#so he is sent to this suicide mission despite his own better judgement. and then he FAILS so he never gets

[kashilascorner]

the way the lotr movies didn't really bother to properly close (or acknowledge) Eowyn and Faramir's story arcs and they just kind of threw them in together at the end

[miscellaneous-obsession]

Hi, I'm not sure if you do requests but I came across your ongoing fic about Alcina Dimitrescu and the maiden. I was wondering if you could write an angst piece about the family involving Ethan Winters and him carrying out his mission in the castle (as hinted during gameplay)? You can make it as sad and gory as you want!

Ah thank you for the ask, I really tried to go all out with the piece! Also please note this was written before canon details of the girl's weakness was revealed.

The Inevitable

Warnings: Graphic violence, death of main characters, implied suicide, details of injury and blood, use of blades and guns and not suitable for minors.

Anguish consumed her entire being as sobs were ripped from her throat, each more violent than the last. Her chest heaved, becoming more breathless as tears relentlessly trailed down her cheeks, falling only to land on the creamy expanse of Alcina's dress.

Being the last to have turned, Ethan presumed her mortal connections of humanity lingered longer than most. The emotional intensity of the scene that unfolded before him forced him to avert his gaze as guilt threatened to tear through his heart. He was the cause of such destruction; he had laid waste, bringing about the death of a family in reparation and retaliation for the loss of his own.

He called them monsters, but there was always a chance he was wrong. Was it he who was becoming the villain of the story?

Forcing himself to face the consequences of his actions, his stomach turned. Recalling the events that led him to believe that the brunette was the first he had slaughtered. She had walked into the hall unsuspecting of the company hovering above on the bannister, perched in wait, ready to leap onto her frame. Unable to swarm and seek help from her sisters, Ethan had plunged a blade through the skin and muscle of her neck with such force even the crunch of bone and cartilage echoed alongside a gurgled scream. Her eyes had widened, arms flailing helplessly as her mind continued to fight, hoping that this was not her untimely end.

"Cassandra," the cry of her name rang throughout the expansive room and with force, Ethan was flung from his position over the fading woman. The redhead looked torn; anger and sorrow clashed together like waves against a cliff. Her bottom lip trembled as tears threatened to spill over with the force she blinked, a truly futile effort to contain them.

"You can't go, Cassie; who will I bicker with?"

Ethan had recovered by then, his heart aching with a drop of adrenaline as these sisters were forced to part, separated by planes of existence by his actions. The brunette now lay lifeless in a pool of her own blood, cradled by whom he knew to be Daniela. The very same redhead remained unguarded, vulnerable, and against his better judgement, he retrieved his gun. Solely focused on Cassandra's corpse, Daniela had less than a second to react as she unsheathed her sickle, refracting the bullet, so it embedded within wooden panelling rather than her head. 

"You bastard," with sloppy movements, she swung the blade that remained coated in her previous victim's blood. Advancing with ferocity, Ethan was compelled to retreat; his steps backward created a minute distance only to be quickly eliminated by Daniela's persistence. With both knife and gun in hand, Ethan continued to parry, deflecting potentially lethal blows, waiting patiently for an opening.

Two sounds followed in succession, first a second shot of the gun, then the thud of a fallen body. Not far from her elder sister lay Daniela, her body shaking as she slid across the marbled floor leaving behind an abhorrent bloody trail in her wake. Her effort was not in vain as she curled into Cassandra's now cooling body, hoping for a semblance of comfort in the absence of her mothers and only remaining sister.

Seconds later, the matriarch's wife stormed in, her fury no less palpable than her youngest’s. "No," her voice was soft as disbelief seeped in; ignoring the direct threat before her, she came to her daughter's side. The redhead forced a smile, hoping to alleviate the distress that crossed her mama's face.

"Mama," that sole word was enough for the maiden to hush the girl who she pecked on her forehead.

"Relax, Dani, you did so well, my darling. I am proud, so proud."

The slight smile, still as toothy as ever, cracked the maiden's heart, knowing it would be the last she caught from her daughter.

"Cassandra will be waiting, so do not fear, for you won't be alone."

The comfort Daniela sought was given in tenfold as always, and as she closed her two-toned eyes for the final time, she was only aware of her mama's delicate fingers carding through her hair. 

Much like her daughter, who had just passed, the blonde could not contain her pain at the sight of her deceased children. Although before Ethan could act, the two remaining ladies of the house emerged, summoned by the ruckus he was responsible for.

Bela surged forward after a single glance to her younger sisters; her protective nature had not dulled even in their deaths. On the other hand, Alcina flew to her wife's side, sharing in the grief that constricted their unbeating hearts. Never had she thought that a single man could enact such damage.

Bela was relentless, her anger conforming to her will and an advantage as she slashed with precision. Her blade getting too close for comfort for Ethan's liking, but he was prepared. Blocking and countering with his own attacks saw the blonde thrown off-kilter, her movements becoming sluggish as she expended her energy far too much over the course of the evening.

Observing her daughters struggles, Alcina moved to step in, only to be too late as Ethan used Bela's momentum against her. With her sickle wedged within the hearth of the fireplace, unable to rip it out in time, both blade and bullets penetrated her unprotected abdomen. The inhuman cry from Alcina sent Ethan staggering as she pulled Bela into her embrace, coaxing and pleading for her to stay awake. Quickly cream became crimson within seconds but was ignored in favour of re-joining her wife. Held safely in her mother's arms brought Bela a semblance of peace; she desperately wanted to stay but knew there was nothing to fear anymore, for she had her sisters to join.

"I'm sorry, mother, mama," she looked to them in turn as she spoke their favoured terms of endearment, eyes fluttering with each movement.

"Nonsense dragă mea, you were perfect." 

A small nod from the maiden confirmed Alcina's statement, confident that her daughter had succeeded. "Rest Bela," was the last thing the blonde heard as she slipped into an endless sleep, still held and cradled in the soothing caress that her mothers provided.

Only when they were sure did they let go, allowing Bela to lay by her sisters, placed with such delicacy it surprised Ethan. Only two to go; it was a thought that crossed his mind as both women stood, bodies stiff and ready to pounce as though they were predators and he was their prey.

Both matriarch and her wife were riddled with injuries by the end of the fight, Alcina more so as she had taken blows in an effort to save her beloved. Foolishly it was this notion, her own sentimentality, that brought about her end. Having collapsed her wife catching her with practised ease, Alcina was held against the blonde's chest. With an urgent need to convey her love, Alcina forced herself upright, seeking the lips of her maiden. Granting one of her last requests, her beloved closed the distance, savouring what would be the final kiss in which the matriarch would or could reciprocate. A hand rose to Alcina's cheek as she came to rest her head in the column of her wife's neck, fingers tracing skin with unparalleled tenderness. Ethan's own heart ached, he had lost his wife, his Mia, and he was the reason his ancestor was losing her own.

"I'll be with you soon, my love; I promise even death won't separate us."

Alcina hummed, although not in disagreement; she too did not want to be parted in the afterlife. "You are mine dragă mea."

"I am yours just as you are mine; that will never change."

Smoothing out tangled curls, the maiden pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of her wife's head. Seconds later, Alcina's chest stilled and only then did the final Dimitrescu shed her tears, leading to the scene Ethan saw before him.

"Where is my daughter?"

No success, her sobs continued to wrack her body, oblivious to the man's question as she pressed her face into the top of her wife's head.

"Where is Rose?"

He demanded louder each time, growing more frustrated with a lack of results he had hoped to achieve from this massacre. Eventually, without any patience left, he drew closer, his footfalls treading carefully across stained floors. Extending an arm, allowing a hand to come into contact with the blonde’s shoulder, snapped the maiden’s attention to the man who murdered her family, her innate fear of being removed from her beloved squashed upon meeting his bitter gaze.

"Why would I tell you anything, Ethan Winters?"

For once, he had no response, but she filled the silence with her resentful tone, despite her wavering voice and quivering lip. "You hold no more bargaining chips. You played your cards much too early. How foolish a man to have made such avoidable mistakes."

He scoffed as if to refute her statement; despite all of the stacking evidence that she was right, some small part of his mind refused to acknowledge or toy with the concept that she was wrong.

"You want a daughter you will not find; I will not divulge a secret of which I was entrusted with. For you killed my daughters, my wife, my everything. Nothing you can say or do could repair or undo the damage you have caused. You will leave here knowing you have failed."

With that said, the maiden prepared for the inevitable, for Ethan's weapons to end her life much like he had the other four Dimitrescu's at her refusal to share what information he desired. Holding her wife tighter and an arm resting across her daughters, she waited. But the blow nor bullet she anticipated came, leaving a hollow, empty sensation festering in her chest.

"I won't kill you until I leave with what I came for."

"Unfortunately for you, that is the opposite of what will happen."

Before Ethan could stop her, she grabbed her youngest’s discarded sickle, and for all to hear, she said aloud, "In life and in death, glory to Mother Miranda." The weapon was swung with force, finalising the end of the Dimitrescu household, allowing the last member to come to rest, still clutching her wife's body with a loosened grip.

Ethan had failed.

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

Only hours later, without hearing from his sister, did Heisenberg approach the castle. Lacking his lycans or other substantial back up he entered silently, aware of the games that may be ongoing. He did not want to spoil his niece's fun.

Entering the hall brought about a shock; in the light of the fires dying embers lay those who he had called his family. Untouched from the fight, Daniela was held between her sisters, flanked on either side, just as she had adored as a child. Alcina was to their right, body held by her wife, who distinctly lacked the sickle once embedded in her skin. The very weapon was strewn to the side, still marred by her blood. Those emerald eyes Alcina adored to talk of were now closed in respect, an unforeseen gesture carried out by none other than the man who wreaked such havoc before having absconded. The matriarch's wife had her arm extended, albeit stiff with rigour mortis, across the girls, forever comforting them in a maternal gesture.

Never did Karl anticipate an ending like this, although he was only thankful for their departure together, for they remained a family even in their time of death.

But for now, it was time to inform Mother Miranda of their demise.

[allthingskakashi]

As a fellow Kakashi lover, I’m curious if you feel that Kakashi is pretty misunderstood by a lot of fans? I’ve seen people say that he should’ve defected the village, and that he’s messed up for hiding his trauma. (Which he could’ve been more open about, yes, but I’m not sure that he even knew how to go about discussing it at the time) He could’ve easily left the village, but instead he wanted to change things and make society better by teaching teamwork, and to value everyone’s life by putting yourselves before the mission. He never lost hope for the future of shinobi and knew that it could be better. He definitely could’ve been more open about his past, but he’s always been more of a quiet and reserved kid (even before the trauma lol) Idk, I feel like a lot of people overlook his backstory when talking about him!

Istg every time i meet another person who shares this view i just wanna give em the biggest bear hug and im boutta go OFF

Remember back in their childhood when gai was being bullied by these men one time about his dad and kakashi dropped in and whacked them? He always had the conscience to stand up for what was wrong and be there for his comrades but sakumo's death was so traumatic for him, it forced him to change his own beliefs. He became a machine and he believed that carrying out missions as instructed was his only purpose in life, irrespective of what HE felt

because GOD YES he's so so misunderstood by fans half the time and I've seen so many people throw around the term bootlicker for him just cause he didn't throw away everything and leave the village and and join some criminal cult and like no?? The fact that he stayed only shows his strength of character if anything. He could've easily left if he wanted to, he would've made a very sexy villain too but he chose to be hopeful and he chose to remain good and that shows strength of character because it took him a fkn lot to stay in the right path and continue working for the village that took away his father from him.

And it had nothing to do with him being a bootlicker because kakashi is very much his own person and he has his own morals and ideals and he's not a stickler for rules until he believes in them. Yes he did become awfully rule-abiding after Sakumo's death for a while because he saw what listening to your heart instead of adhering to the rules did to his father. He saw the extent to which a previously respected shinobi was villified that he had to resort to taking his own life

And kakashi was angry at sakumo because he was only a small boy who had just lost his father. He couldn't help resent sakumo bc he kept thinking that if only sakumo had just stuck to the rules, he would've still been there with him. that if only he had just done what the village had asked him to, he wouldn't have lost the only family he had. Those were very valid thoughts for a child whose father had just committed suicide but kakashi did know in his heart that his dad was right and that's why he wanted to teach those very principles to the younger generations later on. That's why he told sakumo when they met in the limbo that he was proud of him. But back then when sakumo had just died, kakashi was a grieving child who was angry and dealing with so much pain inside him that he decided he'd never do what cost his father his life. Because he saw right in front of his eyes what happened if you broke the rules and so he did what his 5 year old mind thought he should. But even then, that was never who he was at heart. He never believed in mindlessly abiding by rules and that's what made him consider obito's words and ultimately go back to save rin. Obito's words did not change him, they only helped him see what was already in his heart.

But when obito said those words to him, it resonated with what he truly believed in inside his heart. So yeah, he's no bootlicker, he was just strong willed enough to not give in to the bad things that happened to him. He didn't make an impulse decision. He didn't want to abandon his village. It was his home and despite everything, he loved his home and he valued the people around him. He didn't want to just leave it all. He wanted to stay instead to make the village better, to pass on sakumo's values to the upcoming generations so that they became good shinobi AND humans. To teach his students the power of love and friendship so that they didn't grow up to become the kind of people that had denounced his father. Kakashi didn't want to take revenge for sakumo's death because his actions were never motivated by hatred, but he ensured that his father didn't die in vain.

