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daydreamerdrew · 3 months ago

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Comics read this past week:

Marvel Comics:

Captain Marvel (1968) #12 and The Avengers (1963) #63-65

These issues were published across January 1969 to April 1969. The Captain Marvel issue was written by Arnold Drake, penciled by Dick Ayers, and inked by Syd Shores. All of The Avengers issues were written by Roy Thomas and penciled by Gene Colan, who is replacing John Buscema as the penciler for the book. Issues #63-64 were inked by George Klein and issue #65 was inked by Sam Grainger. All were 20 pages. I ordinarily really enjoy Gene Colan’s art, but I think his style works better for a solo book than a team book, and I really think that there’s a tonal disconnect between his style and Roy Thomas’ writing.

In the Captain Marvel issue, when Natasha’s mission goes awry, she thinks, “Well, you really blew this one, sweetheart! Now, not even Hawkeye and the Avengers could save your neck!” Natasha does succeed in her mission in the end, but she’s captured.

In issue #63 Clint isn’t able to help the Avengers in an emergency because his bow string broke. Afterwards he said, of their success, “Yeah… but no thanks to me! One crummy broken string… and I’m Mr. Fifth Wheel! Even that cable-arrow was designed for me by T’Challa! I’m not in you guys’ league-!” This is a far cry from how confident he was when he first joined the Avengers.

Hank says, of the name Giant-Man, “A name I later changed, for reasons I forget, to Goliath!” I thought this was funny.

Hank also says, “I’m positive it was my growing that contributed to my recent siege of schizo.” It was previously only attributed to him accidentally inhaling some spilled chemicals in his lab.

And Hank says, of “the slightly sneaky way [Jan] tricked me into marrying her,” “that’s something she’ll never have to apologize for- never!”

T’Challa orders, “As acting chairman for this month,” that Clint not come on the rescue mission for Natasha because “I feel you are too personally involved to accompany us!” And Hank says, “T’Challa’s right, partner! You’re liable to do something foolish.” Clint is upset, but agrees, saying, “A hothead like me might just foul up things… get the whole bunch of us killed!” He even wonders, since he can’t “stand around doin’ nothing” without going “stir-crazy,” if “Maybe a turn around town’d do me some good- fat chance!” In contrast, back in issue #30, when Natasha was still a villain, Clint had said that “It was my fault that Natasha and her two super-stooges escaped” so “as an Avenger… I request the right to tackle ‘em alone.” And Steve responded, “It’s not necessary, partner! But, I know how you feel! Permission granted!”

However, while the other Avengers are away, Clint receives a message from Natasha, which reveals to him that the other Avengers are going to the wrong place. In order to rescue her by himself, Clint takes Hank’s “new, even more powerful growth serum!”

When it looks to her like Clint is unconscious and out of the fight, Natasha thinks, “Nothing can save me now… but at least the man I love will live…!”

Natasha addresses Clint as “my love” multiple times in this issue.

In issue #64 Natasha defends Clint for taking Hank’s growth serum, saying, “But he had a noble purpose! He was rescuing a damsel in distress! Namely… myself!”

Clint destroys his bow, committing to being Goliath (II).

Barney Barton, “head of half the rackets in town,” first appears in this issue. He recognizes that Clint is now Goliath, saying, “I’d know that voice anywhere!” Both are rude to each other. Hank says, angrily, that “the days when he was on your side of a shyster lawyer are thru!” But Clint intervenes so that the team hears him out, and Barney offers information about the villains’ big plot, explaining, “I got me an itch to play public hero No. 1… and you’re gonna help me!” Clint is incredulous about that, but he lets Barney explain that he and his boys were almost hired for the job, and so he knows the coordinates of the satellite, while the others that were with him were killed so they couldn’t talk. But now this makes Clint angry, and he says, grabbing Barney, “Your story’s as phony as a three-dollar bill! You just can’t take a chance on that death-ray blastin’ your meal ticket off the map! Can you, rat?” Natasha is present for this whole scene, but doesn’t speak.

Janet thinks, “We all know that Hawkeye was once a hunted man! Yet, we’ve always assumed he was just misunderstood! But, if he was hooked up with a big-time hood like Barney Barton… I wonder…!”

Clint tells Natasha, “I know you’ve gotta report to Nick Fury, ‘Tasha! So… later, hear?” And Natasha says, “And… be careful, my impetuous darling!”

Barney insists on coming along on the mission, and when T’Challa tells him to keep back from the fight, Barney yells, “Mind yer sandbox, Panther! I got me some heroin’ to do!” When all of the Avengers are paralyzed, Barney has to save the day. Then as Barney lays dying, he and Clint talk. Clint wants to get him to a doctor, but there’s not enough time, and Barney says, “It’s funny, Clint… the way we both made… the big time! Still, you got… what I wanted… the fame… the applause…! But, maybe I made it… just a little bit… at the end… huh, kid?” Clint vows vengeance against Egghead, though I know from having read Hawkeye (2012) that Barney is alive later.

Hank points out that “he called you by a name… called you… Clint!” And Clint dramatically reveals that Barney was his brother. Clint didn’t have a first or last name established before this issue.

In issue #65 Clint and Barney’s backstory with the Swordsman is revealed; though in previous issues where the Swordsman fought the Avengers, it’s not implied that he had any special significance to Clint.

The Swordsman says, “Hawkeye was the boy named Clint Barton… as I always suspected!”

The Avengers realize that the fact that Barney was a known criminal is “why you were so secretive about your past… why you never used any name but Hawkeye… or later Goliath!” I’m going to make the assumption that Natasha knew his name, because I don’t think he’d think she’d judge him for having a renowned criminal brother.

The Swordsman is hired to attack the Avengers, and he thinks, “[A]ll I care about is my reward… Plus a chance to prove I’m still better than the doomed upstart Hawkeye!”

When Clint goes to fight the Swordsman, he immediately reveals his identity, yelling, “Recognize these golden tones, blade-swinger? I’m the kid you taught… then almost killed!”

Clint ends up attacking the Avengers so that he can fight the Swordsman alone. Though he’s been depicted as having a temper since he joined this book, and he’s currently upset over the death of his brother, I think this indicates that Clint is having mental problems like Hank was said to have because of the serum.

At the end of the issue, having captured Egghead, Clint says, “I’ve got the guy who caused by brother’s death! And maybe, wherever Barney is… I’ve made up for givin’ up on him… maybe… just a little…!”

Captain America (2002) #12-16

These issues were published across April 2003 to August 2003. This was the “Ice” storyline. All were written by Chuck Austen, drawn by Jae Lee, and colored by José Villarrubia. Issue #12 was 23 pages, issues #13-14 and #16 were 22 pages, and issue #15 was 21 pages. I particularly liked Chuck Austen and Jae Lee’s work and was disappointed that this was the end of their run.

The main plot of this arc was Steve being targeted by the Interrogator, the leader of the Atlanteans’ enemy the Lemurians. It’s revealed in the end that the Interrogator was hired by the U.S. Secretary of Defense because “America needs killers who will murder for the right cause. The just cause.” This book’s portrayal of Steve depicts him as never killing, even during WWII. By severing the Lumerian technology from its human host body known as the Interrogator, Steve unwittingly kills the host, making the Secretary’s plan of making Steve a killer a success.

Also, Steve was told in the previous arc that he was cloned by the U.S. government so that they could replace him with a more obedient version, a plot which was tied to his resistance to Japanese interment. Steve is immediately dismissive of this. But in the first issue of this arc Steve is sent a package of files showing that the U.S. government themselves freezing Steve and Bucky and placing them in the ice where Steve was later found. Steve is convinced and horrified. The idea is raised to him that the documents are false, but he isn’t that swayed, and flashback scenes without Steve support that this really happened. One flashback scene ties this plot to the assumption that Steve would try to stop America’s atomic bombings otherwise. This all also raises the question for Steve of why Bucky is dead. This whole conflict was not resolved in these issues.

In issue #12 narration boxes describe, as Namor is fighting around Steve, in a scene from when he was still frozen in the ice, “The hero’s dead eyes do not see the death and carnage the good ‘prince’ Namor wreaks. The hero’s dead ears do not hear the bullets careen off steely, Atlantean flesh. The hero’s dead skin does not feel the tremor of a world as a savage sea king moves the weight of mountains.” And then, “So when dead eyes regain life- there is nothing left to see. To hear. To feel.” I was compelled by the repeated phrasing of Steve’s features being dead while he was frozen.

In issue #13, regarding that documents showing that Steve was intentionally frozen by the U.S. government, Steve says, “They prove that I’ve been a toy to the American government since the beginning. Nick is right. Soldiers kill. I’m not a soldier. I never was.” And Steve decides that the Avengers must have not been in on the plot, that them finding him in the ice “had to be been fate” because “Or all the years of my life since then have no meaning.” This is shocking considering how determination is such a prominent part of his character.

In issue #14 Steve asks, “Why is nothing clear or simple anymore? Good guys. Bad guys. Right and wrong. Why can’t problems be solved with fists and gritted teeth like they used to be? Why can’t I punch someone and just be right?”

At one point Hana addresses Steve as Steve, then says, “Or should I say ‘Captain America.’ There really is no ‘Steve’ here, is there?” And when Steve says, “This is about my country and my soul,” she responds, “Aren’t they the same thing?”

In a flashback to when Steve was first labeled unfit for duty and he was loudly insisting that he wanted to fight for his country, General Phillips sees this and says, “But blind, patriotic fervor has a power all its own. A willingness to do whatever we ask. To go wherever we tell him. To obey all orders in the name of God and country under any and all circumstances. Isn’t that the kind of man we’re looking for?” And then, “And if you’re going to give a man the power of a God- you want to make sure he’ll always be on your side.”

Later, he complains, “Captain America’s moral stance has altered since we gave him the serum and the powers, for reasons we cannot understand. He will now no longer kill under any circumstances, and has begun to see himself as a protector of the world- and NOT just our United States.”

In the present Steve is asked, “Finally going to settle down and live a real life for a change?” He answers, “I’ve never felt anything was missing from my life, sir.” This isn’t true, he fantasizes in issue #4 about just that, but thought, “Hold the [American] Dream. If you don’t believe- Who will?” referring to Steve needing to continue his work as Captain America, and then, “It’s enough to hold it, soldier- Hold the Dream. You don’t have to taste it.”

Steve was supported throughout these issues by Hana, who first appeared back in issue #10. I really enjoyed their relationship, up to and including a scene in issue #15 where she propositions him and he is flustered, though that was later revealed to be a part of a simulation. I would genuinely have appreciated this character as a long-term love interest for Steve.

Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandoes (1963) #38-39

These issues were published across November 1966 to December 1966. Issue #38 was written by Roy Thomas, with Morrie Kuramoto being credited as a technical advisor. And issue #39 was plotted by Dick Ayers and scripted by Roy Thomas. Both were penciled by Dick Ayers and inked by John Tartaglione. Both were 20 pages.

In issue #38 Nick receives a letter from Dino Manelli, who was discharged after being injured in issue #35. Percy says, “And I’ve got one from my sister, as well!” Eric thinks, “How I wish I could receive a letter from my own sister- but, she is aiding the allied cause back in my native Germany!” Reb announces, “Mah sweet ol’ pappy sent me the latest li’l ol’ racin’ news!” And Izzy tells Dum Dum, “I can tell by the way you’re shakin’ yer fist- you must’a got a letter from yer mother-in-law!” Dum Dum tells him, “Yeah! And if that ain’t bad enuff by itself, there was even a nickel postage due!”

Nick speaks really positively of Dino before reading his letter aloud, calling him “one’a the bravest fightin’ men in the whole blasted army!” Dum Dum notes, “It’s postmarked Hollywood! Then he must’a got well enuff fer ‘em to ship ‘im across the country!” For some reason Dino opens his letter with, “Well, I guess you never thought you’d be hearing from me again!”

Dino explains that he’s walking on crutches and says, “I’ve pulled myself together… and I’m now making training films for the Army! I guess the Brass figures the Joes will listen better to somebody who was there.” Dino could possibly return to the regiment, if only the only doctor who could help him wasn’t a prisoner of the Germans and “hasn’t a chance of being freed- until the war is over- if he’s still alive, that is!” He said, when he was told this news, “Well then, it looks like I’ll just have to get used to playin’ in movies about cripples, huh, Doc?” Dino isn’t asking the Commandoes to save the doctor, just sharing what’s going on in his life, but of course they all want to go on this mission to help Dino.

This issue is the first appearance of Jim Morita. Nick catches two white soldiers harassing a soldier “from the new Japanese-American squad we’ve been expecting.” They say, “We oughtta show him ‘im what we do with his kind back where we come from,” and call him “slanty-eyes.” Jim says, “I think you fellas must have me confused with the rats that bombed Pearl Harbor! Personally, I’ve never been west of San Francisco!” But he’s told, “A Jap’s a Jap- no matter where he wuz born!” Nick thinks, “Well, I guess there’s guys like them in any man’s army!” Jim performs admirably in physically defending himself, and the Nick steps in to help “the nisei.” Nick forces the soldiers to apologize, then helps Jim with his bags and walks him to his barracks, which I thought was remarkably kind of him. He tells Jim, “[D]on’t take them two commando clowns too serious! They’re good men, when they use their heads instead’a their fists!” Jim tells him, “Sure, Sarge, I kind’a figure it’s my job to change their minds, anyway!”

Jim surprises the Howlers by joining them on their mission, which is easily surmised as because “ya figgered ya owed the Sarge a favor.” On the way there he thinks, of Nick, “He bellows at me as loudly as at the Howlers! That must mean he accepts me as an ally for this mission!” Jim messes up his parachute landing because he hadn’t ever done it before. He explains, “We’re taking up that phase of commando tactics next week!” He addresses the Howlers at one point as “you old-timers.” And when Percy points out “the way Jim Morita’s smashing away at those Jerries,” Jim says, “This is the first target practice I’ve had in a week, anyhow!”

Nick declares, “It’s better to die fer freedom, kraut, than fer some sawed-off, slogan-yellin’ Fuehrer… or didn’t ya know?”

After the mission those two racist soldiers are nice to Jim. They explain it’s because they heard he chose to help the Howlers, and that “we got to thinking about the things we’re supposed to be fightin’ for!” And the rest of Jim’s “Nisei squad” show up, who are framed positively.

In issue #39 the Howlers are on a mission infiltrating a Nazi fortress where it’s assumed that they’re building a super-weapon, but it’s not known exactly what. Eric says, “Then- this must be a mysterious Festung von Furcht- the Fortress of Fear! I heard rumors of such a place when I was still in the Reichland- but I discounted them as propaganda!”

On their mission Nick thinks, “The only thing is, Happy Sam couldn’t arrange for any transport outta France when it’s over! Maybe it’s a good thing Dino ain’t with us!” Later he says, regarding him not having any idea how they’ll get out of there, “Ah well, like I always say, nobody lives forever!” And Sam thinks, before the Commandoes return, “I should never have let the Howlers go on that suicide mission- no matter how vital G-2 claimed it was!”

Back in issue #38 Eric thought, “I want very much for us to help Dino- but, if we do, will there still be a place for me with the Howlers?” And also, “Whenever I hear his name, it reminds me that I am outsider… an intruder!” Now we see Dino wondering, as he’s about to have his operation, “Somehow… I just had the feeling that the Howlers were thinkin’ about me- that they needed me! But, they’ve got Eric now! Maybe I’m just foolin’ myself! Maybe they’ll never need me… again!”

the main stories of What If? (1977) #29 and #31

What If? #29 was published in July 1981. The main story was written by Steven Grant, penciled by Alan Kupperberg, and inked by Al Gordon. It was titled “What If… the Avengers Were the Last Superheroes on Earth?” and was 19 pages. It was based on the story of Avengers Annual #2, which was published in July 1969, and which I read recently. That issue was written by Roy Thomas, penciled by Don Heck and Werner Ross, and inked by Vince Colletta.

In the original story the then-current Avengers were transported to an alternate universe where the original Avengers had been tricked by the Scarlet Centurion into getting rid of all super-powered beings, good and bad, thinking that that would make the Earth a utopia. The new Avengers had to defeat the old Avengers, then the Scarlet Centurion, before being sent home. In this story that later team of Avengers never appeared, and the original Avengers had the realize the error of their ways and defeat the Scarlet Centurion to stop his invasion of Earth, before disbanding forever, leaving no superheroes left on Earth.

Tony ends the story saying, “We were no better than the Scarlet Centurion! We sought to make miracles- and forgot that we were only men! And yet, I can’t help thinking that there could have been something nobler… something better… something more than this fleeting memory of tragedy and glory… called the Avengers!”

What If? #31 was published in November 1981. The main story was written by Rich Margopoulos, penciled by Bob Budiansky, and inked by Mike Esposito. It was titled “What If… Wolverine Had Killed the Hulk?” and was 20 pages. It’s specifically depicting what would have happened if Wolverine had killed the Hulk in his first appearance in The Incredible Hulk (1968) #181, which was published in July 1974.

Logan kills the Hulk on only the second page of the story, and the rest of the story is about what follows. On the third page we see Betty cry, “We should have tried to help him- not hurt him! And now… Oh, Daddy! Daddy…!” And General Ross think, “Rest in peace, Banner. You deserve it.

Logan wasn’t ordered to kill the Hulk and was only supposed to capture him, but he got angry during the fight. Later, Logan kills a civilian in a bar fight, having “lashed out.. without thinking!” He runs away, thinking, “Blast! Years o’ psycho-trainin’ an’ drug therapy… fer what? I’m still a killer at heart! Always was! Always will be!” He ends up being recruited by Magneto, who assumed when he saw that the Hulk had been killed, “This can only be the handiwork of a Homo Superior! Only a mutant much like ourselves could have destroyed the Hulk!” Though, of course, Logan ends up betraying Magneto for the X-Men. At the end he wants to kill Mangeto, but the X-Men don’t let him, and Magneto uses his powers to make Logan kill himself.

Captain America (1968) #109

This issue was published in October 1968. It was written by Stan Lee, penciled by Jack Kirby, and inked by Syd Shores. It was 20 pages.

In issue #109 Nick is verbally dismissive of Steve’s plight. When Steve talks about being too young for his age, yet too old for the role he lives, Nick says, “You shoulda warned me, Rogers- and I’da brung my crying towel! I ain’t about to knock yer hang-up, but- There’s plenty’a guys my age who wouldn’t mind bein’ in your shoes! From where I sit, what’s so bad about lookin’ like Joe College- and bein’ able to fight like a wildcat- at your age?” But when Steve starts monologuing about all of the people who contributed to him becoming Captain America, Nick thinks, much more seriously, “Man! Is he carryin’ a king-size chunk of memories inside’a him! Ya can almost see the past comin’ back- wrappin’ itself around ‘im- trapping him like it always does- never lettin’ ‘im go free!”

In the flashback to Steve volunteering for the military and being deemed physically unfit, he says, “I hate war- and senseless bloodshed- but I can’t stay behind- while others do the fighting! You’ve just got to accept me!” This was before the United States joined WWII, during the peacetime draft of 1941, which had even higher standards than the later wartime draft, when restrictions decreased because of the need for men. The doctor is initially confused as to why Steve is there because he’s obviously not 1-A and so wasn’t drafted and ordered to be there.

Earlier, one of the villains declared, “None but we pure-blooded Nazis are the true superior race!” When Steve’s transformation with the super-soldier serum is successful, Dr. Reinstein declares that “he stands before you- the first of an army to come- an army of the most perfect physical specimens on Earth!” He continues, “My serum will virtually wipe out disease- weakness- infirmity! Rogers is not super-human- but he has become a nearly perfect human being!”

Steve says that while he was undercover in the army as a regular, but incompetent soldier, “The only one who didn’t think me the world’s most most pitiful Private was Bucky Barnes, the regimental mascot- a teenager who had been orphaned when his dad was killed in action-!”

In Captain America Comics #1, after Bucky walked in on Steve changing out of his Captain America costume, Steve told him, “From now on we must both share this secret together… That means you’re my partner, Bucky!”

In the retelling of that event in Tales of Suspense (1959) #63, when Steve wondered aloud what to do, Bucky said to him, “Gosh, Cap- there’s only one thing you can do! You’ve gotta let me share in your mission! Now that I know your secret- I’ll be your partner! You’ve got to Cap!” Steve said, “Looks like I’ve got no choice! If this was the Third Reich, I’d have to shoot you to keep my secret safe! But we don’t do things that way! It’s a deal, lad! From now on, it’ll be Captain America- and Bucky!”

Also, in that issue it was said that, “When Bucky Barnes’ G.I. father died in training, Fort Lehigh adopted the orphaned boy as camp mascot!”

In this issue’s depiction of Bucky becoming Steve’s sidekick, Bucky says, “I’ll keep your secret, Cap- I swear it! All I ask is- Let me join you! Let me be your partner!” And Steve says, “I guess I have no choice!”

At the end of the issue, Nick says, of Bucky’s death, “I know how his loss must’a hit ya, fella! I guess every Joe who’s seen combat hadda watch a buddy die- some time or other! There’s some things ya can forget- but that sure ain’t one of ‘em!”

Timely Publications:

the Captain America stories in Captain America Comics (1941) #21-22 and U.S.A. Comics (1941) #6

These issues were cover dated December 1942 to January 1943. They contained 6 Captain America stories, ranging from 12 to 19 pages.

In “Captain America: The Creeper and the 3 Rubies of Doom” (writer unknown; penciled by Al Avison; inked by Syd Shores, George Klein, and a third unknown person) in Captain America Comics #21, Steve holds Bucky back twice. First, while they’re following someone, Steve says, “Back, Bucky! Back, lad!” And Bucky says, “Gosh, he almost saw me that time, Cap!” Second, Steve physically grabs Bucky, while Bucky was charging towards the villains, and says, “No, no, lad! Not so fast,” because he wants to attack them in a different way than Bucky intended.

In “Captain America: Satan and the Sorcerer’s Secret” (writer unknown; penciled by Pierce Rice and unknown; inked by George Klein and unknown) in Captain America Comics #21, Steve suggests that Bucky stay at the camp while he goes on a Captain America mission. Bucky says, “Not on your life! I’m going with you!” Steve says, “I have a hunch this will be a very dangerous mission!” And Bucky says, “Since when have I been afraid of danger?” Steve responds positively to this, but later tells Bucky, “Listen, kid, you must get back to camp! There’s something very weird going on and I don’t want you mixed up in it! I mean it, Bucky!” And Bucky relents, saying, “Gee, Cap, if you feel that way about it, o.k. I’ll start back in the morning!”

Bucky is kidnapped in the night, and when Steve wakes up, before he sees the ransom note, he says, “He wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye, unless he was angry because I was sending him back to camp!” Then when he reads the note, he says, “If this… this Sorcerer harms Bucky, I’ll tear him limb from limb!” Later, when Steve and Bucky go after the Sorcerer, Steve says, “Keep back, Bucky! He’s mine!”

Earlier, the Sorcerer, who was empowered by Satan, killed people by making eye contact with them with his “gaze of death.” When Steve fights Satan, he wins because, as the narration says, “something shining from the indomitable Captain America’s eyes, something of the indestructible good of mankind, stops the evil one!” Satan declares, “I shall come again when the time is ripe, when there is no longer a Captain America to champion good!” And Steve declares, “There will always be an American to fight for mankind against the forces of evil!”

In “Captain America: The Vault of Doom” (writer unknown; penciled by Ed Winiarski and unknown; inked by Ernie Hart, George Klein, and unknown) in Captain America Comics (1941) #22, Bucky is nearly sacrificed by Dr. Eternity on an alter. At the end of the story, when Steve and Bucky get back to Camp Lehigh, Bucky says, “Well, Cap, one thing I know is my cot’ll be a lot more comfortable than the Vault of the Departed Spirits!”

#comics read this past week #my posts

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sciencespies · 2 years ago

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Ukraine’s Scientists Receive a Funding Lifeline From Abroad

https://sciencespies.com/news/ukraines-scientists-receive-a-funding-lifeline-from-abroad/

Ukraine’s Scientists Receive a Funding Lifeline From Abroad

Larissa S. Brizhik didn’t have to stay. Like many Ukrainian women and children, she could have fled the war zone. But as a department head at the Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyiv, responsible for a staff of seven, she decided to remain on the job.

Late last year, Dr. Brizhik’s institution received a one-year grant of $165,000. The funds were part of a tranche of $1.2 million in grants by the Simons Foundation that was announced on Wednesday. They are meant to help sustain hundreds of Ukrainian scientists whose work was disrupted when Russia invaded their country last year. The foundation, which is based in New York City and supports many branches of basic science, was endowed by James and Marilyn Simons. Mr. Simons started Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund also headquartered in New York.

In Dr. Brizhik’s case, the money will support 53 researchers at the institute, where physicists study plasmas, elementary particles and astrophysical phenomena.

“It shows that we’re not alone — that there are people who care,” Dr. Brizhik said of the funding. “It helps a lot,” she added, especially given the belt-tightening of wartime and the lure of foreign work to young scientists. “For those who remain, there’re not so many opportunities. This is really central for those who stay.”

The Simons Foundation is still considering grant applications from Ukraine, having extended its deadline after Russian missile strikes cut off power and internet access for some scientists.

The State of the War

Military Aid: Germany and the United States announced they would send battle tanks to Ukraine, relenting after weeks of domestic and international pressure to deliver armored vehicles aimed at helping Kyiv regain territory seized by Russia. But it may be months before the tanks rumble across the battlefield.

Corruption Scandal: After a number of allegations of government corruption, several top Ukrainian officials were fired, in the biggest upheaval in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government since Russia’s invasion began 11 months ago.

An Expanding Cemetery: Recent satellite imagery and video footage of a growing burial ground offer a rare look at combat fatalities sustained by the Wagner mercenary group during the war.

Scores of leading Ukrainian scientists as well as their staffs and laboratories — 405 specialists and doctoral candidates in all — are receiving aid from the Simons Foundation. The recipients include chemists, biologists, physicists and mathematicians.

Larissa S. Brizhik of the Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics.via Larissa Brizhik

Over the last half-century, the quality of Ukrainian science has been “extraordinarily high,” said S. James Gates Jr., a professor of physics at the University of Maryland. Last year, Dr. Gates helped organize aid for Ukrainian scientists as a former president of the American Physical Society. Dr. Gates, who says he has received no support from the Simons Foundation, called the grants “an investment in the future.”

He said that Ukrainian scientists had done pioneering work on the theory of supersymmetry, which seeks to unify the known forces of nature mathematically and posits the existence of undiscovered particles. More prosaically, many Western companies working on pharmaceuticals and computer programming have outsourced tasks to the country’s technically savvy work force.

Invading Russian forces, in addition to damaging the country’s infrastructure and looting its cultural antiquities, have disrupted the work of its scientists and attacked their workplaces.

In Kharkiv last March, Russian forces shelled the Institute of Physics and Technology, damaging a nuclear facility it had used for research and the production of medical isotopes. Its specialists are receiving $80,400 in grants from Simons.

In October, an exploding Russian missile shattered windows and bent window frames at the Institute of Mathematics, based in a historic 19th century building in Kyiv. Experts there are receiving $310,000 in grants.

As the Russians laid siege to Kyiv last March, Dr. Brizhik, her cat and her daughter slept in a corridor of their apartment to avoid bedroom windows.

“Some days there are up to 10-12 air raid sirens,” she said on her website at the time. “We are lucky — so far our building has not been destroyed.”

However, Dr. Brizhik decided to stay, not only to help preserve Ukrainian science, but also as a symbol of resistance to the invaders.

“I love my country,” she said. “It’s important that our army, our soldiers, defend not empty territory but people who live here.”

