#if I can retrieve and use an arrow lodged in the wall

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Chapter 3 - Page 23

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Just a heads-up that I'll be taking the next update off! I'm moving to a new place and unfortunately that's going to take a LOT of time and energy to get done. The comic will be back in a few weeks though! HOPEFULLY this will be the last interruption that chapter 3 gets- we're so close to the end of it!

Hey anon- just wanted to let you know that I got the biggest kick out of this ask when you sent it- knowing full well that your question would be answered on the following page. Here we are! He's really just irritated at having to pick them all back up!

Honestly, it didn't make much sense to me in PLA that you COULDN'T go and retrieve pokeballs that missed their mark- sooooo... I changed that. Certain gameplay mechanics just don't make a whole lot of narrative sense outside of a videogame I think. So there will be a few tweaks here and there in the story, just to make things make more sense- and this is one of them! Good job calling it ahead of time!

Thanks so much for sticking around!

(Also, as like- a side note re: anons- while I don't publish answered asks on their own to keep the flow of the blog smooth- I have recieved some very kind and thoughtful commentary and I just wanted to say thank you! They live in my inbox and make me smile every time I read them♡)

[apollos-garden]

Thrall

A/N: in this, you’re an Avenger who has atmospheric / air manipulation powers. So basically you can move air, shove air, make a high/low pressure bubble, make a force field of wind, etc. 

Word count: 1878

Summary: mind controlled Bucky is ordered to fight you

The metal-paneled hallway was silent as you snuck along the side. You’d successfully retrieved the element core from under heavy guard at one of HYDRA’s last bases without notice. Just a bit longer, and you’d get outside. Tony’s quinjet was as close as possible to the base without triggering the sensors, about a 3 minute run. At the end of the hallway, you saw Bucky waiting to make sure you weren’t ambushed and cornered in the narrow corridor. You quickened your steps, eager to get away from the flickering fluorescent lights and eerie echo. Suddenly, the speakers in the ceiling came on with a crackle. 

Was that... Russian? “Желание. Ржавый...” You slowed in confusion, but Bucky’s eyes widened in horror before you could register the pattern. “No!” he shouted, plugging his ears in a desperate attempt to override the code, but the volume was deafening. “...Возвращение на Родину. Один...” In a last-ditch attempt to interrupt the sequence being read out, you sent a bolt of high pressure air hurtling towards the nearest speaker, crumpling it, but the others lining the hallway were more than loud enough to compensate. “Товарный вагон.” Silence resumed for a moment before Bucky straightened. “Я готов отвечать.” Ready to comply. 

Your heart sank. “Bucky, pl-.” You were cut off by the voice in the ceiling. “Dispatch subject in possession of element core and return it to the base center. Do not damage the core.” Bucky’s eyes locked onto you, and he raised his gun. Panicking, you threw up a force field. It held off the first spray of bullets, but in a confined and stuffy area like this, it wouldn’t last for long. You needed to get outside. The door was in your line of sight, directly behind Bucky. That was the problem. Strengthening the field as much as possible, you slowly began advancing towards him. 

As you got closer, the bullets’ ricochet paths started veering dangerously close to Bucky. Realizing this, he positioned the gun back across his shoulders and swapped to his knife. Bucky kicked the force field right in the middle, and although the winds spun his foot off, it wavered, weakened from the bullets. After absorbing another kick and two punches from his metal arm, the rushing air finally flickered down. You were completely unprotected. You had a knife in your belt and some explosive beads in a satchel, but even as you reached for the blade you knew you wouldn’t be able to hurt him. 

Bucky jabbed with the knife at your stomach and you sent a focused burst of air hurtling towards the blade, averting it at the last second. Your mind raced, trying to come up with any strategy to get to the door. Narrowly dodging an elbow to the face, you saw your window. Shoving him to the side with a gust of wind, you launched yourself past him, diving onto the hard floor. Rolling, you made a mad dash for the door. You heard a whooshing noise and your left calf erupted in pain, his knife clattering to the ground. Stumbling, you reached for the door handle when you heard the characteristic click of a gun cocking. 

You threw up a force field behind you, blocking a stream of bullets. You reached blindly for the door handle behind you, tugging it open. As you turned, a bullet ricocheted past the wall of wind and ripped into your right side as you almost fell outside, slamming the door behind you. Shaking, you reached for your radio. “Tony, Bucky got triggered and is trying to get the core back. I can’t hold him back for long. I need you to pick me up.” Not waiting for a response, you ran to a nearby tree, crouching behind it just as Bucky burst through the door. If you got the chance to form a low-pressure partial vacuum around his head, you might be able to make him pass out from hypoxia. You held out your hands, hiding them as best you could in the brush around the tree, and began to form the vacuum. Focused on tracking the blood drops you left in the muddy grass, Bucky didn’t notice the faint blurry film cast over his vision. 

The sound of the rain pattering on leaves masked your heavy breathing. Your vision was also starting to blur, but from blood loss and exhaustion. The bubble had sealed, and oxygen levels should have fallen enough to be noticeable. And noticed it was. Bucky clawed at the bubble, but since it was just air, there was nothing to punch through. Unfortunately, he realized that he needed to find you before his air ran out at the same time that the blood trail ended right in front of you. Your eyes locked. 

You formed your third force field just in time to block a kick that would have hit you square in the nose. It was stronger now, with the storm and free air, but you weren’t sure how long you could hold it and maintain the vacuum. Time to try something different. Hooking your foot around Bucky’s ankle, you took advantage of his air-deprived dizziness to flip him onto the ground, slamming his head onto a tree root. Summoning a concentrated force field around both his wrists, you kept both hands pinned to the ground. He strained against it and your head pounded with how much force you needed to exert to keep him there. Blood trickled from your nose. This could last for 10 seconds, tops. 

Your head snapped up as blasters started firing from the rooftop of the base at the approach of Tony’s quinjet. By this time, Bucky definitely should have passed out. You turned your gaze back to Bucky just to see his metal arm rip through its confine, and then the other one. With alarm, you saw no sign of the bubble you had put in place. It must have fizzled out when you had to focus so much power on keeping Bucky restrained. You raised your hands to cast yet another force field to hold until the quinjet landed, but they shook badly and all you managed was a feeble puff. Bucky unslung his gun from his shoulders and you dive away, but a round of bullets rip into the air and one lodges into your bicep. You look up to the quinjet to see Hawkeye on the hatch shoot an arrow into Bucky’s leg. The last thing you see before your vision fades to black is Bucky crumpling to the ground next to you and Cap leaping from the quinjet. 

________________________________

You slowly open your eyes. Your head feels pleasantly fuzzy, almost warm. As you open your eyes, some of that fogginess morphs into nausea. You’re in the quinjet. It’s quiet, the only noise the whir of the turbines and the splashing of rain on the roof and windows. Taking a deep breath, you push up onto your elbows. Your abs and arm burn, but thankfully the painkillers flowing down the IV line in your wrist numb most of the pain. “Woah, sit back down!” came a voice from behind you. You turn your head to see Natasha. “Oh. Hey, Nat.” 

“Lie. Back. Down.” Geez, okay. You settle back onto the medical cot. Natasha dragged her chair over to you. “How’re you feeling?” You smirked. “Actually, pretty okay. This is some heavy stuff. Maybe I should get shot more often.” Natasha just raises an eyebrow at you. The memory of what happened gradually returns as you shake free from the analgesic mental fog. “Um, how’s Bucky? I saw him get nailed by Hawkeye.” Nat sighs. “Well, he’s fine physically. That was a hollow arrow filled with a fast-acting sedative, just to get him out of Winter Soldier mode. Mentally... well, he’s outside. Do you want to talk to him?”

You nodded, biting your lip in concern. Natasha got up and dipped around the door, saying something. Once she was gone, you sat up, leaning against the wall for support. After a moment, Bucky’s head peeked around the door. He didn’t seem like he was going to move. “Hey, Bucky. You can come in, you know.” Slowly, he walked in, stopping near the door. He hugged himself with one arm, holding onto the bicep of his metal arm. He didn’t make eye contact. You tracked his gaze, eyes fixed on the bandages wrapped around your waist and arm. “Don’t worry about those. Bruce used some of his cell matrix regeneration support bandages. I’ve read about them in journals. Bullet wounds don’t even scar over if you get one on fast enough.” Bucky nodded. “Could you maybe come here? I would move but I’m tethered.” You motioned to your wrist. Reluctantly, he walked over and sat where Nat had been.

Bucky still wouldn’t meet your gaze. “Hey. It’s okay. You couldn’t do anything, and I don’t blame you for it.” At that, his eyes snapped up to meet yours. His eyes were red. “Why didn’t you stop me?,” he asked hoarsely. “If Tony had got there any slower, I would have killed you.” You sighed. “I knew if I tried to really hit you, I would have pulled my punches. So then I wouldn’t have made any real attack and I would be close enough for you to really mess me up. Just holding you down and blocking was the only way for me to get out alive. Anyway, we both made it out.” 

“It was this close to only one of us making it out!,” Bucky exclaimed. “I don’t get it. You almost died! Because of me!” His shoulders sagged and you could hear his voice crack. “I thought I lost you.” Bucky looked back up at you, blinking back tears. Some managed to escape and trail down his cheeks. Your own eyes stung seeing Bucky like this. “I’m right here, Bucky. I’m alive and so are you.” You pulled his head forward to kiss his forehead, then wrapped your arms around his neck. “It’s okay.” Bucky let himself be moved without resistance, but his hands wavered before settling on either side of the cot, not wanting to further hurt you. Silently, you lower one hand and intertwine your fingers with his, resting in your lap. 

Eventually, Bucky’s back stopped shuddering with sobs and his breathing evened out. You wiped away residual tears with the back of your hand, gently tugging him next to you on the cot. The combined effect of keeping yourself upright with damaged ab muscles and the steady flow of the painkillers was beginning to take a toll on you, and you leaned a little into Bucky’s side. His brows furrowed in concern. He remained still for a moment before cautiously guiding your head into his lap. “Sorry, I guess these drugs are pretty strong,” you mumbled. “ ���S okay,” Bucky replied, running his fingers through your hair. 

After about thirty seconds, you were already dead asleep. Bucky tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Your pulse was slow but strong and he could just barely feel the beat on his thigh where your neck rested. You both stayed like that, still and safe, until the quinjet landed.

[lvlyhao]

「PART TWO: FEAR」

HUMANITY SERIES; Q.K

A/N: took me long enough to post, I know, but thank you to that last anon for reminding me of the series lol with school i tend to forget what i have and haven’t posted but i’ll do better from now on. i hope you like this :)

important: this chapter includes mentions of vomiting and though i’ve already put a warning for violence and gore in the masterlist, i’m saying it again: please don’t read this if you are not okay with that!!!!

word count: 2.1K

pairing: qian kun x reader

disclaimer: the characters in the story below do not reflect real people or present real facts. this is purely fictional, and you may not copy, change, translate or repost my work in any way. all rights reserved © cherry-hyejin 2021.

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“I’m heading out”, your hands fondly squeeze Taeyong’s shoulders from behind him. He does not look up from his task for a few seconds, counting rolls of gauze. Then, upon processing your words, he twirls to face you. His eyes trail up and down your figure, making a mental checklist of everything you need to be safe. Apparently, one thing is missing.

“Take Jaehyun with you”, he asks, “or maybe Yuta. Johnny is always good to have around, and so is Renjun. Those swords of his are no joke”, he rambles, losing focus. The way he places his hands on his hips and sighs tells you he’s absolutely drained. “Or maybe I should go with you—”

Shaking your head fervently, you pat his cheek for his attention, observing the streaks of noon sunlight across his face. He stares at you with concern and shifts his weight.

“You’re staying right here and so are the boys, Tyong. We haven’t found a survivor in weeks, and taking one of them is always more stressful than anything”, you reason. Recollections of how the boys attract trouble wherever they go cloud your mind, far too many to count. The air suddenly feels too chilly, with shivers running down your spine. 

“Just stay here and maybe find a way to rest. You know Doyoung won’t mind keeping track of the supply for you.”

At this point, he knows it’s no use arguing. 

“Just be careful… and get back before dawn”, he adjusts the collar of your jacket, thinking back to the weather outside of the grey walls of the dorms. “All I’m saying is you never know what you’re gonna find.” Giving you a tight-lipped smile and a nod, he resumes his job, and you leave him. Headed to the heavily locked iron doors guarded by the towering figures of Shotaro and Sungchan, you ask yourself if there was any hidden depth to Taeyong's words.

“You never know what you’re gonna find, huh", you mutter.

Now, roaming the deserted streets on your own and basking in the orange glow of the afternoon, you just think he was wrong. 

It’s already been a couple of hours since you left: you’ve explored parts of the district you barely even knew before the virus, seeing all kinds of animals scurrying around your path. You’ve also eaten the rice balls Jaemin packed for you, and you’ve gawked at the decaying building that used to be your favourite theatre. It’s all the same as you imagined it would be. Not many walkers litter this part of town—just 7 or 8 you managed to avoid—and no people. No one worth rescuing.

Wandering like this, in silence, brings back memories you're not sure you like. Weekly game nights with your friends, attending Jisung’s dance presentations, playing in the park’s playground at night... All of those feel foreign to you, parts of life too good to have ever been yours. Still, the need for a shot of wistfulness takes over, and you sigh. Better now than when it gets late, then. With a shake of your head, you pick a destination and start moving.

You’re conscious of your surroundings as you keep one hand on the bow and make your way across the square. Dry, fiery leaves crunch under your boots, being the only sound you pick up. Nothing looks out of the ordinary, either. The same old abandoned stores seem to look down at you, their busted windows moaning in the wind. But, right then, something jabs at your gut. It's a silent alert to a threat you can't see. 

Damnit. You better pick up the pace.

As soon as you make a turn to the left, spying the pizza place you used to visit, you freeze. Walkers, maybe 10 of them, whimper and try to get past the debris to reach something inside a pharmacy.

How could you not notice them earlier? They’re not a quiet horde, and the awful stench is not something you should have missed either. Have you been that lost in your nostalgia?

Whatever happened, you don't have much time. If the undead are making that much effort to get around the rubble, there has to be someone inside. A fellow human being—hopefully, a nice one. Someone you can help.

Acting out of instincts, you drink in your surroundings. Having your back hastily pressed against a tree trunk is not ideal, but it's what comes to you. While you can't call yourself a strategy master, jumping right into action is not the right plan when someone else's life is in danger. 

Mind racing, you know you need a better shooting spot now if you want to make a move. Drawing them out to an alley is not a totally bad idea either. They wouldn't be able to escape, and maybe then they could flee.

As soon as you found a perfect corner for that, the screech of old door hinges catches your attention. A second later, shattering glass.

Shit. They broke in.

With no more time to assess the situation, you quickly climb up a rotting picnic table. The zombies, some missing a limb, slowly drag their feet towards a man in a plaid, blue shirt. 

He's petrified, head lashing from side to side, looking for a way out. You know very well there is none, and soon enough it will be too late. He’ll be just at reach for those disgusting, putrid fingers. If they get a bite in, it's over for you, and it's over for him.

That’s when you take the stupidest decision of your life.

Screaming.

“YO, YOU POINTLESS MEAT SACK! WHY DON’T YOU LOOK OVER HERE?”

The boy might just get whiplash from how fast his eyes find yours. His are dark and desperate, but there is something else to them—to him. Something you will never find it in you to explain. 

It could have been the way the stares right at your soul, or how his face displays every emotion from relief to terror. You could even say it was how his knees buckled under his weight or his fluttering hair in the wind. You can blame your reaction on a lot of things, but none of them startles you as much as yourself. 

A cold hand grasps at your heart, squeezing it tightly in your chest. Blood drains from your face, and your frame shakes in the wind. You know this sensation all too well to have doubts, although it is what you swore never to feel again. Fear. Not for yourself, no, even when the undead start walking towards you instead. You don't—can't— care enough about your life, and you know it. It is all for him, the beautiful stranger you are going to save.

The first two arrows find their aim, speeding right through the undead’s skulls, but something shifts in your arms. The rest of your arrows now seem to swerve a bit to the sides, lodging themselves on necks or shoulders. In other words, not where they are supposed to. 

Oh, how much you hate that the walkers will only die if you damage their brains.

“Annoying bastards, I swear—”

Falling into a state of near panic, you drop to the floor unceremoniously and race to the horde. If your bow won't do the trick, your other weapons will.

Momentarily thankful for their lack of agility, you pull out the knives hidden on the sides of your shoes. In a flurry of drive, you slash and stab everything around you. While throwing some hand-to-hand-combat here and there, your eyes start to burn. The walkers smell even worse from up close, you bitterly recall from past encounters. It's one of the things that make fighting harder—the urge to run away from them at every second.

The more daring among them clutch at your clothes, keeping your movement limited, but you manage to cut off their hands. The slick sound it makes is enough to make bile rise up your throat, but you swallow it back.

“C’mon, Y/N”, you pant, kicking what had once been an adult woman in the chest to send her down to the asphalt. “You’ve had tougher battles than this." With a breath as deep as you can manage, your knife cuts at another zombie.

It is true, you know. It's impossible to count the times you’ve been up against groups of 20 or more. You were always fine. Right now, though, wincing from multiple wounds scattered around your skin, you question how the hell did you do it.

Hurriedly glancing to your right, you notice 5 are already dead—well, dead-er than they had previously been. The lady you kicked struggles to get up, giving you a gap to spin and bury your knife into her scalp. She goes limp right away, and you stare. 4 more to go.

Just as you retrieve your blade and turn to face the other walkers, something bites your dominant hand. Hard.

With your knife tumbling down in a metallic clunk, fire shoots up your arm. The first thing you do is wiggle your hand back and forth. Some part of you thinks it was going to let go like it’s some sort of dog. You realize you were wrong when darkened saliva flows into the cuts, your mind going blank with agony.

You figure it was one of the undead you had pushed down before, only to lose sight of him later. And, yes, wiggling was a poor attempt at getting him to drop you, but you did it out of pure alarm. Fear is gradually taking over you now, freezing cold and impossible to fight.

With only your non-dominant hand free, you sloppily sink your blade down however many times it takes for the corpse to stop moving. The pain you feel is sharp, travelling through your veins like blue fire. As his grip slackens, the body slumps to the ground, a wet thud echoing. Despite the agony that threatens to blind you, you're aware of the other 3 walkers you have yet to take down.

One is easy enough, with an arrow embedded deep on one side of her neck, and another coming down on her brow bone. Repugnance swirls in your gut, and you have to look away. Their skulls are incredibly soft.

Your remaining enemies pace at either side of you, circling you with dead eyes and faltering strides. You keep your wounded hand close to you while the other clutches the leather grip of your weapon. It's time to put an end to this.

Choosing to go for the right first, you slash at his chest, grimacing at the black blood that oozes. It taints his shredded red hoodie and sprinkles at your front. The shudders that course through you in silent rage give you the strength to finish it off.

In one clean, powerful strike, your knife goes through an eyeball, but he collapses a bit too fast. You can't recover your blade.

Having no weapons on your hands, even for a second, is critical. The walkers are borderline sluggish, but it was easy to lose track of them: your severed hand was proof.

To your relief—or mild disgust—, hasty strides bounce at the pavement behind you, followed by heavy thuds on a slimy surface. It takes no more than 3 seconds for the last body to tumble by your feet, face down. 

