#sorry i put more effort in the second gen its because i care for them more as a whole | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

not-a-space-alien · 4 years ago

Text

Ghost in the Machine

Hi everyone, now that the big reveal is up, here is the fic i wrote for the Good Omens Holiday exchange this year :) Just a cute little ficlet about the Them! it was Halloween when I wrote it :)

Rating: G

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: None

Summary: The Them hunt some ghosts.

On DW and AO3

The lights clicked back on, washing the darkness out of a room packed with pillows and blankets arranged in a crude fort.

“Wow,” said Brian. “That sure was a scary movie.”

“It wasn’t that scary,” said Pepper, who had in fact been scared quite a lot.

Wensleydale looked around at their nest, where half-eaten Halloween candy still lay strewn about. “It was...seasonally appropriate.”

“It’s okay to admit you were scared,” said Brian.

“It wasn’t scary,” said Pepper.

“It was!” said Brian. “When the ghost lady phased through the wall— and the— And then she— Phcrowwwwww!” Here Brian made an outward expanding gesture reminiscent of an explosion that had happened in the movie.

“What did you think of it, Adam?” said Pepper. “It wasn’t scary, was it? Tell them.”

They all turned to Adam, who sat cross-legged on the blankets. He stared at the credits rolling on the screen with a glassy-eyed expression.

“Adam?”

***

“Right,” said Adam, marching up and down their regimented line. “Now who are we?”

The Them looked at each other uncomfortably.

“I said, who are we?”

“Adam, I don’t know if—” Pepper began.

“Tell me who we are!”

“The Ghostbusters,” Brian sighed.

“Adam, I don’t think you can really do that,” said Wensleydale, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Ghostbusters is a comedy, and it’s meant to be silly, whereas the ghost from the movie last night was—”

“Not scary,” Pepper insisted.

“Meant to be scary, at least,” Wensleydale said. “Not to mention we look nothing like the actual Ghostbusters. I mean, we haven’t got proton packs or anything.”

“No,” Adam shot back, who had rather liked the Ghostbusters when he had seen them a few years ago and was quite sour about the fight Wensleydale was putting up, “but what we have is better.”

Wensleydale rolled the crude gun constructed of toilet paper tubes in his hands. On the side was written in marker “Ghost gun.” “’Suppose,” he said unsurely.

Brian fiddled with the knobs on his Spooky-o-meter, which was a highly advanced technology with a dial that could move between phases of red and green, and was made of the latest cutting-edge next-gen materials.* “We’re all in the clear right now,” said Brian, manually sliding the dial to the lowest setting. “The Spookometer’s not picking anything up.”

*A cardboard shipping box

“It’s pronounced ‘Spooky-o-meter,’” said Adam.

“But Spookometer sounds better,” Brian complained.

“Well, when you invent the latest and greatest in ghost-detecting technology, then you can name it and decide how it’s pronounced,” said Adam. “As I recall, while I crafted the Spooky-o-meter, you were off failing to help Pepper perfect the Ghost Maul.”

Pepper hefted her weapon, which was a Ghost Sword. It had been their second choice when their first efforts failed to live up to the images of mauls they had seen in their library books full of images of medieval weapons. It turns out a “maul” can look pretty similar to a simple big mallet if you make it out of cardboard, which isn’t very intimidating or cool looking.

“Anyway,” said Pepper, “we can’t be the Ghostbusters anyway because we’re killing the ghosts, not busting them. Can’t very well bust a ghost with a sword, can you? Really only one thing a sword can do.”

“Fine,” said Adam snidely. “We can be the Ghostkillers, then. Is that better? We are an original group of ghost fighters that fights ghosts and kills them. How about that?”

Wensleydale nodded.

“Right!” said Adam. He hefted his own cardboard construction, much larger than anyone else’s, which was roughly in the shape of a rifle and had the words “Supernatural Laser Rifle” on the side. “Now I’ve got it on good authority that there’s a very spooky haunted house just on the other side of town, which probably has a few good ghosts there for us to check out…”

***

The very spooky haunted house just on the other side of town in question was the archetype of a haunted house, with peeling paint, boarded up windows, dead ivy clinging to the sides, a rusty metal fence, and a muddy yard full of weeds.

The Them all looked at it unsurely.

“This...this house definitely wasn’t here before,” said Wensleydale. “...Right?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Adam. “Look how old it is. It’s got to be hundreds of years old. A hundreds of years old house doesn’t just appear.”

“I think Wensleydale is right,” said Pepper. “We drive past this street all the time on the way to school, and I’ve definitely never seen this house before.”

“Nonsense,” said Adam. “Dunderheads, the lot of you. You think someone would just make a weird old house for us to play in? Doesn’t happen.” Adam courageously kicked the gate open, brandishing his cardboard rifle. “Watch out, ghosts! We’re coming for you!”

He marched forward, his galoshes splattering the mud. The rest of the Them looked at each other for a moment before following uneasily.

Adam made a motion to kick the door down, realised that his scrawny, twelve-year-old body would definitely lose that fight, and settled for trying the knob. It was unlocked.

“Are you sure we’re supposed to go in here?” said Brian fearfully. “What if it’s dangerous?”

“Of course it’s dangerous,” said Adam. “There’s ghosts in there. It’s our job to clear them out so they don’t hurt anyone else, before it’s too late. Didn’t you watch the movie last night?”

Brian clutched his Spooky-o-meter. “But that ghost in the movie killed people before they took her down!”

“Right,” said Adam.

Brian moved the dial of the Spooky-o-meter up to medium. “I’m starting to pick up something.”

Adam peeked in, using the tiny torch he had fished out of the door of his parent’s car to illuminate the entryway. Dust motes floated ominously in the cold, dead air. “I’m not surprised. Looks like there’s a nasty ghost infestation here. We got here just in time.”

“Let’s get them,” said Pepper. “That is, if you’re sure, Adam…”

“Of course I’m sure.” Adam pushed the door all the way open and noted just for the first time how very dark the house was, and why his friends had been complaining. He swallowed. “Let’s go.”

The floorboards creaked under their approach, the frame of the house groaning. Wensleydale and Pepper also pulled out torches they had brought. Brian pulled one out, but its batteries were dead, so he skittered forward and hugged close to Adam. He moved the needle on the Spooky-o-meter up again. “Getting some serious signals here, Adam.”

Adam pointed his rifle at the stairs, then at the door to what must have been a closet, then at the entryway into an ornate kitchen covered in grime. It was anachronistically fancy, covered in a layer of dust and soot an inch thick, with randomly placed holes in the floorboards; in short, it was exactly what a child’s imagination of a haunted house should look like.

A distant moaning sounded. Brian lifted the Spooky-o-meter. “I think it’s coming from upstairs, Adam.”

“Right. Be careful, everyone,” said Adam.

He led the group towards the stairs, inching up them on high alert. Each agonizing step up was accompanied by a floorboard crying out.

They reached the landing. A faint glow came from the next room.

“Adam,” said Pepper, her courage evaporating.

“It’s off the charts!” said Brian.

They all pointed their weapons. “Come out, you ghost!” yelled Adam. “I’m not afraid of you!”

A spectre appeared, a shrieking, transparent woman in a dressing gown with matted, frayed hair, screaming like the devil, jumping straight through the wall.

Pepper, Brian, and Wensleydale all shrieked in turn, jumping back and hitting into the bannister, their cardboard weapons forgotten.

“Adam!” said Pepper.

“A ghost!” said Wensleydale. “A real ghost! Adam!”

The look of excitement cresting Adam’s face began to fade.

“It’s just like the ghost in the movie!” Brian cried.

“Yeah,” said Adam, shoulders slumping. “It’s just like the ghost in the movie.”

The Them looked at him. The ghost hovered there, suspended.

“Adam, what do we do?” Pepper said.

Adam dropped his cardboard rifle. The ghost dissipated into a wisp of smoke. “Do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

And he put his hands in his grubby pockets and slunk down the stairs, out of the haunted house.

***

It was almost bedtime when the Them managed to catch up to Adam, sulking in the quarry alone.

“Adam,” said Wensleydale, plopping down on the ground next to him. “That was pretty uncool, you know. You just left us there.”

“Sorry I guess,” said Adam.

“You’re not sorry,” said Pepper hotly. “What’s wrong with you?”

“It’s not like you were ever in any real danger,” snapped Adam. “What does it matter?”

“You don’t know that there wasn’t any real danger,” said Wensleydale. “There was a ghost and everything!”

“What’s wrong, Adam?” said Brian. “I thought you’d be super excited to find a ghost. That’s what we went there for, isn’t it?”

Adam stretched out his legs, examining his untied shoelaces morosely. “It was the same ghost as in the movie.”

“So?” said Pepper.

“So?” said Adam. “You think that just happens?”

“Not any more than a real ghost just happens!”

Adam drew his legs up to his chest. “I made that happen.”

Pepper and Wensleydale looked at each other. Brian picked his nose.

“What do you mean?” said Pepper.

“The house, the ghost, the whole ghostbusting thing, I made that happen. I have supernatural powers that means that sort of thing...just sort of happens sometimes.”

This is something the Them had sort of half-forgotten since the attempted apocalypse; they knew deep down this was true about Adam, but they generally sort of ignored it, for all their sakes.

“Then why are you sulking about it?” said Brian.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” snapped Adam. “I thought it would be fun to go ghost hunting and the universe just rearranged itself to make it happen. I didn’t realize it until I saw the actual ghost that it was all just something I made up because I watched the movie. My subconscious mind just copied the movie. You guys all saw it, but I kept telling you to shut up about it.”

“It’s okay, Adam,” said Pepper. “You don’t have to feel bad about not thinking up your own ghost.”

“It’s not about the ghost!” Adam yelled. He hid his face in his hands. “I thought that maybe, for once, the universe could have a surprise for me, and I could get to have an adventure without knowing the ending. I was having fun making pretend until the evidence that I made it all up smacked me in the face.”

The Them all looked at each other.

“How am I supposed to have fun fighting ghosts if I know I can just snap my fingers and make the ghost go away? It’s like cheating at a video game to give yourself infinite lives. It takes the fun out of it. And that’s going to be my whole life.”

Pepper sat down next to Adam. “Adam…”

“I thought I had gotten rid of all that, but the universe keeps doing this even though I’m not telling it to anymore.”

“I thought it was fun, though,” said Brian.

Adam’s tearful gaze turned onto him.

“I kind of figured it wasn’t really real.”

“Yeah,” Wensleydale muttered.

“S’not about it being real, really. S’about it being fun. Isn’t hunting a ghost fun, even if it’s just pretend?”

“I don’t think I’d want to hunt a real ghost,” said Brian. “It’s like America and cowboys and stuff. It’s all fun to pretend with, but at the end of the day it’s nice to just put it away.”

“Those people in the movie last night knew it wasn’t real,” said Pepper. “The actors, I mean. But they seemed to have fun. And we knew the movie wasn’t real, but we all had fun.”

Adam sulked.

“It’s there for us to play with. Why be sad about that?”

“I just…” Adam trailed off, then said, resignedly, “How am I ever supposed to have fun when I could at any moment realize it's all been something I did?"

“Does that really make it so bad, Adam?” said Pepper.

“I would give anything to know what was going on,” said Brian.

“Hey Adam, you know those board games people play with the polyhedral die and spreadsheets and mini figures of elves and dragons and stuff?” Wensleydale said.

Adam uncurled his knees and looked at Wensleydale. “Yeah. What about ‘em?”

“One of the players is the dungeon master. He always knows what’s going on, because he’s the one who designs the game. He’s the most powerful player in that universe.”

Adam perked up a little. “You’re saying I’m like that?”

“The dungeon master has the most fun out of any of the players, too, as long as the other players are on board with the game he’s trying to make. My older brother let me play with his friends a couple of times.”

“You guys always like the games I think up,” said Adam.

“Yeah! My point is,” said Wensleydale, “just because you’re in control, or you know what’s going to happen, doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. The only limit is your imagination, and we all know what a cracking imagination you have.”

“I would love to play a game like that with you,” said Pepper. “I think you’d be great at it, Adam.”

“Do you want to go finish busting the ghost?” said Wensleydale. “I was scared out of my mind, but I think it’d be a lot of fun now that I know it’s just a game.”

“Really?” said Adam.

“Yeah,” said Wensleydale. “It’s better that way.”

Adam stood up, looking up at the reddening sky. He smiled. “Wens, what did we say earlier? We can’t be busting the ghost. But maybe you’re right… It’s late enough now that it’ll be dark in the house, and we’ll get in trouble for getting home late. That’s sort of the point too, right? People have to treat the heroes like they’re crazy for believing in ghosts?”

“Yeah,” said Pepper. “Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll get arrested!”

The them climbed out of the quarry, voices now raised in childish anticipation. They would indeed get grounded for being out too late, and the haunted house would mysteriously disappear in the morning light, but they knew their best games were still ahead of them.

#good omens #my writing #my good omens fanfic

14 notes · View notes

dibleopard-writes · 4 years ago

Text

Training Montage

Ao3 (recommended)

Description: Anakin was the Chosen One and therefore the best padawan anyone could ask for, especially Master Obi-Wan. He was so good, in fact, that he had plenty of time for shenanigans or, as he privately referred to them, Shenanakins. Force, he was clever. Several snippets from the training of Anakin Skywalker. Author’s Note: Fanfiction, in 2020? It's more likely than you think. I'm working on several Star Wars projects right now, and here's one that is far less structured with far less need for in depth planning. Original Upload Date: 2020-08-27 Fandom: Star Wars Prequels (post TPM, pre AotC) Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, various side characters Rating: Gen (or T for language) Warnings: Swearing, Canon-typical Violence Word Count: 6490

Chapter 1 of ??

Chapter 1: Moles? In My Mine? It's More Likely Than You Think.

At the age of five, Anakin resolved to never be the kind of moody teenager spacers complained about. At the age of twelve, he decided that not only was that naive of him, but that he would get a head start and be moody right that second.

This change of heart was mostly due to Obi-Wan, who was refusing to take any missions offworld with him even though Anakin got his own lightsaber a whole three weeks ago and was therefore completely qualified.

“Having a lightsaber doesn’t help diplomacy, Padawan,” said Obi-Wan, completely missing the point.

“So don’t choose diplomatic missions! I bet there are hundreds of pirates hanging around… I don’t know, Batuu.”

“Batuu has smugglers, not pirates, Anakin–”

“– And?! We can arrest smugglers–”

“– And anyway, it would be irresponsible of me to take a padawan as young as yourself into a confrontation like that.”

“I’m not nine anymore! I’m not some dumb initiate, I can handle pirates.” If he was the first in his classes to fight pirates, he’d be able to hold it over them for ages. Even Iepa would have to respect him, smug son of a–

“I was still an initiate when I was your age.”

“Well I’m sorry you sucked, but that doesn’t mean I can’t go on missions.”

By this point, Master Obi-Wan had his head in his hands, almost hiding the beard he was trying to grow in order to look more authoritative. Anakin didn’t think he’d respect him any more with a beard than without, but it did make him look less like a clueless teenager so maybe he could fool the senior padawans.

“Look, if I took you offworld, not only could you get hurt or cause a diplomatic incident, but Master Windu would be on my back about it.”

Anakin muttered, “I could take him.”

“What was that?”

“I said you wouldn’t be able to shake him.” Anakin believed both statements emphatically. Sure, Mace Windu was the Master of the Order and invented an entire lightsaber form, but Anakin was the Chosen One, which basically made him the best. That being said, if Master Windu put his mind to it, he could be annoyingly stubborn in his pursuit of wrong-doers.

“My point exactly, and if he decided I was irresponsible – which I would be – we’d both be Temple-bound for months.”

“Oh, so you get to leave and I don’t?”

“Yes, but I’m sure you noticed I haven’t left because I’ve been too busy looking after you.”

“And what an amazing job you’ve been doing.”

“Watch your tone, young one.”

“Tell me, Master, do you remember any of my allergies?”

“Allergies?” Obi-Wan stopped for a second, with a look of genuine concern and guilt working its way over his face as he failed to recall information that Anakin had never given him.

“Yeah, I’m allergic to you and your banthashit!”

“Language, Padawan!” There was something resembling anger in Obi-Wan’s glare, but to acknowledge that would be sacrilege and also a suggestion that Anakin cared, which he didn’t. To prove this, he stormed into his room and used the Force to slam the pneumatic door as pneumatic doors rarely do.

Force, Obi-Wan could be insufferable sometimes.

...

After an hour of staring at the ceiling, Anakin came to the decision that the only real resolution to this conflict was running away and being a Jedi without Obi-Wan to bring him down.

Fortunately, he had spent the last two years building his very own ship and had already put it through an entire test run without anything breaking. Between his technical expertise and thorough testing, the ship was probably the best in the entire Temple hangar.

