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official-weasley · 3 years ago

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Charlie's Helping Hand

A/N: For all who don't know @am-i-space and I are (healthily obsessed) with freckled gingers who steal your heart because they are adorable and pure! Two of those are the one and only Charlie Weasley and Commander Gren from The Dragon Prince.

We have made up quite a few stories about them (separate and together) and about a month ago we came up with Charlie being friends with Gren and Amaya. @am-i-space had the idea for a drawing of the 3 of them at once and without really knowing we were doing it, we started working together on this little project below my rambling!

After definitely not losing their mind about the eyes and Charlie's hair EVEN ONCE and me finally getting the inspiration for how to bring Charlie into a different universe, we are ready to post it!

As you might've figured by now the drawing below this author's note belongs to the beautiful, talented and amazing @am-i-space who pleasantly surprised me with every draft piece I received of this drawing and the story behind how this drawing "came to be" belongs to yours truly.

PS. Read to the end to find out how this beautiful piece of art came to existence in the story 💙🖤

“Charlie, you are going to love Katolis.” Gren grinned at his friend as they were walking up the path that will take them back to Gren's homeland.

“I love traveling so I think I will have no problem with it,” Charlie smiled back at him, “and besides you said that it's full of magic and dragons just roam free. It's like you are describing a dream.”

“It wasn't always like that. Dragons were feared and people and magic folk didn't know how to live together.” Gren sighed, remembering the days before their land became one.

“Right, king Ezran and his brother were running away from an elf assassin and they found an egg and joined forces to return it to its mother.” Charlie narrowed his eyes, trying to get the facts straight.

—

It's been almost two years since the great battle at the Storm Spire. The dragon queen has awakened and Zym was finally reunited with his mother. She took care of him, taught him how to fly better – even though Ez did an incredible job already. She also showed her son how to roar and how to use his electric breath.

Xadia was one land again and it thrived like never before. The magic spread to the Five Kingdoms and the people and the magic folk could move freely without sneaking around and fear each other.

Everything was perfect until one day when the dragon prince went flying and got caught up in a giant storm. Because he was still struggling to control his wing movement – when the winds were strong – he got caught up in a whirl and got smashed into a mountain.

Azymondias was found by his mother after she went looking for him as he didn't return home. At first, he appeared to be fine but when the queen wanted to take him flying she noticed that one of his wings was damaged. She sought help from the king of Katolis and his friends.

King Ezran's heart was broken when he found out and gathered a party to visit Zym at once. He couldn't believe it was even worse than he imagined it would be – all of Zym's bones in his left wing were broken and no matter how many elves and how many mages they gathered, nothing could mend his wing.

It seemed that all was lost and that the dragon prince will never be able to fly until one night when Commander Gren was finally ready to talk about his experience of being locked up in the castle dungeon by lord Viren.

He told his best friend general Amaya about everything he heard and seen happening. With his help, they were able to find the coins in which Viren stored souls and with the help of a high mage from the kingdom of Duren their lives were restored and Runaan was safely returned to his husband Ethari and his adopted niece Rayla.

Because Gren found it hard to talk about the whole situation and would gladly completely forget about the horrid experience, he decided to visit Runaan at his home in Silvergrove.

Every time Gren woke up in the middle of the night, having a nightmare that he was back in that dungeon, he felt like he was missing something. He knew that Viren was going down there for a reason and not just to interrogate Runaan. The thoughts kept him awake and he tried his hardest to remember where he was going and if he heard any noises that would help him figure it out.

As Gren expected, Runaan wasn't keen on talking about his experience in the castle of Katolis either but when Gren explained his feelings and the need to talk about it and to help him find out what was happening while they were there, Runaan put his feelings aside and decided to share his part of the story.

When Runaan told Gren about the weird questions Viren was asking him about a mirror and what does it do and how important it had to be for the lord because he seemed very frustrated when he didn't get his answers, Gren decided that it was time to put his fear aside and head down to the dungeons once more.

After telling Amaya everything and informing her of his plan to go and investigate – being so sure that the guards missed something when they rescued him – Amaya wanted to go with him.

She knew Gren more than anyone and it still pained her to this day that she was so far away when everything Viren was doing back at the castle went down that she simply couldn't allow him to relive that alone. She knew Gren was brave and just about the most optimistic and cheerful person she will ever have a chance to meet but she also knew that behind his bubbly personality Gren was hiding all the negative feelings and the trauma of what he went through in those few weeks while being down there.

She knew there will be no way of stopping Gren from going because he has never been so sure that something Viren was hiding down there could help Zym so instead of arguing with her lieutenant she decided to go with him.

As always when they go on a mission they geared up – better be too safe than sorry – and headed to the dungeons.

Before they opened the door that led to the lower parts of the castle, Amaya turned to Gren one more time.

Are you really sure you want to do this? She signed.

I am. I have to see what is down there or I will never have a peaceful night's rest. Gren signed back, his brows furrowed in determination.

Amaya just nodded, admiring how brave her best friend was for facing his problem head-on, and opened the door.

They walked down the stairs and came to the place where Gren was cuffed.

Amaya gave him a worried look while Gren avoided looking at her and the wall he was chained to. Taking a deep breath he first headed to where he knew Runaan was kept. They only found an empty cell with a small window with bars on it so they headed in the other direction.

They have been looking around, opening doors to empty cells for about half an hour until Gren tried turning the knob of a wooden door and it didn't open.

He exchanged a look with Amaya who nodded to him that he should force-open it with his foot. Gren did as he was told but the door still didn't move.

Amaya frowned – not liking when something didn't go her way – so she stepped next to Gren and counting to 3 on her fingers they repeated the action together. The door gave way to their force and they stumbled inside.

The room was a bit bigger than the others they have found. It was windowless making it completely dark with only a small wooden table, a chair, and something covered with a cloth.

Is this it? Amaya signed at Gren who was observing the covered artifact with his mouth slightly opened.

Gren could only muster a small nod. Amaya knew that this was hard on Gren and even though her curiosity was growing she gave him the time to make the step toward it and uncover the object.

The commander shook his head to collect his thoughts and swallowed thickly before approaching it. He lifted his arm slowly, grabbed the cloth, and pulled it down. Amaya and Gren both gasped, not prepared to see a mirror in front of them.

At the first glance, it looked like any other mirror, but then something shone inside it and their reflections disappeared. They saw what looked like an empty office or a library. They knew at once that this was no ordinary mirror and that it would be best if they don't meddle with it but call in someone who might better know what this mirror is for or better yet what it does.

After a month of searching and inviting the best mages in the whole land, including elves from all parts of Xadia, they figured out that the mirror served as a prison in another realm for a startouch elf. They were able to find an elf that knew of startouch elves and who they were.

The only one of their kind the king of Katolis and his aunt Amaya knew was Aaravos who they had to fight to keep Zym alive at the battle that brought them peace. Since lord Viren was associated with Aaravos it was only reasonable that he was the one who was inside the mirror.

King Ezran wasn't delighted to find out that this wasn't the last they would hear of the elf and wanted to resolve the mystery behind the mirror at once.

“You mean the little bug that turned into an elf with a bigger bug around his shoulder?” Soren asked, perplexed when Ezran was telling him, Callum, Corvus, and Opeli what was going on.

“Do you know anything about him?” Ezran gasped, encouraging Soren to tell him more.

“Well, not really. Father was very secretive about him. I remember when we were marching to Lux Aurea he was talking to the little bug on his ear. If my memory isn't deceiving me, Viren was telling him about how he and your dad, Ezran, defeated the dragon king.” Soren said, rubbing his chin and trying to remember more.

“Why would Aaravos want to know about that?” Opeli failed to understand.

“Perhaps he was trapped in the mirror when that happened?” Corvus suggested.

“Viren sounded very proud of his accomplishment, speaking with the voice he uses when he brags about something to someone for who he thinks he did them a favor.” Soren continued.

“Why would killing Zym's dad be a favor to Aaravos?” Ezran thought out loud.

“No!” Callum gasped and stood up.

“What? What did you remember?” Ezran wanted to know.

“No, it's too farfetched.” Callum swung his hand for them to stop paying attention to him.

“No, no. Do tell,” Opeli encouraged him, “perhaps you are onto something.”

“Well,” Callum cleared his throat, “would it be possible that the dragon king had something to do with Aaravos' imprisonment inside the mirror?”

“Get aunt Amaya and gather the elves and the mages again! We have to discuss this!” Ezran stood up and gave the order to Soren and Corvus who nodded and rushed out of the throne room at once.

“It would be possible for the dragon king to entrap the elf inside a mirror.” The high mage of Bel Dur said after hearing the proposal from prince Callum.

“However,” a mage from Neolandia cut in, “in order to do that Thunder would need someone from the realm on the other side of the mirror to help him, making your idea invalid.”

“Why?” King Ezran wanted to know.

“Well, to do that sort of powerful magic, the dragon king would have to have a dragon on the other side of the mirror from which to draw that kind of power.” The mage explained.

“Why would that make my idea invalid?” Callum asked.

“Because there is no such thing as dragons in other realms,” the mage said confidently.

“An hour ago you didn't even know there were other realms and now you are trying to convince us that in those other places dragons can't exist?” Opeli raised her eyebrows.

“Alright,” the mage sighed, “let's say that a place where Aaravos was entrapped does have dragons, how exactly does this help us with the dragon prince's wing?”

“Don't you get it?” Ezran stood up. “Nobody in Xadia can help Zym and this other realm could be full of dragons. What if there is someone who could heal Zym? What if they possess just the magic we would need to help Zym fly again?”

“You do have a point, your majesty,” the high mage of Bel Dur bowed to the king, “however...”

“However, how do we know whoever lives on the other side isn't a threat to us? To the dragon prince, to our kingdoms? Who is to say that they would be willing to help us?” The mage interrupted him.

King Ezran decided to call a meeting with the dragon queen to ask her if she could confirm their speculations and wasn't all that surprised when she told him that it was the dragon king who imprisoned Aaravos in a realm called Earth where magic works differently than in Xadia and despite Aaravos being the strongest and the most ancient of elves, he wouldn't be able to use their type of magic.

After much deliberation, king Ezran has decided to take the risk and explore the realm on the other side of the mirror.

“We have to help Zym. No one in the whole Xadia could mend his wing and we have to try. We can't have the dragon prince not be able to fly. I know it's dangerous and a lot of you will think that I am making a rash decision based on my feelings and me being a kid, but this is how I decided and I am willing to take the risk for Xadia and our kingdom.” Ezran said, his brows together in determination. “We needed years of war and conflict to unite our lands together again and if we aren't willing to help and take the risks needed to move forward then we are back at the beginning and I will not allow that to happen.”

The crown guards and the king's advisors nodded, agreeing with him, while some of the mages from other kingdoms had their reservations.

In the end, it didn't matter as only a day later were they gathering a team courageous enough to walk through the mirror and seek help.

You want to do what? Amaya was signing as fast as her fingers allowed her, frowning at the idea Gren just proposed.

I need to go. I feel that I need to go. I had the feeling about the mirror and look where it brought us. Gren tried convincing her.

You did enough, Gren. Amaya pleaded.

It's been so nice to have him by her side again after being separated on so many occasions during the war and now it will happen again and Amaya wasn't sure she can let it happen.

Soren is going. I have to try. This could be my chance to prove that I am not only good at interpreting.

Nobody is saying that Gren, and you know it.

You never protested so much before, what has gotten into you? Gren wanted to frown but his expression softened instead, looking at his best friend.

I guess I got used to the fact of you being by my side again. Amaya moved her fingers slowly as if she was hesitant to admit this.

“Oh.” Gren breathed out loud before stepping closer to Amaya and pulling her into a hug.

I know. I feel the same but please give me a chance to do this. I will be back before you know it.

Gren bestowed Amaya with one of his warming smiles to which she never could stop her lips from curving too.

Alright, but promise me you'll be safe and cautious. She playfully nudged him in the ribs before hugging him again and saying goodbye.

The next day Gren, accompanied by 5 of Ezran's most trusted crown guards – including Soren – and a mage made their way down to the dungeons once again to walk through the mirror and seek help from the other side.

It took 7 mages to figure out how the mirror works and how to get the crew through it. They warned them they will have a small window to do this that's why they couldn't take more people.

Gren was standing in front of the mirror – the last one to be transported through it.

“Here we go,” he whispered to himself, took a deep breath, and without turning his head to see his best friend one more time, disappeared.

—

“And this is where I come in.” Charlie wiggled his nose, trying to hide that he was nervous as Gren told him the story for the fourth time.

“Look, I know it sounds insane.” Gren sighed. “We found a mirror who entrapped the most powerful elf that ever lived in Xadia and then we went through it, followed the roar of a dragon, found the Sanctuary, and for some reason you were mad enough to say yes to our proposal.”

“In my defense, you said that a baby dragon... No, no, let me correct myself – a storm baby dragon – which is a myth here on Earth, needed help and then you said that you are not from Earth at all but from another realm so you tricked me.” Charlie sniggered.

“Well, my hidden talent to know when someone cares for something deeply has finally come to use.” Gren smiled proudly.

“Just don't get your hopes up. I might be a dragonologist but you said that no wizard...”

“Mage.” Gren corrected him.

“That no mage could help Zym so I am not sure how much I can do.” Charlie bowed his head.

“I know, but it is admiring that you are willing to try and I believe that you will be able to do something, if nothing else advise us what we can do to help the dragon prince,” Gren said cheerfully, looking at his friend.

He and the guards have only been on Earth for a month and they are already going back – needing far less time than Gren or anybody expected them to need to figure out how the people on Earth could help Azymondias.

They were lucky enough that the late dragon king set Aaravos' prison near the Carpathians mountains which also happened to be the secret hideout of the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary.

They were walking for 2 days before they heard a dragon roar and followed the sound for another day before they arrived in front of what looked like an abandoned gate. The mage tore down the enchantments and without thinking twice about it, they entered.

To say that the people working in the Reserve were in shock and not really sure what they were looking at was an understatement. It doesn't happen every day that a group of people with armor and swords walk straight through the gate.

Luckily, dragonologists are very simple and open-minded people – Gren has noticed – so it was easy to explain what was going on.

The second they said that a dragon needed help, a bunch of them volunteered but Gren knew that they can only take one person back so he asked the kind people if they could stay for a few days to observe their work and then pick the one that seemed the best suited for the job.

Charlie stood out to Gren immediately, because he was one of the few that simply raised their hand to volunteer instead of being loud and jumping in the air. His calmness suited him and he intrigued Gren the second he followed him around the next morning and saw how he handled the dragons.

The fellow red-haired dragonologist reminded Gren very much of king Ezran and how he talks to animals. The second Gren decided that this business was too urgent for him to be shy and not talk to him, he approached the dragon tamer and asked him about his ability to talk to dragons.

Charlie cocked an eyebrow at him and laughed a little, thinking the commander was joking, only to compose himself a second later when he saw just how serious Gren was.

With observing his work and asking him all sorts of questions Gren deemed him perfect for the job.

He wasn't even that surprised that he got Charlie on board without any effort.

The second the sun rose the next morning and Charlie said goodbye to the dragons and his co-workers, they made their way back to the mirror.

—

Gren, you are back! Amaya was waiting next to the mirror for them to come back and hugged her friend the second he came out of it.

I'm alright. It went pretty smoothly. Gren smiled proudly.

Who is this? Amaya signed, nodding at Charlie and scanning him from head to toe.

This is Charlie Weasley, he's a dragon tamer back in the other realm and he is here to help Zym. Gren explained.

He's cute. Amaya winked at her friend.

I thought you were in a committed relationship with Janai? Gren giggled.

I meant for you. Amaya nudged him, making Gren's face as red as a strawberry.

Without replying, Gren rushed everyone out of the room, making the excuse to see Zym as fast as possible.

Amaya sent a squad to bring Zym to Katolis so that Charlie would have the time to settle in and get some rest and that he wouldn't get too overwhelmed by his surroundings.

The second he saw the dragon prince and heard his cheerful squeaks despite having an injured wing, Charlie's eyes glowed and he felt like all his dreams came true to see a dragon that not only doesn't breathe fire but can zap you with electricity.

Gren explained to him to the best of his abilities why they call Zym the dragon prince but when he bowed to the young dragon and heard the people behind him giggle, he knew he took it too far. With his cheeks turning scarlet, he cleared his throat and asked everybody to give him and Zym some space so he could do a proper check-up on him.

Amaya, Gren, Ezran, Callum, Soren, and Opeli all watched as Charlie sat down next to the dragon and started whispering something to him. It only took about a minute for Zym to trust him which – with everything Gren saw back in the Sanctuary – wasn't surprising at all.

Zym let Charlie position him in a way to have full access to the wing, while constantly murmuring something under his breath.

“So, did you manage to find out how to help him?” Ezran asked the second Charlie stood up and walked to them.

“I...uh...” Charlie stuttered not knowing how to begin.

“What? What's wrong?” Callum put his hand over his little brother's shoulder.

“I don't want to be rude so I don't know how to say it.” Charlie was embarrassed.

“Hey, we trust in your expertise so don't worry about it.” Gren encouraged Charlie to speak.

“Well, his wing is broken, you got that right but because dragons here and on Earth are magical creatures, magic can't help them much.” Charlie shook his head.

“So, there's nothing we can do?” Ezran was on the verge of tears.

“Quite the opposite, this is very good news. I thought that we would have to mend his broken bones with magic.” Charlie said in a cheerful voice to put Ezran in a better mood.

“And we won't need to use magic?” Soren got curious.

“No. Because Zym is still so young and will need years to grow fully, we would just have to immobilize his wing as much as possible until his bones mend themselves.” Charlie explained.

“It's that easy? ” Amaya signed, looking impressed and Gren interpreted.

“Yes. Zym is still growing and like with children it's easier to have a broken bone when you are young than when you're an adult. If Zym will be a good boy and obey when I put bandages on him, he should be better somewhere from around 6 months to a year if he is like the dragons we have back at home.” Charlie couldn't hide how proud he was of all the knowledge he had on dragons and healing.

“How are you going to wrap him up?” Ezran was beyond happy to know that his friend is going to be just fine.

“With magic, of course.” Charlie pulled out his wand.

“You made a mistake of trying to heal his wing with magic directly, that simply doesn't work with one of the most powerful beings in the world. In cases like this, you have to turn to the good old remedies.”

He walked back to Zym who extended his wing as much as he could for Charlie to do his magic.

Gren and his friends couldn't quite decipher what Charlie said for pieces of cloth to start flying out of his wand and bandage Zym's wing for him not to be able to move it.

“So our mission was all for nothing?” Gren bowed his head.

“On the contrary, commander,” Ezran grinned at him, “if you hadn't brought Charlie here, we would worry about Zym for years and his bones could regrow in a wrong way, and from what I can see, you wouldn't have made a friend.”

“True.” Gren gave the words of his king some thought.

“Also, I think that mister Weasley doesn't mind meeting another species of dragon.” Opeli giggled.

Gren turned around to where Charlie was trying to make Zym hold still so he could cast the spell with bandages on him a few more times and smiled to himself.

“Yeah, you're right. It was completely worth it.” He observed his friend doing his job for a few seconds more before the heat on his cheeks became too much and he turned to Amaya who winked at him with a smug expression on her face.

Gren playfully rolled his eyes and walked to Charlie.

“So, after you do this, how long is it going to last?” He wanted to know.

“Well, Zym is a very energetic and jumpy dragon and these bandages have to be tight for as long as possible so I would have to change them a few times per day.” Charlie chuckled when Zym let out a happy squeak.

“Meaning you will stay here?” Gren tried sounding normal but was bad at hiding his excitement.

“Would that be okay?” Charlie scratched the top of his head. “I mean I don't know how realms work or if this is even allowed?”

“We can ask the mages but since we stayed on Earth for a month, I think it wouldn't be a problem.”

“Well, I love traveling and would love to help Zym for as long as I can, so I wouldn't mind at all.” Charlie couldn't believe how lucky he was to embark on this amazing adventure.

“What about the people back at home? Won't they miss you?”

In the time Gren spent with Charlie, he had the opportunity to get to know him very well and it became evident early on that Charlie was a man who would do anything for his family and his loved ones.

“They will,” Charlie shrugged, “but they are used to seeing me only a few times per year and besides, it's work-related and they understand how much my job means to me.”

“In that case, I would...” Gren cleared his throat. “...I mean we would love to have you.”

“It's settled then. I am staying. I would just like to ask if there is a way for me to send a message home?”

“I am sure that can be arranged.”

Charlie and Gren turned around to the voice and saw king Ezran smiling at them.

“I would like to thank you personally, mister Weasley...”

“Please, king Ezran, call me Charlie.”

“Only if you stop calling me king,” Ezran giggled, “my friends call me Ez and I think it's safe to say that you are now a friend. Wouldn't you say so, Gren?”

“Exactly!” Gren exclaimed.

“As I was saying, I would like to thank you for doing this. You have no idea how much this means to the magic folk, to us people, and me personally.” Ezran walked to where Charlie was kneeling next to Zym and wrapped his arms around him.

Charlie let out a suppressed chuckle, not expecting a king to hug him, but then returned the embrace before standing up.

“I will need a place to stay.” Charlie giggled nervously as they were standing in front of the castle door, waiting for the guards to let them in.

“You can stay with us,” Gren said and pointed behind him.

Charlie turned around to see Amaya signing to Gren for him to interpret.

“I think you will fit in with us just nicely,” Gren translated while Amaya sent Charlie a wink.

No amount of freckles could hide the dragon tamer's burning cheeks as he couldn't believe just how nice everyone in Katolis was.

Gren and Amaya took him to the garden the second he came from the much-needed shower from all the kisses and licks Zym gave him. They were sitting on the bench and conversing – Charlie trying to take in as many signs as he could because he was determined to learn sign language.

“Charlie, I bring good news!” Prince Callum came out of nowhere. “Ez told me that you want to send a message home and asked me to talk to the mages. They can prepare the mirror for you tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you, Callum. That is indeed great news.” He grinned at the prince, relieved that he will have a chance to explain to his family where he has gone to.

“Now that it's official and you're staying I think we have to give you a rank.” Ezran appeared next to Callum.

“A rank?” Charlie tilted his head in confusion.

“And armor!” Callum exclaimed.

“What are you two talking about?” Gren chuckled at how excited they were and glanced at Amaya who just giggled as if she was hiding something.

Amaya, what did you do? Gren's curiosity got the better of him.

Well, since Brandon retired last year I am without my third in command so I am giving that position to Charlie. Amaya explained.

“To me?” Charlie jumped in his seat after Gren told him what was going on. “But I can't fight!”

“You are doing admirable work, worth of a title.” Gren interpreted.

“I-I don't know what to say.” Charlie was left speechless.

“Oh, I know what you could do!” Callum gasped loudly before running away from them.

Not even 5 minutes later, he came back with his sketchbook in his hands. Without saying anything he ordered Gren, Amaya, and Charlie – who were sitting on the bench – to stand up.

“We will celebrate with your official portrait,” Callum explained his actions.

The trio exchanged a look and then turned around when they heard someone clear their throat.

“Callum, you can't draw them without Charlie being in his new uniform.” Soren shook his head and handed Charlie a package.

The redhead was looking at it in awe before being rushed to the closest bathroom to try it on.

“Oh, look at you!” Soren and Ezran said together, admiring the scales on Charlie's chest.

“You look...” Gren's mouth fell open, lost for words.

Dashing. Amaya signed and winked at her best friend.

“Uhm, yeah.” Gren nodded.

Come on, Gren. Say it to him. She encouraged him.

“Dashing. Uhm, you...you look dashing.” Gren knew there was no way to hide his strawberry freckled face but seeing Charlie blush at his words too, he no longer cared.

The trio positioned themselves in front of Callum who drew them and as the crew watched him hard at work, sneaking looks at Charlie, they knew their group gained a new friend.

#tpd #the dragon prince #harry potter #charlie weasley #tpd gren #the dragon prince gren #tpd amaya #the dragon prince amaya #commander gren #general amaya

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hypnoticwinter · 4 years ago

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Down the Rabbit Hole part 33

“Fumi?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me a story.”

“A story?” he says, glancing over. In the vent there’s nothing but the soft squelching of our cleated feet and a drip-drip-drip of a flowing river of sluggish, phlegmy mucus running along a divot over on the left. I nod.

“Yeah, a story. Like, about work. Ranger stuff. I’m sure you’ve got some good stories.”

He laughs. “A few, maybe,” he concedes.

Getting across into the actual flesh of the Pit from the wreck of the LVC had been easier than either of us had thought it would be. The gantry we had been looking for was long gone by the time that we got to the bottom of the LVC, with the only evidence of its passing being a couple of rigid metal rods and torn, rusted grating, but above us was our lucky break – due to the way the Visitor Center had fallen, it had actually cut into the Pit’s gullet on the way down, leaving a long, jagged scar of porous tissue in its wake and, at the very bottom, a gaping, partially-healed hole leading directly into what Fumi said was once the trail downwards to the Gastric Sea. It was a little hairy to begin with; the wound had ruined the previously neat trail, and the Pit had begun to reclaim it. Paths branched off, seemingly at random, that our maps had no record of. Here and there we’d see skittering things darting away from our flashlights, fleeing into pores or deeper, smaller vents we couldn’t see into.

Just copepods, Fumi had said when I asked. Harmless unless you’re alone and they’re feeling particularly brave or hungry. But even so I noticed that he kept his hand resting comfortably on the butt of his pistol, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice, and so I emulated him, and kept a wary eye behind us as we picked our way through the nest of tunnels and warrens and veins.

After I while I became afraid that we might hit a dead end and that we’d not be able to get through to the trail proper, which Fumi said would curve up and around down to the ballast bulbs, but just when I was getting to the point where I thought I might say something about it the vent widened out and Fumi had let out a triumphant whoop. We’re on the right track now, he had assured me, pointing to where we were on the map, and I had let a little involuntary shudder of relief pass over me because finally, finally we could really get going.

Now we’re clambering through a stinking vent that once housed a pedestrian trail. The thing Fumi hadn’t really mentioned is how long it would take. The path that looked so easy and short was in actuality four or five miles, a solid two or three hour hike in an environment like the Pit. My leg is holding up alright so far, especially now that I’m doing less running and jumping and falling, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do more than a couple days’ worth of this. Even with the boot I put my foot down occasionally and get a worrying, bone-deep twinge like a jolt of electricity, feeling like it’s running up some magic conduit from my heel all the way to the top of my head.

You can still see the remains of the trail here and there. Plastic placards, partially dissolved and stained beyond legibility, peeking out from behind masses of tumorous flesh. Rusty chain-link here and there, little strips of it grown over by pale, moisture-slick skin. If you look too closely at anything down here you shudder.

“Alright, I’ve got a story for you,” Fumi says. “Most of the work we do involves escorting supplies down to the deeper installations within the Pit, looking after science teams, making sure nothing and nobody bothers the few little extractions operations for stuff like ballast and bone plates. It’s a lot of wildlife control, basically. Very, very occasionally we’d do interdiction stuff. People get in, try to hide out in here, do all kinds of crap. I remember hearing a story about some guys who were running a drug lab in a trailer out on the very edge of the restricted area on the surface. Only got busted because Makado had to rush out somewhere in a hurry for something or other, I don’t remember what exactly, and she took a helicopter and they happened to fly right over. That really made her crack down on the topside ranger teams, let me tell you.”

