#except for the giant tree ones. so we basically got out on our mission to get mushrooms

[sleep-nurse]

im back from minecrafting and having a traumatic experience

[ckret2]

Alright let’s talk GVK spoilers!!!

My reactions as best I can remember them!

- love how Kong is humanized from the very first scene, like every time he shows up he’s humanized so much more than other titans are. If that was at the expense of other titans being made likable I wouldn’t enjoy it so much, but like, Godzilla is made pretty lovable over the course of Monsterverse, Mothra is too, and all the titans featured for long are given recognizable emotions that let us see them as more intelligent and feeling than “just” animals; so all of them are made understandable/likable/sympathetic. But of them all, Kong is the only one really humanized. Which makes sense, because like, big monkey! Basically our distant cousin!

- And they kept playing, like, normal songs for him, which cracked me up.

- I really appreciated how you could SEE the titans in this movie. After all the weather effects to hide the titans in KOTM, there was such a clear difference in this one from the very start. Kong in the daylight! Godzilla makes his first attack at night, and even then you can see him much more clearly than you can for most of KOTM! Nice!

- after the Iwi were portrayed as silent stoic witnesses in Skull Island, I really appreciated that they took an Iwi character, made her a main character, and gave her dialogue and a real role to play in the story while also keeping her deaf/mute. I think that was a good way to improve on the way that the Iwi got got sidelined in the last movie while still maintaining the worldbuilding!

- I didn’t appreciate so much that, y’know, they murdered the rest of her people off-screen in order to do it. Couldn’t they have gone “her parents died so she got adopted by a Monarch agent that was close to her family, but like, the rest of her tribe is fine”? Or at the very least “their island got fucked up so they had to be evacuated but like they’re settling in somewhere else”? “They’re living under this island dome with Kong and they know what’s up and Monarch’s keeping them in the loop and they decided they’re chill with their new dome home, but this one girl likes to go on adventures with Monarch”? Something? Did we have to kill them all off? Y’all make up an entire fictional indigenous culture and then murder them off-screen when you don’t need them? Just let them live.

- a few minutes in I was like “hold on, we’ve got two characters that speak sign language, we’ve got a giant gorilla, gorillas learn sign language, is there any reason they can’t teach Kong?” and then later I was like “OOOOOH!!” Humans and titans learning how to communicate with each other has been one of my favorite themes to explore in Monsterverse fanfic so I was absolutely tickled to see it getting explored in canon, too.

- That said I think it’s hilarious that the girl managed to teach Kong to sign without, like... anybody seeing. Kong’s hands are above the tree line and there are cameras everywhere, how did NOBODY with Monarch see him signing.

- Bernie’s weaponized being an annoying coworker to such a degree it can only be called an art, and I really appreciated it.

- Godzilla’s extra chonky in this movie and I dig it. Roomie noted he was extra crocodilian and I dig that too.

- “There’s been no confirmed titan sightings in three years” I don’t buy that for a minute. They’re BIG. Rodan NESTS IN VOLCANOES. They found a MOTHRA EGG. Humans have A SCARILY WELL-FUNDED ORGANIZATION DEDICATED SOLELY TO FOLLOWING TITANS AROUND. Like, most of the lore in GVK that I don’t personally like, I can be like “eh... I can tweak it just a little bit with headcanons to make it work for me...” but NO confirmed titan sightings? You expect me to believe ALL of them moved underground when we’d previously seen them all prefer to live above ground? You expect me to believe that now that they’re all AWAKE, they learned how to HIDE?? Uh-uh. And at the end of KOTM there was stuff in the credits about using titan droppings as biofuel, obviously they’re still walking around up top! Can’t take that from me. Nope.

- Who the FUCK is Ren Serizawa and how is he related to Ishiro Serizawa? IS he related? Maybe they just dropped the surname as another “yeah this is a Godzilla movie for Godzilla fans” easter egg but I have a hard time believing that he can’t be somehow related to the other character with the Very Important Last Name who was so important in the last two Godzilla movies. If he is related I’m sure it’s been explained in a tie-in comic or the novelization or something, I’ll look it up later.

- I had to look up how much weight huge battleships can carry while writing a KOTM fic where Ghidorah hitches a ride on one, and y’all, I had to pull weird gravity-negating magic to get him to ride on that boat. Godzilla and Kong woulda sunk that boat like a rock. All I could think during that scene is “this wouldn’t work and I know that because I DID THE RESEARCH and I wasn’t even getting PAID.” I’ll choose to believe that Monarch gets special heavy duty ships designed to carry titans but nobody mentioned it because it wasn’t relevant to Kong’s journey.

- The bit where they could see where Godzilla was swimming because he’d got half a ship hooked to him that was bobbing around on the surface, didn’t Jaws do something like that with a buoy? It’s been ages since I’ve seen Jaws. Anyway good reference.

- Insert “they’re gonna need a bigger boat” joke

- I LOVED the part where they shut down all the ships to get Godzilla to leave. Both because, one, it’s a spectacular callback to KOTM’s “turn off all the guns so he knows we’re not a threat” that makes it seem like now that’s just what Monarch knows what to do to get G to chill out, and two... we know that Godzilla backs off either when he’s killed his enemy or when his enemy has yielded to him. At the end of KOTM—and the end of GVK—the act of yielding is presented as very ceremonial and uniform across species: everyone lowers anything they’ve got that could be dangerous (claws, fangs, beaks, axes) and bows to show Godzilla they’re not gonna fight. Battleships, obviously, can’t bow, but even without being inducted into whatever secret titan cultural intricacies might be going on, humans have figured out their own way to “bow” to Godzilla: cut all the power, so their ships can’t move and can’t use weapons. I know the movie presented it as “playing dead,” but c’mon, if Godzilla could hear MechaG power up from halfway around the planet then he could hear that Kong’s heart was still beating, and he’s been around enough boats to know humans can turn them off and on when they want. The humans bowed to Godzilla. He accepted that they yielded and left.

- Mark Russell looked like such a dad in this movie, like he’s retired 100% from being a rugged action hero and now he’s just Pure Dad. I like him better when he’s a dad, it’s a good development for him. He got like 3 lines and I’m like “I appreciate this character development.”

- Despite all my qualms about how conspiracy theories and extremist groups are handled in Monsterverse (and WHICH conspiracy theories they decide to reference), I really love Madison and Bernie’s dynamic. The adult man who’s the excitable wide-eyed believer in every BS conspiracy you can possibly imagine; and then the serious, severe Teenage Girl On A Mission who’s hypercompetent because she was raised for five years by a friggin doomsday cult militia; and despite having wildly different personalities they’re just, in total agreement about everything. Handled just a BIT differently (like, leaving out the more gross IRL conspiracies) they would be a wildly fun comedic duo—especially with Josh the Only Sane Man coming along as the hapless sidekick. And they all play off of each other so well! Both in a comedic sense, and in more serious moments—when Bernie talked about his wife, there was a real moment of empathy between him and Madison with very little said. I’d watch an entire movie just about the three of them. I’d watch a TV show.

- On the one hand I wasn’t too much of a fan of KOTM’s “all titans... are inherently In Tune With Nature... nature has a Balance, because that’s a Real Thing and not an anthropocentric concept to describe how we like nature to act, and they automatically restore it... because they’re like, some kinda borderline divinities or something... we should probably be worshipping them...” thing; but, now that it was totally absent in GVK, I sorta miss it. Like I feel like there needs to be a balance, a few humans who are like “i lowkey worship these dudes?” and a few others who are like “they’re cool but like, that’s a lil extreme” and that neither side be presented as Right in how they regard titans’ relationship with nature.

- “All titans come from THE HOLLOW EARTH” nah I don’t buy that it’s silly. Basically, what I object to is the idea that all titans have some sort of intrinsic similarity (they all come from the same hitherto-unknown location; they all are part of the same pack that has the same alpha; they all are fueled/fed by the same energy source; etc) rather than letting them be SEPARATE species whose only unifying traits are “they’re all big enough to fuck everything up everywhere they go” and “they’re big enough that the typically-insurmountable barriers between different biomes (mountain ranges, valleys, long distances with terrible weather) aren’t insurmountable for them, so even if they’re specialized in different environments they still all have to deal with each other pretty often.” I’ll make some exceptions for convergent evolution (i.e., claiming multiple titans developed similar traits that are relatively easy to spontaneously evolve and a prerequisite for a creature to survive at such a large size). But I can’t buy “this big gorilla has more biologically in common with this big crocodile-iguana than he does with, say, gorillas,” or most of the other “all these titans have THIS IN COMMON” claims that Monsterverse makes, including “everyone’s from hollow earth.” So I’m tossing that out the window and substituting my own headcanons. Some might’ve evolved there but some evolved on the surface. Maybe a majority of them like ducking in and out of the hollow earth like some kind of titan shortcut system. Kong’s species, I can buy, IS native to hollow earth, considering that they built a whole-ass society down there with tools and architecture.

- I’m SO curious about the little underground Kong home, the Godzilla motif in the floor, and the axe that appeared to be made with a Godzilla scute. What’s the story there??? We know Godzilla’s species and Kong’s species are ancient rivals. Is it because Kong’s species hunted Godzilla’s to steal their scutes to make weapons, seeing them as a valuable resource the way, like, early humans considered woolly mammoths a valuable resource—thus making that Godzilla on the floor equivalent to cave art of mammoths made by people who hunted them—until the Godzillas got pissed and started fighting back en masse? Or were Godzillas and Kongs already enemies when Kongs decided to start making weapons out of their corpses? Did they use to be allies, fighting together, with Godzillas voluntarily offering shed scutes and/or bones of their deceased members to Kongs, and that place used to be a shared home until they started fighting?

- What about that power source, is it something that was already there that both Kongs and Godzillas started to deliberately harvest for technology/atomic breath? Or did Godzillas automatically channel that stuff and Kongs exploited/borrowed/traded with Godzillas to utilize it too? Or is the power from Godzillas who collaboratively poured a bunch of power into the place thus that Kongs were able to use it too? I doubt Godzilla’s species CREATED all that weird energy but the question remains of whether, like, they channel it FROM underground, or naturally produce the same thing in their own bodies, or what.

- Godzilla using his atomic breath to dig a hole STRAIGHT TO KONG just to KICK HIS ASS is hilarious. How lucky that Hong Kong just HAPPENS to be straight over Kong’s house! Were all the tunnels to the hollow earth made by pissed off Godzillas who wanted to kick monkey ass??

- I loved the aesthetic of the battle scene in Hong Kong, with the brightly colored neon building outlines, VERY cool look. The choreography of the battle scene was great too, especially

- we literally broke into applause when Kong shoved the axe handle in Godzilla’s mouth. Love it, perfect callback, that was the ONE thing from the original King Kong Vs Godzilla I was hoping to see referenced and there it was.

- You could really see a difference in how Kong and Godzilla fought—Kong doing a better job at using tools and the environment, Godzilla fighting more like a reptile. They seemed to emphasize Godzilla’s more animalistic behaviors in this movie to accomplish that contrast—he was down on all fours and moving like a crocodile more often, he was clawing at Kong’s chest—but even though it seemed a bit different of a combat technique it also didn’t seem out of place compared to how he fought in prior movies. And we’ve already seen that if Godzilla’s involved in a fight and one of the combatants knows how to use the environment, it’s typically not gonna be Godzilla. (See: Ghidorah using the reflection in a building’s windows to see what’s behind him, and recognizing a nearby power source and biting it to juice himself up.)

- So many of Godzilla’s enemies seem to have specialized in negating his atomic breath in order to combat him! The MUTOs directly suppress his ability to use it—and it makes sense that that’s an inborn ability they have, since they evolved to use Godzilla’s species as prey. Kong has a weapon that both acts as a shield to absorb the breath and turn it back against Godzilla’s species—they didn’t evolve to counter Godzilla, but they developed tools once a rivalry happened. Ghidorah’s the exception—which makes sense, since he came from space—but even at that we see him using tactics specifically to take into account Godzilla’s most powerful weapon (such as keeping one head on lookout for when he starts glowing so that they know when they need to dodge).

- LOVED the reveal that MechaG was based off of Ghidorah’s brain, it has vibes of both the Kiryu Saga and the way that Heisei MechaG is based off of Mecha-King Ghidorah. Not the most surprising plot twist, since we’d theorized that they might use San to make MechaG, but I wasn’t 100% sure they were gonna go with it until they finally did. Even when I was going “huh, the mecha pilot’s chamber looks weirdly organic” I didn’t make the connection to WHY until the reveal, lol.

- “Ghidorah’s necks are so long that the heads have to communicate with each other telepathically” that’s COMPLETELY WILD but I love it, it follows very well from their prior portrayal as telepathic empaths in Heisei, it lines up with their emphasis on electricity (because BRAINWAVES AND ELECTRICITY, hey ho movie monster pseudo science!), and it very much compliments my own private headcanon that they’ve got some psychic/mind control abilities.

- The movie ended with both “Godzilla won, technically” but also “since they teamed up as equals, the ending doesn’t FEEL like ‘Godzilla wins, Kong loses’ but rather ‘they both won against a common foe’” and since I’m on both Team Godzilla and Team They Should Be Friends, I’m happy with this outcome. Plus since the last time they fought, the Japanese movie company graciously let the American monster win, so it’s only polite that the American movie company graciously let the Japanese monster win.

- There were just a few too many humans in this movie. I was intrigued by Ren but we didn’t get much out of him, but like I guess somebody had to be in the pilot’s seat other than the Apex CEO. Didn’t care for the author of the hollow earth book, I feel like his role was superfluous. Didn’t need the Apex CEO’s daughter there at all, coulda done without her. How about this, combine all three roles. Instead of having a whole-ass author who knows about the hollow earth, just casually reference that Rick from KOTM wrote a book about it since he was the expert, and (since he wasn’t in this movie) say that he tragically died going to explore the hollow earth himself, and that way we’ve got the book with the “titans are from there” theory AND an excuse to share the “humans die when they go underground” info. Now, have Ren be working for Apex as a pilot for Mechagodzilla, but have him be MechaG’s pilot because he’s also a good pilot in general, and can fly those HEAV things. Have Apex send him to Monarch to be like “hey, you guys trust me right, since I’m Ishiro Serizawa’s relative? We at Apex have heard all about your failed hollow earth expedition, and due to Ishiro I’ve got some past ties to Monarch so I’ve got high clearance with y’all, so I could bring over this useful Apex tech that’d let you go underground and use what I know about hollow earth from my past time at Monarch to help guide things.” Once they’ve got the little chunk of energy stuff and go topside, he hustles it straight to Apex and straps into his seat to run MechaG. Bam, you’ve combined “person who knows enough about hollow earth to help the expedition,” “person who represents Apex’s interests and gets the energy,” and “person who pilots MechaG” into one character, in a way that takes three flat/underdeveloped characters and turns them into a single interesting character with a lot going on and some intriguing ties to the rest of the cast.

I think that’s everything?? Hoo.

[thetypedwriter]

Chain of Iron Book Review

Chain of Iron Book Review by Cassandra Clare 

You know, I was actually really irritated when this book came out because once again, the Dark Artifices seems to be shafted for this new series (that nobody asked for) to shine, but fortunately I wasn’t as bothered by it as I predicted I would be. 

In case you are in the small minority of people who haven’t heard of Cassandra Clare and her millions of Shadowhunter books, Chain of Iron is the next nephilim installment in Clare’s never-ending series. 

Chain of Iron is the sequel to Chain of Gold, and the series as a whole is a sequel to the Infernal Devices series, but a prequel to the original Mortal Instruments as well as the Dark Artifices which is the sequel series to the Mortal Instruments. 

I would be surprised if you weren’t baffled right now. 

I’ve said this before for other Shadowhunter installments, but these books are not user friendly for new folk. You genuinely need to have read the other series to get full enjoyment and understanding of these books.

 If you do read them without having read the others, I'm sure it would still be enjoyable to a certain extent, but a large case of ensemble character and relationships will be lost to you and a big portion of these novels are the relationships within them. 

To delve right in, Chain of Iron has our main cast of friendly teenagers nicknamed the Merry Thieves (which I just abhor, sorry, not sorry) return from Chain of Gold after fighting one of the princes of Hell, Belial, and now with Cordelia and James being married as to avoid a scandal of Cordelia’s reputation and James’ criminal record. 

In addition, there is a new serial killer on the loose murdering shadowhunters at dawn and stealing their runes. Most of the book is dealt with trying to catch the culprit, the Consul and Inquisitor along with the whole of adult shadowhunter authority being inconsequential and inept as usual (how these people became parents are beyond me as they never have any sort of clue what their children get up to) along with side plots including raising Jesse Blackthorn from the dead and romance galore in typical Clare fashion that makes you want to rip your hair out because if everyone just communicated and was honest there would be no issues. 

The beginning of the novel is molasses slow.

I’ve come to expect this with Clare’s books. Actually, I think I’ve figured out the formula entirely. Here is is:

Mostly nothing of consequence happens for nearly 400 pages except for character building and small instances of plot 

Intersperse some random demon attacks for flavor 

Everyone is beautiful, everyone is in love, and love is the most groundbreaking, earth shattering thing in existence 

Get into the last 200ish pages and shit hits the fan with action, misunderstandings, and confessions 

Nobody is honest with anybody and lying is commonplace

End the behemoth on a cliffhanger so that the audience is kept in suspenseful anxiety until the next installment 

You can’t see me, but I am bowing right now. 

Genuinely, that is how 90% of Clare’s novels pan out. Obviously, as she has a very successful and long-running book series, the formula works. 

That being said, there are some vices and virtues to it. 

For this book, the beginning was slow. Almost nothing of significance happens for most of it and it's a dredge to get through. 

However, it’s mundane to get through in the same way that reading fanfiction of your favorite characters is mundane. What Clare does for 400 pieces of paper is build up her characters and their relationships. Normally, you would do this interspersed with plot, but not in this case. 

It’s not very conventional, but it kinda works?

I definitely struggled connecting with the characters from this series more than any other of Clare’s novels. The Mortal Instruments, as the original, were beloved if a little cheesy. Then came the Infernal Devices with witty Will, soulful Jem, and intelligent Tessa. Then we got the Dark Artifices, which to me, is still the best as Julian, Emma, Mark, Christina and the others are the most flawed in any of the series and I enjoy that. 

I enjoy that they’re not perfect, I enjoy that they’re devious and conniving. It makes them more interesting and more worthwhile to read about. 

Instead, the main characters in Chain of Iron and the subsequent series are mainly James, Cordelia, Matthew, and sometimes Lucie. I would argue that no one else matters in the book and are just added in for some sugar, spice, and everything nice. 

Some of you might be outraged at this statement. What about Grace? You might say. Or Jesse? Or Thomas, Christopher, Alistair, Ariadne or Anna?

They don’t matter. 

They matter in a very small, plot convenience, fluff ensues kind of way, but not really in any way of substance. Or, at the very least, that’s how I feel. 

Anna is just there to be cool, Thomas is a gay gentle giant with literally no personality, Christopher is so basic and is essentially the Trader Joe’s version of Henry who was better and more interesting as the first, Alistair is a redeemed bully, and Ariadne is an orphan who loves Anna. 

The end. 

Once again, sometimes Clare bites off more than she can chew and I wonder if she just throws these characters in there just because it makes her happy. 

As for our main protagonists, they’re mediocre. Matthew is definitely the most interesting in the bunch and I was jubilant to see him get more screen time this time around. The increasing realization of his alcohol abuse, his feelings for Cordelia, his nonplussed attitude. 

All of it is intriguing. I still don’t like him as much as other protagonists from other installments, but he is by far the winner of this triad. 

James is too perfect, too beautiful, and a worse version of his father. If I wanted more Will I would have turned to fanfiction of the Infernal Devices instead of imagining up his son. The only interesting thing about James is his demon connection which is not even something he does, but rather something that is done to him. 

Cordelia is banal. Once again, she’s too perfect, too brave, and too kind. Literally nothing is wrong with her. She’s level headed, intelligent, forgiving, and fierce. 

Basically, she’s boring to the brim. 

I do think Clare did a better job this time around to include more of Cordelia’s Persian heritage, but it still mainly fell to the backburner of her lackluster and blank personality. In fact, I think James made more of an effort for Persian food and culture than Cordelia did, but I digress. 

Also, a small note, but still with weight, why does Cordelia have eight names??

It bugs the living daylights out of me that in a single sentence she will be called Cordelia, Layla and Daisy. 

Clare. Give the girl one name. My god. 

Actually, as a side note to this side note, Clare is talented at many things, but nicknames are not one of them. EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER IN THIS NOVEL has a nickname and all of them are horrible. I have never in my entire life known a Matthew that has gone by the nickname Math. 

What. In. The. World. 

Anyways, the only other character of note is Lucie. I like and dislike Lucie. Lucie is also boring and her novelist passion is aggravating to me. However, I did like her turn with necromancy and her increasing desperation to save Jesse that drives her to work with Grace and lie to her friends and family was a much-needed note of interest. 

Overall, this book did make me like the characters more than I did in Chain of Gold, but it took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get there, more than what I think should have been afforded. If you need to kill 400 trees in order to make me like your main characters, that’s a problem. 

Whatever the method, I do care about them more than I did previously so I suppose mission accomplished. I do think some of the strongest relationships in the book are the romances, but then also the parabatai bond between Matthew and James. 

Matthew and James have one of the best relationships in the book and I’m equally frustrated and intrigued how things will play out with Matthew now having confessed his feelings for Cordelia. 

I do feel like female parabatai get shafted in a lot of Clare’s novels compared to the boys. The coed pairs often do well like Clary and Simon or Emma and Julian. Otherwise, the boys far outrank the girls in terms of bond and friendship. 

Even in this novel, the “friendship” between Lucie and Cordelia is laughable. They barely talk to each other or spend time together and when they do is shallow.  Whereas Matthew and James seem much more involved in each other’s lives. 

That being said, if you noticed I didn’t speak much of the plot it’s because for me plot comes very much second in a Shadowhudenter novel. It’s there of course, and it’s entertaining, but I do enjoy the characters and their relationships more than anything else which makes Chain of Iron  better than its predecessor but still worse in my view than any other of Clare’s novels. 

Plot just doesn’t compare to the soul crushing love and friendships shown between the pages, for better or for worse. 

Recommendation: The Dark Artifices > Infernal Devices > The Mortal Instruments ...and  The Last Hours fall somewhere after the Mortal Instruments and the trillions of side novels that Clare has co-written with other authors and all seem to be about Magnus Bane.

Score: 7/10 

[lunarfanfics]

Paths

Words: 2,774 | Rating: G

Pair: Eren Jaeger & Annie Leonhardt

MAJOR SPOILERS UP TO THE RECENT CHAPTER 126.

I just thought of Eren & Annie having a mind chat via the PATHS dimension like Rey and Ben having a chat via the force. idk I'm thirsting for eren/annie interaction

[ FF.net / AO3 ]

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

Every bump on the road jostled her body as the small blonde tucked herself further into the corner of the wagon. And each time she was nearly thrown off before she could grab a hold of something, Annie wondered if this choice she made was a good one. Perhaps it wasn’t a good one, but it seemed that the world threw her a bone and like a hungry dog, she had no choice but to take it.