It's only then you see the skull, or better, what is left of it. Blood and brain flow over a gaping crack, done by something sharp. You could guess it was the heavy, black rock that you find before you, held in the hands of the man you are supposed to be saving.

From there, you realize his medium length hair is a faded blue, with dark brown at the roots. A grey university hoodie hugs his slim figure under the plaids, matching his cargo pants and busted sneakers. His face is all sharp angles and soft edges, but his gaze is nothing short of magnetic.

Wide, chocolate eyes glare at the body with such horror your own throat tightens. Then, with no words shared, he lets go of the rock and stumbles back like he cannot believe what he did. Your own eyes divert to the cloudless sky, hearing him vomiting on the concrete in a matter of seconds. Poor dude.

Pity, combined with the reminiscents of adrenaline and dread, settle in you. Your thoughts boil down to one small detail: the Sun is setting.

The throbbing on your hand momentarily vanishes, lost in the memory of Taeyong very clearly telling you to be back before dawn. Aside from that, the memory of what you did to get the walkers' attention still burns at your mind. That goddamned shout. Having a sense of hearing as acute as they did, you are sure any other zombies around you are coming your way.

You have fucked up big time.

-------

final notes: ik chapter one wasn’t all that exciting but i’m hoping this one is better wheeze two more to come, stay tuned <3

[loveafterthefact]

Love After the Fact Chapter 40: A Completely Unrelated Chill

Keith wakes to a third party.

TRIGGER WARNING:

-Violence

-Blood

-Magical Violence/Torment

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Keith stirs, gelid air dragging over his cheek. He sighs, settles back into his pillow. His head hurts, his throat burns, and his mind is too slow for thought. The cold can-

Wait. A completely unrelated chill rakes down his dorsal fur like icy claws. Lance closed the doors. He’s sure he remembers Lance closing the garden doors.

It’s probably nothing, but that line of fur down his back is still stiff. His ears catch the slightest rustle, a sound so unlike Lance’s.

Instincts nagging at the edge of his consciousness, Keith drags his eyes open.

In the future, Keith will blame the alcohol. It pacified him, sedated him, weighed down his brain. He’ll say he could have moved faster, that it wouldn’t have been quite so close if only he’d behaved himself.

But right now, a six-limbed, cowled intruder leans over Lance’s sleeping figure, hovering on legs, one pair of arms while a second pair hangs above his spouse's chest, prepares to plunge a wicked knife into the young prince’s chest. They’re dressed only in dark clothes, silent, movements unimpeded, but body vulnerable.

The cold. The garden doors. Someone came in through the garden- This person is here to kill his chosen mate.

It only occurs to Keith after he’s coiled himself tight, launched himself at the assassin with a feline yowl, that he is unarmed and the intruder is decidedly not. What the intruder does not have are claws, and Keith willfully, vindictively digs them into their soft flesh. He feels a warm wetness welling wherever he claws at his foe.

Lance jolts awake at Keith’s alarm, eyes wide as his spouse hits the floor on his side of the bed. The kit’s grappling with an assailant, rolling across the floor.

Instinctively, Lance floods the castle with his quintessence. The desperate cry for help rings in every occupant’s mind until it finds its target: his father, the most effective warrior Lance has ever known. The man he knows would do anything to keep him safe.

The moment he registers a flash of alarm, a familiar presence in his mind, Lance comes back to himself. Throwing himself from the bed, he runs for a panel in the wall, pulls out his bow just in time for Keith to reach his knife on the end table by their sofa.

He strings his bow in ticks, knocks an arrow in another, draws it back to his cheek, but Keith’s already won. The Galra kit shoves the would-be assassin away only to throw his knife, lodging it high in the intruder’s chest.

Blood gurgles from their mouth, dribbling blue down their chin. More of the same blossoms dark on dark fabric. The assassin falls to the floor. They lay there, choking, gasping. The spark in their eyes leaks from their wounds. Reaching out, Lance feels their life draining away. He wouldn’t try to save them even if he thought he could do it.

Lance carefully relaxes his bowstring, rushes forward. “Are you alright?!”

“I- I think so,” Keith pants. “Th- They were-”

“Nevermind! Allura!” Tugging urgently at Keith’s arm, the Altean drags him to his feet.

Keith ignores a sudden ache in his side, darts forward to retrieve his knife, runs with his spouse out of the room and down the hall before their enemy is even dead.

Keith collides with his littermate, a disheveled Adam pulling up alongside. Both are in nightclothes. Shiro’s eyes are wide, pupils fully dilated. His ears flit this way and that in search of an enemy. “What happened?! I- I felt a scream-”

“Your Majesty, what do you need?” Adam asks, jamming his glasses on his face. His eyes are blazing as he takes in the princes.

“I need you both to go to Romelle. Keep her safe, bring her to the clinic. We'll all meet up there.”

Adam bows, sprints down a hall, Shiro hot on his heels. Lance takes Keith in the opposite direction. As they run, he keeps his arrow still knocked. He’s never killed a person before, but for his sister, brother-in-law, and their unborn child, he’ll do it in a tick. Less than that. It takes less than a tick to draw his bow, less than half a tick to fire an arrow.

---

Shiro stares, wide-eyed and shocked at the image before him. Romelle, blonde hair loose, wild as it frames even wilder eyes. Her hands shine with white light as she forces a six-limbed intruder to their knees with what seems to be her mind.

The intruder starts to scream, eyes bald and unseeing. They claw at their skin, trying to rip themselves apart. The veins pulsing beneath their skin begins to glow brighter and brighter. Back arching, their body spasms as their neurons shriek.

Romelle is screaming, her soft, unused voice breaking. Shiro takes a step back toward the hallway. His eyes are wide with horror.

“Oh, gods.” It’s horrible. Disturbing, watching someone try to claw their way out of their own body. Shiro’s not sure what to do. He’s terrified. Never in his fifteen decaphoebs of service, of war has he seen such a thing. Not from an Altean, not from anyone else.

He shrinks back, hissing, hair standing up straight all down his back. It’s Adam that steps forward as the intruder ceases their screams. The coarse, olive-toned fur covering their body begins to burn away under their clothes.

“Romelle.” The Altean’s gaze is steady even as unsteady fingers reach out, brush the very tips of his fingers against her pale blue scales. “Romelle. Come with me. Let’s- Let’s find a new sky.”

“A new sky,” the girl whispers, breaths small and trembling. “Yes, let’s find a new sky for all of us.”

“That’s right.” Adam steps just behind her, cradles her left hand in his left, puts his right on her waist to steady her. “Come on. Let’s go find the others.”

As he walks by, Shiro can’t help but wonder at the strange glint in Adam’s eyes. He can’t begin to decipher all the thoughts hidden there.

Lance reaches Allura’s and Lotor’s room first, practically throwing himself through the doors. Keith is still rounding the corner. Allura has an assassin on the ropes, her whip wrapped around their neck. She reels them in, face vicious as she pulls a dagger from her clothes. The desperate intruder scrabbles fruitlessly at the floor even as they choke on the white cable around their throat.

Lotor is having a more difficult time. His assailant is clinging to the walls, firing at him from a crossbow. Lance draws his bow, lets his arrow fly. The arrow hits its mark, severing their spinal cord, either killing them or at least incapacitating them. Either way, Lotor slashes his sword through them, making the difference a moot one.

“Lancel!” Lance knocks, draws another arrow, fletching rubbing at his scales as his father enters the room. He lowers his weapon as Alfor runs over, pulls him into a quick, tight embrace. The king pushes him back, inspects him at arms’ length. "Are you alright?! Are you hurt?! What happened?!"

“Father, I’m fine.”

Alfor stares at the weapon in his hands, the arrow still knocked. He shakes his head, surveys the room. His hands are bruising into Lance’s shoulders. “Is everyone alright?”

“Everyone’s-” A clatter cuts off Lance’s words.

Keith leans against Allura’s old vanity, chest heaving, blood dripping heavy and red from his side. His arms are shaking, legs trembling as they struggle to bear his weight.

“Keith!” Lance tosses his bow aside, running to his spouse as red puddles on the floor. “Easy, beloved. Can you walk?”

Keith takes a deep breath, tries to steady himself. He’s in a lot of pain, fire pulsing through his neurons with every beat of his hearts. Lance peels off his own shirt, presses it into Keith’s side. He takes a scarf from the vanity and ties it tight to apply some pressure. “I- I think I can walk. For a little while.”

“Okay. We’re all going to meet up at the clinic anyway. I assumed someone would need care. Come on.” Lance slings Keith’s arm over his shoulder, puts the other arm around his waist. The kit hisses when his hand finds the slicked-up wound. “Alright, beloved. We’ll be there before you know it. I can carry you if you want, so just tell me.”

“Okay.”

By the time they reach the darkly lit clinic, Keith’s starting to feel cold, is definitely dizzy, and Lance is supporting most of his weight. Coran is already there, crying out in alarm as Lance lifts his spouse onto a pullout bed, pressing down on the wound with both hands.

“Dad, can you calibrate a pod please? Quickly?”

“I’m already on it, son.”

The others stay quiet, giving them space. Keith curls his fingers around Lance’s wrist. “What- What’s a pod?”

“A healing chamber. You go inside and it closes around you. Then you’ll go to sleep-”

“Lance, it’s ready! Keith, kindly strip off your clothes. We might as well give you a checkup while you’re in there.”

“-and you’ll wake up all healed. It’ll only take a few vargas.” Lance carefully scoops Keith up, not trusting him to walk any further.

“But-” Keith breaks himself off with a chirp, eyeing the pod with wide eyes, fur stiffening under his clothes. “Lance, please. Don’t put me in there.”

Lance takes a deep breath, sets the fearful kit down in the chamber, carefully removes his clothes, eyes averted. A lavender tail wraps around his ankle, all the fur raised. He looks up at his spouse, the height of the chamber reversing the height difference between them.

He brushes Keith’s bangs out of his eyes, rises up to kiss his forehead. “You need to, so you can heal. But I promise I won’t leave this room until you’re okay. I’ll have some fresh clothes and a blanket ready and waiting for you when you wake up.”

Keith gulps, nods, presses their foreheads together. He knows the other Galra in the room will understand what it means, doesn’t care. He trusts Lance not to leave him in this tube forever in the same way Lance trusts him to have his back in a fight. Wholly and completely.

Settling back in the chamber, Keith watches anxiously as the glass rises from the floor, encasing him. He spots Romelle’s lips moving: The glass. Water. The glass. Water.

Icy mist curls up from the base, slithers into his lungs with every breath. Even as he begins to panic, his already fogging mind feels heavy in his skull, eyelids too weighed down for him to open.

The last thing he sees before cold and sleep take over and he sinks into his dreams is Lance’s reassuring smile.

See you soon, beloved.

[marlinspirkhall]

Tomorrow Never Comes, Chapter 08: “Tomorrow”

Chapter Word Count:

[Chapter 7] [Chapter 8 (final)]

[Front Cover] [Chapter 1] [AO3 Link]

 There’s a gap in the front of the shuttle where one of the monitors used to be, but Spock doesn’t allow himself to get distracted by it.

 He follows the familiar steps laid out in their previous escape attempts, and, this time, steers clear of the area of space where the Section-31 ships await. Leland’s original orders were to rendezvous with Georgiou’s ship, but the war between Starfleet and the Klingons isn’t his business anymore, and he already knows he won’t be welcomed back to the organisation. He keeps flying towards the former neutral zone- as neutral as you can get in this quadrant anyway- until his eyes begin to droop. It’s as if the accumulated weight of all his nights without meditation were suddenly weighing down on him.

 Plans will need to be made- perhaps he can pass himself off as a Romulan- but, for now, he heads towards the back of the shuttle, and settles on the cold, hard shelf. Now that there’s nothing to distract himself from the fact he’s escaped, he tries not to focus on the how. And yet, it’s hard not to miss the steady chatter of Jim’s heart, or mind. Jim, his heart says. Jim, Jim, Jim.

 He settles on the cold, hard shelf at the back of the shuttle, and, for the first time in an eternity, falls into a deep, meditative rest.

 Alone.

 When Spock wakes on a familiar, soft mattress, he doesn’t immediately question it. But, a second later, his eyes snap open, and he sits bolt upright.

 The familiar, worn walls of the stronghold surround him.

 Jim was wrong, he thinks, despairingly. There’s no way out.

 He runs his hands along the soft duvet, and footsteps scamper downstairs.

 Jim is alive.

 He shoots out of bed, and takes the stairs two steps at a time, each punctuated by a metal clunk. He glances at the sofa expectantly, but Jim isn’t there. He doesn’t appear to be anywhere in the hall; though-

 A thin line of blood leads into the downstairs bathroom.

 He falters.

 “I guess I’ll never really know for sure, because you won’t remember it, and I won’t even see it coming.”

 Jim’s voice is emanating from the bathroom. The door is slightly ajar, and he stops outside it, heart thumping.

 “… But, if you’re listening to this right now, then there’s really only one answer-”

 “Jim?” He pushes his way in, and tenses as he takes in the bloodstains, the frenzied scrawl. Jim’s voice is coming from a pre-recorded message on a monitor, which Spock recognises from the shuttle.

 “- You need to get out there, and…” He looks into the camera. “You know what you have to do.”

 Spock backs out of the room as panic grips his chest. “Jim?” He shouts.

 The air is filled with a faint whistling sound. He whirls around.

 The realisation, and the crossbow arrow, hit him at the same time.

 “Ah!” He raises his hand, and another arrow to lodges itself in his palm. The world spins, and he grunts with pain.

 He has just enough sense to dodge the next arrow, and slams himself into the wall. “Immensely… Logical, Jim,” he hisses, and struggles to pull the arrow out with a grunt. “You didn’t kill Leland yesterday, did you? You only… knocked him out.” He grits his teeth and attempts to snap the end of the arrow off.

 A creak. Spock throws himself to the floor as another arrow flies past.

 “Stop shooting at me!”

 He grips his injured hand limply, and breathes heavily. “Do you know the first thing I felt, when I woke up?”

 Another arrow. Spock crawls around the corner for refuge. “I was-” an arrow flies past, and he tucks his legs in. “- Relieved, that you weren’t dead,” he wheezes.

 A loud thud, followed by silence. Perhaps he has run out of arrows.

 “Jim?”

 Footsteps. He catches his breath and waits, listening to every slow, deliberate step.

 The footfalls are too heavy to be Jim’s. Which means-

 He shuffles backwards, and a tall figure steps around the corner; wielding the half-filled phaser Spock had discarded yesterday.

 “Leland,” Spock breathes.

 He stuns him.

 “… Don’t want to lie to him.”

 Jim’s voice.

 “Which is why I’m going to offer him a solution...”

 Spock peeks out from under his eyelashes. Leland is standing a few metres away, holding the bloodstained monitor.

 “… You know what you have to do.”

 The message ends, and Leland turns. Spock opens his eyes. He’s by the far wall, a short distance from the fireplace. Jim is slumped in front of it with his arms tied behind his back.

 His hand has been wrapped in a familiar, plaid fabric, and the arrow has been removed from his hand. It still throbs, painfully. His hands are bound loosely in front of him, but his legs are free. Unlike Jim, he is gagged; perhaps with the rest of the fabric. He stares up at Leland, groggily.

 “I bandaged it.” Leland says. His lip curves upwards. “You’re not getting out of this that easily.”

 Spock stirs, sluggish from the phaser blast, and Leland steps closer.

 “According to this-” he holds up the blood-stained monitor, and leers at him. “- You’re the only one of us who hasn’t been killed yet. Is that true?” He crouches beside him, and Spock turns his head away, averting his gaze. Leland grabs his jaw roughly, forcing him to face him as he examines his face for the slightest flicker of emotion. He stares ahead. He tries to keep his face impassive, but Leland always could read him better than most.

 He blinks, and Leland laughs. “Isn’t that interesting,” he murmurs. He leans in a little closer, so his lips graze his ear. “I bet you’re so tired,” he says, breath hot. “That eidetic memory… You can remember it all, can’t you? Every miserable day-”

 Spock flinches away, but Leland tuts, and places the dagger under his chin. “Come on, Spock. That’s a lot of blood on your hands. Don’t you just want it to end? No?”

 Spock keeps his gaze trained on him.

 He leers. “I guess Vulcans don’t have a guilty conscience. You’ve killed both of us more times than you can count. Well,” he amends, “Perhaps you can count them. You’ve always been good at that-”

 “Leave him alone,” Jim croaks.

 Leland rises again. “You’re sure that’s what you want? I mean, he did kill you, multiple times.”

 “So did you.”

 “True,” Leland shrugs. “But he killed you, right after you’d promised to love each other forever and ever, right?” His voice is high and mocking, and Jim struggles against his bonds.

 “You weren’t there,” he grunts.

 Leland grins. “Technically, neither were you. And we already know how that pact turned out.” He grasps Spock’s injured hand, and lifts it up.

 “Leland-”

 “- What’s the objection? You had the right idea earlier. Do you just want to kill him yourself? That’s very selfish of you, James.” He tuts. “After all, I should get dibs.” He squeezes his hand suddenly, and Spock cries out, the sound muffled.

 Leland stares at him, eyes wide, and turns to Jim. “You’ve ruined my Vulcan!” He laughs to himself. “Still, there’s time to correct that.” He strokes Spock’s hand, almost gentle, though each movement is still enough to cause pain.

 Spock narrows his eyes at him, and flinches away, but Leland holds him steady.

 “Now, Spock,” he murmurs. “I can keep you both here for as long as I like, and make you pay for every single time you killed me. Still, I could always reset you.” He retrieves a dagger from his belt. “There were some very interesting things in the basement this morning- well-hidden, James, but not enough.”

 He barely glances over his shoulder, and Spock exhales. Leland has eyes only for him, and he knows with a terrible certainty that he intends to make him suffer. As if reading his thoughts, Leland places the dagger under Spock’s chin. “How about we give him a turn first? It’s up to you, James. I mean… You- well, he-” He taps the monitor screen. “- Seemed fairly adamant that you wanted him dead.”

 “Screw you,” Jim hisses.

 “Shame,” Leland discards the monitor, and it shatters on the floor. “That version of you actually had some balls. If you hadn’t tried to kill me so much, we might have got along.”

 “Maybe that’s why we would have got along,” Jim hisses. Spock breathes shallowly, his chest suddenly constricted, and wills Jim to stop antagonising him; but, of course, they are not bonded. With a sudden pang, he wonders if they will ever be able to bond again.

 “Maybe,” Leland acknowledges. “Still, I intend to get out of here. Once I attend to our… Unfinished business.”

 “Leland-”

 “Shush. I’ll get round to you later. But, for now-”

 He cuts the gag away, though there’s no chance of him speaking. He remembers what it was like before. Anything he says will make it worse. He calls, desperately, on all the skills he hasn’t employed in a while. He makes his face slack, and lets his mind go blank. But, yesterday was the closest he had come to a successful meditation session in a while, and Leland is studying him with nothing short of glee.

 “You know, it’s a shame you killed that other version of James,” Leland murmurs. “Once you betrayed him, I bet he would have wanted to stay, and watch me kill you over, and over and over.”

 Jim sits deadly still, his eyes wide, but Spock can see his arms twitching behind his back, as if reaching for something. Hope flares in his chest, but he clamps down on the feeling, attempting to martial his emotions.