“Topside?”

“So basically there are two teams,” he explains. “Us, the Sergeant’s team, we’re Venterial Ops. Anything underground, inside the Pit, we handle. That’s why we have Elena, for example. I don’t know if she told you but her main specialization is cave diving, she used to be in the Coast Guard. The other team is larger, they hang out in the other barracks topside. Overland Ops patrols the surface of the restricted area, handles anything that doesn’t concern the actual Pit itself. A lot of people don’t realize this but the restricted area isn’t just, you know, the Pit, it covers a whole lot of the ground above as well. You need manpower if you’re going to patrol it. With me so far?”

“Yes,” I nod. “So the overland team, they never go down into the Pit?”

“Oh, they train in it occasionally,” Fumi says, waving his hand. “But not to the extent that we do. It’s expensive and difficult and time-consuming just because the Pit is not a particularly good environment to make mistakes in. What if you can’t recognize a digestive pit or a triocanth sign? I mean, there are so many ways to die down here if you’re careless, especially now that we’ve cut down on our impact down here so much. If you’re stuck down here your options are either getting to the Control Center, getting to one of the very few listening stations and outposts we still have down in the depths of the Pit, or trying to call for help. That’s it.”

“So it’s easier logistically to have two separate groups like that?”

“Yeah, exactly. It hurts the overhead a little but if everybody was Pit-trained they’d be spending even more on them, so…”

“Right,” I say. There’s a long stringy mass of fibrous tissue stretching from the roof to the pitted ground, and I duck around it, let Fumi pass behind. “So what was the story?”

“Oh, right. So we were escorting some science folks down to that listening station in Oyster’s Shame. Shift change, essentially, except they way they do it is two weeks on, two weeks off. They rotate like that, make sure nobody’s spending too much time down in the Pit, that kind of thing. There are health checks that they have to do. If you’re in Science, half the time you’re up in a lab over in the science building doing egghead things and the other half you’re down here in a lab doing egghead things,” he laughs.

“Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” I suggest, and Fumi nods.

“Exactly. So we’re taking these guys down, pretty simple trip, one we’ve all done dozens of times. One of the science guys is new, and he is just absolutely gushing over everything he’s seeing down here. Some sort of environmental scientist type, real nerd. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a nerd but sometimes you just – certain people fulfill the stereotype more than other people, right? Anyway, Crookshank decides to play a prank on the guy. We’re taking a break for lunch and Crookshank pretends to lick a nerve ending in the wall. Now, first off, don’t ever do that, but Crookshank is – was – a maniac and you can’t keep him down. This egghead sees Crookshank do it (of course, he didn’t actually do it, just pretended to) and starts to freak out, but Crookshank is like ‘oh, it’s cool, it enhances the flavor in these MREs, you should try it.’ And of course Slate gets in on it, because Slate has – er, had – the mind of a middle-schooler and can’t resist clowning around, and together they gradually convince this nerd that it makes your standard run-of-the-mill MRE taste orgasmic.”

“Why shouldn’t you lick nerve endings?”

“Have you seen anything down here that you’d want to lick?”

I try unsuccessfully not to think of Elena and end up just shaking my head.

“But on top of that,” Fumi continues, “Pit nerve fibers can do weird things to the human nervous system. Not usually permanent or even really harmful things…just weird things. A big one was an ability to see into the ultraviolet spectrum. You might have heard about that; they made some big breakthroughs in optics in the 80s thanks to experiments with Pit nervous tissue. But there can be weirder stuff too – occasionally you’d see some spooky things going on in the Cord thanks to all the nerve tissue there. Intrusive thoughts, ‘occult’ stuff like objects levitating, seeing things out of the corner of your eye, ‘hauntings…’ in some places down here there are still little alarms that go off if they read too much nervous activity. So you can imagine that it might be a bad idea to lick one.”

“What happened to the guy?” I ask. The further we’ve gotten the more horribly rank the air has grown, to the point where we both have put on our helmets. The path we’re following opens out after a torturously twisting, intestine-like track and we find a series of bulbous, swollen sacs protruding from the floor and the walls, filled with a noxious, chunky liquid a lot like raw vomit. I can feel my gorge rising and I fix my eyes resolutely on my feet and end up just taking shallow breaths through my mouth for the long ten or so minutes it takes for Fumi to guide me through to the other side. We squeeze through a rough, suppurating sphincter and find a set of stairs, so rusty and dilapidated they might as well have come straight out of a Silent Hill game. Here and there long strands or trickles of flesh have melted or grown through the chain-link cage surrounding the stairs and pooled in rough, saggy, wrinkled puddles on the floor. It’s such an unspeakably bizarre image that we both stop and stare at them.

“I bet those feel…absolutely horrible to step on,” Fumi says.

“I’m not stepping on any of those,” I murmur.

“And with the cleats…” Fumi continues.

“Oh god,” I say, wrinkling my nose. A particularly swollen one seems to glisten at me. “Why does it do that? Why does it grow stuff like this?”

“Why does the Pit do anything?” Fumi shrugs, jerking his head forwards. “At least we’re on the right track. This is the staircase down to the ballast bulbs.”

“Is it even safe to walk on?”

“Do you see a different option?”

“Fair point,” I grunt. I take a ginger step forward and put my weight on the stairs, cringing inwardly. My foot nudges against one of the nodules of flesh. I can feel it pressing against me through the fabric of the suit. I grimace and take another step, and then another. “Come on,” I tell him. “Let’s just get this over with.”

We get a couple of flights down before I remember. “Oh, right – what happened to the guy?”

“Which guy?”

“You know,” I say. “The nerd who licked the nerve ending.”

“Oh, right. It made him see…something. Gave him the fright of his life, ended up pissing himself in his suit.”

“Oh,” I say. I had been expecting something funny but this just seems sad. Fumi reads it in my face, nods at me.

“Yeah,” he says. “Elena actually got really pissed off at Crookshank for that one. They’ve never liked each other very much but that little stunt kind of pushed her over the edge. They got in a shouting match right there and the Sergeant had to break it up.”

I can’t stop myself from smiling. “That’s my girl,” I murmur.

“Well…”

“Well what?”

“Uh, well it turned out that she was sleeping with the nerd and that’s why she was so heated about it.”

I look at Fumi for a moment and then burst out laughing. “You’re not serious.”

“Dead serious.”

I think about it and then shrug. “What?” I ask. “Am I supposed to get jealous?”

“I just find it so strange that you aren’t.”

“That’s in the past,” I tell him. “I don’t care what she did before we met, I care about how she treats me. I mean, she has to have treated me pretty well to get me to risk my life for her like this.”

“True,” Fumi admits. “Or maybe you just don’t value your life very much.”

Before I can think of a response that would be both truthful and a denial of the accuracy of that statement, Fumi takes a step forward. As he puts his weight down on the next step the staircase groans sonorously and we both freeze. I feel a little stab of fear piercing the bottom of my stomach and reach over quickly to grab the guardrail, for all the good it’ll do me. We stand there frozen for a minute, maybe two, waiting for the entire thing to collapse, and when it isn’t forthcoming I slowly, gradually unclench my insides and put my weight back on the step.

“Jesus,” I murmur.

“Yeah, these are probably a little unsafe.”

“You think?”

The next four flights go by quickly. The blobs of flesh haven’t spread this far down, or at least they haven’t yet. The meat beyond the retaining walls, buckled in places, is a strange, waxy tone that makes it look like it’s fake. If it didn’t shudder and writhe in time with whatever alien rhythms govern the Pit’s heartbeat I’d think it were a model.

Ahead of us, rising like vapor off a bog, I can smell the stench of ballast, combined with the familiar meaty Pit-smell pervading the air, along with something earthy and sour that lingers at the back of my throat. It makes my heart race and my gorge rise simultaneously. That accidental encounter with Crookshank in the ballast bulb…I had never been so scared or so turned on in my entire life. The memory of it leaves me vaguely nauseous.

“You doing okay?” Fumi asks, nudging me.

“I’m fine,” I murmur through gritted teeth. I do not want to throw up in this helmet. I take a deep breath and then let it out. I’m okay. It’s going to be fine. Elena is down here and the ballast totally healed her and everything is fine, just peachy-keen. We’re going to kiss and hold hands all the way out of here and then…

“Do you really think she’s down here?” Fumi asks.

“Where else would she be?” I say. “It’s either here or she’s dead somewhere and I’m still trying to be optimistic at least.”

Fumi says something else but I’m not paying attention. We’ve finally reached the landing, and past a pair of crooked, bent, rusted doors is something that must have once been a utility corridor for servicing the machinery used to keep the ballast pools running. The entire corridor is so thickly covered with dense, clustered mushrooms that I can scarcely see any surface that isn’t completely blotted out by coarse white fungous flesh.

“Shit,” Fumi murmurs.

The acrid, weird smell is stronger down here and I’ve finally recognize it – it’s the reek of those horrible, throat-coating spores from the nightmare of the fungal jungle deep down in the Pit’s rancid guts, where Marcus and Peter and Erica and – and Klaus had died.

Where I had killed Klaus.

Thinking about it makes me shiver. This past day – there hasn’t been time to think. Everything has been sweeping me along with the same force and velocity as a riptide. I haven’t had time to – to acknowledge it.

Unbidden, the image of him clapping his hand to his throat springs to my mind. The gun had felt like a dead weight in my hand. It hadn’t even felt like my hand, it had felt like I was controlling it at a distance, like I was playing a video game. I remember the way his eyes had widened in shock and how he had staggered back, the knife clattering out of his trembling hands. He had tried to swipe at me with it even then but the strength had left him.

I’ve already sealed my suit. I hadn’t wanted to waste the filters or the battery before by running the rebreather but these spores aren’t going to give us a choice. I don’t want to be hallucinating again.

At the end of the hallway is a door. It takes the two of us some serious effort to pry it open, levering at the rusted, mossy handle, but once we get it open we stumble into what must have once been one of the main baths. The fungus grows here too, in greater size and density. There are things living here; a dozen little things scurry and hop and slither away from us, darting away from the reach of our flashlight beams. Some of the mushrooms, the bigger blue-veined ones with the caps that look like they’re melting, visibly deflate as we rake our lights over them, puffing out clouds of hazy spores.

“I’m not sure that Elena’s here,” Fumi says softly, looking around. I feel my insides tighten even as he says it.

A massive hole has broken open in the tile over on the far end of the pool. I think I see something within it move. I reach over and tug at Fumi’s sleeve. “Fumi,” I hiss. “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“Over there,” I point. “Inside that big fucking hole, I thought I saw –“

“Whatever you saw,” Fumi tells me, “it wasn’t Elena. If she even came down here, she’d have taken one look at it and then turned right around and left. You said that Erica took her helmet. Look at all these spores. Do you think that –“

“God damn!” something cries out of the murk and darkness down at the far end of the pool. The milk-white ballast seethes incontinently beneath the wan glare of our flashlights, and I can feel the bottom drop out of my stomach. “God damn!” it repeats.

“That’s Elena,” I say.

“Roan, no,” Fumi says. I shoot him a look like he’s gone mad.

“Listen to her,” I tell him. “That’s her voice! I’d know it anywhere.”

As if to punctuate my argument, the voice cries out again. “Oh god! Oh fuck!”

I charge forward, stomping into the ballast with reckless abandon. “Elena!” I call out. My heart is jumping in my chest and I have to consciously force myself not to grin madly. Elena is here! God, she’s here! I was right, she did come to the ballast bulbs, she did –

“God damn!”

“Roan, stop!” Fumi yells from behind me. I can hear him starting to stomp after me but I don’t have an iota of brainpower left to devote to the question of why he’d want to stop me. The ballast ripples around my legs, but it’s relatively shallow, at least this end of the pool. I hope I don’t have to swim in it to get to her.

“God damn!”

“Elena, I’m coming!”

“STOP! Roan, it’s a –“

My foot catches against something in the ballast and I lose my balance. I try to catch myself on my hands but the pool deepens just ahead of me and I end up pitching face-first into the murk. “Goddam,” I mumble. I don’t know what I tripped on, it feels like a log or something, but that doesn’t make a ton of sense to be down here. What is –

The log wriggles to life and wraps itself around my ankle. I have enough time to let out a small, terrified squeak before it whips me bodily off my feet and starts tugging me through the ballast towards the hole in the tile. I hear a splash from behind me as Fumi wades it, and I realize that I’m screaming.

Another rope or vine or tentacle joins the first, and this one fixes around the thigh of my other leg. I reach down, fighting against the thing’s pull, and get my hands on my pistol. I jerk it out of the holster so fast that I almost lose it, flick the safety off, and then fire off three rounds into the darkness lurking where the tentacles converge, but I don’t think I hit anything. Another tentacle seizes around my wrist and though I try to get loose, I end up dropping the gun.

Fumi calls out from behind me but I can’t pull myself together enough to answer him. Another tentacle has fixed around my midriff, another around my neck, and it squeezes so tightly that almost immediately I see stars bursting in my eyes and everything goes off-kilter like the world’s been tilted.

My flashlight skews across the face of the thing that’s tugging me in and for a moment I can’t comprehend it. It looks like a…a flower, all folds and delicate fleshy petals, but the colors are off. I can’t think, I’m not getting enough oxygen.

A mouth opens in the center of the flower, unfolding like a piece of origami. I see delicate, foot-long, razor-sharp teeth, almost translucent in the light.

The tentacles around my neck and leg loosen, and then drop me entirely. I smack into the surface of the ballast and rapidly sink under. I’m still too woozy to do much about it other than flail my arms helplessly. The air is hot and stuffy in this helmet and I can feel a tingle somewhere along the side of my ribcage, accompanied by a stinging wetness that makes me realize my suit has a hole and ballast is leaking in.

I can’t think, my brain feels like it’s been unplugged. I’m going to drown inside my suit down here and I can’t do anything about it –

The last tentacle loosens and slips away and then I feel hands tugging at my arms. Without thinking I cling to them, the slippery ballast making my grip clumsy. I batter against my rescuer, trying to get a grip on them. There’s a horrendous noise filling the air, making the ballast vibrate with the force of it. Amid the torrent of sound I can hear someone yelling at me, telling me to stop, and when I crack my eyes open I see Fumi tugging me closer to him and trying to swim us away at the same time. I get my arm around his waist and we both dip under.

“Fuck this,” he says when I come up next and then he cocks his arm back and punches me in the side of the head. I go limp immediately and for the next few minutes I am not quite unconscious but I am definitely woozy enough to let Fumi drag me bodily out of the pool and then pick me up and carry me out of that horrible room and back to the staircase we came in at.

I manage to hobble up two flights of stairs on my own before I stumble and Fumi has to let me lean on him to get up another two. Up here the air is clearer and I can finally pop my helmet and breathe in deep, grateful gulps of it without feeling the spores trickling in and lining my throat. I sit down heavily on a step that isn’t encrusted with bloody moss and lichen and give Fumi a bleak look.

“I’ve been so fucking stupid,” I mutter. Fumi tries to put his arm around me but I shrug it off. “Goddam it, I’ve been so stupid.”

“Roan –“

“Fuck!” I shout. It echoes up and down the rickety staircase, my own voice reflected back at me in a mocking tone. My neck and arms are still sore and if I close my eyes I can feel that horrible thing’s tentacles or vines tugging tight around my throat and choking the life out of me…

“Roan,” Fumi tries again. “You aren’t stupid.”

“Elena was never down here,” I say. I can hear the cheerlessness in my voice. “She’s probably dead someplace ten minutes from the Cord. I should never have –“

“Roan!” Fumi barks. I look at him, not bothering to wipe my eyes.

“What?”

“Roan, you have to stop trying to throw your life away,” he says. His eyes are dark and serious and suddenly I find I can’t meet his gaze. “No, look at me,” he says.

“I’m really not into this paternal bullshit,” I start, but Fumi takes my head in his hands and very gently turns it so I don’t have any choice but to stare into his eyes. I almost slap him. At the very least I snarl out the beginning of an imprecation, but Fumi just stares me down. “I don’t –“ I start, but he shakes his head.

“Your life isn’t over,” he tells me. “You still have plenty to live for.”

“But if Elena’s dead –“

“Fuck Elena! Even if Elena were dead you’d have something to live for. When we find her do you think your relationship with her is going to last very long if you’re just hanging your entire existence off of her?”

“I – “

“I don’t need you flaking out on me right now,” he tells me. “When Ellis died, I –“

“Ellis?”

“Oh, fuck it. Forget it,” he says, standing up. “Do whatever the hell you want, you want to be a clingy son of a bitch when we get to Elena, be my goddam guest –“

“No, Fumi, I’m sorry, I didn’t –“

“Forget it, I said,” he tells me. My cheeks are burning. I’ve gone and broken the camel’s back. Of course him and Ellis were close, but…it doesn’t matter.

“Fumi, I didn’t mean –“

“Elena’s alive,” he says, his voice harsh. “Or at least she was, recently. Because ballast sirens can only repeat sounds they’ve heard. She probably pried open a door, took one look at that place, said ‘god damn!’ and ‘oh fuck!’ and left, and the siren’s probably been parroting it back for the better part of a day since then, hoping something would be stupid enough to wander into reach…”

“How was I supposed to know?” I yell. “How was I fucking supposed to know? I’ve never heard of a fucking ballast siren! I don’t know what they do!”

“I was yelling after you telling you not to go!” Fumi shouts. “If you had just fucking listened to me you wouldn’t have –“

“Yeah, well you fucking punched me!”

“I punched you,” he hisses, taking a step towards me, “because you were fucking panicking. You were going to drag me down with you and if I let you, we both would have died back there. I had to make you go limp, so I punched you! Of course you probably would have been okay with the two of us dying, given your fucking martyrdom fetish –“

“I don’t have a martyrdom fetish!”

“Then fucking act like it!”

“Fuck you!”

“You need to calm the fuck down,” he says, pointing a finger at me. “I can’t believe you talked me into this damn-fool errand. I had no idea you were such a –“

“Fucking leave, then,” I tell him. There’s a part of my brain screaming at me to stop, but I can’t stop. I’ve already let the words out. “If I’m so much of a fucking burden and too much of a loose cannon then fucking leave. Just go back up. I’ll find Elena myself.”

Fumi’s face falls. When he speaks his tone is gentler. “Look, I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to –“

“Just go!” I yell, pointing up the stairs. “Just fuck off!”

“Roan, don’t do this.”

“Just leave!” I say. My voice is thick and raw and I realize that I’m crying. “I can do this myself! I don’t need you!”

“Roan, you –“

“Go!” I shriek, and then before I know it I’m clambering to my feet and pulling up my sleeves, clenching a fist and getting ready to swing at him. Everything’s taken on a red tinge, even redder than normal down here in the Pit, and the horrible throbbing thump of my heartbeat is ringing in my ears like an immense drum.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Fumi says, throwing up his hands, and then he turns and hurries up the stairs.

I stand there for a long, long while, breathing hard, letting all of my anger drain out of me. Eventually I feel empty enough to find a nice clear spot on the rusty steps, brush away the mushrooms and polypous clumps of pooled flesh and sit. I think about burying my head in my hands, but I don’t.

After a moment I take out my radio from its holster on my belt and look at it. Fumi had warned me not to even try anything with it, he’d said that it’d be easy for anyone listening in, such as the FBI or people in the Control Center, to triangulate my position and there’d be no guarantee Elena would even have a radio to respond with if I did try to call her.

But I don’t see another choice. My hand is shaking a little and I feel as though if I stand up I’d just fall right over again. If I don’t do something I’m going to have a panic attack.

I crack the radio up to its broadest range-band and hold down the broadcast button. I can’t think of what to say. Eventually I shake my head and then lick my lips and give it my best shot. “Elena?” I ask. My voice catches a little but I swallow hard and force it back down. “Elena, it’s Roan. If you’re – if you’re out there and you can hear this, l-let me know. Please.”

I let the button go and then wait, heart pounding. I try to keep myself from counting the seconds, but I can’t. Ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty. I stop after a minute and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the hot tears from leaking from them. She’s not out there, she’s dead or trapped somewhere without a radio, I knew it was a long shot, I shouldn’t have even bothered. If I hadn’t bothered I could at least pretend that –

The radio clutched loosely in my hands crackles to life. I glare at it, half-expecting to hear Fumi chew me out for using the radio in the first place.

“Roan?” Elena says. “Oh, my god, Roan, baby, is that you? Oh god, is that you?”

Continue with Part 34

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#mystery flesh pit #writing #writeblr #original writing #mystery #alt lit #thriller #Novel #disaster #caving #Michael Crichton

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bigfan-fanfic · 5 years ago

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Freak Your Bean (Male Moonshadow!Reader x Soren)

Requested by @acoustickitten for “ Does the idea of Soren bonding with a moonshadow mage (that's possibly Lujanne's apprentice? Because illusion magic is awesome) that's apart of Ezran's Royal Council when he and Claudia were imprisoned appeal to you?”

You had made quite a splash with the kingdom of Katolis when you showed up with Corvus and Ezran (and a banther, but no one really counted it).

Because an elf? Serving the new King of Katolis? It was unthinkable for anyone on either side of the Breach.

Your Moonshadow brethren would turn you into a ghost for certain because of this transgression, but it was necessary.

When Ezran and his friends had come to the Moon Nexus, you had had a few talks with your master, Lujanne, who had been teaching you Moon Magic since you were a child. Dealing with imaginary friends is a lot more difficult when you know illusion magic.

Anyway, the two of you had decided you would travel with the newborn Dragon Prince to get him to Xadia and to Zubeia, the Dragon Queen.

But when Ezran decided it was necessary for him to return to Katolis, you spoke up and said you were going with him.

Because Rayla and Callum could take Zym to Xadia, and earn trust from the Xadian people in humans, but the divide needed to be healed both ways. So you went with Ezran to earn trust in Xadians from the humans.

After all, the Moon Arcanum is all about knowing that reality is subjective, that the only truth is the things you know without using your senses. So who is to say humans deserved to be cast out of Xadia, or that magical creatures and humans are natural enemies?

You admired Ezran’s confidence in claiming you as an advisor in the royal court. It was hard, but you convinced them that you meant no harm to any but those who would harm Ezran, and you wanted to promote peace between the human kingdoms and Xadia.

You were surprised to see Claudia and Soren again. You kind of liked Soren. You had been nervous about his “slidey-sling go-fast rope” and he had gone with you to demonstrate how safe it was, holding you around the waist while you flew across the ravine. It had been exhilarating.

Soren seemed to like you, too. He watched in awe as you had put on a show for him, Claudia, Callum, and the others, using your illusion magic to create beautiful pictures while Lujanne told a story. He even clapped and giggled like a baby when you made a miniature dragon illusion fly up his nose.

You wonder if Claudia still thinks you’re an illusion. She looks awful, her hair with a thick streak of white, and the stench of Dark Magic curls off of her in waves.

When Ezran is pressured into imprisoning the two children of Viren, you look at him. “Ez - my lord, may I visit them? I’m sure I can determine their guilt or innocence.”

Ezran looks at you hopefully, and despite the protests of Opeli and the court, you are sent alone to them.

“...a bread sandwich.” you hear Soren say as you enter the tower room.

“You know, bread has been my favorite human food? We don’t have bread in Xadia.”

“Y/N!” Soren’s face lights up, and he runs to hug you. He offers you one of the three slightly-bitten bread loaves he holds, and you accept.

Claudia sighs. “Look, Y/N, you have to tell Ezran we weren’t trying to kill him! He’s got it all wrong.”

You look at Soren, who looks so sad and lost. “Soren?”

“Y/N... Claudia didn’t know about it. But... it’s true. My dad ordered me to kill the princes.”

You gasp. “Wait a minute... was the slidey-sling go-fast rope part of that?”

Soren shrugged. “It was at first. But you were having so much fun that I kinda... decided not to.”

Claudia huffs in frustration. “Don’t listen to him. He misheard or misremembered or something. There’s no way Dad would tell him to do that!”

“I believe you, Soren.” you say softly. He looks at you in awe and gratitude. “But I think that you’re a good person. You wouldn’t have gone through with it. Or you, Claudia.”

She nods. “I’ve known Ezran since he was born. He’s like family. I’d never hurt him.”

You absently trace your fingers through the air, a blue rune forming at your touch . “Lumen imaginibus.”

Soren gasps as you send little glowing outlines of butterflies flying around the room. Even Claudia smiles at the magic.The butterflies perch on the walls of the room, shedding ethereal blue light everywhere, almost like you’re all back in the Moon Nexus.

“I’m going to tell Ezran that neither of you are a threat to him. I know your father wants the baby dragon, but Azymondias needs to go to his mother. It’s the only way to stop our people from fighting each other.” As you talk, the butterflies swarm and turn into little glowing pictures of Callum and Rayla and Azymondias walking in place before turning into wisps that become miniature Moon Phoenixes.

Claudia and Soren nod. “Good. I should go now, but I’ll have you out of here soon.”

As you leave, you see Claudia glancing pointedly at Soren, then at you. Then you hear her whisper-shout “tell him!”

“Tell me what?”

“Soren has something to say to you.” Claudia grins mischievously, then steps away so that you can see the Crownguard blushing and smiling bashfully.

“Uh.... Y/N?”

“Yes?”

“I like you....r accent.” Soren tacks the last part on. Claudia facepalms.

You smile. “I like your accent, too.”

He blinks in confusion before smiling back. “I like how you can draw pictures in the air and make them move. I like how you can make anything seem tasty with magic, and make people think stuff is there when it isn’t. Or the other way around. I... I’m trying to say I think I like you, Y/N. And maybe, when things are calmer, I could take you out on a date or something.”

You grin. “I think I like you too, Soren. And I know I’d really enjoy spending more time with you.”

You wave your hand, and the Phoenixes all fly towards you and vanish, except for one, which perches on Soren’s shoulder before turning into a butterfly. He holds out his hand and it flutters to his finger.

“I think you forgot one.”

“Keep it,” you say, and the butterfly wraps itself around his finger, turning into glowing blue lines that fade into his skin. “Now, all you have to do it think of me and snap your fingers, and the butterfly will fly to me and deliver a message, wherever I am. You can tell me where to meet you for our date.”

He sighs contentedly, staring at his finger while you exit.

After you leave he looks at Claudia. “Am I smooth or what?”

She just sighs.

#male reader #soren x male reader #the dragon prince #the dragon prince headcanons #headcanons

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avaantares · 5 years ago

Text

My New Ventilated Social-Distancing Movie Theatre

(or, how I bought a 2020-proof social life for less than $100)

So the USA is (still) a hot mess in terms of pandemic response. Because both my father and I are at increased risk for complications from COVID-19, and my sister and I have to work together in person to run our workshops, my entire family has been in a state of self-quarantine for six months straight (with no end in sight). But it’s hard being in constant isolation, so the four households that comprise my local family have been doing weekly outdoor gatherings -- with plenty of hand sanitizer and safely-spaced tables -- so we can see each other and socialize at a distance. However, that’s only feasible when the weather cooperates.

