#rogue has pulsed in (ic)

[sentient-rift]

“AHah, oh just ignore my irreverent remarks if you’re that sensitive Solo. ...Between you and me, It’s not that I disprove of your... your friends… they seem strong. It’s just… In a strange way, I can't get away from seeing myself in you… and things, well, they never really worked out for me… I would hate to see you make yourself vulnerable only for something bad to happen… Don't let your guard down.”

"I... I see... Honestly, I know the risks of getting too close to people... That's why I don't always tell anyone how I feel unless I can really trust them... Or if they can't talk, like Azure Kite over there..."

"..."

"Anyway, I still keep my guard up. I still remember what happened in the past, and I still think about it every day... That's why I'm taking extra precautions to make sure not to get too close to everyone here... And to those I do get close to, I'll have to work extra hard not to lose them. I guess now I have yet another reason to grow stronger..."

"..."

"Don't compare me to Stelar, Laplace! He and I are still very different! He has to depend on that friendship power, while I depend on my own! And it's my own power that I'll use to protect what's dear to me!

"Even if that's the case, mi amigo... You wouldn't mind if we helped you protect what you care about, si?"

"...No. I don't mind. If anything... I appreciate it..."

"..."

"What do you mean by 'they grow up so fast?!'"

[fallen-symphony]

Anonymous Asked:

"Sync, it looks like they broke that red haired sprit with all they are doing to him. I got an Idea for you. Why not trying to bring that red haired to your side make him your apprentice teach him your ways? since he is turning into an Adapt now."

"Me? Take an apprentice? That never crossed my mind. But the idea is to switch him to our side, so..."

"I'm not letting that happen! I'm taking Roy back, you hear me?!"

"You asked your question at a bad time. We're still in the middle of a battle..."

"Solo, we need to focus on getting Roy out of here! If we don't hurry, Asimov will try to erase his memories!"

"Grr... Fine... But I will make them pay for this once Roy is safe!"

"You think I'm just going to let you take him?! I don't think so!"

"This is a whole new low for you, Asimov! You did some terrible things... You're even part of the reason I may never see Joule again! But this!? Turning people into Artificial Adepts?! When you and I we both experimented on and were turned into Artificial Adepts ourselves?! What made you decide to turn into the same kind of monster that turned us into weapons and made us forget who we were in the past?!"

"It's quite simple, Gunvolt... I want a world where everyone is an Adept rather than a pathetic, powerless human. That's why if this succeeds, I can turn everyone in every dimension into Adepts! The humans who feared us for our power will be erased, whether it's from being made into the very thing they feared... Or be destroyed!"

"Quite the ambition you have there... You remind me of someone I used to work under... But whatever. I'll do my best to get these guys off your back while you continue the procedure..."

"No... I have a score to settle with Gunvolt. I'm fighting, too!"

"Suit yourself!"

The opposing sides clashed. It was Sync vs. Solo (Rogue), and Gunvolt vs Asimov.

Meanwhile where Roy was, his restrains were being removed by an invisible individual.

"Psst... Roy..." the individual said, "My name Elise... I'm a friend of Solo and Gunvolt's. I'm using an Invisible Chip right now. Quickly! Let's get you out of here while the enemy is distracted."

To be continued...

[totally-here]

dpxdc twins au except it's no-pulse flavored

Bart’s new roommate looks a lot like Tim. 

Like, suspiciously like Tim. 

Danny’s the same height, has the same shape of nose, same shade of hair, and even frowns like him. He would have been a perfect copy if he acted more like Tim, but Danny definitely holds himself looser than Bart’s ever seen Tim. 

But he still has his face. So, obviously, Bart has to investigate. Maybe he’s a clone, or a shapeshifter, or maybe one of the Gotham rogues decided to get facial reconstruction surgery to look like him, and this was all a ploy. 

Okay, probably not that last one. Bart doesn’t think Tim’s enemies know his identity. 

Anyway, investigation! Bart’ll figure this out himself, and deal with it if Danny needs to be dealt with. And the investigation will start right after he comes up with an excuse as to why he’s back in their third floor apartment when he passed Danny in the hallway a few seconds before. 

Danny stares at him, and Bart stares back. 

“Must’ve been a doppelganger!” Bart blurts out. 

Danny’s silent for a second before nodding enthusiastically and noting that everyone's supposed to have like seven in the world anyway and wow what a wild coincidence that there’s one in their building. 

Bart extends the same courtesy when a week later he walks in on Danny with an iced over pan on the stove. Danny says they should really get their freezer checked out and Bart agrees and asks if he can use the ice for a painting study. 

(They never get their freezer checked.)

Bart finds that Danny’s great at setting up fun things for him to draw, whether he knows it or not. Like the ice, or his collection of rocks, his astronomy textbooks with the pretty covers, his gestures as he rants about his classes, the excited glint in his eyes when he’s talking about his next repair project and how his eyes almost look like they glow in the right light. 

Hm. A good portion of his sketchbook is drawings of Danny, and yet he’s still having trouble with getting the right blue for his eyes. At first glance they’re Tim’s shade of blue, but when he keeps looking they seem to get lighter. Maybe greener?

He should probably stop staring into his friend’s eyes. 

Well, maybe not. Danny doesn’t seem to mind. 

Just like he doesn’t mind when they started regularly sitting very close on the couch, or falling asleep together, or Bart borrowing some of his jackets, or-

Okay, Bart’s kinda seeing a pattern. He and Danny should really have a conversation about if this is platonic behavior or not. 

But not right now, because Bart brought Danny across the river to raid Wally’s board game closet in Keystone. 

And Wally, who’s used to this, just passes by them with a, “Hey Bart, hey Tim.”

“Danny, not Tim,” Danny replies almost absent mindedly, then looks back at Wally, who’s also staring at him now. “Wait, you know Tim?”

“OhmyGod I was supposed to investigate!” Bart says, face palming. It just slipped his mind! And Danny was distracting him with his pretty face that he totally wears better than Tim!

“You know him too?” Danny asks. But he doesn’t look suspicious of them, more amused. 

“How do you know him?” Wally squints at Danny, eyes briefly catching Bart’s in question. 

“He’s my twin,” Danny answers easily. “The Drakes only wanted one kid, so they gave me to their friends the Fentons, who wanted a second one.” He shrugs and goes back to digging around the closet. “Tim and I were always in contact, though. Letters and phone calls and texting, you know?” 

He says it all so casually while Wally and Bart are sharing increasingly concerned looks behind his back. 

Do the Waynes know about Danny? Has Tim never brought him up? Why? Does Danny know about Red Robin? Does Tim-

“Holy shit does this mean Tim has ice powers too!?” 

Or: Tim and Danny are twins. Through a series of coincidences, the first people to find out that aren’t Fentons or Drakes are the flashes.

(This post was brought to you by me recently finishing the 1995 Impulse run, and wanting an excuse to share this panel:

Look they both got called twinks clearly they're soulmates)

[lovebugism]

hi bug! can I please request the dialogue prompt “Hold up, she said what?” with steve and shy!reader? maybe she is robin’s friend and robin tells steve something reader said (maybe that she thinks steve is cute or nice or something of the sort), and it leads to a cute conversation between the two?

ty for requesting angel!! — steve finds out the cute girl at the record store likes him and decides to bring her ice cream as a proclamation of love (shy!fem!reader, friends to lovers, tooth-rotting fluff, 2.3k)

blurbcember ⋆⁺₊⋆ ❄ ⁺₊⋆ ❄

“Wait, wait, wait,” Steve interjects suddenly, a metal scoop in his hand and a wild look in his eye. “She said what?”

Robin fumbles with the metal tub of Peppermint-Chip ice cream she’s refilling. It clangs when she drops it into place with haphazard care. The shop goes unusually silent without her rambling to fill the dead air. Holly, Jolly Christmas crackles quietly from the broken speakers overhead.

The girl blinks at him with a wide ocean gaze. Her rogue-tinted mouth falls softly agape. She knows she’s said the wrong thing, but she can’t remember what.

“...Huh?”

“What’d you just say?”

Her doe eyes flit to the left for a moment. It takes her a second or more to recall the words she’d only just said. She does this thing sometimes where she rambles on and on about nothing, and Steve was the first person in the whole world to let her. So it’s way too easy for her to tell him a billion things at once and forget about all of them a second later.

“That the music store just got new cassettes in?” Robin answers, her gritty voice a few octaves higher than usual.

Steve nods slow and with a crooked grin that pulls at the corners of his mouth. He rests his elbow on the glass case above the ice cream and eggs her on. “After that?”

“…That you and the pretty new girl that works there have the same taste in music?”

“Before that.”

“That she said she wanted to show you the new tapes,” she says, wincing with the realization that she had, in fact, said the wrong thing. A secret she swore not to tell has just spilled from her lips without her even knowing it.

“And?” Steve lilts with a wider, rosier smile.

“Because she likes you…” Robin confesses (or rather, re-confesses) with her teeth gritted.

Even though Steve had heard her perfectly the first time, hearing it the second makes his heart skip a beat. The pulsing organ lurches into his throat. He almost forgets how to breathe.

“She likes me?” he repeats, mostly whispering, with an incredulous gape of shock. His bushy brows raise until his forehead wrinkles. His eyes go wide until the honey of them starts to glimmer.

Despite her best friend’s lovesick disposition, Robin’s freckled face hardens. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that,” she rumbles like a storm cloud, knocking her shoulder against his when she walks by him.

“Why?” Steve retorts like a child, following behind her just the same. 

He nearly bumps into her when she stops short at the deep freezer. She returns the cloth mits she carried the ice cream in with after spending her whole break organizing the case by color. Steve could never even be bothered to put the damn things back where they belonged in the first place.

“Because I swore to her I wouldn’t,” Robin agonizes, then whips around to face him again. Her features are twisted like a hurt puppy as she pleads. “Don’t tell her I said anything either, okay? She’ll hate me.”

Steve wasn’t planning on it. Not because he thought it might make you hate her, though. He’s not entirely sure you’re capable of that. 

He’s only known you for a few months — ever since the leaves started changing color and people traded their ice cream cones for cool music at the new record store. He spent half that time admiring you across the landing, but you’ve never been anything but gentle with him. You were soft, with a soul of sunshine. 

He didn’t know it was possible to be made of sunlight until he met you.

“Well, did you tell her I liked her back?” he presses, hoping Robin might’ve done some of the hard work for him.

Her face screws up like she’s tasted something sour. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I promised you I wouldn’t.”

Steve shoots her a deadpanned look.

Robin caves. 

“It’s not like I meant to tell you she liked you just now, okay? It just came out!” she explains, gesturing wildly with her hands. “Maybe next time I stick my foot in my mouth around the new girl, I’ll tell her that you’re obsessed with her, and the two of you can finally start dating instead of making sex eyes at each other all the time.”