First though, putting his stealth skills through their paces in order to get there. One doesn’t survive nine years of slavery without knowing how to move silently. The swoosh of the door may have been a bad start, but his slow navigation of the common room more than made up for it. Sure, Obi-Wan was in his own room, probably, like, crying over getting owned so hard, but if Anakin had made even the slightest mistake, he would have come running and demanded a ridiculous amount of meditation on respecting others. The stakes could not have been higher.

He crept out of their rooms and into the corridor, shushing the mouse droid that seemed to regard him judgmentally despite its lack of eyes. From there, it was a simple matter of carrying himself with unquestionable confidence along a convoluted path to the hangar. He passed a few senior padawans with dead eyes and piles of holopads in their arms without raising suspicion. Man, was he good at this.

The hangar was probably the best place in the Temple. Warm Temple stone met flame retarding durasteel in a way that shouldn’t have worked as well as it did. Several decade-old speeders lined up against one wall next to a small fleet of cargo ships and fighters. All of them were horrendously out of date and well worn in the way that a lot of the Temple’s technology was. When Anakin asked why the Jedi insisted on having such terrible tech, Obi-Wan had said something vague about budget and not being materialistic. It was unconvincing at best and Anakin had really shown the whole Order up with his latest project.

After his no-doubt legendary podracer was left on Tatooine, Anakin had taken all of six months to set his sights on building a starfighter that could take him to every system in the galaxy. Obi-Wan, relieved to find a hobby that would promote focus, had pulled some strings and Anakin had aimed akk-dog eyes at the Temple mechanics that he had been tailing for months until they let him at the skeleton of an old Delta-7. Aethersprites never came with their own hyperspace engines, but he could work with that. Annoyingly, the sublight engines in the hangar were nothing like the ones on a podracer so he had to spend a humiliating few weeks with an old mechanic to get them installed and working. On the positive side, there was an astromech droid fitted directly into the ship that could give him diagnostics and occasionally a mechanically-themed joke. The jokes were hit-or-miss but the droid was good.

Two years of sterling work had made the Delta the best ship in the Temple, and it could far outpace any of the speeders in Coruscant’s skylanes. Now, as he made his way ever-so-innocently towards it, he couldn’t help but admire the way the smooth paint looked among the chipped facades of the rest.

R4-P3 chirped a greeting as he hopped in and prepped the starter engines.

“Hi, P3, fancy going on a trip?”

“THERE WERE TWENTY-SEVEN TRAFFIC CODE VIOLATIONS DURING THE PREVIOUS FLIGHT.”

“Me too, buddy. See if you can find one of those hyperspace rings lying around here.” Ignition was smooth. Vertical repulsors engaged. Landing gear retracted. So far, his plan was flawless. A blip appeared on his screen, indicating the nearest hyperspace ring. Latching onto the ring was not something he had ever practiced before, so he assumed the strange rattling noise was normal.

As he ascended, chatter buzzed into the comm system.

“What’s that P3?”

The chatter cleared into actual sentences as P3 adjusted the frequency.

“-ing is not fitted properly. Repeat, Aethersprite Delta-7 please identify yourself-” Anakin flicked it off. Trust traffic control to kill his flow.

“PLEASE KEEP TO DESIGNATED SKYLANES,” bleated P3, taking up the burden instead. Anakin dodged a passing CorSec speeder.

“Will do,” he lied, “While I find one, you wanna do the hyperspace calculations?”

“DESTINATION?”

“Uh…” He hadn’t thought that far. Tatooine was probably weeks away, Naboo had way too much water just lying about– Where else had he been? Oh, that’s right: nowhere, because Obi-Wan didn’t care about him. “Batuu?” He could probably beat up a few smugglers in the name of justice before the Jedi caught wind of it. Talk about selfless heroism.

He hit the upper flight levels and powered through into the mesosphere. Considering the thin air at this altitude, there was a lot of turbulence. The shaking was beginning to make his arm buzz and it became a disproportionate effort to keep the control-stick level.

“LIGHTSPEED CALCULATIONS COMPLETE,” announced P3.

“Great, just in time,” replied Anakin, flicking some switches, at least three of which were relevant, “I’ll just make the jump now.”

As he pulled the jump ignition, P3 began screaming and the rattling grew louder. The pinprick stars became needle-thin lines became the whirl of blue and white he hadn’t seen since the last journey from Naboo. On that trip, the pilots hadn’t let him in the cockpit during the initial jump, so this would probably have been way better if not for the awful clatter of the hyperdrive and the eventual tear of engines sputtering out of commission. Maybe that was why he had never seen anyone make jumps in-atmosphere. Or perhaps the issue was related to the ring’s latching mechanism. Really, it was anyone’s guess.

P3’s wails had become spluttering, staticky sobs, which was honestly a poor display in a droid with no fear subprogram. The ring flew off the Aethersprite, plunging it back into normal space with a roar.

“Well that sucked,” Anakin said indignantly. His flying had been flawless, too!

P3, between choked bleeps, lit up the speedometer – the hyperspace ring was no longer pushing them beyond the light limit but neither had any reverse-thrusters been engaged, leaving them at a healthy constant speed of only-just-slower-than-light, which was probably fine – and the scanner – there was a planet about thirty light-seconds in front of them, which was probably less fine at their current speed.

“Okay, so it still sucks,” Anakin amended.

He slammed on the brakes and almost blacked out as G-force slammed on him in return. Rude. His old pod-racer never had this issue. He tried easing their deceleration more slowly, which involved less blacking out but also made slowing to pedestrian speeds before hitting the planet somewhat less feasible.

No matter; Anakin was an expert pilot and even more skilled at having incredible luck. This would be easy.

Within twenty seconds, they hit nature’s drag chute: the atmosphere. P3 tried to draw Anakin’s attention to their steep angle and high speed as if these weren’t things that Anakin already knew. They did seem more relevant when the entire ship’s hull flew alight, however, so he attempted to shallow out their descent.

The control-stick was uncooperative and everything began to shake as he tugged it as far back as he could. How was he supposed to pilot if the ship refused to do what he wanted it to do?

After five long seconds, the heat died and they plunged into a cloud bank. Everything past the tips of the Aethersprite’s wings was obscured by a white thicker than Obi-Wan’s skull, which was impressive if disorienting. He felt the control-stick hit full lock and a few of the many warning indicators seemed appeased.

Another five seconds, and P3 stopped screaming about their speed and started screaming about their altitude. The clouds remained steadfast.

“I’ve made an executive decision,” declared Anakin, “As captain of this ship, I say we attempt what we in the industry call a ‘terrain-assisted braking maneuver’.”

P3 did not respond particularly coherently, which Anakin chose to interpret as a vote of confidence. It did wonders for his self-esteem.

In a blink, the clouds vanished and a deep green forest appeared. P3 squeaked. Anakin grimaced. His hand was losing all sensation from gripping the control-stick so tightly, still in full lock, but their downwards momentum still overpowered the thrusters even as the Delta’s nose finally rose above the horizon. He gunned the accelerator away from the surface and his body felt heavier than the ship itself.

The ship jolted as it made contact with the treetops. Anakin switched to reverse-thrusters as the nose once again pitched downwards. Slugshot snaps crackled around them as trees snapped against the ship. He scrunched his eyes closed and braced.

Soil and splinters erupted as they collided with the ground. Anakin lurched painfully into his safety straps. P3’s voice cut off. The grinding of earth against hull slowed them to a stop and Anakin fell back against his seat.

Smoldering wiring filled the cockpit with an awful acidic smell so he tugged his straps off and pushed his way out after only a second of shaky breathing. Anakin was nothing if not practical.

“Do you think it’s gonna blow up?” he asked P3 from a safe distance. P3 seemed not to appreciate the thought but ran cursory diagnostics anyway.

As he waited, Anakin looked behind the ship and saw the gaping furrow they had left in the ground. Further away, a clumsy cut ran through the trees and a couple of wisps of smoke trailed lazily into the milk-blue sky.

All in all, an impeccable landing. The forest had looked well dull before anyway, and now it had a sick scar. You’re welcome, forest.

P3 decided that nothing was about to explode, but that the ship was fully inoperational, even if Anakin just wanted to take it on a spin to the nearest mountain range. He acquiesced that the assessment seemed about right, but also loudly proclaimed that P3 was a killjoy and a coward. P3 didn’t seem to care. Anakin kicked a clod of earth in defiance.

The ground was covered in small, stiff leaves from the pointy-looking trees around them. They were waxy little spits that more resembled star stripes than anything useful for photosynthesis. As he knelt to pick some up, he realised that the entire forest smelt like them – a fresh, emerald sort of smell. They were pretty incredible, for leaves; Anakin had certainly never seen anything like them. He shoved some in a belt pouch.

Now that he was looking at the ground, he noticed wooden, grenade-like things peppered amongst the leaf litter. This forest kept on getting more and more curious. Unfortunately, none of them would fit in his pouches. Jedi really needed some good pockets that could fit any important scientific discoveries in them. It was a severe oversight, in Anakin’s humble opinion.

Something rustled abruptly, snapping Anakin out of his Jedi-like contemplations, seed-pod still in hand. He scanned the surrounding thickets. Plants, plants, leaves, plants, thorny plants…

Claws!

A blur of red flew at his face and he stumbled backwards, tripping over a bush. Batting the wild beast away from his face, he felt himself fall further than anticipated through the undergrowth into empty air. For a suspended moment, all he could see was blue sky and grey rockface. Then his back collided with something that promptly gave way and let him fall onto solid stone.

Perfect.

...

Obi-Wan Kenobi was walking at an unpanicked pace through the halls of the Jedi Temple and casually inspecting child-sized nooks and crannies in a manner completely befitting of a master who knew exactly where his padawan was. He had been doing this for half an hour and wasn’t shaking in the slightest.

He was just doing a routine inspection of the gap between a bronzium statue and a wall when Master Windu walked past, stopped, watched Obi-Wan innocently test the screws on a ventilation covering, and said, “Knight Kenobi.”

Obi-Wan sprang upright. “Master Windu.”

“Have you lost your padawan?” Was he really that obvious? No, that couldn’t be it; Master Windu was just unusually perceptive. Perhaps shatter-points were giving him away – nowhere was it written that they didn’t highlight underperforming masters. Even so, it was probably wise not to confirm anything. The last thing Obi-Wan needed was a council member judging his guardianship skills.

“Oh no, not at all. I know exactly where he is.”

Master Windu’s expression was as flat as Anakin’s heart rate would be once this was over. Shatter-points were dirty snitches.

“Thank you for your concern, Master,” added Obi-Wan, respectfully.

Master Windu looked at him dead in the eye for a solid five seconds. Obi-Wan had seen him level a similar look at Qui-Gon several times in the past, and found it unnerving to now be the target. However, Qui-Gon’s experiences taught him that it was best to ride these looks out like a bad spice trip, i.e. with as little motion as possible. How either of them knew what a bad spice trip felt like was irrelevant.

The five seconds were up, only having been slightly uncomfortably stretched, and Master Windu blinked.

“Well,” he said, dryly, “Good luck with your endeavours, Knight Kenobi, whatever they may be.” With one spare glance to the ventilation covering, he continued down the corridor.

Obi-Wan was not naive enough to think himself completely free of suspicion but he was hopeful that nothing would come of it until he could thrust Anakin by the shoulders into Master Windu’s personal space and say ‘See? I have him right here!’ in a serene and Jedi-like manner as if he had nothing to prove. Of course, he would like to prove his capabilities anyway. Just as soon as Anakin was present…

He closed his eyes and fumbled for the Master-Padawan bond that connected him to Anakin. It wasn’t usually strong enough to get much other than vague impressions from, but now it seemed to be stretched thinner than usual, only telling him that Anakin was alive. That was a relief to know, to an extent, but also concerning since there was so little to point him in the right direction. He poked the bond and felt nothing.

Why had he taken on a padawan? Padawans get into fights and then run off and make you worry and then the Council finds out and then you have to try and justify it all and –

Obi-Wan sighed. Running a hand over his beard, he peered down the hallway that Master Windu had taken. Empty. He could probably make it to the comms centre without any more councilmembers calling him out.

Probably. He was hopeful.

...

“Hilari? Is that you?”

Anakin looked up from what appeared to be a now-dismantled porch tarp and saw an old man opening the door to its attached house, carved into rock. A tooka was watching him from behind the man’s legs. It meowed indignantly.

“I’ve told you, the awning isn’t designed for tookas.”

“Myaeeh,” complained Hilari.

Anakin, frazzled from both of his unplanned descents and shocked out of his irritation, opened his mouth to apologise because yes, Obi-Wan he is capable of apologising when a middle-aged twi’lek woman materialised.

“Wohrin, what– Oh! Who’s your young friend?”

“You’ve met Hilari before, Mahj–”

“No, the young man covered in your porch. Blond?”

The man, Wohrin, gave Mahj’s left lek an exasperated look. His eyes were pale the same way Blind Man Mikah’s had been in the bookmaker’s in Mos Espa.

“Mahj,” he said slowly, “I don’t know what colour your hair is, let alone that of whoever it is you’re referring to.”

Mahj shook her head. “I don’t have hair, Wohrin.”

“What?!”

Another twi’lek, who could have been anywhere between fifteen and thirty years old by Anakin’s poor judgement, appeared in order to chip in:

“Yeah, she lost all of her hair when the sky turned red!”

Anakin squinted at the sky… no, it was definitely still blue. Wohrin looked equally confused, which was somewhat reassuring. Somewhat.

“Keht!” snapped Mahj, “Stop lying to people! And no, Wohrin, you know I’m twi’lek; of course I don’t have hair.”

“Twi’leks don’t… Why am I only just learning this? Was no one going to tell me–”

“I’m sorry, sir.” Anakin effectively drew the growing crowd’s attention back to himself. That felt better. Wohrin blinked, only now registering that the crash hadn’t been his tooka after all. “I was in the woods and something jumped out at me and I fell through your… thing.”

“Oh, well,” huffed Wohrin, “Easily done I suppose.”

Anakin clambered to his feet and hopped away from the mess, feeling only slightly guilty.

“Hey what’s with the weird rat-tail, kid?” came a voice from the crowd.

Anakin fixed the human who had asked with a patronising look. He found such looks were incredibly effective when used by children – especially those younglings he was stuck in aurebesh lessons with three years ago. Kriffing infuriating.

“It’s not a rat-tail, it’s a braid. And it shows that I’m a padawan.”

“A what-a-wan?”

“Oh, I know what they are,” chimed another bystander, “One of them beat up my cousin on Alsakan. They’re like really small Jedi.”

“You mean an apprentice?”

“Yeah, only I don’t think they do carving work.”

“Not all apprentices learn stonemasonry, genius.”

Another crowd member interrupted: “Hey, cadaban, have you come to help with the beast?”

That triggered a fervour in the onlookers, all snapping their attention back to him with loud expectation.

“... The what?” Anakin wasn’t sure he liked the way this conversation was going.

“The beast!” exclaimed the crowd.

“It’s massive–”

“–Taller than me–”

“–Big claws–”

“–In the quarry–”

“–The mine–”

“–Tentacles–”

“–Blue–”

“–Hang on, I thought it was red–”

“–It’s invisible–!”

“–No, it’s not, it’s–”

“–Firebreathing!”

“Hey, hey, hey,” shouted Anakin over the clamour, “Has anyone here actually seen it?” Everyone turned to a tall ovissian, who flinched. “What does it look like?”

“Uh, I didn’t see much of it, just– um, mostly heard crashes and saw– saw rocks falling from the ceiling in the mines. But when I caught a glimpse, it sort of looked all–” He made a vague and thoroughly unhelpful gesture which may have indicated size. Or maybe temperament. “–Y’know?”

Anakin definitely did not know, but he wasn’t about to admit that to the congregation. “Yeah, yeah, of course,” he said instead. The ovissian sighed with relief. “And what exactly do you need me to do about it?”

One exasperated person shouted from the back. “Kill it of course!”

“Or at least move it out of the mines,” offered Mahj.

“Yeah, we need the mines or our economy will go to chisk!”

“The entire economy?” Anakin couldn’t imagine mines being quite that important when there was a massive forest right… Huh, it was higher up than he remembered. Right up a stone cliff, the one Wohrin’s home was carved out of.

“The entire economy! We’re a mining town, stone-masons and blacksmiths. Why else would build our houses in a quarry?”

This was the first Anakin had heard of ‘quarries’. Really, the whole trip so far had been quite the broadening of his horizons. He didn’t know why Obi-Wan didn’t take him off-world sooner, he was always promoting this kind of thing. Peculiar.