“But, seeing as I only need to kill you once, let’s make it count, hmm?” He runs his fingers across Spock’s meld points, and sends fleeting visions of everything he plans to do to them. Spock closes his eyes, trying to block out the thoughts. When that fails, he recalls an image of Leland’s own, broken body, lying at the bottom of the ravine. Leland snatches his hand away.

“Congratulations,” He growls. “Now you’ve made me angry.” He raises the dagger.

Spock kicks out at him with a grunt, but Leland side-steps him easily.

 “Surely you remember your training?” He hisses, gripping Spock’s chin. “That’s no way to behave towards a superior officer-”

Spock snaps at his hand, and Leland slams his head against the wall. Jim yells something

“I think James wants to watch the show,” Leland sings. He grips Spock’s hair this time, near the scalp. Grinning, he tilts his head back to expose his neck, and Spock’s breathing quickens. Leland presses the dagger to his throat.

“I said, let him go, asshole,” Jim growls. His voice sounds closer than before, but Spock doesn’t dare tear his gaze away from Leland’s.

“You disappoint me, James,” Leland sighs. “You’d want revenge, if you weren’t weak.”

“Maybe I am,” Jim says. “But there’s one thing I didn’t mention in that recording.”

The knife breaks the skin, and Spock can feel blood beading around the cut.

“And what’s that?” Leland hisses, never breaking eye contact.

 Behind him, Jim gets to his feet silently.

“There’s a knife in my pocket.”

 The pressure vanishes from Spock’s throat.

Leland turns too late. Jim stabs him in the side, but it’s not deep enough; it can’t be. Spock has seen this before; at the very start of the time-loop: without his memories, Jim’s skill in hand-to-hand combat is no match for Leland’s. He strains against the ropes which are holding him- he’d be able to break them, if his hand wasn’t injured. As it stands, all he can do is stare. A thin trickle of blood runs down his neck.

“Jim, be careful!” He pleads.

Jim dodges Leland’s first strike, and pulls the knife out. They struggle. Leland grasps Jim’s wrist, and attempts to force his hand back, but Jim knees him in the stomach.

Leland lands a glancing blow to his shoulder, and Jim sucks in his breath. He knocks Leland’s arm out of the way, driving the knife into his arm, and Leland bellows angrily as he drops the dagger. Jim loses his grip on his own weapon, and Leland tears at it. Blood gushes from his forearm as he rips it free, painting his arm red. With a yell, he swipes at Jim with his left-hand, as a dark stain spreads on the side of his torso. Jim dives for the dagger, and Leland pins him to the ground, swiping at him. Jim grasps the dagger, and kicks Leland off momentarily, the two of them moving faster than Spock can keep track of.

They struggle together until Leland falls to the ground, and doesn’t get up.

“Fuck.” Jim sits up, trembling, and disentangles himself from the body. Leland’s blood is smeared across his face in places, so the damage isn’t immediately apparent.

 But Jim’s breathing is laboured.

 “Jim?” Spock whispers.

“Spock…” Jim’s voice wavers. He clutches a hand across his stomach, and looks down at it, dazed. “Oh…”

 He falls sideways.

Spock rushes over. Both blades lie on the floor beside them, covered in blood. It isn’t clear which one caused the fateful blow. He reaches for the knife, and cuts the ropes from his arms clumsily, and reaches for Jim.

 When he touches him, Jim grits his teeth, and gestures to the wound.

 “It’s- bad,” he twitches.

 “No,” Spock pulls his head onto his lap, gently, and places a hand over his forehead. “I can help.”

 “No-”

 “Let me help.”

“Spock.” He shakes his head. “You can’t prolong it ‘til sundown. It’s okay. It was…” He grunts. “My fault.”

“Jim-”

 He places a kiss against his injured wrist, and blinks up at him. “I’m sorry for… shooting you,” he wheezes. “That was a… Stupid thing to do.” He smiles shakily, and tears well in his eyes as he clutches his side.

 “You were just following your own advice” Spock replies, as Jim gives a soft chuckle, and winces.

 “It was- bad advice,” he hisses. “Too- open to interpretation.” He places a hand to Spock’s face gently. “I’m glad I got to love you. I only wish that I could remember any of it.”

Spock shakes his head. “In your condition, an influx of memories of that volume would kill you.”

Jim places Spock’s hand against his face, and laughs weakly. “Spock,” he coughs, “I’m dying anyway.”

Spock hesitates, but Jim nuzzles into his palm. ‘Didn’t want to hurt you,’ he thinks, as he brushes his fingers against Spock’s cheek.

 “It’s okay, if you won’t show me. I know I loved you,” he hacks up blood. “But- who you love... That’s your own business.” Perhaps it’s intended to be vitriolic, but, he almost sounds sincere. Serene. He smiles, and nudges his forehead to Spock’s palm. “Go ahead,” he whispers. “It’s OK.”

 “Jim.” Spock surveys his injuries, and knows, from all the other times he’s watched him die, that he won’t survive.

 ‘I shouldn’t have killed Leland,’ Jim thinks. ‘That was- clumsy. I should have kept him alive so we could regenerate, but… Now… You leave.’

 Spock strokes his hair. He concentrates, broadcasting an outpouring of love and affection into his mind, as Jim’s eyes flutter closed.

 Ashayam, stay with me.

 He despairs. He was a fool. He should have spent a little longer cherishing the chance to cradle Jim like this. They could have had eternity. Now, they have only moments. He understands now, far too late, the full depths of what Jim had offered. It is a rare thing, to have a t’hy’la. He should have know, every time they dispatched Leland, that they were only strengthening it: a warrior’s bond. And, although he knows it’s useless, he delves deeper into Jim’s dying mind, triggering that familiar spark, as a bond forms between them for the final time. Spock lets go, pouring his memories into him. Jim relaxes, his breathing levelling out, and Spock strokes his hair.

 You are… incandescent.

 Jim stirs.

 As are you.

 He remains close to him for many hours, sustaining his life-force for as long as he can, as the buzz of Jim’s mind shrinks, and dims.

 Spock closes his eyes, and collapses back against the wall, cradling him. Yesterday’s euphoria is long gone.

 He drifts to sleep, no longer interested in escaping- not now. He’d be content to rot here forever, with a thousand identical corpses.

 He dreams of Vulcan. He walks across the dark sands, warmer than he’s been in a while, but oh so weighed down by guilt.

 Red light floods through the windows, and Spock’s eyes flutter open. For a moment, he can almost believe he’s back on Vulcan, the glare from the red sands unbearable in first-light, but the moment passes. He frowns, so used to waking to clear skies and mid-morning light that he almost doesn’t recognise the phenomenon.

 Dawn.

 Spock’s hand aches. He raises it. It hasn’t healed, of course. The bandages are soaked through, but the bleeding has stopped. It has been so long since his injuries lasted that he is almost grateful for it.

 “We made it,” he says, with a cracked voice. He glances down at Jim; so peaceful he could almost be sleeping. He looks over to Leland, half-expecting him to move, but neither of them do. His gaze drifts.

 Leland is lying in a puddle of blood, but most of Jim’s has seeped into Spock’s clothing, half-dried against his skin. Slowly, he eases Jim to the ground, and places him gently on his side.

 You should move, a distant part of his mind whispers, but it’s a small part, and he is too numb to process it. Whatever it is, it doesn’t speak again. He desperately needs water; thirsty like he hasn’t been in a long time- but, still, he sits. He welcomes the discomfort: as proof that he’s made it through, and, as punishment.

 I have killed my t’hy’la and my friend.

 His gaze drifts.

 The ground outside is waterlogged and muddy: for the first time, it’s covered in rainfall from the storm. As the sun rises, a slightly larger spacecraft sets down beside the shuttle, and he closes his eyes. For a moment, there is silence. The perfect conditions to meditate; though it’s been so long, he’s almost forgotten how.

 Voices, getting nearer.

 He reaches a hand out to Jim, and, trembling a little, pulls back.

 Footsteps on the balcony. The door opens with a rattle.

 He looks up.

 Two figures are silhouetted against the light; a section-31 agent he doesn’t recognise, and-

 “Why is the Klingon defence grid still active?”

 Phillipa Georgiou. Her hair is dishevelled, and she steps into the hall. “The attack is in five hours, Leland. This is sloppy, even for you-”

 She stops.

 Spock leans his head against the wall, and says nothing.

 “What… Happened?” Says the unknown agent; as they take in the carnage.

 Georgiou crosses the room in two, quick steps, and nudges Leland’s body with her foot. “Shame,” she laments. “I always wanted to be the one to kill him.” Her gaze turns to Spock. “Still,” she cocks her head, and her phaser, “I should probably thank you for sparing me the trouble.”

 Spock allows himself a small, thin smile. “Trouble?” He murmurs. “You have no idea.”

 Georgiou stares at him, then fiddles with the settings on the phaser. “Then again; you could have waited until after your mission was complete to do it.”

 “It was never going to be done,” Spock says, as he watches the phaser. He’s almost relieved. It’ll be quick.

 “Well, Spock-” She nods to the agent, who backs out of the room. “- Thank you for nothing. I’ll see you in hell.”

 “Perhaps.” He chuckles. “Or, maybe…”

 He presses his forehead to the cool metal, still laughing, and she frowns at him.

 “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

[Chapter 7] [Chapter 8]

[onthesandsofdreams]

The Knight & The Dragon King

Fandom: Rogue One Pairing: Cassian x Jyn Rating: T Summary:  When it comes to her turn, she draws her sword with care; she doesn’t want to spook the guards around him, lays it on the floor and goes down on one knee. “I am Jyn Erso,” she starts. “An errand knight that seeks to serve you, that seeks to fight the Empire by your side your Majesty. Words: 1821 Notes: Chapter 3 out of ? 

Read @ AO3 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 

Monday morning and Jyn rises with the sun. So very used to it from all the years with Saw. She takes a bath, it would not do to see the King dirty, even if she’s only been in Fest for four days.

She washes and wears clean clothes, dons her chain mail but opts out of wearing full armor. She doesn’t know how the King would react to seeing her in it. But still places her sword at her side. Eats some food and asks for directions.

She finds the palace easy enough, it’s at the very end of Fest and it’s white in color. The walls are high and she can see men patrolling atop the walls. She only hopes the King listens to her, that he would be generous enough to allow her a spot in his army. A hopeful part of her wishes that the King would allow her to serve him directly, but she knows that it will likely not be so. She’ll be a stranger to him, why should he pick someone of dubious origin?

Nonetheless, she rides towards the palace. She’s let in after speaking to the guard, another one escorts her, she pays him no mind. Instead, she looks around and likes what she sees, greenery all over. There are trees and flowers, water fountains and she can see the mountains that lay just behind the palace walls. The air feels clean and fresh.

The guard who escorts her, takes Star away once she’s at the palace door. She stands tall and proud and walks in, follows the direction of a servant and she’s always looking around. For being a palace, the place has a humble feel to it. How odd. She arrives at the grand hall, there are other people waiting for the doors to open.

And once they do, she gasps. For all the humble feeling the first part of the palace felt, here in this hall, she feels the display of power. The floors are white marble with the black silhouette of a dragon on it, crystal chandeliers hang from the ceilings, tapestries on the wall display past victories, courtiers line the sides of the hall and of course, the King.

King Cassian is already sitting on his throne. He’s handsome, she admits. Taller than her, she knows, even if he’s sitting and he’s far away from her, she can tell that he is. On the lean side of things, but she knows better than to underestimate him. He wears dove gray trousers and a dark blue tunic with embroidery in paler blue. His hair and eyes are dark and his skin is golden. A simple golden circlet on his head finishes his look. Regal.

They are ushered into a line, she doesn’t protest. She knows that she must have the patience now, else, her options will not be good. She doesn’t want to give a bad impression on the King. She can bite her tongue, if only for a bit. She can wait.

And wait she does, there are twenty or so people in front of her, everyone with a different problem that requires the King’s attention. Much to her surprise, the King never looks bored, he asks questions of his people and she feels a shiver go down her spine as he speaks, she likes his voice. There’s a certain accent to it, but she likes the ring it has.

The King’s patience is tested, but never once does he loses his control. He sits on his throne, listening, asking, granting things, denying others and of course, talking to his subjects. She likes that about the King, he seems invested in his people’s well being. She can respect that.

When it comes to her turn, she draws her sword with care; she doesn’t want to spook the guards around him, lays it on the floor and goes down on one knee. “I am Jyn Erso,” she starts. “An errand knight that seeks to serve you, that seeks to fight the Empire by your side your Majesty.”

The hall falls into a collective shock. She doesn’t care, she keeps her eyes on the King, watches as he arches an eyebrow. “And why,” his voice is slow and measured. “Do you wish to join my army against Palpatine?”

The way he utters the name Palpatine makes her shiver, she can hear the hatred in his voice. Good, at least she knows she’s not the only one that hates the man. Even if her hatred is aimed more towards Lord Krennic, one of the men at Palpatine’s service, she’s no less angry at Palpatine himself. “Because Lord Krennic killed my mother,” she hears the gasps all around her. “Because Lord Krennic wanted my father, my mother stood up to him, she was downed by an arrow thanks to his personal guard.” She doesn’t bother hiding the anger and bitterness of her voice.

The King watches her in silence, she doesn’t look away. Many would call it insolence, but she calls it defiance. Let the King know that she will fight the Empire, that her fight is personal and full of wrath.

“And why would Lord Krennic want your father, Lady Erso?”

“Because my father’s Galen Erso, an alchemist.” She hesitates for a moment, then decides honesty is the best policy here and now. “A fire alchemist.”

More gasps go around the room, she watches as a black woman approaches the King, she the whispers something into the King’s ear and he nods at the woman. “I see,” the King speaks to her once more. “Lady Erso, those are distressing news. And I give you my sincere condolences on the loss of your mother. If you truly wish to serve, then, you will.” The King turns towards his right. “General Draven.”

An older man, dressed in green approaches, bows to the King. “Yes, my King?”

“Make sure that Lady Erso has a place under your watch. But not right now, there is something I wish to speak with her privately. Please escort her to my solar.”

“Of course my King.” The man turns to face her, “If you were to follow me, Lady Erso.”

She turns to the King, bows and retrieves her sword and places it back on her scabbard. “Thank you my King. You will not regret the chance you’ve given me.”

The King nods once. She stands and follows General Draven out, he leads her to an elegant chamber, it has a desk and several chairs. She sits and waits. Fortunately, she doesn’t wait too long. Fifteen minutes at most, the King enters the room, followed by General Draven, the woman she saw speaking to the King and three guards. She rises quickly and bows again. Let it not be said that Jyn Erso had no manners.

“Sit Lady Erso,” The King says and he himself sits opposite of her. “This is the Lady Ahsoka Tano, a dear friend and councilor of mine. Wizard extraordinaire. And of course, you’ve already met General Draven.”

She nods towards the Lady Ahsoka, who gives her a gentle smile. “My thanks your Majesty, a pleasure meeting you both.”

“Lady Erso, forgive me for being blunt, but it’s terribly important that we ask,” Lady Ahsoka says. “Your father was brought in to work for the Empire, yes?”

She frowns, she had already said so. “Yes, I didn’t hear much because I was hidden, but I know that Lord Krennic wanted my father because of his alchemy, because of his ability to manipulate fire.”

The three of them share a look that make her uneasy. “Lady Erso,” The King speaks. “I won’t lie and pretend that this doesn’t worry me, because it does. The fact that Palpatine is looking to control fire is alarming indeed.”

She doesn’t know what to say, what can she say? That her father is helping a man to do his best to subjugate others? “Sir, I know that the sins of my father shouldn’t be mine to carry, but I swear that I will fight against him if I must. For my mother.”

The King gives her a knowing look, then nods. “I know, Lady Erso, I believe you. I understand your desire for revenge for your mother, because I share it.” The King gave her a rueful smile. “They killed my mother too.”

Her eyes widen, she would’ve never expected the King to have such a personal connection against the Empire, much less anything in common with her. Kings are supposed to be high and mighty, and yet, before her is a handsome man whose sorrows she can almost read in his eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss your Majesty,” she says at last.

“I hope you understand,” the King starts again. “That I still will keep an eye on you, if you’re a spy…”

“I will be dealt with,” she finishes for him. She should be offended, but if his own mother, a Queen was killed by the Empire, he has no reason why to trust her with a special connection to the Empire. And she understands why she was placed under General Draven. “And I will do my utmost to show you I speak the truth.”

“Who trained you?” The King asks, curiously.

“Saw Gerrera,” she doesn’t lie.

The King’s eyebrows shot up, his lips curl into a wry smile. “Well then, if anyone hates the Empire more than I, is him. But he also hates others, so… behave Lady Erso, don’t prove me wrong.”

With that, the King, Ahsoka and two guards leave. Only General Draven and a guard remain, “Come with me, Lady Erso, I will take you to your new lodgings.”

She follows him outside and Star is returned to her, Draven gets his own horse and they make way to the barracks that are closest to the palace. It’s a ten minute ride, she’s given a small tour and taken to a room. It’s a simple room, but she finds that doesn’t mind, it has a bed, a dresser, a small table and a chair and a trunk.

“Breakfast is eaten between seven and eight, there’s a midday meal between two and three, dinner’s nine to ten, all meals are announced with a bell. But if you are hungry, allowances are given for a small meal. Any questions?” Draven asks.

“I need to get my armor from the inn, may I go and collect it?”

“You may, something else?”

“No, thank you.

Draven leaves her alone then and she all but collapses on the bed. She removes her sword and rests it against the wall. She’s done it, she will get her wish. She will fight against the Empire alongside Fest.

The King’s words ring in her ears, she has no plans to make him regret the chance he’s given her. She will be his best warrior. Palpatine should be shaking in his robes.

[yuri-cocaine]

riding home

She wakes up in her room. It feels like pulling a net from the sea.

Miss Yun left so many messages lately, each one getting more and more panicked. “Use the crystal I have sent you and remember everything while holding it,” one said. “Follow Vision One’s instructions and use the tomestone,” another said.

Ai wakes up, and pain tears through her head. Adrenaline floods her limbs, her heart thrashes against her ribs, and every piece of her is screaming, screaming, sceaming.

[Termination protocols enacted.]

[Targets are at—]

No. No. No.

Ai thinks she still has time. Just a little more time in the Sandsea, in the library, in the garden, at the bar with the orchestrion playing her favorite songs, at the markets with her friends. She thinks she still has a little more time to make more friends with the other Riskbreakers, and hear about their adventures in Dalmasca. She thinks she can still live.

[Commencing termination protocols at--]

Ai gasps, grasping at her table. It tips over and she goes down with it, papers and inkwell and medicines flying across the rug. Static roars in her ears. Her blood is alight.

Thank you, Ai writes. Her fingers are dripping with ink.

Thank you for being my friends.

The past few moons had been filled with dizziness and nausea and weakness, but now her body burns as if her sickness was never there. Ai leaves the Sandsea at daybreak, her feet carrying her to a shaded alley in the Goblet. The equipment team is there. How does she know that? Information slides into her mind. Everything is tangled, jumbled.

[Equipment team deployed to coordinates x: 11:6 y: 7.4. Retrieve gear and—]

The team consists of two trembling men and a stony faced woman holding a crate. They give her a standard-issue gunblade, a standard issue tactical jacket, and a visor. As Ai marches towards Drybone, she thinks that the visor looks a lot like a black blindfold. It’s the kind prisoners wear as they are executed. She tightens it over her face, and presses into its softness.

