#fucker SPRINTED past me after this

[pseudophan]

leave me alone....

[heartfullofleeches]

"What the hell is that sound... Sounds like..... someone being chased by a really fast horse-

[Loser Darling rushes past the two stranger out on a nightly stroll - heels clicking in the distance behind them]

Loser Darling: Oh, fuck- I wouldn't have ran if I knew that fucker could actually run in those things. How the fuck are his ankles so strong?

[Femboy Yan sprints after Darling, quickly gaining traction despite wearing heels thin enough to slit someone's neck]

Femboy Yan: Daaaarling~ I'm gonna catch you! You better run faster if you don't want me to - this is a normal Saturday run for me!

[Loser Darling screams as they run faster, tripping over their own feet as tears build up in their eyes.]

Loser Darling, sniffling: I FUCKING HATE IT HERE

[twistyfish]

Oh I don’t know if that’s what you usually write for request but what about MC dying (once again) and just before dying she remembered everything from their past lives and the lads men’s reaction thinking they failed MC again

hi! i tried my best with this one because i’m not caught up on all the lore, so please bear with me. i took it in a slightly different direction

prompt~ mc dying.

content warning for death and violence

Zayne

Zayne groggily rolled over in bed, his outstretched arm bumping into the bedside table. He winced in pain, rubbing his wrist. He picked up his glasses and put them on, sitting up slowly so as not to wake you from what was very clearly a deep sleep, seeing as you weren’t awake yet

He cringed when the mattress squeaked, and his eyes immediately flashed to your still form. You didn’t budge. Good. He gently swept off the covers and stepped into his slippers, brushing his teeth and getting ready for the day.

After a cup of coffee and a banana, Zayne returned to the bedroom to kiss you on the forehead before driving to work.

***

Zayne came back from the hospital and set his things down. He washed his hands and headed to the bedroom, eager to change out of his scrubs. He opened the door and was surprised to see you still in bed.

You hadn’t been showing any signs of feeling down lately, so this was a surprise. Maybe you were taking a nap? He wondered if he should let you sleep.

It was very silent. All he could hear was the distant hum of the air conditioner. He didn’t even hear your usual light snoring.

He walked in front of you and bent down, hesitating before patting your shoulder. He patted it again before shaking you.

Oh, so you were being difficult. He picked up the blanket and threw it off you, revealing the lower half of your face. It was still and pale.

He leaned in closer and realized something very, very critical.

You weren’t breathing.

His heart rate spiked and he immediately pressed his ear against your chest, because maybe he was mistaken. Maybe you were breathing and he just couldn’t hear it very well. Or maybe you had some undiagnosed sleep disorder where you temporarily stopped breathing. Maybe you would wake up gasping for air in a few seconds.

But he didn’t hear or feel any movement at all, so he stabbed his fingers against his phone to dial the ambulance, and told the operator what was happening with a foggy brain. His voice was hardly audible by the end of it. He knew exactly what information they needed, but he couldn’t seem to remember it. Your address, your age, your full name.

Who cared about all of that? That was all useless information. All that he cared about right now was that you were dead. His partner was dead. And he hadn’t been there for her.

Sylus

Gunshots rang out, the noise of bones cracking permeating the air while bulletproof glass broke into a thousand shards. Sylus sprinted through the room and into your destroyed cell.

He hadn’t opted to send Luke and Kieran to bring you home. He had to do it himself. He knew the fuckers wanted him to show up, but he paid no mind. He had to see for himself that you were okay.

But what he saw made his stomach drop into his shoes. You were sitting in the corner of the room, chained to the wall. Your head was lolled onto your shoulder, your eyes gored out and your arms covered in burns. No. No. No no no no nonono-

He fell to his knees with a painful thump. The only thing he could bring himself to do was hold his stomach and vomit up bile. Seeing his lover like that ruined him. It destroyed him, made him want to cry and scream until the Earth was flooded and everyone’s eardrums had burst.

So when one of the men on the floor laughed weakly at Sylus’s grief, he shot without a second thought.

Nobody’s life mattered anymore. The person whose life he cared about wasn’t here anymore.

Rafayel

The air was hot and dry, and you looked beautiful with pearls of sweat dripping from your chin and collecting on your collarbone. You were wearing a flowy green dress and little teardrop earrings.

Rafayel’s eyes were fixed on you, even while you crossed the streets. The smooth curve of your back, your soft, bare arms. You were so undeniably beautiful.

He loved going on walks with you, and he was thrilled that you both had been able to take a week off for holiday. He rarely got to see you in such a light, beachy setting.

It had been around thirty minutes of walking, and you seemed to be getting a little out of breath. This surprised him, because your job consisted of a lot of movement and high energy combat.

“You’re not getting out of shape, are you Ms. Bodyguard?” He teased. “How are you gonna protect me if walking around gets you breathless?”

Your shallow breaths continued, which was a little concerning.

He stopped walking. “Hey. Is everything okay?” He asked, concerned now.

You shook your head. “I don’t feel good.” Your breaths were getting quicker and shallower, and you doubled over. Your hands were on your knees, and you gagged. Rafayel bent down next to you, and before he knew it you were swaying and then you had fallen. He barely caught your head as you went down, his knuckles scraping the pavement.

“__? Hey! Hey, hey, wake up!” He was rapidly tapping your cheek, praying to whatever deities were out there that you would get up and walk it off.

“We need help! Please, my girlfriend is sick! We need help!” He shouted. A few locals rushed over and called for help, but he was inconsolable.

After emergency surgery and two days in the hospital, he was informed that you were braindead. He didn’t say anything. He booked a flight home and sold all his paintings.

He never painted anything again.

Xavier

No. Not this. Anything but this. His shaking hand brushed bloody, matted hair out of your face.

“Stay calm. Backup is here. I’m going to take you to get medical attention,” he said in a voice that was calmer than he felt.

“Xavier.”

“Don’t talk, you’re expending unnecessary energy.”

“Xavier, I’m not going to make it.”

“Don’t fucking say that.” His facade was cracking.

“I love you. I should have said it before, but I love you so much.”

“__, please-,”

“I’m so grateful that you’re my partner. You’ve been there for me through everything and I don’t want this to be it for you.”

“No.” His voice was small, like he was pleading.

“I’m sorry.” Your voice was already breathy and shrinking in volume. But the intensity was the same. The character was constant. You would die a fighter.

“No, please, I’m not ready. I can’t do this without you,” he choked, pressure building up in his nose. His eyes started leaking, and he felt nauseous.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And that was the last thing you heard. Xavier pressed his forehead into your chest, and it killed him when he felt no rising or falling. It was just him and the night.

He looked up at the stars, and he swore he saw your face.

[archangeldyke-all]

Idk I get a lot of strange (or not) thoughts

pregnant Sevika...

OKAY LETS GIVE LITTLE FUCKER A LITTLE FRIEND HEHEHEHE

(don't ask me how sevika got pregnant by reader when reader's already been pregnant by sevika-- they're both trans, or it's piltover tech, or sev and reader have found the strap that gets u pregnant-- idk u pick)

men and minors dni

sevika is three months pregnant before either of you realize.

little fucker was relatively planned and expected. and after your baby is brought into the world-- you and sevika kinda figured that that was it.

one baby is plenty. and little fucker is a handful. and your birth was complicated enough that the doctors told you the chances of you being pregnant again were pretty unlikely. and both you and sevika are getting older.

so neither of you even consider that sevika could be pregnant when she starts getting sick in the mornings.

for the longest time, you're both convinced that little fucker's brought a germ home from kindergarten-- a germ that sevika just can't shake.

when she eating more, when she starts putting weight on around her middle, you just assume it's because it's getting to be winter. sevika's weight always fluxes throughout the seasons-- she's always putting on a few extra pounds of padding before the winter, it's only natural...

sure, it's a little weird that most of the weight she's gaining is in her stomach instead of on her thighs like usual, but she's getting older, and metabolisms and bodies change as they age! right??

you don't figure it out until little fucker pats sevika's swollen stomach one evening, giggling before blinking up at her mom. "are you growing a baby in here mommy?"

you laugh from where you're spooning your daughter-- but you quickly start to sputter at the look of shock and realization on sevika's face.

you sit up in little fucker's bed, raising your eyebrows as you study your wife. sevika's looking at you with wide eyes. "b-babe..." she whispers.

you both launch out of your daughter's bed, little fucker squealing with laughter as you scoop her up in your arms and shove your shoes and jackets on-- all three of you sprinting to the car and speeding to the nearest pharmacy. your daughter has no idea what her moms are freaking out about-- she's just happy to be on an adventure past her bedtime.

as you drive, sevika panics in the passenger's seat.

"i can't be-- i-i just started menopause!" she says. you chuckle.

"did you, though?" you ask. "you're still in your forties, babe. that's young for menopause... maybe the hotflashes and cramps and cravings and lack of periods were all--"

"oh my fucking god!" sevika groans.

"bad word, mommy!" little fucker squeals in the backseat.

the test is positive, because of course it is.

this isn't the biggest shock, though. that comes a few days later, when you take her in for her first ultrasound.

you're both anxious and stressed-- excited for another baby in your house and worried about how you'll be able to balance having two kids; worried about sevika being pregnant so late in life; trying to figure out how much another kid is going to cost-- the usual concerns.

and then the doctor gasps.

"what?!" you ask, grabbing sevika's hand in yours.

you've only known she's pregnant for a few days, but your protective instincts have already kicked into high gear. you understand now why sevika couldn't keep her hands off of you when you were carrying little fucker. that's your baby in there.

"uh, well... you're having twins!" the doctor says, smiling at you.

you blink rapidly, shocked; and sevika bursts into hysterical, tired laughter.

for a while, you're both too stressed to be excited about your rapidly expanding family.

but you figure it out eventually.

silco and vander are thrilled-- they've been trying to push their multiple kids agenda on the two of you for years now-- and they come over all the time, dragging their kids (all teenagers now) with them, helping you prepare your house for two more babies.

other parents at little fucker's school start lending you and sevika old baby strollers and clothes and bottles, giving you slightly sympathetic looks when they find out you're going to be having two babies at the same time.

in the end, what manages to push you over the brink from 'hesitant and anxious' to 'excited and ready' is little fucker's reaction.

you and sevika sit her down one night, sevika five and a half months pregnant but looking closer to eight, and you gently explain to her that your family's going to be growing soon-- that she's going to be a big sister.

little fucker bursts into tears of joy and excitement, reaching forward to gently pet her mommy's belly blinking up at both of you with watery eyes. "th-there's babies in here?" she asks, grinning.

sevika bursts into tears at her reaction, and you giggle, wrapping your crying girls up into a hug.

"there's two babies in there, and they're so excited to meet you, baby." you whisper, pressing a kiss to her head.

your daughter takes to feeding her mom treats constantly, saying she wants her baby siblings to get to taste chocolate cake, or cookies, or her gummy worms. sevika loves it.

little fucker also becomes insanely protective of her mommy sev, constantly rubbing her swollen belly with her tiny hand, bringing her glasses of water, her little feet thumping around the house as she sprints to and from the living room to bring sevika the pillows she needs to lay down comfortably.

sevika's pregnancy is about as healthy as a mid forties, twin pregnancy can be. which is to say; she's uncomfortable and sore all the fucking time; but she's got no serious complications or symptoms.

her cravings are hilarious. usually, sevika loves a rich, hearty meal-- a meat in some sauce or gravy, poured over rice or noodles. she usually likes spice and citrus and bold flavors.

but now she's pregnant, and more than anything else in the world, sevika just wants to eat plain, white bread. she doesn't even want, like, a freshly baked loaf. she wants the cheap stuff, the kind you can smush into a ball in your hand.

she eats like a loaf of the stuff a day-- not even toasted, no butter or jelly or peanutbutter on top-- just the plain, white bread.

it's that and sour cream. not greek yogurt-- it has to be sour cream. sevika eats it like ice cream.

the biggest challenge sevika faces is learning to let go and let you and little fucker care for her.

she's so used to being the protector-- the one who takes care of things. it's how she shows her love. she feels useless when she's too round to even get off the couch.

you make an effort to remind her that love goes both ways. and that she's showing you how much she loves you each and every day, even when she's just sitting around and farting-- she's growing your children inside of her.

you make an effort for both of you to spend one-on-one time with little fucker. you don't want her to feel left behind as you anticipate her siblings.

sevika takes her on nightly walks to the little corner shop down the street to get herself moving and spend time with her baby, buying her candy or chips or soda once they arrive.

little fucker is adorably patient with her mom-- waiting for her to catch her breath after walking a block or two, holding her hand the entire way to and from the shop, waiting patiently each time sevika has to stop at a local business to pee.

you've been taking your daughter to the local pet store, wanting to get her a companion that is hers and hers alone-- something she won't have to share with her siblings.

she decides she wants a frog. you both spend your evenings curled in her bed, reading about frog-pet care, and how to assemble a frog's enclosure, and how many times a day to feed it and clean it.

and then, when you're both ready and educated, you take her to the store and buy her her very first pet.

she's thrilled.

she names the frog 'sissy'-- so excited to be a big sister that she's decided the frog is her sibling as well.

you and sevika check in on her that night and find her curled around the glass tank the frog lives in, sleeping soundly.

when the babies come, little fucker goes to silco's house while you and sevika go to the hospital.

you've never been more in love with sevika in your entire life than you are in that moment, watching her give birth to not one, but both of your children.

her delivery is fast. she nearly gives birth in the car ride to the hospital. while you planned on sevika getting an epidural-- by the time they got her in the hospital gown, the first baby was already crowning.

it's a blessing and a curse-- sevika's in a lot of pain but it's over almost as fast as it began.

and afterwards, you crawl into bed beside your wife, holding her and wiping her tears away. "you're the most important, amazing thing that's ever happened to me." you whisper. sevika sniffles, smiling at you. "fuck, thank you so much, baby." you say, kissing her forehead.

the doctors hand you each one of your babies, and you and sevika burst into tears at the exact same moment.

identical sisters; both so much tinier than little fucker was from being squished together inside their mommy; both grumpliy scrunching their faces at the new lights and sounds they've been bombarded with.

"oh my god." you sob.

sevika's got her face buried against your neck, one of her babies held to her chest. "they're fucking perfect." she cries.

they have sevika's nose, sevika's lips, sevika's beautiful eyes. you should've known that your genes didn't stand a chance against sevika's after little fucker came out looking like her twin. "they're gorgeous." you sob.

they look so fucking familiar, like you've known them your entire life even though you just laid eyes on them.

it isn't until little fucker comes sprinting into the hospital, jinx and silco trailing behind her with takeout from sevika's favorite restaurant, that you realize why your babygirls look so familiar.

she crawls into the hospital bed between you and sevika, gasping and gently reaching out to touch her baby sisters, tears welling up in her big eyes as she gasps. "they look like me." she whispers.

it hits you then-- and she's exactly right. even more than their mommy sev-- your new baby girls look like your first baby girl.

sevika bursts into tears as it hits her, and little fucker giggles, kissing her mom's cheek, then gently bending forward to kiss her sisters' foreheads.

you wrap your family up in your arms, squeezing as tight as you can with a newborn in your grasp, and something deep inside of you settles.

"how are we supposed to tell 'em apart?" your daughter asks. sevika giggles.

"look, i already figured it out." she whispers. "this one with the freckle? she bit my boob when i was feeding her, so she's my 'baby shithead.'"

you groan and gently elbow your wife as she and little fucker burst into laughter at the nickname.

"what about this one?" little fucker asks, pointing at the baby in your arms.

"she pooped all over the nurses when they were cleaning her up. she's my 'baby stinkybutt.'" sevika says.

little fucker's squealing with laughter, and sevika's smiling so big and bright that you think you might go blind with it.

you sigh, and wrap all your girls up in your arms one more time. you don't ever want to let go.

taglist!

@fyeahnix @lavendersgirl @half-of-a-gay @thesevi0lentdelights @sexysapphicshopowner

@shimtarofstupidity @chuucanchuucan @badbye666 @femme-historian @lia-winther

@ellsss @sevikaspillowprincess @emiliabby @sevikasbeloved @hellorai

@glass-apothecary @macaroni676 @artinvain @realgreeniebeanie @k3n-dyll

@sevsdollette @ellieslob @xayn-xd @keikuahh @maneskinwh0re

@raphaellearp @iamastar @sevikitty @claude999

[stxrmylxve]

You down for it?

~Notes: cussing, flirting, mentions of a gang bang (but it doesn't happen), car sex, unprotected sex, size kink, hair pulling kink

~Pairing: fem!reader x sae itoshi

You sighed to yourself, brushing your hair behind your ears. The sun had been blinding outside today, making your taste buds salivate anytime you saw a drink.

"You fucker. I am not dating them!"

You stopped putting out the supplies for the soccer game and turned around with a frown to see where the ruckus was coming from, gazing across the field to find Sae Itoshi fighting with Kaiser and a few of their friends tagging along behind.

"Yeah right. I see the way you look at them in class, I'm not an idiot Sae." Kaiser teases as he runs away, almost toppling over as he turned to sprint as Sae began to charge after him.

You giggled to yourself as your teacher passed by, correcting yourself and turning back around with an awkward cough as you continued taking things out of the box.

You heard shuffling from behind you, which you thought was from one of your classmates, but when you turned again to look who it was, it was simply the other group cleaning up. You quickly turned away with a scowl, already getting a whiff of their outside stench as you finished up and checked out, heading to the storage room nearby.

“Dude I’m telling you, she is a two in one package.”

“Shut up Kaiser, don’t talk about people like that-“

“No but.. we can share her, yeah? Come onn, you know I’m right about y/n.”

“Shut up. Even if she did like me back, your grubby hands wouldn’t get a fuckin’ touch on her.” you could pratically hear the eye roll in his tone as he stepped out of the room, almost bumping into you with a grumble.

“Oh, hey.” he says awkwardly, avoiding your stern gaze as he pretended to check the time on the clock.

“Really?” you ask with a laugh as he reverts his eyes back down to yours, looking away to hide the small blush creeping up.

“What?” he asks sheepishly

“You’re gonna’ go around saying stuff like that and think you can just walk out here like I heard nothing?” you giggle as he flushes even harder.

“I was hoping so. Maybe I could get your number a little easier that way.” he mumbles as Kaiser walks out, slamming into his back with a small curse before straightening himself up upon seeing you.

“Hey y/n.” he says with a small smile as you offer one back, but Sae was not amused.

“Fuck off Kai.” he grumbles as he locks his hand around the back of your neck and guides you away, not moving to make conversation but rather to just get you away from his friend.

“So.. you gonna explain that?” you ask with a giggle as he pushes you into the car, shutting the door before walking around and settling in the drivers seat beside you.

“No.” he says with a grin as you roll your eyes.

“So you basiacally just confessed to me, and you’re gonna’ act like this?”

“Last time I checked, you were the one gushing to your friends about wanting to get in my pants.” he shoots back, taking away all other remarks you could have had to argue with.

“Uhm.. well yeah. But what does it matter? Every girl wants to do the same with you.” you look out the window as Sae places his palm on your cheek, guiding your face back over to face his.

“Cause you’re better. Now I say we put up the visors,” he suggests as he puts up his, “so we can get to ‘work’. You down for it?”

The sloppy thrusts slowed as Sae leaned over your smaller figure, your hands snaking up his neck to his hair. Small moans slipped past your lips as his lips covered yours, his soon moving to your next to suck small hickeys all along your neck and collarbone for show tomorrow.

“You- h- Sae come on now.” you deadpan with a breathy laugh as he grumbles against your skin, mutter a small ‘no one will know it was me’ before continuing his work.

One in particular sent sparks through you as your head jerked back, subconsciously gripping and pulling Sae’s hair as he let out a soft groan as well. He gave you a challenging grin after you built up the courage to meet his eyes, mouthing a small mocking ‘really?’ to you.

And that was all it took for the man to flip you over and to smash your face into the seats, securing your hands behind your back with his belt as he abused your small little cunt. His eyes would flutter back to where y’all were both connected, only edging him on to plow into your even faster.

“You know how perfect you are, right? Kaiser could never fuck you as good as I do.” Sae whispers into your ear as he sits you up, angling even deeper to hit unimaginable spots like never before to rip angelic moans out of you.

“I- mh- close!” was all you could mutter out as Sae grinned ear-to-ear like a madman, edging you on with sweet nothings before saying “come for me darl’”

He wasn’t long after you, your walls clamping down on him as you babbled in his arms. The sweat beading along the plush near your lace bra fit perfectly with the fucked expression on your face as your glossy gaze met his lusty one.

“Y’know, you’re freakier than you look.” Sae laughs as you roll your eyes, laying down on the seats as he pulled out and reached up front to grab something.

“Only for a few.” you reply as you glance at the mess, grimacing when you thought of the sheer price of the car you had just fucked in.

“Sorry uh.. for the mess in your car. It’s probably worth more than my parents combined.” you joked as he scoffed, clearly disapproving of the indirect title as a ‘rich boy’.

“Not like I value it. Plus, this was fuckin’ worth it.” he says as he slaps a few $100s on your thigh, patting your thigh for good measure as he pulled his boxers on and put his jersey and shorts on after.

“Well, that should give me enough energy for the game tonight.” he says with a small smile, kissing the top of your head.

“My number is on the sticky note on the back, let’s do this again.”

And with that, he hopped out of the car with his bag, shutting the door behind him before taking off towards the locker rooms again, a small smile still on his face as he ruffled his hair to look a bit more normal. You sat there baffled, not sure what to do from this point on as you glanced down at the money resting on your leg.

Yeah, maybe you were up for it.

MDNI banner credits to @benkeibear

[ichorai]

i was just a kid ; marc spector.

track one of BROKEN MACHINE.

pairing ; marc spector x vigilante!gn!reader

synopsis ; khonshu wanted you dead. marc just wanted you.

words ; 6.6k

themes ; action, mild angst/fluff, vigilante au, thief au

warnings / includes ; blood/injury, cursing, mentions of human trafficking/sexual assault but not at all graphic, marc is basically chasing after reader for half the fic, we're traveling the world in this fic baby !!! khonshu being Annoying, reader doesn't know marc has DID and thinks he's crazy, a steven cameo !! and one (1) mention of spider-man and daredevil <3

main masterlist.

NEW DELHI, INDIA.

The street market was crowded, bustling with chatty tourists, loud salesmen, and traveling vendors. The air was heavy with the sweet, saccharine smell of fresh mangoes, intertwined with the faintest trace of turmeric, ginger and garam masala from other stalls you hurriedly passed by. You would’ve given anything to stop and try some of the food, if not for the terrifying white-suited fucker hunting you down.

The bleeding cut on your cheek he’d given you from when he threw his crescent-shaped boomerang in your direction throbbed. You’d barely been able to duck away in time. At least here, in the busy street, he couldn’t risk hurting anyone else by striking you long-range. 

At least, you hoped so. You weren’t entirely sure how far this bastard was willing to go to get you. Sure, you’d made a lot of enemies in the past, but, to your recollection, you’d never met any moon-caped supers keen on taking your life before.

You were quick to duck through the tight-knit throng, panic setting in when you realized the market was thinning away—you were near the end of the street, and you no longer had the advantage of cover on your side. 

With agile steps, you sprinted into an alleyway, glancing up the side of an apartment.

Then, you began to climb. You scaled the small grooves in the bricks, expertly balancing your weight just right so you wouldn’t fall. You’d done this a million times before, with much smoother surfaces to climb—after all, that was the bare minimum required of a thief. 

You hauled yourself onto the rooftop, laying low so he wouldn’t be able to spot you from ground level. 

Only—he wasn’t on ground level.

A shadow loomed over you just as you crouched by the rusted air conditioning unit, and you had but a millisecond to roll out of the way before his foot came crashing clean through the metal.

Well, fuck me, he can fly, you wryly thought. 

“Glide!” the man behind the mask gruffed as he grabbed your arm and shoved you against the crumpled AC unit, the searing hot metal digging painfully into your skin. “I glide, I don’t fly!”

“I said that out loud?” you panted with a hoarse chuckle, before quickly twisting and kicking his knee, brandishing a sharp dagger from the utility belt loosely secured around your hips. Up close, his suit appeared to be fashioned from a multitude of bandages, not unlike the cheap mummies from old nineties halloween movies. “Sorry, would it be weird for me to ask why a toilet paper cosplayer is trying to murder me?”

The man offered you no response, only diving forward and landing a good punch to one side of your jaw, which made your vision go blurry with disorientation for a moment. 

There was no way you could best him with strength—you needed to get away from him. 

With quick, nimble fingers, you pulled two smoke bombs from your belt and threw them onto the ground. Large plumes of ashen white immediately ate up the space between you, and he was left blinded for a couple of seconds. You tugged a grenade out a moment later, pulling out the pin with your teeth before tossing it in his general direction and throwing yourself off the opposite side of the building, where you’d spotted a plastic-woven tarp over one of the stalls by the edge of the market.

You’d crashed straight through their booth, fruits and drinks spilling all over the street’s asphalt. The vendors started cussing at you in a language that was foreign to your ears, but you knew they were saying foul things nonetheless. With a groan, you pushed yourself up, ignoring the searing pain that ran down your leg and began running back into the crowd. 

The explosion on the building had blown Marc back several meters, and he cursed beneath his breath as he pushed himself back up. Just as he was about to set back off to track you down, Khonshu’s bellowing voice made him halt in his motions.

“Let them go,” the God rumbled. There was an undertone of mild disappointment that laid stagnant beneath his voice, as if he’d just lost a game rather than a target. “We have more pressing matters at hand. Ammit’s followers are stealing more souls in Cuba.”

Marc’s brow furrowed. “Let them go? You want me to go to Cuba? That’s halfway across the world! I can finish the job, they can’t have gotten too far—”

“We have more pressing matters,” he repeated himself, this time with an edge to his voice. A headache pulsed angrily through Marc’s temple. 

“Why’d you want them dead so bad? This target—that person, were they a follower of Ammit? Huh?” 

Much to his frustration, Khonshu ignored him completely, merely brushing past his avatar. “Go to Havana,” the bird-skull rumbled over his shoulder. “I’ll meet you there.”

And with that, he disappeared.

ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN.

A final stream of smoke fell from Elena’s lips as she pulled the cigarette away, dropping it into the floor to stub with her boot. She fixed you with a neutral expression as you made your way to her, though the unmistakable affection in her molten brown eyes gave her away. 

“Took you long enough,” she said, glancing at the large black cloak you were wearing. Her demeanor gradually shifted into one of a more somber variety. “Verdict’s been decided. The court decided not to charge—all those police that beat my friends to death… they’re walking away free of consequence. The government’s gone to shit. Everything is more expensive now—riots are breaking out over fuel prices, which means more people are getting killed. Nobody is willing to help anymore.”

You nodded grimly. “What can I do?”

There was a dark glimmer to her eyes as she squared her jaw. “You’re going to help me burn down government buildings. I don’t know how many, but… as many as it takes for them to change.”

A hint of a grin graced your lips as you regarded your past-lover with a nostalgic kind of fondness. “It’s the first time I see you in years and you’re already throwing me headfirst into war.”

She offered you a shrug and a wry smile. “Don’t kid yourself. You live for this kind of shit.”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” you hummed distantly. “Where do we start?”

It was pandemonium. 

Everybody was yelling—the protestors, the police, the civilians watching from the sides, the sparse firemen as they tried to put out the massive, roaring flames that were greedily swallowing the government building in its entirety. You had to admit, you were rather proud of your handiwork—absentmindedly wondering if Elena would be happy with it, as well.

Before you could dwell on it any longer, a foreign hand tightly seized around your wrist and began to drag you back away from the crowd. Your gaze wildly swiveled around in confusion to the man yanking you along, noting his heavy-set furrowed brows and his frustrated scowl. With as much strength as you could muster, you dug your heels into the ground and halted his motion, pulling against him with all your might. He didn’t relent, only staring you down with dark eyes that held the warbling reflections of the fire you set behind you. 

“Who the fuck are you?!” you barked, starting to get more frantic as you fruitlessly attempted to get him to let go of you. 

And when he spoke, it finally dawned on you.

Well, fuck me. It’s that bitch that chased me down in New Delhi. Wonder why he isn’t wearing his super suit… probably not to attract attention like last time. The news was all over him.

“You’re just getting more people killed,” he husked, clearly talking about the fire you’d caused, before brandishing a dark karambit knife, one that you swore gave you a cut just by looking at it. “No wonder he wants you dead.”

Fear wove down your spinal column when the blade poked your lower stomach in warning. “I’m sending a message,” you growled in reply, lips curled over your teeth in a snarl as you bristled. “And what about you? You’re gonna fix the problem by killing me? I don’t even know you! Some hero you are—those people protesting out there? They’re better than you will ever be.”

For a moment, his pupils darted back to the rioting crowd, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his features, and you used the short-lived distraction to your advantage. You expertly kicked the knife out of his hand and landed a quick blow square in the center of his face, feeling his nose break beneath your knuckles. 

Not wanting to push your luck—you remembered how fast he was during your last encounter—you gave him one final shove, sending him sprawling into a trash can with a groan and a muffled curse.

By the time he forced himself back onto his feet a second later, you’d already disappeared into the shadows.

Fuck. Khonshu was gonna kill him.

PODGORICA, MONTENEGRO.

Marc still wasn’t sure why Khonshu wanted you dead so badly. Then again, he wasn’t sure about anything when it came to Khonshu. 

But he knew one thing for certain—if Marc truly wanted you dead, then you would’ve been six feet under weeks ago. Which meant… he wasn’t actively trying to kill you because he didn’t actually want you dead. All the others that he’d killed for Khonshu felt like they’d deserved it—rapists, abusers, pedophiles… and though Marc didn’t know you very well, he knew you weren’t anything like the people he’d killed before.