That being said, this whole beast business was not what he had been anticipating and the idea of facing an invisible, firebreathing, tentacled monster on his own was suddenly way more terrifying than the plan of facing a horde of smugglers had been. What if it was like the krayt dragons of Tatooine, wild with impersonal ferocity and an appetite for small humans? That would be an incredibly anticlimactic end for the Chosen One; he was fully anticipating his death to be in a great ball of flame, Obi-Wan watching heartbroken as his awesome and flawless apprentice fulfils his destiny. That would be cool. Dying alone in a mine in the middle of nowhere would not be.

“Um… You know, beasts aren’t really my department. And… I don’t have my beast-removal equipment with me right now.” Airtight excuse. Foolproof.

“You’re just scared!” exclaimed someone who nobody asked.

“He’s not even a proper Jedi yet,” added someone else, “There’s no way he could take that thing on by himself, I bet he doesn’t even have a laser-sword!”

“Now, hold on–” All thoughts of avoiding the beast flew out of the metaphorical window. “I never said I wouldn’t do it! I have my lightsaber right here:”

The crowd stepped back as it ignited in his hand. Yeah, that’s right, he wasn’t some dumb initiate and this was his chance to prove it.

...

The comms centre had several private rooms for important calls and conferences. It also had better hardware than the commlinks Jedi took into the field.

Obi-Wan had plugged his own commlink into a rarely-used port in the console and tried to call Anakin. As he had expected, there was no answer. With the right tinkering of the console’s receiver, however, the target signal had been traced to a sparsely populated planet barely a minute up the Corellian Run. Kaidestal.

He fought the urge to slam his head against the console. If there was a licence for padawan ownership, his would be revoked any time now. Truly, he was having a fantastic day.

He wondered how Anakin had even got offplanet and then wondered why he was wondering. At this point, it was suffice to say, ‘Shit’s fucked’ and move on.

After a few moments of meditative breathing, he straightened up, unplugged his commlink, and whisked out of the comms centre. Knowing Anakin, there was little time before something disproportionately drastic happened. Force, what did he do to end up in this position?

Master Plo Koon was easy enough to locate, happening to be beside the bronzium statue Obi-Wan had been inspecting earlier. He watched as Obi-Wan covered the awkwardly long stretch of corridor in order to get within civil conversation range.

“Master Koon, I am taking a short trip to Kaidestal. I shall be back by nightfall.” He gave no reasons, the man of mystery that he was, and Plo didn’t seem to mind. Plo was one of the gentlest councilmembers and therefore the best one to inform of unannounced, unauthorised trips to obscure planets. Perhaps that was exploitative of him. Perhaps his padawan shouldn’t run away.

(Plo was one of the first to hear Mace’s gossip regarding Skywalker’s potential disappearance and therefore knew damn well what Obi-Wan was doing. Plo was not, however, a snitch. Besides, he liked Kenobi – the man had an excellent taste in drinks.)

Master Koon nodded slowly, “That seems reasonable. I’ve heard they do good stone carvings there.”

“Quite,” said Obi-Wan, impatiently – no, Jedi weren’t impatient. He was merely preoccupied.

“There’s a G8 light freighter in the hangar that you can use.” Plo shifted as if to move, but it was really more of an invitation to leave.

“Thank you, Master Koon.” Not at all in the headspace to overstay his welcome, Obi-Wan began to head towards the hangar.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for, young one!” Plo called after him.

“Me too,” muttered Obi-Wan under his breath. He wasn’t that young; he was twenty-eight. He was, however, too young to be dealing with feral padawans that made him feel twice his age. Why did he ever pick up Anakin, anyway?

...

The mouth of the mine was carved into the wall at the bottom of the quarry. It was darker than a Tatooinian night and he was being pushed into it by a gaggle of villagers who didn’t seem to notice his apprehension. While this was ideal for the maintenance of his reputation, it also made things move far more quickly than he had wanted.

No matter. He was a Jedi and Jedi faced terrifying monsters head on.

“This beast is gonna wish he never saw me,” he said, bravely, “Coward. Absolute… kriffin’… clown.”

“What are you doing?”

“Old Jedi trick, it’s called psychological warfare. That beast is no match for Anakin kriffing Skywalker.”

“Is the swearing necessary for psychological warfare?” asked one of the group. “It’s just I brought my daughter along…”

A roar emanated from the mine ahead, echoing terribly. The tall ovissian, now wearing his head miner’s helmet, was shaking more than the nine-year-old behind him. She was delighted by the mine monster and had spent much of the walk loudly exclaiming that she wanted it to eat the entire goddamn quarry. No one else appeared to share her enthusiasm.

“Well,” said the head miner, sounding awfully authoritative, “I think you’ll be able to find your way from here. We need to go. For… health and safety reasons. Yeah, this crowd, in this passageway? Major fire hazard. Need to clear it. I’ll take care of that, you take care of–” Another roar erupted, punctuated by a thud and the sound of rocks falling. “– That.”

Anakin was unimpressed. “Ugh, do you have to have such an aversion to being cool?” He turned to see the group’s response but found the passageway empty. He rolled his eyes. Teenagehood would suit him well, he decided.

Slowly, he took his new lightsaber off his belt. It kind of sucked that his excellent craftsmanship was impossible to see in the gloom. Alone, in the dark, with no eyes on him, he could admit that quite a few things were looking decidedly uncool right now, but Force if he didn’t want to prove Obi-Wan wrong.

He tracked the sporadic tremors to their source, which was conveniently down the single, unbranching passageway in this section of mine. Still, it required a great amount of skill and a lesser man would have walked into five support beams, which was way more than Anakin’s three. He was a credit to the Jedi Order, really, even if they couldn’t see it.

Speaking of, the mine had grown far darker the further he walked until he couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face. The Force was being unhelpful, merely suggesting ‘forward’, which was a no-brainer. His issue was all of the obstacles involved with ‘forwards’. If only he had packed a light.

Hang on.

Oh, Anakin Skywalker was a genius. Lateral thinking and creative problem-solving had always been his strong point, as currently being demonstrated.

His lightsaber ignited with a kzhhh. Its electric-blue glow lit his maniacal grin in harsh clarity. It also revealed the glinting eyes of something big. The grin dropped from his face as he took five steps backwards.

The passageway had opened into a small cavern without him noticing and the beast barely fit into it. Colours were difficult to make out in eerie saber-light, but its fur appeared as black as the mines, matte with dust. Large tentacles stretched out from its nose, blindly groping the walls and ceiling of the cavern as if trying to judge the environment. Massive, shovelling paws held claws almost as long as Anakin was tall. In short, it resembled a mole.

This meant that, theoretically, Anakin was at an advantage since he was decidedly not blind and had only been known to resemble a mole some of the time.

The beast was also more clumsy than Anakin, knocking support beams left and right. Luckily, none had completely shattered but, judging by their splintering fractures, it was only a matter of time. Time limits were very dramatic; this would be a worthy first mission.

Anakin waved his lightsaber in the vague direction of the mole. It was unbothered. He frowned, put out, and then poked one of its claws. Suddenly, the beast was very bothered. Its nose went from snuffling around to being thrust in Anakin’s face. Apparently it had his scent. Obi-Wan would have blamed it on Anakin’s infrequent use of the shower. Anakin would have responded that he grew up in the desert and then accused him of not caring about wasting water on trivial matters. This would put a glint of annoyance in Obi-Wan’s eyes and Anakin would count it as a victory.

The mole exploited his distraction, dishonourable as it was, yanking him off the ground with a thick face-tentacle and shaking him irritably. He tried hitting the disgustingly writhing mass with the hilt of his lightsaber – ineffective. Then he slashed it with the blade and got catapulted into a wall. His vision failed and the back of his head killed, but he was quickly grabbed by the ankle and dragged across the floor. Massive, sharp claws came swinging at him. This was not good.

Quick, what would Obi-Wan do?

“Hey, you suck!” he shouted, voice wobbling as he dove out of the way of another slash, “No one likes you! You should just stop and go away!”

The mole monster may also have been deaf since it only continued its previous level of violence despite the scathing insults. He dodged a claw, jumping into a swinging tentacle which smashed him into a support beam. Splinters pierced his robes, digging into his right arm as it collided with the beam. His lightsaber flew from his hand and he fell to the ground, spinning to narrowly avoid landing on the hurt arm. All light in the cavern vanished as his saber-blade extinguished.

All of a sudden, the lightsaber argument from that morning felt like a moot point. A lot of things were looking very moot now, in the dark.

He could hear the shuffle of tentacles searching the floor and the scratching of claws against stone. The mole was snuffling loudly around for him. His arm hurt.

Fighting the urge to curl up by the wall, he slowly climbed to his feet and looked the monster dead where he thought its eye could be. Warm air huffed in his face, blowing his braid back. Everything was still for a moment and then a tentacle whipped around his knees and flipped him upside down into the air. He definitely did not yelp.

The sound of a lightsaber igniting came from the tunnel, then pounding footsteps and then Obi-Wan ran in, illuminating the cavern walls around him. Something intangible yanked Anakin out of the mole’s grasp and into Obi-Wan’s arms.

Anakin struggled to escape the strong left arm that wrapped across his torso, efficiently immobilising him. “Hey, I had it under control, you know.” He gave up, reaching his good hand out and calling his lightsaber back to it. “Still do, actually.”

“Sure,” replied Obi-Wan, not letting go even as a tentacle lunged at him. He jumped backwards, slashing the support beam that Anakin had dented. They dove into the tunnel as the cavern rumbled. The mole roared back. There was a terrible creaking of splintering wood and then the cavern ceiling fell in. Dust and rock made the air thick.

Quiet.

Anakin looked up at Obi-Wan from where he was pressed against his chest and saw a strangled sort of sorrow.

“Poor thing,” croaked Obi-Wan. Then he looked at Anakin with a clenched jaw. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those. I could have studied it.”

It was almost enough to make Anakin apologise.

...

Obi-Wan dragged his padawan by his collar until they reached the mine’s entrance. The villagers who had pointed him inside were crowded around and erupted into cheers as soon as they stepped into the light.

One elbowed the head miner playfully. “Told you he was the madawan’s Jedi.”

“Shut up,” said the ovissian, who then raised his voice above the chattering. “Thank you, Master Jedi, for your assistance. Uh, what exactly is the status of the, uh…”

“It’s dead,” Obi-Wan replied, bluntly, “And I’m afraid you may also need to reinforce the tunnel’s structural integrity. I apologise on behalf of my padawan –”

“Hey!”

“Of course, he will also apologise himself.”

Their eyes met in a match of wills. Anakin sighed, just loud enough for Obi-Wan to hear, and acquiesced.

“My sincere apologies,” he muttered, bowing shallowly. Obi-Wan had definitely taught him better manners than this; the child was just showing him up. Ungrateful womp-rat.

Fortunately, the villagers weren’t versed in bows and didn’t seem invested in apologies. Most were preoccupied by the mine and the new lack of angry mole. Small blessings, perhaps.

...

After manhandling the still-hot wreck of Anakin’s Aethersprite into the freighter Obi-Wan had brought and flying the brief trip back to the Temple, Obi-Wan was reaching the end of his patience. He left the ships with the hangar’s mechanics and dragged Anakin away from any chance of helping them. Their trip to the Halls of Healing were brief – the healers were efficient in removing the splinters and wrapping Anakin’s arm in bacta-soaked bandages. He only complained about half as much as he usually did.

They marched double-time to their rooms and Obi-Wan locked the door behind him; he could not cope with Anakin sneaking out at night.

“Master?” The voice was small. Obi-Wan tried not to let his ire show in his look. Perhaps if Anakin was squinting it would work. He was not. Instead he was holding out a hand full of pine needles and another with several small pinecones. “While I was on that planet, I found these for you to study. I’ve never seen them before; they could be revolutionary.”

Obi-Wan sighed, not having the heart to tell him that pine trees were fairly common throughout the galaxy. Anakin dropped his revolutionary finds into his hands, having to scrape off some of the pine needles that stuck.

“Thank you, Padawan. That was very thoughtful of you.”

“There were some bigger ones of these,” he added, pointing to the pinecones, “but I couldn’t fit them in my belt and some of the wildlife tried to fight me for them.”

“A squirrel?”

“I dunno, I didn’t see it very well. It was kinda fast. Reminded me of you, a bit.”

“How so?”

“Red,” said Anakin, nodding to Obi-Wan’s head, “And it didn’t like me picking up things off the floor.”

Obi-Wan huffed. “As long as you weren’t trying to eat pinecones.”

“Is that what they’re called?”

“Yes. Although I suppose I’d have to… study them. To make sure.”

Anakin’s face lit up. “Wizard.”

Obi-Wan’s annoyance was almost forgotten. Not quite. He was still a responsible Jedi master, no matter what the Council speculated.

There was a knock on the door. Obi-Wan looked at Anakin, who grimaced back. He opened it with very little hesitation.

“Knight Kenobi.” Speak of a Sith…

“Master Windu,” said Obi-Wan, far more brightly than he was feeling.

“Have you located your padawan?”

“Of course; he’s right here, Master.” He pulled Anakin out from behind his legs. Anakin attempted a winning smile, but nerves appeared to crumple it slightly. He had always been intimidated by Master Windu – first impressions were a force to be reckoned with. “I knew exactly where he was.” It was technically true, if you were selective about your timeframe.

Master Windu gave Anakin one of his signature piercing gazes, the kind that seems to expose one’s every weakness and warn against them. Anakin seemed to get the message. Hopefully he would keep it for at least a week before he inevitably threw it out.

“If that’s the case, I won’t need to launch a search party. Good night, Kenobi.”

“May the Force be with you, Master Windu.”

After Master Windu had left and Anakin had gone to bed still shaken from the encounter, Obi-Wan contemplated ditching the Temple and his wayward padawan for Bail Organa’s whiskey collection. Alderaan always made the best whiskey…

...

Art by me, @dib-leo-pard

#star wars fanfiction #star wars prequels #ao3 fanfic #anakin fanfiction #anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #fanfiction #fanfic #star wars

4 notes · View notes

tsarisfanfiction · 5 years ago

Text

Treasured Family: Chapter 3

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Gen Genre: Family Characters: Scott, John, Alan, Gordon, Virgil

Scott's day hadn't gone well, and was about to get worse. John doesn't care for that, and Alan makes a good accomplice. Post-Episode Tag for 3.22 "Buried Treasure"

Previous chapter

When Scott wasn't waiting in the den for a debrief, Gordon's scowl deepened. Behind him, banging away at the poor piano in a way that almost made him wince, Virgil made his own displeasure at their eldest brother's absence known. They knew Scott was home – Thunderbird One hadn't been so far ahead of them that they hadn't seen her land, and a trail of mud Grandma was muttering at darkly leading from her hanger up towards the bedrooms plainly stated where he had gone.

Scott was hiding from them, and Gordon's frustration at him bubbled higher. Why did Scott bother hanging back with Two uncomfortably if he was going to ignore them as soon as they got home? If he needed his space to come to terms with why exactly he'd messed up, why hadn't he zoomed off at Mach ridiculous to sulk before they got back?

Of course, it wasn't that simple, and Gordon knew it. While Virgil fumed about inconsiderate brothers and insincere apologies, Gordon was well aware that the genuine culprit for his grievances was out of reach. He was just too mad at Scott for wrecking that one of a kind find to play with it. There were plenty of toys they could play with if he so desired. So maybe he was playing Virgil against Scott as part of his own vengeance, but he was getting fed up of Scott not listening to him.

"Hey guys."

Gordon blinked up at the hologram of his second eldest brother, who had materialised all of a sudden for no apparent reason. No International Rescue, we have a situation. Just hey guys.

His squid sense pickled.

"Not in the mood, John," Virgil grunted, not stopping his staccato rendition of… something. One of those pieces Gordon recognised but hell if you asked him to name it.

"Your topiary wasn't Scott's fault, you know," John pointed out, blunt and tactless in his annoying way. "I'm the one that told Gordon where to surface."

The piano didn't stop.

"I know," Virgil replied, a throwaway comment at odds with the angry piano. "I was still in the comms loop."

"Wait, what?" Gordon cut in, startled. He'd been sure Virgil was mad at Scott for that. What else did he even have to be mad at him about, if not the destruction of his art? Virgil always got foul after his art got ruined – a lesson he'd learnt the hard way.

"'The good news is the emergency's over'," Virgil mimicked. "Do you know how long it took me to calm the gardener down? And then Scott comes in and puts his foot in it and everything's back to square one."

"Tact has never been Scott's strong point," John pointed out. "You know this, Virgil."

"What are you trying to say, Johnny?" Gordon cut in, his squid sense still tingling away. "There's more to this than just us being mad at Scott. It's not like you to intervene when you know this'll all blow over in a few hours."

Sure, he was mad at Scott. And he really needed to have a talk with Scott about being listened to because a super rare collectable is one thing, but not being taken seriously on a mission is another entirely. He's still not entirely over Four being buried in sea sludge.