I’ve also really missed watching movies with friends, which prior to the pandemic had been a regular activity. I have a 70-year-old tripod screen I inherited from my grandfather and a projector I use for running panels at conventions, so we’ve watched occasional DVDs outdoors, but we could only do that on evenings without wind (which could tear the brittle screen) or rain (which would damage the projector), and we have to be careful not to have the sound too loud because it might disturb the neighbors.

A couple weeks ago, when our city delayed reopening again due to rising COVID-19 case numbers, I decided to convert half of my garage into an outdoor movie theatre. It turned out pretty well, and it only cost about what I would spend on movie tickets in an average year (and since I’m not going to any movies in 2020, it’s pretty much a wash). I’m sharing the details in case it gives anyone else ideas for making a health-conscious social hangout!

Obviously YMMV, and in areas with higher case numbers (hi, FL & AZ), this still might be too much contact. Be safe and follow official recommendations to prevent viral spread, folks!

The Space

Before I settled on the garage, I considered building a movie space under a tent canopy (nixed because they’re almost impossible to anchor through Midwest storm winds) or carport kit (too expensive and high-maintenance for me), so there are definitely other options depending on where you live, your typical weather, and what space you have available!

My garage has an unusual layout that allows for better-than-average ventilation. When it was first built, it was a 2 1/2-car garage with the doors facing the street and windows on the side. About 40 years later, the owners decided to move the driveway to the other side of the house, so they built a second garage attached to the drive-door side and knocked out an end wall to put in a new overhead door. This means that by square footage, the garage could hold four cars, but the way the drive doors are situated, it’s a divided two-car garage with a bunch of extra space at the far end. The two sides are connected by one of the original overhead doors, which means that three of the four walls have openings that allow for air movement. (More on that below.)

Normally there’s a car in each side of the garage, but I decided I was willing to park outside all summer for the sake of having a social life. Over the course of a week, I emptied and thoroughly cleaned the half of the garage that has the windows.

Air Flow

Constant fresh air flow is critical to flushing aerosolized particles that can spread the virus, so in order to make a safe indoor space, I had to simulate outdoor air movement. I opened all three overhead doors and both windows, then placed several fans to draw air through the building: One in each window, one along the side wall, and a box fan in the connecting door between the two sides of the garage to pull more air in from the outside. To make sure air was actually moving through the building and not just circulating within it, I turned on all the fans while I was sweeping the (very dusty) floor and walls, and adjusted the fan angles until the dust blew straight out the overhead door, rather hanging in the air or gathering in the corners. (Experts recommend that to prevent virus transmission, indoor spaces should have 100% air turnover every 10 minutes; obviously I have no way of testing that in a garage, but there is a constant light breeze through the building and stuff seems to be blowing out, so I feel pretty good about it.)

Projection Setup

I already had the projector and DVD player (I took the one out of my living room, since I usually just watch DVDs on my game console anyway), but I wanted a larger wall-mounted screen, since my grandfather’s 1950s screen was designed for showing vacation slides in a living room, not wide-screen films. Hanging fabric screens are very cheap, but I opted for a 120″ retractable screen so it would stay clean in the dusty garage. I also have an old set of monitor speakers that provide nice stereo sound.

Seating

The beauty of setting up in a garage is that it’s basically outdoors, so you can use lawn furniture or bean bags or old chairs you pulled out of someone’s trash (I do this regularly; it’s how I got my entire patio set). Measuring out at least 6 feet between each table and staggering their positions so nobody was directly downwind of another table, I set up all the card tables and folding tables I owned, and put a pair of chairs by each one so that couples from the same household could share a table but not be in close contact with any other groups. I put my largest folding table (which was also salvaged from the trash -- seriously, it’s the best way to get stuff!) against the wall right by the open door to serve as a snack table, so it’s on the opposite wall from the seating and nobody would be breathing on the food. I covered all the tables with decorative heavy-duty vinyl tablecloths (mostly for sanitation purposes, because those tables have been sitting out in my garage and I know I’ve had raccoons and opossums out there -- not to mention the colony of bats that lives in the loft off the back of the garage).

This setup can seat up to eight people, and even provides a place for serving food. (I put pump bottles of hand sanitizer on each table and on the food table, and people wear face masks when they’re loading up their plates, so there’s minimal contamination risk there.)

Total Cost

My out-of-pocket cost for this whole project was only about $83, though that’s because I already had a lot of stuff lying around. Here’s a more complete breakdown:

Fans: I already owned the box fan ($25 new) and a couple other fans that I’d picked up super cheap at garage sales ($5 or so), because my house is old and the HVAC is not very efficient. The only new fan I bought for this project was a refurbished air circulator from Amazon ($14), because I needed a small but high-velocity fan to fit in a window.

Projection setup: The only new thing I bought was the screen, which was $65 including shipping (though non-retractable fabric screens start around $10-15, so if you’re on a budget you can get one very cheap). I bought the projector used on eBay about eight years ago. I think I paid around $40 for it then, but prices have come down since; I’ve seen discount projectors for as low as $20. The DVD player is a cheapo region free model, which I got a decade ago for maybe $30. The speakers were secondhand; I’ve also used an old set of external PC speakers ($10 from Goodwill) when running video off my laptop, and they worked well enough in the indoor space.

Seating: Almost all the outdoor furniture I own came from other people’s trash, so I didn’t pay anything for it! Any kind of seating or tables will work, though. I did invest about $4 for new tablecloths, which I got on seasonal clearance.

Bonus Perks

I’ve discovered that the garage walls block a LOT of light and sound unless you’re standing directly outside the drive doors, so we can watch movies for half the night or stay up late chatting and we aren’t disturbing the neighbors! We couldn’t run movies out on the patio late at night because the sound would carry to neighboring houses.

Also, when we’re watching a film in the evening, we get to watch my bats fly through the garage on their way to and from dinner! (Which might be an annoyance to the bats if we were out there all the time, but we try to keep our volume low and we’re only out there about once a week, so I don’t think we’re disturbing them too much.) Bats are protected in my state, as some of the native species are critically endangered, and we try to encourage nesting as they’re essential to pest insect control. I love watching them fly around!

The setup also works well for video games. A local friend and I had been playing online, late at night because it was the only time we could get enough bandwidth to maintain connection (the ISP in my area is not super reliable), but now we can sit on opposite sides of the garage and play local co-op with no lag:

So, in summary, my “movie theatre” is by no means a luxurious setup, but it was cheap :) and it’s a great way for my small pandemic social bubble to get together and chat, have a movie night, or play games without risking being in a closed room together.

#social distancing #home theatre #my rock star life #2020

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darlinrogue · 4 years ago

Note

"You know,"—Kenny lifts his head, weary, from the window and glimpses Adam, exhausted as he drives through the vacant streets of whatever city he'd managed to drive to without Kenny noticing—"you mentioned a girlfriend before?" An incongruous question, perhaps, but Kenny, truthfully, has wondered often about Adam's sexuality. And at three o'clock in the morning, he and Adam have to stay awake somehow: introspection it is. "Do you, uh, only like women? You don't have to answer—"

Comfort for Sol after the Dec 2. Dynamite We NEED IT

Adam and Kenny

A light waltz rolled from the radio in three-four time. A Strauss, Künstlerleben op. 316, written in 1867, a jovial, ‘gay,’ piece. Interjected into a Vienne at the edge of disaster as Austria crumbled around the carnival city. The song infused with a melancholic melody and yearning string instruments. The decaying nobility dreams of a glory day long past and danced the inevitable fall of their dynasty away. So, explained the smooth voiced disc jockey that introduced the piece with all the confidence of a history nerd who probably got shoved in a locker in high-school. Adam wouldn’t pretend he was smart like that, this station wasn’t his first choice. After five hours in the car they had cycled through: Adam’s playlists, Kenny’s playlist, and every other radio station on air. Thirty minutes into a marathon of Norteña music, Adam cracked first and turned on the benign classical music, played on a public air wave. All just to eke out some variety from the bland monotonous strips of American highway and interstate. Besides, no words, and especially no Spanish that he only half-understood in his current state, meant it required less brain power to process. A resource that was in dwindling supply for Adam.

Adam tapped his finger against the steering wheel in time with the waltz. Apparently, this was like old fashioned twerking. A dramatic, intimate dance where partners held each other close and danced vigorously. Despite the song being undeniably wonder bread white, Adam found a natural ebb and flow that sparked a desire to move in some way. Bob his head a little bit, tap his foot, all as he nudged the cruise control-up another notch. The car engine revved and the speedometer edged in at a solid eighty miles an hour. With no one else on the road Adam dominated the left lane. It was a pure head rush, breaking the speed limit with no restrictions and no witnesses. All while listening to a playful violin trill. Brights on, illuminating the tall cedar, oaks, and pines, twined with dense underbrush on the sides of the road. The, black, ominous trees walled the interstate, trapping them, forcing them the only way forward. The white and yellow marked pavement extended far into the twisted dark, with hints of gentle turns far off. A couple miles down the road, twin red taillights glowed like angry eyes. The mapping program on his phone noted their exit was next. He compressed the breaks, the cruise control flicked off and Adam coasted onto the ramp.

Kenny shifted, and the movement drew Adam’s attention for a split second. Kenny sat in shotgun with the chair leaned back. His hands threaded through his hair and rubbed at his eyes. Best as Adam could tell he had spent the past three hours passed out and had not even been roused when Adam smack him for snoring. In a moment or two he was upright and alert, peering-out the window, his curly hair like the silhouette of a mop. Adam explained they were taking a diversion into Knoxville for the sole reason that Adam had to go pee. Kenny muttered his assent.

Google Maps took them to a beat-up 24/7 gas station at the edge of the city. Moth riddled, flickering and humming, fluorescent lights illuminated the cracked pavement of the parking lot. Lined beneath the front windows was stacks of firewood, an ice machine, and a tire pressure gauge. Adam left Kenny to fill-up the tank while Adam lunged out of the car to make use of the facilities. Inside, an exhausted looking twenty-something attended the counter and her phone. Over the top of the rows of junk food riddled shelves, Adam saw the bathroom. After taking care of his physical needs, on his way-out he perused the aisle while Kenny took his turn in the Powder room. He bough a couple packages of cookies, crackers, and bags of chips. Then, a coffee from himself from a somewhat suspect machine and a bottle of 2% from the fridge, for Kenny. Adam paid at the register and sipped on his caffeine as he stepped-off the curb outside the station. Cars rolled by on the road, whispering with the heated Summer wind. Kenny, already back outside, stretched-out beside the car, his gold hair white-washed by the lights. Sliding into the front seat, Adam offered Kenny the milk on one stipulation: Adam could use it to thin his coffee. It turned-out that he had purchased mud water. Kenny agreed and they were back on the trail, navigating the downtown and suburbia, in search of the road North. The street lights faded, and into this darkness, as Adam waited for a red light to turn green, Kenny began his thought:

You know.

Green light, go, Adam hit the gas, and rolled through. For a second, once through the intersection, he glanced at Kenny. In the dark car, lit by the thin dashboard glow, Kenny peered at him, curious, bur not pressing. There was a glimmer in his blue eyes. Adam returned his gaze to the windshield and the passing silver screen of Knoxville scenery. A right took them back onto the highway and Adam merged with the sparse traffic as he processed what Kenny asked him. You mentioned a girlfriend before? Do you only like women? Back on the smooth sailing of the interstate, Adam sunk back in his seat and sought comfort from the shitty coffee. It tasted bitter and yet smoother with the milk.

“You asked me two questions, there,” Adam observed, lifting a corresponding number of fingers. It’d be easy to only answer one, Kenny wouldn’t force it. He resolved, tongue darting over his chapped lips, to answer both. He reached-out and turned down the radio to but a couple notches. “And uh, well, I guess, the answer to both is it’s complicated.”

“I mean, yeah, these things usually are,” Kenny joked, he leaned back his seat a little bit and propped a foot on the dash. He glanced at the mapping program on Adam’s phone and the oppressive number of hours left, “We got time though, so take as much as you need. Like, I’m just curious is all, and if I keep sleeping in this chair I’m not going to be able to walk tomorrow, Piz.”

“Well, to answer the first question,” Adam chuckled. “I did have a girlfriend, once, back in college.”

“Ah, a college sweetheart--” Kenny teased. “That’s classic.”

“Yeah,” Adam chuckled. A fond smile spread on his lips. Like those arrogant, dancing nobles in Vienne, he thought of a time long gone. “We’re still friends, you know, we talk every now and then, meet-up for lunch or something, she’s married now, pregnant, with her first kid.”

“Okay, but that’s all past tense, what happened? Give me the details, man,” Kenny said. He interlaced his hands behind his head, shifting in the car seat. “I mean, if it’s not too hard, or anything.”

Adam shrugged, one shoulder-up to his ear with casual dismissal. Maybe a few years ago it would’ve been 'hard’ but things had changed. He had changed-- or rather, something had changed around him. There was someone else now for him to be heartbroken over. The old stuff were all scars now, not wounds that leaked with the slightest prod. Not like they used to.

“So, the deal is I went into college with like, two years of credit, yeah?” Adam said, he checked over at Kenny to make sure he was following. “You can imagine this kinda put me in a weird spot. I was a Freshman but also basically a Junior and I was taking the classes in my major right away. I didn’t make a lot of friends that way, though. So, yeah, she was a little older than me and her name was Amanda. Long black hair, dark eyes, kinda short, but pretty, she was an art student, so we met in like this advanced drawing class. And Kenny, holy shit, I have to show you pictures of some of the stuff she does, when we get to the hotel, it’s nuts. Like these hyper realistic watercolor and oil paint portraits, that look even better than the actual thing. She works as a like, a background artist in L.A., now, so she’s legit. Way better than anything I could do.”

Kenny hummed, low in his throat, and Adam took that as a cue to continue.

“So, we met in class, and, over the course of the next semester we got to know each other, really well,” he said. “Like, I was hanging-out in her apartment to do projects and she was hanging-out in my dorm. I moved in with her for my Senior year, after she graduated. She just needed a roommate, you know? And not long after that we just, kinda started dating. I don’t know, it’s-- it’s hard to describe, even now, how I felt about her. Like, just this intensity I never experienced before. I really thought I was sick, actually-- like my stomach hurt. I called my mom and she told me I was a dumbass, and that I had a crush. It’s just that I was never interested in dating in high school, like I talked to girls and stuff, went to prom with one of my friends, but nothing like, you know?” Adam made an almost helpless gesture with his hand.

He rested his palm against his thigh. His other hand guided the steering wheel. Then, real quick, Adam focused on setting-up the cruise control again. If he had to compress the gas for the whole trip, his right hip would be sore as hell by the time they reach their destination. A couple nudges and they were flying at a clean eighty again. Adam took that time to organize his thoughts. Kenny didn’t say a word, but Adam could tell he was waiting for the elaboration.

“I really thought,” Adam murmured, his voice softened, wistful. “That I was going to marry her. Like, I was going to jewlery stores, looking at engagement rings, trying to figure-out how to save-up.”

“What, really?” Kenny asked, he leaned forward in his chair, elbows digging into the arm rest. “Seriously, man?”

“Yeah, we dated for almost two years after I graduated,” Adam said. “I was working as a teacher and she was a freelance artist, it was really great. Of course, I was traveling a lot-- on account of the wrestling thing, and she came to some shows, I don’t think she really got it? Amanda was sensitive, wouldn’t hurt a fly and she didn’t really vibe with fighting. Which, is fine, I was fine with it. I mean she watched these soap operas that I didn’t get, so it was kinda even, you know? But I think all that time away from home didn’t do a lot of good for our relationship. You know I was young, Kenny, like twenty-two? And she-- she got a job in California, and we talked about it, and--”

“Just didn’t work-out, huh?” Kenny asked, voice low.

Adam shook his head, lips pressing together into a thin line. He still recalled that conversation over the dinning room table. His hands interlaced in front of him, her on the other side, going through the logistics. She was so good at that, planning. That was something they shared in common, overthinking. This move was a dead necessity for her career. Texas just didn’t have the same opportunities that the City of Angels did. Except, Adam was training in Texas, fighting in Texas, teaching in Texas. It was the middle of the school year during his internship. He couldn’t pack-up and leave. The suggestion she came to was obvious but it didn’t make it easy. They break-up, go their separate ways, not try to force all of this to work to the determent of them both. For years Adam cursed himself for agreeing. He believed, as he laid in bed alone and cold, ruminating on his failures, he should’ve fought harder. Fought harder for them. Hung-up on what could’ve and should’ve been. It hurt more when she found a new guy in California. He still went to her wedding and was her best man. Because Adam still loved Amanda and he always would.

And he was okay with being next to her, because their relationship, their bond, was more important than his wounded pride.

“Yeah, it didn’t work-out,” Adam agreed. “I was, upset, for a while. A long while, actually, like, I really thought I’d never get another chance like her again, but--”

He paused, and ended the thought there. Amanda was so amazing, so brilliant, so awesome, and funny, and caring and kind, and she loved cats. She picked out local art for their apartment. Yet, Adam also remembered her occasional moods where she just couldn’t be talked to until the storm passed. The way she set her mind on things was sometimes endearing, sometimes frustrating. She wasn’t perfect, but she was great. It was apples-to-oranges, to compare her and Kenny. They were completely different people and Adam loved different things about them-- yet, it was still love. It couldn’t be measured or quantified. The only time he had ever felt this intensity before was with Amanda. He really didn’t think there was another person on this planet who could steal his heart like Amanda did. Then he met Kenny, and fell in love with Kenny.

And whoops, there was at least one other.

“You know, you live, you grow, you move-on,” Adam said, he shrugged again and nodded to himself. “If we hadn’t split I probably never would’ve gone to Japan, or met you and the Bucks. Or, joined AEW, never been tag-team champion. It’s a real Robert Frost poem, I could be a teacher in L.A. right now, instead of-- well, driving eight hours to Chicago in the middle of the night, but my point stands! I-I imagine you get it, picking between your career and well, sometimes relationships.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get,” Kenny muttered. He looked out the window. His nails scrapped against his jeans. “You know how it was with me and Ibushi. How leaving Japan felt. Especially, after we reconciled after so many years-- but that’s how it is.” He trailed off, leaving the thought behind.

“So, like, were you two ever,” Adam interjected. He glanced over at the same time Kenny did. Adam darted his gaze back to the red, feeling his cheeks heat and rosette. A deep appreciation for the late hour filled him. “I mean, like, I don’t know how to ask this. Were, you and Ibushi, you know, together? Like, together, together. Obviously, it’s not my business, but I’m just, just curious, is all. Like, the Golden Lovers, man? There’s some crazy rumors out there.”

Kenny laughed, a full chuckle that churned Adam’s stomach and yet set his face on fire. That sound made Adam feel warm, he wanted to hear it again desperately. “Yeah, Kota and I dated. We were together for like six years, and yeah, like you, if same-sex marriage was legal in Japan, I would’ve married him.”

It was such an upfront statement. a matter of fact If he could, he would, but the lack of gold ring on Kenny’s left finger told Adam he didn’t. Kenny nodded to himself but the silence lingered, the sentence wasn’t finished. The clock turned over to 3:23 and they passed an exit with bleeding, gold lights, with hotels, restaurants, and street lamps.

Kenny continued, but his voice was softer and more raw. “But then-- well, I screwed it up. I mean, I really messed-up. It wasn’t like you and your girl, where it was a pretty understanding with a clean break. I didn’t trust him, like I should. I thought he was going to leave me and so, I left first. Then like an idiot, I lashed-out, and ruined everything we built, and it ended. Just. Like. That--” Kenny snapped his fingers-- “We never got back together but, we’re friends again, we made-up, you know that, but the things I did, the things I did to Kota-- it's something I'll have to live with for the rest of my life.”

The night hid Adam’s expression. The darkness was a comfort. It hid the monsters in the back seat. The purr of the engine whispered in the absence of Kenny’s scathing indictment of himself. Like, he was judge, jury, and executioner, of his own tarnished soul. Adam could imagine what Kenny saw. His face in profile, the tree line whipping by the car windows, an impassive, emotionless, and neutral party, listening without comment to Kenny’s story. He wouldn’t see the slight grimace or twisting of Adam’s lips. Remembering all the shit Cody said about Ibushi. Adam, twisting Ibushi, Kenny’s arms back, while Cody reared with a chair. Holy fuck, was he such an embarrassing idiot, a complete moron, a destructive piece of shit. If Kenny saw the guilt in Adam’s eyes their conversation would screech to a sudden halt. Akin to if Adam slammed the breaks on the car right now. Instead, Adam allowed Kenny to mourn and didn’t derail to his own bullshit. It was the only way he would’ve heard the next bit, whispered into open air.

“He really was the first man I loved.”

Kenny sighed and leaned back into his seat, defeated, limp. Now, Adam realized, was definitely time to shift gears. Car analogies aside, Kenny couldn’t be left to ruminate. If there was a person who understood how much it sucked to obsess over an old ex, it was Adam Page.

“So, you’re like, gay?” Adam asked. He placed both of his hands on the wheel. Shifting, he rubbed his fingers over the rubber and plastic, feeling the coarse texture. Sweat pricked his palms and he heard his pulse skip, skip, and then it was off to the races. “That’s cool by the way, I’m totally cool with that, I mean--”

“Close, but actually, I’m bi,” Kenny said. He chuckled and then nudged Adam’s elbow with his hands. The brief, familiar contact enabled Adam to crack a grin. “Bisexual, guys, gals, non-binary pals, it’s all good to me. I know I don’t talk about it a lot. It’s not something I really like to have out there, circulating. It could cause problems in Japan, and it could be a whole thing, but I trust you. We’re partners, and, it’s kinda something I want you to know, actually.”

Adam grinned to himself and nodded along with Kenny points. He straightened in his seat, wiggling his butt back so his shoulders were flush with the chair. With a crick of his neck he popped a vertebrae with a satisfying ‘clunk.’

“Yeah, I was, actually going to say,” Adam began, he swallowed. “I uh-- I am too, bi, I mean, like I think I am. I haven’t tested it but, I’m, pretty sure. I haven’t... done anything, with a guy, before? I just have these feelings? Right, you know how it is.”

“Yeah,” Kenny said, drawing-out the syllable. Adam could hear the smile in his voice. “I know how it is. I know, I get it, it’s all in your chest, right?” Kenny moved his hand over his heart to indicate what he meant. “You see a guy and it all kinda clicks in your brain, same way it does for a girl. I get it.”

“You know I don’t think I’ve ever really told anyone that,” Adam said, a little breathless.

Kenny shifted and his chair cranked upright. A fleeting, fluttering touch on his left elbow drew Adam’s gaze down. Kenny placed his hand on the center console between them, palm-up. He wiggled his fingers, an expectant invitation. Adam steadied his grip on the steering wheel and wiped his right hand down his jeans to clean the sweat off. He laid his hand in Kenny’s and Kenny interlaced their fingers, then squeezed. Adam wondered if Kenny could feel his stuttering pulse through the connected vital points of their wrists. Or, if he minded that Adam’s hands were damp. Yet, his nerves and troubled thoughts soothed, mostly to a stream of ecstatic proclamations about how he was holding hands with Kenny.

“I appreciate you being honest, Piz,” Kenny said. “I know it’s hard. Especially, when maybe you don’t have all the answers, but I’m glad you’ve figured some of it out. I don’t think I knew until I was in my twenties-- how about you?”

“Not long,” Adam admitted. Feelings, ideas since he was in high school, but nowadays he was totally certain. he rubbed his thumb over Kenny’s knuckles. Kenny had long, thin fingers, but a strong grip. Adam could feel his coarse callouses. The warmth of his hand. “In a way I always knew, this has always been a part of me. It was Amanda who helped me figure out the name for it, though.”

So, you’re bi, Amanda had said and Adam had stared at her like he was an idiot. Anytime Adam was around Amanda he felt like an idiot, but only because she was so smart. She had laughed at him and sipped on her beer. They sat outside on the porch, in cool Spring air, a rare balmy day at the outskirts of Los Angeles. She told him she was pregnant. He told her about Kenny. It was a fair exchange-- until Amanda asked him to be her kids godfather, or something similar, or whatever. And Adam had actually started crying, like a total sap. Yeah, yeah of course, that kid’ll be the best fucking horse rider this side of the Mississippi. She patted him on the shoulder and told him she’ll be cheering for him and Kenny. Next time she watched AEW-- because she did that every now and then these days.

She really liked Sonny Kiss-- Adam always knew she had good taste.

“She sounds great,” Kenny noted.

“She is,” Adam agreed, nodding. “If you ever get to meet her, I’d think you’d like her.”

Adam cocked a slight grin. Something was lighter in him, the air a little clear. It felt better, it felt right, to say it. Adam Page is bisexual, he likes guys and girls, and other stripes of human beings. It was the only way he could feel what he felt for Kenny. Exactly like it was for Amanda. Stomach full of butterflies, every emotion magnified to a soul-aching need, so Adam was raw and on edge. This terror, nausea, built like a screaming tea-kettle, into agony the demanded a release to relieve the pressure. This time, though, Adam found no outlet. Amanda was the one asked him out first, to the movies, to see The Avengers. He remembered sitting in the darkness of the theater, alone and sweaty, until she laid her head on his shoulder. Amanda who confessed first and who drew-out of Adam the depth of his feelings. Now that Adam thought about it, it was Amanda who texted first, Amanda who called first, Amanda who kissed first. Amanda who broke it off first. Adam Page was not known for taking the initiative in his relationships. Yet, he always figured it out, caught-up learned, and followed her lead. If he could just do the same for him and Kenny-- that was a pipe dream so obscure it almost made Adam scoff.

He couldn’t ruin another good friendship, he just couldn’t.

Adam was running out of bridges to burn.

“You know, it’s weird,” Adam said. “Because it’s like, I’ve never done anything, with a uh, you know-- a man before. The opportunity has never really come-up. I just kinda wonder, how am I supposed to know these feelings are real?”

“Well, I don’t know if I can answer that one for you, Page,” Kenny said. “But I definitely didn’t know until I met Ibushi. Then, it was real obvious. Yet, I always had a sense of it.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Adam murmured. He squeezed Kenny’s hand and Kenny squeezed back.

He definitely got it. At first, in the infancy of these feelings he’d thought they’d die or go away, like a bad head cold. Because Kenny Fucking Omega, could never love Adam Page. They were not in the same league, the best wrestler in the world and the weak link of the Elite. Then they were tag-team partners, and absence is not what makes a heart grow fonder, presence is. Long car drives, where they shot the breeze about anything and everything-- just like this. Hours spent chilling in the same hotel room, showing each other stupid memes, or watching TV together. Plane rides with their heads stacked on each other and complaining about the pressure change. Working-out in the weight rooms and spotting for each other. Training together, practicing the Last Call ‘till they got it right and didn’t fucking hit each other anymore. The longer Adam spent with Kenny Omega, the more certain he was that he loved him.

Loved him in a way he’d only felt once before. Loved him in a way that was different than how Adam felt about his mother. It was love, 100% all the way, love. True love-- wove, twue wove, to quote a good movie. Love that had all sorts of implications not just for his relationship with Kenny but Adam’s relationship with himself. How he understood himself and who he was. At twenty-nine years he was uncovering more and more about the person of Adam Page, the Hangman. Most of it, Adam didn’t like. Some of it, he did like, and he did like loving Kenny. Even if all he got to do was hold hands and talk.

