#devising means of vengeance

[levi-venn]

The Techstache

Inspired by @fanfoolishness and her artistic vision. She had no explanation for this mustache - but I think Tech has a plan... Summary: Tech exacts vengeance on Crosshair. Revenge that only a brother (twin) could devise. (Timeline: Bad Batch in the Clone Wars Era) Also available on AO3 -----

Hunter exited down the ramp of the Marauder first, dragging behind him a crate carrying one month’s supply of rations, water, and his armor kit for the upcoming mission. 

Crosshair slung his armor kit over his shoulder and grabbed the crate of munitions, enough to get this mission done and plenty left over for fun. 

“How long did you say you’d be gone for?” Tech asked just as Crosshair set a foot on the ramp.

Crosshair looked back at Tech and frowned. 

Tech was lounging in his chair, feet resting on a crate and perusing his datapad with a far-too-casual posture. Especially for him.

Something was up. 

“Thirty-two rotations.” 

“I see,” Tech said. 

Crosshair’s toothpick flicked up and down like an agitated snake’s tongue. “You already knew that.”

“Did I?” Tech hummed.

“Yes. You did,” Crosshair insisted. He took the toothpick out of his mouth and pointed it at his twin. “Whatever you’re planning, don’t do it.”

Tech looked up, raising an eyebrow. “Crosshair, I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. And I’m telling you, don’t do…whatever you’re gonna do.”

Tech rolled his eyes and returned to his datapad. “You better get a move on. Hunter doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“Yeah!” Hunter called from the ramp of Commander Fordo’s dropship. “I don’t like to wait!”

Crosshair rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Be seein’ you.”

***

The moment the ramp closed, Tech adjusted his goggles. “And now…we begin.”

“Whuddya mean?” Wrecker asked.

“The clock starts now,” Tech said, ominously.

“But…whuddya mean?” Wrecker whimpered.

“You will see,” Tech said, and went back to his datapad.

Wrecker groaned. “Ohh, I hate when you n’ Crosshair say that. It’s always something weird.”

Two weeks went by.

Wrecker saw what Tech meant. 

He didn’t like it.

“Uh…Tech?” Wrecker asked from the co-pilot’s chair watching the 212th’s rendezvous point come into view. “You uh…gonna get cleaned up before we meet with the General?”

“I am cleaned up,” Tech said, from the pilot’s chair. 

“No, I mean…” Wrecker said, trying to be tactful. “…more cleaned up.”

Tech blinked his large brown eyes at Wrecker innocently. “I am not sure I know what you mean.”

Wrecker sighed and blurted. “It looks like two caterpillars are trying to escape your face. But not like thick caterpillars. Those lil weak ones, the ones with the bushy spines that make you itchy and smell colors.”

Tech brushed the coarse hair of his mustache thoughtfully. “Give it time, Wrecker. Like a caterpillar, it’ll evolve into something greater.”

“I doubt it,” Wrecker muttered. “It’s just creepy.” Then Wrecker gasped. “Is that what Crosshair didn’t want you to do?”

“We’ve landed,” Tech said, unbuckling his seat. “Let’s get Commander Cody his supplies.

***

Thirty-two days after Crosshair sulkily slinked off the Marauder, the sniper sleepily slithered back up the ramp. Dragging his kit and the near-empty munitions crate behind him, he rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, stifling a yawn. “Did we miss anything?” Crosshair hissed quietly.

“Uh…” Wrecker fidgeted. “No. Just a supply run for Cody. He says hi.”

Wrecker wasn’t making eye contact. “What, Wrecker?” Crosshair asked, already annoyed.

“Ummmmm…” Wrecker looked at the pilot seat. Someone was sitting in that chair.

Crosshair’s eyes narrowed. He pulled a toothpick from his belt pouch and popped it into his mouth. “Tech?”

“Hmm?” Tech said, but the pilot chair did not turn around.

“What’d you do?” Crosshair said, approaching the chair.

“What’s going on?” Hunter asked Wrecker. 

“It’s weird,” Wrecker whined. “He looks like that scary villain from the horrorholo you told me not to watch, but I did anyway”

“When Ewoks Lurk?” Hunter asked.

“That’s the one,” Wrecker said, mournfully.

Crosshair turned the pilot’s chair around and jumped back. “What the hell, Tech!”

Tech’s head tilted to the side, an unnatural smile spread across his face. A smile he only wears when he wants to scare the kraytspit out of Crosshair. 

“Pogonophobia is nothing to be ashamed of,” Tech grinned, villainously.

“I’m gonna pogono your phobia,” Crosshair snarled.

“That makes no sense,” Tech said, unflinching as Crosshair lunged at him.

“Hey, whoa whoa,” Hunter swooped in and grabbed Crosshair, hauling him back. “Alright, that’s enough. It can't be that bad- whoa!” Hunter did a double-take. “Wow…Tech…hah, uh…brother, it looks like you got a pair of wookiee pelts glued to your lip.”

“Like a bantha punched him in the mouth,” Wrecker piped up.

“He’s an abomination,” Crosshair growled, wriggling in Hunter’s iron grip.

Tech started to get up and as he did, Crosshair let out a yelp - a yelp that to this day he denies ever happened - and scrambled to hide behind Hunter. He hissed angrily from the protective shield of Hunter’s shoulder.

“Okay, that’s it,” Hunter sighed. “You scared Crosshair. Congrats, now go shave that shit off. It can’t be comfortable.”

“It isn’t,” Tech said honestly. As he walked past Hunter he gave Crosshair another feral smile that made his cheeks ache. “Consider this comeuppance for the time you drew angry eyebrows on all my lenses.”

“You’re still angry about that?”

“It took three weeks to order new lenses.” Tech frowned.

“Are we even now?” Crosshair asked. 

“Yes,” Hunter answered for Tech.

Tech sighed. “Yes.” 

Tech went to the refresher and rummaged through the drawer looking for the mirror. Underneath half-bottles of hair deodorant, tangled bandanas, and hair clippers, he found a mirror and the shaver. 

For thirty-two days, he hadn’t seen his face, blindly shaving around the area for added effect. 

And when he finally looked…

…he flinched. 

“Ew.”

[sforzesco]

THE APRIL PLOT 26 April 1478

Lorenzo, flushed with youth and power, would assume the direction of everything, and resolved that all transactions should bear an impress of his influence. The Pazzi, with their nobility and wealth unable to endure so many affronts, began to devise some means of vengeance. The first who spoke of any attempt against the Medici, was Francesco, who, being more sensitive and resolute than the others, determined either to obtain what was withheld from him, or lose what he still possessed.

Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories

francesco de' pazzi should've gotten to stab lorenzo de' medici twice over tbh 😔ALAS

April Blood, Lauro Martines

society6 | ko-fi | twitter (pillowfort, cohost) | deviantart

[ghost-bxrd]

Because we already saw the fallout of Jason's death in Owl Song...

Talon Dick being killed - or at least, presumed dead.

