#mentions of human experimentation

[signourneybooks]

The Language of Ghosts | Book Review

The Language of Ghosts | Book Review

Book: The Language of Ghosts by Heather FawcettRelease Date: September 8th 2022Tags: Middle Grade | Fantasy | Fantasy Languages | Magical Powers | Oppression Trigger/Content Warnings: War | Murder | Loss of a Parent | Grief | Mentions of Human Experimentation | Talk of Murdering a Child Forced into exile on an enchanted, moving island, ex-princess Noa Marchena has two missions: reclaim her…

[deadsetobsessions]

Spider in Gotham AU- Pt.2

[Pt.1]

Peter’s no stranger to memories that comes as nightmares. There’s something different to them, the taste of terror that’s tinged with a feeling of “that’s happened.”

Flashes of Aunt May, dying as he stood next to her while choosing the city over her? Old hat. Inky darkness surrounding MJ falling as Peter reached for her, over and over again? Been there, seen that, didn’t even get a sick scar out of it. Racing against the clock to defeat some bad guy or an unknown threat? That’s his Thursday.

But this?

This isn’t his. It’s real, Peter could tell that much. Sure, it’s wrapped up in silk hisses and heart crushing terror, but Peter could always tell whether a nightmare was a nightmare or whether it was a memory.

This was a memory. Not his. His. It’s complicated.

“Your father, papito, he-,”

Then, it’d be the ruffle of his hair, brown eyes. It reminded him of his mom. But the crease of these eyes were different. Hardened, mean. Even towards him.

“Well, he said no, but I knew what he really wanted.”

The base of Peter’s neck always crawled when he remembered that line. His spider-sense warned him that whatever he’s remembering, he would not like.

“Ey, Peter.”

“Huh?” Peter blinked, looking up from where his arms were elbow deep in wires.

“Don’cha need gloves with that?” Frank asked, munching on some jerky. They were sitting in the living room, repairing a TV and a washer Frank had somehow managed to lug back to the apartment. It’s a toss up between Frank’s network of orphans (Peter included), street rats (these things are not mutually inclusive), or his own slightly higher than average strength. Not that they needed to thrift broken things, considering Peter’s funneling money from offshore bank accounts belonging to this America’s 1%. They just made it so easy! He and Ned had been hacking into government bases in middle school back on his world. This world? Not even a challenge. Regardless, this was kind of like… Frank’s version of those fancy sensory boxes for Peter.

“Oh, no. It’s not plugged in, see?”

“How’re ya gunna know it works then?”

“Plug it in after I’m done. Turn it off and on, you know?”

Frank stared at him, then rolled his eyes towards the ceiling.

“If you burn down that portion of the house, at least we’ll be warm for a bit.”

“Thanks. Your confidence in me is astounding.”

“You talk like an old man.”

“I do not! Excuse you! If I’m old, you’re the expired knock off cup ramen in the back of a convenience store!”

“Yo, shrimpy, that’s rude, ya hear?” Frank snickered, impressed at the quip. The Alley kid turned brother stood up to plop next to Peter.

“So… you gonna go…?” Frank made a whooshing sound and held his hand in a web shooter position.

“Tonight? Prolly. Anything I should look out for?”

“You’re gunna get yourself killed, but yeah, heard the gang’s back up north.”

Peter flashed a smile, dimples coming out. “I’ll try not to. Thanks, Frank.”

“Anytime, Spidey.”

Frank, though little (to Peter), was a good friend. Then again, considering Peter saved his ass both in mask and out of it, it’s to be expected. One would think that after eight years of hiding his identity, Peter would be better at it. Then, he got punted into a different world and got made by a child.

To be fair, the circumstances all but screamed Parker Luck, so Peter’s not counting this instance.

See, the first few days of this sudden cohabitation, Peter had asked Frank to find them furniture. Both because he was getting real sick of eating on the floor and because Peter needed to fix his suit to match his much younger body. Then, once he readjusted the shrinking nanotech and the spider legs to fit him in a way that wouldn’t break him, Peter had promptly swung out of the building and went patrolling. He stuck with the wandering Frank, taking out muggers and robbers and everything in between and past that around the area where Frank is.

Looking back, Peter realized how lucky he was when he decided to go on the “helping joyride” at the beginning of the evening. His spider-sense activated way later in the night, the moment where he began seeing and sensing the cameras that kept pointing towards him. He ducked and dodged out of the way, and eventually, the feeling left. Somebody was watching. And he doesn’t know where they stood on the moral side of things.

Anyways, it happened after three weeks and a half of going out and just… settling into life in Gotham. He had already been struggling to find a way home, scouring the libraries around Gotham on any subject that would aid in his multiversal travel. Peter would like to know which emo kid named this city.

Eventually, Parker Luck decided to strike once more.

“Get back, freak!” The lady brandished a wicked knife.

Talk about deja vu.

“Oh no! Knives! My greatest weakness!” Spider-Man yelled, sticking to the shadowed windows as he let his voice echo in the alley. Gotham had a lot of nice hiding places. Spider-man dropped down on her head like a bat out of hell and webbed the knife out of her hands. He webbed the mugger up onto the alleyway above normal reach, and told the man to call the police.

Frank screamed, just as Spider-man wrapped it up, loud enough to reach his enhanced hearing.

“Wait-!” The man tried to stop him, but Peter, small, trained, and having readjusted his reach, slipped away.

“What’s your name?!” The guy he saved yelled at his back.

Spider-man, distracted, yelled back, “SPIDEY!”

He shot webs upwards and used them to slingshot his way towards where Frank was. And… car! Peter used his webs to swing up, up, and let himself fall to gain momentum. At the last moment, Peter shot a web to the top of the car and pulled himself to it.

Shit, shit, shit. He’s stupidly attached to the kid, and he was stupid enough to let Frank go out into Gotham looking both well-fed and well clothed.

The world slowed as he locked eyes with a terrified Frank, who was getting dragged into a car.

The world narrowed to speed and Spider-Man landed on top of the car roof, sweeping his leg out and thankfully remembering his much shorter reach. His foot collided with the kidnapper’s face with the equivalent force of a grown up, slightly annoyed Peter Parker who’s letting his strength go a bit unchecked. Basically, they went flying, blood spewing out of the undoubtedly broken nose Spider-Man had just given them.

Standing on business, the shorter webster promptly flipped down wards as he all but glued the would-be kidnapper to the curb.

“You alright?”

“You’re- You’re that new mask.” Frank whispered, scuttling away from the car where he’d been dropped.

“Yeah, man. You okay?” His voice modulator came in clutch.

“Fuck. Fuck, I gotta-” Frank stumbled. The kid looked like he was one bad break away from snapping. Peter hated it when kids got that terrified look on their faces, it reminded him of himself, helpless as Ben bled out because they should never have to fear something that much.

Something’s wrong, though. As much as Peter wished otherwise, Frank was a Gotham bred and true alley kid, through and through. These kids don’t spook easily. Peter already stopped a couple of kidnappings and at least two of the kids had yelled at him to stay out of the way before unloading a rain of nut kicks on their kidnappers that left Peter wincing for days in sympathy. Frank being this spooked? Something’s going on.

“Woah, easy there, I’m not gonna hurt you,”

Frank shot him a half hysterical, half condescending look. Yeah, that’s more like it.

“Ob-obviously. I have to go before more of them comes,” Frank muttered.

“More of them? You know what they want?”

Frank stared at him, looking up and down at his blue, red, and gold ensemble.

“I can help,” Peter promised.

“What’re your thoughts on metas?”

Suspicious.

“Uh, they’re fine? Depends on the person, why?”

Frank sighed. The skinny teenager, barely 14, tugged at his hair. “They’re traffickers. Meta kids, mostly, so the Bats don’t do nothing. I- uh, I got caught.” He held up a thin wrist, showing Peter his new accessorie, a think metal bracelet that was beeping red.

Peter cursed in his head. Fuck, of course he’d stumble into a-

“Caught? You’re a meta?”

Frank nodded. “Strength. This is an inhibitor, illegal kind, you know?”

Well, that explained how he got all of those furniture without struggle.

“Right. Hey, don’t stress, kid, I’m a meta too.”

Frank blinked.

“What?”

Peter walked up the side of the car and did jazz hands.

“You’re a meta?! But- but you’re a mask operating in Gotham!”

“Yeah…? Is that weird?”

Before Frank could reply, Peter’s sense screamed and Spider-Man shoved Frank away from the spray of bullets.

“Move, Frank!”

Peter flipped away, vaguely aware of Frank’s gaping realization. He took down the shooters in quick succession, stopping the speeding car with his bare hands and some webs.

“Shooters, no shooting!” He yelled, liberally applying force he tended to keep under wraps. Frank was like a brother to him, and there is no universe where Peter Parker would hold back when his family was in danger.

When he got back to Frank, who had oddly stayed instead of running, Peter found out why the kid stayed.

“Peter?!” Frank hissed lowly, looking more pissed off than terrified. “Are you fucking insane?! Why are you running ‘round as a mask?!”

“Shhh!” Shit, he got made. “Come on, get back to the apartment and we can talk there. I’ll get rid of this-”

Peter casually snapped the bracelet in half, tearing the tracker out, and tucked it away to study later.

“Fuckin’- shit, fine, but you’re explaining everything, motherfucker!”

They split, Peter guessing correctly that he was in another lecture of a lifetime.

——

“Your vigilante name is Spiderman?”

“Hey, I can hear you say it without the hyphen! There’s a hyphen in there!”

“You’re not a man! You’re a twerp!”

“I’ll show you twerp, you-”

Five minutes of tussling later, in which Peter did not try to bite Frank’s arm off, thank you very much, Frank leaned back on the couch.

“Besides. People in the streets are calling you Spidey, anyways.”

“Spidey?”

“Some dude you saved from a mugging said you told him.”

Peter slammed his head on the floor where he was laying face down.

“Ughhhh.”

——

“He could have been great. I saw his potential.”

Anger. But he shouldn’t be afraid. The woman loved him.

“Hey, Peter. You’re up here again.”

“Hi.” Peter stayed curled up. His mind had refused him sleep for the last three nights, causing dark circles to appear underneath his eyes. The memories of what he assumed to be this world’s Peter was merging with his. What he’d seen so far did not fill him with confidence of a happy childhood. Flashes of wielding weapons, the sterile smell of a metal dissection table, and hundreds and hundreds of spiders crawling over him, getting startled into biting down. Plus, the stress of tracking down the meta trafficking circles in Gotham was no joke. He doesn’t know Gotham nearly as well as he knew New York, and he had to be extra careful running around and trying to catch every bit of the circle before making any moves. Frank was helping with his network of homeless Meta kids, but the traffickers were everywhere except for Crime Alley.

He should be dead. They sold his body to an organ harvester who dumped his venom filled corpse on the side of Gotham. At least he didn’t have to worry about killing his alternate version.

“Everything all right?” Red Robin clambered down to sit next to him, cowl hiding the concerned scrunch of his brow. He’s never seen Peter like this.

Peter grumbled, staring down at another alleyway. He knows his alternate died. His shit excuse for another sold his body to an organ harvester, when he seized on the operating table, who dumped his venom filled corpse on the side of Gotham. At least he didn’t have to worry about killing his alternate version. He does, however, have to worry about missing vital organs.

