as she’ll catch the chain’s head and throw you across the screen with a special counterattack. The main advantage to use on Volg, as mana allows, is to use the expensive Topaz Shots (hitscan thunder shots that immediately travel the screen and deal good damage, but use a third of a full MP bar per pop). Volg can block bullets, but not thunder, which will electrify the metal Pact Lantern and hurt her. The optimal moment to use it, however, is when she’s preparing her Lunge attack! Once she has caught the cleaver between her teeth, get ready. The moment she starts running at you, hit her with the Topaz Shot. This will cause her to crash from the velocity and force of her sprint being broken and will send her cleaver flying, Dying it red (remember this). At this moment, you can attack her directly briefly, BUT, if you are a true Notches pro (and you are), you can wait until the cleaver is aligned with her. If you shoot the cleaver at the right moment, it will be sent hurtling towards Volg, hitting her for big damage and giving you a huge boost to Momentum. Once only 15% HP remains, whichever boss is currently active will get away from your and say something (Cecil: “That’s far enough… Volg, she cannot leave this gaol alive! Engage Blood Pact!/ Volg: “Damn you, damn you, damn you! Oi, Cecil! That’s enough shitting around! Blood Pact time!”). The active boss then sends the Pact Lantern into overdrive, changing their color to yellow and emitting a powerful aura. Cecil and Volg can now tag each other in and out extremely fast, mid-attack even, so it will become a test to everything you’ve dealt with so far. The way this works is that Volg will mostly be in command, leaping at you, and while she’s midair, she’ll tag to Cecile, who’ll let out a magic attack or infusion, and quickly tag back to Volg so she can finish the melee attack. It’s a strategy based on their perfect coordination, but you can use this against them! Remember how Cecile blocks Gem Shots and Volg blocks normal shots? Using two shots quickly followed by a Gem Shot will trick Volg into trying to block the Gem Shot as if it were a normal shot, getting hit. Likewise, using two Gem Shots followed by a normal shot with get Cecile mixed up and make her unable to block it. The advantage of the former is obvious, but why would you depend on the latter strategy? To hit the Lantern, of course, and deal Lantern Damage. Shots directly to the Lantern in this phase deal one Lantern HP. With so little HP remaining, it might be wise to do so! Keep up the mix-ups and finish them up in whatever way you wish. Grievous Attacks against Cecil are activated directly below her. Shot Grievous makes Summergale use her Chain Shot to pull her to herself, blasting her away with a point black explosion from the Ruby Shot, while Melee Grievous makes Summergale use her Chain Shot to pull herself up to Cecile, punching her square in the face and bringing her all the way to the ground with, disabling her flight, Ice Spikes, and Earth Carapace temporarily. Grievous Attacks against Volg (including the Blood Pact phase) are activated adjacent to Volg. Shot Grievous makes Summergale jump kick Volg in the chin, land behind her as she’s collapsing backwards, pressing the barrel of her rifle against her back, lifting her, and letting loose three consecutive Topaz Shots pointblank, while Melee Grievous makes Summergale give Volg a firm uppercut to the chin, followed by gripping her rifle by the barrel like a baseball bat, and smashing it against Volg’s kneecap, disabling her dash attacks and slowing her down temporarily.

After being defeated, Cecile lies midst the many torture tools. “And so, you claim another one of us, you greedy nobody… Haha…”

“...I couldn’t convince you to at least give me a hint, could I?” Summergale inquires as she looms over the dying Glaistan.

“You’re getting nothing out of m--EAT SHIT.” interrupts Volg with her usual glamour.

“Ah. The other one. Well, I don’t exactly have all the time in the world, so I have to get going.”

“Wait,” Volg hails, standing up with what little strength her broken body has left. “...I hate your guts, but I ain’t a pussy like Cecile. You fought us directly and you beat us. If nothing else, I can give you a hint -- Volg, stop right now, die with some dignity! -- I should say the same to you, Cecile. It’s over. We already played our part, we can just keel over and die, knowing those Urelian shitheads will get what’s coming to them.”

“...So you’re really targeting the Ureles Empire. Don’t you realize that this will only fan the flames of their wrath!? I hate those bastards as much as the next girl, but I also know how to not sign a death warrant for my country!” yells Summergale.

“And whose fault do you think that is!?” Volg chastises as she crumples once more, her wounds too great for her. “We had the perfect plan! We had the perfect way to exterminate all of those bastards in one fell swoop! And you ruined it all in one day, you smashed this carefully calculated clusterfuck of righteous retribution!”

“I… Did? How could I alone have done that?”

“Ask your partner over there,” Volg whispers as she points at the rifle. “The second notch holds the answer, you sick bastard.”

“The second notch?”

“Yeah… That rifle should have had two notches carved on the stock when you came by, no? Ever wondered about them?”

“Who did I kill?”

But Volg simply smiles. “See, Cecile? Someone that doesn’t know anything can’t feel any pain, but give them a little morsel… And… Suddenly… They realize just how badly… They are starving…”

With Volg’s sick smile, Cecile and Volg pass away, not before taking one last jab at Summergale: Giving her just enough information for her to realize just how little she knows. Summergale silently takes out her small knife and carves not one, but two new notches on the stock of the rifle.

As for their lore, to close up this post, Cecile used to be a single consciousness, but during the tests and development of the Pact Lantern, she grew very close to a rowdy scientist named Volg. The two became inseparable friends, if not more, who would often banter and take jabs at each other, but all in good fun. Cecile was a foreigner from the Glais Commonwealth, and while Phebea is known for its hospitality for foreigners, the ambiance in the castle was a little different. While not xenophobic, the royal guard is rather nationalistic, so Cecile, who was brought in by the King of Phebea as his Court Wizard, received a rather cold treatment. Volg, on the other hand, always treated her fairly and warmly, if not lacking at all in friendly vitriol. During research, however, a certain incident occurred in which an Ureles Empire spy found his way to the Laboratories one day, late at night. Volg, who was the only one still working there, saw him, and just as she rang the alarm, a poisoned dagger thrown by the spy pierced her neck. By the time help came, Cecile included, Volg was already dead. Consumed by her wrath, Cecile eviscerated the spy with her deadly magic, swore revenge, and volunteered for the Dim Lanterns project. The Pact Lantern’s special ability is to do “intrinsic transactions”, and so Cecile’s first transaction was to bring Volg to life. By sacrificing part of herself, Volg was revived! In her mind, at least. Rather, what Cecile did was give part of her identity away so it would become a facsimile of Volg who would live in her forever. It was the only solution she had, and ever since, Cecile and “Volg” have shared a body, a mind, and a reality submerged in denial. Cecile’s horns move way to reveal Volg’s eyes when Volg is the dominant personality because Volg’s eyes were Cecile’s favorite part of her, and the Pact Lantern’s power was so absolute due to Cecile’s conviction that she could revive her this way that her body changes to fit this ideal. In other words, it’s an unnatural metamorphosis brought by the Lantern. Change the inside enough, and changes reflect on the outside, after all.

Well, that’s that for this post! I hope you enjoyed it. The next post is more technical-minded, with stuff like controls, level design, and other such things. See you next time!

[darkzorua100]

Well we have to quarantine Yusaku now. Apparently he thinks he’s Yuya 2.0 (even better actually since Yuya never used Rituals) and can do all the Summoning Methods and this week being Fusion Summoning (so much for the Firewall Dragon upgrade huh? Yeah there’s no way in hell they are going to allow him to use that card anymore considering it is going to end up getting banned sooner then later).

Also if the pattern continues, Synchro, Xyz, and Pendulum Cyberse monsters should be on the way (Cybernetic Horizon was Ritual based and now Soul Fusion is going to be Fusion based (next main set should be Synchro based). And if Soulburner is going to be following in Playmaker’s footsteps like with the Ritual, we should be getting a Fusion for him the next time he duels and so on with the other Summoning methods.

Okay we are going to have to quarantine Takeru too. You don’t use Fusions and get away unscaved. I’m already counting down the days until Yusaku goes completely nuts now. 

I’m just saying this now, if Revolver returns and pulls a freaking Akaba Reiji with him using all the different Summoning Methods, I will not be surprised. The dude pulled a freaking Extra Link, I’m pretty sure he can do it.

So besides me being my paranoid self as usually, what else did I think about episode 54. Not going to lie, I enjoyed it more then I thought I would. Blood Shepherd was able to stop Playmaker from using his Storm Access twice along with dealing some really good hits on Playmaker and his life points and would have actually beaten him to if it wasn’t for Cyberse Magician whose effect kept halfing the damage he took (love that card so much in my Cyberse build). Of course though, to no ones surprise, Playmaker pulls out the win but to everyone surprise, he did it with a Fusion Monster. 

It is funny. A while ago, I was thinking to myself if the writers were going to give Playmaker the other Summoning Methods with his monsters being based off the main characters of the past series’ aces. Cyberse Magician and Cyberse Witch are clearly Playmaker’s Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl so I was thinking his Fusion could be something similar to Elemental Hero Neos but that clearly wasn’t the case and it actually turned out to be the silhouette we have been seeing in the opening, not our new Firewall (which again, who knows if he will ever use Firewall again if it does end up getting banned).

We also got to learn about Blood Shepherd's past and why he hates AIs so much. Him and his mother got into a car accident that was being driven by an AI driver with his mother getting paralyzed and him losing the ability to move his right arm which ended up getting what I’ve assumed to be amputated and replaced with a metal one. Damn, that sucks but that’s not what I’ve found interesting about this whole thing.

There was a car crash in progress when their AI driver lost control.

Key word: lost control.

I’ve said this before and I’ve say this again.

“One's an incident, two's a coincidence, and three's a pattern.”

Aoi and Akira’s parents were in a car accident.

Takeru lost his parents in an unknown accident.

And now Blood Shepherd and his car accident.

That’s three of them. We definitely have a pattern.

Does this make me think that Blood Shepherd or his mom have some connection to the Lost Incident? No, I don’t think so. I just think they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. It looks like something ended up jamming their driver and that’s what caused it to crash. I think the same thing was what caused the initial accident and they were just the casualties of who was actually being targeted.

Whoever was the first person to be in accident.

So yeah, we got some kind of hit man. Oh this story has really got a lot more interesting. Is this SOL Tech’s doing or is it someone else? Who knows but I am very curious to know why. Is this because of the Hanoi Project or again, something else entirely?

Nothing really much else to say about 54. 55 is going to be really good and from the preview, it looks like we are going to be getting a lot more of Ghost Girl and Blue Girl with Aoi being a badass in this windstorm. I’m really looking forward to next week and what else is to come from this.

[fleetingfan77]

The Flaw in Every Crystal Chapter 7

Welcome to Praxus Arc Part 7

End of Welcome to Praxus Arc

aka: If it didn’t work the first time, you didn’t use enough TNT

aka This one ends with a bang

aka The next arc has the chapter that made me cry!

So we open on Jazz still giving his award-winning performance as the perfect mate to Prowl to try and get enough trust points to make a break for it. Prowl also plays his part of not suspecting anything and probably his want for his life to be where he wants it to be right now probably means he isn’t questioning anything too hard. 

Jazz now gets to stay outside when Prowl is at work, which perfect time to poison the engergon! Yeah, sorry I’ll stop bringing that up now. God Prowl is condensing in this moments, “You can stay outside if you promise to be good.” Like lecturing a child.

Odd that Prowl puts having the collar removed on the table of rewards. I guess I would have thought that would be something that just stayed on, unless he meant switching the collar for a non-shock/paralyze version. It’s easy to look on the chapter and want Jazz to wait to lose the collar before putting the plan into motion, but at the same time I can understand how desperate he is to get away as soon as possible.

Man it would suck if he did get out and then only had the sour energon to survive on as rations. Though good to see him thinking ahead to after he gets out. We then see him setting up for more explosions in both THAT ROOM and the front door to make sure both get blown up real good. Surprised he didn’t also go for the office just to be petty, but I guess he felt that would have been one explosion too many. 

I wonder if the sparks/fire would travel down the energon line 1930′s cartoon style or if it just went up all at once. Jazz did get to be able to get out of the way for all the good it did him. Jazz still ends up pretty hurt and disoriented from the explosion, so I guess the third time would have been the real charm. Yes, I count the training room and door as one explosion since it came from the same sparks. But for now Jazz gets to see and breath in the night air.

I love that Prowl is so convinced by Jazz and himself that things are now “good” in the Praxian way of things he thinks there cannot possibly be an explosion like Jazz tried before. After all, his mate respects, loves, and cherishes him far too much now to blow himself up....twice over....

Jazz wanders out of the wreck totally out of it to see Prowl just standing there slackjawed, and does the reasonable action of beating the living tar out of him.

"Prowl." There was no mistaking his captor, standing directly in his path to freedom. "You're home early." 

I love scenes like this where characters say something really normal after the weirdest/ most dangerous shit happens. I just find it hilarious. I wonder if Jazz could have played the whole thing off as an accident if he had the mental capacity at the moment. 

“Jazz, what happened?!”

“Cooking accident, wanted to surprise you. Happens.”

“Oh....well, don’t do that again. And I’ll look into hiring a cook.”

Or

“Jazz, what happened?!”

“I spontaneously lit on fire. Around a lot of spilled energon.”

“The Triage never mentioned...”

“Rare condition. Only one other guy in Nylon has it.”

Probably not...but still...at least Jazz gets a much needed release of emotions all over Prowl’s frame. Does Jazz have claws in this story or was all that just with his bare hands?

I wonder if they had to verify the information first because Triage is a Sub, Jazz is an outsider, or because Prowl is out. Or all three. So Prowl gets a painful reality check of why you can’t make someone like you. A lesson which he may never fully learn. 

And the chilling final line from Triage:

Nonetheless, it was her duty to treat the wounded and so she would, according to his mate's ruling.

Till next time!

(Note: personal preference, I don’t like the intermission parts that much so I may skip them in this. Don’t know for sure yet.)

[colubrina]

Dramione 😍 "this is our only option."

“This is our only option,” Ron said.  The words weren’t even a question.  He sounded furious and disgusted and, perhaps, even betrayed.  They’d fought for so long, and lied to themselves about how well things were going.  Things were not going well.  You could only mop up blood and bind wounds and apparate away from groups of ever-more Death Eaters for so long before you had to stop pretending you were winning.  Voldemort had been a figure head.  Yaxley, it turned out, was a much better strategical thinker.  With Yaxley in charge, the bag guys were winning.  