Could be a Titans mission. Titans face off against plenty of things that can kill even Talons. Maybe something like Trigon? Or something that disintegrates (if presumed dead traps in other dimension) the targets?

Or if a JLA mission and it happens because Dick shields Bruce and takes the hit for him?

Jason could be there watching, or watching the fight on news from elsewhere or like Dick in Owl Song, remain oblivious till he comes back home...

I think this was mentioned somewhere before, but as a small recap:

We know how Dick reacts to Jason’s death. He goes near mad with grief, refuses to leave Jason’s grave/room and doesn’t interact with anybody or anything. He goes from happy and energetic bird boy to a husk of a person. If anybody attacked him right now— he’d let them. He wouldn’t fight back. There are ways to kill a Talon. He just hopes the assailant is one of the few who know how.

Now, Jason on the other hand… he’d go nuclear. Eight heads in a duffle bag? Please. That would look like child’s play compared to the atrocities he’d commit to get back at whoever took Dick from him. And anybody standing in his way would become collateral damage. Nevermind that as Robin he’d be considerably more easy to restrain, but you can bet he’d bide his time. Every waking minute would be spent devising plans of vengeance that would make even the hardiest of people pale. If the JLA/Titans saw the fallout of Jason only thinking Dick died… well, many of them are going to update their list of contingencies. Including Bruce. (And they thought they’d only have to worry about Nightwing if something happened to Robin… no, it seems like they’re a package deal of worrisome devotion).

Which isn’t to say he’s going to blindly attack everyone around him, of course. But… yeah, it would be hard jump from “Robin is magic” to “I am absolutely willing to blow up everyone in this room including myself if it means killing the murderers.” Well, not to this kind of extreme. But you can bet he’d make it his life’s mission to kill the ones responsible very slowly.

They are both… very unhinged where the other is concerned.

[docgold13]

Batman: The Animated Series - Paper Cut-Out Portraits and Profiles

Mister Freeze

Victor Fries was a scientist working at GothCorp. When his beloved wife Nora was diagnosed with a terminal illness, he began experimenting with cryogenics.  He found a means of sustaining Nora in cryogenic stasis where she could remain until a cure for her disease could be found.  All of this work was done at GothCorp, using huge amounts of the company’s funds.  When Ferris Boyle, the chief executive officer at GothCorp, discovered what Fries had been up to, he went to Fries’ laboratory with his men to shut the whole matter down.

Fries begged for his wife's life, but an irate Boyle had his men destroy the equipment.  Fries himself was kicked into a batch of chemicals, causing a terrible explosion that consumed the entire lab.  

Fries managed to survive this ordeal but the cryogenic chemicals had caused a dramatic and irreversible change to his physiology.  His body could no longer survive in temperatures above zero degrees celsius.  He created for himself a specialized cryo-suit that kept his body at low temperatures.  This suit also tripled his normal strength. He additionally devised a freeze gun that could fire torrents of ice that flash-froze anything it came into contact with.  

Devastated by the loss of his wife and now seeing himself as a cold and unfeeling entity, Fries re-dubbed himself ‘Mister Freeze’ and set about on gaining cold-blooded vengeance against Farris Boyle.  

Freeze’s efforts to bring down GothCorp attracted the attention of The Batman and the Dark Knight barely survived his first encounter with the villain.  After further investigation, Batman was able to determine Freeze’s true identity as well as Boyle’s culpability in the accident that had created him.  

Batman was ultimately able to defeat Freeze while also exposing Boyle’s murderous actions.  Boyle was sentenced to prison whereas Freeze was remanded to Arkham Asylum.  It would prove the first of many battles between Batman and Mr. Freeze.

Actor Michael Ansara provided the voice for Mr. Freeze, with the cold-hearted villain first appearing in the third episode of the first season of Batman: The Animated Series, ‘Heart of Ice Part One.’

[a-d-nox]

sekhmet, goddess of vengeance (asteroid 5381)

Sekhmet means "she who is powerful". It is believed that she was created from the fire of Ra's eye when he looked at earth and saw the disloyalty of humanity. His ire towards humankind made her a weapon; she was meant to destroy those who were disobedient to the gods. She became ruthless and had a great bloodlust; she killed so many people that Ra had to devise a plan to calm her. He gave her a mixture of red wine and blood - she drank it believing that it was purely blood and became more peaceful. In some versions, she passes out and Ra removes part of her essence to create Bast or Hathor. After the drink (in either version), she was less bloodthirsty and more manageable. IN MY OPINION Sekhmet in your chart can represent a) where you are powerful, b) where you seek vengeance, c) where your wrath gets the better of you, d) where you are ruthless, and/or e) where a part of you is missing after a moment in life where you are too angry/powerful.

i encourage you to look into the aspects of sekhmet along with the sign, degree, and house placement. for the more advanced astrologers, take a look at the persona chart of sekhmet AND/OR add the other characters involved to see how they support or impede sekhmet!

OTHER RELATED ASTEROIDS: hathor (2340) and athor (161)!

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[snowangeldotmp3]

please go on and on about agatha and medea i wanna hear ur thoughts

omg okay i hope u know i had to bust out my copy of medea so i could draw semi-coherent comparisons but. here we go.

medea, first and foremost, is a witch. like. that's her whole thing. she's married to jason, or was married to jason. she helped him grab the golden fleece in his tale, but in euripedes medea, we see the after of the glory that jason gets.

medea is a play about revenge. it's a tragedy, actually, but what medea wants most is revenge. she wants to make jason pay because jason is now in love with creon's daughter instead of medea. jason already had kids with medea, and now he's seeking out creon's daughter and medea (kind of rightfully so) wants to make him pay for this. SO. what does she do? she devises a plan. or two. it is an awful, evil, absolutely wretched plan, but she wants to hurt jason. she hates jason so much after what he's done, that she wants to bring him pain and suffering--even if it means she has to suffer as well. (it's important to remember here that medea is not greek. she is a stranger in a strange land. also her grandad is helios but that's a separate can of worms) so the plan is broken into 2 parts. part one: kill creon and his daughter, who jason is absolutely enamored with. and she does! she poisons a crown and successfully kills them both. jason is devastated.

and then, to make sure she really drives it home. part two of the plan: she's going to kill her children and make sure that jason can't touch the bodies. so he doesn't get to hold them or ease their pain etc etc. he doesn't get to grieve them. she kills her own children just to make jason see how badly he messed up. throughout the whole play medea is constantly called wicked and evil and all of these things. one of the most famous lines is the from the chorus, "you would become the wretchedest of women." then medea: "then so be it." (worth noting that in my copy of the play, the interaction goes: first woman-chorus: "not justice; vengeance. you have suffered evil, you wish to inflict evil." medea: i do according to nature what i have to do.") HOWEVER! it is also important to realize that like, medea does mourn her kids, and if she thought there was a better way to do this, she probably would have done it. but there isn't. she must make jason pay for what he's done, and this is the only way to make him suffer--by taking away something they both love. medea loves her children dearly, but she hates jason more. and so her kids must die, and she must be deemed an evil, wretched thing.