“I… remembered something.” Peter remembered a lot of things. And pretty much none of them were good. This Peter suffered a lot in his short life.

Red Robin nodded. The issue of Peter’s spotty memories had come up in their discussions over the past month.

“Ah. Something unpleasant?”

Peter thought back to the voice who, despite all of the other, highly traumatic memories, haunted his brain like nothing else.

“He didn’t live up to it. He refused to kill. So I made the decision for him.”

“Yeah. Not for me, but unpleasant that I know about it.”

“Yeah, I get that. You wanna talk about it?” Peter hid a small smile. Even though Red Robin kept his tone light, the concern still bled through. Warm. It made Peter feel warm. Even if it appeared that the Bats don’t really care about the trafficked meta kids… maybe Red Robin would come save normal kid Peter if he got kidnapped. A backup plan to consider. For now…

“Sure,” he said. Red Robin waited patiently.

“I think, I remember someone. Maybe, maybe my…” Peter grimaced. “My mom? She… told me something. And uh, I think I’maproductofrape.”

“Oh,” Red Robin said, so awkwardly that Peter had to crack a small smile despite the gravity of the topic. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too. Not myself, but for…” Peter waved a hand. “You know.”

“Yeah.”

“She wasn’t a good person,” Peter whispered and hated how he missed the browns of her eyes- her middle name was Marie, and god, Peter wished he hadn’t known that because he gets why her eyes reminded him so much of his own mother- and she besmirched everything Mary Parker stood for.

“You have our combined potential, Peter. Make sure not to be like him too much and live up to it, papito.”

“It’s okay, to love her even if she hurt other people,” Red Robin said, gently ruffling his greasy hair. Peter’s spidey-sense tingled and he ducked away. Red Robin withdrew his hand. “Because you can’t really help that. Trust me, I’ve tried. You just have to make sure they don’t get the chance to do what they did again.”

Cold, cold voices and his voice gave out from screaming. “You really are your father’s son. Never being able to do what’s necessary.”

And Peter wondered what happened to Red Robin and who hurt him. Peter would just like to talk. Red Robin reminded him of himself, way back when being Spider-Man meant finding out Harry became Green Goblin. Pained. Tired.

“Yeah,” Peter agreed. But that’s not really a problem, considering the last thing the organ harvester said before dumping him in an alley. “She’s dead in a ditch in Siberia or something. I’m not really worried she’ll do it again.”

“Uh.”

“It’s cool,”

“Right. Have you… remembered your dad?”

“Yeah. He’s in Gotham,” Peter unfurled a little.

“You want help tracking him down? I’m good at that kind of thing.”

Peter glanced at Red Robin. “I think you just admitted to being a stalker.”

“Vigilante,” Red Robin shrugged, like it explained everything. And yeah, it kind of did. Peter snorted.

“Nah, it’s okay. I don’t want to meet him anyways.”

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t know about me,” Peter ticked off his fingers. “I’m a literal walking, talking, breathing reminder of his trauma. And I don’t need a dad.”

Red Robin looked at him silently. Peter doesn’t think about it.

He never wanted to see his parents suffer. An alternate version of his dad, hurt so irrevocably by an alternate version of his mom?

Peter hated that this Catalina dirtied his mother’s name, and went against the most fundamental parts of what the spider symbol was meant for. And considering he’s been doing this longer than her, he had first dibs on defining it. He’ll look after his dad, as long as he’s stuck in Gotham. It’s only right.

“His name? Oh, my son, it’s Richard Grayson.”

——

Peter, who Trusts his instincts: no head rubs?? awwwww

Tim, who’s been trying to get a dna sample for the last month: how does he keep evading me?? He must be a genius or a spy or- *spirals down the conspiracy board*

——

Tim: I’ve connected the dots!

Peter: you’ve connected jack shit

——

Listen, the moment I learned Catalina Flores’ middle name, the pieces clicked, okay? Like legos. It’s like, former FBI agent in this one and former CIA agent in Peter’s home universe? Wow. Middle name Marie? Mary Parker? Incredible. Spider themes run in the blood apparently?? They both have brown eyes!! Trying to do good with no qualms about murder!! (I’m assuming since Mary Parker was SHIELD and I don’t think SHIELD cared much for the sanctity of human life if it threatened the country or something)

[aealzx]

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It wasn’t long after the kids had rushed upstairs that Leslie arrived, and Bruce escorted her up to Danny’s room with Jason following them. It would be easier for Leslie to have them all together in the same room, and Bruce knew that his two oldest sons would be the best at handling keeping Jazz calm. She had only just met Bruce that morning, and only briefly, without speaking to each other. He didn't think she would be that comfortable with him yet. So while Leslie started stitching up his sons, having taken some time to get Danny hooked back up to heart and blood pressure monitors, Bruce turned to Damian.

“I’m going to get the collection device. Can you ask Danielle to meet me here? It shouldn’t take long,” Bruce requested, knowing that Danielle was probably roped into trying on clothes with Stephanie, but still wanting to make some progress on one of his self assigned tasks.

“Yes, Father,” Damian agreed easily, heading off to Stephanie’s room with Titus following closely behind.

Bruce left the hallway to Leslie commenting to the others that she had been expecting a lot worse, and made the trip to the Batcave a quick one. The canister had been left on the work table after he’d changed, so it was easy to scoop up and hurry back upstairs. And when he returned Danielle was there, enthusiastically rubbing Titus’ cheeks.

“Who’s a big boy? You’re a big boy,” Danielle cooed, gushing over the dog that was almost the same height as her.

“That’s Titus. And this is Ace,” Damian introduced officially, pleased with Danielle’s treatment of the dogs.

“They’re both your’s?” Danielle asked, reaching over to pet Ace as well when he got close.

“Titus is. Ace belongs to Father,” Damian responded, starting to pet them as well.

“Cool! I have a dog too. Well, he’s actually Danny’s, but he likes me too,” Danielle chimed before noticing Bruce was next to them now. “Oh. What’s up? He said you wanted me.”

“Yes,” Bruce confirmed, gesturing for Danielle to enter the bedroom with the others so that Jazz would be aware of what he was asking Danielle to do. “I had Cass take this on patrol with her, and wanted to see if it was collecting the correct substance. I thought you would be the best to confirm if it is,” he explained, briefly showing Danielle the canister Cass had given him at the parking garage before twisting the device in the middle. Pulling the top away, he revealed the ping pong ball sized glass orb inside, holding still when Danielle looked closer.

Inside the glass was a gently swirling, green liquid that was softly glowing very faintly. It was a lot more pale in color, and thinner in consistency than Danielle was used to. But without the metal barrier she could definitely pick up on the faint, familiar signature. “Oh my gosh, you found some!” she gasped, snatching the bauble from Bruce and holding it up to look at it. “Jazz, they got ecto!” she exclaimed, glancing at Jazz before looking back at the liquid. “Or at least it seems like it. Normally it’s a little… more,” she hummed, swirling the contents a little and scrunching her face slightly.

Jazz seemed stunned, not sure how these people were able to find something that she and her family had spent two months looking for. And what they had found had only been a corrupted version of it. Was this the same?

Without asking Bruce for permission, Danielle placed a finger on the opening of the bottle and tipped it over to get some of the substance on her hand. Rubbing her thumb against it, she noted that it definitely seemed to be ectoplasm, just not as concentrated as she was used to. And when she confirmed that she abruptly took a small swig from the bottle, smacking her tongue at the taste and ignoring the mildly startled expressions from the others. “Yeah, that’s definitely ectoplasm,” Danielle confirmed despite looking at the bottle again in mixed disappointment. “But it’s like… the skim milk version or something. It’s very diluted.”

The analogy made Dick snort softly, but Bruce breathed a small sigh of content. It wasn’t perfect, but it was still progress. “Much better than the Lazarus water though?” Bruce asked, holding his hand out for the bottle to be returned, glad she didn’t drink it all just yet.

“Oh, way better,” Danielle agreed with an enthusiastic nod. “That was more like rotten milk from months ago. With all the chunks and mold.”

This time the analogy made Dick gag a little, and even Bruce grimaced. “I’ll take your word for it considering I’ve never personally tried milk that was that spoiled,” he chuckled, replacing the bottle into the canister to seal it again. “It gives me a better idea on what to work towards. I’ll see if I can modify the next collection device to be able to draw a less diluted strain from the environment. How much do you think we’ll need?”

“Cool,” Danielle grinned, only somewhat excited considering it didn’t seem to be completely ready or useful yet. “Honestly, that was like… half a blueberry all together,” she gestured to the bottle. “I could get that from sitting in a graveyard around here for an hour. So it’s not a lot, but if you can manage to get more, faster, then it’ll probably be good.”

That was a significantly smaller amount than Bruce had been hoping for, but he would accept it. Like Danielle implied, it was still better than nothing. “Thank you. That was all,” he bid, letting Danielle choose to stay or not as he headed further into the bedroom, standing next to Leslie as she was finishing securing the bandage on Dick’s forearm. “How is everyone?”

“Your boys will be fine. Nineteen sutures for Dick, and twenty two for Jason. Just keep the sites clean and dry, like you’re used to,” Leslie reported, turning to face Bruce on the stool that had been provided.

“No signs of a concussion in either of them?” Bruce asked, just to make sure considering the blow Jason had taken to the head.

“Not that I can see,” Laslie confirmed, wordlessly shifting her body towards Danny and following through with the intent when Bruce nodded to allow her to continue her work. “I was hoping to see more improvement in this one compared to last night, but as far as initial vitals tell the variations in readings are within the same parameters. I’ll need to take a full blood sample to run some more comprehensive tests. Did you have something you wanted to try on him?”

It wasn’t a reassuring report, but it also wasn’t one that was unexpected to Bruce for someone who was in a self induced stasis. But something about the phrasing, and the way Leslie had turned Danny’s arm to face palm up and started to feel for a vein while asking if Bruce had anything to test on him made Jazz jump to her feet. “Absolutely not!” she shouted, roughly shoving Leslie away from Danny and standing protectively in front of him.

Bruce was quick to catch Leslie and lift her to her feet before she fell to the ground, quickly taking in Jazz’s reaction as well as what had led to it.

“Jazz?”

“What was that for?”

Dick and Jason’s questions were confused, but Jason was also wary. Neither of them liked the treatment of their doctor, but neither of them were dumb enough to not notice Jazz was reacting out of fear.

“What’s going on?” Danielle’s voice came from the hallway as left petting the dogs in favor of running into the room, placing herself between Jazz and the others and raising her fists slightly just in case. That was until Jazz grabbed her and pulled Danielle behind her as well, raising her arms to block both her siblings from the others.

“I said no,” Jazz emphasized. She was trying to glare at them, but her shaking form was far from intimidating. “If you think, for one second, that I’m going to let you experiment on my brother and sister then you have another thing coming-... W’what…?”

Bruce reacted quickly after his eyes scanned the surroundings, gently pushing Leslie behind him and holding his hand out for Dick and Jason to stay back as well. And as Jazz revealed her concerns that they were trying to experiment on Danny, Bruce took one step back before she finished, causing her to falter.

