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forkanna · 4 years ago

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[AO3] [WATTPAD]

WARNING: Rise's views and Ai's views on the LGBT community, and especially those of other characters in this work of fiction, do not always line up with those of the author. Please do your own research! The more you understand, the better our world will be.

CHAPTER WARNING: Bulimia.

NOTE: Happy New Year! Welcome to my particularly long and exhaustive crackship tome that literally no one asked for! What else is new, right? The first scene of this chapter is almost entirely copy-pasted from my other P4 fanfiction, "We'll Face Ourselves", though I tried to spruce it up and shift perspective so it doesn't feel like quite so much rehash. I thought it served as a nice lead-in to this story, with some added focus on the new ship. The second half of this chapter and the rest of the fic is all-new, don't worry. The "Golden" is more a reference to it being additional "dlc" for my other fic, not to me specifically focusing on Marie or any such content exclusive to P4G. Apologies if this dashes anyone's expectations but I hope you enjoy the fic regardless!

As for anyone wishing for that fic to debut... you know the one... well, all things in time. Soon, I promise. In the meantime, check me out at jxsleator dot carrd dot co !

Jessex

PROLOGUE

Once upon a time, in the quaint town of Inaba… a minstrel girl and a stubborn princess fought over a handsome prince. Very briefly.

"Can't you give me a little kiss goodbye?" the minstrel pulled back to look up into the boy's stoic face, her large doe eyes shining with tears — on purpose. She was a top notch minstrel, after all. "Something to keep me from… from dying from missing you?"

"Oh please," the quiet innkeeper muttered under her breath with a begrudging smile.

However, the prince obliged the minstrel girl with a kindly kiss upon the forehead. She was in awe of his tenderness. Right up until…

"Excuse me? What do you think you're doing, you bitch?!"

The others pulled back to see royalty approaching, hands on her hips. A truly glamorous princess indeed, even though her regal vestments weren't nearly as radiant as they had been in days past. The ever-present lacy pink turtleneck lived underneath a cardigan today rather than her school uniform.

"What is who doing?" the pouting siren protested, clinging a little tighter to her prince's arm.

"You! Little trollop!" The flawless beauty stomped over to the two of them, honey-brown waves bouncing as she got right up in the singer's face. "Take your greedy little paws off my boyfriend!"

The idol stamped her foot and snapped, "HEY! I don't see your name on him anywhere!"

The prince gulped and began to back away. "Uh…"

"Really?" the princess scoffed. "What makes you think you have any claim to him, slut puppy? He went to the festival with me — and spent Christmas Eve with me, too! And for your goddamn information, we got pretty close!"

Though the siren was comely, and manipulative toward many of the young suitors in the land, it was in playful jest; she did consider them friends but couldn't seem to suppress her womanly wiles, so she flirted for sport. Alas, the princess wounded her deeply with such words; her lip wobbled at the princess's declarations, even though that may have been for show.

"Senpai, say that's not true! How could you, when I… I let you… you know!"

"Hey, it doesn't count when I'm just sitting there and you plop your butt down on my hand," the prince said reasonably. "And Ai-chan, we hugged a little; please don't tease her by making it sound like more."

The prince's pair of suitresses were chagrined. The princess seemed a little more genuinely hurt than her rival for his attentions but neither were particularly happy with being called out.

"Whew," the flop-haired jester exhaled, wiping his brow. "Don't know how you get away with it, juggling two chicks like that."

"That's not…" The prince sighed, shaking his head as he facepalmed. "Maybe I'm glad to be leaving."

But in truth, he was not. Nor was anyone else present. As they alternately squabbled and lamented the prince's parting, other classmates and citizens of Inaba began to approach to wish him bon voyage. He really had left an impression in the short year he had lived there. When the train whistle signalled that it was about to pull away, the bickering came to an end so they could truly see their friend off. A lot of tearful hugs and well wishes were offered before the prince was inside, looking out the window at them as it pulled away from the station. They ran after him all the way to the end of the platform until they ran out of space, then stood waving after him until the train was completely out of sight.

And thus the prince's tale gave way to another. One about a minstrel who had lost her way and found it again, and a princess who had not always known she was a princess at all.

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CHAPTER ONE

"I just… he really left," Rise Kujikawa finally sobbed now that the click-clack sounds of the train had faded into the distance.

"Geez, turn it off already," Yosuke Hanamura sighed as he clasped his hands behind his neck, pressing his floppy hair hard against his neck. They turned away to start toward home or wherever the night might take them. "You don't have to keep up the act when he's not even here."

"Act?!" She shoved him from behind, and he stumbled a couple of steps as his arms windmilled out to the sides, attempting to regain his balance. "Not cool, Hanamura! I am grieving the death of my relationship!"

"What relationship?" Kanji Tatsumi grunted.

"Boys, you could be a little more sensitive," Yukiko Amagi told them in an even, reasonable tone. She was dabbing at her eyes like everyone else, and leaning a little more heavily than usual on her best friend, Chie Satonaka, but she seemed to be maintaining her composure better than Rise could manage. "We're all going to miss him so much."

"I'm just trying to get Rise to wake up," Yosuke persisted anyway. "She's delusional. We all know Nakamura was trying to scam on that chick at the hospital."

"What?"

"You know. The nurse. Though I think she moved away…"

Kanji cleared his throat. "Actually, I… thought that woman with the kid was his squeeze. Y'know, the one that came up to him a minute ago?"

Chie squeaked, "He was doing what with who?! That's… why? Why chase a married woman?!"

"Oh, I thought it was one of you girls."

The group of them turned to blink at the girl from the drama club. "Who are you again?" Yosuke asked — very rudely, even though they were all thinking it.

"Yumi Ozawa," she said softly with a slight bow. "He gave me a great deal of help when I was dealing with my own family problems, you know. And… well, I revealed I had feelings for him, and he shut me down. Just said he wanted to remain friends, and it's hard to argue with that, isn't it?"

While Chie and Yukiko were chattering to her about that, the boys suffering through a "girly" conversation they had no interest in, the slightly jealous Rise found herself momentarily distracted. Everyone kept moving along as she slowly came to a halt, turned her white sandals off to the side, and approached someone who looked like she could use her company. Even if she wasn't absolutely sure of that.

"You okay over here?"

"Oh… no, no, I'm fine. Mind your own goddamn business."

"Wooooow. I guess that's what I get for caring, huh?"

"Wait," Ebihara suddenly blurted, standing up from the bus stop bench and taking a couple of steps toward her. "All right, I may have been unnecessarily rude. I just have no idea why you would want to talk to me when I was your rival for Narukami's affections."

"Because you looked kind of pathetic over here, all by yourself."

"I did not! I'm not 'pathetic', I'm legitimately upset that my boyfriend left!"

"He wasn't your…" But at least she managed to cut herself off with a roll of her eyes, swallowing down the jab and instead moving to hold onto Ebihara's shoulder. Tears were already rolling down the teen queen's cheeks, and her voice was tight and strangled, as if she were fighting back tears — clearly a losing battle. "He could never stay here. We all kind of knew that, and just talked ourselves out of believing it. I'm so mad! But… I have to get over it."

Clearly shocked by her more reasonable response, the prissy girl took a moment longer to respond herself. By the time she did, she was looking down toward their shoes. "Completely ridiculous. Right? I should have known better, I… ugh, I'm so pissed at myself."

"Right?!" Rise still wanted to slap her for trying to steal the boy of her dreams, but it really felt irrelevant now. So instead she tried for her most convincing smile — which, considering her previous vocation, was extremely convincing — and said, "Hey, um, why don't you try getting to know us a little better? Might as well, since you'll have more time on your hands now."

"Sounds stupid." The words came out so fraught with emotion that they were nearly unintelligible, but Rise still understood. "But I have nothing better to do, so lead on."

However, the closer they drew to the remaining group of students, the more anxious the prima donna became. Rise didn't know why exactly — and she couldn't know until Ai cleared her throat to get their attention. She could tell Naoto had been deep in discussion with Yukiko and Chie, though not what about.

"Yes?" Yukiko prompted her in mild surprise.

"I… thought I should say… I am sorry." She swallowed hard, brows furrowed. The expression still made her look angry and snobby, despite her tone of voice being gentle now; she just had resting bitch face. "Probably too late. But I was really going through some things when I sidelined you two in Aiya, and being rude is second nature to me. Can't be the most stunning girl in school without it going to your head, can you?"

"You say that like I would ever know," Chie snorted.

"Right. And… normally I would be agreeing with you and belittling you, Bowl Cu- I mean, Satonaka. I have a lot of practice." Grimacing, she growled, "Got so used to being queen bitch that it's hard to just be nice."

After a brief silence, so awkward that it felt as if any sound would have been preferable, Yukiko laid a hand on Ai's arm, gentle and reassuring. "Please, Ai-san. We all have darkness inside of us; nobody is a perfect person. So I think it's very admirable you're seeing your flaws and that you're trying to improve. I am the same, and so are my friends."

"Oh yeah?" The girl let out a wet-sounding laugh; indeed, tears were budding at the corners of her eyes. "How the hell aren't you perfect, Miss Goody Two-Shoes? I mean… I've always been so jealous of how the boys talk about you. No 'buts'."

"No butts?!" Chie burst out. "What do you mean? She's got a GREAT butt!"

Ai chuckled a little more heartily at that. Naoto was the only one who tapped her chin while noticing Yukiko's slight blush from the compliment; the others weren't paying it any attention. "No, no, not her ass. Which — fine, sure, it's fantastic. I mean like, they describe both of us as really beautiful, or hot or whatever. Same words for both of us. But with me, it always had a 'but she's such a bitch', 'but she's stuck up', 'but she's psycho' attached. Yukiko… a couple of guys said you were snooty if you turned them down for a date, but the rest of them saw through that. You're a good woman and I'm just a good-looking woman. I did so much work to be beautiful so boys would like me, but I'm just… ugly on the inside."

Though clearly, Yukiko was about to speak up, Chie beat her to the punch. "So that's it, huh? You're pathetic."

"Excuse me?"

"C'mon, Ebihara. You're made of tougher stuff than that. Where's that girl who slammed her leg up on the table in Aiya and demanded we appreciate it?"

Though the teen queen had been firing up, being reminded of that moment in the diner made her squirm and fold her arms tightly over her chest. "That was stupid. Do you wanna know why I did that?" When Yukiko nodded, she pushed ahead, "Thing is, I was a... when I was little, I was nowhere near the adorable Ai you see before you now. Fat and hideous, got told I had pig hooves. So like, I'm sure it sounds really stupid to you guys, but having dainty little feet now is super amazing to me still."

"You were fat?!" Chie demanded, looking her up and down afresh. "No way! I call bullshit!"

"Yep, a total blimp. And I got hella teased because I didn't match up with their…" What a pregnant pause. "W-whatever. Yu already knows all this stuff, but pretty much I decided to reinvent myself when I found out we were moving to Inaba. Obviously it went to my head, but… at least I'm better now. Getting better all the time."

The rest of the Investigation Team was speechless. Rise, for her part, couldn't believe the superficial teen queen actually had some substance under that lip gloss. Certainly hadn't seemed that way when Ai basically bit her head off just for being at the shopping center with Narukami. Maybe he was the one responsible. After all, the stoic boy had touched all their lives, brought about an awakening of sorts to their inner beauty that they likely would never have found within themselves without him shedding that light. It just seemed to be one of his latent talents. Unsurprising that he had done the same for the entitled fashionista.

"There seems to be only one solution for this predicament," Naoto was stating firmly with a small nod, finger tapping her chin. "We must return to Aiya to remember our departed friend, and strengthen our bonds with each other."

"Oooh, a party!" Rise piped up with an excited little bounce, despite the light drizzle that was beginning to fall. "Yes please!"

"I guess that's a plan," Chie agreed as Rise, Kanji and Yosuke joined them. "What do you guys think? We catching the portal to the meat dimension?"

Grimacing, Yosuke demanded, "Do you have to call it that every time, Satonaka?! Geesh! Sounds super nasty."

"Bet you can't even handle it."

"Wha- OH YEAH?! BRING IT ON!"

~ o ~

"PHWOOOO! I can't even look at it anymore!"

The ragtag group of assorted teenagers, who would seemingly have nothing in common from an outsider's perspective, were all sitting back and holding their stomachs by now. It was almost painful how much meat was straining to escape the linings of their stomachs. Actually, it was painful for some of them.

"Yyyyeah," Rise groaned in agreement with Yukiko's statement, arms like wet noodles at her sides. "My… I'm pregnant… food baby…"

"Even I'm feeling it a little," Chie was chuckling as Rise staggered to her feet. "And normally I can demolish one of these no sweat!"

"Must be… getting old," Yosuke said as their voices began to fade into the background. She could hear Satonaka clapping back at him, but once the bathroom door shut she could no longer identify words, just noise.

In fact… there was a new noise filling the ladies' restroom. Not a pleasant one. Brow furrowing as her lip curled in disgust, she glanced at the bottoms of the stalls and saw a pair of designer shoes with their soles facing up.

"Is… are you okay… in there?"

"HRRK!" What a weird noise — but not nearly as weird as the sound of pronounced retching that followed. God, how disgusting! Maybe she should just backpedal out of the bathroom… but before she could act, there was some spitting, a clearing of the throat, and a strained tone calling out, "Mind your own business! Do you have to be so fucking nosey?!"

Oh no. "Wait — Ebihara?"