NOW: the comparisons with agatha are not like, 1 to 1 exactly. as far as we know, agatha is a witch, she traded her son for the darkhold, and she has mom issues. but where i see the most comparison to medea is trading nicky for the darkhold. we know that agatha loved her son, but she craved that knowledge and power more. another comparison could be the fact that agatha's own mother tells her that she was born evil, so agatha accepts this, internalizes it, and if she must be evil, then so be it. like the line in medea, if she's born evil, then, "i do according to nature what i have to do."

this turned into a dump about medea in general, but i do believe the connections are there, and they might not be exact, but they are there regardless.

[scotianostra]

On April 4th 1617 John Napier, the mathematician, died.

I hated maths with a vengeance at school, I'm not talking about counting, I can hold my own with that, but real maths. algebra, geometry, topology and worst of all logarithms, which we have Robert Napier to "thank" for, he introduced them in the early 17th century as a means to simplify calculations, aye right!

If John Napier had been born a common man he would maybe have been burnt at the stake, nothing to do with him and his maths nonsense but because he dabbled in the occult at a time when we were routinely setting such people on fire!

James VI was on the throne and his obsession with devilry consigned hundreds of unfortunates to the flames. Unless you were born of a noble family of course. A wee bit background on the Napier's his father was Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston Castle, and his mother was Janet Bothwell, daughter of the politician and judge Francis Bothwell, Lord of Session, and a sister of Adam Bothwell who became the Bishop of Orkney. Archibald Napier was 16 years old when John Napier was born. John, as was the common practice for members of the nobility at that time, he was privately tutored and did not have formal education until he was 13, when he was sent to St Salvator's College, St Andrews. He dropped out of Uni and toured Europe for a time before returning to Scotland aged 21.

Back to his links with sorcery, several members of John Napier’s family – respected and wealthy participants of Edinburgh society - were commonly known to be wizards or sorcerers. Their necromantic power was feared by nobles as well as peasants from far and wide.

The family wizardry started with Napier's father, Sir Archibald, seventh Laird of Merchiston, who successfully predicted when Mary, then the former Queen of Scotland, would leave Lochleven Castle, where she was imprisoned. The story goes: "Claude Nan, the Queen's secretary, wrote that 'the Laird of Markyston (Sir Archibald), who had the reputation of being a great wizard, made bets with several persons to the amount of five hundred crowns, that by the 5th of May Her Majesty would be out of Lochleven." Mary escaped on 2 May 1568 – and the senior Napier was presumably wealthier for his prediction.

Sir Archibald married Janet Bothwell, sister of Adam, Bishop of Orkney, who the paper said was "a notorious necromancer", so that their son, the future mathematician, inherited "a double inclination towards the magic arts". This might explain some of John's odd behaviour. A necromancer is a wizard or magician by the way, I had to google it!

Tenants who lived on the vast Merchiston estate south-west of Edinburgh thought John to be a bit mysterious at times, Napier would be seen many evenings wearing a long gown, pacing outside his tower chamber, a private work area where he often would pass many long hours alone.

Many people thought that his pet black cockerel was a familiar – a supernatural being which assisted witches and wizards in their magical practice. However, the Napier family held the hereditary role of King’s Poulterer and Napier may have kept the cockerel on a whim but I have read he travelled not only with the bird but also with a black spider in a small box, not normal behaviour.

The Scottish writer and translator Sir Thomas Urquhart, who, told of a demonstration of devastating artillery Napier devised against the threat of invasion by Spain.

"He gave proof upon a large plaine in Scotland to the destruction of a great many herds of cattel and flocks of sheep, whereof some were distant from other half a mile on all sides and some a whole mile,"

A well as being a wizard and mathematician Napier was also a fervent Protestant, much of his writing is vehemently anti-Catholic even by the standards of the time. He was a man of contradictions though, as he is said to have had friends who were Catholic, including Alexander Seton, the Earl of Dunfermline, although the vast majority Catholics back then had to hide their faith.

The last interesting, and worrying, fact I found out about John Napier is that his cause of death according to wiki he died "from the effects of gout" at home in Merchiston tower, now I suffer from gout and it is bloody painful but I didn't know it could kill you!

[modern-day-abel]

In my opinion, both Turandot and Calif are terrible people and perhaps it is this quality that attracted them to each other. Turandot is a radical feminist because she has sworn revenge on the entire male gender and drives innocent men to their deaths, blaming them for the rape and murder of her ancestor, even though those men neither lived at the same time as those events took place, nor were they members of Timur's tribe. We also know nothing about the character of those men and whether they themselves ever committed such crimes or were capable of committing them. In general, Turandot's revenge is quite ineffective. Instead of using her power to improve the living conditions of women in her country and to grant them rights that promise them more freedom and security or to toughen the penalties for violence committed against women, she has set herself the goal of murdering suitors from distant lands. It is a childish revenge that achieves nothing at all, except perhaps to give men yet another reason to curtail women's rights by citing Turandot as proof of what happens when a woman is given too much power: She becomes a tyrant.

One could now argue that Turandot's suitors were well aware of the danger they were in, as the rules of the game were read out in public. Everyone knew that failure meant death and yet the suitors, blinded by their love for the princess, banged on the palace gates. Well, she is granted this justification. But what followed? When Calif wins the game, Turandot refuses to honor her agreement. Not only that, when Calif offers her the chance to win against him again by giving her one night to guess his name, Turandot suddenly acts without honor. She mobilizes the whole town against Calif and forces her subjects to use any means, be it trickery or violence, to force the name out of him and his companions under threat of death. Turandot crosses a line when she captures the old man and the prince's young servant and has them tortured until the servant finally chooses suicide. In her blind vengeance against the men, Turandot brought upon herself the death of a young girl, the kind of person she wanted to protect!

Prince Calif is just as suspicious to me. He may not be as brutal as Turandot, but he is arrogant, callous and cruel in his own way. When Calif falls in love with Turandot, he only sings about Turandot's beauty, just like the suitors before him. He doesn't really know her at all. The moment in which Calif speaks of love is the same moment in which a suitor's neck is slit, but Calif wastes no thought on the unfortunate man before him instead he is already certain of his victory and revels in the distant future. He believes that knowing the solution to the riddle would also win him Turandot's love. Calif has the chance to put an end to the princess's bloodthirsty game, but instead he prolongs it by offering Turandot another round: his life as a stake, not hers, although now it is Turandot's turn to guess the riddle he has devised.