Marc didn’t know what he was doing. 

Jaw clenched, he pulled the cap lower down his face, shoving his fists into the pockets of his jeans. He followed not too far behind you, silent as a wraith, watching as you merrily strode down the streets of Podgorica. 

Finally, when you stopped by a little coffee truck to order an iced latte, Marc stepped forward to stand beside you.

For the first minute, you idly tapped away on your phone, smiling down at the screen briefly before pocketing the device. You glanced at him, thinking nothing of the person beside you, assuming they were just another civilian—

Then you froze.

You knew that face.

After all, you’d broken that very same nose less than a week ago. Strange, it looked just fine now. 

Immediately, you hunkered down into a defensive position, backing away from him with quick steps. Then, you ran, sprinting away so quickly that Marc could’ve sworn a trail of dust kicked up beneath your feet.

The man in the coffee truck incredulously yelled out after you, followed by a string of what Marc could only assume was a creative litany of Montenegrin profanity. 

Dropping a few shillings onto the truck’s counter, Marc grabbed your coffee and ran after you, shocked at how far you’d managed to get in such a short amount of time. 

There was no denying that you were a fast runner—but as the old tale went, the quick hare would always get overly confident. You slowed down to a moderate jog when you glanced behind you, Marc nowhere in sight. With a relieved sigh, you turned the corner and slumped against a building, wiping the sweat from your brow with the back of your hand. 

Damn, you’d kill for that iced coffee right about now.

As if on cue, Marc rounded the corner, catching you by surprise. You were just ready to turn tail and run away again, but his hand shot out and held onto your wrist, not unlike he did in Astana. 

You spewed out a myriad of curses, ranging from calling him an ‘insufferable cucumber-dicked motherfucker’ to ‘smooth-brained, butt-faced swine’, wildly trying to get him to let go of you. If you weren’t violently bucking against him with all the grace of a panicked mare, he would’ve laughed at the creativity of your insults. 

“Stop, I just want to talk!” exclaimed Marc, dodging when you pushed yourself forward to try and wrap your hands around his throat. 

“Last two times I saw you, you tried to kill me!” you breathlessly spat. “Sorry if I don’t quite trust you now!”

“I’m unarmed,” he gritted out, stepping back slightly to allow you to scan your gaze over him. Though you didn’t want to admit it, you knew that if Marc really wanted to kill you, you would’ve been dead long ago. “I just want to ask you a couple things. And look—I brought your coffee!”

A low hiss fell from your lips. “I’m not answering jack shit.”

With that, you lunged forward and shoved him hard—so hard that he stumbled into the jagged brick wall behind him with an oomf. The iced latte sloshed right out of its cup and spilled all over his chest. His head struck painfully against the stone and his vision went blurry for a moment, expression faltering. 

You stepped away, watching him with cautious, narrowed eyes. 

After a long, pregnant pause, the man blinked in a dazed fashion, seeming confused. 

“What? Where am I? What’s going on?” he said, accent suddenly… British. He fixed you with a genuinely miffed gaze, appearing slightly frightened at your withering glower. 

You didn’t stay to answer his question. 

As you were turning on your heel to run away, you faintly heard him mutter to himself, “Where the bloody hell am I?”

Crazy bastard.

VALENCIA, SPAIN.

Your knuckles were split. Blood dribbled down your fist, a mixture of yours and the man whose face you were caving in.

One of your hands was bunched into the collar of his shirt, holding him down as you rained punches on him. The sickening sound of his bones giving way with your strikes didn’t deter you, and you only snarled and hit him again as he blubbered out prayers in Spanish. Blood-flecked spittle dripped from his busted lips. 

“Who are you praying to?” you hissed, releasing his collar in favor of wrapping your hand over his throat, squeezing tight. The dull green of his eyes flashed with panic, legs flailing weakly. “The gods will not listen to the likes of you—I’ll make sure of it.”

A strangled wail erupted from him. 

And just as you were about to land another punch, you found yourself being shoved away from the man, and promptly lifted off the floor with the scruff of your shirt collar, shoving you against a wall. You began kicking and twisting blindly, cursing furiously when you saw the man you were beating up scurry onto his feet and haggardly sprint away.

Your struggling was of no avail, and you weren’t at all surprised to see the same person that’s been trying to track you down for months now. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he snarled, brows heavily furrowed and dark eyes stormy with anger. “You were about to kill that guy!”

“He deserves it,” you bit out, glaring back at him with just as much intensity. “The fucker’s been stalking a friend of mine and sexually assaulted her daughter.”

There was a beat of silence. Marc’s cross expression seemed to drain away, but he still bore a stern face as he slowly let you go. You slid down the wall and got back onto your feet with a wince. 

“Why have you been following me?” you huffed, dusting off your pants. “You think I don’t know that if you really wanted to kill me, I would be dead by now?”

Marc squared his jaw and leveled his gaze on you. “Someone… close to me wants you dead. I want to know why first—he won’t tell me.”

“Sounds like you shouldn't be all that close to him, then,” you snorted derisively. 

“Not for a lack of trying,” the man dryly replied. 

With a scoff, you stepped forward and wiped your bloody knuckles onto his shirt, leaving a damp trail of darkening crimson. “There’s way too many reasons a person would want me dead,” you whispered, one hand patting his chest. The other trailed down, down, down…

To the high-rise potted plant beside you. You grabbed a fistful of dirt.

“See, he’s not exactly what you’d call a person—”

Before Marc could finish his sentence, you chucked the dirt straight into his face. He inhaled some of the soil and doubled over, pounding on his chest as he coughed it out. With a growl, he frustratedly swiped the remaining flecks of dirt out of his eyes, blearily looking back up. And, to none of his surprise but much of his dismay, you were already gone.

OSLO, NORWAY.

“Why aren’t they dead yet, Marc?” grumbled Khonshu in that grating, gravely tone of his. Even though the God had no eyes, Marc could still feel his stare burning straight through him. 

With a frown, Marc was quick to respond, “Because you haven’t told me why yet.”

“You’ve never needed a reason before—always blindly following my orders,” the bird-skull crooned. “What makes them so different?”

There was a bitter taste to the back of Marc’s throat. What made you so different?

“Because I don’t know if they deserve it, alright?” he retorted, crossing his arms to glare up at the tall figure. “You can’t just expect me to kill everyone who mildly inconveniences you.”

Harrumphing, Khonshu snapped back, “They are naught but an inconvenience—they are a disruption to the very balance of nature. Y/N has taken justice into their own hands, and that is a very dangerous thing for a simple mortal to do.”

Marc cast his gaze away in frustration, pacing back and forth. “But that’s exactly what you make me do.”

“Yes, because you are my avatar,” deadpanned the God. “And Y/N is not. Though, they might as well be because you are being a fool.”

He could feel one of his eyes twitch. There wasn’t ever a conversation Marc could remember where Khonshu didn’t insult him. 

“They’re doing what they think is right,” defended Marc. “They’re not hurting people just for the sake of it.”

“That is not for them to decide!” bellowed the God, which made him step back just a bit. “They have done terrible, unimaginable things in the past—though mistakes some may be—and they will continue to make them. Take a look for yourself.” With that, Khonshu swept his arm out, gesturing to the large bank across the street, large windows giving him a clear view of what was going on inside.

His heart dropped down to his stomach when he saw you. 

You were wearing a mask that covered the entirety of your features, except for your eyes and your mouth. The rest of your body was shrouded with simple, dark clothing, suitable for running. 

And, most notably, you had a gun in your hand, pointing straight at the trembling woman working behind the counter. Your mouth was moving and you gestured with lax, calm movements, despite the explicit terror written across the woman’s face.

Marc’s brow furrowed. Damn it. 

He watched as you snatched the bag of money the woman slowly slid over, and hightailed out of the bank with the gun still gripped tightly in your hand. You ran the opposite way, before disappearing down another block. Glancing over at Khonshu, only to see that he was nowhere in sight, Marc huffed out a sigh and began sprinting after you.

One downside of Oslo was that their buildings weren’t exactly the easiest to climb—which meant that you had to stick to the ground and trust your speed. 

Marc wasn’t as fast as you without his suit, that was for certain. But with his suit—he could glide. 

And so that’s how the white-caped figure dropped straight down in front of you out of seemingly nowhere, which elicited a shriek of surprise from you, nearly dropping the bag out of shock. You had pulled your mask off long ago, shoving it into the knapsack shrugged over your shoulders, along with the gun. 

This clearly wasn’t your first time doing this.

“You,” was what you incredulously breathed out, eyes wide. “You must be obsessed with me or something.”

Not in the mood to play around, Marc growled out, “Why are you doing this? Give the money back. It’s not yours.”

“Who said it was for me?” you countered, upper lip curled in contempt. You tilted your head at him, eyeing his suit with interest, before returning back to your scathing disposition. “Not that it’s any of your business, but this money’s for the small orphanage a couple miles from here. They’re barely getting by with the money the government gives them. I have a kid there I know.”

With bated breath, Marc willed the suit away, leaving him in a dark sweatshirt and a pair of woolen pants. He eyed you suspiciously, still not too sure if he should trust you.

Sensing this, you rolled your eyes and unzipped your bag. “If you don’t believe me—check my gun. It’s blank.” You fished out the small weapon and handed it over to him with the end pointed towards you so he wouldn’t think you were going to shoot him. “No bullets.”

Marc didn’t need to check it—by now he knew you were telling the truth. But he looked into the chamber anyway, finding it void of any ammunition. 

“Can I go now? We both know you’re not going to kill me. The cops will be looking,” you said, voice a bit more gentle than before. He noticed that the anger on your face had melted away, leaving only urgency and another tumultuous emotion that he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

When he offered you no response, finally relenting, you nodded once to him, a glimmer of gratitude behind your irises. And with that, you began running again, effortlessly disappearing into the shadows.

“Fool,” thundered a rumbling growl from somewhere above him. Marc looked up, but the bird-skulled God was nowhere to be found.

COLUMBUS, OHIO.

Damn. Nothing hit harder than classic, greasy, American cheeseburgers with a side of curly fries and a milkshake. You shifted eagerly on the sticky red leather of the booths, shooting the waitress who’d handed you your food a flirtatious smirk and a ten dollar bill, which she took with an equally salacious wink.

You grinned down at your food before taking the first bite into the burger, a muffled noise of content falling from your throat.

“Am I interrupting something?” said a frustratingly familiar voice, the man sliding into the seat across from you. “It sounds like you were just about to have the greatest sex of your life—with a cheeseburger.”

You pointedly glared at him, though it lacked any true heat. After about a dozen deliberately slow chews, you finally swallowed down the food. Marc looked like he wanted to say something else, but you merely held up a finger, slurping on the paper straw of your milkshake. He pursed his lips with a mildly aggrieved look.

Finally, you tilted your head at him. 

“Is there something you want from me?” you asked him casually, reaching to the end of the table to grab a napkin and wipe at the corner of your lips. “Because I’m not in the drug business anymore, if that’s what you’re looking for. Or is it something else, hm?”

It seemed that Marc hadn’t completely thought this through. Sure, he’d planned out what he roughly wanted to say to you, but now that you were right in front of him, he found his tongue running dry. He fumbled for words, fists clenching and unclenching by his knees. 

“I don’t want to kill you. Or hurt you at all, for that matter.”

You scoffed, remembering the instances in which he’d hurt you plenty.

“I just… I want to know your side of the story. I want to know why you do what you do,” he said, a bit quieter. 

For a moment, Marc thought you’d just tell him to piss off. But there was a gradual shift to your features, going from obvious irritation to gentle curiosity. 

“Alright. I’ll cut you a deal,” you said, popping a curly fry into your mouth. “I tell you about my tragic backstory, and you tell me all about this… thing that’s been wanting to kill me. And before I start—I’m gonna need your name. I can’t keep mentally cataloging you as the toilet paper man.”

And for the first time since you met him all those months ago—Marc laughed. It was deep and gratingly genuine, coming from the very bottom of his chest.

“Well, first of all, it’s not toilet paper. It’s the ceremonial armor of Khonshu’s temple. And second, it’s Marc. Marc Spector.”

“Ceremonial armor of whose what now?” you balked. 

A hint of a smile graced the corner of Marc’s lips. “Khonshu—Egyptian God of the moon. I’m his avatar. He’s the one that wanted me to kill you. He called you a disruption to nature—said that you were wrongfully taking justice into your own hands.” As he spoke, the smile began to wane away, and he regarded you in a more serious light. “I want to know why he thinks that.”

You stared down at your plate of fries, stunned. An Egyptian God wanted you dead? You knew you pissed people off, but Gods too?

“And if you don’t like what you hear?” you quietly asked, lifting your gaze to meet his. “Will you drag me out of the diner and strangle me to death?”

Though you could tell he didn’t like saying it, Marc’s face was set in stone when he leveled with you. “I’ll give you a head’s start.”

Another beat of silence. You picked up another fry and popped it into your mouth. The plate slid across the table as you nudged it towards him. 

“Alright, Marc. Settle in, have some fries, order a milkshake—it’s a long story.”

And you told him everything. You told him about your childhood—rumbling stomachs, nimble thieving hands, falling off of buildings when running away from cops. You told him about your teenage years—pulling off heists, brokering deals with gangs, breaking nearly every bone in your body being reckless. You told him about your early adult years—falling in love with Elena, getting more comfortable as a vigilante, as you liked to call yourself, meeting other superheroes and helping out on occasion. Marc seemed to recognize Spider-Man and Daredevil’s names when you mentioned them in passing, his eyebrows arching up closer to his hairline. 

You told him that you now spend your days traveling around the globe helping people. 

By the time you were done spilling your entire life story, your fries and burger were cleanly polished off. 

Marc was silent for a long time, as if unsure what to say. 

“I was in love once, too,” he said in a tentative manner, gaze trained on the table. “Her name was Layla.”

“Oh, yeah?” you curiously said, sipping on the last frothy remnants of your milkshake at the bottom of the glass. “And how’d that work out for you?”

There was a sad glint to his eyes. “Not so good. We’re divorced now.” He cleared his throat before you could press him about it. “What happened with you and Elena?”

It was now your turn to stare out the window in a despondent manner. “Same as you. Except we were never married. My lifestyle was… too much for her.”

Marc nodded in understanding. “Yeah, me too.”

The two of you stared at the glossy table in silence.

“You still in love with her?”

You lifted your gaze to meet his. “I love her, yeah—I always will. I’m just not in love with her anymore.”

The man across from you hummed. There was a newfound understanding between you two—unspoken, but the both of you could feel it. 

“Do you still love Layla?”

A ghost of a smile graced his features, but it was gone just as quickly as it came. “Not in the same way I used to. But I do.”

With a final slurp of your straw, your drink glass was emptied. “Seems like we’re a lot more similar than first meets the eye, huh?” 

Marc fixed you with a loose, awkward smile. Without another word, he pulled the bill of his cap lower down his face, and slid out of the booth. It seemed that he wasn’t going to be strangling you tonight. 

You didn’t look back when he walked out of the diner, the bell hooked by the doortop tolling with his departure.

YEKATERINBURG, RUSSIA.

The bird skull was saying something. His bony beak was moving. You could feel the vibrations of his thundering voice beneath your feet. And yet—you had no fucking clue what he was talking about.

You blinked up at the God with wide eyes. 

“Could you repeat that?” you winced out, having not picked up a single word Khonshu had said in the past three minutes. The God grumbled, and somehow glared at you despite having no eyes within his bony skull. Beside you, Marc let out a muffled snort.

“You insolent buffoon,” the bony figure snarled. “Have you not been listening?”

Despite the bristling God in front of you, you found the entire situation to be amusing. “Sorry, it’s just… your head’s really big. It’s kinda distracting. Just paraphrase yourself—I don’t need all the terms and conditions.”

Marc’s shoulders shook with silent laughter, but he immediately sobered up when Khonshu rounded his pointed beak to him, back straightening. 

“This is a gravely serious matter—!”

“You know what else is serious?” you snapped, pulling your thick woolen coat closer to your quivering body. “Catching hypothermia! Did you really have to pick Russia of all places? We couldn’t have met on a warm beach in the Caribbeans, or something?”

If Khonshu had eyelids, you were sure they would’ve been twitching with repressed agitation by now.

A deep baritone of a sigh fell from the lanky God. He leaned his weight against his crescent-tipped staff, as if willing his own patience to hold steadfast. 

“I said—” he started again, watching you cautiously, “—that I will be letting go of your past sins. But only because my avatar is so keen on you, and because you show a consistent effort to rid the world of evil. However, if you slip up so much as once, I will personally see that to an unkind descent into the afterlife. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal!” you harrumphed, tucking your frigid nose into the collar of your fur coat. “And I did those things to people who deserved it—which is exactly the same as what you do, you bony hypocrite! Can we go inside now?”

The God grumbled something unintelligible, though you suspected it had something to do with your impertinence, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“You’ll get used to him,” assured Marc, placing a hand on your back to lead you back inside. “He doesn’t get any better but—you’ll get used to it.”

“That’s reassuring,” you dryly responded, teeth beginning to chatter. As soon as the two of you started to walk back to the small little city hotel, you elbowed his side with a playful grin. “So… you’re keen on me, huh?”

Marc gave you an unimpressed look. Snowflakes danced with the wind and landed in his neatly-combed curls. “Khonshu had to believe that I liked you—the last thing he’d want is a sloppy, grieving avatar.”

“Mmh, I don’t know…” you said, tapping your finger against your chin in thought. “He’d probably like that, considering he’s one manipulative son of a bitch. Maybe he just secretly likes me and wants to keep me around.”

“Yeah,” snorted Marc. He halted in his tracks, forcing down a smile. “That, or I blackmailed him.”

Your eyes widened, frost clinging to your lashes and brows. “You blackmailed an Egyptian God?”

“Let’s just say that he’s had a sticky romance with the Egyptian Goddess of love—ironically, she’s one of the few beings that he’s genuinely terrified of. I threatened to get in contact with her avatar if he didn’t absolve you.”

You kicked at a small build-up of snow by the sidewalk, an excited gleam to your irises. “Crazy how even the Gods have petty dating drama to gossip about,” you commented, turning to him. His nose was tinted a faint shade of red from the cold, bits of white frost freckling his hair and his clothes. “Thanks for not killing me, by the way,” you added as an afterthought, fixing him with a warm smile. 

“Just keep out of trouble,” he gently reminded, mirroring your soft grin. The two of you were now standing in front of your dingy little motel—and Marc apparently had something to attend to halfway across the world in Cuba. 

So this was goodbye. 

For now, at least.

Without thinking, you leaned forward to press your cold lips against the warmth of his cheek, the tip of your nose grazing his cheekbone as you laid a hand on his shoulder. 

“Thanks,” you whispered when you pulled away slightly, breath misting into an opaque fog. Marc was regarding you with an expression that bordered on fondness, which was certainly a new look that you found yourself craving for more. “I haven’t really properly talked to anybody in ages so… this was nice. Goodbye, Marc.”

With that, you turned on your heel and headed into the hotel, grateful for the blast of warmth from the overhead heater, though you could still feel Marc’s burning stare bore holes into your back, even as you turned the corner and disappeared from his sight.

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA.

Blood, everywhere.

Gunshots in the distance.

Snarling men rounding the corner—human traffickers.

Your dagger glinting beneath the hot Ethiopian sun.

A man screaming as you sliced his throat. 

Gurgling.

Red on your hands. On your clothes. On your shoes. 

Two successive punches—one to your stomach, and the other to your face.

Pain blooming beneath your skin.

A fist around your throat.

Squeezing. 

Choking.

Dark spots dancing about your vision.

Your nails clawing into their eyes. 

Air.

Gasping for breath. 

Wheezing.

You desperately parried away another assailant’s knife.

A song of steel against steel.

More gunshots flying every which way.

You dove behind large metal crates. 

Sand in your shoes.

Copper on your tongue.

Crashing. Yelling. Cursing.

Your fingers flexing around the hilt of your dagger.

Bated breath.

You looked around the crate.

Marc fucking Spector.

A ghost of a smile on your lips.

Your name being called out—surprise in his tone.

“Fancy seeing you here!” you shouted.

Marc’s fist curled into one of the traffickers’ collars.

“It’s been a while!” came his mildly amused reply.

A grunt. A punch. A groan of pain.

His white cape fluttered with the wind. 

“You down for a burger or something later?”

You spoke calmly, as if you weren’t currently strangling someone with a long power cord. 

The man fell limp in your hold. 

“Sure—I could go for a burger,” he called out, 

Blood trickled down your nose and grazed your lip. 

You wiped it away with the back of your hand.

The last of the traffickers was struck down with Marc’s crescent boomerang. 

A breath of relief. 

Drenched in blood (most of which was not yours), you made your way to Marc.

“You clean up nice,” he joked.

A roll of your eyes.

“Oh, shucks, Marc,” you simpered with a mischievous grin, dragging a bloody hand down his face once he retracted his mask. 

He grimaced in disgust, but didn’t push you away. 

A laugh fell from your throat, hoarse and echoing.

You looped your aching, bleeding arms with his. 

“Let’s go get that burger.”

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND.

“Ow—ugh, Marc, could you go any faster?” you barked through the dirty cloth wedged between your teeth, glaring up at him with watering eyes. You’d endured pain far worse than this, sure, but Marc was taking twice as long stitching you up than when you’d do it yourself. Though, admittedly, whenever you had to patch yourself up, it was a rather shoddy job and often left a much larger, gnarled scar than it would’ve, had you properly taken care of it. 

The man above you shook his head, dark curls hanging loosely over his forehead. “Stop moving and maybe it’ll hurt less,” he replied, the tip of his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth as he worked on your stitches. “You know, just because we work together now and I heal quickly doesn’t mean you do, too.”

With a grimace, you tore the cloth from your mouth, chucking it somewhere across the small motel room to freely speak to him. “It was just a mistake,” you replied, nearly doubling over with a strained groan when he punctured the skin of your abdomen with a small needle, where the deep gash resided, one last time. “I timed myself wrong. Happens sometimes.”

Marc let his eyes roam over your exposed skin, brows divoting ever so slightly upon seeing the multiple other scars littering your body. They were memories of your past, and you weren’t ashamed of them. 

“Doesn’t look like it only happens sometimes,” he murmured, tying off his sutures and cleaning off the last bits of flaking, dried blood on your stomach before binding the open wound with thin bandages. 

“You worried about me?”

Marc didn’t spare you a response. He busied himself by putting away the medkit and tossing the discarded, bloodied clothes into the bathroom sink. When he came back to sit on the bed beside you, you had gingerly moved positions so that you were propped up against the creaking bed’s headboard. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Shitty,” you whispered. “England fucking stinks.”

Marc chuckled, a small smile curling his lips upwards, though you noticed that it didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

The two of you sat in silence for a while. 

“Thanks for stitching me up,” you told him.

“Thanks for not dying on me,” he replied. His hand sought yours and your fingers laced with his. “I know we’ve only been working together for a month by now, but I’m starting to really like you.”

With one last painful shift, you moved so that your faces were only inches away. You paused when your lips were just a hairsbreadth from his, giving him time to yank you away if need be. 

But he didn’t. 

His lips met yours with a tender sort of sadness, pouring months of frustration and anger into the embrace. A warm hand came up to cradle the back of your head, angling you closer, wary of your newly-stitched wound. 

Forehead resting against his, you gently pulled away, finding solace in the fact that he chased after your lips just a bit, before cracking his dark eyes open. 

“We shouldn’t do this,” he mumbled, gaze darting back down to your parted mouth. 

“Okay,” came your broken reply.

And despite it all, he threw all caution to the wind and kissed you again. Again, and again, and again—far into the night, until the two of you passed out on the stained sheets of the motel bed, limbs intertwined and your nose pressed against his throat, where you could hear the soft thrumming of his heartbeat. 

Unbeknownst to the two of you, Khonshu was hovering on the rooftop, finding himself rather glad that his avatar had finally found someone he could trust—even if that someone was the very bane of his existence. 

“I need a new avatar,” the God harrumphed to nobody but himself, knowing full and well that he wasn’t letting go of Marc Spector and his… counterparts any time soon. 

[youunravelme]

to all the girls you loved before part 4

author's note: thank you so much for your patience, if i'm being honest, this part was really hard to write because of the hype last part got. i don't want to disappoint anyone and i think i let that fear dictate how long it took me to write this. BUT thank you all for all the love and kindness you showed me as you read this series, i'm so excited to keep writing because of you! again, if you asked to be tagged and you aren't listed below, chances are tumblr wouldn't let me. :(

pairing: single dad!mat barzal x reader

summary: being a nanny for rich people was probably the worst thing that ever happened to you, until you started working for mat.

warnings: children, rich people, very volatile/toxic relationship

day thirty-four

bile rose in the back of your throat.

was that the proper reaction to finding out that the guy your roommate had been fucking for the past month was your boyfriend? it didn't feel like an overreaction.

you headed back to your room, hands closed over your ears to drown out the moans and groans coming from across the hallway. you slammed your bedroom door and started grabbing shit out of drawers and throwing it into a duffle bag you found on your floor.

the moans stopped and through the thin walls, you could hear mumbling.

"don't try to be considerate now!" you shouted. shuffling was heard on the other side of the wall before your door was pushed open, jason standing in a pair of boxers with hickeys all down his chest. natalie came in a second later dressed in one of jason's favorite shirts.

you would know, you used to wear it all the time until it went missing.

"you--" but natalie cut herself off. maybe it was the look on her face or the presence of the divine interfering on her behalf before you smacked her.

"where are you going?" jason asked.

"i'm not sure yet, but i'm not staying here any second longer." you stood to your full height with the duffle bag in your hand. as if a switch flipped, jason smirked and crossed his arms over his chest.

"you're not going anywhere."

you scoffed. "what?" because surely you heard wrong.

"did i stutter?"

this fucker.

"i'm leaving." you made a move towards the bedroom door, but his frame blocked it. "jason, i'm not fucking around."

"neither am i. we need to talk about this. and you're not going anywhere until we do."

"i think your moans said enough. now move."

"or what?" your phone rang and mat's contact picture lit up the screen. "of course it's him. why is he calling?" jason sneered.

you answered without acknowledging jason. "hello?"

"hey, you never texted me to say you got in alright. you okay?"

you looked between your roommate and soon-to-be ex boyfriend. "keep the car running, i'll be down in a few minutes."

a pause. "do i need to come up?"

"no, i'll be down in a few." your eyes never left jason's.

"stay on the phone," mat said.

"okay."

"tell mat to mind his business," jason said. "this is between us."

you kept the phone in your hand. "you can't tell me what to do. especially in an apartment where you don't pay rent."

he looked almost dumbfounded at your boldness, so you took advantage of that lack of awareness to shove your way past the both of them.

you made it to the living room before jason was shouting after you down the hallway. "we're not done here."

before you could stop yourself, you whipped around, filled with rage for what felt like the tenth time that night. "yes, we are. this relationship? over. this conversation? over."

in a flash, jason was in front of you, ripping the duffle bag out of your hands and tossing it down the hall, away from you.

and the realization hit you right as jason started screaming at expletives again.

fuck the bag, you needed to get out before he did something to you.

so you bolted, running towards the front door, flinging it open, and sprinting towards the stair case. if you had a clearer head, you might've waited for the elevator, but you wouldn't put it past jason to run out in the hallway with nothing but his boxers on.

you sprinted down the stairs, nearly slipping a few times, until you got outside.

mat immediately caught your eye and hung up the phone before jumping out of the car. "are you alright?" he asked. you couldn't speak, only nodded and let him open the car door for you.

not even the traffic sounds could fill the silence in the car.

from the corner of your eye, you could see mat glancing at you before turning his attention back to the road. "do you wanna talk about it?"

you tried to speak, but it was like the events of the night caught up to you. the words got stuck in your throat. "i--"

"i'm sorry," mat said. "i shouldn't have asked. let's get you back to my apartment and we'll sort things out there, okay?"

unable to say anything, you just nodded.

mat said before reaching over and clapping a hand on your knee. "it's gonna be okay. i'm not gonna let anything happen to you, alright?"

you nodded again.

mat took his hand back and for a moment, you contemplated reaching over for it, thankful for the way it grounded you even just briefly, but ultimately decided against it. you might not have a lot of friends, but you can guarantee you've never held their hands before.

the rest of the trip was spent in silence.

mat parked the car and immediately got out while you sat there to take a moment to breathe. he gently got ella out and slung the diaper bag over his shoulder before opening your door. "i'm all for taking a deep breath, but i would advise against it in a car at night."

you managed a weak chuckle through your tears and got out.

the doorman greeted the three of you with a small smile on his face as you walked into the lobby. he didn't ask any questions when he saw the tear tracks on your cheeks.

mat led you up to his apartment. he shuffled ella around in his arms to try to reach his keys, but when she started stirring he froze.

"would you get my keys out of my pocket?" he whispered.

you nodded solemnly before asking where his keys were.

"back left."

you carefully put your hand in his back left pocket, being sure not to touch any unsavory parts of him. when you retrieve his keys, you bypass his free hand entirely, choosing to unlock the door yourself.

mat followed behind you, shutting the door with his foot and locking it with his free hand. "i'm gonna put her down real quick. and then i'll get you something to change into."

"you don't have to--"

"i'd be a horrible friend if i made you sleep in jeans. it's no big deal, i promise."

and with that, he disappeared down the hallway while you stood in the living room processing what the hell had just happened. it seemed like the full weight of what had actually occurred just thirty minutes prior finally hit you like a tidal wave. there was no telling how long you stood there crying before being you were pulled into a firm chest.

