#so i follow up with an in person super visor who confirms it

[lilgynt]

supervisors not explaining things clearly at all even when i say hey i have never done this and then i can hear the merchants making fun of how long this call is taking in the background

[wutwutno1]

Request

what about an uzi x reader safe vore but it's absolute solver uzi and she remembers that she vored the only after she gets back home

You slowly wake up bathed in warmth. You don't remember how you fell asleep, but you still woke up. You sat up to find...everything dark.

The space you're in is tight and moving. It felt fleshy. It squished under your weight and movement. You sat in a pool of something. Your clothes were soaked. You could hear something thumping above you along with periodic wind. You wonder where you are when a soft gurgle confirms all your suspicions were wrong.

You're in a stomach.

You squirm frantically, trying to find an exit. Who ate you? When did they eat you? How did they eat you? Why did they eat you? These thoughts coursed through your mind as you struggled and squirmed. You hear a soft groan of a voice above you and felt your world shake as something slapped it.

It was Uzi. You recognized the groan. Why would she eat you? How did she eat you? You stopped struggling to ponder these questions. Uzi is your friend, so why would she eat you? It didn't make sense. You then remember what happened the night before you woke up.

Playing memory: 22:23 P.M.

You sat around a campfire with Sam, Emily, Braden, and Lizzy. You were having a good time, telling stories, eating batteries, Sam had a magnet. It was a grand time. Suddenly, Emily jumped as something grabbed her leg. Everyone turned to look and saw Rebecca, ripped in half, grabbing Emily's leg. Lizzy screamed, "Who did this to you?" And Rebecca replied with, "Don't remember name, super unpopular." Her voice was strained and slow. It was clear that she wasn't going to last much longer.

Sam asked for descriptive clues, to which Rebecca responded with, "Purple eyes, Hot Topic." Everyone stood around considering what Rebecca meant and not recognizing who she was describing, except for you. You immediately realized it was Uzi. Rebecca then died, a red fatal error flashing across her screen. No one got a chance to say anything before a spine-chilling giggle came from behind. Everyone turned to look at a figure on the hill behind them.

The figure was short with purple wings and a purple x on her face. wings protruded from her back and a tail flicked to her side. She was giggling creepily and you knew it was Uzi.

Braden then called out, "Oh! Y-you?" Everyone looked at each other and shrugged before a purple flash of light and Braden's head flew off. His body fell to the ground and caught fire. Sam screamed to split up and everyone did. After all, Uzi could only chase one person at a time.

That thought was proven redundant as you heard Sam scream before getting cut off a moment later, followed by Emily mere moments after. Uzi was fast. Way faster than anyone. You tried to hide behind a tree as Uzi landed on the ground nearby. You could hear her chuckle and her soft footsteps crunching against the snow. "Come out come out wherever you are, little snack!"

You covered your mouth with your hands, trying to stifle your heavy breathing and crying. You start to feel funny. You look down to find yourself floating in the air and very small, a three-arrowed symbol holding you in the air. You start to get dragged through the air towards Uzi, who's looking directly at you. The symbol covered her visor and hovered over her hand. You stop inches from her face. You could feel her stare at you

"My my, Y/N. Aren't you looking scrumptious!" You tried to squirm but found that you couldn't move. "U-Uzi, please! Don't kill me! I won't tell anyone what happened!" Uzi giggled her sinister giggle. "Oh don't worry, Y/N. I'm not going to kill you. I'm just going to hold you very very close. It won't hurt, I promise." Uzi then tilted her head back and lifted you above it. "Try not to squirm too hard in there, Y/N." Uzi opened her mouth revealing razor-sharp teeth and a purple glow in the back of her throat.

Before you could scream Uzi dropped you inside. You barely had time to register when Uzi swallowed you whole with a loud gulp. You felt Uzi's throat constricting you as it pulled you down. As much as you wanted to scream, you couldn't. You felt yourself get squeezed into her stomach. You sat there unmoving before flipping yourself over.

"It is kinda nice in here." You mumble to yourself. The surfaces of Uzi's stomach felt like a warm bed. Uzi's stomach moved and squeezed around you like a massage. You felt your muscles and joints ease as you settled in. Uzi's mechanical heartbeat above you and her stomach gurgled softly in a lullaby. You felt yourself slowly fall asleep. The last thing you heard was Uzi saying, "Sweet dreams little snack!"

Memory End:

Well, that explained a lot. You check the time with your internal clock. 10:30 A.M. "Well she certainly kept her word about this being safe," you thought to yourself. You tumble backward as the gravity in your world shifts as Uzi sits up and yawns.

"Ugh. Morning again. At least no one's around. As much as I want Y/N to be here. I bet their cuddles would be world-class." Uzi stood up and walked around. You smirked and tried to stifle a laugh. "I can't help but feel like I'm forgetting something."

You then get a bright idea and put all your effort into pushing outwards. Uzi froze feeling something in her stomach moving. She looked down in shock and placed a hand on her abdomen. "What the—" Uzi then blushed as she remembered the night before and how she ate you.

"Oh my robo-God, Y/N! How much did you hear?!" You begin to laugh out loud and stop pushing on Uzi's stomach. "Everything, Uzi, everything. And yes, my cuddles are world-class!" Uzi blushed and yelled, "Okay, Y/N! I was going to let you out, but now I don't wanna!" "Aww, please?" You playfully plead with her as she begins to walk to her bathroom to begin her day. "No." "Please?" No!" This goes on while Uzi brushes her teeth and puts on her clothes. She then walks back into her room.

"Pretty please with coal dust on top?"

Uzi stopped for a second before walking again. "Fine." You cheer before she continues, "Tomorrow."

"Aww, what?"

"Want to make it a week?"

"Fine. I'll wait for you to let me out." Uzi walks to her door and locks it. "Good. Now then, how about a dance party?"

[p5x-theories]

The female character with blonde hair and sun visor is named "Tamayo Yoshida"(吉田珠代), which is different from "Namie Komatsu," the woman with the orange hairband. *Pronunciation is provisional. The Kanji of the name her is almost the same as "jitianzhudai"(吉天珠代).She appears in the Motoha Corp Rank 9 event. (according to the stream #15 by よしぞう)

Oh, haha, I've been checking Yoshizou's streams every day for exactly stuff like this! You definitely beat me to watching it, though, I wasn't even awake when you sent this in.

I think he's probably right about Tamayo being her first name, though the last name's a lot harder to say (could be Kichida, Kitta, Yoshita, Yojida, Yotsuda, Raide, etc.). Still, that's a lot more info than we had yesterday, haha!

For anyone who hasn't been keeping up with his videos, here's what happens:

Looks like she shows up in the Rank 9 event sitting in the booth next to Wonder and Motoha's booth, overhears at least part of their conversation, and seems interested that this is Motoha Arai, so she follows them to the batting cage in Yongen-Jaya.

In the Rank 10 event, she sets up in one of the batting cages after Motoha's done, and hits three home runs in a row on "super difficult", which greatly impresses Motoha.

After, she comes over to Motoha and Wonder, and Motoha immediately compliments her. She says she's been working hard, and calls Motoha her "eternal rival", though Motoha doesn't seem to have any idea who she is.

She says of course Motoha wouldn't remember a "mediocre person" like herself, and introduces herself as Tamayo Yoshida (though this isn't voiced, so I can't confirm especially her last name, but I'll call her Tamayo because I have to call her something here), a member of the high school girls' baseball club. This name finally jogs Motoha's memory, which makes Tamayo grin.

Motoha's surprised Tamayo is still playing baseball, and Tamayo confirms she kept with it even after Motoha "retired". She "never imagined that her eternal rival would disappear from the pitcher's mound one day without a trace". But it's like an opportunity from a dream for her to see Motoha again, and she asks Motoha to help her. Motoha's confused again.

Tamayo says that she plays every day in the hopes of reviving women's professional baseball. Alone, her power is limited, but she thinks that if she's with Motoha, they could definitely...!

Motoha's glad to hear her say that, but says she can't help Tamayo like she is now. She couldn't even hit a home run like Tamayo just did. Tamayo isn't deterred in the least, and seems to be saying that's just because Motoha's rusty; she hasn't lost her "baseball genius" yet. As long as she trains hard, she'll become a "first-line" player! Motoha as a kid was good at both pitching and batting.

Motoha admits that's true, but that was in the past.

Tamayo then turns to Wonder.

She asks him who he is to Motoha, which gives Wonder three options: supervisor (?), friend, or boyfriend. Yoshizou picks "boyfriend", and Motoha says this isn't the time to joke around, clarifying they're friends, and Wonder is her current "coach" (which I believe is the premise of her Confidant). Tamayo says that, from what she's seen, as a coach, he "hasn't done many things well"? Motoha tries to defend Wonder, but Wonder's responses are either "Calm down" or "She's right".

Motoha refuses to back down, and demands Tamayo take back what she said. Tamayo says she's just stating the facts; if Motoha trains with Wonder, she'll never play baseball like she did before. She asks Motoha to join her team, with their first-class coach. Motoha doubles down that she can't help Tamayo, and that she's still bothered by what Tamayo said.

Tamayo finally gets annoyed, and challenges Motoha to home run match. If Motoha wins, Tamayo will take back what she said, but if Tamayo wins, then Motoha has to join her fight for women's professional baseball. Motoha, also still angry, agrees. Tamayo says whoever hits more home runs wins. Motoha just needs to call Tamayo whenever she's ready to face off.

They exchange contact information. Tamayo says she'll be waiting for the day Motoha joins her team, laughs, and leaves.

[andrewmoocow]

Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 24: Fragments (originally published on August 23, 2021)

AN: The end of the Alternate Future begins here! Or this story at least, I've got a few follow-ups planned after finishing this one, one of which I might set up here. But regardless, here we are at the end of Part 3 and from here on out, things will go downhill for our heroes & uphill for our villains. Can Steven be saved from both himself and Black Rutile? Who knows? Except for me that is, and a very select few as well. But I've had enough keeping you in suspense, let's get straight to the action.

Synopsis: Steven's condition gets worse and he seeks help from Jasper.

Cast:

Zach Callison as Steven

Estelle as Garnet

Michaela Dietz as Amethyst

Deedee Magno-Hall as Pearl

Kimberly Brooks as Jasper

Noël Wells as Black Rutile

Lauren Ash as White Topaz

Della Saba as Aquamarine

Charlyne Yi as Eyeball

Tom Scharpling as Greg

Uzo Aduba as Bismuth

Dee Bradley Baker as Lion

Ron Perlman as ?

--

"Hear me my followers and rejoice!" Black Rutile declared, with Aquamarine perched on her shoulder, as she recorded herself making a grand speech to her remaining minions in her cave lair. "Our day of revengeance is at hand! No more shall that sanctimonious half-breed tyrant enforce his iron-fisted rule over our people! Because despite claiming to be a pure-hearted child, recent intel has confirmed he is far from it."

As an example, Black Rutile played the footage of Steven crashing his father's van that her satellite had gathered. "Look at this absolutely abhorrent act." She stated. "What kind of child would ever dare murder their father without any rhyme or reason?"

"Actually, there have been a few throughout this planet's history that have done just that." White Topaz leaned into view to point out.

"SHUT IT TOPAZ!" Black Rutile angrily commanded before turning back to her viewers. "Anyways, soon he will be exposed as the monster he truly is, and with the army we have regrown from the colonies some of my subordinates have retaken, we shall lay siege to the tyrannical Crystal Gems and strike them at our weakest!"

"You sure about that my Rutile?" Black Rutile's Topaz bodyguard leaned back in, much to her master's anger. "'Cause I've gotten word from Cinnabar's faction that some of your former Black Pearls have formed, like, a little squadron to fight back against her."

"Can you not ruin my speech, you ignoramus?!" Black Rutile shoved her Topaz away. Just as she was about to make a grand conclusion to her speech, Black Rutile quickly declared "End transmission." and shut off the recording. "Now look what you did, I was making a motivational speech to my allies, but you had to keep getting in the way just like you always do!"

"Always?" White Topaz replied while making shadow puppets against the cave wall. "Look, I may spoil your plans some of the time, but your ego is just as much to blame the rest of the time."

"That is indeed true Topaz, but now I must ask," Black Rutile said. "what is with this attitude? Where's the overly polite idiot that always followed my orders without question, no matter how horrible they are?"

"I'm betting she's already having second thoughts about your plans." Aquamarine advised her superior.

"You mind if I," Eyeball suggested before making a slashing noise with her mouth and pulling her chisel from her gem. "put her to rest?"

"I'm being serious you guys!" White Topaz said. "The three of you may think you're Gems of the people, but I don't think Gems like those would ever hyperfocus on ruining the life of one person instead of just focusing on something healthier!"

"Like what, forcing ourselves to join those ingrates and deprive ourselves of our way of life in favor of becoming part of a hive-mind?" Black Rutile asked, menacingly pulling out her bowie knife to threaten her Topaz with. "I have been plotting against the Crystal Gems ever since Steven brainwashed the Diamonds, and I refuse to abandon those plans just because you don't like them! Now, are you going to be a good little bodyguard, or do you want to ditch your best friend in favor of the hypocrite?"

Although White Topaz showed tons of reluctance, she nervously got down on one knee and bowed her head to her three teammates. "No, my Rutile. I am at your beck and call, whenever you need me."

"Very good my Topaz." Black Rutile put away her knife to pat White Topaz on the head with an evil smile, before turning away to tap at her visor. "Now if we have nothing else to discuss, it seems the seeds of doubt I have planted in Steven's mind that fateful night have finally begun to grow." She stated before her visor created a holographic chessboard with pieces resembling herself & her minions on one side, and the Crystal Gems & the Diamonds on the other. "Now all we need is just one last push." On that last word, Black Rutile then spawned a chess piece resembling Jasper that she put squarely in the middle of the board.

--

Far from Black Rutile's lair in the woods, Steven and Greg had finally returned home to Beach City after a father-son outing that turned rather disastrous. Fortunately, the Crystal Gems were already home to be told of what happened and as Steven gazed out over the deck, Bismuth asked Greg what happened.

"So Steven just flew off the handle because of a song?" Bismuth asked while helping Greg put his van back together. "Frankly, I could think of weirder reasons to get angry."

"No, it wasn't because of the song." Greg admitted to the blacksmith. "It was because we drove off to my childhood home in Keystone and he learned that my upbringing wasn't too different from his mom's."

"I don't think you ever told anyone about when you were a kid." Bismuth replied.

"Not that I wanted to until now." Greg stated. "But after that crash, I don't think I ever want to bring them up again. Steven started ranting about how he wished the Gems never found Earth and he had a normal human life like I had."

"Whoa whoa whoa, where did all this come from?!" Bismuth yelled in alarm, raising her hands towards the former rock star.

"That's what I said!" Greg exclaimed before turning to his despondent son. "And now that I think about it, maybe he had good reason for those wishes after all he's been through."

Steven looked down in utter shame and regret before he walked back inside the beach house, clearly avoiding a chance to speak with his father about the incident.

--

As soon as Steven got inside, the other Crystal Gems were there to greet him, but the looks on their faces told Steven things weren't going to be good.

"Sit down on the couch Steven, we need to talk." Pearl commanded the son of her deceased lover, who did as he was told before Pearl began pacing around. "I just can't believe you, Steven! Crashing the van with Greg inside?! You know how fragile humans are, young man! These pink outbursts need to be dealt with!"

"It's not an outburst!" Steven yelled, briefly inflating himself as he turned pink.

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about!" Pearl exclaimed before Steven got back up and started walking away. "What is happening to you?!"

"It's nothing, just puberty, honest!" Steven cried as he struggled to keep his pink form at bay.

"Whoa no little dude, I've seen enough sitcoms to know that is not what puberty is like!" Amethyst declared. "Right, Garnet?"

"I can confirm, this is not regular puberty." Garnet nodded before Steven put up a literal wall between him and his guardians.

"Steven, drop the wall this instant!" Pearl ordered as she pressed against the pink, hexagonal dome.

"I'm sorry Pearl!" Steven gasped in apology before the wall disappeared. "I just need some space, okay? I'll be in my room." But as Steven walked upstairs, Amethyst rushed to keep him from going any further.

"Not so fast, my dude!" Amethyst declared. "You gotta tell us what's going on!"

"It seems like Steven wants to avoid a serious discussion altogether." Garnet analyzed.

"No, I'M NOT!" Steven yelled, dropping to his knees and pounding his fist on the stairs, creating a shockwave that shook the entire room.

"Steven, either you talk to us about what's going on, or you're grounded until you're able to explain." Garnet firmly declared.

"She's right man, you gotta chill!" Amethyst exclaimed.

"We need to do something about this before anyone else gets hurt!" Pearl stated as Steven continued struggling where he stood.

"Don't let these strange powers control you." Garnet tried desperately to calm the half-Gem down. "You're better than this."

"LEAVE ME ALOOONE!" Steven finally roared, causing a pink shockwave to burst from his body and seemingly force the Gems to move in slow motion. Or rather, he was moving faster than everyone else. "I'm speeding up again!" he muttered while gazing at his equally pink hands. "I gotta get out of here!"

Steven ran out of the house and far away from the Crystal Gems. There was barely anywhere he could go right now. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl kept enabling these strange new powers, yet Peridot, Lapis, and Bismuth probably barely knew what to do about things. Thus, there was only one Gem left he knew could help him in his time of need.

--

"The Gems tried to help me, but they just kept making things worse." Steven explained to Jasper later that night while the two sat around a campfire in front of her cave. "And that's why I refuse to go back."

"So what you're saying is," Jasper answered before dramatically removing the cloak she was wearing. "you want a rematch?!"

"What?! No!" Steven exclaimed. "I just told you why I came here in the first place. I think my Diamond powers are coming out, and I have no idea how to control them. I just want to be alone so I can't hurt anyone or be super toxic and controlling."

"So, you finally admitted it, eh?" Jasper rolled her eyes as she got up and walked away. "If you want to be alone, your definition of it is horribly wrong!"

"But Jasper, this is the last place anyone would look for me!" Steven explained before running after Jasper. "Wait, don't leave me here!" he begged the bigger Gem. "This thing with my powers is the real problem."

"The only problem you have is your friends." Jasper declared, much to Steven's confusion. "Just like how you keep holding everyone back, they're doing the same to you!"

"Are you sure?" Steven asked. "I definitely believe I'm getting them all worried."

"That's because they're afraid of you." Jasper responded. "And not just of your powers, but your control over others. And you are too! You came out here to hide, but I'm not one to hide myself. I don't need to hide my power or try to stifle it, I let everything out by training!"

"Like this forest?" Steven wondered, looking around the patch of destroyed trees he and Jasper have stumbled upon.

"Exactly." Jasper answered, walking up to a tree and making it fall over with a single punch. "And to control that power, I have to use it. Those so-called friends of yours don't understand because they always want to make you feel bad for being yourself!"

"Yeah, I do feel bad." Steven muttered to himself, gazing at his fist before walking over to punch another tree, turning pink as he landed a blow that created massive cracks on the bark and wounded his hand.

"Yeah, crush that weakling tree!" Jasper cheered Steven on.

"No!" Steven exclaimed before kissing the tree to fix the damage he did.

"Are you kidding me?! That's disgusting!" Jasper gagged at the sight when she looked down to discover that Steven's kiss caused some grass to grow around them. "No, the grass!" she yelled and rapidly pulled out the grass beneath her. "Get out of here!" Jasper then angrily turned to Steven and picked him up by the collar of his jacket. "Quit helping this planet's ecosystem and show me! Show me your power!"

Jasper harshly threw Steven to the ground, causing him to groan in pain. "No way Jasper!" Steven coughed as he got up from the toss. "I can handle myself!"

"Shut up!" Jasper yelled and lunged at Steven, who turned pink on reflex and created a barrier to defend himself from the Quartz's ruthless attack, but it proved ineffective as Jasper punched straight through it, causing Steven to fall to the ground. "This is it; this is all you were worried about?! What a rip-off!"

As Steven helped himself off the dirt, Jasper just kept on yelling. "I am way stronger than everyone you hold back and are holding you back in return!" she bellowed while pointing at Steven. "Because I'm not afraid of this, and you shouldn't be either!"

In response, Steven turned pink again and created another shield to launch at his opponent. "Yeah, that's more like it!" Jasper declared eagerly and prepared to defend herself, smashing the shield with just her arm. "Now tell me, was it good to let your anger out that way?"

"Y-yeah." Steven realized how good it felt to vent his rage on someone who could be a match for him, allowing Jasper to let out a loud laugh. "If I stay here, will you teach me how to control all this?"

"I won't teach you until you fight me!" Jasper refused the offer.

"Well, I won't fight you unless you teach me!" Steven replied.

"Ugh, fine!" Jasper groaned in resignation.

"Really?!" Steven smiled as he returned to his normal color.

"Here's lesson number one," Jasper responded. "No smiling."

"But I've seen you smile." Steven pointed out the goofy smile Jasper wore when he agreed to fight her not too long ago.

"Lesson two, shut up!" Jasper yelled before she kicked Steven into the air, and the boy landed far from where she could see him with a thud.

"Guess my training starts now." Steven declared to himself before he heard footsteps behind him and turned around to find who was behind him. "YOU!"

"Training with Jasper, Steven?" Black Rutile snickered disdainfully. "Wow kid, you're not just one Spinel, you're an entire circus of them!"

"What do you want with me now Black Rutile?" Steven asked his new archenemy as Black Rutile's three minions appeared behind her.

"We just came here to talk." Aquamarine answered. "As much as we would love to kidnap you and hold you for ransom, or maybe even kill you right here and now, we think hanging with a brute like her is much more fitting."

"Besides, we all know you'll just drive her away like you did to everyone else." Eyeball laughed. "Or maybe even something worse!"

"Look, what we're trying to say is that you should just give up now and get the help you really need." White Topaz cautioned Steven, unaware of how angry she made her teammates. "We only want what's best for you, so you won't get in the way of my Rutile's plan!"

"Are you seriously trying to help our enemy here?" Black Rutile growled with eyelids lowered at White Topaz. "I thought you were at my beck and call whenever I needed you!"

"If you're trying to ruin my life again, it won't work." Steven firmly declared as he got up to face the four insurgent Gems. "I know what you really are, Black Rutile. You're no hero to Homeworld, you're just a callous bully who will do anything to get her way."

"GROW UP STEVEN, GROW UP!" Black Rutile abruptly yelled at Steven's face. "Sociopath, hypocrite! Refusing to save a dying pet because of the natural order when he refuses to accept everyone is leaving him! Who's the real villain between us two, my boy, hm?"

"Still you." Steven remained resolute against the Rutile.

"You can't even begin to comprehend my current plans." Black Rutile replied just as resolutely. "Soon, everyone on this accursed rock will see you for the monster you truly are."

"Hey, where are you?!" Jasper bellowed from afar, and Black Rutile saw this as her cue to leave.

"Wouldn't want to keep a certain someone waiting." Black Rutile smirked. "But at least the three of us agree the Crystal Gems are the real problem."

"Aw, but I wanna turn Jasper against Steven too!" Eyeball complained. "Plus it would be an honor to see her in person again. The real deal, not an Amethyst shapeshifting into her."

"Oh, shut up, and let's get out of here." Aquamarine slapped her Ruby partner and dragged her away by the hand.

"Hey, no hard feelings kid?" White Topaz asked Steven, causing Black Rutile to slap her mouth shut.

"We'll see each other again Steven." Black Rutile declared. "But until then, I'll be watching you, just like I've always had since our last fight."

As the four rogue Gems left, Steven was left alone with his thoughts once more. And with those thoughts, a certain voice in his head re-emerged. "You know, she does raise a few good points."

"You again!" Steven said to the voice. "What do you want now? Are you another Gem working for Black Rutile?!"

"Well, kind of." The voice answered. "I'm not directly working for her, but it's thanks to her that I'm even speaking to you now. Remember that night while the Gems were out in Los Diego? She helped me grow."

"I thought so." Steven muttered in a moment of clarity. "But please, just leave me alone!"

"Maybe I'll just sit back and watch while you worry your so-called friends sick." The voice laughed deeply. "Don't you worry, we'll be seeing each other again very soon."

With that foreboding goodbye, the voice once again vanished from Steven's thoughts. Was it true, was that voice even haunting Steven because of what Black Rutile said to him? Or could it perhaps be even older than that?

"Are you dead or something?!" Jasper yelled for Steven. "Come back over here if you aren't, we got training to do tomorrow!"

"I'm coming!" Steven cried and raced back to Jasper's cave. As soon as he got there, Jasper threw her cloak at his face. "What was that for?"

"Think you might need this." Jasper stated while peering out from her cave. "Humans need to sleep, right?"

"Aw, you really do care for me." Steven blushed at the seemingly kind gesture, but Jasper just scoffed and retreated into the darkness of her home. Steven then just shrugged and laid down on the ground with the cloak covering him like a blanket, gazing up at the stars and wondering how the Crystal Gems must be doing.

--

The next morning, the Crystal Gems were now searching across Beach City for the missing Steven. Pearl had placed posters all over town while Greg helped Lion and Amethyst sniff around for him, but so far they found nothing that would help them.

"Whoa, easy Amethyst!" Greg yelled as he tugged on the leash of a purple-furred Dalmatian with an amethyst gemstone on her chest, which then turned into an exhausted Amethyst.

"We're getting nowhere with this!" Amethyst complained. "I mean, I learned how he could slow down time through Smoky Quartz, and even I don't have a clue!"

"I hope we find him soon, I'm getting worried." Pearl whimpered before she found Garnet walking up to them. "Anything from Little Homeworld, Garnet?"

"Nothing, Peridot and Lapis told me they didn't see Steven recently." Garnet answered. "However, Zuli said she did see a pink blur zoom past yesterday."

"That's the same one I saw with Bismuth while we were fixing the van!" Greg declared. "Could that be Steven?"

"It probably is." Pearl said before she began to break down into tears and hug Greg tightly. "I miss my baby!"

"We all do Pearl." Greg sniffed and returned the hug, followed by Garnet, Amethyst, and Lion joining in to comfort the Pearl. "We all do."

However, little did the Gems know, Steven was perfectly fine. But not the kind of fine they want him to be.