But they're family and he knows Scott's trying. It's impossible to stay truly mad at Scott for long when in a few hours he'll get up for a glass of water in the middle of the night and find him passed out at the desk because he's working himself too hard again.

John didn't protest at being called Johnny. The tingle turned into a full blown pins and needles.

The piano stopped.

"Brains freed the Mechanic while you were gone," John said, apropos of nothing. Unrelated. Except this was John and there's always a point with John, even if it's obscure. "The good news is that it worked."

"And the bad?" Virgil asked when he paused, flopping down on the sofa beside Gordon. A united front against older brothers, even if one of them was still notably absent from the conversation.

"The Hood found out about the T-Drive."

Well, shit. Gordon clenched his fist. Beside him, Virgil inhaled sharply.

"Scott knows?" his immediate brother asked. Gordon blinked when John shook his head.

"Not yet."

"He'd want to know." Virgil raked a hand through his gelled hair. Not a strand left its rigid positioning – Virgil liked to point out how much effort Scott put into his own hair, but Gordon knew who the real hair diva of the family was.

"I know."

Gordon squinted at John. His squid sense was still bothered.

"He's going to blow a fuse when he finds out you told us first," he pointed out. "Why?"

John rubbed his face, a tic he'd picked up from Scott years ago when particularly weary about something. He didn't use it anywhere near as much as Scott.

"Because today was the first time I've seen Scott happy in too long," he finally caved. "Since the Mechanic agreed to help us he's been sleeping better and his stress levels have reduced slightly. He played with that toy, Gordon."

Oh yes, Gordon was well aware of that. Taking a mint condition ancient collector's item out of its box was taboo yet Scott had torn it open without a second thought and immediately started to pull at its arms and watch it bounce back in delight. He'd looked like Alan then, for a moment.

Suddenly he realised what John was trying to say.

"I'm still mad about the figure," he said, crossing his arms. "I mean, come on. That was a once in a lifetime find! Who even does that?"

"I really am sorry I didn't take you seriously, Gordon."

He whirled around, hearing a muffled curse from Virgil as his brother did the same next to him. Scott was still in his uniform, far more splattered with mud than he remembered him being, but then again he'd been too busy talking with Scraps – and too mad at Scott – to really look at him after the mission. It seemed like being on the outside of the Dragonfly while the WRM chased them was far rougher than Scott had let on. Alan was bouncing beside him, controller clutched in one hand. It had traces of mud on it, too. Clearly their youngest brother had been on distraction duty.

"And Virgil," Scott was still talking. "I'm sorry your peacemaking with the gardener got ruined. And your… tree sculpture."

"Topiary," Virgil corrected, crossing his arms. "Next time, leave the bystanders to me. Or Gordon. Or even Alan."

"Hey!"

Scott chuckled, a sound Gordon had heard far too little of recently now John had him thinking about it.

"I can do that."

-----------

END

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds are go fanfiction #scott tracy #gordon tracy #john tracy #virgil tracy #alan tracy #treasured family #tsari writes fanfiction

19 notes · View notes

uas-fics · 5 years ago

Text

Title: The Messy Room Stressor

Summary: Token thought he would have his Saturday all to himself, until he is recruited by Tweek to help Tweek pick up his room, anyway.

Rating: G

Ships: Gen

Other: For @tweekweek day one Relaxation.

Read on Ao3

—-

A Saturday where Token made it to ten AM without a call from his friends usually meant the day was his for the taking and he could do whatever he wanted. He could play video games, catch up on a new show, read the growing pile of books his dad keeps bringing home for him, go to the zoo — the possibilities were endless!

As Token started to narrow his choices down in his head, a knock came from the door. He frowned. Were Mom and Dad expecting anyone? They hadn't told him. The guard wouldn't let just anyone past the gate, either.

Shrugging, Token jumped off the couch. The knocking grew frantic as he neared the door.

"I'm coming. I'm coming,” he muttered. "Hello?"

Tweek nearly jumped out of his shoes. "Token! I need you!" He grabbed Token by the wrist. "Come on, come on!"

Token dug his bare heels into the carpet, but even that didn't stop Tweek from dragging him down the front walk towards the gate.

"Tweek, dude, stop!" His hand shot out to grab a low hanging tree branch and yanked them both to a stop. "What's wrong?"

Tweek danced nervously from foot to foot, chewing on his lower lip and wringing his hands in his shirt. His hair went out in more chaotic directions than usual and a third of his buttons were messed up.

Tweek hadn't been this stressed out since well before he and Craig started dating.

"I need help, and it can only be you." He pulled at the bandaid across the top of his hand.

"What do you need help with?" Token asked.

"My room," Tweek squawked. "I need help organizing it. I tried to do it by myself and I can't. You don't need to help me pick up, just, like, sit with me in there and don't let me stop cleaning until it's done. Please, Token?"

Token folded his arms and tilted his head. "That sounds like something anyone can do. Why do you need me?"

"Everyone else is too distracting! Clyde ends up talking about something fun and I stop wanting to clean to play and Jimmy makes me laugh too much and Craig..." Tweek shook his head. "It has to be you. You’re the most mature and responsible. Please, Token? I'll give you a free hot chocolate—and a muffin—at Tweak Bro's next time you come in."

Token hummed in thought, stroking his chin. He could make hot chocolate any time he wanted at home, and using much higher quality ingredients than Tweak Bro's could afford, but Tweek was his friend. It wouldn’t be right to leave him hanging like that. Besides, what else did he have to do today anyway?

"Alright, I'll help, but first," He lifted up his foot and wiggled his bare toes, "can I get some socks on?"

---

Token did not try to hide his cringe at the state of Tweek's room.

It wasn't just a mess. It was chaos.

It looked like a tornado came through and took everything from the drawers and threw it around. Shirts and pants hung off the back of his desk chair. A tower of coffee cups sat on the windowsill. Toys were piled in heaps along the walls and corners. The only clean path led from the door to the bed and to the birdcage in the corner.

Tweek's bird, Polly, flapped around, contributing loose feathers and birdseed to the mess.

"Polly is more stressed about the mess than I am," Tweek laughed. He puttered out when Token didn't join in. "Um, you can sit on the bed while I work. Don't let me stop, ok?"

Token nodded and carefully picked his way to the bed. When he sat, something moved. Gasping, Token jumped to his feet and spun around. With a shaking hand, he lifted up the mattress. A little man with a beard and cone-shaped hat popped out from between the mattress and box spring.

He panted, holding his chest. "Thank God! Freedom!" He cried out in a squeaky voice. "I thought I was lost forever in this room. Thanks, kid." He waved at Token.

The little man walked along the bed frame to the head of the bed then jumped down. As he fell, he threw a powder up from his hand and shrunk even smaller before disappearing behind the nightstand.

Mouth hanging open, Token turned to Tweek to make sure he hadn't imagined that, but Tweek had his back to him near the desk. He started setting papers and lego bricks on his desktop, muttering to himself.

Shaking his head, Token carefully crawled onto the bed. This time, nothing moved. Not trusting that Tweek didn't have a real-life monster under his bed, he pulled his feet up. Tweek would probably wash his bedding when he was done, so it didn't matter if he put his shoes on the blanket.

After watching Tweek clear a pile from his floor, Token asked, "Hey, Tweek? Want me to play some music?" He held up his phone. "I'll let you pick."

Tweek twisted around. "No, no, not a good idea. It'll be distracting! I might start to sing and dance and I won't finish. Sorry. I think I have some headphones on my windowsill. You can use them if you want."

Token nodded and rolled over to his hands and knees to crawl across the bed to the window. Tangled up in the cord for the blinds was a pair of headphones. They were missing an earpiece and a bare patch in the plastic exposed the wires.

Better than nothing, he supposed. When he reached over to untangle the headphones, a rancid smell hit his nose. He recoiled with a gag.

Polly flapped loudly around his cage at Token's reaction.

Token craned his neck to look at the source of the smell. White and green mold grew on the coffee left in the top cup of the highest tower.

Inside the top cup of the second-highest tower, the contents had all evaporated, leaving a thick, brown sludge caked to the inside. In the final towers, top cup was something black that Token couldn't identify.

When he went to pick up the cup for a better look, a swarm of tiny gnats burst out. Despite his best efforts, some of the gnats went up his nose and in his mouth. Token coughed but ended up swallowing some of them anyway.

He shuddered, feeling disgusted, before taking a look inside the cup.

Now that the infestation had gone, Token's best guess at the contents were old ravioli. The mini kind of ravioli from a can, like Craig's mom, made sometimes when he went for a sleepover. But Craig's mom never served it in a coffee cup. Did Tweek run out of clean bowls?

Token's stomach twisted. Once Tweek's room was spick and span, he was going to make him sign a blood oath to never ever bring ravioli into his room again.

"Tweek, when was the last time you took these cups out?" Token asked, setting the ravioli cup down. The moment he did, the gnats returned to congregate on the old pasta.

Tweek's head snapped up. He scrambled to his feet.

"Shit! Cups! Cups! I forgot. I was going to take those out yesterday." Tweek nearly tripped as he raced to the bed. "Hand them to me. Mom's been looking for them all week. We're out of clean cups and have to drink out of paper cups from the shop."

"Ooooo-kay, then," He muttered, carefully grabbing the top and bottom cups of the tallest tower. He passed off the tower to Tweek before reaching for the next one.

"I'll help." He offered.

"No! It's my room. I have to clean it all myself." Tweek spun around. He took two steps, then tripped. The cups, luckily, landed in a pile of stuffed animals and didn’t break. The moldy coffee and assorted sludges spilled on the fake fur.

Tweek put his hands to his hair and let out a scream of frustration. "Nooo! This isn't fair! Why can't I do this?"

Token scooted to the edge of the bed then slipped off to his knees. He moved over and set a hand on Tweek's shoulder.

"Are you doing alright, man?" Token asked. Tweek turned towards him with his lip quivering.

"No, I'm not." He swallowed a sob. "I'm stressed as all hell and I know it's because I let my room get this bad when I shouldn’t have. It's all my fault and everything is terrible, and I hate it!"

Token looked around the room again. His eyes lingered at the spot Tweek was working before he called him over. The pile wasn't in anyway organized, just relocated from the floor to the desk.

"It's not that bad," Token lied. "If you let me help, I'm sure we can fix it."

"It's my fault. I need to do it myself." Tweek sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

"Why?" Token dropped his hand to his lap.

"Because...you know!" Tweek waved his hands out. "Just because!"

"That's a dumb reason." Token gathered the coffee cups and stacked them into two towers. "You have friends so when you mess up you can get help from them, Tweek."

Tweek tried to argue, but Token held up his hand to cover his mouth.

"I'm helping you clean your room," he told him sternly, falling into his Mom Friend voice. "No ifs, no buts, no coconuts, got it?"

He didn't particularly care to be seen as the ‘Mom Friend,’ but he had to admit it had its advantages in times like this. Tweek wouldn't argue with him now.

Tweek sighed against his palm but nodded anyway. Token bobbed his head back and handed Tweek half the cups.

"Alright, I think we should get all these cups out of your room first, then take your stuffed animals down to wash. After that, we'll make a game plan for the rest of the room." He smiled. "Sound good to you?"

Hopefully, he sounded knowledgeable enough that Tweek wouldn't worry. In reality, Token didn’t know more than the bare minimum how to clean his own room. His family had a cleaning lady who showed up once a week to pick up the slack, after all. He never bothered to learn more, but Token was sure he could handle it.

Tweek carefully stood, holding the cups tightly to his chest. He took a breath then returned Token's smile.

"That sounds great. Thanks, Token."

---

Once he had a plan, Tweek barely needed Token's help at all. After taking all the window cups, along with a plate Token accidentally kicked from under a half-empty bag of birdseed, down to the sink, the two gathered up the soiled stuffed animals and took them to the washing machine where Token learned that, apparently, stuffed animals should be washed in pillowcases.

Token laughed and tried to play it off that he was testing Tweek about washing machine practices, but he was pretty sure Tweek didn’t believe him.

When they returned to Tweek's room, Token took a pad of paper and a pen from the pile on his desk. The pen was a Red Racer themed pen with multiple kinds of colored ink, which Token thought might have actually been Craig's, but didn't point it out. Nichole took his jackets and pens all the time too. It just came with the territory of dating. Everything belongs to each other.

With Tweek's help, he made a list of everything they needed to pick up. Then they went to picking everything from that category up in the room. All the clothes first, then the dishes and so on.

All the clothes were agreed to be dirty. Tweek and Token took four trips to take them all down to the washer. By that time, the stuffed animals were finished so Tweek could start a new load.

His room already looked much cleaner with the clothes picked up, so it was easy to find all the dishes and take them to the sink. The toys they piled on to Tweek's bed and started putting every toy where it needed to go, in the closet or on the shelves or toy chest.

Then they repeated the process with everything else on the floor.

While working at organizing the toys, Tweek had fully taken over cleaning duties, so Token sat in the desk chair and watched. He could practically see the waves of stress fall off of his friend as he organized his room.

"Hey, Tweek," Token asked, leaning back in the chair, "Can I ask you a question?"

Tweek stood on his tiptoes to throw an action figure to the top shelf of his closet. Falling to the flats of his feet he replied, "Sure. What?"

"Why didn't you get Craig to help you? He's the most organized of all of us. His room is the cleanest, and he likes to pick up messes — because he's a weirdo like that." Token idly drew a circle on the pad of paper in red ink. He clicked the pen to green and drew another circle inside the first.

Tweek sighed as he picked up a board game. "It's because, um, I don't like how Craig cleans."

"What?" Token dropped the pen. He stared at Tweek in confusion.

Tweek shook his head. "He tried to make my room like his, and I don't like it. My legos and blocks stay in the box by my desk so I can grab them easily when I'm playing, not under my bed. I keep my favorite books inside my nightstand's drawer so I can read them before going to sleep. Craig has all his books on his bookshelf near the door. He has all his underwear in the bottom drawer with his socks. The gnomes took all my underpants, so I don't even have any to wear anymore! How Craig keeps his room drives me bonkers."

Tweek shoved the board game under his bed with the others. "That's why my room got so bad this time. I had to take everything out to find what I needed since nothing was where I keep it."

"So this was Craig's fault." Token chuckled, picking the pen back up.

"Kinda?" Tweek picked up a rope with colorful wooden beads and a little silver bell on it. As he walked to Polly's cage he went on, "Don't tell him though. He'll get moody if he thinks I'm mad at him."

Polly squawked excitedly as Tweek hung the toy up in the cage. The bird instantly landed next to the toy to ring the bell.

"I won't," Token promised. He jumped to feet then picked up some lego men attached to a long flat brick. He held them up before asking, "These go in the box by your desk, right?"

---

Tweek fell back on his naked bed. The sheets and bedding, the last bit of laundry he and Token washed, were still in the dryer. Token folded the last shirt and set it in the top drawer of Tweek's dresser.

Once he shut it, the room was done--save for the bed, of course.

Token looked around with his hands on his hips and nodded. "We make a good team, Tweek."

Tweek pushed himself up on his elbows. "We do. Thank you again, Token. I'm feeling so much better now without all the clutter stressing me out."

Token flopped down beside him. "No problem, dude. This was kind of fun, actually." He quickly added, "Don't make a habit of it, though."

Tweek laughed and nodded. He rolled over to look at the alarm clock on his nightstand raised his head.

"Do you wanna have a sleepover?" He asked. "Mom and Dad should be home by now, so we can go ask."

Token hummed and looked out the window. There was plenty of light for him to run home and pick up his PJs and a change of clothes.

He jumped to his feet then spun around with a grin. "Of course, but on one condition."

Tweek scooted off the bed as he asked, "What?"

"You promise me on your life, that you'll never bring ravioli into your room again."

---

AN: Cleaning up and opening up my living space actually really helps when my anxiety is through the roof. Less clutter, less to worry about. There is probably a scientific reason behind it somewhere.

#tweek tweak #Token black #south park #fanfiction #tweek week #one-shot #comedy #childhood shenanigans

42 notes · View notes

cami-chats · 5 years ago

Text

One Hell Of A Reunion

Written for @marvelpolyshipbingo

Rating: Gen

Warnings/Triggers: Mention of serious/career ending injuries

Pairings: Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanoff/Clint Barton

Summary: Years ago, Iron Legion had to break up because of a car wreck that effectively ended their musical career. Now, Natasha's called everyone back together for dinner.

Square Filled: G1-2000s Pop Punk Band AU

Read below or on AO3

Bucky didn't know why he'd showed up. He really, really didn't. He hadn't seen everyone since- god, since a few months after the car wreck that stopped their musical career in its tracks. Iron Legion had been a pop punk band gaining steam when the eighteen-wheeler next to them popped a tire and spun right into their tour bus. It was a miracle they'd all lived, but Clint lost his hearing, Bucky lost an arm-- his left, y'know, the one that was supposed to be pressing on the strings-- Tony lost fine motor control in both hands for a while (he had it back now, thanks to a massive amount of physical therapy), and Nat had been knocked in a coma for a week.