“Espionage has a long history of success,” Moody said.  His arms were crossed and his false eye was twirling and spinning as it examined the room.  Hermione wondered, not for the first time, if it could see through clothing.  Was life one big peep-show to Mad-Eye?  Did his magical vision stop at her brassiere, her skin, or could he see the blood pounding in her veins?  Could he see the way her own fear sped her heart.  Could he see the way she swallowed her hate?

“You mean whoring,” Ron said. “Let’s not dress this up with pretty words.  What you’re asking her to do is fuck a monster for us.”

“He has an obsession, it would seem,” Moody said.  “His mother calls it love.”

“Narcissa Malfoy could lie to the devil himself,” Ron said.  He was just getting more heated.  “Do you know how you can tell if a Malfoy is lying?  Their lips are moving.”

“That’s old,” Harry said.  He hadn’t moved from his chair since they’d passed Draco Malfoy’s proposal around the table.  Safe passage for all of them to the continent in exchange for Hermione Granger.  He promised she’d be treated well.  He loved her.  

Tell him no, and he’d relay their position to the power that be that night.

“Can you do it?”  Harry asked her.  Ongoing war had hardened him.  He’d died twice already and didn’t have time for people who weren’t just as willing to sacrifice as he was.   

“Pretend I love Malfoy?”  Hermione asked.  She shook her head.  “Get intelligence out to you?  Sure.  No problem.  But convince that tosser I don’t think he’s a filthy bottom-feeder?”

She didn’t bother to answer her own rhetorical question.   They all knew she couldn’t manage it. She thought that would be the end of it, that they’d just fight their way out to another safe house, until Molly coughed.  Everyone looked at her.

“I doubt he expects you to fall into his arms,” Molly said.  Her hands were curled along the edge of the table so tightly her knuckles were white but she kept her voice calm.  Her eyes betrayed her, though.  She flicked her gaze from Ron to Ginny to George.  Three of her surviving children, all in one room, all at risk.  “He’ll expect to have to woo you.”

Hermione closed her eyes.  She pictured Draco Malfoy, pointed, prejudiced, posh, and tried to imagine why he wanted her.  She knew Molly was right.  He was smart enough to know if she arrived claiming to have always loved him she’d be lying.  He’d be planning on her hate.   She could hear Ginny shift uncomfortably in one of the chairs.  She’d been hit with a curse the week before, one that had left her paralyzed for four days.  George still broke every mirror he found in fits of rage.   

“I’m not very wooable,” Hermione said.

She opened her eyes and looked at Harry.  How long would she last, she wondered, before he’d ruin her?  How long until Stockholm Syndrome kicked in and she did something that looked like love him back? 

“Be careful,“ Harry said.  He knew she’d agreed.  

“No,” Ron said, all rage.  She reached a hand out to cup his cheek, ran her thumb along the jaw she’d slept next to for years.  He swallowed and she brushed away the one tear he let escape.  “Hermione, I’ll - ”

“Sooner or later I’ll be unreliable,” she said.  She couldn’t let him make promises.  Promises were things you broke.  Promises were things that broke you.  There’d been a lot of promises in this war.   “Be careful with what I send you.”

Moody nodded brusquely.   “He sent portkeys,” he said.  “You use the main one, it turns on the rest so we can go to the continent.“  Before anyone could ask he added, "It’s keyed to you, Granger.  Won’t work for a substitute.  Already looked at it.”

“Smug bastard,” Ron said.  

Hermione let him go, and picked up the box Moody slid across the table to her.  Portkeys were usually junk.  They were meant to be unremarkable.  Not this one.  When she opened the box a diamond tennis bracelet winked up at her.

“I hate him,” Ron said.

Hermione reached out and picked up Draco Malfoy’s bracelet.

chapter 2

Malfoy was waiting for her.  He was dressed in all black, and quirked an eyebrow up at her arrival. She’d stumbled a bit when the portkey dropped her into what appeared to be a pointless, empty room with pointless, delicate furniture.  When she found her footing she crossed her arms and glared at him.  His immaculate perfection made her feel grubby.  The losing side of a war didn’t offer the hot water amenities Malfoy Manor clearly did.  They got moral righteousness and cold water baths taken on the run that left her feeling always a bit less than clean.  She resented the feeling, and that made her even less happy to see him.

“Malfoy,” she said, not bothering to hide the venom in her tone. “You’re madly in love, I understand.”

“The heart is a mysterious thing,” he said.  “Who can fathom its endless mysteries?”

That left her speechless.  She wasn’t quite sure what she’d expected to see when she arrived here.  Death Eaters ready to pounce, perhaps, or groping hands.  Maybe sneering declarations of love.  She certainly hadn’t expected an opaque man who seemed almost as unhappy to see her as she was to be here.

“You might want a shower,” he said.  “Being a rebel appears to involve more dirt than my mother generally likes people tracking in.”

“Filth, you mean?” She couldn’t keep herself from talking.  “Muggle-born filth?”

He just shrugged.  “Would you like to see your suite?”

“I want to know the others got away,” she said.  That was what this was about, after all.  She wasn’t here for the amenities or the company.   She was here to save them and to spy.  She’d have to start making up to him in a bit but right now she could indulge in letting him see how she really felt.  “Can you do that?”

“Of course.”  He had the gall to sound gracious and accommodating and pointed her at the fireplace.  “You may floo-call your hidey-hole, though I assume no one will answer, or you could try the Malfoy chateau in Switzerland.  They should be there if they had the wit to follow instructions with reasonable speed.”  The last was muttered and she could tell he half suspected they’d stay to fight.

She tossed in the powder, called out for the chateau, and waited.  After a moment, Ron’s head appeared.  She held back tears at the sight of him. Even outlined in flame he was everything she’d never have again.  “You safe?”  she asked.  “Everything work the way he said it would?”

He nodded.  “Moody has us clearing out of here tonight, but I said we needed to stay until you made contact.”  She reached toward the fire, wishing she could touch him one last time, and then turned, furious, when Malfoy broke the connection and her last hope of Ron disappeared.  

“Long connections can be traced,” he said.  “If you want them alive, you’ll ensure that doesn’t happen.”

He stepped closer as he spoke and she could smell the aftershave he used.  Something sharp and bitter.  She didn’t like it.  She began to step away but his hand moved quickly to slide along her lower back and hold her in place and she shuddered. So now it began, the cost of it all.  He set his mouth at her ear and murmured, “Trust no one, Granger.”

She almost choked at that unexpected, unromantic warning.  “Not even you?” she asked.  

He released her and stepped away.  “Would you care to see your suite now?”

“Does it have a lock?” she asked sourly.

The answer surprised her.  

“Yes,” he said, then opened the door and waved her so she could precede him.  She’d never seen these manners at Hogwarts.  She’d never seen them in the rebellion either.  She bit her lip hard enough to make it bleed and focused on the bitter truth that monsters could be gracious as she let him lead her through the lavishly appointed corridor, up a set of wide, carpeted stairs, down a narrowed but still impressive hallway until he set his hand on an ornate, brass doorknob.  “Your new home,” he said, and opened the door.

The room had several chairs, a small desk, a table and copious bookshelves.  What it didn’t have was a bed.  She turned to look at Malfoy.

“I did say it was a suite,” he said.  The condescension grated, as did his obvious enjoyment at getting to be quite so smug.   He pointed over to a door set into one wall.  “The bedroom and an en-suite are through there.”

“I won’t be sharing a room with you?” she asked.  She meant the words to be sarcastic and biting and hated the way they came out with a bit of a quiver.  She waited for him to pounce on that sign of fear and almost hated him more when he didn’t.  

Worse, he looked, albeit only briefly, utterly disgusted.

“No,” he said.  “I thought perhaps we should get to know one another. My deep and abiding love for you is such I can wait.”

She pulled her wand out and waved the door closed behind him. “But Malfoy,” she said, moving as close to him as she could stand just to see what he would do.  “Love?”

“Are you really this dense?”  

The words were murmured like a lover’s caress.  His breath was hot on her neck and she could smell that he had brushed his teeth lately.  To anyone watching the hand that slid up her back probably looked romantic.  Now that she was paying attention, she could tell he wasn’t eager to feel her skin, or reach that hand around to feel curves he should, in theory, be lusting after.  He could barely bring himself to touch her.

“What’s going on?”  she asked.

“Your hidey-hole was discovered,” he said so softly she had to strain to hear him.  “If the lot of you hadn’t left, you’d all be dead by morning.”

She could feel herself stiffen.  “And this… charade?”

“I figured no one would believe I slipped you information out of the goodness of my heart.”  She was pressed so closely to him now she could feel that heart pounding.  “But a trade for a girl?  Lust?  You’d fall for that.  Everyone would.”

“Why me?”

“I would have preferred the Weasley,” he said somewhat dryly.  

Hermione would never have expected that confession to rankle. It did, though.  

“I didn’t think they’d give her up,” he was going on.  “So the pureblood was out, and that left you.”

“You thought none of them would care about me?” she asked.

“Obviously they didn’t.”  Malfoy brushed his lips against her neck and added with so much cruelty she believed for the first time he was a Death Eater and not just a spoiled boy.   “No one really cared enough about keeping you to argue that strongly against it. Not like they would have for their little Ginevra or even that Luna.   You, Granger, were disposable to them.”

She shoved him away and kept herself from hunching over with the same force of will that had kept her fighting.   “You’re a monster,” she said.

Something flickered in his eyes before he hid it.  “Indeed.  Do clean yourself up. I assume you’ll want the night to settle in.  I’ll be up to join you for breakfast in my role of the loving and patient suitor.  Perhaps we can take a walk in the gardens after.  They’re very nice.”

“I hate you,” she said.  She planned to sit on the floor of that shower and cry until she ran out of tears.  Maybe she’d still be there when he arrived with toast, tea, and marmalade.  

He leaned in for one more faux-kiss. “I’m not that fond of you, either,” he said.  “I hope your side manages to win quickly with the information I’m sure you’ll find a way to send them so I can stop pretending.”  

When he left she turned the lock and then huddled against the door, taking less comfort in the solid click of the latch than she would have expected.  Maybe she’d just crumple to the floor and start crying right here.

[fanofawesomethings]

Worlds Cross Part 2

Part 2 of the 5 part commissions for @bixbitesmeepmorps‘ characters

If you what a commission of your own, message me and I will tell you my prices

Another tree was toppled, a victim to Onyx’s unyielding rampage through the forests. The explosions that guided her continued to shake the ground with their force and she followed them with a ferocity that match them. But the thick brush kept her from seeing those whom she was convinced kidnapped her friend, until she got closer that is. She heard voices, multiple voices and so Onyx slowed her running, but only just. Normally the level-headed Gem soldier knew that at times of an unsure opponent she should hide and observe them, but all her training mattered little then.

Garnet dodged a swipe from the monster. Another swung at her body and she jumped to avoid it. The monster was weak after the rough landing, a crater beneath their fight, and its attacks were sluggish. Pearl leapt off the ground and slashed the top of the monster’s body, drawing its attention to her. The red fusion slammed her brick fists into its chin and threw the monster onto its side. As its legs thrashed, Pearl and Garnet charged in to strike its underbelly with the hopes it would mean the end of the fight.

Steven continued looking over his shoulder for Amethyst. It’s true that among all four of them Amethyst was the one who was knocked down the most. He gave her sometime to make it back to them, but he became increasingly worried when she still wasn’t there.

“Guys, Amethyst still hasn’t come back yet,” said Steven looking again.

“I’m worried too, Steven, but we have another situation to deal with here,” said Pearl as she sliced off one of the monster’s legs with one sweep.

“Pearl’s right, but if it makes you feel better, Steven,” said Garnet punching its stomach, “we’ll go look for her right after.”

Steven smiled, relieved.

“We should finish this already. Garnet, if you would,” Pearl offered.

Garnet winded up her arm and stabbed her fist straight through the monster’s hide. There was a pause and then the monster exploded, poofed; it Gem fell into Garnet’s extended hand.

While the two Gems bubbled the corrupted gemstone, Onyx finally saw them. She first saw Garnet, a fusion out of place to her, and then she spotted Pearl. All she was told by Bixbite was that a Pearl with a bow took Plume.

Onyx grabbed a tree by its trunk and ripped it out of the ground with one pull. Chunks of dirt sprinkled from the bottom, the roots were torn like brittle paper. The oak trunk cracked under her fingertips.

“Give. Her. BACK!” Onyx summoned her strength and threw the tree, top first, like a javelin at them.

Garnet and Pearl, who had made their weapons vanish at the end of the fighting, didn’t have time to react. But Steven had his shield in hand. He jumped in front of them, his body moving on its own. The Rose Quartz Gem shined and a shield big enough to block the tree appeared. The tree slammed into the shield with the force of two cars colliding with each other. The shielded not even moved, the tree fell at Steven’s feet.

“Wha—? Give her back!” Onyx demanded.

“Another Gem?” Pearl gasped.

“Who is she? What is she doing here?” Steven asked.

“We don’t know her. Steven, get behind me,” Garner ordered.

           The shield vanished. Steven collapsed to his knees; summoning a shield of that size drained him as it often did. “Oh, I knew I should’ve stretched.”

           Onyx charged. Blinded by rage and eyes only focused on Pearl, her stampeding feet kicked Steven out of the way.

           “Steven!” Garnet and Pearl cried.

           Steven rolled like a billiard ball into the bushes. A large cut on his brow bled. Seeing their Steven hurt jumpstarted the protective Gems.

           In the blink of an eye, Garnet summoned her gauntlets. When Onyx was close enough, she put her balled fist up to Onyx’s chest and pushed, sending the black Gem hurdling into a tree and shattering the bark with the same force. Garnet cracked her limbs and charged. Pearl summoned her spear and held it facing forward, enraged beyond her normally sweet disposition.  

           Onyx kicked the tree off her backside. Garnet swung her fist, but Onyx caught the attack and threw Garnet into the trees like a piece of trash. Her real target was Pearl whom was ready and waiting for the new Gem. Garnet exploded out of the trees, soaring through the air. She punched Onyx in the back of her head, knocking Onyx down but she stopped herself from falling. Onyx swung her arms at Garnet, attacking and dodging the attacks Garnet threw in return.