"it's okay," mat said with a hand running up and down your back. "whatever happened is over now." he held you until your hiccuping cries stopped. you nodded against his chest before pulling away and wiping at your face. "i left the clothes on the guest bed if you wanna go get changed. the shower is free as well."

you mumbled a small thanks and headed down the hall.

on the bed was a pair of grey sweatpants; thankfully, with drawstrings, and a blue islanders tee shirt. you grabbed the items and headed to the bathroom, ready to wash away the events of the night.

as soon as the water was hot, you were undressing and stepping into the shower. just like all the other times you've showered, your mind was filled with reflections of the day. how jason screamed at you in public, how humiliated you felt, the sick feeling of coming home and finding his clothes strewn about, the nearly paralyzing fear of looking at him and realizing he was a completely different person now.

it all added up, the sly comments from your roommate, the emotional distance between you and jason, the accusing looks your roommate would give you whenever you so much as hugged him in front of her. when did it happen? how long had it been going on? was it revenge for how much time you were away and at mat's place working? was it--

wait.

you listened closely and heard talking vaguely over the fall of water from the shower. quickly, you turned off the shower when you heard the voices escalate. you dried off, pulling on mat's clothes with record speed before opening the bathroom door and letting the steam out.

almost immediately after, you were wishing you'd stayed in the bathroom.

because jason was at the door with a car seat in his hands, looking as furious as he was earlier in the evening.

"what the fuck?" he yelled as soon as he saw your form. "you slept with him already?"

"if you're asking if i took a page out of your book, the answer is no, jason." you walked into the living room and stood behind mat.

"why would i believe you? you're literally wearing his clothes!" he yelled, gesturing at your frame.

"i'm gonna tell you this once," mat started, voice low and dark. "lower your voice because if you wake my daughter, we're gonna have even more problems than we do right now."

"fuck off, barzal. this is between me and my girlfriend."

"ex," you said. "ex-girlfriend. we're done."

"what--"

"i don't know how you thought you could fuck natalie and maintain this relationship; but even if you didn't fuck my roommate, it would still be over because of the way you embarrassed me tonight."

"so you get revenge by slutting around--"

mat took half a step forward. "i would find a different word to use, if i were you."

"or what, barzal? you gonna fight me? i've seen the game you played against the rangers, i'm not impressed. you start shit but never finish it."

"kind of like our sex life," you mumbled before you could stop yourself.

fury washed over jason's face; you'd never seen a look so intense, but it looked right at home on him. jason took a step forward. "what did you say?" he asked darkly.

mat quickly shot his hand up and held jason where he was. "back up."

almost instantly, jason smacked the hand away. "you can't tell me what to do."

"i can when it's my home you're trying to barge into."

jason looked at him before turning his attention back to you. "you're gonna let him speak to me like this?" when you didn't say anything, he got angrier, which you didn't think was possible. he slammed his fist against the doorframe which had you flinching backwards and mat moving between the two of you.

"you have two options," mat said lowly. "either leave, or i call security and have you escorted out."

jason guffawed, if you could see him through mat, you might've seen the way he face relaxed, like he just realized he lost. you heard the thump of him dropping the car seat. "you're gonna regret this."

"have fun with what's-her-name," mat said before grabbing the car seat and shutting the door in jason's face.

the second the door locked, mat was dropping the car seat and pulling you into his chest. you weren't sure when you started crying and shaking again, this time you weren't sure if it was from anger or devastation.

"it's okay," he said. "it's over. you don't have to deal with him anymore." you nodded against his chest. "let's get you to bed and we can worry about everything else tomorrow, okay?" he pulled back just far enough to look you in the eye. "i need to hear you say it."

"okay," you whispered.

he looked satisfied enough to pull away and guide you down the hall where you knew your room would be.

your room.

when did you start thinking of it as that? you broke up with your boyfriend less than an hour ago and were not considering another bedroom (that hasn't been offered to you) as your own?

you yawned. it was too late to be doing deep dive contemplation, especially after the night you had.

mat stopped in front of your door, leaning on the doorframe like it was meant to hold him up. "i have practice tomorrow and then i'll be back and we can workout a time to get your things. does that sound okay?"

you nodded again. "thanks, mat."

"anytime."

you shut the door and stared at it for a moment. part of you wondered if mat was doing the same on the other side.

day thirty-five

you woke up without an alarm clock but your body was still tired. the exhaustion of the unveiled truth was a weight you weren't used to carrying.

gingerly, you rose from the bed and checked the time on your phone, relieved to see it was still early and that you hadn't inconvenienced mat by oversleeping.

mat.

he'd stuck up for you, let you sleep over, someone he hadn't really known but for a month. was he that kind or just naive?

you didn't have time to dwell on it.

you walked down the hall and into the living room when you heard music playing. there was no telling what could come from the bluetooth speaker when mat's phone was connected, this time it seemed to be some random pop song blasting through the kitchen. when you rounded the corner, you saw mat putting ingredients into a blender while ella bounced and flapped her arms around to the music in her high chair.

"morning!" mat said over his shoulder. "there's frozen waffles in the freezer if you want something for breakfast."

"they're not like...disgusting protein waffles, are they?" you asked.

mat stopped what he was doing and turned so he could smile at you properly. "nope, good ole unhealthy eggo waffles."

"i appreciate it." you made a move to walk towards the fridge when you stopped. "and for what it's worth, i'm sorry, about last night."

mat tilted his head like a confused golden retriever. "what did you do? if you pissed on the sheets, i have in unit laundry that will fix that problem."

you couldn't help it, a laugh burst straight from your chest and out of your mouth before you could stop it. if your eyes weren't squeezed shut from the laughing, you would've seen the soft smile adorning mat's face for getting that reaction.

"you know why," you said once you'd calmed down.

mat shrugged. "as far as i'm concerned, you didn't do anything wrong. that's all on him." he took two steps towards you, placing a hand on your shoulder. "and if it wasn't clear, you're welcome to stay as long as you need to."

the both of you stared at each other without saying a word, neither wanting to interrupt whatever peace was going on between the two of you.

ella took that opportunity though, to throw her apple sauce on the ground. the sound alone had you both snapping out of whatever trance you were in.

"well," mat said.

"yeah," you mumbled.

mat moved around you, squeezing your shoulder once. "i have to go get ready, but i should be back soon to help you get your stuff from your old place."

"mat, you don't have to--"

he kept walking. "sorry what was that? can't hear you!"

despite yourself, you smiled.

most of the morning went by without a hitch, you didn't even shed a tear! which you considered to be progress and maybe a sign that you weren't as torn up about your breakup as you should've been.

but you didn't have time to unpack that thought.

it wasn't until around 11 that you got a text from an unknown number that you were considering throwing your phone down the stairwell. but because curiosity got the better of you, you checked your phone anyway.

hey! this is sydney martin, we met last night. mat mentioned that you'd need help moving your stuff and i was offering my help as well at matt's.

below her text notification was one from mat.

hope you don't mind i passed your number along to sydney. my plan was to get tito to help me move your stuff, but we're both caught up doing interviews and press coverage until this afternoon. didn't think you'd want to chance running into him after a workday.

you texted sydney back first, finding it easier to set up times to leave and meet up at your old place than to reply to the thoughtfulness of mat's text.

hey sydney! you wrote. i would love all the help i can get, when would you two be able to meet me at my old apartment?

which is how you found yourself standing outside your old building with ella strapped to your chest, waiting for sydney and matt to arrive.

you heard your name being called and looked over your shoulder to see sydney and matt in workout clothes next to a....

uhaul?

in the city?

"hope you don't mind," sydney started. "mat said you had some stuff but we weren't sure how much, so my husband rented a truck just in case."

without even thinking about it, your eyes started tearing up. in one night, you'd lost pretty much the only people you had in the city, but had somehow gained two more in their absence.

"you didn't have to..." you trailed off.

matt, as if sensing the tears that were seconds away from leaking out of your eyes, took a step closer. "we've all been in shitty situations, no one should have to deal with it alone. besides any friend of my wife's is a friend of mine."

the very words left you giving him a watery smile. "thank you."

sydney approached you and wrapped you in a hug. "no need to thank us."

when you pulled away, the martins pretended they didn't see you wiping at your eyes.

"alright," you clapped. "it's gonna take some time, but hopefully with the three of us, we can get it done quickly."

the four of you headed inside with ella dozing off against your chest. matt followed behind you and sydney, carrying unopened cardboard boxes he had leaning against the truck.

"so i was thinking," matt said once you got to the front door of the apartment. "you and syd can pack up the boxes and i'll do the heavy lifting out to the truck, hopefully mat and tito will be done soon and they can help as well."

you and sydney nodded before heading back to your bedroom while matt played with ella in the living room.

"i asked him before we got here if he could give us some space," sydney explained once you were in your old bedroom.

"i appreciate it."

sydney started at your dresser and opened one box before neatly placing your clothes inside. "are you okay?"

you shrugged and started on the closet, tossing clothes inside the box without a care. "i'll be fine."

"mat didn't say much, if anything, if that's what you're worried about. i just saw how you were when what's-his-name was raging at the game yesterday."

you paused over a shirt that used to belong to him before tossing it aside. "he cheated on me with my roommate. and he wasn't happy when i tried to leave last night. tried to keep me here to 'talk about things.'"

sydney looked at you but didn't say anything for a moment. she let your words hang in the air like a foot poised over a landmine. "does mat know that?"

you shrugged. "he was on the phone with me for part of it but i don't know if he heard the near hostage attempt."

"did he come up the stairs and take care of things?" sydney asked, tone very serious. you didn't think it was possible for someone as joyful as her to look as grim as she did.

you shook your head. "no, he waited in the car."

"then he must not've heard, you would've known if he had." you weren't sure what face you were making but it must've been alarming because sydney quickly backtracked. "not that he'd get violent or anything! mat isn't scary, he's just..." she paused, as if searching for the right word. "...protective."

"i don't think that applies here, i've only known mat a month."

up until that point, you didn't know it was possible to hear an eye roll, but sydney somehow managed it. "oh please, like that matters here. anyone who meets you adores you. take me for example, i've only known you for twenty-four hours and i'd fight an overgrown man child for you." she reached over and placed a hand on top of yours. "everyone who meets you, loves you. it would be hard not to."

you nodded and went back to shoving clothes in boxes, too scared to look her in the eye just in case she saw the tears you were barely holding back.

an hour later, with most of your things in boxes, mat and tito showed up. ella, (who was sitting in your lap on the couch while matt martin continued to take boxes down to the truck, screamed and flapped her arms at the sight of her father and his best friend.

"ella bean!" tito called before beating mat over to you and scooping up the baby. mat didn't even attempt to conceal his annoyance, rolling his eyes before assessing the boxes littering the floor.

"is this all?" he asked.

you nodded. "syd and i have to sell my bed frame but other than that, we're good."

"we can bring it back to our apartment so you don't have to come back here."

you froze, and from the corner of your eye, you saw tito stop bouncing ella to look at the both of you while sydney found herself scrolling on her phone.

our apartment.

it hadn't even been twenty-four hours and he was already referring to the place as half yours.

it should've made you freak out, shut down.

but you were just relieved.

"i don't know if we'll have enough room," you said.

mat scoffed. "we'll make room. or martin, tito, and i will come back and grab it today. but you're not coming back here once we leave. not when your ex could show up at anytime."

you were still surprised that jason hadn't arrived. it seemed in his nature to hover, especially after he tried to hold you hostage last night.

"okay," you nodded.

he pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "i'll go talk to matt about making room and then we'll grab your bed frame." mat scooped up two boxes with ease and turned on his heel to go back down the stairs.

"i can help--"

but mat made a noise in the back of his throat. "sit down and chill." and left the room.

"that was considerate of him," sydney noted when she was sure he was out of earshot.

"which part?" tito commented. "when he referred to his place as yours? or the time where he denied your help so you could relax?"

"i'm sure mat does this for all the people in his life," you said.

tito scoffed. "when i was moving apartments, i asked for his help and he told me to 'fuck off and hire movers.'"

"i'm sure that has absolutely nothing to do with how close you two are and everything to do with you being a millionaire," sydney replied.

as if on cue, your phone rang, mat's first and last name filling up your screen. "hello?"

"tell beau to give ella to you and bring the rest of the boxes downstairs."

tito must've heard because he was groaning and walking ella over to you without saying a word.

"he's on his way down," you said.

"thanks," mat replied before hanging up.

the hard work was done by mid afternoon. and with the truck loaded up, none of you saw a reason to stay much longer. matt martin agreed to drive the truck back to the apartment you currently shared with mat. you'd ride with mat and tito (and subsequently ella) since you took the subway to your old place while syd drove her car.

as soon as you got back to your new place, the boys were unloading the truck while you and syd put ella down for a long overdue nap before taking a look at your room and trying to figure out where to put things.

"it doesn't all have to be done in one day," she said. "but the faster it's done, the easier it'll be for you to move on from this." you nodded to the sound of the boys dropping boxes in living room. "you're handling this remarkably well for someone who just ended a long term relationship."

you avoided looking at her, instead focusing on your bed spread. "things haven't been okay for awhile," you said like that was explanation enough.

it seemed to do the job for sydney because she didn't ask anymore questions.

not too long after everything was moved in, sydney, matt, and tito left with the promise of visiting soon. syd said she'd be by without any hesitation if you needed her.

you just smiled and accepted her hug. but as soon as the front door shut, your shoulders sagged and you fell into the couch like a rag doll.

if your eyes weren't laser focused on the floor, you would've seen mat's mouth open and shut a few times as if searching for the right words until he finally settled on some.

"you did it, one of the hardest parts is over."

you grunted. "what could be harder than this?"

mat fell into the couch beside you. "tomorrow, and the day after that, and the days that follow until you get used to him not being around anymore. and the sting of betrayal finally stops hurting."

you couldn't help yourself, you laughed.

"what?" he sat up. "i thought i was giving sage advice!"

your eyes met and you could see he wasn't offended, there was a gleam of humor in his eyes that reminded you of boys in elementary school who regularly got in trouble for the hijinks they pulled during the school day.

"'the sting of betrayal?' really mat? are you an author or a hockey player?"

"can't i be both?"

"i've seen you get hit in the head with pucks and hockey sticks before. keep it up and i don't think you'll have much of a brain to write anything."

you expected a laugh, but he looked at you like he'd seen you in a new light. "i didn't get hit at my last game."

"i know," you laughed. "i was there, or have the concussions you've gotten affected your memory?"

"you watched my previous games?"

oh.

would that be embarrassing to admit? that you'd gone back and watched him play a little? you didn't even know why, you just found yourself on youtube rabbit hole during one of ella's naps.

"i mean," you shrugged. "i uh, i watched some highlights and whatever youtube had available. i felt bad for not knowing anything about how you play, especially after you--"

"you don't have to explain anything to me," he interrupted. "i just, i'm shocked is all, in the best way possible."

maybe it was the look in his eyes, or the soft smile gracing his lips. or maybe it was the fact that he was the first single man you'd ever met who'd shown you unrelenting kindness without any expectation of sleeping with you that had you saying the words you said next.

"i'm really glad i met you."

his smile grew. "i'm really glad too."

taglist:

@nicoleloveshockey @thg02 @fallinallincurls @bbbbruins @random-readers-world @sydsxoxo @jhughesy @whenmypartysover @sunflowerhood @spencereidbasis @icanfsplel @avareadsthings @zegraswrites @calermakar @heyitsmeimdead @kashee-h @bordelhoe

[thefallennightmare]

Miracle-twenty one

*gif found on pinterest*

Pairings: Noah Sebastian x Reader

Warnings/Tropes: forced proximity, slight enemies to lovers, slow burn, smut, angst, fluff, mentions of death, and swearing.

Summary: Reader is the merch girl for Bad Omens. It wasn't what she wanted to do with her life but when her mother got sick with Alzheimer's, reader took a job where she could to help with the costs. She thought it would be a one-time gig but the longer she was on the road with them, the harder she fell for Noah Sebastian; even if he wanted nothing to do with her. She needed a miracle to save her mom and her future.

Author Note: here's some more smut for you!

Tags: @ada-clarence @nonamessblog @thescarlettvvitch @malice-ov-mercy @crimson-calligraphyx @theoneandonlykymberlee @yumikitten @blackveilomens @cherrymedicine13 @thebadchic @notmaddihealy @jay02bo @beaker1636 @jakekiszkasguitarpick @punk-pr1ncessxoxo @er3nslovergirl @iamdesolate @lma1986 @jessitpwk @themodern-daywednesday @writethrough @bngurngheart @dreams-that-are-anwsered @loeytuan98 @omens-in-reverse @loverofagoodbeard @jay02bo @niicoleleigh @tearfallpixie

NOAH

A small yawn left my lips as I buried myself deeper into my bed, pulling the warm body closer to my chest. Y/N sighed in her sleep, unbothered that I began trailing my fingers up and down the skin of her arm, and I gazed down at her. It's been a few days since the fire and at first, she was really apprehensive of staying here until Jolly and I reassured her we didn't care. Eventually she eased away her worries and became more comfortable moving around the house.

But the nightmares weren't something she got over.

The last two nights, she woke up screaming thinking she was back in her house, in the flames. I would calm her down by bringing her to my chest and soothe her hair away from her face, sometimes even humming a soft tune so she could calm herself back to sleep.

So far tonight, there were no signs of nightmares, but I stayed up to watch her, just in case.

As my knuckles grazed over her arm, my gaze caught sight of the healing cuts and bruises that were scattered along them, the fight with James flashing into my mind.

I kicked the back door in, smoke immediately filling my lungs, and I pulled the top of my sweater over my mouth. Through hazy vision, I did my best to maneuver my way through the unfamiliarity of the house. I tried to remember how the layout was when I was here last time for the funeral.

Just past the kitchen was the hallway where the stairs were that would lead me upstairs to Y/N's bedroom. Where the fire was fastly spreading and by now, it could have spread to the room next to her; the one I needed to get to.

A loud grunt followed my something dropping to the floor caught my attention, and I swung on my heels to see a body leaning over the couch in the living room; the only area where the fire hasn't spread. It seemed like wherever the fire started, it must have been upstairs. Even through the smoke filling the space around me, I recognized who was pouring something on the couch.

"Mother fucker!" I spat.

James turned hastily towards me, a look of shock on his face. "What the fuck? You're not supposed to be here!"

Sprinting towards him, I tackled him to the ground, the red jug of now what I realized was gasoline falling out of his grasp onto the couch. I laid fist after fist into his face while James tried to protect himself, failing miserably.

"Fuck you!" I seethed when he somehow pushed me away from him.

Scrambling to my feet, I brought my foot back in a high kick, the toes of shoe connected with his stomach. James groaned in pain as he clutched himself, spitting what I imagined was blood to the floor.

"I should have figured you'd come to save her; her knight in shining armor," he chuckled darkly while kneeling in front of me.

Anger radiated through me in hypersonic waves, but I did my best to keep myself calm. I couldn't afford to waste time with this asshole while Y/N was barley hanging on.

"Why the hell are you burning down her house?!" I demanded to know after throwing another punch to his jaw.

Shit, that hurt.

I shook out the pain in my hand while watching James clutch his face.

"She doesn't deserve this house! It should have been left to me! My mom left me with nothing after leaving me as a child. Who does that!" James bellowed.

"You think you're the only one that was traumatized by your mom?" I scoffed but then coughed as the smoke filled my lungs completely. "You want to talk about what Y/N doesn't deserve? She doesn't deserve her fucking brother trying to kill her!"

By now, the flames were licking their way down the staircase, burning away the only way for me to make it upstairs to Y/N.

James looked up at me with blood pooling from his mouth, a sinister smirk on his face.

"How does it feel knowing the girl you love is seconds away from burning alive? That is, if the fall doesn't kill her first."

Sheer darkness overtook me as I lifted him from the floor by the collar of his shirt and tossed him over the couch. He clattered to the ground as the jug of gasoline fell with him, covering him in the foul smell.

A knock at my bedroom door brought me out of the memory and carefully detaching myself from Y/N, my feet pattered towards the door. Once opened, I gave a small smile to Jolly.

"How's she doing?" He asked nodding behind me.

Looking over my shoulder, I noticed she was still asleep, clutching the pillow tight to her chest.

"She's alright. So far no nightmares," I said when I turned back to Jolly.

Jolly gave me a curt nod. "Well, there's a detective downstairs wanting to talk to you."

My heart pounded in my chest but I did my best not to show how worried I was. I had a feeling after the police talked with James and got his side of the story, they'd be knocking on my door right after.

"Isn't it kind of late?" I asked, running a hand through my hair.

"He said it won't take long," Jolly shrugged.

With a sigh, I nodded and followed him downstairs where I saw the detective standing in the middle of the entryway.

"Mr. Sebastian, I'm sorry for stopping by so late," he extended a hand towards me.

"Noah is fine," I said while shaking it. "Is there something new with the investigation?"

The detective nodded. "We spoke with James a few hours ago. He finally woke up from the coma the hospital put him in to deal with the pain. He told us you attacked him?"

"Yes, because I saw him pouring gasoline downstairs. He was the one that started the fire." I retorted back defensively.

"We know that" the detective nodded. "James told us everything so as far as I see it, you're not in any trouble."

I gave my own nod. "Good. Now what does this mean for Y/N?"

"She'll have to go through the insurance company to see if she'll get any money from losing everything. But as far as I'm aware, that can be a process."

"Right," Jolly snorted. "So what you're saying is that has nothing?"

The detective gave us a sorrowful smile. "I wish I had better news on that front. But at least James won't be a problem anymore. He's looking to go for a plea deal so Y/N won't have to worry about testifying."

"Thanks for the update," I grumbled then gave him my back as I walked upstairs.

Jolly was wrong; Y/N didn't have nothing. She had me, us. We would be all she needed until she found herself back on her feet. No matter what it cost me, I'd give her the entire world if that's what she wanted.

Back in my room, I noticed she was still fast asleep and ran a knuckle over her cheek to brush away the hair from her face, marveling at how soft her skin was. In the beginning, our relationship was rocky and I'd said some hurtful things to her not knowing what she was going through back home. Her life was crumbling and instead of being a strong support system, I was being an asshole because of my own problems. She didn't deserve this, any of this that life threw at her, and yet she still had a smile on her face throughout all the pain.

I knew from that moment she came to the party that she would mean so much to me. I despise how long and what happened to her for me to finally accept it. But from this moment forward, I'd prove that to her.

"I love you, angel," I whispered, staring down at here with a small smile.

READER

"Oh, fuck you!" I bellowed.

Folio chuckled as he set the game controller down on the couch next to him. "Damn, I never realized you were such a sore loser."

I shot him with an icy glare. "You cheated."

Nick shook his head at the two of us while he brought us two plates of food; fresh hot pizza.

"Thank you," I smiled warmly at Nick.

He sat down next to me with his own food and motioned to the television, where Folio and I just ended the game we were playing. "Folio will claim he never cheats but he's a screen watcher."

I gasped while whirling my head back to Folio. "I knew it!"

It's been almost a week since the fire and this was the first time I'd seen both Nicks since then. They traveled back to Virgina to visit family and returned earlier this afternoon. We decided to have a relaxing night in because in just a few days, they'd be leaving for Europe while I stayed here because I couldn't find the voice to ask for my job back. I knew the guys would allow me to continue work with them but the part of me that didn't want to be a bother held me back.

Plus, I was dealing with a lot of personal thoughts that was causing a small wall to be built up around me. Something Noah noticed. We hadn't been intimate since the first night here and needless to say, I was horny. Noah wanted to make sure I was in the right headspace since I was dealing with nightmares, him being there to hold me when they woke me with a scream.

If the nightmares weren't bad enough, I was also upset with the fact that out of everything I lost in the fire, the only thing I wanted was my laptop that had pictures of me with the guys and crew members. Hundreds of pictures and videos of all the fun times we had on the road together. The one I really wanted was the picture of Noah and I from that party, before everything went to shit.

"Angel."

Looking up to Noah as he stood in front of me, I raised a brow at him. "What?"

He said nothing, simply picked me up from the couch so he could sit with me now in his lap. Large arms wrapped around me from behind as I leaned deeper into his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart against my back. He covered us with a blanket as Jolly switched from the video game to a movie while Nick turned off the lights. We all settled in as the comedy movie played and when I shifted to be more comfortable on Noah's lap, he groaned quietly in the back of my neck. My name fell from his lips in a hushed warning.

Smirking, I played with this a bit more.

Underneath the blanket, I snaked a hand between my legs and ran fingers over Noah's dick, which twitched underneath my touch. He wore a pair of sweatpants so I could feel the outline of it but I couldn't slip my hand beneath his waistband to grasp it which made me frown.

"What are you doing?" He breathed in my ear.

Ignoring him, I made a show of getting comfortable in a different position by now sitting at his side and curling up into his chest with the blanket still covering us. Both Nick's and Jolly were engrossed in the movie that they were oblivious to Noah and I as I finally slipped my hand in his pants, fingers touching the soft skin of his already hard cock.

"Angel," Noah grunted in my hairline.

Keeping my gaze on the television, I worked my hand up and down, squeezing every so often. When my thumb brushed along the head, swirling the pre-cum everywhere, Noah's body twitched next to me. His hand slipped underneath my shirt, calloused fingers grazing over the skin of my stomach up towards my breasts and he pinched my perk nipple.

I bit back a moan but kept up my actions on his cock only this time working harder. His head fell back against the couch, silver chain catching the light from the television, and I had to hold myself back from not straddling his lap to get a taste of the skin of his neck. Noah's hips thrust up into my hand a few times before stilling, a harsh breath crawling from the back of his throat when warm cum spilled into my hands and I peered up at him through my lashes, jerking him off through the last waves of his orgasm.

His gaze was hot, burning into me, as I pulled my hand out of his pants and brought my finger to my lips, unnoticed by the guys, and licked his arousal off my fingers one by one.

"Upstairs. Now." Noah yanked me from the couch and tossed me over his shoulder.

I squeeled in delight as he began running upstairs.

"Try to keep it down, alright?" Nick called behind our backs.

[moominofthevalley]

Well-Timed Levity

Santa keeps taking candy from children, but unlucky for him, Emily and Trystan are all about justice.

trystan x emily

teen | wc: 1.3k | some strong language

a/n: happy holidays everyone :) hope you enjoy!

“Who steals candy from literal children?” 

Emily scoffed, a grin on her lips. 

“Santa, apparently.” 

“Perhaps Kaspar got tired of stealing royal jewels and started taking food?”

“That’s…a possibility,” Emily rubbed her eyes. 

“You think so?” 

“If there’s two kleptomaniac Santas, maybe. Read the dossier Luke made.” 

Caucasian Male. Late thirties to early forties. Often dressed up in Santa attire to avoid suspicion. Petty thefts began in early December, mostly in shopping plazas and otherwise crowded areas. Targets are typically young children or the elderly.

“Mm, I guess not then. You know, I could’ve sworn you said you were done with these common cases.”

“I’m just tired of dealing with scumbag husbands cheating on their wives. Besides, I think it’ll be fun to take this shithead down.” 

“I can think of other kinds of fun,” Trystan whispered in her ear, eyebrows waggling. Emily rolled her eyes, shoving him away. 

“Watch the flirting, partner. We’re on the clock. Go look around.” 

Two boards replaced a shattered window of a French café, the lights off and the doors shut. Across Emily and Trystan were an elderly couple, wrinkled and blanketed with thick coats. The two shared a cup of steaming apple cider, beaming with yellowed teeth. 

“Reminds me of my childhood,” Trystan pointed to two children holding caramel apples. The eldest sister swung her legs back and forth as the younger one munched on the fruit. 

“Aw. Would you and Marguerite eat dessert together after…I don’t know, voting on Drakovian laws?” 

“Yes – not after voting, though. Mags would get apples from our garden, and then I’d make the caramel!” 

“How cute. Maybe you can get me a caramel apple after we catch the guy?” 

“Consider it done.” 

Flurries of strangers in beanies and homely holiday sweaters hustled about, arms wide with shopping bags. A shriek rang in the detective’s ears, a flash of red dashing through her vision. A trail of caramel stained the ground, two weeping children standing by. 

“What happened?” Emily kneeled to the kids, her heart cracking at their cherub cheeks and doe eyes. 

“Sa–Santa took our food!” The younger sister squealed. Trystan and Emily exchanged a glance, brows furrowed. 

“Listen to me,” Trystan smiled, “We’ll do everything we can to catch Santa, but can you tell us which way he went?” 

The sisters wiped away their tears. The older sister turned around and pointed to the escalators; the mugger cursing as the caramel apples fell to the floor. 

Time to catch Santa. 

* * * * 

“Fuck you!” 

“Watch it!” 

Ignoring the chorus of insults, Emily and Trystan shoved past the crowd; their shoulders stinging. Not that it mattered, there were bigger fish to fry. 

They continued, chests heaving and legs cramping. Their mouths ran dry, ribs exasperated and tight. Beads of sweat trickled down their foreheads, cheeks flushed and breaths short. Emily’s skin cringed as she sprinted up the claustrophobic escalator, the gluttonous assailant at the very top. 

“Fuck!” Trystan hissed, “He’s – ngh – heading towards the elevator!” 

“You fucker!” Emily reached for her taser, “Don’t you dar–” 

The door shut, a smirking Santa on the other side. The detective’s fingers frantically pressed the buttons, praying to some fictitious God that it’d make the doors open faster. It was futile; she was betting on losing dogs. 

Emily had been in this position many times. Chasing some fucker through crevices and empty alleys. Tackling them and rehashing the same one-liner as if that’d undo the aching bruises and black eyes. Drinking until her face was numb. Rinse and repeat. 

There were a few general rules to follow. Watch for any exits, entrances, or holes to jump over. Listen very intently. Were those footsteps from the criminal, or your partner? Did your taser click, or was that their gun? And of course; breathe in and out, but don’t dare stop for a second, or else they’re as good as gone. 

