#email incubator

[herpsandbirds]

Herpetology Job in Southern Ontario:

The Southern Ontario At Risk Reptiles (SOARR) team is looking for one or two trustworthy and dedicated volunteers for the month of August to assist in our turtle lab (located in London, Ontario at Fanshawe Conservation Area).

We will have thousands of Special Concern, Threatened and Endangered turtles hatching over the next few weeks and need assistance from individuals that are passionate about wildlife and conservation. This is a great opportunity to gain experience in conservation biology, work hands-on with endangered species, and be part of one of the longest running and most successful reptile research and conservation programs in Canada.

Duties will include:

- Checking incubators

- Measuring, weighing and inputting data on newly hatched turtles

- Cleaning and maintaining the lab and equipment

- Assisting in turtle releases

- Interacting with the public when necessary

- Staring lovingly at hatchling turtles

Because of training requirements, we are unable to take on folks that are only available sporadically, but if you are available at least 3 days per week (or more) for the month of August, send us a resume and a brief description of yourself and why you would like to carry out this work. Also, let us know your availability each week for the month of August. Applicants must be at least 18 years old. Selections will be made quickly, so contact us as soon as possible if you are interested.

Email Scott Gillingwater, Species At Risk Biologist at:

speciesatrisk@thamesriver.on.ca

[guilty-pleasures21]

Another one?! Ugh, I get bored at work, okay?!

Another Miguel fanfic 🥲. This time envisioning him as my boss at work (please God, give me my soulmate! 😭).

1. Ergh, I don't really know if I want to write this ...

Part 1 - the protocol

Part 2 - the reveal

Part 3 - the suspicions

Part 4 - the thanks

Warnings: None (not yet anyway ... 😈)

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

     His gaze was fixed on her, his eyes tracking her every movement as she pipetted the different chemicals and counted down the seconds for each incubation. He was so close to her that she could feel his warm breath tickling her neck everytime he exhaled. It was driving her crazy! She ground her teeth together, trying to keep her hand stable as she dropped the liquid into the next vial, careful to not expel it too quickly. Another exhale, and he folded his arms across his chest this time, his expression unreadable as he watched her through his safety glasses. She tried to ignore him as she moved onto the next sample, adjusting the pipette so it would pick up the correct volume. He leaned over her shoulder, checking to see that she’d gotten the value right, his breath blowing a strand of her hair against the back of her neck. And that was when she lost it. She swivelled around, pushing her chair back slightly to put some space between them. 

     ���Can you just …” She raised her hands, holding her palms out in a defensive stance. “Can you just give me some space? Please? I can’t work with you breathing down my neck like that.”

He raised an eyebrow, taken aback by her sudden outburst. But she didn’t back down, meeting his gaze as she tilted her head questioningly, waiting for his response. 

     He froze. There was something about the way her rosy lips twisted into a pout as she looked up at him, the way her almond-shaped eyes widened in a glare and the way her hair fell over the side of her face when she tilted her head like that. Just something about … her. He moved his chair a foot away, giving her the space she’d requested, and she rewarded him with a smile. That sweet smile she'd always give him, tinged with just the slightest hint of mischief and lighting up the room every time she walked into it. He turned around as she returned to her work, logging onto his laptop and clicking on his emails. He could leave her to the protocol: she was capable of handling it. In the meantime, he had his own work to look after.

     She'd been on her way out of the lab when Hui Fen ran up to her, eyes wide with curiosity. 

     “For what?” X asked, shooting her a quizzical glance. Hui Fen gestured to the lab, leaning in closer so no one else would hear. 

     “Oh my god,” she began, stopping X in her tracks. “Did you get in trouble?”

Her lips were curved into a grimace and she'd always been nice enough to X for her to know that Hui Fen's concern was genuine. Concern for what, she didn't know. But concern all the same.

     “For how you talked to Miguel in lab?” X's brows scrunched even closer together, her confusion only growing with every statement Hui Fen made. 

     “No?” she replied, unsure if she'd read the situation wrong. He hadn't seemed mad at her - not even a little irritated, his lips pursed in thought as he'd studied her. If anything, he'd seemed … embarrassed. She thought again about the tension she'd sensed overcome him after he'd moved a foot away from her. Not because he didn't trust her, but … Well, she supposed she didn't know the answer to that either. She narrowed her eyes at Hui Fen. “Why?” 

     This time it was Hui Fen's turn to look confused. She straightened, her lips turning down at the corners as she considered X's response. “Huh. That's weird. Everyone's usually too scared of him to talk to him like that.” 

     X shifted in position uncomfortably, not liking the way Hui Fen kept phrasing it. ‘How you talked to him’, ‘talk to him like that’. Like what? She shrugged her shoulders, trying to figure out how to end the conversation so they wouldn't start spreading rumours about her disrespecting her supervisor in the lab. 

     “Well, anyway,” X began, inching over to the door out of the prep room, “I'm gonna go get lunch. See you!” 

     “He is kind of terrifying,” she acquiesced, nodding her head slowly. “But, I dunno. He's nice to me. I think he just knows I can do better.”

It had not escaped her notice, how he always seemed more amenable to her suggestions, her ideas. And, evidently, it hadn't gone unnoticed by others in the lab too - she'd already had three people in the lab ask her to ask Miguel for something in the past week alone! But she couldn't look too much into it: aside from the fact that he was her boss, he was also way out of her league. He'd never be interested in her, no matter how hard she pushed herself in the lab. Well, at least she'd already made so much progress in the past six months she'd been here - he'd even trusted her to be the first to try out the new protocol earlier! She started backing away from Hui Fen, getting nervous by the pensive expression on her face. 

     Hui Fen looked up, startled. She waved at X quickly, her brain abandoning whatever train of thought she'd been on. “Oh! Yeah! See ya!” 

     She sat at her desk, munching on her nuggets as she typed up her results. The pantry was too loud today, everyone and their mother yelling at each other in excitement about whatever they usually gossiped about. She couldn’t handle the noise, so she’d usually have lunch at her desk, ears plugged up with her earphones, phone set up with whatever supernatural YouTube channel she’d gotten obsessed with at that point. She’d sneak over to the coffee machine when things got quieter, in the late afternoon, maybe, when she could sit down with someone of the friendlier interns and have a quick coffee break. A hand landed on her desk and she looked up to find Miguel leaning on her table, lips curled in disgust as he took in her lunch. 

     “You really should be eating healthier, arañita,” he  chided her. Little spider. He’d started calling her that a few weeks after she’d started, when she’d bounced into their weekly team meeting with some new hypothesis about the arachnid proteins they’d been working on. She’d zipped over to the whiteboard, research papers in hand as she’d drawn out her ideas and whizzed through messy explanations of the jumble of thoughts in her mind. Everyone else had looked at her in confusion, their minds working to decipher whatever she’d been trying to explain. But he’d studied her with a newfound interest, his hand moving to hide the way his lips had twitched at the ends. ‘Good job, arañita,’ he’d told her, impressed. Then he’d gestured to the whiteboard, no longer able to hide the amusement plain on his handsome features. ‘I’ll need that in a presentation though. I don’t think anyone else would be able to understand otherwise.’ She looked up at him now, her lips curling at the corners in a challenging smirk. 

     “Well, I hate eating and I can't cook, so …” she trailed off, shrugging her shoulders and waiting for his response. He frowned harder, crossing his arms over his chest.

     “Well, why don't you learn?” he suggested, that chronic irritation clouding his voice as he glared down at her. She pulled her eyes away from his arms, trying to ignore the outlines of his muscles through the pale fabric of his shirt. Then she shook her head, maintaining the air of relaxed amusement that always had him making that one look of exasperation that had her stomach somersaulting like mad. 

     “Sure,” he relented, not convinced at all. She was funny, sometimes, the way she'd say something she knew would get under his skin, then sneak a peek at him to gauge his reaction. It was like she just knew him; knew which buttons to push and when to push them. Not like other women with their forced jokes and uncomfortable attempts to flirt with him. She didn't ever flirt with him - well, not intentionally, anyway - and, if he were being perfectly honest with himself, he had to wonder why. She was cute and pretty … and smart too. Maybe she already had a boyfriend? No - he'd heard her talking with some of the interns once, and she'd said specifically that she'd never had a boyfriend. He found himself struggling to understand that, too. Was she not interested in men? No, she'd said she wanted one, in that same conversation. But anyway, this wasn't something he should have been worrying about; she was just his employee after all. Nothing more. And yet, here he was checking in on her to make sure that she was taking care of herself. “At least get a salad or something.” 

     “Oh, no,” she held up her hands, stopping him immediately. “That is a horrible idea, Dr O'Hara. Everything I make turns out both raw and burnt. It's a curse! I'm kitchen-cursed.”

She let out an exaggerated sigh and, just as she'd known it would, that look of exasperation came over his face. He raised an eyebrow and narrowed his eyes at her, his lips quirked at the corner in question. She bit her lip, her heart fluttering in her chest at the sight. 

     “Oh, um,” she winced at the idea, rubbing her stomach gently. “Vegetables are dangerous. I can get stuck on the toilet if I eat the wrong ones.”

Miguel ground his teeth together, frustrated. 

     “Well, I do like …” she recited a few dishes off the top of her head that she enjoyed eating, delighting in the way his shoulders seemed to slump in defeat with every word out of her mouth. She rested her chin in her palms when she was done, looking up at him with a sweet smile that held an edge of challenge. He rolled his eyes and stalked away, going off to eat his own lunch.

     “There must be something you can eat!” he argued. “Other than … this.”

He gestured at her food frantically and she bit on the inside of her cheek to stop her smile. She tilted her head to the side, thinking about it. 

[mariacallous]

On May 16, the gaming and entertainment news site Dexerto tweeted an image from the forthcoming game Assassin’s Creed Shadows featuring one of its protagonists, the Black samurai Yasuke, in a fighting pose. Across scores of replies, some voiced optimism, others fatigue with Assassin’s Creed’s now 14-game-long run, and a very vocal few expressed frustration and anger that a Black person was at the center of the narrative.

“Gonna pass on the DEI games,” wrote one blue-check X user, referencing the acronym for diversity, equity, and inclusion. “Why Wokeism?” asked another. Comments full of racist and sexist language filled the thread.

A more articulate undercurrent of these reactionaries, across many online forums, had a more specific set of complaints. Some alleged the race of the real Yasuke was never known, others that he wasn’t a samurai but a retainer, and another claimed he was never in combat.

These were all fairly elaborate conclusions to draw about a guy from 1581 who’s been depicted as a samurai in Japanese media many times, including in the 2017 video game Nioh and Samurai Warriors 5 in 2021, as well as his own animated series on Netflix.

They also may have been the last bit of armchair history we got on Yasuke if the conversation hadn’t been sustained by a set of accounts looking to build yet another front in the online culture war, fueling what some have been calling Gamergate 2.0. Whereas the Gamergate of 2014 focused on trying to drown out feminist voices, and the voices of women of color, in gaming culture, this second incarnation seems focused on pushing back against diversity in games of all kinds. Yasuke just stepped in their path.

The resurgence of the Gamergate moniker came earlier this year in reaction to the work of Sweet Baby. Staff at the small consultancy received a wave of harassment this spring stemming from misinformation and conspiracy theories claiming the company was a BlackRock-backed outfit trying to force diversity into games. (It’s not affiliated with BlackRock and merely advises on characters and storylines.) As the controversy around Assassin’s Creed Shadows intensified, several posts mentioned Sweet Baby, even though company CEO Kim Belair says the firm didn’t work on the game.

“I think it just comes with the post-Gamergate (late-Gamergate?) territory,” Belair wrote in an email to WIRED. “To a certain kind of person, largely trolls, we're synonymous with their idea of ‘wokeness in games’ or a vague idea of ‘DEI,’ but it's ultimately reflective of the overall misinformation that fuels this campaign.”

Gamergate was not the first harassment campaign conceived in the bowels of 4chan and its affiliate websites, but it was perhaps their crowning achievement. The attacks against developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu and media critic Anita Sarkeesian, among others, ranged from doxing to rape and death threats. Its tenets and tactics eventually proved valuable in bringing people into the burgeoning alt-right movement. Even Pizzagate and QAnon can, in some ways, be traced back to what was happening with gamers online in 2014.