It had been seven years since the wreck, and while Tony and Nat were healed up, Clint's hearing aids wouldn't allow for concerts, and Bucky's prosthetic was fucking amazing but it didn't have the functionality for playing guitar. Obviously they had tried to keep in touch, but when they were all dealing with injuries and trying to reconcile that they were never going to play on the big stage again, it was easier to let it fall away. One fucking car crash, and Bucky lost his arm, his career, and either one relationship or three relationships, depending on how you looked at it. Tony stayed in touch with him, and Tony built him a prosthetic that he could use; that was the extent of their interactions these day though. A few years back they'd tried to get together, just the two of them, but it hadn't worked out. They hadn't... fit, anymore. And it wasn't about how their lives had changed, it's that they didn't know how to interact for months on end without Clint or Natasha there to break up their patterns.

Bucky and Tony talked every month and texted more often, but he hadn't heard from Clint or Nat until now. Nat emailed him, out of the blue, asking for the band to get back together for dinner. He'd said yes before he could think about it, and there wasn't a chance to try and change his mind because Clint and Tony had agreed just as quickly.

And now he was standing outside the restaurant, tapping his foot anxiously and chewing on his thumb. What if he was the only one who showed up? What if he was here too early and was going to get chased off for casing the place? What if he'd gotten the day wrong and he didn't need to be here at all?

"Bucky!" said a very happy, very familiar voice, and he jerked his head up.

"Clint," he said faintly. Then he straightened, haphazardly wiping off his spit-soaked finger on his jeans. "Hey man. You look... good." Good was an understatement. Had he joined a gym full time or something? For fuck's sake, that was just ridiculous.

Clint's grin widened. "Thanks." He stepped in, enveloping him in a hug; Bucky hugged back automatically, and he had missed this-- missed the heft of Clint in his arms and the way he always leaned against Bucky like he was half a step from trying to make Bucky take all of his weight. "Like you're one to talk," he said as they stepped back, squeezing Bucky's shoulders as he looked him up and down. Bucky noticed the curve of bright purple hearing aids along the back of his ear and wondered if Tony had made those too. "Nice arm, is that the one Tony made?"

"'Course, who else?" Bucky said with a lopsided smile.

"Don't you kinda hate how much he's accomplished since the accident? He makes prosthetic limbs and hospital equipment now, but when he was with the band, I was convincing him to snort espresso powder and shit, y'know?"

Bucky snickered, because he'd completely forgotten about that. Unsurprisingly, Tony had spent the next two weeks with a very sensitive nose and no caffeine high to enjoy. "Remember that time me and Nat matched shots?"

"The bartender was so afraid you were going to start a fight, and all you ended up doing was petting Tony's hair and sobbing about how pretty he was."

"As I recall, Natasha did the same thing."

"Yeah. And then you started arguing with each other about who should get him."

"God that's right. Who won? I don't remember much from that night." Or the following morning. Or much of anything because it had been a decade ago.

"I'm pretty sure Tony ran into neutral arms, and I-- in my dashing glory-- saved him from both of you."

Bucky snorted. Maybe Tony would remember.

"Should we get a table or are we waiting for everyone to get here first?" Clint asked, and Bucky shrugged awkwardly, unwilling to admit that he'd been standing out here for a while wondering the same thing. "Right, I forgot you did that. No offense, didn't miss it."

Bucky frowned. "Do what?"

"Be all noncommittal and shrug when you definitely have an opinion."

"I don't have an opinion," he said defensively.

"Uh-huh," Clint said, clearly not believing him. "I guess we'll keep waiting out here for a while, then. What've you been up to?"

Bucky shrugged again.

"Am I going to have to get a fucking steamroller to get any answers out of you? C'mon man, surely you haven't been sitting on your ass for the past five years."

"I might've been," he argued, not really knowing why. He'd always talked to Clint this way, but he'd chalked that up to age, not how they actually interacted; apparently, he'd been wrong.

"Steamroller it is."

Bucky didn't know what that was supposed to mean until Clint wrapped an arm tight around his shoulders. The only way he could get free was if he elbowed him in the side and then ran for it, but that wasn't a very attractive idea.

"What've you been up to?" Clint asked. When it didn't get an immediate answer, he asked, "What's Steve been up to?"

"Art."

"As usual." Because Clint was an asshole, he ruffled a hand through Bucky's hair, causing him to scowl. Stupid as it might sound, he'd put effort into looking good for this. "How's that been going for him?"

"Good. He's gotten commissions and sold a few paintings to galleries." Bucky was the one taking care of everything for him, because if it was left to Steve, he wouldn't get paid for anything, too busy starving to death or giving everything away to local coffee shops.

"Ah, so you're his manager then."

Bucky's scowl deepened. This was usually the part where people told him that he had to have a life outside of Steve and that he should follow his own passions or some shit. Bucky always glared at them and thought viciously of the years where he'd been following his passions and how that wasn't an option anymore.

"What's that look for? It's good, I've heard about so many people getting fucked over by their managers, at least Steve won't have to worry about that with you. I didn't know you knew how to do that sort of thing, though. Did you pick it up from Jan?" Jan had been Iron Legion's manager, and a damn brilliant one.

"Yeah. I called her up when Steve started to need the help and she gave me a few pointers." Obviously not all of her experience was applicable from musician to artist, but most of what she'd shared had been a godsend.

They kept talking about it a little, with Clint asking about Steve's career and Bucky hearing a few work stories from the archery academy that Clint worked for.

"You came!" Natasha practically squealed, throwing her arms around them.

"Uh yeah Nat, we said we would," Clint said, hugging her back.

Bucky patted her awkwardly with his prosthetic because he was half tilting into Clint and hunched over to match Natasha's height. "You're choking me."

"You're a liar and a big baby," she said, then turned her head and kissed him on the cheek. "I take it Tony's not here yet?"

"He's always running late," Bucky said, kissing her cheek back.

She let them go and put her hands on her hips as they straightened. "I recall him being punctual."

"He wasn't running a company back then," Bucky reminded her. "If he said he'll be here, he will."

Shortly after saying that, Bucky got a text from Tony. Shit just saw the time omw sorry.

"See?" Bucky tapped out a quick message telling him that it was fine. "He's on his way."

"From where?"

"No idea." Eta?

Uhhh

I'm at Dream Cream

"Like five minutes," Bucky said. "What've you been up to Nat?"

"Are we not waiting for these sort of things until Tony gets here?"

Clint rolled his eyes. "Fine, be like that. Now we can all stand here in awkward silence waiting for him to show up."

"Don't be so dramatic, we haven't been awkward around each other since we stopped being teenagers."

"Speak for yourself," Bucky muttered. Sure, he'd had his suave moments, but for the most part he was bumbling around trying his best. It hadn't looked that way on stage, but that was a performance, not the real him. Real him was just kinda weird, and the fact that Tony, Natasha, and Clint had all liked him that way didn't make it any less true. "Do we at least get a hint for why you called us all up?"

"What, I can't just want to see you all again?"

"Sure you can, we're great," Clint agreed easily. "But that doesn't change the fact that this is pretty out of the blue to decide that all of us at once should reconnect."

"We never should've fallen out of touch in the first place," Nat argued.

"Probably not, but that doesn't change that this is kinda weird."

Bucky nodded in agreement.

"You're both impossible."

"You're the one that called us," Clint reminded her.

"And I regret it more with every second that passes," she said, and neither of them pointed out how blatantly false that statement was.

As expected, it was a bit of an awkward stretch as they waited for Tony, but not as bad as Bucky had been afraid of. Bucky got a hug from him right away-- comfortable and familiar-- but the hugs given to Natasha and Clint were a little more hesitant, almost like he didn't know how to do it after all this time apart.

They shuffled inside, got a table, and talked about not much of anything as they ordered drinks and looked at the menu. After the food was ordered, there was nothing else to occupy the quiet space between them.

"So, Tasha," Tony said, "what did you call us out here for?"

"You're all so damn paranoid, you know that?"

They all gave her a flat look and she rolled her eyes, taking a sip from her water.

"Alright, so I may have had a bit of an ulterior motive, aside from missing you."

Clint gave an over the top fake gasp and put his hand to his chest. "I had no idea."

"Will you shut it and listen for a minute?"

"I don't know, that doesn't seem very like me. The chances are- ow, okay the chances are good." He rubbed at the spot on his arm like it had actually hurt when Bucky swat his arm.

"Someone contacted me a couple months ago. They're doing some sort of documentary on punk bands at the time that we were playing, and they asked if we'd be willing to talk to them, answer a few questions or something."

"No offense Tasha," Tony said, spinning his glass in its own water ring to have something to do with his hands, "but you could have said that over an email. Don't get me wrong, I am happy to see you guys, but... this seems like a bit much to answer some questions."

Natasha took another sip from her water, looking uncomfortable. "I can't be the only one that missed what we used to have," she said quietly, and none of them knew what to say to that.

Clint cleared his throat, scratching at the back of his head. "Yeah I mean- uh, the band was-"

"That's not what she meant and we all know it," Bucky said.

Clint went silent again.

Bucky took a quick look at everyone's faces, and realized that no one was planning on saying anything. Tony would probably sit here for the entire course of the meal without saying another word, and Clint was about to start spouting off whatever came to mind. Nat probably wouldn't stay around for that; she looked like she was one minute away from leaving entirely. "I um. Miss it. But there's no going back, you know? Me and Tony tried for a while, but it didn't work. And us... we're not together all the time anymore. What if we only worked because of- I dunno, the timing and the band? I don’t want to ruin those memories by trying to reclaim the past."

"I don't believe that," Tony mumbled. They all turned to look at him, and his cheeks pinked as he kept his gaze trained on the tabletop. "We worked because we're all fucking awesome, and when we were missing two of those people, it didn't sit right. Yeah we're not the same that we used to be, but I find it hard to believe that any of you have turned into someone I don't want to know."

Natasha nodded. "That's what I was thinking, too. Not exactly, of course, but-" she gestured vaguely "-the idea. I miss us, and I don't think it's romanticizing the past or some shit. You just- you know that feeling of being in love? How it lingers? It stayed with me all these years, and all we need is to know that everyone is on the same page."

"This is why you always wrote the lyrics," Clint joked. "Yeah, I'm uh, I'm in. Besides, I'm only over in Jersey, it's not like I'm in Florida."

"Jersey?" Bucky repeated, all three of them giving him a disgusted look. Natasha wasn't originally from the States, but after moving here, she'd firmly been a New Yorker, same as Tony and Bucky.

Clint rolled his eyes. "It's not that bad." A beat. "Fine, but it could be worse."

"So we're going to make this work?" Natasha asked, needing to double check. She looked around the table, getting either a nod or a mumbled 'yes'. She didn't mean to puff up like a pleased parrot-- maybe not a parrot, but one of those brightly colored birds that strutted around like it owned not only the branch but the entire tree-- but that's definitely what she did. "Great."

"Just so I know, is the documentary real?" Tony asked.

"Everything I said about that is true. I think she wants an in person interview with us all at once or something, I don't know. I saw an excuse to get everyone back together and stopped paying attention."

Bucky snorted. They all had different careers now, but he was willing to be that most of them hadn't changed much at all.

#marvel #fanfic #clint barton #tony stark #bucky barnes #natasha romanoff #my writing

2 notes · View notes

sage-nebula · 5 years ago

Note

I hope you dont mind my asking, but wouldn't GF have decided to remove the national dex long before LGPE released? I can see those games selling well confirming to GF that "pokemon sell well regardless of cut features" but it feels strange to blame it on LGPE when the development time on the games would suggest they made this choice awhile ago. (Not to defend lgpe lack of content) Sorry if this is a bother, I just feel like I'm missing something and would really like to understand your reasoning

For almost any other game I would agree, however for Pokémon in particular:

The National Dex (insofar as the ability to transfer old pokémon over) was never going to be a Day One feature. It’s never a Day One feature in the first games of the generation. Even if they wanted to make it one, in this case they couldn’t because Home isn’t releasing until 2020. As I’ve said in other posts, if they wanted to patch in the NatDex, they’d have the time to do it. Technically speaking, they’d have the time to do it, especially since the fanbase would be willing to wait (even if there’d be a few whiners here or there) the extra time.

Since it’s not a Day One feature, it’s something that can be worked on later in the development cycle (/can even continue to be worked on after the development cycle, or at least it could be if this series were treated with the respect of, say, The Legend of Zelda series). Again, I’m not talking about DLC that’s already on the game card that needs to be activated later, I’m talking about DLC that’s patched in, content created after that you download either to the harddrive or (though I don’t know if Switch DLC works this way specifically) onto the game card itself. Given the type of content they generally want to show early in the release cycle (the general theme / concept of the games, scenes of the various areas in the region, new ‘mon), and the fact that this would be a feature added post-release anyway, we can make a safe bet that the NatDex is something they’d work on much later in the development cycle, possibly even in the last year since, again . . . they’d have that time if they wanted to use it (and if this series was treated with genuine respect).

The Let’s Go games were stated by Masuda to be the future of the franchise if they sold well. They featured a Pokédex that was limited to only the Kanto ‘Dex, plus Meltan and Melmetal. They released in November 2018, and indeed, they sold well. In early 2019 (February, IIRC) Sword & Shield were released. While of course I don’t work at Game Freak and thus can’t say for sure, I would place money on the idea that if they were even a bit on the fence about adding the National Dex, the fact that Let’s Go sold so well despite being limited to 153 ‘mon pushed them right over the edge to, “Cut the National Dex from Sword & Shield, there’s no point in working on it.” I mean, why should they expend the effort if people will buy the games anyway? Especially when President Ishihara went on record saying that long-time fans only cared about “new pokémon and features” around the time of Let’s Go’s release. Sure, they might have already been thinking about cutting the National Dex beforehand, but Let’s Go no doubt assured them that it was a safe and correct call to make.

So that’s what I mean when I say that Let’s Go’s positive sales figures sealed all of our fates. To be entirely honest, before the National Dex announcement, I was certain that we wouldn’t see the shockwaves from Let’s Go until Gen IX. But Sword & Shield having a limited ‘Dex just like Let’s Go, and having special feature ‘mon behind $60 paywalls like Let’s Go, and having core features stripped out like Let’s Go, and the fact that it’s starting to look frighteningly like the starters won’t be able to evolve like in Let’s Go . . . the effect is pretty apparent. Sure, some of this stuff was present even before Let’s Go (namely the whole “let’s ditch useful features in the name of simplifying things” tack that Masuda has been married to for years now), but in the wake of Let’s Go, it’s success, and what Masuda said would happen if it was successful, it’s really hard not to see the link.

(Note just in case anyone read too quickly: I’m not saying the starters WON’T evolve. I’m only saying that I’m starting to fear that’s the case since we’re less than a month away from release and we haven’t even seen second stage evolutions yet. Maybe they’re just trying to keep starter evolutions a surprise, that’s entirely possible, but it’s also highly suspect, and Game Freak destroyed any trust or good faith I had in them a while back.)

As a final note, the reason why I say that the Pokémon games aren’t treated with respect is . . . well, there are a few reasons:

Game Freak stated themselves that they put their B Team on Sword & Shield while their A Team worked on Little Town Hero. They also said they wanted to create something, “as exciting, or perhaps even more exciting” than Pokémon. They’re tired of working on Pokémon, and it shows. Which, I mean, I get it, it’s been 20+ years, but in that case tell Nintendo so that they can shift the main games over to another studio. I get that Game Freak was created for the sole purpose of making Pokémon, and maybe Taijiri-san is pissed at how you’re disrespecting his baby (I would be), but for the good of the series, if you don’t want to work on it, give it to someone who does. Don’t just shift it onto your bare bones secondary dev team.

