#her escaping through the air vents implies a will to live

[poisonousquinzel]

they deserved better idc 😐

[voicesinthedarkness]

Child

TRIGGER WARNING: IMPLIED CHILD NEGLECT

Chapter One

He finds her in a safe house.

Shots are fired. Three arrows leave black marks on the wall next to a window. Finally, he pins her to the floor and holds a knife to her throat. Something flashes in her eyes, something that makes him stop.

It is not anger, or hate, or vengeance.

It is regret.

Remorse.

Fear.

Sorrow.

He stares down at her, panting. She stares up at him, no longer struggling. Resigned to her fate. “Black Widow,” he says, voice still rough as he tries to catch his breath. “Hawkeye,” she replies steadily, her Russian accent thick.

“Do you want to live?”

“I… I don’t know.”

His voice softens. “If I roll off of you right now, are you going to attack me?” Her breath shudders in surprise. “No.”

And she doesn’t.

“What’s your name?” he asks, dabbing at the small scrape on her throat. She hesitates, thinking, then answers, “Natalia. But… but my friends call me Natasha.” He smiles. “Hi, Natasha. I’m Clint.”

~ ~ ~

Natasha Romanoff

“We need confirmation Dreykov’s in the building,” Clint says, eyes focused on said building from his perch a few roofs away. “His car is pulling up now,” Natasha reports. She watches as a young girl, no more than four or five years old, with hair even redder than Natasha’s exits the car and is ushered inside. Her eyes follow the girl to the second floor, heading to a room with a familiar figure inside. This is wrong, she thinks suddenly. The girl shouldn’t be killed for Dreykov’s sins. But if Dreykov dies…

Maybe my own sins can be forgiven.

“Natasha, we clear?”

“Yes,” she answers automatically and promptly regrets it. “Wai—”

But the building is already exploding. The girl’s tiny body is wreathed in flames and propelled through a window. She lands below Natasha’s hiding spot on an apartment building fire escape, bruised, bleeding, and unconscious, but strangely unburned. Natasha easily slips from her hiding spot into the alley, feet thudding on the gravel-strewn asphalt next to the girl. Clint runs up to them, a first-aid pack in his hands. “Hey,” he pants, kneeling and taking out a couple alcohol wipes and some bandages. “How’d you find her?” he asks, cleaning a scrape on the girl’s arm. “She was flung out of the building by the explosion,” Natasha explains, bandaging a cut on her leg. “So… probably part of the Red Room?” Natasha nods. “I… I couldn’t leave her. To be… made into another Widow.” The girl’s hair is coated in ash and dust, but a few of the fiery red-gold curls still glitter in the light. Clint nods too, touching Natasha’s arm gently. “I don’t want that either.”

They work together in silence for the next several minutes, until a gunshot hits the brick of the building behind them, not far above Clint’s head. Immediately he’s up, the girl in his arms, zipping down the alley. Natasha fires her own gun while packing up the first aid kit as fast as possible and follows him.

The gunman chases them for several blocks and into a train station. They dart around a couple corners, until Natasha spots a grate in the ceiling, leading to an air vent. She gestures to it and Clint nods, shifting the girl in his arms so that he can reach up and swing it open. He lifts the girl inside, pulls himself up, and holds out his hands to help Natasha up. “Come on!” he hisses impatiently when Natasha pauses, her independent instincts warring with the critical goal of hiding. Finally, she gives the first aid kit to Clint and grabs his hands once he’s shoved it behind him. He pulls her up easily and gets the vent closed once more just before the gunman comes around the corner, raging about what he’s going to do to someone named Iskra Khozyaikova.

He searches for a long time, so long that Clint eventually takes out a Sharpie and draws a strange grid on the wall of the vent. Natasha can only give him a look of complete confusion. He draws an x in one space, holding the permanent marker out to her. Hesitantly, she takes it and draws her own x. Clint’s eyes widen with surprise. “Do you know how to play tic tac toe?” he whispers. Natasha shakes her head mutely. Clint's expression saddens, but at the look on Natasha's face, he wipes it away quickly. “One person draws x’s and the other draws o’s,” he explains, still whispering. “The first person who gets a line of three wins.” Natasha nods in understanding and draws a new grid, then an o in the far-right middle space, and hands the marker to Clint.

They play two or three dozen games before they both decide it’s safe to leave. Natasha wins the most by far.

~ ~ ~

Clint leads Natasha, the girl in her arms, to a safe house. She wakes up at the sound of the door creaking open, her golden eyes instantly filling with fear. She twists and writhes, but her body is so small and her strength so little that Natasha keeps hold of her easily. “Ты в б��зопасности,” (you’re safe) she soothes, carefully setting her down when she pauses for a moment. Clint heads to the tiny kitchen, taking three cans of baked beans from the pantry, dumping them in bowls, and putting them in the microwave. “Хотите немного еды?” (Would you like some food?) Natasha asks, leading the girl into the kitchen. She nods after a moment, tentatively climbing onto a chair. “She looks really malnourished. Don’t let her eat too much,” Clint warns. Natasha makes a noise of agreement, watching carefully as the three of them eat and nudging the girl’s bowl away when the amount of beans in the bowl has visibly decreased. “Остальное вы сможете получить позже,” (you can have the rest later) Natasha reassures in response to the girl’s sound of protest. “Как тебя зовут?” (What's your name?) Natasha says. The girl just stares at her silently, clearly still suspicious. Natasha exhales. “Хорошо, ну, меня зовут Наташа, а моего друга зовут Клинт.” (Okay, well, my name is Natasha, and my friend’s name is Clint.) The girl flinches when she hears друга (friend). “Что не так?” (What's wrong?) Natasha asks, reaching out to take the girl's hand, but she jerks away, eyes wide. “Нет,” (no) she whispers. “Пожалуйста.” (Please.) Natasha nods, pulling away. “Ты безопасности здесь,” (you're safe here) she repeats. “Обещать.” (promise)

Chapter Two

[ginwalt]

Never Quite Free (Natasha x Reader)

Summary: Natasha grows concerned after you start ignoring her and decides to check on you.

!TW WARNINGS: Implied sexual assault, PTSD, and panic attacks! (lots of fluff near the end to make up for it i promise)

A/N: just a vent fic,,, as a treat. The song referenced in the fic is Never Quite Free by The Mountain Goats, in case you want to listen to it for context though you don't have to.

--

It's all good to learn that right outside your window There's only friendly fields and open roads And you'll sleep better when you think You've stepped back from the brink And found some peace inside yourself Laid down your heavy load It gets all right to dream at night Believe in solid skies and slate blue earth below But when you see him you'll know

For the longest time, going out into the world was like maneuvering across a field of landmines. The bombs could be set off by nearly anything, from minute details that had latched themselves to the back of your mind to glaring reminders that were almost impossible to ignore. Anything and everything that reminded you of him had seeped its way into the cracks in your brain, leaving irreparable stains and water damage in its wake. From the smell of cedar and pine aftershave to the brassy sound of a jazz trumpet on a passing radio, these reminders were minuscule as thumbtacks, and yet they felt like railroad spikes being hammered into your chest and skull.

In the past, you would bury yourself in work or drink yourself nearly to death to escape his ever-present grasp on your mind. Your life had been filled with you shoveling meaningless noise into your routine in attempts to block out the alarm that always seemed a pin trigger away from sounding in your head. Then, you met Natasha. You learned that she knew over seven languages and almost exclusively cussed in Russian when she was pissed enough. You memorized her favorite shows and books and how she snored like a lawnmower when she laid on her left side- a fact she vehemently denied. Natasha Romanov was caring, smart, strong, and oh so protective.

It's okay to find the faith to saunter forward With no fear of shadows spreading where you stand And you'll breathe easier just knowing that the worst is all behind you And the waves that tossed the raft all night have set you on dry land It gets okay to praise the day Believe in sheltering skies and stable earth beneath

These little bits of information filled your mind and heart with endearment and love, thoroughly pushing the smell of cedar aftershave and rot to the far back of your mind. And that was where he stayed for the longest time. For a whole two years, you filled your days with movie dates, forehead kisses, and late-night cuddles. She introduced you to her friends, Steve Rogers, Carol Danvers, Wanda Maximoff; you even befriended Tony Stark- though Natasha never explicitly refers to him as a friend. Everything was going so well for the first time since before you met him. But, like a cockroach, your past is not so easily killed.

But hear his breath come through his teeth,

Walk by faith Tell no one what you've seen

You were at a local coffee shop when you noticed him. He was sitting at the table adjacent to yours, scrolling through his laptop, briefcase at his side. When you beheld him, it was as if your muscles were turning to concrete slabs. They were dragging you down, below the faded wooden floorboards, below the concrete foundation, until you were choking on dirt and rocks. It took you nearly five minutes to realize it was not him. However, him or not, the damage was done. Because you had seen his well-kempt mustache and graying sideburns, had seen his eyes the color of a lethal tundra. You could have sworn you felt those eyes watch you as you rushed out of the café and into the crowded streets.

From that day on, he was back. He visited you in sleep and trailed you all throughout work—a hefty shadow. However, it was not until you were in bed with Natasha that it came to its tipping point.

Your fiancée, having noticed your peculiar attitude, had decided to surprise you with a night of candles and wine. Not wanting her to be more concerned than she already was, you played along. You forced yourself to reciprocate every kiss and caress despite the acid in your throat and the timpani in your chest. Eventually, Natasha swept you off your feet into a bridal style carry and led you into her bedroom. Gently setting you on the bed, she quickly straddled your hips. Leaning down, she cupped your cheeks and pulled you into a heated kiss. You swallowed down bile and half-heartedly opened your mouth to allow her tongue space to explore. She groaned and tore off her shirt as she pulled away from you.

"God, you're so sexy," she murmured, grinding her hips further against your abdomen. Natasha grabbed at your shirt, pulling it off your torso before chucking it across the room. You felt your throat tighten as your upper body was exposed to the elements. Your fiancée set about yanking off your sweatpants, murmuring bits of praise under her breath as she did so. Her gentle lithe hands seemed to grown more masculine and rough the longer they touched your bare skin. Her body morphed into the familiar form of a naked man. His sickeningly familiar graying mustache and coarse chest hair set flares of frigid panic through your body. He was here, he was here, hewasherehewashere.

Your body convulsed and kicked out at your assailant; flashes of his rough hands forcing your legs apart fueled the strength behind your attacks as you lunged to your feet. You shoved him off of you with a borderline unhinged snarl.

"Get the fuck away from me, Castor!" You screamed before hurriedly shoving on your clothes and sprinting out the door of the apartment. He was following you. You could hear his heavy footsteps thudding behind you. Your thighs burned from the sudden exercise, and the roaring in your ears drowned out your surroundings. You shoved your way into the elevator, nearly punching the first-floor button with your fist. Sweat dripped down the nape of your neck as you struggled to suck in breaths of air. Clutching your chest, you allowed your knees to collapse.

When the elevator slid open, you shot to your feet and ran through the lobby, out into the cool night. You clumsily pushed people aside, his voice clawing through your ear canal. You wildly waved down a taxi and slid into the back. Your voice was as flimsy as tissue paper as you gave the driver your address.

When you got home, you slid all three locks into place and snapped your curtains shut. You huddled under your blanket and slowly succumbed to a sleepless night.

--

Natasha was many things, but a worrier was not one of them. Why should she spend all her time fretting when she could just get up and solve the damn problem herself? However, after three days of complete radio silence on your end, she was sorely tempted to break into your apartment. That night, you had rushed out of her apartment as if the Devil himself had been at your heels. The look in your eyes had been that of a wounded animal. Natasha felt her stomach clench with anxiety as she stared down at her phone. 37 texts, 10 calls, 10 voicemails, and not a single message answered. You were always a punctual texter, which only made her worry worsen.

Natasha shoved her phone back in her back pocket and took a long sip of her coffee. What the hell could have caused you to run out of her apartment mid-sex? Not to mention, who the hell was Castor? Natasha finished off her coffee and set her red and black spider mug in the sink. The cup had been a 6-month anniversary gift, and she made sure to drink out of it every chance she got. After cleaning up the last of her breakfast, Natasha pulled out her phone once more and typed out another message.

Nat: darling I've tried giving you space but its been 3 days and I'm worried. I'm coming over.

Natasha moved to put the device away; however, after a second, she reconsidered it and unlocked it once more.

Nat: I love you <3

Pushing the phone into her pocket, she rushed out the door. When Natasha arrived at your apartment door, she immediately pulled out her phone once more. Nothing. She huffed a shaky breath and pulled out her copy of the apartment key. You had given it to her after you almost burnt down your apartment trying to cook for their date that night. She had to rush over to your apartment to clean up the damage done by the small grease fire and cook you both last-minute spaghetti.

She twisted the key in the lock and quietly pushed the door open. The apartment felt akin to a tomb. The curtains were drawn, and all the lights were off. Dirty dishes were piled up Tetris style in and around the sink, not to mention the empty takeout containers strewn throughout the living room and dining table. The TV was quietly playing It Chapter 2, yet you were nowhere in sight.

Worry continued to grip the assassin's chest as she called out, "Y/n, kotyonok are you here?" Being cautious of the numerous fast-food containers and clothing items thrown about, Natasha made her way towards your bedroom door. She hesitated for a moment before steeling her nerves and carefully knocking on your door. For a moment, she heard nothing, only the faint sound of Pennywise's voice coming from the living room. Then, just as she turned the knob to open the door, she heard whimpering. Her heart ramped up to a gallop as she quickly opened the door to your bedroom.

Natasha was certain she had seen war zone's tidier than this. Clothes covered nearly every inch of the bedroom, mattress, and wardrobe. Not to mention the numerous crumpled tissues and fallen picture frames. However, the state of your room was hardly her first concern because in the center of it all, huddled in shaking ball, was you. Painful sobs were rasping from your lips as you burrowed your face further into your knees. Your hair was tangled and greasy, and you were wearing one of Natasha's sweaters with a food-stained pair of boxer shorts.

The assassin felt sorely tempted to sprint across the rooms and scoop you into her arms. Instead, she went for the safer route, which was carefully wading through the mess over to your side of the bed. Tutting quietly, Natasha swallowed the urge to cry alongside you as she quietly cleared her throat. "Mon trésor, can you hear me?" she whispered, setting a hand next to your own, cautious not to make contact.

Instead of a relieved smile or a tired 'yes' like Natasha had expected, your entire body flinched away as if you had been punched. Your eyes snapped open as you scrambled across the bed, looking around hysterically. "Castor?" you called out, eyes wild with panic.

Natasha furrowed her brows and backed away from you. "Y/n it's me, Nat. I'm not here to hurt you; I just needed to see if you were okay."

Slowly, your eyes shone with recognition. Your body, however, remained as taught as before as you studied your fiancée carefully as if she was a trick or a mirage. Natasha felt her heart fracture slightly at the display of fear. "Nat?" Your voice was quiet and raspy; if she had not seen your mouth move, she would not have registered that you were speaking.

"Yes, kotyonok, it's me."

You furrowed your brows and brought your knees back up to your chest. "Wha-what're you doing here?" You asked, your voice slurred and shaky from the sobs racking your body.

Natasha carefully sat down on the edge of the bed, "I have been so worried about you. After you ran out on me a few days ago, I have been trying to check to see if you are okay."

Your face crumbled once more as you buried your face in your knees, "I-I'm," you hiccup, "Sorry, Nat."

Natasha tutted dotingly and slid back so that she sat beside you, still cautious not to touch. "Hey, hey, it's okay, darling. You're okay; just breathe for me. Can you do that, sweetie?"

You inhaled quick stuttering breathe, which quickly dissolved into hyperventilating. You clutched at your hair and squeezed your eyes shut.

Your fiancée watched with a heartbroken expression, "You're okay, you're okay, just keep trying. Can I touch you?" You nodded shakily as she pulled you onto her lap. Gently, she pulled your fists from your hair and replaced them with her own. She stroked your knotted locks and quietly cooed sweet nothings into your ear. She guided your fist to rest atop her chest as she whispered, "Copy my breathing okay, mon trésor?" Sucking in exaggerated breaths, she held her hand atop your own to keep it in place. After a few tries, your breathing eventually settled, and you let out a long whimpery sigh.

It's all good to learn that from right here the view goes on forever And you'll never want for comfort and you'll never be alone See the sunset turning red let all be quiet in your head And look about, all the stars are coming out They shine like steel swords Wish me well where I go But when you see me you'll know

Natasha smiled and kissed the top of your head, "You're doing so well, my love. Nothings going to get you while I'm here, I promise."

You burrowed further into her lap and placed your head atop her chest, letting the sound of her steady heartbeat soothe you into a lull. The two of you sat there for what seemed like eons as you soaked in the feeling of safety and warmth. Natasha hummed quietly, placing chaste kisses on the crown of your head every once in a while.

Sucking in a breath, you spoke, "He was a family friend." Natasha's humming stopped as she looked down at you. "His name was Castor Davids, and my dad met him at work. He was nice at first, sort of like a goofy rich uncle. He would always buy me new toys and books. He would even take me out for ice cream. Even when I got into fights with my parents, I knew I could always talk to him when I was upset. But then..." you gulped, your voice breaking. Natasha continued stroking your hair. "But then one day, he was babysitting me while my parents were out at a baby shower. H-he..." Your words broke off into a sob, and your fiancée quickly shushed you.

"You're safe; you're here with me. No one can hurt you, I promise. Just relax, darling. Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me that you're safe now." Eventually, after a few more minutes of comforting words and protective hugs, the phantom hands that had been grasping at you for days disappeared.

You burrowed your head further into her chest and huffed, " 'm sorry I ran out on you the other night. I shoulda texted."

Natasha chuckled humorlessly, "Darling, that is the least of my worries. What I am worried about, however, is the last time you had an actual healthy dinner." You looked down at your lap sheepishly and shrugged. Natasha playfully pinched your side and untangled herself from your hold. You whined at the loss of contact and looked up at her accusingly. "I am going to make you a proper dinner, and we are going to sit down and watch stupid TV shows."

You huffed, "Can we watch House Hunters?"

Natasha sighed and nodded, "Fine, only because I love you, though." You grinned and slid out of bed. Your fiancée inspected you with a grimace, "First, we're going to take a shower."

--

TAG LIST:

@midnight-lestrange

[broiunno]

License to Steal - Act IV

License to Steal

ACT IV

Act I // Act II // Act III // Act IV

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summary: Min Yoongi is your new protection detail upon your return to your father's side after being sent away during a bloody gang war. Now the dust has settled, you've been called back to your old controlled life, and leaving you an unwilling participant in your family's plans. You don't know what they are but you are no longer willing to be the obedient, protected daughter. You don't really care in the least of it makes Yoongi's new assignment hell on earth- So you'll carve your own life out back home on your own terms.

-rating: 18+

-pairing: min yoongi x reader

-word count: 5.8k

-warnings: swearing, gang activities includes drug mention and eventual drug use, the slowest of burns, organized crime, toxic af family dynamics, BEWARE IN THIS ACT: graphic family abuse (father initiated verbal and physical assault- does not fade to black), violence, blood, graphic descriptions of torture, and graphic sex scenes will be included in this work.

-authors note: @chelsea-chee leading the au as usual. I love her the appreciate her as my love, writer, and my beta. Her works are *chefs kiss* Thank you again beautiful <3 PLEASE NOTE: I AM REALLY NOT EXCITED TO POST THE NEXT FEW ACTS. They deal with heavy subject matter and I don't fade to black at any point so please note my works are for mature audiences, warnings are there for a reason and in bold. You are an adult if you are reading this work (per the warnings) and you are responsible for the content you consume. Thank you. ILY all and I love asks about the characters. And that's all I have to say about that...I'm sorry for the wait. I've had covid. I'm back on a better schedule now.

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You fumbled with your hair as you tried to rip your fingers through the still damp strands to assemble it back into a semi-presentable pony tail as the door slid open to your father’s office. You really did wish that you had been able to go upstairs and shower. Or at least change your clothes from the workout gear you currently felt sticking to your skin from the cooling sweat. As a breeze drifted from the vent as the air kicked on, you shivered violently, shaking your head and shooting a hateful stare in Yoongi’s direction as you stepped into the office. Appearances were everything in your family. They were the first level of protection to ensure threats stayed at a minimum. A show of strength and cohesiveness discouraged any hair-brained ideas from a weaker or less organized opposition.

Your father raised a dark, thick brow, turning from the man was speaking quietly to, his expression unreadable as you inclined your head slightly in greeting. “You asked to see me?” you said quietly, keeping your eyes downcast. Since Yoongi had mentioned your father was summoning you, you knew it couldn’t be anything positive. This soon after your arrival? Nothing good would come of this. You had just grabbed onto the distraction of Yoongi until you both stood in the office, feeling stripped bare, awaiting whatever admonishment was about to be delivered.

“You couldn’t make it a full forty-eight hours without causing me a migraine,” your father said sharply and you kept your eyes trained on the floor, as you replayed yesterday in your mind.

“Father, I don’t know what you-”

“Y/N, you weren’t even back a day and you spent how much?” he said, aggravation lacing his tone. “I had to call in Kim to look at your accounts immediately. You’re a fucking hassle.” He huffed and your eyes finally lifted to the stranger that stood next to your father, noting that he stepped away from your father and bowed quickly.

“Nice to meet you, miss. I’m Kim Namjoon. I’ve been handling your accounts and will continue to do so.” You felt your lips part in a soft ‘oh’ as you studied the broad planes of his face, full lips and intense eyes. You felt like he was picking you apart in that moment as you took your time to absorb his ash blond hair in a relaxed, but carefully crafted style. His skin tone was golden; a contrast to Yoongi’s milk-like skin. He glowed, and you couldn’t tell if it from his melanin or the fact that he was radiating intelligence.

“N-Nice to meet you too,” you stammered and managed to close your mouth as he pushed up the rolled sleeves of his white button-down shirt. You swallowed hard and tried to claw through the mental fog that had overcome you. With the teasing from both Jungkook and Yoongi, being presented with another god-like man was the last thing you needed. “I will admit I’m a little confused; my spending was never a problem when I was away? I mean, it’s not like I bought a car.”

Your father barked a laugh and threw up his hands. “You have no grasp on what I do to make this money that you just piss away Y/N! And you COULD have bought a car with the amount you spent yesterday! Like I said: a god damn burden!” he hissed and you flushed slightly, taking a step back unconsciously as you watched his neck flush. Yoongi hadn’t said a word, but you knew you could still sense his dark presence in the corner of the room, not looking at him to notice his eyes narrowed slightly as the scene unfolded.

“Y/N, I’ve had an idea. You’re a daughter. I can’t do much with you. Your brother who I could actually have used is dead. Your mother-” He stopped as he watched your eyes bulge and he shook his head. “I can’t have more children. I’d consider it disrespectful to her memory,” he mused, a hand running along his chin and you couldn’t help the scoff that escaped you, but your jaw snapped shut audibly as your teeth clacked together after the noise passed your lips.

Your father’s eyes flared to life in challenge and he glanced at Namjoon, lip curling. “Did you calculate her estimated cost of living and monthly expenditures? Do you have solid numbers?” he said shortly and Namjoon just nodded, eyes flicking between the family members silently. “And did you adjust for a profit at the margin we discussed?”

“Yes sir,” came the deep steady voice, Namjoon’s eyes traveling your figure, his gaze not heavy with lust or desire, but full of curiosity. “The monthly amount that you should request for that profit is in the proposal if you would like to review it.” He finished and cleared his throat. “I can return if you want me to look over the contract,” he said softly, clearing fishing for a dismissal and your father granted it, offering his hand and you felt your mouth tighten in confusion.

“What contract?”

Namjoon grabbed a briefcase and inclined his head to you stiffly in farewell before his long legs carried him out the doorway. Your father’s gaze didn’t leave your eyes as he spoke. “Yoongi, see him out.” Yoongi nodded and started after the tall man in silence, not sparing you a second glance on his way out.

“I asked you what contract?” you said softly, struggling to keep your voice even as your father stepped closer to you.

“Well, you went out. Spent a lot of money that you’ve done nothing to earn, and caught someone’s eye in the process. Someone worth a lot of money and who would be an asset to have closer to the family at this point in his career.” Your father clasped his hands behind his back as he continued to close the distance between you, each step he made, you felt your heart plummet further.

“Father… what exactly are you implying?”

“I’m not implying anything, Y/N. I’m telling you. Someone’s made a bid for your hand, and it’s the only thing you’ll be good for at this point. The shopping sprees, your lifestyle. I can maintain them, but if someone else is willing to do so, and the marriage benefits me in my business, I’d be stupid not to pursue it. Do you think I’m stupid, Y/N?” he said, voice getting dangerously quiet as he reached out to tuck a piece of hair that had escaped the rapidly put-up ponytail behind your ear.

“You can’t sell me off like fucking cattle!-” you said, flinching away from his touch, and his large, calloused hand shot out to grab your chin tightly. He forced your face back towards his as you tried to jerk away, squeezing hard enough to make your eyes begin to water. Your heart thudded out a dangerous irregular rhythm as you breathed hard through your nose.

“I can’t? Y/N, you seem to be under the delusion that you are free from the responsibilities that come with being in this family. I suppose that may be my fault. I was too soft on you, pitied the losses I caused you to have. I always had your brother anyway; there was no harm in indulging you. But now, you’re the only one with my blood in your veins. You’re home to do a service for this family. Everyone else has given their lives in some way. Did you think you were special?” His words were measured and cold as he studied you, grip not loosening on your face. You would be bruised tomorrow as you felt the throb set in from the pressure he was applying.