Subject B10 is a Hellsguard Roegadyn. Subject B12 is a Seeker of the Sun Miqo’te. How did she never know they lived in the Golden Bazaar all this time, building an inn for miners? Ai could have visited them. They could have been friends.

B10 whistles a little song as he puts on a helmet and grabs his toolbox. The foundation for the inn is done, and now they are moving onto building support beams for the walls and ceiling. Ai recognizes the song he is whistling. It’s the song they play for the egg festival. A lot of the Riskbreakers find it annoying, but she likes it. She wants to tell B10 she likes his whistling.

Ai lunges forward, and cleanly slashes B10’s throat open. He collapses, gurgling. His golden eyes are blank, looking at her and looking at nothing. He didn’t even have time to be surprised.

The toolbox crashes to the floor. A screwdriver rolls out and stops at the front step of the little house he left. B12 opens the wooden door and peers outside, curious.

“Diving Falcon? Did you drop—what?”

B12 looks healthy, just as B10 did. They have not reached their deterioration stage yet. Now, she looks at Ai, recognition briefly flickering across her face. Ai leaps, impaling the blade into B12’s stomach as she covers B12’s shriek.

There is so much blood. It stinks of rust. Their blood is red, despite being so inundated with aetherochemicals in their creation. Their blood pools and flows and stinks.

In a few hours, in the soft morning hours, a few Golden Bazaar residents will find B10 and B12’s bodies. News of Diving Falcon and O’lamana being murdered will be everywhere for a while, with people wondering why a quiet couple from nowhere would be killed like this. They would be buried at the nearby lichyard, and their co-workers will leave flowers, and then they will be forgotten.

[Sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I ‘m ssss orry S O rr     y]

[Targets at]

[Location specified]

She wants to rest. Her feet hurt so badly. Static roars and roars. She imagines eating pastries at a snowy marketplace with a girl with a gap tooth. She is so tired.

In Castrum Oriens, a few imperial guards captured from the Alliance’s siege on Castrum Abania are held in custody awaiting trial. They used to be security guards for one of the laboratories, and their biggest worries used to be who got graveyard shift and whether Triple Triad was scheduled for afternoon or evening. At least they won’t be executed, they think. Say what you will about these savages, they at least knew mercy.

One of the old guards notices a swift shadow outside, and he sits up on his cot. He nudges his cellmate awake.

“I think our meals are here,” he says.

Ai plunges her blade into his head, bone and brains crunching. The other guard stumbles to his feet and opens his mouth to shout, but she cleanly decapitates him. He is frozen in a silent shout on the floor.

Ai flees into the woods, across the Velodyna, and picks her way across the rock and scree towards Rhalgr’s Reach. Her lungs are burning. At one point she staggers and retches, just outside the gaol, and when a Resistance guard comes to ask if she’s all right, she stabs him and leaves him writhing on the floor.

At Rhalgr’s Reach, Ai accidentally makes a mess. She is unable to pick the locks on the cells, so she blows the bars apart with fire spells and runs her targets through with her blood-caked blade. Resistance fighters pile in, demanding her to freeze, but she fights through them screaming and snarling. An arrow lodges in her shoulder, but she rips it out and kicks the archer to the ground. Ai coughs great heaving coughs and sags against the wall, and four people grab her, but she bucks and twists and bites before a surge of strength bolts through her and she throws them off.

M’naago sees Ai run towards the exit to the Peaks, and she fires three shots. Despite her ragged, limping form, Ai cuts the arrows out of the air with ease. Her clothes are torn and her hair is matter with blood and viscera and her face is cut and bleeding. She is shaking, barely standing, but M’naago swallows her confusion and looses another arrow.

M’naago misses. Ai escapes into the mountains.

Where is Anko? Where is her sister? She hasn’t seen her in her dreams in so, so long. Did Anko grow tired of her? Maybe she doesn’t love her anymore?

[Targets at]

Where is she? The rocky slopes here seem familiar. The sky is so blue. The wind blows hot and dry. Maybe she is in Thanalan. She is going home to the Sandsea, where she has invited Miss Saehild and Miss One to come over and visit. Ai hopes they like the Sandsea.

Her vision blurs and the world spins, but she is pulled forward. The static finally quiets, but now everything is muffled. Ai limps onward.

Where is the Sandsea? Isn’t it supposed to be nearby? Did they move? Did they forget about her and left her behind?

No. They wouldn’t do that. Ai loves her friends, and her friends love her. Just a little further, and she can go home.

[dhawkesnest]

Prompt # 25: Trust

“There's absolutely nothing out here!” Ellemeare shouted over the cruel winds outside the cave near a location aptly named 'The Bed of Bones'. An old friend of Kaestian's had indicated to them during an inquiry that he had seen carvings within the cave that might pertain to the answers they were looking for. Stepping within the cave, she noted the place was blissfully devoid of the usual residence, Yeti's- if she recalled from her previous excursions into Coerthas. There were none to be found. Odd. Perhaps someone from a nearby settlement had cleaned them out? She shook her head, grimacing at the surroundings at the mouth of the cave. “I've explored these caverns before in search of ore. I never found anything worth noting except monsters. How could they have found something out here that no one else has?” “Are you implying he sent us on a chase?” Kaestian's silver gaze went to her, his expression a frown that mirrored her own. From irritation or the cold, she could only guess. It was obvious to her he didn't like to think of his friend as a liar, and she understood it. She was prone to thinking the best of those she knew too, but she had learned quickly that giving your trust sometimes blew back in your face. However, she wasn't going to remind him of that fact. “I'm not accusing him of lying. Maybe he was mistaken about the location. The Western Highlands are vast, it's possible he could have been confused during a storm and mistook the terrain. You know as well as I how disorienting the blizzards here can be. Speaking of which, let's get out of this one! Since the way is clear inside, I say we wait this out and then return to Falcon's Nest.” She stepped further into the cavern to take in her surroundings, getting out of the winds just as another brutal gust kicked up. He followed her into the cave system, his expression unchanged as he thought bitterly about the possiblity of his friend being mistaken, or worse, that they had been lied to. Shivering at the gust that swept through his plate and the leathers beneath it, he ground his teeth against them chattering. He was used to the cold of Foundation, but the walls protected from the bitter winds far more than wandering in the wilds here did. A part of him was sure it would take him days to feel his fingers and toes again. Ellemeare stood several feet away, moving along one of the cave's walls as if searching for the carvings. One hand was raised, a flickering flame allowing her to see in the dim light. When she gasped loudly, Kaestian's instincts kicked in and he reached for his sword, only pausing when he noticed she was looking up at the wall in amazement. “Look!” She shouted at him, using her free hand to clear snow from the wall. Carefully, he moved across the ice and snow covered ground to see what she had discovered. “Is it something of interest?” She grunted in disappointment as the large frozen creature came into view with the snow dusted away. Squiting and almost scowling at it as she attempted to make out what it was. “That depends on your interests. Poor creature. It looks like it was frozen right on the spot after the Calamity brought the cold to your lands. I'm afraid this place is a dead end, Kae-” She had turned in his direction, looking towards the mouth of the cave and had stopped just shy of finishing her sentence, her attention drawn to something and her blue-green eyes staring intently behind him. The woman's stillness brought a feeling of unease in him and he shifted to follower the direction of her gaze to see a group of three subjects moving towards them. A quick look by both he and Ellemeare took stock of who was approaching. A swordsman, machinist, and bard. One laughed at her words and nodded. “Dead end is right, pretty miss. I'm afraid you been asking the wrong questions in the wrong places. Shoulda kept your nose out of what isn't your business.”

Kaestian let out a low muttered curse, his hand slowly moving to the long sword at his side, attempting to keep his eyes on the group but glance back to check on Ellemeare. She had moved closer and was standing at his right elbow. In that moment it occurred to him he had assumed she could defend herself because of what she had showed him the night they had met, and now he could only pray to Halone that he had been right. A woman amongst them clucked her tongue at him and raised a gun in his direction, leveling it with his chest. “I wouldn't do that, handsome. Orders are to kill ya quick and be done with it. You put up a fight, it's gonna be the slow and painful way, and a whole lot worse for your lady-friend here.” “Kaestian, I have a feeling they won't be letting us leave here either way.” Ellemeare murmured quietly to him, standing close enough he could feel the tension radiating off her in waves. There was a charge in the air around her and a smell that was akin to ozone.

The freelancer turned his face just enough to give her his gaze, his next words low enough no one but the two of them would be able to hear bove the howling winds outside. “Do you trust me?”

“Don't do anything stupid now!” One of the others warned.

The woman beside him made eye contact, her blue-green eyes filled with a resolve. She made no effort to answer his question, but he saw her hand move in a subtle but curious motion, saw her lips move though no sound came out. The barely perceptible nod she offered him was all the warning he had before she raised her hand in the direction of the woman with the gun and shouted something in a tongue he didn't recognize.

The target of whatever spell she had cast slumped to the ground and sent the other two into a frenzy. Kaestian used the chaos to retrieve his shield from his back and pull his long sword, using the former to deflect arrows from the bard who aimed arrows at the two of them. Then he lunged forward to meet the sword wielder that seemed intent on taking Ellemeare out of the equation. If I can keep this one occupied, he thought, perhaps she can handle the other one. Ellemeare focused her attention on the bard, knowing that the ranged attacks could do them both in quickly. Drawing on her emotions, she called upon her fire, but was forced to abandon the action in favor of sidestepping as another figure appeared out of nowhere. A ninja. There had been four of them all along. Jumping back to avoid the slash of the blades, she gritted her teeth in irritation and called upon another spell to bind the rogue in place before moving out of target range to return her focus to the archer who had continued to shoot arrows at her rapidly. Channeling her abilities again, she focused on ice this time to create shields and ward against the onslaught of arrows, counting them as they lodged into the sheet of ice before her. Annoyed, the bard was beginning to move, when she directed an ice attack at the ranged attacker's feet, binding them in place. Tapping into her fire, she set the bard ablaze. She looked about to find the ninja, turning this way and that when she noticed that he was no longer where she had bound him. Carefully, she checked out of the corner of her eye and saw Kaestian was still holding his own against the swordsman and the gunner was still down for the count. She hadn't heard the man, but the glint of his blades was the first sign he was upon her. Turning to defend herself, she jumped back just as he swung. It would only occur to her later how much the training she had gone through with Aelden had aided her in her own survival that day. Though Ellemeare had less skill than the dagger wielding man, she remembered what she had been taught about disarming an armed opponent in closer proximity. Dancing cautiously backwards out of reach, she focused on their pattern of attack until she saw her opening, reaching out rapidly to catch their wrists. The action caused her to get knicked, but she would be no worse for wear. The man's eyes opened wide in shock and his jaw dropped, but he never got the chance to yell or say anything to her. Ellemeare focused all of her pent up anger and sent current through her hands into the man's body, not letting him go until he was a twitching mass on the ground. Turning back to Kaestian, she saw the swordsman he had been contending with slump to the ground, and exhaled sharply in relief. Catching his breath, he raised his gray eyes to her. The gun went off. His expression became one of surprise as he slumped forward, using his sword to keep him partially upright, raising his shield to fend off more bullets as the gunner began to open fire on him. “Kaestian!!” Ellemeare called out in shock, her attention now directed at the machinist as the woman fired round after round, one more connecting with her comrade's back before he could get the shield up to guard against the volley. Raising her hands at the gunner as she turned, Ellemeare used what strength she had left to draw upon her power once more, burning the woman to cinders just as she was about to turn the gun on her. Swearing profusely, She rushed to the freelancer's side and began digging through the pack she had discarded when the group had approached, searching for what little supplies she had. Silently, she wished she had been able to learn Meallaire's penchant for the healing arts. “Hang in there, Kaestian. Hang in there, you hear me?” Elle removed his cloak rapidly and reached for the closures on his armor only for him to attempt weakly to push her away. “Kaestian for fuck sake this is no time to be shy, I need to see to your wounds!” She swore at him, glaring at him with determination and pushing the issue until he finally relented. Ridding him of his chest armor and the leathers beneath, she did the best she could to support him as she looked at the wounds in his back. Neither bullet had gone clean through, and this meant they would have to be removed. Once more, she let a stream of colorful words flow forth from her lips as she followed her insticnts and reached to activate her linkpearl. “Aelden?? Mea?? Anyone there?? I need advice on how to remove a bullet!” Ellemeare waited with baited breath for the moment it took someone to respond, then sighed in relief when the linkpearl squawked to life from the other end, Aelden and Meallaire both talking at once, firing questions at her. “From you or from someone else?!” “Why are you removing a bullet?!” She grunted in irritation as Talia added in the remark that alcohol should be on hand. Would that she had some. Ellemeare had the feeling SHE would need a drink too after this was over. “From someone else, there's no alcohol, and I don't have time to explain right now, okay? If I don't get these out correctly I know it's going to be bad. I need you to walk me through this, please??” She listened to another set of rapidly fired questions from the two, answering them as they were asked. Pulling tweezers and gauze from her medical kit, she cleaned the area with melted snow and worked to carefully remove both bullets. She was reassured by the fact that the mythril armor that he wore had caused the bullets not to lodge too far into his body. There was no need to cut them out. Pay attention to his breathing, she reminded herself, pausing to listen. Rapid from the pain, but he was still breathing. This brought her some relief. “Kaestian, you still with me? Stay with me, okay?” She murmured at him, receiving a pained grunt as he removed the second bullet and discarded it, applying pressure to the wounds to stop the bleeding. Luckily, the cold would help with that, she had been reassured. “You...were...right.” Ellemeare frowned and shook her head. “Don't worry about that. You just worry about making it through this, okay. You can make it up to me later.” She carefully checked over the wounds before muttering something into the linkpearl. “Yes, the bullets were intact. I'm bandaging him now. What? You're breaking up...can you hear-?” She swore again as static occurred in the other end of the line. With a grunt of irritation, she continued her work, beginning to bandage his wounds with care, her teeth clenched due to anger rather than the cold. A part of her was concerned for her comrade, but the other part of her was a pyre of rage that desperately wanted to seek out and kill the one who had sent them to their deaths. Could they really be sure it was his friend, however? They had spoken to numerous people over the few days since their first meeting. Several of which had politely told them to fuck off. It could be any of them... “The link...pearl?” “Down, probably due to the storm. We'll be here a bit.” “You should...go. Get back to... Falcon's. Seek shelter.” Once more, she shook her head rapidly. “I may know these lands well, but I'm just as apt as others to get lost in this blizzard. It would be suicide for me to try and leave, and I'm not leaving without you. It's safer for me to stay here with you and wait this out. Safer for both of us.” “You...will...freeze.” He spoke with an effort, his teeth chattering with the cold. His wounds and the chill might be the death of him. Elle retrieved his cloak from the ground and the extra she kept in her pack, wrapping both of them about him carefully, but she knew that they would only do so much. Night was closing in, and the temperatures would only plummet further. He was right. They might both freeze. She crouched in front of him, trying to think. He was more likely to freeze to death before she would. He didn't have her abilities to regulate body heat. There was no question about what had to be done, and so she posed the question to him as he had done to her before the altercation. “Do you trust me?” Slowly, Kaestian lifted his gray eyes to meet her gaze, offering the same barely perceptible nod she had given him moments earlier. Having her answer, she pulled her cloak from around her shoulders and added it to the stack about him before opening the cloaks and carefully settling into his lap. Pulling the cloaks closed with her inside, she rested herself back against his bare chest. “Wh-what... are you...doing?” “Rest.” She murmured, focusing what little of her mana pool she had left, thinking of home and Aelden and her family. Elle snaked an arm carefully about him, mindful of his wounds. She could already feel her power warming her skin as she tapped into the reserves of energy she had to keep them both warm. This would only last for so long, but perhaps it would be long enough. With the linkpearl out of commission, they would come in search of her. Or at least send for help. “W-warm. How are you...so warm?” He asked quietly. “Rest. Just rest, and hold on. Help is coming.” Ellemeare said, certainty wavering in her voice. “Help will get here.” All they could do now was wait. (( @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast , @trc-xiv ))

[kellanswritingblog]

Masquerade, a Zolf/Hamid fake dating AU

Chapter 5: The Onslaught

The ball is attacked, and the Rangers step up to take care of the threat.

Chapter 5 is below, or you can find it on AO3

Chapter 1; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4

Their search revealed nothing of interest and all four were starting to wonder if there was a plot against the festivities at all.  Regardless, they were still getting paid, so they stayed aware, just in case.

And so, as the day pressed along, Grizzop and Sasha disappeared back into the less-travelled passages to keep an eye on things and avoid socializing, while Zolf and Hamid headed into the ballroom with the rest of the guests, all dressed up and in need of a stronger drink than was available.  Neither referenced what happened in their room and instead stood awkwardly off to the side, drinking wine in silence.  Zolf opened his mouth to speak several times, but what could he possibly say?  

Eventually, Zolf managed to quiet the thrumming of his heart and the spinning in his stomach and asked, “Hamid, would you like to dance?”

“Oh!  I didn’t mean to imply that you had to,” Hamid insisted. “I just wanted it to be an option for you.”

“And I’m taking that option.  If you want…”

Before Hamid could reply, a loud but muffled noise erupted from Zolf’s pocket.  He removed the mobile stone so that he could hear Grizzop and Sasha properly.

“Bad news, bad news!”  Grizzop exclaimed.  “They teleported in!  They’re magicky ones!”

“What direction?”  Zolf asked hurriedly as Hamid huddled around him to join the conversation.

Grizzop’s response was cut off with a scream and the sounds of an explosion through the stone and directly into Zolf’s ears.  A gigantic chunk of wall across the ballroom disappeared in a great BOOM and shockwaves threw many partygoers to the floor.  A couple dozen individuals sauntered through the hole.

“I can cast fireball, but if Sasha and Grizzop are among them…”  Hamid pondered as he picked himself up off the ground.

Zolf scanned his surroundings and noticed a shadowy figure, picked out only by the glint of a dagger, and a not-quite-so-shadowy figure, illuminated by burning arrows.

“Aim for the front!”  Zolf commanded.  “They’re at the back.”

Hamid said nothing but went still and pointed at the breach in the wall until a tiny beam of fire emerged from his finger.  It then expanded into a great bursting ball of flame as it hit the intruders, and screams erupted from the attackers that went flying and were set alight.

Zolf charged towards the mass of intruders, pulling his glaive from the bag of holding at his hip, grateful that Hamid had designed their suits so that their armor would fit underneath them.

“Wait, Zolf!”

He turned back to face Hamid and wondered as to the hesitation.  Hamid placed a hand on Zolf’s shoulder and a flow of magical energy spread across him, a shimmering yellow surrounding him for the briefest moment before fading into nothingness.

“It’ll make it harder for them to hurt you,” Hamid explained.

Zolf just nodded, then turned back to the mass of black-robed intruders, who were moving through the nobility and aristocracy with blades drawn and coated in the blood of those they’d already eliminated.

“Hey!  Come pick on someone that’s willing to fight back, you cowards!”  Zolf shouted across the space and raced toward them as fast as his legs would carry him, glaive outstretched.  He sped into the mass of bombers and sliced through them as they surrounded him, spinning in dizzying patterns to keep them from getting too close and using their own weapons against him.

As one broke through the line, several bolts of magical force blasted into them and sent them falling backwards, away from Zolf.  Across the space, Hamid was surrounded in colorful displays of magic, fire and energy mingling around him as his features grew more severe, his dragon heritage manifesting more and more with each cast.