“We’regonnafuckingcatchhim, we’re gonna – agh – fucking catch him!” She heaved, eyes glued on the floor indicator; taking its sweet time. Trystan bent over, hands stuck on his knees as he caught his breath with long-awaited gasps. 

The elevator opened with a pleasant ding! and they burst into the empty lift, Emily’s sore fingers pressing harder on the ‘close’ button. Meeting the steel door once more, lively Christmas music began playing. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” 

“It is the holidays after all.”

Reaching the bottom floor, Emily and Trystan sprang out, feet burning. He was only a fingertip away, though Emily groaned as she attempted to strangle the man in his costume. The blood in their veins ran cold; sweat continuously drizzled down their heads like mist on a mundane morning. 

“You bastards…don’t…quit!” 

“Trystan! We can cut him off…Chase him right into each other!” 

“A flanking maneuver. I like your style.” 

“I’ll cut him off!” 

“I’ll stay on him,” Trystan winked, masking his exhaustion, “See you on the other side, beautiful.” 

Emily clung to her taser, growing lightheaded as she charged through the side alley. Every inch of her body was engulfed in flames, her limbs numb and shaking.

“Where are you?” She sneered, cheeks glowing red. 

“Emily!” Trystan yelled, the man in red running just a few feet away from him. 

“Ha! I fucking did it! I’m free–”

It only took a second for Santa to flail to the ground, though not before slamming a punch right at Emily’s cheek. Her reaction was visceral; shrieking like a wounded deer before forcing herself to get back into motion.

The thief squirmed as Emily straddled him, tightening cuffs around his wrists. Standing up, she let out a taunting laugh. A red-faced Trystan ran up to them, grinning despite the burn in his thighs. 

“Now that is what I call teamwork.” 

“Alright, don’t get too excited…Though I guess it’s time to find out who this ‘Santa’ really is.” 

“Roger Dupont?!” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah – I escaped prison! And I would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for you meddling-” 

“Shut the fuck up, will you?” Emily crossed her arms, “Stealing candy from children? Dressed up as Santa? Was prison food not enough for you?” 

“I hear prison hollandaise isn’t the same,” Trystan teased. 

“You–you mock my misery! You don’t understand!” 

Kneeling to him, Emily tilted her head, a mocking grin on her bloodied lips. Sweat and bruises lined Richoet’s face; skin damp and eyes fluttering. His breaths were labored and unwell, his nose bleeding and staining his costume. 

“You lost, Dupont. Twice now, in fact. Maybe this time you can just sit in your fucking cell and think about what you did.” 

“You prurient cu–” 

“Hey,” Trystan snarled, snatching his collar, “Listen to me! If you ever escape prison, steal from children, and then dare insult Emily ever again, I’ll-” 

“Trystan,” Emily caught his arm, his fist only a breath away from Ricochet. “Leave the scared little weasel alone.” 

“I can’t go back,” Ricochet whimpered, casting a comical pout, “I can’t–I can’t go back!”

“Maybe you should’ve thought about that before breaking out of prison and robbing people.” 

Succumbing to his fatigue, Ricochet slumped over, unconscious. Turning to Emily, Trystan frowned. 

“Are you okay?” 

“Pretty damn exhausted,” Emily huffed, “Those movies never fuckin’ get chase scenes right. My feet are on fire.” 

Trystan stepped closer, his hand cradling her chin. Grazing her lip, his thumb lingered as he wiped away splotches of blood. 

“Do you need anything? I can carry you to the car.” 

“God no,” Emily laughed, “But I do believe you owe me a caramel apple.” 

* * * * A/N: Happy Holidays, everyone! This is my last holiday fic for the year :) I hope you all enjoyed it. Chase scenes are SO not my forte but I did try my best haha. Thank you so much for reading, and have a happy New Year!

Also, fun fact, this WAS going to be more comedic but I ended up realizing I am not funny at all. The only comedic thing I can do is write banter lol.

Click here for a list of all my works so far!

Tags: @choicesholidays @choicesficwriterscreations @jerzwriter @logolepzy @mooserii @stars-are-within-me @shadyinternetblizzard @urcowboyboyfriend @lexicook74-blog @leahtine @jahrobin @calisomnia @kyra75 @icarusfallsforever @inlocusmads (let me know if anyone else would like to be added to my perma tag!)

[rainwaterapothecary]

A Certain Insecticidal Flower pt 3

#serennedyprideweek Prompt 6 - Flowers

[Part 2]

Watching Luis stalk through the mines, arms flailing expressively was torture. And Leon would know, he was currently going through two experiences simultaneously that by definition fell under ‘torture’.

Leon sucked in a shallow breath, thirsty for air but unable to fill his lungs. Somewhere behind him, Luis was saying something about looking out but Leon wrote him off outside of marking his rough location. The pistol in his hand smacked against his palm as he loaded and knocked it in one fluid motion, raining lead down on a Ganado that looked like she could have been a schoolteacher in a past life. He couldn’t think like that. They were targets. Deep breath, aim for the head.

Bang. Luis cheered at his marksmanship before yelling ‘Oye!’ and raining lead from his magnum.

Weaving around the mines with Luis settled the off-kilter feeling the agent had been fighting since the scientist left them, he realized with a jolt. That isn’t right, it should be the other way around.

Who is this guy?

A researcher. Ex-Umbrella. A ladies’ man.

Why did the last one sting the worst?

Dealing with Luis Serra made him feel a bit like a lava lamp: big feelings moving in clumps and bubbles that he tries to send away with each revelation about the man’s past only to have the exact same wave buffet him with a smile or an exclamation.

It was exhausting.

It made him fucking cough.

“Easy there, let me take a look before we go further into the nest.”

“The nest?”

“Sí, this is where the plagas ancestors were dug up, locked in amber.”

Leon tries to sigh but all that comes up is a cough and the tang of blood. Not now.

“Remember what I said about opening fire, Luis.” He tried, with a tight grin. The scientist shook his head and rolled his eyes before waving the agent ahead of him.

“After you.”

Next thing he knew, they were in battle.

Again.

It was a bit like a whirlwind sprint, how adrenaline got Leon through his makeshift arena fights. Hyper-focused on each detail around him, ready to take on two giants at a time in a small space.

“One for each of us! You get that one!”

Luis sounded almost cheerful as he unconsciously lifted half the weight Leon was struggling to carry. The Red9 fired repeatedly and the race was on.

Somehow Leon was climbing and shooting and slashing in a tizzy over and over, trying to hack away at the pest that kept his giant going.

Then Luis ran.

Leon really should have been expecting it. Massive, shambling monsters covered in armor-

Then he came back.

Luis came back.

“Brought you a present, ey!” Leon could hear his smile as the cocky fucker jumped off the thing’s back. Damn they worked well as a team. The thing turned to face Leon and Luis would shoot, then they would trade. Boots hit metal and a magnum fired.

The floor opened up.

“Oh shit! Sorry!”  

“Jesus, Lu-“ Leon rolled out of the way of a slamming foot and switched out with the withe man at the controls. “Cover me!”

“On it!”

“Luis, MOVE!”

-

If only he had been able to yell in time.

The minecart fiasco had lulled him into an adrenaline-and-Luis-filled haze where the two worked with all their combined faculties to keep each other alive, unshot, and on the rails. At times he almost had the Spaniard curled into his chest, keeping his head down and out of pistol fire.

Then he was gone.

Leon felt the branches choke him from the inside out as tears of agony muddied his vision.

”Rookie.”

Krauser.

“Luis-!” Leon almost turned away from Krauser when he heard the other man shift in the dirt, but then the blade was out of Luis’ back and in Leon’s, proverbially. With a sinking feeling Leon took in three things:

-Krauser had removed the knife -Luis was bleeding, bad -Leon couldn’t breathe

His vision swam in and out in speckles as sharp, blue eyes shot from red beret to knife to amber to Luis and back.

Krauser didn’t finish his monologue about ‘trash’ before Leon’s knife was at his throat.

“Knives are faster, right Major?” With a tinkling sound, Leon forced something out of the larger man’s hand and reeled back to punch him in the face.

His heart ached to talk this out, to make the Major see reason, but his training and his air capacity said fight and fight hard.

So he did.

A predatory smile stretched Krauser’s scarred features as he traded blows with his protégé, knives flashing in the low light, one soaked in Luis’ blood.

“Why are you- doing this-?” Leon grunted. Ah, his heart hadn’t given up. Waste of oxygen. “Are you in that- that cult?”

No. Krauser was just an asshole.

An asshole working as a free agent, probably with very little backup.

Somehow Leon ended up on his back as his vision fuzzed out once more, knees coming up to throw his attacker against the wall. His boot soles connected with something solid and a gun went off twice.

The magnum.

Luis.

With a growl, the thing attacking Leon lept to the scaffolding around them. Leon squinted. Major Krauser?

The blond slowly sat up, his breath whistling around the branches he hid.

When his vision cleared, the threat had retreated and a body hit the ground with a familiar groan.

“Luis!” Leon got to his feet far too quickly and had to blink fireflies out of his eyes as he stumbled to his…friend.

Oh no. Luis is my…my friend.

Taking wheezing breaths between his teeth, Leon begged Luis to stop speaking, to save his energy, to stay with him.

Something was being pressed into his hand.

“Here, the key to my lab.” A pitiful laugh left the other man’s lips, coated in lifeblood and sad. “And I think the Amber fell somewhere to my left, you knocked it out of that puta madre’s hand with your- your attack, Sancho.” Leon’s vision flicked to the phial on the metal decking, noting it helplessly as the hands gripping his own got colder and colder. His hands began to shake.

“Luis- Luis no, no Luis you are going-“

Wracking coughs tore him apart from guts to uvula, curling the agent over the hands he was holding.

For a moment he forgot what he was holding, what his body was doing.

He felt weightless.

“Leon…” Something in his hand moved.

Oh.

Luis’ hand is on his head, that feels nice.

“L-luis no-“

Bright, nearly electric orange exploded into their laps, accented by the bright red blood of Leon’s windpipe.

Luis’ last breath was wasted on a gasp of shock and understanding.

Leon slumped into the dead man’s lap and expelled a certain insecticidal plant from petal to root, the flowers having nothing to hold onto after the object of their love left the world.

Yellows, oranges, brightest reds. A fireworks display of love and broken-hearted affection dashed across leather gloves and wet rock.

*-*-* A/N

If you want you can stop reading here BUT there's one more part bc I did RESEARCH lol

[Part 4]

[sidesteppostinghours]

9 and 25 for all of them !! :)

evening gideon!! thank you for the ask :]

9. Do you have a specific lyric or quote which you associate with your OC?

ok. so. the thing about me is that i dont actually listen to music all that often??? its mostly when i draw digitally, and im primarily a traditional artist so i dont really know that many songs. i also have shitty memory so its hard for me to remember quotes. aka this is a pretty hard question for me to answer, but i will try my best:

Caine-"Oh, captain, make up your mind/Before the salt burns your eyes and you run out of time/'Cause you're popping the cork, you get lost in your brain/And you lose touch with all the things that made you feel sane" - Ship in a Bottle (fin)

honestly ive never really associated this song with him before but i looked into the lyrics just to see whether it had anything i could think of them with and theres??? actually a bunch of lyrics there that fit???? like to the point i was struggling to decide which one to use for this. but i think this one, the second chorus, really encapsulates the biggest parts of their character. hes the decision maker out of all my steps, the one that knows how to make the logical choices and think his way out of a problem. but hes on a time limit. he doesn't know when it will end, just that it will at some point, and they cant stop if they want everything done in time. also sight and eyes is something i associate caine with a lot, especially closing your eyes/refusing to see. "you get lost in your brain/and you lose touch with all the things that made you feel sane." COUGHS. coughs. caine has the most gates open out of all my steps. i also fully intend to make them the source of hb 2.0. yeah.

Cyrus- HE WAS THE ONLY ONE I THOUGHT OF AN ANSWER FOR STRAIGHT AWAY AND I SPRINTED TO HIS TAG JUST TO FIND THE POST

look him in the eyes and say this to his face. he will look like he got hit by a freight train.

Cecilia- another quote!

im just gonna go ahead and put my own tags to this one because thats where i put it best:

#thinking about this again with ceci#the best part is the bullet hole#like yeah shes not ready to face the fact that everything shes been doing up till now#was just to distract herself from the absolute misery life became after heartbreak#she has FRIENDS she has people she CARES about and they even seem to like her back!!!!#she even has a girlfriend!#isnt that enough?#tell her thats enough#cecilia rider

theres a reason shes a thrill seeker yall.

Cynthia- "I swear, I'm so fucking sorry/I'm not a good person, I'm barely a person at all/But someday I'll be perfect, and I'll make up for it all" - Against the Kitchen Floor (Will Wood)

uh. *looks at cynthias relationship with ortega* uhhhh. *looks at cynthias relationship with sidestep*. uhhhhhhhh.

this song was also difficult to choose lyrics out of, but there is just something so special about girls who simply have to be the best they can to make up for the sin of being. there is something equally as special about girls who take their past selves as judge, and their lover as executioner. also "im not a good person, im barely a person at all" kills me. the regene flavouring on that line??? utterly insane of mr wood to make a song just for her.

25. What is your favorite thing about your OC?

THESE BITCHES ARE SO CONTRADICTORY!!! THERE IS ALWAYS SOMETHING CLASHING ABOUT THESE FUCKERS AND ITS DELICIOUS. not even just trait wise, but with their themes? their core ideals? their relationships???? its always some sort of fucking fundamental difference shaping the way they act and i am Obsessed with it. also all of them are dangerous and it makes me vibrate a little bit. rangers you are so lucky that none of them are interested in leaning into being a full blown villain. but this question is,,, also difficult to answer because idk how to pick just one favourite lmfao. i will attempt it though.

Caine- he is the normalest guy around. there is also something Deeply Wrong with him. my favourite thing about caine would probably be how fun it is to dive into his psyche! ill often have times where i get bored of them and wonder why i got so interested in the first place, and then i get hit with another round of it and i remember "oh right! its because hes insane." his whole character revolves around what is going on inside their brain, from their high subterfuge to their connection with heartbreak and his relationship with the puppet. theyre the most fun to play with in their mind.

Cyrus- god. my favourite thing about him is a tie between his stubbornness and his surprisingly strong sense of empathy. both of those were the things keeping him from becoming a villain in the first place, and now its whats stopping him from going back to being a hero. i want him to confront what hes become so bad yall dont understand-

Cecilia- cecilia is just. a breath of fresh air. shes easy and super fun to play, and while she certainly has her moments (i am looking directly at the checkpoint three mortum reveal scene), shes mostly lighthearted fun cruising through the game as nothing more than a silly guy. i think the next game will actually dig into her character more deeply and allow me to showcase the parts of her shed usually keep hidden, but for now im having a good time getting her to kiss argent and embarrass her friends.

Cynthia- somebody come pick her up please before she starts crying in this club. she is crying because of me but lets not talk about that. i think my favourite thing about her is the contrast between her general wimpy sad lovergirl disposition and her revenge scar, and how she chooses to cope with it! because like,,,, it is just so so tasty watching her fumble with the overwhelming emotion, Especially since the emotion is hurting people. she never learned what to do with the anger! she does not want it! she wants to be as kind to other people as possible! "im not a bad dog, i dont know why i bite" etc etc. eventually she might figure it out, but Definitely Not Now lmfao.

questions from here!

[anchirayce]

To Behold the Golden Sun Ch. 5

This takes place after the events of BG3. Basically, a smol adventure about Tav and Astarion arriving at Tav's childhood city to search for a way to have Astarion walk in the sun again! Drama ensues!

Rating: T - Strong language,

Warnings/Tags: Tiefling racism, alcohol use (responsible, suggestion of misuse), suggestion of non-con, suggestion of child abuse, typical canon violence, slight angst, hurt/comfort, slow burn(I mean it, it's slow), Astarion might be ooc, but hopefully not!

Tav couldn't always run away from his past. He knew this from the moment he started to help Astarion find a way to walk in the sun again. He wanted to stay away, but spurred by another failure, a memory of eld came to him. A whisper of something said, something promising. Hopefully, this little spark of hope was what he and Astarion were looking for.

Chapter One: Here

I slowly opened my eyes. Astarion was gone from my side, I scrambled to my feet. Stumbling against the ache in my bones, I pushed magic into my body and leaned against the pillar of carved stone, trying to control my rough gasps. The hallway was empty and the door was still sealed behind me.

I pushed myself off and sprinted. I was stopped halfway with a rough yank. I raised my claw but wrenched it back as Astarion faded his invisibility. He stared into my eyes, studying my face. He reached for me, slightly hesitating. I didn't pull away but cringed as he cupped my cheek.

“Hello my sweet Tav.”

I raised my arms half-way to him, wanting to touch him, but I was absolutely filthy. I sighed as he slowly pulled me in, squeezing me.

“I have you…” I all but melted against him. “I’m sorry for leaving. I was trying to find a way out.” He said as he pulled away. And moved an arm to the back of my neck, threading his fingers through my hair as he pulled me to his shoulder. I shuddered another soft sob.

“You’re alright, love.”

“Thank you…” I whispered. "I'm sorry."

“Ah, don’t apologise, my sweet.” He stood with me holding me as I listened to the world. As he pulled away I healed him. "Come, we need to leave."

"Jaheira and Gale? Where are they?"

"They're doing all the work."

"How long was I asleep?"

"For about an hour or two. Jaheira knows we're here as well. They’re trying to get into the vault." I hugged my arms, suppressing a shiver.

"Are you okay, my sweet?"

"I…" I swallowed, "don't know." My brain felt numb, like my emotions were suddenly locked away. We wandered until we found another door. Astarion cracked it, and peeked at the vault.

A group of guards with stacks of new found treasure milled about. “Gods, why do we have to organise this? It’s just going into a massive pile anyways.”

“Stop complaining, we get paid good. So why does it matter what we have to do?” The other grumbled.

Astarion pulled away, “I suppose we could wait until the gate is opened?” He whispered. I nodded numbly, and so we waited. My mind would blank, moments of brief darkness overtook me, Astarion would nudge me awake. I wanted to rest but it was wise for him to keep me up.

“We need to get you out of here, dear.” I leaned into his touch.

“I’m fine.” I sighed. “We’re getting what you need first.”

“Open it!” Someone shouted. Astarion and I rushed to the door. The man that stood in the middle of the hall…

"He killed Kavek…" I snarled, Astarion grabbed my shoulder.

"Don't."

"I create a distraction by killing that fucker. And you escape through the gate." Astarion squeezed my arm.

"I would rather be fighting with you."

"No, we find the relic and get out as fast as possible."

"But–"

"I am not arguing Astarion."

"Well I am. Fighting this many people on your own is a death wish and I refuse to allow you to throw yourself to it willingly!" He pulled me back again as I pushed to get through the door. It escalated with a hard shove from me. "Tav, don't you fucking dare." He warned, the kindness and patience in his eyes was replaced with anger. I stood to my full height, my tail flicking.

"I allowed you to have your revenge. Why are you denying mine?"

"I am not!" He spat. "I'm doing what you did for me; preventing you from falling into your worst."

"This isn't my worst." He stared at me. His chest rising and falling.

"It will be if you don't calm down." I looked up, I had situated myself with the crack.

With a sneer I called upon my magic and misty stepped into the hall. I stood behind the Lord. Jaheira and Gale were at the entrance to the hall, speaking with a few nobles. I reached for the startled Lord. Grabbing his pristine hair, and with a quick jerk I slammed his face down onto my knee.

"You fool!" Astarion shouted as he crashed through the secret entryway. The tension broke as the guards equipped their weapons. I grabbed the Lord's collar and took a dagger to the gut. Astarion was already at my back, his blades slicing their cries.

"You fiend!" The Lord screamed, "release me!" I slammed him into the ground. Kneeling over him as my friends fought for me.

"Does the name Kavek mean anything to you?" I was inches from his face.

He struggled to breathe, I took the blade from my side, and pressed it against his throat. He shook his head, the blade caught his skin. "It should…because you sent your men after me, nigh-on three years ago. To recapture me, but instead your men killed a woman who meant everything to Kavek. She carried his child and you killed both of them!" He raised his hands to my wrist, I took each one and leaned my weight against his chest. With no mercy I slowly pierced his hands, relishing in his frantic thrashing.

"You're going to help me find something." I said as I stood and walked towards the open gate. The Lord struggled, but with a twist of the blade he obeyed.

"We can't go inside! It will eat us alive!" I grabbed him and threw him forward.

“Then you’ll make the perfect snack.”

The hall was perfectly sealed, black brick with long pillars held us captive. Our footfalls echoed against the silence like small whimpers of desperation. Crying for release. The Lord suddenly turned and ran, I grabbed his neck pulling him close.

“Try that again and I will gut you.” I shoved him forward.

His pants were heavy and he tried to keep his ground. But he weighed nothing to me.

I stopped, straining to listen for that echo again.

“Tav?” Astarion tried. I shushed him with a finger to my lips. As I took a step the Lord began to chuckle.

“The Gods have blessed me!” He sprinted forward, I immediately went after him. Stumbling back when something had teleported before him.

“Bow before me! I am your Master!” Magic sparked across the man’s front, illuminating something I never dreamed of seeing. Its massive silvery eye flashed towards us. Weaponless, my friends ran to my side, the magic flickered again as five golden eye stalks peaked around it.

“You will obey me Beholder!” The Lord shouted, “I am--” I wouldn’t allow it to steal my kill! I sprinted forward, shoving the bastard back as the creature opened its mouth. With a loud snap its teeth sank deeply into my right arm. I screamed, feebly banging against the hard eyelid. My friends sprang on it, trying to get it to release. But the eye stalks kept them at bay.

It bit cleanly through my arm. I stumbled back, my ears rang as my body flooded with a horrible chill. I brought my hand to it, trying to stop the bleeding.

“Tav!” I turned to Gale’s voice. “Astarion! Jaheira! Take this coward and go into the vault!” Her shape suddenly morphed into a massive bird and Gale called upon his magic. A ball of fire exploding at the eye stalks, as Astarion stared at me. Panic creased his beautiful features as he tore my shirt and formed a tourniquet. I groaned low against the pain.

“Are you mad!” He barked at Gale.

“Go! I will not say it again!” I smiled at Astarion.

“I'll be okay.” I cringed as I stood. Healing my wounds, he raised his hands to me, hesitating, panic clouded his thoughts.

“I have told you to go, Astarion! Will you just obey me for once!” Gale shouted again, Astarion stumbled back. His expression was unreadable, he looked away and sprinted after Jaheira.

“Tav.” Gale gasped. "Go, I can--"

“I will fight beside you!” I snapped and motioned to summon forth my Deva and my spiritual weapon. I gripped the ethereal greatsword tight, the blessed magic burned against my hand.

“This is insane you've lost so much blood!”

“This is nothing!” I ran forward. My Deva raised me into the air, and dropped me to skewer my rage into the monster, but it didn't peirce, and my blade screamed down its back.

Gale’s magic burst against our major foe. As my blade shouted against the hard flesh. It turned on us and tried to use its eyes upon us, but Gale stopped every one with his magic.

"Feather fall!" I demanded of him. I leapt forth and into the air, I landed on its head. Slashing at an eye stalk. I raised my blade high using all the strength I could muster. My Deva was behind me, and with a heavy blow to the pommel my blade broke through.

The creature fell to the ground with a low whimper, I stood before the wizard. My panting breath and dizzy vision swayed my conscience.

“See? Nothing…" I winced against the pulse that shot through my arm. "Go find Astarion.” I told the Deva. I kneeled to the ground, holding my stump.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes.” I pressed a word of healing against my shoulder. But it didn’t stop the throbbing wail of torn muscles and dying sensation.

I pushed myself against my blade, and Gale helped me up. But I waved him off. “Go to the others. I’ll catch up.”

“Are you sure?” He asked.

“Yes, you stubborn wizard. There’s a hoard of treasure and limited time. Go pick something out.” I chuckled. Gale patted my back.

I eventually came to my feet with a cough. I swallowed hard and took a step towards the vault. But I turned back to a new group of guards.

“Where is Lord Ricktor?” One of them shouted, I turned to face them, twisting my blade in my hand.

“He’s helping.” I said and waited.

“He’s killed the Beholder!” Someone gasped. I popped my neck, hiding my flinch of pain through my step forward. “Lord Ricktor must be deeper within!” The instant they drew their weapons; I ran forward. Gutting more than one person as I sprang upon the crowd.

The guards screamed and tried to stop me but I called upon sanctuary and fetched a gem from my suit. I snapped down on the opal and each guard before me fell to their death.

I tackled the captain as more guards around me tried to attack me. But were stopped by my beckoned dead, more guards came joining the fray. “All of this was a mistake!” He blubbered.

A memory came back with his words, someone else had said them. The memory was gone before I could wrangle it due to the panic that flooded my veins. I knew my magic was waning, and more people surrounded me. I waved my hand and called upon my guardian of faith. I heard the screams as the people tried to take it down.

“Talk.” I snarled. “What is the Lord hiding?”

“The creature below is a beast of unfathomable terror! It must be fed otherwise it was rage against the land! Killing everything!” He stared up at me, eyes bulging with fear. “Years we’ve tried to control it! We tried to send adventurers after it! But they have never been successful!"

“And what is it?”

He tried to gather his words. With a press of my blade he stuttered out. “A golden dragon!”

My heart dropped. I knew little about them, but I knew they were good. Kind, noble beasts. I held the charade. “You’ve killed my friends…”

He smiled, “good. That cursed thing will make fast work of them.” I pushed my blade cleanly through.

Most of the guards were dead as I came to my feet. They ran from me, tired and in pain I hobbled forward. Crying out when my shoulder was pierced with arrows and a spear ran through my gut. I turned to the few brave stragglers and called upon insects to tear them apart.

I fell to my knees, and gripped at the wooden poles and pulled, moaning as I healed the wounds to the best of my ability. My body begged for rest, but I continued. Using this much magic in one go was going to take its toll, but for now. I needed to get to Astarion and the others.

I fell against a pillar, staring down at a shimmering staircase. I stepped down into a sea of gold. It would have been beautiful if each step didn't remind me of how much my body and bones pulsed with waves of icy-hot claws.

I limped forward, loud shouting echoed with my ragged breaths. It stopped when I entered the prison of the golden dragon. I could feel its agony in the air.

I stepped out, and it turned to me, my friends were around it, arguing how to free it. The Lord was gone, a pile of ash served as his remains. I looked up at the caged being. My heart all but broke with grief.

They screamed at me to not get close. I dropped my blade, the magic shattering into nothing, as the primordial being snarled loudly.

I could see behind its eyes was a desperation to be killed, to be free. But the curse bearing upon its flesh bade it fight and devour. Behind it was a horde of treasure, a mountain of gold, scrolls, magical items.

As I continued I pushed magic into my body. I placed a ward against death on my burning bones and used my faith to absorb any damage. The dragon lunged at me, its maw clapping down on my battered body. I held back my screams, wheezing out a sob instead as I lost consciousness. Upon my revived inhale I pulled away the curse.

The ancient being drew away and with a mighty scream faltered to the ground and I with it.

I heard Astarion scream with desperation as I looked at him, a wail of relief broke through my chest. He ran up to me and skidded on his knees embracing me tightly. I all but collapsed against him.

“What the sweet hells were you thinking!” He cried out, tearing at my clothing to get to my open wounds.

“I’m sorry…” Was all I managed. I stared at the dragon, and slowly pushed him away. He fought against me but I stayed his hands, pulling them into a gentle kiss. I hobbled to my feet but collapsed again. I pointed towards the shimmering being, trying to support myself with just my arm.

“Help me…please…” I swallowed, he looked between us and with a gentle strength pulled me up.

"Don't you dare die from this!" He grunted. I collapsed before the dragon, placing my arm against its snout. It still breathed, I folded my hand to my chest and sank into myself, Astarion was with me. Clinging to me fearfully. Jaheira and Gale came up beside me and I began to pray for their wounds.

The embrace of the Moonmaiden heard my call for safety and care. It healed my companions, but I needed to try again. I deepened the prayer, my tears of pain fell upon the claw of the dragon, sparkling like dew drops of gold. I swallowed back my aches and used a final whisper of my power to heal the dragon.

I waited, staring at its closed lids. Hoping that it was enough, everyone was silent. Astarion’s form shook as he took in the extent of my damage. I had healed but Gods I was tired…

I fought against it though. I needed to soothe the mourning creature. “You’re not evil…” I panted, reaching for it. Astarion helped my rest against its being. Taking his place beside me. He gripped my knee, trying to ground himself.

“It is dead?” I shook my head, motioning at its rising and falling chest. I noticed my Deva, battered and bruised hovering behind me.

Slowly, the dragon began to open its eyes. Pupilless shimmering voids peered at us. “Whom rests upon me?”

“My name is Tav.” I answered, “we are here. To rescue you.” I smiled thinly, closing my eyes. I could feel myself slipping away.

“To rescue…?” A low rumbled chuckle shook my nerves, gentle in all aspects. “Nay, I am beyond it.”

“I’m sorry." I curled my fist against its flesh. “I’m so sorry.”

“You are a Child of this Land?” I nodded. “You smell of the people I have devoured.” I nodded again.

“I am. But you don’t have to anymore.” I smiled as silver streaks fell from its eyes.

“Child of this Land…What is your wish?” I gasped back a soft sob.

“My wish?” I breathed a laugh, “how can you grant wishes?”

“This vault of greed holds more than you can imagine. A dimension of magic that I was enslaved to guard. There is no entrance, but it will give what you desire if your heart is true.”

“Why am I deserving of such a generous gift?”

