#but yeah i was listening to Destruction and i noticed that the final two panels in the last part lined up with the end of the song

[violet-woodnymph]

Hey @shepscapades

ART BELONGS TO SHEPSCAPADES- GO CHECK HER OUT Partially inspired by @average-etho-enjoyer 's video here

[skittlewaffle]

👣 spinel

TW: Injury...? (Also I made it a Spinetrine oneshot :)) go on, sue me >:D

☆*:.｡.✨.｡.:*☆

“And then the song ended with a BOOM! CRASH!! Literally! I-I just can’t get it out of my noggin, y’know?!” the small, pink gem blabbered on excitedly during her walk through Funland with a friend. “You’re a singer. Ever had that one song stuck in ya head?”

The gem of sunset colors smiled in agreement. “Oh, plenty. After Steven introduced me to earth‘s music, I couldn’t stop getting into it.”

A big smile appeared on Spinel’s face. Shoes squeaking with joy, she abruptly hopped in front of Ametrine, prompting her to stop and listen well. The little gem bounced with ecstasy. “I have an idea! What. If. We reenacted our favorite songs?”

“That would be fun!” Ametrine replied.

“Great! Let’s go!” Spinel exclaimed, reaching for her wrist.

“Oh, right n-AH?!!”

The little toon started to drag her buddy through the park. It was quite a sight to behold: the clumsy entertainer sweeping the other around like a flag in her wake. Naturally, havoc was caused as a result: snowcones meeting their untimely end as they splatted on the cement, balloons being popped, and game participants losing their shots, all because of this — what they could only describe as one clown of a gem.

Finally, she skid her heels to a stop, not noticing the mumbles of annoyed townsfolk or the minor destruction caused by her antics. Ametrine stood up, her eyes swirling around from the ride. Shaking her head, she looked over at Spinel, whose astonished gaze, reminiscent of a small child’s, was fixed on something big. She traced her gaze towards what could only be the tallest roller coaster in the entire park.

“Perfect~” Spinel whispered with a smirk.

Her friend didn’t catch on. She could only tilt her head, just imagining what chaos Spinel could be planning right now. Only when the elastic gem turned her body into a spring, Ametrine realized what she was doing. But she was a little too slow.

“Wait- Spinel!!”

As she bounced up, Ametrine tried to grab her arm, but she missed. Spinel was now soaring up, giggling to herself as the world beneath her got smaller. She was soon standing high on the coaster rails and waving at her pal down below.


“Oh stars…” Ametrine lightly gripped her face in what she herself couldn’t tell was embarrassment or worry… maybe both? Spinel now had the attention of a few townspeople and gem employees, but she paid no mind to anyone but her friend.

“Ah, now THIS is how I remember it!” She paused to feel the breeze, brushing her pigtails back and sighing, thinking back to the bittersweet climax of the night of her first visit to earth. “I’m pretty sure the Injector was taller than this though!!”

Ametrine scoffed with worry. “Spinel, please get down from there.”

“It’s too dangerous! You could get poofed!” a Quartz chimed in.

“Can’t hear ya! Ok, listen up Trines, I’m gonna start the song! Ahem-“ Spinel, the star of one heck of a show, posed with one hand to her gem, the other hand extended to the heavens, releasing a smooth, yet boisterous note to start.

“🎵 I can make a promise!! I can make a plan! I can make a difference! I can take a staaand!!~”

Ametrine stood in place, hands folded in front of her face as she paid all her attention to Spinel, not knowing what to do. The Quartzes were in a bustle, trying to direct each other to the control panel of the roller coaster. The coaster car itself was roaring over their heads as it made its way across the rails. The people began to panic. But from where Spinel was standing, the shouts of everyone telling her to get down sounded like applause, their frantic gestures seeming like the excitement of a loyal audience.

She giggled in the middle of her song. “Thank you, thank you! 🎵 I can make an effort, if I only understaaaand…~”

“SPINEL!! GET OUT OF THE WAY!!” Ametrine shouted, to no avail. The car was getting dangerously close; the people inside caught sight of her and began to hold each other, shrieking. Clueless Spinel wouldn’t budge, even in what would be a life or death situation. She was getting what was coming to her.

The car, speeding towards her at sixty miles an hour, was literally a foot away from her. With the way she was posing over the rails, only her one leg was in the range of impact.

“🎵 That IIIIIIII, I can make a- AAAHHH!!!” Spinel screeched along with the passengers of the ride as her leg got painfully run over. In a blink, they were out of sight, heading down a slope. The last thing she caught sight of was their shocked faces. The crowd below went silent, cringing at just how horrific that was. This is a performance no one will soon forget.

“Ooooohhf...” The gem still stood on the rail, lifting her now crooked leg up with her hand, raising an eyebrow. Her ankle seemed to be badly damaged. “Yoooooowwwiee-hehee!! That’s not good.” She directed her attention towards a Quartz below holding a megaphone.

“Yo! You should probably get down now!”

“Oh-ho, right,” the fool answered quietly, stretching her arms down to grapple her way towards Ametrine.

When she made it to stable ground, she sweated a bit, placing her hands on her hips and looking away. “Hahah… Whoops.”

Ametrine gently grabbed Spinel by the shoulders, lightly huffing. “Spinel, we kept telling you to get down!”

She chuckled, brushing the two-toned gem’s hands off nonchalantly. “Yeah, yeah, I know now. But wasn’t that just SWELL?!! I felt so alive up there!!”

“But Spinel, your leg!”

“Pffft, this old thing?” He held the limp limb by the underside of the knee once more, staring at it. And, as if on cue for part of an act, the crooked and flattened appendage began to inflate like a balloon, ever so slowly, making a long noise in the process, like a squeaky toy regaining its air. Her contorted ankle twisted back into its original place and her feet plumped up to its normal size. Ametrine stared in shock as Spinel gave her a cheeky smile. The witnesses stared in amazement as she stomped her foot down with a loud squeak as if it were never injured to begin with.

“See? Look at me!” She did a quick little tap dance; less tapping, more squeaking. “I’m a bettah dancer than ever!”

“Spinel!!” Ametrine chuckled, blushing for shame that she could laugh so genuinely at such an event as this.

As if forgetting everything that happened straightaway, Spinel held her hand and began to walk with her. “Alright, doll; now it’s YOUR turn!”

“What?! I’m not getting up there!”

“No, silly; I’m talkin’ about your favorite song! OH! You should do a stage performance!”

Their continued conversation faded from the crowd’s hearing range. They all stood there, mouths agape. They will never unsee this.

☆*:.｡.✨.｡.:*☆

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 247: Todoroki Angst

Previously on BnHA: Ujiko started some kind of procedure on Tomura to make him even more powerful, because that’s what we were all asking for at the end of the last arc, isn’t it? “Horikoshi can you go ahead and make the homicidal nihilist even stronger please and thank you.” Well not to worry, because he’s got our backs! Meanwhile Hawks poked around the villain HQ trying to find out more details about That End Of The World Thing That’s Happening In 4 Months, and came up with squat. But he did successfully pass on his secret message to Endeavor about how “THE CHILDREN ARE OUR ONLY HOPE,” so Endeavor shrugged and was like “fine, HEY CHILDREN, LET’S GO FIGHT CRIME.” Anyways, so I was thinking, do you suppose they all just figured out they’re actually in a shounen manga? Because that would explain a lot.

Today on BnHA: Endeavor gathers the kids together and is all “so tell me about yourselves.” Deku is all “I have two quirks shut up it’s not weird” and says he wants to get better at harnessing his power so that he can use it without it being destructive. Kacchan is all “I’m already strong but I want to become better as a person” and I appreciate how the other characters are able to hold themselves back from exclaiming, “THIS KID’S REDEMPTION ARC... IT’S TOO POWERFUL...!” because I sure the fuck would have if I was there. And then Shouto is all “hey dad, friendly reminder that I’m here because I want to get stronger to reach my own goals, but you’re still a shitty dad and I hate your guts.” Endeavor, to his credit, reacts very appropriately to all three kids (including a resigned “got it” to Shouto, which was in fact the only appropriate response, so props to him for that), and dives right on in to mentoring the shit out of them. He then delivers a challenge -- defeat at least one villain without him beating them to the punch. So that should be fun, and I mean that with complete sincerity. Bring it!

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity afterward, and added a few ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.)

oooooh shit we’re starting right on a continuation of the Fuyumi panel from last week. TODOROKI DRAMA ARC INCOMING. THIS IS IT BOYS. THE BIG ONE

omg omg omg

friendly reminder that chapter 242, in which this internship was first announced, came out on September 6. that is six whole weeks that we’ve been waiting for this internship to actually get started for real. I WAS PROMISED CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND UNUSUAL INTERACTIONS AND UNLIKELY BONDS BEING FORMED. and I have been patient, because In Horikoshi We Trust, but is it finally that time now? I just need them to stop hinting at it and finally get to it before I lose my mind okay

so Endeavor is asking Baku and Deku for their character profiles

Deku: “I used to break bones on demand, now I shoot wind from my fists along with the occasional Venom Symbiote”

Bakugou: “I blow shit up and I also have your character development arc, but fast-tracked so that it kicked in before I could fully become a massive prick like you”

meanwhile Shouto just sits there pouting because as we know from the Babysitter’s Club arc (and also from the Sports Festival arc, during which he dragged Deku into a hallway and was all “time to tell you about my tragic past” completely unprompted), he actually has his own character profile on standby ready to go at a moment’s notice, but everyone just keeps it benched all the time. poor Shouto

(ETA: he will not be silenced!!)

so Endeavor is phrasing this in the weirdest way possible, asking them to state “their current ‘assignments’” lol what. at least the second part of this is clearer, with him asking what they want to gain from this internship

okay so Deku says he wants to control his power so that he can “move at max performance.” yes that’s a very good goal for you, World’s Last Hope

lmaoooo

“weren’t you the kid who broke every bone in his arms several times in succession while attempting to KO my youngest child.” way to make an impression Deku

so Deku patiently explains that, yes, but we’re WELL BEYOND the whole bone-breaking stage now and currently at the “trying to master my new SECRET POWER which is still under wraps” stage. get with the times, Endeavor

hahaha here we go. this is so painfully awkward

“yeah so I kind of have a second quirk now. you know. as one does. please ignore how the only other known person to ever have multiple quirks just so happens to be the greatest villain of all time who is currently incarcerated in Tartarus following his last stand during which the number one hero lost all his power. that’s not relevant. anyways so yeah, two quirks, it’s totally normal and not a big deal at all”

what the actual fuck is he going to do once quirks # 3, 4, 5, etc. come along? this is such a disaster it’s not even funny. and by the way, this whole time I’ve been ignoring the elephant in the room that is Katsuki’s face while Deku nearly spills the beans about his so-called secret. but let’s all just acknowledge that it’s amazing and it belongs in a museum

thankfully Endeavor has had more than enough of exercising his brain today after all of that codebreaking, and isn’t even bothering to ask any questions. instead he’s just like, “show me.” probably the right call; easier to just see wth he’s going on about rather than keep listening to this strange and incredibly suspicious explanation

here we go guys time for some BLOOP

that’s because you’re still scared of it! boy if you’re not going to listen to Katsuki then I hope Endeavor can knock some sense into you at least!

you know, Endeav may be scowling so hard his face is gonna get stuck that way, but so far he’s not half bad at this mentoring/coaching thing

really appreciate how he jumps straight into asking pertinent questions about what Deku wants to do with this new quirk, rather than being all “how the fuck do you go from breaking all of your bones to THAT”

so now Deku’s explaining how it works and says he’s been applying the same principles that he uses with Air Force

LMAOOOOO

this right here is the most accurate introduction to Deku that Endeavor could ever have possibly received. THAT’S IT, THAT’S THE CHARACTER

and it also neatly sums up his whole problem with Blackwhip as well, which is just that he’s way overthinking it. no fucking wonder he can’t do anything with it yet! he’s trying to run NASA-level calculations in his head in real time while using it, like wtf. just let loose boi

also can we stop and appreciate how both Bakugou and Shouto are just fucking done. like, Bakugou is one thing, but just look at Todoroki fucking Shouto, Deku’s #1 fan and admirer, being all “wtf I hate Deku now”

LMAO AGAIN

Burnin’ is quickly rising through my favorite character ranks. meanwhile Shouto has gleaned, quite correctly, that those were in fact words coming from Deku’s mouth. what kind of words is a mystery, but at least it’s something

omfg Endeavor can speak Deku

(ETA: one of the things I’m noticing on a reread is how Endeavor is approximately twice the size of the kids. and it’s not like they’re small or anything. but they look like toddlers next to him. he’s only 6′4″ how is he towering over them to this degree.)

I feel like Endeavor’s intelligence levels fluctuate from week to week. or even from panel to panel. enigma

so blah blah blah he’s thinking to himself “his raw power rivals All Might’s” and then -- ! LOOK AT THIS SHIT

SOFT ENDEAVOR ADOPTING DEKU WTAF. holy shit. if anyone says they saw this coming, I’m calling you out as a fucking liar. BUT I’M HERE FOR IT OMG

AND NOW THIS ONE’S TURN!

(ETA: Kacchan is 5′7″. pretty sure Endeavor is actually 8 feet tall.)

lmao Deku’s face. trying to work out what this means and whether it’s good or bad

meanwhile, after the multiple pages of extensive rambling from Deku, Endeavor is about to get an introduction from Bakugou which will likely just consist of “I WANT TO BECOME THE NUMBER ONE” with absolutely no introspection whatsoever. basically the polar opposite of Deku. gotta love it

HERE WE GO

ooh, unexpected! though still brusque. but to be fair, he’s gifted when it comes to saying a lot in few words

(ETA: out of the three, Kacchan definitely took up the least amount of time with his introspection. not bad for a kid who used to think the entire fucking world revolved around him. growth!)

now he’s bitching at Burnin’ for not having anything better to do than stand around heckling them lmao

SHE’S HERE TO PROVIDE COMMENTARY KATSUKI SHHH. in other news, today I learned that Burnin’ is actually me. huh

OH MY GOD KATSUKI IS METAING -- !! [ELBOWS MY WAY INTO THE FRONT ROW] EVERYONE FUCKING SHUT YOUR MOUTHS AND LISTEN!!!!

OH MY GOD

y’all Katsuki really just fessed up and admitted to needing to work on his growth as a person rather than his physical ability. along with a NEW ADORABLE CHILDHOOD FLASHBACK, EXCUSE ME WHILE I ORDER PRINTS OF THIS TO PUT IN MY WALLET

AND HERE WE GO NOW, THE WHOLE “I WANT TO SURPASS THE NUMBER ONE” PART. BUT IT WAS SO MUCH DEEPER THAN I EXPECTED, KATSUKI YOU CONTINUE TO MAKE ME PROUD! LOOK HOW DETERMINED HE IS TO BE A BETTER PERSON

PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, IF YOU’RE NOT ROOTING FOR BAKUGOU KATSUKI THEN WHY ARE YOU EVEN READING THIS MANGA HONESTLY

OMG ENDEAVOR

“this kid...” REMINDS YOU OF SOMEONE, DOESN’T HE! OH MY GOD I NEED TO SIT AND CALM DOWN AND DRINK SOME WATER

anyway so do you love him. YOU BETTER SAY YES!!

LMAO SHOUTO COULDN’T HOLD IT IN ANY LONGER

LET’S HEAR IT THEN, FIVE PEEPEE MAN!!

Endeavor is whipping back around on him all “I THOUGHT YOU CAME HERE TO MASTER YOUR NEW TECHNIQUE” with this look of borderline panic on his face that implies to me that it’s one thing to take on two new kids with no familiar baggage, and quite another to have to deal with his own son’s personal angst which is directly related to his own worst personal shortcomings and sins! but that’s just too bad, Endeavor! also, fuck you!

OH MY GOD TODOROKI SHOUTO HAS THE SOFTEST SADDEST EXPRESSION AND THIS SPEECH IS GOING TO MAKE ME CRY WHAT THE HELL

even Kacchan has gone soft. meanwhile, is somebody cutting onions in here or

(ETA: also, Kacchan really has been promoted to best friend status, hasn’t he? or co-best friend at least. Shouto really does value their time training together, huh. “spending time with these guys.” anyways so this officially is the TodoBakuDeku arc, sorry everyone I don’t make the rules.

also! I really love how Shouto’s character development has been all about him finally figuring out what it is that he wants. one way or the other, Endeavor has been the focus of his life since childhood. everything he did was centered around him, even when it was centered around defying him. it was still always him, and never Shouto. because he’d been raised as his father’s tool, he struggled with feeling like anything he achieved was just giving his father exactly what he wanted. so he never really had the freedom to strive toward his own goals until Deku finally broke him free of that mindset. it wasn’t until he was surrounded by others who shared the same dream he’d once had that he was able to move past the toxic part of that resentment. not to say that it wasn’t justified, because it was! and is, still. but all the same, it was hurting him at least as much as it ever hurt Endeavor, if not much more so. 

so I really like the message his arc sends here, which is that forgiveness is not so much for the benefit of the one who hurt you as it is for yourself. and that’s obviously not the right word for it, by the way -- “forgiveness” -- but it’s just a placeholder for lack of a better one. because obviously as we can see, he hasn’t forgiven him, but what he has done is put that part of his past behind him. for his own sake, for his own peace, which he deserves. anyways guys Shouto is so fucking strong and I love him so damn much. shit.)

“y’all didn’t think I was gonna put the Terrible Trio together with Endeavor and not follow through on it with piles and piles of Todoroki angst,” Horikoshi says, casually filing his nails with one eyebrow raised. “c’mon”

here it comes y’all

ain’t no force on this earth more dramatic than a Todoroki. did he somehow get a wind blowing in from somewhere. aren’t they indoors

loool Endeavor getting DRAGGED LIKE AN UNTIED SHOELACE in front of these kids he just met two seconds ago, oof. “don’t forget dad, just because I’ve mellowed out a bit and accepted that I need to learn how to use my fire side doesn’t mean I don’t still hate your guts because BOY DO I.” oh damn

so your kid is justifiably pissed at you for your decade and a half of abuse, not to mention annoyed that you’re just putting it all behind you now and acting like it never happened. but it’s not like it’d make things any better if he just went back to acting like a jerk with these new kids! so here we all are, with no easy answers for this situation. what’s a 45-year-old man trying to make up for his past sins to do

(ETA: boy I just took a stroll around the ol’ fandom and a lot of people have really strong feelings about this huh. the most common sentiment seems to be “YAASSSS SHOUTO”, which I can 100% get behind. but it seems like a lot of people are also angry that Shouto is in this situation to begin with. specifically, we have the usual faction of people who are upset that Endeavor is getting any kind of redemption arc at all, and would prefer if he remained eminently hatable and shunned and detested for the rest of his days.

and look, I get it. humans are hardwired to want things to be fair. we want karma. kindness should beget kindness, and cruelty should net you the same treatment in return. reap what you sow. and while some crimes occasionally fall into a grey area, it hardly gets more black and white than Endeavor’s case. not only is there the child and spousal abuse, there’s also the incredibly dubious consent issues that arise in the case of an arranged marriage. like, there’s really no question that what he’s done is bad. so to see behavior like that “rewarded” by his becoming the number one hero, and to see people actually admiring him, and to watch him taking steps to turn his life around even as his wife and children struggle to gather the shattered pieces of their own lives -- yeah, that’s gonna trigger something in a lot of people. because it’s not fair. he hurt good people who didn’t deserve it, and all of this makes it seem like he’s getting away with it.

but here’s the thing -- there are different types of penance. there’s punishment, but there is also atonement. and Endeavor is getting his just desserts in some ways -- by being forever denied the chance to reach the goal that he worked his whole life toward, and by finally developing a conscience, the better to fully experience the remorse of knowing the pain he brought about to his family. but what’s arguably more important than that is that he also has the opportunity to try and atone for some of the terrible things he’s done, by doing good in the world now. he is a hero. his job is to help people. every day he is making the world a little better by doing that. and that, to me, is such a fascinating idea: a terrible person doing good things. and it’s something that feels almost counterintuitive, and that’s part of why a lot of people have so much trouble accepting it, I think. but it’s a fact of life, isn’t it? if good people can do bad things, then it stands to reason that the reverse is true as well. 

and I’ll just come right out and say it -- for me, if it comes down to a choice of having someone be punished, or having them be forced to do good things to atone, I’m gonna go with the latter just about every time. because while it may not feel quite as viscerally satisfying, it’s the option that produces the greatest net benefit for the world. without Endeavor, the world would have one less person out there battling evil. and as I suspect we’re going to continue to see in this arc, there are other, subtler ways that he can still do good as well.

so yeah. it’s a tricky thing. but to be honest, the ability to explore this type of complexity is one of the things I respect the most about Horikoshi’s storytelling. he’s not taking the easy way out here. he’s not giving us easy answers one way or the other. no matter what kind of resolution we get to this character arc, it’s not going to be something that will satisfy everyone. but that’s just how it is. anyways, apologies for the rant.)

hmmm Endeavor

yeah you really read that one wrong. anyway I guess it’s your turn to make a speech now

...

classic Endeavor

(ETA: actually truth be told, that was quite eloquent, and pretty much the only thing he could have said in response to all that. it’s not like he can even begin to justify all of his actions, and pretty much anything else that came out of his mouth would have come off like an attempt to dismiss his son’s feelings, or him trying to weasel out of taking responsibility. there is pretty much nothing else he can say here except for “I understand. that’s valid, and I fucked up.” which this is pretty much acknowledging. anyways this whole chapter is basically the sequel/continuation to 192 and I’m loving it omg.)

so he says he’ll watch over the three of them as a hero, and lead them in hero stuff

oh, I wasn’t going to post this panel, but now Endeavor’s saying “those are the three fundamental skills sought after from a hero” so I guess I should, huh

ooh he says that generally heroes will choose to specialize in either rescue or battle, but his policy is to kick ass at all three. well that’s one similarity between him and All Might, at least. if you’re not here to both win and rescue then what are you even doing with your life am I right

damn there really is a reason why this guy is the number one huh

okay, like. not to knock like 99% of the other heroes out there, but is anyone else sitting there thinking “wow, finally someone competent” or is it just me. like, I really do get a sense of “he’s got it all under control” from him which is lacking with pretty much all of the other heroes. no wonder society is on the verge of being in shambles. what we really need is for all heroes to be this capable, and not just All Might or Endeavor or whoever happens to be the current number one

okay, Endeavor is really out here being a genuinely good mentor, I’m speechless

holy shit

-- WHAT, NO! ARE WE ALREADY DONE?? WHY

okay but I do love that, though. it’s a perfect goal for them. difficult, but not impossible at the rate they’re growing. and it also just so happens to be something that they need to be able to do if they really are going to be the shoulders that society is resting all of its hopes upon. and last but not least, it’s something that all three of them will be able to set their minds too gladly. kick this old man’s ass, kids

anyways. ladies and gentlepeople this chapter was only thirteen pages. shortest chapter we’ve had in a minute. but at least it was densely packed! even if Shouto took up like half of it with his Daddy Issues Speech. that’s okay Shouto we always welcome your daddy angst

all in all I am satisfied. character development, and finally a clear goal for the arc. though part of me would also love it if they manage to achieve this in like the very next chapter. you never know with these wunderkinds lol

[acepanromcloudstrife]

I'm thinking that Cloud, however much he denies it, has a fear of Hojo.