--

Far off in the woods, Steven had fallen fast asleep underneath the blanket Jasper had lent him. But his rest wouldn't last long as Jasper emerged from her cave and smashed a wall, shocking him awake.

"Rise and shine, your training begins today!" Jasper barked as she walked up to the half-Gem boy and picked him up by the neck. "Now tell me, what are you here for again?"

"Uh, to get a better control of my powers?" Steven answered.

"Not enough energy." Jasper shook her head in disdain. "Why don't we start with the only way you can talk to people?" she suggested and then cleared her throat. "So you're here because of your mother, kid? Well, whoop-de-doo!" the big Quartz began singing while circling Steven. "You still haven't realized more have suffered than just you! If you wanna get tougher kid, here's a tip. I got three little words for you: get a grip!"

"Shouldn't that apply to you too?" Steven asked his new mentor.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Jasper growled while walking towards some boulders and picked one up.

"I mean, you're stuck here because of me." Steven continued, much to Jasper's anger. "Not to mention closets full of-"

"Do you want my help or not?!" Jasper roared.

"Yes ma'am!" Steven nervously complied before Jasper threw him a boulder.

"That's better." Jasper grinned smugly as she hoisted up more boulders on her back and walked away. "Follow me."

--

"You've been through a lot brat, but let me say something about that." Jasper began singing again as Steven followed her up the mountain with boulders in hand. "As a veteran, I've seen far messier, you should've seen the Clash at the Theater."

"I don't think I've heard of that before." Steven stated while setting the boulders down nearby.

"Doesn't matter, just giving an example." Jasper replied as she dropped her boulders too. "Now come on, throw me some shields!" Steven nodded before he turned pink and summoned multiple barriers to unleash on Jasper, who managed to break through all of them. "The fusion's all high and mighty. Amethyst can be pretty flighty. And the Pearl, wow, she's nuts, you see! They all got experience, but none like mine!"

--

"Maybe when you're done, you'll be feeling just fine." The next day, Steven continued training via splitting logs in half on a stump, while Jasper demonstrated her superior strength by knocking down a tree with just a push. In the meantime, Black Rutile whispered something into Jasper's ear without her knowing the Rutile was even there.

--

"If you wanna get tougher kid, here's a tip." As night began to fall, Jasper challenged Steven to a race, her spin-dash against his pink form's speed. "I got three little words for you: get a grip! Ya hear me!"

"Yeah, those three little words are 'Get a Grip!'" Steven joined in on the song as he began catching up to Jasper.

"Now we're talking!" Jasper cheered triumphantly.

--

"No time for healing!" As the training went on to the day after that, Steven had grown slightly taller and more muscular, and even began growing a beard as he threw another barrier at Jasper. "Who needs feeling?!"

--

"You're still reeling?" Steven caught a fish in the river with a more polygonal bubble that he cooked up to eat, while Black Rutile loomed behind him with another lie to tell him. "Well, my tips are quite appealing! Let's say it again!"

--

"If you wanna get tougher kid, here's a tip." Steven and Jasper harmonized while clashing fists in a forest clearing. "I got three little words for you: get a grip!"

"Yes, for everything to go as planned, get a grip." Black Rutile muttered while watching the two train with an evil smile, eager to see how far Steven has come and how far he'll fall.

--

The next day, thunder began rumbling far from Steven, who knelt in front of a campfire with a more muscular body that made him as tall as Jasper and a wildly different hairstyle.

"I found more rocks!" Jasper called out to her student while tossing over some more rocks for him to train with. "You won't believe how hard it is to find a good rock around here, especially since we broke most of them."

"I'm done with rocks Jasper." Steven declared while getting up to face Jasper. "I'm finally ready. For our rematch." He then put out the fire behind him with one stomp, showing the other Gem how serious he was.

"Took you long enough!" Jasper cackled as she cracked her knuckles and prepared for her long-awaited round 2. "Then come on, show me what you got!"

Steven responded by creating another hexagonal shield to launch at Jasper. However, Jasper jumped over the shield and attempted to punch Steven, but suddenly, she got punched instead. As Steven let out a gasp, Jasper summoned her horned crash helmet and slammed it into Steven's head, sending him tumbling backwards into the ground.

"What are you holding back for Steven?!" Jasper yelled while the resulting smoke began to clear. "You think you can't take it, that I'm just going to coddle you the whole way through, just like the Gems?! You still want to go back to them?"

"No!" Steven coughed from the smoke.

"You still afraid to be strong?!" Jasper continued taunting her foe. "Are you dull?! ARE YOU PITIFUL?!"

"I AM NOT!" Steven bellowed out loud, causing a shockwave that knocked Jasper back, and nearly shook a certain Rutile from a tree she was hiding in as he lunged at Jasper with fury in his eyes.

"Is that all?!" Jasper cackled arrogantly, forcing Steven to create more barriers to strike at her with, which finally landed a hit on Jasper and slammed her into a tree. "That's more like it!"

Steven let out a sadistic giggle before he lunged again, far faster than normal as he started repeatedly punching Jasper while the two soared through the forest and into the air.

"Come on, come on!" Jasper beckoned Steven as their brawl took to the skies. "Show your master what you can really do!"

Steven's maniacal laughter grew louder and louder with each punch before kicking Jasper to the ground. "You were right Jasper!" he declared while summoning more shields to trap Jasper with before forming an even larger one in front of him. "I HAVE BEEN HOLDING BACK!"

With a murderous smile and white diamonds in his eyes, Steven made his barrier grow razor-sharp spikes before launching it at his captive opponent. And for the first time in what felt like ages, as the spiked shield rocketed towards her, Jasper felt one emotion that she barely showed to anyone else.

Pure, unadulterated terror.

What had she done?

--

The cloudy skies gave way to a loud thunderstorm as Black Rutile climbed up to the top of another tree to watch the outcome of the fight, and she was more than happy with what she was seeing.

"Bravo Steven, I never knew you had it in you!" Black Rutile clapped loud enough for Steven to hear as he returned to his senses to realize what he had just done. "If I hadn't planned for that, she would've made a great bodyguard!"

With tears and raindrops staining his face, Steven hid whatever he was hiding in his balled-up fist while glaring at Black Rutile before he raced back to Jasper's cave. When Black Rutile decided to climb down the tree, she was greeted by the nervous look on her Topaz's face. "So, who were you betting on to win?"

"I was betting on Steven to curb his problems more healthily, and you just kept stringing him along!" White Topaz accused her superior, but her accusations were shut down by a bowie knife pointed straight at her face. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! Would a shadow puppet make you feel better?!"

"No need." Black Rutile frowned, hiding behind the tree to watch as Steven, now wearing his jacket again, hid his fist in one of the pockets while running out of the woods. "Nothing makes me happier than seeing him squirm."

"Oh yeah, it's funny how pathetic he is." White Topaz laughed nervously in agreement. "Come on, let's head back to the cave. Don't wanna get wet."

"Indeed," Black Rutile agreed and strolled back to their lair with her arms behind her back. "wouldn't want anyone knowing what we did to him."

--

"I sent so many messages, but he hasn't replied!" Pearl fretted while pacing around the beach house as the storm continued. "Do you think he even had his phone when he ran away?! What if something horrible happened and it's all our fault because he wanted to stay away from us?! What if-" Pearl's panicking soon turned to hyperventilating as she curled up into a ball on the floor and began rocking back and forth when Amethyst stepped in to calm her down.

"Pearl, chill out!" Amethyst literally shook Pearl out of her traumatized state and picked her up off the floor. "Panting and sweating over everything won't bring Steven back! It's not like he's going to just barge in as soon as I finish talking!"

Just then, Steven finally returned home, much to the Crystal Gems' delight and worry. However, he had no time to tell them where he's been as he gunned for the bathroom.

"Steven, where have you been?!" Pearl cried out in fright for her surrogate son.

"No time to talk!" Steven exclaimed before ducking into the bathroom.

"Seriously man, we've been looking everywhere!" Amethyst added just as the door closed in front of her. "Hey, what was that in your hand?"

"Nothing important!" Steven replied, peeking out the door one last time before going back.

"The way he said that makes me get a bad feeling about this." Garnet declared ominously.

--

'This has been a horrible day.' Steven thought to himself while filling up the bathtub and snatching the three Diamond essence bottles from the mirror, taking a moment to find a dark shadow in the exact shape of his muscular self from earlier standing behind his reflection.

"I never knew you had it in you either." The shadow growled before Steven turned to dump all the Diamonds' essences in the bathwater and pulled his fist out of his pocket, unfolding it to reveal Jasper's shattered remains in his palms.

"Please work, you gotta work!" Steven muttered in total panic while piecing Jasper's broken gemstone the best he could and submerging it in the water. "Please Jasper, I'm sorry!" he began sobbing for the deceased Gem, his hot tears streaking against his face and dropping into the water.

"I'm sorry."

END OF PART 3: FRAGMENTED MIND

TO BE CONCLUDED IN PART 4: WE WILL ALWAYS BE YOUR FAMILY

--

Wow. Great googly moogly, it's all gone to shit, just the kind of shit that Black Rutile likes. Is Jasper truly gone? Okay, definitely not since next chapter after the break will be Homeworld Bound. Has Black Rutile won? Maybe. Will the voice in Steven's head take the wheel? Who knows? Find out on the epic final part of Steven Universe: Alternate Future, to perhaps begin after the usual two-month hiatus. Or maybe I should go for a shorter hiatus this time. Or maybe longer? What do you guys think? I mean, by the time I publish this, I'll be getting ready for sophomore year of college so my time will most definitely be filled up. But regardless, there are now only eight chapters left of laughs, tears and adrenaline rush, so don't even try to miss the next arc! Okay, peace!

[themilky-way]

like water {din djarin}

gif credit: no-droids

pairing: the mandalorian/din djarin x fem!reader

summary: when the one person he cares about is threatened, he lets himself indulge in the aftermath of defending them. 

warnings: some violence in the beginning, choking (not in the fun way), depictions of scratches, punches, and minor abrasions; the reader is hurt basically. oh and mando’s gun bc yeah❤️umm that’s it i think? nothing too horrible tho but if this thing triggers you, please don’t read !!

author’s note: not to be conceited or anything (is that even the right word for it lol?) but im super proud of how this turned out! requests are open btw for anyone who wishes to submit anything (if unsure, just ask which fandoms)!

----------

cyar’ika-> darling, sweetheart

nothing in that exact moment had made much sense. one minute the most precious thing to ever exist to him was snatched away, and the next his hands were gripping the treasure beneath his holster. his knuckles were lily-white at this point, holding the gun as hard as his body would allow him to without crushing underneath him, and the urge to cock it made him visibly shake. he’d been given a command, and out of all the merciless men in the filthy galaxy, he needed to follow it, so his weapon of preference stayed where it needed to. 

the meager specks of emotion that still lived within him betrayed his prominent composure, the view in front of him blocked by the sudden glaze of his eyes. the small drops of saltwater puddled together in his now hazy orbs, holding on until it was nearly impossible to stay put and then rivered down his cheeks. the cause? well, you.

you were filling up the mandalorian’s line of vision, his eyes darting between you and the bounty that had gone wrong. an alienated hand was wrapped around your innocent throat, your feeble hands wrapped around its wrist in a dumb attempt to break free. the ground you were roaming on before appeared to be never ending, and in the same way, the darkened sky absorbed you whole. vertigo was now in full effect; any quick movement caused you to shut your eyes tightly and hope to the maker you’d get through it. it took a few seconds for you to regain your balance, a sharp pain pinging around your neck forcing you to find it. you half expected to be back on the mud again, to have the man you had spent the past year flying around with pulling you to safety. instead, you found din frozen in place, an instinctive action rooted in the steel handle of his pistol. he wasn’t moving, too scared to blink as if you’d disappear if he did. 

perhaps you were; someone like you seemed too good to be true. in all actuality, it may be that you were a fever dream, a celestial that had come down from the sanctity of your home to finally rescue him from his burdens. amidst his frantic glances, he reminisced every second he’d spent with you since your unforeseen arrival, and that somehow worked for him. the gears in his brain started to turn again, and with every ounce of his strength, he pounced on the quarry and did what he should’ve done the instant you were taken from him. anger took over his worry, the effects illustrating themselves in a collage of mitted fists and blood. the pistol residing on din’s waist was useless compared to his hits; the softened position of his jawbone was locked firmly as a result of his gritted teeth and he was going to need more than your delicate hand on his shoulders to ground his senses. 

the mandalorian never expected to succumb to anyone, nor to feel remotely joyful upon hearing someone’s laugh. the idea of kindling a relationship was ludicrous, utterly impossible if only he weren’t bound to the chains of his creed. oftentimes, he wondered if someone would one day traverse his path and make him question every moral he’d been taught. din had dismissed the thought, as any other member of his intricate society would have, but the wondrous insight depicting a different lifestyle always lingered faintly in his mind. 

today, the very same visions behind his recurrent insomnia framed themselves in a frail art piece. din’s focus laid directly ahead, the fingers navigating the center controls as tight as they’d been on his gun. his eyes deserved to rest, perhaps take in the splashes of color nature was offering him, but he landed them on the same lovely sculpture adorning his cockpit. 

you were seated in the chair adjacent from the pilot’s, with your knees closely tucked to your chest. one large scrape designed itself on your leg-a dull reminder of the ordeal you were involved in hours earlier-with flakes of arid blood protecting the wound. bouncing off the skin of your throat were shades of red and purple, now properly mixing into a deeper complexion that’d require you to hide it for some time. besides the scattered nicks living on your face, and the other couple dozen on your arms and legs, the outcome wasn’t as terrible as the one your attacker received. it was a rule of thumb to not mess with a mandalorian, much less with the pretty little lady clutching his arm as if it were second nature. the foolest of fools wouldn’t even have done such a foul thing, and this particular creature came to know the punishment for harming what wasn’t rightfully his. 

it truly amazed him; the way you seemed to be so unphased by a traumatic circumstance. the woman beside him-the same one who couldn’t sleep unless a window was open-had endured pain, and the marks on her skin proved themselves in jagged indications of it. through the darkened screen of his visor, din could make out your hands neatly intertwined around your folded knees, your chin simultaneously resting on top. you’d been as observant as you always were, hardly missing his actions as he navigated his newfound family to a safe stop. sure, you were unaware of the loving term he considered of you and the baby, but it didn’t hurt to keep it a secret, right?

“hey.” it came out more hoarse than he intended it to, but the emotion behind it flowed out nonetheless. “you okay?”

not really. i don’t feel good. it was easy to say exactly that, to speak the truth, but it was even easier to lie. for the sake of his own worry, at most. your eyes were still glued to his armor, taking in the rough outline of where you imagined his skin would be underneath, or moreso the abstract idea of feeling it with your hands. reflections of your yearning came and went like the mandalorian’s missions, almost impulsively at times, and the curious, teasing tilts his helmet would bid you only encouraged that craving. much like now; the black “T” of his expressionless face leaned to the side, asking you to earnestly respond. “mm, yeah. ‘m kinda tired, though,” you mumbled.

you threw him a lie and he caught it. “don’t lie to me.” din swiveled his chair to accordingly match the peripheral of yours, his elbows coming to rest on top of his beskar-clad legs. “can you look at me?” he inquired softly. then, his intent fell on the slow shift of your head and how it turned to face him, your cheek settling on your unscathed knee. a breath fell from his lips at the doting admiration swimming in your stare. “there she is,” he confirmed with an upward curl of his lips. “is there anything i can do?” it was sincere; a genuine concern to accompany his question. you hummed in response, fearful to accidentally voice the confessions you hid from him. you blinked once, twice, until his question became a plea. “please, cyar’ika.”

reasonably, you were too busy exploring the shape of his helmet, permitting your creative imagination to paint images of the man next to you; so when your ears perceived his sudden name of endearment, there was nothing amongst the stars that you could’ve possibly denied him from. “you’ve never called me that before,” you smiled, all big and brilliant. 

“i’ve wanted to,” the man replied. what resembled ages of pent up stress released with a few curated words. his muscles relaxed, something he never believed to be attainable given his vigorous profession. “god, i’ve wanted to.” 

he followed it with a humble laugh. a sound so familiar and warm, so genuine that it empowered your grin to spread higher. “by all means, keep saying it.” now it was your turn to nervously giggle, and him who embraced the noise with everything he could. a mutual infatuation, so wonderfully obvious, yet it was refused acknowledgment. “i think there is something you can do, though.” silence advised you to continue, “can i sleep with you tonight?” 

the misguided pieces of your minds’, maybe even your souls’, reattached themselves that very same night. as the both of you slept, hands, calloused and smooth, intimately merged against the cushions of the warrior’s bed. tender kisses planted to your forehead left electricity in their wake, and the dark ambiance of his dwelling favored the entanglement of your tired bodies. 

“i wish i could see you, din,” you sighed. the manner in which it was expressed, full of sleep and everything akin, urged him to lift your weightless wrist to his lips. 

“you’ll get to one day, cyar’ika. for now just let me hold you, yeah?”

[kitkatfat15]

(WIP) Avengers Among Us Fanfic

My Avengers Among Us fanfic so far. It is still a work in progress and I would appreciate feed back on it. That being said, please do not copy my work in any way. If you are inspired by it and want to make something similar, totally fine. Just... Don’t steal my story. Also, IronStrange is my endgame for this.

Red- Tony Stark...

Blue- Stephen Strange, Peter Parker...

Orange- Natasha...

White-Steve Rogers...

Grey- Bucky Barnes...

Black- Aldrich Killian

Tan-Obadiah Stane...

Cyan- Wanda Maximoff...

Yellow- Clint Barton…

Green- Bruce Banner...X

Pink- Maria hill

Purple- Maya Hansen...X

Brown-Fury

Lime- Betty Ross…

——

Room 1- Orange, Yellow, Green

Room 2- lime, cyan, purple

Room 3- White, Grey, Tan

Room 4- Blue, Blue, Red

Room 5-Black, Pink, Brown

———

Tony leaned against the wall and stared at his new crew mates. He looked around and caught Killian’s eyes. He scowled. He hates that guy. Maybe this time he can push his murders on him and convince the crew to vote him out. 

Obie looked at him and nodded. Tony shuddered. He couldn’t stand that guy either. They had gone on a mission a while ago and Obadiah tried to blame everything on him. Luckily he had an alibi, but still. 

A kid in a blue suit came bounding over towards him. “It’s amazing, isn’t it.” He said. Tony nodded in  agreement. “It is, kid. It is.” Tony hummed. “So, what’s a kid like you doing on a ship like this?”

The kid smiled. “Me and my dad are heading towards Alpha Six. He has some friends over there. We’re going to be staying with them for a few weeks. Oh! I never introduced myself! I’m Peter Parker.” Peter held out a hand and Tony accepted it. ‘Poor kid.’ He thinks, ‘Probably never going to make it there.’ Tony winces.

“I’m Tony.” Tony can tell the kid is smiling behind his visor. “Well it’s been nice to meet you Mr. Tony, but I have to get back to my dad.” The kid waves goodbye and walks back over to the person in the other blue suit.

The guy in the white suit calls everyone around. “Hello everybody, my name is Steve and I am the captain of this ship. We should be reaching our first destination, Alpha four, in around 10 days. I assume you're all tired, so I’ll show you to your quarters. There's three a room.” The captain leads the crew, and the three imposters, to a door. When he opened it there was a small common room with a few doors on the wall. Next to each door there was a holographic screen with names.

“The room with your name on it is yours.” The crew went around looking for their rooms. Tony spotted his and hummed. Looks like he’s staying with the two blues, Peter and his dad, Stephen Strange. In the room there was a storage area for bags, three small beds, and a vent on the floor. ‘Perfect.’ Tony thought. ‘Time to get settled in.’

——————

Peter was so excited. He had been on the ship for a day now and everything was so cool! He only has a few daily tasks, since he was so young. But that was okay. He was just glad to help. Peter hummed a little tune as he walked into admin and pulled out his swipe card. He quickly swiped the card and left the room, heading towards O2 so he could clear out the O2 filter. He passed Mr. Tony on his way down, and waved hello. 

Peter got in the room and pushed the leaves out of the vent. He wondered how the leaves got in there in the first place. He shrugged and looked at his watch. It was time to meet his dad. He passed a few people on his way there. They all seemed friendly enough though. He entered the cafeteria and found his father downloading documents. “Hey dad!”

“Hey Pete.” His dad mummers. Peter was confused. His dad has been acting really odd lately. Ever since he had done the download yesterday. Peter shrugged. It was probably nothing to worry about. Suddenly both of their comms beeped and flashed red. It said to meet everyone at the cafeteria table with the red button. His dad sighed and cancelled to download. They both walked over and sat at the table. 

———-

When Tony got the message he knew one of them had been busy. He quickly stood up from where he had been sitting in storage and walked towards the cafeteria. When he got there only Cyan, Yellow, Green, and Purple were missing. He pulled out the open seat next to Peter and sat down. Pretty soon Cyan, Yellow, and Green showed up. 

The captain, white, put his helmet in his hands. “Maya Hansen was found dead in Communications. We are unsure of who did it, but one thing we know now is that there is at least one imposter on this ship.” Tony felt Peter tense up next to him. Peter raised his hand. “Yes Peter?” White asked. “What is an imposter and what do you mean by at least one?” Tony heard his voice crack a bit and could see tears in the kids eyes. Probably the first murder he’s ever been in contact with. For some reason that made Tony’s stomach clench at the thought. 

White sighed. “An imposter is an alien who looks human, but isn’t. They have tentacles, are super strong, and can see in the dark. Those are the only confirmed signs of an imposter. The reason I said at least one, is they like to travel in pairs or groups.” Steve ranked his eyes along everyone at the table. “S-so Ms. Maya’s murderer is sitting here with us at the table right now?” White nodded grimly. Tony felt Peter start to tremble besides him. 

“Now, where was everyone right now?” They went around in a circle telling everyone where they were and what they were doing until it got to Tony. “I was getting gasoline for the reactor.” Peter nodded. “It’s true, I saw him on my way to O2 to clean out the filter. Before that I went to admin to swipe my card. And after cleaning the filter I went to find my dad and help with downloads.” Tony was surprised. Why was this kid covering for him? He should be scared out of his wits.

Tony watched him out of the corner of his eye and noticed the kid was shaking. ‘I think he might be scared out of his wits after all.’ He thought to himself. White nodded at Peter, accepting his answer. After the rest had told where they were white decided they should vote for who they think did it. Everyone skipped, there was no solid proof. Well, except for the traces of blood on Killian's suit, but they couldn’t see or smell that.

After everyone voted, the meeting ended and Tony walked up to bigger blue, Stephen. “Hey, your name’s Stephen, right?” He asked. Stephen nodded warily. “Do you mind if I stay with you guys? I don’t feel safe traveling around on my own.” Stephen looked at Peter who was giving him a thumbs up. “Fine. You can stay with us.” Tony smiled beneath his visor. “Let’s get to work.” 

————-

Tony smiled as Peter rambled on about the wires he was working on. He had been with Peter and Stephen for around 2 days now, and they had reached an agreement. When Stephen wasn’t with them, Tony watched and protected Peter. It was a good thing too because Tony had seen Killian slinking around, trying to find another victim. 

“Hey Tony?” Peter caught his attention. “Yeah kid?” Peter fiddled with the wires, thinking about what to say. “Do… Do you think whoever killed Ms. Maya is going to kill someone else? Do you think we’re safe?” Tony felt a weight settle at the bottom of his stomach. He was one of the imposters. He had killed people before. People like Peter and Stephen. Tony shook those thoughts off. “Kid, I honestly don’t know. But one thing I do know is that we’re safe if we stay together.” It was true. Tony has grown fond of Peter and his father. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt them. Peter smiled weakly from behind his visor. “I’m sure you’re right Tony.” He went back to working on the wires.

Tony took a deep breath and steeled his resolve. He had to kill someone soon. If he didn’t the others might be suspicious. He caught a glimpse of Cyan passing the door. He noticed no one was with her. He would get her tonight, while everyone was sleeping and no one, not Peter or Stephen would be any the wiser.

——-

After everyone had gone to bed and all was still, Tony quietly got out of bed and creaked open the vent, slipping inside nimbly. It was a bigger vent and therefore easy to crawl through. He took a left and was now under a vent cover. He slowly pushed the cover and pulled himself up. Cyan and lime were sleeping soundly. Hansen was their other roommate, but she was dead. 

Tony slipped the knife out of his suit and stood above cyan, posed to strike. As he was about to slash down and end the girl, he thought of Peters trusting eyes and Stephens happy smile as he made a joke. He lowered the knife. He would do it tomorrow he decided. He slipped back into the vent, back to his own room. Both Peter and Stephen were still asleep. He slowly closed the vent and slipped under his covers.

————-

Peter was slightly suspicious, but mostly he was just scared. Last night he woke up when he heard a bang. When he looked over, his dad was still asleep, but Tony was gone. He didn’t think anything of it. He probably had to use the bathroom, no big deal. As he was almost asleep, he heard another bang and saw someone exit the vent and crawl into the bed next to his dad’s. Peter had fallen back asleep before anything else had happened. But now he was scared. Was Tony one of the imposters? He… He couldn’t be. Tony would never hurt Peter. Then why did Peter see him exit the vents? Peter knew he should call an emergency meeting and tell everybody what he had seen, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Peter was broken out of his thoughts by a loud rumble. He realised it was his stomach. He blushed and Tony chuckled. “Hey kid, do you wanna go find your dad and get some lunch?” Peter nodded, still bright red. He shut the wire panel and followed Tony to communications, where his dad was. When they got just around the corner they saw Tan outside of the door, about to go in. Tony cleared his throat and the man spun around, shoving something metallic in his suit pocket. 

———-

When Tony had seen him there his heart had almost leapt out of his chest. He cleared his throat and Obadiah spun around, shoving a knife in his pocket. Tony gave him a teeth filled grin. “Hey, Obie! What are you doing here?” He said with false cheer. He heard Stephen get up and walk out of the room. He looked at Obadiah in confusion. “Hey Stephen, we were just looking for you! Peter was getting hungry.” Stephen glanced at Obie out of the corner of his eye. “Let’s get going.” He said. As they were walking away, Tony felt Obie’s sharp glare on his back. He put his arm around Peter, shielding him from Obadiah's glare.