“All of you are. Too long, has it been since I felt the warmth of kindness. Heard the expression of selflessness of another’s wellbeing.” The great being rumbled again. I realised now that it was a death rattle. “You and yours, fought their beast of greed. They attack not me, but the iron around me." It fell silent. "You deserve this.”

I rested my head against the cooling flesh. My heart thudded heavily with anticipation. “I wish for a piece of treasure, that would turn my husband mortal.”

“That is not all.” I shuddered another quiet sob, not wanting to speak true. “Speak Child of the Land. Do not hide your wish from me.”

“I don’t want to die before Astarion. I don’t want him to be alone forever. I want to be beside him, to give him what he desires and needs.”

“Is that what he wants?”

“I do, I wish for it.” Astarion said. Placing his hand against the flesh.

"I shall grant it to you. And Child of the Land. Take one gulp of my blood. It will grant years upon you. Two will grant you the power of my breed.” Its gaze turned towards the mound behind it. And from the centre of the mass something wiggled free and flung towards us.

“Take it, Child of Undeath. It will help you…” Astarion reached for it, shuddering in disbelief. I closed my eyes, resting and listening.

“Wizard of Mystra, Lover of Magic. Say your wish to me.”

Gale cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to be rude…but can you truly lock away something created by Netherese magic?”

The dragon chuckled, “the vault provides to those who have earned their right. Say your wish wise wizard.”

“I wish to be rid of my tainted blood. The Netherese Orb to be gone.”

“A powerful curse. A powerful trade. Do you wish for Godhood or your Lover’s touch once again?”

“No. No longer! She--has done nothing for me but cast me aside. I need to move on.” A soft smile spread across my lips.

From the hoard a case appeared. “Opening this box in the time of rest will call upon the magic within you. It is up to you what you do with the contents. Be warned, if it is opened again, the power will spill free.”

“Thank you.” He bowed deeply.

“Child of Shape. Hero of the Past.”

“I am in no need of treasure, great one. I am quite alright as I am. Any wish I have is one made too late.” Jaheira waved her hand dismissively.

“Then I have but one request; take from the hoard. Share upon the land. Take what you need, but give to those in desperation.”

“We will."

I came to my feet with Astarion helping me, from his ankle he pulled out Rhapsody. And gently I pushed the blade against the dragon’s flesh. Shimmering blood pulsed from the wound. I swallowed and cupped my mouth around the cut, I collected a mouthful. The taste of it was of the heaviest metal and yet the purest, sweetest, water. I pulled back and tilted my head up to take the gulp.

It burned hotter than all of the Nine Hells, coating my throat in pain and my stomach with horror. I gagged and covered my mouth, trying to keep it down. I wanted this, I wanted it so bad. I wouldn’t allow my body to reject it.

I screamed loudly, it changed something in me and my whole being tried to reject the rush of magic that had overtaken my senses. It coated my skin with sweat and pain, my bones were on fire. I clawed at the floor trying to control it, trying not to lose myself. Trying to keep conscience.

Chapter 6: Here

[ionianwanderer]

Wow, is that the amulet of Uloa?" Ezreal strolls in, unphased by the way Jinx's blaster shot bounces right off the shield he programmed. "Thanks for showing me right to it! My wallet really appreciates it. Hope this isn't another one of those high stakes items for you guys." Lifting it up, Ezreal tosses the artefact up in the air and catches it, a sharp, satisfied grin on his lips. "Yep. This'll net a fortune at the market. Better luck next time!" And then, in the same flash of blue as when he arrived, Ezreal turns his back on them and vanishes.

To say Yasuo was flabbergasted was a total understatement. As soon as the blond disappeared before him and his team’s very eyes, oh-- that’s when the rage boils straight up and over past the levies that usually held it back. With a quick turn towards the two behind him he grabs hold of Jinx’s top before dragging her closer to him.

“I thought I TOLD you to watch behind us, explain to me how the fuck that pretty boy just strolled up and took what we’ve been trying to track down for weeks right now,” it’s all said through grit teeth as Malphite scrambles just beyond the two trying to find the thief to no avail.

‘I did! Didn’t you see how I tried to shoot him? Plus I didn’t hear nothin’ behind us the whole time--” she pauses, squinting at him before clicking her tongue and smirking. ‘...’Pretty boy’ eh captain? The theivin’ type is what gets you goin’?’

Yasuo’s expression twists into a frown before letting her go roughly and storming off back the way they came. Snapping his fingers multiple times as he picked up his pace. “Get your asses back to the ship before I leave you both here to fend for yourselves-- we’re getting that amulet back.” Space Lizard twisting around on his shoulder mimicking the sound of the snap and chittering to emphasize its owner’s frustration.

There’s a fire in the captain’s belly, and the second he sees the Morning Star come into view he takes off sprinting. Maybe-- maybe they could lock onto anything taking off near the planet, anything. He’s not gonna get shown up by some thief with an ego the size of the Demaxian Empire. The rest of his team ran up the ship’s ramp shortly after Yasuo and prepped for take off: Jinx taking off towards the weapons bay, ecstatic as ever for a possible fire fight, while Malphite handled locking down everything else. Barely enough time is given to them to get settled before Yasuo flicks on the ignition and thrusts the ship into orbit-- because no one makes a fool of the Captain of the Morning Star (other than himself) without some sort of consequence.

Now all that’s left to do is track down this fucker.

[lillaxtrigger]

Street Smarts: Chapter 19

The faces of the buildings making up the tourist spot are rend asunder as the cement that makes up its brick walls comes lunging out after the fleeting purple psychic in the form of needles; Wedsle racing across the cobblestone path while evading the numerous points emerging out from the brick buildings. Before he can get escape the evacuated part of the iconic street, his retreat is thwarted when witnessing the concrete sidewalk along the sides of the path extend out in the form of stretching pieces reminiscent of strands of clay; these extensions weaving across the streets and latching upon the buildings to sow a thick web of concrete. Now trapped in the thicket of this unknown danger, Weds peers back to witness apendages of cement stretching out towards him from every direction like white tendrils having cornered its prey; the purple psychic frantically looking around for any form of escape. I might not know what exactly this fuckers controlling, but I’ll be damned if I let them corner me like this.

Among peering through the approaching strands of turquoise coated cement is his attention drawn over towards one of the many restaurant standing along the side of this part of Stone street. Within does he find no trace of the turquoise power that runs through the stretches of concrete; perhaps his only means of fleeing from this web of malformed pavement; yet his means of escapes is paved with peril, with numerous strands of wriggling cement threatening to pierce through his flesh. It’ll be close, buts its the only reliable bet I got. Just need to plow through this like like the average work week of a BBC porn star.

Waiting not another moment for the countless strands of molding cement to gang up on him, Wedsle makes the sprint over towards the broken glass door in attempting to escape; the tendrils of flowing cement standing in his way thrusting their finely carved tips at him upon his approach. Though successfully evading the initial few thrusts of the cement needle barrage, that changes when one sneaks their way up on him and plunge itself into his arm; the purple psychic fighting through the piercing pain as he swiftly breaks the pike off in his mad dash. Almost there! Closing in on the evacuated establishment, Weds witnesses the pavement set before the restaurant begin to bubble and boil like a frothing stew; several bars of pavement quickly erupting out from the surface of the sidewalk in effort to impede his escape. Though they’re numerous, these thin lines of cement don’t look sturdy, which is why Wedsle refuses to stop his mad dash towards the inside and braces himself to tackle through.

The violet psychic busts through the thinly strands of concrete as he careens past them and into the emptied out restaurant; Weds swiftly turning back to see the countless other lines of cement after him. Watching the numerous snakes of cement slither closer and closer, his eyes are drawn to the top of the door when noticing a draw chain hanging over the front side of the restaurant; this chain attached to a metal bar stretched out to both ends of the wall. A metal roll up wall!

Realizing what was hanging above him, Wedsle springs up to tightly clutch the draw chain; the pack of cement strands thrusting towards him all at once. Moments before this rapid collection of pavement could reach him, the violet psychic jerks the chain down to let the metal roll up wall tumble down and completely shut the front end of the evacuated restaurant; the rolling wall slamming down onto the ground with a loud thud. Wedsle backs away from the wall as the dozens of cement strands slam against its metal face, putting dents into the barricade with every single hit; the violet psychic preparing to make another brake for it as they seemed dead set on busting their way in. But after wailing against the wall for a few more moments, the banging suddenly stops; Wedsle perplexed over why the collection of cement lines suddenly ceased pounding.

Regardless of the reason however, it at least gives the purple psychic a second to breath; leaning against the side of the nearest table as he tries to figure out the nature of his mysterious foe’s powers. Bones and pavement? What the hell do these two things have in common. They’re both white, hard, and can’t feel a thing; sort of sounds like an old British navel officer feeling dead inside from the horrors of humanity he had witnessed. But it can’t be that simple, can it? There’s gotta be something more; if they had control over one or the other, they wouldn’t have attacked me with just bits of cement. The whole sidewalk and walls would’ve been coming at me then, not just pieces of them. It’s like whoever is behind this is reaching out to some specific substance held in the bones and the concrete, but what’s something that could be found in both of those?

Frustrated over this awkward predicament, Wedsle slams his fist against the top of the table he leans on; some of the silverware falling from their plates and clanging onto the tiled flooring. Even if I figured that out, it ain’t like knowing that gets me anywhere close to who’s behind this attack. Haven’t seen anybody out in that crowd with the same aura as those pieces of cement. Amidst pondering of who could be behind the strings controlling the cement strands, a loud snarl makes him jump away from the table and frantically look around for whatever sort of terrible monstrosity could have let out such a harrowing outcry. His alarm drains away when peering down to realize the source of this growl was come from his stomach. Oh, its just me belly. So busy running for my life, I didn’t notice. What’d these motherfuckers serve?

A grazing look over the table to see what platters were laid out across the restaurant, his jaw drop when finding nothing to eat but fish and seafood; the salt ridden lobster and skinned trout making his stomach churn. Fucking kidding me here!? Of all the joints I had to scramble into, it had to be a damn sea food restaurant! Seriously can’t stand how it tastes in my mouth, feels like chewing on a weird form of soft sandle wood. Don’t even get me started on how puffy and fleshy the crab is! Fucking gross! Spurred away by his personal distaste of the nautical dishes, all that remained among them was the sides and vegetables that came with them’ the plate closest to him holding a bowl of green beans alongside a serving of fish sticks. A standard kids meal these kinds of places usually serve. Eh, close enough. Set on chowing down on the bowl of green beans, Wedsle takes up the closest spoon to scoop up a bunch of them right in his mouth, their soft smooth texture letting him chew on them with ease. Hope that kid’s doing okay. With weird psychic’s like this skulking the place, who knows what other kind of weird shit him and Sat ran into. Better for us to gang up on whoever this cement slinging shit hole is at once, then we can get to work on finding-

Upon the cusp of these worried fueled thoughts does an incredible sharp pain surge across the side of his mouth; one that nearly makes him fumble onto the table as he clutches his cheek. What the fuck!? What!? Why does my feel like something digging through it!? What the hell kind of green beans were those!? Clutching the side of his mouth, the purple psychic suddenly feel something puncturing through his face; gazing into the decorative mirror hanging beside the wall to find tiny threads burrowing out the other side of his cheek. Wedsle opens his mouth wide to peer within, making the terrifying discover of where these dangerous threads had sprouted. The green beans, whatever was in the green beans had sprouted out from under them and wormed their way over to the side of his mouth. The violet psychic agap over these events, he can’t help but let out an agonize scream as these small strands of white wriggle out from the flesh of his cheeks.

The tension tightens as Satette holds back the dagger brandished by the young boy by the clutch of her rose palm guard, the fear in his eyes held behind his faux aggressive glare plain to see. “Kid, just chill for a sec. I get your scared, but I swear I ain’t gonna-” But before she could finish, the boy pulls himself and his weapon away from her and scurries back behind the middle counter; Sat quickly bolting right around to try and stop him from fleeing.

But the moment she peeks behind the counter, Sat is caught off guard when the kid takes lunges at her with his weapon thrusting towards her stomach. With little time to evade his lunging attack, the only thing Sat could do was hold her other hand out against the oncoming knife; the lively psychic holding in her pained screams as the blade pierces through her hand. Rather then pull her hand away from the daggers cold steel, Satette instead clutches past the weapons guard and to its handle; the preteen boy that stabbed her caught off guard as the young woman jerks the knife out of his very grasp.

Left disarmed from his risky assault, the sound controlling child darts across the dirty kitchen to make his escape; Satette pulling the knife out from her hand before she starts to stitch the wound closed with the thorns of her rose. “Just hang on, man, you’re not getting it!” she attempts to plead to the fleeting kid with. But her words fall on deaf ears as the boy races for the back door, mere seconds away from dash outside and getting away. And left with her stabbed hand to tend to, there wouldn’t be another chance to catch up with him once she was done; so she finally just straight up shout: “Do you want to see Wedsle again!?” The mere mention of the violet psychic’s name is enough to stop the kid in the middle of making his exit out the back door, turning his sites back over to the woman he had just plunged a dagger through as Satette further goes on about: “Both of you took down that one guy that could control temperature when you met him. Then while you were sneaking around that food drive, he saved your hide again from that shadowy son of a bitch that was after you.”

Despite recounting to the kid of these event, he still remains apprehensive against the young woman telling him all this; his eyes wandering back and forth between her and the doorway. “I get how scared you are right now. I know as your brain is going a mach 5, you’re wandering if what’s coming out of my mouth is true. Believe me, I’ve been in your same shoes; I get how tough it can be taking people by their word when words don’t mean much. What use are words in a world that doesn’t listen?” Although the lively psychic’s speech does reach to him, the kid remains cautious nonetheless; keeping his hand clutched to the knob as he shuts the back door.

From where she kneels, Satette discovers drops of scarlet dripping down from underneath the young boys oversized coat sleeve and onto the floor; the lively psychic pointing out how: “Your arm’s bleeding; was it from that fall you took earlier? If your still gonna leave, at least let me patch that up before you run away; it’d bother me to think of a homeless kid was sneaking around with his arm bleeding like that. Just look.” Heeding to the young woman’s request, the preteen boy look back to see Sat hold one of her hands out for her. The lively psychic presents the stab wound in the palm of her hand stitched shut with the stem of her rose. “It ain’t perfect, but its holding pretty well. There’s still the petals left, I bet I can use them on you as like a band-aid. Just let me see your arm, please.” Presented with evidence of the skill in her abilities, the kid fully turns back to cautiously approach Satette; the boy pulling his arm out from the sleeve of his oversized coat to show the part where he bleeds. Diagonally strewn across his forearm, crimson seeps out from the child’s limb and trails down his wrist; dropping down to stain the dirt ridden tile floor in his blood. “Okay, not as I was imagining; I can work with this. Just grit your teeth and gimme a second.” requests Sat.

The lively psychic clutches the preteen boy’s arm as she holds the petals of her rose over his gash, gently setting  the plant matter across his cut; the petals blending among the leaking scarlet. Satette infuses her power into the rose petals and commands their leaves to stretch across the flesh of his forearm; the boy biting his lip as he endures them weaving into his skin to patch his cut and absorb the blood. “Almost…” When the kid’s gash was covered by the rose’s petals, Sat withdraws her grasp from his arm and lets him stand back; the young psychic of sound taking a moment to breath as he looks to the evidence of the woman’s patchwork. “There we go. Sorry about the stinging, but that outta stop the bleeding long enough for your arm to heal.”

“I won’t force you to come join us, but I really think you’d be better off back at our safehouse. You’d really like it. It has almost everything; furnished living room, fully stocked kitchen, comfy beds, clean bathrooms. I mean the host is a little wound too tight; but he’s not bad. I-I promise. What do you say, wanna tag along?” The mere mention of these accommodations are enough to make the cry begin to weep; his salty tears mixing with the spots of blood red stained against the tile floor. But even with these promises told, Satette is astonished to see the little guy shake his head no. “What? Seems like a much better deal than roughing it in the streets; Why not?” The child refuses to answer with his reason for denying her invitation and simply continues to sob, rubbing the side of his neck as he looks away from the young woman standing before him. “What’s the matter? Can’t you say what’s wrong?”

Though there are word that escape from his mouth, the dread and terror painted all over his face make it clear for her realize the fact that: “You can’t say anything at all, can you?” The preteen’s eyes open wide as he confirms that to be the reason behind his silence by shaking his head up and down; the lively psychic pondering for a moment before attempting ask: “But I don’t get it. How come you can’t say any…” Its in the middle of questioning him this that she finds the kid eyeing her with a frustrated glare; Sat nervously chuckle as the realization swiftly hits her. “Right, sorry. Stupid of me to even ask. Uh…”

The lively psychic starts to peer along the counters as she wanders around the dirty kitchen, opening every drawer and cabinet to rummage through dusty silverware and pans rusty pans; miffed over finding nothing but broken utensils in the mix. “There’s gotta be something here you can communicate with. A pencil and some paper, a keyboard?.” Satette slams the last drawer she looks in shut when her dig for something the kid could talk to her with leads to nothing, letting out a frustrated sigh as she hops over the counter and returns to the partially renovated dining area. The kid’s site on the other hand is drawn to the pans and utensils Satette had discarded in her look through the cabinets and drawer, wondering how he could uses these abandoned kitchen tools.

Frida hurries across the surface of the penurious districts rooftops, leaping out from the wall of one and into the face of another as she flees from her magnetic foe; the gun woman glancing back to witness Daydra making an impossibly bounding leap across the 10 foot gap. Careening through the air, the magnetic psychic uses his laser pointer to cast forth a negative flow of magnetism out past his pursuit and against the door of a roof vent; all the while he infuses his clothes in a positive force. The opposing ions embedded in both of these strongly attract one another with enough of a pull to send Daydra darting down towards the roof vent at frightening speeds; swiftly passing by and getting right in front of the runaway dimensional psychic.

Leaping out from the surface of the rooftop, the dimensional psychic almost immediately pulls out an uzi from the inside of her jacket to use against the magnetism manipulating man; Daydra ripping the grate out from the vent hole to throw at her. The gunwoman dives back into the surface of the rooftop to evade the flung grate and breaches right back out to unload her uzi clip upon her foe; the magnetic psychic racing across the roof to take cover behind the concrete roof access. Seeing her target take cover, Frida remembers the tactic he used last time and peers back to witness the vent grate careen back from behind her; the gunwoman delving into the roof’s surface to avoid the returning piece of metal.

Surfacing from the rooftop, she suddenly feels herself being forced right out into the open; her magnetism manipulating foe pulling her out from the safety of the 2nd dimension with one hand as he clutches the vent grate with the other. Uprooting the woman out from the roof, Daydra throws her against the wall of the roof access, where his blue hue coats its concrete; the magnetic psychic engulfing the vent grate in a red power before he tosses it out towards her like a discus as his foe slams against the hard wall. The dimensional gunwoman holds her uzi out against the grate as it comes flying fast at her, managing to stop the thin edge of aluminum from going through her chest; Frida however left pinned against the concrete wall and over the roof floor by the intense magnetic pull shared between it and the vent cover. She struggles to keep the edge of the steel grate away, as the intense attracting force between it and the roof prove stronger; the covers thin side inching closer and closer to her breasts with every passing second.

Trapped between the enclosing piece of steel and concrete with her weapon aimed towards the floor, Frida acts fast and fires a burst of bullets out from her uzi; each of these shots merging into the floor and streaking across the rooftop surface. Out of the few bullets does one of them fly right over towards the edge of the roof in just the right ankle she needs, commanding the led to breach out from the side and towards the magnetic man; the bullet piercing straight through her foe’s arm. The unexpected shot from the side catches the master of magnetism off guard and disrupts the focus he puts in keeping the force between the grate and the wall strengthened; Frida taking the opening to push the vent cover off her and drop down to the roof floor.

After looking down to the bullet wound in his arm, Daydra peers back over to witness his dimensional foe slide underneath the door leading down into the building; a gleeful grin stretching across the man’s face as he races over to the roof access’s door. Going for the knob, the magnetic psychic swiftly discovers the wooden door to be locked tight; a dilemma that will take him only a moment to solve. He slaps the face of the rooftop door before he shoots his laser pointer over towards the building across the street; overwhelming the two with opposite magnetic forces. The psychic of magnetism pumps so much protons into the wooden door, that it starts to be violently pulled from its frame; its rusty hinges crumbling apart as its harshly forced towards the building. It takes but a few moments and an abundances of magnetic force to rip the wood door violently out from the frame and send it careening towards the building across the street; the door’s aging wood breaking to pieces as soon as it collides against the complexes brick wall. Daydra can’t help but let out an anticipating giggle as he heads down the building’s stairwell, giddy over the prospect of chasing after the dimensional psychic.

Down from the door and into the spiraling staircase, Frida slither from one set of steps to the other in her hurry down through whatever sort of building she slipped into, knowing that the magnetism manipulator wasn’t too far behind. Dammit, this dipshit can close the distance faster than I can make it. Even if I could put a couple clean caps in this guy, I don’t know how long he’ll would last with that many bullet wounds; fucking freak could bleed to death before I could even get him to talk. Maybe a shot from one of my pistols if I was careful could ground him, but the bastard made damn sure I wasn’t seeing those again anytime soon; I ain’t got nothing else up my sleeve that would help me bag the guy in one piece. Need a new strategy here if I wanna bag this bitch.

Among her descent down the stairwell, the dimensional psychic finally reach the bottom, emerging out from the floor to find herself having broke in the bounds of some sort of factory; forgotten by those that manned its assembly lines and machinery long ago. A glance over to the grimy conveyor belts does she discover hooks and prods adorning the chains held above, the tips of these tools holding a gnarly substance of which stinks to high hell. Across the wall, the dimensional psychic spots a set of stacked cardboard boxes, left soiled and wet by whatever they may hold. From the holes left in these boxes crawl out maggots and flies by the dozens, flying around what was stuck against the assembly line tools. What the hell kind of factory was this?

A look over to the nearest wall, Frida spots a cork board with papers plastered all across its face; some of them torn to pieces while others hang intact. Approaching the board does the she then notice one of them holding a list of employee’s covered by many other slips of paper; the dimensional psychic brushing those papers to peek at the list. The top of this employee list holds a logo holding the stylized picture of a cow in a butchers outfit standing alongside the title: “Beefy butch’s butchery.” Frida swiftly starts putting the pieces together when seeing the facility’s name; the hooks and prods above the belts, the soiled boxes harboring the maggots and flies, it all made sense now. This ain’t a factory, its a meat processing plant. In this very moment that the gun woman suddenly hear the sound of approaching footsteps on the other side of the door behind her; Frida peering around for anywhere to hide among the forgotten factory floor.

A sharp blue hue envelopes the stairway door before it is pried off its hinges and pushed off the frame; Daydra coming out on the other side with his gloved coated in the same shade of blue. He holds an intrigued smirk across his cheeks as he stares across refinements of the meat processing plant, fanning away the fowl smell of rotten meat that haunts the floor’s air. But the foul smell fails to deter him from proceeding through the abandoned factory, gazing across the belts and machinery that once produced countless pounds of beef in all different shapes and sizes. The psychic of magnetism passes right by the bulletin board without so much as a thought, unaware of the woman he prowls for hiding behind its frame; Frida peeking out from the bottom of the board to see him waltzing along the conveyor belt in his search. The dimensional psychic peers to where he strolls towards to the numerous machinery and cages that hang along the ceiling above him; the poles and hinges holding them up left rusted from the years of neglect. The equipment suspended above start to give Frida an idea, one that she starts to enact on as she slides out from behind the cork board and scale up towards the ceiling; slithering behind the manager’s office as Dayrda glances back.

Daydra lets out a small chuckle as he brushes his hand against a machine along the conveyor belt, coating the piece of equipment in a hue of red while aiming his laser pointer over towards the managers office; the side of the square room swiftly enveloped in blue as soon as the laser hits it. The amplified magnetic fields between the two start to up heave the machine off the belt; the screws keeping it rooted helpless but to bend under the overwhelming magnetism pulling the equipment away. A loud sequel echoes across the floor before the hefty piece of metal is ripped off the belt and sent hurdling towards the manager’s office, violently crashing into the square space and effortlessly shattering the entire room off from the wall.

Watching the remains of the office space crumble apart and plummet onto the floor, Daydra looks to what was once the inside of the office, now left as nothing chunks of aged polyester, for any remote sign of the dimensional psychic; yet among the rubble stood not even any sign of her. Clearly disappointed over the lack of anything from this endeavor, the magnetic psychic continues his stroll through the assembly line; the woman he thought was inside the office hiding behind a chunk of it left hanging along the wall. Having narrowly avoided the crashing piece of equipment flung by her foe’s powerful magnetism, Frida hurries her ascent up towards the factory roof, hoping he doesn’t try and throw anything else her way.

“So this guy you work under, Daydra; it sounds like he knows a lot about what psychic powers the people here have. You think he might know something about this Dr. December guy?” wonders Tuesco, looking down to the crook caught under his slab of solid air. “Are you kidding; Daydra’s obsessed when it comes to weirdos with those kinds of fucking freaky powers, he knows about everyone in this city that has them. If there’s anybody around here that knows a damn thing about this December dick you’re looking for, it’ll be him.” “Sounds like a good lead, think you can point me over to where he hangs?” the solid air psychic then request. “I don’t know.” the goon claims, Tuesco letting out a growl as the aura in his hand flows out. “I’m serious, none of us know. The guy doesn’t tell a damn soul where he’s wandering around. He just tells us he’ll be out and we won’t hear from him for days, sometimes weeks. A little torn on that really. On one hand, it’d be nice to get the others off their asses and help with our operations. But on the other, the guy creeps me the fuck out; don’t know why higher ups thought of sticking us with him”

Before Tues could question the pinned crook any further on the matter, a boom loud enough to make the smaller buildings tremble reverberates all across the district; both him and the guy he has trapped under his solidified air looking around for where this tremor came from. “What was that? What did you guys do?” questions Tues. “That wasn’t us, I swear! Where just fentanyl dealers.” “Sounded like it came from that a way. You know what’s back there?” the air psychic asks, pointing towards the west. “J-just a couple of apartment buildings and an abandoned meat factory.” “There any demolition going on there?” “None that I heard of.” “That sounds like a good place to go snoop.”

A destination set, the newly recruited psychic set off over towards the western end of the neighborhood; the goon squirming under the slab of solid air as he shouts: “Where the fuck you going!? Get whatever the hell you got off me!?” “Oh, uh. Don’t sweat it, the block over you should dissolve in like an hour...I think. You’ll be fine, trust me.” Tuesco mentions as he takes the corner away from the hideout. The goon trapped under the slab of solid air stops squirming around as he lets out a defeat sigh, dropping his face onto the grass before going: “Maybe dad was right, the extra cash ain’t worth this shit…I wonder if the Walmart close to the neighborhood is hiring.”

Every footstep the magnetic psychic takes in his search through the meat processing facility echoes all across the entire floor, nearly holding a rhythm alongside the flies that fly around; but he pays neither of these facts any mind as he focuses on uncovering the dimensional psychic. Inside some of the steel barrels, underneath the conveyor belts, even behind a few of the packaging equipment; Daydra scourers over a quarter of the facility for any hint of where his 2-D foe may be cowering, holding little to no luck in his efforts. Just when wondering where else she could have crawled away, his attention is drawn to the lightless ceiling overhead when seeing one of the pieces of machinery hanging overhead lightly swing back and forth around against the chains suspending it. No doubt a by product of him launching a ton of steel into the managers office; but to sway in that particular way? Conspicuous.

Underneath the veil of shadows spread above, Frida slides across the surface of the ceiling; past the steel beams holding the top of the building together and across the numerous broken florescent tube lights to reach a hefty piece of metal equipment hung by set of steel beams screwed into the ceiling. Poking her top half out from the ceiling’s surface, the dimensional psychic inspects the screws keeping the machinery suspended; the years worth of rust covering their metal. It likely wouldn’t take that much to break them off with a couple of well aimed potshots. Hell, not even that much; a rock lobbed just right could probably knock this whole thing down. But how to drop this thing on this creepy cockhead without him noticing? Could use a suppressor on a sniper rifle, have to be pretty far for that; not to mention he’d hear the shot right away, even with a suppressor.

“Intrigued by the age of this place?” she then hears beside her. In her alarm, she jerks her sites over to discover the man of magnetism standing next to her, hanging upside down onto the surface of the; his shoe’s enveloped in a red power which attracts to the spots of blue along the ceiling. “It is rather tragic to see. The inner workings of this production plant now left to rot among the careless neglect; its shining steel now caked in red rust.” But rather than let the magnetic man ramble, Frida surfaces out from the surface of the ceiling to drop back down towards the factory floor from dozens of feet down; Daydra dispelling his negative magnetism coating the ceiling to drop down after her.

When descending to the floor’s cold concrete, Frida shifts into its second dimension of the conveyor belt to save herself from nasty fall; the dimensional psychic slithering across the side of the line in her efforts to make distance. Daydra meanwhile aims his laser pointer to the floor while enveloping his clothing in a positive magnetic force, patching the part of the concrete in the same force to slow his plummet to a soft hover; the man of magnetism weakening the fields until he safely lands. The magnetic psychic looks to the conveyor belt that his dimensional pursuit had delved into, watching with an amused glee as she scurries across its steel side in an effort to gain some distance; a wicked smile painted across this man’s face as he strengthens the positive force held in both the floor and his shoes. With a pushing take off forward, Daydra glides across the factory’s floor with the slick grace of an ice rink skater, swiftly beginning to close the gap between each other.