The unfamiliar Gem seemed enough for Garnet to handle by herself; Pearl snuck up behind them while they fought, readying to attack. She lunged forward with the intent to stab. But suddenly Onyx pushed Garnet away and grabbed the spear, holding it with a grip Pearl couldn’t resist against. With her other hand Onyx reached for her Gem. Her fingers dug into the gemstone and when they surfaced sharp claws, like brass knuckles, on top of her already intimidated hands startled Pearl. With the elongated claws she slashed the spear’s shaft and sliced the magical weapon in two. The tip was cut and it vanished but the rest remained; Onyx used it as a stick to lift Pearl up and slam her back down.

“I’ll make you give her back!” Onyx growled.

Onyx swung the claw bearing fist down but Garnet caught the attack in the nick of time. Saving Pearl put left her open; Onyx smacked the back of her hand into Garnet’s face, cracking her visor. Garnet started swinging harder. Onyx managed to block most of them but the ones that connected hit her with power she hadn’t felt since the Gem War. With each punch her warrior instinct came faster to the surface and her Gem glowed twice as bright. The fighting became more intense and more violent with every passing second. Onyx grabbed Garnet and threw her into a tree just as she did with her. By the Pearl had gotten up and ran to Garnet’s side.

“She’s an Agate, we won’t win like this,” said Pearl.

“Let’s lose her in the trees and strike from above,” said Garnet.

The two kicked off into the trees, thinking the rampaging Gem would follow them. They were right. Onyx separated two trees in her way.

“Come back, coward!” She screamed before racing after them.

Meanwhile, as the dust settled and the echoes of a battle fought close began to fade, following the source as they went, Steven regained consciousness.

“G—arnet…P—rl. Anybody there?” He rubbed his eyes and discovered he was the only one there. “Gone? Aw man, I should get back to training again.”

He thought about the new Gem, concentrating hard on what she looked like.

“Who was that Gem? Was she from Homeworld, why would she be attacking?” Steven pondered. He then thought what Onyx said. “’Her’? What was she talking about? Maybe she got us confused with someone else? But then again there’s nobody like us. There’s gotta be a reason.”

The bushes rustled behind Steven. He heard panting in the distance. Bixbite fell out of the brush and landing face first into the clearing, exhausted from running. Her hair fell over her neck and she got only more annoyed because it was making her neck sweat too. Steven remained speechless and motionless, paralyzed by the shock. He didn’t move until Bixbite finally got off the ground and noticed the human boy next to her. Steven screamed and Bixbite screamed as a result.

“Another Gem!”

“A hooman!?” Bixbite felt the need to say.

Steven and Bixbite stared at each other. An awkward silence was between them. Neither one was brave enough to say or do anything and when one did moved the other did at the same time also as if in sync, so they remained still.

The forest surrounding them was tranquil when not used for a battlefield. Beneath the warmth of a mild summer’s day the shades were blotches of coolness which the gentle breeze was attracted to. A draft brushed its hands through Bixbite’s hair, getting in her eye and forcing her to move her hand to get it out; Steven was able to see her Gem up close. He noticed the bright gemstone was a darker shade compared to the one on his bellybutton. Suddenly a stronger gust directed a strand of hair into Bixbite’s mouth and she nearly swallowed it, coughing it out. Despite the serious situation, Steven couldn’t help but crack a smile and start giggling.

“You know, my friend always says she hates when her hair gets in her mouth,” said Steven.

“I know! But Onyx says she liked my hair so I keep it the way it is,” said Bixbite, caught in the pleasantness of starting a conversation.

“Um…my name is Steven. What’s your name?”

“I’m Bixbite. Have you seen another Gem around here? Her name is Onyx.”

Awkwardness fell with a thud into the bottom of Steven’s stomach. “Is she tall?”

“Yes.”

“Is she really strong?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And…does she have black hair?”

“Yes, have you seen her?”

Steven didn’t want to say it. “Yeah…she’s…uh…kind of attacking my friends.”

           “What? Onyx wouldn’t do that; she wouldn’t hurt any—well, at least not for no reason.”

           He pointed to the crater in the ground where Onyx threw Pearl and to the giant tree and the hole where it was once. “I’m sorry, but she did. I think she might still be fighting with Garnet and Pearl.”

           “Wait!” Bixbite was startled. “You’re friends with a Pearl? A Pearl came into our cave and took one of Onyx’s friends.”            

           Steven was shocked and outraged. “Pearl would never take someone’s friend. Except for M.C Bear-Bear during the night so she could wash him, but she’d never do something like that.”

           Bixbite wanted to argue but her good nature gave Steven the benefit of the doubt.

           “Well, does your Pearl have a bow?”

           Steven flinched, reluctant to answer. “Yes. B-B-But so what, lots of Pearls wear bows, it’s the latest fashion!”

           “Is her Gem on her stomach?” Bixbite pressed.

           Hearing the wrong placement of the gemstone gave Steven a breath of relief which he exhaled reassured. “No, Pearl’s Gem is on her forehead.”

           “Then it must’ve been another Pearl,” said Bixbite. She slapped her hands over her mouth with a gasp. “But all I told Onyx was that a Pearl took Plume.”

           Steven shot up to his feet. “That must be why she was attacking us!”

           “W-We have to stop them before they hurt each other!” Bixbite cried.

           “I know!” Steven shouted.

           “Then let’s get going!”

           “Yes!”

           “I know!”

           Their back and forth screaming echoed in an empty forest. Combined their level of skill in tracking was nowhere near Onyx’s. They were surrounded by clues that neither of them knew what to do with.

           “Which way should we go?” Bixbite asked.

           Steven put his fingers to his chin, in deep thought. He noted the crater in the ground, the hole in ground and the toppled tree, and the two trees Onyx parted to chase after Garnet and Pearl.

           “I think…I don’t know,” Steven had to admit. Bixbite’s expression fell because she too didn’t know what to make of the clues around her. Suddenly Steven burst. “Wait, I got an idea.”

           The breeze passed by Steven’s chin as he closed his eyes to concentrate. His toes curled and he rocketed off the ground, high up in the air over the trees. Bixbite was dumbfounded thinking she’d never seen a human go that high; she began to wonder if Jason could do that too. Steven scavenged the area; beneath him was a rug of green draped over the land hiding everything beneath it, which gave Steven the impression that his plan didn’t work, until he saw a spark in the distance. The white glow that cut a tree down within a second could only have come from Pearl’s spear.

           “I see them! That way!” He pointed.

           Bixbite followed his finger and took off without waiting. Steven landed safely down and followed her as fast as he could. Neither of them ran with swiftness, or elegance.

             The spear and the claws clashed. Matches in power and resilience but not in strength, Pearl could not stay connected with Onyx for very long, switching to swift, numerous attacks that forced Onyx to dodge and block. Pearls’ strategy was to exhaust Onyx, but neither of them knew what the black Gem was capable of. To their disappointment, every one of their attacks was met with an inextinguishable drive that gave Garnet and Pearl just as much trouble as they threw at their opponent.

           Onyx attacked Pearl more than she focused on Garnet. The fusion was a brick wall she couldn’t knock down to get to the bug she couldn’t swat away. Pearl evaded another attempt to grab her; Onyx blocked a punch from Garnet and ducked as Pearl aimed the spear to her chest. Onyx swung her foot behind her and kicked Pearl down before socking Garnet in the stomach. Once Garnet was thrown she turned to Pearl, grabbing her feet and holding her off the ground.

           “I’ll crush you for this!” Onyx snarled.

           “Put me down! Who sent you? Homeworld? One of the Diamonds?” Pearl swung her spear wildly like flailing fish caught by the tail.

           “What?” Onyx shook her. “Why would Homeworld send me for—? Wait.”

           Onyx threw Pearl up just to catch her and turn her upright. She narrowed her eyes to tighten her examination of the Pearl. A dead silent pause and a thunderstruck numbness overcame Onyx. The Gem placement on her head. The fire in Pearl’s eyes which was not common in any Pearl Onyx had seen. A nightmarish image appeared to Onyx.

           “IT’S YOU!” Onyx screamed, grabbing both of Pearl’s arms tightly. Her eyes were a firestorm of rage. “You’re the Rebel Pearl. Servant to Rose Quartz. You’re the one who poofed me!”

           An unyielding expression facing her without regard for the consequences, and a black gemstone on the back of her neck reminded Pearl of the Gem War. She remembered it. She remembered dodging Onyx’s attack and stabbing her in the back with her swords, poofing her before moving on to the next enemy.

           “It can’t be…” Pearl stammered.

           Onyx pulled her in closer. “You took me away from them! You made them…leave without me. It’s your fault. IT’S YOUR FAULT!”

           Garnet swooped in and slammed both her fist into Onyx. Pearl was dropped and she fell with a thud, unable to get up. Expressionless and motionless, Pearl could only see the battle long time ago and not the one at hand. Onyx shrugged off the attack and stormed to Pearl; Garnet jumped in her path and blocked her.

           “Pearl, wake up! You’re here, I’m here with you!” Garnet shouted.

           Onyx yanked Garnet by the hair and threw her away. Pearl snapped out of it, but it was too late. Onyx strung Pearl up from her neck with an iron-like grip. With her concentration hurt as well, Pearl couldn’t summon her spear to her aid. As a last resort as a means to escape, Pearl swung her fists, striking Onyx. The black Gem was unmoving; Pearl’s punches were little more than taps to a body deadened by anger.

            “Pearl!” Garnet cried.

           “What did you do with the rest of my squad? Did you poof them too? Did you seal their Gems? Did you harvest them?! This was all your fault! You started the rebellion! You started the war! I’d still be with them if it wasn’t for you! Now you’re taking Plume away from me again! I’ll—I’ll—I’ll shatt—I—!”

           “Onyx!”

           Steven and Bixbite made it. Bixbite ran to Onyx’s side.

           “Onyx, that isn’t the Pearl who took Plume, put her down!” Bixbite pleaded.

           “Bix, get back, this Pearl is dangerous! She’s one of the Rebels, she’s the one who poofed me!” Repeating herself tightened Onyx’s grip.

           Bixbite drew back suddenly afraid.

           “Onyx please put Pearl down! Can’t we talk about this?” Steven begged.

           “Steven, get away from them!” Garnet shouted.

           “No, Garnet, they aren’t our enemies. This whole thing is just a misunderstanding.”

           “I don’t care if she has Plume or not, she poofed me, Bix! She took everything from me!”

“Bixbite, say something to her,” Steven asked.

           Bixbite didn’t have the words to say. She felt as though it suddenly wasn’t her place to say anything.

           Garnet pulled herself back up and was on the verge of attacking until she let out a loud screech. The other turned to her and saw Garnet collapse, unconscious.

           “Gar—!” Steven couldn’t finish. A bolt of energy, the same that had stricken Garnet, fell from the sky and struck him. Like fire-dipped needles poking at his insides, Steven couldn’t handle more than a second before he fell.

           One after another the Gems in the clearing were struck down. They weren’t poofed and yet the alien beings were hit with a pain so powerful they could not get back up. After each blast of lightning fell a screeching noise was heard, mechanical.

Bixbite was the last one to lose consciousness. She felt herself float away even though her body was pulled to the ground as if she weighed a ton. Onyx collapsed in front of her, dropping an unconscious Pearl also. Footsteps crunching on leaves. Bixbite weakly looked up and saw shoes underneath lime green skin, before passing out.

Green Pearl was left standing over the pile of Gems and Steven. She looked out at the scattered figures with a snobbish smile outlining her face. A small chuckle to herself prior to summoning the device from her Gem.

“Defective subjects immobilized. Prepare for storage.”

[thechocobros]

“SEE LUNA SAFE TO ALTISSIA” - part 10

Pair: Nyx Ulric / Lunafreya Nox Fleuret

Words: 8358

Plot: Luna and Nyx didn’t fell in the Empire’s trap, Nyx didn’t had to use the ring and he survived. What would have happened if Nyx really had the chance to ‘see Luna safe to Altissia’, like he promised to Regis? Here the part 10: Nyx discovered Luna’s secret and now they both have to deal with their confusing feelings and the destiny the Gods prepared for the world.

Personal Comment: This is a long chapter, but now that things started to get complicated, I needed more space. From now on, I will really start to get canon divergent, because at this point of the canon the plot didn’t make a lot of sense anyway, so i had to change a bit. Also, I really enjoyed to introduce Ravus and his funny-possible relationship with Nyx. I kinda think… they would get really along in the end. They both have a serious sis-com, afterall xD Thanks as always to my dear @loveiscosmicsin !! 

“What… What does all this mean?” 

 The only answer Nyx received was the Fleuret siblings’ resigned silence. For a long minute also the breeze which delicately moved the sylleblossom seemed to stop. The betrayed expression on the Glaive’s face directly matched the numbed one on Luna’s. Invasive panic rose from her stomach and sheer terror was the only force that held her tears at bay. She didn’t want him to know about her secret, especially in this fashion. Nyx waited on bated breath for one of them to speak. A forced laugh escaped him. When he spoke again, his voice was broken by a raising anger. “I asked you a question. This is the part where you give me an answer.” 

 Being interrupted by an uninvited spectator annoyed Ravus, who was already upset by the precedent discussion. 

 "This is a private conversation between my sister and I. Your eyes, ears, and mouth are not welcomed.” Nyx just ignored him and a took a step forward, studying Luna. Ravus’ prosthetic hand tightened into a fist. “I will not repeat myself,” he said through clenched teeth. “Leave now.” 

 Lunafreya tried to intervene but she inhaled and exhaled to calm her racing heart before she could whisper, “Ravus, wait…” At that point, Luna’s pleas went ignored and Ravus preemptively shoved the Glaive backwards. Nyx reacted pushing the hand away, forced to confront the elder Fleuret head on. That was exactly what Luna wanted to avoid the day before and now that she was facing what she legitimately considered one of her worst nightmares, she wasn’t prepared at all. Even if she knew how coward it would be, she just wished to disappear, stupidly hoping that things would fix by themselves. Of course, it was not possible. On the contrary, she realized immediately that it was a moment of truth and that in the next 15 minutes the successive discussion would have decide if Nyx’s loyalty would have been with her or not. The possible outcome scared and paralyzed her. In the end, her worst fear, ‘doing nothing and losing everything’ was exactly coming true before her eyes.

“Please don’t…” she begged, but her voice broke and she couldn’t finish the sentence. That was not a good beginning for someone who wanted to take responsibilities for her behavior. 

 On Luna’s contrary, Ravus knew exactly how to react at Nyx’s intrusion. His voice wasn’t shaking at all, it was sharp as steel when he asked: “Who are you anyway to come here with my sister, bearing the Ring of the Lucii and flaunting authority you do not wield?” 

