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itsthemoofacewriting · 4 years ago

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Drowning in the night

Among us is quite popular at the moment (rightly so) and it’s Halloween, so I was really feeling this. It pushed aside all of my current WIPs in demand to be written.

There’s a lot of similarities with the game, but I did take some artistic liberties, so don’t come at me. If you’ve never played Among us, it might be worth looking up the rules/gameplay before reading- otherwise a lot of things are going to fly straight over your head. The ship is based on the Skeld map to give you a rough layout, but there are some differences.

Title is from ‘Burning Lights’ by The Weeknd, I listened to this a lot when I was writing.

Summary: The ship’s suddenly breaking down and crew members are starting to behave suspiciously. Bonds are about to be tested as suspicion rises of an imposter amongst them. ZoNami. Among us AU. Rating: M- Horror, Blood, Gore

Can also be found on AO3 and FFN.

Enjoy!

Nami’s looking at the charts on the screen in front of her and frowned. The ship’s slightly off course. She’d plotted that just this morning and the weather nodes hadn’t detected anything for concern, there was no reason for the shift. She shrugged it off. Sure this was the first time it’d happened, but this wasn’t the newest ship anymore. She’d check the weather nodes shortly and keep an eye on things.

For now though, she made the adjustments and as she did, she caught Zoro dozing off at the far wall near the door. He’d been hiding away in here for most of the morning and if she hadn’t already known about him dealing with stray asteroids this morning on his watch, she’d be moaning at him about being lazy. Give it another 10 minutes and she still might.

But then she stopped and gave him an assessing look as an idea came to mind. He hadn’t moved for the last 10 minutes, he was probably in a deep sleep by now, and that thought made her hand twitch for the permanent marker that she knew was in her desk drawer. She’s done it before, and it’d been hilarious. He’d walked around the whole day with a moustache and pirate patch without knowing. Some would say it’s mean but she believed it was fair play.

“No,” he said, one eye cracked open to glare at her.

How the hell did he do that?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She smiled at him far too innocently, hands behind her back, and his other eye opened to properly glare at her.

When it was clear he wasn’t buying what she was selling, she huffed and turned around to get back to her task and Zoro readjusted to get comfortable again as he let his eyes slip shut.

Nami and Zoro had been travelling together for years, along with Luffy, Usopp and Sanji. Only recently had they been joined by Chopper, Robin, Franky and Brook. In all honesty, Nami wasn’t sure how they coped without them. Running a ship was difficult at the best of times and before, they’d been doing with only five people and no mechanic- Usopp could only do so much. Franky had blanched when he’d seen the state of the ship.

She’d just finished her adjustments when the communicator in her ear suddenly started to screech and it’s so deafeningly loud there’s a moment where she can’t do anything other than clutch at her helmet. From the corner of her eye she can see Zoro having the same reaction, no longer snoozing against the wall.

In the next moment she’s trying to tear off her helmet, except she can’t get the final clip to undo at the back and the more desperate she was becoming, the harder it was to do. Her eardrums felt like they were about to burst any second and there’s tears collecting in her eyes from the pain.

But then it’s over. There’s another pair of hands pushing hers away and smoothly unclipping the helmet. Not a moment later and she’s clawing out the earpieces to throw them across the room. There’s still ringing in her ears but it’s fading quickly now there’s silence.

“You alright?” Zoro’s voice is rough, no doubt from his abrupt wake up call. He’s looking down at her with concern, like it hadn’t just happened to him too and his thumb is wiping the stray tear that fell.

It’s a soft gesture, especially for him, and it’s like it suddenly dawned on him what he’s done. He coughed, face flushing and took a step back, avoiding eye contact. Nami smiled to herself, he was doing more and more things like this lately and it was becoming more apparent why with each passing day.

In the early days of the crew, Zoro and Nami had spent their days viciously arguing with each other and if it hadn’t been for Luffy gluing them together back then, she wondered if they’d still be travelling together now. Their arguing had ceased as time had passed and they’d got to know one another. Now they bickered instead and it’s harmless, even if they do anger the other occasionally give it half an hour and they’re back to normal. It was easy for Nami to call Zoro one of her best friends. Because he is. He understood her and although it worked against her sometimes, she’d have it no other way.

But lately. Lately things had shifted. She couldn’t put her finger on it. More time spent together and soft looks that he thinks she doesn’t see. Yet, it’s hard to tell with Zoro. He doesn’t do anything overly romantic and as for flirting, she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him do it. He doesn’t seem like the type and that’s fine, but it made it hard to be sure. Maybe he just viewed her as a friend, or worse, as a sister. She knew that Luffy did.

When Nami nodded in response to his question, it should be awkward, Zoro still refusing to look directly as her and her cheeks were warm from his gentle touch, but the communicators were still screeching, and it could be heard from across the room. Frowning, Nami walked over to pick them up. It’s the first time it’s ever happened in all her time on board and paired with the drifting ship, she can’t help the suspicion that’s brewing.

Maybe their ship had seen it’s best already- a thought that Nami didn’t want to entertain too much. There were so many memories on this ship.

There’s a commotion outside that halted her thoughts, feet thumping through the long corridors and voices calling out to Franky. Zoro’s nodding to her then, gesturing towards the door that they should also go.

Unfortunately, Zoro took the lead.

“How many times do I have to tell you? It’s right out of navigation to get to the cafeteria!”

Zoro turned on his heel and stomped past Nami, face flushed in embarrassment. “I’ve gone that way before,” is his only defence.

Nami rolled her eyes. “You can go that way, but it takes twice as long and, knowing you, you’ll end up taking another wrong turn and do a whole lap around the ship.”

Based on his silence, that is what he’s done before.

She truly wondered about her sanity sometimes, falling for a guy that has no sense of direction. An idiot.

They’re the last ones to arrive when Franky’s explaining the issue. Something about a system that’s probably fried, although he doesn’t understand why it’s happened yet. Just that he’ll investigate and get back to them and that sounded reasonable enough to everyone as they nodded along. Franky collected their earpieces.

“Back to shouting then,” Nami sighed, imagining the chaos and noise this’ll bring. Luffy on the other hand is thrilled, and everyone knows he’ll spend the rest of the day running around the ship.

They’re breaking apart after that, back to their previous activities, and Sanji’s shouting after them about lunch being soon, which immediately stopped Luffy from leaving to tail Sanji back to the kitchen instead.

“I need to check the weather nodes, our course altered for some reason and I need to make sure they’re performing. If they’re not, I can’t anticipate any weather patterns that’d affect the ship’s course,” Nami explained as they walked back to navigation. Although as soon as she did, she realised she’s discussing this with Zoro, of all people. He’s never understood any of this and she’s sure it just goes in one ear and out the other.

Nevertheless, he nodded and wisely kept his mouth shut. At least he understood she’d need someone with her to do that. It wasn’t wise to step outside alone; there were old wives’ tales of people going missing when they went outside the ship alone.

“After lunch. The cook’s bitching at me about cleaning the garbage shoot.” Despite his words, he still settled back down into his previous spot by the door and she knew there’d be an argument kicking off soon if he didn’t move himself.

Before she could tell him as much, the lights above them flickered and there were voices throughout the ship shouting “Usopp” and “electrical”. Usopp could be heard loudly groaning in response and his feet dragging through the ship.

Zoro grunted his goodbye shortly afterwards and Nami shouted “turn right”, but it was too late. He was gone and she knew him well enough to know he’d turned left instead. Idiot.

Nami was typing away at the screen, downloading this morning’s data and making a note to head over to admin to do it there as well. If she didn’t, it was unlikely anyone else would. Although Robin might, she had been known to do it occasionally. That woman was a blessing. Nami honestly didn’t know how she’d survived all this time with those idiots, even if they were her idiots, they drove her insane at times with their laid-back attitudes.

She’s still downloaded data when she suddenly heard a rumbling sound behind her, far too close for comfort, and she jumped, turning as she did but nothing was there. It was quiet for a moment and she could feel a cold sweat breaking down her back. It was ridiculous, she’d always felt safe in this ship but there was something about this morning that was getting to her and she’d never heard that sound before. It happened again and one of the vents rattled.

Not a second later, she was running out of the room, feeling like a spooked child, and swiping her key card to lock the door behind her.

A shiver ran down her spine but before she could do anything else, a blood-curdling scream ripped through the ship. Her head whipped towards the direction and she was running before she could even think it through, she knew that scream anywhere, but she’d never heard him like that before.

“Usopp!”

She was passing through storage when a voice shouted after her. “Nami! What the hell happened?” Zoro asked, catching up to run alongside her.

“No idea. I’m hoping he just electrocuted himself.”

But for all her wishful thinking, Usopp wouldn’t scream like that over something so menial and Zoro must have thought the same as it was written all over his face.

Along the way, they’d picked up Brook and Robin and as they narrowed in on the room, from the opposite direction was Chopper, Sanji, Luffy and Franky.

The door flew open and Sanji was the first to ask, “What the fuck was that?!”

The room looked trashed, wires haphazardly dangling from units or snapped with electricity sparking from them. Usopp was in the middle of the chaos.

“Something grabbed me! It tried to drag me across the room,” Usopp said, his voice shaking and on the verge of hysterical as he sat on the floor hunched over and clutching at his ankle. His face was as white as a sheet.

Despite the state of him, and the room, the crew were aware of Usopp’s rather… theatrical storytelling.

“Sure it wasn’t just a rat? Maybe its tail touched you or something,” Zoro suggested, shrugging his shoulders.

Nami grimaced at that thought but she nodded. “As much as the thought pains me, it probably was a rat. You guys hardly clean very much.” Something she would make a point of nagging them about from now on.

“What’s wrong with your ankle?” Chopper inquired; he’d been quiet thus far but as the ships doctor, he’d noticed Usopp’s odd position.

Usopp cringed as he removed his hands from his ankle and the crew blanched. The yellow of his suit was ripped open and his hands were covered in blood. The skin around his ankle had a deep handprint that cut through the skin. The most disturbing part was the claw marks surrounding the handprint, the skin raw and red around the scratches. Clearly there’d been a struggle.

“Oh shit,” Sanji muttered under his breath, eyes going round.

Because not only was Usopp hurt, but that was a handprint on Usopp’s bloodied ankle.

One that looked very human.

The room suddenly felt far too heavy.

It was then that Luffy spoke. So far he’d been quiet but his frown had only grown. “Cafeteria,” he ordered, his voice firm and a stark contrast from the happy-go-lucky captain they were used to.

“This hardly seems like the time to eat,” Franky trailed off, rubbing the back of his head as his eyes trailed from Usopp to Luffy.

“There’s multiple exit points,” Robin supplied, catching on to what Luffy meant.

That set the mood. Suddenly everyone seemed on edge as the reality of the situation settled. Luffy was being serious. This was serious.

Sanji and Zoro wrapped one of Usopp’s arms around their shoulders and they were hauling him up to follow after Luffy towards the cafeteria. Chopper scuttled after them, saying he’d stop by the medical bay for supplies before meeting them there.

Nami stood there, trying to comprehend just what was going on as everyone filed out.

Robin walking over to touch her lightly on the arm. “If whatever this is was dangerous, it would have killed Usopp on sight without leaving a trace of him,” she reassured.

That at least got Nami out of her stupor and she gaped at her friend in horror. “That’s so dark Robin!”

The atmosphere in the cafeteria was tense, no one had spoken, not even when Chopper had trotted in to start working on Usopp’s ankle.

Sanji broke the silence. “Did you see anything?”

“No.” Usopp shook his head. “One minute I’m elbow deep in wires and the next I’m on the floor being dragged.”

“Full story, go from the start and tell us exactly what happened.”

“Okay, so I’m in the corner because for some reason the wires looked frayed and I thought I heard something but when I turned there was nothing. I turned back to continue but then there’s something grabbing my ankle and pulling me across the floor.” He paused then, his body shaking slightly. “It came from behind and that’s when I screamed. I started kicking and thrashing around, grabbing onto whatever I could and then it just disappeared. It was like nothing was even there in the first place.”

“Where was it dragging you?” Nami asked. She had a hunch.

“It didn’t get very far but I think it was towards the opposite corner.”

“Where the vent is?” She could feel dread filling her… surely not?

“Yeah!”

The crews gaze swivelled on Nami then, waiting for her to explain why she would guess something like that.

“There were weird sounds in navigation and the vents were rattling just a few minutes before you screamed but I ran as soon as I heard it.” She shivered at the thought, that could have been her.

“You think it came through the vents!?” Chopper squeaked, there was vents in the med bay too. There were vents in almost every room and that knowledge didn’t settle anyone.

“What the hell is small enough to fit in there and move around so quickly?!”

“Also, the ship’s behaving strangely. It was off course this morning just after I’d plotted it out, then the communicators breaking and then the lights?!” Nami said and with each passing issue she listed, the feeling of dread grew.

“What are you suggesting?” Robin calmly asked.

There was a moment of silence, because this moment was inevitable, and they’d all been trying to delay it. Where someone would have to voice what everyone was starting to think.

That someone in this crew did it.

“Where’s everyone been this morning?” Zoro asked, solemnly.

Everyone’s rattling off their locations and, so far, they’d all been with each other, apart from Usopp. But it’s then that Nami realised, Zoro had left just before it’d happened. He’d left to go and clean the garbage shoot and by the sounds of it, never made it there as Sanji didn’t say anything about seeing him.

“Me and Zoro were in navigation.” Zoro shot her a look and she’s not technically lying but if she gets found out that he had left briefly, it’d looked suspicious as hell. But there’s no way Zoro did this, one of the foundations of this crew along with her and Luffy, their longest standing member, their second in command, and she’s not about to have people pointing fingers at him.

Zoro’s shooting her looks that she decided to ignore but he doesn’t challenge her. If he did now, not only would he put himself under suspicion, but it’d also take her down with him. It’s the last thing either of them needed.

“Then something else must be on the ship,” Sanji offered, unwilling to point any fingers.

“How? We’ve been travelling for weeks and it picks now? Sounds too sophisticated for something that’s not human and how’s it not been spotted? It’s gone around undetected all this time?” Zoro questioned.

“So what? You’re suggesting it’s one of us? The vents are too small!”

“Unless someone in this room isn’t who they say they are,” Zoro continued and although he was off to the side, he had the attention of the whole crew. “The ship suddenly breaking when it’s been fine all this time and getting around undetected. This needs knowledge, something that can be learned by being around us all.”

“There’s rumours about this. They’ve never been confirmed though because ships and their crew disappear without a trace, never to be seen again,” Robin chimed in and it had Nami, Usopp and Chopper looking at her in terror. Franky shook his head next to her.

“That’s old wives’ tales!” Usopp said, but there’s a wobble in his voice that doesn’t make it believable. “Right?”

“Had to come from somewhere and we did just pick up new recruits,” Zoro said and his scrutinising gaze is aimed at Robin, Franky and Brook.

“You better not be suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” Sanji growled, no doubt sticking up for Robin.

“Coincidental, no?” Zoro’s eyebrow quirked.

“I think everyone needs to calm down,” Brook said, his hands held up to avoid confrontation.

“So you’re accusing Chopper, too right? Because he’s just as new as the rest of them,” Sanji argued, ignoring Brook, to call Zoro out his favouritism. It was no secret that Zoro had taken the young medic under his wing.

They both started arguing and soon enough, the rest of the crew’s chiming in to either argue for one side or try to calm everyone down.

Nami agreed with Brook. They weren’t going to get anywhere sitting around pointing fingers at each other with no proof. “Luffy, say something!”

Her plea to the silent captain cuts through the argument and everyone’s turning towards Luffy for his verdict. He had yet to weigh in on the argument, but now wasn’t a time for silence. They needed their captain to take charge.

“No turning on each other,” is all he instructed, face serious and arms crossed from his position on the table.

“Luffy-” Zoro started, no doubt about to try and talk some sense into him as second in command.

“What if you’re wrong?” Luffy fired back, not letting up and he made a good point. Not even Zoro would forgive himself if he was wrong.

“And if I’m right?”

“Lot of ifs flying about,” Usopp jumped in.

“We’ll deal with that if the time comes.” There’s a finality in Luffy’s voice that said this part of the discussion was over.

“Franky, what are the routes for the vents?” Nami enquired, eager to move away from that topic. They needed to move forward anyway, not in circles. “Maybe we can avoid them until we find… whatever this is.”

Franky sighed, his shoulders slumping, “I connected them all together a few weeks ago… It made more sense for ventilation.”

Nami cringed in response, it’s a bad answer and one that put him on the receiving end of a few sharp looks. Robin rubbed his shoulder consolingly, but it didn’t do much to alleviate the tension in the room. It was like everyone in the room just put him straight into the number one position for most suspicious and he knew it.

Zoro was about to open his mouth but instead of words it was replaced by an angry shrieking of the alarm and red lights suddenly started flashing above their heads.

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s the reactor!”

“So it can’t be any of us, we’re all here!” Sanji exclaimed, shooting Zoro a sour look as he spoke and Zoro returned the look tenfold.

“Not the time for that!” Nami barked, in no mood to break up a fight right now.

And then the lights cut out and they were in pitch black for a few seconds before the dim of the emergency lights flickered to life. They were far weaker than the main lights and the result was poor visibility- everything would be so much harder to do like this. The intermittent flash of red didn’t do much to help either.

It was just one thing after another.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Nami presumed that was Sanji based on the language and the chair that was just kicked across the room.

“What do we do?”

“I’m going to deal with the reactor.” Franky shouted, already making his way to the door with Robin on his heels. “The lights shouldn’t go off like this unless there’s multiple breaks in the wires, you need to find where the broken wires are, it’s most likely in multiple places.”

He’s almost gone but he stopped at the door when Nami shouted after him, “Franky, did you fix the communicators?”

“Not well but they’ve stopped screeching, it’ll have to do for now.” He quickly grabbed the small devices from his suit pocket, chucking them towards the crew.

And then he was gone.

“Everyone in pairs, do not leave anyone alone and we’ll meet back here after!” Luffy ordered.

Zoro was instantly by Nami’s side and Sanji looked like he was about to argue until Usopp clung to his side, telling him he needed the most protection out of anyone else. Although Sanji bitched at him to get off, Sanji’s face softened as he looked at the younger man.

“Keep Nami safe, Marimo!” He shouted as he ran with Usopp towards electrical.

“Idiot, he needs to worry about himself,” Zoro grumbled, folding his arms.

“Let’s go, we need to find any wires that are frazzled, we’ll start with the right wing.” She explained, taking off towards the exit of the cafeteria with Zoro hot on her heels. “Well… just follow me, you probably don’t even know where that is.”

“Oi! I know my left from right.”

Nami grabbed Zoro’s hand just as they entered the corridors and as much as she told herself it was so that he didn’t get lost, it wasn’t convincing enough to stop the flush from working its way up her face. Especially when Zoro squeezed her hand in response.

“So we don’t get lost,” she supplied.

Zoro snorted in response but for once, didn’t say anything back.

The peace from this morning was long gone and was replaced with thumping footsteps and shouting as the crew descended into chaos, scattered across the huge ship trying to stay alive. At one-point Brook, Chopper and Luffy ran past them and Nami was left shouting after them because it looked like they were running around with no real ambition.

It didn’t take long after that for Nami to find one of the breakages and she was left gaping at it. It looked like it’d been chewed apart, the metal was torn open with sparking wires hanging limply.

“Focus,” Zoro said, nudging her arm. “I’ll cover you, don’t worry.”

In that moment Nami was happy to have him with her. He kept a cool head in dire situations, and she needed that right now. She needed to not think about someone… something, on their crew trying to destroy their ship and kill them all. She took a deep breath in and a deep breath out to centre herself. Fix the wires first and everything else would come second, she told herself.

She clicked the light on the shoulder of her orange suit to illuminate the wires in front of her as her helmet was still clipped around the belt of her suit. No one had put theirs back on since the communicators this morning.

She was making good progress and she only had two wires left to reconnect when both her and Zoro’s attention was stolen by the communication doors closing just a few feet away. What the hell? No one was down this part of the ship.

The hallway suddenly came alive as doors started closing and opening randomly.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Someone’s tampering with the wiring or the controls.” Dread was building in her stomach; it was one thing after another. They were being sent on wild goose-chase after wild goose-chase- a distraction to keep them busy.

A crackling was heard through her communicator and she was struggling to keep up at everyone’s broken words.

“Someone- admin-”

“Not right- still- someone else-”

“I’m- route,” Brook crackled through and by the sounds of it, he’d be dealing with it.

They could hear feet running down the hall close to where they were and that reassured Nami that Brook was close and that the issue would be resolved soon.

Except that reassurance soon disappeared as Nami heard a familiar sound and it made her stomach drop. As quickly as she could, she was reattaching the last wire and stumbling over her words to tell Zoro what was about to happen. “Zoro, it’s the rumbling of the vents, that thing is on the move. Think of a room for us to hide in without a vent so we can go as soon as I’m done.”

Zoro was quiet for a moment and Nami knew how absurd it was to ask that of Zoro, he barely knew the layout… well, he thought he did, but that was an entirely different issue and Nami couldn’t think of everything herself right now. But then his hand was on her arm, ready to pull her as soon as she was ready.

As soon as the last wire was in place, she was almost pulled off her feet as she stumbled to keep up, running past communications as the door was still closed and into the woman’s room next to it.

Zoro pulled out his key card to close the door after them and she felt her patience thinning when he failed on the third attempt. Third!

“How the hell can you still not work your key card after all this time?!” She whispered huffily, pushing him aside to swipe her own key card and watched the door slide shut.

“Shut up, it’s tricky and you know it!”

“Maybe at first! How long have you been here?” Sarcasm dripping from her voice.

A scream ran through the ship afterwards and it sounded like Brook. It didn’t take long for Nami to piece together. He was in admin. There was a vent in there.

Nami choked on her sob.

Suddenly there were hands on her shoulders, and she was looking Zoro in the face as he peered down at her with a stern expression.

“Pull yourself together. Brook’s tough, he won’t go down easily and even if he does, you reacting like this isn’t going to help anyone,” his voice was firm and he squeezed the top of her arms, she presumed in an effort to comfort her. “Besides, you’re with me, don’t insult me.”

He was trying to reassure her and in doing it in his own weird way, it worked. She felt herself relaxing, well, relaxing as much as she could in a situation like this, and Zoro was rewarded with a wobbly smile. She couldn’t help herself as she pulled him in for tight hug, clinging to him as he gave her silent reassurance, and he hugged her back just as tightly. He was so warm, and, in that moment, it made everything feel better.

After a second, she pulled away to look up at him. “Okay, let’s go! There’s more wires to reattach,” she told him, fire back in her eyes and Zoro smiled at the change.

The doors slid back open and Zoro tentatively poked his head out, Nami followed suit, looking down the other end of the hallway. She frowned when she saw a purple suit at the end of the corridor, what the hell was Robin doing by herself?

Nami nudged Zoro to get his attention but just as she was about to call out to her, the middle of her suit split apart into a mangled mouth and a long, black tongue oozed out to lick the wall.

Nami felt the blood drain from her body. What was that thing?!

And was it trying to find them through taste?!

Nami squeaked before Zoro could clamp his and the thing was whipping around to peer down the hallway. Zoro just managed to pull her back in before they could be spotted as the doors slid closed behind them.

“You alright?” Zoro whispered, his hand still covering her mouth and she realised he was making sure she wouldn’t scream. Nami nodded and his hand fell away.

“I fucking knew it. She was fishy from the moment she stepped on board,” Zoro hissed, his expression furious.

“I shared a room with her,” Nami said, except there was no heat behind her words, only sadness. It was silly, Nami didn’t know her, clearly, but Robin had been her friend and she felt like she was mourning the loss of that.

They descended back into silence as footsteps could be heard thumping closer and Zoro’s hand was over Nami’s mouth again when they stopped outside the door- not that it was needed, she’d already stopped breathing. She wondered if it was trying to taste them again and a shiver ran down her spine. It was a long moment before they could hear the footsteps retreat from outside the door, but they still waited until it was gone to sigh in relief.

“I’m calling it in,” Zoro informed quietly and Nami nodded back at him as he clicked the side of his communicator.

“Everyone, it’s Robin! Keep your distance, she’s the imposter! She’s not human.”

Although Nami could hear Zoro saying it, she was in too close a distance to Zoro to be able to hear what the rest of the crew were able to through the communicator. She presumed from what she heard earlier from the others they would have received a jumbled message.

All they got in response was a variation of, “What-,” “-Robin-,” and “-Here-,” and that confirmed her suspicions.

Nami put her hand on Zoro’s arm to get his attention. “It’s no use,” Nami sighed. “We’ll need to find someone else and spread the word. We need to meet back at the cafeteria. We need a plan.”

This situation was looking grimmer by the second.

Nami stood then, determined to put an end to this as she started to make her way to the door but then Zoro stood and caught her elbow.

“Wait a second.”

And she did.

She waited but he still stood there saying nothing as he peered down at her. He looked intense and for once she couldn’t read the look on his face, it was oddly unnerving. She hadn’t had that problem with him for ages. She raised an eyebrow, challenging him to speak but his eyebrows only furrowed further. What the hell was he thinking about? Since when did he think through what he said?

But Zoro was not a man of words, he’s a man of action, so instead he leaned down to press a brief kiss to her cheek, as if that explained everything.

Nami gaped up at him but all he offered in explanation was, “Should’ve told you a while go.”

She’s still trying to get her brain to work, wrap around what he’s just done and said. She managed to string together words after a brief pause. “That you like me?” She asked tentatively.

He’s stubbornly looking at the wall, his ears bright red and he spat a “Yes!” at her.

“But you didn’t?” She had no idea why she asked that, but honestly, she’s not really thinking right now. At this point, the words are tumbling out her of mouth without any real filter. She’s still trying to wrap her head around what’s happening. This is the last thing she expected.