Once getting back the inches against his pursuit, the magnetic psychic strengthens the polarizing force in both the floor and his shoe to make a bounding leap high in the air; Daydra dissolving the force before aiming his laser pointer to a piece of equipment suspended overhead. He pumps a ton of positive force into the hefty metal equipment before pointing his laser over to the conveyor belt Frida slides across, pumping an opposing field into a part of the belt she approaches. The power in these attracting force emboldens the piece of metal above to break from its hooks and plummet down towards the factory belt like a descending meteor, Frida stopping herself just short as the equipment crashes down to the conveyor belt and break off the piece she was moment away from crossing. With her path forward quiet literally broken off, the dimensional psychic breaches from the steel belt and makes a leap over towards the other side; her jump across the broken gap thwarted as Daydra himself comes hurdling through and knocks her right out of the air.

The man of magnetism hurdles Frida across the meat plant floor and over towards the catwalk, where the dimensional psychic slams against the side; her hand clutching the catwalks railing before she could fall to hang on. Among gathering her sense, she peers out to where she had been tossed and his alarmed to find not a sign of her foe anywhere. Its not until spotting traces of a laser glowing across the air that she follows its light right overhead, discovering the magnetic psychic sticking to the wall above the very catwalk she hangs from; Daydra imbuing his laser with his power to shoot across the plant floor. Frida takes this brief chance to fire her uzi against the magnetic man; the brief flurry of bullets rocketing upwards to the hand he holds, not just rending parts of his palm, but breaking the laser pointer he wields into useless pieces. The magnetic field manipulating man lets out a harrowed shriek as the holes pierced through his hand burns, the remains of his laser pointer raining down past the woman who shot her; his outcry transforming into a vengeful growl before he springs off the wall and away from her.

In watching her magnetic foe flee, Frida catches the glimpse of several objects coated in a red hue careening towards her; a slew of sharp hooks and blades meant for meat cutting equipment hurdling towards her at breakneck speed. Thinking little of it, the dimensional psychic simply lets go of the bent railing to drop down to the floor below and evade being skewered by the storm of cutlery; the gun woman gazing above in her descent to see the catwalk magnetized with an opposing blue force. But her swift relief of dodging the collection of cutlery is short lived as she then feels something constantly stab her back, pieces of plastic and copper darting towards the catwalk above as fast as an upside down hailstorm.

Looking back to the steel walkway does she discover what had erupted against her back; the pieces of plastic and copper that stung her being from the laser pointer that she had broke, covered in a red coloring. Dammit! This prick’s more cunning then I expected, and here I thought he was just being a creepy freak; he must’ve had a lot of time to practice his power if he can think to do stuff like this. Who know’s what other sneaky ass shit he’s capable of pulling off. I can’t let my guard down against this douche, not even for a second; else I’ll wind up joining the other unlucky bastards In the CIA that were KIA’d.

The purple psychic lets out incredibly painful grunts that echo across the evacuated restaurant; the white tendrils pierced through his cheeks wriggling out from the other side of his face. Wedsle opens his mouth wide before plunging his hand in, scooping out the peas rooting their way through his cheeks with but his fingers; rooting out the vegetables and the tendrils breaching them. Once scooping all the tiny peas out from his cheeks, he rubs the part of his face they dug their way through to feel the pin sized holes they had left behind; each of these wounds seeping out blood that drips down from his jaw and onto the tiled floor. Along the floor does his site drift to the mess of peas that were burrowing through his mouth moments ago, Weds’ skin crawl as he watches the tendrils of white piercing them wriggle and flail around; all of them enveloped in a line of turquoise aura. What the fuck is even happening anymore? Bones, cement, now fucking peas!? None of this makes any sense! Just what the hell is this asshole even in control off!?

The violet psychic is left with little time to ponder of this, as he looks along the table beside him to find those same strings of white burrowing out from the fish left on the plate; the tendrils far more abundant and vast than with the peas they prodded before. When Wedsle starts to back away from the emerging swarm of white worms, he accidentally ends up bumping into the side of another table behind him; a glass left at its side tipping off and shattering onto the floor. Upon this slight mistake do the collection of white tendrils come lunging out from the leftover fish and towards the purple psychic; Wedsle bracing to take their stings as they rapidly near. But no such assault comes as he feels nothing stabbing through his flesh; Weds looking back to see the swarm of white worm veering away from him and to the floor. Following where these tendrils stretch, he finds them reaching down over where the glass cup had broken; the strings feeling across the sharp glass shards left scattered across the floor.

Curious if this nothing more than a freak accident, Wedsle swipes a plate left with nothing but bits and scraps of  food from the table beside him and hurdles it across the dinning room like a frisbee; the porcelain plate shattering to pieces as it drops down to the floor. The moment the plate hits the ground do dozens of the white tendrils burst out from the pieces of seafood sitting atop the tables nearby, all of them lunging to the pieces of broken porcelain scattered; the stings slithering across and feeling around the shards as if searching for something. Though he knows little of these mysterious strings of white, Wedsle was beginning to get a grasp over what urks them; and how their master might be trying to sniff him out. You think that listening to the shit I’m stirring around here’ll be enough to gank me? Then lets see how much that works out til you gotta come out to check.

Keeping his mysterious foe’s method of hunting in mind, Wedsle slowly and cautiously starts to tip toe around the several tables set within the dinning hall; the purple psychic careful to make every step he takes as quiet and soft as possible. From the numerous unfinished seafood patter do dozens more tendrils emerge out from the cooked and breaded meals, stretching out from the fish and down off the tables onto the tiled floor. The purple psychic can’t help but watch these countless strings of white wriggle along the floor like the tentacles of a deep sea beast, feeling its surroundings in the hunt for its pray. Beyond these tendrils stands the potential saving grace out from Wedsle’s sticky situation; an alcohol bar stocked with dozens of drinks along its shelves. Not hard to imagine throwing several of those all over the place should trip up whoever’s pulling these semen strings, might draw them out to see what the hell’s going on in here.

Part of a plan being drawn up, the violet psychic resumes to cautiously sneak towards the sprawling mess of wriggling tendrils that slither before him; careful to tip toe over and around every white string that crawls across the floor. His breath short, but silent. His nerves wound, but controlled. His eyes darting around, but remaining vigilant to the strings at his feet. Wedsle remains calm and collected in snooping through the mess of writhing strips of white. He’s then forced to stops dead in his tracks as he feels one of these tendrils slide up from his shoe and along his pants leg; the violet psychic ceasing from even the slightest twitch as the strand of white climbs from his leg and up to his torso, silently holding his breath altogether to keep this lone string from discovering him. Simply waiting for this single tendril to slither off him was not an option as his breath draws short, feeling the urge to refresh his lungs with every passing moment; the purple psychic’s eyes frantically darting around for an escape from this predicament. Thankfully, he spots something that can aid in drawing this gnarly groper off him sitting along the table he stands beside; a pepper shaker left next to an empty plate picked clean of any scraps.

Carefully does Wedsle reach down towards the shaker as the strip of white slithers from his upper torso and over to his shoulder, worming around the sleeve of his blazer and down to the hand he reaches for the pepper with. Every inch of skin the tendril crawls across, Weds freezes like a statue to stop them from recognizing him; his fingers brushing along the pepper shaker’s aluminum rim, just mere centimeters away from his grasp. His breath running short and the slithering tendril reaching towards his hand, the violet psychic opts to flick the shaker with his fingers to knock it over onto the table; the pepper rolling across the table until dropping down from the side. As soon as the lonely pepper shaker hits the floor, the strands of white surrounding him all lunge straight for the spilled condiment; the string enveloped around him swiftly slithering down from his arm and all the way down off his shoe to join the rest. Wedsle quietly takes a much needed breath of fresh air as he swiftly resumes sneaking over to the bar, relieved to have the frisking piece of string off him. Think that compared to all the other promiscuous encounters I’ve had...it might not have been the worst actually. I mean without the overwhelming threat of death looming over, that situation could’ve lead to a helluva fun time worth remembering. Certainly a lot better then taking that online ad for an electric heated dick pump; felt nice at first, but then it started to really burn really fast. I still feel the scorch marks around my shaft.

Past the swarm of white strings, Weds sneaks his way around to the back of the open drinks bar; the hatch separating the sides left open, likely from the bartender scurrying out when shit started hitting the fan. That leaves the dozens of fine alcoholic beverage sitting on the shelves utterly unguarded; an entire smorgasbord of drinks and mixes ranging from the standard beers and whiskey, to the finely kept wines and tequila’s imported from seas abroad. For someone who even lightly fancies themselves sipping down the occasional drink; it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to plunder the unmanned bar of its riches. But rather then partake in the flavor these drinks provide, the purple psychic swipes one of them right off the shelf and lobs the bottle right over the counter like an explosive caber; the glass and the booze it holds spilling as soon as it hits the floor. Like fluttering moths to a kindling flame, several more strands of white breach out from the seafood set around where the glass bottle shatters; the mess of tendrils slithering down to the floor and feeling through the spilled whiskey and shards of glass. Meh, never really was into drinking, honestly. Can’t really get past the bitter taste.

The violet psychic was nowhere near done recklessly spilling the collection of drinks as he swipes up another random bottle filled with tequila and tosses it across the dinning room; the drink hurdling right into the side of a table, knocking over both it and the dishes resting atop it. The overwhelming commotion urges the tendrils near to be drawn towards the site of the spill; their heads stabbing through the table’s wood like spears piercing flesh. Yet Wedsle gives them little time to assess this situation as he plucks another bottle from the bar shelf and throws it towards the wall; the hefty bottle of wine careening into a hanging mirror, its broken shards mixing with those of the bottle and the drink it contained. More of the white strips emerge out from the nearby platters and slither over to the wall, feeling across its painted surface and what was left of the mirror. Again and again does Weds nab another bottle of booze from the shelf to toss across the restaurant, the shards and alcohol spilled spawning dozens more tendrils out from the meals set along the tables; these strands slithering through the dinning area, with some tangling among one another among the chaos.

After throwing out several more bottles of the assorted alcohol, the purple psychic reaches over to the shelves to toss out another, only to feel nothing behind him but the shelf’s polished wood. Wedsle glances back to find the bar shelves baron of any more bottles of booze left to break; the assortment of wines and tequila’s that were housed on the shelves now broken across the entire restaurant, with their contents staining the floor, tables, chairs, walls, even the air with their alcoholic stench. Now with no more ammo to help stir up the scene, the only thing left for Wedsle to do was simply lie and wait for the master of these countless white strings to show themselves. He ducks underneath the bar for cover, patiently hiding way until his mysterious foe decides to take a look inside; scooping of the broken remnants of a dropped beer bottle to use as a weapon.

That outta be enough of a shit storm to get this bastard to come out from hiding; just only a matter of time now. But still, with all these jizz colored tentacles wriggling around, just rushing for them won’t end too well; I’m better off waiting til they wander over to the bar. It’ll be the perfect moment to leap out and jam this broken glass straight in their throat. The smell of alcoholic along with the welling tension fills the restaurant air as Wedsle patiently awaits for the puppeteer behind these white strings to reveal themselves, keeping himself silent and broken beer bottle in his hand clutched tight.

His soundly strategy seems to start coming together as he soon catches the sound of a door opening, slowly peeking out from behind the bar to look towards the kitchen doorway and discovering the identity of his mysterious foe. Enveloped in a thick turquoise aura stood a woman with light brunet locks donning an emerald bomber jacket, gazing throughout the emptied seafood establishment to behold the mess of spilled drinks and knocked over tables that her strings slither over. The turquoise lady struts out from the kitchen and around the tables and chairs left standing through the dinning area, stopping at one of these tables and perusing through the partially eaten selection of fish and lobster left behind in the patrons hurry. Taking the fork left beside the dish, she helps herself to a piece of the platter and picks out the piece of lobster flesh along the end of the plate; the woman in the emerald jacket takes a small bite out of the lobster and shows dissatisfaction over the taste.

Her eyes glow alight when glancing at the center of the table, spotting a selection of condiments and sauces held in a thin steel basket; smacking her lips as she reaches over for one of these condiments. The woman’s fingers slide past the salt and pepper, over the mayonnaise and around the sauce, veering through until coming to the bottle of ketchup sitting behind them. Swiping the ketchup out from the basket, the turquoise lady holds the bottle over the piece of lobster and squirts out a bit of the condiment onto it; the mysterious woman chomping on the rest of the seafood for another taste. The odd blend of savory lobster mixed with the sugary ketchup, a combination of flavor the likes of which make her moan out in satisfaction; all the while Wedsle watches on with perplexed anticipation. A woman of strange tastes, and even stranger powers; an interesting brunet to be sure. Shame its looking like one of us won’t be making out of this establishment with their throats intact.

Wedsle then ducks underneath the bar as the lady in the emerald jacket turns her attention towards the rest of the dinning area; finishing the last of the ketchup covered lobster as she wonders through the restaurant. The first thing to catch her eyes were the abundance of broken large bottles and littering the floor, mixing with the puddles of alcohol and wine staining the patches of carpet beside the booths; the turquoise psychic making the apendages retreat from the shards of glass. The labels left engraved in the broken shards making it clear that these weren’t just regular, store bought beer. With this held in mind, she peers over to the bar station along the side of the establishment; their shelves picked clean of every drop of alcohol. But left on the bar lies a glass of fine grape wine, having only been sipped a few times as there sits plenty more of its violet nectar within the vial; this lonely glass was enough to compel the girl to approach. Underneath the counter, the purple psychic looks to the reflection of a steel keg sitting under the shelves to witness his turquoise foe nearing; the grip he holds the broken beer bottle with tightening as he prepares for his moment to strike.

When coming to the alcoholic bar, the woman takes up the unfinished glass of violet wine and moves it around in her hand to let it swirl around in the cup; the fruity aroma of grape and vanilla wafting from the drink tempt her to partake in its splendor. She lifts the fresh wine to her lips and tilts the glass to pour the drink into her mouth, raising the beverage higher as she guzzles down the sweet purple nectar; every inch the lady lifts her drink showing her neck more until it stands fully exposed. There! Now! Wedsle wastes not another moment with is foe’s guard down and rises out from the cover of the bar brandishing the broken beer bottle, the turquoise woman spitting the wine back out as she left aghast seeing her violet target leap out from the shadows. The purple psychic thrusts the jagged edges of the broken bottle straight towards her exposed neck, splatters of crimson red spilling against the polished wooden counter top.

But what seemed like what should have been checkmate for Wedsle turned into confused terror, his eyes widening as he looks to where the blood had seeped from. Trails of scarlet drip down not from the woman’s throat, but instead from the back of the purple psychic’s own hand he holds the bottle with; shrapnels of jagged glass protruding out from back of his hand. The violet psychic pulls back his bleeding hand as he fumbles away from woman in the emerald bomber jacket, peering to both his palm and his foe’s throat as he sees the results of his thwarted counterattack. While his flesh had been pierced by the bottles glass, the neckline of the woman he attempted to stab was left completely spared of any such punctures; the jagged edges that the end of the broken bottle held smoothed out. But how!? How in the hell did she even…

Once the alarm that overcame turquoise woman disappears, her dissolving shock turns to seriousness as she dumps the last of the grape wine out from the glass in her hand; the violet drink spilling onto the floor with the mixture of other alcohol. Its after the last drop of wine is poured out that the woman envelopes the glass cup in her turquoise power, crackling as its transparent surface morphs in the palm of her hand; Wedsle pulling the beer bottle out from the inside of his hand as he witnesses his foe transform the wine glass before his eyes. The cups spherical bowl shrinks away as it thins itself down to a fine line of glass; its smoothed surface pinching off and stretching to craft a paper thin edge, one that pails in comparison to the crude jagged edges that her foe had attempted to stab her with. What once was nothing but a standard wine cup, meant to only hold beverages and drinks of all sorts, the woman of turquoise power had reformed its frail glass into a finely sharp blade; its acute razor edge held against the violet psychic. “You gotta be fucking kidding!?”

Along the side of the renovating restaurant’s dinning area, Satette crouches down and stares to a can of bright blue paint with a roller sitting right beside it; her eyes looking across the wall to find it almost painted the same color. Maybe he could paint words on the wall to talk? The walls hear look about finished though, and they only got a roller to use; doubt they’d bring a paintbrush. But just as she was stumped over finding another way the kid could communicate with her, a sharp clang echoing across the restaurant jolts her back on her feet and has her frantically look across the dinning hall as the loud banging continue. Satette’s alarm wanes a little as she finds the noise coming from the kitchen and peers beyond the serving window to see the preteen striking pots and pans set along the counter with kitchen utensils; the rusted kitchen tools enveloped in his bright pink power.

The lively psychic darts back into the kitchen to swipe the spoon and spatula out from the kids hands before going: “What the hell are you doing!? You want people to find us in here?” The preteen boy is undeterred as he takes a pan from the counter and another spatula from the nearest drawer, putting his aura into the two as he repeatedly hit the metal patty flipper against the bottom of the rusty pan to make noise. “I don’t even…” Seeing young woman confused over what he was attempting, the kid puts his finger over his lips before he points to the bottom of the pan, wordlessly telling her to quiet down and listen. And though she is still perplexed over what he was doing; Satette nonetheless complies as she leans against the counter and lets him continue banging onto the pan.

The lively psychic ponders what manner of idea this kid has in beating against the rusty iron of the kitchen pan, reminded of a little toddler using spoons on a set of pots like a drummers kit. He can’t just be making a racket for the hell of it; what’s he trying to do? Curiously staring at the little kid as he repeatedly bang the pan, her ears catch something odd in between each it; the clanging beginning to echo different with every strike; contrasting different parts of the clanging to make it sound like somebody attempting to recreate the way a mouth says certain letters. Wedsle said something about this boy being able to control sound. Could be he trying to… “Oh, I get it. You’re changing the sound coming out of the pan to try and talk.” he claims, one that proves on the mark as they kid shakes his head up and down to confirm this. “Brilliant idea. But I don’t think you’re gonna sound out most letter by just banging on a pan. Maybe with something else, like a…”

The kid is puzzled when seeing Sat scuttle over to the open drawer and again scours inside, shoving aside many other discarded utensils and silverware while uttering: “No...Come on,  they have to have something like that...Here!” Upon her exclamation, the boy peers over to watch Satette pull out from the back of the drawer a soldering torch; its flame pipe left coated in a layer of dust and dirt. The young woman unscrews the empty gasoline can from the pipe and blows the dirt and whatever else out from the inside before stating to the kid how: “You can blow in this and turn what comes out into vowels. And uh…” Waltzing over to the sink, Satette rummages through the grimy plates and silverware left abandoned before she reaches right down to pull out a wine glass; its inside still left stained with bits of alcohol. “Use this to make sounds you can’t with the pan. Like this.” The boy is intrigued when watching the woman brush her finger along the rim of the glass, hearing a distinct tinging coming from the cup; the kid shaking his head up and down with a hopeful smile.

Placed across the counter be the pan and spatula, the pipe of the blowtorch, as well as the wine glass; each of them set for the boy to create letters so that he may communicating to Satette. “Alright, got it all set up; now we can get down to business. First up on the table, why’d you try doing me in?” The young woman stands patiently as the child starts uses the makeshift instruments sound out letters, blowing in the pipe, tapping the pan, and rubbing his finger along the rim of the glass as he uses his psychic power to change the tone and volume to sound out words. The particular way he molds the noise echoing out from these instruments lending to form the sounds of letters, leaving Sat to put them together in saying: “H-e-l-d. Held...H-o-s-t. Host. A-g-e…Held host age?…Oh, hostage! You’re were forced to because they’re holding somebody hostage! But who?” Getting the first question out of the way, the sound bending kid returns to the set of kitchenware to continue relaying the sound of just two letters to the lively psychic. “M-e. Me?...They’re holding you hostage? But your standing right here; I don’t get it.”

Annoyed over the lack of understanding, the boy resumes fiddling with the rusted and dirty kitchenware to form more letters for her to hear; Satette herself putting them together to say: “P-s-y-c-h-i-c t-h-r-e-a-t. A psychic put you up to it, huh? Probably one sent by the crime mob. Right?” The preteen confirms her suspicions with nodding agreement, with this answers making the lively psychic seethe; the kid inching away from her as she growls: “Those motherfucking bastards; trying to make a little kid kill somebody. What the psychic using to threaten you?” Returning over to the set of old and rusted kitchen instruments, the boy again uses them in tandum with his power to alter the sound coming out of them; Satette following along in saying: “C-a-l-c-i-u-m. Calcium, like the mineral. B-o-n-e. They put some bone in you, where at? T-h-r-o-a-t. So its inside your throat. That must be why you can’t talk. Well don’t worry, if it’s inside there, I can fish it out. H-O-W? You saw what could do with that rose, didn’t you. I can do the same with animals and people too.”

Hearing this claim from her, the kid wraps his hands around his own throat as he nervously gulps; clearly apprehensive over what Satette is ultimately suggesting. “Hey, I know how scary and painful that sounds. But I won’t do anything else but get that bone out; I swear. You trusted me so far, why not one more time?” Left with little other options to think of, the sound manipulating preteen gives in to her proposal and holds his hands away from his throat; the boy pulling the collar of his coat down as the lively psychic approaches. “Okay…On the count of three.” Sat states, holding her hand out towards the kids neck. “3...2...1...here!”

The psychic of life lightly taps at the child neck to let her natural green aura envelope around it, the skin and muscle holding the throat together unraveling like threads and floating right above the boy’s body; the wind pipe, jugular veins, even the bit of his spine every part of the human throat hovering before Satette. Gotta make this quick. Hold him like this for too long and he could die. Where the hell is that bone? Sat swiftly peruses around the spine, along the side, and within the muscle for any abnormalities among the bones and muscle that make up the inside of the psychic child’s throat, searching for any hint of another psychic aura hidden somewhere around. It wasn’t until she glances to the boy’s vocal cords that she discovers what ails him; a small splinter of bone prodding against the side, coated in a thick turquoise power. There! The young woman is quick to reach past the throat muscles and pluck the troubling splinter right out from the side of the vocal chords; the psychic of life crushing the minuscule piece of calcium between her fingers. Having extracted the small piece of psychic influence out from the kid, Sat immediately starts to put his throat back together; piecing the bone back and weaving the muscle around it to turn the boy’s neck back to normal.

The moment the child’s neck is whole again, he takes in an urgent gasp of air as he falls to his knees; loudly panting as he puts his palm onto his throat. With no immediate problems cropping up from her strange form of surgery, Sat lets out a relieved breath as she dispels her aura from the child’s neck, resting against the kitchen counter as she sighs: “Glad that went better then I expected. With that splinter out of your throat, I imagine you shouldn’t have any problem talking now.” Incredible relief washes over the boy as he rubs and presses his voice box to feels not even a bit of the bone planted in him; the calcium gag muzzling his vocal cords was really gone. “Still, it doesn’t make much sense whoever gagged you to put the shard against your voice box of all places. Wonder why they thought to-” Before pondering any deeper on this, she feels the boy wrap his arms around her waist; Sat peering down to find him hugging her tightly as he weeps against her dress.  A warm smile stretches across the young woman’s cheeks as she pats the weeping childs head; the noise bending kid’s sobbing wails echoing out from the kitchen and across the restaurant as he stands to realize that his voiceless nightmare was now over.

The silence that haunts the meat processing plant is broken by the occasional piece of falling metal, with a sharp clang echoing across the entire factory floor after falling from the ceiling; the harsh clang ringing in his ears as Daydra hovers across the floor. Emboldening the magnetic field in his shoes with a deep blue hue against the blue across the floor, the man of magnetism moves along the factory floor like a roller rink; the psychic doing the occasional spin as he looks around for his surface phasing pursuit. “That laser pointer was a gift from my mom, you know; it cost her nearly 60 dollars. I swear when I find you, I’m going to make you pay for it with your life. Maybe get some more out of whatever organs you have left when I’m done with you. I’d take your guns off too, but the pawn shops around here are cheap as hell.”

Underneath a conveyor belt that her magnetic pursuer hurdles right over, Frida hides on its underside away from him; the dimensional psychic watching her foe careen through the factory none the wiser. Even without his little toy, this asshole’ll still be tricky to take in alive. Without any non lethal weapons on me, figuring out another way to pin him’s gonna be tough. Its while pondering of away snag and bag this man of magnetism that she looks down to the conveyor’s rubber belt she emerges from, feeling its rough and rugged texture against the palm of her hand. Despite its age and looseness from the conveyor belt, the strong rubber proves just as tough and durable as the day the factory had first opened; its reinforced integrity lending her an idea.

Leaping up high above the factory, Daydra magnetizes his glove to the metal steel beam bove from; the high vantage point lending him an eagle eyed view of the entire meat processing floor. In peering across the conveyor belts and the tools attached to them, the magnetic psychic holds a gleeful grin when spotting traces of sky blue aura underneath the stretches of steel; an obvious sign of her presence among the factory floor. To this end can he not help but let out a little chuckle before claiming aloud that: “You’ve had to be on edge for your profession nonstop, but the endless grind has dulled your minds blade.” From the bottom of the beam, the magnetic man swings over to the edge as he keeps his sites locked to the trail of cyan blue glowing across the factory floor; continuing to warn how: “And eventually, be it your firearms or your own mind, every weapon under mountless stress…” In the flash of an instant does Daydra reverse the magnetic pull shared between his gloves and the ceiling support into thick deep red; the man of magnetism launched from the ceiling and down towards the glimmers of sky blue. “Must shatter!” In what was only mere moments, Daydra hurdles down towards the blue light to uncover his pursuit standing among a collection of intersecting conveyor belts; his confident smile waning as he finds the dimensional psychic not showing even a glimpse of astonishment. “I’m not as dull as you think.” defies Frida.

Just a few mere inches stood between the gun woman and her careening foe as the magnetic man’s foot gets snagged in something, completely halting his lunging assault against her; clenched tightly against the top of his foot was a line of thick rubber to stop the bastard right in his tracks. And just when he was beginning to realize the blunder he had dropped in, the belt his foot was snagged in jerks Daydra away to send him flying like a rock to a slingshot; the magnetic man hurdling right where several conveyor lines stood. Hanging from the side of each of these conveyor lines be several rubber belts, pulled of the lines and run across the second dimension of the assembly lines side. The moment the guy careens into the awaiting web of belts, Frida tightly tugs to the one clutched in her hand to make this web come raveling together to ensnare the magnetic psychic in their tough rubber hides; Daydra spinning as the belts envelope his body and catch him suspended in the air.

With her polarizing pursuer snagged in her trap, the dimensional psychic firmly ties the end of belt in her hand onto the side of the closest assembly line; all before approaching the magnetic man weaved in her web of rubber. “Kay; not how I saw this interrogation starting, but I’ve honestly seen weirder. Now that I got you nicely tucked and snugged under these belts, we can start going over what you know about what you know about our man of the hour. I’d loosen those lips if you wanna make this process as painless as possible. Bet a factory like this has to have some pliers meant to pull out bone laying around here; I’d imagine they’d make pulling your teeth as easy as picking apples off an orchard tree.” Yet before she could get out even a single word after this warning, her pinned pursuer lets out a howling guffaw that echoes all across the factory; Frida worryingly puzzled as she gazes upon the magnetic man wriggling around in rubber cocoon.

“The blood not going to your brain or something, is it? The hell’s so funny?” “Amazing! And here I was beginning to be disappointed. But your wit and cunning are as sharp as your aim. Its no wonder you climbed the ranks of the CIA so effectively. Seems my research has yet to fail me.” claims Daydra. “There a point to you bring up your obsessive stalking disorder or what?” “Oh, absolutely. The irony here is simply hilarious. While I may know much about you, it seems you know very little about me.” “I practically got you tied around my little finger; what else do I need to know?” wonders Frida. “Let me demonstrate.”

Shimmering out from between the rubber belts entangling, a deep blue aura glistens across most of Daydra’s clothes; a positive field so potent and intense that it glistens across the entire factory. In watching this force glow from her captive, the dimensional psychic finds the magnet man being pulled skywards and peers up towards the ceiling to discover a strong red power coating the load bearing beam. “Your kidding, right? You really think you can rip yourself out from those belts. Buddy, there industrial grade thick rubber; the stress those lines were made to stand ain’t anywhere near the kind of force you can-” As if to specifically contradict her, the belts wrapped around her ensnared enemy are stretched to their limit and begin to tear apart under the overwhelming magnetic pull. “Oh...I-I guess they are pretty old.”

One by one do the belts keeping Daydra down snap in two against the powerful magnetic pull compelling his clothes and the metal beam above; Frida aims the tip of her uzi right to the magnetic man’s head and demands him to: “Cut that shit out, now! I mean it, I’ll-” “You’ll what, make me the swiss cheese to your ham and pineapple sandwich? Please, I more than know why you’ve refused to put a bullet through my head by now. Without me, your chances of discovering the whereabouts of Dr. December are next to none; why else go through the effort of entrapping me instead of blowing my brains out?” “So what, you don’t think we can’t figure that out ourselves?” “Oh please, I know this isn’t just about me. In the research I’ve conducted over you, I’ve figured you out as someone who takes pride in the work she accomplishes; a woman who recants over leaving a mission unfulfilled. You were trained as an asset; a weapon to be used for the government. The fulfillment in being of use to others, the desire for accomplishing the task at hand; its the only thing keeping you from falling into despair. How do you think the others will look at you coming back to them without even a sliver of hope to offer? What use is a gun that can’t fire?” Daydra’s words prove to cut deep as the gun woman’s aim trembles, with her finger utterly frozen on the trigger; struggling to fire her uzi despite being only inches away from the man of magnetism.

The last belts holding the magnetic psychic down finally succumb to the pressure inflicted by the opposing fields and snaps in two, letting Daydra rocket up towards the ceiling at breakneck speeds; Frida finally snapping out of her hesitation and unloading her uzi clip against her fleeing foe. Her trigger finger is too late however as not one bullet out from the weapon manages to hit her escaping enemy as he rise to a conveyor belt suspended above; the magnetic mobster catching the side as he dulls the polarizing force tugging him up, landing on top of the line as he concluds that it’s: “As I thought.”

