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thebibliomancer · 4 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #218: Born Again (And Again and Again...)

April, 1982

Avengers fill-in issues are so weird. Beast isn’t even here and things are weird as heck.

And geez this is an unsubtle cover. And for once, not a lie.

Although Yellowjacket being in the roster rectangle is one.

I do like that the And Again... And Again... wraps off the edge of the page.

Y’know, I don’t know that this is a fill-in. It says Jim Shooter co-plotted. Then again, there’s a regular creative team box instead of an essay. So co-plotted probably means Shooter offered some adjustments to the plot but mostly let J.M. DeMatteis get on with it.

This feels like a weird time for it, honestly? The fall of Yellowjacket arc is kind of humming along leisurely already. With setup in 212, the fall in 213, fallout in 214, then a pause in 215 and 216 for the Molecule Man plot, and finally picking back up with Hank in 217 to see him fall further. And then there’s going to be a stretch of issues before we pick up again.

But it is what it is and what it is is a weird fill-in.

The issue starts where a young boy just walks right up to the door of Avengers Mansion and rings the doorbell.

Somewhere, Henry Peter Gyrich is shaking his fist. Where are the door tentacles? He fought for those door tentacles!

The young boy is here to see the Avengers and won’t take a “the Avengers are quite busy today” for an answer.

This boy: “This is a matter of life and death!!”

He remains quite insistent that he see the Avengers.

Luckily, Wasp (who I guess is not quite busy today?) shows up and decides to let this boy in for the best reason of all.

Wasp: “Turn away an adorable well-spoken little boy like you? Never! I know you were just doing your job, Jarvis -- but I’m a sucker for a pretty face! I think I’ll give him the grand tour.”

Wasp, pls.

But what Wasp says goes, so Jarvis just shrugs and goes back to the chocolate mousse cake that he was making.

Leaving Wasp to deal with this unruly child.

Wasp: “What’s your name, sweetie?”

This boy: “Sweetie?! Madam -- I am not your ‘sweetie!’ As I explained to your butler, this is a matter of gravest importance! Now take me to Captain America and the others!”

Wasp: “Just one minute, young man! I know you’re excited about being here -- but that is no excuse for rudeness! I think you ought to --”

This boy: “Madam -- SHUT UP!!”

And then he shoves her and runs off.

Pretty sure he shoves her in the boob too. You can’t fool me by changing some letters, SFX that says BOONT.

Anyway, very rude, this boy.

Meanwhile, in the Avenger’s lab we get to see what the Avengers are so quite busy with.

Thor is holding up an incredibly heavy piece of machinery while Iron Man does some welding on the bottom of it.

Thor is also complaining about holding up an incredibly heavy piece of machinery because Iron Man has been at it for about an hour. Do they not have a jack or something that can do the job instead?

Also, the big thing is apparently an “inter-spatial monitor.” I assume it watches the space between spaces.

Cap is also here, being quite busy leaning against the wall and also complaining about how long this is taking.

He’s already worked out for three hours today and he wants to get on with the Avengers meeting.

And then This Boy runs into the room exclaiming “Avengers! I’ve got to talk to you!!” startling Iron Man just when he was finishing up the welding.

Startled Iron Man accidentally blasts Thor’s foot causing the God of Thunder to lose his grip on the inter-spatial monitor out of surprise.

Cap realizes Iron Man could get crushed underneath it and springs into action, tackling Iron Man out from under the monitor. The choreography almost makes sense.

Iron Man: “Thanks, Cap -- but I could have handled that myself, you know!”

Captain America: “I know, old friend -- but I didn’t want to... take any chances!”

And then they shake hands in a display of what good friends they are. Ha ha this is ironic in hindsight. But also: is DeMattias trying to ship them? This feels like a very shippable moment.

Look at Cap’s little smile.

Anyway.

Thor scoops up This Boy and scolds him for scurrying around and distracting thunder gods.

Thor: “Whoe’ver thou art -- Thor hath half a mind to give thee a sound spanking!”

This Boy: “I... don’t think I’d live through it!”

Hah.

Thor: “Worry not, child -- Thor shall not strike thee!”

So then Wasp shows up so the gang is all here for this boy to explain why he wanted to talk to the Avengers so badly.

This Boy: “Listen to me -- all of you! I am not a child! I am a man cursed with eternal life! I am a man who cannot die -- and I need your help!”

Iron Man: “Easy, son -- why don’t you tell us your name so that we can get in touch with your parents. I’m sure they’d like to know where you are...”

This boy: “My parents?! Fool! I was afraid this would be your reaction! But I must make you understand!”

And then he pulls out a gun.

Points it at his own head, like on the cover. And shoots himself.

Good grief.

It all happens way too quickly for the Avengers to react. Or maybe the audacity just stunned them.

HEY I THOUGHT THE AVENGERS’ SECURITY SYSTEM SCANNED FOR WEAPONS.

God, Gyrich would be rolling in his grave, if he were dead.

Anyway, as Wasp is crying into Cap’s star that a child just died, Cap goes hey look something weird is happening with the child corpse.

The child corpse just disintegrates into ash and fades away. Thus clearing the Avengers from having to explain this to anyone.

And more bizarrely, where the ash was-

I... I guess the way to explain it is that a fetus just sort of develops into a baby and then back into this boy right in front of the Avengers’ eyes.

Why is this happening

I do like the “Now do you believe me?” “They do...” caption.

Thor: “Methinks it be time for an explanation!”

YES. EXACTLY RIGHT.

This boy finally introduces himself as Morgan MacNeil Hardy.

So. This guy. Is an established character. He was established first in Spider-Woman #33 where he was Turner D. Century’s foster dad. Turner D. Century is a guy who just super loves the early 1900s because Morgan MacNeil Hardy raised him only in the values of that time period for some reason.

I’m getting off track, really. But this is a rabbit hole.

So. Even though Hardy seemed to die in Spider-Woman #33, he came back in Captain America #264. He invented something called the psi-augmentor to alter reality and make America moral again.

He did this by plugging four people into his machine, two of which I’m decently sure were a racist and a Nazi.

Cap intervened because some of the changes to reality were causing racism and Nazi stuff to happen and then when Hardy tried to wipe Captain America out of existence, he almost wiped out America instead. Because Cap is the symbol of America. Or maybe the machine missed the Captain part. Either or.

But Hardy was too patriotic to allow America to be retgonned so he drew the energy back and then died.

SHIELD came and mopped up the mess Cap left and buried the dead Hardy. But then three days later the man rose from the dead as this boy.

And in fact, the jolt from the reality altering machine freed Hardy’s repressed memories of all the lives he has lived.

Hardy: “I have lived innumerable lives, died innumerable deaths, yet time and again by body has somehow regenerated itself -- grown back to this youthful form! But, until my current incarnations, I’d believed every lifetime to be the first! Each identity to be the only identity! Hear me: since the dawn of time I have seen life as no other man has ever seen it -- as no other man should have to see it! And I am tired... infinitely tired. All I want now -- is the peace of death.”

Shot in the dark but you may be a Time Lord, Hardy.

Anyway, as dark as an infinitely regenerating suicidal child is, it gets worse. The psi-augmentor also dicked up whatever process makes Hardy regenerate. It took him three days to regenerate after the psi-augmentor incident. Now he’s back up in minutes.

Hardy: “I can’t bear much more of this! I can’t! That’s why you’ve got to help me! You’re all so wise -- so strong! You’ve the greatest super-scientific devices in the world at your disposal! Surely you can find out why this is happening to me!”

The Avengers are blown away by this story and Wasp speaks for all of them when she promises that the Avengers will do everything in their power to help him.

So the Avengers spend several days doing assorted science at a child. Or at least Iron Man does while Wasp watches in interest and Thor and Captain America watch in disinterest.

They’ve only got the one smart guy right now.

But after using all those big science machines and gazing at science glassware full of science chemicals, Iron Man finally sciences a science science.

Science.

Iron Man: “It seems our young friend is a true anomaly... a freak of nature... perhaps the first mutant the world ever knew. Simply put: his own lifecycle is somehow tied in with the lifecycle of the Earth itself! It’s as if the man and the planet -- were one soul... as long as the planet exists -- he will exist.”

How... how do you test for that?! What science chemicals told you that this boy’s soul was one with the Earth??

Also, another hat thrown into Actually the First Mutant contest. Get fucked, Namor.

Anyway, a distraught Hardy questions whether this means he’ll have to live forever but Iron Man says that now that he understands the problem, he can start working on a solution.

Which leads to a bit of a disagreement among the Avengers.

Iron Man sees a SCIENCE! problem to be scienced at. But he’s the only one.

Wasp: “Wait a minute! A solution? I know that this... boy has been through a lot -- but who are we to provide him with a means of suicide?”

And Cap agrees with Wasp. But for more different reasons.

Cap: “Captain America has always stood for the preservation of life! With all he’s been through -- all he’s learned -- this... Forever Man could help humanity immeasurably!”

Geez. Are you really standing for the preservation of life if you then follow it up suggesting that Forever Man should be (beneficially) exploited for everyone else?

And Thor just doesn’t see the problem at all. And maybe isn’t even sure what the Avengers have been bothering over for the past couple days.

Thor: “Thor hath yet to see if a problem doth e’en exist! Immortality be not a fate fit for mourning -- ‘tis a blessing that -- till now -- only the gods have known!”

And Hardy. Hardy is pissed at the way the conversation is going and all this not putting him out of his misery.

Hardy: “You sanctimonious morons! You can’t even begin to comprehend what I’ve been through! I haven’t had a god’s life, Thor -- I’ve had the pathetic life of a man! I’ve seen the death, the suffering, the loves lost, the hopes denied! Forget what the movies tell you about the immortals who’ve walked with Methuselah, Moses, Jesus! I’ve known no great me and, with the exception of Hardy, I’ve been no great men!”

Iron Man cuts him off to go why not go to bed kiddo while the adults talk things out.

I mean, not exactly, but the spirit is there.

And maybe not the right tack to take because upon being sent to his room, more or less, Hardy decides well fuck this. Inspired by an article he sees in a newspaper, he runs away from home/Avengers Mansion, hitches a ride on a train, and threatens with a gun some vagrants who I’m pretty sure are Laurel and Hardy.

Morgan MacNeil Hardy rides the rails all the way to Cape Canaveral.

Upon which he lies his way onto the base by pretending to be the lost grandson of the base’s general, sneaks off, and then sneaks into a rocket that is being prepared to launch.

“He stands, dwarfed by the mammoth spacecraft, gazing up at it the way some men would gaze up at the face of God. For this NASA probe -- ‘Star Core Three’ -- is a god of sorts. A god that will carry him to the heart of the Sun; a Sun that, he hopes, will succeed where he has failed... a Sun that will consume him... and grant him the peace of final death.”

Damn, Hardy.

You sure are serious about this death thing if you’re willing to go so far out of your way to throw yourself into the Sun.

Did you even consider just throwing yourself into a volcano? Its less of a trip!

The rocket is Star Core Three and is going to orbit the Sun and get all kinds of SCIENCE data.

It also wasn’t meant to have passengers so Hardy dies and dies and dies again from the lack of oxygen and the cold. Just death and rebirth for the weeks it takes the rocket to travel to the Sun.

This story is pretty messed up, if you think about it.

Anyway, during those “brief, agonized moments of life” Hardy reprograms Star Core Three’s guidance system.

So that when the probe arrives at the sun, it plunges into it instead of orbiting it.

Cool. You just sabotaged a millions dollar space probe to try to kill yourself in the Sun, Hardy. You dick.

After the probe’s destruction, General Nelson calls the Avengers and asks if they know of any cosmic nonsense or anything else that could have caused Star Core Three’s guidance systems to shit the bed.