“Gamergate was a recruiting ground, a pipeline to leverage the loneliness, discontentment, and alienation of young men—often white young men—into alt-right politics, extremist misogyny, and outright white supremacy and Nazism,” Thirsty Suitors narrative lead Meghna Jayanth told WIRED.

If the early days of social media incubated a cultural cold war, Gamergate turned it hot. Frustrated that they were no longer the sole demographic being catered to, Gamergaters saw “the growing visibility of women, not to mention their incomprehensible insistence that games cater to their perspectives as well, as an unwelcome intrusion in a space that does not belong to them,” Laura Hudson wrote in WIRED at the time. As a result, they wanted more than debate, they wanted blood—and nothing really stopped them from going after it.

Ten years later, aggrieved gamers are focusing on other forms of diversity and inclusion, which is how Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Yasuke has become the latest point of contention.

While only so much can be truly known when it comes to history, accounts suggest Yasuke (the real one, not the video game character) was a man presumed to be from west Africa who served the Italian missionary Alessandro Valignano. He accompanied Valignano to Japan where he served Oda Nobunaga at the daimyo’s demand. Yasuke was presented with the trappings of a samurai: a house, servants, a sword. He would go on to be with Nobunaga, or near him, at the time of his death, before seeking his heir Nobutada and joining him in battling those responsible for Nobunga’s death, though unsuccessfully.

While Yasuke’s history is fascinating and mysterious, much of the fuss over him has concerned whether he was officially a samurai, a depiction that has shown up in media several times in and outside of Japan. Some insist that he may have instead been a retainer, page, squire, or sword-bearer. Others decrying his inclusion in Shadows said he looked gay.

“There is no easy way to separate the many threads of what we are seeing within the Yasuke backlash,” says Paula Curtis, a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA’s Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies. “There are legitimate complaints about the developers’ decisions regarding representation and historical engagement … There are also many discriminatory responses to the game that have been anti-Black, misogynistic, and politically motivated.” It’s important to note, Curtis adds, that Shadows’ fans and commentators, and the issues they’re raising, aren’t uniform.

When Japanese historian Yu Hirayama tweeted there was “no doubt” as to Yasuke’s samurai status, he was treated to a tirade of abusive replies in English, including one claiming he brought “dishonor to [his] family and Japanese history.”

Amid the backlash to Yasuke’s inclusion in the game—and specifically to his role as a samurai—Ubisoft, the game’s developer, issued a statement saying that while the company “extensively collaborated with external consultants, historians, researchers, and internal teams at Ubisoft Japan” on the game, “some elements in our promotional materials have caused concern within the Japanese community.”

Without saying specifically which aspects caused concern, the company added that it was taking this “constructive criticism” into account as it prepared for the game’s November launch, and apologized. (Ubisoft did not respond to a request for comment on this story.)

Jayanth believes the apology was a case of misplaced appeasement.

“The alt-right's fundamental drive is hatred of the ‘other,’” she says. “Even if we cleansed our games of women, non-white people, queer people—which is their ask, and one we absolutely should not give in to—they would turn to insufficiently ‘masculine’ depictions of white men. This movement exists only in opposition to some polluting ‘other,’ an enemy that must be manufactured if a real enemy cannot be found.”

Revisionist approaches to history have seen a rise in recent years, especially in the interest of enshrining an idealist sense of a traditionalist past as an ahistorically conservative utopia.

“You see this in the false assertion of a purely white Middle Ages or the denial of war atrocities in World War II,” Curtis says. “Bad-faith actors may cherry-pick historical sources in order to craft specific narratives, completely ignore sources that do not support their views, or appropriate historical symbols as rallying cries to their causes.”

The proponents of Gamergate 2.0 have veiled their scorn for Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ inclusion of Yasuke within concerns for historical accuracy. Much Like the Gamergaters of old, who insisted they were defending ethics in gaming journalism and not harassing women they felt needed to be put in their place.

Gamergate then, and Gamergate now, are both ultimately about the sensitivities around who saw representation and how, made disproportionately important by how disempowered and alienated modern people feel. As games have made room for a wider array of characters, the gamers at the center of the backlash have seen this progress as a form of persecution. Games are changing, and as much as those upset over Yasuke’s inclusion in Shadows want to push back, they may not be able to stop that.

“It's certainly been strange to see us tied to a ton of games we've never worked on simply because people perceive ‘wokeness’ or progressive ideas in them,” Sweet Baby’s Belair says, “but maybe it's indicative of a greater truth that Gamergaters miss: No external consultancy is forcing studios to make their products more diverse or more progressive. The change, whatever you think of it, is coming from inside the house.”

[mage-ical-character-person]

Wait I just realized the Sea Emperor Leviathan from Subnautica waiting so long and then dying immediately after her eggs hatch is probably based on what real life mother octopi do.

Stick the link into https://12ft.io to learn information without giving email and such.

but yeah for some reason having children seals an octopus’ fate. Even ones with shorter incubation times.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this National Geographic story:

A 14-year-old boy who went swimming in a pond in India’s sweltering heat. A 13-year-old girl who bathed in a pool during a school excursion, and a five-year-old girl who took a dip in a river near her home. The three children lived in different parts of the southern Indian state of Kerala. Yet they have something in common ⸺all of them succumbed to a brain infection, Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis (PAM), caused by a tiny organism found in warm freshwaters and poorly maintained swimming pools. About a dozen others have been undergoing treatment in India, one of whom, a 27-year-old man, has also succumbed.

Although rare, PAM is a deadly infection with a worldwide occurrence. It is caused by Naegleria fowleri, also known as the "brain-eating amoeba”, as it infects the brain and destroys brain tissue. At least 39 countries have reported such infections so far, and the rate of infections is increasing by 4.5 percent every year. In Pakistan alone, 20 deaths are reported every year due to the disease, and in 2024, infections have been reported in India, Pakistan, and Israel. N. fowleri was also detected at a popular freshwater swimming spot in Western Australia and hot springs in the U.S’s Grand Teton National Park. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the majority of global case exposures⸺85 percent⸺have been reported during warm, hot, or summer seasons. Several studies have also observed that changes in temperature and climate may further drive a global increase in PAM incidence. A study published in May last year found that PAM infections are on the rise in the northern U.S. "N. fowleri is expanding northward due to climate change, posing a greater threat to human health in new regions where PAM has not yet been documented," the study noted.

Yun Shen, an assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the University of California, Riverside, says that she considers PAM as “a potential emerging medical threat worldwide”. She explains that while warmer temperatures are likely to facilitate the survival and growth of N. fowleri, the risk of exposure may also increase as people indulge in more water-based recreational activities in hotter weather.

N. fowleri is found in warm, untreated freshwater, soil, and dust, says Karen Towne, a clinical associate professor of nursing at the University of Mount Union in Ohio, who co-authored a 2023 study on how the amoeba poses “a new concern for northern climates”. She adds that so far, PAM infections have typically occurred in cases involving swimming, splashing, and submerging one’s head in freshwater lakes, ponds, hot springs, and reservoirs. Meanwhile, less common routes of transmission have included warm hose water, a lawn water slide, splash pad use, and exposure of the nasal membrane to tap water from private well systems.

“Epidemiologically, most cases have occurred in healthy children and young adults⸺more males than females⸺who have had recent contact with untreated fresh water,” Towne told National Geographic in an email interview.

According to Barbara Polivka, an associate dean of research at the University of Kansas School of Nursing, who co-authored the study with Towne, N. fowleri enters the nose via contaminated water, crosses the nasal membrane, and follows the olfactory nerve into the brain, where it incubates for an average of five days. “PAM begins with rapid onset of severe frontal headache, fever, nausea and vomiting, which worsen into stiff neck, altered mental status, hallucinations, coma, and death,” says Polivka.

[queen-of-writing-bad-things]

Henry Danger Reader Insert | Captain Man x Reader: SEASON 2

Episode 1: The Beat Goes On

~The Man Cave~

The elevator dinged and Schwoz stepped out, looking for his friends and carrying a sack full of mail.

"Hey, here's another sack." He said to Charlotte and (y/n), who looked at the bag with wide eyes. Captain Man had been receiving endless amounts of fan letters and gifts recently and the Man Cave was starting to fill up.

"No way, more fan mail?" Charlotte gasped, having already gone through about a hundred letters that morning.

"I get that Captain Man and Kid Danger are popular, but can't they just send an email or something? They keep sending us junk!" The young woman stated, pushing away one of the meaningful, but useless gifts someone had sent them. At least Ray gave her all the female stuff he was sent, like perfume and jewellery. Speaking of Ray, the man came down from the sprocket, wearing one of his signature brightly patterned shirts.

"Schwoz, I found another one of your diseased eggs in my tanning bed." Ray scolded the genius, holding up a pale pink, oddly-shaped egg. Schwoz loved to create mutants and monster creatures, but he always put them around the Man Cave to incubate and it freaked everyone out.

"It's not diseased...yet." The small man said carefully, as Ray studied and sniffed the egg.

"I know you're indestructible, but those tanning beds are lethal." (y/n) mentioned from behind her pile of mail. She hated that he used them, knowing that they were unbelievably bad for your skin.

"But how else am I supposed to get this sweet tan?" He winked at his friend, showing off his fake sun-kissed skin. In recent months, they had grown more and more attracted to each other and at this point, their romantic tension was bubbling over.

"Hey, what are you guys talking about?" Charlotte asked. She had never encountered any mutant eggs in the Man Cave and now she was worried that they were lurking around.

"Schwoz gets his jollies by blasting eggs with all kinds of weird radiation so he can see what happens when they hatch," Ray explained, giving Schwoz a knowing look.

"And yet you're still holding that egg." (y/n) smiled at him, making the large man hold the egg away from his body.

"It's fun to create mutants." Schwoz protested, even though his claims didn't carry much water. 

"Yeah, must've been real fun for your mom, oooh!" Ray joked, sending his best friend into peels of laughter as Schwoz scowled.

"Hey!" He snapped as Charlotte held in her giggles unlike the woman next to her. Ray threw the egg back to Schwoz, the sound it made as he caught it hinting that it was mysteriously dense.

"I want that egg off this property." He told him, making (y/n) gulp as he took control of the situation. Boss Ray was hot Ray. Whilst Schwoz stroked his weird egg, Henry came from behind the secret door with a can of whipped cream in his hand. Weird.

"Hey guys, someone left this can of whipped cream in the weapons room." He said, making (y/n) and Schwoz titter as he carried it so casually. That was no can of whipped cream, that was a deadly weapon.

"No, no, no, be careful with that!!" The young woman cried as Schwoz dashed over to take it from the boy's hands.

"Why?" Henry looked puzzled. It looked like a perfectly normal, safe can of squirty goodness to him. 

"Show him, Schwoz." (y/n) instructed, but she didn't expect him to test it on her best friend.

"Hey, Ray..." Schwoz smiled at his boss, who looked at him happily, not anticipating what was coming.

"Yeah, what's up?" He looked up from a fan's letter.

"Hey, I didn't mean—" (y/n) was cut off as Schwoz fired the can at him, causing him to shout in pain as his shirt burnt away. Henry and Charlotte laughed as he smouldered, but at least (y/n) felt bad for him.

"Dang dangit, Schwoz!" He yelled as the pain faded away.

"Relax, you're indestructible." Charlotte reminded him, but it didn't really help. 

"Yeah, well, my shirt wasn't." He snapped and (y/n) mourned the loss of his shirt since it had been one of her favourites. It always framed his shoulders so well. Her inner thoughts of adoration were interrupted as Henry got a text and pulled his PearPhone out of his pocket to check it.

"Oh man, I'm late for dinner, I better get home." He said, dashing to the elevator after quickly skimming through the message. 

"Wait, Henry. Do me a favour. Take this egg to your house." Schwoz whispered to him, the mutant egg rumbling and bubbling from the inside.