“Did you hear me say any of this sappy shit before?” He’s still looking at the wall but now he’s crossed his arms defensively.

“Well, you’ve barely said anything now, so it’s hard to say.” If he wanted to be a brat about it, she was more than happy to tease him.

He rolled his eyes at her and finally made eye contact, “Fine. I like you. In a romantic way.”

Very romantic when he basically gritted his teeth through the whole thing. Yet she could still feel a blush working across her cheeks. How is this working on her?

“Why now?” She asked, trying to distract from her reaction.

“Better late than never.”

Something about that didn’t still well with her. Why was never even an option right now?

“So you’re backing down on your word?”

He doesn’t say anything but looked down at her in confusion.

“That we’re getting out of this alive,” she explained and waited for him to catch on to what she’s referring to. She can almost see the moment the bulb goes on over his head.

“No. You’re coming out of this alive.”

Her stomach knotted at his words; he didn’t mean…?

“…But you’re not?” She hesitantly asked, did she really want to know the answer to that?

“Don’t know yet,” he muttered.

This should be a happy moment. The infuriatingly annoying guy she’s liked for a while has confessed, but the reality is they’re currently being hunted and there’s no guarantee any of them will come out of this alive.

But she’d be damned if he went down without her, so in her mind it’s either both of them or neither.

And then it hits her, they may not have another moment together like this.

So for once in her life, she stopped thinking and without hesitation grabbed his face to crush his lips against hers. He yelped at the abruptness, but it was soon muffled. She couldn’t stop the amused smile spreading across her lips at his reaction.

It was by no means the most romantic kiss, neither of them had much experience before this and the mood is hardly set by the looming possibility of death, but Nami regretted nothing as they exchanged clumsy kisses. Zoro tentatively settled his hands on her waist, like he was waiting for her to tell him off, but she didn’t, instead she’s slipping her arms around his shoulders to draw herself in closer. They’re only closed-mouth pecks that occasionally linger for longer but that’s okay for right now, they can hardly start a make out session and honestly, Nami’s not prepared for anything more right now, her stomach already feels like it’s going to burst open.

They broke apart shortly afterwards but didn’t move away from each other.

“Idiot, how long?”

“Hah?” He asked stupidly against her lips.

Christ, what an idiot.

“How long have you liked me?” She clarified.

“Probably from the fifth argument, but I didn’t realise until much later. You pissed me off a lot, but I realised I didn’t want anything else.”

That still told her nothing, they squabbled constantly, but yeah, she could relate. It’d just hit her one day too.

“You wasted a lot of time,” she accused.

“You were hardly forthcoming yourself!”

“Forthcoming? That’s a big word for you, trying to woo me?”

“Clearly don’t need to, do I?” His voice was impossibly smug as his arms tightened around her to make his point, and it grated her slightly. “Besides, you’re the navigator, aren’t you the one that’s supposed to be guiding?”

“Arse. I can’t do everything, you know. Navigate, repair wires, open doors for you; you have to pull your weight too,” she countered, her smile broadening as he glowered at her.

He didn’t grace her with a response, but she didn’t mind when he pulled her back into another kiss. It wasn’t as clumsy this time, and that was probably because she wasn’t trying to crush Zoro into her face. It was still just as insistent, but they found their rhythm quickly and mouths were tentatively opening for tongues to brush against each other’s. Distantly, Nami wondered if she’d ever be prepared for something like this. Her hands buried themselves into his hair and she stood on tip toes to get closer.

All of that came to a grinding halt as another siren started going off, alongside the reactor alarm and they pulled apart. Nami flushed when she realised just what they were doing, in the middle of a crisis no less. They were making out in the girl’s room whilst their ship was falling apart and being hunted by Robin. She was mortified and when she looked up at Zoro he looked nothing but smug.

She didn’t feel bad about elbowing him in the ribs.

Their communicators crackled to life and they could hear Franky rushing through his words, “Shit- O2- down- someone- fix-”

“-helmets-”

That was only a few rooms away from them and although she hadn’t said anything, Zoro was nodding his head at her. They were both taking their helmets from the belts to put them on but Nami stopped Zoro before he could put if over his head.

“To be continued,” Nami whispered, pressing one last kiss against his lips to make her point, “because there will be a next time.” She delivered that line firmly because neither of them was dying before she could do this again.

He didn’t look convinced but that’s fine, Nami was adamant about it enough for the both of them. They finished clipping their helmets on and it’d be enough to supply them with oxygen for the next half an hour until the machine was working again.

“Roger, roger,” Nami spoke clearly into the communicator, hoping someone caught that.

For the second time, they were peering out into the corridor and they were eerily silent. Nami pushed through any of those thoughts, she’d think about that later, and took Zoro’s hand as they cautiously made their way through the hallways.

The doors behind them suddenly started snapping closed one by one.

And now the doors were being tampered with. It was trying to split them up.

“Run! We’re going to get locked in!”

As they took the last corner, just making it before they were sitting ducks in a part of the hallway with a vent, Nami could see the O2 room in the distance. She watched in horror as the door started to slide close. If she didn’t make that there was no telling if she’d be able to open it anytime soon and before she could think it through, she was dropping Zoro’s hand to sprint towards the door and slide through just as it closed behind her.

Heavy footsteps thumped from the other. “Oi! Are you okay!? Open the door,” Zoro shouted, banging on the door and as she swiped her key card to let him in, her hunch had been correct. It beeped angrily back at her; the door wouldn’t open. She would be stuck in here for the foreseeable future.

“I’m fine! The door won’t open, go find the others. Tell them about what’s going on and fix the door system, I’ll deal with O2.” He stayed silent and she knew he was about to argue with her, so she continued. “There’s no vents in here, I’ll be okay. Go!”

“Shit. Okay.” She couldn’t see him, but she knew he’s be running his hands over his helmet, wishing it was his hair. “I’ll be back as soon as the doors open again.”

And then she heard footsteps running away and she breathed out slowly. She could feel her eyes welling up as desperation set in but then she remembered Zoro’s words from before. It wasn’t over yet and he’d been right, if she got inside her head now, she wouldn’t be able to do this, and they’d all suffocate.

She had a job to do.

Cracking her fingers, she got to work on restoring the O2 and hoping everyone was piecing everything else together whilst she was busy.

Her fingers were furiously gliding over keyboards, bashing in key codes and watching bars slowly fill back up on the screen. Another few minutes and she’d be done- crisis averted. In the background, she could hear her communicator crackling with a few words scattered in but none of it made sense and she couldn’t waste time trying to piece it together.

The doors still hadn’t opened by the time she’d fixed the O2, she wasn’t sure how long she’d been in here, but it’d been a while and it was hard to tell what was going on outside.

This had been the longest day she’d ever experienced so far; it’d all started before lunch and as her stomach growled, it’s just dawning on her that she never got to eat. Oh god, she sounded like Luffy.

From the corner of her eye she could see some empty canisters, she figured she might as well pass some time filling them just in case and it beat sitting around grumbling about eating and unopened doors.

Just as she finished with the last canister the doors were slowly sliding open… except, Zoro’s not back yet and she’s caught between wanting to find everyone and waiting here for him. But then she’s just a sitting duck and the crew might need her.

She steeled herself to go out, but the lights still hadn’t been restored yet, and all alone it somehow felt even darker. Just as she’s about to leave, a spare steel rod caught her eye by the door and she’s picking it up. She had no idea whether it’d work against a thing like that (she refused to call it Robin), but it’s better than nothing.

Her communicator came alive then and there’s a frenzy of voices, she can’t quite pick out everyone but there’s enough voices to at least reassure her that the crew are okay.

“Nami- cafeteria-”

“Idiot-”

“No- engine- Nami.”

… What?

All the voices were talking over one another and with how poor the quality was she’s struggling to understand what she’s being told. From what she’s gleaned from the limited information it’s: go to the cafeteria, avoid the engine room. It’s slightly concerning that there’s still squabbling going on- but in truth, when is there not?

Before she had to make any hard decisions, a green suit comes into view down the hallway and she let out a sigh of relief at the sight of Zoro. He’d come back for her, just like he said, and maybe he’d have some idea about what’s going on.

“Zoro!” She whispered as loudly as she could, running towards him and he turned, his head nodding to acknowledge her. “Is everyone in the cafeteria?”

He grunted as she grabbed his hand and took off towards the cafeteria with him following closely behind. Although he’s normally quiet, he’s a bit too quiet considering the circumstances. She was expecting some scolding over her reckless move earlier.

“You okay?” She looked back at him, eyes quickly scanning along his body and didn’t see anything of immediate worry. Green suit intact, helmet firmly in place.

He nodded back at her and she figured the day must be taking a toll on him. She could certainly relate to that.

Shortly afterward she’s bashing in her key card for the closed cafeteria door but stopped short when it was empty. Where is everyone?

Before she could ask him, she could hear footsteps thumping from behind the opposite closed cafeteria door and she smiled to herself. So they were just early, for once.

As the doors opened, she started to walk forward and went to speak but her jaw abruptly snapped closed. Her eyes rounded and it felt like the floor was falling from beneath her.

She watched in horror as a green suit appeared through the opposite door.

Another green suit.

As in, there’s currently one next to her that she’s holding the hand of and one in front of her, that has also stopped dead in their tracks. They all had their own coloured suits for a reason, so they were easily recognisable with their helmets on.

Oh god. One of these suits is that thing.

And with that knowledge, she’s ripping her hand away from the green suit next to her and walking back slowly into the centre of the room, never turning her back so she can put equal distance between the two green suits and see them without having to turn her head.

From the corner of her eye, one of them moved, trying to slowly walk towards her like you would a spooked deer and instantly she felt adrenaline coursing through her as her body tensed. She’s reaching into her pocket then, pulling out the steel bar to clutch it in front of her.

“Back off,” she tersely told one of the suits

The advancing green suit halted immediately and took a step back, hands raised.

Her mind’s in pieces and she doesn’t know what to do. She’s in control of the room right now, both suits watching her from their positions but she knew that could change any moment and she doesn’t know what to do.

Suddenly the events of the day come rushing back to her.

Zoro had left navigation and then Usopp had got hurt.

Zoro sleeps a lot during the day and does basic tasks, like cleaning the garbage chute and heavy lifting tasks. Something anyone could do.

Zoro can’t open the goddamn doors!

She’d just kissed him- it!

Everything had been a lie.

Who the hell could she trust after this? Zoro was supposed to be it. It!

That thing can clearly shapeshift, going from a purple suit to a green one, but then, who said there’s only one of them?

Then she remembered earlier Luffy and Chopper had been running around aimlessly and Brook had screamed, and he was with them.

Luffy told them not to turn on each other.

Franky connected the vents together.

What ifs are flying around in her mind, as all of these thoughts come together. Seriously, who was she going to trust after this? Everyone looked suspicious.

Her breathing’s erratic and her heart felt like it’s going to jump out of her chest and her stomach’s rolling. Oh god, is she about to have an anxiety attack? Seriously, now of all places?! She’s about to lose her cool and control of the room. She needed to think.

One of the green suits that had appeared from the opposite door is ripping it’s helmet off, throwing it onto the floor, and she’s looking at Zoro’s face again.

“Nami, take a breath, I need you to calm down. A lot has happened since we last saw each other, but I need you to trust me right now and come over here.” His hand’s outstretched towards her but he’s not looking at her, his gaze is locked onto the other green suit that she had just been holding the hand of. Like he’s trying to size it up, to anticipate its next move.

Nami’s eyes flickered between them, sizing both of them up and god, did she want to trust the talking green suit, but how could she?! The other green suit is looking at her blanky, head tilted, and she just needed to confirm something before she made her move.

“Take off your helmet,” she shouted, jutting her steel bar at its helmet.

There’s a second where no one spoke or moved, and it felt like Nami was stuck in one of those crappy western standoffs. The one with the helmet still on tilted its head again and it’s looking between her and the other green suit without its helmet on.

Its hands come up to its helmet and for a moment Nami thought she’d be screwed if it actually took it’s helmet off because then she’s back to square one and the tension in the room can’t possibly get any higher without anything actually happening.

But Nami doesn’t have to go back to square one because it pulled its hands away without taking off the helmet and Nami watched in horror as the mask split apart to reveal a gaping mouth with razor sharp teeth and a tongue that came curling out with saliva dripping from it. It’s similar to what she saw before in the hallway but not even that could have prepared her for seeing it up close.

She’s frozen on the spot and it started to run towards her with what she can only describe as a screech of joy erupting from its mouth as it does. Except there’s another pair of feet running towards her too and she’s suddenly pushed down by Zoro as he covered her body with his. Zoro lifted his hand and the next second the thing is screeching in agony as he set off the blow torch in his hand.

Since when did he have that?

The thing reeled back, hands coming up to cup it’s scorched mouth and tentacles erupted from its back to lash out in its moment of vulnerability. One of them whipped towards them and Zoro’s falling back on her heavily. One look at him has her gasping and trying to sit up to get a better look.

“Zoro you’re eye!” Nami cried out. She didn’t see it happen, but she can see the blood that’s dripping from his eye and her stomach rolled. That’s because of her.

“No time, we have to move.”

And he’s right, the thing was still stooped low, sludge dripping from where it’d been burned but it’d only be a matter of time until it was on its feet again and they needed to regroup.

Nodding, she grabbed his hand and he was hauling her up onto her feet. She pushed him aside as they got to the closed cafeteria door, but her hands were shaking too much and the keypad denied her. She’d swiped too fast. She didn’t dare turn around when she heard a much less pained screech and, thankfully, Zoro didn’t rush her.

Second swipe and they were through the doors, but it wasn’t the homestretch yet. Nami could hear metal being torn apart and better judgement be damned, she turned around.

That thing couldn’t pass as human anymore. At this point it was more mouth than body, claws erupted from the suit and tentacles furiously swiped the air around it.

The next moment is disorientating as she’s suddenly swept from her feet and manhandled to sit at Zoro’s hip on one side. She clung to him in fear of falling off and it’s not exactly the most comfortable or stable position, but it freed her up a bit.

“I can’t drag you about as you stare, you’re too slow,” he explained as he ran.

“Just don’t drop me,” she told him, eyes narrowing in determination. He can run and she can keep it at bay. To his credit, he doesn’t even break a sweat at the extra weight, but she’d give that some more thought later.

The thing started to gain on them, screeching at them and when one of the tentacles came rushing towards them, Nami’s raising her steel bar to smack it away.

What she didn’t expect, was for the tentacle to absorb the bar.

“It took my bar!” She said, outraged.

Below her, Zoro grunted and his free hand is reaching into his trouser pocket. “That doesn’t work on it, use the blow torch.”

When the thing tried again, Nami aimed the torch and watched as the flame licked away at the tentacle, black sludge falling onto the floor below it. It stopped in its tracks then and Nami watched it slowly disappear from view as Zoro kept running and rounded the corner.

“It’s stopped chasing us,” Nami informed him, slightly confused why it’d give up so easily. Then she’s looking at the blowtorch, it either didn’t like fire or the light. Maybe it was both.

Then another thought came to mind. “When the hell did you figure this out?” She couldn’t keep the wonder out of her voice when she asked, she was impressed.

“I told you, a lot happened whilst you were locked in O2.” He took another left.

“Ah, so you spoke to Robin then.” She nodded to herself, the woman was sharp minded and no doubt, with the rest of them chiming in, they’d have worked something out quickly.

“Oi! I worked out that fire might work,” he grouched at her, offended that she was so quick to dismiss him.

“You came to save me on might!?” Of course he’d do something so ballsy and reckless.

“Some gratitude would be nice! What happened with your bar again?”

He had a point. Not that she was going to tell him that.

“I’ll give you that later,” she said lowly. It’s not fitting for the mood at all, but she couldn’t resist and maybe she needed some normality right now when they’re being hunted. Especially when she’s rewarded with an embarrassed flush working angrily up his neck.

“Okay, we can’t keep running around in circles. Where are the others?” He took another left and she frowned. If he wasn’t careful, they were going to end up back at the cafeteria and right now, they had no idea where that thing was.

“In the upper engine. They stayed behind, couldn’t have everyone running around with a shapeshifter on the lose.”

“Yeah, I get that, but why send you?” Yeah okay, it wasn’t helpful in this situation, but she had to ask.

He huffed but stayed silent, only adjusting his grip on her thighs.

“You ran off before they could stop you, didn’t you?”

“That’s not the point,” he replied indignantly, huffing. “Found you in the end, right?” It’s said with too much pride for someone who got lost constantly but she still found fondness building in her chest. Maybe they’re both idiots.

“Not hard when you told me to go to the cafeteria.”

“Don’t remind me, what idiots.” He came to a stop just down the hallway from upper engine and let her down. “We’d trapped it there and Franky had managed to block the vent but with how sketchy the communicators are I don’t even know why anyone bothered mentioning the cafeteria.”

“That vent isn’t blocked anymore, by the way, it got out,” Nami frowned, a thought coming to her, “It found me, I thought it was you, but the weird thing is, it didn’t kill me. It followed me.”

Zoro didn’t say anything in response, but he looked as perplexed as she felt. It’d attacked Usopp on sight but followed her willingly.

Those thoughts came to an abrupt halt though as she properly looked at Zoro for the first time since she’d met back up with him. He looked awful. His left eye was closed, and she didn’t know whether it was to keep the blood out of it or whether the eye just wasn’t there anymore. She couldn’t see the damage with so much blood oozing from the cut.

“Zoro, your eye,” Nami lamented, her hand coming up to cup his jaw and thumb soothing across the patch of cheekbone absent of any blood. She could only imagine how much that hurt right now. And he’d done it for her. The knot in her stomach tightened at the thought.

“It’s fine, stop fretting.” He tried to play it off and his hand grasped her wrist to gently pry it away from his face, but she wasn’t ready to let go of his face just yet.

“We’re not being chased right now; I can fret as much as I like.”

“I’d do it again,” he said gruffly, and it sounded like he was trying to reassure her about the wound so she wouldn’t feel guilty about it, but that didn’t detract from how sweet he sounded.

“Zoro,” she cooed, and he flushed a brilliant red when Nami’s other hand mirrored the action of cupping his jaw.

With her helmet on, she couldn’t lean in to kiss him like she wanted; for his sweet words, for her relief that he wasn’t a monster and that, so far, they were both alive. Instead, she’s leaning into him until she’s bumping her helmet against his forehead. It’s not nearly enough, but for now it’d have to do. He didn’t have any complaints when he leaned into her and his hands slid down her arms to cup her elbows to hold her close.

And that’s how they’re found. Standing around in the hallway, Nami cupping Zoro’s face and leaning into each other, a private moment that was suddenly very public.

“See! I told you I heard their voices,” Usopp stage whispered, eyes wide at the affectionate display.

Both of them paused, a hairsbreadth away from kissing, before whipping around to see Usopp and Sanji peeking out of the upper engine. Sanji looked outraged until his eyes locked onto Zoro’s bleeding face.

“What the hell happened?!”

Zoro groaned next to her. It was truly a testament to how bad it looked for Sanji to show such outward concern. They normally hid their affection for each other behind heated arguments and physical fights.

“Let’s all freak out over Zoro when we’re with everyone else,” Nami ordered. They were still standing in the hallway like nothing was currently happening. Zoro shot her a glare at that suggestion, something that didn’t hold much heat when he looked like that.

When they entered the upper engine room, it was empty. Just as she was about to voice her confusion, Zoro was pushing her towards the little broom cupboard in the corner.

As the door closed behind them, the small bulb in the room illuminated the rest of the crew, who were all looking worse for wear themselves. What the hell had been going on whilst she was trapped in O2?

It was a tight fit, as everyone huddled together, but it wasn’t important as her eyes jumped around familiar faces, taking in each one by one and doing a small role call in her head.

… 7, 8 and “Brook!”

“Brook! I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see you before in my life!” She’d definitely trod on someone’s foot to reach him, but she didn’t care as she flung her arms around his neck.

“Yohoho, this sounds like a backhanded insult, but I’ll take it!”

She allowed the hug for a moment longer but then she’s pushing is head out of the way, as he whispered a “so harsh”.

There’s a sudden commotion at the door then and it’s because Chopper’s just seen the state of Zoro. A pink suit is rushing towards Zoro, disregarding the rest of the crew as they start murmuring their own concerns, and he’s slinging his medical bag from his back to the floor to start pulling out things he’ll be needing.

“It’s fine Chopper! Just stick a plaster on it!” Zoro interrupted, swatting his hand to stop Chopper’s panicking as he started to examine the eye.

Chopper squawked at the suggestion and started laying into him, lecturing him about the danger of infections. Seeing as Chopper was no longer panicking and had started to clear away at the wound, Nami tuned it out in favour of getting some information on what the hell was going on.

“Right, someone needs to get me up to speed,” she stated and as an afterthought added, “And why are we huddled in the upper engine broom closet?”

“No vents in here,” Franky answered.

“Also, I don’t think the thing knows this room exists,” Usopp added as an afterthought.

“Not surprising, this is where all the cleaning supplies are and since when does anyone do that?” Nami sighed, but she couldn’t focus on their filthy ship just yet. Well, that wasn’t entirely fair. Sanji and Chopper kept their respective rooms clean, but that was it. The kitchen, med bay and the women’s room were the only clean places on board.

Nami’s comment was ignored as Sanji started to explain, “We don’t know how long its been on board, but Robin thinks it’s-”

“Morph,” Luffy cut off Sanji, looking far too proud of himself. When all she gave him was a baffled look, he explained further, “The thing. Its name is morph.”

As much as Nami was happy to see Luffy back to his normal self, so much so he was naming a blood thirsty monster, it was so incredibly unhelpful in the grand scheme of things. Before she could scold him, Usopp intervened.

“We didn’t name it Morph; you did!” Usopp accused and Nami was glad that he hadn’t become sucked into Luffy’s actions. “I still want Nightcrawler”

Urgh. Forget it. Of course Usopp wouldn’t be of any help.

“What happened to Rampage?” Zoro chimed in.

“No, we ditched that as soon as you left.”

“It was a stupid name,” Sanji sneered.

Nami could only stand there in disbelief and watched as the rest of the crew in front of her started to squabble about what to officially name that thing that was trying to kill them all.

“I quite like Selkie; they used to trick humans by transforming into them before mercilessly killing them. Quite like our situation, no?”

Nami barked a short laugh. Even Robin, her most trusted ally, the woman she could rely on when the boys descended into new levels of idiocy, had been sucked into naming this thing. She even noted that their lives were in danger and was still taking part. Was she going insane?

“Is this what you’ve been doing all this time? Naming this thing instead of figuring out how we’re going to survive?”

All of them looked at her, her voice cutting through their playful bickering and they all had the audacity to look at her like she was the one suggesting names in a dire, bleak situation. Maybe she was insane. She was in their books, based on the looks she was receiving.

“Don’t be stupid,” Luffy said, like he was the voice of reason here. “We did it after, when we were waiting for you.”

Ah yes, of course. She was the issue here.

She should be angry; she should throttle him but the day’s taking its toll on her and all she does is throw her head back and laugh. It’s a hearty laugh, right from her gut and it felt good. This situation is just so laughably hilarious.

“I think she’s lost her mind,” Usopp muttered and Chopper nodded next to him, looking at her cautiously.

Everyone’s looking at her as she started to calm down, wiping tears from her eyes. All she offered as explanation was, “I like the name Morph.”

Zoro caught her eye then and he smirked at her.

Luffy’s cheering then, arms thrown up in the air at his victory as the others mumble and moan about their loss. Apparently, everyone had their own name offered and with Nami voting for Luffy’s it was the clear winner.

“Right, so as I was saying, we don’t know how long Morph- I can’t do it! It’s a ridiculous name for such a serious situation.”

“Maybe that’s what we need right now,” Robin said and Nami couldn’t agree with her more. It’s why she liked it, it’s easier to deal with a shapeshifting monster with razor sharp teeth and tentacles when it’s named something so cute.

Luffy’s frowning, not budging as Sanji looked at him. “I won. Its name is Morph.”

“Nami liked it,” Usopp added and that’s enough to get Sanji talking again, seemingly accepting the name with no further complaints.

“Robin was thinking Morph’s been on board for a while because it seems to know where to go and what to tamper with to break the ship.” Sanji looked towards Robin, prompting her to take over from him.

“My theory is that it’s sophisticated enough to learn basic tasks and work out what we’re doing but Morph can’t learn complex things like language,” Robin speculated and Nami nodded in agreement, remembering Morph’s silence in the hallway. “I don’t think it likes light and that’s the reason why tampered with the lights before appearing fully. Space is very dark after all… and cold.” She’s looking towards Zoro then. “Did your theory work, Zoro?”

Zoro nodded back as Chopper was putting the finishing touches on his bandaged eye. “It seemed to hurt it and it backed off when it started chasing us.”

Robin and Zoro’s conversation held no tension like it did earlier from the cafeteria and Nami’s glad to see it. A lot seemed to have happened since then. No doubt she’d get the details from Usopp later.

“So what are we going to do now?” She’d got enough information about that thing- Morph, she corrected mentally, but now she wanted their plan of attack.

Except her question brought a hush over the crew and she’s looking at each of them to try and figure out what she’s said wrong. Usopp looked pained and Franky’s resting a big hand on his shoulder.

Luffy looked solemn and Nami hated it already, as much as his happy go lucky behaviour might irritate her sometimes, she wanted it back desperately in this situation.

“We’re leaving the ship,” Luffy said.

What? This was their home, where everything had started. “What? How can we-” She started.

“The decision’s been made,” he stated firmly and when Nami looked at Usopp, someone who would definitely agree with her, he looked downhearted but on board. This conversation had already been talked through at length it seemed. “Franky.” And Luffy’s nodding towards their mechanic to continue.