“There’s a pool at the hotel,” Kenny said, suddenly, breaking Adam from his introspection.

“Yeah?” Adam asked.

“Yeah, I checked it out earlier,” Kenny said. “Listen, after we pass-out for a few hours-- you wanna go swimming? Of course, there’s the weight room and all that, we can do a few sets, blah, blah, blah-- but I wanna go swimming too.”

“I didn’t pack swim shorts-- did you?” Adam laughed. He had to wiggle his hand free, unfortunately, from Kenny’s grip so he could make a lane change.

“Bro,” Kenny stated, and Adam could feel Kenny’s eyes drilling into the side of his face. Intent, focused, and dead serious, “We have large, ample salaries as the Tag-Team Champions of AEW that can fix that problem.”

“Fair point,” Adam admitted. He shuffled his hands on the wheel a little bit and then cracked a big grin. “But yeah, I’m down to work-out, I need to work on my bi-ceps.”

Silence, total silence, Adam shot Kenny the most shit eating grin. For a moment Kenny stared at him, wordless, as if processing that nuclear bomb. Adam had to return his eyes to the road. Then, Kenny smacked Adam’s shoulder. Adam laughed and then laughed harder, when he heard Kenny break into chuckles.

“Do you think Tony Khan will let us change our team name to the Bisons?” Adam asked.

“No,” Kenny wheezed, his voice strained. He covered his eyes with his hands, shoulders shaking. “No, I don’t think so.”

In the wake of the laughter, Adam settled. Kenny leaned back his seat and despite his fear of cramps, was dozing in a few minutes. Dawn broke before they hit Cincinnati, a brilliant glow of purple, pinks, and golds on a distant blue horizon. It was right to Adam, to park on the 3rd level of the deck and to haul all their shit out of the car. Check-in, bleary eyed at the front desk, and then shuffle into the elevator, with a bagel, stolen from the breakfast, wedged in his mouth. Brush his teeth in the bathroom, kick off his shoes and pants, and then flop into bed. He vaguely recalled Kenny telling him good morning before they fell asleep.

#ofgrief #‘The Hangman’ || Adam: IC #‘Deals with God’ || Adam: Verse #‘Beloved’ || Adam and Kenny

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shes-an-oddbird · 4 years ago

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So I’ve been working on this AOS fic basically on and off since season 4 and its massive and intricate and at some point I basically gave up on it all together because I didn’t think I’d ever be able to finish it. But then season seven rolled around, gave me inspiration to tie together some bits and I was motivated to try again. I still may never finish it, I’m going to try but even if I don’t there are bits and pieces I love and want to share. The month of October seemed appropriate given the theme of the fic so ideally I’ll post a little drabble from the fic each day.

This bit, which is less of a drabble and more of a prologue, if May’s P.O.V. as the arrive to the masquerade. And the whole thing is sort of a season 4 AU/Canon divergence

Welcome, to the Mad Science Masquerade!

You can never be sure if rain on the day of an op is going to be the key to success or the shovel they bury you with. As May tries to hear anything over the rumble of thunder or get a visual on anything through the sea of large umbrellas being held over the guests’ heads by an army of young men in matching tuxes, she decides that in this case it’s the latter. She smiles kindly at the kid who is doing his best to keep her and the train of her dress dry; although the umbrella does start to slip when he sees Daisy step out of the car behind them and it’s hard for her not to roll her eyes.

She tugs on Coulson’s arm where her hand is resting, looped gently through his elbow. He has started a conversation with the valet about Lola and she can hear his concentration slipping. “Honey, I’m getting wet.” She hates undercover. Somehow, they always end up like this.

Coulson wraps up his conversation quickly, apologizes to his ‘favorite girls’ and waves off the umbrella handlers who are prepared to escort them to the front entrance. “No need gentleman.” He hoists his arm above them and the prosthetic projects a shield, sans the SHIELD logo after Fitz had done some fiddling with it.

The shield expands to cover their party of three and May can finally get a clear view as those closest to them back up. “Better?” He asks her.

“Much.” She starts to pick out familiar faces from their research. Coulson is not the only one showing off their tech. FitzSimmons had said before that when minds like these get together they like to show off and, in the spirit of glamour, many had incorporated their tech into their attire for the evening. Expensive watches outfitted with forcefield projectors like Coulson’s. Metallic jewelry that reflected the low lights and distant lightening. Even her own dress had been designed to incorporate the cloaking tech and Daisy’s gauntlets, while scaled back and mostly hidden under the flowy sleeves of her dress, had been modified with subtle tech should the need to impress arise.

Just ahead of them she recognizes Fitz. Unlike others, and despite the fact that he’s cleared to be at the event, he already has a mask firmly set in place. She recognizes his stance though, and the particular way he fidgets. He’s fretting over something Radcliffe has said but that was a near constant state for them. There is a woman in a simple white gown standing next to them that she guesses is the assistant he insisted on bringing with them.

She turns her attention on to the building. The architecture is modern, white concrete and glass, and on a nice day against a sunny sky she is sure it impresses but in the warm rain and against the dark cloudy sky it looks like a tombstone.

They enter a grand foyer, Coulson’s shield flickers out above them and Daisy lets out a surprised gasp. The interior is comprised entirely of concrete and marble, glass and iron. Its sharp and innovative but something about it still feels rich and indulgent like no expense was spared on the materials and fixtures. Perhaps it’s because it’s been decorated to emphasis the eerie elegance of the mad science theme or its simply everyone in their masquerade gowns and glittering, glowing masks, regardless it’s still the most extravagant event she’s ever attended and she’d been to more than a few.

There is a heavily crowded bar to their left and a wall of windows and glass doors leading to an empty balcony on their right. Amongst the crowd by the bar she spots Simmons and Hunter. She thinks their decisions on how to team up had been wise. Certain pairs were meant to draw attention and others to fly under the radar, it was a strategy she believed in, but she worries over them in particular. Simmons, while an improved liar was everything prim and proper and logic and reason. Hunter on the other hand was a wildcard, emotional, crude and inappropriate but he was loyal and reliable. They might not be ideally suited to work together, the clashing would be inevitable, but at least she didn’t have to concern herself with Simmons wellbeing. They would protect each other, she suspects, the same way the siblings they would be portraying would.

“We should get a good look at the ballroom before everyone is in there.” Daisy suggests. May nods in agreement. Coulson steps ahead of them to push open one of the magnificent double doors. The ballroom is as vast as the entry is grand. From the entrance it seems to go on forever. Directly across from them is a large staircase leading up to the balcony that runs the perimeter of the room. Halfway up the stairs there is a landing that splits off into two. To one side, more large windows like those in the foyer, the outside balcony seems to wrap around that entire side of the building and overlooks the ocean.

Coulson bumps her wrist with his own and looks pointedly across the room. There are not many guests yet, but they are starting to pour in behind them, likely realizing there are more liquor and appetizers inside. Yo-yo and her team are already there, in a shadowy corner at one of the elaborately dressed tables. The three seem to be in conversation and May watches as Yo-yo points up at the ceiling. Above them is a magnificent chandelier that spans nearly the length of the ballroom’s dance floor. Its frame is wrought iron and geometric to match the rest of the contemporary design but it’s still draped in thousands of crystals. As they move across the room, a different angle on the fixture reveals different shapes and from just below she can see the double helix shape of a DNA strand.

Elena, Piper and Davis are playing their part well. Piper and Davis sit to either side of Elena in matching attire, while she sits between them looking unimpressed. Yo-yo’s disdain for formal wear is no secret and its working in their favor. Her futuristic jumpsuit looks more fashionable than robotic, but it is a fine line. They draw just the right amount of attention. Guests walk past their table and share whispers. They are curious but not openly so. Its exactly as they wanted.

May hears a collective gasp run through the room. Yes, things were definitely going as planned, despite her earlier concerns. She turns her eyes back on the grand staircase and at the landing, towering above the crowd are the last of their team. Mack and Bobbi are an intimidating pair to those who do know them and to those that don’t, well the star struck crowd spoke for itself. Mack stands tall and solid in his perfectly tailored tux. There are subtle hints of tech incorporated into his look but not in the gaudy way most of the men had gone for. Mostly he looks as though he is acting as Bobbi’s tether. Everything about her looked light and airy, as though she may float away in her voluminous white gown.

They are meant to draw the attention openly and loudly. It’s risky. Bobbi, like Hunter, should still be in hiding, but she had been more than happy to take the risk. Boredom of being on the run, May assumed. She’d keep an eye on her. That eagerness could lead to rash decisions but otherwise she felt good about the mission.

#aos #aos fic #the mad science masquerade #melinda may #aos team

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real-jaune-isms · 5 years ago

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RWBY Volume 7 Chapter 13 (Finale) Rundown

It’s been a month or two since the finale aired, and honestly I needed that time to organize my thoughts on it and what I think may happen next. And I was busy becoming an art major. That too. Oh, and a little thing called COVID-19.

So our season finale begins with one of the fights we had most been looking forward to, JNR and Oscar vs Neo. Jaune wants to avoid a fight and tells her to surrender since she’s outnumbered, but Neo is too confident in her capabilities and just draws her parasol blade. So Nora and Ren start shooting at her to no effect and rush in for melee combat. Also ineffective at first, she just dodges and blocks and counters. Even Ren’s new grapple line blades do next to nothing, she just does a split to dodge under his flying kick. Oscar runs in to attack with his cane, but she counters and flips him into the air with the lamp getting knocked off his belt and being in the air between them. Both thrust their sticks to try and catch it, but Oscar gets it first and sticks his landing. Neo just starts slashing at him as he backs away, and Jaune steps between them to repel her with his shield’s gravity Dust burst. One thing you notice pretty quickly about the fight is how casually Neo seems to be taking it, taunting her opponents the whole time by making faces and being theatrical with her every move. It’s maddening, but it’s the attitude we came to expect from her after Volumes 2 and 3. Teamwork seems the best move, so Nora launches Ren through the air at the ice cream demon while Oscar holds her legs so she can’t move out of the way. Too bad her Semblance is still pretty OP and Ren just shatters an apparently fake Neo. They check down the corridors for any sign of her but instead see Atlesian soldiers who chase after them on Ironwood’s orders.

Back to the battle of the seasons, Penny flies at Cinder with a high speed punch that sends her back into the hallway but she just catches it and uses her Grimm arm to toss her around a bit. Winter attacks with a flock of tiny Nevermore summons before charging in herself with a sword slash, though both do little to phase the nimble Maiden. She summons two glass swords of her own to fight back, and seems to have the advantage. She even takes the time to lecture Winter on how Atlas’s elite hoard so much power in the hopes of maintaining it forever, and how that just starves the rest of the world. It seems like she really means it once starved her, and she refuses to starve again. Some hints of what may have been her tragic backstory here, which I would be very interested to learn in greater detail even if it absolutely won’t redeem her character from the cruel and insane devil she is. I just want to see how she got to this point, where this lust for power came from. It’s certainly ironic that she’s complaining about other people hoarding power when she’s going around stealing Maiden powers all for herself when those were literally made to be divided among four people. Penny re-enters the fight with her swords on strings, but Cinder’s reflexes are apparently on the level of Ultra Instinct since she’s able to dodge and block all her spinning blades AS WELL as Winter’s attacks once she draws her second sword and joins in again. The two are at least able to avoid getting hit in return, but the whole is just going nowhere fast even if they’re blocking her way back into Fria’s room. So Cinder lashes out and flies at them with all her might, grabbing them both by the neck and rocketing through the other wall of the medical room... to reveal this secret room was not in a subbasement as we may have assumed but the top floor of a skyscraper. Now they’re all in the open air and Winter is the odd one out since... y’know, she can’t fly. She doesn’t make things better for herself by stabbing Cinder’s hand and making her drop the Specialist. With only one person to worry about now, Cinder tosses Penny away and kicks a flaming sword her way. Penny catches it, but didn’t expect it to explode and knock her back some more. The two have a floating standoff with Cinder becoming increasingly frustrated and calling Penny a toy, as if she’s Tom Hanks in 1995. But her attention is brought elsewhere as she’s hit by a blast of ice. In one of the most badass sights this Volume has offered, Winter is flying on the back of a summoned Manticore. The 2v1 fight resumes in this airborne setting, and Cinder has a harder time dodging and countering their speedy strikes while also focusing her powers on staying in flight. But when she and Winter charge at each other, her sword is unfortunately able to cut through the summon and leave Winter in a freefall. As if to add vindictive insult to injury, she also shoots a fireball at the Schnee that takes down her Aura. Satisfied with her work, Cinder flies back to the building while Penny is left with the choice of following her and dutifully protecting the Maiden powers or saving Winter. She makes the right choice, and saves her friend. Winter thinks she should have just been left to die, that she matters less than the mission. But Penny disagrees.

Back with JNRO, they’re still running from the Atlas soldiers. Whatever scuffle Oscar had with Neo before the others came along is now wearing on him and he begins to fall behind. In all the rushing through the labyrinth of hallways, he gets separated from the group. Just as he’s lost hope of rejoining the others and the guards are just around the corner, the farmboi gets pulled into an empty room and kept quiet via a hand over his mouth by... Nora? A very silent and smiling Nora... A Nora who suddenly lunges at him with a lace parasol... okay this is clearly not Nora. This is clearly Neo in a very cruel and deceptive disguise, as made clear by her eyes changing to the usual pink and brown when Oscar fortunately dodges out of the way of her attack and back into the hallway. Worse still, she swiped the Lamp from him in the heat of the moment, and the little devil makes a break for it. Jaune is looking for Oscar, but finds Neora instead, and she just dodges around him and springboards off his shield. Then... things get rough. She runs into Ren next... while looking like Nora. He still shoots at her as she barrels towards him but she just blocks with her parasol as she is want to do. When he meets her halfway and takes a jumping slash at her... she twists the knife in; changing her eyes back from her own determined mismatched pink and brown to Nora’s scared and confused turquoise. In that split second of seeing his beloved’s face staring at him with such fear, Ren hesitates and stops the attack, so she hits him in the face and trips him to the floor before running away some more. Jaune is still on her tail and runs past his dazed and shellshocked teammate. When he rounds the corner Neo had just headed down however, he only finds more Atlas soldiers firing at him. The real Nora comes running from gods know where and the three head back the way they came. Nora checks over her shoulder to see if they’re still being followed, but what’s more interesting is that Ren can be seen crying as he brings up the rear. Obviously he’s quite upset with how easily Neo could get him to hesitate just by posing as Nora and playing on his feelings for her. She probably didn’t realize just how complicated the Renora relationship is, but it worked perfectly in her favor. Ren’s tried to set aside his feelings but they’ve now dramatically affected his capacity to do his job. Like it or not, he HAS to talk about it or else everything is gonna implode. And of course, when we cut to see the armored soldiers chasing our heroes there’s also a more formally uniformed female officer in the back who goes sauntering off in the other direction. That was a very speedy costume change, you little sugar gremlin. Anyway, she got away with the Lamp. That’s no good.

What’s even less good is that we cut back to a temporarily black screen and the harsh wrenching sound of tearing metal. Turns out its the POV of Fria as she blinks back into consciousness and sees the satisfied face of Cinder as she starts a monologue about how the elder woman’s time is up. Fria admits she has been waiting for a good long while, but she can’t remember what or whom for. Cinder confidently informs her it was for this very moment. For her~ But as she goes for the Reverse Flash kill with her Grimm hand, the Winter Maiden shows off one of the reasons she’s survived this long. A good strong grip on Cinder’s wrist stopping her before she can make contact and keeping the Fall Maiden from getting any further. The hungry wolf won’t be gobbling up Granny tonight, deary. Faced with the tired but steadfast face of a woman who has likely lived and fought several times longer than Cinder has been alive, accented by the blue flame of her Maiden magic, the evil woman pulls back. But she’s persistent, and tries a glass dagger instead. That goes even worse, as a pulse of magic sends her flying backwards. With more magic on display than any Maiden we’ve seen before, Fria summons a cyclone of pure cold air and ice around herself and starts floating in the middle of it. Cinder’s Grimm fingers start to freeze (since they don’t have Aura like the rest of her body and thus get no protection from the cold, thank you for setting that concept up in episode 3 Weiss!) so she has to back away further. That becomes a full temporary retreat out of the room when the coldnado sends a pod door at her and the intensity only keeps increasing. Much like Professor Xavier in Logan, Fria is already very old and isn’t in the most stable state of mind anymore, so she loses control of the tempest and it busts a hole in the roof. Penny and Winter land a short distance away and marvel at the majestic chaos. Winter claims this is the power of a fully realized Maiden, which makes me wonder if Raven was able to do something similar or if it takes decades to unlock this kind of mastery. Winter tries to get in closer and reach Fria, but the blizzard winds are enough to destroy the material of her glove and leave her fingers red with chill. Something has to be done, but after the beating she took she’s in no shape to do it. So Penny jumps in instead, much to Winter’s dismay.

Continuing the hopscotch course of dismal vibes, we go back to JNRO as they’re hiding in the training room and Oscar is apologizing for having lost the lamp. Jaune tries to reassure him, but Ren is even more pessimistic. He doesn’t think they were ready to even become Huntsmen and Huntresses which is just so painful to hear. Nora of course disagrees, but Ren has a harsh rebuttal: if they’re ready and capable, then why don’t they have any of the relic they’re supposed to be protecting? Why haven’t they succeeded in their most important mission? Oscar seems even more hurt by this reminder, and Jaune puts on his serious leader voice to tell Ren that’s enough. I would half agree with Ren, and unfortunately its a half that blames him. It’s not that the team wasn’t ready for this, it’s that HE wasn’t EMOTIONALLY ready for this. Like I said before, Neo took advantage of his emotional state to make him hesitate and overwhelm him. Their moping is interrupted by Pietro and Maria chiming in over their Scrolls. Was there any doubt that a genius like Dr. Polendina would be able to undo Ironwood’s communication shutdown?? We see Yang and Blake for the first time this episode as they shoot at Atlas robots and head for an airship, one which Maria is getting ready to pilot as their getaway vehicle. Nora informs her of their current hiding place, but the soldiers happen to close in at that moment and the three hide behind Jaune’s hard-light extended shield... wait. Three?? OH NO WE LOST THE BABY!!!! It would seem Oscar ran off on his own to try and fix things, and he insists they leave without him.

Back to the impending ice age, Penny is slowly making her way through the blizzard. Her foot gets frozen to the ground, but she hits the boot jets and it busts out again. There in the eye of the storm she finds Fria, and the android approaches carefully before gently touching her ankle to get her attention. The fire in the old lady’s eye dies down and she notices Penny. Penny is a of course a sweet and thoughtful girl and rather than demanding Fria stop the storm she just asks if she’s okay. Fria most certainly does not seem to feel okay, again mentioning that she had a job to do. She clarifies that she was supposed to protect the power of the Winter Maiden until the time came for her to pass them on. Penny notices the machines are broken and buried in a wall of ice, so the more safe transfer method is no longer possible. Fria laments that she may have taken longer to be ready for passing the powers along than she should have, but promises she’s ready now. She knows that means dying, that’s one thing she still remembers quite well. The elderly Maiden quiets the cyclone and floats down to collapse in Penny’s arms. Not gone yet, just weary, and hoping to learn the name of the sweet young lady who’s helping her like this. Penny gives her name, and now Fria asks the million lien question: Since Penny is suddenly showing up now after Fria’s only interactions being with Winter for so long... does that mean Penny is the One? The poor little android doesn’t know what to say to that, and for damn good reason. She knows Winter is supposed to be the one to get the Maiden powers, but she also knows Winter would use those powers to obey Ironwood’s cruel plans for Atlas and Mantle. If she takes the powers, she can make sure that doesn’t happen AND that they don’t fall into Cinder’s hands. But that would also mean betraying her boss and her orders, betraying her friend Winter. So what is she gonna do, what she’s been told to do or what she feels is right? This is the culmination of the struggle she’s been wrestling with the entire volume, nay her character’s entire existence! She is a creation of Atlas, but she is also a girl with a heart and soul of her own. Such a tragic clash of motivations!

Speaking of motivations clashing, we cut down to Ironwood in the Atlas vault. He hears the hum of the elevator approaching and assumes it’s Winter coming to report Fria’s demise and her own acquisition of the Winter Maiden powers, and thus begins apologizing for making her perform such a morally dubious act. Instead he finds Oscar, posing rather seriously with Ozpin’s his cane and fixing James with his best look of fed up disapproval. With such a formal air about him, James has every reason to suspect Oz is back at the helm and asks which of the two he has the pleasure of addressing. It’s just Oscar though, but Oscar is plenty on his own. James thankfully doesn’t yet know that Oscar has lost the Lamp and thinks he just chose not to bring it down here with him, acknowledging that he isn’t very trustworthy right now. Oscar is a farmer to his very roots and wants to help the trust between our heroes and the Atlas forces regrow. He believes they can all come together again. But James is stuck in a guarded state of mind and thinks Oscar came to fight for his cause. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Oscar admits that he feels scared, and whenever he does he holds the cane and it helps calm him down, likely due to its significance to those who came before him. But he puts the cane away as a sign that he will face his fear without that aid, that he will be brave. James just thinks that’s another dig at him, that Oscar is calling him scared. Oscar reminds him that EVERYONE is scared right now, for good reason, and that fear is not something to be ashamed of, that it just gives us a chance to show the content of our character by how we handle the fear. James just snaps at him, says that it’s easy for Oscar to spout such platitudes when he doesn’t have to make life changing decisions for the sake of a Kingdom. As he starts circling around the poor farmboi and backing him towards a dead end ledge, he insists that no matter what labels they put on him he was RIGHT. He was right about what would happen if he opened his heart and trusted others, that all his worst fears came true because he went against his gut and did what the kids told him he should. Except he is absolutely NOT right. Things were going far more smoothly for him once he started trusting Robyn and told her and the council about the trouble he had to deal with, and despite the obviously concerning setback of Watts shutting down Mantle’s heat they handled that situation with very little trouble. It was only once Cinder popped in to sew doubt and paranoia back into his mind that it all spiraled out of control, and that was entirely his fault. If Cinder hadn’t stepped in, they might have found the Seer in Watts’ bag and killed it immediately instead of it interrupting a tense conversation. Robyn now knowing what the Tower is for would mean construction could resume without shipments getting stolen, and perhaps they could have negotiated a way to divide up the materials so the wall could get fixed too. Just spit balling here, what could have been. But no, it all went belly up and Jimmy is only fanning the flames. Oscar tries to remind him that his current plan of abandoning Mantle will be betraying an entire city of thousands to die alone in the cold, but James is having none of it. It’s an excellent philosophical puzzle to try and work through, but the way he sees it none of that matters compared to preventing Salem’s victory. He thinks he’s the only one who can see the big picture, who is making his moves with the intention of changing the final result no matter the cost.

But that’s what’s so dangerous about that mindset. People he writes off as small minded and soft, like Robyn, the council, and even Oscar (possibly by extension even Ozpin)... they’re the good people who think first and foremost about preventing tragedy and loss in the moment, who refuse to budge on their morals of protecting the innocent and will never trade lives. It’s the same kind of difference seen in Superman vs the Elite. Team RWBY and their friends don’t believe in necessary sacrifices for the greater good, but Ironwood has become singlemindedly focused on stopping Salem, likely out of the guilt and humiliation of being so helpless against her back in Volume 3. This is a chance to reclaim his honor, and he thinks of little else. That’s how I see it anyway. Oscar calls James out, saying this mindset makes him just as dangerous as Salem herself. But I guess that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and he insists Oscar refer to him as General. Only his friends may call him James, and it seems our good good boy has lost that status. Not that he seems to expect Oscar will have much chance to show him that due respect any time soon, because he pulls out his pistol and SHOOTS THE INNOCENT FOURTEEN YEAR OLD BOY OFF A LEDGE TO FALL TO HIS DEATH!!!! Ironwood has officially made the transition from misguided good guy to full on villain.

As if there wasn’t enough tension and bad news, we go back to Penny who is still unsure how to answer Fria’s question. What is the right choice to make, the best choice for everyone’s sake? She has no idea. But she had better decide fast, because Cinder crashes through the ice wall and screeches that the powers belong to none but her. Unfortunately for our vicious villain, her Gum Gum stretchy arm comes with a weakness to blades and gets sliced off by a suddenly appearing Winter. Cinder reacts with the appropriate amount of bloody terror and pain that you would expect of someone conscious for an amputation. Winter surveys the room and realizes Fria isn’t long for this world so time is of the essence, but doesn’t have much longer to ponder that before Cinder enters a bloodlust rage. See, apparently whatever monster makeover Salem gave her in the wake of Volume 3 included the ability to regrow her Grimm limb, though it sounds like the process is terribly painful for her and may not have even been something she was expecting to have happen. Regardless, she wants revenge and starts lashing out by summoning blade after blade to throw at Winter. The Specialist manages to block most of them and they turn to dust on impact, but it’s a brutal onslaught that she has to face without any Aura, and one cuts her left arm enough to draw blood, though since it’s burning glass it also seems to cauterize the wound immediately. Let me take another moment to praise the talents of Jessica Nigri. This scene in particular required her to do a lot of screaming and screeching as Cinder, and that cannot be easy on the throat. So the fact that she pulls off those deep dark emotions so well is worthy of respect and sympathy in equal measure. Okay, back to the action. Fria lies on the floor and closes her eyes, passing away peacefully all things considered. Penny holds her hand in her final moments, and a blue glow passes from elder to younger woman. We go back to Oscar for a moment or two, but I’ll tackle his last couple scenes in bulk in just a minute. Winter is getting tossed around, and her hair has been pulled free of its bun to add to her disheveled look... and our overwhelming thirst for her. Battle battered or not, she’s looking like a real snack with her hair down. Cinder stalks toward her to continue the beating and possibly deal the killing blow, but is distracted by a snowflake flying past her face. Well that’s interesting... And then it becomes many snowflakes, a veritable flurry kicking up. She turns around with some legit fear and concern on her face, and her worries are confirmed. Penny’s eyes glow and flare up with a fierce green fire as she stands resolute as the new Winter Maiden. She seems ready to use her new powers to fight Cinder despite only just getting them, and clearly has some manner of control already if she was able to start generating snow already. And this does settle another matter of fan speculation, if she qualifies as a candidate for the powers. Welp, now we know. According to the guidelines set by Oz’s bestowing of the original powers and how he explains their transfer process back in Volume 3, you just have to be a young woman below a certain age (or else they probably would have given Amber’s power to Glynda) and have a soul to receive the power from the last user’s. I guess Penny’s blue fairy has come and said she is a real girl in all the ways that count. Her soul is unique and separate from her dad’s, even though he used his old man aura to create her. And she does in fact have a soul and is considered a legit person even though she’s got nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts. Cinder is of course outraged that this “toy” was bestowed the powers she came all this way to steal, and gets ready to fight her, but is distracted by Weiss entering the upper observation room and yelling her sister’s name in concern and fear. Cinder probably has a confused and annoyed moment of “I thought I killed you back at Haven...” She gets ready to kill the little Schnee brat for piling on further interruptions to her plan, but that too goes out the window when she notices Ruby had accompanied her partner down to find their Atlesian allies, and likewise Ruby notices her. Ruby does not hesitate for a second and without needing any time to get into the right head-space blasts off a wave of Silver Eyed energy to essentially Solar Flare the whole room.