Leaving would've been much easier for him too,he may have almost even thought of it on nights that were extremely painful, nights when he was completely engulfed with pain and anger at the horrible unfair world but he would've never done it bc that's not him. He CHOSE to listen to the part of his heart that still saw good. Betraying the village that was his home wasn't an option for him

So yeah the fact that he stayed only shows his strength of character. his determination, his judgement, his will to change the village for the better. He refused to pass students unless they knew the value of teamwork. He was the only one who failed team after team and sent them back to academy bc no matter what, he never would've let students who didn't value their comrades become shinobi. Would a bootlicker do that? He broke into root and freed tenzo; when everyone in the village ostracized naruto and iruka had almost made up his mind to ask hiruzen to assign him another student, KAKASHI was the one who told iruka to approach Naruto with love instead. He always had a mind of his own. When team 10 wanted to get their revenge after Asuma's death, kakashi himself offered to accompany them even tho tsunade wasn't initially very enthusiastic about the idea. Would a bootlicker do that? He sneaked naruto off to meet the 4th raikage bc he understood that it was important to Naruto. Would a bootlicker do that? He always did what he thought was right

He realised his mistakes and he changed for the better. He had to raise himself and yet he managed to stay on the right track and make not just a great shinobi but also a great person of himself. He didn't want to leave his home. that was his very identity, that was his world. He wanted to change it, not abandon it. I'm sorry that is not a bootlicker. Danzo had even tried to recruit him or smth once but he'd had the judgement and sense to turn him down

As for hiding his trauma idk what to say to that i mean you can't dictate how someone deals with trauma?? Sure, his ways weren't ideal but what can you expect? He was only a kid. He lost everyone that was important to him before he was even 15 and it's not like he received any help from anybody to heal and get better. The one time he tried to approach jiraiya, he turned kakashi away saying he was putting everyone off by being sad. Ig after that he just decided to stay quiet and keep it all inside himself. The village treated him as a human weapon and he started to see himself that way too because he really didn't care for his life anymore. He suffered from survivor's guilt and he wished he'd die, he hoped one of these missions would kill him. And he was this way for many years but what matters is that he did slowly let himself open up. It took him a long time but he did. He taught his genin team but he learnt from them too. They grew on him, he loved them and cared for them. Sure they were a handful but he they were his handful and he adored them. He could gather up the courage to finally let gai in too and even be verbal about how much he meant to him. It took a long way for him to get there and it was not easy but he got there and that's what matters

SO YEAH PHEW

im sorry that was so long but i get v riled up when people shit on kakashi about these things like you're missing the point and essence of his character and i will throw hands goddamit

The fandom really does misunderstand and misinterpret kakashi v often and there are many instances where i don't agree w the majority so it's so beautiful to me when i see people who think the same way THANK YOU SM I COMPLETELY AGREE W YOU LY <3

[screamting]

 Dick’s first day of school snuck up on them.

 Bruce drove him down in a rusty small blue honda civic from the 1990s. They’d picked it up off the lot for under 3,000 and were using it as a way to ferry themselves to the junkyard to pick up parts for their      special    car--but for now, they were using it to drop Dick off at school.

 Drop Richard Malone off at school.

On paper, Alfred paid for Dick to attend Gotham academy. A private school. It had both boarders and day students. Dick would be a day student, so long as it was feasible. 

...on the first day of school, Bruce drove Dick down to his alma mater (which translated to ‘place you never wanted to visit again,’) and dropped him off outside the gates.  

“Want me to walk you in, Chum?” he asked, despite it not being any  Malone’s alma mater yet, and Dick glanced back at him and shook his head sharply, mumbling a quiet “see you later,” before going off towards the gates. 

Bruce turned to drive home and realized, belatedly, that Dick had never  not been homeschooled. 

He waited for afternoon to pick Dick up again, and resolved to remember to pick up milkshakes on the way back, so he can ask how the day was with a backup plan. 

--

“It is not the right time of year to prune,” Alfred told him. It was far too close to school starting. Far too close to fall. “But, I suppose, it isn’t  impossible . It will just be a good bit trickier to know which branches need it.”

Bruce obligingly bought a new plant from a chain store--a nursery would’ve properly pruned it weeks ago, but chain stores didn’t have that same attention. Alfred brought it home in a little green planter: a tiny bush cut into a lopsided circle.

“This isn’t, in fact, how to do it,” Alfred said, setting it beside Bruce on the patio table. “Can you tell me why?” 

“..it doesn’t target the dead branches,” Bruce said, and Alfred gave a nod. 

“It’s indiscriminate. And  quite sloppy.” 

He handed Bruce a pair of pruning shears. 

“With it cut like this, it’s a little difficult to find the dead branches, but you’ll manage.”

...after a moment, Bruce shoved his hand inside the bush and just… gripped one of the little branches that didn’t have any leaves on it between his fingers. He glanced at Alfred, who nodded obligingly and gave a smile that felt far too much like it was meant for a child. 

“How far back do I cut?” 

“As far back as you can.” 

Bruce nodded and pushed the shears in. And snipped.

The metahuman had power over plants, the paper the day before had said. She argued she’d been acting in self-defense. Her children were crying out for help. And so she helped.

(“‘ I is hearing the scream of a flower as its stem is twisted from the ground,’”  Dick read aloud by Bruce’s bedside, trying to work through the recommended reading list for his level. One year behind his age level wasn’t bad for three years on the road, but it was a lot to catch up on all the same. “‘  I is hearing the soft moan of the old oak, like an old man dying, weeping, when it is felled.’ ”)

As the state of New Jersey did not recognize plants as people or her as the property owner, her appeal was denied. She would spend several years above minimum in Belle Reve for aggravated assault.

(even though the one she assaulted wasn’t there. Bruce hadn’t stepped into court. Bruce hadn’t said a thing. There was one phone call, and a woman, naked, trapped outside on a Gotham street, and then  five other people stepped forward, claiming to be someone she’d attacked. 

And he didn’t know what to think about that. If what everyone said was true was true, or if it was just falling into the fallacy of mob mentality. If it was easier to accept what was said as true. Even if he'd seen the violence first hand, it was  him  being attacked, that was  different--)

He kept his mouth shut, and reached for the next dead branch, and clipped. 

“...and how would I trim something that’s not dead, but it might… be overgrown? Or the wrong height?” 

“Hmm,” Alfred said, still watching him. “Well, first we will need to get you a proper ladder.”

Justly imprisoned or not, the metahuman--a former botanist called Pamela Isley--would be in Belle Reve for several years. 

Maybe he could change something in this town while she was gone.

Therefore, Mr. Malone came to the Gotham Parks and Recreation office, asking if when he got this 501c3 approved that he be allowed to enter Robinson Park and clean up the place.

And the budget-starved Parks office said  fuckin’ do it if you’re brave enough, man , and sent him on his way. 

It was… much easier than he expected, really. But perhaps the Parks department carried so little influence no one had even bothered to bribe them to keep people out. All the same, he’d listen to that backwards warning. 

He drafted the papers in two days. He worked over it at dinner, trying to fill the gap that had once been occupied by discussing with Dick where to travel next and how to best avoid a million impending dooms. He had a free consultation with an attorney in the morning who looked up at Bruce over his glasses, eyebrows up, and reminded Bruce that the park was where mob deals went down and that grassy lady attacked a fella the other day. 

Bruce said that was fine. He knew. He wasn’t here to cause a ruckus.

Legal documents. Articles of Affiliation. Mission Statement. It was helpful to have a second pair of eyes that actually expected the little bureaucracies innate in law, things that Dick and Alfred preferred to grumble at rather than knot through. Not that Bruce had been trained in law himself, but his school friend, Harvey Dent--

(was still in the hospital. Burn ward. He’d stabilized, but wasn’t often conscious--)

...Bruce submitted the paperwork after the Parks commission met with him, and then all he had to do was draw up a budget and wait. Alfred ‘lent’ Mr. Malone the startup money to establish a paper trail. After the initial donation, Bruce could make periodic donations to himself in various names; have miraculous windfalls whenever cash grew thin. Even without any backing or campaigns, he could make this startup impossible to fail.

--

...the problem is, Bruce has long proven his judgement is impaired.

When Dick returns from school not sniffling but  vibrating with stress all the same, Bruce’s first thought is to run and start over somewhere else. 

He thinks it might be an averted suicide response. The need to pack up and leave the current problems behind. With a hardline against being able to die, his mind latches onto another option. A fight-or-flight response that only hits  flight when the problem isn’t something that can’t be physically fought off, like a tween coming into the car and sitting down in the passenger seat with a deep sigh. 

...Bruce asks how his day was. 

Dick says it was fine. 

Bruce doesn’t ask if he wants a milkshake. He goes through the drive-through and buys some anyway. They go home and work how to install tail fins on the car frame slowly coming together in their garage.

--

...the ‘suicide’ response isn’t the only thing that lingers. Bruce isn’t really sure ‘lingering’ is the right term, actually. The flight response only arises when things can’t be handled directly in front of himself anymore, but the fight response--

Bruce has impaired judgment. 

He proved it as soon as his first ‘suicide’ response sent him to the League of Assassins, and he decided to not flee the moment they made it clear nothing would continue until he took a life. He proved it when he wasn’t able to avoid dragging a literal child in the middle of a personal crisis into his mess, rather than leaving him somewhere safe and far, far away from him. He proved it with each near-death experience from Deathstroke in Metropolis to Isley in Gotham. 

And yet, here he was again, finding himself cleaning up the Batman suit long after Dick was put to bed, adjusting it with better material to withstand a bullet’s penetration. 

The people at the parks department weren’t wrong. It would be dangerous to work the area while the mob still operated widely inside it, and he would not cooperate alongside the mobs for protection. The alternative was therefore relatively obvious: get rid of the mobs. 

Mobs weren’t  exactly like a snake, but they did function well enough like one. Cut off the head. And like a hydra, if new heads sprouted--smother them. 

...that, at least, he knew how to do. Kidnapping and recon, and finding information. Find proof of a mob boss’ wrongdoing and get a prosecutor not so cowardly to be bribed. Hand the information over. Don’t let them fail the charges. High profile dangerous people wouldn’t be kept in a local jail, but would likely be transferred to a higher-security prison, circumnavigating the cluttering, and with a focus on high-priority prisoners rather than most random people out on the street, they would be moved through the system more quickly, hopefully at least stalling out their operations in the meantime, if not shattering the whole system beneath them with the sudden departure. 

This was the best plan he had, and it relied far, far too much on too many external variables--finding a clean court, getting a jury that felt safe enough to actually put their foot down, finding witnesses willing to testify, a prosecutor who wouldn't be bribed--

(fuck) 

--and dealing with a Commissioner whose good graces he might’ve worn out. 

…

But the alternatives were to allow this to continue growing, complicit by his own inaction. 

(he was already complicit enough in too many crimes.)

(How did you clean up a world that you yourself aided in the destruction of?)

--

Prosecutors that couldn't be bribed?

They ended up like Harvey Dent. 

--

Batman appears without Robin that evening, because it is a school night and Dick needs to sleep. He stops what crimes in progress he comes across and starts watching Robinson Park more closely. 

He doesn't interfere inside it. He just watches. Plants cameras in the bushes and on the branches of trees, and zips his way out, to watch the footage and get to know the day and nighttime patterns of the area. 

It… will take time. That's something he's not used to. Dick and he worked fast on the road, and even before that he was either handed his information by the ones lower down the chain or only spent a handful of days doing legwork to verify things that'd been missed. Instant gratification, he guessed he could call it. Just… dealing out a death and being done with it. 

(And somehow, he'd drawn the line at known violent mobsters and Deathstroke.)

...he had to do a  lot of meditation to get through the park video feeds. He had a lot of work stacking up between tracking down faces from the feeds. Police database of mugshots helped more than he expected. He started a tally of how many people in the mugshots were brought in bloodied and who brought them in to look into later. 

After all, if Gotham was going to get rid of its mob problem, the police force would need some pruning, too. 

--

Gotham recidivism was above 80%. Bruce gargled his coffee and tried very hard to not spit it out somewhere, because somehow, he was more tired by this statistic than shocked. A bit of, ‘oh, I knew it would be high, but  really?’

No fucking wonder there weren’t enough cells in the world. 

(What do you do when you can’t put anymore garbage in a landfill?

Learning what a  fucking recycling program is might be a good first step.)

It's okay, though. He's totally got a handle on this. He's already been looking into what makes recidivism lower, and the difficulty of access to jobs for felons seems like a big one. Lack of change to living situations that caused pettier crimes like reselling material or shoplifting. The inside prison situation has an effect, according to Norway, which has a prison system Bruce isn't even hoping to replicate, even if he were a living millionaire with a clear conscience. 

Reading other people's’ writings on recidivism has… definitely helped clarify things for him, even if all he can think of for the worst of criminals is still to lock them in a cell far away from  everyone or until the death penalty finally takes it out of his hands. 

But it is one thing to lock up a murderer who sabotaged a family performance and killed in front of an audience, and children, and  child … versus locking up the child who killed trying to protect their family from an abusive partner. 

They’re different. They have to be. 

If Bruce has any right to be alive, he has to be able to believe in gray areas. 

--

Bruce drops the first of several Maroni forerunners on Gordon's desk in the northern precinct. When he finds the precinct desk vacant, he pays a visit to the commissioner’s house instead. 

The thought process is that it would probably be best to clarify that the dropoff isn’t an attack on the commissioner's authority. It’s an opening for compromise. Bruce will be mindful of the incarceration rates, but he won’t be leaving Gotham and he’d like cooperation from the police when it came to prosecution.

Unfortunately, he proposes it in the form of a paper note (written in his off-hand) slipped onto Gordon’s bedroom table where the man will notice it as soon as he returns for bed, which is much more threatening than he fully realizes.

(He doesn’t imagine Gordon’s daughter will find the note first and replace it just as she found it after reading. Then again, he doesn’t ever find out it happened, either.)