“The ships on its last legs. I’ve just barely managed to hold together the reactor, but we don’t have long, electrics are fried and on top of that there’s a monster out there making it worse,” Franky explained and as much as it pained her, she’d been out there, she’d seen the state of the ship.

“We’d have to find it and kill it, that’s even if it hadn’t tampered with the ship before we do.”

“Even then, something still might trip.”

“It’s too risky.”

Nami sighed and ran her hands through her hair. She understood but it was a lot of take on board. Ultimately, they were right. Their lives would be at risk and she remembered back to earlier when she was uncertain about how many of them were still alive.

She wanted them all to come out of this alive.

“What’s the plan?”

They’re huddled tightly into a circle going through the last few details. Franky and Usopp have prepared the emergency ship, it’ll be tight for all of them, nothing compared to their current spacious ship, but it’s good enough for now. It’s only there until they can land and find something else.

“I’m heading to the kitchen to get supplies,” Sanji informed them and Brook next to him is offering to go with.

“I need to go to the medbay,” Chopper added and Robin’s volunteering to accompany him.

“You need a helmet,” Nami said, pointing at Zoro. His was sat in the cafeteria and its current state was unknown. Everyone else’s were clipped to their belts safely. “If O2 goes out again, you’re screwed.”

“If you’re going that way, pick up extra helmets and suits,” Robin suggested and it’s a good idea.

“Someone needs to go to O2 to get backup oxygen,” Franky told the group, the emergency ship only had so much stocked into it and seeing at they’re abandoning the ship, they might as well take all they have with them.

“They’re already filled, I did it whilst I was waiting for the doors to open. Someone else needs to grab them, I’m going with Zoro.”

No one argued that and they’re all nodding. It was in their best interest to have the navigator with the permanently lost. Zoro didn’t argue it, even though he knew the reason behind it but now wasn’t a time for bickering.

“I’m going to the reactor to grab my tools,” Franky said and seeing and Luffy and Usopp are the last ones left, they’re going with Franky.

With everyone allocated to a task and paired off, they all agreed they’d meet back in the cafeteria in 10 minutes. It was a get in and get out job, no side tracking and if a pair didn’t come back- there would be a search party. No one was being left behind. Franky didn’t have many, but he had enough blow torches for one per group, should they come across Morph on their short trip.

It was then that Nami realised they’d been in the small cupboard a while with no disruptions but before she could voice her concern, the reactor alarm was blaring again. She hung her head, it felt like she’d jinxed them.

“That’s our countdown,” Franky informed them. “I stabilised the reactor as best as I could, but we only have twenty minutes before it’s done for. We need to be gone before that.”

With that last warning, the groups are filtering out of the tiny cupboard and spreading throughout the ship. There’s a shout of helmets off until they leave and Nami had no problem with that, it’d take away the element of surprise, because as far as she’s aware, Morph can’t imitate their faces.

Nami and Zoro run next to each other through the corridors with no hesitancy. There’s no time for it and at least they’re armed now. The cafeteria’s empty and neither of them bother to check if Zoro’s helmet is intact- no side tracking. They pass by Sanji and Brook as they make their way into the kitchen. They’re running past admin and they only have to make it through storage to reach the women’s and men’s rooms next to communications.

As they made it into the men’s room, Nami gets a bad feeling. All of this is far too easy. There’re no crackling voices in her earpiece, there’s no yelling or frantic feet and despite the reactor siren going off, it was almost peaceful. It didn’t sit right with her.

“Zoro, I have a bad feeling,” Nami told him as she grabbed a bag to start shoving spare space suits into.

“It’s too easy,” he agreed with her, taking another bag to put spare helmets into and then clipping another helmet onto his belt. “But I won’t complain. Maybe it backed off because we found it’s weak spot.”

For now, she could only agree with him and hope it was just good luck as they moved into the women’s room the other side of communications to repeat the process.

Nami doesn’t have a watch, but as they finish packing, she’s sure they must be getting close to 10 minutes.

There’s a loud commotion towards O2 and Nami and Zoro are shooting each other a look. They don’t need to verbalise anything before they’re running towards the sound- if any of their crew was in trouble, of course they’d rush to help.

Except when they arrive, there’s nothing there. It’s silent. There’s nobody in sight, they can’t hear feet running nearby and there’s no sign of a struggle.

“False alarm, let’s go,” Zoro said and he’s walking towards the door.

Nami nodded and went to follow him out, except out of the corner of her eye she can see a spare O2 bottle. She frowned, she’d definitely filled all of them and she’s not sure how someone had missed that one. Despite the voice in the back of her head that told her ‘no detours’, this technically isn’t one. They might end up needing that and she’d kick herself for leaving it behind.

As she picked it up, it’s far too light compared to the others she filled earlier and when she turned the canister around, the bar’s empty.

It’s then that it all clicked into place; no sign of Morph, the sound of a struggle only to find no one’s here and a strategically place O2 bottle to distract a passer-by.

A trap.

Zoro’s already left the room and she’s running after him, shouting for him to stop, not caring how loud her voice was right now. He’s almost into the weapons room when he whipped around, alert and ready for whatever she’s about to say but it’s too late. The doors between them are closing.

They’re both running but Nami knows it’s useless, there’s no way she’s going to make it through. With the last crack left, she’s throwing through her bag to Zoro and watching the doors shut on his panicked face. She imagined hers didn’t look much better.

Shit. He had the blow torch.

The keypad angrily denied her when she swiped her key card and her stomach’s sinking at the knowledge that she’s truly vulnerable right now.

There’s a loud thump followed by a silent curse from the other side of the door but it barely budged. Zoro’s trying to break down the door. It was no use; they’re made to withstand extreme conditions in the case of an emergency. Nami laughed at the humour, this is an emergency and now she’s in danger because of it.

“Zoro, go back to the cafeteria, drop the bags and get someone. Someone must be back by now. I’ll try the other door to the cafeteria.”

He had no choice but to agree and he left her with a, “Be careful. No reckless moves.”

Too late for that advice, she thought bitterly.

Nami turned to face the dimly lit corridor in front of her. Without Zoro here, it looked ominous, the shadows looked dangerous all of a sudden and every sound had her jumping out of her skin. But the longer she stood here, the longer she’d be alone. She clutched the O2 cannister in her hands for some form a reassurance and, as a last-minute decision, she clipped on her helmet for an extra layer of defence.

She started a tentative jog down the hallway, a stark difference from the quick and confident one she had with Zoro. She stopped at corners to peer around them, to make sure the coast was clear and yes, it did slow her down, but she needed caution right now.

It’s the home stretch when she reached storage and she wondered if her brain was playing tricks on her. Maybe it wasn’t a trap and the ship really was just on its last legs, like Franky had explained.

Just as she’s passing admin, she can hear heavy footsteps from behind her. She’s wanted to continue forward, but it also crossed her mind that it could be Zoro. He wasn’t far from the cafeteria before and if Franky or Usopp was there, they’d have the door opened swiftly.

Tentatively, she backtracked and as she peered around the corner, the relief is almost crippling.

Zoro.

He’s standing in the doorway of storage, looking around for her and then she’s jogging towards him, a cheerful, “Zoro”, coming from her mouth.

The joy’s over when he turned to face her and she’s looking back at two steel eyes. Not a cut or bandage in sight.

That was not Zoro.

She faltered slightly but remembered earlier when Morph had followed her after approaching it like nothing was wrong. She fought down the urge to flee and plastered a wobbly smile back onto her face to continue her walk towards it.

Except this time, Morph’s not curious, Morph’s hungry. It doesn’t keep up the pretence of a human and the moment Nami sees a mouth, she’s flinging the O2 cannister at it and darting away.

“Help, help, help,” she’s pleading into her communicator but its only static that responded back.

She was well and truly on her own.

She doesn’t dare look over her shoulder to see if Morph is chasing her, but her arms are stretching out for anything within reach she can knock over and hopefully buy herself time. As she smacked something behind her, she peeked over her shoulder and terror is almost choking her. Morph’s not close, but it is chasing her as it used its tentacles to propel it forward.

The thumping of her own footsteps is deafening, and her legs are burning as she ran down the empty corridor between electrical and lower engine, but she can’t let up her pace for even a second if she wanted to get out of this alive.

She skidded as she took a sharp turn and it definitely lost her some distance. It’s confirmed when there’s footsteps behind her, heavy and loud, and she can practically feel its breath on her neck. She didn’t dare to look over her shoulder again because she knew she’d be greeted by the sight of Morph practically on her back.

One second she’s looking at the familiar sight of upper engine just in front of her and she’s so close to the cafeteria, then the next she’s eating the floor. The impact has her face crashing into the shield of her helmet and so much for extra protection, she thought, as her nose smarted and started trickling blood.

Her feet are pulled from beneath her and she’s being dragged back. She doesn’t have time to register the pain in her face as she flipped over to watch as the tentacles around her foot pulled her slowly towards the towering monster. Morph’s grown and there’s multiple mouths erupting from the green of the suit

She kicked her free foot out, trying to stamp on the tentacle wrapped around her ankle but it’s quickly caught by another tentacle and then she’s being dragged closer even quicker.

Morph settled over her when she’s pulled underneath it and the weight of it had the air rushing out of her lungs. If it doesn’t kill her quickly, it’s going to crush her instead.

That doesn’t stop her from throwing a fist out to punch its face- she may be about to die, but she’s not dying easily. The image of Zoro’s face distorted from the impact before reforming, but it doesn’t stay that way for long as its face split apart to form a long stretching mouth. A tongue slithered out and licked across all its teeth as saliva dripped down onto the front of Nami’s helmet. It’s enough to get Nami moving as she squirmed underneath it, hands pushing and feet kicking desperately so she can shimmy out.

She cried out in pain when a tentacle from behind it’s back stabbed through her shoulder to pin her down to the floor beneath and there’s a clawed hand digging into the side of her waist. It’s enough to stop her squirming, as tears rolled down her face and her hands are at the tentacle in her shoulder to try and relieve the pain.

But the pain is nothing compared to watching its tongue slink out of its mouth down to her helmet and lick a long stipe across the glass. She’s helpless as the tongue started to undo the latches on her helmet and its claw dug even further into her side, as if expecting her to struggle.

She can’t believe she’s about to die at the hands (or mouth) of something that looked like Zoro. There’s probably something poetic in there but now’s not the time to be thinking about that.

As the last latch clicked loose, her helmet’s thrown to the side and she’s face to face with the monster on top of her (It turned out, Morph wasn’t a suitable name. She wished she’d gone with Robin’s option). Its tongue snapped back to its mouth, but her eyes are screwing shut as it stretched to lick a long path across her neck and face. There’s so much saliva that it dribbled down the rest of her face and she can’t believe this is it, this is her last few moments.

It growled in her ear, but she can’t bring herself to open her eyes, even when she heard its teeth snap just above her. She doesn’t want her last moment alive to be looking at an imposter of Zoro. She’d much rather remember the real Zoro’s dazed face after their first kiss.

But then it’s all gone, the weight’s gone and she’s gasping in pain when the claws in her side and tentacle are ripped out.

There’s a battle cry above her head and she opened her eyes just in time to watch Luffy jump over her body and a massive flame erupt from his blowtorch. She can’t be sure, her viewpoint from the floor isn’t the best, but she’s pretty sure there’s a massive grin etched onto his face as he launched his attack.

She felt like she was hallucinating as she watched the monster reel back and try to avoid the flames as it screeched in pain. She’s sitting up to watch but it’s blocked as Zoro knelt in front of her. His mouth’s moving and distantly she heard him saying that he shouldn’t have left her but she’s too busy looking at his face, soaking in the downward turn of his mouth, his remaining steel coloured eye searching her face and the green of his hair.

She wondered idly if she’s died and this was hell and she’s being forced to watch what her rescue could have looked like if it hadn’t gone all wrong. Zoro did always tell her she was going to hell when she died. She can’t wait for him to join her so she can rub it in his face that he ended up there too.

She’s pulled out of her scattered thoughts when Zoro’s softly wiping at her face with his hands, wiping the saliva on his suit and it’s the most worried she’s ever seen him; his face is pale and drawn. “I thought you were dead,” he breathed out and she came to the conclusion that she doesn’t like that look on his face. “With that thing over you and you were so still,” he continued and he’s still looking at her like she might die any second.

“Get a grip,” is all she told him and it’s worth it because he barked a laugh and it felt like they were back in her navigation room bantering with each other.

“You’re a mess,” he said bluntly and they’re falling back into their normal routine, so she decided not to take offense. His gaze does a circuit around her face, shoulder and side.

“You too,” she joked and although it wasn’t funny, she laughed lightly. Whether it was because she was alive, or he was or that this wasn’t hell after all. Maybe it was all of it.

He didn’t laugh back; the mood dropping suddenly, and she knew it was because he was feeling guilty. That this should’ve been him, not her.

Her hand cupped his jaw and her thumb’s running along the seam of the plaster over his eye. “You’ve done enough, have to do my part too, right?”

His expression instantly told her he doesn’t agree with that sentiment but before he can respond, Luffy’s next to them again.

“We gotta go,” Luffy said, breaking them apart and he’s throwing his empty blow torch down as the black puddle down the hall started to slowly reform. “You can make kissy faces when we’re in the ship.”

Nami spluttered angrily, embarrassed but Zoro just nodded and his hands are under her armpits then to help her stand. She cringed as she jarred her shoulder and pain lanced through her body. Its yet to stop bleeding and if she’s not careful, her orange suit is going to start rivalling Luffy’s red one.

“Put pressure on your shoulder,” Zoro said and she’s being scooped up to sit at his hip again, the wound at her waist facing outward so it’s not angered.

She’s giving him a funny look before cringing as she tried to clamp her hand over the wound on the shoulder that felt like it suddenly had a pulse. Zoro understood what she meant and answered, “Chopper’s lectured me enough, some of it had to sink in.” His free hand smothered over hers to press down on the wound and she’s borrowing her face into his neck at the pain. She almost doesn’t know what to do with herself. He muttered a “sorry” lowly but didn’t let up.

“Luffy, I’m changing my vote, Morph is a stupid name. I’m siding with Robin,” she murmured, exhausted as the adrenaline started to wear off and in need of a distraction herself from her wounds and the monster that was after them.

Luffy laughed brightly as he ran next to Zoro, no doubt happy to see her alive and arguing again. He tried to dispute her change of confidence, but she refused to hear any of it.

Behind them there’s an angry screech, it’s far off into the distance and when Nami looked behind them, there’s nothing there. It’s odd but she couldn’t give a damn right now.

Instead she’s asking, “Where is everyone?”

“On the ship, waiting for us. Franky’s getting everything ready so as soon as we’re there we can go,” Luffy answered.

“Curly cook said we’re not allowed on if we don’t come back with you alive.” Zoro’s doing his best to stop his jog from jostling her too much. It’s thoughtful but honestly doesn’t do very much.

She snorted. “I’m super tough, doesn’t he know?” It’s meant to be a joke because honestly, look at the state of her, but Zoro and Luffy only look at her with pride.

“You did really well,” Zoro murmured and his hand under her supporting her squeezed in reassurance.

The rest of the run to the cafeteria was uneventful and they should probably be questioning that but Nami’s too exhausted to bring it up. She’s hungry, in pain and bleeding. All she wanted to do was lay down and sleep.

As soon as they enter the cafeteria, the crew’s there waiting for them just before the small hallway that’d take them to the emergency ship and their faces shift from anxious to relieved.

It’s a short-lived celebration when the vent at the bottom of the cafeteria exploded open and black sludge poured out.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, doesn’t it know when to give up?” Zoro griped and his grip on her tightened.

They’re being ushered then down the small hallway and onto the emergency ship. Franky and Robin are at the front getting ready to leave and Chopper’s flitting around Nami, working quickly to staunch the bleeding. She wondered just how bad she must look when he didn’t immediately panic at first.

They’re watching as from the outside the black sludge was slowly growing bigger as it reformed, and she wondered if Luffy’s previous bombardment of fire had worn it down.

There’s an explosion in the distance that rocked the ship. Not only has that thing found them, but the reactor it sabotaged earlier has finally packed in.

They’re out of time.

“Uhh, Franky, we gotta go. Now,” Sanji warned as he stood at the back door with Luffy beside him and Zoro left her side then to stand with them just in case.

“I’m moving as quickly as I can!” And it’s true, Franky’s hands are furiously flicking switches and pushing buttons as quickly as he could with Robin co-piloting next to him.

Usopp’s down by her feet tinkering with something and Nami almost wanted to scold him that this wasn’t the time for that, but then her eye caught the ripped up top and fluid-filled bottle.

“Are you making a gasoline bomb?” Nami tiredly asked, her head lolled to the side to watch to distract away from the pain as Chopper worked on her shoulder.

“Yeah!” Usopp said proudly. “I started working on it when we were waiting for you three, y’know, in case.” His hands are quickly working as he soaked the top in alcohol (Zoro wouldn’t be happy about that later) and plugged it into the bottle.

“Franky,” Zoro barked.

“I need another minute! Stall!” Franky barked back.

When Nami looked outside she could see why Zoro and Sanji were panicking, Selkie’s almost fully reformed (Nope, not even Selkie’s the right fit). There’s still hints of different suit colours on its body, around the mouths (Nami shuddered to herself), but it doesn’t bother standing on its feet now, instead using the tentacles and long black nails slide out of its hands. She had no idea how something without a face looked enraged and furious, but it did as it screeched.

There’s a commotion at the door as Zoro stepped out, he’d pushed Luffy and Sanji out of the way and was trying to close the door behind him. Nami tried to get up too, but Chopper’s there to push her back down and it doesn’t take much to keep her down.

“Just go,” Zoro shouted, taking a step out of the ships door and facing the monster that’s only advancing by the second in front of him.

“If anyone’s going to be the knight in shining armour, it’s me!” Sanji exclaimed, puffing out his chest to stalk towards the door. Brook just managed to snag his suit to pull him back in.

Luffy’s frowning and Nami knows it’s because he’s not going to let anyone be left behind. Usopp’s calling towards Luffy as he was making his way to the door with instructions to get him inside and duck on his command. Sanji instantly stopped struggling as he pieced it together.

Not a moment later, Luffy’s wrestling Zoro into the ship as he’s shouting at him and honestly, it’s an amusing sight. Zoro who’s almost twice Luffy’s size being overpowered so easily.

As soon as they’re inside, Usopp’s shouting, “Duck!” and they’re both hitting the floor as Usopp’s lighting the gasoline bomb.

Usopp threw it just as that thing made it to the top of the small hallway and the glass shattered on impact, gasoline spreading over its skin and it’s reeling back as it caught alight, its screeching was almost deafening.

“Close the door!”

Sanji snapped the door shut and then the little ship was blasting off. If the monster hadn’t been hurt enough by Usopp’s gasoline bomb, then it certainly was by the flames that erupted from the back of the ship.

Everybody paused what they were doing, even Chopper had stilled, and watched in silence as they slowly drifted away from their ship. The left side of the ship was slowly melting away as the reactor exploded in on itself and it wouldn’t be long until nothing was left of it.

Nami wasn’t sure how to feel. They’d all escaped with their lives, so this should be classed as a win, but it somehow felt like a loss as she watched her home slowly destroy itself. A few tears were threatening to bubble over at the sight, but she didn’t dare look over at Usopp or Franky.

The feeling was chased away when Zoro sat down next to her, taking her hand and squeezed it.

…

“I still like the name Morph.”

Usopp slapped Luffy.

------------------------------------------

Huge respect for Oda, I hated juggling just 9 characters and he does it with an even bigger cast.

Also, sorry if anyone’s disappointed that there’s no deaths or a ‘real’ imposter. I’m weak. I want happy endings always and I can’t do that if I kill off parts of the straw-fam.

As always, please excuse any errors- especially as I rushed to get this done in time.

Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!

#ZoNami #ZoNa #zoroxnami #swordgust #opfanfic #opwriting #one piece #zoro #nami

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sparkwhorunswithwolves · 4 years ago

Note

You've been posting Stallison, so...Stallison for the OTP pairings ask game, if you feel like it?

Yes! I was hoping someone would send them!

Coffee shop AU: Who is the barista, and who frequents the coffee shop?

Both are frequent customers, and their relationship starts when the shop is otherwise empty except for that one annoying customer and they give each other A Look and make faces at each other, trying not to laugh and piss off that customer even more. They definitely have a bet on when the two baristas end up together, completely oblivious to the fact that they and most of the regulars have that same bet about them.

Highschool/College AU: Who is the straight-A student, and who’s the backrow slacker?

Both have pretty good grades, but Allison is the one who actually studies regularly, while Stiles either doesn't care or pulls an all nighter the night before the exam.

Rivals to loves AU: Who takes their rivalry seriously, and who is half in it just to push the other’s buttons?

It depends on why they're rivals probably. But they're both ridiculously competitive over everything and push each other's buttons relentlessly. Everyone who doesn't know them is terrified.

Enemies to lovers AU: Which one switches sides?

Canon would suggest Allison, but I'm also too fond of good omens to not say they ditch the entire conflict and make their own side.

Soulmate AU: Who is eager to meet their soulmate? Who absolutely does not want to meet their soulmate?

Both. And neither. They want what it represents, they don't want the baggage that comes with it.

Allison is too much of a romantic to not want this, Stiles is ride or die for the few people he cares about, and he knows that his soulmate would be one of them, that they would do the same for him.

But Allison knows that even if she meets them in high school, her parents wouldn't care and they'd move again soon anyway, and her parents are soulmates, but it's not the fairytale romance she wants. Stiles parents were that couple, before his mom got sick and Stiles saw what it did to his dad, losing her. And he knows himself well enough that he knows he couldn't handle losing his dad or Scott, much less the person he's made for.

Single parent AU: Which one is the single parent? (Alt. if they’re both single parents: Which one is open to starting a new relationship from the start? Which one is never planning on finding love again… Until they meet the other and are instantly smitten?)

I— can't actually picture them as parents together. Friends to accidental parents to lovers? Sure.

But if I had to? Stiles has a just old enough to start archery daughter, and Allison becomes her teacher.

If they both have kids? The kids met at preschool, and immediately decided that they were best friends, and stallison spend a lot of time together by proxy. Stiles' ex left him soon after his kid was born, Allison moved into town because hers left her not too long ago. So Stiles is used to being the only parent/to not have to factor in anyone else when making decisions, Allison isn't going to put either herself or her kid through having someone else leave them again, so both are against starting a relationship.

Doesn't stop them from becoming friends, though. Or the kids from having a lot of play dates/sleepovers. And it becomes natural for one of them to pick up both kids after school, and plan most day trips together, and do start co-parenting to some degree without ever acknowledging it.

Everyone's happy, they have each other's keys and live close enough that it's not completely uncommon for either of them to just let themselves in (because someone can't remember where he left his stuff. Stiles would like to state for the record that Allison was the one who started it.)

Nothing hurts, they're one happy family, until Allison's kid ends up in the hospital and only family is allowed to see them, Stiles kid is with the sheriff, and Stiles hovers uselessly in the waiting room, because they're his family, dammit. And he want this, them, for as long as they'll have him.

They've known each other for over a year, and probably do something impulsive like get married as soon as her, their, kid is okay again, before they even had their first kiss.

Doctor AU: Which one is the longsuffering doctor? Which one is the patient?

Human AU, Stiles is obviously the one who comes into the ER at least twice a month with increasingly weird injuries, and Allison's the amused, and slightly worried, doctor.

Hunter/Stiles finds out AU, Allison ends up in the ER after a hunt, Stiles is there for Melissa/other job because I can't imagine him as a doctor, and somehow starts talking to her to avoid his responsibilities. Allison has a concussion/is on too many pain meds and can't really think coherently, and tells him what really happened. Stiles doesn't believe a word but is entertained, has to leave eventually, Chris picks up Allison. Until Stiles gets chased by that same monster, gets rescued by Allison and has an oh fuck moment.

Bodyguard AU: Who is the bodyguard? Who are they protecting? Which one is secretly pining for the other?

Stiles is the bodyguard, but it's Allison who kicks the bad guy's ass at the end. Stiles is probably also the one who is slightly drugged and makes hearteyes at Allison for the entire way home. Allison is the one who secretly pines for him because he doesn't just see her as Chris' daughter (or worse, Gerard's granddaughter) who needs to be protected at all cost (idk I'm picturing human AU in which the Argents are wealthy and relatively well known => threatened a lot, but Allison still doesn't know much about what they actually do) but rather her own person. Who can kick his ass. Allison is still either into weapons or martial arts, and they have a sparring-session-turned-love-confession post kidnapping.

Pirate AU: Who is the pirate? Who is the member of the royal family who did not sign up for this?

Allison is the princess turned pirate who just keeps accidentally kidnapping other royals. Well, the kidnappings are on purpose, that they all somehow end up joining her crew? Not so much. Stiles did not sign up for this but he's into it once he gets over the whole kidnapping thing.

(The crew Allison originally joined kidnapped and was trying to kill Lydia, so Allison got her out of there and they started doing their own thing. They were definitely dating at some point and this might turn into Stiles/Allison/Lydia. Isaac is there, too. Also Peter, because I love their dynamic. They're known for kidnapping royals, no one ever seems to recognize any of the crew.)

Childhood best friends AU: Which one was super obviously in love with the other the whole time? Who was oblivious until they were older?

Stiles. For both.

#teen wolf #Stallison #Thank you!!#I still can't picture them as parents #But now I need that pirate au #So if anyone else wants to write that—#This got... Really long #But I don't trust tumblr to actually safe it to my drafts to add a read more sooo

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write-like-you-mean-it · 4 years ago

Text

A Hunter’s Prey: A Spider’s Web

The restaurant was a crowded mess of customers, waitstaff, bussers, people waiting, and many more. It was the perfect place for conversations to get lost in the noise. Dishes clinked together, parties were being thrown, and many drunk people shouting at their friends from across the bar. No wonder Machi picked this restaurant. It was perfect.

