#did you know that rhinos feel like concrete?

[hero-of-the-wolf]

Silly Game Time: What would be a good name for a baby rhino? (I need to know before the vet appointment.)

..... Cupcake

:)

[thollandsgirl2013]

𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬

Parings → Peter Parker x Reader

Warnings → fluff, angst, fear

Summary → You have powers and Peter finds out about it.

2012 – New York City

The afternoon sun shone brightly as you giggled from the swing, your dad gently pushing you higher. Your mom stood a few feet away, capturing the moment with her camera. These park visits were your favorite—just you, your parents, and the simple joys of laughter.

But then the sky tore open.

At first, you stared, wide-eyed, mesmerized by the swirling colors and the vastness above. But the terror on your parents' faces snapped you back to reality. Your dad's voice quivered as he called your name, urging you off the swing. People screamed, chaos spreading like wildfire as they rushed out of the park.

You ran, clutching your mom's hand, weaving through the panic, dodging debris as buildings crumbled around you. Fire and smoke filled the air. Your family ducked under a slab of fallen concrete, trying to shield themselves. And then, there he was—Loki, his scepter glowing ominously.

In the confusion, you felt the impact before you saw it—a blue beam from the scepter striking you directly. Pain didn’t come; instead, everything went black. The last thing you heard was your parents screaming your name.

---

That was a long time ago, but that moment still haunts you. Now you know the truth: the blue beam was from the Tesseract. It didn’t hurt you. Instead, your body absorbed its power, transforming you. Invisibility, telekinesis, teleportation—just like Violet Parr from The Incredibles.

You often considered using these powers for good, but your parents were adamant that you remain hidden. They were overprotective, terrified that if anyone found out, you'd be taken away, experimented on. Your dad, a scientist, knew too well what could happen. So you lived quietly, blending in, always cautious.

---

It was another frantic morning for Peter Parker. He sprinted through the halls, skidding to a stop outside the classroom. Stupid robbers, he thought. Stopping a robbery before school wasn't exactly how he'd wanted to start his sophomore year.

He pushed open the door. The teacher was already mid-introduction.

"I'm so sorry I'm late," Peter panted, offering an apologetic smile.

The teacher raised an eyebrow but waved it off. "First class, so I'll let it slide. But don't make it a habit."

Peter exhaled in relief and scanned the room, spotting an empty seat next to you. He slid into the chair, but as soon as he did, his Spidey sense tingled. There was something... different. Not dangerous, just... odd.

He glanced over at you, his curiosity piqued. You noticed his stare and shifted uncomfortably.

"Can I help you?" You asked, breaking the silence. "I'm Y/n, by the way."

Peter blinked, snapping out of his daze. "I-I um, I'm Parker, I mean, P-Peter Parker." He fumbled through his introduction.

You chuckled softly. "Nice to meet you, Peter Parker. You don’t have to be so nervous. I don’t bite." You smiled, and Peter felt his face heat up. She seems nice, he thought. But that strange feeling still lingered.

---

Over the next few days, you and Peter started hanging out more, often with his best friend Ned. They were both so sweet, and soon, you found yourself developing a crush on Peter. Little did you know, Peter felt the same, though something was still nagging him—his instincts telling him there was more to you.

---

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, and you were waiting outside the theater for Peter. As usual, he was late. Glancing around, you noticed a commotion nearby. Without thinking, you rushed toward it.

The Rhino was rampaging through the streets, smashing cars and sending people into a frenzy. Spider-Man was already on the scene, swinging between buildings, taking civilians to safety and also trying to web Rhino up. But Rhino was too strong, and even Spider-Man was struggling.

You ducked into a nearby alley, your heart pounding. You had to help. Concentrating, you turned invisible and slipped into the chaos. Using your telekinesis, you lifted chunks of debris, hurling them at Rhino. It was enough to throw him off balance, giving Spider-Man the chance to knock him down and web him up.

When you saw everything was clear you went back into the alley. You made a purple circle to teleport back. Just as you were about to teleport back to the theater, a familiar voice stopped you in your tracks.

"Holy shit!"

Your heart dropped. You turned slowly, expecting to meet Peter's worried gaze, "I-I'm so sorry you had to find out like—" you stammered. But instead, you were faced with Spider-Man, his white eyes wide in surprise.

"Wha—SPIDER-MAN! Oh my God, please don't tell anyone about me. Please, I didn’t hurt anyone, I promise! I just wanted to help." You nearly cried out in fear—fear that he would report you to the authorities, who would take you away from your parents to experiment on you.

Spider-Man took a step forward, raising his hands. "Hey, hey, it’s okay. I won’t tell anyone. I know how it feels to be different."

"Thank you. But... how can I trust you?" You asked hesitantly. Spider-Man tilted his head slightly to the side, as if in thought. He seemed to be debating with himself before he sighed. "I have an idea. Come with me." He took a step toward you, and you instinctively stepped back. "Hey, it's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. Do you trust me?" His voice soft.

Do you trust him? Your parents always told you not to trust strangers, but this is Spider-Man. Spider-Man isn’t a stranger, right? Hesitantly, you nodded your head.

Suddenly, Spider-Man yanked you toward him, shooting a web somewhere above before jumping with you in his arms. You let out a startled yelp, clinging to him for dear life.

He landed with a soft thud, and you quickly opened your eyes, jumping away from him as soon as your feet hit the ground.

"Are you crazy?! What is wrong with you?" You yelled, your voice high-pitched with panic.

He chuckled, which only made you angrier.

"This isn't funny!"

You noticed you're at a rooftop. "Why are we here? Are you going to murder me or something?" You asked, eyeing him curiously.

Spider-Man let out a small chuckle. "No, Y/n. You're adorable when you're mad."

"H-How do you know my name?"

He sighed, fiddling with his gloved fingers. "I know you have powers, so it's only fair you know who I am."

You were puzzled by his words, but before you could stop him, he pulled off his mask. You gasped. The sweet, shy, introverted boy with the warm brown eyes—Peter Parker—was Spider-Man. You didn’t know what to say.

"Hey, Y/n," Peter said softly, giving you a shy wave.

"Peter." You said softly.

He scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah… surprise?"

"Y-You're Spider-Man. Holy shit! That’s why your voice sounded familiar."

"Why didn’t you tell me about your powers?" Peter asked gently, just curious.

"I didn’t want you to think I’m a freak," you said quietly. "Why didn’t you tell me?"

"Same reason, I guess. But also, I wanted to protect the people I care about."

"You care about me?"

"Yeah," Peter admitted, blushing.

You leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Maybe, the movie we were supposed to watch today… we can make it a date?" You asked shyly.

"That would be great," Peter smiled, his eyes lighting up.

‎∗ ࣪ ˖༺ 𓆩☆𓆪 ༻˖ ࣪ ∗

[connorswhisk]

Ima need me some more sexual tension with Miguel O’Hara 🙏🙏

ready and waiting for you sir🫡🫡🫡

struck blind - Miguel O’Hara x Transmasc!Spider-Man!Reader

You did not expect to finish out your day fighting a giant mechanized rhinoceros, but since becoming Spider-Man, you haven’t known what to expect anymore.

This version of the Rhino isn’t what you’re used to, though. He’s steam-powered, covered in little bronze gears and cogs. Instead of speaking, his roars come out in a garbled mix of bells, whistles, and clangs, making for a fairly creepy cacophony every time the mech opens its mouth. You’ve never seen anything like it, and you’re pretty sure this guy isn’t from around your part of town.

And he just had to attack during the beer festival, didn’t he? While everyone’s having too much fun to know what to do with themselves and no one’s reaction time is up to par. You suppose you should be grateful for the festival taking place on the outskirts of the city, but still…

“Come on, run!” you yell frantically as you usher civilians out of the fray. When Rhino tears a newspaper stand out of the ground and chucks it in your direction, you have to bat it away from a pair of open-mouthed pre-teens. You try to ask the kids if they’re all right, but they turn tail and race in the opposite direction. When you glance behind you, it’s to see the machine barreling at you full-speed. Usually, you would have picked that up, but you were so preoccupied with saving people that you hadn’t sensed anything.

It’s too late to move. You screw your eyes shut and brace for impact -

Something warm collides into your side, and suddenly, you’re swinging through the air. Your savior is - well, there’s no other way to put it - your savior is Spider-Man. Not you, of course, but his suit doesn’t look all that different from yours, and the strand of web he’s got clutched in his hand as he pulls you both to safety is unmistakable.

Other Spider-Man sets you down. He’s taller than you, more muscular. You pretend like you weren’t just nestled into his broad chest and step away from him, eying him warily. “Who are you? What the hell is going on?”

“I’m Miguel,” he says. “You’re Y/N. We don’t have time for this.”

“Don’t have - ? How do you know my name?! Hello?!?”

The back of your neck prickles.

Other Spider-Man curses under his breath. “Shit - Jess!” He grabs you again, this time more by the waist, webbing the pair of you away. A ginormous bronze horn smashes through the concrete wall you’d been standing against not moments before.

“You know I can web myself, right?!” He’s pulled you behind a big oak tree now, his large hands pressing you firmly against the bark. He ignores you completely and says, “I’ll explain everything in more detail later. For right now, Jess will distract the Rhino.”

Sure enough, the giant beast is currently preoccupied with a woman on a motorcycle, whirling around and roaring with frustration as she zips all around him.

There’s way too much going on at one time for you to keep up with it all. When you look forward again, it’s to see Other Spider-Man reaching up to pull off his mask, and oh, shit.

Other Spider-Man - Miguel - is hot. Like, to a ridiculous degree. His hair falls nearly to his shoulders, swept back behind his ears to frame a handsome face, long nose, strong jaw, dark eyes. And he looks at you so intensely while he speaks that you feel a pink flush blazing through your cheeks, heating your entire body.

Timelines, multiverse, canon events, your head is reeling. But deep down, somewhere in your core, it makes sense. You’re not the only Spider in existence. You are not alone.

“Ok. I understand.”

Miguel nods. “We’ll take you back to HQ once we’re finished here.”

You pull your own mask off for a gulp of fresh air, breath hitching slightly as you inhale. You can’t help but look at Miguel again - your eyes meet his accidentally and Miguel stiffens, his gaze roaming over the plains of your face. “What?” you ask breathlessly, but you think you might know what.

“…Nothing,” Miguel says, and then he pulls his mask back on. “Sit tight, Jess and I will handle this.”

He webs away. You duck into a crouch, heart racing. You’re not sure what just happened - or what’s going to happen next - but you’re so caught up in everything you haven’t even put your mask on again. There’s a lot of questions you have, but currently, the thing at the forefront of your mind is the image of those dark eyes meeting yours, and what you saw inside them.

[lvebug]

andie skids to a stop in front of the towering rhino, feeling like a mouse caught in a maze. he's tall, over a foot taller than andie at least, built like a brick house and she's not really sure what to do against him, never really has known. but harry warns her that it's not real and everything slows—she stretches her senses to the extent of their capabilities that betrays a wrongness in her senses where she can see aleksei sytsevich, but cannot hear him breath and no light glints off his armor. and isn't it strange that there's no alarms in her head?

at his beckoning again she ducks down and covers her ears, and then is enveloped fully in his arms anyways. in an instant everything changes, harry a heavy blanket of weight that anchors her and muffles the flash-light of his bomb, his warmth an instant cocoon and with her crouched too, he's effectively shielded her from everything but the gray of the concrete below her. it's been her job since she was seventeen to be the protector and that feeling of being exposed all the time is something she's grown used to. she doesn't know what to do when that feeling so completely dissipates for the duration. there's a part of her that rears up in protest that it's all wrong this way because what is she to do if she's not the one to throw her life on the line? but the green goblin's hands which have been used to harm now protect her with such certainty—like he was born for this—and she can't deny him.

her hands unfurl from around her head and she peeks around harry's form to the sight of what she had thought was rhino, but clearly isn't, considering how many pieces it's in.

"oh..." she says plainly, "that wasn't—" her head twists farther still so she can glance up at harry. "how'd you know?" she realizes a second too late—he's already told her. he could hear it. "who did this?" she tacks on instead.

There's the sound of a web being shot, one he's intimately familiar with by now, and one that no longer makes him tense as he once had. Especially once it lands on something, and for all that Harry's senses are still acting up, it confirms what he already knew: this is Mysterio, and these are all physical illusions.

Knowing that does not help him, not just yet, but it has him think, and plan, and consider how to deal with it. Because he doesn't know exactly where they are, and he does not have a sense for danger, but she's there and he trusts her and her powers... and she's already landed a web on their enemy once.

And if he lets out something that was almost laughter at it, well, Andie is the only witness, as he runs with her and after her, letting his senses take over the duty of keeping track of her even despite the way they hold hands.

And then the Rhino is there blocking their path, and once again Harry's senses do not agree between them, and so he squeezes Andie's hand. And with his other hand, he reaches for a bomb.

"That's not the Rhino." He tells her, in a whisper. "It's not alive. It's all machines, I can't hear any signs of life." And then, a bomb in his hand, and this one is not smoke, he speaks again. "Eyes away, cover your ears." He warns her.

And then the bomb is on the way, and he pulls Andie away to be between the explosion and her. Mainly because his suit is designed to withstand those... and because he wants to see if his theory is right, and the machines he can hear the low whirring of can't immediately recover from so many suddenly missing links.

[thealmightyemprex]

Fantasy Month :Alice in Wonderland

FOr the first film in fantasy month I shall look at Irwin Allens TV miniseries adaptation of Lewis Carrolls classic Alice stories

In this 1985 film Alice (Natalie Gregory) becomes lost in the realm of wonderland ,meeting odd characters she is eager to return home and prove herself not just a child ....And must also face her fears in the form of the Jabberwocky (Tom McLoughlin )

So this is one of many many many many adaptations of Alice in Wonderland.I have been aware of this version for a long time :Saw the VHS at blockbuster back when I was akid ,considered purchasing the DVD once and of course I know its a favorite for many Wonderland fans .Now with films like this ,that I didnt see as a kid ,I sometimes I deel a bit melancholly that it has taken me long to see it....I dont feel that this time.Now I did very much enjoy this ,this was a very fun time for me.....But I dont think it would of resonated with kid me,and being more mature ,familiar with the Alice story ,familiar with the entertainers within this and able to apppreciate certain moments ,I like it and feel no regret .That is to say,I also have problems,but I mostly really liked this

So what is this ?Where does this fall in the pantheon of Alice films .Well 4 things make it stand out

1.It adapts both Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass ,first half is WOnderland ,second half Looking Glass . Most versions either just do Wonderland or mix in both stories together .As an adaptation I can only speak for the first half ,for I have only read Wonderland ....And its not adapted great ,some things they go too true to text despite their being obvious changes and certain scenes due to these changes become pointless(THe Caterpiller scenes purpose had been deleted so I dont know why it wasnt cut ).However the story does capture the madness I associate with Alice

2.The film adds a thread.Now the Alice stories are nonsense tales .just random encounters with weird characters ,not really a plot to speak of .THis movie add one about Alice growing up and her desire to go home ,first half really tackeling the growing up thing and the second is her facing her fears .I do like the idea of this arc for Alice ,even if I dont feelWonderland is the best story for this . The film also adds a villain in the form of the Jabberwocky from Lewis Carrols poem,who is the personification of Alices fears.I actually like this change ,I'm a big fan of the monster from the mind idea ,in fact the use of the Jabberwocky here reminds me of the Rhino from James and the Giant Peach (A childhood favorite of mine ) and I think the Jabberwocky is legit scary for kids ,the scene where he is introduced was legit spooky. What holds him back is he just represents fear and nothing concrete

3.THE ALL STAR CAST .Yeah its not the only version to get big actors but holy cow so many big stars are in this ,I cant comment on every single one .I'll start with the negative,cause while most of the cast is good some feel like they are collecting a paycheck : I dont know why Shelley Winters and Donald O'Connor and Shelley Winters are even there as the Lowrey Bird and Dodo ,they feel wasted. I was mixed on Sid Cesaras the Gryphon while always good honestly just feels like Sid Cesar in a Gryphon outfit .My least favorite was Sammy Davis Jr as the Caterpillar,dont get me wrong ,Davis Jr was a great performer ,but he is reallly stiff and miscast here .There are also cast members who I think are good ,but not my favorite versions of these characters like Red Buttons as the White Rabbit and Anthony Newley as Mad Hatter .Then you have some that I think are great even perfect like :

Telly Savalas who is wonderfully mysterious as the Cheshire Cat

Roddy McDowall as the March Hare,who steals the Mad Tea party scene

Jayne Meadows anbd Robert Morely are pitch perfect as the Queen and King of hearts

Ringo Starr is a ton of fun as the Mock Turtle

FRom what I understand Carol Channings performance as the White Queen has people kind of split but I adored her ,she is so fun to watch

Harvey Korman as the White King is fun cause.....Look I just like Harvey Korman

Merv Griffin,PAtrick Duffy,Steve Allen (Who also wrote the songs ) and Pat Morita are BRILLAINT as the conductor and passengers on the train,which maybe my favorite non musical scene

Karl Malden REALLY impressed me as the Walrus ,especially his singing ability

Eydie Gorme and Steve Lawrence were a unique take on Tweedledee and Tweedledum

And Lloyd Bridges is so darn lovable as theWhite Knight,and was happy he got to play a role in the finale ,fighting the Jabberwocky

I didnt even mention Sherman Hemsley ,Johnathan Winters,Beau Bridges and Ernest Borgnine!!!!