Now we can go back to Oscar and his dramatic descent. The shot from Ironwood took out his Aura, and he seems like he’s resigned himself to death once he hits the bottom of this pit. As he closes his eyes, they glow for a moment and he hears a voice that’s been absent the entire Volume. Ozpin. He only says Oscar’s name, or at least that’s all we hear, but the boi seems to regain his determination and tries to reach his cane again. He holds it with both hands, extends it, then holds down the lever on the side. Guess a single squeeze was all it took to pop out the cane part under normal circumstances... But now the gears inside the hilt start really turning, and glowing, and it becomes a flashlight as well as a cane. Well, that’s all that seems to happen at first. With a spin and a jab, Oscar thrusts the tip of the cane downward just as he reaches the bottom of the pit. There’s a momentary flash of green lightning around him then... fade to black.

And now we come to what seems to be the epilogue/wrap up of the episode and the Volume itself. And it begins how the show began, with a voice over narration. Not from Salem though, it’s our first motivational speech from Ozpin in a year. He talks about how fear is the only feeling in this world that is universal across every living thing, yet for how common it is we constantly underestimate how powerful it can be. We experience the fear of making close connections and growing to care for others, because that can lead to a loss which we also fear. We fear failure a great deal, I know I definitely do. And those fears only get stronger the more people depend on us to help them with the decisions we make. But Ozpin reminds us that fear itself is not something to worry about or even, dare I say it, fear. The real concern is how we act when we are afraid, who we become. Can we be proud of that version of ourselves, forgive them for what they do under duress? Will you understand why they felt the need to do the things they did? Will you even recognize them as the same person you normally strive to be, or will you look in the mirror and see the enemy you should have feared from the very start? We all find the answer to that eventually.

Now on to what actually happens in these last few scenes, the fitting content to go with Ozpin’s speech. Oscar is falling through the sky towards the ground waaaaay down in Mantle. Guess his attack with the can was strong enough to bust a hole in the bottom of Atlas... straight into the Vault chamber... hope nobody else finds that. Back in the icy former hospital room, Ruby falls to her knees from the exhaustion of using her Silver Eyes. She and Weiss notice a freshly burned hole in the ceiling, as Cinder apparently avoided getting damaged by the SEW blast and escaped. Weiss rushes to check on Winter and see how badly she’s hurt, but all her sister has for her is an accusation. She still doesn’t know what Team RWBY did to get a warrant for their arrests, but she knows it was the catalyst for all of this. Meanwhile Ruby looks to see how Penny is doing, and the ginger girl’s eyes lose their fire as she meets her friend’s gaze, only to gain regret and fear as she turns back around to kneel by Fria’s side. The Winter Maiden is dead, long live the Winter Maiden. But Penny can only mourn the loss of a good person’s life, she takes no satisfaction in being the one to carry on her legacy. Winter actually does reassure her a bit, saying that some part of Fria will always live on in Penny now. We cut down to the blood stained tundra as Atlas police arrive to arrest Qrow and Robyn, who is only now regaining consciousness. Qrow puts up no fight, and it looks like neither will Robyn. Cinder is seen flying above Atlas Academy and screams with rage and hatred, even getting a bit of a dragon vibe in it by having fire erupt from her mouth. I was glad she was the one shown when Ozpin talked about fear of failure, because she did indeed fail. We don’t know how, but JNR make it to the airship pad and onto the getaway ship where the Bees and elderly people are waiting. They take off and of course question the meeting lacking the presence of Oscar and the Lamp, and JNR can only look sad in response. From one sad ship to another, we see Qrow and Robyn aboard a prison airship in cuffs, and Qrow is holding Clover’s bloodstained lucky badge. Despite the last interaction the three shared being a fight, Robyn shows sympathy to his mourning and puts a hand on his shoulders. Can’t wait to see if the two of them try to break out of jail next Volume~ As they fly up to the city in the sky backdropped by the eastern sunrise, a large dark cloud approaches from the west accented by flashes of red lightning. Back to Oscar, he clips the cane to his back and closes his eyes for a few seconds to concentrate and steel his composure. Back to the ice room again, Winter says the girls should surrender to Ironwood. Weiss is heartbroken, you can hear it in her voice, but she has to disobey her sister’s wishes, they simply cannot comply with his cruel plans. Winter seemed to expect that answer, and instead urges them to flee, but Weiss doesn’t want to do that either because it would mean leaving Winter behind while she’s so badly injured. Her big sister insists it simply isn’t like that, this is her giving them a head start before she calls for reinforcements to hunt them down. Weiss is disheartened, but reaffirms the lesson Winter had shared with her earlier in the Volume, they booth have to make decisions for the sake of their own futures that might take them down separating paths. The getaway ship arrives and hovers just outside the first hole Cinder had made in the wall, and Yang greets the group. She’s very relieved to see everyone is okay, but soon finds a lot more happened than she expected. Ruby affirms that they need to head out while they still can, and Weiss gives her sister one more glance before departing. Ruby and Penny also share a look, and Penny decides she will be leaving too. Guess she’s decided once and for all she won’t be helping Ironwood. Winter seems concerned by this development, but realizes she has no right to object or stop her after everything the two of them had talked about since the dinner party. On the airship everyone seems very dour and grim, and Penny looks at her own hand as if asking herself if she had the right to make the choices she did when she is just an Atlas robot. But Ruby and Weiss both lean on her shoulders to reassure her and make sure she knows they are happy she came with them and they believe she did the right thing. That seems to calm her down, and Pietro looks happy to see she has such good friends. On an Atlas rooftop, Cinder is quite satisfied to see Neo deliver the Lamp to her, and takes it without a single word or gratitude. Neo doesn’t like that, I guess even Roman would praise her for a job evilly done. She’s probably starting to realize Cinder is just using her to further her own plans. Speaking of unfortunate realizations, Ironwood gets a message from Winter that simply says “It’s gone”. We’re unsure if she means the Lamp or the Winter Maiden powers. Considering what her job was meant to be, it’s likely the latter. Ironwood takes that news poorly and screams with rage. I too screamed with rage, because we next see that Arthur Watts is actually still alive and just in a jail cell, nursing a black eye and smiling ominously at the mysterious black clouds we saw rolling in.

Oscar seems to have been playing some Halo 3 recently, because he throws up a bubble shield to cushion his badass superhero landing on the ground. Not just any ground though, he seems to be within the crater where Atlas once was before Ozpin lifted it into the sky. The same crater that has apparently become the main Dust mines for the Kingdom. Perhaps next Volume will give us a closer look at just how awful these mines really are. But let’s address what Oscar has actually done here. He had no Aura after getting shot by Ironwood, so that was not his Semblance. That energy bubble he used to shield himself when busting through the bottom of the pit and cushioning his hitting the ground, that had to be Magic. He’s unlocking more of Oz’s old powers, the union of souls is progressing. But he’s still in control, Oscar is still there. He just has more of Ozpin’s memories and abilities now and used them to save himself, as if the old souls are merging into his existing one as opposed to his new soul fading away into the collective. Maybe the process will be different this time around? Regardless, Ozpin’s voice is back in his head and ready to apologize for everything he put him through. But all Oscar wants to hear right now is what their next step will be to save Atlas. As we cut back up to RWBY and friends flying away from the city, we see that it will indeed need saving very very soon. Transmissions are coming in over the radio of multiple incoming hostiles, to a degree that seems impossible to believe. Our view shifts to the dark storm itself, and a shape begins to emerge from the black and red. A GIANT. FLYING. GRIMM. WHALE! With hundreds of Nevermore, Manticores, and Sphinxes flying around it looking as big as flies by comparison. I have personally dubbed this species the Mobius, and this particular specimen has earned the nickname of Monstro. I can’t imagine there ever being more than one of this thing though, so Monstro will be the only one. He has wings, but what seems to keep him in the air is several large chunks of Gravity Dust embedded in his belly and on top of his head. We pan up over his massive glowing forehead to see the Queen herself riding into battle. Salem has come to Atlas, and she’s wearing a badass (and kind of sexy) new dress to celebrate the occasion. There are grey arm bands on the longer sleeves that look like they’re made of bones, complete with jagged spikes, and a new broach to be the centerpiece between exposed shoulders and a noticeably bigger boob window. The unique aesthetic is aided by more red lines down the curves of her figure. The words “step on me” easily come to my mind, but that may just say something about me in particular. Regardless, she smirks at the camera and it is clear she is here to fuck some shit up.

We’ll have to wait 6 months to see how our heroes deal with that though. Cannot wait. Oh, and it must be noted that the new song for the credits “Fear” is very good, and we can see that another song on the soundtrack called “Until the End” was actually written by Casey Lee Williams as opposed to her dad. Good for her!! If only I could remember which song it was...

#rwby reviews #jaune arc #nora valkyrie #lie ren #oscar pine #neopolitan #penny polendina #winter schnee #cinder fall #fria the winter maiden #general ironwood #ruby rose #weiss schnee #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #Salem #monstro the grimm whale #mobius grimm

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lavenderhyrdrangea · 4 years ago

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Blind

Hey! This is a chapter from my fallout 3 long fic. If you prefer to read it over on Ao3 click here. If not then enjoy!

At the age of twelve, Viola was convinced that the concept of The Vault was irony personified..bunkerfied? From the point of design the vault was sterile and colorless—meant to prioritize order--but it cradled thousands in its womb, away from the dangers of the outside world. Her father joked that they needed the rigid structure since it served as a proper protection. Had it been made of hay or sticks they would’ve crumbled. Plus, he pointed out that she was at the cusp between childhood and adolescence where everything safe seemed plain and boring. At least she had the vault baseball games every Friday if she ever felt starved for excitement. Now those were a welcome bursts of color. Nothing could beat two co-op teams running, sliding and shouting across the field, claiming bases.Not even that one freaky Friday when an imposter snatched up and replaced Amata could.

They waited in the girl’s locker room, preparing for the game. Viola tested the swing of the steel bat between her palms.

“Wood’s better,” she murmured to herself.

Even a total newbie would’ve rolled their eyes at that bright observation but the quiet had to be filled somehow. Between swats, She snuck sidelong glances towards Amata who sat on a bench, baseball clutched in hand and eyes peering at it.

Finally Viola cracked, “You’re suppose to throw it.”

Reluctantly, Amata let go of her fascination with the ball. The room with all its rickety, gray lockers suddenly existed and she’d been plopped there.

“It would help if I had a target. Any suggestions?” She asked behind a paper-thin smile.

With her bat now slung over her shoulder and leg stretched to rest her foot on the bench, Viola pointed.

“Good question! The right question actually. Follow me. Let me know if you get lost.” She cleared her throat. “ One hour into the future. We’re in uniform and the doors to both locker rooms are open. Mr. Botch is standing in the center of the atrium. You know putting the teams together and pouring out rules and stuff then he asks the BIG question. Who pitches and who bats? Who does it first anyway. Some greasy moron with a dumb little accent goes, ‘Yo teach I think I can handle the throwing.’ You grip the ball harder and think, Oh yeah? And-”

Her bat dropped with thunk as she sprang into a windup position.

She raised her leg, using her knee to lead the way, drove into a turn and sent the imaginary ball flying. Adrenaline switched on, she dashed crosswise to fill the role of the ‘victim’. She pressed her fingers together and tapped them to her lips and spread them with an obnoxious pop.

“How’s that for right in the kisser?”

Amata flashed a genuine smirk now. Elation eased its way into the room. She seemed to take a step away from her previous contemplations. “You know he’ll just tear after us. Or try. Mr. Botch is fast.” She crossed her eyes and shook her head side to side. “ ‘You’re done for, Nosebleed.’ ”

“Oh, that’ll be great. He’ll run his mouth something fierce like he always does.”Viola said, settling onto the floor. “How do you think Paul deals with it?”

“ Are you kidding? He gobbles up everything that bully says. He’s not bothered. Now if we’re talking about Wally...”

Viola was ready to list the many reasons why she felt not one iota of sorrow for Wally when an unbidden yet hilarious thought crossed her mind.

“Imagine if the world hated us and Butch was our friend?”

This earned her a nose crinkle.

“Not funny,” Amata groaned.

Viola, puffed chest and squared shoulders, drawled in Butch fashion, “ ‘What’s the matter with you? Daddy’s making you play ball like everyone else? Or can’t you take one of my jokes? You big baby.’ “

Amata shook her head. “I can’t believe he calls what he does jokes.”

Viola watched how Amata alternated from pressing her palms together to wringing her hands. Her sanguine nature was beginning to fade, acquiescing to her hidden thoughts.

Viola covered one of Amata’s wrist with a reassuring hand. “I mean it, you know? A busted lip is the least he deserves.”

“Sometimes I wish I could solve all my problems by just hitting them.” She shifted uncomfortably under Viola’s questioning eye. “Sorry, for sounding like freaking lunkhead.”

“Who or whatever this problem is must be wearing you thin.”

On the spot, she peeped, “ You peek at the things your dad has on his private terminal every once in a while, right?”

“Whatever isn’t behind an administrator’s password.” Viola couldn’t begin to go over the number of times she goofed around with some of her dad’s files. Most of them were the Vault residents’ boring and if she was being honest, invasive, medical information. “Why?” Then it hit her. She rolled her eyes. “So you went to your dad’s super secret room and went through his stuff. Seriously, Amata? It happens to the best of us.”

“That not it.” Amata took a deep breath, bracing herself. Even still she faltered when she said, “ I found baseball scores.” Before Viola could cudgel her way through the rest of the conversation with her trusty club, Sarcasm, Amata babbled on. “I thought they were the normal ones from our games but these were... copies? Duplicates? No, that’s not right. The first time I looked at them they were the same and the second--Amata sighed. “Ms. Armstrong. Her thing with cards: cups, swords, and moons or whatever. You remember, don’t you?”

Amata’s explanation for what the heck that had to do with anything was delivered on shaky breath. The way she told it these scoreboard duplicates—shadowboards she aptly called them—elaborated on the usual stats to form estimations of people’s personalities. Amata noted that they followed Ms. Armstrong’s tarot model. She’d draw up a number of cards, place them side by side, and read them to read you. She’d see a cup card and a sword card say it meant all you’ve ever fought would go pouring down a drain. In the same way a stat like multiple home runs would be taken into consideration alongside a players day to day antics, so the conclusion that, perhaps, they enjoyed taking things head on or that they were one and done type of person or that they were overachievers could be made.

Much of what she said seemed to be hastily patched together hodgepodge but it meshed just enough to take off running in Viola’s mind.

“What’s it all for exactly? Ms. Armstrong does it because she wants to ‘get’ people.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know.”

Amata became scarce the following weeks. Whatever spaces in-between where they would talk was often obscured by her aloof attitude. All their conversations made Viola felt like they were speaking to each other through a tiny hole in the wall. To add to everything, her own newfound curiosity about what was on that terminal lead her down paths made out of paranoia. She’d go back and forth with herself. In one minute she didn’t care if the Overseer kept tabs on them. It wasn’t any different than a manager watching over an employee. Dad made sure Jonas was doing his due diligence all the time. Then, in the next, the objections would spring out. Jonas to some extent knew what dad was doing. Amata’s uneasiness made the situation out like the Overseer’s “notes” were supposed to be a secret. Secrets weren’t always bad. An Overseer’s kept secrets however spelled trouble.

“Hey.” A grating voice called, causing her to snap to attention.”Nosebleed. I’m talking here.”

Right. Deloria. Cafeteria. Trying to pilfer her food.

“Gimme your mash,” he demanded.

“Get your own instead of trying to mooch off me.”

“Don’t give me lip. Fork them over.”

Viola sighed and shoved the bowl his way. She couldn’t muster the appetite to finish the by then cold meal anyway or the tic for tac energy to deal with his antics.

He gave the surrendered food a suspicious look over. “I swear if you spat in this I’m going to sock you one good.”

“I would’ve done it in front of you. What’s with the funny talk?”

“A loser like you wouldn’t understand.” He shoveled spoonfuls of mash down his gullet. “Where’s your girlfriend?” he sneered, white chunks clinging to the corner of this mouth.

“More like where’s yours. Having another fight I see. Tell me, who started it? You or Wally?”

He gritted his teeth. No doubt he thought that would make her flinch back in fear but with his cheeks full and puffed up with food, he looked like a baby throwing a tantrum. Fitting. “ You're lucky the rest of the outfit isn’t here. We’d clobber you.”

“Awwwww, you guys made up then?” She smirked.

For a split second, Butch’s fist clenched then slackened.

“Nothing but trouble and not the good kind either. You and that stick in the mud. Can’t believe I got to apologize or whatever.”

“Apologize?” Viola narrowed his eyes. “What did you do this time? And got to? Tell me who’s making you apologize so I can give them a hug.”

“Who do you think?” He angled his head towards the cafeteria doorway where Officer Gomez and Officer Hannon stood. “Dogs ma calls ‘em. The Overseer has them stuck to me over some prank. I saw Amata hanging out with out with Old Lady Palmer. I figured since he likes hanging with old people that she’d want to fit in. Two Words: Flour bomb.”

How did he get his hands on flour to do that?

Butch grumbled on about how she went and got her father. The Overseer was livid. Butch’s punishment was to apologize to Amata everyday for two weeks and work under Grandma Palmer for the same amount of time.

He whispered. “I still win though. Your little friend dropped something.”

Suspicion needled away at her nerves. She glanced at security. This was either another prank that would land them both in trouble or something that would make her want to kick his teeth in.

He grinned, all teeth, as he yanked something out from inside his vault suit pocket. It left her dumbfounded when she spotted a jagged piece of paper with scribbles in his palm. Officer Gomez seemed to watch them intently now. Butch nudged at her shoulder with his open hand. She shook it.

“So, I guess you’re apologizing to me too, huh? Probably just doing it because you’re in trouble.” She said in a level tone.

Butch mumbled under his breath at the notion of an apology to her as Viola ‘wiped her eyes’. In the tiniest and most familiar scribbles the paper read, “Deathclaw.”

“Password?” She mouthed.

His helpful shrug prompted her to believe that this wasn’t the best way to communicate. There were napkins around to write on but no pen or pencil. What to do? The ketchup packets in the condiment bin called to her. Better than nothing. In poor, tomatoey scrawl she made another attempt.

Password?

Idk. Maybe important.

You know, how?

Butch ripped five napkins from the dispenser.

Secret codes are always important.

Amata’s writing.

Hah! I’m right. It’s important.

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, he was right. Amata was messing around with the Overseer’s terminal and she might not have been sharing the entire truth with her. The Shadowboards had more to them, something pivotal. She needed the info. So she bargained him for it-- His codes for her mash.

Bad deal.

Will get you out of trouble.

Who? You? Amata? No you won’t.

Officer Hannon threw a sweat inducing glare their way. Definitely wasn’t a fan of them using up vault supplies. Propping her arm up like they were arm wrestling, she leaned in for clearer conversation and less waste.

“Come on, You’re no good with computers.” She whispered.

He gripped her hand.

“Oh, like you are?”

“Better than you.”

Arm already shaking with the force, she tried shoving his hand down.

“I’ll bet.”

“What’s stopping me from running off with this code right now? I’m trying to be nice even though you don’t deserve it. Repay the favor.”

“I’m nothing but nice so long as I get what I want, Nosebleed.”

He overtook her but as what little patience she had sifted between her fingers she regained strength, bringing them to a stalemate.

“Just let me have it.” She hissed.

“You think that I’m just some radroach that takes off running when you stomp your feet but you’ll wake up eventually. The Butchman is the toughest in the vault. Either I help or no dice.”

He didn’t sound the same as he had seconds prior. His voice had grown deep and edged with annoyance and a wisenheimer touch. Familiar and foreign.

“Fine.”

#Fallout 3 #amata almodovar #butch deloria #lone wanderer #vault 101 #vault 106 #My writing

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defiant-firefly · 4 years ago

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October Challenge Day 13

This is actually a rewritten version of yesterdays prompt but I hated what I wrote yesterday so I rewrote it again today.

The prompt was ‘Broken Down’ from the Whumptober prompts list. Given that it’s a Whumptober prompt, I feelI probably don’t need to say but uh... yeah I turned Labby into a punching bag again. It’s the third installment of the ‘zap Labby’ idea, taking place when she’s with the Shadow Ops and been with them for a little while. It’s basically, ‘Labby struggling with the associations between the maintenance chair and the hell she had to endure in the lab’. I’ve once again left the ending open so I guess this is getting another installment. Great.

Labby has officially taken over my October Challenge with this idea alone. Someone stop this rabid plot bunny please.

Anyway, the fic under cut!

The first time it happened, no one had been around. Her balancers had malfunctioned and she’d tripped and fallen hard.

Labrys had hissed at the awkward way her knee was forced to bend and at the awful way she’d landed on her wrist. She’d had to stay there for a few minutes as her balancers came back online and made the world stop spinning every time she to tried to move. When she did get back up, she’d considered going to see Fuuka to repair them but thought better of it at the time. It wasn’t that bad.

She’d carried on as normal, an ache in her knee and a soreness in her wrist that had gradually worn off by the end of the day.

The second time it happened, she’d been walking with Koromaru and Ken and her chain arm decided to unlatch itself at the same time as her visor decided to fall over her face mid-sentence. She’d scrambled to put her arm back before anyone had noticed, Ken helping out as pointless information started flying across the inside screen on her visor and obstructed her vision.

He’d asked if she was okay as she tugged at said visor as it jammed into place over her eyes and he’d had to help her with that as well before she broke it with a lack of patience. She’d insisted at the time that it was just a minor fault that got in the way sometimes and had taken some time to convince him it wasn’t worth bothering Fuuka over.

It was during the third time, she had to admit that maybe this was getting out of hand. Labrys had been alone thankfully when her mind went dark and she’d lost all external input for about a full minute. It’d scared her half to death to suddenly be numb with no ability to move or sense anything for even that short period of time and when everything came back, she’d had to sit down to keep herself grounded.

She didn’t ever want to be in that box again and that had just brought it all crashing back.

She should go to see Fuuka. She knows she should.

So she does.

Labrys entered the maintenance room where Fuuka often went to tinker with her engineering projects and hadn’t known what to say. She’d found herself asking about the projects she was working on and wondering what in the world all the dials and buttons were for. When asked why she’d come, she’d paused. She made to answer but had found the words wouldn’t come. Fuuka waited patiently as she made a few more attempts before her eyes had wandered and noticed something she probably shouldn’t have.

On the desk, right nearby sat a familiar little box shaped object with two familiar prongs jutting out one side.

Labrys had never been better at lying than in that one moment. As a notoriously bad liar, she’d even amazed herself at how convincing she’d sounded as she made up some random excuse to avoid what she’d come in for. She’d been scared enough as it was to ask for help but now…

Things were getting worse. The wear on her joints had started to ache nonstop, her visor got jammed what seemed like every five minutes and it was getting much harder to keep this to herself. This was nothing compared to what she would go through if she asked for help.

She’d had a few more momentary blackouts but had luckily managed to avoid having them in front of people. The malfunctions… not so much.

She’d nearly rocket punched Junpei when everything suddenly went off and the safety latches failed. Yeah… that had taken some convincing to keep that one from getting reported.

Thankfully she’d managed to almost completely avoid Mitsuru and Aigis most of the time. She knew there’d be no convincing either of them if something happened in front of them. The last thing she wanted was to be forced into that situation again…

Especially when she finally felt like she had some semblance of control over her life now. She wasn’t ready to let that go for even a moment.

“What’s your opinion on this, Labrys? You’ve been quiet.” Mitsuru spoke up, drawing her attention to the present. They were stood in her office for a meeting on some recent shadow activity, they being her, Aigis, Akihiko and Mitsuru herself. Looks like she’d zoned out again…

“Uh…” Mitsuru raised an eyebrow, seemingly already knowing why she hadn’t said anything. “Yeah, sorry. Ya lost me…” Labrys gave her an apologetic smile as she fidgeted with her hands awkwardly, a little embarrassed.

“It’s quite alright. Aigis can fill you in on the details of our discussion later.” She then offered out a file to her that she reached to take. She froze partway, flinching at the ache in her elbow that doubled with the loud grating noise that echoed from it. Mitsuru seemed to have a similar reaction, an awkward silence raining down on them.

“Was that-”

“It sounds worse than-” They both spoke at the same time before stopping themselves. A small bubble of panic started rising form within her and she quickly reached the rest of the way to take the file.

Hastily opening it up, she tried to ignore the red hot stares of the other three people in the room.

“Sister?” Aigis started hesitantly, earning an absent hum in response as ruby eyes scanned the words in front of her. “Have you been to see Fuuka-san recently?”

“Uh… yeah I saw her a little bit ago. Why?” She feigned ignorance as she flipped through the pages, narrowing her eyes on some of the details thoughtfully. She shook her head before Aigis could continue, “actually, never mind that. Did I miss the reason why we’re investigatin’ some ghost stuff?”

“Mitsuru thinks it might have something to do with shadows. It’s a bit of a long shot, but it can’t hurt to have a quick look, right?” Akihiko answered, crossing his arms as he leaned on the wall. Labrys nodded at what was probably repeated information from when she’d stopped listening.

She heard Aigis say something right as her sensors went fuzzy for a moment. She should probably get out of here before anything worse happens…

“W-well, um. Who’re ya sendin’ on a ghost hunt?” She asked, before realising she’d interrupted Aigis who gave her a funny look. “Ah, sorry. I musta spaced out again, heh…”

“You seem to be doing that a lot today, sister.” A blonde eyebrow raised and Labrys had to find a way to casually look back down at the files.

“Meh. It happens.” She gave a small shrug, ignoring the sting it caused. “Well, if ya don’t need me then-” Labrys made to hand the file to Akihiko as she approached the door to leave, only for everything to choose that moment to go wrong. Her eyes went dark for a moment as her hand lost its grip on the file and she lost her balance.

“Labrys!” She couldn’t tell who’d shouted that before the rest of her sensors shut off. A fear started pulsing through her at the lack of outside input and she scrambled to reboot everything. No sound, no sight, no smell, no touch… nothing. The only thing telling her she wasn’t completely unconscious being the fact her mind was racing.

Her hearing came back first and she clung to it, pushing the sensitivity up to maximum.

“So she’ll be fine?” Voices! She focused all of her attention on the sounds as the damage sensors came back online and started filling her head with the white noise of pain.

“Physically? Of course. Emotionally…” Fuuka’s soft voice answered the first. “Well there had to be a reason for this.” Reason for what? The feeling started returning to her body then, letting her know she wasn’t in a very comfortable place. The balancers on the back of her head shifted awkwardly as they came back online, her motor functions beginning to return as well.

“Hm? Is she awake?” Mitsuru asked, seemingly having noticed her small movements.

“Hmm…I don’t think she’s fully back online just yet. I think she can hear us though.” Fuuka answered sounding slightly more optimistic.

“How can you tell?” Akihiko followed by the sounds of footsteps by her left side.

“Oh it’s right here, see? The sensors are turned right up to maximum whereas when you got her here, they were only at about three quarters of the max.” The explanation made her worry a little. How were they seeing this…? “I can’t help but wonder where that damage came from though…” Damage?

A discomfort started building in her lower arms, an irritating, highly unwelcome feeling and after a few moments she realised why it was there. She felt the fans on either side of her head suddenly activate as her thoughts spiralled.