After they ate lunch they stayed together for their tasks. Tony Insisted on it. He didn’t want either of the other imposters to get any ideas. That night when both Peter and Stephen were asleep, Tony heard someone clanking in the vents. Tony reaches over to a pile of his stuff and pulled out a gun. He put his finger on the trigger and held down enough for it to emit a slight whirring sound. The person in the vents went the other way. Tony didn’t sleep that night and the next morning Green was found dead in his room by his roommates Yellow and Orange.

———

Peter sat close to his Father and Tony during the meeting. Mr Bruce had died last night. Anyone could have done it. Peter knew for a fact that Tony hadn’t slept last night due to the dark circles under his eyes. Peter had also spotted a gun almost fully hidden under some clothes in their room. But that was crazy. Tony couldn’t have killed Mr. Bruce. Peter knew that he had been found with his neck snapped, not with a gun wound. ‘Importers are strong. Tony still could have done it.’ A traitorous voice whispers to him. The sound of Ms. Betty’s sobs break him out of his thoughts. Peter knew Mr. Bruce and Ms. Betty were dating. He felt bad for her.

Ms. Wanda was comforting Ms. Betty. Everybody but Ms. Wanda and Ms. Betty skipped voting. Peter didn’t know who they voted for, but it wasn’t enough to get anyone thrown out of the ship. It took everyone longer to do their tasks because no one wanted to be alone. Peter caught Tony watching Mr. Killian and Mr Stane. Peter didn’t trust those two anymore, not since he had seen an almost invisible stain on Mr. Killian’s suit and the knife Mr. Obadiah had tried to hide from him and Tony. If they hadn’t gotten there, who knows what would have happened to his dad. 

———-

Later that day, when Tony had left Peter and Stephen to use the bathroom, he was cornered. He heard the door slam shut and someone grabbed him from behind with black tentacles. Killian. Tony grabbed his knife and slashed downwards, spilling black blood. The tentacles released him and he was forced to dodge as a power blast went right by him. He grabbed his gun and shot at Killian. He knew he got a good shot in due to the inhuman shriek that he released. Killian went down the vent and Tony was left shaking. Oh god. Killian had almost killed him. He holstered his gun and picked back up the black stained knife. He wasn’t safe anymore. He had to get rid of Killian. He made a dash towards the cafeteria and hit the emergency meeting button. 

When everyone arrived he got straight to the point. “I was going to the bathroom when I saw Killian vent.” Silence. “When he saw me he attacked and I was forced to fight back. I grabbed his gun and shot him before he retreated.” They looked at the black blood on his suit and the badly hidden hole on Killian’s suit. “I believe him.” Peter said. “The day after Ms. Maya was killed, I saw something on Killian’s suit. I think it was blood, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want people to think I was suspicious.” There were Nods in agreement, while Killian sat there simmering in rage. After everyone had voted, white took out his dart gun and shot Killian. There was a horrible shriek and Killian released his tentacles, trying to kill one of them. Tony shoved Peter and Stephen behind him, trying to shield them, when Killian went down for the count, unconscious. White holstered his gun. “military grade sleep darts.” He said. 

Tony looked around. Peter was shaking in fright and being comforted by his dad, some of Pink’s suit had been torn away, and Yellow’s visor had been cracked. Tony watched as White and Grey dragged Killian to the airlock before turning back to Peter. “Are you okay?” The kid asked him. Tony gave a small smile. “Yeah I’m fine kid. Why don’t you go see if you can help yellow with his visor.” Peter shakily nodded and went to help yellow. Tony caught Stephen side eyeing him, before turning around to go help Peter. 

——- 

Peter pursed his lips as he put glue in the cracks of the visor. Peter was glad Tony was able to fight the imposter and report him, but that didn’t answer how. According to what Peter had heard, imposters were extremely fast and strong. So how did Tony manage to hurt then escape Killian? Peter was starting to think his guess that Tony was an importer was correct. He sighed and kept putting on glue. What would he do if Tony was an imposter? Could he bring himself to report the older man? Peter was brought out of his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder. It was Grey, Mr. Bucky. 

“Are you okay kid? I know it can be a lot to deal with, especially for a young teen like you.” Peter sighed and nodded. “I feel overwhelmed. I mean, what was supposed to be a peaceful journey has turned into a horror show. And to think that there are more imposters like him on the ship…” Peter shuddered at the thought. Mr. Bucky squeezed his shoulder comfortingly. “I’m sure everything will turn out alright kid, just, try to stay safe.” Peter nodded and Mr. Bucky left. 

[chaoticookie-autonomous]

Under Your Spell

Day 6 - AU

AU: Drive (2011 Film) with some of my own twists; Star Wars-verse(ish). No space magick, Jedi, or Sith. Pairing: Maul x Móni (OC) Rating: T Word Count: 2.5k

A/N: So... did a thing. Hope you enjoy :]

_________________________________________ 

A small window framed a dark location covered in smog and sweating buildings, often a flash of bright lights from speeders zooming past was about all the color that splashed onto the bleak picture. It was also the bedroom’s only view, the resident never bothering to cover up the gaping reminder of a life she had to force herself to wake up every morning to.

Durmónia tied her thick head of black curls on top her head, unable to pull back the stray strands over her forehead. She checked her dark features in the bathroom mirror and noted the black circles forming under her eyes--their sunset hues dimmed under the poor lighting. For a moment she considered hiding her weariness with some layers of make-up but decided it wasn’t worth the risk of being late.

Outside the room was the chattering voices of the holonews coming from a hologram displayed before a theelin teen in a hoverchair. He stared on without interest in what was being said, his thoughts far away from the drab apartment.

“Kyp,” Durmónia returned him to the present. “Want me to bring you something back from the diner?”

He angled his hoverchair to face her better, his blue eyes blinking slowly with a hardship no one his age should be allowed to carry.

“No. I’m okay. Betts is making something for me right now.”

Coming around the kitchen was a service droid on a single wheel holding a tall cup that gave off a whiff of fruit juices Durmónia was skeptical about.

“Where did you get those ingredients from?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” was its terse response before holding the smoothie’s straw to Kyp’s mouth.

With no time to argue, she gathered a double-breasted jacket with faded stains off a chair and slung a bag over her shoulder.

“Okay. I gotta go,” she pressed a kiss to Kyp’s lavender forehead then smacked Betts’ metal head. “We’re having a talk about stealing when I get back.”

Checking the chronometer, she cursed under her breath and sped down the hall of doors and glowing numbers to the lift at the end of it. The seconds it took to reach the garage floor, irritation igniting her nerves when it halted for other residents, was endless. At its final stop, she slivered her way out the moment the door spun open and sped walked to her landspeeder, passing the silent neighbor who was making their way to the lift.

His crown of ivory horns curved out prominently against the crimson skin where black tattoos marked every section of his bare skull, face, and neck. She glanced his way a moment and caught drops of golden amber peeking back at her as well.

+

A hand smacked a panel with buttons bent and faded from the number of times it had been pressed for an order ready at the window. Within the steam of food in the clamorous kitchen, a balosar female sigh in aggravation.

“Hey!” she pressed the panel several more times. “Get the kriffing food! Stupid droid…”

“Shysha, give them a second,” Durmónia came around and plated sizzling, charred meat. “Their processors are as old as some of the freeze packages of food still packed in the storeroom.”

“You know you can do better than work in some backwater diner, right?” Shysha rubbed one of her antennaepalps with discomfort from the oil spitting at them. “Only reason why this place is still open is because of you.”

“Yeah, well,” Durmónia finished sautéing a pan of multicolored vegetables and distributed them on several plates, “not easy to find work when you have an extensive criminal record you’ve been falsely accused of.”

“Thanks to that we got less shoot outs and bar fights in here.”

Durmónia broke into a laugh, “Is that the real reason why I’m being kept here?”

“Secret’s out.”

“And here I thought it was because of my charming personality.”

Shysha raised her brows, “Charming isn’t quite the word I would use to describe you.”

The order she had placed on the window was still being warmed under the heat-panel and slammed the panel prompter again.

“Droid!”

“I got it.”

Durmónia checked for the table number on the console and took the plate to the customer who had their blue hands patiently folded over their face. He moved aside his wide-brimmed hat to make space for the meal.

“Sorry, Bane,” she met the striking, red gaze meant to keep bystanders at bay. “It’s on the house.”

He waved a hand of indifference and spoke with grains in his throat and the support of his breathing tubes, “I’ll pay what needs to be paid.”

Unconvinced, she grinned at a proposition, “Ale on the house?”

“Two,” he agreed easily.

Durmónia squinted, “You didn’t sabotage our droid did you?”

“What gave you that idea?” he hid a coy smirk by taking a bite into his meal.

“I’m only allowing it this one time as a thank you for taking your bounty outside the restaurant and not shooting up the place the other day.”

“Much obliged, ma’am.”

Past the transparent pane that extended across the diner’s front face, a speeder bike parked alongside the other vehicles and a male with a horned helmet and a black, leather jacket swung off the seat.

“Is it our steel-legged regular?” Cad Bane observed. “What does the fellow order here anyways? Don’t think I’ve ever seen him eat.”

Durmónia followed the masked male, the neon lights of the diner’s sign reflecting off the visor.

“Tea.”

Bane hummed with mild interest and remained silent when the being with crimson skin removed his helmet and sat himself down.

“He’s a strange one.”

“You’re one to talk,” she scoffed. “You order the same thing every week too.”

“He wears the same jacket every night he comes here,” he explained. “New markings on it each time. New bruises. Carries no blaster. And he’s no bounty hunter. I would know.”

“That’s quite a study. You thinking of asking him out on a date?”

He released a grainy growl, “Get me my ale. Two of them.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Her eyes followed a droid hovering to the zabrak’s table and taking its order before returning to the kitchen where there was a single order on the console’s display.

“Same thing?” Shysha came up behind her.

“Same thing,” Durmónia confirmed.

+

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Three in the morning and her feet hurt from being on them all day without taking a single break, but her speeder decided to steam and made strange noises when she started it. She opened its hood and was engulfed with black fumes she waved and coughed at then stared at the coils, cylinders, and wires as if they were her greatest enemy.

“Okay,” she calmed herself and started to reach for the first thing Kyp had taught her from memory. But she yelped in pain at her burning fingers.

“Kriff!”

In the corner of her eye was a shadow looming beside her and on impulse slid her foot forward and brought a fist into an undercut that was stopped with ease by a leather bound hand.

Amber eyes gleamed with mild amusement at her hand in his, then fell away to the somber exterior she always saw on him in the sparse seconds of their silent interactions.

“Sorry!” she returned her hand. “Didn’t know—didn’t hear you. You’re so quiet.”

Durmónia cleared the nerves building in her throat at the proximity and catching the details of his tattoos for the first time; how well the designs accentuated his features.

“Do you require assistance?” his voice rumbled smoothly from his chest.

“Ah,” she rubbed her bare arm, the uniform discarded long ago to release the kitchen’s heat. “A bit. Not good with machines. They have a vendetta set out against me.”

“Let me take a look.”

“Oh, no. You don’t have to,” she held her hands up. “It’s really late and I can take the train home.”

Halfway through her protests he maneuvered his way to the speeder and dug his hands into the engine.

Durmónia scratched her head in thought, considering several times to push him out of the way and be more direct about it being alright to take the train. However, she lost herself in his tinkering, the knuckles moving under the fabric of his gloves in the low light of the neon sign which also reflected a helix earring.

“You need more light?”

“No. Almost finished.”

“That was fast.”

“A temporary fix to get you home. You will need to have it looked at.”

“I know someone who’s pretty savvy with this stuff. Keeps telling me to just get a new one.”

“It is...,” he faded as he straightened himself up, “not a good speeder.”

“The model?”

“This one specifically.”

“No need to be so harsh,” she patted the vehicle. “It’s been through some tough times.”

“Its time has ended.”

Durmónia barked a laugh, “Alright. Well…” What am I thinking? “To thank you for your troubles would you like to come over for tea? I have your favorite kind.”

He paused halfway to shutting the hood.

“I mean—,” spurts of panic elevated her heart rate and backtracked. “I mean, maybe not now. It’s super late and you probably have other things to do and I take stuff from the diner all the time, so I have a bunch of other stuff at home, not just that tea specifically. Plus, I don’t live alone and—”

“Now is fine,” he closed the lid then turned from her being able to see his face. “I will see you there.”

It wasn’t until he reached the speeder bike and placed on his helmet did Durmónia stumble into the driver’s seat and whirred the speeder’s repulsorlift to life.

+

The lift’s glowpanels flickered when they raised to their floor.

Durmónia softly chewed on her lower lip, taking in the disciplined posture of the being beside her who also stared intently ahead of them.

“I’m Móni.”

His rigid form softened, the shoulders dipping in just the slightest, and showed her a bit more than his profile.

“Maul.”

+

Steaming, black liquid poured through a strainer and into a cup, which was then set on the kitchen’s island that divided the living area. Durmónia did her best to not stare at the black diamonds on his knuckles when he grasped the beverage in his hands.

He didn’t take a seat, instead standing while he took a sip.

“How long you been on Coruscant?” she leaned back against the sink, steadying the quake in her legs.

“Several years.”

“So, only relatively new here in the building.”

“Yes,” his attention was taken away to subtle movements behind a closed room. “You live with a boy.”

She nodded to Kyp’s room, “Yeah, he’s been with me a year before you moved in.”

“Related?”

“Uh,” Durmónia shifted her weight with discomfort and decided to start cleaning the single cup Kyp drank his smoothie out of before she left. “No. I’m a friend of his father who’s in prison. Taking him in until he gets out.”

The cup striking the counter hit her ears louder than the running water, and from over her shoulder caught a scowl pouring into his cup. Before he could open his mouth to speak his apologies, she dropped the dishes and dried her hands on her pants.

“What do you do?”

This time, it seemed it was her turn asking the wrong questions when he searched for an answer to give off to the side.

“I am a contractor for a businessman,” he chose his words carefully.

“Oh,” Durmónia felt she had broached a taboo subject which pushed her curiosity. “What kind?”

Maul remained unmoving, a shadow of anger casting over his features; hardening his appearance into something wild.

Cad Bane’s warning echoed in her head, inciting her to scan the leather jacket that was frayed at the ends and had darkened splotches of carbon scoring. There was also a decolorization on his cheek bone she recognized from experience what the cause was.

He downed the remainder of the tea and gently set it aside.

“The kind that provides my services to those in need of it,” the helmet slid off the counter and under his arm. “You should rest.”

Before Durmónia could try to act like a good host and show him out, the area littered with articles of clothing she really should have put away when she woke that morning, Maul already had his finger to the door panel.

“Thank you for the drink.”

“Not a problem. Hard to pass on a free drink, right?” 

Maul inclined his head some, unable to hide the deep furrow of concern on his brow ridge. 

Not wanting to end the night on a sour note, Durmónia sucked in a deep breath.

“See you at the diner again?”

He stopped just past the doorframe and faced her.

Their similar height forced them to look directly at the other, a spark igniting in between the distance.

How long had she watched the unnamed zabrak? From the moment he moved-in to his constant appearance at the diner. Never eating, only taking the same order while staring past the customers and the muggy moisture that fogged Coruscant’s lower levels. Always deep in his world, never been seen with another or held any interactions with another lifeform, except when she caught his stray glances into the kitchens.

But now the mysterious rider had a name to the face, and he had become a reality she could possibly touch and not this unattainable being. And when the lines of his discomfort smoothed away, she melted into the kindness that rose on the corner of his lips.

“Yes.”

She watched him off, the joints of his cybernetics whirring past several doors down the hall, until he reached his apartment.

“Who was that?”

Durmónia jumped at Kyp hovering close behind her.

“A friend,” she recovered from the scare then gathered her clothes from the couch and chairs.

“That’s good.”

She faced the teen with a pile in her arms, “Good?”

“Yeah,” he maneuvered the hoverchair to the couch and motioned his eyes to the space behind it. “You haven’t hung out with anyone since I’ve been here.”

“That’s…,” a bra was recovered she thought had been lost forever. “It has been awhile.”

“Shouldn’t stop your social life on my account. Also, if you’re worried about how I feel about it because of Dad, don’t be. I know you two haven’t really been together for some time now.”

Durmónia spun on her heel, “Alright. What do you want?”

Kyp hovered back to his room, hiding his victory, “I get to bring a friend over too.”

“I never said you couldn’t bring him over.”

“Yeah, but,” he gave a dramatic sigh, “didn’t want to make you feel like a third wheel.”

“How considerate of you. Little monkey-lizard,” she paused at pulling out a pair of shorts from under the couch. “Wait a second. Maul isn’t that kind of friend.”

“Alright,” Kyp didn’t sound convinced. “Tell me that when you’re not actually cleaning the apartment you haven’t touched in months.”

She clicked her tongue at him and carried the high stack to her room, “Go to bed. And tell Betts I haven’t forgotten her recent escapades.”

“Night, Móni,” he chuckled.

Durmónia collapsed on her bed, breathing in the rush still thrumming in her veins from the encounter and hugged a pillow to bury her grin into.

Her grip loosened when she recounted Maul’s possible occupation, though. How it could affect her life. Kyp’s life. If it was something that should be pursued.

She undid her hair and massaged the scalp under the thick mass of curls from the main dilemma at hand. How she had been completely trapped under his spell.

_________________________________________

A/N: I will be writing Maul’s POV for the SWPOC week for coded characters of color. As for the story itself.. depending on how many notes the fic gets, may or may not continue with this.

Thanks for reading!

[orihime00sama]

FGO Part 2 Opening 2 Theories - Characters (2/2)

Fairy

If we go with a “what if Prototype” perspective, this fairy looks a lot like Manaka due to the seemingly short blonde hair, blue eyes and overall blue colour scheme. So it could be Manaka acting as someone’s vessel.

If we don’t go with that, this fairy could be Titania, as she looks quite regal.

Some think that she’s Morgan Le Fay, since Morgan has always been called “fairy princess” in Fate, with Tristan’s interlude being the more recent example. She’s also standing near a body of water, and Morgan is also a fairy of the lake (Salter’s profile describes her as Vivian’s dark counterpart). I don’t think that might be the case because she doesn’t really look that much like Morgan to me. There might be Lostbelt shenanigans involved that make her look different or maybe this is a different ascension or something, but in Apocrypha, Morgan’s hair was much straighter and paler.

A wild theory is that this fairy is actually Oberon, who is either just super pretty or maybe a genderbend. Something noteworthy about Oberon is that he’s usually is the son Morgan le Fay and Julius Caesar... Which is kinda weird due to the time periods they lived in but never mind that.

Someone pointed out that it looks like the fairy is missing a tooth...?

Blondie with Merlin’s staff

If we went with “what if Prototype”, this could easily be Proto Merlin. However, she looks very different from regular Merlin, which isn’t the case for almost every Prototype Servant, with Perseus being the sole exception (compare Proto to Hollow Ataraxia, both versions are datamined btw), even the ones who are different people like Artoria and Arthur. Honestly, if this does end up being Proto Merlin, I’ll be super disappointed because we got robbed of a fabulous fluffy female Merlin for another Saberface.

My two main ideas were that this could be either Vivian or Melissa.

Vivian, the Lady of the Lake, was Merlin’s apprentice and had some kind of relationship with him until things turned sour and she trapped in the Tower, so it would make sense for her to have a similar staff. Though, her outfit makes her look very young.

Melissa actually isn’t a pure Arthurian character, but she comes from Orlando Furioso, where she was the Paladins’ guide and helped Bradamante get to her hubby Rogero. Melissa came to mind because she was also Merlin’s apprentice and even watched over his tomb, so her relationship with him wasn’t as bad as with Vivian and it would justify her carrying a similar staff. Her outfit also reminds me a lot of Bradamante, who actually mentions being helped by “Merlin’s apprentice” in her lines and profile.

A wild theory is that she’s actually the awaited Caster Artoria due to the hair and the sword at her back. If Artoria took to magecraft and never became the king, then maybe that would explain how things ended so badly for the world of LB6.

Three Gals

These ones confuse me the most. The one in the middle I don't even know where to start, all I know is that armour gives me Saber Alter vibes and the visor seems to have a flower? They all have some form of headgear, but Morgan's crown is a lot bigger and more elaborate.

If we follow the idea that the blonde girl with Merlin's staff is Melissa, then the giant lady might be Marfisa (Rogero's badass twin sister who was separated from him at birth) and the girl with the half-crown might be Alcina (their story’s equivalent of Circe, something that the actual Circe mentions in her profile lines for the Paladins). Alcina in particular is interesting because she is Morgan's sister in Orlando Furioso. Together they were the evil sisters to Logistilla's good.

A very crazy theory is that they're all supposed to represent Morgan or maybe The Morrigan (maybe even both because Case Files brings up a connection between the two). The Morrigan are a triad while in Garden of Avalon, Sir Kay described Morgan as if she "had three women in her" due to how she changed. He mentioned her being "innocent like a fairy, then magnificent like a warrior maiden and then gaining the brutality of a witch."

In Case Files there was also a dagger called "Erosion" that had the ability to split the soul from the body and put it elsewhere. It was going to be used by the King Arthur Revival cult to remove Gray's soul from her body so she could become Artoria's vessel. That dagger belonged to Morgan, so it's possible she removed those different parts from herself and made them into homunculi bodies or something, assuming they weren't already split.

Knight

My first thought was Sir Kay. Sir Kay came to mind because I really want him in the game already. Okay, but on a serious note, thanks to Add in Case Files (Morgan modeled Add’s personality after Kay’s), Kay has a connection to Rhongomyniad, a major element teased for LB6. I’ve also seen some pictures comparing the top of the knight’s armour to the little peek we got at Kay, though it’s hard to tell because in the one shot we got, Kay’s right side had a tattoo while the knight only showed his left side. His hair also looks a lot more spiky and messier than Kay’s.

My second thought was Sir Percival, mostly because of the stabby spear weapon, and because as another candidate to the Grail Quest (confirmed by Gareth in her My Room line for the Grail), he’d be a good foil to Mr. “Not Appearing in this Opening” Galahad, who went out to for cigarettes ever since the events of the Temple of Time.

A wild theory would be Sir Galehaut, who in some stories was famous for being Arthur’s equal in power and only surrendered because he was really into Lancelot. Unfortunately, this epic bromance didn’t last both because Galehaut understood that Lancelot loved Guinevere and because Morgan was a jealous bitch who made Galehaut die of a broken heart after sending him fake news about Lancelot dying. The main thing that ties this knight to Galehaut is the fact that the knight looks like a big dude and Galehaut was half-giant. However, Galehaut is mentioned in Gareth’s profile as one of the knights she defeated, so it’s possible that they’re going for a different version of the story.

[gucciorchid]

Another incredibly self-indulgent AU snippet that nobody has asked for

HAHA I’m posting another GREAT GATSBY AU snippet. This is FOR ME, mostly. This whole AU just won’t leave me alone when I’m about to sleep or in shower so I really just have to get it out of my system. Ride it out, you know?? I’ll make a masterpost of this AU bc it’s super scattered atm just to make it easier for myself. 

So this is the part where Garrus’ Gatsby trick works and his big party actually brings Shepard in. This is his anticipation + reunion. 

The outline for this AU can be found here (though I’m slowly starting to deviate from it.. just a little) and the other snippets can be found here, and here. 

Anyway, here it is: 

Garrus’ eyes darted from his guest list to the window overlooking the only entrance of his party, matching the faces of his guests with the names on the list. He never relied on the list alone- he knew Shepard wouldn’t waltz in with her name on full display when the Alliance had such a tight leash on her information.

Even with Aria’s constant errands, raiding pirate and slaver ships, and overlooking the Archangel safe-zone, Garrus made time to personally look over the guest list, personally double and triple checking backgrounds of any new names. Even when nothing came up, Garrus sat in the topmost windowed room like this, matching the names with the faces, looking, hoping. 

Bray, Grizz, Jedore... His eyes flicked back and forth, curtly nodding to himself when he located the people in the list. Alice Gunn. Gunn? This wasn’t a name he was familiar with; he was sure his earlier scrutiny of his list didn’t yield a name like Alice Gunn, meaning the name was manually inputted, at the latest, this morning. His mandible flicked out as he ran the name through his extranet and through his background software. 

At a glance, Alice Gunn was an owner of a contract-brokering company; she brokered deals for indentured servants on Ilos and oversaw agreements between big corporations, especially ones on Noveria. But upon a closer look, she seemed to be the financial bank for several merc groups who profited off of red sand and arms deals. She had a mansion somewhere in the Terminus Systems, in the Hourglass Nebula. In short, she was a typical businesswoman who made extra cash on the side through illicit means. Typical guest at his party, almost cookie-cutter perfect. 

But this still didn’t explain why or how a candidate this perfect snuck their name on the guest list. A target this damn perfect shouldn’t have had to slip their name in in order to enter his party. His mandible flicked again and, carefully, with a practiced breath, brought down his excitement to workable levels.

His eyes were on his crowd again, scanning, his visor helpfully crossing out all the guests he checked off already. Gunn. Alice Gunn. Missing. Alive. His eyes zeroed in on a human woman with blonde hair, who had her back turned away from Garrus. Blonde, just like the picture, but how she walked across the floor as if she commanded the room, how she held her chin slightly up when talking to aliens taller than herself, how her smile didn’t reach her eyes- identical to Shepard’s smile in front of politicians and reporters- Garrus didn’t need to look twice. 

With his datapad tossed to his chair, he sped down as slowly as possible, as to not draw any attention to himself. Missing in Action. Alive. Missing. Alive. 

He didn’t bat an eye at Aria or any other guests; he didn’t stop even when he saw a major baterian red sand dealer flaunting a pistol on his hip in his unarmed event. The edges of his vision seemed to blur as he closed distance between him and Alice Gunn. He didn’t allow himself to label that woman as Shepard just yet, despite everything about that human woman screamed Shepard. 

He kept walking, even as Alice led another human man to his upper, more private area. He followed, though a little more discreetly, and waited for Gunn to close the door behind her before walking up to the door. 

If his impulse had his way, he would have let himself in right away. But, but. Two years is more than enough time to change and learn, and he learned early on, on one of his first first-alarms, that early precautions could save him from big disappointments. 