He’s also asked the Fantastic Four so really he’s just checking the Avengers off a list just in case.

Wasp asks if anything weird happened on the day of the launch and Peter Parker looking General Nelson says that there was a small boy intruder but that’s about it.

Wasp is like gasp! We’ve misplaced a small boy! Is it possible, nay even probable that Hardy launched himself into the fucking sun in a grand suicide attempt??

Iron Man decides that’s far fetched.

“Far-fetched, Iron Man... and true!”

“But, if it is death the ageless child has come to the sun seeking... it is something far more horrible that he has found! For, as he is swallowed by the staggering energies of the sun; as he dies, screaming, ten thousand times in ten thousand seconds... an awful change occurs!”

“Whatever the creature is that rises in the boy’s place, it is not human. It is a thing of plasma and pain; a pain that, the creature senses, has been its lot for centuries.”

“It knows it must end that pain -- at any cost! And so it arcs out towards space, toward home... toward Earth!”

So. Yeah. Yeahhhhh. Yeah.

Hardy dunked himself into the Sun and found a fate worse than the fate worse than death he was suffering.

Pro-tip to all immortals out there? Looking at you, Lestat. Unless you’re absolutely sure that dunking into the Sun really will kill you and not consign you to an even more hellish existence, maybe don’t?

Anyway, an undisclosed amount of time later, Jarvis runs into the Avengers meeting room (which once again has a decently sized table - although the chairs look a little cramped) and tells the Avengers that he was watching the news on his tea break and saw a bulletin about a fire creature on the loose.

I do make fun of it a lot but the Avengers sure do rely on the news to keep on the ball, huh?

Also, is it just me or have the Avengers been fighting a lot of fire monsters? Not in a short time span but still. They fought that Inferno guy in a two-parter. Pyron when Wasp was the cool hero. And now a child who swan dived into the Sun and became a monster.

Anyway, Fire Hardy is menacing Midtown because he vaguely remembers failing to die here once.

The police and even the army are failing to do much to stop Fire Hardy’s rampage. And some are getting discouraged because of it.

A police officer: “Why are we even doing this? The blasted monster’s unstoppable! Why don’t we just give up and let it kill us?”

Iron Man: “Take it easy, officer -- the situation can’t be that bad!”

So the Avengers tell the army and police to armscray because this looks like a job for the AVENGERS.

Fire Hardy sees the Avengers and their gaudy costumes stirs a vague memory, perhaps of them being unhelpful, and he AROOOOs angrily, like Futurama Nixon.

Cap also claims that Fire Hardy is like a living sun, generating heat that is almost unbearable.

But, Cap, c’mon. C’mon. Really? C’mon. Look, you can’t do the Pyron story where the Avengers all had to wear heat resistant suits and Jocasta started melting and expect me to take any fire threat as seriously if you’re confronting it in your red, white, and blues.

Wasp takes initiative. I was wondering whether, since this smacked of filler, it would remember that she’s the leader of the team. But at least she gets to go first.

She shears a lamp-post with one of her sting blasts and has it fall on Fire Hardy.

It doesn’t work. The lamp-post just catches fire and melts on contact. But, hey, blasting a lamp-post in half in one go is a good showing for Wasp’s vaguely powered pew pew.

Wasp goes uh Iron Man, you’re up.

And Iron Man has a good idea.

He borrows the shovel from a steam shovel and uses it to dig a hole.

Then they can trip the monster so it falls into the hole and uhh look its a good first step. They’ll figure it out as they go.

Thor: “If only thy words couldst make it so, Iron Man! But methinks the creature hath other plans!”

And Fire Hardy melts the asphalt ground molten with a touch and allows it to fill in the pit.

The monster is clearly more intelligent than the 8 whole panels before this one have led the Avengers to believe.

Now its Thor’s turn. Because I guess they’re just going one at a time.

Good teamwork, Avengers!

Anyway, Thor’s plan, unsurprisingly, is to do Thor things. Which as you might recall, isn’t limited to just hitting things really hard.

Thor: “Let this lumbering sun-beast brace itself! -- For it is about to face -- THOR, god of thunder! I now call down the living lightning that be mine to command -- the roaring gale -- the full, unfettered fury of the storm! May the floodtides of heaven surround yon walking star -- and drown its fires in life-giving water...”

And Thor brings the storm and the thunder. But. Remember when Cap (laughably) claimed that Fire Hardy was as hot as the Sun?

Do you know what the evaporation point of water is? A lot lower than the heat of the sun, probably??

So Thor’s storm just evaporates from the heat before even touching Fire Hardy.

So another dud.

Cap’s up!

Not sure what he can do that Thor couldn’t do. Lets be honest. They kind of spent their biggest gun already. What’s Cap gonna do?

Did you guess... run up and throw his shield at the problem? Good guess.

Cap: “We’re facing one of the most dangerous menaces we’ve ever faced! Unchecked, it could wipe out every man, woman, and child in this city -- perhaps in the world! But I have no intention of letting that happen!”

I’ll give him credit for stubbornness and a Corellian-esque hatred of knowing the odds.

But throwing his shield actually does do a thing.

It elicits a NOOOOOO from the monster.

The voice sounds familiar to Iron Man but before he can ponder it, he tackles Cap to stop him from burning his hands off.

Iron Man: “Despite the fact that your shield’s made of some strange, powerful alloy, Cap -- it still gets mighty hot when you toss it into a mini-sun!”

Cap: “That’s one I owe you, Shell-Head!”

Sometimes I suspect that Cap may be a beautiful idiot. Who specifically doesn’t know how thermodynamics work.

Although to be fair, the shield was in Fire Hardy for a couple seconds at most. That’s an impressive heat transfer coefficient.

Anyway Fire Hardy has more to say such as FOOLS! AT LAST -- I REMEMBER!

And Cap realizes what Iron Man suspected just a five lines ago. That the fire monster sounds like Hardy.

Cap puts 2 and 2 together and realizes that Wasp was right that Hardy threw himself into the Sun and realizes that obviously because of science, he must have mutated into a fire monster.

Of course. That’s just science.

The Avengers try to reason with Fire Hardy but Fire Hardy claims HARDY IS GONE! ONLY HIS PAIN AND RAGE REMAIN!

So the Avengers shrug and go back to doing what they do best. Fight scenes that resolve in eyebrow raising ways.

Cap figures that hey his shield had seemed to hurt Fire Hardy before so why not do that again but better. And he throws his mighty shield so hard that it lodges in Fire Hardy.

Uh. What is it.... lodged in? Fire Hardy is made of fire. Which is not known for its tangibility.

But with the mighty shield lodged in his gut somehow, Fire Hardy goes NOOOOOOO

Iron Man figures that something in the shield’s unique molecular structure is janking up Fire Hardy and decides ‘hey lets all concentrate on the shield!’

This makes as much sense as anything else.

So Iron Man blasts the shield, Wasp blasts the shield, and Thor throws Mjolnir through Fire Hardy.

Wasp worries that they may be killing Hardy but Thor argues ‘hey he said he wasn’t Hardy! We’re free and clear, morally speaking!’

More seriously:

Thor: “And tell me -- can we truly slay a thing that ne’er hath died?”

Good point, Thor, good point.

Problem is that either Fire Hardy has had enough of these shenanigans or they’ve hit the weak point for massive damage too well.

Because Fire Hardy starts glowing white hot, almost as if he’s going to explode.

And with the heat that he’s allegedly putting out, its an explosion that could destroy the entire western hemisphere!

Or Iron Man says so anyway!

He asks Thor to make a vortex with Mjolnir.

And Thor is like ‘oh right that is a thing I can do’

So he spins Mjolnir around and around and around so fast that it creates a tornado that picks Fire Hardy up and shoots him into space.

Where he explodes.

“At last, a wildly-spinning vortex forms about the brilliantly-glowing sun-thing... sucking it up, up, up -- out of the Earth’s atmosphere... into the dappled heavens... where, with a soundless, scintillant explosion... the threat of the man who lived forever... ends! Or does it?”

Wild.

Even though the blast was all up in space and contained by the vortex, it still shakes the Avengers off their feet. AND CREATES A NOT-WIDE BUT PRETTY DEEP CRATER!

Cap: “If I had any questions about Hardy’s living through that -- they’re gone now.”

Wasp: “Then -- he’s finally found the peace he was looking for.”

Thor: “Aye, Wasp -- but at what cost?”

Iron Man: “Uh... I hate to be the one to put the damper on this impromptu memorial service -- but considering we’re talking about a guy who’s survived since the dawn of time -- don’t you think we ought to check?”

Pfft.

I love that exchange.

So the Avengers jump down into the crater and find two ludicrous things.

Cap is talking about how he lost his shield in this nonsense and would like to look for it.

Thor: “Captain -- art thou daft? Thy shield hadst no more chance of remaining intact in that inferno than--”

-Cap’s shield perfectly intact-

Iron Man: “... you were saying, Thor?”

Thor: “Heimdall’s beard! Surely thy weapon must be as enchanted as mine uru mallet!”

And then Cap just picks his shield up.

Not by the metal, obviously. That’d be silly! It’d be way too hot to hold!

No, he picks it up by the straps! The presumably leather or cloth straps which are perfectly intact after being at the center of an explosion that reached all the way from space!

Good lord, what is that presumably leather from? The legendary tarrasque??

Even if the leather straps were indestructible, wouldn’t they still be very hot?

Anyway, that was just ludicrous thing number one.

Ludicrous thing number two is that Not-Fire Hardy regrows to his child form at the bottom of the crater.

And he has AMNESIA!

-soap opera sting-

Because. Of course.

Thor and Wasp immediately accept that this is a thing which has happened because of course.

But Cap is more doubtful. About that and about this whole misadventure.

Cap: “Despite the fact that he’s managed to resurrect himself -- we killed a living being today!”

Iron Man: “But -- is it really killing when the being you’ve slain... doesn’t stay dead?”

Cap: “That’s something we’ll all have to wonder about -- for the rest of our days.”

And then the Avengers fly out of the crater. With Cap riding on Thor’s back.

God, I love this comic sometimes.

And Hardy being wrapped in Thor’s cape and held in Wasp’s arms while Iron Man holds the both of them.

But Iron Man is wondering a thing himself.

“What if the boy’s amnesia isn’t legitimate: what if it’s an act, meant to lull them into a false sense of security. What then? Indeed... WHAT THEN...?”

And given Hardy’s little smirk at the end, yeah, its implied that he’s faking amnesia to get away with having tried to kill the Avengers as a monster of solar fire.

Does anything come of this?

HECK NO!

Nothing is done with the character after this! You’d think that an alleged First Mutant would be more important but I’m not attached enough to this character concept to want to argue for that.

Especially not for man who builds psychic device to bring back traditional values.

I kind of wonder whether this whole exercise was to sort of take his death in Captain America #264 off Cap’s hands by having him come back to life.

Anyway... yeah. Very fill-in. Reading it feels like a speedbump. We’ve got the Hank Pym thing spinning its wheels in the background and we gotta deal with this for a month.

I don’t mind one-offs but aside from sheer lunacy (solarcy?) this doesn’t have much to recommend it.

Next time, at least, the Shootering continues with our old friend.... workplace acquaintance? Yeah that sounds better. Our old workplace acquaintance, Moondragon.

She’s the worst. Which makes her the best.

You should follow @essential-avengers because I cover the Avengers issues that nobody else will because they have better things to do. I assume. Also, like and reblog so I feel appreciated.