--

The county’s defense office wants to cut a plea deal with the gangster brought in, because no one wants to be the next Harvey Dent. The Assistant DA, a woman named Rachel Dawes, seems willing to try, but the department is extremely reluctant to support her, even as she steps up to take Dent’s place until another election can be held.

In the precinct, Bruce’s audiobugs catch officers he’s tracking placing bets on how long until someone finishes Dent off in his hospital bed.

Bruce decides he needs to be more aggressive.

-- 

Twenty-seven aggressive anonymous tipoffs and two synchronized FBI raids half a month later, and Bruce is startled when the door to his bedroom opens and Dick walks in. Bruce doesn't really jump in surprise anymore-- it’s more of… half reaching a position to fight, and stopping in a split second as he realizes the threat doesn't exist.

“Ah,” he says, “do you need--?”

“I was at school,” Dick says, answering the question in an odd way. He didn't need anything, he'd just come back from school--

Bruce’s neck snaps up to look at the clock, while the other part of his brain realizes that it’s nearly dark outside. 

“Did Alfred--” he says, a panicky shame he’s not used to rising up within him. 

“No,” Dick says, shrugging his backpack off and slumping onto bed. “When I realized you weren't coming I walked home.”

Bruce's throat feels tight. “You should've called.”

“Figured you were busy,” Dick says, watching the ceiling, “you've got more important stuff than school.”

Bruce remembers, the pain less raw with years, the slow agony of a school day, knowing there must be more he could do than sit through the farce. 

He remembers that agony of adolescent uselessness clearly, pain dulled or not, but he’s also wisened to its falsehood over the years. There was little he could manage at the time.

“...I’ll set an alarm next time, but school isn't unimportant,” he says, keeping calm and controlled for an extra moment, before doing a double-take on the thought he’d had just a moment before. 

Adolescence?!

--

School is over a month in. Dick’s anniversary is coming up soon. Bruce has gotten the Feds back in Gotham and an internal investigation into the police force for corruption. His nonprofit is finalizing some paperwork and looking into how to hire nonviolent offenders and start training them for small-time landscaping and cleanup by contracting with a local pre-established landscape crew that mostly does the outer and northern Gotham estates. Harvey Dent is conscious but minimally verbal in the hospital. And Dick is thirteen, officially a teenager. 

Bruce does not know how teenagers are different from younger children. He does not recall being any different than he is now at either age. Only morose haze interspersed by flashes of overwhelming tension and temper. 

Harvey once knew him at that age. Not that Bruce could talk to Harvey--not… as himself. The man Harvey knew was long, long dead, (or, it would be simpler if that man was dead, and Bruce as he was now was a new man entirely--) and it’s not as though Bruce could ask advice anyway. 

Still. Maybe he will send Harvey some flowers they’ve started in the backyard...

Once the Justice League gets out of his living room. 

Aside from Superman calling over the phone whenever he seems to please, once a month Martian Manhunter seems to show up, posing as just another social worker or lawyer or family friend, here to check in on how things are going with adoption, or the 501C3, or the… latest cookies out of the oven. 

And if it’s not Martian Manhunter helping Dick sneak cookies off the cooling rack, then it’s Wonder Woman, which is somehow even worse. 

There are not a lot of situations when Bruce would rather a mind reader with incredible telekinetic powers who could mentally and emotionally cripple him with a thought be in his presence, versus just a very strong lady who could rip him in two by breathing. 

Diana Prince has made that situation a monthly occurrence.

She came this time while they were in the garage, putting together a much-overdue car engine. Alfred had insisted on dinner before business. Diana Prince stands in his house for over an hour by the time the rope finally came out and they got down to business. It is an hour too long. Bruce doesn’t think he’s had more than a few words of conversation with her since they moved into Alfred’s townhouse late summer, but he has heard the same questions out of her mouth far too many times. 

“Have you been hurt lately?”

“No,” Dick says, because he only patrols on weekends, and Bruce makes sure he’s kept well away from anything that looks like it will have guns.

“Are you being treated well?” 

“Yes.” 

“Are you happy?” 

“Y…”

...Bruce blinks for a second, before he realizes that Dick’s teeth are clenched tight and his face is turning faintly to another color. 

“Dick…?” Diana says, before Dick gives into the rope, and says the truth.

“No.” 

He’s not sure if anyone else can hear the air leave the room, but it does, and Bruce feels his lungs collapse in the vacuum left behind. His stomach shrivels into a ball. 

He wants to run from the room, but his feet are too heavy and slow to move, so he just crosses his arms even tighter, and digs his fingers into his ribs.

“...why is that?” Diana asks. She doesn’t even glance back at Bruce when she does it. She doesn’t even glance away in the first place, even as Dick is screwing his eyes shut. The color his face has settled on is red, and blotchy, and fast. 

Dick drops the rope from his hand and hiccups. 

Bruce can’t move to comfort him. 

...Diana looks between Dick, and the dropped rope, and pulls it back into the lasso loop. She stands. 

“...I’m going to head outside for a bit and give you two some privacy.” 

She turns and walks out to the garden, where Alfred is still watering the flowers. 

Dick hiccups again, and Bruce is a stranger in his own body as he sits on the floor cross legged, and pulls Dick into his arms. 

...he’s a lot bigger than he was when he was eight and curled into Bruce’s side, just minutes after his parents fell. Bruce puts his hand on the kid’s head, fingers running through the cropped dark hair. 

“...Dick?” Bruce says. “Dick?”

He doesn’t get a response. He sits there, uncomfortably rubbing Dick’s hair, until Diana returns some long minutes later, announcing it’s about time she headed out. 

“I’ll see you next month,” she says, mostly to Dick, who still hasn’t looked up. 

Even as Bruce wonders if it’s a threat, something in his chest loosens when Diana leaves and Dick stays behind. 

Eventually, they get up, and try to get ready for bed. 

—

Harvey Dent wakes up again.

The last thing he remembers is a gun being pulled on him; a court case that he  had to win, no matter what—

The nurses are alerted to his consciousness by the sound of his screaming. 

Bruce Malone has no reason to visit him. No clearance. No nothing. All he does is run a small nonprofit startup, currently sending out applications to the very criminals Harvey put behind bars. 

He doubts Batman would be welcome.

— 

Gotham elects temp-head Rachel Dawes to permanent DA to finish out Harvey’s term by seventeen votes. Bruce doesn’t rig the election, though he thinks of doing so. Instead, he spends the week beforehand trying to disrupt the bribery network connecting the ballot counters to the remaining mob and asking Robin to go make sure the paperless polls aren’t hacked the night before.

...Robin isn’t happy with Bruce going out on his own still. But they compromise, some. 

They send Harvey flowers.

They leave a note on Dawes’ desk. An offer, if she needs anything. They don’t want her to end up like her predecessor. 

—

In the morning, at the first hint of workable weather, Bruce has some on-parole inmates and recent-releases standing in the middle of the park, shivering, holding shovels and rakes. 

This is the first day they’ll be working together and training on the job. There will be a stipend associated with the work. Tools are provided. There’s just—they haven’t done this before. And neither has Bruce Malone, who failed to shake off his kid, Richard, who is sitting off on a picnic table not far away, arms wrapped around his snow pants and pouting furiously. 

...He stays quiet as Bruce starts showing the group what they’re supposed to be doing— first snipping the large bushes down to size, raking the sticks and leaves into piles, and then coming up the back with shovels to help define areas for mulch beds around the bushes. Generally they would not be pruning this early into fall, but… the bushes have to go. 

It’s step one (ignoring Bruce’s personal twenty-step plan midway through execution) to help keep the park safe and free-er of illegal activities: just being able to see into the damn park. 

Once they actually start working, Richard gets up from his perch and glumly takes a rake, helping follow along and pulling the old foliage and branches into a set of neat piles a couple feet out of the way. 

It would be one thing if Dick seemed to be having fun, but… he doesn’t really. He’s tolerant enough with the car (whose construction has largely stalled) but he’s never really had the kind of brain like Bruce’s which likes the simple, repetitive patterns of gardening, or kata, or math. 

(“I don’t  want to stay home,” Dick had said that morning. 

“Then wouldn’t going out with a friend be better?” Bruce said over breakfast. 

“I don’t  have any friends!”

Bruce did not respond to that, and had escorted Dick to the park.)

...they pack up in the later afternoon, when the sun is still high but before banks close-- Bruce gathering up all the direct deposit information for the ones who sound interested in coming back, and paying the rest with checks. Dick waits in the car.

When they drive back home, something big, and blue, and midwestern is already in their kitchen, and is talking to Alfred about pie crust technique. 

( Hell. )

Superman is wearing his full goddamn uniform as they enter. He turns and smiles when they come into the living room, raising up one big hand to greet them.

“Hey there! Decided I’d stop by.” 

“....You did,” Bruce agrees, while Dick seems to perk up, eyes widening at the very large and blue man leaning on the counter. 

Dick had  met Superman already. Spent a week at least on the same spaceship as him. Stared him down over Bruce’s unconscious body. Somehow, it wasn’t stopping him from having that bright excitement in his eyes, now. 

Maybe Superman was more exciting when he presumably wasn’t here to arrest anyone. 

Presumably. 

“Uh-huh,” said Superman. “And Mr. Pennyworth was telling me some about how things have been going for you here! Community service work. Sounds good.” 

Sounded  innocent was more like it. Sounded like prisoners in bright orange vests on the roadsides picking up litter for fifty cents an hour. Doing time, paying back society for all he’d done to it— yeah, he figured it would sound good to Superman. 

“It is,” said Bruce. 

Dick, maybe in a better mood now that they were out of the Gotham smog, saves him again. 

“Are you here for dinner?” Dick asked, not quite on his tiptoes—not on his tiptoes at all, actually. 

He’d grown again, Bruce realized. Now he stood almost to Bruce’s ribs, where once he’d had to stretch to reach. 

“No, I didn’t think I’d be  that  welcome,” Superman said, smiling sheepishly, and  good.  At least he  knew.  “I’m just the messenger this time. Because we  are going to have to start cashing in on that deal we made.”

For a moment, Bruce’s heart stills, and he feels Dick tense just a little bit beside him. 

(Is it wrong, for a moment, that he’s still glad that Dick tenses when they both know it won’t be him attacked?)

“Woah, woah, no scary faces—“ Bruce’s face had  not changed. “We just need your input. Information sharing, remember? Flash has had some weird things going on in his neighborhood and we thought maybe it’d be something you’d recognize.” 

...Right. 

Right. 

He was getting protection from This League in exchange for cooperation, not just his dignity. 

Before he could pull himself back into his body, Superman added, “and Robin too, of course.” 

“Robin doesn’t  need to—“ Bruce began. 

“—Robin would be  delighted ,” Dick said, raising his voice unnecessarily high and drowning out Bruce’s own. 

Bruce looked down at Dick, mouth flat. Dick stared back up at him, scowling and arms crossed. 

“You  hate busywork,” said Bruce. 

“It’ll be fine!” Said Superman,  suddenly in his face  , arms moving between him and Dick, pushing them apart, like they were  dangerous to each other— “Flash was just going to bring his kid, uh, flash along with him, and thought it would be good for them to meet. Should’ve led with that. Just, giving kids friends in their own age bracket.” 

Bruce had stood rock still, staring at the same spot Dick had been, now blocked by Superman’s arms. He did not look away. 

“Yes,” Bruce said. “You should’ve led with that.” 

—

...the next evening, his attempts at trimming his hair were interrupted by Alfred, who was quick to steal the scissors away and finish things himself. Soon, it was short enough he could slick it back for the first time in… a while. He pulled on one of his better dark turtlenecks. Business slacks. Dark shoes. Dark. Maybe too obviously a hide-away-in-the-background type dark. 

They met Flash… on the other side of a zeta beam. Bruce hadn’t ridden one since first being escorted from the Watchtower to Gotham. 

He hadn’t  forgotten how uncomfortable it was, but it was one thing to remember in the mind and another to be given a reminder in the body. 

Neither he nor Dick were in costume. There was no reason for Batman and Robin to suddenly be in Central. There would hopefully be no reason for anyone to suspect Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson to travel so far away from their little safe haven and attack.

Flash, however,  did have some things to protect still, and so he waited on the other side of the zeta with his bright red costume made darker in the night, and an unfortunately bright smudge of yellow standing beside him. 

“Hey, Bats,” Flash said, holding out a hand. “Nice to meet you  nicely this time.” 

Bruce was really glad he hadn’t given in to breaking this guy’s legs. That would have made this reintroduction unbearably uncomfortable. As it was, he met the hand slowly, and enough of a sound for acknowledgement.

Flash didn’t say anything about it, turning instead to Dick. “And you! Also glad to see you’re doing fine; hooow’s the ankle. This is my sidekick, Kid Flash.”

There was no time to answer to the ankle before Flash had introduced and thumped the yellow teen him on the back, getting the very encouraging response, “I’m not a kid I’m a  teenager, ” which was too obvious to have needed pointing out, considering the cracks in his voice and the speckles acne surrounding his lips. “Don’t embarrass me!”

“I would  never do that.” 

(While Bruce remained cold in his skin despite the warm night, beside him, Dick let out a little bit of a laugh. Almost a few huffs of one, really. It was softening. It was enough to unfreeze Bruce some and get him going again.)

“You needed help with identification?” said Bruce, stepping forward to end the introductions. 

Flash’s expression changed back to serious in a… flash. At least he didn’t look disappointed. Or surprised. “Yeah. Follow me, there’s a place a little more private down the street.”

That place ended up being a deli bakery. One that had very much closed for the evening, and had shuttered its windows for good measure. This made very little difference to Flash, who pulled out a key from a very discreet pocket, and opened the staff door in the back. 