So. He waited. He waited for one of them to start making conversations, and as soon as he heard her speak, his shoulders tensed, and his mandibles fluttered. His hand reached and opened the door before he could school his face to be calm, and let the door close behind him. He opened his mouth to speak, but Shepard’s head quickly snapped to the door, to him, and beat him to the punch.

“Archangel?” She said mildly, though Garrus, who noticed and remembered Shepard’s little habits better than anyone else, heard the small bit of surprise Shepard couldn’t completely hide. 

“Gunn. Thought you might never make it to these parties. You declined every single time." 

"You know my line of work. I can't exactly spare a weekend on an asteroid to schmooze and drink fruity Thessian drinks.” She was grinning now, the genuine kind that left her eyes slightly squinted. “...But I thought I'd make an exception for this weekend. Now as much as I want to play catch up with you, I think this gentleman and I was in the middle of discussing something..." Her focuses shifted back from Garrus to the human she led in.

Now. Two year gap or not, Garrus knew Shepard; he knew the slight tensing of her shoulders when pursuing a kill, and he also knew that the look she was giving that human right now was going to end with that man’s body pumped full of thermal clips. That man was going to die here, and Shepard lured him to the perfect spot. Shepard glanced at him again, and he confirmed with a nod. 

She stepped closer, nonchalant, rambling about her exploits in Noveria and which firms held the most possible profits for the human. She smiled her thin-lipped, not-quite-reaching-her-eyes smile before emptying a thermal clip right between his eyes. What stood a human man, but what fell was an infiltrator bot with broken wires and currents sputtering out of the bullet hole. 

Out of his long guest of turians, asaris, baterians and even a couple of hanner, a bot was not one of them.

“I’m guessing this wasn’t supposed to happen, Shepard.”

“No Garrus, It wasn’t.” 

[herocentral]

Possible Hero 6

Evening folks Chapter 4 is here, sorry for the unfortunate delay I’ve been a little occupied with uni work. Plus I’ve been to see the Sonic the Hedgehog film, loved it loved the references and the action scenes, it defiantly deserves a sequel heck the games could learn from some aspects of it. Now without further delay heres chapter 4 of Possible Hero 6

I don't own the characters in this story this is just for fun! 

Kim Possible & Big Hero 6 (c) Disney, 2020

Chapter 4: Train up Hero style!

Things couldn’t be any worse for Big Hero 6 not only did their mystery villain thief AKA Shego escaped from them, twice and Momokase escaping as well with her intentions unknown. Now they return to Hiro’s garage to find Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable waiting for them, this could only mean one thing. 

“Hiro?” Hiro said but then coughed and straightened up. “Sorry Miss, uh Possible but I have no idea what your talking about.” He then acted. 

“Yeah, Ki.. uh, complete stranger who we have only met once at the…”

“Okay drop the poor acting Fred.” Kim said interrupting Fredzilla. 

“You, mean you…” Wasabi guessed. 

“Wasabi, Honey Lemon, Gogo, Fred Frederickson, Hiro Hamada and of course Baymax.” Kim pointed to each member of the team in a Batman like style which confirmed that she knew their secret identities. 

Everyone looked at each other in worry wondering what this could mean for the teams future. 

“Oh guys it’s so not the drama, your secrets safe with me.” Kim then assured. 

So one by one each member of BH6 removed their helmets/masks revealing their true identities and Honey Lemon put her glasses back on her face. 

“So how’d you know it was us?” Hiro asked. 

“Well for starters when I first saw Big Hero 6 and the tech they were using I could see that it looked a lot similar to each of your friends majors.” Kim began to explain. “Chemistry, mag lev suspension, laser induced plasma and of course Freds super hero theme all applied with the use of robotics, which with Hiro being a super genius could engineer.”

The team listened with interest and Ron as always was impressed by Kim’s deductive skills. 

“Plus when you told me that robot gauntlet was a souvenir from Alister Krei I could tell by your micro expressions that you were lying.” Hiro could only rub his neck in embarrassment as Gogo glared.

“And the final thing being, Tadashi’s death, his connection to the fire at SFIT and Professor Callaghan AKA Yokai. The fact being that Big Hero 6 appeared during his attack on Krei tech that day. Plus the coloured visors they’re terrible identity concealers.” Kim finished.

Everyone’s jaws dropped with amazement how could she have put together all the dots in such a way to find out their identities.

“Wow very impressive.” Gogo said with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah told you she could do anything.” Ron added.

“Yeah that and being the daughter of a rocket scientist and brain surgeon doesn’t hurt.” Kim then added. 

“But I’m surprised that you were obviously followed all the way here and didn’t even notice, you’ve got to work on your security training.” 

“Wow, we do need to keep our eyes open or we’ll be blind.” Said a drunk Baymax. 

“Uh is he okay?” Ron asked. “Uh yeah he’s just low on batteries.” Hiro explained. 

Soon Baymax was out of his armour and on his charging station recharging his batteries. He begins to reinflate as he recharges. Meanwhile the rest of the team talk things over with Team Possible. 

 “So, now that you know are you going to tell my aunt Cass about this?” Hiro asked with worry. 

“No I’m....” “it’s just if she ever found out about this she’d literally put me under house arrest she worries a lot like a lot and.” Hiro said interrupting Kim. 

“Hiro!” Kim said getting his attention. “I’m not going to tell anyone about your identities.” 

“Oh.” Hiro said. “Actually when I first heard about Big Hero 6 I started doing some research I’ve seen the work you’ve done to help people and I’m pretty impressed how you’ve handled supervillains and kept the city safe.” Kim explained.

“But I do want to know why you decided to become super heroes in the first place?” She then asked. “Yeah I mean every super hero has a cool origin story.” Ron added as Rufus nodded his head.

Hiro took his time to answer but knew that since Kim and Ron now knew who they were that it was time to share why they do what they do. 

“Tadashi.” Hiro said then turned his attention to Baymax. “Show them Baymax.” 

Baymax’s chest monitor then lit up and began showing his video logs of Hiro’s brother building Baymax. 

“This is Tadashi Hamada.” He said introducing himself. Kim and Ron looked at the screen as did the rest of the team. 

“And this is the first test of my robotics project.” Tadashi then said holding up a black board with the words test 1 on it and he began testing his invention. 

“Hello, I am Baymax.....” Suddenly Baymax’s voice generated feedback which nearly deafens Tadashi. 

“Stop, stop stop stop!” Tadashi said as he quickly shut Baymax off. 

Kim saw who exactly this was whilst Ron was all but puzzled. However he saw the looks on the faces of everyone watching the video and could see some of them were happy and nearly brought to tears by the sight of this. 

“So is that...” “Yeah that’s Tadashi.” Hiro answered Rons question. 

The footage then moved onto the next entry log of the tests. 

“The seventh test of my robotics project.” Tadashi announced. He then activated Baymax to test him again. 

“Hello, I am Baymax.” Baymax said but suddenly began punching Tadashi with his inflated hands his left hand then flew off like a balloon quite literally. 

Tadashi held onto Baymax to try and get him to stop. 

“Wait wait stop scan stop!” Tadashi exclaimed. 

The next log showed Tadashi was completely exhausted, with bags under his eyes completely sleep deprived. 

“Tadashi Hamada again, and this is the thirty third test of my robotics project. He then said tired out.

Suddenly there was a spark and it completely took out the lights in his lab rendering leaving him in complete darkness. 

Tadashi then shines a torch  and looks over his creation though he was looking doubtful of making it work he wasn’t one to quit. 

“I’m not giving up on you.” Tadashi sighed. “You don’t understand this yet but people need you, so let’s get back to work.” Tadashi said shutting down Baymax to begin testing again. 

Kim just looked at the video in awe, she knew that Hiro’s brother built Baymax but didn’t know he saw difficulties doing it he persisted not giving up. She had to admit she was starting to admire him. 

The footage then moved to the next log it was the afternoon and Tadashi was looking a little tired after working hard through the night. 

“This is Tadashi Hamada, and this is the 84th” Tadashi sighed before continuing. “Test, what do you say big guy?” 

Tadashi activates Baymax and waits for another fault. 

“Hello, I am Baymax your personal healthcare companion.” Baymax said. 

Tadashi could only look in complete shock and surprise to see that his creation was operational and working. 

“It works.” He breathed. “IT WORKS!” Tadashi then shouted. ‘This is amazing! You, you work!” He said kissing Baymax in joy dancing with delight and excitement. 

“I knew it I knew it I knew iiiit!” He squealed. “You work I can’t believe it!” 

Ron nudged Kim’s shoulder and saw that there was a lone tear running down Hiro’s face and they could tell that he missed his brother. 

“Alright, alright big moment here.” Tadashi said as he stepped back ready for the biggest test of all. 

“Scan me.” Tadashi said and Baymax did as he was asked. 

“Your Nero transmitter levels are elevated, this indicates that you are happy.” Baymax diagnosed. 

“I am I really am.” Tadashi said in joy. “Oh man, wait till my brother sees you, your going to help so many people buddy.” 

Honey Lemon hugged Gogo slightly whilst Wasabi put a hand on Fred’s shoulder. 

“So.. many, that’s all for now, I’m satisfied with my care.” Tadashi said with a smile. The recording then ended and there was a minute of silence before Hiro broke it. 

“He wanted to help a lot of people, he cared, that’s why he worked so hard to create Baymax.” Hiro said gesturing you his robot friend. 

“So you became superheroes to, honour his memory?” Ron asked. 

“Well it didn’t really start that way at first, we did this to just catch the guy responsible for his death.” Hiro explained as the rest of his friends came over. 

“But after we saved everyone at Krei tech then after I enrolled at SFIT and stopping an army of rouge Baymaxes.” Hiro said. Kim could see where this was going. 

“The last thing that Tadashi ever said to me was, someone has to help.” Hiro explained. “So, that’s what we decided to do.” 

“Yeah Tadashi was our best friend, in a way his dream lives in all of us.” Honey Lemon added. 

Kim couldn’t help but smile at what she’d just heard, she knew they had the best of intentions and couldn’t help but relate to that sure when she first started out she didn’t ask to be a hero but after saving a billionaire collector and many other things after that, she knew this was her path.

“I see, well I know you guys have the best of intentions but Shego isn’t like most villains you’ve faced.” Kim then said. 

“I thinks that’s pretty obvious.” Wasabi said with a raised eyebrow. 

“Yeah even with our tech we have no way to fight her.” Honey Lemon said. “Come on guys we can’t just give up!” Gogo argued. 

“Yeah didn’t stop us before won’t now!” Fred said standing dramatically. 

“With our current skills I calculate our chances 0.000” Baymax explained. “Baymax no need for the number crunching.” Hiro said.

The team could see they would need to do something to be able to handle the likes of Shego but Kim seemed confident about what to do in this situation. 

“No big guys we can handle Shego and Drakken just leave this to us.” Kim said. “Ron, Rufus let’s go.” 

“Right behind you KP.” Ron said Hiro was all but shocked to see they were going to stop Shego by themselves however they had been following the case too and they couldn’t just let this go after tonight. 

“Hold on!” Hiro said getting the duos attention. 

“We’re coming too.” Hiro said standing forward. 

“It’s okay guys we got this.” Ron assured. “No.” Hiro said with confidence. “We have to help, my brother would have.” 

“Besides San Fransokyo is our turf, we’re not going to stand by and let this green lady or her boss wreck it.” Gogo said. “So you’ll need our help, like it or not.” 

“Yeah.” Said the rest of the team. In response to that the teen hero could only smile in response. 

“Good, that was actually a test, to see how committed you were to what you do, and I’m happy to say you’ve passed.” Kim said. “We could use help navigating this city.” 

Hiro could only smile in pride and relief. “Oh yeah I’m sensing a super hero team up!” Fred said practically jumping up and down in excitement. 

“Okay geek cool your jets.” Gogo said. “Yeah we still need a plan to take on this Shego.” Wasabi agreed. 

“Well maybe it’s best if we first get our facts straight.” Hiro said gesturing to his board of all the locations that Shego has robbed over the past week. 

“Hiro, you are due to wake up in 2 hours, sleep is recommended.” Baymax said 

“I guess your right Baymax we’ll talk more in the morning.” Hiro agreed to which Kim nodded because even heroes need their sleep. 

Drakken’s lair

Meanwhile as San Fransokyo slept Drakken’s evil mind was at work using the equipment stolen he began assembling something in his lair. All the while his henchmen were moving the components into place. 

“Now thanks to those plans we stole from the Krei tech servers our plans are now moving into place.” Drakken said as he worked. “Soon the world shall know my name and tremble before my genius! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“So you’ve said the last 23 times Dr.D.” Shego said filing her nails. “Quiet Shego your harshing my mellow!” Drakken said harshly.

“Yeah yeah whatever.” Shego said when she continued to do her nails. Suddenly an alert sounded from her phone and she looked to see she had received an email, from an anonymous sender. She opened it only to reveal a strange monster symbol in purple on her phone and then. 

“Greetings, I have a proposition I’d like to discuss with you  Miss Shego, I’ve attached directions come alone.” Said a voice from the phone. The message then disappeared. 

Shego was very much surprised, how could someone know her contact details only Drakken knew that, but at the same time she wanted to know how someone could find her. There was only one way to find out.

The Water front San Fransokyo bay:

In the dark of the night fog surrounded San Fransokyo harbour all was quiet in the air soon a figure arrived at the waterfront she was wearing a dark green jacket brand new Club Banana. It was Shego, she had to admit she was a little skeptic about this meeting but was never the less curious. 

It wasn’t clear but she could make out a faint light in the dark it was neon purple and it looked like a thin one sided skull face. 

The fog cleared to reveal Obake standing in the fog. 

“I see you decided to come.” Obake said smirking. 

“Okay, you got my attention what do you want.” Shego demanded. 

“Oh I have been watching you for a while my dear, and I merely wanted to meet someone of great potential.” Obake said simply. 

“Watching me?” Shego asked. “Yes, ever since you and your employer Dr.Drakken arrived in the city.” Obake said. “And I must say the power you have has a lot of potential, potential such as that shouldn’t be wasted on an amateur like him, for you see there is no limit to the potential you have, I learned that from an old friend of mine long ago” Shego listened you what this stranger had to say and a small part of her couldn’t wonder if he was right. 

“ That is why when the opportunity arose I decided to test you’re potential against another with similar ambitions.” Obake then said.

“Wait you sent that ninja lady!” Shego said in surprise. “Yes you see in truth I had no interest with that hard drive, I merely sent her to test your abilities against her. However the arrival of Miss Possible and Big Hero 6 did complicate things it did prove how much potential you have.” Obake said. 

“You said you had a preposition for me, what’s that supposed to mean?” Shego asked. 

“Why to merely have you consider what I’ve said, and to provide you with the means to expand your potential.” Obake said as he stood aside to reveal a small black crate. Shego was all but curious at this point. 

“Consider this a gift.” Obake said as he walked away. 

“Oh and if and when this scheme of your employers goes awry, you’ll know how to find me.” Obake said as the left side of his face glowed and disappeared into the mist. 

Shego used her powers to give a light in the mist to look for the stranger but couldn’t find him all that was left was the small black crate that he left for her. Being curious she opened the crate and found something inside, something that intrigued her. 

The following morning

As the sun shon on a new morning in San Fransokyo Kim and Ron were making their way to the Lucky Cat Cafe. They entered the cafe to see Cass seeing to her customers. 

“Morning Cass.” Kim called. “Oh morning Kimmie” Cass greeted. “Please Cass call me Kim.” Kim insisted. “Oh sorry your mother still washes off on me, even after high school.” Cass said. 

“Right so is Hiro around?” Ron asked. ‘“Oh of course Ron he’s in his garage with Baymax Gogo and the others just recently got here.” Cass said. 

“Right thanks” Kim thanked as she walked through to the back. “So how do you handle being...” Kim quickly pulled Ron away before he could blurt out anything. 

In the garage, the team was gathered, Hiro was working at his computer whilst Baymax scanned Gogo. 

“Gogo, you appear to have fully recovered from your minor concussion.” Baymax said. 

“Thanks Baymax but I’ve taken worse falls than that.” Gogo thanked. 

“So guys is anyone but me excited for this super team up with Kim Possible!” Fred said bouncing round in excitement. 

“Fred calm down.” Wasabi said. “Yeah besides this is a collaboration.” Gogo said. “Yeah to take down a common enemy.” Fred said “classic super hero team up, just like the time Captain Fancy teamed up with another super hero to take down their arch foes who teamed up!” 

“You read Captain Fancy?” Called a voice and they turned to see Kim and Ron standing in the garage doorway. 

“Oh hey guys.” Honey Lemon greeted. “Glad you could make it.” Hiro said. 

“Now, let’s have the sitch about what Shego’s been doing in the city.” Kim said. 

Soon Hiro pulled out his large board from the back of his garage showing all the Krei tech facilities that Shego has hit over the past week. 

“Okay, over the last week Krei tech has had several break ins at their warehouses in the city and we’ve been tracking them.” Hiro explained. 

“Yeah and at each one different things were stolen tech pieces both cybernetic and mechatronics.” Gogo then explained. 

“At first we thought it might have been one of our enemies like maybe Momakaske or Yama.” Wasabi added. 

“But it was actually Shego, who’s been taking these items for Drakken.” Kim eventually surmised. 

“Yeah so what’s the deal with that blue skinned guy?” Fred asked. 

“Right best you guys know what your dealing with, but it’s best to late Wade snow you.” Kim said. 

“Who’s Wade?” Asked Honey Lemon. Then all of a sudden the holo computer near the front of the garage lit up showing Wade in his room at the computers. 

“That’s me” Wade said startling everyone. 

“Guys, this is Wade our resident super genius and our secret weapon.” Ron introduced. “Wade meet Big Hero 6” Ron then gestured to the team in the garage. 

“Dude!” Hiro panicked. “Guys relax Wade can keep a secret.” Kim assured chuckling. “Yeah plus Hiro, he’s a super genius like you and graduated college at 13.” Ron added. 

“All are true.” Wade said. “Well okay, I’m Hiro.” Hiro introduced. 

“Hello I am Baymax.” Baymax introduced with a wave. 

“That’s Gogo.” Hiro gestured and she just blew a bubble gum ball. “He’s Wasabi” “How you doing” Wasabi greeted. “That’s Honey Lemon.” “Hello there.” Honey Lemon greeted. 

“And I’m Fred” Fred said introducing himself. 

“Pleasure guys been reading up on you guys pretty impressive.” Wade complimented. 

“Okay Wade show them everything we have on Drakken and Shego.” Kim said. 

“Right showing files now.” Wade typed in some commands on his keyboard and showed files on Drakken and Shego. 

“Well as you guys have probably guessed Shego is an ex superhero gone rouge, and she works with Dr. Drakken.” Kim explained. “Drakken is your typical mad scientist who wants to conquer the world, he never does though. His real name is Drew Lipsky he was once a friend of my Dad in college.”

“Wait he was a friend of your dads!” Hiro said in surprise. 

“Oh.. a twist I’m liking this origin story more and more.” Fred said sitting down on a chair. Gogo just nudged him. 

“Yeah but he dropped out when he couldn’t build a good robot and his friends laughed at him.” Kim added. 

“Classic!” Fred said. “But what’s with the blue skin?” Wasabi asked. “Maybe he turned blue with sadness.” Honey Lemon guessed. 

“Blue skin is often what happens when someone holds their breath for a long period of time.” Baymax diagnoses with a diagram on his chest monitor. 

“I have a theory.” Fred said with a knowing finger pointing up. “When he was laughed out he must’ve accidentally fallen into a vat of chemicals which turned his skin blue and made him a little insane.” 

Everyone looked in surprise, to what Fred just said Baymax just blinked. 

“Wow that’s actually a good theory.” Wade said in surprise. 

“Yep never underestimate the power of comic books” Fred said proudly. 

“Okay, so back to the matter of Shego, what could she want with these components?” Hiro said. 

“Knowing Drakken it could be another one of his take over the world schemes.” Kim said. “Now they know you guys are onto them we’ll need to work together to stop them and figure out what they’re up to.”

“Great, but don’t we need a plan we haven’t fought someone like Shego before.” Wasabi asked. 

“Well you guys are good and judging by the security footage you stood your ground against Shego, but you need to learn how to fight better to stand a chance against foes like her.” Kim explained. 

“So I’m going to train you guys how to fight and how to better use your tech in team work.” 

“Oh yeah! IT’S SHUGYO TIME!” Fred exclaimed taking a kung fu training pose. “To the mansion!” 

Fred’s Mansion the gardens

Soon everyone was gathered in Fred’s back garden which was rather large with very Greek like architecture structures and statues. Everyone was now dressed in training attire; Hiro wore a white shirt with his normal pants and sneakers, Wasabi was in his yoga gear which was a green shirtless vest with black pants and shoes. Gogo just wore her white shirt with her black pants and leggings. Honey Lemon was in her yoga gear and both were bare foot. Fred meanwhile was in a training suit. 

“Dude this back yard is huge!” Ron said in amazement with Rufus looking wide eyes.  

“Yeah we train here with our suits sometimes.” Fred explained “You see that statue over there.” Fred then gestured to what was left of a statue that was destroyed by something. 

“Baymax wrecked it with his rocket fist when we first got our suits.” Fred then explained. 

“Whoa!” Rufus squeaked. “But weren’t your parents tweaked about that?” Ron said concerned. 

“Nah my dad didn’t like that anyway it was imported from someplace called the Southern Isles they didn’t want it for some reason so my mom bought it.”Fred then added. 

“Alright guys gather up.” Kim called who was now dressed in training gear of her own which was comprised of a pink short sleeved crop top, dark pink yoga pants and sneakers with a grey shirt underneath. Everyone soon gathered as she placed down some training gear such as punching pads. 

“Okay guys in order to stop your opponent you first need to know more about how they fight.” Kim explained. “So when you first fought Shego what did you see?” 

“Shes fast.” Hiro said “Mean!” Fred said “Fights dirty” Gogo then added. “Loves the colour green” Honey added. “And uses plasma blasts!” Wasabi then said. 

“All good answers.” Kim said with a thumbs up. “Shego’s style is all about attack and going on the offensive, and yes she uses energy blasts which trust me sting if you get hit.” 

“Got that notion.” Gogo said remembering her fight with her last night.

“So, how do we fight someone like that?” Honey Lemon asked. “By learning how to fight better and use teamwork.” Kim said “Now lets get you guys in fighting shape.” 

(Music Starts: Call me Beep me Sadie Stanley)

Kim holds up some punching pads in her hands and Gogo begins punching them followed by some kicks and Kim manages to block them all. Soon she and Wasabi are facing each other on the grass. Kim motioned for Wasabi to come at her, though he was a little hesitant at first he knew this was training so he charged forwards and threw a few punches which Kim dodged and then grabbed Wasabi’s arm and flipped him onto his back. 

Hiro was lasting a little longer when training against Kim she threw a few punches and kicks whilst Hiro avoided some of them and Hiro threw a few punches of his own. However Kim did a leg swipe and tripped Hiro up. 

He looked up and saw Kim offering a hand smiling which he took. 

Ron meanwhile sat on the sidelines with Rufus, Mini max and Baymax. Those who weren’t training namely Hiro, Wasabi and Fred were sat resting and with towels. 

Meanwhile Kim was doing a two on one with Honey Lemon and Gogo, they came at Kim with punches and kicks which Kim was able to block, and gave advice whilst doing so. 

“Remember coordinate like a team.” Kim said between kicks and punches. So the two responded by working as a team Gogo slipped past Kim whilst Honey Lemon threw a roundhouse kick and Gogo came up from behind and performed a leg swipe tripping Kim up who was quick to recover. She looked to the two impressed knowing they were learning. She then came in with back flips and then performed several round house kicks. 

From his viewing point Hiro was amazed by Kims fighting skills but given she said she was a cheerleader it did help a little, however when he looked to Baymax an idea soon sparked in his head. 

Later at the garage, Hiro was typing at his holo computer keyboard and was looking at recordings of their training session and Kims fighting skills. He knew exactly what to do with this. However, he then noticed Rufus was in the lab and looking at Baymax’s armour lying around and he saw the little mole rat was pretending he was firing rocket fists from his hands. Hiro could only chuckle a little but he then got an idea and so slid his chair over to the rear desk and picked up a small scanning device. 

“Hey Rufus.” Hiro called getting his attention. “Arms up and hold still.” He then said and Rufus a little confused held his arms up and Hiro scanned him creating a 3D render in his computer. 

Back at the mansion Kim had set up an obstacle course for a training exercise the course consisted of several benches hoops and even a balancing beam.Fred was suited up in his Fredzilla suit. Kim then ran forward and performed some of her cheer leading moves back flips on the benches, swinging on the hoops and then bouncing on the beam to back flip and land on two feet. She then gestured for Fred to try.

“Oh yeah!” Fred said putting on the top half of his suit on then charged in. “SUPER JUMP!” He exclaimed. He performed a super back flip with the enhanced springs in his suit and then jumped and then swung round the hoops and launched forwards jumps on the board and finally span in a circle breathing fire from his suit and landed on the ground in a dynamic super hero pose!

Kim nodded in approval of Freds success. Soon she was facing Wasabi again and this time he was more confident in his hand to hand combat skills and was able to avoid Kims leg swipe and then performs a round house kick knocking her to the ground. She saw him offering a hand which she took. Hiro too was improving not only with his own knowledge of self defense compliments of his brother, but with Kims help. 

He was able to avoid water blasts from water guns that Ron was firing at him from behind a cardboard cut out of Shego. Gogo who was now wearing her mag lev skates slide past all the water blasts grabbed Hiro’s hand and then swung him towards the target and gave it a round house kick. 

Hiro and Gogo gave each other high fives. Back in the garage Hiro was transferring data to something and out of a disk burner came a small data chip coloured in green. He then placed Kims signature logo on the chip compliments of Wade. He then went over to Baymax and opened his access port revealing his health care and superhero chip. 

“Okay buddy ready to take it to the next level.” Hiro asked. “Doing shugyo makes me a better health care companion.” Baymax replied and so Hiro placed the chip into Baymax which then retracted into his chest. 

