#less shiny robot enemies

[maxtrickey]

I need more spooky metroid, I need more zombie scientists, more gross monsters, more mutated parasite clones, like if Carrion could be a metroid game; fuck them kids

[honey-minded-hivemind]

time to send an ask version of this so it'll come true

Imagine In the Evolution Sentinel!Reader au a big threat occurs, like a sentinel or mutant that can take metal and make it part for themself/Itself, imagine Reader ends up one of the metal that gets taken

Imagine that happened when the teens were trying to fight the enemy and Reader jumped out to get in the way of an attack(they were probably told to stay back considering the enemy's power)

And the teens get to watch as Reader is taken and torn apart, each and every part taken into the enemy, though to give some hope, maybe one of the teens manage to snag Reader's head before that gets destroyed(likely Kurt)

Also off topic from Reader dying, imagine at some point Reader has met the brotherhood- I think an interaction between them would be funny

Cube Anon

Reader, meeting the Brotherhood: ... hi. You need a friend

Lance: Who the h*ll are you?!

Fred: They're tall...

Todd: Ooo, shiny! Catch this! hops onto their shoulder

Pietro: Oh f*ck, where's Father, that's a-!

Wanda: They're our new friend who cam crush Father when asked

Todd: What the lady said!

Lance: Wait... what are they? Are they a robot?

Pietro: That's a-!

Fred: Ooooo, can they lift me?

Pietro: They're not a playground! They're a-!

Lance: What?!

Pietro: THEY'RE A SENTINEL!!!

Everyone: ...

Lance: Oookay?

Todd: They're cool, man, see? is being pet by Reader

Fred: HA, we can crush so many cars with them!

Wanda: And Father!

Pietro: It's a giant mutant death robot! It's not a puppy or a kitten or some goldfish!

Reader: I'm not a pet, I am a friend 😊

When Reader ends up destroyed, the teens end up taking on the villain who did it alone, and more or less tear them a new one. That was THEIR friend, who kept kept safe and destroyed other Sentinels and intimated Principal Kelly and who let them use them as a climbing jungle gym and helped with practice and who was nice! They didn't deserve to be torn apart like they were nothing! And they will right this, mark their words...

[skyward-floored]

this is your invitation to yap about TOTK

- hero-of-the-wolf

And I will yap!

First of all watching Zelda geek out under the castle was the best, she was so giddy by the time she figured out the murals and everything, and Link was just nodding along like “I only half know what you’re saying but I love hearing you infodump”. Plus the stuff about her always being told “the tunnels under the castle are forbidden” like girl you’re telling me NOBODY went down there?? Highly unlikely. I don’t buy it.

The lore in this game is already driving me nuts. There’s people from the sky but they’re not skyloftians. They founded hyrule even though the skyloftians did that but also the inprisoning war is in there somewhere which makes NO sense because it seemed like in twilight princess it had nothing to do with the founding of hyrule, and what’s all this about Rauru being the first king? Excuse me? Did nintendo just soft reset everything because I don’t like that—

*ahem*

I’m holding out hope that more will be explained. And it will make more sense. Maybe. (I’m not very positive lol)

Zelda gets an amber relic but it’s white and shiny instead! Neato! Obviously this is important since more with it shows up later. I don’t totally know what yet though... I’m suspicious.

also I didn’t know the corpse would talk. that was terrifying actually. listening to him crack as he shifted around was! Horrible!!

I’ve screamed about the hand grabbing thing back when the trailers came out but hwwwwaaauuugghghhg. He tried so hard to save her and she fell anyway hhhhhhhhhhh. Link my poor son.

WHY DOES POOR LINK KEEP WAKING UP UNDERGROUND IN HIS UNDERWEAR WITH NO CLUE WHAT’S GOING ON. Once was weird enough but twice??? this poor man. And he doesn’t even have the questionable luxury of memory loss this time, you know that boy is worrying his head off about Zelda. And his arm. Ow.

Nothing funnier than hearing a disembodied voice be like “sorry, I couldn’t save your arm so I just gave you mine.” Sir.

The sky islands are so pretty. I saw one of those weird hairy ostrich things and for about two seconds went LOFTWING?? but alas. it was not so. I like all the animals up there, though I have to wonder how there weren’t issues with in-breeding, and how several species are identical to ones on the surface despite being separated for literal thousands of years.... I’m probably thinking about it too hard.

The robot guys are so cute, and the noises they make are pretty too. They look kinda like geckos to me :) though the enemy ones are mean. At least I stole a flamethrower from the one guy.

Rauru: dang it my arm is too weak to go through the door. Sorry bro. Fortunately there’s these shrines—

Link: *flashbacking to the Great plateau* say no more.

GLUE GLUE GLUING THINGS EHEEHE

Koroks again... oof man. At least the little quest things you do with them get you two. Helping them is fun, plus they’re so weighed down by their bags their legs just wiggle in the air ahaha they’re like beetles who got stuck upside down. They’re so cute.

STICKING THINGS ON WEAPONS EYEBALL ARROWS AND CRATE SWORDS HEHEHE

Of all the things I expected going into this the giant blupee frog was not one of them. Whuh. Cursed blupee? Blupee that ate too much? Something?? Hrmmmm. I bet you’ll have to give the little blupee pendant things to Satori or something. Or somebody on Satori mountain.

The glow flowers (who’s name’s I forget) are soooo pretty. I love how there’s caves in this game, it’s so fun to climb around in them :D except when there’s a like-like because eeeeuuugghhgg. I didn’t think anyone could make a like-like grosser than it already was and yet here we are. EW. kill it kill it kill it—

Bird gliders are SO FUN

All of the abilities are fun but I like rewind a lot because it’s so simple. It’s like, fun because it’s less complicated? Idk it’s just neat. Plus Zelda gave it to us so it’s special :3 or her echo did. Or something. I’m suspicious.

Okay. Glowey spot. Broken master sword. Chiming and Fi’s theme (waaaaaah). Put the sword in the glow and it looks like we rewind and Zelda takes it. THEREFORE Zelda must have been yeeted to the past by that weird rock she picked up, and I hate nintendo because SERIOUSLY TIME TRAVEL AGAIN???

I already have a headache trying to make this fit into my understanding of Zelda games. *shakes fist*

Okay Zelda talked to us at least, that’s good, now we’re getting somewhere. Surface time babey!!!!

Trying to orient myself after I fell was so confusing and it took me a solid half an hour to figure out where I should maybe go and then Skye reminded me there was a glowey marker on my map telling me where to go lollll

Also I caught a horse and there were shenanigans involved in getting him to a stable but I did eventually register him (his name is Lucas after Lost’s dad but also I just like the name). And pony points are the best thing I’ve ever heard of <333 mad you still can’t pet the dogs though. LAME.

Lookout Landing is amazing. It’s so great. The music is catchy and they’re all so organized and rebuilding and Hyrule in general just seems so much more thriving now and I’m so proud of Link and Zelda waaaaaaaaaugh

Also everyone being so worried about Link (or straight-up not recognizing him lol) was sweet, I love how relieved people were to see him again.

PURAH’S OLD(er) AND IT KINDA HAS ME SHOOK. Her assistant is real sweet though, Josha I think? Nice kid. I don’t know if she’s eleven or sixteen or some other age entirely, but nice kid.

Just realized this is getting very very long. I didn’t do a ton else except pop up to the castle (creepy and unsettling with no guardians trying to kill me) and see Zelda appear then disappear (very weird and I’m suspicious again) so I’ll stop here. Ohhh also I popped down to the depths, but I didn’t do too much under there either. Just crept around and caught some bugs and killed some monsters (weird-looking monsters) and took a picture of a statue.

So endeth the thoughts of peggy on totk. For now lol.

[angelosearch]

A New Beginning – All Star Wars references

I just finished writing my Star Wars-coded FFVIII fic, A New Beginning. Here is the list of most of the references/easter eggs, though I gotta be honest there were a couple more smaller ones that I decided were too subtle to flag. I tried to sort them in order of mention.

Major spoilers to the fic ahead if you haven't finished it!

Overall:

The title, “A New Beginning,” follows the naming structure of Star Wars movie titles. Like Star Wars movie titles, the title’s relationship to the story is unclear until the end.

Each chapter also has a Star Wars movie-like title. Each chapter is also called an “Episode,” like each movie is in Star Wars.

Overall, the story is about a Father-Son relationship. Throughout Star Wars media, legacy, especially as it pertains to fathers and sons, is a huge theme.

Most Star Wars media has an inescapable campiness and humor that runs alongside all the drama and suspense. This is something FFVIII has tonally as well, so it was easy to bring a little of this in.

Episode I: The Forces of Destiny

"Truth enlightens the mind but won't always bring happiness to your heart” is a quote of the opening text of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season One, Episode 16, “The Hidden Enemy.”

The ship Squall gets on is based on the Low Altitude Assault Transport/infantry gunship that was used by the Republic during The Clone Wars. While the LAAT/infantry gunship makes appearances throughout Star Wars media, its first appearance is in Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Laguna’s armor is vaguely Mandalorian, but his helmet is supposed to be very Darth Vader-esque.

Squall thinks, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” which is a standby phrase throughout Star Wars media.

“He knew what he had to do, but he wasn’t sure if he had the strength to do it” is a reference to Kylo Ren’s line in The Last Jedi, “I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.”

Laguna and Squall’s in-battle banter is supposed to be reminiscent of Anakin and Obi Wan.

Laguna is leading him and Squall to the “high ground”—This is a reference to the famous Obi Wan and Anakin exchange in Episode III when Obi Wan says, “It’s over Anakin! I have the high ground!”

Squall helping Laguna cross a canyon is a common Star Wars show of trust—A Jedi using the force to help their teammate over a wide gap. Particularly, I was thinking of Sabine giving Ezra a super jump in the Ashoka season one finale.

The entire scene at the end of the chapter was meant to evoke the “Luke, I am your father” scene from Episode V.

Episode II: Return of the Knight

“Choose what is right, not what is easy” is a quote of the opening text of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season Two, Episode 18, “The Zillow Beast.”

Rinoa and Squall’s Sorceress/Knight connection is doubling with “a disturbance in the force.”

The vacuuming robot in the beginning of the chapter and the maintenance droid toward the end are MSE-6 series repair droids—also known as mouse droids. They are often seen on Imperial Star Destroyers.

“A droid that was human-like in stature, but bright blue and glaringly shiny, clunked over with another teacup” – this is a more C-3PO-like protocol droid.

The re-painted Estharian military uniforms are supposed to be like Storm Trooper armor.

Falcon is based on the Millennium Falcon – gray, small, female, fast, with dice hanging from her. “She didn’t look like much, but she had it where it counted” is similar to what Han said about his ship. I bet she made the Kestrel Run in less than 12 parsecs. (I’ll see myself out.)

Squall thinks, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” Yes, it has to come up every chapter.

Laguna’s mask has a hole like Vader’s does in various points of Star Wars. Specifically, I was thinking of Ashoka in her battle with Vader in Star Wars: Rebels.

“That was no mountain” = “That’s no moon. It’s a space station.” – Obi Wan Kenobi, Episode IV, upon seeing the Death Star.

All the soldier’s names are the names of Clones throughout Star Wars media.

Everything that Squall does to get into the facility and to Laguna is classic Star Wars—using an animal as a distraction, sneaking in on an enemy vehicle, disappearing the second someone looks for him, following droids, messing with touchscreens, climbing through vents, and especially dressing as a storm trooper.

The incompetence (especially the terrible aim) of the troopers is based on quintessential Storm Trooper behavior. The mundane conversations Squall overhears was inspired by the dialogue Cal Kestis can overhear from enemy conversations in Star Wars: Fallen Order.

Green-gray Trousers Guy is supposed to be an Imperial Officer. Personality-wise, I was going from Hux from Episodes VII, VIII, and IX.

Squall calls “upon the Force.”

The passcode is three references: 5-0-1 (the 501st shows up in various ways, but it was first introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars as General Anakin Skywalker’s Clone Battalion under the Grand Army of the Republic); 6-6 (“Execute Order 66!” – The Jedi killing order from Palpatine in Episode III); 1-1-3-8 (a common number throughout Star Wars media and George Lucas projects, honoring Lucas’s first feature film, THX 1138).

Squall uses spells against the soldiers that are reminiscent of throwing someone with the force and force choke, as seen frequently throughout battles in the Star Wars universe.

Dr. Enido is somewhat based on the villain of Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Doctor Royce Hemlock. She is focusing on helping a larger, more mysterious power achieve perfect cloning, just like Hemlock. Cloning is also a very common Star Wars villain goal.

Ellone’s dream is doubling as a “force vision.”

“Now, there are two of them!” is a much-memed quote from Episode I. The full quote is, “This is getting out of hand! Now, there are two of them!”

Episode III: Legacy of Light

"No gift is more precious than trust” is a quote of the opening text from Star Wars: Clone Wars, Season 2, Episode 6, “Weapons Factory.”

“This is where the fun begins” is a quote from Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Anakin says it while piloting his x-wing.

“Hello there” is  a CLASSIC Obi Wan quote. I know it comes up in Episode III when he drops into battlebut he probably says it at other times.

“Datapad” and “stim” are both terms/objects from the Star Wars universe.

Cloning is a huge thing in Star Wars, especially in the more recent installments.

“Tapping on screens” – I was kind of thinking percussive maintenance.

Squall and Laguna’s prisoner uniforms are intended to be Jedi robes.

“I mean, have you ever thought about getting Rinoa’s DNA tested?” – This is meant to be a reference to Luke and Leia. But also I saw a post once where someone was trying to say Squall and Rinoa were related and I thought it was so funny I always headcanon that being a concern in this situation.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” – Rinoa gets to say it this time!

The Estharian flight suit/hairstyle that Rinoa is sporting is supposed to give Leia vibes.

Red Leader/Gold Leader are rebel pilot call signs throughout the Galactic Civil War.

Blastersaber! A lightsaber and a blaster combined! Not only a perfect weapon for Squall, but also an actual weapon wielded by Ezra Bridger in Star Wars: Rebels (probably my overall favorite Star Wars property). It is his first lightsaber and the joke is that it is stupid, dangerous, and impractical.

Using the force to move enemies and sending them off of platforms is standard Star Wars stuff.

Laguna’s “impossible shot” is sort of like Luke’s shot to destroy the Deathstar.

It isn’t Star Wars until someone loses an arm or hand.

Platforms! Railings! Catwalks! That’s always how the Star Wars big battles go down.

When it was storming on the platform, I was thinking of the fight between Obi Wan and Jengo Fett on Kamino in Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

The trust exercise on the pier involving a hard shot is a reference to the finale of Star Wars: The Bad Batch.

Medaling Ceremony, just like in Episode IV.

RAINE IS A FORCE GHOST!!!!

I named the Estharian turn-coat Cody, as Cody is one of the most trusted generals in the Clone Wars, but, like many clones, he succumbs to Order 66 and tries to kill Obi Wan.

That's 53 total! The moral of the story is, I am not very creative 😅 But I do love Star Wars!

[lumi-klovstad-games]

The Gundam Game I desperately want that I will probably never get is a spiritual sequel to 0079: Rise From Ashes.

A cockpit-view FPS, no Super Prototype MS, the smallest handful of Ace Custom units (so when you finally DO get to fly them you can really appreciate how superior they are, and it feels like you've moved up in the ranks), with players overwhelmingly using basic mass production grunt mobile suits, and they never even SEE a Gundam in the game.

It'd probably be a team-based multiplayer FPS, probably with randomized objectives beyond simply "blow up enemy team real good".

But it'd be cool to have the suits have a real sense of weight and conventional utility to them — these aren't fancy sci-fi superweapons, these are the mundane (if highly advanced) weapons that relatively recently replaced tanks in general service in just the last decade. And you are a grunt pilot, stuck in the quagmire of the war. Nothing's clean or shiny, and the whole atmosphere of the game is constructed to feel more like World War 1 & 2, but with giant robots. If it manages to evoke feelings of storming Omaha Beach, or hunkering in a trench in Verdun, while the entire time you're in a 18-20 meter tall mechanical monster spitting similar death right back at the enemy, they've done it right.

A Gundam Game to hammer home Tomino's War Is Hell message.

Less Battle Operation 2 and more Battlefield 1. But again, with giant robots.

[concussed-to-pieces]

Stay Safe Part Nine: Swan Song

Fandom: The Mandalorian [Star Wars]

Pairing: Eventual Mandalorian [Din Djarin]/Reader

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Heh. Enjoy!

Tag List: @wrestlingfae @huliabitch @toxiicpop @renegademustelid @helplessly-nonstop @culturalrebel @sinnamon-bunn @hoodedbirdie @literal-fand0m-trash @thyestean-feast @fioccodineveautunnale @kateb013 @hxldmxdxwn @lizajane3 @thewaythisis @nellyneko @oh-no-who-am-i @crownofmanga @talesfromtheguild @robbinholland @kylolover96 @lukesrighthand @lackofhonor @lightan117 @misssilencewritewell

Part One: Should Have Known Better

Part Two: Tranquil Turmoil

Part Three: Vibroblade Mettle

Part Four: Reaching Out

Part Five: Dark Past

Part Six: Go Alone

Part Seven: Like A Ghost

Part Eight: Savior At High Noon

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains character death and depictions of vomit/bile. Stay safe!]

While the Armorer spoke quietly with the Mandalorian at length and continued to smelt the reclaimed armor down, you remained out in the hallway with the IG unit to scan for threats. You couldn't bring yourself to go into the forge and just sit quietly like Karga and Cara, your whole body still buzzing with the vestiges of the huge rush of adrenaline you had received earlier. 

The robot's many sets of eyes swiveled back and forth, silently observing the tunnel in front of you. It also seemed to take note of your fidgeting. "Never fear. I am programmed to protect." The droid assured you. 

"As comforting as that is…" you grimaced, obsessively checking your blaster over yet again. "I'd feel much better if we didn't have to fight. Or if we had decent cover. I never know what will explode." An explosion echoed faintly down the tunnel as if in response to your words and you went rigid. You gripped the blaster even tighter, feeling the stock dig into your palm.

"I would advise not shooting at the inanimate objects to avoid possible damage."

"Wonderful." You muttered, a reluctant grin making its way onto your face. "This is why I prefer my knife."

"If you would like to attempt such an inadvisable tactic, I am unable to stop you." The droid commented. 

"No, no no. I promise I won't be that dumb." Your laugh was too high, choking off in your throat when you caught sight of several headlamps down the tunnel.

"Engaging the enemy." IG-11 announced, the spindly ex-bounty hunter droid striding forward into the spillway with purpose.

"IG, wait!" You protested. "How am I supposed to-"

"Do not worry about hitting me. Aim for them." The robot interrupted you calmly.

"Aim for them, no shit!" 

You knelt beside one of the many, possibly-explosive crates, tucking the stock of your rifle up against your shoulder. You then used the flat surface to steady the gun as best as you could, gritting your teeth probably a bit too hard. 

IG-11 was a force to be reckoned with. The droid barely even needed you, only once caught off-guard by one of the eight troopers that bore down on it like an unstoppable (but ultimately doomed) wave. 

One well-placed shot from you blew that particular stormtrooper's elbow out, making him scream in agony. You froze at the sound, your body stiffening before you could fight it off. How many men had you killed today? You had pushed it down, shoved the thought away, but-

IG-11 spiraled and struck with terrifying accuracy, it's blaster searing a hole in the side of the last trooper's helmet. "You have been protected." The droid droned quietly. It went on to ask, "Were you harmed?"

"No, n-no, I'm...I'm fine." You breathed. "Sorry, I get all…" 

"You did well. It is advisable to use cover at any and all opportunities." IG-11 mused sagely. 

"No kidding."

A nerve-wracking five minutes later the Mandalorian finally walked back out of the forge area, Dune and Karga close behind. "We push forward." The armored man said, answering your unspoken question. "We'll hit the river, and it'll take us to the flats. All we can do now is hope that the Imps won't head us off." 

Karga passed a large, square object off to IG-11 while the Mandalorian spoke. The boosters on the bottom of it seemed to indicate that it was a portable jet pack of some kind. You also saw a shiny new addition to the Mandalorian's pauldron.

"What's…?" You trailed off, gesturing at the insignia that had been welded seamlessly to his armor. It looked like a stylized mudhorn, which, when you thought about it, suited him immensely.

"My signet. I...I'm considered a clan now." The Mandalorian hesitated, his hand finding the child's in their little bundle of robes. "I have a Foundling in my care." His voice was warm, an almost incredulous wonder shining through his words. "She used...she used some of your beskar to make it. The ingot that I took from you, I-I asked her to use it," he continued, rubbing the back of his neck. "I hope that's--i-is that alright? I'll compen-"

"It's definitely alright." You interrupted him, nodding rapidly and certain that you were smiling like an idiot. "Don't even worry about that. Obviously, you guys can put it to better use than I ever could."

"Thank you." The Mandalorian said sincerely.

Greef suddenly looked incredibly uncomfortable. "How did you get ahold of that ingot of beskar, anyhow?" He asked narrowly.

"I was paid with it when I got hired to clean his ship." You explained. "But I guess the person that hired me was actually only interested in having me jimmy the boarding ramp open for them, because as soon as I got it open I was clocked with the ingot. They ended up leaving it with me, though. Maybe they didn't know what it was worth?"

The Mandalorian turned towards Karga and you could feel him glaring, while Greef simply hummed and looked anywhere but the glowering man. "Karga, did you-?"

"Whatever it is, the answer is no! But I can't take responsibility for the actions of every hunter under me." The older man protested, waving his hands. "You know the rules, Mando, no questions asked."

"You were the only other person who got paid in beskar, Karga." The Mandalorian growled. "If I find out that it was one of-"

"We don't have time for you guys to have a beskar-based pissing match." Dune interjected, "we have to keep moving, or we're Imp chow. Squash your shit now or deal with it later."

"I apologize for anything my associates may have done to you that, er, caused you inadvertent discomfort." Karga addressed you hurriedly.

"Uh, I...forgive...you?" You replied, more than a little confused. 

"There, you see Mando? No issues here!" The Guild leader said brightly. The Mandalorian shook his head, growling something under his breath and then stalking off in the opposite direction.

...

The rickety old lava skiff, while originally half-welded to the dock, didn't stay stuck too long in the wake of Cara's heavy blaster fire. Karga quickly grabbed the side of the craft, steadying it before it could drift away from the dock.

"Watch your feet, it's molten lava." IG-11 warned. When you turned to give the robot an incredulous look, you saw the Mandalorian and Cara doing exactly the same thing. Your deadpan stare cracked a little and you were caught off-guard by a giggling fit, clumsily stumbling over the lip of the boat as the armored man followed after you.

"Fucking droids." The Mandalorian groaned while shaking his head, though he sounded less irritated and more amused.

The droid that normally piloted the skiff appeared to be out of commission, but it was no matter. Even though the lava moved slowly, it moved enough to carry the boat along with it.

The child was still limp in Cara's arms, the former dropship trooper absently rocking them back and forth. Weariness dragged at you as well, grey static slowly encroaching upon the corners of your eyes, but you did your best to push it away for the time being. You weren't sure how much longer you could get away with that, though. Stars, once this was over you would sleep for a thousand years.

A sudden crackling noise behind you made everybody whirl, respective blasters and knives brandished. But it was just the ferry droid, emerging from the ashen lava that had entombed it. It held a punting pole in its hands and began to beep, sounding almost inquisitive.

The Mandalorian finally muttered, "I don't suppose anybody here speaks droid," his tone one of long suffering.

IG-11 helpfully supplied, "I believe he is asking where we would like to go." 

"Downriver. To the lava flat." Karga ordered. The droid gave a chirp of confirmation and jabbed its pole into the lava, propelling the boat onwards at a much less leisurely pace.

The Mandalorian sat down heavily beside you after a moment, his helmet in his hands. "I can't believe you came back." He mumbled. "I didn't think...I figured you wouldn't. Thought I did a pretty good job at ruining everything."

"I can't believe I did either, honestly." You answered him, wincing when you realized how bad that sounded. "Wait, no, I uh...I just mean I didn't really know what was going on. I followed the noise and found IG-11."

"So, nothing new." The Mandalorian replied, his voice wry. Then, he murmured, "my little mudhorn."

You shot him a confused glance from beneath your lashes, but for all you could tell he was staring at the floor of the boat. Your eyes shifted to the silvery signet on his pauldron, taking in the vicious contours of the mudhorn's silhouette. I'm considered a clan now. 

"What will you do after we take care of this?" Your words were audacious in their optimism and you knew it. He knew it too, if his snort was anything to go by, but he humored you.

"I have to find the kid's people. I can't train him, he's...well, he's not really the Mando type. But he's a Foundling in my care, so I'm to act as his father until I can either return him to his people or...or until he comes of age." The Mandalorian heaved a sigh. "And seeing as he's fifty now, I don't think him coming of age is something that'll happen in my lifetime." His hand sought yours out on the bench seat after a moment. "If you...I mean, I know that...uh, the kid likes you. So if you wanted, I'd...I'd consider…" He trailed off, squeezing your wrist gently.

You opened your mouth to stammer something and then Greef inadvertently cut you off with an excited, "That's it! We're free!" The older man pointed ahead, indicating the daylight coming into view in the distance. You couldn't blame him for being relieved, really. This underground canal was stifling.

But the Mandalorian was already shaking his head, fingers tapping at the button pad on his gauntlet. "No. No, we're not." He said bitterly, getting to his feet. "Stormtroopers. They're flanking the mouth of the tunnel. It looks like an entire platoon." Your heart sank at his words. "They must know we're coming."