“...I would never experiment on your family, Jazz,” Bruce assured, keeping his voice more on the gentle side and avoiding trying to deny her assumption. She didn’t need to be told that wasn’t what their intention was. She needed to be assured that it would never happen, regardless of any circumstances surrounding them. “Nor would I allow anyone else to try. It doesn’t matter if he’s not a typical human, he still deserves to be treated like one.”

While Bruce’s words cleared up any confusion Dick and Jason had about the reaction from Jazz, they only served to incite confusion in the girl. She hadn’t expected him to say anything like that. In her mind he would either deny that the blood draw was for experiments, or would openly admit what they intended. Not tell her what she and her siblings and parents had been trying to prove to other people for months now. That ghosts were still human, and deserved to be treated as such.

“...W’what?” Jazz repeated, her defenses faltering.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Bruce reinforced, slowly lowering to kneel on the floor, allowing Jazz to look down on him instead of him towering over her, keeping his hands visible. Dick and Jason supported the action by backing away more while also keeping their hands visible, giving them plenty of space. When Jazz didn’t vocally respond, Bruce continued. “We won’t take anything from Danny, or Danielle, without clearly stating what it’s intended for, and getting permission first. With Danny being unable to answer, we’ll defer to you for that permission.”

Jazz looked like she wanted to believe Bruce, but was afraid to. Her arms lowered in favor of wrapping around Danielle and carefully holding her close. She found it hard to respond, the words in her mind a jumbled mess. “I’i… I don’t understand. Everyone who knows tries to hurt him. Even our parents did… until they found out it was him.”

That was concerning to hear, but not shocking. “Those people aren’t here,” Bruce assured, shifting his hands to be offered to Jazz instead, palms up. “And you didn’t hurt him. Neither did the others,” he reminded, noting how her breath shuddered as it left while she made the connection in her mind. There were people who wouldn’t hurt ghosts just because they were ghosts. It was going to be okay. “Let’s take a minute to focus on you, okay? Maybe just sit, and take some deep breaths?”

It was only an offer, but Jazz couldn’t keep herself from collapsing to her knees, tears budding in her eyes as she brokenly stared at Bruce. Ever since they had taken her and her family in she had been afraid they were just playing at being nice. Just waiting for a time when they could start researching her siblings. But even though she’d accused them of trying it, they didn’t behave at all like she’d thought they would. It wasn’t fair. How dare he give her the chance to not be in charge for once. Why did he have to tell her it was okay to prioritize herself for the time being? How long had it been since she started telling herself it would be just a little longer and everything would be okay?

As Bruce started to visibly breathe slowly, coaxing her to do the same, Jazz broke into sobs while trying to mimic him. That little bit of familiarity that she knew from studying about how to help calm someone who was panicking was giving her something to latch onto that for once didn't just bring more self doubt and stress.

At this point Dick couldn’t keep himself back any longer, especially if Bruce was only going to sit there. So he quietly, but still audibly, approached the others to kneel near Jazz while Danielle tried to comfort her sister by rubbing her back. “Would you like a hug?” Dick offered, holding his hands out to the over stressed teenager.

“Uh huh,” Jazz accepted with a sob, nodding as she shuffled forward to accept the hug and hiccup into Dick’s shirt, a muffled apology half voiced.

“It’s okay, we understand,” Dick assured, taking over for Danielle and rubbing Jazz’s back while holding her firmly. “There’s been a lot for you to handle. And you did great. You can let us help take care of you now. We’ll keep you all safe.”

“And if you still have doubts, just remember forty one stitches and a piggy back,” Danielle consoled, trying to reinforce Dick’s statement even if it did earn a confused look from both Dick and Jazz.

“...What?” Jazz hiccuped, the confusion stilling her crying just enough to respond.

Danielle just grinned. “Nineteen,” she said, pointing to Dick, “and twenty two,” now to Jason, “makes forty one stitches. And they carried me home, even after getting cut up,” she explained, gaining a rare, warm but huge smile. “That’s more than the Guys in White ever did for either of us.”

Jazz stared at Danielle for a long stretch, finding it hard to comprehend how something so simple was so hard for her to have used as proof before that this family not only wasn’t going to hurt her family, but was going to go out of their way to help them. She felt a little embarrassed now, cheeks burning hot as she turned to smother her face in Dick’s shirt again. “...I’m so sorry,” she apologized again, her tears abating significantly.

Dick could only chuckle lightly, giving her a soft pat on the back, and another rub. “Nothing to be sorry for,” he assured again. “Like I said. We understand.”

And they did. Though Jason had to somewhat marvel at being able to see what it was like to not be on the receiving end of Bruce or Dick’s calming methods.

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Theeeere's like 5 different topics I've been struggling to get organized in my brain which led me to completely rewriting this section maybe 4 times, and actually only half of this part stayed as part of this section while another thing as added and the other half is getting shoved to the next part X'D This was after spending like 6 hours researching dialysis, what systemic meant versus sepsis, blood poisoning, learning that was completely different than poison throughout the bloodstream, also looking up plant toxin chemicals, looking a lot into alkaloids, getting so confused I asked my mom about all this stuff and learned about ricin and umbrella assassinations. @ v @ my brain started to hurt, and I info dumped with my beta reader to try and figure things out and still ended up rewriting everything. X'DD

why all that is relevant will be part of the next parts X'D

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@bellathecatastrophe, @cj-ghostemoji-destielpie, @asexual-insomniac, @wolfeyedwitch, @tkiesai, 

@fanaroff, @raven1508, @nebulainajar, @serasvictoria02, @oliocelottafanfics,

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@op-sys-chaos, @kirasigncomics,

[threepandas]

Bad End: Preserve Us

You know how in conservation biology you sometimes try to introduce a pair to be mated and one will just... just fuckin' merc' the other? Just absolutely obliterate them in a hissing, growling, nightmare ball of fury? Before anyone can stop them? Territorial and (to put it lightly) "uninterested", dispite your desperate desire to save their species from extinction, and need for them to get frisky?

I know.

Holy SHIT do I know.

There's a lot of reasons. Ways you can (hopefully) get around it. But first? Is finding out WHY it happened. Was it just the one? The environment? Were they sick? Or... as is the case sometimes, did they decide their Handler was their mate? Some species only mate once. Are loyal for life. You gotta work around that.

Which is all well and fine and good.

When we're talking about ANIMALS.

Non-sentient, non-sapient animals! Not ALIEN SPECIES! What the ABSOLUTE FRESH HELL did they expect from me!? Compliance?! This was UNETHICAL! Monstrous! I had been trying to slip my gaurds long enough to radio for help SINCE I GOT HERE.

I hope the fuckers ROTTED in whatever their Gods considered a Hell.

"Conservation facility" my ENTIRE ASS. You can't run CONSERVATION EFFORTS like this on SENTIENTS. Eugenics loving, atrocity fetishizing, immoral BASTARDS!!! And they KNEW it too. They HAD too! Or they wouldn't be HIDING it! Fucking KIDNAPPING scientists! Biologists! Doctors!

I was on my ways to study Lekku monkeys!

God...

I'm? I'm so tired of being pissed.

Furious and outraged and SCARED. Horrified and sick. There are PEOPLE here. Kids! And I don't... oh god, I don't... H-How LONG has this been going ON? Why did no one NOTICE?

Every day I feel my heart break. The desire to scream and scream and never STOP, grow inside me. I have to get out. I have to get us ALL out. Get these people FREE. Do SOMETHING. But I am forced to "conserve" the species assigned to me. The group assigned to me.

It's killing my love for the field. Making a mockery of everything I worked for.

I don't... I don't think my hands will ever be clean again.

But I have to help. Do everything I can. Make hell a little kinder, if nothing else. At least while I figure out a way OUT. My group deserves better. The groups I do not work with, deserve better.

I disguise games as "testing". Pages and pages of meaningless numbers ans scores. INSIST that enrichment is the key to success. Diet is EVERYTHING. Oh, and habitat? Well unless we can mimic their habitat there's no WAY they'll "breed".

No, no, using machines would stress them out too much.

It's like you DONT want babies!

Who's the expert here? That's RIGHT! Dr. Cho, but FAILING her and like five other people? Me. And I know for a FACT they are pulling the same scam. We ALL fucking hate you. Dr. Cho has KIDS, you FUCKS. Hasn't seen her son in YEARS thanks to you bastards. He was engaged. She's probably missed his WEDDING thanks to you!

Getting distracted, spiraling again, gotta stop DOING that.

It wont help anyone.

But God, if my brain doesn't slowly feel like it's shorting out the longer I'm here. Stress is called the silent killer for a reason. Or what that something else? Fuck. I can't even look it up! Bastards cut us off from the galactic web. Full information blackout. Because of COURSE they did... can't risk us rightfully calling for help.

Getting the Feds involved to shut this hell pit of a black site DOWN. Or a "whatever it truely is" site. Because it sure as SHIT has nothing to do with conservational biology. Except maybe the abuse of it.

But that doesn't help me right now.

Focus, damn it!

The Yanderens. Old, absurdly rare, nearly extinct, with a home planet they'd reduced to uninhabitable wastelands millennia ago due too... something. No one knew what. There had definitely been fighting. It WAS documented they were excellent fighters. Ruthless ones at that. But it was ALSO documented they strongly pack bonded.

There had been a lot of strongly worded warnings on what few documation my captures were able to find, translate, then shove at me. But honestly? They said the same thing about humans. Ooooh big scary persistent hunters~ oh nooooo! Watch out for the omnivores with a history of war! Sins of the father and we are defined by our diets! Class systems! Let's all JUDGE each ooooootheeeeer~!

Yeah, no. Not buying it.

Especially when the "warnings" were so damn vague and poorly documented. All "the HORRORS!" and "we barely SURVIVED!". Cause honestly? The Yanderens I was watching over? Easily the most mild and temperate individuals I had ever met. No tantrums from the kids, no big emotional meltdowns, just curiosity and at WORST? Mild frustration.

It made everything ten thousand times worse for me, that these poor people were in this hellish place. They were calm. Curious. Meant for greater, BETTER things! They should be out, playing and learning. Exploring and enjoying peaceful strolls in some art gallery or zen garden somewhere! Not... not this sterile fucking LAB.

But then M-17 loses his SHIT.

And now I'm kinda panicking. Because F-6 is not just dead, God rest her soul (she didn't deserve this. Oh god. She was so SWEET.), but M-17 might just be too, soon. If I can't find out what HAPPENED. Because if he's "feral" or "diseased" or whatever other horrifying terminology they end up using? They DO something about it.

And I can't actually stop them.

I... I don't know if it was a trauma response. Or I did something wrong. I could PROBABLY pass it off as my needing more studies into their observed "mating habits"? That... that I somehow... turned it... uuuuh... dominance battle? Shit. Where are my notes?!

F-6 is DEAD and its all my fault.

She was such a cuddle fiend too. Always excited to hear about my studies, from before. My life. Wanted to join me after we got out of here. I never should have let her volunteer. Granted, she wouldn't have taken no for an answer. Wanted to spend the pregnancy plotting our escape. Asked me to help raise the kid once we got out. Had a whole grand plan. But I...And I...

God...

I should have said NO. Insisted. It was just so hard, when F-6 had made it all sound like it would be okay. Like she had a plan and all I need to do was trust her. Believe in her. Then we could be free.