Soon everyone was taking a break from their training and soon Hiro arrived with Baymax armoured up. Hiro then laid out some small devices in the garden and then opened his laptop typed in several commands and then Wade appeared on his desktop. 

“Okay Wade let it rip!” Hiro said “Right initiating training exercise.” Wade said as he typed in several commands and then activated devices which then projected holograms of several villains including Baron Von Steamer, Shego, High Voltage and Duff Killigan. 

“Baymax Go!” Hiro said and Baymax responded by rocketing forward and the holograms became aware. Holo Steamer fired a huge blast of steam which Baymax then formed his wings flew up into the air then came slamming down to the ground fist first, knocking the hologram to the ground. 

Holo High Voltage then attacked, and Baymax was quick to avoid it and rocket forwards performing a round house kick then saw Shego coming and backflipped over her back and in slow-motion fired his rocket fist from his left hand and knocked down the two holograms in one shot.

Kim was all but amazed by Baymax’s abilities and noticed how his fighting style was similar to hers, she then remembered how Hiro told her he’d made a chip full of combat programs for the original Baymax (the one Tadashi built) when they were starting out. So it was clear he had programmed him with her skills. 

Holo Duff then fired some explosive golfballs and Baymax quickly reacted by deflecting two with his left hand then jumped into the air rolled into a ball then kicked away the next three that holo Duff fired which didn’t hit him but Baymax then landed in front of him and then just looked down on him. 

“Aye I surrender!” Said Holo Duff and with that Wade and Hiro ended the exercise and the hologram disappeared.

(Music ends)

“Whooo!” Fred said in excitement. “That was amazing Baymax!” Honey Lemon said. “Not bad.” Gogo said. “Boyah Baymax!” Ron said excitedly. 

“Spankin job big guy.” Kim congratulated. Baymax then turned round to Kim and lifted up his right fist. 

“Uh..” Kim said confused. “Now we fist bump.” Baymax then said blinking. 

“Wait you know how to fist bump?” Kim said with a raised eyebrow. “Yes Hiro taught it to me.” Baymax replied. 

“Yeah I kinda did.” Hiro said rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Come on KP just go with it.” Ron suggested. “Don’t leave him hanging” 

Kim decided to just listen to Ron and the others and so. 

“Okay.” Kim then fist bumped with Baymax. “Bah-la-la-la-la-la-la” Baymax then said wiggling his fingers in the air after the bump leaving Kim with an even more confused look than before. 

Just then Kim’s Kimmunicator beeped and she answered it. “Go Wade.” She said. 

“Kim you guys may want to check the latest news casts.” Wade advised then bringing up a news report from San Fransokyo and their reporter Duff Blunder was on the scene. 

“This is Duff Blunder reporting live from San Fransokyo bridge where citizens are being attacked by what appears to be three individuals with jet packs.” Duff said through his microphone as he was on the bridge with panicking citizens. Suddenly dropping from the air came three armoured individuals two men and a woman each wore matching black armoured suits with grey underneath and red visors on their faces.

The first was a caucasian male with blonde hair and a muscular build, with a darker beard than his hair colour. The second was a dark skinned male who is bald and has a dark beard on his face and is more muscular than his compatriots. The woman was tanned skinned has long brown hair but a shaved off part on the right side of her head and wears red lipstick. 

“I’ll take that thanks!” Jack said snatching the microphone off Duff blunder and looking into the camera. 

“Hi there the names Jack, these are my compatriots Jaq and Jack” He said introducing his compatriots who took up action poses. 

“Together we are the Mad Jacks, normally we’re mercenaries for hire but today we’re making an acceptation several months ago we were humiliated and defeated and so I hereby announce a challenge to Big Hero 6, unless they agree to face us at the bridge my associates and I shall detonate bombs at key points under the bridge.” Greg Jack announced 

“So what’ll it be Heroes? you have two hours don’t keep us waiting.” Greg Jack said. 

The team looked at the footage in shock especially Hiro and his friends. 

“Old friends of yours?” Ron asked “Not exactly.” Hiro said. 

“Yeah the Mad Jacks are villains we’ve faced before their an elite special ops unit who work for the highest bidder.” Fred explained. 

“I’ve heard about them professional mercenaries for hire, and I thought Team Impossible gloated a lot.” Kim said. 

“Well Hiro was able to help us stop them despite being sick and with a broken leg.” Wasabi then explained. 

“Whoa talk about being a stubborn patient.” Kim pointed out. “Well if you think about it KP you went on a mission when we were full of a cold.” Ron pointed out remembering their Sick Day episode. 

“So it looks like their back for a rematch.” Gogo said. “Then it’s time we put our training to the test.” Hiro suggested. “Hey guys care to give us a hand?” 

“No need to ask we’re in.” Kim said confidently. “Okay guys suit up!” Hiro then announced. 

The team each suited up in their armours and bore their gadgets, whilst Kim and Ron dressed in their normal mission clothes Kim span her hair dryer grappling hook round her finger then placed it into her belt pouch. Then Rufus appeared and Ron noticed he was wearing armour identical to Baymax’s except it was in the same colour scheme as Kims mission suit and he wore the armour on his chest and hands. 

“Whoa Rufus sweet armour!” Ron said “Yep” Rufus squeaked. “Yeah saw him taking an interest in Baymax’s suit so I made him one of his own.” Hiro said and soon everyone was riding Baymax’s back as he rocketed across the city with his jet boosters. 

Hiro rode on Baymax using his magnetic gloves and pads while Gogo, Honey Lemon and Kim held onto the wings while on Baymax. Rufus held onto Kim as well. 

“Okay I’ll admit this is a killer view.” Kim said impressed. “Maybe if you were on his back!” Ron called as he and Wasabi were holding onto Baymax’s arms while he held onto Fred via his suit collar and he was posing like super man as Fred pretended to fly.

Ron wasn’t enjoying a single moment of this. “This is not cool man!” He said practically yelling. 

“How’d you think I feel I’m terrified of heights!” Wasabi exclaimed to Ron. 

Soon they were approaching their destination and the police were doing the best they could to barricade people off the bridge until the crisis was over.

“Look!” Called a woman and they saw Big Hero 6 and Team Possible arrive on the scene and the crowd cheered knowing the heroes had arrived. 

Baymax landed on the bridge and the rest of the team disembarked, however there was no sign of the Mad Jacks anywhere. 

“Where are they?” Honey Lemon said the rest of the team looked around but were a little cautious, Kim didn’t like the looks of this one little bit. 

Baymax scanned the area for any sign of trouble and when he looked up he saw something alarming. 

“Oh no” Baymax said and Kim looked up to see what he was alerting them about and her eyes widened in shock.

“LOOK OUT!” Kim shouted and everyone jumped out of the way of an incoming laser blast and were quick to avoid the impact. Everyone quickly recovered and got back up on their feet just as the Mad Jacks floated down using their jet packs.

“Well look who decided to show.” Said Jaq with a smirk. 

“So you guys still sore about us beating you last time?!” Hiro said “Oh you mean how you outsmarted and humiliated us!” Greg Jack said with a smirk.

“Well now it’s payback time!” Jack grunted. “Oh and I see you have help, your going to need it.” Greg Jack said noticing the presence of Kim and Ron. 

“Mad Jacks lets take em” Greg Jack yells and they fly in and attack, the team then scatter Hiro climbs aboard Baymax who takes to the sky after the three villains. 

“Jack, Jaq, take care of the six on the ground I’ll take care of the big bot and their leader.” Greg Jack ordered. “Copy that!” Said the two Jacks. Baymax and Hiro began chasing Greg Jack in the sky whilst the rest of the team take on the other two. 

The two Mad Jacks pull out their laser blasters and try to blast the team. Gogo and Honey Lemon jump to the left whilst Kim, Ron, Fred and Wasabi jumped to the right. 

“We need to find those bombs if they go off everyone still on this bridge will be toast.” Gogo said. 

Kim then reached for her Kimmunicator. “Wade scan for the bombs!” Kim said “Way ahead of you.” Wade said and after a few typing commands on his keyboard he soon heard a beep sounding that he found what he was looking for. 

“Got it! They’re under the bridge on the centre support!” Wade relayed as he showed a diagram of the bridge. 

“Wade put me through to Hiro!” Kim ordered. Meanwhile Hiro and Baymax were in a dog fight with Greg Jack who was trying to shoot them down with his laser bazooka. 

“Eat laser bot!” Greg Jack exclaimed. Baymax was able to doge the blasts and Hiro held on to his back. 

“Hiro you there!?” Kim said on the coms. “Yeah kinda busy!” Hiro replied. “We’ve located the bombs there under the bridge, near the centre support.” Kim relayed. 

Hiro looked down to the bridge and with the scanner in his helmet scanned the bridge and zoomed in to see several bomb like devices attached to the bridge. 

“I see them.” Hiro relayed. 

Back on the bridge the rest of the team were contending with Jack and Jaq. Gogo used her mag lev skates to skate and avoid the blasts then jumps and throws her mag lev disks at Jack which he then deflects. 

“That all you got speedy!” Jack exclaimed. “Okay time to use our training.” Gogo said 

“Honey let’s ground these chumps.” Gogo said “ Thought you’d never ask.” Honey Lemon said as she typed in a formula on her chem-purse and made two chem balls and threw the, both at the bridge supports, they explode and expand into a splat wall of elastic goop. 

(Music starts playing- Immortals Fallout boy)

Gogo then kneels down on all fours and revs up on her discs and launched herself forward into the ‘sling shot’ and pulled back all the way to the other end of the support until she was catapulted forwards into the air, heading straight for jack pulled back a fist then POW right in the face which sent him flying into the pillar at the far side of the bridge. 

Gogo then skated as she landed on the ground and Honey Lemon rushed to her. 

“Oh yeah Speed punch!” Gogo said “way to go Gogo!” Honey Lemon said giving her a high five. However they didn’t notice that Jaq was flying towards them. 

“Guys heads up!” Ron called to them they turned and saw Jaq arming her arm cannons. “Your Jacked!” Jaq yelled but suddenly. 

“SUPER JUMP!” Called a voice and she saw Fredzilla jumping in the air above her. 

“FLYING DROP KICK!” Fred yelled and performed a drop kick mid air knocking Jaq to the ground. Honey Lemon peeped a Chem ball and tossed it to Ron. “Throw it Ron.” Homey said and so he threw it to the spot where Jaq landed and it created a pink goo ball trapping her inside. 

“Grr!” Jaq growled as she couldn’t get out of the ball no matter what she tried. 

“You just got gooped” Ron cracked. “Boo yah!” Rufus squeaked. He then noticed Kim was not with them. Kim was below the bridge using some magnetic discs. She held the Kimmunicator up to the bombs so that Wade could properly scan them. 

“Kim I’ve got bad news!” Wade said. “Okay let’s hear it.” Kim asked. 

“Well, the bad news is the bombs can’t be disarmed manually there’s about five different triggers.” Wade explained. “Is there a way to disable it?” Kim asked with worry. 

“Yes disable the master detonator and that’ll disarm the bombs.” Wade surmised. 

“Well where is the trigger?” Kim asked. “I’ll scan for it” Wade began scanning for the bomb trigger and soon found it.

“Oh boy.” Wade said 

Baymax and Hiro were still in the air fighting Greg Jack who is chasing them with his laser bazooka Baymax was able to avoid the blast Hiro looks back and sees the Mad Jack behind them. 

“Hiro there’s a way to disarm the bombs!” Kim relayed on the coms. “Okay what is it?” Hiro asked. 

“The guy chasing you he has it, it’s located in his gauntlet on the left wrist.” Kim relayed. “Right that’s going to be a problem.” Hiro said seeing how Greg Jack was dead set on shooting the, down. 

From the bridge Kim could see the issue and from her back pack forms her jet pack and rockets into the sky. 

Back on the bridge the Police try to keep the crowd back within that crowd was Karmi who was trying to record what was happening. However she looked up to see Baymax and Hiro or as she knew them Captain Cutie and Red Panda fighting Greg Jack whilst the rest of the team deal with Jack who had regained consciousness. Then all of a sudden she saw a figure emerge fro, the bridge she zoomed in on it using her phones camera. 

“No way is that!” Karmi gasped her phone camera showed her it was Kim Possible fighting alongside Big Hero 6 she couldn’t believe it.

Meanwhile Baymax launches his rocket fist at Greg Jack, who used his jet pack to avoid it then fires his blaster at them which Baymax quickly avoids it as his fist returns to him. 

Then suddenly Greg Jack received a kick in the back delivered by Kim Possible he manages to stabilise himself and looked to see Kim just as Baymax flew next to her with Hiro. 

“You got the drop on me impressive miss...” “The names Kim Possible, ring a bell.” Kim said answering Greg Jacks question. 

“Oh yeah now I remember your the hero with a lame website it doesn’t even have a cool theme song.” Greg Jack cracked. 

“Says the guys all called the same name, Greg” Hiro then cracked. “Wait your names Greg but your all called the Mad Jacks?” Kim asked “yeah it’s really a code name found that out when we first fought and won.” Hiro then added. 

Greg Jack just growled with frustration. “Enough talk time to blast stuff!” He yelled as he blasted the two of them but they quickly avoided the blast. 

He kept blasting the three heroes with his bazooka until finally he clipped the wing of Kim’s jet pack causing her to spin out of control.

“Kim!” Hiro yelled, Kim quickly managed to get her jet pack off but was still falling to the ground Baymax quickly rockets down after her and reaches out with his hand. Reacting quickly Kim pulls out her grappling hair dryer and fires it towards Baymax who grabs it and swings it round lifting her into the air for her to land on Baymax’s back. 

Her grappling hook retracts leaving Hiro completely amazed. 

“You always carry a hair dryer with you?” Hiro said in amazement. 

“Never leave home without one, it’s saved me on multiple occasions not just life and death but also hair crisis.” Kim breathed. 

Suddenly Baymax avoided another blast from Greg Jack and flew away as he chased him. 

“He is still shooting at us.” Baymax said “no kidding, we’ve got to get that detenator!” Kim said to Hiro, “Then we’ll need to ground him.” Hiro suggested. 

(Music ends)

Back on the ground Wasabi was using his plasma blades to deflect blasts from Jack who was recovered and blasting them with his wrist blasters. Ron was running quickly to avoid them. 

“Yow, yikes!” Ron said avoiding the blasts. Fred then charged forwards and using his suits enhanced jumping skills he performed a triple back flip.

 “Homey chem ball me!” Fredzilla said and she fired a pink chemball from her purse and on the third flip Fredzilla kicked the ball into Jack and the chemball exploded and stuck him to the ground. 

“Boyah Fred!” Ron cheered. However their celebration was interrupted by the sound of laser fire they looked up to see Baymax, Hiro and Kim struggling against Greg Jack and getting the detonator from him. 

“We’ve gotta help them!” Honey Lemon said. “They’re too high up and none of us can fly.” Gogo said knowing that Baymax was the only one on the team who could fly. Or was he? 

Rufus pulled on Rons shirt and he saw that his mole rat friend was wearing armour similar to Baymax including its ability to fly. 

“Wait, Rufus! You can help them!” Ron said and Rufus nodded and almost on cue wings emerged from his armour and he posed like superman and rocketed into the sky. 

“Go get um!” Ron called which left the rest of the team skeptical looks as to how a small mole rat can help their friends. 

Greg Jack is going all out trying to shoot Baymax down he was beaten by these heroes before there’s no way he was going to let this happen again it would be an insult to his profession. 

However he felt a tap on his head and he turned to see a small pink rodent dressed up in armour with a jet pack. 

“Whuh?” Greg Jack said in surprise. “Hello” Rufus squeaked he then kicks Greg Jack in the face who cries in. Pain as he got hit in the mouth Rufus quickly flies away and Greg tries to grab him but misses. 

“Hold still you little..” Greg jack growled and Rufus just spits his tongue like a child which winds up the Mad Jack even more. 

However he’s so focused on the armoured naked mole rat he neglected a certain someone coming right at him. 

“Hey!” Called a voice and Greg Jack turns to see Baymax heading right for him with Hiro and Kim riding him. However strangely as Greg braces for impact he sees the flying red robot missed him as he flew right by. 

“Ha! You missed!” He shouted. Suddenly Hiro lands on his back and then hits a button on Greg’s jet pack which releases it from his armour. 

“Oh no...” Greg Jack gulped. “JACK DOWN AGAAAAIIIIIN!” He yelled as he fell to the ground and Hiro was falling right behind him but then Baymax swings in and Kim manages to grab him as they fly down and grab Greg Jack and lower him to the ground safely. 

“Nice one guys!” Honey Lemon cheered just then Rufus hovers down and lands on Baymax’s shoulder who turns to see him. 

“Flying makes you a better companion Rufus.” Baymax said and Rufus smiles and offers his tiny fist for a. “Fist bump” he squeaked. 

Baymax raises his fist and they bump them. 

“ “Bah-la-la-la-la-la-la” The two said. “So” said Greg Jack getting their attention. “You think this is over?” 

“Uh yeah.” Kim said taking the detonator from the compartment in his gauntlet and presses a red button that said disabled. Below the bridge the bombs then deactivate. 

“Your bombs are disabled, your revenge done.” Kim listed. ‘“Oh and look.” Kim then pointed and they saw a fleet of helicopters but they didn’t belong to the SFPD. 

“There’s Global Justice already here to Cart you guys away to prison.” Kim then pointed out. “Seems you guys have worked for a number of people on their most wanted list and you’ve committed a number of offences on their radar.” She then explained. 

“Yeah sounds like someone tipped them off.” Ron then added with a smirk. 

“Grr how did you guys get so good!” Greg Jack then asked Big Hero 6. 

“Easy ‘Greg’ we’ve been training.” Hiro smirked “with the best.” He said looking to Kim who could only smile. 

Soon Global Justice took the three Mad Jacks away to be incarcerated at their jail facility, whilst an officer of GJ explained everything to the police officer at the scene. 

“Okay guys seriously, were we awesome? Or were we totally AWSOME!” Fredzilla said in excitement. 

“I’ll admit, that was cool we’ve never taken down an enemy of ours that easily before.” Gogo admitted. 

“Yeah, did you see that sling shot move we did!” Honey Lemon bounced excitedly. 

“Yeah I hereby dub that move the Slingshot Punch!” Fred said. 

“Yeah not to mention I was totally alive out there!” Wasabi said. “What about me I was helping too I drew his fire!” Ron pointed out feeling left out. 

“We acted very efficiently in neutralising the target.” Baymax diagnosed. 

“We stopped the bombs, thanks to Rufus.” Hiro said thanking the Molerat. 

“But Kim I have to know how did you know that the Mad Jacks were wanted by those GJ guys?” Hiro then asked. 

“Oh that’s easy during the fight I had Wade do some research into them hacking their website..” “Cool theme some by the way.” Ron then interrupts Kim. 

“...yeah anyway Wade found the list of a number of clients they’ve worked for in the past including a number of war lords, crime bosses and of course a few super villains.” Kim listed 

“To cut a long story short forward the info to some fiends of ours in GJ and off to jail they go.” Kim finished. 

“Wow, you really can do anything.” Hiro said impressed. Kim could only smile humbly by this compliment. Just then.

“Oh my, that was AWESOME!” Shrieks a voice and they turned to see Karmi standing behind them. 

“An actually team up between Kim Possible and Big Hero 6!” Karmi said excitedly. 

“Oh I’ve got to get a picture of this.” She then said holding up her camera phone to take a photo. 

The nine heroes just stood bemused but decided to pose for a photo while Hiro just kept a natural expression. Karmi takes a photo showing her a photo of Big Hero 6 and Team Possible together. 

“Oh I’m so writing a fan fic about this Captain Cutie teams up with teen hero Kim Possible!” Karmi said practically bouncing away in excitement and could already picture her fan fiction taking place featuring chibi versions of the team and Kim. 

Hiro just grimaced at the thought of what she just said. 

“Captain Cutie?” Kim smirked with a raised eyebrow “Don’t ask” Hiro groaned. 

Meanwhile

Whilst events transpired at the bridge, far away in a old derelict warehouse on the dark side of town a lone figure stands alone in the darkness. 

It was really Shego except something was different on her wrists she now wore metal gauntlet like devices with glowing green lines on them. Ever since her little meeting with Obake he left them for her as a ‘gift’. Though a little skeptical she decided to test his present somewhere away from prying eyes and she knew Drakken would just ask questions. 

She looked at the gauntlets and they did seem to fit perfectly and surprisingly they didn’t clash with her outfit. However she was still unclear to their function. 

“Alright let’s see what glow face’s toy can do.” She said to herself. 

She infighter her powers as normal this then caused the gauntlets to activate which then caused her energy to glow brighter even her eyes started to glow a little. 

She threw an energy blast at a crate in the warehouse and it immediately blew it into a million pieces. She was completely shocked.

“Whoa! My blasts were never that powerful?” She said in amazement. She looked to her gauntlets and when she touched one of the lines it took her energy and formed it into a blade comprised of her energy. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

She then smirked and swung her arm blade like a samurai and then with one swipe let loose a huge energy wave that completely incinerated two of the rear pillars. 

She then bore a sadistic smile as her eyes glowed green and her hands burned with enhanced energy. 

“Oh ho ho ho! Me likie.” She said “whoever that guy is he’s right it’s time to see what potential I have!” Shego said and let loose a huge blast of energy from her hands. 

End of chapter 4

Whoa looks like Shego got an upgrade, looks like BH6 is gonna need that training Kim’s given them. Yes Obake has started to get involved in this story but still not the main villain (yet) The gauntlets were actually inspired by the KP 2019 live action film whilst they did make it look like the source of Shegos powers it didn't work for me so I’ve repurposed them as energy enhancers in this story.In terms of the Mad Jacks I always thought of them as the Team Impossible of the BH6 Universe except with more showmanship and cooler toys. So I was a bit gutted not seeing them in season 2 of the series lets hope they return for season 3 , but this did give me an idea revolving around their absence namely caught by higher authority. Chapter 5 coming soon. 

[kagehinataboke]

Im so fucking guilty of staying up late just to binge on your works because your writing is so great ! I just cant help but need to request a tdbk college au where katsuki is a punk with a loud bike and Shouto is just this perfect good boy who got roped into bad boy Katsuki’s lifestyle, basically a good boy/bad boy dynamics, pretty please ?? 🥺🥺 (gonna use emojis to be more convincing)

awww omg thank you, you sweet angel ❤️😭 ily uwu

and yassss ✨❤️ here’s pre-med student Todoroki ft. bad boy Bakugou 👏🏻

accidentally made this super long ooops

***

Todoroki thought he knew what tired was, but his pre-med course has completely reinvented the word. Exhausted, debilitated, and lifeless are better words to describe the kind of fatigue he feels. It’s class to class to class, with endless homework in between. Sleep? It’s basically a foreign concept at this point.

Heck, Todoroki is barely awake now, which isn’t such a good thing when one is walking down the street alone at night. He keeps almost drifting into lamp posts and street signs. The last lecture was just so long…

“Fuck.”

For a second, Todoroki thinks the expletive is directed at him. Then he lifts his head. There’s a bloodied figure hunched over in the nearest alley, both hands pressed against a large wound in his lower abdomen. He’s swearing at the sky, which is probably the only place he can look without passing out. Todoroki, despite not being the one in peril, feels a jolt of adrenaline spike through him. He knows he shouldn’t be approaching someone who has what is clearly a stab wound, but his medical training is already kicking in.

“Move your hands.”

The stranger squints at him with crimson eyes. “…What? Who the fuck are—“

Todoroki forcibly pushes his arms back. “You’re pressing on the wrong spot. You’ll bleed out.” He puts his own hands on the wound, altering pressure until the blood stops gushing between his fingers. When he has a solid position, he meets the stranger’s gaze. “What’s your name?”

“Bakugou Katsuki…” He closes his eyes to take a shuddering breath. “Shit. Don’t call the fucking cops, okay?”

“Well, that leaves me with very limited options…” Todoroki struggles to think of an alternative. His apartment is close, but he can’t take his hands off the stab wound. “Bakugou, If I tell you where to hold your hands, can you keep even pressure while I carry you to my place?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” Bakugou weakly rolls his head to look at his stomach. “Just tell me what to do before I fucking bleed out.”

As much as Todoroki doesn’t want this obvious delinquent in his house, he can’t exactly let someone die in an alley, either. “Put your hands here. Yeah. Keep pressure. Good.” As soon as his hands are free, Todoroki moves to slip an arm around Bakugou’s shoulders. He flinches and delivers an intimidating glare, but Todoroki can’t be swayed when he’s in Doctor Mode. “Don’t move your hands.”

“Fine… Don’t fucking touch me anywhere weird, asshole.”

“That isn’t how you should be talking to someone who’s saving your life,” Todoroki mutters, pushing himself to a standing position. Bakugou isn’t as heavy as he expected. “Try not to pass out before we get there.”

“Fuck you.”

***

After Todoroki treats him and sends him on his way, he never expects to see Bakugou Katsuki again. Fate, however, has different expectations. While he’s walking home from his morning class, Todoroki hears the rev of a motorcycle through his headphones. When it stops suspiciously close by, he turns to find a familiar blond delinquent smirking at him.

“Bakugou?” Todoroki takes out one earbud. “What are you doing here?”

“I was in town when I spotted you walking.” Bakugou leans his arms on the motorcycle, grin widening. “Want a ride?”

“On that?” Todoroki raises an eyebrow at the rumbling Harley. “No thanks. You’re nine times more likely to become injured while riding a motorcycle than while driving a car, you know. It’s not safe.”

“Oh yeah?” Bakugou lifts his own brow in retaliation. “But it still looks fucking cool, at least.”

Todoroki sighs and starts walking again, but Bakugou doesn’t give up easily. He follows at a snail’s pace, calling out childishly every few steps. “C’mon, pretty boy, live a little!”

The phrase ‘live a little’ gets to him. As a med student, Todoroki feels like he definitely lives on the safer side. He lost many friends in high school because he was “too boring.” Hearing Bakugou say it presses on an old bruise. He shouldn’t get so worked up over it, but…

Even though he knows he’s being an idiot, Todoroki stalks over to Bakugou’s motorcycle and slides on. The seat is humming gently, and Bakugou’s back is warm. His smile is still, however, incredibly annoying. “That’s more like it.” He passes Todoroki a spare helmet. “Where to, angel?”