At the very least she had left something for Hitch. Annie hoped her former roommate would not resent her for leaving so early when they had just reacquainted, albeit forcefully. This trip would’ve been too dangerous for the sandy-haired MP soldier anyway.

Annie sat near a barrel at the very end of a four-wheeler supply wagon being manned by Armin Arlert, the movement at the back was more erratic. Every whip from Armin had the steeds galloping as if they were being chased by man-eating giants. She could have made herself a spot at the front where she wouldn’t be thrown around so often, but that mousy haired girl—who had big eyes vaguely like a boy she once knew—gave her wary looks. The little fair haired boy called Falco would occasionally toss curious glances her way too.

Those two kids were part of the warrior unit—like she had been. That’s what the little girl—who had introduced herself as Gabi Braun— told her. Gabi had been next in line to inherit the Armored titan, with Falco who had been competing against her.

But certain things went astray before Reiner could choose who to pass the torch too.

And now Falco has inherited the Jaw titan. Annie doesn’t remember Porco Galliard much, but she did remember his courageous brother, Marcel. She wondered if both brothers harbored secret feelings for Reiner, considering they both had risked their lives to save him. She’s sure she wouldn’t have done the same in their place.

She still has some grudges against the armored titan for the years of manipulative abuse he pulled on her. In fact, if she ever saw his face again, she just might kick it.

Fortunately for her, the destination they were heading was a run-down home that Gabi said she had left Reiner to heal in.

“So, what happens after we find Reiner?” Annie had asked Armin as he was packing the food supplies for the trip prior. He had turned to Connie then, with a determined look in his ocean eyes. “Then we find a way to go after Eren.”

Mikasa had been silent, sitting in the coach seat. But her down-turned face told Annie she had agreed with them, surprisingly.

So, they were basically on a suicide mission. How splendid, Annie had sarcastically thought then, only nodding in return. It’s always one battle after the other, one fight after the other, one war after the other.

Would she ever know peace for once? Could there even be peace in a world like this?

Whatever it takes to go back to father, I suppose. Annie huddled into the corner, watching the blur of ruined homes as the wagon raced by. I did say I would do it all over again…

A feathery light feeling touched upon the crown of her head, Annie blinked, watching the smoking charred remains of the small town. The thick smoke burned her eyes some, so she rubbed at her eyes trying to repel the sting.

She rubbed until she saw stars—and when she opened her eyes again, she really did see stars. Bright white shining dots in an ink black sky.

There was a streak of greens, blue and purple lights cutting across the night sky, like someone had taken a paint brush and smeared it across a dark canvas, the lights flickered and glowed brighter than the stars. It stole her breath away, Annie tried to recollect herself.

She breathed in, eyes widening in disbelief. She no longer felt the rumble and tumble of the wagon floor beneath her—but, a soft shifting ground. Sand. Annie looked down digging her hand into the white grains, watching it fall from her palm.

Where…

She stood up slowly, dusting her old uniform of the sand.

“You’re awake now, huh?”

That voice behind her made her freeze, Annie’s heart skipped a beat, out of trepidation, and because she knew that voice.

“… Eren?” She turned around, cautiously, hiding her ring-fingered hand behind her back. Always ready.

There he stood a few feet from her, in that same tan tunic that was just a bit smaller on him, dark pants, and long hair that fell around his shoulders. And like Armin—like all of them really except for her. His face was grown, more angular, sharp, serious. Dangerous.

She suddenly felt trapped in this vast out known space.

“Where am I?”

“It’s been four years, nice to see you woke up from your little nap.” He tilted his head, peering down at her.

“Yes well, your loud voice was a suitable alarm.” She retorted, glancing to her right, then left. She turned back to him. “What is this place?”

“It doesn’t exist to outsiders; this place is where every Eldian is connected. And where shifters go when they die, and when they are born. It’s our end and our beginning.”

She felt chills course through her. End and beginning?  What the hell was he talking about?

“Are you…”, she took a hesitant step forward, “you’re not really, here right?”

“No. And neither are you.”

She’s stunned for the moment. Annie did not know whether to take a chance striking him, making a run for it, or both. She settled for neither in the end. She did not know if she could take him alone anymore, and certainly not in some magical dimension. Eren was watching her studiously. As if he were mapping every contour and curve of her face, it unnerved her greatly. She dropped her hand that had been ready to flick the trick ring on her finger. She figured he had known about it already, considering their last battle.

“You,” Annie cleared her throat, “You never visited me.”

Why did she say that? She hadn’t meant to speak it out loud, but it was one of the thoughts that circulated in her brain upon laying eyes on his face again.

“When I was crystallized.” She elaborated when he quirked an eyebrow.

“And how do you know if I didn’t?”

“Because I was lucid the entire time. It felt more like passing dream.” She took careful steps towards Eren, having to her crane her neck the closer she got to him to look him in the eye. “I can see and hear. Nothing was ever a clear image however.”

Annie folded her arms, “I do know that Armin had visited me a number of times.”

“I’m aware of that.” Eren turned from her, he started to trek across the sandy terrain, he gestured for Annie to follow without looking back. Annie was still for a minute, before she started after him, struggling to keep up with his long strides.

“Do you want to know what he talked about?”

“His special feelings?”

Annie blinked, flabbergasted, and only slightly pink in the cheeks. “What? No.”

“He talked about you.”

Eren faltered somewhat in his gait. But continued as if nothing had happened. Annie pressed on, noticing the chink in his armor. “That’s all he ever did. Hitch went on and on about boys—but Armin, all he did was ramble about you. About your crazy ideals, about how you were drifting further away from everyone.”

Annie stopped herself, considering all the stories Armin had told her as she lay in an immovable state. She remembers the way his voice would tremble as he uttered Eren’s name.

“What happened between you two, exactly?”

Eren glanced to her momentarily not pausing in his stride, “I made up my mind. We had a fight. That’s all.”

Obviously, that was not all. But this Eren was not like the one she remembered—the one she trained with who wore his heart on his sleeve and was an open book to her. Annie regrettably found herself missing that loud fiery youth.

She huffed, “I don’t get you; I remember when you were so determined to kill every titan outside the walls. And now you want to kill every human outside the walls?”

“Pure titans were Eldians who were prisoners of the Marley. Did you know that? Did you know they brought prisoners to the island and turned them into mindless titans?” Eren shot her an accusatory look.

Upon seeing Annie avert her gaze, he scoffed, “Yeah, I thought you would know that.”

“Not everyone is your enemy, Eren.”

“You’re my enemy.”

The way he so blatantly stated it made her made halt for a couple seconds. “I was… but I don’t want to keep fighting, I just want to go home.”

It was easier said than done. Annie briefly wondered if Eren knew that she was going to be apart of the suicide mission to cease his war on the entire world. He probably did. He probably knew what was going to happen before it even happened. She didn’t know how—but she got that, strange feeling.

“I want to be able to still have a home to go back too.” She mumbled more to herself than anything. “… were you serious about it?”

Finally, Eren stopped walking. His bare feet buried into the sand as he stood just before a towering tree. It had an ethereal glow about it, blinding her vision in white. Annie could not believe it—had that tree been there before? She hadn’t been paying much attention to where she was walking, she had only been following him.

This place—this place was wearing down her grip on reality.

She shook herself from her stupor. “Were you serious about destroying the world. Everyone? Everyone outside of Paradise? Innocent people too? Woman and Children?”

Annie waited for Eren to respond, but he did not speak a word. Staring at that glowing tree like he was entranced by it. Captivated.

Growing frustrated, she trudged through the sand to stand in front of him. He was whole foot taller than her now, but height never did intimidate Annie, she was adamant as ever. “My father is still in Liberio. In the Marley nation, he’s all I have and I—”

“He’s not your father.” Eren interrupted her without taking his eyes off the tree.

Annie choked back on her words, “H-how did you—” She bared her teeth, shaking her head. Stupid magic bullshit. Bastard! “No, he isn’t. But he’s the one who took care of me, who made me strong.”

“To be a tool for war?”

Her hands automatically clenched tightly into fists, she hissed “What you’re doing is wrong.”

“I don’t think it’s wrong, and I don’t it’s right either. But it is just.” Eren peered down at her then. His gaze a stormy gray, cutting through her defenses. “I have to protect this island from enemy nations that want us annihilated. We’re a prime target, Annie. Don’t you know that?”

Eren spread his hands, “I have a family too. Maybe not a mother or father anymore, but my friends… my friends who I’ve grown up with, who I’ve battled alongside with. When I think of them, what I can do for them to live peacefully, to be happy. I can do anything, no matter how gruesome. No matter what blood is shed.”

He sighed, “I just want them to be free.”

Annie scrutinized him, “At the cost of everyone else’s lives?”

He stared down hard at her. “Wouldn't you do the same for your father? For someone you love?”

Annie thinned her lips, looking away. Eren shook his head, “Don’t answer that. I know you already have… and would again.”

The knowledge he has of her scared Annie to no end. This Eren truly did not feel like Eren Jaeger. But it was, according to his… former friends. It was him, and she must accept that. No matter how much she hated it.

“There’s nothing I could do to stop you anyway.” Annie lamented.

Not alone, at least.

“I hope we don’t run into each other. I don’t feel like challenging whatever hideous form you’re in right now.”

Eren cracked a smile at that—though a small one. There was a twinkle of mirth in his grey eyes.

“Likewise.” He tilted his head, gazing down at her with softer look. “Y’know, I did want to visit you. Many times.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Unlike Armin, I don’t talk to rocks.”

Annie folded her arms with a pointed look, “Even one that can hear you?”

“Especially that kind.” He leaned down so his face was at level with hers, “Never know what secrets might slip out.”

A seed of anxiety blossomed in Annie’s stomach; her heart beat quickened. Eren was too close—she didn’t consider her proximity to him, as it had never been a thing to consider in the past.

He was so close she could feel his breath on her cheek, their gazes were locked on each other, stormy gray on clear blue. There was a sudden heat she had never felt before present too. She was becoming uncomfortable

But they had been sparring partners. They had always been close, always touching, always grappling.

So why did it matter now?

Annie abruptly turned from him, facing the tree.

“I guess I’ll say my thanks now.” She heard him step beside her.

“For what?” Annie put a hand to her chest to placate her erratic heartbeat.

“Teaching me how to fight. Your techniques always came in handy when I was in a tough spot. Reiner was strong… but not quite as strong as you.”

Annie shrugged off the compliment. Eren watched her curiously, “Why did you teach me by the way?”

That question caught her off guard. Annie tried to think of a reason, “I don’t know. I… “

She trailed off, she realized that was a question that she had mulled over herself many times. And often she had figured It was the same reason as to why she had spared Armin, why she had saved Connie. But truthfully, she just… didn’t know.

“I just… wanted too.” She shrugged again. “I didn’t really think you of all people would survive that long once we graduated anyway.”

Eren snorted at that. “Ah—so you did it on a whim?”

“I guess so.”

“You are an enigma, huh?”

“Not really.” She turned to him, only to see a little blonde girl in his place. The little girl was dressed in rags, staring up at her behind a fringe of straw-colored hair. 

Annie blinked, stunned. “Eren?”

The little girl waved at her.

Alarmed, Annie could feel herself floating—falling into an inky abyss as the sands parted like the sea to swallow her whole. “Eren!”

And as she fell into darkness, she heard his voice whisper in her ears— “See you on the other side.”

At the blink of an eye, she was once again back in the wagon, that had now stopped its journey in front of a run-down cabin. Annie felt dizzy, she rubbed more furiously at her eyes until she saw colorful shapes—but no stars. No white sand, no glowing trees. No Eren.

None of that came again. It felt like dream—but she knew that it wasn’t.

“Huh?” Annie looked out from the wagon, she spotted Mikasa climbing down from the coach seat of the other supply cart. Armin appeared in her vision than, he held his hand out to her, “Do you need help getting out? I know it was bumpy trip, I tried to take the most stable roads.”

“I’m fine.” She stood up, but her legs wobbled, and she nearly fell off the side of the wagon.

“Careful!” Armin caught her elbow, “I know your body must be pretty tired after staying in one place for so long.”

“I’m fine.” She said more tersely but allowed Armin to help her down from the wagon. “Is this the place?” Annie nodded to the ruined cabin, Falco, and Gabi were at the entrance with Connie.

“Yeah. Reiner’s in there. Once we get him, we’ll work further into our plan.”

Annie cracked her knuckles. “Let me be the one to wake him up than.”

She decided to keep quiet about her little venture into the unknown. It wasn’t as if it would come in handy in their suicide mission anyway.

[razorblade180]

Lasting Embers pt18: Brewing Storm

[Blake’s Study]

*giant bookshelves on each side and a skylight up top. A desk with a stack off papers on it with Sun hard at work*

Sun:*wearing reading glasses*.......

“You look good in glasses; so official”

Blake:*wearing nothing but one of his shirts half buttoned up and no pants* You’re up early; I woke up and was surprised you weren’t there.

Sun:Had work that needed to be processed. Almost had it done before our unexpected reunion last night. I wish I was in bed.

Blake:*drapes herself over him* Not surprising, you barely got a wink of sleep last night. *kisses his neck and face*

Sun:*chuckles* Gee I wonder why? *reaches his left hand up to rub her ear.

Blake:*purring* Can you blame me? I spent ten years missing you. I like your new clothes by the way; orange is nice on you.

Sun:Thanks, I was going for a sunset vibe. After all my “moon” wasn’t around to make the tougher decisions. So I had to channel some of my inner Blake hehehe.

Blake:Active High Leader Sun Wukong. Looks like the people don’t even need me. Maybe you should keep the job for good.

Sun:Please don’t joke like that. I don’t know how I’ve kept this thing going for a decade but you can have it all back. I miss being second in command.

Blake:Well it’s a good thing I’m more than happy to be back. *picks up some papers* Is this the report from Illia?

Sun:Yeah, prevented another assassination attempt on Whitley. Not to mention the our unwanted guest that were promptly dealt with thanks to the little terror of the desert. Jael really is something else.

Blake:I met up with them before I came here. She looks healthy which is good; also she’s grown like a weed. Wouldn’t be surprised if she’ll outgrow my clothes in awhile.

Sun:She definitely has her father’s intensity that’s for sure. I’m worried about these attacks; there’s never been such a drastic attempt like this. Especially back to back. How did the last part of your mission go?

Blake:A lot of explosions in a mine. *pulls out a map with dozens of red x’s on it* we hit every single one we found. Even went around the world twice for a year just to be sure. Maybe this is a last stitch effort?

Sun:.....I hope so. *stands up* you might wanna get dressed. Adam should be back in a few hours, there’s a festival tonight for your return, I’m sure Illia wants to spend time with you, not to mention your parents.....

Blake:Sigh, no rest for the wary. Guess I’ll go shower, but.....*grabbing Suns arm* you’re helping me wash. High Leader’s orders.

Sun:*smiling* Well if they’re orders!

[Jaune’s Porch]

*Ruby sitting down and taking off her shoe*

Yang:*opening the door*I was wondering where you were. Go for an early jog or something?

Ruby:Visited dad. Felt nostalgic about seeing our home again. Almost nothing as changed; except the boarded up doggy door....

Yang:Oh....how long?

Ruby:Three years; Zwei just ran out of bark he said. Wish I got to hold him one more time.

Yang:Yeah that’s rough. *sits next to her* So, how long you’re bunking with us? Not that anybody wants you gone but I assume you want your own place?

Ruby:My home burnt down before our adventure started. Sure I could easily get another one but.....I’m in no rush to be alone.

...........

Ruby:This is gonna sound terrible but a piece of me wishes I didn’t have to deal with readjusting to life. Maybe our last mission should’ve been my-

Yang:Don’t say it...*holds her hand tightly* there’s no way I could’ve lived with myself coming home without you.

Ruby:....I’m sorry. I should no better than to say things like that by now.

Yang:You’ll get through this, with me. Just like always. I’m always in your corner sis. *smiles*

Ruby;....*hugs her tightly* Yang, I don’t know what I’d do without you. Thank you for everything; for being my sister. *whimpering*

Yang:*looking up at the sky*

*Dark clouds forming in the distance*

Yang:*rubbing Ruby’s head* (A storm is coming. Why.....am I worried?)

[Vale]

*alarm clock ringing*

Tenzen:*in his bed*Zzzzzzz

Ren:*shaking him* Tenzen wake up! You’ve over slept again.

Tenzen:Zzzzzz

Ren:Pancakes are made.

Tenzen:Zzzzzzz

Ren:Yujin made them...

Tenzen:*jumps up* Lies! She makes french to- what time is it?

Ren:Past sunrise; your mother is probably waiting for you to show up and running drills again.

Tenzen:Shoot! She’ll probably ramp up the difficulty now. *starts zipping around his bedroom causing the lights to flicker*

Ren:You might blow a fuse at this rate *catches him as he passes by* remember to eat before moving like that or you might just ended up worn out and sleepy again.

Tenzen:Valid point, I’ll probably end up grabbing some snacks to eat before I see her.

Ren:*holds up a protein bar* here, I doubt you have time to make breakfast.

Tenzen:You’re the best. I’m surprised you haven’t made breakfast yet.

Ren:*points to luggage outside* I’ve been preoccupied this morning.

Tenzen:*eyes widened* Already going on the medical trip? Didn’t think you’d pack so soon.

Ren:Nora is finishing up your training, thanks to you everything is paid for, and hopefully by next month you’ll ace the entrance exam to Beacon. Looks like you don’t need me around anymore.

Tenzen:Don’t phase it like that. *hugs him* I’m always gonna need you dad. Have a safe trip and speedy recovery! Looking forward to dancing with you whenever you return.

Ren:As long as there’s no camera; I’ll leave internet fame to you.

Tenzen:Deal! *suited up in his previous attire* well I’m off to another brawl in the emerald forest.

Ren:Some advice, go after your mom first.b

Tenzen:Got it! *dashes away*

Ren:*still holding the protein bar* Hehe Nora he is like you through and through sometimes.

•

*Blake fully clothed in a version of her father’s chief outfit. Complete with the the purple and gold family colors*

Blake:*drying her hair* You know it’s impolite to spy on people right? *looks up at the rafters*

Adam:I see you haven’t lost a step. *jumps down* also you sort of hired me to spy remember? *kneels*

Blake:*opens her arms* Stop with the formalities and greet me like an old friend. Or did you forget how to do that?

Adam:Sassy as always I see. *hugs her* Good to see you safe; I’ll admit I had my doubts.

Blake:You think you’d know better than to bet against your first pupil. *moves his hair* how’s seeing the world with two eyes?

Adam:Bright hehehe, but really nice. You’ve been back long?

Blake:Just since last night. Stopped by and visited your family. Jael has become quite the looker.

Adam:It terrifies me every day.

Blake:*snorts* got to talk to her a little bit. She seems lonely. Also missing you a lot.

Adam:Things haven’t exactly been....easy for her. It’s a lot to talk about.

Blake:Well there’s gonna be special spot here for higher ups only during the festival. You could bring your family without worrying about people seeing you; maybe we could all catch up them?

Adam:*rubbing the back of his neck* That might do her some good honestly. I sort of think I’m screwing up the one good thing I’ve brought into this world.

Blake:*smiles*......

Adam:What?

Blake:It feels really good to just talk to you again. We’ve been through some shit you and I. I missed this.

Adam:*smiles* You’re such a sap....

Blake:Wow! Okay you jerk. *folds her arms and smiles* the real sap is you; family life suits you well.

Adam;It’ll probably do wonders for you too. You’re only thirty something. It’s not too late.

Blake:*blushing* Mind your business! I just got back and that’s what you want to say!?

Adam:I’m just saying you might want to think about it. Sun won’t admit it but he was always his happiest spending time with Jael or any kid that ran up to him. *walking away*

Blake:......

Sun:*walks in* Oh hey loser. *holds out fist*

Adam:Sup loser *fist bumps him* see you tonight with my family.

Sun:Aye tell Jael her uncle I’ll make her favorite dessert! *grinning*

Adam:She’s supposed to be eating healthy! *leaves*

Sun:This is why she likes me more! So how was seeing your old everything basically.

Blake:*red*.........fruitful.

•

*Tenzen sprinting down a dirt path connecting to the forest. Clouds looming over him*

Tenzen:(I hope mom isn’t too mad I’m late. If she is this storm probably won’t my situation. Maybe I should’ve-) *immediately tries to stop. Skidding several feet anyways* What the!?

*trees snapped in half and bullet holes everywhere. Prints of human and multiple grimm types around the area with some blood as he looks around*

Tenzen:......(This isn’t right. So many grimm prints but not much blood. Who could get away from these numbers? Why would different grimm attack in these numbers?) Something doesn’t feel-

“tu...rn arou...nd.....”

Tenzen:*flips around and draws his weapons* Who’s there!? Fair warning I- *gasp* Emerald!?

*a flickering illusion of Emerald dawning a black and green trim version of her outfit points to a bush before fading *

Tenzen:*Walking through the bushes and looking*Emerald.......?

Emerald:Hey kid *cough* up here.....

Tenzen:*drops his weapons on sight; his face going pale* Guys?

*Mercury unconscious and bleeding on Emeralds back. Her chain dangerously close to being around their neck as they hang from a tree*

Emerald:*beaten up* H...help....

Tenzen:*snaps the tree limb off and catches both of them* What happened to you two!? Why are you-*yanked by the color*

Emerald:They....know where *cough* Nora.......

Tenzen:..........

[Launching cliff]

Nora:*sitting down* Late again I see; what am I going to do with that boy? We did spar pretty rough so maybe I can give him a break this one time.

*pit pat pit pat pit......*

Nora:Hmm? *turning around* finally decide to show up Ten- *gasp!!*

*several cult members stand facing her. Dozens of ursas, beowulves, and death stalkers behind them*

M:I’m sorry, were you expecting someone else? *eyes glowing read*

*the rain started to fall.....*

[powerbottomblake]

RWBY:Ragnarok or predictions on the Atlas arc

Building on my previous post about how the RWBY arcs parallel seasons and the archetypal narrative structure linked to each season, I’ve established that Atlas corresponds to winter, aka themes of darkness, dissolution, the return of chaos, and the defeat of the heroic figure, but what I’m going to be developing here is how winter is linked to Götterdämmerung myths, a.k.a Ragnarok, otherwise known as the death of the gods in Norse mythology. So yes, Atlas is definitely a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Time for our heroes.

The thing is, that isn’t the only Norse mythology allusion tied to Atlas, be it the cast, the location or the events of Ragnarok itself. This post will be about delving into all of these allusions and find how Ragnarok’s narrative beats find equivalents in RWBY and how it might help predict the Atlas endgame (or at least part of it) as well as figure out some general plot points.