#Avengers #Morgan MacNeil Hardy #the Wasp #Captain America #Iron Man #Thor #essential avengers #essential marvel liveblogging #cw suicide #this issue is memorable if nothing else #what with the on panel child suicide #thanks JM DeMatteis #and also the child stealing a spaceship to fly into the sun #a bunch of child endangerment happens and the avengers are vaguely around it

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tarhalindur · 4 years ago

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Running through the solution space for Watadamashi-hen

With Watadamashi-hen in the books and the obvious and traditional remaining question of “whodunnit?” in everyone’s heads, methinks it would be useful to see if there’s anything we can lock down for sure as constraints on possible solutions. (Or, seeing as we’re in Gou’s version of the question arc that focuses the most on the local yakuza clan, perhaps a (forum) Mafia phrasing would be more appropriate: who is still in the PoE/Process of Elimination, and who is out of it?)

Here’s what I’ve got, under the cut:

- I do not believe we have quite enough information to say anything definitive about which sister Sonozaki is which during this arc. There’s two big questions here, and both are mostly related to the backstory: did the tattoo incident happen in the backstory as usual, and why is information about Satoshi so scarce this time around? And both of those in turn boil down to a single issue: the level 0 answer for Watadamashi-hen (or perhaps more accurately level 3 -> level 0) is that Shion is responsible for at least some of the deaths as usual, but if that’s actually Shion during episode 8 then her behavior towards Keiichi here (especially the confession in the last episode) is hard to square with her devotion to Satoshi’s memory in OG. So the obvious questions: 1) did something happen in the backstory to switch which twin has the personality traits likely to drive L5, and 2) is there an easy explanation for why a Shion-born-Mion wouldn’t be as attached to Satoshi this time around?

The one thing I do suspect is that we only see one of the twins in Gou episode 5. (The question is which - present!Shion impersonating her sister for the game tournament, or present!Mion impersonating her sister for the rest of the episode? Leaning the former, but that’s not guaranteed.)

(Note: One of the theories going around is that the ending credits spoil which twin(s) are present in which episode of this arc. I believe this is possible but doesn’t actually tell us much even if so? The only conclusion that would give me that I wouldn‘t have arrived at anyways is that only one sister Sonozaki shows up during Episode 8 - that would rule out worlds where one of Mion/Shion is attending school at the start of the episode and then dies no later than Keiichi meeting kimono!Mion. Other than that, as I just noted I’m leaning towards only one twin being present in episode 5 anyways, and everything else including which twin is in 5 is potentially drowned in “yes, I told you it was Mion, but did I mean Mion now or Mion by birth?” unless the tattoo incident never happened and Mion was born Mion... and in that case Mion is the prohibitive favorite for being a culprit anyways because the reasons Mion never goes L5 in OG would now apply to Shion instead, so once again it would just be confirming things I would have already suspected!)

- For each of Oryou, Kiichirou, and {Shion, Mion}, at some point, somebody had access to both their dead bodies and the Sonozaki disposal well.

This is more restrictive than it looks. There’s really only four groups of people with even potential access to the well: a member of the Sonozaki family, another member of the Club (who could get Mion’s help, wittingly [ala Tsumihoroboshi-hen] or otherwise [Tatarigoroshi-hen]), the Yamainu (courtesy of their raiding the residence), or the police. Of those, the only people who don’t have severe issues wrt opportunity for both the Oryou and Kiichirou murders are the Sonozakis and Rika (who might have been able to use her position as last surviving member of the third gosanke to set up a suitable opportunity to kill both of them if she went L5 or a Bern personality came out to play), and IIRC the sisters Sonozaki are the only Sonozakis with screen time while alive this arc.

The most likely permutation here is that the obvious inference from OG holds: one or both of the twins are responsible for all three of those deaths in some combination. Looking it over... I think the second most likely possibility may actually be that the Mion who was at school during episode 8 was telling the actual truth about Rika? (#FeelTheBern)

- Whoever killed kimono!Shmion and Satoko had access to firearms, given both the death pose and the reported gunshot.

This is actually quite the restriction on possible culprits, as AFAICT there are only three groups in Hinamizawa with even potential access to firearms: the Sonozakis, the Yamainu (technically there’s also other Tokyo groups like the Banken, but only the Yamainu show up on screen this arc), and possibly the police. (Caveat: if kimono!Mion’s gun is real, then it is possible that the culprit here successfully wrested the gun away from her and then shot her with it.) (I wonder: is there any clear indication in the original Japanese about whether the officers who heard the gunshot heard only one shot or more than one? I know Japanese often lacks formal singular/plural distinctions, so quite possibly not.) I am heavily inclined to suspect the Yamainu here - I do not trust Keiichi’s viewpoint wrt Mion’s “revolver”, especially with the mismatch with the gun seen by the dead bodies, and if the shot of Shmion’s and Satoko’s body is to be believed the position of the nominal murder weapon looks really off for a murder-suicide. (Also, they’re still on the short list of people with obvious motive to kill Satoko - if the clinic is once again “renovating” and that’s a cover for shutting down, they could be cleaning up loose ends.)

(Note: The apparent scratches on the neck of kimono!Mion’s dead body are quite interesting, because we get a clear view of that side of her neck during the confession scene and at that point there is *no sign* of said scratches! Now, it’s possible Keiichi was hallucinating the lack of scratches, but that’s rather atypical for late-stage HS hallucinations; otherwise, those scratches must have been infliced during the events leading up to kimono!Mion’s death.)

- Whoever killed Rika was either making a delayed statement and/or did not have immediate access to either the Sonozaki disposal well or the Yamainu’s resources.

This one is pretty simple. The school septic tank is a pretty shitty place to hide Rika’s body (pun intended after the fact) - after all, only {Mion/Shion} calling Keiichi away at the last moment prevents him from finding the body within at most a few hours of Rika being reported missing![1] It’s certainly inferior to either the well (where the police only ever get to look in scenarios where Mion, Shion, and Oryou all die; Teppei’s body is quite secure there every time its gets moved to the well in OG arcs) or where the Yamainu would hide the body (people killed in the GHD coverup as opposed to the main event stay missing - both police officers shot on the road and villagers trying to escape into the hills). Now, it’s possible that just like in certain OG arcs the reason Rika’s body is in such a findable place is because someone is making a statement and never intended for the body to remain hidden forever, especially if they wanted the body to stay hidden just long enough to get clear first - AIUI finding a miko’s body in a tank full of human waste would be a bit of a statement given Shinto ritual cleanliness, even/especially given certain features of local Hinamizawa practice (IIRC you could find some vaguely Western analogues in some of the ways Orthodox priests were executed during the Russian Civil War). (This probably applies at the meta level regardless, especially given that Gou translates as karma.) If it’s not a statement, however, then the only reason to put Rika’s body there instead of a more secure location is because the better locations weren’t an option (which, in turn, could be either because there wasn’t time/opportunity to move the body to one of the better locations or because the killer just didn’t have access to such locations).

[1] - I’m not sure how incriminating that is for whichever of {Mion/Shion} was at school at the time. Coincidence is a very really possibility there, absolutely no reason to think it can’t be when that kind of thing is de riguer for detective story red herrings.

Piecing it together, here’s what I’ve got:

Culprit 1: Responsible for the deaths of Oryou Sonozaki and Kiichirou Kimiyoshi. Likely candidates: birth!Mion, then Rika and birth!Shion in some order (the last probably gates around Oryou crossing one of birth!Shion’s red lines, although something involving fallout from no tattoo incident is also possible). Corner case candidates: the Yamainu, a different club member, the police.

Culprit 2: Responsible for the death of the “Shion” found in the well. Can be the same as Culprit 1. Probably the other Sonozaki twin, assuming that the lack of apparent marks on the body holds and noting that self-defense is a possible motive (or technically suicide + someone else disposing of the body). Corner case candidates are once again the Yamainu and the police (but why throw “Shion’s” body into the well but not “Mion’s”?),

Culprit 3: Responsible for the death of Rika Furude (or at least for moving her body to the septic tank - I suppose it’s technically possible that Rika left the stage on her own ala Meakashi-hen). Likely candidates: Satoko, birth!Mion (iff the septic tank was a temporary solution until she could safely move the body to the well), Miyo Takano/Jirou Tomitake (iff one or both is still in town after all, assumes Takano no longer has Yamainu support). Notable corner cases: Rena, birth!Shion (self-defense? plus birth!Mion caveat). Other corner cases: Keiichi (iff unreliable narrator manifests as him killing Rika offscreen, which is unlikely but possible), someone else around school (Chie-sensei after Rika insulted curry?), the police. Probably not the Yamainu; they might have motive but I find it hard to believe they’d leave Rika’s body where it was.

Culprit 4: Responsible for the death of Satoko Hojo. Not necssarily also Culprit 5, depending on exact events (the notable world here is “kimono!Mion kills Satoko and is then killed by the Yamainu in turn”). Likely candidates: kimono!Mion and the Yamainu, in some order (kimono!Mion has self-defense as a possible motive given those scratches). Less likely: Satoko herself (suicide). Corner cases: the police, Rena (if she somehow dodged the security cams or Keiichi was hallucinating those), Takano/Tomitake (likewise). Alibi’d: Rika (dead), Keiichi (in the cell).

Culprit 5: Responsible for the death of kimono!Mion. Likely candidates: the Yamainu, followed closely by kimono!Mion (suicide) and Satoko in some order. Corner cases: the police, Rena, Takano/Tomitake. Alibi’d: Rika (dead), Keiichi (in the cell).

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duhragonball · 4 years ago

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (120/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[11 April, 233 Before Age. Eetii.]

The Striker Corps. was a band of Saiyan mercenaries. Their crew numbered over one hundred, not counting their young children, who had been known to join in on battles when needed. Their leader, Mato had heard tales of the Saiyan Free Company, but he wasn't terribly interested until they became embroiled in the Jindan/Federation War. Now, he sat across from the S.F.C.'s leaders in the conference room of some Eetian hotel, negotiating their entry into the alliance.

"We've learned that my father, King Rehval, is leading the Jindan Cult," said Princess Seltiss. Mato had heard there was a teenage girl in charge of the S.F.C., and while it hadn't bothered him much at the time, seeing her in person made it very difficult to ignore how young she looked. She did her best to carry herself like a seasoned leader, and maybe that was enough to convince others, but to Mato it looked like bad comedy.

Mato put his feet up on the table and grinned. "I don't care one bit about you royals and your internal power struggle," he said. "I want a good fight. And this war of yours looks like it'll be one for the ages."

He'd already gotten a taste of that. The Striker Corps had gotten permission to enter Federation space, but it had been a running firefight all the way to to Eetii, as the Jindan cult was very keen on intercepting any outsiders who might help the Federation. Now that the Strikers had already drawn blood for the alliance, this negotiation was something of a formality, but there were still details to be sorted out. A little insolence was a good way to test the waters in a partnership. How badly did they need his help? Were they willing to forgive a little rudeness to secure his cooperation?

"Have a care--" Xibuyas began to protest as he rose from his chair, but Seltiss held up her hand to call for him to stand down. Xibuyas obeyed, and took his seat. Well, that answered that. Mato could sense the young man's power rising. He was probably the girl's personal enforcer, and only present at this meeting to showcase the power at her command. And he was very powerful at that. Mato decided not to test Seltiss any further.

"I like your enthusiasm," Seltis said, "but you could find just as much action fighting for the other side. Will you pledge your loyalty to me?"

"Hmmph! They say the enemy demands more than loyalty, girl. They would ask for my soul itself. Methinks you drive the better bargain. Aye, I'll pledge my allegiance to you, and my mens' as well! Not the women, though. They get a mite testy whenever I presume to speak for them."

This drew a smirk from Luffa, who sat beside Seltiss at the table. Mato was pleased to see that at least someone in this alliance had an appreciation for humor.

"Fair enough," Seltiss said. "If you need fresh supplies or repairs for your ship, you can speak with one of my generals."