“You may order me to do it, but I don’t have to go along with this,” you hissed, barely able to open your jaw, but clenching your teeth to get your words out, rage licking up and down your body. He had taken your entire life as a child, as an adolescent. Did he really think giving you a few years of freedom put you back in his debt so far that you owed him the rest of your life?!

No sooner than the words were out of your mouth you heard the sharp crack, and felt yourself stumbling backwards into the wall. You blinked quickly as you registered the pain in your head, immediately starting to pound as the metallic taste of blood filled your mouth. You barely had time to regain a semblance of your bearings before your father was upon you again, face chillingly blank as his ringed fingers gripped the base of your ponytail, ripping your head back at an awkward angle, a scream breaching your bloody lips. The noise was cut short by another blow, snapping your head to the side before he jerked your face back to center.

“Who do you think you are, you little bitch?” he said with a lilt to his tone as you choked out a sob, unable to keep it from escaping your lips. “You really thought you weren’t going to do shit to replace that money you spent?” When he finished speaking he gave your head a violent shake, as if to scramble your thoughts further. It was completely unnecessary, as your head felt as if it was splitting with the pain he had rocked through you with his blows and harsh grip. You felt the start of a purely hysterical giggle break through, spitting out the fresh rush of blood that ran in your mouth due to the cuts in your cheek from your teeth. You noticed a piece of the skin from inside your mouth flapping loosely that made you nauseated if you dwelled on it.

The laugh was probably the worst response you could have had.

You heard a soft hiss, and your father stepped into your space further, hands darting from your head to wrap themselves around your throat and squeezing. As your hands scrambled to scratch at his hand, his arm, his face, anything, you wished you were surprised at this. You wished you were hurt because you were shocked, but you weren’t. There was blood in the water and he was a shark. He built his life this way.

“You don’t have to go along with this…” he said softly, voice void of emotion, “but you also don’t have to keep living here either. How long will you make it without this family? You’d never make it out of the city.” He mused and continued to squeeze, your vision starting to spot as you tried to draw in any bit of air within the hold he had, the choking heaves under the weight of him making the blood that had pooled in your mouth from his blows spill over your chin grotesquely as it began to stream onto his hand. “So will you behave for once in your fucking life?”

You were hyper aware of the tears streaming down your face as you managed the smallest of nods. You supposed he was right; you had never imagined you would be used in the family in any way. Your entire life had been lonely, and even though you hated it, you had resigned yourself to it. His hands unwrapped themselves from your neck, letting you inhale a burning gasp of air as you slid down the wall, and onto the floor. You coughed and rocked forward onto all fours as the shaking of your body didn’t allow for much more than consciousness.

Your father pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the crimson of your blood off his hand before tossing it to you on the floor. You could barely recognize the quick but unhurried footsteps coming back down the hallway to the office before they stopped short.

“Yoongi, take her upstairs.”

==

The flush from hustling back to his boss’s office drained from Yoongi’s face as his eyes widened at your figure hunched forward onto your elbows on the floor. He watched you hack as your body tried to clear your airway. Yoongi stayed silent as he reached down, crouching next to you and attempting to offer you a hand so you could stand on your own, for which you were thankful. You felt the physical pain, but no emotions as your mind sluggishly screamed at you to just accept his hand and stand. You needed to walk out of here on your own. You knew you wouldn’t make it all the way to your room after the assault, but you didn’t need to. Just to the elevator.

You reached out your hand, shaking hard, as you clasped at his large palm and hoisted yourself up, letting him pull lightly as he stood with you, noting that he was still silent. You tried to ignore how your vision swam before you, willing your knees not to buckle. You couldn’t pinpoint if the unsteadiness was from the blows to your face, the lack of oxygen, or the tears that had thankfully stopped streaming down your face but still filled your eyes.

Yoongi seemed to read your mind, shifting his grip from your hand to your upper arm, nestling in your underarm and gently steered you to the door, but let you support most of your weight on the way out. You walked in silence as he didn’t rush you down the hallway, both of your eyes trained on the lift door as he typed in the code. As you waited for the door to open you felt your shaking legs betray you and start to bend. You glanced away from him, the movement of your eyes causing a piercing pain to shoot through your head. “Please,” was all you rasped wetly as you put more weight and started to sink, but the pressure holding you up immediately doubled, Yoongi’s support forcing you upright, even if it made your shoulder raise. It would be almost imperceptible from your father’s office if he was still looking in your direction, but you doubted he would. He had already received your submission; he didn’t need you for anything else.

Yoongi didn’t seem to want to take the chance that he was still watching, stepping into the elevator and continuing to only hold you in one place. His grip was still disguised as if he was walking you out in the same way he may escort an associate who was no longer welcome - in such a manner that would deter any further escalation. No one would be able to tell he was the only thing keeping you upright.

As the door slid shut to the elevator the facade crumbled, you lurching forward and gasping out a sob of pain, tilting your head down to let the blood that had been collecting in your mouth pour out onto the floor. You forgot how much mouth wounds bled. Yoongi was not bothered with the grotesque display as he swiftly adjusted his grip to wrap around your shoulders, his other arm sweeping at your feet as he lifted you with apparent ease. You shut your eyes as the tears began to flow once more, unable to restrain the moans and whimpers of pain that escaped between gasps as you cried. He still hadn’t said a word, even as you turned your face into his suit jacket, inhaling jaggedly as you tried to focus on the scent permeating from him, trying to place it through your snot-filled nose. The only thing you could recognize was the warm, woodsy scent of patchouli as you reached a shaking hand up to hold onto his jacket tightly. You knew he wouldn’t drop you, but it grounded you all the same.

You tried to slow your breathing, but failed as the elevator door opened and Yoongi strode quickly to your bedroom door, bending at the knees and somehow using his crook of his elbow and his body to turn the door knob, the only change in your positioning being that you tilted slightly as he spun it. He kicked the door with his foot gently as he stepped in, by-passing your bed as he carried you into your bathroom, carefully getting on his knees as he lowered you into your large bathtub as he placed you there. You continued to breath quickly, your gasps becoming sharper as your gentle shaking soon became uncontrollable. You released his jacket as he stood and you pulled your knees to your chest, shutting your eyes finally as you heard the tap briefly run before a cool rag brushed your chin, eyes flying open as you flinched away.

“Shh, I need to see your face. I have to get the blood off,” Yoongi whispered, and you finally looked at him, noting his face was still paler than normal. “Princess, I need you to take a slow, deep breath okay? Can you do that? Your lips are turning blue; you’re hyperventilating. You’re safe,” he murmured, brows pinching together in a pained expression you had never seen on his face as you tried to nod, attempting to take a long breath in but ended up gulping in air multiple times on the way, the blurring of your vision worsening as Yoongi grimaced, your breathing speeding up again, your shoulders shrugging with the effort to take in air. The last thing you heard was Yoongi’s tense exclamation of “Shit!” before you blacked out.

==

When you awoke, you were under the covers of your large bed. You sat up quickly before groaning from the ache in your head, then realizing that opening your mouth made you want to scream from pain. Between the squeeze on your jaw and the cuts inside your mouth, it was safe to say you would be saying very little for a while. You glanced towards the window, noting it was inky black outside.

“How long has he hit you?” came a cool voice from beside your bedside and you turned to face the source, seeing a figure standing beside the small table, casting a shadow with the aid of a lamp. Had he even left? Yoongi had shed his stained suit jacket, but still wore the white shirt and same suit pants. You only knew it was the same shirt due to the blood stain from where your mouth must have painted him. Instead of attempting to speak, you shrugged in an attempt to get his gaze off of you. It was piercing and unnerving. You felt as if this was the beginning of an interrogation, and you didn’t fail to notice the color had still not returned to his normally pale face. Now that your mind was a bit clearer you were able to recognize why it registered so deeply with you. He was the embodiment of white with fury. “How. Long?” he said again with such harshness you swallowed hard, ignoring the fire that licked down your throat as you did so.

“That’s a joke right? He’s always been like that. I just normally am better at avoiding it,” you forced out; your words were almost incoherent as you tried to move your jaw as little as possible as you spoke. That was bearable. Good. Not that you had expected it to be, but at least your jaw wasn’t broken; that would have been a pain in the ass. “What time is it?”

“It’s three am,” Yoongi hissed as his eyes glimmered in the near darkness, pushing off the wall and grabbing a glass of water off the table and sweeping a few pills into his hand. “Take these.” You took his offering and a small sip of the water before carefully throwing the pills to the back of your throat and washing them down, sighing softly. “They’re pain pills. They’ll help and you’ll be able to go back to sleep in a bit.”

You didn’t answer but pulled back the cover of your bed and slid out, noting that your bloody shirt had been changed but you still had on your sports bra and leggings. And your ponytail had been taken down, which was probably a good thing since your scalp was still aching from the hold your father had you in.

“Y/N… don’t.” Came Yoongi’s voice, still unemotional but a bit gentler than his earlier tone. You didn’t turn back to him but stopped your path to your vanity, obviously trying to look at your reflection in the mirror to assess the damage.

“Is it that bad?” you grumbled, turning to him and you watched him shrug.

“It’s not good. Don’t worry about it tonight. No bones are broken from what I can tell. I wiped you down the best I could. Just change once I leave and get back into bed.”

You let out a deep breath but finally stepped towards your closet instead to grab an oversized t-shirt. You could work the bra off under it and slip your pants off once you had it on. “Why did you even stay?” you said softly as you set to work, your muscles aching as you attempted to change modestly. You don’t know why it even mattered, but in this moment it did.

“I needed to know if he had done this before. I needed to know if this was the first time. When we were kids, you weren’t around all the time. Sometimes, I’d go months without seeing you. I didn’t know if this was a part of it,” he spat out, visibly tensing as he took a loud steadying breath.

You shrugged as you pulled off your leggings, successful in stripping your bra off under the shirt, and padded back to your bed. “There were a few reasons he kept me separated from everyone. It wasn’t all because he thought I was too precious to see any of this.” You climbed back into bed and tried to settle back into the plushness. Yoongi took a step closer to you, his mouth slightly open as he watched you try to get comfortable, seemingly unable to stop himself.

“Y/N…” he said softly and reached a hand towards you and you stiffened, eyes narrowing, and he took note, dropping his hand slowly.

“Yoongi, I never asked for your fucking pity.”

“I know, and it makes me want to help you even more.”

You blinked and tried to register what he was implying. “Help me?” you repeated, shaking your head as you felt the same hysterical laugh bubble up that had made your assault that much worse in your father’s office. “No one can help me!” You laughed, eyes widening as the smile twisted your features. “This is my life, this is what I was born into. This is what all those shiny things cost, Yoongi! I always knew it but I forgot.” You watched as the pained expression from earlier slid back over his features, and you raised your eyebrows in response. “I appreciate it, but unless you’re willing to put a bullet in my fucking head there’s no saving anything.”

“Who says it has to be your head, Princess?” he said gently and you swear you felt the world stop.

“Don’t say shit like that Min,” you hissed, baring your teeth and shaking your head. “Even if we don’t always get along, I don’t want you dead too.”

“Whatever you say Princess,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips as he cocked his head to the side. “Are you alright to sleep? You don’t feel like you’re going to vomit?” he asked seriously, watching as you shook your head.

“I don’t have a concussion,” you grumbled but as you watched him smirk and go to grab his jacket you felt your heart speed up. “Yoongi- w-wait.” He immediately stopped, as if he was anticipating your words. “Can you stay here the rest of the night? I know he won’t do anything but I-”

“Let me go change my clothes. Is that okay Princess?”

“Yeah… I just don’t want to be-”

“It’s fine Y/N. I’ll be right back.” You stayed sitting up, watching him as he dismissed your attempts at explanations and justification as he walked out.

You sighed, leaning against the leather headboard and let your breathing even out, even as your heart still raced. The pain began to slowly ebb as the medication took effect; what had you even taken? It had to be something strong as a comfortable fog began to cloud your thoughts.

You didn’t know why you felt the need to have him here. Did you even need to explain? He was technically your bodyguard. You had known each other most of your lives. You had just suffered through an assault; staying with you was reasonable. Even if the assailant wasn’t unknown, nor were the motives. At the end of the day, Yoongi’s presence made breathing a bit easier. His presence made you feel safe.

The door opened again and you sucked in a breath as Yoongi re-entered your bedroom, one hand carrying his gun and holster, the other a hanger with a clean pressed suit. “I’ll wake up before you,” was all he said in response to your surprised expression as he studied you. He mistook the shock on your face as being accredited to the suit. He was an idiot if he thought you cared about the fact he would dress here. You were too busy drinking in the sight of his lean figure in low-slung grey sweatpants. You tried to rip your gaze back to his face but you got caught on the black ribbed tank top and the swirling black tattoos covering his shoulder and chest before disappearing under the material.

“I didn’t know you had tattoos,” you choked out, feeling your face flush and mentally slapping yourself. He may look like sex on legs, but you looked like you just had the shit beat out of you. Which to be fair to yourself, you actually just had the shit beat out of you.

“Oh, I forgot,” he said, a small smirk tilting his lip up but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. He draped his suit over the chair to your vanity and carried his gun with him towards the plush armchair in the corner of the room.

“The bed is big enough Min. I won’t touch you,” you said breathlessly, trying to force away the blush that was deepening across your face. He seemed to freeze and take a few steadying breaths.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea Princess.” His voice was controlled but quiet.

“Please Yoongi…” you said just as quietly. “It’s just for tonight. I won’t feel safe if you’re all the way over there.”

It was definitely an over exaggeration. You hadn’t really expected him to even agree to stay in your room with you. The chair was the reasonable option. You knew you were pushing it.

“Princess, I-” He breathed, the airiness of his tone making your belly somersault and it gave you a tiny shiver.

“Yoongi, please. I need you next to me. Just tonight.” You shouldn’t be so worried about getting this man into bed with you, but now that he was here in front of you and it was so close to happening, you felt you might cry if he denied you.

You watched his back muscles rippled as he tensed and tried to relax. He turned wordlessly and walked to the opposite side of the bed, setting his holster down and climbing into the king-sized bed with you. “Go to sleep Princess.”

The drugs had to be prescriptions, not that you really expected a member of an organized crime family to just take a regular aspirin when they were in pain. “Is the oxy working yet? It should start soon if it hasn’t.” You hummed your assent as you squirmed down into the bed and tried to keep the smile from your face as you reached over and turned out the lamp. You took a deep breath and shut your eyes, savoring the heat that quickly built from having two bodies under the covers of your bed, ignoring the slightly annoyed sigh from the other side of the bed.

“Be quiet Min, I’m trying to rest,” you said softly and a soft dry chuckle cut through the silence as you let sleep take you.

==

Yoongi’s POV

Yoongi listened to the soft sounds of your breathing as they lengthened and deepened, the pain pills having done their job perfectly. If only he could have done his job in such a manner. He had been given a job: to keep you safe, and he took it seriously. Even if the one assigning his work was an abusive piece of shit. Yoongi let out a sigh, glancing over at your figure in the dark to make sure his huff hadn’t disturbed your slumber. It didn’t. You were still laying there, eyes closed and unaware, your face turned towards him to afford him a view of what exactly your father had done in his absence.

He felt his teeth grind against each other as even in the dark, he could make out the near black bruises covering your neck in the clear shape of hands, a bloom crossing your smooth cheek as well. Even your chin and jaw were dark from bruising; evidence that your father had held your face to force submission. It had worked. He opened his mouth and stretched his own jaw to try and stop himself from continuing to grind his molars down to nothing in rage. He didn’t know if he would ever be able to forget how you looked and how he felt when he entered the office, watching the blood drip onto the floor. How he wanted nothing more than to simply pull out his gun and lodge a bullet into your father’s knee before proceeding to swing the butt of his gun down onto him until he shattered every bone in the pig’s disgusting face.

Until he begged him to stop. Until he begged his daughter to tell Yoongi to stop.

The daydream made Yoongi smile a full gummy smile and chuckle for the first time today. He would stop when you told him to. If you told him to. Now that he knew your father had put his hands on you before this, he wondered if you would just let him continue until his mania at seeing what had been done to you was sated. He knew it wouldn’t be until he heard your father’s death rattle, knowing it had been at his own hands.

You stirred slightly to readjust in your sleep, drawing his attention back to the present as you moved closer to him in the bed and he sucked in a breath. Even beaten and bruised you affected him. Even carrying you in that elevator down the hall as you clutched onto him. He had been spiraling down into violence but as soon as you grabbed his jacket, he knew you wouldn’t withstand even him raising his voice to anyone without shattering. You were normally so fierce and seeing you broken made him want to tear apart this entire society you both lived in, even if it was all either of you had ever known.

It was then he had decided he would be what you were asking of him with your sobs and how you clutched onto him; he would be as gentle as could be and give you whatever you needed tonight. Tomorrow he would begin the undertaking of dismantling your father piece by fucking piece.

He had watched over you after you passed out; you had woken up briefly for him to get you to take pain medicine once before you actually were able to speak to him. Before you asked him to stay with you. He wanted to pretend it didn’t make his icy heart crack, the way you tried to explain and justify his presence. He would never ask you to in this kind of situation. When Yoongi returned to his room, he attempted to steel himself for a night of sitting in that uncomfortable chair, and a sleepless day tomorrow. He had gone more than twenty-four hours without sleep before.

But when your eyes, even if they had started to become glossy and dilated from the drugs, began to run over him, he had to try and think of every unsexy thing he could fathom. You had just been fucking violated and just with one look he felt the blood travel away from his brain and pool below his waist. Why did he think he would be able to wear sweatpants while staying with you? You destroyed every semblance of self control he had. He still hadn’t forgotten your teasing in the elevator prior to this shit show.

Then your soft drowsy voice had called out to him just as he had regained his mental fortitude and continued to the chair. You would be the fucking death of him and he didn’t think he would really mind. Now, as he laid here in bed with you trying to ignore the fact that you were shifting closer to him in your sleep, seeking his warmth, he closed his eyes. He had anticipated the pure fury of tonight keeping him awake, but instead it was the fact that he could feel your breath on his neck, that if he turned his head back to you he could still make out your absolutely gorgeous feminine form from under the blankets. The dip in your waist and the curve of your hips, sloping into your soft thigh. Yoongi’s eyes shot open as he let out a soft hiss as he felt his member stiffen in his sweats, one large hand reaching down to palm himself, and he willed his hard-on to disappear.

He dropped his eyes again, confident he would get his bulge to go down without waking you, and as he tended to it, a soft small hand reached across his middle, making his forehead furrow. He tried to take a steadying breath, and tried to not imagine that the events of last night weren’t the reason he was in your bed. That you had just invited him to bed because you wanted him there, not for security but because you wanted him as a man to share your bed and body. That he could roll over to face you, slip his own hand up that oversized shirt and rub soft circles into your skin before slipping his hand down in-between your thighs.

Yoongi felt his cock twitch and himself harden further, forcing another deep breath in and out as he circled back to try and think of grotesque things to make his longing subside. You at least had stopped wriggling in the bed in an attempt to get closer; he was thankful for that. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and tried to calm his heart and regulate his breath to make it possible for him to drift off.

This was going to be a long night.

[runrundoyourstuff]

Redirection

(Avatar: the Last Airbender one-shot, rated: T, 2,015 words)

cn: for implied/referenced child abuse

--

He’s not explicitly invited to the Agni Kai, but no one attempts to hide it from him—though in retrospect, long after, once he finally has time to process, this fact will strike him as odd. Wouldn’t someone have expected him to protest, had he known? But then only Azula knew the depths of his ambivalence in Ba Sing Se, and had apparently elected to keep it hidden in her sleeves like so many of her plots, no doubt to brandish as a secret weapon should the need present itself.

In any case, when Zuko does hear of the duel, he must convince himself to attend. All the royals—(all the free royals)—will be there, after all. It’s an honor. The nobles in his father’s court would be suspicious if he weren’t present. And besides, though he hasn’t seen the inside of the arena since before his banishment, since he was a child, since...since he—since his father…since the day he got his scar, it’s not as though he’ll be fighting this time. (For that matter, he doesn’t yet know who is involved in this Agni Kai—just that one or both of the combatants is notable enough within Court for this to be an event.)

He manages to calm his trembling knees in time to enter the arena before the proceedings began, but just barely. Zuko wafts in, hands clenched at his sides, trying and failing not to think about what it looks like, how his uncle’s reputation for tardiness might have rubbed off on him—all the times Uncle had lingered behind at a port-of-call, delaying Zuko’s carefully crafted schedules, (you worry too much Prince Zuko, you should rest, a man needs his rest). But when he finds his seat in the section designated for the royal family, only Azula is there waiting for him.

“Where’s Father?”

Azula smirks. “Well, hello to you too, Zuzu. Here for the show?”

“Where is he?!”

Azula steadily moves her gaze to the platform in the center of the arena, and when Zuko follows it there, his hand finds the branded skin on his face, stomach tumbling out from within him, blood flushing like he imagines it would if the sun were to disappear from the sky.

Ozai stands there, elevated, ceremonial Agni Kai garnet draped around his bare shoulders, just as it had been three years ago.

Zuko inhales. “Who…?”

“Just watch, Dum-dum.”

But he doesn’t have to watch long. After a moment, two members of the Royal Guard appear, dragging a lump of a third person up onto the stage. They drop him there, bare-chested, clad only in ragged dueling pants because the Agni Kai sash falls from his shoulders as he hits the tile floor, and though he’s conscious, he doesn’t seem to have the strength to readjust his position.

Zuko cries out, leaping to his feet. “What’d they do to him?!”

“Really, Zuko, you’re causing a scene.”

If anyone turns toward him at his outburst, Zuko doesn’t see it. His focus is singularly on the platform. The guards seem to laugh as they retreat from the stage and leave the man there—Zuko can tell even beneath their masks, people have been looking at him that body language for years: the way their chests rise and fall, how they tilt their heads back like they don’t have a care in the Agni-forsaken world. They’re looking at him and laughing, like they don’t care that this is what’s become of the Dragon of the West, who used to be their Crown Prince, their general, their hero, like they think it’s funny...

“Azula!” he demands.

“Perhaps he was simply always feebler than you remember.”

“He was not! The only reason he didn’t destroy us in Ba Sing Se is because he wanted to give the Avatar time to get away—”

Azula raises an eyebrow. “I thought the Avatar was dead.”

“—they did something to him! Drugged him, or beat him, or something—don’t you care?!”

She shrugs. “He’s a traitor.”

“He’s our uncle!”

“I guess I’m just not as sentimental as you are, Zuzu.”

“But why—” On the stage below, Ozai looms over his brother, burying him in a dark shadow. “Why is he...Is Father going to duel him?”

“It’s not going to be much of a duel, if you ask me.” A pause, and then she continues. “You didn’t think Father would let treachery like Uncle’s go unpunished, did you?”

“But…” But he’s his brother. The words die on Zuko’s lips. Yes, Uncle’s his brother. And Ursa was his wife, and what did that matter? And…

Blood rushes to his face, and it burns—it burns—like it’s on fire.

Uncle is on his knees, and it looks almost like a prostration.

And I was his son.

Ozai doesn’t even bother moving to the starting position, just shrugs the ceremonial garnet off his shoulders to signal his intent to begin. “Well, brother,” he smirks in a voice loud enough for the entire arena to hear. “You have betrayed your Nation and your Fire Lord. Will you fight for your honor?”

Uncle just barely manages to lift his head. If he says anything, it’s too faint for Zuko to hear.

“Sad,” Ozai continues, projecting, raising his hands with his voice. “That this is what has become of the famed Dragon of the West. And to think that this country once thought that you would be their ruler.”

Something in Zuko’s chest lurches, like it’s trying to escape, to run from the fire it knows is coming, that lives in its muscle memory. Family sticks together, Uncle had told Zuko once, had shown him patiently, over-and over-again every day for three long years, even when Zuko screamed that he didn’t want to see it.

Family sticks together. Family does not raise hands to each other with the sort of glint that is currently in his father’s eyes and speak gleefully about it. Family does not orchestrate public duels and give whatever orders are necessary to ensure that those duels are just for show.

This is wrong. Even if—if—Uncle is a traitor, this is wrong. Uncle is Father’s brother. Uncle is on his knees. This is Uncle. And Ozai looms over him, flames growing in his palms, and Zuko’s fingers clench in his lap, his head, his chest buzz...This is wrong.

(And if this is wrong…)

(Zuko had been on his knees once. Ozai had towered, fire growing in his hands…)

(If this is wrong…)

“My Nation is fortunate,” Ozai smiles, angling his hands toward his brother. “That I am here to purge it of such weakness.”

And then whatever it is that had been screaming in Zuko’s chest bursts forth, mingles with all the lingering doubts that have been living in his mind the past several weeks since his return home. And Zuko doesn’t know what he is about to do until he does it, springs to his feet in the most honored seats of the arena, and yells in a voice as loud as Ozai’s so that there is no one in the entire stadium who will not be able to hear: “Stop!”

This time, when all eyes turn to him, Zuko feels them. But he doesn’t move his own gaze from his father—who has turned toward him, smile fading from his face, flames flaring in his hands—and it’s just enough to make the man hesitate. But the flame is still growing, and Ozai has a history of venting his red-hot anger onto any in the vicinity. (Not anyonein the vicinity, Zuko will think later—much later, after he has time to process, not only this moment but everything else too—Ozai has a history of unleashing his anger on the most vulnerable target. Once, that was Zuko. Now, it’s Iroh.)

In the present, Zuko doesn’t waste the opportunity. He propels himself forward into the air and toward the stage with Firebending, and it’s not until he’s halfway there that he feels the fear sink in his stomach, not until he lands in front of Uncle that he feels the tremble behind his knees. But he remains upright, and whatever he feels, he wills his face to be the same level of impassive as it was behind the Blue Spirit mask before he’d cast it away.