In my opinion, Prince Calif is too fond of the game. He loves the thrill and therefore offered his life as a stake in the game. I also think he enjoyed cornering Turandot and watching what means his cunning opponent would resort to in order to get the secret of his name out of him. Even when Turandot takes the whole capital hostage, Calif doesn't disappear to save their lives. Turandot is the one who gave the order, but Calif is the one who gave her the chance to act this way and is willing to sacrifice all these people for his victory. Without batting an eye, he attends the execution and later accepts the deaths of the masses who never agreed to the rules of the game and were unwittingly drawn into the competition between the two. Calif only loses his composure once, when Liu is driven to suicide, but even from this stroke of fate he recovers quickly, proclaiming his disgust for the princess but forcing himself on Turandot the very next second. (and yes, in the production I saw, I interpreted this as more than just a forced kiss. It felt like a rape to me.) What fate does the supposed man-killer deserve? Certainly not this one. And yet I believe that they both have a monster inside them and recognized it in each other. It's the only reasonably explanation I could come up with for the ending in which Turandot proclaims her love for Calif.

[lightdancer1]

Another thing surprisingly under-used in the broader set of fanon and canon:

Is the very reality of the first Despair's murder, how that came about, and the impact that would have had on the Endless. Prior to it the only real challenges would have been Death walking out and Delight growing into Delirium and showing that one of them, at least, can stop being an Endless even temporarily (which Death also does once a century and will one day do entirely). Delight to Delirium shows if they really wanted to they could grow and evolve as mortals do, if at a fairly steep price.

And then one day Despair is just murdered and someone else replaces her. Prior to that I can see that all of the Endless save perhaps Death would have seen themselves as immortal. And then in one fell swoop all of this changed. The reality that something killed an idea and devoted the time and effort to do so, and made it work, has its own mythical element.

In my own stories how and why this happens is a fundamental aspect of the mythos, and it comes in two kinds. In one it is an entity of myth wanting vengeance on Desire by destroying that which Desire values most, which winds up being their twin. In the other it's a man of Krypton, the umpty great-great-great grandfather of General Zod, who finds out about the bargain that doomed his world and his entire species and takes up a Muspell-blade and does the deed.

Given Sandman's overlap with Norse mythology in different aspects, I use the Muspell-blade as a nod to that and to the idea that the Muspelli are slayers of gods and of worlds alike. And what better weapon to make an endless end, the infinite finite, than a mythological weapon calculated for precisely that kind of purpose devised by beings capable of such a thing?

This is, of course, purely my own take on the weapon, the person who does so matters just as much.

For that matter, there are entire sets of fics that can be done here and some excellent ones have been done on AO3 involving the murder of Despair and what that did to Desire. There are also ones that can be there for Death and Despair talking during that moment. How would Death feel the first time one of her siblings truly died? What did it mean for the rest of the family and for their own changes over time?

I don't think Neil's ever going to answer this question directly and I think at this Doylist level it's a question that should never be answered, for the reader's imagination in various ways will be richer than anything the canon could come up with to answer it.

For that matter, how did Despair take her second form? What happened to Despair's murderer? There is one headcanon I like and use in one case where the murderer became the new Despair and suffers eternally in the body of the new Despair, looking behind her eyes. If not that, then what? A soul in Hell? Someone caught somewhere in the broader elements of both the Sandman/Vertigo side of the DC cosmology or the broader aspects of it?

The murder of Despair is one of these very mythical aspects that also works as a thing of both old and new mythologies alike. Somewhere, in the past, a being found a way to permanently kill an Endless, even if something else replaced the destroyed point of view. What happened with that? What is the impact on an infinite being with immortality if the immortal proves mortal and the infinite finite?

And yet with all this element, rich in itself, fanon and canon and fanfic largely neglect this mine except in the narrow set of stories specifically focused on Desire, where Despair, of course, is a vital character for she and Desire have arguably a healthier sibling relationship than Death and Dream, which is why it's a pity they get seen so little with this in canon. The show made it even warmer and this is one of the areas where it fully improved on the comic.

[aziraphales-library]

Hello! How are you?

I'm looking for a fic where hell won and made the angels slaves, and Crowley needs to save Azira, it can be any fic with that theme

Hi, I’m good thanks! You may be interested in our #armageddon happened tag for fics of this nature, but here are some specifically in which Hell won and Aziraphale is a slave. Mind the tags on all of these ones, folks!...

All of me against all of them by Doublematch (E)

In the aftermath of the Apoconot, Heavens and Hell still want their vengeance. Too bad for them that Crowley is really protective of his angel.

WARNING: There will be hurt, and not only on the angels and demons who crossed Crowley. If you are not prepared to see Aziraphale suffer, do not read. And please check the Archive warnings for triggers.

After the War by amaruuk (E)

What if Adam had allowed the war between Heaven and Hell to proceed—so long as Earth and humanity were left out of it? And what if Hell had won?

Crowley raised his head and Aziraphale could see in the set of his face that he had even more bad news. "You belong to me now." The words were said bluntly but not unkindly. "I literally own you. And the bookshop. It's in my name now."

"My shop?" This came somehow as more of an affront than being owned himself. Even by Crowley.

Aziraphale's reaction lent a fleeting softening to Crowley's face. It soon faded. "The shop's safe. But you're not. Even with me owning you. So—"

"So?" Aziraphale prompted him uncomfortably.

"So—" Crowley looked him full in the face and said very carefully, "Some day soon we will have to share a bed. And I will have sex with you."

Who You Are by ImaginAria (M)

After the fire, Aziraphale never reappeared. Hell won the war. And Crowley was highly honored for his role in bringing about Armageddon...not that he wanted to be. But maybe his "reward" will be a blessing in disguise--and give him a second chance at saving the world.

Antegenesis and Gravitational Singularity by PanDemonicPanDemonium (E)

In the time between the great Fall and Eden, the Great War between Heaven and Hell rages on, although Hell has an advantage that makes their victory inevitable. An angel and a demon are brought together by fate: prisoner and unwilling captor.

Crawly re-learns what love is, and realizes that in order to protect Aziraphale he will need to betray Hell itself, even if it means losing status, titles, or possibly even his own life. Despite Aziraphale not wanting him to, Crawly devises a plan that will not only free Aziraphale, but forever change the direction of the Great War.

Crawly finds that sometimes love means turning your back on both sides, and forming your own.

Sometimes love means letting go.

out of the darkness (then we supercollide) by Vagabond (E)

Aziraphale wakes up after a celebratory dinner at the Ritz and finds himself in a world where Hell won, Heaven lost, and angels have been taken as prisoners of war and subjected to all sorts of heinous behavior at the hands of demons in Hell. To right the world, Aziraphale will have to make strange alliances and figure out how to get Crowley, his new "owner", on his side.

If only it were that easy.

- Mod D

[legacieswcrp]

LORE DROP: FROM THE ASHES

The Fallen did not stay gone from their home territory forever. As StormClan was navigating the fallout of the war and finding a new normal in their meadow camp, the Fallen were living through their own stories. In time, there emerged a subset of kindred who devised a plan: they would return to their ancestors' home and avenge their ancestors - and they would use the power of a total solar eclipse to do it.

This is where the modern era begins: from the ashes of a siege out of control, haunted by memories of a brutal past reanimated, Rotstar's final acts as StormClan's leader are to take the first steps into a tenuous new peace with Chicory and her Fallen comrades.