[he absolutely, 100% does. and since @pickpocketarc has already confessed to being this anon, all of y’all can blame her for what your about to read. It’s about Hojo, so general creepiness and vague but bad medical stuff abound, so if that bothers anyone, i’d suggest they stay away.]

He was 14 years old the first time he met Professor Hojo, completely accidentally, in the research laboratory's medical wing.  He was in the Shinra building to apply for SOLDIER, and part of the process involved a physical exam.  It made sense--the military would want all their potential new recruits to attain a certain standard of health and well-being, especially so with the elite SOLDIER program.

But no one had informed him that he would be there for hours on end, or that there would be quite so many exams.  He was poked and prodded in nearly every area of his body, had blood drawn twice, had been hooked up to wires that monitored his heart, and had filled out so many questionnaires, he'd literally lost count of them all.

Right at the end, as he was nearing the end of his final set of papers to sign, the door to the exam room he was in opened.  A middle aged man with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail entered the room, too busy looking at the file in his hand to notice that the room wasn't unoccupied.

"Beckett, call back that last candidate--Wilson, I think it was?  There are some sight abnormalities on his blood panel that could exclude him, but--"

"Excuse me, Professor," interrupted Beckett, "I'm with someone right now.  You'll have to ask Martin."

The older man looked up from his papers and noticed Cloud for the first time.  He studied him for a long minute.  Cloud felt scrutinized in a way that hours and hours of testing couldn't even begin to compare to.

"You're joking, surely," was all the man said.

"No," Beckett confirmed.  "I'm not joking, sir."

The Professor (who looked vaguely familiar to Cloud, but where could he have known him from?) scoffed and picked up the packet of papers that had taken all afternoon to compile.  He flipped through them quickly.  "Family history?"

"Relatively good, sir.  Grandfather died young of heart failure."

"And his heart?"

"Chest x-ray and EKG were clean.  Still waiting on lab results."

"Mako-erythrocyte reactivity?"

"Fingerstick test seemed okay, but like I said, the labs are still running, sir."

The man let out a short, disgruntled sigh and rolled his eyes.  "Send the file to Heidegger.  Public Security at best."

He turned on his heel and left the room.  It wasn't until Beckett shook his head and muttered, "Fucking Hojo," that Cloud put two and two together.

***

He was 16 the next time he met Hojo, broken and bleeding and barely alive.  He'd been nervous and excited in turn for this mission.  Nervous, because he was going home to Nibelheim, but excited because he was going to be working with Zack.  And Sephiroth.  He'd finally gotten the chance to prove himself to his idol, and--

And it had all gone to shit in the absolute worst way.

He was drifting in and out of consciousness.  He remembered being lifted onto a stretcher and escorted out of the reactor, and then the next thing he knew, he was face down on a cold, metal table, being held down by far too many sets of hands, and there was a sharp, stabbing pain deep in his pelvis.  He tried to scream, but the sound refused to leave his throat.

"Anaesthesia and paralytic's wearing off," someone said.

"Vecuronium," replied a disinterested, somewhat familiar voice.  "If he keeps moving, the samples will be contaminated."

A moment later, Cloud felt his muscles relax and, to his horror, stop responding altogether.  He couldn't move at all, no matter how hard he tried, but he still felt everything that was being done to him.  He couldn't speak or scream or even whimper.  All he could do was cry.

"Subject is still exhibiting reactions to pain stimuli," another voice said.  "Blood pressure is skyrocketing.  Heart rate--"

"We're almost done."

"But sir--"

"We can't give him anything else for this procedure.  He's scheduled for anaesthesia and narcotics when he returns to the submersion tank."

And that was, apparently, the final word on the subject.  He couldn't say how long he laid there.  It seemed to go on forever, the pain making every passing second excruciatingly long.

When the procedure was over, they took him back to his tank, and he was suspended once again in mako, still conscious, still in pain, still unable to move.

***

The final time he ever saw Hojo, he was 21 years old, full of rage and ready to kill.  Three of them stood against him, Cloud and Vincent and Tifa, and as the vengeful old man's body once again melted and reassembled thanks to the Jenova cells he'd spliced into himself, Cloud thought about how this form finally matched what a monstrous individual he'd been all along.

When they eventually wore him down, Cloud pinned him to the ground with his sword and yelled at Vincent to take his shot.  He aimed his weapon with the speed and precision one expected of a Turk and pulled the trigger twice in succession.  Two bullets landed home in what was left of Hojo's chest, directly to his partially exposed heart as it pounded wildly.  Whether it was from the exertion of battle or if he was simply frightened at the prospect of his imminent death, Cloud didn't know.  

And frankly, he didn't fucking care either.  Hojo was a madman and a menace, an ugly, egomaniacal bastard, and the world was immediately a better place now that he was no longer a part of it.

The three of them stood there for a few minutes, just watching the corpse, ready to jump back into the thick of it if needed.  It didn't move, but with Jenova cells, there was always a lingering uncertainty.  

Finally, Tifa broke the silence.  "I think...he's really dead."

Cloud felt himself relax slightly.  He noticed Tifa cradling her left arm gingerly against her chest and dug a potion of his pockets for her.  He figured Vincent needed a moment by himself anyhow.

As they readied themselves to move on, however, Cloud felt an overwhelming desire to have the last word, as it were.  He walked over to the mass of disjointed and disfigured flesh that had formerly been Hojo, but he couldn't decide what he wanted his last words to this despicable man to be.

In the end, unable to think of anything more articulate to say, he just spat on the man's corpse and growled a spiteful, "Fuck you."

***

He was 24 years old the final time Hojo directly interfered in his life, and even though Vincent had been the heavy-lifter this time, Cloud and the rest of AVALANCHE had done everything in their power to help him.  When it was over, Vincent told them everything, the whole sordid tale, start to finish.

No one had known what to say.  There really wasn't anything that seemed right.  The room was quiet and awkward for several minutes as they all digested the story of how Hojo had copied his consciousness into a computer system, cheating death for 3 years until DeepGround was ready to put their plans into action, how he took over the body of Weiss in order to try and bring destruction to the Planet once again.

The solution to their silence, someone decided, was alcohol.  They all drank more than was good for them that night, happy to be alive at the end of so much violence and anxiety.  He stumbled upstairs into his bed, and for the first time in over a year, he had a nightmare about Hojo. He was 16 again, floating in a mako tube, paralyzed, unable to scream, and in so much pain his body felt like it was on fire.  He was alone this time, the tank besides his empty and broken.  Zack had escaped and left him there alone to be the sole target of Hojo's sick, twisted science.

He must have been talking in his sleep, because when Tifa shook him awake, she asked him if he was okay.  He felt wetness on his cheeks almost immediately, but the first sob didn't escape him until Tifa had already wrapped her arms around him.  She was warm and soft and comforting, radiating a calming energy he'd come to associate with home and with safety.  Her fingers combed through his hair gently as she cooed soothing nonsense into his ear.  He was relatively calm within a few minutes.  

"Better?" she asked.

"Yeah," was all he managed.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"No."

"Okay."  She kissed his temple and gave him a squeeze.  She didn't need to say anything else.  He knew that she was there for him, and if he wanted to tell her what his nightmare was about, she would listen.

After a moment, he said only, "Hojo."

Tifa kissed him again and hummed against his skin.  "I'm sorry."

He eventually fell asleep again like that, curled against Tifa, tucked securely into her arms, his undisturbed tears dry on his cheeks.  The next morning, he would have one hell of a hangover, and it was just as well that he had another excuse to stay in bed for the rest of the day and feel bad.  

For now, though, he could only pray that Hojo didn't enter his dreams again.  Cloud didn't need reminding twice in one night that, no matter how long the man himself might be dead and gone, Hojo would never, ever leave him be.  He had scars from his time with Hojo that would never heal.  He'd always be right there under Cloud's skin, taunting him, tainting him, slowly but surely.  

Fucking bastard.

[grandtheftstarship]

Not Yet (Leonard McCoy x Fem!Reader) [Request!]

Prompt 21 with Leonard McCoy! 🖖🏻💙 -Anon

Thank you for your request anon :) Sorry for making you wait! I’ve been really uninspired lately and when I write and I’m uninspired then my work doesn’t have my heart in it. I really want the stories you request to be the best they can be, so I tried to write when my writer’s block was absent there for a minute! I really hope you understand and enjoy! 

also heartbreak but that doesn't matter

IMPORTANT!!!! I am going to be going on a quick hiatus to work on a larger fic on my AO3! It isn’t Star Trek, but let me know if you want to read it anyways. I will be finishing all current requests that I have. You can send in a request but just know that I won’t get to it very quickly!! Thank you!!

The next requests are: 1. Kirk 2.Spock

Prompts Chosen: 21. Just hold on… please

Word Count: 1645 Warnings: graphic descriptions of injury, swearing, A.N.G.S.T, sciencey stuff I made up, ending is a little rushed Posted: Tumblr, Wattpad

Leonard had warned you. He told you he had a bad feeling about the away mission. He told you it was a bad idea, but you went anyway and now you were paying the price. 

You were the only one to survive the malfunction. You were the engineer, designated to keep the shuttle up and running while the science officers recorded their data, but an Ensign you didn’t know the name of had screwed with some wiring and everything was fried. Everything, including the Ensign, and every other officer aboard the vessel. The only reason you survived was because you were conveniently working in the back rubber-sealed room of the shuttle. 

“[y/l/n] to Enterprise!” you shouted into the receiver, frantically trying to steer the shuttle as it plummeted through the atmosphere of Mantilles. “Goddamnit, pick up.”

“[y/n]? What’s wrong?” Jim’s voice came in static and you nearly collapsed in relief. 

“Jim, something fried and killed the whole crew. Engines are gone. I’m going down- ugh!”

The shuttle lurched violently as you re-entered the atmosphere, feeling your ears pop and the cabin’s temperature start to rise. You waited until the hot brightness of the flames and the rushing in your ears died away before opening your eyes again. 

The comm reconnected to the Enterprise and you could hear Leonard trying to reach you from the other side.

“[y/n]! [y/n], can you hear me?” 

“Yes!” you called back, hands flying over the control panel as alarms started blaring. “Shit!”

“[y/n]-”

“Beam me out!” you shouted, panic rising in your chest. “Beam me out! 1,000 meters from the surface!”

Your breathing got faster as you tried in vain to do something, anything to stop the shuttle from falling so quickly. 

“Jim, please!” you heard Leonard begging on the line. “Somebody, please do something!”

“500 meters!”

“I’m trying but there’s something wrong with the shuttle’s hull, I can’t get a lock on her!” you heard someone yell. 

“200 meters,” adrenaline mixed with fear shook your hands violently as the control panel flashed red in warning, the trees getting closer and closer. Your movement stopped slowly as defeat settled into your bones. “Leonard-”

“Don’t you start,” Leonard choked and you could tell he was trying not to cry. 

“100 meters,” you tried not to cry either, knowing all of the crew on the other end about to watch you die. You decided to go down honorably. “50 meters.”

“35. 20. 15.”

You could hear frantic yelling on the other end as the count dipped under 10 and the shuttle started hitting the trees. You quickly activated the safety belt, even though you knew it wouldn’t do any good.

“Leonard-!” 

Your line went dead.

Leonard was frozen. He didn’t particularly know what he was supposed to do in this instance. He felt numb as he heard the static coming from your comm and the word TERMINATED taunting him from the screen displaying your zeroed-out vitals. A small part of him pointed out that the tech could be wrong and you weren’t dead but he pushed it away. He knew that it was over. 

When he finally noticed how the bridge had fallen silent besides the klaxon sounding quietly in the background and the computer repeating ‘warning’ in a steady rhythm from his medical station, he tore his eyes from the screen and looked around. Uhura was crying, Jim looked like Captain Pike had died in front of him all over again, Spock was holding Uhura, turned away from the rest of the crew, Sulu’s face was paused in an expression of horror, Chekov’s head was in his hands, and everyone else didn’t seem to understand what had just happened. 

Even though he was already standing, he made a show of pushing his chair away from behind him, the clash of metal on metal as the chair hit the floor slicing through the silence. Leonard’s sad eyes met Jim’s and suddenly he wasn’t sad anymore. Anger welled up inside him and he rushed off the bridge. He could’ve stopped this. Someone could’ve done something. His feet took him to his office and he stopped when he stood in his doorway. Both his eyes and his hands twitched with rage. The door shut behind him and Leonard snapped. He slammed his hands on his desk before moving his arm in one fluid motion and sent everything resting on it tumbling to the floor with a crash. He stared at the papers, padds, pens, pencils, and various other things littered all over the floor before the tears started welling in his eyes. He never thought he would be an angry cryer, but here he was. He collapsed into his desk chair, head down on the desk, and let it out.

You don’t know what woke you. Maybe it was the heat, or maybe the pain, but whatever it was it sent your eyes flying open. You gasped in agony, feeling the weight of whatever piece of the shuttle was crushing your right arm and legs. It was almost too much and you felt the darkness start rushing back into your vision but you blinked rapidly, pushing it away. You were smart enough to know that if you went under again, there was a good chance you would never come back up. 

You tried to survey your surroundings though the pain you were feeling in a multitude of places made it a bit hard. It seemed to be late morning on the planet judging by the way the sun filtered low in the trees, making it a bit easier to see the wreckage of the shuttle around you. From what you could tell, you were under the main control panel and part of your seat. You could feel the belt ripping the skin around your abdomen, and the upper strap had definitely broken your collar bone. You looked around again, eyes settling on a communicator, unharmed and just below where you were stuck. Hope soared through your chest, but only until it suddenly dawned on you that with the destruction of the shuttle, everyone most-likely thought you were dead. 

You decided to focus on trying to get yourself out from underneath the piece of shuttle without permanently losing your legs instead of dwelling on the fact that the people you cared about most had already left you behind. 

You felt around with your free hand, not feeling any blood, so you figured it was internal bleeding. You were somewhat right.

You groaned as you started to lift the piece of metal off of your body, feeling the blood start to pool under your legs.

Shit.

You were able to heave the heavy steel up and off of you, wincing at the loud crash following as it made contact with the ground. You stayed in your position for a minute longer, allowing yourself to breathe before propping yourself up on your good elbow and nearly passed back out. 

Your body was covered in your own blood, left leg bent painfully in an odd direction. When you sucked in a breath, pain seared through your shoulder and you looked down sharply. Yeah, your collar bone was definitely broken. 

You refocused on the communicator. You had been wedged between two shuttle parts until you had freed yourself and now you were elevated several feet off the ground. You tried your best to keep yourself braced as you attempted to slide down the bent piece of metal, crying out in agony as your broken leg hit the reddish dirt. You clutched your knee, letting a few tears slip out from your puffy eyes. Something warm and wet started seeping through your ripped dress again, and you noticed that with the impact you had started bleeding from everywhere again. You glanced back up at the rusty-looking spot you were just laying in, cringing at the fresh red streaking through the white hull. 

You limped for the communicator, ending up in a crawl, and hastily flipped it open. 

“[y/l/n] to Enterprise,” your croaked out, clutching the communicator for dear life. “Please, please...Anyone..?”

                                           __________________

You don’t know how long you lied there, waiting for someone to pick up. Your eyes were bloodshot, cheeks tear-stained, hope slowly dissolving; until your communicator picked up something. 

“[y/n]?” came your static reply. You wanted to cry again you were so happy.

“Yes, yes it’s me!” you cried back, gasping in relief. “Leonard... is that you?”

“We’re coming to get you darlin’,” he said back. Your excitement started to wear off as you noticed the blood pooling around you. 

“Uh, Leonard?” your heart started to race. You couldn’t die now, not when you had just found your family again. 

“Yes, darlin’?”

“I’m losing lots of blood...” you trailed off as your eyes started to droop, fatigue settling in your bones. 

“[y/n]! Listen to me, you have to stay awake okay?” Leonard spoke worriedly. 

You fought it, you really did, but the darkness was just enough to force you to succumb. You lazily managed to press the tracking beacon on the communicator before going under, hearing Leonard pleading on the line.

“Just hold on...please.”

                                            __________________

You were hazily pulled out of the empty sleep you were in, cracking your eyes against the harsh lights of what you assumed was the medbay. You stirred, hissing in pain when you moved. 

“[y/n]!” Leonard said in surprise, dropping what he was doing and rushing to your side. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” you smiled up at him, never happier to see his smiling face. “Still hurting a little.”

Leonard leaned in for a quick kiss, trying not to hurt you. “I’ll come to check on you in a bit, okay?”

You nodded, sending him a small smile. 

“Also, never do that to me ever again.”

You nodded, smiling wider. “Don’t worry, I don’t particularly like being in shuttle crashes.”

He beamed. “Get some rest. I love you.”

“I will. Love you too.”

[codenamesazanka]

Analysis of Shigaraki Tomura during the Stain Arc 

This is a sort of Part I to an ask I’m answering which I’ll be posting later! I’m irrationally proud of this meta because like I get to explain step by step Shigaraki’s thought process and argue that he’s 1) *smart as hell* 2) but weird and on the outside seems psycho and not even Kurogiri gets him 3) was not *that much* a spoiled tantrum throwing brat 4) it’s such a good, carefully written build up to the mall scene where he gets his enlightenment. 

So! Let’s begin. Oh yeah: Super long post. Estimated reading time: 11min?

Starting at Chapter 47:

Shigaraki (and Kurogiri) meet Stain, because Kurogiri thought Stain would be a good impetus to Shigaraki’s growth - because Shigaraki only cared about destruction, just causing it anyway he can. He didn’t need a reason, he didn’t need a detailed long-term plan, he just goes at it. Shigaraki sees Stain and himself as the same: wanton murderers of Heroes.

Stain disagrees.

Chapter 49:

Stain stabs Shigaraki, and monologues about his philosophy: Stain kills for a reason. Bloodlust without conviction is meaningless, and to achieve something, there needs to be a will.

And that was what Shigaraki seemed lack, at first. Shigaraki wanted to kill for the heck of it, no belief driving that desire, and not really a determined drive. It’s just the number one thing that he wants to kill is All Might, then everything else. Shigaraki was chaos and ruin personified. And he knows it.