These games are in a hellish development cycle where a new one is popped out every year. Contrast this to The Legend of Zelda where, while we’ve had some anomalies where assets were able to be largely reused and so games came out only a couple years apart (see: Ocarina of Time to Majora’s Mask) --- even that had two or three years before releases, not one the very next year. Most mainline Zelda games spend five or six years in development. I’m fully aware that we will likely be waiting until something like 2022 for Breath of the Wild 2, and I am prepared to wait that time because I know the game we get will be incredible. Granted, I’m going to be dying every single time they announce a release date to push it back, but it’ll be a death I’m grateful for because I will know that the end product will be worth it. The Pokémon games used to have a similar luxury. While there were a grand total of five games released during that time (with “five games” being used loosely, given that one was a slight upgrade and the other four were really two games with slight differences between versions), Gen IV lasted for a grand total of four years. We had Diamond & Pearl in 2006, Platinum in 2008, HeartGold & SoulSilver in 2009, and then finally, Black & White in 2010. By contrast, Gen VII didn’t even last three years, technically. I mean, this November would be its third anniversary, but that’s when Gen VIII officially starts instead. To be fair, it could be argued that Gen IV didn’t have a full four years since it came out in September 2006, and Gen V came out in September 2010. But even if you make that argument, it still had a full year on Gen VII, and to be honest, that showed. The Sinnoh games are far and away not my faves, but they were still full of content. HeartGold & SoulSilver are often considered to be the best remakes in the entire franchise, and considering the content that was cut from OmegaRuby & AlphaSapphire and Masuda’s reasoning for why that content was cut, I can’t exactly argue with that even though I did genuinely enjoy ORAS. And the games that Gen IV ushered in? Controversial opinion, but I think that the Pokémon games peaked with Gen V. Black & White not only initially had a ‘dex that was nothing but new pokémon (and yet STILL included the Nat Dex later, because in Masuda’s own words he felt it cruel to keep people from playing with their faves forever!), but it also introduced a METRIC TON of new mechanics, some of which we no longer get to use (Rotation Battles? Game Freak doesn’t know her). Who knows what exactly Game Freak did with that extra year, but it was clearly a lot of work given how wonderful the games were in Gen IV and Gen V. The extra dev time showed.By contrast, Gen VII got 2.5 years (or 3 if you’re being generous). Every single game released during this gen had massive content cuts, even when comparing to Gen VI, which also had massive content cuts. Mechanics were stripped away, and Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon technically didn’t have a NatDex either, but at least you could still have all of your ‘mon in them at a later date if you wanted to. Now with Sword & Shield, we don’t even have that, despite the Switch being far more powerful than the 3DS. (We also don’t have Mega Evolution for whatever godforsaken reason, even though the Kanto Mega Evolutions at the very least were already used in Let’s Go, the fuck, Game Freak). Pokémon games print money and always have, and Game Freak has taken this and their lack of interest in the series to the depressing but I suppose logical extreme of “do whatever and they’ll buy it anyway.” There’s no love here, there’s no respect here. They just don’t care anymore, and as someone who does care an awful lot, it’s super upsetting to me.

And while people have tried to argue that the games can’t be delayed because of the anime or the card game or whatever else:

The games come first. They’ve always come first. I know some people mistakenly think that the anime came first and that the games were created later, but that is 100% false. Pokémon started as a game series and the anime was created to advertise the games, straight up.

Filler episodes exist, and the PokéAni is no stranger to them. The Orange Islands arc was an entire arc of filler created to pad time between Gens I and II. The Delacora Islands (or whatever they were called) was a filler arc meant to pad time between Gens V and VI. Arguably the majority of the Sun & Moon anime was filler, given its slice-of-life genre, meaning the anime was even less of an excuse not to delay Sword & Shield. You can’t tell me people wouldn’t have been happy with another year of the Alola crew running around getting into random adventures. People would have eaten that up and loved it. We could have had it all.

I’m not even going to dignify “but the card game” with a response lmao. This isn’t Yu-Gi-Oh!. Sure, the card game makes money, and probably a decent amount of it (merch sales probably make up the franchise’s greatest source of income, and as someone who easily spent several hundred dollars in two weeks at the PokéCenters in Japan---including over $100 in one trip to a PokéCenter while I was there, and we went multiple times---I am a big part of that), but they come up with bullshit new expansions all the time and could easily keep doing it. Again, not a reason to delay the games if the games need more time in development.

So all in all, at the end of the day, Game Freak is no longer treating these games with love and respect, which makes them an awful lot like the villains in the games they create. The Let’s Go games were harbingers of disaster for the games, and we were told this very plainly, and just about no one listened. In fact, I legitimately lost friendships with people who got mad at me for making Facebook statuses about how they should buy Let’s Go used if they absolutely had to have them because how DARE I believe Ishihara when he said that Let’s Go were considered core titles, and how DARE I believe Masuda when he said that Let’s Go would usher in the last twenty years of the franchise. Clearly, I was just being an ugly bitch. (I wish I was exaggerating, but this actually happened, I got blocked over it, it was ridiculous.) And now here we are as a result, with no hope of things getting better unless Nintendo forcibly rips Pokémon out of Game Freak’s hands, which I don’t even think they can legally do given that they only own 1/3rd of the IP. (The other 2/3rds belong to Game Freak and Creatures Inc., as I understand it.)

TL;DR:

Pokémon is still my favorite fictional fantasy world, but as someone who has always loved the games first and foremost, the current state of it depresses me to no end.

#this kind of got off the original topic but i hope it's coherent at least #pokemon salt #pokemon negativity #long post for ts #Anonymous

6 notes · View notes

oriandico · 6 years ago

Text

One of the most frustrating things in my life is the fact that I am dead stupid when it comes to learning names and dates. I remember important images and ideas and themes and eras and styles and how things happened or what went wrong.... but I cannot tell you the names of the people who I met and spent 11 hours working with yesterday, or who painted that super famous thing 400-some-odd years ago.

Names dissappear directly into a black hole inside my head. Literally seconds after somebody introduces themselves it is gone. Static. It takes me literally 5-8 weeks of daily interactions with people for me to finally register what sound comes out of my mouth that is specific to that face. Until then I am super polite but just dont use names.

It is super annoying to have like... 8 semesters of formal art history and drama lit knowledge, and like 15 years working in the arts and not being able to speak to it coherently at all because I literally dont know who I am talking about, even if I could bet my life on the where what how and why.

Its why I like talking about specific art and directly to artists because I want to know the kinds of things that motivate and inspire and drive people to make great art and do great things and how specifically they plan to execute those goals and the kind of effort the put into their work and OH mY GOD current art trends is my JAM.

But yeah who are you people? Give a poor brain a break; there are so many freaking names worth knowing from the past... tens of thousands of years of human history and for every dead genius there are like 10 millennials/ gen z kids incubating what could be the next cool trend its just awful in the best kind of way.

I only know like... 40 people... and like 35 of them are artists.

Sorry. That kind of turned into a ramble.

It has also just gotten very stressful in the past few years because there is simply less generosity and benefit of the doubt giving to go around. people assume I dont know their names because I dont care to learn them and that is simply not true but i also see the validity of their frustration so I try not to let it affect anything and just be as polite and gregarious as I can and so far I have learned how to charm my way out of just about anything but fuck if I know who I just spoke to.

TL;DR names are my achilles heel and the longer I work in the art world the more of a handicap it is becoming.

#not reptiles

2 notes · View notes

higuchimon · 6 years ago

Text

[fanfic]Rebirth of Kaiser: Chapter 1

Shou sat, hands in his lap, staring at the door. He tried not to, but he did anyway. He’d sat in rooms like this before, worried like this before, but never to this degree. Never with the true, deep down fear that his brother wouldn’t come out of this. That something would happen that shouldn’t.

He closed his eyes, trying to think about something else. He wasn’t particular on what. He just wanted to think about anything that wasn’t the doctors on the other side of the door doing their best to save his brother’s life.

A hand brushed against his shoulder and he looked up to see a face he hadn’t seen in well over six months. Without a bit of hesitation, he threw himself into Juudai’s arms, shaking all over.

It was Juudai. He could do that with him.

“Aniki! Aniki!” Further words just stuck in his throat. He trembled and sat back down, Juudai beside him now. He wanted to believe everything would be all right now. Aniki was here and…

He still couldn’t make everything come out all right. He wasn’t that good. He wasn’t flawless. He could make mistakes.

Shou had to remind himself of that. It wasn’t easy. He’d spent long enough believing that Juudai really could do anything that he wanted to, and he’d had a hard enough time realizing that wasn’t true.

But that didn’t change the fact that Juudai being there eased a lot of the tension he’d been living with since he’d arrived here.

“So what happened?” Juudai asked, voice quiet and soft. Shou swallowed a little. He hadn’t actually told anyone since this started. There hadn’t been anyone around to tell, and he’d been too worried to put his fingers to keys and send an e-mail.

Which did make him wonder just how Juudai found out he was there in the first place. But here he was, and that was all that mattered for the moment.

He focused. “Everything was fine. He took his medicine every day. He didn’t push himself too much, even with our Pro League.” He couldn’t help but be proud of how far their League had come in the seven years since graduation. “Then...he just said that he hurt a lot. That he didn’t feel good.”

Shou swallowed, heart pounding as he remembered seeing how pale Ryou looked when he spoke. “I wasn’t sure what to do. So I brought him here. He … he passed out almost as soon as we got here.”

Shou’s hands pressed even tighter together. “They’ve had him in there for a long time now. I’m not even sure what’s really wrong.” It had probably been his heart. His brother had been doing so well but things happened and there wasn’t anything else he could think of.

He swallowed. He didn’t want to look at the time. He didn’t want to know how long it had been. No matter how long it had been, it couldn’t be good at all. If he didn’t know, then it would be… all right, wouldn’t it? Sure. That was it.

Sometimes nurses came out from there, and once a doctor. She hadn’t talked to him, though, and he wasn’t sure if she even had anything to do with his brother. But seeing them worried him even when they said nothing at all.

He heard noises from the other side, but never anything that he could make sense out of. The words he could understand, but what they meant was all in medical jargon. None of it said what he wanted it to say: that his brother was fine and would recover soon.

Shou glanced up once to see Juudai working on something, fingers dancing over keys. It took another moment to grasp it: he was sending out messages. Letting people know what was going on.

Oh. Better than he could do right now. He tucked his head back down, too scared to sleep, too scared to stay awake. He sort of wanted to yawn, but if he did, he’d fall asleep. He was almost sure of it.

“Kenzan and Manjoume-kun are on the way,” Juudai said. “Asuka, too. I haven’t heard back from anyone else yet.”

Shou nodded. He couldn’t decide what else to do. Words just didn’t want to come right now.

A ringing sound. Shou looked up, mostly out of habit. That usually meant that someone was coming out of there.

A doctor emerged. She looked every bit as exhausted as he felt. She looked around the room, attention falling on him.

“Marufuji Shou? Here for your brother?”

Shou’s heart clenched. He nodded. This would be it. This would clear up everything.

“I’m terribly sorry. We did everything that we could.” Her voice was quiet and weary, head bent. “You have my deepest sympathies.”

Shou’s heart froze altogether. No. No. He couldn’t have heard that. It couldn’t be what he thought she said. After all this time, all that they’d done together, all that they’d fought for together, how could that have happened?

He jerked his head around to where Juudai sat, hardly noticing the hot tears streaking down his cheeks. “Aniki...” He knew what he wanted to ask. What he wanted to demand. But it couldn’t be. He could not forget that Juudai might be powerful, but he wasn’t a god.

Juudai rose up. “Can we… see him?”

The doctor’s lips turned down a bit. “It’s not usual, but… I think it might be all right. Just this once.”

Under other circumstances, Shou might have wondered if Juudai did something to influence her. Right now, he didn’t actually care. He stumbled along in her wake, guided through quiet empty corridors. It was very late at night and only the occasional doctor or nurse turned up.

Shou could barely think as they entered a room. There, a white sheet pulled up over him, was…

Shou didn’t even think at all. “Nii-san...”

Juudai stared at what he saw, at what – who had been the Kaiser. He let Shou go first, turning his own thoughts inward. He’d never considered doing anything like this before. One thing he’d learned very fast was that there were certain lines that he couldn’t cross.

But this was Shou and this was the Kaiser and if he couldn’t do something for the people that he cared about, then what could he do?

Yubel.

We can’t bring him back. The ties to his body are already severed.

He’d expected that. But there had to be something else that he could do.

Does he have a ghost? Like Daitokuji-sensei? That was the only thing he could think of right now. His old teacher still hadn’t moved on, but he’d stopped by Duel Academia to leave Pharaoh with Principal Samejima before coming here. He was pretty sure hospitals didn’t want cats around.

Yubel didn’t answer at once. He had the sensation that they were searching, even if he couldn’t see them.

Yes. Most people do, before they leave. But I can’t say how long he will remain.

Juudai nodded. If I looked with your eyes, could I see him?

Yes. But hurry.

Juudai concentrated, feeling Yubel’s energy move through him. They were together at all times, but only when they both put in this effort could he see things the way that Yubel did.

Ryou wasn’t the only spirit there. Cyber End Dragon hovered behind Shou, dividing its attention between the Marufujis. Ryou stared up at it, awe written over his features, before he turned toward Juudai, face assuming his usual calm expression.

“Juudai.” He said nothing more, a greeting and a farewell in one.

Juudai inched forward. “Do you really want to go that much?”

Ryou tilted his head. “I don’t think I’m being given an option.” His gaze flicked back toward Shou. “But I don’t think I would if I could stay.”

Juudai held back a bit of a grin. He’d hoped for something like that, even if he didn’t know how to do it.

“There might be a way. I mean, I don’t know for sure, but…”

Yubel stood next to him without warning. “There is a path that isn’t mortal rebirth or the afterlife. It isn’t one that everyone walks and some are called to it without warning. Have you noticed that there are some Duel Spirits who bear too much of a resemblance to humans?”

Both Ryou and Juudai nodded. Yubel folded their arms over their chest as they spoke.

“It isn’t unknown for a human to be reborn as a Duel Spirit. Or a Duel Spirit to be reborn as a human. That is a path available: with the help of the Gentle Darkness.”

Juudai jerked his head up. “You’re serious?” He’d sort of had an idea that he could do something, but he’d more or less thought of it as being healing or something. Not like this.

“When am I not, Juudai?” Yubel asked, a small smile on their lips. Then they turned back to Ryou. “It is a path taken by those with the strongest of wills only. And like those who experience mortal rebirth, you will not remember your first life.” Yubel considered for a few seconds. “Though I cannot say that the memories won’t ever return. It is possible. But it would require much effort and isn’t always something to strive for. There are times when it’s better to forget the past and move onward.”

Juudai couldn’t help a snort there. “Really?” To hear Yubel of all beings saying that…

“There are circumstnaces where that isn’t an option,” Yubel said, eyes glittering for a few seconds. “But I spoke of humans, not us.”

Juudai waved one hand before he looked back to the Kaiser. “I guess that’s an option, then. Is that what you’d like?”

Ryou considered in silence, his gaze going between Juudai, Yubel, Shou, and Cyber End Dragon. He raised one hand to rest on one of Cyber End’s muzzles.

“I would be a card spirit?”

“Yes. Only those who have the gift to see them would see you in this world. You might not even be created as a card here for a great deal of time to come.” Yubel answered. “But you could also live in one of the spirit worlds. Anyone living there could see you.” Yubel raised a hand, cutting off whatever questions were next. “We don’t know what kind of a card you would be, either.”

“We could get President Pegasus to make a card, eventually. Or Hayato, Hayato could do it!” Juudai declared, trying and not perfectly succeeding in keeping his voice down. Shou didn’t seem to notice, though. His heart and mind were too busy mourning.

“Make your choice, Hell Kaiser Marufuji Ryou,” Yubel said, “because the time you have to make it runs very thin indeed.”

Ryou did not move his hand from Cyber End’s muzzle. He breathed, if a ghost could be said to breathe at all, for a moment.

“I’ll do it,” he said. Juudai thought he’d made the decision at the best time. He looked a little transparent, even for a ghost.

Yubel extended one hand and in it was a card, blank of title and without image. “Then touch this. We’ll carry you there and you’ll wake up… eventually.”

“Eventually?”

“It takes time to adjust to a change like this. It could take a very long time.” Yubel pointed out. Ryou nodded before he reached his other hand out and rested it on the card.

There wasn’t a flash or anything. One moment he stood there, then he wasn’t. There wasn’t anything to see on the card even then, but Juudai could feel his presence in the card. Yubel handed it to him.

“What world do you want to take him to?” They asked. Juudai knew without even having to think about it: the world that he had troubled so much when he’d hurt with all of his heart.

The world where Hell Kaiser was still hailed as the hero who’d defeated Haou and brought his evil down. In all the years since, no one had ever told the people there otherwise. It would be a good place for Ryou to start a new life.

He would have to bring Shou there, eventually. When he wasn’t in such pain from the passing of his brother. Not that he’d tell Shou that Ryou wasn’t technically gone…

Shou, or anyone else. They could all find out later, when Ryou remembered them.

If Ryou remembered them.

To Be Continued

Notes: This one will be updated once a week for as long as I can. I hope you enjoy it!

#fanfic #higuchimon writes #ygo gx #marufuji ryou #fujiwara yuusuke #chapters: rebirth of kaiser

5 notes · View notes

wayfaringtrainers · 5 years ago

Text

Zichi played Pokémon Sword

And he is still royally pissed off!