"This egg makes me nervous," Henry said, not trusting something that the mischievous man would give him, especially if it was one of his mutant creations.

"Just take it to your backyard and lay it in a boosh." He instructed the boy, quickly checking that Ray was still fawning over the letter in (y/n)'s hands. Well, fawning over that and her. 

"Okay, I'll take it home and put it in a boosh." Henry conceded, turning to enter the elevator, but was stopped once again as Charlotte opened a box.

"Hey, guys, look! One of your fans sent you both a birthday cake." She smiled and turned the box to show (y/n), revealing a cake complete with candles and blue frosting.

"But it's not their birthdays." The woman frowned as she looked at the cake. It was one of her quirks that she remembered everyone's birthday so she could get them a great gift and sometimes, it was useful for other things too. Like when her friends got sent a mysterious cake.

"CHARLOTTE, (Y/N), MOVE!" Henry shouted at both of them as he noticed something moving on top of the cake. Charlotte dived to the side and Ray pulled (y/n) over the couch as Henry punched Schwoz out of the way. The kid grabbed the whipped cream can from the genius's hands whilst he groaned in pain. He fired the strong laser beam at the cake, destroying it completely, making Ray look at his sidekick in confusion as he protected the woman in his arms. What was wrong with him?

"Ow!" Schwoz yelled as he held his nose, very confused as to why Henry would punch him. 

"Aw, I wanted a slice." (y/n) whined, her arms still around Ray's neck. Just because the danger was over didn't mean she had to let go, right?

"That cake was for both of us. You had no right!" Ray hissed at Henry, also reluctant to let his friend go. He could enjoy her embrace for just a few more minutes...

"I...I saw something on it." Henry told them, putting the can of whipped cream down and going over to inspect the remnants of the smoking cake.

"Why was I punched in the face?" Schwoz whined, his nose still aching.

"You just have one of those faces." (y/n) quipped, but everyone stopped laughing as Henry pulled some sparking circuitry from inside the sponge. There had been some foul play going on here.

"This was inside that cake," Henry said, passing it to (y/n) who looked at in shock with Ray.

"It's a wireless video camera. You know what that means?" The superhero breathed out and he took the small device from the girl's trembling hands. The explosion and now the fact that someone had sent them a camera made her nerves stand on end.

"That it doesn't require wires," Henry replied, misinterpreting what Ray had asked.

"No, it means that some asshole is trying to spy on us, here in the Man Cave." (y/n) clarified, shaking her head at the daft boy.

"I wonder who," Henry asked, him and Charlotte feeling uncomfortable at the thought of someone watching them. Ray was lost in thought and so was his best friend, meaning they were unknowingly drifting towards each other until they pressed their bodies together, her back to his front.

"I wonder why you punched me in the face," Schwoz shouted at Henry, breaking the couple's train of thought. 

"Guys! We need to figure out who sent that cake with this video camera inside." Ray snapped at them. He was on edge. He lived in the Man Cave, his livelihood was in the Man Cave, she was in the Man Cave, and that meant that she could be in danger. He just needed to know which villain sent the cake...

~Lil Biker's Shop~

"Doctor Minyak! I was able to save a short video image from before the camera stopped transmitting." Nurse Cohort showed her boss. So they were the criminals behind this plot. They had made their base in a biker shop for little kids in downtown Swellview and had even tied up the owner and shoved him in a closet. Meanies.

"Good, show it to me." The villain said, peering at Nurse Cohort's PearBook. After his last showdown with Captain Man, he was more than ready to face the superhero again. And this time, he hoped to beat him, starting with the people he worked with.

"Hey, guys, look! One of your fans sent you both a birthday cake." Charlotte said onscreen, her face clearly displayed for the villains to see. The camera was turned around and then they saw a pretty girl swamped by fan mail, (y/n). Ah, geez.

"These girls must somehow be connected with Captain Man and Kid Danger. So, all we need to do now is find them!" The crazy man said enthusiastically like it was no big task.

"That's all we have to do?" Nurse Cohort asked dumbly, thinking that their plan seemed a bit short.

"No! First, we find them, then, we use them to destroy Captain Man and Kid Danger!!" Minyak revealed his evil schemes. Yes, Charlotte and (y/n) would be his minions, all he had to do first was capture them.

~The next day, Swellview Park~

Charlotte had met up with (y/n) after school as she made her way to work. The young woman had been tasked with getting ice cream for her and Ray and since she bumped into the girl, it made sense that they'd walk together. Taking a shortcut through the park, they were trying to dash back to the Man Cave before the frozen treat melted.

"Can't believe all I'm good for is fetching ice cream." She grumbled to Charlotte, who giggled at her. She knew her friend loved ice cream and Ray, so the job didn't irritate her as much as she let on.

"Gather around! Gather around, citizens of Swellview!" A magician called to the crowd in a small seating area, making it hard for them to get through. Having never seen the criminals in person before, Charlotte and (y/n) couldn't recognise the magician and his assistant, who were really Doctor Minyak and Nurse Cohort.

"Come experience the magical magic of Doctor Magico!" The nurse yelled, their act merely a ruse so they could kidnap the girls they had tracked to the park. 

"And my assistant, Miss Direction!" Minyak added as the girls slowed down to briefly look at their act. A small show wouldn't hurt the ice cream, right?

"And now for my first trick, I shall need two volunteers!" He addressed the crowd of both kids and adults. 

"Pick me! Pick me! I love magic!" A little boy squealed from the crowd, but Minyak already had his sights set on the two girls who were about to leave. 

"We only need two volunteers!" He yelled again, ignoring the kid in front.

"I'm one volunteer!" He said back, not getting why he couldn't be part of the act.

"Uh, perhaps, these young ladies can help us?" Nurse Cohort rounded up the pair as they walked past the group, startled at how they'd been dragged in.

"Whoa, us?" Charlotte stuttered as she shoved her phone in her pocket.

"Yeah, we're kind of in a hurry." (y/n) laughed nervously, eyeing the softening ice cream. She really didn't want to be in some amateur magic act, preferring the thought of going home and eating ice on the couch with her best friend.

"Miss, ma'am, pick a card. Any card." He shoved a deck of cards in their faces, some of them falling from his hands.

"Uh, like she said, we really gotta get to work." Charlotte tried to give them an excuse, but Minyak ignored it all the same.

"Pick a card!" He reiterated, fanning the deck out so they could choose one.

"Fine, dude." (y/n) sighed, taking a card from the deck and showing it to Charlotte.

"And now that they've chosen their card, we place the girls into the magical cans of trash!" Minyak smiled at the crowd, who all thought this was part of the show. (y/n) and Charlotte struggled against their captors, but Minyak had a firm grip on the woman's arms and even though she was a petite lady, Nurse Cohort was able to lift Charlotte into a blue trash can.

"What are you doing?" Charlotte gasped as the nurse slammed the lid shut and locked it. (y/n) panicked as Minyak pulled a small needle from his pocket. Of course, a child was easy to incapacitate, but a grown woman was different; he'd need a little bit of help. Dropping the ice cream in fear, she could hear the thumping of her friend on the sides of the trash can as the blood rushed through her head, and the doctor used her shock against her when he pricked her skin with the sleeping drug.

"Who the fuck are you--" (y/n) slurred as her eyes became unbearably heavy, the drug working alarmingly fast as she collapsed into Minyak's arms. With his assistant's help, he managed to shove her body into a green trash can, which they then wheeled into their van. They grinned cheerfully at the crowd, acting as though it was some sort of disappearing trick.

"(y/n)! (y/n)? Help!" Charlotte screamed as she felt her prison move and be roughly pushed into the van.

"And now, close your eyes..." Minyak instructed the crowd mysteriously, and with no one looking or suspecting something was wrong, he and Cohort scrambled into the van and made their escape with the terrified girls in the back.

~Back in the Man Cave~

No one suspected anything was wrong, after all, Charlotte regularly made that walk back from school to Junk-N-Stuff and (y/n) often went out for ice cream, so there was no panic amongst Ray, Schwoz or Henry.

"And here's my special guacamole." Schwoz smiled at Henry, who was just sat at the couch drinking some bubblegum Kool-aid and scrolling through his phone. Schwoz and Ray had gotten into another one of their silly competitions and with no (y/n) there to be the referee, it was getting pretty intense.

"Yeah, and here's my super-duper special guacamole." Ray ran over to the couch, being careful not to drop his bowl of the avocado dip. 

"Now, which was one's better?" Ray asked the boy, who took a chip from the blue bowl in front of him and dunked it into Schwoz's guac first.

"Alright, now I'll try yours." He nodded at Ray after getting a good taste of the smaller man's dip. He took another chip and tested Ray's, instantly knowing which one he preferred.

"Okay, think about the way the flavour blends and y'know, the mouthfeel, the way it hits--" Ray tried to sway his opinion but Henry had already made up his mind.

"Schwoz wins." He deadpanned, ignoring any comments the large man used to influence him. Yeah, Ray's was nice, but Schwoz's had that little kick at the end that Henry really enjoyed.

"What?" The superhero spluttered, thinking for sure he had the better recipe.

"I win! I do better things to avocados!" Schwoz gloated, winding his boss up. They really needed (y/n) on standby to calm any of their childish arguments.

"No! This whole contest was...a--a...a avomockery! I want a second opinion, where's (y/n)?" Ray whined, realising that his beloved helper wasn't with them.

"You sent her to get ice cream, remember?" Schwoz told him, seeing how Ray was looking everywhere for the girl. He hated being apart from her, but at least he'd be able to enjoy some ice cream when she got back.

"All right, where's Charlotte?" He moved on to the next reasonable person he could ask for an unbiased opinion.

"Oh, she's not here either," Henry reported, dunking another chip in Schwoz's guacamole.

"She's late for work? Great! The one time we're doing something important." He growled, feeling tetchy at how he'd lost and how (y/n) wasn't here to tell him he made great guac. He grabbed a handful of chips and crunched them in his fist before throwing the crumbs on the table. He always was a sore loser.

~Lil' Bikers Shop~

(y/n) had stirred from her unconsciousness, blinking in confusion when she saw that she and Charlotte were in some weird tanks of liquid, in some weird shop. She couldn't remember how she'd got there, only that she'd been getting ice cream for Ray and there had been a magic act in the park and...hey!

"Hey! Hey!" Charlotte shouted at Doctor Minyak as he set up his experiment around them. With the girls captured, all he had to do was brainwash them so they would obey his every command.

"Yes, you have a question?" He asked in a slow tone, focusing on tweaking the machine's controls.

"We have a lot of questions, dickhead!" The older woman growled as she flailed her arms and legs in the purple water. Normally, she'd limit her cursing in front of kids, but she was beyond angry at the situation she found herself in.

"Starting with, who are you, people?" Charlotte added, equally baffled and pissed off.

"And why have you stuck us in these huge tanks of fruit punch?" (y/n) finished, glaring at the man and woman.

"You know who I am and I know that you know that I'm Doctor Minyak because I know that you know Captain Man and Kid Danger. This video proves it!" The doctor rambled on, flicking his video of them in the Man Cave together on the screen.

"Okay, so what do you want from us?" Charlotte asked, knowing that there was no use in denying it since the video showed the Captain Man logo in the Man Cave.

"I want you to destroy Captain Man and Kid Danger." He seethed, clenching his fist at the thought of the heroes that screwed him over last time.

"Oh, yeah, let us out of these fruit boxes and we'll do it right after we get home." (y/n) snarked, trying to give Minyak as much attitude as she could muster.

"What a feisty little thing you are. Oh, I'll release you soon, after I take control of your minds through the use of musical brain-warping." He told them, which amused Charlotte and concerned (y/n).

"Musical brain-warping? That's not a thing." The teen scoffed, thinking the villain was bluffing.

"Yes, it is, which is very bad news for us." (y/n) whispered to her, struggling to get free from the box.

"You see, by playing the right combination of musical chords, combining the keys of F minor and D Flat, backed with the right funky beat, the human mind opens up like a thirsty sponge, into which I can place instructions through clever rap lyrics which I have written myself," Minyak explained, smirking at Nurse Cohort as he bragged about writing a rap song.