“Out of my way, Prince of Nothing. Gotta speak with the fairy maiden over there, not with you.” 

 Ravus unshealthed his rapier, outraged and unstoppable, and unleashed it at impressive velocity upon the Glaive’s head. Trained by years of military education, Nyx was somehow ready to react and moved away but a scream paralyzed him on the place. Suddenly, a transparent shield protected him from the hit, deflecting Ravus’ swordwith no effort on the Glaive’s part. The shield immediately disappeared but its existence couldn’t be denied. Ravus stared past Nyx with wide eyes and mouth agape with incredulity and Nyx followed the Commander’s gaze to find Luna breathing heavily, arm outstretched and brow furrowed. She gained their undivided attention to make her demand once more. 

 “Now… Stop. Please.” 

 “Lunafreya, why is he–” the High Commander asked but his sister quickly answered with her strong, unfaltering stance: 

“He has the Ring because he can be trusted.” Nyx opened his mouth, fed up with the deception and this weary game of half-truths and outright lies to let his anger subside. 

“Oh, you trust me now? Really? How much did you trust me? Because it obviously wasn’t enough for you to tell me that you’re dying.” He pulled away Ravus and stood a little straighter, anger finally winning over any other feeling. He just couldn’t think clearly, the words he just eavesdropped kept running in his head like a tornado destroying a small hovel. All he saw was red, fury clouding his usual good sense. If he would calm down, he would have feel his heart break in thousand of pieces but no, it was too early for that now, pain would have come later. Now he didn’t want to feel that. Now he only wanted to let his wrath explode, maybe hoping that this would have changed something. “Is it the healing thing, right? Healing people sucks your energy away, exactly like I said! You lied to me!” 

 Luna shook her head vigorously. Convincing him to stay by her side would have been more difficult than she thought. 

“No! No, I didn’t lie to you about that! Healing people tires me but it doesn’t kill me, it’s something else, it’s–”

“Oh, great, you didn’t lie me on THAT at least! So what’s the truth?” Luna closed her eyes, she understood in that very moment that he wasn’t ready to accept any justification now. Trying to explain herself wasn’t probably a good choice in the first place. On the other hand, the one who saw a good opportunity to intervene and probably win the discussion was Ravus. 

“In awakening the Six Astrals of our world,” he explained, voice still harshas finding it beneath him to explain to a commoner, “the Oracle must sacrifice herself in exchange for the forged pacts.” 

 Nyx was surprised to hear that explanation from the man who attacked him not long ago, but didn’t take his eyes off the princess. 

"This means…” he started again with a renewed anger. “That you asked me… to escort you, no, to accompany you to slowly getting yourself killed when you perfectly knew the purpose of MY mission. King Regis entrusted me with your safety, with your personal happiness, and you literally asked me to run your suicide mission? Did you even plan to tell me this sooner or later? Maybe on your death bed?” He exaggeratedly mocked every conversation they had over this. He got plenty of rage to give away. Lunafreya just stood there, hands covering her mouth and her nose, trembling. “The king knew about this, didn’t he? Throwing your life away like it’s nothing?” 

“Would that had changed something?” She finally asked, voice suffocated by her own hands. “You can’t change my destiny because it’s already written in the stars. You can’t stop me now.” 

“Yeah, but maybe I wouldn’t have kissed you either!” He screamed back, moving a arm like he wanted to slap someone right on the face. 

 “You did what?” Ravus blinked at them both, for the first time touched by a surprised expression that didn’t suit him. 

 “This changes everything.” Nyx continued, ignoring the man, not having time for the protective brother act interrupting what needed to be said. “I never asked for you to spend your life with me or anything, but I encouraged you to live your life because I thought you had one in the first place. I thought you had a future and I implicitly considered my duty as a guardian to guarantee it to you!” 

 “You knew I was hiding something but you claimed to accept whatever it was…” 

 “I didn’t expect this and I’m really fed up with it for Stars’ sake!” He screamed again. He swallowed hard and took a couple steps away from the siblings. He pointed at the ground with one finger and started to talk with a deeper voice, yet still sharp. “Let me see if I got it right. The duty you always claimed to take care of is actually a human sacrifice that the Six are demanding in order to givetheir blessing to Prince Noctis, the only one who can banish the darkness from Eos and also the only person you worry about. But you didn’t tell the poor boy that he’s gonna die, too? How is it possible? Do the Gods ask for his life the same way they ask for yours?” Luna couldn’t answer again, she was too occupied with hearing her own heartbeat dropping down, waddling in the despair she’s created. She couldn’t even remember the last time she felt so numb and desperate, maybe when she lost her mother or when Gentiana revealed her true destiny. Thinking about it now, she realized that even if she always symbolized hope and inspiration for all the people of Eos, her life was constantly marked by terrible episodes of utter lack of hope, like now. For some reasons, Nyx was the only one left at her side from the first time they met, but now she was losing him. 

 In the meantime, since he wasn’t getting an answer from the princess, Nyx turned to Ravus, who was still scandalized by the idea of a stranger - possibly an immigrant from Galahd judging by the hairstyle and tattoos - kissing his sister but that somehow managed to formulate an answer for his previous question. 

 "The Gods ask for the Oracle’s life. The Ancestorsof Lucis and the Ring ask for the King’s for a higher purpose.” That information hit Nyx like a truck. Suddenly he realized - or better remembered - that there was more at stake than his forbidden newborn feelings for the pretty Princess. He felt betrayed twice for not knowing in advance what would have happened to the only two Guides left on Eos, first as a Kingsglaive member and second as a Crown citizen. He closed his fists and glanced at Luna again. 

 “So I didn’t deserve to know this either?” he murmured, still angry but this time also sad. “Me and Libertus - if he’s still alive - are the last members of the Kingsglaive and we swore our loyalty to the Crown, to the King himself, we have always been ready to die for him. And now I discover that the King I served for all these years sold Lucian sons to save his own only in order to force him to die a bit later because of a stupid Ring? I don’t want this. I want the young Prince to be King, to reclaim his throne and actually rule, bringing the peace we all wished for. Or you just assumed that because I am an immigrant with no land I don’t care for that boy? That I could not be loyal to him as a king as I was to Regis? I have my code of honor, Princess, Prince Noctis has my loyalty.” 

 Luna opened her mouth to speak, words coming out shattered and broken. 

 "I trust him to understand his role–” 

 “He’s still just a kid!” Nyx screamed, shocked. “Even if he’s ready to die, no, it should never come to that! We all need him. He must go on living and rebuild this world because this is the future Iwanted for Selena, for my family, for my Crowe,and for all the people of Eos! The same future I thought you wanted to grant, too!”  Nyx looked for the chain on his neck, yanking it off. He was disgusted by its heavy burden, understanding that it was nothing but an instrument of death. He would have not bear it anymore, he wouldn’t have participate in this nonsense theater play. “When you entrusted me with this, I thought we stepped up to the next level of trust. I thought you considered me your ally. But now I realize that I was just another ignorant pawn you used to get to Point A to B.” 

 He threw the Ring at her feet, putting so much energy in the action that he made it sink in the loamy soil. Luna immediately fell down to her knees, collecting the Ring with the reverential attentiveness. King Regis placed it in her care to give it to Noctis. She was desperate not to lose it now. 

“Congratulations, Your Highness. You somehow managed to betray me, the people of Eos, Prince Noctis, and even yourself, all at once.” 

 The tears finally rolled down Luna’s cheeks, transforming her gracious and composed face in a state of helplessness. 

 “Nyx, please, don’t…” 

 “Now I understand why you didn’t want me to come to Tenebrae with you. I shouldn’t have insisted on coming along. I’ll fix it now. Goodbye, Princess.” And saying so, he imperceptibly turned his back on her. Luna lifted up her chin, tears reaching her lips, burning red cheeks, the Ring pressed to her breast. 

“No, no, Nyx!” But Nyx didn’t want to look at her. Her tears always had a profound effect on him, but he wasn’t in the mood to be deterred from leaving. Walking away wasn’t simple as he thought, not even in his outburst of anger. On the contrary, it hurt like hell, demonstrating through every painful step just how undeniably attached he was to her. “Nyx, please, I need you!” That made him stop. In the middle of the raising dawn, illuminated by the torpid light, Nyx Ulric listened to those words with a dawned realization painted on his face. Only thirty minutes before, he would have make everything to hear Luna saying that to him, but now it felt like a knife in his back. 

He slightly turned around, just what was necessary to show his profile while he answered: “Put down the queenly mask, Princess. You can stop lying now.”

 And this time he really walked away, leaving her in the field of a thousand sylleblossom flowers, desperately crying, with her brother silently watching over her. 

 ————– 

 Ravus waited for what seemed like an eternity before daring to get close to his sister again. When he was sure that Luna cried all her tears already, he kneeled at her side and gently put a lock of hair beyond her ear. The young woman just lifted the chin to look at him. Watching her from such a close distance, Ravus noticed he didn’t see her like this in years, not even when she dared to challenge some soldiers of the imperial army and got beaten afterwards. Now her cheeks were flushed, not a vision to the strong and determined girl he had watched over all those years ago. 

 “What happened between the two of you?” he asked then, not sure of how to understand things. Luna sighed, grabbing his collar and trying to calm down. 

 “I thought, I hoped… he wouldn’t abandon me. Am I alone in all this now, am I not?” she asked. 

The worst feeling was to unconsciously rely on someone so much that when you find yourself alone you can barely remember how to stand on your own feet again. And Luna definitely didn’t expect to break down like that because of her bodyguard. She thought that her heart would have accepted what her brain already knew, that Nyx would have reacted exactly like he did in the end and walk away. That’s why she didn’t want to give in on him, that’s why she said she would have be better off alone once she was in Tenebrae. Being so desperate was pure nonsense. She shouldn’t have allow to herself to get attached to him so much in the first place. She wasn’t supposed to let him destroy her by simply walking away.

 Ravus studied the expression on her face then looked toward the direction where Nyx departed. 

 “Yes.” He answered, a gentle voice haven’t been uttered in years. 

A lot was left unsaid with those three letters only. Ravus wished he could assure her that, in spite of his disapproval, such a reaction was a normal consequence of a deep care, maybe also an unconditional love – because who would have ever accept to let a beloved one to sacrifice her life nonsensically – but he couldn’t. Words could not express his real thoughts and that’s why he decided to stay still this time. No more arguing would have persuaded his sister to stop her suicide mission, especially not now. He simply put an arm around her shoulders and the other under her legs, lifting her up to support her in the deepest weakness. She accepted his help with an heartfelt gratitude, hugging his neck like he was her last anchor. 

 ————————— 

 Nyx didn’t know what or where he should go back to now. 

 He left the sylleblossom field and entered in the palace again but once he arrived in the hall, he stopped. While the thick silence deafened him, he found himself wondering where to go now that he pompously renounced his commitment to the mission. That castle wasn’t his home, it was hers. Galahd had been destroyed years before and Insomnia fell in the same way only weeks ago. When that happened, he was able to amortize the sense of loss only because he was concentrated on protecting the princess and that gave a purpose to his life. But giving up on his bodyguard role now threw him back to deep reevaluation. What could he possibly do now? 

 He sighed, pulling at his hair and his face. I screwed up, I screwed up everything so much, was the only thought echoed through his head. How could he abandon her, he couldn’t tell. Every single fiber in his body was aching at the memory, refusing the idea he was actually able to go so far. He didn’t want to. For the gods’ sake, he personally cared for that girl more than he ever imagined was possible. At the same time, fury coursed through his veins, remembering the betrayal she caused innot sharing the truth of her mission. But it was not only about the lie itself or the lack of trust she displayed, Nyx simply didn’t want to let her die. He didn’t want to lose her. And probably that was the reason why he got so upset in the first place. He stood there in the center of the hall for a couple of minutes, trying to regulate his conceded breath and to calm down. The train of his thoughts was so clustered he only got numb. 

 All of a sudden, a delicate swish reached his military-trained ear and he quickly turned to check who was there. 

Gentiana stepped out of the shadows, walking elegantly on her high heels, floating seemlessly. Her eyes were closed as always. As she got closer, Nyx remembered that Luna once told him she was one of the Six, and knowing now about the sacrifice the Gods were demanding of the Oracle changed completely his attitude towards her. 

 “You…” he started, balling up his fist and hissing through clenched teeth. “How could you…?” 

 Gentiana continued her gracious walk until she reached his side when she stopped and inclined her head. She waited, understanding that the Glaive wanted to say more, as he did. “You were supposed to help her. Isn’t that what gods do? To bless the people who called for them? When did you turned in monsters demanding for human sacrifices in order to give their blessings?”

Even if Nyx tried not to scream, his anger surfaced from the core of his feelings, reaching the grimace on his face and setting his eyes on fire. On the contrary, Gentiana seemed barely touched by his accusation. 

 “The blessings the deities are asked to give are not a concession, but an exchange. The sacrifice of one for the sake of all is the most benevolent price we require.” 

 “One? You mean two.” 

 “The king’s sacrifice is of another condition, demanded by the Old Kings to grant a power beyond the lesser mortals and their reach. Only the combination of the two can defeat the great darkness once for all and restore hope to the world.” 

 “How exactly?” 

 "Inside the crystal, Bahamut has been trapped. Being this the only temporary way to stop Ifrit, the traitorous Lord of Fire. When the True King receives the Ring by the Oracle’s hand, he shall liberate them both, so the Traitor will finally be defeated once for all, together with the Usurper, the incarnation of darkness." 

 "Sure and he’ll die immediately afterwards with the Oracle who wore herself out just to wake up the gods. I don’t want a future based on their sacrifices. There’s been enough deaths. I don’t want it. Nobody wants it.” 

 “Mankind are curious creatures. If they wouldn’t accept blood to be spilled in order to keep their lifeas you claim, you honor them with a virtue they don’t have.” 

 “Sorry, lady. I’m just not built that way.” 

Gentiana looked at him, for the first time truly looked at him. 

 “Yes, I can sense it.” She admitted, with that ethereal voice capable of making bones tremble. 

"You are of a different kind. You are made of the same components of the Oracle and the King of Kings. Most interesting, indeed, when no royal blood course through your veins.” 

 Those words puzzled Nyx, and made him stop and frown. He knew she used to talk in riddles but he wasn’t one to have the patience for it. He was more of a man of action. 

 “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

 “Not even the gods should underestimate the courage empowering you. However, I shall speak my warning: no matter how profoundly the wolf aligns himself after the moon, he will never understand her movements in the sky and… he must not reach her there, for that is not his place to be.” Nyx grimaced even more. 