“Zuko...no…” Uncle’s voice is a murmur behind him, but there are resonances of a moment of when it was much stronger. You never think these things through!

And it’s true, he knows now, no matter what he’d yelled under that lake. But sometimes you can’t think things through, or you’ll be paralyzed, and sometimes there’s no time, you just have to act…

He clenches his fist.

“Why does it not come as a surprise that you’re a traitor too?” Ozai snarls. “I should have killed you three years ago and spared myself the embarrassment!”

“Maybe,” Zuko hears himself say, and to his surprise his voice is steady. “But you didn’t.” A pause, and then: “Leave my uncle alone.”

“Treachery must be punished. He will fight for his honor!”

“This isn't a fight! It's a show! You know you can’t beat him for real, so you staged this whole thing just so the country will think you look stronger than you are!”

“Zuko…” Uncle’s whispers grow desperate, but Zuko doesn’t turn.

Ozai’s nostrils flare. “How dare—”

“It’s just another lie! Like all the lies you told us about how the Fire Nation is the greatest civilization in the world! Like the lies you were willing to tell to all those young soldiers you’ve sent to die…”

“Zuko…”

“You will pay for this insolence—”

“But the truth is that we’re not the greatest country in the world! And the truth is that Uncle Iroh is better than you are! He’s stronger, he’s a better father, and he would have been a better Fire Lord!”

It’s not a surprise when the lightning comes barreling toward him from his father’s fingers. And even though Zuko knows the technique in theory, executing it in practice brings him precariously close to reckoning with his own mortality. He catches the blast with his fingers, and it pushes him backward. He just manages to dig his heels into the floor and stop himself before he ploughs into Uncle and spills the electricity onto him—which would defeat the entire purpose of this whole charade—but it festers in his own arm, like it’s singeing it from the inside, and it’s going to kill him, it’s going to kill him, Agni, he’s going to die, and he didn’t think he’d care, or that that would scare him, not after everything, but he...he doesn’t want…

“Breathe...Zuko.”

Uncle’s voice is nothing more than a rasp, but it grounds him nonetheless. Zuko inhales, then releases, lightning still festering at his fingertips.

“Focus...your...energy. In...Down...Up…Out.”

Another breath, and then Zuko obeys, just like Uncle taught him in the ruins of forgotten that Earth Kingdom town, a lifetime ago now, it seems. And when he lets the lightning fly out of his other arm, he angles it upward, toward the roof of the arena, where it explodes on contact in a fiery burst.

Later, Zuko will think with a wry irony that he ought to make an offering in gratitude to Agni that things always seem to blow up in his face, because it’s that fact that ultimately seems to save him. The center of the ceiling of the stadium collapses as it detonates, and for the second time in minutes, Zuko doesn’t waste the opportunity that presents itself. In the chaos that ensues as chunks of tile and plaster falls to the stage between him and Ozai, as all the Royal Guard is occupied with protecting their monarch from falling debris, Zuko hauls Uncle onto his shoulders and flees.

It’s not until they’re well beyond not only the palace, but indeed the very walls of the city itself that he brings himself to look back.

[ao3]

[sillytorch]

I’ve seen multiple, if not so many different takes on Roman Torchwick’s canon backstory that I might as well say my take on it (No he’s not the Brunswick Farms kid. The artist for it confirmed it was just a random character design, check the notes for the source):

I like to think that Roman was always a little shit, even as a kid. Maybe not as horrible as he became during his adulthood, but he was definitely a delinquent. And he definitely did not have a good relationship with his parents... he might have not even grown up with siblings. Speaking of his parents, they were most likely just abusive (of the mental and emotional kind).

I don’t think he was dirt poor but I don’t think he was rich either. He most likely grew up in a middle class home (you can decide which spectrum of middle class he was on).

Even though he was a delinquent, he still attended school but he most likely dropped out b/c well... he seems like the type of person who was expelled at least one time in school. On top of that, Roman most likely either grew up in an urban area or a suburban area.

I feel like with what I said and the fact that the show implied that he himself was a streetrat based on Mercury’s comment to Cinder (“My dad once said if you want to get to know a city, ask the rats.”) so I’m just gonna say that Roman most likely ran away from home at a young age (13-14 y/o).

Speaking of his childhood, I do think Roman at one point, wanted to be a huntsman. It may sound very crazy considering his last words, but his last words are what made me think about it:

“You wanna be a HERO?? THEN PLAY THE PART AND DIE LIKE EVERY OTHER HUNTSMAN IN HISTORY!!!!”

The tone of voice he has as he’s screaming that to Ruby, he doesn’t just sound like an asshole, he sounds bitter. And before that, he starts talking about “THE REAL WORLD” being “COLD” and “NOT CARING ABOUT SPIRIT”

(and keep in mind, he says all of that after losing Neo, someone he trusted and was probably the only true friend and family he had. Before losing Neo, he was very confident about his position, that he was on the winning side. But once she gets thrown off, he suddenly becomes so negative and flies off into a rage that we’ve never seen of him before)

Those last words he screams during his emotional breakdown, it wasn’t just to break Ruby’s spirit before he (unsuccessfully) kills her, he was most likely venting about how he feels about huntsmen because he probably feels betrayed by his idealized version of huntsmen when he was a kid versus the reality of huntsmen.

Think about it: being a huntsmen to a kid seems really cool. You fight monsters, you get the glory as the hero, legends and tales are written about you... seems like a really cool thing to basically any boy. But we all know the reality of huntsmen as we’ve seen in the show, which... is pretty Grimm (*rimshot*). They don’t exactly have the best living conditions, they die relatively young, training is brutal, some huntsmen turn out to be corrupt or militarized into super soldiers, may I go on?

My point is, Roman during his teen years as a streetrat most likely knew a huntsman, possibly was even friends with them at one point. Maybe said huntsman straight up took him after awhile. MAYBE, said huntsman tried to help clean up Roman by properly training him to become a huntsman and applying to a huntsman academy. Probably b/c a huntsman academy has a lot of resources, like food, shelter, training, which would have helped out Roman. And well... it could have worked... but it didn’t...

Because something HORRIBLE happened to that huntsman friend, and Roman was there to witness it. Something so shocking that pretty much gave Roman the idea of the reality of a huntsman‘s life... and that lead to him becoming this jaded man who doesn’t care about anybody or anything. Why care about a world if no one’s gonna care about or respect you no matter who you are? The real world is cold... lonely... and doesn’t care about spirit... so why care at all? So, he went back to becoming a streetrat and eventually started his growth as a serious criminal.

Now how did he met Neo? Well... according to One Thing, Roman took her in during a hard point in her life:

Gone's the life That he gave

I was nowhere I had no one I felt nothing Lost without a voice and on my own Then a candle's flame Brought a brand new name

I had one thing And you've taken it from me A single light A single friend But you made that end There was one thing To help escape the misery And now it's all disarrayed You took my whole life away You sent me back to nothing Now you'll pay

This man took Neo in. I’m not sure EXACTLY when in his life he took her in and they became partners, but he took her in. And while this song is from Neo’s perspective, it kind of says a lot about Roman too, especially if you take how he treats her in the show in context:

V2 Ch 4: “Neo if you would!” (Roman proudly says after smiling at Neo for coming to his rescue)

V3 Ch 10: He takes the scroll from Neo’s hand and looks very happy and remarks at her as he takes it, “Now this one? This one’s gonna be fun!”

Also V3 Ch 10: “Go see what’s out there.” (Roman says even though he’s annoyed, he calmly tells her to check outside the ship. Keep in mind, this is the same man who insults his grunts, threatens his allies, and has even attempted to talk back to Cinder a few times)

V3 Ch 11: Literally their entire fight makes it clear that these two have fought together before based on their teamwork. For example: note how when Roman enters, he waits for Neo’s illusion to get hit by Ruby’s bullet, and once the bullet shatters it, Roman shoots right afterwards. He knows Neo’s semblance so he could have just shot through her illusion the moment he saw Ruby right? But he didn’t because, it’s Neo. If he shoots through the illusion (or what he thinks is the illusion), he risks hurting Neo in the process. And THAT is just one of the many examples of how much he cares about her during this fight, including his famous “NEO!!!” cry.

This man cares about Neo. She might have been the One Thing, Roman cared about. Probably the one thing that mattered to him in the world, a friend, a family member... she was probably the only thing left in this cold, cruel, spiritless world he cared about. And once a certain little red started foiling his plans to keep him and Neo afloat from whatever doomsday Cinder and Salem are planning on Remnant, and said little red threw Neo into a sky thousands of feet up in the air full of Grimm where for all he knew, Neo was dead.

This might actually be what led Roman into that rant about the world as he LITERALLY beat it into Ruby’s head: that the world is cold and cruel, and he ends up proving that right to her, because not only did he lose his only friend, he died at the moment he was about to kill Ruby. It didn’t matter what side he was on, he never got what he wanted. Basically it seems like his entire life, the world basically yanked the chain on him and his entire life, leading up to his death proved it.

Now does that excuse all of the horrific acts he’s done in the series? NO! It doesn’t!! He became a horrible person! Yes he did one nice thing by taking in Neo during a hard point in her life, but this man’s legacy was being a high profile criminal and he felt no remorse for that!

But this analysis and theory... if the theory is true that is, may explain why he did what he did. Explanation =/= Excuse.

[blackrose343]

A New Beginning

Warnings: Angst and Implied torture and violence

Devil May Cry - Sparda x Eva

Fanfic Summary: This is about how Sparda and Eva met, along with how they got together. (For this I was thinking Eva was in her late teens, early twenties.)

5,262 words

This was written for @dmcweek day 5. Prompt: Hurt. I didn’t expect it to be this long.

The sun’s rays peeking through the curtains awoke Eva from her slumber. Eva rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, then stretched her arms. She jumped out of bed to look at the flower filled garden. It didn’t take long for her to spot her mother having breakfast. Eva’s mother greeted her with a smile motioning for Eva to join her. Eva didn’t see her father so she assumed he was busy. Eva gave her mother a hug then grabbed a piece of toast. Her mother giggled while tucking some of Eva’s hair behind her ear.

“I think I’ll go wander around town.”

“If you do, remember not to be late. Your father is throwing a party tonight. Everyone would love to see you.” Eva pouted. She wasn’t excited about tonight’s party. Days ago, she overheard her parents discussing the party as an opportunity to find Eva a husband. She didn’t want to marry a random man. She was like everyone else and wanted to marry the one she loves. Still, the thought of meeting someone at the party crossed her mind.

Eva asked her mother who would be attending. Her mother told her the obvious answers: friends and family. She also mentioned some people from work and other aristocrats. Her mother then mentioned someone who recently moved to the area. She couldn’t recall his name but told Eva what she heard about him. She heard he’s a silvered haired demonologist who was rumored to be quite handsome. Eva pushed the “handsome” comment aside. She cared about one’s personality more than their appearance.

Eva went to the park to feed the ducks. She needed something to distract herself. Watching the ducks swim wasn’t working. She couldn’t stop thinking about how her parents were searching for a husband for her. She knew this was more for her father than for her. She wondered what would happen if she met someone after the arranged marriage. Divorcing could backfire immensely. Run away, maybe? Eva sighed as she slumped into the bunch. She looked up at the sun hoping for a sign of what to do. 

A man took the spot next to her. Eva thought she may have been too close to him so she scooted a couple inches. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to sit so close to you.”

“It’s probably my fault. I am sitting more towards the middle of the bench. I’m Eva.” Eva turned towards the man extending her hand to him. Her breath got caught in her throat. The man before her was not like the men around town. Breathtaking and well-built with silver hair. Eva knew he was the new demonologist.

The man was stunned Eva was not afraid of him. It took him a second to remember he was in his human form. He sometimes forgot he was living the life of a human; no longer as the Legendary Dark Knight. He looked at Eva noticing she was waiting for a response. Her golden locks perfectly framed her face. Her eyes were dark in color yet they showed so much kindness. Maybe he could finally have a friend.

“Please, call me Sparda.” Sparda gently grabbed Eva’s hand then brought it to his lips. He placed the lightest of kisses upon her hand while continuing to look at her. For a moment their eyes met. His blue ones with her dark ones. A small blush appeared on Eva. She expected him to shake her hand instead of receiving a light peck. Eva returned her hand to her lap as Sparda spoke. “May I ask why you are here alone?”

“The weather is gorgeous so I thought taking a trip to the park would be nice.” Sparda suspected Eva’s answer was part of the truth. As he looked at her he sensed something. He wasn’t quite sure what it was but he became concerned. As if to prove Sparda’s suspicion, Eva let a small sigh escape from her. She explained she wanted to vent to someone but not to someone she just met.

Eva gave a bit of bread to Sparda then continued to feed the ducks. Eva and Sparda conversed getting to know each other more. Eva told Sparda of her simple life. Sparda told Eva he was working on becoming a better person. He confessed to Eva he had a dark past but refused to detail it. Eva placed a hand on Sparda’s shoulder as she offered to help him in any way she could.

Before Sparda moved here he encountered many unpleasant people. Most people would ignore him. Others shunned him for his interest in handling demons. No one understood why he had an interest in learning about demons and other creatures. Sparda became a demonologist so he could continue to protect humans from demons without anyone finding out he is one.

Sparda was lost on memory lane when Eva asked him for the time. She jumped out of the bench when he told her. Time flew quicker than she anticipated. She enjoyed the time she sent with Sparda. She hoped he felt the same. Eva was delighted to know Sparda would be attending tonight’s party. Maybe she could chat with him some more. Sparda held out a pink lisianthus to Eva as she prepared to leave. Eva’s blush matched the color of the flower when she accepted it. Sparda watched her smell the flower then leave.

Twilight approached as Eva caught Sparda making his appearance. Sparda was searching for Eva. Eva followed his eyes with hers as she conversed with a couple men her parents introduced to her. (She knew these were some men her father was considering as a potential husband for her.) Eva’s attention completely gravitated to Sparda once their eyes met again. She couldn’t help but blush. Sparda gave her a smile as he made his way to her. To Eva’s dismay, her father intervened by starting a conversation with Sparda. Eva watched her father drifting Sparda away from her direction. She chose to stay in the conversation she was stuck in to not appear rude to her guests.

Eva’s father tried to get to know Sparda better to no avail. Sparda gave Eva’s father very vague yet satisfying answers. Sparda knew better than to say too much. Eva’s father continued the conversation by introducing Sparda to his wife then told him a bit about his family. Sparda found out Eva was their only daughter and that they were trying to find her a husband. Sparda’s gut told him this was what Eva was depressed about earlier.

Sparda was introduced to some of the other guests attending the party. During a conversation, Sparda secretly glanced at Eva a few times to check on her. From what he saw Eva appeared to be okay, physically. Her eyes showed she was feeling tired.

Eva was getting bored with the conversation she was having. It primarily consisted on why she should consider so-and-so for marriage. All the reasons go back to how it could benefit her but mostly her father. Eva asked herself if it was too much to ask for someone to want to marry her because they love her. Eva wanted more than anything for this conversation to end.

Music and laughter started to fill the air. People gathered around the dance floor. Eva took the opportunity to sneak out to the garden. Unbeknownst to Eva, Sparda followed her. Eva checked on the garden; pulling a couple weeds here and there. Even though she was doing a mundane task Sparda was fascinated. He could watch her all night if he could. It wasn’t difficult for the moon to reveal Eva’s beauty. Although the moon revealed more to Sparda. He could see Eva’s desire for something else in life. Sparda wasn’t sure why but he wanted to do what he could to give Eva a life she wanted.

Sparda decided to make his presence known when Eva took a seat on the fountain. Eva wasn’t sure how long Sparda had been watching her. She didn’t mind. She wished she knew earlier to talk with him more. Eva was rinsing her hands in the fountain as she told Sparda about the garden. She’s been tending the garden since she was a little girl. Sparda brought up that she could make her garden with her family one day. Eva gave Sparda a bittersweet smile as she accepted his handkerchief to dry her hands. “I hope to marry someone I love. From what my parents are trying to do, that may not be the case.”

Sparda was at a loss for words. He has never comforted anyone. To lighten Eva’s mood, Sparda offered her a dance. Eva sheepishly smiled at Sparda. She admitted that she wasn’t a great dancer. She playfully pouted as Sparda laughed. Sparda pulled her up from the fountain then placed her hand on his shoulder. Sparda grabbed her other hand tenderly making sure not to harm her. Sparda pushed Eva slightly closer to him after placing his free hand around her waist. He asked if Eva was ready before making any movement. Eva didn’t trust herself to speak so she nodded.

Sparda chose a simple dance so Eva wouldn’t feel discouraged. Eva gripped onto Sparda as if her life depended on it. She couldn’t help but look down at her feet as they started dancing. Each time she would step on Sparda’s feet or trip on him she would apologize. She suggested to stop before she stomped his feet into nothing. Sparda chuckled and reassured Eva she wasn’t as terrible as she thought. Hearing Sparda’s praise about how quickly she was learning was pleasant to Eva. She didn’t feel completely embarrassed.

Eva was enjoying herself more than she has in a while. To fully take in this moment she took her eyes off her feet. She looked up at Sparda showing him her enjoyment. Sparda was looking down at her with a goofy grin plastered on his face. She moved her hand from Sparda’s shoulder to his cheek. As she gently caressed his face she noticed his eyes shine with mischief. Before she could figure out why, Sparda dipped her. Eva shierked. She gripped Sparda’s neck so tight she scratched him. Sparda was howling with laughter from Eva’s reaction. He wanted to mess with her; not scare the living daylights out of her.

Sparda wiped tears from his eyes after helping Eva stand up. The embarrassment from earlier returned to Eva. Eva’s father came out to see if she was alright. It took some effort but Eva was able to convince her father everything was fine. Eva’s father ushered her inside leaving Sparda by himself. Eva tried to go back to invite Sparda inside but her father prevented her from doing so. Sparda took this as his cue to leave.

Ever since that night, Eva took every chance she could to go into town in hopes of finding Sparda. At first it was difficult. She had no idea where he lived or when he traveled for work. Eventually her and Sparda agreed to meet at the park every other day. When they met it was as if time didn’t exist; as if nothing besides them existed. Neither ever realizes when the sun has already set. Sometimes they unintentionally ignore other park goers because they don’t hear them. They would get lost in their conversations; in each other. The time they spent together was filled with laughter, happiness and joy. Never was there a depressing or dull moment. Sometimes they would give each other advice and pick on each other. Before they knew it they became inseparable. Neither ever wanted to leave the other. Both wanted to spend eternity together.

Eva sat at the bench waiting for Sparda. For the past few days Eva’s been believing the atmosphere around her has become off putting. The weather was cooler yet the sky was always grey. No rain. Just harsh gusts of wind. Whispered rumors about Sparda reached their way into town. One rumor was Sparda ransacked a town. Another was he made a deal with the devil. Eva paid no mind to the rumors. She even tried to reason with everyone when they brought up their concern about her being around Sparda. There was just no way Sparda would harm her or the town.

Eva wasn’t sure how much time had passed but too many people asked her about Sparda. She asked a couple people arriving at the park if they saw Sparda. No one did. One person mentioned it’s been a couple days since they saw him. Eva became worried and started to search other places they frequented. No one knew where Sparda was or where he went. Too many people kept telling her to try places she already checked. Eva became anxious believing something happened to Sparda.

Eva remembered Sparda telling her he sometimes took a walk in the forest. She had no idea if she would be able to find Sparda there. If she wasn’t careful she would get lost. She searched with the areas she knew then ventured deeper into the forest. Eva heard voices not too far from her. She followed the voices to the source. The voices led her to the top of a hill. Eva crouched behind a log as she peered below. 

Through the fog Eva saw a couple men armed for hunting standing in front of a cellar door. Eva couldn’t fully comprehend their conversation yet she recognized the voices. It was after the fog dissipated that she saw her father and his friend. She gasped from shock. The below turned their heads facing Eva’s direction. She laid down next to the log just in time. Her father’s friend readied his rifle.  His eyes skimmed the area not seeing anything or anyone. Eva remained hidden until the men left.

Eva made her way to the cellar door once she was convinced the coast was clear. She tried her best to not step on any twigs or small animals. She avoided any leaves that may crunch beneath her. Eva crossed her fingers as she hoped no one would find her. She ducked behind a barrel as she made her way into the cellar. She didn’t see anyone. She didn’t hear anything. Eva saw she had multiple rooms to search. She decided to search each room.

Eva gingerly placed her ear against each door waiting for any indication of life beyond it. Majority of the rooms contained wine and other liquors. A couple rooms were prepared for an apocalypse. Eva heard chains rustling as she placed her ear on the second to last door. Eva’s heart started to pound within her. She took a deep breath as her shaking hand grabbed the door knob. What she saw before her was horrifying. Sparda was chained like an animal and beaten. He was covered in bruises and cuts. Blood was oozing from his wounds. Eva tried to say Sparda’s name except the lump in her throat prevented her.

Sparda’s head sprang up when he heard the door close. His rage filled eyes locked on the one who entered. Sparda’s expression relaxed once he realized it was Eva. Eva stood still uncertain of what she should be doing. Sparda saw Eva’s shock dissolve into concern for him. Sparda apologized to Eva explaining he thought she was someone else. Eva tore a part of her dress to dab some blood off of him. She tried to find out what was going on.

“I guess now would be the time to elaborate what I meant when I told you I had a dark past.” Sparda told Eva that he is a demon. He briefly explained his past to Eva unsure if she would believe him. Eva listened to every word Sparda said. Not even for a second did Eva suspect Sparda was lying. While Sparda spoke he couldn’t face Eva. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. He didn’t want to lose her because of his past. Sparda confessed the time he spent with Eva was the greatest pleasure he has ever felt. Eva saw so much in his eyes. Remorse, anger, fear, and perhaps love. As if by instinct, Eva gently grabbed Sparda’s face and planted a kiss upon his lips.

Sparda wanted nothing more than to kiss Eva again. The chains’ runes glowed interrupting his attempt to do so. The chains sent waves of shock throughout Sparda. Sparda tried to hide his pain; to keep himself composed for Eva’s sake. If Sparda wasn’t careful he may hurt Eva. If he ever did so, he would never forgive himself.

Eva hugged him then started to search for the key. Fear and worry were consuming her. She searched every nook and cranny of the rooms she considered the key to be in. She tried to chop the chains off with an axe she found. The axe chipped while the chains stayed intact. A piece of the axe fell next to a crate. Eva started to frantically search the crate when she heard the cellar door open. Eva and Sparda could hear men talking to each other. Sparda urgently whispered at Eva to hide. She quickly squeezed herself behind a shelf.

Eva couldn’t believe what she was witnessing: people she knew beating Sparda. The injuries they inflicted varied from whipping and punching to stabbing. Eva did not expect the familiar faces to partake in this cruelty.  Sparda’s blood splattered all over. Eva wondered why Sparda chose to not defend himself. He may be chained but Eva thought Sparda could do something. Eva knew she couldn’t take on so many people at once so she closed her eyes and waited.

Sparda stated it was safe for Eva to come out when he no longer sensed any one near them. Eva kissed the bruise on Sparda’s cheek. She hugged him declaring she will free him no matter what. Dread filmed over Sparda’s eyes. He was grateful Eva was going to help him yet how could he tell her her father was involved? What would happen if her father found out about this? Sparda opened his mouth ready to deny Eva’s offer. Eva placed a finger on his lips. “I’ve made my decision. Nothing will change my mind.”

The decision to save Sparda was locked within Eva. Sparda had to speak up before Eva left. Eva had to know her father was involved before he became the reason he tore her family apart. He would not hate or be angry with Eva if she rescinds her decision.  “Eva…You may want to reconsider. Your father is the one that holds the key.”

“I know…Will you let me come with you?” Sparda’s eyes widened with bewilderment. He was not expecting Eva to stick with her decision. Let alone ask to continue being with him. Sparda felt conflicted. He desired Eva to be with him. He also feared what could happen to her if they stayed together. He couldn’t find the words to express concern for Eva. Without knowing it, Sparda gave Eva his answer. She gave him a sincere smile then started her mission to free him.

———————————————————————————————————

“Eva, wher-what happened?” It was past dinner when Eva arrived home. Her mother was worried sick. Even more so when she saw Eva was covered with dirt and twigs. Eva casually explained to her mother she was trying to reach a flower for the garden but slipped down a hill. Her mother examined Eva to be sure she didn’t get hurt. Eva was surprised with how easily she lied to her mother. Once her mother was convinced no harm came upon Eva she told Eva to take a bath.

Eva sat in the tub pondering where her father kept the key. She managed to search his office before taking a bath. It wasn’t in the safe. It wasn’t cluttered within the office mess. It wasn’t even in the “hidden” drawer. She studied her father when he returned home. Yet there was no indication he had the key with him. The only option Eva had was to search their bedroom.

It was the dead of night. The moon shone where the sun was. Owls, along with other animals could be heard. Eva was pacing back and forth in front of her in the hallway as she made her way to her parent’s room. She was overwhelmed by what she was about to do: free Sparda and run away with him. She gave herself a few light taps to the face to remind herself she wasn’t dreaming. Eva whispered a pep talk to comfort herself. “Come on, Eva. You told Sparda you would do anything to help him. Even if you didn’t love him, you can’t leave him there. It’s inhumane. Sparda did nothing to desire such hostility.”

Cautiously, she turned her parent’s doorknob. She gave the door a tiny push ensuring it won’t make a sound. She opened the door praying the sound of her parent’s snores blocked any of the door’s noises. Tentatively she tiptoed to her father’s side of the bed. She kneeled beside the bed then proceeded to open her father’s night stand. 