4.The songs ! This is a musical with songs by Steve Allen .....And for the most part the songs work.Yes some are filler and not alll of them work,but there were more that did work then didnt .I think the songs in the first half are more memorable.The two songs that stood out to me are the Walrus and the Carpenters song (Who knew Karl Malden had a musical flare to him)and really my favorite scene is Cheshire Cats song Theres No Way Home ,which mysterious and kind of sad but beautifully sung by Telly Savalas. Its the scene that stuck with me

Outside these main elements there are a few other things I wanna discuss.The prooduction design and costumes are very theatrical,this feels like a play,they are intenionally not realistic .The costumes remind me a lot of Fairy Tale Theater ,though the makeup is more stage makeup ,less cinematic here.I think I like the costumes,I've seen better but .....I've seen the 1933 version which this is much better then.I will say despite this being very light version.....There is a somewhat unsettling quality to it which I feel has to be part of Wonderland.WE have the obvious scary part ,the Jabberwocky,who is a big dragon monster ,but theres just the way characters react to Alice :The Cheshire Cat is very sinister ,the Mad Tea Party feel truly mad ,and some character are just very rude and mean .Theres also just odd creepy moments......CAroll Chyanning turns into a sheep out of nowhere and the Pig baby scene just has me very uncomfortable

This film does have a great grounding element:Natalie Gregory as possibly the best Alice I have seen. Alice here is very relatable ,when your a kid you wanna be taken seriously ,so I really connet to her.When she is scared your scared ,when she is happy you are ,and she almost outshines her older co stars .She is the ancor that makes the film work

Sooooo this review went on for a while.I just had a lot to say about the film.I think it is flawed but it is very enjoyable

@ariel-seagull-wings @amalthea9 @princesssarisa @filmcityworld1 @the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland @metropolitan-mutant-of-ark @angelixgutz

[hale-13]

Strangulated

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 26 Prompt - Asphyxiation

“That’s pretty new,” Peter muttered aloud, perched on the side of a building in Midtown and staring intently at the man in a full on metal rhino costume destroying the front of a Well’s Fargo. The police that had responded to the call had drawn their weapons and were perched behind their cars, clearly just as baffled and making no attempts to stop or prevent the crime.

Words: 1754, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Rhino

TW: Strangulation

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

“That’s pretty new,” Peter muttered aloud, perched on the side of a building in Midtown and staring intently at the man in a full on metal rhino costume destroying the front of a Well’s Fargo. The police that had responded to the call had drawn their weapons and were perched behind their cars, clearly just as baffled and making no attempts to stop or prevent the crime.

“It is new Peter,” Karen’s voice chirped happily from his mask. “You have not faced this criminal before. Would you like me to activate instant kill?” She sounded far too hopeful for Peter’s liking and he sighed, dodging the small chunk of concrete that flew his way.

“Karen, darling, love of my life. We’ve talked about this,” he told her gently, swinging closer and dropping down behind the line of cop cars. “Instant kill is not the answer to all lives problems.”

“If you say so,” and she sounded so disappointed. Peter would have to have a conversation with Mr. Stark – he had no idea how he made his AI’s so lifelike but he really wanted to know.

“Ugh,” one of the cops said, rolling his eyes as he noticed Peter. “Scram Spider-Guy, this ain’t any of your business.”

Peter fought an eye roll of his own. “Real nice pal,” he said sarcastically, stepping forward anyway. The guys partner nudged him pointedly in the side.

“Just send in the freak. Might save us the effort.” Peter fought the urge to cringe at the sneer directed at him. He had a pretty thick skin but he wasn’t the biggest fan of being called a ‘freak’. Especially by the people he was trying to help.

“Happy to be of service,” Peter grunted with a two finger salute. “Just stay back and let the professional work.” He fired a web and took off in the direction of the rhino guy before either of the police had the chance to respond. He purposely used their car as a jumping off point just to really rub it in and smirked a little at their grunts of irritation. “Hey big guy!” He called as he landed in the pock-marked and cracked street. Rhino-guy turned around and charged with a roar. “Whoa there!” Peter called as he jumped over his head. “You haven’t even introduced yourself yet!”

“I will squash you like bug!” The man said in a thick Russian accent, scraping one of his feet against the ground like a bull and charging Peter head first again. Peter nimbly dodged again and dangled with one hand from a nearby streetlight.

“You know spiders are arachnids right? Not bugs?” Peter bantered, swinging around the pole and releasing at just the right moment to launch himself across the street the nail Rhino in the face, sending him stumbling back before he corrected himself with a roar. Peter somersaulted out of the way of another charge.

“Stay still so I can kill you,” he roared.

“Tempting,” Peter mused, webbing Rhino’s arms to his sides. “But I’ll pass.”

Rhino roared again in obvious frustration and ripped through Peter’s webs with great effort. “That’s not ideal,” Peter said as he fired more webs in an attempt to slow down Rhino to no avail. Freed once more, Rhino changed forward. This time, however, Peter took a step back into one of the holes in the asphalt and tripped; he was able to right himself quickly but not fast enough to dodge out of the way of Rhino’s hands.

“Oof,” Peter gasped, hands flying up to his throat where Rhino had wrapped his mechanized hands around Peter’s throat, holding him a couple feet above the ground and leaving Peter to flail his legs in an attempt to escape. “Not cool bro,” Peter breathed out with his limited air supply as the Rhino squeezed tighter and backed him up to slam Peter into a nearby brick wall.

“You talk too much,” Rhino grumbled, redoubling his hold on Peter and making him grunt with effort and scrambled to pull the hands from around his throat.

“Peter your pulse ox is dropping rapidly,” Karen said, displaying the number on his HUD and Peter squeezed his eyes shut as it ticked from ninety-three percent to ninety-two. “Calling Mr. Stark.”

“No don’t,” Peter wheezed out a little desperately, his throat feeling raw and swollen and his lungs beginning to burn.

“On my way kid,” Tony’s voice said through his comm as Karen connected his mentor to Peter’s HUD. “Any chance you can break out before you pass out.” Peter just let out a frustrated puff of air and, with intense effort, lifted his legs to press his feet against Rhino’s chest to begin pushing. His vision was tunneling and pulsing around the edges and Peter knew it was only his stubborn pig-headedness and sheer force of will that was keeping him conscious at this point. The pulse ox reading in the corner ticked down to eighty-seven and, with Herculean strength, Peter finally knocked the Rhino away from him and collapsed to the ground.

“‘M good,” Peter croaked tightly, letting his head rest back against the road as he recovered his breath. He didn’t have long through as his Spidey sense tingled violently and he threw himself to the side of the road to dodge out of Rhino’s path. His vision was still a little spotty and he stumbled like he was drunk but Peter was able to pull himself back to his feet and stand without assistance. “Not cool dude,” he said, his throat burning and his words coming out like he had been gargling gravel.

He needed to end this quick. He couldn’t afford to get caught again. With effort, Peter jumped back into the air, firing webs at rapid speed as he did so – attaching Rhino to the ground in a veritable cocoon. Rhino screamed in anger and struggled but Peter’s webs held this time much to his relief. “He’s all yours boys,” he said in the direction of the police, his voice thready and painful and he swallowed down a cough.

It took all the energy he had left to swing away, alighting on a nearby apartment roof and dropping first to his knees and then back to sit cross-legged. His neck hurt and he could feel the swelling starting to constrict his trachea and vocal chords. Tony landed in front of him a few seconds later, stepping out of his suit and squatting down in front of Peter with several cracks and pops of his knees.

“Try not to talk buddy,” Tony told him, lifting his mask up to his nose and pulling the neck down carefully, wincing at whatever he saw and making Peter hunch his shoulders and pull away, fixing his mask back to its usual position. “Helen’s waiting for us back in the MedBay. I’m going to carry you and your not going to bitch about it capiche?” Peter rolled his eyes knowing it would translate to the large white lenses on his mask but didn’t protest when Tony stepped back into the Iron Man armor and picked him up.

The flight back to the Tower was quick since Peter had ventured into Manhattan to patrol today and they were soon landing on the small balcony outside the MedBay doors. Peter still felt a little light-headed and dizzy and swayed a little in place when Tony lowered him back to the ground to stand on his own while the suited disassembled around him and flew off to the armory. “Steady there,” the man said gently, slinging Peter’s arm across his shoulders and helping him walk into the building.

“Hey Peter,” Helen Cho said as she approached them from the nurses station down the hall and ushered them into an open exam room. “Karen sent me your stats so let’s just see the damage yeah?” She said as Peter settled on the exam bed.

Peter smacked his hand into the spider emblem on his chest, letting the suit fall down to rest around his hips, pulling his mask off and tossing it next to him on the bed. Dr. Cho wrinkled her nose and softly palpated Peter’s neck making him grunt and grimace, manfully resisting the urge to pull away from her. “Well you’ve already got some pretty severe swelling,” she said, clipping a pulse oximeter onto his finger and frowning at the result. “And you’re still not oxygenating as well as I’d like.”

“So what’s the plan then,” Tony said, slapping a hand over Peter’s mouth when he opened it to speak and ignoring the glare Peter sent him and the spiteful lick Peter gave his hand in the hopes that Tony would remove his hand.

“Well I’m going to start supplemental oxygen first,” Dr. Cho said, unwinding an oxygen mask from the wall and pushing Peter back until he was reclined on the bed and slipped the mask over his mouth and nose. “I’ll have a nurse come in with something for you to change into and then I want to start IV steroids and pain relief to get the swelling down. With you’re healing,” she said addressing Peter, “you should only be here overnight. I just want to make sure that your airway doesn’t swell closed. You’ll also need to rest your voice since you probably have some damage to your vocal chords.”

Disappointed, Peter nodded. This was not in his plan for the day and he was really looking forward to playing Beast Slayers with Ned tonight but, if he was confined to a MedBay bed and doped up on his pain meds he doubted he would be worth much of anything. Well at least he’d probably catch up on some of his sleep.

A few hours later, floating due to his super strength meds and curled up under a pre-warmed blanket, Peter squeaked out a hoarse ‘thanks’ making Tony, sat beside him and tapping away at a tablet with his feet propped up on the end of Peter’s bed, fix him with a glare. “Aren’t you supposed to be resting your voice?” Peter just gave him a dopey smile and burrowed deeper into the blanket, adjusting the melting ice pack that was wrapped around his still tender throat.

He’d have to do some research of mechanized rhinos in the morning. He had already come up with some fun tweaks for his web fluid that might be beneficial going forward. With chemical equations dancing around in his brain, Peter fell into an deep, easy sleep.

[vegalocity]

Hugs 16, Kisses 27 and 38 for Jasminetea, please because I need more content of this ship

Affection meme

16. ‘not wanting to let go’ hugs

27. desperate kisses

38. relieved kisses

I'd love to contribute to the jasminetea revolution Tigerseye~

--

Today was supposed to be a frightening day, yes, but not like this.

Pigsy had mocked him for his pining over Sandy for too long. And he couldn’t shut him up by mocking him over his thing for Monkey King anymore because unlike him Pigsy actually had the nerve to go for what he wanted. So once he was tired of Tang firing back about his own pining and suffering he just… went out and did it.

And Sun Wukong thought the initiative was endearing and then Tang didn’t even have a leg to stand on anymore because suddenly Pigsy wasn’t even a companion in Pining Hell anymore.

And he was getting tired of all the ‘That is NOT a good excuse! You’re a freeloader but you’re not a COWARD Tang!’ too, so he figured it was maybe time he should just grow a spine and do it too.

Today he was supposed to march over to Sandy’s boat and just.. Finally come clean. Tell him how long he’d been pining after him, whether it ended well for him or not, the emotions had all been bottled up for so long sometimes they felt like they were about to burst at the most inconvenient times.

And then Sandy would have to turn him down because Tang was man enough to acknowledge when he doesn’t really have a chance with somebody, but he’d let him down gently because Sandy was too damn good like that, and assure him a hundred times over that this didn’t have to make things weird at all and they definitely can still be friends, and that he’s super flattered and anybody would be lucky to have Tang, just… not him. And Tang would take it as well as he could and find at least some catharsis at the end of the day over it.

This was not supposed to be a day where everything went to shit so quickly. This was not supposed to be a day where some… Demon he didn’t even care enough to remember the damn name of (but he KNEW he was a Problem during the Journey to the West at SOME point) decided to raise some havoc and go absolutely batshit over the city.

Xiaotian, Xiaojiao, and surprisingly Red Son, took care of it because of course they did… But…

Sandy took a really rough hit for Xiaojiao, and… look… they were in what was essentially the superhero business in this day and age, Life risking battles were par for the course. And tanking rough hits was something Sandy would openly say he was fine with, that he was perfectly content to be the wall of muscle between his friends and danger.

That didn’t make it okay. It didn’t mean that Tang wouldn’t be absolutely devastated if something happened to him while he was protecting someone else.

That didn’t mean it wouldn’t destroy him if Sandy died without Tang ever telling him the truth because it just happened to be planned on Today of all days.

They were in what was essentially the superhero business.

They couldn’t afford to leave things unsaid anymore.

So when the battle was done, the demon (he did NOT care enough to remember which one he was- It was the Rhino King, fucking dammit) sent running, and everyone was pulling eachother from the rubble, Tang placed himself as the one to fuss over Sandy, since Pigsy was already fussing over Xiaotian and Xiaojiao whom both already had minimal injuries (and Red Son, but he kept shouting about how his assistance had been extremely conditional today and he wasn’t interested in being babied)

Though that knowing grin Pigsy shot him before doing so was certainly doing something to remind him about every single embarrassing story he had on the pig since college to threaten to indulge Sun Wukong in as what little blackmail he had left.

Sandy was a fair bit more roughed up, granted he’d been thrown through multiple buildings and every crash against the concrete that had made Tang’s gut lurch in fear and dread.

“You’ve got to take better care of yourself in these fights.” He found himself huffing quietly as he applied antiseptic to the huge gashes that had torn their way onto Sandy’s back.

He didn’t even flinch, and just laughed at the idea.

“I’ll be fine, Tang. Nothing small like this would be enough to take me down!” He forced the sterile cloth a little harder onto a certain wound right along Sandy’s spine to get the gravel out and felt the fish demon go rigid beneath his hands.

“Haha! Besides-” His voice was strained. “Rather it be me than the kids.” And the worst part was that he couldn’t even debate that! He was certain all of them would rather throw themselves into the jaws of agony than let any of the kids fall in themselves. (and by the surprisingly quick way Red submitted to Pigsy’s fretting they’d probably have another name on that list before too long)

But-

“That doesn’t make it less terrifying to have to see.” He leaned forward just a bit, feeling his forehead brush the space between Sandy’s shoulderblades, one of the few parts of his back that weren’t raw or freshly bandaged.

He felt Sandy take in a breath beneath him. “I’m sorry Tang… Musta’ looked pretty bad from the sidelines, huh?” The sidelines.

“You have no idea.”

He was always on the sidelines, huh? Long before all of this fighting and magic started coming around.

He’d only become friends with Pigsy in the first place because the history buildings and the kitchens were close to each other so they’d pass through the same pathways on their respective ways to class back in college, and he was obnoxious and curious and Pigsy was the only one from the Culinary Arts major who’d indulged him. He’d only even met Sandy at all because of their history.

He’d just always been extremely lucky to annoy the right people. Because he never took any real chances. He’d talk a lot of game back then, and even sometimes now, but he was always the real wallflower of the group.

Did he really have it in him?

It wasn't really a good hug but he didn't have to pull away, he didn't necessarily want to anyway. If he just left it there Sandy didn't have to know. He could just continue on and it never would raise any red flags.

He could.

Tang shuffled around, and though Sandy remained seated he twisted his body to face him and smiled that big, sweet, beautiful smile.

“I’ll try to be a little more careful, There is a difference between being a body shield and playing defense, I gotta remember that.”

Fuck it.

Leap of faith time.

…

He… He was supposed to say something. He was supposed to just say how he felt. But the impulse to DO something instead of just say something had for a moment driven him temporarily insane, so instead of just telling Sandy how he felt, like a normal person would have done, Tang decided to pick the stupid version of that and grab Sandy by his necklace and pull him in.

But dammit- he was TIRED of this!

And-.... it felt good. It felt really fucking good to finally kiss him. Sandy let out a muffled yelp of surprise but quieted quickly.

-But he didn’t kiss back.

Tang pulled away and willed himself not to be too upset, he knew this was coming after all.

Didn’t make it hurt any less to have the confirmation though.

Too late now. Might as well make the whole thing explicit.

“I’ve been in love with you for too damn long to watch you throw your life away like that.”