I didn’t see her yet so I grabbed an open table at the bar rather than wait out in the open. I was a little early too. Machi arrived twenty minutes late. I’d received a text earlier in the day that she would be a little late. I’d been sipping on my jack and coke the entire time. I didn’t want to be drunk for the conversation but maybe a bit tipsy.

Machi, on the other hand, ordered a simple water. The tension between us was palpable. The waitress just placed a second drink for me and her water and left. Machi sighed while I took another drink. Our game of who would talk first was getting a little embarrassing.

“Y/N, what happened? What’s going on? Why do you know about my line of work?” Once Machi starts talking, she sometimes doesn’t stop. Maybe this was how Illumi felt with my line of questioning.

I took another sip in hopes that the alcohol would reach my body faster. “Well, it started at the bar you dragged me to last time you were in town-.” Once I started, I had to finish. I didn’t want to leave out any detail. I told her about being kidnapped, about the Zoldycks, about Illumi’s and me, and I told her about the mission. Everything spilled out at once. My mouth refused to shut. All the feelings that I kept bottled deep down within me due to Illumi’s lack of voice rang out like a siren.

Machi, rather than react, sipped on her drink. I knew she was paying attention due to the small nods she’d give me throughout. Once I was done, she finished the last bit of her water and sighed once again. “Let me get this straight,” she said while placing her glass at the end of the small table. “You’re supposed to be Illumi’s wife because he told you that you were and instead of calling me or the police, you decided to stay.”

“My phone was taken away while I was officially kidnapped,” I mumbled. “The first time I got it back was when I texted you to meet up.”

The pink haired girl leaned back in the seat. “Makes sense. I was going to see if any of my troupe would want to help me out in finding your location. It’s not like you to not text me.”

“That’s why Hisoka was following us. Illumi had an urgent mission that required his attention.”

“No wonder that son of a bitch wouldn’t tell me anything. Truly, I thought he was following me.”

I chuckled a bit. “So you’re with the spiders?”

“Yeah,” she sighed. The kind waitress came back to refill drinks and see if we wanted anything to eat. Machi shooed her away. “They’re like my second family. I originated from Meteor City so I knew all the crew. We decided to become a team when we realized that life could be a lot more fun if we were filthy rich and had a lot of power.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah. It’s nice. Plus we’re kinda close. We all have a job to do and follow our boss.”

I nod my head while finishing my drink. The effects are starting to hit me a bit. Just enough of a fuzzy brain to feel as though all of her words make sense. “Illumi sent me on a mission.”

“I was surprised that he’d let you out of his sight. He seemed pretty controlling when I saw him awhile ago. I don’t sense anyone watching us.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “It seems to be a learned behavior.”

“Well what’s your mission. Maybe I can help.” Machi leaned in close so that if anyone was listening, they wouldn’t be able to hear over the noise. “Or help you escape if that’s what you want.”

I paused for a moment. Did I want to escape? Machi was giving me an out. Out of anyone, she could help me; however, it might be the alcohol but I didn’t. “No, just the mission is fine. I’m supposed to convince your boss to let Illumi join the spiders.”

Machi sat back in her chair. “Illumi wants to join my group. Why?”

“He said you all have a common enemy. Don’t ask who it is, I don’t know. I’m to convince you and your boss to let him join. I don’t know why he sent me. Illumi could’ve persuaded your boss himself.

Machi looked up and down me. “I know why he sent you to talk with Chrollo. Really you don’t want to talk with him. Illumi shouldn’t have sent you. This mission will be a failure. We already have Kalluto. A second family member might not be that great for our brand. We’re not in his line of business.” She was being cautious of her words. Grabbing too much attention could hurt our chance of staying hidden. “What even makes you want to do this for him after everything he’s done to you?”

I thought for a moment. During this break, the waitress brought our check. I was the only one that bought something but Machi picked up the tab and paid. She’s rarely paid for me due to our work and play life to be separate.

“I guess it has to do with some good that’s deep down within him. It’s the quiet moments that are the best. I can tell he needs me even if he says he doesn’t. While he isn’t the best guy or the best talker or the most compassionate, there’s something there. It’s..” My thoughts drop off for a moment. “It's the small gestures. He’s trying even when it’s hard for him.”

A busboy came by to pick up the empty glasses. Machi finally stood up. “You know, I asked why you’re helping him, not why you’re falling for him. He hasn't passed my approval yet but I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not falling for him,” I say while following her out of the restaurant. “Also where are we going?”

“Yeah sure you aren’t falling for him. You just slept with him many, many times and miss him dearly.” Machi continued to walk out of the restaurant and down the street. She was dodging through the random people that were walking through town. I follow suit. “I’m taking you to see my boss. While I don’t think it’s a good idea, you’re already in too deep for me to convince you otherwise.”

I could feel the heat on my cheeks as I quickly ran after her. “Oh so we can just meet the boss. We don't have to make an appointment or anything.”

“Oh no. We’re meeting Chrollo and the rest of the gang too.” I almost misstepped. I could feel goosebumps running up my spine. Meeting the rest of the Troupe was not my goal. All I wanted was to talk to the boss then maybe get to hang out with Machi until Illumi picked me up. This was way out of my paygrade and Illumi had better reward me.

------------------------------------------------------

Meteor city was more desolate than I imagined. A lot of buildings were run down or demolished. Only a few structures seemed like they were built well. One of the more run down buildings, Machi went into. I followed closely behind.

“Machi brought a friend,” a voice from behind me. I jumped a little and turned around. However, I didn’t see anyone.

“Cut it out Feitan,” Machi said without turning around.

“I thought we shouldn’t have outsiders because of the last time,” said the voice again. I turned towards where it was coming from and again was met with nothing. I walked a little faster to keep up with Machi.

“This isn’t like last time. I know who I bring into the safe place. Plus we’re not staying here long. She barely knows Nen and has a mission. Is Chrollo here?” From the shadows came a short man. He had most of his face covered by a collar that led into his jacket. He was carrying an umbrella even though it wasn’t raining.

“He’s here. He wasn’t left.”

“Good.” Machi only stopped for a second. We went into another part of the building. This one has a little bit more put together. It had tall ceilings that reached so far up, I doubt anyone had cleaned them in years. Inside, sat multiple people. They were either playing a card game, polishing some old weapons, or looking at old paperwork.

“Chrollo, I have someone to talk with you,” said Machi while grabbing my arm. She pushed me further into the center of the room. Every cell in my body screamed for me to leave. All these terrifying people were looking at me. Every one of them could kill me in a second. My only solace was Machi and Kalluto standing far away in the corner.

The man holding the old-ish papers set them down on top of some wooden boxes. The guy from earlier grabbing them quickly and shoving them into a satchel.

“Machi, you have brought us a friend,” said the man. He was covered in a jacket that exposed his torso. Every inch of his chest was shown for the world to see. His jacket had some old feathers that were worn down from use. His hair was slicked back to the point that grease was shimmering off of it. The main focal point was the inverted cross on his forehead. This was Chrollo, the boss of the Phantom Troupe.

Chrollo walked up to me. Instead of talking or introducing himself, he walked around me. Machi had let go of my arm without me realizing it. It was as if I was sitting prey and a shark swam around me. “What’s your name?”

“Y/N,” I responded as Chrollo had finished his lap. He stopped right in front of me. “My name is Y/N.”

“Y/N.” On his tongue, my name felt like a fly trap. “Beautiful name to fit a beautiful girl. You know Machi?”

“Yes,” I responded. “We’ve been friends for years.”

“I’m guessing you're the girl that disappeared for awhile. She was about to employ a few members in her quest to find you.”

“I-I haven’t been missing that long. Plus I’m found alive and well.” Chrollo, instead of talking, looked me up and down once again. I could get a taste that he found something interesting within me. Something that I didn’t know was there. It was almost embarrassing.

“Hmm,” said Chrollo while turning around and going back to his seat. I look around to notice the rest of the members staring at us as if this all was a show. “I’m guessing you want something. However I won’t hear it yet. Stay enjoy the troupe. We’ll revisit your query in a few days.” He flashed a showy smile that felt more like a rabid dog showing its teeth than a human’s smile. “I want to get to know you.”

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter

Full Masterlist

#illumi x reader #illumi zoldyck #hunterxhunter #Hxh #A Hunter's Prey #Chrollo #phantom troupe #Chapter 19

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isitreallyok · 4 years ago

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Super Hero Time and My Very Own Kamen Rider Club

[A quick note before we get started here. In this post and likely in all posts to come names of people in my personal life have been changed to maintain anonymity.] After last week’s heavy topic regarding the pressures of positivity, I thought it would be better to at least start this week off lighthearted. It’s very likely that the vast majority of the readers of this are going to be from the US and as such likely have grown up with or at least seen an episode of Power Rangers. While there are a lot of things that the Power Rangers franchise does that are beyond silly and seem absolutely ridiculous to many of us that see them as adults, the things that are presented in these shows seem absolutely incredible to their target audience. These shows are marketed towards children in case that wasn’t obvious.

Power Rangers is a nostalgic thing to watch for me and I still greatly enjoy it!

Well dear reader, I am glad we agree on that. I grew up watching Power Rangers and as time has gone on I have found that I still enjoy the monster fighting, transforming, masked heroes presented therein. There are even a number of series in the franchise that I have enjoyed even as an adult. Though as I have grown older, and in turn begun to use subtitles on everything I watch, I have developed a fascination with Asian television as a whole since it tends to feel vastly different from most of what is made available in the US. This fascination extends to tokusatsu television shows including but not limited to Super Sentai and Kamen Rider.

For those who aren’t aware, Power Rangers is actually based on the long standing Super Sentai franchise in Japan. Each week on Sunday mornings, similarly to the Saturday morning cartoons of yore, a television block called Super Hero Time airs. This consists of the most recent annual series for both Super Sentai and the annual series of another long standing series called Kamen Rider. Both of these play into the gimmick of transforming masked heroes that have a different theme with each season. Of late I have been enjoying watching episodes of each of these series with a small group of folks on Discord and let me tell you all about the joy of finally finding a group of lovely people that are interested in these series the same way I am.

Sounds like it’s time for a story. Shall we queue the “Long Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away…” scrawl?

You know what. That sounds fun. Lets imagine this as an opening to a cinematic experience. Lets travel back to June of the COVID times, a mere six months that feels like it is 87 years ago . At this point depression had grabbed a hold of me and thrown me so deep into the pits of despair that I wasn’t sure where I was going to find a light at the end of the tunnel. I had just been through a breakup with my first girlfriend in four years, I was living at an extended stay with my father taking care of him as best as I was capable, all while sacrificing my own ability to take of myself and cope with the emotional break down that was happening as my social life and many of my friendships were falling to shambles.

Enter Kenshiro. I started interacting with Kenshiro on Twitter earlier in 2020 and saw that he posted a lot about One Piece (which I was actively catching up on at the time) and things in the tokusatsu genre. Eventually I noticed that he had posted about a small group of folx who ended up getting together on Tuesday nights to watch Sentai together. I managed to quickly, and very temporarily, overcome my social anxiety and asked if it would be possible for an invite to this group. Kenshiro had a “the more the merrier style” approach to this group and I was welcomed in with open arms. Thus beginning a journey that has lasted six months and is still going today.

I think it’s wonderful that you managed to overcome your social anxiety to get into the group, but don’t social interactions overwhelm you regardless?

Though I was able to get an invite into the server and start enjoying these watch parties with the crew, the social impact was still quite overwhelming. On any given night that we were watching Sentai shows there were between 14 and 20 people all typing (we mute our mics when we watch) at the same time and the wall of text that forms while there are four to six different discussions going on about the show was really overwhelming at first. I struggled to really feel like I belonged even though people were engaged and encouraging me with everything that I was talking about.

That all changed when Ex-Aid started up Rider Time on Thursdays. When I first joined up we were watching intermittent episodes of both Carranger and Gokaiger on Tuesdays and it was a blast. Carranger, the series that Power Rangers Turbo was based on, was easily the most 80s nonsense I’ve seen in a long time with multicolored jobber baddies that ended up being completely over the top and I loved every second of it. Eventually though we moved towards watching Gokaiger, a pirate themed anniversary season of Sentai, in its entirety. Once we moved to the stick to a single series and watch it all the way through it only made sense that someone would start up a different night for us to watch Kamen Rider.

This was originally an effort spearheaded by Ex-Aid to further the scope of the tokusatsu shows that we were watching as a group. We were running Sentai on Tuesdays, Kamen Rider on Thursdays, and Ultraman on Fridays. It was a wonderful time to have such an incredible community to surround myself with even if I was a little bit intimidated by the amount of interaction on some of the busier nights.

It sounds like a really nice time. How did you manage to overcome your social anxiety though?

Oddly enough, it came pretty natural to me when I started actually plugging myself into the Thursday night crowd. When we first began the Thursday night watch parties it started off with Kamen Rider Drive. This was a series that I had tried to get into before but never really managed to enjoy so I was a little hesitant to go through it because I didn’t think I’d enjoy it. Since we were only watching 3 episodes a week I figured I could carve out an hour and a half of my time to watch some stuff with like minded individuals even if I wasn’t the biggest fan of what we were watching. Guess what, it turns out that my gut reaction to the series was completely wrong and now I absolutely love it and am excited to revisit it when the show is a little less fresh in my mind.

The first few times I tuned in on Thursdays I was a little bit shy. I didn’t say much, I didn’t want to really engage because of the smaller atmosphere, and I sure wasn’t willing to divulge anything going on in my personal life to this new found group. Within two weeks that all changed. I began to joke around with people and participate in the call and response type stuff that we now do during opening and endings even if it’s just typing in all caps the English lyrics in the opening song.

I think the small environment really did wonders for my anxiety because since I wasn’t heavily invested at the start if I felt like I butted heads with any of the group I could have just politely backed out and stopped watching with that small group. By having this group of four to six other people instead of the routine fifteen to twenty that we were drawing on Tuesdays, in time, I felt much more comfortable putting myself out there and letting my voice and opinions be heard. In a very short time, I managed to get very comfortable with this small group and even was more confident and open during the Sentai streaming on Tuesdays with the larger group as well.

Though I absolutely adore the entirety of this community that has been built surrounding both One Piece and tokusatsu shows as a whole, I particularly enjoy the time that I’ve spent with my very own Kamen Rider Club!

Kamen Rider Club?! Frankly that sounds a little childish when worded like that.

It kind of does, doesn’t it? It is what we in the Thursday night crew call ourselves. It is also a reference to what the main cast of Kamen Rider Fourze call themselves. One thing that this weekly gathering of the fans has taught me it is that its okay to enjoy childish things. I’ve even bought myself some of the toys that have come from various Kamen Rider series as I have seen them during our very own show and tell segment where we all showed off our collectibles and various toys. So while yes show and tell is a bit of a childish thing to do it brought joy to our little group. The amount of serotonin I have generated in the last few weeks by playing with the aforementioned toys is astounding. Getting in touch with my inner child and remembering that it is actually rather fun to play pretend has been a real delight.

As adults, we often work ourselves day in and day out to take care of mundane tasks that are essential to our survival. We wake up, go to work, come home, make or order some dinner, eat, and then get ready for bed. I’ve chosen to add finding happiness in doing the things I wasn’t able to do as a kid to the list. Staying up late to find that next save point in a game, buying toys neither myself or my family could afford as a kid, watching nostalgic b movies that brought me some joy as a child, and following along with all the tokusatsu shows my heart can desire are just a few ways I’ve managed to embrace my inner child and cater to my own personal and emotional needs in doing so. There is nothing wrong with being a little childish from time to time. Doing this has introduced me to so many people that I never would have met otherwise.

It really does sound like you’ve managed to build yourself a group of friends here. Isn’t it pretty cool what can happen when you trust that others aren’t going to have your worst interest in mind.

You’re right. I let some people in and was actually surprised with the results. I absolutely adore this little crowd I’ve got. They have all done so much for me without ever realizing it and I am beyond appreciative. Ex-Aid started the KRC on Thursday nights and drops some incredible trivia all over the place. OOO and I have a ton in common and they are an absolute delight to talk to. I am always excited to see them pop into a conversation on the Discord because we tend to have a similar line of thought and form of humor we do have some differences in personal taste that account for unique perspectives and I absolutely love hearing about them. Epsilon and I both are not afraid to make lewd jokes about what we are watching. Tastefully of course. … Most of the time. Epsilon has also offered to be a conversation partner as I continue to get back to my study of the Japanese language! Zi-O has managed to convince me to revisit series I had otherwise written off because I didn’t think they would be of interest, but they managed to sell me on them so I now have an expansive list of series that I want to watch and a planned order to revisit them. Kiva and I aren’t particularly close as I haven’t done much to actually talk to them, but I’m excited to see things develop more in that regard because they seem like a really fun person to talk to. Finally there is Chaser. They are our newest member of our Thursday night group and they have managed to have me laugh so hard I’ve done spit takes. I appreciate each and every one of our little Kamen Rider Club more than words can ever say.

Quick aside and mushy feelings bit here, but if any the KRC are reading this I want you to know that you all have absolutely made 2020 better for me. We’ve had an incredible amount of laughs together. We’ve seen each other through being both happy and sad. Frankly, you all have reminded me that I do have people who I can call friends on days where I didn’t think there was anyone who wanted anything to do with me. I appreciate you, I absolutely adore each of you, and words can not express my gratitude for the warm welcome that I have received into this lovely community. You all have helped me grow as a person in ways that I didn’t expect going into this group. Shaking off my depression blues and finding confidence to embrace my love of these silly kids shows has been in large part thanks to you all. I love you all. Thank you.

Outside of our usual Thursday crew there are so many more people in this community that have put a smile on my face and some joy in my heart, but there is one other person that I would like to take a moment to express some gratitude for. Scipio was one of the first people I actually felt comfortable bantering with in the Tuesday community before the creation of our Rider Time segment on Thursday. They had an incredibly warm and friendly demeanor about them and naturally I didn’t mind bantering with them during the Sentai watch parties. After a while I followed them on Twitter and recently I reached out to them there and they were willing and able to listen to me when I was feeling overwhelmed about the state of chaos in my life and that alone solidified my feeling of being appreciated inside of this community. Thank you Scipio for taking the time to support a stranger and make them feel like they are a part of something bigger.

I’m so glad that you managed to find these people. It seems like they are really helping you in a lot of ways.

They truly are. The joy of it is that they aren’t even doing anything special. They are simply treating me like a comrade and that alone has done wonders for my self esteem. This year has been among the most challenging in my entire life for a myriad of reasons and just having this community to be a part of has honestly saved my life. I don’t know where I would be without them, but I do know that I would be a lot worse off.

So to wrap things up here for today I want to challenge my readers to do two things. Firstly take a moment to appreciate the people in your life that make you happy. If you feel inclined to tell them how much you appreciate them that’s great. If you just take a moment to reflect on it that’s great too. Secondly, I want to challenge everyone to embrace the things that might embarrass you if you talked about it to your friends with more conservative interests. Embrace the wild things that you enjoy. Don’t let anyone take the joy that these things bring you away. Finally as a reminder to all of you, you are stronger than you think, you are beautiful, and by goodness you are worth it. Lets go into this week ready to kick some butt and join some fandoms.

#tokusatsu #inner child #friendship #fandom #Mental Health Awareness #depression #coping mechanism #watch party #appreciation post #Kamen Rider #Super Sentai

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arlingtonpark · 5 years ago

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SNK 126 Review

TFW you know you’re going to die.

Just…where to even start.

God damn this chapter.

Rushed. Rushed. Rushed. Rushed. Rushed. Everything about this chapter was rushed. I don’t know what Isayama’s final destination is, but he sure pulled out all the stops to get there as fast as possible. Every possible chance Isayama could cut a corner, he took it. In every possible way.

People are speculating that we’ll get flashbacks that’ll sooth the sting of this chapter. I doubt it.

Attack on Titan has been pretty flashback heavy this past arc, but that was an artistic decision that served the story.

There was a three year time skip and that time needed to be filled out. We jumped ahead three years and suddenly Eren is AWOL and working with Zeke.

Showing events unfolding on Paradis interspersed with flashbacks to key moments during the time skip was a storytelling device.

Firstly, it allowed Isayama to control how much we knew about our character’s motivations.

Stuff happened in those three years, and those events have shaped the character’s actions in the present. Through strategically placed flashbacks, Isayama was able to slowly reveal new, relevant information about everyone’s motivations.

Secondly, flashbacks also allowed Isayama to build suspense. Again, flashbacks are strategically placed to reveal only what’s relevant.

When it seemed Eren was working with Zeke, we only saw stuff that made it seem like he was working with Zeke. Now that we know Eren was always working against Zeke, we’re seeing stuff that more directly deals with his true motivations.

And finally, having flashbacks helped keep things interesting. There’s a lot of political maneuvering during the post-Marley Arc chapters, and while well told, it could easily have been boring. Cutting between past and present was a way to break up these sequences of people mostly just talking with each other with something most would find interesting.

Having flashbacks actively improved the story.

Now think about chapter 126. What purpose would flashbacks serve here?

The answer is none. No artistic purpose, anyway. There probably will be flashbacks, but that’d be damage control, not artistry.

My hunch is that the gaps in the story are more due to rushed pacing, or even worse, Isayama just not caring. I think this becomes clear when you look at the totality of…whatever this chapter is.

True, we don’t see when Hange and co. made contact with Armin and co. and when they hooked up with Jean and Mikasa.

And it’s true we also didn’t see important beats like why Annie decided to join up, or why Magath and Pieck joined, too.

But we also didn’t see a lot of smaller stuff that we, nevertheless, *should* have seen.

Falco said he heard Connie mention Ragako Village while they were camped out. That didn’t happen on screen, but Connie was shown talking out loud, briefly. We are apparently supposed to take it as a given he mentioned Ragako, too. At some point.

When Armin and Gabi confront Connie in Ragako, they ride in on horseback and stop when Connie threatens Falco. But towards the end of the scene, we see that Armin and Gabi are standing on the ground. At some prior point, they dismounted their horses off screen.

Falco loved his brother. Then Colt died and Falco had a role in that. He died in Falco’s transformation. Hugging him. Crying for him. Falco never knew before now. His brother was dead and he never even realized. Now he learns it.

Off. Fucking. Screen.

He’s crying with Gabi and at first it seemed he was just overwhelmed by what happened.

Then I saw his speech bubble.

Falco [sobbing]: Colt.

Are you fucking kidding me.

Things reach peak IDGAF during Onyankopon’s execution scene. In one panel, Jean is standing to Onyankopon’s back right. Next panel, he’s teleported to the back left. Then Jean points his gun at Onyankopon, and he’s on the back right again! When Jean pulls the trigger, he’s back to being on the left.

I doubt there’ll be flashbacks to any of this shit. These moments were obviously skipped because Isayama dropped the ball.

Maybe the homebuilder will go back and add that much needed support beam, but considering they seemingly forgot to fireproof the chimney, they probably aren’t.

I call it the Principle of Brown M&Ms. Whenever Van Halen played a concert, they stipulated in their contract that their dressing room be furnished with a bowl of m&ms, no brown ones.

If there really was a bowl with no brown m&ms, they could be sure that venue management was diligent and on their game. If they cared to fulfill a small detail like that, they could be trusted to care about crew safety, etc.

Van Halen should trash Isayama’s house I will crowd fund the money.

I have little trust in Isayama to do this right. Looking at the totality of the chapter, it’s clear these are mistakes rather than decisions.

The through line of this chapter is suicide.

They’re all going to die. All of them. And they know it.

Just look at their faces in the final shot. Expressions range from stone-faced (Armin) to shitting the bed (Gabi). They all know this means death.

No one is doing this because they think they can win, except maybe Annie.

Connie’s logic was that he wanted to be a soldier his mom would be proud of. Fighting Eren is where this logic takes him. No plan for actually winning is brought up, he just decides fighting the good fight is what makes a mom proud.

Hange is doing this for the sake of not running away. They consider doing what Shadis rejected: living the rest of their days shitting on a mountain. The reason they’re not currently doing that is just what Levi said: they don’t stop.

Magath admitted last chapter that they couldn’t win, but that informing the world of the apocalypse was better than waiting to die. Fighting Eren against all hope isn’t far from that, so that’s probably their primary motivation as well.

I’m willing to bet Armin is similarly motivated. There’s a very revealing parallel between Armin and Connie in this chapter, though an underdeveloped one.

Connie wants to be a soldier his mom could be proud of. But, of course, Erwin is Armin’s idea of a soldier to be proud of. Erwin was charismatic, smart, and kept calm under fire.

Connie and Armin strive for essentially the same ideal. Being a good soldier. That means slightly different things to each of them, but broadly, it’s the same.

Mind you, Armin’s idea of Erwin is significantly more sanitized than the real Erwin was, but that’s not the point. For all his flaws, Erwin genuinely was someone to look up to. He showed true leadership, intelligence, and empathy. He was a good person all around.

Armin didn’t even want to think about fighting Eren; he had given up hope on that. Would Erwin have done that?

My guess is that Armin thinks taking down Eren is how he can truly become like Erwin Smith. Erwin never lost sight of the main objective, even if it meant long odds. Save humanity. That meant getting to that basement, so they went to that basement.

Right now, saving humanity means stopping Eren.

Chances are slim, too, but that never stopped Erwin, either. Armin knows that. Once a goal was set on, Erwin never wavered. He pushed towards it.

So you’ve got humanity’s fate on the line and an impossible obstacle to fight if victory is to achieved. Sounds like a classic survey corps mission. No wonder Armin is doing this.

Jean is doing this because of his conscious. Floch tempted him with a chance to peace out. Instead, he chose to peace out and kill Eren.