Eva let her hand travel within the drawer feeling a stack of papers, along with a pen. She felt something cool and metallic. Eva thought it felt too wide to be a key so she assumed it was her father’s gun. She placed the gun on her lap then continued searching. During her search she couldn’t get rid of the feeling of someone watching her. She took a shallow breath then turned towards the bed. She was face to face with her father. Eva slapped her hand onto her mouth. She was stuck in place. Her father sat up. “Eva, what are doing?”

Eva bolted straight up hitting the wall behind her. The gun slid under the bed. She stood still not daring to make a move or sound. The moon’s light made its way through the curtains landing on her father’s neck. It was hard to see but Eva saw a thin thread wrapped around his neck. Her father pulled the key out from under his shirt. “Are you looking for this?”

“Locking up Sparda is wrong. He-he hasn’t done anything.” Eva could barely produce the words coming out of her. She has never felt so frightened. The air around her became melicious. Eva feared what her father intended to do. (To her and Sparda.) Whatever her father had planned, Eva couldn’t let him go through with it. She lunged at her father grabbing the key. Her father gripped her wrists, stopping Eva from stealing the key.

Eva struggled to retrieve the key. Both of her hands engulfed the key. She was backing away from her father. Her father only tightened his grip on Eva’s wrists. Eva could feel her father’s desperation for the key. His grip was so harsh he was on the verge of cracking her wrists.

The struggle awoke Eva’s mother. She first heard her husband grunting, then Eva’s pleas. She felt the mattress move as if it became the ocean. She turned her body to her husband. Eva’s hair was swinging in all directions. Her husband was trying to pull Eva to him. Eva’s mother couldn’t fathom what has caused such a disturbance this late. All she could was ask what was going on.

A cold sweat ran down Eva’s father’s forehead. He was petrified. Everything moved too fast and too slow. He recalls fighting Eva for his key, then he heard his wife. Hearing his wife snapped him out of whatever he was doing. Instantly he let go of Eva’s wrists. Since Eva was still struggling to free herself from him she ended up crashing through the window.

Eva’s mother pushed her father as she made her way to the window. She feared the worst but was relieved. Eva landed on some bushes and was conscious. She told Eva to stay where she was. 

Eva lied on the bushes absorbing what just happened. She released her death grip on the key. The key glistened in the moonlight. Such a simple thing could save a life. Something else glistened from above. Eva’s eyes widened. Her mother was oblivious to what was going on behind her. Eva rolled off the bushes then ran. She didn’t look back when she heard her father shoot. She ran because now her life was on the line. In the distance she heard her mother arguing with her father. Her father never explained himself. He just kept telling his wife to stay out of it and she wouldn’t understand.

Eva had no idea how long she’s been running. She believed she would never stop running. She barged her way through spider webs and twigs. She tripped but did not hesitate to get up. Adrenaline is what kept her going, physically. Eva’s mind was a jumbled mess. She hasn’t fully comprehended what was going on. All she thought of was saving Sparda.

Eva hid the key as lights approached her. She held up her arms pleading for the men to not shoot. The men were friends of her father’s. They asked what happened. Eva told them some of the truth: she was running away because her father tried to shoot her. The men looked at each other not knowing what to do or say. Eva begged the men to go check on him for she feared what might happen to her mother. The men sprinted away without asking any questions.

Eva couldn’t have been happier. No one was outside the cellar. Nothing could be heard when she placed her ear on the door. Urgently, Eva made her way to Sparda. He was in worse condition than when she found him. Eva could hear his ragged breaths. His chest heaved up and down. His hair was dyed with his blood. Eva didn’t have time to look at him. She ran up to him searching for the keyhole.

“SPARDA! Sparda, look at me!” Eva freed Sparda from the chains. His head was lying in Eva’s lap. Slowly Sparda regained consciousness. Momentarily he thought it was raining. Seeing Eva’s tears crying fully awakened his senses. Joyfully Eva hugged Sparda. She never wanted to let him go.

Eva watched Sparda’s wounds heal as she explained what happened to her. She tried to get the debris off of her. Eva shot Sparda a tired smile reassuring Sparda nothing was his fault. Eva chose to save Sparda no matter what. Sparda could see Eva went through a lot. He placed his hand upon Eva’s cheek. She leaned into it giving it a light peck. 

“Are you sure you want to leave with me? You can stay here and resume your life as if we never met.”

“I’m sure. In the short amount of time we spent you became my spark of life. Without realizing it I fell in love with you.”

“Eva, you know about my past. Why choose to be with me?”

“Who you were doesn’t matter to me. It’s who you are now that does.”

Eva’s father and his friends gathered around the cellar door prepared to barge in. Threats were made if Sparda did not hand over Eva. Eva, with Sparda following her, exited the cellar with her hands up unsure of what would happen next. She and Sparda were trapped. Torches were blazing. Rifles ready to shoot. There was no escape.

“Are you going to kill our daughter and an innocent man because of some stupid rumors?!” Eva’s mother made her way through the crowd planting herself in front of Eva and Sparda. Few of the men lowered their torches and rifles ashamed of themselves. They questioned if what they were doing, what they did to Sparda, was justified. They had no evidence. They acted out of fear.

Eva’s father was still. Contemplating if he should kill Sparda. His wife had no idea what he heard about Sparda. What he saw. Sparda wasn’t hurting anyone now but what about later? It would be too late. Eva’s father hovered his finger over the trigger. Eva placed herself next to her mother in front of Sparda. 

“Move, damn it!” 

Both women refused. Neither were going to let Sparda get killed. Sparda was awed by what he witnessed. Like Eva, her mother displayed a sense of justice and courage. Not once since he lived as a human has anyone stood up for him. Defend him. If Eva and her mother were demons during the time of the rebellion, he would have recruited them in a heartbeat. 

“Neither one of you knows what he is!”

“I do and I don’t care! Sparda is a sweet and caring man. The time I have spent with him is the happiest I have ever been.” 

Eva’s father could see the truth in Eva’s eyes. He gritted his teeth in frustration. He wanted to protect his daughter. He wanted Sparda to leave. He believed he could achieve this by locking him up, then by killing him. He wasn’t expecting his wife and daughter to stand in his way (figuratively and literally). He wouldn’t live with himself if he murdered them. He threw the rifle behind him withdrawing himself from the quarrel. “Eva, you are no longer my daughter. Both of you leave.”

“Dear, you can’t be serious! You can’t just kick her out because of who she chooses to associate herself with. She’s your flesh and blood!”

“I don’t care.” Eva’s parents’ argument overpowered the wolves’ howls, the owl’s hoots. Eva couldn’t believe her father would be so willing to get rid of her. Especially to only keep a good reputation. Sadly, she wasn’t too shocked. Her father did try to set an arranged marriage to climb the social ladder.

Sparda placed a hand on Eva’s shoulder readying himself for Eva to stay home. Eva put her hand over his giving it a light squeeze. One last deep breath she took, then announced her answer. “I choose to go with Sparda. I love him and never want to leave his side.”

“I told you, I want to be with you.” Eva gave Sparda the biggest smile she could muster. 

Her father didn’t say a word. He picked up his rifle, then disappeared with his friends. Eva’s mother hugged Eva and Sparda. She praised Eva for the bravery she showed. For sticking to the decision that would make her happy. She thanked Sparda for making her daughter happy. Sparda swore to her he would always love Eva. Eva’s mother gave Eva a squeeze and a kiss. She wrapped her red shawl around Eva, then made her departure.

Seeing her mother leave is what broke Eva’s facade. She hugged Sparda pouring everything out of her. The anxiety, frustration, and fear she’s been feeling since looking for Sparda. The sadness of departing with her mother. The relief and happiness she felt for saving Sparda. Her wails and cries filled the forest. Sparda hugged Eva while lovingly petting her hair. Eva has been through so much in such a short amount of time. Patiently Sparda waited until Eva was ready to go. 

Once Eva composed herself, Sparda carried her bridal style into the sun’s light. Sparda looked at Eva’s sleeping form in his arms. Her tears glistened in the sun. Her expression was one of pain. Slowly her expression became content. Sparda gave her a sweet peck to the forehead. He swore to give Eva the joyous life she deserved.

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

You caught my attension with the "Bad end Wizard Wally" Au, what else goes down in there?

A lot of things anon, a lot of things:

-Instead of even so much as humoring the thought of telling Conner, Wally straight up quits and gets a job elsewhere.

-A few years later both Wally and Henry get letters asking them to come to the old studio; one from Joey asking Henry to ‘come visit the old workshop’, the other from Thomas begging Wally to destroy the machine because he can’t do it himself.

-Henry and Wally show up to the inked studio.

-Curiosity leads the pair to activate the ink machine. (Wally thought that Thomas was referring to the other ink machine, not the one suspended by chains.)

-The Ink Demon breaks down the boards and chases them through the studio before the floor breaks beneath them.

-Post-machine activation: the studio fucks with Wally’s magical powers, often having spells backfire on himself. (i.e. if he tries to make something levitate, it automatically flings itself into his face.)

-Due to the fact that Joey found out how to successfully make living cartoons out of people early on, there are no searchers in the studio.

-The Lost ones are still here but they’re much rarer, they flee from sight whenever you see them, and they aren’t made by the machine like canon implied, instead they’re human beings who drank the ink.  

-The two unwilling heroes try to escape via the music department’s flooded stairwell, but they get stopped by Sammy and dragged deeper into ink hell.

-Sammy doesn’t worship the Ink Demon in this AU. In fact, his mind and body are not affected by the ink at all.

-Instead, his mental decline is brought on by his own psychic abilities which he became aware of due to Joey’s meddling. He can’t even think about the past and present anymore, only the future.

-Thus, the man’s new role is not of a desperate madman clinging onto a false savior, but instead a cold and calculating wildcard of an oracle who constantly stalks the two heroes from the shadows and throws wrenches in their escape plans, but also keeps them safe from the wrath of the ink demon whenever he can.

-Boris is still a friend, but he’s a little less chipper and much more on edge than canon.

-Either Wally or Henry can find a tape recorder buried in Boris’s stuff that was made by a gofer who’s talking about the fact that while the living cartoons came out of the machine looking exactly like their animated counterparts, they often try to change how they look, behave coldly and are hostile towards everybody, and are especially hostile towards Joey Drew.

-“The Cameraman is probably the worst out of all of them, it’s almost like he’s trying to make everybody quit their jobs!”

-You know how dogs sigh like they had the roughest time in the world? The only noise Boris makes is that sigh and he only makes it when that tape recording is played.

-Who attacks our heroes if searchers aren’t in the enemy roster? Simple: a hoard of deformed toons.

-We’ve got our classic Butchered gang members, Sliced-Split-n-Stitched Back up SSSB members, and Woolly troubled trios.

-But these appear in the music dep, Bendyland, the village, and the administration offices. Instead of being regular deformed, the enemies in the Heavenly toys department have seemingly been forcefully fused together.

-This makes them slower and weaker, but they also have three times as much health now.

-Susie is referred to as “Twisted Alice” in the studio. This is because she doesn’t look like a more human-proportioned Alice Angel with a deformed face, but instead a mashup of Alice Angel and Miss Twisted.

-Looks like misery loves company.

-Instead of seeking ‘perfection’ Twisted Alice sends Wally and Henry to do tasks for her because she’s trying to make herself be one or the other, she doesn’t care which one she’ll end up as anymore but trying to be two (technically three) different people at once is really messing with her.

-The tasks she gives are still the same, instead of the swollen searcher task, that’s instead replaced with “Gather thick ink from the flooded level”.

-You know how the Projectionist is already scary?

-Imagine him with the ability to raise the dead.

-Like, Henry and Wally are in level 14 gathering severed hearts...

-And then an ear-splitting scream echoes through the area.

-And.

-Then.

-The.

-Fucking.

-Corpses.

-Of.

-The.

-Dead.

-Toons.

-Start.

-Rising.

-And.

-Attacking.

-Norman’s ‘I sees everythang’ tape is slightly altered to include more corpse puns.

-When all the chores are done, Twisted Alice does keep her word and lets Henry and Wally up.

-When they’re *this* close to seeing daylight again, *BAM!*

-The Elevator drops like a hot coal.

-Was it sabotaged? Was it just old and dangerous? Was this just bad luck? That’s up for interpretation depending on who you believe first.

-Boris is kidnapped by a much more Miss Twisted-looking Twisted Alice while the old men are out.

-Intentional murder to commit dog theft, or Miss Twisted being opportunistic?

-Giant cavern? Lame carnival minigames? Air vent maze? Nah, screw that, instead Bendyland gets some more rides.

-Fight off foes in the ferris wheel!

-Avoid killer bumper cars with running chainsaws attached to them while trying to get the haunted house’s power back on!

-Can’t forget Bertrum! In the fight, if he puts down all four of his arms and pushes down hard enough, he can actually walk around the room.

-Kinda like a giant mechanical spider with only four legs.

-This makes it harder to hit his weak points and makes it easy for him to fucking stampede over “Joey”, which is why he does it. But it takes a lot out of him, so he can’t do it for very long.

-And he can’t do it anymore if two or more of his arms are ripped off.

-The Projectionist’s section is the same but with more toon corpses around.

-And if you didn’t get caught in his light or touch the hearts, when Wally and Henry pile into the miracle station and The Projectionist is *just* about to open the door until getting interrupted, instead of screaming at the ink demon and getting into a fight, the Projectionist opens the door and fucking squeezes himself in there.

-Not very comfortable, but better than the alternative.

-Congrats to Henry and Wally, who graduated from ‘trespassing thieves’ to ‘weird but sorta okay flesh things who didn’t take my hearts again and let me in their safe territory in spite of me trying to kill them’.

-Boris actually can be saved.

-Did you give the dog a bone back at the safe house?

-Good, now give him three more.

-The Janitor and the Animator have no fucking clue why throwing bones at this deformed, beefed-up version of Boris managed to melt off the excess ink and junk, or why he can speak now, but they’re not going to look a gift wolf in the mouth.

-Did somebody say back-to-back boss battle?

-I did!

-Sadly, it’s kind of a short fight as it can range from ‘three on one and one of them is a fucking wizard (just because recoil is hell doesn’t mean it’ll stop Wally in dire situations)’ to ‘four on one and one of those four can bring back the dead by screaming’.

-Allison and Tom wrangle the team up and stick ‘em in the “guest room”.

-Tom chews Wally out for re-activating the ink machine, Wally can’t take him seriously when he’s that fucking small and sounds like a mechanical snob.

-It’s even funnier when the Projectionist has been befriended.

-Let him have his tiny camera-headed son back, Allison.

-The river boat chase is longer and there seems to be more than just one hand coming out of the ink.

-Wally swears he sees a bunch of teeth in the river while the hands are down.

-In the village, the group are immediately attacked by a swarm of deformed toons when they approach the boarded up hovel.

-They shout things like “STAY AWAY FROM THE PROPHET!” and stuff like that in their garbled voices.

-When all of them are gone, peering through the boards in the hovel the team approached in the first place reveals that Sammy is indeed in there, just staring off into space and muttering about something the team can’t quite make out.

-Breaking down the said boards might seem logical, but it triggers a brutal boss fight against him. That musical bastard is fast and hits like a freight train. Also psychic powers, you have to be the luckiest person in the world to win a fight against a man who sees your every move before you can even think of it.

-Just... leave him be... and focus on getting outta here.

-The administration maze is as annoying as ever thanks to not having any weapons and the maze itself being magically disabling.

-Beast Bendy gets some bigger legs to go with his giant torso and head.

-Now he’s even faster and more annoying!

-but can’t do shit against the team.

-Good Ending: getting the biggest team you can in game, breaking the machine and punching Joey in the face for doing ...that. It sucks that everything got this bad but at least you helped the others make it outta there.

-Neutral ending: “Come by the old workshop, there’s something I need to show you”

-Bad Ending of the ‘Bad end Wizard Wally Au’  (Worst possible ending): Henry and Wally have fully succumbed to the ink through a path of violence, evading death by the toons, and have fully lost themselves, they do not remember their lives and families before the ink anymore. And Joey couldn’t be more tickled pink! It’s a shame that making perfect demon toons is such a complicated process compared to making an object-headed toon, a ‘human’ toon, or an animalistic toon, but all the trouble was worth it as a trip through the machine later, Joey finally has the last two he needs: A Perfect Papa Pluto and a Perfect Bendy.

[libermachinae]

Drops in a Bucket, Splashes on the Ground

Also available on AO3! Tags: Mature, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Gen, Whirl (Transformers), Implied/Referenced Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Whirl is Primus AU, Angst, would you believe me if i said i didnt set out to write another angst fic, whirl's just like that Wordcount: 4202 Notes: I would highly recommend you read "Bullets" or at least be familiar with Whirl's abuse of Rotorstorm before reading this fic. The scene containing graphic violence begins with "Tacticians always struggle..." and the scene referencing abuse begins "He shoves his way..." Please feel free to reach out if you need any further information.

~*~

“And I guess old Primus makes five.”

“Hah! No, no, no. That’s not Primus… you’re Primus.”

~*~

 Whirl has never been intimidated before. Not so intentionally, not by bots whose forged bodies have been piled on with armor and weaponry, no expenses spared by the ganglords. The Heavies rolled up on treads that left gouges in the streets, painful marks that tomorrow’s taxes will go to fixing, and their transformations took a full five seconds as excess plating moved out of the way while their protoforms tried to bend per their original configurations. They wear identical red visors and dark gray masks: faces, certainly, but only in the barest sense of the word, enough to separate them from lowlifes without affording them identity. It is impossible to tell one from the other and Whirl knows, intrinsically, that it will not matter.

 ~*~

 Rung is the only one who doesn’t flinch. Whirl stands over Adaptus’ body, freshly relieved of what they can all agree was a spectacularly ugly head, and puts away his gun.

“Right,” he says, with a meaningful glance out the window. “Want to agree none of us heard that?”

“Whirl!” Rodimus shouts. “You can’t just kill a god!”

The body explodes into a pile of dust.

“Sure I can,” Whirl says, shaking it off his foot even as he leans down to inspect the scrapple. “Hey Ratch, can you rig me to explode next time I get shot?”

“Is it true?” Nautica asks, doing her intellect a massive disservice by stepping in front of the unhinged bot with a blaster.

“Obviously not,” Ratchet says. “He was lying.”

Whirl nods.

“Yeah. You think I would keep it a secret from any of you if I was a god? You think Cyclonus would ever hear the end of it? Nah.” He stands, kicking pile and sending a spray of metallic dust into the air. “Awesome way to go, though, can’t say I’m not jealous.”

“That doesn’t mean you had to kill him for it.”

“So, you’re not Primus?” Nautica asks. She hasn’t moved, her arms crossed in front of her. If Whirl had been her creator (and he isn’t, he already has his claws full with a nest of scraplets), he would have been pretty proud of her right now.

“Nope!” he says. “I’ve never vouched for the universe before, but that kind of joke would take on an extra level of cruel, don’t you think?”

“Got to agree with Whirl, here,” Rodimus says, a hand on Nautica’s shoulder drawing her back. “I could buy pretty much anyone else. Maybe not Rung, but, say, Velocity? She could be Primus. Or Roller. I guess not Megatron, since we saw him come online, but—”

“The point, Rodimus,” Ratchet deadpans.

“The point is, not Whirl,” Rodimus said, sweeping his hands up to gesture at him. “I get Primus is disappointed in us. We are a textbook example of why a race of sentient war machines should never be left to their own devices, combined with a case study on how to avoid learning from every mistake you’ve ever made. But I really don’t think that disappointment would translate to actively hunting us for sport. Isn’t Primus supposed to be all about forgiveness and loving your cellmate?”

“Right,” Whirl says, clacking his pincers together in his approximation of a snap. “An angry god is so cliché.”

“I don’t think anyone knows what Primus believed,” Rung says. Oh no. He’s taken off his glasses. “I don’t see any reason he couldn’t be Whirl.”

“How about we start where the part where gods don’t exist, and Whirl does?” Ratchet suggests.

“I… I am Solomus, though.”

The whole group turns to the offending voice. Whirl goes for his gun and Rodimus knocks it out of his hand, a stern finger silently telling him not to kill any more gods. As if being an ex-Matrix bearer gives him some sort of say.

Tyrest has not stopped touching his gaudy mantelpiece, poking at the holes. It wouldn’t be so disturbing, except he’s staring at Whirl while he does it.

“Primus, don’t you remember?” he asks.

“Hey, let’s watch the fragging language.”

“Adaptus wanted to send our creations to pointless war,” Tyrest goes on. “Violence for the sake of violence, conquests built on the backs of others. We fought him.” He steps forward and reaches for Whirl. “Together, we—”

Whirl jerks back with his claws extended out.

“I will cut your hand off, I swear to—I swear.”

He is saved from any more interrogation by the ground violently rumbling underneath them.

“Okay, so regardless of whatever’s Whirl’s deal is, we do still have at least one Primus to worry about,” Rodimus says, looking out the window at the approximation of what Whirl, personally, had always assumed god would look like. “Solomus, you still got your teleporting rigged up?”

 ~*~

 No one ever considered giving The Institute a waiting room, so Whirl stands to one side of the hallway while the butchers discuss his case. He knows his proposal intrigues them: they have never had an opportunity to shadowplay a willing subject before. What is there to learn from a brain that does not fight them every step of the way? What backdoors exist that every other victim kept hidden? Whirl does not care about the potential scientific advancements his offer provides. He just wants to stop dreaming of gears, lose the phantom aches of his fingers. He wants to look in a mirror and see nothing: not himself, not a monster. Just an object, fulfilling its purpose.

The scientists who walk by him in the halls stare. Everyone stares, but the look they give him is different. They do not find him exceptional, nor do they feel for him pity or contempt. He is no marvel. He is a creation, perfectly engineered to suit its purpose, every detail minded with care to ensure it all works together as an ideal mechanism. He wishes he could see himself through their eyes.

The door beside him slides open and a bot he has never seen before steps out. His helm comes up no higher than Whirl’s waist and his large yellow optics do not look up from his datapad.

“Whirl of Polyhex, the panel has elected to reject your petition,” he says. “I am to remind—”

“What?” Whirl startles; his new head shoots upward, forcing him into an angle that is both unnatural and instinctual. “Why? Ice Pick said he could—”

“I am to remind you that you have signed a nondisclosure agreement; failure to comply will result in penalty of death.” The little bot flares his plating, the click of a motor lock setting it in place. “You will now submit to full stasis and be escorted back to your home.”

The jack comes from behind.

 ~*~

 “This is my hab suite.”

Whirl knows the tonal difference between a bullet hitting living metal and a wall. He scowls and gives up, waving Cyclonus inside.

“My room’s a mess,” he says. “Think I’m gonna crash here for a while.”

Cyclonus comes in and sits beside Whirl on the berth. When the door slides shut, they are visible only by their biolights: Whirl closed the shutters when he came in, the stars too much like blinking numbers. Cyclonus is a surprisingly quiet machine. His presence comes with none of the usual hisses and clicks one would normally get with their kind, like each component was designed specifically to work with those around it. Compared to Whirl, whose body is a wreck of pieces that almost fit together, clinking and scraping through their standard functions, he practically doesn’t exist.

“This is slagged, huh?” Whirl asks.

Cyclonus thinks on it a moment, then there is a shift of plating as he nods. Is it an admission, a confession? Pri—frag, Whirl doesn’t want to have to start thinking about that.

“Sorry,” he says.

“You don’t need to—”

“Scrap, you’re right. What am I doing?” Whirl laughs. “I’m infallible now, right? It’s all been part of my grand plan for Cybertron. I should be saying you’re welcome; you should be thanking me.”

Cyclonus sighs, a rush of air out his vents.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asks.

Whirl pokes and pinches at his own plating, trying to make sense of it.

“Yeah,” he says. “Start praying, and keep Megatron far away from me.”

 ~*~

 He’s spent two days in the holding cell before he realizes no one else is coming for him.

That Orion Pax… he’s good, and Whirl’s not sure whether it’s the kind that gets people hired or gets people killed. Not that it matters, not that he cares. The Senate’s going to crush all of them one by one, like little cans of oil under a rolling tank. He thought being a tread would come with some measure of relief; instead, it just landed him in a hole.

He digs a claw tip into the wall, another score among a small collection. He has been trying to reconstruct the miner’s face, what it looked like in the split second between recognizing he had been struck and realizing there was more to come. He can’t relish a memory if he can’t keep it, and he’s already struggling well enough to accomplish the former. This assignment was supposed to be a release. Look down at the big thinker and imagine in his place Senator Proteus, Sentinel Prime, the faceless Functionist Council. Tell himself that this is what it would feel like to rip their plating open until their priceless energon spilled onto a dirty floor.

The face, though, it’s escaping him. How can he fell anything about a person with no face? What relief is there to be found in beating the slag out of a nobody? He is trying so hard to adapt, but it’s like his processor is working against him, reminding him how far he got before he was reeled back in. The silhouette of his sketch is familiar.

His claws hurt where he has worn the tip blunt, and the portrait is still incomplete.

 ~*~

 “I don’t make Matrixes,” he insists. The group was polite enough to knock once they found him, but they’re failing to pick up the hint that he wants all of them to go away, right now, and leave him alone forever.

“Well, Epistemus says you can,” Rodimus says, dentae blocked together. “Why do all the other gods have their memories back, but not you?”

“I dunno, maybe Needles can stick me and figure it out.”

It’s almost cute, the way Rewind steps protectively in front of Chromedome.

“Rodimus,” Rung says, trying to get between them, “this isn’t helping.”

“Thank you,” Whirl says. “Now can we get to the part where we storm the planet, guns a-blazin’?”