"Yes! And this isn't something I want anybody to…" Another gagging noise. "Ugh… you probably have an Aqua Balance on you, don't you, Risette?"

Her eye twitched. "Just because I did the commercials doesn't mean I have a bag full of them on me at all times, you know!" But she still hated to hear a girl in need, so she forced herself to continue, "Need me to hold your hair back?"

"No, I… I got it. Practice."

"Practice? Just how often do you toss your cookies?!"

Dead. Silence. When it had gone on for a few seconds too long to be normal, Rise began to sense she had broached a topic that Ebihara did not want broached. Her brow creased harder, and eventually she said in a meek voice, "I'll… go get you some water."

"Thanks."

She was so preoccupied as she hit the bar to get some ice water for the prissy girl that she didn't even comprehend the words of her friends calling out to her — though she couldn't even see Chie and Yukiko at the table anymore. The rest were probably asking her what she was doing. And what was she doing? Why was she helping this complete bitch who would never do the same thing for her? There was no doubt in her mind that Ebihara would have completely ignored her if she found her voiding her stomach in a public restroom. Might even have laughed at her. But she still remembered how distraught she looked when they said goodbye to their mutual love interest.

Maybe hanging out with the Investigation Team had revived the conscience of a jaded teen idol who had taken a brief hiatus from the spotlight. No, it definitely had done that; what was in question was whether or not the same could be said of Ebihara's willingness to open up to her peers.

"Okay, here," she sighed as she opened the door — and almost ran straight into the girl's face. "WHOA!"

"Shit!" Ai yelped as she took a step back, then patted down her chest. "You made my soul leave my body — what the hell are you doing?!"

"Bringing you water! Do you need to add a little ginkgo to your diet, Obaachan?! It's been like one minute since I told you!"

"Fuck your water! I'm gone, I don't need this!" And she actually tried to push past her.

"Wha- hey! No, you don't just get to run off like this!"

"Don't you tell me what I can and can't do, you cow! Now get your goddamn cankles and your crow's feet out of my fucking way!"

Holy shit. That was a lot of random venom. Rise knew already that she didn't have either of those things, but she still felt the sting regardless.

"I… was trying to help you, but fine. Go away." And she stepped to the side with a flip of one of her mauve-tinted pigtails. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out, brat."

What a mistake it had been to be nice to Ebihara. They were too much alike. Sure, Rise knew how to be polite, and was always warm and affectionate with her friends, but they both had the Bitch Gene and it ran strong through their veins. Ebi just led with that instead of saving it for people who deserved it.

She wasn't sure how long she had been standing there, looking stubbornly into the corner, before she felt the glass of water being taken from her fingers. She started to grab after it — instinct telling her she had dropped it and needed to catch it — until she saw Ai swishing it around in her mouth, then turning to spit into the sink.

"Oh," she breathed.

"What?" Ai grunted before she tipped the glass up again and started gulping it down. The lacy choker above her turtleneck bobbed with every swallow.

"Nothing, I just thought- I mean, did you leave and come back?"

Breathing a loud sigh as she set the glass down, she turned to glare at Rise. "Nosey. You ask too many questions all the time."

"I do not! They're really normal questions; you're just a bitch."

Her eyebrows furrowed, and her jaw tightened. Rise was absolutely positive she was about to give her a tongue lashing. But then she just snorted and shook her head, looking away.

"Wow. I don't know what I expected from Risette, but it wasn't you."

"I know," she began, making this up as she went along. "You either thought I would be completely spoiled and stuck up like you, or I would be such a goody-goody that I never had anything mean to say about anyone. Those are the two flavours of idols, right?"

Ebi smirked and pressed an open palm to the center of her chest. "I spoil myself. And I told you what I went through as a child; don't I deserve it? Isn't this my time to shine?"

"Not if it means you piss off everyone around you while shining. That's just selfish, you know. Don't you care about anyone but yourself?"

"No. Why should I? They don't care about me." Her haughty tone turned bitter. "Nobody in Inaba. Not anymore."

Most of her ire fading, she said, "You gotta put yourself out there. This whole time we've been at Aiya, you barely said a word. I actually forgot you were here until I heard you puking your guts out."

"See my point? The boys who idolize me are the only ones that remember I exist. And even them… I know they don't care about me as a person. They just keep hoping a strong breeze will show them a little flash of my panties."

"No, that's not right. I'm trying to tell you that it's your fault."

"Excuse me?"

"How are we supposed to get to know you if you just hang in the background and never say anything? That doesn't-"

"Look, I don't need to take this," Ebi sighed with a roll of her hazel eyes. "At this point, I just want to go home and be alone. Is that allowed? Or are you going to block the door again?"

Rise's lips thinned in frustration. It wasn't worth it. She didn't want to keep banging her head against this brick wall anymore. So she didn't even say a word; just turned her back on Ebi before she said something particularly nasty.

"Thanks for the water," the other girl offered shortly as she strode out through the door. And that really was it.

"At least she thanked me," she muttered to herself as she finally took her place in one of the stalls to do her business. But in the back of her mind, she couldn't help but replay those conversations over and over in her head.

Because none of that blustering truly hid the fact that Ai Ebihara was in pain. And if nobody did anything about it, Rise was almost dead certain she was heading for disaster.

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To Be Continued…

#We'll Face Ourselves #ai ebihara #rise kujikawa #rise/ai #forkanna writes #persona 4 fanfiction #p4 fanfic #persona 4 #jess the writer

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therealtsk · 4 years ago

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okay so i think before I really start delving into this fandom I wanna give my thoughts on the game itself. so MUCHO SPOILERS FOR CONTROL. IF YOU WANNA EXPERIENCE THIS AMAZING GAME YOURSELF DO NOT READ THIS POST. You good? Alright, let’s go.

So. First, I wanna talk about the game-play of CONTROL. It’s fucking amazing. In a year where I played five incredibly strong games (Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War and of course, CONTROL), it was my favorite game. In fact, I think it might be my favorite game of 2019. It has something that all of the other games lacked, with the possible exception of U4...the core gameplay was inherently fun. The word “Next-gen” gets tossed around a lot in the gaming world, but this was the first thing I played that truly felt like it. The gameplay of CONTROL is at once simple and wildly different: I think I speak for most people when I say that the Launch ability is my favorite gameplay aspect: it just feels amazing to use, even after a year of playing it. It’s the closest I think a game has ever come to truly come (for me) to making me understand the sort of power the character wields in a way that isn’t superficial. From the sound design to the rumbles of the controller, to the superb animation, all of it comes together to make you feel powerful. It’s amazing. Okay so now that’s over, let’s talk about the world, characters, and story, the biggest reasons I love this game. As a long time fan of the more surreal and ethereal types of the supernatural, CONTROL immediately stood out to me with it’s central location: The Oldest House. What an incredible setting for a game, but also just what an incredible setting in general? When I walk through the hallowed halls of the House, I never feel at ease. I think it’s a fantastic combination of visual and audio design, but the House has a way of making you feel both unwanted and watched: even with all of the human touches the Bureau has scattered throughout the map, The House feels starkly inhuman- the ceiling too high,the doorways slightly too broad. Even after centuries of co-existing with humanity, the House has not quite adapted to humans. And yet there’s something also irresistibly compelling about wandering a place you know, logically, you probably shouldn’t be. It’s a fantastic way of putting you inside Jesse’s shoes: you feel both her fear and the powerful call of the unknown that beckons her to the darkest corners of the House. The Altered Items themselves are also just...fascinating. The twisting of the mundane into the paranormal- there’s a word I’m looking for, but I can’t find at the moment. I know some people got annoyed with all of the reading in the game, but personally, I loved scanning through every document, case file, and correspondence. Dead Letters in particular caught my imagination: I’ve never stopped thinking about the woman trapped in the phone since I read about it, I even turned it into an original short story. CONTROL’s world feels very much lived-in, like it has history and activity outside of the game’s story, which is crucial to the livelihood of any setting. Now, for the characters: Jesse Faden is perhaps my favorite video game character to date. I love her so much, words can’t describe, but I’m gonna try anyway. I love her sass, her jump-down-and-figure-out-a-plan-on-the-way-there attitude, her frustration and quiet sadness, her anxieties and ultimately- her love. Jesse Faden loves her brother so much that she literally threw away any chance she could have had at a normal, peaceful life and risked everything for him, not even knowing if he was still alive. As a proud brother of two siblings, It’s nice to see familial ties being just as strong in games as romantic ones. Speaking of romantic ones, Emily freaking Pope am I right??? The minute Jesse and her sat down at the table I was like :eyes: “these vibes...the chemistry...the delivery...” I don’t care what anyone says Jesse and Emily are gay for each other and you cannot tell me otherwise, just look at all of their interactions. Remedy thank you for giving me another ship to stan until i die The other characters are also amazing! I love my bois Simon Arish and Fredrick Langston, adorable dorks that they are. RIP Marshall but damn you were badass- also your long coat. Remedy make merch so I can buy it pls. As for the more supernatural characters: Polaris. Oh my god I love Polaris. My first assumption was that Jesse was speaking to us, the player, but learning the truth about what Polaris was and her own character was so fantastic- I would literally watch so much of just Jesse and Polaris communicating, the idea of humans and these...ethereal life-forms co-existing is just fascinating. And then there’s the Hiss. I have been obsessed with the Hiss since I first heard those words. You are a worm through time. Like...the idea of a malignant radio wave, burring into your mind and planting itself within you, overriding your thoughts with song...just fucking chills. I can’t wait to write about this audible horror.

Also just something I wanna note before I wrap this rambling thing up: CONTROL was not a game I expected this from, but I love how they handled representation in it: they never call attention to it or try to get clout for it, but they have a wide scattering of nationalities and a very even split of women and men: it was just so nice to have a game that didn’t feel dominated by dudes, you know? Anyway: the story. I think this is where the game lost a lot of people, but I thought the way that it unfolded was fantastic, and every ending (Base game, Foundation, AWE) has left me excited to see more. I think my favorite plotlines thus far comes from the DLC’s: The Astral Politics and, of course- Alan. Fucking. Wake.

But more on that in a bit. I think The Board and the presentation of them was fantastic: It’s so hard to for humans to write utterly in-human mindsets and persons, but I think Remedy’s team did a truly amazing job with The Board. Down to the method of communication alone, blasting divided concepts into Jesse’s thoughts that are literally shattering into synonyms because they don’t quite understand human language is just...aaaaaaahhhh, so good. And then The Foundation, my favorite DLC out of the two: So much expansion on the lore of both The Board and The House itself. The implication that The Board may, in fact, be just as much of an intruder as the Hiss are is chilling, and of course, The Foundation gave us even more Emily/Jesse ship fuel and development so like come on. As for the AWE DLC: I know a lot of people were disappointing with it, and I get that! Don’t get me wrong, when it ended, I literally went: “Wait, that’s it? That can’t be it.” I was expecting something roughly around the same length as the Foundation, and I think other people were too. Once I got over the initial surge, though, I sat down and really thought about it. Story and content wise, Foundation is 100% the better DLC. But gameplay-wise? Oh man, AWE was so much more thrilling. I think this lends to Remedy’s incredibly atmosphere building, but after spending hours of Control feeling like an unstoppable badass, for them to completely turn it on it’s head and make me feel like a rat trapped in a maze, desperately lunging for any light and being utterly terrified of the dark: god, what an amazing fight the entire Third Thing was. The Service Tunnel in particular had me shook, man. Was AWE short and felt more like a teaser trailer for Alan Wake 2? Yeah. Was it still really fun? Yes. And also, I think people missed out on how much lore we got for CONTROL, as well! Two words: Chester Bless. So, to sum this completely chaotic post up: I adore CONTROL, every bit of it, and I can’t wait to talk to you y’all about theories, fics, and the like.

#CONTROL #Control spoilers #The Foundation #AWE #Remedy

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arkus-rhapsode · 5 years ago

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FE3H DLC Characters might have the remaining Lost Crests.

So I’m just here waiting for the Wave 3 and Wave 4 dlc for Fire Emblem Three Houses to come out, and I started to think about something. Now the main thing that we’re waiting for is the new characters to come out (and to finally pet the cats).

Now looking at the line up for upcoming characters, the one that got me thinking was Anna. Now its hard to notice, but Anna actually has a crest on her clothing, the Crest of Ernest. A lost crest.

Now we’ve seen crests plastered on other things not really associated with them. But usually, clothing adorning a crest means something. Like the cape Rhea wears or coat of arms of Adrestia.

Now Ernest is one of six lost crests that make up the 22 crests in the game. We all know about Marianne having Maurice’s crest. So that leaves only 4 crests, and how many new characters are we getting? 4.

So if these guys all round out the other lost crests, I can’t wait to see how they work that into the mythos.

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #black eagles #blue lions #dlc #golden deer #marianne von edmund #anna fire emblem #jeritza von hrym #rhea #church of seiros

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veorlian · 4 years ago

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Idolatry - Concealed Carry

Note: Part 1/3 of the chapters on the Citadel DLC. Technically part of a much longer fic, but I think they stand up okay on their own! An everybody lives/nobody dies au except that I didn’t realize I could do that until 2/3 of the way through. Sorry Kaidan :(((((((

Pairing: Garrus Vakarian/Female Shepard

Rating: T for swearing and stabbing.

ao3 link

Excerpt:

Bullets rained down from the front of the restaurant, and Brooks let out a blood-curdling shriek. Shepard swore softly and dragged Joker down, lifting up their table as a makeshift barricade. A group of heavily armed individuals marched in, their faces masked.