His shoulders slumped. You could feel the exhaustion radiating off of him. He had almost died, only for this to happen?

Cara, meanwhile, leaped into action. "Stop the boat." She demanded of the ferry droid, which just continued to chirp merrily to itself. "Hey, droid, I said stop the boat!" She barked, storming towards the robot. "Hey, I'm talking to you!" 

The droid carried on punting the boat forward and Cara grimaced, jamming her blaster into the vacant space between the droid's dome and body. One quick trigger pull sent the droid's head flying off with a loud crack!, the dome hitting the lava and immediately beginning to melt. The child started awake at the noise, tiny fists waving wildly in the air.

The boat continued to roll downstream, slowly but surely carried by the flow's current. "We're still moving." Greef pointed out, his tone laden with dread.

Dune swore under her breath, turning to face the rest of the group. "Looks like we fight."

The Mandalorian scoffed, "There are too many." His hand absently tapped the side of his helmet and you read his fingers: enemy ahead, five, five, five, so at least fifteen.

At least. Your heart threatened to pound out of your chest. It had been one thing when you were running along pell-mell with no actual thought put into your actions, but now-

"Well then what do you suggest, because I can't surrender." Cara snapped, cringing when the kid started to whimper.

IG-11 suddenly spoke up. "They will not be satisfied with anything less than the child. This is unacceptable." It rose to its full height, proclaiming, "I will eliminate the enemy, and you will escape."

"You don't have that kind of firepower, pal." The Mandalorian retorted. "You wouldn't even get to daylight."

The droid leveled him with a stare. "That is not my objective."

"We're getting close." Dune hauled you to your feet. "Saddle up." You obliged wordlessly, waiting until she turned away before you allowed yourself to grimace in pain. Maker, your side hurt.

"I still have the security protocols from my manufacturer." The IG said calmly as you and Cara maneuvered around it and the Mandalorian to prepare what limited defenses you could muster. "If my designs are compromised, I must self-destruct."

"What're you talking about?" The Mandalorian growled impatiently. 

"I'm not permitted to be captured. I must be destroyed."

"Are we gonna' keep talking or are we gonna' get out of here?" Greef enquired, waving a hand at the molten riverbank.

"I can no longer carry this for you." The droid murmured, pressing the jet pack into the Mandalorian's unwilling grasp. "Nor can I watch over the child."

"Wait." The armor-wearing man sounded like he was having trouble breathing. "You can't self-destruct. Your base command is to watch the child." Was he...was he arguing with the droid? "That supersedes your manufacturer's protocol, right?" He reasoned desperately, his head tilted up to look at the spindly droid. When the robot didn't answer immediately, he pressed, "Right?"

"This is correct." IG-11 allowed.

He was arguing. With a droid. Stars, you saw something new every day. "Good. Now grab a blaster and help us shoot our way out." The Mandalorian ordered curtly, turning to check over his own weaponry. 

"Victory through combat is impossible. We will be captured. The child will be lost." You watched the armored man's shoulders slump even lower beneath his pauldrons and cape, like an immense weight was pressing down on him. "Sadly, there is no scenario where the child is saved in which I survive." The droid carried on relentlessly. You abruptly understood what it was saying, and despite your best efforts you felt tears sting your eyes. First Kuiil, now this?

"Listen, you're not going anywhere." The Mandalorian said sharply. "We need you. Let's just come up with a-"

"Please tell me the child will be safe in your care." The IG unit requested. "If you do so, I can default to my secondary command."

"But…" the beskar-wearing man's voice faded to a hoarse whisper, "you'll be destroyed."

"And you will live, and I will have served my purpose."

"No, we need you."

"There is nothing to be sad about. I have never been alive." The droid said pragmatically.

"I'm not sad." The armored man denied gruffly. He was lying and everyone knew it. You could hear the tremor in his words.

"Yes you are. I'm a nurse droid. I've analyzed your voice." IG-11 reached out those metal fingers, gently running them over the baby's ear. Then, without further ado, the droid hoisted a leg over the side of the boat.

"IG-!" Karga began to protest, watching the droid sink into the lava. Flames licked upwards from the ex-bounty hunter's knee gaskets, but it doggedly headed for the light at the end of the tunnel. 

The Mandalorian stood still as a statue, just letting the droid go. You ended up burying your face in your hands, unwilling and mentally unable to observe what would happen. 

The ringing impact of beskar suddenly broke the silence and the Mandalorian began to sing, his words wrapped in a deep, mournful tone that sounded like it came from the center of his being. "Motir ca'tra nau tracinya," His voice faltered. "Gra'tua cuun hett su dralshy'a! Cuun hett su!" 

The droid's self-destructive explosion rocked the tunnel and you heard the Mandalorian's breath hitch, the noise sharp and pained even through the modulator. 

He then inhaled deeply, the words reverberating off the sides of the tunnel when he roared, "Cuun hett su!" and slammed his gauntlet against his breastplate once more.

The skiff slowly slipped through the archway and out into the smokey sunlight. Fifteen broken stormtroopers littered the black ground around the mouth of the canal, none left alive in the wake of IG-11's sacrifice. You scrubbed at your face in irritation, choking back your tears. There will be time later, you promised yourself, time for Kuiil and the IG. Time to mourn them properly. You weren't permitted such time now and you knew it. People needed you, they needed--

Without warning, that ship you had seen earlier buzzed by overhead, its powerful laser cannons sending chunks of half-coagulated lava flying into the air on either side of the canal. 

"Moff Gideon!" Dune shouted, the Bren blaster whirring to life. The TIE fighter's engines screamed and whined, the craft circling back around. A line of ground to the left of the skiff exploded, green lasers punching through the cooled lava. 

"He missed!" Greef sounded absolutely thrilled.

"He won't next time." The Mandalorian replied grimly, loading a fresh canister into his heavy blaster.

"Hey, let's get the baby to do the magic hand thing!" Karga suggested, wiggling his fingers at the child. "C'mon baby, do the magic hand thing." The child stared up at him, waving their hand uncertainly. Greef sighed, "I'm out of ideas."

"I'm not." The Mandalorian snapped. He reached for the jet pack and you tugged his cape out of the way so he could attach it to his backplate. He pressed his forehead against your own briefly before he tapped at his gauntlet keypad, igniting the boosters for the pack.

"Here he comes!" Cara yelled, bracing herself back against one of the seats while her blaster roared away. Whoever Gideon was, he appeared to be coming straight for the boat. The fighter wasn't slowing one iota. 

Right as you saw the TIE fighter's cannons begin to light up in preparation to fire, the Mandalorian punched the controls on his jet pack. The armored man hurtled into the sky, easily clearing the TIE fighter and then shooting his grappling line at the back of the ship. 

Gideon took off with him in tow and Karga laughed incredulously, "you've got to be kidding me! That was your plan? Mando, you're a maniac!" He then grabbed onto the cooled lava wall that rose on the right side of the boat, fumbling his way up onto the relatively-sturdy riverbank with a muffled grunt of exertion. "Alright trooper, you're next." The older man said, extending a hand to help haul Cara out of the boat.

She too managed to get to solid ground, and she carefully sat the bundled child down for a moment before turning back to you. Cara held out her hand and Greef held out his. "C'mon rookie, get up here." She said with a tired grin. "We need good seats to watch your Mandalorian work his magic, right?" 

Your laugh caught in your throat, almost a sob, and you reached to clasp their hands. But then your breathing abruptly hitched as, in reply to the first tugs of the two individuals above you, the wound on your side made itself felt with a vengeance. You panted, half-blinded by the sudden pain and knowing that you had gone full dead-weight.

"Use your legs rookie, c'mon!" Cara complained, planting herself and slapping her other hand closed around your upper arm to help her leverage. You gritted your teeth and forced your body to cooperate in a last ditch effort to get you up onto the river banking. Despite that, you were still all but dragged the rest of the way, Dune and Karga barely managing to muscle you to safety. "Look at him go!" Cara exclaimed, gesturing wildly at the sky.

As you tipped your head back to watch the TIE fighter skitter and weave through the air, the ground suddenly felt like it was tilting under your feet. Your ears started to ring and your knees trembled unsteadily, threatening to give out beneath you any second now while the static at the edges of your vision that you had been keeping at bay crept steadily in from the sides. 

You clumsily took hold of Karga's shoulder, the older man giving you a confused look. "I...I don't feel so good." You stammered.

Cara turned to you, her mouth moving and her expression changing to one of concern, but you couldn't hear her at all over the ringing in your ears.

She grabbed your cloak, yanking it up off your body as you sagged against Greef. "Sorry," you breathed, knowing that she must have spotted the blaster wound on your side. Your own voice sounded so loud to you. Your bloodied fingers found her gorget, floundering desperately for a handhold. "Take care...of the k-kid-" you whispered, all of your adrenaline finally spent. 

You had been running on fumes for the last few minutes. You weren't sure how much blood you had lost, all you knew is that you had been bleeding since getting clipped on the battlefield. It hadn't hurt when you were moving or distracted, the urgency of your situation enabling you to draw on your body's ability to push through the predicament. But now, it seemed that your luck had run out.

Your eyes felt too heavy. You needed sleep. How long had it been since you rested? You deserved a rest. A rest sounded phenomenal.

"...shot, give--osi'kyr, let me see them!" That was the Mandalorian. He sounded terrified. You couldn't remember ever hearing his voice crack like that. What was wrong? When had he landed again? What happened to Gideon?

"S'wrong?" You slurred. You appeared to be laying down. Possibly. Up and down were a little confused at the moment. 

"Focus on me, please, you have to stay awake-" He sounded so sad.

"Going into shock--must have been when-" Cara's voice was faint and wavering, as if she was underwater. 

"Sweetheart, cyar'ika, please, please--" His helmet pressed to your forehead and you heard his breath rattle. No, that couldn't be right, the bacta spray should have fixed that. Was it your breathing that sounded that bad?

You dimly felt dried blood flaking off of your hands as you moved your fingers. "Want to sleep. S'dark." You mumbled.

"Don't you dare!" His modulated voice cut through the gray haze rudely, too loud and bright. "You're not going to sleep!"

"F-five minutes." You bargained, grimacing when his helmet banged into your forehead.

"You stay awake, you hear me?! I'm not letting you do this! Not after everything we've been through!"

"Never even...got to…" Your head felt as if it was stuffed with clouds, words trickling out of your brain and vanishing like water in the sand. "'Pologize…" He had your hand in his own now, leather rubbing feverishly over your knuckles. "Got so mad…"

"You're not the one who needed to apologize, dammit. I...I shouldn't have tried to leave you behind." His voice broke. "I-I'm so sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, I-" Blood was roaring in your ears, drowning out anything else the armored man might be saying. Your fingers were going numb. Flickers of conversation reached you, battling against the roar.

"-them still, Karga, he's got to close this, stop the bleeding--"

"-idea, but make sure it holds until we get back to town--"

"I love you, I'm so sorry, this will hurt--" 

Pain stabbed through your body, startling a ragged exhale out of you. Something was burning. It smelled disgusting and you retched without meaning to, bile foaming at your lips. You wondered absently if that was the smell he had been talking about when he had been poisoned, death-rot...

Metal was pressing against your forehead and a blinding heat seared at the wound on your side, the two sensations warring for your attention. Vomit surged up your throat, making you gag again.

This is it, you realized vaguely. This is how I die. Huh. The notion was not nearly as repulsive as you had expected. Dying sounded halfway appealing. You could rest then. 

"Stay awake, please stay awake-"

"M' here. M'wake." You assured whoever it was, your hand weakly patting at theirs. "So tired...can I sleep soon? Pl-ease?"

"Not now, not now, you h-have to stay awake." His voice was trembling. "The kid needs you, dammit."

"Need you to--to take the kid and run." You urged, confidently stating, "I'll hol' 'em off so y' can escape. They're comin' in warm an' I'm comin' in cold." You struggled to grab your blaster, but your arms refused to cooperate. "Did y' turn up the gravity? Can't...can't move…hurts..." The tears wouldn't stop rolling down your cheeks in a torrent. You weren't even sure why you were crying.

"Stay awake. Just like on Sorgan. All I need is a f-few more minutes, okay? Remember?" Your body tilted crazily, someone's arms fumbling beneath your shoulders and knees to hoist you off the ground.

"Mm, I can do that. Do whatever y' want." You mumbled. The darkness closed in around you, a sweltering maw that slowly drew you deeper and deeper into its grasp. "It's...it's so dark. M' scared." You admitted, your numbed fingers petting the hand that rested on your arm.

"I'm right here with you." He assured. "I'm not going anywhere. Sing that song, please? The one you sing to the kid. The...the lullaby."

Your brow furrowed with effort and you opened your mouth, your voice faint and pitchy in the blackness. "Stars fading, but I linger on...dear...still craving…" 

The words wouldn't stick. Your brain was drawing a blank. Why couldn't you remember the words?

You fell asleep.

...

You dreamed of wind whipping your face, steam that hissed and boiled on the lava flats, droplets trickling down from underneath a proud helmet to gather at the edge of his chin and drip onto your tunic.

You dreamed of drowning, thick liquid sliding over your head, enveloping you in its fetid grasp before your consciousness faded back out. 

You dreamed of a mudhorn in beskar, the shimmering silver-clad beast guiding you through the black.

Eventually you spiraled downwards into a deeper sleep, and finally you dreamed of nothing at all.

Interlude

[lovelyirony]

76 for winteriron or 94 for rhodeytony?? ily and your work ma’am your vibes are immaculate -ambivalentmarvel

thank you! and reminder: please send in the full prompt! 

76.) “If you lay a finger on him, I’ll kill everyone in this room.” 

Tony Stark was not supposed to be a detective. He was not supposed to be a lot of things. But when his father had told him at age seven that all he’d ever be was a disappointment, he decided he might as well do whatever the hell he wanted with his life. 

So. A detective. That had gone over well with his college advisor. 

“Aren’t you...aren’t you Howard’s son?” He had said nervously, readjusting his glasses for about the eighth time in seven minutes. 

“Yes, but I also have a mother. And my mother is very keen on my having some skills of my own. Between you and I, we all know my father is going to hand it over to his business partner.” 

(This all is a very direct lie. His mother could not honestly care less what he does with his life as long as he never looks her in the eye and tells her that boxed wine is good. He’s not going to look her in the eye for quite some time.) 

Being a detective isn’t all film noir and extravagant lifestyle. Sure he gets paid the big bucks. He blends into high society well but is just unknowable enough to put on an old pair of jeans and slink into a coffee shop under the guise of being another guy on his laptop. That’s a skill few possess. 

There’s also the tiny, teensy little detail that he’s one of the only detectives to risk secret-agency-detection because in all honesty the security systems were built by Stark Industries and Howard wasn’t exactly what anyone would call “stellar” at security measures. 

Tony, however, was. 

(Did some side work for SI, you know the drill. Sure his father wasn’t exactly thrilled, but it’s not like there was the PR nightmare of Stark Sr. not being as smart in his old age as people always expected.) 

So when he gets an offer for finding and capturing the Winter Soldier from someone named Natalie? 

Well, he asks if he gets to use his frequent flier miles and packs a bag for DC. 

The Winter Soldier is regarded as a conspiracy theory. A man who is all machine, does the dirty work for an undercover organization, and has a shiny arm that can do a lot of things that Tony dreams about at night. 

He likes conspiracy theories. Enjoys the hell out of solving them. (Roswell was a particularly fun one to crack.) 

So he starts with research. 

There is one thing to be said about the Winter Soldier: 

He’s notoriously bad at hiding his tracks beyond the usual security measures. Restricting camera access, destroying tapes, passing off a flimsy excuse as to why a politician, peacemaker, or civilian that was causing a little too much trouble was suddenly found dead, the coronary reports restricted on a need-to-know basis. 

Don’t make him laugh. 

People talk. They always do, doesn’t matter if it’s been a year or thirty. 

The coroners, the police, the people that surrounded the target. They all nervously whisper about suspecting someone else. 

He gets closer to the location. He can tell by the thrum he holds in himself now, the way sleep doesn’t come as easily. (Although he still gets it. You don’t buy 400 thread count for nothing.) 

Hydra is still in business. Of course it is. 

He pays SHIELD a little visit. 

That organization is about the worst-kept secret in the world. He dresses up in a smart suit, ridiculous glasses, and pastes a cheesy grin on his face. 

He’s in an interview for tech. Gets lost on his way there. The person conducting the interviews has them booked back to back. When a “Mr. Edward Jarvis” does not show up for the interview, the next candidate will come in. 

Of course, he looks like any other employee scurrying around with stacks in his arms. Face is obscured by cameras. He’s bypassed Stark Industries’ security features, and he gets to the file room. 

Holy shit. It’s bad. 

After spending at least two minutes thinking he would die from coughing from all the dust. 

They don’t organize anything. All of the paper files, it seems, have been abandoned as soon as the digitized platform came out. (Which makes sense.) 

He finds the file box on Winter Soldier. Everything, suspiciously, is blacked out. But he finds one name: Alexander Pierce. 

For a man who is about to overtake SHIELD and ruin the entire world, you think he’d have a less consistent schedule. Or that his house would be harder to get into. 

Moral of the story: you can break into the window in an attic. 

Tony is making coffee. 

Pierce stops in his tracks. 

“Who the hell are you?” 

“Why do you have Folgers? You live in a nice neighborhood. You live like this?” Tony asks. He takes a swig of coffee, winces. “God I haven’t had stuff this bad since I was in college. Ew.” 

“If you’re here to kill me, you’ve got yourself in a bigger mess than you know.” 

“No, I don’t think I am,” Tony answers. “Because you? You’re stuck here. With me. You can try to run but to be completely frank, your joint medication by the paper towels speak to your ability to outrun me. There’s also the little fact that I’m not here for the typical reason.” 

“So what, you’re not an enemy of SHIELD?” Pierce asks. 

“Of course I’m not,” Tony says, smiling. “Even like a couple of their agents. But you’re not exactly SHIELD, are you? Some PR talked about one head cut off, two more grow back. I’m not exactly sure if you know how human anatomy works, but...” 

Pierce grins. 

“Oh, then you know about our little project.” 

“Of course I do,” Tony says. “Not so little, though. Didn’t get him operational until 1954? What was that, your birth year? Can’t imagine he’s perfect.” 

His smile thins. 

“It’s taken trial and test runs. But he’s perfect now.” 

“Ah, there’s the problem,” Tony says. “Because he probably broke a lot of people, didn’t he Pierce? Probably threw at least one person. I saw the specs for the arm. A lot of power behind that.” 

“And how would you know about the arm?” Pierce asked. “We don’t keep blueprints.” 

“You don’t,” Tony says slowly. “But the creator does. And you should’ve looked a lot carefully at who was behind your little experimental arm, Pierce. You shouldn’t trust a Stark to stay in a lane.” 

His eyes widen. 

Tony loves theatrics. He also likes that he was the one who technically found out about the little quirk. 

“So here’s what you didn’t know,” Tony continues. “Our hypothetical technological inventions have a tracking component on them, just in case we cannot find them in our inventory or database. And even though your scientists did an excellent job at hiding the box and filling it with a truly terrible amount of cookbooks, they did not know about that little feature.” 

Tony pulls out his phone. 

“Your Soldier is in...wow, you’re keeping him local? Pierce, I expected more from you.” 

“What do you want.” 

“I want him,” Tony says. “And I’ll leave you alone.” 

“Absolutely not,” Pierce seethes. “Why would we give you the star of the show?” 

“Because,” Tony says. “Your show sucks, if I’m being completely honest. One branch of Hydra is completely dedicated to the idea of Inhumans and is batshit insane. Another branch is literally only focused on weapons, and another is about this. It’s a shit-show. If there was a show about this I would not give it anything past three seasons.” 

Alexander Pierce looks like he’s going to burst a vein. 

Tony moves on. 

“Along with that if I cannot get him from you, I will be getting him. And if you touch a hair on his head, I will kill you.” 

Alexander Pierce looks mad. Which of course he does. Tony tends to have that effect on people, Rhodey says so. 

“Do you think you can even get out of my house? You think I won’t know your face, know that Tony Stark threatened me? Will anyone even believe you?” 

“Aw Andy, you say the sweetest things,” Tony says smiling. “I told you I was a Stark for two reasons. I’ve already told you the first one, let’s see when you wake up if you can guess the second.” 

“What--” 

And...man down. 

And Pepper told him a taser-pen was “hopefully frivolous” and “why the fuck would you ever make that for a pen you barely you know which coffee cup is yours and you just drink from both.” 

Pierce is left tied up in his kitchen on the floor, Tony admires the window seat for a brief moment, and leaves the files incriminating Pierce along with about sixty to a hundred other people. 

He has a taxi to catch. 

- 

“You know he will probably kill you,” Rhodey says on the phone. “And then I get to give my eulogy and I’m going to tell everyone you secretly liked cheese pizza only.” 

“I will literally commit a war crime against you,” Tony says. “Not even joking. I’ll face Congress if I have to.” 

Rhodey rolls his eyes. 

“You can’t, they’d kick you out.” 

“Oh, just for wearing a ripped up crop top and jean shorts? What, would I be a menace to society?” 

“You’re always a menace,” Rhodey mutters. “Listen, I gotta go. Pepper’s freaking out about your advertisements in the newspaper and the correct grammar.” 

“Bye!” Tony says. 

DC is definitely not Tony’s style. At least, for now. He can’t even enjoy coffee, he has to foil an assassination plot. 

Winter Soldier is not subtle, as he’s said. Neither are the Hydra agents who are just painfully obvious. 

At least this might be done by dinner.

He also faces the Winter Soldier. That’s fun. It’s too early to really be anything but fun. 

He walks right up to him. 

“Do you know someone named Natalie?” Tony asks. 

“What?” Winter Soldier asks. “No. Move or I’ll move you.” 

“Very robotic, ugh,” Tony says, smiling. “No, I have a job to do. You’re not moving me.” 

Winter Soldier lunges. 

Tony sidesteps and throws him off his balance with a cafe chair. 

Their fight takes them to a bridge. 

“You’ve compromised the mission,” Winter Soldier hisses. “Why?” 

“Because I got hired to bring you back,” Tony says. 

“To Hydra?” 

“No,” Tony says. “God no, they’re terrible. No, someone named Natalie wants you rescued.” 

“Natalia,” Winter Soldier murmurs. “How do you know her?” 

“I don’t,” Tony says. “At least, far as I know. I was asked to find you and bring you to her and whoever else is there. So, are you in?” 

He pauses, looks out at the city. 

“How are you gonna get me out of here?” 

“You underestimate the power of tourism,” Tony says. “Let’s go.” 

One “I Visited the Washington” sweatshirt and long hair wrapped into a bun later, Tony is walking out with who appears to be Bucky Barnes. 

“Of course you are,” Tony mutters. “Okay, let’s get to the meeting point.” 

“Are you staying?” Barnes asks. 

Tony cocks his head. “What do you want me for?”

“You just helped me escape from Hydra. You’re most likely near-suicidal. I think you need to stay close.” 

Tony rolls his eyes good-naturedly. 

“I’m not near-suicidal. Of course I’m not. I stick around for a really nice pizza joint. But Natalie--or Natalia, you called her that right?” 

“Natalie’s a fake name.” 

“Of course it is, who names their kid Natalie anymore?” Tony quips. “But besides the point. She probably can do you more good than I can. After all, I don’t ever drink out of the right coffee cup. I am very, insanely doubtful that I am of any help whatsoever.” 

“Fine then,” Barnes says. “I’ll keep an eye on you.” 

“I’m sure you will.” 

Tony doubts this. 

But he drives him to where whoever the hell hired him lives. It’s a nice, upscale apartment. Probably costs about as much as his whole apartment building’s rent in total. 

Of course, the woman who greets them looks gorgeous. Barnes knows her easily enough. 

“Thank you, Stark,” the woman says. 

“What do I actually call you?” Tony asks. “You know my name, I know two of yours.” 

“Call me Natasha,” she says. “And anything else isn’t your business.” 

“Of course not, I would expect a check in the mail otherwise,’ Tony remarks. “So. Barnes is delivered back to you. Expect payment tonight or tomorrow?” 

“Tomorrow at twelve,” she answers. “Afternoon.” 

“See you around,” Tony says, waving. “Barnes, try not to kill anyone right now. Seriously gonna ruin the springtime mood, you know?” 

Bucky Barnes stares after him. 

Natasha smiles. 

“Welcome back, James.” 

He nods. Goes and sits in a chair. 

“You gonna turn my brain back to mush or let me stay?” 

“Stay,” Natasha answers. “I escaped Red Room. I knew I needed to get you.” 

“And why not do it yourself? It’s not like you can’t,” he answers. 

“Because I was confident that Tony could leave more of a...dramatic element to it,” Natasha answers. “And he did. SHIELD is currently reforming all of its employees. One of the ladies who always let me eat strawberry yogurt from the fridge worked for them. He also helped dismantle any chance at regrouping to get you.” 

“Smart,” James answers. “Who is he? Stark?” 

“He’s an asshole, but a skilled detective,” Natasha adds. “Son of Howard Stark. You remember him?” 

“He was supposed to be my next mission,” James says, feeling a bit of the Winter Soldier seep back in. “Guess I won’t have a perfect record.” 

“You don’t have a perfect record, trust me,” Natasha adds. “And I didn’t get you for anything other than a rescue mission. You’re free.” 

-

Being free, James finds, is terrifying. 