He wouldn’t put that past her. Robin the Mastermind, Robin the Blabbermouth, Robin the Matchmaker. But his fluttering heart is pumping with too much adrenaline now. He feels like he could move mountains with the knowledge of your affections — knowing that all his own big, fuzzy, suffocating feelings have been reciprocated all this time.

If he doesn’t talk to you now, he’s scared he’ll never work up this kind of courage again.

“No. Screw that,” he concludes with a shake of his head. He’s in King Steve mode now — feeling half as suave as he used to back when the whole town was falling at his feet — chest puffed and ego reeling. “I’m gonna go talk to her.”

Robin watches, dumbfounded, as he dumps a scoop of their best-selling ice cream into a paper bowl. Another tub she’ll have to refill. Steve ducks under the counter door and heads for the exit. “Wait— what am I supposed to do?” the girl shouts across the empty store.

Now out in the bustling Starcourt mall and taking short strides towards the music store, Steve spins on his heel to face her. He shrugs and readjusts the sailor’s cap on his head. “Wait for me to get back.”

—————

You’ve been banished to the back of the store.

Not exactly. But that’s what it feels like.

You got a bit too overwhelmed working the front counter, and since Eddie’s crazy soft on you, he let you put up all the Christmas decorations he’d been putting off instead. It’s a win-win situation, really. 

You’re stringing up sparkling tinsel over the rows of records when a deep blue sailor’s uniform catches your eye. Looking over your shoulder, you find Steve in all his glorysauntering towards you. He’s wearing shorts even though it’s basically winter now in Indiana. He’s beaming at you like sunshine anyway.

Beneath the amber glow of the dimly lit store, he looks borderline angelic. Almost unfairly ethereal.

“What’s that?” you wonder with a smile you don’t even know is there, nodding to the Scoops Ahoy brandedcup in his hand. 

You can almost smell the syrup-cinnamon concoction of the ice cream he holds in his palm. Or maybe that’s just Steve, and the sugary sweetness is radiating from his pores after working in a confectionary shop during the holidays.

He looks at you even sweeter.

“New flavor,” he answers vaguely, smirking as he leans against the metal shelves. He stumbles slightly when it rocks beneath his weight. “Oops. Sorry. It’s, uh— It’s pancake chunks with maple syrup swirl. I call it Wake and Bake.” 

A giggle tumbles from your lips when he hands it to you. “Eddie’s gonna love that,” you murmur.

“Well, it’s actually called Breakfast in Bed, but— I don’t know— I thought my idea was better.”

“Way better,” you concur with a nod and a pretty smile.

Steve watches with attentive honey eyes as you spoon a bite into your mouth. He feels a bit like it’ll be his fault if you hate it. His irrational need to impress you always makes him feel hopelessly inadequate. 

“Woah,” you hum without your mouth still a little full. The cream melts softly on your tongue, tasting of a sweet and early morning. “This is really good.”

His brows raise, and his eyes widen. “Yeah?” he wonders. Your words wash over him like a compliment for a reason he can’t name. It feels good to make you feel good.

“Mhmm. I might have to come by after work and buy the rest of it, actually,” you joke with a curt shrug. It’s a feeble confession — your way of telling him that you want to see him more because you could never say the real thing out loud.

Your heart sinks when Steve shakes his head. Then swells when he smiles.

“No way,” he scoffs, lips curling into a lopsided grin. “I’m not gonna let you pay for it— that’s crazy.”

“You can’t keep giving me free ice cream, Steve—”

“What my manager doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” he lilts lowly and with a cool shrug that makes you melt. He goes very distinctly soft when he looks at you, all scruffy-faced and sweet-eyed. 

It’s suffocatingly beautiful. You crack under the pressure of it. 

“Well, uh— Thanks for the— ice cream,” you stammer and motion the bowl back to him. Thanks for stopping by and keeping me company, but you’re too pretty and I’m not sure how much longer I can take it, you don’t say.

“You don’t want the rest?” he asks with pinched brows.

“I just… should probably get back to work, you know?”

“Eddie doesn’t let you take breaks?”

“No, he does,” you answer quickly, shifting your weight on your feet. It becomes virtually impossible to meet his gaze. “Just not with…”

Steve’s brows raise when you trail off. “Not with me?” he finishes with a laugh.

“Well, not with the… pretty-boy-ice-cream-slinger in the sailor’s uniform,” you correct, then quickly follow. “His words. Not mine.”

In all honesty, Steve couldn’t care less about what Eddie Munson has to say about him. If Hawkins’s local freak is the only thing standing between him and the pretty girl at the music store, he’s down to break a couple of dumb rules.

He takes a small step towards you. His pink smirk widens. You swear your heart stops when he looks at you with it. “You don’t think I’m pretty?” he teases with a twinkle in his squinted eye.

Suddenly, there’s a frog in your throat and you’re fourteen all over again. You’re flustered and drowning and totally unsure of yourself. “I didn’t say that,” you mutter, gaze flittering and smile wavering.

Steve goes to rest his elbow on the shelf again, then remembers its unsteadiness and decides against it. His arm rests awkwardly in the air for half a moment before he crosses both of them over his chest. 

“Well, I mean, you didn’t not say it, so…”

You squint up at him, busying your clammy hands with the melting ice cream in your palm. You know what he’s fishing for. Your pride urges you to stay silent even though your heart sings the sweetest songs for him. 

“You know you’re pretty, Steve,” you murmur matter of factly.

“But do you think I’m pretty?”

Your thundering heart lurches into your throat when Steve takes another small step closer. He smells like wintertime — like Christmas and nostalgia and boy. You don’t trust your voice to answer him verbally, so you nod, slow and sheepish.

“Good,” he hums with a beam he couldn’t hide if he tried. “‘Cause I think you’re pretty, too.”

Your chest gets all sparkly at his admission — the affirmation that all your girlish feelings are being reciprocated by a boy you never dreamed you could have. You don’t feel hardly deserving of the fondness dripping from his features, but you pray he never stops looking at you with it.

You grow warm with the irrational hope that he might kiss you. You think he might actually kiss you until your boss’s voice pierces the golden bubble of puppy love the both of you are basking in.

“How’s the decorating going?” Eddie announces himself, appearing suddenly between the two aisles.

Robin idles at his side. She’s in the feminine version of Steve’s sailor outfit — with silver chains around her neck and bandaids on her knees. Effortlessly endearing and totally unaware of it all.

You push Steve away from you without thinking, all but shoving the softening ice cream into his chest. Some of it smears white against the scarlet tie around his chest. “Sorry!” you exclaim in your moment of fleeting panic, then turn to Eddie with the same apologetic wince. “Sorry…” you repeat quieter.

“Robin?” Steve gapes at the sight of his best friend — apparently the second thing standing in his way, right beside the freak. “What the hell are you doing here— did you tattle on me? What are you, four?”

“I got lonely,” the brunette answers plainly. “And I knew you were around here somewhere, so I asked Eddie where you were—” She waves a pale hand your way, fingers painted with chipping maroon polish.  “—And now I’m here.”

Eddie grins wide and tilts his wild head to his shoulder. “Yeah. Can’t believe you’re trying to taint my one good employee, Steven.”

“I’m not tainting anybody, Munson,” he bites back like a bickering brother, then screws up his face and turns to Robin. “Wait. If you’re here, who’s manning the counter?”

Her freckled face falls like a child caught in a fib. Her deep blue eyes widen when she blinks at him. In a mousier voice, she confesses, “Dustin came by… And I told him he could eat all the ice cream he wanted as long as he made sure no one stole anything.”

The four of you fall silent. The soft rock of Christmas Wrapping plays weakly from the radio at the front of the store. Eddie breaks first. ‘Cause he can’t ever be serious about anything. 

The boyish sound of his laughter sends a giggle sputtering from your lips. The pretty noise makes Steve smile despite his baffled disbelief.

He turns to you with a dumbfounded grin. “You’re still stopping by after work, right?”

“Yeah,” you answer softly, nodding as your smiling face grows hot.

Eddie scoffs when Steve walks by him. “If you still have a job by then.”

[whats-she-gonna-post-next]

hi!

for the drabble can you do anything with snowbugs? :)

Ok... Listen... I know it has been over a month. I am so sorry. I got distracted. I hope that you accept these 1.8k words that I wrote as an apology.

Anyways, it's technically not snowbugs yet... But they are totally endgame, it will happen. Also feel free to imagine whoever you want as the fellow heroes and villains. I didn't really bother distinguishing them... Whoops

-

Scott’s hands shook, his breath shuttered in his chest, his blood roared in his ears, power pulled tight around his throat like a noose, his mind was racing.

It was too much. It was too soon. He’d told them it was too soon, that he wasn’t ready, and yet here he was.

“Pull back!” He heard the call of his squad captain, “He’s too dangerous!”

Scott shuttered, another wave of cold power pulsed through the warehouse they had been fighting in as he tried desperately to contain it.

He hated this.

You see, Scott was still new to this whole powers thing. For most of his life he, and everyone else around him, had assumed Scott didn’t have powers. Not exactly an uncommon occurrence in their world, though you were still more likely to end up with something mundane than nothing at all, however, so it was ever so slightly disappointing when he passed milestone after milestone without tried or trace of any sort of power. By the time he reached adult hood, he figured that was it. Developing a power after eighteen was uncommon enough, but a major one - that was practically unheard of.

Scott was 28 when he developed the ability to completely freeze anything with little more than the flick of his hand.

He had reported the development immediately to the government, as the had a mandated training program for people with powers above a certain level classification. He had gone in expecting to be trained on control, to learn how to go about his normal day again and leave. The more intensive hero program that was designed to allow individuals the ability to help fight against rogue power users was - as far as everyone was told - entirely voluntary, and Scott and no desire to do anything but return to his normal life.

He found out the hard way that voluntary had a much looser definition when a power is considered too strong or in particular demand. Sure, he had the choice to forego the program, but he would have been marked a rogue and likely sent to prison, so he agreed, and Smajor was born.

They fast tracked him through the program, skipping the basics and barely letting him get a grasp on how to marginally reign in the cold beyond focusing and keeping calm before thrusting him out into combat training.

It hadn’t been the worst, Scott had been learning how to focus his powers in calm environments and it had been going well, so long as he had no distractions.

Then they got the call that Tek was out with some other villains, causing problems, and Scott was sent out with a team to deal with him specifically.

Tek was, for all intents and purposes, the reason Scott didn’t get a say in joining the hero program. Strong elemental powers like his ice were rare, which while likely would have subjected him to pressures to join, Tek had his opposite in fire and they had no heroes with strong enough powers to go against it. At least until now.

Scott tried to protest, to tell his handler - and how he loathed that title - that he wasn’t ready for that level of fight. Hell, Scott was pretty well certain he wasn’t ready for team training exercises yet, but it didn’t matter in the eyes of the higher ups.