With the help of Sasha’s daggers and Grizzop’s arrows, the main group of attackers was dispatched.

“I’m going after the leader!”  Zolf said to the others before running after the one at the front of the mass that had seemed to be the mastermind.  “Get the stragglers!  Try to keep them alive if you can!”

Even though he was already gone, he could practically hear Sasha and Grizzop reply “No promises” as their blades sunk into another body.

Zolf chased the leader to the corner of the ballroom and into the entrance of a hallway that branched off when he was hit from the side.

“Zolf, no!”

The roof fell into the spot where Zolf had just been and pinned Hamid underneath several miscellaneous chunks of rubble.  He’d dived at Zolf to save him from the leader’s magical cast, meant to trap him under the building’s broken remains, but got himself partially caught in the process.

“Hamid!”  Zolf tossed his glaive to the side and hefted the heavier chunks of stone off of Hamid’s body.

He coughed and shuddered, not resisting as Zolf pulled him away from the collapse.

Zolf pressed his hands against Hamid’s chest and channeled all of the positive energy he could feel to heal him as best he could, even finding himself demanding Poseidon to help out, to repay all his years of faith and do something worthwhile for once, because if anyone was worthy, it was Hamid.

“Hamid, Hamid, please!”

Hamid’s eyes fluttered open and he feebly stared up at Zolf.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Zolf sighed.  Then, with a disappointed and impressed smile, he added, “You just have to be the hero, don’t you?”

Hamid laughed, holding his stomach with the effort.  “I’ve tried to be better about that.  But I couldn’t let you…”

In the heat of the battle, with screams and cries around them, Zolf pressed his lips to Hamid’s forehead, a promise and thanks all in one.

“Stay put.  And try to stay out of trouble.”

Again, Hamid chuckled and nodded.  “Yeah, I don’t think I’m going anywhere right now.  Go get them.”

Zolf stood, retrieved his glaive, cast another glance at Hamid – stable, but still injured – and sprinted to the other access corridor.  Through their investigations, he’d memorized most of the passages in and out and through the palace and relied on that now as he figured that this hallway would soon intersect and combine with that which the leader had taken.

Even though they had a head start, Zolf was fueled by rage and soon enough caught up enough to see a black-robed figure at the far end of the passage.

“Stop right there!”  Zolf cried, but neither of them slowed for a second.

He wasn’t fast enough to catch up to a human, no matter his leg-situation.  In a last-ditch effort, Zolf threw his glaive with all his force at the back of the leader.

It lodged itself in their spine with a satisfying thud, and the mastermind fell to the ground with a scream.  Zolf ran up to their side, removing the glaive by placing a foot on their back and pulling upwards on the weapon.  With a simple cast of a spell, he knew they wouldn’t be dying on him, but they also weren’t going anywhere with a bloody hole that large in their back.

With a bit of rope from his pack, Zolf tied up the leader, and then sprinted back into the ballroom to take stock of the situation.

Grizzop was standing in the middle of the crowd of nobility, his high voice giving direction to all of the surviving partygoers, pointing them toward healers or away from it all if they had avoided the devastation.  It was clear he had the situation in hand, standing atop a pile of gagged and restrained attackers to make sure he couldn’t be ignored.

Sasha, on the other hand, was kneeling in the corner, next to Hamid.

“Is he alright?”  Zolf asked as his breath caught in his throat.

She nodded and Zolf visibly slumped with relief.  “I gave him some potions, and one of the healer types here helped him out.  He should be alright.”

“I’m fine,” Hamid insisted and stood of his own ability.

“Thank you,” Zolf said softly.  “You probably saved my life.”

“You’re welcome.”

Sasha watched the confession with wide eyes and an awkward expression on her face before darting off and disappearing into the crowd.

Zolf quickly pulled Hamid into an embrace, squeezing him tighter than his condition merited.

“Stop risking your life like that,” he muttered into Hamid’s shoulder.  “I’m grateful you saved me, but I’m not worth you sacrificing yourself.”

Hamid held him back and cried into his beard.  “Of course you are.”

With a shuddering breath, Zolf sighed, and held Hamid a little bit tighter.

“We should probably see what we can do for the survivors,” Hamid muttered as they pulled away from each other hesitantly.

“You’re right.  It looks like Grizzop has it all pretty well in hand, though.”

They both chuckled as Grizzop began berating a particularly portly nobleman who decided to try and usurp his authority.  Hamid leaned against Zolf’s side and Zolf held him tightly for support, then they headed toward their colleague.

“Hamid, listen, I… I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Zolf could feel Hamid’s eyes beaming up at him, and he whispered, “I’m glad you’re okay too.”

[stardust-and-blades]

I rewatched RWBY and decided rewriting it klance version would spread the pain bc if I had to go through it so do the rest of you Pyrrha: Keith Jaune: Lance Cinder: Lotor Ruby: Allura (bc she tote would have silver eye powers) (I switch out “maiden” for “Knight” simply bc the lore states men can’t be maidens and since Lotor is the antagonist I made an adjustment to fit the lore)

---------

He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to leave a distressed, confused Lance behind, his stance screaming to follow Keith rather than turn around to the bigger fight at hand. But what could he do besides the right thing? Besides put his all into delaying the inevitable. At least give enough time for the survivors of beacon to escape. For Lance to make it home in one piece. Even as they were running out of the building, leaving Alfor to fend off against Lotor Keith knew he was no match to whatever Lotor had become. After taking in the Fall Knight’s he became indescribably powerful. Enough so to beat the headmaster, using his stolen power to continue the Grimm attack and wreak death and violence on the rest of the world. 

He couldn’t stand on the sidelines. Not after being exposed to the existence of the knights and now Alfor’s most likely death. 

If Lotor made it to the top of the tower, that means Alfor is dead. And they in turn will be dead if someone doesn’t go up and ceases his bloodshed. 

Keith did not make his way in the top ranks of Beacon just to watch behind glass, knowing he could intervene. Knowing he could do what it takes to save the people he loves.

Even if it costs him his life.

"Alfor...” Lance whispers, watching up at what used to be the headmaster’s tower, shock and fear laced in his tone. “He...”

“He’s gone.” Keith finishes, morose. “Whatever Lotor is, whatever power he stole, it was enough to beat Alfor.”

Lance frowns. “Keith, What the hell is Lotor? What did Alfor mean by Fall Knight? There is no one on the planet with that power. And the only time we have heard of the Knights is in fairy tales--”

“That’s because it isn’t a fairy tale.” Keith says, looking at his device to summon his empty weapon carrier. “What you saw was someone who forcefully stole a power that is bigger than our aura. Something larger than the age old, lost ability of Dust.”

“Woah woah woah,” Lance waves his hands in the air. “You’re telling me HE can use DUST? Who made themself a Knight?”

Keith clenches his jaw, thinking back on the arrow lodged into the previous Fall Knight’s chest, their eyes wide and unseeing as their life force was drained to the last drop. Their body slumped, and while Keith prayed they would take a breath and hold the potential to beat Lotor, his hope dwindled as the body cooled. 

“He didn’t make himself anything. He killed for it.” And he will kill again if nothing is done.

Lance focuses his gaze up, the sound of Lotor traveling to the top reverberating off the walls, a warning of the abilities he now wields. He killed for it. Destroyed the school and a life for what does not belong to him. The Grimm invading what is left of the school’s barriers, the murder of a fellow student, the carnage he inflicted upon innocent students and faculty, a trail of blood left behind their soaked footsteps. No one capable of so much disregard to the lives at stake should not be left with the storm roiling in their tainted veins. 

“We need to get help.” Lance states, looking at Keith. “If Alfor was aware of the Knight’s existence, Coran may know someone who can rival their power.”

Keith doesn’t look at him. “There already is.”

“Great, then lets go find Coran so he can retrieve them.”

“It’s...Coran can’t do anything.”

Lance, confused by Keith’s contradicting words, turns his full attention to him. Keith is a few feet away, his eyes dull and void, a statue staring at the scenery displayed before them, frozen in time and thought. His indigo eyes, so bright and practically like starlight in a sea of black, is snuffed out by a force Lance cannot decipher. There is something Keith isn’t telling him. An emotion that goes beyond mourning Alfor and Beacon; a certain tilt of his brows that indicate Keith has a plan burrowing in the deepest part of his mind. It has only been present when Keith was talking to him a week ago, asking strange questions.

Asking Lance if he would still see him as a friend if he wasn’t the same person Lance knew; if his soul changed. It was a strange question to ask Lance. One he did not fully comprehend, for how can a soul change when the person obviously knows who they are?

He spoke as if he was going to be experimented on.

As if--

It hits Lance like a ton of bricks.

“No, no, no,” Lance shoves his body in front of Keith, getting very up close and personal with the surprised boy. “I know what you’re thinking, mullet. And you are not going to face Lotor.”

“Lance--”

“Did you not see how he came out of the fight unchanged?” Lance yells, motioning with one arm up towards the heavens. “He beat Alfor, a PROFESSIONAL HUNTER. Someone better than Allura, better than you.”

“Lance,” Keith whispers. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Obviously you don’t! You saw how powerful he is, you can’t go up there!”

“That isn’t for you to decide.”

“UM, yeah, it is as your friend who doesn’t want to add another number to the body count!” He took another step towards Keith, close enough he can smell the soot lingering on his hair from the two abandoning the fight for safety earlier. “We are leaving for actual help and that is final.”

Keith has been avoiding Lance’s look, not wishing to be pulled by those mesmerizing azures. He didn’t want to give in to his pained heart, afraid he would back out of his decision. But if he were to go through with it and Lance ended up right, he wants to have one last moment with Lance. One last look at the person he held most dear to him, even if he isn’t fully aware of just how much in those moments. Keith is about to sacrifice everything for the greater good, the least he could give himself is one last gift; one single second of pure love and unlatch those chains and shackles he had locked around his beating heart. 

His pulse quickens, but he does not back down. He can already hear the empty locker nearing their destination, the hum of gears and fire being the only sound permeating the atmosphere if one listens carefully. He doesn’t have much time, internally saying sorry to Lance.

So he lifts his head to the boy opposite of him, the one he butted heads with their first semester. The goofy yet determined boy Keith trained, remembering their long night of sparring and wrestling to aid Lance in improving his sword mastery. The beautiful man he danced with at the ball, spinning him around among lights mirroring snow’s tears and a star’s explosion, leaving Keith breathless. The person who accepted Keith for who he is, looking past his elite history and deeming him not as some untouchable God, but just a student trying to get by and make a difference. Just like him.

Slowly, Keith gives him a sad smile and, with one swift movement, takes him by his shoulders and kisses him. It is not hard nor desperate, but a soft caress of his lips, a taste of what he can offer. Of what he could have offered, if worst comes to shove. Keith closes his eyes, basking in the gentleness as Lance--surprised but not disgusted--kisses him back. It is a small push, but enough to satisfy Keith. 

They stay like that until the locker lands, that being Keith’s cue to let go and embrace his warrior status. His armored hand, lightly holding Lance to him, tightens and flings him in the locker. The boy’s eyes widen in shock, Keith forcing himself to shut and lock the metal container as soon as Lance is starstruck. 

Lance bangs on the locker, his lithe frame throwing itself against the lock. 

“What the--Keith!” He bangs again, frantically staring at Keith through the slits. “Keith don’t do this! Please don’t--”

“I’m so sorry,” Keith says, hushed and aching on the inside. His fingers are cold as they input the location for the locker to fly to, the stinging in his eyes growing almost unbearable. “Protect the others.”

He stands back, the fuel for the locker revving itself up again.

Lance continues to bang on the locker, cursing and screaming for Keith to stop.

“Keith I’m begging you, don’t do this!”

Keith just gazes up at him, the words on his lips dying as Lance registers what he is saying by a single, last look.

I love you. Goodbye.

And as Keith turns away and marches to the tower before him, the screams of Lance rings in his ears, his breaking heart stabbing Keith with its shards. 

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

“Lance, what is it? Where are you?” Allura asks, seeing her communicator go off and display Lance’s icon. Relief floods her, happy to see he is alright. Most likely Keith too, since they went off together. 

“There is a cargo ship--”

“Allura you need to stop him!” Lance yells through the communicator, Allura frowning in confusion.

“Wait, Lance what do you mean? Who are you talking about?”

“Keith! It’s Keith! He--fucking shit--he is going to the tower to face Lotor. He doesn’t stand a chance, you need to stop him!”

The cool wave of calm freezes, ice crackling its way into her body. Keith. Lotor. The tower. No, this cannot be. Keith is an exceptional fighter, but Lotor is a whole different level. He hurt her friends--most likely hurt her father--all without breaking a sweat. What the hell is he thinking.

Shiro, who is next to her during this conversation, widens his eyes. “What?”

Allura puts on her best warrior voice, ignoring the horrible dread plaguing her mind. “Lance, I hear you. But where are you? Are you alright?”

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME!” Lance screams at the top of his lungs. “Go get Keith before he gets himself killed!”

Allura heard a hitch in his voice, a sob etching its way into existence before Lance lets out a frustrated scream and the connection goes dead. Allura yells Lance’s name, but already knows she has lost contact.

Now she must hurry, before it is too late.

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

Keith couldn’t move. His vision is blurry, his body aching and his aura depleted into nothing. He gasped for air, the pain in his calve excruciating. His shield missed Lotor’s arrow, its dust form activating and went right through Keith’s attempt at blocking the attack. His body couldn’t handle more damage. His aura, always thriving because he was careful in its use, can no longer help him in stopping Lotor.

He met his match, and there is nothing Keith can do about it.

Lotor, bathing in his victory, smiles to himself and forms a bow and arrow, taking aim at Keith’s heart.

“Any last words, Champion?”

Keith doesn’t know why, but the words came out without a thought. He levels his eyes with navy blue, glaring up at the threatening figure in defiance. Though he may be  dead man, he knows one thing: fate does not favor the wicked.

“Tell me. Do you believe in destiny?”

Lotor grew serious.

“Yes.”

With that, he lets go of his prepped arrow, the sharp, minuscule dagger piercing Keith’s chest. Keith’s eyes grew big, the ache bursting into white hot agony as his insides are engrossed in unseen fire. He gasps and tries to form words, tries to yell out curses—anything really—but all he can utter is a choke before he gives in to his fatal wound, his vision dissolving into darkness. He is so far gone he cannot even feel his body be dissolved into dust, Lotor’s hand a kiss of death as he slowly scatters to the wind.

His last thought is of Lance, and how he will never be able to dance with him again.

[kranamuffins]

Once again I have done a thing.

Braham slammed into his late mother’s homestead throwing the door closed with such force that he heard icicles shatter in his wake. How could she?!?! How could The Commander, the woman who was his only family left in the world, treat him like a child! This was his mother’s legacy! Killing Jormag was HIS legacy to carry out! His burden..

He looked down to his feet and noticed that garm was missing, a faint scratching told him that he had left the dire wolf outside. He turned and opened the door. The moment Garm’’s nose entered the building he got excited. Pushing past Braham he raced to the hearth to greet none other than Knut Whitebear.

Braham paled, his face covered in shame that the leader of his people had seen his outburst. “Knut.. ah.. I didn’t see you there…….,” his voice trailed off as he scratched the back of his head.

“I came to see if you were up to joining the moot tonight, after all you cracked the tooth.. But I can see there is something yet that troubles you.” Knut motioned to the furs set in front of the hearth. “Come sit with me for a time.”

Braham could not refuse, it was Knut Whitebear, and so he sat. He sat and told one of his mother’s oldest friends what had happened. The Commanders betrayal at making a new guild, her insistence that he wait, his scathing rebuke of both. Through it all Knut sat quietly, but his face showed the storm of conflict in his heart. There was silence for a short while after Braham had finished.

Suddenly Knut stood with a deep sigh. “I should not be doing this,” he muttered. He walked to the door and opened it then turned expectantly, “Well boy? Are you coming or not?” Knuts eyes dared braham to say no, and so he stood and followed.

They stopped by the great lodge to pick up some of knuts things. Braham made sure to drop garm off with Rox, and leave wprd that he was off with Knut if anyone needed him. Then they headed out. Out of Hoelbrak, out past the Wayfarer’s Foothills, and deep into the mountains surrounding the area of frostgorge sound.

Almost two weeks into their long trekk Knut called for them to stop early for the day.  Curious after so many late nights sloughing through the ice, snow, and Dragon Minions that permeated this harsh area, he did as he was told. That night knut did not bother to set the traps around camp to warn them of the approach of hostiles. “Nothing dares come this close,” explained knut with a downward glance. “I would not do so if it did not guarantee us a full night's sleep.”

They awoke early the next morning. Whitebear was silent as he banked their fire and prepared to head out. Braham was confused when his companion left his weapon and took instead a sheaf of dried flowers. As they walked a wall covered in the ice of dragon minions came into view. Its broken walkways stark against the morning’s dawning light. Knut began quietly reciting some Scaald’s tale as Braham drew his mace..

From the ruined structure they heard nothing. Even the howling winds which had harried them for their entire journey did not so much as whisper through the empty village.

“..And the spirits of the wild blessed Denmuir with the powers to cleanse and protect his clansmen. For many years he stood as a pillar of the spirits, protecting all of his village from the harsh icebrood.” Knut paused his tale at the broken gates. And motioned for Braham to lower his weapon.

“One day Jormag grew weary of waiting for his prize, so cleverly hidden by the spirits from his view. Thus came to pass the annihilation of the AnchoritePreservers clan.” He gestured at the empty husk of a settlement before him. “This was once the home of that clan. Reclusive people to be sure, but they certainly bred the best heros. Many of their clansmen are sung of around the fires and hearths of our people.”

“What happened here,” Braham asked breathlessly examining the dilapidated buildings and chunks of ley infused ice pillars around them. “ if they were great warriors why is their home destroyed.. What could they have had that the dragon wanted?”

“Several years before the attack Denmuir interrupted the ritual blood sacrifice of one of their young clanswomen to the dragon. The child bore the mark, and scars of the encounter for many years. When the dragon sent one of his lieutenants to retrieve her, she became one with the dragon, the clan could not withstand the assault from without while also trying to restrain the monster within…” Knut grew silent.

They turned a corner to the main square of the village. At the center stood a huge ice crystal, nearly 3 times the size of the norns standing before it. Carved deep into the ice were the forms of two girls. Unmistakably the work of Eir Stegalkin, Braham’s mother.

The two girls were locked in combat one was in the midst of falling onto her back while simultaneously firing an arrow point blank at the enemy before her. The other girl wore the icy armor of the icebrood and wielding a sword of pure ice, bearing down on her opponent. The figures were so lifelike that Braham felt as if they watched him.

Knut knelt before the plaque set in the ice and bowed his head for a moment. Them he scattered the dried flowers in front of the carving. As Braham read the plaque he noted that there was evidence of other flowers. Recent ones. “ In Memorial of Heros, of Life Lived and Lost, and of Innocence Torn Asunder.  -Eir Stegalkin, Commissioned by Knut Whitebear-”

“So you brought me out here to show me one of mother's sculptures?” Braham was confused. It was just another clan that refused to move into Hoelbrak and paid the price.

Knut sighed and stood. “No Braham, I brought you here to understand.” He led them into the largest building. The ice formation on one of the beds told Braham that the mattress and furs had belonged to the girl who was the dragons lost sacrifice. Knut stood in the doorway as his young companion gave in to his curiosity and explored the building. As Braham's search neared the icy bed he turned and left, heading back to the statue.