Through the serving window does Wedsle leap out from the dinning area and straight into the restaurants kitchen, ducking under the counter to evade the swarm of thrusting white strands that pour out from the other side. The purple psychic quickly rolls aside from the pursuing strings and springs up to the stove top, swiping a pan off the skillet to swing against the lunging strands; the piece of fish on the skillet that was cooking on top flung aside. In but a single sweep, the numerous lines of white that threatened to thrust themselves into him shatter to pieces against the pan’s hard steel; the swarm of broken white tendrils riling back as they flail wildly. A vengeful grin stretches across Weds cheeks as he now holds a way of fighting back against these invasive appendages, taking his charge brandishing the pan as an assload more of them slithering through the window.

Not one out of the white strings stand a chance against the pan’s bottom as the violet psychic comes in swinging at the flock of strands as eagerly as a baseball wielding maniac is to skulls; all of them reduced to powder as Wedsle flails the pan around, cutting their numbers down with every hammering sweep. It isn’t long before the collection of tendrils that gave Wedsle so much trouble in the dinning room was smashed to dust, leaving nothing but powder spread across the kitchen floor; the purple psychic triumphantly chuckles from making quick work of them all before he taunts aloud: “That all the jizz strings you got, bitch; or you fancying pull another out from under the table? You’re call.”

Gazing into the reflection of the boiling pot, Weds finds the turquoise psychic coming out from the corner of the stove with blade of reformed glass in hand, lunging from behind in an attempt to plunge her sharp blade into his back. He quickly flips his pan around to hold it upside down and holds its hot steel to his back; sparks flying as his foe’s glass sword slide across the bottom of the cooking tool. Her plunging assault blocked, the woman in the emerald bomber jacket fumbles across the kitchen before catching herself on the counter, looking back to see her violet foe swipe the metal lid of the pot beside him; Wedsle brandishing the lid as a shield against her glass sword and jests: “Lets see which stands the kitchen heat better; that deformed glass cup, or trashy ass makeup job.”

Holding better against his foe in the emerald jacket, Weds charges at the turquoise psychic with the pot lid held firmly against her; the glass wielding woman leaping onto the top of the counter just as Wedsle tackles into it. She sprints across the kitchen counter top as the violet psychic swings his pan at her, the cooking tool missing the lady as she hurries towards the cutting board; Wedsle chasing after as she reaches her hand for the trout left uncut. As soon as she clutches the piece of fish, she runs her turquoise power all over its body and extracts more strands and the bone from its very flesh; transforming the collection of white material into a set of hooked claws. Witnessing her purple pursuer approach, the lady lashes her new claws against his steel shield; the bone weapons reaching around the pot lid and hooking the handle of the cap. Hooking the pot lids handle with her claws, the woman in the emerald bomber jacket yanks Wedsle shield out from his clutches before she slashes her glass blade down upon him. Her fragil sword breaks into pieces as Wedsle strikes its glass away, scattering across the kitchen counter. Just when it seemed as if the purple psychic had the chance to counterattack, a piercing pain overtakes him when the woman bone claws plunge into the side of his torso. Before the turquoise woman could dig her claws any deeper into him, the purple psychic strikes at her hand and knocks her grasp away from her bone hooks; Wedsle quickly backing away to the other side of the kitchen and away from his bone bending foe the moment she looses her grip.

Leaning back against the counter, the violet psychic grits his teeth as he pulls the hooks out from his side and crushes their frail bone with his bare hands;  the shards of fish bones crumbling from his grasp and to the floor. “No glass, no bone, no nothing: looks like you’re out of options, fish bitch. Unless you got another trick to pull out your ass, you’re as cooked as fresh cut salmon.” boasts Weds. His braggadocios claims only make the turquoise lady smile as she reaches her arm over to the fridge right next to her, hitting the side of the door to open it wide and unveil within the ice box a full stock of assorted fish, vegetables, and sauces in bulk; intended to serve to customers. Realizing the tables he worked hard to turn have suddenly jerk back in his foe’s favor, Wedsle can’t help but pinch the bridge of his nose as he lets out a frustrated sigh; remarking aloud: “I feel like somebody out there’s just fucking with me at this point; I don’t know who, but it’s someone. Like this shit shouldn’t happen every single-” Yet there is little time for the purple to reflect on this particular reoccuring predicament as a thick turquoise power envelopes everything in the fridge, the bright bluish green glow overtaking the kitchen; an all too clear sign for Weds that shit was about to go down.

In the alleyway behind the seafood restaurant, the backdoor leading in busts to piece as Wedsle rams his way out; the wooden chips and pieces of the door scattering across the concrete as the purple psychic bolts out to the cobblestone streets. Out from the doorway he had plowed through does the woman in the emerald bomber jacket leap out after him; the collection of bone matter and glass she gathered taking in the form of a long neck, malformed skull of a dragon across her arm. The turquoise psychic casts her dragon skull after her purple pursuit; its spinal neck uncurling from her arm as the head bares its sharpened fangs. When reaching the end out of the alleyway, Weds swiftly turns the corner moments before the skull of the dragon could bite down upon his flesh; its teeth instead digging into the corner itself.

Racing back to the main road lined with numerous shops and restaurants, Wedsle quickly checks around for so much as a sign of someone else as hurries across the cobblestone walkway, failing to find even a soul left anywhere among this part of the freshly washed armpit of wall street. God dammit! If I knew this bitch didn’t just have bone under her spell, I wouldn’t have cleared the whole fucking street out; there’s barely anybody left out here to siphon pants shitting terror from for dozens of yards. I ain’t got nothing else to fight back with, and I’m getting real damn tired running around; more so than usual, really. How much blood did I loose getting shanked so much, 7 ounces...10? Could’ve been more, hard to tell feeling so lightheaded.

Wedsle fleeting hurry through the shopping district comes to a harsh end when the fangs of the dragon skull bite at the back of his leg, leaving him to fumble onto the cobblestone street. After rolling across the bumpy stone, the violet psychic peeks back to see the nasty cut left behind and hisses; Weds barely even able to so much as move it from the condition it had been left in. Left with his leg torn into, Wedsle can only brace himself as the malformed dragon skull is thrust at him once more; its teeth priming to chomp down on him with just a single bite.

The fangs of the skull would not bore into the purple psychic’s chops however; its neckline strangled and its jaw forced shut by thick slivers of flesh and plant matter. Just as she’s perplexed of what holds her dragon at bay, the turquoise psychic along with it are flung back by the meat and are sent hurdling across the shopping district; the lady in the emerald jacket using her dragon arm to reach at a nearby street light to stop herself from careening onto the street.

When catching herself from taking a harsh fall and landing back onto her feet, the woman wielding the dragon skull peers out from where she had been chucked to witness a newcomer standing in front of her purple pursuit. Across this interloper’s arms were masses of pulsating thick meat and vegetables spliced together to create sleeves that come together from strands of muscle to form bone shard flesh cestus; all enveloped in the young womans potent natural green aura that flares in the young woman eyes as she stares ready to rumble. “Yearitle, is it? You have some pretty nasty eggs down in your overies if your having a little orphan kid do your dirty work; sticking that bone shard in his neck so he couldn’t even plead for help. You can collect all the calcium you want, bitch; none of its gonna stop me from scrambling your fucking eggs into an omelet!” swears Satette, an intense green power flaring in her eyes as she stares her foe down.

Sparks light across the factory floor as they fly from every hook, every guillotine, and every mallet Daydra uproots from the assembly line to cast towards the fleeing dimensional psychic; Frida phasing into and sliding across conveyor belts whilst evading the pieces of equipment flung her way. Flung at such terrible speeds, the miscellaneous equipment lodges itself into the steel making up the assembly line with enough of a punch to cause them collapse; yet the gun woman’s agility proves better as she leaps out from the plummeting belt and dive right into the other. Frida’s efforts to retreat start to pay off as she nears the end of the factory; the wide wall standing before littered with cracks and fractures that the dimensional psychic could easily slip through. “Giving up on the hunt so easily now that you’ve become the prey? Truly irony non more fitting for the cast out of the CIA.” Though this comment proving brief, it’s ultimately is the final straw Frida can take as she leaps out from the belt’s 2nd dimension; the wall merging psychic aiming her firearms against her magnetic foe as she careens through the air.

Just when the gun woman is tempted to pull the trigger and unleash lead on this dipshit, a storm of metal shards and meathooks hurdle out from nowhere to slash across her body; several of them sticking themselves into her back rather then zipping by. This unexpected barrage of slashing metal has her plummet down towards the factory floor. What!? But how!? When did he- Glancing to her backside does Frida find the source of this surprise assault, that being pieces of the laser pointer left stuck to her back; their deep blue hue responding to the red field enveloping the mess of metal hooks. That sneaky motherfucker still had the laser pointer pieces magnetized; they were just so weak, I didn’t notice they were still on me.

Struck down by the surprise barrage of metal, Frida plummets towards the factory floor and hurdling to a pile of cardboard boxes; the stacks let out a sickening squelch as the wet cardboard breaks to let burst a mess of spoiled meat products. Ribs, steaks, beef, hamburger and hot dogs spill out from the boxes to splatter onto the cold, dusty pavement floor; the dimensional psychic sliding down from the pile of wet cardboard as a rank stench permeates the stale processing plant’s air. The dimensional psychic slowly pries herself from the meat juice coated floor as she resists the urge to vomit, swiping away the bits of rotten food that had fallen on top of her; all before she tries to reach over to the pieces of metal and hooks still impaled in her back.

But before she could so much as attempt to worm out a single one of these shards, the man of magnetism lands onto the catwalk above her; a sharp piece of cutlery pulled from the conveyor belt in his hand. “First your decommission, now your decapitation; how far the government’s dog has fallen!” boasts Daydra, coating the butchering blade in a thick red before hurdling it after the downed dimensional psychic. The one sided meat cutter descending towards her at incredible speeds, there’s little time for Frida to escape into the floor; Frida holding her uzi’s out in hopes of softening the incoming blow.

A sharp clang echoes across the factory floor, a loud banging slice that an employee would hear from the bovine guillotine line in the facilities better days; the familiar ringing lies however. Frida lowers her uzi’s as she looks on perplexed to what transpires, seeing the cutting blade left held in the middle of the air; not hovering, but seemed like it was stuck on something invisible standing between it and Frida. Daydra is left just as shockingly puzzled looking down to his magnetized blade left plunged into what seemed like nothing but thin air. “I...I don’t understand; the cutter was magnetized to the hooks in your back. Wh-what did it get caught on?” “Frida!” they both then hear shouted overhead.

Peering directly above where the sharp cutlery was embedded, the two of them discover a middle aged man coated in cerulean blue standing in the middle of the air; Tuesco looking down to the dimensional psychic and worrying: “You alright there?” “Tuesco!?” Frida can’t help but question. “Here in just the nick of ti-” he tries to boast. But in the middle of bragging, he swiftly falls short as he winds up slipping off the top of his invisible pillar and tumbles down onto the concrete floor; a pained hiss seeping through his teeth as he pries himself off the pavement and assures that: “I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“What the hell are you doing here!?” the dimensional psychic first asks him. “Well, after I got down from the roof you left me on, I thought about setting off to do a little of my own investigating; and the trail lead me right on over to the source of this neighborhood’s drug problem. After feeling such hefty guilt weighing on their backs, they were kind enough to tell me who was running the whole show.” “You...did all that on your own?” “Of course I did. I might’ve not been a beat cop, but that didn’t stop me on a good number of investigations.”

“How fascinating.” the magnetic man states, creeping out from behind Tues and giving him a good scare. “Standing in the air like that, you must’ve made a pillar to stop the cutter dead in its tracks. But of what?” “I’m guessing you gotta to be Daydra then?” “Hm? Oh, yeah. Just-just gimme a second.” the magnetic psychic tells him, wondering over to the invisible pillar to feel its surface. “So smoothly cut, so toughly sturdy, yet invisible to the naked eye. But what…what is it made of?” Both the air solidifying psychic and Frida are left creeped out watching their foe intensely study the column that Tuesco had fallen from; him looking over to the dimensional psychic with questioning confusion, Frida simply shrugging for him as she was just as lost. “You…” the man then turns back with, a curiously wide stare in his eyes. Leaping away from the pillar does Daydra clutches Tuesco by his shoulders and rapidly shakes him while he demands that: “You have to tell me! Tell me what you’ve done to conjure this pillar! I must know!” “Holy crap!? What’s this guy’s damage!?”

Freaked out by his foe’s overzealous nature, Tuesco is quick to push the magnetic man off him before putting his hand up between them; Daydra watching intently as Tues’ cerulean blue aura swiftly slithers through the air. The magnetic man is in intrigued awe as he sees the air around them be sucked into the aura like a powerful vacuum; the cerulean power molding into a giant square slab. The moment the chunk of solid air was formed, the psychic who made it tackles the face to send it tumbling down upon their magnetic menace; Daydra too caught up in his fascinating discovery to get out of the way in time. The moment the thick board of air falls onto their foe, Tuesco darts over to the dimensional psychic and sweeps her off the floor and onto her feet; both running as fast as they could away from the magnetic man.

Despite being trapped underneath the slabs underestimated weight, Daydra can’t help but let out a giddy little laugh; similar to a kid coming down the stairs on Christmas and anticipating for what toys could be underneath. “Incredible! Trapping the surrounding air in a vacuum to transform its compounds into solid matter; I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Raising his palm up in the air, he envelopes his leather glove in a thick layer of blue, drawn to the deep red that coats the catwalk he stood above earlier; their magnetic pull prying Daydra out from underneath the hefty chunk of solid air. It wasn’t long before the man of magnetism was was freed from the slab’s crushing weight, hanging onto the bottom of the catwalk by his glove as he can’t stop chuckling. “A power like that in capable hands could be a true force to be reckoned with. I must know; I must know what he’s capable of!”

“Alright. You sure your okay?” Tuesco asks the dimensional psychic. “Stopping asking and just pull it out.” demands Frida. Exposing her back for him, Frida bites down on the bottom of her lip as Tues pulls out the hooks and shards embedded into her to keep herself from screaming; all while hiding in the janitors closet. He lets out a relieved sigh as he discards the last piece of metal, claiming that: “I think that’s the last of them. How are you holding up?” “I’ll be alright; they didn’t go that deep. But we’ll worry about that later; right now, I need a way to bag and tag this bastard so we can interrogate him.” “Can’t you just shoot him or something?” “I only got lethal weapons on me; almost everything I have’ll blow a hole through this dick’s body.” “That whole arsenal and you seriously don’t got a tranquilizer gun in there!?” questions Tuesco. “I didn’t think I needed one in our cut throat predicament; but I might not now that your here.” claims Frida. “Huh?” “That column you stood on practically stopped that cutter right in its tracks; pinned down that piece of shit too, because he couldn’t magnetize the solid air you made. I think we can catch him if we play our cards just right here; the moment he slips up, stuff the son of a bitch in a box. Think you can do that, Tues?” “I...I don’t know.” “What’re you talking about?”

“I was up here thinking that it’d be just standard procedure like up in midtown. But this, this is way worse then I could’ve imagined. What I saw while I was looking for clues, I don’t think I could forget. You were right about me, I’m way out of my depth here. I’m nothing like you.” “You’re right. You’re not like me. I can hit a shot 12 feet off the broadside of boulevard, you can’t. I’ve spent years learning my way around an assortment of weapons, you haven’t. I’ve been to places around the world and gained new experiences, you didn’t. But you know what else? I didn’t investigate or follow clues to get here, you did. I wasn’t bothering going after the whole shebang putting this place down, you have. And I can’t catching this freaky fuckhead without killing him, but you can.”

The gun woman’s words start to perk the psychic of solid air out from his slump as Frida continues on how: “We both have our own strengths and weaknesses to work with. Importance aside, both of our jobs had us on teams to cover those weaknesses for us, all so we could use our strength to the fullest.” “Yeah...Right…I think get what your saying. You cover for my weakness, so I can use my strength and catch our perp.” “Exactly. I got a plan up cooking up here that could use some of that strength; but you need to follow every word that comes out of my mouth. I’m your acting chief today, got it!” “Yes ma’am!” Tuesco salutes. “Good to hear. Now, lets bag and tag this polarizing piece of shit.”

The noise of squelching flesh and clacking bones could be heard echoing across the cobblestone path as Satette  brawls against Yearitle through the briefly baron armpit of Wall street; the turquoise woman thrusting the stretch of her dragon skull arm after the lively psychic. When the heads sharp fangs attempt to bite down upon her, Sat takes hold of the skull by its jaws to keep its mouth from clamping down; the muscles held in her meat gauntlets tensing as she pries open the dragon’s jaw. Its thanks to the extra muscle in her gauntlets that she shatters the teeth of the beast with nothing but her clutches; the calcium controlling psychic reeling the head of her broken dragon skull away.

While reforming the remnants of her busted dragon head, the woman in the emerald bomber jacket jabs her fingers into the concrete sidewalk; dragging her nails across the pavement to unleash a shockwave of white claws that rend through the streets. Satette slaps her muscular gauntlets against the pavement as she swiftly stretches them out to let her leap over the rending wave of slashing white, careening through the air as she transforms her mass of meat and plant matter into an arm brandishing an impaling horn. The lively psychic plummeting down towards her, Yearitle molds the collection of bones she holds into a razor sharp scythe; the bone brandishing woman evading the thrusting horn to slash at the arm which holds it. In but one swift stroke, the calcium controlling psychic cuts through the muscular flesh Sat wields, with pieces of its flesh splattering against the building beside them.

Though the flesh of her weapon had been slashed clean through, Satette rolls with the punches and commands the piece of meat she wields to slither along the neck of her foe’s weapon; the strands of muscles coiling around the sliver of bone marrow that was its handle. The neck of the bone blade fails to stand up to the muscles crushing grasp and shatters to pieces, sparing head of the weapon itself which drops down to its maker. Yearitle leaps up to take the severed head of the scythe and reforms the blade into a forked pike, thrusting its ends down to plunge right into Satette’s chest. The splintered bone impales into her dress, plunging into the soft flesh of her foe with ease; the calcium controlling psychic giving a satisfied grin upon thinking this to be checkmate. This doesn’t prove to be as much of a finishing move as Yearitle hoped for, as the bone impaled into her isn’t enough to stop Satette from slugging the turquoise woman right in the mouth with a beefy blow; the emerald jacket wearing woman fumbling across the sidewalk.

When rising back from her fall, the turquoise psychic peers back to the woman she staked to witness Satatte pull the splintered bone straight out from her midsection; parts of Sats dress ripping off to show the front of her chest completely covered in a thick layer of fleshy tissue. “Meat vest!” the lively psychic enthusiastically exclaims. But Sat’s enthusiasm wavers when finding her foe looking to her with a disgusted glare; prompting her to go: “Don’t look at me like that. It’s a neat idea.” To this can Yearitle only shake her head to her, as if silently telling her that “It isn’t, it really isn’t.” “Oh, whatever.” Satette simply shrugs off, putting her hand over the meat over her midsection. Out from underneath her torn dress does she pull out the beefy muscle covering her front, transforming them into a cluster of arms that stretch out after her calcium controlling foe.

Shaking away his wounded stupor, Wedsle awakens from his daze to find himself slumped against the steel of a street lamp; his crimson trailing away from the middle of the road like somebody dragged him over. He then finds exactly who had pulled him aside when peering over to discover the sound controlling kid looking down upon him with a mixture of worry and fright; the boy’s terror contrasting with the purple psychic’s soft smile he wears gazing up to him and greeting him with: “Hey kid; glad to see you again. Sorry it took us a little while to come get you, a lot of shit we had to wade through these past few weeks. And things look like they don’t seem to be getting any better. Figure we come and nab you before it all goes into the fan at terminal speeds and we all wind up with a lot of it right in our mouths. You get what I’m saying here?”

But rather than verbally answer Weds, the kid takes his hand out from behind to present a slab of fresh muscle and meat, all while enveloped in Satette’s signature natural green aura. Sort of looked like a piece of meat stew you’d hold in your hand and chow down like a piece of pizza. “Oh...Guessing that means you met with Sat, huh? Told you to give me that so I can be patched up? Happy you got to meet her. Bit a screw or two loose up there, but she’s hella nice. Headstrong and determined girl. You know if I didn’t wind up meeting her, I don’t think I would’ve had the guts to start all this shi-” Yet before another word could so much as escape from the violet psychic, the kid throws the chunk of meaty muscle right in his face with comical slap; Wedsle grunting from the chunky beef hitting him right in the nose before he goes: “Kid, what the hell!? You can’t just slap a man with your meat like that! You’re only what, like 11! I’m not-”

Again is the purple psychic’s speech cut short when slab of meaty muscle thrown upon him starts to unravel into dozens of strings that slither across his body; Weds himself shuttering as these countless strands of flesh worm their way into his body to heal up his numerous gashes, effectively replacing the tissue lost in a matter of moments. Once these strips of of meaty muscle were done patching Weds’ wounds, the cuts and slashes left across his body were sown shut, covered in spots of fleshy orange. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”

The purple psychic pulls himself off the cobblestone road to then feel the side of his blazer being tugged back, glancing over to see the sound controlling kid trying to pull him away. “What, no; Sat went the other way. Ain’t no way in hell were letting her have all the fun.” Opposed to Wedsle’s eagerness to return to the fray, the boy on the other hand is hesitant on even approaching the direction the fight went and tempts to flee as he inches away. “Kid, you shouldn’t run away from your problems; shit’s like some persistent predator hunting for its prey, they only gonna sniff you out sooner or later. You wanna stop’em, do what any real hood beat cop would do when feeling slightly threatened and react with ridiculously overblown violence; but I’d suggest a little more rational and patients then what those oinkers would put into it. Nah, down in the depths of this urban jungle, only way this is ending is with blood on the pavement; you wanting that to be your blood?” Wedsle’s words of encouragement prove enough to get the kid to cease his tempting retreat and look back to see the violet psychic offering his hand, the shaken confidence held in the child beginning to return as he reaches for the awaiting palm.

Plunging her fingers into the nearest wall, the woman in the emerald jacket pulls out the concrete held in between the bricks and gathers the calcium within; all the while Satette forms the meat she wields into a reaching hand after her. Transforming her collection of calcium, Yearitle slashes at her foe’s stretch of flesh with a set of deathly claws that tear through the arm like butter. And reaching down with her other hand, the bone bending psychic infuses her turquoise aura into the sidewalk to reform its surface into a barrage of lunging spears she casts at her open foe. These pikes would fail to reach their target however, as the stretch of muscle and meat they streak past would lunge out in tendrils and entangle around their necks; the muscles swiftly engulfing the meager bones in but seconds. Similar to a komodo dragon swallowing its prey, bones and all.

Refusing to back down, Yearitle extracts the calcium from the parts of her foe’s fleshy weapon she cut to pieces and incorporates it into what bone matter she wields; the turquiose psychic witnessing the fleshy weapon of her foe incorporate the calcium spear into its body as it rushes in on the offense. Against the incoming mess of meat does the bone bending bitch form the calcium she wields into a sturdy shield to block Satette’s mass of muscle; Yearitle holding her self firm as she pushes the beef back. Sat’s stretch of meat parts open and like the jaws of a mouth, baring the parts of broken spear as the teeth as she commands the head to bite down upon the edges of her femur reforming foe’s defenses; the fangs of the maw chomping down with a loud crunch. Yearitle struggles to move underneath the power of her meat manipulating foe’s mouth like grasp; her defense proving not as calcium enriched as she thought as the shield she hastily made start to fracture under the pressure of the lively psychic’s jaws. Peering to her feet, the bone bending psychic finds the concrete she stands on stripped of what calcium she could wield; her side showing to be just as deficient in her element as the brick wall had been picked dry.

Just when it seemed that Satette had this child exploiting piece of shit pinned, her situation sours as her mass of muscle begins being torn asunder by sharp slivers of white calcium that spin from underneath like a blender; Satette feeling these whirling blades tugging at her cobbled together collection of flesh. Threatened to be pulled into this blender of sharp bone claws, the lively young woman unravels the muscle hugging her arm to let the rest of it be swallowed by the whirlwind of white; fumbling to the floor as the mass of bone and flesh explode. Getting herself off the cobblestone road, Satette finds the street covered in bits of flesh and bone resulting from the meaty eruption; some splattered on the walls, others on the windows; even some strands left dangling on top a couple of street lights. Shit, street cleaners got one helluva day ahead of them. I’d demand a pay raise.

Among the mess of meat that cakes that part of the shopping distract, the lively psychic spots her calcium controlling enemy, bare of any bone to fight back with, attempting to make a break for it; Yearitle sprinting down the cobblestone path to take the corner at the end. Satatte doesn’t hesitate to follow after her foe, determined to make due of her promise to scramble her ovaries into a well balanced breakfast. But making the most important meal of the day is unfortunately put on hold as she follows her foe around the corner, only to discover on the other side a crowd packed full of tourists and shoppers alike; the lively psychic failing to make out the bone bending bitch anywhere among them.

Infusing the floor underneath him and the shoes with the same red magnetism, Daydra skates across the factory ground as smooth and gracefully as a trained roller bladder across the surface of a skating track; glancing across the lengths of the conveyor belts he darts beside in searching for his pair of prey. It isn’t long however before one of them leaps out from the cover of darkness to attempt an assault, Tuesco springing out from behind one of the belts ahead as he forms a sledgehammer from the air; the man of magnetism strengthening the power of the magnetic field shared between his shoes and the floor to make a bounding jump out of his way. When right above of the air solidifying psychic, Daydra shifts the hue of his shoes to a sharp blue to make a swiftly descent down towards his foe; Tuesco manifesting a shield overhead before the magnetic man could stomp down upon him.

Despite blocking his foe’s lethal crash down, Tuesco struggles to keep the magnetic man up against him as the fields Daydra empowers continue to pull towards one another. The strength the psychic of air is pinned comparable to that of a hydraulic press, slowly crushing him under its increasing weight. “I wager an old spud like you hasn’t been a psychic for very long, have you? The way you utilize your power is passable, but it’s nowhere near refined enough; forming from the air only simple shapes and tools. Our age may lie otherwise, but the experience between us is night and day. How I wish to see time and practice sharpen your abilities to a fine polished sheen; but alas, there’s little room for such indulgences in my line of work.” the magnetic man boasts. “That’s a real shame.” goes Tuesco. “Hm?” “You’re pretty much right on one thing, I’m still pretty new to all these psychic shenanigans. Barely know anything about holding my own in this kind of fight. But that don’t really matter one bit when an old dog like me’s still got some reliable tricks.” “Really? And those would be?”

Right then does the man of magnetism suddenly feel a hefty weight brought down upon him from overhead, a burden so heavy and sudden that it brings Daydra to his knee’s; it felt as if an intense girth had clamp down against his body. “The element of surprise.” Looking up to what had fallen on top of him, the magnetic psychic is baffled to discover his enemy’s cerulean blue aura holding the form of a thick flat slab attached to a rod it slid down from; all of which conjured from Tuesco’s very fingers that hold his shield up. Try as the man of magnetism might to push the piece of solid air off him, its tremendous weight pins him down right where he stands; Daydra failing to budge even an inch out from this as he holds up the hefty chunk with but his skinny arms. “You idiot! Don’t you realize this added weight will only hasten your crushing demise! Fighting against it and my magnetic force will only assure your death long before mine!” “That a bet your willing to take, buddy.” Its in really thinking about his predicament for a moment that it starts become worse off for him. The magnetization he holds crushing his foe beneath him keeping him pinned down underneath the heft of this slab, his skinnier frame contrasting with the man under him; not to mention the woman he had been pursuing before still lurking around. Both the irony and the odds were plain for Daydra to see.

Tuesco’s burden starts to lessen as the magnetic force underneath his feet disappear and lighten the load he holds overhead, taking the moment to catch his breath as he lifts up his solid air and his foe that air clamps down on. This moment of reprise however is less than brief though, as his site is drawn back up to the magnetic psychic above him, witnessing his foe infuse his shirt and pants in a red hue; Tuesco preparing for anything as the red enveloping his foe above swiftly thickens.

Both shirt and pants coated in the same magnetic forces, the two articles of clothing explode in a repulsing blast that knocks away all that was near; the wave pushing the slab of solid air off of Daydra’s back and lending him the chance to slip out. Once springing out from the air solidifying psychic’s clamping trap, the striped magnetic man leaps over to one of the conveyor belts close by and clutches onto its side, rapidly infusing his gloves and the steel of the belt in the same thick blue hue. The moment Daydra lets go of the belt, he’s sent hurdling back toward the man who moments ago had pinned him, keeping his legs straight as he’s drives his feet right into his foe’s stomach; the overwhelming blow knocks Tuesco right up into a set of stairs leading up to the catwalk.

Before the magnetic man could lunge in to try and finish Tuesco, a hot piece of led pierces right into Daydra’s ankle and brings him to his knee’s; the polarizing psychic peering to where the bullet was fired to discover the gunwoman he had been chasing before positioned in a wall along the side of the processing plant, aiming the end of her sniper rifle at him. “Hands up, or the next one goes through your head.” she warns. “Oh, please; don’t tell me this was your grand counterattack. Sick your lackey on me long enough to get a good sniping position over me? I honestly expected better.” Daydra doubts as he sticks his gloved hands up. “Better or not, I got you in my sights either way. So keep those hands where I can see them!” “My hands? As you wish.” the magnetic man complies with a sly grin.