He braced himself for the vague noise of distress when it sunk in for Sandy what that meant. Braced himself for the ‘Oh… Tang I’m uh… I’m really sorry and I’m super flattered-’

And then a large, gentle hand hooked under his chin to keep him in place and-

Oh…

Well… that was a balm on his nerves. Tang responded to the second kiss as much as he could, which was admittedly a bit difficult for how chaste it actually was, but placing his hands on Sandy’s arm and leaned in, and- was this real? Was this really happening? Was he about to wake up at home halfway tangled up in bedsheets and cursing another day of being a coward?

He didn’t want it to end, but when Sandy pulled away and smiled down at him that big beautiful bashful smile, cheeks turning purple with a truly precious blush he couldn’t complain.

And then the sounds of cheering from the others broke up the moment.

“Fucking FINALLY”

--

Send me stuff

[kabira]

03 | a little nighttime swinging

pairing — spider-man!vernon x ofc

featuring — joshua, yeji (itzy), felix (skz), yangyang (nct)

word count — 2.8k

genres — spider-man au, marvel au, fluff, action, angst, humor

warnings — violence

note — you know the drill—send me an ask or dm to be added to the taglist! first appearance of the amazing aunt may, so cheers to that. don’t really have much to add except for the fact that i woke up dead tired before morning classes to finish this...but it was fun so i guess it was worth it.

go to fic masterlist | main masterlist

Vernon almost jumped out of his seat when his phone buzzed.

And while he managed to keep his butt firmly planted, he did accidentally swipe half the stuff off his table, phone included. Granted, he should have been paying more attention—usually, he’d be alert and ready for the pestering texts about the day’s homework, but today he had been too tired to keep his eyes open for long.

He wiped the drool gathered at one corner of his mouth and swiped his phone up off the ground, his fingers going on autopilot as they entered the passcode and clicked open the messenger app.

LUCE:

page 25

wtf is a fitting reaction

nvm it’s fittig

VERNON:

reminds of the time you found a milf in the history textbook

LUCE:

the past is in the past

let it gooo

anyway send me the answers to q 11 through 13 and i’ll buy u whatever u want from larry’s on friday

Vernon snorted a laugh, then clicked off without answering. Bold of her to assume I don’t already have someone else to pay for my order. Somehow, though, the text from her had been almost relieving. After all the new changes, he had almost expected her not to text him. It was stupid, he knew, but he couldn’t help being a little apprehensive about the new superhero stuff taking over his regular routine.

He glanced back at the ground, where an old notebook with plans for web shooter mods lay open on the ground, loose pages spilling out. It was already dark out, but the streetlights hadn’t been switched on yet—a good time to sneak out in his suit without being seen; he didn’t want Mrs. Jones next door wondering why Spider-Man was swinging out of Vernon Parker’s bedroom window when she went out for her evening walk.

He exhaled through his teeth, blinking hard to push back any remaining sleepiness. Most of his homework remained yet to be done, but in his defense, he’d had a lot on his mind, not to mention his running on less sleep and more leftover Rhino-induced adrenaline.

He was tired. His was the kind of exhaustion that seeped into his bones and trickled into the empty corners of his mind, making him want move instead of lie down and rest for a while. It was the kind of tiredness you could only wash away by doing, and as long as he was Spider-Man, there was always something to do.

He clicked off the reading light, dousing the room in darkness. His senses were awake, as if straining for the stimulus of the city, and he needed a good nighttime swing to clear his mind anyway. I deserve a break.

Changing into the costume took all of forty-five seconds, picking up the fallen books three seconds. After sticking a pillow under the bedcovers, Vernon perched on the window pane, looking out into the chilly backyard below. Somehow, changing into his suit and swinging out from his actual neighborhood seemed even more thrilling than swinging in.

Maybe if I go out this way, those three won’t be able to follow.

“Vernon, are you in there?”

His heart almost leaped out of his throat at the voice. Vernon turned, eyes wide, eyes zooming in on the shadow lurking at the bottom of his bedroom door, where a little light seeped in from outside. The lock clicked as Aunt May’s hand pressed down on the handle, and the door opened a crack.

“Don’t come in, I’m naked!” he yelled in a fit of panic, backflipping from the window onto the mattress, making the bedsprings squeak tellingly under his weight. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He was so sleep-deprived he’d forgotten about locking the door.

Rule number one of hiding your secret identity from your all-seeing aunt: never leave the bedroom door open.

“Oh,” his aunt’s voice came from outside. The light spilling in from the crack in the door receded as she pulled the door shut again. “I just wanted to ask, dear, aren’t you going to eat anything? You haven’t had a bite since you came back from school.”

Crap, that’s true, he thought, the muscles of his stomach tightening at the thought. I’ll swing by the candy store downtown. “Uh, I don’t think I will,” he said. “I’m not hungry, er—think I might be coming down with something.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” May’s worried voice sounded, the door beginning to open again. “I could have whipped you up a—”

“No!” he yelled, instinctively pulling the covers up to his chest. “Naked, remember?”

The door closed again. “Well, put something on,” she replied. “And I’ll make you some soup.”

“You do that,” he muttered loudly, already feeling guilt pool in the pit of his stomach at making her so something for him. But what else was he supposed to do? “Actually, no, don’t bother. I can feel a headache coming on already. I’ll turn in for the night and have a big breakfast tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to anything?”

“Yeah,” he said. “And don’t come in! Because—you know—germs and stuff. Really nasty bug going around in school, one of the kids in my class had it. Don’t wanna infect you too.”

He heard her sigh, but it was an accepting sigh, albeit a little reluctant. “All right,” she said, and the shadow under the door pulled back a little. “Good night, Vernon.”

“Night, Aunt May,” he said, watching the slit of light under the door until the shadow receded completely. As soon as he was in the clear, he breathed a sigh of relief, slipping off the covers.

Those S.H.I.E.L.D. guys had it easy.

Although he couldn’t feel the night air on his bare skin, swinging through the city at night always left him feeling refreshed. It was a little ironic, sure, physical exertion energizing him, but Vernon suspected it was more of a psychological thing. Being out here in the open reminded him of who he actually was supposed to be—not just Vernon Parker, the tired highschooler with leftover chemistry homework, but crime-fighting, wall-crawling, not-homework-doing Spider-Man.

He landed on the roof of a high building, hitting the concrete with a satisfying plunk. Everything seemed more alive at night. Even from up here, he could hear the sounds of humanity on the street below, loud voices running into each other over the noise of traffic. The Daily Bugle billboard on the high building opposite him was lit up—Jameson probably dragging him like always—but Vernon tuned it out. The last thing he needed right now was more negativity.

He was about to leap off the side again when his ears picked up a soft sound behind him. Bad guys, he thought reflexively, before realizing there was a much better explanation.

His jaw clenched, shoulders tightening before he forced them to relax. “You can come out now,” he called without turning, upset rippling through his body despite him desperately trying not to show it. “There’s no point in hiding if you can’t even do it properly.”

Their hesitation was almost audible, but then she stepped out from behind the small roof door. Tiger’s white suit was stark against the dark sky, her mask’s cat ears perked like Daredevil’s horns. He had to admit it was pretty impressive that she’d managed to stay unnoticed that long.

Nova floated up from the side of the building next, carrying a disgruntled-looking Felix. Seeing the latter out of his X-Men costume felt strange, like seeing Fury without his eyepatch. There was definitely something up with him, but Vernon didn’t want to pry, so he stored the suspicion away for later perusal.

“You can sense non-threatening presences with your spider sense?” Nova asked, looking both annoyed and awed. “Your file didn’t say that.”

Vernon was tempted to lie just to spite him, but stopped himself. If these guys were going to be his teammates, lying about his abilities probably wasn’t the best way to go. “No, you’re just bad at stealth,” he replied, deadpan. “How did you even find me? No, wait, let me guess—camera outside my house?”

“Tracker on your suit, actually,” Tiger said. Despite the mask covering her face, he could sense her guilt, which didn’t help his case. “We can’t learn to work together if you keep running away from us.”

“Running? I wasn’t running,” he said defensively. “And if you want us to work together, the best place to start is to tell me your name.”

“You already know my name.”

“Your other name.”

“Ah.” Her head tilted up. The high ponytail coming out the back of her head flicked to the side as nodded. “White Tiger.”

“A bit simplistic, but to the point.” He nodded in mock-approval. “Makes me think I should’ve just named myself Radioactive Spider.”

She didn’t take the bait, which was probably for the better. “So, what?” Nova asked, and Vernon was suddenly reminded of how infuriating his voice was. “Are you just going to stand around all night?”

“Swing around, actually,” he said. “It’s a big place. Sooner or later, I’m bound to find a crime happening. Sometimes it even happens to me.”

As if on cue, sirens sounded in the distance, loud and piercing. He shrugged at the three, before turning around and balancing himself on the edge. “If you want to get some real-world experience, there’s nothing better than stopping a petty robbery,” he said. “I hope you can keep up—because I’m not going to slow down.”

And he dived.

There was that feeling again, the air pressure against his body as he fell headfirst like a comet towards the busy street. A couple of people looked up as he pulled up at the last moment, shooting webs at an overhead lamppost and swinging in a circle around it before letting go, launching his body into the air again.

He looked over the rooftops as he swung, half-curious about how the others were going to follow. A small, white-clad figure leaped from building to building with surprising grace and strength, able to match him in speed. Nova flew alongside him, carrying Iceman again, who still wasn’t using his powers. Vernon knew it wasn’t a case of loss of powers either, because then he wouldn’t be here, and plus, he’d seen the guy in action this morning. Was he trying to remain inconspicuous?

The less people know Iceman’s in town, the better, he thought, though he knew it was a futile effort. The Rhino fight in the morning hadn’t had any live coverage, but he knew for all its lectures, S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t going to bother with hiding its tracks either. School next day was probably going to be buzzing with talk about the new superheroes.

He gritted his teeth. All this in a day. He could imagine how bad everything was going to get in the coming days.

Mid-swing, he saw the crime happening up ahead, a group of masked men trying to break into a store through the back door in a poorly-lit area. Vernon balanced on a high lamppost without alerting them, taking a moment to assess the situation. There were about eight men in balaclavas—a lot for a simple robbery. Maybe they were first-timers. Easy enough to take down.

“A record store?” he wondered aloud, and one of the guys whirled around, looking up at him with wide eyes. “What are you guys doing stealing from record stores?”

“Spider-Man!” one of them yelled, though he didn’t really see the point, since anyone who hadn’t noticed him yet probably deserved whatever was coming.

The man who had noticed him first fumbled for something along his hip before pulling out a gun and pointing it at him. “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot!”

“Oh, no, don’t shoot!” he called out, and the man’s taut shoulders relaxed somewhat before Vernon shot a web straight at the gun, jerking it right out of his hand. “Can’t believe you fell for that.”

He jumped, landing on the ground in a crouch. The leader of the little group, the one who had been trying to bust open the door with a crowbar, stepped forward, swinging said crowbar in what Vernon guessed was supposed to be a menacing way. “Step aside,” he said to his men, his eyes narrowed on Vernon. “I’ll take care of the Spider.”

Vernon was so amused he let the guy attempt to swing at him, dodging the crowbar at the last moment. “Okay, not gonna lie,” he said. “When you called me the Spider, it made me feel kind of sexy.”

He kicked the robber in the side, sending him flying into a trashcan. The rest of the group hesitated only a moment before closing in again. Vernon webbed the lid of the trashcan, swinging it around like a shot-put player and knocking back some of them, before he let go, sending it crashing into one.

Nova dropped Felix in the midst of the group, and his skin slowly solidified into ice. “Okay, playtime’s over now,” he said. “If you just give up, I won’t have to bash your heads in.”

“Where did you come from?” one of the men asked, clearly surprised, right before Iceman froze him into a life-sized ice sculpture.

Vernon knocked out another man with a good old punch to the face. His spider sense buzzed. The crowbar guy, he thought as he whirled around, hands spread in shooting position, but White Tiger was already there, slicing through his crowbar with her claws. “Thanks,” he murmured, as she put him out of commission with a well-placed roundhouse.

She inclined her head. “Don’t get distracted.”

He turned, seeing Nova’s fists start to glow as he aimed at the guy who was attempting to sneak away. Vernon’s eyes landed behind him, where an unsuspecting civilian car was coming down the street. “No!” he yelled, webbing a surprised Nova to the wall.

“Hey, man, what the heck?!” Nova yelled back, struggling against the webs. Vernon shot web fluid at the guy who had been trying to escape, wrapping him up like a cocoon. There was the muffled sound of something heavy falling as Tiger drop-kicked the last one, cleanly finishing what he admitted would otherwise have taken longer. She leaped across the street, slicing through the webs covering Nova, who dropped to the sidewalk.

“What the hell was that for?” he asked, stalking up to Vernon with his fists clenched. “I had that guy!”

“No, you almost sent him crashing into that car,” Vernon said, gesturing at the vehicle behind him that now passed unharmed. “When in a fight, civilians are always first priority. They can’t defend themselves like us.”

Nova scowled, but turned on his heel and marched away, muttering something about him stealing the glory. Vernon watched him go with a frown, then turned around.

One of the robbers lay webbed-up, two quite literally frozen in place, five knocked out. The fight had taken a total of about two minutes—not a record, but considering the number they were going against, surprisingly efficient. He wasn’t even sure if this classified as a fight or simply a one-sided beatdown.

Overkill, he thought, then sighed. “You people have a lot to learn.”

“Oh, come on,” Iceman said. He seemed energized after the fight as his skin melted back to normal, a lively glint in his eye where there hadn’t been one a few minutes ago. “That was so much fun.”

“Yeah, but you have to learn to care about collateral damage,” he snapped, trying and failing to hide his annoyance. Now that he wasn’t swinging alone, crime-fighting wasn’t half as fun, even if it was twice as fast. Having someone watch his back was safe, sure, but it could lead to him letting his guard down. And what if he ended up somewhere alone? “You’re fast, but we’re not fighting in a vacuum. We’re not fighting a war, we’re protecting people. That’s supposed to be the most important thing—making sure no one gets hurt.”

“Even these guys?” Nova asked, toeing one of the unconscious robbers.

“Yeah, even these guys,” Vernon said. “Well, they can be hurt a little bit, but that’s only because there’s no other way to stop them. Next time, make sure you’re not letting any innocent people get in the way of your fun.”

The group fell silent. He almost felt bad about killing their enthusiasm, but Nova’s recklessness had managed to give him a scare. One more second and he might have had a death on his conscience.

The sirens were closer now. He’d completely forgotten about the cops; web-slinging was a much faster method of travel than cars, and he almost always left them behind. “Come on,” he told the others, casting one last glance around the scene. Something felt off, but he guessed it was just the novelty of working in a team. Fun day. “The police will find them. Let’s go.”

[gofancyninjaworld]

How many of the webcomic to manga changes wold you say that are dedicated to making Psikos a bigger villian?

Oh so many! :D  Strap in, this is LONG!  There’s a 20 word summary at the end.

Webcomic to Manga: Villain Upgrade

I’ve been thinking that one of the big unspoken reasons most fictional villain plots fail is that if they don’t, the villain is left looking rather sheepish as they try to come to terms with what they’ve ‘won’ and the sparseness of their plans become clear.  In the webcomic, Psykos’s ‘Get Rid of Humanity’ plan was definitely of that nature.  It went:

Gather together strong monsters.

Have them attack heroes.

???

Humanity will collapse.

And then unluckily for them, the heroes happened to chance on their base before they had any concrete plans, but luckily, they had an accidental hostage so the hastily-gathered team of heroes went in one at a time…  If they had been able to get rid of the S-Class heroes who’d come, they’d be little better off.  A few dead heroes and?  What?  There’s more heroes.  The Hero Association is still there.  There are lots of human beings, many of whom could step up and become heroes themselves.  There’s still a well-organised civilization. 

evil intentions are all very well, but without a means to execute them, they’re not going far  (webcomic chapter 77).

NB: A lot of manga chapters got renumbered after chapter 84 was split. Where I know them, I’m writing them as (## online/ ## in-print).

Manga: An Actual Plan

A: A good base of operations

In the webcomic, why the Monster Association was where it was was never explained.  It was hand-waved as an underground industrial complex, that’s all. 

The manga starts by making it the previous habitation of the Subterraneans.  It’s incredibly huge, because it used to be a city housing thousands of inhabitants.  Murata and his assistants have been doing yeoman’s work fleshing out the place with excellent and varied architecture, murals, power, running water, and fittings all of which add believability to the idea.  We even get to find out what happened to the inhabitants in two particularly grisly chapters (chapters 99 - 100/102-3).

But being a well-built, well-hidden habitation isn’t the only reason for the monsters being where they are.  The Subterranean city might be well hidden but it was also very well-connected.  Some of those connections were thanks to Elder Centipede digging tunnels between places (chapter 85/86), but monsters could come and go between their base and every major city.   Finally, the Subterraneans were well-off and sophisticated because they’d built their city on a literal gold mine that was still being worked (chapter 126/?). 

ah, Mr. Unnamed Executive No. 12, you have no idea how important your question is (chapter 79).

B: Communications and Intelligence

Webcomic: which heroes ran into which monsters was purely a matter of chance.  The heroes just got really unlucky.