I had hoped M-17 would work best. He was always the most agreeable and quick on the uptake. I figured... well... ha ha. God, I'm such an IDIOT. I should have CHECKED. Who KNOWS what happened before I arrived? What triggered I just accidentally rammed my foot into? FUCK! I sweep everything from me desk onto the ground. Don't give I shit that I'll have to clean it up later,

I had figured M-17 would be COOL with it.

This place is getting to me, isn't it?

Why the FUCK would anyone be COOL with getting jumped? Bred like an animal? Shoved in some random ass room, with a vaguely familiar stranger, and told "now fuck. We want a literal litter from you two"? All while some biologist watchs and makes god damned NOTES!?

Of course he fought back. OF COURSE he didn't stop!

The only one there he could trust was himself.

I...I'm becoming a monster... aren't I?

Oh god.

At least we're in the satellite facility. The gaurds are definitely going to rat me out, but the news will take time to filter back. And... and the Yanderens being so "dangerous" might work in my favor. I... I can spin this. I HAVE to spin this. I can't let TWO people die for my fuck up.

I promised myself I would get as many people out as I could. I refuse to back out now. Even if that means crying, puking, then going out there to lie my ASS off. This was TOTALLY NORMAL. In fact, expected! Yep! It means that's we've determined that M-17 is the alpha Yanderen! A thing that is both REAL and possible to BE!

I rinse my mouth, stomach empty. Crying has exhausted me. But I can't give up. Too many lives count on me now. I... I wish so badly I was just a nobody again. Just some random biology student, trying to make a name for herself. Being "important" is a CURSE.

I try not to chug my water as I half stumble out of the glorified shoebox that is my bathroom into the much larger and Fancier CLOSET that is my room. Truely, no expense spared, for the captives they ripped away from their lives. So glad I am here willingly and of my own volition.

I gather myself. Finally ready to go and try to untangle the mess I have made of everything. When a deep booming alarm rattles my bones. The lights flickering to red. Blast doors slide down, SLAM shut over the transparent recessed bit of wall that counts as my window, the door to the rest of the facility.

Trapping me inside my small room.

Almost immediately after, an EXPLOSION rocks the world hard enough to knock me from my feet. Only the bed's limited padding keeping me from a nasty concussion. The edge of it still ramming painfully into my shoulder. Another explosion. Then another. I sit for a long, terrible, second stunned.

The moment passes.

I scramble on my hands and knees for the in facility communication device that I had knocked from my desk in anger, grief. Not daring to stand lest I be thrown down again. I manage to find it as the world shakes again for the fifth time. Followed by what sounds like gun fire out in the halls.

I fling myself back towards my shitty little bunk. Drag every bit of padding and protection I can, down and under it with me. If the roof goes? I want shock absorption. If shots get through the door? I want something to slow those blasts down. Anything. ANYTHING! To increase my fucked chances of surviving.

I burrito up and wriggle back as deep as I can. The world muffled but ending just outside my crawlspace. Then I desperately try to get one of the others on the line. I got nothing but chaos. Running. Running. Hiding. And Dead.

Dead. Dying.

Remember me.

And GONE.

Some of them fighting with their groups too freedom. Some being targeted right along side their captors. Others savaged by the ACTUAL animals they had been working with, the one's Galacticly deemed too dangerous for effort like this. Someone or something had set EVERYONE free. A simultaneous attack on all fronts that our captors could not put down or escape.

The Yanderens were out there.

Oh god. Please let them be okay. They wer-

My thoughts ground to a halt as M-32 LAUNCHED his tiny body onto the screen of one of the security feeds I was desperately looking through. F-6 had figured out how to get us a backdoor to them a long time ago. M-32 was just a kid. A small, soft, cuddly little thing that loved to lean against me and crawl into my lap. All cherubic cheeks and cute little curls. Shy!

Yet I watched... in mounting horror... as like a lion on some unfortunate animal, he landed on a gaurds back. Small arms going around his body in a mockery of a hug. Head tilting so he could BITE at the back of the man's neck, small hands clawing and ripping at weak points in his armor, as he screamed. Thrashed. Tried desperately to get M-32 OFF of him.

There was so much blood.

My hands were shaking. So much, I accidentally hit the next screen button. Jerked my thumb back. But... but oh god. There was F-26. Using the butt of a rifle to slam down against the head of a scientist. Again and again and again. Long after the begging and thrashing stopped. I flipped again. M-4? No... please not M-4. Not the soft spoken and wise...

I watched as he grinned, a cold thing, and shot out another joint. His foot on the chest of the head scientist who had moved him to a different group. In the background, his supervisor lay dead. They had not died quickly. The head scientist was begging. A mess of tears and pain. M-4 shot another joint, pressing his foot down harder.

I wanted to be sick.

I flipped again. And again. And AGAIN.

H...Had I known them at ALL? Like demons wearing the faces of those I'd known. People I'd trusted. Not a SINGLE ONE was... oh... oh god. F-6. Had she been too? Would I have ever known? Was THIS what all those warnings meant? I couldn't think. Couldn't breath. Had... Had never had a panic attack but... BUT-!

I wheezed.

Shook.

"Oh, Clever giiiirl~" A familiar voice sang, before a blood splattered face flickered into being on the screen in my hands. "Where aaaare yoooou~?"

M-17. He'd somehow managed to take over the security cameras. That or the communication feed. His eyes were bright. A grin on his face like I'd never seen from him. ALIVE in a way I'd never seen him. The excitement transformed his face. No longer softly doll like, but something DANGEROUS. Unhinged. His eyes dilated and deadly teeth on display.

"Come out, come out wherever you aaaare~. I have so much to TELL you! We have so much to DO! I'm going to make you MINE sweetheart! No one else can have you. So come out. I won't hurt you much, I promise! Just gotta make you mine then we can leave okay~?"

Furious snarls echoed through the halls. Male and female alike. Old and young. I... I recognized each of those voices. What was HAPPENING?

"Aaaah? Did you TRASH really think you DESERVED her? Ha! Please." M-17 grin was cruel. Mocking. "You don't have a chance in hell of taking what's MINE."

His eyes seems to shift away from unseen enemies and back, somehow, to me. Warming to something euphoric. Resting his head on his hand as if to consider me. His fingers spread, stroking his own face, as if the desire to TOUCH was simply too great. As if what he was imagining was bleeding over into the real world.

"Oh clever girl~ my clever, clever girl~♡ I can't wait til it's just you and ME. Start think of where you want to go first, okay? We're going to get married. Have that child you wanted me for. All the things you ever dreamed~♡ I'm going to have you all to myself. No more annoying others. Ah~ can't wait to find you soon!"

"But first?"

"May the best of us Win."

[hold-him-down]

😌 - Someone gently brushing their hair and/or ✋ - A hand carding gently through their hair- for Leo pls!! i love comfort! (is it rlly ok if i send a bunch? cause i will lol)

tw: creepy whumper, intimate whumper, withdrawal, drugs, human experimentation, institutionalized slavery, nonsexual/semi-sexual nudity

notes: not leo, not comfort.

✥ ✥ ✥

“My boy,” Handler Jake Ward says, regarding the usually-feisty brunette with all the sympathy in the world. “What they’ve done to you.”

River's wrists are raw where he’s pulled against the restraints at, reportedly, a near constant rate for the last two weeks. His breaths are so heavy, each one a victory in its own rite. 

His hair is drenched in the sweat that covers every inch of his battered body. There’s still an obvious hatred in his eyes, but he does not have the energy to spew the vitriol that he normally reserves for their time together.

Jake runs his fingers through the worker’s hair, brushing it gently out of his face. He doesn’t even pull away. He doesn’t even fucking flinch.

When they send them to the A-wing for ‘projects’, they never quite know in what shape will return. Or when. Or how they’re coping with the whole thing. It keeps his job interesting, he thinks, but it also makes for stressful reunions sometimes. 

He has a soft spot for River, a spirited little shit from day one who, when he breaks, it is only after weeks of fierce defiance. Even then, it only lasts a few hours before he decides he’s ready to roll again and pulls his nails back out.

Jake asked the director for the details of the project earlier that day under the guise of using the information to aide in reintegrating the worker back into daily life in C-wing, but he said it was fucking confidential.

Jake runs his fingers through the tangles over and over until the waves look right again, and wonders, idly, how long this part will last.

“They really weren’t messing around, were they,” he says to himself as he unbuckles each strap. A tear runs down the corner of River’s eye and buries itself into his hair, and while Jake doesn’t think for a second that it’s anything other than a symptom of the withdrawal, he pretends, for a minute, that the boy is so happy to see him that he’s crying.

“You’re doing good,” he says, lifting River’s head to comb through the back before gently lying it back on the table. “I’m gonna move you to the tub.” Jake stands back and looks over River's body, checking for obvious signs of significant injury. He finds none, which isn’t surprising. Drug trials usually cause more damage inside than out.

River tries to speak, but it’s almost impossible to understand with the hoarse edge of his massively over-used voice. His poor throat, Jake thinks, running his thumb along his Adam's Apple. Still, Jake is pretty sure he knows what the boy says. He leans in and whispers, “What was that?”

He sees River’s mouth form a 'ffff’ a moment too late and the 'fuck you' cuts through the silence.

Almost reflexively, he has his hand around River’s neck. He squeezes it tightly, just hard enough that River’s breath cuts off, and says, “Welcome home, baby. I missed you, too.”

[fanfic-obsessed]

Unauthorized Change in Priority

I’m still on a bit of a DCxDP kick right now and I have another idea. It seems to be a fairly common trope that when DP exists and the Justice league seems to be ignorant of a small town in Illinois that was actually pulled into another dimension for several days, that the blame is laid either on the GIW or John Contantine. When John Constantine is blamed, we tend toward him going ‘we don’t fuck with the Infinite Realms’ and nopes out on behalf of the entire JL, leaving a 14 year old to handle things on his own. 

Let's take a slight inversion of that. Also I should probably mention, you might want to disregard any canon that contradicts this. 

It is important to note going in that in this one Amity Park sits on so many intersections of ley lines that it is impossible to tell which layline is connecting to which.  A bit like a natural lake bed that is fed by a bunch of little rivers.  This thins the divider between this dimension and the infinite realms, substantially.  So even before the portal opening the line between Amity Park and the Infinite Realms is tissue paper thin. 

Constantine before he joins the JDL, at some point well before Danny is even born, finds himself in Amity Park. He realizes immediately how thin the veil is in this location and, not wanting to sneeze and accidentally drop this town into a hell dimension, backs away slowly. The veil is so thin that Constantine does not even dare putting any kind of monitoring spell but notes the town (reasoning that anything that happens here will be world ending).  When he joins JLD (still well before the portal opens) he creates the Amity Park file and puts two very important notations. 

First, anything Amity Park can only be handled by the JLD, preferably Zatanna or Contantine. He has a good reason for this; as most superheroes have just enough contact with death or magic to be reactive to the Infinite Realms, no knowledge of what to avoid, and next to no willingness to leave well enough alone. If there was an issue that by some miracle had not punctured the veil between realities, it is almost guaranteed that the wrong move will make things exponentially worse not better. 