Celestial phenomena have power. StormClan, like their lakeside ancestors, have known this for generations, as have the Fallen, with tales of unimaginable horrors and miracles alike under red moons and solar totalities inscribed in legend, oral tradition, and documented histories. Chicory had shouldered a particularly heavy burden from her youth, her dreams steeped in visions of mountainside war, betrayal, vengeance, exodus: the life of Glory, the Fallen's war hero. It was through the Fallen's extensive and long-running historical record that her scheme took root; there was a pattern to solar eclipses, one of the most powerful phenomena known to the Fallen, and if that pattern held, she would see one in her own lifetime. With the right rites, the right number of dreamers like herself poised on the battlefield under the Moon's shadow, Chicory and her allies might be able to turn their own nightmares into a means for victory. She gathered those she could, then, and unbeknownst to StormClan, Chicory's Fallen began their journey back to the Tallrock territories.

StormClan did not track these developments in the same way; they were largely unprepared, having only just recovered after an attempted coup had nearly succeeded. StarClan sent warnings, of course, but how could they adequately alert their descendants to an event that most Clan cats would have found unimaginable? A day without daylight, a dark moon wreathed in flames, what could that possibly mean? Rotstar found himself largely working to keep the peace, trying his best to restrict information on these omens to more secretive channels while the Clan's wisest sought meaning within the mystery.

The Fallen were outnumbered when they arrived at the meadows. Chicory assured them, however, that when the time was right, StormClan would be overwhelmed. The plan was to lay a siege, cage the Clan in a wall of fire that would reflect the corona above and restrict the warriors' ability to strategize by limiting their movements. The Fallen would start on the back paw, running defense and evasion to buy time for their fellows to prepare the second stage of their trap.

Chicory and some of her comrades carried heirloom tools, mementos from kindred who lived and died long ago. Most essential among these was Glory's carving knife, a blade for processing and preparing prey remains for refinement into new tools and raw materials, steeped in memories and histories of Tallrock and the war; this tool and Chicory herself would be the crux of the battle plan, used to cut Tallrock's bloody history into the earth and rally up every bad memory, every bitter nightmare in the Fallen's battle cries.

And it worked. As StormClan's forces clashed with growing apprehension about what was happening, the moon passed over the sun, and in its shadow, new shapes joined the fray. They weren't spirits made flesh, as StormClan's distant ancestors had once faced, but living memory, dragged across the thinned veil from dream into reality. Silent likenesses of Fallen fighters swarmed StormClan with teeth and claws, led by the echo of their champion: Glory.

Terrible wounds were struck on both sides, but the true catastrophe wouldn't rear its head until the shadow passed, Chicory's nightmare gone with it. There had been a mistake somewhere in the plan - an oversight, a missed measurement, an inconsistency with the history - and the fire that made up the Fallen's siege wall had spread out of control, sprung north into the moorland and grown into a vicious inferno. Between the chilling visions under the eclipse and the danger posed by the fire, the Fallen's ranks began to break, kindred dropping their hostilities to fight the blaze alongside their enemies to save the territory that both sides called home.

Lives were lost. The moorland was devastated. For as impressive as Chicory's assault had been, there was no triumph in it in the end, and it had cost her allies, friends, trust. The aftermath was out of her paws.

As StormClan mourned and recovered, Rotstar turned his focus on justice; he wouldn't leave the Fallen without any recourse, not after StormClan had had so much time to dwell on guilt and past mistakes. In the three short years that followed, against the wishes of many of his Clanmates, he negotiated with the Fallen for peaceful coexistence. Chicory and her allies would have a home as they had sought, and StormClan would leave them unhindered in their efforts to find their way. This was more than a simple promise; he reinstated the Law of the Land, not to keep the Fallen out, but to keep StormClan in. With time, the two factions have made some strides toward peace, despite the grudges simmering between the ranks on both sides. Representatives from both groups - Chicory's mate and close friend on one side, two of Rotstar's kits on the other - have moved into temporary residencies with their neighbors as temporary cultural ambassadors in a show of good faith.

What the future holds, however, remains to be seen; Rotstar's life is nearly spent, and what may come rests in the paws of a new generation, on the precipice of a new era.

[nesiacha]

Proclamation of Louis Delgres

I have already spoken about Louis Delgrès’ sacrifice in this post https://www.tumblr.com/nesiacha/751677840407330816/on-this-day-die-louis-delgres-freedom-fighter?source=share, but I only wrote it partially. Here it is in full (translated into English):

To the Entire Universe

The Final Cry of Innocence and Despair

It is during the most glorious days of a century forever celebrated for the triumph of Enlightenment and philosophy that a class of unfortunate souls, destined for annihilation, is compelled to raise its voice to posterity to make known, once they have disappeared, their innocence and their suffering.

Victims of a few bloodthirsty individuals who dared to deceive the French government, a multitude of citizens, ever faithful to their homeland, find themselves ensnared in a proscription devised by the very author of their misfortunes. General Richepance, whose powers we do not fully understand as he is only introduced as an army general, has only revealed his arrival through a proclamation so carefully phrased that, even as he promises protection, he could deliver death without deviating from the terms he uses. By this manner of speech, we recognize the influence of Admiral Lacrosse, who swore us eternal enmity... Yes, we would like to believe that General Richepance, too, has been deceived by this treacherous man who knows how to wield both daggers and slander.

What threats of authority are we facing? Do they intend to turn the bayonets of these brave soldiers, whom we had hoped to see arriving as our protectors, against us, when just yesterday they were only directed at the enemies of the Republic? Ah! Rather, if we are to believe the acts of authority already inflicted at Port-de-la-Liberté, it is evident that the system of a slow death in dungeons continues to be pursued. Well then! We choose to die more swiftly.

Let us dare to say it: the most atrocious maxims of tyranny are surpassed today. Our former tyrants allowed a master to free his slave, and everything indicates that, in this age of philosophy, there are men, unfortunately too powerful due to their distance from the authority from which they derive, who wish to see men of black color, or of such origin, only in the chains of slavery.

And you, First Consul of the Republic, you philosopher-warrior from whom we expected the justice that was our due, why must we lament our distance from the source of those sublime concepts that you have so often made us admire? Ah! Surely one day you will come to know our innocence, but by then it will be too late, and the wicked will have already taken advantage of the calumnies they have spread against us to complete our ruin.

Citizens of Guadeloupe, whose difference in skin color is a sufficient reason not to fear the vengeances that threaten us — unless one wishes to accuse you of the crime of not turning your weapons against us — you have heard the reasons for our indignation. Resistance to oppression is a natural right. Even divinity cannot be offended by our defense of our cause; it is the cause of justice and humanity: we will not tarnish it with even the shadow of a crime. Yes, we are resolved to maintain a just defense, but we will never become the aggressors. As for you, remain in your homes; fear nothing from us. We solemnly swear to respect your women, your children, your properties, and to employ all our means to ensure they are respected by all. And you, posterity! Shed a tear for our misfortunes, and we will die content.