Manga: from the Day of Mayhem itself, the monsters that various heroes had to contend with seemed awfully… inconvenient.  We didn’t get confirmation until chapter (89/90), but Psykos had made sure to find the best-placed monsters for heroes, particularly the more troublesome A- and S-Class heroes.  Win or lose, how the battle went gave her information.  She continued to refine her plans all the way through the hero’s initial attack, going so far as to order low-ranking monsters to bring her up-to-the-minute information on the heroes.

Not only that, on the Day of Mayhem, she’d distributed pictures of key heroes and the high-value targets to the monsters so they knew exactly who to target at the places they were sent to (chapter 52, also see Face Ripper’s remarks in chapter 63).   

As we’re seeing, it’s paying off wonderfully in terms of most of the S-Class being quite effectively mangled by monsters they have no hope of defeating one-on-one (chapter 123/?).  Even Tatsumaki doesn’t look as invulnerable as she once seemed (chapter 128/?).

It is evident that a man can make no better decisions than the information on which it is based – Gyoro-Gyoro making clear the premium she places on up-to-the-minute information. (chapter 95/97)

C: Degrading the Enemy’s Capabilities

Webcomic: what’s that?

Manga: Psykos realised the value of launching an initial attack to spread as much confusion and weaken the humans as much as possible ahead of the major push. 

She started by attacking multiple cities in one go.  Because the base was well-connected, monsters could appear and disappear from everywhere in synchronicity (chapter 76), making it extremely difficult for any systemic defense to be made.

But respond they did, which meant that the monsters out on rampage got to take out as many heroes as possible. Every active hero has had to work very hard and the number who are tired and/or injured is very high.  The heroes weren’t helped at all by Garou’s hero-hunting activities (chapter 81) – thanks for nothing, Hero Hunter!

Recruiting strong people to become monsters.  Normally, it takes quite a while for a person to become a monster, but monster cells offered a cheap and dirty way to generate monsters.  In spontaneous monsterfication, a new being is created with a new limiter (see chapter 88/89), a being who can develop further as we find out with Rhino Wrestler (chapter 94/97), Phoenixman (chapter 98/101), and Orochi (chapters 127-8/?).  In contrast, monster cells exploited the human’s existing limiter and then made further growth impossible (explained in the chapter ‘Manhole’ chapter 92/94).  Recruiting strong people did two things.  First, it meant that they could get reasonably strong monsters in the first place (chapter 72).  Second, it meant that there would be fewer strong people available to be recruited as heroes in the future.

In the short term, it looks to have worked great:

sweet indeed are the uses of your enemy’s adversity. Good question, Drive Knight! (chapter 119/?).

D: Psychological Warfare

Webcomic: No use was made of this by Psykos.  The heroes pressured themselves to go in carefully to save the unnamed boy Royal Ripper had kidnapped, otherwise nothing.

Manga:  Oh ho ho ho, making the populace scared and not knowing which way to turn was a huge part of the plan.  The suddenness of the monster attacks and the way they totally overwhelmed the ability of hero and emergency services to respond. It’s resulted in ever-deepening doubts on the parts of civilians as to the ability of the Hero Association to protect them and even brought about short-term disorder.  Which is all to the good to actually eradicating humanity when the Monster Association moves to do so.

Using the heroes’ own natures against them.  Rather than having an accidental hostage, taking Waganma hostage was a way to both forestall the Hero Association simply bombing the Monster Association hideout and to force the heroes to go into the base to look for the child.  Even knowing it’s a trap. Even if they’d been ordered not to, it is in the nature of heroes to act heroically – they’d have gone in anyway.

Putting the Hero Association under intolerable pressure.  By breaking into the Hero Association to hand-deliver their ultimatum (chapter 79), Psykos brought both terror and insult directly to its executives.  Making them feel personally threatened narrowed the range of actions they were willing to consider.

Additionally, if the Hero Association had had any plans to keep Waganma’s kidnapping secret and persuade Narinki to accept that his son had to be sacrificed for the greater good, Psykos leaking that information to the press made that impossible.   If they didn’t save the kid of their biggest single sponsor, then what hope would anyone have that heroes would work to keep *their* children safe?

it wouldn’t have worked, but the idea of cooperating with monsters to forestall greater tragedy speaks volumes to how effectively people have been rattled (chapter 87/88)

E: A Means to Make Good on the Threat

Webcomic: This was the most pathetic part of her plan.  She had no way to make the Monster Association’s writ run. 

Manga:  Not only can the monsters get to every major city within a few hours from their base, but Orochi’s monster cells have been painstakingly harvested over a long period and nurtured.  Killing off the human population is huge ask, but once the Class S heroes were reduced, there wouldn’t just be more monsters everywhere at the same time. Those monsters would be rapidly making thousands more monsters to help kill the populace off.

Of course, things like the scientific equipment to culture monster cells cost money (and scientists too, if Phoenixman is to be believed).  Handy then, that they have a gold mine to fund such activities, eh? Gold is great – even when there’s a run on the banks, people will still exchange goods and services for it. As long as there’s work that useful human idiots can do, she has the means to pay for it.  Even stuff as simple as leaking adverse information to the press costs money.

Nor is she relying on Orochi alone. She had made lots more hyper powerful monsters that she could raise up as the next monster king in very short order (chapter 123/?).

Another huge change is her plans for Garou.  The webcomic, Psykos lost interest as soon as it seemed that Garou had turned on the monsters.  The manga, having Garou savaged by Royal Ripper and Bug God was all part of her plan to force his further development.   Even his breaking in to save Tareo fell in line with her plans.

the only thing better than not putting all your eggs in one basket is filling those baskets with bonus booby-traps (chapter 92/94).

F: Got Lucky

“I’d rather be lucky than good.” Vernon Louis “Lefty” Gomez (1908 – 1989) 

While the manga has done a great job of taking a lot of the random unlikely chance out of the story, still, Psykos has been damn lucky.  The manga makes it quite clear that Phoenixman wasn’t joking about the S-Class being an urgent threat to the monsters.  Through their exploits, we’ve really come to appreciate why the terminally-selfish monsters would see fit to gather together.  Nevertheless, there are a number of critical failings on the part of the heroes, the rectification of any of which would have made things very difficult for the Monster Association. Most of these missed opportunities didn’t exist in the webcomic.

Metal Knight made perfect the enemy of good and refused to cooperate at all if the Executive Board did not accept the entirety of his suggestion (chapters 80 and 89/91). Not even to share vital information like a map of the place or where the hostage was kept (chapter 97/100). [1]

Drive Knight had infiltrated the place ahead of time and not only had a fantastic map of the place, and the locations of the humans held captive,  but also detailed information about all the strong monsters in the base (chapters 118-9/?).  Just as he’d been able to use what he’d learned about Nyan to prepare both weapons and strategies to capture the monster, preparation would have given the heroes an edge the monsters wouldn’t have been able to overcome. [2]  But no, he hates and fears Metal Knight too much for that.

The mutual distrust goes further than bad blood between Drive Knight and Metal Knight. Thanks to Metal Knight’s cryptic warning about a traitor in the ranks, Child Emperor’s suspicions fell on Genos and unfortunately, Sekingar didn’t override the kid’s concerns to at least send a drone round to his residence to ask him to account for his actions of that morning (chapter 89/91).  Had they done that, several things would have happened. They would have had their fears allayed. Discovered the other missing S-Class heroes. Found a couple of very useful non-heroes. Learned about Saitama.  Bringing them into battle early would have meant the Monster Association would be history by noon.

No one forced Sicchi’s hand to make him call Blast already (chapter 85/86).  If Blast is 1/10th as strong as we think he is, his appearing on the battlefield would still have been morally and practically devastating to the monsters.

The heroes themselves are very poor at working together.  The Hero Association has never paid attention to the way pro-heroes organise themselves and have never tried to encourage anything like a formal leadership amongst heroes. While Class C heroes band together for their very survival, the higher up you go up in rankings, the more of a lone ranger heroes tend to be and it reaches its nadir in the S-Class. The leadership has never imagined that a situation that would force their most powerful heroes to work together could occur. Sicchi has thought about it, but even he has been lulled into complacency by the existence of Tatsumaki (chapter 123/?). [3]  Consequently, the S-Class have no actual leadership, bicker amongst each other, and are singularly confident in their individual abilities (chapter 93/95). [4] Had they been at least more cooperative, they might have elected to pair up when searching for the hostage, which would have made all the difference to their staying well and slaying monsters.

Two unforeseeable strokes of luck: Saitama and ‘God’.  First, Saitama, who carelessly punched out Orochi.  The resulting near-death experience allowed Orochi to come back stronger, in keeping with the explosive growth that some can see under such circumstances.  Secondly, God, who intervened to first, stop Psykos from getting eaten by Orochi and second, to grant them both incredible power.

Some of the points above (particularly point 5) are being addressed in the webcomic, but the results of the Hero Association losing status, heroes losing confidence and coherence will all be much better grounded when the manga gets to the aftermath of the Monster Association raid.

It’s interesting that good luck still has a large role to play in the manga.  But beyond that, the change between the webcomic and manga has been to give Psykos a massive upgrade in villainy, from wannabe to mastermind.

In 20 words: Psykos has been upgraded from two-bit megalomaniac to mastermind. Because a threat to all mankind deserves a great villain.

Extras

[1]  Flashy Flash may have been being rude to Tatsumaki, but his point about not needing as many heroes to conduct the rescue operation if they knew where to look stands (chapter 93/95).  Metal Knight’s given reasons for not helping – that telling the heroes would cost lives – really backfired here.

[2]  How much the lack of opportunity to prepare hurts their efforts is something Genos notes in chapter 122/?

[3]  In the extra chapter ‘Tatsumaki’s Day Off’, Tatsumaki notes to her handler that the Hero Association over-relies on her.  She might be a workaholic who can’t actually take time off, but she’s been absolutely right.

[4]  Not only have S-Class heroes not thought how to work together, they’re not even that sure of what exactly it is each other are good at.

[paintingwithdarkness]

"Please don't cry.” Bluepulse for the writing prompt asks!

“Please don’t cry.”

Jaime could feel the tears streaming down his cheeks as he watched over the footage again. He couldn’t believe everything that had happened within the last 48 hours. It had been chaos; an emotional roller coaster that Jaime was still on. Oddly enough, the majority of his teammates seemed to have already recovered from the incident and had moved on past the initial shock. But the incident was still lingering in Jaime’s mind, and despite knowing it was only making things worse, he couldn’t help rewatching the footage over and over again. It was a terrible thing that had happened, but something that Jaime never wanted to forget.

He could feel himself shaking with restrained fury, anger and fear. Jaime wanted revenge. He knew it was stupid, that he shouldn’t give in to his negative feelings, but he couldn’t help himself. Bart had been shot, and Jaime wanted Deathstroke to pay.

His fists clenched as he rewound the video and played it again. The warehouse had had several cameras, all set at different angles, so Jaime could see everything.

The clip began with a frontal view of the door to the warehouse, and Bart running in at superspeed, only to skid to a stop once reaching the middle of the room. Unfortunately, the video didn’t have any audio (although in retrospect, maybe that was a good thing), but the quality of the footage was good enough that Jaime could see Bart’s lips moving to form the word “hello”. Gar had tasked the speedster with inspecting the warehouse to determine whether or not anyone was inside. Meanwhile, the rest of the Outsiders had been involved in putting out a fire, which was the actual reason they had been called in in the first place. They had already evacuated all of the civilians in sight, but it was standard procedure to check the surrounding buildings as well, and as the fastest one on the team, that task was often left up to Bart to save time. No one had actually expected anyone to be inside the warehouse. It just so happened that this time there was, and it had been one of the worst possible people.

The angle of the video changed, and panned in for a close up of Bart from the side. By this point, Jaime was all too familiar with what would happen next due to watching the footage so many times, but he kept his teary brown eyes glued to the computer screen in front of him nonetheless.

Unfortunately, this angle wasn’t very good for actually seeing where the shot had come from. All that the camera had captured was the tiny dart embedding itself in the back of the speedster’s neck. A tranquilizer. It wouldn’t take very long for Bart’s heightened metabolism to burn off the paralytic, but that minute- those precious 60 seconds- had been long enough.

The angle changed again, this time showing Bart from the back and panning out so that the rest of the interior of the warehouse could be seen. Metal storage containers and boxes created a maze, with Bart at the center. From around the corner of a container just to the speedster’s right emerged a figure, light glinting off the orange face mask and silver of the rifle balanced against the figure’s shoulder. It was dim in the warehouse, and the cameras didn’t have night vision software, but Jaime could see enough to determine that the villain stalking his boyfriend was none other than The Terminator himself.

A growl rose in Jaime’s throat as he watched Deathstroke leisurely approach Bart, and stop about two inches away from his face. Due to the mask Slade was wearing, and of course, the lack of audio from the footage, Jaime couldn’t make out any of what the assassin had said, but from the look on Bart’s face, it hadn’t been anything good.

The glint of metal drew Jaime’s attention as Deathstroke lifted the rifle from its relaxed position against his shoulder, and aimed the barrel at Bart’s right knee. He hissed something- a warning perhaps, or a threat- and fired.

One camera recorded the yellow and orange blast, as well as the smoke curling from the barrel in the aftermath. Another captured the widening of Bart’s viridescent eyes behind his rose-tinted visor, and the movement of his lips as he drew in a gasp of shock. A third caught the splash of maroon that erupted against the red material of Bart’s spandex, and the horrible image of shredded skin and gnarled bone.

A sob escaped Jaime’s lips as Bart fell to the floor on the screen in front of him, hands clutching desperately at his ruined knee, eyes clenched shut, and mouth open wide to emit a scream of agony. The clip ended there.

Jaime wasn’t sure how long Bart had laid on that concrete floor writhing in pain before he’d found him. It had been a terrifying shock. When Jaime had seen the pool of blood surrounding Bart’s leg, and the damage- which Bart’s heightened metabolism had already been in the process of trying to fix; incorrectly- his mind had gone blank. All he could do was panic.

[Jaime Reyes, immediate medical attention recommended for the Kid Flash. His accelerated metabolism is healing the wound incorrectly. Without medical intervention, risk of further damage is high.] Khaji Da served as the voice of reason Jaime needed to snap him out of it.

Immediately, Jaime scooped Bart up in his arms bridal style, and hauled it out of the warehouse, yelling at the civilians who had gathered on the street in the aftermath of hearing the gunshot. He needed everyone out of his way. Bart needed to get to a hospital STAT.

Bart’s hands held tight against his bloodied knee, his eyes squeezed tighter, and his teeth clentched tighter still. His breathing was heavy. Jaime could tell he was in an agonizing amount of pain. He wished he could have done something more to help. He never wanted to see his boyfriend in that state of distress again.

When Jaime had burst through the doors of the hospital, he’d located a stretcher and carefully placed Bart down on it, calling out to the nurses and doctors for attention. Almost immediately a gaggle of three or four nurses and a doctor were at Bart’s side.

“What happened?” one of the nurses demanded.

“He needs help. He was shot in the knee,” Jaime tried his best to keep his voice level. He knew the panic and the adrenaline were the only things keeping him from crying. He hated seeing Bart hurt like this.

“When?!” the lead doctor asked, shocked, “It’s... partially healed. It doesn’t look right.”

“He’s got a heightened metabolism,” Jaime did his best to explain, “He heals quickly- not correctly.”

After snapping on some gloves, the doctor did a quick examination and probe of Bart’s knee. “His patella’s been shattered. Ligaments torn.” He turned towards a nurse. “Give me some ethyl chloride and clear the schedule for OR 2 STAT!”

Having heard the doctor’s orders, the scarab decided to chime in. [Ethyl chloride will be an ineffectual means of anesthesia with the Kid Flash’s accelerated metabolism.]

‘Then what do you suggest?!’ Jaime snapped back. He knew Khaji Da was only trying to be helpful, but the stress and worry he was feeling for Bart was ruling over his ability to control his emotions.

If the scarab could sound sorry, the tone that came out of it next was definitely convincing. [There are no known anesthetics safe for human use that would not be negated by the Kid Flash’s body.]

Jaime swore under his breath. He relayed the message to the doctor.

“Then we need to move faster than him if we’re going to save his knee.” The doctor carefully used a pair of sterilized scissors to cut away the tattered portions of suit around Bart’s injury.

“Jaime...” Bart’s trembly, blood-covered hand reached up to grab Jaime’s own where it was white-knuckled against the stretcher’s side rail.

Immediately, Jaime loosened his grip so that he could hold Bart’s hand instead. “This is going to hurt, Cariño.” Jaime used his free hand to smoothe back the auburn strands of Bart’s bangs which had matted to his forehead with sweat.

Bart’s green eyes turned up towards Jaime’s own, defiantly. “I don’t care,” he gritted out. “Just make sure the others are safe.”

Jaime gave a fierce nod of assurance. He was not going to let Deathstroke get away with what he had done.

He gave Bart’s hand a squeeze when the doctor said it was time to take the speedster to the operating room. He knew Bart was in for an invasive, pain-filled surgery without any anesthesia. Just the thought of it nearly made Jaime sick with worry. He needed something to distract himself.