She was plugged in. They could see everything in her head. There was virtually nothing to stop them from doing anything. What were they doing? What had they done?

“Sister? Calm down.” Aigis suddenly spoke up, easing the panic slightly but not enough to stop the fans. Her optics came back online at that point, her eyes flying open to see something other than the pitch black. With her sight back, she found the cables attaching her to whatever computer Fuuka had linked them up to and immediately made to remove them.

When her hand met resistance, her heart sank further and the fear skyrocketed. Without a moment to think, she pulled on the restraints, pushing against them with increasing power despite the pain such strain caused her.

“Wait, Labrys stop!” Aigis was suddenly in her sight as she heard the restraints creak and begin to stretch under the sheer force she was pushing on them. “Sister! It’s okay! See? You’re in the maintenance bay! With me, Fuuka-san, Mitsuru-san and Akihiko-san!” She was promptly ignored as she struggled to free herself.

Gritting her teeth she briefly felt Aigis trying to hold her down. How could she try and stop her? Didn’t she see what they were gonna do to her?

“No! Lemme go!” She screamed at them the very moment her vocal systems finished rebooting. “I don’t wanna do it anymore!”

“Hey! Stop! You’re gonna hurt yourself!” Akihiko was at her side too, trying to stop her from causing any more damage to her already hurting limbs. She thrashed about on the chair as they continued to try and calm her down.

“Labrys, listen to me! It’s okay! You’re not at that lab anymore. You’re in my old maintenance chair, see?” Aigis kept trying but Labrys just doubled her efforts. This is the one place she didn’t want to be, why were they doing this to her?

Weren’t they supposed to be friends? Wasn’t Aigis supposed to be her sister? Then why would they force her to do this?!

“Stop it! Just lemme go!” She felt the tears start falling when they just held onto her tighter, their betrayal causing a wound bigger than any weapon possibly could in her heart.

Ruby eyes flitted about wildly, her gaze briefly finding Mitsuru’s. She didn’t seem to know what to do but she was the only one not stopping her from leaving. She took an instinctive step back at the look in her eyes and Labrys latched onto that.

“M-Mitsuru-san! Help!” She called out to her, desperation to get as far away from here as possible muddling any other thought process. Mitsuru’s eyes widened before a loud grating sound erupted from her right side.

“Sister!” Aigis cried in alarm as the restraint snapped and Labrys lost control of two fingers on that hand. She screeched at the searing pain the damage had caused and fought harder against her captors. She wanted out.

“Fuuka, do something!” Akihiko yelled as he struggled to prevent her from breaking the other restraints as well.

“I…” Pained ruby eyes found Fuuka’s round, hesitant ones. What was she gonna do? Aigis pulled back harder on her damaged arm and drew her attention away as she cry out at the amount of hurt that pulsed from the break.

“Fuuka, whatever you’re about to do, just do it.” Mitsuru commanded. “Somethings not right here.” Labrys found Fuuka again in dismay.

“No! I don’t wanna go through that again! Jus’ lemme go!” She pleaded, hoping her friend would listen to her but…

“I’m sorry, Labrys. It’ll be okay, I promise.” She said, never breaking eye contact as she pressed a button on the keyboard. Almost immediately a weight fell on her mind. What had she done?

Labrys felt more tears fall as it suddenly became difficult to move or even keep her eyes open. She was shutting down. Fuuka had started a shutdown.

“No…!” She tried to protest but the words had trouble leaving her lips as her body was forced to relax and she felt the energy quickly drain away from her. “Why…?” She managed to mumble right as her eyes lost focus and her head fell back against the chair. Labrys struggled to hold onto her consciousness, desperately trying to force her eyes to stay open as Aigis shifted from holding her down, to holding her close. She offered as much comfort as she could with small words she could barely make out in the fog covering her senses.

Labrys didn’t hold out long. Her eyes fell shut and she drifted away into nothingness…

#whumptober2020 #no. 12 #broken down #persona 4 arena #labrys #persona 4 arena ultimax #tw: ptsd #I guess #is that what this is?#who knows #not me #anyway i hurt labby again #october challenge #hahaaaaa #this idea is never going away is it #ffs #long post #firefly writes

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pink-wisp · 5 years ago

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A/N: I usually dont post full chapters here but May needs more content in her tags and this is pretty short. less than 2k? Have some OT4 fluffy set up and May being really gay. I cut the important parts from the last chapter to try and make it a little more standalone.

Summary:

Penny reminded her of the days before graduation before things got complicated. She was curious and optimistic. Enjoying the smallest wonders that people take for granted. May could understand Winter's desire to protect her. No matter how the soldier tries to hide it, she could see Winter yearning for more.

So May tried to slow down her heart as Penny's hands drifted down her arm and into her own. That steady grasp keeping her grounded as she pulled May into another section the celebrities had wandered too.

"Perhaps, ma'am," Ciel spoke up. The group turned to the officer-in-training. Penny stepped closer to her, a little protective with a smile that almost defused the situation. It worked on three, Xanthic seemed to grow a little more furious. "Glade and Xanthic would respond better to a demonstration. The Atlas' Welcoming Fair is focusing on the third and fourth years this week."

"Oh! Good idea," May gasped.

"No, bad idea," Aro said nose wrinkling in disgust. "Atlas Military and Hunts Associations are scouting for recruits. Business companies are looking for a new face to slap on their product. It'll be filled with people trying to make connections with people like me."

Penny giggled a little as the small fight between the four of them settled into frustrated thought. Aro was right about one aspect, she did deserve to be arrogant. "Oh!" Penny gasped, eyes wide. She looked at her Faunus, "Does 'Aro' stand for arrogant?"

Ciel's professional demeanor completely broke beside her. She coughed on air, trying not to laugh but still somehow managed to murmur, "Holy shit."

May just immediately crackled, head thrown back in laughter while the last three stared with disbelief for a few seconds. It broke around the same time Penny tilted her head in confusion.

"Now it does," Winter mused with a smile. She cleared her throat, trying to calm May down. The Huntress only squatted, hands clasp over her mouth with tears pricking her eyes. "Aro," Her demeanor cracked with a brief smile. The Faunus softly growled, a weak show of teeth and ears poking out low. "Would draw unwanted attention."

"Like your white as fuck hair wouldn't," Aro quickly shot back.

May was gasping for breath. "Oh that settles it, I love her."

-------

May was sure she was going to die. Not in a glorious fight trying to protect her friends but in a pathetic excuse of a job fair. On Atlas Military grounds. Surrounded by people.

With a soft hand with a steady iron grip and pressure always on her.

The game of find-the-disguised-celebrities was now also a game of don't-crush-on-your-bestfriend's-crush. It was hard not to. Penny was practically a gift from the Goddess and Brothers. The years after graduation wasn't kind to her… friendship with Winter and Aro. May hadn't talked to Winter in nearly a year. Aro could get obsessive over her work for months at a time and when she wasn't busy she was a manipulative bitch.

It was a bout in a tournament that was supposed to be impressive. It had the crowd talking and buzzing with flashes that always glowed bright in Penny's cybernetic eyes. Explosions would pitch the room pure white but May could always see Winter and Aro in the distance, so close they were almost leaning on each other. Old instincts kept trying to get closer look. To see where they touched. Were they holding hands and what was Aro whispering into Winter's ears?

But Penny's grip tethered her. With eyes alive with entertainment and joy but a voice so curious it was nearly innocent. "Why do you keep staring at them?" Penny asked, in a slow way that was not innocent.

May swallowed and looked away only to be tugged again. Of course her eyes had landed on Winter. Of course the taller women would see her above the crowd. Of course her best-friend and crush would smirk. Blue eyes shining with-

Penny pouted. It was a quiet but sharp hum in frustration. There was a tight squeeze around May's hand and a gentle tug. May's nerves escaped in a weak laugh. Her mind kept trying to focus on the fight. It followed her heart down, down, falling into the endless cycle of Penny's calm and steady hand. Her eyes kept wandering to the pair.

The years wasn't kind. Business and work may have drifted them apart but it was so easy to fall back into what their hearts wanted.

"They look good together!" her voice squeaked out. She could feel Winter's amused stare on her face. It was hot and totally not from May's flush.

"Yes, their appearance does complement each other very well." Penny said. No intimidating horns or militant uniform. Out of their usual attire they look… softer. May's eyes wandered up from their cleavage. They looked back at the celebrities to find them both staring back. "But if we keep staring we'll give them away…"

More than once Elm or Marrow was close to them. Both times they threw them with some casual PDA. First it was an arms linked together. Elm quickly looked elsewhere for the Ice Queen. Marrow wasn't tricked so easily. Out of all of the Ace-Ops he spent the most time goofing off with May and Fiona before graduation.

By extension that meant Aro and Winter. He knew how affectionate Aro can be and how patient Winter really is towards the people she cared about. But to Marrow they were just friends. So when Winter slid her hand down Aro's back and to her waist, Marrow wandered off. He didn't see that hand continued lower. A brief pause on Aro's wide hips. The Schnee staring at May.

Then down to Penny.

"Oh." May breathed out.

Lips so close to those scarred Faunus ears it was nearly brushing. With a stoic stare she stole their breath. From the distance May and Penny could see the Faunus tremble as the hand continued, moving lower, around and sliding deep into her pocket.

"Oh." Penny breathed in.

May quickly looked down. Penny had a… bond with Aro. It was an instant chemistry and she didn't want Penny to feel like Winter was stealing it but… The young huntress-in-training didn't seem disturbed. Surprised but also enthralled. There was more than a curious learning.

"Times up." Ciel announced behind them. The two nearly screamed and jumped. Ciel frowned but Xanthic work a smug grin and raised brow.

Like always the genius knew exactly what May was thinking. She's know her fist would be in that face if it wasn't for the crowd. Or the butterflies that floated her up to cloud nine. Or the nervous ginger who slowly let go of her hand.

They moved into a less crowded area, away from all the fancy fights or weapon displays. Of course during a job fair the game booths would practically be empty. Fiona scrolled through the chat, showing Xanthic the pictures the Ace-Ops had submitted.

"Huh. There's actually a lot of people with white and green hair."

"Right?" Fiona giggled. "Was Vine even trying? We were nowhere near that area."

May watched them. Her eyes occasionally drifting to Penny and each time she could feel herself falling. Did she know she was like a storm? Alive, changing everything and everyone around her? Graduation wasn't kind to any of them and it tested bonds nearly to the breaking point. Even Fiona and Robyn had their rough moments but May and Winter…

Everyone had a crush on Winter at some point. As family rivals it was just harder for May to accept, as teammates it was harder for May to get over. The feeling came like waves, surging forward and leaping over walls when the season was right. Retreating far, far into the distance when it wasn't. For long periods of time.

Like a year.

Penny finally looked at her and smiled. May couldn't help but return it. Again those soft hands and steady grip was on her. Pulling her from the table and too a game with stuff animals. One of them just happened to be a fluffy goat.

"Would… would it be insulting if give this to Aro?"

"Nah, she's weird." May said with a shrug. Fiona and Marrow would glare at her with the animal puns. "Aro loves it when people reference her animal traits, embraces it and owns it y'know?" May said hands moving to show Aro's sign name. It was still recognizable to hearing people, with how the fingers drew Aro's usual vertical horns. The nice subtle May liked about it was that you do it with the 'G' sign, for gold.

Penny nodded then focused on the game. May watched, arms crossed. At times she was envious of Penny. A cute girl rolls in and suddenly Aro wants to change, suddenly Winter has all the time in the world. May knew that wasn't true, nothing was ever that simple with the Military and definitely with Aurora Glade-

"Boo!"

"Aaagh!" May screamed, elbow flying back and hitting something hard. Something with glasses and ears pointing low. Someone with sea green and sincere eyes… and a bleeding nose. "Shit. A-Aro I'm so sorry."

"I'm fine." Aro tried to touch her nose but Winter's hand was quickly on her and pushing it down. With a tired glance at May she gently convinced Aro to look up at her. It was a nonverbal cue. Not sign language but fingers… gently on her chin.

May tried not to let her heart race. She held her breath but it was already stolen. May could feel herself fall a little further, a little harder. Aro looked weak and helpless, ears fluttering as a blush spread across her cheeks and down to her neck. Further down to her chest…

May was sure she was going to die. Watching her childhood crush gentle handle her other crush in outfits May loved. The kind that dips a little too low. The ones that hug Winter's slim waist and sleeveless shirts that still strain with Aro's muscles. Old instincts kept trying to get closer look but she was stilled by Winter's commanding eyes.

"Aro. Turn on your Aura."

Her eyes flashed a glowing blue. Her Aura flickered but never really coated her body.

"Perhaps it would help if you breathed, Aurora." Penny said. May tensed up so much she shivered a little. Her chest was so tight it was difficult to take in any air. She had forgotten they were right next to the booth Penny was playing. To enchanted by Winter's spell of Aro, now she was falling under Penny's voice. It was innocent and smooth tone was too controlled.

Aro whimpered, ears fluttering as she tried to gasp for breath. Her Aura rushed across her body and Winter quickly wiped away the blood on trickling down her nose and onto her lips with a handkerchief and balled it in her hand to hide it.

Satisfied she let Aro go and the Faunus rushed to May. Old instincts of hiding from the Schnee kicking in, only this time arms wrapped around her waist and her face nuzzled into her back.

"They're being mean!" The mechanic said into May's coat.

"Judging from your heartrate and lack of combat response," Penny paused, playful steps stopping at Winter's side. In her arms was that stuff animal she wanted. "You enjoyed it." Aro peeked around with a pathetic show of teeth and a growl that was more like a whine. Penny smiled. Just because it was cute and bright didn't mean it was innocent. Even when she offered the stuff animal, "If I give this to you are you going to hide behind it?"

Aro nodded.

"Hm… Then I'll give you your gift later! Your current expressions and behavior is quite enjoyable!"

Aro buried her face into May's back again. May was trying to remember how to breath, eyes daring everywhere but always returning to Winter's smug and amused face. The contrast between her and Penny was making her dizzy.

Maybe…

May took a breath and manage to coax Aro onto her arm instead. She still blushed furiously, so spell bound she didn't fight when Penny fixed played with her fluttering ears and fixed her glasses. Winter relaxed, giving her a genuine smile and a playful raised brow.

Maybe falling this time wouldn't be so bad. Maybe she'll actually live to see where this goes.

#may marigold #winter schnee #penny polendina #cutting strings #wispywrites #rwby

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cybrfang · 6 years ago

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Floral (Lost Boys 1987 Fanfiction)

Fear. Romance. Love. Lust. All different things a person can feel at one-time. They could cloud the mind if you let them.

It was a calm night. A suspenseful kind of quiet. Protective dogs had all gone to sleep, lovers were spent, old timers were dozing in front of their box TV's, everyone was ready for a new day. A light fog lifted from the ground, settling at around ankle level. Making anyone who walked in it feel like an angel drifting on clouds. Even if they've done things that others might see as a sin.

Star walked down the dark street, music bouncing around her skull, even without any music playing at all. The feeling of the plastic bags cutting into her fingers. She knew nothing was really getting cut, but it was the best way to see it. Star was lost in her mind, trying to relive today. She wasn't ready to let go so easily.

She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, but not from being cold. She wanted to remember. If she thought hard enough then maybe she could still feel Her body. If she pressed in the right places, then she could pretend they were someone else's hands on her.

She felt a smile creeping onto her face as she visited the memories in her head. The two of them laughing together, laying on the ground, both of their hands barely touching as she pointed out cloud shapes.

Holding one another when the sun was setting.

Being kissed when the sun was down.

Star let her fingers brush against her own lips, the tingling feeling coming back. It made her feel like yelling out loud. She wanted to throw the bags she was holding and just dance, twirl, and scream to the heavens. She wanted to live in this blissful state forever if she could. She felt whole.

She felt like... Aphrodite herself came down from the heavens just to lay on top of her. It was just so… perfect. The wind was gentle, the houses were hopefully far away from prying eyes, but still close enough to supply the sound of wind chimes playing here and there. Star felt a bit scared of being so close to people, but she was promised that nothing would happen. She had never seen anyone walking in this field before. The butterflies flying around them, making Star fear they would get caught in her hair, being swayed by the floral scent she gained from being close to the rest of the flowers.

And the Rose in her arms.

But she didn't have to worry about that for too long when she felt her hair get tucked behind her ear. The gentle caress on her cheeks, and slightly chapped lips on her collarbone. It was all perfect. The way the girl giggled when Star's fingers traveled along Rose's hip, trying to remember the way her soft skin felt.

Star sighed at the recent memory, opening the side door to her house. She managed to pull the creaky door open fast enough so no noise was heard. She tip-toed to the kitchen, pulling a few flowers from her bag and placing it in the vase by the sink. Opening the fridge, she pulled the golden cans of Coors light out next and put them in the back, hoping her father would see them later, but still not accuse her of forgetting.

Being away from home all day, doing… well things, made her dread being in this place even more. She never spent the day smiling and laughing here, like she did in the field. Like she did in Rose's arms.

Star closed her eyes, trying to bring back the feeling of the goosebumps from the fingers dancing on Star's right leg. She tried to recall the way the whispers tickled Star's ears and ne-

"Jane! Close the fucking fridge!"

Star's eyes snapped open. She had been daydreaming in front of an open fridge and her mother had caught her looking like a fool. She quickly closed the door and turned around, facing her mother with a red face. She faltered at the image before her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't even realize what I was doing."

She gripped her fingers and wrung them together, knowing what was coming next.

Her mother walked closer to her, her back stiff as a board with hair curlers in.

"What have I told you? Do you know what would have happened if your father caught you like that? Do you not listen?"

Star felt a phantom pain shoot through her back. Nodding, she bit her bottom lip, hoping that she would be excused to go to her room.

"Mommy I didn't mean to, I just was thinkin-"

She snapped her jaw shut when her mother reached out and yanked a handful of her hair, pulling her down to her level.

"What did you do to your hair? You think a man finds this mess attractive!?"

Boys.

She couldn't help her hair being this way, but she was going to make damn sure her hair was even more of a curl 'nightmare' when she was given the chance.

She waited for her mother to let her go, avoiding her eyes the best she could. Star didn't want to lose this, she hates losing. She started with looking at the wall, trying not to not make it seem like she was giving up, her back bent at such an angle that she was in even more pain then looked. Her mother yanked harder, drawing a stiff yell from Star and almost forcing her to legs to collapse. She suddenly felt fingers close to her collarbone, confusing her. They disappeared after a moment. She realized the best way to escape faster was to play her part. To play dead. She looked down at the ground, feigning defeat. After a moment her mother finally let her go, pushing her away.

It always happened like this. She didn't want to give in, and show that she still had a fighting spark. But showing that she was still strong, never helped her situation. She needed to be helpless to be left alone. Star stepped around her mother and out of the kitchen.

"I'm not done with you!"

Star didn't stop, hearing the click of a lighter and a mumble of "fucking prom" as she closed the door to her room.

That's what Star was in her parents eyes. A prom mishap. A drunken mistake. Her mother had planned on aborting her, but when Star's late grandparents found out, they forced her to have the baby. (Star's never even met her grandparents on her father's side. They probably want nothing to do with her.) Star's grandpa made her parents have a shotgun wedding. That was also Star's fault, it seemed. They resented her for it. Refusing to divorce due to her parents' religion.

After being together for so long, the one thing her parents have always agreed on is that, if they have a daughter, their daughter will be who they want. Not who Star wants. So to her parents, she is Jane. But to her… she's Star.

Star is excitable, Star is open or as open as she can be- Star is… well Star is a lesbian.

She would never come out to her parents. Gosh the last time she had mentioned how pretty a girl was, was when she was 11. In response her father pushed her head under the water she was cleaning dishes in. Star remembered screaming when her head was under water, and her elbow connecting with her father's chest. He loosened his grip on her and she slammed her heel back into his crotch. When he let her go she ran out of the house, and spent the night at a friend's. Her first crush… she remembered that night for two different reasons.

Star let out a huff of frustration, opening her window to let in the breeze like an old friend. Pulling the screen up to let a few fireflies in her room as well. She finally laid back on her bed, feeling warm in her nightgown. Today was an amazing day, mom or no mom. She couldn't wait for tomorrow. For the sweet kisses Rose would give Star. The whispered promise to run away.

Running away.

Images of running filled Star's mind as she drifted to sleep. Her beige walls seeming to close in on her, like a locked box. The cross next to her mirror peeking out under the pictures of Rose and Star together, seeming to know what she was wishing. The breeze blowing the papers from her school year, letting them dance on her desk while Star left the world.

Star woke to the hushed sound of her parents arguing at 12 in the afternoon. She felt slightly grateful -just a tad bit worried as well- that they let her sleep in for once in her life. It wasn't something they ever did, but she was too happy to care. She let out a yawn and stretched, a smile creeping up on her face when she thought of today. It was Saturday. Star had one full day to be happy before her parents would drag her to church.

She jumped out of her bed and threw on something flowy, twirling around and watching herself in the mirror. She was prepared to hear her parents say she looked like a floozy. But the way Star felt this morning, she just didn't care. She contemplated calling Rose… but she was sure her parents would see that she was on the line and listen in. Star was just going to surprise her instead.

The moment Star opened her door, the arguing stopped. She walked to the kitchen, giving both of her parents a shy smile. Her father already had a Coors light on the table, finding them earlier than last time.

"Uh, thank you for letting me sleep in."

Her mother nodded, looking back and forth between her and her father. The silence in the room felt heavy, almost like if Star spoke, all hell would break loose. So instead she opened the fridge door and went to pull out some food, trying to calm her stomach.

"Jane… could you settle something for your father and I?"

Star turned around, forgetting the food all together. They must really be having a row if they needed her help. She nodded and sat down at the table, looking at her mother, waiting to hear the rest.

"See, your father thinks you were home yesterday, by yourself. But, I swear I saw you leave with one of you friends yesterday afternoon. Which is it?"

Star raised an eyebrow, and almost laughed.

"This is what you both were fighting about?" She leaned back in her seat, smiling a bit.

Her father slammed his hand on the table, causing both Star and her mother to jump. Her mother gripped the front of her shirt and shot her daughter a look.

Star sat up straight and wrung her hands together. "Well… you're sort of right mom. I did leave, but I left by myself."

Her father went to open his mouth but Star kept talking.

"I did meet up with a friend though. So again, you're technically right."

Her father leaned forward, nodding his head like he was agreeing on an opinion.

"Oh? Well silly me, I guess. Can't blame an old man." He chuckled a little, sending a feeling akin to spiders crawling up Star's spine.

Her mother choose then to chime in after letting out a forced laugh, "So who was it then?"

"I'm… sorry?"

Her father reached out and snatched Star's wrist, pulling her so her front slammed on the table edge. Star looked up at him with wide eyes, filled with fear and confusion. He simply patted her wrist and gave her a smile.

"Just answer your mother Janey. It's rude to ignore her."

Janey.

Janey was the name they used when she messed up. When she was going to be forced to do their weird little punishment game. Her eyes involuntarily looked over at the small red dot on the wall going into the living room.

She hated that thing. Hated that they've done this all her life. She would be forced to stand on her tiptoes and place her index finger on the dot. She wasn't supposed to move or stop touching the dot. If she did, she would get a blow to her back.

She shuddered and looked at her mother, finally answering her.

"I was with Rose."

It seemed like the moment the answer came out of her mouth, time slowed down for a few minutes. Then it finally caught back up with her as her back slammed against the side of the fridge, and her ass hit the ground.

She stared up at her father the way a rodent looked up at a snake before it got eaten. He shoved the table aside and grabbed at Star's shirt, pulling her up and exposing her collarbone.

"WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU TWO DOING THAT GOT YOU THIS SHIT?!"

Star looked down and saw the hickies on her. The same place she felt her mother's fingers brush against last night. She felt her stomach drop out from under her, making her go numb. No...no no no Star didn't want to be here anymore. She wanted to escape.

Her father didn't wait for her answer and struck her right ear, making it ring, and the room spin. He shook her quickly and shoved her back against the fridge again. She wanted to drop to the ground, but she knew the moment she got down there he would start kicking her. He reached forward and grabbed the curls on the back of Star's head. He looked over at Star's mom.

"Plug the sink and turn on the water."

That set Star off. She started thrashing around as her mother did as she was told.

"Oh you remember this do you? But not the fucking lesson apparently!"

She started hitting her father in the chest, screaming at the top of her lungs so someone would hear her and call the cops. They never did, but she wouldn't stop trying. Help would always be there… right? Star dug her nails in her father's face and gripped him tightly, yanking down and drawing blood. His skin seemed to gather under her nails, making bile ride in her throat. She felt like she was going to vomit at the smell of it. The rusty, salty smell. It sickened her.

As her mother went to her screaming father, Star dashed to her room and grabbed a bag that was already stuffed with clothes and cash. She heard footsteps coming closer to her, so she ran over and closed her door. She dragged her bookcase over to block it. There really wasn't much in it but... Even if it fell, it would still keep her parents out. She ran back to her window, but took a quick peak around her room. She wondered if she should write Rose a note and leave it in her mailbox. The banging on Star's door forced her to act fast, scribbling a hasty goodbye. It was better if no one knew where she would be going.

A tear dropped on the paper, alerting her to the fact that she was crying. She wondered if it would be cold where she was heading. Star viciously wiped at her face and grabbed a jacket, throwing it in the bag and opening her window. She punched out the screen and climbed over it, running away as soon as her father pried her window open.

"JANE. JANE GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE!"

She didn't know if he was following her, but she didn't want to look back just in case.

Star kept running. Running from her parents. From her home. From Rose. From Janey. Jane. She gripped the ticket in her hand, never slowing to a jog as she neared the bus stop.

A smile graced her face when she saw the bus heading towards her, so she snuck a look back. Feeling even more relieved that no one was following her. She took the letter she wrote and wedged it on the bus sign, hoping it would be found quickly.

The bus made a creaking sound as it stopped, the doors opening slowly for her.

She took a deep breath as she walked up the steps and handed the bus driver her ticket.

Star looked out the window as she sat in the back, watching her home move past her.

"Santa Carla… here I come." Star closed her eyes, letting the rumble of the bus calm her for the long ride to come.

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helplessly-nonstop · 6 years ago

Text

Three Rules (A. Black smut)

So this is my entry for my own Winter Time Challenge! My prompt was “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” I chose Aleister Black and went with a bodyguard! AU. This was a mess to post and I hope you guys like this!

WC: 6.4K words (I AM NOT SORRY EITHER)

Warnings: smut, fluff, angst, slight choking, mentions of drugs, mentions of stealing, death threats, slight fingering, FxM sex, there’s so much going on, angst man, mentions of using a knife during sex,

For years, I had been running from my past, trying to avoid the inevitable. I guess paying off debts that you didn’t acquire yourself could be a pain in the ass. My parents were drug mules for the Mafia and when my mother discovered that she was pregnant with me, she and my father knew what they had to do: escape the Mafia without their knowledge of my existence.

However, my father decided that he needed to take a huge risk in order for them to make it on their own without the help of murderers and drug traffickers: he stole twelve millions dollars. And with that money in hand, they moved halfway across the world to the States, where I was born and raised. However, that did not deter the Mafia for searching for their missing drug mules and their stolen cash.