Gregory Gabadadze, dean for science at New York University and a Simons official who has relatives in Ukraine, said the foundation had begun thinking about Ukrainian aid shortly after Russia invaded last February.

“These are high-quality people,” he said of the recipients. “It’s important to sustain their research so they can convey that knowledge and skill set to the next generation. Once that’s destroyed, it’s almost impossible to rebuild.”

Dr. Gabadadze said the foundation planned to continue the annual grants as long as the war lasted, and that afterward it would turn to aiding the reconstruction of Ukrainian science.

#News

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suspendrs · 6 years ago

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annual writing self-evaluation 2018

thank you @lululawrence for tagging me!! also i know nobody even really reads these things but i like to do them for my own reference year to year so if you’re actually interested in my answers they’ll all be below the cut!!

ALL FICS MUST HAVE POSTED ON AO3 IN 2018

1. Number of stories (including drabbles) posted to AO3: 7

2. Word count posted for the year: 231,933

3. List of works published this year (in order of posting):

thrills don’t come for free (feb. 1)

keep this love in a photograph (apr. 16)

it ain’t right, but isn’t it amazing (may 5)

there are no atheists in foxholes (june 12)

sugar in a plum (july 24)

satellite (oct. 5)

what’s inside your imagination (is as real as anything else) (oct. 20)

4. Fandoms I wrote for: one direction

5. Pairings: harry/louis

6. Story with the most:

Kudos: satellite (556)

Bookmarks: satellite (441)

Comments: satellite (53)

9. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

satellite, without a doubt. that fic took every ounce of my heart and soul and was absolutely worth every second i spent on it. i’ve never written something that took a mind of it’s own like that fic did, and it was so fun to be able to use myself as the mouthpiece for that story to tell itself.

10. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

probably thrills don’t come for free, only because it was something i wrote years and years ago and let sit in a folder for a rainy day, and i only posted it because i felt like i needed to get something up to remain relevant. that’s definitely a mindset i’m planning to leave in 2018 and i’m learning how to write and post for me and me only, which is a cool place to be in.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

from satellite (bc it’s freshest in my mind and this was the first thing that came to mind when i saw this question):

“If you’d told me a year ago that I’d spend the next year sleeping in the same place every single night, I’d have told you the only way that was possible was if I was in the ground,” he says. “People like me don’t get things like this.”

“There aren’t people like you,” Harry says quietly. “You’re the only one, and you’re so much more special than you’ll ever admit.”

Louis huffs a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “I hope you’ll always think that way,” he says.

“I will, because I’m right,” Harry says, sticking his tongue out at Louis. “I know the world has made you feel like excess, like you don’t have a place to belong, but that’s not true. You belong everywhere, in the sunshine, in gentle summer breezes, in soft snow flurries and in the color the leaves turn in the fall. You belong in the sparkle in the ocean and the sound of a birdsong, and I wish you could see yourself in all of those places the way that I do. You’re every cozy rainshower in spring and every electrical storm in summer, you’re everything, and the world’s done itself a terrible injustice making you feel any other way.”

(I actually turned that piece of dialogue into a sonnet for my poetry workshop class last semester that’s how much i loved it dsjdbssda)

12. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

honestly any and every positive and/or constructive comment tbh. my favorite comments are the ones that tell me exactly what and why they liked my work, and the ones that analyze and connect my work to their own lives. my only goal in writing and in having an audience is to mean something to someone, to hopefully string at least a couple of words together that change the way someone looks at the world, or at themself, or at anything, tbh. i just love being able to impact people in any way and i love being told how i made someone feel something or think something or realize something. that’s the good shit.

13. A time when writing was really, really hard:

writing is always hard, especially when you’re not sure that you’re writing what you want to be writing. i’ve been feeling the pressure to move away from fanfiction and onto original fiction, and i even started writing my novel last month, but i’m having trouble pulling away from harry and louis, even if my original characters are still just harry and louis with different names.

14. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

the entirety of satellite. like i said before, that fic wrote itself, and i was only a bystander. when i first got the idea for that story, it was absolutely nothing like the finished product. originally, it was just a short piece, something a little more witty and funny and disastrous in nature, but it turned out really deep and heartfelt and philosophical. i’m very very pleased with it, obviously, but it’s absolutely nothing like how i pictured it would be.

15. How did you grow as a writer this year:

i figured out how to let a story happen instead of making it happen, and it made all the difference in my writing. i think my new favorite method is going in with a loose outline and some key plot points and just seeing where the characters want to go with it, because that’s when the story feels the most natural and those are the stories i’m happiest with.

16. How do you hope to grow next year:

i hope to keep learning and growing and producing more things that i’m proud of, and i hope i keep losing my interest in the numbers and gain more interest in the process.

17. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

all of my amazing friends and their encouragement and all of the lovely people who left comments and sent messages to let me know they enjoyed my work are my biggest motivators so thank you everyone who’s ever said a single positive thing to me!!!!

18. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

i think that my writing is a pretty accurate documentation of where my head is at at any given time tbh. my work reflects me and my life at the time of writing and i think it’s pretty easy to track my highs and lows through the quality and content of my work lmao

19. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

don’t force anything. if you don’t feel like writing today, don’t. if you don’t feel like writing all week, don’t. don’t let writing become a chore, let it be a fun hobby and something you look forward to doing.

20. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

my fic for the dystopian fic fest!!! it’s coming along v well so far and i’m excited to see where it goes dbsjbjas. i also have a bunch of other ideas and i’m about 160k away from hitting a million words on ao3 so that’s my goal for 2019!!!

21. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.

@foolsholouday @harrytum @lesbianharrie @louwus and everyone else in the funfic gc i’m so tired i can’t remember everyone’s urls goondihgt

#twas a good year #i can't believe i wrote over 200k that's insane #granted satellite alone was half of that #but STILL #writing eval #tag thing

5 notes · View notes

wkemeup · 4 years ago

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Eclipse

summary: When a mission leaves you empty and broken, Bucky is determined to heal the wounds that linger deeper than the cuts on the surface. pairing: bucky x reader word count: 8.4k warnings: canon level violence, hurt!reader, PTSD, dissociative episode, nightmares, a rapid switch from sweet/fluffy to pain, angst with a happy ending

An eclipse finds its home in the darkness Thriving as it suffocates the sun and shadows her light In its passage she lays in wait Waiting— for the moon to give way and grant her morning

Bucky thinks he’s found heaven when he lays with you under the cover of thin, linen sheets; the soft, white of the fabric touching over curves and edges of exposed bodies, peaks and dips, like snowcaps nestled upon the crest of mountaintops. Lying flushed with heat, hearts beating a little faster, breaths a little labored, Bucky reaches out and traces the lines of your face.

The tip of his finger brushes over your nose, slips down along your jaw, touches the sun kissed stream of light against your cheek as it seeps in through the sheet thrown over your heads. You giggle as he pulls you in for a kiss, chaste and sweet, his hand curling into the hairs at the nape of your neck and he tugs you closer. It’s the most beautiful sound in the world, the way you laugh to his lips, muffled in his kiss but still uncontained.

Hidden under sheets, shared breaths between you in your own little world, Bucky decides he will be content if he stays here forever.

“I won’t be gone long, you know,” you tell him as you press lightly on his chest, just enough to get draw his attention away from the trail of kisses along your cheekbone and down your jawline. He pouts playfully at you, but you soothe your hand along his shoulder, recognizing the shift in energy as his eyes flicker a shade of hesitancy. “I’ll can handle myself.”

“It’s not that,” he replies quietly, voice soft, barely a whisper, as his smile begins to fall. It’s subtle, but you notice.

“Then what?”

Bucky shrugs, swallowing back the anxiety that begins to pool deep into his stomach every time you leave on assignment. But he pushes out a smile, one you do not question, and he leans in to kiss the button of your nose.

“I’ll just miss you, is all.”

You grin and it lights up wide across your face. The cast of sunshine behind you as it filters in through the sheets tossed over your body drapes down like a halo, an illumination of an angel, and Bucky commits the image to memory. Stored to a safe place in the back of his mind for the dark nights alone in this room. He’ll find you those moments, even when you’re miles away.

“You’re a sap, Bucky Barnes,” you laugh, ruffling his hair as you toss the sheet up from over your faces and take in a deep breath of fresh air. It’s brighter in the room than you realized and you squint your eyes, tucking your face to the crook of Bucky’s neck to shield yourself from the sun.

“Only for you, sweetheart.” He tries to ignore the bright red flicker of the clock beside you as he crawls out from under the safety of the bedsheets, the fantasy fractured by the reminder of your impending assignment; four weeks in a classified location, entirely on your own.

A smile presses tight to his lips as you steal a glance back at him full of bright eyes and sunshine.

He does his best to swallow the anxiety though it churns like blades through his stomach.

***

Bucky paces back and forth in his room, stealing looks at his phone as it sits face up on the bedside table. He taps the screen every few seconds, as soon as it dares to fade to black, so he can see your face again; the picture of you laughing behind an ice cream bar melting down your hand. A shimmering red bow and mouse ears on the top of your head from your trip to Disney last spring. He can still smell the melted vanilla and hardened chocolate when he looks at it and he tries hard to focus on the memory, but he knows it’s an excuse to make sure he doesn’t miss your call.

Tap.

Still nothing.

You’ve been gone over a week now and though he does his best to busy himself with time spent sparring with Sam in the gym, running out along the lake behind the compound, cleaning the kitchen until the stench of bleach burns up to the floor above him, you’re still at the forefront of his mind.

He knows you’re safe. He knows that you can protect yourself and that you were capable of solo missions long before Bucky came crash-landing into your life, but it doesn’t stop him from worrying. It doesn’t stop the incessant twitching in his hands as he curls them to fists, doesn’t stop the frantic pacing and the wear he drives into the carpet, doesn’t stop the panic that skips the beat of his heart when it’s two minutes past check-in and you haven’t called.

“Stop it,” he grumbles to himself, “she’s fine. Stop worrying. She’s fine.”

Another glance back at the phone. Tap-tap on the screen until it lights up with your smile. Nothing.

Three minutes past check-in.

He has half a mind to track down Fury himself when suddenly, the phone rings.

A ringtone you’d changed early in your relationship - a synthetic, almost electric, instrumental of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You right when the music starts to pick up and the trumpets are blaring and it throws him straight into overdrive.

Bucky lunges it at, hands fumbling for the phone but it falls to the floor in his hurry. He hits his shoulder against the edge of the nightstand with a loud thump and collapses down to the carpet as the phone bounces down under the bed.

“God-fuckin’-- ugh!”

He grips tight to the phone by the chime of ‘I love you, baby!’ and quickly brings it to his ear. He’s out of breath but he stills himself, takes a moment before he says anything and he hopes his voice is calmer than the rush in his chest.

“Hi.”

You snicker on the other end of the line and he knows in an instant he’s been busted. “Thought I told you not to wait by the phone, Buck.”

“I wasn’t.” A full faced lie. He grimaces as it comes out.

“Sure, you weren’t,” you drawl, a laugh tucked sweetly into the hum of your voice.

Bucky can hear floorboards squeaking faintly through the speaker between your breaths. Old wood, the whistle of the wind in the distance; a motel built in the early sixties with poor insulation and cracking foundations. He wonders where you are or if the image of you pacing amongst faded shades of burnt orange and green curtains, of once brightly colored comforters and pealing wallpaper only exists in his imagination.

“You okay?” he asks first because he needs the confirmation. Despite hearing the even tones in your breath, the sweet laughter in your voice, he needs to hear you say it.

“Always am, honey,” you respond lightly and Bucky lets himself take in a deep breath before you add, “I miss you though. It’s awfully cold here and I could really use a super soldier to keep me warm.”

It makes him smile; the first one that pushes up into his cheeks without force since you left. God, he misses you.

“Don’t go calling Steve now, okay?” he teases, the anxiety draining from his body in gentle waves, cast out by the flow of ocean water through his bloodstream in the sound of your voice and the image of your smile as you tug your lower lip between your teeth.

“Never. I prefer my men one-armed and dangerous.”

Bucky laughs as he sinks down further onto the floor, the carpet rubbing against his tailbone though he doesn’t mind. He’s grinning, listening to the sound of your voice as you tell him about how much you’re craving popcorn and chocolate chip movie nights and he feels like you’re sitting right next to him. He can see the creases in your smile, the lines by your eyes, the faint markings of old scars on your skin. He hears your voice and it reminds him of home.

“It’s beautiful here, Buck,” you sigh and he wonders if you’re staring out a window to mountains or ocean or tundra. “I wish you could see it.”

“Where is ‘here’ again?”

You giggle and—God—it's the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard, even crackled and broken through the speakers of an old satellite phone miles away. “Nice try, baby.”

The timer on his watch starts to ding and his heart clenches.

“Time’s up, huh?” you whine playfully, but he can hear the disappointment in your voice. It’s never long enough, these three minutes that Steve allows for you, but he’ll take seconds if he can get them. Just long enough to calm his nerves, to give you the motivation to keep going on your own, without the possibility of the call being traced.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs, clenching at his hand. He brushes closed knuckles against his forehead, presses deep into his temples because he can already feel the pit in his stomach forming again. “Stay safe, alright? Come home to me.”

He pictures your smile, the soft edges and the curve of your lips.

“Always do, don’t I?”

You do. He knows this.

But his mind is cruel and it wonders when the day will come when you won’t.

***

“I’ll raise a Kit-Kat,” Bucky concedes nearly two weeks later with a tired huff, tossing a chocolate bar to the center of the table to accompany a handful of M&M’s and mini-Twix. It knocks over Natasha’s carefully constructed tower of Milkyways and she shoots him a warning glare.

To his right, Sam snickers under his breath, a laugh too confident for a man with a dwindling stash of chocolate in front of him to the mountain sitting beside Natasha. He hides his face behind the fan of cards, but Bucky can still see the crease in his brow, the pinch of lines together at the center that tell him Sam is bluffing. Natasha is as stone cold as he would expect and he has no interest in challenging her resolve, so he decides to weed out Wilson first.

“When’s your girl getting back, Barnes? Think you might need her around to console you after I obliterate your snack drawer,” Sam taunts, changing the subject abruptly. Another tell of his.

“End of the week, I think,” Bucky replies with a shrug, playing it off casually because he knows Sam is trying to throw him off his game.

“As if you aren't counting down the seconds.” Natasha scoffs, a smirk pushing at pursed lips.

“You're an absolute goner for her, you know that don’t you?” Sam says as he pushes a few more M&M’s to the center. Brightly colored pile at the center and he plops one from his own stash into his mouth.

Bucky, meanwhile, chews on the inside of his cheek, avoiding Sam’s wandering eyes because he knows it’s true. You’ve only been together a little under a year, but he’s spent twice that loving you from a careful distance, just out of fingertip’s reach until he’d come back from a mission with one too many bullet wounds in his body and he couldn’t take the tension between you anymore.

He could still picture the smile on your face as he told you, the way your eyes lit up and you jumped into his arms; IV drips and wires to machines and all. The press of warm lips to his cheek, his temples, his nose, his mouth. Sun streaming in through the window and casting a halo behind your hair.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Atta boy.” Sam nudges Bucky’s arm, grinning wildly.

They turn to Natasha as she nods in approval before setting her cards down on the table with the kind of look in her eyes that tells Bucky the game was over before it even began. Royal Flush.

“Not again!” Sam whines, slumping down into his chair.

“It’s starting to feel cruel playing with the two of you.” Natasha reaches into the center and gathers the mountain of chocolate to drag it towards her towering pile. She starts to unravel a mini-Twix, keeping a taunting eye on Sam as he glares back at her. The chocolate passes behind parted lips and she bites down with a contented hum.

Sam rolls his eyes. “You owe us drinks, ma’am.” He gestures to his empty glass.

Natasha smirks, conceding easily as she stands to grab their glasses. She turns to Bucky. “You want a refill, Barnes?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, sure.”

As Natasha makes her way back to the kitchen, Sam sneaks a few M&M’s from her pile and quickly plops them into his mouth with a cautious glance over his shoulder. Bucky begins to shuffle the cards and he can feel the burn of Sam’s stare even before he opens his mouth.

“What do you want, Wilson?”

“When’s Y/n coming back? For real.”

Bucky glances up. Sam’s arms are stretched out along the backs of the empty chairs beside him. He’s relaxed into his position, chewing on the stolen chocolates as he raises an eyebrow.

“End of the week... like I said.”

Sam leans in closer. “That a question?”

“No,” Bucky retorts shortly, though Sam clearly isn’t buying it. He exhales a tense breath as he bridges the deck. “She’s supposed to call tonight. Longest stretch without a checkpoint since she left.”

Sam nods. “What about the three minute calls?”

“Last one was four days ago. Same day she checked in with Fury.”

“You worried?”

Bucky slices the deck. Shuffles it for the fifth time. Bridge. Repeat. “Course not. I’m sure she’s fine. I’m not worried at all.”

“You sure?” Sam chuckles, leaning back into his chair with another quick grab of a few stray green M&M’s.

“Fuck off, Wilson.”

That gets Sam laughing. He reaches across the table and snatches the cards out of Bucky’s hands before he can shuffle for a seventh time. He flashes Bucky a smile, dimples into his cheeks and all.

“I’m dealing this round.”

Bucky nods, letting the tension slip easily from his muscles. He pushes out a smile. “Yeah, okay.”

But then, a glass shatters behind him and Bucky jolts up to his feet.

“Nat? Are you--”

He freezes in an instant, tension burning through him like marble; the full force of a train straight to his chest and knocking the wind from his body, fracturing the stone to pieces around him.

Natasha stands just a few paces ahead of him, her hands clasped at her mouth in an array of shock and horror, glass shattered at her feet. Ice along wooden floors and the smell of vodka burning into the air.

Bucky almost doesn’t recognize you. There’s a slump in your shoulders, a far off look in your eye like you can’t quite focus on what’s in front of you, and a knife in your hand that won’t stop shaking.

But that’s not the worst of it.

You’re covered in blood. Deep red seeping into your hair, sticking thick and wet to your face and down your neck; trails of it along your cheeks like raindrops against a windowpane. It soaks into what remains of your suit, ripped and torn, exposed skin stained with grim and dirt. You look like something out of a horror movie.

“Oh God,” Sam mutters out, pulling Bucky from his trance.

He wants to sprint, wants to scream for help and sound every alarm he can find, but instead, Bucky only manages broken exhale as he slowly walks towards you. He moves with cautious steps, a hand out towards you defensively, like he’s approaching a frightened animal. It’s what you used to do when the line between him and the Soldier blurred, how you’d seek him out amongst the trauma and distortion and bring him back home.

“Y/n?” he calls gently and finds his voice rough in his throat.

You don’t respond, don’t even look at him as he stands within a foot of your reach. Nat and Sam are close behind, but they hold their distance.

“Sweetheart, what happened?” Bucky asks as evenly as he can manage, eyes glancing down over your body in search of injuries. There’s too much blood and he doesn’t know how much of it is your own. He wants to tug you into his arms, tell you that he’s got you, that you’re safe now, but for the first time since Shuri removed the triggers from his head, he’s afraid to touch you.

Your lips part, a few short blinks of your lashes, and you mumble out, “I came to find you.”

Your voice doesn’t sound like your own. It’s too flat, too void of emotion, and it rips Bucky right to his core. It’s a defense mechanism, he knows that. You’re still in there somewhere, he just needs to get you through this first.

“That’s good, sweetheart,” he tells you, trying his luck as he sets a hand on your back. You don’t flinch, but you don’t lean into him either. He shares a worried glance with Sam and Natasha before he turns back to you, pushing out a smile. “You did good.”

“How did she get all the way here from the Hanger without anyone stopping her?” Sam questions, eyes trailing over the mess of blood in your wake, footprints following you from the staircase by the elevator.

“She’s covered in blood and God knows what else,” Natasha whispers back. “They were probably afraid of what might happen if they did.”

Bucky can’t tear his eyes away from you, vision tunneling on the mess of blood rooted in your hair and the stains of red on your face, your chest, your hands. Natasha and Sam’s voices become muffled beside him as he slides his hand down your back and gently lays it over your grip, still shaking as you hold onto the heel of the knife as if your fist had molded to stone around it. The tremors stop as he holds your hand.

“It’s okay, honey,” he whispers, impossibly soft that not even Nat or Sam hear him, “I need you to give me the knife, alright? You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

It takes a moment, but your grip on the knife slacks. It falls to Bucky’s palm and he gently guides it out of your reach and hands it over to Natasha. He doesn’t know what happened, but he knows what you’ve done for him when the Soldier has taken over his mind, when he didn’t feel like himself and needed reminded who he was, where the ground was solid under his feet.

He knows what he needs to do.

“Nat,” he starts, but she’s already a step ahead of him.

“I’ll go find Steve,” she says, like she can read his mind. “I’ll tell him what happened, see what he knows about her assignment that would have led to this.”

Bucky swallows back the bile in his throat and he nods. “Sam--”

“I’ll sweep the jet, see what I can find,” Sam replies quickly. He sets a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, gives it a slight squeeze, and pushed out a tight-lipped smile. He was your friend long before he was Bucky's. The determination reads in his eyes.

"Thank you,” Bucky whispers.

Sam and Natasha disappear down the hallway and then, Bucky is left alone with you. He’s suddenly made aware of how harsh your breathing sounds, like you’re gasping in air through a straw. You stare beyond his shoulders, though he can tell you’re not looking at anything at all. You’re existing. It’s all your mind can cope with.

“Love?” Bucky calls, willing his voice stronger than it is. “Can you come with me?”

You don’t respond. Bucky clenches his jaw and tries again.

“I’m going to take you to our room, alright?”

He thinks it’s better not to present you with choices. It never worked well with him when he got this like; too much stimulation. He knows you’ll resist him if you need to. He slips his hand along your back to guide you towards the bedroom and you take a step as he does.

You’re limping, he notices, as you cross the threshold into the bedroom. He tries to push his mind away from what caused such an injury, what could have possibly happened to result in the amount of blood drenched over you.

That’s Sam and Natasha’s job. Bucky’s only concern is you right now, in this moment, bringing you home, making you feel safe. He guides you to the bathroom.

“I’m going to start the water, okay?” Bucky tells you. You used to do the same for him, telling him what you were doing step by step in an effort to orient him. It grounded him back to his reality, brought him down from the plane of existence above his own head.

The room starts to fill with steam, enough to fog the mirrors, and Bucky tugs his shirt over his head. He removes his sweatpants, but he resolves to leave his boxers on.

“Sweetheart?”

You look in his direction and Bucky can’t help the wash of relief as it floods through him. You don’t smile and it’s almost as if you’re looking straight through him, but it’s something. Progress.

He extends a hand to you, waiting patiently. Though you do not take it, you step a take closer to him, then past him as you walk into the shower fully clothed in your tattered suit. Bucky steps in behind and closes the glass door.

There’s enough room inside that he can stand comfortably behind you as you approach the stream of water. You stare at it for a moment before you reach out and let the water fall over your hand. You watch as the water around the drain begins to turn a dark red.

“I’m going to wash this off. Is that okay, honey?” Bucky reaches steadily for the loofa behind you, though he pauses as he feels the texture of the sponge: exfoliating mesh. It’ll be too much for you in this state. He resolves for the body wash squeezed into his empty palm.

“You let me know if you need a break.”

Still, there’s no response.

Bucky pushes back the burning lump in his throat and gingerly reaches towards you. He places a soap lathered palm against your shoulder and finds your muscles so tense they could have been made of steel or the vibranium seared into his own arm. You stare at his chest as if you could see through to his heart, maybe beyond that to the shower wall behind him, as he begins to peel the dried blood and grim from your skin.

The water at his feet becomes muddied and red, the water slipping down your legs tainted by the aftermath of violence laid upon your body. He’s careful to only use his flesh hand as he washes you, something softer and kinder than the harsh touch of metal.

You start to relax the more he works, your rigid stance easing as the blood cleans from your body. Your suit is still plastered to your skin, ripped and torn and cut open, and Bucky knows he needs to get this off of you. There’s blood behind the fabric, seeped behind the open slashes.

He thinks of the softest clothes he has to dress you in when you’re clean and dry, something too big for your frame that smelled of fresh laundry or maybe the sweatshirt draped over the chair – the one you liked to wear when he was out on missions because it smelled like him. He just wants you to feel safe, to feel warm and protected.

But he needs to get you out of this suit first.

He reaches for the zipper at your chest and the next thing he knows, he’s pressed up against the shower wall, his head pulsing at the impact as you grip tight to his wrist. You’re panting, eyes unfocused at the center of his chest.

He lets you hold him there. He doesn’t try to resist though he knows with his strength he could easily overpower you.

“Sweetheart, it’s me. It’s Bucky,” he tries, his voice soft against the fall of water behind you. “I’m not going to hurt you, love.”

You don’t move, but your breaths start to come in a little more even. Your grip falters on his wrist though you don’t let go. His heart feels like it’s shattering inside his chest, stray shards embedding themselves into his stomach, his ribs, his lungs.

“Honey, look at me,” he pleads. “You’re safe now. You’re home. Let me take care of you.”

It takes a moment, but your eyes begin to trail up his collarbone, hesitant sweeps along his neck, his jaw, and then – his eyes. The hard resolve upon your features begins to crumble. Your lip quivers, your hand gripped tight around his wrist slacking in the tremors, tears burn into your eyes and Bucky doesn’t waste a moment before he gathers you into his arms, presses you tight to his chest and encases you against him.

It's like something finally clicks, a floodgate burst open, because you’re clutching onto him like a lifeline. He can feel the sob as it travels up your spine and shakes your body as you cry. He’s grateful for the mist of the shower that hide his own tears as he rubs gentle circles along your back, easing you the best he can. It’s torture seeing you like this and feeling so powerless to help.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there with you, but eventually, you stop crying. The exhaustion begins to take hold and your legs begin to shake under you, too weak to hold yourself up.

“I’m going to take your suit off, okay? You’ll be more comfortable without it,” Bucky says, gesturing to the zipper. You follow his gaze in understanding and then, you nod.

The suit already clings tight to your skin without the added pressure of the sticky residue of blood drenched into the fabric and the soak of water from the shower. He slides the zipper down to your navel and slowly peels what's left of the sleeves off your shoulders.

There’s cuts and slashes underneath, wounds where blades had cut through your suit and nicked your skin. They’re superficial, better than they could have been if not for the suit taking the brunt of the attack, but they’re still painful to look at.

Bucky helps you step out of the suit and he leaves it in the corner of the shower. He glances at your underwear and you slide it down your hips without question.

“Can I wash your hair, honey? Please?”

You nod and Bucky works quickly. You’re starting to shiver as the water loses its heat, so you stand a little closer to him, seeking out his warmth. It removes just an ounce of the boulder sitting upon his chest.

When he’s finished, the water at the drain is clear again. The fresh scars upon your body and the distant look in your eye the only evidence remaining of what happened.

Bucky reaches around you to turn off the water. He pulls a towel from the rack and begins to gently pat it over your skin until you’re dry. Then, he scrunches out as much of the water as he can from your hair, before he leaves the towel resting on your shoulders to soak up the rest.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells you as he finished drying himself off. “I’m going to go grab some clothes for you.”

He doesn’t even make it a step out of the bathroom before your hand is on his wrist again. He stills, looking back at you. Your eyes fall to the floor.

Bucky swallows back the burn in his throat as he nods. “Okay. Okay, honey. Can you come with me?”

You nod.

By the time you’re dressed in a fresh pair of his boxers and the t-shirt he slept in the previous night, you can hardly keep your eyes open. He wonders how long it’s been since you slept, if maybe it was since the evening he spoke to you four days prior. You sway on your feet as Bucky guides you to the bed.