“Fourth and Main.” Todoroki pauses. “Don’t call me that.”

“Hey, I call it like I see it.” Bakugou flips down the visor on his helmet, revving the engine obnoxiously. “Hold on tight.”

They take off, and Todoroki quickly lurches forward to grab Bakugou’s waist. He’s never felt this kind of adrenaline before, not even in the alley when they first met. The wind whips against his face and tugs at his clothes, and the street whizzes by underneath his feet in a blur of gray asphalt. Todoroki doesn’t even realize they’re not heading in the right direction until they stop.

“This isn’t Fourth and Main.” Todoroki’s hands shift away as Bakugou puts the Harley in park. “Where are we?”

“Just gotta grab something real quick. Don’t look so scared.” Bakugou pulls off his helmet, his hair somehow pristine underneath. He brushes it out of his face before shooting Todoroki a grin. “Coming?”

He isn’t about to sit out here alone, so he nods hesitantly. “I guess.”

“You’ll have to let go of me, then.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

They dismount, Bakugou taking the lead. He uses a key to get into the decrepit brick building they’ve parked in front of—probably his apartment complex, if Todoroki were to wager a guess. It’s covered in graffiti outside, but the interior is normal enough. Todoroki trails Bakugou down the hall to a door on the far end, pausing while he fiddles with the lock. “This damn thing always jams. Fuck. There.”

Todoroki isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but it isn’t this. Bakugou’s apartment is flawless. In fact, it’s cleaner than Todoroki’s dorm. The floors are dark hardwood, the walls are painted a nice shade of orange, and in the windowsill, there’s a neat line of potted succulents. It looks more like a high-rise magazine ad than a lived-in space.

“Fuck, where did I put it?” Bakugou digs noisily through a stack of papers on the coffee table, disrupting the peace. He certainly contrasts sharply to his apartment with his spiked hair, scowl, and ear piercings. And his attitude, of course. “Ah, fuck. Here it is.” He pulls something out of the pile with finality, sliding dislodged papers under the table with his foot.

It’s a textbook. Todoroki recognizes it from a class his sister took. “Advanced Biochemistry? You take that course?”

“Don’t look so surprised, asshole.” Bakugou ushers him out the door, locking it behind them. “Just because I swear and look intimidating doesn’t mean I’m a fucking moron.”

“I never thought you were.” Todoroki waits to be passed a motorcycle helmet before saying anything else. “How’s your stomach doing?”

“Huh? It’s fine. I’ve been hurt way worse than this. More importantly…” Bakugou smirks in a worrying and heart-stopping way. “What time does your class get out? I’ll pick you up.”

Todoroki shouldn’t tell him. He’s been thinking he shouldn’t do a lot of things recently. Unfortunately, he never takes his own advice. “Ten thirty. Don’t be late.”

***

Seeing him becomes a habit. Every time Todoroki gets out of class, Bakugou is there, leaning against his motorcycle with a smirk and a wave. When exactly they started spending so much time together is a mystery, but Todoroki can no longer remember the time when he walked home alone. When he was alone, period.

He asks Bakugou about it while he’s sitting on his spotless white sofa, eating take-out soba. “When did we become friends?”

“Huh?” Bakugou looks up from his chemistry textbook with a scoff. “Why the fuck are you asking that? I dunno.”

“Well, it was after you started harassing me all the time,” Todoroki continues with a frown. “Following me around on your motorcycle, calling me to patch you up after a fight—”

“That was one fucking time!” Bakugou interrupts, throwing a packet of soy sauce at Todoroki’s head. “Are you trying to piss me off, bastard? I swear I’ll make you walk home.”

“I’m only kidding. I like being friends with you.” Todoroki finishes his noodles and smacks the back of Bakugou’s head on his way to the kitchen. “I’d patch you up again if you asked me. It’s good practice for med school.”

“Asshole.” Bakugou rubs his head irritably. “Fuck, did you know that you give off mixed signals? God damn.”

Todoroki doesn’t answer. ‘Mixed signals’? Ha. If anything, Bakugou is the one who gives them off. He follows Todoroki everywhere, and he’s constantly flirting with him, but that’s as far as it goes. He still swears an ungodly amount, is the exact opposite of considerate, and has the crudest sense of humor in the world. It’s impossible to believe that he fell in love with a person like that.

Yes, unfortunately: he did fall in love. With Bakugou Katsuki, of all people. It’s a rather unfortunate turn of events, mainly because Todoroki finds himself worrying about Bakugou more than he worries about himself. He’s more conscious of him, too: he can’t help it. Even now, he’s studying the blond out of the corner of his eye. He’s been holding his arm awkwardly all day.

“Did you get in another fight?” Todoroki finishes washing his noodle bowl and turns a scrutinizing gaze on Bakugou, who flinches.

“…What gives you that idea?”

“You just confirmed it.” Todoroki narrows his eyes, and Bakugou’s widen. He leaps to his feet like a startled cat, putting the couch between them as a protective barrier.

“You stay the fuck away from—“ Todoroki jumps at him before he can finish the sentence, vaulting the couch in a single movement. Bakugou screeches and barely dodges him, sprinting around the coffee table. “You fucking psycho! Don’t do this again!”

“Let me see your arm, then!” Todoroki picks up a magazine and nails him in the back with it. Bakugou stumbles, his socked feet slipping on the hardwood floor. Todoroki takes the opportunity to grab his shirt collar, yanking him onto the couch in a headlock. He pulls up Bakugou’s left sleeve, revealing a long bloodied bandage covering his arm. “I knew it… When did you get this?”

Bakugou, sulking over the lost struggle, lets out a heavy breath. “Last night, after I dropped you off.” He glares out the window. “There was a guy outside. He said some shit, and we got into it. I’m fine.”

“Let me see it.” Todoroki relaxes his grip and Bakugou slides onto the floor, but he doesn’t run away. He surrenders his arm to Todoroki, grumbling irritably the whole time he unwraps it. It’s bad, to say the least, but at least it doesn’t look infected. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Todoroki already knows the answer: Bakugou thinks they belong to different worlds. He keeps Todoroki out of trouble, even if it means being a reckless idiot. It makes him so angry that he wants to scream. But he settles on leaving, instead. He lets Bakugou go and grabs his bag. “I have to go.”

“Wait. It’s late. I’ll drive you—“

Todoroki slams the door, cutting him off. So what if it’s late? He’d rather walk alone in the pitch black than risk saying things he’ll regret later.

He really needs to get a handle on these feelings, before they get out of hand.

***

He really should’ve let Bakugou drive him home. If he had, the idiot would’ve stayed out of trouble. When Todoroki gets a text with three words and a location ping before dawn, he already knows it’s bad news.

from: blond moron at 4:32 AM.

>> i need you

>> blond moron sent his location

Todoroki stumbles around pulling on clothes in the dark. His heart is hammering so loudly in his ears that he can’t even hear himself breathing. The location is an alleyway a few blocks away. That can’t be good. What the hell has Bakugou gotten himself into this time?

By the time he arrives, Todoroki has been through every worst-case scenario. But nothing could have prepared him for this. Bakugou, unconscious in a pool of blood. Three guys surrounding him, one of them with Bakugou’s cellphone in his hand. They’re gang members: he recognizes them from around town. Oh god. And as if things couldn’t get any worse, Todoroki was in such a hurry that he didn’t bring his phone or a weapon. Basically, he’s screwed.

“What’s going on here?” At least he can keep the tremor out of his voice.

One of the gang members scoffs. “Fuck. This is who this asshole saved as ‘angel’? I thought it’d be a chick.”

Todoroki shifts nervously, realizing what their intentions must be. Panic rises in his chest, but he shoves it down. Fight or flight is a natural response. He can ignore it if he tries. “You… You should get out of here before I call the police.” Hopefully, the bluff is believable.

The group of guys ignores him. “Even if he’s not a girl, he’s got a pretty face,” one says, giving Todoroki a creepy once-over. “Shame about that scar, but the rest of him could get me off.”

Todoroki is so offended that he almost scoffs. Why the hell didn’t he bring his phone? God, he’ll never yell at Bakugou for calling him stupid ever again… But what’s important right now is getting them both safely out of this situation. There won’t be people out on the street so late at night, so helpful bystander intervention is out. Todoroki is all alone on this one.

The gang members seem to have reached a consensus. They drop Bakugou’s phone and circle him, smirking and heckling. He figures he’s got two options: run or beat them up. Maybe fight or flight isn’t easy to ignore, after all.

“If you don’t put up a fight, this’ll all be much easier,” one of the men says, slowly inching closer, like a lion circling its prey.

Todoroki takes a page from Bakugou’s book. “Fuck you.” 

Making them angry will make them clumsy. 

Probably.

***

“Do you want to explain to me how you got these injuries?”

Todoroki shifts in his hospital bed, avoiding the officer’s gaze. “Not really?”

“What about the gentleman you came in with?” A pencil taps impatiently against a pad of paper. “Did you two get into some type of altercation?”

“No. I told you, he’s my friend.” Todoroki scratches the bandage on his head nervously. “The two of us were mugged by those three men. Unprovoked.”

“Uh-huh.” The pencil stops tapping, and the officer sighs. “Alright, then. I’ll go talk to those three and see what information I can get. If you’d like to change your statement at any time, I’ll be here.”

As soon as he’s gone, Todoroki sags against his pillows. He still can’t believe they actually escaped. He got lucky, that’s for sure. That wrench he found probably saved both of their lives. His, most definitely, even if it didn’t save all of him. He’s got a nasty gash on his head, dark bruises around his neck, and scratch-marks all over his chest and back.

Bakugou is pretty banged up, too, but not as badly. He’s only got a minor concussion and a nasty cut on his torso. Just when that stab wound was starting to scar over, too.

“Todoroki-san?” A nurse knocks and sticks her head in through the open door. “Are you up for a visitor?”

“A visitor?” Todoroki’s heart leaps. It must be him. “Sure.”

Bakugou appears in the gap the nurse vacates, holding onto an IV pole with one hand. He’s ditched his hospital gown for a loose cotton shirt and jeans, most definitely against medical orders. “…Hey.”

“Hey.” Todoroki waits for him to sit down before sitting up. “Are you allowed to be walking around?”

“Not really.” Bakugou looks at him, and Todoroki is shocked to see tears slip down his face. He’s never seen him cry. Never. “You’re a fucking idiot.” The swearing isn’t new, though.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Todoroki presses his fingertips together, then relaxes them again. “It’s not like the situation was avoidable,” he murmurs eventually. “They texted me pretending to be you. I couldn’t just ignore it. And if I hadn’t come—”

Bakugou slams a fist into the wall, startling Todoroki into silence. “If you hadn’t come, those motherfuckers wouldn’t have—” He takes a measured breath before continuing. “They told me what those bastards tried to do. I was so pissed, I wanted to punch myself. If I wasn’t an idiot who got into fights in the first place, you wouldn’t have had to go through that shit. It’s my fault.”

“I’m fine,” Todoroki tells him quietly. “They barely touched—” He trails off when Bakugou’s fingertips brush against the bruises at his throat. He expects to feel a jolt of suppressed trauma, but there’s nothing more than a lump building in his throat. “Bakugou, I’m really…”

“You’re not fine.” He runs a hand through his hair without meeting Todoroki’s eyes. “Fuck. I can’t…” He flinches when Todoroki takes his hand.

“I know you think I can’t handle myself. And don’t try to argue: I know it’s true, too. But I can. I took care of us both this time.” He squeezes Bakugou’s hand. “I’m strong, too. Even if I don’t look as intimidating as you do.” He tries to smile. “This didn’t scare me. Not in the least.”

For a while, they linger in silence. Then Bakugou sighs, pressing their joined hands to his forehead. “Yeah,” he relents, “I know you’re strong. It’s part of the reason I like you so damn much.”

If he didn’t know any better, Todoroki would think he‘s dreaming. But his head throbs too much for him to be asleep. “What did you say?”

“I like you.” Bakugou doesn’t let go of his hand. “But you knew that, right? I didn’t mean to take so long to tell you. I guess I didn’t want to make myself seem less cool in your eyes? Don’t laugh. I know it sounds fucking stupid now.”

“This is kind of… the worst timing for a confession,” Todoroki mutters, but he can feel himself smiling. “I have a concussion.”

“What? Why does that matter?”

“I just really don’t want to forget this.”

“Really?” Bakugou snorts. “Idiot… Don’t worry. I won’t let you forget it.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” Todoroki raises an eyebrow, and Bakugou’s smile stretches against his fingers.

“Definitely a promise.”

[mobius-prime]

107. Knuckles the Echidna #16

Reunions

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Manny Galan Colors: Barry Grossman

So this one's a bit different from the other three-part arcs we've encountered in this comic so far. Instead of one arc spanning three issues, right now we're getting a standalone issue, followed by a two-part arc. Despite this, this issue does tie into the next two quite a bit, setting the stage for future stories and conflicts with lots and lots of talking. I know I've touched on this before but I have to say it again - while I do actually find the plot of this issue very interesting personally, I'm also cognizant of the fact that this was supposed to be a comic aimed at kids and young teens, a demographic that tends to enjoy humor, fast-paced action sequences, and a protagonist filled with 90's cool-guy sass. An issue that spends most of its time talking about family history, politics, and social issues, is not going to be as interesting to that demographic. This is ultimately Kenders' biggest problem, the fact that he's clearly very invested in his characters, family trees, and worldbuilding, but invests himself in it to a degree that it's no longer a kids' comic. I mean, sure, there was never anything wrong with taking the comic in a more serious direction, and in fact I will always argue that the comic benefited greatly from it as the slapstick humor got old quick, but I do think the seriousness should be focused more in areas of, say, dire threats to the heroes' world, characters' changing alliances and such, not the politidrama tone that Kenders shifts more and more into the longer this sister series goes on. Thus, while I am very fascinated by the plots and the talking and everything that Penders brings to the table here, I can also set aside my own preferences and recognize that this is probably not the place for it all.

But enough of that, onto the story! Knuckles has just returned home from his adventures and arrived at his mother's apartment, when Lara-Le herself arrives after attending church alone, because… sure? I dunno, I don't get the feeling that Auroriums have like, organized services, they seem more like a place where someone goes to pray alone quietly. She's delighted to see her son back home safe, and Wynmacher offers her some milk in a wine glass, which is honestly such a mood.

While she asks her son for details on how his trip went, we see an aircraft approach the Floating Island and dock in a hidden hangar. It turns out to be flown by one Grandfather Tobor, one of the many Guardians still alive and kicking. More show up to greet him, and while they prepare for their meeting we go back to Knuckles and Lara-Le's conversation. Understandably, Lara-Le is kind of incredulous at Knuckles' claim about arriving home after creating a golden energy tunnel, but Knuckles was hoping she might actually have some answers. And thus, she launches into the tale of his birth, back when she and Locke were still happily married. Apparently, it usually takes three days between the mother echidna birthing the egg, and the egg actually hatching, but Locke took the egg from her right after birth in the hospital, and a day later, Knuckles had come into the world. At first, everything seemed normal, until Knuckles started spelling out "SEGA STUD" with his baby blocks and generally didn't act like a toddler, being far too intelligent. Locke leapt on this opportunity, of course, and started putting him through rigorous education, even teaching him Einstein's Theory of Relativity despite Einstein not being even slightly relevant to the echidnas' society! Truly remarkable, I must say!

As one might expect, Lara-Le was feeling very put out that she had no real say in the upbringing of her son, so she went to Knuckles' grandmother Jenna-Lu, Locke's mother, to get some advice. Jenna-Lu bafflingly informed her that relationships shouldn't bother with silly notions like "equality" or "fairness," and told her to essentially just let Locke do his thing and passively act as a good example of moral behavior for Knuckles in the background. Lara-Le tried asking her then if she was even happy with how her own life turned out.

Look. This… I said in my own rules that I'm keeping my blog PG-13, which means I'm allowed exactly one F-bomb over the course of reviewing the preboot. I'm trying very hard not to use it up right this second. Lara-Le is a good person who was screwed royally out of a relationship with her own son because of ancient, outdated traditions that she had no say in. This poor woman. You could say that perhaps she should have expected this, because she did choose to marry Locke after all even knowing who he was and what such a thing might entail, but as we'll see, the situation isn't as clear-cut as that. I feel truly, terribly sorry for Knuckles' mother right now.

We take a bit of a break from hearing about Lara-Le's hardships in marriage and motherhood to see what the Brotherhood is up to. There's a lot of names here that we've never heard before that just get dumped on us all at once, so I'll try to summarize everyone really quick. You should already know who Locke and Sabre are. Tobor is the wrinkly, ancient brown guy with the Geordi-La-Forge-esque visor over his eyes. The purple one with crazy anime bangs is Thunderhawk, because of course that has to be his name. The one who's basically just Knuckles with a green vest and some head jewelry is Sojourner, and lastly, the black echidna with red eyes wearing some kind of weird space helmet is Spectre. Three guesses who the edgy one is here.

They start by dumping all their own personal problems onto each other, which ends up giving some very valuable insight into what exactly the surviving members of the Brotherhood do with their time. Apparently, each one just kind of watches over a certain area on the planet, making sure their little domain claims are safe and stable. Now we're getting into really creepy Illuminati territory, where this super secretive society watches over and manipulates events all around the globe from the shadows. Hilariously, Tobor, Thunderhawk and Sojourner all start ranting about how much of a nuisance Sonic and Tails have been as they traveled through each of their territories in turn, but Sabre finally shuts them up. Things have been rougher on them lately, because while Robotnik was a global terrorist and all, at the very least his ever-present threat loomed over everyone to the point that he and his regime were basically the only threats anyone ever had to deal with. Now, with Robotnik gone, a huge power vacuum has opened up, and a bunch of his old sub-bosses are warring over various bits of territory across the planet, ironically causing even more chaos than before. The various Guardians are having trouble dealing with the situation, and decide to call on the council of fire ants who were apparently just listening in from another room and chilling the entire time. Presumably these guys are kind of like a miniature Brotherhood of their own, consisting of the fire ant advisors to all the previous Guardians - Archimedes, his father Semper Fidelis (are you sensing a pretentious pattern here with the fire ants' names?), and grandfather Deo Volente.

Semper Fidelis suggests that the Brotherhood, if they simply carry on as they always have, will only ensure that echidnas become irrelevant in the grand scheme of things - but that if they instead rise up and take control, that they can "lead the echidnas and the other species on this planet into a new golden age." Gee, that doesn't sound shady and supervillainy as hell! This literally is just the Mobius Illuminati, isn't it?

Back in Lara-Le's apartment, Wynmacher has just finished cooking dinner. Knuckles is confused as to what it is, as it appears to be just a fancily-garnished mound of brown crumbly… stuff, and Wynmacher tells him it's "canard á la exquisite," which is just French for "fancy duck." Dunno why he couldn't have just told Knuckles that in the first place, but then again, they may have French-ified it precisely because we have at least one recurring character in this comic that is a duck, and they wanted to avoid any uncomfortable cannibalistic implications. As they sit down to eat, Lara-Le and Wynmacher decide to announce something special!

…well, that backfired. Honestly, I'm not sure why Knuckles is so upset here though. He's just barely getting to know his mom again after like thirteen years away from her, and he already knew, I'm assuming, that she and Locke were no longer together. Furthermore, it was obvious to anyone who looked at Lara-Le and Wynmacher for longer than two seconds that they were in a relationship. I get that remarriage to a new stepparent can be hard on a kid, and that everyone handles these things differently, but seriously, why the freakout, man?

Well, whatever the specific reason, Knuckles is upset, and as he runs out the doors of his mother's apartment building he happens to run past Julie-Su and the rest of the Chaotix (minus Charmy, of course). He ignores them as they call after him, and Vector wants to go after him, but Julie-Su heads him off.

As Julie-Su rushes off to find Knuckles, we head back to the Brotherhood. They decide to set aside Semper Fidelis' advice for the time being to focus on speaking about Knuckles, specifically the unprecedented energy tunnel power that led him home. Thunderhawk and Sojourner want to dismiss it as the Guardian version of hitting puberty, essentially, but Spectre speaks up for the first time to angrily call out Locke for "tampering with the natural order."

Well, that settles it then. It was already implied by Lara-Le that Locke may have done something to Knuckles' egg right before it hatched, but Spectre's basically confirmed it. But what did he do, exactly? We'll have to shelve that for now, as Julie-Su catches up with Knuckles sitting on a dock looking out at the water. He tries to get her to go away, but she ignores him as expected and sits next to him. Then, unexpectedly, she gives him a quick peck on the cheek. He's outraged, rubbing the kiss off his cheek like a child, but she claims she's merely returning the favor from when he tried to cheer her up after she left the Dark Legion.

Young love! Or at least, teenage crushes! Come on, Julie-Su, you know the reason why - hormones! It's no surprise that these two are being set up together - you could see it coming a mile away, back when she was first introduced. The only question now is how Penders handles a slow burn… how graceful do you suppose it'll be? High hopes, anyone? I really shouldn’t be so hard on him, given that I actually quite like this ship, but I just can’t help making fun of the guy sometimes.

[schoentraumer]

A Rush

The worst part of being unincorporated into the greater commonwealth is that the protections that the commonwealth offers. I frowned thoughtfully down at the...well, I suppose bandits makes the most sense to describe them. Unwashed, clearly destitute, carrying all manner of strange instrument gathered from prior raids. They numbered about nine, possibly ten if the pair of boots around the rock were attached to someone.

A snort and a kick confirmed the boots were in fact attached to someone, so, 10. I frowned thoughtfully, glancing around at them, then up at the sky. Darkness would come, and when it did, so would I. I pulled back and then rolled over, slipping my hat down to cover my face, folding my hands over my stomach and napping. It wasn’t as though these fella’s were going to have a flyer stashed around here, not with how they had cobbled together their camp. Still, I glanced up from under the brim of my hat towards the higher reaches where transport would come from.

Still, nothing on the horizon. 

I listened as they descended into drunken revelry, the sun baking the leather trench coat I was currently surrounded in. The jacket would not perhaps have been considered fashionable in the commonwealth, but finding myself in the unincorporated I felt to blend in one has to abandon the mores one knows. 

It wasn’t like I could really be considered a member of the commonwealth anymore in any case. I had given up that part of my life when I’d run out on my obligations and I wasn’t likely to be welcomed back with open arms now, even as the prized omega of a good house. The scandal. The shame. What would the neighbors say?

Probably only what they’d heard my family say. 

Dusk and then darkness, the rowdy sounds of merriments and horseplay. I lifted my hat as they began to settle down. Too drunk to really do much other than rehash some truly awful stories than were altogether unlikely to have happened in the way that they describe, though the appeal is strong. 

Pulling out my stunner, I rolled onto my front and looked down at the group. Slumped together in one corner were six of them, the story sharers. Across the fire from them were three sleepers, and the last one was tending the fire with a glassy look in his eye. I nodded, rose into a crouch, and then jumped. 

Sticking the landing, I got off 10 charges in 30 seconds, fast enough that they didn’t even have time to yell. I stayed completely still for another 30 seconds, waiting for the statistically unlikely stunner rage, and then rose from my crouch and holstered my weapon. I slowly crept towards the story tellers and checked them, pulling out my small attache of zip ties. There are more fancy restraints, some of which I’d eyed in catalogues, but for non augmented bandits like these I couldn’t justify the expense. 

I checked each of them for vitals, but all were breathing. “Jedadiah, please come to me.” I requested, my hud activating with a multicolored line.

“Aye Captain. Estimated three minutes till arrival.” My ship confirmed. I set about finishing with the last few of them before dragging the deadweights into a line. I then scanned each face, confirming their identities as the ‘Mudd Cup Gang’. Of thirteen known associates, these were the last ten, the other three captured ‘Dead or Alive’ by another bounty hunter earlier that day. The scans then were important, giving me ownership of the capture even if the other hunter showed up before I dropped my quarry off with the County sheriff for processing.

Still, seeing the long series of added profits to my ‘pending’ account was a welcome sight. I wasn’t long in the ‘bounty hunter’ business, and had only really turned to it because the options for unbonded Omega’s for money weren’t super great, especially in an unincorporated area. 

The soft hum of my ship was a welcome distraction, “Touching down, Captain.” Jedadiah’s melodic voice informed me, and I stood, hand up to block the soft breeze the engines generated. 

“Set systems to auto-defense, alert for signatures within .5 miles.” I requested.

I then gritted my teeth and loaded the ten unhelpful bodies into the back of my ship, straining under their heavy weight. I didn’t even have the muscles of a beta, but I wasn’t about to give up. I was going to get a cart, I decided. A hover cart. Then I’d just have to roll them onto it and then into the holding cell. 

I grunted when the last was in the cell, sweating and abandoning the oversized trench. I swiped a wrist against my forehead, mopping sweat away with my shirt. I checked each stunned body for weapons or personal effects, making a small pile, before looping their arms with a chain and bolting them against the back wall, slumped together like sleeping babes. Taking their weapons and personal effects I dumped them in a box to be sorted through later. 

Descending the ship, I began to make my way towards the piles of ‘loot’, when Jedadiah blipped, “Presence detected Captain.” Jedadiah stated, and I heard the soft whir of the weapons activating. 

I pulled out my stunner, finger on the trigger, “How far out?”

There was a blip from one of the piles, possibly one of their own detectors. “Unknown. Possible jammer use.” 

I swore, backing back up into the ship. Jammers were expensive, I should know, I had a top of the line one, and very few people had the resources and need of one. Usually not for people on the up and up.

The door began to close when I smelt someone new, and I gritted my teeth, ducking and rolling, stunner up and focused on a shadow. A ripple that moved from the shadow, hands lifting. The armor slowly shifted from camouflage mode to regular mode and the man, the Alpha, settled his hands in the classic surrender pose. “Clever, how’d you know where I was going to be?”

I glared at him hard, “I was off the ship less than a minute, there’s only a few places in this ship that someone can get to in that time, and only one place that an Alpha, even in camouflage, could hide.” I said. I gestured at him with my stunner, establishing power. “Lift your visor, identify yourself.”

He used his right hand and lifted the visor, revealing pale blue eyes and a strong but distinguished nose. “Lieutenant Jim Park, Briar County Sheriff’s department.” I raised a brow at that.