“Enough of the cryptic gimmicks, I’m not in the mood. Lunafreya’s dying because of you and—” Gentiana was gone in a blink of an eye. That pissed him off. “Great. Just great. I’m sick of everyone acting like they’re interested in me!” 

He screamed to the void of the hall, his voice echoing back. He waited an instant, eyes on fire, gnashed his teeth in frustration. Then he kicked the air, sighed and turned around, storming off.

 ————————- 

 Luna lost consciousness after Ravus picked her up. It was in the middle of the afternoon when she woke up in her own bed. Her brother wasn’t in the room, but Pryna was. The canine with white and brown patches sweetly looking at her to check out if she was better. The low sound of her whimper filled the air. 

The first thing Luna did was to check the Ring of the Lucii she still held tightly in her possession. It made its impression on her palm under the pressure. It was dense and wicked, exactly as she remembered, and that somehow brought to her mind to other memories. The image of Nyx saying goodbye was the most hurtful one though, capable of turning every wall or resistance she took years to built to ash. She closed her eyes again. Thank the Stars the tears didn’t come again. In fact, she felt so dry and powerless, like all the blood had been sucked out of her veins. She really needed a glass of water. 

 She stood up and went to the toilet, stopping in front of the mirror to check out how sickly her appearance turned. Her lips were chapped, her eyes were red, dark circles under her dried eyelids. She decided to take a shower, but seeing her own naked body under the hot water only made her feel worse. The illness that marked her for death was slowing covering more and more space on her skin, starting from her stomach and down to her thighs now, tracing a sort of spiral who would have looked like a tattoo if it wasn’t for the iridescent color of it. Somehow, after the conversation of that morning, the signs which unveils her ultimate price were even more heavy to bear. For this reason probably, the shower didn’t last long. Luna quickly stepped out and covered herself with a white towel and then dressed up again. 

 When she returned to her bedroom, arranging the braids of her hair in the right place, she found Gentiana near the perfectly huge, clean windows. She was actually regarding the mannequin with the wedding dress on it with placated reverence. Luna approached, knowing her visit wasn’t casual. 

“Blessed be, Gentiana.” Luna bowed, speaking the holy expression. Oddly enough, Gentiana’s attention remained on the dress.

 “Your faith falters in the time of imperative action.” 

 “It’s not.” The Oracle rushed to answer, but she was not entirely honest and the woman seemed to know that already. 

 “Tasting the sweet, fleeting flavor of life always tempted the mortals. It usually doesn’t bring tragic consequences for the ones who decide to enjoy it forever but in your case, concession to the allure of it may force you to reconsider the purpose you were born for. A grave consequence, indeed. A critical point approaches and there would be no return if this sentiment does not change.”

 For a moment, Luna frowned thinking of what Nyx would have thought hearing that admonishment: that her death was the tragic consequence, not her desire of enjoying life and love. She had to repeat herself that the future of all was more important that her personal life. Recognizing it costed her a lot more effort than usual. 

 "It was just a kiss. Or two.” Her answer was shy, it came out in a whisper. Admitting her guilt in front of the deity who always had been the closest to her was not only embarrassing, but also mortifying. Gentiana finally opened her eyes and turned to glance openly at her, like she usually never did. 

 “Overcame many obstacles, yet this is one that causes you to crumble. It unravels you like a banner.” 

 "I don’t crumble. I acknowledge my duty.” 

 “And yet, you start to question it now. It was heartwarming to see the future King and the Oracle enjoy familiarity because no one could understand better than the person who shares the same destiny. You were having that. Being guarded by the courageous Glaive was not supposed to stand in your way.” For the first time in her all life, Gentiana dared to talk so clearly, like she not even was a divinity anymore. Her voice sounded a bit too frank, but at the same time brought to light what happened until now only in Luna’s mind. For the young Oracle, it felt like being undressed of all her defenses in a public square. 

 “I still care for Noctis and for the sake of the world and all life. More than anything else. It’s my destiny and it’s also my choice. Come what may, I will never stop acting in the name of all this.” 

 “Then where does the origin of your doubts lie?” 

 “I don’t have doubts.” 

 “Lies are not considered lighthearted jests for my kind, Lady Lunafreya.” Luna entwined her fingers, holding so tight to herself that she almost crushed her own bones. That conversation was getting more and more uncomfortable. “I sense your reluctance. If you do not doubt your call, you are doubting how you are to fulfill it.” 

 The memory of the first kiss she ever had with Nyx popped indecently on her mind, with no reason nor invitation. Immediately after, followed the memory of the way he kept her closer on the pirate ship, and again the moment when he zipped up her dress, delicately caressing her spine, procuring her so much pleasure, it was naughty. 

 “No!” she screamed, lying to herself. Her cheeks were burning red and tears welled in her eyes, clouding her vision. The flavor of life, as Gentiana called it, only Nyx and nobody else procured to her - had already come to an end. Between her and the Glaive there has been something undefined and short but now he left anyway, he said goodbye, he renounced to his bodyguard duty. Changing the aim that always motivated her since she was twelve years old didn’t make sense at all now that he wasn’t there anymore to remind her that the life was hers to choose. “I will do whatever I have to. I would not stop my journey. I will awake the Goddess of the Sea, I will find Bahamut, I will face it all. Noctis remains being my only concern, and our only hope.” 

 Gentiana’s face softened a bit, maybe understanding her struggle more than she could imagine. 

 “It is a relief to hear these words. You of all people must know the lack of alternative choices. The pilgrimage you started is the only path which will lead you to a world full of light. King Regis was convinced of this and I’m glad to see you are too.” 

 Another memory dawned on Luna’s mind, hitting her worse than the previous one. It was Regis, painful expression, hand stretched towards her, whispering his last wish: ‘I know your mother would wish the same as me. That you and Noctis live happily.’ 

 Live happily. 

 Happily. 

 Was death really the happiest ending he wished for them? 

 “Yes. King Regis was a kind man. I wish I could stand by his side during the darkest moments of his life and since I could not, I will do my best in the present for Noctis.” 

 “You will the king’s guidance and Regis would have only wished this for you two.” Again, something didn’t sound right in that sentence. Like Gentiana was lying, like what she just spoke wasn’t the truth. ’…That you and Noctis live happily.’ Why was that echoing in her mind like that only now? 

 “At first, the father had mourned the fate of his chosen son.” Gentiana continued, delicately leaving her spot and positioning herself next to the windows. “Yet in Tenebrae, the two found solace. It was not the Oracle who assuaged their fears. But the girl. She holds the true power.” 

 Considering the talk they just had, those praises were so out of the blue, that Luna started to sense where Gentiana wanted to head the conversation. Even if her words could theoretically alleviate the stress on Luna’s shoulders, the young Oracle felt instead for the first time in her life like a heavy burden was placed on them. Or worse: she felt like the Glacian herself was trying to manipulate her to achieve some vague purpose. 

 “I have little to offer a king, other than the voice afforded the Oracle,” she said anyway, like she, too, played an acting role. “Nevertheless… and I’m afraid he might find this foolish, but to be together with Noctis again, even if only for a short while… would mean the world to me.” In this she was speaking the truth especially now that she felt so alone again - like she was for years during her young age - Lunafreya only wished to have back his childhood best friend, to hear his voice, to be careless and happy like they both were in the short time they enjoyed together as kids. Looking back to what she had passed, she could maybe say that the one with Noctis was the only serene relationship remained in her life. The memory of him cradle her all along her darkest times and now it was a familiar emotional clutch to go back to when she had nothing else. “I do not seek to guide him, merely to stand beside him.” 

 Gentiana nodded, apparently satisfied in hearing her speaking so. 

 "You must disembark then.” That surprised Luna. 

 “Leave? Already?” What she actually meant was, 'Alone?’ Gentiana didn’t seem too puzzled by her hesitation. On the contrary, she stepped closer to hold her hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. 

 “Nobody else will support you anymore, but you shall have no need of it. You have the strength in you. Do what your heart decided. Godspeed, Lady Lunafreya.” 

 Luna gave thought to the suggestion long after Gentiana departed and even though the goddess was evasive about destiny had set this course in stone for her, the Oracle decided to take matters in her own hands for once. With the heart aching at the idea of what she left behind - her land, her people, her brother… Her bodyguard – she decided to depart for Altissia on her own.

 ———— 

 Nyx slept in the same room he used the night before, the smallest one of the entire castle probably, which was enormous anyway. Because of all that useless space, he found it creepy now. There was a chill in the air that made him even more uneasy, which didn’t help with his mood. 

 The anger was slowly starting to ebb away, leaving a good huge void quickly filled with the deepest pain that ever consumed him. He was not used to it. The battle wounds affected his body only and left another kind of scar on his skin, less deleterious, somehow more bearable. They also tended to heal in time. The princess’s betrayal kicked his heart right in its most sensitive spots instead, leaving it scattered and in agony, with no possibility of getting better anytime soon. On the contrary, after some hours from the discovery, Nyx noticed how even breathing was getting harder and harder, like the more he thought about it, the more he found reasons to be numb about it. He had the feeling he would be better to leave Tenebrae as soon as he can, but in the same time he didn’t find the courage to abandon the palace until he saw Luna was fine again, which was a great inconvenience since he didn’t want to meet her at all for the moment. 

 He thought about it over and over, valuing the alternatives and the possibilities, deciding in the end to go back to Lucis and look for Libertus. In the last weeks he wondered multiple times if his friend was still alive and now that his job wasn’t stopping him anymore, he chose it was the opportunity to find out for sure. He would have find him and together they would have decided to do with their lives again, now that their cities, countries, jobs, and lives had been swept away again. 

Nyx only hoped - almost prayed - in the deep of his heart that Libertus was still alive. If he had passed too, Nyx wouldn’t have only lost someone he really cared for again. He would have been totally alone again. Right… again. 

After three hours of forced sleep, he woke up and began to walk in the room. He made some push ups, he took a quick cold shower, he changed his outfit back to the kingsglaive’s leather trousers and boots. After those mechanic movements, he looked out of the window, everything was ethereal and annoyingly still, too perfect to be true. That it was the moment when he realized that Tenebrae was exactly like its princess: beautiful and fake. That was not the place for him to be. It was really time for him to go away. 

He turned heels, grabbed his old Kingsglaive jacket - clean but still ruined by the Insomnia’s battles - and took the keys of the car they left far from the castle. Wouldn’t be a problem to borrow it to travel back to the port, where he would have probably get in touch with the pirates again to have a safe trip to Lucis. 

His heart ached at the idea of taking such a drastic decision, however, he also knew he couldn’t guard Lunafreya anymore. His primary instinct was to keep her safe as he always did in Insomnia because that was what he promised to Regis and also because he deeply cared for her, even too much by now, and he couldn’t bare to stand back and watch her die slowly. He couldn’t even bare to see a stretch on her skin, actually. Of course, all this didn’t match with the suicide mission she was planning to have instead. 

 Furthermore, he was a touchy person and the fact that Luna didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth deeply wounded his pride. He couldn’t guard someone who hid things from him all along. 

 He passed through the corridors, his step on the white tiles in marble was the only sound in the utter silence of the night. The full moon - shiny and beautiful - threw its light through the huge windows, shining upon him. Nyx’s decision was harder to put into effect. He specifically avoided the area where he knew he would find Luna’s chambers and made the longest tour. The more he stepped away from her, the more he felt his heart burned in pain. But again he repeated to himself he didn’t have other choice: better the temporary pain than the permanent illusion of living a lie. That thought didn’t help a lot. 

Once he arrived in the hall, he noticed four servants in the corners, who didn’t raise a finger to stop him from leaving. Why would they have to? He was nothing more than bystander, he was no prince, no noble, not even a general or captain. He was just a soldier who tricked himself enough to think that the label 'hero’ could elevate him to the princess’ level. But now the reality remembered him in the hardest way that he never deserved to watch, to listen or to think, exactly like Drautos once told him. What a fool he was. 

But then, as Nyx reached with the hand for the door’s handle, a deep voice called out for him. A voice he really didn’t expect to hear now, echoing in the silence. 

“You.” 

 Ravus didn’t know the Glaive’s name, so he called for him in the most generic way. Nyx turned around, eyebrows furrowed in astonishment. 

Seeing the High Commander standing next to the exit of a lateral door at that hour of the night, staring with those bicolored eyes, was kinda surprising, if not even creepy. He looked like a tormented ghost. Did that guy even sleep? 

 “I have a name. Nyx Ulric.” The dry explanation didn’t touch Ravus’ stoicism. 

“I did not ask your name. Come with me. Now.” 

“Excuse me? Who died and made you king of the universe?” 

Nyx was seriously struggling between the surprise of hearing a similar order and the annoyed attitude the mere sight of Luna’s brother kindled in him. The curiosity clearly won over the bother in the end: since Ravus moved in the other room without adding another word, Nyx didn’t have any choice but reluctantly following him there. 

 They arrived in the coziest lounge of the entire castle probably, made in white and prestigious marble like the rest but also in dark wood and warm colored carpets. A small fireplace threw gentle shadows on the furnitures, giving a touch of a hospitable atmosphere. The Glaive was surprised seeing such a room existed because he already got used to the beautiful but cool halls which characterized the castle. He didn’t expect the High Commander to take him to somewhere intimate and private.

Ravus stiffly and calmly walked to the small piano bar. He took a thick glass from a shelf and ice from the fridge, and topped his drink with a dark liquor. 

“What do you desire to drink?” Who knew Ravus Nox Fleuret was capable of being polite? Nyx hesitated in shock but then just squeezed his eyes and raised the eyebrows. 

“Whatever’s alcoholic” he said, shrugging, like he never thought he would answer to that question. Ravus turned to watch him, furrowed eyes, placidly hostile when Nyx didn’t move to join him. 

“I am not your waiter. Serve yourself.” And at that, he sat on a decorated couch, displaying aristocracy. Nyx snorted. 

“Of course, Your Highness.”

As he approached the piano bar, memories of his youth in Galahd hit him, and thinking about some anecdotes of his former life tending to a bar with Libertus. It really helped him to get ready for the conversation it was about to start. 

“Okay, should I have a seat, too? Or am I gonna ruin the good furniture if I do?” He asked to start it off, trying very quickly to raise a wall for his own defense. He was not in the mood to be lectured by a super protective brother. 