He lays you down, pulls the covers up to your chest and quickly rushes around to the other side of the bed to crawl in beside you. You come into his arms, curling up against his chest, and Bucky tries to pretend for a moment that this is just another night, that you just returned from a successful mission and there’s a relief in holding you again.

But he can’t shake the crippling dread as it burns into his skin. Even as your breaths fall even and you slack into his arms, Bucky stares up at the ceiling, eyes brimming with tears. He doesn’t sleep at all.

***

A few hours later, the soft tap of a knock draws Bucky from his trance. He blinks a few times, realizing how long he’d been staring up at the ceiling before he lifts his head and finds Steve peering in through the doorway. There’s a solemn look on his face as his eyes flicker towards you.

Bucky gently slides out from under you, careful to place a pillow under your arm where you’d been laying upon his chest as not to wake you. The bed rises a little as he stands and he takes a moment to brush the hair from your eyes before he makes his way to the door. When he meets Steve in the hallway, he’s careful to leave the door to the bedroom open a crack, just in case.

“What did you find?” Bucky asks.

Steve sinks down onto the couch. A hand brushes over his face.

“That bad?” Bucky can already feel the nausea beginning to take hold.

“We recovered footage from her last know whereabouts – the safe house in Juno,” Steve says. He leans forward to rest his elbows upon his thighs, staring out into the empty space of the kitchen. He sighs. “She was ambushed, Buck. The feed cut out a few minutes into the fight.”

“Who were they?” Bucky chokes out. His throat is made of sandpaper.

“We don’t know,” Steve admits, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “Mercenaries, probably. Could have been hired in retaliation against SHEILD. Her mission was to identify the point of contact for an illegal arms distributor that was shipping assault rifles into Canada and carrying them over the border. She wasn’t supposed to see any action, Bucky. It was a surveillance op.”

Bucky doesn’t realize how tight his hands are clenched until he looks down to find puncture marks in the palm of his right hand from where his nails buried into his skin. He thinks of the woman who left him behind that morning, with sun kissed skin and a smile so sweet it made his heart melt, who has barely spoken in the hours since returning home, who’s bright eyes have dimmed into something empty and lost.

He’s missing something, he’s sure of it. Maybe if he could just see the footage for himself, identify the bad guys, track them down... maybe he’ll be able to fix this. He could bring you back, make you smile again. Killing those men who hurt you will be a small consolation prize for his efforts.

Bucky is determined as he stands. “I want to see it.”

“Absolutely not,” Steve shoots back. Bucky doesn’t even need to clarify before Steve puts an end to it. “What purpose will that serve, Buck? You don’t need to see the tape, okay? Just trust me on this. I’ve got everyone we have analyzing that video frame by frame. If there’s anything on it to lead us to those assholes, we’ll find it.”

“I have to do something, Steve. I can’t just sit here. Not with her like that...” Bucky glances back at the door to the bedroom. He can’t muster the energy to conjure the image of you standing before him drenched in blood that was not your own, a vacant look in your eyes as if you could see straight through him.

“She needs you here,” Steve argues, rising to his feet. “What do you think will happen when she wakes up and I’ve gotta tell her you’ve run off on some vengeance mission? That you’ve left her alone to face this by herself?”

“That’s not what I’m doing—”

“Yes, it is!” Steve clenches his jaw as his voice echoes into the hall. It’s quiet for a moment and they listen for the bed to squeak, for any sign that you’re awake, but they’re only met with silence, Steve relaxes again. He takes a step forward and places his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. It startles him for a moment, but he can feel the tension as it melts in his muscles. “Just be here for her, man. When there’s something to know, I’ll tell you.��

Bucky keeps his stare on the thin crack in the door, the moonlight peering in from the window and seeping out into the hallway. He listens for the even breaths as you sleep soundly for the first time in days and he knows Steve is right. He doesn’t know if he could leave you like this even if Steve handed him the direct files of every man who laid a hand on you.

“I should get back to her,” Bucky resolves, offering Steve as much of a grateful smile as he can manage. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but Steve understands.

***

It takes days before Bucky can get you to leave the bedroom. He’s only been able to get a few words out of you here and there, short answers to direct questions, and you can’t hold his eye for very long, but he takes it as improvement.

It’s the small steps.

He remembers you saying that when he was at his worst, when he could barely get himself out of bed, when he could hardly touch you without fear of breaking you in half, when the guilt tore and ate through him unchallenged.

So, every time you lift you head when he speaks, when you glance in his direction, when you nod in answer of a question, when you curl against his side and seek out his warmth – it matters. It’s more than what you were able to do the day before and that has meaning.

When you finally do venture out into the living room, Bucky is sure to keep a hand on you at all times. Whether it’s wrapped up tightly in your own, pressed gently to the small of your back, resting against your thigh, over your shoulders – it helps to ground you, remind you that he’s there. You start to drift off into yourself otherwise.

Meanwhile, everyone else is walking on eggshells around you.

Tony turns out of the room before he can even step foot into the kitchen when he sees the back of your head over the couch. Peter is constantly shoveling food into his mouth to keep from his usual rambling one-sided conversations. Steve is deceptively quiet, constantly glancing in your direction as if he’s just waiting for something to set you off. Even Natasha keeps her distance, which surprises him. She stays in the room but she keeps to the corners, observing, like Steve.

Sam, on the other hand, was never one for subtleties.

“Hey kiddo!” Sam throws himself onto the couch beside you, bowl of popcorn in his hand as it jumps up into the air before landing back safely in the bowl.

You flinch at the sudden intrusion next you and Bucky all but stares daggers into Sam for startling you. Bucky was trying to keep your environment as calm as possible as not to set you off into one of those dissociative states again. It could take hours just to get you to acknowledge his voice after that and Bucky can only take that so many times before he’ll simply crumble.

“You know what I’ve been dying to watch?” Sam says aloud, as if someone is listening to him. He shovels a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

“Sam, no.” Bucky warns as he pulls you closer to his side. That movie has far too much violence, even for an eighties film. He doesn’t know how you’ll react to it.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Sam shoots back. He settles into the couch beside you, grinning as he turns in your direction. “Come on, Y/n. It’s been ages since we’ve watched Indie. I know the first is your favorite anyway.”

Bucky is all but ready to clock Sam ten ways to Sunday when you mutter out a quiet, “okay” and Bucky stills completely. It's the first time you’ve even acknowledged anyone besides Bucky since you came home. He stares at Sam with wide eyes, but Sam doesn’t seem to be surprised at all.

Instead, Sam simply sinks into the cushions, turns on the movie he must have already lined up in the queue, and leans the bowl of popcorn in your direction.

Indiana Jones starts his first trek into the cave in search of the Golden Idol and you reach your hand into the bowl. A few bites of popcorn within the first minutes of the movie and it’s more than Bucky has been able to get you to eat without coercion in days. A whisper of a smile crosses your face as Sam almost chokes on the handful he shoved into his mouth.

Sam Wilson might be a massive pain in Bucky’s ass, but he’s a damn good friend. He’s the only one who hasn’t treated you like you’ve lost your mind. He gives you a sense of normalcy when the floor has been pulled out from under you.

For that, Bucky owes him everything.

***

Bucky finds out a week later that there are no bad guys to track down, no one to enact vengeance on for the trauma they’d put you through. There is a reason you came home covered in blood and grime with barely more than a few superficial scratches on your body.

You’d killed them all.

“Are you sure?” Bucky asks Steve, hands planted firmly on the conference table. The night sky is littered in cloud covered stars beyond the windows, crickets chirping in the distance. Bucky stares down at the mug shots of a dozen men now presumed dead.

“We’re sure.” Steve slowly reaches out to gather the images, sliding them back into the file and out of sight. “We’re still working on who sent them but it was probably the arms dealer she was sent to identify. Fury’s sending out a team in the morning to bring him in.”

“That’s... that’s good.” Bucky doesn’t have the strength for revenge anymore. He’s grown tired of carrying it in his chest, on his shoulders, weighing him down as if sinking him to the trenches of an ocean.

“How’s she doing?” Steve asks, gesturing towards the doorway as they begin to walk back to the elevator.

“Better,” Bucky replies honestly.

He’s even seen you crack a smile a few times watching movies with Sam in the living room, maybe even heard a breath of laughter when Sam dropped an entire bowl of popcorn and threw a fit about it.

You’re talking to Bucky more, asking questions, starting brief conversations outside of the necessary ‘yes’ and ‘no’s, humming to yourself as you shower with Bucky standing just a few feet away. It’s something. Small steps.

“She’s strong, Buck. She’ll get through this.”

Bucky takes a deep breath as the elevator doors chime open. He presses the button for his floor. “I know. I just hate seeing her like this in the meantime.” The elevator reaches his floor and he waits as the doors begin to part. “Thanks, Steve. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Steve nods. “You got it, brother.”

Bucky makes his way down the hall from where he’d left you just a few hours earlier. You’d insisted that you’d be alright on your own while he met with Steve. Sam is still sitting on the couch watching Netflix just a few feet outside the bedroom, leaving a blanket of security in Bucky’s absence. He can hear Sam singing along to the theme song as he passes by.

There’s a ghost of a smile on his face as he approaches the living room, but a sudden, gut wrenching scream stills him in his tracks.

Sam jumps up from the couch, popcorn spilling to the carpet and Bucky stares back at the cracked door to the bedroom with wide eyes. He exchanges a glance with Sam and as another scream echoes out into the hall in a broken cry, the two of them rush into the room.

Bucky shoulders his way through the door, breaking the hinges on the top of the frame as he stumbles his way inside. You’re lying on your stomach, arms clutched under the pillow, sweat dampened sheets kicked off down by your feet. You’re whimpering, tear tracks into the pillowcase and your whole body is trembling.

“Y/n?” Bucky calls as gently as he can, his voice breaking in the effort. He moves closer to the bed, his hand hovering over your shoulder, almost afraid to touch you. “Sweetheart, wake up.”

You cry out again, face contorting in pain as you press your face into the pillow.

“I should get Cho,” Sam says behind him, starting to inch towards the door, but Bucky barely hears him as he runs into the hallway.

“Come on, honey,” Bucky tries again. He sinks down to his knees beside the bed. His heart is stammering in his chest. It’s pounding so loudly he’s sure the whole compound can hear it. He feels the tears burn in his eyes as you start to sob. “You’re safe. You’re alright, love. I’m here with you. I’m here, baby.”

Bucky lets his hand ghost over your shoulder and he barely has a chance to react before you jolt upright and there’s a sudden, stinging sensation across his chest. Your eyes are wide, chest heaving as you try to catch your breath. It takes a minute before Bucky sees the hilt of the knife gripped tight in your fist.

“Bucky?” you gasp. “What are you—Oh my God...”

The knife drops from your hold as your hands clasp against your mouth. It falls at Bucky’s knees. You’re trying to stifle a sob as it threatens to consume you whole and Bucky tries to reach out for you, but you scramble away from him, fearful eyes staring below his collarbone.

Slowly, Bucky follows your gaze to his chest. There he finds that his shirt is torn in a long, pristine cut. Blood begins to soak into the light grey of the fabric from the open wound underneath. The knife you’d held in your hand bares his blood upon the blade.

“What have I done?!” you cry, shaking your head as you scurry off of the bed and into the corner of the room. You sink to the floor and Bucky shakes himself of his stupor to rush towards you.

“I’m alright,” he tries to reassure you, though he knows it’s no use. “Baby, I’m fine. It’s nothing. It’ll heal in a few hours. I’m okay.”

“Oh God, Oh God! No... I didn’t-- I didn’t mean to--” Your words are barely distinguishable, slurring together in your slobs, and you can barely catch your breath. You shake your head, fresh tears streaming on your cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m-- I’m so s-sorry. I didn’t-- I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” Bucky coos. He can feel the itch of a tear as it passes his jawline. “Honey, I need you to breathe for me. Please, let me hold you. I’m okay. You didn’t hurt me.”

But your eyes are glued to the open sliver of his t-shirt, the blood as it soaks into the cotton, and the slash underneath. It only makes you cry more. Its uncontrollable, like you might pass out if you can’t allow yourself to take in enough air, and Bucky feels like he’s reaching out into a fucking void because there’s nothing he can do for you.

“Sergeant Barnes,” a stern voice calls suddenly from behind him. Helen Cho stands in the doorway with Sam just beyond her shoulder. She steps into the room, uncapping a syringe. “Hold her down.”

You’re in hysterics as Bucky pulls you into his arms. You don’t resist as you fall against his chest, but he can feel the unease with which you sit in your own body, like your skin is crawling and you’re caged inside of yourself. He knows the feeling well.

You barely notice as the needle punctures your neck, heavy head falling to rest against Bucky’s shoulder. He eases his left hand down your spine, hoping the chill of the metal will help soothe you as your breaths become more even and the sobs fall weak and far between.

“I’ve got you, honey,” he whispers. You start to close your eyes, giving into the sedative. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Just rest, love. I’ve got you.”

No one relaxes until it’s clear you’re out cold. Sam lets out a heavy sigh from the doorway, slumping into the arch. Helen sinks onto the floor beside Bucky, tossing the syringe into the disposal bag before she rubs a tired hand over her face.

Bucky feels like he can hardly breathe. He waits until Helen and Sam retire to their own rooms before he allows the lump in his throat to consume him whole, before the tears on his face mirror the watermarked stains on his shirt. He doesn’t move from the floor until sunrise, unwilling to disturb your sleep.

***

“I don’t know why you haven’t left me yet.”

The words pass your lips and they puncture straight through Bucky’s chest - like a knife embedded through his skin, nicking over bone and tearing through flesh. He feels sick, a wave of nausea crashing through him as he turns to look at you.

Your eyes are swollen red, lips chewed raw. It only takes a flicker of your gaze to the long faded pink scar across his chest to know what’s on your mind.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bucky says firmly.

You shake your head, unconvinced. “I could have killed you.”

“Don’t you go underestimating me, now,” Bucky teases, lighting his voice despite the burning ache he feels in his chest. He smiles at you but you can hardly meet his eye.

Your legs are swung over the bedside, hands wringing in your lap, reddening the skin. Your breaths are shaken, lower lip trembling, and he knows you’re trying to hold back tears. He can practically feel the lump building in your throat, suffocating you.

He sighs, sinking down to his knees in front of you. His hands reach out for your own and you flinch at his touch. It takes a moment before you can remind yourself who’s hands are holding you, who’s love you’re surrounded in, and you relax.

He thinks of the woman who taught him how to love again, who woke him from a decades long nightmare with the sweet touch of her hand and the adoration in her smile. He conjures the image of you he preserved before you left on your last mission, with sun kissed skin and laughter in your chest, as he stares up at the dark circles under your eyes, the frown upon your lips, the aching claws of shame draining you of the light you possessed.

“Sweetheart, look at me.” He tips a finger under your chin and guides you to meet his eye. He smiles, softening under your gaze.

“You hold so much space in your heart for compassion and forgiveness,” Bucky eased, stroking his thumbs gently along the backs of your hands. “You never hesitated once to absolve me of my sins as the Winter Soldier. It didn’t matter how may nights I woke up empty, not knowing where or who I was. It didn’t matter how much I thought I was a burden to you and the team, or whether I deemed myself worthy enough to be loved by you. You were patient with me, kind beyond what I ever believed I could deserve. Can you not reserve some of that for yourself, too?”

He watches the sob creep up your spine before it breaks. There’s little more either of you can say and he resides to holding you in his arms, caged protectively against his chest where not even the demons lurking in the back of your mind can find you.

He knows, eventually, you’ll be okay. You taught him that. Even when the tunnel was its darkest, when he could barely see beyond the tips of his fingers, and the sun was cast over in shadows -- you showed him that as long as he kept walking, he’d find the light again.

***

“Come on, Y/n, what is the matter with you?”

Bucky hears you grumbling to yourself in the kitchen. He wipes the trail of sweat off his face from his morning run as he approaches the island covered in stray dollops of pancake batter, bottles of maple syrup, and mixing bowls. He smiles as he leans against the counter, waiting for you to notice him.

“You weren’t supposed to be home yet,” you groan, catching Bucky out of the corner of your eye as you dump a plate full of burnt pancakes into the sink. Your hair a little out of sorts, a bead of sweat dripping down your temple. It’s almost endearing if it wasn’t for how fast your heart was beating. Bucky could hear it down the hall.

“Missed you.” He shrugs casually, testing a smirk and you started to smile in return; all shy and sweet and full of the woman he adores. He glances to the mess in the kitchen and the smoke piling on the ceiling. “What happened here?”

“Pancakes aren’t my strongest suit.”

Bucky laughs at that. “I can see that.”

You sigh, scratching at the back of your neck. “I just wanted to do something nice for you, Bucky.”

Bucky can feel his heart sinking but he holds the smile to his face. “You do a thousand nice things for me all the time. Just being here is enough for me, sweetheart.”

“You know what I mean,” you say under your breath, eyes falling to the floor by his feet. “After everything I put you through since that awful mission-”

“Hey, hey -- Don’t do that.” Bucky crosses the kitchen and places his hands gingerly on your cheeks, guiding your eyes back to his. “You didn’t do anything wrong; you hear me? You survived. You’re still surviving and I’m just... I’m so proud of you, Y/n.”

You part your lips to say more, to argue against him, but it dies on your tongue as Bucky smiles at you as if you hung the moon and the stars and every damn

“You don’t need to bring me coffee in the morning,” Bucky says before he presses a kiss to your forehead, “or bribe Stark into making new tech for my arm,” then a kiss to your nose, “or make me burnt pancakes to thank me for loving you through this.”

He pauses as he pulls back. You’re watching him with an expression somewhere between awe and relief, but it’s the warmth of your smile that does him in completely.

“We take care of each other, okay? That’s what we do,” Bucky says, leaning in to kiss your lips sweetly until he can feel the smile grow against his mouth. He pulls back, chuckling a bit under his breath. “Besides, I’m the last person who is going to be scared away by trauma.”

You laugh as you wrap your arms around his waist, pulling yourself closer to his chest. Engulfed in the sweet smell of maple and butter and batter, Bucky feels a wash of calm for the first time since you left on that mission.

He thinks you may have finally found your way home.

Thank you so much for reading! ❤️ If you enjoyed this fic, please consider supporting me at my ko-fi account ✨

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x y/n

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keravnos-kori · 3 years ago

Text

return to sender - chapter one: commencement

tech x ofc (eventual)

word count: 6.7k

read the prologue here!

cw: in-universe cursing, baby's first fic, thoughts of isolation, anxiety, loneliness, etc. alcohol mention, slight references to body image issues, sensory overload mention, vague canon-typical violence (PLEASE let me know if I missed anything else!)

summary: halla has been alone for the past three years. as it turns out, relocating to coruscant and attending a prestigious university hasn’t been as glamorous as she originally expected - but when a new opportunity comes along for her to prove the republic’s injustices committed against clone troopers, she might get more than she bargained for when the power structure suddenly collapses and is replaced by something far more sinister…

a/n: can ya'll believe I'm actually committing to a project for once? you have no idea how happy i am to get this chapter out - it's personally not my favorite since it's based around a lot of internal exposition rather than interactions with other characters, but we need that sick ass character development before we get to the good stuff. shout out to @keldabekush for allowing me to reference their epic oc band of clone deserters, The Meat Droids for a little sentence near the end - it's an amazing concept and I just couldn't help but want to include it somewhere. also, some lines from the notes sent back and forth between tech and halla were taken from the original rp a bit of an homage to the “source material” bc i’m a simp. thank you in advance for reading! hope you enjoy

~~~~~~

Subspace transceivers were near ancient technology by Galactic Republic standards. Comprised of pulse radars, input/output transducers, and sorosub omni arrays, the technology was far more economical in practice than sending messages through the holonet. Yet, this method was a bit riskier to engage in since the files had the potential to stall or become corrupted altogether while jumping from satellite to satellite. Modern interplanetary infrastructure not only made it possible to ensure these cases occurred less frequently than before the start of the war, but also allowed transmissions to be sent nearly anywhere within Republic or neutral territories. As long as civilians avoided the more secure frequencies by sticking to their own metaphorical hyperlanes, the privileges of owning these devices were granted without many restrictions in place. With hundreds of thousands of networks interspersed throughout the known regions dispatching millions of communicative datafiles at approximately 492,459,264 kilometers per standard hour, it is considered by gearheads and gurus alike to be one of the oldest, yet intuitive, technological marvels of contemporary times.

Halla hadn’t a clue how any of it worked.

All she knew was that she had been lucky to find a pretty, gold-plated module at a local junk shop in the next district over that still had its original frequency assigned. After asking a former instructor at the university to reset the device with her own personal information, she lugged the contraption home and set it up proudly underneath her desk. Installing the corresponding application on her main console and personal datapad was pretty straightforward from there.

The other thing she knew for sure was that when she departed that morning to attend her commencement ceremony, there were no messages in her inbox.

And now there was.

That morning for Halla had begun less jubilantly than it probably was for the other graduates in her class. This was most likely due to the fact that she did not awaken until nearly 14:00 standard time, and therefore had no opportunity to attempt to enjoy the first half of the day. Her alarm sounded right on schedule, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything productive for the first fifteen minutes other than stare at her ceiling, affect completely blank.

For just a few moments, she allowed herself to think of her monna – her mother – and how she, along with Halla’s stepfather and half-siblings, would be absent from the occasion today for one reason or another. All four of them were back home on Scarif, and she hadn’t heard from any of them for about an entire week now; odd, especially from the overbearing matriarch and her regular attempts to badger her daughter. Did they even know it was today? Surely they must, the topic of graduation came up nearly every time her family commed her. Perhaps there was no shuttle available to arrive on time: logical, considering the remote nature of the tropical planet and its relative distance from the core worlds. Or maybe the scorching sun finally fried their brains and they got caught up harvesting sea grapes near the basin, the event escaping their minds completely.

Her biological father, now he was an entirely different story, and not one Halla gave much thought to on a regular basis. Since she didn’t keep up regular contact with him, she had no reason to believe he had any idea what she was accomplishing today – too deeply involved in his career trajectory to notice his little girl was growing up without him. Who needed family when you had your own Venator-class?

Once the dissonant bell tones had finally overtaken her psyche, Halla made the effort the kick the thick duvet from her body and plant her feet on the bedside rug, worn from the previous day and the countless days before that. Padding across the hall and into her apartment’s single washroom, she made an effort not to gaze at herself in the looking glass in passing. Once she had properly relieved herself and scrubbed her hands clean, she made the mistake of looking up despite her initial efforts.

Facing herself for the first time since waking up, she couldn’t help but groan at the state of her hair, half out of its updo from the night before, with what looked like a bit of drool caked around her left fringe. Not to mention the dark circles hugging her bottom eyelids, the way her cheek was stained red with imprints from the sheets, and the enormous crick in her neck she had yet to stretch out, causing her to lean at an unnatural angle.

What a fantastic way to start your big day, Lala…

Slapping her cheeks two or three times to rouse a semblance of consciousness, Halla turned around to start up the ‘fresher, warming it to a desirable temperature before removing her tousled sleepwear and stepping onto the tiled surface. She scrubbed herself down and even pushed herself through the extra effort of shaving her legs and underarms for the first time in what was probably scandalously too long by Coruscant Level 5,127 standards. As much as she despised trying to wrangle her hair beneath the spray, it was an additional chore that demanded to be completed. Halla cringed internally at the number of strays that fell down the drain as she wrapped herself in the thickest towel available from the linen shelf.

Getting dressed was a lonely affair, with no one to dramatically fawn over her appearance or tell her how proud they were that she was the first on that side of the family to complete a collegiate education. There was no music, no clinking glasses, and no emotion-melding ritual as was the custom with her stepfather’s culture. Nautolans sure knew how to throw a party, and it was striking to the Very Human Halla how much she missed those comforts now that it was her own day to celebrate.

The second time she faced herself, now in front of her full-length mirror, it was a far less distressing image – her coppery-brown hair, dried and styled as well as she could manage on her own, fell about her shoulder blades and framed around her round face flatteringly. The cosmetics she chose to work with were tasteful, but she couldn’t help but let some of her personal artistic flair shine through as she was applying it – gold and green pigment bordered her hazel eyes, the black liner angling down slightly to compliment the shape of her eyes. Blush was an absolute must for her complexion and an attempt was made at dabbing a darker shade of concealer below her cheekbones, though her soft features and jawline were not the most conducive to the technique. Her lips were painted a darker tint than she wore on an everyday basis, but it was by far her favorite part of the look. Gold and bronze accessories decorated the rest of her skin and hair, complementing the stark black material of the commencement robe.

Overall, it wasn’t her worst work, but something about the circumstance made it nearly impossible to enjoy. Halla tried to smile at her reflection, feeble as it was. A few holopics were even snapped when all was said and done, so that she might have something down the line to remember that day.

Like you have anyone to impress today.

With that excessively constructive thought, Halla was out the door just in time to reach the taxi terminal and ride up to the University’s auditorium for the last time as an undergraduate.

~~~

The ceremony itself was a slog. Halla was expecting it, and it seemed as if everyone else in her cohort was too. Name after name after foreign name was called, and after a while Halla had nothing better to do than sit back in her assigned seat, fingers twisting and knees shaking, and take guesses as to where everyone else came from as they walked across the stage. Some were easier than others: Glee Anselm for the Nautolans, Pantora for most of the periwinkle-skinned, fur-donned humanoids, Naboo for those that wore red stoles and the ceremonial scar down their lip, etc. It was always a tradition to represent your homeworld at functions such as this, which was why Halla opted for the more subtle, yet just as symbolic lei of plom blossoms hanging low around her neck. The most interesting graduate to cross was a feminine-presenting Kel Dor, not a figure Halla had ever encountered before, but wonderful to behold all the same since their species never traveled too far from Dorin from what she’d studied.

Eventually, Halla felt herself nodding off slightly, only jolting awake just in time for her row to be summoned to stand and make their way to the foot of the podium. Accepting the piece of flimsi with a handshake from the headmaster, Halla was able to register in the back of her mind that there was no one in the audience screaming in excitement at her name being announced like those before and behind her in line – just polite, subdued applause.

No relatives, no friends, no colleagues.

Returning to her seat, any sense of accomplishment she anticipated the impact of never struck her. Now all she wanted was for it to be over with, and for some inexplicable reason, she blamed herself for ruining the occasion for herself. She found herself to be quite pitiful at that moment, and the rest of the ceremony passed in a grey, dull, unsatisfactory blur: the kind of blur that makes you want to slink home, order takeout, and never surface from your bed’s comforter even if the sky was falling.

Maybe Rodian curry is in the cards for later…

There better be something good on the holos tonight…

Do they deliver alcohol all the way down here, or does that cost extra��?

These were the thoughts dominating Halla’s mind the entire journey home. After swiping her taxi chit to pay the automated toll, she began her ascent back up towards her apartment, footsteps echoing distantly through the durasteel hallways. It seemed like everyone who resided in her complex was out to celebrate tonight. Everyone, that was, except for her.

Lucky them.

Even the front door must’ve sensed deep in its wiring what sort of emotional state she was in, taking sympathy on her and opening up right as she punched in her key code – a departure from its usual malfunctioning temperament for which she was immensely grateful, just this once. Safely locked inside, Halla unceremoniously tossed the flimsi and its embossed folder onto her entryway table along with the rest of her belongings. She couldn’t care less about any of it, not anymore. Her main goal was to tear the overpriced garb from her body and toss it to the bottom of her closet, never to be seen again.