But before that, I feel like you need to familiarize yourself with the G.U.N theory (though I don’t know if I’m 100% in the scope of it with this post). I think the person that best explained it in a concise way would be @alexkablob in this post but basically the nitty gritty of it is that all RWBY characters aren’t allusions to a single myth but have layers of different allusions to several myths, and decoding them makes it possible to predict the beats of their narrative. Think v6 made it all too obvious with how Adam was Prince Adam (a.k.a the Beast before any character development or growth), the Rose curse and Gaston all wrapped in one (plus some references to Anakin Skywalker too apparently!); or how Yang is Goldilocks, Beauty and the Beast simultaneously (amongst others).

So characters that you know are allusions to a certain myth/fairytale, might have allusions to other ones, less obvious but still just as significant in determining that character’s fate and their overarching character arc, and the Atlas arc of the story is just full of these other allusions, all Norse mythology themed.

I’ll start with the allusions tied to the central figure of Atlas’ plot, aka the man himself, James Ironwood, then branch out on the connected cast’s allusions and how they’d fill their respective roles in Atlas’ version of Ragnarok.

So, as we all know James Ironwood is supposed to be our Tinman from the wizard of Oz. Thing is Ironwood also refers to a location in Norse mythology, Járnviðr (literally old Norse for Iron-wood), where a witch gives birth to giant wolves that are alluded to as Fenrir’s kin, one of them in particular being dubbed snatcher of the moon, who will swallow the moon come Ragnarok.

Before delving deeper into this, who is Fenrir?

Fenrir is a monstrous wolf who’s bound until comes Ragnarok, where he breaks free, wreaks havoc on the realm of the gods, and kills Odin, the patriarch of the Norse mythology pantheon and one of its most powerful figures.

I’m gonna go ahead and assume that CRWBY will merge all the monstrous apocalyptic wolf figures into one because that’s the decision that makes the most sense, and I’m gonna refer to it as Fenrwby to differentiate it from the original Fenrir (listen I couldn’t come up with anything else).

So now we’ve established that Atlas harbors or will get invaded by this giant wolf, Fenrir, who announces the apocalypse and swallows the moon.

Damn, I wonder which character is always closely associated to moon symbolism, incidentally also alluding to a tale called Dead Moon (again @alexkablob got you covered) and whose death circumstances are still a mystery till now?

That’s right I think Fenrwby will be confirmed to be the reason Summer died. Another point that absolutely convinces me of it is that he(it?) refers to. A gigantic evil wolf. Or you could say. A Big Bad Wolf. And guess where Little Red Riding Hood is headed right now?

But before eating Little Red Riding Hood, the Wolf eats the grandmother first.

Yeah, this might very well be the last time Maria’s making the trip to Atlas.

But let’s go back to Ironwood. There’s yet another allusion to him and that’s the Norse god Tyr. Tyr was a war god, but also presided over law and justice, which aligns with Ironwood being leader of the military, headmaster and even has the Council (which I assume is executive and judicial power) bow to him.

Tyr’s most striking act and for which he’s most known though is that he’s sacrificed his arm when the gods first bound Fenrir, the arm the wolf bit off being the right one, and lo and behold:

James Ironwood is indeed missing a right arm (well a whole right side because he’s also Tinman, but you get me). From this we can already surmise that the mission Summer was sent over to was probably the containment of Fenrwby, and it cost Summer her life and Ironwood his right side.

That leaves us with one question: who/what is Fenrwby and where did he come from?

We’ll have to go back to the original myth for a bit here. In Norse Mythology, the trickster god Loki fathers three children with a giantess:  Hel, a woman that becomes a sort of queen of the Underworld, the world serpent Jörmungandr and the world wolf Fenrir. All three siblings are prophesied to be big trouble to the gods but what sets Fenrir apart is that:

He’s the one foretold to announce Ragnarok; his unbidding decides it

He’s the one destined to swallow Odin himself whole

He’s the only “hellish” sibling who’s raised right where the gods live, in Asgard

Beyond the similarity in how the names sound, I do believe Atlas’ design takes after Asgard and is meant to symbolize it.

For further reference here’s Marvel’s take on Asgard:

And here’s our first look at Atlas:

Atlas even has those threads attached to Mantle below which I suspect act as anchors + elevators/transportation conducts (most of it probably dedicated to Dust transport) between Mantle and Atlas, but also are a visual reference to Yggdrasil's roots, the Norse world tree, extending from Asgard to the other realms below.

So Fenrir is raised right in Asgard, but the wee pup is growing at an alarming rate (plus is prophesied to destroy all of it) so none of the gods is keen on approaching him. None except one brave god that is the only one to get close and feed him. And who would that be? That’s right, Tyr a.k.a our basis for Ironwood.

Ironwood hosting and hand-rearing a monster that will ultimately cause Summer’s death and the Atlaspocalypse sounds extremely unlikely, but there’s one scenario where this makes sense.

Atlas is known for its technological advancement and its constant development of new weaponry. I believe Fenrwby was born out of such a project, under the general leadership of Ironwood, but someone must have taken the experiments too far and ended up creating something so terrible Summer Rose herself (and maybe all or a combination of the remaining STRQ team), a silver-eyed warrior, had to be dispatched to neutralize, dying in the process.

Now is the time to remember that Fenrir is Loki’s son. In the original myth, Loki, an Asgardian god, gets eventually banished and during Ragnarok sides with the enemies.

So we’re basically looking for a disgraced Atlesian, who was possibly a scientist and is now currently working with the enemy.

And here is our Loki, none other than Arthur Watts himself, whose fallout with Atlas is yet to be explained.

I believe the reason he left Atlas was because he’s the one responsible for Fenrwby’s creation and in its immediate fallout, evaded arrest.

Another reason that leads me to believe Watts is our Loki is that Loki’s ties to Hel, Norse queen of the underworld, who was described to be “half-black and half flesh-colored”, which is a dead ringer for Salem.

Arthur Watts’ name also seems to refer to Arthur Conan Doyle and John Watson, the first one being the creator of Sherlock Holmes and the latter his dutiful companion and side-kick, so I believe Watts might be a combination of (evil) Sherlock and Watson. This is further supported with how Watts’ appearance seems to be a blend of both (Watson is described as tan, with a strong build and a moustache and Sherlock as tall and lean) and his outfit being Victorian-era inspired. He is referred to as Doctor by Salem, first to affirm his status as fallen scientist from Atlas but also most likely as a nod to Watson who was a skilled doctor and often would be referred to as Doctor as well. Sherlock Holmes is known to be an emotionally detached analytical machine with a caustic (and at times callous) kind of humor, having a usually dispassionate and cold demeanor, all of which match what we see of Watts. How is this linked to our Ragnarok? Well one of Sherlock Holmes’ most well-known stories, one where incidentally Watson has a very proactive and prominent role, is the Hound of the Baskervilles. The story is itself based on the legend of a “monstrously evil man” who sold his soul to the Devil (Salem) and after his death led a pack of phantom, evil hounds.

Evil hounds, monstrous wolves...Watts always gets linked to big bad canidae one way or the other.

Which brings us to our next question: now that we know who made Fenrwby, what exactly is Fenrwby?

Ok so this is the part where the theory gets tentative because there isn't much to go off of, so bear with me.

Watts is partly based on Sherlock Holmes, who is indifferent and detached usually, unless he's in the midst of an investigation. He then turns driven, getting tunnel-visioned and borderline obsessed (he can even go without food for so long he faints) until he solves the mystery. I think Watts is much the same. He carries himself with cool composure mostly but there was one instance where he showed a sort of zealous fascination: when he saw the seer Grimm.

Ok so I have an inkling that Watts is fascinated by the Grimm, and his forbidden experiments involved Grimm creatures. This is further supported by the Baskerville allusion to a pack of phantom hounds, which could very well reference the Grimm.

So going off this, Watts experimented on Grimm - since Atlas is very much wolf-themed, maybe Beowolfs? - and out of them he made Fenrwby.

But what could possibly be combined to Grimm in a way that’d defeat the combined forces of Ironwood (whose entire right side got severed) and an experienced silver eyed warrior like Summer?

I think we can make an educated guess based off the two major technological breakthroughs we got to witness during V1-3, namely Penny, the first synthetic being able to generate aura and the aura transfer machine. You’ll have guessed it, I think Atlas was dabbling into aura experimentation and Watts rerouted it to his own Grimm endeavors. What if he succeeded in equipping Grimm with something similar to Aura? Something that would hijack the Silver Eyes. I’m just bouncing ideas here but I’m pretty sure Fenrwby is the result of Watts tinkering with Aura and Grimm, and I think Watts staying with Salem is in large part because she’s the crystallization of the divide that fascinates him, being both human (having a soul, so in theory having aura) and grimm. Salem is the long running case study Watts is pursuing in a way.

So. Now that we’ve established what Fenrwby might be and who is behind it, we can delve into the narrative beats of Ragnarok. I made a synthetic list of Ragnarok events that seem relevant and connect to RWBY as a narrative:

Fenrir swallows Odin

I think Ozpin having Odin references in his character is common knowledge enough in the fandom. Odin is the king of Asgard, is associated with wisdom, knowledge and sorcery amongst other things, and is known for having two raven familiars (Raven and Qrow), all of which fit Ozpin.

What could Odin being swallowed mean for Oz and Oscar?

Of course, this could simply be an indication of Oz/Oscar fighting Fenrwby with Ruby, and losing.

But we can take it further. Oz lives inside Oscar through the merge between their souls, their auras connecting. We’ve established Atlas has been studying and experimenting on aura; Watts has most probably even toed the line of what is morally acceptable in terms of experiments. What if Fenrwby, or one of the machines Watts has been “tinkering with”, is able to sever the connection, effectively trapping Ozpin’s soul or at least sending it in another reincarnation cycle? This is a reach, I’ll admit, but something about Odin being swallowed somehow does not bode well for Ozpin.

Thor fights Jörmungandr

Can’t talk about Norse mythology without talking about Thor! And incidentally we have someone in the main cast based off him. I’ve always found it weird how V4 gives Ren a comprehensive backstory but never an explanation for how Nora is just there, beyond “random Kuroyuri orphan”  (How did she get orphaned? Why was she in Kuroyuri? Who were her parents?). I think Nora’s backstory will be fully explained in Atlas as I have a feeling Weiss isn’t the only one coming home. Thor’s home is Asgard after all.

So Thor fights the giant serpent that is Loki’s other son and Fenrir’s brother. One of Jörmungandr’s most striking features is his venom, as he’s described spraying it through air and sea, and it’s how he kills Thor even as he’s slayed by him, poisoning the god to his death.

Our Jörmungadr equivalent thus needs to wield poison, and be sired (or fixed) by Loki aka Watts. That would be Tyrian.

I believe we’ll have the second round of Team JNR vs Tyrian - as foreshadowed by Tyrian’s interest in Jaune - and it’ll end with Tyrian dying and Nora being gravely wounded.

The frost giants join the fray against the gods

I’ve already expanded on this in my previous post, but Jack Frost, Jacques’ fairy tale basis, is said to be based on the norse frost giants. This, coupled with the “Jack and the beanstalk” references, pushes me to think Jacques is going to betray and cause the death of Ironwood and help team W.T.C.H steal the relic.

Gamr, another big hellish hound, kills Tyr

Gamr is another monstrous hound who breaks free of his bindings in Ragnarok. As I said before, I believe all hounds/wolf imagery is going to be compounded in a single entity in RWBY (especially when they sometimes share identical characteristics), so this is Fenrwby getting free of whatever binding Summer put him under (maybe the Silver Eye power petrified him the way Ruby did the giant Nevermore?) and killing Ironwood.

Surtr, a fire giant from Muspelheim, the realm of fire, covers the entire world with fire with his flaming sword

Surtr is a fire giant that guards Muspelheim, a hot and glowing land of fire, and who sets the world on fire with his flaming sword at the end of Ragnarok. This signals the destruction of the world, but also announces its rebirth with the surviving gods and humans meeting afterwards and leading into a new era.

So the guardian of a sword of destruction (Vacuo’s relic), coming from a hot unforgiving land (Vacuo), crashes the fight. I believe this is when the Summer maiden gets introduced, and she uses the relic to end the fight and save the thoroughly defeated team RWBY so that everyone may escape to Vacuo as Atlas’ destruction is complete.

So, to TL;DR this extremely long post:

There is a Big Bad Wolf kind of monster/entity in Atlas I’m tentatively calling Fenrwby

Watts created this monster by dabbling into forbidden experimentation, probably on aura and grimm

Summer Rose sealed said monster but at the cost of her life and the fight cost Ironwood his right side

Fenrwby is unleashed on Atlas, either by Team W.T.C.H, accidentally by Ironwood, or a combination of both

Jacques sides with W.T.C.H and helps them steal the relic

Fenrwby kills Ironwood and Maria

Oz is either defeated, sealed away from Oscar or sent in another reincarnation loop

Nora is from Atlas and we get her extended backstory

Team JNR fight Tyrian and are able to defeat him but Nora is gravely wounded

the Summer maiden arrives in a bind and with the relic of destruction ends the fight and takes team RWBY to safety

[astral-enchantments]

Unfinished RvB Drafts

So I have a buttload of unfinished fanfics that I may or may not ever get around to writing. So I thought I would just compile them all here for fun!

The Doppleganger

(Based off a post I saw about how Chase & Nemisis from Gen:Lock we’re kinda like what would have happened if the Alpha had lived) This was probably gonna be a very long fanfic, but I got bored super fast and never finished it.

Chorus was a very large planet with plenty of hidden technology; some of which wasn't even from the aliens who had lived there hundreds of years prior to the present date. The Reds and Blues had to learn this the hard way.

Dexter Grif let out a loud groan to display his disapproval of walking through several miles of dense forest, " How much farther is this stupid base anyway?"

"Quit yer whinin', Grif," Sarge commanded, "or you'll be dealing with the business end of my shotgun! Besides, can't be much farther out now, right agent?" Agent Carolina nodded before responding with , "Shouldn't be more than maybe half a mile out from here. At least that's what Epsilon's been saying for the last hour.." She added, slightly annoyed at her A.I. companion for his continued insistence that the UNSC base was 'only a bit farther ahead'.

"Hey, don't blame me! It's hard to get a good signal out here with all this jungle messing up my scanners." Epsilon, more commonly known as Church, retorted. " And besides, I'm positive its true this time. "

At this point in the journey, it seemed that Grif wasn't the only one getting tired. Donut fanned himself dramatically with his hand, "I haven't been this sore in ages" Everyone groaned loudly, and silently agreed to ignore Donut for the rest journey. All except Simmons, who felt it was worth commenting, "Donut, do you ever think before you say something?"

Donut merely responded with an overly cheery, "Nope!" before silence fell over the reds and blues once again. It took no less than 10 seconds for said silence to be broken.

"Tucker," Caboose bellowed loudly for his aqua teammate near the front of the pack to hear. "I need to go to the bathroom again.."

"Didn't you go like, fifteen minutes ago? Just hold it, we'll be there soon anyways." Tucker didn't much feel like dealing with Caboose at the moment. The group had already had to stop approximately 6 times in the past 2 hours for his bathroom breaks.

"But I really gotta go..."

"Just.. go in a bush or something, Caboose. You can catch up to us when you're done." Agent Washington responded calmly. At this point, he was use to playing 'team dad' for the blues, though even now his nerves was beginning to run thin. "Okay. I'll just go over there, and catch up with you guys in a minute!" Caboose repeated back reluctantly as he stared off into the vast wilderness.

_____________

It was official, they were absolutely lost.

"Church, I thought you said you knew where we were going!" Tucker yelled; they were in a huge jungle, it's not like anyone was going to hear him anyways.

"I did." Church retorted, "But then we went through that really thick patch of forest and I guess I got turned around." He was starting to get sick of being blamed every time something went wrong on this journey.

"Team, now's not the time to argue. Let's just get going back in the right direction." Even Carolina had to admit things were getting a bit frustrating on this mission. "Epsilon, any chance you can reset your scanners and get us moving towards the base again?"

Church took a moment to respond, as he presumably was following Carolina's instructions, then said, "Yep, alright we've got things back in order (at least I hope),  this should be the right way now. Turn left up at this big tree here."

_____________

Caboose had found himself wandering aimlessly around the endless jungle. It wasn't as bad as it seemed, after all there were plenty of cool critters to look at. And it's not like his friends would just abandon him out here anyways, they were probably just over the next fallen tree or giant rock.

Pretty soon Caboose began to notice weird cameras tucked between the branches on the trees; this had to be the right way to his friends. He followed the path of camera until he found himself face to face with a big metal building thing reminded him of the blue base back in Blood Gulch. It also appeared to be empty, at least from the outside where no one made their presence immediately known. Caboose figured that it was a fine place to sit and wait for his friends while they were surely searching for him.

Of course, however, it didn't take more than a few minutes for Caboose to get bored of waiting. He began to look around inside the base and, surely enough, it too was comepletely void of any life. Occasionally, Caboose would call out just to see if anyone would respond, but after several minutes of searching and yelling, he concluded that he was alone.

That is, until he found him.

_____________

"Hello? Hello? Is my radio working?" A static-filled, but familiar voice called in over the reds and blues radio network. Tucker and Washington immediately recognized it as the voice of Caboose and responded. It was also at this moment that they realized Caboose had never come back from his bathroom trip.

"Caboose? 'That you buddy? Are you alright?" Washington  inquired, growing slightly concerned for his comrade in blue. It wasn't exactly uncommon for them to lose Caboose like this, but there was always the chance he had gotten himself into a dangerous situation.

"Yes, I am perfectly fine. And I made a new friend! Well, he's not really a new friend—" Cabooses radio cut out at what seemed to be incredibly inconvenient timing. There was a long stream of static.

Tucker made another attempt at contact, "Caboose? We lost you there for a second. Can you tell us where you are by any chance?" He knew he was being incredibly hopeful by asking, but it was worth a shot.

"Oh, I just followed the cameras hidden in the trees. Yeah, they took me to this place that kinda reminds me of our base. I'll introduce you to my friend when you get here. Maybe we can all be best friends!" Tucker looked at the trees and suddenly noticed that, yeah there were definitely cameras hidden in them.

Mourning the Artificial Man

This one’s actually finished, but I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not so it’s just kinda sat in with my drafts for a while, collecting dust. Basically: My thoughts on how the characters reacted to Epsilon’s death. (And, of course, Spoilers)

As the last shots of the Chorus Civil War were fired, the reds and blues breathed a collective sigh of relief. It was over. It was really, truly over.

"We did it." Simmons quietly repeated to himself in disbelief, getting a little louder with each reiteration. He pulled his orange companion, Grif, into a tight embrace, before promptly letting go in a state of embarrassment, the two proceeding to laugh it off. Tucker, still wearing the Meta's armor, smiled brightly, the effects of victory still very present within him.

"You hear that Church? We won!" He waited for a moment, expecting to hear his overly-cynical friend reply with a, "Good job team!" Or even a, "Finally, I was starting to get bored." But alas, no response came.

Tucker began to check all the stats displayed in his helmet. Most of it appeared to be pure gibberish to him. But displayed quite plainly in the top right hand corner was a power bar, which was getting dangerously low. Perhaps Church just needed to rest for a while. He couldn't blame him for that; the battle that had ensued only minutes prior was one the most intense they'd ever fought, second only to their fight against the Meta.

The others began to chatter happily, recounting the fight almost as if it were a fond memory from the distant past. All except Tucker, who had only just noticed a small notification that had popped up in the middle of his helmet. It seemed to be an audio recording made a split second before the battle had begun.

"Hey guys," the reds and blues immediately dropped their conversations to look at Tucker. "I think Church left us a message.."

"Why's he leaving messages? Why not just tell us in person?" Inquired Grif. "Dunno.. he's not responding at all either." There was a moment of tense silence. "Maybe he's just sleeping?" Caboose suggested in his hopeful, naivety. No one wanted to try and explain the truth to him. Tucker began the message.

Hey guys. If you're hearing this, that means you did it. You kicked the s*** out of Hargrove's forces. I knew you could.

A long silence filled the room as the reds and blues listened intently to Churches message. Looking to one another for comfort, for some sign that this was all just a big joke. But the punchline never came. There was no "Sike! I fooled you!" moment. Just a sad silence.

But this is my last stop..

Caboose wrapped his arms around Tucker as they silently mourned for their fallen friend. It was the only time they'd ever hugged, and would probably be the last as the two had never been very close, but it helped nurse the new wounds and feelings of emptyness that had been left behind.

See, when I came into this world, I was really just a collection of somebody else's memories. But with your help, these memories, they began to take form. They became my voice, my personality. And after a while, I began to make brand new memories of my own.

Tucker played the audio recording for Carolina and Washington. Carolina slowly found herself in Washington's warm embrace as they were faced with the harsh reality that Church wasn't coming back. It was a reality both had wished they would never have to face, but sometimes reality doesn't care how much you wish for something. Instead it will push through and leave you behind to crumble.

They were now the last remnants of Project Freelancer. One less living relic to a time now forgotten by the rest of the universe. One less friend to cope through their pasts with. The world seemed just a little bit lonelier now.

All of these things are what make me who I am. But they're also holding me back....

The message echoed loudly over the speakers for all the soldiers to hear; both from the Federal Army, and the New Republic. The soldiers all removed their helmets in a moment of quiet respect for their fallen ally. The one who sacrificed his life for the sake of not only his friends, but the entirety of Chorus as well.

I can't run this suit as Epsilon.. but if I erase my memories, if I deconstruct myself, the fragments I leave behind will have the strength to get you through this. I believe that.

The reds and blues didn't try to meet the eyes of their lieutenants who were clutching to one another in an act of comfort from the front of the crowd. They simply listened to the message and felt their hearts shatter to pieces once again.

'If we would have been there for them, maybe Church could have still been alive' Palomo told himself. He had only ever seen him a few times before in passing, but he know how much Church meant to the reds and blues. He'd heard so many tales of the cobalt AI, how many times he had cheated death, but now it seemed Church had truly passed on. There was no escaping death this time. (Ran out of space, will continue this in a reblog)

[nyrator]

And thus ends another Kresnyan week of wonders

It was quite an eventful week so buckle up for tons of photos, mainly arcade photos~

okay so I talked about Monday already

Tuesday was good, first thing in the morning we play F-Zero GX to wake us up, and somehow managed to beat the Ruby Master Cup with Silver Rat. What an awful, awful character, and yet such a good game for rewarding good mechanics.

Then we went around town exploring the local shops, got led into a strange pawn shop where the entire building was covered with junk, you had to shimmy through a small hall of junk to get through the place, and the owner followed in behind us without us realizing, pretty strange. Also entered a quiet little music shop and had Kresna serenade me with his good accordion skills, then visited my workplace and discussed seeing fireworks with them (we decided not to and instead played EDF and then more DDR, I also even bought a dance mat + two PS2 DDR games that day)

speaking of I got a second PS4 controller and so we played EDF 4.1 and over the course of a few days managed to 100% Hard mode with me as a Wing Diver and him as a Fencer, good times, lots of me dying and him saving me. Reminded me a lot of the PS2 one we played story-wise which after looking it up is a form of reboot of it, so neat. We decided to go straight to Inferno after that and managed to get up to about mission 23 before he had to leave, but man, we were decimating that mode (let’s ignore the having to deal with dragons in the future)

Bit disappointed we didn’t unlock Geist D because as dumb as it is I love the Geist, but mannn, got a sweet laser and Thunder Bow/Sniper 40s that I like to use

Anyway, Wednesday, the big event.