“Tonight’s performance was brought to you by random acts of violence!” one of them shouted.

“Where’s Commander Shepard?” another yelled. “Find her!” They spread out through the restaurant, sending the civilians running.

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. “Two hours. I’ve been on shore leave for two hours. They couldn’t let me have an appetizer first?”

One of the mercs hauled away Brooks, kicking and screaming. Shepard grabbed the knife she had tucked away in her coat.

“Why do you have that?? We were going for dinner!” Joker hissed.

“Would you rather I didn’t have it right now? I have a few others, do you want one?” she asked, taking stock of the room.

“No???”

Full text under the cut!

...

The apartment was huge. Shepard was sure there were other, fancier words to describe it, but she sure as hell didn’t know them. An entire wall was a window, looking out into the night lights of the Citadel. There were walls wholly covered in green, verdant plants that she couldn’t identify. There was a damn waterfall. Shepard let out a low whistle, looking around.

For the first time in weeks, she could breathe. These walls weren’t closing in on her, they were too far apart. The ceilings were vaulted like a church, reaching up into the sky.

She wandered down to what had to be the living room (two giant couches, a fireplace, a grand piano??), and the TV flickered on.

“Shepard, good to see you,” Anderson said. There were new wrinkles creasing his forehead. She could hear distant explosions in the background of the vid.

“And you. How are you holding up?” she asked.

“We’ve had better days,” he said wearily.

“I know what you mean.” Damn, did she ever. “But why am I in this apartment?”

“I want you to have it,” he said, and Shepard’s brows reached her hairline. “I bought the place for Kahlee and I to settle down. Thing is, the longer I stay on Earth, the more I don’t want to leave. Figure someone should get some use out of it.”

“That’s...very generous. Are you sure?”

“It’s practical. We need you at your best, and you need somewhere you can take a break.”

“I-- thank you,” she said. “I’m guessing I don’t have a choice anyways?”

“Not even a little bit. Make yourself at home,” he said, smiling. “You take care, Shepard.”

“You too, Anderson,” Shepard said. He nodded and stepped out of frame. Marie replaced him. Her hair was more grey than black now, but she was smiling nonetheless.

“Good to see you in one piece, Jeanne,” she said. “I hear you killed a Reaper single handedly. Have I mentioned that you should be more careful?” Shepard grinned crookedly.

“Once or twice, maybe.”

“Apparently it bears repeating.” The affectionate exasperation was palpable, even with the light years between them.

“How are things there?” Shepard asked. Marie’s face became carefully blank, but Shepard had known her since she was a child. She couldn’t disguise the look in her deep brown eyes, or the small frown on her lips. Easy to forget, impossible to forget, that she was only 24.

“We’ll make it,” Marie said firmly. And then, “You’ll make it too. That’s an order, Commander.”

Shepard’s grin widened, and she sketched a salute. “Yes, ma’am,” she said. Marie rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. That was all that mattered.

“Go and get some rest, will you? The bags under your eyes are visible from Earth.”

“Harsh, but fair,” Shepard said easily. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Jeanne.” The call disconnected, and Shepard glanced around her new place. Her new place. Even the church had never truly been hers. There weren’t many things she considered truly her own, she supposed.

There were recordings littered around the apartment. Apparently Anderson had taken down voice notes for his biography. She couldn’t help the small, fond smile that flitted across her face. Her hands paused above the one labelled Shepard on the kitchen counter (she’d never had her own kitchen before). She pressed the play button, and she listened.

“Sure, I can talk about Commander Shepard. Big topic. There’s been a lot written about the Commander, but most of it isn’t true. People are quick to judge. They don’t know the whole story, I don’t even know the whole story. But I know the woman. Worked with her, fought with her, trust her with my life. Shepard’s had some rough patches, who of us hasn’t? She’s been forced to fight a lot of battles alone. God only knows how she got out of some of that. Makes your head spin.”

Anderson’s warm voice filled the apartment, and his every word was laced with pride. Shepard realized belatedly that she was crying, hot tears painting her cheeks. Gently, she sunk to the floor and rested her head against the cupboard. She thought of Aratoht then, as she always seemed to. Makes my head spin too, she thought.

“Thing is, you never heard a complaint. Never once got ‘no sir, I can’t do that.’ She never hesitated. Few people know what Shepard’s been through. I like to think I come pretty close. And I worry sometimes she forgets: there’s a whole bunch of people who lose sleep about her getting back home. Maybe it doesn’t need to be said. Maybe we’re just to dumb to say it. Soldiers like the Commander are rare. Women like Shepard...even more rare.” Anderson’s voice drifted away.

I just...you don’t need to do everything alone anymore, you know? Garrus had said. Maybe they were right. Her heart was so full. She couldn’t quite pinpoint the warm feeling in her chest. Loved, maybe? Not a word she was used to choosing, but it fit the bill. She carefully picked herself up and dusted herself off, wiping the tears from her eyes.

Her private message terminal was blinking, and she went to check her unread messages. There was a note from Joker asking him to meet him at a sushi restaurant. Huh. She’d never had sushi before. No time like the present, she supposed.

Shepard glanced down at herself. Perhaps, she thought, her N7 hoodie and cargo pants wouldn’t be appropriate for an upscale sushi place. She wandered upstairs and peeked into her room (there was a hot tub. She’d...well, she’d never had a bath before. No bathtubs in the Alliance). She tugged open the closet and her eyes widened. There was that dress Kasumi had insisted she keep, but next to it was something else entirely. Reverently, she ran her hands over the fabric. It was soft to the touch, velvet maybe? She pulled it out.

It was a suit. It had to be a suit, although it was unlike any she’d ever seen before. The matching pants and jacket were there, but that’s where the similarities stopped. It was a deep blue, but as the fabric shifted in her hands it looked dark burgundy. There was a matching silk black camisole to wear underneath. It felt luxurious, soft as a cloud. She’d never owned anything this expensive that didn’t fire bullets. There was a small note tucked in the pocket.

Thanks for all your help. Consider this an early birthday gift. Who knows, by the time you take a break it may be your actual birthday. I think I’ve got the measurements right, but nobody’s perfect. - Miranda P.S., there’s a white shirt as well, but it’s much harder to get blood stains out of white silk.

Shepard smiled down at the note, and very carefully got dressed, anxious not to damage the clothes. She tugged on the heeled boots that seemed to go with it, and examined herself in the mirror. Miranda might insist that she wasn’t perfect, but she’d done a damn fine job with this. The cuffs fell to the exact right spot on her wrists, and for the first time in her life, the legs were long enough. The boots had a low heel, comfortable and well-balanced enough that she could run.

And Miranda, blessed Miranda, had included a concealed pocket for a switchblade. Shepard loosened her strict braid into something a little more casual, and she smiled at herself in the mirror one last time. Then she left for sushi.

The lineup outside the restaurant was around the block and then some. The people waiting were distinctly unhappy that Shepard had a reservation. If looks could kill, Shepard would have been pushing the daisies. She strode past the glares with practiced ease. Joker was seated at a table at the back, and he waved her over.

“Just gotta save the galaxy twice to get a place here, huh?” he said. “Hey, maybe when we do it again they’ll let us eat free!”

“That’s the spirit,” Shepard said. “How are you enjoying your vacation?”

“I feel like I should go check the Normandy for missing parts,” he griped. “I don’t trust those engineers.” Shepard chuckled and patted him on the arm.

“She’ll be fine, Joker. She’s been through the Omega 4, she can handle a few repairs. Relax, you’re on shore leave.”

“I’m gonna need a lot more drinks with umbrellas in them,” he said mournfully.

“I’m the first human Spectre. I’ll get you two umbrellas,” she said wryly.

“Awesome use of power, boss! So, what’d you ask me here to talk about? Your note said it was important.”

“Me? You invited me here,” Shepard said, her eyebrows knitting together.

“Commander Shepard, please I need to talk to you!” A young woman in an Alliance uniform pushed her way forward, with the maitre d’ shouting after her. The people in line looked positively murderous.

“Can I help you?” Shepard asked politely.

“I’m Staff Analyst Maya Brooks of Alliance Intelligence. Someone’s trying to kill you!” the woman cried. Shepard and Joker exchanged a look.

“Uh, yeah. I think she’s aware,” Joker said dryly.

“No! I don’t mean the Reapers and Cerberus. Other people,” Brooks said. “They’re hacking your accounts, your communications, and it looks like they’re targeting you personally!”

“What information do you have?” Shepard asked. She straightened up, suddenly all business.

“Well--” Brooks began.

Bullets rained down from the front of the restaurant. Brooks let out a blood-curdling shriek. Shepard swore softly and dragged Joker down, lifting up their table as a makeshift barricade. A group of heavily armed individuals marched in, their faces masked.

“Tonight’s performance was brought to you by random acts of violence!” one of them shouted.

“Where’s Commander Shepard?” another yelled. “Find her!” They spread out through the restaurant, sending the civilians running.

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. “Two hours. I’ve been on shore leave for two hours. They couldn’t let me have an appetizer first?”

One of the mercs hauled away Brooks, kicking and screaming. Shepard grabbed the knife she had tucked away in her coat.

“Why do you have that?? We were going for dinner!” Joker hissed.

“Would you rather I didn’t have it right now? I have a few others, do you want one?” she asked, taking stock of the room.

“No???”

“Joker, I need you to stay calm,” Shepard whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m going to take these guys out. When the coast is clear, go find the rest of the team. But I need you to stay here until it’s safe, understood?”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” he said fervently. One of the mercenaries approached to look behind the table. Shepard caught his arm and sent him sprawling to the ground, following it up with a devastating jab from her omni-tool directly to the face. She grabbed his gun and held it at the ready. She glanced around her cover and saw two more mercs coming at her. One went down with a shot to the face, the other with a thrown knife to the throat.

“Joker, now!” she hissed. Joker got up and stumbled away as best he could. Once he was out, Shepard activated her tactical cloak and booked it across the room. If there was one thing she’d learned these long years, it was that the best fight was the one you avoided. Once she’d made it to Brooks, she tried to help her to her feet. A sniper appeared from above and fired a shot, hitting Brooks. Shepard backed away and each shot landed by her, sinking into the ground.

If only the restaurant hadn’t decided to use fish tanks as their floor.

Shepard went down, glass shattering around her. She seemed to hit every bone on the way down the side of the building, banging into the wall over and over again. She slammed into the ground hard, all of her freshly-healed wounds screaming obscenities at her.

“Commander!” Brooks called over the comms. “Are you alright?”

“Peachy,” Shepard groaned. “Can you find me a way out of here?” Dr. Chakwas was going to have a fit. She’d been off the ship two hours and she was already broken again. Ugh. At least the clothes seemed to be in one piece. Small mercies, Shepard supposed, as she struggled to her feet.

“Uh, yes! Keep going forward, I think!” Brooks said. Shepard grit her teeth.

“Thanks,” she managed. She slid down the ladder up ahead of her and took a look around. Somewhere in the wards, she figured.

“There’s a sky-car lot up ahead of me, Brooks. Could you find me a path there?” Shepard asked.

“Ah, yes! Of course!” Brooks replied nervously. Shepard tried very hard not to roll her eyes as she wove her way through the wards. She came up on some kind of market, and she caught sight of another group of mercs barrelling towards her.

“There she is!” one of them called. Shit. This outfit really wasn’t built for stealth, huh? God, she’d kill for a rifle right about now. Instead, she slipped back into her tactical cloak and hid behind a fruit stand. What a weird fucking day.

“Shepard! Are you alright?” It was a relief to hear Garrus’ voice, even if it was only through her earpiece. Tension she didn’t realize she’d been carrying dissipated, ever so slightly.

“I’m fine, but I could use a hand,” she said ruefully, aiming an incendiary blast directly to the face of one of her attackers.

“Joker sent me your location, I’m on my way,” he said immediately.

“This is a secure channel!” Brooks cut in. “You’re putting Commander Shepard at risk!”

“I’m what? Who is this?” Garrus demanded.

“Brooks, Garrus. Garrus, this is Brooks,” Shepard said. “Now please hush, it's a little hard to kill mercenaries with people arguing in my ear.”

“Shepard, I am sending backup to your location,” EDI said.

“Sounds good, things are getting a little dicey here,” Shepard replied. She glanced over the fruit stall and had to duck quickly as a drone came barrelling towards her. It exploded directly next to her, sending pieces of watermelon and blueberries flying.

“I will attempt to register surprise,” EDI said dryly. Shepard grinned crookedly at that. She dashed forward as another round of mercs came at her. She spent the next several minutes fading in and out of invisibility, running hell for leather past the mercs. Her legs, miraculously, stayed upright. Small mercies. She pulled into the car lot and slammed the door shut behind her. A shot zipped past her, missing by inches. … “Having a bad day, Shepard?” Garrus called. He took out the merc that had shot at her, and scanned the area for any more threats. It looked like they were clear for the moment. Now to find a way out of the lot.

“You could say that,” she said, pushing flyaway hairs away from her face. “Let’s look for a control panel.” His eyes finally came to rest on her and his breath stuttered in his throat. She was wearing that thing humans called a ‘suit,’ but not like any he’d ever seen before. His mouth was suddenly too dry.

“Nice outfit,” he managed. The look she gave him was unimpressed, but he wasn’t thinking with his brain at the moment. “Ah, control panel. Right.”

Shepard strode through the lot and glanced into the darkened office. She gently tapped on the glass. Garrus hurried after her.