The frustration only grew as she stripped out of her dress and gown, shucked her shoes off haphazardly, and picked out mismatched sleepwear from her dresser – as she pulled the oversized University Boloball team sweatshirt over her head, Halla made the error of looking into the mirror for the umpteenth time that day. Her carefully applied mascara and eyeliner had smudged sometime between her application and return home, and not the sexy kind of smudge she’d seen models wear to promote perfumes and lingerie; it looked like she had narrowly missed being collided into by an over-the-limit speeder. That, along with her windswept hair and flushed cheeks from the taxi ride had left her in a state of disarray.

Have I really looked like this all evening?

Standing there in just the long-sleeved shirt and black cotton underwear, Halla couldn’t pull her eyes away from the railspeeder-wreck that was her physical appearance in its current state. Her previously tamed hair had lost its gentle, artificial curls and had returned to its natural mess of frizzy waves and overgrown, split-ended thickness. The heels she had elected to wear had done nothing to support her feet and left blisters on the backs of both her ankles where the straps had been secured. And, of course, there was the chafing between her thighs from forgetting to include any sort of slimming garment in her outfit’s ensemble. The sensory overload was getting to be too much – physically, mentally, and emotionally, it was more than she could bear.

Grabbing a microfiber cloth from her vanity, Halla leaned in close to her mirror and began to wipe under her eyes, trying her best to regain some sense of self-perceived normalcy. Washing her face was the second step in recentering herself, and as soon as she was all patted dry (and finally decided to step into her linen shorts) she figured it was about time to order the meal she had been considering as a consolation for such a shitty, kriffed up, no-good day. Halla retrieved her datapad and stopped short once it had unlocked.

The red icon on the screen flashed impatiently over her transmissions app – a notification that hadn’t been there when she had left earlier that evening.

Halla didn’t know much about subspace transmissions, but the world seemed to shift as she threw herself down onto her unmade bed, holding the pad over her eyes as if she were trying to decode a Jedi Holocron (at least that’s how she thought it worked, how was she supposed to know?).

Over the past two days since she’d first sent her message to her selected trooper, she couldn’t pull herself away from checking every few minutes for a new message – and every time there was one, it was always a false alarm: spam and scams, rather than a message from a particular commando originating from outside her contact list. Halla couldn’t help but allow her excitement to grow again, her heart pounding in her ribcage like a child waking up on Life Day morning. All of the events from earlier came rushing back to her at once; all of the strife would be worth it if this actually turned out to be from who she hoped it was.

Kark, let’s just get this over with.

All opinions on what end meal she would purchase from the market were suddenly paused, momentarily forgotten in favor of the abrupt, but not unwelcome turn the night was taking. The lone message was selected, buffered for a bit, then displayed itself before Halla’s very eyes. And there, at the very bottom of the text box, was a simple sign-off. A one-syllable name that caused her to almost choke on her saliva as she swallowed in disbelief.

It’s him.

It’s really him!

Halla sat there, incredulously holding the electronic device in both hands, afraid that if she were to make any sudden movement the message would vanish like some cosmic prank. But it didn’t disappear, it remained right where it was supposed to. Scrolling back up towards the header, Halla read it to herself, slowly, deliberately. Her fingertips began to shake as she read onward:

Date of Transmission: 1,013:04:07

Recipient: Halla Ismaren <hismaren.uccore.holo>

Subject: Re: Requesting Assistance

Miss Ismaren,

I received your initial message two days ago and would like to account for the delay on my part. I am interested in your cause, if somewhat minimally at this point in time. The filters installed within my transceiver are far too advanced to grant unwanted solicitation. This is how I knew you were genuine with your request for assistance. Though I have never received a post-secondary education as you have, I am quite familiar with the processes and definitions associated with various types of research and dissertations – there is no need to expand on these concepts for my sake. Your thesis topic seems a bit vague. Would you mind explaining further what it is you are trying to accomplish? I don’t believe I would be of much use to you unless I know the specifics of your mission statement.

Additionally, a disclosure must be made before I lead you astray: You state that I am the best potential candidate to provide insights for this project, and while I agree I would have an exceptional awareness of the operations within the GAR, I do not claim to represent the rest of the army’s homogenous population. I can expand on this at a later date if you wish. Your desire to advocate for us is admirable, to be sure.

-Tech

P.S. Statistically you are correct, someone is undoubtedly thinking of my squad out in the greater galaxy. However, I doubt it’s in a friendly manner as I face many adversaries in my line of service. If you are insinuating it’s you who regards us positively, thank you, I suppose.

Transceiver Identification: CT-9902-D-622-E.modified

*This transmission is liable to data retrieval and analysis, all rights and liberties of communications monitoring afforded to the Grand Army of the Republic*

Halla read over the transmission what felt like a million times, emphasizing different words, trying to imagine what the cadence of his voice would sound like. Her first impression was that he was, well…rather clinical. Not cold or detached precisely, merely efficient with his syntax. She figured this was a byproduct of his training – why waste time writing long-winded letters to a stranger when you could be preparing for battle or offering humanitarian aid to refugees? Halla couldn’t find it within herself to be offended by his tone. In fact, it was nearly impossible to wipe off the stupid grin she had plastered across her face.

A soft giggle escaped from between her lips, followed by a slightly louder one which evolved into full-blown laughter by the next breath she took. Hysterical, Halla had no choice but to drop the pad next to her hip, gaining another free hand to wipe away the overflowing tears of elation.

IT WORKED.

Halla scrambled her way off the bed and began pacing across her quarters, punching the air several times in triumph. This was it – this trooper, Tech, was going to be her saving grace. She would collect his statements, bring them before the Senate’s Ethics Committee, and attain something beneficial for an underserved population that had no voice within the government it was forced to serve. Just like all those figures from her civics texts growing up, Halla’s name would go down in history as someone who did something good, something right for others. The tuition money wouldn’t be wasted, she wouldn’t return to her settlement an utter failure. She would be a living legend, a hero, a champion for those soldiers who needed it the most.

Hubris, who?

Despite the adrenaline pumping through her veins, a few nagging thoughts strayed behind the self-preening ones: should she respond tonight? Would that come off as too desperate, too much? Or would he appreciate her not wasting his time, waiting for a response while she was too busy freaking out dozens of star systems away?

Putting her tirade on hold for a moment, Halla knew she had to come up with a decision by the end of the night, sooner preferably than later. After weighing her options and realizing it wouldn’t be the first time that she’d made a fool out of herself that night, she resolved to at least draft something up before she settled down to sleep – if it was respectable enough to send, it would happen. If not, she’d just continue to work on it until she was satisfied with the end result. A seemingly rational compromise. A reason to step back mentally and assess all the options. Also, an excuse to address her rumbling stomach, aggravated by the long-term, unintentional fasting and the mercurial pendulum that was her constantly shifting mood.

Ultimately, Halla decided to order from the curry joint she originally had in mind on her main holonet terminal, keeping her holopad nearby just in case Tech suddenly changed his mind and decided he wanted nothing to do with her proposition. If this were the case, she wasn’t quite sure how she would respond, but the security she found in its proximity was too reassuring to pass up.

This worst-case scenario, however, turned out to be just that. Tech never wrote back to change his mind. Not while Halla paid for delivery, not as she waited for its arrival, and not even as she was eating, legs crisscrossed underneath the to-go containers of fried veggie rolls and Iskaayuman hen flatbread. She even went as far as to pour herself a glass of wine from her top cabinet, saved only for special occasions, which she believed was warranted that night. It was intended to calm her more than anything – Halla was no longer intent on drinking herself into a stupor as she had been mere hours ago. So there she sat with her feast-for-one, mulling over Tech’s words she had practically memorized by heart.

He doesn’t seem arrogant or anything, just a little…different. Probably not used to talking to outsiders, I guess. I wonder if he’s ever communicated with someone other than his squad, or even the Seppies. He wasn’t really an ass, either – he seemed curious about what I’m trying to do and wanted to ensure he has all the details mapped out before we begin our exchange. I can get behind that, I respect that. But the last thing he mentioned, the postscript…has he never had someone tell him they hope he’s hanging in alright? What a basic thing to be taken for granted…Yes, sir, I am insinuating that it’s me…was that a joke? Is he the joking type? I’ll keep it in mind, maybe he needs that bit of reassurance from time to time. Maker knows he probably isn’t receiving much validation from his XOs…

After the empty boxes had been properly disposed of and the rogue crumbs had been banished from the bedsheets, Halla once again sat down at her terminal to compose a second message. The ease with which she felt herself composing was a stark contrast to the persistent second-guessing and revising she faced just days ago. This time, the words seemed to flow smoothly from her mind, through her fingertips, and onto the monitor’s messaging system.

Date of Transmission: 1,013:04:07

Recipient: Specialist-Commando CT-9902, “Tech” of CF-99

Subject: Re: Requesting Assistance

Tech,

Please, if you wish for me to refer to you by your name without rank, I insist on you calling me Halla. Words cannot possibly describe how elated I was to hear back from you – it might not mean much to you, but I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say I owe you my entire livelihood right now! The research I’ve been conducting has been an unrecognized labor of love for far too long now and I intend to make it known how the clones deserve to be treated better than they have been to all those that think otherwise. I know I will never understand what you all are going through, but just knowing that you’re willing to help means more to me than all the stars in the galaxy.

To answer your inquiry, there are several issues I plan to bring before the Galactic Senate’s Ethics Committee: namely, the past transgressions committed by the Kaminoans before the initial events of the war and current civil rights and liberties that are barred from both active and decommissioned military personnel (i.e. the ability to find affordable housing accommodations, the opportunity to vote and retain governmental representation, and all adjoining benefits from becoming private citizens). These are just some of the areas I have studied, but there are many more, I assure you. I’ll be glad to walk you through it all once we reach that point.

Your opinions are vital to the success of this gaining the attention of the bureaucrats – not only do I have to prove that the army suffers from the lack of these basic services, but that by granting them access to them, their quality of life will escalate and put more trust back into the Senatorial process, which lost popularity since I entered university. By publishing my findings, I also intend to sway the court of public opinion. That might become a stretch goal, but it’s worth mentioning now since most other civilians aren’t impressed by any of the fighting, especially the battles that take place near other core worlds. Those here on Coruscant don’t know how good they have it, as much as I hate to be a pessimist. Besides a few incidents, no true harm has come to the majority of the surfacer population, who oppose you all the most here.

Would it be possible to ask some additional personal questions about you as well? You have my word that I won’t pry deeper than you allow me, and you are always welcome to establish your boundaries if you become uneasy. I don’t expect you to be able to tell me everything, what with the security protocols and secrecy and all, but it would be nice to learn more about who I’m interviewing - let everyone know that you’re a real, breathing, autonomous person beneath all that plastoid armor. The GAR profiles only detail so much. Could you tell me how you got your name? I never was able to figure out if all clones chose their own, or if they were more like nicknames granted by others assigned to their squads. Or maybe you could share what sort of role you play within your squad? Truly, whatever you’re most comfortable with sharing, I’ll accept anything!

Thank you again so much, Tech. You won’t regret this, I swear.

All the best,

Halla <hismaren.uccore.holo>

University of Coruscant

College of Interplanetary Law & Relations

Capital Campus

P.S. Yes, I can assure you that I am thinking of you, quite amicably, in fact. You seem like you could use an outside ally, and I don’t mean that as an insult. On the contrary, Maker knows I could use one too. I’m surprised you would ever expect to receive any warm sentiments, as I believe you quite honestly deserve all the kindness and admiration the galaxy can offer. Keep yourself safe, please!

Huh. That really wasn’t so bad. There was always the chance it would come off a little too familiar for his tastes, but it was a chance Halla was willing to take, fueled by the late hour and the glass and a half of Alderaanian merlot she had downed prior to writing her response. If she had no objections to it, was there really any reason to hold off on sending it tonight? Again, the send button was selected before there was any more internal monologuing. Smiling drowsily, Halla shut the terminal down along with the overhead lighting module, and returned to bed for the final time that night, rather than brushing her teeth as she knew she probably ought to after eating such potent cuisine. With curry on her breath and her mind on a soldier thousands of parsecs away, the graduate was able to succumb to the comforting darkness provided by the backs of her eyelids. Not bothering to think about the disenchanting start to her day, Halla was instead looking forward to learning everything she could about her new soon-to-be-whether-he-liked-it-or-not friend.

Friend.

What a fantastic way to end the day…

~~~

Gradually, Halla’s spirits began to soar again thanks to the deliberately unhurried, yet sincere virtual companionship she had formed with Tech. When she found the time to paint, faint humming matured into full-blown stage-worthy performances; while she cleaned house, dance recitals commonly took place in front of her audience of stuffies that sat neatly in a row against her pillows. The vibrancy she had lost from fear of the unknown came back in full force. Two weeks had flown by since she had received his first response and a habitual regimen emerged between them, sending messages back and forth nearly every day if possible. Depending on which system he was traveling through, sometimes there were two or three she would receive within a set period of time – in other instances, there had been radio silence before he returned and updated her (vaguely) on what mission he had participated in. Without fail, Halla was always there, waiting intently for his comms to come through. She was far past the mindset she first found herself in, feeling the need to proofread twenty times over before sending – it was natural to talk to him now, without worrying over what his judgments of her would be.

Tech’s blunt verbiage and outspoken tendencies spurred Halla into asking deeper, more nuanced questions each go around:

What kinds of food and medical supplies are considered regulation for space travel?

Are you given any sort of allowance to spend, any time allotted for shore leave?

What were your experiences like with the Kaminoans before you were deployed?

In how many situations, confrontational or otherwise, did you feel like the Republic didn’t grant you the appropriate amount of support? Have you ever felt excluded from society on the basis of the method of your creation?

Nothing she threw at him seemed to elicit any sense of reticence from him – he only ever answered truthfully and commented on how impressed he was that a civvie would stop and take the time to ask these things of him. Halla learned that this was high praise coming from him, and she felt a swell of pride at the knowledge that while she was attempting to make the surfacers care more about the clones, she was simultaneously convincing a clone that at least one civvie wasn’t all that bad either.

The headway on the monograph’s contents was a monumental success that continued to grow exponentially every day. Whenever there was a roadblock or an option to incorporate more anecdotes, Tech was only ever just a transmission away. If Halla had been conducting his interviews in person she’d have a more definitive answer, but from all of his responses it seemed like he was becoming just as invested in Halla’s work as she was. That was the most impressive progress in her opinion – not the way she was producing the work faster than a Malastarian podracer, but the rapport that had formed between the two. To her, he was more than just an interesting figure with fascinating stories to tell, and she liked to believe he found some comfort in talking with someone that didn’t share his genetic makeup for once.

Eventually, topics outside the realm of academia began to intermingle with her evaluation. It seemed inconsequential at first: she sent him a holopic of herself from graduation attached to one of her own messages, mentioning how since she knew what he looked like from his profile, it seemed unfair that he didn’t know the same of her. It wasn’t something he prompted, only a bit more about herself that she was willing to offer, hoping to strengthen the comradery in an organic fashion. From there on, he seemed more comfortable with asking Halla about herself as well, finding civilian culture to be a vast departure from his own encounters. Tech’s thirst for knowledge turned out to be completely insatiable, which Halla accepted as a welcome challenge.

The back and forth between the pair was invigorating to Halla: she would send a full-length biographical account of her pet guppy Boonta, and Tech would respond with a tale of his own, recounting memories of 30-meter eels found within the depths of Kamino’s vast oceans. She mentioned she had half-siblings once in passing and he was more than eager to tell everything he could about his brothers as they traversed star systems aboard the Havoc Marauder, the name of their Omicron-class shuttle that Halla thought was more than a bit ridiculous (not that she’d ever tell him that, he loved that ship to death though he would never admit it outright). For every image of her artwork she transmitted to him, Tech explicated his most recent inventions along with the logic and mechanics behind it all. Halla was lost half the time but found it endearing nonetheless. His intellect wasn’t as intimidating as she originally thought – if anything, they were equally matched in many ways, just in different areas of study. Tech told her as much in one entry:

Your theories on the sociopolitical status of migrants from Outer Rim systems were revelatory. It had never occurred to me that the prisoners held in neutral territory detention centers had the right to request asylum in Republic-controlled sectors. If democratic systems have the ability to support these underserved populations, yet deny them citizenship while allowing their naturalized and native population to planet-hop as they please, it is the government that should be held responsible, not the refugees themselves. This is not what we were taught as cadets, and I thank you for opening my eyes to a new perspective regarding this common phenomenon.

It was that kind of commentary that made Halla’s days seem all the more bright. She managed to find a confidant that valued her insights – not only that, but he told her as much. He wasn’t put off by a young woman with the ability to match his intelligence, nor did he ever let his ego overtake the conversation (at least not to a degree that couldn’t be brushed off with humor). Tech was confident in his abilities – of course he was, being clever and quick-witted was what he was literally designed to do – but it never came at Halla’s expense. This proved to be beneficial, especially since the range of subjects they covered spanned from interplanetary relations and military strategy to what foods Tech would never want to try even if he were offered a million credits and how Halla was of the opinion that the kloo horn was far superior to the blissl:

Y’know, I played the kloo in secondary? Third chair and everything. I always froze up at the auditions but somehow always made it into the ensemble. I learned to play the valachord after that (another instrument that’s better than the blissl, in case you were wondering). I enjoyed that one the most since it stuck me in the back of the hall and I got to read on my holopad while we weren’t playing. The conductor used to get so seethed out at me, but no one else wanted to play that monstrosity, so he had to pretend everything was fine when really I could tell he wanted to knock me over the head with the tubing-bells. Biths, right? Always taking their music too seriously…

Not all the conversations were as lighthearted as these, however. Eventually, Halla itched to share her unease regarding the current political atmosphere that took place above her midlevel dwelling. Politicians and lobbyists were beginning to become bolder in their demands that the war end immediately, that Supreme Chancellor Palpatine step down and transfer his power to a seasoned candidate, such as the Prince Regent of Alderaan or Tynnrra Pamlo, the Senator from Taris. The tension was stifling, the outcome seemingly as distant as Iego’s furthest moon.

Over the course of her last few transmissions, Halla hinted at how there was something in the air, thick and brewing, that just didn’t feel right. She knew it would all boil over before a resolution could be met. You couldn’t pay attention to the holonews every day and not think something was amiss. Thankfully, Tech paid attention to the net’s updates as much as he did the GAR comms – he was on the same page as her, though remained levelheaded despite Halla’s pseudo-paranoia since he was much more accustomed to constant conflicts and conspiracies. This was nothing but the same old stories making their rounds again. At least, that’s what he tried to reassure her of whenever it came up.

Whether or not he completely concurred with her concerns, Tech always instructed her to stay safe and keep out of trouble at the end of each and every one of his messages. Halla, likewise, did the same for him, internally admiring just how far they both had come since her initial outreach. Tech had become much warmer towards her (well, warm for Tech) in the standard half-month they had been writing to each other. He was much more willing to express smaller affections in that way he had about him – stay hydrated while you work, don’t stay up all night like I do whilst trying to complete your monograph, remember to charge your terminal fan so it doesn’t overheat itself. His friendship was a marvel to behold, a closeness that Halla hadn’t felt with anyone else in recent years.

~~~

This was where she found herself now, sending off her most recent transmission before signing off, intent on enjoying her weekend - attending to her beloved watercolor work in progress set up across the room while blasting her favorite band over the loudspeaker. Lounge clothes adorned with The Meat Droids’ latest album blaring, Halla made to stand when everything went completely silent for a moment. The holovision responsible for the music stream had been paused by some unknown perpetrator before erupting into the most egregious alarm Halla ever heard, worse than even the drills she’d undergone at the university.

Rushing out to the common area with her hands clapped over her ears, she watched in disbelief as the room was flooded with red lights from the display. “Take Shelter Immediately!” scrolled across the bottom of the screen with “EMERGENCY ALERT” front and center. The screen went black after a moment before being handed off to a broadcast reporter, seated in her usual position at the local station. The twi’lek anchor had the most devasted look upon her face, the spring green tint of her skin paled and wrinkled across her narrow face as she read from the teleprompter.

“Live from the Three-Thirty-Eighth District, a notification has just been released from the Commander of the Coruscant Guard stating that a Confederacy blockade has formed over the northern and parts of the southern hemispheres, preventing any travel in or out of the keystone spaceports. Three battalions of hostile droid units have made landfall and are moments away from entering the capitol’s boundaries.

“Republic forces are currently engaging this ongoing threat both on the ground and in the exosphere, but more pressing news has been revealed just moments ago: the Supreme Chancellor himself, Sheev Palpatine, has been abducted by General Grievous, head of the CIS Droid Army. It is unclear at the moment why the Chancellor has been targeted, as there was no apparent assassination attempt. According to our political analysts, it is believed the Chancellor has been taken as a means to negotiate a Republic surrender, held for ransom by until victory can be claimed.

“There are reports of multiple casualties and damage caused by live fire and debris. If you are not in a secure location, please find your nearest shelter and remain there until the all-clear signal has been released from a reputable source. We will stay on air until…”

Halla shut the rest out, feeling her knees tremble as her eyes stayed glued to the screen. It was as if all the oxygen had been vacuumed from the room.

This can’t be happening…

Her own safety was far from her mind at the moment. If this was happening here, who knew what was happening across the rest of the galaxy? Was Tech alright? Were his brothers watching out for him? Halla was trapped, the war had finally found its way to the heart of the Republic, and all she could think about was how helpless she felt, unable to aid her friend when he might be in severe danger. Tears fell in twin rivers to the floor before she even realized she was sobbing.

What if something happens to him? Why in the Void did I have to be stuck here when he’s all the way out there? H-He can take care of himself, I know that but…b-but it’s not…it’s not fair…he – I need…

The sounds wrenching their way from their throat felt like a nexu clawing its way out, bursting forth in agony as Halla struggled to maintain breathing steadily. She felt herself collapse into a nearby chair, hands shaking as she held them close to her body. All the anxiety she had compartmentalized over the years seemed to take her by the roots of her hair and shove her down, down into a dark, wretched pit of despair. Drowning, deeper and deeper.

Everything was wrong. It wasn’t about the kriffing dissertation anymore – it hadn’t been for some time now. He just needed to be okay. She needed him to be okay. Needed to be able to write to him again, to tell him how much she looked forward to his transmissions every day. To hear back from him, even if it was just about how much irritation his brothers were causing him, or how bland his ration bars were. That’s all she wanted right now.