Eventually, at the ripe of sixteen, my parents’ fate had caught up to them and they decided that it was time for them to explain what was going on. That conversation did not go as well as they thought, especially when someone began slamming their fist into our front door, screaming for us to open the door.

“Mom, I don’t understand! What’s going on!?” I demanded as my mom dragged me out of the house, handing me a large backpack. She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and rushed out,”It’s all in the backpack, sweetheart! Now go! Run!”

She was right. She and my dad left an entire notebook dedicated to what happened led up to these events and they confided in me that even if they were dead, that their former employers would hunt me to the ends of the Earth. And so began my quest for a new life, Mafia free. Once I turned eighteen, I changed my name and Social Security number, got new legal documents and a few years passed. But really, can you ever outrun your past?

“Oi, Sugar, are ya sure that the Pipsqueak can take this?” Marty Scurll, one of the men in my battalion, asked, lifting his tightly clenched fists. I gave an unimpressed look and replied,”If you’re too chicken shit to hit the poor kid, Pigeon, I’d be happy to take your place.”

“C’mon man, don’t make Sugar get up! They’ll kick my ass worse than you could ever dream of!” Adam Cole whined, rolling his eyes. He was one of the newest of our sector and while he was built, he still needed to prove his worth for this battalion.

My comrades had this thing about calling me Sugar because I was “anything but sweet.” Their words, not mine. We all had different code names but since we were special ops, we often carried our names off the battlefield. We were currently stationed in the Netherlands and it had been one of the easiest tours that I had participated in, minus a small problem that we encountered a few months ago. Luckily, English was a second language for most citizens and even if a person didn’t speak my native tongue, I luckily knew how to speak theirs.

“Hey, Sugar! Got a couple strangers approaching the borderline.” Naomi, my right hand woman and one of the best sharpshooters, called down to me. I snapped my head up and clicked my fingers at Scurll and Cole, announcing,”Man your battle stations. I don’t want anything slipping through the cracks.”

The two rushed to gather the rest of their companions and get to their positions as I climbed up the ladder leaning against the cement wall. Naomi pulled me up the rest of the way and I gave a questioning glance to her, only to receive a shrug. I stared down at the small group of people approaching the wall then shouted down at them,”Halt! State your business!”

Dark eyes narrowed at me and the man leading the pack replied,”British Interpol! Are you-“

“Toss up your badges and then we’ll answer your questions.” I snapped, crossing my arms. Naomi clicked her tongue disapprovingly but I merely shrugged in response. It was a fifteen foot wall and I couldn’t wait to see what these people would do.

Three badges came flying at my head and I caught one, Naomi snagged the second, and poor, unsuspecting Adam who was climbing up the wall got smacked in the face by the third.

I investigated the detail of the badges then gave a swift nod, ordering,”Let these guys in.” I climbed down to meet the three Interpol agents then shook their hands, stating,”Just call me Sugar. Everyone else does here.”

“So you are them. Great. Listen, is there any place that we can talk? Privately?” Dean Ambrose, the blond and the tallest questioned. I pursed my lips and shot a glance over to Sonya, who was looming over my shoulder, then she nodded in understanding, backing away to meet Liv at the dining hall.

“Yeah, just follow me.” I entered my separate room in the bunker and settled on my bed as I said, ”Well, what kind of fuckery have you three brought to my little squadron?”

“The Mafia has officially put a hit out on you. Your CO has ordered you under protective custody.” Roman answered, crossing his arms. I bit down on my bottom lip, knowing that they weren’t lying, then I mumbled,”Fantastic. Does that mean that you guys are my protective custody?”

“Not quite. We’re just the delivery boys. Aleister Black is the man you’re going to be stuck with until this thing blows over.” The third man, Seth, stated, giving a shrug. I gave a quick glance out of the window, staring at my friends, then asked quietly, “And what of my battalion?” Dean flicked his lighter, staring into the flame anxiously as he answered,”We’ll keep a close eye on them. Wouldn’t want any casualties on our side.” He was obviously an ex smoker so I pulled out my pack.

“You want a cig? I keep them in case I’m feeling extremely anxious.” I offered, opening my pack then held them out. His fingers twitched and he gave a slow shake of his head. He had quit recently and it showed too. I flicked the pack lid shut and tossed it back on my bed before I said, “Alright, I respect that. Does that mean that I need to pack?”

“Yes, it does. You leave in the next forty five minutes.” The time slipped past and luckily, I was familiar with quick packing. Dean entered the bunker and gave a quick knock, stating,”Time to go. We’ve briefed your squad and they understand fully.” I gave a small nod and lifted my bags, only for Rollins to scoop them from my hands, almost dancing to their SUV.

I raised an eyebrow at Roman who shrugged in return as he informed me,”That’s just Rollins for you.” I gave brief goodbyes to my comrades then joined Seth in the back seat, with Dean driving and Roman riding shotgun.

“So how long have you guys been partners?” I asked, curling into myself in instinct. Dean’s blue eyes flickered up to meet mine in the rear view mirror and Roman answered my question,”Seven years.” I hummed at his response then Ambrose clicked a button on the dash, sending music flooding through the vehicle, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

We settled into sweet silence and when someone would know a song, they would begin humming along, occasionally singing underneath their breath. We finally arrived at the airport and I gave an inquisitive glance to the three men then Seth hopped out, popping the truck to grab my bags.

“Where exactly am I supposed to be going?” I asked as Roman, Seth, and I entered the airport while Dean parked the SUV. The man set my bags and rang the small bell setting on the check in desk as Reigns answered, “Black is sending you back with us to the States. We’re drawing out the Mafia, hoping to slip them up. Once we get back to Florida, you’ll be handed over to him and we’ll return to Britain.”

“And, uh, how long is this flight exactly? I asked, anxiety filling my veins.

“Fourteen hours and that’s without the layovers,” Dean answered, leaning against the counter, “Why, don’t do so hot flying, Sugar?” I let out a nervous laugh and answered,”Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“Great, we’ve got another Ambrose. Rollins, you still got that thing?” Seth shook a small bag and Roman gave an approving nod before handing over his phone to let the attendant scan the ticket information. I bit my bottom lip and asked,”What class are we flying in?”

“First. Perks of it being an emergency situation, sorry for your problem. That and Dean doesn’t do well with being stuck with someone that he doesn’t know. Tends to get a bit fidgety.” Seth informed me, passing my my carry on bag. I gave a small, understanding nod then we headed to security where Roman was pulled out for a random pat down.

“Do we have a problem here, sir?” Rollins asked politely, placing a hand on Ambrose’s chest to keep his partner at bay as the security guard called for assistance.

“We think that your buddy might be carrying.” Roman rolled his eyes and said calmly,”I’m going to reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my badge.” The guard watched with anxious eyes then visibly relaxed as Roman flashed his badge and stated,”Agent Roman Reigns with Interpol. These are my partners and this person is in protection. Sorry for the scare but can we get past now?”

Luckily we boarded the plane with no other complications and I claimed the seat beside Ambrose, who, thankfully, took the window seat. Standard procedure took place and finally, we were in the air. But still, my nerves wouldn’t settle.

About two hours into the flight is when Dean finally snapped and lost his shit,”Rollins, hand me that bag.” Seth passed it to Reigns, who in turn, tossed it across the aisle and the man beside me snagged the handle with two fingers. I watched, confused, as he pulled out a container of gummy bears, giving it a small shake, before he passed it to me then stated,”Here, this should keep your jumpy ass calm for a while.”

“Wait, what are these anyway?” I asked, giving a gummy a squeeze between my fingers to investigate it. Seth gave a small grin and said, ”Don’t worry, antsy pants, they’re legal.” My mouth twitched with my uncertainty then Dean rolled his eyes and said,”Here, I’ll even eat one since you don’t trust me.” He popped one into his mouth and murmured,”Yum, lemon. Now, eat one.” I chose a blue one and after the blueberry flavor faded, a faint after taste hit me and I waved the stewardess down for something to drink.

“What can I get for you?” Before I could answer, Ambrose waved a hand and answered,”Two Cokes.” She gave a swift nod then handed my comrade and I a bottle each before returning to her seat up front.

“Give your little gummy friend about twenty minutes to kick in and you’ll sleep until we reach New York.” Ambrose informed me after he finished off his drink. I raised an eyebrow, taking a swig of my own pop, then stated,”You sound like you speak from experience.” He gave a laugh and replied,”Yeah, something like that.” Ambrose pulled a blanket from his carryon and tucked it underneath his head as a pillow, staring out the window.

Luckily, the Interpol agent was right and my nerves calmed to where I was able to sleep until Reigns woke me up, announcing that we had hit one of our two layovers. The four hours passed swiftly and I watched as the snow settled into the pile that the plow pushed it into then Reigns tugged on my arm, stating,”Time to get back on, Sugar.”

I gave an annoyed sigh and stood, rejoining the trio of men at the departure gate. This time, I was seated next to Rollins and he was thankfully, yet dreadfully more chatty. At one moment, I guess my face had given away a secret emotion that I was feeling because Seth turned away to face the window, tucking his headphones into his ears. Guilt flooded my body and I plucked a headphone out then placed it in my own ear. To my delight, he was listening to Pierce the Veil, a band that I had been listening to since they hit the scene. For the rest of our flight to Atlanta, which was our next layover, we chatted about our love for punk bands and the meanings behind their lyrics. We finally arrived at Florida and the three men led me off the plane, their eyes scanning for the man taking me into protective custody.

I scanned the many people holding a sign then paused when I noticed one man was holding up a sign that read,”Sugar.” I nudged Ambrose and questioned,”Is that him there?” He turned then grinned at the sight of the man before cheering, ”Black!” We joined Black and I took in all the details that stuck out to me.

The first was his eyes: they were a fierce blue, something that showed determination, all narrowed in a no nonsense manner. Then I noticed the beard, neatly trimmed and kept,with a lip piercing sticking out. His hair was long, shaved on the sides then I noticed what he was wearing: a dark suit with tattoos peeking out the sleeves. Dear god, my bodyguard was hot.

“Are you done checking me out, or would you like a few more moments?” Black questioned, snapping me from my trance. He had the smallest of accents then it clicked in my head: he was from the Netherlands. I let out a small squeak of a sorry then he gave a small sigh, taking my suitcase from my hand, and he said,”Thank you, men. I will see you in a week.” I exchanged goodbyes and phone numbers with the three men that I made friends with then scurried to keep up with Aleister, who was already heading out the airport doors.

“Listen, I’m sorry about that back there.” I informed him after we placed my luggage into the trunk of his black Kia Optima. He flickered his eyes towards me as he started the car then he stated, “I have three rules and listen to them closely. One, don’t disobey my orders. Two, stay with me at all times unless I tell you otherwise. And three, don’t fall in love with me and I won’t do the same.”

“Well I’m here to say that I won’t break any of those rules.” I muttered, staring out of the window.

In between the jet lag and my pure exhaustion, I decided to take a brief nap until we arrived at wherever we were heading. When I woke up, however, I was in a room covered up with a soft blanket. I wrapped the blanket over my shoulders and exited the bedroom in search of Aleister.

“Black?” I called out as I entered the kitchen. As I rounded the corner, a note on the fridge caught my eye,’Went to the store, keep the doors locked, I have a key. Please don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

“Even in note form, he has a cold persona. Well, at least he said please.” I muttered, opening up the fridge to see if there was anything inside to drink. Unfortunately there was nothing but milk, so I went in search of hot chocolate mix. Surely he would have some here since it was winter time.

Thankfully he did have some so I boiled some milk and mixed in the chocolatey goodness before spooning the drink into a mug. I settled on the far left end of the sectional couch and gave a sigh as I began flipping through Hulu in search of something to watch. Eventually I chose Disappeared and waited for my bodyguard to arrive, hopefully with food. I was starving.

The sound of the lock turning and the door opening is what caught my attention away from the current episode I was engorged in and I turned to see Aleister enter the house with his arms full of groceries.

“I can help you.” I offered, coming to a stand. He shook his head then set the items on the table before he started to put away the cold stuff. For the next couple weeks, he remained quiet, only talking to me when he absolutely had to. But one night changed our entire relationship. We were sitting across from one another on the couch when his head jerked up towards the stairs, eyes narrowed.

“Get under the table and pull the rug back. Underneath there is a small room. Close the door and the rug will return to its spot. Don’t make a sound and don’t move.”he ordered, pulling a gun from the underneath of the coffee table. I scurried to my place and listened to my thundering heartbeat as the house went silent. Then I heard it: the familiar sound of gunfire. I bit my bottom lip and waited for about ten minutes until someone opened the door to my hidey hole.

“Oh good, you can listen.” Aleister rumbled, helping me out of the room. He hugged me briefly then turned his attention to the pool of blood in the hallway, which was luckily hardwood floor. His mouth twitched to the side then he pulled a mop and bucket, beginning to clean up the mess. I pulled out the dish soap and a bowl before mixing cold water with the detergent then began cleaning the blood up.

“What are you doing?” Aleister asked, raising an eyebrow at me. I glanced up from where I was kneeling and answered,”Helping you clean. Now shut up and keep mopping.” From that day on, our relationship changed from one of a professional matter to a more personal one.

“Black?” I asked as he entered the living room from his room. He turned to look at me and frowned when he saw that I was huddled underneath a blanket with a box of tissues curled up with me. He pressed the back of his hand to my forehead then muttered,”Please tell me that you’re not getting fucking sick on me?” I sneezed in reply and he let out a groan before hopping over the back of the couch then cuddled up to me.

“If your fever doesn’t break by morning, I’m calling a doctor friend of mine.”he warned me as I laid my head on his chest. I let out a small groan then whined,”I’m fine, just a small cold.” His blue eyes narrowed at my insistence then he pressed his lips to my forehead, causing my cheeks to catch fire.

“You’re running fever, can’t stop coughing, and there’s a pile of tissues on the floor beside you. You’re sick so shush up and watch this show. What’s this about anyway?” I explained that Disappeared was a collection of episodes about people who had gone missing all across the United States through recent years. He let out a small sigh but didn’t reply; instead, he pulled me a little closer and continued watching.

By the time morning rolled around, I was ten times worse, now throwing up everything that I had ate for the last couple hours. Aleister gave a sigh and a shake of his head before disappearing out of the bedroom to make a call. After he returned, he helped me into bed and stated,”Don’t move. Doc will be here in the next couple minutes.” Thankfully he was right and someone began knocking on the front door not but fifteen minutes later. He brushed my hair out of my face then left me alone long enough to let in his doctor friend.

“Hey, thank you for doing this for me.” Aleister said as he and another man came into the room. His friend, the doctor, was about the same height as Aleister with hair closely shaven to the scalp and I could see that he had tattoos peeking out. His friend laid his bag on the floor beside my bed then said in a soft tone,”I’m Baron, pleasure.” My eyes narrowed as I attempted to decipher how he had met my brooding bodyguard when Aleister informed me,”Old friends. I figured I’d save you from hurting that pretty little head.”

I balled my hands into loose fists since it hurt to move my body then muttered,”I may be sick but I will still kick your ass.” Black gave me a smirk then pushed my hands down as he replied, ”Good, you’re still a sassy little thing. Now please relax and let Baron do his thing.” He did a regular check up and when he was finished with his examine, he stated,”It looks like you have the stomach flu and a small case of bronchitis. Take it easy for the next couple days, don’t go out in the rain, it’ll only make it worse.”

The doc turned to face his friend then ordered, ”Plenty of fluids, little to no moving, and limit the caffeine. I know a coffee junkie when I see one.” I nodded in agreement and Aleister showed Baron to the door before returning with a bowl of chicken noodle soup. And when he began to feed me the soup, I decided to grumble out,“I feel like I’m five, being spoon fed by my mother.” He pursed his lips then offered, ”I could always let you fend for yourself, make you do everything.”

“I take it back, thank you, Black.” He paused for a moment, just staring at me, before he replied, ”Aleister. Just call me Aleister, alright,katje?” I looked up at him in surprise for the use of an endearment then nodded slowly, answering,”Yeah, okay. I can do that.”

Within four days, my flu and bronchitis flew my body and allowed my immune system to clean away all of the ickiness that might have been left behind. I stared at the shirtless Aleister in my bed and wondered who in my past life did I piss off in order to get this hot of a bodyguard in bed, even though I couldn’t touch him. I brushed his hair out of his face then gave him a small kiss on the cheek before walking downstairs to start making brunch for both Aleister and I.

I plugged in my headphones and began to dance to the first song that came through the miniature speakers as I started whisking eggs together. I completed Aleister’s omelet and just as I poured the next egg mixture into the skillet, a tattooed arm surrounded my waist and another pulled down on my headphones, yanking them from my ears.

“I thought I told you to stay with me at all times. You broke a rule.” Aleister rumbled, his beard rubbing deliciously against my neck. I bit my lip and looked over my shoulder before asking, “What are you going to do, spank me for it?” He paused then slinked away to sit on the counter across from me, his lips twitching once again. I handed him the plate then instructed, ”Biscuits just got done and sausage links are in the microwave staying hot. Make your plate.” He did as I said then settled at the bar, continuing to watch me as I finished my own brunch.

I claimed the seat beside him then opened the jar of salsa, spreading it across the top of my cheddar cheese and turkey omelet. He gave me a questioning look so I jabbed my fork in his direction and ordered, “Don’t knock it till you try it.” He rolled his eyes and continued to eat his own breakfast until I offered up a bite of mine.

“If this is secretly poisoned and you’re trying to kill the both of us, let me tell you this now. I will kick your ass in the afterlife.”he warned before eating the bite. I watched with amused eyes as he let out a delighted groan and he murmured, ”God, this is fucking awesome. Hand over the salsa, katje.” I slid it across the bar to him and continued to eat my food.

We finished breakfast in silence then Aleister’s phone began ringing, the name,”Shield” flashing across the screen. I raised an eyebrow and he answered the FaceTime, Seth, Roman, and Dean coming into focus.

Before Aleister could question why they were calling, I jumped in and asked, “Guys? What’s wrong?” It was obviously not a social call, because they’d call me for that purpose. And judging by the intensity of their expressions, I knew something was going wrong.

“Black, you and Sugar need to get out of that house now! We just got intel that they’re sending in Ricochet for you. Be there in five.” Dean rushed out, half of the audio cutting out. With a swift nod, Aleister ended the call and hurried to the front door, locking the many bolts as I yanked on my slippers then he ordered, ”Reach under the counter and hand me those two guns. This shit is about to get ugly, so I’m going to need you to hide, alright, katje?”

“I-I, don’t know!” He squeezed my face in between his hands then snapped,”Pull yourself together and stay with me on this. Open the kitchen cabinet and slip inside. There’s a false back to it, it’ll lead outside to a small shelter. You’ll hear a series of six knocks, a pause between every two. Open it then. Go now.” I paused at the cabinet and Aleister gave an annoyed sigh, gripping my jaw as he ordered,”Be good for me and go.” I nodded slowly and entered where I was instructed to go, sneaking into the small shed.

I waited with my heart jumping in my chest then finally, heard the knocks come through. I peeked the door open slightly and Dean pulled it open, ordering,”We’ve got to go now. Black has been compromised.” I froze in my tracks, stunned at what he told me, then whipped around, shouting,”What?! You can’t leave him alone in there!”

Someone stepped in front of me and I realized that it wasn’t Dean. It was a short man, shorter than Aleister with his hair shaven to his scalp. He slapped me across the face with the gun in his hand and Ambrose slammed into him, kicking him in the ribs before he snatched me up into a fireman’s carry, taking me out to the SUV where Seth and Roman was waiting for us. I settled beside Ambrose, allowing my head to lean against the window then I heard Seth ask faintly,”You really think Ricochet will kill Aleister?”

Roman smacked his partner’s chest when I let out a soft whimper. Dean squeezed my knee in comfort then informed me,”It’ll all be okay, Sugar.” I fell into the uncomfortable silence until we arrived at a medium sized building with two armed guards outside. I turned to face Dean who nodded in encouragement, the four of us entering the building. A man and woman greeted us at the door and she asked, ”What of Black?”

“Not sure. He sent us away with Sugar here.” The woman ushered me into a room with a small bed and offered,”You’re welcome to take a nap, my dear.” She was British, with dark hair and pale skin. I was in no shape to sleep however.

For the next week, I was unable to sleep. Dean, at one point, forced two gummy bears down my throat so I could sleep for a measly four hours. It was hard. Even though I had only known Aleister for about two months, I couldn’t help but slip into my bout of depression.

But then, the British woman, who’s name I learned was Paige, entered and said,”I think you’re going to want to see this.” I lifted my head and muttered, ”I'll pass.” She widened the door further open and someone else entered as I turned back to the wall.

“Katje.” My head jerked up at the sound of his voice and I sat up slowly when she shut the door, staring at him. With his beard growing out some more, his blue eyes seemed brighter and he wore a tank top and black skinny jeans. I stared at him and whispered,”Aleister?” He grinned at me and I finally snapped from my funk.

“Aleister,”I shouted, slamming into him with a hug, “Oh my fucking God, I thought they had killed you! Are you okay, are you hurt?” He cupped my face and tilted my head back, running his thumb gently over my bruised cheek, then he murmured,”I am so fucking sorry that you were hurt.”

“No, no, stop, it’s not your fault. I’m just so glad you’re alive. God!” I whimpered, squeezing him tighter. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer with a small sigh. And that’s what I felt it. With a nervous laugh, I asked,”Is that a gun in your pocket or are you happy to see me?” He backed away, releasing me, then pulled a Glock from his pocket. But the bulge in the front of his pants didn’t disappear.

“You, uh, you’re hard.” He licked his lips, unloading the gun, then placed it on the table and replied, “What do you expect me to be? I haven’t seen you for a week, katje.” I licked my lips in response and I said,”If we do this, I’ll actually break rule number three.” He smirked at me, pulling me closer, then asked,”Are you saying that you’re in love with me, katje?”

“Yes, I am, Black.” He yanked me closer and ran his thumb along the waistband of my leggings then murmured,”It’ll be a shame. I usually don’t break one of my own rules.” I wrapped my arms around his neck then pulled him closer as I whispered,”It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone that the big, bad Aleister Black gave into little ole me and fell in love.”

He hummed at my statement then pressed a soft kiss to the underside of my jaw as he replied softly, “I don’t know. Knowing that you're both sweet and kickass makes it a little easier to admit that I’m in love with you.” I shivered at the first brush of his beard and I could feel his grin as he asked,”Oh, is my katje sensitive? This is going to be so much fun.” I bit my bottom lip and informed him,”If you tickle me at all, I swear to God that I will kill you.” He laughed and walked me backwards so we could lay on the bed then he replied,”Don’t worry, I’ll only use it against you every day. Now, how about a proper kiss?”

“After you lose the shirt. I just need-“ He brought me into a tender kiss, tongue working my lips apart gingerly, then murmured,”Shh, don’t think. Just feel.” He slipped his hand up my shirt and let out a soft groan when he realized that I wasn’t wearing a bra, then tweaked my nipple with cold fingers. I let out a squeak and he laughed, pulling away to remove his shirt and my own.

“What a sweet thing you are. Can I take these off too?”he questioned, tugging downwards on my leggings’ waistband. I gave him the nod to go ahead and he gave me another kiss as maybe a thank you, then I pressed my hand gingerly against his cock, earning a moan from him.

“So you’re gonna tease me, katje? I don’t think so.” He clasped my wrists into his hand and lifted them above my head, placing miscellaneous hickeys along my breasts, neck, and collarbone. I tangled my leg around his waist then pulled him close, urging him on,”C’mon, Black, don’t be a bitch. Do something other than a bit of heavy petting.” Aleister bit his bottom lip and his free hand shot upwards, pressing down on my throat as he snarled,”Don’t fucking push me.” I grinned in response then it clicked in his head, the realization of what I wanted hitting hard. He licked his lips and asked, ”Are you sure?” I gave a nod then murmured,”Do it. I can take it.” His hand that was previously holding my hands moved to my hair and he fisted it tightly, warning,”If we do this, you will be mine.”

“Good, something I can get on board with. Now kiss me, you fool.” He pulled me in close and kissed me for a third time,lip ring pressing into my bottom lip, then he pressed his fingers to my clit, letting out a soft groan. I pulled away and breathed, ”You’re killing me here, Aleister. Please, I need something more.”

“Like what, katje? Something like-“ he pushed two fingers inside and I cried out in delight at the feeling but admitted, ”No, something more! Please, just fuck me!” He grinned at me, wolffish almost, and I watched with wide eyes as he grabbed his cock through the material of his underwear, stating,”You want this cock, katje, you’re going to beg me for it.” My thighs and jaw clenched in response then I pleaded softly,” Please, please, don’t tease me. Please, I’ve thought for the last week that you were dead, please, I just need you to fuck me and tell me that it’s all gonna be okay.”

He tugged at his lip ring with his teeth, debating on whether I had done good enough, then pulled his boxers down and threw them into a separate part of the room. With gentle hands, he spread my thighs further apart then he murmured, ”Alright, katje, don’t worry. I’m not gonna leave you again, okay?” I tangled my fingers through his hair and pressed my forehead to his as I whimpered,”I just… I lost my mind when I found out that you had been compromised and I was just so scared that you were dead, I just need you, please…”

“Shhh, little one, it’s alright now. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.”he cooed, pressing the head of his cock to my entrance, my hips canting forward for more. He pressed them to the bed and warned gently,”No, be good, katje. I’ll make you come, but only on my terms. Now, come on, stay still for me.” Even in such a tender moment, I knew that Aleister had control of the situation. I nodded then moaned as he finally sunk all the way in. He was thick, much thicker than I was used to and it had been so long since I had been fucked properly. I tangled my hand through his hair and pulled, desperate for him to move, then he pinned my hand above my head, tangling our fingers together with a small smirk.

“There, that’s better. Now be good for me, katje.” Finally, he began fucking me, a deep and moderate pace, not too slow thankfully. But I could see the restraint in his biceps, the ink of his tattoos rippling with his efforts. I lifted my free hand and gave a small grin then pinched his nipple, his pace changing afterwards, “Fucking brat. Just couldn’t accept the pace I set. You want fast, katje?” He slammed into me, the bed rocking with the force of his thrusts, then he slowed it down, asking,”Or so fucking slow that you’ll go out of your mind wanting your orgasm?”

“Fast, please, I can’t take the slow, please, Aleister!” I begged, pressing my leg into his ass as a means of encouragement. He grunted and returned to his faster pace, fingers pressing upwards on my clit, which caused my hips to twist and thighs to tremble. He gave a slow, almost lazy grin then said, “My beautiful little one, so responsive. I can’t wait to tie you to the bed and blindfold you.” I gave a small laugh then replied, ”Yes, I can't wait for that either, but I swear to God, if you don’t make us come right now, I’m going to cut you.”

His blue eyes lit up with excitement at my threat then I groaned as he kissed at my neck, murmuring, “You, a knife, and I in bed sounds like a hell of a time, katje. I’ll write that down for us to do.” I rolled my eyes and said, ”While that does sound like a great idea, I still want the two of us to come.” He let out a laugh and nodded in agreement, pinching and rolling my clit between two fingers, finally pushing me to my orgasm. He groaned as he pulled out and I watched, enthralled, as he jerked off, desperate to come himself.