“Sometimes it’s sink or swim, kid,” He was told, “When the time comes, you’ll know what to do.”

Protests that he was going to sink going unanswered as he was stuffed into a far too regal looking blue and while suit, gold accents only calling more attention to him, and pushed front and center as other members of his team squared off and distracted other villains, until it was just Scott staring at Tek with barely hidden fear, and Tek returning the stare with bemused confusion.

Scott couldn’t breath as the noise around them grew. He knew what he should be doing, he knew that people were counting on him, but all he could focus on was the ever growing sense of terror as he stared at the flames that casually danced along Tek.

How was he supposed to fight him? The casual confidence of a man who had years to master his power verse the maybe six months Scott had had to do the same.

Everyone was relying on Scott, and he was going to fail.

He watched the bemusement slip from Tek’s face, turning to genuine confusion, realization, then - oddly enough - nervousness. He had opened his mouth to speak, but Scott made out none of what he said through the blood rushing in his ears. It wasn’t until he heard a curse from one of his teammates that he realized that a sheet of ice had been snaking out along the ground around him, small spikes of ice budding up in places without say.

“Dammit Smajor,” The angry tone broke through his revelry, “Focus! Them, not us!”

The words just make things worse, anxiety spiking, pulsing cold echoing the beating of his heart as it matched the frantic pace. Scott did his best to pull the powers back, trying to focus on breathing as several eyes turned towards him, tried to ignore the expectations piling on him.

“What the hell do you idiots think you’re doing?” Scott heard one of the villains ask, “Sending out a kid this green when he can barely keep a grasp on his own powers?”

Scott wants to laugh. Hadn’t he been asking the exact same thing? He pulled his arms across his body as if he can physically hold his powers in. All it does is cause ice to grow across his torso as he sinks to his knees. The ice seems to get worse, a small snow flurry begins, building rapidly inside the tiny warehouse.

Why can’t he just breath?

“Pull back, he’s too dangerous” The call is made and the bubble of laughter finally breaks through.

‘So much for avoiding jail time after this shit show,’ He thinks bitterly, laughter quickly turning to sobs. He just wanted to go home.

He distantly hears the sound of movement, can feel the disturbances against his ices as several people move to exit or take cover from the ticking time bomb Scott has become. He can hear the sound of heroes and villains alike arguing about him.

Oddly enough it sounds like the villains are the ones on his side, somehow.

In the midst of this, he is surprised by a warm hand on his shoulder. He flinches back, another wave of power emanates from him and he desperately tries to pull it in, focus it on himself as his looks up, meeting Tek’s eyes through his mask. Warmth and compassion shine through. He seems unaffected by Scott’s powers, any ice that gets near him melting. He doesn’t even shiver.

Scott envy’s him for a moment.

“Hey, Smajor was it?” He asks, casual as can be, as if Scott wasn’t actively turning the room into a walk in freezer. The absurdity of it gives Scott pause for a moment, and he finds himself nodding, “Nice to meet you, I’m Tek.”

“I- I know that,” Scott replies, confused, “I think most people know that.”

Tek smiles at him, and it’s so bright and warm that Scott wants to lean into it, to keep it there.

“I suppose the costumes a pretty big give away, isn’t it?” There is something soothing to his voice that calms Scott down some. The noose around his throat loosens, the next wave of power seems softer, “I can’t imagine that feels all to great.”

Tek gestures to where Scott’s hands are wrapped around himself, the shards of ice pressing into his sides, the tears in his own costumes it has made, “Do you want to maybe move your hands?”

He makes an aborted move to talk to hands but Scott pulls back some, hangs clenching tighter, causing him to flinch yet again.

“I can’t,” He admits, “I don’t- I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Tek’s eyes soften, but there is a determination there as well.

“It’ll be ok, you can let go,” His voice is unwavering and assured, Scott wants to believe him, “You won’t hurt me.”

Maybe it’s the fact that Scott knows what Tek’s powers are, knows how strong they are and how in control of them he seems to be, maybe it’s the look in his eyes, the determination and strength that bolsters his own in turn, maybe it’s just the fact that he is the first person who is telling him to let go instead of reign in, but Scott believes him.

Slowly, without breaking eye contact, Scott unclenches his hands from his sides, letting Tek gingerly wrap his hands around Scott. They are warm, warmer than anything Scott has held in a long time.

To be honest, Scott can’t remember the last time someone touched him for more than a moment, let alone held his hand.

It had to have been before his powers manifested, but even then, Scott didn’t have a ton of friends, and none of them had been very touchy-feely.

Was touch always this warm?

Was Scott always this cold?

“There you go,” Tek was smiling at him proudly, as if Scott had just accomplished some great task, “See, everything is fine.”

He is vaguely aware of the fact that the storm around them has calmed, his breathing stabilizing, adrenaline draining from his body, leaving him exhaustively swaying where he was kneeing. Without thought, Scott leaned forward, letting himself fall against the warm body in front of him.

To his credit, Tek doesn’t even flinch, catching him with ease and o=pulling him close.

He can hear others coming closer, but he can’t bring himself to care. He was tried and Tek was so so warm. He relaxed into him, eyes slipping closed as he barely listens to the conversation above him, registering little than Tek’s answers as they echoed against his ear, pressed to the soothing beat of his heart.

“Are we really surprised something like this happened?” Tek asked, voice rumbling soothingly through his chest, “Of course those idiots are so desperate to one up us that they would push someone harder and faster than they should and then run when it crumbles.”

There is more conversation overhead and Scott finds himself slipping into a daze before;

“Of course he is coming with us. We can’t leave him to those morons.”

The arms around him move, but before he can protest, they wrap around him differently, lifting him gently. Maybe he should feel worried, as he’s carted off by a group of villains, but Scott figures if they were going to hurt him, they’d have done in by now, so he leaves that to future Scott, and lets himself slip into sleep.

“Don’t worry, we’ve got you now.”

[batmanfruitloops]

MORE ASKS? YOU BET I WILL

number one: are there any general fun facts about anyone you guys would like to share, but haven't yet?

number two: anything you can share on your poison ivy? i love her. woman of all time

and lastly: are there any lesser-known (or less popular) rogues that'll be in the au? anything yall can tell us about em?

(sorry for multiple questions. this au scratches my brain)

So many questions is not a problem at all! I'm glad to have so many to answer,

Along with being a scientist, Viktor used to run an ice cream parlor with Nora and it was like a winter wonderland come to life. With his freezing expertise, it snows inside and their display window has a snowman built weekly to advertise their business.

They sold all kind of ice cream, frozen treats, and hot chocolate. Also, since Nora and Viktor were unable to have children, seeing so many come into their parlor was a way to vicariously live as if they were able to. After Nora's MacGregor's Syndrome reached stage 4, both of them stopped working there personally.

Cleo, or Ratcatcher, is very asthmatic, and so she has a mask to help with that. She also has an optional pair of goggles that I affectionately call "Boggle-goggles" because boggling is the something that rats do when they're happy. It's kind of like their eyes are vibrating.

Our Creeper is based on a Mandrill monkey as that's what he reminded us of when reviewing clips. Very silly animal brain. He drank all the funny chemicals and now his brain makes coo-coo sounds sometimes.

But of course! When Ivy plant pheromones don't work and she feels threatened, she grows thorns over her body and pulse and move like thorny veins.

Ivy has many sentient plants, but her closest is named Gloria. Mostly inspired by Audrey 2 from little shop of horrors, but also the piranha plants from Mario.

Ivy can photosynthesize, I don't know if she normally can, although eating and drinking food as a human normally would works too and is more efficient.

As for less-popular, or less-known rogues, yes! With that post I released earlier, there is quite the cast. This is also a good time to mention that there will sometimes be appearances of mine and Fluffy's favorite Justice League members and later down the line, the Titans too. This won't be often, but they will be here.

If I had to choose one for now though, I'd love to talk about Lynns, a.k.a. Firefly;

Lynns was born with body deformities that makes them look more bug-like, but also they were born intersex. Like most kids born as such, their parents (mainly father) decided that Lynns was specifically a male and named them Garfield. It didn't take Lynns long to decide that that was not how they wanted to be viewed, and pretty adamantly said this to their father to which, after a lot of trying to "convert" Lynns and a lot of back and forth, backed off albeit begrudgingly.

Because of this, Lynns isn't particularly fond of being called Garfield, or restrictive masculine things, although masculinity itself Lynns is not against. As they grew up most of their friends were pretty supportive and understanding, although there are some who view Lynns as just "Fi" and as a female, but they're fine with that. So long as it's not meant to be offensive.

Lynns had regular old prosthetic legs growing up, but as an adult, Lynns made their own legs that were meant to look more bug-like, as they like appearing that way. Lynns was always a pyromaniac and so they became a pyrotechnic for movies as an adult. They weren't badly scarred and burned until someone else accidently made a trick faulty.

Hope this info-dump is entertaining, :3

-Sarsee

[alienaiver]

Released

Howard Link x gn!reader

“I grieved you.” you let out, all your emotions clawing their way out of your body in strained convulsions and shaky breaths.

“I know.”

He repeats it, several times as he tries to comfort you with his touch. The hand by his chest is still clenched and it takes monumental effort to release the tension and spread out your fingers. You let them travel up past his collarbone, his throat – taking a pause by his pulse point. You need to feel it with more parts of your body – until it finally reaches his jaw, his cheek. His skin is still as soft as it’s always been, showing no signs of decay.

warnings: spoilers for chapter 247 of the manga, mentions of death and grieving wordcount: 1.6k content: angst turns fluff, sfw, hurt/comfort, happy ending, genderneutral reader, bodypositive and poc friendly reader, no use of y/n, canon compliant, not beta’d, ive put reader in as a links lover from before he “passed” and just learning that hes back and alive in the recent chapter so their reunion basically, links makes my brain go brrrr like my freezer after ive taken out an ice cream,

notes: I RUSHED TO WRITE THIS AFTER CHAPTER 247 HELLO?????? DID U SEE ALL LINKS BEAUTIFUL SMILES?!??!?! reader’s role isnt described as neither exorcist or science member or nurse so you choose, honestly i cant say much abt this work except that i just wanted to kiss link.,......... <3 and get this scenario out of my beautiful head bcos it has been ROTATING

When Kanda makes the announcement, you immediately latch onto his choice of words, following his eyes to where they’ve trailed to the window.

And there he shows up. The man you’ve been grieving for months now.

You freeze and air gets hard to breathe. It’s like there’s no oxygen around you as your throat constricts and lungs burn. What? How?

Allen reacts first, opening the door and looking at him. Howard Link’s pose is incredibly relaxed and a smile you rarely saw appear on his face is so casually planted there that you almost want to drag out your weapon to make sure this isn’t an Akuma or some kind of clever disguise puppeteered by Leverrier.