Exhaustion consumed Halla after hours of shedding tears, curled up on the settee a few steps from the chair she had occupied before. As she drifted off, the tears dried in clear tracks down the apples of her cheeks and the furrow between her brow vanished ever so slowly. The rest of Coruscant was not so fortunate. In the cityscape above, skyscrapers were demolished, civilians were slaughtered, and the designated law enforcement was spread to its bare bones even more than it had been during the Zillo Beast Incident. Fire and blood reigned above, but Halla was unwitting to it all, unaware of the events that would soon unfold in no more than four distressing, horrifyingly traumatic days and beyond.

~~~~~~

taglist: @thegoodbatch @microdeers @zinzinina @boontaeveboba @hansonveggieclub @imalovernotahater @latenightsthoughtsnstuff @bobas-missing-codpiece @passionofthesith @discofern @shannon-lynn-21 @morelikekitfistme

#tech x oc #tech x ofc #original female character #original character #star wars #the bad batch #the bad batch tech #the clone wars #bunny's fic #star wars fic #clone force 99 #tech x reader #bad batch x reader #halla #return to sender fic #why queue stuck up half witted scruffy looking nerf herder #EDITED 4/10/2023

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worldsover · 4 years ago

Text

Dal Segno ft. Chuu

length ✦ 3570

genres ✧ music making; oral fixation; facefuck; subby!Chuu

✦✧✦✧✦✧

Composition is only fifty percent of the process, you've heard, but it's closer to ten for you. For the importance of a solid melody and chord progression with the right instruments and singer, a song becomes less than the sum of its parts with bad mixing because all that effort goes to waste when you can’t hear something, or when something is too loud, or when a certain je ne sais quoi is wrong. But you do know. You don't have to be a chef to be a food critic but it certainly helps. Avoid muddling the lows as it waters down the soup. Carve space in the highs to prevent too much salt from killing the taste buds. Have at most five sounds at a time or else the flavors clash. Focus on these basic techniques to guide you as repetition wears down your mind. Funny. Repetition legitimizes especially in music yet here you are fatigued by repetition as though you weren't down four cups of black coffee. Repetition legitimizes. “From the sign,” the translation reads. Notation, simply instructing a musician to return to a certain point in a piece. You recognize it as an intro song you wrote years ago.

Glass and foam separate the undersized room. Cheap ramen and dampness in the hot air contribute to the odor. You would keep the fan on, if it were worth the extra time filtering out faint noise from recordings. The only scent that keeps you sane is a slight strawberry flavor lingering in the room. Jiwoo. Your muse. A large clock holds both of its hands near one with the lack of natural light muddling whether it’s AM or PM. Studios were always underground man-caves whether they were discount rooms or the signature workspace of the biggest producers. Here you are in the former. Look down at the Macbook and all the wires, sliders, and knobs. Deep breath. “Take 63,” you say into the cheap control room microphone.

“Not good enough.”

“Again.”

“One more.”

Look up. Jiwoo sucks on a grape lollipop. You stare. Watching her fixated on getting all flavor out of the purple sweet derails your flow state. See, work had a rhythm. Listen, volume up, hotkey to copy this clip, volume down. The obvious innuendo sends you offbeat. That perky butt bending over to get a notebook filled with lyrics entrenches the folds of your brain. She didn’t have to wear that skirt. You’ve seen that skirt already and you wish she weren’t wearing it. Oh, you really wish she weren’t wearing that skirt. Guilt sets in. You’re a trusted coworker, she, a naive girl. It takes a while to find your groove again. Your stare has yet to cease until she finally returns the eye contact with candy still in mouth. Her pink tongue laps to secure all the sugar and red pillows engulf the ever-shrinking circle. Pop. Anyone else and it would be calculated action.

“Oppa." Her voice resounds in your monitor headphones. "I don’t know if these harmonies really make sense. Why did you write the second voice to cross down below the main line? Plus it goes so low."

“To be fair, you wrote both of those melodies and you said you wanted them in the same song. Tell me anywhere else they’d work.”

“Ugh, let’s figure this out later. Next song.“

Dozens of takes later and Jiwoo’s frustration causes her to make mistakes. Sometimes she even tries to start singing with the sucker in her mouth. For the character she plays, you know she’s a professional and that she can be better. Yet hours later, she still could not get the vocal runs right. Incomplete songs bloat your project folder: "Jiwoo - Mania", "Jiwoo - Look Closer", "Jiwoo - Untitled Idea 21". Just a small side project that the company approved during another ample period of break time between comebacks. That’s why the director didn’t even let you use the company’s facilities, instead opting to rent out this cheap closet of a studio. At least no one would be mad about the amount of time you spent recording together.

You shift seats from the leather office chair to the white lovechair, the only two pieces of furniture that fit comfortably in the room. Jiwoo follows suit and leaves the recording booth, really more of a phone booth in square footage, while she huffs and puffs on her candy.

“I’m tired, oppa,” she says.

“Me too, Jiwoo. May I remind you that I’m not getting paid extra for this. Are you gonna focus or what?” your voice just a few cents down, just a bit harsher.

“I, I’m sorry.” A lick anyway. Her meek tone disappears, “Ya! You know how good your royalties are gonna be. Sole producer and all that. Plus, here you are still doing all this work for me." Why were you working so hard on this? "You know, if you just taught me how to use Ableton-”

“Then I’d be out of a job.”

Jiwoo frowns, “Wow, selfish much? You could’ve joined me as a trainee.”

“Nah, no way. Fish dance better.”

“Shut up, oppa. You would’ve easily made it with your, um, musical talent.” She clamps down on the lollipop with her mouth.

“You good? What was that?”

“Let’s," she stands promptly, "get back to recording.”

Crack. Jiwoo bites down on the lollipop and throws the stick in the trash. In ten minutes, she nails the verse she spent hours trying to get right. It'd be really nice to know what catalyzed that rally. You'd ask but driving Jiwoo back to her dorm is quiet as usual.

✦✧✦✧✦✧

Make a good impression on someone, anyone, on your first day as a mixing engineer. That’s why you returned to the Blockberry Creative building with an extra bar of Melona in hand. A simple bribery. Light beamed down between two skyscrapers on a short girl with long hair and strands of bangs adorning her forehead. She stood outside the lobby, introducing herself to every passerby. You had to pinch her cheeks, the intrusive thought screamed.

She scurried up to you. “Hi! I’m Kim Jiwoo and I’m going to become an idol!”

Ah, a trainee. You already knew she was destined to become one. Well, not literally, you weren’t in charge of that. But her overflowing charm was impossible to ignore. You had to tease her though, “Are you sure?”

“Hey! What would you know about that, mister?” she said.

You bit down on your mango. “Mister? First of all, I’m only a high school senior,” her lips rounded in surprise, “And second, I’m your new audio guy, and I know for a fact they’re debuting you girls in order of talent.”

“Woooow. Well, I’ll have you know, I have a great voice!” She certainly spoke lyrically. “Wait a minute, I didn’t know they hired people that young.” You pointed at her. “Okay, I’m in high school too. But that’s different, idols start this age.”

“I guess. I’ve been making music ever since I was a kid, and they liked what I had,” you said and Jiwoo nodded in understanding.

She fluttered her eyebrows. “Sooo, is that mango ice cream for me? Oppa?” A little surprised she already called you that, but it sounded right.

“No, I have this unopened strawberry-” Jiwoo snatched the half-eaten cold treat from your hand, and started licking it. Trouble she would be.

You spent many recording sessions together, alone after all the other members left. She cozied up to you because her little musical snippets had to become full-fledged tracks and you helped her out every time.

Something changed over the years however. Your interactions became colder. It felt like you were the only one who she would respond to in a deeper voice. Jiwoo wouldn't pepper you with silly acts or mess around. Maybe she took you more seriously which is how you managed to make more songs together regardless. Then, you stood idly by and watched her debut. Who didn't love her? But when she was with you, you missed the playfulness, the ice cream and her riffing over your playful guitar strums. It turned less of a hobby and more of a job though you never regretted any second with Jiwoo regardless.

Under the Earth's largest natural satellite, you shared a simple meal in black bean noodles. She was still in her hippie outfit from the comeback, and you handed her your jacket since it was cold. You realized, there was something else there that you were too inexperienced to notice. Your bodies' radiation replace the chill in the air, a bubble with just the two of you eating on the grass in a park near your dorm. A cliche slurping on one noodle and Jiwoo pulled away. In embarrassment, like a damn anime character, she hiccuped. Good thing you didn't close your eyes when you leaned in.

“Wanna make an album together?” Jiwoo says.

“Sure.”

You threw away the noodles’ package and escorted her home. That was all you expected anyway. Fine.

✦✧✦✧✦✧

“That’s enough!”

Three goddamn weeks. It's been three goddamn weeks and you've barely made any progress.

Barge into the booth, slam the door shut and raise your tone, just below a shout, “I've had it up to here! You know how many of my songs have been mashed together in some unholy quest for your perfection? Just one unknown something is missing and either you start complaining or we move on to the next."

She backs up from the mic to the insulated wall but you continue, paying no heed to her, as you spout your piece to the artificially cold air, "You know how much time I’ve spent outside working on these songs? These are songs I’ve saved up over years. And you trash them like they’re nothing. How do you even manage to record LOONA tracks?”

Regret sinks in. This was your passion project as much as hers. Was it frustration from the recordings? Weeks of the same routine and it took until now for you to give in to your temper.

"It wouldn't even be that bad! If you could just one time, you could be cute or cheerful again with me, or,” Fuck. So stupid. You don’t have to take your friendships for granted like this. You’re lucky enough she treats you as much. “Hold on. Wait, I'm-"

Examine her face. It’s not sour and she hasn’t stormed out or even slapped you.

“No, no. You don’t have to say it. I’m. I’m sorry oppa.” She looks down. “I'm the one messing up after all." Her heartbeat a harsh snare drum. "And you. You're. Different. Looking at you always made me feel some, something funny. Not funny but? Ugh. I wish I could explain it.”

You hold in your confusion.

She blabbers on, “Like, are. Are you mad? I promise you, I,” A nervous breath, ”I like you. Okay?"

Your confusion grows like the length of your silence.

"I’m just acting how I really am with you. Do you want to maybe, I don't know, like," her voice decrescendos, "Um. Punish me?”

Your heart, your brain are deprived of blood as it all rushes down. Did you hear that right? Not an apology, not retribution, but a call to punishment? Misinterpreting her, the consequences would be dire but that damned demure tone for such an erotic request. Was Jiwoo the exact type of slut constructed in your mind? The one that made you feel sinful for even imagining. No, no, there's no way.

Too late. Jiwoo must have noticed the absurd bulge now. It had to be these Adidas pants today. Fuck it. Life can’t be lived fully without risk. Hopefully, the same switch turned in her mind. You remove all ire from your face and say in earnest, “Do you like games?"

She lights up a little. You sigh relieved.

"Let’s try…”, you say, ”Strip recording.” She lights up a little more, so you go on, ”If I mess up anything, the mix, the composition, the arrangement, I’ll take off a piece of clothing. Your choice. And every time you mess up-”

Jiwoo unbuttons her denim shorts and brings them down her tight legs.

“D- did I say now?”

However, with her resolve steeled, she continues pulling them. "So what? I did mess up, right?" she says coquettish. Deliberate the turn she makes when she bows down to remove the shorts from her legs, Jiwoo reveals a hint of her innie pussy on that same little ass that ran through your mind earlier. A small trace of her thighs glistens, the only thing reflecting the single lightbulb’s glow in the microphone’s abode. She turns back to face you. "Please. Punish me."

Step closer until Jiwoo backs up to the soundproofing. She’s an eighth note away from your face, flashing her beady eyes and a coy smile, ”Where's your underwear?" A little drop spills out onto the floor, "And why are you so wet, Jiwoo-ah?”

Red on her cheeks, like she only now realized her dishevelment in front of you. “You just… Something about you snapping at me. I don’t get it either. I knew you'd do it, some day, I wanted you to," she mumbles in her best efforts to answer you.

“Have you ever worn underwear to the recordings?”

Those efforts continue to fail.

"Oh, Kim Jiwoo. What do I do with you?" One of your hands grabs her cheek. The other crawls down her back to grab her cheek.

“Oppa… Do I have to say it?”

“I want to hear every." Smack. "Word." Smack. She slips a moan.

“Can you," she says, "can you use my mouth?”

You disguise your long pause as thought, teasing the bare skin of her ass with your exploratory fingers to bide time, but it's an expression of your shock. The interruption helps you come up with a more suitable punishment however.

“How about this then. Every time you mess up, you have to give me a blowjob. Call?”

“Call!” Once more, unprompted, she kneels down in front of you and claws away your track pants. You roll with the punches.

"Oppaa," with an pronounced pop and in a sing-songy rhythm, "I've always wanted to know, if your dick-" It certainly didn't need Jiwoo's dainty hands pulling on your boxers, as it would've sprang out on its own with how like diamond your cock is getting.

"Fuuuck," the first profanity you ever hear her utter, she lilts. "Please. Oppa. Fuck my face?"

After all she said, she could still surprise you. Bring your hips forward and just as you would've her pussy, tease Jiwoo’s lips with the head of your dick. She parts them open, starved, anxious.

Hold her by the chin. "Wait."

She freezes at the command. Again, like foreplay, rub her lips with that head making them turn redder and more plump. You sweep aside her bangs to see her begging eyes. More importantly, slide your dick up to her nude forehead to slap as a first act of retribution. “A-ah!” Jiwoo stutters as you slap her face with your manhood again and again. Bring your cock back down and she's already a mess without you even having entered her mouth. A little drool from her shut lips gently massages your balls while a bit of precum drools from your slit to meet those lips.

Jiwoo mumbles as best as she can with you holding her jaw shut and your dick on her lips, "Please. Please. Shove your dick in me. I need you in my mouth."

You squint your rough eyes to command her.

Muffled still, "Oppa. Please. I. I need to taste you. You just, you're so thick and you're so long and cock is perfect and please I just-" Loosen the grip on her chin to let her envelop the entire tip with her warm lips. "Mmmmm..." the moan resonates a saw wave and your stern resolve fades away on your first entrance into her face but it returns as her teeth rub against you. She quickly readjusts her jaw but it takes multiple attempts of you pulling out and her sucking you back until only silken lips hold your cock's head. Finally. A focused glint in her eyes. She endeavours to keep your tip in her mouth as long as possible.

You were mad at her earlier, weren't you?

Recall this anger and press yourself into her with all your hips' strength, working against the force of her lip's airtight suction. Saliva leaks to betray the seal. Jiwoo's prying tongue explores the underside of your cock but you reach an impasse while she's not even halfway down the shaft. You shove your dick deeper but to no avail and tears roll down her eyes joining the fluids coating her lips. Thus you exit back out. And back in you go to repeat and repeat and slowly increase your rate, becoming rough sex with her diligent mouth. All the positions you’ve imagined fucking her little pussy, you picture using her throat instead. Even in this compact studio, the couch, chair and desk would provide ample support for you to use her in many ways. The dirty thoughts inspire your speed right now. She slurps and gulps at every quick plunge but you realize her moans and rumbles aren't just incoherent reactions. You decelerate.

“Ah, ahhh, ahhhhhh… Ah’ve ahways- Hmph.” She slurs as she tries her hardest to communicate while her airway is blocked.

She slides up your cock to catch some air, “Thought about it- Mmm.”

“Your dick in my mouth and it’s just so pew, fect- Ahhh.” Jiwoo's lips let go gently then her tongue sticks out to lick up your cock and she shows off a trail of spit leading to your tip. A less patient man would’ve jerked himself off right there to grant her eyes and open mouth's unison request to feed on your cum.

Instead you retort, “You think you’ve earned it? Not even halfway down. Going nowhere, just like our recording sessions, huh?”

“Shut up!”

“Oof.” You’re already weak in the knees so Jiwoo's one handed shove sends your tailbone to the floor. Since you’re still dazed by her confounding strength, she takes initiative and kowtows her head into your lap to crawl down your cock with her tiny lips. Fondling your balls, Jiwoo starts from the furthest point she could muster on your shaft up to your cock head. Her tongue follows back and she starts playing under your tip to swirl that tongue around the most sensitive parts until it explores your slit. You buckle and groan. Jiwoo sucks and spits and sucks while she circles only the most minimal twisting motion of her lips on your head. This is the Jiwoo you know. Relentless. Only now your load is her magnus opus.

Her right hand strays downwards and her face on your dick blocks a full view but you can tell that hand is working as intensely as her mouth. As she strokes herself with more vigor, she starts humming a satisfied melody on your tip. In kind, your subtle grunts turn into full-bodied moans. You're a single measure away from your coda so you reach down and pull her off your cock by grabbing her neck.

You glare into her. “Desperate little girl, aren't you?”

Her breath is stilted and she's nearly shaking. “Please…” she sobs, ”You, you want it as bad as I do right?” Of course. “Won't you just cum for me?” Not now. Not when you have putty in your hands.

“You're making a mess. You can't take me all the way down. And I see that it’s not just your saliva coating the floor.” Point to the spot where she kneels, her drool joins a stain growing ever larger with a strand of juice from her pussy flowing as you continue to berate her. Then you point to her hand. Ha. “Were you playing with yourself using my pencil?”

“No… Wait!”

You back off. “Your top’s a mess too. Anyone can tell I just fucked your face.” You take off your black hoodie and give it to her. “I’ll see you tomorrow for our next session.”

“Wait, we didn’t book tomorrow, did we? Also, you can’t just leave me like this! Oppa!”

"I said, I'll see you tomorrow. I have to go,“ you remind her, ”Ha Rin’s picking you up. And give me back that pencil.”

She hands it to you, unable to meet your eyes despite hers lusting over your cock. You'll definitely use the alluring musk on it for later to save you from your self-induced blue balls. Exit the booth. Of course she barely waits to use your hoodie the same way since she doesn’t notice you lingering in the room. Instead of hiding the grey long sleeve that soaks her neck, your used sweatshirt covers Jiwoo’s face as her fingers make the mess on the floor larger.

✦✧✦✧✦✧

AFF, AO3

Swear to god I’m not just writing the cutest idols to write for. I mean maybe I am but also this answer from @nsfwtwicecatcher and all the subsequent pictures that I found of Chuu pouting inspired me. Also, this was a longer piece but I kept spinning my tires on it and decided to split it up, so look out for more.

✦✧✦✧✦✧

Fermata, the aforementioned sequel

#kpop smut #loona smut #male reader #reader insert #title tracks

308 notes · View notes

alpacaparkaseok · 4 years ago

Text

Mine

1. He what now?

Genre: Yoongi x OC

Warnings: none

Word Count: 2.4k

Synopsis: The first time Cara Richie sets foot on the Graham Norton show she’s confronted with questions that have less to do with her upcoming film “Young Rising”, and much more to do with BTS. More specifically with one of their rappers, Suga. Cara is an open supporter and fan of the band, however when Min Yoongi is shipped with the bilingual up-and-coming actress after mentioning her in an interview, things start to get out of hand. Fanart, twitter trends, and stalkers ensue, leaving Cara’s career up to an unknown fate. Then comes the moment the world didn’t even realize it was waiting for: a solo track from Agust D that raises more questions than answers, especially for Cara.

I would recommend the Graham Norton show to anybody purely based off the quality of their couches.

It’s our five minute call when Sebastian Stan, my co-star and annoyingly close friend, shakes me out of my half-asleep daze.

“Hey, we’re about to be called up. Ready?” He helps me to sit up, laughing at the state of my hair. No doubt it looks like a bird’s nest. He motions for one of the crew to help me out, a petite makeup artist appearing out of nowhere and touching up my hair.

“Yeah, I’m excited I swear. I just wish I wasn’t so tired.” Sebastian and I rolled in from where we were shooting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at about ten o’clock this morning. I have yet to recover from the long trip. Unfortunately, our interview was scheduled for tonight, and we stand to begin our course of promoting the movie for the foreseeable future. It’ll still be a few hours before I can crawl into a bed.

“At least it’s only an hour time difference, right?” Sebastian stands me up, instructing me to do some stretching.

“At least we finally have service. I haven’t spoken to my family in three months, they probably think you killed me and left me there in the middle of the jungle.”

One of the perks of our on location shooting was the fact that we only had a couple of satellite phones. No contact with the outside world for nearly three months. I grew way too attached to it, although the one downside was not getting to know how my family and friends were. A lot can happen in three months. I’ve been so rushed to get ready and get over here to the show that I’ve hardly had any time to even glance at my phone besides a cursory text to my group chat with my family letting them know that I’m still alive and back in civilization.

“Tempting, but too many witnesses.” Sebastian winks at me, coming to attention when we’re motioned over by one of the staff. Glancing at the TV in the waiting room I can see Graham Norton beginning to introduce us.

“Our next guests have just re-entered into civilization, so do excuse them if they’re a little off. Please welcome the dashing Sebastian Stan and lovely Cara Richie!”

Sebastian motions for me to go first, and I jump out into the bright lights. Even though I’ve been on a few shows by now, it never gets old. Granted, I’ve only had one successful blockbuster. Maybe I won’t feel the same once that number starts to climb.

I greet Graham before settling down on the couch beside Billie Eilish, the musical guest of the day. I’ve met Billie before, we actually became fast friends. I was invited to a music awards show (I found out that actors are often invited to them for some reason), and we decided to ditch the after party and settle for pizza and a movie instead.

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, glad to know you’re still alive.” Billie mumbles.

“Barely,” I whisper back. Sebastian sits down on the other side of me, waving to a few people in the audience. There are a group of girls near the front row that scream even louder when I look their way, and I smile at them. Sebastian sure does have an affect on people.

“Well, well. Glad to see you’ve made it. Didn’t you two just fly in this morning?” Sebastian jumps in to answer. I appreciate him taking the lead, he definitely has a lot more experience than me.

“Sure did. I think you’re trying to kill us, Graham.” Graham gasps, every bit the entertaining host.

“Now, Cara,” I smile at the man, hopefully masking my exhaustion. I’m a huge fan of him, and I want to leave a good impression. “This is your second major film. How are you feeling with all of the attention you’ve received? Because really, you came out of nowhere.”

I nod, reminding myself not to depend on Sebastian. “That’s true, I kind of did. It’s been amazing though. I think they sent me off to the middle of nowhere so it wouldn’t go to my head.” Graham laughs, the audience joining in. I sit up a little straighter because of it.

“That’s probably smart on their part. Really, from what I’ve seen of the previews for this film, it’s called ‘Young Rising’, correct?” We nod. “Right. It looks quite intense. But you two, you two are lovers in this.”

I shoot Sebastian a look that tells him we are anything but. “Yeah,” I draw out the word. “You could say that.”

“I really don’t know what they were thinking, putting the two of us together.”

“You mean to say that you don’t like each other at all?” Graham asks, feigning concern.

I shake my head. “I loathe him. But he won’t leave me alone, can you believe it?”

Graham nods. “Actually, I can. After all, you were recently named among the ‘most wanted’ stars in the world.”

I look at Billie completely surprised. “I was?” I ask her. She nods, shrugging her shoulders.

“Most wanted? That makes me sound like a criminal!”

“Isn’t that the point?” Sebastian taunts.

We continue bickering for a while. “I had no idea, but really I have no clue what’s happened over the past three months.”

Graham hums, shuffling through his papers before coming upon what he was looking for. “Really? Well I find that quite interesting, because something happened just last week on this show.” Suddenly the girls up front start screaming again, hardly able to contain themselves.

I look at Sebastian. “What did you do?” I whisper. He shakes his head at me, mouthing ‘nothing’.

“Alright, calm down you three. I haven’t even gotten the chance to tell her yet, you’re going to spoil the surprise!” WIth great effort the girls pipe down. Graham swivels back to me, a mischievous smile on his face.

“Oh no, what surprise?” I groan.

Billie pats my knee. “I know what this is about, it’s been all over twitter. This is what I’m thinking of, right?” Billie asks, shooting me a close-lipped smile.

“All over twitter? I haven’t had a chance to check twitter.” To be honest, I was putting off checking the hot mess that is social media. Three months of peace and quiet have been so nice, I’m clinging to it before I have to dive back in.

“Last week, we had a very special musical guest. You’re a fan of BTS, aren’t you?”I nod, furrowing my eyebrows. Where is he going with any of this?

“Yeah, I love them. We were just listening to them in the car, actually.” I gesture between Sebastian and I. Graham studies us like a textbook, nodding along.

“That’s perfect! They came on the show last week, it was amazing. Wasn’t it?” The audience cheers and claps in response. “We got to have a little chat before they performed. A nice little heart to heart if you will. Somehow, I have no idea how, we got onto the topic of their love lives.”

We all give him a complimentary laugh, knowing full well how they got onto that topic. Any successful interviewer knows their way around questions to make even the most composed celebrity fidget in their seat until they slip up.

“Oh did you?” Sebastian prompts Graham on. I know him well enough that he’s just wanting to move on at this point. We’re here to talk about our movie, not BTS. Heaven knows they’re famous enough already.

“Yes. You’ve heard of Suga?” I nod. I know who each of the members are, I really do like them a lot. “Well, he said something quite interesting, er, about you.”

My eyebrows flit up. “About me? He knows who I am?”The audience laughs, the girls in the front are practically causing an earthquake with how much jumping around they’re doing.

“He most certainly does. In fact, when I asked the boys if there was anyone they had their eye on, they all immediately turned to him! It was difficult to get it out of him, to say the least, but I found out that he’s a big fan of yours. And not just from a professional standpoint, if you know what I mean.” Graham winks at me even as my mouth falls open.

Me?

“You’ll have to watch the clip,” Billie says, nudging me. “It’s been all anyone can talk about all week. It’s been so annoying, I see your name everywhere now.” She laughs, and I pull myself together enough to laugh along with her. I look around, reminding myself that I’m on international television, and word will get around quick if I look like a high schooler that just got asked to the prom by her long-time crush.

Even though that’s exactly what I feel like.

The rest of the interview passes in a blur, Graham even going to far as to show me a couple of tweets with the hashtag, #CaraBTS. I’m just relieved there isn’t some weird couple name trending...yet.

“Oh, look at this one! You’ll love it.” Graham holds his paper up to the light, reading off of it. “‘This is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill. Cara and Yoongi are finally happening. I’ve been pushing for this since I found out she went to school in Seoul!’ It would appear this has been a long time coming for some fans. There are others that aren’t quite as excited though, as you can imagine.”

Shuffling his papers he pulls out another tweet. “Here we are, ‘I’m telling you if Cara Richie lays a single finger on my lil meow meow I’m suing.’ Well isn’t that lovely?”

We finally move on, Sebastian telling a funny story from our time filming in the Congo. I add in whatever tidbits I can, but I remain so focused on looking normal and unbothered by this new information that I nearly miss Billie getting up to sing. It’s during her performance, when the lights are down low and our mics are turned off that Sebastian nudges me, whispering something under his breath.

He makes it look like he’s pointing something out on stage, “Hey, you alright?”

I nod along, looking for all the world like we’re chatting about the lighting. It’s true that it looks striking, the dark greens and blues cut across the stage, highlighting Billie’s haunting voice.

“I think I will be. Is this going to be a disaster? Now all anybody will want to talk about is my love life.”

“Which we both know is nonexistent.”

“Exact-hey!” I shove my friend before turning my attention back to the performance. I still can’t quite relax, but I feel a little better. At least I have Sebastian by my side. He certainly knows how to remain low-key when it comes to the press.

Once the interview ends the three girls at the front squeal until I look at Sebastian who gives me a shrug.

“I don’t think it’s for me,” he gestures to them. “Look at their sign.”

Sneaking a glance over there my eyes widen and I struggle to keep my mouth from hanging open. One of the girls holds up a little poster that I didn’t see before. She probably wasn’t allowed to hold it up during the show because she would block other people’s view.

There, written in big bold miss that only a blind man could miss it reads:

Cara x Yoongi nation

Graham notices my attention from where he’s saying goodbye to Billie and makes his way over to me. He gives me a pat on the back.

“That,” he points out the sign that is now burned into my eyelids. “Is only the beginning, love.”

🌙

By the time Sebastian and I make it back to the hotel where the rest of the cast and director/producers are staying, I want to lock my door and throw something.

Sebastian told me not to check twitter, but I ignored him. Curiosity did kill the cat, folks. News flash.

If I wasn’t known before, I certainly am now. Twitter is a mess of supportive fans, those fans who are heartbroken but happy for Suga, and the fans that are out for blood. Like, real blood. I’ve read the words “better watch out” so many times that I can’t help but look over my shoulder every few minutes.

I do appreciate the fans that claim that only true ARMY will support the boys’ decisions. Nevertheless, I decide to hold off any kind of presence on social media until further notice. A glance at the official BTS twitter shows them doing the same thing, apparently. I’m not sure whether I should be relieved or worried about that.

“I told you not to,” Sebastian chides once we enter the hotel. “Now you’re all depressed.”

“I’m not depressed,” I defend myself. “Just nervous. I’m not sure what this means for my whole acting career. I don’t like knowing that I have no control over it.”

Sebastian wraps an arm around my shoulders as we enter the elevator. “Not to worry, I’m sure the PR team is on it. Stacey is good with these kinds of things. Trust me, I’ve put her through enough near disasters that this will be a piece of cake.”

Sebastian and I share managers, PR reps, and many more things. We’re strange friends, thrown together through a series of random events, but I’m so grateful for him. I would be so lost without all the resources he’s provided me with.

I give a dry laugh, slumping against my friend as the thought of being so close to a bed only serves to make me more tired. “She’s probably glad that it’s not you for a change.”

“Yeah, probably.”Sebastian bids me goodnight, heading down to his room on the other end of the hall. I can hear our director and a couple of the producers talking, but it’s too muffled to make out much more than their voices. I’m too tired anyways, so I opt to head straight to my room and get into bed before anyone can ask me any questions. I barely make it into my pajamas before I hit the mattress, sighing as I sink into the covers.

“Ah, finally. Goodnight world,” I mumble, turning to flip my phone on silent. The moment I go to grab my phone, it lights up with a notification. Groaning, I pick it up, squinting at the light.

“He...he what now?”

Taglist is open! Lemme know if you wanna join.

What do you guys think Yoongi did??

taglist: @taylorroe3 @eusticenatalie

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yunatheintrovert · 4 years ago

Text

shot through the heart (and you’re to blame) | Chapter 1 [Russell Adler/Female Bell!Reader Soulmate AU]

As you tapped your foot against the carpeted floor of the conference room to Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie, you felt your once anxious mind calm down.