“Could you open the doors up?” she said politely. The doors opened a second later. “Much appreciated.”

“Please leave,” the volus inside pleaded.

Garrus motioned for Shepard to stay behind him. Only one of them was armoured, after all. She raised an eyebrow and took point.

“So...you fell through a fish tank?” he ventured.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she replied.

“Damn shame,” he said, and now he was just doing it for the reaction. Midnight blue fabric. Not thinking with his brain. “I hear it was the best on the Citadel.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said more firmly, but there was a twinkle in her eyes. He gave her arm a quick squeeze, and then they both stepped onto the landing zone. That Brooks person had apparently radioed to say that a C-Sec shuttle was on the way. When it appeared though, the door opened to reveal a group of the same mercs that had been attacking Shepard. Garrus ducked down and dragged her with him. Bullets skittered across the ground around them.

“Any chance I could borrow that Widow of yours?” she asked breathlessly. He looked at her incredulously.

“I must not have heard you right,” he said. “You definitely did not just ask to borrow my favourite gun.” She opened her mouth to reply, and then her eyes widened.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

“Hear what?”

“Krogan coming through!” Wrex bellowed, soaring through the air. He slammed down onto the front of the shuttle, sending half of the mercenaries flying. He mowed his way through the other half, shooting, punching, and in one case, launching them off the shuttle. Shepard was grinning wildly.

“Wrex! What are you doing here?” she asked, running forward.

“Negotiating krogan expansion with the Council,” he explained. “But that AI of yours said there’d be a fight. So here I am.”

“Glad you could make it to the party," Garrus lied through his teeth.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Wrex said. He clapped Garrus on the shoulder harder than necessary. “Figured Shepard would need some help, if you’re the only backup she has.”

“Try to keep up, old man,” Garrus shot back.

“It may have escaped your notice, but we are being shot at right now, boys,” Shepard said dryly. Ah, right. Fair point. ... Once they were clear, they gathered in Shepard’s new apartment. Brooks was pacing back and forth, and Shepard put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

“Me? I got shot! Like, with an actual bullet. I took a desk job so I wouldn’t get shot! They said the medi-gel might make me jumpy, do I seem jumpy to you?” Brooks said.

“Hey, hey,” Shepard said soothingly, the voice she usually reserved for grieving families. “It’s okay. You’re safe here.”

“We need to stop those guys, they might hurt more innocent people! Like me! I got shot!”

“Yes. Do we have any leads?” Shepard asked. The door to the apartment opened gently and Liara stepped through.

“I may have some suggestions on that,” she said. “Are you alright, Shepard?”

“I think my ribs are bruised again, but what else is new?” Shepard said ruefully. “That C-Sec shuttle should have had officers in it. I’ll get in touch with Commander Bailey, see what happened,” Shepard said, punching in the number in her omni-tool.

“Wait!” Brooks said. Everyone turned to look at her. “Uh, wouldn’t anyone you contact also become a target?”

“She’s got a point,” Garrus said.

Shepard nodded brusquely. “You're right. We keep this between us for now.”

“Fortunately, I’ve brought a few people who can help,” Liara said cheerfully. The door was knocked on its hinges as every member of her crew -- and a few people who weren’t -- filed in. The apartment was large, but even so Shepard was going to need to figure out where to put all of these people. What, was there an event going on at the Citadel right now that had brought them all there? Well, besides her attempted assassination.

“The riff-raff have arrived. Garrus, hide the silverware.” Shepard’s voice was pitched to carry.

“Up yours, Shepard,” Jack shot back.

“What she said,” Zaeed added.

"I'll go see what I can find. Come find me when you have a moment," Liara said.

Shepard wandered around to speak with everyone, but it all just seemed to be variations on the theme of “haha Shepard ruined the sushi restaurant” or “Shepard, how could you destroy that sushi restaurant”? Evidently they’d collectively decided to forget that she hadn't exactly chosen to be shot at. What compassionate friends she had, she thought wryly. She gave up after a while and went to talk to Liara.

“What's the word?” she asked. The others slowly gathered around. There was barely enough room for them all to stand together.

“That pistol you found, it’s not available anywhere on the market. I’ve tracked it to a weapons dealer named Elijah Khan. He owns a casino nearby. They’re holding a charity event tonight,” Liara explained.

“So we sneak in and talk to this Khan guy?” Ash asked.

“My sources tell me he’s locked himself in his panic room. We would need someone to sneak inside this vent system.” Liara pulled up a map of the casino interior. “And deactivate the lock.”

“I say we blow the place to high heaven,” Zaeed suggested.

“I’m in,” Wrex said immediately.

“I’m open to other suggestions,” Shepard said. “Any other suggestions.” Zaeed politely flipped her off.

“Bringing a large group would arouse suspicion,” Thane said thoughtfully. “A covert infiltration would be best.” Shepard nodded.

“Alright, just a small crew then. I’ll need someone to take point with me, and then someone else will crawl through that vent,” Shepard said. “Any takers for the vent?” She looked around the room for volunteers. They were not forthcoming.

“Mechs are not allowed in case they are used for cheating. Legion and I will not be able to enter,” EDI explained. Shepard’s eyes swung to Tali and she raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t look at me!” Tali protested. “They’d uh...pick up my suit!” Shepard shrugged.

“What you need is somebody trained in zero-emissions tech. No electronics, no metal. Just undetectable polymers. We had a course back at Op-Int, disabling a bomb with these little tweezers. See, the bomb was filled with shaving cream…” Brooks trailed off as she realized everyone was looking at her. Shepard smiled at her reassuringly.

“Alright Brooks, you’re our alternate,” she said.

“What? Me? I couldn’t...what do you mean alternate?” Brooks asked. Shepard smiled ruefully.

“I wouldn’t want to put you in more danger. You’ve already been shot once. And since I’ve had two gun mods go missing since I got back, I have a sneaking suspicion that there’s someone here who can lend a helping hand. Kasumi?”

The galaxy’s best thief materialized, sitting on the kitchen counter. She had a cheeky grin under her hood.

“You’re getting very good at that,” she said cheerfully.

“Sure would’ve been awkward if I’d been wrong,” Shepard replied wryly.

“Damn, I should’ve stayed hidden!”

“What do you say to a heist with me?” Shepard asked. Kasumi hopped down from the counter and sketched a bow.

“I’d be delighted,” she said.

“There’s just one problem,” Liara cut in.

“Current estimate: 57 problems and counting,” Mordin replied. “Additional 34 if you decide to take the krogan.” Shepard couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face.

“Well, one of the problems is that it’s black-tie only,” Liara said. Shepard raised an eyebrow and glanced down at her outfit. It was still damp from crashing through a fish tank, but otherwise undamaged.

“Will this do?” she asked, motioning to the suit.

“It’ll more than do,” Garrus said huskily, and then coughed awkwardly when several sets of eyes turned to look at him. “What? I’m just answering the question.”

“Who’s going with us then?” Kasumi asked, and Shepard grinned.

Bright lights flashed in Shepard’s eyes as she and Garrus walked down the literal red carpet, arm-in-arm. Maybe one day they’d get to go somewhere nice without worrying about a nefarious plot. For now, she was on vacation and she was going to enjoy herself, attempts on her life be damned.

“You clean up well,” Shepard commented. He had on another of those intricate turian outfits, with more buckles than fabric, in a combination of black and white. He wore it well. They were, she imagined, quite a striking couple. For one, they were a good head taller than anyone else. For two, well...

“Yeah? Then it’s a damn shame that all eyes are on you,” Garrus replied.

“I did the best I could without a carapace or a crest,” she said wryly.

“Well your best has my mandible on the floor. Damn!” he said easily.

“You two are adorable,” Kasumi said from somewhere to Shepard’s left. Shepard flushed a brilliant red, and she heard Kasumi laugh brightly.

Shepard and Garrus mingled with the wealthy clientele, occasionally providing support for Kasumi as she travelled through the vents. Shepard realized, suddenly, that this was the bright and shining culture she’d seen from afar when she was younger. This was what she’d wanted to experience. As far as she was concerned, they could keep it.

Distracting the guards to disable the alarms wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but they managed it. But when they arrived in the panic room, Khan was already dead. Shit.

“It’s never that easy, huh?” Garrus asked.

“He received a call a few minutes before he died. Give them a ring and I’ll see if I can trace it,” Kasumi said. The large screen behind the desk flickered to light and a figure appeared on the screen. Their face was concealed by static, and their voice was altered.

“Elijah? Come crawling back?” they asked.

“Guess again,” Shepard said. Kasumi's hands flashed across her omni-tool.

“You. I see you’ve recovered from flopping on the floor like a fish.”

“You’ll have to do better than that. The last guy that trash-talked me was a few kilometres taller than you.” Shepard leaned back, crossing her arms.

“Brave. I thought as much, but it won’t matter. You have nothing. All you can do is wait for the hammer to fall. I’m going to take everything you have, and everything you are.” The call ended.

“Gotcha,” Kasumi said brightly.

“Shepard, someone’s wiped the drive. Bit of a messy job though, there might be something left,” Garrus said.

“Between EDI, Legion, and Tali, I’m sure we’ll be able to find something. Let’s go.”

They were once more gathered around the pool table, now with even less room than before. They were discussing the information they’d been able to find on Khan’s drive, mostly information about the guns that Shepard’s attackers had bought. Glyph flew over and hovered above the table, flashing red.

“Commander, I have found your Spectre code being used at the Citadel Archives,” he said.

“What would they want there?” Shepard asked.

“Shall we go find out?” Liara said.

“But who? We can’t bring everyone,” Brooks piped up. Shepard grinned.

“Why not?” she asked. “All hands on deck for this one.”

“Very well, but who will take point with you?” Liara asked. Wrex coughed pointedly. And then Javik coughed even more pointedly. Tali coughed politely, but also pointedly.

“Garrus and Jack, you’re with me. Everyone else, divide up into three teams of whoever is least likely to want to kill each other.”

“What happens if I want to kill bird-brain?” Jack asked.

“Think happy thoughts,” Shepard suggested.

“Those are my happy thoughts,” Jack replied snarkily. Ah. Some things never changed.

They’d barely made it into the archives when they walked into a trap. The others were up on the catwalks above, and every door in the room slammed shut. A figure appeared behind Brooks and pressed a gun to her temple. They were shadowed, and even Shepard’s excellent vision couldn’t quite make them out.

“Don’t move, or she dies,” they said.

“Who are you?” Shepard demanded. The figure chuckled darkly.

Why do I know that voice? Shepard wondered. The figure tossed Brooks aside, and strode forward into the light. She wore the same uniform as the mercs, but her face…Shepard stared back at her own Roman nose and burning red hair. Only not quite. This nose had never been broken, and there wasn’t the familiar patchwork quilt of scar tissue across her face and neck.

“I’m you, but better,” the other Shepard said. “Without all the doubts and the wear and tear.”

“Huh. This officially takes the cake for the weirdest thing that’s happened to me,” Shepard said. “Let me rephrase: what the fuck is going on?”

“Cerberus spared no expense when it came to bringing you back. Me, they made for spare parts, in case you needed an arm, or a lung, or a kidney. When they had you, they discarded me,” her clone snapped. Shepard’s brows knit together.

“Well if you’re me, then we should be working together,” she said. The clone scoffed.

“Why would I bother helping you? Why should I care? You took everything from me, and now I’m going to take everything from you. But there was no way I’d fool your friends, so I needed to get rid of them as well. All the people that turned their backs of their responsibilities to join the cult of Shepard,” the clone spat. The cult of Shepard…?

“No one will ever believe you’re me,” Shepard said, trying a different tactic.

“Sure they will, when I’m flying your ship,” the clone replied. Shepard froze and then immediately started keying into her omni-tool.

“Traynor, I need you to lock down the ship, understood? Here are the command codes,” she said quickly. Her clone smirked and waved a hand in front of her.

“Good idea, if only that message had been sent,” she said. She keyed up her own omni-tool and raised her voice slightly. “Traynor, this is Shepard. Prepare for departure. Here are the command codes.”

Shepard’s hands balled up into fists. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before someone steals my ship.”

The clone shrugged nonchalantly. “We’ll see about that.” She turned to leave.

“Tell me,” Shepard called after her. “Do you know your own name?”

“It’s Joan,” the clone replied smugly. Shepard grinned, baring her teeth.

“Guess again,” she said, and she activated her tactical cloak.

They fought their way through the archives, the other teams racing on the catwalks above. Liara’s information drone, Glyph, scouted ahead. Occasionally he returned, saying that he mistook the clone for Shepard. Shepard tried very hard not to roll her eyes, and she mostly succeeded.

“The other Shepard’s still alive!” one of the mercs yelled.

“The next person who says that is a dead man!” the clone snapped over the comms.

“An accurate observation,” Legion said.

“What do I do??” Brooks cried. “They’re firing at me!”

“Just follow Shepard's lead and let us do all the heavy lifting!” Liara called.

“Touché, T'Soni!” Garrus shot back.

“Think you comedians could actually hit something?” Shepard shouted, ducking to avoid oncoming enemy fire.

They forged on through the archives, passing by clips of history. One by one, the teams stopped responding. Shepard pushed on faster, concern creeping up on her. And so she rushed headlong directly into a trap that she should’ve seen coming. Shepard set foot onto a platform and a forcefield appeared around her, Jack, and Garrus

The clone stepped forward, smiling smugly. Shepard tried to shoot her, but the force-field stopped the bullets dead. Shit. Shepard felt light-headed. She was locked in a small space. A very small space. Oh god, such a small space. Her heart hammered in her chest and she fought to control her breathing. She reached for her familiar, cold veneer. Like hell she was going to show weakness in front of the enemy.