“Blue!” Beast Boy found him standing in the middle of the ER. The doctor, nurses and Bart were already out of sight. “He’s on the roof.”

Jaime didn’t need any clarification. He already knew exactly who Garfield was referring to.

“I sent the rest of the Outsiders back to the Premiere Building. It’s just us.”

Jaime was perfectly okay with that. He now had a personal vendetta to settle with Deathstroke, and with less teammates to get in the way, that just meant he could do more punching of his own.

When they burst up onto the roof of the hospital, the assassin was there waiting for them.

“How’s the kid?” Deathstroke had his rifle propped up against his shoulder, leaned cockily to the side with his foot up on top of the half-wall surrounding the edge of the roof.

Gar changed into a rhino before charging at the smug mercenary. “Better than you’re about to be!” he retorted, via the translating collar around his neck.

Deathstroke flawlessly avoided the attack, flipping over Gar’s flank with ease. “You young heroes never change, do you?” he taunted. “Always acting by instinct.” He fired some rounds at Beast Boy, causing him to charge off the edge of the roof and crash through the window of an office building across from them. “Always charging in without a regard for your own personal safety.”

Jaime aimed his sonic cannon at the orange and black-dressed man. “What do you want, Deathstroke?” he demanded.

“What do I want? I want you and other teen heroes to stop putting their lives in danger!” He leaped over the side of the roof, and landed on the pavement below, forcing Jaime to follow.

“It’s wrong. And if I have to kill one of you to prove it- I will.” Deathstroke threw an explosive in Jaime’s direction, forcing him to retreat and shield against the debris. Meanwhile, Beast Boy seemed to have recovered from his fly through the window, and came soaring down to the pavement in the form of a hawk. He transformed into a bear and went on the offensive.

“Since when have you ever cared about kids?” Gar shouted. “You’re always hurting kids, aren’t you? Manipulating them. Putting them through hell! Metateens. Terra. Now Kid Flash!” Beast Boy slashed at Deathstroke with his heavy paws, managing to slice through some of the armor covering Slade’s side.

“Get clear, Beast Boy.” Jaime gave the warning as he shook off the effects of the explosion and fired up his sonic cannon once more. As soon as Gar was out of the way, Jaime released the shot.

Deathstroke hit the pavement with his hands over his ears. It took him more than a few moments to recover.

“Playing... with sound waves?” The insult came out more questioning than menacing.

“One hundred forty decibels,” Jaime boasted. “More where that came from, too.” He kept his cannon aimed at the assassin as he and Beast Boy closed in.

“Is there, Reach Boy?” Slade peeled off the mask, revealing grey hair and an eyepatch.

Jaime clenched his teeth. He could feel the tendons in his neck tensing. “You’re the one who helped the Reach abduct all of those metateens! You’re the one who’s been working with Onslaught and Savage to abduct kids to use in Granny’s experiments!”

Deathstroke rubbed his fingers against his temples. It was clear he was still suffering the effects of Jaime’s sonic attack. “You’re wrong. Both of you. I know this isn’t easy, but you have to understand. It’s for the sake of those kids. They need powers to defend themselves. The Light’s problem isn’t with you teenage heroes; it’s with the Justice League. Their system of preserving the peace is outdated. Their methods are crude. They flaunt their powers over regular civilians to maintain control. Nowadays you kids are so involved in politics and speaking out about what you believe in. The Light is just granting kids like you the power to stand up to the system.”

“Only one problem with that plan, Slade.” Jaime whipped around to see where the new voice was coming from.

About ten feet down the road stood reinforcements. Nightwing was leading the pack. To his right stood Tigress, Superboy and Forager. To his left were Geoforce, Static, Cyborg and El Dorado. Floating in the sky above were Miss Martian, Wonder Girl, Terra and Halo.

Deathstroke managed to regain his feet. “And what is that, Boy Wonder?” The mercenary pulled his sword.

“In the process of ‘saving’ these kids from us, you become the new ‘system’ they want to escape.”

Deathstroke beared his teeth and charged towards the group.

“Go!” Nightwing yelled.

Cassie immediately flew towards Jaime, drawing her lasso before landing next to him. “Bart’s not here with you?”

Jaime blinked hard and paused, brows furrowing. “What?”

Cassie gave him a wary smile. “Beast Boy sent us all back to the Premiere Building. A few hours past, and then we zetaed back to check in and see how everything was going. The doctors told us Bart checked himself out of the hospital. We assumed he would be here with you.”

Panic set itself alight inside of Jaime. “What?”

He knew his boyfriend healed fast, but surely Bart hadn’t done something that idiotic? Surely Bart would have waited to tell someone where he was going before taking off.

“He’s not at the hospital? Did he tell anyone where he was going?!” Jaime could hear himself getting worked up. He’d been worried sick about Bart, and now to hear that he’d run off?

“I need to look for him.” The boosters on the back of Jaime’s armor kicked on. “Tell Nightwing-”

Suddenly something skidded to a stop right beside him. “You rang?”

There Bart was, standing in all of his yellow and red-suited glory. Jaime felt like punching him and kissing him all at once.

“Had to run home and grab a new suit. New knee took some getting used to, too, but I think I’ve got the hang of it. Where’s Deathstroke? I’ve got to give him a piece of my mind.”

Apparently Nightwing had heard everything over the sounds of the battle. “That’s a negative, KF. You and Blue are going back to the Premiere Building. Neither of you are in a condition to fight. We’ll handle things here.”

Both of them tried to protest.

“But-”

“I just got here-”

“Now.” Nightwing’s mask narrowed as he death stared them, even while he had his escrima sticks locked with Deathstroke’s sword.

Reluctantly, Jaime kicked the boosters back on and took off into the air, as Bart kept pace with him on the ground. When they got back to the Hub, an awkward silence ensued.

Jaime had no idea what to say. His emotions were all over the place. Bart, on the other hand, seemed to be treating the situation as if it were only another Tuesday, and nothing amiss had happened. Jaime was furious, and relieved, and anxious, and overjoyed. Bart seemed to be okay. He was standing upright. He had just run several miles without any difficulties or signs of pain. But the doctors had told him Bart would need a total knee replacement. How would a standard prosthetic hold up to the wear and tear of Bart moving at the speed of sound on a daily basis? Would it need to be replaced again at a later date? What if it failed during the middle of a mission? Jaime would have no choice but to hold Deathstroke accountable. He was outraged that he had been denied the chance to get even with the self-righteous bastard. Slade deserved to pay, and Jaime wanted to be the one to dish out his punishment. No one was lucky enough to hurt Bart and escape the wrath of Jaime Reyes. Jaime wouldn’t be happy until he knew justice had been served.

They blinked at one another from across the room. Was there anything Jaime could say?

Bart shuffled in place. Jaime knew he had never been comfortable with extended silences.

“I think I’m gonna head off to bed now.” Bart raised a hand up to scratch behind his neck. “Nite, Jaime.” He then turned and ascended the staircase to the upper level before heading into one of the unmarked rooms.

Jaime stared at the spot where his boyfriend had been standing. Something was definitely not right between them. Bart hadn’t given him a goodnight kiss, or even a hug. And what was up with that, “‘Nite, Jaime.’?” Usually Bart used the full ‘goodnight’ and often followed it up with a pet name. He hadn’t even given Jaime the chance to reciprocate the sentiment.

Jaime was still in the process of deciding whether or not to go after Bart and check on him when the rest of the team got back. Immediately, Jaime turned to interrogate Nightwing.

“Where’s Deathstroke?” he demanded.

Nightwing gave a tired sigh and removed the domino mask, revealing the blue eyes of Dick Grayson. “In a armored police van on his way to Arkham.”

Jaime crossed his arms over his unarmored chest. “Did anyone else get hurt?”

Dick shook his head. “I’m sorry about what happened to Bart. Is he okay?”

Jaime turned his eyes down towards the floor and shrugged. “He wouldn’t talk to me.”

Dick gave him a sympathetic look and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Everyone knew he and Bart were romantically involved. Relationship status amongst the team never stayed secret for very long.

Dick’s eyes shifted around the room, seemingly searching for something. “Where is he?”

Jaime used a hand to gesture to the upper floor. “Said he was going to go to bed.”

The older man nodded. “He’ll come around. It was a hard day for him. Maybe all he needs is a little rest.”

Jaime’s frown deepened. “Maybe...” he mumbled.

Dick must have sensed his unease, because he continued to linger.

Jaime shifted his weight from foot to foot, uncomfortably. “Is there footage?” he asked, after a minute. “Of what happened in the warehouse?” He raised a hand to scratch at his nape.

Dick’s azure orbs drifted to the side and Jaime watched him bite his lower lip. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea-”

Jaime cut him off. “Can I see it?”

“Jaime...”

“Por favor.” Jaime knew he sounded desperate, but he had to know. Finding Bart laying on that cold concrete floor, writhing in agony in a pool of his own blood had been terrifying. Jaime had to know what had led up to that point.

Dick looked exteremely reluctant to do so, but pulled a USB flash drive from a compartment on his gauntlet, and handed it to Jaime. “Don’t show this to anyone else,” he said, gently.

Jaime nodded to show he understood. “Gracias.”

Dick gave him one last pat on the shoulder before walking off to join in on a conversation amongst some of their teammates. Jaime pocketed the flash drive and turned to go up the stairs to utilize one of the spare rooms. It was too late to go home tonight. He would just have to call in the morning and explain to his parents what had happened.

He left the lights off and closed the door behind him. Against one of the walls was a desk with a laptop sitting on it. Each of the spare rooms in the Hub had one for mission related issues. Every member of the team had their own login username and password, which could be used on any of the devices. Jaime quickly typed his in and waited for the screen to boot up before plugging in the flash drive. It took about a minute for the footage to download. Once it did, Jaime pressed play.

The first watch through was more shocking than anything else. Jaime’s mind had to process what he was seeing. It wasn’t until the second watch through that Jaime had fully comprehended the situation. The third was when Jaime had started crying.

Bart never should have run into that warehouse alone. They were a team for God’s sake. Why had any of them ever thought it was a good idea to send Bart in alone anywhere? As heroes, they were used to ambushes. Why hadn’t any of them ever thought that a search and rescue could turn into a serious situation? Of course villains would use a mass panic like a fire to their advantage. Why hadn’t they ever put the clues together? If someone had gone in with Bart, he might never have gotten hurt.

Jaime spent the whole night playing the video on repeat. Each watch through was worse than the previous. A new detail seemed to pop out at him every time. The blood. The way Bart’s eyes had widened. His gasp. His panic. The fear shining in his chartreuse orbs. His pain. It made Jaime’s heart throb and his blood burn through his veins. He couldn’t stop crying.

Jaime wanted revenge. He knew it was stupid, that he shouldn’t give in to his negative feelings, but he couldn’t help himself. Jaime wanted Deathstroke to pay.

A knock at the door startled Jaime, and he slammed the laptop lid closed as fast as he could. He hastily tried to wipe the tears from his cheeks, but he was too emotionally distraught; everything he wiped away was quickly replaced with more salty droplets.

The door opened to reveal a familiar figure sillouted against the light streaming in from the hallway.

“Blue?”

Bart closed the door behind himself and reached over to flick on the lights. Jaime immediately averted his face.

“Whoa, hey, are you crying?” Bart immediately rushed over, and knelt beside Jaime, laying gentle hands on his shoulders.

“No,” Jaime lied, keeping his head down.

Bart’s hands carefully cupped his jaw. “Look at me,” he ordered, softly.

Reluctantly, Jaime lifted his head to look at Bart.

Bart used a thumb to brush some of Jaime’s tears away. “What’s wrong?”

Jaime crossed his arms and shifted his gaze downwards again. “Nothing,” he mumbled.

Bart frowned. “Don’t lie to me, Jaime. What’s bothering you?”

Jaime shifted and slowly reopened the laptop. When Bart saw what was on screen, he gave Jaime a pitying look.

“It’s my fault,” the older teen said, “If I had gone with you, you wouldn’t have gotten shot.” More tears streamed down Jaime’s face.

Bart’s hands gave Jaime’s shoulders a squeeze. “It’s not your fault, Babe-”

Jaime cut him off. “It is.” He stood up, pulling Bart up with him. “This is my fault-”

Jaime pointed to the fresh pink scars covering Bart’s knee. While he did heal fast as a speedster, it didn’t mean that Bart went completely unscathed. Injuries that were going to scar would scar. He wasn’t immune to them just because he healed faster.

“These are my fault-” Jaime gripped Bart by the biceps and spun him around. He crouched down to run his fingers up the backs of Bart’s ankles where several faded white scars marked his Achilles tendons.

“These are my fault-” Bart gasped as he felt Jaime lift the legs of the basketball shorts he was wearing, to reveal several jagged strips of skin marking the backs of his thighs.

Before Jaime could go any further, Bart twisted back around. “Please don’t cry,” he begged. “None of these scars are your fault. Everything that’s happened to me has been a product of circumstances neither of us had any control over.”

Jaime shook his head. “I hurt you. I gave you those scars. And because I wasn’t there yesterday in that warehouse, you got hurt again.”

Something in Bart’s eyes changed. There was a spark igniting behind the jade irises. Jaime recognizes that look. It was the same defiant expression Bart wore on the battlefield. It meant he wasn’t going to back down. He wasn’t going to lose.

The auburn-haired boy propped his right leg up on the desk chair Jaime had abandoned.

“The Reach gave me these. Once as an experiment-” He pointed to the white marks on his Achilles. “The others as a punishment.” He slapped his hand over the pink lines marring the back of his thigh. “Deathstroke is responsible for this.” Bart slid his hand down to cup his now artificial knee. “All of the people who have hurt me had one goal in mind: to prevent me from running. They wanted to send a message; they wanted to destroy my spirit. I’m a speedster. I run. It’s what I do, and who I am. But the one thing people don’t understand about us speedsters is that we’re also stubborn. I’m not letting anyone stop me.”

Jaime blinked at his boyfriend. That speech was perhaps the most profound thing he had ever heard Bart say.

“So there’s no reason for you to cry. None of this is your fault, Jaime. You’ve done nothing but love me and support me since we met. I promise, I’m not going anywhere for a long time. I’m not going to let one gunshot wound stop me.”

Jaime couldn’t help himself. He started laughing.

Bart have him a concerned look.

“Lo siento. It’s just- Dios mio. I was so worried about you! You got shot, had your entire knee replaced, and did it all without any anesthesia. And you’re not even fazed! You’re running around like it’s just any normal Tuesday, and you just gave that kickass profound speech... I’m baffled, Amorcito.”

Bart raised a finger. “It’s actually Wednesday.”

Jaime snorted a laugh shook his head in exasperation. He was done crying. “Come here.”

Bart removed his leg from the chair and took a step forward so that he was standing right in front of Jaime.

The raven-haired boy hugged him around the waist, pulling the younger flush against him.

“I love you. I have the strongest, bravest, crashest boyfriend in the world.” Jaime smashed his lips against Bart’s, pouring out all of his relief.

“I won’t argue with that.” Bart smirked when they pulled away for a breath.

Jaime rolled his eyes, and leaned in to kiss him again.

Omg, Anon! I’m so sorry this took me so long. I have no excuses. I tried to make it a little longer to make up for my shortcomings as far as a decent time range for getting this out goes. Once again, super sorry for taking this long with it.

I used the Teen Titans 2003 comics as inspiration for this piece. It’s an amazing set of comics, and I would highly recommend to anyone who has not read them yet. This particular scene where Bart gets shot is covered in issues 1-4, which is actually where I got a lot of the dialogue from for this (I just replaced Cyborg with Jaime, and changed a few words). This version of Bart as Kid Flash is actually one of my favorite versions of him. I absolutely love his suit design in this run.

If you have read the comics, I apologize if this Drabble comes off a little redundant. I really just wanted to explore the situation for myself and of course, add a twist of bluepulse. Hopefully it’s enjoyable tho?

[photolover82]

The Masked Singer Season 3 Episode 12: The Last Four of the Elite Eight (Face-offs Part 2 Commentary & Guesses)

Hi my fellow Masked Singer fans! It’s that time of the week, time for Ana’s Masked Singer Recap. After a week off because of that weird sing a long episode that I don’t know what to think tbh, we are back with the second & last part of the Face-Offs. The format is just like the first part of this round (link here: https://photolover82.tumblr.com/post/614974157920337920/the-masked-singer-season-3-episode-11-the-first) btw. So, having said that, let’s get started!  (Disclaimer: Spoilers ahead, proceed with caution.. don’t say I didn’t warn you)

Ok, so the first pair of the night is the Frog vs. Kitty 

First up was Frog, performing Fireball by Pitbull. 

Ok, so honestly, this was an upsetting performance to talk about because it just felt super repetitive to everything he has done so far. I am just really hoping for a change of pace from him because all he does is rap and do some dance moves. Also picking up Pitbull song was a terrible idea for his voice because it seemed like he was out of breath trying to keep up with Pitbull's distinct speed of rapping & also some of the Spanish elements of the song because he doesn’t know Spanish. So, I am really hoping that moving forward he will switch it up because it’s getting boring at this point. 