For far back as you could remember-which really was just the year 1981-music with your ever trustworthy Walkman had always helped you with...well everything.

It had been one of the reasons you loved that pencil-pushing job in the cubicle at Langley as an intelligence analyst. No unholy amount of paperwork could overcome the clarity you felt at the sound of music blaring through the headset at your ears, drowning out everything else in your world. There was no voices, no ringing in your ears, no screams.

It was all just the consistent sounds of songs you listened to time and time again.

(And as much as you hated to admit it, there was that stubborn bit of hope that refused to die in every song you listened to. Because maybe, just maybe-you had someone out there when you had no one to call your own.)

That stability you found in a world that you knew you had no place in was all thanks to an old acquaintance and now friend. Belikov must have heard from Lazar about the noise complaints from your neighbors. After all, the next time you met him at the scheduled Chicago Cubs’ game, he handed a boxed Sony Walkman WM-5 model with his usual smile under his signature blue Chicago Cubs hat.

As much as you prized your precious Walkman, you couldn’t help but notice how the timing of the mixtapes it played was...uncanny.

Granted, you made the mixtapes yourself. But the MK Ultra program didn’t give you foresight into the future.

You remembered Lazar laughing amusedly at your musings about that. You swore it was true although perhaps that was the paranoia left over the MK Ultra program.

Yet as you sat patiently at the conference table, you couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding that punctuated the ringing silence the Walkman had before it moved onto the next song on your mixtape.

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART AND YOU'RE TO BLAME-

As the song you had listened to for years after quite literally getting shot in the heart rang loud and clear in your ears, you registered the doorknob turning across the room.

And suddenly, you just knew.

The song you had listened to for a year while getting as drunk as a fish in bars was coming back to haunt you with a vengeance.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake-” you muttered to yourself, perhaps a bit more loudly than you intended.

Russell Adler walked through that door not a second later.

Even as you swiveled your gaze to the suddenly very fascinating waste basket at the opposite side of the room, you couldn’t help but look at your former...superior out of the corner of your eye.

He was as calm and composed as ever. Signature sunglasses and the ever present cigarette in hand, he looked the same as he did in 1981.

Years ago, you would have admitted that it was frustrating to be ignored that way.

But now, all you could hope for was that he was just here to sit in for the meeting.

If the implanted memories were any indication, Russell Adler always tied up loose ends.

And you were that one loose end that just wouldn’t die.

Quietly sighing to yourself, you soon turned your attention to the briefing that just started. Half of the people you didn’t recognize. But you did notice the familiar figures of Lazar and Belikov sitting in the seats next to Adler.

It must have been some time into the briefing that you felt a forceful nudge at your leg. Turning slightly, you faced your neighbor, recognizing the familiar face.

She was an analyst at the cubicles in Langley as well. Although, she had a fair resume filled with a reasonable amount of fieldwork related to the Eastern Bloc.

“Bell,” she said as you read her lips and the frustrated look in her eyes, “Turn off that damn Walkman.” you assumed she said that in a hiss.

Truth be told, you weren’t exactly popular among the analysts at Langley. You were rather aloof with your quiet lunches in your little cubicle and constant listening to music on your Walkman in the busy hallways.

Suddenly, you saw the analyst’s head turn towards the upper end of the conference table.

And just like before, you simply knew who your “neighbor” was looking at.

“There’s no problem, sir. It’s just her-” You saw the analyst gesture to yourself before she added, “I don’t know if she was paying attention to the briefing.”

There were several times in your line of work that you wish your conversational and social skills were more up to par....and this was one of those times.

You looked at Adler, shrouded in a sparse cloud of smoke with his signature sunglasses on.

“Bell,” was the word you registered all too well.

You felt the gunshot scar on your chest ache in pangs because you heard that word-BellBELLBell-in Vietnam all those years ago-nonono

It wasn’t real. And you had to listen to the advice the shrink gave you.

They were all just surreal dreams.

“Sir?” you quietly inquired, making sure to use the honorific. After all, there never ever was any personal feelings involved in the past and thus formality should be used to distinguish that (and deep down you knew it was for your sake because you had to draw a damn boundary between reality and whatever the hell MK Ultra planted inside you).

For a split second, you could have sworn something crossed his face. Although, you could never tell what he was thinking behind those shades.

“We’ve got a job to do, Bell.” You felt yourself freeze, “What is it?” He was testing you.

Of course.

“Objective is a downed American recon satellite over the Angolan desert. Secure perimeter, destroy sensitive technology, and exfil at 1300. Weapons armament is at our discretion,” you said in clipped statements before adding, “Further details will be assigned to us at a later time.”

Much to the frustration of your “neighbor”, Adler simply nodded approvingly at you in that ever slight way before taking a drag of his cigarette.

Luckily, the briefing was over in around 15 minutes without a hitch.

By the time it was over, your mixtape had already gotten to Tainted Love by Soft Cell and you were already in the middle of jumping out of your chair and making a hopefully subtle dash to the hallway.

From the pain you drive into the heart of me The love we share Seems to go nowhere

Suddenly, you felt a weighted, warm pressure on your shoulder and you instantly twisted around with your hand on the origin of the pressure-

-only for you to blink in consternation at the warm feeling of callused skin against your own.

He’s not wearing gloves, you thought vaguely for a moment as you held Adler’s large callused hand on your shoulder.

Wait-

“Sorry, sir-” you jerked away from him with an apology, “...old habits die hard.”

'What old habits? You had none, not with him.' you kicked yourself mentally.

“You should be more aware of your surroundings.” Ah, yes...The same kind of lecturing you would get in the safehouse when you would listen in on his calls...Granted that somewhat deserved, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t watching over you 24/7 like that time you saw him watching you wander around in the darkroom.

“Yes, sir.” you simply said. It was better to be unnoticed by Adler than it was to piss him off. If you had to be the same devoted obedient subordinate as before, so be it.

There just wouldn’t be any personal feelings involved this time.

(because there were none. It was never personal.)

And I've lost my light For I toss and turn I can't sleep at night

You couldn’t help but feel rather awkward at the silence that lingered in the air.

“If that’s all, I’ll be going now, sir.” you rather sheepishly said before moving to turn to walk away.

“What are you listening to, kid?” Adler asked suddenly.

“What?”

“The song,” he gestured to the Walkman secured at your waist.

“Tainted Love,” you quickly answered, “Soft Cell.”

You could’ve sworn you saw Adler’s lips twitch up ever so slightly in almost a rather smile....or grimace. You could never quite tell with him.

“It’s a good song, Bell.” was all he said before walking away.

And with that exchange, you were left alone and confused in the hallway.

Once I ran to you (I ran) Now, I'll run from you This tainted love you've given

Author’s Note:

This is my first time writing out Adler's character as well as even writing out a Call of Duty fanfic. Hopefully, it turned out okay. My writing is still pretty rusty at the moment.

Anyways, I love writing Soulmate AUs and I found the idea of it to be interesting with a Russell Adler/Bell concept. Aside from my love for Soulmate AUs, I also just had to write out post-canon ending Bell having a Walkman and listening to music all the time with it.

Also, in case anyone is confused, this has a canon-divergence where Bell got non-fatally shot by Adler just before getting pardoned by a high-ranking official for her efforts and then getting a pencil-pushing job as an intelligence analyst at Langley. It's somewhat based on the "happy ending AU idea" post I put on here. It's rather unrealistic but I decided to run with the idea since it ran well with the soulmate AU concept.

Well, thanks for reading!

#Russell Adler #Russell Adler/Bell #Russell Adler x Bell #Female Bell #reader-insert #fanfic #cod cold war spoilers #cod cold war fanfiction #Female Bell!Reader #fanfiction #shot through the heart (and you're to blame)#soulmate au #soulmate songs/music au #fic: shot through the heart (and you're to blame)

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years ago

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Humans are Space Orcs, “Insurrection.”

Hope ou guys like this one and how it turned out. I am super excited to write the aftermath of all of this tomorrow, so stick around for that obviously :)

Have a great day.

“Adam, Damnit Adam, wake up!” The man lay on the floor of the shuttle head tilted back mouth open, fast asleep. Krill didn’t mind him sleeping, but there was one problem.

The life support.

This shuttle was clearly only meant for short detours in space, probably to one of those passing space stations or satellites. Krill would have flown the ship himself, but it turned out that his armspan wasn’t wide enough to break both beams of light at the same time. Either way he could only move the ship forward, away from any help, or in useless circles.

Overhead, a low rumbling was the siren for the ship.

“Commander, please wake up.”

The man didn’t move, his chest and stomach moving up and down slowly in his sleep, an unnatural sleep.

Krill turned to look around the shuttle, trying to find anything he could use to wake the man, but no luck, he could find nothing. The ship was a wasteland of useful tools, and he was suffering.

He had just moved to the front of the ship, and was trying to reach the two beams of light, without any luck, when there was a bright flash of light before him in the darkness. With a yelp, he staggered back and tripped onto the floor holding his arms out to block the horrifically burning light before him. When the light did not abate, he rolled onto his side and hid his face against the floor.

He wasn’t sure what was happening.

Had someone found them? Was there an explosion of some sort?

What was going on.

Finally the light subsided and he was able to lift his arms, still reeling from the blast of luminance that had poured down on him.

Looking out the window.

He froze in awe, surprise, and shock.

The Space dragon stared back at him, its massive head arching up into infinity, its great solar-sale wings spread around it.

Behind him, Commander Vir moaned, and krill turned to look as the man pushed himself to his hands and knees and then lifted his head.

***

“Deus”

Commander Vir sat on the floor of the shuttle in astonishment.

“I….. its… you.”

The dragon dipped it’s head just slightly curling through the air like a massive ribbon spun through the air.

“What are you doing here.” HE asked taking to his feet and walking over to the viewing window.”

The dragon did not answer, but spun in a tight circle.

“Well…. I. I don't know how you got here, but look, we are running out of air and desperately need to get back home. I would owe you forever if you helped us.”

Adam couldn’t hear anything of course, and even the inside of his head was quiet, but, somehow, he got the sense that the creature was laughing. He wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, but he definitely hoped that it was laughing with him and not at him.

“You will need to hold on.”

IT was the last thing the dragon said before racing out with the end of it’s tail, wrapping tightly around the ship, and then spinning in a tight circle.

Krill and Adam ended up plastered together against the far wall with the sudden acceleration.

And then came a bright flash of light, and they were gone.

***

They had been found out.

Of course, Sunny had expected as much. She didn’t imagine that a bunch of brightly colored butterfly burg, imprisoned for 400 years would go unnoticed by the rest of the hive, but there it was.

They knew that something was going on, and had begun pulling back towards the throne room to protect the queen. Luckily for her and her people, the shock troopers had managed to surround most of the large pockets of Burg fighters and were holding them off OF course, that did not stop everyone from making it back, and Sunny and the others were forced to dewal with an increased flux of burg as they retreated back down the tunnels.

She tried her best not to kill too many of them, but there was really no other choice when they got in her way.

On any other day she would have been happy to run them all through with great prejudice, but she was keenly aware of the burg king lurking at the back of their group, and didn’t want to ruin diplomatic relations before they even started.

Hijan was somewhere on the other side of the throne room, with the egg, waiting for her cue.

Sunny and the others were almost there, and ready for whatever was to come.

Behind her, Cannon Ramirez and Thomas covered the burg king, Thomas having all the luck of his brother and being covered in a thick layer of blue icor from the Burg he had helped to Kill.

THe man wasn’t as good as the marines, but he had enthusiasm.

She still couldn’t stand how much he looked like Adam, and his death brought bitter emotions rising into her throat.

She choked them back down spinning her spear behind her back as she crouched on the floor, one knee planted and waiting.

They were there for a good half hour before she gave the signal, and the group of them began to move forward.

The doors to the throne room were well protected, but, sending Ramirez around to one side as a second distraction, she watched as they were drawn away by his yelling voice and the gunfire. He would be fine seeing that the king had given them inside information on the layout of the palace, not that she would call this place much of a palace (more like a cesspool) but to each their own.

But together, the remaining group of them hurried forward towards the open door, cracking it open with only a slight rumble, and sneaking into the shadows behind a tall line of stalagmites rising from the floor in front of them.

Cannon and Thomas stacked up behind her as she pressed herself against the wall.

Looking around the room, sunny made a face of absolute disgust.

She could see, by way of delicate beams of light trickling form vents high above, and in that way she could see the throne room, covered in slimy moss, gelatinous ooze of a creamy white substance.

Some of it, held what she could only assume to be eggs, though that confused her considering the burg king told her the egg room was down the hall in the other direction.

“What has she done.” The king whispered in disgust.

Sunny was glad to hear it because she wasn’t entirely sure what she would have to think of him if this was the normal state of things.

It wasn’t just the slime and the thin beams of wan yellow light, but the floor was covered in refuse, mostly molted skin in great slippery sheats, and discarded food. From the edges of the room, the floor roze up into a sort of high hillock where the queen sat now.

Adam came unbidden to her mind again as she thought about what he might say of the sight.

Either: Jabba the Hutt called, he wants his body back, or something along those lines.

“Jeez.” Thomas whispered form her left, “Jabba the HUtt called, and he wants his girlfriend back.”

Sunny glowered down at him, and he went silent. Only Adam was allowed to make horrible star wars references.

Granted she had no doubt that Thomas had been forced into watching them with his little brother, but still it was Adam’s thing, no one else cared enough for it to count.

“What is happening.” THe queen demanded, and Sunny cringed again at the gelatinous way her voice spilled from her open mouth.

She only hoped the king was right when he said that the queen wasn’t supposed to look like that because if he was lying than they had the ugliest empress on the face of the universe. And just below her, there stood ranks of the royal guard. The biggest baddest, ugliest burg to go right along with her, with their massive mandibles and thick trunk-like legs.

“In position.” She whispered over her line

And Hijan came back with a slow on and off of her mic, so she wouldn’t have to speak.

Sunny motioned the others off, and together they spread out in a wide circle keeping to the shadow and slowly surrounding the room.

That was Sunny’s cue.

With a deep breath, she stepped out into the light of the cave, hoping that everyone else was in position.

As soon as she appeared there was a sharp hiss as the burg drew up. The queen gurgled, “What are you doing here!” She demanded

Sunny watched all the eyes turn to her, and planned on keeping them there as long as she could, “I am here to offer you terms of surrender. Either you step down peacefully as queen of the burg, or we remove you.” She lifted her spear, “The hard way.”

The queen gurgled some more, “You will not threaten me! Not when you are alone, and my guards still stand.”

There was a sharp hiss as the burg drew forward their weapons held ready.

“I am warning you now.” Sunny said, “One last time. You cannot win this fight. Better to live than to die in your own juices.”

That only made the queen more angry and she screeched, “Kill her!”

Sunny dove to the side just as sever projectiles of light energy shot through the spot where she had been.

The burg guards charged her, but not all of them made it more than a few steps before they were taken from behind.

Cannon appeared from the darkness spearing one through the back and caving in the skull of another with a brutal backhand to the face.

Hijan’s soldiers did the same, appearing out of the darkness and taking the distracted burg by storm.

Sunny continued rolling until she was behind a rock, and then unpredictably came out from above slamming into two of the guards with her spear. They hit the ground and she dispatched one before rolling away.

Someone screamed from the other side of the room, and she turned to watch as Thomas charged down from the top of the cave and straight towards the Burg, he shot one in the face before slipping on the slime and ending up on his back. A burg tried crawling over him, its weapon raised, but then thomas spat straight into its open mouth.

The reaction was immediate and grotesque as it fell to the ground clutching at its face.

Thomas stood, and with a huge grin, he ran around the room chasing after burg, and if he wasn’t shooting at them, he had turned himself into a spitting cobra.

Hijan appeared from behind a rock, the new egg cradled in one of her lower arms like a football.

Sunny ran a burg through with her spear.

Atop her pedestal the queen was screaming for her guards.

They tried to get close, but the burg were fighting ferociously, and more of them seemed to be appearing by the second, spilling from holes in the ground and up onto the surface.

Sunny yelled orders from where she stood.

They weren’t getting any closer.

Hijan was overrun for a moment but managed to break out, holding the egg up and away from grasping hands.

“Over here!” Someone shouted, and Hijan turned her head to find Ramirez not too far away, his hands raised.

She lobbed the egg underhand without a second thought, and Ramirez dived forward to catch it hitting the stone hard and then rolling behind a rock with the egg tucked to his chest.

The burg chased after him, but Hijan took out a few of their number.

Sunny hissed in pain as a blade cut her along the upper right arm, spinning her spear back and thrusting it forward into the chest of her attacker.

They were being pushed back towards the doors as more and more of them filtered up from the ground. Thomas stood on a rock and was spitting down onto the crowd indiscriminately as he had no need to aim.

Sunny snarled in frustration, still they were losing.

And then there came a plaintive cry of pain. It wasn’t very loud, but it made the room turn and look up to where the queen sat covered in blue as her own lifeblood trickled down her front, and over her stood the burg King, his magnificent kaleidoscope wings glittering like stained glass in a single shaft of sun. In one hand he held a sharpened blade, and as they watched he drew it even more forcibly across the queen’s throat.

Or at least the part below her face.

She flailed for a moment and then wriggled and then flopped wetly to the ground at his feet.

The room was silent.

And then an uproar.

“QUICK, THE EGG.” He bellowed. Ramirez had rolled out from behind a rock and raised his hand trying to figure out where to place it, a sea of burg between him and the burg king.

***

The orbital ring of the Burg home planet was awash with chaos. Debris was littered everywhere and it was taking all the maneuvering skill of the pilots not to destroy their ships on a ton of stell rocketing around the planet at thousands of miles an hour.

The burg fleet and the combined GA fleet were locked in combat. The GA fleet bigger and more powerful, the burg smaller but more nimble.

One of the Celzex light cruisers had been separated from the main body of the GA fleet and was being harried from all sides by diveboming burg ships. Their weapons were to slow to manuver and fire at the burg. And each beam took minutes to charge.

Outside their shields were being slowly worn down, the once glowing blue energy a patchwork of holes and tears frayed and fuzzy at the edges where the energy was attempting to seal them back up.

But it was no use.

The ship rocked as an incoming burg attack hit them broadside.

“Left deck compromised.”

The Celzex leader cursed.

They weren’t gong to win this one, and he knew it. Their weapons were, ironically, too powerful to be used on such small opponents.

The ship rocked again and another deck decompressed, leaving more and more of the Celzex to die a painful death.

It was almost over now.

And then all blackness was lit by a bright beam of white light. The rocking in theis ship stopped suddenly as everyone within visible radius was blinded.

When the fleet looked up, and the light abated, they stopped in awe as the massive space dragon uncurled itself from it’s tight ring.

WIth one sharp flick, its tial lashed out sending a projectile roring onto the battlefield.

The Celzex stopped in awe as the alien ship roared from the darkness and (using powerful unknown energy weapons) Sliced straight through one of the burg cruisers. IT made a tight turn flying with the skill and dexterity of a complete madman as it made quick work of the remaining burg which surrounded the Celzex ship.

The great dragon flicked it’s tial once again.

There was a flash of light, and one of the burg ships went spinning off into blackness, shedding metal and material in all directions.

The alien ship cut around dodging through the debris, and though it was smaller than any ship there, it made quick work of what was left.

Behind it, the great beast spread its wings wide as the shuttle hurtled towards the surface of the planet.

***

The Egg left Ramirez's hand spinning up into the air in a great slow arc. But at the last moment his foot slipped on a slime pile and the tips of his fingers brushed over the surface, minutely changing the course of the ball to go spinning high and away from its intended target.

Sunny watched in despair and shock, but then, the roaring of an engine, and a burst of light, maverick came plowing through one of the holes in the ceiling with her jetpack, grabbing the egg from the air and spinning in a tight circle to deposit it in the hands of the burg ing who was slowly being advanced on by the burg royal guard

As soon as the egg came in contact with his hands, he raised it high over his head, and with a sharp crack, broke the outer shell.

Two halves of the egg fall to the ground, and he was left holding a small wriggling maggot with large dark eyes.

“Behold, your new queen!” The room grew very still and ver silent for a moment. For a second, Sunny thought that they had failed and the burg were going to pick up where they had left off, but suddenly a burg in the first row lowered to her knees bowing her head, and slowly, with her demonstration, came the others, dropping to the ground and bowing their heads.

“And as caretaker of our new queen, it is my duty to stand in for her until she is old enough to speak for herself, and with that I order you to call off the attack.”

There was a pause among the ranks before one of them lifted her head, “We cannot.”

“And why is that.” “We are the queens guard and loyal to her in all forms, but the others are loyal to the ideals she place upon them.”

“Then you will help us in our fight. If you cannot convince them then they must be destroyed.”

They bowed again and took to their feet.

Their leader began to give orders, and Sunny was surprised to find herself in the center of a tide of burg as they spill their way out through the cavern.

Those who did not surrender were destroyed as the Burg kin had promised.

Those who did not wish to fight the army spilling out around them fled outward from the caves and onto the open battlefield of grass and stone.

Sunny came with them her spear flashing in the light overhead as she cut through those who would not yield.

Their numbers were dwindling.

Shock troopers spilled in from all directions to help.

Sunny ran her spear through the chest of one of the burg and turned searching for another target.

A radio went off to her side.

“Shock 1, come in! Do you copy!”

The human shock trooper lifted his hand and keyed the radio, “Yeah go ahead.”

“We have an alien ship inbound to your position. Sir there is a dragon and a-”

“Slow down what is this about a dragon.”

Just then a dark spot appeared up above in the sky with little trails of exhaust streaming out beom behind it.

The last burg were falling on the field before them.

Sunny finished off one last body, letting it fall to the ground at her feet.

There was one more shape now, a black dot on the horizon retreating into the distance.

Sunny drew back hr spear.

And that is when the shape plunged from the sky and slammed right into the retreating burg.

ITs body vanished and a spray of blue engulfed the front of the alien ship, which now covered the moldering body underneath.

The battleground went silent.

There was a sharp hiss and a billow of smoke as the door popped open.

A silhouette stepped down onto the dirt.

“Is it just me, or do I have perfect timing.”

Sunny’s spear clattered from her hands onto the stone. The smoke billowed away, and a figure came stumbling from the smoke coughing and waving a hand.

“Damnit, i think I might have pushed her a little too hard.” Said Commander Adam Vir

“I’m gonna fucking kill him.”

***

The stone was nice and warm beneath his feet, great mountains of stone and grass rising up on either side of him. He took breath of deep fresh air as Krill stumbled out behind him looking as sick as a Vrul could look.

A soft breeze tugged at his bare chest and arms.

Before him, an entier army stood in shock and awe.

He scanned over the crowd falling on familiar faces as he went. He was surprised at some of them. Hijan and the Sentinel, Ramirez, Maverick, Cannon.

His eyes passed down the line meeting finally with familiar orbs of gold. They stood there for a second, staring at each other from across the smoking field of corpses, and then a shout. HE turned his head just in time to be plowed into by another figure, dirty and covered in blue sludge.

“ADAM!” “Thomas!” he could hardly believe his eyes, as his older brother squeezed him tight and picked him up off the ground in his enthusiasm, arms pinned to his side.

The two of them spun in a circle as Thomas laughed and pitched into the grass.

“You’re alive! I can’t believe it! You’re alive!”

IT was his cue that broke the silence, and an uproar followed them as other feet pounded across the open plane. He was hauled to his feet by Ramirez and crushed in a hug so tight it may well have broken his spine.

Maverick punched him in the arm so hard it should have left a bruise, and Hijan and the other Drev chanted and raised their spears for him.

But his eyes still searched for another figure, one he found lurking at the back of the crowd

She stood there spear in hand held held high.

Silent.

He managed to slip out of someone’s arms and duck over to where she was, slipping out of the crowd unnoticed while they tried to figure out where he was.

HE stopped before her suddenly not sure of what to say.

She looked at him.

And he stared back.

“It’s good to see you.” he finally said lamely.

She was quiet for a moment, her golden eyes boring into his face. She raised hr spear, and for a moment he thought she was going to run him through, but the blade stopped inches from his neck, “If you ever do that to me again, I WILL kill you.”

He raised his hands going cross eyed as he stared down at the spearhead, “Sunny, if it means saving your life, I would do it again.” The speartip winked in the light between them.

And then he smiled, pushed it aside and moved forward quickly.

She seemed surprised as he quickly and discreetly stretched up on his toes and pulled her closer.

Their foreheads touched for a second before he drew back hand still on her shoulder, “Though, this does mean I at least owe you dinner.”

She snorted, “Oh you owe me a lot more than that.”

“Maybe I do.”

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haxorus-imp · 3 years ago

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Planet of the Megafaunas - Part 3 - Among Us & Reader fic

-Summary-

You work as a game warden and try to make sense of what you witnessed yesterday...however, you're about to get more than you bargained for. A/N: “ I also want to say that the rangers are equally gender neutral and you can make them look like anyone you want.”

-Chapter 3: The Warden-

You let out a sluggish yawn as you rub your eye and walk into your kitchen.The early dawn sunlight shines through your kitchen window as you finish your early morning warm drink to start your day off right. So far, everything seemed to be going okay today..The only thing that was bugging you were some nagging unresolved thoughts.

Yet, you couldn’t help it.You really couldn’t shake off what you witnessed yesterday morning.

At first, everything was as normal as it could be. It was just like any other day.You got up, began your routine for work, and due to you waking up a bit earlier than usual, you decided to relax in the rocking chair on your front porch until it got a bit closer to your shift..

Then, it happened.

A large flaming object descended from the sky, followed by a trail of inky black smoke and what appeared to be burning pieces of shrapnel. You nearly spit out your drink while you watched the spectacle on your lodge’s front porch.

You kept your eyes on it and it eventually fell out of sight somewhere over the darkened horizon, a distant ‘boom’ resonating from an unknown area some miles away.You remembered the incident vividly, as it went down somewhere over the range in the distance and you hurried to get dressed and go searching for the mysterious object.At the time, many thoughts were going through your mind. A fallen satellite, a meteor, even an alien spacecraft crossed your mind. Your curiosity and concern pushed you to search for it.You spent the most of yesterday searching for the crash site.Despite you finding no evidence of the object at all yesterday, you still had a feeling that you weren’t going crazy or that you weren’t hallucinating while half asleep.

Even while being stationed up in the mountains, you were not too far from civilization enough to go crazy within a few months...let alone go crazy at all.

Yet, what you had witnessed was nothing short of baffling.

Still, being a Game Warden, you couldn’t really dwell on such a thing for too long. You had rangers, land, animals, campers, and townsfolk to oversee.

You already wasted a day by searching for the object and finding no results nor conclusions on what it was. Unfortunately, the search for it would have to be postponed until you got a day to yourself again.

Until then, it would be an unsolved mystery.

‘I’m certain I saw SOMETHING fall out of the sky yesterday...but...maybe I am just imagining things. I haven’t really found any evidence for what I witnessed anyway. But it just seemed so...real.’

You mentally mumble as you slip on your belt and holster your gun to get ready for the day. With the finishing touches being you slipping on your badge, your logo embroidered hat, and snatching up your packed lunch for the day.

You walk out of your lodge’s kitchen and into the foyer. Finally finishing with grabbing your work files on the small desk by the entrance before heading out the front door.

You exit your home and stand on the porch for a moment. The soft morning springtime winds blow the small windchimes that hang from your patio around, providing a soft jingling sound to fill the atmosphere.

You smile and turn around and with a quick turn of a key, your lodge is safely locked up. You then face away and approach your government-provided vehicle with slight disinterest. You decide to take a moment as you open your car door to take a glance at the sky. You could already see the next sunrise coming up over the snow-capped mountains. Painting the snow on the peaks a bright orange while the surrounding forest were turned into bright golden pillars.

The sunbeams were cutting through the early morning mists and the cool breeze was filling your lungs with fresh crisp mountain air.

You let out a sigh of bliss as you get into the car.

With a quick few adjustments and a turn of the keys, the car starts up and you begin to pull out and away from your home. Going towards the little town at the base of the valley for some supplies and to visit the office for your daily share of paperwork.

The drive there was primarily uneventful.

The car radio was playing music on low volume, providing some background noise. Meanwhile, the radio that was provided by the administration that you work for remained silent.

Nothing really happens in the morning...especially since lockdowns were still in effect. It made your job easier and much less hectic.

While on the way, you quietly observe the scenery as you pass by. Despite seeing it multiple times a day, you doubt you would ever get tired of looking at it.There were large meadows that spread throughout the valley. With small lakes spotted all throughout. Glittering like melted gold as the sun scattered it’s light across the surface of the distant lakes.