"So, you're gonna take control of our brains by rapping?" Charlotte asked, not taking the guy seriously.

"Oh, I won't be rapping, but I've hired the unknown hip-hop artist, Lil Biggie." He snapped his fingers and a little boy came out from the back of the shop. Well, he definitely looked like a rapper.

"Earplugs!" The doctor ordered, so he, his assistant and the boy all plugged up their ears so they wouldn't be affected by the music.

"Now, Lil Biggie. Rap! Let my lyrics flow!" Minyak directed the little boy as he played the musical combination again. 

"Get up, go on, get outta this place, go find Captain Man and bust his face. Then take a little walk, don't talk to strangers, then pick up and club and whack Kid Danger. Yeah, little girls, you know the plan. Go smash Kid Danger and Captain Man. Destroy 'em both, then come on back to the songwriter, doctor-doctor Minyak, hee hee!" The boy sang, making (y/n) and Charlotte twitch and convulse as their brains were overtaken. He finished with a little spin, his work complete as the girls were motionless and ready to follow Minyak's every command.

"Where's my 75 bucks?" Lil Biggie asked the doctor, who made Nurse Cohort pay the kid his money.

"So, now that you have taken control of their minds, they're going to go and destroy Kid Danger and Captain Man?" The woman asked her boss as he fiddled with the machinery next to the fruit punch tanks.

"Not yet. First, I must amplify their physical strength." He replied, and switched on the machine, making the purple liquid glow.

"Now, my young friends, I give you both 4.9 million nuclear gigavolts of girl power!" The man chuckled in excitement as the punch started to fizz and bubble. The process made the girls grimace and jerk, but Minyak was too happy to care. His plans had never gotten to this stage successfully and now he was ready to end his enemies once and for all. 

~Back in the Man Cave~

With still no sign of (y/n) or Charlotte, Henry, Ray and Schwoz were lounging around the couch, still eating the guacamole.

"Mmm, so good." The boy complimented Schwoz's dip, loving how its zesty flavour worked so well with the chip.

"You see, I mush up the avocado, then I add onions, cilantro, the garlic, and then my secret juices..." Schwoz smiled at Henry, but he had no time to reveal his secret ingredient because the elevator doors opened and the two brainwashed girls stepped out. To give them a more menacing look, Minyak had dressed them in black t-shirts and jeans, a leather jacket each and dark sunglasses. 

They walked out silently, their faces void of emotion. 

"Charlotte, (y/n)! Glad you're both here! Now, Charlotte, I don't know if you're a guacamole fan and I know (y/n) is, but I made this pretty awesome bowl of my own--" Ray sauntered up the girls so they could try his food. All they could see though was Captain Man walking up to them in a red haze, and their minds were telling them to kill him. Taking the bowl of guacamole from his hands, Charlotte threw it to the side, causing the green dip to smash all over the floor, much to Ray's horror. 

"Hey! You don't want to try my guacam--" He was cut off again as (y/n) kneed him in the crotch, making her friend scream from the excruciating pain. If she kept that up, they'd never have any kids. Henry and Schwoz winced at the sight, knowing the agony he was going through. With the superhero not moving, Charlotte grabbed him by the shoulders and used her new super-strength to fling him upwards so he hit the ceiling and then fell back down with a thump. 

Ray scrambled to his feet, feeling dizzy from the unexpected attack from his friends of all people.

"I'm okay." He reassured Henry and Schwoz in a strained voice, feeling more hurt by the fact that the woman he loved had attacked him so cruelly than the injuries themselves.

"Uh, guys. Little help here." He walked backwards as the girls stalked towards them, (y/n) going for him and Charlotte aiming for Henry. 

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Charlotte, what's wrong with you? How come your--" Henry was cut off as the dark-haired girl easily picked him up and threw him across the room. Henry cowered next to the elevator door as he shivered from the fall. 

"Okay, Schwoz, you talk to them." He said, not wanting to be hurt again. (y/n) kept walking towards them and her only thought was that she had to destroy Captain Man and Kid Danger. Seeing her approaching, Schwoz yelped and got on the floor, his hands and feet in the air like a dead animal. 

"What are you doing?" Ray panicked as (y/n) kept moving. She was his best friend, why would she have any reason to hurt him?

"Shhhh! I want them to think I'm dead." He whispered, but he wasn't their target. The woman walked past his body and cornered Ray.

"Whoa now, (y/n/n), no need to walk toward me." He stammered as he backed into the supercomputer. With nowhere to go, (y/n) grabbed him by the throat and lifted him into the air with her new strength, his toes dangling as he choked for air.

"(y/n), please, what are you doing?" He groaned hoarsely, wanting to fight back, but he couldn't since he would never be able to bring himself to hurt a single hair on her head.

"Hey, Charlotte, (y/n), you wanna fight someone, come and get me!" Henry opened the door to the elevator with a plan in his head. Seeing their other target on the other side of the room, the girls switched heroes and started to creep towards the teen. Ray gasped for air as his throat was released from her iron grip, but his concern switched to his sidekick since the kid now had both brainwashed girls moving towards him. 

"Henry..." He warned him hoarsely, his eyes widening at the danger the boy was in.

"I got it. Come on, come on, yeah.." Charlotte and (y/n) reached out their arms to choke him too, but he was too quick for them and he grabbed their arms and shoved them into the elevator. With the door sliding shut, he turned to Ray and Schwoz, who had only just gotten up from the floor. Coward.

"Hurry. Kill the power to the elevator." He instructed his boss, who swiftly jumped into action and pressed a few buttons on the computer's control panel, trapping the females in the elevator. 

"They're in a really bad mood." Henry whimpered as they had a moment to breathe.

"It's worse than that. (y/n) would never hurt us, neither would Charlotte. Something's happened to them. And it's not good." Ray swallowed, his heart aching at the idea of someone torturing or twisting his girl into something she wasn't. His darling (y/n), she would never hurt him, and he swore revenge on the person who had taken her sweetness away from him.

"Well, at least we're safe for a--" Schwoz tried to catch his breath, but the elevator door was suddenly ripped from the wall as Charlotte and (y/n) punched through it. The boys jumped onto the sofa in fear; the assassins were free again. Ray tried throwing some chips to ward them off, but it did nothing.

Being indestructible and completely in love with her, Ray decided he'd be the one to talk to (y/n) as she walked towards the group.

"Now, (y/n), sweetheart---" His honeyed words were lost on her controlled mind. She grabbed the wrist of the hand that he tentatively placed on her cheek and bent in downwards, the funny angle causing him great pain. 

"Ow, ow, ow!" He yelled as she squeezed even harder. Charlotte walked forward to grab him, but Henry stopped her before she could kick him down. 

"Charlotte, what's happened to you..." Henry's words ran out as he turned her around and yanked off her dark glasses. Her eyes were ruby red, freaking the boy out as they seemed to pierce his soul.

"Ah, geez." He whimpered, so Ray overcame the pain in his arm and took off (y/n)'s aviators, her usually (y/e/c) orbs glowing scarlet. His stomach dropped when she glared at him, making him long to see the radiant smile that she so often gave him.

"Oh, sweetheart, what have they done to you?" He breathed out, feeling guilt sit in his stomach as he got the feeling that this was meant for him. Using his best friend to kill him, how cruel.

"Okay, don't be mad. Do you wanna go get some ice cream or--" Henry tried to calm his friend down, hoping a bribe would work, but his offer went down like a lead balloon. Charlotte grabbed his shirt collar and forced his head into hers, stunning the boy as a dull pain erupted behind his skull. Seeing that Henry needed help, Ray used his superhero strength and prised (y/n)'s fingers from his wrist, trying to avoid blemishing her skin with any bruises.

"Charlotte! Now, you listen to me, right now!" He snapped at the girl, who turned around and gave him her evil stare. Gaining (y/n)'s and Charlotte's attention made Ray back off, his confidence suddenly gone as they switched targets again.

"Or you know what, I'll send you a text!" He screamed as he ran away from them, leading them into the backroom and then into the main one again.

"Schwoz, drop the tubes!!" He cried out as he dashed down the steps, two murderous ladies on his tail. 

With (y/n) and Charlotte stood in the perfect spot, Schwoz followed Ray's instructions and lowered the tubes, trapping the girl's in their places. Sprinting over to the tube controls, Schwoz filtered energy into them, causing a blue force field to surround the girls. 

"Uh, w--w-what'd you do?" Ray stuttered, still feeling his adrenaline running high.

"I flooded the tubes with neurone neutralising particles." He explained as Henry struggled to overcome his head injury. He'd have a nasty bump in the morning for sure.

"So, they can't move?" Ray asked, hoping his best friend was all right.

"No." Schwoz replied, breathing a sigh of relief.'

"Kid, you okay?" Ray looked at his sidekick, who was still swaying.

"Yeah, I just think I need a--nope." He tried to get steady on his feet, but the room was spinning and his head was throbbing, and he fell over. He groaned in pain on the floor as Schwoz picked up one of (y/n)'s scanners from her toolbox and ran it over the tubes so he could read their vital signs.

He looked at the data on a screen that was showing both of their brain waves, as Ray stood around nervously. Henry finally got to his feet and joined his boss in waiting for the results. Ray couldn't live without (y/n) by his side, so if Schwoz couldn't help them, he wasn't sure what he'd do. A gasp from the little man told him he'd found something, making Ray pale in worry.

"Their brains have been warped!" The genius exclaimed, confusing Henry who had never heard of such a phenomenon. The large man next to him looked at his girl in her tube, his heart breaking as she glared at him. He should've never let her go out alone.

"Warped? How?" Henry asked.

"With music," Schwoz told them, making Ray put a hand over his chest as if the action would make his heart hurt any less.

"You mean, musical brain-warping?" He questioned, even though the answer was pretty self-explanatory. 

"I said their brains had been warped by music, what else would I mean other than musical brain-warping?!" He shouted at Ray, who backed off. He was too distressed to fight back, choosing to keep his heartache to himself and wishing that he could just hold (y/n) to his chest so he could protect her from the world and all its evil. If he could just think of a way to help them...

"So, you're saying that there's a song stuck in their brains that's making them wanna hurt me and Ray?" Henry frowned at the thought. To see (y/n) filled with so much hate towards him, Henry knew that Ray must be feeling completely wretched.

"Exactly." Schwoz nodded as an idea popped into his boss's head.

"Hey, is there a way you could extract the song from (y/n) and Charlotte's brains?" He asked the little guy, knowing that he was the only one smart enough to save his helper and the girl.

"Yeah, sure, why?" Something like that was easy-peasy for a genius like Schwoz.

"'Cause if we have the song she heard, we could play it backwards...this is my idea," Ray explained, stopping Henry from saying it at the same time as him. He needed to tell (y/n) that he had been the one to save her and Charlotte, that way she'd be all cute around him and he'd feel like her knight in shining armour.

"I said it first," Henry smirked.

"No, you did not! Who said it first?" The superhero snapped back, looking at Schwoz to back him up.

"Henry." He answered simply, making the boys fall into a fight as Ray tried to grab Schwoz.

"You just want to rescue your girlfriend." Henry giggled as he pulled Ray back, making the man calm down and back off with a red face.

"She's not my girlfriend." He mumbled bitterly. He had moved past the denial stage by now and was certain that he loved her completely. He was also sure that she'd never go for a guy like him, so as always, he repressed his love for her and waited with dread for the day she fell into another man's arms and promised her love to someone else.

"Tell her how you feel and she will be," Schwoz stated in a sing-song voice as he started to search Charlotte and (y/n)'s brains for the song. So many memories.

"Just look for the damn song!" Ray hissed as he grew flustered from their teasing. Tell her? Not a chance.

"Wait, where's the blob?"

"Raymond!"

"Give me a job here!"

"Jerk never showed up." 

"Can you find the song in their brains?" Henry asked Schwoz as he flicked through their memories from the past year. So much had happened since then, meaning there was a lot to sort through.

"I'm getting close." The small man said as he zoomed in on a newer memory. Selecting it and playing it louder, the brainwash song began to play in the Man Cave, making the girls' eyes glow an even brighter red.