Second, he put a notation that any communication about, for, or from Amity Park is priority number 1, used for potentially cataclysmic, all hands on deck immediately communications. In short any call from Amity Park should have been immediately routed to Constantine. 

This is what should have happened. However, the first technician to receive a call from Amity Park (during Lunch Lady’s attack) decided that this must have been a miscoding, or a data entry error, as ghosts do not exist. Not only does he mark the caller as a prank, but he also used his own access to change the second notation for Amity Park, marking any call from that location or about that location as a prank, to be ignored. 

Fast forward ten years, until now nobody has caught on to what happened. Constantine had very realistic fears about tearing a hole into the infinite realms and thus never checked in on Amity Park, since no notifications came in. 

We start with Batman, in the watchtower, unintentionally running into Constantine giving a royal, and deeply pissed off, dressing down to the technician in question, though the topic is not obvious. 

Upon seeing Batman, Constantine goes “Good, you were next on my list. We need a full League meeting, ASAP, and all of your brood needs to attend, particularly Red Hood.”

Batman just growls out a ‘What?’

Constantine sighed “Look, I know you don’t like magic. I’ve tried to respect that, no matter how much death magic you and your brood radiate. But we have a fuck up with potentially dimension ending consequences and your undead boy might be the best shot at keeping us all from a war we can’t win.”

 Batman growls to cover his own confusion.

Contantine rolled his eyes, “I will tell you everything I know, at the meeting. Going over this more than once increases the chance that someone will fly off the handle and fuck us all worse” he then turned to head toward one of the conference rooms, towing the technician. When the technician protested Constantine snapped out “Mid Case Scenario is that we have to sacrifice you to the Infinite Realms for your fuck up, you stay with me until I know how bad it is”

No more than a half hour later the Justice League has gathered, including a prickly and confused Red Hood (only there because someone-Read Red Robin- thought to use the ‘apparently this is a dimension ending trouble and we’re the assholes that live here’ argument). 

Constantine starts with three word ‘Amity Park, Illinois’

Every member of Justice League Dark goes pale.

Constantine continues:

We have a fuck up of massive preportions. Possibly dimension ending, all caused by the idiot to my right.  For those of you not in the know there is a dimension that lightly overlaps ours, called the Infinite Realms. It simultaneously encompasses all afterlives that ever were or will be and serves as the connective tissue between the afterlives and the mortal realm.  Natural rips form, usually along the ley lines, to allow the spirits of the dead to pass on from our world to theirs and vice versa. It can also be called the Ghost Zone. This realm is made up of ectoplasm, what ghosts are made of.  Semi poisonous to mortals, also technically radioactive. Mortals who have touched death in certain ways begin to resonate with the Infinite Realms, mostly by dying and being brought back by unnatural means.  

With me so far, Good.

A few decades ago I came across a city in Illinois where the veil between here and the Infinite Realms is so thin it is practically see through.  Since I figured accidentally punching a hole in reality and dropping a midwestern city into some fucked up shit was not a good idea, I left but kept an eye for the name to pop up anywhere. When I joined the Dark, I put a priority alert in place. ‘Cause anything that happened in Amity Park  or  about Amity Park meant the damn Infinite Realms and we needed to be on top of that shit. Except the dipshit to my right, whose name privileges have been revoked,  decided that the careful label of ‘Priority 1’ must have been a mistake, and changed the label to mark everything from Amity Park as a prank. 10 years ago.

Yesterday a different alert regarding the Infinite Realms was tripped and guess what I found…Over 200,000 calls from Amity Park in the last decade. All urgent cries for help. All ignored. This was the last message.

 Everyone in the league looked deeply uncomfortable with the idea that they had been ignoring cries for help, the unnamed technician cringing next to Constantine. It got worse when Constantine played the last message. The voice sounded male and it sounded young (They do not know if, but it was Tucker Foley aged 24 years old), what’s worse was that there was audible pain in the voice overlaid with a helplessness. 

I…I don’t even know why I am trying this. It’s clear no one is listening. That no one will listen. But…But Danny would want us to try. Would want us to give one last warning, he loves humanity so much.  They took Danny. They took him two weeks ago and they are cutting him open. We can feel it, Danny’s trying to keep it from us, to keep us from feeling it but our bond is too deep.  We can’t get to where Danny is being held and he’s so tired; he won’t last much longer. <The voice stops and there are several minutes of pained panting> Let this serve as a warning, should the Ghost King be Ended at the hands of the US Government, the Infinite Realms will ride to war. Amity Park stands with our Ghostly brethren.  Long Rule King Phantom. 

The recording cut out and a horrific silence echoed. Before anyone can rush off to try and rescue this ‘Danny’ Constantine gets to them to sit down so that this could be done right (and avoid rushing in to make things worse). He points out that the Ghost King has not yet been Ended, gesturing at the Bats. All of the bats have brushed with death in the right ways (also Gotham was Very very cursed, which also thinned the veil. Though it was not up to Amity Park Levels Gothamites tend toward liminal as well) to be at least loosely affiliated with the Infinite Realms (liminal, though that is not the term he used), with Black Bat, the current Robin, Batman himself, and Red Hood being the ones that pinged as ‘Actual Realm Denizens’ (I know most of the league has died, or died adjacent, but we’ll go with they register as slightly liminal but much less than the Bats, since Gothams curses and the use of the Lazarus pits count as additional exposure).  

Had War broken out, the loyalty of those four in particular would be bound to the Ghost King. Constantine was also sure that between their affiliation with the Infinite Realms and the loyalty of those four, the rest of the bats would likely switch sides (Of the Bats, only Red Robin looked completely at ease with this prediction-Tim had long ago accepted that his loyalty was not tied to Justice but to Family).  Thus the bats serve as an early warning system, should they attack then it was too late. 

In addition to being the canary in the coal mine, Constantine hopes that Red Hood, having died and come back, may be able to serve as an ambassador of sorts, that having him and the other bats with them when they go to Amity Park will give them the time to talk with the residents and de escalate things. 

The meeting continues as the League identifies the goals for this

Short Term: Rescue the ‘Danny’, anyone else in immediate danger, and make contact with the people in Amity Park

Mid Term Goals: Start making amends for ignoring their calls for help, ensure the residents are safe or could be made safe, figure out why they think what Danny is enduring has anything to do with the US government

Long Term: Dismantle whatever organization is the ‘They’ the caller mentioned

Of the Bats, Oracle and Black Bat would stay on the WatchTower to play canary. At the same time they would start trying to figure out the They mentioned in the call (by going through the other calls) and any research that needs to be done. 

A Single jet, with the Batfam, John Contantine, and as many of the Justice League as can fit (with the Supers flying outside it) is dispatched to go to Amity Park; there is concern that more than that would spook the residents or seem like an invading party. They are able to land the Jet in the middle of Amity Park’s town square and can already see the devastation. It already looks like a war zone, with destroyed buildings and pitted roads. The sky flickers between a normal looking sky and a sickly green that they do not realize it from the Infinite Realms. 

A crowd has gathered by the time the amp on the jet lowers. It is a mixture of humans and ghosts, none looking pleased to see the Justice League. The crowd is led by Fright Night, Mr. Lancer, and Tucker Foley (who looks to be in some kind of pain).

This is an Eternal Trio (Tucker/Sam/Danny) kind of idea with Tucker and Sam having a strong psychic bond with Danny, in part due to being there when he died and the portal opened. Because of that all the ghosts see Sam and Tucker as substitute Ghost King/Royalty with Danny being in the GIW’s hands. It takes some back and forth (and Fright Knight explicitly asking Red Hood if the Justice League are to be trusted) but Tucker is willing to answer their questions if it means that they get Danny back. 

It turns out that the GIW had the town basically under siege and had for the last year (by that point barely anyone was trying to reach out to the Justice League). Two weeks ago the GIW managed to capture Danny (and had since managed to capture a number of ghosts and liminal humans for experiments). They had some kind of shield up that meant that no one who was past a certain point of Liminal, as all of Amity Park were, were able to get anywhere near it.  Sam and Tucker’s bond with Danny meant that they knew he was alive and could feel what Danny was going through.  The Bats were too liminal to get close to the GIW facility/fortress. They would go with Tucker to Fenton Works to begin interviewing people about what was going on (finding out that the GIW was apparently a branch of the US government was disquieting). John Constantine (still dragging the techncian) was going with them, someone mentioned the stable portal to the Infinite Realms and his ulcer grew by 3 sizes. The rest of the Justice League would be storming the GIW facility to rescue anyone imprisoned. 

In Fenton Works they encounter Maddie and Jack, radiating a manic crazy kind of energy as they furiously build weapon after weapon for the ghosts/AP residents to use against the GIW and/or the rest of humanity. Vlad Masters was with them, trying to keep them relatively stable.  The Fenton Parents only found out that Phantom was Danny and that Danny had died a few days before Danny had been captured, though they had mellowed about Ghosts over the years (they were still shooting at Phantom, but it was more of an afterthought to making sure the GIW didn’t harm any innocents- Closer to frenemies than enemies).  To be fair Danny had not been trying to keep it a secret from them for years, but after a certain point it felt like bringing up the Danny Phantom/Danny Fenton thing was a little awkward. The Fenton Parents are practically the only people in town who had not made the connection.

The knowledge that they have been hunting their baby, that they have been hurting their baby, that their inventions killed their son cracked their psyche’s a little. Before they could fully recover from that blow, the GIW took Danny and was hurting him. The GIW was using the Fentons Research as a basis for everything they were doing.  That shattered their minds more than a little. Their behavior from that point on tended to remind older Ghosts of ghosts who were on the verge of having a cracked core from either an impossible Obsession, or conflicting Obsessions. Everyone is treating them very gently and lets them keep building really weird weapons to keep them from literally beating themselves bloody on the GIW shielding.  Red Hood, as the most Ghost Adjacent (Everyone in Amity Park have been exposed to enough ectoplasm to sense the levels of ectoplasm in other, to a certain extent), and Red Robin, as the most engineering inclined, are immediately co opted to help with weapons development as the Fentons babble about taking out the GIW in distressingly specific terms, uncontrollable manic energy, and frighteningly blank eyes (Even Red Hood is treating them with the ‘these people are a primed grenade attached to a nuclear bomb’ kind of kid gloves).

Jazz makes a point to thank Batman for Red Hood and Red Robin indulging her parents.  She is exhausted and at the end of her endurance in trying to keep everything together. She sits with Sam, Tucker, and a number of assorted ghosts to answer Batman’s questions about what the fuck has been going on in the past decade. 

Back at the watchtower, Oracle has written a program to transcribe the messages from the Amity Park calls and do an analysis on the word use. From the transcripts she has been able to find a couple of important keywords: Anti Ecto Acts, Ghost Investigation Ward, the names of several ghosts, Pariah Dark, Danny Phantom. She and Black Bat begin researching. These are not fun topics to research. 

The Lantern Corps are taking the research and compiling a report to take to the OA.  Absolutely 0% of the people are happy with what they are discovering. While not all of it could have been prevented by the Justice League knowing about the portal opening from the beginning (The Anti Ecto Acts had been buried in a sub clause of a sub clause of on page 1,361 of 2,500 of a Wheat Subsidy Bill), there was significant preventable damage. 