“If you think I am here because I find pleasure in mingling with peasants, you are gravely mistaken.” Ravus scoffed darkly as he took a sip of his drink. “Sit down and before I regret having taken the initiative in addressing you.” 

 Nyx grimaced, innerly mocking his pompous way of talking in his head, but in the end he did what he was asked to. He chose a couch on the opposite side of the fireplace and made himself comfortable but there was nothing to be comfortable about. Ravus waited a minute before starting with a generic yet important question: “Who are you exactly and why did you accompany my sister here in Tenebrae in the first place?” 

 “Nyx Ulric, Kingsglaive unit, loyal to the Lucis’ Crown. I was charged by King Regis to escort the princess to Altissia.” 

“Speak simply. I have little regard for your resume in the military.” Nyx arched his eyebrows, knowing already what he wanted to make sure of. 

“I was with Lunafreya when Insomnia was sacked and got her and the Ring safely away from Niffs. I dunno if you remember me, but we saw your arm catch on fire back there. And yes, I stole her first kiss.” He muttered the last sentence like a guilty admission he was deeply ashamed of. The only memory of it made his heart ache and his head burst, but Ravus didn’t bat an eye. 

“That is quite an ordeal.” 

“Right? Guess I can’t go down without a bang.” 

“I assume you care deeply for my sister." 

Nyx hold his breath, trying to find an answer that wouldn’t have make him appear stupid or hopelessly deluded, but couldn’t help with it. He sighed and admitted, “Yeah." 

Ravus took a sip of his liquor and Nyx waited a minute after that, just to be sure he didn’t previously poisoned the ingredients of his drinks. As much he could expect from the surreal calmness the High Commander was displaying. 

“So it was you. I recall having seen Glauca fighting with someone while I was… preoccupied with the Ring, so forgive me if I didn’t recognize your face.” A minute of silence, another sip from the glass. “What of your magic?” 

“Died with the king.” 

“So, what are you now exactly? Except a conceited immigrant with no reinforcements, land or power and lusts after women beyond his reach?” Nyx swallowed, he didn’t know how to answer to that. 

“Yeah… You summed it up pretty well, I guess.” Ravus showed the first sign of intolerance by closing his eyes for a moment and sighting. 

“Another inquiry, if you will. Does your loyalty hold water to be sneaking away in the middle of the night? Away from your sworn word to accompany Lunafreya?” He asked, articulating the words like he suddenly believed that his interlocutor was handicapped. Nyx sensed it and got offended by the tone used. 

“I was doing what you were doing, too. Wrapping my head around the princess’s stupid decisions.” Ravus gazed at him, furrowing eyebrows, the two colors of his eyes particularly evident in that suffused light. But now it was Nyx’s turn to show off the strength of his glance. “I can’t imagine you were just having a drink because you’re a connoisseur, right?” 

Ravus’ eyes looked down and seemed to become sad for the first time. 

 “Drinks are merely a clutch I used to put aside my torments for a couple of hours. Never enough drink in our world to blur the lines of fantasy and nightmares.” That sentence didn’t stop him from taking another sip. “Your desertion is not far from how I cope so I present you a warning. Once you are far from here, you would not feel the relief you have hoped for.” 

It took a minute for Nyx to digest the truth of that statement but when he did it, he nodded. Talking about regrets and suffering, Ravus seemed to know the subject through and through. Nyx believed him. Another long silence sneaked in, blurred his mind for awhile, heavy like an entire building was on his shoulders then he had to ask: 

“What am I supposed to do then? Just accept her dying? I can’t do that.” Ravus expression was the closest one to an exasperated one. 

“Why are you asking me? I failed to turn the tables of fate.” 

“Yeah? What the hell did you do?” Nyx slightly mocked him, trying to imagine his well hidden line of actions. To his eyes, it was hard to believe that a man with that grudge could actually care so much for someone else but himself. He had to change his mind after hearing the answer. As a matter of fact, Ravus rested his elbows on the knees and explained: 

 “I joined the Empire knowing they would have tried to kill the Six and pursued the Ring of Lucii. By using it, I thought I would have replaced Noctis somehow… So Lunafreya wouldn’t have to start this inane quest. It may sound nonsensical now but I was willing to give my life for Lunafreya’s. Unfortunately, I nearly lost my life as a result and it did nothing to affect hers.” 

“How?” 

“The kings recognized the Blood of the Oracle in my veins, so they spared me. I would say it was a miracle if they enforced a price for my foolishness.” And pointed at his steel arm. Nyx was puzzled. 

“The Blood of the Oracle?” 

“It may surprise you, but magic courses through House Fleuret and its descendants and perhaps, future generations would bear the curse.” Nyx snorted a laugh at the High Commander’s words. “My mother held the office and my sister her successor. And the Kings of the past always showed a deep regard for the Oracle lineage. That was how I survived.” 

 “Yeah, I guess that is the only reason. What’s the plan if you succeeded? Conquer the world with an iron fist? Order your enemies to step on building blocks?” 

“No. Killing the gods as the Empire intended.” 

Nyx opened the mouth in surprise and started a nervous laugh. 

“So it doesn’t matter one way or another.” Sarcasm was the only possible comment to that statement. Only a weirdo like Ravus could have coming up with such a ridiculous idea. 

 “Lunafreya’s goal is to awake the Astrals to serve the King of Kings, so he can use both powers - the one of the Lucian Ancestors and the one of the gods - to defeat the Usurper. But both powers request a human sacrifice. If I had sabotaged Noctis’ and Lunafreya’s journey, by killing the Six and using the Ring, they would have survived.” 

“But doing so, the 'Usurper’ - even if I don’t know who he is - will prosper. Is it that bad?” 

“I say it is.” Ravus recognized, staring at the void in front of him. Nyx put his drink on the small table between them and pressed the fingers on his face. 

“Sounds like a dog running in circle biting his own tail.” Ravus shook his head. 

“The world must learn to take care of its own future, one that is without divine intervention or guidance. Surely, you can see that it is simply ridiculous to call upon the gods for a horoscope.” 

Nyx retired in the couch, sitting untidily on it. He sank the chin in the chest and meditated on what the former Prince just said. The future of the world. 

On one hand, he agreed with what Ravus said, because masses were superficial and silly, usually ready to rely on someone else to have their lives saved with no effort. After that, they would have probably make a statue for their heroes and forget about them pretty quickly. But on the other hand… Wasn’t he labeled as the hero because of his reckless tendency to save everyone’s back in spite of his own life? It was true, he got upset with the princess for hiding the truth and for permanently putting her life in danger, but he could understand her motivations after all. She was doing what she thought it was right to save the world and Nyx could get angry because of it but couldn’t entirely blame her. 

“The fact is …” he murmured after a while, speaking undertone, eyes aiming the nothing in front of him. “I want it all. Giving a future to those who wants to see it, including the future King Noctis. Including your sister. She… deserves it as much as other people do.” 

Ravus listened to those words carefully and let them float in the air like a hopeless wish. His forehead was frowned like he didn’t agree entirely - and of course he didn’t, because he didn’t care in general for the rest of the world like he cared for his sister. 

 So they finished their drinks in silence and said nothing more. At a certain point they were both wondering how could the High Commander of the Imperial Army of Niflheim and an immigrant Glaive of Lucis reasonably share drinks and chat about the future of the world, but didn’t dare ask it out loud. 

Nyx blinked at Ravus only once, thinking he was not as bad as he imagined. After all, he reminded him of himself with Selena some years before. If only Nyx was as powerful as Ravus back then, he maybe would have been able to save her. 

 His thoughts were interrupted by an urgent knock at the door. Ravus didn’t even give permission to enter when Maria suddenly rushed in, her wrinkled face flustered in worry. 

 “My Lord… Lady Lunafreya is… Oh, Stars forgive me!” Ravus wide opened his eyes, while Nyx jumped on his feet only hearing the name of Luna. 

“What happened?” Maria stepped ahead, hands shaking, showing two different sheets of paper, written in an elegant calligraphy. 

 “I found these in her room but… Lady Lunafreya… She’s gone.”

[parentingguide8-blog]

How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endanger Us All

New Post has been published on https://parentinguideto.com/must-see/how-panicked-parents-skipping-shots-endanger-us-all/

How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endanger Us All

The debate over childhood vaccination has been in the news on and off for nearly a decade. In 2009 WIRED published a comprehensive cover story on the subject—An Epidemic of Fear—laying out the debate and analyzing how unjustified and unscientific thinking was fueling a growing anti-vaccine moment. As another wave of stories about vaccination dominate the media, we thought it was time to revisit our earlier coverage.

To hear his enemies talk, you might think Paul Offit is the most hated man in America. A pediatrician in Philadelphia, he is the coinventor of a rotavirus vaccine that could save tens of thousands of lives every year. Yet environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slams Offit as a “biostitute” who whores for the pharmaceutical industry. Actor Jim Carrey calls him a profiteer and distills the doctor’s attitude toward childhood vaccination down to this chilling mantra: “Grab ’em and stab ’em.” Recently, Carrey and his girlfriend, Jenny McCarthy, went on CNN’s Larry King Live and singled out Offit’s vaccine, RotaTeq, as one of many unnecessary vaccines, all administered, they said, for just one reason: “Greed.”

Thousands of people revile Offit publicly at rallies, on Web sites, and in books. Type pauloffit.com into your browser and you’ll find not Offit’s official site but an anti-Offit screed “dedicated to exposing the truth about the vaccine industry’s most well-paid spokesperson.” Go to Wikipedia to read his bio and, as often as not, someone will have tampered with the page. The section on Offit’s education was once altered to say that he’d studied on a pig farm in Toad Suck, Arkansas. (He’s a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Maryland School of Medicine).

Then there are the threats. Offit once got an email from a Seattle man that read, “I will hang you by your neck until you are dead!” Other bracing messages include “You have blood on your hands” and “Your day of reckoning will come.” A few years ago, a man on the phone ominously told Offit he knew where the doctor’s two children went to school. At a meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an anti-vaccine protester emerged from a crowd of people holding signs that featured Offit’s face emblazoned with the word terrorist and grabbed the unsuspecting, 6-foot-tall physician by the jacket.

“I don’t think he wanted to hurt me,” Offit recalls. “He was just excited to be close to the personification of such evil.” Still, whenever Offit gets a letter with an unfamiliar return address, he holds the envelope at arm’s length before gingerly tearing it open. “I think about it,” he admits. “Anthrax.”

This isnt a religious dispute, like the debate over creationism and intelligent design. Its a challenge to traditional science that crosses party, class, and religious lines.

So what has this award-winning 58-year-old scientist done to elicit such venom? He boldly states — in speeches, in journal articles, and in his 2008 book Autism’s False Prophets — that vaccines do not cause autism or autoimmune disease or any of the other chronic conditions that have been blamed on them. He supports this assertion with meticulous evidence. And he calls to account those who promote bogus treatments for autism — treatments that he says not only don’t work but often cause harm.

As a result, Offit has become the main target of a grassroots movement that opposes the systematic vaccination of children and the laws that require it. McCarthy, an actress and a former Playboy centerfold whose son has been diagnosed with autism, is the best-known leader of the movement, but she is joined by legions of well-organized supporters and sympathizers.

This isn’t a religious dispute, like the debate over creationism and intelligent design. It’s a challenge to traditional science that crosses party, class, and religious lines. It is partly a reaction to Big Pharma’s blunders and PR missteps, from Vioxx to illegal marketing ploys, which have encouraged a distrust of experts. It is also, ironically, a product of the era of instant communication and easy access to information. The doubters and deniers are empowered by the Internet (online, nobody knows you’re not a doctor) and helped by the mainstream media, which has an interest in pumping up bad science to create a “debate” where there should be none.

In the center of the fray is Paul Offit. “People describe me as a vaccine advocate,” he says. “I see myself as a science advocate.” But in this battle — and make no mistake, he says, it’s a pitched and heated battle — “science alone isn’t enough … People are getting hurt. The parent who reads what Jenny McCarthy says and thinks, ‘Well, maybe I shouldn’t get this vaccine,’ and their child dies of Hib meningitis,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s such a fundamental failure on our part that we haven’t convinced that parent.”

Consider: In certain parts of the US, vaccination rates have dropped so low that occurrences of some children’s diseases are approaching pre-vaccine levels for the first time ever. And the number of people who choose not to vaccinate their children (so-called philosophical exemptions are available in about 20 states, including Pennsylvania, Texas, and much of the West) continues to rise. In states where such opting out is allowed, 2.6 percent of parents did so last year, up from 1 percent in 1991, according to the CDC. In some communities, like California’s affluent Marin County, just north of San Francisco, non-vaccination rates are approaching 6 percent (counterintuitively, higher rates of non-vaccination often correspond with higher levels of education and wealth).

Science loses ground to pseudo-science because the latter seems to offer more comfort.

That may not sound like much, but a recent study by the Los Angeles Times indicates that the impact can be devastating. The Times found that even though only about 2 percent of California’s kindergartners are unvaccinated (10,000 kids, or about twice the number as in 1997), they tend to be clustered, disproportionately increasing the risk of an outbreak of such largely eradicated diseases as measles, mumps, and pertussis (whooping cough). The clustering means almost 10 percent of elementary schools statewide may already be at risk.

In May, The New England Journal of Medicine laid the blame for clusters of disease outbreaks throughout the US squarely at the feet of declining vaccination rates, while nonprofit health care provider Kaiser Permanente reported that unvaccinated children were 23 times more likely to get pertussis, a highly contagious bacterial disease that causes violent coughing and is potentially lethal to infants. In the June issue of the journal Pediatrics, Jason Glanz, an epidemiologist at Kaiser’s Institute for Health Research, revealed that the number of reported pertussis cases jumped from 1,000 in 1976 to 26,000 in 2004. A disease that vaccines made rare, in other words, is making a comeback. “This study helps dispel one of the commonly held beliefs among vaccine-refusing parents: that their children are not at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases,” Glanz says.

“I used to say that the tide would turn when children started to die. Well, children have started to die,” Offit says, frowning as he ticks off recent fatal cases of meningitis in unvaccinated children in Pennsylvania and Minnesota. “So now I’ve changed it to ‘when enough children start to die.’ Because obviously, we’re not there yet.”