But then Stain realizes that wasn’t so: he sees in Shigaraki a “will…[and] the seed of some warped conviction”: the intense will to kill, because of the conviction that All Might and Hero Society is trash. Shigaraki just hasn’t put it into words yet, nor has he self-reflected on it to cultivate it.

Chapter 50:

!This part is really important!

So Stain and Shigaraki (and Kurogiri) are now in Hosu, and Stain goes off on his crusade, still ranting about his creed. Shigaraki watches him goes, and is super annoyed with him. In response, he lets out the Noumu to rampage.

People have described this as another ‘tantrum’, or Shigaraki being a psycho, or just doing what the fuck he wants. That this wasn’t a carefully considered decision and plan.

Here’s the thing: it was. A plan with a reason, to accomplish a goal. Despite how he was acting in the last chapter, Shigaraki was listening closely to everything Stain said, absorbing it, reflecting on it. Stain says, to succeed, you need a reason to destroy. 

And Shigaraki disagrees. Will, convictions, creed - murderers like the two of them don’t need anything like that. Killing is killing, if you wanna kill, you kill.

Shigaraki’s counterargument is to declare a contest: Whose philosophy will be correct? The deciding factor is impact on society - both Stain and Shigaraki wishes to destroy the status quo, the current world. So, will Stain’s belief-driving bloodlust affect society more; or will Shigaraki’s pure destruction?

I’ve read the panel above in Japanese, Chinese, English.  「ブッ壊したいならブッ壊せばいいって話」he says.  ‘If you wanna destroy, then destroying is just fine’ So I pick FA’s translation as I feel it’s the more accurate one. This is Shigaraki stating his philosophy. 

Besides this being a very violent debate, this is Shigaraki’s carefully picked revenge on Stain. The guy stabbed him, he’s annoying, he dissed Shigaraki’s chaotic evil alignment. Instead of starting another knife fight, Shigaraki goes for something that he knows will really hurt Stain: his pride and dignity. Granted, this was Shigaraki expecting to win the competition, but had he won, he would’ve disintegrated Stain’s ideas, his life’s purpose - that he was changing the world, that his attitude to killing is the right one. It was all for nothing! And the whole world would know. (Shigaraki seems prefers this method of cold revenge - he does the same thing to Overhaul later.)

So! To put it simply: both want to destroy society, but disagree on the way to do it - will having a conviction take you further, or do you not need that and can rely on chaos alone? 

Not to mention as well, he even briefly re-considered the Hero Killer’s creed. “As I thought, we’re too different...” That line speaks for itself, and then he decides to release the Nomu.  

Chapter 51

So here and the following panels make it seem like Shigaraki is just losing it. That’s a fair reading, because he really does say: “Cuz I don’t like that Hero Killer. And I’m allowed to crush whatever I don’t like, right? Master.” Which does sounds very childish. 

I argue: Even as Shigaraki’s bleeding and wobbling, he’s already come up with his contest plan. Stain’s One-Man Culling vs Three Creatures of Chaos. 

Shigaraki wants to use the Noumu to cause indiscriminate damage - and more of it. Stain goes after Heroes one by one, so less destruction. What will the world take notice of? Who will cause more fear and panic and lingering unease?

Now, back to that ‘Can I go kill stuff’ line, with new knowledge from the recent chapters 220+:

I say it’s Shigaraki using what All For One told him before as leverage. He’s a brat like that. All For One raised Shigaraki to be a honed killing machine, to direct his intense rage at All Might and Heroes. He’s a weapon - he kills. He doesn’t like something, he goes after it. It’s what Teacher taught him, after all. Or is Master going to admit he was wrong? 

AFO pauses for quite a while before he answers in the affirmative, though he’s still able to show he’s boss. 

And finally, we have Shigaraki declaring that by tomorrow morning, the world will have forgotten about Stain. No one cares about his ugly 17-kills ass; instead, the focus will be on the Nomu and their mass destruction. 

Chapter 56

Near the end of this whole mess, Shigaraki’s plan gets unexpected factors. The UA kids are here, Stain killing one of the Nomu, Stain getting captured - he’s confused and frustrated. They’re extraneous variables in his experiment. Now the media might think they were working together. Now the results aren’t as clear cut. 

“Why aren’t things going my way?” is Shigaraki revealing himself to have been arrogant. He was so sure his plan would be executed exactly as expected, that he would win this contest. He was trying to be the mastermind he could be, but he hadn’t succeed 100%. He’s not so sure now. 

When it’s time to head back, we see that Kurogiri didn’t get it. He had no idea what exactly Shigaraki had being thinking - because Shigaraki never told him the plan. Shigaraki never spelled it out for anyone, not Kurogiri, not his Master, not the readers. Which is why Shigaraki calls him an idiot - he expected Kurogiri to just divine the plan, wasn’t it obvious? “We’re having a battle of ideas using Hosu as the metaphorical chessboard and measuring success by degree of societal impact via media coverage.” 

Okay, maybe I’m reaching and just shoving fancy words into Shigaraki’s mouth, and he’ll probably be speaking about it via video game terminology, but still. 

Hence, ‘it all depends on tomorrow.’ He’ll be ready. I’ve mentioned before that Shigaraki keeps up with the news - the man reads newspapers in the 22th/23rd century - so it would be easy and familiar for him to analyze multiple sources and reach a conclusion. Although, it’ll be obvious.

The winner: Stain.

Shigaraki lost and he’s pissed. 

-

whew. I apologize if this was like obvious and I was sounding repetitive and patronizing, which is not my intention! Thank you for reading allllll of this!! I hope it was good!!

[pearlplusau]

Pearl Plus AU- The bright light part 2

Amethyst 8XWJ was one of the earliest to pop up from the Earth’s crust. When she first emerged off the kindergarten walls, she face-planted on the hard ground and was immediately greeted by a fellow quartz soldier, 8XWI. All gems she emerged with were great and fun, but 8XWI was special. When she saw others summoning their weapons, she was able to conjure her own with just one attempt. When she was taught about the Great Diamond authority and how the system works, she immediately adapted to the idea of higher power and understood her purpose of serving to live, living to serve. She was skilled, she was talented, she was… listening and attentive.

“What’s holding you back?” Holly asked in a sympathetic tone, her face twitched from calm to manic. “No idea where My Diamond’s pool is?” She brings back the whip once more, grinning to herself, “Shocker! (pun intended)”

She gripped the handle tighter, amplifying the static and electric current, causing an ear-splitting buzz to ring around the area, and flunged it towards 8XWJ’s arm. “Huh?” before she was able to react, electricity coursed from the handle to the tip and zapped her whole without warning, “Ahhhhh!” she screamed and trashed, but the whip won’t let go!

She kneeled down, and tried to resist! But it was too much, she thought of her comrades, her fellow amethysts losing the battle on Earth! Never will she be able to see them again! She didn’t want to give in, but…her form begged to differ.

The surge of destruction was too much! Being weak from her previous punishment, she couldn’t hold much longer, and…

Poof!

A purple quartz gem clinked as it landed on the platform, clattering as it stayed on its spot. 8XWJ was poofed and retreated into her gem.

Holly Blue Agate was smiling as she set her weapon down and thought to herself. ‘Finally, took care of the annoying purple upper-crust.’

“That takes care of that!” She claimed out loud as she dusted her arms off, and glared to the other gems gasping around her.

“Was that really necessary Holly?” Aquamarine questioned in annoyance, “Poofing gems in the open wide would be lead to…” She held her thought and snapped her fingers, realising her true intentions, “Ohhhh, I get it, you want us to report your little crime to the diamonds so you’ll be able to deliver the message, clever…”

“Yeah yeah, don’t get your hopes up, I know the rules around here.” Holly replied as she slipped the purple gem into her front pocket.

A loud voice boomed from all around the area, “HOLLY BLUE AGATE FACET 2D CUT-22! YOU HAVE BEEN SEEN TO HAVE TEMPORARILY DISABLED AN AMETHYST, PLEASE REPORT TO THE HALL ROOM IMMEDIATELY! YOUR CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR ACTIONS WILL BE JUDGED BY THE GREAT DIAMOND AUTHORITY. HOLLY BLUE AGATE FACET 2D CUT-22! YOU HAVE BEEN SEEN…” the voice repeated the same statement until the blue gem found her way to the hall room.

As she leaves, she glanced at the surrounding gems as they muttered their predictions, different coloured sapphires glanced around nervously and whisper information among themselves, but Holly took no interest in what the future holds, her plan of meeting the Diamonds will be worth all the negative impact on her image.

She went in search of a warp pad, the fastest way to the Diamonds, a white pearl was at the control panel and stated her crimes,

“Holly Blue Agate, you have been reported of dismantling an amethyst out on the open. As you know, you will be sent to the judgement hall and be set on trial by the Great Diamond Authority! Any last words dear?” The pearl asked before giving the confirmation code on the warp pad.

“Why yes Pearl! I look forward to be in the presence of the powerful Yellow Diamond, AND my glimmering diamond of course! This judgement will be a little talk between us don’t you worry.”

“We’ll see about that…” The pearl thought while typing in the code.

Holly was cuffed in glowing white shackles by two Topazes, her eyes widen as this is something unexpected.

“What is this? Handcuffs? Is this really nessasar-” Before she could finish her question, the shackles glowed and bounded Holly in a white bubble. Frozen in time, she was unable to finish her statement, her mouth was wide open but her facial expression remained annoyed.

“Huhu! This new law implemented is really rather convenient for us, don’t you think so Topaz?” The pearl had a smug face of enjoying these minor “punishments” while the topazes were unfazed with the statement. They proceeded by raising a control panel that resembles a joystick and monitored the bubble by sending it to the designated location.

Inside the orb, Holly could still see, but she could not speak, she could not move. The only sense she could control was her sight, but all she saw was the orb heading to somewhere no agate had been before. Her white boots were in uneven positions, this frustrated her, but she cannot do anything about it, she simply stayed frozen,

It was a long journey, but Holly can make out the structures and buildings leading to the black coloured cubed Courtroom. As she gets closer, she realised there’s still a chance the diamonds won’t even attend the trial for a Quartz soldier, she tried to have cold feet as she felt nervous but the atmosphere wouldn’t allow it!

The orb came to a halt, the front of the orb scanned the building’s wall, taking a sample of the colour to match the Courtroom building. The colour dripped down from the top like a small current of black ink being poured over. When the orb was fully covered in Black, it slightly floated up and went through the wall with the sound of electric current zipping through the air.

The black orb enters a dark room, where it finally dissipated away in a cloud of back dust.

“-ary…” She finally finished her sentence hung over her mouth during the entire trip. She sighed and readied herself, wanting to look as best as she could be for the Great Diamond Authority.

The wall opened up a door sized hole, a tense, anxious blue zircon came in mumbling with floating screens around her, she was just a bit shorter but also belonging to Blue’s court by her colouring. She looked around the room and spotted the blue agate, her face contorted in  bewilderment and confusion.

“YOU’RE the one on trial? But you’re an Agate! When the files came in it says two quartz soldiers “roughhousing” in front of the Great Ballroom!” She examined the tall gem and retrieved a hologram picture from her monocle, it shows a purple gem being violently taken hold by the blue gem.

“Why yes! I did took advantage of that amethyst, you see, she had vital information about an issue of a colonisation process and asked me to inform the diamonds!” Holly tried to explain her actions, but Zircon just looked mortified while taking in the information given, she pulled out another hologram screen and typed in the new info.

“The door to the trial room will be accessible any second, do you have any more information to give before we proceed matters and actions to the diamonds?” The lawyer gem urged as she readied her equipment.

“That will be all, surely the diamonds would listen to what I have to say before deciding what to do with me!” Holly spoke with a dab of uncertainty.

The door to the courtroom opened up.

“Let’s go.” Blue Zircon led the way with Holly trudging behind her.

In the dark room, Holly stood on a glowing platform, waiting for the arrival of the three diamonds. A yellow zircon warped to the left of Holly, she took one look at her opponent lawyer and smirked, “New to this huh? First job and you get to defend an abuser? Isn’t that a bit, anticlimactic?”

“Being my first assignment, no, it’s not thanks for asking.” The tone in her reply was not at all thankful nor sincere, but before she could finish, two pearls warped into the room in front of them.

Yellow Pearl was the first to speak, “All rise for the luminous Yellow Diamond!” Yellow warped in and proceed to her throne with an expression of annoyance.

Blue Pearl continued, “The lustrous Blue Diamond.” Blue warped in and slumped into her throne in…. anger?

Both pearls synchronise for the last diamond, “And the Great, Magnificent, Brilliant White Diamond!” The brightest diamond warped in and shone the room so bright Holly was blinded for a moment, until the diamond dimmed her light and proceed to the throne in the midst of Blue and Yellow.

“Let’s just finish this so we can go back to our duties.” Stated White diamond before starting the trial.

Having the three diamonds present was not as glamorous as expected, in fact, it was intimidating.

The three diamonds stared down at the accused with annoyance and little patience.

It was VERY intimidating.

The yellow Zircon initiated the trial by stating the situation and the actions committed.

“…And so, here we are, at the end of this trial our great leaders will decide the fate of this Agate and end this case.” Yellow Zircon was about to proceed to her points and arguments but the diamonds up there were not at peace with each other.

“Is everything all right my Diamonds?” The lawyer asked with her arms saluting.

But the diamonds took no notice, Blue and Yellow Diamond were silently arguing about the topic beforehand, while White looked like she wants to just zap the accused and get things over with.

“This does not look good….” Blue Zircon whispered to Holly, “Why don’t you just admit your bad choice of actions and get it over with?” She suggested.

“Never! What I did to that gem was for a reason, and that reason will not be wasted from the inconvenience of the diamonds.” Holly protested but took one more glance at the diamonds, Blue diamond looked more unhappy and upset than usual, she looks like she’s trying very hard to hold in her sadness and frustration, Yellow diamond has her outfit to be slightly ruff and off placed, with her electric current leaking from her finger tips, not being her usual strict self. As for White Diamond, She just looked as same as before, her face says, “It would be so much easier to just blast this gem with my powers and have this all done immediately!” And it looks like she’s not having the patience to handle the current situation.

“Fine! Just because this trials wasting out leaders’ time, I’ll just present the information, but not without evidence.” Holly glanced at her pocket and checked the purple gem in place, and went into the confession.

“My Diamonds!” Holly saluted while addressing the leaders, “There is something I would like to confess.”

The diamonds paid little to no attention to the Agate, as they were occupied with their own matters.

Holly could hear some words mumbling amongst them, but could only pick up Pink Diamond’s name and nothing more.

Yellow spoke with a slightly louder voice, loud enough for Holly to get the picture.

“Blue, this is not the time to defend pink and her failing colony! You of all gems should have known her failure was inevitable, why struggle now to try and help her when you could help me convince this to White?” Yellow Diamond whispered, sounding infuriated but also trying her best to lower her voice for the sake of their reputation.

“This is the exact type of behaviour that will led her thinking we don’t trust her! You gave her a chance to prove herself, so you must stick with it!” Blue snapped at Yellow louder than she should, which tipped White into snapping back,

“Enough!” She demanded and glared, both diamonds froze and sat back down.

“Proceed this trivial little judgement so we can get it over with!” The diamond commanded.

“Yess of course My Diamond!” Blue Zircon saluted and summon some holographic files, she fuddled a bit, tried to pull the right file, but ended up dropping them to the floor like paper scattering around everywhere, but worse.

“Deepest apologise, I’ll just….uhhh…” Blue Zircon was dripping more tears than sweat, she tried to collect herself and the files, but she could feel the stares of the three powerful diamonds looming over, her anxiety is building up, it’s reaching the limit, she wasn’t ready for this!

She took on a desperate glance at Holly, hoping someone would help her out, but Holly had other plans in mind.

“My Diamonds!” Holly stood up, addressed and saluted in a clear, articulated voice.

The diamonds glared daggers at her for disrupting the defendant, but it was clear that she had caught their attention.

“I understand that this trial has interrupted your daily schedule, and I know you are all in a hurry of getting back to more important matters, I will be able to speed up this trial if you generously allow me to speak freely for just mere minutes. Hopefully, this can all be resolved as soon as it can be.” Holly explained to the diamonds and hoped that they would agree with her.

The three diamonds exchanged looks of uncertainty, but they also wished to get back to more pressing matters.

Finally White Diamond spoke, “Very well, you are given 5 minutes to prepare your explanation that will be brief and informative, no stuttering and mumbling will be tolerated and if so, you will be executed immediately! We shall have a short recess, Dismissed!”

Everyone retreated into their own rooms.

(First of all, i would like to thank @marzipanotaku16 for her amazing points and criticisms for making this work better than anticipated, we’ve known each other online and through the magic of steven universe. She’s also the friend that encouraged me to start a blog and share the writing for everyone to read, this blog wouldn’t be here without her.

Anyways, this story took longer to write and it would be concluded at part 3, I have some plans and ideas for more stories that may intrigued y’all but haven't really started drafting yet, so that’s gonna take a while to finish up.

And I would like to remind y’all that this is not completely a pink pearl oriented story, this blog is for me to express my ideas through the power of writing and the internet (lame lol) 

This tells me you read the whole thing, so thank you, dear reader, and have a splendid day, happy reading and enjoy! )

[unordinary-analysis]

Episode 132

Best *clap* chapter *clap* ever

Okjnskfjhskjhfikjhgjsikhg I can barely tybe right now. I’m s h a k i n g.

Honorable mentions:

Happy that Leilah’s coming back

Also i thought she was at work not at some beach vacation wth

Where’d Elaine go? She just disappeared.

There’s this one specific panel in this episode about halfway through that’s a view kind of through John’s eyes and he has Arlo’s shirt grabbed with both his hands. Yeh, that one. I just noticed that Alro looks like he’s about to cry.

Because I don’t know how to put my ideas forward in any other way, I’m going to be doing a compare and contrast kind of thing. First, I will talk about John’s side and his argument. Then, Arlo’s. I’m so excited lets go.

Before reading know that in each section, I talk in favor of their mindset. So stuff I’ve written will be true, but will only be half of the story as I would have written the counter-argument in the other person’s p.o.v.. Don’t just read the John section and come after me with how great and right Arlo is. I already know. Please keep reading. Thank you :)

John’s point of view:

John’s argument (? i don’t know what to call it): John is v e x e d because of a few things. Firstly, he’s angry at Arlo for not telling him that he was looking for Sera. Next, he says that it was totally okay for him to beat up Isen. He’s mad because Arlo wouldn’t let him step away from the calm and quiet life he had built for himself. Lastly, he’s angry with Arlo for praising the hierarchy, but at the same time, not listening to John, who is according to Arlo’s rules, a higher authority. As a final statement, John says that he will ruin down Arlo’s precious hierarchy just like Arlo ruined his life (not his exact phrasing, but I like to make things dramatic). That’s a lot of stuff to get into, so let’s get started.

When Arlo turned down John’s request for help in his search for Seraphina, he decided to do his own investigation. Thing is, he didn’t tell John and the whole time that Arlo was finding out information, John was running around desperate to help his friend and one of the only people that could help him and the one that had figured out the most had already turned him down and deliberately done his own search. I would be pissed too. I mean really, Arlo was approached by John and asked if they could combine their powers to complete their mutual goal. But, nooo. Arlo had to deny him and do it himself, also doing his best to inconvenience John.

In regard to Isen’s beating, John has a point. In the past, Isen has lied to John, rudely invaded his privacy and stalked him back to when he was at New Bostin, and hurt John. Despite everyone’s mutual love for Isen (the fandom, not the characters lol), he kind of deserved some sort of beating. His actions are sneaky and self-serving. Isen is thought of as the poor cinnamon bun that is always put in the middle of things. Digging up dirt on John, becoming head of the newspaper, the whole superhero thing with Remi, looking for Sera. But in truth, Isen is put in many of these situations because of his own actions (mostly Arlo’s but even then, John’s side becomes more powerful). True, when requested by Arlo to investigate John, he could hardly turn it down, but the extent that Isen takes his interrogation too was uncalled for and unprofessional. He asked invasive questions and went after John without a thought for the guy. He was only put in charge of the newspaper because Arlo knew he could control Isen and the two could conspire together. He knew that Isen would easily give up information and would leak false information because Isen had ambition to lead the newspaper and Arlo had granted it, but also because Isen has tried to obstruct information in the past to secure his own well-being. Though many of the poorly thought up plans and questionable conspiracies he’s been a part of have been conducted by others, Isen always holds a little blame. His actions are usually always self-preserving and sly, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but because of the harm his actions have indirectly caused, Isen is in no way innocent. I know I went pretty off topic, but I just really wanted to say this. So yeah, Isen kind of deserved the beating….