Next came his rival/girlfriend? (idk there is this romantic storyline between them which is weird if they are who I think they are), the Kitty, performing True Colors by Cyndi Lauper. 

Alright, I enjoyed her performance a lot more than the Frog, but I can still give her the same critique. She’s been only doing ballads, which are great because of her voice and it goes with her, but I also want to see her do something more fun or upbeat maybe with choreography. 

So, having said that, the winner/the person moving on to the top 6 is to my dismay.... FROG!! Yeah, let’s just say not happy with this result. 

So, for the next/last pairing of both the night & round, we have Banana vs. Rhino! 

First up was the Banana, performing "Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan. 

Ok, ya I guess it was a good performance, but it shows that he isn’t the most vocally strong of the contestants. However, he is talented, it was really cool that he played the piano in the beginning and he freaking kicked the stool for God’s sakes. I gotta give him props, but it still didn’t knock my socks off or anything. 

Last was the Rhino, who sang 10,000 Hours by Dan & Shay and Justin Bieber. 

Again, I have the same critique for Rhino as for Banana. It was great and the song suited his voice just as it did for Banana, but it wasn’t amazing nor wowing at all. There was no wow factor to the performance. However, it was pretty good and I enjoyed it better than Banana’s performance. 

Anyways, I kind of figured this would happen.... the winner of this duel was RHINO!! 

Alright, so that means we are onto the smackdown of the Kitty vs. Banana.. which went like this:

Kitty went first, with Unstoppable by SIA. 

I really enjoyed this more than her actual performance (I would say it was the best of the night since the other performances didn’t blow me away.). You can really tell that she is so vocally talented and has an insane range in her voice. 

Then came Banana who did Brick House by The Commodores. 

It was good ngl, but it didn’t beat out the Kitty at all. I feel like she really beat him in the vocal department and he didn’t do anything dance wise or performance wise that was more entertaining than hers for him to stay. 

Having said that, I think you can guess that the person unmasked was...

BANANA

who was revealed to be (as I figured out for a while)...

BRET MICHEALS 

Yeah as you guys probably saw from my previous posts, I figured this one out but here’s an explanation of the latest suitcase clues: 

X-ray of a cat= CAT Scan= brain hemorrhage from an injury at the Tony’s 

Bug Spray= reference to his band Poison

Tags (Backstage Crew & Tongue sticking out) = his time in the rock & roll industry 

Nashville Sheriff Badge= he was a judge on talent show Nashville Star

Now that we are done with that, let’s talk about my guesses (none have changed) and how the new clues confirm them:

1. For Frog, my guess is Bow Wow (duh) 

Suitcase Clues:

Japanese Flag= Bow Wow is also the name of an influential Japanese rock band

Keyboard with L & I blacked out= reference to his old nickname “Lil” Bow Wow

Ice Cube Tray= worked with Ice Cube in a movie called Lottery Ticket

“Thank God it’s Frogday” tag= R&B Friday radio show he hosts in Australia 

2. For Kitty, my guess is Jackie Evancho (took me a while to get it but I am certain I finally got it) 

Suitcase Clues:

Pope’s Hat= played for pope September 2015

Mouse= worked for Disney, house of Mouse if you will (i.e. covered many Disney songs, appeared on Wizards of Waverly Place) 

Angel Ornament= song called Concrete Angel 

3. For Rhino, my guess is Barry Zito. (I’m convinced y’all) 

Suitcase Clues:

Rhino Secrets= album called No Secrets

Tennessee flag= played for Nashville Sounds (at end of baseball career) 

Seal= he played for the Giants whose mascot is a seal

Base Clef= reference to his baseball career

Alright, that”s it! I will see you guys for the next one. Bye! 

[marveledheroines]

Scenario: There's a collapsing building, you can choose to either save yourself or the family cowering underneath you while you can only pick one, death is certain for only one of them.

"As if...there's a choice to make..." Using the full brunt of her strength, Aranchia was holding that portion of the building up with sheer willpower alone. Even if she didn't show it, she could definitely feel her muscles burning. Even so, she forced her best snarky tone as she looked down at the family.

"H-hey...you guys...? I know...I'm practically oozing awesome right now...but...think you could do ya girl a favor? This room is about to get super renovated...I think you all might wanna jet..."

One by one, she watched them leave; Give or take a little needed force on her end. Once the people were out, and Liliana's spider sense no longer blared the danger siren she breathed a sigh of relief...and one of frustration.

"Alright mutant bullshit powers...time for the real stress test..." Aranchia's body finally gave in...the second she relaxed herself, down came the building... She was a few floors up so the crushing weight wasn't as bad as it could've been but the trip down sure as hell didn't feel good at all...

As the people gathered outside they watched in horror, fearing the little girl who had risked herself to save all of them had been crushed to death underneath the rubble or worse. But after what felt like hours on end of silence...the concrete and debris began to shift and move. Little by little the battered spider pulled herself out. If there was one saving grace in Liliana's eyes to be had, it was that the wash would be kind to her suit.

When she was finally free the first thing Aranchia did was fall right back onto the now destroyed roof. "Everyone made it out...?" She asked tiredly. "...Yeah? Cool...cool...I feel like Rhino just gut punched the hell out of me..."

"I think I'm just gonna lay here for a bit...then try and go home..."

[shoottomiss]

Kim Possible Respect

Because I’ve been on a bit of a Kim Possible stint recently, I wanted to compile a post of things that the “girl who can do anything” has done, and why she may very well be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, cartoon heroines of all time. Much of this is taken from a respect thread from Skullanders on ComicVine, so thanks to him.

Like, disregarding cartoon physics or logic. We’re just here to appreciate how cool she is. Ready? It’s a bit long, but most of the feats have a gif or clip linked within them. We good? Okay, let’s go!

Intelligence: May not be as smart as her parents or brothers, but still quite intelligent.

-Aced an algebra test after cramming all studying on a dangerous riverboat ride in the Congo

-Flew a spacecraft back to earth after seeing a monkey astronaut do it once

-Got like 90% of the country’s college invitation letters coming up on graduation

Strength: Someone been eating their wheaties.

-Strong enough to lift large mooks over her body and throw them great distances and take on syntho-drones and muscle enhanced henchman head-to-head, sending them flying with a kick or a punch, or taking on a multitude no sweat

-Kicked a metal door straight out of its secure socket

-Threw a human ninja high enough to reach Dr. Drakken’s hovercraft

Skill: She is, the most interesting young woman in the world.

-Accurate enough to hit a railroad track changer with a rock and then proceed to kick it back in order to avoid being run over by a train.

-Able to hit a gravitation ray with a number plate accurately enough to redirect it.

-Knows 16 styles of Kung Fu (couldn’t find a clip or gif of that being said, but it is quoted in the episode Hidden Talent), and also apparently wrestled a shark (according to Ron in the episode Crush)

--Here she is doing Mantis style, which she claimed only to “dabble in”

-Has held her own against Monkey Fist often, who knows Tai Shing Pek Kwar

--again

-Practically fights Shego, a superhuman, to standstills or better on a daily basis. Bear in mind that Shego fires energy blasts and can tear through concrete like a hot knife through butter.

-Were the last two not enough? Well, now she fights both of them at the same time.

-Able to fight off Team Impossible, an world-renowned team that does dangerous missions like Kim does for a living.

-Actually pretty good at sword-fighting.

Speed and Agility: Come on, step it up.

-Has applied her cheerleading skills to her fighting and maneuverability, only increasing her skill in those areas.

-Her first mission ever, she had to navigate through a lethal laser field. Did she do it? IF SHE DIDN’T DO IT, I WOULDN’T BE SITTIN’ HERE DISCUSSIN’ IT WIT YA NOW WOOD AYE?!

-Dodges frikkin consecutive laser fire on many of her missions

--Like seriously, she does not give a damn about your lasers. She’ll have a convo on her kimmunicator, that’s how much she doesn’t care.

-Add to the list: exploding golfballs, Shego’s energy blasts (multiple from Shego clones), and incredibly fast mechanical arms.

-Ran from stampeding rhinos before flipping back onto them. These are obviously white rhinos, which can run at 31 mph.

Durability: Ouch. Yeouch. Gnuershk. Wait... forget that last one.

-Blasted away by an exploding golf ball, and was A-OK. 

-...I don’t... I don’t even know how to describe this. She has great resilience though, I’ll tell ya.

-Flies into a steel beam while grappling, but is up fighting later like it never even happened.

-Knocked out when fighting Ron in a controlled Battle Suit, but considering it took the Battle Suit, a strength and speed enhancing garment (which we’ll get into more in a sec) to do that, as well as the fact that she was keeping up with him earlier (and probably worried about injuring Ron), it’s still impressive in that regard.

The Battle Suit: Gotta say, she pulls off the 80′s Tron look.

-Can project forcefields (strong enough to block attacks by a ultra strong alien named Warmonga), make a lacrosse-like cup to catch and redirect energy attacks: of-all-kinds, and can regenerate.

-The strength it gives her is insane, allowing her to kick Shego hundreds of feet away into a structure with enough force to collapse the whole thing, and hits the before-mentioned Warmonga into a ship with enough force to blow it up.

-The speed boost she gets is also impressive. Here she is, speedblitzing Shego from an earlier clip.

-Finally, it has rockets in the feet, a stealth mode, and a grappling hook (Kim loves her grappling hooks).

-And last but not least, the creme de la creme. one of her most awesome feats: In the episode Hidden Talent, Drakken put her in his most complicated death trap ever. He put her in a reinforced titanium box, which was placed in a deep pit, which was then filled with water, and then a few sharks and giant squids. To top it all off (no pun intended), he froze over the last unfilled part of chasm with six feet of solid glacial ice. It’s all detailed here.

She proceeded to get out of every layer of the death trap with her gadgets and skills, all up until the ice. How does she break through that ice? SHE SINGS A HIGH NOTE INTENSE ENOUGH TO SHATTER A HUMAN SIZED WHOLE OUT OF THE ENTIRE SIX LAYERS, and then proceeds to jumps out as if it were like brushing her teeth. Bear in mind,this is glacial ice, the kind of ice that ship breaking icebergs are made out of.

In an attempt to gauge the epicness of this feat, I asked the science side of tumblr what kind of numbers this entailed. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten quite the answer I was looking for. So I searched around the internet and actually found someone who attempted to do exactly what I was thinking. Feel free to correct the science if something is wrong, and take what I quote here with a grain of salt. It could very well be wrong. I just wanted to give you a sense of what was happening here.

Here is their quoted analysis and research results, from Terraraptor’s Deviantart page:

“Now, loud sounds can break glass, but ice is structurally different. Glass can be shattered because its internal friction is extremely low, and resonance energy can be built up, which eventually breaks the glass. Ice, on the other hand, is less uniform in its buildup. Its structure is usually random, and usually extremely complex, which means it would have incredibly high internal friction. In theory, this should make it immune from high frequency sounds, but Kim must be able to sing loud enough to overcome this.”

“The minimum level of sound required to break glass is over 100 decibels, which is on par with some opera singers. This is with ideal cases, namely a piece of glass made with almost no internal friction. But because ice is so different, and its unlikely Drakken made ice with no internal friction, Kim must be able to raise her voice to superhuman levels.”

“The only known way to break ice with pure sound waves is through the use of shock waves created by explosions. A study from Japan determined that 1000 joules of energy are needed to break ice 100 mm (or about 4 inches) thick. And since 1000 joules is enough to lift 200 pounds over 3 feet straight up, it constitutes a powerful blast. But Kim’s voice broke ice exactly 6 feet thick. Well, after a bit of math, we calculated that to do this, Kim’s scream had to have at least 18,000 joules of energy.”

“That’s enough energy to lift 3,600,000 pounds straight up! More than enough to shatter human bones, rupture internal organs, and kill any human at close range.”

I would like to add that Kim’s body would have to be tough enough to handle the force from that high note without blowing herself to bits as well.

And that’s all I’ve picked up. Or at least, decided to jot down. There’s a lot I didn’t include, simply because it would overstate certain points.

Kim Possible- She really can do anything.

[randomwoohoo]

Judy: Previously on Zoomorphia!

Nick: Right now, apart from John Silver, we at the ZPD have a new suspect in mammals’ disappearance, Peter Pan, a notorious abductor who terrorized Zootopia more than a decade ago. By the way, is it just me, or are Savages the monsters getting weirder and weirder each passing day?

Judy: Point taken, the one from last chapter was sure uncanny.

Nick: They’re all purple, glowing eyes, drooling everywhere. Some are so mutated like they leapt off the Cownenberg’s films.

Judy: Not that kind of uncanniness! But rather its demeanor… Why in the world that bear Savage hadn’t attacked nearby bank robbers until it mutated, then started targeting them?

Nick: But more importantly, let’s pick up where we left off! The wolf who helped us beat the monster went too far and killed one of the robbers. That’s not cool, especially for a hero. Shall we show him how a true hero should be, Carrots?

Judy: I wouldn’t say I deserve the ‘hero’ title yet. Nevertheless, we need to stop him.

Nick & Judy: Now the chapter 11!

Fanfiction link

.-.. . - .----. ... / -.-. --- -. - .. -. ..- .

A breeze stirred dust into the tense atmosphere in Savanna Central as one of the escaping criminals that robbed the bank was killed by the silver chrome wolf, Bolt.

“Who’s next? Better not lie or waste my time~” Right fist bopping left palm repeatedly, Bolt targeted the remaining three robbery criminals.

“Mind stepping aside?” He asked when Hybrid came to stand in his way.

“We won’t let you harm anyone anymore.” Hybrid struck a fighting pose.

“Is that so?” Bolt, stepping back, distanced himself from the armored cross-bred mammal slowly. Subsequently, Nick and Judy, sharing one body, lowered Hybrid’s guard in a slightly confused manner.

Abruptly, Bolt sprinted, then jumped over Hybrid, giving a mock salute while passing above the united duo.

“Oh no, you don’t.” Nick exclaimed.

Hybrid reached upward to grab Bolt’s ankle in the air and then flung him forward. The fallen wolf rolled twice on the ground to decrease the force of the throw before crouching down firmly.

The robbers considered the situation quite dangerous; hence, they aimed to abscond, walking away furtively.

“Stop right there! You’re not going anywhere!” Judy turned around and shouted at them.

They promptly came to a halt. “Under dangerous circumstances, isn’t a hero like you supposed to let us civilians get out?” The brown ferret robber protested.

“First! I’m not a hero. Second! You three are all criminals! Not merely civilians! So drop the money bags and stay put till the police come!” She fulminated, pointing the flamingo red armored right index finger at the ferret.

“Watch it, bunny~” Bolt, still crouching down, told Hybrid… Actually, he specified Judy. “Dang~ Getting chatty all the sudden… adds another reason why I can’t let those guys go.” The wolf dashed forwards. It looked like he was going after those three robbers again.

Hybrid hopped in front of Bolt to block his way. Strong rabbit legs allowed the armored mammal to jump high enough to the wolf’s eye level with ease.

Unfortunately, it seemed that he predicted it. Bolt stretched his left arm out and took hold of Hybrid’s face in one paw in mid air. The two amethyst stylish headlamps for eyes of Hybrid were covered by the big silver chrome palm.

Bolt then slammed Hybrid on the ground but before the doe rabbit body hit the concrete floor, Hybrid, paws extended, pushed the floor. Judy, taking control of the body, leglocked around the wolf’s left arm, which made him lose his balance for a moment. Next, she, exerting a force to pull the legs along with the wolf downward, quickly threw him sprawling on the ground.

Hybrid unwrapped the legs around Bolt’s arm, rolling away from him to put some distance before standing up.

“I see.” Bolt raised himself gradually, “When it comes to pure strength, I’m no match for Hybrid light green form.” brushing dirt on him off. “But I know just a thing to make up for it~” He sounded amused, then “Accel” uttered calmly.

Following that, the united duo saw Bolt briefly becoming a blur before they, facing up to the sky, flew away as if Hybrid had just got hit… Not as if… In reality, Hybrid had just unpreparedly got kicked in the front so hard that the armored mammal flew away and fell down on the ground.

Hybrid hastily kicked up. When the duo regained Hybrid’s feet, they caught sight of the silver flash, Bolt approaching the armored mammal in a split second. Hybrid hurriedly backed away from Bolt by a jump. However, the wolf closed in like greased lightning, throwing a right hook punch at Hybrid who was still floating above the ground from jumping. The partners as one instinctively blocked his punch with the left arm.

As the punching force sent Hybrid to land on feet not far away, the armored rabbit feet rubbed against the concrete floor, leaving visible marks of friction. The left arm was shaking even though they did not feel the punch impact was that strong.

Not having time to take a breath, Hybrid was pursued by Bolt battering the armored mammal with fists. No time for thinking at all, the duo could only rely on the reflex to block the attack, waiting for a perfect opportunity to “ ACTIVATE” press the syringe with the right paw in order to activate super strength and counterpunch the silver wolf.

Nevertheless, Bolt took a step back in time to avoid a blow. At that particular moment, Nick and Judy got a glimpse of electric sparks coming off from his paws. Simultaneously, they found that the left arm they used to block previous attacks turned numb.

“That wolf used electricity to attack…?” Nick murmured.