At the GIW headquarters residents of Amity Park, both ghost and human, stood outside the shield line as members of the Justice League, particularly members of the Super family (which has the benefit of having Clark Kent the reporter be a first hand witness if need be) pass through the Shield with only the faintest of resistance. The first priority is the Shield as no one can escape until it comes down.  Superboy, the older, finds the experiment cells first.  It is horrifying beyond anything he had ever experienced.  

Several of the cells contained ghosts that not only had been living when they were brought in, but also were trapped in a cell with their own rotting corpse (Including both Paulina and Dash). Every possible human/Ghost experimentation and horror was present.   They find Danny vivisected and pinned open with several of his organs and limbs decorating the room, while he was painfully regrowing them.  

Later the vague descriptions of what was found in the GIW headquarters, reported by Clark Kent and Lois Lane, would induce actual supervillains to come out of the woodwork to help the Justice League in taking down the Acts, the GIW, and their supporters. Ra’s Al Ghul reaches out to Red Robin (not just because Ra’s also qualifies as liminal under the acts-though he does take that personally), offering support and a cadre of assassins. Lex Luthor throws his political muscle behind repealing the Acts.  Two Face is in complete agreement with himself for the first time in ages when he declares it open season on anyone in a GIW uniform. 

In the aftermath it is found that even the living residents of Amity Park are all too Liminal to live in most cities. Gotham remains one of the few cities that can support them.  A robust exchange program springs up between both cities; the residents of either tend to consider Amity Park as a neighborhood of Gotham. Gotham University is the first school to offer admissions to one of the ghostly residents, codifying how Ghostly enrollment should be counted. They are also the first to offer both a Psychological and Sociological Master degree program with a focus on Ecto beings.

Constantine finds that it is no longer possible to separate Amity Park from where it had partially sunk into the Infinite Realms. This has led to some strange warping of the space time continuum that gives him a headache, but by all accounts is as stable as it can be.  This means that while everyone agrees that Amity Park is in Illinois, and geography does seem to support that, it is possible to turn down certain streets at certain times and be in Gotham and vice versa. 

Once Danny had recovered some from his experience a bit, he does pass judgment on that technician.  Once the tech dies, he would be imprisoned in Walkers prison  for a period equal to the suffering and recovery time of all of the victims affected by his choice. 

[blackrosesandwhump]

Whump Prompt 129

Write something inspired by this concept:

Imagine a whumpee, strapped down and immobilized on a table, lying helpless in a darkened room. Weak and trembling, they can only manage a whimper of fear.

Imagine tubes connected to the veins in their arms, draining their blood away for some unknown purpose.

Imagine whumpee's blood collecting in vials that masked figures gather and remove without saying a single word.

And imagine whumpee's realization that, unless someone rescues them and soon, the extreme blood loss will surely kill them.

[starlightshadowsworld]

When Snow Falls

Chuuya notices somethings off with Tachihara and learns the government's human experiments didn't end with him.

Spoilers for Stormbringer.

TW for child abuse, human experimentation and there's a mention of suicide (Tachihara brings up his brother.)

@tachiharastanacc An attempt was made 😅

........................

Chuuya knew this was none of his business, but when had that ever stopped him. The mission with the Black Lizards earlier had gone as smooth as ever. But there was something amiss.

The Black Lizards had been fighting their way out. But it didn't escape Chuuya they had been protecting Tachihara. Rashomon seemed to hover near the other boy when the bullets started firing.

Gin was at Tachihara's otherside and Hirotsu would look back at him often, with concern.

Chuuya had looked through Tachihara's files, there was no mention of prior injuries or incident reports. And the kid wasn't weak, far from it considering he made it to the Black Lizards.

And yet, Chuuya recalled Tachihara's performance on the mission. He'd executed his attacks well, but he moved slower than usual. 

Chuuya hadn't gotten a good look at him, but Tachihara had been pale. And when he thought no one was looking he'd wince.

And yeah maybe he was just sick and pushing through it to complete his mission.

But Chuuya's instincts screamed at him that was something wrong. Something beyond some simple sickness. 

His instincts had yet to fail him. With that in mind, and dread in his stomach Chuuya took off into the night. 

Finding Tachihara wasn't hard. It didn't take long for Chuuya to spot him sitting at the docks. Tachihara didn't notice Chuuya approach until he was right behind him.

Not a good sign for someone who's team mate was Gin. Someone who Tachihara frequently caught sneaking up on him.

Tachihara blinked, looking up at his superior. His legs were dangling off the edge and his arms wrapped around himself like he was cold.

Chuuya froze at the sight of him. He hadn't gotten a good look at him during the mission. But up close he could see just how bad the kid looked.

In the dim light of the docks, Tachihara looked like a corpse.

"Shit..." Said Chuuya, before he could stop himself. Tachihara's hands were at his sides, gripping the edge of the docks. They were shaking and it was clear he'd lost weight.

He smiled at Chuuya, and it made Chuuya sick to know that if he wasn't aware something was clearly wrong, he might've bought it. Just how long had Tachihara been putting on this carefree facade? 

"Nakahara? Hey, fancy seeing you out here." Said Tachihara, he was suprised to see the executive. The man would usually be having tea with Kouyou at this hour.

What was he doing out here?

"Tachihara" said Chuuya, making it very clear he wasn't going go entertain this sharade at all.

Tachihara's smile wavered, before it fell entirely. He was almost glad, because it meant he didn't have to pretend anymore.

He didn't need to keep lying to the people he loved. 

Tachihara smiled, it was genuine unlike the last one. It was wistful and sad as he looked to the moonlit sky. "I'm dying" It was said so quietly that Chuuya thought he'd misheard him. 

"What?! What do you mean?! Are you hurt?!" Asked Chuuya, he swore he'd not seen an incident report earlier. Had he been wrong? Why was Tachihara out here and not in the infirmary?! 

Tachihara shook his head, relaxed like he hadn't just dropped a bombshell. "Nah. There ain't a scratch in me. My body's just, shutting down." He debates whether to explain or not. "Might wanna sit, it's a long one."

Chuuya raises an eyebrow, but moves to sit beside him and gestures for him to go on. 

"When I was a kid I looked up to my big brother. He was the perfect model son and everyone wanted me to grow up to be just like him. I hated it, more than anything."

Tachihara snorted. The irony that he had tried everything to avoid being like Shunzen. Only to follow in his footsteps like an imperfect copy. 

"He was a soilder who got sent out the Great War. He didn't die in battle, not the physical kind that is... He killed himself."

Tachihara could still remember that morning. His dad had been hysterics and his mum was yelling at the medic on the phone for lying to her.

He'd just been sat in the middle of it all, forgotten and confused. 

Chuuya wordlessly took off his hat bowing his head in respect. Tachihara was suprised by the sentiment. And touched by it all the same. Chuuya didn't apologise to him, nor offer him empty words.

Not like everyone else had done.

Tachihara had to look away lest he started tearing up. "With him home, the pressure only grew. But instead now it was that it should've been me."

And maybe this was Tachihara's karma for being the brother who survived.

"I said to hell with that. I rebelled, I broke the rules, got into fights and my grades went down the drain. I got caught up in a bank robbery, there was an explosion... I don't really remember it, only that I should've died."

Tachihara took a deep breath that rattled his lungs. "My brother, he had an ability. He could turn metal into shapes from stories and poetry. I was jealous he had one, and that night I learned I had one too." 

Tachihara raised his hand and the metal chain on Chuuya's hat swung back and forth at his command.

He winces, putting his hand down, cancelling his ability. "He could make shapes but I can bend metal to my will. In the same way you bend gravity to yours."

Chuuya can only look at him in shock. To think Tachihara had an ability this whole time and no one had known.

The small show seemed to have sucked the energy out of him. But Chuuya could sense just how strong Tachihara truly was. "Why hide it?"  

Tachihara looks down at his now shaking hand, ashamed. "I'll get to it, I promise." Chuuya frowns, but let's him continue. 

"So I managed to save myself, but barely. I was crushed under rubble but I was saved by the police. When I woke up I thought I was in a hospital. But it only looked like one, it was a secret government lab."

Chuuya's blood ran cold. He swore his heart stopped.

Tachihara, didn't notice and kept talking. "The scientists saved me, but their was a price." Tachihara took another deep breath, it was painful to recount.

"They put me back together, but there was something different. My body wasn't as it was before."

Chuuya knows he should say something, anything. But he can't, his mind is blank. All he can do is sit and stare at Tachihara, at this kid with horror.

Finally, after only a moment but felt forever Chuuya managed to bring himself to ask. "Kid... What did they do to you?"  

Tachihara smiled sadly, closing his eyes. "You know, to this day I still don't know." He admitted, and if that didn't break Chuuya's heart, what would?

He knew, he knew what it was like to feel like your body wasn't yours. To feel like a microchip implanted into a robot, it was a pain he wouldn't wish on anyone. 

"What was their goal. Cause I'm guessing they didn't save you out of the goodness of their heart."

There was always a goal, always a project and a purpose that these sick bastards had in mind. 

For Chuuya it was Arahabaki, for Verlaine it was Guivre. He didn't think it was the same for Tachihara, to create an ability singularity.

The kid's ability was strong but not that strong. 

"Whatever they did it was experimental. It didn't save me completely, I'd need monthly "examinations" a touch up if you will, to keep me alive. They'd only do it though if I accepted the position to become the fifth Hunting Dog."

The Hunting Dogs were a group of elite gifted, hell elite didn't even begin to describe to them.

They were the top squad of the military police. It was said one of their members were equal to the strength of an army of gifted.

Chuuya didn't put much stock in rumours like that, but they don't come from nothing. "You accepted because without them you'd die."

Tachihara finally looks at Chuuya, his eyes shining with greif and shame.  

"Yeah, I did. I was trained, if you could call it that. I was cut up and put back together, over and over. I became what they wanted, and agreed to join the Port Mafia as a spy."

He doesn't let himself move, doesn't let himself look away. The shame weighs on his heart but looking away now would be the cowards way out.

But maybe he was already the coward, given Tachihara had intended on letting this all die with him.

"Tachihara, why are you dying?" Asked Chuuya, his voice soft and kind. The exact opposite of what Tachihara expected, he just admitted he was a traitor... Why was Chuuya being so nice?

"I... What?"

"You said they'd keep you alive so long as you did what they asked, right?" Summarises Chuuya, getting a nod from Tachihara. It takes all of his own training for Chuuya to stay calm. 

"So why aren't they doing that now?"

Realisation blooms in Tachihara's heart, because Chuuya figured it out. He laughs, he's not entirely sure why but he laughs. It rattles his entire body and it brings him to tears.

"I wasn't supposed to like you guys. It's the first rule of being a spy, don't get attached. But... Fuck I got attached, too attached. I gave a report, I missed some information that would've hurt the Port Mafia. It would've cost lives and I couldn't do it."

Tachihara wrapped his arms around himself. It took a lot of effort just to move them. It hurt so much, like his soul was on fire.

"They found out. Pushed my my maintenance day till end of the month. That's why I'm dying, Nakahara. Cause they know, and I know I can't wait that long."

Those bastards... Chuuya was going to kill them. Government or not, he was going to make them feel the pain of being crushed by gravity. Who forces a child to make such a choice?! 