“They donate the day-old stuff to me,” Flash said, grinning, like that explained much at all. “Why don’t you kids go see if there’s anything set on top of the counters in the back?” 

The little yellow flash made a sound that wasn’t quite a whoop, but wasn’t quite quiet, either. 

And then the little hand reached out, grabbed Robin’s wrist, and pulled him through the door behind the counter.

“Woah, easy, chief.” 

Flash’s hand wasn’t touching Bruce, no, but it was  in front of him, ready to block and restrain in a movement as Bruce took a step forward to follow.

He turned to look at Flash, and met his same hard eyes looking back through Flash’s mask. 

“They’re just gonna look around and see if they can find some food. It’s fine.” 

Bruce  knew that was just what they were doing, of course. He just wanted to— check. Just to make sure. It was a closed up shop of people they didn’t know in a city that was too dark and empty at night, save for a few well-maintained streetlamps and a pair of teenage girls walking down the sidewalk to the seven-eleven, sticking close together in the Midwest fall—- 

“Let’s just get a seat and wait for them, and we can get started. How’s that?” 

Flash had removed his hand, and was gesturing now to one of the booth seats near the bar. Not by the windows. Maybe far enough from the windows that anyone who looked in and saw a book light on would just assume management was doing the books late.

(Bruce’s jaw was not  tight , it was just his teeth kept pressing down together. He sat down across from the seat Flash gestured to. It was better to get through work quickly, and head home.)

“Okay,” said Flash, suddenly in the booth with him. Bruce almost still felt the breeze of the movement as a book-clipped green folder was produced and laid out on the table. “So, this is a case that’s been going on a little while. Take your time and let me know what you think of it.” 

The file was pushed over to Bruce’s side of the table, and he took it quietly, removing the clip and flipping it open. 

He disregarded the notes and bios and instead turned first to the photos. 

...he did not  like  looking through other people’s photos. All he could think of was that he would have liked a  bit  closer look at the doorframe, or just a little bit out of angle, or frustration at someone’s focus being a little bit out. That was why you took  lots  of photos of course, but it was still a gnawing anxiety in him that they were going to just  miss something. All he had were his eyes through someone else’s lense and someone else’s word to take for it. 

Which he was very bad at liking. 

….but that was just what this was, he guessed. The case was from five years prior. A body of an older woman on the floor of an enclosed porch. Broken glass. Gunshot wound to the left shoulder, close enough to the heart she’d probably been dead within a minute or two, long before the first police officers had arrived. A bullet hole in the wall behind her. Fallen out of her chair. Glass window of the porch had shattered. A bullet had been extracted from the wall, looking like a .22– moderately furnished house with plastic sheeting over the couches. Wicker chairs. An expensive security system had captured what were rendered as stills of the moment the bullets entered the cameras view, and a man a minute or so later on the front door at the other side of the house, running inside, presumably to inspect.

There were other things. They seemed comfortably middle to upper-middle class, from the photos, and finally turning to look at the profiles confirmed it. 68. White. Retired with a moderate stipend. Married thirty years. No priors or connections that Bruce might consider linking to any of the people  he knew. Just things like public intoxication, driving violations, a few fines—

Her husband was found with her, and owned the same caliber gun that had broken the glass encasement, shot the woman, and knocked her out of her chair before lodging in the wall. He’d run in from across the street to investigate the gunshot, he said. He denied doing the deed, and circumstantial evidence was not enough to make a conviction on—

...Bruce flipped through the folder again, frowning. 

Flash, who had pulled out his phone, looked up. “Something?”

“...what is it you want me to say about this?” It was a neatly put together file. Very neatly. No real loose ends, if everything in it was true. What was he supposed to be catching, here?

“Just, I guess, your thoughts. Anything stand out?” He took the moment to arch his back and stretch his arms out a bit, one hand still holding the phone. Smiled a bit. Friendly. 

Bruce frowned while looking at Flash this time. 

“This is a test,” he stated, “and I doubt just to see if I’d throw out a name just to be ‘useful.’”

Flash blinked innocently at him, but he was still smiling. “I mean, haha, can’t blame us too much…? You found a  lot of trafficking chains, but, I mean—“

“The case has already been closed, and you’re certain of who did it,” said Bruce flatly. He flipped the folder shut and shoved it back across the table. “I’d rather see the scene myself, but if the numbers are right, the bullet hole is too steep an angle for a flat lawn if the husband shot from shoulder height. Someone half his height, or someone kneeling  or lying in the grass. He’s old enough to have trouble getting up from that position, much less from the edge of the yard, to run around to the front of the house and avoid grass stains from a new cut lawn. There’s not enough other information to know who might’ve had a motive to make it professional or not.” 

…

Flash blinked at him, leaning his elbows on the table to watch. He wasn’t smiling or laughing anymore. Good.

“Yeah,” Flash said. Moved the folder off the table, to the booth seat, out of view. “Some kids were playing with their new .22 in the yard across from the house and accidentally shot her through the window. They confessed a few months ago.”

It was a small enough crime that news wouldn’t have made it to Gotham. Or been widely publicized at all, if ‘kids’ meant they were  still minors. That would make them thirteen at most at the time of the shooting—

Bruce wasn’t sure if his throat was full of acid or metal as he said, “Is there anything else for me to look over?” 

Flash hesitated a moment (an eternity for him, surely) and said, “Well…”

Bruce stood and made a  straight fucking line to the door Dick had been pulled in and not yet emerged. Flash called out, “Hey—!”

….even as the hand fell on his shoulder and tried to pull him back, Bruce had frozen in the doorway. 

On the other side, he could only see a bit— the doorframe was too narrow and he dared not step closer—but he could see enough.

He’d wondered, a little bit, why Robin hadn’t emerged when he’d begun speaking. Surely he was loud enough to be heard from the back room. They were only meant to be separated minutes. Just a quick mission. Now, he could see, though—

Dick, sitting on an industrial chest freezer, his legs kicking, not near touching the floor. 

He was holding a popsicle. One of the fudge ones. Partly eaten and the top of the stick beginning to show, and Robin didn’t see how it was beginning to drip down over the crinkled plastic wrap, and would soon run over his fingers. 

He was busy, looking at Kid Fash. Kid Flash squatting on the floor with a creamsicle, holding it up to the color of his suit, and visibly whining with an orange tongue, a pouting face—

And Robin ignored his own melting ice cream to laugh.

...Flash’s hand tugged on his shoulder again, this time gentle enough that Bruce felt it. He turned with the pressure, and headed back for the booth. 

He sat down in it, across from Flash and his already-solved case folder. 

“...this was not for case files, was it,” Bruce said, staring at the table between them, feeling very stupid and small. 

“I mean,” Flash said, looking almost as embarrassed as Bruce was shamed. “...we did want to know. But… we thought maybe my uh, my cousin could use someone who could relate to him.” 

Ah yes. For  Kid Flash’s sake. For the boy who they’d never seen publicized before, who was complaining about his outfit color as if he hadn’t chosen it, who didn’t know that in Flash’s ‘occasional empty diner hideout’ he was allowed to run off and eat before being told. 

Not for the boy that for the past month Diana’s pitying face had hung over, the boy who had eagerly asked to Superman to stay for dinner, and who Martian Manhunter would deliver sleeves of choco cookies to, even though they had more than enough money to purchase a box for themselves.

...perhaps Bruce should be glad Flash wasn’t the best at lying. Perhaps Bruce was too used to looking for tells, and mistook super speed masking for the truth. 

“I see,” was all he said. 

When he’d been a child, there had been plenty of others who knew death, and who had never moved him an inch for all their crying. He’d done his best to make that untrue for Dick the past few years, and now they knew each other’s grief inside and out. 

Bruce did not know what else to do from there. 

It was grief all the way down. 

“He’ll need to learn how to counter people who might actually know how to fight speedsters,” he said, watching the table. “There’s pads in the basement, if he’d like to improve sparring with Dick sometimes.”

Flash blinked at him again. Flash sat up straighter, grinning. “Oh?”

“Oh,” Bruce agreed, looking up to scowl. “But for fuck’s sake, bring more than one casefile next time.”

—

On Robin’s anniversary, a gang fight breaks out in the Diamond District.

Something gone wrong. A shootout.

Bruce isn’t sure if it could’ve been called a shootout before the police arrive. By the end of the night, the building is on fire, and a gas vein has blown. Heavy smoke drifting down the street causes a panic, and then a stampede— 

He doesn’t want to let Robin out tonight. 

On the news, it looks like there are fights breaking out in the stampede. There are people lying down, specks of color on the ground as the helicopter news anchor tries to describe the scene. She’s pure professional. Cold eyes. Clear eyes.

The smoke momentarily engulfs the helicopter, and she begins crying. 

He does not want to let Robin out tonight.

He will deal with the outrage in the morning. 

—

(On Robin’s anniversary, Harvey Dent sees the fires and hears gunshots from his hospital room. He drags himself and his IV stand away from the bed, towards the window, and fumbles with the latch with ineffective hands. The nurses come with the heart monitor alert. When they sedate him, Harvey is still screaming “Burn it down, burn it down.” )

—

...as often as it happens, Bruce doesn’t think Gotham knows how to deal with tragedy. Wasn’t it common by now? Weren’t they used to it? But as much as the flags should’ve flown half mast and statues been erected, the world stood still— the next morning, school busses take the children to school, and their parents march out to work. 

Bruce has a distinct face, but with enough makeup and a red wig, he can seem to be a different person for a while. He can dress himself up as officer and with enough confidence and disdain walk right passed the caution tape and into the crime scene the next morning. 

Is it still accurate to call several city blocks a crime scene? Is it a crime scene at all? 

There’s caution tape around it. He knows what the words mean in his head. A shape, more than a real definition, with real letters attached— a block of space that has crumbled differently from the world around him. A depression of buildings, some with more tarps laid down than others. 

Most of the bodies have been taken to the morgue by now. Not all of them. But most. 

Is he going to sneak into the morgue tonight? Is he going to cut open an innocent person who gave no consent to him? To do more than what their family may have agreed to? Will he just steal the coroner’s report and assume they did their jobs properly? 

….it is Gotham. He will assume nothing until proven otherwise. Even now it feels like the police are more rattled than usual, like something has actually gone and bitten them and made them pay a bit more attention.

Inside the building where the shootout started, he starts to look for the bullet holes and take pictures. He looks for scorch marks to track towards the origins of the blaze. 

He doesn’t find a blown gas vein, no matter how hard he looks. 

There was a difference between a storage building and a warehouse. This was a storage building. It had perhaps had a secretary and some organizers. Someone in charge of keeping track of records. There had been unused parts of the building. Bare rooms without much beyond stripped light switches and unpainted walls. One or two empty office spaces, for meetings perhaps. For presentations. 

It was on the second floor where he found the lab. What appeared to be the remains of a lab, in any case. It had been shot up through the floors, and the papers had burnt up in the fire. Police hadn’t officially come up this high yet. The stairs didn’t seem stable. Bruce had not specifically used the stairs. As long as no one saw him slip back down, it would be fine. 

It seemed as if the lab had not been in use at the time of the shootout. Fortunate. The beakers were broken, but they were all clustered together near the sink, clean, and so presumably had all been put away after any use. There was nothing sitting out that seemed to have been mid-use. He would’ve believed a Bunsen burner might’ve started part of the fire, but there was none of that, either. 

...there  was one thing. A broken tankard in the corner that had caused most of the damage, to be certain. A high caliber round seemed to have punctured it, either from the floor below or fired from the hall outside. Otherwise, there would’ve been another body up here, or at least the remnants of one. But the sudden decompression seemed to have mostly left just… a badly scattered room and shrapnel damage on the opposing wall. 

He was about to move to the next room when he noticed the faint texture inside the tank and a matching sort of stain on the ceiling above. 

...he moved closer to the tank, holding his breath and not daring to hope (should he be  hoping  for something?) and investigated. 

A thin layer of green-ish white powder layered the insides of the tankard. An explosive cloud of the stuff must have also flown towards the ceiling and stained it during decompression. He’d assumed it was an oxygen tank. Assumed wrong. 

Taking out a few q-tips, he picked up a few wipes and sealed them away in an evidence bag, did another once-over of the room, now trying to double check everything and ignore his ‘assumptions’, but the burnt papers remained largely illegible, and the cleaned lab materials yielded nothing new. 

He moved on to the next room, and slipped out quietly from there to check the rest of the street. 

—

He arrived back home in different clothes just about the time that Dick (picked up by Alfred) returned home from school. 

The kid looks at Bruce as Bruce enters the front room, and a silent but perceptible drone passes between them. 

For a moment, Bruce simply looked back, wondering what it was he was supposed to say here. 

Eventually, he fumbles in his pockets and pulled out dust-covered q-tips. They’d done this lots of times on the road, hadn’t they? And it had been fun, then. “Want to help identify oddly colored dust?” 

Dick lets his head drop back with an open-mouthed groan at the ceiling, but he does come to the garage lab without… any other response than that sound and movement.

...Bruce was not sure what that meant. 

—

Who the  fuck was rigging exploding nitrous oxide cans to deliver green-dyed powdered LSD?

—

Monday, at the park, he tells the ones who show up they can stay and work in the park as they’ve been doing the last two weeks, or they can come with him to help clean up the areas damaged by the fire.  

Most of them, eight out of the ten, peel off to go help with the fire damage. He can’t say he expected that. But they wander out of the park, keeping together in a group, and spend the day with magnet sticks picking up nails and crooked metal and stacking bricks up out of the walkway. They hose down the ashes to stop dust and at Bruce’s insistence, scoop the ashes into garbage bags instead of just washing it all into the sewer. 