“That won’t help either.” Rung turns to look at him. “Your memories haven’t been deleted, Whirl. Somehow, there should still be some part of you that remembers creating the Matrix.”

“The Functionists probably took it out,” Whirl says.

“That’s not how mnemosurgery works.”

“Says the dropout.”

“You told me once about your earliest memory,” Rung says. Whirl should be furious that he’s doing this here, in front of people who have no business knowing what’s in his head, but he’s more interested in the way Rung has taken off his glasses and is squinting up at him. “What happened just before it?”

They did not bring Ratchet, a testament to the fact that they will not leave before he gives them answers. He could start lying again, or find another way to forgo the question, but something about Cyclonus’ presence at his back helps him settle down the compulsion. Everybody lies about their forging. Everybody wants to say it was overseen by the Prime, or that they settled into their form like resin poured into a mold, instant and perfect. Whirl has a set of seven stories he deploys on rotation, ranging from heroic to beautifully tragic, and he spends a moment picking through them, trying to remember which was the real one.

“I showed up at the Functionsts’ place to get my docs in order,” he says. “I was… I was trying to get Polyhexian citizenship.” Awful city, but he had always sworn the energon tasted better there than anywhere else.

“But you said you were forged in Polyhex,” Rung says.

“Yeah. It was easier that way.” Whirl puts a claw to his head. “I… augh, nope. No, this is stupid.”

“Whirl—”

“No, I’m done,” he says, pushing Rung away. “Fully done, Rung. That’s right. You were god’s therapist, and he fired you. I’m gonna go take out a planet.”

 ~*~

 Tacticians always struggle with where to put Whirl on a battlefield. On the one hand, he’s an attack helicopter, equipped with long-range cannons and advanced aiming modules. Keeping him in the sky is the perfect way to set up a terrible surprise for Cons on the ground. On the other, he’s Whirl, and facing him head-on can be just as chilling and or fatal.

In the end it rarely matters which call they make because, as stated before, he’s Whirl. He will do whatever he damn well feels like. Right now, that means skimming over the top of the battlefield, sights trained on the odd dot who tries to disgorge themselves from the fighting mass. He is supposed to be providing support to the ground troops, peppering the Decepticon line so they can break through, but no one is going to complain about a few more dead soldiers.

A truck breaks free and he pitches down, giving chase, machine guns firing before he’s got a lock on. The ground explodes in shrapnel as they try to serpentine out of the way, but he keeps firing and soon enough their paths cross.

He riddles them. Their roof is already a puckered, punctured mass of warped metal before their back tires blow and they go skidding and flip onto their side. Their plating shuffles, uncoordinated, as they try to transform, and Whirl goes for the underbelly, shattering the exposed protoform in a burst of pink energon. They slump with their legs disengaged. There is a buzzing, crunching noise as the dying t-cog tries to settle into either mode, then a jet of smoke erupts from the body. The engine has seized, locking it in a permanent limbo.

Whirl spins around to track down his next prey. He loves his job. The Autobots have a need, and he fills it with a gusto that only occasionally gets him in trouble. He’s no hitmech: he lacks the finesse, the style. But he can rain irreverent murder down from the sky, send Cons fleeing just long enough to make them think they had a chance, and he can do it without questioning an order. The war needs people like him.

Two soldiers are trying to escape together, one with their arm over the other’s shoulder, a sparkling stump of a leg between them. Whirl gets low, following them until the roar of his rotors is unmistakable, until they cannot help but turn and he sees their optics. Then he fires.

The wounded one falls first, knocked onto their front and grasping uselessly until their hand is blown off and they go still. The other gets their legs knocked off and goes spinning, landing on their head with a crunch. Whirl keeps advancing, keeps firing, tearing open their plating and reducing their inner working to molten slag, spattering the ground with used energon. They flop, over and over, until Whirl gets bored of the show and hauls off, leaving them almost indistinguishable from the carnage of the land itself.

Whirl hovers over the fighting and looks down while he scans for a target. This high up, visuals are useless for determining Bots from Cons. Little Cybertronians run around, whacking and shooting at each other, falling down, down, down. The metal under their pedes is slippery pink with energon. It splashes against their plating, over their insignias, until they are all just little wandering targets.

Whirl has his job, and he loves it, and he does it well.

 ~*~

 He should feel something, but his spark is a void as he tosses the rest of the guns into the shuttle, all the stuff he held off using because he wasn’t ready to get kicked off the ship. He is not coming back from this. He knows it, so better to take it all.

He’s just fastened the locker when he hears the footsteps on the hatch and looks up. It’s Tailgate, of course. Tailgate, who has a pack hanging from one shoulder and a gun holstered at his side. It’s a shrimpy thing, something Cyclonus taught him to shoot in case they ever got separated, more useful for making noise than taking down an aggressor. It has room for one round of ammo and Whirl doubts he brought a bullet more.

He comes aboard without saying anything and stops beside world, continuing to say nothing. The hand on his pack is clenching: he’s being brave. He’s also waiting for some grand speech, some sacred insight to the nature of their quest and their places in the universe. Well, tough. He should know Whirl better than Primus.

He lifts a claw to shove Tailgate backward and down the hatch, but it stops an inch before Tailgate’s plating. What does it matter? Cyclonus can’t kill him where he’s going and Tailgate himself is just a drop in the bucket. Standing there with his chest puffed out, optic band steely and focused, he looks like any other Cybertronian, never mind a few years left behind.

Whirl retracts his claw. Tailgate nods at him.

Another drop in the bucket.

 ~*~

 He shoves his way to the front row, slamming himself into his chosen seat just ahead of a little spy plane who had been angling for the same spot.

“Buzz off,” he says. Never mind the spy plane outranks him. This is his big day! He got here early so he could get this seat, right in front, though he can barely hold it as the audience fills in around him, so many Bots he does not know and who do not matter. The only one he cares about it up on the stage, smiling with an air of detached cooperation, off in his own head again like he always was. Whirl thought they had made progress on that, but some habits were just too hard to break.

The opening speech is long and predictably boring, lots of talk about this base he has never been on before. Whirl’s engine clicks in agitation. When bots give him dirty looks, he sneers.

“Chronic fanbelt lockup, ever heard of it?” he hisses at them, adding in a few extra ticks for good measure. They go back to minding their own business, but Whirl still catches the optics glancing at him, and his engine goes from annoyed click to angry hum. He knows what they see.

Luckily, the speaker eventually gets over himself and moves on.

“Rotorstorm, will you please step forward?”

Whirl is on his feet before the other copter has a chance to rise, his cheering rising well above the swell of the crowd. He shouts, he stomps his feet, and he bangs his claws together until the bots on either side of him wince, and he gets even louder when he knows Rotorstorm has noticed him.

“Go on, get up there!” he shouts. “You earned this, didn’t you?” The rest of the crowd has calmed down, but he stays standing, arms dropped to his sides. He stares at Rotorstorm as he crosses the stage, shoulders pressed back, each step placed so precisely in front of the last that it must be calculated. He waits until Rotorstorm has reached the edge to sit back down, and then still his optic is pointed, refusing to let Rotorstorm look anywhere else. Rotorstorm’s own optics are wide, though the rest of his expression is slack. His biolights are steady, his ventilations manual and even. He’s perfect.

“Rotorstorm,” the presenter says, “I hope you will forgive us; this is an honor that is long overdue. During the Simanzi Massacre, you singlehandedly scouted a pass through Mount Helix that allowed for the rapid evacuation of the 9th Battalion. Your commanding officers estimate that your decisive actions saved upwards of one thousand Autobot lives.” Whirl’s engine is silent. He’s drinking in every word. “Today, we present you with the Novic Medal for Outstanding Honor. ‘Til all are one.” Rotorstorm ducks his helm as the award is magnetized to the right of his cockpit, finally breaking his optic contact with Whirl.

“’Til all are one,” he repeats, though most of the crowd does not hear him over Whirl’s cheers.

Rotorstorm turns without looking up and returns to his seat. The next recipient is called forward and Whirl walks out.

 ~*~

 He can’t do it. He’ll blame it on the way Tailgate’s plating quietly rattles or Cyclonus’ entire personality as he starts to board, but he shuts off the shuttle’s engine and disembarks with them trailing behind. He retreats to his hab suite, and though he does not invite them he’s glad when they make it inside before the door closes.

“Nobody in the mutiny is allowed to have any of my stuff. I don’t care if Thunderclash is dying again and my innermost energon is the only compatible fuel in the galactic sector, he can’t have it.”

Tailgate nods along, his fingers in a death grip around Whirl’s pincer.

“And when you guys are talking about me later, no one call me anything but Whirl. I’m serious. I don’t know about anything I did before that, so what could it matter?” He looks up at the ceiling. “In fact, don’t tell anyone about the Primus thing. No point.”

Cyclonus is a solid, immobile presence on his other side.

“Am I forgetting anything? Oh, tell Roadbuster I’ll be waiting for him in the pit.”

“Do gods go to the Afterspark?” It’s not clear who Tailgate is asking.

“I definitely don’t plan to stick around and watch over you or whatever. Think I’ve had enough of this universe.” He chuckles, a strained sound. “Yeah. So, that’s it. Better get this show on the road, huh?”

“We’ll be with you the entire time,” Tailgate promises.

“For as long as you want us,” Cyclonus amends.

“Yeah, I know.” He shrugs, laughs again. “I’m not even really scared of the whole dying thing. I’d made peace with that. Whenever there was something I needed to do, I took care of it, so I wouldn’t have to worry about it if the right bullet finally found its mark.” He glances between them. “Now, though… you two better behave, I swear. I’m making it your Primus-sworn duty to take care of and listen to each other, okay?”

Cyclonus nods, and the way he takes it so seriously makes Whirl almost glad he’s on his way out. He couldn’t handle being looked at like that all the time, and especially it’s the way they reach across his lap and entwine their hands that really does him in. He hates them dearly.

“Okay,” he says, winding up his t-cog for the big spin. “Okay, twelve Matrixes. No problem.”

 ~*~

 Whirl times the blinking numbers to the rotations of his spark. 1,600 exactly. He’s done it.

He leans back in his chair but cannot stop staring at the little device in his hands. It is perfect. After years of researching, studying, trying, and failing, the pieces have come together to allow him to create this one perfect thing. He loves it, and a dangerous feeling of pride fills his spark, the kind that has so long been missing from his work in the Aerial Corps. If there is a Primus (and he’s still not sure, whatever the Functionists insist), this is what he built Whirl to do.

He gets up from his desk and walks across his small living space to a shelf. Nearing capacity, it has just enough room for him to push a few previous attempts aside to make room for the latest version. Surrounded by its brethren, it becomes lost almost immediately amid the sea of blinking lights, indistinguishable even from those he considers lesser. Some defects are more obvious than others: one has sat at the same time since the moment he brought it online, while another counts one klik backward for every two forward. But most are just slightly imperfect, necessary steps to get to this point, and he loves them all dearly.

He stands back. It feels like the work of a lifetime, these clocks, though he knows he took up the pursuit relatively recently. It’s just hard to remember how he filled his time before he had this project to work on, and he is again grateful he discovered it at all.

It is a gift to be able to create, he thinks, to cast a broad eye over his creations. The numbers blink at him, all out of tune, and he lets himself imagine being content doing just this for the rest of his life.

[naturallysuperbullshit]

S3 E12: Jus in Bello

First || Previous || Next

Apparently "jus in bello" means "the law in waging war" .......yikes

Oh Monument, CO! Finally using a real place in Colorado, third times the charm I guess

I know I say this every time but I LOVE Bela

Oooooh shit Henrickson!!!!!! Nice

Henrickson has fed privilege as evidenced by being pissed that the local cops total six (6) people and one (1) assistant. Monument probably has a few more than that IRL but uh yeah not far off I'd imagine

"Think Hannibal Lector and his half-wit little brother" I can picture Sam's bitchface if he heard that one lmao

"We're not the ones you should be scared of, Nancy." Yeah that's not something non-threatening people say, Dean

NDHSJDJSHSHD I PAUSED ON THE CLOSE-UP OF THEIR WANTED POSTERS AND ONE OF DEAN'S LISTED ALIASES IS "DONALD STRUMP"

Oh wait shit i think this is the episode where Henrickson dies oh no

Okay unless that chopper was coming from Colorado Springs, a hell of a lot more time passed than what they implied. Also, they're taking a chopper from Monument all the way to Nevada? They're really planning on doing a fuel stop with two prisoners on board that have already proven to be incredibly good at escaping impossible situations???? Idk where the supermax is supposed to be but unless it's literally at the CO/NV border, they're probably gonna have to stop for fuel at least once. Especially since they can't refuel in Monument!

Holy shit bro what the hell!!!! Fucking demons i s2g

At least Sam memorized the exorcism at this point

The demons said "fuck blue lives" and i can respect that at least

"Henrickson! Four of my men!" Yeah I'd cut this guy some slack bc that's 80% of his force lmao

Did they ever patch up Dean's shoulder or is he still just bleeding out in the cell

I will give the show a small nod of acknowledgement for having Henrickson remain calm and take charge during this, as the sole black person. A nice change from other episodes (im thinking specifically of "The Magnificent Seven"). However that doesn't make up for the shitty way the writers have treated their BIPOC characters in the past, and the future.

Oh good they did give Sam some bandages for Dean

Nancy is so sweet and I know Sam had a reason but that doesn't mean i gotta like him tricking and grabbing her like that like a DICK

"Its like they're coming right for us. They've never done that before." Yes they have. Azazel and his roadies came after you guys multiple times. So did Meg. The Seven rolled around to fuck y'all up in the first episode of this season. This isn't new Dean.

"There's a SWAT facility in Boulder" yeah and that's like 3 hours north of you, not right around the corner

Woof poor Henrickson. Terrible way to find out that demons exist.

Not the time Dean

Hey since when do the demon smoke clouds contain blue lightning

So they covered all the doors and windows with salt lines but iirc in the plane crash episode, where demons were introduced, that demon used the air vents. So why don't these demons, in their smoke forms, slip through the vents from the roof access?

YOU DIDNT HAND OUT THE ANTIPOSSESSION CHARMS FIRST THING???? YOU HAD TIME WHILE THE DEMONS WERE CASING THE BUILDING DEAN

Oh the tats are finally canonized nice

Wow they really possessed the whole population of Monument huh

Deputy no

Man I bet Henrickson would have made a fine hunter. But I'm pretty sure he dies after this :(

"I think the world's gonna end bloody. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't fight." Another for the tagline list!

Oh shit Ruby!

Dean you can't get angry at Sam for keeping secrets when you are also keeping secrets from Sam. Unless you came clean at some point about how there's no way to break your deal and that being in the Pit will turn you into a demon eventually. But I doubt it.

Dean don't make it weird. Stop questioning Nancy about her sex life.

I can't see shit with all these jumpcuts and shaky cams - I understand it's for the "feeling" of being in a fight but can we PLEASE get a coherant image of what's happening please

NANCY IS FUCKING SAVAGE HSJDJSJJSJDJDJS

So they covered one door and like.... Two windows. Great. Really helpful guys.

Oh okay they are coving the rest of the exits that's good

Pretty sure Sam and Dean should have been released when the demon was forced out of the vessel but whatever

Does this count towards the boys' death counts? It's official after all lmao

O h n o L i l i t h

"One's really tall, and one's really cute" hsjsjsjsjjshs

....yeah goodbye Henrickson and Nancy and Deputy :(

"Jus in Bello" final thoughts: honestly I didn't remember this episode being this good. There's a few technical details that irk me, but overall it's solid. And I guess it sort of wraps up the issue of Sam and Dean being wanted for murder for the time being.

[ambistep]

Slipping the Collar, p1

An asset finds new appreciation for air conditioning. A plan is formed. Swimming, shopping and other diversions.

~1800 words, head canon with retribution spoilers. cw for blood, pain, a bit of gore, implied assault

~

It had started slowly, with a single realization - every day, at the same time, the pressure lifted from her head, a moment of clarity - and a little scratching sensation at the top of her spine. When she learned to expect it, she focused on that sensation - and discovered they were thoughts. ‘What am I going to do for dinner?’ ‘I need a new job.’ ‘Did I lock the door?’ The orderlies, the technicians. Her handlers.

That moment became an obsession, a pinpoint of light. It was all she could think about - the obsessing was itself an escape from the training, the drilling, the discipline. The brutality. The moment happened not once a day, but four times, she discovered. It had to be something to do with the air conditioning - the units kicking on drew too much power and the facility’s dampeners had to cycle over, taking a moment to come back online. That was her theory.

With enough days passing, she decided the phenomenon was reliable. And that was when she began to plan. Every cycle was another opportunity to skim thoughts of the staff, better yet when the cycles coincided with her training or examinations - her ‘dates’ with one of the handlers, then she’d get a chance to sort through their thoughts - more valuable than the others.

It was slow work. Some days, there was nothing helpful gleaned - but that hardly meant it wasn’t worthwhile. It was something to hold on to - a secret power she had that they did not know. It gave her strength, and that changed everything. When she was punished, threatened, when she obeyed, when she pretended not to think, to be a doll for them, when she was called to submit and… all the worse things - she could retreat to that hidden place, where she had something they didn’t know about, one ounce of her that was the tiniest bit free.

All she had to do was wait, and plan. And wait, and plan. And wait, and plan. 

And then, one day, her patience was rewarded. She’d been in the midst of a preparatory examination preceding an assignment, with the silver-haired ruddy-faced doctor - Simmons?  right, Simmons with the roaming hands that were just a bit too warm and that far-from friendly smile. She’d separated her mind from body, trying to stay far away from the moment, a tactic for preservation, when the moment came. There was a thunk from the vent as the power cycled over.  

Her expression stayed mute, neutral - a faint smile, a doll’s smile - but her heart beat faster. 

Right there on the front of his mind, was everything she wanted. The thing she’d been waiting for. The medical charts for her own body, notes of the surgical procedures, and there. The countermeasures. The safeties. Precious knowledge. 

And that was all she needed - the last information for the plan. There’d been no joy then - only fear, worry that somehow they’d know. They’d see her pupils change size, or her eyebrow twitch, and they’d read her and they’d know all about her plan. They’d know what a fool she was, to think she could keep anything hidden. And then she’d be recycled, or worse.

But the doctor had no idea what he’d given her - he’d only furrowed his brow a moment, no sign he knew she’d reached inside his mind, pressing past his boundaries as he’d done to her. He resumed the examinations, his fond little invasions, and she suffered his ministrations - for the last time, she promised herself. But she’d endured then because she knew - knew how the collar could be slipped.

~

The Los Diablos ‘river’ is typically more of a drainage flow than a river, but on tonight, the downpour had helped it live up to its name. Just past the Sixth Street Bridge, a pallid hand bursts to the water’s surface and clings to the steps etched into the concrete. Some sort of creature emerges - shambling, staggering, coughing up water. It stops to gather itself - but only just a moment.

They would be coming, and the time til then was being measured in minutes.

Right now, there is probably uncertainty, cursing in some bland office - a flaxen haired bureaucrat biting at her nail, like she did when she was weighing possibilities. Did she think the mission had failed? That her precious asset had been injured - possibly killed? Unlikely that she suspects the truth - this asset had always been among her best behaved, unflaggingly obedient. That good behavior buys the asset uncertainty, and that uncertainty buys time now.

Taking the drainage flow had moved her a good distance through the city, making it hard to track, and left the nature of her struggle with the target that much more ambiguous. The weather was not part of the plan, merely good luck - it would slow response, muddle the tracks, she hoped. Everything else though, that was all part of the plan - the first part.

She pushes to her feet and scrambles up the slope of the reservoir, pulling herself over a chain-link fence and onto the surface street. There’s no pause, not even a second - the asset slams through the doors to the convenience store, greeted by bright lights and the clerk yelling, shouting. 

“What the fuck?! You gonna drip all over the floor? Oh, come on!” There’s no response, just frantic energy from the figure that is now tearing through his shelves, feral and panicked. “Junkies. I swear, I’m calling the cops now - get the fuck out of my store, put that down!” He’s got the phone in his hand when the person looks up, their scared dark eyes meeting his. Young. A kid. Clutching vodka and a swiss army knife, a few other oddities. The panic sets in again and the figure sprints out of the store.

He puts down the phone. A kid shoplifter - the police won’t care, both of them know it. But someone else cares right now.

Are they angry? Worried? The asset has to wonder. Had they already activated a secondary asset, or an agent on standby, to investigate? The hunched figure stuffs their burgundy hoodie with their stolen goods, glancing about the streets for the telltale black SUV, or any other vehicle out of place - but at this hour, in this weather, there’s no one at all. Bad - that means one lone figure on the street is that much more suspicious. 

Ducking into an alley, the asset sneaks under a busted fence, around the back of a church, finding shelter in the stairwell that leads to the rear entrance. There’s a light on the outside of the building here, and an overhang giving shelter from the rain - ideal. The sort of spot the plan had called for.

She collapses gracelessly into the corner of the stairwell, hurriedly unloading her supplies. The pain in that government-owned body, the scratches and bruises, is all starting to set in as adrenaline wanes out of the system. A reminder that time had passed, that time is passing, and someone would be coming. 

Tearing into the wipes with her teeth and a frustrated snarl, her hands work to spin the cap off the vodka. Wrestling with her foot, she pulls her shin into place and rolls up the sopping wet leg of her jeans. Quickly, she wipes down her skin, flicks the blade out of the multi-purpose knife and plucks the tweezers out - holding them in her teeth. She knew what to look for - that had been the prize, the secret knowledge that made the plan work. She knew just where to find what she needed - but knowing and doing are different things, something the asset can only fully appreciate now. The hope is that the pre-mission cocktail of drugs was still dulling her pain sensations. No way but forward.

Stick to the plan.

With a grunt and gasp, she buries the petite little blade of the pocket knife into her flesh, blood welling up around the wound. It isn’t as sharp as she’d hoped - in the plan, this part had been much simpler. The cut becomes more like hurried digging, and the stairwell echoes with the choked sobs and whimpers, the angry grunts of the asset. There’s no time for delicacy - they are coming and she is bleeding. 

There. Something hard, not bone. Hard to even notice it floating free in the muscle, blood and mess - unless one knew it was there. The tiny tweezers are surprisingly helpful for feeling through the wound, plucking out her objective.  Her hands, slick with blood, hold it out into the orange sodium light of the stairwell. She sputters, gasping for air, blinking her eyes to chase back the pain, trying to see what her efforts had found.

An innocent-seeming thing but as surely lethal as any bullet. A grey, ridged little plastic capsule - one piece of her collar - an RF tracker. Burning bile creeps up through her throat - either from beholding this thing or more likely because of the massive, hot swell of pain throbbing in her leg. 

Smashing it is the first thought - but it’s small, surprisingly durable. There was no part in the plan for this - but she does manage to pierce it’s case, tear it apart with the knife. Plucking the battery free, the husk gets tossed into a drainpipe. 

The asset wipes down her hands as best she can, cleaning her shin free of the copious blood - pouring the vodka over the site for good measure. The sting doesn’t even phase her at this point. The little box of band-aids she’d taken from the store is pathetically inadequate. Stripping off her wet sock and cutting it lengthwise, she ties it about her leg - not part of the plan, but she’d been trained to improvise too.

Against all the warnings in her mind, she takes a rest - just for a moment. It is a weakness, a mistake. It isn’t part of the plan, but she needs it so badly. 

And the moment is passed - she climbs to stand, gingerly testing her weight on her injured leg before reaching down to pull the bloodied jeans back down.

She had to move, find another spot - she didn’t know the specifics of that tracker - maybe they already followed it to this area. And she had one more device to remove, anyway. A second date with the knife. Reflexively, the asset rubs the back of her neck, already steeling herself. 

The Memorial park was nearby - big enough to get lost in. The asset didn’t need light for the second surgery - nothing for her to look at. Swallowing the pain, the figure hunches over, pulls up her hood and hobbles away from the church. 

Time is passing. They’re coming. And there are still steps left in the plan.

[emperorsfoot]

Entrapta is escaping. Micah thinks he’s helping. 

Adora and Bow are escaping. Dak is actually a big help. 

...

Using her hair to cut her one meal of the day into tinier pieces, Entrapta listened for the guard’s footsteps to disappear from her cell block. Chewing one tiny piece, she counted to ten after the corridor went silent before sliding her tray out of the way and laying down on the floor in its place. Her hair once again slithered out through the slit at ground level to continue her attempts at guessing the four digit code to unlock her cell.

Cycling through all the 10,000 possible numerical combinations that could unlock her door.

Entrapta was over halfway through the sixes now. 6660… 6661… 6662… She would go through all ten thousand if she had to. Entrapta was very good at taking things in stride. She was just fine living in the vents of the Fright Zone for three days. Sleeping in tight spaces, trying to move unseen, stealing food from empty rooms, using the toilets when she was sure they were empty. Entrapta was not a delicate and ‘wilting flower’ princess.

But there was a limit to how much filth and discomfort she could take. The Horde prison compound on Beast Island had found her line. Then crossed it.

She was ready to leave now.

And since it seemed Hordak had written her off and abandoned her, just like Adora had, and just like Catra had, she would just have to rescue herself.

6669… 6670… 6671-

There was a CLICK and her door creaked open, swinging slowly on its hinges.

Entrapta lifted herself up off the floor, walking on her hair instead of her feet. She very carefully closed her cell door behind her and locked it back to give the illusion that she was still inside. After all, no alarms were triggered. How would anyone know she wasn’t in her cell anymore.

Then she caught the number printed on the metal door. Six-six-seven-one. The number of the cell was the code used to open it. Not what she would have gone with. Certainly not as secure as some other codes, but then if the prisoners on the inside couldn’t see the number, or couldn’t reach the keypad on the outside there was no need to go overboard on the security. They weren’t in Dryl. This wasn’t the Crypto Castle. This place wasn’t designed by Queen Ensnarea.