“Well well, the great Commander Shepard. But not for very much longer.”

“Where are my friends?” Shepard spat.

“Locked up in iridium vaults forever. And it’s all your fault,” her clone taunted.

“The Alliance will stop you--” Shepard began.

“Will they?” Her clone cut her off. “What do you think, Staff Analyst Brooks?” Brooks sauntered forward from the shadows.

“I wouldn’t know.” Her voice had shifted, becoming deeper, more assured. “I don’t actually work for them.”

“You bitch,” Jack spat.

“I’m with Jack on this one,” Garrus said. Shepard arched an eyebrow and crossed her arms. When she spoke, her voice wasn’t her own.

“This feels like the time when the villain explains their grand plan,” she said. “So what the hell?”

“Really we just wanted your Spectre codes,” Brooks explained. “But then you had to insist on surviving. So, I had to improvise.”

“Then I must say, I'm impressed,” Shepard said.

“Oh?”

“Your optimism is impressive,” Shepard clarified. “You threw, what, fifty mercs at me and you thought that would finish me off? For such a smart woman, that's remarkably short-sighted of you.”

“I think I've made up for it now. Let's see you get out of a locked box.”

“What, this? No, I've been in far worse situations than this. Last week I was trapped at the bottom of an ocean in a mech. This is nothing.”

“You seem remarkably calm for a dead woman,” Shepard’s clone said. Shepard’s eyes flicked to her and she sneered.

“I could say the same of you. You can change the records, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing. You know the name on my file, but you don’t know the first thing about me. How are you going to convince Anderson or Hackett or--”

“Or General Shepard?” Brooks cut her off. “We’ll deal with her.”

Shepard stilled. Her erratic heartbeat settled. Her words, when they came, were soft. “If you threaten her again, I will make you wish that I’d only killed you.”

“That's quite a threat. I might even be afraid, if Commander Shepard had said it. But you're nobody,” Brooks said.

“And you're on borrowed time,” Shepard replied. Brooks' expression faltered, just a tiny bit, at whatever she saw in Shepard’s eyes. Shepard’s clone scoffed loudly, breaking through the tense silence.

“You know the one thing about us that they can’t replace? Our handprint. It changes based on life experiences,” the clone said. Shepard thought of the scars that used to twist across her palms. “But now I’m going to replace yours.” The clone pulled up a terminal and pressed her hand down.

“Hello, Commander Shepard,” the computer said. The clone grinned smugly.

“Goodbye,” Brooks murmured. “I guess this is where legends go to die.” She and the clone waltzed away, seemingly without a care in the world. The platform jerked beneath Shepard and walls slowly closed around her.

“I’m going to strangle them,” Shepard vowed.

“I’m all for that, but we’re still trapped in this fucking box,” Jack pointed out.

“With limited air,” Garrus added. Shepard hummed noncommittally.

“Hey Glyph, you still out there?” she called.

“Yes Commander.”

“Get us out of this thing, and then go find the others. Nobody steals my ship, not even me.”

Joker pulled up in a sky car just as the last stragglers pulled themselves up onto the roof.

“I’ve got room for Shepard and two more, and you better decide fast because those assholes are stealing my baby,” he snapped.

“I could drive--” Shepard said.

“NO!” The sound of the entire crew shouting the word echoed across the rooftop.

“Fine,” Shepard muttered. “Garrus and EDI, with me.”

“I wanted to go,” Wrex grumbled.

“You should have thought of that before you insulted my driving,” Shepard said. “Joker will be back for you soon.”

Joker hit the pedal to the floor as soon as everyone was in the car. A moment later, there was a whirring sound from the back seat.

“They’re trying to take control of the ship--” EDI said. Her eyes spun around, and sparks flew off of her. She shut down.

“Crap,” Garrus said. EDI powered back up, her eyes still askew.

“Are you...okay?” Joker ventured.

“I am functional, but I have no control of the Normandy. I feel...lost,” EDI said brokenly.

“Don’t worry, we’ll have you back in no time. You have my word,” Shepard said.

“Thank you.”

They arrived on the Normandy just as it was starting to pull away. Traynor was in the entryway, sputtering various unflattering things about Shepard. She caught sight of Shepard and she held her toothbrush threateningly in front of her.

“What’s going on?” she demanded. “You were...you were back there! I was minding my own business, and then you marched in and fired me! I barely had time to grab my toothbrush!”

Shepard held up her hands. “That’s a Cision Pro Mark IV. It uses tiny mass effect fields to break up plaque and massage the gums. I know that because you told me, because I’m the real Shepard. The one you saw earlier was a clone.”

“I--”

“I wish I had time to explain, but we need to get on the ship. No one knows it better than you do, Traynor,” Shepard said quickly. Traynor thought for a second. Apparently she decided to go along with it, because she leaned down to examine the ground.

“There should be a ventilation shaft around...here.” She pulled up a piece of the floor. EDI shook her head.

“You would need something that could precisely manipulate mass effect fields,” she explained. Shepard met Traynor’s eyes, and Traynor determinedly turned on her toothbrush.

Crawling through a shaft wasn’t exactly ideal for Shepard’s over six-foot frame, but she just about managed it.

“If you’d told me this morning that a toothbrush was going to save the Normandy, I’d have been very skeptical,” she whispered. “Remind me to reimburse Traynor, I think it broke.”

“Shepard, you--” EDI began.

“Later. Remind me later.”

They opened the grate into the CIC with guns blazing. The mercenaries were no match for them. EDI looked like she was running on sheer, unadulterated rage. She grabbed hold of a dying mercenary. Her voice was like ice. “Where are they?”

“Cargo bay,” the merc managed.

“Thank you for your assistance,” EDI said, and shot him in the face. Shepard met Garrus’ eyes and shrugged helplessly. They made their way to the elevator, and Shepard’s heart dropped to the floor. Mako’s cage, along with her carefully assembled collection of model ships, was resting in a garbage bin. There was a note on top with handwriting that was almost (but not quite) the same as Shepard’s.

“Please get rid of this, a ship is no place for…oh that is so not okay. They messed with my hamster guys. Now it’s personal,” Shepard hissed.

“Was it not personal before?” Garrus asked.

“I-- well, yeah. But Mako’s defenceless. What was a little hamster going to do to them--”

“I suggest we keep moving,” EDI cut in.

“Right, right. Of course.” Shepard hit the button on the elevator.

#shakarian #mass effect #me2 #me3 #commander shepard #garrus vakarian #oc: joan shepard #50/50 odds i delete this in an hour but who knows #did i write a 100k+ word story so that i could write the citadel dlc? mayhaps

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joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh · 4 years ago

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Xenoblade X update because yeah

I’ve done nearly every pre-chapter 12 affinity mission, with only a couple of exceptions. The first set of exceptions are the bulk of the DLC affinity missions with like Alexa and HB and Boze and Yelv, just because the little hexagon map on the gamepad doesn’t track those so I don’t feel any rush to do them. I’ll do them afterwards though. Other exceptions are Fathers and Sons - which requires 4 hearts with Irina and level 50, the level being something I’ve only just accomplished basically and affinity being something I need to grind for.

But I’m also sorta locked out of that affinity mission anyway because I’m actually currently stuck in Celica’s affinity mission - Fitting In. The fuckin Balaena is being a real cunt to kill and much of my closest attempts ended up failing because the fucking trumpet ass bird cunts always start attacking me with their rapid fire multishot ether whatever projectiles that do way too much damage and tear through my ghost walker. I’m currently just waiting out FrontierNav to buy myself a level 50 skell and hope that that can take care of it.

Except buying that skell won’t be the end of it because I’ve not got the money to buy loads of new skell gear for it, and I want to take the fuckin hexa whatever thing that does 56k force or something you get from that one affinity mission and give it to the level 50 skell, however it’s attached to a skell that’s been trashed so much that the insurance is dead and I don’t want to pay the salvage fee again because it’s like 200k and I’m tired of waiting on FrontierNav, so my strat’s actually just been to switch division (chose Pathfinders initially) and go to Curators since they seem to be the most popular by the game’s current rankings so hopefully my division rewards reach the salvage ticket point.

Also, Celica’s affinity mission isn’t the only quest I’m stuck in right now. I’ve been having a fucking really hard time killing the Rexoskell for Definian Downfall - specifically the version that’s inside the cave place. So because I’m not managing that quest, I can’t get started on the mission that finally lets you add Mia, and it also means I can’t finish the fucking Blood Lobster quest.

See, fuck the Blood Lobster quest. All my homies hate the Blood Lobster quest. Find 100 little lobster plushes around NLA? Alright, not terrible. But wait! The quest can only be started from 1 specific lobster, meaning it can be a really difficult quest to come across. And then, the game never fucking tells you this ever, but only 49 lobsters actually show up - and you need to collect all of those lobsters before the next 50* spawn. So you can search an area fucking dry for the first wave of lobsters and find nothing but then suddenly it’s like “oh wait actually we decided to put more lobsters down, have fun searching all over again”. And beyond that, not even 50 more spawn. You end up getting 97 lobsters, and the 98th one just doesn’t fucking show up until you beat Definian Downfall, which, again, I’m kinda stuck on, and again, there’s no way of actually knowing this without consulting a guide (which I obviously did by the way because fuck finding the lobsters myself). It’s just a horrendously designed quest all around.

I’m also stuck on the White Lifehold quest, just because the enemies are so high level and high damaging and high aggro that surviving them for 3 minutes is just really difficult. And I’m stuck on entrepreneurial spirit - I’m about 8k short of the 130k you need because I don’t know what I’m doing wrong but I’ve just got no fucking research probes.

I’ve also got the off the record quests for mechanical and biological, I’d love to get those out of the way, specifically mechanical so I can install the last few data probes, but shit spawn rates on the collectibles is holding me back. Blade level 8 so we’ll get archaelogical soon enough.

As far as everything else is concerned I’m pretty sure I’ve done just about every quest that’s available to me, right now. At the very least, nothing’s showing up on the concourse anymore, and I think I’ve done everything that the various Nopon camps and the furry cat people hideout want you to do.

And uh, yeah that’s about it. While writing this post the division rewards came in so I got a salvage ticket and saved my skell. I’m also like, one FrontierNav payment away from buying a level 50 skell, which is cool. I suppose my planned order for this is to finish Fitting In first so I can swap Celica out for Irina for the rest of the quests just because I need like another heart and a half affinity with her before I can do Fathers and Sons. And once all of that’s taken care of, then I’ll do chapter 12.

Or maybe I’ll just finish chapter 12 before some of them. Doesn’t really make much of a difference, and I think in terms of my own character I’m probably prepared well enough. Just stock up on gravity weapons and I should be good, hopefully. Elma and Lin are level 47 which should also be good enough but I think I’d like them to be at level 50 as well. Celica’s level 46 but she’s also dog shit and I think I want another party member for the last chapter who uh, isn’t dog shit. Maybe if I do end up doing Mia’s shit before chapter 12 I’ll bring her in for it, I don’t think she’ll get much affinity since story missions rarely give you the chances to get much of it/ We’ll see I guess. I really might just get sick of not doing chapter 12 and go do it, I guess. We’ll see.

#xenoblade #22.8.20

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verity-hats-emporium · 5 years ago

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Byleth is in Smash and Wave 4 DLC announcement video!

So happy right now. I didn't expect any of this when I woke up this morning. Not only that, but Byleth isn't "just another fe sword user". He has the three other main relics and most of his Sword of the Creator moves are based off its whip function. I know a lot of people are salty, but I couldn't be happier with Byleth getting in and being so unique compared to other fe characters represented in Smash.

And that dlc video! I love all that I've seen of the four new characters and the Abyss so far, especially Yuri. All of the new classes look fantastic, and I can't wait to finally get to play it.

#Byleth Eisner #ooc #fe3h spoilers #Musings #m!Byleth

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yopalonso · 5 years ago

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Arle Nadja for Smash Bros. 3: Now it’s about content!

General reminder that I did two parts of this already.

Hey! It’s been a minute or two! That last Direct and Smash showcase was wild, wasn’t it! Banjo releasing that same day? Terry Bogard joining the roster? Nintendo confirming that there are more DLC characters on their way? A Sans Mii costume from Undertale AND Megalovania in Smash Bros.? WELL. I know I’m one month late to the celebration, but, hear me out: just before that Direct, I was legitimately giving up hope on the Arle dream. In my mind, I was “well, we only have two more slots, this ride was fun while it lasted, but this is as far as I go with this”, only to have Sakurai himself stretch out his hand of hope to me while I was deep into my desperation hole. It was insane.

Which got my idea noggin working back again! I wasn’t ready to talk about what I thought in terms of content for Arle’s bundle, but here we are! This will be all about what content she brings into Smash Bros.!

This last post is a two-part, since talking about the Spirits alone would require even more work, so that’ll be in part 4.

Número 1: Stage!

Over at the Arle for Smash Discord server, we’ve discussed which stage should fit Arle’s inclusion the best, and I’ve railed it down to three options: Primp Town, Pwurp Island, and the Dark Prince Castle.

And it was a no-brainer for me: it had to be this one.

The Dark Prince Castle! Out of all the locations in the Puyo world, I cannot say there’s a place that’s just as iconic as this one. Appearing ever since Puyo Puyo 2, and making appearances in different forms throughout the series, the Dark Prince Castle makes for a perfect stage!