Round1

So initially it was a three-person trip that’s been planned all year, Kresna, Spade, and myself, though sadly but understandably Spade couldn’t make it this time. But mannnnnn.

So, we get up, struggle waking up, and head out on the two-and-a-half hour drive to Exton~

there was lots of neat street signs

there was also a Batman Road but couldn’t take a picture in time

also tons of great sights I forgot to take pictures of, but man, wouldn’t mind living in this area honestly, very pretty and very tree, we took a bunch of detours to avoid tolls and it was a very nice trip

but yes

round 1

this place is massive

this is what we first see going inside

that’s probably less than half of the cabinets they have

you got the shooting and driving cabinets to the right of the entrance, to the left is all more simplified games like pinballs and other popular brand ones, down the hall is the bowling alley which is adjecent to a bunch of claw grabbing machines for things from plushes to anime figures, past that you got the billards with karaoke booths, the fighting game cabinets, and at the mall entrance you have all the dance and musical cabinets, and mannnnn

see when I heard of this place I figure “oh yeah they advertise their bowling alley and also have karaoke, probably an arcade on the side, yeah”, no, this is an arcade feat. special guests bowling and karaoke

we got there at 1PM, took a small food break halfway through, and left around 5PM

my dudes, this place is amazing

I admit, I’m not much of an arcade gamer, but mannnn, what an amazing place.

Here are some of the games we playeddd

Kresna with his Tetris Grandmaster skills~ He played it three times, but man, given enough time he can easily top the scoreboards for sure

Some Outrun 2 SP~ My first time playing and I am bad at it but Kresna did pretty well

I tried playing some of that Gunslinger Stratos game I’ve heard about (aka saw there was Kuja costume DLC some years ago) but unfortunately the gun cursors were awful on the machine I used, all over the place, still beat two missions somehow with the girl in the giant robot, but mann, those cursors

heck yeah, some dekarissss and boy I absolutely am awful at tetris I am so sorry Kresna, the giant joysticks are fun though but man, multiplayer dekaris was suffering for the Kres

for reference, his solo attempt

there was also some rhythm heaven which was neat, Kresna again amazing at it and me not-so-much

we also decided to play this to fulfill our DDR thirst before taking a break

also SHOUTOUTS TO MUSIC GUNGUN, a simple but fun game with lots of good music and Kresna and I love it and may have to buy a cabinet, probably my favorite game there

after the break was more games but less photos to save battery life and repeating some of the aforementioned games, some that stood out

playing lots of Mario Kart DX, I won a grand total of once at the end but I’ll take that, thanks Waluigi and curse you Rosalina

I tried playing some Gitadora but failed miserably, my high school guitar hero skills were not enough for Medium Gitadora

meanwhile Kresna and his incredible talent at Beatmania

we finished the day at Round1 with some last bit of Music Gungun and trying out two-player Dancerush Stardom

and thus ended the trip to Round1, where we decided to head... east

East into New Jersey.

There was one more cabinet we needed to play.

Have some foliage that I forgot to take earlier to show how trees PA is~ There was a ton of nice foliage driving on the way there like I mentioned, just did not get to photograph ittt~

After another hour and a half drive (most of it spent in Philadelphia traffic, I will have you know that I am scared of heights or at least get vertigo easily, as well as being terrified of cars, and being in Philadelphia traffic is still absolutely terrifying to me)

I tried taking a photo of the Delaware but mannn could barely look up out of my seat because crippled with fear (seriously it’s only gotten worse the older I get for some reason)

anyway, just past 6:30, we finally arrive

Tilt Studio at Voorhees, NJ.

I admit, it had some neat cabinets, like Luigi’s Mansion, but nothing like Round1. However, we played none of these other cabinets

Kresna and I (mostly me) had a mission, and that mission was one cabinet

F-ZERO AX, BABYYYYY

look, you don’t understand

f-zero ax

I don’t have an addiction okay

anyway I brought my Memory Card (except I have unlocked basically everything in GX already so hm) and played with my custom vehicles~

and in just under $20 dollars worth of credits (with some used by Kresna of course) I managed to race every single race and I got my name on every single leaderboard (though they’re probably erased at the end of the day at this point)

yes we drove basically four hours to play F-Zero AX (plus Round1 goodness)

was it worth it? Yes

Sadly there aren’t any more licenses (to be expected though), but Kresna and I may have to buy our own cabinet, but a Deluxe Cabinet- the kind with moving seats and two-player actionnn

(it’ll happen you’ll see)

So then, the journey home, a night drive through NJ and bed

Thursday was firework day, though it was mainly EDF day for us. What a good game, EDF. Got some ice cream and hung out and was nice

Friday things began to slow down, EDF feat. more pizza and DDR dates~

Saturday was also pretty slow, slightly stressful day, including blahs from both of us, struggling at Inferno EDF and suffering my bad gameplay, and getting a flat tire on the way back from our last DDR trip of the night (oh boy), though we decided to watch a movie at least~ Genocidal Organ, based on a book Kresna read, it was pretty good~ Got Netflix to watch it (and Spy Kids 3D in honor of Red Square), though sadly SK3D didn’t have an anaglyph 3D option, and Genocidal Organ wasn’t on US Netflixxx, but we watched it through other means instead~

Today we finished the day with some car repairs, window shopping, and eating a big meal at a diner~ This is notable for being my first time eating somewhere in public and eating something that wasn’t just french fries (I had a blueberry pancake with whipped cream~)

Speaking of foods, this visit I tried sardines for the first timeee, not a fan but it was edible, my first time ever eating something fish-y~ Otherwise some neat treats from the Kresna involving many eggs and toasts and even an english muffinn

it was a good first anniversary week, and being with Kresna is always wonderful

And now to await the end of August, where I will finally migrate north and visit the Canadian lifestyle...

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #98

UPDATE 98: Had a Little “Chat” with the Mayor

Well this sure was a stupidly busy time in my life. Thankfully, it’s over and back to the normal amount of busy. Anyway, update time, finally! I really missed doing this.

Last time there was an interlude showing how Alexandria got involved with Cauldron’s machinations! It was pretty interesting. Now the main story will continue, so let’s do it!

Somehow, the arc isn’t over yet. I really thought it was, yet here we are. Oh well. I guess there’s something else to be done before this arc is over? I’m not sure what remains before the next arc can happen, but okay.

Okay, I think I see now. This chapter may be about Skitter contacting Coil to inform him of Parian joining the team unofficially. I thought that was going to be done off-screen, but I suppose it’s okay if it’s done here.

“She holds territory, she’ll defend it against all comers, but she’s not going to do jobs or do anything criminal.  As far as anyone else is concerned, she’s not a part of our takeover.”

She’s just adjacent to the plotting, that’s all. I’m sure the heroes will be willing to look the other way since Parian has a good reputation. I mean, they let her have Dolltown. They could let her have a small territory, even if...the Undersiders gave it to her? Hm...

“The implication being that we’re too weak to deal with her.”

Iiiii think it’s more likely people would think she’s colluding with the Undersiders, or at the very least that she did them a big enough favor they gave her the territory as payment. I don’t think anyone will think Parian is strong enough to fight back against the Undersiders all by herself. Coil, you so paranoid.

Somehow, Skitter feels betrayed by Coil even if she never trusted him. I think I can understand why she would feel betrayed. She may not have trusted him, but he was supposed to help her to some extent – and he did, with money, supplies, all that. And now he’s supplying her with a knife between her shoulderblades. Of course she would feel betrayed.

It seems Parian will be in contact with Coil through a liaison. I didn’t think Parian would be in contact with the bad guy, but apparently she will. I doubt she’ll think kindly of him and what he does.

“Though this could have been done more smoothly, I do appreciate your hard work.”

This from my would-be murderer.

I have to wonder if Coil wishes Skitter didn’t have those pesky moral concerns, because she really is an useful person to have on your side. Sometimes he seems genuinely appreciative of her work, buuuut he isn’t going to risk someone throwing wrenches into his plans, so Skitter has to die. He may not like it, but it has to be done.

Speaking of inter-group relations, Trickster is getting ready to leave for the mission this evening, and since it will possibly involve getting rid of Skitter I wonder if he’s preparing himself for that too, if he’s getting anything ready for that.

She talked to Coil through the phone while her swarm spoke to Parian, who is still here. Parian is provided with a phone, and informs her someone – Coil’s liaison, I imagine – will call before the end of the day. This is the cue for Parian to leave, and although she hates Skitter, they leave on civil terms. Thank goodness! Now that Parian left, it’s time to think about what to do with Coil, while also suffering because she just got surgery on a shoulder. Ouch.

Somehow this turns into a lot of thinking about what will happen if she dies. Considering how she may die that very same night that sure is a grim thought.

My dad hadn’t heard from me in some time.  If I died, well, perhaps not as great a shock as it might otherwise be.  I knew it would hit him as hard as my mom’s death had, that he’d be devastated… but again, he’d recover.  Maybe it would be easier, because at least here he’d have someone to blame, the city, the thugs, whoever Lisa told him was at fault for my murder.  I was pretty sure she wouldn’t reveal my identity to him when a simpler, to-the-point explanation would do.

Honestly I miss Dad Hebert. I thought he’d be a more integral part of Worm, but ever since the first few arcs ended he was pushed out of the story. It’s a shame, I thought he trying to deal with Skitter being a villain would have been very interesting.

If I died, Parian could take over my territory.  I had the feeling I could trust her to care about my people the same way I did, more than I could trust even my friends.  The transition wouldn’t be too difficult.

Kind of...reckless to be supposing that without even discussing it with her. It’s not like they’ll have much time for that, because they agreed to cooperate just a moment ago! It’s too soon to be asking Parian to take care of the territory if Skitter dies! Going too fast, dear!

There’s a cut and then I think it’s later in the day. Maybe evening? She’s going into an area of the city where New Wave is at, and if the rest of that team also waves her for what happened to Panacea and Glory Girl, then she may be in danger being there. I don’t think the rest of New Wave will appear in this chapter, Skitter already has to deal with Trickster and Genesis.

I admit I thought it would be in the next arc, but looks like dealing with that situation will be in this one. Oh well.

Skitter lands in an area with trees, and she sets down with her laptop to prepare. Also to prepare, she makes a lot of clones and sets them both on her bug and in the area nearby, some of them looking like they had laptops. She’s banking on the number of clones to keep her safe. Okay, this isn’t evening, because I doubt Skitter would do this when the glowing light coming from a laptop screen would be very noticeable and would give away who is the real Skitter.

The clone on the beetle is sent to Trickster and Genesis. Since the clone wasn’t immediately torn apart by the others, she’s not in immediate danger, but she still may not be safe. Trickster tries to pass her binoculars, she rejects them and uses her bugs to find out some of what’s happening at the target’s house.

They’re going to scare the entire mayor’s family, and then pressure him. Turns out that was Coil’s idea. Of course, Skitter doesn’t like the thought of getting innocent people involved, but really, nothing to be done on that regard. It’s not like Skitter can defy that plan...at least in an easy manner. She’s okay with doing it because it’s just scaring them, without hurting them.

Well, I could do that.  It wasn’t so different from what I’d done in my first job with the Undersiders.  I’d terrorized hostages then for a greater purpose, and I could do the same with a family for the same reason.

Honestly I can’t avoid thinking it’s different. Last time was with the Undersiders, working for their own goals – well, that’s what they had thought, at least. Now she’s doing it for Coil’s greater purposes. That’s different.

Genesis goes first, Trickster and Skitter staying behind. Trickster criticizes Skitter’s moves – she asks for time to get ready and says it’s so she can prepare, but I’m pretty sure it’s because she wants to be away of them. Trickster thinks Skitter should have prepared something already, or progressively fill the place with bugs. On this I have to agree with Skitter. Better everything at once – it gives the targets less time to prepare and look for help.

Trickster is a tad hostile now, and he says it’s because he didn’t like how Skitter messed with Ballistic and his plans. He says it’s because Ballistic is sort of a friend. That’s not a mutual feeling pal, that’s for sure. While they’re talking, Skitter gets her bugs in, and Trickster tells her the plan.

“Police are on their way.  Gonna swap them with us the second they get to the house.  Warning you in advance so we can look confident.”

It would be quite the impressive entrance. They will be plenty terrified, and since Trickster likely didn’t prepare a mannequin on the brink of a cliff ready to be swapped with Skitter, it should be safe enough for Skitter to partake in. The problem is that she’s not, well, herself. She’s a bunch of bugs. Trickster’s power may not work.

Indeed, it didn’t work. Trickster doesn’t even have time to get her to appear for real, and groans he lost sight of the cops. The plan to make an impressive entrance is gone, Trickster will have to walk into the house like a chump, I guess. Hah! You know, if he didn’t have to kill her and all, I bet he would take this as Skitter once again stepping on the Travelers’ toes.

Skitter’s entrance is to form a human shape from her bugs, making it emerge right in front of the targets. It’s decent, I suppose, but I admit I liked Trickster’s plan better.

There’s some description of the mayor and his family. It’s nothing particularly interesting, but I do like how Mr. Wildbow managed to give some basic personality to everyone in the family except the mayor. It’s good writing.

It’s conversation time. The mayor confirms he’s going to Washington, and the son tries to use a cellphone to possibly alert someone of what’s happening. I’m not sure, but I feel by now the guards already are aware of what’s happening. Everything that happened here can’t have been very subtle. Also there’s a giant beetle hanging out in the area, that’s a dead giveaway there are shenanigans afoot.

“I think it would be excellent if the city kept on going.  Things are getting better.”

“And you’re putting yourselves in charge,” the mayor noted.

“We’re just keeping the peace,” Trickster said.  “Doing a better job than your local heroes.”

“If you have a liberal interpretation of ‘peace’, maybe,” the mayor said.

Well, when only like half of the people in charge of territories are trying to keep the peace and not cause any further trouble in their territories, it’s hard to say they’re doing a better job than the local heroes, hah.

For some reason the mayor’s son is very into whatever he was doing with his phone, and when it’s taken away, he demands it back. Perhaps he had to contact someone to let them know everything is okay? So they wouldn’t burst in and put them in danger? Skitter feels something’s off, but can’t tell what it is. I also suppose she can’t take a look at the phone’s screen, as all of her clones are a far away from it and I bet only the one with Trickster has the camera to see through.

Without Tattletale’s power all she can tell is that everyone is taking this rather casually. In her opinion, that can only mean there’s some security measure they can use, and the villains won’t suspect it. I’m not sure what it could be.

Whatever conclusion Skitter got to, she tries to write the words on the wall so Trickster sees them. He doesn’t see them, apparently, or maybe he did and isn’t worried about it. He’s busy calling themselves the aspiring rulers, because that’s what someone who keeps the peace would say. No, no it isn’t. I doubt that line will help tilt the mayor towards not condemning the city.

Skitter’s conclusion is something she’s still trying to alert them about, yet Trickster still doesn’t react, even though Skitter makes the words larger. What do those words say? Thankfully, Genesis may have seen them, because she gets Trickster’s attention and makes him look.

‘Triumph’ written on the wall with bugs with a triangle beneath, pointing at his head. Above his ‘girlfriend’ were the words ‘Prism or Ursa’.

The mayor’s son was the civilian identity of Triumph.  Enhanced physical prowess and a concussive shout that could punch holes through concrete.

...oops. Bright move, attacking the mayor when two heroes are right here. Great.

You know, I find it very hard to believe Coil didn’t know the mayor’s son was Triumph. He’s too well informed not to know that kind of thing. I’m sure he must have known! Yet he didn’t tell them. That was a rather boneheaded move, because fighting Triumph and another hero will be of no help to convince the mayor unless the villains somehow win. It would have been much easier to do this when Triumph and another hero weren’t around. Perhaps when he was on his way to Washington? Or a day before this one, perhaps? Any other time except now.

Or maybe he didn’t tell them so Skitter would be unaware of this, and the heroes would capture her. All Coil needs is for her to be gone. The heroes capturing her and shutting her into the Birdcage may be enough. Trickster seems not to have known either. If he had, he would have taken measures.

Since the cat’s out of the bag when Triumph sees the words on the wall, they leave any pretenses they’re normal everyday people and start fighting. The mayor and other civilians duck, while Triumph uses his powers. It doesn’t take long for Trickster to be knocked out when he’s hit with a table. Everything has gone pear-shaped, eh?

The situation has turned rough. Skitter is in a safe place – for the time being – since all there is is her clones around. The problem is Trickster being unconscious. Her beetle isn’t strong enough to carry him unconscious, and she can’t leave Trickster behind for a number of reasons. One, he’s going to sing. Maybe not about the Travelers, but definitely about the Undersiders. Two, the other Travelers wouldn’t take kindly to Trickster being left in the hands of the heroes, even though they’re all not in the best of terms. Finally, Coil wouldn’t like that either. By now he’s determined to getting rid of her, but that doesn’t mean Skitter should antagonize him before she makes her move against him.

I could only pray I wasn’t exposing myself to whatever assassination ploy Coil had in mind. Or worse, that I wasn’t doing exactly what he wanted me to do.

There’s a possibility this was something Coil planned, yeah. And if it doesn’t go like he planned, well, he’s going to have other chances to give getting rid of Skitter a try. Skitter and the rest should hurry if they don’t want Coil to hatch plans, because if given enough time he will succeed, I bet.

That’s the end of this chapter. Next!

The next chapter starts with Skitter trying to figure out who the female hero is. Figuring out Triumph was easy because there weren’t that many options he could be, but there are two possibilities for the female hero, and both would require different strategies.

It was critical that I figure out which of the two she was before getting into a fight with her.  Prism was a duplicator who could consolidate into one body to get a temporary boost in strength, speed and durability.  Maybe other areas too.  Fighting her would mean staying out of close-quarters combat at any cost.

Ursa Aurora, by contrast, summoned ghostly ‘bears’ onto the battlefield.  On a level, she’d want to fight like I preferred to, relying on her minions while staying out of the thick of things.

Two possibilities, each requiring very different tactics to handle.

Well, either way it seems to Skitter has to be ready to fight multiple people/bears at once. Finding the common points between the strategies that could be used would be a good way to fight back while she figured out which heroine this gal is.

She doesn’t do that, but she does make her priority finding out who that is. The bugs pour onto the heroine, while Triumph goes around shouting and destroying as many bugs as possible without destroying the house. That can’t be easy at all! Also, Triumph is taking away Trickster’s unconscious body, so that can’t be good for Skitter’s intention of not leaving Trickster behind. Maybe Genesis should start working on that.

Since they’re on a second floor and a possible escape route is to run down the stairs, Skitter places a tripwire. The unknown heroine trips and falls, shrieking. Once there’s a moment, she checks the unknown heroine to see what she has. There’s a gun. A bit unusual for a heroine like Prism or Ursa, perhaps? Well, if she’s a heroine maybe it’s not lethal.

Maybe she’s a PRT officer?  Gun, no apparent powers?

It’s a possibility, really. Would make everything a lot easier, because that would mean Triumph is the only parahuman around, and that would be easier to deal with.

The problem with Triumph here is that bugs don’t seem to be enough to deal with him. He’s fighting them effectively and he has a lot of endurance. He goes towards the closet where the squishy, defenseless family is hiding, but changes directions when she sees the maybe-heroine lying on the floor with bugs all over her.

The heroine was starting to get free.  Two additional versions of herself had appeared next to her, quickly searching out and cutting the silk cords that bound her.  At least I knew who I was up against, now.

Good, she’s not going to have to fight a bunch of bears. From what I heard about Prism, it doesn’t sound like she has anything that would stop the bugs. Worth nothing her copies wouldn’t have injuries from stings or anything, so Skitter may have to fight all of them. She must have enough bugs for that.

Since Triumph was on the second floor and Prism is on the first, he has to go down the stairs. Although he’s warned about the tripwire, he lands in middle of the stairs, carrying a person and losing his point of balance when a lot of bugs fall on him. He crashes down and I’m pretty sure Trickster is currently under the deluge of bugs too, so he better still be unconscious or that will be awkward.

You know, given how merciless Skitter is when it’s about selecting where to bite and sting, I’m pretty sure any person who has to deal with her begins to loathe bugs with a passion. I’m sure of it.

There was a secondary goal, too.  We’d come here for a reason.  If it came down to it, the mayor might change his tune once he’d seen his superhero son brought low.  This was leverage.

Either that or he gets so upset he uses this to solidify his will to condemn the city. It can go one way or another, really.

Just like her new copies don’t have the same damages her original self does, the damage done to the copies won’t transfer to the main body when they get back together, I suppose. It would be a glaring weakness otherwise. Thinking, Skitter gives herself additional cover.

Her plan of attack was to use her silk to grab two of the copies, in preparation for pulling from them and making them fall down. They do crash to the ground, but they consolidate back into Prism, not affecting her at all. Oh well. It was a clever plan, though! Nice! If she could do this to all of Prism’s copies and herself, then she can win.

I could hear and feel Prism firing blind into the center mass of the swarm.  She was mad now.  I’d nearly taken her out.

This is definitely make them want to defeat the Undersiders even more, especially Skitter. They’re going to want her gone, definitely.

Since she’s still on the roof, she leaps and consolidates all her copies into herself, ready to absorb the impact against the ground. It doesn’t go as expected, because in the end Skitter is pretty damn good when it’s about strategy.

They leaped, then consolidated with a flash of light before they hit ground, to absorb the impact with superior strength and durability.

Only the silk thread connected the gargoyle to the Prism-duplicate closest to me.  She didn’t make it all the way to the ground. In the blink of an eye, she was whipped sideways, one arm hyperextended.  She dangled for a second or two before the silk gave way and she fell to the ground.

The power boost was temporary enough that she wasn’t invincible as she made her awkward landing.

Just look at that. All she had to do is make sure she wouldn’t be able to use her boost, and she managed to do it in one swift move! Clever Skitter! And that knocks Prism out. Boy, Skitter is going to be a name all the heroes will dread from this night on.

Now that Prism was dealt with, it’s Triumph’s turn. He’s already not doing well, moving a little bit before collapsing again under the weight of all the bugs and everything being covered in bugs involve. Choking on them, and the capsaicin, and getting bit and stung...I still remember how messed up she can make someone be – Lung, for example. She’s not going all-out right now, yet Triumph must be in so much pain right now. I feel bad for him; he just was defending the family from the villains who crashed their dinner all of a sudden. He did nothing wrong.

A quick survey of the house reveals Triumph’s father picking up a shotgun from a drawer, and since shotguns are quite effective against parahumans when their powers don’t protect them against such a thing, this can’t be good at all. Sure would be anticlimactic if she died because the mayor shot her with a shotgun, though. Thank goodness that’s unlikely to happen, haha! Besides, she can make many decoys. Let the mayor waste ammo shooting at bugs, that will be a lot of help for Skitter, less chances of her getting shot.