“Pretty much explain how he killed those Savages and the robber over there.” Judy casted a glance at the jackal criminal lying lifelessly.

In the jackal’s case, Bolt could send electricity running through the jackal’s heart, resulting in it beating irregularly, which led to heart failure.

Hybrid’s arm eventually recovered after shaking off. Subsequently, Bolt came at Hybrid again. This time however, Nick “ACTIVATE” teleported Hybrid. He merely responded to the thought that it was unacceptable to let his partner’s body keep on taking damages despite rapid healing.

When Hybrid instantly moved to behind the silver chrome wolf, “Double Accel” he, uttering calmly, turned back and jumped like blazes on the armored mammal. The cross-breed was kicked in the side. The momentum sent Hybrid flying to fall down nearby the robbery criminals.

Dumbfounded, both Nick and Judy could not believe that the wolf was able to react to an instant transmission almost at once. At that point, Bolt leapt towards Hybrid, taking Judy’s breath away. She was quite freaking out, so Nick decided to take a full control of the body “ACTIVATE” to activate enhanced speed, skedaddling like a scared rabbit.

He came to a stop several feet away from Bolt, who was in fact not after Hybrid but the remaining three criminals instead. “I’m not done with these guys yet~ Wouldn’t mind if I take them with me, right?” The silver wolf carried them by force, sending non-fatal electric current through their brains to knock them out in order to prevent struggling. They dropped the money bags while losing consciousness.

A few moments later, a SUV car for rhino species arrived close by the wolf carrying the passed out mammals. “Ciao~” Bolt exclaimed. He got in a car, dragging others including the jackal dead body in, before the car left.

Afterwards, Hybrid’s long rabbit ears picked up sound, Nick guessing that police and SCU team were heading towards them because they were not far from the scene of bank robbery, which it would be strange if those officers and agents did not hear the noise of battle.

“Carrots, we need to move now.”

“M-mhm” Judy got hold of herself, running off into a community building area.

Hybrid detransformed, Nick and Judy then sneaked into trucks of two separated police cruisers. They returned to ZPD station before Judy decided to leave work early…, leaving Nick alone at the station.

-.. . ..-. . .- - . -..

Since the previous day, the doe rabbit officer had barely talked. When the tod fox arrived at their cubicle in the morning, she was already there…, sitting quietly all by herself.

Nick sat down on a office chair next to her with an intention to initiate conversation. In spite of that, “Back then...” Judy was the one who broke the awkward silence.

“I was so scared… felt completely at a loss.” She, trembling, referred to the fight with Bolt the silver chrome wolf.

“I totally forgot about those three mammals… If they end up with the same fate as that jackal, it’s… it’s my fault.” She raised her legs, hugging her knees up to the chest.

“Judy...” Nick called his partner worriedly by her real name… not a nickname as usual.

The fox thought to himself. Although the mammal who ran away without second thought like a coward was me, she blames herself… He did not wish to see his bunny suffer… He reached his right paw out to the bunny with a desire to comfort her.

Before Nick could lay his paw on Judy, his stomach rumbled loud enough to attract her attention.

“Haven’t eaten breakfast yet?” Cracking an awkward smile, she turned to her fox partner covering his tummy embarrassedly. “Let’s feed the beast in your belly.” She hopped off her chair.

“Way to go, dumb tum” He, sarcastically mumbling at his tummy, got off his chair as well, following the doe out of their small work area.

At the reception desk, Clawhauser the chubby cheetah officer had been concerned about Judy since he saw her drooping on previous day. He did not think he had the guts to ask what happened.

When the duo ambled through ZPD lobby, Clawhauser called to them. “Judy! Nick! Where are you going?”

They consequently swerved to the feline officer. “We’re gonna get some grub.” Nick replied while Judy was beaming at Clawhauser despite her evident droopy ears.

“May I go along with you two?” The cheetah begged.

Nick stood a glance at the doe, coming to a decision. Right now, She needs her friends. “Sure thing, pal” Putting paws in his pockets, he smirked.

.-- --- .-. .-. -.-- / .- -. -.. / -.-. --- -. -.-. . .-. -.

In one fast food restaurant of Bug-Burga franchise, Tundratown, Judy was reserving a table, sitting on an adult high chair for small mammal. To be frank, it was odd to see a herbivore prey such as her in a place best known for serving insect protein food for predators.

Meanwhile, Nick and Clawhauser were waiting near the counter for their ordered meals and a vegan smoothie which the cheetah gladly bought for the bunny.

“It’s the same as before.” Clawhauser, standing next to Nick, said.

The fox turned to the big cat who kept looking toward a french fry station behind the counter.

The feline officer continued, “After that three years ago press conference of missing mammals, she has been blaming herself for starting conflict between predators and preys… although Bellwether was culprit turning predators savage.

Even when you two saved the city by discovering the truth, which ultimately led to creating an antidote for the night howler serum and many praising you, calling you heroes...” speaking distressedly.

“She still doesn’t accept the title ‘hero’... because guilt complex keeps haunting her...” Nick was fully aware of the rest of the story. He as well as Clawhauser received their meals over the counter before returning to their table.

“Here’s your smoothie, Judy.” The cheetah placed a small cup of berry smoothie, equivalent to rabbit’s large cup, right in front of the doe.

“Thanks a lot” She expressed her gratitude, taking hold of the drink.

“Don’t mention it” The cheetah beckoned like a kitty cat.

During the time that the predatory cops were noshing, especially Clawhauser chomping on his bug burger, Nick, chewing ground-up insects with soft buns, gazed upon Judy sipping her smoothie absent-mindedly.

“In case you feel uncomfortable, let me know. I can accompany you to outside. Patty smell in here is rather strong.” The fox told his bunny partner, worried that meat or insect- heavy restaurant atmosphere might discomfort a prey like her.

“I’m fine.” The bunny drew a straw away from her mouth. “Actually, I feel better. The smell in here somehow… help clearing my mind...” She looked around, watching predators other than her friends sinking their sharp fangs into their food.

Clawhauser initially wanted to ask the duo about the mysterious silver chrome wolf but seeing Judy emotionally confused, he would rather inquire some other time. As for Nick, “Carrot-” he wished to reach out to her.

But suddenly, there was a clamor from a next-door shop. Responsibilities kicking in, three of the officers subsequently rushed out to check, discerning mammals in the fishmonger’s shop stampeding.

“Savage! Savage!” Some cried.

“Where!?” The cops speedily got closer, turning left and right swiftly to in search of the monster.

When their eyes laid on a small purple furball sticking to the wall, they discerned what it was, a squirrel with independently mobile eyes of chameleon and toes covered in tufts of tiny hairs, Savage without a doubt.

“Oh, it looks so puny.” Nick sounded let-down.

“Regardless of the size, it’s still a threat. Benjamin, keep an eye on the situation.” Judy, dragging Nick, hastened to the nearest alleyway where there was nobody else.

No word is needed. The tod, perceiving the doe’s objective, belted a MidniDriver morpher around his waist. When she was about to put on hers, “Boy, rabbits sure are fast.” the panting cheetah, tired from running, appeared at the mouth of the alley.

“What!? Why are you here!?” She was startled by the big cat.

“I wanna witness transformation with my own eyes.” He made big ‘please’ eyes.

Sighing, “If that’s so, please look after Nick” she put on the morpher.

“Say what?” The cheetah wondered what the bunny meant while the fox “DRAW BLOOD” pulled the silver syringe on the left side of his transformation gear.

“Catch me, Clawhauser” Out of the blue, the fox leant backward, so the cheetah leapt in to catch the falling fox.

The bunny “INJECT” pressed her syringe, causing her partner to fall asleep by the time he was caught by the fellow feline. “Transform” She announced, drawing cheetah’s attention, before twisting the handle back “IGNITE”.

“Hot! Hot! Hot!” Clawhauser, carrying an unconscious canine, moved farther away from Judy swallowed by scorching purple mist. He gaped at a morpher’s core light shining in a thick fog followed by light of two headlamps at doe rabbit’s eye level.

Once the mist faded away, a flamingo red armored amalgamation between a fox and a rabbit with light green torso and grayish-tan lower body, Hybrid Hustler form, was revealed.

Hybrid vaulted over Cheetah the much larger mammal easily, then hurried into the shop. Others immediately made way for the little red torpedo.

When the duo as one first entered the shop, they noticed an angeline wolverine covering her right paw, face twisted with pain. Hybrid therefore sped to the corner where she was sitting with a muskox.

“What’s the matter?” Nick in the armored mammal body asked the angeline concernedly.

“She was bitten.” The muskox answered in place of her.

Hybrid looked round for the monster. The duo saw the purple furball climbing walls briskly, having difficulty keeping track of its movement under a panic situation. Thus, they twisted the handle forth twice. “FORM SHIFT-ARCHER” MidniDriver emitted purple haze shrouding Hybrid before the united duo pivoted around to clear the haze, becoming the armored mammal with charcoal masquerade eye mask in a green leather tunic, Hybrid Archer form.

A monitor of this form can detect a rapid motion. Accordingly, they pinpointed the squirrel Savage behind seafood counter. Pressing the syringe to summon a bow in the left paw “ACTIVATE”, Hybrid sprinted.

The screeching tiny monster climbed down the wall nimbly. There was a male scream of fear from under the counter. It could be presume that there was a male mammal hiding there.

Hybrid hurdled the counter, generating an arrow from the right wrist before firing it. When Hybrid landed on the floor, Judy was horrified to see a blood-soaked polar bear. Savages don’t bleed, so how there’s blood everywhere!? Or did I shoot him? She was trembling anxiously.

“Chill out, Carrots! It’s just fish blood from a bucket.” Nick shouted in a whisper. Judy eventually perceived that the arrow hit the bucket on the shelf which the Savage rushed to hide behind. As a result, it leaked the blood out on the bear.

The squirrel scampered out of the shop through a back door. Hybrid went posthaste after it. Since the duo traded Hustler form’s speed for Archer form’s monitor sensor, it was not easy task to catch up with the agile small monster. They followed it to the Bug-Burga restaurant, entering the kitchen from the back of the restaurant, which terrified the Bug-Burga staffs.

Hybrid drew the bow string back, determining on shooting another arrow. Once they released the arrow, it flew towards the purple target on the wall. However, it, one eye rotating to look at the armored mammal, bounced off the wall in time; hence, the arrowhead stabbed into the wall instead.

The monster jumped on mammals one after another, scaring them so much that they gave sharp cries.

At the time that a loud noise occured, the customers started to worry not long before worries grew to terrors when the squirrel Savage came in dining area. They were so frightened that they forgot to contact SCU. Some brought their phones up to live stream the event.

Hybrid hopped on the cashier counter, pulling the bow back to aim, revolving slowly. Nonetheless, any mammals around the areas that Hybrid aimed got petrified, freezing in place. At the moment Judy noticed mammals’ horrified faces, she, lowering the bow down, was afraid of accidentally harming civilians with arrows.

In the interval, carrying a senseless fox in his arms, Clawhauser raced to in front of the restaurant. He looked into the place through its window.

Hybrid soon detected the Savage crawling on ceiling. Without delay, the duo shot the arrow up but the monster drop itself first, so the arrow, piercing in the ceiling, missed again. The purple squirrel landed on one puma’s arm. He alarmedly shook it off rapidly and then yelped in pain when it finally fell off his arm to the table, leaving faint claw wounds on him.

Hybrid, pushing the syringe “ACTIVATE”, sprang towards the table while grabbing a gladius sword that popped up out of thin air prior to stabbing the tip of it down with the goal to kill the tiny monster.

However, the Savage leapt off to stick on the wall a second ahead of Hybrid’s attack. The archer armored mammal came down on the table.

Shortly after raising the head, Hybrid shrank back, taking a step away from the sword stuck in the table. Underneath the helmet, Judy became speechless on account of espying the startled puma terrified to the point he shed tears.

Nick in bunny’s body sensed insecurity surged up within her. Judy was evidently afraid of messing up, causing others’ misery. At any rate, to make the world a better place, she still could not ignore those who need help.

“Nick” She breathed, “I’m no hero.” looking at animals around her, “But if...” looking into their eyes which expressed hopes… They were counting on Hybrid, a mysterious stranger from their point of view.

“-mammals see us as a hero,-” Judy twisted the handle back. “CRITICAL BREAK” Hybrid’s right palm glowed.

“I’d have to act like one.” She spoke softly yet determinedly. Hybrid drew the sword from the table. Once the armored mammal grasped a grip of the sword, the paw transferred a glow to its blade.

Hybrid’s monitor began to calculate the squirrel Savage’s movement. It was scuttling on the wall. Hybrid Archer form raised and drew the bow, using the glowing sword as an arrow.

Savage moved to front window of the restaurant. Hybrid released the sword. It flew across the restaurant like the wind to pierce through the fleet-footed tiny monster.

Finally, the Savage, stabbed to the window, was meeting its end. It vaporized while the window was cracking.

Everything happened so fast that eyewitnesses could not comprehend what just occurred.

After the bewildering moments, Clawhauser, holding fox body with one arm, was clapping outside the restaurant. By and by, others gave Hybrid a round of applause.

“Are you smiling?” Nick asked Judy in a low voice.

“No” Her cheeks radiated heat.

“I can feel it.~”

“Quit it!” She ran to exit the back door, pulling the syringe to detransform. The suit of armor let purple steam out, causing a diversion that helped her escape.

On the cheetah side, “Oh, you’re back! How are you? What about Judy?” he felt the fox woke up, regaining his senses.

“Hang on.” The tod fox pressed his syringe to inject the blood, curing severe fatigue. “I’m fine and Carrots...” He swiftly put his morpher away, “she’s doing better~” wearing a genuine relieved smile.

- --- / -... . / -.-. --- -. - .. -. ..- . -..

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Chapter 25; Finding my soulmate

*Author’s note*

Here we go yet again, I’ll post up every chapter I got and finish this for you guys in thanks for being soooo patient with me after being put on a cliffhanger for sooooo long. So for this part just be prepared for some angst, Bucky fluff, and that’s about it :) Enjoy my lovelies and for anyone getting ready for finals (like me plus finishing two papers I wish you luck).

_____________________________________________________

I was in the training grounds pushing myself to the limit.  I was punching, slicing and tearing apart my targets with both brute strength and my Mystic Arts.  

I panted before I suddenly let out a wolf snarl and leaped at one of the dummies in wolf form and literally ripped it to shreds with my fangs before panting angrily.

“You’re gonna turn evil again if you keep fighting like that” a Sokovian voice said behind me.  I lowered my ears and sat down and said.

‘I’m not in the mood Pietro!’

“Of course, you’re not in zhe mood. You’re never in zhe mood. But if you keep it all bottled up inside you will hurt someone you love, no?” I felt my claws sink into the ground and I finally said.

‘It’s been three months since that day. I should’ve hated him, he used me. He lied to me about why he was here, he made me become Bad Wolf again and yet—I……I don’t hate him. Why don’t I hate him Big Grey?’ I cried out as I turned to him with sad wolf eyes glistening with tears.  Pietro came up to me and knelt down in front of my and cupped my face with his hand.

“Because you love him. You still do, even though he betrayed your trust, he made things right in the end by saving you by bringing Bucky to you to free you from Connor’s spell. And that night when he sacrificed himself, he did it for you. He wanted to die a hero in your eyes and prove to you that his love for you was true”. I let out a sad whimper when I felt Pietro wrap his arms around me.

Now that I’m getting more control over my Mystic Arts, I can now feel Pietro’s touch almost as if he were here standing beside me, holding me in his arms.

‘Why does it hurt so much?!’ I sobbed out.  Pietro held me tighter and allowed me to whimper and cry into his arms.

*3rd Person POV*

T’Challa was sitting on his throne looking over some political papers of the alliance with Wakanda and America when Morowa came in and she said.

“Whatcha doing?”

“Reviewing the alliance agreement between America and Wakanda, it would seem they’ve finally come to terms with the advance technology we have and are willing to look past on the fact we’ve kept it hidden from the world for so long”.

“That’s not what you’re doing at all” Morowa stated bluntly.  T’Challa looked at her and she continued, “That maybe what you’re doing physically, but your mind is elsewhere, am I right?” T’Challa softly scoffed out a chuckle and said. 

“The Jaguar is always keener than the Black Panther it would seem”.  Morowa grinned for a moment before walking up beside T’Challa and he continued, “I have taken notice of how (y/n) has been since…..”

“I know”. Morowa stated. “Her first real true love ends up betraying her, but then at the last moment he rises up only to die in front of her. God I never wanted her to go through that type of heartache that I went through for Hanzo”.

“Do you think she’ll ever be okay? From what Barnes has told me, our little Raksha has lost so much in her entire life, I fear that this loss will be the final one to push her over the edge”.  Morowa placed her hand on her adoptive brother’s shoulder and gave it an assuring squeeze before saying.

“Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it. All we can do now is not be sympathetic towards her, just let her know that we are here for her and give her a shoulder to cry on if she needs one”.  It was at that moment both their watches rang up.  They held out their wrists and the image soon turned into Nakia.

“My love, my sister. You both need to come downtown quickly”.