But in mere moments before the dimensional psychic could so much as flinch, Daydra encloses his gloves in a bright red hue before he’s suddenly lifted towards the ceiling above; the man of magnetism hurdling straight up to the roof beams coated in a powerful blue force. “Dammit!” curses Frida. When she frantically aims her rifle up after her rising foe before pulling the trigger, the sniper bullet that she shoots just misses the man by a couple of inches; her target flying up to behind a suspend piece of hefty equipment for cover.

From the ceiling beam onto the back of the heavy machine, Daydra envelopes it in a thick red power to have be pulled back towards the metal beam he was on a second ago; the chains suspending it clanking around as its lifted to the ceiling. The moment the giant metal part touches the ceiling beam, the magnetic field engulfing the equipment swiftly shifts from a thick red to a sharp blue; the instant switch in polarization launching the giant conveyor belt attachment from the roof and down towards the dimensional psychic like a plummeting meteor. Frida slips right out from the wall before the giant piece of metal comes at her, plummeting back down towards the factory floor as the iron equipment crashes into the wall she came from.

Among falling towards the ground is Frida left ultimately vulnerable as she sees the polarizing psychic launching himself right at her with a sharp piece of machine cutlery in his grasp; a maniacal smile plastered across his face as he aims to plunge the blade into her. Yet Frida can’t help but crack a confident smile in this moment of checkmate against; her assuring smile throwing him off. When just several inches away from each other is the magnetic man’s careening assault thwarted as Daydra suddenly smacks into the very air between them, as if he had collided head first into an invisible solid wall. Atop the catwalk over them, Tuesco stands looking down to them as he holds onto the invisible column that he had finished creating with his cerulean blue power. “Got em!” Almost instantly upon impact is Daydra rendered unconscious from the head on blow to his head, left only to fumble down towards the floor; the magnetic man landing harshly on top of a stack of soiled boxed meat with a squelchy thud.

Descending down to the ground herself, Frida shifts into the floor like a training Olympic diver to soften her landing before quickly surfacing out; the dimensional psychic watching as her air solidifying partner slides down from the pillar he stopped their foe with. “Didn’t do too bad for a rookie there.” she complements. “Honestly, I don’t think I would’ve come up with baiting him the way you did. Purposely leaving yourself open to making him run head first into my pillar. I didn’t think it’d work.” “Relax, you did fine. Really pulled through on your end.” “You think so?” “Course.”

“Not that I ain’t glad your thanking me, but I feel like I should be saying sorry instead.” Tuesco claims. “For what?” “You were right before, I’m way too out of my depth here. Things out here don’t work like they do when I was on the force; but went ahead acting like they did. It wasn’t until I went around doing a little digging how severe of a problem the mob truly is. After when seeing what could happen to many other if they’re not stopped, no wonder you left me on that roof.” “Yeah, in hindsight; just stranding you up there might’ve been a little harsh. But it sound’s like its getting through your head. We’re not just doing going against the mob as a power grab; we’re fighting for this city and people that live in it. Glad you’re finally starting to see that.” “Thank you, ma’am.”

Their touching moment is put on hold when they look back over to the man they had just knocked out, watching the boxes of meat he landed into collapse and bury him. “Do you think he’s dead?” Tuesco wonders. Underneath the pile of smelly cardboard boxes can box of them hear a pained moan from underneath, Frida assuring how: “Nah, he’s fine.”

Gazing into the depths among one of Stone streets busy shopping districts, the lively psychic is utterly frustrated from having lost the calcium controlling psychic within the depths of the ignorant and clueless crowd; a restless growl seeping out from between her teeth as she continues to peer through. Can’t find a trace of that boney bitch anywhere; no sign, no aura, nothing. If she gets away now, I don’t doubt she’ll rat out how we got the kid with us and try and sniff us out through him. Dammit! Don’t got much other option on me. Gonna have to dive after her.

“Don’t go in there!” she then suddenly hears Wedsle warn, causing her stop from taking another step and look around. “Weds? That you? I ain’t seeing ya; where are you?” “Talking to ya through the kids powers; everything we say’ll be funneled only between eachother.” “Like what, a sort of psychic rendition of two cans on a string thing?” “Pretty much? You ever wonder how that works, anyway? I read somewhere that it’s due to vibrations, but it has to be more than-” “Why you telling me to stop? She’ll get away.” “Bitch ain’t planning on it. I can definitely see her waiting in the crowd; trying to bait you into a deathtrap.” “Wait, you know where she is!?” “Yeah, but being careful through here’s key if you’re aiming to nail it to her where the sun don’t shine. You need to follow my words right down to the fucking letter, got that?” “Right, just lead the way.” Satette complies, going right on into the awaiting crowd of shoppers.

Within the hectic crowd does the calcium controlling psychic hobble deeper among the tourists, with some of the passerby’s left concerned by her bruises; some even outright asking her if she was alright. Yearitle nonetheless remains silent and patient among them as she lays waiting for her foe to step into the mob; the moment that the life bending woman dives into this crowd will be the time to turn this mob into a deathtrap. Once deep enough into the fray, she’ll be helpless as the bones in everyone around here will be plunged into her flesh, every femur, every wishbone, and every single rib skewering her alive. When that bitch is left as nothing but the centerpiece of an entire bone bramble, that purple prick and that kid’ll be next.

Her patient plan to lure the lively psychic into the depths of the touring mob takes a rather disastrous turn as the turquoise psychic is suddenly struck through her chest from behind by an impaling pike made from meat and bone; the grotesqueness weapon infused in Satette’s natural green power. Mortally wounded by the unexpected appendage of flesh, Yearitle peers back to discover the spikes origin coming from the body of a random tourist behind her; their flesh swirling out to plunge their bones into her. A look past this tourist does she find the man beside them with his body morphed to thrust his own flesh into the other. Past that guy can the same be said for the woman next to him, with a dozen other forming a line of impaling tendrils and bones that stretch all around her; all of them enveloped in the lively woman’s power. In her dreading fright, she question how in the hell her life controlling enemy had managed to sniff her out among this packed crowd of people; her gaze drawn upwards when noticing a tint of magenta pink wafting through the air. When recognizing this discoloration, she follows its trail to the top of the buildings overhead and finds her guess over its source to be right; the kid she had stuck under her command funneling the voice of the purple psychic she attempted to take the life of.

“Did I nail her?” asks Satette, her hand plunged into the side of an unsuspecting tourist, twisting a sliver of their body to pierce into and burrow into the others to control in a chain. “Yep, Bullseye’d the bitch right in the back.” confirms Wedsle, a smirk on his face as he looks down to the dread plastered across his attempted assassin. With their calcium controlling crook taken care off, Satette pulls her powers in reverse and makes the tendrils coming from the chain of people withdraw themselves away from one another; the damage done in the process being fully healed as the lively psychic pull her power away from the crowd, like there was never any signs of bodily harm to begin with. After Sat withdraws the last of her power from the first guy she forms back to normal, a terrified scream rings through the shopping district as the woman in the emerald bomber jacket among the collapses to the cobblestone; everyone surrounding Yearitle kneeling down to check on her, only to find her having succumb to her fatal impalement.

Coming back tot he world of the waking, a pained grunt sounds out from Daydra as he awakens to the site of a bright light; his eyes adjusting to find this light belonging to a florescent light buzzing above. Beyond this luminescence does he find himself within the confines of a closed off room somewhere in the processing plant, evident by the stacks of discarded labels and logo’s shared by the boxes of meat and a couple of broken parts from the belts. When attempting to make for the door, he finds himself entombed in what felt to him like a box he fails to see with his naked eye; forced to stand upright with his arms tightly packed against his sides. “Comfy in there?” he then hears a familiar voice ask him. From his struggles does the magnetic man witnesses the gun woman he attempted to pursue step out from the dark corner of the room; Daydra almost immediately demanding to know: “What-what is this!!? What did you stick me in!?” “Nothing much, just a box made of solid air. Partner in crime of mine made it nice and snug for ya.” “Let me out of this, right now! Or I swear I’m gonna-” “Gonna what, magnetize something to fly right at me? Fat fucking chance there, mate. Long as your stuck in that square, you ain’t attracting anything.”

“What...what are you planning on doing to me?” he then questions. “Depends. You start singing like a canary about Dr. December, you fly free.” “An interrogation? You don’t even have anything to torture me with. What, you’re gonna bring your friend in here to make some pliers or something.” “Nah, new meat like him seen enough for one day. But you got a point, no pliers to pull teeth out, no car battery to hook to your testicles to. All we got laying around here is some rotting slabs of meat and rusty equipment. Eh, I ain’t too worried; I’m sure I can think of something to do with all those that’ll get you squealing like the pigs they processed.” To Frida’s vague, but intimidating threat, the entrapped magnetic man can do nothing but gaze to his interigator with perplexed fear, the only response he could come up with was to utter: “...What?”

A couple of blocks away from the armpit of Wallstreet, Satette and Wedsle have taken the kid to the closest fast food restaurant to sit down and chat with the sound controlling kid; both of them left speechless as they watch the little boy scarf down the meal they bought for him. Large fries, bacon burger, soda, apple slices, even some nuggets; all of it beginning to disappear before their eyes as its shoves right in the boy’s mouth. “Jesus, little guy; slow down. You’re gonna wind up choking.” Satette warns him. “Yeah, chill. I get you might’ve not ate in a couple days, but at the speed your stuffing yourself, your stomach and lower intestine are gonna pop like confetti. Trust me, seen it happen.” Wedsle adds. “You’ve...actually seen that before?” “11 times as a matter of fact. Always heard the pop before they die too.”

These harrowing words of warning are enough to get the boy to momentarily cease shoving fries through his face and swallow them all at once; needing a moment to catch his breath after downing so much food at once. The noise bending boy reaches over to his drink to wash down the rest of his food, all the while he hears Weds state how: “So, yeah. That’s pretty much why we’re wanting to take you over to our place; get some rest, some food, a nice shower; just somewhere to keep your head down until this shit show’s all over.” “I know how all this sounds too good to be true coming from a couple of former mobsters. But considering one of them tried making you put me on ice, we figured it’d be a helluva lot better deal for all of us if you laid low for a little bit. What do ya say kid, sound like a good deal?” To this can the kid not help but nod as he slurps down the rest of the fountain drink, letting out a loud burp as soon as he was done guzzling it all down. “Looks like you have a little more room in there for dessert. Why don’t you get yourself something nice off the menu?” Sat offers, pulling out three dollars from her pocket to hand over to the kid.

A glimmering enthusiasm in his eye, the boy hops right out from the booth and swipes the money right out from the lively psychic’s clutches before he races right back in line; leaving Wedsle alone with her to speak up with: “Weds. Be honest with me here. Don’t tell me we’re putting this poor kid to work for us. With the sort of bull we had to put up with, the last thing I want from him is to end up experiencing that sort of bleak cruelty we did at his age.” “Don’t sweat it, we won’t.” Wedsle simply responds. “Cause I don’t want another emotionally fucked up kid growing up in this-...What?” “Yeah, same here. New York city already has enough people like us with screwed upbringings scuttling around and either turning to self destructive habits or take it out on your poor average joe. None of that solves anything, it just makes everyone’s life worse while the rich fat fuck faces causing the shitshow keep raking in the dough. You ain’t gonna really satiate hunger by eating the hungry; And this kid ain’t gonna be a part of the problem that put him on the streets in the first place.” “And...if he says he’s up for it?” “Tough constipated shit for him. Doubt even a partially corrupt adult would want to put a kid like him through what we’re doing.”

Coming back from the register, the kid returns with a freshly whipped up chocolate milkshake in his hands; already having slurped a quarter of it down before he even got back to the table. “Chocolate shake, huh. Nice choice; tasty, sweet, rich in milk and calcium.” Sat claims. “Don’t say calcium.” utters Weds. “Right, sorry.” “I’m thinking of avoid milk for a while just out of spite.” “Yeah, me too.”

“So, anyway. Since we’re gonna be having you around. Calling you kid’s gonna get real old, real fast. You got a name we can stick you with, or are we gonna have to do that ourselves? Trust me, you don’t want that; got called a bunch of pretty humiliating stuff when I refused to give mine.” the purple psychic claims. A pop comes out from between the sound bending boy’s lips when pulling the milkshake straw out, smacking his mouth to savor the chocolate frosty concoction before looking over to the pair of psychic’s who helped him; the kid finally greeting them both in a typically childish, but raspy voice. “Just call me Sunny.”

[powerofpen]

Right, so we're here now.

Some men were on time, some men were late, and some men were Roland J. Drekker. So, not Southshore. Well sure, fine, okay. I'm basically part dog, I'll find them - I'll find him. So he'd come with the ships, and why not? The bear of a man fit right in with the sailors who flew these colors, with the men and women who hoisted sails bearing anchors. He knew how to tie knots, he knew how to climb, he could damn sure haul ropes. He fit in so well in fact, that you might be forgiven for thinking this was his plan the whole time, and not that he'd been so late that the world had moved on, again. Steady as his sea legs may or may not be (turns out it's more then just tying knots and hauling ropes, who knew?) Roland was never more happy to see the shore then he was now. Faded blue eyes settled along sands and birds and grass, just long enough for him to see those spindly bitches with the jittery asses that everyone keeps insisting are -not- spiders, Roland had his doubts. So they clashed, so they fought, until it was safe enough to gather on the shore in droves. A chance conversation with a fellow spent soldier would be his first clue. - He sat with his back to a moss slicked rock, spindly arachnid leg stuck on a spit over a fire at his feet. Rough, thick fingers pinching out tabaco on rolling paper that was damp enough it might have floated to shore. "You're not actually going to eat that, are you?" Came the voice of a man who's face was mostly lost in the bandages he wore. "Oh I'll eat it. I'll slurp it down like a fucking crab leg, and when it's run through me, I'll shit my name out in the sand so they know who's coming." Drekker pulled the limb off of the spit, trying not to make a face as it singed his fingers. He tipped it to his mouth, slurping the 'meat' down his gullet even as the stranger came a little closer. Eyes narrowed defiantly as he tried not to think of the words 'puke' and 'bile'. "Right.. uh.. anyways." The man said, a tandem of baffled and bemused. "I heard some of the other's say they knew your crest, you were looking for your -" "Oh you old fucker, I'M COMING!" Drekker tossed the limb into the stand, stood and sprinted past the stranger like a fat kid after a ham that was rolling down the hill. - A few minutes later, he came back. Rubbing the back of his neck. "Uh... where... did you say they might be?"

[iwasntstable]

Hiii love your writing!! + you can totally ignore this if you’re not interested but can I request a little something about Noah being your neighbor in an apartment building?? You do whatever you want with it, I just think the idea could be so cute (:

n.s. | new neighbour

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ASK/NEWNIEGHBOUR [projects] ﹂ [my-work] | in-progress | favourites 　﹂ all | series | one-shot | blurb | head-cannons | [ask] 　﹂ [new-neighbour]

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➔𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞➔➔　𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦!+　　[𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝐀𝐎𝟯]

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content tags: fluff. word count: 3.1k note: thank you for requesting and for being so patient! 🖤 I originally wrote this as head-cannons but thought, no this needs to be a whole thing, it's too cute.

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ᯤ 𝗨𝗦𝗘𝗥𝗦 (15) :　 ⌞⬤ 5 𝗈𝗇𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖾⌝ @iloveyoutodeathbutimdrowning | @english-fucker @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard | @seven-glass-kids @runadaggerthroughmychest

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When you first move in, you don’t see him much—the tall guy that lives across the hall. To be fair, you’re too busy trying to organise everything that comes with moving to a new place, ran off your feet redirecting all your mail, setting up your bills, and needing to go out and buy disposable plates, cups, and cutlery since your real ones are still packed in boxes at your old place. Everything is still packed in boxes at your old place.

After three days of sleeping on your mattress on the floor, the movers finally deliver your entire life to your new address. You didn’t know if they were in a hurry or just doing a bad job, and you can’t help but think you should’ve pushed the boat out and paid for more expensive movers because the ones you hired, instead of bringing everything inside like they were supposed to, left it all in the hallway. Every box. Every piece of furniture.

You try your best to move it all out of the way quickly, anxious that at any moment someone will use the elevator or come up or down the stairs and be unable to pass. Or, God forbid, the fire alarm goes off. Most of the boxes aren’t particularly heavy, but after all the repeated stooping down and standing up, your muscles were beginning to ache and strain, and it only worsened as time went on.

Pushing a stack of three boxes through your doorway—two heavy ones on the bottom with a lighter one balanced on top—you hear a muffled “what the fuck?” come from the hallway. For a second you freeze, feeling a wave of panic wash down your body, but the urgency has you sprinting back to the hallway to save the stranger.

“I’m sorry!” you shout before you even reach the door, exiting your apartment to find your neighbour trapped in his own doorway, unable to move past the stacks upon stacks of boxes. “I’m so sorry! The movers were supposed to bring them in, but they just left them out here. I’m sorry, just give me a minute,” scrambling and dragging the cardboard to clear a path for him.

“Hey, it’s okay. Don’t worry,” the neighbour’s voice was calm and not at all pissed off like you expected. When you turn back to him after shoving a pile out of the way, you see his outstretched hand, “I’m Noah.”

Just for a moment, you’re transfixed by the beautiful tattoo work decorating his hand and extending up his forearm. You snap out of it, wiping your sweaty palm on your jeans before taking his hand in yours. You tell him your name, somehow able to think past just how big his hand is around yours. Noticing too, when you look at his face, the inkwork that peeked out from underneath the collar of his hoodie.

Noah smiles warmly and asks, “do you want a hand with... all of this?” Looking around at the carnage, “you look exhausted.”

You drop his hand from yours to run them through your hair, smoothing down the flyaways and tucking the strays behind your ears, only now realising how sweaty you are. “I- uh… It’s okay. I think I can handle it.”

“It’s no problem, seriously. And you’ll be done twice as fast with another person. Come on,” he pockets his keys and crouches down, picking up a box with ease. “Where do you want this one?”

You blink at him for a second before shaking yourself out of it and moving closer to read what you wrote on the top of the box, “uh, that’s kitchen.”

“Got it,” he said confidently, striding over a mound of boxes on long legs and disappearing through your door.

He was right; it only took you around 20 minutes to finish moving the rest of your belongings and furniture into your apartment. 

“Drink?” you ask him, leaning back against the kitchen counter. He nodded, and you turned to the cupboard to retrieve a glass, only to realise the glasses were still packed, hiding in one of the—maybe fifteen—boxes strewn across the floor and the countertops. Looking back at him, you find amusement written all over his face, both of you bursting out laughing, delirious from the hard work.

“Do you know which one they’re in?”

“Not a clue,” you sigh, wiping at your eyes. “I labelled which room they belong to, but didn’t think to write what was inside each box on the outside of the box.”

“Well,” he grunted, taking the box nearest to his feet and hoisting it up onto the counter, ripping off the tape. “I guess we’d better start searching.”

You shake your head with a chuckle, pushing off the counter to begin the hunt.

The both of you spend the next few minutes rummaging, calling out the contents of each box you unsealed, declaring “plates!” here and “pans!” there. “Microwave!” and “knives!” Organising as you go, you tell him to place the microwave by the window and the knives next to the oven for you to put away later. 

“Mugs!” you declare triumphantly, “these will do. My hands are going to fall off if I have to rip any more tape.” You take two—one decorated with Halloween-themed characters and one with the symbol of your zodiac sign—and rinse them under the tap before filling them with water and handing Noah the Halloween-themed mug.

He smiles at the little characters, “you know,” he says, raising the mug, “my birthday is on Halloween.”

“Oh my God, what a coincidence,” you smile, eyes wide. “I’ll try to remember to get you a card.” He chuckles and takes a sip of water, and you can’t help but notice how pretty his eyes look when the sunlight from the kitchen window hits them. “Thank you, by the way. For all the help. The hallway would still be a disaster zone if it wasn’t for you.”

“Don’t mention it, I’m happy to help my new neighbour.”

You’re mulling over how to ask more about him—who he lives with, what he does for work, when his phone pings. He takes it from his pocket and immediately his eyebrows furrow. “Something wrong?” you ask instead.

“Not wrong, no,” he sighs, “but I do have to go.”

“Yeah, no problem! Thank you again for all your help,” you take the mug from his outstretched hand as he pockets his phone again. “I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah, definitely! It was nice meeting you, and good luck unpacking.” He steps over your kitchen supplies and heads out towards the door, calling over his shoulder “bye!”

“Bye!” you shout back.

You wouldn’t see him around much after that afternoon, somehow managing to miss each other in the hallway, never coming or going at the same time. You found yourself unable to stop thinking about him, listening intently whenever you heard the elevator or someone’s footsteps on the stairs. Always though, they would pass by your floor.

On occasion you do hear the sound of his door when you’re awake early in the morning. Angling to look out of your living room window, you’d see him—recognisable by his stature even when his identifiable tattoos were covered—exiting the building and taking off for a run. You mentally chastise yourself for acting so pathetically. Listening out for his footsteps in the hall made you sound like some kind of deranged lunatic.

Going about your evening, you make dinner, choosing to eat in front of the TV to watch a two-hour-long YouTube documentary on some TV show you’d never seen. 

You didn’t realise you’d fallen asleep on the couch after eating until you were startled awake by the piercing sound of a siren. Sitting bolt upright, you look around the room and try to make sense of your surroundings. Reality sank in after a moment—that you were in your living room, and the fire alarm was going off. You couldn’t smell smoke and wondered if this might just be a test, realising, however, the unlikeliness of that scenario when you look out of your window to see nothing but the pitch black sky. Still unsure if there was a real risk of fire or not, you think to check the hallway. If the other residents of the building were leaving, you would too.

Already hearing numerous footsteps and murmuring voices before you even reach the door, you look through the peephole to see, yes, every resident of the complex was evacuating. You curse under your breath and slip your sneakers on—the only shoes nearby that were able to be slipped on quickly without needing to undo the laces. You open your door and lock it behind you once you enter the hall, following the steady stream of bodies down the flights of stairs and out into the night. 

“Fuck,” you curse; the cold air hits you first, then the rain. The weather didn’t even cross your mind before you came out in the clothes you wore to sleep—comfy shorts and an oversized t-shirt. Wrapping your arms around yourself in a feeble effort to protect yourself from the chill, you go to stand out in the rain with everybody else.

“Is it a real fire?”

“I thought I smelled smoke on the way down.”

“Really, which floor?”

“I don’t remember.”

“I didn't smell anything.”

“It’s probably the old man on floor five again. The one that fell asleep with a lit cigarette and had us all out here at the crack of dawn waiting for the firefighters.”

“Or the woman, what’s her name? The one that left candles burning all night and her curtains caught fire.”

You’re pulled out of the hum of conversation by someone shouting your name. Whipping your head around to see Noah jogging towards you as carefully as he could in his slides.

“Hey!” you call, moving away from the crowd to meet him. “What’s going on? Do you know what happened?”

“No idea,” he sighed, looking you up and down, “what are you wearing?”

“Oh, I-” feeling heat rise to your cheeks as you become acutely aware of how you were dressed in front of him, “I was asleep.”

“You’re gonna freeze. Here,” he takes his hoodie by the hemline, crossing his arms and pulling it over his head, turning it right side out after the garment was off. “Have this.”

“No! No, it’s fine. I’m okay, really! I’m not even that cold.” 

“It’s raining, and you’re shivering. Put the hoodie on. It’s okay,” he bunches up the hoodie, aligning the neck hole and the bottom so he can easily slide it over your head. “Put your arms in. There.”

The hoodie was warm. And smelled comforting—a pleasant mix of his laundry detergent and cologne. It was huge on you and came down to about mid-thigh, covering your shorts entirely. “I- thank you, Noah. I’ll give it back as soon as I can.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he smiles, pulling the hood up over your head and tucking the damp strands of your hair inside. The sound of the rain around you dampened to a soft fuzz through the fabric.

The sound of sirens in the distance drew everybody's attention, the bright red truck pulling into the parking lot and stopping right outside the building by the crowd of people. Noah puts an arm around your shoulder, pulling you back out of the way of the crew and off to the side. You hope it’s too dark to see the telltale blush burning your cheeks.

“Does anybody know what happened?” the first person off the firetruck shouts. The crowd murmurs amongst themselves again, looking between each other and shrugging their shoulders.

As the crew disembarks the vehicle and prepares their equipment, you turn to Noah to find him already looking at you. Only in a t-shirt and sweatpants, you can see now just how extensively tattooed he is. The only times you’d seen him, he’d been wearing a hoodie or a long-sleeved shirt, but now you could see both of his tattoo sleeves, and how his neck piece covered the whole front of his throat. “How’ve you been? It’s been a while,” he asks.

“Yeah, good,” you look up at his eyes, the hood shielding your eyes from the rain, “haven’t been too busy. What about you?”

He nods, “Been good. I’ve been busy though. Kind of hectic with work.”

“Oh, what do you do for work?”

“I’m a musician, actually,” he ducks his head to hide his shy smile, looking back up at you while he shifts from one foot to the other. “I’m in a band. We’re releasing a new single soon, so there’s a lot of preparation. Lots of stuff to do.”

You can’t help but smile at his demeanour. Being in a band made so much sense; what with the tattoos? He seemed like a creative guy. “That’s so cool! What do you do in the band?”

“I’m the vocalist. Kind of like you,” he kicks your shoe teasingly with his, a sly smile on the corner of his lips as water begins to drip from his hair.

“I- what?” You question, “what do you mean?”

He breaks out into a laugh, not a cruel one, teasing. Amused by something that apparently only he knew. “I like Aurora too.”

All at once, it hits you. “Oh my God,” you groan, covering your face with the sleeves of his hoodie. “You can hear me singing in the shower?!” Contemplating running back inside the potentially burning building.

“I’m only joking. Hey, I’m sorry,” he takes you by the shoulders, “your singing is very good. I like it.”

“I wanna die,” your voice comes muffled by the fabric, but you can hear him laugh again just fine. You continue to hide even when he tries to pry your arms away from your face; if the blush wasn’t visible before, it definitely would be now.

You’re gratefully pulled out of your shame by the fire chief’s voice echoing across the parking lot.

“All clear, folks! Kids pulled the fire alarm, you can all go back inside!” The volume of the crowd peaks again, irritated voices muttering as the mass of bodies filter through the door back inside, shaking off raindrops as they go.

You and Noah follow slowly, not wanting to get caught up in the crowd. “I am sorry,” he says sincerely, turning to you. “I didn’t mean to offend you, I really was just joking.”

With an awkward laugh, you shake your head and wave him off, “I’m not offended. Just fucking embarrassed.”

“Don’t be. I meant it, your voice is nice. I’d be putting in a noise complaint if it sounded bad.”

You smiled and looked down at your feet, droplets of water running down your legs. 

After what felt like too long, you make it back to your floor. Taking the stairs while everyone else waited for the elevator. Once you reached your joint floor, you both paused in the hallway, unsure what to say and hesitant to part.

“I’ll-”

“Do you-”

“Sorry!” you burst out, “go ahead.”

“I was going to say, do you want to come over one day? I can show you my music, maybe we could have dinner? I’d love to get to know you better.”

Speechless for a second, you stare at his face. He’d pushed his wet hair back out of his eyes, giving a completely different, cleanly handsome aspect to his appearance. His black shirt—soaked through—clung to his skin. But his expression was earnest, his eyes showing no evidence of that teasing look he had back outside. “Yeah, I’d like that. I’ll get your hoodie back to you too. I’ll-”

“Don’t worry about it, seriously. Looks good on you.”

“Okay,” you duck your head to hide your grin, turning towards your door, “I’m gonna go dry off.”

“Wait!” He pats his legs, feeling his pockets and fishing his phone out of the right side, “can I have your number?” He taps for a few seconds, looking up quickly, then averting his gaze just as quickly. He holds out his phone eagerly, open on an empty contact page.

Grin still wide on your face, you wordlessly take his phone, typing in your name and adding your number. “There. I even put my birthday in so you can give me a card too.”

Noah looks down at his new contact; he too grinning as he locks and pockets his phone. “I’ll add it to my calendar. And I’ll text you so we can arrange that da- Uh the, you coming over.” 

Not missing the slip of his words, you decide not to comment on it, pulling the sleeves of his hoodie over your hands and fiddling with the fabric. “Sounds good. I’m gonna,” you gesture over your shoulder to your door.

He replies with a soft “yeah” and does the same.

“Goodnight, Noah.”

“Night. See you around.”

Praying he doesn’t see you fumble with your keys, you quickly slip into your apartment, seeing his shoulders disappear through his own doorway just as you close your door. 

You lean against the cold wood of the door once it’s locked, head resting back. Your smile is unrestrained now, your cheeks beginning to ache after a couple of seconds. “Oh my God,” you whisper to yourself. Shaking your head to try and regain some composure. 

Reluctantly, you pull off his hoodie. The fabric was almost soaked through from the rain and desperately needed to be hung up to dry. Getting a hanger from your room, you thread it through the neck and head into your bathroom to hang it on the shower curtain railing. You smooth down the fabric, squeezing out some water onto the floor, and get the chance to look at the design for the first time. 

It wasn't just a basic black hoodie; it had small, red text embroidered across the centre of the chest that read “I can’t be saved” and had stylised designs of birds shot through with arrows on each sleeve. It wasn’t common to see hoodies with designs on the sleeves, but you liked this one a lot. Flipping it around, it read “OMENS” in large, dark grey text across the back-shoulder area. With a subtle smile on your face, you turn off the light and take yourself back to your bedroom.

Changing into different clothes to sleep in, you discard the damp ones in your laundry basket. Just about managing to put your phone on charge on the side table before the drowsiness hits you when you lay down in the comfort of your sheets. You snuggle down and let your eyes drift closed, ready for sleep to take you when your phone pings. 

The screen illuminates your room and hurts your eyes when you unlock it. You slide the brightness down and immediately smile when you see who the notification is from.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER]

— Hey it’s Noah!

— Sleep well :)