But Allen’s eye doesn’t react. He simply runs to him and you gasp when they almost fall off of the balcony.

You stay behind as they all converge closer to him, your hand still wrapped around the handle of the measly dagger that Tiedoll gave to you when you first joined him going rogue from the Order, “to protect yourself.” He’d said.

You help Tiedoll prepare the food, anything to not be close to him right now as you try to process that he’s there, alive. You’re not sure he saw you before you sneaked to the kitchen but knowing him and his skills, he’s most likely seen you before he even approached on Kanda’s behest.

You don’t look at him all through the food and the talk, staying focused on eating and listening to all the information that Allen is giving out. You flinch at the mention of Link being targeted and killed again, tensing up through your entire spine, swallowing your bite thickly and schooling your expression as best as you’re able.

At his confession you audibly gasp and can’t stop your eyes from looking directly at him before it’s too late. You’re overwhelmed by the radiant smile he gives off. It’s like your heart is beating again for the first time since it stopped beating the day he passed away. He catches your gaze immediately, as if waiting for your eyes to finally look at him. You feel heat in your cheeks as he holds it, though you can tell that he’s not looking at you anymore, but through you.

He's only pulled back when Allen pinches his nose. You can’t help but laugh – their antics back to what they used to be. When food is finished, you make Kanda help you clean up. He huffs and puffs but relents in the end, stacking plates and leftovers expertly in his arms. In the kitchen he grunts at you, “I won’t get involved.” He states and you look at him with question marks in your eyes, head tilted. He pouts at your obliviousness with furrowed brows, “talk to the fuckin’ dog.”

Then he leaves you to dry the last dishes he finished washing, the door closing behind him and leaving you alone for the first time since finding out that Link is very much alive and well.

Your hand clenches around the plate in your hands. You’ve seen four new expressions on his face you’d never been graced with before in the span of an hour. Your eyes can tell that it’s him but your heart wavers. You fear you don’t know the man outside with the face of the man you love.

  When you reemerge back in the living room, a hush falls over them all. It’s so obvious that it’s painful and you feel like you’re suffocating. Maybe you are.

 Link then gets up from his seat on the floor, dusting off his pants before he clears his throat. He then gathers his courage and looks at you and says your name for the first time. your breath hitches and you can only manage a meekly nod when he nods towards one of the rooms to the sides, his eyes begging for you to go with him and talk.

Allen says something that you don’t catch as you walk in through the door, your hand tracing the door frame before Link closes the door behind you.

None of you say anything for longer than you can count. Your eyes are locked on his chest and how it rises up and down with each breath he takes. They’re leveled and controlled, but they confirm that he’s alive. He’s really here with oxygen in his lungs and a beating heart. Your hands clench into fists by your side.

His breathing pattern changes, telling you he’s about to say something. You bite your underlip and raise your gaze to look directly at him – he flinches but remains posed. Out of your peripheral vision you see his fist clench and unclench, reaching out towards you before retracting again. He then wills himself to relax and smile at you.

This is the fifth expression you’ve never seen on his face. It suits him, but that’s not what you’re focusing on, your eyes locked to the way his lips move, tasting his words before he lets them out in the open.

You can’t take this. Your heart is beating rapidly, your hands and your back is sweaty from the strain of all your emotions and the way you clench your jaw is starting to hurt. In frustration you lift your fist to punch him and as it stands high in the air, you catch his gaze – his smile widens. That stupid, handsome smile. Your hand collides with his chest in a much slower and gentler pace than what you first intended and you instantly feel his body heat traveling to you and you sigh, biting the inner part of your cheek before your head follows your hand towards him and rests on his chest. A sob is threatening to leave you but you inhale deeply instead.

Not many moments pass before he wraps his arms around you, his head resting on the crown of your head. Without embarrassment he noses your head and breathes in your scent, hugging you tighter to him. He seems to relax much more now that you’re touching him.

You’re not. Your spine is locked and you’re rigid in his embrace, refusing to take in the scent of him, the feel of him. He died.

The sob that’s been lodged in your throat since you saw him on the balcony finally breaks free and all the muscles that you’d tensed up spasm before they relax. He coos at you and rubs gentle circles into the small of your back.

You move your head from his chest and towards his neck, your lips ghosting over his pulse point. You’re so close that you can feel it beating against your lips and the first tear roll down your cheek, wetting your lips. If he feels the wetness on his skin, he doesn’t say anything.

You whimper softly before you finally push yourself closer to him, your lips pressing into his skin, arms wrapping around him, clenching his shirt as if your life depended on it.

“I grieved you.” you let out, all your emotions clawing their way out of your body in strained convulsions and shaky breaths.

“I know.”

He repeats it, several times as he tries to comfort you with his touch. The hand by his chest is still clenched and it takes monumental effort to release the tension and spread out your fingers. You let them travel up past his collarbone, his throat – taking a pause by his pulse point. You need to feel it with more parts of your body – until it finally reaches his jaw, his cheek. His skin is still as soft as it’s always been, showing no signs of decay. They’re warm, like the rest of him. He’s always been a furnace. He pulls his head away from the top of yours and finally, finally locks his lips with yours.

Your breath hitches at the moment of contact and you stand frozen, eyes still open to be sure he’s real and doing this. His own eyes are closed and his brow is relaxed. The kiss is featherlight, like he’s unsure if he’s allowed this touch. You close your eyes and relax as much as you’re able. It’s only when you push further into him that he redoubles his efforts and pulls you impossibly closer, a whine escaping his throat as he continues to kiss you.

He’s here, he’s alive and he’s kissing you like it’s the only thing he’s been thinking of since he came back from the dead. You chance a look at him again and see how his brows has furrowed. He’s frustrated he can’t be closer to you than this right now and you can’t help the laugh that bubbles from deep within you, a place you’d thought had withered and rotted. Happiness blooms in you as his hands travel up to caress your cheeks.

This is the Howard Link that you knew, you know this now.

It’s just Howard Link without the chains binding him, the one able to express his wants more clearly than when he was shackled and controlled by another will than his own. This is the man that you love, finally able to do what he wants, to love who he wants without the heavy weight of guilt looming over every kiss, every chance meeting at the library, every cake secretly baked with you in mind.

Howard Link feels freer to make his own choices than he’s ever been, and he’s choosing to side with you. You smile into his lips before you run your hand through his hair, messing with his braid. He pulls away and with a breathless chuckle says your name. You hands travel to his nape with a warm smile, "welcome back."

[abbatoirablaze]

Locked Up, Chapter 5

Word Count:  3k

Warnings:  mentions of violence/blood, minor medical situation, implied smut, thigh riding, little bit of bondage (handcuffs), teasing, mentions of potential unprotected smut, itsy bitsy breeding kink at the end.

“Lila…”

You shook your head, trying to fight off the blush that threatened to come onto your cheeks as you looked away from the senior doctor.  On the other side of the room, a certain inmate had been eyeing you up, and it was secretly driving you crazy, “Sorry Jay…you were saying?”

You knew of the red flags that seemed to wave in your face when it came to the handsome inmate, but you didn’t care.  You’d heard of him when the senior doctor told you about some of the more frequent flyers, but there was something about him that made you entranced. And since the day that you’d met him you were completely and unequivocally hooked.

“Go stitch up inmate Hansen, please,” he sighed tiredly as he worked on the other inmate in the medical bay, “we both know that you’re the only one he’ll let touch him.”  

You bit your lip and nodded, heading to the other side of the medical wing where the other individual who had been caught in a fight was waiting to be stitched up. 

Lloyd Hansen. 

He was once an asset for the government who had gone rogue, killing people simply because he enjoyed it. 

He usually left a body count wherever he was. 

People had called him a sociopath. Someone who didn’t give a damn about anyone other than what was being put into his numerous accounts across the span of the globe. 

But you knew him as the smart-mouthed asshole with a heart that was hidden under an ice age’s worth of tundra.  And somehow…you’d managed to make it under all that ice to see just the kind of person that he truly was. 

Broken from his past heartbreaks, and years of psychological abuse from his parents and so-called friends, Lloyd had walls higher than the earth’s atmosphere.  But you managed to find the cracks and slip through them. 

“Inmate Hansen…Dr. Sanjay has asked me to take a look at your injuries.”

Lloyd huffed, his mustache twitching. 

Lloyd only ever let you treat him.  Before you came along, he would stitch himself up with dental floss if he was stabbed, refusing to let the medical team at the prison touch him.  And after the last time he bashed a nurses skull against the wall, they decided to let him do it to. 

Until the fateful day that Lloyd first saw you. 

“Who is she?”

His raspy voice cut through the medical wing like wildfire, sending a pulse straight through your core as your eyes met.  Your senior doctor tried to brush off the comment from the normally silent inmate, but you were drawn to him like a moth to a flame.   

“Dr. Sanjay, should I tend to the other inmate while you-“

“Don’t bother with Hansen,” he grumbled, not sparing him a look as he worked on cleaning inmate Gentry’s cuts, “he won’t let anyone treat him.  Just throw a few of the antiseptic wipe packets at him so he can clean himself up and he’ll do it on his own…”

“Sanjay…he-he’s got a gash in his brow,” you whimpered softly, instantly gravitating towards the inmate.  You rushed to the cabinet, typed in your code, and grabbed a kit to sew him up as well as some other things to clean his other, lesser wounds, “Inmate Hansen…a-are you alright?”

“Li-“

But Sanjay stopped himself when he watched your small hands cradle the inmate’s face, examining him.  The doctor watched, eyes wide as you rushed to start cleaning his wounds, the inmate’s jaw remaining firmly closed together.

Dr. Sanjay couldn’t place it, but there was something about the way that Hansen looked at you.  It was obvious that he didn’t mind your presence.   

“Inmate Hansen…I-I need to close up that gash-“

“I know, princess,” he muttered softly, his fingers flexing against the orange material of his jumpsuit while he managed to keep his hands to himself, “get on with it, yeah?”

“I will…I just need you to know that this may sting a little…” you warned softly as you opened the antiseptic wipes and unfurled some of the gauze and butterfly bandages.  He gave a heavy sigh, watching as you delicately tilted his chin up, his eyes meeting yours once again.  Your lips parted ever so slightly as you examined his cuts and he audibly gasped as he could only focus on your irises.

“Get on with it, angel,” he ordered as he tried to break apart his more delicate thoughts about you “I’m used to a bit of pa-FUCK!”

You didn’t even flinch as your hand swept over his injury.  No.  You giggled.

His eyes snapped to yours once again, and even though the surprise and pinch of pain had caught him off guard, he was firmly entranced by your sweet, innocent little attitude. 

He knew in that moment that he’d do whatever he had to in order to keep you safe…to hear that sweet little giggle coming from your lips yet again. 