"Fine, fine!" he said. "For now, I only ask one boon, Princess. The Super Saiyan?"

"What about the Super Saiyan?" Luffa asked.

Mato put his feet back down on the floor and leaned forward to stare into Luffa's eyes. "D'you think you could arrange for me to meet him?"

*******

[17 April, 233 Before Age. Planet Bakoom.]

The battle had raged across Bakoom for days. There were multiple theaters of combat, as Federation and Saiyan ships sought to prevent Jindan soldiers on the ground from attacking major population areas. On the rocky coastline of one of the northern continents, where the fighting was fiercest, Luffa and Mato battled seven Jindan Saiyans and hundreds of their mercenary allies. No one knew the cultists had any allies until now, but things had apparently changed.

Every time it seemed that the defenders would be overwhelmed, Luffa would summon more of her power and put her foes back on the defensive. She would keep the Jindans occupied while Mato attacked the small fry. She was the same woman Mato had met on Eetii, only now her hair and tail were glowing bright yellow, and her ki was so intense that he had trouble sensing anything else while she was nearby. Gradually, Mato managed to adjust. Instead of seeking out the energy of his foes, he began to search for "shadows" in the seemingly endless brightness that was Luffa's power. It was like an astronomer spotting planets in transit across a sun.

"Well, General?" Luffa growled as she broke the neck of one of her foes. "You wanted to see me in action, right?"

"Said I wanted to meet the Super Saiyan," he shouted back. "Never said anything about invading hell!"

He was exaggerating, but only slightly. He had faced steeper odds in the past, but never with so much at stake. There was no way off the planet, as the ships they had arrived in had been destroyed, and their comrades in orbit wouldn't dare come to pick them up until the enemy had been neutralized. Luffa was the only thing keeping their forces alive, and while she was incredibly powerful, Mato doubted that she could handle all of these enemies alone. As thrilling as the battle was, the taste was soured by the spectre of death. If there was any possible way to retreat, he would have done so hours ago. But leaving Luffa's side would be instantly fatal. Even if she didn't kill him for cowardice, the enemy would surely pick him off before he could get very far.

But Luffa was having the time of her life. All Saiyans enjoyed combat, and it was said that the old Saiyan heroes loved it even more. Men like Darbock and Chanisp were supposed to relish fighting in a way that Mato had never really understood. But now, he was seeing this in person. It was as if Luffa didn't care if she won or lost, or even if she lived or died. She was surrounded by enemies on all sides, and she kept daring more of them to attack her. There was a strategic purpose to this--by keeping the cultists focused on her, she could create openings for Mato and the others-- but there was nothing strategic about the eager smile on her face, nor the gleeful look in her cold green eyes.

Luffa laughed. "What's the matter, too hot for you?" she asked. "I can lighten your load a little." Mato was horrified at the offer. She was doing so much already, and offering to do even more? He wasn't sure what scared him more: that she could actually pull it off, or that she would die with a smile on her face as she tried.

"This is no time to get cocky," Mato yelled. He didn't like talking to her as she fought. Sometimes she moved so fast that he couldn't even see her, and yet she could hear him all the same. He didn't want to distract her, and yet, it never bothered her at all.

An alien with a cybernetic jaw managed to get close enough to try to bite his arm. He fired a wide energy blast to keep anyone else away, then swatted him aside, knocking the metal clean off his face.

Necro-cyborgs, Mato had heard them called. There were a handful of weapon designers and cyberneticists in the galaxy who had found a way to reanimate dead bodies and arm them for combat. The main advantage was that a corpse could suffer operating conditions that would kill a live subject, and it was cheaper to manufacture replacement parts for a corpse than to simply build an entire android, or hire a real soldier. The main disadvantage was that nearly every civilization in the universe deemed necro-cyborgs to be a war crime. That didn't seem to bother the Jindans much. Mato had heard that some of their people had dabbled in undead cannon fodder as well.

He had brought six of his best soldiers to Bakoom, but four of them were dead or missing. There were some Federation soldiers operating on the coastline as well, but they were fighting on the other end of the battlefield, trying to take advantage of the opening Luffa had created for them. Mato and his remaining Strikers could only hold their ground and try to repel as many dead aliens as they could so that Luffa could handle her end of things. And now she was offering to help them, like she hadn’t been already.

"You might be the devil herself," he shouted, "but if you so much as take your eyes of those Jindan bastards, one of them will pick me off for sure!"

"Then I won't use my eyes," Luffa said. "Ki senses should give me a target."

"These scum aren't even alive!" Mato shouted. "They haven't got any ki to sense."

"Then I'll just use my own," Luffa said as she ducked an attack from a Jindan. "Golden Duster."

She threw out her hands and launched a ki burst in the form of thousands of tiny energy globules. One of the Jindans tried to block it, but the mist-like phenomenon simply spilled over his body harmlessly. Seizing on his confusion, Luffa slipped behind him and landed a kick on one of his comrades before he could stop her.

Mato watched as the yellow fog spread out over the battlefield. His own senses, though nowhere near as sharp as Luffa's, could suddenly make out the dead enemies just as easily as the live ones. Before, their speed and numbers, along with the smoke and dust of the battle, had made them difficult to spot until they were almost on top of them. Now, Mato could just pick his targets and shoot.

She had adopted the same tactic he had used to adapt to fighting in the presence of her blinding ki, and improved upon it. Super Saiyan indeed.

"'S a bloody miracle," cried one of his comrades, who siezed the opportunity even as Mato was still gaping in awe.

"Miracle, my ass!" said the other. She also fired a barrage of ki blasts into the enemy line, but Mato could tell she wasn't relieved in the slightest.

"Lighten up, Niptur," said the first.

"She's a witch!" Niptur said. "No better than whoever built these damned mecha-zombies, or those cultists with the weird powers! We never should have come here, Azuki!"

"You were the one who was bored with being cooped up in the ship, Niptur!" Mato replied, trying to sound fearless in spite of the cold sweat running down his face. Then he heard peals of thunder over his head, and he glanced up to find the cultists trying to fight Luffa hand-to-hand.

"That's the way!" Luffa screamed. "You all know what I'm up to now, don't you? You're getting desperate to stop me, aren't you? Well what are you waiting for? Come on!"

Mato was to proud to admit it out loud, but he was beginning to wonder if Niptur was right about Luffa being a witch. But there was nothing they could do, not while the enemy was still bearing down on them. And then, just when it seemed like the fighting would never end, an explosion went off in the distance, and all of the necro-cyborgs collapsed like discarded toys. A few of them sparked and sizzled as their circuits overloaded, but none of them were able to fight.

"N-no!" cried one of the Jindan cultists. Mato had never been able to get a good look at them until now. He was a Saiyan man dressed in a red bodysuit with arcane symbols painted on his bare arms and legs. He held a short spear that looked more suited to a whaling boat than an invasion. The tatters of a burgundy cape hung from his shoulders as he looked out at the multitude of coprses strewn across the coast.

Mato wasted no time aiming his hands to fire upon him. The cultists had been moving too fast for him to hit, and there was a good chance that his attacks would be too weak to hurt them, but now that this one was standing still, and if he stayed off-guard for just a fraction of a second longer...

And then a miniature sun erupted in the cultist's chest. Luffa had come up from behind and blasted him with a beam of her own power.

"Yes!" she said, and Mato knew this was surely the last thing the cultist would hear.

"You friends were pretty well-hidden," Luffa gloated, "but now that I've picked them off, there's no one left to control all those corpses, huh? That just leaves you four on your own!"

Mato watched as Luffa came back into view, and the last of the cultists took up a defensive posture. He wanted to try to attack them, but something told him there would be no point.

"There's still enough of us to finish you, Luffa!" one of them cried, but it was obvious that none of them believed it. Even so, Mato could see Luffa was hurt. It had been easy to miss before, but now that he had gotten used to the glow that suffused her body, the bandages on her arms and chest were more apparent, and the way she moved indicated pain, even though she did her best to hide it. He suddenly wondered if she had been holding back this whole time, and how much stronger she would be in full health.

Luffa smiled. "Hah! Three Jindans is no challenge at all," she scoffed. "You may as well take the shot."

"There are four of us, you damnable--!" These were the last words of their leader, as a beam of light pierced his skull and cut him off before he could finish speaking. His three comrades watched as his body dropped to the ground, then they looked off into the distance, searching in vain for the source of the attack.

"Snipers," Luffa said. She held up her finger and tapped a small communications device in her left ear. "Not quite as talented as my wife, but Bakoom's got some good ones. They've been keeping me posted during this whole scrap. Now, I don't usually take prisoners, but if anyone wants to tell me where Rehval is hiding, I'd be delighted to make an exception."

They didn't, and so Luffa destroyed them, one by one. Mato had expected them to last longer than they did, but it was just as she had predicted. Once their numbers were whittled down, they were no match for her.

*******

[20 April, 233 Before Age. Interstellar Space.]

After Bakoom, the Striker Corps was attached to the Federation's Sixth Fleet, operating mainly on the north-anticenter side of Federation space. Battles were few and far between, and they mostly amounted to cat-and-mouse games through interstellar space. The safest way to foil the Jindan Saiyans was to intercept their ships before they could land on a planet and bring their full power to bear. Mato would have preferred to fight them hand-to-hand, but dogfighting starships was the next best thing. Best of all, the Striker Corps was automatically granted salvage rights to any enemy ship they shot down. The Federation only asked that they turn over any navigational logs first, so that they could use them to try to find the Jindans’ home base.

Salvage was a big part of the Strikers' business. Mato's flagship had an entire bay dedicated for the task of stripping down captured ships for valuable parts and materials. At one point, his teams thought they might be able to track down the cult based on the ships they used, but this quickly proved to be a dead end. The only pattern to the cult's materiel was that there seemed to be no pattern. Some of their ships were civilian craft, possibly stolen, while others looked to be taken from armadas from every corner of the galaxy. The “mecha zombies” proved to bear out this observation. It had been hoped that there was an arms dealer who supplied them to the cult for their attack on Bakoom, but it turned out that they were stolen. The cult simply lucked into the necro-cyborgs when they hijacked a ship that was carrying them to an actual buyer.

"I tell you, it's a nice little war we've got ourselves into," he said to Niptur as he watched the salvage crews stripping computer cores out of their latest catch. "I almost hope we never find those cultists' home planet. They can just send all their warriors here and we'll keep fighting them for years to come."

"I'd like it a lot better if that 'Super Saiyan' wasn't involved," Niptur muttered. "For all we know, this whole thing is one of her tricks."

"Still on this 'witch' business, are ya?" Mato asked.

"She's no Saiyan, Mato," she said with a sneer. "She might look like one some of the time, and maybe even act like one, but that just makes the whole act even more disturbing. That magic she used to destroy those cyborgs. No Saiyan could ever do that."

"I'll admit that she's more than I expected," Mato said. "But we've met strong Saiyans in the past. Hell, I'm stronger'n you are. Does that make me a witch?"

"Everyone said the Super Saiyan was a man," Niptur argued. "Then we get here and it turns out she's not. That doesn't make you suspicious at all?"

"Aye, suspicious of the rumors," Mato replied. "Spread by a bunch of losers who didn't want anyone to know they got beat up by a girl, I reckon."

"Hmmph. If I were that strong, I wouldn't leave any witnesses," Niptur muttered. "Look, it's your Corps, and you're right, this is a decent gig, so I'll back your play. But something's not right about this, Mato, and I'm not the only one who thinks so."

He didn't respond right away, and then someone came over to ask Niptur for something, and she excused herself to attend to that. For a while, Mato just stood there alone and watched the salvage crews at work.