The horizon was populated by a healthy amount of mountains and large forests. Showing the sheer distance and the beauty of this place that you happened to have the fortune to call your home.

Eventually, the winding roads cut right through a larger mountain ridge, the road having cleaved the gritty steep slopes into two. Driving through them blocked out most of the wonderful scenery, but once they passed and a slightly distant drive later, the valley town slowly came into view.

The distant radio tower shone like a beacon over the trees and the buildings in the distance, already beginning to be bathed in the growing sunlight.

You look at the visual of the small settlement and a sense of warmth fills you up from the inside.

It didn’t look like much, but this place was all that you needed in the world. No large obnoxious corporations, noisy highways, blinding neon signs, or any disruptive construction. Just a small local town with people living peacefully with nature.You just wished everywhere was like this little town.With your growing approach towards the town, you passed over a concrete bridge that had a large waterfall putting on quite the show this morning. With a large rainbow showing up in the mists that the waterfall provided. Glowing vividly as the early morning sunlight sparkled and danced along with it in the water droplets.

You smile at the sight as you drive past, continuing on your way.

Shortly after that, you finally arrived at the outskirts of the town.

You take a brief glance at a sign you’ve seen many times before while passing through on your visits to the local settlement. It’s decorated edges and wooden charm just heightened the colorful yellow and red flowers growing at the base and gave the words on the sign their true meaning.

‘Welcome to Emberwood: A cozy little town with a heartwarming populace.’

Ah. It was always such a sight to see when you pulled into town.

You drive down the streets you practically know by muscle memory and pull into the headquarters lodge parking lot.

Once parked, you gather up your equipment, work files, packed lunch, and necessary identification before getting out of the vehicle and closing the car door.

With a brief stretch and yawn, you pull out a pen from your vest pocket and begin to finish signing some papers and reading what material you have to finish before entering the office.While working, your remaining senses catch the atmosphere of the nearby surrounding environment.

There was the smell of fresh breakfast being prepared from the nearby local diner. Along with the scent of cozy campfires filling the morning air from the nearby campgrounds. The early risers were jogging down the sidewalks for their daily exercise. Some even had the decency to wave at you while they passed by. Which you reciprocated.

The morning birds sang their songs while the wind rustled the nearby tree leaves and cooled your skin from the rising sun’s rays.You could even hear distant children already playing near the community playground and the sound of a distant dog barking. Finalizing the sense of a community surrounding you.

You wouldn’t openly admit it. But sometimes, being up in the mountains all by yourself was kinda...lonely.You take a brief glance around as you finish sorting your paperwork before approaching the office door and going inside.

With a happy greeting to the receptionist at the front desk, you hand in your paperwork, show your ID, and go to your assigned office to pick up some more papers to work on.

However, the moment you go inside and see the large stack of papers on your desk, you let out an agitated huff before walking inside and sitting down at your desk.

Knowing fully well that this was caused because of your extended absence from yesterday. Already beginning to look them over, you could tell that a lot of these papers were going to need to be carefully looked over and filed appropriately.

‘So much for an easy morning...’

You internally grumble.

The day continued on as you filed and worked tirelessly to get the stack of papers dealt with and turned in. A couple of fines, ignorant trespassers, and about one unlicensed fishermen were documented and filed in the cabinet of your desk appropriately. Most of them were numerous litter reports and complaints from tourists and it was enough to whittle down your patience. To save you from your torment, the lunch bell on your phone finally went off and granted your reprieve. You let out a sigh of relief as you sit back in your office chair. You stretch and groan as it was lunch time and the stack of paper STILL wasn’t conquered. You look at the remaining files and decide to take a break and deal with them after your lunch break. You stand up, pick up your packed lunch that was sitting next to your desk and you decide to head outside to the picnic area to eat in peace. “I’m off for lunch! I’ll see you in an hour, Debra!” You call over to the receptionist, who nods in understanding as you head out the exit. With your lunch in hand, you walk out the entrance and away from the parking lot and to the picnic benches that were stationed in the grass next to the building. With a seat picked out, you sit down and begin to munch on your packed lunch. While you were eating, you pulled out your smartphone and began to idly click through headlines and various other media for any sort of news or entertainment to pass some time. Most of the news was typical political stuff, celebrity drama, and the typical conspiracy theory that is only believed by absolute nutjobs or gullible idiots. However, one headline did happen to catch your eye and stood out amongst the rest of the nonsensical boring titles. ‘Satellite mysteriously thrown off course and knocked offline. Space debris supposedly at fault.’ Huh. A satellite was knocked off course yesterday. Maybe that was the thing you saw falling from the sky? A falling satellite? It was kinda disappointing, really. It killed your hopes of anything interesting happening, plus that also meant that there was some litter left out in the forest somewhere. You huff as you just turn on your music app and decide to drown out your thoughts with some of your favorite music and a mouth filled with food. It was about a few minutes later that you then suddenly heard the sound of a car pulling up to the lodge. You turn your head towards the source and see a cruiser similar to yours pull up. Instantly, you recognized the numbers on the side as one of your own personal fleet. It brightened your day to see a car that was in your ranger's possession pull up to the hub. Despite being a leader of 8 different rangers at various points in this national park, you barely get to see them that often. Usually, you all meet up at least once every two weeks to exchange information and update each other on events that have been going on around the park. Over time, you’ve grown to know them. Maybe even bonded with a few of them. As if they’ve become almost like a family to you. Which you certainly didn’t mind. Judging by the cruiser's numbers, you figured that your youngest ranger was going to be the one to exit the car. Like clockwork, the familiar face of your most recent recruit steps out of the car, along with his unexpected taller partner. Both dressed up in their ranger uniforms and holding their own respective files while they got out. Both seemingly getting ready for their own respective lunch breaks. While you weren’t expecting your tallest ranger to be with the youngest member, it wasn’t uncommon for rangers to carpool or share rides around the park. It both saves gas and brings comfort in knowing that you have a partner watching your back. They both were quick to notice you and wave at you, which you returned wholeheartedly. They both approach as you turn down your music, then the youngest ranger engages you in conversation. “Ey, chief! How are you today?” The youngest ranger greets happily. “I’m good, Alex. I’ve just been swamped with work...as per usual. How are you and Dakota doing this afternoon?” You inquire, smiling at your two fellow rangers. “We’ve been good. The lakes have been quite deserted, so our neck of the woods have been rather peaceful over the last few days.” Dakota speaks up, his shorter partner nodding in confirmation. “Yep! Just a few adventurous canoeing campers and some licensed fishermen. Nothing too notable or worthy of reporting to you and headquarters.” Alex chirps. You smile at them both. “That’s wonderful. What about Kegan and Greer?” You continue. “Haven’t really talked to them much. But I bet that shorty, Kegan, is still watching the forest. Especially with the wildfires afoot more than ever. Meanwhile, I think Greer is still keeping their eyes on the plains. But they’re not very talkative. So it’s kinda hard to tell...” Alex replies. “And Paton and Sage?” You press. “Paton is carefully watching the fish with a crane’s discipline down by the rivers. They were the one that caught that fisherman trying to scoop up the shads and crayfish without a license recently.” Dakota answers. “And Sage is still at the repair shop fixing up some of our broken down cruisers. They’re working hard to get them fixed, though!” Alex pitches in. You nod. “What about the siblings, Shay and Clay?” You question. “Shay has been carefully watching the bird populace with a watchful eye, as usual. No signs of poaching and the breeding program seems to be going really well this year! Shay says we’ve been having our highest clutch of eggs ever laid since the last 3 years!” Alex happily announces. “And Clay has been taking care of the security and communication firms at the radio tower. Everything seems to be going well on their end too.” Dakota finishes. You let out a sigh of relief. Thankful that not a single problem has been reported as of yet. A rather favorable outcome compared to what you have to deal with on a spring break weekend. “Man, this lockdown has been a blessing. I haven’t had one death report or animal attack in the last year and a half, I shouldn’t get used to it though. I’m actually starting to have faith in humanity again.” You dramatically say, much to the amusement of your two rangers. “Hehehe! Yeah! Me and Dakota might as well be on vacation.” Alex jokes.Even Dakota lets out a brief chuckle before nodding along. Then, Alex takes a look at their watch before gasping. “Oh! Well me and Dakota were just coming by to drop off our papers and say a quick hello before we headed out to lunch. So we better hurry along before we have a late lunch! Sorry for such a short visit Warden!” Alex explains as the two of them turn away and begin to wave at you. You were about to wave them off before a sudden question came to your mind. “Hold up you two!” You suddenly say, causing the both of them to stop in their tracks as they turn to face you in slight surprise. “Uh...is something the matter, chief?” Dakota questions carefully. “I just wanted to ask you two something before you go to lunch.” You explain. “Did you two happen to notice anything... unusual yesterday morning?” You continue. The two rangers both looked at each other and shared a confused look before focusing back on you. Both of them shaking their heads in response. “Not really.” “Nope.” They both reply in near unison. You allow a downtrodden expression to cross your face. “Oh. Well, that’s alright. Just be sure to ask the other rangers if they saw anything weird yesterday morning if you happen to see them today, okay?” You say dismissively. Alex and Dakota share another glance. “Is...something bothering you chief?” The tall ranger cautiously inquires. “Yeah. You’re looking really worried about something. Do you need to talk about it?” Alex offers. “Well…” You sigh before continuing on. “Yesterday morning, right at dawn, I swore I saw something fall from the sky. It was on fire and I remember watching it fall until it disappeared out of sight. I spent all day looking for it to find out what it was...but I didn’t find anything. I don’t even know if what I saw was real or not. Nobody else seems to have seen or witnessed it either.” You confess. The two rangers look at you in silent astonishment. “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa...so was it like...a meteor or something??” Alex questions. You could only shrug from your place at the picnic table. “I don’t know. It was too far away for me to see, but I do remember hearing a distant boom shortly after it fell out of sight. I have a hunch that it landed somewhere. But, I also saw in the media that a satellite was impacted and compromised since yesterday. I just don’t know if it was a satellite, a meteor, or whatever. I just know that something landed out there… somewhere. ” You surmise. “Ooooh, maybe it’s a meteor that is holding an alien parasite or something and it’s gonna pick off our lovely townsfolk one by one…” Dakota says darkly, which earns them a punch in the shoulder from Alex. “Don’t say stuff like that, Dakota!” Alex chides as Dakota could only laugh in response. You could only roll your eyes at their antics. “Alright...just don’t worry about it for now. We’ll talk more about it later. Sorry for holding you two up. Go take your lunch breaks!” You softly order. Then, the two of them realize that they were probably now REALLY late for their lunch breaks and both turn and begin to walk away. With Alex waving back at you. “It was nice talking to you, Warden! We’ll be sure to ask the others if they have seen anything odd since yesterday morning! Have a good day!” Alex calls back to you, while both of them disappear into the lodge. You turn back towards your unfinished lunch and idle music playlist that was now playing a random song. Once more, you were alone with your thoughts. You got back to eating your meal while your mind focused on the strange event you witnessed once again. Those unresolved thoughts from this morning resurfacing.It was kinda strange how nobody else saw what you witnessed, but hopefully you didn’t come off as crazy to your rangers. But...what if what Dakota said had some truth to it? What if it was a parasitic-alien-carrying-meteor and life in this little town will never be the same ever again? What if some people really do die suddenly and without reason? What if something bad really does happen? How would you even be able to cope with a situation like that?? You decided to briefly close your eyes for a moment to clear your head a bit. Instead, you focused on your breathing. You focused on the warmth of the sunlight on your skin...the feel of the wind sweeping through your hair...the scent of smoke drifting through the air...the comfort of the picnic table...the flavor of the food in your mouth...everything else but what was going on in your head. A moment of blissful silence passes. Then, you shake your head from side to side slowly. No. That was silly. Not impossible ...but silly . What are the chances of that anyway? Dakota was just messing with you. For all that you know, it could’ve been just a hallucination. It probably wasn’t even real to begin with anyway. Instead, you open your eyes and hurry to finish your food and you check your phone. Just in time, your lunch break was going to be over in the next few minutes. And a stack of papers were still waiting for you to file them on their desk. You let out a disgruntled groan as you put your phone back into your vest pocket and begin to get up from the picnic table. With the trash cleaned up and the food eaten, you begin to head back inside the lodge. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take you too long to finish filing what you needed to do. Without any further delays, you walk back into the lodge to settle your remaining paperwork. And with every filing and every piece of paper read carefully through, the hours of the day quickly ticked on by.--You let out an exhausted sigh as you finally conquered the stack of paperwork. The piled up behemoth was finally filed away and that meant that you were ready to go back to your private lodge up in the mountains. You stand up from your desk and with a final stretch, you begin to gather up your things and head out the door to your assigned office. You wave at the equally tired Debra as you walk by, she looked as if she barely had the focus left to wave back, but it didn’t bother you much. The sun was beginning to sink over the horizon as you walked out of the lodge. The cool night breeze welcomes you as you approach your car and begin to get inside for the drive back home. With a similar routine to what you did that morning, you turn the car on and begin to head out towards the mountains. Watching as the pedestrians you saw awaken earlier that day slowly begin to make their way back home. The shops, local restaurants, and even the local clinic were shutting down for the night as your car passed by the welcoming sign. Your trip was the same as before or similar to any other day. You would get up, file paperwork some days, patrol on others, or sit at your lodge. Paperwork days were obviously the hardest. Thankfully, tomorrow you will be able to lounge at your lodge in peace or go for some small partrols. Maybe you would even go searching for that mysterious object. The drive back was similar to the drive over. Music softly plays on the nighttime radio as you drive back up the winding roads. However, once you were approaching the ridge that was divided into two segments, the setting sun illuminated something strange on the cliffside that managed to catch your eye.You lay off the gas and slow down to get a good look at the side of the mountain as you creep up on the divide. You worriedly eye the road ahead as you take notice of lots of loose gravel and distirbed rocks that remained askew on the cliff. There was even a noticeable trail in the gravel that went down towards the road further ahead. You stay focused and remain cautious as you continue on. At first, you figured that a rockslide occurred while you were down in the city. It was certainly not a rarity, but it was very uncommon for this road to be impacted by a rockslide…thankfully, this road wasn’t really traveled down that much. Finally, you gasp and halt the car while throwing up your caution lights as a fairly large log comes into view.It was laying on the road near where the shoulder of the road and hillside meet. Some stones, small boulders, as well as some other various debris lay around the impact sight.You quickly reach over and fish your flashlight out of your glove box and you set your headlights to high beams for better visibility. Then, you exit your car to investigate. You walk around the front of your vehicle and turn on your flashlight, shining it down on the pile of debris. At first, it looked like nothing more was amiss other than some large logs. No large boulders that would be proven a problem to the safety of the road, blocking the way, or anything else amiss. With a quick scan of your flashlight, you visually scan the mountainside and scope out where the log came loose. You hum to yourself as you look back at the pile on the road. Then something ominous grabs your attention suddenly… You didn’t notice it at first...but something was dripping out of the pile and forming a small and shallow puddle near the center of the heap...just right in between the gaps where your flashlight could shine through. Something… Red. You blink and realization quickly dawns on you as you approach the pile for a closer look...then you finally see it. A small human-like hand was buried under the log.You couldn’t hold back a surprised gasp. Someone was BURIED UNDER THERE!You react quickly, your rescue training rapidly coming into play. Setting your flashlight off to the side, you hurry over and begin to throw the smaller obstacles out of the way. Your fear grew more and more as the objects were continuously removed, the more of a small body you could see. Your anxiety increased drastically when you realized that this was most-likely a child, as well as if the possibility of the victim was still alive or not. Finally, with the branches and smaller rocks out of the way, you found a scene that made your blood grow cold. The small human child was pinned underneath the large log that fell from way up the mountain’s slope. Blood was pooling around their legs as the log could be seen pinning one of their legs to the sharp rocks that lined the bottom of the slope. With adrenaline beginning to flood through you, you could swear that you saw the head move slightly, but it quickly went limp again. You wasted no more time and rushed to grab the log. Using your strong legs, you manage to lift the log up and off the unfortunate victim and throw it off to the side with an impressive show of strength. Now that the object was removed, you could see the full extent of the damage to the victim’s leg. It was enough to make you visibly cringe. The wound that was present then began to gush blood as you hurry over and worm your way under their unconscious form. Carrying the victim fireman-style, you rush over to the passenger side of your car and open the door with your fingers. You set the victim in the passenger seat and then you open the glove box and fish out the emergency first-aid kit that you kept in there for moments like these. Popping it open, you snatch up the gauze, diaper pin, and scissors.With a quick flurry of moments, you wrap the gauze around the injured leg and begin to wrap it tight enough to slow the blood flowing from the wound.Finishing the wrappings with a hefty knot, you pin the wrappings in place with the diaper pin. The finishing touch was buckling the victim’s passenger seatbelt. After that, you rush around to get your stuff and flashlight from the shoulder of the road before rushing to get back into the driver seat. Your mind was racing as you tried to figure out what to do with the unconscious person next to you. What should you do in this situation?! This was completely unexpected! The drive back to town was quite a ways away and the clinic in town was closed for the day. I mean, you could radio your medical emergency crew, but would they even get here in time?! They were losing so much blood! The kid needed medical attention now!!With your options not good enough for the situation, you put your car in gear and punch the gas. Your tires let out a loud squeal as your vehicle rockets down to the road. With a flip of a switch, your emergency sirens come on and you race back to your lodge at near reckless speed. Not wanting to waste any more time from getting this ‘kid’ medical attention. Your unconscious charge sitting limply in the driver seat as you do so. Silently urging you to get back to your place as quickly as you could.--With your speeding vehicle and the blaring sirens, you arrived at your lodge in record time. The little fairy lights hanging from your porch and the garden in the front yard came into view as the lights of your front porch illuminated the way to your dwelling. Like a distant beacon of hope, you floor it and the revving of your engine could probably be heard from miles away. A quick few turns of your steering wheel and you enter the driveway that leads to your home. You finally lay off the gas and a sudden stomp on the brakes brought the vehicle to a stop in front of your lodge’s garage. You toss your seatbelt off and hurried to exit the car. Leaving your files and equipment inside. With a quickened pace, you race to the other side of the car and open the door. Unbuckling the small human, you carefully pick them up and take a rapid glance at their wound. Already seeing the bandages turning red, you grunt as you haul them up into your arms. A rough kick to the car door shut it and you rushed onto your front porch. With a bit of fumbling with your keys, you finally get the door unlocked and hurry into your home. Another kick to the door closed it as you hurried over to the den’s couch. You lay the victim on the furniture and speed off towards the bathroom. Ripping open your medicine cabinet, you grab the bottle of antiseptic, bandages, thick gauze, scissors, and a tweezer. As well as stuffing some clean towels under your arm. You quickly come back to the victim and set the stuff on the ground. You then adjust the position of the poor soul and you then kneel before them. You don’t even pay attention to what your injured charge was wearing, you just quickly take off the boot from their injured leg and wince at the ‘discoloured’ skin that was revealed. It nearly made you want to hurl, but you endured. Using the scissors, you cut off the ‘pants leg’ of the victim and finally reveal the wound. You grit your teeth tightly as the injury was covered in large splinters and dried blood. As well as fresh blood that continued to seep from the wound. You grab the tweezers and get to work. You pulled out thorn-like splinters from the main part of the injury. Even pulling some out that even the victim visibly whimpered to. You felt horrible that this little person had to go through so much torment for so long! This was probably going to be so painful when they woke up! With a quick and careful pace, you scraped, pulled, and removed as many splinters and debris as you could. Wiping down the afflicted with the antiseptic fluid to kill off any bacteria or growing infection. You even checked the depth of the wound, which didn’t go down to the bone. But the accident did injure some muscles and break some vessels. Thankfully, it missed the arteries. The wound was still seeping blood, however. But you were about to help alleviate that with a useful survival skill that was taught to you during your training. Instead of letting it continue to bleed, you got up and ran to the kitchen for some unique supplies. Coming back in with a soft-tipped butter knife and a lighter. For a moment, you heat up the knife with the flame from the lighter before kneeling back down to be level with the sore again. With the grace of a trained surgeon, you use the hot tip of the knife to press down on the bleeding vessels in the leg. The poor kid lets out an audible subconscious whine as you cauterize the wound. Thankfully they weren’t awake for this procedure. You didn’t really have any painkillers or morphine on hand. Which probably would’ve been a lot worse. With a bit of careful and tender care, the vessels that were leaking the precious blood were closed up and the blood loss was greatly reduced. You let out a relieved sigh as the ‘child’ was finally stabilized. You finish the process by disinfecting the opening again, checking for any more splinters, and finally wrapping the thick gauze around the area. Finishing up by wrapping the leg in bandages. With the emergency situation finally under control, you sit back and finally take a moment to breathe and allow the adrenaline that was coursing through your veins to dilute. Now that you are beginning to relax, you finally take in the appearance of the strange ‘child’. You didn’t pay any attention before, but now that you could look at them, they seemed to be wearing an astronaut suit. Which was strangely adorable, but didn’t really answer your questions. How did a child wind up at the ridge? What caused the log to come tumbling down and nearly crush them?? Where were their parents?!? You rub your temples with your thumbs as you observe the unconscious being in front of yourself...I mean...you think they’re unconscious. It was hard to see through their little helmet and visor... Speaking of which...you may need to see if anyone filed a missing person report lately. Maybe revealing their face will help give you a description and see if they fit any. And while you’re at it, you may give the parents a few choice words while you are at it! So, you stand up and loom over the much smaller figure. Reaching out, you grab their helmet and give it a twist. It popped off with no resistance and you removed it. . . . You were completely stunned as you suddenly dropped the cracked helmet in surprise as your eyes struggled to process what you were seeing.In front of you, was a little humanoid-like being with greyish skin, white speckled spots, sharp teeth, and green-colored ‘hair’ that almost seemed to sparkle in the artificial lights of your abode. You took a few steps back and your mind drew a complete blank. The only thing you could think of to say seemed to shoot past your lips faster than your brain could process. Despite the low volume of your voice, it carried all the surprise you were feeling at that very moment. “What the fuck?!” (First) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

#Among Us #Among Us fanfic #Among Us fic #Among Us reader insert #AO3fic #Haxorus Imp #My Writings #Planet of the Megafaunas

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crystalnet · 3 years ago

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Top 5 007 Films

Click through for the definitive guide to the crème de la crop of the greatest spy-thriller saga in all of film history!

#1. North By Northwest (1959)- A staggering achievement for every artist and performer involved. Directed by peak middle-period Hitchcock, and written by Ernest Lehmen, this production stands as a defining role for both Carey Grant and Eva Marie Saint alike. Released only 6 years after the inception of agent 007 (still a creature of spy-thriller novels at this point, another 4 years out from the silver-screen debut), Grant’s performance would leave an indelible mark on the collective unconscious and would surely go on to influence the likes of Connery’s own portrayal years later.

Case-and-point for why Grant excels here is his undeniably amorphous quality. Sure he’d proven his sheer on-screen magnetism for decades by this point, but the dynamic quality of his “character arc”--as the kids like to call it-- in this film speaks for itself. He goes effortlessly from buffoonish in the introductory and more comical part of the movie, to suave and inter-personally-entangled in the middle third, to finally making good on all the romancing and endangerment that the character is thrust into by the final frame.

Meanwhile Eva Marie Saint undergoes multiple transformations herself-- a feat pulled off by both her deft acting and the writing/directing alike. She sets a precedent for Bond fatales that isn’t fulfilled for years and years by Bond’s own franchise in that she maintains complexity-- and more importantly agency-- until the last.

Lastly, Hitchcock himself with Lehmen’s script is able to craft a narrative with visual thrust which balances humor, tension and pacing better than most of his very finest productions. The well-loved cropduster chase-scene is a masterclass in tension and directorial pyrotechnics, and all the heartbreak and salacious revelations that unfold from that moment onward seal the deal for this film as pure unmatched brilliance.

#2 Charade (1963)- A year after Connery’s debut as Bond, a lighter thriller shows a possible alternate-universe for the franchise; one in which Carey Grant maintains his stranglehold on the archetype in lieu of the mad Scotsmen himself.

Director Stanley Donen and writer Peter Stone, clearly taking some inspiration from Hitchcock’s work with Grant, tease out one of the actor's greatest performances in the process, and similarly to North By Northwest, it has equal-parts to do with Grant’s acting as it does the air-tight screenplay and the myriad twists and turns found within.

If North By Northwest starts from a hijinks-ridden tone and works its way towards spy-thriller seriousness, Charade stays madcap and light-hearted throughout its runtime, while only hinting at the tension and stakes that one would come to be accustomed to glimpsing in a proper 007 endeavor.

The fantastic chemistry between Audrey Hepburn and Grant throughout maintains an emotional center around which a whole satellite of criminal and comic figures can orbit in perfect narrative symmetry.

The suspension of clarity when it comes to the nature of Grant’s character might be the ideal pocket from which this renowned thespian operates from, keeping both the audience and Hepburn’s character guessing until the final moments of the runtime. And as the mystery unfolds, Donen is sure to center Paris itself as the immaculate stage from which all of this cinematic pleasure plays out.

#3- To Catch a Thief (1955)- This film may have traces of North By Northwest-in utero (with plenty more influence for Charade in store), but it's still a phenomenon of its own kind. Hitchcock, working from a John Michael Hayes-penned screenplay is able to catalyze a wholly different kind of thriller from what he’d go on to accomplish with Grant later, and the elusive, mysterious atmosphere would have echoes in masterworks such as Vertigo just a few years later.

While the plot-beats and the atmosphere may differ heavily from North, the strange twists and turns of Grant and Grace Kelly's characters echo that of Grant and Saint’s roles in the aforementioned film, if perhaps in inverse. Grace Kelly brilliantly-- and a bit psychotically-- somersaults from the role of a mute wallflower, to a coy would-be detective and thrill-seeker, to that of a scorned-- if confused-- romantic throughout the runtime; finally settling as a willing participant to Carey Grant’s ex-cat burglar escapades. Grant’s character is anything but the everyman that he would go on to portray in North, while Kelly’s is far more complex-- and potentially much more unlikeable-- than her character in the then newly minted classic Rear Window.

The coastal French Riviera is the setting for this reverse caper in which nothing is as it seems and everything is worth questioning. The script has aged a bit more roughly than other Hitchock masterworks, but the atmosphere-- well supplied by the natural beauty of the Riviera and the green-tint filter of Hitchcock’s nocturnal lens alike-- are a fantastic foundation on which Grant and Kelly flex their adroit acting chops. Grant-- here a still-lithe middle-aged career-criminal-- holds every card except that of Kelly’s heart, and that romantic tension alone sustains the pacing expertly.

#4- The IPCRESS File (1965)- Tracking down a blu-ray for this early spy-thriller classic is tough but, hey, Michael Caine as the thinking-man’s Bond? Sign me up!

#5 From Russia with Love (1963)- Okay, okay, I give. I’ll give you freaks what you want. A taste of legitimate MI6 realness. This is the grade-A real deal, and it may not feature the stabilized quality-control of Roger Moore’s era or the unwieldy set-pieces of the Brosnan/Craig eras (or the darkness of Dalton’s stint) but it is the follow-up to the premiere of Bond as we know it, and its influence would ripple out for over half a century and counting.

If the previous years’ Dr. No was a test-run, then Russia was proof-of-concept and more. Connery--now equipped with the toupeé he so quickly developed a need for between productions of his premiere as Bond and this--rises to the occasion and makes good on the promise of the first film and then some.

In this outing, we find a lot of ‘firsts’ for the long-lived series: the first gadgets, the first larger-than-life villains and the first-- if not long-lived in this case-- signature vehicles. While the Bentley Mark IV would soon be replaced, the other tropes start to take root. The first sequel in a decades-long series has a lot of responsibility to shoulder in terms of solidifying what aspects of the series will continue ad infinitum, after all, and From Russia largely does a fantastic job of it.