But Sanjay had other ideas, perceiving the look as one of aggression from the inmate, “Lila…back away from inmate Hansen…”

“I won’t be long, Doctor. Sanjay, I promise…it’ll just be a few stitches!” she said over her shoulder. 

“Inmate Hansen is dangerous, Lila…and only one hand is cuffed to the bed, so-“

His words stopped once more when Lila went to turn away, and Lloyd’s arm wrapped around her own, “I want her to treat me…”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Hansen…I will!” you offered warmly, your eyes meeting his once more as you gently pushed him back onto the gurney, “please…lay back so that I can finish cleaning the wound and get you sutured up!  Dr. Sanjay believes you are a danger to me, and if you prove his suspicions right I’ll have to cuff your other hand.  Can you please lay back for me?”

And wordlessly, Lloyd laid back, his eyes never leaving hers.

“Thank you, Mr. Hansen.”  

Before that day, Lloyd would always find some weirdly creative way to treat any infections or aches.  But after you…oh, that man would come in whining about the sun being too bright if it meant he got to spend some time in the medical bay, even if it meant being cuffed to the bed.

Dr. Sanjay chuckled when Lloyd kept his mouth shut.  Lloyd wouldn’t talk in front of other inmates. He’d had to keep up some tough guy rep.  But the senior doctor quickly saw through it, and noted his affections for the junior doctor.  So with a smile, Sanjay would disappear, knowing that someone managed to get through to Lloyd Hansen, and keep him almost docile in comparison to his former actions.   

Any time that he saw Lloyd, the senior doctor would go off into the next room to complete charts and paperwork, and he knew that the stoic inmate would babble on for hours, because he would hear your giggling following. 

He knew about the relationship, and was sure of the inmate’s affections for you, but you were too hard to read, sweet as sugar, he just attributed your actions as part of your personality, as you didn’t care which inmate walked through the doors, you would treat them regardless.

“You have a cut on your brow that I’m going to treat first.” you said gently, advising him of what you were doing every step of the way.  You took a few steps away to the medical cabinet and grabbed everything you would need.  When you returned to his bedside and placed the items on the tray, you felt his hand gently reach out, searching for yours. 

You sighed and took his hand. 

His eyes met yours and your heart melted.  You didn’t take it personally that he hadn’t been talking.  You knew Lloyd well enough to see through his tough guy act. 

But that never stopped him.

“Pronge was harassing Jake again…” he said in a firm voice, nodding over to the other side of the room, where Robert Pronge was animatedly talking to the senior doctor, “told him to fuck off, but he didn’t get the idea until I headbutted the son of a bitch.”

“I wish you would stop fighting anyone that looks at me or Jake wrong…” you whispered as you wiped some of the antiseptic along his brow.  He took a sharp intake of breath as you wiped away the dried blood, “Are you ever going to stop being a baby over some rubbing alcohol?”

He smirked, “are you and Jake ever going to stop being bratty pains in my ass?”

“You know that we belong to you and only you, Lloyd…”

“That’s right!  And that means that the only one that gets to give you two a hard time is me!” he said in a playful low tone as his hand fidgeted along the rail until he was maintaining what little contact he could by touching the edges of your lab coat, “you’re my girl…and he’s my guy…I’d protect either one of you with my life…”

“What did Jake do to egg on Pronge?”

“Being his normal brat self,” he muttered sadly, “I didn’t…well, we haven’t…you know…he was flirting with Drysdale and I cut him off…him and that bitch CO were trying to take him back from us…she tried to transfer him to another cell block but Bodecker found out that he fucked her…”

Lila stopped treating Lloyd’s brow, “he what?”

“You know how Jake is,” Lloyd sighed, his hand reached up and you took it, needing to feel what little connection you could have with Lloyd after hearing that Jake had gone back to Viv, “I wasn’t giving him any…and you haven’t been on a shift where he’s doing his work release…he was getting antsy…felt abandoned…so he ran back to what he knows…”

“Lloyd…”

“He’ll come back to us baby,” Lloyd said reassuringly, “he always does…”

“Viv and Ransom…”

“He left them for us for a reason, angel…they don’t treat him right…they don’t really care about him like we do…Viv only cares about Drysdale and Levinson…Jake’s disposable to them!”

You nodded, wanting to believe in the little bit of comfort that Lloyd was trying to give you. He gave your hand a little squeeze and you gave a forced smile, “yeah…”

“If I could show you how much you mean to us…you know I would…”

“Lloyd…”

“Jake will be out soon…and I’ve got some government contacts who want me back…”

“Lloyd…”

“It’s only a matter of time until they admit that they need me and spring me, pumpkin…then it’s me, you, and Jake…and I’m going to make sure you two don’t have to lift a finger…I’ll have them wipe my record again…and have them wipe Jake��s…and then it’ll just be the three of us.  And I’ll have you both naked in bed waiting for me to come home…hav-“

“Lloyd…” you begged, cutting the normally stoic man off.  You looked around the wing.  While it was pretty quiet, and you knew that they couldn’t hear you from the other side of the room, his words were affecting you more than you wanted to admit.  He smiled, sensing the fact that you were getting worked up at his promises.

“You like it when I talk like that…don’t you?” he teased, “it’s been a while…for all of us…I know how Jake felt…getting a little antsy…I miss stretching your pretty litt-

“Stop,” you whimpered, not really wanting him to stop, “Lloyd…we-“

“I knew you were working tonight…Jake had his work release today and I told him to make a loop for tonight…Pronge isn’t that bad and Sanjay will let him go back to the block when he’s done cleaning him up…say I need to stay for observation…I headbutted him…s-say I need to stay because I might have a concussion and you need to make sure I stay up…”

“Lloyd…that’s risky…”

“Once I beat up Pronge, Jake knew I still cared about him…he knew he wasn’t abandoned by us, sweetie…he said he would cut the camera and loop it from 10 to midnight…we can have the night…”

“Only if no one else comes in…” you caved, agreeing to what the man you loved was saying, “but we need to find a way for me to see Jake…I-I need to talk to him…”

“We’ll figure it out, sunshine!”

“Sunshine…”

“I’m almost done, I promise.”

Lloyd chuckled from the next room as you finished up the last of your charts for the night. 

“It’s five after ten…”

“I know…just one more minute.”

He huffed, “you know…if it’s like this when we’re out on the real world…there won’t be any handcuffs keeping me in a separate room.  The only handcuffs we’ll have at home will be the ones I keep you and Jake cuffed to the bed with.”

You giggled, unable to stop the blush that rose to your cheeks, “but for now…I have all the time in the world…because you’re the one wearing the cuffs in bed.”

“Princess…”

You caved.

The way he called you those delicate little nicknames.  The breathy little huff to the edge of his voice.  You knew all of the red flags that were going off in your mind because of who he was in the real world, but you fought yourself every time his gorgeous cerulean eyes stared at you.  You stopped your writing and came out of your office.  Planting yourself against the frame into the medical wing you couldn’t help but giggle even more when you saw him looking longingly at you.

“Angel…”

“I’m coming,” you sighed happily.  Lloyd smiled like a kid at Christmas as you made your way over to him with the keys to his cuffs.  You couldn’t help but take a gander at the clock, “ten after ten.”

“The loop is running…”

“And how do we know this for sure?” you asked, holding the key away from his cuffs.

He gave a low growl in your direction.  It wasn’t aggressive or dangerous, but it did send a shiver down your spine.  His pupils were lust blown already, “baby…the red dot that usually blinks when it’s recording isn’t on…let me out…I wanna play doctor with you.”

“Hmm,” you teased as you put the key on the tray and reached across the bed.  Your fingers grazed over the blankets, and you untucked him from bed.  On your way back up the length of him, your nails danced along his bare legs and over the medical gown he wore.  He gave another low growl, and you noticed his cock twitching to life beneath the thin fabric, “you wanna play doctor, hmmm?”

“You’re playing with fire, sunshine…” he warned, his voice husky and low, “you want to play this game…and we can, but you know if you get me riled up, you’ll be trying not to limp out of here in the morning…”

Your thighs clenched together at the thought.  But you smiled and crawled on top of him, straddling his thighs.  You reached for him and lifted his gown, making the material bunch up on his abdomen.  Then your hand reached forward and wrapped around his length. 

He took another sharp breath in as your hand gently squeezed his girthy member. 

“Shit, angel…I love it when you touch me…”

“And what about this?” you teased, angling yourself on one of his thick thighs.  Your hips rocked, and you knew the way his eyes lit up that he could feel just how much of your wetness soaked through your thong.

“Baby…” he groaned, his eyes closing ever so slightly.  His hands reached forward, wanting to grab you, but were stopped by his cuffs.  His eyes snapped open, and he huffed, “let me go pumpkin…I wanna play with my little doc…”

“Lloyd,” you moaned softly, ignoring his pleas.  He groaned, huffing once more as your hips continued to rock against his thigh, your core riding the thick, toned muscles.  Your hand began to pick up pace, stroking his now fully hardened length, “Lloyd…I want to ride you…”

“You’re not on the pill, baby…” he growled, reminding you of your own errors, “We can’t…”

“I-I have condoms…in my purse…”

His brow raised, “Y-You do?”

You nodded, “I-I always carry some…just in case we had a day where the cameras went out.”

“You naughty little minx,” he smirked, “go get em…and you can ride me all night, sweetheart…”

“Yeah?”

He nodded, and you let go of his member.  He sighed, his head falling back to the pillow while you raced out of the room more excited than a teenage girl.  Snatching the foil package from your purse, you were shocked when you came back. 

You hadn’t been gone more than 30 seconds.

But Lloyd had managed to get the key off the medical tray and free himself from the cuffs. 

Your throat went dry with the way he looked at you.

‘You thought those could hold me, princess?” he smirked, like a demon straight from hell, “you left the keys right there when you were grabbing the protection…did you really think I wouldn’t get out?”

“L-Lloyd…”

He licked his lips and made a come hither motion towards you, “I get to play doctor, sweetheart…you get to be the inmate cuffed to the bed…”

Your thighs clenched again, the excitement firing off every synapse in your body, “I-I…”

“Be a good girl, pumpkin,” Lloyd coaxed as he stood up and made his way towards you.  The cuffs warbled on the edge of his finger as he stalked over, “and just maybe I won’t ruin that pretty little pussy of yours…not all the way, anyways…”

Your mouth opened and you tried to think of something to say to him. 

“Come on, sweetheart…say something smart so I can fuck your brains out and leave you aching in the morning…”

“C-can we skip the condoms?” you asked timidly, “I-I wanna feel you…really…feel you.”

“I don’t know if I’d be able to pull out in time,” he warned gently, his finger tipping your chin up so that you were looking him directly in the eyes, “and anyways…I promised Jensen he’d get to breed that sweet little cunt of yours first…”

“Wh-what?”