"Got it." He reported, keeping the song on his PearPad.

"Put it on hologram," Ray instructed him, ready to see what the girls had gone through. A hologram of Lil Biggie appeared in front of the guys, as they stepped back to see what would happen.

"Now, play it backwards." Ray and Henry said together, irritating the other by stepping on each other's words.

Charlotte and (y/n) twitched and convulsed like they had done back in Minyak's hideout out and Lil Biggie rapped in reverse, his words sounding like gibberish. 

"Okay, Henry, raise the tubes," Ray told the boy, who took out his remote and said the command. They all leaned back in fear as the backwards rap took effect, they couldn't be sure if this would work or not. Schwoz turned off the track as the lyrics played out, Ray and Henry walking up to the girls as they shook their heads and blinked.

"Charlotte, (y/n), y'all right?" Henry asked them carefully as he and Ray each supported a girl. 

"Yeah..." Charlotte slurred, her eyelids still feeling heavy as she tried to walk. 

"I don't feel so good--" (y/n) trailed off as the two of them collapsed, their super strength disappearing along with the mind control. They were free but their strength had been sapped by the process, leaving them feeling floppy.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy." Ray quickly scooped his girl into his arms, carrying her bridal style as Henry put Charlotte's arm around his shoulder and helped her to the couch. He had never been so happy to have her with him, her body feeling weightless as he carried her across the room. He sat her down on the couch's back, next to Charlotte as he kept one hand on her shoulder and the other on her cheek so she would look at him in the eye.

"Now, tell us what happened," Ray said to her and Charlotte, making them squint as they tried to remember.

"Well, we were over there, then you guys helped us walk over here..." Charlotte garbled, her brain feeling sluggish.

"To this couch." (y/n) smiled at Ray like she was drunk, thinking that she'd given him the answer he was looking for. She giggled as he gave her a sympathetic look, her dreamy eyes looking at him like he was an angel in front of her. 

"No!" Henry groaned, hating how slow the usually intelligent girls were being.

"Sweet girl, before that," Ray whispered, stroking the rough pad of his thumb over her cheekbone, which seemed to ground her as his sweet nickname sunk in. He had never called her that before and it was like a bucket of cold water over her head.

"Oh, it was...what was his name, (y/n)?" Charlotte rubbed her temple as she struggled to get her brain up to its normal speed.

"Oh, uh...Doctor Minyak!!" The woman snapped her fingers as the name illuminated her mind, causing Ray to gaze at her in shock and guilt.

"Yeah, he musically brain-warped us," Charlotte confirmed, as Ray looked away from his friend in shame. His nemesis had done this to her? Because of his hatred of him? 

"Doctor Minyak?" Henry gasped.

"And his sidekick Nurse Cohort?" Ray growled as (y/n) put her hand over his, leaning her cheek into his touch. She wasn't used to such tenderness, not from him and she was relishing it.

"Yeah, they, uh, were in a shop." Charlotte shook her head as the details escaped her grasp.

" I think it was some motorcycle shop for kids." The young woman patted her hand from her place on the back of the couch, not wanting the teen to push herself too far.

"Lil Bikers?" Schwoz asked them, lighting up Charlotte's face as she remembered.

"That's it!" She confirmed, making Ray let go of (y/n) and fumble for his gum tube. He was ready to kick Minyak's ass for what he had done.

"Well then. Henry, I think you know what to chew and blow." He told his sidekick who started to chew a piece of gum too.

"I think I do. You mean the gum, right?" The kid asked, just to make sure they were on the same page.

"Yeah, I mean the gum." Ray looked at him like he was crazy.

"Well, I was just checking." The boy quickly said before they transformed into Captain Man and Kid Danger. Schwoz and Charlotte nodded in approval, but (y/n) seemed to be a bit lost in thought.

"Let's go," Ray said to Henry and they ran to the tube area and slapped their belts.

"Wait, wait, wait!" (y/n) suddenly yelled, looking like she'd seen a ghost.

"What?" Ray breathed out, believing she'd remembered something horrific about her experience. 

"I dropped the ice cream." She whimpered, recalling how Minyak made her drop their dessert when he grabbed her. Ray chuckled breathlessly at her panic; only she would think she could get into trouble after being kidnapped.

"Sweet girl..." He laughed, making Henry roll his eyes at their interaction.

"Up the tube!" He called out, sending them out of the building before they could be gross again. Left with the girls, Schwoz turned to them so he could spark up a conversation.

"So, you like Taylor Schwift?" He asked them in his thick accent, confusing Charlotte and (y/n).

"Uh, sure," Charlotte said, not really knowing how to respond.

"Schwoz, you know she's my favourite singer." (y/n) knitted her eyebrows together wondering where he was going with this.

"Yeah, lot of catchy songs." He noted, making them nod awkwardly. 

"Maybe you could have one of her love songs at your wedding with Ray, sweet girl." Schwoz teased (y/n), him and Charlotte laughing as the woman's mouth dropped open and she fell backwards onto the couch's cushions so she could hide her face. Their teasing was mortifying, yet she couldn't help but let their words spark a fantasy in her head. They continued to giggle and fall into more conversation as she imagined their vows, their first dance, their honeymoon and their promise to love each other forever.

~Lil Bikers shop~

Having forced their way into the motorcycle shop, it was fairly easy for Ray and Henry to subdue Doctor Minyak and Nurse Cohort. Ray was fuelled with rage and let out his anger as he roughly tied the criminals together.

"This is for hurting the woman I love, Minyak." He growled ferociously as he grabbed the doctor's pale face, his fury threatening to break free. He squeezed the villain's jaw with a fierce grip, Henry being too busy with his microphone and the setting up of the music to notice. Minyak let out a small squeak of pain as Ray released his head, the velocity from his hold making his skull go back in Nurse Cohort's. The pair winced in pain, but Captain Man didn't care. In his mind, they were getting everything they deserved.

Stepping up the DJ booth, Ray put in some earplugs with Henry and turned the music up loud. Sauntering up to Minyak and Cohort, Henry held the microphone up to his lips. This was for Charlotte and (y/n).

"Hey, yo, listen up, you're stuck in this place while Kid Danger raps and Captain Man pumps the bass." Henry spat out the lyrics, getting up in their faces as he rapped.

"Yeah, p-p-p-pumping up the bass!" Ray added in the background as he scratched the records.

"We'll turn you loose, here's the plan, whack yourself in the head with a frying pan!" Henry jumped as Ray tried to sound as cool as he did.

"Yeah, frying pan, yeah." He said, missing the beat a little.

"You better listen to what I'm saying and respect my rhymes as whack yourselves in the head, ninety-five times." Henry finished with a high-five from Ray as the music died out. 

"Okay, I'll untie them." He told his sidekick as he threw down his headphones and earplugs.

"I'll get the frying pans," Henry added, handing Minyak a red frying pan and Nurse Cohort a black one once they were free from their bonds.

"I wonder if it worked," Ray commented, hoping he could teach them a lesson for messing with his closest friends.

"Yeah, I guess it depends on whether or not the music--" Henry was cut off as they got their answer. The doctor smack the frying pan into his forehead and his assistant did the same, causing the metal to ring loudly after it collided with their skulls.

"See, that's nice." Ray smiled, glad that their plan had succeeded.

"It, really is." Henry sighed with happiness too.

"Y'know, at some point we're gonna have to wipe their brains, so they have no memory of Charlotte or (y/n)." Ray said after they had taken a moment to admire their work as the criminals walked around and whacked themselves with the pans.

"Yeah, then, we should probably take them to jail." Henry agreed, knowing that it was their duty to hand them over to the police.

"You wanna do that now or...?" Ray seemed a bit reluctant to end their fun so quickly. 

"Nah, I think we should let them do this for a while." Kid Danger couldn't see any harm in letting them carry on for a bit. Ray agreed, enjoying the sight of Minyak and Cohort too much to let it go so easily.

"So, you've got a new name for (y/n)." Henry introduced the new topic as the villains started to hit each other.

"Wha-so?" Ray spluttered, hoping no one had noticed his pet name for his best friend. He couldn't help but call her that, it was everything he felt for her in two simple words. She was sweet, like honey and sugar, and he craved the rush she always caused in his veins; and she was his girl, the one he wanted with every fibre of his being, but couldn't hold onto for fear of being selfish. She was wonderful and he was...just Ray. The guy who stayed back when she went looking for a boyfriend, the guy who looked for the same kind of feeling with other girls but could never find it. Being Captain Man had never dazzled her as it had with everyone else, so he was just left to be himself around her. A normal guy.

"Earth to Ray. Dude, snap out of it!" Henry waved in his hand in front of the man's face as he spaced out. Must've been dreaming about (y/n) again.

"What?" Ray looked at him in confusion as Minyak and Cohort kept hitting themselves. 

"If you think about her that much, ask her out! You never know, she might say yes." Henry almost begged him, tired of seeing his boss and his friend constantly mull over their feelings.

"Just go get the memory-wiper from the Man Van!" Ray instructed him, pushing the suggestion to the back of his mind. Henry groaned in annoyance, but complied, knowing they had to shift the criminals before they went home. Still, he had set a niggling question off in the back of Ray's mind, that had started to slowly work its way to the front of his consciousness.

If he asked, would she be his forever?

[nilsavatar]

DAY 4 - SPANKING

Parings: Jake x Fem!avatar

Genre/Warnings: NSFW/MDNI +18, no use of Y/N, SMUT in the end, P in V, spanking, use of pet names (baby girl, sir), dom Jake, age gap, mentor-student relationship (difference in power), one night stand, cheating, mention of Lo'ak x oc, Spider has a crush on her. All characters are AGED-UP.

Summary: Aubree (reader) has just arrived on Pandora, her lifelong dream finally coming true. But a series of misfortunes will lead her to share a passionate moment with the sexy Olo'eyktan of the Omatikaya. Starting with a broken shower.

Inside you will find a hint of Lo'ak x OC. Let me know if you would like a version with him as well.

Word Count: 5k

Masterlist - Request a fic

“So, it is settled? There will be new entries in the AVTR Program. I don’t like the sound of it.” The last part was said in a whisper that Norm heard anyway, thanks to the amplified senses of his Na’vi-like body. “We’re understaffed, Jake. They’re trusted people, among the best minds on Earth, who love this moon just as much as we do.” “You love it so much that you rejected Faanì’s advances,” he chuckled. “That woman terrifies me. She is so…” “Confident, go-getter?” “‘Encroaching, pushy.” “Hey, it’s the Omatikaya ways,” he shrugged his shoulders. “They’re used to being straightforward, and taking what they want.” “Ignoring her isn’t direct enough?” “Evidently, their extreme sincerity doesn’t let them acknowledge the hidden meaning behind your evasiveness. Also, Faanì has several suitors; your coldness will be the reason for her apparent obsession.”“Apparent, really?” “Admit it, you’re at least a little pleased. She’s a stunner, and she’s totally into you. Come on, loosen up a bit. It’s fine to have fun sometimes. You're the last unmated dreamwalker and one of the few who didn't opt for the permanent consciousness transfer. Don’t tell me you’re still thinking about…” His silence was as loud as a scream. “It won’t bring her back. And that's not what she'd have wanted. You know that, right? Anyway, when are they getting here?” “In a week.”

“I thought you would make the first link with your avatar as soon. ”When her fingers touched the cold, metallic handle, she almost exulted. Dusk was fast approaching, and she longed to rid herself of the sticky, humid rainforest heat by jumping into the shower. Her head bent to hold her cell between ear and shoulder, a clipboard wedged under her armpit, and her badge lined up haphazardly toward the lector on the door.

"That's not how it rolls," she said, holding back a chuckle. “They put me through some tests first. Linkage can be risky if you're not in tip-top shape. I was in cryo for six years and woke up on a whole new world. You should know better than me, doc.” The woman on the other end of the phone chortled. “What can I say? I’m a therapist. Mind’s my thing; the rest is in the hands of you geniuses.”