Natasha has set him up with his own apartment. He has therapy appointments every Wednesday and Saturday. Grocery shopping is...interesting. 

And he keeps using his past skills to check in on Tony, who is doing well in life, if not a bit...wary. 

He’s assuming you don’t expose the underbelly of at least two secret organizations without gaining some traction. 

He’s gotten takeout four times this week. It’s Thursday. This is sad. 

His therapist also recommends that he gets “friends.” James is not exactly sure how to do that. 

So instead he breaks into Tony’s office. 

“We’re friends now,” he announces as Tony yelps and drops his plate. 

“Oh my god you could’ve just not snuck in!” Tony screeches. “I dropped my rolls!” 

They do become friends after that. Tony decides that James needs to try every single coffee shop that’s ever open. 

(He’s a sucker for iced caramel lattes. They’re good.) 

They both learn how to cook different foods, and try to make noodles. 

“Oh my god we’re both disasters,” Tony says, laughing. He takes a picture of James poking at the disastrous attempt. 

“Take me to pizza?” he asks. 

“Like you have to ask,” Tony says. “Come on.” He smiles at him, amazed by how much he’s changed. He grabs his jacket. 

-

 It is Rhodey who clocks it first. 

“You like him,” he crows. “You like him. You like the assassin!” 

“Ex-assassin,” Tony corrects. “And no. Of course I don’t.” 

“You call him ‘babe’, Tony.” 

“And I call you all sorts of pet names,” Tony argues. 

“Calling me literally the weirdest pet names like ‘honeybear sweetums’ or ‘platypus’ does not count,” Rhodey says. “You do don’t call me babe. Besides, you like hugging him all the time and I guarantee that you like him. Even if he is an ex-assassin and still thinks completing a thousand piece puzzle gives you the same rush of serotonin as jumping out of a car.” 

“He’s fun like that!” Tony protests. “Besides, he doesn’t have a lot of people in his life.” 

“That’s a lie,” Rhodey says. “He regrettably met Steve. Again. And he has Sam. Which I think they are friends. Natasha makes him do things.” 

“Wow your description of friends are so amazing,” Tony deadpans. “It’s like you have some of your one. You sound like a robot.” 

“I’m still right, it’s not like I’m not,” Rhodey says. “You know this. Pepper probably also knows that you like James.” 

- 

He consults Pepper. Clearly she will have some sense. 

“I demand a raise,” she says. “Because I can detect this shit better than you can.” 

“You’re getting a raise but not because of this.” 

“Good,” Pepper says. “Now go organize a nice dinner out or something. Get out of here. I’m rearranging your office desk.” 

Tony groans. He hates it when she does that. 

- 

He supposes they are both right. 

So he also supposes that he might have to take James to a coffee shop and tell him. 

- 

What Tony doesn’t know is that James is gearing up to tell him that he likes him. 

It was brought to his attention by Sam and Natasha. 

“You like him,” Sam says. 

“We’re friends!” 

“Friends don’t write their wedding vows on a napkin,” Natasha remarks. “Go organize a coffee date and tell him. I swear if you don’t tell him I’m going to make you confess at three a.m.” 

“If you get me up at three a.m. I’m violating so many rules,” James says. “Like at least four.” 

“Do five!” Steve yells from the couch. “And tell Rhodey hi for me!” 

“No, he hates you,” James says. 

“Exactly!” 

He sighs, texting Tony. 

hey can u meet me @ clocktower, 7? 

sounds gr8 :) 

Tony doesn’t know why James wants coffee. But he’s happy and definitely only that, ignore his shaking fingers. It’s the caffeine clearly. 

(The caffeine isn’t helping. He knows that.) 

“Hi,” James says. “Thank you for coming to the coffee shop. Tonight.” 

“You’re awkward,” Tony blurts out. “Why are you speaking in fragmentary sentences?” 

“That was at most only one fragmentary sentence.” 

“Oh.” 

They sit for a moment, James goes to get coffee. 

Tony steels himself. 

“You remember how I told you that you probably weren’t going to see a lot of me?” Tony asks. 

“Are you leaving?” James asks, eyes wide. “I’m going with you. Obviously.” 

“No you dumbass, I’m not leaving,” Tony says, taking another sip. “But do you remember?” 

“Clearly,” James says with a snort. 

“Well I was wrong. And we’re friends. And...well. Fuck it. I love you, and not in a like a friendship way. I really, really have been wondering what it’s like to kiss you. And if you don’t feel the same way then just tell me and we’ll be cool just give me like a month.” 

James grins. 

“You mean to tell me we can finally actually go on a date at that fancy seafood restaurant you’ve been dying to go to?” 

“We could’ve always done that, but yes it will be nice to look at you across,” Tony says. 

James takes his hand, smiling. 

“Can I take you out on Friday then?” 

“I’ll wear my best suit,” Tony says, grinning. 

- 

When they’re asked about how they meet, it’s not exactly like you can say “oh I got assigned to find and capture the love of my life and we also managed to wreck a secret organization” for the origin story. 

So they usually keep telling people they met while on a business call. 

Technically true. 

[theshopkeepofremnant]

Genre: Sci-fi/cyberpunk AU

Length: 33k

Rating: Teen

Summary:

What would you do for family?

For Yang, the answer is everything. Anything. Pulling jobs on the dangerous streets of the sprawling metropolis of Vale with her do-gooder sister at her side, she has plenty of opportunities to prove it. But she's ready to get out. To take Ruby and leave the city behind. When the opportunity of a lifetime comes their way, Yang is all in, despite Ruby's protests. One last job, then they'll be set for life. Free. Simple.

But when you let yourself get tangled in the glossy and duplicitous games of the rich and powerful, things are rarely simple, and they're never free.

(Chapter 1 below the cut)

“I still don’t understand why we’re going to work with some corporate princess,” Ruby muttered.

Yang scanned the busy street through her aviators. Not that she needed them.  Sunlight hadn’t found its way down through the towering buildings crowded around the dirty streets of Vale in decades. Maybe in the city center, depending on the day. But not in their neighborhood. At most, the dark glass protected her from the occasional glint off an oil slick left behind by one of the rust buckets parked on the curb. She liked how they looked, though. Cars hummed by, still no sign of their client. “It’s not complicated, Ruby. We need a real job.” When her little sister looked ready to protest, she clarified, “That pays real money.”

Ruby pouted. She may have long since stopped being a child, but even at twenty-two (nearly middle-aged for someone raised by the streets of Vale), Yang still thought of her as her kid sister. Her naive, do-gooder attitude didn’t help any.

“What about that shopkeeper last week? That was a real job,” she argued.

“He paid us in canned beans and ammunition.”

“Both of which we sorely needed,” Ruby remarked, her grin only slightly embarrassed. “Besides, he really needed someone to help him. We did a good thing.”

“Good things don’t pay bills,” Yang said. She tried not to think about the angry notices she’d received from their apartment complex. She failed. One more, and she and Ruby would be out on the street. Her worry was interrupted by a sleek limo gliding up to the curb. Car like that couldn’t idle long on a street like this. Like as not to find itself on blocks and missing everything but the frame. Maybe even that.

“There’s our ride,” she said, taking off her shades and slipping them into a pocket in her bomber jacket. The move was practiced but looked nonchalant. Cool. Shiny. She hoped. “Try to act professional.”

Ruby grumbled but kept it to herself as a stout man sprang from the driver’s seat and raced around to open the rear passenger door. “Ladies,” he said, his voice oddly respectful. “If you would?”

Yang elbowed Ruby as she snickered at the formal address, thanking the man and sliding into the dimly light interior. She couldn’t help but notice the feel of the glossy seat, and she ran her golden hand across the material as she settled in. Text popped up on her HUD: genuine leather. She fought the urge to whistle as Ruby plopped down beside her and the door shut with a solid thunk. Her eyes quickly adjusted, revealing the prim and perfectly still woman seated across from her.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” the woman said, her diction as crisp as the lines on her expensive-looking blazer. “I’m…”

“Weiss Schnee,” Yang filled in. “We’re not amateurs.” She looked the woman up and down again. From the famously white hair to the feint scar slashed across one of her two icy-blue eyes, she was unmistakable. Even if their Uncle Qrow hadn’t tipped them off on their supposed mystery client (“Hey, I’m the best fixer in Vale, you think I’d send you in without doing some digging?”), a blind person could identify those ringing tones from Weiss’s singing days.

“Fine, you know who I am,” Weiss huffed, leaning her head back and looking down her perfect nose at them. “Sadly, I can’t say the same. I was only told that you’re the best at what you do. I hope I was not led astray.”

“I’m Yang. This is Ruby. If a job needs doing, we do it. Period.” She leaned back, doing her best to match the haughty pose of their client. It almost worked.

“So it’s just the two of you?” Weiss asked, looking doubtful. And more than a little disappointed.

“Not exactly,” came a robotic voice.

Weiss snapped her head around, her eyes landing on a small pin on Ruby’s collar. Yang realized she must have high-grade optical implants to zero in on the speaker so quickly. Only the best for the Schnee heiress. “I don’t appreciate eavesdroppers.”

Ruby held up her hands, trying to placate the frosty woman. “That’s our netrunner.”

Weiss nodded, almost as if she’d expected the response. Hoped for it. Yang didn’t like the strange light in her eyes as she spoke. “The Winter Maiden, if I’m not mistaken? Best crafter and cracker of ICE on the net. Or so the stories go.”

“Yeah…wait. How did you know her and not us?” Ruby asked.

Weiss’s lips pursed smugly. “I am also not an… amateur.” She let her words hang before sighing and dropping the act. “We tried to recruit her at SchneeCorp a handful of years ago, shortly before she seemingly vanished. It was believed she’d either burned out or finally hit it big enough to retire. I had my suspicions those rumors were false. You’re a hard woman to find, Ms. Polendina.”

“I…” Penny wasn’t often caught off guard, but hearing her real name spoken by a suit must have been a shock. She quickly recovered. “You may address me as Winter Maiden. We are not friends.”

“Concerned that someone else might be listening?” Weiss probed.

“Of course not. The first thing I did when my friends entered your vehicle was sweep it and then isolate it. No listening devices were present, and you will notice that none of your personal devices have signal at the moment.”

Weiss simply smiled. “I expect no less from the best. Though I must say, I thought someone of your singular talents would be running with a more…impressive crew.”

Yang bristled but tried to swallow her pride. She couldn’t make an enemy of this woman. Not yet. “Much as I’m honored to ride around in luxury and be insulted by the daughter of the richest man on the planet, is there a point to all of this?” Maybe she hadn’t swallowed hard enough.

Weiss’s lip curled slightly, an instinctive show of rage, but she tried to hide it. Yang made a note of her reaction as the woman fussed with her skirt and settled herself. “I need you for a job.”

“So I gathered,” Yang replied, almost biting her tongue to tamp down her sarcasm. “What kind of job?”

“The impossible kind. The kind that wouldn’t even have a prayer without someone of Ms. Po…of the Winter Maiden’s caliber.”

Yang slumped back. “So you don’t need us, just her.”

Weiss examined the bed of her fingernails. “Not exactly. This job has a rather large and not uncomplicated physical component as well. Though frankly, I was hoping that she might be working with more experienced associates.”

Before either Ruby or Yang could retort, Penny’s voice piped up. “They are my team. I trust them, and they, me. I will not work with anyone else.”

Weiss sighed, then settled back into her seat and regarded the women in front of her shrewdly. She gave a graceful shrug. “Fine, if that’s how it is, then let’s not waste any more time.”

“Yes, we’d hate if you missed your evening spa treatment,” Ruby sniped, glaring up at Yang after receiving a metallic elbow to the ribs.

“Don’t make me regret my decision,” Weiss snapped. “You’ll each find a shard in the armrest nearest you. Please slot it in so we can begin.”

Yang and Ruby looked at each other, then reached for the small silicon and copper sticks. Yang ran her ‘ganic hand up under her waves of golden hair, finding one of the open slots on the shaved side of her head and slotting it in. Ruby smirked at her and stuck out her tongue. She kept her dark hair reasonably short for quicker access to her slots and frequently gave Yang shit for her ungainly mass. But Yang never yielded; what was the point of being a badass if you couldn’t look great at the same time?

Besides, Penny had long hair, and Ruby never gave her grief about it. Though Yang suspected she knew why the console jockey might get special treatment. Not that she’d ever say anything. They’d figure it out. Eventually.

Yang’s mind snapped back to the present as her HUD was replaced by schematics, a wireframe of a vaguely familiar building that scrolled across her vision-

“Want to tell me why we’re looking at SchneeCorp’s Vale Headquarters?” Ruby asked.

Of course she had seen it first. Yang knew it wasn’t just because of those fancy eyes she was rocking, though they probably didn’t hurt. Ruby had an incredible visual memory. She probably had most of the sprawling skyline of Vale memorized.

“That’s where you’ll find our target,” Weiss replied as though she thought this was perfectly reasonable.

Ruby reached up and yanked the shard from her socket. “Well, this has been preem, but you can let us out now. Thanks for the ride.”

“You haven’t heard me out.”

“We’ve heard enough,” Ruby replied. “Right, Yang?”

“I mean…”

Ruby whipped her head around, and Yang told herself that the look of betrayal would fade. Ruby would forgive her, but they couldn’t just leave. “Yang, come on.”

Yang swallowed. “No, we’re going to hear her out.” Ruby went from shock to fury to fuming resignation quickly enough that anyone unfamiliar with her mercurial moods would’ve suffered serious whiplash, but this wasn’t Yang’s first day. She rode it out and turned back to their potential client. “Go on,” she said. It was an effort to ignore the smug look on the woman’s face as she did.

“As you so accurately surmised, the target is within SchneeCorp’s local headquarters.”

“Which means it may as well be on the fragging sun,” Ruby muttered.

“Which means,” Weiss cut in. “It’s good that you have someone with so much insider intel. Those schematics include security measures and all other pertinent information needed for the extraction.”

“How recently was this data acquired?” Penny, asking the useful questions, as always.

“Yesterday,” Weiss assured her.

Ruby sighed and slotted the shard again, sulking as her silver eyes unfocused and she went over the data. “Penny, did you get my upload?”

“Yes, but even with this data, I see no good way to get inside.”

Yang knew that being jacked in like Penny meant she was processing things much faster than the rest of them, but it was always disconcerting how quickly she came to conclusions over the wire. Still, it never paid to doubt her. She looked up at the maddeningly calm woman across from her. “Got anything else for us?”

“Naturally. Does this mean you’re in?”

“It means we’re considering it,” Ruby said before Yang could commit them.

Weiss cocked one perfectly trimmed eyebrow, sensing the discord but smart enough not to say anything. “Fine. My father is hosting an exclusive party next week in the ballroom that occupies the top floors of the building. Only the biggest SchneeCorp investors are invited. I can get us in. From there, we simply need to slip-”

“Hold on, us?” Ruby asked.

Yang couldn’t argue with her sister’s reaction. “Look, Ms. Schnee-“

“Weiss is fine.”

“Ok, Weiss,” Yang said, feeling more than a little weird talking to a suit like they were chums. “No offense, but we don’t bring clients with us on jobs.” It wasn’t entirely true, but telling her they didn’t bring amateurs with them on jobs likely wouldn’t have gone over well.

“If I don’t come, there is no job. End of discussion.”

Yang ignored the blatant look of I-told-you-so from Ruby and did her best to only groan on the inside. She reminded herself that all of these annoyances were just going to lead to a bigger payday. A payday they desperately needed. “Fine, you come. What are we stealing?”

“Liberating,” Weiss corrected. “It doesn’t rightly belong to my father, so it isn’t theft.”

This time Yang couldn’t hide her annoyance. “I doubt security will care about that distinction. What is it?”

Weiss looked ready to retort but decided to answer the question instead. “A particularly valuable prototype. That’s all you need to know.”

“Ok, but are we talking a prototype tank or a prototype chip?” Yang asked. “That kind of makes a difference.”

“It’s,” Weiss fumbled, just for a moment, but then she recovered her composure. “It’s the size of a shoebox.”

“Why would you put a shoe in a box?” Ruby asked.

“No, you put a pair of…” Weiss looked between the equally mystified sisters. “Shoes come in boxes.”

Yang looked down at the boots that had been 3D printed for her at a dirty kiosk in a dirtier alley. “Clearly, we shop at different stores,” she deadpanned.

Weiss held up her hands, less than shoulder-width apart. “A box, this big. A shoebox.”

“If you say so,” Ruby said with a shrug. “How heavy? Feel free to give the weight in gold bars. You know, something relatable.”

“Assuming your head is full of lead,” Weiss snapped. “Lighter than that.”

Yang fought the urge to laugh at the frustration flushing Weiss’s face. Time to get back on track. “Ok, ok. Why is this ‘shoebox’ so important?”

”If this piece of tech works out, SchneeCorp will no longer just be the biggest company on the planet; it will become untouchable.”

Ruby shook her head. “Why would you want to sabotage your own company?”

Weiss bristled before going back to examining her expensive manicure. “It’s not my company. It’s my father’s.”

But Ruby wasn’t satisfied. “Still, why-?”

“Let’s just say he and I don’t always see eye to eye,” Weiss said. “Besides, I…I was recently disinherited.”

“Sounds like we’re getting in the middle of family drama,” Ruby snarked.

Weiss narrowed her eyes, but there was something sad there. Her voice seemingly didn’t get the memo, however. It was all ice. “Will you take the job or not?”

--

“I don’t like it,” Ruby muttered as they waved their way past the familiar bouncer. They were regulars at the Nest, the bar their uncle ran mostly as a convenience to host his real business.

“Yeah, Rubes, you’ve said like a million times,” Yang replied, striding through the mid-afternoon crowd toward the back. “But you know what I don’t like? Living on the street and scraping food out of dumpsters. Which is what we’ll be doing without this job.” Ruby grumbled. Like she had every time they'd circled this particular block. She let it drop when they approached their uncle’s table.

“Hey, my favorite nieces!” he called, waving a glass that Yang doubted was his first. She worried that his ever-present five o’clock shadow and disheveled hair were going from intentionally rakish to unkempt. But his drinking didn’t seem to be interfering with business. Yet.

Assuming this job didn’t go down in flames.

“We’re your only nieces, Uncle Qrow,” Ruby laughed, apparently oblivious to the reek of alcohol as she gave him a quick hug and flopped into the seat next to him.

Qrow chuckled and tussled her hair. “So you are. Did you meet with our illustrious client?”

Yang spun a chair around and straddled it, her arms crossed over the back. Ignored Ruby’s sour look. “Sure did,” she replied, searching his glazed eyes for the cunning intelligence that she hoped was still in there somewhere. “You sure this is on the level?”

“The money’s on the level,” he said as he took a long draw from his glass. “What else do you need to know?”

“It would be nice to know that we aren’t about to get flatlined helping some suit get back at daddy,” Ruby offered.

“What she means is,” Yang corrected, glaring at her innocently smiling kid sister. “We want to make sure this is done right, so we can collect our credits and walk away.”

Their uncle swirled his dwindling drink a few times, then raised it and rattled the ice. Moments later, a waitress placed a fresh glass in front of him. He thanked her. “Look,” he said, sampling the contents of his new cup. “I checked her out, asked around. I mean, she’s Weiss Schnee. It’s not like it’s hard to get info on her.”

“Did you know she got booted from the family?” Ruby asked.

Qrow nodded. “Of course, why else do you think I sent you two to talk to her? Sure, this is some corpo bullshit, no question, but she has real beef with her family. The job’s legit. Besides,” he added, smiling with his eyes over another gulp of the colorless liquid. “Her creds spend well enough. She paid my finder’s fee upfront, and I suspect her offer to you two was…generous.”

“It was,” Yang agreed.

“It has to be!” Ruby shot back. She turned to their uncle. “She wants us to break into,” she looked around, then lowered her voice. “SchneeCorp headquarters here in Vale.”

Qrow shrugged. “I know.”

“You know?” Ruby demanded.

“Hey, at least it’s not the main headquarters on Atlas station.”

“It may as well be!” Ruby retorted. “I don’t see how hijacking a shuttle and going to fucking space could be any more insane.”

“Calm down, kiddo,” Qrow said, a frown tugging at his lips. “It can’t be as bad as all that.” He turned to Yang, obviously looking for support. “What do you think, Firecracker?”

Yang had long since stopped correcting him when he used her childhood nickname. “It just feels…too big, you know? Don’t get me wrong, we need the creds, but why us?”

“She asked for the best, so I gave her the best.”

Yang shook her head. “Uncle Qrow, I know we’re family, and I appreciate the sentiment, but-“

“We’re not even close to the best,” Ruby supplied.

“Not with that attitude,” Qrow admonished playfully, but his grin faded under their twin glares. “Honestly? She asked for the crew with the best netrunner, and there’s only one I know personally that can claim that title.”

Ruby crossed her arms. “So she does just need Penny.”

“Look,” Qrow said, fishing for words of wisdom he didn’t have and settling on the truth instead. “The gig needs an all-star deck jockey and some competent bodies. You three fit the bill, and you need the money, so I gave you the nod. That’s all.”

Yang sighed, but none of what he said had come as a surprise. She knew where they stood in the pecking order, and she and Ruby both knew that Penny was way too good for them. “Good enough for me.” She looked over at her sister, still slouched in her seat with her eyes scanning the ground. No doubt memorizing the pattern of microscopic cracks in the aging tile.

Eventually, Ruby gave up pretending she didn’t notice Yang’s gaze and looked up, then let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine, whatever, I’ll do it. Penny?”

“I am in,” chirped Penny’s voice, the barest hint of excitement in her tone.

Qrow smiled and polished off the remainder of his drink. “Shiny. Now tell me how you intend to pull this off.”

--

“We’re being followed.”

Yang gritted her teeth to stop herself from swearing out loud. She had suspected they would be at some point, but it bothered her that she hadn’t spotted them. She supposed she should be grateful Ruby had. “How many?” she asked, pitching her voice low and not moving her lips.

“At least three,” Ruby replied, hawking a loogie and using it as an excuse to look over her shoulder. “About two blocks back,” she added.

“Fangs?”

“Probably. They’re definitely Faunus.”

“Well, I suppose we knew we’d be spotted when we crossed onto their turf.” Yang pushed forward, dragging them deeper into the Fang’s territory. She hadn’t had many pleasant interactions with the Faunus gang, but the same could be said of most gangs that had held sway in Vale. She had no specific beef with them, and she’d always gotten along as well with her Faunus neighbors as anyone else. It wasn’t their fault that their great grandparents had killed time messing around with their genes before passing them on. So now some of them sported extra ears or claws or whatever, who cares?

But Yang wasn’t naive. She knew that many did, in fact, care. That was why most Faunus preferred to live in cloistered communities where they could protect each other from the assholes who saw them as less than human. It was why she and Ruby were receiving a lot of suspicious glares through mostly shut windows and doors.

She wasn’t the only one feeling the unwelcoming stares. “Maybe we should get out of here,” Ruby suggested lightly, trying and failing to play off her growing unease.

“We can’t,” Yang replied. “Uncle Qrow is right; we need this chick.”

“Why? The three of us have always managed in the past.”

“We need someone who can slip past a state of the art surveillance system. Unseen.”

“We can do that.”

Yang snorted. “Please, when have we ever done anything quietly?”

“What about the job for that guy? What’s-his-name…Port? No one even saw us.”

“Yeah, because Penny hacked the signal on their optical implants and literally blinded everyone.”

Ruby tried to look offended but only barely stifled a chuckle. “Ok, but how about that time down at the docks?”

“The time when you set off an entire crate of flash-bang grenades?”

Ruby grinned. “I mean, technically no one saw us that time either.”

Yang’s lip tugged upward. “Yeah, and I couldn’t hear for a week.”

"It wasn’t that bad. Oh!” Ruby exclaimed, seemingly unconcerned with their tail save for the furtive glances she stole when they turned the next corner. “How about the-“

“I swear if you’re about to claim the Oobleck job was anything but a disaster, I’m going to scream.”

“We got away clean!” Ruby protested.

“We set the building on fire.”

“The fire suppression system came on almost immediately. There was hardly any damage.” Ruby’s smile faltered under Yang’s glare. “Ok, maybe we could use someone a little more…discrete.” Yang rolled her eyes at the colossal understatement. “But how do we know she’ll even help?”

“If what Uncle Qrow said about her is true, she’ll help.”

“Assuming we even get a chance to talk to her,” Ruby muttered.

Yang looked around. “We still being followed?”

Ruby’s lips were tight as she replied, “Yup, one more just joined up.”

“Well, we may as well kick this party off.” Yang flipped her optics over to infrared. She only had lens implants, nothing as fancy as the wonders Ruby was sporting, but they did alright. At least she could tell that the next alley was deserted. “In there?” she said, raising her chin.

Ruby sighed. She’d never liked close-quarters fighting as much as Yang, but there was no time to set up a proper ambush, and numbers were not on their side. “Yeah, looks as good as we’re going to get.”

Yang nodded. “Let’s do it.”

--

“‘No Ruby, we don’t need weapons, we aren’t looking for trouble,’” Ruby mocked, grunting as she dodged a massive fist that passed right through where her head had been a moment before. “Great idea, Yang!”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Yang replied, catching the arm of her own attacker and twisting it painfully behind his back until he stopped struggling. “Tell your buddy to stop attacking, or I break your arm in at least seven places,” she added to her captive.

He sneered up at her until she gave his arm a gentle tug. Once he stopped crying out in pain, he quickly begged the other man to stop. Their two friends were already unconscious on the ground, caught unawares by the pair of sisters after entering the alley.