The rejection of hard-won knowledge is by no means a new phenomenon. In 1905, French mathematician and scientist Henri Poincaré said that the willingness to embrace pseudo-science flourished because people “know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether illusion is not more consoling.” Decades later, the astronomer Carl Sagan reached a similar conclusion: Science loses ground to pseudo-science because the latter seems to offer more comfort. “A great many of these belief systems address real human needs that are not being met by our society,” Sagan wrote of certain Americans’ embrace of reincarnation, channeling, and extraterrestrials. “There are unsatisfied medical needs, spiritual needs, and needs for communion with the rest of the human community.”

Looking back over human history, rationality has been the anomaly. Being rational takes work, education, and a sober determination to avoid making hasty inferences, even when they appear to make perfect sense. Much like infectious diseases themselves — beaten back by decades of effort to vaccinate the populace — the irrational lingers just below the surface, waiting for us to let down our guard.

Before smallpox was eradicated with a vaccine, it killed an estimated 500 million people. And just 60 years ago, polio paralyzed 16,000 Americans every year, while rubella caused birth defects and mental retardation in as many as 20,000 newborns. Measles infected 4 million children, killing 3,000 annually, and a bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae type b caused Hib meningitis in more than 15,000 children, leaving many with permanent brain damage. Infant mortality and abbreviated life spans — now regarded as a third world problem — were a first world reality.

Peter Yang

Today, because the looming risk of childhood death is out of sight, it is also largely out of mind, leading a growing number of Americans to worry about what is in fact a much lesser risk: the ill effects of vaccines. If your newborn gets pertussis, for example, there is a 1 percent chance that the baby will die of pulmonary hypertension or other complications. The risk of dying from the pertussis vaccine, by contrast, is practically nonexistent — in fact, no study has linked DTaP (the three-in-one immunization that protects against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis) to death in children. Nobody in the pro-vaccine camp asserts that vaccines are risk-free, but the risks are minute in comparison to the alternative.

Still, despite peer-reviewed evidence, many parents ignore the math and agonize about whether to vaccinate. Why? For starters, the human brain has a natural tendency to pattern-match — to ignore the old dictum “correlation does not imply causation” and stubbornly persist in associating proximate phenomena. If two things coexist, the brain often tells us, they must be related. Some parents of autistic children noticed that their child’s condition began to appear shortly after a vaccination. The conclusion: “The vaccine must have caused the autism.” Sounds reasonable, even though, as many scientists have noted, it has long been known that autism and other neurological impairments often become evident at or around the age of 18 to 24 months, which just happens to be the same time children receive multiple vaccinations. Correlation, perhaps. But not causation, as studies have shown.

And if you need a new factoid to support your belief system, it has never been easier to find one. The Internet offers a treasure trove of undifferentiated information, data, research, speculation, half-truths, anecdotes, and conjecture about health and medicine. It is also a democratizing force that tends to undermine authority, cut out the middleman, and empower individuals. In a world where anyone can attend what McCarthy calls the “University of Google,” boning up on immunology before getting your child vaccinated seems like good, responsible parenting. Thanks to the Internet, everyone can be their own medical investigator.

There are anti-vaccine Web sites, Facebook groups, email alerts, and lobbying organizations. Politicians ignore the movement at their peril, and, unlike in the debates over creationism and global warming, Democrats have proved just as likely as Republicans to share misinformation and fuel anxiety.

US senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Chris Dodd of Connecticut have both curried favor with constituents by trumpeting the notion that vaccines cause autism. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of the most famous Democratic family of all, authored a deeply flawed 2005 Rolling Stone piece called “Deadly Immunity.” In it, he accused the government of protecting drug companies from litigation by concealing evidence that mercury in vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids. The article was roundly discredited for, among other things, overestimating the amount of mercury in childhood vaccines by more than 100-fold, causing Rolling Stone to issue not one but a prolonged series of corrections and clarifications. But that did little to unring the bell.

The bottom line: Pseudo-science preys on well-intentioned people who, motivated by love for their kids, become vulnerable to one of the world’s oldest professions. Enter the snake-oil salesman.

When a child is ill, parents will do anything to make it right. If you doubt that, just spend a day or two at the annual conference of the nonprofit organization Autism One, a group built around the conviction that autism is caused by vaccines. It shares its agenda with other advocacy groups like the National Autism Association, the Coalition for SafeMinds, and McCarthy’s Generation Rescue. All these organizations cite similar anecdotes — children who appear to shut down and exhibit signs of autistic behavior immediately after being vaccinated — as proof. Autism One, like others, also points to rising rates of autism — what many parents call an epidemic — as evidence that vaccines are to blame. Finally, Autism One asserts that the condition is preventable and treatable, and that it is the toxins in vaccines and the sheer number of childhood vaccines (the CDC recommends 10 vaccines, in 26 doses, by the age of 2 — up from four vaccines in 1983) that combine to cause disease in certain sensitive children.

Their rhetoric often undergoes subtle shifts, especially when the scientific evidence becomes too overwhelming on one front or another. After all, saying you’re against all vaccines does start to sound crazy, even to a parent in distress over a child’s autism. Until recently, Autism One’s Web site flatly blamed “too many vaccines given too soon.” Lately, the language has gotten more vague, citing “environmental triggers.”

But the underlying argument has not changed: Vaccines harm America’s children, and doctors like Paul Offit are paid shills of the drug industry.

To be clear, there is no credible evidence to indicate that any of this is true. None. Twelve epidemiological studies have found no data that links the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine to autism; six studies have found no trace of an association between thimerosal (a preservative containing ethylmercury that has largely been removed from vaccines since 20011) and autism, and three other studies have found no indication that thimerosal causes even subtle neurological problems. The so-called epidemic, researchers assert, is the result of improved diagnosis, which has identified as autistic many kids who once might have been labeled mentally retarded or just plain slow. In fact, the growing body of science indicates that the autistic spectrum — which may well turn out to encompass several discrete conditions — may largely be genetic in origin. In April, the journal Nature published two studies that analyzed the genes of almost 10,000 people and identified a common genetic variant present in approximately 65 percent of autistic children.

But that hasn’t stopped as many as one in four Americans from believing vaccines can poison kids, according to a 2008 survey. And outreach by grassroots organizations like Autism One is a big reason why.

Researchers, alas, cant respond with the same forceful certainty that the doubters are able to deploy not if theyre going to follow the rules of science.

At this year’s Autism One conference in Chicago, I flashed more than once on Carl Sagan’s idea of the power of an “unsatisfied medical need.” Because a massive research effort has yet to reveal the precise causes of autism, pseudo-science has stepped aggressively into the void. In the hallways of the Westin O’Hare hotel, helpful salespeople strove to catch my eye as I walked past a long line of booths pitching everything from vitamins and supplements to gluten-free cookies (some believe a gluten-free diet alleviates the symptoms of autism), hyperbaric chambers, and neuro-feedback machines.

To a one, the speakers told parents not to despair. Vitamin D would help, said one doctor and supplement salesman who projected the equation “No vaccines + more vitamin d = no autism” onto a huge screen during his presentation. (If only it were that simple.) Others talked of the powers of enzymes, enemas, infrared saunas, glutathione drips, chelation therapy (the controversial — and risky — administration of certain chemicals that leech metals from the body), and Lupron (a medicine that shuts down testosterone synthesis).

Offit calls this stuff, much of which is unproven, ineffectual, or downright dangerous, “a cottage industry of false hope.” He didn’t attend the Autism One conference, though his name was frequently invoked. A California woman with an 11-year-old autistic son told me, aghast, that she’d personally heard Offit say you could safely give a child 10,000 vaccines (in fact, the number he came up with was 100,000 — more on that later). A mom from Arizona, who introduced me to her 10-year-old “recovered” autistic son — a bright, blue-eyed, towheaded boy who hit his head on walls, she said, before he started getting B-12 injections — told me that she’d read Offit had made $50 million from the RotaTeq vaccine. In her view, he was in the pocket of Big Pharma.

The central message at these conferences boils down to this: “The medical establishment doesn’t care, but we do.” Every vendor I talked to echoed this theme. And every parent expressed a frustrated, even desperate belief that no one in traditional science gives a hoot about easing their pain or addressing their theories — based on day-to-day parental experience — about autism’s causes.

Actually, scientists have chased down some of these theories. In August, for example, Pediatrics published an investigation of a popular hypothesis that children with autism have a higher incidence of gastrointestinal problems, which some allege are caused by injected viruses traveling to the intestines. Jenny McCarthy’s foundation posits that autism stems from these bacteria, as well as heavy metals and live viruses present in some vaccines. Healing your child, therefore, is a matter of clearing out the “environmental toxins” with, among other things, special diets. The Pediatrics paper found that while autistic kids suffered more from constipation, the cause was likely behavioral, not organic; there was no significant association between autism and GI symptoms. Moreover, gluten- and dairy-free diets did not appear to improve autism and sometimes caused nutritional deficiencies.

But researchers, alas, can’t respond with the same forceful certainty that the doubters are able to deploy — not if they’re going to follow the rules of science. Those tenets allow them to claim only that there is no evidence of a link between autism and vaccines. But that phrasing — what sounds like equivocation — is just enough to allow doubts to not only remain but to fester. Meanwhile, in the eight years since thimerosal was removed from vaccines (a public relations mistake, in Offit’s view, because it seemed to indicate to the public that thimerosal was toxic), the incidences of autism continue to rise.

The battle we are waging will determine what both health and freedom will look like in America. — Barbara Loe Fisher

In the wake of the latest thimerosal studies, most of the anti-vaccination crowd — even Autism One, despite the ever-changing rhetoric on its Web site — has shifted their aim away from any particular vaccine to a broader, fuzzier target: the sheer number of vaccines that are recommended. It sounds, after all, like common sense. There must be something risky about giving too many vaccines to very young children in too short a time. Opponents argue that for some children the current vaccine schedule creates a “toxic overload.”

“I’m not anti-vaccine,” McCarthy says. “I’m anti-toxin.” She stops just short of calling for an outright ban. McCarthy delivered the keynote address at the Autism One conference this year, just as she had in 2008. She drew a standing-room-only crowd, many of whom know her not from her acting but from her frequent appearances on TV talk shows, Oprah Winfrey’s Web site, and Twitter (@JennyfromMTV). McCarthy has authored two best-selling books on “healing” autism and is on the board of the advocacy group Generation Rescue (motto: “Autism is reversible”). With her stream-of-consciousness rants (“Too many toxins in the body cause neurological problems — look at Ozzy Osbourne, for Christ’s sake!”) and celebrity allure, she is the anti-vaccine movement’s most popular pitchman and prettiest face.

Barbara Loe Fisher, by contrast, is indisputably the movement’s brain. Fisher is the cofounder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center in Vienna, Virginia, the largest, oldest, and most influential of the watchdog groups that oppose universal vaccination. At the Autism One conference, Fisher took the podium with characteristic flair. As she often does, Fisher began with the story of her son Chris, who she believes was damaged by vaccines at the age of two and a half. A short film featuring devastating images of sick kids — some of them seemingly palsied, others with tremors, others catatonic — drove the point home. The film, accompanied by Bryan Adams’ plaintive song “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You,” ended with this message emblazoned on the screen: “All the children in this video were injured or killed by mandatory vaccinations.”

Against this backdrop, Fisher, a skilled debater who often faces down articulate, well-informed scientists on live TV, mentioned Offit frequently. She called him the leading “pro-forced-vaccination proponent” and cast him as a man who walks in lockstep with the pharmaceutical companies and demonizes caring parents. With the likely introduction of a swine flu vaccine later this year, Fisher added, Americans needed to wake up to the “draconian laws” that could force every citizen to either be vaccinated or quarantined. That isn’t true — the swine flu vaccine, like other flu vaccines, will be administered on a voluntary basis. But no matter: Fisher’s argument turns vaccines from a public health issue into one of personal choice, an unwritten bit of the Bill of Rights.

In her speech, Fisher borrowed from the Bible, George Orwell, and the civil rights movement. “The battle we are waging,” she said, “will determine what both health and freedom will look like in America.” She closed by quoting the inscription above the door of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC: “The first to perish were the children.” And then she brought it home: “If we believe in compassion, if we believe in the future, we will do whatever it takes to give our children back the future that is their birthright.” The audience cheered as the words sank in: Whatever it takes. “No forced vaccination,” Fisher concluded. “Not in America.”

Paul Offit has a slightly nasal voice and a forceful delivery that conspire to make him sound remarkably like Hawkeye Pierce, the cantankerous doctor played by Alan Alda on the TV series M*A*S*H. As a young man, Offit was a big fan of the show (though he felt then, and does now, that Hawkeye was “much cooler than me”). Offit is quick-witted, funny, and — despite a generally mild-mannered mien — sometimes so assertive as to seem brash. “Scientists, bound only by reason, are society’s true anarchists,” he has written — and he clearly sees himself as one. “Kaflooey theories” make him crazy, especially if they catch on. Fisher, who has long been the media’s go-to interview for what some in the autism arena call “parents rights,” makes him particularly nuts, as in “You just want to scream.” The reason? “She lies,” he says flatly.

“Barbara Loe Fisher inflames people against me. And wrongly. I’m in this for the same reason she is. I care about kids. Does she think Merck is paying me to speak about vaccines? Is that the logic?” he asks, exasperated. (Merck is doing no such thing). But when it comes to mandating vaccinations, Offit says, Fisher is right about him: He is an adamant supporter.

“We have seat belt rules,” he says. “Seat belts save lives. There was never a question about that. The data was absolutely clear. But people didn’t use them until they were required to use them.” Furthermore, the decision not to buckle up endangers only you. “Unless you fly through the window and hit somebody else,” he adds. “I believe in mandates. I do.”

We are driving north (seat belts on) across Philadelphia in Offit’s gray 2009 Toyota Camry, having just completed a full day of rounds at Children’s Hospital. Over the past eight hours, Offit has directed a team of six residents and med students as they evaluated more than a dozen children with persistent infections. He pulls into the driveway of the comfy four-bedroom Tudor in the suburbs where his family has lived for the past 13 years. It’s a nice enough house, with a leafy green yard and a two-car garage where a second Toyota Camry (this one red, a year older, and belonging to his wife, Bonnie) is already parked. Let’s just say that if Offit has indeed made $50 million from RotaTeq, as his critics love to say, he is hiding it well.

Offit acknowledges that he received a payout — “several million dollars, a lot of money” — when his hospital sold its stake in RotaTeq last year for $182 million. He continues to collect a royalty each year. It’s a fluke, he says — an unexpected outcome. “I’m not embarrassed about it,” he says. “It was the product of a lot of work, although it wasn’t why I did the work, nor was it, frankly, the reward for the work.”