When the drama and controversy came out regarding Pokémon Sword/Shield, I was more and more put off by it until I decided that no, I was gonna wait until I could get a second-hand copy for it...

And then people began talking about how much they loved it and how much fun they were having with it... No second-hand copies were appearing yet, so I caved to peer pressure like the little bitch I am and bought a copy.

I regret that so much. I don’t like this game, I very much loathe it.

I was planning on doing this semi-review ever since I started the game, so obviously there will be “plot” spoilers ahead for you guys. But anyway, here goes.

Let’s start with the very few things I like about this game, start on a positive note, at the very least.

Technical Records

I actually liked this concept. In the UK, we’re currently going through the “Vinyl Nostalgia Phase” as my dad calls it. The callback of ancient TMs being turned into TRs was pretty cool, and I am very glad that they made TRs infinitely collectable through Raids. My biggest grievances with old-school TMs was the limited supply you got: usually the best TMs you only ever got once, so only one Pokémon could ever learn some of the most useful and game-defining moves available. This makes a lot more moves available...

However it would be nice if I didn’t have to open Serebii every time I was looking for a specific TR, and then pray that specific pokemon from that specific den appears. If they weren’t so dependant on luck, they’d be a lot better.

(Most) New Pokemon

Wooloo for life.

But seriously, I absolutely love a lot of the designs for new Pokémon, which is rare for me, I’m usually critical and uncertain about new Pokémon. But these new Pokémon I actually really like. Corviknight is as cool as I thought, Coalossal is awesome, and although I was ambivalent about him at first, Sirfetch’d has really grown on me.

Buuuuut we’re just gonna skip over the fossil Pokémon. Because I dislike them for a variety of reasons.

However, I reckon that that’s it for things I like about the new games, so now we’re just going to get into the meat of the problems and the things that just piss me off.

Cut Content.

I don’t really have to explain any further, let’s be honest. It’s not just Dexit, it’s the cut moves that piss me off, along with the axe to Mega Evolution and Z-Crystals. I don’t really need to say much else, do I?

Raids and Gigantamax

At first, I kinda enjoyed my time with raids, I spent a load of time raiding with @pinekaboo and enjoying the feeling of teaming up to take down a titanic Pokémon... But after the first few days it just felt like a chore. If I wanted a particular TR, a particular Pokémon, a particular this that or other, then I would be spending hours looking up information on Serebii, trying to narrow down where to find it and then either getting the wrong Pokémon or having to spend time grinding Watts for Wish Stones or fighting in other dens to reset all the active dens. So much effort just for the god damn body slam TR.

Gigantamax meanwhile, is just... The most frustratingly pointless thing possible. Not only is it locked to post-game with some limited-time exceptions, it’s apparently banned in competitive tournaments?

Why even fucking bother with it then? I spent hours trying to find a G-Max Kingler, only to learn it’s Post-Game only. And then I spent hours trying to find/catch a GMax Butterfree, only to learn a normal Butterfree is technically better. It’s pathetic.

Apparently I’m not allowed to be angry about Gigantamax bc I’m wrong, like always.

Team Yell

Sorry guys, but Team Yell is just a poor man’s Team Skull, but even less threatening.

“Oh you like this? It’s Post-Game”

This is the second biggest Pet Peeve of mine regarding the game. I spent hours looking for a Ralts before learning that all those “15% chance spawn rates” are in foggy weather, which comes in the post-game, leaving me stuck with a 2% chance. Those “Nature Candies” are locked until post-game and apparently need an obnoxious amount of BP to unlock.

What’s particularly gregarious is the fact there’s a BP trader in that town where the dragon gym leader is met pretty early on... And you can’t get any BP until end-game.

Shut the fuck up about Leon.

I don’t care about Leon. He himself is not that annoying, but every time I hear “oh Leon’s so amazing” I wanna punch something. I’m pretty sure it’s intended to make the player feel awesome for taking him down, but it just feels like pointless pandering. Like we get it, Leon’s great. Shut the fuck up about how awesome he and his fucking Charizard is.

Charizard

Yup. Charizard gets its own spot here.

The Pokémon Company has sucked Charizard’s dick enough, I say. It got 2 Mega Evolutions and a Gigantamax, and it’s the champion’s star Pokémon, and it’s hyped up to be the best thing ever.

It was only vaguely challenging to me because I decided sweeping it with Steam Engine Coalossal would be boring. So I took it down with my Gallade.

Yes, Gallade has a type disadvantage. I didn’t really care.

Empty Team slots

The only person in this entire game to have a full team has been Leon. Every gym fight I found myself depositing Pokémon just to have a fair fight.

Plot and Pacing (or lack of it).

You’ve seen me rant about this before, but I’m going to rant about it some more.

So I really don’t like over-levelling in any level-based game, because then the game feels trivial and unchallenging. But Pokémon Sword’s level curve makes no fucking sense. Sometimes I’d be training 10 Pokémon and still be over-levelled, then I’d go back to a normal team of 6 and find myself nearly getting steamrolled by Pokémon 5 levels higher than me. Towards the end of the game I found myself wondering whether I was the “right level” or not. I’d have to choose my team, save, go up against a gym leader and then reset to use XP candies on my pokemon after deliberately under-levelling them.

And then suddenly Leon’s lowest level is 62 after the previous trainer’s highest was 57. There wasn’t that much inbetween, game devs.

And I’ve just ranted about the pacing guys. I haven’t even begun with the plot.

To be perfectly honest? The whole “plot” with Rose? The game would be 100 times better if they just cut out Rose and Marco Cosmos. If Team Yell is a poor man’s Skull, then Marco Cosmos is a poorer man’s Aether Foundation.

So many times we get hints and implication that there is something going on behind the scenes, but every time we get to do nothing. We just get to hear about how great-and-mighty Leon will handle everything, so why don’t you just worry about your gym challenge?

The game spends so long focusing on the gym challenge, that I think the game would be better if it focused exclusively on that. At least then perhaps we’d have one full story instead of two half-assed stories.

Or hell, maybe if the Marco Cosmos story was exclusively post-game, that would be preferable. But as it stands, it’s just two or three vague cutscenes that something’s going on and then suddenly chucking a load of plot at the last fucking minute.

I have no interest in Rose’s energy crisis woes. I have no investment in his discussions about the future and the energy crisis we may face. None of that is interesting to me because I have had no time to get invested. The closest to investment I can possibly get is learning what is happening.

Hell, for all my love for Gen 6 and how it re-invigorated my love for Pokémon, I consider Team Flare one of the weaker villains in terms of story... and yet I was 100% more interested in them then in whatever Rose is doing and his reasons for doing it.

In conclusion, Pokémon Sword has -at its best- felt like a rushed, hashed hobjob of a game. It feels like the devs were short in staff and pressed for time, and forced to cut a lot of content in a desperate bid to make it in time for the Pokémon Company’s grand franchise plan and/or the Christmas market. They’re trying to rely heavily on the market opened by the Pokémon Go community (anyone noticed how Dynamax Dens have a feel similar to raid battles in Pokémon Go?) rather than delivering a game they can be proud in.

Inevitably, Pokemon Sharp Sword and Sturdy Shield will arrive on the markets -because these days we don’t get an Crystal/Emerald/Platinum- and I am legitimately considering skipping them over.

The “core games” are the backbone of the franchise. I doubt they will cause the franchise to die, but it would certainly be crippled if sales drop, but I don’t think I can continue with them anymore. My trust in the Pokémon Company is the lowest it’s ever been. I doubt the company’s choice in direction, I doubt the decisions they’ve made in business, industrial and commercial affairs. I do not believe they can provide me with the quality I’ve come to expect of them anymore and I don’t believe I can continue supporting them.

Honestly, this lack of faith in the franchise, it’s putting me in a strange place. I love this Pokémon RP blog I’ve built up, I love the muses I’ve created, the adventures I’ve written and the friends I’ve made through this blog and I’ve never really wanted them to end. But for the first time since nearly the start of the decade, when I first decided to try out this blog under the name pokemontrainerzefri, I’ve begun to wonder if it won’t be my depression and insecurities that kill it, but a loss of interest...

#Pay no mind to the man behind the trainer #Zichi plays pokemon #pokemon swsh spoilers

0 notes

builder051 · 7 years ago

Text

Mel and Todd part 2 (OC fic)

Hi!

Tonight’s bonus episode is brought to you by... insomnia in its finest form.

This is part 2 of the introduction to my first set of OCs (see part 1 here, but know that it’s a gen fic with no illness). This installment is emeto-heavy.

I have one more story planned for these guys to finish sort of building them up and cementing a backstory, then they’ll be open for reqs. I’ll also have a description/personality rundown for Mel and Todd up soon. Please ask questions about them; it will help me keep developing them into deeper characters (plus it seems like fun). I also have 2 more sets of OCs in the works.

If you happen to read and like this, please talk to me! I’d love to get some feedback and make some friends. :)

_____________________________________________________________________

Todd knows the room is spinning before he opens his eyes. He also knows he’s going to be sick, and he prays for at least a moment to get his bearings before it becomes necessary to dash across the pitching floor and barricade himself in the bathroom. The prayer goes unanswered, and the second Todd shifts so he’s more on his side than his stomach, something he doesn’t remember tasting the first time starts crawling up his throat.

What’s the saying again? Beer and wine and you’re fine, but beer and liquor never sicker? Beer before liquor? After liquor? Was he even drinking liquor?

The liquid splashing into the toilet has notes of battery acid and the fumes from Mel’s hairspray. Todd shudders and wraps his arms around his head so his long hair doesn’t dip into the porcelain bowl.

Ok. This is punishment. For…? He can’t remember. For being a grown-ass man who went and got blackout drunk? That seems…plausible.

Everything smells bad. Under the overpowering stench of vomit, there’s something like stale cigarettes and marijuana. Smoke on its own doesn’t bother Todd, but once it’s settled into clothing and layered onto skin both from the top and out through the pores to mix with old sweat and body odor, it’s disgusting. Part frat boy and part tramp.

Todd spits into the toilet. He pulls a square of toilet paper from the roll and wipes his mouth, then scrubs at his sparse mustache and beard. The flimsy material shreds against the coarse hair. The resulting roughness against Todd’s fingertips burns. He wonders if he’s feverish.

He reaches up to flush the toilet, but ends up retching into it again. “Fuck,” Todd whispers. Something like a combination of snot and bile is clinging to his lip, threatening to attach to his chin.

He should get up, wash his face. Take something. Like maybe a shower. But he’s not sure he can so much as stand up because he’s so fucking lightheaded.

A final dry heave forces its way out, and there’s definitely a rope of mucous embedded in his beard. Todd swears again and succeeds in flushing away the mess. He uses the back of the toilet to haul himself to his feet, and he sends the box of Kleenex sliding off the tank and into the small garbage can beside it. He doesn’t make an effort to right the error because bending over seems like a very bad idea.

The two steps to the sink feel like a vast distance, and the faucet won’t stay put as Todd’s vision doubles and singles and doubles again. It takes a couple tries to flick it on. Damn sink, he thinks belligerently.

However, as soon as he sloppily cups a handful of chilly tap water onto his face, Todd’s feelings change. Wonderful, glorious sink. Freshness and clarity start to break through the surface of the misery. Just the fact that it’s possible to stand upright and breathe without puking seems glorious.

Todd rinses out his mouth and squints at his slightly blurry reflection. His tan looks a little washed out. His green eyes are rimmed in red, and his light brown hair is greasy and tangled in a mess around his shoulders. He definitely needs to clean up before…

What is he supposed to do today? What day of the week is it? He assumes Saturday or Sunday, but…god, he’s confused. Where the fuck is Mel? She’s the better one at keeping him on track.

Todd’s wife definitely hadn’t been in bed with him earlier. They both prefer to sleep in any day of the week, and on hungover mornings…it’d be normal to cuddle till noon. Or until someone had the sudden urge to vomit or make a sandwich on a glazed donut.

The thought of food is both mouth-watering and nausea-inducing, and Todd leans his shoulder into the wall (and the light switch) while he waits for his body to decide. The pitching feeling of seasickness eventually evens out into a headachy throb that reverberates through his whole body.

He needs coffee. Or a Gatorade. Todd ascertains that he’s wearing clothes, or at least what’s probably yesterday’s t-shirt paired with boxers, and pads clumsily into the kitchen.

Mel’s standing at the kitchen island, typing away on her iPad.

“Hey,” Todd mumbles, his voice rough. The coffeemaker’s whirring, dripping rich dark liquid into the glass carafe.

He grabs his unwashed mug from beside the sink and makes to intercept the flow of coffee, but Mel stops him. “That’s mine,” she says.

“Ok, geez.” Todd doesn’t like how much he’s slurring. “I’m sorry.” He abandons the mug and opens the fridge. He finds pulls out a Gatorade, beyond caring that it’s his least favorite flavor.

“Those are mine too,” Mel grumps. She looks her husband up and down. “But I’ll take pity on you and let you have one. Because you’re sick.” She continues under her breath. “Serves you right.”

Todd uncaps the sports drink. Serves him right for what? He honestly can’t remember anything specific from the last however-many-odd hours. He glances at the clock, and is surprised to see it’s only 7:30. Early for both of them.

“Mel, I…” Todd’s about to admit his confusion, ask for a little clarification. But he loses his unformed train of thought when he finally gives Mel’s attractive back a look that’s not fogged with leftover drunkenness. “Why are you wet?” She smells weird too, but so does he, so Todd decides not to mention it.

“You’re one to ask,” Mel snaps. “Why’d you come home high last night?”

Todd blinks at the back of her head. Well, that would make sense if he’d come home high. Plus drunk. But why…he can’t come up with anything. “I, um. I…Mel, I don’t really remember anything. From last night.”

“Well, that’s convenient.” She turns around, and Todd gets a glimpse of the marine rescue website up on her iPad before Mel steps in front of it to fully face him.

“Really, babe,” Todd says. “I mean, my first thought when I was getting sick was about if you were ok.” It’s a boldfaced lie, but he keeps going. “When I’m that trashed, you’re usually worse off…”

“Yeah, well, I’m fine because I didn’t get invited to go smoke and drink and sleep around last night.” Mel’s voice is getting louder.

“What…huh?” Todd’s lost the thread of the conversation.

“That jacket you threw in the laundry as soon as you came in the door,” Mel points out angrily. “Smelled a lot more like Victoria’s Secret than you usually do. And you forgot to throw out your condom wrappers.”

“What? I don’t…I don’t carry condoms. Maybe I was picking up trash? I sometimes do that…” Tod guesses. He takes another sip of Gatorade and rubs his aching temple. Mel’s too upset to be messing with him. But he doesn’t recognize himself in her accusation.

“Nobody picks up condom wrappers,” Mel says.

“Babe, what day of the week is it?” Todd searches for a piece of information to ground himself in the present before poking again into the void of the recent past. “And why were you snooping in my laundry?”

“Because my fucking husband comes home and doesn’t know what day of the week it is! And while you’ve been all fucked up and sleeping it off, I’ve been trying to keep a turtle from dying on our beach!” Tears light up behind her glasses, and Mel takes a step toward Todd.

Whether it’s a movement of aggression or a request for comfort, Todd isn’t sure. As she moves closer, he gets a strong whiff of the odd dead fish smell clinging to his wife, and he’s suddenly too busy heaving into the kitchen sink to find out.

#original fiction #sickfic #emeto #oc fic #mel and todd #hangover

9 notes · View notes

boyishbookworm · 8 years ago

Link

Title: Lean on Me

Fandom: E.R.

Rating: Gen

Pairing: Luka Kovač/Abby Lockhart

Summary: Takes place after s07e15, The Crossing. Luka breaks down after he realises he doesn't know how to live without guilt anymore, because guilt controlled his whole life after losing his family. Abby is around.

Luka should have felt relieved, but he breathed heavily. Emptiness slid in and out of him with every lungful of air; the residue of the burden that has just been lifted off him. It still tickled his airways, made his eyes water – was he crying? For the Bishop? Or for himself? Why didn’t he feel anything?

He must surely have felt something, for tears ran down his cheeks, but the sentiment – the acknowledge of it – did not come, not even when he tasted the salt on his tongue. It frightened him, the emptiness, and he had to lean on the doorframe for a moment before he left the Bishop’s room, to give himself a minute to weigh it up. It was like a phantom limb, itching through the air he sucked in with the next breath, and the next.

His guilt had haunted him for so many years, the existence without it was unfathomable for Luka. Guilt had defined him: gave him a purpose, burned him from the inside, tore him apart and built him up at the same time. Guilt required penance, it pulled him out of the bed every morning, it banished the thoughts of suicide from his head.

Guilt was balance… And right now, being drained of it, Luka was staggering.