Daniela Bianchi-- an actor too Italian to not be dubbed reportedly-- does an excellent job as an early Bond-movie heroine with some depth, but is outshone largely by Kerim Bay, played by phenomenal Mexican actor Pedro Armendáriz.

Armendáriz as a British consulate in Istanbul makes a fantastic second-fiddle to Connery’s Bond and fills shoes that often aren’t filled at all-- those of a proper side-kick’s, if not mentor’s that is. His role along with the equally show-stopping villain-de-juor Donald Grant, played by an incredibly menacing Robert Shaw, are the highlights here.

Indeed, his fight-scene with Connery in a train-car towards the end is one of the unique pinnacles of the film and sets high standard for future showdowns. Elsewhere, we find many of the highs that we’ve come to associate with the series at large: rollicking adventure, suave and shady dealings, tension abound et al. And also some of the lows: indeed, towards the middle we find a belly-dancing scene and a Romani cat-fighting scene in close succession which both exemplify the detached misogyny that often factors into much of early Bond. This, on some level, must be expected from the series I suppose-- a transgression readily accepted by actual 007 films yet not found in any of the progenitors that rank higher on my own list, alas.

Following the fantastic fight-scene-- a culmination of shenanigans in Istanbul and Connery’s budding-yet-relunctant romance with Bianchi-- we have a North By Northwest homage, except with a helicopter in place of a cropduster, as well as the destruction of a sex-tape of Connery and Bianchi, and that's pretty much the movie! It’s almost a perfect Bond flick.

Runner-ups:

Goldfinger (1964)- Incredibly cast and acted villain, an extended golfing sequence and the debut of the iconic, tricked-out Aston Martin DB5 many would come to associate with the Connery-era films. Sure there’s a bit of rape, but it was the 60s! (so sorry)

[Also the original 'Casino Royale' (1967) and 'A Fish Called Wanda' (1988) almost made the list.]

The man with the golden touch, indeed. Sorry for trolling so hard and.... Bond forever~

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dragonrajafanfiction · 4 years ago

Text

The Andes Mountains

There was no flying above the Andes in the afternoon. His two so-called helpers had already loaded up the truck, but the young archeologist Daniel Emmert couldn’t help but try one more time at his precious extraction site. He’d been working here for the past month, following the lead of what he thought would be a career launching breakthrough: The discovery of a lost ancient mountain city.

Although the outlines on the satellites were questionable, he was so persistent that his conservatory gave him a single grant to go search. After all, he was one of their best students.

The grant was barely enough to pay for tickets and lodging. He had to pull from his own bank and beg his parents for enough money to get the equipment he needed. Even then, he ended up selling his car after getting ripped off by a man claiming to be a guide.

After paying far over price to get his small team up the mountain, as soon as the guide heard the words ‘lost city’, his face fell and he turned pale as a ghost even under his tanned wrinkled skin.

“I’m sorry, Senor,” He said regretfully and refused to guide him any further. He held up his hands, palm out, and backed away, shaking his head. “Just go back. Go back and don’t come back here with that.”

He refused all money. He didn’t explain.

These people and their superstitions were going to be the end of him. In the end, he’d spent two weeks with his map and his satellite scans before finally setting down a spot to dig. The thin air exhausted his crew. Out of the four, only two remained after the others got altitude sickness and had to leave. The other two barely worked, taking many smoke breaks and partaking in the alcohol they’d brought along.

Daniel was on his own down to the last day.

As he knelt over the bare patch of dirt again, he felt his frustration rising. There should have been something here. But he’d found nothing, not even a single scrap of pottery. He checked his map and kept tediously brushing. If he found nothing, it wasn’t because he didn’t look.

A dull muffled ringing came from his pack and he sighed to himself. It could either be the college, his professor, or his parents. He winced against his joints and hobbled to the sat-phone receiver.

“Yes.”

“Hello. Is this Mr. Emmert?” Said an unfamiliar woman’s voice.

“Speaking. Who is this? I’m a bit busy.”

“Oh I know. Your failed expedition ends today?”

The words cut deep. “If you’re here to mock me, I don’t have time.”

“I’m not. I’m here to fund your next expedition.”

“Is this a joke?” He laughed. “It’s not funny.”

“I certainly know your reputation at the conservatory, but… I can tell you that it’s undeserved. There’s something in those mountains. I’m here to tell you where it is and fund your work for the next three days. I just need your verbal consent.”

Daniel removed the phone from his ear and stared at it. If this was a scam, it was the most specific scam he’d ever encountered. He put the phone back to his ear. “Look, this is really tempting but I don’t know who you are. How do you know you’re not in organized crime?”

“It doesn’t matter if the cat is white or black so long as it catches mice. I can tell you where what you're looking for is and you go back as a hero rather than a failure. The Boss would rather pay you for your efforts considering your struggle for funding.”

“Are you spying on me? What’s in it for you?”

“There’s a specific artifact we need, the rest is yours. The payment is for the object and the labor.”

Daniel’s throat had gone dry. He checked his watch. He was out of time. It was either stay here with this mysterious funding, or head out and take the long flight home.

“Alright. I’ll accept.”

“Good. The funds have been forwarded to your account. I’m also sending you the coordinates. In an hour, you’ll receive more supplies by chopper. Send those other people away.” She gave an amused chuckle. “You were close. Oh and by the way, it’s in your best entrance to deny my involvement.”

The phone line cut. Still in doubt, Daniel made his way to where his laptop was still open.

“Senor! Let’s go!” The men shouted from the truck.

“One more minute!” Daniel opened his bank account page and stared in silence for several moments.

“Uh… you can go on without me.”

“What?” The driver leaned out of his window, not sure if he’d heard correctly.

“You can go on without me.” Daniel slowly closed the laptop. “I’m staying.”

There was a brief silence but then the truck engine roared and the truck turned around and made its way down the dusty trail.

As promised, within hours, a large black helicopter flew overhead and a large cargo of supplies was lowered by ropes. Attached was a note in pink plastic. “Here is a drawing of the artifact we need. Contact us when you find it and someone will retrieve it from you. Do not open it.”

The object was what looked like a small jewelry box. How was he supposed to find something so small? But with this large amount of supplies, he could be here for many days. He set up a tent, a nice camp stove, plenty of food and water purifiers. There was even a small radio to play music by.

Daniel was soon happily working at his new dig site and made his first exciting discovery within hours: What seemed to be a paving stone, carved with strange symbols. He took ample pictures of it for his personal catalog. It was like nothing he had ever seen before in his life. He thought he had stumbled over a new Incan historical site, but now he wondered if he had found something altogether new.

The days passed but there was no sign of the box, but they weren’t calling him to pester him. This was his work at its best. Alone in the vast wilderness, with nothing here but the ancient relics. The uncovering operations revealed more stones and an entire floor full of depictions of snakes, mouths open, fangs out. He was familiar with depictions of flying serpent gods like Quetzocoatl, but these didn’t resemble anything he’d ever studied.

On the third night, a loud hum woke him up.

It started out distant, before sweeping directly under him launching him out of his sleeping bag in a panic, before fading into the distance.

He opened the tent and looked outside with his high beam flashlight. The darkness was all encompassing. Outside the light, it was nothing but deep inky blackness. His heart pounded in his chest. He didn’t imagine it. He even felt it.

He waved his flashlight into the dark, but there was nothing there. Whatever it was, it felt like it was underground. “An earthquake?” He said to himself.

The next day, the sun broke over the peaks and there, in the middle of the digsite, was the box. Untouched by dirt, it shined with a reddish light even without the full light of day.

Frozen in place, Daniel suddenly felt like he was in a real life Indiana Jones movie. Places like these weren’t supposed to be real. He stepped carefully over to the box. In the center of the lid, a bright red jewel shined, held between the mouths of two serpents. He slowly, carefully moved to pick it up.

As though pulled by a magnet, picking it up felt like working against an invisible force that held it fast to the ground. As soon as it was in his hands he couldn’t help but marvel at it. The box was locked, held shut by a simple pivot latch. He tucked it under his arm and made his way to the phone.

It rang once. “You found it?” Said the woman’s voice.

“Look I don’t… I don’t know what this is about, I… What is this place?”

“Stay where you are. We’ll be out to retrieve the box shortly.”

“Why won’t you…” The phone cut off.

He turned his head, another sound was approaching this time, the engine of the truck. “They came back for me?”

He immediately knew the men he was working with before were not the ones coming back for him. This truck was different and was bristling with men with automatic weapons. Terrified, Daniel held up his hands. “Don’t shoot!”

The tip of the rifles was the last thing he ever saw. It felt like he was suddenly pushed to the ground and his world ended.

----

Half a world away, Mingfei Lu received a message on his phone, but he wasn’t awake to retrieve it. Erii rolled over and grabbed the phone. When she saw who it was she turned to the sleeping Mingfei and pressed her finger to his cheek, deeper and deeper until he stirred.

“Mmph… Five more minutes.”

Her fingertip curved, digging her nail in.

Mingfei let out a soft hiss. “What’s the big idea!”

She shoved the phone in his face to silence him. ��Huh? Enxi?”

He sat up and she observed him carefully as he took the phone and read the message. “Someone got there before us…?” His eyes widened slightly but then his expression dimmed into sadness.

Erii tilted her head, curious.

“I promised no one would get hurt.” He murmurred. “I underestimated things.” He curled on hand to his forehead and a bitter smile curved his lips. “I would like to keep this world the way it is. But everything I touch just seems to wither.”

He continued to stare at the phone and Erii felt her unease grow. He spoke again. “There’s only one other person who would know the location of that dig site.”

Erii gave a short series of gestures. “What was there?” she asked.

“Oh?” Mingfei lowered his hand, his bitterness brightening into innocent surprise. “You know that old story? The one about Nuwa?”

Erii shook her head.

“Long, long ago, the four Dragon Lord pillars were broken; the nine Dragon Kingdoms collapsed. The sky did not completely cover the land; The land did not hold up the sky all the way around. The world burned with inextinguishable fire and the sea flooded the land without receding.”

“Great beasts ate the innocent. Flying monsters snatched the elderly and the weak.”

“A man named Nüwa used alchemy to create five-colored stones in order to patch up the sky. He cut off the legs of a great turtle to set them up as the four pillars and stopped the floods. The wild beasts were all killed so the world was at peace again.”

Mingfei who was never a studious person in the past suddenly rattled off this ancient legend as easily as his Senior Brother Zihang.

“One of the stones was there. Nuwa wasn’t a human. He was a dragon.” Mingfei looked at this phone again. His eyes glittered, swirling with a sudden golden fire. His brows knitted together in barely suppressed anger. “It is likely, the whoever is after the stones is trying to wake up the King of Sky and Wind.”

He slowly put the phone down. “If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay down. But who am I really kidding?” He suddenly chuckled, unable to stop himself from laughing. “They’re all idiots!”

Erii watched concerned, as tears squeezed out of his eyes and his laughter became tinged with sorrow. “Soon I will be the only one left again. Why is it always this way?”

Her arms encircled his shoulders and she rested her head against him. She felt him sigh.

"Erii. You'll stay with me. Won't you?"

She looked up at him and smiled giving an okay sign.

Mingfei felt the deep sadness and loneliness in his heart loosen for just a moment. Though he would soon be the last of his kind, with Erii, things wouldn't be so bad.

---

It was mid afternoon when the message came to the Executive Department. An SSS assignment from none other than the Chancellor himself. Mr. Baldwin opened it up to examine its contents. An artifact, stolen from a draconic archeological dig. The Executive Department was to recover it.

#Dragon Raja #Fanfiction #Class of 2032

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itsegerton · 4 years ago

Text

Chapter 1: Attack on the Neighbors

Anastasia realized as she looked through the crystal wall that surrounded her bedroom in her Beverly Hills mansion that it was a dark night, darker than usual. Even though there was a full moon, not a single beam of light could be seen in the deep blue sky, which matched the color of her hair.

It was a Saturday night. At 29 years of age, Anastasia was working, writing songs. Thanks to her family name and her father’s profession, she had chosen music as a career and excelled at it.

Her father, Nick Truman, was the leader of a legendary rock band and passed on to all his knowledge of the business to his youngest daughter. From an early age, Anastasia worked hard to become a famed music producer.

One song was giving Anastasia a hard time. A client had commissioned her with a song about discovering love and she knew very little about it. Luckily, she was an avid reader and as such, she tried to invocate all those romantic novels she had read and hated to help her finish the damn song.

A noise downstairs startled her. She looked up from the paper and placed her eyes on her bedroom door, then looked back out the window but could not spot anything out of the ordinary –except for that darkness which she found strange. Anastasia was sitting on a bench next to a crystal wall, from where she could stare down to her patio and a big infinity pool and some classic garden elements such as chairs and tables. The house was two stories high and all the walls that faced the patio were glass. Those incredible views convinced her of buying that house six years ago.

In spite of being born with a silver spoon in her mouth, the blue-haired girl had worked since the age of fifteen; in music, modeling and even found the time to graduate as a professional musician in the University of California. She was not your typical Hollywood heiress living at her parents’ expense. Nevertheless, she had gone through a rebel phase where she partied every night and went on insane trips around the world, spending money without thinking of the consequences. That often put her in the front cover of tabloids, which dubbed her ‘her family’s disgrace.’

A new noise made her look away from her window. This time, it was louder and closer. They were movement noises. Objects were moving. At that precise moment, she understood why the night appeared as dark and in a millisecond, her brain deciphered that she had to leave that house as soon as possible.

Anastasia took her phone and tried calling her older sister, Barbara; she did not pick up. She tried again with no luck. She decided to compose a text message:

“I’m heading to your place.”

She put her phone in the back pocket of her jeans, left the pen and paper aside, and full of fear, headed to the entrance.

Anastasia opened the door to her bedroom; the rest of the house looked darker than usual as well. She did not need a flashlight; this was her home, she knew it by heart. As she arrived to the hallway before taking the stairs down, she felt an instant heaviness all over her body, just like she were carrying somebody heavy.

“Leave me alone!” she yelled. “Get out of my house!”

As she got halfway down the stars, Anastasia felt a sharp, deep headache. She had to stop and close her eyes due to the pain, but knew she could not stay there. As she could, she arrived to the lower floor and adjusted her sight to look around her. The heaviness and the headache increased. She took three steps and felt like something or someone pushed her. She fell over her largest couch. It was a short way until the entrance but felt like her arms and legs had turned to butter; it was impossible for her to stand straight. Suddenly, her sight turned red and it was hard to breathe.

Anastasia had to try with all her might to get out of there.

She crawled and made a great effort to make her way to the entrance when she heard a loud roar behind her. She did not stop to look back. One last adrenaline kick made her get up, take the keys to her car from a small table to her right, open the door and run to her car. Still struggling with that headache, she turned on the ignition and drove until her vision adapted to a normal environment.

One hour later she found herself knocking her stepsister’s door, in Malibu. She knocked so hard and insistently that her sister opened up, scared. Anastasia looked into Barbara’s eyes in panic and couldn’t keep standing. She collapsed at the entrance.

Barbara dragged Anastasia inside to her living room and sat her down on an emerald green futon. “They were at my house,” Anastasia fearfully told her sister. “They came to get me.”

“The night’s unusually dark, I knew something was going on,” replied Barbara as she went to get some fresh lemonade for Anastasia.

“Do you think she’s dead?” Anastasia asked while her sister offered her a glass.

Barbara did not reply. It wasn’t necessary.

Apart from having a musical gift, Anastasia is part of the witch population of the world. The witch community is much reduced and extremely occult. Witches have been persecuted for years because humans tend not to like what they cannot understand. Besides witches, there is a whole compendium of communities with hidden powers and some of them are dangerous even for witches.

Magical powers were granted to two members of each generation of families that had been initiated as witches. Barbara, who had light, mid-back length brown hair and big, green eyes like grass after rain, also had powers and perfectly understood what was happening.

Anastasia chugged the glass of lemonade.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“You won't like what I'm about to say.” Barbara replied. "You need to leave. You were lucky you got out.”

“Leave?!" She exclaimed. "Why were they looking for me?” Anastasia’s huge, turquoise eyes opened wide.

“They know you’re on your way to becoming a powerful witch. That’s not good for them. They want to get rid of us all.” Barbara turned her back on her sister. “There has to be a snitch within the coven,” she muttered.

“What did you say?” Anastasia asked, although she had heard her well.

“Nothing, it’s not important.” Barbara replied, causing suspicion to her younger stepsister. “You should go to sleep. The full moon will be over tomorrow, they can’t attack you anymore. I’m going to throw my moon water away, it’s contaminated.”

Anastasia walked with Barbara to the patio of the luxurious mansion located by the shore of a private beach. There, she had five half-a-gallon jars of water that she placed there every time there was a full moon, to be charged with the energy of the satellite. Together, they took the jars and emptied them in the coast, allowing the liquid to mix with the water from the ocean.

Sleeping was impossible that night. She had faced a beast and she was still alive. Adrenaline was running through her veins and the concern did not let her rest.

The following morning, Anastasia woke up with the sound of the breaking waves that went in through the big window that served as a wall. Malibu had that aura that eased her anxiety and her complicated brain. The sound of the ocean was helpful; she had always felt a connection to it.

The deep-blue-haired girl got up from the comfy bed and opened the window that faced a small balcony, from where she could glance at the entire coast and the backyard of her sister’s mansion. She breathed deeply, trying to fill up her lungs with the salty air and wondered if in another life she had inhabited the depths of the ocean, as a part of some civilization hidden from human stupidity.

She turned on her heel to her bathroom to take a quick shower. The weather was warm enough, so a grey dress and sneakers dressed her body that day. Anastasia always made sure to keep a change of clothes in that house as she crashed it from time to time. Her sister never closed the door on her.

Before leaving the bedroom, she looked at herself in the mirror. The color of her eyes varied from turquoise to aquamarine. They were big, enormous like a doll’s. Her skin was pale as china; she got it from her grandmother on her father’s side –a British gypsy witch. Her lips were small but plump. She decided on the spot not to wear makeup that day. She closed the door behind her and although she had to walk downstairs to the kitchen, a hunch told her to head up to the attic.

Just as her head predicted it, there was her sister in front of a big cauldron. Every witch had a specialty and Barb’s potions (as Anastasia affectionately called them) were the most effective of them all. Then she spotted another figure, her sister wasn't alone. A tall lady with light blonde hair, almost white was avidly talking with Barbara.

Anastasia took a seat on a red couch that stood out from all the wood around her. The attic was filled with shelves containing strange objects: jars, potion ingredients, and books. A sole rounded window provided the entire room with light. It could not be seen from the outside architecture of the mansion, from the ocean’s shore –that window was hidden under a strong, protective spell. Witches’ dens were personal and only explicitly invited humans could enter them.

The place was decorated with old pictures and paintings showing witches of all times, from gypsies to those brave women of Salem. Witches were always feared because of the power they represented. While men were heads of families whose function was to sustain, hunt, rule, govern and women were displaced to less relTaront activities, witches rose up to do everything the male gender could and more, therefore, many lost their lives. They were never understood and much less respected. Nowadays they lived hidden. The fear was never gone but while living a concealed life they could be themselves and put their powers to practice, waiting for the day the world could finally see them without a dagger slashing their necks.

The witches’ power was granted by nature. They had the ability to manipulate the Universe’s energies to achieve everything their hearts and minds, at unison, wished for. On the other hand, there were many other creatures that had stolen that power to use for their own benefit and own the world order. Many ruled nations and hurt thousands, they appeared in human form to the mortals’ eyes, but inside they were dark, shapeless, black-smoke-emitting masses with two red slits in the place of eyes. They fed on suffering and power kept them alive. They had no name, because by naming them they’d get the respect they did not deserve. Witches prevented them from taking over the world order, and therefore they dedicated their lives to hunting them and murdering them. When that happened, they sent their heads to the doorstep of the covens’ leaders as a warning that they were, bit by bit, achieving their goal.

That is why witches had to hide their power from humans. They didn’t know which of them could turn into one of those dark masses, except for Anastasia. She had been blessed with the maximum power of empathy. She could read people; know their deepest feelings by only looking into their eyes. When she did not feel an ounce of sadness or joy in a human, she knew she had to run.

Many had connected the power of witches to the devil, and while this is not exactly correct, many witches had chosen to serve evil with their powers. But there was no such malignant entity. Magic could do good and could also cause terrible suffering. Only those who could dominate both sides, light and darkness, could be leaders of the Coven. Many felt intimidated by handling dark arts, while others felt so attracted to them that darkness consumed them. Anastasia’s run with darkness had been scarce but satisfactory, so much that she became obsessed and Barbara had to intervene to regulate those practices.

“I have news,” said Barbara as soon as she felt the presence of her younger sister pointing to the lady at her side.

"I'm so sorry your Saturday was ruined like that", the blond lady said taking Anastasia but her arms. "You were so brave".

“Yeah.it wasn't like I was having fun anyway so…" said Anastasia in a low voice, as she glimpsed her sister rolling her eyes.

“They also attacked Mika at her house. They’re getting more aggressive and powerful.” Barbara was making a potion so her eyes were fixed on the cauldron.

“How did you survive?”, Anastasia looked to Mika.

“I took some paralyzing potion. The best one, made by Barb of course. My heart stopped for a few seconds and they thought I was dead, so they went off for a bit and I ran to seek shelter. I imagine that if they returned, they wouldn’t find me.” Barbara was adding some bright purple dust to the cauldron.

“Maybe that’s why they came to my house. Maybe they thought Mika was hiding there.” Anastasia’s word caused her sister to look into her eyes for the first time that morning.

“Why the hell would Mika hide at your house?” asked the eldest sister. Anastasia shrugged.

Instead of answering Mika looked at Anastasia kindly in her eyes. She took the girls hands and inspection them cautiously.

"I remember when you were born. Your midnight blue hair got all the hospital talking. We were so glad a witch was born. The first in a decade". The witches population had been shrinking thanks to the necessity of hiding their powers. Magic is like a muscle if you don't use it you'll lose it, as Barbara would love to say. Since the 80's born witches were a rare phenomenon, imagine a blue haired one.

"Yeah, I would like to remember my birth", Anastasia said sarcastically. Mika always created a sense of comfort when she was around, truth was that Anastasia wasn't very close to the North America Coven Leader as she was called by fellow witches in the continent. Mika ruled with a strong but emphatic hand and she was loved by everyone.

Mika was a role model but not to her. Magic wasn't something Anastasia focused a lot on. She actually kind of neglected it. Situation got easy out of hand in the past and she decided that magic wasn't going to define her.

"You are going to be a great leader one day", Mika turned her back to Anastasia and started walking around the room. "But you need to accept who you are and study" She made a pause "A lot".

Anastasia looked at Barbara confused. Her sister nailed her eyesight on the cauldron to avoid the big turquoise eyes.

"Yeah, I don't know about that. I can't even manage my own life, imagine being in charge of a whole damn coven. Never less one of the most important in the world!", she laughed but neither Mika nor Barbara raised even half smile.

"She needs time", Barbara said to Mika.

"Something we don't have", Mika answered. "Your sister told me you own a small apartment in London"

"I wouldn't call it small" Anastasia was interrupted by Mika.

"I suggest you take some time off to enjoy that gorgeous British grey skies", Mika said.

"Pardon me?", Anastasia was understanding everything now but her brain was trying to block what was coming.

"You need to leave", her sister said abruptly. "Even if you like it or not you are next in line to be the leader of this coven. And we need you safe, alive and wise. You are going to London and you're gonna learn as much as you can about what you are and your mission in this world".

"I'm almost 30, I have a job and a life here and frankly I never asked to be any of this", she just spit those words without second thoughts. The pain that Barb and Mika felt was instant.

“I need you to take this seriously. I need you to take magic seriously for the first time in your life.” Barbara said firmly.

From the age of eight, Anastasia knew she was a witch. Her abilities began manifesting, but she never cared too much about them. She never wanted to train or learn. To her, it was something she had to keep at bay. It was just something she could do, not who she was. On the other hand, music was everything to her, so she sought to focus her energy on that.

“Barbara, for Hell’s sakes!” Anastasia laughed profusely.

“As much as I wish I were lying, I’m not.” Barbara replied, upset by her sister’s reaction. “Anastasia, a power such as yours has not been seen for centuries.”

“But I don’t practice magic! Apart from a couple of spells to date guys in my teenage years and to do well in College, I haven’t done much more,” replied Anastasia.

“Because you have repressed your power. You never wanted to learn how to use it.”

“Yes, from the moment I began seeing people all around that weren’t really there, I didn’t want to keep up with it.”

“It’s your duty as a witch to educate yourself so that you can rule the Coven in the future.” Mika interveneed.

“I’m at the highest peak of my career, I don’t have time for this.” Anastasia got up from the couch and headed to the door.

“Go ahead, act spoiled! It’s what you do best anyway! Just caring about yourself".

Barbara could sometimes be very hurtful. Anastasia stopped and wanted to talk back to her sister, but thought it through and kept going, out of the attic, the house and into her car. She drove back to Los Angeles, to her place.

On the way she did a couple of calls to Matt, her on and off boyfriend. But as natural he didn't answer.

I do not want to rule the Coven, she kept telling herself over and over as she drove. She also though she didn’t really want to go back home, but as she got closer, a crowd of people gathering outside the Jensen’s porch called her attention. Anastasia pulled over by her own gate and curiosity drove her straight to the house next door. She made her way among the people and when she got to the front of her neighbors’ place, she spotted two police cars. The house perimeter was surrounded by yellow tape. Standing there was a blonde lady who kept staring at the main entrance. It was Cindy, the youngest in the family. She was about 21 years old. Anastasia always ran into her at LA events. Cindy was the typical party girl, and judging by her choice of outfit –mini dress and high-heeled shoes, she was just returning from one.

“Cindy!” Anastasia called her.

The blonde girl turned her head towards her. Her make-up was smudged all over her face; she had been crying. Cindy signaled Anastasia to come over and so she did, going under the yellow tape.

“What happened?” Anastasia inquired as she walked.

“My parents—they—they’re…” Cindy stretched her arms out to hug Anastasia. When they touched, an electric shock ran through the blue-haired girl. It was so strong that every nerve on her body hurt, her vision blurred and a scene came in front of her: the Jensen’s master bedroom. The father, Carl, lay on the floor. When she adjusted her sight she realized his neck was slashed from side to side. She kept looking all over her body but nothing prepared her for what she was about to see next: half of his body was missing, just like they had ripped it off him. All internal organs and guts were spread around him. She felt a sharp pain in her stomach. His lower belly and his leg were about 12 inches away. Wendy Jensen lay in bed in a similar situation: her left arm was under the bedside table and the lower half of her body was by the bed. As if all of this weren’t strange enough, there was not a single drop of blood in the scene.

Cuts weren’t clean; they looked more like rips caused by a beast. The organs looked clean. The couple looked like mannequins. Carl’s eyes were open and completely white. When she turned to Wendy, she realized the woman was missing both eyes.

The vision faded in a second as soon as Cindy let go of Anastasia. Fear took over her and she understood she hadn’t been inside the house. Instead, she had seen what Cindy herself had seen when she walked in that morning. The adrenaline rush was so strong she abruptly parted from Cindy and fell butt-first on her neighbors’ front lawn. Her expression was one of terror and Cindy’s was one of being stricken by the situation.

“Cindy, I—I am so—so sorry.” That was the only thing Anastasia managed to say before running back to her own place. On the way, she spotted the suspicious looks of a couple of policemen, but she kept on walking, trying as much as she could to ignore her surroundings.

Once home, Anastasia locked the front door and called Barbara immediately. A couple of hours later, the eldest sister was knocking on the door.

“I swear that had never happened to me before.” Anastasia was terrified. She was sitting on her blue futon, sipping on some tea Barbara had made her.

“As much as you try to repress your magic, your powers will manifest themselves one way or another. If you had learned to control them years ago, they wouldn’t come out as intensely now.” Barbara explained.

“I just touched her, but I could experience everything the poor Cindy went through when she found her parents torn to pieces. Terror, shock, uncertainty,” Anastasia explained. “It was horrible.”

“You’re empathic, that’s a normal ability of your power.” Barbara sat down next to her sister.

“Now, tell me, were they dismembered?”

Anastasia nodded.

“Not a drop of blood around?”

Anastasia shook her head no.

“The bodies were clean, just like the entire scene.” Anastasia put down the cup of tea on the coffee table. “Do you think the same creatures that tried to attack me did this?”

“To be honest, yes.” Barbara replied. Anastasia got up in a heartbeat.

“It was my fault, Barbara. It was my fault that they died. It’s my fault poor Cindy is now an orphan.” Anastasia paced around but a force out of her might have made her stop.

“It was not your fault.” Barbara moved her fingers to release Anastasia from the spell. “If you hadn’t ran away, I would be picking up your pieces now, and the Universe knows I wouldn’t do it all by myself. Those creatures were thirsty. Unlucky for them, Carl and Wendy were home.”

“They just came back from Mykonos,” Anastasia said as she sat back down.

“They should’ve stayed in Greece,” Barbara uttered sarcastically.

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