It gets him some weird looks, but no one is ready to argue with him after only working for two weeks, because these are the ones who  stayed  for that daily stipend-- there’s not a contract here; these ten are the ones who hate this work less than anything else they might’ve had available, so they break out two flat shovels and bag things up, wearing cotton masks to avoid inhalation. Bruce trots back to the park to get the truck and pick up all those bags for disposal.

He’s prepared for the ones they left behind to have skipped out early, unsupervised, but as he rounds the (now lower) hedges to look at their base of operations he finds… they actually have acquired an extra person. 

No, the shovels aren’t moving and the hedges don’t look that different from what they’d been like this morning, but that’s still not  abandoning a position. And instead they have some soda cans from the nearby vending machine, and are leaning on a termite-eaten picnic table, talking with rapt interest to Dick Grayson. 

Bruce paused to take it in a second time. Dick certainly clocked him coming into view even though the kid didn’t turn to look his direction. Dick was still there, though, sitting on the other side of the picnic table with a fizzy orange juice and his legs crossed under himself. It wasn’t Bruce’s day to pick him up, Bruce was certain, and yet he had a moment where he had to think of it again to make sure, and checked his phone, and his pocket schedule. But his instinct was right, and it was indeed Alfred’s day to pick Dick up from school while Bruce worked here in the park--

He started to walk over just as Dick turned and raised a hand in greeting, letting the recruits cue into his presence before he was close enough to startle them. And yet, they were still startled enough to look at their shovels and very obviously say “shit,” even when Bruce was still too far away to actually hear it. Then, one seemed to realize they had cursed in front of a tween, said “shit” again, and smacked themselves on the forehead.

Dick’s nose wrinkled up as he smiled. Bruce couldn’t hear it, but he knew it was a laughter snort. 

(He did not acknowledge his jaw untensing as he walked up to Dick who was smiling and sociable again.) 

He came over intending to smile and say words and have a nice conversation, and… then he was close enough and realized he didn’t know what to say. Did he tell them not to corrupt Dick? Would they take that as him implying they were poisonous to others? Would Dick take that as him being protective and spoil the mild good mood? If he told them to take the rest of the day off since clearly things weren’t going to happen, was that dismissal? Or was that chasing them off? Would it be a threat to their paycheck, even though he intended to pay the day’s wages fair as always?

Things seemed to be going almost well lately. The park was slowly being cleaned and Dick was in better spirits than he’d been for two days since the anniversary--

“Oh, he stalled out, don’t worry about it.” 

It is not  embarrassment, but Bruce does snap out of his train of thought and back into the present. “Sorry,” he says, and looks to the two grown men in their baggy jackets and laced up work boots and secondhand hats. “We’re just finishing cleaning up some of the ash. If you come help move the last bit, we’ll all call it a day.”

As they got up and started shuffling away from the picnic table, Bruce did glance at Dick, and after a moment of still confusion, say, “Coming?” 

...the expression Dick gives him was not a smile. But he did come. 

-- 

They throw the garbage bags in the back of the trunk, and pack it largely to the brim. Surreptitiously, before Dick can climb into the passenger seat, Bruce digs out a simple dust mask and hands it to him. With barely a second look, Dick puts it on and rolls down the window before settling in. It’s smooth, and no one asks questions or looks much askance, because he and Dick are good by now at not announcing  something is happening that is different than normal to the world at large. 

(And Dick has become very good at seeing through that with Bruce, but Bruce is… starting to wonder if perhaps, he has taught Dick too well to hide anything that would draw attention that something was wrong. Like a wounded animal could run on a broken leg, or a predator bleed from the mouth, and neither would ever make a peep.)

They drove the bags of ashes home to hide behind the house’s perimeter walls, and Bruce tried to explain. The dust, and the huge plume of heat and smoke that could’ve blown even heavy particles down the street, and the sort of cues that psychedelics took from the state you were in. How most people probably wouldn’t exactly get a good trip, surrounded by gunfire and smoke. And maybe there was something else he missed, in the ash, unsafe for casual disposal, how he wasn’t  certain he hadn’t missed something--

Dick laid his head back on the car seat, sighing through his mask, and Bruce stopped his mumbling.

Glanced over. 

“...maybe I can… arrange for Flash to take a look, if you want to come along,” he offered as they pulled onto their street.

Dick sat up a little straighter, a little light in his eyes.

--

...he wondered, maybe unkindly (but mostly tiredly), if Dick would rather move in with the Flash and his sidekick. He didn’t have any real evidence for this. Kids did tend to be fairly excited to see friends around their own age, and just because someone might enjoy a trip to a festival didn’t mean they wanted to live in one.

...yet, Dick probably would’ve been quite happy, adopted into a renaissance fair circuit.

Maybe it wasn’t that Dick needed more friends. Maybe the issue was Bruce.

But it’s too late to change that now, isn’t it? Dick drew his line in the sand in front of the Justice League, and Bruce had given him too many secrets to have to keep, and there was nowhere else to go. 

—

Bruce goes to Gotham Academy early. Very early. Two hours before pickup is meant to be.

Dick has gotten into a fight. 

The parents of the other kid are already there when Bruce arrives and is shown to the principal’s office (it is in the same place it has been since Bruce went here) and ushered inside to the sound of anger and snapping threats. 

The office is wood, with a centered carpet and a large mahogany desk at the center, and surrounded by three adults and two children, one of them his. 

Dick doesn’t have a scratch on him, unless you count a faint bruise starting to show on his knuckles. The other boy, who is bigger and taller in every way, has a tissue up to his nose and an ice pack on his ear, and is simultaneously shielded and towered over by his two parents, neither of whom have stopped arguing with the principal since Bruce arrived. 

He barely gets a chance to get to Dick’s chair by the wall when he is also pulled into the argument by a “Is  this little heathen yours, Mister Malone?” from the mother. 

Things are not going to improve from there, he’s pretty sure.

“What’s going on?” he asks the principal instead, who is a balding white man with age spots on his face and horn-rimmed glasses on his nose. 

“ Master Richard here has assaulted Master Reynolds--” the principal begins.

“--and we will be pressing charges if adequate disciplinary action is not taken,” says the father.

“But what actually happened,” Bruce says, and somehow the noise gets louder in the room. Not the physical noise of three or four people talking at once, but also the hot dissent from Dick in his corner, the hidden bloodied fear of the boy he attacked, the principal patting the desk with his hands over and over, trying to call attention back to himself. Fluorescent lights bright as static. Itchy polyester fake turkish carpets even though his shoes. The room is small and red-orange with wood stained to look like cherry, yellow copper accents on the studs of cushions and trophies and the frames of portraits and certificates hung on the clustered walls--

Dick is suspended three weeks. 

--

Dick is curled in the front seat of the car, furious that Bruce didn’t defend him enough and fight back, and get his sentence reduced or vetoed entirely. His body is balled up tight enough he’s no bigger than he was at eight, curled around the seatbelt in a haze of fury. 

“He was  picking on people  ,” Dick says in a way Bruce knows means Dick had seen it before, but this time it had crossed a line. “  He should be suspended.”

‘He’ is getting two stitches and a formal apology written (ostensibly) by Dick. Dick will not be the one writing it, even if it’s his name at the bottom. ‘He’ will be in school, not in trouble for bullying but now with free reign to his targets without Dick to stand in the way. If Dick was even in the way before at all. If being in the way without being physical meant anything in this case. 

“You’ll just have to be more subtle about it,” Bruce says, trying to be encouraging. Because Dick didn’t do anything  wrong to step in. Maybe it didn’t deserve a bloody nose, maybe it could’ve been handled some other way, but he still hasn’t been able to wrangle the exact story out of anyone but he is certain that--

Dick goes “RRR” and kicks the windshield hard enough that Bruce startles and slams on the breaks. 

Their seatbelts jerk tight and a car horn behind them blares. 

...there is the faintest tap on their bumper, but Bruce is already speeding the car forward again, heart pounding too hard to stop. 

There’s not even a scratch when they get out at their house later.

--

He goes to Dick’s bedside in the evening. Dick’s lying on top of his covers with the lights turned off in a darkening room, staring at the wall opposite the door. There was music playing before, but the CD player turned off as soon as Bruce turned the door handle. 

He sits by Dick’s bedside and asks if he’d like to go out for the evening. 

Dick agrees, but there isn’t much laughter that night, except the sort Robin scares people with.

The mood is still there the next morning.

--

It is Superman’s turn to check in. Apparently. 

The visit is unscheduled (and probably because of  Dick’s suspension) and today involves casserole, which Bruce is primed automatically to dislike. 

"Yes?" Bruce says upon seeing big blue and buoyant in their kitchen, hovering over the kitchen island with a glass dish covered in aluminium and Alfred looking over a handwritten paper beside him. 

"Oh, hey, good morning there," Superman says, as if he's surprised to see Bruce here when there was no other person for him to be there to  see . "I was just dropping off the casserole recipe Alfred wanted to try."

…one of the only people for him to be here to see. But Bruce still doubted a casserole was a real reason for a whole visit. So Bruce tries again. "Did you need something?"

Alfred looks up from the paper with a frown and without a word starts shooing them out of the cooking space if they're going to be talking business. "I dunno. Was there something you needed to talk about?" 

They make it to the couches of the living room, though neither of them sit down. 

"No," says Bruce.

"Alright then," says Superman, who Bruce is learning is an asshole. "I heard some stuff happened with Dick at school?"

Which is entirely unsubtle and a very clear sign that Superman is not leaving until Bruce asks  some  sort of question or resolves whatever this is. 

So fine. Bruce hasn't even had some fucking coffee yet. He'll ask a question. "What would you do if your child, who is aware that at nightime they can go out and punch abusers and rapists, during the daytime attempted to defend an underclassman, and as a result are threatened with criminal action or suspension while you are trying to lie low and causing a big fuss about it and fighting the decision will do the exact opposite of laying low, severely limiting their freedom regardless of if we win."

Like a coward, Superman's expression says he had been thinking of Dick as a kid who was not  Dick , and sheepishly says, "I guess, what would your parents do?"

Bruce thinks he feels it this time. The expression on his face turning colder. He feels it the same way Dick can always see the change. "I wouldn't know that, now, would I?"

...this was why he left in the first place, wasn't it. This eternal loop of days upon days surrounded by people who just  forgot or never could let him forget. It's been easier as an adult, almost-- it's normal now for people's parents to be dead. It's normal to not have people ask after them like limbs they can't see have detached. Even if Superman doesn't know his old name, doesn't know that stupid story about a boy billionaire and his rich family, its jarring to realize that even the most alien being on earth just assumes--

--well, of course. He would know  all  humans have parents. 

But the bite in Bruce's voice is cold enough, and the way Alfred's slight shuffling in the kitchen goes quiet, it's enough to get through apparently-- Superman's head is ducked down embarrassed and he says, "right, sorry," because perhaps Bruce returning to Gotham to the fucking Wayne Butler's House should've been enough reason to realize he didn't have any family left of his own. "The person who raised you…"

"Nothing they said," Bruce interrupts, "has ever done anything about this."

…

Maybe he's angry. He hasn't had any coffee yet. But he turns to end this conversation and walk out to the garden, and hears Alfred's sigh from the kitchen. 

But he's telling the truth. 

Even if Alfred had found something new to say in the years since Bruce tried to bite his therapist's face off, if he's tried to say it to Dick, it clearly hasn't been working. 

--

There is a thing like a piston beating up against his head. A hammering rhythmically at the front of his skull. One thing, then another, then another, then another, and when he wakes up the next morning to one more ring there will still be all the ones behind him, echoing through the halls still unresolved. 

He wasn’t made to live like this. How was anyone made to live like this? One thing after another and another and when he wakes up in the morning there are still more banal, useless things to do in a world that eats up and eats up and eats up--

How does the grocery store clerk wake up each morning? How does she go to bed at night knowing the same thing will happen the next day, but worse, and more tired, and less pay, over and over, for eternity.

[rebelcourtesan]

My D&D 5e Build for Hordak

@firapolemos05​  requested Hordak, I did some digging and thinking and came up with a build for this character.  My judgement is based on what we’ve seen in the show and what I think suits his character best.  Feel free to agree or disagree with this build or come up with one of your own.  

Hordak, a member of a clone army that was rejected by his creator for having a defect in his cloning.  He was sent on a suicide mission only to find himself taken through a portal and crash landing on Etheria.  With the remains of a broken ship, he launched an Empire, taking over lands and territory and building his own army in the hopes of proving himself to Horde Prime.  He serves as the main antagonist for most of the series before Horde Prime takes his place.  

Long Post Below

***Stats***

Intelligence:  Top stat.  Hordak has a technological mind.  He’s built machines, weapons, and portals and is one of the most intelligence characters in the series.

Strength:  Second Highest.  Reason being that we’ve seen him life heavy machinery in building the portal and throwing a slab of metal across the room.  And he managed to push a huge beam off himself when it fell on him.  

Constitution: Third Highest. I had thought of putting this lower on the list due to his chronic illness, but he did survive was having a crane fall on him and is managing to fight despite the illness.  

Dexterity: Fourth Highest. Hordak can be quick when the needs aride.

Wisdom:   Fifth Place.  Hordak needed Double Trouble’s help to see through Catra’s lies about what happened to Entrapta.  

Charisma: Dump state.  Get. out!  Hordak isn’t the most charming character in the series.      

***Race***

I considered going with Variant Human again, but I just discovered the Gith- Githyanki race which I believe would suit Hordak better.  

He automatically gets +1 to Intelligence and +2 to Strength.    

Choose Arcana to be Proficiency skill.  Hey, he must have taken time to study Etheria’s magic at one point and he has Entrapta helping him out.

Also, Hordak starts off knowing the Mage Hand cantrip.   

Choose the Soldier background:  This nets Hordak a Proficiency in Athletics and Intimidation.  