As expected, he’s fooled by a couple decoys before Skitter can mention Triumph is, you know, on the verge of death. She mentions even heroes need to breathe, and shows how Triumph is not doing that very well. Quite traumatizing, that must be. I’m kind of surprised he didn’t immediately rush to Triumph’s side, but then again, what can he do against a bunch of bugs covering Triumph?

To make his struggles a little more pronounced, I briefly increased the pressure, shifting the bugs to limit the available oxygen.  I wasn’t sure exactly how much danger he was in, but he wasn’t doing well. As much as I wanted to pressure the mayor, I was ready to apply the epipen the second Triumph’s breathing slowed enough.

I’m pretty sure any state that includes gagging, feeble coughing, and wheezing, is a state that can’t afford this kind of action. This guy is lucky he’s not dead yet. Will an epipen be enough once she decides to give him a break?

It won’t be long before the situation turns direr, Skitter herself is so shocked for a moment she forgets to use her decoys to talk with, she speaks with her own voice and reveals her location. Despite that, she doesn’t freak out when the shotgun is aimed at her, instead she says with the epipen Triumph could be saved. The CPR the mayor suggested wouldn’t be too bad, either, although I doubt Skitter will do it and leave herself vulnerable. Injecting him with the epipen will have to be enough.

A person can hold their breath for roughly two minutes… he’s still almost breathing, but how much breath is actually getting in and out of his lungs?

The cops that were coming were like a minute or two away, weren’t they? I know when it’s necessary time pretty much stops in a story and one minute can take like fifteen, but still, I doubt Triumph will die before the cops arrive, and even if they arrive before Skitter can get what she wants out of the mayor, she will take the bugs with her during the getaway. No way she’ll let him die – on purpose, that is.

The gun clattered to the grass, the mayor dropping to his knees.  His voice was hollow.  “I’ll give you what you want.  Anything.”

There we go! Success! And Skitter is still alive. Double success! And Trickster is unconscious, leaving him with some proverbial egg on his face for failing miserably at the task of both convincing the mayor of anything and of killing Skitter. This has been a good night! Which is why I’m like 60% certain it won’t stay good. How will the situation be turned around against Skitter?

She doesn’t waste any time before going to Triumph and applying the epipen, and tells the mayor to bring his wife, since she knows CPR. During the short wait, she apologizes for her actions and Triumph seems to try to say something, only managing to squeal strangely. Once Triumph is being taken care of, Skitter moves to leave, not without making her demand, though!

“Washington,” I told him.  “The city survives.”

He nodded. There were tears in his eyes, this stubborn man who’d talked so casually with the supervillains who had invaded his home and threatened his family, who’d tried to take me on with a shotgun.

Mission accomplished. See what you’re missing because you don’t want to keep Skitter, Coil? She gets the job done every time! So before anyone has any bright ideas about shooting her, Skitter leaves, taking all her bugs with her. Trickster is presumably being carried by Atlas, Genesis is presumably safe and somewhere else. All in all, the only casualty is Trickster falling unconscious on the first minute of fight.

Not too shabby, I’d say. The heroes’ side got much more of a beatdown.

That’s the end of the update. I think the arc is done now! Maybe. Who knows. This arc just keeps going even after I think it’s over, haha.

Next time: in two updates

[lethal-chiralium]

Honestly | {p.p.}

A/N: okay so this is freakin cute and I love it sm ❤️❤️ this is for @spectacular-spiderboy’s 600 follower celebration!!!! Congrats btw!!!!!!

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Prompt: “Spoilers.” (its bolded and underlined)

Word Count: 4481

Warnings: sass, cussing, cold, hypothermia, blood??? there’s fluff if you squint

Summary: so basically they’re arch nemeses and they have to go on a mission together and stuff happens and (spoilers ;))

(GIF’s not mine!! It’s @starksparker ‘s!!)

“Little Stark.” Peter Parker welcomed you coldly as you sat in between MJ and Ned at your lunch table, you roll your eyes. “Webslinger.” You snark, setting down your lunch tray and backpack, you pulled out your book and began to read. MJ snickered, shaking her head as she read over your shoulder, Ned sighed as he continued to explain something to Peter. “You know, just because memes are a viral language doesn’t mean you have to spew them from your mouth 24/7.” You say blankly, and Ned snickered. Peter snorted. “I don’t talk in memes, Y/N, for your information. Keep reading your stupid book.” “Reading Agatha Christie is stupid, really? She’s the best, that’s the tea.” “I’m gonna kill you.”

You and Peter Parker weren’t exactly friends, but you were arch nemeses. You hated each other, but not enough to kill each other, but both of you were very competitive. Sure, you’ve tried to strangle him but he was lucky your father was there to save him. You both fight each other to be the best in your father’s eyes, even though he thinks both of you are the best, but he won’t stop you. You know that he finds it funny, but that won’t stop you; that little Spider-Prick is trying to steal your spotlight. Tomorrow was Saturday, and that meant a mission for you. You figured it would be a perfect time to show how strong you are to your father and his colleagues; you were ready for tomorrow. You were accompanying Steve, Bucky, and Tony to Siberia to locate and destroy old Hydra bases; something easy since the Avengers had just killed off the rest of Hydra two weeks ago. You had fought in the battle with Bucky, and unfortunately, Spider-Man. You hated him with a burning passion, you wanted to squish him just like one of his spider-kin. That was your only goal as of then.

*** “Shit, it’s cold.” You muttered as you glanced over the temperature on the Quinjet. It had displayed the temperature around the grounded jet to be two degrees Fahrenheit, and you were suddenly regretting your begging and pleading. “Regretting being with the big leagues, Y/N?” Peter joked from across the Quinjet, and you rolled your eyes. “I was with the big leagues before you even knew about the Avengers.” You mocked him, rubbing in his face that you knew them longer and better than he ever will. You glanced over your shoulder to Peter, who rolled his eyes as the three adults were unbothered. Tony was getting set up to leave, you were swatting away your nervousness about the cold. The sun was due to rise in an hour, and yet everyone was quiet, Tony was nervous about you going but you assured him time and time again that you were going to be fine. He was in his suit, while you were in your leather suit; it mirrored Natasha’s since you’ve been training with her since you were ten. She was (and is) your best friend, you’ve always wanted to mirror her. Steve and Bucky were ready to go, and so was Peter. He was just waiting for your father to lead. “Alright, let’s get a move on. We’ll be in two groups. Barnes, Steve, and I will be going in first and we’re going right, you two are to go to the left. When we get at least a hundred feet away, you are to start patrolling. If you find something, call me. If you’re in trouble, call me. If you can’t find us on the map, don’t call me. Just come back to the Quinjet. We are to meet here by dusk. Is that clear?” Tony’s voice was harsh, commanding, and you nodded. So did Peter, he glanced to you before looking to your father, you scoffed. You didn’t backtalk your father, you knew better. You just questioned his sanity with putting you and your arch nemesis on the same team. He glanced to you, giving you the ‘don’t be a prick’ glare he always does before he pulled on his Iron Man helmet, its lights coming to life with a flash of white light. You get up from your seat, and you grabbed your backpack that sat near your feet. You slid your bag onto your shoulders, then you walked towards the massive open pantry where your white, fleece and wool poncho hung. You grabbed it and pulled it on, just in time, seeing that Tony had now began to open the back of the Quinjet. You felt the absolutely frozen air hit you in the face and you shivered, only to pull up the hood on your poncho and place your hands in its giant pocket. It was basically a massive sweatshirt without sides and was amazingly warm, but it still felt like you got hit in the face with a bunch of ice cubes. You fished out your own mask, one that encapsulated the front of your face except for your forehead, and placed it on your face, hearing it automatically click onto your leather suit underneath. Your hand slid up the right side of your head, pressing the small button twice to power it on. A bright light flashed, and now the dark outside was green, but you could see everything. You could see some screens of your health and locations of Tony, Steve, Bucky and ‘Spiderling’, as well as their health statuses. You had this because you were the most trained medically, other than Doctor Strange and Bruce. But on this mission, you were playing first responder. Your boots sounded heavy against the metal, seeing that you were the last one aboard. But, you were walking down the ramp right after Bucky, who was in a Bomber Jacket. As long as you’ve known the secluded assassin, you’ve had the common ground of hating any temperature below sixty degrees. He was now catching up to Steve and Tony, who were almost fifty feet ahead, while you slowly felt the first crunch of snow underneath your boots. You were now three feet away from the ramp, and you looked to your right to see Peter glancing around. He was only a few feet away, but he was admiring the view through his glowing masked eyes. You shook your head, as you heard the ramp begin to close, leaving you and Peter alone in the unforgiving cold. Peter coughed slightly, before he looked back down to you. “Are...Are you ready to go?” You shrugged, the wind nipped at your nose and cheeks. “I’m ready to patrol with an actual Avenger.” He scoffed, you could hear his eyes rolling. “Whatever. They’re almost two hundred feet out, we might wanna head our way.” You shook your head again, and you turned towards the left, starting to walk towards the snow-blanketed forest. The crunch of snow began to double as Peter followed you, and he soon caught up to you, walking step by step with you. “So, what are we even supposed to look for?” Peter asked, and you scoffed. Of course he would forget. “We’re looking for any buildings that look like they’re rundown, it’s one of the main ways to camouflage. Dad and Steve and Bucky are going North, there was more of them up there. There was only one or two on the map that I saw around our location.” You spoke through the comms, blinking widely to look around the forest. Sunrise was due in an hour, so it was still severely dark in the forest, but your night vision made it perfect to see everything. Spiderling had half-night vision, since his eyes are too delicate to use a higher rate of night vision like you and your father can (Aka, you and your father spend days in front of computers, it’s not surprising). “Do you want me to get on the trees and look for the buildings?” Peter suggested, you rolled your eyes. “I’m not climbing up a tree to fix a broken wrist, you’re staying on the ground with me, you fuckin’ weirdo.” You barked harshly, yet quietly, as not to alert anyone in the vicinity. “Wow, don’t have a better insult?” Peter giggled, and you rolled your eyes. He always riled you up. “I will put your night vision at full max and kill your vision.” “Woah woah woah, kids, don’t kill each other yet.” You hear Bucky’s voice in your earpiece, and you growled in distaste. “We’re getting snow up here, just a flurry. I’ll contact you if it get worse.” You huffed, cradling yourself even tighter to keep your cold body warm.. “Okay, be safe. Going offline, emergency contact will reach only me.” “Good luck, kids. Call us if you need us.” Bucky’s voice then disappeared, as you shut off your signal. You looked to your right at Peter, he cocked his head to the side. “Turn off your signal, dude. They’ve got signal readers for a reason.” You rolled your eyes before looking ahead as you walked through the freezing forest. But that’s when you saw movement. “Shit.” The air around the two of you tensed, as you see a figure appear around a tree, and you bolted forwards. Your hand went straight to your waist, where your weapon belt was concealed by your poncho. Peter was right on your heels, both of you were quick and agile, taking down the Hydra bases would be a piece of cake. But, you had be faster with this guy, it felt like he was already a mile ahead. “This guy’s fast, take to the trees, Spiderling.” You commanded, and Peter yelled a short, “You got it!” as you heard the rustle of trees and a deep crunch of snow. Your hand grabbed the small cylinder that was strapped to your belt and you yanked it down, and your fighting stick, as you called it, was ready to beat someone’s ass. It was made out of Vibranium, it was a gift from Princess Shuri in Wakanda. And it was your favorite weapon by far, since it only took a few hits to take Peter down (he was taking it easy on you, but you didn’t need to know that). Your hand gripped it tightly as you followed the man, but you always checked your surroundings. You kept your eyes on him as you followed him through trees, until you both reached a massive clearing that extended down the Belukha Mountain and into the Atlai Mountain Range. It was like a path, like going down a hiking trail with a path. It was just snow, down a winding, wooded path to the massive valley. The guy had looked back to you for a split second, slowing down, and you gained at least three feet towards him before he sprinted down the mountain. You sprinted after him, down the dangerous path. It was slick, and you knew you were going to break a bone if you didn’t land right. But you pressed on, sliding down some of the path and cutting every curve of the path through the trees. He was closer now, he was growing tired and you weren’t; your stamina was higher than Natasha’s, you could run a lot longer than Sam or Tony. You were ready to pounce on this guy, but you didn’t see the gun he was pulling from his waistband until he turned a sharp corner into the forest, while you almost hit a tree. Your feet slipped and your head almost hit the stump of the tree, and you let out a sharp growl in shock. You looked towards the direction he was going, only to growl in dismay. Your hand went to your mask, and you pressed the communication button that went to Peter. “Fuck, I lost him.” “Where are you? I lost sight of you ten minutes ago.” Peter’s voice was a little distorted, and you began to breathe heavily from the sudden stop. “I don’t know, I’m down the mountain, there’s this winding path. Where are you? Your comm sounds distorted.” You sighed, placing your hand on your hip. Peter sighed. “Is it snowing there?” You looked up and around, seeing the daze of massive snowflakes, slowly falling to the ground. You cleared your throat. “Yeah, why?” “It’s like a fucking blizzard here, I’m webbing away and I think I’m close to the path you’re talk about. Stand in the middle of it, I shou-” You didn’t hear him after you suddenly heard gunshots, and you bolted forwards, out of the forest and down the mountain again. You didn’t even look back as you heard a flurry of bullets zip past you, you ran fast and hard, cutting curves and through the trees. You wanted to stay and fight, but you’d rather not get shot...again. Last time, it was hella painful. “Kinda can’t do that!” You squealed, as you grabbed onto a tree to swing yourself around a curve. “Got someone shooting at me!” “On it!” Peter answered sharply, and you kept running. The bullets kept coming and coming, your heart was in your throat and your head was pounding. You held onto your staff tightly, as you looked around as you sprinted through the trail. You couldn’t see buildings, anything other than trees. “Keep running, Y/N, I see ‘em. Don’t stop ‘til I tell you, yeah?” “Whatever keeps me un-shot!” You screeched, before diving through a wall of trees and back into the obstacle of the forest. It was only twenty feet until the cleared area of the path was placed, but you could hear the gunshots suddenly stop. You kept going, though, your feet were growing tired but you kept going until you heard Peter say, “Stop running, Y/N. You’re in sight.” You slammed to a stop as you jammed your staff into the snow, slowing you down immediately. Your hands gripped the staff so tightly, you could feel your pulses in them. In fact, you could feel your pulse everywhere, but mostly on your side. You let out some heavy breaths as you heard Peter’s footsteps and his commentary, “Shit, the snow’s coming. I was up there a few minutes ago and it was turning into a blizzard, that means Mr. Stark- Shit, you’re bleeding!” You looked to Peter, a confused look on your face. “I’m not fuckin’ bleeding-” You looked down to your white poncho, only to see that red was seeping through on your right side, and that was when the pain hit you like a train. It was burning, but yet it was freezing due to the blast of cold Siberian air. “Oh fucking fuck, come on!” Peter didn’t laugh, he only moved forwards and grabbed your shoulders, making you look to his mask. He moved you backwards to a tree, and forced you down, you let out a loud squeal in pain. He mumbled his apology as he pulled back your poncho to see how bad it was. But he looked back to you, then towards the gray mountain. It was supposed to be sunrise in half an hour- “Shit, the storm’s coming in.” Peter muttered before he looked at you. You were breathing heavily, your staff still in hand, seeing that he forced you to drag it away from where you stabbed it into snow. “I-I looked on the map before I found you, there’s an abandoned warehouse down a little ways. It’s not Hydra, it was cleared a couple weeks ago, the bases we’re looking for are farther up but I’m not taking you into the storm.” You growled, glaring at him through your mask. “We need to get back to the Quinjet.” “But we can’t. We could get ambushed or get separated. That wound needs attention in somewhere where it isn’t almost twenty mile per hour winds. Can you stay here alone for a bit?” He spoke harshly, and you kind of bit your tongue. You knew you couldn’t argue, so you nodded. He sharply nodded back before saying, “I’ll be back in less than ten minutes.” And he looked up, shot his webs, then he was gone again. You sighed out a pained breath, placing your poncho closer to your body. You moved up against the tree, remembering that your backpack was still strapped to your back as you moved against it. You growled in pain, looking around to see if anyone was coming after to you. But, you didn’t have to wait long when you saw the red and blue suit appear in front of you once more. His hands pulled you from your spot, and carefully into his arms. You hissed in pain, wanting to punch him for picking you up but you know he was doing it to protect you. *** After Peter had patrolled the warehouse, he was back with you at the backwall of the massive warehouse he had found. It was as tall as a two story house and was as long as three houses, give or take. But, you sat at the backwall, cleaning the graze with some alcohol pads you had in your first aid kit. He was watching you bandage yourself up, and holding your flashlight for you. You both were silent, as you cut the bandages with your Swiss knife, and placed the excess and your knife back in your backpack. You looked to Peter, who sat only two feet away from you. Your back was against the wall, pain running through your body, and you wanted to curl into a ball and cry, but you wouldn’t let Peter see you weak and vulnerable. Peter cleared his throat as he turned off the flashlight, now the only light left around you guys was the glowing snow outside. It was like a hurricane of snow, a white blanket was on every window and the wind howled against the warehouse. “Karen says that you’re getting colder, didn’t you bring some clothes with you?” You nodded, and Peter grabbed your bag from you, only to pull out the small blanket and sweatshirt you brought. He sighed. “I know those looks, Y/N, but I can’t let you get hurt or die. I’m being nice because we are alone and we have no contact with Mr. Stark. I’ve been trying to call them but it won’t get through, so we’re on our own.” Peter huffed sharply. “So, quit being a bitch for a few seconds, would you?” You blinked at him, then you rolled your eyes before reaching for your bag. The pain began to flare up and you winced, falling back to the wall. “Whatever, you fuckin’ prick. Gimme my bag.” You snarled softly, but your voice wasn’t as intimidating as it usually was. Peter pushed the bag to you with his foot, and you looked at him, seeing your hoodie in his hands. “And my sweatshirt. I had to take the top of my suit off, gimme my sweatshirt.” He tossed it to you before he turned around, giving you the chance to take off your poncho and you slid on your sweatshirt. You dug into your bag and grabbed your thin pair of sweatpants, and you took off the rest of your suit. You slid on your sweatpants with some difficulty of moving your butt up from the ground. After you were settled in some clean clothes, you placed your poncho on your legs as you sat Indian style. “You can look now, I’m in my clothes.” Peter turned back to you, and gazed at you for a moment, only to say, “Do you have any food?” You raised an eyebrow. “Why?” “I checked the radar and the snowstorm is gonna last a day or two.” He sighed, and he pulled his mask off, his hair now shooting out in fluffy curls. His eyes met your’s and your heart sunk. He looked scared. The both of you went silent, now you could hear the wind grate against the warehouse. You shuddered, looking to Peter, who was looking anywhere else but you. He looked like he was shivering a little bit, his hands were on his arms. You both sat there for a few moments, and you felt a little guilty. You were in new clothes, you had something to keep you warm while Peter had his suit; that was it. You sighed. “You can sit by me, I’m not gonna bite. We both have to stay warm.” You pat the spot to your left, to make sure your injury wasn’t irritated. He looked at you hesitantly, but you shrugged, giving him a soft look before he gets on all fours to crawl over to you. He settled a few inches away from you, but you didn’t mind. Back home, you would’ve been trying to strangle him by now; now, you’re glad that he saved your life. Your eyes were growing heavy, and you sighed. “Did you make your signal send to Dad or one of the supers?” “Yeah, Karen’s sending it every ten minutes-” “Ms. Stark, your core body temperature is getting close to 95 degrees Fahrenheit.” You hear Karen from Peter’s suit, and you grumbled. How were you this cold already? The two of you have been in this place for an hour, and you had layers on- Oh yeah, there is a severe draft coming from somewhere. That and your leather suit doesn’t do shit for keeping you insulated. “Shit.” peter muttered, before he turned to you, looking softly. His eyes met yours and you swallowed the lump in your throat from being so close to Peter. “My suit has a heater.” You narrowed your eyes. “And?” It wasn’t long after that when Peter leaned forwards and hugged you to him. He used one arm to pull the poncho over both of you, and he scooted down to lay on the floor. He pulled you with him, letting you lay on your left side as he grabbed the blanket and draped it over the poncho, trying to keep you warm. His one arm was underneath your left side, as your cheek was pressed onto his chest, your leg awkwardly across his, and your arms were awkwardly around him. You wanted to go jump off the mountain, but, you did see how gentlemanly he was being. Trying to keep you warm, saving your life… Silently flirting with you. Oh yeah, he thinks you haven’t noticed the winks or casual flirting, but this… This makes you feel weird. You didn’t know why but it felt… right to be like this. You banished your thoughts for the rest of the night, as you drifted into slumber. *** “Y/N, come on, get up.” Peter shook you awake as gently as he could, and you mumbled, “Why?” as you softly sat up from your position on top of Peter. Your side burned and ached but it was dull, your mind was spinning and you felt very cold. “Your temperature’s getting too low. You’re gonna have to wear my suit.” He says gently as he sits up in front of you, and you feel a cold chill run up your spine. Your mind was spinning still, but you hazily nodded as you let Peter help you stand. His hand were gentle as they turned you around so he could change, and you looked up and stared at the rest of the empty warehouse. It was dark now, the snow still blanketed the windows and you wanted to curl back up against Peter. Woah woah woah, I don’t like Peter like that- Don’t argue with yourself, bro, you have to admit that he’s cute. He’s not cute! He’s a lazy prick- “Y/N, here.” He grabbed your hand, which made you jump, but you didn’t turn around. You could now feel the soft suit in your hand, and you softly gripped it. “I’m turning around now.” You began to strip, only to question Peter. “What about clothes for you?” “I’ll just wear your sweats and hoodie. I’ll be fine.” “You’ll freeze.” You bark softly, as you took off the sweatpants, only to place your left foot in the suit and you instantly felt the heat. “Doesn’t matter to me.” You pulled the suit on your legs and on your arms, pulling it on your shoulders. You pressed the Spider emblem, which when encased you in its warmth. You grumbled as you threw your sweats and hoodie over your shoulder, bending down to get them made your body ache. “It should, Peter. You shouldn’t just give me your suit, I’m your enemy outside of the Avengers. We hate each other. We’ve never stopped hating each other, and I’m sure it’ll never change.” Peter didn’t speak after that, he only tapped you on the shoulder. You turned around and he didn’t look at you as he laid back down on the floor, you followed suit. You laid back down on his chest, your leg wasn’t over his, your arm wasn’t over his chest. Only your head was there, listening to his racing heart. “It’s  true, Peter.” You say softly, gazing at your sweatshirt on the boy. Peter took a deep breath. “I wish it wasn’t.” Your eyes widened, but you didn’t move to look at him. Your breath hitched, you could hear his heart pound as he continued. “I wish we could’a been friends, Y/N. I hate fighting with such a wonderful person, I wish I didn’t have to be such a dick to you. I fucking hate being such a dick to a girl so smart and awesome like you.” He half chuckled. “Here’s some fuckin’ spoilers, I like you. I like you a fuck ton of a lot and I know you hate me with your stone cold heart, so let me just say that I’ve liked you ever since I’ve met you and now, I can’t let you get hurt because it hits me like a train, because spoilers, I love you, okay? I fucking love you and I hate hating and fighting with you and I just want it to stop, okay? Can we just stop being enemies and be on good terms? Can you get that through your brain?” You couldn’t feel anything in your body. Your breath hitched when he said the ‘L’ word and you wanted to scream into a pillow. He just cussed you out, restarted your relationship with each other, and confessed his feelings for you? You felt like you hit your head too hard, but you were on Cloud Nine because your heart was racing too. Your head moved from his chest and you hovered over him, eyes almost glazed with tears as you raced forwards, smashing your lips to his without a second thought.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe starting something good would be better than trying to kill each other.