“Look,” Yang said. “We aren’t here for a fight.”

“Tell that to those two,” the man struggling against her grip growled.

“Oh, so you weren’t about to jump us?”

“I…”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Yang snapped. “We didn’t want any trouble.”

“Then what are you doing in Little Menagerie?”

“Looking for someone,” Ruby supplied, stepping away from her own assailant, just in case he got any ideas.

“Who?”

The sisters looked at each other. Discretion really wasn’t their strong suit, so Yang decided not to overthink things. “Blake Belladonna.”

The man’s face darkened. “Why?”

“We just want to offer her a job. That’s all.”

“And what if I’m not interested?”

The alley went deathly silent. The woman’s voice sounded so close, but there was no one else there. Yang flipped her vision to infrared, saw nothing, flipped it back, and found the same. She watched as Ruby as searched as many spectrums as she could. She shrugged.

Yang shoved the man away from her and raised her empty hands. “So that’s why they call you ‘the Shadow,’” she remarked.

“They call me many things. What do you want?”

“We just want to talk.”

“You have a funny way of showing it,” the voice replied as the air in front of Yang rippled and bent until a dark figure stood before her in a mimetic suit. Yang had never seen one in real life, but it lived up to the hype. One gloved hand reached up and pulled off the hood and mask obscuring her face, revealing a set of golden eyes beneath a splash of midnight hair and two pointed, cat-like ears.

Yang gaped. She’d been given a physical description, but her uncle had failed to mention that the woman was breathtakingly beautiful. A second look at the skin-tight suit showed she had the lithe body of a dancer or a gymnast to go with her perfect face. Yang was mortified as she felt blood rush to her cheeks as well as other, mercifully less visible places.

The woman, Blake, shrugged. “You want to talk? Talk.”

“I, uh, right,” Yang stammered, then forced her wandering mind back on track. “We want to hire you for a job.”

“I told you, I’m not interested,” Blake replied coldly before addressing the man at Yang’s feet, “Yuma, get those idiots off the concrete and go home. We’re done here.”

A thought occurred to Yang. “If you’re not interested, why are you here?”

Blake’s lip curled. “A couple of outsiders wandered into my turf. I came to ensure you didn’t cause too much trouble.”

“Oh please, you could have let these guys chase us off. Admit it, you’re curious.” Yang hoped that her charm hadn’t strayed from playful into desperate, but it was hard to stay focused with those golden eyes boring into her soul.

Blake snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said, but there was no venom in it.

Ruby, however, was done watching her sister flirt. “Yang, she said she’s not interested.” Yang was about to argue, but she saw that sly expression Ruby often got when she was being clever, so she decided to let her take her shot. “Besides, we don’t need her.”

Blake’s eyes narrowed as she turned toward Ruby. “Is that so?”

“It is,” Ruby asserted. “We came here thinking you were something special, but you just have a fancy suit.” She shrugged and looked at Yang. “Come on, we can just buy one. That's cheaper than splitting the take with someone else.”

Yang’s instinct was to come up with some excuse to keep this shadowy beauty around, but she wasn’t going to mess up Ruby’s play. Not that she had time to anyway. Blake arched an eyebrow. “Is that what you think? That I just put on this suit and it does the work for me?”

“You telling me it’s not?” Ruby shot back.

“Aside from the fact that it was handmade for me specifically, there’s more to it than simply turning it on,” Blake explained.

Ruby crossed her arms. “Prove it.”

“I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

“You’re right, and we don’t have to tell you why we came. Come on, Yang.”

Yang fought a laugh as she followed her sister back toward the mouth of the alley. She was only a few strides from the exit when she was stopped short by an invisible hand in the middle of her chest. She looked down, barely able to discern a ripple in the air in front of her where she assumed Blake’s arm was. The fingers on her collar bone retreated slowly, almost a caress. Yang's breath caught, but not before she inhaled a trace of something wild and dark; the scent of moonlight cascading through clouds on a rain-soaked night. Of freedom and open spaces that Yang had never seen but could suddenly feel in her bones.

Blake chuckled and shimmered back to reality and pulled off her hood. “As I was saying. Anyone can wear a mimetic suit, but not everyone can move without making a sound, without rippling the air, or otherwise looking like a big, dumb, person-shaped distortion of light. I saw you searching for me. How many spectrums did you go through?”

Yang shook her head. “I only have visible and infrared.”

Blake made a face. “Child’s play.” She turned to Ruby. “How about you?”

“Those two, plus microwave, and UV for passive. I didn’t get around to active scanning.”

“And?” Blake challenged.

“Nothing,” Ruby admitted. “I suppose we could use you.”

Blake smirked. “You undoubtedly could.” Then she seemed to remember herself. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not interested.” In a flash, the hood and face-covering were back in place, and she vanished.

But Yang knew she was still there, could feel it, and it was time to show her hand. “What if I told you that the job involved stealing from the Schnees?”

There was a long beat of silence. Yang began to worry that Blake had already ghosted. Then her face reappeared, hanging in midair above seemingly empty air. Her mouth was drawn in a frown, but excitement danced in her eyes. “The Schnees?” she prompted.

“That’s right,” Yang said. “We’re going to rip off their next big prototype. From right under their noses. It will probably cost them billions.”

Blake’s eyes positively shone at that. “Well,” she said, her body shimmering back into view as she held out her hand. “Why didn’t you say so? When do we start?”

Yang took her hand, the fluttering in her stomach driven by more than excitement over a plan coming together. But she wasn’t going to think about that. Instead, she simply replied, “Now.”

--

Ruby marveled as Blake demonstrated her suit’s capability on their walk through narrow streets to the address Weiss had given them.

“See?” Blake said, going from completely invisible to a bouncing jumble of distorted light and back again before emerging back to full visibility. “It’s not just about the suit. The wearer has to know how to move. Otherwise, it’s nearly useless.”

Yang shook her head, pretending not to watch the display as she tried to focus on their surroundings. She still wasn’t completely sure about their client, and the last thing she wanted to do was march them into an ambush.

“Too bad it’s a bit of an odd fashion statement,” Ruby commented, indicating the strangely patterned black on black. Yang resisted the urge to voice her thoughts on the skintight outfit. Instead, she turned her head and took the chance to clear her throat.

Blake looked down at herself and shrugged, then reached up into a small pouch on her back and pulled out jeans and a long white jacket that really didn’t seem like they could have been hidden away in so small a space. She somehow stepped into the pants without breaking stride, then twirled the jacket around her shoulders. All of it effortless, fluid, and so cool that Yang nearly had a coughing fit as she tried not to visibly drool. Blake smirked up at her. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, shiny,” Yang wheezed. She stopped. “We’re here, by the way.”

The trio looked at the rusted steel door before them. The building was one of countless nondescript towers on the block, all packed in so tightly it was impossible to know where one ended and another began. The address was right, though, so Yang reached up and knocked twice, hard, wincing at the loud clang of metal on metal.

They stood in silence, waiting. As the seconds dragged on, Yang began to feel more and more like an idiot. Just as she was preparing a line to act like she’d planned on getting stood up, an unseen speaker squeaked to life, carrying the cold tones of their client. “That’s not the Winter Maiden. Who is she?”

Yang looked around but saw no obvious place for a microphone, so she addressed the door. “We needed an extra hand to pull off our plan. I’ll personally vouch for her.”

There was a long pause before Weiss replied, “Fine.” Then the door unlocked with an audible click.

Yang swung it wide and waved the others through, stopping Ruby as she passed. “Is Penny wired in?”

Ruby shook her head. “No,” she replied, “She’s going to join us.”

“In meat space, seriously?”

Ruby shrugged and stepped through the door. “Yeah, she said this is too important not to be here in the flesh.”

“Huh, crazy. She almost here?”

Ruby blinked, her eyes unfocusing as she accessed her HUD and sent a message. A moment later, she responded. “Yeah, she’s a minute or two out.”

“Preem,” Yang said, looking up and down the street.

Ruby grabbed her arm, pulling her inside. “She’ll be here,” she insisted. “Come on. Where’s Blake?”

The pair wandered into the darkened building, the remains of what used to be some sort of office but had long since fallen into disrepair. Muffled voices were coming from a room in the back, one of which seemed increasingly frantic. It occurred to Yang where Blake may have gone. She took off at a sprint through the empty hallways, making her way toward the sounds of distress, Ruby hot on her heels.

“Blake, what the fuck?” Yang cried. Their newest recruit was holding a gleaming, black sword. Its razor-sharp tip rested lightly against the throat of a very still, very wide-eyed Weiss.

“You said we were stealing from the Schnees, not working with them,” Blake hissed.

Yang faltered. She had considered telling Blake the whole truth but figured it would be easier to explain after she was in. She apparently hadn’t thought that line of attack through all the way. “Yes, we’re working for Weiss Schnee.”

“For?!” Blake demanded.

Yang cursed herself but pressed on, “But she’s the one who wants to steal the tech from SchneeCorp.”

“So I’m just helping one Schnee in a powerplay against another? No, fuck that, and fuck all of you. I thought maybe you two were on the level, not just a pair of grimmgirls working for corporate scum. For a fucking Schnee.”

The accusation hit Yang like a slap in the face. She’d been called a lot of things in her life. Many of them unpleasant. But to be equated to those soulless killing machines that traded flesh for chrome until they were barely human, anything to get better at zeroing targets, all for a quick buck… She looked down at her arm, gold and black and nothing like the one it had replaced. Then she looked at Ruby, at her wide and shining silver eyes. Those inhuman eyes. Those expensive eyes. She felt her blood begin to race, to boil, but she forced it down. She couldn’t let this fall apart. Not now. Not when they were so close to getting out.

She took a breath. “Look, I get why you don’t like the Schnees-”

“You don’t know the first thing about why I hate the Schnees!” Blake cried. “The things they’ve done to my people.”

“I know, you’re right. I don’t. Just like you don’t know my life story. And none of us know the full version of Weiss’s. But we’re all on the same side here.”

“Stop.” Blake leaned forward but didn’t pierce the porcelain skin under her sword. “The best you can hope for now is to convince me not to kill her where she stands. Go ahead, give me one good reason.”

Yang’s mind raced, but Weiss had apparently had plenty of time to think. “Because I want to destroy Jacques Schnee and everything he’s built,” she said, her voice tight as her throat moved against the blade.

Blake narrowed her eyes, and for a desperate moment, Yang worried that Weiss’s gambit might fail. Then the sword lowered with a snap. Blake pressed a hidden button on the hilt, and Yang watched in fascination as the blade collapsed into it. Blake stashed the weapon back in her small bag. “Either you’re the best liar I’ve ever met,” she remarked. “Or you have a truly screwed up home life.”

“You have no idea,” Weiss murmured, massaging the angry red spot on her throat. “Are you in?”

Blake curled her lip and crossed her arms. “I’ll stay to hear the plan. No promises.”

Weiss blew a breath out through her nose but didn’t press the point. Instead, she turned to Yang and Ruby. “Is there anyone else you’d like to bring in who might want to kill me? Or is it just her?”

Yang grimaced as she and Ruby finished entering the room. “Just her,” she assured her. “Penny’s generally not much of a killer.” Weiss glared at her, her eyes flicking over her shoulder when they heard the outer door open and close. “We’re back here!” Yang called. Ruby would have let her know if it was anyone but Penny.

Their favorite runner ambled in a moment later, all red hair and freckles and green eyes. “Salutations,” she said, looking around the ramshackle room. She didn’t seem to notice that her chipper greeting was completely at odds with the strained air in the room, but that was Penny for you. Yang gave her a wave, impressed that she had at least remembered to change out of her cryo suit before coming over. Truly jacking into the net was dangerous business, with heatstroke from neural overload one of many potential causes of death for the unwary. Longtime runners, like Penny, didn’t need anything too extreme, like an ice bath. But she still spent most of her waking hours in a suit meant to regulate her body temperature. More than once, after a job, she’d forgotten to change out of it before she came out to join them for drinks. At least she always took their ribbing in good humor.

“Hello, Ms… Winter Maiden,” Weiss corrected. She looked relieved that Penny was there, and Yang was reminded again why their team had really been selected. A job’s a job, she told herself.

“Ms. Schnee,” Penny responded, sidling up next to Ruby, of course. It was only then that she seemed to notice the extra body in the room. “I do not believe we have met,” she pointed out.

“Blake,” the Faunus offered, looking Penny up and down.

“My name is Penny. I am the netrunner for this crew. As this is a job, I prefer to be referred to as Winter Maiden.”

“Noted,” Blake responded, still giving Penny an odd look.

“You expect me to be heavily chipped?”

“I…yes,” Blake admitted. “Every netrunner I’ve ever met has been heavily modified.”

Ruby laughed and looked at Penny fondly. “She doesn’t need anything more than a basic link. Penny’s got everything she needs in that big brain of hers.” She reached up and patted her friend’s head.

Penny rolled her eyes. “I have told you, my brain is a completely normal size, it simply-“

“This is fascinating, really, but I’m on something of a tight schedule,” Weiss cut in. Ruby made a face but held her tongue when Penny squeezed her hand. Blake still looked less than thrilled, but she wasn’t pointing a sword at anyone, so that was a win. Finally, Weiss’s eyes landed on Yang. “Well, do you have a plan?”

Yang smirked and rolled her eyes. Working with this suit was going to be such a pleasure, start to finish. She tried to visualize a stack of credits as high as the stiff woman before her. It helped, a little. “As a matter of fact,” she said, smiling broadly. “I do.”

[izaswritings]

Title: building trust

Fandom: RWBY

Synopsis:  Oscar and Oz stage a prison break. Qrow… complicates things. 

(Or: in which Oscar takes over as the voice of reason, Oz is Guilt, and Qrow is just having a very bad and emotional day, and these two are not helping. Rebuilding trust is harder than it looks—  it’s all about the small steps.)

Notes:��This fic is kind of an unofficial sequel to this story here, (or here) but you can still read this one on standalone if you want. Shoutout to the anon who told me I had to write the prison break fic-- this is for you, anon. 

AO3 Link is here.

.

“This is…”

There is little left to say between the two of them, looking down and out over Mantle’s ruined and smoking streets. It is three hours after Oscar fell from Atlas, and now he is back again on the floating city, standing at the edge of the drop. From this height Mantle is a depressing sprawl of smoke and ruin. On the ground, the situation had been gruesome, but their view of the destruction had been limited. One house burning on a street corner, a few empty streets of rubble, and all the people vanished from sight, huddling away in the shelters. Any bodies slowly being buried by the snow.

As terrible as it sounds, in Mantle the Grimm had been the only trouble, and even then, not much. As Oz had put it, when Oscar had asked— evading Grimm is child’s play after almost a few thousand years of practice.

Ah, Oscar had said, at that. Well, when you put it like that…

Even finding an airship managed to be a far easier task than assumed. Oz knows where the military base is. Oz knows how to hotwire a ship. Oz knows… a lot of weirdly illegal things, actually.

“Your judgment is unappreciated,” Oz had said.

It’s just, this is the second time I’ve helped steal an airship, Oscar said back, and sighed. I can’t help but feel like we’re just going to end up facing a giant robot again.

“Deeply improbable,” Oz had begun, and then a soldier had started shouting and Oz dropped the conversation to yank back the controls and put them in flight.

And now, here they are: Atlas, again, in a private sector cordoned off, as close as they can get to the military custody cells without being detected. Getting off Mantle was, hilariously, the easy part. It is this next part that makes Oscar hesitate.

Oz is still in control—still bearing the pain of exhaustion and bullet wound bruises both, because in all this cascading disaster Oscar has yet to get either proper healing or an actual nap, and their aura is all focused on blocking out the cold—and it is Oz who looks away from the sight of Mantle, hands clenching tight over the knob of the cane, gripping the Long Memory like a lifeline.

This is awful, Oscar whispers, feeling thin. There is no surprise in his voice, in him. No horror. Just a quiet, seething sort of anger, a frustrated ache that this happened at all. That it has come to this.

Oz, for his part, can hardly seem to face it—he closes their eyes and turns their face away, breathing in slow and shaky. Oscar goes quiet, watchful. He can feel Oz’s thoughts as his own, which is why he knows what the other thinks of all this. The tangle of emotion is sobering. Regret, grief, anger… and a bitter taste all across their tongue, the awful bite of betrayal, because deep down they’d both thought Ironwood better than this.

This time, it is Oscar who offers the words they both need to hear. It… it isn’t your fault.

Oz exhales out a shaky breath, but his laughter is soft and bitter. “No?” He drags their eyes back to the ruined landscape below. When he speaks, his voice is distant and wondering. “How far Mantle looks from here. How shrunken. A failure on our part. A sign of neglect, really. A sign to do better.”

Oscar considers him. Doesn’t speak.

“I wonder if he ever saw it the same way,” Oz observes, clinically. He stares down at Mantle as if there is an answer in the smoke. “Perhaps, when he stood up here, looking down upon them… maybe he just saw Mantle as small.”

Still. Oscar is stubborn. How were you supposed to know what he thought about it?

“You are turning my own words against me,” Oz murmurs back, and finally turns away from the ledge. He walks them back to the building, their alleyway. The stolen airship sits half-hidden by a building, and with any luck, it’ll stay undetected. Oscar is praying the chaos is enough to confuse the sensors. “And on the same day, no less.”

Doesn’t make it less true.

A few blocks down, the military holding cells await. They’ve moved swiftly enough Oz doesn’t think Qrow will be at the prison yet—the hope is that he is here, for holding or interrogation or both. And given that this is the highest-priority military cell, and Ironwood called for Qrow’s arrest personally… the chances of him being here are high. Now, they just need to find him.

Oscar looks up at the barbed-wire walls and the very tall building, and sighs. More breaking and entering. Well, all right. Let’s steal a military scroll.

Oz hums, already scanning the entrance, walking up to the gate. “I thought you disliked stealing.”

They only bring out the giant robots for airships. We’re fine.

Despite everything, that actually gets Oz to smile again. “Hm. Sound logic, I suppose.” He turns and surveys the gate, then lifts his hand to wave at the officer stationed by the entrance. “Hello! Can you help me?”

“A kid? But what are you...” The guard’s gun lowers, and then she stills. “Wait. Your face. Aren’t you—!?”

The officer doesn’t get a chance to finish. Oz knocks her legs out from under her, calmly whaps her over the head, and then handcuffs her as she groans. He takes the scroll and opens it, surveying the device. The gate clicks open without any further issues. Oz looks out over the military holding yard and sighs. “Well. And now for the hard part.”

Everything else wasn’t hard?

“Stealing the airship didn’t require breaking and entering, I’m afraid. And this was just sense. Getting in the actual building will be just as hard as getting out.” Oz sighs a breath through their teeth, and glances down at the handcuffed officer, still looking woozy. “Especially if we do not want to be caught. I did not think about that. Hopefully, we will be gone before she gets out of the handcuffs.”

We could… wear a mask?

Oz considers this. “…No.”

But—

“No.”

Well, do you have a better idea?

Oz clasps their hands behind their back, looking up to survey the building. Oscar waits for him to think it out. Oz had explained some of it on the way here—it’s not as guarded as a prison, but it’s still a place designed to hold higher-ranking criminals, enemies that Ironwood places on top priority.

Oscar doesn’t like the look of the place. The sleek walls. The shiny surfaces. The glint of the barred windows seems cruel. After all that walking through Mantle, to stand in Atlas and witness the sheer wealth of difference between them makes something in him harden.

Oz must come to a decision—he lifts the cane and spins it in their hands before tapping it down hard on the snow. “The old fashioned way, then, I suppose,” he says. He heaves a heavy sigh. “We are a bit too small to believably steal any armor, unfortunately.”

I don’t think physically breaking our way into a prison is a...very good idea? Also, um. We are still… injured. Won’t that—hurt?

“Usually, it is not.” Oz starts for the door, cane by his side. “But if there is any bright side to this situation—” Oscar mentally makes a face, and Oz sighs again. “Yes, I know, and I agree—but again. Atlas is on high alert. Grimm are converging on the city. And Salem…”

That old bitterness, half-memory and half just Oz rises up, like static in Oscar’s soul, and together they both glance back at the shroud of dark storm clouds slowly moving in on the city. In the past hour, the wind has picked up to a howl. It won’t be long, now. The thought makes their aura shudder in dread and fury.

“Well. Salem is, currently, a far larger threat. I have no doubt that Atlas’s sensors have picked up on her invasion by now. If there was ever a time this prison would be understaffed and vulnerable… now is likely it. It is, too, why we were able to land the airship up here in the first place. Two days ago, I suspect we would have been shot just getting in the sky.”

They’re nearing the door, now.

“But… yes. We are still injured. Fighting will… likely aggravate the injury, regardless of our aura.” Oz hesitates. “If—I understand if you would rather not—”

No. It’s fine. Oscar settles back, shifting through the information. We need to get Qrow out. And if this really is the best time to do it—and the best way… His thoughts firm, steady and cold with determination. We can’t hesitate. There’s no time.

“…Very well.” Oz turns their eyes back to the door, and hefts the cane in hand. Though not in control, Oscar can still feel it—the shift in emotion, the cool blanket falling over their thoughts. The turmoil, the grief, the anger, the lingering fear Oz won’t acknowledge about seeing Qrow again—all of it, buried beneath a laser-eyed focus. “I will be quick.”

Just… try not to push us into passing out?

“Hm, yes, that would be unfortunate. Not to worry—I know our limits.”

I thought you just said you were out of practice.

Oz calmly holds up the officer’s scroll, unlocks the front door, and walks through. “Well. That was an hour ago.”

That’s… not comforting.

This—with the door open and the two of them already inside—is about when the guards finally notice them.

The ensuing fight is rapid-paced, and terribly one-sided. For someone who claims to be out of practice, Oz is swift and brutal in a way that runs entirely counter to his usual manner—he strikes the guards with merciless force, leaving crumpled and groaning bodies lying still on the floor behind them as they push their way into the prison. It never goes too far—no bones broken, no bruises that will lead to unfortunate death—but it is definitely impressive, and Oscar would be awed, if not for the looming sense of resigned doom that he’s definitely going to be feeling this fight for a while. Bruises for days. He’s not looking forward to it.

Oz, currently in the middle of slipping a scroll from the highest-ranked guard’s pocket, pauses at this. “In my defense,” he says mildly, standing them up to limp towards the next door, “we were already in rather rough shape. You would be feeling it anyway.”

I’m just… not looking forward to facing a full-scale invasion like this.

“…An understandable worry,” Oz admits, after a pause. “But you do not… have to feel it alone, as it were. I am happy to take on the burden should the aftereffects be—unpleasant.” He lifts their head. “And once we have a moment to breathe, our aura should start easing some of the pain. We will be okay, Oscar. We simply must hold on until we can rest again.”

Oscar hums a quiet agreement, watching through their eyes as Oz takes them up the hall. He’s frowning, slightly, brow furrowed. They’ve gotten in, but from here on out Oz is uncertain of where to go.

Oscar leans in, not so much taking control as sharing it, and ignores the rising ache of pain as he flickers their head to the side to look up at the front desk of the precinct. Do Atlas personnel keep records?

Oz blinks. “…Yes, actually.” He beelines for the desk, tapping at the computer keys. “A sound idea. Atlas is keen on efficiency. They should be—” He makes a noise. “Ah-ha. B-block.”

Second floor, holding cell 4E… doesn’t seem far. We should hurry.

“Agreed.” Oz spins the cane through their hand and heads for the stairs. Somewhere, an alarm starts to sound. Oz presses a hand to their side with an uncharacteristic curse, and sprints for it.

They make it to the second floor with only minimal resistance, and Oz heads right for the door half-way down the hall. “Here. This room.” He takes up the scroll and presses it to the scanner. The light clicks green. Oz closes the scroll and takes the handle, as if to push the door open—and stops.

There is a long pause. Oscar waits. Oz stares down at their hand for a long moment. There is the slightest of trembles through their fingers before he forces their hand to still. He takes a breath—tightens his grip���

Oscar gently pushes Oz out of the way, and then he is here again, he is himself again, in control once more. Physicality slams into him, the pain sharp and sudden and impossible to ignore, a stitch building in his lungs from the overwork. Still, this switch in control is almost too easy, which is telling enough, but Oz fumbles in something like shock.

Oscar—

And wow, okay, ow, that fight really pushed all the limits he didn’t even know he had, okay. Oscar grits his teeth and rides out the sudden wave of pain, spots dancing behind his eyes. Beyond a brief and pained hiss through clenched teeth, he manages to swallow it back. “It’s fine,” he whispers, once he feels he can breathe again. “It’s fine.”

Oz hesitates. I should…

“We all need to talk.” Oscar straightens with a pained exhale. “And we will. But there’s too much happening. One thing at a time. Prison break is—” He exhales again, smile twisting wry. “Is, um, probably a bad time.”

Oz is quiet for a very long moment. Oscar waits. They have very little time to lose, perhaps—already he can hear alarms beginning to ring, orders shouting out—but Oscar sets his feet and waits, calm, for the answer.

…Thank you. Oz sounds tired.

Oscar tilts his head and doesn’t bother with a reply, just turns the handle and pushes the door open into the holding cell. Light casts through the open door. Qrow is sitting on a lone bench in a dark cage, his head bowed and shoulders slumped. He doesn’t even look up when the door opens—but the person sitting next to him does.

“A kid?” Robyn Hill looks surprised. “Who the hell… wait. You’re the one from the dinner. With Ironwood.”