Braham glanced over the bed, what had happened there was obvious, and went straight to the clothes chest next to it. Kneeling he opened the lid, hinges protesting their use. It was just a chest for clothing and other common items a young norn might have. Everything was normal, regular. What was he supposed to understand.

As he stood Braham heard the crunch of glass beneath his boot. He looked down and saw a portrait. It was the two girls. Joined at the hip one smiling shyly at the other, who beamed with joy at the first. The second girl, the one with the bow in the sculpture, reminded him of something. Picking up the portrait he squinted at the girls.

His face went pale. The face was young, but he knew it well. He looked closer this time with the eyes of a brother in battle, they eyes of a companion through harsh times, the eyes of a friend. Had he ever seen Frelliah smile like that? He looked around the lodge again. The largest building in the village… This was the commander’s home. Her clan. He gripped the painting tighter, her family. And it was gone. How much had she lost to the dragon? And she had told him to wait…

He walked out, the two girls still clutched in his fist, back to the central square.

“Do you see now,” Knut asked him. “Eir was as much her mother as yours, more in some ways.” He looked down. “She sees you well and truly as a little brother, she just did not want you to rush in without complete certainty that you could succeed. She has lost too many to Jormag…”

Braham folded the paper on which the commander smiled a true smile, one he had never seen, and put it in his traveling pack.

“She does not want to lose you too.”

Braham walked past Knut, towards the entrance to the village.

“She won’t,” he promised. There was a conviction in his voice that Knut had never heard from Braham before when he said, “Because I’m going to kill Jormag,” ‘For my friend,’ he thought, ‘for the only family I have left.’

[underbridgethings]

Overland Chronicles.

Ten years ago (or thereabouts), I had some fun writing a story, and this chapter was how I got started with it. It’s just a bit of fluff, but I thought on the weekend, I’d possibly start downloading chapters, and use my somewhat mediocre artistic ability to illustrate it. The first illustration was a collaboration between Ariel and myself, but regarding the rest of the illustrations? I am entirely to blame.

    Alfred the Large drove the coach horses faster then they had ever been used to.  Twelve hours is what he had endured to travel from his starting point in Bearbank in order to leave the Kingdom of Overland, crossing over the perilous bridge spanning Boy Gorge, in order to head into the human infested land of Arcainia. Only now was the village of Phunkei Town coming into view.  A village which, because of its human population, the coach-bruin was convinced smelled rather foul. Of course, that village was not the object of this journey; rather, it was the ancient fortress constructed at the summit of Mountain Doo that loomed over this village.  It was there Alfred the Large had been ordered by Lady Cynthia Bearahs to deliver the sealed document with which the coach-bruin had been entrusted.

   The road he traveled was largely deserted, as few ever traveled to Phunkei Town, and most of its residents seemed to show no interest in venturing outside their village. The village’s only purpose seemed to be to serve the occupants of the ancient citadel, which loomed over it. This citadel, known as the Dark Crystalline Tower, had once been the seat of power for the demon lord Superbia. Superbia had been chosen by the chief demon Rensie to take dominion of the surface dwellers of this world, and had come very close to succeeding. Alfred had only known of Superbia from tales handed down from the older bruins, for a score of years had passed since Superbia had been cast into the Abyss of Rensie’s domain by the forces of Yopu.  The defeat of this demon by the armies under the command of Yensid Yor had seriously weakened the power Rensie held over this world.  Rensie had spent the following years trying to regain control of this world, and had little difficulty attracting minions from among self-serving and unprincipled practioneers of the dark arts eagerly willing to do his bidding.  His most trusted ally, who now occupied the seat of power once occupied by Superbia, was an aged crone who went by the name of Brewhaha.  Tonight, Brewhaha was about to present an object of no minor consequence to her dark lord Rensie.

  Inside the ancient fortress, Brewhaha approached the occupant of a perch. “Thunderthighs want a cracker?” the aged crone inquired. “Nah.”, the harpy addressed Brewhaha in a bored manner. “People from Georgia give me gas.  By the way, here’s that mug ya wanted.”

    With great eagerness, Brewhaha greedily snatched the vessel from Thunderthighs talons, and held it above her head so that the chalices golden surface could catch that last bit of sunlight of the day.  “Behold, the Chalice of Farsight!” she cackled with malicious glee. Her constant companions, a pair of trolls whose family who had inhabited the caverns of Mountain Doo since before the construction of the Dark Crystalline Tower, could scarcely understand their mistress’s excitement over an old drinking vessel.  A vessel not even containing any beverage, and therefore of little importance to them.  But still they nodded with enthusiasm, in hopes that the display of excitement might merit them each a cookie.  Brewhaha salivated over the rich reward that Rensie was certain to bestow upon her, and prepared to call forth the dark lord.  “Rensie ekim…” 

    Her incantation was interrupted as Brewhaha felt the chalice being forced from her hand.  Turning, Brewhaha spotted the diminutive arrow that had forced the vessel from her hand now lodged in the wall, and the troll siblings looking at something behind her with great concern.  Turning 180 degrees, she came to face a small woodland creature armed with a crossbow. “It is Sir Hamsterlot!” cried out Hans Troll.  His sister, Gretta, was equally perturbed. “Javoh!  They say he fights with the strength of a thousand gerbils!”  “He’s a puny tailless rat!” Brewhaha stated with no small degree of disgust with the both of them.  “Pulverize the vermin!”  Hans and Gretta realized their failure to act could lead to the consequences of not receiving a cookie, and so they circled their opponent waving their clubs.  “Hear us now, und believe us later puny gerbil-man. I am Hans Troll!” the brother began. “Ja, und I am Gretta Troll!” his sister chimed in. “And together, we are going to beat you up!” they said in unison. The action of both trolls leaping simultaneously at their quarry, lead to the collision of their heads.  With the troll siblings lying prostate on the cold stone floor, Sir Hamsterlot handily took possession of the cup of Farsight. The warrior hamster prepared to flee the Dark Crystalline Tower the way he had entered, however, Brewhaha was not so easily vanquished.  The door was erased through a spell.  “Did you really think I was going to let you leave my modest abode, with the gift I intended to present to his most glorious spirit of darkness?”  Brewhaha turned to the harpy, who was stifling a yawn with a wing. “Quick Thunderthighs, retrieve that chalice!”  Thunderthighs certainly hated moving from the perch where she had been dozing off, but the prospect of enjoying the hamster warrior as a light snack did hold some appeal.  Before Thunderthighs could snatch up her intended “hamstermeal”, however, a loud crash was heard.  Thunderthighs suddenly became more concerned with ducking shards of stain glass, then satisfying her appetite.  While she screamed with rage, Brewhaha’s former minion Merv, was about to aid her hated hamster foe.  “Can I lend a wing?” the green griffin asked, as he landed next to Sir Hamsterlot.  Sir Hamsterlot smiled. “As usual Merven, your timing is impeccable.”  A flash of green feathers, and Merv had his diminutive warrior friend airborne and out the castle, via the window which Merv had made his entrance.  Brewhaha was beside herself with anger.  The “traitorous” griffin was carrying her enemy and gift to the dark lord beyond her reach. “After them!” she ordered the harpy. “Ah, keep your shorts on, you old crone.”  If Thunderthighs seemed less then enthusiastic, it was because her wings still ached from the last flight, and she would have really preferred spending some quality time with a box of chocolate covered rodents, rather then running errands for Brewhaha.    

    Despite her fatigue, Thunderthighs was soon closing in on Merv and Sir Hamsterlot.  But it was only as they began approaching Phunkei Town, that Sir Hamsterlot became concerned.  He desired the battle to remain between them, and not to have any of the villagers feeling the brunt of their conflict.  Hamsterlot gently tapped the neck of the griffin to gain his attention.  “Merven, fly toward the sun.” Sir Hamsterlot instructed. Although Merv was uncomfortable with the prospect of sightless flight, the griffin had long ago come to trust Sir Hamsterlot’s judgment without question.  Merv had long been impressed with how Sir Hamsterlot possessed an understanding of aerial tactics quite surprising for one born without wings. Thunderthighs followed Merv’s lead, and was soon equally sightless.  Sir Hamsterlot smiled, and then ordered Merven to make a loop.  Upon completing the aerial loop, Merv was able to thump Thunderthighs squarely upon her back. 

      Well below the fray, Alfred the large was observing the spectacle with more then passing interest.  The harpy had been the very one he’d been instructed to deliver the sealed document to. The Harpy, however, was at this moment appearing to lose her battle with the forces of gravity.  Alfred couldn’t help but be amused by what he regarded as the comical way Thunderthighs flailed her wings frantically to prevent landing with enough force to shatter her skeletal system. Once she had made it to Terra Firma, Alfred stepped off the coach.  Through returning vision, Thunderthighs watched as the large bruin wearing the ruffled collar marched over to the site of her landing.  Thunderthighs quickly stood up, trying to decide whether to fight, or beat a retreat.  It turned out neither course of action would be required as Alfred held out the sealed document to Thunderthighs.  The harpy broke the seal with a talon, and perused the document. Alfred began filing his claws and displaying a hint of impatience.  “The sooner you can provide me with an answer, the sooner I can give your answer to her ladyship.  It is, after all, going to be a interminably long ride to Castle Reagh.”   

[hypnocutiegypsy]

Distraction [Part Five]

I want to say thank you to everyone who read this side project of mine. Even if you only read one part, thank you bunches. I want to create a separate page for this story but I’m not quite sure how to do it yet. I hope you like this part. I’ve been halfway done for like a few days but life lol.  

Enjoy!

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four 

As he ascended the staircase, Dane caught the tail end of a smile playing on her lips. At least she didn’t seem afraid. That he simply wouldn’t tolerate. If she was gutsy enough to saunter her fiery head through that tavern door, she shouldn’t be afraid of what comes next. He thought of his next move as he reached his door. He paused, listening carefully to make sure she hadn’t begun to follow him prematurely. No sound came back from the staircase. Good. She had patience. 

Dane entered his room and left the door unlocked. It should be easy enough for her to draw the conclusion that he was the Master she was in fact searching for. Thus, one could assume she would be relaxed with her guard down when she entered. But if she were any sharper than his previous students, whom all failed this initial test, she would be ready for him. No self-respecting assassin went about trusting strangers. Everyone was a liability; no one was to be underestimated. Then again this was a child, a fresh-faced scholar from the school who teaches how to kill from ancient scrolls.

He doused the single lamp by the bedside which reduced the already dreary room to near darkness and scattered slivers of gray daylight escaping the closed curtains. He hadn’t touched a thing in the room aside from setting his saddle bag and riding coat on the only chair across from the soiled bed. This really was the worst room he’d voluntarily put himself in, in years. He shook his head at the notion that he’d become soft. If knowing silk and clean linens meant he’d lost his touch, he was done for.  One thing was always for sure, Dane was never off his guard. 

Twelve knives nestled themselves in compartments and folds of his garments and boots. He secured one long curved dagger from inside the left breast pocket he’d sewn into his innermost tunic. As he tightened his grip on the sheepskin handle of the blade, he heard the telltale squeak of the third stair. Hopefully this one wasn’t a disappointment like all the rest.  The girl’s step was easy to discern when he stilled his breath. She’d reached the top stair and paused. He used sounds of her next movement up the hall to move beside the door and press himself against the wall. He poised the dagger at his side and paused. He saw the door open and her pale hand hesitate in the open space. She was smart indeed. His goal had been to watch her enter and grab her from behind. But if she was going to wait there, he would have to move first. Again. 

Dane shot out in front of her and charged her head on, slamming her into the wall across from his open door. The dagger was inches from her throat, his forearm bearing weight across her chest to pin her in place. His face was calm and resolute, his breathing even. He pressed the dagger closer until it was only a hairsbreadth away from the delicate skin of her neck.

“Dead…” he grunted in disappointment.

That’s when Kiena reacted. She had placed a certain amount of trust in the l hope that he was in fact her teacher, in the hope that he would hesitate for that fraction of a second. Obviously, he was and he did. It was all she needed to grab hold of the dagger and fling it into the opposite wall. She kneed him just outside the groin and causing him to flinch away, but he quickly righted himself. Kiena wasn’t surprised at his quick recovery. He probably could have killed her without the knife. It was simply a ploy to throw her off her game. It had worked, she hated knives. She longed for the comfort of a bow and arrow and a high vantage point. Fighting this close had always given her more anxiety than she liked.

She charged him but before she knew what had happened he’d swept her legs from under her landing loudly on the hard, wooden floor. Leaping up, she attacked once more. Each of her blows were blocked with effort comparable to an afterthought. The disappointment and frustration between them was palpable. Together they grappled roughly, falling into the open door of his room. Once, twice, three times more she was reduced to an ungainly pile on the floor.

“You’re dead!” he hissed yet again. Kiena’s face heated like fire coals with anger. “Two out of five. Pathetic.”

“Best four out of six!” Kiena demanded rushing Dane only to be blocked and slammed against the wall. She wheezed and slid to the ground.

“I’ll save you the effort. Best not waste your time. Not unlike how you’ve wasted mine.” His mouth tweaked in disgust. “Besides, numbers aren’t what saves your life. There is never a second chance, let alone five. Only the first action.” He turned towards the door.

In the instant he gave her his back, she sprung onto him. She grappled with him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders in a breath and slung her leg around his neck quickly bringing him down. He wrenched himself free and pulled a dagger from the inside of his left boot. Quick as a snake his right hand snapped out towards her face and she ducked bringing her elbow to the inside of his right shoulder. He cried out and dropped the dagger. Kiena grabbed it up and brought the blade expertly to his neck, positioning herself at his back. She could feel his pulse race beneath the sharp edge.

“Three out of five…” she mumbled breathlessly.

“The world is not the controlled environment of your beloved Consortium. It’s one of the reasons you came to me more crippled than you realize. You can perform satisfactory in your ivory tower, but out here, where distractions abound, you’re obviously more likely to become a pin cushion.”

With a flick of his eyes he indicated another smaller dagger poised neatly at her inner thigh. She hadn’t even felt it. If he stabbed her there, she wouldn’t last a moment still, let alone fighting.

“How...?” she exhaled.

“Is that even a question?!” He jerked his dagger free of her hand at his neck and stood in one fluid motion. And went to retrieve the dagger lodged in the wall outside of his door. As he turned away, he heard Kiena shift on the floor beginning to stand.

“No, don’t. You are out of tries; the test is over. If you try again I’ll kill you out of sheer annoyance,” he said over his shoulder.  “This had to have been some sort of joke. Albeit a humorless one. I can’t believe I sold my house…”  He loudly cleared his throat while arranging his daggers on the lamp table beside the bed.

“And I’ll bet you were top of your class, weren’t you?”

Kiena nodded dumbly from her seat on the cold stone floor. He coughed once more.

“What made you think this was a good idea? Did they tell you who I was? I didn’t even like the experts there - that bloody consortium,” he paused to cough and clear his throat again, “always perfectly prepping lambs for the slaughter since…” Kiena rose slowly.

His voice trailed off as he listened to the soft wheezing that had crept into his breath.

At his silence, Kiena looked up at him through her thick lashes.

“Oh, are you done talking now?” she said in an eerily quiet voice.

His hand gripped the night table beside him roughly, choking on another cough.

“What did you do to me?” he rasped in a low tone.

“There’s more than one way to be street savvy, Master, you should know that.” She pulled a tiny silver needle from the cuff of her sleeve. It glinted in the cold, dull lamp light. 

He felt it then a slight tinge of stinging on his neck below his left ear. When she had disarmed him of the first dagger, she must have scratched him then. He lifted a numb clumsy hand to feel the small raised graze. His vision began to blur, and he stumbled backward, awkwardly landing into the chair behind him.

“All of that lunging and grappling, got the blood pumping didn’t it? And all that talking. Goodness you must love the sound of your voice.” She slid the deadly needle back into her cuff carefully.

“What did you do to me?!” he demanded once more, urgency seeping into every word.

“Oh, don’t be a whelp. I’ve got the anecdote right here.” 

She pulled a small clear vial filled with a yellow tinted liquid from between her meager breasts.

“The question is can you possibly lower your standards long enough to teach a little brat from the Consortium?”

A jeering grin spread across her face. He couldn’t help smiling back himself.

***

@sincerestaffect @zekethegm @cogwrites @paper-shield-and-wooden-sword

This is my first time writing something like this. I hope this fighting read properly lol. If it sucks, let me have it! XD All the better to improve with. 

[slushblock]

Fell - Chapter 4 - A Long Way Down

This one ended up a lot longer than intended. Certain parts were gonna get truncated, but I got...

...carried away.

Purifying the corruption was a lot easier than expected.

Even the smallest pinch of enchanted pollen blossomed into great plumes of glittering powder, and wherever it touched the sickly purple grass or gnarled dark stone, natural color returned, vibrant and healthy. While there was no way the single pouch contained enough to convert the entirety of the rotten landscape, a little went a long way, and was more than enough for their particular task.

It wasn’t without its trouble, though. The creatures of the twisted land took an unsurprising amount of offense to their efforts, but it wasn’t anything a well-placed demon arrow or two couldn’t deter. Anything that got past Aura’s arrows was quickly eviscerated by either Axl or a bouncing ball of protective slime.

“Still not as many as before,” Axl observed as they descended into the trench once again, “Maybe you can send the slime home this time.”

“Nice try,” Aura deadpanned as she touched down on the ground, reaching for the purification powder. Taking a slightly more substantial amount, she applied it to the ground where they’d heard the sound of a hollow beneath. With a deep groan and cracking noise not unlike a shifting glacier, the ebonstone lightened, its knobbly surface smoothing out as its composition shifted beneath. Once the sound died down, Axl withdrew his pick and set to work.

Mining was always a hassle, but not nearly as much as it probably should have been back in the real world. The stone gave way to a spherical recess, large enough to comfortably fit both humans as they slipped in to gape at what they’d unearthed.

Floating in the center of the isolated pocket was a nearly perfect sphere of pearlescent black, which gave off a faint purple glow and a much less faint aura of pure unease.

Axl stared, putting his pick away as he slowly reached out to touch the floating orb, and almost felt his hair stand on end had it not been under his helmet. Not from energy, but from dread; he could almost hear faint whispers in his head the closer he got. He withdrew momentarily, then reached out again, more tentatively, giving the orb a light tap with his middle finger, like testing a doorknob for static on a dry day. The metal of his gauntlet rang off the surface of the pearly black sphere, giving off a hollow tone. The sphere itself wavered a bit in place before stabilizing..

“...Creepy…”  he shivered, hugging his arms and glancing out of the hole for monsters before looking at Aura, “I wonder if these are what he meant when he mentioned stuff being broken.”

“No idea,“ Aura mumbled, having cringed at Axl tampering with the orb at all, “Better not mess with it more… see how many there are first, then decide what to do. If it is what he meant, I really don’t want to risk it if this is some kind of ‘three strikes and you’re out’ deal...”

As they emerged and continued purifying and digging up the jagged cavern whenever Axl’s armored footfalls sounded just slightly off, they met with a mild amount of harassment. Axl was right, though; it still felt like there were less than there should have been, and both of them wondered, silently, if Ren had something to do with that, in the event he was lingering.

Eventually, their torches cast light on unfamiliar forms. Faint, glowing shapes in the darkness were revealed to be a combination of not only more veins of demonite, but ominous structures with teeth-like protrusions jutting up, like yearning jaws. Some of them were indented on top, filled with vile, tar-esque fluid, while others seemed flatter. It was difficult to determine if they were ‘natural’ formations, or constructed… and if the latter, by who? Or what?