“Jedadiah, please confirm the Lieutenants identity if you will.” I asked, stunner still on the man. There was a pause while Jed checked against the secure identification network. 

“Confirmed. Good evening Lieutenant, you were unexpected.” Jed rebuked lightly.

Sassy is a good look on an AI. 

I slowly lowered my weapon, holstering the stunner. “Can’t say we are happy to have you either.” I rebuked a little more harshly. I said. I, like most Omegas, are incredibly weary of being in the presence of an Alpha that isn’t family or mate. “Please open the door Jedadiah.” As the door opened I stepped back from it and nodded towards the door, “If you would be so kind, Lieutenant. I don’t like strangers on my ship that aren’t in handcuffs.” 

He raised an eyebrow at that and I realized that that was a little kinkier than I had intended. Blushing a little but glaring at him, “You know what I mean. I am a registered bounty hunter, and I caught these doofuses fair and square.” I defended.

Lieutenant Park nodded, indicating that he was making for the door and I followed him out, Jed keeping a me updated on the scanners in the corner of my HUD. 

“You’re the new one, right? The Sheriff said that there was a townie registered and picking up small fries.” The lieutenant said, feet in the dirt and reaching up to remove his full helmet. 

I shrugged, “Probably. I got the impression that there aren’t that many people who are raring to go as a bounty hunter and quite a few derps who are skating by under the radar by being lower profile than the big catches.” I nodded towards the various piles of obviously stolen goods, some in crates and some just strewn about. 

He nods but eyes me, “Seems like dangerous work.” He hedged and I glared at him.

“Life is dangerous - this is just being proactive about which danger I am the company too.” I say, annoyed, watching his nose flare a little. Alpha noses are more sensitive than a beta, but my nose is keener than his by far. He probably knew what I am, but I straddled the line between feminine beta and masculine omega, so he probably wasn’t sure.

He shrugged, looking around as well. “Most of this won’t be salvageable, not after being exposed like this. I assume that you have the inventory list of reward if found items?” He asked. 

I nodded, side eyeing him, “I’m new, Lieutenant, not infantile. I am aware of the nuances of the rewards system.” 

He raised his hands, “Alright, alright. If you’d like I can drop a beacon and have a recycler come out and pick up what you don’t take.”

I folded my arms, getting the feeling that he was offering to help me more than he would anyone else. “That would be lovely, Lieutenant. If there is nothing else, I will bid you goodnight. I will wrap up here and be off to central booking in maybe an hour or so. I assume your ship is around here somewhere?”

His face pinched a little, “Er, yeah. A few ridges back, outside of normal scanner range.” 

I nodded, “Smart.” I watched while he didn’t call his ship. “Well, thank you for offering to drop a beacon.” And then walking away. I pulled up the inventory, looking for the few items that either the insurance or private owners wanted back and assessing anything else that was of value that I could salvage. 

After a few minutes the sound of the Lieutenants ship, a sleek Caster style vessel, arrived. “Well, goodnight.” He called out. I nodded, not looking at him but raising a hand to wave. 

That was how I met Jim Park. The weirdest Alpha I ever knew. 

[llamaswrites]

Spiral

Fandom: Overwatch

Rating: Teen

Pairing: Doomfist: The Successor | Akande Ogundimu/Lúcio Correia dos Santos

Summary: 

Hana said it took twenty-one days to form a habit.

It should have been simple to do.

The universe only gave him four days before everything went wrong.

Read on AO3 here.

It was yet another of Hana’s spontaneous theories and, like most ideas she came up with unrelated to battle tactics (either in Starcraft or actual combat), it was completely awful.

“It’s really simple in theory,” she told Lúcio through a mouthful of chips and ice cream. It was a combination that he always found awful, but it made appearance any time either of them had something go down that required ‘bestie time’, as Hana put it. “You just need to stay so busy that you can’t think about him. Eventually, you’ll just forget to think about him. They say it takes twenty-one days to form a habit. Think you can do it?”

Hana didn’t know much about Akande, other than he was exactly Lúcio’s type and managed to severely bruise his fragile heart. She didn’t even know his name, because he’d never told her and she’d never asked. It was the unspoken rule when they got together that the other person didn’t pry, to just let everything flow out naturally.

This time, Hana perched on the ratty old couch she’d found in the depths of Watchpoint: Gibraltar, after having put on something awful (anime, probably) on the holoscreen at the front of the room. Lúcio sat on the floor with his back against the couch, letting Hana comb her fingers through his recently cleaned hair. After a lot of practice, he was comfortable with her helping twist his hair back into locs.  

It was hard, sometimes, to reconcile this Hana with the one he went on missions with. When she was out of the MEKA, she was bright and happy and spontaneous. In it, she was cold, calculating, and brutal, everything she trained to be as essentially a child soldier.

“I’m going to bet that’s worked for exactly no one ,” he told her, eyes trained on the screen in front of him but not really watching. “How do you come up with this stuff?”

“I don’t,” she said, but then backtracked. “At least, I didn’t come up with this. It’s something 76 mentioned to me once.”

“You should leave that poor guy alone,” Lúcio mumbled, and then asked “What did he have to say? I didn’t think he really had anything or anyone outside of just being an old soldier past his time.”

“You tell me to leave him alone and still want to scoop? I don’t think that’s fair!” She tugged on a completed loc playfully.

“It’s not like you’re going to leave him alone anyway. Just spill!”

He expected Hana to spill immediately, like whenever she had a juicy piece of gossip about someone on base, but she hesitated. “I’m not really sure if it’s my story or whatever to tell, but...I found him one night when I was exploring, out near the big beacon that acts like a lighthouse over the straight. His visor was off and he was slamming back this cheap ass beer. I asked him if he wanted to have some company, to share some war stories and beer because I had some too and god knows none of us are getting therapy anytime soon and he told me, ‘That’s not why I’m out here’.

“He let me join him though, and few beers later he started talking. Said that back when he was the head of this whole shindig, he had a person that he was really close to, that he fell in love with. He never told them though and they died when that base blew up. He told me that piece of advice, though. Said that’s how he got over it. Maybe it’ll work for you.”

“Did he ever say who they were?” Lúcio asked, curious.

“Nah,” she said, flipping a finished loc over his shoulder. “But hey, his advice has to be worth something. He’s got way more age and wisdom and senior discounts than we’ll ever have. He probably knows what he’s talking about.”

He hummed softly in agreement, but couldn’t help imagining 76 up on that lighthouse tower. Hana probably didn’t realize that if he was up there mourning by himself that his tactics for forgetting hadn’t worked after all. Maybe his advice had worked once upon a time, but obviously something or someone recently dragged every bit of thought and obsession and grief back to the forefront of his mind. Lúcio didn’t plan on taking Hana’s advice, at least not originally. As was the case with everything in his life, but especially concerning Overwatch, trouble soon followed.

He told himself at first that he wanted to know more about Akande because he needed to thank him for the research and schematics left behind on the holo tablet. Not because, he scolded himself, he was still enamoured with the man despite not seeing him in over two weeks and despite the lack of any further promise. Searching for him on the web hadn’t been his immediate course of actions because it felt weird to search for someone he’d been so...personal...with in such an impersonal way. Lúcio was afraid of what he’d find, afraid that his experience that night would be far from unique, even if nothing was promised to make it that way. He soon found that with Akande, that should have been the least of his worries.

Instead, he checked the message Akande left for him on the datapad, hoping for some overt contact information he missed on his first glance through or clues in the metadata. The message itself was as unhelpful at it had been before. Checking the metadata was no better; it was as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, leaving it utterly unsalvageable and utterly useless. It was too much like recovered data from old watchpoints and Talon bases, deliberately obscured and damaged to hide the fingerprints of individuals long gone, or long damned in their pursuits.

Lúcio chose to look past the oddity. Surely Akande had his reasons for masking his digital trail. From his knowledge to his (too) expensive suit to the small red plates on his head announcing the fine intraneural nerve wiring to his prosthetic, it was clear he was someone , someone who dearly didn’t want to be found trivially. It should have scared Lúcio more than it did. He wasn’t prepared for how hard the fear and realization would hit him.

It had been entirely too easy to find out about Akande on the web. Lúcio thought that he misspelled his name at first because surely this couldn’t be the intimidating but gentle man he met. A quick check of the message of the datapad confirmed he had it right and a hard, cold lump of anxiety settled deep in his gut. He steeled himself and clicked on the first biography page that popped up. His eyes lighted on the picture and the lump immediately shot up into his stomach, nausea rising quickly. He threw the datapad (the same one from Akande) violently away from him and dashed to the bathroom to lose his lunch. The datapad landed on the bed’s comforter and was fine. Lúcio’s emotional state, however, was not.

Lúcio could honestly say before he saw Akande’s picture that there was not much he regretted in life or, at least, nothing he regretted deeply. He mourned deeply those lost in the revolution he’d started, wished there had been a better way, but he knew his regret would do nothing to change the past and only dishonor their memory. He didn’t really regret the actions that led him to lose his lower legs; after all, he wouldn’t be the same person or have all the same friends today with them.

After emptying his stomach, he rested his head back against the wall. He realized, panting slightly, that this was his first true regret. The only person that could reasonably be worse in this situation might be Gabriel Reyes, if he ever really was a person when he was still in Blackwatch (there was still so much he didn’t know or wasn’t privileged to). Or maybe Widowmaker. Still, Akande -- Doomfist -- was terrible in his own right. He killed so many in his rise to power through Talon; more still would be lost Talon’s warmongering efforts succeeded. He was the antithesis to everything Lúcio stood for in his life and Lúcio had let him see the most vulnerable part of him, both personally and with his tech.

The memory of being touched gently by Akande, by the same hands that killed so many, flitted by in his brain and Lúcio smashed his head back against the tile wall, quashing down the nausea that rose violently in him with pain. He took a few deeps breaths and tried to center himself. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as he was making it out to be. After all, Aka-- Doomfist certainly hadn’t mentioned to anyone what had happened between them and if he did, it hadn’t gotten out. Maybe this was just another passing thing for Doomfist or at most, some manipulation on Talon’s part. He couldn’t let it get to him. He wouldn’t.

The keypad beeping faintly in the distance was all the warning he got before Hana barged into his room, 76 in tow with a tray of food. Apparently in his internal angsting, he missed dinner. Hana joined him on the floor of the bathroom without hesitation, smoothing his locs away form his face. 76 positioned himself in the doorway between the bathroom and bedroom with the tray balanced on a single hand, obviously irritated by being dragged along but still not leaving.

“You never miss dinner, are you sick?” asked Hana. Lúcio shook his head and smiled weakly at her.

“Nah, I’m not sick,” he said and tried to stand up. Hana pulled him back down to the cool floor.

“What’s wrong? I know something’s wrong. Is it him?” she asked once more. Lúcio glanced up quickly at 76. The old soldier seemed to be unimpressed by what the youngsters before him were talking about and studying the room around him. An arched eyebrow above his visor, though, cued Lúcio into the fact that 76 was actually listening to their conversation.

“Um, kinda,” Lúcio admitted quietly, trying to prevent 76 from listening in. It probably didn’t work; super soldier hearing made having private conversations near impossible. “Just...I think I need to take your advice, for once. I’m driving myself nuts.”

Hana helped him to his feet and together, they stumbled back into the bedroom. His prosthetics feld like dead weight as he settled back onto the bed. Hana relocated the tablet to his bedside table, where 76 also placed the tray of food. 76 averted his gaze when Lúcio undid the locks on the prosthetics but Hana just leaned on his shoulder, entirely used to seeing his legs off and knowing it just made everything more awkward if she ignored the elephant in the room.

76 took up post by the door, clearly waiting for Hana as she whispered to Lúcio, “Love sucks. It gets better though. I promise.”

“It’s not, uh, love and thanks. For the advice. And for dinner.”

She pushed herself off his shoulder and off bed. “No problem! Text me if you need anything else. And hey, maybe you should start taking my advice more often.”

“You had a good idea for once?” rumbled 76’s voice finally. “The world must be ending.”

Hana pouted at him with crossed arms as he poked roughly at the keypad to open the door. 76 waited outside in the hall as she hugged Lúcio.

“Can it, mister,” she told the old soldier as she joined him in the hallway. “Besides, this bit of wisdom wasn’t one-hundred-percent Hana Song Certified. If it goes topsy turvy, it’s your fault.”

The door closed, but Lúcio could still hear the indignant, “My fault?” from the other side as he flopped back down the bed. For some reason, he had a feeling that sleep would not come easy.

Everything that could go wrong, did so like this:

Hana said it took twenty-one days to form a habit. Simple enough, Lúcio thought. Overwatch always had a plethora of missions available, ranging from escort situations to active combat situations. He signed himself up for the most mind numbing missions he can find after he fails to not think of the night in Rio for a week straight. This will work, he told himself.

And it did, for about four days. Four days of pushing himself to the limit and falling in his bed or a cot every night, absolutely exhausted. Four days of getting up, showering, and throwing himself back into his work, healing and guiding and fighting with blood making his skin tacky.

His life hadn’t been this intense since living back in the favela under Vishkar. These missions were the most extreme Overwatch had to offer, the ones that were always waiting for one last brave soul to make them a reality. Lúcio found himself crawling through vent ducts and scorching under the heat of the Cairo sun, all in the name of justice (and keeping his mind off of Akande). He didn’t even realize his plan was working.

Everything went wrong, starting like this:

They’re up in a satellite state of Russia and the air was cold enough to make breathing physically hurt. The sun, just starting to set below the horizon, did not help the temperature at all. The mission is in an area that could be described as a slum. Each shack was built out spare parts, whether from the siding of trains or the hulls of Volskaya mechs and rats, more impervious to the cold than Lúcio was, ran underfoot.The streets were narrow and wound through it in an almost non-Euclidean manner, making it all the more impossible to avoid the sharp icicles hanging from the tin ramshackle roofs. If not for the cold, it would make Lúcio miss his favela fiercely.

There was a definite sense of poverty, yes, but also a feeling of community and belonging. Everyone here knew each other and each other’s business, which made the Overwatch team’s presence all the more glaringly obvious. Their objective was a specific omnic living in one of these shacks, particularly escorting them to safety from the harshly anti-omnic groups circling like sharks around the neighborhood. Omnics were exceedingly rare in Russia, though this omnic had managed to survive long enough to see many others of their kind to safety. Now, only they remained, trapped by those wanting to prosecute them for the crime of protecting others. The community didn’t know or trust their intentions to help, though, and so hidden the omnic remained.

Today’s squad was smaller than their usual six man. He was accompanied by Soldier 76 and McCree, of all people and was dismayed when neither man seemed very bothered by the cold. They split up early on, to gain more ground, and Lúcio found himself quietly skating through icy alleys, followed only by the quiet hum of his sonic amplifier and the stares of the slum’s residents. There was at least a clue to where this omnic might be in the form of some sort of symbol painted on the upper left of their door, but that was according to the worried omnics this one helped. Still, working on old information was better than none at all.

He barely turned a corner when an explosion nearby rocked the slums, causing some of the icicles to fall from the eaves, shattering on the ground melodiously. Lúcio quickly backtracked to the alley he came from in search of better cover, hand reaching up to the comm in his ear to consult his team about what just happened.

76 only had time to growl out, “Talon, Reaper,” before the rest of the icicles crashed down in a cacophony as something heavy landed behind him. Lúcio froze, heart in his throat and his skin prickling up from something other than the cold. He had a feeling that, if he were to turn around, he would know exactly who was behind him.

Everything went wrong because Hana’s plan couldn’t possibly account for Doomfist finding him in the middle of a mission.

Once, he read that the now extinct wolves in America proper would refuse to look at or acknowledge humans when they were caught in a trap. Sometimes, a wolf would twist itself around in a trap if that meant not looking at a human nearby. It was as though they thought trouble didn’t exist or would go away if it wasn’t acknowledged. He didn’t understand it then, but he did now.

“We meet again, Lúcio Correia dos Santos,” rumbled a voice behind him. Lúcio willed his knees to not give out and turned around finally, knowing that not facing an enemy was probably the stupidest thing he could do, next to being intimate with the same enemy.

The next stupidest thing came out of his mouth a moment later and he wanted to slap himself. “Just Lúcio is fine, but you know that.”

The corner of Akande’s mouth twitched up into a smirk as he approached Lúcio. The way he moved reminded Lúcio of some sort of big cat stalking its prey. Any other time it might have been a flattering comparison, but in this case…

The prey was a rather idiotic frog.

Lúcio skated smoothly backwards, intent on putting some space between himself and Akande--Doomfist---he really needed to stop conflating this man with anything but enemy . He hoped Doomfist wouldn’t force him to wallride to escape, as he knew there was another wall fast approaching behind his back. Escaping that giant gauntlet while having little control on a wall other than forward was not Lúcio’s idea of a good time. Really, Lúcio ought to just flee but some stupid part of him wanted to know why he was sought out specifically.

Thankfully, Doomfist stopped. Still, his huge frame filled up the narrow alley to the point where Lúcio could barely see past him. In contrast to the images he saw in his earlier search of the Talon, the mountain of a man actually wore a shirt, with one long sleeve that nearly extended past his free hand and the other tied up above his gleaming gauntlet.

“I am glad to see you once more. You were not on any of the usual missions you take for Overwatch.”

Lúcio’s first thought was that, duh, he wasn’t on any of those missions because he was trying to avoid the man, whether it was actually encountering him or simply thinking about him. His second was to question if Akande was actually looking for him . Was the man actively stalking Overwatch just to talk to him? Subtly, he muted the comm in his ear, listening with only half attention as 76 screeched commands into their line like a hoarse, old crow .

“I have to say that, uh, I’m not really that glad,” Lúcio as he shifted his weight back and forth on his skates and studied the eaves. They were just tall enough that wallriding might be possible to get past Doomfist, but there would be a problem if he wanted to launch himself on top of the building due to the eaves.

The smirk dropped instantly and Lúcio felt his veins turned to ice. Happy Akande was terrifying and intimidating but this was on a whole other level. He wasn’t sure if he would be more intimidated of Reaper if the ghast decided to show his face right then and there (it was doubtful though, if the traded gunfire between a pulse rifle and shotguns in the distance was anything to go by).

“I must admit, I thought you might be slightly more cordial, especially after how our first meeting ended.”

Nope. Nope. What man experienced in modern combat would ever say that in the possible presence of comms that either side could hear ?

“Yeah, no, not after what a quick search of you brought up. No way.” Peeking down the other alley revealed a McCree rolling by like a tumbleweed, quickly followed by gunfire. That was a definite no.

“You did not realize who I was.” It was not a question. Lúcio glanced back and met Akande’s gaze levelly. There was no referring to him as Doomfist anymore, not with his insistence of talking about that night.

“No,” he said. Akande huffed out a laugh and shook his head incredulously. The slight movement caused his giant gauntlet to gleam with the weak rays of the dying sun.

“I see. So you make it a habit then, to let total strangers make modifications that could leave you helpless? To let them bring you to the end and--”

“Could you not?” Lúcio interrupted. “Go there, I mean. To answer your question so you will stop coming back to that, no, I don’t. Now if you could stop mentioning that night, I’d be super happy because I know we both have active comms and I don’t particularly want an international syndicate knowing the details of what I do in my free time.”

“My comm is muted,” Akande said. “I assume yours is the same.”

The gears turned in Lúcio’s head, though he was quickly brought out of his reverie by another explosion, this one closer than last time. Helix rockets, maybe?

“Your team doesn’t know either,” he said slowly.

“Yes,” said Akande.

“You’re not here for Talon reasons,” Lúcio clarified and then asked, “Why are you following me?”

This gave Akande pause.

“This is not entirely Talon related, no,” he said. “I saw a kindred spirit in you that night. One who knew what it was like to fight and rise above, to overcome and be better for it.”

“So, what? You think I’m just going to follow you back to Talon because you helped me out that night? Because I fought in a war and came out on the winning side of it?”

“I did not think it would be so simple as that, but in essence yes.”

A harsh laugh rang through the air and Lúcio realized it was his own. Even Akande looked surprised.

“You really must think I’m some sort of idiot.” Akande tried to object, but Lúcio continued speaking over him, fueled by a level of anger he didn’t know that he possessed. “No, seriously. Did you really think I would be, what, seduced by you into joining Talon? Just because I fit into some part of your weird philosophy? Let me tell you a few things.

“I’m not better because of what happened with Vishkar in Rio. Just because I don’t regret my actions doesn’t mean I want to go through it all again, that I can say I’m better for everything that happened. I don’t know how you could think anyone could be better from losing their legs, their family, everything in their life, from watching children and their parents die from the labor they were forced to do or the beatings from being out past curfew. Even worse is seeing people die in the name of a cause you yourself have spearheaded, before they could ever know a better life.

“You think I’m better for that? That they’re better for that? You can seriously fuck right off with that ideology and take your rich boy self elsewhere because I’m done here.”

Lúcio rushed towards Akande and started to crouch to begin his jump. Akande, seeing the change in posture, lunged for him but missed him by inches, hurtling towards the other end of the alley with the gauntlet. Homefree, Lúcio continued to wallride and flipped around to watch as Akande pulled up short of crashing at the end of the alley before backflipping off a wall to land in the larger street.

“Lúcio, wait!”

The first shot, he reasoned later, didn’t make its mark because Widowmaker wasn’t anticipating the manner of his exit from the alley. Still, it shattered the green plexiglass of his goggles and caused him to land off kilter, not entirely balanced on his skates.

The second hit him, but also not in its intended place. Akande, having realizing the gravity of the situation far before Lúcio did, lunged out of the alley and tackled him into the ground. Still the sniper’s bullet found its way into his right lung, entirely too close to his heart. He wouldn’t know that until later, though.

Lúcio’s world seemed to grind to a halt. Some part of him dimly registered how nice and warm Akande was over him, especially compared to how cold it was. Another part registered Akande yelling into his now unmuted com, ordering Widowmaker to stand down as he was pulled into the man’s lap, while his own comm screamed in his ear.

Akande ripped off part of his sleeve and balled it up. When he pressed it against the wound on Lúcio’s chest, the pain finally cut through the haze in his mind.

Fuck.

He’d been shot.

Pain crawled through his chest like fire and he couldn’t suppress a whimper that came out even more pathetic than it should with a pierced lung. It had been so long since he was last shot -- usually his blades were quick enough to keep him out of the line of fire. It was a familiar enough of a sensation to know that something was very, very wrong with the way pain flowed through his body.

Akande murmured apologies as he cradled Lúcio’s body and kept the cloth pressed to the wound, though it was quickly apparent it was doing nothing to help. Lúcio smiled and tried to laugh, even as he failed catching his breath. There were worse ways to go than been looked after by a really attractive guy he thought and he must have vocalized it because Akande ruefully chuckled as he raised a hand to cradle Lúcio’s face. It was getting harder and harder to keep his eyes open and the hand that was cradling his face soon turned to striking it lightly, probably in an attempt to keep him awake.

He heard footsteps quickly approaching and suddenly, the pain cut to a fraction of what it had been. Lúcio found the strength to crack open his eyes and he saw Akande still looming over him, tense and lit by a warm yellow light. Lúcio let his head loll over to the side and saw 76 crouched by them. That explained the light, most likely from one of the soldier’s portable biotic fields.

“I’m not going to kill you,” 76 said quietly. “I’m not even going to tell anyone about this. I’ve been through this same thing. Just please, give him to me. We can still save him from the venom.”

Venom? Was that what was making this so painful?

Akande hesitated, before gently lifting Lúcio up from his lap and letting 76 take him into his arms. The cold leather of 76’s jacket was significantly different from Akande’s own natural warmth and Lúcio shivered violently. Akande’s hand stroked the side of his face gently and Lúcio leaned into the warm touch thankfully.

“Take care of him,” Akande told 76, who inclined his head slightly in response. The soldier shoved the biotic emitter in his pocket and took off running. Lúcio didn’t make to the ship before losing the fight to unconsciousness, but he was awake long enough to hear the tell-tale boom that announced Akande’s takeoff with the gauntlet.

It took three days for Lúcio to wake up completely.

In the meanwhile, he woke up for seconds or minutes at time.

Once, he woke up to Hana tying his hair back in a scarf, considerate of the way it went absolutely bonkers whenever he slept or neglected to take care of it. Her face was puffy and red, probably from crying and she stroked his face gently when she saw that his eyes were open.

Another time, he saw Zenyatta meditating in the corner of the room, lit only by the afternoon light filtering in through the blinds. The chiming of the orbs around the omnic quickly lulled Lúcio back into unconsciousness.

When he finally awoke, the room was empty save for 76. The old man sat in a chair in the corner where Zenyatta previously was, snoring beneath a magazine that lay on his face. The room was darkened and from the lack of light outside, Lúcio could guess it was well past the time any decent person should be awake. Sore and conscious of the too-tight bandages that swaddled his abdomen, Lúcio carefully sat up. He was surprised when nurses didn’t immediately swarm in with the pick up in heart rate, but it was night after all. He noticed that someone had taken his legs off and it irked him slightly that they weren’t in sight.

He tucked a stray lock of hair back into the scarf and dipped his head to his chest to inspect the wound, or what little he could see of it. Purple blood vessels, so dark they were nearly black, crawled out from under the bandage, clearly damaged by whatever the bullet was laced with. It would be a long while before he was completely recovered. With the wound so close to his heart, he was lucky to even be alive at all. Sighing, Lúcio pulled the covers back up over his chest just as someone entered the room.

The omnic clearly wasn’t a nurse. His (because this was probably the most masculine omnic Lúcio had ever seen) expensive suit looked extremely out of place in the hospital and he wasn’t the standard build that any of the nurses probably were. In contrast to most omnics he knew, including Zenyatta, this one had custom sculpting done on his frame to give him a more human-like appearance, belying that he was something outside of the range of the common omnic. Lúcio also noted with some disquiet that all of the omnic’s vital lights were red.

Could this be the omnic they tried to rescue in the slum? God, he hoped so. His luck lately would have this mystery bot be entirely bad news.