“Um,” Oscar says, mentally backpedaling for all he’s worth. What? Robyn? Why? “H-hi?”

Well. This is certainly a surprise. I don’t recall Ironwood putting out an arrest for her.

Yeah, neither does Oscar. Was she arrested with Qrow? Did they take her in just because? That seems... shitty.

At her comment, though, Qrow’s head snaps up. His eyes fix on Oscar and go wide. He straightens like he’s been shocked. “Wh—Oscar!?”

Oscar stares at them, trying to get his mind back on track. Oz chooses this moment to be unhelpful and go utterly silent, which is. Okay. Fine. After a pause, Oscar works his jaw and manages a weak smile. “Oh, um. Yep. That’s me.”

“How did you get here?” Robyn asks, still looking bewildered, but it is Qrow who jumps to his feet and heads towards the bars. “Kid,” he says. “Kid, I thought you were dead!”

“What?” Oscar says, and Oz says, The report, the officers must have told them, and Oscar snaps his mouth shut. “Oh, right. Right.” He pauses, a sinking feeling in his gut, a mingled dread from Oz and Oscar both. “Um.” He doesn’t want to tell them about Ironwood just yet. Not if he doesn’t have to. This just… isn’t the place for it. “It’s a long story.” He moves for the cell doors, holding out the guard scroll. “Let’s get out of here, first.”

Qrow passes a hand down his face, looking ragged but relieved, laughing quietly in a way that doesn’t make it sound like he’s laughing at all. Robyn just shakes her head. “No, wait,” she says, as Oscar unlocks the cell. “I don’t understand. How did you even find us here? This is a military facility!”

“They’re distracted with other things, right now,” Oscar says absently, pulling open the grate. His side aches. He bites back the wince. “They were undermanned. Um, I found keys.”

Robyn scowls at him. “You broke into a guarded government facility all on your own?” She sounds half-way between incredulous and impressed, and turns to shoot Qrow a glare, as if asking for an explanation. Qrow, too, is looking at Oscar oddly, his brow furrowed. He’s holding something tight in his hands, Oscar realizes suddenly—a small object, something reflective, that he’s flipping absently through his fingers.

Oscar meets Qrow’s gaze, calm, and offers a pale smile. “Not… entirely on my own,” he says, careful, and when Qrow goes still, he flips the Long Memory so he’s holding in it in both hands, a silent answer to the question he sees on Qrow’s face. He waits. Qrow doesn’t respond.

Oz is silent, too—a tangle of something like guilt and a pale regret, exhaustion—but all Oscar does is nod, and collapses the cane to clip it on his belt again. “It’s just me right now, though,” he says. Shouting drifts up from the floor below. Oscar turns to Robyn. “Can you fly an airship?”

She looks at him with narrowed eyes. “You gonna explain what the hell that cryptic-ass statement was?”

Oscar actually grins. “Sure.” The shouting grows louder. “Just, um, later?”

She considers him. Then she nods. “I can fly a ship.” She claps Qrow on the shoulder, and for a moment her voice goes awkwardly gentle. “Come on, asshole. Time to run.”

Qrow seems to jolt back to himself. His fingers clench around the thing in his hand. “Right. Right.” He shakes his head, turns to Oscar—and then shakes his head again. “Lead the way, kid.”

Oz murmurs in the back of his mind, muted. He seems shaken.

Oscar looks Qrow up and down. He does seem shaken. Oddly disconnected. There’s blood flecking off his sleeves, his hands. Oscar doesn’t like that look of it—it gives him a bad feeling.

His lips press. There’s no time.

“Let’s go,” he says, and rushes from the cell.

Escape is marginally easier than breaking in—Robyn seems almost too keen to bust some heads, and once they pick up their weapons she fights with gusto. She seems angry, and more than happy to take that anger out on the guards who’d locked them up. Oscar supposes he can’t really blame her. After everything she did for Mantle, the last few hours were probably like something from her own personal hell.

Qrow’s weapon is bloody all the way to the hilt, poorly cleaned. Qrow actually flinches when he sees it. Oscar is getting such a bad feeling about this.

Oz, too, is quiet. This isn’t good.

Yeah, obviously. But Oscar swallows it back.

They are running through the halls now, only slowed by the continuous stitch in Oscar’s side. He’s limping badly, and his cane is getting more use as a crutch than a weapon right now. Ow, ow, ow. He gets the sense Oz wants to offer to take over again, except they both know that’d cause too many problems right now. Oscar tilts back his head, looking at Qrow from the corner of his eye. “What do you think happened?”

…The object in his hand—it looks like a badge, don’t you think?

Oscar almost trips. Oh. Oh, no. “Do you think—?”

I am not sure. I wasn’t aware for a majority of those moments, and you only met him once. But… General Ironwood’s men are—incredibly loyal. It would not surprise me if…

Oscar presses his lips in a thin line, chest aching at the thought. He hadn’t known Clover Ebi well to have much of an opinion, but if Oz’s guess is right—that must have hurt.

“All good, kid?”

He looks up to see both Robyn and Qrow looking back at him, Robyn’s face creased in worry and Qrow’s blank in a way that makes him want to hide. Oh, shoot. He manages a smile. “Um.” How to salvage this?

We are still running for our lives. A rather more pressing issue at the moment, I would think.

Ah, right. “The airship is behind the building?”

Robyn shakes her head, looking exasperated, but turns back around to run. Qrow stares at Oscar for another long moment and then looks away so quick his neck snaps, and doesn’t look back again.

That… is not a good sign.

“Too late to worry about it now,” Oscar mutters back, and shoves out of the prison doors, side burning, breaths wheezing. The stitch in his lung is starting to become something agonizing. To Robyn: “It’s—t-there, that alley, it should be—still running—I hope—”

She is already turning the corner. “Got it. Get on!”

“T-trying!” Oscar wheezes out, and pushes forward. Pain flares up his side like the stab of a hot poker. His leg buckles again. Oscar makes a strangled noise and tips sideways, arm snapping out for the wall—

A hand grips under his arm and drags him upright. Qrow. He catches Oscar mid-stumble and pulls him forward, dragging them up the ramp and turning just in time to raise his weapon. The sharp ping of a blocked bullet rings out. “Close the damn doors!”

“On it!” Robyn is already in the pilot’s seat, flicking on the controls. “Hold on!”

The ground shudders and Oscar lunges for the airship wall, leaning heavily against the seats and gripping the seatbelts for support. His side is splitting in pain. His head spins, his vision going blurry. The bottom drops away, his ears popping from the pressure; outside the window, he watches as Atlas slowly fades into the clouds, the airship rising up into the sky. They’ve made it. They’ve made it!

He can’t breathe. Every inhale feels like it isn’t enough. Oscar curls up over his side and fights the urge to throw up.

Oz’s voice snaps in the back of his mind, sharp and calming. Oscar. Breathe.

“I—can’t—”

A moment of pause. Then: Let me take control.

Oscar grits his teeth. “But—”

You’re on the cusp of hyperventilation, and with our injuries as they are, such a thing will not be pleasant. I appreciate your concern, and I am grateful, but your wellbeing is far more important than my insistence on avoiding my problems. Let me help.

Oscar bows his head and struggles for one lingering second, and then drops control all at once. It’s one of their rockier switches—for a moment their head dips forward and they almost blackout, and then Oz snaps to awareness and inhales sharply, fighting to get their breathing back under control.

He sits them up straight and places a bracing hand to their side, leaning heavily against the side of the ship. He closes their eyes and slows their breathing, taking deep breaths despite the panicked burning in their lungs.

Oscar, dizzy and distant, his head clear now that he’s away from the pain, takes scope of their state and winces. The little strength they’d regained from their rest in Mantle’s pit is all but gone now. The weariness drags at him.

I… I’m sorry.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” Oz murmurs back, and their aura flickers up, focused solely on their side. Thankfully, the airship has heating, which means their aura’s healing properties can now be fully utilized. “We, ah… perhaps pushed our luck too soon.”

“That so?”

They still— their shock two-fold, the flash of surprise belonging to Oscar and Oz both. In their exhaustion, they’d forgotten where they were. Across from them, Qrow is standing against the airship door, looking down at them with an expression turned cold and hard. “That isn’t exactly like you, Oz.”

…Oh, crap.

Oz doesn’t reply. For a moment he is very still, and then he forcefully relaxes, clenching and unclenching their fingers. His ache for the Long Memory is so strong that even Oscar can feel it, but Oz doesn’t reach for the cane, just pushes them to sit up straight and leans back against the wall, hands still pressed to their side.

“…Perhaps,” he says, finally, with slight strain. “But it has been a—rather tiring day. Even for me.” A pause. “We… all make mistakes.”

Qrow’s face darkens, a flash of anger like a storm. “Yeah, that’s an understatement.” His fingers are white-knuckled on his sleeve, his jaw tight. He straightens, looking ready to snap—

“Okay,” says Robyn, from the front. She turns back to look at them. “I’ll bite. The hell is going on? What the fuck just happened to the kid?”

Oz visibly winces. In the back of their mind, Oscar sighs. Oh, geez.

Oz speaks very quietly, under their breath. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to—”

At this point, switching might make things worse, Oz. He pushes back, for once—hilariously—refusing control. Rebuilding trust, remember?

Oz sighs, but seems unsurprised, and Oscar suspects he perhaps just wanted to hear someone else say it. He straightens, then winces again when the pain in their side flares, bad enough even Oscar can feel it, though it’s muted by the distance.

“That is…” Oz exhales, hard. “I am Professor Ozpin. It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Hill. I have heard… good things about you.” He manages a smile. “To make a long story very short, I am—paired with Oscar through an old curse that has had me reincarnate again and again, until Salem is defeated. Oscar is my most recent incarnation. He is also, in fact, still here—I am just briefly taking control.”

Robyn blinks fast. She stares at them for a long moment, as if waiting for the punchline, and when one doesn’t come she sits back in the pilot’s seat and turns her face to the window, looking bewildered. “That’s… okay, then.”

Argh, we look so weird…

Oz’s expression twitches into a wan smile, but Qrow shifts and the smile drops, stone cold. Qrow does not look at all pleased. His eyes are bright with fury. “But why bother introducing yourself, anyway?” Qrow sounds icy. “Let me guess. The moment you give up control, snap! Gone away again, right?”

“What?” Robyn says.

Oz doesn’t react. For Robyn’s benefit, he says, reluctant and forced, “I… also have spent these last few months— mostly unaware, as it were. I have only just returned.” His eyes flicker to Qrow. He takes a long breath. “I… I want to say that I am—”

“Save it.” Qrow’s voice snaps. “Why now? Why today? Why the hell are you back?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Oz stares calmly back, but Oscar can feel his exhaustion, soul-deep and aching. They are both of them at their limit. “I… I am here. To stay. Even after Oscar takes back control. I am simply in control now to manage—the damage.”

Robyn’s eyes flash back, her hands tight on the airship controls. “The kid’s hurt?”

Qrow straightens at that. “What happened?”

Oz—

“They will find out sooner or later,” Oz says simply, cutting Oscar off. “Best to know now.” He closes their eyes and takes another breath. “Oscar sought to convince Ja—General Ironwood to change his mind about Mantle. Ironwood… did not take well to this.” He pauses, then sighs. “He shot us off a cliff.”

There is a long, awful silence. Qrow looks pale. Robyn’s hands are white-knuckled on the controls. “So that’s it,” she says, voice tight. “That’s it. That’s—where he stands.”

Qrow stares. “…Are you serious?”

“…It broke our aura.” Oz presses their hand against the wound, breathing shallowly. “Only a bruise, thankfully, but… if Oscar’s aura had been any more depleted, we would not have survived the bullet, let alone the fall.”

Nothing. Qrow is still. Perhaps it is the shock about Ironwood, or whatever happened that bloodied Qrow’s weapon and left Clover Ebi’s pin in his grasp, but all his anger seems abruptly drained. He slumps against the door, hand covering his face. For a moment the only noise is the rattle of the airship, battling against the storm.

Oz looks away. “I understand if you cannot forgive me,” he says, in the silence. “And I will not ask you to. But Salem is coming. And if we do not act soon, then Atlas will meet a fate even worse than Beacon.” He lifts his head, but still, cannot seem to bring himself to look back at Qrow. “I… understand if you don’t trust me. I have not, after all, proved myself trustworthy.” He hesitates, longer, and then, quietly: “But please. Whatever the plan… let me help.”

Qrow breathes in. Breathes out. Straightens against the door. “I don’t trust you.” Blunt. Sharp. Oz doesn’t flinch, but his eyes close, and Oscar would cringe if he could. “And forgiveness isn’t even on the table, frankly. But.” Qrow scrubs a hand down his face. “Fuck, if James has really—well. We could use all the help we could get.” His hand lowers. His eyes are sharp. “Hey, Oscar.”

Oscar brightens in interest. Me?

Oz says, cautiously, “He’s listening.”

Qrow stares at them, as if trying to see Oscar past Oz’s eyes. “Do you trust him?”

Oscar’s response is immediate. I’m willing to try.

Oz winces. “Oscar—”

Like I said before. It’s never too late to build trust. Not if you’re willing to mend it.

Oz hesitates. Takes a deep breath, then pauses again, unsure of how to voice it. “Ah, he—”

“Stop.” Oz’s mouth snaps shut. Qrow closes his eyes. He looks tired again. “I can tell. Kid’s face is an open book, even when you’re the one wearing it.” His eyes open. He lifts his hand and looks at his palm. Oz was right—it is Clover’s badge, small and silver and flecked with drying blood.

Qrow looks at the badge for a long time, then gently closes his fingers around it. He tucks the badge away in his inner coat pocket, where his flask used to sit. “Well,” he says, to the wall. “If Oscar’s willing to give you a chance… fine.”

Oz falters, obviously taken off-guard. His surprise is tinged with something sharp and golden, a rush of relief. “I—that’s—thank you. I will—”

“I’m not done.” Qrow’s stare bores into them. “I don’t forgive you. At the moment, I’m too angry to really consider it. The kids… who knows. Maybe they’ll be a different story. But whatever happens. Whatever comes next? You’re not in charge. And if you step out of line, if you lie—again?” Qrow leans forward. “This is it, Oz. One last chance.” His voice rasps. “Try not to fuck it up, yeah?”

Silence, again. Qrow leans back against the door. He seems drained. Tired. He closes his eyes.

“I understand,” Oz says. He looks down. “Thank you.”

Another pause. The silence stretches. Oscar nudges him, and Oz takes a breath. “Qrow. I am sorry for your loss. He seemed like a good man.”

Qrow’s jaw clenches, and he looks up, livid—but Oscar is already in control again, blinking fast from the blood rush and pulling a face at the floor. Qrow slumps. “That—!”

“He meant it.” Oscar presses at his side, closing weary eyes. He feels tired, but—pleased, too. Oz is a quiet sigh in the back of his mind, but his emotion is a tangle of guilt and bone-deep relief. A chance. It is more than Oz feels he deserves, but that is what he’s been given.

Still. I wouldn’t exactly label that conversation as having “gone well,” Oscar.

“No,” Oscar agrees, “but it’s a start.” He lifts his head and gives Qrow a weak smile. “Thanks for hearing him out.”

Qrow sighs again. “The things I do for you kids.”

Oscar laughs at that. Then he trails off. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, shoot. The others—” He tries to sit up, and hisses when his side twinges. The pain is fading under the focus of their aura, slowly and surely, but it’s still seizing. “Salem is coming—and they think I’m dead or, you know, that you’re in prison—we need to—can we—?”

“Calm down, pipsqueak.” Robyn. She’s already flicking through the controls. “Finally, something I can do. That conversation was dramatic, don’t get me wrong, and it did explain some stuff, but wow that was awkward to sit through. Give me a sec.”

Qrow puts a hand back over his face. In the back of Oscar’s head, Oz is a momentary burn of embarrassment.

I’ll admit. I forgot she was there.

Oscar snickers once, smothers it at Qrow’s glare, and gives Robyn a smile. “If you can reach them—”

“Got it.”

Static crackles through the airship. A voice bleeds through. No-nonsense and sharp—Maria. “Who is this?”

Oscar sits back, eyes half-lidded, exhaustion lingering, listening to the sound of his friends’ voices. Jaune. Ruby. Nora and Ren and Weiss and all the others. He closes his eyes with a smile, calls a weak affirmative when they demand after him, and lets their relief wash over him, warm, welcome. They’re all alive, they know he’s alive—Qrow is as willing to work with Oz as he can be, and sooner or later they’ll have a plan.

Salem is coming. The storm is almost upon them. But there is a warmth, Oscar thinks, in knowing he won’t face it alone.

Maybe Ironwood never saw Oscar for Oscar, and maybe he never saw Mantle as a place worth saving—who can know? But the people here care, the people here see him, and together, he thinks, they can at least give Mantle a chance.

Oscar.

He pries his eyes open. Qrow and Robyn are talking with the others—hashing out a place to meet, to plan. Soon they’ll all be together again. Soon they’ll figure it out.

Thank you. I know I have said that numerous times today, but… truly. Thank you for giving me a chance.

Oscar hums, and closes his eyes. “Had an advantage,” he mumbles back, exhausted. “Knew you meant it.”

Oz feels lighter. Almost as if he wants to laugh. True. Oscar’s head dips. Oz’s voice is warm. Rest, Oscar. I’ll wake you when we land.

He knows Oz will. There is a peace in knowing that—in having Oz watch his back. Oscar tips his head forward and lies down on the airship seats, and lets the crackling static of his team’s voices and the rumble of the airship carry him to sleep.

[pogaytosalad]

Heres a copy of a story i wrote in 9th grade.

A takeover of unreasonable measures, by jade.

It was a normal day, just like any other. I stood at my station in sector ⬽:➻. To pronounce it correctly, I’d have to tear out your tongue. But that's beside the point. I was scanning the travelers’ holo-passes as I did every day. I made sure they were fit for entry. If they weren’t, well, they got shoved into a disintegration chamber, which was just a massive and very intense tanning bed meant for giants, and were disintegrated on the spot. It was a simple job. It paid well and had good benefits. No insurance though. I was happy. Now, you see… today was not going to be normal. In any way at all. Because unbeknownst to me there was a fleet of ergon warships headed my way…

Just before my lunch break, I received a distress signal from a human named Wain: 

“Help. If anyone can hear me, there's a fleet of *chrzch* warshi- *chrzch*headed for y- *chrzch*” That's what I remember him saying. There was a lot of interference but it sounded like a warship fleet was headed our way.  I didn't know what kind of madmen would try to invade this place. We were the most heavily protected sector in the galaxy. But it's better to be prepared than to be steamrolled by surprise. So I went to my weapons cache and retrieved my acidic sniper rifle. It was a nice long white gun, with a glowing neon green stripe along each side. The gun had a shape similar to a sideways vase with a handle on the bottom. My rifle, or the “mountain melter” as I called it was strong enough to create a hole in the side of a warship about the size of the old Mount Everest on Earth, and then continue to break apart the warship through the acidic properties of the bullet. It was the only one of its kind, as they stopped production after somebody destroyed the factory with said rifle. I ran up the stairs in my cramped workspace to my sniper nest and shut down the border. I laid down and set my scope to 300x zoom. I could see a small fleet of warships headed our way. I couldn't take a shot because I couldn't afford to miss and alert them that we knew they were there. At the pace they were moving, they would arrive in exactly 2 hours, 39 minutes and 46 seconds. I had to find the war captain and warn him.  

I beamed down to the planet and approached the captains office doors. They were massive mahogany doors that opened into a gargantuan, cavernous room. I’d only been there once, when I'd been assigned to my station. But there were massive burns and cuts in the wall.- the kind that could only have been caused by a laser beam. I opened the doors and there he was. Dead. His limbs severed, his guts hanging out and his face mangled beyond recognition. I only knew it was him because of his uniform. I didn't have enough time to look because at that moment, a laser sword stabbed me through the arm. Any other sword would have caused me to bleed out, but a laser is superheated and instantly cauterizes the wound. I screamed in pain and turned to see none other than [3825968], our best swordsman. The swordsman himself, with his sword still stuck in my arm. He was an interesting character, a robot with human emotions. He didn't have a face but instead, a white sleek plate. He was tall and lanky, but that didn't make him look any less threatening. He was a streamlined type, a lot like the Japanese bullet trains on earth. He conveyed emotion by projecting emoticons onto his blank white face with a hologram projector built inside of him. He had the evil face emoticon projecting on his face. He was completely silent, without even a breath. I punched at his face and it changed from >:) to >:(. I could feel my knuckles shatter against his titanium skeleton structure. But the adrenaline and fear of death kept me going. I pulled out the sword with my other hand and sliced it through his right arm. It fell off in one clean motion and the exposed wires slowly merged. His face turned from >:(  to (ಠ_ಠ) and kicked me across the room. The impact was softened by the war captain’s corpse. I didn't have time to apologize because within a moment I was trying to keep [3825968] from tearing my face off. I managed to reach the captains desk and push a trapdoor button, causing me to fall down, down, down what felt like the longest fall ever, into the courtyard below. [3825968] fell after me and landed on his legs, which were far stronger than mine, and leapt towards me. I rolled away at the last second and kicked off his back panel, exposing his battery. He lunged at me three or four times and on the final lunge,and I managed to kick out his battery and shut him down for good. 

I didn't know what could have made our most loyal swordsman turn against us, but I had a feeling it had something to do with the warship fleet heading our way.  At this point though, I had to worry about healing my wounds and not dying. Once I reached the medical bay I could see that [3825968] had already been there, but there were also other burns and holes in people. Holes that a sword couldn't have made. I didn't have time to think about it because I was starting to feel sick from the pain. I grabbed some morphine and quickly injected myself with it. Next was my arm wound, but there wasn't much to do about that other than disinfect and bandage it up. My knuckles were nearly shattered after blindly punching [3825968]'s metal face. So I got a hand cast. This cast allowed me to continue moving my fingers, because it was built specifically to keep bones together and allow continued hand use. 

After I finished up in the medical bay, I headed out and found the warden's office. It was locked up tight and I could hear him crying on the other side. I guess [3825968] hadn't gotten to him yet. I knocked on the door and he yelped in surprise. 

“Hey, it's me. I think we might be the only survivors of this attack. You don't know me, and I don't have a name, that you could say at least. I work at the border patrol in sector ⬽:➻”

The warden let me in and quickly closed the door behind us. He told me that the attack was worse than I had thought. The war fleet I had seen was on its way to take over our planet, and had already sent drop pods full of soldiers down to our planet, to soften our defenses before trying to negotiate an agreement. But we weren't going to stand down and let our planet fall to the enemy. It may be a craphole of a planet, but it's our craphole of a planet, dammit. So, the warden and I grabbed our weapons and headed out. I still had [3825968]’s sword but I had also grabbed my incendiary submachine gun, my subzero shotgun and of course, my trusty mountain melter. The submachine gun was of an interesting design, with a sheen black body and flames shooting out the sides. It had a simple shape, like a long pistol. Now the shotgun was of an old fashioned design. It was an almost wooden pattern with sky blue iron sights. The warden just had his massive bronze and green gauntlets and a lack of self preservation, a handy thing to have in this kind of place. So, without any regard for our surroundings, we ran headfirst into battle.

 The warden's gauntlets were massive, around the size of the long extinct great dane dogs of earth. They smashed through the shields of the riot troopers, an enemy dressed in shiny sleek body armor, a lot like the design of [3825968] but they held large riot shields and laser batons. The warden's gauntlets smashed right through and blasted holes through the troopers. I took hold of my incendiary submachine gun and blasted away a small group of gunners, melting them on the spot. In my other hand I held my shotgun, which instantly froze the enemy in a block of ice upon being shot. So I took [3825968]'s sword and sliced the frozen figure into an ice sculpture of the headless horseless horseman, which means I just sliced off his head. Another drop-pod flew in, immediately crushing the warden. I shot it with my mountain melter and killed everyone inside. I didn't have time to mourn the warden because at that exact moment, a riot troop had their baton around my neck. It was red hot and I could feel the skin on my neck burning and peeling off. I managed to take hold of [3825968]'s sword and sliced through the troops waist. I took the shotgun, which was cold to the touch and pushed it against my neck to sooth the burns. I accidentally shot it off releasing an even bigger blast of cold onto my neck, and killed a random trooper nearby. My neck was freezing but it felt good on the burns. I was surrounded by riot troopers and a heavy gunner. The heavy had a massive suit of medieval looking battle armor, but it was new and mechanical, with a sleek design similar to that of [3825968]’s chassis. There was a generator on its back, probably it's only weakness. I didn't have a very clear shot, and my shotgun was out of ammo. The submachine gun was a terrible shot for accuracy, and I had to conserve ammo in my mountain melted, which I was going to need for my escape. I threw [3825968]'s sword at the heavy, it sliced right through the generator and blew up the heavy as well as at least 10 other troopers nearby. I shot the mountain melter down onto the ground and it melted instantly, causing me and every trooper in the city to plunge down into a cave system.