The unlocking beep was covered by the resounding clapping of the paperwork that slipped from under her arm. Great. She rolled her eyes at the ceiling, opening the door and pushing the fallen papers in with one foot. Then she disposed of her purse and badge, leaving them on the shelf at the entrance. Aubree was about to answer her, but her voice lost its importance the moment the trill of an incoming email rose from the small monitor on the desk.

“It’s Max. My exams are ready. Tomorrow's the big day! My avatar's coming out of the incubator and I'm making my first connection.” “Amazing! Go freshen up, grab a good meal, and hit the hay early. Tomorrow’s gonna be a tiring day and the experience of the first link may be traumatic.” “Are you speaking as a friend or a psychologist?” “As both?” “Consider it done, Liv. Rest assured.” “And tomorrow night we’re going to have a momentous hangover. To celebrate.” The scientist smiled. “Doesn’t sound like very professional advice.” “Hey, I've been waiting for you on Pandora for a year! You finally got your doctorate, and you're not gonna party? You're the worst, you know that?” “Technically, I got it six years ago.” “But for you, it’s like it was yesterday. It’s a lot to process. What do you think we therapists are here for?” “Norm’s not gonna be so happy.” She heard her exclaim, “Can’t wait! Tomorrow it is! And eat.” “Aye, aye. See you tomorrow,” she signed off before hanging up.

She huffed as she laid the papers neatly on the desk, went to the bathroom, and hurriedly undressed, opening the jet. As soon as the cold water rained down on her heated skin, she let out a sigh of relief. Aubree hated the hot weather, the bugs, the sweaty clothes. All things she hadn’t considered moving here, but still wouldn’t make a difference. In the summer, on weekdays, she took two showers a day, sometimes one even at night when the mugginess prevented her from sleeping. Occasionally, she wondered where she found the strength to get out of bed at three in the morning to shower.

Out of the blue, as she was soaping her hair, the jet went off. She tried to turn it back on a couple of times, before walking out of the stall cursing, grabbing a towel to rub her skin and hair. Then she put on the first thing that came her way and left the room at a brisk pace. She refused to skip her beloved evening shower.

The girl walked down the long corridor until it opened onto the link beds wing, where she knew she would find Norm. And indeed, there he was, emerging from his pod; a tired expression painted on his face. Waiting for him, besides the medical team, was a tall Na’vi in warrior garb who struggled to keep his back straight because of his size. Just further away, another pair of natives who appeared noticeably younger, her peers presumably, but equally warriors judging by the cummerbund that wrapped around their ribcage. They whispered and nudged each other while laughing at something only they knew.

Their somber vociferation was abruptly ceased at the entrance of the girl, who, if she had not been so stymied, would have noticed the astonished stares and the sudden muteness filling the room. With the soles of her bare feet flapping in stride, her hair glossy with shampoo, her clothes clinging to the non-dry skin and showing off more than they should, and a livid expression, she planted herself in front of Norm, who stared at her with some embarrassment and intimidation, although the woman was noticeably smaller than him.

And the same could have been said for poor Jake, who tried to focus on everything else as long as he did not look down at her cleavage. The damp fabric not only perfectly outlined her breasts but also highlighted her air-conditioned nipples. The darker areolas showing through the white material, pointing at him like a pair of eyes.

“Norm.” She called caustically, and for a moment Jake swore he sensed him trembling under the accusatory tone with which she pronounced his name. Shit, he himself had felt an electric shock run down his spine and pour into his lower abdomen. "This is the third time in two weeks," she accused, arms crossed, foot tapping. That simple gesture lifted her chest just enough to knock the corporal’s breath away, the loincloth getting tighter and tighter. She was a sassy one. ”Something's definitely wrong with the hydraulics. We can't keep this up.”

At those words for a moment, the man felt pulled in, as if she was referring to his own plumbing problem. Well hidden between his legs, thank goodness.

“We will arrange it.” “We’d better.” At that point, Jake cleared his throat to signal that, yes, he was still there. “Um, Aubree, this is Jake Sully. Jake, Aubree Young, our fresh addition to the Avatar Program.” “Aubree, the PhD student. Nice to meet you.” She had to suppress a groan hearing the syllables of her name roll across his tongue; it was almost like feeling them tickle her back, spoken in that muted, persuasive voice. The girl was petrified under his impassive gaze (Jake was a talented actor); she had seen him portrayed several times. He was practically a rock star, but he didn’t look so handsome in pictures, which just didn’t do him justice — especially to those eyes. He extended his large hand toward her, however, she responded by bringing two fingers to the center of her forehead to draw an arc, bowing in respect. “Olo’eyktan, smon nìprrte’ (nice to meet you).”

Fuck, did she have to bow like that? From that angle, he could see her bosom in all its youthful splendor. A woman in her prime. Deliciously round and full against the thin material.

“Holy shit!” burst out a voice behind them. Spider. “What the heck happened to you?”

Like a bucket of ice water, finally, the revelation of her scant coverage crashed over her. She looked down at her body, realizing that she had her breasts basically sticking out, and a muffled sigh left her lips. In a magnanimous gesture, a colleague offered her his gown, which she fastened onto the very last button, mortified.

The lips of the Na’vi boy with the shaved right side of his head tensed in a thin grin, and a subtle — or rather, sadistic — gleam animated his eyes, not even deigning to move them from just below her face. “You do seem to have a conflictual relationship with underwear,” he subtilized wryly. Aubree wished the floor would have swallowed her all: she had forgotten her bra. “Lo’ak!” the other two Na’vi called back to him in unison, and he turned away without showing the slightest touch. “We’ve raised you better than that.” Jake wished he could have been more severe in his rebuke, but it was undeniable that his little dig had affected him.

What did he mean by that? The girl had a habit of publicly displaying herself in such an… unbecoming way? More likely she was just a hothead. Annoyance had driven her out of her room in that attire.

“Still the broken shower,” Spider guessed. “Yeah,��� in all her awkwardness, still a hint of irritation shone through from the young woman’s mumbling. “My offer is still on the table until things get sorted.” "Thanks, but I don't want to be a burden. Liv said I can shower at her place. Anyway, Norm, please do me a favor and find a solution.” The man nodded, sensing more than well what she implied: ‘For your sake and peace of mind.’ She would haunt him until her bathroom was repaired.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Liv blocked a forkful halfway through to look up at her. ”I’d prefer that, trust me.” “Did you show up in front of the olo’eyktan and his sons drenched from head to toe, and with your tits out?” “I didn’t have my tits out!” “They weren’t in place either, though.” Her friend sighed, chewing quietly. “So, what do you plan to do?” “Ignore it?” ”Acting like it didn't happen won't make it go away.” “I will not humiliate myself further by going to apologize. I won't have many chances to meet with them, anyway.” “Probably not the clan leader or his eldest. But Lo’ak…” the tone in which she mentioned him did not please the doctoral student at all. “Speak.” ”He's a total jerk. He'll make your life a living hell after that. Avoid him at all costs.”

Aubree could add nothing else, not sure she could trust her voice as she settled what a mess she had just gotten herself into. She had come to Pandora to chase her dream, to make a difference and find her place in the universe, not to be gratuitously humiliated and mocked by an overgrown kid. No way she would allow that, not at twenty-seven.

With the addition of avatars as potential new clan members among the Omatikaya, a new rite of passage emerged - the Introduction. In general, it was comparable to the period when native adolescents were ready to embark on the path of rebirth. A night festival was dedicated to them in which dreamwalkers presented themselves to the people. It had been unofficially established for a few years now and usually coincided with the avatar’s optimal body mastery. It had taken Aubree a couple of weeks, a period when Lo’ak had not exactly spared her from prying and equivocal jokes and glances, but now that she was officially an avatar in training to become Omatikaya, things could only get worse.

Lo’ak was her assigned mentor.

To describe that being formed by the youngest Sully son was awful was an understatement. It was pure torture.His sole purpose was to torment her from the moment she stepped outside Hell’s Gate until the moment she put it back in. From sunrise to sunset, seven days a week - excluding a few sporadic days of freedom. Usually spent doing the work for which she had come to Pandora. Studying.

Fatigue marked her face to where it was impossible not to notice, and Lo’ak was keen to let her know he had noticed.

“Trouble sleeping, princess? Did they stick a pea under your mattress? Or maybe you had a wild night out. Bummer I couldn’t be there. I wouldn't mind seeing those pretty little boobies again.”

Asshole.

One day, dealing with the guy had become particularly untenable. Aubree needed to do something, and fast.

She interrupted the day's training and rushed back to headquarters to confront Norm and the olo'eyktan. Too bad the latter intercepted her first.

“Wuo-oh-oh, what’s going on here? Where you off to?” “I can’t take it anymore,” she confessed, almost breathlessly. “Your son is...is...” She would have had many unkind epithets to call him, one meaner than the other, convinced that Lo’ak deserved them all, from first to last, but in front of his father, she bit her tongue, merely grunting. “Lo’ak can be... difficult,” he said it as if an entire ecosystem was encapsulated in that simple word. And to some extent, it fulfilled its purpose, but simultaneously, it fell short. “What if we switch places?” “Excuse me?” “Since things aren’t going smoothly between the two of you, I’ll mentor you from now on.”

That was the beginning of the end.

*

Jake was a good karyu (teacher). Patient and understanding, aware of Aubree’s limited physical abilities. The girl was not a soldier; she was a lab rat, a bookworm, and going too hard on training made no sense. The man had a kindness towards her he had never shown, even to his daughters. Almost too permissive, and this made the Ph.D. student forget he was not just anyone. 

Jake was the olo’eyktan of the Omatikaya.

This made her bold and overconfident. The formal tone disappeared with his title, replaced by more casual conversations, banters, and wry remarks. Sometimes even unmistakable glances. The boundaries of their teacher-student relationship were blurring into something unknown and dangerous. It was unseemly for Aubree to have a crush on him.

The girl took pains to hide her true emotions. He was a committed man; she repeated to herself, complete with children, and he was at least twice her age. She couldn't help but think about the man's age, which was old enough to be her father. But damn, she had never seen a hotter dad. He was smoking hot.

Shit, stop it right NOW.

“Are you still with me?” “Pardon?” “Stop daydreaming. Let's be honest, you do it often. It doesn’t work. Not if you aspire to be one of us.”

One of them. She wondered if she had what it took to give up her humanity. She shouldn’t desire someone else’s man to begin with.

“Let’s get back into position. Back straight, one foot back, hold your breath and draw your bow.” Jake stood behind her. “Your arms are too stiff.” His hands slipped from her shoulders and reached for her pelvis to turn it properly, but that made her gasp. He frowned as if to scold her for losing her posture. 

He seemed to be in a foul mood today. The usual patience he seemed to reserve for her was gone. Aubree couldn’t see the growing frustration that had been eating at him since he had met her. She had no inkling of the thoughts that were gnawing at his soul. His mind kept wandering to the forbidden scenarios he dreamed up. Fantasies he should not have had, not about her. He was about to say something biting, but when he saw her face, the words vanished.

She had shiny round eyes, blushing cheeks and nose, and inviting parted lips. A purplish hue was about to invade her neck. 

If he had kept staring, she would have seen him coming for sure. Instead, he ran right into her. With barely a rustle in the air, he forcefully lifted her face with his hand and imprinted his mouth onto hers. She stumbled backward, her head slamming against the tree bark. The impact left her momentarily dazed and a sharp pain shot through her skull. Closing her eyes or making any movement was impossible, as he had a vice-like grip on her cheek and neck. She tried to wriggle out of that almost grotesque contact. 

What was it? A kiss? His lips were sealed, his body tense against hers and his forehead contracted. The grip mean. She pushed him away harder with the sudden urge to scream at him and finally broke away. She caught a flash of something in his eyes. Perhaps it was anger and welcomed it as a reflection of her own. The hand snapped automatically, and the acute pop on his cheek was as liberating as the burning in her palm. Aubree did not speak, still furious, and Jake took a few seconds to turn his face toward her.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” he said, seemingly calm despite his clenched jaw and flashing gaze. She dared not answer, which only caused a sinister smile to cripple the man’s handsome face. “You’re in big trouble, baby girl.”