Entrapta looked to the cell next to hers. The one that held the nice guy who encouraged her coping mechanisms and defended her process to the other prisoners. She looked at the number on his cell, then typed it into the keypad on his door. It, likewise, swung open slowly on its hinges. She pulled it the rest of the way open with her hair. Suspended in the doorway, the silhouette of a female figure surrounded by almost spider-legs of hair.

“Hi. You wanna escape?” She asked.

The man looked up.

Raising his head, dark eyes stared up at her through a curtain of equally dark hair. “You- you’re the new Princess? How’d you get out?”

He lifted his hands and tried to brush his hair out of his face. Unlike Entrapta, his hands were bound. The wrists locked together in a wooden plank.

“Are you asking me about my process?” She asked. “Well, the last place I was staying I got around by the air vents mostly, but this place doesn’t have ventilation, so I had to improvise. The first hurdle was figuring out what kind of locks they used for security. I was hoping for analogue key-and-tumbler locks because those are fast and easy to pick. But it turns out here they use digital locks that require a numerical code. There’s a finite number of possible combinations for the key-code, so it was just a matter of cycling through the possibilities until I found the correct one.”

The man just continued to stare at her.

His scrutiny began to make Entrapta feel uncomfortable, and she lowered her welding mask over her face. “You weren’t really asking me about my process. I’ve learned that when people ask me about my experiments, theories, or processes, they aren’t actually interested in learning about me.” Entrapta turned to leave him. “I won’t bother you. Doors open now, you can escape if you want. If not, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t raise the alarm.”

The man stood up, shaking his long dark hair out of his face. “No, wait! I was just- surprised.” He tried to explain. Then held out his hands. “The lock on my cuff is an analogue key-and-tumbler lock.”

She paused in the doorframe. Looked back. Entrapta was getting used to people just using her for the things she could do by this point. ‘Lasting friendships’ were not a luxury she could enjoy. But as long as she was useful to someone, she’d always have temporary friends. That was something, right?

Lowering herself down onto her feet, Entrapta entered the cell to make her newest temporary friend.

Tendrils of hair slithered into the lock on his wooden cuff. Turning each of the tumblers until they lined up like the crenulations of a key. There was a soft CLICK, and the lock fell open. The man twisted his wrists and flexed his hands and the wooden cuff fell away.

“Thank you.”

“It was easy.” She answered honestly.

“I’m Micah.” He informed her, a bit of a pause after the name as if he were significant. As if Entrapta was supposed to instantly recognize who he was and gasp with shock and awe. He was a significant General and hero of the original Princess Alliance and first attempt at rebellion. Plenty of new prisoners that came in responded to his name with almost reverent disbelief. To the outside world, King Micah of Brightmoon was dead. A martyred hero.

She did not react, however. She just nodded back. “I’m Entrapta.”

Then left the cell. Walking on her hair again because it was quieter than her shoes.

“Wait!” Micah followed after her.

“You should probably keep your voice down.” Entrapta informed him, not bothering to regulate her own volume. “The acoustics in here cause sound to travel more efficiently than the architecture implies.”

Then because that was true, and it was something she had been wondering about herself, she paused to really examine the stone of the walls. The corridor was much cleaner than the inside of her cell had been and Entrapta lifted her welding mask to get a better look at it. Smooth, almost flawless, and with an odd shine to it. In fact, out here in the corridor, it didn’t look much like stone at all. Not something that was cut from the earth. Dryl was a mining Queendom, Entrapta knew what cut earth looked like (in all its forms). No, this was artificial. Manufactured. But not metal.

“Fascinating.” She muttered to the wall, eyes sparkling with the realization that there was something new to learn about and understand. Even here, on Beast Island, in a Horde prison that might as well be a gulag, Princess Entrapta could find things that catered to her passions.

Behind her, Micah cleared his throat. “Ahm. We were escaping?”

“Oh. Right.” For a half of a moment, Entrapta had honestly forgotten that she was in danger. “You can go ahead and go.”

There was a pause in which Micah just stared at her. Partially disbelieving, partially assessing, all concerned. He almost looked like a parent that had found someone else’s child lost and alone in a dangerous situation.

“No…” He said slowly. If she was the Princess Entrapta from Dryl, daughter of Queen Ensnarea, then she was not a child, she was very much an adult. But there was just something about her, something… atypical, that made Micah feel like she had to be looked after like a child. Or, at the very least, not left alone without supervision. Certainly, not abandoned in a narrow corridor of an enemy prison. Micah reached out and grabbed her by the hand. “We’ll go together!”

Entrapta only sighed. Great. Another temporary friend that was just sticking with her because she had talents they could use, and was pulling her away from more interesting things under reasoning of ‘necessity’. If this was what ‘friendship’ truly was –and her experience was beginning to support that hypothesis- then maybe Entrapta didn’t need friends after all.

And yet, she allowed herself to be pulled along anyway.

They turned a corner, and came face-to-faceplated-helmet with the first guard encounter of their escape.

All three of them froze. In shock, and equal parts not knowing what to do. No one had ever escaped Beast Island before. The there was no president for this. The guard had no training for this! Entrapta had been hoping to not have to encounter any guards until she was out. She was not a fighter and the narrow corridors didn’t have ventilation shafts for her to slip into to avoid running into guards. Micah was several years out of practice fighting the Horde. He was older than he used to be, his reflexes not as quick. He hesitated.

Entrapta was the first to recover.

“Hey, so, this place doesn’t look like standard Horde construction.” She announced, gesturing with her hair at the walls and ceiling. “I spent a lot of time in the Fright Zone, so I’m very familiar with Horde construction. Did you find this place instead? Refurbish and repurpose an older structure? The acoustics are very interesting. Not how one expects sound waves to usually travel. This place is almost like an amplifier!”

The guard was the second to recover. They raised either weapon at the pair of escaped prisoners. “Don’t move!”

That was when Micah finally reacted.

Maybe it was the lavender hair, or maybe it was her youthful and child-like air, but Entrapta reminded Micah of his own daughter (a child he hadn’t seen since she was a toddler and had no concept of her current personality). Seeing a Horde soldier point a gun at her triggered a primal and paternal instinct in him to protect her.

Moving his arms in quick, angular motions, Micah traced a design in the air. Lines of glowing blue power forming where his hands traveled, forming a magic sigil. With his palm flat-forward in the center, he sent the sigil wafting at the guard whom winced expecting injury or pain.

There was no injury of pain. The guard just stopped. Immobile. Frozen in place. Not frozen like ice-frozen, frozen like a living statue frozen.

“Oh, shoot!” Said Micah, inexplicably feeling remorse for the move. “I only meant to stop their weapon, not their body.” Then a terrifying idea occurred to him. “Shoot! I hope I didn’t stop their heart!”

He had been out of practice with his magic for easily over a decade. With his hands bound he could not continue to practice in his cell. One needed the full range of motion of their arms to draw the magic sigils.

Entrapta, however, seemed not to be quite so bothered by the possibility that her escape companion might have just killed the guard. She crept up to the still-standing body on her hair, curling herself around it to get a look from all angles. “Fascinating.”

Entrapta never really studied magic. She found that it did not adhere to strict rules like everything else in the natural world seemed to. She was sure it must have rules, of course. Otherwise, how could magic be taught as a discipline? But the rules of magic that she did know seemed arbitrary to her. Any results she received from her –admittedly limited- study of magic were equally as arbitrary and inconsistent. In short, magic was nonsense.

Still, examining the immobile guard, she had to admit. Magic was nonsense that yielded tangible results.

Micah drew a different sigil in the air and threw the new one at the frozen guard as well. The body collapsed to the ground.

“Aw.” Entrapta hadn’t finished her examination.

Micah knelt next to the body, slipping two fingers in the gap between the collar of their armor and the base of their helmet. Feeling for the artery in the neck to check their pulse. They were still alive. His first action upon escape was not to end the life of another sentient, living being. Micah stood.

“Let’s go!” He once again grabbed Entrapta by the arm and pulled her down the corridor. “We need to get to the harbor!”

She had no idea where the harbor was. Entrapta had been unconscious when she was brought in.

With no better ideas, she allowed herself to be lead through corridors and down hallways by the old sorcerer. Only pausing when she saw something of interest. Usually something that did not seem to belong in a Horde structure. Each time, Micah pulled her arm, or her hair –one time he even picked her up- to keep them moving through the complex.

And it was a complexed complex.

The corridors twisting in odd directions at odd times, the floor sloping down inexplicably, the ceiling bowing up for no perceivable reason. Entrapta had spent a lot of time in the Fright Zone, and a lot of time exploring the buildings there. Some had been made from the cannibalized parts of other buildings. So, they did look cobbled together from junk. They did not look neat and orderly. But if one ignored the grime, and mismatched plate colors, the old wiring, or the inefficient electrical systems, one would see that some level of planning did go into their construction. Fright Zone buildings were laid out on a grid. Their corridors were all at right angles. This prison complex was not a grid, and had very few –if any- right angles.

“Halt!”

Sometimes they would come across a pack of guards. And Micah would let go of her then. He needed both hands to form the sigils required for his magic.

After the second encounter, Micah got better that the spell he initially tried on the first guard. Only static-freezing their weapons, or their feet so they couldn’t pursue the escapees.

Entrapta found it interesting that, to spite the acoustics of the building, she never heard an alarm. One of the guards did manage to get off a warning on her communicator before Micah could stop her. So the prison staff was definitely aware that a break-out was going down. But there was no red alert. No flashing lights, no blaring siren sound. Just a swarm of guards around every other bend or corner.

Micah pulled Entrapta down another corridor.

“Shoot!” He hissed, “they’re herding us away from the harbor! At this rate the only way out would be into the jungle.”

Entrapta didn’t see why that option sounded so terrible. At least they would be out of this –admittedly, very interesting- gulag.

Shifting her mental paradigm from ‘observe and study what you can while your new flavor-of-the-week-friend drags you around as they please’, to ‘Princess of Dryl, you’re in charge here’. Entrapta wrapped almost an entire pigtail around his body and pulled Micah off his feet. “Then let’s go!”

“Wait, what!?”

Now it was Entrapta’s turn to drag him around. They were forced to double back several times while he was the one in charge. Any corridor that was blocked by guards was avoided. But Entrapta wasn’t bothered by immobilized soldiers. They were immobilized by illogical but inexplicably effective magic. What harm could they do? Really, now.

Using her free pigtail to lift them, and a tendril from the one still holding onto Micah to steady them, Entrapta climbed over already frozen guards. Carrying her companion and herself through the hallways until they arrived at something she was pretty sure she glimpsed while Micah was busy playing ‘strong older man must be the hero’ and dragging her around pointlessly.

An exterior door.

A narrow access door. Meant for one soldier to pass through at a time. With a number pad lock same as the cells. But there was a window in it that showed lush green jungle outside. Entrapta set Micah on his feet next to her and began cycling through the 10,000 possible combinations that could unlock the door. It took her two days to get to the one that unlocked her cell. She hoped it would not take that long for their escape door.

“Don’t suppose you have any spells that can unlock this?” She asked, her tendrils of hair never pausing in their frantic typing of keys. “Are they spells? ‘Cause it looks more like drawing. Sigils, I guess? That’s a thing in magic, right? First Ones writing also has sigils, so I might be getting it confused, but I’m fairly certain mafic also has sigils.”

The door clicked. Entrapta stopped typing with her hair.

“Oh. Never mind. Guess we didn’t need your magic after all.” Entrapta walked out the door. “Thanks for your help. You look just like your daughter. Bye.”

Micah blinked at her retreating back for a moment. ‘His daughter’? Glimmer! Princess Entrapta knew Glimmer? Micah found himself sprinting after Entrapta –not just because he also wanted to escape the prison.

“Wait!” He called after her. “You don’t want to go into the jungle!”

…

The Horde Captain of Dryl was walking through the corridors when the Little Lord came up to her. They were flanked by two soldiers in full armor –full armor including helmets with visors down- almost as if the pair were ready for an attack at any moment. It was the first time the Captain had ever seen Lord Hordak’s heir being accompanied by anything resembling a ‘royal guard’.

“Hi. I’m Hordak.” They announced.

“I know.” She informed him. There wasn’t a soul in all of the Crypto Castle, or even the greater extended Dryl Queendom, who didn’t know who Hordak Second of Their Name was. Then the Captain realized this might sound a little rude and the last thing anyone wanted to do was be rude to Lord Hordak’s heir. She cleared her throat. “How may I serve you?”

The hybrid child raised their hair, arching it over their heads and using it point at the magic sword the Captain carried on her back. The sword that had been confiscated when they took the rebels into custody. She had not left it out of her sight. Not once. She didn’t quite know what the sword was, but she was able to recognize its importance. The Captain was determined to make sure the weapon remained safe and controlled until the real Lord Hordak could return and claim it.

“I need that.” Announced the younger Hordak.

The Captain hesitated. It was true that children in the Horde were taught how to handle weapons almost as soon as they had to dexterity to hold them. But this was not some kidnapped youth taken from a nameless village to be trained as a child-soldier. Or the offspring of two enlisted with an unhealthy lack of self-control and an inability to understand the importance of contraceptives. This was Lord Hordak’s heir. This was the future of the entire Horde. What would happen if they injured themself on it? What would Lord Hordak do if his heir was injured by a Rebel sword that one of his own Captains gave to them.

Perhaps the captain hesitated a little too long. Because one of the guards flanking the young hybrid cleared her throat.

“Lord Hordak requires both the sword and his daughter’s presence immediately.” She said in a voice of authority.

The Captain didn’t recognize the voice, but the soldier spoke like someone accustomed to a command position. But, if she was in a command position, why was she dressed as a common soldier? The Captain narrowed her eyes at the one who spoke, giving their uniform another critical analysis.

Standard issue. Nothing special. No personal alterations or modifications, and people in command positions were allowed to augment their uniforms to suit personal preference or fighting style. But this one had not altered it at all. Not even to take it to the quartermaster to have it tailored to fit better. It was baggy in the torso, and tight in the hips, as if originally meant for someone of a different body shape.

“What’s your ID number, soldier?” Demanded the Captain, pulling out a datapad to search the number.

They hesitated. Much longer than the Captain felt was appropriate.

Even Lord Hordak’s heir looked back at her, questioning.

Finally, the soldier rambled off a number.

The Captain punched it into her datapad. She frowned at the name and profile it displayed. Then looked back up at the soldier. “Your name is Kyle?”

“Y-yes, ma’am.” She nodded. “My name is Kyle.”

“It says here that you’re just a grunt soldier, barely out of training.” She informed the other woman. “And that you’re assigned to Force Captain Catra’s division. Force Captain Catra is not here.”

Not that the Captain even knew if Force Captain Catra was even still a Force Captain anymore. A lot seemed to have happened in a very short time. They were kind of cut off from the rest of the Horde up here in this mountain Queendom of Dryl. Force Captain Scorpia showing up with Lord Hordak’s heir from Princess Entrapta was shocking enough. Maybe in all the chaos this lowly grunt, Kyle, had been up-jumped to a Royal Guard.

There was another hesitation. Then, “Force Captain Catra is with Lord Hordak.” She finally announced. “He requires both his heir and the sword, so Catra ordered us to come and collect them.”

That made sense.

The Captain glanced down at Lord Hordak’s heir. They did not seem nervous or in the least bit threatened by either these guards or the prospect of going to see their father. The hybrid looked perfectly at ease. Maybe a little impatient. The Captain held out her hand. “Alright. Give me the order so I can copy it to my datapad and file it in the records here.”

“Uh…” That was the first time the hesitation came off as actually nervous or concerned.

“You do have a copy of the order, don’t you?” The Captain pressed. “Lord Hordak wouldn’t trust his heir to just anyone.”

“Uh…” Now both guards seemed jumpy and nervous.

“No data trail.” The Heir snapped suddenly. Their hair curling under them to lift them up to be on an eye-level with the Captain. Those glowing red eyes narrowing at her. For what might very well have been the first time since meeting this child, the Captain actually saw them as Lord Hordak’s heir in practice, not just name. “It’s a secret mission. No data trail. No copies on your datapad. Nobody knows.”

That seemed to be the theme with this child. Secrecy. No data to be found. The Captain certainly didn’t know about them until Scorpia showed up unannounced, also with not orders handy, and dropped the Heir off at their mother’s home castle and Queendom.

“No data trail.” Nodded the Captain. If the Lords of the Horde wanted to play cloak and dagger games, who was she to question them? She reached an arm behind her to withdraw the sword. “Will Imp be staying here, my Lord? I don’t see him with you.”

There was another hesitant pause.

There seemed to be a lot of hesitant pausing going on in his conversation. That could just be because the Heir was young and hadn’t quite gotten the hang of military command yet. But something told the Captain that it wasn’t. A deep feeling in her gut saying that something just didn’t feel right. The instincts that allowed her to raise through the ranks and become a territory Captain practically screaming for her not to take what they said at face value and double check the orders.

Except there were no orders to double check.

The Captain’s hand tightened on the hilt of the sword. She did not hand it over to the Heir. Something was off about this. Imp was not with the Heir, and that terrifying little espionage goblin was almost always with the Heir whenever the Heir was out and about in the castle. The only time Imp was not with the Heir was when the Heir sequestered themself in the Princess’ lab, or else asleep in their own chambers.

Stowing her datapad, the Captain placed her free hand on her hip. “Lord Hordak, come here for a moment.”

“Okay.” The Heir complied easily enough. They closed the space between themself and the Captain to stand at her side, the side that was still holding the sword. As if expecting to receive the sword at any moment.

She did not immediately hand it over to them. Instead, the Captain fixed her eyes on the Heir’s guards. Helmeted and masked. Their faces hidden from her. “Kyle,” she began, “I’m going to ask a different question –just one question- but I want both of you to answer at the exact same time.”

Both guards exchanged a look.

The Captain pointed to the second guard whom –thus far- hadn’t said anything. “What’s his name?”

There was a final pause.

Then,

“Lonnie.” Said the one she was asking about.

While at the exact same time ‘Kyle’ announced, “Rogelio can’t speak.”

They were caught in the lie.

“Darn it, Bow!” Shouted ‘Kyle’. She pulled her helmet off to reveal she was the same intruder from earlier. The traitor and defector former-Force Captain Adora.

“How was I supposed to know which of Catra’s underlings you were gonna make me!?” The second done pulled off his helmet to show that he was, indeed, the second intruder from earlier. The Rebel Archer and insurgent, Bow. “I’m very clearly not reptilian, so Lonnie just made more sense!”

The Captain pushed the Heir behind her, placing herself between Lord Hordak’s child and the rebel intruders. She hefted the sword in her hands. A large broad sword. Wide blade and gold hilt. As long as almost half her height. But it wasn’t as heavy as it looked and the Captain swung it with ease.

“Whoa! Carful with that!” Adora shouted at the other woman as she dodged the attack. The blade made deep marks in the wall where the blow landed. “Don’t bunt my blade!”

“Adora! That is not the thing you should be worrying about right now!” Bow snapped at her as he tried to duck around the Captain to get close to Dak.

Realizing the Heir was in danger, the Captain turned her back on Adora and lunged at Bow instead. He didn’t have any weapons, his arrows and bow were confiscated when they were captured, and it looked like he didn’t think to pick up any weapons when they stole those uniforms. So Bow was unarmed. All he could do was dodge.

“Stay close to me, Little Lord.” She commanded. “I’ll protect you from the intruders.”

The Heir did move closer to the Captain, but not for the protection she offered. Dak’s hair coiled around her arm, the hand holding the sword, and pulled. Tightened their coils on her wrist to make it harder for her to hold her grip, and tried to pull the sword out of her hand.

“Lord Hordak, wha-?”

“I said I need that.” The Heir reminded her. “Give it.”

More confused than anything else, the Captain just stared at the little hybrid. Unsure of what was going on here.

Adora took advantage of the other woman’s confusion and came up behind her. She jumped on the Captain’s back and wrapped one arm around her neck, her forearm pressing on the woman’s throat.

The Captain did drop the sword, but only because she needed both hands now to claw at the arm that was restricting her breathing.

“Adora! You can’t just choke people!” Bow shouted at her. “They’ll die!”

“People pass out before they die.” Adora informed him. It was a detail of Horde training she remembered well. You can choke an enemy until they stop moving, but that doesn’t mean they’re dead. People pass out before they die. Just because they’re not moving doesn’t mean they’re not breathing.

The Captain slammed her back against the corridor wall, squishing Adora between herself and the metal-paneled stone. Adora hissed in pain at the impact, but did not let go. She kept her hold around the Captain’s throat, determined not to let the other woman go until she stopped moving. The Captain’s clawing grew more frantic, finger nails almost digging through the seams of her own gloves in her desperation to get the rebel intruder off her.

But Adora held firm. Her arm wrapped tight around the other woman’s throat. Squeezing tight. Making sure she got no air.

Finally, the Captain’s struggles slowed. Her arms going slack. Her body going limp as she collapsed to the ground.

That was when Adora finally let go and crawled off of her, climbing to her feet. She looked to Dak, still holding the Sword of Protection in their hair. “I’ll take that back now.”

Wordlessly, not even looking at Adora, Dak passed the sword to her. Their hair moving on its own while their eyes seemed transfixed by the unconscious Captain. They knelt next to her and sniffed her unconscious body.

“She smells like prey.” Dak announced.

“Thank you, for that.” Bow groaned. Because a child-Hordak, that also crawled through vents and small spaces like Entrapta, and moved around on spider-leg like tendrils of hair wasn’t unsettling enough.

“Imp’s been teaching me to hunt prey.” Dak added by way of explanation. It did not succeed as an explanation. It just succeeded in making the hybrid seem more unsettling.

“Okay…” Adora began slowly, channeling her inner-Mermista. “Not touching that… In any event, we need to get outside somehow. The courtyard, the roof, it doesn’t matter. Just somewhere Swift Wind can pick us up.” She lifted the sword above her head and shouted the words that had become a sort of fourth member of their Best Friends Squad. “For the Honor of Grayskull!”

There was a flash of light, and Bow –whom had witness this multiple times before- picked at his nails, unmoved.

Dak, on the other hand, was enthralled. They watched with rapt attention as Adora grew in height, increased in musculature, changed her clothing, grew her hair longer, and just seemed to all around glow as if her whole body was lit by an internal light. Not glow like the bioluminescents of Dak’s eyes, but glow like a halo of power that just couldn’t be fully contained in the vessel that was her body.

“Interesting…!” They breathed in much the same way Bow and Aodra remembered Entrapta saying ‘Fascinating…!’

Closing the distance between them, Dak rose up on their hair to get a better look at Adroa now that she was She-Ra. She wasn’t just taller, her already blue eyes were bluer. Her muscle definition was firm and strong, more like the results of hard work and diligence rather than chemical enhancements. The tiara was gold like the sword and looked like they might have been cast by the same craftsman, the wing motif was so similar in design.

They wanted to examine her more, but She-Ra grabbed Dak and threw them over her shoulder so that all they could examine now was her posterior. A section of her form that they did not find quite so interesting.

“Now is not the time, Dak.” She announced, in a voice similar to the one she had to use several times on Entrapta during their strategy meeting to rescue Glimmer. This child might look like Hordak, but in personality and actions they very clearly took after their mother.

Dak gave a ‘hmph’ of displeasure. Baker carried them like this whenever they tried to escape their lessons. Was this just how grown-ups interacted with young people? There weren’t any other children in residence at the Crypto Castle for Dak to compare to. They had missing variables and incomplete data to form a hypothesis.

Bow fell into step beside She-Ra. “We also need to get my bow and arrows back.”

“Those will have been put in the armory.” She told him.

“Great! Do you know where that is?” He asked.

Because the Crypto Castle was a maze. Entrapta designed the building to be a puzzle. Something to stimulate thought and force a person to think outside of conventional special norms.

“Uh…” She-Ra paused in her step. “Well, the dungeon was down below, so the armory would be… uh…”

“The Horde don’t keep their important stuff in the castle.” Dak informed them, impatient. “They’re afraid of getting lost. They set up their own buildings in the courtyard so they know where everything is.”

“Really?” Bow asked. It could not be that simple. “So all we have to do is just get outside?”

“How do we do that?” Asked She-Ra.

“Put me down.” Dak commanded in a tone that was more like Hordak than it was Entrapta.

Sliding the hybrid off her shoulder, She-Ra set Dak on their feet. They looked around, trying to decide which corridor they were in since She-Ra basically just threw them over her shoulder and ran in a random direction after beating the Captain. Dak took note of the artwork on the walls, as well as their height and curvature, if there were any landings above them, or below them. Navigating Crypto Castle wasn’t easy, it took the hybrid –literally- all of their life thus far to figure it out. But once Dak learned to recognize the nuances of the design, they learned to figure out where in the castle they were, and how to get to where they wanted to go.

“Short cut!” They announced happily. Before using their mohawk of blue hair as a rope and swinging themselves up to an air vent.

Bow and She-Ra watched the hybrid disappear into the tight crawlspace.

“Does she know we can’t follow her in there?” Asked She-Ra.

“I don’t think he considered it.” Bow replied.

They turned to look at each other. “Wait, do you think Dak is a-“

A wall slid open under the vent the hybrid vanished into. There stood Dak, their tool bag in one hand, their hair holding a soldering torch, their other hand raised in a wave. “C’mon, I said this is a short cut!”

Both She-Ra and Bow shrugged. Getting to the courtyard and getting out was far more important than whatever conversation they were about to have in that exact moment. They followed Dak through a dark and narrow passage. No overhead lights. Just dim guiding lines of a muted yellow on the floor. Other than that, the only light came from Dak’s glowing eyes and She-Ra’s sparkling body.