 I survived by blasting the ground below with my submachine gun until it was melted slightly, enough that it would be soft. It would have burned me to a crisp on contact had I not landed with my braced hand. The brace was nearly indestructible and not even my mountain melter could break it. I landed softly and pushed myself off and out onto the cold dark cavern floor. I was sure the fight above had broken my tailbone. And the fall couldn't have helped at all. I stood, and I could feel the sharp pain of the bones piercing my rear. I had sent the entire city down into these caverns. I knew the medical bays wreckage couldn't be too far. I took ammo from every trooper I could find, and soon had enough to survive another fight. Every step caused agony in my rear end. I eventually found the wreckage of the medical bay, and put on an ass-cast(™). It set the bones in my tailbone back into position and would prevent any bullets from going up “main street.” It felt comfortable enough, and I could still maneuver well. I began my climb up onto the planet’s surface. Hopefully I can find a beaming station to teleport to a more civilized location on the planet, hopefully still untouched by the ergon corporation. Once I finished my climb I realized just how much I had damaged the city. It was gone. All of it. Every single building, every single person or creature had fallen and died in the pit. I had no hope of finding a beaming station. Unless one of the stray drop pods had one inside. 

I headed for the closest drop pod I could see, maybe five clicks away. I kept my submachine gun out, just in case I ran into a stray trooper who had somehow escaped. It was an almost desert landscape, cracked ground and nothing to be seen other than the drop pod in the distance. I had a feeling I was going to find a trooper still in there, so I kept my gun pointing forward, safety off. I finally got there and carefully opened the door,only to find a small creature, one I called a frost hound. It was nearly pure white, and had glowing blue eyes that almost appeared to be aflame. It had light blue, jagged claws and light blue razor sharp teeth. It immediately jumped and snatched my gun out of my hand, crushing it instantly,like a kid crushing a can under his foot. All I had was my mountain melter and my shotgun, both of which would be useless. It was near impossible to get a hit with the melter, and any miss would cause my death. The shotgun was useless to me in this, because this hound could resist any form of cold, even in the form of a bullet. So I tossed my guns aside and punched the beast with my casted hand, shattering several of its teeth. It got angry at me and leapt, gripping the cast in its jaws and trying to tear off my arm. I kicked it in the stomach but the beast wasn't fazed. So I bit back, it was cold as hell-vÍti, the old norse underworld. This time the beast receded, so I bashed its face with my cast again and again, until it had a mouth of all gums. The beast wouldn't give up, and this time started swiping at me with it claws. If those made contact I was its next meal. I bashed each individual paw as they came at me, and eventually the beast had nothing else to hurt me with. So I simply lifted it off the ground, and threw it as far away as I could. I stepped into the pod, and accidentally pushed the wrong button, teleporting me directly onto the ergon mothership. 

I was in a hallway of sorts,  it was a long, bright, white hallway with neon orange stripes on the walls. I heard footsteps coming down the hall and started to panic, because all I had was the mountain melter and my submachine gun, both of which could highly damage the interior of the ship and I did not want to die on this ship. I was going to have to be sneaky. I went into prone and took aim with the sniper, set it to a five-times zoom and waited for the trooper to turn the corner. The trooper never turned the corner. Instead they grabbed me from behind and confiscated my weapons. They had snuck up behind me after getting the beaming aboard alert. They dragged me by the shirt collar and tied me to a table. I knew they were going to interrogate me, likely with extreme measures. They wanted easy access to the planet, but dammit I wasn't going to give it to them. I still had my hand cast on, even though it was slightly dented from the frost hound attack. I slipped it off with a jerk of my hand and threw it at the gun cabinet, it exploded and killed the troopers, setting off the alarms.

 My knuckles seemed to have healed enough to move my fingers without too much pain. I quickly ripped my arms through the ropes and grabbed my mountain melter, which had luckily survived the explosion. I knew what had to be done, and it broke my heart to know what I had to do. I took as much fabric and extra random trash I could find and shoved it down the rifle barrel until it was clogged. It would fire once more and explode releasing all its possible energy. It would destroy the ship, and every other ship nearby. Running to the pod bay, I took an elastic and put it over the trigger, I had about 20 seconds until the trigger was pulled so I threw the gun away from me and jumped into a pod, teleporting myself back to the planet. I looked up to where the ships were and saw a huge explosion of green. Tears began to stream from my face, my one possession. The only thing I owned. I had sacrificed everything I had to save the planet. My job was done. There were others far more fit to do my job. So, as you are listening to this story on this tape, I am dead. Dead inside not actually dead damnit. I plan to apply for a job at the dmv. One of the most mind numbing jobs in the universe.  *chzch beeeeep cxzchgzd.* 

Tape Over

[b0sscrew]

Pokemon au!

Another Ducktales AU! Shocker!

Welcome to the inevitable crossover! There are three versions of this (trainers, human trainers, and reverse gejinka) but we'll just focus on the human trainers first because I'm not comfortable with showing my Ducktales drawings yet! This is just for fun and not definitive. I'm going to be doing this like a real adventure! We'll be following the triplets as they travel the region of... Americaw... Sure, we'll go with that for now.

I want this to be a story in many parts. I also want all their adventures from the cannon to be here as well, except it's just the kids facing them most times. Like let's say all the battles are monsters and baddies they've actually fought in cannon. That would be fun!

Oh, let's bring characters into the mix. Let's say that Webby is the boys' rival and best friend. Violet is also their rival but on a slightly lesser scale(mostly to Huey). Boyd also becomes a rival of sort later on(mostly for Louie). So that only leaves Dewey, and to be honest, I'm not sure. I think Webby would be his biggest rival but he doesn't have a secondary rival. I might just make my own rival for him too be honest, but I wish I knew who to put that's around his age. (Also, I realize Boyd is Huey's best friend but Violet is literally his rival in an episode.) I already have an idea for Lena so I can't add her to the rival crew anyways.

Let's talk about the Duck family.

So I decided it would make the most sense if Della and Donald shared custody of the boys. Donald is still Uncle Donald, don't worry. But since Della is always busy with the league they decided it would be easier to just have them both raise the boys. Donald is basically a stay at home dad while Della is constantly working as one of the core members of the elite four. Della is a flying type expert and Scrooge's favorite relative.

Feathery is an amazing boy! He's constantly working with the elite four as the Regions main professor. He's so excited about all pokemon, but his favorite are water types, because they make him giggle like a little kid. He's Huey's favorite uncle and the only adult he can truly relate to. Feathery is still the biggest sweetheart but now everyone takes him seriously and hang on his every word, even if he doesn't realize it.

Gladstone is one of the sole reasons the champion is still the champion. Because of his luck no one has gotten past him and his grass types. If he didn't have his luck people wouldn't have this issue, but he's cursed with it so he literally can't lose. Of course every Pokemon he has ever caught has been a shiny because they seem to gravitate towards him. The only time he can't find one is when he wants to give one to his family. I guess that's just his luck.

Scrooge McDuck, the richest duck in the world. Despite being part of the elite four, he doesn't really have to do anything. Since he's challenged after Gladstone his battles are few and far between. So he began running his company's full time. Although he does have to leave his work to protect the region at least once every two week. He is the most loved of the elite four and also the most hated, with all his enemies. Good thing he's the best of the league.

Region time!

So, Americaw is based off the world of Ducktales and all the places they've been to by the time of the season three hiatus. I also decided you can find any pokemon in this region (even if characters share pokemon sO MaNY TIMES!), and some come earlier than we're used to. Most of the region is mostly forests with ruins but later on is more of the places we know and love, victory road and the league is even one of my favorite places in the entire series.

Gym leaders, baby.

Gym leaders are characters that are associated with the McDuck clan, mostly working for them in some way. I also tried to put a twist on everything and some of the gyms are ones you wouldn't expect for that character. Let's go over them real quick, shall we?

Owlson, the Normal type gym leader. I thought she was perfect for this because she does technically work for Scrooge now. There's nothing too special about her except that she really wants things to go right and she doesn't have room for silly things. I thought she would be fun as a first gym so the kids could get a taste of the adventure ahead of them. She uses a Hoothoot (to harken to her being an owl) named Natasha, and she has a Porygon (to harken to her being a buisness woman) named Charity.

Ludwig Von Drake, the Poison gym leader! As goofy as the man is he is very competitive. He works with Gyro and Fenton on many projects but has his own lab away from them. I think he works the best for poison because than he could be more of a chemist than the other two scientists. He's also the gym leader we see the least of. He's always in a rush to finish his project just to get on the next one thats probably even more dangerous. He uses a Grimmer (chemicals) named Paul, and a Toxel (science in general) named Corey. He also has a Rotom, named Walker, that just helps around the lab.

Fenton, the Steel gym leader. Since fenton is a superhero I thought he could take his typing from Gizmoduck. He's the main one out of the three scientists that makes weapons and items for the police force. The military forces also thank him very frequently. But since he has so many idea's there's no way for him to do them all. He usually overworks himself because of this and it's obvious to anyone who so much as looks at him. Even so he is the most optimistic of the gym leaders and goes nowhere without a smile. He uses a Pawniard (Gizmoduck) named Hero, an Aron (Robots) named named Titanium, and a Scizor (Gizmoduck strength) named Bromine.

Gyro, the electric gym leader. I thought Gyro fit best with electric because of presumably obvious reasons. Gyro is the wildcard of the three scientists and will do anything for science. He can't count how many times he's almost accidentally killed himself with an experiment. He might seem like he's the only one that slows down out of the three scientists, but you're dead wrong. He probably works the hardest and has the most unhealthy habits out of all of them. He's the best scientist in the region and refuses to give the spot up for anything. He's currently trying to find a way to turn his blood into coffee. He's as brutally honest as ever, and still full of himself, but will admit defeat. He uses a Magneton (robots) named Maggie, a Rotom (Lil' Bulb) named Tom, and a Vicavolt (robots) named Vic.

Duckworth, the ghost gym leader. He might be a ghost but that just makes him better at his job. He's extremely neat and gets annoyed if a picture is tilted. He doesn't hesitate to greet challengers with a smile and even give them tips during battle. When he looses he still acts like a gentleman. He loves his work and refuses to leave life without "good reason". He uses a Gengar (his demon form) named Káge, a Banette (being able to poses things) named Mary, a Polteageist (because he's fancy) named Green, and a Mismagius (just because he's a ghost) named Lady.

Lena, the psychic gym leader. I told you she had a job. But I also know this typing might not seem like it fits. But trust me, it does. Her magic is what I imagine when a pokemon is Psychic type, so I thought it was perfect. She's rough around the edges when you first meet her but she grows on you once you get to know her. She's loyal to her friend's and already knows the kids once they get to her gym. I believe she is the only one that doesn't work for Scrooge in the cannon. She's basically the same she was in the show. She uses a Hypno (dreams) named Dreamcatcher, a Hatterene (being trapped by magica) named Princess, an Espeon (her necklace) named Garnet, and a Lunatone (the eclipse) named Lunar.

Launchpad, the dragon gym leader. Plot twist! Let me explain before you start yelling at me. I wanted Della to be the flying type specialist, so I had to do something else for Launchpad. It took me forever to figure out what to give him, I even considered the option of repeating flying, before I finally remembered dragon. It hit me that it was perfect! The dragon type embodies everything he loves. Flying? Boom, dragons fly! Superheros? There's a dragon that looks like it was made for a superhero. Airplanes? There's plenty of those. Acting like a child? How about one that looks like a child's imaginary friend! The list goes on! The dragon type was perfect because it's so loose. Anyways, back on track. He uses an Altaria (clouds) named Fluff, a Salamance (superheros) named Comic, a Noivern (DW) named DW, a Flapple (childish) named Flapper, a Drakloak (Sunchaser/Cloudslayer) named Sunchaser, and a Duraludon (vehicals) named Crash.

Ms. Beakly, the dark gym leader. She's a freaking spy, of course she's dark type. She's the hardest gym to beat, even for final gyms. She's tactical and knows (almost) every trick in the book. She'll point out what you're doing wrong and still beat you if you do everything right. She doesn't go easy on anyone so you better be prepared. Despite all of this she is one of the kindest people you will ever meet. When you loose to her she has a plate of cookies for you to take with you when you leave, and if you beat her she gives you an item that'll help you the most with the league, plus cookies for your travels. She loves Webby so much, enough to teach her almost all of her tricks. She's a good woman. She uses a Tyranitar (strength) named Tyrone, a Pangoro (capabilities) named Gordy, a Grimmsnarl (I just thought it fit) named Grimm, a Malamar (that expression) named Mal, and a Honchkrow (spy) named Krow.

I love this idea and can't wait to expand apon it. I alread have so many ideas that it's hard to not spoil any plans I have. I just hope I don't overdue it. I want it to kinda be like a little more serious version of the pokemon anime. Not too serious, but I want it to be like what you'd find in ducktales (just maybe a tiny bit less kid friendly).

Well I hope you enjoy my idea and have fun with it. Well anyways, have a great day!

Also, here's a picture of the HDLW designs.

[davidmann95]

All-Star Superman #2

A scant year to the day since part 1!

All evidence to the contrary I actually have always wanted to go back to this, especially since I keep getting asked if I’ll do so and it stirs my omnipresent sense of guilt over my lack of productivity, and also the last year has not resulted in a mass turnaround of people realizing it’s a for-real good book and not just comfort food so this remains necessary. This isn’t going to be quite as in-depth as the first go-around - both that as the introductory issue and that as the introductory recap had a lot of groundwork to lay - but still plenty to cover, as this issue sets up Lois and Superman’s arcs for the series, which is rooted (amazingly, especially right off the bat, given the book’s reputation of being about how amazing Superman is) in how badly Superman’s let his fears and shortsightedness poison the most important relationship in his life.

If the first issue is the big classic Superman material - Superman saving the day from the monster! Lois and Clark and the rest of the Daily Planet crew! Lex Luthor’s sinister schemes! A ticking clock to doom! - this scales all the way down to the uncomfortably, stiflingly intimate. Classic archetypal Superman stuff gives way to the most Silver Age issue: casual huge ideas, relationship drama, misunderstandings, last-minute reveals that recontextualize the entire issue, and baaaarely latent psychodrama bubbling up at the edges. In service of that the visual framing here is not unlike a stage play, a limited set of physically connected locales as a pair of figures bounce off one another. Quitely and Grant’s work is therefore comparatively subdued next to issue #1, keeping to traditional panel layouts and wide or medium shots with a background color palate of mostly blacks and whites and grays with a handful of other colors popping out...until Lois starts to lose her shit at the end of the issue and we get close-ups and full black and white panels and eerie glowing and dutch angles and that unsettling abstract image of her clenched teeth, as the story starts to squeeze us like Lois’s gut.

She’s right to be unsettled for that matter; she’s alone on Superman’s turf (the one issue where that’s the case other than #6, and that one’s about how Smallville stopped being his home), the weird antiseptic alien lair of the ultimate super-hobbyist, and all the baggage of their relationship is spilling out into the open as she has less and less reason to think the best of this odd man who’s been lying to her for years. Unlike the Silver Age tales this is referencing, she’s absolutely on the money with her complaints about him: he’s been dicking around with her forever and thinks it can all be okay now (His little “What?” on the second page when she bursts his bubble says it all), and he’s awkwardly overcompensating trying to fix it.

While the Fortress tour serves to peacefully acclimate us to how utterly bizarre Superman’s world really gets past the traditional rescues (the little cubic starfield we don’t know the meaning of yet, trophies are floating rather than physically suspended, the glowing flowers in Lois’s room, “The Phantom Zone map room’s pretty dull unless you can see radio-negative anti-waves”), Superman himself is...humblebragging isn’t the right way of putting it, but it feels like he’s working way, way harder than he ever will again in this book to be cool and impressive and assuring. He’s a dope in love, but he can tell something’s up and that super-brain of his isn’t putting the obvious pieces together, or noticing that this is just putting her off further and further until, like Bluebeard’s wife before her, she stumbles through the threshold of the door she was never meant to, even of course in the end he’s still Superman and there’s a perfectly good reason. Not a good enough reason, however, for her accusations at dinner to not hit home - his mind may be expanding, but he’s still way up his own ass here in a genuinely unpleasant way that’ll be elaborated on momentarily. For now he’s left stammering that she should trust him and it’s limp and phony, especially compared to his big entreaty for someone to trust him in #10 (which’ll be right after he finally comes clean with her); while Superman may not be considered a savior figure by his friends in here the way he often is in the mainline comics Lois seems to be the only one who doesn’t look up to him at least a little bit, but that clarity means she’ll call him out where no one else will.

Across the next two pages it’s all laid out, and we get to the roots of where things have gone wrong between the two of them. Lois is paranoid, certainly, the panels are literally squeezing in on her, but with Superman seeming so out-there and alien like never before she would have every right to be even sans alien chemicals. But notably there remains throughout a part of her assuming the best of him wondering if maybe this is just another big misunderstanding or that he’s simply been mutated by the solar overexposure. And in her heart of hearts, she admits that maybe she wants this to be another big damn trick with a completely sensible justification, because the alternative is that this is the new normal and she has to accept that he’s a flawed mortal man. It’s ugly and it’s mean - especially since she likes Clark - and it’s human as hell in the worst, most understandable way. It’s not going to be until said mortality is staring her in the face that she’ll be able to accept it.

Superman, meanwhile...someone could write a thesis on these panels as an articulation of the Superman/Clark dynamic. The Mirror of Truth is actually preexisting, centerpiece of a Jerry Siegel/Curt Swan joint in Action Comics #269 that was later adapted into the Superman newspaper strip where Lois uses it to figure out Superman is Clark Kent until he tricks her into believing the mirror can lie, after which he tosses it in a volcano; here it’s survived, and curiously shows him as Superman rather than Clark, when in the original tale it displayed Kent even though that was fully the era of Clark as a disguise. In here too it’s Superman who’s the ‘true’ identity of the two and which this time is reflected in the mirror, yet as in #1 it’s Clark who says what he’s truly feeling. In that light, the final panel of the abandoned glasses reads like nothing so much as Superman using the mirror as affirmation that the truth of the solemn, steadfast Superman identity gives him licence to deny the uncomfortable emotions his squishy human farmboy side is dredging up, ‘lying’ to him in a way he had to fake in the source material. Those emotions however knock right on the door of what he can’t grasp here: Clark’s so wrapped up in his own head trying to do the ‘right’ thing that he’s overlooking how his attempts at self-sacrificing selflessness are hurting the people around him. Throughout the series he’ll come to rely on others, first at his lowest points with Jimmy and the Bizarros, until at last he comes to invest true trust in Lois, and the Kandorians, and Leo Quintum, and even Lex.

For now though Lois is deep in a hole, a brief but memorable meeting with the Unknown Superman of 4500AD - everything Superman seems to be becoming to her even before she wonders if it’s literally him, cryptic and masked and with a big ‘ol question mark right on his chest instead of the familiar comforting logo, even his gutbuster of a question reinforcing his distance from a recognizable human experience - leading her all the way to reimagining her Silver Age ideal happy ending of marriage and family with Superman as a Cronenbergian horror. It’s still a Superman story, it turns out he had the very best reason possible for wanting to keep her in the dark, but right through to the end he remains just a little condescending in his reassurance, and his gift of essentially bringing her up to his ‘level’ isn’t going to solve the problem. While the next issue lets us see the two of them properly in love, it won’t be until the elephant in the room comes out that they can come to terms.

Additional notes

* God Quitely is so good. Look at the way the seatbelt curves in the first panel! Lois’s bemused little disbelieving smirk!

* Pages 2-3: Aurora Borealis?!

* Lois is the only character other than Superman who gets to have actual narration (in both cases as looks at their in-text writing), the only one whose viewpoint is thus privileged in the same way as his.

* The key is the realization of this series’ aesthetic in a nutshell: the old-school idea in a sleek, shiny, clever new way that doesn’t take away from the fantastical toyeticness of it all. For that matter, the key is the centerpiece of a later bit with Superman that could be fairly described as the long-term goal of the book book as Morrison’s hoped-for perennial: “One day some future man or woman will open that door, with that key. When they do, I want them to know how it felt to live at the dawn of the age of superheroes.”

* This is A. The first note of a larger DC universe existing offscreen, something that I’ll go into more when discussing #8, B. A brilliant, concise, fun little summation of his place in Superman’s world, and C. Absolutely hilarious given Morrison suggested in his exit interview that this could be seen as much later on in the same universe as All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder, which entirely rewrites the tone of that moment.

* Already discussed the key but the muscles in Superman’s hand tensing a bit at picking it up is another great detail.

* The glimpse of the Fortress here is excellent: the statues of his friends and enemies instead of pictures because he does things bigger with the yellow electric something crackling at the end of it, the off-model but curious-looking robot appearing to glance at Kandor (are it and the bigger robot with the seats on top of it trophies, or Superman Robots with different designs tasked for specific purposes?), the classic Bad Penny Good For One Crime, the Legion time bubble that establishes his time-traveling credentials for later, the Titanic where he and Lois will dine when their relationship hits a proverbial iceberg, and most strikingly the space shuttle Columbia, his apparent rescue of which I have to imagine is a reference to Astro City’s Superman analogue Samaritan debuting by averting the Challenger disaster.

* It’s next issue that has my actual favorite Superman/Lois moment of all time, but “When we’re married fifteen years, when I’m sagging and he looks just the same, will he still meet me and say things like...” “These are for you. I picked them on Alpha Centauri 4.” is right up there.

* The technological aesthetic of the Fortress is so different than P.R.O.J.E.C.T., sleek and solid and cleanly-lit and antiseptic, beautiful and advanced but a little cold in its own way. As stuffed with wonder as this place may be, there’s something hauntingly empty about it, suiting both the tone of the issue and as a physical embodiment of Superman’s emotional state. The one part that goes against it is the forbidden room, it even has beakers and test tubes to sell the mad scientist vibe...though if you were to stretch it, it much more close resembles the human technology seen at P.R.O.J.E.C.T., and this is meant as a gift for one.

* The cosmic anvil made it along with the key into the CWverse, Lois used it in Elseworlds! I may not be expecting All-Star quality from the upcoming Superman and Lois, but it’s good to know the powers that be are using it as a reference point (beyond how it inspired Supergirl’s take on Cat Grant, a connection I discussed in a post that seems to have vanished into thin air). The whole page is perfect, Superman at his most joyfully benign and beautiful and godlike; it’s the one bit where Lois’s skepticism cracks a touch watching him feed his adorable little Lovecraftian abomination from beyond the stars.

* While he never appears physically aside from a statue Brainiac hovers over this series from beginning to end in name and deed, the ominous ultimate enemy of Superman’s past, the great trial overcome even as the scars forever remain. Morrison mentioned in the exit interview that he didn’t appear in here because he and Quitely already used him as the villain of JLA: Earth 2, but that if he had it would have borrowed Superman: The Animated Series’ take on him as a Kryptonian AI gone rogue. Personally I like his place in here as-is, a little totem parallel to the Justice League references indicating the breadth of Superman’s history between putting on the cape and Luthor’s final scheme.

* A pair of minor notes: Lois points at Superman with the pointy fork when asking him pointed questions, and while it’s not immediately clear on first read she does in fact ask the Unknown Superman exactly 3 questions (“Kal Kent?” “Will Superman and I ever marry and have children?” “What do you mean?”) before he replies with his own, as promised.

* “Oww.” and “Tickles.” literally could not be more perfect Superman moments.

* Worth taking a moment to marvel at just how many future plot elements are seeded here. There’s the obvious bit of Superman thinking about having a partner setting up the next issue, but we also for issue #6 have our first look at Kal Kent and Lois wondering “What if (the Unknown Superman) was really (Superman)?” when Clark will indeed pose as him, for #10 we get our first look at Qwewq, and for #11 not only is the Sun-Eater introduced but so is Robot 7′s malfunction as a result of Luthor’s tampering.

* The structure of the series according to Morrison is a solar cycle, beginning and ending at midday with nightfall in the center. If last issue was the sun at its brightest we begin the descent here, with Superman remaining larger-than-life and ultimately trustworthy but with his classic persona and habits held to an additional, unflattering degree of scrutiny.

[incorrect-kotor-quotes]

HOW DID YOU TAKE LONESOME ROAD AT LEVEL TWO?!

Ah, there’s that bewilderment and outrage I was talking about. 

Let me regale you with the tale of Kari Essex, who is less of a human than an invisible tank on legs.

The first thing you need to know about New Vegas in contrast to KotOR is that stealth, called “sneak” here, is totally overpowered. Max it out, and you’re practically undetectable while crouching unless you go up and touch someone, your attacks when you’re hidden are automatic critical hits, and several perks can increase the damage output even further. At the start, with my well-educated, maxed-out intelligence courier, I put all available skill points into sneak, then busted into an abandoned schoolhouse, and stole the stealth boy (cloaking device if you’re not familiar with Fallout). I headed towards Sloan, the place overrun with deathclaws, one of the nastiest enemies in the game. Once there, I injected myself with a ton of drugs to get the Day Tripper perk, which makes stealth boys last slightly long, and headed through.

Keeping crouched and with my back to the rock wall, I made it as far as possible until one of the twenty nearby deathclaws sensed something was amiss. I turned on the stealth boy, got through unmurdered, and headed for the Gun Runners. Then, since the weapons I needed were way out of my price range, I fast traveled back to the starting point. Now with the Gun Runners marked on my map for fast traveling, I could bypass most of the map to come and go as needed, and made for the Canyon Wreckage protected by my pathetic armored vault suit and a 10 mm pistol, ready to take on what’s supposed to be the final DLC. If I wasn’t supposed to do this, they shouldn’t have put the entrance so close to the starting town.

The first area of Lonesome Road is mostly deserted, with a bunch of corpses and some defense robots. My solution for said robots was to let my own robotic companion, ED-E, take care of them while I cowered in a corner behind some boxes, hoping my sneak skill would protect me. This worked out, because sneak is broken. Also Lonesome Road’s attempt at setting a dismal, isolated tone fails completely thanks to ED-E. Because when I hear the words “lonesome road” the first thing I imagine is having a companion constantly following me everywhere whom I can talk to whenever I want.