“...I don’t like this. They… look a bit like... altars?” Axl shuddered, then growled, face scrunching as he reached for his scroll. “I feel like we… we should destroy these.”

Aura held up a hand, expression severe and somewhat worried, “No… Not yet.” Her train of thought was interrupted as her slime companion spotted another eater, leaping at it and missing. She quickly drew an arrow and shot it down to let her companion finish it off, before turning back to Axl, “We should check everything first.”

Axl shuddered against the urge to bring something heavy down on those abominable structures, but eventually shook the notion from his head, like nagging cobwebs, as they continued to dust the ground with powder, digging up more of the large, shadowy pearls. Like the pearls, the ‘altars’ were conspicuously unaffected by the powder.

As they reached the end of the trench, they were met with a surprising sight.

Axl’s eyes widened a little, “Huh… I guess Ren beat us to it.”

Before them were two large pits, the jagged edges of ebonstone looking like they’d been blasted out with some kind of heavy explosive charge. Those pits revealed divots much like the ones they’d been digging up, but both were devoid of any trace of shadowy orbs. Only a lingering queasiness remained.

To make matters more eerie, a single altar stood within what appeared to be the blast radius of one of the explosions. Or, rather hovered in place where the ground had once been below it. The altar was unscathed.

“Well, that rules out destroying those things,” Aura mumbled, kneeling by one of the blast holes to look for any orb remnants, “I guess he was talking about the orbs after all…” She stood up again, pondering, “Hm… without counting these two, I counted seven. Not sure if that means anything.”

“Me neither, but hey, look at this.” Axl gestured, backtracking to their most recently unearthed pearl, “This one’s different.”

Indeed, this last pearl was significantly smaller than the others, perhaps the size of a bowling ball versus the larger, beach-ball sized spheres, and in a much tighter, shallower pit. As they went, Axl had tapped a few more to check, and they all sounded hollow, if with varying tones indicating thickness. When he tapped this one, it felt much more solid.

“Interesting… it does feel a lot more like a pearl,” He looked around, then down at his scroll. Putting it away, he turned back to the orb, “I wonder if we can examine it at home..,” he took a deep breath and reached down, clasping both hands around the artifact, clear intent in his eyes.

Aura paled as she reached out to stop him, “Wait, don’t-”

It was too late. Axl gave the pearl a short tug, and a sharp, screeching ring resounded off the cavern walls as it broke from whatever force was keeping it locked in place. Almost immediately, the ground began to rumble, with increasing intensity.

Aura nearly fell over from the shaking, grabbing her bow and scrambling away from the hole, shrieking, “OH MY GODS, WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

“W-what!” Axl snapped back, sounding just as panicked, “He only mentioned breaking! I didn’t break-!” He was interrupted by the source of the rumbling, and his jaw dropped, as did the orb he was holding as he let it go to grab his sword. It didn’t fall with any weight, instead floating gently to the ground.

Nobody noticed. They were too busy staring at the giant worm that had burst from the ebonstone wall as if it were little more than cobble, dwarfing any other creature they’d seen so far. It roared and charged at them, forcing both to leap out of the way as it crashed into the floor between them in an explosion of purified stone. As it continued into the new hole it was digging, it didn’t seem to end.

Aura’s slime companion was the first to action, fearlessly leaping at the worm as it passed by, striking it repeatedly in the side and occasionally dislodging a tiny bit of rotting flesh, but not doing significant harm. Aura, meanwhile, withdrew the arrows she’d been saving, crouching to keep her footing as she aimed them at the giant worm, not that it would be difficult to hit.

Every magic arrow that left the demon bow burst into an ironic fireworks display of light, vanishing into the creature and the stone alike, leaving char marks in the twitching dead flesh. However, it didn’t seem to have much more of an effect on something that was woven together from rotting meat and malice; it was impossible to tell if the roaring was the creature reacting in pain, or just the tough stone giving way before it, shaking the caverns.

Worse yet, the bursts of light were leaving nothing to retrieve for reuse if they were having an effect.

“I don’t know they’re doing anything!” Aura tried to shout over the near-deafening noise. She eyed the creature’s movement for a moment, and watched as Axl struck at it in quick jabs with his inadequately-sized demonite sword when an idea clicked, “Do you still have the spear!?”

Axl gave her an incredulous look, reaching for his scroll. It wasn’t a weapon he used often as it had no special properties aside being slightly longer-ranged than his preferred swords. His eyes darted about wildly to see where the monster would emerge from next, “Yeah, but what good will that do?!”

The massive eater burst from the ceiling and towards Axl, who yelped and leapt out of the way. Aura cringed, yelling, “If we can lodge it through the worm’s body it might get stuck as it burrows into this tough rock!” She readied another volley of arrows, “Maybe it’ll even tear the worm in half!”

“Will that work!?” Axl shouted back, finally getting the embarrassingly plain if functional weapon out of his bag, “Won’t the spear break first!?”

“I don’t know!” Aura sighed loudly, frustration in her voice, “but I don’t see you coming up with any ideas!”

Axl grunted as he pushed his glasses up and braced himself, holding the spear in both hands, point down. As the worm emerged from yet another wall, he sidestepped, raising the weapon above his head and keeping a close watch at the monster’s passing features. Then, with as much strength as he could muster and a battle-cry to match, he brought the point down on one of the creature’s large, putrid eyes. It burst into disgusting green ooze as the spear went right through, exiting the creature’s ventral side. Axl tumbled to the ground with a crash and a pained groan as he clutched his shoulders, having released the weapon quickly lest he be dragged along for the ride, but not quickly enough.

As Aura had expected, as the segment with the lodged spear reached the wall the worm was burrowing into, the spear itself wedged against the corrupted rock. The creature jolted to a halt for a mere second before the momentum hit, tearing the worm into two pieces. The front end disappeared into the tunnel it dug, while the part behind the spear flopped to the ground.

Standing up with a faint wobble, Axl took a deep breath, arms aching, “D-did it work-?” Not taking this moment of respite for granted, he reached into his bag for a potion.

He spoke to soon. Just as he began to drink, the gory stump shuddered, shook, and shed chunks of itself to the ground, revealing another head, which gurgled and hissed at Axl for daring to split it, causing him to spit half the healing tonic in shock. As it did, the front end burst from the wall, and with it, the awful realization.

“HooOOOOOH GOD, THAT JUST MADE TWO OF THEM,” Axl yowled, wincing as he threw the bottle to the ground and drew his sword again, scrambling out of the way in a panic.

Aura cursed to herself, backing up, “O-okay so maybe it wasn’t a good idea! But maybe it’s progress?”

Axl forced a wry smirk, giving a half-hearted thumbs-up, “Yeah, at least we’re getting wormer!”

Aura twitched as she nocked another arrow, switching over to more solid and substantial demonite arrows, “OH SHUT UP!”

“You’re BOTH idiots!”

They whirled to see the large form of Ren emerging from the tunnel’s shadow, looking furious, “Why couldn’t you kids leave well enough alone?!”

“H-hey, nice to see you, too!” Axl managed to stammer out in his surprise. He pointed at the worm passing by behind him, “A little help!?”

The large man growled, holding an arm out to his side, palm up, “I suppose I’m left no choice, am I?”

Axl stared at him, wondering what the strange man had up his sleeve, but was snapped out of it by Aura crying out, “AXL, PAY ATTEN-”

He whirled just in time to see the massive mandibles and clicking teeth of the giant worm hit him in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. He didn’t even have the time to express his shock.

However, before the worm could drive its way back into the ground - and likely grind the adventurer to a bloody paste through the stone in the process - Ren thrust his hand forward and an ephemeral tendril covered in vicious thorns lashed out from his wrist. Instead of piercing the worm’s rotting hide, it wrapped around the frontmost ‘head’ of the monstrosity, barbs digging in, flaying off the flesh burned by Aura’s arrows. He withdrew his arm, the vine fading away, before lashing out with another, and another. The worm reeled in some semblance of agony as its head separated, the rest of it turning to flee into the stone, leaving Axl in the jaws of a much smaller and significantly less powerful chunk.

The daze finally out of his system, Axl brought his sword down on the creature’s eye, impaling it through. It spasmed, then fell to the ground as he coughed, regaining breath. He put a hand over his abdomen, where some of the teeth had punctured the flexible mail, “D-damn it.”

Aura rushed over, nearly tripping over her slime, but Ren made a sharp ‘cut off’ motion with his hand, gesturing towards the worm and glaring daggers as it split once again under his onslaught of shadowy thorns, now three large pieces, “Walk it off, kid, this ain’t over!”

Indeed it wasn’t, but at least it was going somewhere. Axl retrieved his spear where it had fallen from the splitting abomination. Now that they knew what to expect, it at least seemed like a consistent method of getting the creature into smaller pieces, especially since Ren apparently couldn’t keep up the use of those thorns forever, soon pulling out his musket to pick up the slack. It didn’t seem quite as effective.

The downside was that the smaller pieces were much more erratic. Even Aura, with her cloth-clad maneuverability, took a few hard hits, though perhaps not as hard as the others. Ren in particular, with his large frame and heavy armor, was even less able to dodge effectively, but he nevertheless shrugged off a majority of the glancing blows he took. Apparently that fancy armor of his wasn’t just for show.

With the three of them working together, the creature was soon reduced to immobile, writhing chunks, its vile green blood coating the dark walls.

Axl took a deep breath, coughing and slightly retching at the awful stench, falling back against a wall and sliding down to sit. Aura likewise took a seat, letting her bow clatter to the ground as she pulled up the thick collar of her jacket to cover her nose and mouth. Her pet slime chirped and bounded over, nuzzling up to her thigh and purring. She smiled slightly and placed a hand on it. Axl rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he mumbled something incoherent.

Ren, however, did not sit. He turned to walk away, glowering. Axl blinked and hoarsely called over, “H-hey, where are you going?”

“Going to survey the damage you’ve done by waking that thing up,” the older man rumbled, “I’m not about to let your curiosity ruin my hard work…”

“What hard-”

“SHHHH-” Aura hissed, cutting Axl off, “Just… leave it.”

Axl frowned, feeling guilty as he turned, cupping his hand to call out after Ren, “Hey! Thanks for your-” only to see that he’d already gone, “...help…” He sighed.

Everything was a mess. The already jagged trenches were now riddled with large holes in every which direction, giving the surrounding rock a very unstable feel. Axl sighed and tried to hold his breath as much as possible, closing his eyes and leaning back. After taking a moment to collect his thoughts, he glanced about. The glowing black pearl had rolled gently off into a puddle of tar near one of the altars during the commotion, its own faint light mingling with the light of the infernal furniture.

It wasn’t the only thing glowing. Amongst the strewn rot of the worm’s remains, scattered remnants of faint purple could be seen glimmering. Axl looked down at a chunk closer to him, digging his armored fingers into the disgusting glop to extract a strange, shiny scale. The queasiness left his expression...slightly.

“Well… I guess we found them,” He sighed again, giving a weak fistpump in the air and a mostly unenthused “whoo hoo.”

“Great. We can head home, then,” Aura puffed, sounding relieved as she stood up, “Let’s get as much of this stuff and head home.”

“Well, you can head home,” Axl took out another potion, taking a quick whiff of it to make sure he wasn’t going to vomit trying to drink it, “I’m going to check out some of the tunnels that worm dug,” Feeling it was safe to, he took a quick swig, then sighed, “See if we can find where it came from, or anything else that might be interesting.”

“Are you crazy?!” Aura interrupted her gathering to stare, in shock and mild horror, “This thing could have made quick work of us, and you want to find out where it came from!?” She held her hands up, fingers curled as if trying to grasp the insane notion,  “What are you hoping to find, a nest of giant killer worms?!”

When she put it that way, it sounded pretty bad, and Axl rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed, “Well… probably not. But if I do, at least we’ll know what we’re up against.” He coughed, then used his sword to help him stand up as he joined in collecting scales and fragments of glowing ore, “Anyway, aren’t you curious where something that big’s been hiding this whole time?”

Aura froze in place, closing her eyes. She turned to look at one of the holes, leading into shadows past the until-then-unbreakable rock, “I mean…”

“Again, you don’t have to,” Axl shrugged, pocketing the last of the scales he could find before examining the tunnels, trying to remember which one the worm emerged from first. He bit his lip, crouching into one of the larger ones. Torchlight revealed it to not end prematurely in a loop back. Lucky guess. He turned back to Aura, “If I die, I’ll let you know you were right.” He frowned slightly. It would be a claustrophobic trek, for sure; it wasn’t nearly tall enough to enter standing, though at least it didn’t require crawling on all fours.

Letting out a frustrated growl, Aura took out her scroll and extracted her mirror. She was about to look into it when she saw Axl disappear into the tunnel out of the corner of her eye. After spending a few moments in the eerie silence, she slowly lowered her hand, clenched her teeth, then put the mirror away, following after him, “Okay, fine.”

Hearing the padded footsteps behind him Axl turned, “So you changed your mind?”

As she caught up, Aura pinned him with a resentful scowl, “I want to see the look on your face when you realize this is stupid, and then I’ll mirror back.”

Axl chuckled to himself, “Deal.”

The trip began most uninterestingly, with the only thing of note being the gradual shift from corrupted rock to natural stone the further from the trenches they got. A creeping apprehension of what they’d find at the end filled their minds, and nearly clouded them to a baffling discovery. The only thing keeping their minds on their task were their differing footsteps, and the wet plap plap plap of Aura’s pet slime.

As they crept along, Aura was the first to notice that the worm’s tunnel had intersected with a fabricated structure. She grabbed Axl’s wrist to stop him, eliciting a surprised shout as he whirled around to see her pointing.

Two layers of simple but very even stone bricks could be seen, rasped against by the worm’s body. One of the bricks had fallen through, revealing some kind of opening on the other side.

“What is this?” Aura crouched low to attempt peering through the hole. She couldn’t make out much.

“Beats me…” Axl crouched alongside her, “...though I bet Ren has something to do with it? He did mention that monster possibly damaging something he was working on…”

“Huh… Should we just… leave it?” Aura asked, furrowing her brow.

“On one hand, I don’t really want to mess with something he might get mad at us over..,” Axl shook his head… then smiled wryly, taking out his pick, “...but it’s not like he isn’t already pissed off at us.”

Aura turned to him, with incrementally increasing incredulity, “Are you serious?”

“Sure. I mean, worse comes to worse, we can just say the worm damaged it more than it did.”

The worm’s damage was certainly a factor, as it only took a single swing of the pick to cave enough brick for them to enter, though not before looking inside and seeing what amounted to little more than a well-like tube of brick, lined with the occasional inset torch, with a single chain suspended in the middle. Carefully leaning in, Aura looked down, then up. She could barely see a ‘top’ where the chain was attached to plain stone, and there was no bottom in sight.

“Holy…” she muttered. Axl leaned over, as well, whistling.

“Yep, I’d say that’s a pretty big holy,” Axl smirked. Aura elbowed him. He tried to stifle a self-amused laugh, “So, wanna follow it?”

Aura arched an eyebrow, “You giving up on the worm already?”

“Weeell, I think this is a little more interesting,” Axl shrugged, with a lopsided, questioning smile.

“Your opinions of what’s interesting worry me.”

“Again,” Axl reminded her, taking hold of the chain, “you don’t have to follow, yet here you are.”

“Whatever. Let’s just go.”

The tunnel down almost felt infinite. The longer they went without seeing a bottom, the more they began to wonder just what kind of terrible idea this was. To make matters worse, the air was gradually getting hotter around them.

“For the love of Ra this had better not be some kind of volcano vent that’s going to burn us to a crisp,” Aura muttered, loosening her collar and fanning herself with her hat.

“If it was, why would it have a chain? This seems like it was meant to be traveled… the question is, for what purpose?” he looked back up at the dwindling line of lights, “It feels like some kind of elevator, but there haven’t been any doors along the way leading anywhere… so the bottom must be the destination.”

Aura contemplated that for a second, then deadpanned, “If so, why was there no opening on the top?”

The question caused Axl to stop abruptly, causing Aura to nearly land on him as he scratched his head, “...That’s a very good question. Maybe… hidden doors?”

“...Oh gods, I really don’t think we should-” Aura shuddered, resisting the urge to kick her traveling partner in the head. She didn’t have to, as her grumbling was cut short by a panicked yowl as Axl, not paying attention, ran out of chain. However, there was a muffled splash at the bottom, followed by equally muffled cursing and much flailing, implying the fall was either not that far, or the water at the bottom broke it, as little sense as that made. Nevertheless, Aura wasn’t willing to risk it, instead using her own grappling hook to descend the rest of the way once the chain ended.

“Nice job,” she smirked as she descended, avoiding the water. The end of the vertical tunnel was a fairly well-lit room, with a stairwell down into another cavern lit with an eerie orange light. Aura gingerly skirted the edge towards the opening.

“What the Hell is this?” Axl sputtered as he stepped out of the pool of fairly hot water using the stairs built into its side, “It’s not a well, but why is it here?”

Aura stopped dead in her tracks near the bottom, eyes going wide. Her voice suddenly began to shake, “...A-Are you really sure you should be saying that?”

“...Huh?” The sudden change of mood and circumstance gave Axl pause as he descended the steps to stand next to her, looking at whatever it was she saw. His jaw dropped.

The cavern was enormous, so large that it could have been mistaken for an entirely new world. Far below, roiling lakes and rivers of molten rock cut through plateaus of ash and fiery stone. Massive pillars connected the stalactite-laden ceiling they were viewing from to the pit of death as embers drifted lazily through the air. Air which was almost unbearably hot. Emerging from the ash and lava were structures made from brick, both pitch black and glowing-hot.

Axl definitely felt the heat of the air, taking off his helmet and stowing it for the time being, “So this is what he meant...”

Aura, likewise, took her hat, but once again used it to fan herself before putting it back on, “What?”

“When I got here, I told that creep to go to Hell, and he said “you’ll know when you get there” or something like that,” Axl got down on his knees and peered over the edge, looking to see if there was a way down,  “I knew nothing then, so I thought he was mocking me and telling me I was certain to die… but I guess this shouldn’t be a surprise.” He turned to Aura, who looked grim.

She looked over at her slime companion, which seemed very upset by the heat. It barely had the energy to hop. She picked it up, worried, and held it close, “...Let’s get out of here.”

“No, I’m gonna grab something first,” Axl swung his legs off the ledge, grabbing his hook and attaching it. There was a building not so far from them, and with some clever maneuvering he figured he could grapple his way over to it without shattering his shins, “Something to show we were here.”

“...Fine! Suit your idiot self!” Aura snapped and growled, whirling around, suddenly furious. All of this time, she’d let herself be led around by this fool, and she couldn’t start to imagine why. Did she want to see him fail? She couldn’t stand watching him die whenever it came to that, but at the same time, she couldn’t just leave him. Almost as if that made her a worse person. She hated feeling so guilty about someone so impulsive and-

A shout of surprise pulled Aura back into the present, and she turned to see a twisted, horned figure descend upon Axl with leathery wings. The demon screeched something in a language neither recognized, before making a gesture with its hand. A set of glowing purple blades manifested around it, before launching down towards the gold-armored trespasser.