He could have lived a quiet life. Not just a life he wanted before, but arguably the life he deserves after all the misery he’s endured. He said no.

He let Marco infect his brain and now he can’t not be good.

This is what happens when you huff ashes.

Levi is doing this because he made a promise to Erwin and he stands by that. Killing Zeke was the last order Erwin gave him. Levi promised he’d carry it out. If he fails, he fails Erwin. I don’t think Levi’s ever contemplated failing, but honestly, it’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t take that shame to his grave.

Gabi’s already resolved to fight Eren, so she’s just sticking to what she’s already planned.

No idea why Annie is doing this, so don’t ask. >.>

They’re doing this because they refuse to roll over. They can’t respect themselves if they do. Not Hange, not Connie, not Jean.

They can’t take pride in themselves otherwise.

So they’ll march to their deaths, and they don’t care if there’s no hope. They’re throwing their lives away, but they know it’s the right thing to do.

Unfortunately, most of this, admittedly pretty cool, character work happens off screen.

God damn this chapter.

So. Much. Of this chapter was mishandled.

Connie’s subplot resolution was the most blatant example.

I already mentioned Falco hearing stuff from Connie off screen. And Armin and Gabi dismounting their horses…at some point. The BS continues afterwards.

Armin pleads for Falco’s life, but Connie claims Armin is telling him to give up on his mom, and Armin is totally shut down by this.

LOL.

This is the exact same objection Connie raised the last time they spoke. What stopping Connie would mean for his mom was specifically on Armin’s mind when he set out with Gabi.

Like, Armin, bruh, you really had nothing to say to that?

He really, really didn’t think to come up with a response. Armin. The guy who tends to overthink things.

Fine, whatever. So Connie’s objection causes Armin to spiral into self-loathing despair.

The stakes are dizzyingly high.

A child taken hostage.

A deranged man threatens to kill him.

The boy’s girlfriend is there. She’s smart, but still just a kid. And she doesn’t know this man. She doesn’t know how to talk to him, she doesn’t understand his motives, she’s not very emotionally mature herself.

But she’s desperate. Desperate.

Armin is the only one who’s kept his head. It has to be him.

He needs to calm the madman down, convince him killing the kid isn’t the right way, and maybe assure him an alternative solution exists.

Erwin probably could’ve done it. He was charismatic, smart, and calm under fire.

Armin…was not that here. It was genuinely stupid of him to not have come prepared. Like, at even a basic level.

He failed.

So fuck it, at least if the mommy titan ate him, Falco will live, the mom will be back, and Gabi can have her boyfriend.

So Armin throws himself at the titan, and it was only happenstance that everything worked out.

That’s the logic of this scene, but it’s all muddled. The stupidity Armin displayed dampened the drama.

The speed with which he falls into despair was unnatural. Armin’s badly insecure about living up to Erwin’s image, but it’s never been shown to be this bad.

There’s no believable progression to Armin’s feelings. He tried to be a hero, he face-planted, now he wants to die. They sort of skipped a couple of beats here.

Then Connie says maybe the stupidest thing he’s ever said in the manga: that inheriting the Colossal Titan would only have made his mom suffer.

???

So giving her the Colossal Titan would be bad, but not the Jaw?

I just assumed Connie thought turning his mom into a titan was worth it in the end. Did he just now realize how bad that would have been?

The series can’t just not address this. Connie named killing Falco and Armin as the bad things he did. Is he really not going to grapple with almost turning his mom into a titan, which he only implicitly admits was a bad thing?

Next scene is Louise and Mikasa.

Louise is a very devoted person. She cares deeply for Mikasa because Mikasa saved her life, and inspired her to devote her heart. She enlisted in the military, risked her life for her country, and now she’s on her deathbed, mortally wounded in battle. Not many people would speak ill of her like I would.

…

Is there anyone in this manga as pathetic as Louise?

Really, is there anyone?

Louise was saved from a titan by Mikasa. This inspired her to fight for her country.

Ok, that’s good.

She admires Mikasa and dreams of fighting by her side.

Yeah, that’s fine. We all wish we could hang with our heroes.

Then she took the scarf Mikasa threw away for herself. Because she thought it’d bring her closer to her.

Like how a stalker rifles through their victim’s trash for keepsakes.

That’s. pathetic.

It is pathetic how much Louise pines for Mikasa.

Compare Louise x Mikasa to Mikasa x Eren all you like, it’s not the same thing.

Mikasa and Eren were family. Their love is at minimum familial. Mikasa pines for Eren, which she very annoyingly never addressed, but there’s a sense to it.

When Mikasa lost her family, she was a helpless kid who had nothing. The Jeagers, and especially Eren, helped her rebuild her life. They took her into their home and accepted her as a family member.

The scarf matters, but only because it represents the humanity Mikasa was shown when she needed it most. She is endlessly grateful for that.

So of course she’d break the law for Eren, many family members would. Her willingness to do anything to save Eren bordered on derangement, but she’s gotten better at that. And she’s reevaluating her image of Eren in light of recent…happenings, which is good.

Louise is just a goddamn fangirl.

She doesn’t know Mikasa. She doesn’t pal around with her. She just stalks her like a creep.

Maybe they could have been friends. If Louise had just approached her, explained her story, and tried to befriend her, they could’ve become good friends. Certainly, Mikasa would have been flattered to see she inspired someone so much.

But that’s not what happened. Louise chose to be a stalker instead of a friend. I don’t think she was ever really interested in Mikasa as a person, though.

This is the likely last time she and Mikasa will interact, and Mikasa was so cold to her. Louise didn’t care. She got to fight alongside her hero for a time and that was enough. That’s so childish.

She looked up to Mikasa, but never seemed to want to befriend her. She just wanted to fight alongside her. I don’t think I’ll ever understand people like Louise.

If you respect someone so much, why wouldn’t you want to get to know them?

She said she’d die with no regrets because of this.

No regrets over never befriending her hero. No regrets over Floch, who lead her movement, putting people against the wall. No self-reflection. Nothing.

What a sad life to have lived.

She never questioned herself or what she felt. Just stunningly unself-aware.

…Maybe Daz would be more pathetic, but he’s more of a caricature of a pitiable person, so he doesn’t count.

Louise was a perfect fit for the Yeagerists. Louise, Floch, Eren. These people think with their hearts instead of their brains. They act on their feelings with no thought. It’s animalistic.

Eren loves his country, so now he’s off killing everyone else. Floch feels righteous indignation, so now he’s fucking over everyone who opposes him. Louise feels admiration for Mikasa, so now she’s dead.

Floch is holding his Trump rally, and declaring ultimate victory. i swear, Floch talks like a politician giving a stump speech. It’s the same prepared remarks with the same talking points over and over and over again.

“We are persecuted. All hail Eren the Liberator. He will set us free. Make me King of Ape Mountain.”

You can just tell Floch isn’t a very creative person. He’s repetitive as hell, a real one-man act.

Then one of the dumbest moments in the chapter happens.

Mikasa is watching Floch’s speech for some reason. Then Some Guy approaches her, and casually asks if she wants to help lead Paradis.

Who is this guy?

Why is he asking her this?

Why is this guy pointing out Jean for no reason?

Clearly the point is to establish Mikasa’s stance on helping the Jeagerists, and to hint at Jean’s coming betrayal, but, jeeeeeez, was this badly telegraphed.

Isayama’s never been all that subtle, but this is just bad. It reads like the first draft of a story than a finished product.

Next dumb scene.

Connie, Armin, and the kids are eating their way to Reiner, and they just bump into Annie, and even though she admits she’s committed awful crimes, Connie just starts paling around with her.

Huh?

His friends betraying him and killing other friends was, like, a thing with Connie. He had major beef with Eren for this exact reason. He specifically named Annie as an example of this.

Eren, Reiner, Bertolt, Annie. He trusted these people; they betrayed that trust and he was tired of it. Good people were killed by that betrayal. Including Sasha, whom he cared for more than anyone.

Now it’s all good?

This is terrible character writing. Connie’s character was totally shat on by this chapter.

I doubt we’ve seen the last of Hitch. That line about not finishing the pie alone is obvious set up for her searching Annie out and helping take down Eren.

Finishing off a pie is a group effort; the more the better. Also finishing off the zombie savior thing Eren’s become. That, too.

I’ve already talked about Jean, but wow, he’s such a good kid now.

The plan was for the Cart Titan to grab Yelena, Onyankopon, and Jean, and get out. They couldn’t have accounted for everything, though, like Floch happening to be in danger of being crushed as the Cart did her thing.

Floch and Jean do not get along. They’re enemies, politically and personally.

Jean still pushed him out of the way.

That was nice, but it was a critical blunder.

If Jean had held Floch close instead, they both would have been taken. Floch could have been their prisoner along with Yelena.

But, nope, Floch will continue to solidify his power and even if everyone survives, they won’t be able to oppose him.

The future looks super bleak no matter what happens. Eren will destroy the world and Floch will rule the Earth, or Eren will be stopped and the world will destroy Paradis in retaliation.

There is no way this is some gambit by Eren to unite the world. That makes no sense.

The world hates Eldians because they fear the Wall Titans will crush them.

The exact thing Eren’s doing now.

Eren will unite the world, but only in hatred of Eldians. If Eren is stopped, the world will be more committed to eliminating Paradis than ever before.

…Did the dialogue seem worse this time around?

“Titan doctor Hange.”

“We’ll listen before we shoot.”

“You just told me not to say a word, so I’ll show you with my actions.”

“Those burned bones would never forgive me.”

Who wrote that?

This chapter in general suffers from what you could call Season 3-itis. The anime adaptation of the Uprising Arc, in season 3, had a similar problem with rushing important moments. In season 3, part 1 important stuff happens and the characters engage with these events like real people. They react to what’s happening.

In the anime, stuff just happens. There are plot beats to get through, so the characters perform their beats and then it’s off to the next beat. The characters don’t react to what’s happening, they perform the story beat given to their character. It’s a robotic form of storytelling with no humanity behind it.

There is no gravitas.

So it is here. The fast pace of this chapter is unnatural. It breaks immersion and makes the story seem unrealistic.

This chapter was so inexplicable. Isayama just…stopped caring. Some other explanation would be nice, but in a vacuum, this is the likeliest one. He just stopped caring.

Never forget, this is Attack on Titan. A story about everything good in the world getting ruined. Up to and including the quality of the story itself.

So will they succeed?

Eren is apparently doing this to protect them, so if they just stood in a line in front of him, and dared him to kill them…

It might give him pause.

……They’re dead.

#shingeki no kyogin #attack on titan #snk 126 #snk chapter 126 #spoilers

22 notes · View notes

donkey-hyuck · 5 years ago

Text

Desire

^^Song based off Jeremy Zucker I love him sm

Word Count- 3.5k

Genre- ANGST/ some fluff/ humor (?)

Pairing- Na Jaemin X Reader/ includes dreamies+Mark, sorry Jeno is the ex but he’s mentioned a few times and they see him a couple times .

The lyrics of the song that are mentioned are NOT in order of how the song goes

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

Why do you cry with your hair tied up? And my t-shirt on?

You were in your best friends t-shirt, crying your heart out. Your, now, ex-boyfriend, broke up with you and it’s a few days post break up, but you were still hurting. He was your first love, how could you not? In the midst of all this commotion, your, very concerned, mother had called your best friend.

“Jaemin, they need you. Now.”

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

Jaemin. Na Jaemin. Your best friend of over eleven (11) years. You’ve always envied him, for being so outgoing, for being the exact opposite of you. He was a total, natural, flirt, and a pro at dating, stealing the hearts of many.

So, here he was, barging through your door, eight (8) at night, with snacks, movies, and his hoodie, finding ways to help console you as you’re going through your first ever break up.

I’ll be outside when the sky falls down

He was your best friend. There for you from the start. He was there for you when you got bullied, he fought them for you, helped you get over those mean people that hurt his best friend. Whenever someone tore you down, Jaemin was always there to bring you back up. And you were thankful enough to have someone as special as Na Jaemin in your life.

You’ve never had the imagination to think of you and Jaemin together. It’d be nice because he was the sweetest person you’ve ever let into your life, but you just didn’t see it. Though, your mother had thought otherwise. Telling you that he is the perfect man to go out with. He was kind, generous, selfless, and so much more. Yes, you love him so much, but only as a friend. He was your best friend, nothing more, nothing less.

Little did you know, all that was going to change.

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

It was now a few weeks post break-up with Jeno, and the crew all decided to go roller skating, back where Jisung and Chenle work. Mark being the oldest and wisest, as his stupid ass claims, came to pick you all up.

Once you get to the destination, everyone agreed to play two (2) rounds of laser tag first. It was a blast, and it really did help you get over your seven (7) month relationship with Jeno. After the laser tag, you walked to the counter for the roller skates and greeted Chenle, who was giving your roller skates, and Jisung peering from the back to the front to see his friends.

“Hey Lele! Jisung!”

“Hi besties! The usual, right?”

You all nodded in excitement, ready to go to the rink and just have some fun.

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

As the night was coming to an end, well, for the roller skating bit, you and Jaemin were seen playing some of the arcade games. As you were trying to beat him at an intense game of street fighter, someone glanced your way and it was none other than Lee Jeno. Your first love, but also, your first heartbreak. And as soon as Jaemin saw him, he tried to distract you from looking behind you. The only thing he could resort to, or more like the first thing that came to his mind.

He kissed you.

And you were in total shock. Never in your life did you believe that your best friend would mold his lips to yours in a kiss. And you never in your life believed that you would kiss back. The kiss lasted a few seconds before Jaemin realized what he did and pulled away instantly.

“I-I-I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I just saw Jeno and remembered how much he hurt you. I’m so-”

I’ve won and I’ve lost but I fell and I fucked it up

The words that were going to come out of his mouth quickly dissolved as you push your face into his chest. Reassuring him that it was fine and everything will be okay. When you lifted your head from his chest and met his gaze, his eyes were brimmed with tears and his face was turning pink out of frustration and embarrassment. A single drop of his tear cascaded down his cheek and you were quick to cup his cheek to wipe it, leaning your forehead against his in the process whispering, “it’s alright. We’ll be alright, and we always will.”

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

By the time it was ten (10) o’clock, everyone was crowded on your bed and the space near your bed. You were all currently reminiscing the past by watching old Nickelodeon and Disney tv shows and movies.

Falling asleep to the soft chatter and laughter of you friends, your eyes grow heavy and you soon drift off to sleep dreaming of god-knows what.

The following morning, you are awoken by the sound of laughter and plates being set down on the table. And once you realized your friends weren’t in your room, you lazily got out of your bed to get ready. When you came down everyone shouted a, “good morning Y/N!” And you responded with a, “morning guys~!”

But when you glanced at Jaemin, he looked like he was trying to avoid any contact with you. After that whole incident, he hasn’t paid much attention to you, now that you think back to last night when you guys came home. “Jae? Are you still thinking about, uh, what happened last night?” He lookd straight into your eyes and apologized again, hugging you with his face pressed against your stomach. “I’m so sorry. I was so stupid to do that. You’re my best friend.”

I hate to be the one to make your fears fire up

You chuckled again and ran your fingers through his hair, telling him that it was really okay and it didn’t mean much because it was so abrupt. He looked up at you and pouted. “So, were good?” He asked. “We’re good.”

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

Fast forward to school, first (1st) period, which wasn’t really a period, it was more like a chill advisory before school actually started.

You were in the midst of a conversation with Ryujin when she pointed out Jeno, your first love, walking towards the two (2) of you.

“Hey, Ryujin, can I borrow Y/N for a sec?”

You desperately looked at her, pleading her to say no as your pupils dilate. “Sorry, we’re kinda busy right now.” And that made you sigh in relief, “thanks.”

First bell had already rung and you were in your second (2nd) - though you think technically your first (1st) - period. Fortunately for you, Yeri and Hyuck were in the same class. Yet, unfortunately for you, so was Jeno.

You quietly told them what happened not even fifteen (15) minutes ago concerning him. “Ugh, what does he want? He broke it off with you, didn’t he?” Questioned Yeri. “He did. But I don’t know what he wants.”

But you can’t help to think about the kiss that you shared with Jaemin. He did claim to see Jeno constantly looking at the two (2) of you playing your arcade game. “What a weirdo,” chimed Hyuck, you and Yeri laughing and agreeing. “Indeed.”

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

By the time the second bell for lunch rang, you ran to your locker to put away your things whilst your friends try to look for a lunch table to sit. And unluckily for you, so was Jeno.

His locker wasn’t far from yours. Yes is was past halfway the hallway, but the hallways weren’t that long to begin with, so if you were to avoid him, he still could’ve easily saw you. And that he did.

“Y/N wait!”

You stopped in your tracks and groaned, slowly turning around and clenching your jaw as well as balling your fists together.

“Yes, Jeno? Is there something wrong?”

“Listen, I know that I broke up with you, but, I want to get back together. My life has been horrible these past few weeks and I’ve missed you. My parents have too. Please come back?” You didn’t know if you could believe him. You know the real reason he broke up with you. He was cheating on you. You caught him texting some girl who didn’t go to your school, you also passed by them while you were at the mall with your cousins. They were in the hallway of the bathroom. Pressing their lips together. “Bullshit,” you spat in his face and turned on your heels to leave. Until he grabbed your wrist. “What do you mean, bullshit? I meant what I said,” he pleaded. “Yeah right. You could’ve said anything other than that. It’s too clichè for me to fall for that. Besides, I saw you two (2). You were basically eating each other’s faces. Just get over us, because I already have and I don’t plan on coming back,” with the final word, you left, leaving him paralyzed by your words.

Easier to blame with a broken heart. Hate me now that we’ve grown apart

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

Later that day, Jaemin swung by to greet your mother from his mother, but also to tell you about the project your supposed to be working on. You were both busy that day and hadn’t had the time to really start on it.

“So, our bio project is about the energy of life. It says that we have to create a manipulative poster of some-sort regarding to the energy of life, based on cellular respiration and photosynthesis. I’m free any day except for Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Thursday’s, but, you already know that,” you explained. “Mhm. I have basketball practice coming up but we can work on it on the weekends and some free periods,” he, too, explains. “Okay then, it’s settled! I’ve got to go to work soon but I’ll see you tomorrow okay Jae?”

“Of course.”

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

“Y/N! I’m coming home late today so will you be able to get a ride home with someone?” Your mother tells you as you get into the car for her to drop you off.

“Yeah, I’ll have Jaemin drop me off today. But he has basketball practice until four (4). Just in case you come home during that time.”

“Okay. I probably will be home later but thanks for letting me know! I love you, bye!”

“Love you too mom. Bye.”

You enter your, what you consider, advisory class as usual and sit down to talk to Ryujin, Chenle, and Yeji. Yeji was someone you’ve known of, but you didn’t really consider each other as friends. All you knew was that she was friends with Ryujin and she currently has a crush on your best friend, Na Jaemin. “So, Y/N, how’s Jaemin? Basketball season is coming up and was wondering when their first game was.”

“Oh, uh, well, he’s doing fine I guess, and their first (1st) game isn’t until Friday this week.”

“Great! I’ll see you all there?”

“Of course! We never miss his home games. We’re his biggest fans!” said Chenle.

It was now free period and you walked into your bio lab looking for your presentation on the energy of life. You texted Jaemin to meet you in your bio class to find the poster and clarify some things listed in the rubric/instructions. “Hey, I’m here. Sorry I’m late,” he said, walking through the door to find you talking to the teacher. “You’re fine. I got all our questions answered anyways. Let’s head into the library.”

Once about forty-five (45) minutes have passed on you both working on your poster, some messing around included, there were about fifteen-twenty (15-20) minutes left of your free period and you both decided to just talk, like usual.

“My mom asked if you could take me home today. I’ll stay after school to watch you practice.”

“Okay, sounds great. I would be glad to have my best friend there to support me.”

“Oh, shut up, idiot,” you laughed and playfully pushed him. “By the way, Yeji asked about you. She asked when your first game was.”

“Did you tell her?”

“Of course I did. I was with Chenle and Ryujin anyways, I couldn’t lie.”

“Ugh, I hate her. She’s so obsessed with me and I barley even know her. I just be nice to her because she’s Ryujin’s friend.”

“Me too Jae, but we can’t do anything about it.”

“Then wear my basketball sweater for the game on Friday, Y/N.”

“Why would I?”

“Because I want you to. You’re my best friend. Why wouldn’t you?”

Oh shit, he got you there.

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

It was the afternoon of the first basketball game of the season. You and your friends walked through the gym doors quite early to see the boys practice and to get good seats right at the front. However, before you could all sit, Yeji screamed to Ryujin to get her attention, or more like everyone’s attention. “Ryujin!” And everyone looked over to see where her voice was coming from. Then, she slowly walked towards your group of friends. “Hey guys! Can I sit with you? I want to see my star player,” she dreamily sighed, her hand covering her heart. She didn’t seem to notice that you had your best friends basketball hoodie, which was a good thing since you didn’t know what was going to happen once she saw you wearing it.

When the game was over, Jaemin ran to his friends and they all congratulated him with high-fives, hugs, kisses - it was only Hyuck but whatever - and when he came towards you he hugged you while lifting you in the air. “Nice sweater.”

“Thanks. I got it from the best,” you playfully winked.

“Jaemin!” Screamed Yeji, while she was running towards him, pushing you all the while. She jumped into his arms causing him to stumble back. They seemed a little busy so you walked back to where your friends were.

“Congrats,” she said to him.

“Uh, thanks. But I got to get to my friends, we have plans later.”

“Oh! Am I able to join? I can ask Ryujin.”

“Uh, sure. Ask her, I guess.” He sighed.

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

Mark and Jaemin drove, in two (2) separate cars of course, to your favorite diner, Daybreak to celebrate Jaemin’s win. Yeji, of course, wanted to go with Jaemin. So, she went to his car, opening the passenger seat.

“Wait! Uhm, Y/N is coming with us, she can sit in the front,” he quickly said, catching your attention beofre you entered Mark’s car. “I am?”

“Yes. You are,” he pleaded with his eyes.

You sighed and exited Mark’s car to climb into the passenger seat of Jaemin’s car. That’s when she finally saw that you were wearing your best friends basketball hoodie. “Wait, Ryujin, you can come in Jaemin’s car too, there’s enough room,” you shouted, glancing at Yeji’s face when she realized you were wearing his sweater. She obliged and got into Jaemin’s car before she could enter Mark’s.

On the way to the diner, Ryujin and Yeji was laughing, though, Yeji’s laugh was getting more obnoxious the more she did so, at least, she got more obnoxious in your opinion. When you looked up at Jaemin, you could tell he was annoyed too. His nose scrunching every time Yeji laughed.

After, what seemed like an eternity, you reached the diner and Jaemin immediately clinged onto you, not wanting any contact between Yeji. And being the touchy Leo he is, wrapped his arm around your waist while walking into the Daybreak.

You and your friends grabbed a booth and combined a table together to fit the ten (10) of you. By now, the owner, Taeyong, was pretty used to your regular occasions and always greeted you.

“Hey guys! Another win?”

“Yes! You should’ve been there, the people on the team is so cool!” Said Chenle and Renjun.

“I call sitting next to Jaemin!” You rolled your eyes and mentally face-palmed yourself. “Sorry, I’m sitting next to Y/N.”

“Oh, well, I can sit on the other side of you, right?”

You knew how much Jaemin wanted to decline, but being the nice person he was, just sighed a small, ‘okay.’

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

It was killing him inside. Having a one-sided love. Love that will never happen. He’s hurting. Jaemin has loved you since the dawn of time. He remembers when he first met you, instantly falling in love. It was as if God created something so perfect. Someone for him to cherish and love. But that someone didn’t love him the way he did. He just wanted all the pain to go away. He wished he never met you, he’s glad he did, but, you never returned his feelings. And you probably never will. He just wanted to end it all. He wants to numb all the pain so he could live a day without torture. So that’s when he did it. He confessed.

All these shots poured down the drain, I tried but it tastes like novicaine

“Hey. Y/N, can I talk to you.”

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

“Oh my gosh! I’m so happy for you two (2)!” Your mother exclaimed when you broke the news about you and Jaemin. “I knew you two (2) would end up together!” Her reaction made you both laugh.

It was a tough decision to make. Yes, you only saw Jaemin as a friend, but something - some sort of spark - knocked you out of your daze and your reality when Jaemin kissed you that night. You then thought to yourself, yeah, maybe I do desire Jaemin. And, for the time being, it was the best.

Breaking the news to your friends and his family was exhilarating, but it was also nerve wracking. They were all happy for you, and shouted different sayings with the same meaning like

“Yes! I told you they would get together,” or, “You guys finally came to your senses.”

Everyone was happy for the two (2) of you. And you were happy for each other. You were happy to have Jaemin and he was happy to have you.

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

Wanna get the fuck out this lonely town

It was now your second (2nd) semester of college. Graduating out of high school a year ago. You and Jaemin have been dating a little over a year. But that all was about to change.

“Why? Why don’t you spend any time with me anymore?” He scoffed.

“Jae, we’re in college. We can’t spend all of our time together anymore. Hell, you almost failed three (3) of you classes. You have to put your all in the work you’re given.”

“Yeah, but we never spend any time together. You’re in all of those three (3) classes. I try to ask you but you’re always blowing me off with ‘homework’ or your work.”

“We’re adults now. This is reality Jae. It’s not that great for the time being but it will have to do. Just do your work, it’s not that hard. Plus, you have your job,” you sighed. “You’re so frustrating,” you muttered under your breath.

“I’m frustrating? Do you hear yourself? I just want to spend a little more time with you. Can you not wrap your stupid ass head around that? We never see each other because every time you’re in those damn classes, you sit in the front listening to the stupid professor.”

You sigh letting go of the pencil you were clenching so hard in your hand.