Also dealing with his beating, technically John is a higher tier than Isen and high-tiers are practically encouraged to establish their authority over those weaker than them. Arlo’s whole problem with John is that he doesn’t, but is John not doing just that when he attacks Isen? Is he not acting like how Arlo thinks he should?

Also, when Tuesday first approaches John, he refers to it as a rank-match. If this qualifies as a rank-match there’s really nothing wrong (kind of similar to above point, but still gotta say.

Finally moving along lol.

Now we’re at the part where John gets mad at Arlo because he disrupted his perfectly peaceful life as a cripple for the belief that all high-tiers should have to be in charge and are separate from everyone else. John isn’t kidding with this. Arlo seriously walked right into John’s life because he hung out with Sera, a god-tier, and Arlo didn’t feel that this was right. That’s it. The whole reason. Arlo didn’t like that Seraphina was hanging out with a low-tier and that’s how this entire drama started. And John had really tried to step away from the high-tier life. After the disaster at New Bostin, he knew that if he ever was in charge again, he wouldn’t be able to put himself in check. He’s already gone through the royalty bullshit system. He tried that already. And he discovered that he couldn’t handle it, not because he was weak or didn’t want the responsibility, but because of what it did to the students around him. John gave up on the hierarchy because in his experience, it brought out the worst in everybody. It brought out the demons in him, it’s brought out the need to be perfect in Seraphina. When he was last involved with the hierarchy, bad stuff happened. John stepped away from that life, he stepped into the light. He was prepared to live life treated as a cripple, spat upon and looked down on to protect himself and others. And everyone was happy! Until Arlo came and ruined it all because he didn’t like his friends hanging out with the riff-raff. Until he ruined it all by invading his privacy. Until he ruined it all by demanding that John come back to the system that ruined his life.

You would think that after all that, Arlo would at least respect the system today. He would understand that there are two parts to the hierarchy that he promotes so much. According to the hierarchy, Arlo has to listen to John. I’ve already covered this briefly when talking about Isen, but now I’m doing it again (brief again too sorry). John tells Arlo as much; that he has to listen to him, but when it’s addressed, Arlo calls it trivial! So I guess the system is only important when Arlo says it is, huh?

We’ve reached the near end of John’s perspective, but there’s one last, and very important, thing to say. John said he was going to break the hierarchy. I have no idea what this is gonna mean. I don’t think he’s gonna reveal himself, but maybe he’ll use his new influence/fear as Tuesday to mess with the students or maybe he’ll do something with Cecile. Whatever it is, I’m hyped.

Not as hyped as I am to write the Arlo section tho ;) (segway).

Arlo’s point of view:

I’m going to address all of the points made above. Because I’ve already explained them above, I won’t go into as much detail, I will just list a reason or two as that supports Arlo’s arguments.

1.) Arlo not telling John that he was looking for Sera

- John was a complete asshole and by agreeing with him and aiding John in his search for Seraphina, that seem to others that Arlo agreed with things John did or that he listened to everything he said, which would ruin the hierarchy. So because of his hatred for John, his pride, and his protectiveness over the hierarchy system, Arlo could not morally help John.

2.) The Isen thing.

- John attacked his friend seemingly for his ability alone! Even if Isen had been a prick to John, he definitely took the beating way too far.

3.) Why Arlo doesn’t listen to John

- He’s an asshole

- He never properly dethroned him and claimed the throne, leaving Arlo as rightful king

- He’s got more important stuff to worry about

- Some of what John is asking is destructive to Wellston and Arlo won’t stand by that

And now, John’s biggest argument: (which i will go fully into)

Arlo’s love for the hierarchy and what it did to him, John, and everyone around them.

When Arlo was younger, he looked up to someone. This person was a role model to Arlo and inspired him. This person was Rei. Within the first two years of Arlo coming to Wellston, Rei was made king. He proposed all of these ideas about equality and self-worth. He told everyone that they mattered and that they belonged. This was a change from any previous king and the students were new to the concept. With Rei’s constant encouragement, they began to treat each other as equals and friends. High-tiers got along with low-tiers and everyone believed in themselves, believed they had something to contribute. Arlo, being a high-tier was introduced to the idea that everyone around him is his equal and that they could all be friends. Because he looked up to Rei, he didn’t question it, just accepted that everyone was happy now. Arlo believed in that system. And so he helped Rei bring up the low-tiers.

Things were going great, until one day, the low-tier realized something. Because Rei said they were all equal, they could do anything they wanted! Suddenly low-tiers were picking fights and trying out for turf wars. If the high-tiers could, why shouldn’t they? Problem was; they were weak. Rei’s insistence that they were equal didn’t change the fact that they had little ability. Soon, low-tiers were getting hurt, hurt by their misconception that they could do anything that the high-tiers could and hurt by the king that introduced them to that misconception. In the end, Rei’s reign did more harm than good, despite his good intentions.

Arlo lived through this. He saw what happened when you gave false hope and he knew what happened when people got confused. He swore to himself that he wouldn’t make the same mistakes that Rei did, that he would honor Rei’s memory by learning from him. And so when Arlo was promoted to king when Rei graduated, he decided that he would abide by the hierarchy previously used before Rei stepped up. He wouldn’t let Wellston fall into chaos again. He wouldn’t let Wellston down. The low-tiers would be treated as such and the responsibility was handed to the high-tiers. Inconvenience on both sides is better than ruin on all sides.

Things are going great. High-tiers are setting examples, low-tiers aren’t getting unnecessarily hurt. Then one day, this new kid shows up. Arlo is only put onto his scent because Elaine tells him that he hung out with Seraphina and Arlo considered her a friend (he didn’t have many considering his position cold demeanor). So he looks into it and is appalled at what he finds! John is supposedly a low-tier, a cripple even, but he acts like he’s the king! He isn’t afraid of the high-tiers, hangs out with Seraphina, the school’s ace, and has no regard for the rules. He acted exactly like low-tiers did when Rei was king. Arlo panicked because he worked so hard to fix Wellston, worked so hard to impress Rei, and then John showed up, threatening to unravel all his work. He remembered what happened when Rei was king and knew what harm an arrogant low-tier could cause.

And so Arlo dug deeper, getting Isen to look into John’s past and personality. Maybe there was something different about this kid, maybe he was just a rarity that had a larger ego than normal. Maybe he wasn’t such a big threat. But when Arlo found out that he wasn’t a low-tier messing up the system, he found another problem. He was a high-tier.

Arlo has stricter rules for high-tier than low-tiers. Though low-tiers will always be there and will always have to be counted on to know their place, high-tiers are the ones who are supposed to tell them where they belong. High-tiers are supposed to be the enforcers and have lots of responsibilities. Even under Rei’s rule, the high-tiers had the most responsibility! It was a must. High-tiers were born with a gift and they had to use it to help the greater good. Whilst John thinks that helping the greater good means being nice to everybody, Arlo knows that helping the greater good is giving everyone a place, it’s letting people know who they are and where they belong. Arlo won’t stand for a high-tier neglecting his responsibilities and at the same time confusing the low-tiers. Because of this, Arlo just couldn’t leave John alone. For the sake of Wellston, for the sake of sanity, and for the sake of order.

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

sorry this is late, but theres a small hiatus so hopefully it doesn't matter too much ;)

[aweebwrites]

The Visit

“Hey Mom, would it be ok if I hung out at Dad's for a while?” Lloyd asked Koko as she pick up her bag for work.

“With your father?” Koko asked him after a pause. “In a volcano…” She added slowly, not sure how she felt about her son hanging around an active volcano.

“Come on mom, I'm the green ninja, remember? I can handle myself.” He reminded and she pursed her lips at his wide green eyes trying to guilt trip her.

“Ok! Fine. But only if you at least take Nya with you. She's the most level headed one out of the lot of you.” Koko relents and Lloyd grinned.

“I will! I'll be back before dinner!” Lloyd yelled, running towards his room.

Koko shook her head with a smile, heading towards the door.

“Oh! Almost forgot!” Lloyd yelled and she turned around to see what the commotion was about- only for Lloyd to kiss her cheek. “Have a great day mom.” He told her and she smiled touched.

“Oh Lloyd…” She says, pulling him into a hug. “Your father won't be the only one in trouble if I find a scratch on you.” She says softly and Lloyd chuckled nervously.

“What?! I wouldn't do anything for me to get a scratch anyway!” He says, overly loud and completely unconvincing as Koko looked at him flatly.

“You better not for your sake.” Koko says, pulling back from him. “I'll see you later.” She says, heading out.

“Alright! Bye Mom!” He called after her, waiting for the door to close before pulling his phone out. “So we're all set.” He says to his friends who were listening in, on video call.

“I take offense to the level headed comment. I'm pretty chill.” Kai huffed, crossing his arms.

“Sure.” “Totally.” “Whatever floats your boat.” “You are the least level headed of us all Kai.” They echoed drily.

“Hurry up and get out here. Sensei Wu doesn't know I took the water mech for this.” Nya says as Lloyd headed towards his room.

“Gimme a sec to change.” Lloyd says before hanging up, leave his friends on his roof waiting.

_____________

Garmadon scratch his hair with his upper left hand while yawning with the lower left, holding a mug of coffee in his upper right. The doorbell went off again, irritating the former villain.

“Alright already!” He yelled out, walking towards the on shore door. “When the heck did I get a doorbell installed anyway?” He muttered to himself.

“Whaddya want?” He grouched, opening the door- only to blink down at six ninja. “Luh-Loyd? What are you and these ninja nerds- I mean your friends doing here?” He asked once they glared at him.

“Mom said I could spend the day here and I can bring friends.” Lloyd says, walking past him into the mostly inactive base, the others looking around as they followed behind him.

“I never agreed to- hey! Don't touch that!” Garmadon yelled, rushing over to Jay who was prodding an expensive looking dragon figurine. “That was the first thing I stole from my first attack on Ninjago!” He hissed, placing it out of reach.

“What does this button do?” Zane asked, pushing the big red button on the wall.

“No!” Garmadon yelled but the metal walls to the rest of his lair was already going up.

“Ooh! Look! The shark mech!” Jay gasped, excitedly.

“Shotgun!” Both Cole and Nya yelled, rushing towards it.

“No! No-one is shotgunning my mech!” Garmadon yelled, rushing over as the two climbed it like it was nothing.

“Launcher…” Kai read on a nearby control panel and Garmadon whipped around to see Kai push the button and loud explosion echoed.

“Don't push any more button's!” He yelled at Kai who held his hands up in surrender before darting off to see what else he can mess around with.

“Look at me! I am Lord Garmadon!” Zane yelled, parading in his armor, Garmadon quickly sweeping in and grabbing them off of him, putting them back on the rack.

He scream once he was almost trampled by his own mech, ducking and rolling out of the way and spilling all if his coffee in the process.

“Move it rock head!” Nya yelled as they fought over the controls inside.

“Your turn's over water breath!” Coke yelled back, their fighting making the Mech stomp and turn over several tables with equipment.

“That's the lamest insult I've ever heard! You're basically telling me my breath smells like nothing!” Nya yelled and Garmadon yelped, ducking under the swinging leg of the mech before getting to the control panel amd quickly tapping into the mech from there, putting it on standby.

“Both of you out! Now!” Garmadon yelled up at them, his lower hands on his hips and his upper hands crossed over his chest.

“You're no fun Lord G.” Cole huffed as they reluctantly got out.

Garmadon winced once he heard a crash then slowly turned around to see a sheepish Jay standing on the counter next to where his priceless dragon figurine was.

“It- um… Slipped.” Jay says as his explanation and Garmadon groaned, burying his face into his hands.

Was this payback for terrorising Ninjago all these years now? He then froze before lifting his head slowly.

“Where's Luh-Loyd?” He asked, a sense of dread washing over him.

He heard a distant whoop- Luh-Loyd's- and looked around before gasping, rushing up the stairway to the mouth of the volcano out of the way of the magma, wheezing as he finally made it to the top.

“Design flaw… Gotta… Gotta install… An elevator… Or something…” He panted, hunched over.

His phone began to ring then and he groaned, pulling it out to see that Koko was calling.

“Hey Kokes.” Garmadon answered, exhausted.

“Hey, Garm. Lloyd said he was dropping by today. I was just checking kn to see if he got there ok.” Koko says from work, half paying attention to the screen from her phone.

“Yeah. He-”

“Awesome!” His head jolted up then and he said something that struck true terror inside his blackened heart.

He all out shrieked to see his son surfing down the steady streams of lava from his lair, each side slip sending the incredibly hot molten rock splashing dangerously close to his very flammable person.

“What is it? Did something happen to Lloyd?!” Koko asked, on alert now, looking at him, trying to tell what was happening.

“Uh- uh- no! He just uh- found my old video game collection…” Garmadon says with a nervous chuckle, looking between the phone and Lloyd's dangerous stunt.

If Koko found out about this, she'd make him wish for death! Not to mention how his son would end up dead if he didn't stop the reckless squirt while he was ahead!

“Outside?” Koko asked with an arch brow, noticing the sky behind him.

“No! I just… Opened up the lair for today is all.” He quickly lied.

“No way! They looks cool! I want in!” Kai says, popping up behind Garmadon with a hoverboard prototype, much like the one his son was using before throwing it down and hopping on, surfing slow waves of hot volcanic materials that could burn through bone.

“Was that Kai? I told him to bring Nya.” Koko says with a sigh. “Let me talk to him for a second.” She says and he panicked.

“No need! The girl is here! Her and all of his little friends.” Garmadon says with his best convince smile as he panicked at a flip Lloyd pulled off, looking down the mountain.

“Well, they sound like they're having fun but I still want to talk to him.” Koko says, suspicious of his odd behaviour.

“S-sure! Just a sec!” He says, holding the phone against himself. “Lloyd Montgomery Garmadon! You and your friend get out of that lava right now!” He yelled, shaking hands fumbling with the emergency control panel the nerds had put in he was now eternally grateful for.

“Montgomery?” Kai snorted, activating the hover feature on the board along with Lloyd who glared at Kai.

“At least I have a middle name.” He huffed, flying off towards his father who had temporary shut off the lava flow. “And I was just having some fun dad. I thought you were the Lord of Cool?” He says passing the overheating board to his father before heading down, leaving him to fumble with the scorching hot board before tossing it, gasping once it exploded a second after.

“What was that?” Koko asked, her voice muffled against his robe and Garmadon flinched, forgetting he had her on the phone for a second.

“Nothing at all Kokes! Just another sec!” He says quickly before pressing her back against his robe before she could ask more questions.

“Woah. You really should have such unsafe equipment around Lord G.” Kai days, hopping off his before heading down as well.

“I shouldn't-?! You-!” Garmadon sputtered, frustrated before heading down after them.

He then gasped at the mess of ice and water below.

“Oh come on! I wasn't even gone for five minutes!” Garmadon whined, banging his head against the closest wall.

“Oh sweet! French toast!” Kai yelled, seeing the plate set down the to toast and began eating it without any further prompting.

“... Not my breakfast too…” Garmadon whispered, heartbroken.

“Garmadon. Garmadon you put Lloyd on the phone right no-” Koko was cut off by Lloyd walking over and taking the phone from him, smiling at his mother like an innocent little angel of chaos and destruction he was.

“Heyyy mom! She you be at work?” He asked, taking the call outside.

Garmadon slumped, feeling dog tired all of a sudden. This was going to be a long day. He flinched when a loud crash was heard.

“Whoops! My bad!” Jay called out and Garmadon buried his face into his hands.

____________________

Garmadon was seated on his couch, looking completely Garmadone with his cheek in one of his hands as Jay poked at the markings on his face while Kai poked at his extra arms. Zane and Nya were attempting to make ice sculptures but were really freezing over what parts of the lair they hadn't before. Lloyd was fooling around with his mech that he had shut down completely until further notice while Cole blared music throughout the entire lair.

“Guys look! It's the Bounty!” Cole yelled from where he was around the control panel that had live video surveillance for the outside and Garmadon perked up at that

“Looks like Uncle is here to pick us up.” Lloyd says, hopping out of the mech they all rushed out to meet them as Garmadon gave a relieved little laugh, stumbling to his feet, his robe singed in a few places, wet in others and his black hair a mess.

He stumbled out to where the Bounty docked with Wu and Koko on board, greeting the Ninja as they climbed aboard.

“Brother. Good to see you.” Wu says, looking him over curiously.

"You don't know just how happy I am to see you." Garmadon says, feeling like he did when he had finally taken over Ninjago.

“I have to admit: I'm surprised.” Koko says, leaning over the side of the Bounty to look down at Garmadon. “I was a lot skeptical to let Lloyd with you in an active volcano but he and all the ninja are in one piece. You're more capable than I thought.” She says with a smile and Garmadon smiled back, a goofy love stricken smile on his face.

“It was nothing.” He says, waving it off.

“At least we know now we can trust you with the Ninja. It will be good for the to get used to other spaces. Especially one as unique as yours.” Wu says and the record scratched then.

“Wait, what?” Garmadon asked as the Bounty began to pull away, Nya steering.

“Since you handled them all so well, we'll allow the ninja to stay over more often. Maybe a few days at a time during school breaks. It'll feel like a vacation for them while still being close enough to Ninjago City if something comes up.” Koko says as Garmadon's face fell.

“Can we come back next week?” Jay asked Wu eagerly.

“Yeah Sensei!” “Please!” “We had a lot of fun today!” They all yelled like children, gathered around him.

“I don't see why not.” Wu agreed and they cheered.

“See you next week dad!” Lloyd called out of his father as they headed towards the shore.

“Is- is your father crying?” Koko asked, squinting at the island they were getting farther and farther away from.

“Tears of joy I'm sure.” Lloyd says with a small smirk the others shared as well.

In the distance, Garmadon's sobs could be heard.

__________________

(Bonjour! I wanted to give the movie verse a go since I'm so stuck on the season ninja and boy was I glad I did! Garmadon struggling with six little gremlins who take out their inability to be naughty at home on him? Yes please! And look! Nothing dark or angsty! Progress! Whelp! Adios!)

[imaginetonyandbucky]

Phase Change: Chapter 1

The man who used to be both Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier but now is neither has to figure out who he is and what he wants, with a little prodding from Tony along the way.

Prompt: “I love Tony x Winter Soldier, so pretty please, can one of you write something with Bucky in WS mode? Idk, maybe WS who doesn't understand concept of feelings, but he's aware that he has them and he doesn't know what to do with them, so he decides to ask Tony, who is not only genius but also the object of those feelings, so he's perfect person to ask in Soldiers reasoning...”

Also on AO3

The soldier aka James Buchanan Barnes code name ‘Bucky’ distinctly remembers the first time he saw Anthony Edward Stark also known as Tony code name ‘Iron Man.’ He had been stepping off the jet that had been used to transport him to Stark Tower, where he was being remanded to the custody of the Avengers until, as one SHIELD officer put it when he didn’t realize the soldier was listening, “the government figures out what to do with him.”  Anthony Edward Stark was standing on the landing pad, flanked by people, some of whom the soldier recognized, some he didn’t, but all of which were watching him with varying degrees of wariness.  At the feeling of all of those eyes on him the soldier slowed, heart pounding as adrenaline flooded him.  He gritted his teeth and flexed his hands, trying to choke down the urge to lash out, to fight back, to run, and the effort made his steps grind to a halt halfway across the landing pad.

Anthony Edward Stark was the one who took two steps forward when everyone tensed, who pushed his sunglasses down his nose so he could look the soldier in the eye.  He raised his chin, jaw tight, as Stark studied him, and then watched in surprise as wariness turned to understanding. Stark gave him a short nod and then the sunglasses were back in place as he turned away towards the others.  “You guys, I think the welcoming party isn’t helping.  Let’s give him some space, yeah?” And just like that the landing pad cleared until it was just the soldier and Steven Grant Rogers code name Captain America.

He heard Steven Grant Rogers let out a long exhale in relief.  “Come on, Bucky.  You’re going to be bunking next to me for now,” he said over his shoulder as he started to walk towards the tower.  The soldier hesitated a split second before he remembered code name Bucky and followed.

(More after the break!)

The soldier spent the next few weeks pacing around the compound, feeling trapped.  His living quarters were the worst because that’s where Steven Grant Rogers “Please, Buck, call me Steve” was, where he always seemed to be watching the soldier with alternating hope and despair. Both made the asset equally uneasy; he felt like he was failing at a mission he’d never been briefed on.

So he paced.  On one of the early days he found the range but not an armory, which was probably wise.  Sometimes he wasn’t confident that he wouldn’t fight his way out if he had a weapon, even though he knew he’d agreed to come here and agreed to stay.  He found multiple kitchens and gyms, shied away from the offices and other peoples’ living quarters, and ran the tree line that served as the edge of the property so many times that he’d memorized it.