He already knew that others shared Niptur's distrust. The Saiyans in the cult, empowered by something called 'Jindan', were phenomenally powerful, and it was all thanks to some alchemical treatment. So it wasn't exactly a stretch to think that Luffa's power came from some similar magic. Many believed she was an alien, or an advanced android, or some other creature who merely resembled a true Saiyan. There were all sorts of rumors and innuendos about Luffa's true nature. Mato had even believed many of them himself.

Now that he had fought alongside the real thing, he soon realized that much of what he had heard about the Super Saiyan was built upon lies and exaggeration. What troubled him was that others like Niptur could meet Luffa in person and fight alongside her and still come away skeptical of her. Was it jealousy? Fear? Stubbornness? Or was Niptur right, and Luffa had deceived him somehow?

No, he couldn't accept that. Luffa's abilities were vast and mysterious, but she seemed very grounded otherwise. Mato considered himself to be a good judge of character. In his line of work, those who couldn't spot traitors didn't live very long. But if he was right, and all the naysayers were wrong, or afraid, or jealous, then what did that mean for his crew? What did that mean for the entire Saiyan species?

At last, he left the salvage bay and forced himself to carry on with his daily routine. The fate of the Saiyan race was above his pay grade, after all, and he had more immediate concerns to deal with.

*******

[19 May, 233 Before Age. Grantrak X.]

Mato didn't cross paths with Luffa again until the Striker Corps were deployed to Grantrak X. There was only supposed to be one Jindan Saiyan attacking the planet, but somehow Luffa got intel that there would more, and she arrived just in time to rescue the Grantrakkians and their defenders from no fewer than eleven cultists. This time around, Mato couldn't fight alongside Luffa. A stray ki blast had injured his arms and one of his knees, and he was forced to monitor the battle from a medical evac station.

His ki senses told him most of what he needed to know. To his amazement, Luffa was actually stronger than she had been on Bakoom, although it was difficult for him to compare power levels of that scale. She was improving with each battle, which seemed to him as the ultimate proof that she was a true Saiyan, though he doubted Niptur would be convinced.

"What's happening now?" asked one of the other patients lying next to him. They were being loaded onto a transport to be taken to a hospital in the nearest city.

"Dammit, they got Letz!" Mato grumbled.

"Who?"

"Friend of mine," Mato muttered. "One of those Jindan bastards managed to corner him." It infuriated him how powerful the cultists were. Individually, they didn't hold a candle to Luffa, but they were still stronger than any normal Saiyan. It was rare for Letz to meet his match in a one-on-one fight. There was no question that the cultists got him. There was a strange quality to their ki. It was Saiyan in nature, but there was something... off about it. It made it easy for him to tell who was who in a situation like this, but it also highlighted that the Jindan Saiyans had tampered with their own bodies somehow. The thought of it revolted him. At least Letz had died with his pride in tact. He had fought and fallen as his own man. That was all any Saiyan could hope for. No, not any Saiyan. The cultists apparently didn't care about their own pride. They had thrown it away so that someone else could make them stronger.

"But Luffa's still fighting them, isn't she?" the other patient asked.

Mato would have ignored this man normally. He was pretty sure the patient was a Grantrakian soldier. He had purple skin, and four eyes in a row on his face. Mato preferred to keep his dealings with aliens to a minimum. He didn't exactly hate them, but they were weak, and even their warriors had a distaste for combat, and it was better all around if he could just haggle out a contract and move on. But he was hurt, and the medic wasn't going to get him back on his feet any time soon, not if the pain in his knee was any indication. Talking to aliens was the only thing he could do to pass the time, and they all wanted to know the same thing.

"She's still in it," Mato said. "Don't know why it's taking her so long, really. With all the power she's putting out, she ought to be..."

"Ought to be what?" the other patient asked.

"She's hurt," Mato said. "She's putting out a lot of ki, but her body's too banged up to make the best use of it."

"How could anything hurt her?" the patient asked. "She's invincible, isn't she?"

Mato wondered the same thing for a moment, but as he thought back to Bakoom and the days leading up to that battle, he began to remember things he had seen but not truly considered until now. Luffa wore bandages wrapped around parts of her arms and shoulders. In the few times she stood still long enough for him to look, he could see the edges of bandages sticking out from under the black top she wore. Her hands twitched from time to time, and Mato began to suspect that her gloves were intended to help conceal this, or perhaps hide some other injury.

She favored one leg. It wasn't obvious. Most beings probably could never tell anything was wrong. Mato himself hadn't picked up on it until now, and he suspected it was because he now had fresh wounds of his own to remind him of what it was like. His injured limbs felt like they were being roasted over an open fire. If he lay still, the pain was bearable, but if he tried to move too much or too quickly, the flames would come roaring up in protest. He'd had knee problems in the past, and he'd adjusted his fighting style because of that. His comrades who had known him in his younger days picked up on it immediately. But now, those Saiyans had all died or moved on to other wars. The Striker Corps were mostly younger warriors, with no inkling that Mato had ever fought differently in his youth.

He didn't think Luffa's injuries were too serious, but how could anyone know for certain? With her incredible ki, she could break every bone in her body and probably still destroy whole armies. It would take a little longer, but most onlookers would hardly notice the difference.

Mato sensed Luffa's power as she battled the cultists a few dozen miles away. She was winning, but not as quickly as she had on Bakoom. Her power was even more intense, and she was fighting even more ferociously than she had on Bakoom, but it was taking a little longer. Mato could barely notice the difference, but it was there.

Was that the Jindan Cult's grand strategy? Were they just sending wave after wave of troops against Luffa, hoping that they could wear her down? How long would that take? Even if they succeeded, would there be any cultists left to celebrate the victory?

Luffa had surely taken this possibility into account. The Jindan Saiyans were fanatics, not idiots. They wouldn't have invaded the Federation without some kind of plan for defeating its greatest protector. He'd seen her in action, and knew she was too gifted a fighter not to consider all of this. That was why she had her allies spread out across the frontier, only concentrating her forces when absolutely necessary. The idea was to force the invaders to spread themselves out, so that she could kill them off one by one with less risk. But every so often, they would gang up on a planet, and Luffa would have to go there and deal with them personally. That was fine, but not if she didn't give herself time to recover from each battle.

So why was she running herself ragged? The Striker Corps alone couldn't have defeated this many invaders, but they could have held the line for a few days. Long enough for reinforcements to arrive, and then they could hold out for weeks, maybe months. Luffa surely knew this as well. If anything, it might be easier to withdraw from a planet like Grantrak, and recapture it later. At least then they would have the initiative, and what was on Grantrak X that was so important, anyway?

"Hey." The Grantrakkian lying in the cot next to him was trying to get his attention. "You don't think she's really hurt, do you?"

Mato looked back at him and saw genuine concern in his expression. At least, he was pretty sure it was concern. The four eyes on his face made it hard to read his body language.

"She saved my butt out there, you know?" the soldier said. "One of those creeps tried to shoot me with that funky spear of his, and she just swooped in out of nowhere. Next thing I knew, he was lying there on the ground, and that spear was sticking out of his throat."

Mato tried to roll over to face him, but the pain discouraged him, so he just stared up at the ceiling instead. "What's your name, kid?" he asked.

"Booter," he said. Then: "Uh, Booter, sir. I'm guessing you outrank me."

"Forget it," Mato said. "Save your salutes for someone on his feet. I'm the leader of the Striker Corps, but that doesn't much matter now."

"Striker Corps," Booter said. "That's a Saiyan company, right? I mean... I heard somewhere that Saiyans killed their own wounded. But you--"

"You heard wrong," Mato said. "My folk are as brutal and ruthless as they come, but I never met a Saiyan that crazy. Well, maybe these Jindan bastards fit the bill..."

"Sorry," Booter said. "I've heard some nasty rumors about my own species before. I shouldn't have assumed it was true."

"Nah, that one's pretty close to the mark," Mato said. "It's rare for a Saiyan go out of his way to save somebody, that's for sure. Luffa must have already been attacking that guy when he was about to kill you. You just lucked out."

"Huh. Well, just the same. I hope she didn't get hurt on my account," Booter said.

They laid there in silence for a minute. The sounds of explosions could be heard in the distance, and the evac station trembled slightly with each one.

"What's so blamed important about this planet?" Mato asked. "I've been in a lot o’battles, and usually I can tell what makes a rock worth fighting over, but here? I've got no clue."

"I don't know what you mean, sir," Booter said. "The enemy just showed up and started attacking. Same reason they've hit every other planet they've been to, I guess."

"Right, but why put up such a stiff defense?" Mato asked. "Nothin’ personal, but is this place really worth it? In the grand scheme of things, I mean."

"I don't know, sir," Booter replied. "But a lot more of us would be dead if you all hadn't showed up when you did. So thanks."

"Don't mention it, kid," Mato said. "To a Saiyan, a good fight is its own reward."

But he wasn't so sure that was true for Luffa. And the thought of that sent a chill down his spine that had nothing at all to do with his injuries.

*******

[20 May, 233 Before Age. Grantrak X.]

Mato had surgery the next day. He awoke in a Grantrakkian hospital to the smell of stew, and grunted with pain when he tried to sit up to see where it was coming from.

"Hungry?" He recognized the voice as Luffa's, but he was still surprised when she moved close enough to the bed that he could see her face.

"What in--?!" he blurted out. He didn't know what else to say. She was the last person in the universe he expected to see, and she was ladling stew out of a pot for him.

"I dropped by to get checked out," Luffa said. "My doctor wanted some early reports before I head back to my ship, and I got sick of waiting around, and then I sensed you here and figured you could use some decent food."

Mato's arms were a long way from recovering. He had asked one of the nurses to leave the controller for the bed in his hand, so that he could still raise and lower the headrest. But they had either forgotten about this, or it had slipped out of his hand. Then the bed seemed to raise him up on his own. When his head was high enough, he found Luffa operating the controller with one hand, and giving him a bowl with the other.

She was wearing the same gown as the one he wore. Two of them, in fact, with one on backwards, like a jacket. He glanced down, and found she was floating slightly above the ground. One of her feet was heavily bandaged, and the other had a series of staples across the top. She hadn't come in for a simple examination.

"Why?" he finally said.

"Because I like to cook when I'm bored," Luffa said. "Wait, your arms were pretty banged up. You probably shouldn't hold this." She took the spoon from the bowl and started to feed him. "You'd better not get all stubborn about this, either," she warned him. "I'd be pretty sore about someone feeding me like this too, but I made a lot, and I'm not letting it go to waste, so eat."

Mato gave no argument. He knew better than to argue with the women in his own crew, and he was hungry.

"Dammit, that's not what I meant," he said between spoonfuls.

She glared at him for a moment. "That's a funny way of telling me how much you like it, Mato," she said ominously.

"It's delicious!" he said. Suddenly it seemed like self-preservation was more important than getting an answer to his question. "It's very thick, like sauce."

"I put some starches in it," Luffa said. "Lot of people don't know to do that. They only think in terms of taste. What vegetables to throw in. What spices. Texture's important too, though. Makes you feel like you ate something substantial. Now, what were you asking me?"

"That soldier you saved on the battlefield," Mato asked. "This whole planet! The Federation, for that matter! You're going out of your way for them, wearing yourself down, just to spare them a few casualties!"

"More than a few," Luffa said.

"And here you are feeding an old grunt like me when you should be gathering your strength for the important battles ahead!" Mato cried. “Why?”

"Because you remind me of my father," Luffa said. "The parts I liked, anyway. He deserved what I did to him, but sometimes I miss him, if that makes any sense."

"The hell it does," Mato said. "You're mad, girl. I keep going over it in my head, and all I can figure out is you're so desperate for a challenge that you dared yourself to care about things no Saiyan would ever dream of."