“Look, this argument isn’t going anywhere. I need to finish this report for one of my classes. Please, can we just get over this pointless argument. And please leave, I have to work on this,” you pleaded.

“I’d be glad to,” he huffed, taking his sweater and walking out of your apartment.

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

You wanted to cry. You haven’t spoken to Jaemin in a week and a half. You don’t even remeber the argument at this point and you miss actually conversating with him. You had to confront him.

>>Meet me at the park by my apartment in five (5)

<< okay

Sitting at one of the swings, waiting for Jaemin, you go on your phone. You hear footsteps coming towards you. Knowing it’s Jaemin, you look up from your phone as he sits on the swing next to you.

“What did you want to talk about?”

It’s breaks your heart to say these words. “Let’s break up.” And his eyes widen, cupping your face into his large hands, tears already forming in his eyes. “Why?”

“Jae, we’re not happy. We don’t have enough tile for each other. Hell, we argued about our time management weeks ago. We have our own lives. I have to focus on mine and you have to focus on yours. You can’t fail you classes because of me.... we have to break it off.”

Na Jaemin. He was your best friend of eleven (11) years. Your boyfriend for one (1). He knew you like the back of his hand. He knew that you would continue to reject. And with two (2) broken hearts, he leans his forehead against yours. “Okay... but we’ll always stay best friends right?”

“Of course.”

If I’m honest, pretty sure I’m still alone, at loss for words

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

You leave Jaemin’s arms with a heavy heart. You can’t look at him right now. But he’s still your best friend, even if you dated for a year. You can’t give up everything you’ve ever known. No matter how much you desired each other, maybe you and he were only meant to stay best friends. Forever and always.

What do you desire?

╚═══*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*═══╝

Okay, listen, Ik the argument was kinda (REALLY) stupid, but I tried to think of an argument that kinda made sense???? But, enjoy this anyways😭

13 notes · View notes

callioope · 5 years ago

Text

2019 Favorites

Rules: Time to love ourselves! Choose 5 favorite works you created in the past year (fics, arts, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2019. Tag as many creators as you want to spread the love!

tagged by the awesome @theputterer! thank you!

HA, well, TBH I saw this meme going around and I was like oh no if someone tags me I’m not going to have anything to list!

It’s true I barely published anything in 2019 -- only one thing on AO3 -- but I did work on a few unpublished projects. So after some serious scrounging, I thought why not share some sneak peeks at what I’ve got cooking in addition to the few items I did publish!

First, what I actually published:

"I hope my love was someone else’s solid ground”

Firelight flickers across the faces around the campsite and the shadows press a little closer. She’s trying not to stare (to make her staring obvious), but as her gaze sweeps over friends it always settles on him. She keeps measuring the distance, counting the steps past Bodhi and Kay or the other way ‘round, past Baze and Chirrut, to the opposite, furthest corner of tonight’s makeshift home. Always when she finds his eyes, they fall a little farther from her.

She sighs and gets up. Waiting never suited her.

I don’t think an album has ever resonated with me as much as Sara Bareilles’ Amidst the Chaos, or a song as much as “Orpheus.” It’s just perfection. The moment I heard it, I thought of Jyn and Cassian, but this song also feels special to me personally as I’ve struggled with OCD and anxiety and have (finally) been going to therapy for it. It felt cathartic to tell a story about healing through Jyn and Cassian, and I just really loved the prose in this one. I haven’t posted it to AO3 yet because I was thinking about expanding it a little first, and then I never got around to it.

Learning Curve - Chapter 4: Scarif

“You know,” she says, sliding onto his lap, “there are better ways to show your surrender. If you want me to stop talking about work…” She leans down and demonstrates, and kriff, he tastes like the sunlight dancing on his lips, warm and sweet and happy.

“I love listening to you,” he murmurs when she finally pulls away.

She’s just sitting, safe in his arms, but when he looks at her like that, everything just falls out beneath her, and she closes her eyes and grips his shirt and burrows her head against the crook of his neck and shoulder.

Months ago, when she first stepped foot on the tarmac outside the temple, she’d thought she’d spend a semester and go back to Rudrig, that her life would continue on at its boring, lonely pace, that work would perpetually consume her. She’d never suspected she’d run into Cassian (and thank the Force for that; if she’d known he’d be here, she might not have signed up in the first place, might have preferred to avoid the risk of running into him and facing the embarrassment she’d created all those years ago—and she never would have had the chance to move past it).

She’d had no idea what kind of happiness awaited her, how close a call it had been, how she might never have known the joy of eliciting Cassian’s hard-won smile, the anticipation of an imminent kiss, or the simple satisfaction of quiet companionship and unassuming acceptance.

This took entirely longer than it should have, but I was very glad to finally finish it. It was definitely a lot of fun to imagine a galaxy with no Empire, where Palpatine was defeated before he could enact any of his crueler schemes, and to see what this meant for Jyn and Cassian as well as Lyra and Galen. It was also a challenge -- lots of moving chess pieces to account for -- so thank you to my beta and brainstormer @allatariel!

I do have a couple regrets: namely, that I didn’t split chapter 4 into two parts (it’s just so long! I suppose I could still split it...) and that I hadn’t watched Rebels yet, so I didn’t get a chance to imagine what kind of life the Ghost crew would have had. Maybe someday?

The Stakes of Star Wars: whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal

As a writer, I frequently struggle with plot. Is it believable? Is it surprising? Is it exciting? Sometimes, it feels like plot is supposed to be what makes a story interesting. What makes for a cool adventure? The prevailing mindset seems to be: how high can you raise the stakes?

But I think over the last few years of writing, I’ve learned something important about the kinds of stories I want to read, and therefore write.

The stakes are important, but only for what they mean to the character.

It has to be personal.

It’s no secret that I hated TLJ. I wasn’t impressed with TROS, either. I think it’s easy (and, admittedly, cathartic) to point blame at one or the other and to write a laundry list of “things didn’t work for me” (which I did for TLJ -- though I only finished and published part of it). When it came to the final installment, I thought it was more fruitful for me to analyze the core of what didn’t work for me overall. I won’t deny there are things I did love about the sequel trilogy, but as a whole, trilogy-spanning story it really fails for me, and this is my attempt at finding out why.

Now, onto the unpublished projects!!!

Untitled “You’ve Got Mail” AU

Somewhere in a far corner of the Outer Rim, off the far reaches of the Perlemian Trade Route, past Felucia, near the Tion Hegemony, a small planet spins on its axis, and a new day starts.

As the sun rises, it conveys a whole palette of colors: rich reds bleeding into the purple and indigo of the fading night, gold light gleaming over the flat fields of blue-green grass spreading out in all directions.

Nothing stirs but a gentle breeze, racing along the grass like a wave; to the naked eye, this area of the planet remains entirely uninhabited.

And that is the point.

To a careful observer, someone with an eye for it, the grassy flatlands and the gentle rolling hills of Skuhl hide something valuable and just as beautiful as its surface. Such an observer could find it: the narrow crack in the ground; the cramped ten-meter vertical descent into the jagged earth; the winding, sloped passage that eventually blooms into a split-level cavern that might fit a squadron of X-Wing fighters—if they had a way in.

As it is, that cavern houses something else: the Skuhl rebel cell.

And in a little area partitioned off by a series of columns, stalactites, and stalagmites on one side and a makeshift counter, sink, and shelving on the others, Jyn Erso wakes to the sound of the caf machine whirring.

Groaning, she lifts her head from the table and blinks in the soft light of a lantern hanging off the shelf behind her.

“Good morning,” Hadder says, from next to the raucous caf machine. “You’ve got a message.”

AHHH I forgot how much I love this AU. I haven’t opened this in a few months. YEAH, I’ve got some purple prose going there, but I was really trying to imitate the opening of You’ve Got Mail, how it pans down into NYC and such. I got really stuck on this trying to write Jyn and Cassian’s correspondence (the whole point TBH, smh). Otherwise, this is all plotted out (again, thanks to the amazing @allatariel‘s help) and I just need to write it. Currently has 4,294 words.

Fencing AU (Working title is probably “En Garde”)

Jyn holds a blade for the first time when she is eight years old. It’s shiny and makes a fun clang when she smacks Bodhi’s sword. She’s been watching him from the corner, while she waits for Bodhi’s lesson to finish and for Mama and Papa to pick them up from the YMCA. Saw doesn’t teach children, he already explained. Saw wants serious students.

So Jyn watches Bodhi stand in front of the mirror covering the far wall and watches him hold his blade in different positions (four, six, seven, eight — she heard Saw name each one). She watches him flick his wrist and smack Saw’s blade (beat, she repeats in her head) and watches him turn his wrist and push Saw’s blade away when he attacks first (parry).

She watches this go on for an hour, and afterwards, when Saw looks away to talk to some of the parents, she knicks a spare blade and a spare mask and dares Bodhi to fight her.

It doesn’t take long for one of the parents to point her out (adults can never be trusted). But she doesn’t see it at first, too busy stabbing Bodhi, or trying to — she’s sure she’s hit him plenty on his arm, because she’s reenacted that laser sword fight from Space Clash enough times to know how it’s done.

“Jyn,” Saw says behind her, “What are you doing?”

She whirls around, staring up at Saw through the grated black mesh of the mask. He’s looking down at her, arms crossed, and he sounds mad. But she doesn’t look away or back down, even though he’s really tall and sometimes the other kids get scared when he’s angry. (She doesn’t. She’s not scared of anything.)

“Fencing,” she says.

Saw stares back at her for forever, and she gives back an eternity because she plays this game all the time. She can win.

What she doesn’t know then, but Saw does, is that she will win.

He shakes his head. “Not like that,” Saw says.

“But I can fence,” Jyn says, “I can be serious.”

“Serious fencers,” Saw says, “aim for the heart.”

That stops her next words. She glances at Bodhi for a second, who shrugs, and then back at Saw.

“Ready?” he says, gesturing for them to continue. “Allez!”

Oh, if I had all the time to write, I would finish this before the Olympics... I guess I still have half a year. Maybe it can still happen!! As it is, I don’t actually have much more of this written (just plotted). I fenced for five years at the local YMCA, plus just a little in college (sadly my university didn’t have a team, so I could only fence when I was able to get back home). I miss it dreadfully. Every now and then I dabble in researching clubs down here to fence, but it is so expensive and time consuming. So much to do! So little time! So I thought I’d just write about it to scratch that itch. Basically the gist is that Jyn is an Olympic fencer, and she fences foil (because that was my weapon and I’m incredibly biased) while Cassian fences epee. Aaaand look at that, now I’m rambling on about fencing. (I’d give y’all lessons if I could, do not get me started) On to the next!

Nat Geo AU

“You seem quiet,” Cassian says quietly, still reading what she’d refer to as a tentative draft of their piece.

She shrugs.

His eyes flick up to her face just briefly and he misreads the regret on her face. “Do you miss it? Your time with Saw?”

She’s startled into a laugh. “You mean war correspondence?”

His nod is almost imperceivable, but he knows she pays close attention.

“No,” she says, perplexed.

“Not as much action out here.”

He’s worried she’s bored. As if she could be, at his side. “I almost had to wrestle a crocodile for your life yesterday.”

He grants her just the tiniest crook of a smile. “I was safe in the boat.”

“That croc was sizing you up,” she says, thinking of a large crocodile that they’d thought had been resting serenely on the river bank, before it suddenly splashed into the water right next to their boat, towards Cassian’s perch at the railing. “I saw the glint in its eye. I know the look.”

“I’m sure you do.” He snorts. Then he gestures towards her pad, where he’s highlighted a phrase. “This one — for the headline.”

She takes it and reads what he’s chosen. “You know it depends on what Kay likes.”

“He’ll like that one.”

The premise is that Jyn and Cassian work for National Geographic (or rather, Rogue Geographic) and are assigned to cover a conservation project headed by Ezra Bridger and the crew aboard the Ghost. I’ve only managed to write an intro scene about Jyn and Cassian finishing up their previous project (entirely, entirely self-indulgent and based on my honeymoon). I was hoping to finish and publish this in January, buuuut I got way distracted by an epic post-war fic that @allatariel and I are working on, which I think we may have started plotting in 2019, though I’m not sure -- and at any rate, the NatGeo brings us to six so you’ll just have to wait for the next word on that ;)

WELP THAT’S IT.

Thanks for reading!

TAGGING: Anyone who reads this and wants to do it. Yeah, you. You who were hoping you got tagged? I’m tagging you. You’re it!

#my writing #tag meme #fic update #writing update #wips #the latest with liz

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thedeaditeslayer · 5 years ago

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FanExpo Canada Interview: Actor and Host Bruce Campbell for Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Here’s an interview that mostly covers Ripley’s Believe it or Not!

If you’ve ever watched a cop show, seen someone fight a Deadite, or stayed up late enough to watch offbeat flicks on basic cable, you’ve probably seen Bruce Campbell. Campbell has a long history on screen, starting with his breakout performance in The Evil Dead, a small film he made with his buddy, Sam Raimi, that went on to spawn sequels, spin-offs, comics, games, and a series. Though horror fans most recognize him as Ashley “Ash” Williams from that franchise, Bruce has had a robust career. With the “face of a soap opera star”, he went on to star in shows like Ellen, Xena, and Burn Notice. Now an actor and an author, he’s added “host,” to his hyphens, having hosted the touring live show Last Fan Standing and now, Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

The first season of this new show hit the Travel Channel this year, and so Bruce sat down with some of us at FanExpo Canada to discuss the show and his illustrious career. The show is different from the Ripley’s of the past, focusing on the strength and perseverance of different people, what they’re able to overcome in the face of adversity. The warmer side of the horror icon was fully on display as we pulled up some chairs to chat.

You’ve shot a few episodes now. Will you be back for any more?

Bruce Campbell: You need to call the Travel Channel and work that out. We don’t know yet. I think they haven’t decided because it hasn’t even opened in Canada yet. So, I don’t think you make those decisions until you figure out how it’s going to play everywhere.

And how did you get these hosting gigs? There’s obviously not something that you’d usually do.

Bruce Campbell: No, but other people get ideas and they pitch them out. And this one I thought was pretty good to do because it was a very reputable company that’s been around for 100 years now, which is rare, especially in America. Companies don’t last that long. They last 20 years. They think, “Wow, Amazon, 20 years.”

This is FanExpo’s 25th year.

Bruce Campbell: That is impressive though. That’s a quarter-century but you know Ripley’s is kicking your ass too. So that’s why I thought it was worth exploring. I followed Ripley’s. I read the books and watch the TV shows and I knew exactly what was going on.

[The Ripley’s exhibit], obviously, they have this section, which is the props and movies and the film. Is there something for one of your movies that you would love to see in the Ripley’s exhibit one day?

Bruce Campbell: Yes. Yeah, they should have some stuff in Ripley’s, but Ripley’s is kind of, unless it’s amazing, they won’t have it. That’s the thing. They don’t just play it [as this] history game. It’s got to be amazing. It has to be a strange animal, a strange device, something unique that’s never been done before. So yeah, that’s what makes their collection cool.

Will you be revisiting any of the [Ripley’s stories] that were previously covered? Or like kind of a look back?

Bruce Campbell: I think over time, they’ll have to do everything to choke the airwaves of material. You know, if you get three, four seasons into something, you have to get clever. But the thing that this first season showed me is how many stories there actually are. We did sixty stories. This for the first season alone. So, can you imagine over three, four years? That’s a lot of stories. Which shows you it’s a big world out there, and there’s a lot of crazy stuff going on. I feel like we’re playing catch up.

Any examples you can give us from those sixty?

Bruce Campbell: No, no, because it’s…I can’t. It’s silly to single anything out. But they are amazing. The show is higher quality than I had hoped for. You never know when you get involved in something, is it going to be something they slapped together? Or do they care about it? So, as an executive producer, it was important to, I thought on my part, to work on the tone so we treat these people with respect. Because not one of them are normal. Normal as in our traditional normal. But that’s what’s cool about the show.

And do we get to see you kind of going out and about on location?

Bruce Campbell: No, I’m a studio guy. I tied all together. The crew goes out in films, the folks. They filmed themselves a lot. We’re using their footage at the time. Everyone has a camera like you, we’re all running around filming their exploits. We found some of these people on YouTube. You know, they have their own channel. It’s easier nowadays to find them than it was 10 years ago. Type in “weird shit,” and stuff comes up.

Would you ever like to travel in the future with the show?

Bruce Campbell: I travel enough. I, you know, last three years, I think it was thirty-five cities or forty cities. I’m only twenty-five cities this year. I’ve got off easy this year.

This is Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Is there anything that you’ve come across that you just do not believe?

Bruce Campbell: I believe it. But it is amazing. Still, it’s believable. But you go “I don’t know how but it’s believable. Unbelievable.”

And I was wondering just one of the exhibits that Ripley’s is famous for is the hairball. Have you contributed to the hairball? Have you contributed a lock of hair?

Bruce Campbell: Screw that. I’ll bring my cat by and give it a furball. Where is it? Where is the big ball?

Here.

Bruce Campbell: In Toronto?

No, it’s downstairs. It’s there now people are contributing their hair to the hairball.

[PR chimed in to let us know it got stuck for a while at Canadian customs]

You mentioned the longevity of Ripley’s. What do you think it is about the exhibit that in this day and age where there’s so much in terms of entertainment, this kind of old school form of entertaining is still popular?

Bruce Campbell: Well, you get to know the people. Anyone can find weird footage on the interwebs, but get to know the people that’s what’s different from us on a security camera. Showing weird things happen. We get to know these people and then we see it act out. We see what they’re trying to accomplish, overcome. They’re always trying to meet some new challenge mostly. We’re documenting that we’re taking their footage, we’re stealing their footage.

It’s about a good story.

Bruce Campbell: Yeah, it is because most of it, it’s come from behind because people are born, you know, kid’s born blind, just wants to ride his bike. So how do you learn? How do you ride a bike if you’re blind? You just want to be a normal kid. So, he learned that bats can echolocate, and make little clicking noises and they can see and can tell things from the sound bounced back. Is it a hard surface, a porous surface? Is it closer or further away? Is that an alley? Is it open space? Is it dirt? He learned it all and he started riding his bike by making little clicking echolocating noises just like a bat. And he got so good. You can teach other blind kids. It’s amazing.

Could you do it? Maybe? Could I do it? I don’t know. But you know, it’s how we think someone is born with a negative what you see if you make it into such a positive, the kids like abnormally gifted, in my opinion, to overcome what most of us would go “well, I’m blind. Guess I’m not riding that bike.” It’s great to see someone go, “no, I think I want to try that.” It’s great. We all get very convinced of our own limitations, and I think we could fool ourselves sometimes.

Do you think then in that vein, the show is quite inspirational?

Bruce Campbell: It’s 100% inspirational. Most of these people have lives that kind of blew before good things started to happen. Or they had physical challenges or were hurt, injured.

You mentioned tone there. Had they ever run segments past you that you turned down?

Bruce Campbell: No, because as long as it’s real, and that is the most amazing thing about Ripley’s it’s not faked. So we move kind of beyond the reality show aspect. Reality shows are manipulated, every single aspect of The Bachelor, every aspect is manipulated no matter what you think, it’s producers behind the scenes, pulling the strings, figuring out who would be the most entertaining to put together. We don’t do that. Everything you see is completely real. The guy says he can cut an Oreo cookie and half in the middle of the air through the cream sideways, he can do it, you know, verified. We have a bunch of the Guinness World Records folks doing stuff to sell. So, there’s a lot to look at.

You came a couple of years ago doing Last Fan Standing. What have you brought over or learned from Last Fan Standing that helped you host or what did you really have to change?

Bruce Campbell: I learned that people don’t need that show. Otherwise, we would get the show on the air by now. Sometimes it just takes a while to learn things. It was fine. We had fun. But we tried to pitch it as a TV show and nobody wanted it. I think they don’t want to white middle-aged guys running around acting like your crazy uncle. It’s when we realized we’re a little past our demographic.

It was good in the ’90s.

Bruce Campbell: Yeah, would have been great in the ’90s probably.

Was there anything in the Ripley’s warehouse that you were excited to see or are most looking forward to seeing?

Bruce Campbell: No, because I don’t know what they have. I’d love to see the inventory. I’m sure there’s stuff in there that’s more amazing than you would think. It’d be fun to do some shows where you just get the crates, get the crowbar. Get the curator, you know, come on, let’s show some stuff and tell the stories behind it. Because they wouldn’t have it in the museum if it wasn’t amazing. They’ll have a two-headed goat. They won’t have a one headed goat they’ll have a two-headed or a four-eyed something. Smithsonian doesn’t have that.

What do you want audiences to take from the show?

Bruce Campbell: Just a positive experience. Because you can sometimes see the normal side of people through extreme activity in a weird sort of way. Doesn’t really make sense. But yeah, mostly a positive experience. The “it factor” is not that hot. We don’t want to turn people off, that’s not the idea. But there are people who are doing stuff that’s both amazing and repulsive, at the same time. So you’re gonna have to deal with that to.

Granny’s not gonna want to watch everything and little Billy’s not gonna want to watch everything but, tough, that’s half the fun. There’s no reason for us to flinch away from it because it is real. A guy wanted to become a parrot, so he did everything he possibly physically could to become a parrot. So what would that entail? Surgery tattoo on his eyes, removing your ears, tattooing your face, like the patterns of a feather. He wanted to fly, so he rigged up some crazy fly rig. Amazing? Yes. Horrifying? Potentially. So, some stories have a two-edged sword. Yet at the same time, you celebrate that person’s independence. “I want to be a parrot. Here I go. Fly a little bird.”

Certainly innovative.

Bruce Campbell: Let’s go with that.

Well, you can be whatever you want when you grow up.

Bruce Campbell: You can do whatever you want. I want to be a parrot. Some guys want to be a fireman.

You mentioned that you have been a fan of Ripley’s for some time. So, what was your first experience?

Bruce Campbell: Their book, they had a leather, clothbound red book. It was a good-sized book. And then they have their very unique illustrations that they always had. That was just a permanent fixture on our bookshelf in the living room. Most people had a Ripley’s book of some kind. That’s what you get with an institution

What do you think Ash Williams would make of the Ripley’s exhibit?

Bruce Campbell: He’d be like it’s cool. We did a story about a woman with a bionic arm. She has parts that she can put on, clip-on and clip off. Yeah.

You’ve done some pretty cool mutilation and gory scenes like being thrown through a glass window in Lodge 49 and cutting off your own hand in The Evil Dead 2. What’s been your most favorite gory scene to shoot?

Bruce Campbell: I’m not a gore guy, so I don’t have a favorite gore. Gore is a drag to me. Yeah. Blood is sticky. Blood is cold. Not fun, sticks on all your clothes. Yeah, I’m so over it.

You’re past it. You’re in your host life now.

Bruce Campbell: You know, once you realize you’re in your late fifties, should I really still be lying on dirt floors covered in blood? Is that really what’s on the agenda still, like still? It’s having it off the floor.

Personally, I would love to see you return to Sam Axe.

Bruce Campbell: It’s about time. People are starting to get nostalgic. All you gotta do is wait the right amount of time, which could be right about it now.

Quick letter-writing campaign.

Bruce Campbell: Especially when the world’s going to shit, everyone wants to find the shows that make them feel comfortable. They want that meatloaf sandwich that made them feel good. Like everything was safe.

Do you have any characters that you’d love to do one last hurrah with?

Bruce Campbell: I never sort of play that game. But you know, I could do this Western again. The Adventures of Brisco Country, Jr., Brisco Rides Again. Could do that. Sam Axe, Burn Notice could be good. There are still d-bags in the world that need to be taken down. You know, come out of retirement. Yeah, there’s stories in there. You know, these days with the structure of television. Everything’s going that way, anyway. Everything’s always a limited series, eight episodes or ten episodes. But that’s how you get Kirsten Dunst for Fargo. One year obligation, it’s not a seven-year contract. All TV contracts were always seven years and actors, they really start to bristle at that. Why you can’t get bigshot actors because they’re like “seven years. You kidding me? No chance, Lance.”

So, it’s kind of interesting how the format of TV shows works professionally because now you can get someone like Kirsten Dunst because she’ll go, “Great. I can do a whole season of a character study.” For an actor, it’s awesome. That’s the best part of Ash vs. Evil Dead, going back with experience now as an actor to that guy. To bring the character forward now and try and mess with it. It’s a very appealing aspect of it. So, I don’t know. Never say never about any remake. Everyone’s got remake fever. But they always have. The first movie ever made in Hollywood is The Great Train Robbery. You see cowboy pointing a pistol at the camera. And what’s the second movie? It’s the sequel, The Great Train Robbery 2. That didn’t take long. That’s how Hollywood works. I don’t know Marvel themselves into the ground.

Are you hoping to get a call to appear in Spider-man to prove to Tobey Maguire that you did outlast him?

Bruce Campbell: No. I don’t need that to prove my ability to outlast Tobey Maguire.

What is next for you then in terms of directing or acting?

Bruce Campbell: I have stuff coming up that’s not official so I can’t really talk about it. But I’ve written some of my own stuff that I’ve just finished up. Because I realized that you can’t… I want to get back into the movie game. Sort of where I started. I got diverted into TV for years, so it’s time to go back. But you need material. So I’ve just been writing more books, stuff like that.

Will you be working with the Raimi Brothers?

Bruce Campbell: If it falls off the truck that way. If that’s how it works, yeah.

Is it harder to get projects greenlit these days?

Bruce Campbell: I’m going to find out. All the executives are twenty-five. So it could be easier, it could be impossible. They might go, “Thanks, gramps. Nice meetin’ with you.” I mean, it’s time to find out.

On Ripley’s, will we be seeing a Ripley-esque ability from yourself?