“Oh, sweetie…when we get out of here…we have so many plans…and they don’t involve you coming back…so get your little doctoring out of the way while we’re locked up…because me and Jensen are going to keep you nice and occupied when we’re free…and that’s a promise.”

Chapter 6

Tag List:  @lohnes16, @prokey16, @tenaciousperfectionunknown, @teambarnes72, @cjand10

[redactedgoose]

@phantasycentral

Hey, I remembered to do this at the start of the day instead of the end of it! Day 2, D&D. I was kinda stumped on what to do until I remembered that the Great Old Ones exist, and, well...

--

The sound of a battle is unmistakable.

The harsh clash of steel on steel, ringing out on impact, layered under shouts of exertion and pain. The creak of leather when fighters tighten their grips on their blades and when the rogues' lighter armor bends under their movement.

Spells have sound, too. Incantations, yelled or snarled; the fwump-woosh of flame and the whistle of bolts of magic, the crackling of ice and electricity.

It rages on. The two sides are more or less equally matched, if not in size then in skill. Paladins and fighters clash at the center of the battle, weapon to weapon. Rogues skulk around the outside, attempting to find openings to pick off enemies. Wizards and sorcerers fire from the back, suppressing their foes' magics and providing support for their allies.

The battle is even.

Then, the battle ceases in an instant. There is no slow progression, no tapering off of hostilities. In one moment, they fight. In the next, they stand still and silent as if they were statues, life belied only by the rising and falling of their chests and the frantic beat of their hearts.

The pulse rings out again, sending all to their knees. There is no sound; there is no force. To an outsider, the scene would look staged, with them falling with no real cause. No spellfire washes across the battlefield, no airborne toxins or any tinkerer's conceit.

No, the area around the battlefield is deathly quiet. Still. Even the breaths of the combatants are quiet and stifled, coming too fast. Not that any of them could hear their breaths over the pounding in their ears, the echo of their rabbiting hearts.

No birdsong rings from the trees; even the wind has stopped blowing, as if even it was too scared to approach.

The change in the scenery is almost too subtle to notice as the presence pulses a third time, the unnatural force echoing through their rib cages and stealing their breath.

High above them, there is a crack in the sky. It hangs there, a dark slit standing proud of the light blue that's slowly reddening with the approach of sunset, with no clouds to obscure it.

One... two... three... four... five.

Five dark points pierce through the slit.

Thud.

Another pulse. Some of the combatants fall the rest of the way to the ground, sorcerers and magicians falling with soft thumps, fighters and knights falling with great clattering crashes, dashing the silence for a brief moment.

Six... seven... eight... nine... ten.

Five more join the first group, neatly slotting between the first, and the sky darkens.

Thud.

Then the slit begins to widen. The ten dark points split into five and five once more, holding fast to either edge of the slit—the tear—in the sky.

The more religiously-minded combatants start to pray. Not aloud. They're unable to, bodies stiff like corpses from the pressure and the fear.

Something is coming. Something is coming and that something is wrong. Their base instincts all but scream in the back of their minds, screaming, pleading for them to run, to get away, that they need to leave now if they want to continue their existences.

And still the tear widens.

Only some of the still-kneeling combatants are able to see the first blushes of color through the tear. It had, at first, been blacker than black, an endless void stretching for a distance that only the gods knew—and then, even maybe they did not.

Swirls of red, purple, and pink flicker across the ever-growing tear, soon followed by orange, yellow, and blue. They dance within the void, shooting it through with sparkling veins, mixing and separating as they pleased.

Then came the green.

A single pinprick hangs in the void in the tear, fixed in place. A sword of Damocles hung in the sky, as weighty as a guillotine at the top of its tether.

The tear continued to grow, the dark pinpricks tearing the sky asunder becoming more defined. One huntsman, deep in his throes of fear and animalistic terror, recognized them as claws, more wickedly sharp than any animal's that he'd ever seen.

Not a single one of the combatants had succumbed to unconsciousness. All, whether they could see it or not, are forced to bear witness.

The green pinprick grows larger, brighter. This big, it's more defined. This close, it's more defined, for in the center of the green is an even darker void than the one it inhabits, painting horrifying truth.

It's an eye.

A large, luminous eye peering down at the assorted combatants.

Frozen as they are, fear locking their limbs even as their minds scram at them to run, to fight, they cannot do anything as the eye sweeps across them, considering them and dismissing them as beneath it's notice in the span of a breath, however stilled they may be.

The eye looks farther still, towards the edge of the battleground.

It pauses, resting it's gaze on the caravan that had borne half the combatants up until this point.

The caravan is large but dingy, the canvas cover weathered and the wood worn. The pressure on the combatants lift just slightly as the being's attention falls on it instead of them.

Then, between one blink and the next, the entire caravan is in shreds, bits of canvas and wood littered in a perfect circle around where it once stood. The only thing untouched in the circle is an oversized, wrought iron birdcage, a shredded cover just barely concealing what it holds.

"yacdilh yamy..."

Thud!

Darkness gathers in the tear, one set of claws pushing further into their reality. The air seems to warp around those sharp, dark tips as they push down, more inky black gathering behind them. The shadow clarifies into fingertips, which manifests into fingers, until a gigantic, dark hand is stretching down from the tear in the sky.

Doomed, doomed, we're all doomed...

The thing with the power to rip the fabric of reality asunder was now reaching down into their world.

It's hand, tipped with those wickedly sharp claws, descends. An arm, equally as black as the void from which it came, follows.

Their barest relief comes in that the hand is not intent on them. No. It reaches for the iron bird cage.

Tenderly, in as much as something as Other as it could be ascribed the word, it parts the last of the cover, a single claw splitting it down the middle to reveal the contents.

Inside the bird cage sits a young girl. Her hair is black, her skin pale. Her eyes glow that same green as the thing in the void's.

She tips her head back and calls out in that same language as the being, her voice nearly as painful to hear as the being's but so much younger and more tender. "yafrehta!"

All at once, the combatants feel their stomachs drop, realizing the depths of their transgression.

The current owners of the bird cage had only known the girl as a powerful warlock, drawing inhuman power from her patron, so much stronger than the norm. She was a commodity; a prize to be won. Controlling her would increase any lord's power by tenfold.

Such was the desire of the other party. Take her, take her power, and use her to their own ends.

The being taps a claw on top of the bird cage, neatly splitting it down the center. All at once, the girl morphs and transforms before their eyes. Her hair turns a glowing white, eyes becoming larger and more luminous. Her tattered traveling clothes almost sublimate into fine robes of a deep green, her hands turning that same inky black as the being's.

She was no mere warlock. She was the thing's child.

The few combatants who had come to the realization tremble where they kneel or lie. Was this their end? Even humans had killed for less of a reason.

The girl rises into the air, seating herself on the thing's hand.

It pulls her up into the tear, her white hair vanishing instantly in the void.

The eye remains.

It stares down at them, intent.

Impossibly, incomprehensibly, the other set of claws retreat from the edge of the tear. And then, it starts to seal up, edges pulling back to each other like the lacing of a corset.

Throughout it all, the eye hangs in the void, staring down at them.

Even when the tear finally closes, they stay as they are.

Kneeling or lying on the ground.

Terrified.

Very few of the combatants would ever talk of this day in the future. The day that they avoided their deaths—no. The day that they avoided their obliteration at the hands of the being with the power to rip reality apart.

It would have been so easy for it to have squashed them like the bugs they are, after all.

--

yacdilh yamy -> reverse -> ymay hildcay -> pig latin -> my child yafrehta -> reverse -> atherfay -> pig latin -> father

[killmongerskeeper]

Hi love, I was wondering if I could request angst prompt 12 and fluff prompt 1 please…also I hope you have a lovely day.

Angst # 12: “Shh it’s okay, you’re safe here.”

Fluff #1: “You love me?”

Everything happened so fast. One day your father challenged for the throne and lost. Then next some rogue wakandan defeated T'Challa and took over. In their time of need Queen Ramonda and her daughter Shuri came to seek refuge in Jabari land. You were quick to welcome them during this tough time. You and Shuri already had a pretty good friendship. Even with you being from two different tribes. Now she needs you more than ever. You brought her and her mother a change of clothes causing the queen to give you a gentle squeeze. 

"Thank you child. For your hospitality." You bowed with a small smile and rubbed your neck. 

"My father welcomes you. He's just not the best to outright say it. If it comes down to it, Jabari will fight with you." You said before looking over at Shuri. Her eyes glued to the floor but when she felt your stare, her eyes flickered to yours. She couldn't stop herself as she flung her arms around you, crying into your shoulder. You rubbed her back softly while trying not to cry yourself. "Shh it's okay, you're safe here." You told her quietly while the queen watched on. It pained her to see her youngest like this. But she was also grateful that she had someone like you. She believed you to be soulmates. Attached at the hip regardless of tribe status. She slowly approached to wrap her arms around the both of you and that's when you broke. T'Challa was always that brother figure you never had. Him being gone meant so much. They lost a king. A protector. A brother. A son. They couldn't even bury him. You let the two change, giving Nakia a small smile on your way out. You took some time to yourself to think of all the outcomes of this situation. What if the new king comes here demanding an alliance. Resources. Your thought haunted abruptly as something caught your eye in the ice down the river. You slowly approached with your staff before your body went rigid. It was King T'Challa. You quickly checked his pulse and found a faint thump. 

"He's alive. Hey, come help me! We have to get him to my father!" You shouted, shedding your coat and a couple of fishermen ran to your aid. You made sure he stayed covered as you traveled up the mountain. Once you got the panther to the infirmary your father stood next to you as you checked the king of wakanda over. 

"You really know what you're doing."

"Of course. I am the youngest and best doctor that the Jabari has to offer. But regarding the king, the ice is keeping him alive for now." You told him and he folded his arms. "The queen. They brought an herb with them, yes? You must fetch them at once."

"You're telling me what to do? Just when I thought this situation could not get worse." He muttered as he left the hut. You shook your head as you touched his forehead. "It'll be okay T'Challa." When my father returned Queen Ramonda, Shuri, and Nakia followed behind until T'Challa came into their view. 

"My son." The three rushed to his side and you moved out of the way letting them check him. "Y/N and some fishermen found him at the bottom of the mountain."

"Why do you have him in the ice?" Shuri asked your father and you stepped in. "The ice is what's keeping him alive right now. Seems to be in a coma." You said fidgeting with your hand. 

"We need to get him to my lab, I can heal him there." Your father put a hand on your shoulder before stepping forward. "Go ahead. He'll die on the way there."