"I guess that's one way of putting it." The grin on her face was all he needed to confirm his suspicions.

"Listen... I've been fighting all over the galaxy since before you were born. I've lost count of all the aliens I've done merc jobs for, and I've gotten pretty good at reading the room-- gulmph!"

"And what do you read?" Luffa asked as she put another spoonful into his mouth.

"Look, I learned a long time ago that the best way to stay in business was to look at the political side of it. Clients go to war, and there's reasons, objectives. Governments have to answer to their people, one way or another. When the civilians start to sour on a war, you know it's only a matter of time before the contracts dry up. Then you need to think about moving on."

He paused to accept another spoon. "I've been keeping up with the news outlets since we entered Federation Space. Folks're starting to get sick of this whole thing. They were grateful before, and some of them still are, but a lot of them see this whole dance as a Saiyan conflict, and they blame you for pulling it into their backyard."

"We both know it's more complicated than that," Luffa said. "If I left the Federation tomorrow, they'd keep on attacking, just to draw me back. And more people would die."

"Let them!" Mato said. "You're letting yourself get played here! And for what? These folk won't even miss you when you're gone!"

"You really believe all that, Mato?" Luffa asked. "That I should cut and run? Look out for myself?"

"Of course I do," Mato said.

"How'd you get those injuries?" she asked. "I'm no expert, but it sure looks like you were blocking a ki blast that was too big for you."

"I got cornered," he muttered. "I'm getting too old for this stuff."

"You could have dodged," Luffa said. "Or used the force of the blast to bounce yourself away. Don't tell me you've forgotten how in your old age."

"All right!" he grumbled. "I was trying to cover Niptur while she was preparing an attack."

"A Saiyan saving another Saiyan on the battlefield?" Luffa asked with a smile.

"It's not the same thing!" Mato said. "If I get killed out there, so what? One less monkey on the battlefield. But you're special! One in a trillion! If you die--!"

"If I die," Luffa said as she refilled his bowl, "then I must not have been that special, huh? Besides, it's not like anyone would miss me, right?"

He wanted to shout at her, to force her to understand what he couldn't find the words to say. There was something about her that was important, beyond her power, something that the whole Saiyan race needed to learn. But she couldn't show them if she got herself killed in a pointless battle. She wasn't even using her glowing yellow form right now, but there was still something awful and terrifying about her presence. Even so, she looked very fragile to Mato's eyes. Like a golden opportunity that would vanish one day without warning.

"I gotta go," Luffa said as she laid the bowl down on the tray next to Mato's bed. She tapped an earpiece that was tucked inside her left ear. "My transport's almost here, and my wife'll kill me if they take me back to my ship looking like this."

She turned slightly, as if preparing to leave, but then looked back at Mato's arms and legs, as though sizing him up for a fight. "I hope I see you again, Mato. It'll be nice to see how much stronger you get from all of this."

"What about my stew?" Mato asked, only half-kidding.

She looked down at the second bowl and smiled. "The first one was free," she said. "This one's a challenge. It might be cold by the time you're ready, but I think you can make it."

With that, Luffa floated out of the room, leaving Mato alone with his thoughts.

NEXT: Diagnosis: Dilemma!

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #super saiyan #luffa #mato #seltiss #xibuyas #niptur #eteii #grantrak x #bakoom

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eirian-houpe · 5 years ago

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Disparate Pathways - Chapter 5

Fandom: Once Upon a Time (TV)

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Relationships: Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold

Characters: Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold, Belle (Once Upon a Time), Maurice | Moe French, Gaston (Once Upon a Time), Spinster(s) (Once Upon a Time: Think Lovely Thoughts), Mad Hatter | Jefferson, Blue Fairy | Mother Superior, Black Fairy (Once Upon a Time), Baelfire | Neal Cassidy, Emma Swan, Prince Charming | David Nolan, Colette (Once Upon a Time), Red Riding Hood | Ruby, Widow Lucas | Granny, Dove (Once Upon a Time), Captain Hook | Killian Jones, Wicked Witch of the West | Zelena

Additional Tags: Abusive Parents, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Violence, Gun Violence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture, Dubious Consent, Eventual Smut, UST, First Time, Drama & Romance, Kidnapping, Extortion

Summary: Gold has a past, a past that he has rejected, but it seems one that will not let him go. Belle, daughter of Governor Maurice French has been kidnapped, along with her mother, and just as the authorities raid the organization that is holding her hostage, decides to make her own bid for freedom, unknowingly derailing an undercover sting, and Agent Milnor has not choice but to take her into 'protective custody,' but is he all that he seems? As the threads of the story grow more tangled and the threat to Belle, and to Gold, her appointed protector, grow ever more real, a growing, mutual attraction makes everything far more desperate and far too personal for Gold to ignore what he knows to be the truth.

Read on AO3

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4]

Chapter 5 - Takedown

It was entirely too quiet and it made Jefferson nervous. He’d tried to find out from some of the others what was going on upstairs, but no one had been willing to share. All he knew was that they’d taken both the women up to the top floor of the house. He figured that didn’t bode well.

It certainly didn’t make his life any easier. If Rab was true to his word then some time today, the joint might of the police and the FBI’s HRT, and probably, just to add icing to the shit cake, a whole squadron of SWAT, was going to descend on the house like the wrath of God.

He checked his phone, just to make sure that it was on, with plenty of power remaining, and that he had a signal. The last thing he needed was to miss the heads up that his handler had promised to send him.

“Hey, Jared.” He started slightly when one of the other guys, Ace - a shortened version of his full name - called out Jefferson’s undercover persona. “Expecting a call from your boyfriend?”

He gave the man a sour smile, recognizing that he was being mocked and shot back in return, “Least I have one,” and made a rapid up and down motion with his fisted right hand before pointing at the guy who’d called him out.

Predictably the ‘hard man’ took immediate offense, and started toward Jefferson, his eyes full of the intention to hurt. He stood his ground. He was taller than the other man by a few inches, even though the guy was heavier set, forcing the other man to look up as soon as they came toe to toe.

“Was there something?” Jefferson asked sarcastically, then lowering his voice to a dangerous growl added, “Because unless there is… Horace… then get the fuck out of my face.”

“Tough words, pretty boy,” Ace snarled, “but do you got the balls to back em up?”

Faster than the man evidently anticipated, Jefferson grabbed his hand and pulled the pudgy fingers against the front of his jeans, trusting in the shock tactics to keep himself from harm.

“What do you think, Ace?” he asked, leaning down until he was nose to nose with the other man. “Care to take it for a spin?”

The man backpedaled, pulling away so fast that he almost fell over his own feet in his haste to put some space between himself and Jefferson, snatching his hand away and out of Jefferson’s grasp.

“You stay away from me, you fucking freak!” Ace squeaked.

“Methinks the man protesteth too much,” Jefferson teased. “After all, you were the one that came at me first.”

“Can it, you two!” Jefferson half turned at the sound of the other voice, a tall, leather-clad man with a scruffy beard and a missing hand came out into the hallway from one of the downstairs rooms. “Jared, you’re wanted upstairs. Ace, get in here… quit baiting the bloody man!”

Glad for a reprieve, even if it did come from Jones, an unwelcome bastard at the best of times, Jefferson headed for the stairs and started to climb, on the way up thinking to himself that ‘upstairs’ was a fairly vague description of who needed him, given that there were two floors to the house in addition to the first floor. Not to mention the basement, which technically meant the house was a four storey house and— what the ever loving fuck are you thinking, Jefferson. Head in the game, man! He cut off his own racing mind; a sure sign of stress.

He made the first landing and began methodically making his way around, room by room, opening each one and checking inside, not just for the girl and her mother, but also for an alternative way out, should his chosen route become inaccessible. He couldn’t explain why, but there was a large part of him that had a really bad feeling around the way the day was going.

Crossing a room, he found a window that looked out onto a low balcony, and looking up he saw what looked like similar from above. It would do in a pinch, but it was risky. One slip and he’d be looking at a shattered ankle; broken leg… he decided he just better make sure that he could get out by the method of his first choice.

“Oy! Jared,” Jones’ voice sounded from behind him, irritated. “I told you upstairs.”

“This is upstairs,” Jefferson snarked back. “And you weren’t actually that specific, you—” Movement in the corner of his eye made him forget what he had been saying. Someone’s sights? Careless, but then, no… he hadn’t had a message yet. Jones evidently picked up on it and came from the doorway to stand beside him.

“What do you see?” Jones asked.

Jefferson shook his head, about to say nothing - perhaps it had been his imagination after all - when a patch of shadow moved close by the rear wall of the yard, unnatural, not like the clouds passing across the moon. His heart began to pound in his chest. They were coming.

“Bloody hell!” Jones snarled urgently, evidently having come to a similar conclusion. “The law!” He grabbed Jefferson’s arm and practically swung him away from the window and gave him a push towards the door. “Go. Upstairs… warn the others.”

“What about you?” Jefferson asked as Jones turned back to peer into the darkness of the garden.

Jones shook his head. “I’ll go downstairs. We’ll be ready for them,” he said. “What are you waiting for? Go!”

Jefferson made it look as though he was rushing to follow the man’s instructions, once outside the door he slipped to his right, the opposite side from the stairs, and flattened himself against the wall to wait for Jones to come out. He looked around quickly to make sure there was no one else on the landing, relieved to still be alone on the second floor, and he wondered what the hell was keeping everyone either downstairs or up on the top floor, though not for long as he heard Jones’ heavy tread approaching the door.

Like comedy, timing was everything. If he moved too soon, he would alert Jones to his presence. Too late and the man would be out of reach. He hated moments like that; held his breath and pulled the gun he carried out of its holster and waited. One… Two…

Things rarely went according to plan. Jones must have sensed him, because just as he would have moved, stepped behind the man and coshed him over the head with the grip of his gun, Jones turned his head.

“Jared, what the—”

Jefferson tried anyway, lunging for the other man, only to meet Jones’ up-raised forearm and with an audible crunch, instead of the back of is head, and almost as if on instinct, Jones turned and swung the sharp hook he had in place of his missing hand toward Jefferson’s head.

Not fast enough thought, and Jefferson ducked under the weapon, at the same time turning to drive the point of Jones’ hook into the wooden door frame as he pushed the mans wrist against the wood. He tried to follow quickly, to bring his gun up again and wrap Jones into unconsciousness as he’d intended before while he was still stuck with his back to him, but Jones anticipated him again, and used the fact of his hook being trapped to twist his wrist, and pull his arm free of the latch that held the hook in place.

Jefferson ran at the man, wrapped his arms around Jones’ waist and drove his shoulder into the soft spot above his hip, attempting to hook the weight-bearing leg with one of his own, but Jones read him again, and let himself fall backward, heaving with both arms and legs, until Jefferson felt himself flying through the air, mercifully along the landing. He landed heavily, and his gun went skittering along the polished wooden floor.

He didn’t have time to worry about it; didn’t want Jones to get a chance to to reattach his hook, or worse, pull his own gun, which was precisely what Jones was attempting to do as he clambered to his feet, turning toward him gun in hand, so before Jones could aim the weapon, he kicked out blindly, by luck connecting with the man’s shoulder before he could fully straighten up. He knocked him off balance again to slip back down to the floor on hands and feet and the insecurely held weapon went flying. Jefferson didn’t wait to see any other effects of his timely intervention, he just pulled himself to his feet at the same time as Jones, Still winded from the heavy landing and fighting for a decent breath was scrabbling at the floor in an attempt to get to his feet.