Tachihara coughs, blood staining the floor before him. He smiles "they think I'll crawl back and beg for forgiveness but I won't."

There's a fire in his eyes, a stubborn determination even in his weakened state. "I cleaned their system of everything I ever told em. It's all gone."

This, this was strength. Chuuya could only marvel at the sacrifice Tachihara had made. And he wasn't the only one. 

There's a moment of silence before Chuuya holds up his phone. "Did you catch all of that, Boss?" He asks, Tachihara looks at him in shock.

He hadn't seen Chuuya subtly call Mori as they started talking.  

"Oh yes Chuuya, but Tachihara I have my own question. Why would you go so far for us? You know what the Port Mafia does to traitors." Asks Mori, his voice coming loud and clear from the speaker phone.

Intrigue colouring every word. 

And while he couldn't see him, Tachihara still bowed his head in respect.

"It probably sounds stupid but... Ever since that day, I was treated less than a person. I survived, but I wasn't human anymore. I was a government lab rat."

If Chuuya didn't want to kill them all, that certainty made his blood boil.

He's all too familiar with the craving, the dull ache in your heart as you wonder it that's enough to make you human.

To question whether you were the original. To think you were simply lines of code imbeded in flesh. It had damn near broken Chuuya, and he had people who loved him.

He had crumbled in the hands of those who believed, unwavering that he was human. Chuuya couldn't image thinking that for years, and suffering alone.

The fact this all was going on under his nose, pissed him off. Chuuya had swore to protect those he cared about, and he'd failed.  

Tachihara, unaware of Chuuya's turmoil, was turning over Mori's question in his mind. He chuckles but it's not funny. 

"I'm not even the first person to be the fifth Hunting Dog. I'm just the next one they picked up. That's, why I had to hide my ability, from everyone so no one would know I wasn't the first.

And I probably won't be the last. Being in the Port Mafia, it's the first time I've felt human. I couldn't let that be destroyed, no matter what."

"I've heard enough" Says Mori and Tachihara falls silent. "Chuuya, I trust you to deliver him to Infirmary 4B. It's the closest one to your location."

"I'm on it." Says Chuuya. Tachihara raises his head, confused. As if reading his mind, Mori chuckles.

"Oh Tachihara, the government might have decided you weren't worth saving but last I checked I was the Boss. And all you've done is prove you're truly one of ours. You're going to live, and that's an order."

Tachihara let those words run through him, he was shocked to say the least. "I... Okay" is what he ended up saying, because words were failing him. Mori just chuckled again, signing off. 

"Why did you...?" Trials off Tachihara, looking at Chuuya in shock. Chuuya smiles, it's sad as it is kind. "Cause I know what it's like, to be ripped apart and turned into a government lab rat."

He rests a hand on Tachihara's shoulder. "But kid, nothing they do takes away that you're human." 

Tachihara looks at him, akin to a starving man being handed food. He's spent so long questioning his own humanity.

And for someone to look him in the eye, and say 'you're human' with no hesitation....Tears well up in his eyes and he's powerless to stop them as they fall.

Chuuya hugs him close as Tachihara sobs. He let him down, he let him down and allowed this to go on. Not anymore, Chuuya was going to protect him. Just like he should have all along.

He helps him to his feet, practically carrying him to his bike. And from his bike to the infirmary.

"Could you..." Tachihara trials off, embarrassed and Chuuya chuckles ruffling his hair. It takes Tachihara aback at first, no ones done that since his brother died. 

It was nice. 

"I'll be right here when you wake up." Promised Chuuya, nodding his head to a nearby chair. Tachihara smiled "thanks, Nakahara, for everything."

Chuuya rolls his eyes with a fond smile. "Call me Chuuya, and kid you don't need to thank me for anything. The Port Mafia is my family, that includes you."

Tachihara chuckles "alright, but Akutugawa might be my cooler older brother." He narrowly avoids Chuuya's playful swat and laughs. Tachihara is eventually lead away as the Port Mafia's medical team do their jobs.

Unfortunately, Tachihara would still need the maintenance no matter what they'd do.

Tachihara's body had been fundamentally altered in a way that could not be reversed. But at least now, everyone knew and would make sure he could get through it all painlessly and humanely.

Less human experimentation and more regular surgery.

He wasn't a lab rat.

He wouldn't be ever again.

Not if Chuuya and the rest of the Port Mafia had any say in it.

Akutugawa had been livid, he'd berated Tachihara for being an idiot the moment he was cleared to go home. Tachihara just listened, suprised and was informed Akutugawa had stormed in and hadn't left his side at all.

Hirotsu had patted his shoulder with a kind smile. Higuchi had bought a basket of snacks and had chastised him for keeping it all a secret. Gin had been right there guarding the door.

Chuuya kept his word, having been fantasing what to do with the Government scientists involved. The rest of the Black Lizard chiming in their preferred torture method. 

And Tachihara? He had never felt more loved. 

[reijukisser]

Do you ever think about how he was smiling like he didn't have a care in the world, so sincere and genuine, even while having an internal panic attack? Do you ever think about how he kept his composure, despite the past wounds he so tenderly bandaged before roughly covering them up to never look at them again being ripped open, even with everything going to complete shit, Do you ever think about how he made sure his crewmates would think he's okay, while his insides are clawing at him?

[luxtax]

A Kitsune & An Angel

[harveybwabbit92]

[Spark Doll au: Tregear is in his doll form is sitting on R/n's shoulder as they make their way through the dark and deserted streets of the city avoiding alien drones that were looking for them. They're making their way to Bel/r (Belial's reader)'s safe houses, when R/n suddenly slipped!

The [short/tall] woman winces and rubbed her side as a frigid dampness started seeping into her clothes, Tregear grew into his human size and helped her up then looked down perplexed at what she tripped on? the ground was wet and slick with...Ice? in July???

R/n gasps as a cool wind ran through the alley the dark ultra was further baffled when he could see R/n breath on the wind she noticed it too and they both cautiously exited the alley their eyes widened in awe at the sight that waited for them.

R/n and Tregear stepped out in to street the were met with what could be described as a winter terror-land as thick layers of snow and jagged ice covered the streets trapping any poor soul caught out in this phenomenon in a frozen grave and in the center of it all they passed a group of hostile aliens frozen in place; all looking up their faces all frozen in a mix of confusion and horror at whatever caused this...

Tregear went touch one of the jugged and glowing icicles sticking out from the ground, when R/n suddenly stopped him by grabbing his arm. "Don't, it'll freeze you in seconds if you touch it." Tregear looked at R/n for few moments trying to decipher how she could know this? when a payphone started ringing from somewhere, R/n let go of Tregear's arm and the two followed the ringing a few blocks down; passing more bodies along the way but they weren't upright frozen in terror like the others... these ones were beaten badly to a pulp and had energy burns on their skin.

Tregear realized another ultra had come through here, But it certainly wasn't Taro or Taiga. This, this was way too violent to be their doing... Tregear was used to gory sights; but even he felt his stomach twist a little upon seeing the state of one of the bodies whose face was so badly caved in he couldn't tell if it was once alien or human? Not that it mattered much now, but still...

Tregear did not want to be a fly on the wall and witness whoever caused all this carnage as he cautiously pulled R/n closer as they followed the ringing which led them to a payphone outside of subway station the two stared at the phone warily before R/n reached out and answered it.

R/n: Hello?

Bel/R: R/n it's Bel/R!

R/n: Yeah, I kinda figured..who else could turn downtown into Pingu's playhouse?

Bel/R, laughs dryly: Nice one, but this ain't the time; more of those punks and drones are headed down there. you're gonna have get to my safe house at the Black apple bar-

R/n: The apple? that's half-way on the other side of town!

Bel/R: Well your in luck the trains are still running, and to my knowledge they aren't monitoring the rail system because all the people are gone, just hack one of them and ride to the 3rd row station, that shouldn't be hard for you *click*

R/n, Snorts: Oh...yeah, so easy!~

She jeered and put the phone down gestured for Tregear to follow down into the subway but notice he staring at her suspiciously.

Tregear, as his eyes narrow: Why aren't you cold?

R/n, tenses up: We're not doing this right now.

{She tries to walk down the stairs but Tregear stops her.]

Tregear: Oh, yes we are, because right now everything that I thought I knew about you is breaking apart....are you even human?

R/n: .....(averts her eyes)

Tregear, Lets go of her:....I see, if this is how it's going to be. the after this is dealt with we're done.

R/n looked at Tregear shock she expected him to just start laughing at any second but now he was serious as he kept down the stairs, any attempts of R/n trying to talk were met with stony silence, it wasn't until they'd finally got one of the trains moving that R/n finally cracked under the pressure of not seeing Tregear again!

R/n: Before I explain anything, Bel/r's a Jötunn.

Tregear, looked at her apprehensively:..Don't try and make things now-

R/n, interrupts him: I'm not making things up, you can ask her yourself when we get there, but for now just fucking listen to me.

Tregear looked taken aback my her sudden use of cursing, R/n never curses unless she's nervous or she's about tell him something very serious or both!

R/n explained that three years before they met Bel/r came to her with an odd request pretend to be her while on a expedition to Valhalla, of course R/n thought the woman had gone mad! After all, Valhalla isn't real! it just a myth! but then Bel/r revealed her true self to the young science student. And explained that Valhalla was real but it wasn't some never ending party in a Mead hall in the afterlife... it was a lab, an ancient lab the frost giants used to help create weapons and bionics for a certain group of humans.

The lab had been dormant for centuries and now someone found it, but they needed a frost giant to open it and Bel/r was going to be the one to open it. However she had no intention of letting them repeat the mistakes of the past, the last frost giant intended to destroy Valhalla and keep it's secrets locked away forever.

R/n: At first everything went according to plan, we tricked the head researcher into thinking I was the frost giant and Bel/r was my bodyguard... but when we reach the sanctum above lab's entrance is where things fell apart. The head researcher revealed themselves to be descendant of Thor and had intended use the lab to reclaim their family's power and rule the world and all that...

R/n:...They killed everyone except me and Bel/r and force us down in in the lab's entrance. the whole time my legs were shaking as they forced me to step forward towards the doors and then they stabbed me through the back with some kind of blade that worked like a siphon. They never intended to let Bel/r live...and she knew that and she still let me...

R/n punch the empty seat next to her in frustration Tregear's eyes widened as a pillar of jagged ice suddenly tore through the seat cushions.

R/n: I don't know what happened after that, But three months later I woke up in another lab; Helheim. Apparently it was it was the giant's version of a glorified morgue. Bel/r experimented on my body and brought me back, turned me into a freak.

Tregear: A freak?

R/n: A proxy she calls me. transferred some of her essence into my body, gave me almost all the powers of a frost giant, minus the ability to transformation. But it also came with two downsides.

R/n: When R/n transferred her energy into me it also transferred a melange of her screwed up memories and personally traits that affected me so badly that sometimes I still can't even tell who the fuck I am anymore.

Tregear: And the other thing?

R/n stares at him unsure before pulling down her sweater sleeve revealing the skin on her arm was turning gray and ice was slowly growing out of it, It looked painful and if it was painful then R/n was good job hiding it or she can't feel it at all.