With the robots taken care of, I got to looting them and the bodies of the Marked Men, the most common enemies in the DLC. Then I went right back to the Gun Runners and sold it all for my anti-materiel rifle with a ton of explosive rounds. 

The game was basically over at that point, nothing could stop me anymore. Everything after me getting that gun and that ammo was a formality. There might be weapons that technically do more damage, but I haven’t found any other with the same combination of range, accuracy, and destructive power. The base damage is 110, plus that same amount for a critical hit, plus 80 points from the explosive blast which affects nearby enemies, then double that because all my hits were sneak attacks. Standard Marked Men have <300 hit points. With the scope and my sneak skill, everything in my way would inevitably explode before it could fight back.

I went back to the Divide and emerged from the initial silo area to hear Ulysses, everyone’s second-favorite Chris Avellone avatar, start talking to me, except in this run he was confused because I was still level 2 and had no faction allegiance for him to insult me over. He insulted me anyway, and I headed down into the ruined landscape, squatting low to the ground, looking for elevated positions from which I proceeded to kill everything in my way with no effort. Then I looted everything, cashed in as much as possible at the local terminals, and lugged everything else back to the Mojave again to sell, this time upgrading my rifle and getting more explosive rounds.

Back to the Divide, I proceeded to the next area, got the laser detonator so I could get those damn warheads out of my way, continued to slaughter the Marked Men, looted their bodies because every one of them is worth like 1000 caps, and went back to the Mojave. This time, since I was full up on ammo, I began buying implants from Dr. Kusanagi at the New Vegas clinic, beginning my transformation into an unstoppable cyborg badass with the health regeneration implant and the subdermal armor. Combined with the riot gear I found, I was well-protected and could slowly regenerate any minor damage without needing stimpaks.

Then in the underpass, I had my first encounter with the Tunnelers, the supposedly implacable threat even Ulysses fears as if they’re anywhere close to the same threat as Cazadores. The Tunnelers emerged from their burrows, then looked around confusedly because although the game had told them I was present and they should come out and kill me, they could not tell where I was, even though I was close enough to start laying down frag mines everywhere. After slaughtering them all with my shiny new 12.7mm  SMG, I headed up to the High Road.

Once there, I found another cluster of walking money sacks for me to kill, made another trip back to cash it all in, and moved on towards the deathclaw-infested road. The deathclaws proved to be the most difficult obstacle so far, required two or dare I say three shots to kill, with a couple even managing to get as close as fifty yards away from me. At the Crow’s Nest, I found upgraded armor to make myself even harder to kill even though I was still probably around Level 5 or so, I don’t remember, and used the elevated position to clear out most of the deathclaws in my path.

Then I moved forward and went inside the trailer. You know the one. The one where you go in and a deathclaw spawns right on top of you. By all rights this should have actually been my first death, but luckily ED-E was outside and drew its attention away long enough (about four seconds, RIP ED-E) for me to get out and shuffle far enough away for it to lose track of me, then I killed it just like every single other enemy in my way. 

Then I reloaded the game and placed frag mines everywhere to hurt it when it spawned and took it out head-to-head with my SMG to prove I could. Because if the game wants to pull cheap bullshit, I’ll pull cheap bullshit right back.

One more Marked Man Massacre and three cybernetic enhancements later, I launched a nuke, listened to Chris Avellone Ulysses get mad at me for launching a nuke even though Chris Avellone the many talented, hardworking, totally-not-pretentious people who made this DLC didn’t include any other option to progress, and moved on to the next stretch.

You know the pattern by now. I got to the next location, killed everything, looted bodies, bought upgrades. The Cave of the Abaddon presented my second instance of panic, though this one was my fault as I forgot to keep squatting while moving forward so the horde of Tunnelers inside spotted and swarmed at me, forcing me to kite them back the way I came. I collected Seymour the dog, and headed up to the last stretch of the Divide.

The Marked Men continued to die easily to me in the next area. Then I went to track down Rawr, the most dangerous deathclaw in the area, killed him in two shots, and took his talon as a trophy. In the next area, I encountered a few Marked Men with their own stealth boys. I killed them, took their stealth boys, used the stealth boys to maneuver and get above their friends. It was over once I had the high ground, and I rained explosive death upon anything and everything that wasn’t already in pieces by this point. I’d finally reached Ulysses’s Temple. Then I turned around and walked away because I had a ton of loot I needed to sell.

I entered Ulysses’s little base, sprung a captured ED-E, then went down to face the devious villain, who was standing at the far end of the silo room facing away from me. I shot him in the back of the head, then a few more times to finished him off, looted his body, fought off a swarm of Marked Men, sacrificed ED-E to stop the nukes from launching, and left.

I went back to the Courier’s Mile, retrieved Blood-Nap, my favorite Bowie knife, and approached the area the same way I did everything else. I ended up taking exactly one hit point of damage from a stray bullet throughout the entire area.

That’s it, that’s how I approached Lonesome Road. I originally found it to be an obnoxiously stupid and boring conclusion to the DLC storyline, so I chose to exploit it to rapidly gain money, experience, and equipment while participating as little in the story as possible. Also, I got the Legion version of the Courier Duster at the end and I have no idea how or why.

[grailbot143]

Welcome Back Everyone!

If you would like to submit art work for this week’s episode please do so before Friday when I will post the recap and update the Master List. Just click here to submit! If you would like to ask me anything or comment on my commentary. . . all asks are screened for spoilers. Just click here to send an ask

Yeah. . . I'm not even gonna briefcap that

What did we learn?

I'm not interested in watching Uncle Grandpa

Steven can summon his shield when he wants to protect his family

Amethyst looks uber cool in them sunglasses

** And So On To The List Of Lists **

Consolidated lingering Questions

The Gems:

Where do they come from? I now know they are not from Earth, they are from somewhere in spaceHomeworld, further away than our ocean can get in a 30 foot (10ish meters) diameter cylinder from the ocean floor.

How is power derived from them?

What about the gemmed enemies? the monsters used to be humanoid, how does that work, why??

What are Amethyst's unique Powers? Ball-rolling. Fire attack? Uses shapeshifting more.

During Ocean Gem it is mentioned by Lapis Lazuli that the only thing the Crystal Gems care about is Earth, but Pearl showed her complete disdain for humans on multiple occasions particularly Keep Beach City Weird where she said humans were insignificant. . . . so what about Earth do they care about so much? Pearl, at the very least, doesn't care about humans or Earth. She's only here because she was following Rose. Amethyst was born here.

What’s the deal with Amethyst’s strange relationship with gravity? seriously, did this just go away?

Who all can fuse? Pearl and Amethyst = Opal and Amethyst and Garnet = Sugilite and Garnet and Amethyst and Pearl = Alexandrite and Steven and Connie = Stevonnie

How old are each of them? It’s suggested that they’re centuries millennia old. Amethyst acts a bit like a teenager. Is she that much younger than Pearl? Where does Garnet fall? Pearl and Garnet are more than 5000 years old, probably much older. Why is Steven the only boy? Amethyst is around 4 to 5000 years old. Due to his dad's age and the fact that his dad is human, Steven must be less than 20. Based on his relationship with Connie, I'm gonna put his age at around 12.

How many boy gems are there everywhere?

Why did the Gems destroy the Galaxy Warp? It seemed like Pearl wanted to go home during Space Race, but she obviously can't deal with any possible relations with the other Gems in Warp Tour.

What happened between the Gems from the homeworld and the Crystal Gems? There's gotta be a HUGE backstory here. . . .

Does all that Crystal Gem vs Home Gem battle have anything to do with Rose's decision to create Steven?

The World:

Everything seems to be happening in Beach City. Are there other Gems in other towns? Like every town has a team of Crystal Gems protecting it? Or is this town some center for universal negativity, so the Gems are focused here? It seems pretty obvious that the Crystal Gems are the only ones on Earth. . . They stated no one else on Earth can use the warp pads.

Why on Earth are the Crystal Gems on Earth?

Where did Lion take Steven and Connie for training? To Rose's Armory Is that place, or a similar one, available to all gems? There's been no evidence of other Gems having similar places. Do you need a familiar to take you there? Apparently not. Pearl can take you there. How does Lion know the way? It's pretty obvious that Lion was sent to Steven by his mom. . . but still not understanding his powers and knowledge

Warp Pads. . . . Galaxy Warp. How did the Galaxy warp get here? Why is it here? Why is it broken? The Galaxy Warp is the only warp pad on Earth that leads off Earth. So it's obvious why it is here. I'm thinking the Crystal Gems broke the Galaxy Warp to avoid dealings with the other Gems. . . BUT WHY?

The House on the Beach:

This is more a curiosity, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the fight that took off that statue’s hands. I bet it involved Sugilite.

What is up with the living temple inside the house? Beating hearts, waterfalls, a pool for getting rid of evil spirits, a holodeck run by the imagination, dimensional shenanigans. Need much more history and understanding here.

Townies:

What’s up with Onion and his dad? Are they from some other planet?

Why would you make a place called Fish Stew Pizza?

What would make one believe a potato can provide protection from a multi-dimensional being. .. . also, are the Gems multi-dimensional? I don't see that.

Rose Quartz:

Why does Rose have to die to give Steven his superpowers?

Is Rose even dead? _pretty sure this is answered_ (-doubts-)

What would make her choose that? a prophesy? desire to give Greg a kid? gonna die anyway?

Did she give up her gem to HAVE a kid or to IMBUE a kid with the gem? My current theory is that the gem is a being that creates a physical form, and that Rose stopped being Rose in order to be Steven (sorta) as I think Rose is still part of the gem (not dead). So essentially Rose's physical form is gone, replaced by Steven's physical form.

Would removing the gem from Steven give Rose back her form, leaving Steven as a common human 12-year-old?

Lion:

What all does Lion know? How did he get his powers? He's a creation of Rose's, so she gave him his powers. He might even still be connected to her somehow.

Characters

The Crystal Gems

Pearl

Garnet

Amethyst

(dead?) Rose Quartz

Steven

Other Gems

Lapis Lazuli

Peridot

Fusions

Opal

Sugilite

Alexandrite

Stevonnie

The Townsfolk & Other Humans

Sadie

Lars

FryMan

PeeDee Fryman

Ronaldo Fryman

Greg

Mailman

Barb (not seen)

Nanafua Pizza

Kofi Pizza

Jenny Pizza

Kiki Pizza

Sour Cream

Buck Dewey

Onion

Onion’s Dad

Mr. Smiley

Suitcase Sam?

Mayor Dewey

Connie

Connie's Mom (Dr)

Connie's Dad (Security Guard)

Kevin

The Mayor's 2 bodyguards

Monsters/Creatures

Centipeedles and their mother

Red Eye

(offscreen) A giant bird with a giant polka-dot egg

The Spirit from the painting that possessed Together Breakfast

The Crystal Shrimp

(deceased) Frybo

Steven with Cats

The Eel that liked shiny stuff

Lion

Starfish Drills and their MOM?

Giant Bird from Giant Woman

The Geode Beetles of Heaven and Earth

The carnivorous moss that turns into beautiful flowers

Holo-Pearl

Training Robot from the cavern

Blow/Pufferfish

Blood Polyp (offscreen)

Ice Monster

Gem Shard Animated Body Parts

Invisible Monster

Sneople

Watermelon Stevens

Dogcopter

Peridot's Robots

Bees (They're magic!)

The lighthouse

Prop Bats

Scarecrows

Peridot's bigger robots

The Wind Lizard

Places

Around Town

Big Donut

Beach City Walk Fries

Funland Arcade

the boardwalk

Fish Stew Pizza

Greg’s van

It’s A Wash

the storage facility

the Crystal Gem’s house on the beach

Suitcase Sam’s T-Shirt store

Funland

Dock

Warehouse (Wrestling Arena, Rave, and Mayor Dewey's Campaign HQ)

Movie Theatre (in town?)

Pearl’s favorite tree (deceased)

Under the Ocean

Lars’ House

The Lighthouse

Greg's Aunt and Uncle's Barn

Crab the Shack

Beanch City

Mystical

The Temple with a beating heart

the storage unit? Greg said it was magical

(destroyed) The Lunar Sea Spire

Warp pad in Steven’s living room

The Training Cavern

Upside down Pyramid in the Strawberry Fields

Sand Castles that the Dessert Glass built

The cave in Arcade Mania

The Sky Spire

The Lava place where Garnet retrieved the Geode Beetle of Earth

Deadman’s Mouth

The cloud/Pillar place in Steven The Sword Fighter

Rose’s Room

The Communications Hub

The underwater place the Glass of Time was in

The ice cavern the Shooting Star was in

Rose’s Fountain

The Geode

Galaxy Warp

Tropical Island of Geodes

Inside Lion's Mane

The Kindergarten

Warp Stream

Kindergarten Basement

Other

Space

The Pollen Field Flower Fields

The Train

Connie's House

Things

Gems

Rose Quartz

2 Garnets

Amethyst

Pearl

Centipeedles’ Mothers gem

(pants animating) Gem Shards

(maybe? pretty sure) The Lunar Goddess Statue

Eel’s Gem

Gem from Upside Down Pyramid

Dessert Glass

Starfish Mother Gem

The ROC in Giant Woman

Blowfish Gem

Ice Monster from Monster Buddies

Lapis Lazuli

(Animated Body Part) Gem Shards

Invisible Monster Gem

Unknown Gem from Garnet's Universe

Mr. Gusite (This is only thing I'll include from that episode)

Mystical Items

Summoned Weapons

Laser Light Cannon

Red Eye?

Lunar Goddess Statue

Cursed Painting

Replicator Wand (destroyed)

Button in the Cavern (and all that stuff)

Fire Salt

Glass of Time

Shooting Star

The Mirror

Warp Whistle

Warp Pads

The Protective Potato (according to Ronaldo)

Wailing Stone

Food (as it’s seemingly important to our little hero)

(discontinued) Cookie Cats

Lion Lickers

Fry Bits (Cat Fingers enjoy this too)

Hot Dogs (you wouldn't have them if all Pork Chops were perfect)

Together Breakfast

(offscreen) Pizza

(unmentioned) Cupcakes in jars

(not food) Cheeseburger backpack

Donuts

Fish Stew Pizza <-- Be sure to join the rewards program!

Giant Strawberries

Margarine to slick hair back

Sodas that he threw all over the place in Tiger Millionaire

Coconuts Sandwich Cereal (Arcade Mania)

Steven (for the bird in Giant Woman)

Cake

Aqua Mexico Burrito

Cream Pies (more a prop than food)

Bag of Chips

Burger for Onion’s Dad

Seagull’s banana peel and pizza

Cheeseburger Backpack full of snacks for the movie

Popcorn

Burgers (with a ridiculous amount of buns, lettuce, and silverware)

Creamed Corn

Cloud Donuts

Cloud Fry Bits

Fire Salt

“Special” Fries

Fire Donut

Kamikaze (directly in his mouth)

CHAAAPS

Mi Torta

Durian Juice

Sandwiches

Blow torch Grilled Cheese

Crying Breakfast Friends

Fish (caught by Sadie, Cooked by Lars)

Potatoes

Bread Sticks (Crab the Shack)

Shrimp (Crab the Shack)

Ringo's Onion Rings

Watermelon

Sadie's Lunch Bags

Sandwiches, cut into triangles (the only way a sandwich should be)

Star Shaped Cookie (you could say they're out of this world)

Chess piece for Dogcoptor in Steven's dream

Macaroni 'n nothing

Cheese packet

Moldy Sponges (Amethyst. . . 'nuff said)

Coffee ( how is this so far down on the list? Garnet drinks it for breakfast. . . )

Jar of Mayo sandwich. . . knives are good.

Packed in the bindle

Marshmallows (BONE MARROW)

Breakfast Only Breakfast Specials (hashbrowns)

Rebel Turkey Legs

Caprese Salad

Media

Let Me Drive My Van (Into Your Heart)

Lonely Blade

Dogcopter 3

Golf Quest

Crying Breakfast Friends

Training Video

Keep Beach City Weird

Under The Knife

For Steven

Citchen Calamity

Ninja Squad

New Ninja Squad

No Home Boys

Evil Bear 2: Bearly Alive (Come scream with me tonight.) (Uncut Version)

Li'l Butler

Passions of Xanxor

Unfamiliar Familiar series

Other

Guitar Dad T-Shirt

Vote 4 My Dad T-Shirt

T-Shirt Cannon

Likes and Dislikes So Far

Dislikes

Not a fan of the important role junk food plays in the show not as prevalent as it was before

I don’t relate to Steven much. He mostly annoys me. He's getting a bit more lovable. . . now it's Pearl that just really rubs me the wrong way (Probably because she thinks humans are insignificant).

Why is there not a main antagonist? Possibly Peridot or Homeworld Gems

Season 1: Episode 5 Frybo

Season 1: Episode 6 Cat Fingers

Season 1: Episode 18 Beach Party

Season 1: Episode 27 House Guest

Season 1: Episode 32 Fusion Cuisine

Season 1: Episode 48 Say Uncle

Likes

I like that all the answers to everything are not conveniently packaged in a single episode

I like Garnet…

and sometimes Amethyst…

Steven's constant struggle to figure out how to fit into his place in the Gems and complete lack of struggle to feel right at home with the humans. . .

I like Greg and his super awesome van

I like that it seemed like we landed in the middle of a life, rather than the beginning of a story… this continues to be true through every episode.

I like most of the townspeople and their relationships with Steven

I like Connie a lot. She is funny and smart and a perfect non-super for the story.

I like arcade games…

I like that there are so many details in the background like everywhere…

and it’s obvious the creators are nerds

I like Sour Cream

I like the representation of emotions related to motherhood that each of the Gems go through in their own ways.

I like that the makers of the show know what customer service is like. Either that or they have really disturbing imaginations.

I like that the show encourages people to think critically and discuss large questions.

I like that there is a whole dark seedy side that I’m only just peeking into.

Shh. . . Don't tell anyone. . . I also like Peridot       She seems like a misunderstood geek girl       just saying

I just want to remind everyone, I write these recaps after having only seen the episode once, a week ago, and often interrupted by my whole blogging thing. I mainly do it for myself to refresh my memory for the next episode, but since I post it, I thought I should ask your forgiveness if it isn’t exactly perfect (or even close). Don’t forget if you have a submission for artwork for today’s episode, submit before Friday using the link above, and I’ll pick one to use as the cover art.

[vee-angel]

Talynn’s Edge (part 1, repost)

The following story is an erotic fanfic based on “Sonnie’s Edge,” the 17 minute short film featured as an episode in the Netflix show Love, Death + Robots. It’s not *completely* necessary to have watched it to enjoy this story, but it’d definitely enhance your understanding. A lot of things about this story are a departure from how I normally write, but all in all, I think it turned out well.

Content warnings: Beastly violence, beast on human sex, beast on beast necrophilia, foot fetishism, references to rape and mental illness, vanilla sex (which was literally the hardest part to write, not even kidding), and an American desperately trying to write with British syntax and idioms (If you’re a British person, feel welcome to let me know if I got anything just incredibly wrong).

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

(Part 1)

The new beastie-baiting arenas weren’t the scooped out, jury-rigged shitholes they’d been a year ago. Right around when Khanivore and I cleared our second dozen consecutive win was about when people were saying the sport was set to go legitimate any day now. Still hadn’t happened, but by the size of the audiences, it seemed like things were going that direction quick.

This place had been set up like the old boxing rings, except the ring was actually ring shaped, and dropped to a pit instead of platforming up. Big displays on the walls cycled through beastie-baiting champions; pilot in the foreground with the newest beastie behind them. The losses were greyed out in the way-back, didn’t want to bring too much attention to dead beasties.

I went tense when I saw my picture pixelate in under the “Sonnie’s Predators” logo. Fucking photochoppers had done a bang up job of making me look the way they supposed I ought to. Scars were smoothed out, but not completely, thank god. My tits weren’t that round, and the screen showed some stupid flirty smirk in place of my resting ‘fuck off’ face. I pulled my hood further up. Last thing I need is some Baiter-groupie figuring out I was here.

Nothing technically wrong with a Baiter checking the competition, but I’m not the type for making a spectacle of it. It’s why I had the rest of my team sit this one out.

There was a new Beastie-baiter giving the people their fill of spectacle and blood-sport. Talynn, her name was. A woman, first one since me. Figured it wouldn’t be long until popular demand put the two of us in a ring together, so might as well get a look at her first. I’d heard she was an American, and acted like the wankbait that promoters had always wanted me to be. Also heard she’d spent a few years as a medical examiner, chopping up corpses to see how they’d died. Bitch liked the cameras, always talking about she had expertise on how bodies break down, come apart. Said other baiters only knows how they get put together. After half a dozen consecutive wins and no losses, people were starting to take her serious.

The main lights started to come down and the pit-lights came on. Bright enough in the center to see the spectacle, with the special lights that luminesed the UV reactive ink everybody got on their skins nowadays.

Announcer appeared in the middle making a big show of how we’d all be witness to a show of hedonistic bloodlust the likes of which nobody’d ever seen. Did a decent job of getting the crowd all riled up and cheering. He introduced the Yank, first. Lascivious twat had named her team “Talynn’s Gash.”  

She walked out alone, confident with this psychotic babydoll grin that men seem to find alluring for some fucking reason. She wore this skin-tight red bodysuit that looked like slicked-up rubber. She walked right up the the very edge of the pit and squatted down like she was some kind of bird perched there. Her hair was dyed purple and formed into a row of short spikes on top. The sides were buzzed to less than a centimeter with swirly lines shaved down to skin.

Her beastie was introduced a moment later. Talynn’s Gash ran a creature called “Hellcat.” People said she and her beastie had an unnatural connection that goes beyond the affinity link. That she treated Hellcat like some kind of pet. Some even suggested that she did… indecent things with her beastie. Fucking idiots make up rumors about things when they don’t know shit. I’ve never put much stock in gossip.

Hellcat waddled out awkwardly on two thick, stubby legs, looking like something that wasn’t meant to walk upright. Beastie’s were required to be able to walk on two legs, but nothing required them to stay upright once the fight started. It dropped down into a quadrupedal position that looked more natural for it. All in all, it was shaped something like a prehistoric hyena, short coal-black fur with a few crimson stripes going up her legs. Massive jaw-muscles rippling into a stout, colossal neck. Thick limbs terminating in raptorial talons, like an eagle with a few extra fingers and thumbs. But the real eye-catch were the spines. From brow to hips, the back and sides of the beastie was adorned with thousands of long, barbed porcupine needles.

Hellcat went statue still for a moment while Talynn perched at the precipice of the pit looking pleased with herself, then suddenly the creature burst into a cheetah-sprint across the pit. It took a leap out over the edge and sped up the walkway while the spectators jumped back screeching. Creature looked like it was running out of space when stout legs launched it up the wall, it began ascending quickly, scratching deep gouges in the fresh-painted wood. The speed demon barely slowed down ‘til it hit the ceiling. Hellcat jumped with scary explosive velocity spinning and flipping to land with a dense thud back in the center of the pit. God-damn it was fast. Fastest thing on legs I’d ever seen.

By the sound of cheers, the audience got a thrill out of it. Still… reckless to put her beastie so close to the ground. And god-damned disrespectful to fuck up the nice new arena walls.

Other team got introduced with typical fanfare. I wasn’t much worried about them. Gone up against them a few months back; second-rate, nothing special. They were fighting something looked mostly like a minotaur with bone-armor rhinoceros skin. Few thick spikes jutted from the knuckle plates. Minogore, they named it. Beastie looked like it might have cleared three and a half meters, as opposed to Hellcat who was only a bit past two.

With introductions done, it was finally time for bloodsport. Fight lights had barely lit when Hellcat rocketed across the pit and snatched a big, bloody crescent out of Minogore’s shin with its beartrap jaws. Fight went on like that a bit, Hellcat dodging lumbering attacks while taking some chomps out whenever it could. It stayed crouched low to the ground, no way to hit without going through the jagged porcupine needles on her back. Minogore got some glancing blows, but his arms were getting hairy with jagged quills.

Minogore was slowing down on account of the chunks of muscle and bone gnawed off his legs. Hellcat was getting more bold. It dodged another fist smash and bounded up his tree-trunk torso like a squirrel. Latched onto his back and started eating through his shoulder. He ran clumsy toward the edge of the pit to try to smash her against the walls, but she hopped off half a second before he hit. Damage had been done, wet bits of blood and splintered bone dripped from Hellcat’s diamond-hard teeth. Minogore’s right arm hung ragdoll.

Their pilot didn’t give up easy, I’ll give ‘em that. He stumbled back in as Hellcat just stalked around him, lupine-like. His one good arm all pulled up and ready. It feinted like it was going in for the kill, but Minogore didn’t take the bait. Did it a second time, getting closer now; that’s when the beastie’s great big fist crashed down on its back. For a split second I thought the fight was turning until I saw those shiny black spines bending towards the fist, barbs hooking in and sticking against it like they were magnetic. Before he could pull back, Hellcat sprinted, yanking him off his feet like he’d been tied to a racecar. Hellcat spun around with the beatie’s hand still velcro spiked onto it and pounced on his back.

With his one good limb all twisted around behind him pinning him down, he just thrashed as Hellcat had a feeding frenzy on the back of his neck. There was a wet crunch as she finally bit through his spine and the body went limp. The crowd shot to their feet with screaming applause.