Jones was really pissing him off, and was still getting up again, and Jefferson scrambled over, uttering a breathless, “Let me give you a hand there… mate,” mocking an expression of which Jones was overly fond, and speared his fingers into the man’s hair at the crown of his head, and twisting, tugging him upward, while at the same time grabbing a hold of his sleeve. Then before Jones could properly realize his intent, or fully regain his balance, Jefferson launched him toward the banister rail, without letting go, bringing Jones’ head down hard against the solid oak wood at the top, not once, but twice, before tossing him backwards, to land in a crumpled heap beside the wall.

It hadn’t been the quiet disposal he’d intended, and he was certain their scramble would have attracted some attention. He didn’t wait to find out, simply moved as fast as he could, while still trying to catch his breath, toward the staircase leading to the upper floor.

He took the stairs two at a time, and half way up, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He snatched it out, and glanced at the screen, suddenly bursting into entirely humorless, and slightly hysterical laughter. The notification read: “We are Breaching NOW!”

#rumbelle #angst #hurt/comfort #dubious consent #implied noncon #implied torture #eventual smut #ust #first time #drama

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360degreesasthecrowflies · 7 years ago

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AndromedaWatch 01 - first reaction to the series

So, it’s been a brief break from my Farscape first watch/reaction series (which you can find entries in HERE or HERE), and during the off period, I’ve decided to do something a little different! By chance, I came across another late 90s-early 2000s sci-fi/space opera show I’d never seen before, Andromeda, so I decided to do a first watch reaction to it as well!

Without further ado, here’s my thoughts on Andromeda 1.01 ‘Under The Night’!

1.01 UNDER THE NIGHT

Spaceships! and a written brief intro. Semi conspicuous CG.

A crew! Lots of people. Red and blue uniforms. Antigravity harnesses. Andromeda is the ship and our lead is the captain, fun.

Everyone running about! But seems like it was a drill.

First leads appear to be two white dudes, one with the look of Buffy's Riley, the other Firefly's Mal. Longer haired dude is getting married. As this is the first episode this is probably going to be horribly wrong.

Also, the ship Andromeda has a female voice.

We are far future or maybe just alien; there's robots and lots of tech. We're leaping STRAIGHT into action too! Great opening.

Right, they're off to rescue a ship from a black hole after a distress call and we're less than 5 minutes in. Hyperspace jumping too, gotta get those tropes in.

Side characters we've seen so far include a black technician guy, feminine robot and a smallish green alien guy. Andromeda has hologram avatar too, an Asian woman.

Captain makes the call to try and save as many as possible, evacuation...but they're firing on them! Andromeda says that it must be a trap!

OPENING CREDITS time. There's a voiceover, and now an instrumental futuristicy theme with credits introducing our characters. There's the lead, male-bob-haired Captain Dylan Hunt, a blonde badass lady, dreadlocked black dude, a purple skinned Chiara-looking expy, and some others. Quite a big cast from the off.

Into the episode; now everyone actually IS running to battlestations, no drill this time. They're under assault right away, imperfect shields. They face 10k ships. Second in command guy suggests deploying extreme destructive bombs, but Captain refuses, aww, he's a good guy. (How long will that last?)

Second in command guy (Starscream?) notes that the attackers are his...race? ethnic group? nationality? so, as a precuation, recommends that he and all others aboard of that trait should be locked up just in case. Seems a little odd tbh.

Captain concurs and a bodyguard looking guy does it.

They aren't doing too well in the battle; outnumbered and can't maneuver. Also next to a black hole, they can't do their hyperspace jump again due to gravity pull.

Well, damnnn. 9 minutes in and the black guy dies. Eep. There was an explosion in Control, hull breach apparently. They're still pinned down for the next ten minutes too.

Captain orders that everyone abandons ship on escape pods. Ah, this will be the cast paring down, good, I hope they don't all die. The green alien elects to stay with the Captain in Control and may be female? Androgynous looking and shamefully I assumed it was not female.

Shot of everyone abandoning ship through some appropriately sci-fi +/ 90s style pods and passageways.

Well daaaang. We cut to Starscream and he kills the guards sent with him; a double-bluff! Ask to be locked up so he can get away from the captain and co, and just after offering his congratulations to the captain on his upcoming marriage too. Utter bastard. That's some Kill Bill shit.

He has a plan. Cutting between him and Control, where a female robot has stayed too. Captain decides to go INTO the black hole, fine, okay.

They're not strong enough to fight their way free, they need to use the black hole's gravity to slingshot themselves free... now, I'm not sure when this aired, but that sounds a LOT like the resolution of the first episode of Farscape. I hope this doesn't turn out to be a straight AU rerun.

Bug lady is the pilot. She does seem to ACTUALLY be an alien bug, and I quite like this. I hope she doesn't die. (She probably will, characters I like rarely last long, RIP PK lady lieutenant in Farscape). She speaks a bit of her langauge which Andromeda translates (her avatar's still here), good touch, saying that she's willing to sacrifice and risk herself for the ship's survival.

Oops Andromeda's frozen, avatar dropping out. Power freezing. Starscream is still doing things, Andromeda has noticed now but he blows out the camera. Andromeda is able to alert the captain to sabotage just as Starscream walks in and... yup, bug lady gets (quite graphically) killed, her chest front explodes out when she's shot (or blasted, didn't get a good look at the weapon). Eesh.

Captain spins around to engage. Starscream reveals his people are designed to be perfect. They all live within a Commonwealth, but Starscream's people want to take it over now. There's an issue with the Magog, who seem to be horrible people, who the Commonwealth have made peace with. Starscream's people want instead, revenge.

FIGHTSCENE. Starscream is a bit of a karate boy, this is more phyisical than I anticiapted, not just a shootout. Captain holds his own too though, flipping off a wall in slow-mo, which is revealed to actually be a time distortion, nice nod to the Matrix surely given the time this was made.

The two run back for their blasters and the Captain is hit first, but returns fire as he falls and may hit his opponent more critically.

He runs over to him, possibly saddened, and there's a 'what have you done' moment. Then they all freeze in time, Starscream possibly already dead on the ground, and we cut to the ship, already on course before its power was cut, dipping straight into the black hole.

Cut away. We open on blonde lady from the credits. We;re on another ship now, presumably. Blondie is a Captain too, Captain Valentine. Her coworkers are a wookie-faced dude and an expy of Wash from Firefly and Oz from Buffy in one character. They've found the Andromeda, but it seems a looong time has passed, years at least.

Seems we might have another Starscream situation here as Mr Wookie already is proud that HE - uh, THEY - have found the ship. Not a happy family, methinks.

More new characters! A scabby faced grumpy dude from the credits and purple lady, something bad might be about to happen to Wookie because I didn't see him in those credits and all these characters will be sticking around. Ms Purple has a tail too, because why not, it was the 90s, we didn't have weaboos yet.

So it seems these guys are salvagers - thieves, essentially. Already I can see this potential clash, immoral guys vs Mr straight and narrow. They were after this ship as a prize haul with big cash value and big rewards for them all.

The guy on Team Valentine is very much A Dude, we get it. He wants to spend his money on slave girls! Lovely. Neither Valentine nor Purple are impressed.

Valentine is apparently pretty strongly in debt, so that's what she'll use her share of the money for.

So, I'm slightly reminded of Alien, the original 1979 film now. These guys all work together, but don't seem to particularly LIKE each other and are just in it for the money. I actually quite like that, coming off watching a few shows where everyone ends up bonding unreasonably fast to an unbelievably close level.

Scabface wants to make amends with his share of the money. "Trying to buy absolution" as he puts it. He plans to build a hospital on a world he - or his forbears - killed many people.

Team Valentine are all technicians, nice, another nod to Alien.

So it reveals that Valentine, despite being the captain, was hired by Wookie. He's come along with them for this salvage mission. The Andromeda is stuck in time still, so Valentine will need to retrieve it without getting HER ship stuck in time too.

Valentine wishes to jettison their existing cargo before beginning the operation so the ship is more maneuvarable, but Wookie objects and has to run down to 'check' something in the cargo hold first; second Starscream confirmed. We don't get to see what he does but music cues are shifty af.

OooOoo seems his 'cargo' was people - some of original Starscream's kind of people, it seems, identifiable by their spiked arms, again, a nice visual cue to save them spelling out expository text the way many shows in early episodes find themselves having to do or resorting to. We get a shot of them emerging from fridge-like coffins (or coffin-like fridges, I guess) with THE MOST ominous music.

Right, operation go. Nice parallel right away to the other ship as Valentine intiates the operation with "okay everybody, just like we practiced", given the Andromeda's crew were practising too before the real thing. Valentine so far seems competent, no-nonsense and determined, with a wry sense of humour and strong sense of duty. I would expect nothing less from the female lead.

The irony as well that the Andromeda went to rescue and is now itself being 'rescued'.

So instead of going in, Valentine is very sensibly hooking it and reeling it in with grappling hooks.

Operation seems to be successful until three of the hooks seem to fail. Wookie immediately advocates cutting the cables and letting the Andromeda go, which Valentine laughs off and turns to Purple and Dude to see what solutions they might have.

Despite some of the cables failing, Valentine with Dude's help (focusing the engines into one blast of energy) is able to retrieve the ship and tow it away tractor-style.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts that long, one of the engines starts to fail off the bat. Dude seems to have it under control though.

RIGHT, cut back to the Andromeda. Andromeda's avatar is checking Captain Hunt too. Andromeda is immediately aware they MAY have experienced severe time dilations.

Annnd there it is. They've been frozen for 300 years. That'll be our main drama between Captain and our new characters, makes sense because I was feeling he and Valentine were actually quite similar despite the devil-angel dichotomy. Also... RIP Hunt's wedding, and I guess everyone he knew. That's gotta suck in the worst way. 10/10 for getting me to feel empathy for this guy in under 30 min, show.

Right, Valentine and co are all off to board the ship, leaving Wookie on board their own ship, presumably. Purple is the newest crewmember, it's revealed.

Donning space hazmat suits, they board. Dude appreciates the ship like an art form.

Cut back to Captain and Andromeda. The acting is good here and the music helps. They are in mid crisis given how much the world will have changed, maybe everything they were fighting for has gone. Andromeda detects Valentine and co, intruders!

Oops, it seems Wookie has boarded too, or are they back? (Ships look a little similar). He insists they have a deadline and need to work faster, while Dude maintains it will take weeks to get the ship going (presumably up to their future standards, too).

Valentine's crew split up (with comms) to search the ship for more clues about it and how it works. This will end well.

INTERESTING. So within Valentine's crew we have humans and the evil - in Hunt's time Magog, though, who can say which one of the aliens that is, Dude and Valentine are probably out. Andromeda has started to snoop on them through cameras and other concealed computers and comms and brings them up for Hunt to see.

So seems the Magog is Scabby. Andromeda also notes that Dude seems to be sick - with an easily-curable disease from their time. She wonders at the implications of that, a kind of reversal of progress perhaps? I should take the time to say that I do like Andromeda, despite her roboticy AI nature she has a charm to her and her competence and intelligence and calm are all positives to humanize such a character.

Hunt decides to engage the new team. He comes upon Dude first and calmly engages, quickly overpowering him without needing to fight, and addressing him measuredly.

Oops. So Dude doesn't seem to even be aware of the Commonwealth, three guesses says they lost then?

Nope, there's no High Guard, no Commonwealth, they lost, and not recently - 300 years ago! Possibly even straight after that battle, oooh we're going to have DIRECT angst then, that's an interesting direction and element to give your (presumably?) lead.

Additionally, having Andromeda here to talk to saves us having monologues, thought intrusions, or (the trope I disliked a lot in early Farscape) the lead, fish out of water, near-immediately latching on to someone he's just met and telling them everything about his feelings, using them as a sounding board and emotional support. Because honestly, who takes that from a stranger?