[sforzesco]

i fully consider you the italian renaissance guy so i am going to ask you this because i’m genuinely curious <3 do you have Thoughts on the pazzi conspiracy…… i have sooo many tbh it makes me really crazy <333 i read this book about caesar’s assassination a while back and it said something along the lines of “Why were the conspirators apparently surprised by the panic their deed caused in the city?” and i think about that every time i think about the pazzi conspiracy…. the parallels between classical/late republican conspiracies and the ones present in the italian renaissance era…… aughhhh it’s. 😵‍💫

thank you, but I am merely standing on the shoulders of the work of all the other italian renaissance guys (gender neutral) who came before me!!

that said I have so many thoughts about the Pazzi conspiracy, the Pazzi conspiracy my beloved, my best friend, my most ardent love, I'm obsessed with it. hashtag Francesco de' Pazzi apologist etc etc

It has EVERYTHING it shows that people did not sit idle in the shadow of Medici power, the politics of banking and generational humiliation, it has cannibalism, it has such hate that the act of retaliation cannot simply be exile and death their memory must be wiped out too, faces removed from portraits, it has a private affair (conspiracy) being made public (the assassination) and the failure to control the immediate aftermath (everything is an echo of the Ides of March assassination but worse, and also the Pazzi conspiracy in a larger discussion of renaissance assassinations and conspiracies? Stefano Porcari, I'm sending you flowers), there's the whole thing with churches as a bloody theatre for spectacles of violence: Galeazzo Maria Sforza, killed on a feast day, the Pazzi planning assassination during a High Mass, the way potential assassins cower under the eye of God and refuse to spill blood on sacred ground but a priest has no such fear.

it's also got that dramatic and tragic foreshadowing, like god, it has it all, I think about this part out of Machiavelli's Florentine Histories constantly

Lorenzo, flushed with youth and power, would assume the direction of everything, and resolved that all transactions should bear an impress of his influence. The Pazzi, with their nobility and wealth unable to endure so many affronts, began to devise some means of vengeance. The first who spoke of any attempt against the Medici, was Francesco, who, being more sensitive and resolute than the others, determined either to obtain what was withheld from him, or lose what he still possessed.

it's all or nothing, baby! (admittedly this overlaps into an adjacent category into a larger discourse on morality and personality with political slander in pro-Medici works regarding the Pazzi, Pontano has a similar line about Orsini, but I think it's fun! bite chomp kill away, Francesco)

this is not to imply that Machiavelli was a pro-Medici writer (imo it's a lot more complex than that), Poliziano attributes this Do or Die trait to Francesco, and Machiavelli was writing after Poliziano. Machiavelli and conspiracies is a whole topic on it's own, it's just that Machiavelli's writings live rent free in my head and I'll always reference them first. like. every time I think about failed conspiracies that cycle to tragedy, I think about Machiavelli's commentary on power in Discourses on Livy, about how one must slay the sons of Brutus too, and how inevitably, this genre of conspirators always opt for less bloodshed, which always leads to their own demise.

there's this fascinating topic of Greek narratives as a mold for Roman biographies in regards to Plutarch's Lives, and there's something similar going on with the Pazzi, Sallust and Suetonius, and Poliziano's Commentarium that compels me too, ngl.

on the topic of the Commentarium, tho

Conspiracy Literature in Early Renaissance Italy, Marta Celati

the Pazzi conspirators 🤝 the Ides of March conspirators

In a larger historical dialogue, I think Medici retaliation for the assassination really highlights the later violence that the Medici will inflict on a much larger scale in the 1530 siege of Florence. it's like, the Pazzi are the most obvious crack in the Medici facade.

April Blood, Lauro Martines

The Medici, Mary Hollingsworth

oh boy, this is getting out of hand, but to go back to what you mentioned about Caesar and failed conspiracies, I'm thinking again about Machiavelli (this time his chapter on Conspiracies in Discourses in addition to the You Must Kill The Sons Of Brutus line. Like, you must also slay the sons of Brutus, but no one wants to do it!!!!). time is a flat circle for real, tragic repetitions all the way down 😔

[bleachbleachbleach]

I'm confused with several things:

1. What Quincies actually are? They are not spirit like shinigamis are they? So are they human with special power? Or whole different breed? Because they live a long life, like thousand years. But I don't understand, even the youngsters like Bambi, Liltotto, Gremmy, etc are also actually thousand years old? If that's the case, Uryuu is also able to live that long?

2. Why didn't Ychwach ask Ryuuken to join them in the war? Why is it only Uryuu? Is he untouchable or anything like that?

3. Why there are no one among Ichigo's sisters inherit special power like Ichigo? I know Karin has a potential, but it's just that she decided to not develop it. But if she indeed develop it, would she be as strong as Ichigo? Then why didn't Yuzu possessed any power then? I lowkey hope Yuzu would inherit some Quincy power, but seems like Kubo didn't plan to do it at all.

Sorry for my long ask, sorry for my broken english. i'm very thankful for your answer. Happy new year!

I’ll be the first to say this, I probably have no business talking about Quincy; their information runs through me like black tea. Several anons have asked this blog about Quincy lore but this is not an area either of us have nets out for, unfortunately. 😔 

What I can offer in this regard, however, is the impressions that I work with when I’m thinking about Bleach or writing, in hopes that others may also find these useful or interesting.

1. The Great Quincy Terrarium Experiment

Quincies are human. I think barring incredible circumstances, they have human lifespans, though I think their reiatsu functions in ways similar to that of shinigami, in that it can keep them alive/fighting through things that a body unbuoyed by reiatsu would not typically stand. (See: Ishida or any of Ichigo’s friends surviving all of this!) 

It also happens that we have some incredible circumstances on tap. I think that if you become refugees in a pocket dimension of your own arcane devising, then time gets wimey and, additionally, your body and essence begin to develop in an environment wholly unlike the one you left. It’s like moving from sea level to high altitude, and acclimating. It’s like living at high altitude for 1000 years, and your body making long-term adaptations to this environment. It’s like going up in space, and the density of your bones changing in response to sustained time in zero gravity. Except it’s not *like* either of those things, because you are in an entirely different pocket dimension of your own devising. Thinking about the prospect of that is really cool to me, which is why I focus on that!

For the Super Quincy who existed prior to that, I mean, you don’t just create a pocket dimension of your own devising in a day, usually. I feel like that’s something that’s probably had prototypes, other uses, etc. prior to exodus. 

2. Ryuuken was fired for being a party-pooper

As to why Ryuuken didn’t get tapped for the Blood War, I’m sure the most ready answers are authorial and editorial (especially given that Ishida didn’t get as much screentime in TYBW as he probably would have), but I don’t really care about that angle. We know Ryuuken is pretty powerful, and at points demonstrated this over Ishida.

But he’s also not "in it" in the way that Ishida is; arguably, he is actively not in it. And I feel like between start of series to beginning of TYBW, there’s a good chance that Ishida is primed for Yhwach’s needs in ways that Ryuuken is not. Ishida is shinier!