I looked over at Talynn to see how she was taking her win. She breathed hard with bedroom eyes. Touching herself sensual through her rubber catsuit. She was getting her jollies from this. I heard the crowd starting in with these shocked gasps and looked back into the pit. Hellcat had gotten the late Minogore’s head ripped right off and was holding it up in triumph. It was back up on two legs, but there was this thing between its legs.

Down at the very bottom of its belly was something looked like a big, red dogcock sprouting stiff from a skin-sheath. Hellcat dropped the head and grabbed the beastie’s neckstump as it crouched down and started humping her beastly prick into the wound. Unbefuckinglievable.

Minogore’s pilot started on with a stream of frantic threats and obscenities across the pit at Talynn. She didn’t seem to notice on account of being distracted by the sensations of necro-rapin’ the poor beatie’s corpse that were coming to her brain through Affinity. She was down on all fours touching herself through the bodysuit while she was piloting her beastie to defile her enemy’s remains. The other pilot stormed out, not wanting to watch any more.

Twisted bitch finally finished her show of live-action bestial snuff porn, leaving Minogore’s headless body dripping with spunk. Couldn’t believe she’d actually built a beastie with functioning parts like that. Most Baiters don’t put in anything that isn’t absolutely essential. At best they give just enough vocals so as it can growl and snarl. Talynn and Hellcat left the stage to the sound of an applauding crowd that was looking about to see if everyone else witnessed the same surreal fuck-show they’d just watched.

I kept my hood up and my head down as I shuffled out of the arena with the rest of the spectators. Afterwards, made my way to an out of the way chippy restaurant a few blocks down to process and strategize. Sat down and ordered the specialty. Talynn and I were going to get paired off sooner rather than later, and that beastie of hers was a damn frightful thing to contend with. It took out limbs before going in for the kill; that’s where Khanivore would have an advantage. Two arms, two legs, four bone-spear tentacles, and the bladed head. That gives nine appendages for Hellcat to neutralize before she can kill me. Khanivore’s a good bit faster than the great, burly brutes she usually fights, but nothing compared to Hellcat. Thing moves like it’s got a rocket up its arse. We could maybe get a quick little drone so Khanivore could get in some practice. Or do things analogue-like and pick up a pack of rabbits, maybe. Make for good stew after, anyway.

Just then I noticed a pair of eyes boring into me from a table off to the side. I glanced back. Fuck. It was Talynn. Her and her team must have waltzed in while I was playing out fight scenarios in my head.

She stood up and glided smooth right on over to me, eyes staying locked on my scar-striped face. She sat down across from me looking like she was ready to pounce, except not at all hostile. She moved with this weird felinity made her seem not quite human. I figured I’d been found out and there was no point in pretending I hadn’t been doing what I was doing. Felt awkward, though.

“Hey... congratulations on the win tonight. Figured what with us being the only two female pilots in the sport, promoters would have us face off eventually. Wanted to see what we’d be up against.” I sounded a bit more nervous than I wanted, but she didn’t seem to notice. Just kept staring.

“I idolize you, Sonnie.” she said in this awestruck little voice, “I don’t care if you were watching me. God knows I’ve watched you and Khanivore. You’re a warrior; bestial rage and savagery. I honestly get a little wet when I watch you.” She said the last bit looking straight into my eyes without a whisper of shame. Randy bitch got me blushing.

She was real pretty up close, too. Shit, I’d always been a bit soft for the pretty ones. Waitress brought my food a moment later and I offered to share with Talynn. Her team was getting a bit rowdy over in their corner, but her venerating eyes never left me for a moment. We ate and talked flirtatiously until she invited me back to her room.

I told her we’d better go to mine instead. I got caught up with a pretty thing a while back that had ended up with me having a couple more face-scars and a skull that’d been rebuilt twice now. I’m extra careful since.

As we headed the few blocks back to the room I’d got for the night, Talynn kept looking down at where I was walking, like she was fixated or something. When I asked her about it, she got this nervous look like I’d caught her staring at my tits, and then she changed the subject.

Back in my room I had her strip the moment she got through the door. The red bodysuit didn’t leave much room for hidden tricks, but I couldn’t be too careful. She had a cute body, a bit of rich-girl softness, but not too much, and that bit of a tan that American girls have. I noticed a mess of little white lines down her left arm and across her belly; looked self-inflicted with a razor. She’d used to be a cutter, but I’m in no place to be judgemental. She stood confident with arms akimbo, except her eyes were still downcast to the floor I was standing on.

“You got a thing for feet or something?” I asked teasingly. She responded by shifting with this coy little grin. “Oh fuckin’ hell! You do, don’t you??” She nodded.

I hopped up on the dresser bit of the hotel room and crossed one leg over the other. I pointed one of my street-blackened feet at her, “All right, well get on with it then.” She got this look on her face like I’d just told her she’d won a million quid.

She drifted down onto all fours real graceful and started coming towards me. The girl moved like she was born quadrupedal; made sense she’d practice getting the feel of it to drive Hellcat the way she did. Writhing muscles in her back made me think she might be stronger than she looked, but there wasn’t much she could do to my feet that’d remove me as a rival so I wasn’t worried. Not yet, at least.

She came up and pressed her face against the sole, all reverent-like. I’d heard about people who get off worshipping feet, even got fan-letters from a few, but I didn’t peg Talynn as the submissive type. Then again, she seemed up-for-anything when it came to displays of carnality. Her tongue dripped out of her mouth and slid it slowly from heel up to my toes before she began fellating the digits. It felt… weird. There was an unfamiliar kind of pleasure in it I hadn’t expected, like a finger in the ass.

She flossed her tongue between each of my toes in turn, then pinched the skin at the side real gentle between her teeth. She worked her way back, biting a bit harder as the skin thickened up. It hurt just barely enough to make it interesting. Eventually, she was literally nipping at my heels. I wondered if she’d be appreciative of the poetry of that, but decided to keep my mouth shut about it.

The little footbath she gave me with her gob lasted a good ten minutes. “You’re done” I told her in this dominating tone I guessed she’d like. She looked up at me with this little puppy-dog pout. “It’s my turn, get on the bed. Face up.”

She hopped over, staying on all fours like a good little pet. I pull a set of police style handcuffs out of the drawer and use them to fasten her wrists around the bars in the headboard. She smiled like she thought it was kinky. Truth is I just don’t like surprises from my one-nighters, especially not the ones who’re stark mad like Talynn.

I start kissing at her neck and work my way down, fingertips trailing behind. Cute little Baiter had nice soft tits, so I took my time on those. I figured she liked things a bit rough, on account of the happy little gasp she let out when I grabbed hard and dug my fingernails in. She had these puffy pink little nipples I grabbed and twisted hard. She squealed but still had this toothy grin on her face. At that point I sucked as much of her titmeat into my mouth as I could and bit down. Not too hard, just enough to leave a momento that’d last a couple days. Gave her a matching bite mark on the other side before returning to my pilgrimage down to her smooth little quim.

Between her legs tasted like a rich girl. You could tell the ones that ate all fresh organic grown shit. I put my hands on the inside of each leg and pried her wide open. Bendy little cunt, nearly got her into a full split. I gave a few slow kisses on the lower lips before I got to work. Buried my tongue inside her before I started using it to write out the alphabet. It was a trick I’d heard way back before I’d had my first fuck. Not too effective on it’s own, I’d learned, but pay attention and you can figure out the right spots to hit. Talynn liked the side to side and when I did little circles around her clit. T’s and Z’s and O’s hit the spots for her. Also liked when I raked my nails up and down the inside of her thighs. Got into a nice rhythm for a while, licking and sucking and scratching a bit harder each time I switched it up. The girl was breathing harder and shorter, and started in with this happy little mewling.

I stopped suddenly and pulled away just as she was edging right close to the point of no return. Looked up at her to see her staring daggers at me, but her mad little smirk said she was still having fun. “Bitch!” she said at me in this I-can’t-believe-you-did-that tone.

“Can’t have you falling in love with a rival Baiter, can we? You might get soft when you’re in the pit. Don’t want any doubt when I take down that beastie of yours that I did it fair.”

Talynn barked out this arrogant laugh, then suddenly she… changed. The little babydoll act turned sinister, and she got this air of menace dripping off of her. The cute little fan-girl was speaking in this deep dark voice all of a sudden. “You think Khanivore is going to take me down?” Her tone seemed real arrogant for a bitch that was naked and handcuffed on my bed. “We’re unbeatable. You may have seen Hellcat in action, but you don’t know what we’re capable of.”

She had my interest piqued with that one. “You and your beastie got a secret edge, do you?”

Her grin turned sinister, “If you’re lucky, you might figure it out right before I fuck your beastie’s corpse. Then, I’ll fuck you until you scream. And this time, I won’t let you escape until I’m satisfied.”

This time I actually laughed a bit as the mad cunt thought she could menace me in her predicament. “And what are you going to do if I win, then? That mean I get to fuck you ‘til I’ve had my satisfaction fulfilled?”

She shrugged, “I guess so.”

“That a promise?”

She stared into my eyes real intense while she considered. “Winner fucks the loser any way they choose. I promise if you do.”

I nodded and then opened a drawer to toss her the handcuff key. It landed by her head and she seemed to have no problems with holding it in her mouth and twisting round to get her wrists undone. She started slipping back into the red, rubber skinsuit when she got inquisitive. “They say you got raped by a gang that carved you up afterwards.” She said the words way more casual than any sane person ought to, “That’s where you got all those pretty scars. They also say it made you angry, and hard. And that’s why you always win. Is that true?”

“It’s true that’s what they fucking say, yeah.”

Talynn asked, “Does it turn you on?” I shot back with this face that said what the fuck? But she just kept on with this dreamy-dark look on her face. “Knowing that they wanted to hurt you, to violate you. Does it make you wet when you look in the mirror and see the love letters they wrote to you in your flesh? It’s kind of beautiful when you think about it. They wanted to give you a gift they knew you’d keep forever.”

“Are you fucking mental?!”

This gash of a shit-eating grin opened up across her face as she looked back at me, “Can’t have you falling in love with a rival Baiter, can we? You might get soft.”

I shook my head, she was just fucking with me to get a bit of payback. That was fair enough. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a goddamn psychopath?”

“I’m told it’s one of my better qualities.”

“Look, I’ll be honest with you. The estate gang bit’s a fabrication. Got into a mishap and flipped my van a while back... I ain’t never been raped.”

Talynn had her clothes back on at this point, what little of them there was. She walked up to me real close and said, “Well if you want to keep it that way, you’d better start training.” Then she walked out of my room with this conceited expression that made me want to bash her skull into pudding.

Yankee bitch was a spoiled twat, and fucking certifiable, but she’ll be a hell of a rival.

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

“Sonnie is amazing.” I spoke the words into the mostly empty warehouse to my precious Hellcat. In truth, I was talking to the other part of myself through the Affinity Link, perceiving the world through two bodies at once. She was the real Talynn; the warrior, the sadist… the beast. She appeared as my savior when I was a child. A monster strong enough to overcome the ones that surrounded me. Doctors called her a ‘dissociative identity” and told me I needed treatment to get rid of her. Bullshit. Talynn was my avenging angel, she didn’t need treatment. She needed a body of her own, and a regular supply of monsters to keep her bloodlust sated.

The beast and I mirrored one another, stalking in excited circles. “We’ll need to train if we want to beat her. And I know you want to beat her, don’t you, Talynn? It will be so beautiful. Khanivore will make such a beautiful corpse-lover for you, don’t you think? I’ll keep us linked for afterwards, so you can watch me violate Sonnie in the back room. She’s such a beautiful thing, isn’t she, my love?” My naked body writhed at the thought as I laid down upon a large metal crate. My throbbing cunt overflowed with lubrication. Sonnie refused to give me an orgasm, and I wouldn’t be able to rest until I was satisfied.

“Sonnie is mine, Tara-Lynn.” The words snarled through my own vocal chords, but the voice wasn’t my own. Speaking was the only thing Talynn used my body for, everything else she did with Hellcat.

“What? No, she didn’t know she was talking to you when she agreed. She doesn’t-”

“I want them both!! I will violate Khanivore’s corpse and then I will drag Sonnie into the pit and fuck her in the blood of her beastie.” Talynn animated Hellcat’s face into a menacing scowl as she spoke.

“Oh.” was all I said at first. “The audience will enjoy that.” I finally added.

“As will you, Tara-Lynn. You always enjoy feeling through my body. I know you do. She’ll be so small, so tight as we rape her to death.”

I had to admit it was true, I always loved feeling sex through Hellcat. At that, Talynn directed Hellcat’s massive body to climb atop my own, I had to be careful to avoid the talons and spines. My legs spread eagerly as my beloved’s red cock tumesced beyond her sheath. She slowly pressed it between my legs and found no resistance as our bodies joined as closely as our minds.

Hellcat rocked my body as she began slowly, but powerfully, thrusting her beastial phallus inside of me. I squealed in rapturous pleasure as I felt her knot slowly expanding inside me, binding me to her. Talynn directed her thrusts to quicken in pace. I lay passively, knowing that any errant movement could cause my accidental mutilation and possible death upon the deadly anatomy of our murderous beast.

I perceived our lovemaking alongside Talynn through Hellcat’s body as well. The sensory nerves she insisted be grafted to her cock allowed me to feel the tightness of my cunt gripping. I felt her thick muscles above me, saw through eyes looking down at me. How easy it would be for her to end my life if Talynn directed her to do it. She could easily fuck me to death if she’d willed it. The thought raised goosebumps on my skin.

Talynn slowed the pace of the frantic thrusting inside of my cunt. Hellcat could reach orgasm more quickly than I could, and I wanted to climax with her simultaneously. We closed our eyes and let our minds play an image . We pictured Sonnie beneath us, her beautiful scarred body laid bare. The thought of butchering her beast in front of a cheering audience, and then dragging her into the pit for us to fuck bloody put us over the edge. It wasn’t the first time we’d fantasized about such a thing, but it was the first time since she’d agreed to it, the first time since we’d felt her touch in real life. Winner fucks the loser to satisfaction. She promised.

Hellcat began to cum, filling my spasming cunt, pumping near scalding hot jets of artificial semen inside of me. God how I want Sonnie to feel this. I want to feel this with her. I will feel this with her. Hellcat is unstoppable. Sonnie is going to be mine.

[yuckitup-jwd]

Men VS Women

Women have many faults Men only have 2 Everything they say And everything they do

RELATIONSHIPS: First, a man does not call a relationship a relationship - he refers to it as "that time when me and Suzie were boinking on a semi-regular basis."

When a relationship ends, a woman will cry and pour her heart out to her girlfriends, and she will write a poem titled "All Men Are Idiots." Then she will get on with her life.

A man has a little more trouble letting go. Six months after the breakup at 3 am early on a Sunday morning - he will call and say "I just wanted to let you know you ruined my life, and I'll never forgive you, and I hate you, and you're a total floozy. But I want you to know there's always a chance for us." This is known as the "I Hate You/I Love You" drunken phone call, that 99% of all men have made at least once. There are community colleges that offer courses to help men get over this need; alas these classes rarely prove effective.

SEX: Women prefer 30-45 minutes of foreplay.

Men prefer 30-45 seconds of foreplay. Men consider driving back to her place as part of the foreplay.

MATURITY: Women mature much faster than men. Most 17-year-old females can function as adults.

Most 17-year-old males are still trading baseball cards and giving each other wedgies after gym class. This is why high school romances rarely work out.

COMEDY: Let's say a small group of men and women are in a room, watching tele- vision, and an episode of "The Three Stooges" comes on. Immediately, the men will get very excited - they will laugh uproariously, and even try to imitate the actions of Curly, man's favorite Stooge.

The women will roll their eys, groan, and wait it out.

HANDWRITING: To their credit, men do not decorate their penmanship. They just chicken-scratch.

Women use scented, colored stationery and they dot their "i's" with circles and hearts. Women use ridiculously large loops in their "p's" and "g's." It is a royal pain to read a note from a woman. Even when she's dumping you, she'll put a smiley face at the end of the note.

BATHROOMS: A man has at most seven items in his bathroom - a toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving cream, razor, shampoo, a bar of soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn.

The average number of items in a typical woman's bathroom is 437. A man would not be able to identify most of these items.

MAGAZINES: Men's magazines often feature pictures of naked women.

Women's magazines also feature pictures of naked women. This is because the female body is a beautiful work of art, while the male body is hairy and lumpy and should not be seen by the light of day.

GROCERIES: A woman makes a list of things she needs and then goes to the store and buys these things.

A man waits until the only items left in his fridge are half of a lemon, and something turning green. Then he goes grocery shopping. He buys everything that looks good. By the time he reaches the checkout counter, his cart is packed tighter than the Clampett's car on The Beverley Hillbillies. Of course, this will not stop him from going to the 10-items-or-less lane.

GOING OUT: When a man says he's ready to go out, it means he's ready to go out.

When a woman says she's ready to go out, it means that she WILL be ready to go out, as soon as she finds her other earring, finishes putting on her makeup...

SHOES: When preparing for work, a woman will put on a Mondi wool suit, and then slip into Reebok sneakers. She will carry her dress shoes in a plastic bag from Saks. When she arrives at work, she will put on her dress shoes. Five minutes later, she will kick them off because her feet are under her desk.

A man wears one pair of shoes for the entire day.

CATS: Women love cats.

Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking, men kick cats.

MIRRORS: Men are vain; they will check themselves out in the mirror.

Women are ridiculous; they will check out their reflections in any shiny surface - mirrors, spoons, store windows, toasters, Joe Garagiola's head...

GARAGES: Women use garages to park their cars and to store their lawnmowers.

Men use garages for many things. They hang license plates in garages, they watch TV in garages, and they build useless wooden things in garages.

MOVIES: For women, their favorite movie scene is when Clark Gable kisses Vivien Leigh for the first time in "Gone With The Wind."

For men, it's when Jimmy Cagney shoves a grapefruit in Mae Clark's face in "Public Enemy."

JEWELRY: Women look nice when they wear jewelry.

A man can get away with wearing one ring, and that's it. Any more than that, and he will look like a lounge singer named Vic.

MENOPAUSE: When a woman reaches menopause, she goes through a variety of complicated emotional, psychological, and biological changes. The nature and degree of the changes varies with the individual.

Menopause in a man provokes a uniform reaction. He buys aviator glasses, a snazzy French cap, leather driving gloves, and goes shopping for an expensive foreign sports car.

THE TELEPHONE: Men see the telephone as a communications tool. They use the telephone to send short messages to other people.

A woman can visit her girlfriend for two weeks, and upon returning home, she will call the same friend and they will talk for three hours.

LOW BLOWS: Let's say a man and a woman are watching a boxing match on television, and one of the fighters is felled by a low blow.

The woman says, "Oh, gee, that must hurt."

The man doubles over and actually feels the pain.

DIRECTIONS: If a woman is out driving and she finds herself in unfamiliar surroundings, she will stop at a gas station and ask for directions.

Men consider this to be a sign of weakness. A man will never stop and ask for directions. Men will drive in a circle for hours, all the while saying things like, "Looks like I've found a new way to get there," and, "I know I'm in the neighborhood. I recognize that White Hen store."

ADMITTING MISTAKES: Women will sometimes admit making a mistake.

The last man who admitted that he was wrong was General George Custer.

RICHARD GERE: Women like Richard Gere because he is sexy in a dangerous way.

Men hate Richard Gere because he reminds them of that slick guy who works out at the health club and dates only married women.

DRESSING UP: A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, get the mail...

A man will dress up for: weddings and funerals.

NUDITY IN MOVIES: Every actress in the history of movies has had to do a nude scene. This is because every movie in the history of movies has been produced by men.

The only actor who has ever appeard nude in the movies is Richard Gere. This is another reason why men hate him.

DAVID LETTERMAN: Men think David Letterman is the funniest man on the face of the earth.

Women think he is a mean, semi-dorky guy who always has a bad haircut.

CAMERAS: Men take photography very seriously. They'll shell out $4000 for state- of-the-art equipment, and build darkrooms, and take photography classes.

Women purchase Kodak Insta-matics, and often produce better-looking shots.

POLITICS: Men love to talk about politics, but they often forget to do political things such as voting.

Women are very happy that another generation of Kennedys are growing up and getting into politics, because they will be able to campaign for them and cry on election night.

LOCKER ROOMS: In the locker room, men talk about three things: money, football, and women. They exaggerate about money, they don't know football nearly as well as they think they do, and they fabricate stories about women.

Women talk about one thing in the locker room - sex. Not in abstract terms, either. They're graphic and technical, and they *never* lie.

LAUNDRY: Women do laundry every couple of days.

A man will wear every article of clothing he owns, including his surgical pants that were hip about eight years ago, before he will do his laundry. When he is finally out of clothes, he will wear a dirty sweatshirt inside out, rent a U-Haul and take his mountain of clothes to the laundromat, and expect to meet a beautiful woman while he is there.

WEDDINGS: When reminiscing about weddings, women talk about the "ceremony."

Men talk about "the bachelor party."

GYM SOCKS: Men wear sensible socks. They wear standard white sweatsocks.

Women wear strange socks. They are cut way below the ankles, have pictures of clouds on them, and have a big fuzzy ball on the back.

TOYS: Little girls love to play with toys. Then, when they reach the age of 11 or 12, they lose interest.

Men never grow out of their obsession with toys. As they get older, their toys simply become more expensive and impractical. Examples of mens toys: miniature TV's, car phones, complicated juicers and blenders, graphic equalizers, small robots that serve cocktails on command, video games, and anything that blinks, beeps and requires at least six "D" batteries to operate.

PLANTS: A woman will ask a man to water her plants while she is on vacation. The man will water the plants. The woman returns five days later, to an apartment full of dead plants. No one knows why this happens.

NICKNAMES: With the exception of female body-builders, who call each other names like "Ultimate Pecs" and "Big Turk," women eschew the use of nicknames. If Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah and Michelle get together for lunch, they will call each other Gloria, Suzanne, Deborah and Michelle.

But if Mike, Dave, and Jack go out for a brewski, they will affectionately refer to each other as Peckerhead, Scumbag, and Louse.

There are five things that women should never, ever ask a guy, according to an article in last April's issue of Sassy magazine.

The five questions are: 1 - "What are you thinking?" 2 - "Do you love me?" 3 - "Do I look fat?" 4 - "Do you think she is prettier than me?" 5 - "What would you do if I died?"

What makes these questions so bad is that every one is guaranteed to explode into a major argument and/or divorce if the man does not answer properly, which is to say dishonestly. For example: 1 - "What are you thinking?"

The proper answer to this question, of course is, "I'm sorry if I've been pensive, dear. I was just reflecting on what a warm, wonderful, caring, thoughtful, intelligent, beautiful woman you are and what a lucky guy I am to have met you." Obviously, this statement bears no resemblance whatsoever to what the guy was really thinking at the time, which was most likely one of five things: a - Baseball b - Football c - How fat you are d - How much prettier she is than you e - How he would spend the insurance money if you died

According to the Sassy article, the best answer to this stupid question came from Al Bundy, of Married With Children, who was asked it by his wife, Peg. "If I wanted you to know," Al said, "I'd be talking instead of thinking."

The other questions also have only one right answer but many wrong answers: 2 - "Do you love me?"

The correct answer to this question is, "Yes." For those guys who feel the need to be more elaborate, you may answer, "Yes, dear." Wrong answers include: a - I suppose so. b - Would it make you feel better if I said yes? c - That depends on what you mean by "love". d - Does it matter? e - Who, me?

3 - "Do I look fat?"

The correct male response to this question is to quickly, confidently, and emphatically state, "No, of course not" and then quickly leave the room. Wrong answers include: a - I wouldn't call you fat, but I wouldn't call you thin either. b - Compared to what? c - A little extra weight looks good on you. d - I've seen fatter. e - Could you repeat the question? I was thinking about your insurance policy

4 - "Do you think she's prettier than me?"

The "she" in the question could be an ex-girlfriend, a passer-by you were staring at so hard that you almost caused a traffic accident or an actress in a movie you just saw. In any case, the correct response is, "No, you are much prettier." Wrong answers include: a - Not prettier, just pretty in a different way. b - I don't know how one goes about rating such things. c - Yes, but I bet you have a better personality. d - Only in the sense that she's younger and thinner. e - Could you repeat the question? I was thinking about your insurance policy.

5 - "What would you do if I died?"

Correct answer: "Dearest love, in the event of your untimely demise, life would cease to have meaning for me and I would perforce hurl myself under the front tires of the first Domino's Pizza truck that came my way." This might be the stupidest question of the lot, as is illustrated by the following stupid exchange: "Dear," said the wife. "What would you do if I died?" "Why, dear, I would be extremely upset," said the husband. "Why do you ask such a question?" "Would you remarry?" persevered the wife. "No, of course not, dear" said the husband. "Don't you like being married?" said the wife. "Of course I do, dear" he said. "Then why wouldn't you remarry?" "Alright," said the husband, "I'd remarry." "You would?" said the wife, looking vaguely hurt. "Yes" said the husband. "Would you sleep with her in our bed?" said the wife after a long pause. "Well yes, I suppose I would." replied the husband. "I see," said the wife indignantly. "And would you let her wear my old clothes? "I suppose, if she wanted to" said the husband. "Really," said the wife icily. "And would you take down the pictures of me and replace them with pictures of her?" "Yes. I think that would be the correct thing to do." "Is that so?" said the wife, leaping to her feet. "And I suppose you'd let her play with my golf clubs, too." "Of course not, dear," said the husband. "She's left-handed..."