Okay, after some thought and consideration, I’ve decided to start Hordak off as a Barbarian.

The reason for this when Hordak get’s angry, he can become quite dangerous and resilient to damage.

***Barbarian Level 1***

Hordak gets the Rage ability: 

- advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws. - A melee weapon attack using Strength, gains a bonus to the damage roll  - resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

Unarmored Defense -  armor class equals 10 + Dexterity + Constitution.  His suit is more of an exo-skeleton for his health condition.  And his dress is a bit revealing.

 For Skills choose Perception and Survival.  The first few years after crashing on Etheria must have been rough at the start.

***Barbarian Level 2***

Hordak receives Danger Sense : Has advantage on Dex saves against effects he can see such as traps and spells.  He’s been fighting magical princesses for years, however he can’t use this ability if he is blinded, incapacitated, or deafened.

Reckless Attack: For the first attack on his turn, he can choose to attack with advantage with melee weapons using Strength, but attack rolls against him will be at an advantage until his next turn.

***Barbarian Level 3***

Barbarians can choose a Primal Path.  For Hordak, reveres Horde Prime and conquers Etheria in his name, the Primal Path for him would be Path of the Zealot.  

Divine Fury: when Raging the first creature Hordak hits on each of his turns with a weapon takes extra damage equal to 1d6 + half Barbarian level.  Choose Necrotic damage he is fighting in the name of an evil cult leader.    

Warrior of the Gods: Hordak is easier to raise from the dead.  If any spell cast to restore life to Hordak doesn’t need any components.  That’s the advantage of a having a devoted hi-tech wife.

***Barbarian Level 4*** 

Ability Score Improvement: Put the points into Intelligence to max it out.  I know Strength is important for a Barbarian class, but there is a method to my madness. 

***Barbarian Level 5***

Extra Attack: Hordak can make two attacks when he takes the attack action.

Fast Movement:  His speed increases by +10 feet when he isn’t wearing heavy armor.

***Barbarian Level 6***

Path of the Zealots gives Hordak Fanatical Focus which allows to reroll a failed saving throw while Raging, but must take the new roll.  Ability can only be used once per Rage.

Now you’ll see the method in my madness with a high intelligence score.

We’re going into Artificier, a class the melds magic and technology, which he learned from Entrapta and from studying Etherian magic and First Ones Tech.

***Artificer Level 1***

Talk to your DM about the Optional Firearm Proficiency.  If they agree, then Hordak has a proficiency in firearms, such as laser cannons! 

Being an Artificer gives Hordak Magical Tinkering: Hordak’s Tinker Tools come into play which allows him to create a spark of magic in a Tiny nonmagical object with a magic effect such as giving off light, playing a recorded message (Like the Imp), etc.

Hordak is able to use his Intelligence to create magical effects in objects through spellcasting, but use his tools to do so.  So choose plenty of offensive spells for Hordak to use against Princesses.  I would recommend for cantrips:

Acid Splash:  You hurl a bubble of acid. Choose one creature within range, or choose two creatures within range that are within 5 feet of each other. A target must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 1d6 acid damage.  

Fire Bolt:  You hurl a mote of fire at a creature or object within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 fire damage. A flammable object hit by this spell ignites if it isn’t being worn or carried.  

For 1st level spells:

Absorb Elements: The spell captures some of the incoming energy, lessening its effect on you and storing it for your next melee attack. You have resistance to the triggering damage type until the start of your next turn. Also, the first time you hit with a melee attack on your next turn, the target takes an extra 1d6 damage of the triggering type, and the spell ends. (Good for when he goes into melee against elemental Princesses).

***Artificer Level 2***

Infuse Item:  Hordak can Imbue mundane items with magical infusions.  At this level you can choose up to 4 infusions to know, but can replace one of them at each level. 

Choose:  

Enhanced Defense: Needs a suiit of armor or shield to grant  a +1 bonus to Armor Class while wearing (armor) or wielding (shield) the infused item. 

Enhanced Weapon: Needs a simple or martial weapon to grant  +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. 

Enhanced Arcane Focus: Needs rod, wand, or staff (requires attuning)  a creature gains +1 bonus to spell attack rolls. 

Replicate Magic Item :  Any item of your choice to replicate.

***Artificer Level 3***    

The Right Tool for the Job :  with tinker's tools in hand, Hordak can magically create one set of artisan's tools when needed.

Now Hordak can receive an Artificer Specialist.  Take Artillerist.

Tool Proficiency: Gain proficiency with Wood Carver tools, but to better fit Hordak’s character, I would go with Smith’s Tools if the DM allows it.

Hordak gains 2 additional spells.

Shield:  An invisible barrier of magical force appears and protects you. Until the start of your next turn, you have a +5 bonus to AC    

Thunderwave:  A wave of thunderous force sweeps out from you. Each creature in a 15-foot cube originating from you must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 2d8 thunder damage and is pushed 10 feet away from you. On a successful save, the creature takes half as much damage and isn’t pushed.

The golden part of this level is Eldritch Cannon.  Hordak can create small or tiny canons.  Think Horde Robots.  They can have one of three effects: Flame Thrower, Force Ballista, and Protector.  

***Artificer Level 4***

Ability Score Improvement: Max out Intelligence to attain more spells and make them more powerful.  If Intelligence is already maxed out, you can put them into Strength so Hordak can hit harder when in melee or you can round out the other ability scores. 

***Artificer Level 5***

Arcane Firearm:  Hordak can turn a rod, wand, or staff into an Arcane Firearm (such as an Arm Cannon) to case offensive spells.  Doing so gives a 1d8 bonus damage to spells.  If the spell hits multiple targets, choose one to take the bonus damage.  

Hordak can now use 2nd level Artificer spells.  I recommend:

Heat Metal :  Hordak can cause a metal object (armor for example) to glow red-hot. Any creature in physical contact with the object takes 2d8 fire damage when you cast the spell. Until the spell ends, you can use a bonus action on each of your subsequent turns to cause this damage again.

Also Artillerist gains two additional spells.

Scorching Ray:  You create three rays of fire and hurl them at targets within range. You can hurl them at one target or several. Make a ranged spell attack for each ray. On a hit, the target takes 2d6 fire damage. 

Shatter :  A sudden loud ringing noise, painfully intense, erupts from a point of your choice within range. Each creature in a 10-foot-radius sphere centered on that point must make a Constitution saving throw. A creature takes 3d8 thunder damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A creature made of inorganic material such as stone, crystal, or metal has disadvantage on this saving throw.   

***Artificer Level 6***

Tool Expertise: proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses your proficiency with a tool. 

Also, Hordak gains two additional Infusions.  

Pick Homunculus Servant so Hordak can create his own Imp, a tiny construct that obeys commands.        Repulsion Shield : grants a +1 bonus to AC when using this shield.  Also has 5 charges to push an attacker back 15 feet as a reaction to being hit by melee weapon.    

***Artificer Level 7***

Flash of Genius: As a reaction, Hordak can add his intelligence modifier to an ability check or saving throw of a ceature within 30 feet of him.  

***Artificer Level 8***

Ability Score Improvement: By now Intelligence should be maxed.  Put points into Strength if you are having Hordak wade into melee battle.  And/Or, you could get the War Caster feat which will make it easier for Hordak to cast and maintain spells in battle. 

***Artificer Level 9***

Explosive Cannon: Eldritch Cannons now cause more damage with additional 1d8 damage and Hordak can have them self-detonate for 3d8 force damage on a failed Dex save.  

Hordak can now use 3rd level spells. 

Dispel Magic:  Choose any creature, object, or magical effect within range. Any spell of 3rd level or lower on the target ends. For each spell of 4th level or higher on the target, make an ability check using your spellcasting ability. The DC equals 10 + the spell’s level. On a successful check, the spell ends. (Hordak must have been studying a means to remove magical effects, plus this spell is super useful).

Plus being an Artillerist grants two additional spells.

Fireball:  A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose within range then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame. Each creature in a 20-foot radius must make a Dexterity saving throw. A target takes 8d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren’t being worn or carried.

Wind Wall:  A wall of strong wind rises from the ground at a point you choose within range.  When the wall appears, each creature within its area must make a Strength saving throw. A creature takes 3d8 bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.   

***Artificer Level 10***  

With Entrapta’s help, Hordak can become a Magic Item Adept: he can attune up to four items at once instead of just two.  And it takes a quarter of the time to craft a common or uncommon magical item and doing so costs half the gold.   

And Hordak can learn two more Infusions.

Spell-Refueling Ring (Unearthed Arcana) - A ring that can recover expended spell slots. (Hordak can keep throwing spells back at Princesses)

Mind Sharpener (Unearthed Arcana) - Robes (or armor) that can allow the wearer to maintain a spell as a reaction if they failed a constitution check.      

***Artificer Level 11***  

Spell-Storing Item: Hordak can store a 1st or 2nd level spell inside an item for a creature to use

***Artificer Level 12*** Ability Score Improvement: Intelligence should be maxed.  Strength should be maxed.  Also round out any Ability Scores.  Or you can get the War Caster feat.

***Artificer Level 13***   4th level spells are now available.  I recommend:

Arcane Eye:  You create an invisible, magical eye within range that hovers in the air for the duration. You mentally receive visual information from the eye, which has normal vision and darkvision out to 30 feet. The eye can look in every direction. 

***Artificer Level 14***   With the help of his beloved Entratpa, Hordak becomes a Magic Item Savant.  He can attune up to five items with magic and he can ignore all class, race, spell and level requirements to use any magical items.         

And there you have it.  My version of Hordak in D&D 5e.  With the Barbarian levels he can deal decent melee damage and withstand receiving damage and gaining extra strength while Raging.  

As part of his background and his close relationship to Entrapta, he can infused magic into items and use offensive spells against the Princesses in his conquest of Etheria.   

[disneydreamlights]

Across the Stars: Chapter 3

AO3 | FFN

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Summary: Tensions between the Separatists and the Republic are climbing as the Senate debates whether there is need for an army. Anakin Skywalker, Senator of Tatooine, has recently returned to Coruscant to speak against its formation, resulting in an assassination attempt that forces him to reunite with long time friends Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and the newly knighted Padme Naberrie for his own protection. [Anidala]

(Or, an Attack of the Clones Roleswap AU)

"Track down this bounty hunter you must," Yoda said. After last night's chase, there had been no more threats on the Senator's life, thankfully, but that didn't change the fact that their assassin had been hired by another to take Anakin's life, leaving them with more questions than answers, and leading to Padmé and Obi-Wan standing before the council, waiting to hear more details on their mission.

"More importantly, find out who he's working for," Master Windu added, waiting to see what the two Jedi Knights would say.

Obi-Wan frowned. "What about Senator Skywalker? He'll still need protecting."

"Investigate the bounty hunter, only one of you will."

Master Windu took over moments later. "Padmé, while Obi-Wan is looking into who hired the bounty hunter, you'll escort the Senator back to his home planet on Tatooine. He'll be safer there. I trust you and Obi-Wan will be able to come up with a plan for this."

"An-Senator Skywalker," she corrected herself moments later. They may have been friends, but it didn't mean she could simply slip up like that, "won't be easy to convince to leave the capital. Not so long as the bill is still up for debate in the Senate."

"Until caught this killer is, our judgement he must respect." There was a finality to Yoda's words. There would be no debating with them.

"See if you can get Chancellor Palpatine to convince him otherwise. He was willing to listen to the Chancellor earlier when accepting your protection. Perhaps he'll be able to get Anakin to leave Coruscant for now." With Master Windu's words, she and Obi-Wan were dismissed.

Anakin was definitely not going to be happy to hear this.

-x-

"I will talk with Senator Skywalker. I know he is temperamental, even he won't be able to ignore an executive order if the need arises, not if he wishes to remain the senator for Tatooine." Palpatine smiled at Padmé as she stood next to him. Their shared planet of origin may have been the reason he'd reached out to her, but a mentorship had formed in its own way between her and the kindly old man, and she appreciated his presence.

Padmé bowed to him in respect. "Thank you, Your Excellency."

"None of that Padmé." Palpatine smiled, patting her on the shoulder. "We've been friends for far too long to need that. I'm much more interested in hearing how you're doing. I hear you've finally become a Jedi Knight."

"I have." She smiled back. "I'm sorry I hadn't told you sooner, Chancellor. I finished the trials and then Obi-Wan and I were immediately sent out to negotiate with the Separatists and protect Anakin." She'd known the life of a Jedi would be busy, but before all this started she and Obi-Wan had definitely had more time on Coruscant. So had the rest of the Jedi.

Palpatine simply gave a laugh and another kind smile for her. "It's not a concern, I understand things are busy for the Jedi right now, as they are for us all."

The chancellor's understanding was a relief to her, if she was honest. Though their shared heritage from Naboo had been the starting point for their bond as he told her stories of her home planet, their friendship had been invaluable, and she was worried he'd be offended by her inability to visit lately. "We are. I'm grateful that up until now they've let me stay with Obi-Wan. With things as tense as they are, I don't want to make a mistake that will throw us all into a war."

"Nonsense, my dear. You need not worry about the chances of that, you have all the skills you need to continue to succeed and flourish. You simply need to continue doing what the council asks of you, and have more confidence in your own abilities." Palpatine walked away from the window, prompting Padmé to follow him. "And after that, it won't be long until you've earned the title of Jedi Master, and a seat on the council yourself." She smiled. She knew it was simply a compliment and some advice, but the idea that she could be closer to her aspirations than she'd seemed was a nice thought.

"Thank you, Chancellor." She bowed her head, continuing to follow Palpatine out so she could pass on the message to Anakin.