Bruce Campbell: I don’t have those skills. Look, I got stunt guys for that. They’re there to make me look good. It’s all smoke and mirrors, you know. But Ripley’s is not fake. I’d have to have a skill it was real. I don’t have any skills that are real, other than riding electric bikes really well.

Was there any particular character you’ve ever played that you really identify with and miss playing?

Bruce Campbell: Most of ‘em. But Evil Dead, Ash, I’m done with. I’ve done that. Got that box checked. Because I think I played with enough to get my, you know, I left everything on the table. I don’t know, usually, when I’m done with the character, I’m happy to walk away from it. Burn Notice, same thing. Seven years, it’s a long run. Hundred and eleven episodes. That’s enough. Yeah, so we’ll see. Could be here next year. touting the Burn Notice movie.

What’s your favorite scary movie?

Bruce Campbell: Well, it’s the guy who sort of, persona non grata, Mr. Roman Polanski, The Tenant. A movie that haunted me for weeks after I saw it because it messes with your head. It’s trying to make you think you’re going crazy and by the end of the movie you actually really wonder if you’re going fucking crazy and it really disturbed me. I found it completely disturbing and not a drop of blood in the whole movie. No gore, no monsters, no nothing. I mean, it’s creepy as shit because that’s what Polanski’s really good at. And he’s in it and so it’s really weird. Yeah, he’s a weird actor. Yeah.

#Bruce Campbell #Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

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letswritefanfiction · 5 years ago

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“There’s a reason I called you all here today.”

The room was dark and Giovanni sat in shadow. He could see the faces of the other four at the table, and they could see him, but he was certain they couldn’t make out his face. Unlike the rest of these idiots, he had rarely made the mistake of being seen in public; his identity wasn’t yet compromised, and it wasn’t about to ruin that today.

“It had better be a good one, for me to be seen with this idiot,” Archie growled, turning his head sharply to look at Maxie. “You know that Water Pokémon are the most plentiful variety of Pokémon, right?”

Maxie didn’t deign to look at Archie. “Where would you be sitting right now if the world were covered with water?”

“On my boat!”

“That’s enough,” Giovanni said firmly. He’d called this specific group of people together because of a single common bond, but perhaps that had been a miscalculation. If it was going to be like this—this being what he imagined wrangling preschoolers to be—then maybe he should have gone with a more loyal group. Less powerful and driven, but easy to control. It would have been safer.

“What’s the reason, Rocket?” Ghetsis asked.

He also hadn’t given any of them his name. They all knew of Team Rocket at this point, thanks to Jessie and James—the real impetus for this meeting—and just being the leader of the organization provided enough clout to this crew without having to give up his anonymity.

“We all have one thing in common,” Giovanni stated as the beginning of his planned speech. “Our plans have been foiled by this young man.”

He presented a photo of a one Ash Ketchum, the same ID photo that had been used in his League competition in Kalos. His image was enough to draw a reaction out of all of the men at the table.

“That damned kid!”

“Ah, of course.”

“I don’t know how he did it.”

The one not to respond was Cyrus, who hadn’t uttered a word since he arrived. However, Giovanni had a careful eye on all the men, and he noticed tension in Cyrus’ shoulders as he heaved a silent breath.

“My team has been trying to catch a single Pokémon of his for years,” Giovanni said, unable completely to tamper his annoyance. It was all he could do not to seethe. “And they have never succeeded.”

Archie smacked the table. “That Pikachu!”

Giovanni didn’t bother responding. “While the boy and his Pikachu are powerful in their own right, there’s one thing that lifts him up.”

“His companions.”

The answer came from Cyrus. Giovanni was a little irritated at his speech having been interrupted, but he continued on as if unfazed. “Yes. Without his friends—his backup—he would not be able to pull of the feats he did against any of our teams. And with this boy’s unique proficiency at showing up right where our plans are meant to take place, taking his strength out of the equation should leave a clear road ahead for all of us to follow through with our plans.”

“Even if our plans are counter to each other?” Maxie asked.

Giovanni waved him away. “That will be something for you both to work out. I only intend to provide the path. You can do with it what you will.”

“So what’s the plan?” Ghetsis asked.

Giovanni leaned forward, his arms going into the light as he placed his elbows on the table and steepled his hands.

“Well…”

* * *

It was when Ash arrived in the Melemele Island Pokémon Center that he heard.

He had already been on the island for a couple of days before hitting the Pokémon Center. He and his mom were just visiting Alola, thanks to Mimey winning a contest, but today was the day that he’d finally had a friendly Pokémon Battle. Pikachu hadn’t been injured, but it couldn’t hurt to stop in and give him a check-up anyway.

“Are you Ash Ketchum?”

Ash hadn’t even managed to hand Pikachu over to Nurse Joy before she was asking him, and he could only look on quizzically as he answered, “Yeah, that’s me.”

“You received a phone call from a Brock Slate yesterday morning. He said you should call him back as soon as you can.”

“Are you sure he didn’t want you to call him back?”

As much as Ash enjoyed receiving phone calls from Brock, this wouldn’t be the first time that the whole game of telephone tag devolved into more sad attempts from his friend to hit on one of the many Nurse Joys they communicated through.

This Nurse Joy, however, was confused. “Um, no? He said it was urgent, though, so I suggest you call him back promptly. Why don’t I take your Pokémon and you can make the call while we’re in the back?”

“Sounds good.”

Pikachu went willingly from Ash’s shoulder into Nurse Joy’s arms and, without any other Pokémon on him to be healed, Ash went to the video phones. He was no whiz with numbers, but, by now, Brock’s uni number was a familiar one. He dialed the digits and didn’t have to wait long before Brock picked up. His screen was already on and Ash could see his friend’s face turn quickly from being blank to one of urgency.

“Ash? Thank goodness you got my message.”

“Well, thanks for taking the time away from ogling Nurse Joy to leave it.”

“Ash. This is serious.”

Ash had never heard is friend use that tone of voice before. Of course they’d been in dire situations in the past, but something about the gravity in his voice, the clenching of his jaw, and the wildness of his eyes scared Ash straight. He was listening.

“What is it?”

“Misty’s missing.”

* * *

Ash ran out of the Pokémon Center with no more sense of a plan than he had to get moving.

Misty was missing. Her sisters had realized it sometime the day before at which point Misty couldn’t have been gone for more than a few hours. But she was definitely gone and there were no leads on where she might be or who might have taken her.

It was assumed that she’d been kidnapped. The Cerulean Gym had never invested in security cameras—though they certainly would be now, even though it was all but closing the barn door after the Taurus had all left—so someone easily could have slipped in, incapacitated her somehow, and made their way out with her, providing no one had been around. Which, it appeared, no one had been.

He hadn’t made it ten feet out the front door before his mom came out of nowhere, grabbing the back of his collar, and stopping him in his tracks.

Ash choked a little—his collar had dug in just under his Adam’s apple—and wheezed as his mom stepped in front of him with a stern look.

“Just where do you think you’re going, mister?”

“Misty’s been kidnapped!” he blurted out. “I have to save her!”

“Is that true?” Delia asked, her reaction unchanging despite the, in Ash’s opinion, world-changing information. “Then tell me: where’s Pikachu?”

Ash’s hand flew to his shoulder where, sure enough, Pikachu was not. He suddenly realized that, in his haste, he’d left Pikachu with Nurse Joy. Immediately, Ash turned around to run back into the Pokémon Center when, again, his mom pinched his collar.

Stopped once again, Ash batted his mom’s hand away and coughed a little. “Mom! What are you doing?”

“What are you doing, young man?” Delia asked. “How do you think you can help Misty right now?”

Truth be told, he hadn’t thought that far. Brock hadn’t provided him with enough information to go off of, and it hadn’t seemed as though the other boy had concocted any plan himself as of yet. But that didn’t stop Ash from thinking on the fly. “I just need to get to Kanto. She’s probably in Kanto, right? Then I can start looking for her and battle whoever did this!”

“That is exactly what you won’t be doing, mister. You have no idea where she is and, might I remind you, you have no way of getting back to Kanto right now. And, might I remind you, you have school. In about ten minutes. Principal Oak is expecting you.”

“School can wait!” Ash exclaimed. “My best friend has been kidnapped!”

“And there’s nothing you can do.” Finally, his mom’s expression melted from one of austerity to tenderness. “I really am sorry about Misty, and I hope to heaven she’s okay. But, Ashy, you have to understand that you being in Kanto or not isn’t going to do anything for her. I know you’re used to playing a heroic role in these things but, for once, can you just do a favor to your mom and go to school like a normal boy and saving the heroism for the professionals?”

No, Ash wanted to say. No, no, no, no. Misty needed his help. She rarely had before, and he wanted to be there in her time of need. But, unfortunately, he was once again in a totally different region from her, unable to give her anything other than his thoughts and prayers.

He wasn’t going to say yes. He couldn’t find it in him to do that, even for his mom. But he did look her in the eye and say the simplest truth he could: “I’m going to get Pikachu.”

* * *

In the five years Ash had gone to school, he’d never particularly liked it. He didn’t totally remember the details of it at this point, since it had been years since he’d spent regular time in a classroom, but he had vague memories of being really bored and getting in trouble for being distracted. He wouldn’t do well and then his mom would have to meet with his teacher and then she’d be sad. He hadn’t liked any of that. The only reasons he’d agreed to go to this school in Alola was because, 1.) Professor Oak had told him that Principal Oak would love to have him, and Ash wouldn’t want to refuse Professor Oak and 2.) it was called The Pokémon School. At the time, that had been enough for him.

Now, though, he wasn’t sure he would have been willing to sit at a desk even if the school had been called ‘The Pokémon School that Guarantees all who Enter Shall be Pokémon Masters and We’re just Going to Talk About Pokémon Except for When We’re Training with Them.’ Though that did sound really cool.

His mother had walked him to the classroom, probably knowing that he would have been late otherwise. Or made a run for it. Truly, he hadn’t ruled that latter option out yet. But, so far, he was the second person there, even though class was set to start in a couple minutes. The only other person was a girl wearing all white and she’d been furiously writing in a notebook since he’d arrived.

But as his leg bounced up and down like a jackhammer and Pikachu looked up at him from the desk with a worried expression, Ash knew he was bound to burst before class started. So, with a somewhat panicked tone, he shouted, “Hey! What’s your name?”

The girl turned around, startled. Ash wasn’t even sure she’d noticed that he was there until that moment. He put on a forced smile, hoping that he wasn’t scaring the girl. She did look a little uneasy.

“Oh—I’m Lillie.”

“I’m Ash! Nice to meet’cha!”

Lillie smiled—a timid one, but a smile nevertheless—and said, “Hi, Ash. Are you new?”

“Nah, I’m just here on vacation. Just coming to class today because I’m friends with Professor Oak and then I have to head back to Kanto.”

“That’s very interesting,” Lillie said. “It’s a shame you can’t stay longer.”

“Well, I was gonna,” Ash said. “But my friend, Misty has been kidnapped and I need to get home as soon as possible to rescue her.”

“Oh, dear!” Lillie’s hand flew up to her mouth and her eyes went incredibly wide. Her eyes were green, like Misty’s, but the tone was different. Misty’s had flecks of blue, while this girl’s were more golden. Totally different, really. “Did you say kidnapped?”

“That’s right.” Ash’s smile grew more forced and his leg was bouncing so much it was thumping his desk. Really, it was causing a great racket, and Pikachu was bouncing around on it a little. “And no one has any idea where she is.”

“That’s terrible!”

Just then, the rest of the class came trickling in. Two more girls and two boys, all of whom were chatting cheerfully, seemingly happy to be at school. Ash couldn’t relate.

Eyes immediately turned to him, as he stood out as an odd fixture in their small class. The girl with the long green hair smiled—a real one, not like his or Lillie’s—and said, “Alola! What’s your name?”

“His name is Ash and his friend has been kidnapped!”

Lillie blurted the words out and then covered her mouth with both hands, looking wildly between Ash and the green-haired girl.

“Is that true?” A boy with dark skin and wasn’t wearing a shirt took a step toward Ash, the question seemingly directed at him instead of Lillie.

Ash nodded, his eyes all crazy again as his mouth seemed stuck in a phony-bologna smile. “Yup. Found out today.”

“That’s just terrible,” the blue-haired girl said quietly. “You must feel awful.”

“Yeah, my mom says there’s nothing I can do about it.” He still didn’t believe that for a second, though. There was always an action to take. At the very least, he could go to Kanto. That would be a start.

“Of course you can’t,” the dark-skinned boy. “That should be left to the professionals.”

Ash grunted and turned away. “You sound just like my mom.”

The short boy looked at the other boy with wide eyes. “You sound just like mine too!”

“Well, I think Ash is right!” the green-haired girl said, punching a fist into her other hand. “His friend needs help—of course he should at least try!”

Just then, the professor came in. He was wearing a lab coat with no shirt underneath and a baseball cap. He wasn’t like any teacher Ash had ever seen before.

“Ah, I see everyone’s met our visitor for the day. Class, meet Ash Ketchum. Ash, I’m Professor Kukui. Everyone else, please introduce yourselves.”

Mallow, Lana, Kiawe, and Sophocles. And, of course, Lillie. Now Ash had a name for every face.

“Professor?” Sophocles asked, raising his hand before the Professor could begin his lesson. “Ash’s friend was kidnapped!”

Professor Kukui’s eyes widened. “Really, now? That’s terrible.”

“It’s the truth!” Mallow said, standing up. “And we want to help!”

The professor frowned. “I wish we could. But I think the best thing we can do for Ash is to take his mind off of it and try and distract him. So let’s get on with the lesson.”

Mallow sat down, looking defeated. She turned back in her chair to look at Ash with sad eyes. She shrugged and gave him an expression that said, I tried.

* * *

It was the next day, and he was still in Alola, when Ash learned of another call he’d received. He’d been hoping for one—that’s why he’d gone to the Pokémon Center in the first place; he’d wanted to hear if there had been any updates. However, this time the message was from Daisy, not Brock, and it turned out it was for the worst reason.

“Brock’s gone too?” Ash exclaimed, disbelief flooding him as Daisy looked at him tearfully.

“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “The police told us this morning.”

“Why did they tell you?”

“They thought it could be related. Misty’s a Gym Leader and Brock used to be one.”

Ash shook his head. “No, then they would have taken Forrest, not Brock. That can’t be it.”

Daisy shrugged. “Well, we still don’t have anything else to go on.”

Ash narrowed his eyes, thinking as hard as he could. “Yeah, but we will.”

* * *

In Ash’s experience, all that was needed for ideas to come about was for more than one head to put themselves together. Right now he was one head. But very shortly, he would have more.

Ash ran the way to the Pokémon school. Against all odds, he was there for a second day. Well, maybe not all odds. It was what his mom had intended after all. But it sure hadn’t been his plan. Unlike the day before, however, he arrived in the classroom—early, mind you—and everyone else was already there.

“Ash!” Mallow exclaimed. “We were wondering if you’d be here!”

“We thought you’d be in Kanto by now,” Sophocles added.

Ash shook his head, panting as he tried to catch his breath. “My mom still won’t let me go. We’d have to buy new plane tickets and I don’t really have any other way of getting there.”

“Well, we’re glad you’re back,” Lana said quietly.

“Thanks, I’m glad to see all of you too, because our problems just got a lot bigger.”

“Our problems?” Kiawe asked. But Ash just barreled on.

“Another one of my friends has been kidnapped. He used to be the Gym Leader of the Pewter City Gym in Kanto.”

There were gasps around the room. The only one who stayed silent was Kiawe, though his eyes did widen.

“Ash, I’m so sorry!” Mallow cried.

“I wanted to ask your guys’ advice,” Ash said whilst throwing Mallow a grateful look. “These have to be related, right? One right after the other like that? So that has to be a clue. But I don’t know what it might mean.”

“Okay, let’s get the facts,” Lillie said. “They’re both in Kanto. Misty—Misty, right?—Misty is a Gym Leader, Brock used to be one. Umm…”

“They’re both good friends of yours, Ash?” Mallow asked.

“The best!”

“Like, actual best friends?”

Ash didn’t know what Mallow was getting at. He’d definitely used the term best friend before, but he’d never thought about his friends on a sliding scale before. Who might be ranked below or above another one. He just had a lot of friends!

“They both traveled with me for years. Sometimes all three of us, sometimes one of them and other people. But all three of us are, like, really, really, super good friends.”

“Do you have any enemies?”

That had Ash even more confused. He immediately started to say no. After all, most people he met he thought of as friends. But then he remembered all the bad things that had happened over the years. How many bad guys he’d met. Maybe Mallow was onto something.

“I guess I do.”

“Really?” Mallow actually looked surprised to hear the answer. “Powerful ones?”

Ash nodded. “Yeah, actually.”

“Oh my gosh!” she gasped. “Ash! That’s the clue! The clue is you!”

“Then I know what we need to do!” Sophocles said. “We need to give tracking devices to all your close friends, then we’ll see who’s taken next and where they go!”

“Sophocles, that’s ridiculous,” Kiawe said.

Ash, on the other hand, was intrigued. “How would we do that?”

“Well, I just need to whip up some small tracking devices—very common technology nowadays. And then we just need to ship them to your friends. How many do you think we’ll need?”

“Er…”

Ash had a lot of friends. Like, a lot. But he didn’t think he could ask Sophocles for the dozens and dozens of trackers that he would need for all of his friends. He had to narrow it down.

Lana suggested he think about his best friends. And while he still didn’t know how to separate those categories, he did know that Misty and Brock were two of his traveling companions. Two people that he’d been seen together with often. An innumerable amount of times. That was probably the place to start.

So that meant May, Max, Dawn, Iris, Cilan, Serena, Clemont, Bonnie…yeah, better stop there.

“Eight,” he answered definitively—before he could rethink it and get all tangled up. “But they live all over the world.”

“Hmm.” Sophocles put a finger to his chin. “Kiawe, think your Charizard could handle that?”

“What‽” Kiawe asked, nearly shrieking. “Of course not! In one day? No, Sophocles, it’s not possible.”

Sophocles threw his hands up. “What? I was just wondering!”

Then Lillie piped up. “I might be able to help.”

Everyone turned to look at her. Ash had noticed it the day before, but she was the only one of them who didn’t have a Pokémon out. For once, he wasn’t the strange one by allowing Pikachu out of his PokéBall all the time—lots of people in Alola seemed to do it. But not Lillie. He wasn’t even sure that she had any Pokémon, so he wondered what she intended to offer. And he wasn’t alone in that thought.

“What are you talking about, Lillie?” Mallow asked.

Cryptically, Lillie answered, “You don’t know my mother.”

* * *

The hard part, it turned out, was getting in touch with all of his friends. Fortunately, unlike him, most of his friends had PokéNavs and the like so they could receive calls remotely. Especially after he called them three and four times. They were bound to pick up then.

He did get a hold of each of them eventually, but it did take some time. And then there was the matter of specifically locating them for Lusamine—that was Lillie’s mother—to ship each of these trackers that Sophocles was putting together for each of them. Some were easy, like Cilan, who was at his Gym. Others were harder, like Dawn who was traveling through the middle of even she didn’t know where in Kalos.

But, luckily, all of his friends believed him when he told them that they might be in danger. Or if they didn’t directly believe him, they were willing to go along with it.

Then he just had to wait as slowly, one by one, they all appeared as little dots on Sophocles’ tracking device. After that, it was just a matter of waiting.

It was the middle of the night when Ash received a phone call—Sophocles had set him up with a longish-distance walkie-talkie of sorts—saying that one of the dots was on the move. Of course, that shouldn’t have been happening; all of his friends had already settled down to sleep for the night. So that meant that someone was being taken. And that their hypothesis was right.

“Who is it?” Ash asked groggily, still half-asleep.

“Clemont.”

* * *

When Ash made it to the Pokémon School—in the middle of the night with nothing more than a note for his mother—he was surprised to find everyone already there waiting for him. Everyone meaning Sophocles, Lillie, Mallow, Lana, and even Kiawe, though the latter of those looked very tired and unhappy. Mallow must have noticed Ash’s lingering gaze on Kiawe and said, “He flew here from Akala Island!”

Now, Ash had no idea where Akala Island was, but he did know that this was Melemele Island. An entirely different island must have meant that it was pretty far away. He wouldn’t have thought that Kiawe would have made a trip like that just for this. Just for him.

“Thanks, Kiawe,” Ash said.

Kiawe, for his part, shrugged. “Whoever’s doing this can’t get away with it. If I can help bring them down, then why wouldn’t I?”

“So what do we do now?” Lana asked, looking to Ash. Lillie, however, is the one who spoke up.

“Um, my mom actually thought of something.”

Hesitantly, Lillie pressed a button on the wall—one that Ash hadn’t noticed before—and a part of the wall opened like an elevator door. Lillie stepped inside with a shy smile and gestured everyone follow.

“Wow, how did your mom do this, Lillie?”

“She has a lot of resources.”

The next thing they knew, the group of humans—and their Pokémon—were being shot down a chute and into a chamber that held a Flygon, Altaria, Charizard, Garchomp, Metang, and Dragonair, all saddled up and ready to go.

“Woah, are these for us to ride?” Ash asked, his eyes wide and sparkling.

“Yes…Alolan ride Pokémon…”

Lillie’s voice was suddenly halting, nervous. She looked ahead of her—at the Altaria—and her face seemed even paler than usual.

“Lillie’s afraid of touching Pokémon,” Mallow explained, a hand on her friend’s shoulder. Lillie, however, shook it off.

“No, I can do it!” Lillie shouted, clenching her hands in front of her. “I just need to…close my eyes.”

She did exactly that and held a hand out. “Mallow, lead me there, please.”

An eyebrow arched, Mallow took hold of Lillie’s hand and began to lead her towards Altaria. Lillie was holding her breath, and her brows were furrowed to the point that they were nearly touching. But, nevertheless, she climbed atop Altaria, and let out a breath.

“It’s just a chair, it’s just a chair,” Lillie murmured to herself as she took hold of the handlebars. She wasn’t actually touching Altaria, so hopefully she would be fine.

Barely opening one eye, she looked back at the rest of the group, who were all still standing, watching her.

“Well? What are you waiting for‽”

* * *

Clemont’s dot had stopped moving on Sophocles’ map by the time they’d taken off, so everyone felt comfortable assuming that that’s where he was being held captive. Surprisingly, it wasn’t in Kalos, but off the coast of Kanto, which was fantastic, because that meant that Ash and his new friends didn’t even have to spend an hour in the air before touching down near where Clemont was meant to be.

“The dot is gone!” Sophocles exclaimed once they’d landed. “I don’t understand it!”

“But is this the spot, Sophocles?” Mallow asked.

Sophocles nodded his head vigorously. “This is the last place the dot was, and it moved quickly to get here. He must have been on a plane or something. But now it’s disappeared!”

“It’s still all we have to go on,”

“This is the spot,” Sophocles said once they all had landed. He should be somewhere around here.

Kanto’s east coast had many tiny islands, most of which held nothing more than a lot of sand. And the area where the group now stood with all their Pokémon was no different. The ocean was pockmarked with spots of sand, but there were no buildings around. Nowhere that a person might be hidden. They’d hit a dead end.

But not according to Lana.

“I know what we should do! Popplio, make a balloon!”

Ash watched as out of Popplio’s nose came a bubble, small at first, then growing, growing, growing until it was about a foot wide. Then, Lana stuck her head in it, without popping it, and dove into the water. She didn’t come back up, but Popplio started right away making another balloon.

“Oh! We’re supposed to dive underwater and see if they’re being held there!” Ash exclaimed. “Popplio, give me a balloon!”

Ash took the next one and popped it on his head—with Popplio making another small one for Pikachu—before following Lana under the water. With the balloon on his head, he could breathe and keep his eyes open. The balloon made it look like he was seeing the world from inside a fishbowl, but at least his eyes didn’t sting.

Then, all of a sudden, Lana looked back at Ash and pointed eagerly forward, suddenly swimming much quicker while Ash struggled to keep up. He realized that she was swimming into an underwater cove and followed her into it. It was totally dark. The cove must have been covered at the top, because very quickly there was no light to speak of at all. Then, all of a sudden, his bubble burst, and his head was above water.

Despite having been able to breathe, Ash gasped at the sudden fresh flow of oxygen, and he heard Lana breathing heavily next to him. Pikachu had climbed to the top of his head and was shaking the water out of his fur.

“Pikachu, can you make a little electricity so we can see?” he whispered. “But be careful of all the water.”

Pikachu obliged, only sparking a little at his cheeks, but suddenly the whole chamber lit up with flickering light, like Pikachu was holding a candle in his hands. And in front of him, he saw Misty, Brock, and Clemont, partially submerged, gagged, and seemingly chained to the wall.

All of them let out muffled shouts when they saw Ash in front of them. Ash couldn’t swim quick enough to get to his friends and rip their gags off. Lana was right behind him to do the same.

“Ash!” Misty exclaimed after Ash took her gag off. “I can’t believe you’re here!”

“Of course I am,” Ash said. “I wanted to save you right away, but I needed help first.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’m just glad you came.”

“Clemont, Brock!” Ash exclaimed, clapping each of his other friends on the shoulder. “I’m so happy you’re all in the same spot!”

“Us too, Ash,” Brock said, “Thanks for the rescue.”

And as he looked around, he realized that—much like Mallow had surmised—there were many other spots along the wall where it looked like more people were meant to be held. More chains in place, just ready to lock another of his friends up.

“What did they do to you?” Ash asked Misty.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Misty answered with a shake of her head. “There’s a tube in the rock to let oxygen in from outside, and they do feed us and stuff. I think they’ve been keeping us here while they figure out what to do with us or something.”

“Have you seen your captors?”

That question came from Lana, and Clemont is the one who answered.

“No, it’s been pitch black. They must have night vision goggles or something in order to see us.”

Ash reached behind Misty to feel the metal chains that were keeping her hands in place. They were just like any other metal chains he’d ever seen. And there wasn’t much that either he or Pikachu could do about it.