He realized, after a while, that he was bored.

Then he realized he'd been under surveillance the whole time when he saw Anthony Edward Stark jogging across a grassy expanse to intercept him on one of his runs.

“Hey Murderbot,” Stark said, and the soldier had stiffened, worried that he’d broken some unknown rule by going outside. “Follow me. You need a hobby, it’s driving me crazy watching you pace around this place like a caged tiger.”  He gestured and started walking back towards the compound. After a moment, the soldier followed.

Stark took him back to the range, but this time he went to a panel on the far wall; when he put his palm on it, part of the wall slid to the side to reveal the armory.  “I understand that this is your thing,” Stark said, waving his hand towards the mouthwatering array of pistols, rifles, throwing knives, and assorted other weapons that were on display.  “Have fun.  Just as a note, the guns will self-destruct if taken out of this room.” Stark glanced at him, gaze more measuring than suspicious.  “Steve thinks this is a bad idea.  Please don’t prove him right.”

The soldier gave him a nod, already reaching for a rifle.

That night, for the first time since he’d arrived at the compound, the soldier slept through the night.  The next morning, as he was trying to find something to eat, he was drawn to one of the kitchens by the smell of food and coffee and found Stark there.

“Morning, sunshine,” Stark said without looking up from his phone. “Did you have a good time yesterday?” The soldier grunted assent while he assembled himself a plate of food.  “Great,” Stark continued, apparently satisfied with that answer.  “Well, you’ve been here forty-two days now, I feel like I’ve been patient enough.  Would you mind joining me in my lab so I can take a look at your fancy metal arm?”

The soldier stood near the entrance to the kitchen as he ate, chewing thoughtfully as he considered.  “Yes,” he said finally, having decided that keeping Stark’s mysterious goodwill outweighed the deep unease he felt at the idea.

At that, Stark finally looked up at him. “So he does talk,” Stark said with a crooked smile.  “It doesn’t have to be today.  Take your time, warm up to the idea, and let me know when you’re ready.” He stood and put his phone in his pocket and the crumb-filled plate in the sink.  He filled up his cup with more coffee and on his way out of the kitchen he said over his shoulder, “Oh, and same rules as yesterday.  Steve thinks this is alsoa bad idea, so when you do come, please don’t prove him right by trying to kill me or destroy my lab.”

The soldier scowled, starting to get the feeling that Steven Grant Rogers’ opinions were one of the reasons why he’d been so bored lately.  He raised his chin. “Now,” he growled, half-expecting Stark to argue with him, but he only shrugged.

“If you say so. Follow me.”

Stark led him to a set of steel reinforced double doors that the soldier had passed a number of times but had never been able to access.  As Stark walked up, the doors opened on their own and the room inside was huge, a bland institutional gray filled on one side with machines and desks and toolboxes and on the other with a variety of fast-looking vehicles.

The soldier liked it immediately.

“This is my lab, my sanctum sanctorum, my home away from home, so don’t touch anything.  Except this chair,” Stark said, pushing a wheeled stool towards him. “Please sit on the chair.”

The soldier sat.  “I’m not Hydra’s attack dog anymore,” he said gruffly, and Stark’s eyebrows went up.  “I’m not going to hurt you or destroy anything.”

“I think so, too,” Stark said after a moment as he cleared a space on a work table. “But I think Steve…well, let’s say he would prefer to be safe than sorry.”  He patted the table for the soldier to place his arm on it and dragged up a chair for himself. “So tell me about this thing.”

The soldier let go of his aggravation at Steven Grant Rogers and began rattling off specifications from memory, recalling all the times the technicians had discussed his arm in his presence as if he were just another piece of machinery.  He directed Stark to the access panels and then conversation gradually trailed off as Stark became engrossed in investigating his arm.

After approximately an hour, Stark leaned back and rubbed his eyes. “JARVIS got enough scans of this that I can go ahead and finish up here so I don’t take more of your time. I think the perimeter guards are probably wondering why you are late for your morning marathon.”  The soldier scowled at that.  Boredom had apparently made him predictable. “Hey, so I’m sorry if this is a rude question, but what should I call you?” Stark asked as he started refastening the access panels on the arm.

He hesitated. “Bucky?”

Stark’s forehead creased at his answer.  “I get the feeling,” he said carefully, still looking down at what he was working on, “that you don’t actually like that name.”

The soldier felt a split second of surprise before he schooled his emotions.  How had Stark noticed what others had not?  He didn’t like being called "Bucky."  Bucky was a ghost, less a memory than an abstract fact the soldier would rather forget. There was another long pause while he thought.  “Soldier?” he ventured.  He saw a tic in Tony’s jaw that meant he didn’t like that answer either.

But Stark didn’t say anything until he was finished with the arm, setting his tools down on his work table before he sat up to face the soldier. The soldier relaxed when he saw that Stark’s expression wasn't angry or disappointed.  “Come on, ‘soldier’ isn’t a name," Stark said with a faint smile.  "It’s barely a title.”

The soldier pondered that. “Soldat?” he said after a few moments.

Stark snorted. “I know soldat is just Russian for soldier.  Look, if you don’t like Bucky or James or any of the names you were born with, I can give you a new one.  Just ask Captain Hotpants or Point Break.” The solder felt the corner of his lips turn up at Captain Hotpants and saw Stark’s answering smile.  “But I think it’s important that you decide on a name you like.”

He pondered that.  He’d gone by a lot of names in his life, some for longer than others.  “Yasha,” he said, as he stood to leave.  “Call me Yasha.”

“Alright.  Let me know if you have any problems with the arm, and maybe take it easy with the exercising.  Don’t you read or watch movies or do anything that involves…sitting?”

The thought of sitting for any length of time made Yasha’s skin crawl. Except…he’d just sat here for over an hour and didn’t feel like punching his way out of the room and then the compound.  He narrowed his eyes at Stark, who already seemed to have forgotten him as he pushed himself across the floor on his wheeled stool to a computer on another table. He grunted, more to himself than in response to Tony’s question, and went to the armory instead of for his usual run.

[shewhowantsmouseears]

wizards of mickey magicstone

Well the “aaaaays” have it. Before I begin, a little bit about Wizards of Mickey for those who are wondering what the hell that is and that is essential to understanding what I thought up.

Short version is, a short-lived Disney series about a fantasy AU where everyone's a wizard. Everyone's a wizard, EVERYONE, pluto's got magic, fuck even the dragons were wizards. Anyway, Magica and two original characters for the comic were recurring villains – Neraja, the hot tall one, who's boyfriend got turned into a beast, and Garma, the old short one, who just wanted power. Magica, no great shock, wanted money. These three teamed up to join a tournament but good lord they hated each other, pretty much constantly back-stabbing each other and making you wonder why they thought this was a goddamn good idea at all.

Anyway, as for Gladstone, he didn't really have a role, so far as I remember. Just a panel appearance where he tried to woo Daisy in a flashback, and that was about it. Thus, it lets me headcanon like hell.

Get it? Got it? Good, onto the ideas, under the cut because knowing me this is gunna get long.

Long after the tournament, the three witches are still looking for ways to obtain their goals, reluctantly sticking together. Traveling in the desert, Magica spots a body in one of the dunes, and heads on over, thinking maybe there's a wallet she can grab, with the other two witches following suit. But when she kneels down to check him over, he momentarily wakes, dizzily says “You're... beautiful” then passes back out.

(A few studio ghibli fans just squinted and look it's a cute as hell intro SUE ME)

Magica and Neraja are more than willing to just keep going, but Garma gives him a once-over with her magic and gasps in shock – this man is magically gifted with magicells! (“... with what” “OH MY GOD DON'T YOU TWO EVER LISTEN WHEN I TEACH YOU THINGS”) In other words, he can become a familiar! (“... a what” “GODDAMMIT COME ON”) Garma explains that the man has a rare magical anomaly called “magicells” where every single cell of his body is amplified with powerful magic, making him stronger than the average user. This kind of phenomenon is a one in a million chance, but as a result it can be hard to control and takes a physical toll on him. If a witch/warlock could make him their familiar, the witch/warlock's own magical power would increase ONE HUNDRED FOLD! HOT DAMN LET'S DO THIS -

Except, Garma points out, there are two conditions. First, a familiar can only be assigned to one person. Second, the to-be-familiar has to sign a physical contract willingly with their own blood, the name of the witch/warlock they will belong to. They decide to figure out how later and drag him to their makeshift home, each one planning to make the guy their own familiar. Magica tries to scheme – Neraja's a real beauty, so she can't beat her there (and assumes that when the guy was saying “you're beautiful” he meant Neraja), and Garma's the powerhouse, so she can't work there either. So, take away seduction and fear... pity and guilt, that's the ticket! Magica reads the man's mind, and poofs herself into his ideal woman (the matilda look!)

The man eventually regains consciousness, calling himself Gladstone Gander. He'd been heading to his uncle's kingdom when the magicells took their toll on him and he passed out sooner than expected. He's... very suspicious of these women who keep fighting over his company, though they don't tell him why. He's got a twisted ankle they refuse to heal, so he has to wait out. Neraja's seduction tactics don't work on him (helps that her beast boyfriend keeps getting jealous and dragging him away) and Garma doesn't scare him, since his good luck keeps saving his hide. In comes Magica, making up a sob story about how she's forced to work for those two in a Cinderella situation, which Gladstone only partially buys.

“I'll take such good care of you, poor dear~! How about a cup of tea~?”

“Hm, yeah, that'd be nice.” “Okay, I'll-”

“With a pinch of sugar, a dallop of milk, and you've got honey, don't you?” “... Uh, yeah, I can-”

“And don't forget the lemon squeeze, and then you can fluff my pillows, and how about getting some music in here?”

“... /URGE TO MURDER RISES/”

So, yeah, no surprise, Gladstone is a goddamn terrible houseguest, driving them all up the wall. But that allows him to see the 'real' Magica when she loses her temper, and bit by bit he actually does begin to feel sorry for her. When his leg is healed, he asks Magica why she doesn't just... up and leave these two. Magica pauses – why DOESN'T she leave these nutjobs? They keep trying to kill each other, and they constantly get in the way. So she slips Neraja and Garma sleeping spells in their drinks, and escapes with him. She's still determined to get him as a familiar, so she's not leaving his side anytime soon.

As they journey to Scrooge's kingdom, it's backstory time! Gladstone reveals he's been used time and time again for his “good luck”, a.k.a his magicells, so he's pretty much given up on having any meaningful relationships. (And having a job, but that's just because he's fucking lazy) Magica admits that she grew up poor, and her parents tried to marry her off to a rich man so they could move up in society. Young Magica said “screw this” and took off, deciding that if she was going to be rich, it'd be by her own terms and her own happiness. Gladstone is wondering why Magica is still sticking around him if he's not trying to use her, and she keeps lying, saying she wants to be his friend. Of course, day by day, it becomes a little less of a lie...

Kingdom get! While Magica is trying to think of a way to make Gladstone sign the contract, she spots Neraja and Garma in the corner of her eye! Crap, they must have chased after them to get Gladstone!! But if Gladstone knows they were followed, he'd suspect something was up!!! She has to distract him and make sure the women pass on by, WHAT DO?! In a moment of desperation, she does the classic trick, the Fake Out Make Out – yanking in Gladdy for a big ol' smooch while the women walk on by, oblivious to the couple. Magica will apologize later, once it's over... and... uh... why is it... not over yet...???

Little hard to do the Fake Out part when the other partner isn't faking – Gladstone is returning the hell out of that kiss, much to Magica's shock (and enjoyment let's be real here) and when they finally remember to breathe, he asks to see the REAL her – yeah, he put two and two together that the black-haired beauty and the blonde in front of him are one and the same. Magica flusters WAIT A SECOND I THOUGHT BLONDES WERE YOUR TYPE??? “a guy can have more than one type :3” well isn't this awkward. Gladstone still hasn't figured out the familiar deal and Magica's finding it harder to talk about it.

They stay in Gladstone's place, and Magica has to leave just to get her thoughts together and understand what's going in her head. But Neraja sees Magica leaving, and sees a chance to get Gladstone for herself! She magically disguises herself as Magica (except in super sexy clothes) and strolls back in to seduce Gladstone, who is VERY STARTLED BY AMGICA IN SEXY CLOTHES BUT NOT REALLY COMPLAINING BECAUSE HE'S THE WORST. Thankfully Poe, Magica's raven, notices something's amiss, especially with that familiar beast outside – he nicks a piece of fur from its back and flies for his mistress, who instantly understands and runs back! Gladstone, meanwhile, is starting to get an idea that something's not right (NOOO REALLY) but Neraja's got her magic set in him now, good and hypnotized, ready to sign the contract... when Magica bursts in GET YOUR HANDS OFF HIM and magic battle! Which... blows off a wall, sorry Gladstone you didn't need that, right??? But all this destruction catches Garma's attention, and she summons up painful vines to trap Magica, Neraja and Gladstone.

Pained consent is still consent, right? Details shmetails. Garma uses the vines to give Gladstone pain while telling him that Magica was using him all alone for the contract deal, much to Magica's anguish, since she can't really deny it. Gladstone hands his head... bitterly laughs... of course... why should this have been different? … Hey, Garma, whatever your name is... if I sign this thing of yours... can you erase my memories...?

Yeah sure, why not. Garma holds up the magic contract, pricking Gladstone's finger, watching him sign. Magica screams, having never been so angry in her life... why couldn't you two HAVE LEFT WELL ENOUGH ALONE?! In fact, she gets so pissed off she breaks free from the vines and begins DELIVERING THE PAIN TO GARMA. Neraja manages to catch a glimpse at the contract, and what a surprise – Gladstone spelled Magica's name instead! So his power is being shared with hers! Awww. Also oh fuck because she's nexy, with Magica finally kicking both of them out of the kingdom and threatening to RIP THE FLESH FROM THEIR BONES IF SHE EVER SEES THEM AGAIN!

… and once she calms down, uh, wait, why did you sign my name, aren't you mad as hell at me??? For using you??? Yes, yes he is, but he figured if hes going to be used by someone, it may as well be with the “cute one”. GOD GLADSTONE YOU ARE ANNOYING AS HELL she's not blushing shut the hell up. … oh and scrooge wants to know WHY HIS KINGDOM HAS A FUCKING HUGE HOLE IN IT so here come adventures where Magica and Gladstone have to travel around and pay him back oops.

… sometime later when reading Gladstone learns that the “familiar spell” wasn't originally called that, and thousands of years ago it was a ritual so that a witch/warlock could share their power with their significant other as a way to help those they loved most – in other words, it was a wedding ritual. Uh... let's not tell Magica that for a while...

(the end hope you enjoyed it, now off I go to think of a witch/incubus magicstone nonsense and mickeyminnie pinocchio au I don't know how to think normally)

[evdarcy]

An Unusual Hero C4S2

Please remember, this is unedited and unfinished, but will hopefully fill in the holes that were left and answer some questions without leaving too many others. HOWEVER I will answer all and any questions if you want to leave me a comment.

Next update - Tuesday 20/04/2021

Sarah had never been more grateful for the adrenaline that was pumping through her veins as she was when she ran though those doors and into the sudden sunlight, which briefly blinded them as they ran out the building. She stumbled only slightly, allowing Luc to run past her, but she found her feet quickly and was right on his tail.

She’d expected the corridor to lead to somewhere within the hotel, so it took her a brief moment to figure out where they were and she thanked the Heavens that it happened to be exactly where she needed to be. She glanced around the staff car park and saw the Volvo sitting almost right against the hotel, less than fifty feet from where they stood. She threw her torch away and grabbed her gun from the small of her back again.

‘There,’ she said to Luc. She gave him a nudge in the right direction and pointed with her piece towards the vehicle. The man glanced at her over his shoulder and frowned as he looked around, searching for someone.

‘Where’s Phil?’ he asked as he paused in his step and tried to catch his breath.

Oh. She’d heard the other man grunt and hit the wall just as they had turned right. She imagined the Demon’s men had been shooting blindly down the corridor through the gap in the door to try and slow them down.

Sarah nudged him forward again as she realised there was no point in pussyfooting around; she put it as plainly as she could.

‘Probably a bullet in the back.’

Luc stumbled at her words. ‘What?’

‘We do not have time for this,’ Sarah said as she hurried towards the waiting car. She knew she was being short with him, but her words where the truth; the Demon’s men wouldn’t be far behind. The star needed to pull himself together and think fast or he’d get them both killed.

She ran her hand under the car’s wheel arch and came back with the key. Luc stood at the back of the car and Sarah could tell he was calculating if she would shoot him in the back if he made a run for it.

‘Look, if you want to leave, that’s up to you,’ she told him as she popped the lock on the boot. ‘But I can guarantee you now, he’ll find you very quickly and kill you.’

‘He’d have to get through my team first.’ She wanted to scoff at the words, at the naivety he had. He’d been protected by his team for years, he had no reason to doubt their ability, but he had no idea who he was up against and what he was letting himself—and everyone he loved—in for.

‘David—Agent Burton—was one of the highest agents the US had to offer, and they got to him. They got to him through his family—’

‘I don’t have any.’

‘You have a wife’

‘They can have her,’ Luc sneered, his upper lip curling with contempt and disgust. Sarah’s eyebrows arched in surprise; everyone knew that Luc and Linda Truman were Hollywood’s most loved up couple. He went on and on about her during interviews and at panels, why the hell—

She shook her head; she didn’t have time to dwell. Instead, she praised Commander Cowley as she lifted the lid of the Volvo’s boot and saw the three military duffel bags and an assortment of loose weapons in the back of the car.

‘Oh, Jack, you legend,’ she whispered, grateful it had been the commander in charge of the transport rather than David. She grabbed one of the shotguns and checked it was loaded. When she saw the round in the chamber, she passed it to Luc who automatically rechecked it. Sarah raised her brow; she’d half expected him to drop the thing.

‘Listen, the bastard won’t be that bothered about adults—your wife or otherwise. Those he’ll just kill without hesitation. It’ll be kids—you close to anyone with kids?’ She watched his face drain white and his eyes widen at the thought. ‘Yeah, exactly. Think about what he’ll do to them.’

She sighed heavily as she began her next spiel. ‘Look, your best bet is with me; I’ll keep you as safe as possible. I can tell you now, you go it alone, you go back to your friends and family then you won’t last long, and neither will they. He won’t bother torturing you, he’ll go after those you’re close to. He’ll cut them up and pull them apart—while you watch—to see what you know, how much you know, and how you know it. He’ll kill them one by one until you tell him where I am, and trust me even if you did know where I was and how to get me—which you won’t—giving me up wouldn’t stop him. As soon as he has what he wants he’ll kill you and take any kids you’re close to for his trafficking ring—boy or girl. There’s a big market for both. The sick wankers.’

She didn’t look at him. Refused to try and influence him any further. He’d be a fool to go it alone, but she wouldn’t force him. As long as he kept his mouth shut about her to the press before he got taken by the sicko, she had no problem with sending him off to his own fate.

Okay, that was a big fat lie. She had a huge problem with doing that. Forgetting the fact that she’d lusted after him for over a decade, she didn’t want any one else to die at that dick head’s whim. And, when he was captured by the Demon or his cronies, Luc’s body—when they found it—would certainly not be an attractive one.

And it would be one more name to add to her list.

Shit.

She checked through the bags to distract her from that image and to quash the guilt that was already beginning to build. It was his choice, she reminded herself, just as she had been given hers, and it wasn’t as if she could really offer him much.

She wasn’t lying when she’d promised to keep him as safe as possible, but it wasn’t likely to really be much longer than what he’d get with his team. However, if he was with her when the bastards caught up to them, at least they wouldn’t be taking anyone else with them.

She sighed with relief as she found money, clothes, weapons, ammunition, and explosives in the duffel bags. But no phone. Dammit. She touched the pendant hidden under her top at the discovery. That had to be the first item on their list of things they needed to get.

‘Okay. I’m in,’ he finally agreed, snapping the shotgun shut again. Sarah nodded to acknowledge she’d heard him, eyes on her hands as she quickly took some of the C4 from one of the bags before she heaved it out the car and gave it to him. She let him throw the bag over his shoulder before she handed him a second.

Sarah glanced around the car park with a keen eye, looking for the perfect get away vehicle as she tried to recall what Jack had taught her. It had to be older for there to be fewer electrical issues; no trackers, no GPS. She’d prefer nothing before 1995.

‘That black Hyundai’—she pointed towards a small nondescript hatchback across the lot—‘head to it, stay low, wait for me there. If anyone comes out of those doors lay down a line of fire. You got eight shells in there, make ‘em count.’