Similarly, the suggestion that pharmaceutical companies make vaccines hoping to pocket huge profits is ludicrous to Offit. Vaccines, after all, are given once or twice or three times in a lifetime. Diabetes drugs, neurological drugs, Lipitor, Viagra, even Rogaine — stuff that a large number of people use every day — that’s where the money is.

That’s not to say vaccines aren’t profitable: RotaTeq costs a little under $4 a dose to make, according to Offit. Merck has sold a total of more than 24 million doses in the US, most for $69.59 a pop — a 17-fold markup. Not bad, but pharmaceutical companies do sell a lot of vaccines at cost to the developing world and in some cases give them away. Merck committed $75 million in 2006 to vaccinate all children born in Nicaragua for three years. In 2008, Merck’s revenue from RotaTeq was $665 million. Meanwhile, a blockbuster drug like Pfizer’s Lipitor is a $12 billion-a-year business.

To understand exactly why Offit became a scientist, you must go back more than half a century, to 1956. That was when doctors in Offit’s hometown of Baltimore operated on one of his legs to correct a club foot, requiring him to spend three weeks recovering in a chronic care facility with 20 other children, all of whom had polio. Parents were allowed to visit just one hour a week, on Sundays. His father, a shirt salesman, came when he could. His mother, who was pregnant with his brother and hospitalized with appendicitis, was unable to visit at all. He was 5 years old. “It was a pretty lonely, isolating experience,” Offit says. “But what was even worse was looking at these other children who were just horribly crippled and disfigured by polio.” That memory, he says, was the first thing that drove him toward a career in pediatric infectious diseases.

There was something else, too. From an early age, Offit embraced the logic and elegance of the scientific method. Science imbued a chaotic world with an order that he found reassuring.

“What I loved about science was its reason. You have data. You stand back and you discuss the strengths and weaknesses of that data. There’s just something very calming about that,” he says. “You formulate a hypothesis, you establish burdens of proof, you subject your hypothesis to rigorous testing. You’ve got 20 pieces of a 1,000-piece puzzle … It’s beautiful, really.”

There were no doctors in the Offit family; he decided to become the first. In 1977, when he was an intern at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, he witnessed the second event that would determine his career path: the death of a little girl from a rotavirus infection (there was, as yet, no vaccine). The child’s mother had been diligent, calling her pediatrician just a few hours after the girl’s fever, vomiting, and diarrhea had begun. Still, by the time the girl was admitted, she was too dehydrated to have an intravenous line inserted. Doctors tried everything to rehydrate her, including sticking a bone marrow needle into her tibia to inject fluids. She died on the table. “I didn’t realize it killed children in the United States,” Offit says, remembering how the girl’s mother, after hearing the terrible news, came into the room and held her daughter’s hand. “That girl’s image was always in my head.”

The choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to take no risk. Its just a choice to take a different risk, and we need to be better about saying, Heres what that different risk looks like.” — Paul Offit

The third formative moment for Offit came in the late 1980s, when he met Maurice Hilleman, the most brilliant vaccine maker of the 20th century. Hilleman — a notoriously foulmouthed genius who toiled for years in the Philadelphia labs of Merck — invented vaccines to prevent measles, mumps, and rubella (and later came up with the combination of the three, the MMR). He created vaccines for hepatitis A and B, Hib, chicken pox, pneumococcus, and meningococcus. He became Offit’s mentor; Offit later became Hilleman’s biographer.

Offit believes in the power of good storytelling, which is why he writes books, five so far. He dearly wants to pull people into the exciting mysteries that scientists wrestle with every day. He wants us all to understand that vaccines work by introducing a weakened strain of a particular virus into the body — a strain so weak that it cannot make us sick. He wants us to revel in this miracle of inoculation, which causes our immune systems to produce antibodies and develop “memory cells” that mount a defense if we later encounter a live version of that virus.

It’s easy to see why Offit felt a special pride when, after 25 years of research and testing, he and two colleagues, Fred Clark and Stanley Plotkin, joined the ranks of the vaccine inventors. In February 2006, RotaTeq was approved for inclusion in the US vaccination schedule. The vaccine for rotavirus, which each year kills about 600,000 children in poor countries and about 40 children in the US, probably saves hundreds of lives a day.

But in certain circles, RotaTeq is no grand accomplishment. Instead, it is offered as Exhibit A in the case against Offit, proving his irredeemable bias and his corrupted point of view. Using this reasoning, of course, Watson and Crick would be unreliable on genetics because the Nobel Prize winners had a vested interest in genetic research. But despite the illogic, the argument has had some success. Consider the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which reviews new vaccines and administration schedules: Back in the late ’90s and early ’00s, Offit was a member of the panel, along with experts in infectious diseases, virology, microbiology, and immunology. Now the 15-person panel is made up mostly of state epidemiologists and public-health officials.

That’s not by accident. According to science journalist Michael Specter, author of the new book Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet and Threatens Our Lives, the controversy surrounding vaccine safety has made lack of expertise a requirement when choosing members of prominent advisory panels on the issue. “It’s shocking,” Specter says. “We live in a country where it’s actually a detriment to be an expert about something.” When expertise is diminished to such an extent, irrationality and fear can run amok.

Hence the death threats against Paul Offit. Curt Linderman Sr., the host of “Linderman Live!” on AutismOne Radio and the editor of a blog called the Autism File, recently wrote online that it would “be nice” if Offit “was dead.”

I’d met Linderman at Autism One. He’d given his card to me as we stood outside the Westin O’Hare talking about his autistic son. “We live in a very toxic world,” he’d told me, puffing on a cigarette.

It was hard to argue with that.

Despite his reputation, Offit has occasionally met a vaccine he doesn’t like. In 2002, when he was still a member of the CDC’s advisory committee, the Bush administration was lobbying for a program to give the smallpox vaccine to tens of thousands of Americans. Fear of bioterrorism was rampant, and everyone voted in favor — everyone except Offit. The reason: He feared people would die. And he didn’t keep quiet about his reservations, making appearances on 60 Minutes II and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

The problem with the vaccine, he said, is that “one in every million people who gets it dies.” Moreover, he said, because smallpox is visible when its victims are contagious (it is marked by open sores), outbreaks — if there ever were any — could be quickly contained, and there would be plenty of time to begin vaccinations then. A preventive vaccine, he said, “was a greater risk than the risk of smallpox.”

Ah, risk. It is the idea that fuels the anti-vaccine movement — that parents should be allowed to opt out, because it is their right to evaluate risk for their own children. It is also the idea that underlies the CDC’s vaccination schedule — that the risk to public health is too great to allow individuals, one by one, to make decisions that will impact their communities. (The concept of herd immunity is key here: It holds that, in diseases passed from person to person, it is more difficult to maintain a chain of infection when large numbers of a population are immune.)

Risk is also the motivating idea in Offit’s life. This is a man, after all, who opted to give his own two children — now teenagers — the flu vaccine before it was recommended for their age group. Why? Because the risk of harm if his children got sick was too great. Offit, like everyone else, will do anything to protect his children. And he wants Americans to be fully educated about risk and not hoodwinked into thinking that dropping vaccines keeps their children safe. “The choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to take no risk,” he says. “It’s just a choice to take a different risk, and we need to be better about saying, ‘Here’s what that different risk looks like.’ Dying of Hib meningitis is a horrible, ugly way to die.”

Getting the measles is no walk in the park, either — not for you or those who come near you. In 2005, a 17-year-old Indiana girl got infected on a trip to Bucharest, Romania. On the return flight home, she was congested, coughing, and feverish but had no rash. The next day, without realizing she was contagious, she went to a church gathering of 500 people. She was there just a few hours. Of the 500 people present, about 450 had either been vaccinated or had developed a natural immunity. Two people in that group had vaccination failure and got measles. Thirty-two people who had not been vaccinated and therefore had no resistance to measles also got sick. Did the girl encounter each of these people face-to-face in her brief visit to the picnic? No. All you have to do to get the measles is to inhabit the airspace of a contagious person within two hours of them being there.

The frightening implications of this kind of anecdote were illustrated by a 2002 study published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. Looking at 3,292 cases of measles in the Netherlands, the study found that the risk of contracting the disease was lower if you were completely unvaccinated and living in a highly vaccinated community than if you were completely vaccinated and living in a relatively unvaccinated community. Why? Because vaccines don’t always take. What does that mean? You can’t minimize your individual risk unless your herd, your friends and neighbors, also buy in.

Science must somehow prove a negative that vaccines dont cause autism which is not how science typically works. Until the cause of autism is discovered, scientists can establish only that vaccines are safe and that threshold has already been met.

Perceived risk — our changing relationship to it and our increasing intolerance of it — is at the crux of vaccine safety concerns, not to mention related fears of pesticides, genetically modified food, and cloning. Sharon Kaufman, a medical anthropologist at UC San Francisco, observes that our concept of risk has evolved from an external threat that’s out of our control (think: statistical probability of a plane crash) to something that can be managed and controlled if we just make the right decisions (eat less fat and you’ll live longer). Improved diagnostic tests, a change in consumer awareness, an aging society determined to stay youthful — all have contributed to the growing perception that risk (of death, illness, accident) is our responsibility to reduce or eliminate. In the old order, risk management was in the hands of your doctor — or God. Under the new dispensation, it’s all up to you. What are the odds that your child will be autistic? It’s your job to manage them, so get thee to the Internet, and fast.

The thimerosal debacle exacerbated this tendency, particularly when the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Public Health Service issued a poorly worded statement in 1999 that said “current levels of thimerosal will not hurt children, but reducing those levels will make safe vaccines even safer.” In other words, there’s no scientific evidence whatsoever, but you never know.

“When science came out and said, ‘Uh-oh, there may be a risk,’ the stage was already set,” Kaufman says, noting that many parents felt it was irresponsible not to have doubts. “It was Pandora’s box.”

The result is that science must somehow prove a negative — that vaccines don’t cause autism — which is not how science typically works. Edward Jenner invented vaccination in 1796 with his smallpox inoculation; it would be 100 years before science, such as it was, understood why the vaccine worked, and it would be even longer before the specific cause of smallpox could be singled out. Until the cause of autism is discovered, scientists can establish only that vaccines are safe — and that threshold has already been met.

The government is still considering funding more research trials to look for a connection between vaccines and autism. To Kaufman, there’s some justification for this, given that it may be the only way to address everyone’s doubts. But the thimerosal panic suggests that, if bungled, such trials could make a bad situation worse. To scientists like Offit, further studies are also a waste of precious scientific resources, not to mention taxpayers’ money. They take funding away from more pressing matters, including the search for autism’s real cause.

A while back, Offit was asked to help put together a reference text on vaccines. Specifically, his colleagues wanted him to write a chapter that assessed the capacity of the human immune system. It was a hypothetical exercise: What was the maximum number of vaccines that a person could handle? The point was to arm doctors with information that could reassure parents. Offit set out to determine two factors: how many B cells, which make antibodies, a person has in a milliliter of blood and how many different epitopes, the part of a bacterium or virus that is recognized by the immune system, there are in a vaccine. Then, he came up with a rough estimate: a person could handle 100,000 vaccines — or up to 10,000 vaccines at once. Currently the most vaccines children receive at any one time is five.

He also published his findings in Pediatrics. Soon, the number was attached to Offit like a scarlet letter. “The 100,000 number makes me sound like a madman. Because that’s the image: 100,000 shots sticking out of you. It’s an awful image,” Offit says. “Many people — including people who are on my side — have criticized me for that. But I was naive. In that article, I was being asked the question and that is the answer to the question.”

Still, he hasn’t backed off. He feels that scientists have to work harder at winning over the public. “It’s our responsibility to stand up for good science. Though it’s not what we’re trained to do,” he says, admitting that his one regret about Autism’s False Prophets is that it didn’t hold scientists accountable for letting fear of criticism render them mute. “Get out there. There’s no venue too small. As someone once said, it would be a very quiet forest indeed if the only birds that sang were those that sang best.”

So Offit keeps singing. Isn’t he afraid of those who wish him harm? “I’m not that brave,” he says. “If I really thought my life was at risk or my children’s lives were at risk, I wouldn’t do it. Not for a second.” Maybe, he acknowledges, he’s in denial.

Later, I ask his wife the same question. When it comes to her husband’s welfare, Bonnie Offit is fiercely protective. A pediatrician with a thriving group practice, she still makes time to monitor the blogosphere. (Her husband refuses to read the attacks.) She wants to believe that if you “keep your finger on the pulse,” as she puts it, you can keep your loved ones safe.

Still, she worries. On the day I find myself sitting at her dining room table, every front page in the nation features an article about George Tiller, the abortion doctor gunned down at his church in Wichita, Kansas. When her husband leaves the room, Bonnie brings up the killing. “It upsets me,” she says, looking away. “I didn’t even tell him that. But it absolutely upsets me.”

Her husband, meanwhile, still rises every morning at 4 am and heads to his small, tidy study in a spare bedroom. Every morning, he spends a couple of hours working on what will be his sixth book, a history of the anti-vaccine movement. Offit gets excited when he talks about it.

In 19th-century England, he explains, Jenner’s smallpox vaccine was known to be effective. But despite the Compulsory Vaccination Act of 1853, many people still refused to take it, and thousands died unnecessarily. “That was the birth of the anti-vaccine movement,” he says, adding that then — as now — those at the forefront “were great at mass marketing. It was a print-oriented society. They were great pamphleteers. And by the 1890s, they had driven immunization rates down to the 20 percent range.”

Immediately, smallpox took off again in England and Wales, killing 1,455 in 1893. Ireland and Scotland, by contrast, “didn’t have any anti-vaccine movement and had very high immunization rates and very little incidence of smallpox disease and death,” he says, taking a breath. “You’d like to think we would learn.”

Offit wants the book to be cinematic, visually riveting. He believes, fervently, that if he can hook people with a good, truthful story, maybe they will absorb his hopeful message: The human race has faced down this kind of doubt before.

His battle is, in at least one respect, probably a losing one. There will always be more illogic and confusion than science can fend off. Offit’s idea is to inoculate people one by one, until the virus of fear, if not fully erased, at least recedes.

Amy Wallace (ecallawyma@gmail.com) has written for GQ, Esquire, and The New Yorker. This is her first article for Wired.

1. An earlier version of this story suggested that no childhood vaccines contain thimerosal; in fact some versions of the influenza vaccine, which is not typically mandated for children’s admission to school, does contain the preservative. Go here for a further explanation.

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