Andromeda and Hunt decide that they will search for remnants of the Commonwealth, even though its 300 years on. Back with Valentine, they are debating what to do. Purple advocates just asking Hunt to give them the ship. Valentine feels he owes them something anyway for pulling it out of the black hole. Scabby feels they don't deserve anything.

Hunt addresses them over comms; an ultimatum, he will not give it up to be looted, so they can leave, or he will bring force upon them. Valentine and co are still aboard Andromeda. They move to engage, then, Valentine doesn't like to be threatened, but Wookie intercedes. He's brought backup, and it's our dreadlocked Saracen warrior from the opening credits, along with a small army of extras, notably, none with the telltale arm spikes that we saw earlier, so what's his game? Was it a double-bluff? And that's where it ends, on a cliffhanger!

Well, I have to say, that was actually VERY good, by the standards of the time especially. Some obvious flaws due to tropes and what's become standardized over time passing in between this airing and me first seeing it, but in general, a very well written and acted pilot that established world, plot, tensions, potential tensions, character inter-relationships, and, impressively, seven main characters with an eighth just out of focus, a primary antagonist, and possible secondary antagonist, while also worldbuilding TWO timezones and political setups. Not too shabby for 42 minutes!

Other points; great character design and costumes - though I'm 75% sure there'll be a coincidentally justifiable reason why Purple has to be wearing a sports bra and hotpants and nothing else. Interesting spread of lead characters, two white guys, two women, a female AI, a black guy and a non-humanoid alien, just about what you'd expect from the time. The character archetypes are a nod to others in the genre and broadly into fantasy as well, and sketch out broad strokes for where I can see later characters being sourced from, e.g. the characters from the later Firefly and rebooted Battlestar Galaxica, even the Dr Who reboot which came several years after.

Valentine is, predictably (if you’ve been following my other review series), my favourite off the bat. Andromeda second, Hunt probably third - he's a very typical hero archetype, but convincing. The others come together in a bunch right now, Dude seems to be a Chaotic Neutral, Purple probably a Chaotic Good, and Scabby perhaps a Neutral Good, these are good balance for what may be a Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral lead - although Valentine shows potential to veer into True Neutral territory.

All in all, a great opener. I'll give it an 8/10, really starting strong.

What did you think of the show? Should I keep going? Let me know in comments or reblogs ;)

#andromeda #andromeda the series #90s #gene roddenberry #sci fi #reaction #review #text post #first watch #andromedawatch #dylan hunt #captain valentine #d&d alignment #review series #nostalgia #childhood

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redthreadtugs-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Understandable? Or not?

K: Was it a wrong thing? Yes. Everyone would say so. Was it understandable? I think at least some would say so. Given the way we had gone round and round I have little to no insight into T and L. I have no idea how they work. What she knew or knows.

J: What does that mean.... understandable? Like it’s ok sorta to do?

K: No. Not okay.

J: Then why understandable?

K: That the path I took, as not okay as it was....it was understandable how I could have made those choices. I was lost. I made mistakes. This does not justify it. I am never gonna forgive myself for lying to you. For hiding from you. But i was lost.

J: Sigh (((((((Kezziah)))))))

K: And I was afraid. And I did not know how to find myself or talk to you about my lost voice. I only knew i did not want to make you mad. I could not face it. It terrified me on a visceral level.

J: And so the way you chose, was that I would just be clueless about stuff instead.

K: And so i did something that made sense to me... That was wrong. That I thought would be harmless... it was wrong on so many levels. But i had become so unsure of myself with you. I was lost. It was not about you per se. You feel that it was. But it was not. It was never meant to hurt you or make you the fool.

J: When you did that, and others know but I do not, it is inherent there is going to be a loss of respect

K: It was just so i could find my voice somehow.. ... i can never explain this to you. Cause you could never feel what i was feeling

J: there is in fact a loss of respect

K: Crying*

J: That is what you gave me.

K: There had been so many times the bar had been moved.... I was boxed in. No longer me

J: Unfortunately, I earned it. Sorry I sucked so bad.

K: I never wanted to lose you. I only wanted to keep your love. We were not communicating when we thought we were.

J: Clearly.

K: I did not know how to cope with your jealousy. I could not abide your unfounded accusations. And yet I felt guilty. Like I must have done something wrong. I was sure that if you were that mad at me, I needed to fix it. I must have done something wrong to earn your wrath. It was a terrible cognitive dissonance for me. And I started to distrust myself. Every instinct. Every word I typed.

J: So what does that say about anything we spoke of any of those times? Like apologies, forgiveness, and me saying I am going to adjust this or that about my behavior how I was going to try something different and how proud we were for our talks through it and your takes on the situations and any of that stuff....was it all just so much words and we really didn’t fix anything?

K: I believed all that. I did.

J: But how then?

K: But the fact is....you kept doing it. Again and again.

J: We tried so much to believe in each other, we each conceded stuff

K: I kept limiting my behavior more and more.

J: You weren’t alone in that.

K: And yet you kept getting triggered. And then I was in trouble with you again. And you were threatening to leave me. And i could not take that I was willing to do anything to stop that. It cut me to little pieces

J: I should have left. I kept triggering, it wasn’t right to keep doing that

K: I didn’t want you to leave *sobbing....fuck....

J: I know. And I didn't wanna either. Entirely selfish of me. You don't need that crap from anyone.

K: Every time...we had that fight...and we made up...and you said you would never do it again....I believed you.

J: It’s not a worthy trade off. I know I broke that.

K: Until the last time when we fought and C was in the middle I thought.....it’s never gonna end. He’s trying but he can’t help it. But he can’t stop. I felt so defeated. I felt so broken. When you accused me of taking up with C... When you thought I was chatting with him when I was picking up after the dog... missed your chime and you were furious with me... Omg.

J: Sigh

K: Jameson... These things. You have no idea the effect they had on me. The power you had over me. How much your anger destroyed me. How your accusations of unfaithfulness cut me. I was never unfaithful to you for one minute. Sobbing* I know you are never gonna believe me. I deserve that. But...your accusations...they almost drove me to create the reality you envisioned.... I don’t know. Kills me.

J: Nothing to hide now, hun. I am so sorry.

K: I only ever wanted you. I am not saying what I did was okay. It was not. But...I was damaged. And broken. In ways I am only now understanding. You didn't mean to. And I contributed... Someday I hope you can forgive me and let go of it. Stop throwing it in my face. I want to put it behind us. I had thought it was behind us months ago. I know it can’t be behind us yet because I didn't tell you and was hiding the whole damn thing

J: I am not throwing it in your face. Uggh.

K: It feels like it. Every time... Like a weapon. I could not feel worse about it than i do. I don't know how to apologize more than I have. I know I disrespected you and us. And lied and omitted and dissembled

J: Then stop.

K: I won’t ever do that again.

J: Like I said I don't know what else to say any more. All it does....is this all this crap above.... I can't resolve anything within myself because no one will talk to me about it, so I’ll figger it out on my own and I'm still the asshole. So meh.

K: I don't know what to say when you ask me things i don't know

J: Nothing more to say then.

K: When you seem to have heard things I didn't say

J: I asked a question. I asked for clarity. Who got bowed up?

K: I did. I am sorry. I am so sorry.

J: My fault for asking

K: I don't know what you expect me to say. I don't really know T. How should I know what was said between T and L?

J: I expect an answer, anything else looks like methinks she doth protest too much

K: I feel like everything I ever say is wrong. It’s reflexive. It’s habit with you. That what I say is wrong. Not enough. So I keep saying more things. Getting more defensive. Even when there is no reason on gods green earth for me to actually BE defensive.

J: And that is why we can’t do this stuff anymore. It seem like I should not ask questions that no one can answer and you get freaked out when I ask

K: And your hair stands on end. And you hear guilt. And then I can’t stop crying.

J: My hair does not. I hear inconsistencies.

K: Male brain: female brain. I am not lying. I am not.

J: And there are and have been tons of that throughout all of this and, you know, that stuff just doesn’t rest. And why would it? Because my gf chose to hide, lie about it and send her secret friend out to attack me to keep it under wraps. So yea. It bothers me.

K: I never wanted him to say any of that to you. I hate that he did that. I hate it.

J: Just ....what... “oh Jameson...it’s a big nothing, forget about it pretty please?”

K: I know you are not gonna forget about it. Just as I can't forget about your false accusations that terrified me.

J: Your messages have him attacking me passively and indirectly and you let him there too. It’s not so easy to reconcile, Kezziah

K: I AM NOT responsible for his actions and words.

J: I am a butthurt motherfucker.

K: Clearly, I was a fucking mess.

J: You always let your friends talk crap about your bf?

K: Jameson....do you have any idea the state I was in? And I think you can see how I DID disagree with him. Maybe not as much as I could have. But...I was a mess. And you were not talking to me at all. And I thought you might never again.

J: Well he is good guy, well worth all this trouble.

K: I refuse to defend him… He is not. You are everything to me.

J: I never wanted to be your everything.

K: I thought he was a good person. Maybe he is not. The contrast between you and him is stark

J: A big thing mebbe, definitely not everything.

K: Okay, you are my BIG thing Jameson... I cannot fight like this. I am too upset to work right now.

J: I can’t either.

K: This is the same ground we keep going over. I don't know how to help you.

J: I don't need any help.

K: I don’t know how to help us move forward.

J: I'll sort it out on my own.

K: I hate that I have hurt you so much. And that someone i called a friend was such an asshole to you. Totally unacceptable. I'm utterly confused by his behavior. I don’t know what it is you want when you ask me the kinds of things you asked me today that got me so upset I just don’t know what you want. I can’t answer them. I just don't know.

J: I can’t ask if you are gonna get bowed up. So no worries. I won’t anymore. I figured stuff out so far. I can sort out the rest. Thank you, for your time on it. My sincerest apologies for upsetting you. I suck at this stuff.

K: I don’t know about that. Mebbe we both suck. Somehow we are gonna get better at this.

J: Doesn’t seem like it. Mebbe we better to be just friends and not touch this ever again or anything like it.

K: Your hurt over this is deep. I acknowledge it. You have nursed it for half a year until it has grown larger than us. It is gonna take time. Two steps forward. One step back. It is not linear. I am not gonna quit on you. We made this mess together. Some we gotta handle alone. Some we can do together. I don’t think it is possible to not touch on this stuff again. That's not honest either. If we are gonna be friends. Or whatever... we are gonna be dealing with it.

J: All’s I have are straws to grasp at here. No one wants to speak with me directly about these things. All I get are ‘yea yea I understand’ and ‘it sucks’ ‘I am sorry.' There is no manual for this kind of stuff. I have been crappy, and now you are because of it, so now what? Just run around and be all dysfunctional together? I don't know how to release this stuff. I don't know how to reconcile this all in my mind. I don't know how either of us saves face with it either. Just what, say 'yea, you are right I was a butthead', and this and all its discrepancies is ok now and back to business as usual?

When I went through conflicts before with people, either my own or sorting through someone else's, we would find a place to where it came down to finding what it was one needed to finally lay it to rest. That is going to be difficult if we can't even talk about this stuff without getting bowed up. I know you keep offering things, and please don't think I don't appreciate it.

I want this to be done with too. I am also uncertain and afraid that getting it sorted out may be more damaging to our relationship than it being worthwhile to do. We are are already so messed up. How much more can you endure? Can I? Before all is lost.

K: I am doing the best I can to speak directly to you. I am sorry if i get upset. Sometimes it surprises me. All of a sudden we are in the middle of stuff I was not ready for. I keep trying. I feel like I keep failing. I can't stand to try so hard and feel that you still think I am lying. I do not believe that our attempts at this make things worse. It’s cyclical. Not linear. Two steps forward. One back.

©redthreads

陪同

#conversations #starting over #baby steps

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