#not to mention maria's whole getup

[mobius-prime]

234. Sonic the Hedgehog #166

DON'T. PANIC. I know. It's back. Don't worry too much though - it only lasts for two issues, so even if you detest this AU with all your heart and soul you only have to deal with it for a couple days. To be perfectly honest, I don't actually find the plot of this installment of Mobius 25 Years Later to be that much more interesting than the previous one. I find everyone to be a little too out of character, for one thing. However, it does at the very least provide a bit of closure to a story that was left wiiide open previously, so there's that.

Mobius 25 Years Later (Part One): Tempus Fugit

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley Colors: Jason Jensen

Last time on Mobius 25 Years Later, we left off with the timeline seeming to dissolve and rip itself apart while Sonic went back in time to fix the temporal and spatial instabilities of Mobius. Well, he fixed the threat of time coming to an end all right, but in the process somehow caused the timeline to skew wildly from how it was previously. In this new future, Shadow is a brutal and ruthless dictator, worship of Maria as an angelic guardian figure is officially sanctioned by his government, the Chaotix patrol the streets headed by King Shadow's chief enforcer Knuckles, and perhaps most bizarrely of all, Sally is married to Shadow as his queen. I have to note here that no explanation is given at all for how the timeline could have gotten messed up so badly - like, it doesn't really say anything about Sonic destabilizing specific events in the past, he just did something apparently, and stuff got messed up as a result. I'm personally not a fan at all of the idea of Shadow becoming so brutal like this, because it's just so out of character for who he's shown to become in the games (and in the comics coming up in a few issues), but at the very least there's the potential excuse of oh, well, this is a timeline where he didn't discover his true purpose in life and thus got led astray by darker influences or whatever. Regardless, things are very bad, and now Tails is on the scene, trying to figure out a way to fix it.

You see, he actually is able to remember the old timeline due to some kind of protective armband, and knows that this one isn't right. So he decides to go about recruiting some of his old allies to fix things, first starting with Knuckles. He walks in as Knuckles is instructing Lara-Su in her Guardian abilities, and Knuckles, once he realizes why Tails is here, ushers his daughter out grimly so they can talk alone. Tails tries to get Knuckles to listen to him, explaining that he took measures to protect himself, his wife Mina (remember? They got married in this timeline) and their kids from the time shift, and that he knows that everyone who was near the time machine when it freaked out still has memories of the other timeline. This merely pisses Knuckles off for some reason, and he yells at Tails to get out before he arrests him. Tails leaves the room dejectedly, but Lara-Su cheekily tries to cheer him up outside the door, clearly having overheard everything.

I already like this version of Lara-Su way better than the old one. The old one was weirdly whiny and selfish, while this one is immediately more assertive and ready to jump into action. As this is going on, we move to the dungeons beneath "Castle Mobius," where King Shadow is currently carrying out a rather… rough interrogation of Rotor, who's chained up to a wall. Shadow curtly acknowledges Rotor's strength of will in not "cracking" yet (it's not explained what information exactly he's trying to get out of him, but we can assume it relates to the timeline shift), and tells him he knows he will break eventually and leaves - and who is outside the cell to greet him but Lien-Da? She's apparently the one who captured Rotor for him, and she too remembers the old timeline, thanks to Cobar - we finally find out what she did when she confronted Rotor and Cobar back then!

Yeah, really don't like this version of Shadow. The juxtaposition of worshipping Maria as a gentle protective goddess, and Shadow's use of brutal torture tactics and authoritarianism is kind of… bizarre. A Legion mook runs up with information that Lara-Su has joined up with Tails, and Shadow orders Lien-Da to contact Knuckles to conduct an arrest of the two. Meanwhile, the two in question have managed to find Sonic, bedraggled and sitting next to a bunch of trash in a back alley, looking pretty awful. He, of course, is the same Sonic from the old timeline who went back to "fix" everything, and is horrified at how everything has turned out in this version of the future. It's once again worth noting that he sheds a few tears here, especially because this is around the time Sega started interfering more in the comics to make sure things were portrayed to their liking. There's a sketch version of the below page floating around somewhere showing Sonic crying substantially more than he is in the final product, which honestly, I don't know why Sega felt they had to force the artists to tone it back here, because I think if there's any circumstance where a normally cheerful and stoic person might truly lose it, it's losing their two children forever to the abyss of time.