‘They were a gift of love and life’ said the Bishop and Luka was wondering why he couldn’t remember that lately whenever he thought of his family, why he only ever seemed to register the pain over their loss and the bitter remorse that nudged him to do his duty every day.

He didn’t really know how he reached the elevator, his brain skipped seconds and minutes as he went over the conversation with the priest again and again in his head.

‘You are a gift of love and life’ said the Bishop, but Luka wouldn’t dare to believe that. He was more like a shell than a man in many aspects.

When this conclusion hit him, perhaps as a defence mechanism his mind suddenly started conjuring images of Abby for him; Abby suturing a wound, Abby drinking her morning coffee in his hotel room, Abby in his arms, and something stirred deep inside him. Perhaps he was still a man in some aspects after all…

He slumped against the elevator wall while it was descending. He was exhausted, but his mind was restless, because the absolution he received threatened to change him to his very core. He wanted to undo it, he wanted to go back and speak to the Bishop, tell him he could have saved his wife, convince him it was his fault. He wanted to refuse God’s mercy, because he wasn’t ready to forgive himself.

To forgive was to let go. Finding peace was just over the corner, but he’d been a haunted man for too long. That’s what who he was and he wasn’t ready to be someone else.

For a brief second after he arrived in the main area he thought he should look for Abby, ask for help, but he realised he didn’t know what kind of help he was seeking exactly, so he quickly discarded the idea. He was afraid he would break down in front of her and that couldn’t happen. His lungs were empty, he desperately needed fresh air. It was still snowing, even though the snowflakes were barely visible in the pre-dawn mist.

Luckily he didn’t meet any colleagues on his way out; he was sure he could have only slurred unintelligible words at them right now and he didn’t need company anyhow.

The touch of the snowflakes on his face seemed to calm his feverish mind a bit, but as he was walking towards the end of the alleyway he suddenly felt very weak and tired. He all but fell against the brick wall on the street and with some effort he lowered himself down into sitting position. With his back against the wall he tried to fight the sudden nausea by putting his head between his knees.

After a minute or two his breathing slowly normalized and finally he could appreciate the cold that surrounded him, because it was a solid blanket that held him in one piece. He lay his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He could finally let go.

‘Luka!.... Luka!!’ Abby tried to shake him awake, her panicky voice must have filled the alley.

His lips were blue, his wet hair stuck against his forehead and he didn’t seem to respond for a while.

When at last his eyelids quivered, it took him forever to open his eyes.

‘Abby…’ he whispered her name like he didn’t really believe she was there. He looked disoriented.

‘I’m here, Luka’, she reassured him laying a hand on his cheek. His skin was ice cold. ‘How long have you been here?’

When he only hummed instead of answering Abby saw that she had to act first and ask questions later.

‘We gotta get you inside. Do you think you can walk?’

‘Sure, just give me a minute’ Luka said and lifted his hands to rub his eyes. ‘I barely feel my fingers’, he announced with a shaky voice.

‘Yeah, wonder why…’ Abby grunted as she grabbed Luka by the elbow and started helping him up. ‘You must have spent hours out here.’

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea, Abby’ Luka said as she held him up after he almost dropped down for a second time.

‘It’s fine, Luka, you can lean on me.’ She put a hand around his torso and he supported himself on her shoulder. ‘See, it works just fine.’ For a moment he seemed to draw some strength from her words of reassurance.

They managed to enter the building before Luka passed out, but then Mark was there to help Abby support his weight.

She didn’t understand what happened. The last time she saw him, he was going to the Bishop. Abby was sure the man’s death was what effected Luka saw badly; he cared for him, she knew. Why he got so attached to that priest, she couldn’t tell; he wouldn’t say.

She sat with him, waiting, thinking. They warmed him up as much as they could and now he was sleeping. Abby stroked his hair and watched as his chest rose and fell in a soothing rhythm.

The truth was, Luka had always been an enigma to her. She always rested her head on that very chest at night and she could hear his heartbeat loud and clear. But as close as the beating was to her ear, so distant was its owner. He didn’t share things with her, always kept her at arm’s length.

Right now, she was so frustrated she wanted to cry, because he didn’t come to her. He could have talked to her, she would have lent a sympathetic ear; she was ever so eager to offer comfort to him, if only he let her. It filled her with worry that he shut her out, because lately the only occasions she felt close to him was when they made love and that was little compensation for the time they spent ‘apart’.

She gave him a smile when he resurfaced for a brief time and brushed his stray locks out of his eyes. Luka held her gaze but his face was deprived of any emotion.

‘The Bishop died.’ he stated simply, like he would have said winters are cold.

‘I know, Luka, I’ve heard’ Abby nodded. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Luka evidently struggled not to give in to the fatigue, he had something else to say.

‘He took my balance with him. He took everything.’ He pursed his lips and a single tear escaped from the corner of his eye.

Abby hated to see him like this, but this was a chance for her to console him and she was happy he didn’t have the strength to refuse her efforts now.

‘I already told you outside: you can lean on me, Luka. I am strong enough for the both of us.’ She kissed his cheek and lingered over him for a moment. ‘Sleep now. We’ll figure everything out later.’

As Luka gave himself up to oblivion she prayed to a God she didn’t believe in to be able to keep her word.

#ER #fanfiction #luka kovac x abby lockhart #luka kovac #abby lockhart #hurt/comfort #E.R.

5 notes · View notes

greengargouille · 8 years ago

Text

AK RarePair, Extra - First Meeting

((This was originally going to be a part for the AKRarePair week 2016, but I couldn’t finish on time. So, rather than delete it, I guess I made it as an extra to thanks @takaoka-akira and @nidaime-shinigami for their work in organising the event !)

Rating : General Audiences

Characters : Takaoka Akira, Nidaime Shinigami (2nd gen God of Death)

Relationship : Takaoka & Nidaime

There are moments in life where someone find themselves in the middle of the street, struggling to carry too many bags, thinking “I should have planned this better”. Takaoka was currently living such a moment.

One could wonder how such a big man had a problem carrying a few bags full of cakes. To be honest, the weight was nothing, he could certainly handle twice this. Rather, all those bags were bulky, making any movement difficult, the plastic straps were starting to be painful against his skin, and the box on his shoulder had a precarious balance. One of those problems alone would have been tolerable, but together, it truly made him regret not having organised this in a better way.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time it was happening. Many times he bought a multitude of Western sweets for his future children, yet he still ended up in this situation. He guessed this was the same trick of memories where you were unable to remember the precedent time at an all-you-can-eat cake buffet and you gorged yourself on food, only to feel sick half-way.

Still, bags didn’t move by themselves, and Takaoka was a brave man, so he had no choice but to endure till he reached his car. Even if that included lot of excuses to the people trying to walk next to him, bothered by the place his belongings took.

It’s okay. He could do it. Pain was nothing. He was rather worried about the unsteady box he could barely hold, ready to fa- oh, come on, not in the middle of a pedestrian crossing-

“Careful there ! -Uh ? -You almost dropped this -ah, the light is turning red !”

Takaoka advanced without a thought as he was pulled by the sleeve, his eyes fixated on a bunch of light hair. He wanted to ask this young man, wasn’t he going in the opposite direction ? But, as much as he paid attention to his surroundings, given the situation made him very aware of how bothersome he was to other pedestrians, he had not noticed him. It’s as if he appeared out of thin air in time to catch the falling box.

As they reached the sidewalk, the blond man turned around, letting the future P.E. teacher have a good look at him while he extended the box to him. Delicate features, pronounced eyelashes, some foreign traits on this face. Cute.

“Here. I think it’s yours. -Ah, yes, thank you ! -...Do you need help carrying it ?” The eyes of the smaller man went from one label to another. “Hermé, Charpentier... Those are cakes, right ? It’s dangerous for them to move so much... -No no, it’s alright, my car is not far away, don’t worry ! -Oh. Have a good day, then. -Thanks, you too !”

The man turned away to look at the red lights, stealing a glance at Takaoka during the few seconds he still looked at him. What a polite man, and kind too. He could only hope his future students would be as serviable ; he would love to meet more people like him.

...Somehow, his wish was granted a few minutes later.

“Wait ! Takaoka-san ! Your wallet ! -...?”

This man ? Wait... Wallet ?!!

“I’m sorry, I looked in it for the ID card, that’s how I got your name... It’s the right reading, isn’t it ? -Yes, don’t worry... How could I lose it... -Haha, you will only have to be more careful next time. Then, good day to you ! -Ah... Yes...”

The man left as soon as he came, running to... well, anywhere he had to be probably. He didn’t even had time to ask anything. Takaoka looked at his wallet’s contents and put it in his jacket, at its usual place, patting with his free hand to see if there was any hole... No, nothing, the outer pocket was normal. How strange. Didn’t he zip it like usual ? Well, he didn’t see how else could it have happened -it’s not like someone could have stole it if it was to leave it full...

The God of Death was extremely good at pickpocketing. This was but one of his many talents. Obtaining a wallet, in such a situation ? Child play.

Of course, he didn’t need the contents to know this man was Takaoka Akira, part of the Ministry of Defense. The God of Death knew many things and had eyes and ears everywhere.

He knew, for example, that this man was to become a teacher at Kunugigaoka today. He also knew he was to teach a class of students distanced from the main building. He knew the name of every of those students and their specialities. He knew their homeroom and main teacher was a dangerous creature like the world had never known one.

It would be a fitting target for the God of Death to improve his skills. He didn’t need the money. What he needed, however, was every information he could get, be it on this giant octopus or the place he worked, the students he taught, the colleagues he spoke with. Most of those would be useless. But the God of Death could never be too zealous in his work.

So, he approached this future teacher. All in all, they only interacted for one minute. But he was sure he left an impression on that man ; he would be remembered in the next days.

More than that, he have been able to obtain some interesting informations from this wallet.

The God of Death knew his leather well. The wallet he stole was made of full grain, the best kind of leather and obviously the most expensive one, and well tanned, too. This was not what you would expect from a man who dressed in cheap sportswear. The probability of it being a gift was very high.

Nowadays, people rarely had photos of their loved ones and relatives on them, preferring instead to have them as a wallpaper on their phone. Yet, this man, despite his youth, old-fashionedly had pictures in his wallet ; not of family or a partner, but bunches after bunches of younger men in military clothes, some heartwarming, others painful looking from the scars and bruises. From what he knew of that Takaoka, it had to be his students.

It took the God of Death a few seconds to remember that teachers aren’t supposed to hurt their students like that. Normal teachers at least.

Still, they seemed to be close, and on some cases their facial features hardly betrayed fear. There even was a picture of their teacher heartfully laughing while hugging one the recruits, a ‘BEST DAD’ cap on his head. How... strange.

There wasn’t much besides the photos - money, of course, but no amount that would be disturbing, and a few point cards from multiple cake shops. He quickly noted how one of them seemed more recent, from the corners sharper than the rest and the ink of the stamps unfaded, yet the card was almost full. A recent favorite ?

The God of Death smiled. This would make a good lure.

Those children... Despicable, rebellious, good-for-nothing children... How dare they humiliate him like this ?

As Takaoka walked away from that school, taste of paper still on his tongue, he couldn’t help feel furious at the stares he attracted. As a big guy, he was used to being noticed. But the worried look of those pedestrians was twisted by something in their eyes... there was snicker of mockery in them, just like that boy... He felt a burning sensation crawling though his skin, a unpleasant feeling he needed to scratch away...

“If you need to tear your face off, a knife would be quicker.”

The smooth voice startled him by how sudden it filled his ears. He looked at the source, wondering how he couldn’t have noticed the tall yet harmless man now by his side. Though this person was now clearly dressed for manual work, cap and apron and gloved hands currently holding a bouquet of white flowers, he could easily place a memory on this pretty face.

“Ooh, you’re... !! ...That guy !”

A small chuckle responded to that.

“You can call me Hanamura.”

Hanamura, hm ? perfect for someone who seemed to work as a florist. Great coincidence if it was one.

“So, Hanamura-san... what was that about a knife ? -Oh. It’s... just a small joke. You looked pretty nervous scratching your cheeks like that, but maybe I need to work on my humor ? -No, it’s... It’s fine.”

Well, it was more weird than funny, but still, it distracted him. It was a bit amazing how calm he felt at that instant, as if the unassuming young man emitted some strange relaxing aura, and...

-a movement of knife, an hint of blue hair, and it was all over-

...and it didn’t work very well, after all, because he felt his whole body getting tense again, his skin so itchy he needed a conscious effort to stop his hand from going to his cheeks. Takaoka was sure that during an instant, a small, almost unnoticeable instant, a glimmer of surprise shined in the florist’s eyes, but surely it must have been his imagination, as the man’s expression switched quickly to concern.

“Is everything okay ? Is that an allergy or something ? Should I call an ambulance ? -No no, it’s fine, just... I had a bad day...? -...Oh. Something wrong with the cakes of this morning ?” Hanamura tilted his head. “Or is it your car ? -My car is fine.” Takaoka was just too unnerved to drive correctly, and he needed to walk. It might have been a bad idea to come into town, though... He just went along his usual places. “And the cake was delicious. It’s just...” He sighed. What was he was doing, going to complain like that to a stranger. “...Just ?”

The smaller man looked at him with a glitter of... was it expectation ? There was confusion and concern and something that made him want to speak, that relaxed him and eased him without him being conscious of that. To an outsider, it could almost be scary how the florist could inspire such a mood change. But, Takaoka was certain that this person was harmless.

“It’s a... complicated situation, it would be pretty long to explain... -I see. Then...” Hanamura arranged the flowers in his hand on a shelf of his vehicle. “...Let’s do it like this. You want to repay me for this morning and my pause is long overdue, so why not inviting me to take a cup of coffee ? We can talk while drinking, plus there’s a cake shop I’ve wanted to try. Have you heard of ‘Wanazawa Bakery’ ? -Oh, I love this place !” Takaoka replied enthusiastically, forgetting his negative mood. “They opened pretty recently but they already have a lot of clients ! They have so much variety in their sweets, too... -Then... it’s settled ? -Ah, uh...” The bigger man hesitated an instant. “...Why not.”

He received a smile in exchange. A beautiful, kind smile.

He had no idea of this smile’s true meaning, for the God of Death’s acting was perfect.

When put in a likeable environment they were used to, people tended to drop their guard. Comfortable seats, favourite foods... plenty of little things, insignificant by themselves, could contribute to someone’s mood.

Of course, little of that mattered in face of substantial danger. A man fearing assassination won’t suddenly relax just because he came home or was presented a delicious dish.

Takaoka acted like he was in such a case. It had surprised Hanamura. He never intended to kill the man, more than useless, that act would create problems. Yet, this person reacted as if strong bloodlust was directed at him.

...It couldn’t have been one of the students, was it...?

But the God of Death was the best in his... in every domain. He wouldn’t be able to call himself the best assassin in the world if he couldn’t make a wary man drop his guard. While showing his most harmless face and subtly imitating his target’s moves -people tended to unconsciously pick those gestures and trust more those who acted similarly-, he manipulated the conversation at his rhythm.

“So, they did that ‘awful trick’ to you... because they wanted their homeroom teacher back for PE ?” But which one, the official, human one who would deal with the parents and outside world, or the one they had to kill ? “Yes, I don’t understand why... This guy, he...!! He might be strong, but he’s so cold, he acts like a robot !” The official, then. He expected it, since his sources from the Ministry of Defense had informed him that Karasuma Tadaomi was the class PE teacher before Takaoka, but he needed confirmation. It was tricky to discern the facts when half of the explanation was self-censored for obvious reasons. “Isn’t that normal for teachers, though ?” Even before the former God of Death, Hanamura had multiple teachers. The best his father’s money could offer. Efficient and strict. Harsh, even. “Is it now ?” Takaoka sighed. “Even if that’s the case... Isn’t it fine for teachers to get closer to their students ? To give them affection ? Everyone would be happier as a big family, no ?”

The God of Death quietly took a sip of his coffee -way too creamy, thankfully unsweetened- to buy himself some seconds of thinking for his next move.

This Takaoka had surprisingly got fired on his first day. He would likely not interact with E Class anymore. It was useless getting closer to him : this time would be better used observing the students directly from a distance. So, the best way to act was to gently put an end to this conversation, agreeing on everything to not stir up trouble.

The question was so far fetched anyways. If it was more effective to treat their students as sons and daughters rather than tools, his former master... the first generation would have done so. The pain of those days he felt were never ending, the days he had to stop himself before going mad... It couldn’t have been useless. He would not permit it.

“...Do you really believe it ? In your education method ? -It’s not belief. I know it works.”

The face of the God of Death didn’t change. His eyes didn’t reflect surprise nor did his expression moved, even for a second.

But he thought that maybe, just for a little... This man might be interesting enough to keep around.

#assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #assclass #gargouille writes #takaoka akira #nidaime shinigami

6 notes · View notes