Its main shape would be that of a centered tower, much like Kalos Pokémon League’s center platform. The main gimmick of this stage would be “rising floors”: the center of the stage would take you higher into the tower’s different floors for plenty of possible cameos! Lower floors could contain minor characters, middle levels could make some more recognizable faces pop up, and finally, the last floor, could be a reference to Puyo SUN’s last stage, with the Dark Prince himself waiting for you at the highest floor. Sometimes, even, with tropical clothing! The possibilities are endless!

Each floor would also have different platform layouts, to make them differentiate from the lower levels. The central platform itself could also gradually become smaller the higher the stage rises. But the risk of this stage itself is the characters in the background! Y’see, there’s this thing called Puyo Battles, that end up releasing Garbage Puyo that falls on the opponent’s field. Or in this case, the stage itself! From the top, Garbage Puyo could drop at any minute, so you’d have to be on your toes!

While playing this stage in Hazardless, you’d only fight on the lowest floor, and no Garbage Puyo would drop during a match. Character cameos could still pop up here and there, though. As for which would those be, well, you’ll have to wait for that.

Número 2: The music!

Can you quote yourself? ‘Cause I’m about to quote myself. Back in June, the #ArleForSmash Twitter account asked about which music tracks we would include in the game, had we the chance to do so. My answer shall now be complemented to coincide with the amount of music tracks the other Fighters Pass characters have received with their inclusions.

Originally, I only went with five (since that’s what the challenge was about), but now, I’ll go as far as listing 10 tracks, and that’s me doing some good ol’ wishful thinking! All listed tracks can be heard through the provided YouTube links over each of its names.

NORMAL MODE (Puyo Puyo Sun) [see description]

I like to think this is Arle’s character theme, and not so, well, that other song with the giant name. Puyo Hell, even Chronicle included a pretty darn good remix of this song that also used Pocket SUN’s higher pitch in one section. It’s that good. For this version, though? We could maybe ask for some sick instrumentalization by the mad lad Jun Senoue, maybe the rock masters of ACE+, or have someone new deliver a fresh tune into this song, like Tee Lopes, Toby Fox, or maybe even Grant Kirkhope! The sky is green, there are no rules anymore!

This is also the song I thought of first when I wondered which theme would play in her reveal trailer. And I’ll stick to that until the end.

Theme of Puyo Puyo (Puyo Puyo series) [see description]

What, you really thought I’d forget about Arle’s titular theme from her first game on purpose? Why, the nerve! ”A Long-awaited Spacetime Journey!”, aka.: “Theme of Puyo Puyo”! Of course it should be included in the game! Now, as for which version, well, I referenced the one that’s been in the game since Puyo Puyo! 15th Anniversary since it sounds fantastic, but here I was thinking that it could maybe be remixed into something more! Who knows?

Request from Puyo Puyo (Puyo Puyo) [ver. Fever☆Two]

Keeping on with themes from the original Puyo Puyo, we have this one, also known as Sticker of Puyo Puyo. This version, specifically, hails from Puyo Puyo Fever☆Two, and it’s so good of a remix, it’s pretty darn iconic! Included ever since, even! So, why not, let’s just include it as well!

Final of Puyo Puyo (Puyo Puyo) [ver. 15th Anniversary]

Whoever tells me there’s a better, more epic version of this song can head into my Twitter DMs for a healthy discussion, because I think otherwise: “Advent of Primp! Dark Prince”, or more commonly known as “Final of Puyo Puyo”. For me, this version is the ultimate one, one that deserves to be completely untouched in Smash Bros. for sure.

Area A (Puyo Puyo 2) [Original]

BUT IF WE WANT TO SPEAK ABOUT ICONIC, THEN AREA A, OF COURSE! This song would go terribly with Smash Bros., and that’s in itself what makes it so hecking great! Imagine connecting one sick KO to this track, this is how true fighting games should sound like.

Puyo Puyo FUNderworld! (Puyo Puyo Fever) [Original]

Hoo-wee, I love Puyo Puyo Fever’s aesthetic and music. But its first battle theme is quite mellow, and the Area A remix is so loud. But, this one? This one is fantastic, it’s frantic, it’s perfect for Smash Bros.! Puyo Chronicle also had fun with this song and remixed it to make it the standard boss battle theme, too!

Ready for Fever Mode! (Puyo Puyo Fever series) [see description]

I’m that kind of person who prefers the Fever Mode songs from all games. Since I can’t pick a favorite, why not compile them all into one track for one seizure-inducing mashup!

Dark Arle’s Insanity (Puyo Puyo 7) [Original]

I don’t think I could’ve included another theme that had “Arle” in the title that wasn’t this one, honestly. It’s one of the best, most iconic tracks in Puyo Puyo 7, and it uses cues from Last Decisive Battle from Puyo Puyo~n, too, so it’s a double win for me!

The Puyo Puyo Song - In-Game Version (Puyo Puyo!!) [Original]

Of course, I couldn’t just forget about Ringo! The Puyo Puyo Song is such a catchy tune from Puyo Puyo 7, and her theme in 20th Anniversary, a rendition to this track, is honestly fantastic. Hectic, frantic, but also epic and memorable! Uki uki, waku waku! Doki doki, hara hara~!

Double Trouble Finale! (Puyo Puyo!!) [Original]

I had to narrow down the epic final boss-like themes of Puyo Puyo as a series down to this one because I think something like this, playing in Smash Bros., fits the setting completely. Even more than Puyo 7′s final boss theme.

Songs that I would consider but are maybe too obscure only include Zako Battle from Madou Monogatari Saturn, because it’s just that good, but unfortunately way too short.

Lastly, since I’ll never hear the end of it if I don’t explain the following: why I didn’t go for songs like Last from Puyo Puyo 2, Ultimate Legend of the Untrained Demon King, Crimson Wave!, Dimension Stage ~ Decisive Battle, or Domination, to name a few. While I do know that most Puyo Puyo fans know these songs by heart, that’s exactly the deal. I wanted to go for the most iconic tracks of the series, while also choosing the most recognizable, ones that people could quickly associate with Puyo Puyo, even if they only played a couple minutes of it. Filling the list up with only final boss themes would be sick, but alas, I decided against it.

Número 3: Spirit Battles... for next part!

... Yeah, this is where our little oddysey ends for today. I’ll come back to it with the finale when I have the chance.

Major thanks once again to the #ArleForSmash Twitter account, and to the people of the #ArleForSmash Discord server.

And, completely unexpected thanks to Apple, of all things, for having the names of the songs translated into proper phrases. Seriously, “It’s been a long time since we passed through space time!”, who approved this. “A Long-awaited Spacetime Journey!”, now that’s one hecking title.

Did you know? Of course I know his original name is Satan. But Dark Prince is so iconic, I just can’t call him any other way. It’s as simple as that. Did you also know that the Dark Prince was voiced in English by Smash Ultimate’s announcer, Xander Mobus, who also voices Joker from Persona 5? You can no longer unhear Dark Prince saying “Ravage them!” now. You’re welcome.

©SEGA. 2019.

#ARLE FOR SMASH #arle nadja #arle #Smash Bros #puyo puyo #super smash bros #smash dlc

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angelpolish · 5 years ago

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Ok I’m on my second blue lions run cause obvious reasons but I can’t play past chapter 10 cause I wanna wait for wave 4 of the dlc to come out and I have a VERY SPECIFIC costume for my character that is absolutely pivotal she wears when she fuses with Sothis. I stg if there’s no Sothis costume for the byleths there were be rioting in the streets and I will be spearheading it

#sylveon says #fe3h #fe3h spoilers #just in case!!

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acetokens · 5 years ago

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The Rise of the Phoenix: My thoughts on MUA3′s 2nd DLC

Last October I wrote a review for MUA3’s first DLC expansion pack, ‘The Curse of the Vampire’. Now, after the release of the game’s second expansion, ‘The Rise of the Phoenix’, I really want to talk about this one as well!

This X-Men themed expansion gives Season Pass owners four new heroes to add to their roster: Iceman, Gambit, Cable and Phoenix, as well as a new mode called ‘Danger Room’, in which players go head-to-head in a series of trials. A new seasonal rewards system called ‘Events’ is tied to this mode, giving bonus prizes to players who win many Danger Room matches. The update also expanded the previously released ‘Gauntlet Mode’ by adding new challenges to tackle, and re-stocked the SHIELD Depot with more costumes to unlock. Finally, just like the last expansion, the level cap was raised (this time from 150 to 200) and new upgrades were added to the Alliance Enhancement Grid so you can make your heroes even stronger than before!

I was worried this expansion would be delayed (a prospect that felt more likely as we approached the end of December with no news). But luckily the VGA 2019 delivered a trailer which settled my fears and ‘The Rise of the Phoenix’ was released on December 23rd just in time to meet the vague ‘late 2019’ deadline we were promised. But was the expansion worth the wait? To answer that, I’m going to look at it one feature at a time, starting with…

The Characters

Although I’m disappointed that X-23 didn’t make the cut, I have to admit all four newcomers are fun to play due to their refreshingly unique abilities.

Phoenix’s defence stats are the worst in the game, but she obliterates bosses and mobs of weaker enemies alike, can revive her teammates with her EX (which also auto-revives Phoenix if she gets KO’d after using it) and can recharge her team’s EP using Cleansing Flames. Any character with a low Energy stat or who relies heavily on their abilities and/or synergies becomes much stronger with Phoenix on their team, so not only is she fun to play, she makes other heroes more fun to play as well! Because of this, I’ve gained a new appreciation for a character I’ve always overlooked before, and The Phoenix has risen to become one of my new favorite heroes to play in MUA3!

Gambit is a deceptively powerful character with some interesting tricks up his sleeve. His Luck of the Draw ability sets down explosive cards which remain dormant for a long time, allowing him to create multiple traps that he can detonate simultaneously with Kinetic Burst for a domino effect of explosions, dealing massive damage! Alternatively, Gambit can cancel into his air attack after setting the cards for a quicker but weaker explosion. Because of his self-synergies and high damage output, it makes Gambit one of the strongest solo-characters in the game in my opinion. Très bien!

Cable has a kit full of support abilities, including a gravity bomb, a reflector shield and an automatic sentry gun called Extreme Arsenal, all of which his teammates can take advantage of for some wicked synergy attacks. Cable can also teleport to escape from danger or use TK Spike to knock enemies back, although holding the attack for too long will lower Cable’s defence for a bit. He’s got more tactical variety than other ranged heroes but his solo damage output is terrible, making Cable reliant on his teammates to do the bulk of the offence.

Iceman can boost his teammates’ defence and give them the ice element (if they’re a weapon user) with Flash Freeze. The ability lasts for a long time, making it extremely useful, but the rest of Iceman’s moveset (especially his midair slide) is very slow, which is why I’d say he’s the least enjoyable to play out of the four newcomers.

The Gauntlets & New Mechanics

I enjoyed Gauntlet Mode in the last expansion, so I’m happy to see it return with 11 new challenges in this one. The new Gauntlets are fundamentally the same as the old ones, but instead of vampiric enemies, they feature two new mechanics: the Phoenix Force and Danger Room hazards! The new Gauntlets also contain higher level challenges (going from Level 20 to Level 180, compared to the original Gauntlet Mode which rises from Level 5 to Level 120), and two new enemy types: Nova Corps and Asgardians. While we’ve seen these characters before as NPCs in story mode, it’s nice to have a little more enemy variety than before.

Defeating an enemy under the influence of the Phoenix Force will cause it to drop a flaming phoenix. Absorbing this will heal some HP, add fire projectiles to your attacks and the fire element to your weapon (if your character has one) at the cost of being inflicted with the burn status effect for the rest of the trial, slowly draining your life. However, Iceman, Ghost Rider and Phoenix are immune to being burned and therefore suffer no drawbacks. The Phoenix Force is a fun risk/reward mechanic and I think the visual effects of it are amazing! However, the frame rate suffers when there are several Phoenix Force enemies onscreen, especially in handheld mode. The lag never reaches ‘unplayable’ levels of bad, but it does make the battles unnecessarily harder.

The new Gauntlets also feature Danger Room hazards. From giant crushers that fall from the sky to little machines that shoot waves of elemental energy, these obstacles are made to distract and frustrate players into making game-changing mistakes. The most annoying hazards have to be the gravity nodes, which magnetically push you away, and the barrier nodes, which protect the boss from all attacks until they are destroyed.

Overall, I’d say these new mechanics are interesting additions to Gauntlet mode, but I prefer fighting the vampiric enemies in the old Gauntlets. The Reborn, Infected and Cursed all required different tactics to defeat them, but I never felt like I had to change my strategy when fighting the Phoenix Force enemies or the Danger Room hazards. The only times I was forced to adapt were when the gravity and barrier nodes spawned, as they have to be destroyed ASAP. But the new Gauntlets are still satisfyingly challenging, and I hope we receive even more in the third expansion!

The Danger Room

I want to start this part of the review with a quote I found on the MUA3 forums:

‘’Danger Room is such a miserable experience. Lag out the ass, framerate drops like crazy, unfair status effects. There is nothing fun about this at all. I’m only playing it for the rewards’’

I think this sums up the Danger Room experience perfectly. It’s a mode where you compete in teams against other players (or against the AI) to be the first to win in three rounds. Mini-objectives will appear at random as you fight, awarding the team who completes them first by granting them buffs or weakening the opposition. It sounds alright, but the mode is riddled with glitches and unfair mechanics that make it the least enjoyable experience I’ve had playing MUA3 ever. To avoid this review becoming a rant, I’ll quickly summarize the flaws of this mode.