"Don't thank me, my dear." Palpatine stopped for a moment. "I'm afraid I've left the hardest task, dealing with the Senator, right in your hands. But I trust you'll be able to handle him. He is a close friend of yours, after all."

-x-

Padmé sat on the edge of the bed, watching as Anakin packed the last of his senatorial outfits into a suitcase, ready for travel to Tatooine to continue serving as Anakin's bodyguard, as per council mandate. "This is unfair. I've spent weeks going over everything with Bail. Weeks. And I've had to sit and listen to the other senators go on about how important it is to have an army to go against the Separatists like I actually believed what they were saying." Just as she'd expected, he was unhappy, to say the least. Fuming might have been a better way to describe the Senator as he raced from one end of the room to the other.

"As opposed to doing what…?" Padmé asked, more than a little amused at the senator's irritation, but still wanting to know what he would've been doing instead of listening to the other senators. She knew Anakin could be slightly temperamental (another reason he had likely been denied admittance to the Jedi after he'd arrived with them on Coruscant) but watching him upset like this was a new experience for her.

It seemed her asking the question to try to get his mind off of all this seemed to simply irritate Anakin more, as he assumed she wasn't taking him seriously. (Which she wasn't, if she was honest. He was throwing a tantrum.) "I'm serious about not wanting to go back home. I need to be here to try to stop this bill. An army's not an answer, especially not a drafted one like we'd need if we went to war and–"

He stopped his rant as Padmé put a hand on his shoulder. "Anakin, Bail will take care of this. He's a good politician. Obi-Wan and I have worked with him before, and if he's helping you with this, I doubt he'd just let the bill pass when he's been fighting against it too. And your mom will be representing Tatooine. She'll make sure to represent you well." Shmi Skywalker was amazingly strong from the few times that Padmé had worked with her. Anakin's cause was in good hands.

"It's not easy to accept though." He looked up, as though hating to admit it. "I'm not used to having to sit on the side lines." It was why he had decided to organize and lead an entire slave rebellion when he was barely a teenager. It was why he was fighting so hard now.

"I know, but right now you're safest on the sidelines, and you can't just let your pride make you take unnecessary risks. I can't leave you to throw away your life like that." As stressful as his plan had been earlier, there had been at least some kind of reason for it, with a good chance of his survival. What Anakin was planning now would've been suicide with things in Corsuscant as they were. Deep down, he had to know that too.

He looked up at her and smiled, zipping up the suitcase and sitting down on it. "It's a good thing I have somebody as reliable as you serving as my bodyguard, then."

"Obi-Wan would be better at this, he's been a Knight longer." But Obi-Wan would be getting to the bottom of who was hiring a bounty hunter to take down Anakin. And it was a job that needed his talents a lot more than a guard mission.

"Obi-Wan may have been a knight longer, but I wouldn't want anybody else." Just like before, when he'd pulled her aside to talk to her about the security detail in more depth, Anakin's blue eyes met hers, and she found herself unable to look away. He was so...he had so much faith in her despite having only recently been knighted. So much trust she'd had yet to prove she deserved.

But despite that, there was something else in those eyes. A passion, born from the desert, a fight that only Anakin had in him. It drew her in in a way nothing else could, a passion that seemed like it was dedicated to nobody but her. Like she hung the stars in the sky. She didn't want to look away. It was a look like she was the only person that mattered in that moment.

He wanted her, and under the intensity of his gaze, it made it difficult to avoid wanting him just as much.

...she broke his gaze. That was ridiculous. She was a Jedi. She couldn't, not like that, not like what he wanted. "Please, don't look at me like that. It makes me uncomfortable."

Immediately, Anakin looked away. "Sorry." She appreciated the apology, giving him a smile in return.

"Finish packing. I'll check with Obi-Wan to see how we'll be making our travels." She needed to get away from him, at least for now. To get herself under control. He didn't seem to question it, instead nodding and standing out of the way.

"As soon as I'm done, I'll meet you outside." And with that, she was out of the apartment and back in the elevator, trying desperately not to think about what had just happened between them.

She started taking deep breaths, attempting to deal with the knots around her heart from how Anakin made her feel. He was attractive, she could acknowledge that much even as a Jedi. He was also sweet, and gave everything his all. He was caring and she still remembered how brave he was when he'd stood up to Jabba, just before…

No, she'd stopped thinking of that years ago. It was her past, her regret, not for her to think about now. She buried those memories of her second time on Tatooine, choosing instead to return to her current predicament. Anakin was a Senator, and he loved so wholly that there was no way she could even consider a potential relationship with him. He demanded love so completely that she would need to give him everything she was, something she would never be able to do as a Jedi. Rather than continue to think on it, even entertain the possibility of feeling something for him, she chose instead to release those feelings into the Force. The knots in her chest that had begun to form with Anakin's look unraveled, and as she stepped out of the elevator she was able to greet Obi-Wan with a smile.

"Done packing?" Obi-Wan asked, surprised at the appearance of just Padmé.

"I left Anakin to finish alone. He's definitely capable of handling things by himself." She smiled. As a Jedi, she didn't have many belongings to take with her, and she was honestly more useless than not helping Anakin prepare himself for his trip back to Tatooine anyways. "I figured I should get the full briefing."

"Very well." He pulled up a holo-projector after making sure nobody was watching and pulled up a large ship for Padmé to memorize the look of. "A refugee ship will be taking off in about three hours. You and the Anakin will join their numbers as though you're seeking shelter in Tatooine, in disguise. I'm sure the senator will have something in his wardrobe you can hide your Jedi robes under while on the trip."

Padmé looked over the plan. "And we'll take that to Tatooine?"

Obi-Wan nodded. "Once you arrive, report in to the council. I'll be unable to do so because I'll be doing some investigations of my own. You'll be required to send in a report daily, but do not mention where on Tatooine you are. The less people who know where you and the senator are, the less likely somebody will be able to launch an attack."

"Understood." Padmé gave a salute and turned off the projection before turning to Obi-Wan. "You're sure this will work?"

"Not at all, but I get the feeling I'm the one with the more challenging mission. Tatooine will be twice as protective of their senator than anybody on Coruscant would be." Obi-Wan smiled a moment later. "I get the feeling that the person who will be the hardest to deal with will be Anakin anyways. You might have your hands full protecting him from himself, rather than more bounty hunters."

He...wasn't wrong, if Anakin's behavior the night before was anything to go by. She let out a small laugh "I'll make sure to keep the senator out of trouble."

Obi-Wan nodded. "Are you sure you'll be the one keeping me out of trouble?" Anakin appeared at the entry of the building, wearing a poncho over his traditional Tatooine outfit. "I'm pretty sure I had to help keep you safe when you first arrived."

"I was fourteen."

"I was nine." Padmé huffed at his response, which caused Anakin's teasing smile to just get bigger. "I'm assuming our chariot awaits, my lady?"

"I'll be with you in a second as your escort." She bowed to Obi-Wan, abandoning the conversation with Anakin for the time being. "May the Force be with you Obi-Wan."

"And with you." He bowed to Padmé, a sign of respect that brought a smile to her face. As she went to turn to lead Anakin away, Obi-Wan grabbed her wrist. "Be careful."

"I will be." She turned to Anakin after Obi-Wan let go, offering him her hand. "Well, Senator, shall we head to the ship?"

"At your command, Master Jedi." Anakin took her hand, and she led the way to their transport.

-x-

The shuttle transport to Tatooine was a lot more cramped than Padmé had expected, but she shouldn't have been surprised either. Anakin had mentioned as they were boarding that since being freed from Hutt control, the planet had become a hotspot for refugee activity, protecting them from anybody off planet who might hurt them.

Which left them in cramped spaces, making the most of the small amount of privacy they could find with their single astromech guard and having light and easy conversation.

"So, what's it like being a Jedi?" Anakin asked, having finished a tale of his highly exciting adventures in the Senate, dealing with those who were resistant to change. "I can't imagine there's a dull moment."

"Not with Obi-Wan as a master." Padmé smiled, thinking back to her Padawan days. "But I suppose I didn't help. I was probably a handful for him."

"You, a handful?" Anakin gave a surprised gasp, playing up his overdramatic nature. "I couldn't imagine that, you've always seemed to have everything under control. I would've thought you were the perfect Jedi."

"Unfortunately, although I did learn from one, I made my fair share of mistakes. Like the time I accidentally used my lightsaber to set Master Yoda's robes on fire." She watched as Anakin's face lit up at that information.

"How did you manage that?"

"Jedi secret." Padmé put her finger over her lips, not telling him anything more on it.

"Oh come on Padmé." He pushed for a few more minutes, but she refused to budge. Telling about it happening was one thing, explaining just how she managed to do it was absolutely another. "Okay fine, if you won't tell me that, at least tell me some things about the Jedi."

"I thought you weren't interested in being one anymore." He'd said so much last night at least.

"Maybe not in being a Jedi, but I do want to know more about the world you and Obi-Wan live in." Padmé searched for signs of deception in him, but he was surprisingly being earnest. "I know it's been a while before circumstances forced us to talk again, but I do think of both of you as some of my closest friends. You can't blame me for wanting to know more."

Padmé couldn't, if she was honest. "So long as it's not one of our Jedi secrets, I can answer."

Anakin gave a grin, happy to have gotten some confirmation on getting answers. "What's life like at the temple then?"

Padmé remained silent for a moment. It had been a while since she'd just spent a decent amount of time there. After thinking on it for a minute or two, she answered, "Peaceful. It's a lot like coming home to get to go there. I used to spend a lot of time learning lessons from Obi-Wan, but lately I've been trying to get to know the younglings. I've been thinking of asking for a Padawan, and it wouldn't hurt to get to know them now."

"Planning on teaching another kid how to be a perfect Jedi like Obi-Wan?" Anakin asked. At first she'd thought he was teasing, and refused to answer. "I'm serious, I'm surprised you want a Padawan. I think I'd hate having to teach one."

That was...oh. "It's rewarding. When you get a Padawan, it's like getting to add another member to your family. A sibling or a kid. It's also the only way you can become a master, and get on the Jedi Council." Admittedly, having a seat on the council hadn't always been her dream, but Palpatine had told her that she'd make an excellent Jedi Master if she set her mind to it, and the idea had stuck out in her head ever since as something to aspire to be.

Anakin seemed to latch onto the family bit however, looking at her with confusion. "I thought Jedi weren't supposed to have family or love like that?"

An unfortunate misconception. Anakin should have learned based on watching her and Obi-Wan interact, but it wasn't something he internalized. "We love differently. The people we love can never be more important than the galaxy, but we're allowed to love. Obi-Wan's my brother, and Master Qui-Gon was practically his father."

Anakin remained silent after that for a moment, as though taking in what she had said. "Does that include romantic love?"

"It's allowed, but we can't settle down with anybody. Not if we want to stay in the Order." It hadn't bothered her, if she was honest. She knew if she found somebody, they'd understand that. They'd let her go.

Anakin frowned, trying to reconcile that with the information he had. "Because if you have that kind of bond, it'd mean you'd put them before the galaxy, right?" Padmé nodded. "I couldn't imagine living like that. There's very few things I'd put above my mom."

Above his mom? "Like what?" Padmé asked, her face leaning into her hand as she looked at the Senator, who had chosen to lay down on one of the benches.

"You." Anakin's answer was simple, and Padmé swallowed, once more a little uncomfortable as the feelings she'd tried to bury just hours earlier started swimming to the surface. She waited for him to add on.

"Anakin, I'm flattered really, but–"

"Padmé, you're the one who forced Obi-Wan to come back to Tatooine when he couldn't take me as a Padawan." Oh this wasn't about anything like that. "If it wasn't for you, my mom would still be held by Watto, and there'd probably still be slavery on Tatooine. It's a life debt I can't repay."

Subconsciously, Padmé found her free hand had grabbed one of Anakin's, and at that moment, she didn't care about appearances, or anything else. "I didn't realize I meant that much to you."

"You always will." Whether it was platonic or romantic, Padmé wasn't quite sure what Anakin's intent was. Before she could ask, he changed the subject. "So what was that about burning Master Yoda's Jedi Robes?"

"Anakin!"

-x-

As they disembarked from the ship, Anakin offered his hand, allowing for Padmé to take it as she left the ship, smiling at him. It had only been a few years since she'd arrived last on Tatooine, but in spite of that, the desert planet had a different, less oppressive feel to it. The two suns still beat down on the harsh sand, but it felt cleaner in the hanger, less dangerous.

"Come on." Anakin turned to Padmé. "I have one stop for work, then afterwards we can focus on lying low."

It took Padmé a moment to process what he said. "Anakin what?"

"My step brother's girlfriend will have a comm I can use to reach my mom. If nothing else, she should know we got here safely." Padmé hesitated at that for a moment, but realized she had to relent. Making Shmi worry for the sake of Anakin's safety did seem wrong.

"Wait a second, step brother?" Since when did Anakin have any other family?

"My mom married a moisture farmer a few years ago. They live in Anchorhead now with her when she's on planet. He had a son, Owen, who has a girlfriend." Seems like things had changed a lot since Padmé had last been on Tatooine. "Beru's nice. She was very involved in helping get slaves away from their owners and removing their chips. She helped remove my mom's."

Right, that made sense. Padmé struggled to determine if there was any occasion where she might have met the girl. "And that's all you're going for?"

"I might also be hoping to check in on the Military Creation Act," he admitted, albeit with some reluctance.

"Anakin!"

"I'm not going to be there to do anything bad, just give her some thoughts I've had that she can pass onto my mom."

Padmé sighed. "You're determined."

"I have to be." Anakin smiled, although it was clear it wasn't easy for him to admit. "Somebody has to make this galaxy a better place, so slavery doesn't slip through the cracks again on another planet. If I don't stand up for people, who will."