Sarah didn’t watch him leave, instead she turned back to the car and grabbed a leg holster and the Heckler and Koch Mark 23. She slapped the holster to her thigh and secured the larger gun—her actual preferred firearm—within it before she went to work repacking the other pieces. She pulled the final bag from the car and returned her attention to the explosives and charges.

She packed the C4 tightly against the fuel tank, stabbing the charges into it and paused for a moment considering her set up—was that too much or too little?—before she shook herself out of it. She didn’t have time to worry, it would just have to do. She clipped the detonator to her hip and slammed the boot shut.

Slinging the bag over her shoulder as she turned, she froze when the double doors flew open once more.

Just as it had for her and Luc, the unexpected sunlight dazzled the Demon’s men and gave Sarah an advantage. She clocked each face in the blink of an eye and saw that the prick wasn’t with them. She hadn’t expected him to be. He’d probably ran the moment they blew the door into the room and noticed that she wasn’t there. She hoped with the myriad of cameras throughout the hotels and the city itself, that at least one of them had picked him up. He couldn’t be that good, surely?

A ping of optimism hit Sarah’s heart at the idea that he may have got sloppy in his chase for her. The fact that her initial escape from his clutches had so enraged him he’d personally come to the most watched city in the world, gave her hope that he would get even sloppier in the future with this second near miss.

Sarah ripped the Mark 23 from its holster and fired a shot at the group before ducking down behind the Volvo. The dull bang of the shotgun sounded from somewhere to her right and she knew Luc was doing as she’d asked. She weaved through the cars counting the flat-bangs Luc managed to get off between the hail of gun fire from the AK-103s. When Luc had made five shots she pulled the cover from the stick clipped to her hip and her thumb found the button.

The explosion was deafening and the blast knocked her to the floor between the cars.

Okay, so too much.

Her world titled to one side as she tried to push herself up to her hands and knees. She couldn’t hear anything save the rush of blood in her ears, the pounding of her heart, and the ragged intake of her breath. Her feet kept slipping out from under her as she tried to get up from her knees, and she grabbed onto the wing mirror of the nearest car to stop herself from hitting the ground again.

Sound rushed at her from every angle as her ears corrected themselves; the screaming of people, the wails of alarms, and the creaking of metals as they ground against one another assaulted her senses and almost deafened her again. The heat of the fire from the decimated car scorched her skin as she rose from between the two vehicles that had shielded her from the blast.

And as she turned to face the destruction she’d caused, she almost lost the contents of her stomach.

Dozens of cars had been blown and lifted by her bomb. Some had landed on others, some were scattered across the hotel’s gardens, but worst of all were the ones that had smashed into the hotel, leaving holes in the structure.

She swallowed as she tore her eyes away, and took a deep breath before beginning her dash across the parking lot once more. She ducked and weaved as she went, trying to avoid the remnants of the Volvo and everything else falling from the sky.

When she finally reached the little black Excel, she pulled her small metal tools from the back of her boot and began to work on the lock, surprising herself when she managed it first time. Jack would have never believed it, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

‘Get in,’ she shouted over the wail of alarms and the roar of flames as she threw her duffel bag over the front seats. She climbed in the driver’s seat and Luc followed suit. Before he even had the door closed, Sarah had hot-wired the little hatchback and threw it into gear.

They peeled out the parking lot with a squeal of tyres and the smell of rubber chasing them.

‘Do you have a phone?’ she asked Luc as they tore down South Las Vegas Boulevard. They passed people crowding the pavements, craning their necks as they tried to catch a glimpse of what had happened at the old hotel. Sarah caught sight of a pillar of smoke in the review mirror, a black column reaching high into the sky.

Yeah, she had definitely fucked that explosion up…

Luc shifted in his seat and pulled from his pocket a flashy iPhone—it looked brand new.

‘Toss it,’ Sarah told him. ‘Out the window.’

‘What?’

‘They can use it to track you. Your wife is probably on the same account as you and will be able to—’

She didn’t need to finish her sentence before the phone was gone. Again, surprise etched across her face, but she said nothing. Instead, she filed it away for later, when she’d have a chance to ask the star anything she liked and he’d bloody well answer her.

The whole set up stank to high heaven, and while she was 99.99 percent sure Luc had nothing to do with it, there was still that tiny chance he’d known. There was also a chance that someone who worked for him had been involved, and she needed to know if there was, who that might be.

‘Where we going?’ he asked as she turned off The Strip and onto the I-15. She shrugged and turned on the radio, Free’s “All Right Now” began blearing from the crappy standard speakers.

Oh, the irony, she thought as she focused on the road and put her foot down; she wanted as much distance between her and the carnage she had just created as possible.

She didn’t need any more names to add to her growing list of failures.

Any questions, please drop them in the comments. Next update on Tuesday!

[lovemesomerafael]

Destroying The Planet To Save It  Chapter 7:  Anderson Cooper Hates Me

Source:  @teradragonlady

Chapters 1-5        Chapter 6         Read it on AO3

Santiago wasn’t a bad guy. Natasha could have actually liked him; you know, if he wasn’t a flunkie working for a douche canoe possibly bent on mass destruction.  He led her right to an entrance to Arias’s “Site B”, about a quarter-mile from the industrial park entrance Sam and Anita had been brought through.  First objective accomplished.  This entrance was in back of a vacant storefront, a nondescript but heavy metal door that led to a simple stairway down into the complex below.  Pleased that it had been so easy, Natasha nonetheless gave Santi a skeptical look.

“Wait, where are you taking me?  What kind of place is this?  I don’t know about this…”

“Relax, Mami, it’s all good.  My boss is a paranoid rich dude.  This is just one of his facilities.  You can trust me, I’m a security guard,” he smiled.

“Promise?”

“Of course.”

From his perch on a rooftop down the alleyway, Clint watched and waited.  He knew he was going to lose comms with Natasha soon as they traveled very far underground, and he would need to enter the complex.  But he wanted to give them a good head start.  After that, remaining undetected would be a matter of luck.  

The stairway was long and dim.  Sam hadn’t been wrong about how far underground this place was.  When they finally emerged at the bottom, Natasha saw that they were in the garage-like space Sam had described.  

“OK, listen,” Santi said, turning to her so he could speak quietly.  “Like I said, you’re not supposed to be here.  So Imma have to hide you somewhere.  Follow me.”

Santi led her along one concrete wall of the vast space, past trucks painted to look like Con Ed service trucks, a couple of panel vans with logos of businesses on their sides, and several cars.  The metal door he approached opened with a combination Natasha instantly memorized, and she followed Santi down a bare concrete hallway lined with the pipes and conduits Anita Herrera had described.  Natasha saw what Anita had meant.  There was an inordinate amount of electricity running through this hallway.  

Natasha was glad to note that the door to which Santi led her didn’t squeak, and did have a lock that could be thrown from the inside.  It looked like a little employee lounge of some kind, sad and spartan, but apparently well-used.  She took a moment to be grateful that, as annoying as Tony Stark was, the work environment he provided the Avengers beat the shit out of this painted-concrete cellar.

“OK.  You’ll be all right here.  Just lock the door after I leave.  Most of the people are gone this weekend, so there’s just a few of us guards. I’ll think of a reason to tell them not to come in here.”

“Wait, no- you’re not leaving me alone here, are you?  I mean…” Natasha put on a vulnerable look she knew from long experience to be irresistible.

“I gotta.  I’m supposed to be patrolling.  There’s cameras.  Mostly, nobody watches ‘em but, I mean, they’ll notice I’m missing after a while.”

“But what if they catch me here?”

“You lock the door, and let me take care of the rest.”  Natasha had taken a seat on a stained, utilitarian sofa against one wall of the small room, and Santi actually knelt down beside her.  It was a sweet, protective move.  She supposed she’d feel guilty for what she was about to do, if she bothered with things like guilt anymore.  

“Well, how many other guys are here?  Are they gonna try to get in?”

“There’s only five of us, and I told you, I’ll make up some excuse for them not to come in here.”

Natasha didn’t look convinced.  “Do you think it would be OK if I smoked a little weed?  It’ll calm me down.”

“Sure, that’s fine. We do in here, sometimes.  No cameras.”

She pulled a small plastic container from a pocket of her jacket and set it on the table, popping open the lid to reveal a tiny one-hitter lying in a bed of what was technically marijuana, although Tony Stark had objected loudly to even allowing anything that weak in his building.  Plucking the tiny pipe out carefully, Natasha looked up at Santi with a grin as she packed a hit.  “Here. You deserve it, after what you did for me.  Careful, though.  This stuff’ll knock you on your ass.”

“I don’t know, man, weed makes me sleepy,” Santi objected, but not very strongly.

“Huh,” Natasha shrugged, taking her hand back from where she’d offered the one-hitter to him.  “Makes me horny,” she murmured just before setting it between her lips and lighting it, sucking in the smoke.

As expected, that got Santi’s attention.  “Yeah, that, too.”

“You smoke before? Because, like I said, this stuff is kinda strong.”

“Don’t worry, Mami, I can handle it.”

When she offered it to him a second time, he took the small metal pipe, seeing nothing but the promising little smile she gave him.  Certainly he didn’t notice her switch the one-hitter with another that had been up her sleeve.

They each took two hits before Santi was unconscious.  Natasha laid him down – he seemed like an OK guy, really, and it had to look like he’d just fallen asleep from the marijuana – before she spoke to Clint.

“You in?”  She asked, the microphone in her earring picking up everything.

“Yeah,” she heard him respond in her earpiece.  “I’m on the stairs, just outside the door.”

“It opens into the underground garage Sam told us about.  Hang on.  I’m gonna go up there.  I’ll let you in when it’s clear.”

“Copy that.”

The drug she’d used on Santi would keep him unconscious for around four hours.  This part had been easy, but the rest was pure improvisation. Natasha smiled.  She was good at improvisation.

There were no sounds in the hallway as she cracked the door and listened.  Since she didn’t have a key, she smiled as she used the specially-designed jewelry Clint had given her for her navel piercing to lock the door behind her.  Dang, that thing came in handy.  She’d have to remember to thank him for it again.

Maybe.  Or maybe he’d think she was trying to remind him of their time together on Eleuthera, where she’d gotten the piercing to begin with.  Holy shit, but they’d been drunk.  Much of that week after Budapest was a blur, although not enough of it.  Not the part where she’d told him she loved him, too.  Not the look in his eyes when she’d later pretended not to remember.

The door to the garage area was open, which gave Natasha time to spot the guy coming toward her and plaster a huge smile on her face.  

“Hi!”  She called to him when he noticed her, her unexpected greeting stopping the motion of his hand as he reached for something on his belt.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Natasha.  I came down here with Santi?  But, um, we were partying and” - she giggled drunkenly - “he passed out.”  

“He what?  He brought you down here?  And now he’s -   Where is he, that hijueputa?”

“Break room.  But don’t be mad.  C’mon, we were just having a little fun.  I mean, this place is a drag, you know?”

The guy, short and barrel-shaped, marched right past Natasha, grabbing her wrist on the way and beginning to drag her into the hallway toward the room where Santi was. She let him, continuing to giggle softly.  

“Don’t be mad.  Hey, what’s your name?  I’m Natasha.  Oh, wait, I told you that already.”

They reached the door and the guy tried to pull at it, surprised to find it locked.  

“Oh, oops!  I think I musta done that.”  More giggles.  

The guy pulled a key ring from his pocket, fastened with a long, drooping chain to his belt loop.  He kept iron fingers around Natasha’s wrist as he roughly unlocked and yanked the door open.  Santi lay peacefully sleeping on the couch, even as the guy began cursing him in Spanish and trying to shake him awake.  

“No, c’mon… let him sleep. He’s just stoned.  He’ll be fine.  You can see he’s breathing and stuff.”

The guy turned to Natasha. “You gotta get out of here.  You’re not supposed to be here.”

Natasha smiled beatifically. “I know.  Santi told me.  But we weren’t doing anything, and he said your boss wasn’t here right now, so no one would care.  Are you mad at me?”

“I just gotta get you out of here.  Come on.”

“At least tell me your name.”

“Alejandro.  You sure he’s just stoned?”

“Yeah.  We were smoking this.”  Natasha pulled out her plastic container.  “You want some?”

“No.  Come on.”

“Please, Alejandro?  Because I got dumped by my boyfriend tonight, and if I go back to our apartment, he’s gonna hit me.  I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and Santi was nice to me.  I just needed someplace to sort of hang out, get my head together, you know?  Please don’t make me leave.  I’ll stay right here.  And I’ll share my weed with you.”

“I don’t think I want any of your weed.  Look what it did to poor Santi,” Alejandro said, but he was grinning.  Natasha knew then that she had him.  Clint would just need to be a little patient.

Twenty minutes later, Clint was sitting on the bottom stair, chin in hand, when Natasha opened the door from the garage area.  “’Bout time,” he groused.

“I know, but there are only three left.  And if we’re lucky, we won’t meet any of them.  Let’s get going.”

For twenty or thirty minutes, Clint and Natasha had free rein to look wherever they liked.  Natasha would enter a room, find the cameras, and make sure she and her unhappy countenance were very visible to whoever might be monitoring them as she disabled them.  After that, Clint would enter the room and they would investigate it thoroughly. Everything they found was in Spanish, which wouldn’t have been much of a problem, except it was also in some sort of code.  There was really no way to tell what this place was for from what they’d found so far. All they could do was photograph everything and hope they could figure it out later.

And then there was a loud commotion as two men came running down the concrete hallway toward the room in which Clint melted into the shadows under a desk and Natasha stood, seemingly alone, gazing around.

“Who the hell are you?” One of the men asked in heavily-accented English.  “’The fuck you doin’ to our cameras?”

“Hi!  I’m Natasha.”

“What the hell are you doing here?  How’d you get in here?”

“It’s kind of a long story. I was partying with Santi and Alejandro? But they passed out and now I’m bored and I don’t know how to get out of here.”

“Why the hell are you trashin’ all our cameras?”

“I don’t like them. There’s no privacy in the twenty-first century.  We’re all too comfortable being watched every second.  You wanna help me with the revolution?”  

The two men held an incredulous, furious conversation in Spanish while Natasha stood a few feet away, a perplexed look on her face.

“Hey, guys, I don’t speak Spanish, you know?  I’m not trying to steal anything.  I just came down here because me and my boyfriend had a fight, and I met Santi, and I didn’t have anywhere to go…”  

Clint was cramped and impatient waiting under the desk, but he was at least mildly entertained by how easy it was for Natasha to work her spell on these idiots, too.  When they were both passed out on the floor, he was actually a little embarrassed on behalf of his gender.  

They found the fifth and last guy after another half hour of exploration.  This guy wasn’t about to fall for Natasha’s weed trick, however, because he was behind a door with an electronic lock she should not have been able to open.  He ended up getting Clint’s knee in his face, which meant that they had to dose him with the drug Clint had brought in a case attached to his belt.  The poor guy wouldn’t remember anything about how he ended up in the bunkroom Clint and Natasha found.  They could only hope he would deduce - from the stories the other guys would tell and, of course, from his nudity and the position in which he found himself - that he, too, had met Natasha.  He could probably claim bragging rights, because it would appear that he had gotten further with her than the other guys had before he passed out, fell off the cot, and broke his nose.

The machine he was there to guard made absolutely no sense to either Clint or Natasha.  It filled the cavernous room, and was clearly the destination for all that power.  It was shaped like a square, stepped pyramid, which caused Clint to dub it the Chichen Itza machine, with a level of panels near the top glowing a sickly green.  The dry, ozone-scented heat in the room explained why the machine had its own cooling system, which was one of the reasons it was housed behind locked doors.  There was nothing that indicated to Clint or Natasha what it did, though.  All they could do was take video and photo after photo of it from every angle, both close up and panoramic, and hope Bruce and Tony could make some sense of it.  

Once they’d finished that, they just had to find the place where the cameras were monitored, to make sure they left no video evidence of their escapades for anyone to find later.  Finding the monitoring station wasn’t much of a challenge, nor was reprogramming the system to double-record the next few hours and replace all the recordings in which Clint or Natasha appeared.

The problem came when they discovered there was a sixth guard.  

*****

Jarman Arias’s plane wasn’t as nice as Tony Stark’s.  Sam made a little face at the thought of a guy like him having preferences in private jets. Anita noticed the look and leaned in. “What’s the joke?”

Sam smiled.  “I was just thinkin’ I like Stark’s jets better.”

She looked around.  “Oh, I don’t know.  This one doesn’t suck.”

There were only four other people on the plane.  All of them were Hispanic, and they all clearly knew each other.  The six passengers were sitting together in a group, enjoying a sumptuous lunch served impeccably by the cabin attendant.  The other four seemed happy to include Sam and Anita in their conversation, speaking English for Sam’s benefit.  They laughed and carried on as though the party had already started which, in fact, it already had in that they were all drinking a Colombian ale that went perfectly with their broiled whitefish.  There was plenty of flirtation, although the flight hadn’t been long enough for the others to determine how far they could go with Sam and Anita.  Some couples were more exclusive than others, after all.

“We haven’t been to one of Jarman’s parties before,” Anita said to the group, just after feeding Sam a bite of perfectly-seared asparagus.  “What should we expect?”

The other four laughed knowingly.  “Hope you’ve gotten some sleep, and have healthy livers,” one man answered with a wink.  “Because you’re about to learn why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Sam whistled.  “Always wondered what those folks got up to,” he grinned.

Sam and Anita learned nothing about whatever Arias might be up to on the flight.  The group wasn’t in the mood to talk about anything substantive. They only wanted to flirt and laugh. What little the two were able to learn suggested that these people, at least, weren’t expecting anything big or world-changing to happen anytime soon.  

In the meantime, Sam found himself falling naturally and easily into a habit of sitting close enough to Anita that they were always touching.  For her part, Anita created several searing moments of meaningful eye contact between them combined with a soft, secret smile that Sam felt south of his belt line.  The effect was outwardly a very convincing picture of an established couple who were very attracted to one another.  Inwardly, for Sam at least, the effect was to turn him way the fuck on and make him wish desperately that they were going to the Keys to be alone together.

The group was met at the tiny private airport on Marathon Key by a sleek, white limousine that whisked them quickly to a set of ornate, manned gates in a long wall made of rock and shell. Inside the wall, Arias’s villa proved to be exactly that.  It was massive, with balconies everywhere, and the fact that it had its own private beach was immediately obvious.  The eight-foot-tall wall surrounded the entire property, extending all the way into the water.  Sam and Anita shared a look that, to others, would appear to be just silently communicating their awe at the scene.  Sam knew they were both noticing the overwhelming security.  

There were people everywhere, wearing bright colors and carrying drinks.  Many of the women were scantily dressed – there was an abundance of bikinis – while the men tended to skew older and wore more business casual clothing. Sam wasn’t surprised by that.  He was surprised by the fact that there were probably as many armed security guards as there were uniformed waiters.  Why’s a guy need armed security guards at a party, if he’s legit?  

Almost instantly, Arias emerged from the house and walked over to the limo to greet his newly-arrived guests, specifically Anita.  He welcomed her in rapid, jovial Spanish with an overly-friendly embrace and a double-cheek kiss.  Only when he’d spent long minutes slobbering over her did he turn to Sam and his other guests.  

“Mr. Wilson, how delightful you could make it,” he said, slapping him heartily on the back.  “One of my staff will be out soon to show you to your room, and they’ll take care of your luggage.  My home is yours, please take advantage of my hospitality.  Would you like a drink?”

Arias waved a waiter over. Sam said, “Thank you for flying us out. Your jet is… something.”

“Yes, isn’t it?  I grew up in a portazo, a slum, and I’ve never forgotten where I come from.  That’s why I like the finer things now, and I like to share them with my friends.”

“Well, then,” Sam smiled, “I’m glad to be considered a friend.”

The oily simper he received in return raised the hair on the back of Sam’s neck.  “Nonsense.  It’s something of a coup to be able to call the Falcon my friend, and to welcome him to my home.  So the pleasure is mine, parcero.”

Only after Anita coyly suggested that she was wearing too much clothing for the Keys did Arias reluctantly allow her to accompany Sam to the room assigned to them.  Her slacks and gauzy, sleeveless top were actually very attractive and entirely appropriate for the weather, but not for a young woman in this crowd.  In this crowd, she really was overdressed.

Their room was as ostentatiously luxurious as the rest of the huge house promised.  Sam thought the bed could have comfortably slept 5 or 6 people and, given the environment, wondered whether it ever had.  Anita stood near the center of the room, seemingly checking email on her cell phone.  What she was actually doing was scanning for surveillance equipment, which she was not surprised to find.  

“Anything going on?” Sam asked as he unpacked the few days’ worth of clothes he’d brought.  