"The herb you brought. Will it work to heal him?" You asked and they quickly began grinding the herb with some tools as you and your father watched. You couldn't help but grab onto his hand for comfort and he looked down to you. He knew of your friendship with the royal family and hated to see you so worried. Giving your hand a light squeeze he leaned closer so you could lean on him. After a couple of minutes passed T'Challa shot up trying to catch his breath. He was alive. You smiled as you watched his family embrace him. He caught your gaze and you gave a small bow letting him console his family. You knew there was going to be a battle so you slipped away to your quarters to get your gear together. You heard the door open and turned in time for Shuri's lips to capture your own in a short kiss. Your hands flew to her waist to keep the two of you steady as her hands held your face. You were in shock, watching as she started hugging you.

"You saved him. Y/N. Thank you so much! If I didn't love you before, I surely do now." She smiled and you felt like your heart was about to jump out of your chest. "You love me?" The question slipped from your lips as you searched her eyes for any sign of false hope. 

"Always have. I see now why my mother believes us to be soulmates." She laughed and you felt your cheeks heat up. She brushed some of your braids out of your face before kissing your forehead. Despite the two of you at around the same age, she still managed to have a couple inches on you. 

"We should head back out there before we get too ahead of ourselves. We have a fight to win." You grinned still in her grasp.

[sentient-rift]

"Huh, inferior Solo, it seems like you're actually really starting to care about people, or at least Roy. Impressive... I know all too well that there's a very real risk in becoming too attached to someone who's constantly in danger... So... What is it that makes you subject yourself to such a bond willingly?"

"Inferior?! You're talking to the Lone Rogue of Mu! But then, you should know that, shouldn't you...?

"...But I see your point. I know the risks of getting too attached to people... I never thought I'd even take on an apprentice... But Roy wanted to learn the ways of Mu, and he's made incredible progress...

"...How did this happen?! I would have never taken on an apprentice in so willingly in the past! Did spending so much time with Bass and the others really make me so soft...?! Am I even worthy to be called the Lone Rogue of Mu anymore...?! Am I... Truly inferior...?"

"..."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better, aren't you, Laplace?"

*Shakes his head.*

"Though I do not know for sure what Laplace said, I believe I have an idea of it, mi amigo. I believe you are still a strong warrior, Solo, and like Roy, I'm glad to call you my master."

"Solo... Do you want to know why I took you under my wing as an apprentice when you challenged me to a battle that day we first met? It was because I saw myself in you... Specifically my past. I abandoned bonds and friendship as well... But when Megaman and I became Bass Cross to defeat Alpha... I came to realize just how strong bonds were... And I knew I could help you understand it, too."

"Well, thinks a lot, Bass! Because of you, I've grown soft, and every one of my dimensional variants will mock me for it!"

"Heh... You and I are in the same boat, Solo. I'm probably made fun of by many different Bass' from other dimensions for being too soft as well... But I wouldn't give up all the friends I've made, nor will I ever become the Chaos Lord again."

"Hmph! I'm still rather upset about this... But I've come too far now to abandon Roy... The same goes for Sombra and Laplace..."

*Laplace looks happy.*

"Gracias, mi amigo. I shall continue to fight alongside the Lone Rogue of Mu!"

"Bass... Don't say a word about this to the others."

"I'm sure they will figure it out on their own... But sure. My lips are sealed."

[theeamazingl]

˚₊ ❄︎

The gas lamps lining the cobblestone streets of London cast a flickering, amber glow, painting shadows on the walls of Árnadalr Manor. Here, Lady Anna Árnadalr, resplendent in her finest silks and satin, moved with the grace of a cat, her heart racing in exhilaration. She was on a daring mission—one that would test her wit and cunning.

The clandestine ball she had attended had been a whirlwind of masked faces, forbidden dances, and whispered secrets. But now, as the clock struck midnight, Lady Anna found herself outside the imposing wrought-iron gates of her family’s estate. The guards stationed there were no ordinary sentinels; they were loyal, watchful, and relentless in their duty.

With a mischievous glint in her eye, Lady Anna had hatched a plan. Her heart pounded as she tiptoed through the shadows, her satin slippers barely making a sound on the cold stones.

As she approached the gates, Lady Anna’s pulse quickened. She glanced up at the moon, silently praying for luck. Then, with a breath held, she darted forward, skirts rustling softly against the night air. The guards stood like statues, unsuspecting, their eyes scanning the darkness beyond the gates. With a deft movement, Lady Anna slipped past them, her heart threatening to burst from her chest.

But her triumph was short-lived. Just as she reached the safety of the grand foyer, a chorus of footsteps echoed down the marble hallway. Panic surged through her veins. Who could have breached the security of Árnadalr Manor? Has her daring escapade been discovered?

As if in answer, a rush of guards thundered past her hiding place, swords clanking against armor. Confusion clouded Lady Anna’s mind. What was happening? And then, a hand touched her shoulder—a jolt of electricity that sent shivers down her spine. She spun around, coming face to face with a mysterious figure cloaked in shadow.

His piercing gaze bore into her, and rugged features hinted at a life lived on the edge. Against the backdrop of darkness, he cut a dashing figure—a rogue, perhaps, or a hero of hidden battles. Lady Anna opened her mouth to speak, but the stranger’s hand shot out, silencing her with a gentle touch. His finger pressed against his lips, urging her to maintain absolute silence.

In that dim light, Lady Anna could barely make out the enigmatic smile that played upon his lips. Who was he? Friend or foe? And what secrets did he hold? As the gas lamps flickered, casting their uncertain glow, Lady Anna’s heart raced anew.

As her gaze met the stranger's, she noticed a flicker of urgency in his eyes. They darted past her, scanning the deserted corridor to ensure that the guards were a safe distance away before he dared to speak.

"I need your help hiding me," he whispered, his voice barely above a breath.

Lady Anna arched an eyebrow in incredulity, her expression a silent question of why she should aid him. But before she could voice her doubts, the stranger let out an exasperated sigh, accompanied by a subtle role of his eyes.

With a swift motion, he reached up and pulled down the hood that concealed his features, revealing a face that bore the marks of hardship. Despite the grime and light scratches that adorned his cheeks, there was a youthful charm about him, almost mirroring Lady Anna’s own age. His hair, tousled yet somehow styled, cascaded in warm brown waves, framing his features with an air of ruggedness.

But it was his eyes that held Lady Anna captive. Dark as the midnight sky and piercing as shards of ice, they seemed to bore into her very soul with an intensity that sent shivers down her spine.

In that moment, as she met the gaze of the enigmatic stranger before her, Lady Anna realized that there was more to him than met the eye. And though she couldn't quite fathom the depths of his mysterious past, she knew one thing for certain — she couldn't resist the allure of adventure that beckoned in his icy blue gaze.

She swiftly moves his hand from her mouth, then, thinking quickly, she plants her palm on the ground to detect any vibrations nearby, a technique she learned her first few nights here. The dark-haired man watches her with confusion. Sensing nothing, she peeks out from their hiding place and rises cautiously, the man mimicking her movements with some difficulty due to the cramped space. He leans against the wall she was pressed against, using it for support, inadvertently pinning her between his arms as he rises.

[lacklusterhero747]

Building a Fabula World, Part 2d

Okay, so... last post about the kingdoms and regions of the world, I swear. It just turned out there was an incredible amount of text that went into our world building efforts. Finally, however, we have reached the finish line.

The Free Marches - Provided by me

A wide swathe of lowland, swampy territory that owes no fealty to any other nation. It sits at a crossroads between the other nations and a band of loosely associated towns and cities send representatives to an annual Moot to discuss policy for the betterment of the alliance, and for the purpose of its mutual defense. Because The Free Marches relies on an extensively networked adventurer's guild for defense against monsters, the region has a reputation for producing capable units of mercenaries and storied heroes, as well as cunning thieves and irredeemable rogues. The Marches are a place where you can, at your will, establish your own town or dominion, so long as you have the will to do so and the strength of arms (or followers) necessary to hold that ground. While the Marches has a reputation as a land of bandits, it is also home to the decadence of casinos and resorts evocative of a place like Las Vegas or Monte Carlo along it's coastal shores. Obviously more established national powers have a vested interest in either allying themselves with the city states of the Marches, or in conquering the territory for their own, but each is moving in its own ways and thus none have truly managed to get a leg up in this quiet, cold war. The Free marches is also filled with the massive, cyclopean ruins of the Precursors--an ancient race said to have been wiped from thousands of years ago--and these dangerous places are infested with ancient magic. It is said that the great, yawning crater that lies deep with the swamps of the Marches is where the star that killed the Precursors fell.

For classes, we decided it seemed like Furies (berserkers and the like), Rogues, Sharpshooters, and Wayfarers (well traveled generic hero types) ought to come from here.

With the Free Marches out of the way, we've come to the end of what we created during the session where we did the world building. After that, I took everything we had and did a little bit of brainstorming. This is turn lead to a few extra regions which I added to our shitty little MSpaint map, and I'll just add those here as some bonus content:

The High Fane Woods

A huge stretch of great forests that stands to the north of the Free Marches and roughly east of the Alumen Dominion. The trees here are ancient, towering towards the sky like the ancient redwoods of the pacific northwest. Here The Folk live their nomadic lives, traveling through the shades underbrush as they follow the Pulse of the World Tree. Only occasionally do they build permanent structures here, and these are often build high above the ground, clinging on to the bark of the great trees like barnacles for safety from the megafauna sized beasts that roam the floor of the dark wood. As the name suggests, The Folk see the wood as a their temple to the natural order of things and they treat living here, in harmony with nature despite the challenging risks as their fundamental form of worship. Thus they are incredibly defensive of their forest home and seek to do whatever is necessary to drive invaders who would exploit it for natural resources from its borders.

The Northern Snow Fields

North of the High Fane Woods stands a mountain range (whose name I have not come up with yet) known for its treacherous terrain and dangerous monsters. Beyond this wall of ice of stone lay the Northern Snow Fields. Little is definitively known about this region because it is harsh and uninviting towards any who would dare visit. Snow storms rage frequently, and the temperature is said to be able drop low enough to freeze the blood in your veins. What is known for certain that even here, Precursor ruins are known exist, having stood the test of time and the environment. Some theorize that perhaps there is some great, lost treasure here. A secret of the ancients that was meant to be kept hidden, thus it was locked away where none were likely ever going to survive to reach it. This is, however, just speculation. Still, with the advent of Arcane Distillate and the magical Industrial revolution, The Alumen Dominion has established an outpost on the northern shore of the Snow Fields, hoping that their new technology and mastery of "magic" in its now more controlled form might allow them to learn the secrets held by this remote region.