1) Only the last round counts. Winning the previous rounds gives your team buffs that lasts until the end of the match, but they make little-to-no difference. This leads to many players going AFK until the third round, which is frustrating.

2) At random, there will be a fourth round where you fight Dark Phoenix. If this happens, the third round becomes irrelevant and whoever defeats Dark Phoenix wins the match. It’s very unfair that you can completely steamroll the other team, only to lose the entire match because of a random-chance battle at the end.

3) Completing mini-objectives can inflict status effects like bind and paralyze. These last for a long time, often leading to your losing the round, all because the other team jumped 20 times before you did.

4) The lag is extremely bad.

5) Gambreaking glitches occur often, such as when an enemy spawns in a place you can’t reach.

6) Some rounds are won by whoever reaches the end of the stage first, so characters who can teleport (like Nightcrawler) have a huge advantage.

7) When fighting the AI, they complete mini-objectives inhumanly fast and are seemingly not affected by the debuffs you throw at them.

Danger Room still has its good points. For one, all characters are automatically set at a specific level depending on which difficulty you choose (Alpha = Level 25, Beta = Level 50, Gamma = Level 100, Delta = Level 200), so players can try out any character they want without having to level grind first. The rewards you obtain from winning Danger Room matches are also great, giving you a ton of credits and SHIELD Tokens, not to mention the rewards you can get through the Events. But based on gameplay alone, the Danger Room is definitely ‘’a miserable experience’’.

Events

In a surprise twist, the expansion added a new seasonal rewards system to MUA3, similar to the battle pass in Fortnite. During the Event, playing Danger Room matches will award you Event Points. Collect 5 Event points and you’ll move up to the next Event Tier and win prizes such as XP Cubes, SHIELD Tokens, items, voice commands and costumes. The amount of Event Points you earn depends on the difficulty, with Alpha only awarding 1 point while Delta awards 5 points. You earn double points when fighting other players rather than the AI, and will even earn some points for losing.

If you have a Nintendo online subscription, you can clear all 30 Tiers of the Event in just 15 Danger Room matches, which makes the pain of playing that mode more bearable, especially since the Event rewards themselves are well-worth the effort. But for players who can only fight offline against the AI, the experience becomes twice as long and hard. Luckily the Event lasts for roughly two months, so there’s lots of time to finish it. But it doesn’t quite make up for the fact that Events are essentially a ‘’free-to-play, pay-to-win’’ experience.

I think Events are a great way to extend the longevity of the game and provide something to do between expansions, so I hope they add more in the future. But I also feel they need to make some big changes to Danger Room and how Event Points are acquired offline to make it more enjoyable.

Other Changes

MUA3 saw another level cap increase this expansion, with heroes now being able to reach Level 200. Initially I wasn’t too thrilled, because the grind from 100 to 150 was tiring enough, but thankfully the XP needed to get from 150 to 200 is much lower. Your stats at Level 200 are roughly 15% higher than your stats at Level 150, and 37.5% higher than your stats at Level 100, so the boost you get from all that grinding is helpful in the new Gauntlets. New upgrades were also added to the Alliance Enhancement Grid to match the level cap increase, including one that decreases the time needed to revive teammates by 50%.

New costumes for Wolverine, Magneto, Storm, Nightcrawler, Psylocke, Cyclops, Colossus, Loki, Ghost Rider, Scarlet Witch, Dr.Strange, Punisher, Blade, Moon Knight and Morbius were added, most of which are purchasable from the SHIELD Depot. You’ll need lots of SHIELD Tokens to buy all of them, but luckily the Tokens you get from playing Gauntlet mode were increased in this update! Unfortunately, the Tokens you get from Nightmare mode have been decreased. But since I play Gauntlet lots more than Nightmare, I’m happy with these changes overall. Between this and the SHIELD Tokens you get through the Event, its easy enough to buy all of the new costumes, which is good.

Finishing Thoughts

In conclusion, I’d say the Rise of the Phoenix is a mixed bag. The characters are great, the Gauntlets are enjoyable and the Events have a lot of potential. However, as for whether the expansion was worth the wait…honestly, I’m not sure it was. I did enjoy playing it, but after waiting three months with no news, I expected more than what we got. Nowhere is this more apparent than the Danger Room, which feels like the devs didn’t play-test it before release.

Luckily, they seemed to have learned from their mistakes. Nintendo USA’s Twitter account recently released a teaser image of the third upcoming expansion, ‘Shadow of Doom’, which is already a big step-up from the radio silence we received in the months leading up to the Rise of the Phoenix. Hopefully this means the third expansion will be an improvement on this one. Who knows, we might even get the new story content the community has been asking for since the Curse of the Vampire!

I think I’ll end this review on that optimistic note. Until next time, true believers.

#MUA3 shitposting #I meant to post this a few weeks ago but it took a little longer due to uni coursework

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dbphantom · 5 years ago

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Canon: Zane Flynt fucks

Me: haha u know what this means ;))))

Me:

Me: merfolk glamour time

[[MORE]]

Alright but for real tho u wanna see how deep I am in this fucking universe? Lego

I don't even know where to begin with this universe (Zer0 is an alien! Hammerlock is a werewolf! Troy is psychic! Tannis is a skag! Wait, no, wrong shitpost...) so imma open the 140 page document and start from the beginning

Annnnd Clay! Junpai-7.

When Zane meets Clay for the first time he mentions they did a smuggling job together on Junpai-7, u know, the water planet, so obviously this is good news (This made me super happy because my discord channel's name had been the junpai-7 moon pool for a while so I was like 'holy shit it's canon now' :') )

Timeline wise this isn't the beginning, but I don't write in chronological order and I don't order anything in chronological order, either, so. Eh.

Speaking of chronological order, I once got a line where Zane was like exclaiming something and used the moon instead of idk a god or powerful figure or smth and I was like 'lmao that's canon now'

So the moon... Elpis fucking got yeeted halfway across the galaxy or smth, and, considering we've seen (more) ocean on Pandora in 3 instead of just, like, Liars Berg (getting to THAT) or Tretchers landing, I feel bad for the tides. But that's good news for everyone else. Unless you were on Elpis, I guess.

Also hoh boy the 'end' of the game where Troy Phaselocks the moon was fun to write (it actually wasn't, I lowkey hate writing Moonstruck phases because... It hurts and I can't do it well.) also can we talk about how in tps the psychos are called Moonstrucks in tvhm because this makes me so happy. I really hope they did that intentionally considering H2O is an Australian show because my two favorite things combined can and will kill me. Wait actually the Troy boss fight is gonna be hilarious to write mostly because of that one attack with the tidal waves lol oh no

Also, also, also, you guys it's only explained in a guide book and never actually in-game as to why Captain's ship is Like That (TM) so I took some liberties and uhhh blame the Crackening. I mean the crackening happened after dahl pulled out of Pandora/Elpis so it works. It sorta works. It mostly works. Fuck. It works okay? shut. That's why Liars Berg is all frozen ocean [shoves 3 page essay about climate change on Pandora into the trash] don't need that anymore.

I was gonna talk about smth else

Oh yeah

Mostly brain freeze and trick of the light. That one meme video I made of Tannis and the Flynt Brothers imposed over that one clip of H2O (so let me get this straight: you freeze things, you explode things, and you boil things) wasn't just for laughs, it was actually a warning.

Each Flynt has a thing and Zane's is ice, Baron's is explosions, and Captain's is fire. (Glorious cleansing fire) Because it fits. It fits so well. I will say right off the bat that Mako Mermaids isn't my canon. I lowkey want to write out Charlotte as well (lol) because I've seen the 2nd season so many times and tbh I much prefer them having 1 really strong power over having 3+ really weak powers. Also Charlotte did nothing wrong in the first half of that season. Cleo was just a bitch to her. And Mako Mermaids is just. Not great on the power side of things. You can TURN INVISIBLE. USE IT. Soooo. (also cam got destroyed in s1 and I'm so glad they ended up making him work in s2 and 3. Because he deserved better and Zac was a terrible friend to him and only got away with it because he's a main character). /rant sorry I have so many feelings about these shows. Grew up with them soooooo.

And if ur wondering why I brought up trick of the light it's cause the 13th year exists and that movie was bopping. U guys remember Jess? Good times... Tuba pool scene is iconic. U know the one. I would also bring up aquamarine but ngl that movie was weaksauce comparatively. They hid that bitch in a water tower and iunno talked to earrings. Meanwhile in the 13th year they bring Jess back from the fucking dead and climb on walls like Spiderman. Clearly one is superior.

"but cruddy Aurelia has ice powers too and she's not a mermaid" no she's a werewolf like her brother we already went over that. Did u think I was kidding? No! I'm never kidding unless I am and I fucking love werewolves so I'd never kid about that. I love werewolves and I love Hammerlock and it's perfect I just love the idea of this gentlemanly hunter being a werewolf because I want to see a giant hulking monster being all proper and shit. They're just really cool. Werewolves > vampires and ngl I'm sad skyrim screwed over werewolves with the dawnguard dlc. Anyway Aurelia's ice powers are nanobots as explained in-game and listen I already lore-scienced this okay? Let me say it's amazing the things science is capable of when it thinks it's trying to beat out a competitor and doesn't realize non-Siren magic exists. Even better now that we know Sirens are not Eridian and actually existed before Eridians. Makes me giddy to think about. The universe is tearing me APART Lisa.

Oh speaking of, can we talk about the witch's brew quest on eden-6 because holy shit I had been writing Hiromi and her fascination with discovering all the secret circles long before the game came out and then learning about the group of witches and The Pact (TM) made me lose my shit because 'oh my god it's actually canon now'. We're on the canon path nowwwww. Soon. I hope we get a water planet dlc. I wants it, GB, I wants it.

Also I was totally gonna write a clip in the main story of the game (because I write a lot of backstory stuff if you can't tell, I only have like 3 scenes that take place during the events of the game and like 4 that are speculatory from before the game came out (including a scene from before I realized Troy was Like That but I edited it so he's more in-line and also has Maya's powers now so that's... Hm. In line with the storyline somewhere, but not an actual scene in the games story. Because its not possible with how the game does things (seperating Vault Hunters) I suppose I could just insert a 5th Vault somewhere and say it's the 4th Vault connected to the Machine (with nekrotefeyo's being the 5th). Fuck it.) and then 9,000 are backstory) where Hiromi comes back after like decades of the two not seeing each other and she's been hired to assassinate Zane by one of the many corporations looking for his corpse for a multitude of reasons (And Emma and Nino are both d e a d a s f, you know, for context). And like Barnabas (ya old bastard) Zane is still joking around and just having a grand old time catching up with his black ops buddy meanwhile she had just tried to blow his brains out (she's a sniper) and got pretty damn close. She's not even amused because of her psychic powers so she's just like 'ok' every time he opens his mouth because she already knows what he's going to say she's mostly just frustrated that she missed because she thought she knew him well enough to go off instead of just listening to her intuition but alas people change after, like, 3 decades of not seeing them.

Oh since we're talking about Hiromi that reminds me why Zane wears the black suit. In my non-h2o universe it's because it looks cool and provides some protection from dots. In the H2Oniverse it is because it's waterproof. Okay wait hang on context so Hiromi doesn't like take off his suit or anything, she's extremely gay and not interested, because I realize now how that sounds me relating Hiromi to the clothes, they just get into an argument about how Sirens don't have to follow any arbitrary rules to hide their magic and how it's easier to hide magic without giant glowing tattoos (and mind you this is before Zane even knows Tannis exists though he does immediately know she's a Siren and that's a whole nother can of worms) and hr's like 'I wear a bodysuit for most of my waking hours, so I am pretty sure they can try wearing long sleeved shirts and makeup for a day. Just a suggestion' but like way more in character (and for the scene) because do I sound like I'm in character right now? I'm not. I'm me. And God what a terrible thing to be.

So context for the context: ~magic is real~. If you've got it then you can usually tell who else has it if you're looking. It's especially clear if they're 'similar' to you (if ur a werewolf and u meet another werewolf then you sorta just know they're a werewolf) or if you're psychic (like Hiromi) then you can make some informed guesses. Like. Same Hat? Same Hat!!! Sirens are basically such powerful magic users that they are in literally a whole nother ball park. They're leagues above everyone else. Kill you just by looking at you sort of deal. So sirens normally don't feel other magic because their own magic is so strong it just 'overwrites' the other signals. You know, to not only explain why Lilith isn't immediately like 'who the fuck are you' to Zane and also how Amara couldn't tell Tannis is a Siren. I had a whole thing with Troy (who is psychic) being able to tell Zane had magic despite being near 4 Sirens at once because Troy grew up with Tyreen always at his side so he's used to it and knows how to look through it. Meanwhile Hiromi is basically incapacitated when she's near a Siren because she gets overwhelmed because her powers make it easier for her to read other people's magic.

Oh, context, the black ops outfit worked with Atlas for a short time (the group being Zane, Hiromi, Emma, and Nino. Emma is the yeehaw captain. She's the leader) and ended up meeting Steele for a little bit. Hiromi was just dead the entire meeting, Zane was totally out of it, and Emma and Nino were too busy eyefucking to really care that there was a Siren in the room so. Just imagine one person lying face down on the floor and crying, another staring at the wall without blinking, two undressing each other with their eyes, and then Cmdt. Steele standing in the middle like 'how the fuck did I get here'.