“Ash,” Lana said. “If we wanna get them out, we’re gonna have to go back above ground.”

Ash looked back at Misty, has hand falling from her chains to her arm. He didn’t want to leave his friends. Not just after he’d found them, and not in this condition. But the quicker he got them out of there the better. He squeezed Misty’s arm.

“We’ll get you out of here in two shakes.”

* * *

It was quite the group effort to get Misty, Brock, and Clemont out of the cave. As Ash and Lana surfaced—as quickly as possible, as they no longer had Popplio’s bubbles on their side to help with breathing—Lana was the one who kept track of which ‘island’ the group was being kept under. And on which side of the rock they were all being held. Then all it took was the sacrifice of Kiawe touching one of his Turtonator’s spikes. Little did Ash know that that would trigger a huge explosion, creating a crater in the rock. Then Misty, Brock, and Clemont were accessible from the outside.

Ash then talked everyone through his tried and true method of breaking through metal. Turtonator was used to heat up the chains, Popplio cooled them down with some water, then Pikachu’s Iron Tail was all it took to free his three friends.

They would have been home free. If a helicopter had not appeared at just that moment.

Everyone stood back, holding their hands in front of their faces as the helicopter grew airbags on its landing skis and landed on the water. Then, out stepped a shouting man.

“How‽ How did you do it yet again?”

“Giovanni!” Ash, Misty, and Brock all shouted.

“Yes, apparently anonymity is no longer on my side,” Giovanni muttered to himself. Then he continued, “How have you thwarted my plans yet again? I had you right where I wanted you!”

“Plans?” Ash asked with a furrowed brow. “Why would you be kidnapping my friends? I thought you only stole Pokémon. And my friends aren’t Pokémon.”

“I wasn’t stealing your friends,” Giovanni snapped, his voice sharp. “I was separating them from you so that you were weak. But it seems you’ve made a whole host of new ones instead.”

Ash looked behind him at Lana, Mallow, Kiawe, Sophocles, and Lillie. They were all his friends now. Of course they were.

“You’re right,” Ash said simply. “I wouldn’t have been able to do this without them. Mallow is the one who figured out what was going on, Lillie and Sophocles gave us the materials to track my friends and bring us here, and Lana and Kiawe helped he save them. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of that on my own.”

“But you made them so quickly! You’ve been in Alola for three days!”

Ash was a little concerned how Giovanni knew that about him. But before he could voice that, Misty spoke up for him, grabbing his hand.

“It’s because Ash is the most incredible, unique person that any of us know. If his new friends haven’t realized that yet, then they soon will, because everyone who meets Ash Ketchum walks away knowing that, right?”

Clemont was quick to answer. “Ash has inspired me in a way that no one else ever has. Traveling with him is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And it doesn’t matter how many more times I’m kidnapped for me to keep thinking that! …But please don’t.”

Misty nodded. “Exactly right. Me and him have never met, but we both think exactly the same about Ash. So you can isolate him and challenge him and try to stop him as many times as you want, but in the end, he will always rally for his friends, and they’ll always come for him. You lose, Giovanni, so call it quits.”

Giovanni stared between her and Ash for a few long seconds. Then he turned around dramatically and headed back into his helicopter before shouting, “This is not the end of Team Rainbow Rocket!”

After the helicopter flew into the distance and its sound dissipated, Ash doubled over in laughter. “Team Rainbow Rocket? What happened to plain old Team Rocket?”

“Are they trying to queerbait us?” Mallow asked, befuddled.

Misty shook her head, then turned back to Ash. “Really, Ash. Thanks for saving us.”

“Thanks for standing up for me, Mist. I didn’t know you had all those nice things to say about me.”

Misty blushed. “Yeah, well…” She trailed off, turning away towards land. “How are we going to get home?”

“You could take our ride Pokémon?” Lillie offered hesitantly. “Some of us can ride two to a Pokémon.”

“That’ll work for these two,” Clemont said, thumbing over at Brock and Misty, “But I think I’m going to need a plane.”

Lillie nodded. “We can do that too.”

* * *

Ash hadn’t put together that Lillie was rich until the group made their first stop at the nearest airport and she put down a card to pay for Clemont’s plane. Of course, Clemont insisted he pay, but there was one thing Lillie had that Clemont just didn’t and that was speed. She paid for the last minute flight in full before Clemont even realized what had happened.

Saying goodbye to a good friend, even when you hadn’t been expecting to see them, was quite hard. Ash was very practiced at goodbyes, but most of the time it didn’t make them easier. Everyone stood back while he and Clemont exchanged their farewells and Ash couldn’t help but apologize a couple more times for Clemont’s brief kidnapping. Then it was off to Cerulean City.

This time Brock was by his side as Ash said goodbye.

“I’m really sorry, Misty,” Ash said for the umpteenth time as he stood in front of the door to the Cerulean Gym.

“It’s okay,” she reassured him. “Even if this kind of thing happened every day, I would take it if it were the trade off for being your friend.”

“You’re just saying that,” Ash said, his eyes looking down towards his shoes.

“Nah.” That was Brock clapping him on the back. “We all would. It’s quite the deal for being friends with Ash Ketchum.”

Ash swallowed, his throat suddenly tight. “Thanks, guys.”

“Well,” Misty said after a moment, “you’d better be getting Brock off to Pewter City.”

Ash hesitated. It was so hard to say goodbye. “Guess so.”

Another beat. “Okay, then,” Misty said.

“It’ll be dark by the time we get back to Alola at this rate,” Kiawe said, cutting in. “And no one’s parents knows where we are except Lillie’s.”

Lillie tentatively raised a finger. “Kind of.”

“Right,” Misty agreed, her face suddenly flushed. Then, she quickly leaned in and gave Ash a peck on the cheek and ran to her front door with a wave. “I can’t thank you all enough! Bye-bye now!”

And then she was gone.

“Did that…” Brock started, staring at Ash, “did that just happen?”

“Aw, how cute!” Mallow exclaimed.

“She likes you!” Lana agreed.

“What‽” Ash shouted.

“You know, I’ve always suspected…” Brock mused, his thumb and forefinger to his chin.

“Even that blond guy seemed to like you a little bit,” Kiawe added.

“What‽” Ash was staring back and forth between all of them, unable to process what everyone seemed to be saying. “What? She was just…they’re grateful that…to all of us!”

“I think he just needs some time to accept it,” Lana said.

“That might be it,” Brock agreed.

“No, I don’t!”

“Fine, Ash,” Brock said, swinging an arm over his shoulders. “We agree with you. But the seed is planted. This conversation is not over.”

“But—”

“Oh, it’s over for the next long while,” Brock continued. “But it’ll come back. Just wait.”

Ash didn’t have anything more to say. Whatever arguments were still sitting on the tip of his tongue were falling away. He was outnumbered here. And while Ash wasn’t one to give up a challenge, this wasn’t one he was interested in playing with anymore. Brock was shelving it. That was enough. For now.

“So, this is what it’s like to be Ash’s friend…” Sophocles mused. “Interesting. I’m excited for it!”

“No, it’s—”

“Yes, it is,” Brock cut Ash off. “And like Misty said, none of us would have it any other way. You all are in for one heck of a ride.”

“Oh, we’re friends now?” Kiawe asked, his voice dry.

“Of course we are!” Mallow exclaimed. “You can’t go through something like this and not be friends!”

Mallow was right. There was something about surviving something together. Being saved by someone, or being the person doing the saving. It linked you in a way that other people didn’t understand. Ash and his friends knew that better than anyone.

“Ash is friends with everyone,” Brock stated, cutting through the static. “Legitimately everyone.”

He’d been saved so many times. And he’d done the saving just as many. All of his friends were special. And he had a lot of friends. So many friends. Just friends.

Right?

The seed was planted.

Pikachu tapped Ash from his place on Ash’s shoulder, bringing him back to the world. Ash blinked a few times and shook it off. He didn’t even know what he was thinking about. So, with a bright grin on his face, happy to have five brand new friends—and to have saved the day yet again—he said, “Off to Pewter and then back to Alola before my mom kills me!”

* * *

Meanwhile…

Giovanni was back in the room where he’d called the first meeting, in front of the failures he’d called partners, feeling humiliated yet again at the hands of a child.

“Foiled again!” he growled. “We didn’t account for the fact that he would make a whole posse of new friends in a matter of days.”

“If I may,” Cyrus spoke up, raising one finger and surprising everyone by speaking first. “Perhaps we should focus on the redheaded girl. She and the boy seem to have a particularly strong connection.”

“How do you know that?” Archie blurted out, for he sure hadn’t seen anything of the sort.

“I spied on their glorious return mission whilst our fearless leader was headed home on a private helicopter with his tail between his legs.”

It was all Giovanni could do not to spit with rage. Nevertheless, he had to admit, “Yes, there might be something there. Perhaps we were too ambitious, thinking we could cut out all of his closest, powerful friends…but if we focus our efforts on one…”

“Why her and not the spiky-haired boy that the majority of us saw travel with the boy for years?” Maxie asked.

“Because, he’s not the boy’s weak point,” Giovanni mused. “There’s always a weak point.”

“But no kidnapping this time,” Ghetsis raised. After all, it hadn’t gone well this time around.

“No kidnapping,” Giovanni declared. “At least not as the prime maneuver. But we’ll think of something. She’s important to the boy and that’s our way in.”

He steepled his fingers together, his face just barely catching the light.

“Team Rainbow Rocket is back in business.”

#pokemon #pokeshipping #aaml #fanfiction #oneshot #alphabet challenge #team rocket #team rainbow rocket #ash ketchum #misty #clemont #lana #mallow #kiawe #lillie #sophocles #lusamine #giovanni #long post

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wavemaker9 · 7 years ago

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Hey lemme start off to make this easier by saying i’m gonna roll with isabel as the name for nyo spain until i come up with something i like more. It’ll work well enough just for posts so i don’t have to keep using ‘nyo spain’

I haven’t broken off of the merryweather idea for her yet. I think it’d be similar to how toni is in his crew, where she started off as the actual go to the scene sort but eventually made her way up to being more on the business/management/other internal organization level. I think her and toni actually met up while both were lower level, toni hadn’t started his crew yet, probably was in some other crew or just on his own. I just. A part of me very much likes someone calling for backup/security against some job he was working on and the pair facing off against each other but immediately clicking with each other between their similar styles (they both fight with a ferocity that matches that this should be to the death, but also with a fluidity and style to it that almost implies a dance) and when they talk they can tell the other also carries themself the same way with the casually fake shit and also upon realizing oh you’re from spain?? I’m also from spain! Same home country!! They let each other live (bel taking out the people he was working with is still on the table if expected though, whoever they were) with both considering that a favor the other owes them. God just i want toni tracking down isabel with a “you owe me for that time i let you live, help me with x” and her just immediately laughing. “I owe you?? In what world??? If anything you should have used my information to send me a thank you card and a gift basket” they finally work out that they owe each other and so they decide to work together with each getting something out of it, isabel offers aid from merryweather at a discount/free as long as shes involved so some of the savings can go into her pocket instead. Also sometimes he offers a job where he really only needs a person or two as backup, and she volunteers herself. Further cuts costs but also, similarly to toni, she kind of misses when she was on the field more. It was dangerous but man a part of her felt so much more alive than she does now behind a desk. Plus like the money she makes from merryweather isn’t bad, but the side money from the jobs toni does are definitely worthwhile too.

Since i’m including bel, i might as well touch on kylee and audrey too, why not bring them in. a part of me wants audrey in a federal company like the FIB or IAA, somewhere like that, but i think i like her more on her own, in a role of like matching up criminals to those who would hire them for heists when certain specialties are needed, and then occasionally joining in if a /very/ good sniper is needed. that’s how she first works with austin. There’s a jaw breakers job that requires two expert snipers on very different locations at or near the same time and austin can only be in one place at a time, so him reluctantly agreeing they need to find someone else with some skill. I also like her being the way that austin first works with mel and micha, her offering up them as contacts for certain jobs later on.

Kylee’s been the hardest. I half entertained the idea of her in/running a motorcycle gang, just because she’d be cute in half the bikers shit they got on gtao, and audrey running an organization then, but idk about that anymore. I think the best role for her is kind of like how in the main game you can do some of the side missions and get a contact later for a heist. Like that. Not officially part of any group, not actively as a for hire type for jobs. Just someone like kyle helped her out once so once she caught on that he was just as cool with crime as she was, she gave him her contact information in case he ever had a job come up where ‘he needed a better thief than him ;)’.

Also just to have this written down because i was also thinking about it when trying to flesh out how toni and isabel would interact, i don’t think any of the nyo-orig sets would actually have a thing. Toni and isabel would likely be the closest, playfully flirt teasing each other because that’s just how they naturally communicate with people when they’re wearing their mask, but I don’t think it would actually end up as anything actual. I could see them sleeping together /maybe/ extremely short term, but nothing more than that. Kyle and kylee /maybe/ play flirt with each other, but it’s only after they’ve built an understanding that it’s never meant seriously. They’re 100% platonic, but they do end up pretty good mates. Austin and audrey reluctantly appreciate the other? On one hand, they like the other’s professionalism and skill, but also it ends up a little competitive between whose skills are better, so they never 100% get along. They very much have a co-workers relationship first and that’s really it.

Bel would share similar opinions on Kyle and Austin as Toni does if she met them. Maybe a little more impressed with Austin compared to Kyle just because I don’t think she’d interact with him as closely as Toni would. Toni prefers Kyle to Austin because Austin is ambitious, but when he interacts face to face, toni can tell that Austin isn’t as strong and capable as he would have people believe. Again, in this au he’s more so than most other Austins, but it’s a core trait so even if it’s less so, it’s still there for him. Toni at least appreciates that Kyle’s more of a fighter, more determined and passionate, even if toni kind of thinks kyle’s still not super impressive with how he is more lacking that ambition and is only worried about having fun. Fun is fine, but it’s not going to last forever. If kyle’s fine with that (which he is, kyle doesn’t expect to live for ever, he wants to go out having a good time), then good for him, but it doesn’t line up with toni’s priorities so he can’t fully approve of kyle either. Basically kyle has drive but not specifically ambition, austin has ambition but not specifically drive. Toni knows both are important, but he feels like drive is more important. Ambition will help you live a good life, but drive on its own is what keeps you alive to begin with, it’s what helps you survive.

Anyway, bel wouldn’t see that austin is missing that drive unless she met face to face with him, which she likely would rarely if at all. Same with kyle, i can’t imagine them meeting unless through shared contacts. She just hears second hand about this one kid who’s fucking around, nearly getting himself killed all the time, and won’t commit to anything with a crew or an organization or company or anything. Compare that to the other guy who maintains a more presentable image and put himself into such a high role in the jaw breakers pretty quickly, and just based on that information it’s clear why bel would initially think more of austin.

Both austin and audrey would share a lot of opinions on others, same with kylee and kyle. The only difference there is that while austin and kyle don’t always get along, don’t always like each other, they’re still family. Austin grumbles about having to babysit kyle half the time to keep him from getting himself hurt or killed or otherwise fucked over but he still does it because that’s his cousin. He feels it’s his responsibility and he knows family appreciates having kyle still alive and also a part of him would also miss kyle if he lost him because of how much kyle has involved himself into austin’s life. The same is true in reverse, kyle’s cousin is a stuck up prick who thinks he’s better than kyle and makes that obvious as fuck but he’s also kyle’s cousin and he does help kyle so kyle can see that even if austin’s a dick like 90% of the time, there’s a 10% of him that’s actually kinda cool and kyle wouldn’t be able to make it without him. He loves his mean cousin, even if they don’t always exactly get along. Audrey has no connection to kyle though and kylee lacks the same for austin. Audrey sees austin putting himself out to watch over kyle’s worse habits and asks why austin wastes his time doing that. She gets the family thing and whatever, but if austin just lets the kid fall once, maybe kyle will learn he needs to manage that himself and then austin won’t have to worry about it anymore (austin explaining a, kyle’s never learned anything ever in his life, b, even when he has, sometimes he forgets, especially with things that mess with his mind like drinking, drugs, and even violence/other adrenaline things, c, the one time he lets kyle fall could be the one time kyle falls right into the grave, and he’s never been exceptionally risky so he’d rather not take the chance). Similarly Kylee gets the family thing too, 100%, she totally understands, but like. Austin’s the worst? She talked to him one (1) time and he was the worst? She could tell he literally started mentally judging her the moment he saw her, and once he opened his mouth he started vocally judging her too. What a fucking cunt??? Why do you hang out with him, he clearly doesn’t want to be around you anyway, just dump the dick????? Like family is family but like. Still. (Because it’s not /her/ family being discussed here. But family’s what’s important to kyle and that overrides everything else about austin. Kyle loves people in general but he especially loves family and you gotta /really/ try to get him to throw that away. + he does kind of owe austin for a lot of the help over the years. He’s helped back but he’s probably still the one in debt at this point.)

God i wasn’t gonna but what if audrey and kylee were cousins too? I’m not 100% on that, I just very much like kylee bugging audrey in a loving way like kyle does with austin. Idk i’ll come back to that later maybe.

Have i ever even touched on how kyle and austin view toni??? Don’t think i have?? It’s kinda simple though, kyle’s lowkey just as unimpressed with toni as toni is with him. He’s probably cooler with toni at first, but toni reminds kyle of his mom with that fakey smile shit and so he’s kind of soured on that with toni. Kyle wants people to like him but he also wants people to be honest with him. He also (if he finds out) doesn’t appreciate being called the boyfriend equivalent of vodka, that’s not. Great. Austin starts off with an okay view of toni, too, but like. It’s not even the fakey shit, he’s fine with that, it’s the shit toni pulls against him because toni doesn’t like him. Usually toni makes it just subtle enough where austin can’t really tell if toni’s genuinely insulting//threatening him or just sounded like it, but once or twice there’s like no misinterpreting that. Namely that time oliver invites austin to boys night and. Like oliver says afterwards toni is just playing rough for boys night, especially with a newcomer like austin, trying to see how much he could push him, but forgive austin if he didn’t appreciate being threatened to his face for simple things or things that were oliver’s fault. Also stop calling him weak??? You’re so rude!!!

Kylee and Audrey probably don’t talk much with Toni or Isabel. Audrey probably the most as someone who deals in connections- HOLD ON. can i undo what i said before about kylee just having that connection with kyle and instead say that was for audrey instead? Maybe happens later on as well with kyle and that’s how they meet, but audrey saves kylee’s ass once and kylee offers that audrey can call her next time she needs something stolen, no questions asked! And sure enough, audrey takes her up on that offer, putting her in touch with a crew who could really use someone who knows how to handle lock picking tools in the near future. Kylee doing what kyle does and working with a whole bunch of different crews, but instead of just shuffling around as she feels like it like kyle does, kylee does jobs as audrey offers them. Maybe at some point kylee and audrey both work on a job and kylee saves aud’s ass in return so technically they’re even but both kind of play it as “well i owe her” to justify sticking around each other. They’re at a point now where kylee knows she can reject a job if she wants to but usually agrees to the job to help audrey out, but similarly audrey knows kylee’s a good resource to have and also not so easy to force into doing a job she really doesnt’ want to do, so she tries to pick jobs that she knows have something appealing about them to kylee and reasons that if kylee rejects a job, it’s worth it to keep her around for future jobs than to break their ties over this one. Hey i love that? Oh oh also kylee taking on some criminal matchmaking for some of the roudier clients? Audrey has to find a few people for a job trevor phillips has, why go talk to him herself and deal with that maniac when she can send kylee who thinks he’s weird and a bit of a mean motherfucker sometimes but also can be really fun?

Also relating back to the “why do you deal with kyle/austin” from the girls, the boys asking it back, “hey you’re dealing with kylee/audrey, like you can talk” with audrey reasoning she kind of owes kylee and at least kylee makes her money and austin counters kyle’s done some jobs for him too, with audrey shrugging and going well at least there’s some pro; kylee waving it off “she saved my life and she helps me make a lot of money. My apartment isn’t run down like /somebody’s/ i could mention.” kyle pouts/scoffs and says “Well i mean if money’s sooo~ important to ya.” and kylee just laughs and teases that it sounds like ~somebody’s~ jealous. (also kyle pointing out austin’s kind of saved his life a few times too. kylee like fine fine but also he’s still just the biggest dick and kyle laughing and agreeing, yeah no nobody’s arguing that.)

(audrey saving kylee from some attack or something, giving her a ride out of the area against her first instinct because kylee’s eyes are pleading for audrey to unlock the car door for her to jump in before these assholes behind her catch up to her. As they’re driving away, it turns out that. Like ~maybe~ kylee stole something expensive from them first. /maybe/. Audrey starting to stop the car, okay get out you got yourself into that mess back there, but kylee countering there’s no way audrey’s not at least a little cool with crime herself. Audrey raising an eyebrow and asking why kylee would think that and kylee answering that there ain’t a single person in this city that’s dressed as nicely as audrey is and can afford to do so legally. Audrey not laughing exactly but pulling her lips into a reluctant smile because. Okay fair and a little funny, fine, fine. After some consideration starts the car back up and heads back into town so they can talk further. It’s on a later mission where kylee helps audrey by taking out a threat while audrey was trying to get a target on someone and didn’t see the person sneaking up behind her.)

Anyway, back to the girls w/r/t toni and isabel. Audrey probably works with isabel quite a bit, they trade contacts for people to do jobs, audrey will offer people who merryweather can hire and isabel will pass on people already on the clock for them but willing to do some work outside the office as long as they get a cut. Isabel sees the same complaints toni has about austin in audrey, though isabel can at least compliment that audrey is trying to keep her distance and playing it a bit more safe. She only takes jobs herself if they have a low risk to reward ratio and, specifically unlike austin, she’s not tying herself up in a crew that has rivalries with others. She’s making more allies by working with multiple crews. She’s also kind of the lead on this (maybe she really should just run an organization and kylee helps with that) and taking charge versus austin letting oliver run things. Kylee has probably interacted with toni and isabel from working with audrey, either being hired to do a job for the Toros(i think that was toni’s crew name? Maybe not, i’ll look back into that later) or being in contact with isabel via the hiring trading and stuff. Kylee similarly to kyle doesn’t appreciate the too-cheerful teasing, but she’s largely indifferent. Buncha asses want to be all smiley and manipulative about their shit, let ‘em, i don’t give a fuck.

Also views on others? Mel & Micha, kylee probably gets along with well. A part of me says there might be a rivalry thing between mel and kylee for Who Can Be the Best once they meet, but i think eventually they’d stop and realize they can just work together and that’s better because then they can be friends. Much like kyle, kylee ends up really liking the both of them and def tries flirting with them for a short time after meeting them.

Cami! If i didn’t already mention it, cami as the second for toni. Both can play the good cop bad cop solo, but when toni switches bad cop, he goes for more physical damage while cami is /very/ skilled at the emotional/mental fuckery. Why break someone’s bones when you can break their spirit? After the first time meeting her, kylee favored working with cami over toni when she had to work with the crew, and she only grew to like cami more as they worked together. Ended up having a major thing for her and tried very hard to woo her too (including breaking into the gang base to deliver little notes and gifts because kylee also doesn’t fear death or punishment properly). Isabel likes cami and they get along well when they interact. Isabel flirts with cami a lot even if it’s mostly for play and because she know it lowkey flusters cami to no end. Audrey thinks camille is fine. Seems a little too nice but she doesn’t realize, audrey you fool.

Audrey maybe works with ivan getting him connections for a job once or twice, similar to toni? Probably met him once and diverted that over to be one of kylee’s jobs. You go deal with him, he won’t stop smiling and i Hate it. Kylee thinks Ivan’s cool and 100% approves when she finds out he and Kyle are dating. Except for me you don’t normally make good choices on friends, kyle, but this one (1) time you made a good choice, you have my blessing. (kyle pointing out he definitely didn’t need her blessing, he hasn’t even gotten austin’s blessing and he’s actually family, kylee saying that’s fine but he has her blessing anyway so like. Just accept it). Audrey maybe working with Anya? If so, likely a largely professional relationship/anya has fun fucking with audrey just a little bit sometimes and audrey Hates that too. Kylee meets anya through kyle probably and is just stunned. Here she was starting to think the only friends kyle had besides her were all bad but between ivan and anya he’s actually got a few cool ones, how did that happen? She probably flirts a little bit with anya and falls for her a little too. okay but kylee breaking into anya’s office to leave her cute little gifts and nots as well. Whoops kylee knows too many cute girls how did this happen?

Speaking of kyle’s shitty friends, kylee doesn’t like doug despite having a friend just like him whom she makes no connection to. Both kyle and kylee are fine when it happens to them but when shit happens to friend hey no you stop that you fuck off and leave them be! Similarly kylee is fine with summer, but not trusting of her. Kylee thinks Oliver is chill. Bit too much pink and pastel but hey, to each their own, least he makes it work. Audrey probably has doug as a contact for hire, but doesn’t talk to him outside of giving jobs to him. I don’t think she’d have any reason to talk to summer, i can’t even think of a reason for austin to outside of the kyle dies timeline which might not even be canon anymore. Audrey is fine with Oliver, a bit too friendly on the surface but austin assures her there’s more to it than that and austin seems to be good at spotting these things so she trusts him on that. Isabel probably only meets oliver and summer. she’s meh about oliver. Seems fine and whatever, they get along when they talk, but nothing special to her. she is 100% annoyed by summer but much like toni and summer are when they meet, she deals with summer with a smile and a bunch of just saying whatever shit is required to make this as painless on herself as possible.

i think that’s everything? i feel like there was more i thought of but i’ll make another post if i remember

#ignore this #the thief kid #the suit kid #the boss kid #amusing muse musings #crossovers! unlimited crossovers!#crossovers gta edition

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