R/n: Unfortunately due to my weak human constitution I can't control the ice flowing in my veins, sure it protects me from subfreezing temperatures but every time I use it I risk freezing myself from the inside out.

R/n reaches into her bag and pull out a some sort of sheet it looked like bandage but it had a fire ball on it, she stuck it on her arm the patch bonded to her skin like a tattoo and in seconds the ice melted away and the grey color her arm turned went back to a more healthier hue.

R/n could see the questions in Tregear eyes and handed him the box labeled "heat patches" R/n explains she got them from an alien pharmacy they offer some relief for her predicament. Bel/r uses a similar product but they're to regulate the cold so she doesn't overheat.

Usually R/n uses a extra large patch and sets it on her back that's the tattoo he's seen before , but the store was out she been stuck using mediums or smalls they stay bonded to the skin for a couple weeks then the patch peels off on it's own.

Tregear hummed handing the box back to R/n as the train's automatic PA announced their stop and the two cautiously made their way to the Black Apple bar where Bel/r was waiting along with Tregear's eyes widened when he saw Ultraman Belial sitting at the bar eyeing him suspiciously...well that explained the overkill to some of the bodies he saw downtown.

Once this invasion situation was over Tregear assured R/n he wasn't leaving now that she was being truthful with him, however he did confront Bel/r over why she didn't fix the problem with R/n's powers? The frost giant shrugged. "I'm no scientist I just felt bad cos she got hurt, you however are a scientist- figure it out yourself." she said giving him a little pat on the back before rejoining Belial.

Tregear was thrown-off at her sheer indifference at the situation he now understood why R/n and Bel/r were on strained terms; he had feeling getting the experiment data from the frost giant was going to be like pulling bent nails from a board from here on out.

[aparticularbandit]

Hey.

Hey guys.

Remember when Yuri described the book she gave the Player Character and it included human experimentation and people who would chop other people's body parts off and sew them onto themselves?

:D

[murderedbyhomework]

Not going to lie, I'm really concerned over how they're going to portray Tyler next season. He's going to be sent off to a facility probably, and I'm scared they're going to use the unethical experimentation/evil scientists and psychiatrists trope. Wednesday is relatively edgy I think, given that they changed to Addams family dynamic a little to make Wednesday seem cooler. So I'm pretty scared that this trope will appear and be the reason why Tyler is 'darker and a lot more evil' in season 2. Because they've already said Tyler was willing to kill and enjoyed it when he was in fact brainwashed and tortured by Thornhill, so like what if they use unethical scientists and psychiatrists to make him a villain?

Anyways this is my official petition for Wednesday show writers to give Tyler a good therapist and let him heal from his trauma, because I want therapist scenes with banter and the therapist actually being a good one. (maybe Tyler's boyfriend could also get the same therapist? He needs a new one anyway hehe)

[cypress-punk]

The cool thing about Getter Robo is that you think its just an edgier super robot series where the power of courage or friendship or whatever is replaced by a sort of manic will to win as expressed by the Getter Rays as the fun scifi power source. But then you Learn.

You learn that the Getter has a will. You learn that it has an agenda. You learn that it handpicked the human race to have Getter Robos because Gettet Robos are essentially its avatars, physical manifestations of its will. You learn its a the power of evolution, and yet it wiped out the dinosaurs and harms the Dinosaur Empire. Why? Because they were in the way of the development of its preferred symbiote species, homo sapiens.

And then you see it. Getter Emperor. You see it destroying worlds. Creating innumerable clones of its favorite humans to serve it beyond death. You see it in a genocidal war to wipe out all non-human life in the cosmos, a war so terrible they start using time travel to try and strangle this horrific monster in the crib. And they fail. Nothing can stop the Getter.

"Believe in the Getter" is a phrase that sends a chill down my spine because I know what its all in service to. Believe in a God that will one day make you an instrument of ultimate genocide. Believe in a God that promises the survival of the human race right up until its completed its mission to obliterate all other life. Then it kills the universe and moves on to a new universe where it repeats the cycle.

Its a really effective cosmic horror in my opinion. An inversion of the usual super robot ethos of heroic conquest of evil. Sure the villains are pretty awful. The Dinosaur Empire has a fucking war crime lab where they test biological weapons on a human zoo. But does that make them worthy of extermination? Does it make the cosmos worthy of extermination? If the choice is between the continuation of the human race at the cost of all else, is it right to fight to preserve the human race? Is it even a choice? Or has the Getter already got its grip in too deep by the time Saotome builds that first Getter Robo?

Anyway read the Getter Robo manga. Its really good except for the one section where there's a really racist guy and a character who's entire personality is "predatory lesbian" but they don't stick around too long.

[weirdo-from-bonesborough]

Stephanie - father is a supervillian

Duke - father is a supervillian

Barbara - mother was a supervillian in the Gotham TV show

Cass - father and mother are supervillians

Damian - mother and grandfather are supervillians

Dick - grandfather is a supervillian

Jason - father worked for Two-Face, mother aided the Joker and was run out of Gotham for human experimentation, Nocturna was a supervillian

Tim - father worked for Two-Face in the DCAU

I'm not sure what to do with this information. AU where Bruce keeps kidnapping Rogues' kids, maybe?

[fanfic-obsessed]

Historical choices

This idea starts on Kamino. Well before the time of the prequels. 

As with all my ideas, ignore any part of canon that contradicts it. 

Tipoca City became the capital of Kamino after the flood. It was never meant to be the Capital city. In fact it was not built to be a city at all. Tipoca was built as a remote research station, long before the flood. It was the first genetic research station for the Kaminoans.  

The very first project…how to prevent Force Sensitivity in their own people. For many reasons, all based on superstition and bigotry, the Kaminoan government decided that having Force sensitivity was undesirable and wanted it stopped.  The initial project, lost to the tides of time, took all the Force Sensitives they could get their hands on (though there were many adults captured, unfortunately Force Sensitive children and babies were easier to source) and began to experiment, with all the horror that that entails. 

By the time the scientists had a ‘breakthrough’ many decades later, everything that subjects endured had sunk into the location, darkening the Force as only that kind of pain and horror can. 

The scientists called it a breakthrough, removing Force Sensitivity from the Kaminoan genetic code and generations later the project had been forgotten, and it is assumed that Kaminoans simply were not Force sensitive. This is not quite true. What those initial scientists did was make Force Sensitivity above a specific threshold, well below the level to actually be considered Force Sensitive, toxic to Kaminoans. 

The funny thing is that after the genetic treatments to ‘remove’ force sensitivity, miscarriages among the Kaminoan population (which at that point was still reproducing, not cloning) shot through the roof, often including the death of the mother/carrier (I have no idea what the Kaminoans called the egg producer). At the same time the Force is not simply in sentients, it is also a vital part of the lifeblood of the planet.  There is a careful balance that the Force maintains which was utterly fucked by the mass death, and continued death, of any Force Sensitive Kaminoan.  While the connection is never made, these imbalances are the cause for the global warming that eventually floods the planet, also the violent frequent storms.  It is this and the birth rate issue that caused the Kaminoans to start cloning and genetic experiments to survive (All the while they kept including the genetic code that turned Force Sensitivity toxic). 

Even as their reputation as cloners grew, they never cloned sentients other than themselves (And there were no Force sensitive Kaminoans now). So they never realized that The Force on Kamino (in particular Tipoca City, but across the planet) had grown dark, violent, and feral. It is noted that animals cloned on Tipoca city tend to be more aggressive than normal, but that is not really noticeable given the contracts they were getting.

Not until the cloning of Jango Fett begins.  The Clones are near human and, though Jango Fett is not particularly Force sensitive, they are the first sentients since the treatment was completed for whom being touched by the Force was not lethal (since the Kaminoans no longer remember that the particular piece of genetic code was artificial, then never think to add it to the Fett clones).  The Force on Kamino curls around the clones, it loves them with desperation and the long lasting memory of the last time its children walked the surface. The Force ensures that every Fett clone is Force sensitive. 

To the trainers and Jango Fett there are a number of spots on Tipoca City that feel…deeply haunted. The more superstitious refuse to enter some of the oldest parts of the city, including where the growth tubes are located (no one is left alive to know but the growth tubes are placed in the oldest labs, where the subjects of the first scientist endured horrors beyond imagining).  

To be clear, the Force on Kamino is of the dark side. It is corrupted.  It is suffering and horror and despair leaching like poison into groundwater. It is a beaten, hurting animal biting anyone who comes close to prevent being hurt again. It is a feral thing that can not distinguish between friend and foe. And the Clones belong to it. 

This comes to a head when the majority of the CC batches are six.  One of the trainers spits out that the Jedi would also think the clones were just useless meat droids. And the Force on Kamino may have been a feral thing, a thing of suffering,  but it was also connected to the rest of the Force and it knew that the Jedi would love its children. 

It whispered this to the children, curling around them. One of the children, who would one day be Fox, glared up at the trainer and spat out that the trainer was lying.  The trainer, reacting more to the tone than the words, struck CC-1010. 

The Force on Kamino reacted. It had suffered the trainers to live because they were making it’s children strong. There had been no decommissioning or reconditionings because the Force was working to ensure its children performed exactly as they should.  But now the trainer had hurt one of its children, and not for training, but for speaking.  The barely leashed violence broke free and roared through the clones. The clones, empowered and driven by the Dark, this vicious protective energy built of the suffering from long before, took the city. It did not matter that the oldest of them were barely physically 8. Within 4 hours there were not any trainers left in Tipoca City (Jango Fett had been off planet on a bounty). Within 6 hours there were no Kaminoans either.  Within three days the Clones were the sole living sentients on Kamino.

Jango Fett came back three weeks after that to a very changed landscape. He is allowed to land because Boba (the toddler that he still is) does consider him a father.  The children, and they are all still children, have not eaten anything solid in two weeks (The Force is sustaining them, also the Force does not know what are good child rearing practices for near humans-it has existed long enough that it can’t even really tell the difference between child and adult in near humans).  The clones are now clearly something OTHER and very unsettling besides, but they all call him dad and he gets the creeping sensation that Jango was not allowed to deny them (Very much ‘oh no these ARE your children (threat)’).  The Force start playing with Clone ages (trying to figure out the best age for each clone to be for ‘their’ Jedi, the Kamino Force is invested in the Clones getting whatever they want and knows some Jedi will love the Clones dearly). 

Jango makes it another 6 months before he ‘sneaks’ away to make a panicked call to the Jedi Temple (He knows he screwed up), trying to make it their problem instead of his. Prior to this he made several attempts to call Dooku but none went through. He is chased down and told that The Force (called Buir/Protector by the Clones) allowed him this far because it knew that he would call the Jedi, but that it is time to return home now. 

There was a wandering Jedi, Master Faye, closer so she came to Kamino and was immediately given the feeling that she would care for the clones or else.  The Force on Kamino is still a wild, feral thing and the Clones are that much more aggressive for their connection to it. However the innocence of the clone children, now that they are not being trained for war any longer, has also been bringing balance back to the Force on Kamino. As they behave as children do, they have begun to drain away the leftover suffering, bringing light back to the Force. 

Some of the storms have even begun to ebb.��

It is still a bit of a horror show that Jedi now have to deal with, also children (who may be more than a little eldritch) who committed at least one Genocide. But there is hope.