With a groan, he came on my stomach, head hanging low. I licked my lips then he rolled away, wetting a washcloth in the bathroom, before returning to clean me up. He wiped timidly at the mess he made then tossed the dirty cloth in the laundry basket, curling into me.

My eyes fluttered shut and I didn’t even realized that I was crying until I felt Aleister wipe my tears away from my face. He gave me a kiss on the forehead and murmured,”Shh now, katje. I’ve got you. I am not going anywhere, do you understand me?” I gave a timid nod then he pressed up on my chin, giving me a kiss, before Aleister stated,”Say it for me, katje, so I know you understand.”

“You’re not going to go anywhere.” He nodded then cuddled into me before he murmured,”Well, at least rule number one wasn’t broke.” My eyes popped open at his statement then a slow grin stretched across my face, only for him to shoot me down,”If you break that rule, I’ll make sure that you won’t be able to sit, especially after we discuss limits and safe words.” I smiled and allowed myself to flutter into sleep, content filling my bones.

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vgckwb · 5 years ago

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ML: Are They Worthy? Chapter 71: Moving Target!/Scarlet Army (The Chase, Part 1)

The heroes were out chasing the helicopter. They wanted to end this quickly. Unfortunately, so did Hawk Moth. And neither side wanted to give up so easily.

The heroes were about to catch up, but then a beam shot out. All of them dodged, but in doing so, they let the helicopter get further away. “What was that?!” Ladybug asked. They looked out on the horizon to see the Death Art was coming this way. Flying alongside it was Pharaoh. “Oh boy.”

“Ladybug, it’s OK!” Bunnyx said. “I’ve got this!”

“You sure?” Ladybug asked.

Bunnyx nodded. “Trust me, I can handle this!” Ladybug nodded. “Burrow!” She leapt through time.

Ladybug turned her attention back to the helicopter. “Alright, let’s keep going!” she said. The rest of the team began to chase the helicopter again.

Meanwhile, Bunnyx arrived earlier that afternoon. She saw Alya standing in front of Rena Rouge. “Alright, let’s go” she said.

Alya nodded. “Seeya! Or Will be ya?”

Rena smirked. “Bon Voyage!” she said, waving her hand. Alya and Bunnyx disappeared in the time portal.

Alya looked at Bunnyx. “So, you know I’m Rena Rouge, right?” she asked.

“Yes” Bunnyx said.

“But I told me that where we are now currently in time, you don't,” Alya said.

“That is also correct” Bunnyx replied.

Alya looked puzzled. “So, when is it?”

Bunnyx looked at Alya and said “It’s in the not too distant future. I can’t tell you more than that. I don’t want to disrupt the timeline too much.”

Alya smirked. “You think this isn’t a disruption?”

Bunnyx smirked back. “Well, we also don’t want Hawk Moth to win.”

“True” Alya said in return. They arrived a few minutes before then. “So, why are you doing this now?”

“I’m doing it because I’m powered up” Bunnyx said. “I can do as much time travel as I want without worrying about my miraculous running out. I was told about all of this, and I figured I should help out here.”

“Otherwise, nothing would make sense” Alya said.

“Right” Bunnyx said “Alright, you got everything?” Alya nodded. “Good. You’re meeting up with everyone close to your place. I’ve got a prior engagement I need to return to. You know what to do. Burrow!” She went back through the portal.

Trix flew out. “Well, that was something,” she said.

“Yeah. Anyway are you ready?” Alya asked. Trixx nodded. “Then Trixx! Let's Pounce!” She transformed into Rena Rouge and left. She quickly found the other heroes and landed right beside them and said “Need some help?”

Back in close to the present, Art Vader was piloting his Death Art. He had locked onto Ladybug. He was about to fire but then Bunnyx came back and knocked the beam off course. “Sorry” she said.

“You!” Art Vader said. He took out his pen, clicked it, and it became his art-saber. He aimed to strike Bunnyx, but Bunnyx dodged and blocked with her umbrella. The two had a duel. Bunnyx knew that all she had to do was disarm Art Vader and then she could destroy the pen to free her father. She just needed to find an opening.

After some clashing, both of them backed up. Both were breathing heavily. Bunnyx thought she had an opportunity, but then Art Vader looked up and started to back off. Bunnyx was confused by this, but decided to slow down. Pharaoh then landed right where she was going to be.

Pharaoh looked at her. “You can’t escape us forever!” Art Vader walked up to join him.

“Burrow!” Bunnyx left the immediate area.

“She left” Pharaoh said.

Suddenly, the Death Art started to nose dive. “She’s still here” Art Vader said. The two then began to charge to the control room. Once they got there, Bunnyx was nowhere to be found. Art Vader steadied the ship.

“She’s toying with us” Pharaoh said.

“No matter” Art Vader said. “She’s on our turf right now. Let’s spread out and look for her.”

Bunnyx was hiding nearby. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel any panic whatsoever. She did smile though, and say to herself “This is my turf too”, and began constructing a plan.

As the heroes continued to chase the helicopter it started to rain ice cream. They dodged it, and on the horizon saw Glaciator. “Just keep away from the ice cream!” Ladybug yelled. They continued to dodge, but on Ladybug’s path was Party Crasher, who was anticipating their movements.

“I’ve got you now!” he said.

Pegasus saw this and acted quickly. “Gallop!” he said, creating a hole and grabbing Ladybug. “Are you OK?”

“Fine now” Ladybug. “We gotta move quickly!”

“And yet, you can move as quickly as me!” Rocket shouted. He went to tackle the heroes, but Pegasus went and pushed everyone through a portal before Rocket could get to them. As Pegasus raced to get King Monkey, King Monkey said “Wait! I’ll stay and fight with you.” Pegasus smiled. He then oped a portal to a few feet above them. When Rocket got there, the two heroes jumped on him and then landed on the ground. The two sides faced off.

The other heroes were on the other side of Glaciator. “We have to keep moving!” Ladybug rationalized. “They can handle it.” Cat Noir sensed the worry in her voice, but knew she believed in them. He nodded and they left.

As they continued chasing the helicopter, the heroes then heard the sound of a guitar being plugged into an amp. “Rock n Rip baby!” shouted Guitar Villain. He blasted his guitar. The heroes dodged it, but as Ladybug landed, Rhythm Robber appeared behind her and stole her rhythm.

“LADYBUG!” Viperion yelled. He then backed up his bangle to before Guitar VIllain attacked. “Ryuko! Blow Ladybug away from where she’s going to land!”

Ryuko nodded. “Wind Dragon!”

“Rock n Rip baby!” Guitar Villain shouted. This time, Ryuko blew Ladybug away and Rhythm Robber couldn’t grab her or Ryuko. “Can’t touch the air.”

A strong wind came out, blowing the Ryuko away. She turned to see Stormy Weather. “You’re not the only one who can control the weather here” she said.

Ryuko solidified and charged to strike Stormy Weather but was blocked by Darkblade. “Part le fer!”

Ryuko jumped back, Viperion joining her shortly after. “We got this Ladybug!” Viperon said.

“Are you sure?” Cat Noir asked.

“GO!” Ryuko said. Ladybug and Cat Noir nodded. The rest of the heroes continued after the helicopter. Viperon and Ryuko looked around. It was them against Guitar Villain, and his dragon that just showed up, Rhythm Robber, Stormy Weather, and Darkblade. “So, you have a plan?”

“Our opponents are formidable, no doubt about that” Viperion said. “They all seem to play a part. All we have to do is knock them out of their rhythm, while maintaining ours.”

“I see. Can you do that?” Ryuko said, sure of herself that she could.

Viperion smiled. “I’m not the rhythm guitarist of our band, but I think I can manage.”

“Then let’s go!” Ryuko said. The two jumped out to attack.

The other heroes kept chasing the helicopter. Suddenly a field of balloons got in their way. “Everyone! Stop!” Ladybug called out. They did. Suddenly, they all began popping and facepaint came flying at them.

“Pig Sty!” Hog Wild said, using her attack to distort the building they’re on to block the facepaint. Troublemaker phased through the wall, then solidified to try and attack Hog Wild. Hog Wild blocked her and she became permeable again to not get hit.

The wall was then destroyed. Once the rubble settled, they say the culprit was none other than Dark Kitty. She blasted her bass at the heroes, but Tigress blocked it with one of her Reverbs. Seamstress then flew up and threw her needle at Ladybug, but Hog Wild blocked it. “It’s OK Ladybug, Tigress and I got it from here!”

“Just focus on getting to Scarlet Moth!” Tigress reminded her. Ladybug nodded, and the heroes continued. Fun Lover rode up on a balloon and joined the other villains.

Tigress seemed nervous. Hog Wild placed her hand on Tigress’s shoulder and said “Hey. We got this!”

Tigress looked at Hog Wild and smiled. “Of course!” They then readied for combat, as did their enemies.

The rest of the heroes continued their chase. They then bumped into an invisible wall. “Ow!” Ladybug said. They looked and saw The Mime holding up the invisible wall. He then waved, and then mimed a rose and then threw it at the heroes.

“FIRE!” called out Captain Hardrock. A slew of noise balls flew out.

“HARDEN!” Oxenfree shouted in response. He then batted away the noise balls with his hammer. They ran into some other noise balls, causing them to be destroyed. Out of the explosion flew out Devil Cat on her motorcycle.

Scouries jumped off of Oxenfree and then used her jump rope to get Devil Cat off of her motorcycle, sending it crashing into Oxenfree, who felt nothing from it. “It’s OK Ladybug, we can handle it from here!”

“Yeah, don’t worry about us!” Oxenfree called out. “I know you can do it!” The other heroes left the two of them to it. Scouries threw Devil Cat at Captain Hardrock’s ship and then joined Oxenfree. “Hey” Oxenfree asked. “Are you worried?”

Scouries looked up at him and said “With you by my side? Never.” Oxenfree smiled. The villains then grouped and the two heroes stared them down.

The remaining heroes continued through Paris to try and make their way to the helicopter. The heroes were then encircled by a gathering of paintings. “Now what?” Cat Noir said.

“Now, it is time for I, The Mad King, to take charge!” he said, appearing to the heroes.

BleatStar took out his bell and swirled it around. “Feeling Harvest!” He gathered energy from a wider radius than average. He then used some of it to create spikes coming out of his bell to destroy the paintings.

“Hm! No matter, '' Mad King said. “You can’t take out every piece of art this city has to offer! Just look at these!” The heroes looked up to see Dark Owl’s boomerangs raining upon them. Rooster Gold used his crossbow to take each of them out.

“You’re quick on the draw there!” Dark Owl said, swooping in. “But not quick enough.”

The heroes noted that Dark Owl had a new visor. They then heard a “clunk...clunk...clunk.” They turned around to see a cartoon bomb land behind them. They jumped out of the way before it exploded. They looked back to see that it came from Animaestro holding another cartoon bomb in his hand. Behind him was a Dark Owl-brand flying camera

“I see” Rooster Gold said. He contemplated silently. “Ladybug! Go! I’ve got this!”

“You mean WE got this!” BleatStar said. “We’re a team after all!” Rooster Gold looked at him, smiled, and nodded. They then posed back to back in combat formation.

Ladybug smiled. “They’re right. We gotta keep going.”

“What makes you think we’ll let you?!” Mad King asked. Bleatstart then used his power to create a giant hand to pick up and throw the remaining heroes out of range of the three villains.

The six remaining heroes were now flying towards the helicopter. Unfortunately, they were bound by gravity, so they started to descend. They hit the ground running to continue. As they continued, a mound of glitter leapt in front of them and reformed into Style Queen. “This is the end of the line for you!” she said.

“I couldn’t agree more, sweetie” Malidictator said, appearing out of the woodwork.

“It is the honest truth, no?” said Justice Fist, coming from the other direction.

Honey Bee looked at the three villains. She contemplated, and said. “Go!” The other heroes looked at her. “I’ve got this!”

Cat Noir looked concerned. “You sure?”

Honey Bee nodded. “100%”

Cat Noir smiled. “Alright! Let’s move out!”

“I won’t let you!” Style Queen said.

“VENOM!” Honey Bee called out. Her swarm flying between the heroes and Style Queen, allowing them to escape.

The heroes kept running, keeping their eyes on the helicopter. However, they eventually ran into an area where they felt surrounded. “Well well, look who walked right into the spider’s web” said Anansi, appearing from the shadows.

The heroes looked around them and saw that they were surrounded on all sides by her, Playback, Power Washer, Jet Engine, and Homewrecker. Rena and Carapace looked at each other, and nodded. Carapace yelled “Ladybug! Cat Noir! Judgement Wolf! Jump!” The three heroes did as they were told. “Shell-ter!” Carapace created a shield that began growing. Once it was big enough, the three remaining heroes continued to chase the helicopter.

Carapace let down his Shell-ter. “Pretty bold move there, turtle boy!” Anansi said. “But just because you beat me once, doesn’t mean you can do it again! Especially now that I have help!”

“You may have these random strangers helping you,” Rena said, “but you don’t have the same bond as Carapace and I do! When we’re together, we could beat you all!”

“Aww, ain’t that cute?” Homewrecker said. “Let’s destroy it!”

“I agree!” Jet Engine said. The two of them charged the heroes, but they dodged it. Power Washer and Playback aimed to shoot the heroes, but they dodged that as well.

Anansi growled. “See?” Rena said.

It was down to just Ladybug, Cat Noir, and Judgement Wolf. The three of them continued to chase the helicopter. However, they all stopped in the presence of Gorizilla, who started them down intently.

Heartwarmer then appeared behind them and attempted to grab Judgement Wolf. Judgement Wolf noticed before it was too late, and dodged, grabbed, and threw Heartwarmer. However, he was caught by Copycat, and the two landed safely.

Cat Noir heard something, and got out of the way of Frightningale’s whip. “Ooooo. Nice moves Kitty” she said. “Why don’t you do that all the time?” She grabbed her whip and snapped it.

“While I do love to be amusing, I’ll do it at my own leisure” Cat Noir responded.

Judgement Wolf turned to Ladybug and said “You should go on” Ladybug was shocked. “Cat Noir and I can handle it, isn’t that right?”

Cat Noir turned to Ladybug. “He’s right. We’ve got this under control. You need to focus on getting to Scarlet Moth.” Ladybug looked nervous, then confident. She then ran and threw her yo-yo. Once it grabbed onto something, she zipped passed Heartwarmer��s blast, Copycat’s staff, Frightningale’s whip, and went under Gorizilla. She then launched herself in the air to continue chasing the helicopter.

As Judgement Wolf and Cat Noir looked at the four villains they’d be facing,Cat Noir said to Judgement Wolf “Hey. Doesn’t this remind you of London Fashion Week?”

“You and I remember London Fashion Week very differently” Judgement Wolf said. The two of them began their charge.

Ladybug was left alone to chase Scarlet Moth and Catalyst down. She said to herself. “I believe in them! Come what may, I know they can win!”

Meanwhile, Scarlet Moth was observing Ladybug chasing him down. “Excellent!” he said. “The herd has been thinned! Time to begin phase two!” He then contacted more of his Scarlet Army. “Zombisou! Despair Bear! Rogercop! Nighthawk! Commence phase two of the operation!”

“Yes sir!” they said in unison.

“Receiver Deceiver! Continue making more soldiers for me!” Scarlet Moth called out.

“Aye aye, captain!” she said. She dialed a number and disappeared into her phone.

Scarlet Moth looked on. “Soon, all of Paris will fall into chaos! Can you keep up, Ladybug? Or will you need to give in? It didn’t have to come to this. I just need that one wish!”

Ladybug was talking to herself as well. “When I get there, will you listen to what I have to say? Or will you ignore me? I’m helping you as we speak. I just need you to know that.”

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houkagokappa · 6 years ago

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Sarazanmai Main PV analysis

Third time’s the charm. With Sarazanmai airing tomorrow I finally want to go through the main PV and give you my thoughts and impressions and observations from it.

The timing hasn’t been too bad since the official English subbed trailer came out yesterday when Crunchyroll announced they would add Sarazanmai to their simulcast for Spring 2019.

youtube

I don’t really have any authority to comment on the translation. It’s professionally made and it’s good. There are some translation differences to mine (I never translated the main PV, but they reuse a lot of the phrases I’ve translated in the past). For the most part I’ve been more literal (mainly so that I can retain as much original information as possible, even at the cost of it sounding chunkier).

Japanese is a very contextual language with room for many interpretations, especially when the full context is missing, so seeing differences in the translations are to be expected. The only difference I find eye-catching is the phrase “Suck out the greed” since they clearly use 欲望 desire/lust. Maybe the translator knows something about the upcoming episodes that I don’t?

The PV starts with the same beautiful gloomy music from the Tsunagaru PV and Kazuki jogging/running in Asakusa. He’s wearing the matching bracelet he shares with Enta around his ankle. We specifically see shots of the red Azuma Bridge as well as Tokyo Skytree and Asahi Beer Hall in the background on the other side of the river. The stage is Asakusa alright.

Then there’s this wild spark in the middle of Kazuki’s melancholic narration about wanting to connect but not being able to.

Pink’s an unusual colour for sparks but plays on Ikuhara’s typical use of colours. It seems to be revealing a grid of some sort. This also feels very Ikuhara, he has a habit of combining the whimsical with the mechanical and technical. Think about the whole “ROCK OVER JAPAN” sequence for example.

The tone shifts, the upbeat ending theme “Stand By Me” by the peggies starts playing and Sara greets us cheerfully. She looks like an idol with her sparkling starry eyes and own TV program. The ア is everywhere. It seems to be used in her show a lot. There’s still no indication what exactly it stands for though.

This screenshot is pretty interesting. The text under “Fortune of today” says “lucky selfie divination”. Is Sara a fortune-teller? Are these her mysterious powers in action? The smaller text says “dish. I can’t see regular people. SARAtto report + Looking for the Prince. Characteristics are [ikevo?] a good smell and fair complexion”. Is that going to be Keppi or the mysterious figure from the last chapter of the manga? Or are they the same?

The focus shifts back to Kazuki. He’s talking about only needing three rules in his life, which could be good or a bad depending what those rules are. Okay let’s face it this is Ikuhara they’ll be bad.

First he’s on his phone like in the earlier PV’s and then we see him with the kappazon cardboard box in his hands walking among other people. We get a quick glimpse of a weird golden kappa statue that makes the same kind of pose I assume the boys will do when they transform. What looks like a phone strap with Sara’s kappa-like creature swings by. It’s probably Kazuki’s and he’s a fan of Sara. There’s also a not-so-hidden ア that’s just on a tile on the pavement, showing us that they really are everywhere.

Next up we have Tooi. We’re shown a calendar (that I think is hanging on a classroom wall) with an overview of July and August (covering the summer vacation). Is that when Sarazanmai takes place? The illustrations for the calendar are of kappa. One highlights that kappa like/need water in their “sara” plates, the cavities on top of their heads. The other one depicts their love for sumo-wrestling. These are both typical kappa things we know from having studied the lore!

Tooi himself is along the river talking to his older brother Chikai. “Let’s get this over with. You and I aren’t very different”. There’s also one of the funniest reveals yet when we see Tooi’s weapon up close and it turns out to be a ruler. As a final touch there’s another ア to be seen right next to the brothers.

Then we get Enta’s presentation. At first he’s playing soccer by the river and then we see him holding on to the bracelet he shares with Kazuki. The in-between frame shows us a fish shop. What’s remarkable about it is that all the signs on it say “kiss”. Then we get a kappazon.co.jp box that flies away. Enta talks about having a strong bond that can’t be easily broken. Based on what we know it’s safe to assume he’s talking about Kazuki.

Then things get weirder when it’s Keppi’s time to appear on screen. He’s holding on to a cucumber, which is another thing that kappa love. He tells the boys that they’ve been turned into kappa and that they need to get the zombie shirikodama in order to turn back. We see the boys all slimy and gooey in their new kappa forms. Kazuki still has the box, so it might be something that happens during this walk of his that we’ve been seeing the whole time.

This is a very interesting frame. The pictograms behind the kappa boys look like ghosts. Are they supposed to be the boys’ souls or something like that? Or are they actual spirits wandering around? Story wise them being the boys’ makes more sense, but from an artistic viewpoint I think it’s weird to suddenly draw something that’s part of the main characters in the style that’s deliberately simplified and created for background characters. There’s also the “DO NOT ENTER” sign with the otter symbol and a cross over it. Clearly the otter is unwanted, that’s been confirmed by the Reo and Mabu’s keeponly1luv twitter account as well.

The PV continues with its interesting imagery. The next shot is of this circular shape with the words “no start”, “no end” and “no connection” getting revealed. We’ve heard these words before so they’ll be important. They all tie together, but we’ll have to wait and see just how. It’s possible that they each apply to one of the three boys. Kazuki can’t connect, Enta doesn’t want to let go (end) and Tooi doesn’t want to uhh... get involved and start anything?? I’ll have to think about this more another time, or please send me your theories!

The background isn’t the same as it was for the spark earlier, but it’s the same style. I wonder if it’ll have anything to do with what the cops are up to because they’ll be introduced soon and they were the ones talking about no beginnings or endings.

The PV continues and there’s a small explosion hiding the boys in a cloud of black smoke while they let out a surprised scream.

Then there’s a pling, which I think resembles the sound an elevator makes when it reaches the right floor and opens its doors. The background is a metallic grey so it might as well be where the scene plays out. Reo and Mabu appear with their weird new catchphrase “Suck out the greed” (or desire!) and there’s some mechanical action that starts. Lights get turned on, gauges reach their max and a bunch of signs with the kanji 吸 “suu”, to suck or inhale appears.

I guess this is their machine for sucking out the greed? Or desire. I’ve pointed out the heart in the upper right corner before but it’s worth pointing out again. Earlier I wondered if this machine was somehow alive, but now I’m thinking that it might just stand for “desire”.

This is all controlled by the otters, the next cut shows us otters decals that are peeling. The otters seem to be controlling some circular objects, not unlike the construction we saw light up earlier.

Then there’s the “desire extraction” that covers all of Asakusa. The cops throw their hats. Celebrating their success? In an attempt to be dramatic? You decide.

Next up the opening there “Massara” by KANA-BOON starts playing and we see the three boys striking poses while in their kappa forms. I’m guessing it’s from the actual OP although it might be part of their transformation sequence.

Following this there’s a scene where the otter symbol all over Asakusa (or Sumida where Tokyo Skytree is located) burning red. It definitely looks like a bad infestation. There’s also a spiral with text reaching down from the heavens. The text is the same as we got in the first teaser PV’s and says “CHARGE” and “desire”. As something new there’s also ハコ which is the word for “box” written in katakana. I think this is a reference to the Box Zombie which is supposed to be the first zombie we’ll be introduced to. There are certainly boxes everywhere in the following shots while the zombie seems to have a lust for more cardboard.

Are the otters summoning the zombies? There’s definitely a connection between them.

Then we see Keppi run with a cart (or whatever it’s called) where the kappa boys sit. They seem pretty chill so I wonder if this is after their fight with the zombie? Next up we see one of these legendary shirikodama balls. It’s a ball with the kanji for butt on it. Then the three kappa boys are flying around, apparently connecting through the sarazanmai. They managed to connect in one way at least by holding on to each other’s hands.

I also find this next image interesting, it really plays up the “connection” part of Sarazanmai. We get the ア again and what looks like a mobile signal. It’s a very modern and a very literal interpretation. Ikuhara has mentioned the era of the internet and how easy it is to connect through the use of smartphones and apps several times when he’s talked about the inspirations behind Sarazanmai. Old vs. new has been another topic and this highlights that as well.

After this we see another shot of the Asakusa Sara TV program. The text is the same as previously but this time the image is of a traditionally drawn Japanese woman. Is this where the “old” is brought in?

Then this is another one of my favourite shots! It’s the Niimi Yoshokkiten kitchenware department store, that’s also the building where Reo and Mabu’s “Asakusa Sara Kouban” is located. Their police box/station is the red structure at the bottom of the building and I think we can see their silhouettes inside of it. What I really love about this image though is the otter that’s next to the giant chefs head on top. To be clear, the chef’s head is actually there in real life actual Asakusa while the otter is something the anime added there. I think this highlights the fact that Reo and Mabu are working under the otter (literally! - pun not intended).

The signs on the building are a bit difficult to decipher, but I see ウソ a lot which means lie. There’s also something about the world and food/eating? The text on the top that says “kawau” is probably in reference to “kawauso” which means otter.

As a side note I want to point out that the second teaser PV that featured the otter symbol had a narration about lies and otters. Could it be about Reo and Mabu? Who’s the one with the strong desire…

Right after that split second image we get this one. That’s an otter! Clearly controlling/ordering all the other otters around! Mabu makes a comment that someone tries to get in their way, which we can assume will be the three boys. Are they confirmed villains now? I feel like a lot of people aren’t buying it. With Ikuhara first impressions are often deceiving and characters can have good reasons for their seemingly horrible actions, so I wouldn’t count in it.

Next Asakusa Sara TV reports on flying boxes. The text that is show on screen is absolutely horrible to read and full with silly puns on Sara’s name and her using “dish” instead of “desu”. It’s cute as long as you don’t have to translate it yourself. The time here is 19:00 which makes me think that this PV covers the entire first episode and will end here with this (it was 7:55 at the start).

Reo and Mabu have their little quasi villain speech and then Keppi talks to the boys and says “you’re as dead as you are alive”. Does this have to do with the “turning into kappa” process and the “ghosts” I mentioned earlier? Are the boys’ actually half-alive, half-dead? Isn’t that what zombies are? Suddenly things are starting to make more sense!

There’s quite a lot going on visually. Keppi’s eyes look terrifying. They’re large, read, black and purple. He seems to clapping, so I’m guessing this happens after the boys have dealt with the zombie successfully. One of the ア signs falls down and is heavy enough to break the pavement. There’s a close-up of Kazuki’s face where he looks kind of frightened and surprised and then in classic Ikuhara fashion there’s a shot of hands trying to hold on to each other but not being able to do so. However, unlike in his previous works there are now three of them. It’s most likely for the three boys, although it could also be one boy using both of his hands.

Then there’s text on the screen that says “even if you connect”. Tooi fills in that he “won’t let you have it”, Enta says that he “doesn’t ask for anything else” while Kazuki “can’t bear to lose his connection”. Tooi’s just angsting in front of the lockers, Enta’s shown where he was practising football, but what’s interesting is that he has a kappazon box right next to him. It looks like the one Kazuki was carrying. Could it be the same? Could it have been for him? Kazuki’s chilling somewhere (at home?) out of frame with his phone in his hands. He has the Sara strap on it and a tiny otter icon appears on the screen.

Then the most mysterious thing in the PV happens with all these ア signs flying around and uhh... through Kazuki? The pink things look a little bit like buildings, are they perhaps reflections? The sparkles and the rainbow give this image the impression there’s something reflective. I really don’t have that much else to say although I’d love to be able to do so.

The PV ends with the three boys appearing as kappa yelling “sara” and “sarazanmai”. The final shot shows us the iconic look over Asakusa and Sumida with the tagline “Don’t let go. Desire is your life.” The ア’s are everywhere.

#sarazanmai #sarazanmai thoughts and analysis #sarazanmai nonsense #my nonsense

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