And even if let’s say Ryuuken is a Lv100 Dragonite with Hyper Beam on paper—I mean, if I were leading a 1000-year vengeance crusade, I wouldn’t invite Ryuuken, either. XD Who needs that kind of downer energy? Not that Ishida is bringing the party rock to TYBW, but I wouldn’t be surprised if not inviting Ryuuken is a hubristic snub of relations Yhwach simply does not find worth recruiting because of their attitude, lol.

3. There aren't enough Punnett Squares for this

When thinking about magic as a heritable trait, I feel like it’s easiest to lean into the reality that genetics are extremely complicated even before adding magic into the mix. In a fantasy setting, usually what’s getting talked about is some kind of mystical bloodline, rather than genetics, which are often separate things for a whole swathe of reasons that I don’t think we need to get into here (though if you’re interested, check out work by Kim TallBear!).

Having a Quincy (human) mom and a shinigami (but at he time, effectively human) dad doesn’t mean those things are automatically going to be part of the children’s lives, in the same way that you don’t need to have the same eye or hair color as your parents. Even if your parent’s traits are "dominant." As a basic example, my parents both have black hair, and darker hair tends to be understood as "dominant" trait over lighter. I have three siblings, and we all have lighter hair than both our parents. Obviously heritable traits very much exist and there are absolutely things that "run in families"! But 100% certainty and heritability don’t usually go hand in hand.

I think we see this even in Soul Society, and not taking into account the incredible weirdness of the Kurosaki family Situation. Being born in the Seireitei doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have any aptitude for shinigami-ing—and that’s just talking about innate potential, before getting into temperament or desire. This seems to be true even if you’re born in the Seireitei into a noble family that typically churns out high-level shinigami. It’s not a done deal.

In the Kurosaki case, I honestly think it’d be even more surprising if all three kids did end up with Ichigo’s specific cocktail of (magic) genetics, personality, and drive, and were all shounening it up. Ichigo is once in a universe’s lifetime, and that’s why he’s our protagonist king. 😌

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“KINGSTON PENITENTIARY SECRETS UNFOLDED BY RECENT INMATE,” Hush. July 13, 1942. Page 6 & 13. ---- Amazing Disclosures By Ex-Convict Told To Hush ---- From behind the stone walls of Kingston Penitentiary - those grim stone walls which hide more of hell on earth than could be found anywhere outside the battlefields of Europe, Asia and Africa - comes to HUSH from a one-time prisoner, an authentic, first hand glimpse of some things that go on within. This informant is no grouch, no enemy of society with an axe to grind. On the contrary he is a man of considerable intelligence who made a mistake, paid the penalty in part, went through mental tortures which no one could wish upon the damned, and is concerned now only with turning on the light a little on dark corners and making life a little safer for those, even the worst of them, who remain.

Kingston Penitentiary! A place where men and women who have sinned against society go to be made ever into something better; where they are interviewed by a kindly warden, segregated into classes - the bad and the less bad, taught useful trades and occupations according to their own choice, fed and exercised to keep up their physical strength, preached at regularly to maintain their spiritual morale, all of it under strict discipline, of course, to teach them the meaning of control, then ultimately released, chastened and made wiser, to become useful citizens of the world. That, in part, is the public and judicial conception of this Institution. It is looked on more as a place of correction, a place where penitents repent, than house of punishment.

Kingston Penitentiary, A grim, closed in concentration camp equal to anything ever devised by a dictator - a mental and moral lazaretto, where human beings are herded and goaded like cattle into a compound, forbidden every normal exercise of civilized life, subjected to the whims of brutal guards, punished, starved, for infractions of rules - yes, even for speaking to each other or for what might be interpreted as a dirty look, kept always on minimum rations, taught nothing really useful, and ground down into a state of sullen desperation which seeks only one or both of two things - freedom and vengeance. That to Kingston Penitentiary as it is. Anyone not rotten, corrupted and criminal beyond hope before going in, becomes so before, getting out: and the process by which that is achieved would be a black and incredible page in Canadian history if and when it were told in all its horrible details.

Said HUSH informant in words which were taken down almost verbatim:

"Publish this, and demand that prisoners be given humane treatment. Many of the convicts there are ex-soldiers who fought for their country. Others have fathers and brothers fighting now, and are themselves willing to give their lives for their country at any time. Don't fall to publish this. You may save a lot of lives.

"That place in much worse than any German concentration camp. We were compelled to work under a rifle in each shop. There is a built-in gun cage occupied by an armed guard. Each cell has a peek hole through which the guards repeatedly spy on the men inside. Men are reported for the pettiest offences, and given severe penalties; 21 days in the hole without a meal is commonplace for the most trivial reports. It is a house of hate, and men live for only one purpose: revenge. Men enter the gate normal human beings, and leave as creatures, and brutal. 

"After the riot there in 1932, much money was spent on a Royal Commission to investigate. Nothing has been done. Kingston penitentiary is a real hell-hole where men are permitted no entertainment, only persecution and punishment at the hands of ignorant, brutal guards. The food is unwholesome and meagre; $25,000 was cut off the prisoners’ food allowance.” 

That and more HUSH was told - some of it too horrible even to be believed; It was told in language which indicated a more than average brain and an unusual degree of sensibility, substantiating the account in part, HUSH was shown a recent "News Bulletin" issued within the penitentiary for the "edification" of convicts. It contained about five war items condensed. Most interesting of all was the following paragraph:

“It has been brought to the attention of the Warden that the convict population is being circularized with the intention that letters to relatives this month contain the request to have the Minister of Justice petitioned widely, imploring him to give time off to the convicts in the various prisons in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Confederation this year, Letters containing such reference will not pass censorship, and it is considered that any effort on the part of the convicts to "stampede” the Minister in this or any other policy would not be favorably looked upon by the department. The circularization must cease, and any convict hereafter found in possession of copies of the circular or furthering the movement will be subject to disciplinary action.”

So, apparently there had been a little official conflab behind the scenes; and the Minister of Justice doesn't want to be bothered by people exercising their democratic right, and any luckless prisoner who dares to seek mitigation of his sentence will be ground in the mill without mercy!

A penitentiary, reformatory, all, or any other official place of punishment, is a very necessary part of this civilization of ours; and there are men in all such places who, by their crimes, forfeited all claims to pity. There are cow.... who, like Red ....be deemed fit....to dump...mass like...potatoes...mentality...fuse the democratic....ed to me...survival....immunological...punishable...boys were...offences no great ....being a summons to court.

Thinking back over the...civilization, we of the... ...are horrified to find that it has been until comparatively recent years, a history of barbarism and bestiality In many directions which would put some so-called savage races to shame .We profess Christian enlightenment: savages can claim some excuse on grounds of ignorance. And sometimes we wonder if the progress we have made in dealing with law-breakers is not only a bit of camouflage and veneer hiding instincts which found expression Iin the "Hanging Judge” Jeffreys. 