[heyyy-thats-my-chips]

Tales of The Wicked

Chapter 1

 Goddess surely have a malicious taste of humor.

I can’t take a guess of what jokes she will make in the future, but surely it’ll makes me laugh when it’s time.

Like one time she decided to shows us a new dragon created from broken fragment of chaos dragon named Black Dragon that destroyed almost every villages it accidentally found and wiped out half of our population. I’m laughing even in my sleep. Watching us living in harmony must be boring for God.

Speaking of population, there are 7 races in this world, The Sorceress, The Warriors, The Clerics, The Kalis, The Archers, The Lancers and the last one, Assassins. I was born as an assassin.

The Kali race is the only race that have only women in the tribes, there’s barely men, except the elders. They were known as The Guardian of Ancient, the one who could read Goddess dreams. Remember what I said about God having a malicious taste of humor? Well, out of nowhere, Kali tribes was destroyed overnight, but one of them managed to escape and now she’s the only Kali in the world. And don’t forget about a sudden appearance of the Prophet who was predicted could save the world, but ended up being kidnapped by the mysterious Black Knight. And a white haired woman in red hood named Argenta visited the Calderock Village and claimed to be the Silver dragon, a fragment of ancient dragon who bossed around for her ‘job’ to find the Black Knight, but now the Black Knight and the Prophet are nowhere to be found.

And the rest? They were ordinary peoples, villagers. Many peoples except archers who didn’t go to a training camp would ended up as villagers, the blood of their ancestors will still flow within them, but discrimination from others will makes them forget about their origin. They’d lose their confident, but some of them will rise up and become important peoples instead, such as generals, soldiers, blacksmiths, tailors, warehouse keepers, mount trainers, potion makers, and the others I couldn’t remember. Studying as a trainee itself required lots of patience and times, you should be able to perform basic skills and be able to do the quests given by your trainer, such as entering a dungeon to gather specific ingredients and kill monsters and the mission could cost your life.

Oh, I forgot to mention, my ancestors were actually the real leaders of Silver Dagger, the most feared and famous guild in Saint Haven, their name will never be written in the history, but they’re the one who make history of victories and wars in almost every conflicts, even King Peter in Cassius Palace frequently sent them into secret missions or called them whenever they need a counsellor. You can tell from my story that my ancestors are the shadows of the Cassius. My father always told me that someday I’ll replace him, but I’m not interested.

Because of the absence of siblings in my family, my days are always filled with training and studying. My father shows no mercy, he trained me so hard that seems like he doesn’t care if I die during my training, but in the end of the day, my father will become softer and appreciate many thing that I did in my training and study. Sadly there’s only two of us in the family, there won’t be mother for me who welcomes me home. My mother died to protect me when I was a little kid because of sudden attack from Black Dragon in Saint Haven, and I know since her funeral held, my father is trying so hard to replaces her role. When I was younger, my father always told me a bedtime story in every night, but I refused and told him to tell me his journey instead, but he just smiled and tells me I’ll know it soon. Now my nights are filled with stupid tales of the ruler of God, named Desmodeus who ordered two Goddesses, Althea and Vestinel to create a world, but because of envy, Vestinel poisoned Goddess Althea into slumber and turns this world that created by Althea into chaos, and we, in the name of Silver Dagger, should bring peace back to the world, along with the ancient and chaos dragons. Now I really want the old tales of him back.

Since Saint Haven is the capital city of the world, where 7 of the races gathered to seek a better job, I frequently meet peoples from other races, and new adventures in every corner of the city. One day, when fate decided it’s time to meet my dear friend, I met him in the most unexpected way.

I remember that day, when my father forced me to enter one of dungeons in foothills of the Black Mountain, where almost all of the soldiers and members of many guilds from Saint Haven fought battalions of monsters that suddenly came and attacking the front base of Saint Haven’s fortress. It’s funny that when I watched the war while eating apple and sitting in the branches of highest tree in the foothills of the Black Mountain, I accidentally saw a boy with silver hair that has the most beautiful face even for a man, I snickered, he must be the new Knight Templar that has been in every headline of newspapers because of his contribution for Dragon Follower’s investigation. No wonder the King Cassius and General Douglass sent him in the front line, he’s strong.

I started to notice that he’s a rare case in his race, he’s a priest and also a paladin, meaning he could either be an inquisitor, a crusader, a saint, or even a guardian. Interesting.

But in just a second, something changes from his appearance, I furrowed, but then realize that he casts a spell to call lightning—upon me

I jumped to another tree before a thousand volts of lightning suddenly strikes the tree I was sit on, the fire quickly spreads from one branches to another, my half eaten apple is long gone. In the thick smoke and burning woods, I detect a flash movement of one people and suddenly the smoke in front of me is vanished, replaced by the beautiful face I’ve been watching. He spells a cast again and makes another thunderbolt strikes barely an inch from my place, if I didn’t move faster—

He continues to attack with force of winds and makes the trees around him breaking, a sharp piece of wood almost planted on my face, I jumped backward and let my body pulled down by gravity before hard ground under my feet breaking because of heavy pressure of mine, but then I must jump away from there before the shield of the Cleric makes the slightest contact with me.

A loud of crash could be heard. Our surrounding is filled with dust that flies because of Cleric’s attack—what a powerful skill he has. When the surrounding become clear from dust, I see something like an orb in front of my face—Cleric’s wand pointed at me.

“Who are you? Are you a Dragon Follower’s spy?” He exclaimed,

“I think you got the wrong person.” I lifted up both of my hands, but seems like it only makes him more suspicious because he just shoves his wand closer to my face.

“I ask you once again, who are you?” He demanded,

I sighed heavily. “My name is Reuvaldy.”

But seems like my answer didn’t satisfy him, he furrowed deeply. “What?” I shrugged, “you asked me who am I didn’t you-” my words are cut off by a sudden enormous cross that fell besides us, and there’s lightning in every inch of it.

“If you don’t answer me, I will not hesitate to kill you.”

“Alright! I’m an adventure who’s too lazy to join you defeating those monsters.”

He fell silence for a while, but then he quickly composed himself, “show me your license.”

I rummage through my pocket, then hand him the license my father gave me so I didn’t have to go to the training camps, in exchanges of strenuous training from my father himself. He takes it and examining it carefully before handing it back to me. But I know he didn’t read any description in my license.

“I’ll let you go this time, but you should help us get rid of the monsters.” He stated, I reply it with a heavy sigh.

“Fine.” I got up, “but before that, could you please remove your cross thing? It makes me uncomfortable.”

He looked at me once again before flicked his finger, which makes the enormous cross of lightning disappear. “Let’s go, we don’t have much time.” He turns around and runs into the war while shouting a command before he’s disappearing from my view. I chuckled, maybe he’s not that bad, could spotted me far above the tree in short time. I quickly made my way to him by slashing monster’s throats that are on my way, another stupid orcs, and annoying goblins that basically a parasite in every monster battalion tried to stop me, I smirked, “shower me with blood.” I snorted as I cut another orc’s throat open, a disgusting blood of them burst out, making another monsters fled when I glared at them. But it doesn’t affect the cocky harpies, they must thought they’re strong enough to kill us—especially the one with red feathers. But they’re all wrong, I slipped my hand into my pocket and quickly throws my

I finally saw the silver haired boy again, but before I could reach him, there’s a deafening howl echoing through the Foothills.

Yes I do realize we’re in the very front line of the soldiers, and I do realize those howl means the General monster has come down. And I do saw the gigantic General monster running to his target—the Cleric. “Cleric!” I shouted, but he can’t even moves because the monsters are surrounding him, I looked at the General monster who’s become very dangerously close to him and already lifted his giant axe pointed to the Cleric—there’s no time.

I lift my hand up in the air, absorbing the dark shadow into my hand before the fire starts to burns around the shadow, creating a red line which I called ‘hell’s ribbon’ and slowly this dark matter of mine forms into a huge piercing star which I throw toward the general monster’s neck and swiftly slash the monster into two before a loud metal clacking echoing through the foothills,

Shit.

The cleric’s eyes widened, he just saw one of the silver dagger’s legendary skill. He quickly turns his head and sees where I am standing, where the dark star came from.

I messed up.

The other monsters suddenly fled from the battlefield, their general is dead, making the soldiers and adventures confused with the sudden victory. The cleric’s view was blocked with hundreds monsters that run toward their base fortress, saving their life. The shout of victory filled the foothills of Black Mountain, they all cheering, except the cleric,

Who only saw a solid wood log laying on the spot where the assassin supposed to be.

[getreadytosmash]

The Past that Smashed

Chapter 14

Ennui’s POV

I’m in my room at the middle of the night getting ready. I have prepared my bag that I was going to take to the Hulk’s base. I know it’s going to be a long trip, but I have to be there. I was about to leave until I heard the door open from behind me.

“So what time are you leaving?”

My heart stopped.

I looked back and saw one of the major agents, my mentor to Sir Unknown who wears a silver mask with a fancy black suit. I never told no one about this so I can’t get caught now, even if I will get in trouble. Usually I would never do anything like this but….Sams is over there. Well time to create some bullshit.

“I was called to go to the Hulk’s base, however they prefer to keep it quite. I cannot inform you anything about this situation, sir.”

He walked slowly into my room. Please for the love of God, get out. He then turned to me.

“You know….you are my favorite student. I trust you more than anyone else, with the exception for one person,” Unknown said.

Where the hell is this going?

‘You were like a son for me. I know almost anything about you, your family, your hometown, your likes, and etcetera. However you never told me some of the reason for a few things like your goggle’s color, your private jet named Uel, your password is maS, and that picture of that boy in your phone.”

….Fuck. Nope. Not tell him. I’m not saying anything.

“Not everything is actually linked into each other. What if they are private information about my life that I have the right to remain silent about?”

“I know who was your hero when you were younger.”

I rolled my eyes. They were friends when they were younger, my ex hero and Sir Unknown. “I know,” I replied.

“Well, what if I told you that Natty actually told me some of the truth about your boyfriend.”

Wait! No! What!? GOD, I WANTED THE GROUND TO EAT ME ALIVE!….I still don’t know about the ‘boyfriend’ part though. It’s rather complicated. *cough*

I was about to say something until he put his hand up.

“We actually know why Hulk is going to the past.”

What!? How did they know? There were only five of us who knew about that.

He went on. “We cannot tell you yet why until Hulk is done protecting that boy. I will only tell you this because I trust you. Doctor Strange is the one sending him back. He is watching both the Hulk and the boy but that is how I knew you sent that secret message at She Hulk with the help of the Albizu cousins. The reason why I knew is because of Natty telling me about how Hulk going back in time, then I asked Director Fury about this and he told me how and other information. There are still parts that I don’t understand but it’s not my business.”

They knew? They fucking knew? And here I am trying to keep this a goddamn secret.

“Sir? Are you stopping me from going?” I asked. I mean why is he here in the first place.

“No. We need you to be over there for more information about the boy because even we don’t know nothing about him. Even Doctor Strange is not telling us. I rather you tell me about this before so I could have lied about you going on a secret honeymoon maybe.”

I respect my mentor, but I hate him sometimes.

“Thank you, Sir. I will go as quickly as possible, but I’m only there personally. I don’t want S.H.I.E.L.D. knowing when I’m going.”

“Well then. Take the jet named Tiana, it’s the slowest jet but it’s the only her that doesn’t have a tracker. S.H.I.E.L.D would not worry about that one much so you can take it. By the way I took it off. But I’m making you take the slowest as a punishment for not telling me about your mission. It even need to be prepared so you are going to have to land a couple of times to fix it. AND it’s gas tank will run out quickly so you either find different ways to fill it up or leave the jet so S.H.I.E.L.D will have to take you back.”

He threw me the keys of the jet. Jesus. I’m being delayed for not saying anything about MY life which I don’t like to talk about. I grabbed my bag and head out the door. I bowed to him, since he likes that for some weird unknown reason.

“Hold up.”

Oh for the love of-

“Take these.”

“What?”

He handed me some concert tickets. Why would I need this?

“Look at the name, my boy.”

I looked at it and it said that a concert at Vista Verde. Its in three day and it’s a DJ that was performing. I looked at the name….I hate him…..sometimes. DJ JD was going to perform. Of course he knew. Why wouldn’t he come. I couldn’t help but smirk.

“Now make sure to be there on time so those tickets would be such a waste if you didn’t go,” said Sir Unknown.

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

I looked at the tickets and thought of some fond memories of my teenage years until-

“Well, what are you waiting for? Go so you won’t be late.”

Shit! I need to go. I thanked him, again and left.

I ran out the door and towards where the jets are. I found old Tiana at the end and quickly got on. I took off remembering the problems of Tiana.

-Few Hours Later-

Remember what my wonderful mentor, Sir I’m so mysterious I have tentacles under my mask maybe? Hint the sarcasm in my mind please. Well it turns out that Tiana is slow as HELL and after fixing it, 10 minutes later it needs to be fixed again.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

How am I going to make it over there? Is supposed to be like a day or less to travel over there on a jet. If I went on foot and hitchhike on trains or large trucks I can make it in about 4 days, since I don’t sleep a lot. But with this piece of crap I don’t even know. Hang on guys. I’m coming.

A-Bomb’s POV

So Hulk just told us that a tree house almost killed Sammy for fuck sake. Jeez. I really don’t like those aunts that he has. Especially Karen.

I did laugh on the part where Dawn came in and threw those bugs at the boys.

“You know what’s really great about Dawn?” asked Carla as she was drinking her tea. “Dawn was the reason why Robert and the other boys are afraid of bugs ever since she put cockroaches in their soup one time after not letting Sam or Dawn sit on the table with them. They’re all dicks, those cousins. Sometimes I want to give them a piece of my mind when I was younger.”

After that everyone went off doing separate things but I stayed with Carla. We are actually good friend since she said that she didn’t have a lot of people to talk to, like me, and usually boss people around.

She was petting Icarus, that giant rat that I kinda don’t want to get to close to.

“Jones, I’m bored. Do you have a radio to annoy the others? I feel like jamming out right now,” said Carla.

*squeak*

“Hell yeah, we do!”

I turned on the radio and put the volume really loud so the others can hear it. Carla has a thing to mess with people while not being in the same room with them.

Carla is basically everyone’s friend here, besides Red who sees her as a troublemaker so he keeps an eye on her. But I think the real reason is that he wants to know what’s going on with the time travel. I know for a fact that she HATES spoilers so of course she would not tell. She’s cool with Skaar and Jen, even if she does have a crush on her but they are actually okay. We think that she’s sees Hulk as an uncle figure for her since he was the only one she listens to.

Man, she’s been here for a while now. It’s been almost a month actually. I think she came at the 5th of August. It’s funny because the only reason she remembers the date is because her five pairs of shoes she brought with her.

‘In the name of love’ came on and we both sang our hearts out.

“IN THE NAME OF LOVE!” we both screamed.

“Goddamnit, kids! Turn that music down, I can’t train with that on!”

I noticed that Hulk was coming towards me, covering his ears. He gave me an envelope and left. I looked at it and I gasp. I got tickets to see DJ JD on 4th of September, and it’s only in three days! WOO! Man, I’m so excited!

Leader’s POV

She’s doing this on purpose. I just know it. And she’s secretly doing it to me. Jokes on her since we both like the same type of music.

“In the name of love!”

“Oh come on! Not you too!” groaned Red as he gave Leader his lunch.

/WOO! Got this one done. Get ready for more visitors coming. Sir Unknown was a last minute character, but I already made him part of it. Now let’s see what can you find here. Hmm those numbers look familiar for some reason, but I’ll let you guess. Hope you enjoy./

(Omg I love how annoyed Rick is "God damn it Sam, why must you almost get killed by a tree?" Lol! I'm surprised that you have time moving in this so the months are actually changing, soon it'll be Leader's birthday in this...Ennui is so in love with him omg it's so cute. His get is named after Sami, his password is after Sami, his goggles are orange...he even has a picture! I'm wondering when they first met, it makes me laugh to imagine Hulk being a protective dad, not wanting anyone to date his boy XD it'd be one hell of a shovel talk. The DJ event is going to be huge and I wonder why Ennui hates him...I'm looking forward to seeing him reunited with Leader. Ennui will get to him....IN THE NAME OF LOVE!)

[petitelepus]

A Simple Femme In Beast’s Suit, Part 1

Okay, so this work is on my AO3 user PetiteLepus and this work is inspired by Zekkoss. Check them out, they’re awesome. I’ll tag @rocksinmuffin, my Senpai, and everyday inspiration since I want her to name the Reader! But enjoy the story!

It was a regular day in Lost Light, or at least it would have been if it wasn’t for Swerve. The metallurgist had heard a broadcast sent to the whole ship by Rodimus about how they were passing by an artificial planet called Ovika 1.5 and the minibot couldn’t be in a greater rush. So he abandoned setting up his bar for the night and told Ten to carry him with his bigger legs to the observation deck. They came in, doors busting.

”Captain,” Swerve called, but was silenced by the sight of both Rodimus and Megatron staring out in the space until the smaller mech had burst in. He fixed his mistake quickly, ”I- I meant, captains! W- we must visit that planet, it’s my life long dream, besides managing a bar, please let’s go there, even for an hour or half, I’ll give you both free drinks and energy treats for tonight!”

Rodimus’ optics widened and mouth formed to a smile, but before he could agree Megatron stepped in, ”Swerve, that planet is abandoned. There is nothing there. It’s just dust and dirt covered artificial cyber asteroid floating in space.”

”That’s exactly it!” Swerve smiled broadly and jumped down from his bouncer’s arms and made his way to his two captains.

”I’ve read about Ovika 1.5 when I was back on Cybertron studying and I know it’s an artificial cyber planet that had historic and highly rare and these days NON-EXCITANT energon chips planted on it for harvesting high functioning ancient energon, way more powerful than normal energon!” The white and red mech beamed excitedly.

”Wait, hold on, I don’t get this.” Rodimus interrupted before Swerve could start again and glanced him and Megatron in confusion, ”If this Ovika 1.5 is so great, then why it’s abandoned light-years away from Cybertron?”

Swerve was about to explain, with extra details that weren’t asked, but Megatron folded his arms and shot him a look. The metallurgist shut down immediately, even covering a little. The former warlord huffed and turned his grumpy look to Rodimus, ”The Ovika 1.5 was abandoned because it showed no sign of growing energon. Instead, it started to grow organic life forms. At that time it wasn’t wished result for such an expensive experiment so Council decided to launch it off to space and destroy all the data of it to cover up their mistake.”

”But the legend about the rich energon filled planet never died and mechs all around the Cybertron told stories about it and its location! I always wanted to find it and harvest the rich energon to make amazing new drink combinations that not only bring people happiness but nurse them also! They say that ancient energon can cure weak sparks, fuel mechs for a week with one sip, and even prolong life!” Swerve piped excitedly and clapped his hands, ”It’s also highly valuable! Worth millions!”

Rodimus brightened up like a light bulb and turned to mech in charge of controls. ”Park the ship here, we’re taking Rodpod and go take a look at that little planet!”

”Rodimus!” Megatron snarled and turned to his co-captain, ”This is not a good idea and you haven’t even consulted Ultra Magnus about this!”

”Relax, Magnus is having his armor checked by Brainstorm and Perceptor so he won’t a notice a thing if we disappear for an hour or two! We just get a couple mechs with us, get to the Rodpod and take a quick peek! If there is this ancient energon then we grab some and, well, let’s see what we’re doing then. For now, wham-bam in the van, let’s go! Swerve, you’re coming with us.”

”Yes!”

~~~

”This is remarkable!” Brainstorm shouted from the bottom of his chassis as he threw his arms in the air as if he was expecting the planet to embrace him. Mechs exited the Rodpod one by one, but he had to be the first one on the land. Nautica was close behind him and once she was next to her best friend she copied him perfectly, ”This is amazing!”

The artificial cyber planet had grown into a beautiful organic looking planet. The grass was tall like a meadow’s no matter where it grew, flowers as big as minibot’s head and strangely reminding some of them from tentacles as they hang from a bulb looking like an onion…?

The trees looked like Earth’s palm trees, but they were even taller than normal mechs were and leaves were fuchsia-colored and flowers brown like they were almost dead, but still alive. The sky was bright blue, but that had to be the only normal thing on that planet since even the clouds were light green. Heavier clouds were almost poisonous looking.

”Okay everyone, I’m giving you all a job!” Rodimus shouted, getting everyone’s attention.

”Brainstorm will do his science thingies and Nautica accompanies him.”

The nerd duo high fived.

”Rewind takes records from this place and you watch after him Chromedome. I don’t want to put anyone in danger.”

”I’ll guard him with my life.” Chromedome said as he leaned over his smaller lover's shoulder to nuzzle his facial mask against his Conjunx Endura’s own. Rewind returned the sign of affection with as much love, ”Oh Domey…”

Rodimus cleared his intake, averting his gaze from the lovely dovely couple and fixed his optics on Skids and Swerve, ”You two take a look around and see if you can find anything. Remember to report back to me. And for all of you make sure to scout the area carefully! Don’t leave a stone or a twig turned and report everything to me by our comms if you find anything!” Rodimus shouted and made a pose, ”Until all are one, so go wild!”

”YES!” And just like that everyone except, Rewind, Brainstorm and Nautica, transformed and went on their different ways. Rodimus drove to the South, Skids and Swerve drove to West, Chromedome took Rewind on top of him and they drove to North and Brainstorm and Nautica went on their ways to East, each one on their own mission.

~~~ At East ~~~

”Look at this bug Nautica! It’s amazing! Not the biggest I’ve seen, but it’s still pretty amazing!” Brainstorm squealed excitedly as he used his sample taker to poke the beetle that he had kneeled down to inspect. The femme was right beside him, looking curiously the beetle that reached to their knee joints. It made cricking sounds and shook its shell each time Brainstorm poked it.

”I wonder why it’s shell is bright red… and what are those orange spots on it? Wouldn’t it be better for it to camouflage to its surroundings? There must be a reason for its absurd coloring!” The scientist said as he poked the chubby beetle straight between its antennas and suddenly the beetle hissed and-!

”Watch out!” Nautica screamed and quickly yanked Brainstorm out of the way danger’s way. The beetle spat a spray of bright yellow spit at him, but thanks to the mech’s best friend’s fast reflexes, the spit flew past him and hit the ground, and just like that, the beetle bolted and run away to the lush grass. The duo watched after it, then each other and finally the spit on the ground.