“Where are we?” ”The old shack." “But you said—.” “I know what I said,” he snapped. She bit her lip to stifle any giggles and we entered the abandoned, silent mobile laboratory, uncertain whether to say anything. Suddenly, the boldness she had had up to that moment seemed to disappear under the flickering neon light of the links section.

Aubree took courage and ventured to lift her head. It was like flipping a switch. The tension grew, and the door leading to the food court opened. At least a dozen scenes played out in slow motion in her mind, as they looked at each other reflected in the mirrored wall that outlined one side of the small room. But Jake didn’t look intent on taking her there. Not right away, at least.

Why wasn’t he talking? His lips were tight and his posture tense. Perhaps she had misinterpreted and was not attracted to her.

In silence, they reached one last door, which must have been broken down, because Jake had to force it open. He stepped aside to let her in, and with a hint of anxiety, she stepped forward into the dimly lit interior. The woman could distinguish a couch, a series of monitors on the wall, a few photos. The sound of the door closing behind her made her jerk, and she turned toward him, truncating him, already watching her.

“Jake.” Was he not going to turn on the light?

He approached her with an indecipherable expression, her heart beat faster in her chest, but she sighed with relief when she smelled his scent again. A million questions clogged her throat.

“Jake.” “Hmm?” “Do you want me?” she asked him in a thread of voice. His lips brushed her forehead, and she felt him smile in the darkness. “If I want you...” he said, leaving the sentence hanging. He grabbed her by the arm, making her turn around, and pushed her against the door. Then he made her body cling to his and whispered in her ear, “You’re having fun, aren’t you, little girl?” She felt goose bumps forming where his breath blew. “Doing what?” she asked, resting her head against the metal surface of the door. “To challenge me,” he said, rubbing his lips on her neck in an imaginary path. “That’s all you’ve been doing since I met you.”  His rough voice was setting her on fire. “In that little white dress, without a bra, I’ve been thinking about it for days.” “I thought Na’vi didn’t mind nudity,” she provoked him. 

I’m not Na’vi.

Jake closed his hands over her breasts and in response she bent her neck back, parting her lips to gather more oxygen. He lifted his arm, but before she could touch him, he grabbed both her wrists and locked them above her head. Then his lips were on her again, more firmly this time. She could distinctly feel the contours, the softness, the moist saliva that impregnated them. He found a flap under her earlobe and took it between his teeth, sucking lasciviously; Aubree stifled a moan and tried to move against him. It was not enough for her; she wanted more, much more. The fire was raging.

“Come,” he said, barely moving away. “Huh?” she mumbled, confusedly. He detached himself from her without letting go of her wrists and guided her to the sofa he had been eyeing earlier. Aubree would have liked to look at his face to see what he was up to, but she dared not to talk back. “Hands on the backrest.” The authoritative tone, the deep voice, left no room; this was the Olo’eyktan speaking. She swallowed and slowly placed her palms on the solid cushions. “Bend over,” he ordered again, and she shuddered as a strange instinct was surfacing within her. The scientist obeyed silently and turned her head, resting her left cheek, surely flushed, on the fabric. She could feel her heart pulsing against her rib cage and the edge of the couch pressing against her sternum. 

She felt his hands curve over her hips and slide down to the fastening of her shorts. “From now on, these clothes are banned. You wanna be Omatikaya? Be Omatikaya.” With a powerful tug, he pulled them down. Aubree distinctly heard the fibers tearing. “You can keep these instead,” he asserted, running his fingers along the fabric of her lace panties. The woman held her breath as his icy fingers caressingly furrowed the flesh of her bottom.

As he thought about it, Jake realized that the delicate fiber and intricate designs of Earth women's lingerie were something he missed.

“No shenanigans to throw? You are so quiet,” he provoked her, and she exhaled an eager giggle. “On the other hand, you are talkative, sir.”

A harsh, searing pain shot through her the moment his hand spanked her; the air choked in her throat and she squinted. She licked her dry lips and let out a hiss.

“Say my name,” he ordered peremptorily, and she realized he had done it on purpose. He wanted her to answer him so that he could continue. Aubree didn’t really know the direction she was going, but she heard how a voice called to her like a muse. “Ma’olo’eyktan?” she ventured, and clenched her jaw, wincing at his second slap. She felt the vibration of his palm transmit throughout her body and the girl had no more doubts. The rush of glee that had electrified her brain was caused precisely by him. “Mr. Sul—.” He changed angles swiftly and she could not hold back the trembling moan that rang out perfectly clear in the silence. His hand caressed the burning skin and bent over her. “Don’t hold back,” he told her before another clapper echoed through the air. Her legs trembled, and this time, her cunt pulsed in response. Aubree moved her arms and clutched the edges of the pillows, searching for any foothold as she felt lost in a completely unfamiliar ocean of dire pleasure. 

The fifth spank made her neck tense, and her lips twisted into a mute and perfect O, still trying to suppress any sound. She waited for a handful of seconds for his hand, which did not come, and relaxed her muscles. The pop came unexpectedly and louder than the previous ones. She groaned, caught by surprise.

She heard him click his tongue and his feet spread her legs; the embarrassment of being totally exposed suddenly rained down on her, but she could not move a muscle. His hand slipped between her thighs and peeled back the texture of her thong; his fingers grazed her glistening intimacy, and he moved them slowly, before slipping one in with disarming ease. She opened her eyes wide at that single touch and moaned even louder.

“Oh, come on, I barely grazed you...” his voice was hoarse, mocking, and he went deeper, beginning to kiss her back. Aubree hated the camisole that separated his lips from her skin. Her thoughts now disconnected, and arched her spine as she reached an exceptionally sensitive spot.

“Jake, please,” she gasped, and he bit her shoulder, now completely spread-eagled on her. Aubree sensed his erection pressing against her thigh and levered her arms up. She couldn’t take it anymore. She forced him up and turned away, ignoring the dizziness that rose from that sudden movement.

It must have surprised him, because he did not react immediately. She looked at him, scarcely illuminated by the moonlight glow peeking through the window. He was so handsome it was sickening. Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him, pushing him backward toward the couch. He grabbed her neck with his hand and pulled her away, stiffening. She could not look into his eyes, but she could hear his breath catch.

What was he thinking about? Were the kisses too intimate? Was this something reserved for Neytiri? He could fuck others like concubines, but he couldn’t romance? Was he going to punish her again?

She would never have known, but a few seconds later, it no longer mattered; Jake fiercely brought his mouth together with hers. His warm tongue explored the watery interior, the groove of teeth, rubbing against its twin. He took her head in his hands and she felt as light as a balloon, as if she had been drugged. She encircled him with her arms to hold him close, but the man reversed the situation and she found herself lying on the couch.

He stood for a few seconds and she looked down at her without a word as he unbuckled his warrior waistband, then abandoned on the floor somewhere. He was on top of her and Aubree soured on his scent, kissing any spot she could reach, hearing him swear at the loincloth.

His movements became eager. He carelessly slipped off her panties and spread her legs apart, tracing her body with his palms and then bringing her wrists over her head. The man entered her all the way, without warning, and she stifled a gasping sob in response to his choked sigh; he took a fast, pounding rhythm right away and the slight initial discomfort soon vanished. She encircled his waist with her legs, pinning him against her, without registering that her thong was sagging to her ankle, and tried to go at him with her pelvis.

Each mighty thrust was a jab into the bowels and then invest a violent sensation of enjoyment. The scientist murmured something incoherent as she felt the thrusts become erratic; he bent over her, felt her labored breath in his hair and branded her neck with the outline of his canines. She emitted a hoarse wail and realized she was close.

“Let m-my ... arms,” sounded more like a plea. The desire to hold him had become irresistible and disruptive. “Forget it. Come for me, baby girl.” The arching sound of that nickname set her on fire permanently. Liquid waves swept over her, clouding her thoughts, and her vocal cords made it inexorably clear, echoing through the hall like an echo.

He sank into her again, two, three, four strokes, before emitting a low moan and coming out of her, spilling onto her belly.

Aubree could not tell how long they stood listening to each other’s heart relaxed. Jake slumped to her side, releasing her wrists, and she brought a hand between his dark dreadlocks: they were softer and smoother than one might imagine. As she re-emerged from that velvet bamboozlement, she felt him rise from her. 

Noises came from somewhere in the old, abandoned workshop. Then his figure came back into her field of vision, leaning over her to gently clean her abdomen. The woman was grateful because she felt as if sucked out of all energy. 

She had not felt so deeply fulfilled in a very long time and wanted to enjoy that feeling to the fullest.

“You good to go back to HQ on your own?” he asked her, finishing removing his traces from her, breaking the magic. “Yes,” she murmured in a whisper, slightly intimidated and incredibly embarrassed now that reality was shattering over her.

It had been a quickie, a onetime thing consummated with the urgency of provocation getting the better on common sense.

Jake was Olo’eyktan, a family man with a spouse to whom he owed his devotion. An episode like that would never happen again, and Aubree clung to it as if that memory was worth her life.

The memory of the day she had really gotten into big, big trouble.

Notes: this fanfic did not turn out at all as I had wished, it should have been much longer, with a richer storyline, but I wanted to share it with you anyway. Hope you liked it💕

Special thanks to @pandoraslxna for the prompt!

[ausetkmt]

WEAR A MASK BECAUSE YOU DON'T NEED TO BE AN INCUBATOR

At least 58 people in the U.S. have been infected by the H5N1 bird flu virus this year, according to federal statistics. All but two of them had been around cows or chickens, two species in which H5N1 is circulating widely. That’s reassuring to scientists because it suggests the virus is spreading primarily through close contact with infected animals, and not from person to person.

Less comforting are the results of a study published Dec. 5 in the journal Science: the H5N1 strain spreading among U.S. cows is only one specific mutation away from more easily binding to human cells, “a prerequisite for transmission among humans,” says study co-author James Paulson, a professor in the department of molecular medicine at Scripps Research in California.

In its current form, the H5N1 virus is better at infecting certain animal species than humans. It has sickened millions of birds and cows from more than 700 U.S. dairy herds, but a relatively small number of people. 

Most of those human cases have been among farmworkers. That suggests that—even though the bird flu virus isn’t very good at infecting humans—it sometimes finds a way when people are exposed to high enough concentrations of it, such as through close contact with sick animals, explains Troy Sutton, an assistant professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences at Penn State University, who wasn’t involved in the new study. Because the virus isn’t good at growing in the human nose and throat, however, people who get sick don’t seem able to easily infect others by coughing or sneezing, as happens with the regular seasonal flu, Sutton says.

If the bird flu changes enough to effectively infect, grow in, and jump between people,“that’s how a pandemic starts,” Paulson says. 

His team focused on the first step in that process: how the virus would need to change to easily bind to human cells. In the lab, they studied a synthetic form of a gene from the viral strain that is currently circulating among cows. They made targeted mutations to see how the shifts altered its ability to attach to human cells. “The surprising finding,” Paulson says, was that one specific mutation seemed to be enough. Previous research on H5N1, including Paulson’s, had suggested that more changes would be required.

“The emergence of a bovine H5N1 virus capable of recognizing human receptors may be closer than previously thought,” Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies bird flu but was not involved in the new study, wrote in an email to TIME.

Read More: Did the Pandemic Break Our Brains?

That’s a “striking” finding, Sutton agrees, and a good motivation to prevent further human cases to the extent possible. Already, federal health officials recommend that high-risk people, such as farmworkers, wear personal protective equipment around animals that may be sick and take flu antivirals (which also seem to work against bird flu) if they have a potential exposure.

Still, Paulson emphasizes that his study does not mean a pandemic is imminent. Despite what his team found in the lab, the virus circulating in the real world does not seem to have evolved to easily target humans. Public-health officials maintain that the virus is not spreading from person to person and currently presents a low risk to the general public.

More changes might be necessary for the virus to present a true pandemic threat. The ability to easily bind to human cells—which Paulson’s team tested for—is only the first step toward widespread person-to-person transmission, he says. Further changes might be needed for the virus to become highly contagious in the real world.