“Ah good, you’re awake,” he intoned, mechanical voice belying an accent that was, again, entirely by choice and out of the common range for most omnics. The omnic placed a wrapped box, presumably a gift of some sorts, at the foot of his bed with many more Lúcio hadn’t noticed before.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize you,” said Lúcio. The omnic chuckled darkly.

“That is good,” he said, “for both you and me, but irrelevant nevertheless. I am here on behalf of a mutual friend to check on you and deliver a gift.”

Lúcio eyed the omnic carefully. He was starting to have a few guesses to who this omnic might be and quite a few of them led back to the hole in his chest.

“How...exactly did you get in here?” Lúcio asked and glanced at 76, who still appeared to be quite passed out but still breathing. “Overwatch’s security is pretty good and if I don’t know you…”

“Their security can be the best in the world but it’s not going to stop the owner of this hospital from walking in whenever he pleases.” The omnic tapped at the datapad on the wall, pulling up Lúcio’s charts and examining them. “And don’t go looking for my identity either, you won’t find anything worthwhile there.”

Another glance at 76. Another snore.

“Did you, uh, do something to him?”

“Just a mild sedative in the coffee creamer. Don’t worry, he’ll wake up eventually.”

“So, if your...friend....needed to know how I was doing, why not just check my records through the access you already have?” Lúcio asked and the omnic turned away from the datapad with a sigh.

“Do your questions never cease? And you never ask the right one...Humans, even the more intelligent ones, are astoundingly illogical sometimes. Seeing the records was not enough to assure his heavy heart, though I’m not sure what my presence here will do in regards to that. I will say though, you are looking remarkably well for being on the receiving end of Amelie’s gun.”

Everything clicked at once.

“You’re from Talon. Akande sent you.”

“Finally, some sign of intelligence. Yes, he did. For some reason I’m failing to comprehend at the moment, he has stake in your continued existence. Now that I’ve seen sign of life in all your lacking faculties, I shall take my leave.”

And like that, the omnic strutted out of the room just as suddenly as he had arrived. Dumbfounded, Lúcio could only stare at the small present, wrapped in red paper, sitting out of his reach at the foot of the bed. Everything was spiralling out of control. The night with Akande should have never left the hotel, but now it landed him in the hospital. Overwatch probably thought that he was compromised, Talon was probably looking at him like he was a piece of meat, and now everyone would know how much he messed up.

A short time later, 76 startled himself awake with a snore and then proceeded to act like he’d never been asleep in the first place. Lúcio didn’t enlighten him as to their curious visitor and soon enough, 76 was replaced by a weepy, but happy, Hana. With her, she brought the datapad from where he had abandoned it beside his bed. He left it closed and let her chatter away about what was happening back at the Watchpoint. Being the friend she was, she immediately picked up on his quietness though he initially tried to wave it off as a reaction to recovery and the drugs they had him on.

“76 told me what happened, you know,” she said quietly. “As far as I know, he didn’t tell anyone else. You can talk about it if you need to.”

He shook his head and his gaze caught on the box at the end of the bed for what was probably the thousandth time. Tracing his gaze, Hana grabbed it.

“You keep looking at it,” she explained as she dumped it in his lap. It was heavier than he thought it would be. “Just open it. I think I know who it’s from.”

Sighing, Lúcio carefully untied the silk ribbon binding the box and lifted the lid. Inside was a poncho of some sort, made from tan lengths of woven cloth with green stripes running parallel to its length. Upon closer inspection, there seemed to be little stylized frogs embroidered upon the cloth, hopping the length of the stripes on the front of the fabric leading up to what Lúcio presumed was the neck hole. The reverse side was lined with a heavier cloth, softer than the top fabric by far.

“It’s neat,” said Hana as she reached out to run her fingers over the texture, “but what is it?”

“I’m not really sure either,” Lúcio said. “Look, you can take off the lining.”

“It looks really warm,” Hana murmured as she smoothed her hand over the soft lining. “Which is good, you’re always shivering unless you’re south of the equator! He probably noticed too.”

Lúcio said nothing and traced the outline of a frog. Hana watched him mope for a moment before she snatched the gift from his hands.

“You should wear it!” she announced and fed her hands through the fabric, presumably trying to find the neck opening to shove it over Lúcio’s head.

“Hana, no,” he objected. “I’m fine. Also I have no idea how to wear it.”

“Hana yes,” she said, “and we’ll figure it out together. Hold still!”

Luckily for Lúcio, Soldier: 76 chose that moment to wander back in the room with Efi, a hand on her shoulder. Probably to keep her from excitedly bouncing on the balls of her feet, something she almost alway did when she came to see him.

The hand failed to keep her from tackling him.

“Lúcio!” she cried as she barreled into his chest. Lúcio nearly bit through his lip to keep from crying out as her head smashed into the bandages on his chest. “I was so worried but everyone else at Overwatch said you were going to be okay but the mission details said that both Widow and Doomfist were there and oh my gosh I can’t even begin to imagine what happened, you should have taken Orisa with you--”

“Efi, it’s alright,” he reassured, prying the small girl from her tight hug around his chest. Efi didn’t seem to notice him gritting his teeth. “It all worked out okay. We’ll try to take Orisa next time, okay?”

She nodded solemnly and added, “She would have been able to kick Doomfist’s butt. Then he wouldn’t be able to hurt you or anyone else.”

Lúcio looked up guiltily to meet Hana’s pained gaze (and 76 too, if he’d actually been able to see past the visor).

It was funny how the most innocent phrase could just punch through him like a bullet.

Thankfully, Efi was distracted by the gift in Hana’s hands.

“Oh! An agbada! Can I see it?”

“Is that what this is?” Hana asked. She handed over the folded fabric to Efi, who sat back at the end of the bed and unfolded it. She traced the pattern and giggled when her fingers found the frogs.

“Yup,” she said. “It’s a super common thing for men to wear in Numbani. Or really, any Yoruba guy anywhere. Where did you get this? It’s really cute!”

“Um, a friend gave it to me,” Lúcio admitted.

“A guy friend?” asked Efi with a sly smile and Lúcio felt his face start to burn. She laughed. “It’s okay, I can tell. With the way that this was woven, I can almost guarantee a guy made it. Here, let me help you put it on.”

Lúcio leaned forward as much as his bandages allowed him to let Efi slip the agbada over his head. He was only able to get one arm through a sleeve for fear of snagging his IV, so he elected to keep it slightly wrapped around his abdomen under the cloth. Efi tugged the agbada into place, consequently dislodging the breathing tubes from his nose.

“Oops, sorry!” she said as he fixed them. “But really, you look pretty good. You’re not quite tall enough to be called agunt'asoolo, but it suits you anyway. Whoever made this for you really put a lot of care into it.”

“Yeah...he did.” Lúcio mumbled as he ran his free hand down the front of the agbada. This was physical proof of either how smitten Akande was with him, or how desperate Talon was for him to join them.

He wasn’t sure what was worse.

“I’d still wear something underneath it in the future,” said Efi, oblivious to his turmoil. “It’s really meant to be an overcoat of sorts. Maybe Orisa and I will make you some beads for your hair to match with little speakers in them. Don’t you think that would be awesome, miss Hana?”

Hana nodded with a tight smile on her face. The look she shot Lúcio plainly said we need to talk about this soon and Lúcio averted his gaze back down to the agbada. 76 was not immune to the tension in the room and checked an imaginary watch on his wrist.

“Five more minutes, kiddo,” he growled out. “He’s not going to get any better with you playing on him like a jungle gym.”

Efi plainly struck up a pout. When her parents let her visit Orisa back at whatever watchpoint she currently based out of, the pout was the demise of nearly anyone around her and she was consequently able to get away with murder.

Nearly everyone, except for Ana and 76.

Soldier: 76 stared down the small girl and when it became apparent that he wasn’t bowing, Efi turned her attention back to Lúcio, chattering about some of her newer plans and his concert schedule. When finally 76 determined her time was up, she hugged Lúcio tightly (and no, he wasn’t going to admit exactly how much it hurt, it was humiliating that the strength of an eleven-year-old’s hug made him want to cry) and hopped off the bed. It was Hana who escorted her from the room this time, leaving 76 and Lúcio alone in the small room.

Lúcio shrugged off the agbada and folded it carefully as his nurse finally came into the room. 76 took it from him and set it by the holopad at the side of the bed while his nurse ran through his vitals and started a new drip of medicine going.

“You’re going to be out like a light here in a few,” said his nurse, “so you may want to do whatever you need to before you’re dead to the world again.”

His nurse helped him walk stiffly to the bathroom and after settling him back down in bed, left. 76 settled down in the chair beside the bed and Lúcio prepared himself for a lecture. The old man said nothing, though, as Lúcio fussed with the scarf around his hair (hopefully Hana was up for helping him redo all of his locs once more). Finally, the soldier let out a sigh.

“You’re not the first to do this, you know,” he said, “and you’re definitely not going to be the last.”

“I’m not exactly doing anything,” Lúcio told him, trying to keep the snapping edge out of his voice. “Really, I’m trying not to do anything. But...but…”

He shook his head and immediately regretted it as dizziness sucker punched him from the movement. Obviously, the meds were kicking in.

“But he won’t let go,” 76 said. “And really, I don’t think you’re ready to let go either. Kid, you look like a love sick idiot anytime you so much as see that thing he got you.”

Lúcio flopped back on the bed and huffed.

“So?” he finally snapped, feeling more than a little immature. “So what? Are you going to take me off mission rosters because I’m compromised? Remove my agent status?”

“I’d be a hypocrite if I did,” said 76 and Lúcio stared at him. “Again, you’re not the first to do this. You have a good head on your shoulders and I don’t think you’re going to be leaping to join Talon anytime soon, or give them too much information.”

“So why bring this up, then?” Lúcio’s words came out slurred and his mind struggled to gain traction. He wondered if he’d remember this discussion the next time he woke up.

“I just…” 76 sighed again. “I just don’t want to see you making the same mistakes I did. There’s two sides to this, there always is. Don’t do anything stupid but…”

76 reached up to the visor as if to pinch his nose but settled for running his fingers through his white hair.

“Just know that there’s more to life than fighting, okay? If there comes a time that you’re starting to doubt if you’re in the right place, don’t ignore those doubts. Listen to them. It’ll serve you well.”

76 stood up and reached out to lightly ruffle what he could reach of Lúcio’s hair.

“Take care of yourself, kid. Get some sleep.”

Lúcio watched with drooping eyes as the old soldier marched out of the room and thought back to his encounter with Akande. The face Akande had given him when Lúcio ripped into him was one of a man who, for the first time in his life, doubted the ground on which he’d built his life. 76’s words echoed in his head as he gave into the medication and spiralled into unconsciousness.

He sincerely doubted that he was the one having second thoughts about where he was in life.

[ladystylestores]

Mecca Brands’ New Normal – WWD

https://pmcwwd.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/mecca-highpoint_8_crop-lres.jpg?w=640&h=415&crop=1

Temperature checks for customers and plastic visors for retail staff are among new safety protocols adopted by Australian beauty retailer Mecca Brands as it reopens its 109 stores following COVID-19 shutdowns.

As the U.S. and Europe start the long process of reopening a blueprint for what high-touch beauty retail looks like, the new normal is emerging in Australia, where the government was able to curb the spread of the virus relatively quickly.

Mecca commenced a staggered opening of stores on April 24, roughly four and five weeks after closing its 97 Australian and 12 New Zealand stores, respectively, standing down all 4,000 staff, who were paid a fortnight’s company-subsidized COVID-19 leave. A Call & Collect service for those unwilling to come into store also launched April 24.

At presstime, over two-thirds of stores had reopened, with the remainder due to follow over the coming weeks. In-store services, starting with brows, will recommence on June 1.

Mecca’s customers are returning to a markedly different in-store experience.

Observing not only government-mandated COVID-19 safety measures for the beauty sector, which include keeping attendance records for all customers, staff and contractors, the company also canvassed independent advice from Don Campbell, professor of medicine at Monash University, and has capped a maximum occupancy in store to one person for every six square meters.

Armed with contactless digital thermometers, Mecca retail team members — whose own temperatures are checked prior to every shift -— take customers’ temperatures before they enter each store. The company reserves the right to deny entry to anyone with a temperature exceeding 37.4º Celsius.

A customer at the recently reopened Mecca Highpoint store in Melbourne has her temperature checked by a retail team member in a full-face plastic visor, part of Mecca Brands’ new COVID-19 safety plan. 

Hand-sanitizer units are stationed at the front of store, point of sale and throughout the floor; a beauty “concierge” is assigned to escort every customer throughout the store, and there is a no-touch service policy.

Makeup stations are placed 1.5 meters apart, with product testing done strictly by team members only, deploying Mecca’s new “SSS” policy — sanitize, sample, sanitize. Products are transferred using single-use applicators and sanitized makeup trays. All transactions are contactless.

Other retail team staff, dubbed “Hygiene Heroes,” roam stores throughout the day to clean and re-clean all surfaces, including back of house.

“We said to Professor Campbell, ‘What are the greatest [safety] measures that we can take?’ and he gave us a list and we committed to undertaking all of them” said Mecca Brands chief executive officer Jo Horgan. “There was a lot of debate internally about temperature checks for customers early on. But we thought well, you know, what do we feel that customers would desire, faced with this environment? So we’ll go with temperature checks.”

Campbell’s recommendations also included the use of face shields, similar to those used by health-care workers.

After an initial order of 1,000 custom-made shields, Mecca is currently trialing them in six Australian stores, with a view, said Horgan, to rolling them out as part of its standard uniform. An additional 20,000 shields are on order.

In New Zealand, where the population is five million, only staff performing in-store services will wear face shields. The country has registered 1,154 cases of the virus and 21 deaths. Australia, with a population of 25 million, has registered 7,114 cases and 102 deaths.

A Mecca Brands retail team member in full-face shield serves a customer at the Mecca Highpoint store in Melbourne. 

Lockdowns precipitated a record 17.9 percent retail sales decline in Australia in April, about 5.4 billion Australian dollars or $3.5 billion at current exchange, according to preliminary Australian Bureau of Statistics figures.

“Strong” online sales made up 10 percent of the month’s 24.7 billion Australian dollars, compared to around 7 percent in March, according to the ABS. Australian bank Westpac reports online sales grew 20 percent in April.

Horgan declined to discuss her online figures, other than saying the division “punched above its weight” during the store shutdowns, launching a flurry of initiatives to supercharge its digital efforts.

Virtual services, where customers make a booking for a virtual appointment via mecca.com.au, were fast-tracked and launched on March 27, three days before the Australian stores shuttered.

Free of charge and lasting anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes, the concept sees customers connect via FaceTime to a retail team member located inside a Mecca store, who walks and talks them through the products. During the shutdowns, 12 closed stores — which Horgan calls “light, dark stores” — were designated for the purpose.

“We had the capacity for 1,500 [virtual] services a week and we had an extraordinary response” said Horgan. “So many customers said, ‘This is my new normal for when I want a service.’”

Virtual hosting — where customers chat live to a team member in a nearby store in real time via a pop-up chat box on mecca.com.au — launched on May 12.

Both initiatives have driven “significant” business according to Horgan.

To meet online demand, the company’s 15,000-square-meter distribution center near Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport pivoted to a 24/7 basis, with all deliveries switched to priority shipping. The company split staff into teams and staggered start times, mandating gloves and temperature checks for all staff, contractors and delivery drivers. Hot water was plumbed in to accompany the installation of portable toilets and demountable lunch cabins, to ensure staff segregation, with the regular kitchens closed and cleaning upped.

As for Mecca’s ISO beauty sales, while the color category has been challenging, according to Horgan, the company has seen an “extraordinary” shift to skin care during COVID-19, with the hair category “going through the roof” and upticks in body, home fragrance and candles, she said.

The Mecca TV studio, located in Richmond, Victoria, which was set up at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis. 

To drive engagement, the digital team tripled its content output during COVID-19, launching a new mecca.com.au microsite called Mecca Live as a content hub, as well as a new initiative called Mecca TV, complete with its own professional-look TV studio that was set up near the company’s support center in Richmond, Victoria.

The latter has served as an in-house education channel, broadcasting interviews and advice to all 4,000 team members on a weekly basis, and a live broadcast studio which has seen brand founder interviews and panel discussions livestreamed to Mecca’s social media audience on Instagram and Facebook. A new Facebook community group called Mecca Chit Chat and Mecca TikTok were also launched.

Weekly visits to the mecca.com.au grew 400 percent during the crisis, with visitors spending 30 percent more time on the web site, the company reports.

Horgan declined to speculate on the hit COVID-19 would take from Mecca’s fiscal 2020 sales. To qualify for the federal government’s six-month wage subsidy scheme JobKeeper, however ⁠— in which Horgan confirmed Mecca Brands is participating ⁠— businesses with a less than 1 billion Australian dollar or $653 million turnover must demonstrate a reduction in revenue of at least 30 percent over a minimum one-month period since March 1.

Last August, IBISWorld reported Mecca Brands owned 10.6 percent of the 4.4 billion Australian dollar, or $3 billion at average August exchange Australian specialty beauty market ⁠— excluding supermarkets, department stores and pure play online beauty retail, with anticipated calendar 2019 revenues of 455 million Australian dollars, or $310 million, up 11 percent year-on-year and five times the industry average of 2.2 percent. Industry sources suggest the company’s 2019 calendar sales could have been as much as 43 percent higher.

“I think that the fact that Mecca is an Australian, private, agile company, has helped us pivot super quickly ⁠— we’ve had to adapt and we have,” said Horgan of the coronavirus crisis.

“Like everybody, in April, when we were hardest hit, we were scrambling to pivot and react to the new market conditions and when you close 109 stores obviously there’s a significant impact from that. As we’re coming to May and we’re opening stores and we have online performing very well, we feel that we can see a road to recovery that wasn’t immediately evident when this all started.”

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from World Wide News https://ift.tt/3dt9Ipn

[operationrainfall]

Title The Bug Butcher Developer Awfully Nice Studios Publisher 2Awesome Studio Release Date November 8th, 2018 (Switch) Genre Action, SHMUP Platform PC, Switch Age Rating E for Everyone – Blood, Fantasy Violence, Crude Humor Official Website

Though I am a fan of classically styled video games, I mostly gave The Bug Butcher a shot cause I was previously familiar with 2Awesome Studio. They developed the entertaining Dimension Drive, and though it had its flaws, I thought it was an admirable first attempt for a small team. When I saw they were shifting their focus to help publish games, I had to investigate. Which brings us to today’s review. Though published by 2Awesome Studio, The Bug Butcher was developed by Awfully Nice Studios, a two-man studio with experience making games for a company you might have heard of called Blizzard Entertainment. Now they’re set on making games for themselves, and decided to start with a comical and energetic side scrolling SHMUP. Was this a successful inaugural attempt, or does it get squashed under the weight of cosmic vermin?

The concept of The Bug Butcher is old school simple. A space station is crawling with massive bugs who are keen on devouring the scientists working inside. Thus the scientists hire our hero, Harry the exterminator. He’s a gun-toting killing machine, and the only hope the terrified scientists have. That’s pretty much all there is for plot. There’s no sub plots or revelations whatsoever. But considering the genre, I’m pretty much fine with that. The Bug Butcher is a SHMUP inspired by Super Buster Bros. I had forgotten that game entirely, but the similarities are readily apparent. Both games involve a character that can only fire upwards facing off against hordes of bouncing death. In this game though, you aren’t just facing nasty bubbles, but horrible grotesque insectoid monstrosities. And they can do a lot more than just bounce on your head.

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The way gameplay works is that Harry has to make his way through a series of 30 stages in Arcade mode, blasting everything in sight to a gooey stain. You fire with the A button, dash with B and activate power-ups with Y. The catch is that each level is timed. The idea is that the scientists are so desperate to kill the invading bugs they are planning on gassing everything in the facility to death. If you don’t beat each stage in the allotted amount of time, usually two and a half minutes, you’ll be gassed along with them. Since a dead Harry is no good for anybody, it’s your job to work fast and fight strategically. Thankfully, you have a lot of tools at your disposal.

When you see those skull symbols, it means bugs are coming

Your main weapon is a machine gun with unlimited ammo. It does the least amount of damage, but it does a respectable job of keeping things away from you. As you progress through the stages, you’ll gradually unlock other tools to aid you. First are the various weapons that you can find in crates. These have limited ammo but do significantly more damage, as well as having unique effects. The laser beam will cut through enemies like butter, while the Gatling gun is a more powerful but unstable version of your standard gun. A personal favorite of mine was the lightning gun, which would blast any group of enemies that was too close together. Besides your weapons, you can also utilize a handful of power-ups. You fill up your meter by killing enough foes, and once it’s full, you’ll unleash one of three power-ups at random. The most basic is Boot Juice, which speeds Harry up and makes him invincible for a few seconds; a personal favorite is the Freeze Grenade, which temporarily freezes all foes on screen, leaving them vulnerable; and finally, the Homing Missiles, which will blast everything in a close radius. All of the power-ups can give you some much-needed breathing room, especially since the bug hordes will do their very best to overwhelm you.

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There’s a lot of creepy bugs in the game, but the standard variety is a pink critter that bounces on the floor slowly. That might not sound too scary, but the larger ones will separate into smaller varieties as you kill them, meaning one can quickly turn into a swarm. Some of the more unique varieties are the slow-moving yet devastating fireflies, which shoot laser beams from their butts, and a purple eggplant monstrosity that crawls on the floor and tries to jump on your head, instantly killing you. There are also ones I classify as mini-boss monsters, such as a hovering blue bug that spits purple blobs when you damage him, or a nasty one that vomits lava and spits lava blisters. You have a health meter, and can normally withstand four hits before Harry croaks, but you can get overwhelmed pretty quickly. Thankfully, as you cull the bugs you’ll get health drops, as well as temporary gun enhancements, such as increased firing speed and double damage. You can keep track of how long these last by looking at the helpful meters that appear on screen, and the same goes for power-ups and weapons. You’ll never be in the dark, which is very good strategically.

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Also worth keeping in mind is that later stages introduce unique features to help and hinder you. The most important and prevalent are the vertical shields. They can’t be penetrated by you or the pests, though you can turn them off manually by running up to and standing on their buttons. While that may sound useful, it can be tricky too. For example, if you let a foe get sequestered out of reach, you may not be able to reach it before your combo meter dissipates (more on that later). Another trick is that the shield walls have a tendency to turn themselves off unexpectedly. That’s not a glitch, it’s a feature to keep things fresh. The other significant mechanic that’s introduced is a smashing piston introduced in a very late stage, which can kill bugs and Harry alike. Finally, you’ll encounter elevator stages which have no weapon crates, and these are much more challenging, since you have to rely solely on your machine gun and power-ups. Put together, all of these features do a good job of keeping the gameplay from getting too stale.

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Though I didn’t notice until I beat Arcade mode, you can use the money you acquire from killing bugs to upgrade your weapons and power-ups. This improves the power of your weapons as well as how long your power-ups last. You can also use coins to unlock boosts you can equip for Harry’s stats, such as increasing how long the combo meter lasts. The latter is what determines your score. Basically, the longer you go killing monsters without getting hit or taking too long, the more the combo meter goes up. It’s not required for anything other than showing off, but it is a good incentive to replay stages. The game also keeps track of how you do through online leaderboards. My only complaint with them is that sometimes they load, and sometimes they don’t. More than once I’ve gotten to the end of a stage, only to have no score shown for my trouble. It only seemed to happen when I paused to take a break mid-stage, though.

The upgrade screen is a bit clunky, but invaluable for making Harry more powerful.

Besides Arcade mode, there is also Panic mode. This can be done single player or co-op. Though I didn’t try the local co-op, Panic mode is pretty fun solo. It’s basically survival mode. To offset the short timer, you can collect clocks to add a few more seconds to your time as you play. You can also use your money to upgrade your loadout at any time during Panic mode, whereas you can only do it from the start screen in Arcade mode. The waves are random and get progressively more difficult. Generally I would die about six waves in, though sometimes the random enemy spawning would make that shorter. Another new thing about Panic mode is there’s a unique enemy that looks like a slot machine with wings. By blasting the shit out of it, you’ll get a whole heap of coins, which are vital to surviving more and more waves.

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Visually speaking, The Bug Butcher is delightful. It reminded me a lot of Alien Hominid, but in the very best way. There’s a lot of humor and cartoon mayhem in the game, despite the colorful candy coating. The bugs do a good job of threading the needle between being adorable and hideous as they bounce and splatter. Harry himself is well animated, though I do wish we got to see his face behind that visor at least once, just to see a bit more personality. Musically, the energy of the game is very techno. There’s a great beat to the game, and the sound effects are also terrific. My favorites are the sound of the scientist screaming in terror when they’re captured by the tentacles of the spider monsters, as well as the screech those creatures make when you squash them.

There’s a lot I enjoyed about The Bug Butcher, but I do need to mention some issues I ran into playing portably on Switch during Panic mode. I will preface this by saying I talked with the publishers about them, and they confirmed they are planning on fixing any and all problems as soon as they can. That said, the following are worth noting. While in Panic mode, I would occasionally be holding down the fire button and my gun would be unresponsive. That’s problematic, to say the least. Another problem was when I would be prevented from moving somewhere by invisible barriers other than the shield walls. Lastly, I would find that items on the periphery of the screen randomly couldn’t be picked up, despite me being right nearby. All those should be fixed, but outside of them I have few issues, other than the game occasionally slowing down when things get particularly busy.

I just want to see my score…

Overall, I feel The Bug Butcher is a success. Fans of classic games are sure to enjoy it, as are those who love vying for the top spots on leaderboards. For $7.99, you get a respectable amount of game here. I probably spent a couple hours playing through Arcade mode, and easily that long playing around with Panic mode. It’s not a huge game, but it also didn’t feel too short. Most of the replay value is found in trying for better scores to earn stars and additional coins in stages. Really, the only thing I wanted from the game that I didn’t get was a bestiary showcasing details about the creepy bugs, as well as a couple actual boss fights. But that’s just cause I’m an old school gamer, and I always want epic boss fights. If you want a fun and challenging game with old school charm, I would highly recommend The Bug Butcher. 2Awesome Studio has published a great game, and I’m eager to see what else Awfully Nice Studios has brewing next for the future.

Damn skippy.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″]

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

REVIEW: The Bug Butcher Title The Bug Butcher