Then they saw a light at the end of the tunnel.

Bright morning light from the Glow Moon.

When they got to the end of the tunnel, Dak grabbed the edge of the exit frame and swung themself out of the passage.

That action should have given She-Ra a bit of a clue as to what they were about to come out onto –or not onto as the came may be- but it didn’t. She-Ra steped out onto empty air.

“Wah!” She would have fallen were it not for the flagpole near buy, wafting a Horde banner in the wind. She managed to grab a corner of the banner and held on for dear life. And shouted angrily into the sky. “What the hey, Entrapta!”

Only Princess Entrapta of Dryl would build her castle with a passage that lead out into a sheer drop with no railing, safety net, or even warning.

Bow leaned over the edge, seeing how far down the drop really was. Yup. That could definitely kill a person. He looked to She-Ra hanging off the flag to make her she was alright. Then to the side to see Dak clinging to the side of the building, the toes of their boots perches on the tiniest bit of decorative trim, their talons sunk into the seam of the stones. Dak looked confused, as if they didn’t see the problem here.

Unable to suppress it, to spite the serious situation, Bow couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, we were promised a short cut.”

The courtyard was directly below them.

Dak smiled. They liked Bow.

“I slide down the pole.” The hybrid informed their companions. “Like this.” They jumped from the wall to the flagpole. Hugging it koala-style, and using their hair to control their decent, Dak slid down just enough to be on level with She-Ra. “Swing over to grab it and follow me.”

Then they were sliding down again.

From still up in the passage, Bow gave a shrug. It wasn’t like this was any more dangerous than some other things they’d done in the past. At least, they didn’t have to worry about killer robots, or Horde sharp-shooters firing at them like sitting ducks. Walking back a few paces into the passage, Bow got a running start, then jumped for the pole.

He wasn’t quite as graceful as Dak had been, but he caught the pole in a similar koala-style hug and started to slide down.

“This is actually kinda fun.” He announced. “C’mon Adora! It’s easy!”

Growing to herself, She-Ra began swinging the banner she clung to until it brought her close enough to grab the pole. All three of them slid down into the courtyard. It was much faster than if they had tried to navigate from inside the castle. Dak was right, it was a short cut.

Looking around She-Ra took note of the temporary bungalows the Horde had erected. A barracks, vehicle hanger and maintenance shed, field showers and toilets, communications tent, and-

“There.” She-Ra pointed. “That’s got to be the armory.”

“Okay.” Dak straightened, brushed off their overalls, and marched right over to the bungalow She-Ra indicated.

The guards straightened when Dak stopped in front of them, using their hair to raise them up to be on eye-level. Bow and She-Ra were starting to recognize that posture. It was an odd sort of tilt in shock, but straighten with discipline that came from not really knowing what this child was, but also knowing that said child might very well be their overlord one day. It was a little refreshing to see that Dak threw everyone a little off kilter. The feeling was not unique.

The guards let Dak walk into the armory without being challenged.

Moments later, the hybrid walked out again carrying Bow’s bow and quiver of trick arrows.

“I can’t believe how easy things are with an enemy higher-up helping us.” She-Ra commented. Things were just a little too easy, in fact. Something was going to go wrong for them. She just knew it. Nothing was ever this easy.

“Dak’s not an enemy.” Bow argued. “Dak’s just a kid!”

“Frosta is just a kid.” She-Ra reminded him. “That doesn’t make her any less dangerous. And Dak is Hordak’s… something. That makes Dak an enemy higher-up.”

The hybrid rejoined them at the flagpole. “Are we ready to go?”

She-Ra nodded. She lifted her eyes to study the cliffs above the castle. Light Hope said that she and her steed had an empathetic bond. That they could sense each other and Swift Wind would know when he was needed. Truth be told, Adroa was still trying to make sense of the nuances of that kind of relationship. It wasn’t a very proactive part of being She-Ra and so she was not good at understanding it or training it. Empathetic bonds were passive. Background noise, almost. She didn’t know how to use the bond to actually ‘call’ Swift Wind in real time.

A shrill screech ripped across the courtyard.

Whatever concentration She-Ra had was broken.

The trio looked up to see Imp, as the source of the screech. He was perched on the shoulder of the Dryl Horde Captain. One hand clutching her bruised neck, the other hand using the outer frame of the castle entrance to steady herself. She croaked something out of her damaged larynx, but it was too soft for them to hear all the way across the courtyard.

Unluckily, Imp was obliging enough to make sure she was heard.

‘Intruders!’ The little deamon repeated in the Captain’s scratching croak of a voice. ‘Intruders! Kidnappers!’

“Bad Imp.” Dak growled from between Bow and She-Ra.

She-Ra raised her sword. She knew something like this would happen. Things were going just too easy with Dak helping them. Something had to go wrong. Something had to hit a fan and spray trouble everywhere. Their missions never went smoothly. That was just a fact of life for them. Nothing ever went according to plan. She charged at the nearest Horde soldier to them, knocking the poor reptile into two of her comrades that were foolhardy enough to think they could take on the legendary She-Ra.

Bow notched and arrow and shot it at the ground between the three soldiers. The arrow tip burst on impact, covering all three in viscous goo that quickly hardened, gluing them to the ground. That was three soldiers that wouldn’t be bothering them.

Shame they still had a courtyard full of them.

With another shrill screech, Imp took to the air. Flying across the courtyard to master’s clone. He tried to grab the hybrid by the hair and pull them back to the relative protection of the Captain. Imp could not allow master’s heir to fall into the hands of the enemy.

“Imp, no!” Dak snarled at the little deamon, trying to pull their hair free. “I’m going to meet Mother!”

The deamon shrieked a disagreement. Master’s heir was not going to Beast Island to die with the Princess. Master’s heir was going to stay right here where they could learn to be a proper Horde clone.

Bow came up beside Dak and smacked the deamon hard with his quiver.

Imp let go in shock, but did not relent. He refused to relent until master’s heir realized the mistake they were making and came back with him.

Their hair free now, Dak reached into their tool bag and pulled out a heavy pipe-wrench. They smacked Imp with it. Knocking the little deamon out of the air. Imp his the stony ground and his yellow-gold eyes went to static for a moment. The blow interrupting his conscious processors. His eyes shut as his back-up unit began a safety reboot to avoid any lost data.

“Imp!” Dak knelt down next to the deamon.

The little flying troll had been their most consistent companion for –literally- all of the hybrid’s life so far. Dak couldn’t stand the thought of having damaged him permanently. Picking the deamon up, Dak stowing him in their own tool bag and zipped it shut. If Imp didn’t wake up on his own, then they would try and fix him –just like they were teaching themself to fix the robots in Mother’s Locked Room.

More soldiers swarmed around She-Ra and Bow.

Dak clutched their tool bag closer to their chest. Even going so far as to wrap their hair around themelves as if it could protect them.

“Uh, Adora, we’re completely surrounded.” Bow observed. He notched another arrow, but did not pull back the string. There were too many targets and he couldn’t shoot fast enough to hit all of them.

“I know.” She-Ra snarled back.

“Well, do you have a plan?” Bow pressed. They always managed to get out of tight spots in the past. If only Glimmer had come with them, then they all could just teleport out.

She-Ra did not roll her eyes. No, she did not have a plan. Every time she made a plan it all went to heck in a handbasket so fast it rendered the making of the plan pointless in the first place. There were no plans here. Only actions.

Then a shadow fell over the courtyard.

A winged silhouette blocking out the light of the Glow Moon.

Everyone looked up.

Bow and She-Ra smiled. They’d recognize that feathered wingspan anywhere.

“Swift Wind!” Bow hugged the stallion just as he landed between the trio and the soldiers. “Boy, am I glad to see you!”

“I sensed Adora needed me.” He announced. Then noted that they were surrounded by enemies. “Get on!”

Bow reached for Dak’s little hand to help the hybrid on first. They were easily the smallest of the group and couldn’t climb up on their own (unless they used their talons, but Swift Wind probably wouldn’t appreciate that).

“Hi. I’m Hordak.” Dak announced only after they were already on the horse’s back.

“You’re who!?” Swift Wind bucked his hind legs and twisted his head, trying to get a look at what Bow had hoisted up onto his back. He could not turn his head completely around, but what he could see did not look like the evil overlord of the Horde that was described to him. This Hordak looked like a… foal. Hordak’s foal? Hordak had a foal? Were they kidnapping a foal from its mare? “Adora, what have you gotten into this time?”

Both She-Ra and Bow jumped up onto Swift Wind’s back.

“No time for explanations right now, just fly!” She-Ra shouted at her steed.

“Taking a foal away from their mare goes against everything I stand for!” Swift Wind protested.

The soldiers seemed to have gotten over their shock of a winged and talking horse dropping down into the midst and were closing back in around them.

“We’re not taking Dak away from their mother!” Bow promised the highly opinionated stallion. “We’re taking Dak to rescue his mother.”

“Mother is on Beast Island.” The foal announced.

One of the nearer soldiers charged up a stun baton.

Welp, that was good enough for Swift Wind. He jumped up into the air. “You can explain the ‘you are Hordak’ part in the air.”

Bow held onto Dak as they climbed in altitude, and Dak held onto their tool back which –in addition to their tools- held the unconscious Imp.

…

[whumpqhs]

Whumptober alt #11: Infection

Continuation of:

Part 1

Part 2

--

“You done?”

As her hands kept moving to secure the last bit of tape, Sonora looked up at the familiar, smirking face. “No.”

“No… what?” His tone changed, firmer, more threatening, and she couldn’t help but shiver, remembering the way he’d pulled her out of bed at gunpoint with the same voice. For the hours it had taken to bring the patient out of septic shock, he’d been almost professional--asking what she needed, stepping in to help her reposition. As if they were working together, which, in a way, they were. He’d even put the safety back on his blaster at one point, and it was still holstered on his belt. But his voice made it clear: the change wasn’t permanent. Now he was back to his usual self.

“...no, Keeper.”

His usual, asshole, self.

“That’s more like it. What else is there to do?”

“I…” she paused for a moment, considering. “Permission to speak freely… sir?” It was a test, a little one. Would the patient’s needs get back into the way, like they had before? Make it harder for him to be such an ass, make him just a fellow medic again?

“Granted.” A small victory. He accepted “sir”, too, which… she’d prefer not to call an enemy operative sir. But it was better than Keeper.

“I’m not going to be done in the near future. You wanted him out of septic shock, so I performed emergency treatment to get him stable. His infection is still severe and he could go back into sepsis at literally any moment. Besides that, he experienced complete respiratory failure due to the infection and his cardiovascular numbers are… bad. His heart and lungs are overstressed from the infection; they can’t even keep up on their own, which is why he’s been placed on EVACS…” she pointed out the machine to one side of the hospital bed, beeping and chiming along with several others responsible for keeping the patient alive. External Ventilation And Cardiac Support, a heart and lung that functioned outside the body, sort of like dialysis. “EVACS patients need constant, continuous monitoring by a specialist. Unless you can get someone else with the certification?”

“You know we can’t.”

“Then I’m not done.”

“Did you talk to your old Keeper that way?”

She looked away, trying not to fire back with another smart remark. “You asked if I was finished, presumably to take me back to my cell. I’m telling you that I can’t leave this patient if you want him to live through the night. Those are the facts of the situation. Unless you want me to teach someone here to run the machines, I have to stay nearby, in case something goes wrong.” A part of her wished they’d let her rest, and damn the consequences: being paralyzed hadn’t been restful. She’d been awake all those days; every muscle ached and her arm was only getting worse.

“Fine…” he pulled up a chair beside her and sat down, indicating the other seat beside the bed for her. “I’m a medical agent, just like you are. Teach me.”

Sonora took a deep breath and sat down in the chair. She was still wearing all of the isolation gear that had taken the place of letting her clean up and shower, and it looked like she’d just performed surgery. She wished she could take it off, or do something about the throbbing pain in her arm. At least they’d finally taken the saline lock out, and given her some water to drink, but the site was still tender, still feverish. It still hurt all the time.

“Alright… so…” Where was she even supposed to start? The class she took for the certification was years back. “He’ll need labs Q2… we have him on blood thinners because there’s a big risk of clots. Big risk of air embolism, because we’ve got a lot of connections, so check those all the time. Here, and here… and here…” she pointed out the places where the prisoner’s blood entered the mechanical lung and left it, the pump to keep it circulating, the port for IV fluids.

He nodded at her. “Alright. What else?”

She heard the shift in his voice and tried not to notice how it no longer sounded like he wanted her dead.

“Neuro checks are important, but since he’s sedated and on a vent, you’re limited in what you can do…” as she slowly worked from the patient’s head down to his feet, the way her instructor had done, it seemed like he got more attentive, and less... assholish, in general. When she looked up at him, he’d lost that punchable smirk and was watching her, listening. Some small part of her dimly realized that this might be a good time to escape, but in a locked ward full of SIS, one mildly distracted medic wasn’t going to give her much of an opening. She kept going and then started at the machine again, turning to him.

“Okay. Now you do it.”

“Huh?”

“Walk me through it. What are we looking for?”

“Oh. So, he’s on blood thinners… right now we have Kordal on board at one milligram per kilogram, nearest 25, which works out to seventy-five milligrams per 24 hours…”

“Kordal?”

“Oh, you know. Tesinexterase sulfite.”

“Oh, I know.” She tilted her head at him. “I’m just… surprised that you do. Republic doesn’t use trade names… don’t call or label their meds that way…” Even the supplies in their medkits were all generic names, she knew from having to rely on captured supplies on Ossus. When Imperial forces captured Republic medics, they usually had more important things to talk about than meds, but every so often, a back alley cartel deal or incoming shipment would come up during questioning. She remembered “encouraging” the answers out of more than one... and none of them rattled off brand names like that.

What it could possibly mean hung in the air, but as his gaze snapped up and met hers, she got the sudden feeling that saying it out loud was not a good idea.

Keeper glared at her as if she’d insulted most of his ancestors. “What’re you implying? I’ve been a loyal citizen of the Republic my entire life.”

“Nothing, sir. Nothing, just unusual, that’s all. You’re doing really well, so--why do we have him on blood thinners, again?” She felt the little spike of adrenaline rushing her words as she tried to change the subject. A few cycles passed of teaching each other the overview, and he seemed to relax. She hoped he’d forgotten all about it. She tried not to notice when every long and complicated generic got reliably reduced down to its trade name, as if she were back at headquarters on Dromund Kaas, working in their covert medicine wing. Tried not to wonder what, exactly, it meant… and why he was so touchy about it. The patient, meanwhile, seemed to be holding steady. Keeper looked over at her and back to all the variables pulled up in the chart, and sighed.

“...you can sleep in here. When you sleep, I’ll watch the both of you. While I sleep, someone else will come in to watch you and the prisoner.” He finally seemed to be getting it: sending her back to her cell, even though it was just a five-minute walk down the hall, was simply too far. Sonora breathed a sigh of relief, blinking as he tapped a few times on his comm.

“Already?”

“No, I’m calling someone to come get you for a short time. You’ll live, for tonight… so you need to clean yourself up for the next shift. And… when you get back, I’ll look at your arm. Seems to have infiltrated a little.” For once, just once, instead of talking to a prisoner, he sounded like he was talking to another healer like himself.

“...thank you, Keeper.” The words still tasted bitter, but she knew what he wanted to hear. As she turned to walk out of the room with her escort, letting the guard fit the cuffs onto her hands, she caught a glimpse in the reflection of the room’s window: he’d already started his neuro checks, right on time. Her feelings swirled in confusion as the door shut, leaving the patient’s room behind them.

She’d taught an enemy asset how to better save the lives of his comrades. The SIS who dogged their every step, who’d captured her and put her through this… so where exactly was this surge of pride coming from?

--

I’m late again aaaaaaugh. My brain decided that my whump needed a plot. Why, brain? Why?

[ari-nemera]

Hey, so I just finished Stranger Thing Season 3, and well, I feel I need to debunk the entire ‘capitalist propaganda’ bullshit I’ve been seeing warnings for since the season first aired, and why I would argue that it isn’t anti-communist in a modern sense as well.

Without spoiling anything for would-be watchers, I will say that (while this should be obvious) Stranger Things takes place during the 1980′s, which was during the nuclear scare caused by the stupid rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union. Season 3 relies on anti-Russian sentiment during the time period to recreate a relatively classical ‘evil commies’ plot (ST is, at its heart, an homage to 80′s horror), but with a eldritch Stranger Things(TM) twist.

I am explaining this because if you know anything about a combo of historical accuracy and the Soviet Union, it isn’t anti-communist propaganda. The Soviet Union was a farce and a thinly veiled dictatorship based around oppression of the working class, and even today, modern communists make a point of stressing their lack of ideological similarities to the SU when questioned by the uneducated. The ‘commies’ in this season have nothing in common with neo-communist thinking, and anyone who knows anything about history would understand this immediately.

Now, in order to debunk the pro capitalism bullshit I’ve been seeing, I will need to spoil minor things about characters/ the plot, so if you haven’t watched the third season, but want to have your concerns based on terrible rumors appeased, be prepared to have some small spoilers. (nothing plot-breaking)

OK- TO START:

There are exactly three instances in which capitalism is mentioned/ alluded to in this season, and I will list them and describe them in order.

First: Hawkins gets a new mall. This mall, like many at the time (thanks ST for the historical accuracy), causes the death of Hawkins downtown small businesses. This is framed as a bad thing. Everyone who owns a business downtown who has lost their store does a picket protest outside of the Mayor’s office. (he funded the Mall)

The Mayor, a minor villain in the season, calls in Hopper to try and convince him to chase away the protestors. Hopper isn’t happy with this idea and argues that it’s their right to protest. (notice that this is the main character saying this) The mayor then uses Capitalism as an excuse for why everyone protesting doesn’t matter, it’s just business! (oh hey, this is being said by the villain.) and Hopper is disgusted.

But the mayor threatens hopper and uses ‘they need a permit to protest’ to force Hopper to make them leave. (something it’s heavily implied Hopper doesn’t want to do, but feels pressured into because of his job)

Already, Capitalism is being framed as unfair and cruel to the working class. it is used as an excuse by a man in power to try and convince a good character (without success) that his terrible actions are Good Actually, but in reality it’s destroying the town’s economy.

Second: A new main character is introduced! It’s Lucas’ little sister, Erica.  We’ve seen her infamously bratty character in previous seasons. In this season, she gets pulled into the spotlight because of her size. Steve, Robin (another new character whom I love), and Dustin need someone small enough to crawl through a vent. She happens upon their secret scheme, and is indoctrinated into their little plan.

After manipulating them into giving her ice cream, they beg her to do it because  “it will save the world”. She seems unconvinced. (she’s already been framed as manipulative and selfish) Dustin, in desperation, asks her if she loves America. She replies by snarking “Yeah! You can’t spell America without Erica!” and goes on to explain that She “loves Capitalism! Do you know how capitalism works? people can be be bought for goods and services. and you will have to buy my services.” This is seen as frustrating and shallow by the main cast, who can’t understand why just saving the world isn’t good enough. Let me repeat, her love of capitalism negatively frames her as the selfish and obtuse one. Her use of pro-capitalism rhetoric is seen as a roadblock, and is not treated like a good thing.

From that point on, Erica is cast as an antihero. She is not interested in doing good for the sake of being a good person. She is seen as someone everyone else must work around in order to do anything with any moral weight. She literally will not help them until she gets paid in ice cream. While she goes on to develop herself in other ways, (and her snark is fun and v likeable at times) Dustin literally only compliments her understanding of different systems of government once (as it’s framed as a weird thing for her to have any understanding of) and never comments on her love of capitalism specifically in a positive light. He uses her smarts to call her a nerd.

Finally: This is probably the most spoiler filled section. Sorry. :/  Another new character, Alexi, is a Russian scientist who can’t speak a lick if English and his relationship with the cast is honestly fucking hilarious. He’s a hostage who wants to keep it that way. He wants to become an American. it’s like, the most classic ‘I want to escape my horrible commie life and live Free(TM)’ plot, but even then, America isn’t treated like some great country. His one friend, Murray (the same from season 2, and the only American who can speak Russian) Unhandcuffs him and takes him to the 4th of July fair while they’re waiting on some other characters.

There, while he’s purchasing Alexi tickets, he mockingly brags about how all the games at the fair are rigged, and that all the money from the poor is fed into the rich’s pockets through tricks and manipulation: “THAT- is America!” he exclaims. Murray is already someone we know hates and distrusts the government. In the context of his character, this is not a positive statement. He is dripping with sarcasm.

While he is clearly portrayed as excited about the idea of Alexi becoming an American citizen, this excitement is not about America itself. He says this as if to warn Alexi that if he wants to be American, he’ll have to put up with everything that entails. Alexi treats this with incredulity, (whaaaaat the games are riiiggged??? no way!) and goes to try and prove Murray wrong. :/ things go downhill from there.

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

So anyway, this season is pretty blatantly anti-capitalist???? wtf??? Where did you guys get ANY of the pro-capitalism I kept hearing about?? There isn’t any! Capitalism is clearly being mocked every time it gets brought up. None of these situations would leave the audience being happy with capitalism.

If you want a real complaint, why the fuck did they make Lucas do a fucking Coke commercial in the middle of the goddamn CLIMAX. *internal screaming*

ok but all things aside, this season is p gorey. super triggering honestly. (you want to see a pile of bloody guts move like a slug???? no??? don’t watch this season. seriously. they went for accuracy there and it’s... a lot. I had actual nausea during some of the later episodes.)

As far as pros- It is waaay better and more cohesive than season 2 tho! I really liked it! Max and Steve really shine in this season, and everyone gets some pretty great character development. Hopper is just, the ultimate dad in this season.  (Oh, but Will’s life sucks. Why can’t this boy ever be allowed any happiness. His character arc is best describes as ‘Serious Gay Angst and Longing’. I want Will’s entire family to just have a vacation to goddamn Disney World)

[septic-dr-schneep]

JSE Fanfiction - In Time of Grief (Part 5: Contagion)

Summary: With the others left helplessly behind in Anti’s clutches, the good doctor despairs. Chase struggles to keep hope for the both of them.

This is necessary. This is…She doesn’t mind us being here. She wants to help us.

No matter how many times Chase told himself that, he was honestly surprised that Stacy had let him and Schneep beyond the front porch as he watched her scramble to gather her things so she could drive them to the hospital. Naturally her first suggestion had been to call for an ambulance to get them there faster, but Schneep had been quick to shoot that down.

“No! No,” he choked out as he pressed a hand against his chest, wavering. Chase had latched onto his elbow as he dangerously swayed, but the doctor had shaken his head, shrugging away. “We cannot take risk. There are p—people we cannot afford to see, who cannot afford to see us. I know a way—”

His hoarse voice finally cracked and gave way to a barking cough, followed by an awful wheezing that made it sound like his throat was caving in. He didn’t bother to pull away when Chase latched onto him then and once his fit had subsided in its intensity Stacy had gingerly suggested they come inside and sit.

They were on the couch to the left side of the living room now, Schneep slumped against the armrest and Chase curled up close to his side. After everything that had happened, he didn’t want to stray too far. Every so often he glanced over at him, assessing. Even though he’d been conscious and breathing for a while now, he didn’t look good at all.

Shouldn’t he be demanding to know more about Jack, Anti, the fight? Jack was his everything, their everything. He hadn’t asked a single question about what had happened to Jack since Chase had told him he was awake. Why was he being so quiet about it?

Chase couldn’t expect so much of him, he reminded himself numbly. Right now, Schneep was just focused on struggling to breathe; that was all he should be focused on—and from the violent crashing he had heard during their frenzied escape, he should be grateful that Schneep wasn’t asking how it had all turned out. Even he didn’t know.

Not for the first time, Jameson’s pained, terrified eyes blinked open in his mind, staring into him—staring through him. The deep ache in Chase’s head and chest flared hotly, dizzying him at the thought of what he might be enduring right now if Jack hadn’t won that fight.

I…I left him there. I left him with Anti. If I had been faster, I could’ve…

“So you’re the infamous Chase, huh?” Tom broke through his agonizing, hovering over them. “Heard a lot about you. And who’s this?”

Wordlessly Chase tilted his head back, blinking heavily up at him. Something in his face must have told Tom that he wasn’t in the mood for introductions, so he glanced sideways and cleared his throat, changing the subject with a bit more authority.

“You know I have to ask: what exactly is it that you’re getting us involved in? Are you in trouble with the law? Drugs? Gambling? Something illegal? Who are these people you’re trying to avoid seeing?” he questioned, waving an expansive hand. “I just want to make sure you’re not dragging Stacy and I into anything you could be getting out of yourself.”

At that Schneep shifted suddenly, pushing the startled Chase sideways with his forward motion as he sat up, his glazed eyes cold.

“If is something we can get out of ourselves, do you think in your tiny brain that we would c-come to you?” he growled raspingly. “We come because we need help, not idiotic questions! Du weißt gar nichts! If you do not want to help us, you talk to your precious Stacy about it!” Another chain of coughing rattled through him, breaking up his words, but they were no less fierce. “We do not need you. We—hh—we only need S-Stacy and her car.”

“Schneep,” Chase muttered, warningly tugging on his arm, but he didn’t have the time to say anything to smooth over the situation before Stacy arrived from the kitchen, keys in hand.

“Alright, let’s go,” she urged, brushing her free fingers over Tom’s arm. “Honey, help them to the car?”

“…Yeah,” Tom acquiesced tightly, gripping Chase’s arm and helping him to his feet. Schneep refused the hand he was offered, barely even looking up as he wound an arm around Chase and they were guided to the van.