Axl quickly slapped his helmet back on and drew his sword, but the demon was flying too high for it to be any use. He dodged the first spinning scythe, but the staggered launch of the others caught him by surprise, just as one of the blades caught him in the right shoulder, and the other across his left thigh, ripping through his plate armor like butter. He howled and stumbled.

‘Let him die’ was Aura’s first thought. ‘He godsdamned deserves it.’ But as quickly as that thought entered her head, she shook it away. Was she really going to be that horrible? She reached for her scroll, using the staff she’d found to stow her slimy pet with the rest of her effects, before pulling out her bow.

“Leave him alone!” she shouted as she drew back the string. The demon whirled to look at her just as she let the arrow fly, and it hit true, piercing the wrist of its left wing. The demon faltered in the air, cursing at her in its tongue as it plummeted to the rooftop. Axl cringed at the gash in his thigh but managed to limp with urgency, making his way to the demon. Too shocked by its fall to react, it made one ineffective slash before Axl drove his sword between its two eyes. It went limp, falling to the black brick as deep purple blood oozed, flowing off the rooftop to sizzle in the lava below.

As Aura landed beside him, Axl sighed guiltily, “You… didn’t have to.” He cleared his throat, “I mean… thank you.” Aura was somewhat shocked at the honest-sounding response, holding her breath and expecting some joke. When one didn’t come, she looked away.

Far above them, a voice shouted down, “When will you learn?”

Now that voice was familiar. Far above, they could see Ren standing in the entryway to the pipe. It was hard to make out his expression at that distance, but they could have hazarded a guess.

Axl looked up, starting to feel a bit annoyed with the big guy’s constantly tailing them just to tell them off, “You know, I almost feel like you’re stalking us now.”

“Well, you’re kind of getting up in my business. But this,” the large man gestured to the entire hellish scenery around them, then looked down at the younger adventurers, “This isn’t about me. This is about telling you-,” he pointed, for emphasis, “-that what’s down here is so out of your league that even I’m not strong enough to save you from the horror you’re going to find.”

Axl just stared with a bewildered expression before gesturing at the demon they’d just killed, looking down at it, then back up at Ren, throwing his arms up before putting them on his hips, “Then why did you make a tunnel leading here?!”

The large man’s clenched his teeth, looking down, withdrawing into the shadows slightly, “...Because one day, I will be.” His glare nearly pierced the darkness as he eyed the other two adventurers.  “Now scram!” He barked, before vanishing into the tunnel, with perhaps more urgency than Axl or Aura would have expected of him.

That alone put them on edge.

“Okay, yeah, we’re going, now!” Aura pulled out her mirror, “And don’t you dare-”

“Yep, even I can agree with th- huh?” Axl was very ready to get out his mirror when he noticed that the demon, curled up on the ground, had something clutched in the claws of the other hand it hadn’t struck out with. He kicked the demon over, reaching down and pulling the object in question from the monster’s grip.

It was a doll.

Specifically, it was a doll very much resembling the know-it-all guide back at the town. It was a little ratty, with burlap skin, button eyes, and a comically stitched mouth, as well as a very large pin through its chest. It could have been anyone, but the sheer degree of its off putting plainness couldn’t possibly have been anyone else.

“Heh, even demons in Hell don’t like that guy. What a piece of work,” Axl chuckled dryly as he shook his head, turning the doll over in his hands. Aura stared at him, shaking her mirror frantically, “Yeah, yeah, I got you,” he shrugged, idly tossing the doll off the side of the building, “Even I know when it’s time to-”

There was no way a roar could have sounded so loudly in a cavern so large. The very air shook as the lava below, already bubbling, began to churn and spit violently as… something… peeled its way out of the darkness. Aura’s flailing of her mirror stopped so suddenly in her horrified shock that she lost her grip of it, sending it careening off the side of the building into the lava. She screamed, but not at the loss of her valuable way out.

She screamed at the gigantic wall of writhing, pulsing, flowing flesh that filled the impossibly large cavern. A hundred eyes fixed on the hapless humans as a hundred gaping maws snapped and smacked, razor-sharp teeth glinting in the underworld’s light. Even more maws bubbled off its surface, reaching towards them on veiny structures, before drawing back into the mass, only to reform endlessly.

It shouldn’t have been able to move, yet it was approaching, its form melting and flowing around the buildings. Soon, it would be upon the tunnel that led them there.

Aura was frozen in terror, tears in her eyes at the sight, but was snapped out of it by Axl shaking her shoulders. “G-get out of here!” he shouted, pulling his own mirror from his scroll and shoving it into Aura’s hands and closing her fingers around it, “I-I’m going to try to get back to the tube!”

“It’s too fast, you can’t-!” Aura tried to stop him, but before she could, he’d launched his hook upward and began to ascend.

He nearly made it. He would have, had one of the mouths on the advancing gore not shot out an impossibly long tongue, wrapping around the ankle on his injured leg and pulling. He screamed in pain as the chain pulled tight, straining his arms.

With what strength he could muster, he wrapped the chain around one arm to stabilize it as he reached for his sword to sever the tongue. It was a good idea, but the creature was far more prepared. The smaller, yearning, hungry mouths swarmed him, clamping down wherever they could find a hold on his armor,

“No noNO NO NO-!” he flailed, bringing the sword down before he could be pulled into the mouth. It was too late. A sickening crack indicated he no longer had an arm at the elbow, left to dangle on the chain as he was pulled, screaming, into the gaping maw and the unnatural darkness behind those teeth.

The jaws closed, and the screaming stopped.

With no hope left in all the world, Aura choked on her mortified tears and gazed into the mirror…

All she saw in the glass was solid red as she vanished.

[jarmes]

JJBA Twisted Destiny Chapter 10 - The Stranger on the Phone

Masterpost - Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

Nero pushes open the door to the incinerator room. It’s deserted. Small puddles, remnants of the now melted icicles that filled the hospital, dot the floor. The arrow sits next to the incinerator.

The arrowhead is golden, with a carving of a beetle with a single red eye.

Kan stumbles into the incinerator room. She’s changed back into her normal outfit, and a bandage covers her broken nose. “Hey,” she says.

“Miss Nijimura, how are you feeling?” Nero asks.

“Confused, mostly. This guy showed up to attack Mylo. He elbowed me in the face,” Kan says. “Last time I saw Mylo, he was running to the second floor.”

Nero frowns. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” Kan asks. “You said the ice would go away if he died, and it's gone, so-”

“Mylo has passed away, unfortunately,” Nero says.

“And the man chasing him?”

“Johana defeated him.”

“Where is Johana now?”

“She’s with Mylo’s body right now. I told her that I’d grab the arrow so we could leave.”

Kan shoves past Nero and grabs the arrow by its head. “Let’s get out of here, Johana shouldn’t be alone right now,” she says.

As Kan and Nero leave the incinerator room, a drop of blood falls from Kan’s finger and falls on the wet floor.

+++

Johana leans down and closes Mylo’s eyes. She sighs. “I'm sorry I couldn’t protect you,” she says. “The man who killed you, I broke every bone in his body. He won’t hurt anyone else for a long time.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Johana spots something shiny by Mylo’s foot. She reaches down and picks up a silver bracelet with a small red gem in its center. Johana glances at Mylo’s foot. Two small holes dot his ankle.

Slowly, Johana puts the bracelet on her wrist. Two metal spikes emerge from within the bracelet, stabbing into Johana’s wrist. Johana screams and summons her Stand, who punches a wall before disappearing. Johana stumbles back and attempts to rip the bracelet off, to no avail. The spikes are lodged too deep, making it impossible to remove without damaging her wrist.

Johana hears a cellphone ringtone. She looks at the wall, at the hole in the drywall created by her Stand. An old flip-phone sits within the wall, ringing. Slowly, Johana grabs the phone and opens it.

“Miss Joestar, how nice of you to pick up,” the voice on the other line says. “May I call you Johana?”

The voice on the other line unnerves Johana. It doesn’t sound like the voice of a human. Rather, it sounds like a crowd of people all talking at once, their voices echoing and mixing together into a chaotic cacophony.

“Who is this?” Johana says.

“Someone very interested in the events of the past night, Johana,” the voice says. “Tell me, were you afraid when Mr. Burnham ripped you out the window? Or were you calm as you soared through the air, because you knew that you would be the victor?”

Johana doesn’t respond. “Rest assured, Johana, your victory was not a fluke. From the moment that battle began, there was only one possible winner,” the voice continues. “Not because you were stronger, or more intelligent, but because fate declared that you would be victorious. Just as fate decreed that Mylo Xyloto would die at the hands of Mr. Burnham, it demanded that you survive this ordeal.”

Johana clenches her fist. “I’m going to ask you again, and I expect to get an actual answer this time,” she says. “Who. Are. You?”

“Forgive my rudeness, Johana,” the voice says. “You can call me Woodstock.”

“Woodstock?” Johana repeats, flashing back to the things Mr. Burnham said before killing Mylo. “You’re the one who gave Mylo this bracelet, right?”

“Admittedly, that could have gone a bit smoother. He forced me away before I could explain the significance of that bracelet to him.”

“What do you mean, forced you away?”

“Normally, when I bestow a Stand upon someone, it takes a few hours for it to fully manifest. Mylo’s, on the other hand, materialized almost instantly. My fingers froze together as I placed the tracker bracelet on his ankle, leaving me unable to retrieve my arrow.”

“You’re the one who shot Mylo?”

“Correct.”

“Why? Why did you force him into this madness? What did he do to you?”

“I didn’t give Mylo a Stand out of some petty revenge, Johana,” Woodstock says. “I gave it to him to see if he was worthy. As it turns out, he wasn’t.”

“We won’t let you get the arrow back,” Johana says. “No one else is going to suffer for your entertainment.”

“If I needed the arrow, there wouldn’t be anything you could do to keep me from taking it. Fortunately, I have already created more than enough Stand Users for what comes next.”

“What comes next?”

“War. Not literal war, of course, but something close enough for our purposes. Soon, the Stand Users in this city will begin hunting one another. That bracelet, the one that was around Mylo’s ankle and now is now embedded in your wrist, it is more than just a piece of pretty jewelry. It’s a tracking device. I distributed them to each of the Stand Users I created or found. Using these trackers, I am able to pit Stand Users against one another and see who comes out on top. For example, I sent Mr. Burnham to that hospital tonight so he could fight Mylo Xyloto.”

“I don’t understand. Why would people kill one another just because you tell them to?”

“I envy your naivety, Johana. Violence exists at the center of man’s heart. All these people need is a little push.”

“What kind of push?”

“The promise of power. I possess a method of unlocking a Stand’s full potential, a way to turn even the weakest Stands into unbeatable warriors. Most people would kill for that kind of power. Take Mr. Burnham, for example. Three months ago, he was a timid office temp with anger issues and mood swings. I gave him a Stand and he transformed into the man you met tonight. He robbed banks, he killed those who wronged him, he flew through the air with a power most people dream of, and still he wanted more. I told him I’d strengthen his Stand if he killed a few Stand Users and brought their bracelets back as proof. You know the rest.

“Why are you doing this?”

“To find the strongest Stand User in London. To find the individual fate has chosen to win. To give the power of God to someone worthy of its might.”

Johana rolls her eyes. “Have fun with your little death game, Woody,” she says. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go back to not having my life threatened every three minutes.”

“If only it was that simple, Johana,” Woodstock says. “You put on Mylo’s bracelet. You’re a part of this now.”

“Like hell I am!” Johana shouts. “I don’t care about Stands, or power, or your stupid little game. I just want to go back to my normal life.”

“You can run away, if you’d like. It won’t end well for you, though. I told my Stand Users that I’d give share the secret to unlocking a Stand’s ultimate potential to the one that brought me all of the bracelets. The spikes in that bracelet won’t retract as long as you breathe. Best to try and win, rather than die while running away.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Johana says before snapping the phone in half.

Kan and Nero walk over, carrying the arrow with them. Johana glances over at Mylo’s body and sighs. “Let’s get out of here,” she says.

TO BE CONTINUED IN:

Chapter 11: Guns and Roses, Part 1

[introvertsguild]

Relentless (Chapter 1)

Beautiful sun rays rose over the Overwatch base you were deployed to out in Japan. The base was small but if need be it could send out its toughest squadrons to take out an attack within minutes.

Not that you were a part of the fight, you were just starting out as an Engineer, recruited and trained to fix up the guns the soldiers brought in when they needed a tweak or two. Most of the regulars came in to chat while you worked and you were surprised that they liked you immediately.

 Not everyone was as delightful as some of the members of this organization. You had your quiet, stoic types. Though there was only one of those around the whole base and he rarely came into the shop. Actually, you can’t recall a time he ever came into your workshop.

 Hanzo Shimada was one feared man on the base. Nobody talked to him. Ever. Or so you saw. The only time someone tried making conversation with him was a regular you got beers with on your days off and he didn’t get very far. Hanzo merely walked past him without even acknowledging his presence. Hanzo shoved past him with his bare shoulder and went on his way.

 “I don’t get it, dude! All that guy ever does it glare at everyone and sneers when people get close! It’s like he’s a trapped animal or something..”, your buddy, Armando, went on.

 “Or maybe you should just stop trying”, you mutter out as you turn a screwdriver in your new device. You wondered if you could go on the next retrieval mission with the next squad.

 “I-..I guess, but I wish I could just exchange a few words with him, I bet he’s just doing that stoic thing on purpose”

 “Maybe..”, you absentmindedly tell him. You pick up the device, look left, look right. It looked ready, you just had to test it out on the practice range.

 Armando must have caught on that you were more invested in your gadget than the conversation because you hear the door open, “I’ll see you later! I got a date with a hot Asian woman WHO I hear, gives like.. The best massages”, you roll your eyes and wave a hand at him. “Good day, Armando”.

 After he leaves you grab your backpack. Greasy finger prints cover the outside of it. You shove the device in your pack before stepping out and locking the door behind you. You’d think you didn’t need to do that with grown men and women around but hey, one tool of yours went missing and now you never leave without a locked door.

 ~

  The sun was completely out now, showing off the rest of Japan with it’s white sky scrapers and pink cherry blossom trees in full bloom. You unlocked the door to the training range, garage like door opening and shutting behind you. You looked around, seeing if anyone else was in the range. Once the close was clear you unzipped your backpack and took out the newly made device, ready to be used on these poor unsuspecting Train-Bots.

 It wasn’t until you heard the sounds of something whizzing in the air and a thlunk! Coming from outside the locker room station.

 You poke your head out and see a tall, muscular man with a long yellow scarf in his hair. It laid over his hidden shoulder as he continued assaulting the training bots one by one. Each getting their own execution by his arrows. Suddenly, he turned sharply on his heel and let out another arrow. Though this time, something was different about it.

 It split off into many more tinier arrows, each scattering in different directions as some hit bots behind him. Your jaw dropping as almost all the bots were annihilated by this one-man arrow assault. He was fascinating to watch, the way he turned and brought that bow string back right up against his crisp and clean features. He never blinked, always keeping the target in his sights.

 You wanted to say something, anything to let him know you thought his technique was incredible but nothing came up. You didn’t want to bother him.

 A tinier version of his arrows came into view and shot right into the wall next your head. A combination of a scream and gasp came out of you, making the taller man glance over. He looked surprised for a split second before tilting his head to the side, noticing that you hadn’t been killed by his arrow.

 Your eyes are shut as you just saw your life flash before your very eyes, not knowing a stray arrow of all things was the cause of death. You could see your superiors talking about you now.

 “An arrow right between their eyes!”

“Are you kidding?”

No! And even with Hanzo’s arrows too! Guess dumb engineers like them shouldn’t be in the training range!”

 But as you felt the faintest wind on your face and no one greeting you at the pearly gates, you crack your eyes open only to find the same man standing directly in front of you, inspecting the arrow he had lodged out of the wall. He didn’t acknowledge you, didn’t ask if you were okay, didn’t say anything really.

 He went to turn and leave before you got the courage to spew words.

 “H-Hey, you’re that Shimada guy right? I-I’m (y/n)”

 “And you should not have been here”

You noticed how deep and rumbly his voice was. Like sharp rain. His discern for you became apparent and he began walking away. A rain that had no mercy.

For a moment you decided to continue your training on your new device, never to speak to Hanzo again. He clearly didn’t want to spend his time having a conversation with the likes of a new Engineer.

 This made you just as motivated as Armando and decided he was going to help you test out your new toy.

 “M-Mr.Shimada!”, you call out as you pop into a sprint closer to him and begin walking by his side. You held up the device, showing it to him. “Mr. Shimada, I-”

 “No”, flatly. Serious. Decisive. You liked it. He kept walking and you only fumbled your footing a little bit before following him again. Determination in your soul.

 “Mr. Shimada, I’m a new Engineer here in Japan and I was wondering you could please help me with my new device that’s going to help us on the mission the next morning”

 Hanzo made a side glance at you then to the device. He shook his head before speeding up. You knew you were bothering him but that didn’t stop you. You held it up more, trying to make him interested.

 “I-I know you don’t like talking to new people-”

 “How observant of you”, he growled, his arm becoming tense and you saw the bow shake in his grip.

 “But I’m going on the mission with you and a few others and I need this machine to work before then, I need to know it’s pros and cons! Please, Mr. Shimada.. What if it doesn’t work?”

 “Then that is your problem, not mine”, his card key to the training range came out from his pocket as he scanned it over the red light. A green flash and the door opened up on its own, allowing you both to leave the range. The door closed behind you then and you continued.

 “Well, yes, technically it would but I need another person in the range with me! L-Like.. Like you! You’re the only one available right now and I could really use your skills to help me! Please, Mr. Shimada, it’ll just be a one time--”

 As you watched him, he simply rolled his eyes and made a obvious scowl. One that would scare off anyone. Anyone except you. You suddenly felt his hand on your shoulder and slamming it into the wall behind you. You shrieked, dropping the device as he was going to dislocate your shoulder within a single flick of his wrist. You grunted, gritting your teeth in pain. You prayed your shoulder really wasn't dislocated or you wouldn’t be able to go on the mission with him tomorrow.

 “I. Said. No”, he growled lowly in your face, sharp azure eyes piercing right into your skull. You felt like the impact of his arm across your chest took all the air out of your lungs. You couldn’t get any words out for a few moments before finally being able to swallow and stuttering.

 “I-If you do this, I’ll leave you alone forever..I promise!”, you gasp. You stare into those thunder pupils. Making arguments, decisions and finally coming up with an answer. A whole argument happened in his head before he spoke.

 “If we do this, you will leave me alone and NEVER talk to me again?”

 You nod furiously, feeling his arm loosen over your chest just a tad before a sharp point of an arrow sticks itself in your face. The point of it just tapping your forehead. You begin to shiver, the second an arrow has been this close to your face and hasn’t shot itself into you… yet.

 “If you ever speak to me after this.. I will personally kill you myself and blame it on the enemy”, he tightens the grip he had on your chest. “Understand?”

 You nod again, your voice gone and stomach dropped out of your body. He turned in the opposite direction, back to the training range, putting his arrow back in his quiver. A moment passed before he spoke up, making you almost jump out of your skin.

 “Are you coming or NOT? I can change my mind at any moment!”

 In the midst of that sentence you had grabbed at your device and began sprinting down the path, following the Shimada back to the range with device in toe. You gave yourself a pat on the back as you successfully had this man help you out.

 Now you just needed to get him to have a peaceful conversation with you without an arrow in your face or anywhere near your body.

(Thanks for reading! IF you liked it, reblog! If you want another chapter, tell me!)