The Isle of Salis

This island off the northeastern shore of The Alumen Dominion was, once upon a time, a simple archaeological curiosity for the petty kingdoms that would ultimately form the Dominion. Remote and undisturbed, historians and would be scientists alike flocked to the tiny island to comb through the Precursor ruins they'd found there. Labs were built, research conducted, and progress was made. Ultimately, it would be here that the technique for creating Arcane Distillate was discovered, and this very act somehow prompted the entire island lifting from the cold northern oceans and seating itself among the clouds. How this was done has remained a tightly held secret of the scientists of Salis, and even the Dominion does not truly know. Nominally, the Dominion considers the island as part of it's territory, or at the very least a protectorate, but the island itself has different views. They share their technological advancements freely with those who are willing to listen, especially those willing to donate to the furtherance of science and research, and to their erudite minds their island is the property of no kingdom. They seek only to work and to be left in peace, and want nothing to do with the growing conflicts of their ground dwelling brethren.

So there we have it. A relatively complete picture of the continent upon which our stories will unfold. Already I can think of ways to draw each faction into a grander story, and with the addition of an ancient precursor race in the mix now, so many interesting possibilities for mystery and discovery enter into the mix as well. I can't wait to see how the party will get drawn into the various political squabbles they've already set the table for in the world building, but we'll get to that when we get there.

Next post I'll be moving on with the rest of the world building steps, so we can look forward to Historical Events, Enigmas and Mysteries, and Threats in the next couple of posts.

[sentient-rift]

"Burai, huh? So you do go by a different name after all..." Rogue said,

"And as for my intentions... Call it 'curiosity. I noticed you through the Dimensional Gateway, and wanted to know what your story was. You can even say it's like meeting another Murian after so long...

"And this power you fear... Let's just say it has a mind of it's own and seems to have... A benevolent nature. It gave itself rules to follow, and focuses on saving individuals from dimensions that would harm or kill them and have them take refuge in the dimension I just came from. He even gave himself a body so he can spend time with those he saved from bad dimensions, even going as far as calling them 'friends.' This being calls himself 'RiFT.' I have no objection to you meeting him, but if you want to destroy him, know that there will be an army on the other side to stop you. They're very attached to this RiFT character... But I could care less about that. Ever since losing Mu, things like friendship and loyalty don't appeal to me. The only ones I can trust are Laplace and myself..."

As if on cue, Laplace appeared.

"..."

"What do you mean 'it looks like I'm beginning to trust the others?!' Don't tell me spending time with them has made you soft!"

"..."

"Don't be a smart-mouth, Laplace! I haven't gotten soft! Not one bit!"

The two continued to argue, though it looked unusually one-sided since instead of speaking, Laplace just made a small static noise. Despite this, the Wizard seemed to be victorious, for after the argument ended, Rogue looked very aggravated while Laplace appeared to be chuckling.

"Anyway..." Rogue said, still sounding aggravated, "I can take you to RiFT if you truly want to meet him. You can make the judgement of whether he's truly dangerous then."

Rogue has pulsed in.

"Let me guess; You're me from another dimension. I assume you're also the sole survivor of Mu, correct?"

Startled by the sudden appearance of what appears to be exactly himself, Burai initiates his EM form and suspiciously stares at this enigmatic double.

“Is this some kind of trick?… What’s this about another dimension?”

“You are correct though. I am the sole survivor of Mu… What does that make you then?”

[scientifically-strange]

New Kid

The new kid wasn't anything special, Rogue decided. Sure, he got along well enough with everybody, but he didn't have a big presence. Since he got to the institute, he's maybe said two words.

Mr. Logan said that he's a friend of his, and that they should respect him and give him space. How Mr. Logan made friends with a kid outside of the school, Rogue would never know.

To be honest, Rogue was a little creeped out by Danny. he was always watching them, and anytime anybody moved to quickly he would always flinch. He couldn't trust them enough not to hurt them. They never would, not unless he started it, of course, but it was still annoying to be thought of as a villain.

On top of that, he like, never sleeps. The bags under his eyes are huge, and he always looks so exhausted. She thinks he has some kind of ice power, because anytime she's near him the temperature drops at least ten degrees. At night it's even worse. She swears to Kitty that she saw frost creeping up on the wall that separates their rooms.

Currently he was sitting near the window where Mr. Logan was sitting as he read the morning newspaper. He was looking down at his food, but not really eating it. He did, however, down his coffee in record time. It hadn't even cooled down yet. Logan looked over briefly as he set the cup down a little too hard, and rolled his eyes.

--------

Danny knew he was being weird. He knew he was being as antisocial and he should at least try talking to someone other than Logan, but he just didn't have the energy to do so. He's been there a month and has barely slept a wink because every time he closed his eyes he saw his mother standing over him, a flash of silver in her hand, and then-

No. not here. Not anymore. He wasn't going to let what they did to him stop him from having a somewhat normal life. In a school full of other people like him. Except they weren't really, were they? They were all born with their powers, they have the special gene. He was just stupid enough to get into a lab accident. He's not a mutant, he's a freak.

He stayed in the kitchen until everybody but he and Logan filed out. He enjoyed the quiet only when there was somebody else with him. If he was alone without a distraction then he would start thinking about them, and he really, really didn't want to do that.

"You know, you can talk to them," Logan said from his place on the windowsill.

"Sorry, was I brooding to loud for you?" Danny shot back. His snark was reflexive, and it was the only thing he had going for him at this point. Logan though, he just raised an eyebrow at him. There was no judgement, just an understanding. Danny supposed that if anybody was going to, it would be Logan. "Sorry," he said for real this time. "It's just...Hard."

"I know, Casper."

-------

"Woah, is that a new suit?" Nightcrawler asked as Danny finally stepped into the Danger Room with them. Danny nodded. Professor Xavier really outdid himself with this one.

His new suit was the simple black and white he preferred, but it was short sleeved with protective armor added in, and a pair of fingerless gloves. There was a bright green X on his shoulder pads and chest.

"Yeah. Pretty cool, right?"

"For sure. You ready for your first trip in the Danger Room?"

"Let's get started."

----

It was supposed to be a simple training exercise.

Danny had gotten knocked down, and Rogue, who had just finished borrowing Kurt's power, helped him up. He had reflexively tightened his grip, and he couldn't let her go. She just kept taking and taking and taking until the edges of Danny's vision started turning black.

There was a grip around his wrist and his hand was suddenly empty, but there was a grip around his wrist and they wouldn't let go, they wouldn't let go-

Then there was a pulse in his head, and his whole world went dark.

-------

When Danny woke up, the lights weren't the blinding, fluorescent lights he was used to. In fact, they were all off, save for a small lamp sitting on the nightstand.

"I had them turn it off," a voice said. Danny turned his head weakly. Rouge was sitting there, twiddling with her gloves. "I...I know why you don't like them."

"You do?" He asked. His voice was quiet, weak. Rouge only nodded, not meeting him in the eye.

"When I touch people, I can gain their physical abilities...And also there memories. I...I know what happened to you."

"Oh," Danny said, because what else was there to say? So you know about my parents ripping me apart molecule by molecule? How do you feel? Do you wanna talk about it? Somehow Danny figured that wasn't really gonna work out.

"I won't tell anybody. I know that's what you're worried about," she said, finally meeting his eyes.

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

"Yeah, anytime. But I do have one question."

"Yeah?"

"Did you really meet Wolverine by falling on top of him in your underwear?"

For the first time in a month Danny smiled. It wasn't one of those big ear-to-ear grins, but it felt real, and that was more than he could ask for. He chuckled a little as he sat up, turning to Rogue because it was a hilarious story.

"Okay," he said. "So this natural portal dropped me off somewhere in the bumfuck of Canada..."

[dustedmagazine]

Craig Taborn — Shadow Plays (ECM)

Depress any key on an acoustic piano to hear just how illusory the whole idea of pitch really is. It’s easier to hear the fragmentation in the lower notes. As the pitch decays, it unravels and then disintegrates. That initial pitch is then revealed to be a component, a reference point amidst the myriad harmonics always inside but emerging from it. More than any of Craig Taborn’s other releases, Shadow Plays foregrounds these concerns with delicacy and calm assurance.

The first sounds spin enough of the yarn to facilitate immersion, intimating the complexities to come. The constant juxtaposition, the intertwining, of moment and long-term event makes the music more than difficult to encapsulate in the linearity required by written language. Taborn creates a universe of fire and ice, molten motives coalescing into what it would be inaccurate to call lines. They are brief melodic and rhythmic precisions, sonics in undulation and forward motion, captured in semi-static blocks. 

The most amazing thing is that those coherencies combine to form mammoth constructions as unified as they are diverse. Only dip a tentative toe into “Bird Templars” to hear the overtones ensuring that the piano sound takes on an almost human vocal quality. Listen as each note is repeated to hear the subtly shaped vowels and ghostly phonemes of a human vocal phrase in creation. The most extraordinary occurrences evolve not in terms of pitch but overtone. They pulse and bloom, each hammer strike unleashing a gentle shower of upper frequencies. Only the finest pianos can do this and only under hands that have mastered the relationship between color and dynamics. Thriving on repetition, the entire texture self-replicates, additive interval processes culminating in the return, at 3:51, of the opening music. What of those melting octave and nearly inaudible but absolutely tangible single pitches, the D ghosting the distant harmonies. It would all be so beautifully impressionistic without that repeated pitch dragging it all toward modernity. That snarky tone has its foil, a kind of dreamy parallel, in the resonant lower-register interjections out of which careful listening reveals the shadows of all higher pitches emerging with riveting clarity, as at 8:08. 

Miraculously, all is revealed to be a prelude for the gorgeous trip through a definite tonal center in which melodic pitches are allowed to complement and usurp notions of chord and line. Any remembered imbalance is dissolved in the steamy comfort of liquid harmony in constant evaporation, that is until, suddenly, at 11:24, it isn’t; in near silence, that rogue tone returns to throw all into the quiet chaos Taborn weaves with such stealth, such magical accuracy.

To suggest that the rest of the disc examines similar issues is to negate the many angles from which that exploration occurs. Moments reveal nothing and everything, like that miniscule scalar ascent 1:54 into “Discordia Conquers” or the pointillistic sparks lighting fires under the harmonic motion 2:21 into its doppelganger, “Concordia Discors.” The grandiose gestures inaugurating the titular piece dissolve into tiered harmonies both enhancing and subverting them. Maybe though, and this is the most difficult idea to square with my desire to unearth the various intricacies afoot in every pitch Taborn plays, simplicity is at the heart of it all. The repeated chordal figure succeeding those opening gestures does contain the proverbial multitudes via harmonics in full effect, but it’s reflective state is beyond denial. It settles, shaken out of what came before, shimmers while slowly increasing in intensity, that is until it doesn’t, until, at 1:24, a single sonority interrupts it only to prove a superficial blip on a vast calm surface. Returns demonstrate themselves to be equally illusory, mirroring the dualities of light and shadow at play throughout every sound captured in this, one of the deepest and most exquisite piano recordings it has ever been my privilege to experience.

Marc Medwin