“Someone sent me a funny video,” she answered.  “Wanna see? It’s got audio, too.”

“Nah.  You and your cat videos,” he responded, seemingly absently, acknowledging her message that the room was under both video and audio surveillance.

She went into the bathroom, still looking at the screen of her phone.  “Bad news, Sam,” she called from inside.

“What’s that, Babe?”

“I got no signal in here.”

“You sure?”  

“Positive.”

“Well, you’ll live. You’re too attached to that thing, anyway.”

So.  No surveillance in the bathroom.  Good to know for several reasons, Sam thought.

From the moment she and Sam re-appeared, Arias kept Anita plastered to his side.  She wore a red bikini which Sam knew was going to fuel his dreams, covered by an open, lacy, white robe that swirled around her when she walked in her matching kitten-heeled mules.  Sam’s loose board shorts were far less revealing, but his short-sleeved, button-down shirt hung open to reveal a firm chest and abs that Anita had commented on very favorably.  

It was, of course, the plan that Anita would stay close to Arias, but Sam found himself deeply concerned, and even more jealous.  He and Anita had just started… whatever it was they’d started.  He wasn’t remotely in the mood to see some other guy all over her. And Arias was all over her. He plied her with drinks (which she was very good at discreetly spilling) and kept an arm around her and a hand on her waist or hip almost continuously.  Although it made Sam furious, he did notice that Arias made sure to introduce her to everyone they spoke to, and he’d overheard enough of the introductions to know that he usually added some tidbit about how he knew them.  It was intended to impress her with the width of his influence and his impressive social contacts, and she was playing along beautifully.  The more dazzled she seemed, the more he bragged, making it that much easier for her to gain information.

Meahwhile, Sam went into party mode, and began to meet people.  It wasn’t hard.  Everyone was drinking, and many of the guests recognized him, which made for an easy icebreaker.  More than a few of the guests made overt passes at him, and Sam smirked to think how easy it would have been to fill up the bed in the room he was sharing with Anita. Given his natural charm, he had no trouble gently putting off amorous advances while still managing to gather a great deal of information.  Between Sam and Anita, the afternoon and evening were very productive.  

*****

Joss blinked her eyes open, squinting against the afternoon light coming in the window.  Hmmm.  Hospital room.  Why… Oh, yeah.  She looked down and immediately saw the cast on her right forearm and hand.  No surprise there, she’d known something was broken.  She also felt the pain in her left side as soon as she moved to shift position.  Which is when she turned her head to see Bucky asleep in a chair next to her hospital bed and holding her left hand.  She couldn’t help it.  She gasped in surprise, waking him.

“Bucky,” she mumbled, finding her throat scratchy and her voice weak.

He grinned sleepily at her.  “How you feelin’, Kiddo?”

Joss noticed with a slight shiver that he didn’t let go of her hand, but rather squeezed it.  She thought for a moment before answering.  “A little sore, I guess.  How’s Singer?”

“He’s in ICU.  Expected to be OK, but he lost part of his right leg.”

“Damn,” she hissed.  “That’s rough.”  

“You’ve been out of it for a while.  What do you remember?”

Joss squinted.  “I remember that President Lattimore is dead. I remember needing to stay with his body, and you telling me to go to the hospital, but then you got very blurry, and…  Nothing after that.”

“That’s because you were all busted up inside.  You had surgery.  They had to take out your spleen.”

“My…  Wait, I was usin’ my spleen.  I don’t want it out.  I like my spleen.”

“Yeah, well, you had a broken floating rib that stabbed into it.  Damn near killed you.  Which is why I’m pissed as hell at you.  You felt a hell of a lot worse than you told me, Joss.  If you woulda bled to death because you were trying to be a hero, you’d have died of stupidity.”

She smiled wanly.  “Well.  It’s nice to know you care, even if you can’t land a plane for shit.”

“I am not joking around here!  I been sitting here for hours waiting for you to wake up so I can yell at you about how reckless that was.”  He certainly didn’t look like he was kidding.  The thundercloud in his face rivaled those that had brought down the Quinjet.

Joss frowned.  “Singer and Lattimore were in trouble.  There were only four paramedics on site at the time. They needed our help.”

“We would’ve done all right. Woulda maybe cost Singer a few minutes, but that wouldn’t have changed anything for him.  Obviously, it wouldn’t have changed things for Lattimore.  It wasn’t worth you lying to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you. I never said I was fine.”

“You never said you were bleeding to death, either.  You had to know how bad -“

A nurse came in at that moment, making Bucky and Joss realize their voices had risen a bit.  

“Well, Ms. Emerson, you’re awake.  Good. I’ll let the doctor know.  How do you feel?”

“Suddenly like a four-year-old,” she muttered, glaring at Bucky.

“Well.”  The nurse said, and now she turned to glare at Bucky, too.  “I need to examine my patient, Sir.  I’m going to have to ask you to excuse us.”

“I’ll just wait outside,” he said, standing and letting go of Joss’s hand.

“Maybe you could come back tomorrow,” the nurse said, disapproval dripping from every syllable. “Ms. Emerson needs her rest.”

Joss was a little woozy to begin with, and the idea that Bucky looked disappointed that he couldn’t stay with her made her stomach swoop like she’d crested a hill too fast in her car. But before she could think of a way to ask him to stay, he left without a word.  The nurse leaned down and began to take back Joss’s sheets, which blocked her from seeing Bucky’s regretful backward glance.  

Joss endured the nurse’s exam in resentful silence.  That was not the way she’d wanted to end her last conversation with Bucky.  She knew he wouldn’t be back; he obviously had better things to do.  He’d just hung around so he could tell her what an idiot she was for not admitting how hurt she’d been.  As if she’d had a choice.  

There’d been things that needed to be done at the crash site.  It wasn’t like she had never planned to go to the hospital.  Of course she had.  She wasn’t stupid.  But she didn’t get a chance to tell him that, which meant that now she’d be going through the rest of her life knowing that Bucky Barnes, stupendously hot and surprisingly sweet superhero, thought she was a careless twit.  Great.

“Can you rate your pain for me?”  The nurse asked.  “Give me a number between one and ten.”

Joss wanted to ask whether she was talking about her stupid wounds or her heart.  Either way, the answer was the same.  “Maybe a six.  Seven.”

“Sounds like you better let me give you some pain medicine.”

“Fine.  Whatever.”  

While the nurse was gone, Joss sat staring at the blank white wall facing her hospital bed.  Her head was reeling, but she had no way to judge how much was blood loss and how much was everything that had happened in the last forty-eight hours.  The President had died on her watch.  She was going to have to answer a lot of questions about that.  They would no doubt be asked politely, and she’d probably be buried under endless platitudes about how she’d done everything right, and it wasn’t her fault, and it could have happened on anyone’s watch, blah, blah, blah.  It would all be the most transparent bullshit.  Every single person who had ever heard of Adam Lattimore – basically the entire planet – would blame her, and they’d be right.  

Not to mention the fact that Joss actually found herself mourning the smarmy old perv.  She was surprised as hell to realize that she’d actually kind of liked him.  Damn.  Worse, she knew she’d have to face Mrs. Lattimore.  The woman was entitled to an apology, at the very least.  She deserved to hear Joss acknowledge that she’d failed him. Joss wondered if her nurse would give her a shot of morphine before she had to have that conversation.

And what the hell was going on with these storms and tornadoes and that earthquake?  There was no way the storm they’d been caught in was natural, which meant there was somebody out there who could create a freaking tornado.  That was just fucking terrifying.  She understood now why S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers were involved, although not what any of this had to do with the President or that event.  And, by the way, had she actually just woken up holding hands with Bucky Barnes?  

The nurse returned with a syringe, which she quickly and efficiently screwed into a port in Joss’s IV. Not two seconds later, Joss could feel the effects of whatever the drug was.  

“Whoo,” she said.  “That’s, um…  that’s… wow.  I forgot to tell you I’m a lightweight.”  

“Don’t worry.  It’s only half of what you can have, if you need it. We want to be sure your pain is well controlled.”

“I’m not worried about pain. I’m worried about seeing flying elephants and shit.”

“Well, if you do see any, let me know.  I’ll have them removed.”

“Appreciate it.”  Joss settled back against her pillows and watched in fascination as the nurse squiggled and walked on a floor that was definitely at a strange angle.  She giggled a little as she found herself alone and, suddenly, very stoned.  

She didn’t notice Bucky come back in a moment later.  

“What’s funny?”  

Joss was probably surprised to hear his voice next to her, but she was too high to know for sure.  “You… Hey.  You’re Bucky,” she drawled, grinning crookedly.

“I get that all the time,” he smiled, taking the chair next to her bed again.  “Did we just have some narcotics?”

“I did.  I don’t know about you.”  Joss giggled again at her own joke, then became suddenly overly serious. “I didn’t expect to see you back in here.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“I thought you already did. I thought you’d already be on your way back to New York.”  

Bucky frowned.  “Why’d you think that?”

“Well, because.  You’re all gorgeous and famous and stuff, and you got your chance to tell me what a dumbass I am, so I just figured you’d be...” She extended her arm, rolling her hand in a way Bucky guessed was intended to convey, uh, leaving maybe?

“I want to make sure you’re all right.  That OK with you?”

Joss tilted her head, scowling adorably and clearly trying to figure out the answer to his question. “I don’t know.”

Bucky wasn’t sure what to do with that.  “What don’t you know?”

“I don’t know how good an idea that is.  For me. Because I really have a thing for you.  Like, bigtime.”

Bucky blushed and looked down at Joss’s blanket, smiling almost shyly and giving an embarrassed laugh.

“Is it because you crashed me in a plane?”  Joss asked, oblivious.  “Because I didn’t really mean what I said.  I’m sure you can land a plane.  I’m sure you can do pretty much anything, I mean…  look at you.  Why do you look like that, anyway?”

“Uh…”

“You got those big, pretty blue eyes, and that ridiculous jaw, and holy fuck don’t get me started on those lips.  You should see what people on YouTube say about your hair.  It’s graphic, Bucky.  Gra. Phic.”

“OK, Joss, let’s maybe talk about something else now.  That medicine work?  You still hurting?”

“What, you don’t want to hear about how beautiful you are?  Don’t pretend you don’t know.  Of course you do.  How come I can’t say it?”

“Because you’re gonna be mad at me for hearing it, that’s why.”

“Do you know what I think you should do?  Oh, this is a good idea.  It is. I think you should kiss me.  Then when I never see you again except on TV, at least I’ll be able to remember that you kissed me once.”  

“I’m not so sure you’re gonna remember any of this…” he muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.  OK, I’ll kiss you.  But not right now.  Later. When you’re not quite so medicated.”

“It’s OK.  I know.  I’m inse-  inconta- interconti-  No, that’s not it.”  She frowned in concentration.  “In-con-se-quen-tial.  Inconsequential.  That’s why you don’t want to kiss me.  I don’t blame you.  You can lift entire airplanes and I don’t even have a spleen.”

“What?  You’re not inconsequential.”

“Compared to you, I am. You’re on cereal boxes with that guy. You know, that, um… Steve.  Steve America.  No, that’s not right…”  Joss’s voice faded as she tried valiantly to figure out what she was trying to say.

“Joss, you are not inconsequential.”  

“By next week, you probably won’t remember we even met.  I’ll be back to obscurity, and you’ll be dating a Kardashian.”

“I don’t even know what that is.  And that’s not fair, to either one of us.”  Bucky reminded himself that she was wasted on pain meds and didn’t know what she was saying.  He couldn’t be mad at her, although he didn’t appreciate her implication.

“Plus I let the President die.  Am I on CNN yet?  Does Anderson Cooper hate me?  I know those jackholes at Fox News hate me.  I can just imagine what they’re saying about me.  But I feel bad if you don’t want to kiss me and Anderson Cooper hates me.”

“I do want to kiss you, and I’m sure Anderson Cooper doesn’t hate you.”

“Do you think Rachel Maddow would take my calls?  She seems cool.  She might let me explain.”

Bucky laughed.  “I’m sure she will.”

Joss looked at him again. “Damn, you’re cute.  You really want to kiss me?”

“Yes.  I really do.”

“You’re humoring me because you crashed me in a plane.”

“A little.  But I also think you’re cute, and I truly want to kiss you.”

“Then do it.”

“Not when you’re soused on painkillers.”

“See?  You don’t want to.  You’re all buff and supersoldiery and pretty and you’re too cool to even be in my hospital room.  Why are you in here again?”

“Maybe we should watch TV.”

“OK.  But not Anderson Cooper.  He hates me.”

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 239: We’re Fucked

Previously on BnHA: Actually it’s been two weeks, so I barely even remember. Let me just... take another... Ah, right. So Tomura brought it up a notch to Goth Level x20 and destroyed all of his Surplus Hands in a fit of independence, and Re-Destro was like “!!!” and then turned himself into a giant robot as a counter-flex. Meanwhile Gigantomachia continued to smash shit and also defeated Orange Leaf because lord knows Dabi was never actually going to get around to it. Compress called Ujiko and was all “hey can you please stop your guy because I’m afraid he’s going to smash us once he’s done smashing everything else,” but Ujiko was all, “listen if Shigaraki dies then he dies!!” But I’m pretty sure Shigaraki isn’t actually going to die. Re-Destro, though? He might be dead. Guess we’ll find out.

Today on BnHA: Nope, Re-Destro isn’t dead. So it goes like this: Tomura, who is now incredibly hot by the way, annihilates the entire fucking town leaving only bits of rubble, basically. Everyone is all, “LOOK AT THIS ARE YOU FUCKING SEEING THIS HOLY SHIT” and basically just watching in awe. Re-Destro chops off his own fucking feet so as not to be disintegrated himself, something which everyone is way too fucking calm about tbh. And in the aftermath Tomura stands there all “lol I won,” and RD is like, “yeah you sure did,” and I was expecting Tomura to be all “well anyways, [kill]” but instead RD is like, “HERE’S THE KEYS TO YOUR NEW ARMY” and Tomura is “HEY COOL” and SOMEHOW THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER AND WORSE ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Heh. Anyways where’s that comic with the dog in the house that’s on fire. That about sums it all up.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, but aside from that there are no changes, and even that was a rush job since I was late in reading the chapter this week. I basically have not edited this at all lulz.)

sounds like someone is about to get the official Gigantomachia Seal of Approval at long last! sure did take this boy a while to get accredited, but he kept at it! there’s a lesson there, folks. if at first you don’t succeed, stop sleeping for two months and then power-hallucinate your way to success

so we’re opening with Hanabata and his van! I sure hope this mofo is about to die, because mofos need to start dying already. I’ve loved this arc and we’ve had some really great times, but I never did have much patience for this particular point of any given arc. side villains need to know when to die. respect for Kizuki, at least she had the right idea

on the other hand we are being gifted with some pretty fun panels, such as this

wah, his shoes. heh

oh my god

did he slam into the van when it hit the brakes to avoid Tomura’s Destruction Radius. ouch

so he’s narrating about how some crazy shit is going down over where Tomura is. and that “our story was at a standstill, but now...”

listen, that “but now” had better mean that you’re about to de-standstill and wrap things up

-- holy shit

I’m not -- Tomura, what!?! you’re hot?! is it just me?? am I fucking losing it?? what the fuck. can you seriously just cut off anyone’s fingers and they’ll magically grow 40x hotter!? somebody count Aizawa’s fingers for me

shit. this isn’t even my normal aesthetic! Tomura you’re crossing genre barriers here. I can’t speak for everyone, but I deeply suspect that you’re appealing very widely right now

the moral of this story is, eyeliner. that’s it. that’s the moral

in other news, Twice shouting “hang in there, Giran!” speaks for all of us, I think, and he had better get a medal for being VIP of this fucking arc. and Giran, it’s good to get some exercise

so who is this monologuing now?

is this a flashback to All for One? or RD getting all philosophical as the countdown inches ever closer to his doom?

like, this could seriously go either way here. huh. full disclosure, I’m doing my best to speedread here since this recap is late, so I’m not taking much time to think real deeply or try and process every little thing this week

now RD is going “guh!” and failing to get with the times

yeah dude, we established this already. Tomura is doing a lot of things he shouldn’t fucking be able to do. because he’s awakening. you’re the one who fucking said it just last chapter. quit being so damn shocked

lol now he’s thinking “if I can just get out of range...” ha, good luck. does he even have a fucking range now

omfg. you guys

being on the villains’ team for an arc is so much fun. so nice to be able to shamelessly appreciate the senseless destruction

okay, not quite as hot now. but from the right angle, though. damn

anyways. he cray. we get it lol

now he’s shouting “I’ll break you to pieces!” all gleefully and, like. destroying the entire town, it looks like. possibly

okay but seriously I think he really is. he really fucking is, you guys

I’m simultaneously grinning at how badass it is and thinking in the back of my mind about how our actual heroes are so!! fucked!! once this arc is over and done with sob

like, hey Tomura, what was your overall goal again? destroy the entire world? oh, yes, right. and what exactly is stopping you, again? literally nothing but a handful of sixteen-year-old heroes in training? whom I’m deeply attached to? yes, that’s surely going to end well

sobbbbbbbb

we’re so. goddamn. fucked

also, when did RD transform back into his little guy form? why do I suddenly almost feel sorry for him. well maybe not sorry so much as I feel pity. though once again, weekly reminder that he invited them himself, and they probably would never have clashed had he not decided to start shit for absolutely no fucking reason

let this be a lesson to all other villains! if you’re still thinking the League is an easy mark now that AFO is ~out of the picture~, let Overhaul and Re-Destro serve as examples of what happens when you underestimate the new boy in charge

and when I think of it that way, it makes me want to warn Tomura not to get too cocky and make the same fucking mistake. AFO and All Might may not have much in common, but one thing they do share is a knack for choosing worthy successors. though I still think that in AFO’s case, “placeholder” would be a more accurate word

anyway so where were we. -- oh yes

I wonder how many pages do we need of Tomura cheerfully decimating shit and RD watching in terror. this is a manga-only complaint though, just to be clear. in the anime? this shit is going to be fucking amazing. Tomura cackling maniacally while the world crumbles to pieces around him. metal af

by the way I love how RD has gone pants-only now that he’s back in his Bruce Banner form

I really shouldn’t be complaining that this chapter is going by so quickly, given that I’m trying to race through it, but literally the next two pages are just more of the same shit

town: destroyed. RD status: defeated and pants-only. plots advanced in the last three pages: none that I can actually see

oh shit. wait

what the -- holy --

okay lol. nevermind. here I thought that was Tomura’s foot on the previous page. and I didn’t notice RD’s feet had been chopped off on account of I thought the BLOODY STUMPS OF HIS FEET were his shoes, I guess. despite the manga establishing multiple times that he was only wearing pants. I only pointed it out specifically twice myself. wowwww

just. I’m running on four hours’ sleep here but feeling pretty all right considering, so I thought I was doing pretty good, but I GUESS NOT lol. one of these days I’ll learn that if a giant two-page spread appears to be a waste, it’s far more likely that I’ve just completely failed to see some very obvious thing of critical importance

anyways. ohhhhh yesssss

[raises hand] me! I know!! it was him calling you up out of the blue and being all “hey come here I want to start a whole battle”!!

heeeeeeeh

god I’m living for this. the brief swell of pity is gone as quickly as it arose lol. finish him off boiiiii

OH FOR FUCK’S --

DID YOU GUYS SOMEHOW FAIL TO GET THE MEMO. DID THE ENTIRE TOWN CRUMBLING APART NOT CLUE YOU IN THAT IT WAS TIME TO HEAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION

jesus. I would be impressed by their loyalty, except that none of them have given a fuck about the 100,000 hapless redshirts who’ve died fighting for them, so it seems pretty damn hypocritical for them to care so much about this one fucking guy. especially when his stupid plan singlehandedly destroyed everything your organization has spent their entire lives working for. in, like, an hour

anyway, Tomura is back to being hot again guys

motherfucker is fully aware of just how much everything is lining up his way right now. finally his childlike self-assuredness actually has some sort of basis in fact. you are exactly as badass as you think you are, sir. must be nice. you enjoy this; you deserve some nice things just this once before everything goes to shit again after this arc

holy shit, even Hanabata’s quirk is failing in the wake of that see-you-in-hell grin

I’m telling you dude, you should have been driving the other way. not that there’s any point now. enjoy your final seconds on this earth

LOL

“meaningless casualties” lmao that is the most pompous variation on “DON’T YOU GET IT, WE’RE ABOUT TO FUCKING DIE” I’ve ever heard

wow, so wait, is RD trying to beg for their lives now??

that’s a surprisingly classy move. unfortunately I’m fairly sure Tomura is going to show you exactly as much mercy as you were prepared to show him just a few minutes earlier. well maybe a little more mercy, since you were going to take your sweet time and he’ll probably end things quickly in comparison

anyway so now RD is having an internal dialogue with his dead great-grandpa about how Tomura turned out to be the living embodiment of everything they were fighting for

and actually, he’s not wrong when you think about it. which just goes to show you how deeply flawed their philosophy really was. there’s a hugely important distinction between “freedom to be who you are” and “freedom to do whatever the fuck you want, including hurting and oppressing others”

anyway, so in the end he didn’t ask for mercy. “I picked a fight with you and lost. if you mean to kill me, then get it over with.” well I guess that is still classy in its own way though

also, Machia is staring at Tomura and seeing this

which is an awesome visual, and I love that Horikoshi went with that instead of more internal monologuing. nothing else even needs to be said

-- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOLY SHIT

SDFSLDKJFLJS HOLY SHIT

yooooooooooo. oh shit

I did not see that coming. should have, probably. there was a lot of buildup to it in hindsight. Tomura and the gang started out the arc flat-out broke, and now at the end of things they acquire a company with precisely the resources they need. manpower, cash, and technological innovations. oh shit. oh shit

oh my god the look on Ujiko’s face. this worked out better than he ever could have hoped

pausing it here because I did in fact laugh and I love it. [pats]

this boy has a 5/5 intelligence score in the character databook. he’s a genius. nothing gets past him. his reflexes are too fast

aaaaaand that’s the end of the chapter. well, then. to reiterate: we are well and truly fucked y’all

[flowerpot101]

Like No Other

Bucky x Reader

Summary: Bucky gets a new arm from a lady that has known Tony for years. Bucky realizes he knows her but doesn’t remember where.