”I think it doesn’t need camouflage to hide.” Nautica noted. The spit hissed as it melted a giant hole on the ground and killed all the plants around it. Brainstorm squealed again and quickly got out his vials and took samples, ”Of course! It’s not trying to hide, but warn the predators that it’s dangerous and someone not to mess with! I must document this and run some tests on this acid to find out its composition to create more of it! Then I can mass produce it for my weapons! Imagine the possibilities!”

Nautica chuckled as she watched her friend blabber over how he needed to analyze the acid’s composition to create more of it and talk about all the great weapons he could create with it. While he took samples, she took a look around. The planet was weird but very pretty on its own way. Nautica couldn’t almost believe that it was accidentally created by Cybertronians, but if the massive animals were any indicator about their roots then it matched.

On the corner of her optic, she noticed a big bush shaking couple steps farther from them. She was curious to see what caused the shaking and since Brainstorm was busy, she decided to investigate. Nautica didn’t expect to find what she did.

”Uh, Brainstorm? You might wanna see this.”

”Oooh, what what, what is it? Another critter?” The scientist giggled and ran to his friend. Nautica shook her helm, not averting her eyes from the show bestowed before her. Two rodents that looked like super hairy fluffy puff rats with longs green lizard’s tails were mating like there was no tomorrow. Interesting, but kinda gross also…

”Yew… Neat, but still, yew.”

”I want to take them back to the ship!”

”No you don’t.” Nautica chuckled and walked off to look for something else magnificent. It wasn’t hard. Actually, wherever she looked they saw the planet’s habitats… Being all over each other. Avians with leathery wings, bugs with bright colors, mammals with their weird six eyes.

Noticing that Brainstorm was still watching critters bang, Nautica went to her friend and pulled if away, ”C’mon you, dork, let’s give those animals some privacy!”

”Noooo! I want to take them with me…!”

”You can take that ancient energon once we find it.”

”Even better! Let’s go, let’s go!” The scientist laughed as he bolted straight into the wilderness, trying to find the ancient energon. Nautica chuckled at her friend when she noticed a flock of avians circling the sky not so far away from where Brainstorm had run off to. She followed her friend to the flock of birds and she almost couldn’t believe her optics.

Bones. Giant bones everywhere. Bigger than her and any basic mech. The avian vultures pecked the squeaky clean bones, trying to find something to eat from them, but they had already been cleaned from meat.

The avians must have been hungry since they would only change a skeleton when Brainstorm went to inspect one of them.

”Nautica! This is amazing, these bones are gorgeous!” He squealed like a sparkling and straight out lifted one from the ground, ”So heavy, but almost hollow! This creature had wings to fly with, but the size of a fighter!”

He threw the bone away and went to inspect the skull with enormous sharp fangs. ”These fangs indicate that this creature was a carnivore because it lacks the blunt molars to grind it’s the food like herbivores do to plants. These fangs were purely for ripping meat apart!”

As Brainstorm rambled on, Nautica started counting bones and how many creatures they had in their pedes. According to skulls at least three giant carnivores. She couldn’t help but wonder why these animals had died.

”Hey Brains, you got any idea why these guys died?”

”I thought you would never ask!” Brainstorm giggled and jumped over the skull he was investigating to take a look at its neck.

”Look look! This one’s neck was crushed with such force that it not only snapped the cervical vertebrae but it CRUSHED IT! It’s in pieces! This monster had no chance against its competitor when it had its neck in enemy’s jaws!”

Nautica nodded as her friend made his way to another skeleton, disturbing vultures as he went to its ribs. ”Suspecting by the crushed sternum, this one received a fatal blow to straight into its heart! A real kill shot, am I right!?”

Brainstorm jumped to the third corpse, rolled over a giant skull that was more damaged than other skulls. Not only was it’s front almost black, but there was a huge hole in the middle of the forehead. He pulled servo through the skull’s black part, only to smudge his servo. ”These burnt marks are so deep, that this one had its whole face burnt before something smashed it’s head inside!”

Nautica nodded, eyeing the corpses. ”That sounds interesting Brains.”

”It is, isn’t it!”

”You do know what this means, don’t you Brainstorm?”

”That there is a giant creature here, vicious enough to crush competitor’s neck, strong enough to pierce a chest and able to breathe fire or strong acid through its mouth!”

A silence fell over them as two of them thought what was just said. And just like that, they both quickly opened comm links.

’This is your Captain? Did you find anything?’ Came Rodimus’ voice through the comm.

’Captain, uh, Rodimus? We have a problem!’ Nautica was saying when she was interrupted.

’Yeah, no shit. I found something. Something is seriously-! Hold on, Chromedome is contacting us.’

’This can’t wait-!’

’Rodimus? Is Brainstorm also on this comm?’ Came Chromedome’s voice.

’Nautica is here also!’ Brainstorm cheered.

’Hi Chromedome! We got the news! Bad news!’

’They can’t be as bad as our news!’ Rewind joined the link, ’There are hundreds of capsules here, from Cybertron!’

’Okay, that beats my news.’ Rodimus said, ’Nautica, Brainstorm, Chromedome, and Rewind, let’s all meet back at the Rodpod. I’ll contact Skids and Swerve and tell them to return-! Hold on, they’re just contacting me.’

’We’re in trouble!’ Skids yelled straight into comm link.

~~~ At North, Quarter Earlier ~~~

”Seeing anything Rewind?” Chromedome asked as he kept driving through the tall grass that seemed to go on and on forever. The minibot kept his visor and camera on the horizon, trying to see anything worth filming or noticing. Like a big rock that was coming up.

”Turn left to avoid a rock coming up-! No wait, it’s a sheep. It’s a sheep that looks like a rock. Just drive past it!”

”On it.” Chromedome drove past the sheep, only to hear unholy screeching behind him and Rewind’s hold on his roof tightened. ”Oh frag, it wasn’t a sheep, but a ram and it has big horns and it’s angry!”

The bigger mech laughed, ”How bad can it be, it’s organic. It won’t catch us-!” Chromedome had to swallow his words before they got past his vocalizer as hard and pointy horns rammed against his rear bumper.

”Frag!”

”What did I tell you!” Rewind shouted, but there wasn’t even a hint of malice or sassiness in his voice as it was only laced with laughter, until the ram rammed against his lover again, almost knocking minibot off from him. Without another word, Chromedome sped up until they left the ram eating dust.

”This planet is weird! I love it!” Rewind laughed as he filmed over his shoulder how the ram was left behind. Surely mechs on the ship would love to see them getting chased by a rocky organic.

Chromedome laughed, his engine rumbling with mirth. Then his lover noticed something and patted the vehicle’s hood to get his attention. ”Domey, there is something in the distance.”

”More rams perhaps?”

Rewind focused his optics behind his visor and used his camera to zoom in. He saw many round things in the distance, but he couldn’t tell what they were. ”No, they look like them, but it’s not it. I don’t get any signs of life from there.”

”Should we check it out?”

”It wouldn’t hurt.”

The duo made their way to mysterious objects, only to be shocked out of their minds. Rewind got off from his Conjunx Endura so Chromedome could take his normal mode. The minibot was about to approach the mysterious round objects, when the bigger mech stopped him, pushing him behind himself and approaching objects first.

”What on old Cybertron…?” Chromedome muttered as he touched the weird grass-covered object. When nothing happened, he swiped his servos over the grass, pushing it to the side. He felt his optics widen behind his visor and without his notice Rewind creeping beside him. ”Primus. Domey, do you realize what these are?”

The bigger mech nodded before wiping both his hands over the plants, getting rid of them, and uncovering what they hid there. It was a capsule. Old as time and rusted through every protective layer of metal. Chromedome put some extra pressure on the rusted surface and the rotten metal shattered under his servos like crystal. He couldn’t almost believe what he saw.

A protoform of a cybertronian sparkling, not even fully evolved. It still had its white soft armor, black outlines, and nonexistent head. There were no other details in it that growing sparkling would have. Chromedome extended his hand and carefully felt the protoform. It was stone cold and not emitting any field.

”Rewind… what are these?” The big mech asked without looking away from the cybertronian baby.

”I heard rumors back in old times when the Council decided to get rid of Ovika 1.5 that they used it also as their way of getting rid of failed power spark experiments.” The minibot explained.

”Power spark?”

”They wanted to create an artificial spark that was stronger than normal cybertronian’s spark that could carry much bigger loads than other mechs’ sparks could. Imagine a mech who actually is as big as Ultra Magnus’ armor, but can put on armor much bigger than that.”

”Primus… Those would have changed the whole war.”

”Yeah, but they said that experiments went wrong. Sparklings took deformed forms, grew too small, became predacons, some were weaker than real sparks, and died out before even growing optics. I heard that all the protoforms were destroyed, but I guess that meant that they sent them off into space with Ovika 1.5…”

Chromedome grew silent. He took a look at small protoform, barely grown enough to form a face or alt mode. It had died in a locked capsule with no chances of ever seeing stars or life itself before its life was suffocated. He took a look at hundreds of other capsules and he could already tell that each one had a dead cybertronian sparkling in there.

”That is horrible…”

Rewind nodded, ”I tried to ask about it from Dominus, but he said his lips were shut and denied everything. Of course, I knew he wasn’t able to talk to me about everything but to hold this as a secret…”

The lovers gave a moment of silence to dead cybertronians that didn’t even see light but darkness before they probably starved to death. The moment was finally broken by the big mech. ”We should report to Rodimus and the rest of the crew. They should know about this.”

Rewind nodded and the duo contacted Rodimus through comm link. They connected to comm but were immediately met with Nautica saying something about waiting to the comm link.

’Rodimus? Is Brainstorm also on this comm?’ Chromedome asked about his friend.

’Nautica is here also!’ Brainstorm cheered through comm.

’Hi Chromedome! We got news! Bad news!’ Came Nautica’s voice.

’They can’t be as bad as our news!’ Rewind joined the link, ’There are hundreds of capsules here, full of protoforms from Cybertron!’

’Okay, that beats my news.’ Rodimus said, ’Nautica, Brainstorm, Chromedome, and Rewind, let’s all meet back at the Rodpod. I’ll contact Skids and Swerve and tell them to return-! Hold on, they’re just contacting me.’

’We’re in trouble!’ Skids yelled straight into comm link.

~~~ At South, Ten Minutes Earlier ~~~

Rodimus drove like a madman through the wilderness. For once he was in a planet where there were no speed limits and he wanted to let go a little bit and be wild youngster that he was. There was no Ultra Magnus telling him to slow down or Megatron nagging at him.

The wildlife ran as soon as they heard his motors revving and going off so there wasn’t danger of hitting anyone. He had even left the grassy landscape behind him to avoid rocks or other things that could have been hiding in tall grass.

Rodimus kept driving, occasionally stopping to drift a little and leave his tidemarks on the ground until he saw something rising in the distance. The colorful mech made his way to the object and transformed.

”Wow. Well, you don’t see this every day.” Rodimus whistled. A giant pillar of teal-colored energon grew straight from the ground, growing few heads taller than. It was even so wide that he wouldn’t be able to wrap his arms around it.

”This has to be that ancient energon Swerve was talking about.” The Captain muttered by himself as he eyed the impressive monument. Who would have thought that little chips could grow so tall? Rodimus took a look around the pillar, trying to see if there was a crack or small piece anywhere, and there just happened to be a tiny piece of energon on the ground, just by pillar’s base.

”Hmm, might as well taste this and figure out what so great about this stuff.” Rodimus hummed as he picked up the tiny piece and propped it into his mouth and bit down.

”Ouch! Frag!” The mech cursed and spit the energon out. ”Frag…! That hurt, what I tried to eat? A piece of diamond!?”

Rodimus felt around his mouth, trying to feel if he had cracked a dental plate, but everything seemed to be still intact. He sighed in relief. His perfect smile was still flawless. Then he noticed something. Teal powder at the base of energon pillar.

The Captain wiped his servo over the powder and felt it between his servos. A very fine energon powder. Despite anything he had learned during his life, he licked the powder off from his servo.

Rodimus moaned in delight. That had to be the best energon he had ever tasted in his life! So sweet like energon treat, but not overly sweet and it melted on his glossa like softest oil cake ever. How something that gorgeous tasting could be as hard as a diamond?

The captain looked up, wondering where the powder came from because he wanted to see where the powder came from and he saw four deep grooves just above his head in the pillar. He felt his spark drop. Whatever had left such marks to a energon that hard wasn’t normal.

He had to contact others. Something was seriously wrong on that planet. Rodimus was just about to open his comm link and contact others when he was contacted first. According to incoming information it was from Nautica and Brainstorm.

’This is your Captain? Did you find something?’Rodimus asked.

’Captain, uh, Rodimus? We have a problem!’ Nautica was saying something, but Captain beat her to it.

’Yeah, no shit. I found something. Something is seriously-! Hold on, Chromedome is contacting us.’

’This can’t wait-!’

’Rodimus? Is Brainstorm also on this comm?’Came Chromedome’s voice through comm.

’Nautica is here also!’ Brainstorm cheered.

’Hi Chromedome! We got news! Bad news!’ Nautica said, only to be cut off again.

’They can’t be as bad as our news!’ Rewind joined the link,’There are hundreds of capsules here, from Cybertron!’

’Okay, that beats my news.’Rodimus said,’Nautica, Brainstorm, Chromedome and Rewind, let’s all meet back at the Rodpod. I’ll contact Skids and Swerve and tell them to return-! Hold on, they’re just contacting me.’