If civilization, Christian enlightenment and British democracy mean anything more than a surface covering for human tendecnies which have their roots in the jungles; they mean conservation of human bodies and souls, they mean the seeing to it that every man, woman and child adequately fed, clothed, sheltered and given an opportunity to find expression in whatever kind and degree of usefulness and productiveness, mental and physical, of which the individual in capable. Yet even when they are at liberty, hundreds of thousands of them are compelled to go hungry, naked and homeless; and when they run foul of the laws of the land - often driven to it by her desperation our penal system dedicates itself to crushing them instead of trying to rebuild their broken lives. Out of that hell bole at Kingston have come worse criminals than ever went into it - men driven to rebellion and revenge by the brutalities experienced.

Democratic governments are noted for their indifference to evil right under their noses. Indeed, unless there are votes in the offing, they are masters of blindness and cover up in matters of Individual sufferings and general human needs. If the federal government had no knowledge of something rotten in Canadian penal institutions, why did it appoint that Royal Commission? Having appointed it, why did it not take some action on the report turned in? Look at the direct relief and the unemployment situation of the past ten years, and you have the answer.

HUSH presents the story as I was received. No daily newspaper in Canada would touch such a thing. HUSH, in the public Interest, tells it to the world and holds it squarely up before the face of Ottawa in the hope that it will bring some sort of action to remove a blot from Canadian political history.

[AL: A Canadian tabloid publishes first hand testimony from an ex-convict - though some of the arguments are dated, the criticism of both of the informant and the newspaper is remarkable for the period or even today. I don’t know who the writer was, however, but his account of conditions is not inaccurate for the period....]

[fightingthetides]

∗ 1oo﹕ sender  has  just  died ,  receiver  finds  out . // ummmmmmm

Taken from meme: [x] ||Accepting||

A bit earlier than planned, but Ravein returned from a mission he’d been out on for a while. He’d been away for about a month, and he knew from communications that his buddies had also been off on missions of their own. He could feel the tension in the air, but the moment he stepped into base, all the hushed mutterings came to an abrupt start.

Not a pleasant way to be greeted as one could imagine. Unnerved, he starts looking around, attempting to find any context clues for him to go off of. He recognizes one person in the crowd, who stopped like a deer in headlights. If his memory serves him right, he had been on a mission with Haru last.

Making a direct bee-line for the man, who was actively trying to avoid him while also acting nonchalant (spoiler alert: it only made things all the more suspicious). Through the twisting hallways, the silent assassin notices the state that some of the hallways were in. In the back of his mind, he’s curious about who started a fight this time.

Ravein finally manages to corner the guy. Wordlessly, he stared at the man, not relenting until the man finally gives up. If there was one thing anyone knew about Ravein, was that he was stubborn and patient.

He had no qualms about following someone until they gave into his silent demands. “Alright! I give! She’s in confinement right now.”

A small head tilt in confusion. Haru had a temper and an attitude to match, but she was obedient compared to officers within the Varia who did as they pleased. The man hesitated for a few more seconds, “that friend of yours. Luca, you didn’t hear what happened to him yet… did you?”

The look of confusion and worry was all the other needed to see, “He was killed in action and the perps sent his body to base not long ago. She was the first one to see it.” As one could imagine, Haru would’ve gone insane from anger alone. Wanting vengeance was just another facet of her breadkdown.

He finally realizes that the reason the hallways were in such a state was because Haru would’ve put up a fight if others tried to stop her from going after the perps who killed Luca. She’d always joked that if anything ever happened to them, she’d hunt down the perps and then tunnel down to Hell herself to drag them back to Earth.

“When?”

“Huh? O-oh” it was rare for Ravein to speak with his actual voice, so he was taken aback, “Yesterday, we found out.” They were discussing how to keep this a secret from Ravein until the situation calmed itself. Ideally, he would’ve been away for at least another week. Alas, he efficiently finished his mission early, so they didn’t have the chance to hide the news from him.

The reticent assassin nods his head and walks away. He was surprisingly quite calm and collected about the news. It was like business as usual, where he went to his room, wrote up his report, and did whatever he normally does, read or work out alone.

When asked how he was holding up after losing his friend, he would shake his head and shrug his shoulders in response. Everyone else took that to mean, ‘it’s unfortunate, but that’s just how it is in the Varia. People die eventually.’ As it turned out, they didn’t have to worry about him—or so they thought.

When night fell, he snuck into the confinement room that Haru was kept in to force her to ‘cool her head,’ and he broke her out. Together, they left the base in search of the bastards that killed Luca. If Haru was the sort to express her emotions vocally and physically, Ravein was the sort who preferred to internalize everything and ‘speak’ through action. While working on his report, he had gone to research what mission Luca was on, and devise his plan of breaking Haru out and bringing her with him.

In retrospect, it was better that Haru had been the one that was confined first, as Ravein had the sense to break her out so they could go together. If he were the one to have found out first, he would’ve gone off the handle immediately like Haru had done.

After all, two assassins on the job is better than just one whose mind was clouded by anger and pain.

She’d never forgive him if he came back after getting revenge while leaving her behind. A few hours after the break in, an alarm that Haru had escaped her confinement cell was sounded off. It didn’t take long to realize that Ravein was missing as well.

No one was sent to go after the two because they knew full well that neither Haru or Ravein would hesitate to attack whoever got in their way. Haru, at the very least would attack to incapacitate, while Ravein wouldn’t hesitate to kill if it meant it could save a few precious seconds.

The Varia had already lost Luca, so they couldn’t afford to lose any more just to bring back two officers throwing a tantrum. “What kind of present do you think Luca would like? A hand? Maybe an ear? Hmm… maybe an eye is good.” Haru was thinking aloud as they were travelling according to the path Ravein had set for them.

It took a period of a week of them hunting and maiming anyone Ravein thought could’ve been the perpetrator behind killing Luca. Perhaps a few innocent lives were taken, but neither of them were willing to take any chances of letting the killer go scot-free. In their path a bloody trail of carnage, with some missing body parts as Haru was collecting them as ‘gifts’.

Once their personal mission of vengeance was complete, there was a sense of fulfillment and emptiness. What now? Doing this wouldn’t bring their Luca back, but it was a good way of venting their anger out on the ones responsible.

Haru and Ravein split ways after completing their personal mission to have some time to themselves. With Luca’s enemies dead, Haru could finally sit down and cry over the loss. Ravein, a person who rarely slept for long due to his constant bout of nightmares couldn’t sleep at all. It was the mere principle of being so caught up in his thoughts remembering Luca that his brain wouldn’t allow him to sleep.

Having a pictographic memory as he did, it made remembering Luca all the harder to process.

The two may have stayed out for longer before someone messaged them saying that if they stay out for too long, they may miss out on looking through Luca’s things to take before they’re disposed of. It didn’t take long for either of them to return to base to retrieve something to remember their friend by—and to also be punished for truancy.

Worth it, though.