Kawaoka agrees. The fact that more than 50 people in the U.S. have gotten sick, but health officials have not seen any evidence of person-to-person spread, suggests that “additional mutations are likely necessary for the virus to achieve efficient human-to-human transmission,” he wrote.

Read More: Is it Time to Worry About Bird Flu?

Health officials are closely monitoring the situation, and some worrying observations have already been documented. Recently, a Canadian teenager who caught bird flu was hospitalized. When scientists analyzed the genetic sequence of the virus taken from the teen, they reportedly found that it had mutated in a way that could make it more transmissible among people, similar to the mutation Paulson’s team identified in their study. (Luckily, though, the teen doesn’t seem to have infected anyone else.)

Kawaoka has also studied a viral strain taken from an infected U.S. farmworker. That strain, which was able to grow in samples of human lung cells, contained a mutation known to promote viral growth among mammals, Kawaoka and his team found. But that mutation is not seen in the viral strains spreading among cows, his team emphasized when the study was published in October.

Although there is no evidence of person-to-person spread yet, Paulson says health authorities should prepare for wider spread of bird flu as a precaution. It’s worth stockpiling bird flu vaccines and making plans for how they would be rolled out if they become necessary, he says.

It’s also important to keep closely monitoring the virus for any signs of change, Sutton says. But “what’s alarming to me is that we often realize we have a pandemic after the pandemic has started,” he says. “If we started to see this mutation, would it already be too late? We don’t know the answer to that.” 

[mush-dooms]

man I suspected that my coworker has been telling my boss every little thing I fuck up for a while but now I Know she's doing it. she by all means has a right to do that but I wish she'd tell me first so I can fix it instead of going over my head. this same coworker also tells me i am good at my job to my face but apparently she actually thinks im worthless, too. anyway I guess Friday, the day I was out, she added water to my incubator. it was due to be cleaned/filled today anyway!! I was literally gonna do it today!! there weren't even cells in there!! but nooo now I've got yet another passive aggressive, borderline condescending email in my inbox from my boss that already thinks I'm an incompetent piece of shit. idk just the more I think about this whole Thing the more I become convinced that, while this hasn't been handled well on the leadership end, I do actually suck and am irresponsible and sloppy and in the wrong line of work.

[flurglhinge]

Rachel sticks her head in Debbie's office door and waves a tablet at her.

"Did you see this?"

"Ms Luthor's new urgent project?"

"Yeah, what do you think of it?"

Debbie leans back in her chair and looks at Rachel, who is reading the email again, frowning at it like it's written in a language she's not quite proficient in.

"Shouldn't be too difficult. Your basic Seasonal Affective Disorder lamp, isn't it?"

"Yeah, no, but we already had a SAD lamp in development that we shelved because there wasn't a market for Luthor-branded consumer medical equipment. You know, because of," Rachel gestures vaguely in the way that L-Corp employees tend to when alluding to the time Lex Luthor lost his god-damned mind, built a super-suit and tried to kill Superman.

Debbie makes a face that's halfway between 'listening to a racist uncle at Christmas' and 'there's a screaming lunatic in the parking lot and he's standing next to my car'. "Yeah, sure."

"And anyway SAD lamps are supposed to simulate bright sunshine. Like, bright sunshine. These required outputs-- I don't know? I looked them up and it's like, red."

"Maybe there's a mistake?"

"No, the brief says to have a really specific range of wavelengths in a certain ratio. And it's straight from Ms Luthor. So, you know."

Debbie nods and leans further back in her chair, folding her arms and sighing. "Okay, sure. Let me take a closer look at it. Hopefully we can just dust the old prototype off and tweak some settings."

"But what is it for? This doesn't even say if its consumer-grade or medical or what."

"I'll take another look at it," Debbie says before Rachel spins up into a full panic. Rachel is an excellent project manager but she tends to get twitchy about anything unusual, a tendency only exacerbated by her realisation, after the fact, that she'd been managing development of the (frankly revolutionary) impact-absorbing materials that had allowed Lex's suit to take a punch from Superman without turning into a highly inefficient sausage maker.

Debbie is baffled by the project specs. They're pretty straightforward, but utterly ludicrous. It's not a proper SAD lamp at all. If anything, it's the exact opposite of one. It mustn't put out half of the wavelengths of light that are generally considered to be beneficial. The spectra it must be active in are largely out of the human visual spectrum. She stalls for time, researching any practical applications but the entire thing seems pointless. It's not for growing plants indoors, or incubating eggs, or lighting darkrooms, or anything. It's technically achievable, but ridiculously over-engineered for any practical application.

She's trawling through the old Luthor Corp whitepaper database when she stumbles across a design for a 'sunlamp' supposedly meant to allow crops to be grown out of doors during the winter. Which is Joker-shit on the face of it, leaving aside the fact that they draw enough power to run a small town and appear designed to withstand a simultaneous hurricane, earthquake, and strategic bombing campaign. But the lamps are designed to emit a very similar set of wavelengths to her stupid, obviously-not-a-SAD lamp. That, together with being a nonsense Lex Luthor project from a certain point in the company's less than glorious recent history, means the 'sunlamp' is some kind of anti-Superman weapon.

Debbie freezes at her desk. Is Ms Luthor going Lex? Should Debbie be calling the supervillainy hotline? But her project is for a lamp that can run off domestic current. Is Ms Luthor just more willing to sacrifice spectacle for efficiency? But Ms Luthor is quite publicly friendly with Supergirl. Supergirl has saved her life a bunch of times. And the whole L-Corp rebranding was the most minor of the changes she'd made to the company.

[Scene where one of them works out What The Lamp Is For.]

"Okay, so, remember that really creepy article that guy wrote a couple of years ago about Superman's sex life?"

"What? No."

"Ugh, lucky. It was the one where he was speculating about the speed of Superman's ejaculate and its effect on a human-"

"Yes, oh god, I'd managed to repress that, fuck you very much for reminding me."

"Well, sorry, but I think it might be relevant."

"I think I'm going to be sick."

"Buck up buttercup,

[Meeting with Lena, Supergirl drops in, Lena introduces them as 'the ones working on the project' :significant eyebrows: Supergirl gets very flustered but also pleased. Kara discovers that Super Blushing is actually a thing, R just about chews through her tongue because it is definitely an HR violation to high-five the CEO about her sex life, D is trying to astrally project herself to the moon, Lena is The Smuggest Person Who Has Ever Lived - like a cat that has just bought a dairy farm with an attached canary aviary]

[confessions-official]

Idk if this is transphobic but my school sent out an email about free period stuff like tampons and pads and referred to us as 'menstrating persons'. It felt degrading and made me upset but when I mentioned how that made me uncomfortable my friends hounded me since I'm 'taking away gender neutral terms' but its not that, I just personally dont like it, makes me feel icky like when you call someone a incubator or seed farm. Its dehumanizing to me

 

[entityfromthevoids]

Gemma is used to people raising an eyebrow when she says her specialty is Grass and Bug types. In a battle heavy region such as Unova, she much preferred to spend her time gardening with her father's Ivysaur and cuddling with her Sewaddle. She found herself fascinated by how varied they all were depending on their habitat. So she figured she'd be the best one to find out how they worked and set her sights on becoming a Pokemon Researcher. But finding funding after graduation was difficult, so when an email with an intriguing offer appeared in her inbox, she knew she had to jump on the chance.

THE TEAM:

Moni (Leafeon | Male): Caught as part of a pair of Eevees with her best friend Oliver. Moni much prefers to be left alone to nap in the sunlight, rarely enjoying the cuddling Gemma offers.

Juniper (Serpieror | Male): Gifted as a Snivy. Took up the mantle of Gemma's gardening partner when she moved to the Center. Likes to help hold the basket for gather and getting his daily misting for his foliage.

Pear (Maractus | Female): Caught on a trip to Desert Resort. Loves to dance along with the radio in the lab, sometimes forgetting to watch where she swings her thorny arms.

Swiss (Levanny | Female): Gifted as a Sewaddle. Gemma's childhood companion. When not watching over the baby mons in the daycare she's making sure Gemma is well taken care of, both mentally and physically.

Solene (Volcarona | Female): Hatched from an Egg. She's often the most prim and poised of Gemma's Pokemon, taking great care of her self grooming. She also helps out with incubating orphaned eggs.

Scamp (Ledian | Male): Caught while on a research trip to Jhoto. He's quite shy and nervous, though he's always trying his best to help out.

[petxina]

i think maybe i wouldn’t mind having kids that much if i could just lay a large egg and incubate it and then the child be born already knowing things by DNA so i’d only have to take care of it for a few months at most. and after that we’d part ways and they’d just naturally walk into society fully prepared and ready to survive while i go back to my regular life unbothered. maybe just send an email to each other from time to time but that’s about it. but the other way is too complicated i fear

[moiorchidea]

sent an email thats been incubating since february. tonight i will reach even further and force myself to watch a movie(i want to watch it but i act like its a chore for some reason)

[cinnatwo]

Start | Previous | Next (still to come) Blaine sat at his desk, scribbling furiously over a notebook. After months of silence Tenmai had picked up that darn signal again. The relief he had felt during that time was gone. He had to figure out a radio jammer, but it was hard to get supplies and remain undercover at the same time, and his attempts so far hadn’t worked. He was currently scribbling down some math, trying to figure out how strong the signal must be to be able to breach the defenses he currently had up. Tenmai hovered over his shoulder. “Apparently they stopped for so long because of some sort of incident where they lost their data. I just finished tracing the message. It’s from a completely different location.” “Mmmm.” Blaine narrowed his eyes and kept scribbling. Cinnamon would be devastated if they couldn’t watch tv anymore, but it was getting harder and harder to keep it and also block out bad things. There was still the VHS collection. Maybe they’d understand. “I still don’t see why you’re so worried. The broadcast is being sent out to every porygon, like a group email. They don’t know anything about you.” “But if they can contact you in any way, they could figure it out. Or somebody else could. I’m not going to risk it.” “Obnoxious child incoming.” “What?”

“dad dad DAD-” “Crud-” Blaine shoved his notebook into his desk drawer right before Cinnamon kicked open the door, holding up an egg above their head.

“DAD DAD DAD DAD!”

“KID KID KID KID!” Blaine stood up and clapped his hands over Cinnamon’s shoulders. “Calm down, you’re going to give your old man a heart attack!” Ash ran in, somehow panting and barking at the same time. “You too, Ketchup.” Cinnamon took a deep breath, then held out the egg, grinning with pride and excitement. “Look!” Blaine took the egg and looked it over. “Where did you find this?” “It was just sitting in the middle of the forest!” “Well, I hope you didn’t steal it from any poor momma.” 

“It looked super abandoned.” “Mmmm…” Blaine squinted at the egg. It seemed… off. He set it down on his desk. “Tenmai, can you scan this?” “Of course I can.” Tenmai rotated around the egg a few times. “Ok, maybe I can’t.” “Huh?” “It has the coloring of a sunflora egg, is the size of an abra egg, has the weight of a snover egg, and has energy readings off the charts. A little lower than the amount that is theorized for legendary pokemon eggs. I estimate somewhere around 5500 steps to hatch.” “Steps?” “Ah, yes! Pokemon eggs absorb kinetic energy to grow, hence the official measurement for incubation time is the number of steps it takes for an egg you are carrying with you to hatch.” “Ooooo…” Cinnamon picked up the egg and started walking in a circle. They were being surprisingly careful about it. “One, two, three, four, five-” “Hang on.” Blaine frowned. “I don’t like this. The egg is unnatural and could be dangerous.” Cinnamon hugged the egg close. “How could a baby be dangerous?” Blaine’s mind jumped to when Cinnamon was “born.” Giovanni hadn’t cared that it was a baby. He only cared if it was dangerous. And it could have very well been, if given the training. “Dad? You got that look on your face again.” Blaine shook the thoughts away. “Sorry. You’re right, as long as we raise the baby well, it won’t be dangerous. Do you think you can handle that responsibility?” Cinnamon puffed their chest out in determination. “Yes!” “Alright, it’s yours.” Cinnamon grinned and went back to walking. “Six, seven, eight, nine…” 

Start | Previous | Next (still to come)