’We’re in trouble!’ Skids yelled straight into comm link.

~~~ At West, Five Minutes Earlier ~~~

”Oh my Primus! Skids, look!” Swerve shouted and pointed to the distance. The blue mech turned his attention from two banging giant crickets to look at what his friend was pointing at and he almost couldn’t believe what he saw.

Energon. Pure, brightly glowing energon crystal pillars that were almost as big as Skids raising from the ground in bundles. They were gorgeous, glowing with soothing strong teal color as no other energon glowed. Skids turned to Swerve whose blue visor practically shined in excitement. ”Skids, we found the ancient energon!”

”We sure did.” Skids chuckled as his friend yanked his hand, trying to get more speed to him so they could inspect the mysterious pillars. After the third tug he walked to energon with his friend. As soon as they were next to pillars Swerve let go of him and touched the energon.

”Primus, it’s smooth! I’ve never seen pure energon this smooth! Usually, they’re like unpolished rocks, diamonds, or gemstones. Ragged and sharp! This is almost like it was made to look this perfect!” Swerve babbled excitedly as he felt around the energon pillar like it was a beautiful mech before him.

The metallurgist actually tried to crack the energon with his fist, only for it to bounce back to him. ”Man, this is hard! I think we might need a laser drill or something to get even a piece of this back to ship with us! C’mon, help me with this, find a rock or something!”

”Whatever you need buddy.” Skids shook his head, but turned and started to look around for a rock. Meanwhile, Swerve kept inspecting the pillars, going multiple times around them, taking in every detail he could get.

”Did you find anything?” The red and white mech asked without looking at his friend.

”No, not yet.”

”Keep looking, there must be something that can crack this beauty up! There are already some marks on it!”

”Marks? What kind?”

”I don’t know, I’m not a wilderness professional, I’m a metallurgist, and I know by this hard energon that there is something even harder than that that left these marks here.” Swerve said excitedly, before he ran to his friend’s side, ”Imagine everything we can make with this much ancient energon! We could maybe even grow it on Lost Light, and imagine all the drinks I can make with it!”

”Okay okay!” Skids laughed and snatched a nice sized rock from the ground and turned to face Swerve. ”I think we should try with this rock…” Skids grew silent in a way of danger. A large shadow rose over two mechs as a monster, bigger than Skids had ever seen climbed on top of energon pillars.

The monster was huge, sharp jagged scales black as endless space adorning its body and long tail whipping behind it, enormous wings folded over it’s back and bright crimson lights glowing from scales’ seams over its chest and legs. Big and sharp horns grew from beast’s head, the couple from jaws and it didn’t even have lips to cover sharp looking fangs. Skids was officially scared.

”What? What is it Skids? You look like you saw a ghost!” Swerve laughed, completely oblivious of what was behind him. Until there was a deep gurgling growl. The minibot froze in his place and glanced over his shoulder and Skids saw his friend’s visor flicker.

Bright crimson eyes glared down at small metallurgist and monster’s claws tightened around the energon and it actually cracked under the sharp claws that sank into it, like it was soft energon gelatine.

”Swerve… Back up slowly towards me and don’t take your optics off from that creature…” Skids instructed his friend quietly, trying to stay calm in a dangerous situation. Swerve slowly did as he was told, backing up away, careful not to take his optics off from the monster before them.

The monster stared at them, but when a twig snapped under Swerve’s pede, it growled again and Skids acted. He threw the rock with all his might at the beast and the stone hit it straight to its shoulder. ”Let’s get out of here!” Skids yelled to Swerve and friends quickly transformed and hit the gas and drove away as fast as their tires could take them.

The monster screeched behind them, but the mechs didn’t stay to listen to it, but kept driving. If they were fast they could lose it.

That hope died when the familiar giant shadow landed on top of them. The monster was flying after them. Skids did the right thing he knew was right and opened comm link to the rest of his friends.

’We’re in trouble!’ Skids yelled straight into comm link as soon as he got the line open. ’There is a giant monster chasing me and Swerve!’

’Monster!?’ Came Rodimus’ voice in the comm.

’That’s what we tried to tell you, that there is something seriously dangerous in this planet!’ Nautica screamed to comm link.

’Okay, everyone, get back to the Rodpod, and let’s get out of here! Skids, can you and Swerve lose the monster after you?’ Rodimus asked.

’I don’t think so! It’s flying after us!’

’It can fly!? Interesting! Can you shoot it?’ Brainstorm asked.

’Okay, new plan, Brainstorm get to Rodpod and send an emergency signal to Lost Light! Skids, lead the monster towards South to me! Everyone else, get to the Rodpod and we buy you time to get there before joining you!’

’Got it!’ Everyone shouted and put the plan in action.

”Swerve, head to the Rodpod! I’ll be a decoy so you can get to safety!” Skids shouted over monster’s roaring and Swerve was quick to do as he said. ”Got it, on my way, be safe!” Skids and Swerve made quick turns, each in a different direction, and Skids even flashed his rear light to get the monster’s attention.

Two of them went to complete different directions and Skids did everything he could to get the monster to follow him… but to his horror, the monster ignored him completely. It went after his bartender friend.

Skids tried to turn on all his audios, trying to get a monster to come to him with noises, but the beast only showed interest towards the speeding minibot.

”Frag!” Skids cursed and made a quick U-turn and drove after his friend. He quickly contacted Rodimus.

’Rodimus, plan failed! The monster is after Swerve and heading towards Rodpod!’

’Pit! Okay, try to get that creature’s attention at any cost! I’ll be there in a second!’

’Roger that!’

Skids tried to catch up with his friend as best as he could, but the distance between them had grown too big. He tried to contact Swerve with comm link, but something was jamming the connection. The blue mech cursed and drove faster than he ever remembered driving, but it was too late.

Rodpod came to view and so did all their friends waiting for them there. Chaos hit them all like a shooting star. Everything happened in such a short time that no one couldn’t almost understand it. There was a roar and all of sudden the monster was just before them and glaring each one of them that it saw as invaders.

When Rodimus made it to the scene the beast roared again and surprised everyone by shooting a long stream of pure bright blue flames towards the sky. The heat was overwhelming, even if it wasn’t directed at any mech on the scene and for bots who didn’t feel heat or cold like organics, it was a great shock.

”Primus, it’s enormous!” Nautica shouted.

”Be careful everyone! Get to the ship when you get the first chance!” Rodimus shouted, getting next to Skids.

The monster whipped its enormous head towards Rewind with a growl and Chromedome was in front of his Conjunx Endura in a second, shielding him with his whole body and being, ready to bounce at the monster with empty hands. There wasn’t even a hint of fear of death in his actions. Not towards his death though. If he was to lose Rewind when he had just gotten him back then he would have truly died.

The monster dug its claws into the ground and focused its optics on Nautica and Brainstorm who were standing side by side. When the crimson eyes made contact with the scientist’s optics, he squealed like a mouse and hid behind Nautica, who stood her ground bravely, ready to protect her friend.

The black beast turned its attention on the rest of the group. Rodimus and Skids were side by side, ready to fight together against the attacker, their fists clenched and arms in the right position to throw punches as powerful as possible. For a second, it appeared that the monster was going to back out. It didn’t stop growling, but it raised it’s head off from threatening snapping position and even took a step back to retreat… until its eyes landed on Swerve.

Small, weak, and vulnerable Swerve was hiding behind a tree. That didn’t seem to launch the upcoming attack, but the fact that Swerve was alone.

The monster roared and in a blink of an eye rotated it’s head in a circle, shooting flames all over itself. Mechs ran away from the danger and the monster used the panic it created for its advantage as it ran straight through the fire towards Swerve.

”Swerve!” Skids shouted and ran towards his friend, but the monster whipped around and hit him with its tail, sending him flying straight into the air. Swerve got down on his knees when the monster got to him, trying to appear as small as possible. The beast swiped its claws through the air and with that move sliced the whole tree in pieces.

”Oh Primus, Skids, Captain, somebody!” Swerve screamed in terror as the monster’s claws wrapped around him.

”Hold on Swerve!” Nautica and Rodimus yelled and ran to save their friend. They had no time to waste. The beast turned towards them, roared and with a flap of its great wings, sent a surge of wind at them, knocking them on their afts.

The beast roared again and took off to the sky, Swerve with him and screaming from the bottom of his chassis. ”HEEEEEEELP!”

”Swerve!” The Autobot’s got together, Skids already in a motion to save his friend.

”Where it’s taking Swerve!?” The blue mech shouted, looking at his friends and then towards the black dot on the sky, ”C’mon, we got to follow it before it hurts him!”

Rodimus, Chromedome, and Nautica nodded in agreement.

”Okay, here’s what we do! Brainstorm, you fly after the beast, me and Skids follow behind you while Nautica takes Rewind and Chromedome back to Lost Light and comes back with Megatron, Ultra Magnus, and Whirl!” The Captain shouted orders, ready to transform to go after the monster, when Brainstorm got in his way, ”Wait wait, hold on!”

”Brainstorm, what the frag!?” Rodimus shouted at the scientist, ”That beast might drop Swerve at any given second or rip him apart! We must hurry, now!”

”I know I know, but listen! Me and Nautica made some important findings when we were exploring the planet! You see, it’s the start of the Spring season on this planet! Notice how flowers are blooming and those ancient energon bundles are glowing?” Brainstorm asked and pointed at each thing in his speech.

”Cut the chase Brainstorm and tell us what it matters!” Chromedome snapped, still holding Rewind tightly against his chassis, not showing any signs of letting his loved one touch the planet’s ground anymore. The scientist cleared his intake as a lousy cover up to his giddiness towards science, ”It’s animals�� breeding season! Me and Nautica took notes on many animals fragging in the safe places!”

Everyone glanced at Nautica and she nodded, ”Brainy tells the truth. We even saw a weird rodent with reptile tails doing it.”

”So what you’re saying is that-!”

”That’s right!” Brainstorm giggled like a madman, ”That monster saw a potential mate in Swerve, snatched him, and took him with him so it could breed with him!”

[kileygoestobschool-blog]

That time we got engaged

So, we’re engaged. To be married. Not just, like, paying really close attention to one another. We’re also doing that I suppose, but in this context, I meant married. We’re getting married.

Here’s how it went down:

1. Jon (and Nell!) straight up lies to me for over a month

Starting about six weeks ago, Jon and Nell were in cahoots to get me to believe Nell was coming to Seattle (she wasn’t), we were going to meet up with her (we weren’t), and she was going to show us some awesome hike (she didn’t).

Now, you have to understand that Nell was a particularly strategic choice on Jon’s part. The proposal happened on a Thursday (see below) and required that I take the afternoon off work to drive to Snoqualmie. Day of, it also happened to be raining. Jon knows Nell is the person I would drop everything for and hike in a torrential downpour, no questions asked.

2. Jon connives with his parents to get them to Seattle

On top of his other sneakiness, Jon got his parents to book a weekend in Seattle. He didn’t have a great reason why they were coming, but I wrote it off as a visit to Judy’s family (it wasn’t).

Josh, Judy, and my parents had planned to have dinner while they were in town--supposedly just the four of them (lies). As many of you know, my parents are kind of like migratory birds--they move around a bit. So the only night that both sets of parents would be in Seattle was Thursday, June 8th. So, Jon had a date.

3. Jon tells pretty much everyone but me that we’re getting engaged so they can be involved and make it awesome. Just a few people who were in on this thing (and proof that I am far more oblivious than I like to think):

Jon’s grandma, who graciously gifted the beautiful ring Jon’s grandma proposed to her with in 1950

Some chick on Etsy, who made an incredible custom ring box engraved with my name and with a map of where Jon and I met inside

My mom, who picked out outfits to be ready for me so we could transition from hike to dinner quickly

The restaurant, since Jon made reservations at a beautiful restaurant near the ferry terminal in Seattle called Aqua

The florist, since Jon also ordered flowers to be placed on the dinner table, because he isn’t very detailed oriented (that is sarcasm.)

4. Jon gets super romantic and makes it all full circle

After showing up to the trailhead where Nell was supposed to meet us, we sat in the car waiting for her--and for the rain to slow down (it was pouring). Eventually, Nell sent a text letting us know she’d been “held up” with her boss and wouldn’t be able to make it. (This is when my radar turned on. Nell is a whimsical one, but not one to cancel plans made a month in advance.)

While waiting, Jon mentioned he thought there was a “nice viewpoint pretty early in the hike” and we could just do that to “at least say we hiked”. I won’t say I KNEW at this point, but, ya know...I kinda knew.

We started up the trail, which Jon knew especially well for someone who had never hiked it before (more mental flags), and eventually reached a turnoff, where a tree was engraved as a marker to the summit. Jon pointed it out: Mt Washington. The same mountain we’d met on two and half years ago in Vermont. Cue the waterworks.

The rest of it was a bit of a blur, but it included the following, in no particular order: an incredible, inscribed ring box (see above), Jon kneeling in a giant mud puddle, outrageous laughter, ugly crying, selfies, and lots and LOTS of “I love you” and “What just happened?!”

5. Our parents surprise us at a gorgeous restaurant. There’s champagne and wine and incredible seafood and lots of story telling and laughter and reminiscing. Basically picture your favorite rom com, except with way better looking people, obviously.

It was wonderful. The whole night was incredibly memorable and I’m so grateful for all the work he and our families put into it. I’m a very lucky lady. So now we’re just laying low, enjoying our engagement, not worrying about the wedding at all.

Ha.

No. Apparently even people who want to be “low key” about planning their wedding have to start this shit a year out. I’m kind of exhausted already, though not nearly as exhausted as Jon (read: you know I love this stuff), so the next 15 months or so should be interesting. In our particular scenario, there’s the miiinor detail of me converting to Judaism. So, we’ll be starting that process by meeting some local Rabbis while we look for venues somewhere near Seattle, put together a guest list (apparently you need the guest list before the venue?! Who knew.), and--as one particularly obnoxious wedding blog puts it--”defining our wedding mission statement”. Whatever that means.

Awwwwwww.

[fyenale]

Closed Eyes

Hi @scarlet-izachan96 ! Happy belated White Day! I’m sorry it took so long for you to get your gift. I may not be your original Akashi (and I haven’t written in a long time orz) and this is not as fluffy as I wanted hdfjskjd but I hope you’ll enjoy this nonetheless :3

Summary: It’s not professional to do it while on duty, but Akashi’s lips couldn’t help to be drawn towards Kuroko’s exposed eyes.

It was a public park on the outskirts of the city. 

The place was designed to have a big open area of grassy field, with a medium-sized pond in the middle and some small stones around the edges. Surrounding the open space were rows of trees as if shielding the area from outside world. While the open space has some lights placed on strategic parts, the area with many trees was illuminated only by crescent moon hanging in the sky. The park was silent save for a few rustles of leaves as a soft wind blows through the night.

One man was standing right outside the denser part of the small forest, his light blue hair swaying affected by the wind. His blindfolded eyes were kept to a point beyond the trees, as if he was able to see despite the black cloth circling his head. A strange looking gun was held firmly on his right hand, ready to move and aim when the time comes.

He didn’t need to wait for long.

A sudden burst of wind came from the forest and he poised the gun. A figure wielding two katanas came out from on top of the branches, eventually landing on the ground. At the same time, a giant, purplish humanoid creature appeared running towards the man.

“Kuroko!”

The man being called didn’t even form a reply as he pulled the trigger and a white orb was ejected towards the forest. It burst and made a wall of light right in front of the trees, ensuring the creature would not be able to run back to where it came out from. Quickly, he switched to a pair of guns on his thighs and started firing rapidly, making the creature howl in pain.

The katana-wielding man didn’t waste the moment of vulnerability as he sprang back to attack his target with swift, as if unending, movements. The black cloth blocking his vision didn’t deter him from giving precise slashes on the creature’s ankles and back of knees, forcing it to fall down with a roaring howl.

He stopped for a moment to sheathe one of his katana and concentrated his energy on his other one, making it glow a bright red. He jumped high before diving to stab the creature right on it’s heart, a circle appeared beneath and disintegrated it into nothingness.

The park was once again silent save for the slightly picking up wind, disarraying the red hair of the now slightly panting man. He took the katana back to its sheath and looked at his approaching comrade.

“Good job, Akashi-kun. I’m sorry I didn’t help much today.”

Kuroko was smiling gently while offering a bottle of water. Akashi took it with a grateful smile and drank heartily. He gave it back to Kuroko as he wiped his mouth with his gloved hands.

“No, without you we wouldn’t have weakened it and bring it to its end. Thank you, Kuroko.”

Akashi then opened his blindfold and stared at the human man sleeping on the ground where the creature once was, bowing his head slightly to offer his mourning. Kuroko also diverted his still-blindfolded gaze to the ground and took it off, finally seeing the colorful pattern on the man’s shirt. He approached and crouched down, putting his right hand on his own heart as he closed his eyes to pay respect.

“All that is left is to contact the headquarters to take care of this person.” Akashi commented from behind him. He turned to nod his agreement but noticed some leaves stuck on his partner’s black shirt.

“Akashi-kun, you have some leaves.” Kuroko automatically moved and began to remove the greens, not really noticing Akashi muttering “It’s just leaves.”

The activity wasn’t very long, but Akashi found himself staring at Kuroko’s dutiful eyes and couldn’t contain his urge to swipe the light blue bangs and placed his lips right on top of Kuroko’s eyebrows, making the hands on his shirt stop it’s movement. Akashi stole another kiss now slightly lower to Kuroko’s eyelid, pulled back and was met with a half-hearted glare.

“Why do you like to do that so much?”

Akashi just shrugged and was about to continue but Kuroko grabbed his hand and pulled back, this time his cheeks were also tinged pink. Akashi found it endearing.

“Akashi-kun, we are still on duty.”

His partner chuckled. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it. I missed your eyes when you covered it with the blindfold.”

Kuroko’s lips puckered. “It’s only for mission purposes, and we see each other fine even with it.”

“But I can’t see you in color...and I would rather not, while in blindfold.”

The wind picked up again, this time strong enough to blow the remaining leaves on Akashi’s shirt. Kuroko went silent with Akashi’s last statement and closed his eyes, seeing his partner with his mind eyes and only finding white lines contouring his shape, with black filling the rest. His mind went back to the purplish creature and silently hoped that he would never see his partner in that state.

“I agree with you there.”

Akashi smiled and took the chance to put several kisses around Kuroko’s eyes, his partner this time staying still and secretly enjoying it.

A ring disturbed their moment as Kuroko had to blink several times at the sound. It actually originated from his own pod and he reached out to answer as he moved back from Akashi’s hold. “Kuroko here.”

“Kuroko-cchi! How’s the mission going?”

Kuroko frowned slightly at the fact that Kise contacted him out of nowhere, but he answered nonetheless. “It was just finished. We were about to report back to headquarters.”

“Great! You sound good as well so I guess Akashi-cchi is in good condition, right?”

Kuroko was about to answer but Akashi cut him. “Do you need us for something, Kise?”

A beat of silence passed from the pod before Kise’s guilty-sounding voice transmitted. “Heh, as expected of Akashi-cchi. You know something is up already.”

Akashi’s voice was steady “I’m listening.”

They heard a sigh as Kise continued. “Okay, so you’re now on Teikou Park, right? Could you guys come to Teikou School near there?”

Kuroko visualized a map on his head. “Your assigned mission place, it’s south of the park, am I correct?”

“Yeah, it was going well but.... me and Aomine-cchi got into a stupid fight and some of our targets escaped...”

Akashi sighed. “This has happened a lot of times already.”

Kise’s voice got louder. “We are trying to get better!...anyway, can you two please come help us find our targets? They are really good at hiding and it will take forever for me and that stupid (“Who are you calling stupid you asshole!!” Aomine’s voice was heard) ahem, I mean Aomine-cchi to find them. And we can’t say this to the headquarters because...um..”

“This blunder originates from unprofessionalism.” Kuroko helpfully added.

“Yeah, that.” Kise agreed dejectedly. “Can you two pleeeeease help?”

Akashi sighed again as he shook his head. “Very well. We will go there.”

“You guys are the best! We’ll be waiting!”

Kuroko smiled as the communication was terminated. “They never change.”

“They should, somewhat.” Akashi muttered as he pulled his own pod and contacted the headquarters to report their own mission first before going to backup Kise and Aomine. Kuroko used that time to drink some water himself and check on his equipment. As he was closing his eyes and was about to cover his eyes again, Akashi’s hand suddenly took the cloth from him.

He was about to protest before he felt a soft touch on his right eye once again, followed by the cloth circling his head and a sensation that it was being tighten. He then felt hands cupping his face and lips capturing his own for a brief moment.

Akashi’s voice floated a few moments later. “All ready now.”

Kuroko was stunned for a while before he regained his composure. “We are being unprofessional right now too, Akashi-kun.”

Akashi chuckled as he covered his own eyes. “I guess, though at least we finished our duty first.” He then put his hands on his hips. “Let’s go now, shall we?”

Kuroko followed Akashi to their new destination, staring at the white and black back of his partner. He thought of the soft kisses around his eyes from a while ago, and found that he didn’t mind them at all.

Actually, he never did, but he would not say that out loud.

Not that Akashi needed the confirmation to do it, anyway.

Notes: I am very inspired by nier automata even though I haven’t played the game lolol But I’m not sure if you like sci-fi and want them as androids so I just borrowed some ideas and try to incorporate your interests and headcanons as much as I can >.<

....and I ended up making a whole new AU setting /laughs nervously

A bit of explanation of this AU in case it wasn’t clear ↓

So basically they are like a demon slayer, except these demons invade human body (killing them in the process) and cannot be seen with naked eye. You will have to use your “mind eyes” to see them, in which they will appear in their true form and has colors (they will appear like normal human if you use your normal vision). To see with “mind eyes” you have to ditch your normal vision and close your eyes, this actually also requires training and is only available for gifted people.

The reason they use blindfolds instead of just closing their eyes is because it’s sexy to prevent them from accidentally opening their eyes and see its human form and got distracted in a battle. The demon may also give visual tricks when you see them in normal vision? is something that I thought of too.

The weapons they use are also special ones to hurt the demons. By using their own power (Akashi making his sword glow) they can purify them too, but the humans are already dead so they can’t save demon-infected people with this power.

[nandireya]

Stranded

It’s officially Valentines Day here in the merry old land of Oz, so, you now what that means…it begins!

______________________________________________________________________

Kullara Week 2017

Day One Stranded

“I’m just saying,” Lance said, a slight whine to his voice. “Why does Keith get to go?”

“Because it’s a diplomatic mission and your flirting with everything that looks even remotely female could lead to an interstellar incident?” Pidge suggested.

“Well…okay…granted…” He conceded. “But, still…”

“Because he’s kind of our leader now and it’ll be a good opportunity for him to work on his people skills?” Hunk added.

“What people skills?” Lance scoffed.

The object of their discussion entered the hanger, shouldering a large bag, in full paladin armour, sans helmet, which was tucked under his free arm.

Full, RED, paladin armour.

Lance shot the other two a narrowed, sideways glance. “If he’s our leader why is he still wearing red?” He hissed.

“Because he’s no more ready to give up on Shiro than you are.” Keith said flatly.

“Curse you and your Galra hearing!” Lance snapped, shaking his fist in mock indignation.

Keith shot him an angry glare as he stepped past him to stow his gear in the belly of the long-range pod.

Allura entered then, defusing any argument that might have started between the pair. She was dressed in her flight suit and carrying a small bag.

Lance leaned over. “Looks like someone overpacked.” He teased, before bounding across the deck. “Let me help you with your luggage, Princess.” He offered.

“Why thank you, Lance.” Coran responded, following in her wake, burdened with several large bags and a trunk.

“Why do you need so much stuff?” Lance boggled as Coran began to transfer the numerous items of luggage not noticing the way his legs began to buckle under the weight. “You said it was only for a couple of quintents!”

“Well…” Allura began to count on her fingers. “…there’s the receiving reception on our arrival. The formal dinner…the ball in our honour…”

“You’re going to a PARTY!?” Lance gaped.

“This is no party, young paladin.” Coran shook his head. “The Natsua are a highly sophisticated and extremely particular society. Everything they do is very precise and beautifully executed. The Princess needs a different, formal ensemble for each event planned.”

“Seriously?” Lance quirked a brow. He sidled up to Keith as gracefully as his over-burdened arms would allow. “So what are you wearing?”

“We have a dress uniform.” Keith informed him, taking the first of Allura’s numerous items of luggage from the pile to stow with his own.

“We do?” Lance’s eyes widened. He switched direction, leaning over towards Allura.

“I so need to see a picture of him in that.” He whispered.

Allura covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.

“I’ll see what I can do,”

~~~~~~

Allura had started giving him a briefing on the Natsua as soon as they’d left the castle. They were a highly traditional, extremely reclusive people. That was why they were coming as a small envoy, in a pod, rather than a heavily armed battleship. The fact that they had invited them to broker an alliance was a huge honour. Or they had come to realise just what a threat Zarkon and his empire had become and were afraid to face him alone. She found it hard to refer to their enemy as ‘the Galra’ now. She had come to trust Kilovan and the Blade of Mamora to have their back. And the paladin besides her. She had come to trust him with so much more.

“They’re probably roughly Pidge’s height.” She was saying. “With similar biology to both of ours, though there skin is of a greenish hue-”

Violet eyes slid towards her.

“So…they’re little…green…men…?” He summarised.

“Basically.” She nodded, a little surprised when he let out a soft chuckle.

“The others would love that.” He smirked. “There’s this sort of stereotype back home about aliens being little green men.” He explained when he saw her frown.

A soft alarm began to chime throughout the cockpit.

“Look’s like we’re coming up on coordinates.” He said as he began to throttle back on the engines. The pod could move quite fast, though space outside hadn’t became a blur like the hyperspace travel or warp speed he remembered from popular culture.

“Welcome to Natsu, Princess.” He said in a hushed tone.

He was still awed whenever he first laid eyes on a new world. He has expected them all to be spherical, like the ones in the Solar System he’d studied since childhood. He’d never expected to see any that circled Earth’s Sun, except perhaps through a telescope, let alone visit ones he’d never known existed. And of course he still wasn’t sure how he felt about being able to call one of them home. Sort of.

Natsu was a relatively small planet of the same blue-green of Earth, though it leaned more towards the green. It was surrounded by bands of suspended rock that reminded him of the rings of Saturn, though they were more arcs, curving out in opposite directions on either side of the planet, like the graceful arms of a spinning dancer.

He was so mesmerised that he didn’t notice the approaching ship until the pod was rocked by a laser blast.

“What the hell?” He muttered, instantly on the defensive. He quickly turned the pod, a second blast flashed harmlessly across the pod’s bow.

“Why the hell are they shooting at as?” He snapped. “I thought we were invited.”

He slammed the throttle forward and the pod leapt towards the planet.

“That’s not a Natsua craft.” Allura noted as it swung about to follow them.

“I suppose that one’s not either?” Keith jerked his head towards a second craft coming in fast from starboard. He twisted the stick to avoid a blast from its weapons.

“No.” Allura confirmed as she began to strap herself in. She had a feeling it was about to become a bumpy flight.

“I knew I should have brought Red.” Keith growled. “We’ve got no weapons on this thing.” The lion would make short work of these-

Another shot grazed an engine. Now there were three of them. All very different. All with the same intent.

“They’re not trying to kill us.” He realised as he spun the pod to avoid another barrage. “They’re aiming for the engines. They’re trying to capture us.”

“They’re not Galra.” Allura noted.

“Yeah.” He agreed. “But we’ve had non-Galra willing to sell us out before.”

He was skimming the upper atmosphere now. Coming in at this kind of speed was not a good idea, but their pursuers weren’t giving them much of a choice.

“I’m sorry, Princess.” He grated. “But I may not be able to return this pod to the dealership in its original condition.”

He pushed the pod into a nosedive. He could hear the hull groaning in protest as several alarms began to blare their agreement. One hand danced over the controls as the other held fast to the throttle to hold their insane descent. The alarms were silenced, though the associated lights still glared at him. The blasts of their pursuers flashed past them. Apparently they weren’t giving up.

They broke through the cloud cover and both let out an involuntary gasp of alarm as the form of a massive tree loomed out of the mist at them. Keith quickly banked left, then right, then right again to avoid collision. He was dimly aware of an explosion off the port stern. Someone hadn’t been so lucky.

A wicked smirk lit up the paladin’s features.

“Okay, boys. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

He proceeded to lead the remaining attackers on a merry dance through the trees. The second he dispatched quite quickly when they grazed one of the enormous trees and lost an entire engine. The third however. The third was good. He matched him move for move.

Allura stared at him, her knuckles whitened as she clung on for dear life. She continually thanked the Ancients for giving her the foresight to strap herself in. She had known he was a good pilot, but she couldn’t have imagined the extent of his skill. It bordered on supernatural. She could see why the red had chosen him. He really did operate on instinct as much as skill. No wonder he was so loathe to give the lion up.

She found herself suddenly flung forward in her seat as he pulled back on the stick, bringing the pod to an almost complete stop. The pursuing craft sped past them. Keith’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he studied it. It was a fairly sleek design, close to twice their size, it had forward lasers and a rotating turret mounted on it’s underside. It had, he noted with some satisfaction, sustained a fair amount of damage already. He glanced to port and starboard as the other pilot brought the ship around. Making his decision, Keith banked to his right and slammed the throttle forward, taking off like a bullet, heading down out of the treetops and into the undergrowth.

He was skimming so close to the ground now if Allura were to focus on the blur of browns and greens that flashed by it would have made her feel a nausea of Hunk-sized proportions. So she didn’t. She did scream however when he flipped their craft onto its side to fit through a tiny gap between two giant trees. Their pursuer wasn’t so lucky. A horrible crunching noise filled the air as the belly mounted gun dug into the one of the trees, effectively wedging the entire craft between the two.

Keith let out an uncharacteristic whoop of triumphant delight. She supposed it was well deserved. It was cut short, however, when their little pod began to shudder and a metallic groan echoed throughout the cockpit. The starboard engine began to stutter and pop, thick black smoke beginning to billow from it, obscuring the trees.

“Better find a place to set down.” He muttered, bringing up a topographical scan of the surrounding area. She nodded her agreement, currently unable to steady her breath enough to speak. Favouring the failing engine he banked to port. The pod was slowing, though it had nothing to do with his piloting. The whole craft was beginning to falter. He began to flip switches, initiating the landing cycle as the trees began to thin. They came out into a small clearing, edged on one side with a cliff, a dizzying drop to a bright blue body of water below. He was just about to set it down on the rocky ground when the damaged engine gave out. The remaining engine was not enough to keep them airborne so it dropped the last few meters to the ground and all the controls went dark. There was one blinking light on the console. The automatic distress single. He doubted it would reach the Castle, but it might reach the Natsua. It would certainly reach their attackers. They couldn’t stay here.

He unbuckled his restraints and ignited his jet pack. He offered his hand to help Allura disembark, her flight-suit wasn’t equipped with a propulsion system. He landed them by the wrecked engine. It was barely even smoking now.

“Can you fix it?” She asked.

“Short answer? No.” He sighed. “I was enrolled as a pilot. We weren’t taught a lot of mechanical repairs or engineering.” He didn’t think he needed to tell her that his attitude had gotten him expelled, so even if they had those courses he hadn’t been there long enough to take them. “Hunk MIGHT be able to get it going enough to limp to the Natsua, but I don’t know if he’d even be able to pull it off.”

“So we’re stranded.” It wasn’t a question. Allura balled her fist on her hips and glared about at their surroundings.

“It certainly looks that way.” He sighed, watching as she walked over to the edge of the precipice and gave the water below an equally scathing glare. He didn’t really blame her for being angry. Things definitely weren’t going according to plan. If the Natsua were as particular as he’d been told this was not the best way to start negotiations with them.

“I wouldn’t recommend staying here, though.” He said. Logic, and training, dictated that the best course of action would be to stay with the pod, to wait there until a retrieval unit arrived. “Our new friends might be able to catch up with us.”

He brought up the computer display in his left gauntlet. Pidge had made certain that all the information pertaining to their mission had been loaded to it.

“We’re about a hundred clicks from where we’re supposed to be.” He read from it. “We can walk it in less than a day. My jet pack should get us there in half that.”

She sighed.

“I guess we better get going, then.”

He looked up as he deactivated his computer display, his eyes widening, his jaw going slack as he took in something behind her.

Allura frowned at his expression. “What are you…?” She turned to follow his gaze, her expression quickly coming to mirror his. A pair of writhing, tendril-like appendages had snaked up out if the water below, hovered for a moment, then wrapped themselves around her to drag her over the edge of the cliff.