Word Count: 2018

It’s been a little over a year since the Civil War between Man and America and I heard all about it. I still remember the day Tony came to me asking for help knowing that I could with such abilities I possessed. However, I could not; I was not S.H.I.E.L.D nor was I Hydra.

I had escaped from Hydra the night before I was meant to go to the Red Room. I had been there since I was three. I knew what would happen if I stayed a moment longer. They couldn’t and would not find out what I possessed. I was one with nature, able to bring back once flowering plants and the ones who were not dead for long. But, to also have the ability over electricity was a plus for I could meld it around my body like a shield in a blue green hue. I could not die and I figured that out the hard way when they sent the Winter Soldier after me.

The first time the Soldier came, he had exceeded or so he and I thought. I felt what death felt like but then I felt my electricity abilities melding everything back together. It took Hydra a year later to figure out that I was still alive so they sent him again and again until they finally gave up realizing it was impossible to kill me and it would be better to bring me back instead, but they never did.

1988 was the year I started to normalize a life for myself. I knew technology like no one else did. So over the year I made a name for myself. A girl that came from nothing and knew nothing but death and destruction could make a living even if it was full of risks. By early 2000’s I had the second top science and technology company, coming up quite close to Stark Inc. When word got out that a young woman was coming for Stark’s title that led Tony to her headquarters, to see what all that big fuss was about. And he was not disappointed.

                       Present Time.

For the past week and a half, everyone from the press to my workers has been asking nonstop about the Avengers and if I knew what was happening to the Winter Soldier. I told them I knew nothing but in reality I knew everything. I mean how couldn’t I? I mean I’m best friends with Tony fricken Stark, that man does not stay quiet.

It was a Tuesday morning; everything was always crazier on this day for some reason. I was working in my personal lab when EVA, my A.I, had told me a certain Stark was here and would be here in a matter of seconds. I heard the little ding and when I heard his footsteps followed by others, “You know you should always ask before arriving, it’s much more polite, Tone.” All I heard was a deep chuckle before I felt a poke in my side,”And where would be the fun in that my dear Y/N?” When I turned around, I didn’t expect what had stood before me. Rhodey was here with Stark but so was the Soldier. All I could do was turn to Tony with an annoyed expression while he had that damn smirk he always has. “What do you need help with this time?” Tony just smiled, going back and forth on his heel,” Oh you know, the same old same old. Need yeah to look at something that I brought.” That’s when I noticed the heavy duty briefcase. I pointed to an empty work bench, silently telling him that he can put it over there. He sets it with a big boom and while walking towards him I could feel eyes on me. Looking up, I see the Soldier looking at me with a calculating expression as if he knew me but did not remember where he had seen me. When I finally reach Tony and look over his shoulder, I saw a big hunk of a metal arm.

When Tony had realized I had a confused expression, he quickly went into detail. “I need your help. And yes I realize that I’m Tony Stark who can build anything and everything. However, it seem I can’t built an arm, I can build a shell and a suit buy not a full out arm like Bucky’s old one.” He took a deep breath and gave a small glance over to the Soldier, “Who ever created his arm was much more advanced than anyone had planned His arm is much more complex then S.H.I.E.L.D or I had thought. It won’t fit, it’s too heavy and it’s just weird. So how about yeah help out a buddy of yours?” All I could do was laugh as if it was a joke.

Of course the arm was complex and created by someone much more advanced. This was the one thing Tony didn’t know about me, that I wasn’t just a Hydra agent in training but I was one of their many scientists. One of the many who had saw everything the Soldier had gone through. The one who always fixed his arm because they knew he wouldn’t dare hurt a young lady. The one who had created his last arm because the one before had been destroyed. Why do you think Hydra was so keen on me being killed? It wasn’t the fact that I knew where the Red Room was, but more to the fact that I knew all of their secrets. I knew how to destroy everything that was the most important to them. They were worried that I would go and blab but I wouldn’t because I knew I would have everyone’s eyes and ears on me and that was the last thing I needed.

“I know that Tone. Who did you think fixed the Soldiers metal contraption from time to time?” Looking over to the man of the hour, “You know, I’m actually quite happy to see you again after all these years. I have to thank you for making me realize my full potential and where I stand in this world and what I could do for it.” Looking at this man more deeply, I couldn’t help but to feel and look at him with admiration. I could never know how it felt going through what he had gone through. While looking at him, I say to him, “For me to be part of what had happen to you, I would be honored to give you a new arm for an apology because if I know anything, Stark is just going to keep screwing up on the arm. It would be better for someone who has experience in this type of thing and who has done it personally, to do it. So follow me.”

Walking towards the furthest wall from the windows. I turned to the three men in front of me, “Listen, I knew this was going to happen at some point so I’m glad it’s happening now when I’m actually creating metal prosthetics. I knew when I started working on this project that I could use my past experience to finally do some good.” I turned to the wall and pressed a yellow button. A panel that was covering the wall smoothly went up and into the wall. Behind that panel was a wall of arms plus legs, all ready and set for when the time comes. While one of my hands is moving along the wall, traveling across all the cold rough metal with a calculating expression, the Soldier behind her is looking at her with adoration while the other two men look between them with smirks that just stands for trouble. While grabbing a left metal arm I let out a eureka. Spinning on my heels to face the others, my round glasses fell down and I push them up with my index finger while holding the arm, “I found it, I hope you’re ready for a new arm Soldier because its gonna be awhile.” All I got was a nod from the Soldier but a groan from the other two, “You two can go to the salvage in the basement and see if there is anything you can take back to the Tower to use for any of the crazy creations and experiments you do.” Tony instantly grabs Rhodey by the hand and drags him to the elevator. All I hear before the door closes is a see you later and you’ve got to be kidding me.

I look back to the Soldier, pushing my glasses up on the bridge of my nose once again, “You can sit on that stool over to the left of you and I can start connecting this to your shoulder. And don’t worry, it’s not going to take an hour, I just told them that because it looked like you were about to kill Tone for being annoying and I do not blame you for that because I would do the same.” All I got from him was a little huff in the shoulders but a saw a glimpse of a small smile. I set the arm to the bench left of me and walked over to the cabinets grabbing all the materials that I would need, while doing all that I could feel his stare on my back. Walking back to him he still stared, calculating my every move, every step. I grab a stool and move it in front of me and got to work. I started taking everything apart to where the point I could start putting everything back onto his left shoulder. For the first ten minutes it was in complete awkward silence. I didn’t know what to say, back in the years when I was with Hydra, we had never talked. I just followed the orders that were given to me. And once finished with that order, I would just get up and leave.

Finally after mustering up enough courage and about another ten minutes goes by I finally say,”I’m sorry I could never stop them from jumbling and frying your brain. I would have stopped them but I was afraid they would kill me or do something worst to you. Yeah should know that there were people from Hydra who DID care about your well being.” Another ten minutes go by before anything is said and it wasn’t by me this time.

“You shouldn’t be sorry doll.” That’s when I finally looked up to him; his face was filled with love. It reminded me all the times I had brought chocolate to him in that cold molding room, all the warm secret moments we had. He was the only one, only thing nobody knew about. No one knew our bond, no one knew we had grown close and he had grown to be protective over me. I and he shared a bond like no other. “Don’t worry doll, I remember.” That’s when I noticed how close we had gotten, how his breath fanning over my face and in a tiny mumble, “Your arm is ready. If you want to, you can test it out.” All he did was stare at me and nod and just say “I’ll test it later.” We were in a trance, both of us remembering all those times together, all those secret times. When finally his lips met mine in the most searing and blissful kiss that I haven’t felt in decades, one that was in the rarest of our moments. While his rough hands our upon the sides of my petite round face, kissing my lips, kissing all around my face, in the other room Stark and Rhodey were watching the screen with smirks like they accomplished a lifelong dream. Stark turned to his best friend, “I told you this would work.” Rhodey just scoffed and shook his head while walking away from Tony. 

While the two had their moment, Bucky’s mind was all jumbled but all Y/N could think was that she finally had her Bucky back.

[neurotribe]

“I don’t see colour” or The Complicated Dishonest Politics of Identity

I didn’t blog last week because this post took me a lot longer to write than I thought. So please accept this post as last weeks and this weeks reflection. It’s quite long so grab a coffee or tea, and settle in for a bit of a read.

I was on my way home from a conference I was speaking at some years ago. It was a Melbourne December so for my northern hemisphere friends, that means one of the hottest months of the year.

In the warmer months, I tend to keep my hair quite short. This time, my hair was clippered to the point of almost being bald. I had a serious case of the five o’clock shadows and in addition, I tend to tan quite significantly during the summer months, a benefit of my Maltese genes.

So there I was, stopped at a set of traffic lights at a busy intersection in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. It was hot, the window was open, my elbow sticking out the side of the car probably listening to a 24 hour news station, nerd I know.

It took a few seconds for me to hear the yelling over the sound of the radio. I looked out the window and I could see the source of the yelling. It was two, twenty something white Caucasian males. The seemed to be yelling and it appeared to be aggressive. I turned the sound down and listened.

“Go back to where you came from you f***ing Arab!” they yelled. I looked in the opposite direction trying to find the target of their vitriol. I was the only car in this part of the intersection waiting for the lights to change. I looked back at them and once again in the opposite direction, thinking now that their target was someone walking on the other side of the road. I scanned the footpath and it too was empty as far as the eye could see. As I looked back at the young men still screaming, it suddenly dawned on me, they were yelling at me.

It was half way through December 2005, a time when Australia was experiencing a thing we now call the Cronulla Race Riots.

Putting on my best Aussie bogan accent, I yelled out “I am mate, back to Diamo! Cheers!” “Diamo” being the truncated version of Diamond Creek, a very white settler suburb close to where I live which ironically has experienced a shift in demographics since that time.

I didn’t really think about the incident until after the conference. I had some time to reflect and as I did so, in particular in the light of national events surrounding the riots, I realised the effect that this and many other incidents prior to and since that one continue to have on my sense of identity.

You may have missed something significant last week. A question was asked on the ABC’s Q&A program (you can see the question here, skip to the 32 minute and 15 second mark). The white, middle class Australian man who must be at least in his 60′s asks, “After working and paying taxes for about 50 years myself, I believe that no person living in Australia today should be entitled to any special benefit or recognition, which is based not simply on need or achievement, but on race or how long their ancestors were here. What do the panel think of that?”

The host threw to Sami Shar. Lucky bloke. I thought he responded well given no notice and the incendiary nature of the question. “It is easy to dismiss the value of race when it is not something that has been a defining aspect of your life, when it’s not something that has been used to vilify, deprive and destroy community ... when you’ve never had that kind of vilification ... it’s easy to say it’s a fair go, everybody is born equal, and “I don’t see race”.

In the US, yet another Trump inspired political firestorm is unfolding, this time as a result of a tweet telling four congresswomen of colour they should go back to where they came from.

I am not sure if you have heard of the term “identity politics”. The phrase, these days is often used in a pejorative sense however that was not originally the case. Back in the 1970′s was articulated as a framework that helped “those feeling oppressed by and actively suffering under systemic social inequities to articulate their suffering and felt oppression in terms of their own experience by processes of consciousness-raising and collective action.” The intent of identity politics was a mechanism that was "seen as ways to gain empowerment or avenues through which to work towards a more equal society.”

If you could for a minute, put aside your thoughts and feelings regarding the phrase for a minute.

Think with me for a minute.

If there were a mechanism that could help us see the systemic ways in which we could clearly see that for example black women experienced a significant and disproportionate level of violence over and against that experienced by other demographics, surely we can agree that this mechanism is a good thing? If this lens helped us to see dynamics at play that we were unable to see prior to the introduction of such lenses, again surely that would be a good thing? If this lens enabled us to begin imagining solutions that empowered this demographic, and helped us collectively move towards a more equal society, again surely we would consider this to be a good thing?

Now remember, prior to the previous paragraph, I said that in order to see the goodness of such a mechanism we would need to park our bias concerning the mechanism and the name of this mechanism, namely identity politics. So if you can’t quite see the goodness that I am referring to in the above paragraph, perhaps skip back up the article and try again?

Regardless of how you are feeling at this stage of the post, this was exactly the intent of the origins of identity politics. Namely:

A framework that helped us see something that we could not see before and,

Once seen, solutions could be conceived of that would move us towards a more equal society.

Arguably, identity politics as a mechanism is responsible for some of the most significant social transformations during the last four decades including but not limited to the ongoing struggle for women’s rights (in all spheres), the civil rights of minority groups and the civil rights of those who do not conform to gender or sexual “social norms”.

Fast forward four decades and we have all sorts of people using the phrase identity politics negatively, almost as a profanity. The arguments against identity politics are many including but not limited to:

It is a concept that emerges from Marxism, Socialism (insert whatever “ism” will gain the most negative of reactions in the audience that the critic seeks to persuade),

It is destructive,

It is negative,

It divides people rather than bringing people together.

The use of the phrase “identity politics” and the associated negative attributions are one of the quickest ways of shutting down debate around who holds power and more importantly alternative visions to the status quo that may emerge after honest reflection.

And it is the lack of honesty in these criticisms that angers me most.

Those who seek to criticise identity politics as a divisive tool are employing the very same mechanism they seek to discredit in their attempts to discredit it! In their attempts to discredit identity politics, critics use a specific form of identity politics referred to as “white grievance” or “white identity” politics, a form of identity politics!  

Professor Ashely Jardina, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Duke University noted that Trump’s “go back” tweet was a strategic and well thought through strategy designed to speak directly to the anxieties of two groups of people:

"The first subset are white voters who are racially resentful, who have hostility to voters of colour, they don't believe they play by the rules," she says. "Telling women of colour in Congress to go back to the countries they come from is going to resonate with racially prejudiced voters."

It will also play well, she says, with a different subset: voters who are worried about the changing demographics of America but don't harbour the same hostility towards racial minorities."For these voters, the idea elected officials don't uniformly look like them is symbolic of the loss of political power that white Americans have enjoyed for a long time."

So critics of identity politics,

using the very same framework,

on the basis of an identity “white anxiety” or “white grievance”,

on the basis of the fears of real or perceived loss of power,

and therefore as a consequence of using identity politics to clearly articulate the fears experienced by this demographic,

attempt to shut down debate arising as a result of identity politics.

Dishonest. Brilliant. But yeah, dishonest.

It seems to me that when one group becomes aware to their lack of power, and when that group seeks to find it’s power, and when a society needs to adjust and specifically when those who are accustomed to having a monopoly upon power find themselves in a position of needing to share their power with others, well quite frankly it gets ugly.

Case in point the national debate surrounding Australia’s treatment of Adam Goodes as a result of the release of the documentary The Final Quarter.

So where to from here? I have four thoughts (and an optional fifth):

1) The dishonesty needs to be exposed When those who attack the use of identity politics use the exact same tactic, well firstly, to be totally honest, I congratulate them. Well played. However the fact that they are using the same strategy to reinforce the status quo, that dishonesty needs to be exposed.

2) Be compassionate when dealing with people who are afraid (including yourself) There is something exhilarating about discovering and beginning to use ones power. Conversely there is something quite terrifying to discover that you are about to lose power, especially if the power you are about to lose was something that you didn’t realise you had and the imminent loss comes as a surprise. I have written about this before. The full post appears here. This quote which I used from that post speaks to this phenomenon well:

“To the privileged, equality can feel like a loss. Over time I have come to the idea that independence requires equality and, therefore, a sense of loss for many.” - Jesse Alan Downs

3) Holding power as opposed to holding power to account I am a geek, I have noted that several times. So to make this point, I reach to sci fi, in particular The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. In describing the marketing department of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, the writer reflects they are simply "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes".

Revolutions are dangerous things. How many times do we need to go through he cycle of replacing one set of ruthless dictators with another? How do we move towards a more equal society if the process requires creating a new minority without power?

This is the trickiest of issues. Why? Because in order for minorities to take their place in a society and be involved in wielding power,  those with a monopoly on power need to have the wisdom and courage to recognise this and relinquish their monopoly. That takes a profound kind of leadership. Which brings me to my final thought.

4) Encouraging and getting behind honest, compassionate and wounded leaders of the status quo I jumped into my car and therefore came part way into an interview. I thought I recognised the voice of the person being interviewed but couldn’t quite place it. I listened to this political leader discussing identity politics. They noted the when identity politics are used in ways to identify those who suffer and help us imagine alternative futures, identity politics is a good thing. However when identity politics are used to divide groups of people and deny us the ability to imagine creative solutions, it was a bad thing.

I listened to this interview for about twenty minutes and only at the end, discovering that the person being interviewed was Barnaby Joyce. That’s right, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia who lost his seat because he was a dual citizen of Australia and New Zealand, only to win the seat back and then lose his position as Deputy Prime Minister because his affair with his former staffer and expected child became public news. (And so on and so on and so on).

It struck me as I listened to Joyce describe the ways in which identity politics helps us see groups who suffer that we are unable to any other way, and then to creatively imagine solutions, I was listening to a man who had experienced not just one, but several national humiliations. (I couldn’t find that interview, if someone can, by all means let me know and I will post a link to this article. However, I was able to find this article that you might find interesting.)

Another powerful white male who has given me pause to reflect upon the judgementalism I carry in my own heart is Eddie McGuire. There were many moments in the Adam Goodes doco that moved me. One of them however came from an unexpected place. There is a very short scene, where McGuire, after making several racial gaffes has had a moment to reflect publicly on the effect of his casual racism on Adam Goodes. Suddenly Eddie struggles to find words and chokes up with tears that he tries to hold back. He stands emotionally in the place of “the other”. He realises that he has hurt another human being in a way that will most likely leave a mark for the rest of his life. Yes Goodes may heal, however whenever Eddie interacts with Goodes, he will be mindful of the scar on Goodes’ soul, a scar that he inflicted. So as I have reflected on this doco, the world we find ourselves in, and as I have despaired at the apparent lack of a way forward in this tribalised world, I wonder if part of the way forward is to look harder for and then encouraging the honest, compassionate, wounded leaders of the status quo, or at the very least, looking for opportunities for their formation?

5) Optional fifth thought I have a fifth thought, exclusively for my sisters and brothers of the Christian faith. I have spoken at length with many a sister and brother in Christ about this stuff. One of the most demoralising things is the idea that issues of race are not “core gospel concerns”. In many of those discussions, Paul’s statement from Galatians is cited: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” as thought this somehow confirms the fact that this collection of my thoughts in this post is at best peripheral and at worst irrelevant to the practice of the Christian faith. However, after reflecting on Paul’s words and more importantly the context, I realise that they cannot be used to dismiss the issue. Paul in Galatians is taking on the fact that everyone seems to have succumbed to the negative dimensions of identity politics, in the way that Barnaby Joyce warned about in his interview. When you work your way through Galatians, everything up until this statement, it is clear, Paul is not commanding people to cease and desist. He is not telling people to cease playing the worst kind of identity politics game. He is in fact offering us a vision of what could be, a vision of a community where many tribes, tongues and cultures come together, as equals under the lordship of the only person we can trust to hold power, therefore relieving us of all of our fears.