“What is it Nakia?” asked Morowa.

“Just hurry up and get over here, you both are not going to believe this”. And with that Nakia signed out.  The two cat warriors looked at each other before heading outside to the car and drove downtown. 

In a crowded part of the kingdom, T’Challa and Morowa finally arrived and came up to an old willow tree that still grew on the street and saw a crowd of Wakandans surrounding all sides of the tree talking in hushed tones.  They soon spotted Nakia and T’Challa asked.

“What is the big emergency that you called us for Nakia?”

“Look inside the willow tree and tell me….does he look familiar to you?” Both Morowa and T’Challa looked at each other confused until they walked up the rocky surface a few feet away from the tree and looked inside and they both gasped in horror. 

Inside resting within the tree was a wolf.  Not just any wolf, but a giant pure black wolf. Scars and burns covered his body and if you didn’t catch the slight movements of him breathing, one would assume he was dead.

“It cannot be” muttered T’Challa.

“That’s—that’s impossible”. Whispered Morowa in shock as she covered her mouth.  They stepped aside and took notice of a few dogcatchers with their nets and collars ready. “You two, pull it out slowly”. Morowa stated.  The men looked towards their King and he nodded telling them to do as she said.

The dogcatchers slowly walked up and one of them reached out to grab the wolf by its leg when suddenly all hell broke loose.

The wolf suddenly shot up like a bullet and instantly killed one of the dogcatchers with a quick bite to the net.  The other one fired its taser which just barely missed the wolf as it turned around and took a leap at the dogcatcher and clamped its jaws around its neck.

The people watching this all screamed and ran in horror as the wolf held the dogcatcher like a dead fish in its mouth. A loud, horrifying sound of bones snapping in two echoed through the air and the wolf bared its bloody fangs as blood dripped from its fangs and mouth.

T’Challa and Morowa stood in front of the wolf taking its attention when T’Challa said.

“Hello Rauri Williams”.  Rauri snarled viciously then leapt towards them.  They jumped out of the way and soon took off running with Rauri trailing behind them. 

The two Wakandans raced through the city shouting to everyone to take cover and get out of the way and as soon as they saw the giant wolf coming into view, they all scream and ran for cover.  They soon came to a dark alleyway and soon T’Challa came up with a plan. 

“Time for a cat ambush” T’Challa stated then the two of them leapt high up and disappeared into the shadows.  Rauri soon came into the alleyway and snarled lowly and sniffed the air for a scent of either T’Challa or Morowa.

He huffed and sniffed the ground and air as he paced around the alley but couldn’t come up with anything.  As the seconds ticked by he was getting more and more antsy. Suddenly coming down from him was T’Challa in full Black Panther uniform, he landed on Rauri’s back and tried to wrangle like W’Kabi does with his rhinos.

But Rauri put up a good fight as he shook violently and slammed himself up against the concrete buildings.  Rauri then leaped up into the air and physically rolled over knocking T’Challa off of him but then just before he could strike, a flying disk cut across Rauri’s back making him howl in pain.

Catching the sonic disk was none other than Nakia. Rauri turned his attention to her and he charged right at her snarling and baring his fangs.  Nakia waited and stood her ground until the right moment when she lept up and used her sonic disks to once again cut Rauri’s back which made him howl again in agony. 

As Nakia landed, she suddenly felt jaws clamp onto her leg and drag her away. She let out frightened screams as she tried to pull herself away but she was then pinned to the ground.  She could feel Rauri’s hot breath over her head and she thought right then and there she was going to die.

That was until a mystical whip wrapped around Rauri and pulled him upwards. T’Challa raced up to his love and took her in his arms to see Morowa now in full Jaguar warrior uniform come down bringing Rauri with her slamming him into the ground. She then raced up and pinned him down and like she did to (y/n) when she first met her as Bad Wolf, she used her nerve attack on Rauri to paralyze him and she also hit a pressure point to make him fall asleep. 

With Rauri settled down, T’Challa and Morowa allowed their suits to shrink back to their necklaces and the three Wakandans looked down at Rauri.

“How is he alive after all this time?” asked Nakia.

“He shouldn’t be, it would seem there are still answers Rauri hasn’t given us” stated T’Challa.

“So what do we do? We can’t leave a giant mad wolf in the city, Word will get out and soon we could lose the faith and trust of the world council”. Morowa said as she looked to her brother.   T’Challa sighed heavily then he said.

“We’ll take him to the sanctuary, but only until such time has passed do we mention this to (y/n). She’s still dealing with her grief and who knows what will happen should she suddenly find out that her mate is alive”.

“I will tell her” stated Morowa.  Both the King and his girlfriend looked at Morowa and she said to them, “I know what it’s like to lose a loved one, if anyone is to tell her when the time is right, it should be me. (Y/n) is my daughter, and she deserves to hear it from me alone”.

“Understood Morowa, now let’s move him quickly before anyone else comes by here” stated Nakia and soon the three of them worked together to put Rauri’s wolf body in the truck and soon the three of them left the city and headed back to the sanctuary. 

*1st Person POV*

After my mental breakdown in the training grounds, Bucky had found me and immediately proceeded to go to what he called Code: Wolf Snuggles (why he chose that name I have no idea) but what that code meant was that he took me into my room, wrapped me up in a burrito blanket and turned on Netflix and the two of us sat on my bed and binged watched FRIENDS till I would smile.

It was now nightfall and Bucky and I were still in the middle of our binge watching as we were now on the episode “The one where no one is ready” and it was that episode that made me laugh the most.

“Now there’s that laugh I’ve been waiting to hear” Bucky said.

“Yeah, thanks Bucky-bear. You know exactly what to do to make me feel better”.

“What kind of big brother would I be if I didn’t? Plus when I found you out in the training grounds, it broke my heart to see you that broken down”. I sighed solemnly and said.

“I’m sorry”.

“You have nothing to apologize for Wolfie, okay?” He said as he cupped my face in his hands and stared deeply into my eyes as he pressed his forehead against mine. 

We took in each other’s strength as Bucky kept his forehead against mine when suddenly we both heard a knock at my door and we both turned to see my mother Morowa standing there.

“Sorry for breaking the mood, Bucky may I have a moment alone with my daughter, please”. Bucky nodded then he kissed my head one last time before leaving my room and as soon as he left, Morowa shut my door and came up beside me.  “How have you been sweetie?”

“Well besides the mental breakdown I had earlier this morning and the intense crying plus the nightmares of seeing that plane explode, I’ve been better. Thankfully Bucky started FRIENDS as soon as he found me, watching this show never fails to put a smile on my face”.

“I’m glad he’s been helping you out”.

“I wouldn’t know what to do without him, he’s my anchor and he’s the closest thing to my old life as an Avengers that I’ll ever have”. She then took my hand in hers and paused the episode and said.

“(Y/n). There’s something you need to know”. From the way she spoke those words, it sent a chill up my spine.  Plus her eyes were dead locked onto mine almost as if she were trying to confess a deep dark secret that could potentially destroy the world.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” She took a deep breath in through her nose and said as she gripped my hand a little tighter.

“Earlier today, Nakia called me and T’Challa downtown to look at something that some of the townspeople had found. When we got there and looked to see what it was we—” she stopped mid-sentence and I said to her. 

“Mother?”

“(Y/n) we found Rauri”.

“Dead?” I asked.  She shook her head slowly and it was that moment that my blood ran cold and my heart sunk into my stomach.

“We found him alive, and he’s here in the sanctuary”. My eyes widened and my throat clogged up as I could barely breathe. “(Y/n) I know what you must be thinking but you of all people know when I’m lying so look me in the eyes and tell me if I’m lying or not before you say anything”. I looked into her eyes and I shook my head telling her that she wasn’t lying.

“But it’s—this…..this is insane. How did he survive? The jet exploded like Sokovia it’s not like he was frozen for over 70 years in the ocean, it exploded like a stick of TNT. How the hell can a person survive being blown up!?” I stated as I paced around the room rubbing my face and pulling at my hair harshly almost ready to have a panic attack.

“We don’t know” she said solemnly.  “When we found him, he didn’t recognize any of us, he didn’t even turn back into his human state. He almost killed Nakia if it wasn’t for me. I had to use my nerve attack on him like I did with you when we first met and I put him into a deep sleep by attacking one of his pressure points”.

“This is crazy. This—this-this is….this is insane! Just when I think I could move on he suddenly comes back into my life! What the hell did I do to deserve this!?”

“(Y/n), (y/n) (y/n) (y/n)! Listen to me, okay listen to the words coming out of my mouth” my mom said as she now stood in front of me and gripped me by my arms making me shut up and stare up into her eyes. 

 She cupped my face and continued. 

“You’re the only one here who knows Rauri, his scent, his scars, you know it all. Now the wolf we have in that cell we once put you in could be him, it may not be him. But I’m giving you the choice; you can either give us a positive ID on him to see whether it is Rauri and if it is you can choose whether you want us to find a way to fix him, or to have him be killed. If it’s not Rauri, you can make the final call. Just know the choice is yours, and you don’t have to do this right now. You can let all of this sink in then come and find me or T’Challa and give us your answer. Like I said, it’s up to you”. She kissed my forehead motherly and stroked some strands of hair out of my face before holding me in her arms.  

Silence rang throughout my room as I stood still in my mother’s arms. 

“I want to see him”. I finally said after about ten minutes of silence.

“Are you sure?”

“Mom please I—if I don’t do this now I’ll end up changing my mind and my heart is already conflicted enough as it is! Let me see him!” I stared up at her with hard eyes filled with tears.

“Alright then”. 

I now stood in the same prison cell I found myself in when I was under Connor’s control and standing before the cell was Bucky, T’Challa, Shuri, Nakia and Okoye.

“Have you decided?” asked Okoye.

“Yes, show him to me”. I said trying to be strong.

“Very well, take your time” Okoye said to me assuringly as she stood up before me and placed a hand on my shoulder then she turned to Shuri who nodded and at the control panel, she pushed a couple of controls and soon the lights inside the cell turned on. 

I slowly walked up to the glass cell and touched the glass and took a good long look at this wolf.  His fur was a black as night and scarred up and singed in some certain areas, but it was when I looked at his face and saw a very familiar scar on the left side of his face in the same spot where Rauri had his scar.

I immediately turned away placing my hands over my stomach trying not to puke all over the floor and a single tear fell down by face.

“Is it him (y/n)?” asked Shuri.  Not trusting my voice, I nodded and turned back towards him.

Rauri was alive. 

“It’s your call (y/n) what do you want to do?” asked T’Challa.  I looked back towards Rauri then I looked at my mother and said to her.

“Teach me how to use that memory-revival spell you used on Bucky and Hanzo”.

“But (y/n)…..”

“Damnit Morowa you saw what I did to Connor and you know I’ve improved a hell of a lot since you first taught me! Now I deserve answers and only he can give them to me and I don’t want to talk to a mindless wolf! Teach me the spell now!” I snapped angrily as my eyes phased to wolf gold as I glared at her.  

Morowa looked at me solemnly before telling Shuri and Okoye.

“Bring him to the lab, get him strapped up, we won’t be long”.  Morowa then took me aside into another room and proceeded to teach me how to do the spell. 

A half hour later, Okoye, Shuri, Nakia, Bucky and T’Challa all stood around Rauri who was strapped down on a metal table and Morowa came up to Rauri and said to me.

“Are you ready?” I nodded then she pecked out Rauri’s pressure points which woke up him and he immediately began thrashing around snarling and snapping his jaws.  “Hold him down!” My mother proclaimed out.

Even with the straps, Rauri proved that he was still stronger so it had to take every one of them to hold Rauri down especially his head which Bucky took care of as I came around him and proceeded to do the chant and wave my hands in the motions Morowa taught me before placing each of my hands at his temples making Rauri howl in agony.

“Menno o nin na hon i eliad annen annin, hon leitho o ngurth”. As I kept chanting this spell repeatedly, I used my powers to pour all the memories of both Rauri and myself into his mind, I showed him visuals from the stories he’s told me of his childhood, of Connor, everything he had ever told me.

Sweat dripped from my face as my energy was literally being drained but I kept crying out the chant with more passion trying to bring Rauri back from the shadows.  Everyone looked at me worriedly but I kept at the spell until I looked down at Rauri and saw that his eyes were slowly becoming more human like and soon I broke the connection and Rauri’s body slowly changed from wolf back to his human state.

He now lay still on the table and I was almost about to collapse to the floor if it hadn’t been for Bucky-bear catching me in time.  I felt Bucky pick me up in his arms and my vision grew blurry and I soon passed out from exhaustion.

*3rd Person POV*

Bucky decided to take (y/n) back to her room and rest while the rest of the Wakandans waited for Rauri to wake up.  

Just a few moments after Bucky left, Rauri opened his eyes and found himself in a familiar situation.

“What happened?”

“That is something you can explain to us Rauri Williams, but right now you need rest, both of you” T’Challa stated.

“Both of us? Wha-what do you—”?

“My daughter saved your mind from the shadows, but in doing so she wasted a lot of energy to bring you out. She could’ve died trying to save you. Be thankful for her that she still had some feelings for you even after you betrayed her”.

“Enough Morowa, everyone out and let us leave Mr. Williams to rest”.  With that the Wakandans left Rauri to rest and as he fell into the darkness of sleep once more, he kept muttering out (y/n)’s name. 

And almost as if connected by force, as Bucky was dabbing (y/n)’s forehead with a wet cloth, Rauri’s name kept coming out from her lips.

[orcinus-ocean]

No, the Javan rhino is NOT extinct

If you hang around zoo and/or conservation sites and blogs, or just Facebook, you might have seen this article:

A Sad Day For Mother Nature as Our Javan Rhino Are Officially Extinct

I was as horrified as I was confused, because... haven't their population remained at a steady ~50 individuals for years? Didn't we have good news last year, with several calves being spotted, and the official number raised above 60?

Did a massive wildfire destroy all of the small patch of Java where they live, or what? This just made no sense, since poachers aren't touching them where they are now, and like I said, they have remained stable.

I read the article swiftly and found it very poor and unconvincing. Then I read it again, and noted the following:

Dr. Hamim Samuri said that according to the latest record of wildlife in Malaysia

“From the latest Malaysia wildlife list records, Javan Rhino are extinct, while four other animals, Sumatran Rhinoceros, Malayan Tiger, Sunda Pangolin and Gaur (Indian Bison) are considered critical species.”

This article is only speaking about Malaysia. For those who don't know, Malaysia is a country spread out with one half being on the Asian mainland, and the other on the island of Borneo. They hold no part of Java, which is all in Indonesia.

It has been known since 2010, when the last Javan rhino was shot in Vietnam, that the Javan rhino is extirpated everywhere except Ujung Kulon, in far western Java.

What really irritated me is not just this sensationalist and inaccurate headline, or that this is at least the fourth time I've seen a headline like this in the past few years, but that just after I first read the article, I went to Wikipedia, and lo and behold, "extinct" with a black circle. The words "The Javan rhinoceros was" with a citation to... the exact same article I just clicked. No other sources. The REST of the same Wikipedia article, still stated, as I knew,

As of 2016 there are only 63 individuals left out in the wild and none captive.

R. s. sondaicus, the nominate subspecies, known as the Indonesian Javan rhinoceros, once lived on Java and Sumatra. The population is now confined to as more than 63 animals in the wild

So this was a poorly sourced, quick edit that has thankfully been fixed, just as I was going to.

I said I have seen this at least four times now. I think we all remember the western black rhino being declared extinct in 2011. The black rhino consists of eight subspecies, the western being only one of them.

A subspecies alone going extinct is a terrible tragedy and a crime, but it is NOT the entire species. There are several thousands of black rhinos alive today, yet since 2011, we have seen endless headlines going "The black rhinoceros is now extinct", or "Another giant has left us, as the black rhino dies out".

I don't know if this is because of honest mistakes by journalists who didn't care to look it up further, or if it's written by people completely ignorant of animal classification and see no difference between "black rhino" and "western black rhino", or if it's written for the sake of sensationalism, or clickbait.

I have since seen the same with the clouded leopard (there are two species of clouded leopard, and only one subspecies of one of those species - the Formosan clouded leopard of Taiwan - is extinct), while there are many of them across the world, in zoos and collections, and they are still in the wild, although they are being poached heavily for their fur, even replacing the tiger trade in places where tigers have been extirpated. The clouded leopard overall isn't even considered endangered, only vulnerable.

And very recently, the Irrawaddy dolphin was declared functionally extinct in Laos specifically. So one population was declared functionally extinct (which means there are still animals alive, but not enough to sustain a population into the indefinite future), in one region. What did the media say? "IRRAWADDY DOLPHIN EXTINCT"

*Rips hair out*

Which is why this article, about the Javan rhino, made me want to bash my head against a wall.

A big part of it is because I'm a perfectionist and besserwisser (look the word up if you don't know it), but to be more concrete, I really don't think it helps conservation to exaggerate and say entire species have disappeared when it's in fact just one population or one subspecies that is gone.

It can make people feel really discouraged and like there's no hope, even give up. At least they'll give up for that particular species, since they think the animals are gone, when they're not, and they need help.