So that was everyone's first experience with a Siren.

There are more but ehhhh I'm tired and I mostly wrote this because I wanted to talk about it with someone else but they haven't read the whole thing yet so now I can scream into the void about it and not feel like I'm bothering them.

Hooray!

#Borderlands #Me walking into the club like what up I'm about to make 0 sense #Who wants to hear about the au literally nobody else wanted??#Bl3 #I realize this fandom is actually active on here so I'm slightly scared posting this #Since the last H2O au thing I posted was fucking RvB from God uhhh 3-4 years ago now? Fuck me #I put this in the queueueueue so I won't know when it goes up so I'm not anxious #Oh this is the context by the way #For that picture I posted #That I'm never going to bring up again

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snappedsky · 6 years ago

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Resident Evil 7 21- Hoffman Wins

So ages and ages and ages ago, I was playing the RE 7 21 dlc with my brother and we were talking about what would happen if Hoffman won. And I was like "I gotta write that." And ages and ages and ages later, I finally finished it. It's pretty simple, but it's just fun writing Lucas.

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Hoffman stares at his opponent’s body from across the table. He’s now down five fingers. Clancy was his name- is. He’s still breathing. Hoffman’s not sure what he looks like though, because of the sack over his head.

A small part of Hoffman feels bad for Clancy. But a bigger part is glad he’s not in that position.

He looks up at the five static-y television screens sitting behind Clancy. “Okay, I won. You’ll let me go now, right?”

In his control room, Lucas Baker giggles maniacally in his chair at the unconscious Clancy on his computer screen. He stops at Hoffman’s question and rolls his eyes.

“That’s how the game works,” he sighs with obvious disappointment. “I wish we could’ve had a little more fun.” He stares at his computer screens displaying Hoffman and Clancy. Clancy is slumped over the table. He’s still breathing so he’s not dead; probably just in shock and not going to get up anytime soon.

The game went by way too fast and Hoffman didn’t even lose any fingers! Who would’ve thought he would be such a whiz at Blackjack?

Lucas gets an idea and a shit-eating grin spreads across his face.

“Okay, Hoffman, I’ll let you go,” Lucas says, “just sit tight and I’ll-.” He pushes a button and cuts all the power in the game room. Hoffman exclaims with surprise and starts calling out, “hey! What happened? Hello!”

Lucas ignores him as he hops out of his chair and hurries to the game room. He moves quickly and quietly, like a snake. He stabs a hook into the back of Clancy’s neck and two more into his right arm. They all have strings attached to them that run into the ceiling and come out in the control room.

Lucas hustles away and falls into his chair. He switches the power back on and Hoffman gasps with surprise.

“Sorry about that, Hoffman,” Lucas says, “musta been a power surge. But everything’s fine now. So what were we talking about?”

“You’re supposed to let me go!” Hoffman barks.

“Right, right,” Lucas nods, “okay, Hoffman. I’ll-.”

He yanks the strings attached to Clancy, throwing up his head and arm.

“Well, goddamn,” Lucas comments, “look at Clancy.”

He deepens his voice and flails Clancy’s arm around. “I’m Clancy and I feel fine. I don’t want to lose. I wanna play another round.”

“What the fuck!” Hoffman barks.

“Atta boy, Clancy,” Lucas cheers in his real voice. “You heard him, Hoffman. We gotta play another round.”

“You motherfucker!” Hoffman screams, “you said you’d let me go!”

“And I will,” Lucas says, “IF you beat Clancy.”

“You sick prick!” Hoffman shrieks while Lucas laughs maniacally.

He shuts off the game room’s power again and quickly sets up round two.

When the lights turn back on, Hoffman sees a large machine sitting beside the table. It has two arms that hang over the opponents’ trapped hands. Attached to the arms are gauges numbered 1 to 9 with a red skull after the 9. And sticking out of the gauges are prongs that poke the flesh of their hands.

Hoffman gets a real bad feeling looking at it.

“Voila!” Lucas chimes, “just a little something special I made for the occasion.”

“Figured it out yet?” he asks excitedly, “aww, I bet you can guess.”

A pair of rods on the main part of the machine starts spinning. The gauge moves to 4 and the prongs lift up.

They jab into Hoffman and Clancy’s hands, sending horrible shocks through their bodies. Hoffman screams in pain and convulses until the machine stops and the gauge drops down to zero.

Lucas laughs with sick amusement. “This puppy’s a relic from an execution chamber. I got it working again though,” he states proudly.

“See them gauges there? The current goes up every time you lose,” he explains. Then he puts on ‘Clancy’s’ voice and flails his arm about. “But, Lucas, what’s the bet?”

“Good question, Clancy,” Lucas says in his regular voice. “Look here.” A dial sitting on top of the gauges switches on revealing 01 in red.

“If you lose, the gauge will go up however many numbers the dial is showing,” Lucas explains then giggles, “at max power you’ll really ride the lightning.”

“Stop, this is crazy!” Hoffman cries.

“I’m gonna introduce something else to really spice things up,” Lucas says, ignoring him. Two smaller, green cards suddenly shoot out from the dealer machines in front of Hoffman and Clancy. Hoffman picks his up. One says ‘Two Up’ and the other says ‘Draw 6’. They both have a different set of rules written in the corners.

“These are trump cards,” Lucas explains, “you’ll get one each turn and, if you’re lucky enough, when you draw a card. If you’re going down, you can use these to pick yourself back up.”

“Now, let’s begin.” Lucas flails Clancy’s arm around and says in his Clancy voice, “it’s your turn now.”

“You’re really enjoying this, huh, you freak!” Hoffman barks. Away from the mic, Lucas is giggling maniacally.

The dealing machines at the end of the table deal out two cards to both opponents. One is flipped up, the other isn’t. Hoffman has a six and Clancy has a four. Hoffman looks at his face-down card. It’s a 7, so he has thirteen all together.

“Hit me,” he says. As long as it’s not a 9 or over, he’ll be good.

He gets a 5. Now he has 18. That’s a good number to stay on, depending on ‘Clancy’s’ next move.

Clancy’s limp arm flails about as Lucas’ fake voice comes through the speakers. “Gimme another.”

The machine spits out an 8. So now, as far as Hoffman can tell, ‘Clancy’ has a 12. His face down card can’t be 7 or 8 since they share the same deck. But if it’s a 9, Hoffman will be in trouble. On the other hand, if its anything higher or lower, ‘Clancy’ will lose this round.

That’s a rick Hoffman is willing to take. Maybe he can make the reward even greater.

Hoffman draws his ‘Two-up’ card. The rule says that when this card is on the table, the opponent’s bet goes up by two. So now Clancy’s dial is on 3.

“I’ll stay,” Hoffman grunts.

“Oh, boy,” Lucas says in his ‘Clancy’s’ voice. “I’m scared now.”

��Clancy’ stays. The televisions behind him light up with the word ‘Showdown’ while Lucas chimes in over the speakers. “The winner is…” The screens change to show Clancy and Hoffman’s hands. Clancy has 17 and Hoffman has 18.

“Hoffman!” Lucas declares. The machine powers up as the prongs over Clancy’s hand lift up.

“Oh no!” Lucas cries dramatically in ‘Clancy’s’ voice. The prongs jab into his flesh. Clancy’s body thrashes violently from the force of the shock. Over the clamor, Hoffman can faintly hear Lucas’ giggling through the speakers.

The machine finally stops and Clancy’s limp body leans over. He would probably collapse all together if it weren’t for Lucas’ puppet strings holding him up.

“Let’s move onto the next round,” Lucas chimes.

The cards disappear back into the machine. There’s a brief pause before two new game cards and one trump card are dealt to both players. The dials on the machine also go up one.

Clancy’s face-up card is a 6. Hoffman’s is a 4 and his face-down card is an 8, so he has 12. His new trump card is another ‘Two-up’.

“Gimme another,” ‘Clancy’ says, his limp arm flailing around. He gets a 5. So as far as Hoffman knows, he has 11. If the face-down card is a 10, he’ll be in trouble.

“Hit me,” Hoffman says. He gets an 11. Hoffman flinches. He has 23; he’s over.

“I’ll stay,” ‘Clancy’ says. Not matter what he has, it must be lower than 23. Hoffman’s screwed.

“I’ll stay,” he croaks.

“The winner is…” Lucas purrs.

The screens change, revealing their hands. Hoffman has 23, Clancy has 18.

“Clancy!” Lucas cheers. “Uh oh, Hoffman. You get the consolation prize.”

Hoffman starts panicking as the machine powers up. “Wait! Stop!”

The prongs jab into his hand. He convulses and screams and chokes as the shock travels through his body. It only lasts a couple seconds but it feels like an eternity.

It finally stops. Hoffman leans over the table, panting and moaning in pain.

“Isn’t this a blast?” Lucas laughs excitedly while the new hand is dealt out. Hoffman’s new trump card is a ‘Draw 3’; his face-up card is a 7 and face-down card is a 4. Clancy’s face-up card is a 9.

The next few rounds are just as stressful and gut wrenching as the last few, if not more so. Every time his dial and gauge moves up, Hoffman feels sicker and sicker. Meanwhile, Lucas seems to be having the time of his life. And Clancy is still unresponsive. Not even the multiple electrical shocks jolt anymore life in him.

Lucas just worsens the situation by pretending to be Clancy. He’s constantly waving his limp arm about and saying things like, “who cares about your family? What about me?” or, “what are you being so selfish, Hoffman? I thought we were friends!”

Hoffman does his best to ignore him and focus on the game. Thankfully it should be ending soon. Because ‘Clancy’s’ used a couple ‘Two-up’ cards, Hoffman’s sitting at 5 with a bet of 4 while Clancy is on 6 with only a bet of 1. If Hoffman uses one of his ‘Two-up’ cards, then he only has to win this round and the next and it’ll all be over!

“A bit longer, just a bit longer,” Hoffman mutters as he puts down his ‘Two-up’ card. His hand is 20 and as far as he can tell, ‘Clancy’ only has 17. He’s feeling pretty confident.

The round ends and Lucas chimes over the speakers. “Alright, show ‘em, fellas.”

“It’s a…” The screen changes, showing they both have 20. “A draw!”

“A draw?” Lucas questions theatrically. “Well, I guess you both lose.”

“What?” Hoffman exclaims.

The machine powers up and both arms lift up and shock Hoffman and Clancy. Hoffman screams with agony as he convulses. When the shocks finally stop, he slumps over the table, gasping and weeping. He looks at the machine and watches helplessly as the gauge moves to the skull.

“Hoo hoo, this next jolt with set you off like a frog on a hot plate,” Lucas laughs.

They’re both sitting on the skull. This is it; the defining round. If Hoffman doesn’t win this, he’s dead. But if he does win, this will all be over.

Their hands get dealt out. Hoffman has a 2 and 4, the 4 face-down. Clancy’s face-up card is an 8.

Hoffman feels safe starting with a low hand like 6. No matter what he draws next, he can’t go over.

“Hit me,” he says. He gets a 9 so now he has 15.

“Gimme another,” ‘Clancy’ says. He gets a 7 so, as far as Hoffman can tell, he also has 15.

Hoffman needs a 6 to get 21 and so does Clancy. But for all Hoffman knows, Clancy might already have 21.

He goes through his trump cards and puts out the ‘Draw 6’. As long as Clancy doesn’t already have the 6, then Hoffman will get 21.

The 6 shoots out and Hoffman has to do his best to not jump for joy.

“I’ll stay,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady.

“I’ll stay,” ‘Clancy’ says.

“The winner is…” Lucas sings. The screens reveal their hands: Hoffman has 21, Clancy has 20.

“Hoffman!” Hoffman sighs with obvious relief. He starts to relax when he hears a voice from across the table.

“Huh? Wh-what’s going on?” Clancy mutters as he slowly blinks into consciousness. He sees the large machine and the prongs lifting over his hand.

“Wha-what’s happening? Stop! Stop!” Clancy cries as he tries to pull his hand out of the restraints. The prongs jab into his skin and his screams nearly shake the room.

Hoffman watches, horrified, as blood seeps through Clancy’s clothes and the eyeholes of his sack and smokes rises from his body. He doesn’t want to watch but he can’t look away.

The torture finally stops and Clancy slumps over without another sound, being help up only by the strings in the back of his neck.

Hoffman stares at Clancy’s limp body. There’s no sign of any breathing this time. He’s been fried.

“He’s dead now. He’s fucking dead, okay?” Hoffman snaps, “now let me go.”

“Okay, Hoffman,” Lucas says, “you won fair and square. Guess I’ll-.”

Clancy’s head is yanked up and his arm waves around. “Wait!” Lucas shouts in his fake ‘Clancy’ voice. “I can’t quit now. I’ve been through too much. One more round!”

“Clancy, you tough sonuvabitch,” Lucas comments, “well, Hoffman, you heard him. One more round!”

“No!” Hoffman barks, “I won! You can’t keep doing this!”

“You didn’t really think you could win MY game, did you?” Lucas sneers.

Hoffman falls back in his chair, hope leaving his body like the steam rolling off Clancy. Memories of his wife and daughter fade in his mind. He shrieks in despair, his cries bouncing off the walls and drowned out only by Lucas’ maniacal laughter.

He’s trapped forever; doomed to a lifetime of being this freak’s twisted plaything.

#Resident Evil 7 #Resident Evil 7 fanfiction #RE 7 #RE 7 fanfiction #Lucas Baker #my art

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