"Is that why your people were so eager to have you take over for your mom as Senator once you turned eighteen?" Anakin looked at her, more than a little confused. "I kept my eye out for you on the holonews and the holonet."

His face lit up at that, like he hadn't expected it. "They wanted me to take up the seat sooner, it's why I did so much in the Senate. But my mom insisted that I was too young and they could take her if they wanted a Skywalker in office."

"And so you can't let them down." She saw where this was going, and smiled.

"Not if I want to keep the faith of everybody on Tatooine." Anakin pulled her away, leading her into one of the newer buildings of Mos Espa, or at least one that had recently been cleaned up, judging by the significantly cleaner buildings.

As they stepped inside, it was clear to see just how busy Anakin's team was with getting everything working. Each of the desks held a different resident of Tatooine, with refugees and others scattered around in a panic. Sentients of a million different species seemed to scatter about from place to place, and the building was a madhouse of people. Anakin led her right through the lobby and up to the second floor, opening it up to a wide, less chaotic office with a young blonde girl doing some paperwork. She looked up at the door in surprise. "Anakin?"

"Hey Beru." He waved and fell back in surprise as the girl gave him a hug, one he quickly returned.

"I didn't expect you to come back so soon to Tatooine." She smiled before turning towards Padmé. "Who's this?"

"This is Jedi Knight Padmé Naberrie, the Jedi who helped free my mom." Anakin introduced her. "She's serving as my protector until the threat on my life has passed."

Before Padmé could say anything more, she found herself also pulled into a hug. "Thank you, for helping free Shmi, and helping keep Anakin safe. I don't know what any of us would do if it wasn't for you."

Padmé smiled. "Thank you. I'm glad Ani managed to find people like you to be a part of his family."

"Family that includes you now, too." Having addressed the Jedi protector, who was surprised at the inclusion in Anakin's family so easily, Beru turned her attention back towards Anakin. "Why are you back here?"

"Sa–"

"Safety. It's not safe for Anakin on Coruscant so long as people are still after him, so Shmi is filling in on the Senate and Anakin is staying here until it's safe for him to return."

"I can answer for myself." Anakin was indignant for the interruption, but seemed to let it go. "I was hoping you could pass on a few messages for my mother before we head out to the farm."

Beru looked at him in surprise. "You want to hide out there?"

"It's far out of the way, and nobody's likely to catch me on camera there." Anakin grimaced moments later though. "It's not the best or biggest place to be, but if I'm going to hide out it's probably one of the safest. I can always help with the vaporators too, make sure they're ready for the next harvest."

"I'll let Owen and Cliegg know. They left for Coruscant a few hours ago with Threepio." Beru paused, as though something had sunk in while talking. "That must have been why they left. They're going to keep Shmi company."

Anakin nodded. "Probably. So you agree it's a good idea?"

"Of course." Beru smiled. "Nobody associates the Whitesuns or Skywalkers with the Lars family. Nobody will think to look there." Padmé nodded in agreement. "Now then, what messages did you have for your mom? I'm assuming it's not just to tell her you both arrived here safely"

Anakin chuckled. "Of course not. You always were able to see right through me better than anyone." He turned to Padmé. "Do you want to stay for this?"

"I believe the council told me not to let you out of my sights." Padmé smiled. "I suppose I'll have to though for this, since I have to call the council. I'm sure you can take care of yourself for a half hour?"

"If not, then you can kill my dead body, Master Jedi."

Padmé laughed. "I'll be back." And with that, she left the room for a small hallway nearby, pulling out her comm once more.

"Master Windu. Master Yoda." She bowed as the two Jedi appeared. Though she couldn't see them, she assumed most of the council was present as well.

"Knight Naberrie. I'm assuming you and Senator Skywalker have arrived on Tatooine?" Mace asked, looking at her.

Padmé nodded. "The Senator's talking with a relative. After he's finished, we'll be going into hiding, just as planned."

"Done well, you have." Yoda's praise made Padmé smile as she realized that she'd at least so far been successful. "Senator Skyawlker's safety insured will be."

"How's Obi-Wan's investigation going?" Padmé asked. Perhaps it was too soon for him to have found anything, but it'd be nice if she had some good news for Anakin.

"Found a lead, Knight Kenobi has," Yoda answered. "Left for another planet, he did."

"We'll let you know as soon as developments are found." Mace nodded. "For now, your objective remains the same as it has."

"I'll let you know if my situation changes then." Padmé smiled, hanging up on the two council members. If Obi-Wan had a lead, perhaps they wouldn't be in hiding out on Tatooine for as long as she thought.

[Next Part]

[thejohnrobson]

The Ack What Incident? – It Happened Today, February 4, 2017

Apparently February 4 is a day to be proud of in Japan because 46 guys killed themselves as a reward for a good deed. I have to say it’s not my idea of a red-letter day.

The story is that in 1703 in what is now Tokyo and was then Edo, all but one of the “Forty-seven Ronin” committed seppuku not because they had failed to avenge their master’s death but because they had succeeded. The “Akō incident” became a “national legend” in Japan, even the national legend, a shining example of the samurai code of honour. And yes, I do have to explain it if you’re not Japanese. Or rather describe it. I do not think it can be explained in the sense of being defended.

We’re not sure the details as it was not written up in reliable detail for nearly a hundred years thanks to censorship laws. But the basic story is as follows: These samurai were left leaderless, or “ronin,” after their lord Asano Naganori was forced to kill himself for attacking a wretched court official named Kira Yoshinaka. So the ronin spent a year working out a plot to kill Kira, after which they had to kill themselves because of the shame of committing murder.

As you already sense, I find the whole thing unspeakably weird. It begins with the key fact that Kira was abusive and corrupt. Two hapless local officials, Lord Kamei and Asano himself, were ordered to prepare a reception for the Emperor’s envoys and were given etiquette lessons by Kira. But they didn’t give him sufficient bribes so he abused them so badly that while Asano kept his cool Kamei lost his and was going to do Kira in.

To save Kamei’s life, his own advisors quickly hustled up a major bribe for Kira who then began treating their master better. But he kept taunting Asano and when he ridiculed him as an ill-mannered rustic, Asano snapped and went after him with a dagger, giving him a minor scratch on his face. (Not exactly what one would hope from a samurai, I note in passing; I thought these guys could kill you with a greeting card.)

Despite the feeble nature of the attack, the very fact of drawing a weapon within Edo Castle was fatal and Asano had to kill himself, his family lost his possessions and lands, and his followers were made outcasts. And so everybody went along with it because I mean what’s blatant injustice when honor is involved or something.

Except there was this group of 47 who took a secret oath to get revenge even though they’d been ordered not to. They went underground as traders, laborers or drunken debauchees. And after several years they managed to infiltrate and storm Kira’s home, overcome his retainers abetted by the silence of his neighbours who all hated him, caught him and respectfully besought him to kill himself like a true samurai.

He chickened out, wuk wuk, betrayer of the code, so the ringleader sawed off his head with a dagger. Then the ronin carefully extinguished all lamps and fires so the neighbours’ houses were not in danger from a general conflagration, and left with the head.

One of the ronin was either sent to report the success of their mission to Asano’s old domain of Akō or else ran away. Either way he apparently came back much later, was pardoned, and lived to a ripe old age before being buried with the others. The rest went to the temple where their master was buried, washed the head carefully, then put it and the dagger on his grave, offered prayers, left the abbot money for their own funerals, and turned themselves in.

The situation was awkward for the shogun, given general approval of their deed plus its fairly obvious justification under almost any meaningful moral code. So he couldn’t just execute them. Instead he ordered them to execute themselves and they did.

So popular is this tale in Japan that the temple where the ronin’s remains are interred holds a festival every December 14, the successful attack having occurred on the 14th day of the 12th month in the old Japanese calendar. But it was on the 4th day of the 2nd month that they all cut out their guts and had a second behead them, the final and apparently crowning act of the drama. And one I flatly admit I cannot sympathize with or support.

Were the ronin right or wrong to kill Kira? And if they were right, why celebrate their being put to death for it? Surely they should have gone down fighting. It is simply not possible to imagine the surviving Magnificent Seven ending the film by simultaneously raising their revolvers to their heads and blowing their brains out in unison and making the classic American film in the process.

“The 47 Ronin” a beautiful and picturesque story, to be sure. And apparently Asano’s brother did get his title and a bit of his land back. But it’s also very disturbing. And not least because ordering them to commit suicide, when they apparently had or felt they had no choice, is not an alternative to executing them. It’s just a hypocritical fiction, a way for the shogun to be, as Orwell put it, somewhere else when the trigger is pulled.

Even more baffling to me, in a moral sense, is the lack of concern with right and wrong, indeed the failure to see them as necessarily separate and opposite qualities. The whole story seems to hinge on the ronin’s actions being simultaneously both right and wrong.

I think they were just right. The guy who taunted their lord was no paragon of virtue attacked by mistake. He was a crooked wretch who deserved to be horsewhipped on the steps of his club or gunned down by John Wayne in a classic Western quick-draw showdown. And there’s no suggestion in the story of a kind of Shakespearean scenario in which Asano had a better course of action. Kamei’s men you recall had simply bribed Kira. The emperor or shogun was not, one feels, likely to render justice.

So where’s the vindication of right conduct? Instead there’s something fatalistic, even fey, about a group of such dedicated men bent on making a ritually beautiful bad end for doing a good deed.

To me this story makes no sense. If a particular act of revenge is wrong, don’t do it. And don’t later celebrate those who did. But if it is right, stand by it. There is a weird excluded middle here, where an act is simultaneously right and wrong and ritual rather than moral judgement determines action.

It is not a direct line from the “Akō incident” to Pearl Harbor. But the two are connected by a peculiar, ornate, gorgeously perverse refusal to put individual conscience ahead of “the code”, a determination to reject principle on principle.

___________________________

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from The Ack What Incident? – It Happened Today, February 4, 2017

[electrograin-info]

Developing Zesa

Practically since 934 was hatched from her egg, this particular female was given high exceptions in life. Many thought it was a shame the population was flooded with so many females and her parents had no one to offer their prized child to as a arranged future mate for another’s son as a toddler. However, in a year they finally gave a ordained mate though it was a numberless child. They felt desperate and thought it would only be temporary, but eventually it was evident that their precious prodigy was stuck with a null child, so they accepted it as it is. Her parents passed on early in in her childhood, which did not seem to effect her too much as they were not involved in her or her egg clutch siblings’ lives much other than despite their praise of her.

One of her elder sisters from a previous clutch took over the duties of taking care of the children, despite her own youth. This was not uncommon for a teenager or young adult of their kind to take their parents place as caretakers due to work and their kind’s short lifespan. 934′s elder sister was viewed as a beautiful as she was brilliant, she idolized her and pined for her attention. However, the only way to receive it proved to live by the notion to “be better than the rest”. She was highly competitive and goal orientated as a child, not even seeing her own egg clutch as siblings but competition. 

It worked for quite some years by showing off her brilliance and obedience. However, once her sister was having eggs of her own she begun focusing more on her own children. But 934 was sure after her coming of age mission with her numberless mate, she would impress her immensely. She figured that the numberless boy would be more of a hindrance than partner in the mission as he was weak and small, so she would have to protect him while doing her research. However, he surprised her time and time ago with his unexpected intelligence and being able to understand things at a level she could not.

Once arriving back she begun to question her judgement of not only him, but the concept of nulls in general and what it truly means to be Which lead him finally after years of being treated as unwanted to finally gain a number of his own, 642. Remembering all of the different sightings and people she saw on her mission, that her life was both smaller and larger than she ever thought. 

When her sister was died during a project, she felt something she never knew before it happened to her; grief. She became became hysterical with rage and sorrow, that the one she worked so hard to show she is worthy of love was now gone. However, many adults saw her behavior was erratic and unexpected, even selfish; that she should be proud that her sister died the way she did, for the colony’s efforts above all. However, 642 defended her actions and privately told her that was justified to what she did, it showed that she cared and knew what pain.

Despite that the older she became the more accepting she got of things being unchanging, except for one thing; her mate, he always changed for the better. As a young teen she was left to raise her parents recent egg clutch along with the others from her own clutch. However, eventually it shifted to merely her and her mate raising them by themselves, along with his siblings as well. Among 642′s younger siblings was another null child, he suggested they take care of him as they could due to how much weaker in health he was compared to the others; which she agreed to.

Nulls like her mate and his brother, were sent off to work at young ages at factories, fields, anywhere they could be of use. The same was for the child, another feeling came to 932 that she never felt before; the pain of guilt and helplessness, to a child she helped raised be dragged away. The egg clutches she raised with her mate grew into older children and teens that did not need them to watch over them no longer; finally the two mates can have their own young. Once more the feeling of having something you care taken away from came, but even harder. With her own children that she was schedule to be too busy to care for her own eggs, so her authorities forced her to give up her eggs to a care taking android; years went by and she can still afford be granted to briefly see them.

Recently, 934 have been chosen along with her mate to revive the Earth Project and begin research to see if it is a suitable planet to colonize. Her mate decided this was a time to suggest bringing his null sibling and to prove his worth to his society. She could only see this as a suicide mission for 632 as he put his life on the life for this. However, she could not talk him out of it no matter how much she tried. All she can do is leave her mate at his own devices and simply hope he can find a gleam of potential of that null boy so much that is worth showing off to their superiors. Due to how much she cannot relate or understand the null anymore, she grew a more disdain for his attitude toward her.

Due to needing a alias on Earth, she chose to go with ‘Zesa K’xa’ and travel with her mate, his sibling, one of her younger sisters whom is a doctor, and the androids assign to them. They have been discovered by a small group of humans whom which seem to which to assist them in their research, but she still have her own doubts.