Lara-Su urges the others to get up so they can go defeat King Shadow and save the day, but a sudden blinding light engulfs them. Sure enough, it's Knuckles, backed by what looks like half of Portal's police force, telling the three of them to surrender immediately as they're under arrest for treason…

The Chaotix Connection

Writer: R. Chacon and Ian Flynn Pencils: J. Axer Colors: Jason Jensen

This story is a bit bizarre - for one, it opens with a shot of Knuckles tied up and apparently coming to after being knocked out, only to immediately pull back a full day to show us what led up to this moment. That's a perfectly legitimate storytelling tactic, but it has to be done right for it to work, dammit, and the execution here is mostly just awkward and confusing. And for another, though someone is listed as the letterer for this story, very little of it is actually hand-lettered - the vast majority of it is machine-lettered. Seriously, out of the dozens and dozens of speech bubbles in this one story, which takes up half the issue's page span, only seven are hand-lettered (yes, I counted). I'm really not sure why this would be, nor why they bothered actually having someone letter only seven speech bubbles in the entire story when a computer was apparently doing that job perfectly well, but oh well. Anyway, here's the rundown - yesterday in Station Square, Rouge (sporting her Heroes getup) was snooping around for any juicy information when she got her hands on a nice little tidbit - namely, that Renfield T. Rodent is back. Remember him?

Aw, it's nice to see Sally and Sonic actually joking around with and teasing each other a bit. Things have been so frosty between them for so long, I forgot how nice it is to just see them being sweet and silly. The next day, Renfield's foreman oversees a delivery of slot machines to the new casino while Renfield himself watches from behind a screen, still sporting his capitalist tycoon grin and definitely seeming very shady as he talks to himself about putting on a grand show with this new scheme. The Chaotix and Rouge all arrive at the venue, and Rouge and Julie-Su nearly come to blows when Rouge insinuates that her only reason for coming is to show Knuckles that she's "gone legit." Knuckles breaks up the fight before it begins, and the group is let in early when they bluff to the guards that Renfield is expecting a meeting with them. They agree to split up and search for anything suspicious, checking in every few minutes to make sure none of them goes missing. Knuckles heads off on his own, and soon discovers an elevator that takes him to a secure room where the foreman is discussing the shipment with the help. When he hears Eggman's name mentioned, Knuckles knows this operation is rigged, so he leaps into action and begins to fight everyone present… alone. Seriously, man, couldn't have waited one whole minute to call in your backup? Speaking of the backup, Mighty in particular has decided it's prudent to check the food given what happened last time, while several of the others go for the slot machines as customers begin to file in.

Gotta love Mighty - no time to test anything scientifically, let's just shove potentially poisoned food into our mouths and see if we pass out! Knuckles, upstairs, finishes punching out the mooks and goes for the foreman, but when his fist makes a clanging noise against his nose he realizes that he's one of Eggman's auto-automatons. Things only get worse when said auto-automaton punches back, knocking him clean out. While the foreman ties him up and calls Renfield, Rouge, Vector, and Espio all check the slots, noticing that people seem to be acting weird while playing them. Sure enough, one glance at a screen later, the three of them are hypnotized as well. Knuckles wakes up with Renfield gloating over him, and naturally the rat immediately launches into a villainous monologue about how Eggman is paying him to use his fake slot machines to scan the brains of the patrons, allowing him to turn that data into a blueprint for what basically amounts to a Terminator. In fact, the whole casino is built on top of a factory that will start spitting out robots the moment the scans upload! Suddenly, the writers realize in horror that they only have two more pages to wrap this plot up, and so they go into overdrive figuring out a way to solve it in this limited amount of space.

I love the idea that Mighty just casually crunched up a whole factory and carried it around with him just to prove a point here. The police show up out of nowhere to arrest a fuming Renfield, and Julie-Su and Mighty explain that they knew something was wrong when Knuckles didn't check in, and even more hilariously, apparently on their way up here they just randomly passed the factory and Mighty was like "Yo, that doesn't fit the décor," hence him crunching it up. The president pops in out of the ether to congratulate the Chaotix on a job well done, and as Julie-Su and Rouge bicker some more, the curtain falls on one of the weirdest and most out of place stories we've experienced in some time. Bravo, Romy and Ian, we've officially learned that when you two collaborate, crap gets bizarre!

[lesbianmothership]

Come Back To Me (PART 1)

I originally wanted to post the whole thing in one part but its become a lot longer and in depth than I originally planned so this is part one of probably a couple different parts to come. I like writing angst so let me know whatchya think!

Natasha Romanoff x reader fanfiction 

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of torture and violence.

Word Count:  2092

_________________________

“Come back to me” your girlfriend of three years says as she rests her forehead against your own. Hands cupped around your neck, just under your jaw.  

“Relax Tash,” you smile pecking her lips. “It’s a simple extraction mission. In and out no problem. I do this all the time, you should know.” You wink, earning a tug on your ear.