It was amazing how something so mundane could stirred as much emotion in Chase as it did, but when they slipped into the backseats he was forced to swallow hard as his eyes panned over the crumbs, wrappers and toys scattered across the car mats.

These seats…His babies sat in these seats every day.

Bending gradually down, wincing deeply as the change in pressure spiked in his head, he snatched up one of the action figures. It was a red and silver robot, well worn—well loved.

“Hey, buddy, you wanna go to the toy aisle?” he questioned hopefully, relishing in the feeling of Connor’s small, warm fingers wrapped up in his own. The answer he received wasn’t the eager yes he’d expected, however. “Connor?”

“Yeah…” the little boy admitted, glancing up at him uncertainly. “But…d-do we have enough money, Daddy?”

Something in Chase’s stomach turned at the question and he stilled, coming to a stop and shifting to kneel in front of him. “What d’you mean by that?”

“Well…” Fidgeting, tugging restlessly on the hem of his shirt, Connor lowered his head, staring down at Chase’s knees and mumbling. “S’just that Mama says not to get toys when we’re with you cos you don’t have enough money and it’ll make you feel bad later.”

Chase dearly hoped that Connor didn’t notice the hot flush coming into his cheeks at these words. Tightening his hands on his boy’s shoulders, he forced a light smile. “Is that so? Your mom and I need to talk about that, but y’know what? I’ve been doing really well lately, no matter what she thinks! I’ve got a little surprise money that I’ve been saving just for you, and you can pick any toy you want.”

That finally drew the light into Connor’s eyes that Chase had longed for. “A robot?” he exclaimed. “Can I get a robot?!”

“Absolutely! Let’s get you the coolest robot!”

Schneep’s calloused fingers brushing his head brought him out of his trance-like stare with a painfully sharp flinch. The doctor didn’t embarrass him by mentioning it, merely pursing his lips as he leaned in and thumbed over stray trickles of blood sliding down his temple. Just that small gesture eased the pain’s razor edge and Chase instinctively leaned into it, searching for more relief, but after a few softer strokes Schneep stilled, exhaling huskily.

“Chase…Is my fault we are in this mess,” he murmured under the noise of the AC. “I should have seen signs in Marvin. I should’ve…”

“We both should’ve. If I hadn’t fallen asleep on the job, he wouldn’t’ve gotten the jump on me.” Fidgeting, the vlogger decided to take his chances and ask. “D’you think it was getting Anti out of Jameson’s head that opened Marv up to him?”

“Not all the way. Somewhat,” Schneep allowed, brows creasing. “But this…this new magic he ‘found’ somewhere, I think it was the start. He chose the corruption. He let it in. That one opening was enough for Anti to get through and turn him on us, Chase. And now we all pay for it, just because he wanted new magic.”

“No, no, hey, you can’t blame him for Anti taking him. He wasn’t getting new magic for the kicks. He just wanted to help Jem, bring Jackieboy back,” Chase protested, stomach churning tightly at the thought of the gleeful malice in his friend’s face. “It’s—it was a mistake, doc, a really bad mistake! Marv would never put us in that kind of danger on purpose. Somewhere in there he’s fighting Anti, I know it. Maybe now that Jack’s keeping Anti distracted on the outside, Marvin’ll be able to get some leverage on the inside!”

“Jack…” Schneep repeated softly, staring up at the car ceiling. Tufts blue eyes grew misty. “How could Jack be awake, Chase? He has not been awake for more than a year. There’s been no change, no improvement—if anything, he’s gotten worse and worse.”

“Okay, so I don’t know how he did it, but I saw him!” Chase insisted, latching onto his arm to keep his attention. “He fought to help us escape. We wouldn’t have without him!” When Schneep said nothing, Chase shook his head in dismay, jostling him a little to recapture his eyes. “Why don’t you want to believe me? Why aren’t you happy?”

“Because if he’s awake, Chase, he’s there with Anti. The monster is armed with Marvin’s magic and none of the others are able to help him. And I—I am not there for him. Again. He needs me and I’m taken away from him.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be doing him much good if you were still back there,” Chase pointed out, schooling his voice so as not to sound too demeaning. “You’d still be conked out at the bottom of your magic bubble. Now you’re awake, he’s awake, and we’ll figure out a way to get back to him. He’s fightin’ for us.”

“And what if he loses? Wh-What if Anti…?” Schneep coughed once more, though it didn’t sound the same as the others.

Chase didn’t have a chance to address his implied question as one cough led to another and another and another. Hugging his arms around his sides, he rocked forward, fruitlessly trying to catch his breath. He was going to give himself whiplash at this rate, Chase mused, wincing in sympathy as he patted his back.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, buddy. Just get it all out,” he soothed, worriedly glancing up to meet Stacy’s gaze in the rearview mirror. Get us there soon, his eyes said to hers.

By the time the fierce hacking eased, he was practically folded in half over his knees, whimpering exhaustedly. Gripping his shoulder, Chase murmured other meaningless assurances as he helped him sit back up.

“Easy does it, here we go…” Reaching up past his head, he hurriedly flicked the air vent away from his friend’s face. Doctors said that keeping the air still was a way to help with a cough, right? “Try not to talk for a bit,” he continued as he turned his eyes to the pockets sewn into the backs of the front seats. “Stacy, are there—I don’t know, some mints or cough drops or something in here? Something to help his throat?”

“Oh, here,” Tom spoke up first, shifting forward in his seat to rifle through the glove box for a few moments before leaning back and offering a pack of gum. “Gotta keep some of these in here for Bri; she’s always asking for some.”

Chase was promptly forced to bite the inside of his cheek against a surprisingly sharp retort that flew to his throat. Oh, is she? Is that something she “always does”? She never does that with me. I think I’d know her better than you do. The fresh bitterness on his tongue created a new lance of pain in his forehead and he took a steadying breath to help him swim beyond the dizziness as Tom stretched a little farther, shaking the pack expectantly.

“Well? You want it?”

It’s just gum.

Without a word he snatched it from him, taking note of the brand as he tore it open. “Here, Schneep, this’ll help.” As soon as he looked up to hand it to him, however, he froze, flinching back at the pallor that had come over his face. “Whoa—Schneep, bro, you okay?” He was so white he looked almost gray, his skin tight over the hollow of his cheekbones.

“I don’t think I feel well,” he slurred, glassy eyes flickering closed as he drooped back against the seat. “Wo bin ich hier?” One last weak cough forced its way out of him, loose and wet, and Chase’s heart jackhammered as strings of thick, dark fluid flew from his mouth, spattering the front of his shirt.

“What the—?! Schneep!” Chase gasped as his head lolled sideways and more of the bloodlike substance slithered down his chin in sticky rivulets. “Schneep! Henrik?!” As soon as the older Ego started to shake, Chase cursed in helpless terror, lunging to steady him as he yelped, “Stacy!”

“What’s happening, what’s happening?!” she burst out, swerving violently between lanes as she glanced over her shoulder in alarm. “What do I do? Should I pull over?!”

“Floor it!”

Taglist:  @viostormcaller  @spicy-spedicey  @miishae  @athenafg26 @nebula-starlight  @faithissometimesnice  @obsidiancreates  @storm337 @canehdiennobody  @stormcrawler75  @kisstheashes  @gamingbookworm @phantomschild  @plutoandpolaris  @bribrifeefee  @the-kit-kate @thesinginggal  @themightiestspoon  @pixelenchanter  @illyriashade56 @jacksinsanity  @thealyssa4life  @skepticeye  @rogue-of-light-analyzed 

[bigherosixfeels]

Fan Friction REVIEW

A moment of silence for Krei's old lab on Akuma Island. It was indeed a key location in their origin story and it will dearly be missed.

The episode begins with one of the previews we got at comic-con. A fictional tale involving our team narrated by Karmi. All is well in San Fransokyo with the exception of a massive fire burning the inside of the San Fransokyo Biometric Laboratory. Luckily, Big Hero 6 is ready to save the day (and in adorable chibi versions too!). Karmi introduces each member with her own names for them. Wasabi is Chop Chop, Gogo is Speed Queen, Fred is Flame Jumper, Honey Lemon is Tall Girl, Baymax is Red Panda and Hiro is Captain Cutie!

At the scene, Hiro tells the team they have to save his "beautiful girlfriend" and they rush inside the bio lab. As the team run down the hall, Karmi narrates how Hiro didn't feel the flames burning, but rather the "burning of his desire to save his one true love". They get to the lab, but Wasabi burns his hand trying to get in. Gogo sees another way and skates up the wall vertically; breaking open the air vent. They make it inside, but they have a fire to put out. Wasabi slices a water drinking fountain in half and Fred and Honey Lemon work together to make ice showers. It successfully puts the fire out!

Hiro reaches the door to Karmi's office, but it won't open. Baymax tells Hiro to stand back that it's time for overdrive mode. Overdrive mode reveals incredible powers with a hint of anime references. Baymax breaks the door (and the wall) and Hiro rushes over to Karmi. They rush over to each other. Hiro holds Karmi in his arms and they look at each other lovingly.

In the real world, Hiro wonders what this story is. Fred excitedly explains that someone wrote fanfiction about them! Hiro clicks on the username which reveals a photo of Karmi. He's not amused.

Meanwhile, Momakase is in prison and has apparently been jumping up to the ceiling to mark how many days she's been in her cell. She also has special bars for her cell so she can't escape. As she sighs, a prison guard walks by and slides an envelope in her cell. She opens it up and it reveals to have a paper inside with Obake’s logo on it and piece of a graphene blade. Obake, dressed as a prison guard, tells her that he can thank her later. She’s very pleased to have this and wastes no time breaking out of jail.

Hiro and Baymax are flying around, but Hiro is too distracted by Karmi’s story to focus. He questions why she’d call a superhero ‘Captain Cutie’ and thinks her story is stupid. Fred disagrees and thinks it’s genius and building up to an epic saga. Wasabi chimes in and thinks it cool that there's fanfiction about them since it implies they have fans. Honey feels like a celebrity, but doesn't think she's all that tall. Gogo gives her a look and Honey says, "Okay, that's fair".

On a wind turbine, Hiro paces as Baymax explains that creative expression can be a positive way to connect with people. Hiro sees his point, but he still doesn't like it and believes the stuff Karmi has them doing in the story isn't possible. Gogo notes that she's never tried skating vertically before and that it's possible. Fred wonders what the fans of the story will call Hiro and Karmi and brainstorms ship names based on his new 'Captain Cutie' nickname.

Breaking news is broadcasted and Bluff Dunder reports Momakase's escape from prison. Gogo calls Wasabi to let him and Fred know. It seems like Fred can't believe it, but the news he's actually looking at is about Krei's old lab on Akuma Island being demolished soon. After being told the news of Momakase, Fred says he has different news alerts than the rest of them. He's very attached to the island since it's a key location to their origin story.

Hiro wants to get back to Momakase and has Baymax scan her. He tracks her location and their off (not before Wasabi can make a teasingly call Hiro 'Captain Cutie' though). Momakase is running loose on the streets, but Hiro and Baymax have caught up to her. She doesn't seem the least bit intimidated by being followed and continues to sprint down an alleyway. Hiro jumps off Baymax and the duo runs after her. Baymax points out how fast Momakase is and ends up getting stuck between two walls. As the chase continues, Obake sends out one of his drones to the location. Momakase starts jumping to higher ground, but Hiro catches her by the ankle! Unfortunately, Obake's drone shoots at him, causing him to lose his grip and fall down. Although Baymax is still stuck, he was able to launch his rocket fist right at the drone which breaks it. Momakase ends up getting away. Honey asks what happened and Hiro tells her that Obake happened.

The next day at school, Fred is surprised to hear about Obake and Momakase working together. It's not good, unless of course you're into super villain fanfiction and Fred brainstorms some ship names for them too. The last thing Hiro wants to talk about his fanfiction and he accidentally bumps into Karmi who's currently working on chapter two of her fanfiction. Hiro would rather her not explain it because he doesn't get it. Karmi thinks that Hiro doesn't have a soul unlike her and lots of other people. Hiro asks if she thinks it's okay to write fanfiction about real people. She asks why he'd care and is quick to say he doesn't. Karmi has places to go and announces that chapter two will be live that night which excites a lot of fellow students. Fred is also excited, but says he might read it eventually seeing how unhappy Hiro is about it. Who are you kidding, Fred?

In Obake's lair, Momakase has a knife pointed to his neck and asks what he's supposed to be. He says he's someone that finds Big Hero 6 to be tiresome. Momakase tells him to join the club, and that's actually what Obake was going to offer her. He's giving her the chance to eliminate their mutual enemies. He shows Momakase the research he's been doing and states that he knows who they are, what they can do and who they fight. One of the photos he has pulled up is the recent news of Momakase being on the run with her picture of being arrested back in Food Fight. Obake asks if his club sounds fun and Momakase throws a knife at his screen; landing right on a picture of Hiro. She accepts his offer to his club and he gives her a scan-jammer to wear so she can't be tracked by them. She likes the club.

Later on, we see the beginning of chapter two from Karmi's fanfic. She recaps the end of the last chapter and it now shows their chibi forms safe and sound. Chibi Hiro is lovingly holding chibi Karmi in his arms. Fred is reading the story out loud, but Hiro cuts him off. This disappoints Fred since he was planning to do the voices for everyone. Hiro doesn't understand why Fred is giving Karmi the clicks. Honey defends her, saying she's just having fun and questions why Hiro cares so much. Gogo states that Hiro is embarrassed by Karmi's crush on him. Hiro is quick to say he's not, but Baymax says that the increased bloodflow to his cheeks is a common sign of embarrassment...which embarrasses Hiro even more.

Changing the subject, he tells Baymax to scan for Momakase, but he's unable to locate her. This weirds Hiro out since there's nothing wrong with Baymax's scanner. Gogo comes to the realization that Momakase has a scan-jammer, but Wasabi comes up with the idea to scan for heat signatures since graphene conducts heat. It works, and Baymax detects graphene at Securitech. This confuses them since it seems like Momakase is trying to break back into prison.

Suited up, they fly over to Securitech and quietly enter inside. Baymax scans again for graphene and detects a small amount on the streets. Gogo decides to go after her since she's the fastest. As the rest of the team looks around, Hiro questions why they don't have an alarm. Fred assures they must since it's a security company and questions if Momakase was even there since there aren't any signs of her anywhere. Wasabi lightly hits at the wall and it reveals a bunch of slices in the wall which results in a door falling apart. Oh yeah. She was there.

Momakase is on the run, but Gogo is right behind her. They run through an alleyway, where Momakase jumps up the walls and makes an escape. Gogo says she's lost her, but then remembers the idea of skating vertically. She gets her skates going at a fast speed and is able to successfully get up the wall! She's impressed that the velocishot worked and goes to catch up to Momakase.

The others are now in a top secret room of Securitech. Honey touches some bars, which end up turning on all the lights and all the computer screens (except one) slice in half. The one still intact has an icon of Momakase's face evilly cackling. Fred isn't a fan of it since it doesn't properly capture her bone structure. Now, they can only assume she has everything that Securitech was working on. Honey is still confident in her not getting away since no one out-runs Gogo.

Momakase and Gogo are continuing their chase on the rooftop of various buildings. Gogo throws her disks at her, but Momakase slices them in half. She also takes the time to slice her skates in half while Gogo is in mid-air. With that, Momakase is able to get away. Gogo is surprised that she's been out-ran.

The next day, everyone at SFIT can't stop talking about Karmi's fanfiction and it's driving Hiro insane. He tries to avoid all the chatter about the story and the shipping between his superhero persona and Karmi, but he can't seem to get away from it the whole day. He eventually loses it and screams, but realizing that he's around a bunch of students that don't understand his discomfort, he rushes off in embarrassment.

Meanwhile, Fred and Honey want to try out making an ice shower from Karmi's story. They decide to test it out with a koi pond. Fred has to steam it up and Honey will freeze the steam. First things first, they had to get the koi fish out of the pond. With all the fish safe and sound, Fred creates some steam and Honey uses her chem-balls to freeze it out. She accidentally freezes Fred on top of it, but it's a good first attempt! Hiro shows up and Honey explains that since Karmi was right about Gogo's vertical skating, they wanted to see if she was onto something about ice showers. Hiro isn't into this idea and believes that Gogo's was just a lucky guess. Honey suggests that it would be easier for Hiro to accept that Karmi likes him and then he can appreciate what she has to contribute. Fred chimes in and says he can't get her to stop writing which gives Hiro an idea.

He knows Karmi won't listen to him, but would definitely listen to 'Capatin Cutie'. He rehearshes some practice runs of what to say with the gang. He starts off with Wasabi and states that Karmi has gotten "too much about them right." He states that his name is, in fact, Captain Cutie. Captain Jeff Cutie. Him and his team can't risk any more of their secrets being exposed. Wasabi is confused by the Jeff part. With Gogo, he says that Karmi isn't a good writer and should stop, but she thinks that's too harsh. With Honey, he asks if she's aware of the phrase 'copyright infringement' and that his lawyer (Baymax in a suit) is prepared to take legal action. Honey doesn't think anyone would believe Baymax is a lawyer. He tells Baymax to say his line and he says, "I object." Honestly...I'd buy it.

Later on, Hiro is pacing around the outside of the bio lab. He knows that she leaves at seven every night, but she's not around. He assumes that she's writing chapter four. Honey then tells him there's something he's going to want to see.

It cuts to a video of Momakase speaking directly to 'Captain Cutie'. He tells him to meet her at Akuma Island by nine or else he'll never see his "beautiful girlfriend" again. Karmi has been kidnapped and she's tied on a chair. Hiro realizes that they're inside of Krei's old lab which is supposed to be demolished that night. He knows that Karmi needs them...and she's not his girlfriend!

The team rushes over to the island. Since Momakase knows they're coming, so they decide to split up. Whoever gets to Karmi first is supposed to signal the others. Honey wishes everyone good luck and Fred wants to do a group cheer that no one else joins in on. Fred and Wasabi are sneaking around as Fred sings about being back on the island "where it all began". When they get far enough, Wasabi begins cutting through a wall. Fred wants him to go faster and tells him it doesn't have to be a perfect circle. Wasabi explains that he'd need a lot more tools for that. Momakase is able to make a perfect circle with two of her knives on the wall across from them.

Honey and Gogo sneak in another way and quietly lower themselves down, but unfortunately, Momakase is watching them. She throws her knife and it cuts through Honey's rubber, causing both girls to fall. Honey uses a chem-ball to break their fall. It's a two-on-one fight! Momakase kicks Gogo down, but Honey is quick to use her chem-balls in various ways. She traps herself in a pink bubble again and by the time Momakase cuts through, Honey has created a hole in the floor to get away. She bursts out of another hole and manages to temporarily stick Momakase to the ground until she cuts herself free. Honey throws an ice ball to the ground which causes Momakase to slip. She gets back on her feet, but before she can make another move, Gogo attacks her with full force. She ends up slicing another one of her disks, but Gogo manages to knock her down. She gets back up, only to slide back down due to another one of Honey's ice balls. Gogo tells her she has nowhere else to go which is what Momakase was going to say to them. She throws her knives and they cut through many pieces of metal from the lab, which fall onto the girls.

Hiro and Baymax are in the security room. He figures they can use the old security system to locate Karmi. Luckily, the system is still functional and he finds Karmi. There's no sign of Momakase, but also no sign of the others.

They make it to the room that Karmi's trapped in and Hiro rushes over to her. Her mouth is tied up and when he takes it off, she tells him to be careful because it's all a trap. With a press of a button, they get locked up inside a high-tech prison cell. Some lights shine on, revealing the other four tied up. Momakase welcomes Hiro and tells him he's a good boyfriend. He almost breaks character, but switches back to his pretend deep voice and tells Momakase she won't be getting away with this. She'd say she already has and activates the bars. She admits that she actually broke a sweat to trap them.

With Wasabi untied (thanks to Gogo who was untied thanks to Karmi) uses his blades to cut the bars, but he can't break free. Honey creates an acid ball, but it bounces off the ground and hits the chair Karmi was sitting on. Momakase reveals that the cell was designed specifically for them and she thought of everything. Hiro believes it was Obake that thought of it all. She got the intel from him, but the ideas were all hers. Fred asks what her and Obake call themselves and throws out the shipping names. His money is on Momabake and she comments on how those are stupid last words. She reminds them all that a disintegration device is about to wipe out everything on the island and asks Hiro if it was worth it to reunite with "his girlfriend". Karmi gets excited about Momakase calling her his girlfriend. The countdown begins for the disintegration and Momakase flips out of the lab. Wasabi decides to scream since no one else does.

On a speed boat, Momakase reports to Obake that Big Hero 6 is trapped. She thought Obake has plans for the boy, but only if he's good enough. He's confident in his and the others surviving.

We're now at the second comic-con clip we received for this episode where Fred is stating what we already know about the prison cell and the building about to demolish. Honey states that this isn't good which concerns Gogo because when she says that, that means it's really not good. Karmi asks if they know another way out, but none of them have an idea...except for Hiro. Hiro pulls out a chip and commands 'Red Panda' to engage overdrive mode. The chip changes Baymax and he transforms into his powerful overdrive mode self! Karmi is excited to see that the idea from her story is real. Hiro explains that after reading her story, he made some tweaks to the armor which will drain his battery, but will be enough to do some damage. Baymax's wings turn into a sword and when electricity charged up, he's able to slice through not only the bars, but a wall of the lab as well. Baymax transforms back to himself, but is on low-battery due to the amount that was drained.

They all have to hurry up since the disintegration will happen in four minutes. Hiro asks if Baymax can fly them out, but he's too drained to do so. He tosses Baymax over to Wasabi to assist out. He then takes Karmi's hand, who blushes at the gesture, and tells her to follow him. They all begin to rush out of the lab (two minutes left until it gets demolished). The lab is beginning to explode, but everyone has made it at the wired fence. Wasabi is about to slice through them, but Fred reminds him to say his line and he says, "Time to make chop chop!"

They get to the edge of a cliff and Karmi suggests swimming, but there's no time for that. Honey and Fred decide to try out the ice shower again and call each other by the nicknames in Karmi's story. Honey tells Karmi she'd be okay with her rethinking her name. Fred breathes fire in the water and Honey creates an ice slide from the steam. She also suggests coming up with a different catchphrase. They all slide down the ice and the demolishing spreads further. They've escaped just in time!

The ice shatters into pieces, but they all land safely on a huge piece. Hiro and Karmi exchange an awkward smile. Fred exclaims that Honeyzilla saved the day and explains to Honey that's what they'd be called if people shipped them. He has a list of ship names for everyone on the team and lists off all the Wasabi ships because he banks on Wasabi being a fan favorite because he's so cool.

Karmi still can't believe that Hiro creative overdrive mode because of her. Hiro says she's the one that saved the day and Karmi assumes this means he liked her story. Hiro is about to tell her that he doesn't want her to continue writing, but ends up telling her that, "As long as there's a Captain Cutie, there will always be justice." Karmi, who's very happy now, says that it's the best day ever and hugs Hiro who ends up smiling. Our heroes saved the day!

We transition to the next chapter of Karmi's story where our team is happy with what Karmi did and Hiro offers her to become the seventh member of the team. She's all in! Then, chibi Hiro gets down on one knee and asks for Karmi's hand in marriage.

In real life, Hiro is covering his ears and doesn't want to hear anymore. Fred tells him he was only kidding...it actually ends with them kissing. The episode ends with a mortified Hiro.

This was an interesting episode!

I gotta say, I definitely enjoyed it more the second time watching it. Even though there are certain elements of this episode that I didn't particularly enjoy, there was still a lot that I did like a lot.

First things first, THEIR CHIBI FORMS ARE SO CUTE GAHHH!!! I loved that we got to see them like that and it was definitely an enjoyable way to do Karmi's story. The anime references were a great, hilarious touch too.

I really liked that Karmi's ideas did end up being beneficial to the team. Even though Hiro thought it was impossible at first, the others really did want to see things could be done and they can. Hiro deciding on using overdrive mode for Baymax was incredible. The only issue is his battery being drained, but it ended up being what saved them all (in addition to the ice shower).

All the references to fan fiction and shipping were pretty good too. It is funny to see how aware they all are of ships. Also, Fred mentioning that he thinks Wasabi being a fan favorite was so sweet!

Obake and Momakase (or should I say Obakase/Momabake) are now working together! Momakase is definitely one of my favorite villains, so it's great to see her back in action and working with our biggest bad guy. They do make a really good team given that Obake gave her intel and the ideas she came up with were all on her own. She's going to be a great new member of Obake's villain club for sure. Looking forward to seeing what else she'll be contributing in future episodes.

I felt so bad for Hiro. I'm glad he mentioned that it can be uncomfortable to write stories about real people and we did see how much the stories and the feedback from other students affected him. He ultimately made the decision to not tell Karmi to stop writing, but I still feel bad that he wasn't able to voice his discomfort.

I'm glad that Karmi's story was received positively and it's good to see that a self-insert story didn't result in bullying. I think what made her stories so enjoyable was the fact that it was shown in chibi form. I think it would have been really interesting to see how she was kidnapped, but that's okay.

I was really impressed with Hiro when he grabbed onto Momakase's ankle at the beginning of the episode. Even if he got shot down by Obake's drone, that was seriously cool! And I loved the entire fight sequence between Momakase and Honey and Gogo. It was done so well!

Also...Lawyer Baymax. 10/10 idea.

Even though this may not have been my favorite episode, I did like it and I think it was a good break from the mystery and intensity that were the previous two episodes. It felt good to laugh out loud here and there!

On a scale of one to ten...I'd rate Fan Friction a 7.6!