The redhead beauty rolls her eyes, “You and Clint are never going to let go of that. It was one time!” Natasha Romanoff, the deadliest assassin in the world turned S.H.E.I.L.D. agent hiding her face in the crook of her girlfriend’s neck. Not many get to see this vulnerable side of her. To those outside of the Avengers and yourself she is closed off, cold hearted and will take down her enemy by any means. “You know I worry Y/N. All extractions are dangerous. Why else would the asset need to get out of there? You’re everything to me and if I lose you… don’t think I won’t beat your ass.”

“And you’re everything to me but I got this. You have nothing to worry about, I’m the best of the best.” You give her a cocky grin knowing nothing you say will actually relieve her of her worry but at least you could get her to smile before you depart.

A quick knock on the door of the room you’re in lets you know that the Quinjet and your team are ready to go.

“That’s my cue,” but before you can pull away Natasha grabs you by the collar and tugs you in for a deep kiss.

“You do anything stupid that gets you hurt and I’m holding out for a month,” she warns after she pulls away.

“Well that hardly seems fair,” you complain throwing your arms down to your side like a child. “I’d like to negotiate those terms.”

Another knock on the door. “Doesn’t seem like we have the time моя любовь” Natasha smirks as she watches her beautiful, bad ass girl walk out.

­­­­­­­­­­­__________________________

What was supposed to be a simple extraction mission had gone to shit very fast. The intel you had been given was false. The asset you were to extract from the Hydra base was already dead and the whole thing was a trap. They knew you were coming the entire time.

The moment you stepped into the base bullets were flying. You and your team tried your best to get a handle on the situation but it was obvious from the start that you were outgunned. At this point there was no getting out of it either, you were surrounded and everyone was coming up on their last rounds of ammunition.

“Ramirez is down, gunshot wound to shoulder and chest, Leroy and Shaw are dead ma’am... We need a plan,” your second in command, Smitty, informed you.

“Fuck!” you ran a hand through your hair trying to regain your composure. The weight of the situation hit you hard. Your team, your responsibility which meant as team leader their deaths were on you. It was a part of the job; losing people and you all knew what you had signed up for but it was never easy when it actually happened. You thought about your options but you really only had one viable option where you came out alive, however, it was the very last thing you wanted to do.

“Weapons down!” you ordered.

“Wait what? Y/L/N are you serious?” Jakobs ducked down behind the barrier your team was huddled behind after letting out another round of bullets.

“Are you sure about this?” Smitty asked.

“No… but what other options do we have? We either die here or surrender and hope S.H.E.I.L.D. will send another rescue party.” God you hoped you weren’t making the wrong decision here.

“How the fuck are we going to get them to stop firing at us though?” Jillian asked as she tried to stop Ramirez from bleeding out.

“I got an idea, a really bad one but I think it could work… hand me some of that gauze,” Jill threw some in your direction and quickly you tied off the white fabric to the barrel of your assault rifle before lifting it and waving it around above your head.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jakobs pinched the bridge of his nose “We are never hear the end of this when we get back to headquarters.”

“Headquarters is the reason were in this mess in the first place. Someone fucked up real bad and whoever it is I swear I’m going to have their head,” Smitty growled.

“Less talk about how this happened and let’s focus on how were going to get out of this. Trust me I want the head of whoever is responsible for this as much as you guys but at the moment we need to make sure we keep our own heads alright?” You flinch as a bullet hits the base of your rifle. “Hey nimrods! Don’t you know that a white flag means we surrender!” You yell out.

The Hydra agents seemed to have finally figured out that you’ve given up as their firing ceased and you heard their approaching footsteps. Moments later you and your team were completely surrounded at gunpoint.

“Ah shit.. Natasha is going to kill me-“ you groaned right before everything went black as you were hit over the head with the butt of a rifle.

__________________________

­­­­­­­­­­­­­“Maria… what do you mean you haven’t heard from them yet? Shouldn’t they have the asset secured by now and be back up in the air?” It had been 18 hours since you left for your extraction mission and you were due to radio back hours ago. Natasha was pacing back and forth in communications room with Maria and your team’s handlers.

“Any number of things could be the reason they haven’t made contact yet. They were on radio silence to begin with to hold cover, and they could still be trying to stay under the radar if they’re not in safe airspace yet. We don’t know the situation yet Nat but we don’t see reason to worry yet. Y/N’s team is the best extraction team we have and I have full confidence in their safe return.” Maria tried to reassure the ex-assassin.

“Something doesn’t feel right about this Maria… I know Y/N, she would have radioed back by now already even if they weren’t in safe air space yet. Fuck its been hours.” Natasha was pinching the bridge of her nose. It was protocol to remain in radio silence until the mission was secure but Y/N wasn’t exactly one to always follow protocol. Hell, last mission you were on you connected your team’s comms to your iPod so you could listen to Tequila by The Champs.

“Alright we��ll send another team in-“

“I’m going with.” Natasha snapped, leaving the room to go get ready before anyone could argue with her.

“Alrighty then,” Maria clasped her hands together before turning back to the handlers. “Keep trying to establish communications from here. We need to figure out what the hell happened.”

__________________________

­­­­­­­­­­­

“Ah fuckin-hell” you groaned. Your head was pounding and as you opened your eyes everything was still dark. They had you blindfolded with your arms cuffed above your head and your feet to the floor. You could feel crusty dried up blood matted into your hair and down the side of your face.

“This ain’t good” you grunted under your breath as you tried to sit up.

“No shit sherlock,” Jakobs to your right responded.

“Are Smitty and Jill with us too?” you asked while trying to stretch out your sore muscles.

“I don’t know. I only woke up a few minutes ago and I can’t see anything. They could still be unconscious or being held in another area.” Jakobs reported with a sigh.

This is bad… really really bad. You thought to yourself. You had no idea where you were and odds are you were transported to different base than the one where you had gotten into this mess. You could tell you weren’t in your gear any more either which meant the tracking devices in them were of no use. If anything, Hydra would send S.H.E.I.L.D. on a wild goose chase once they figured out the mission failed. Hopefully they’ve sent out another team already, although you have no idea how the hell they’re going to find you.

While testing out the strength of the chains around your wrists and feet the door to the room you were in scraped open. The sounds of boots walking towards you made your hair stand on end.

It took a moment for your eyes to adjust to the light in the room when your blindfold was removed. You were in a small concrete room; no windows just the single thick metal door and camera in the corner, it was only you and Jakob which confused you. Why keep you together yet separate.

“I can see your thoughts on your face,” the man who seemed in charge spoke. He was an ugly feller. Bald, with a long scar that ran from his right temple down to his jaw and wore typical Hydra getup.

“Your friends are more morning people than yourselves. Woke up quite a bit of time ago. You should know they are dead now though. It was clear they didn’t have the information I wanted so they were disposed of,” the bald fucker chuckled to himself.

Seething through your teeth you made a pathetic attempt to lung at the man. To say you were angry was an understatement. You were seeing red. Basically your whole team was wiped out in what was supposed to be a simple mission. You were furious with yourself. With S.H.I.E.L.D. And you wanted to murder the man who had the audacity to stand before you right now a laugh at you struggling in your chains.

“You really should be more appreciative than that agent L/N” You froze when he said your name. “Although they did experience quite a lot of pain beforehand, I made sure their deaths were painless,” He smirked tapping his index finger between his eyebrows. “I truly felt bad for them really. To be tortured like that only for me to figure out they really didn’t have the information I wanted! Security clearance is a funny thing isn’t it?”

Clenching your jaw, you remained silent.

“You see agent L/N, when I figured out I had a mole in one of my bases relaying information back to S.H.E.I.L.D. I was livid! But then I thought hmm maybe I can use this to my advantage because where there is one mole there is a whole system of them,” he crouched down in front of you tucking a stray hair behind your ear much to your dismay. “So, I had him signal to be extracted, then I shot him and now here you are and what you’re going to do for me now is give me the list of all assets and agents you have hidden in Hydra.” He smiled laying it out like it was the simplest of requests.

“Over my dead body,” you spat.

“I had a feeling you were going to say that. No worries you’ll break eventually.”

__________________________

­­­­­­­­­­­­Natasha knew it was bad news when they landed a mile outside the base at the same location where they were able to track down Y/N’s team’s Quinjet. Completely abandoned, not a trace of anyone.

During the short trek to the Hydra base Natasha was getting more and more anxious. She couldn’t shake the horrible feeling in her gut. The closer they got the heavier the feeling weighed down on her. When they got to the entrance Natasha instructed the team that she would follow in behind her. They had no idea what they were walking into.

However, the last thing she expected was a completely empty base. They cleared room by room, went down each hallway and found not a single trace that anyone had ever been there. It wasn’t until they rounded a corner into another hallway that Natasha’s stomach plummeted. Three bodies laid across the floor. Approaching Natasha let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding when she recognized Y/N’s teammates: Ramirez, Leroy and Shaw.

Had she been alone she was sure her legs would have given out but she remained poise in front of the team of agents around her.

“What the fuck happened to you Y/N” Nat whispered under her breath.